Opening and Nick Drake

I don't usually blog on the weekend...but I have to say...the opening was a huge succes. Almost sold out. The audience loved it. I could not be happier. NPR was there. So enjoyable.

And there was a big joyful spread--the opening night lobbby party. And now it's 3:53 AM and I'm celebrating...dancing around the office room...Nick Drake's Poor Boy--I's so fucking sad and beautiful and ironic. I Love this song. And it's 6:08 seconds. Which is so ballsy. The length alone says, "We're going to sit with this for a while...because we need to."

So, I would say, put on a great song, one that's kind of particluar, and dance--to get the idea.

Isn't it great that we're just animals?

SIGH OF RELIEF

My play has come together.

The actors are ready.

It's beautiful: The design, pacing, story, acting.

It's so real and sad and funny. Come see it.


The Fat of the Land

Sixty-Nine Hours Until Opening Night

Do come for opening night. There will be champagne. There are twenty seats left.

Why not get your tickets today!

The Fat of the Land

No Atheists in Foxholes

The beauty of the theatre is after all the fighting and crying, everyone comes back together to make it happen.

It’s so infantile. The primacy of the struggle is very interesting.

Why does one want it to be so good? I mean, at the end of the day, if the play isn’t good, well then, it’s just that all the elements did not come together.

My plays are hard to perform. In fact, it takes quite a bit of concentration and long arc pushing to really go through one of my stories. I’ve seen so much failure when it comes to presenting my material.

At times, the actors on the stage get it. They have these moments of fantastic poetic need. They show the vulnerability of living.

And at times, they bang through it with lead feet, saying what they have to say just because it’s time.

When a few actors can pull it off, together, the more confident I become.

One wonders, after having logged in close to 800 hours on a project, if it was worth it.

It remains to be seen.

I found myself looking toward the ceiling this evening. I was all, “God, help me.”

There is a great fantasy that there is someone out there who cares.

But at the end of the day, it’s the wanting of the caring that is suspect. At the end of the day, the result does not matter. The fun fight to get it all done, that was the joy.

Now, I listen to Debussy’s The Girl with the Flaxen Hair and I am very happy.

And though I hold all things unseen suspect, I imagine there must be something great, cool, bigger than us...but of course, this is nothing more than my need to be more than I am.

Am I a Tyrant?

I have been producing my play, which opens this Saturday evening. In the parlance of the theatre, I am in hell week. This is the week where absolutely everything must come together. The acting, the design elements of light, sound and set, the props and the audience. It's like throwing a party and providing the very involved entertainment.

All this in a small rental theatre in Hollywood.

The Fat of the Land Tickets and Information

And tonight, I made my director cry and I had a fight with my producing partner.

I attacked my director for being too slow with fixing problems.
I attacked my producing partner for talking to me like a servant.

In the end, I had every reason to be conerned about the behavior of the director and the producer. But ultimately, I don't like it when I get ugly.

When the wretched bile of living builds up, how does one respond gracefully?

I am not there yet.

Inertia

Clearly,
One must pick an energetic, committed path. It’s the only way. I am not earnest but I do want to feel connected to living in a pretty big way.
I like the idea of simply riding in a street car and seeing a tree and being thrilled for the seeing.

And I don’t think you can feel that way unless the overall circumstances of your life are fully energized.

When I was in my twenties and I was spending my time with other twenty year olds who were in the throes of trying to figure out what the hell their lives were about, every now and then someone would ask me what I thought a person should do, in general, to be happy and I would simply say: Fucking Pay Attention. The rule of F.P.A.

I think all is given to the person who fucking pays attention. To everything.

Loving Joan

California is a place in which a boom mentality and a sense of Chekhovian loss meet in uneasy suspension; in which the mind is troubled by some buried but ineradicable suspicion that things had better work here, because here, beneath that immense bleached sky, is where we run out of continent. -- Joan Didion


I think Joan Didion understands California completely. Given these conditions, one is forced to work hard. Because after you have run out of continent, you are left with just yourself. And you realize, after all the running, that YOU have to do it. No one else can. So when you choose to live in California, you are saying, “There is nowhere else to go. I have to do it. I have to be me, now. And it has to work.”

Of course, it doesn’t work for many. But oddly enough, it does for so many others.

And I am going to admit this right now and I fucking say it in all earnest pride: I like Schwarzenegger. The guy has the ability to learn. He is socially liberal. He is silly yet hard working. I think he’s perfect for right now.

And, though I am from the East and I love it so, I think the West is wide. And Joan, well, go read Play It As It Lays.

September 13, 1980

Today wasn’t so great. I slept extremely late. Then I had a headache so I took some codeine. I rearranged my room totally. Then I got tired from the codeine so I slept some more. I finally got out of bed and went to dinner. We ate. I came back and did tons of physics, then me, Pam and Sue went to see Norma Rae for $1. It was an excellent movie. After the movie me, Rene, Pam and Sue went and got pizza, then we hung out in Pam’s room ‘till 3:30 - Goodnight.

Five Years Later

And it's still a bummer.

I've read that this did not change people that much.

I think it has.

Chicken George Marries a Millionaire

I went to The Bel Air Hotel today to a wedding. I imagine I am some sort of Boheme when in fact I am a Hollywood house husband with a decent spending allowance.

I wish it was still 1973 and I was in a rock-folk band and the world was evolving into love, understanding and socialism and that we all felt calm and equal and safe. But in actuality, the gap between the rich and the poor is only getting larger and I have fallen in with the people with money and all I feel is plain lucky. And a part of me is disgusted. And a part of me always knew it would be this way.

The Bel Air Hotel is lovely. It is on the west side of Stone Canyon above Sunset Boulevard not far from UCLA. The grounds are covered with incredibly old trees. California Sycamores and Redwoods. It looks like Topanga, even a bit like Yosemite. It’s truly gorgeous. There is a fake, yet nice stream filled with white swans the size of pigs.

There are pink bungalows and stone walkways.

The rooms go for about $500/ night.

And there we were for the wedding. Adam, my Recognized-by-the-State-of-California-Domestic-Partner, works on a sitcom called Two and a Half Men. It stars Charlie Sheen.
One of the creators was getting married. A tall, older Jewish guy. His wife, Iraqi American. The master of ceremonies/pastor? Ben Vereen. He acknowledged the Jewish-Arab harmony. He also sang.

It wasn’t so sad that Ben is no longer acting and instead officiating weddings, but actually surprising.

I mean, Ben was a big black deal in the 1970’s. I saw him on Broadway, in Pippin. “Join us, leave your Fields to Flower. Join us, leave your cheese to sour. Join us, come and waste an hour or two. Doodle-di-do.”

His spiel at the wedding was half new age, half revival, and overall, unfocused.

The television writer who was getting married occasionally did bits, pretended to have a conversation on his cell phone during the nuptials and generally hammed it up for the crowd.

His Iraqi-American wife was beautiful, has a degree in spiritual psychology (perhaps this is what brought in Ben?) and also makes films.

Who knows what the hell this couple is up to. I mean, they do seem happy. So that's great. And I was happy to be hanging out at the Bel Air Hotel.

The food was lovely. The crowd was privileged. The setting was Los Angeles swanky. I sat at a great table with lively, interesting people who were very funny and present in mind and character. Charlie Sheen was there in his violet sunglasses.

I got drunk.

And so did a lot of other people. The conversations ranged from, “That was a weird ceremony. Half Ben Vereen spiritual, half comedy,” to “We are so lucky to be here. Look at us. Our biggest problems are whether or not they have the size we want of a shirt we like at Fred Siegel. How did we get to be here?” to “I don’t know about these belly dancers.”

People snuck out without saying goodbye.

I think at one point I told Ben Vereen that I saw everything he ever did in New York when I was a kid, when of course, I didn't. He walked away from me politely and quickly.

Tune in next week when we go to a wedding in Malibu. I found out today that it will be officiated by Marianne Williamson. Will this be a return to love?

Sometimes, I think about the smell of the brakeshoe plant, the dog food factory and the water treatment facility that surrounded my neighborhood growing up and I think, “Yeah, I knew it would be different when I got older and I like rich, white people who are extremely liberal and beautiful, but when the bottom falls out, where will I be able to find the thick ankled grandmothers in the house coats with the good pots of soup?”

Dog Days

Louise, the poor little pooch.

During the last week, Louise has been keeping us up at night with lots of scratching and chewing herself raw and matted. Yesterday, I looked at one of her little front paws, and one of the toes has blown up enormous behind the claw. Like a pink grape.

So, we went to the vet. La Brea Pets. (Don’t throw my doggy into the tar pit!)

Our amazing doctor, Kate Monroe Zapata, said two things:

1) Louise has allergies. That’s why her skin is so awful. This has been the worst allergy season for dogs since she has been a vet.

2) Her little toe is infected and needs treatment. Separate issue from the allergies.

She shaved Louise’s chewed up, nasty parts and her swollen paw and gave her a big shot of antibiotic. Right between the shoulders. And then she told me what I had to do.

So I left the vet’s office with a bag of medicine (Hexadene, Betadine and Lincocin) and instructions to buy Benadryl tablets.

I bathed Louise with the Hexadene medicated shampoo, rubbed it into her skin and let it soak for twenty minutes. Then I rinsed her off. I cut a tablet in half and gave her 12.5 grams of Benadryl.

Later tonight, after Adam walked her, we gave her another dosage of Benadryl and then soaked her paw in a Betadine solution for ten minutes.

Tomorrow, she gets three dosages of Benadryl, a morning and evening dose of Lincocin (an antibiotic) for her paw and at the end of the day, the Betadine paw soak. This must continue for fourteen days with one more medicated bath thrown in next week.

September is never a great month in Los Angeles. It’s hot. It’s dry. And dogs suffer.

I love my pooch.

September 6, 1980

Today was excellent. Megan called, I got up, ate, and met her down in Boston. She was with a friend. It was excellent to see her. We hung out from 12 to 4. It was really great. She’s doing good. Then I came back and ate dinner- a cookout, then me, Rene, his roommate- Eric, Pam, and Sue, went to see an improvisational group. They were excellent, really great. Then we went into Cambridge, ate and walked around. Eric is really weird. He is so insecure. I felt good that someone was worse off than me. Things are really getting better. Goodnight.


Apparently, it was very important for me to feel that things were excellent. Propping myself up? And thank goodness for the pleasurable dopamine surge in my brain provided by the Eric Schadenfreude.

This was my first week at college and I remember there were many adjustment problems. Tufts University. Medford, Massachusetts. I did not and do not like change all that much. At least not when it’s huge. Sue was hilariously miserable. We went on one of those Boston Harbor cruises the night before. Everyone was getting drunk and Sue and I just looked at each other and would say things like, “Can we go home now?” “I bet I’m more miserable than you are.” On the way back from the Harbor Cruise the bus got lost. Pam, Sue and Rene (not Eric) were my first friends. That lasted about a semester. Though I always remained friendly with them (as I do) and at graduation, they all sat together (sans Eric) and I sat with my freshman friends Joe and Ed. When I went to Europe, Junior Year, I went up and stayed with Pam in Edinburgh Scotland for only one night and drank in a pub with her friends and I visited Sue in Lausanne, Switzerland for a day and we went to the Musee d’Art Fou.

Rene was a guy whose family was a bit Cannuck. He referred to himself as Rainy to avoid having a woman’s name. He was gay and very Christian and tightly closeted. He wanted to go to dental school in the worst way. He ended up going to Hospital Administration school at UMASS. Perfect, because more than anything, he exuded a secretarial nature. Sue wanted to be a veterinarian in the worst way. She ended up at NYU with an International MBA focusing on French. This made very good sense. Sue was extremely smart in a wide net kind of way and she spoke amazing French. Pam majored in Chinese. I bet she became a spy or a murderer. She was one of those nasty bitches from Bethesda. She was cute. She would only date Jewish men. My good friend Joe was in love with her for the longest time but she could care less. He became a doctor in Cleveland. I was in love with Joe. For a short while. Eric was truly funky and remained nothing more than Rene’s roommate (Rainy’s roommate). The poor guy had awful acne. And he had very fine, greasy hair. He had a great body. I am having a vague memory of imaging Eric and Rene together, doing the Cannuck-Acne-Guy beast with two backs.

I do not remember seeing an improvisational group. Maybe in Goddard Chapel on campus? We often went into Cambridge. I bet we ate at The Mug and Muffin. Or we drank in that pub. Was it called The Ale House? I bet we did both.

Megan, of course, was Megan who, of course, is still Megan. She went to Simmons for a year. Not the right place for her. That school was all about marrying a Harvard Med student. We did go see Tess of the D’Urbervilles that fall.

The New Theatre Presents

The Fat of the Land

After the Factotum

Matt Dillon sure can act, still.

Lili Taylor can still sure act.

Marisa Tomei still can sure act.

Factotum is filled with great acting.

The movie is disturbing. This is mostly due to the subject matter. Alcoholism, simply indulged in, is about as interesting as a car wreck. Chinaski, presented as a self-destructive human being, yet success obsessed writer, is quite a famous character from the Bukowski books. And everyone has a certain love for the wild man who is true to his passion. So this could be enough...

Of course, one could make a case for Chinaski as the ultimate expression of mid-century Americana and not just the stand in for a drunk author. It was an interesting time. Our culture needed to have everything exposed. It took World War II to jar Americans into examining excessive traits and/or marginal characters in the culture. So, Chinaski might not be just a solipsistic construction, but even more, an un-American-yet-so-American Everyman.

But I think he was just Bukowski being really truthful about himself.

Which is just better all the way around.

But this movie is laid out flat and that’s its best and worst thing. I mean, watching the morning puking scene where Matt and Lili take turns hobbling to the toilet to throw up is priceless. And there are moments of stillness, played brilliantly by Matt Dillon, that are truly breathtaking. So, it’s worth it to witness this. But ultimately, even though Chinaski triumphs in the end (without even knowing), as an audience member, you just end up feeling so unsettled and horrible.

Oh wait. That was the point for Bukowski and for the movie. What a movie. Do yourself in: Go see this incredibly well done movie. Feel bad about how bad life can be. And feel bad that your life is not even as bad and that you are not as interesting or successful as Chinaski-Bukowski.

Goats the World Over

The Faggot Can't Read

I made a note to myself last night about prejudice.

“Most people hold their deepest prejudice based primarily upon the style of another group’s ruthlessness. It’s a self protective device.”

So, someone might loathe me for being loud and Wop-like, because it is the stylistic tip of the iceberg of what could become ruthless bullying.

Or I might loathe the Hassidim on my street because they are so clannish and blind to my existence---their style reflects an inner ruthlessness of the ability to be dismissive of others. So, if there was a flood, they wouldn’t care about me.

Perhaps you hate a poor person because they might ruthlessly throw garbage on your lawn, caring not about the earth, or about you or your sense of order or safety.

And that’s all fine, my idea, except it’s too simplistic. The roots of prejudice might be even more rooted in the need to keep your genes alive. And mixing threatens your traits. Or maybe it’s taught. Or maybe children really are evil devils that are barely raised into civility.

Which brings me to Disney’s High School Musical. How dare they? Talk about hating the other. Is it not enough in this new world that well intentioned straight people have taken over West Hollywood and now we gay men must “mix” with breeders on a weekend evening, drinking and grinding with fat girls from Glendale? Now, with broad strokes, Disney has banished the gay boys out of the high school musical and has replaced them with just one guy: a very cute, sweet, straight athlete. Is this not the ultimate in prejudice or reverse prejudice or just plain old perverse?

After months of hearing about it, we finally PVR’d this Disney thing. Besides being awful, in its desire to show that “We’re all in this together,” Disney air brushed out the happy gay singers. And the only character that was possibly gay was the evil half of the egomaniacal performing brother and sister team. He wore silly hats and looked much like Macaulay Culkin. And they only hinted at his gayness, focusing more on his vapid nature. He was the star and he was banished from stardom by a straight guy. Furthermore, they made a pretty big joke that he was stupid and could not read. I’ve never met a gay person who couldn’t read. And I’ve met a lot of gay people. Perhaps they were trying to hide his gayness behind a learning disability. Which, of course, insults everyone.

Okay, maybe it’s stupid to care about anything Disney makes. Fine. I mean, what the hell am I doing wasting my time with this crap? But in the end, Disney did everything else it could to bring everyone together. The horrible TV movie worked in very happy, fluid race relations that resulted in lots of cross color dating. For the most part, skin tones had to be within two steps of each other, so it was quite calculated. However, they did throw in one total black boy on blond girl at the end. Bravo. But the gay kid got nothing but “lesser half of the evil team and being sort of dimwitted.” And a bag of cookies to eat alone. But maybe it was a magic bag of cookies, because it did make his blond sister succumb to the cute black guy.

What is the tip of the iceberg of ruthlessness of gay style that Disney, serving its customers, is afraid of? That a gay person is often dismissive of reproducing and joining in the American fantasy that everyone cares about everyone? Oh right.

Shit.

Survival

This animal based need to survive. Goats do it without a god.

Consciousness has brought us much. But as our three sections of brain,
Reptilian-flight or fight, Mammalian emotions and instincts, Human intelligence, struggle to make sense of each other, one notices a force that unites these disparate working areas.

The go between energy.

It can guide well if it’s well developed. I don’t know what develops it.

I think if it is well developed, it gives rise to more creativity. The section of the mind that harnesses these three forces—is the same section that creates.

Those who use it and are not afraid of it can be more than just functional. A joyful pace of pleasure can arise with its humming.

Those who are afraid of it must name it as something outside of themselves.

So, they call it god or give their natural power away, this force of three brains working together. It is not surprising, the religious trinities that form---as a projection of the triumvirate brain.

Evolution raised us up, but left our very mixed brain trio. And since it all evolved together, it somehow works. It is a miracle.

And then you die. And that’s okay.

The more one can ride the brain’s go-between courier, the easier and more wonderful and more powerful and more vibrant everything becomes.

We must risk delight, We can do without
pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must
have
The stubbornness to accept our gladness in
the ruthless
furnace of the world.
-- Jack Gilbert

August 30, 1974

Well we saw the last game Hank Aaron ever played in New York today. The Mets won. We’re leaving for the Poconos tomorrow. Well I’m a going now so I’ll be a saying Goodnight!

I Like Spike

We disked the Spike Lee, When the Levees Broke and watched it.

You know, I had an interesting reaction to Katrina. I have such a deep loathing of George the Chimp and it became immediately clear that this was his Waterloo, so Katrina brought me an odd mirth.

And though there was so much suffering, I was happy. I like when the truth becomes hard and undeniable. I love when people are rendered mute by what is real.

With that being said, it was definitely time to revisit this disaster from the comfort of my dry living room to catch the human element. And Spike Lee really brings it on home. Completely worth the four hours. Actually, I’ve only watched about two and a half hours so far. We’ll hit the rest of it tomorrow.

It’s mostly talking heads interspersed with footage, like lots of documentaries. But of course, these people are so colorful and articulate and pained and forthright, it makes for the case that humanity should actually be loved and appreciated.

Listening to that witch, Babs Bush, in the Astrodome was enough to make me think, “Who needs the generational heft of the 1960’s? People of all ages should rise up and storm the castle.”

I’ve been to New Orleans about five or six times. I never liked it. I only ever saw it as a few blocks of extreme wealth and tourism (mixed with alcoholic puking) surrounded by complete poverty that was accepted as the norm. It always seemed like a heartless, awful place to me. It seemed cynical in its ossified class system. And there are many cities, especially in the Southeast, that have this feeling. It is truly pathetic that we have this extreme division of experience.

What is so difficult about our nation is if you are not ambitious and acquisitive, you suffer mightily. If you are sick or poor or disabled in any way, there is not much there to soften your path. This is Bush country. Conservative Compassion.

I can’t wait to watch the rest.

Join Freecycle Today

Join Freecycle Today and help the planet even more than you already are! It’s so cool. (Thanks Jeff)

www.freecycle.org

From their site:

What Freecycle is about:

It is about keeping things out of the landfill.
It IS about giving away something that has no use in our life anymore to someone who could extend its usefulness a little longer.
It IS about giving gifts to people while clearing out our own clutter.
It IS about creating, building, and sustaining an environmentally aware community.
Offering Items We No Longer Need to Those Who Need Them



I’m all for this. Often, people scratch their heads in wonder when they see me driving my 1992 Geo Prizm with 147,000 miles on it with no end in sight. But my feeling is, the beast gets good gas mileage, I try to drive as little as possible, I park it on the road so why not have a heap, and the energy to build a Prius has to be more than the gas I would save by exchanging this perfectly good car for a new, more efficient one. Though, I don’t know how I could run the math on that one.

Until further notice, I’ll drive my bomber. And when I’m done because they’ve come out with a car that runs on waste, I’ll either drive the sweet old thing down the Baja and hand the keys over to someone who needs it and take a plane home. Or, I’ll list it on Freecycle.org. Let someone enjoy another 100,000 miles.

Send your totally good stuff out to those who want it. Slow down the economy. Be thrifty. Give to those who would appreciate your old gift.

It’s a good world. There’s just a whole lot of people who need to know more things about it.


www.freecycle.org

August 25, 1980

Today was cool sort of. I got up pretty late. B came over. I went to the bank to send my money up to Boston. I came home, ate. Me and B had great sex. So she left. Sarah came over, I talked about my arrest. Well—mom found out via Glen Wilson (Fireman) > Lisa Wilson > Sally > Mom. Shit. Mom and Dad were pissed, really pissed. I talked to Johnny Walsh. He said my case should be laughed out of court. The cops are stupid and that any lawyer could get us off. Anyway, Bruce came over, left. Me and B went to the movies – “Prom Night,” It really sucked. We ate at Denny’s, came home. This arrest shit sucks.


---This was the summer before my first year of college. I guess I opened a bank account beforehand so my check would clear. Ah, and B was my girlfriend, Barbara, and from poking around the pages of that 1980 summer, B and I had a lot of sex. But I think, Bruce came over, left is also code for sex. If I remember correctly. Johnny Walsh was a lawyer and he was married to Barbara's sister, Donna. Johnny was a true hippy turned professional, a Fordham graduate and extremely pompous. Donna was the prettiest sister in Barbara's family of six girls. Johnny and Donna were huge potheads. They lived across the street from me in the second story apartment. Barbara's grandparents owned the buildng, Maple View Apartments, a slate gray, rundown fourplex with a stone basement with a dirt floor. The Luarcas used to live in one of the bottom units and John Luarca and I made a movie in the basement called, "Crack of Dawn," about vampires. Like the other movie that I made, about a lemon-ade stand, the film didn't turn out. The Luarcas had a cute maltese named Toby.

The arrest happened the night before. I lived in a neighborhood that was sandwiched between train tracks, woods, a river, a water treatment plant and the municipal shed that stored all the trucks that salted the roads. Behind that shed was a green picnic table where we used to build small fires and smoke cigarettes. The cops came and we ran away. I was with my brother, Greg, Matt Poole—who was only fifteen years old and so he wasn’t given a ticket---and Holly, a very close friend.

We had to go to court. We were actually charged with Disorderly Conduct. But the cops said we got off easy because we could have been charged wtih arson.

From August 26, 1980:

I came home, got ready, picked up Holly, and me, Greg and Holly went to court. At first it was held in a parking lot ‘cause the judge didn’t have a key, then we got inside. The court clerk wasn’t there, so the judge didn’t have a record of what we did. He was real nice to us. I really think the whole thing is gonna be dropped. We went home. Holly left. Me and B walked to the black bridge. I was ultra-depressed. We both cried, we left, then went home. I felt a lot better, and me, mom, dad and Greg stayed up and watched “The Uninvited”- 1937. It was cool.

I think B and I cried because I was leaving for college.

Democracy Means Never Having to Smell Those Awful Flowers

Please leave your smelly flowers at home. Sure, we live in a free society and if you want to buy flowers that smell like a sugar cane factory in August, by all means, do so. But please don’t bring them to work!

What a headache.

The original idea of democracy was that each individual would be free, sure, but in addition, each citizen would do their best to take responsibility for a decent society. Do people forget this?

As my friend Jeff K. says, “We’ll all get along and we’ll all be okay if everyone agrees to be just a little bit unhappy.”

Not everyone can have their way:

1) Rich people like Tom Cruise should not be allowed to set up Scientology Tents while on the set of War of the Worlds. Ironic, since L. Ron Hubbard was a science fiction writer. So Tom doesn’t get what he wants. Doesn’t he already have enough?

2) People who like smelly flowers or sweet perfumes should live in Antarctica. Enough said.

3) Industrialists should not be able to glean profits off the cancerous breasts of millions of women. Women should not put up with having their chests lopped off in the name of yellow dyes and plastic reagents. Industrialists should not be in the business of bodily mutilation.

4) If the United States government does not want Iran to make a nuclear bomb, it should just give Iran a few of the extra ones they have, and then Iran won’t need to make them. Wouldn’t Iran change its tune if we gave them such an expensive gift? We’d be a little less happy, but the tension would dissipate.

5) If rational people of the United States cannot hoist off the yoke of repression brought upon us by the Religionists with their fear-based, ignorant fairytales, then a civil war (hopefully employed without weapons) might be the only answer. Rational people are a little bit unhappy living with all these nuts, but we deal with it. Religionists should give us the same courtesy. If they continue this way, on their 4,000 year old planet, then perhaps they need to be deported to Antarctica with the bad smells.


My street savvy mother used to always say, “Play to win.”

Maybe playing to win in the current world is to pick some uncomfortable middle and then fight to the death to defend it. Taking a strong stand to one side in any relationship is the recipe for a failed relationship. Standing together in the middle, though annoying, depressing, disappointing and dream crushing, is far more workable.

And if your mate does not like flowers and you do, maybe you can agree on a different, more neutral decoration, like a river rock.

Bunnies

Something tells me you could watch this all day.


Bunnies

A huge congratulation is in order today for my friend, Dan Kaufman.

He made the choice to spend more on his electric bill which will increase the percentage of renewable resources for electricity to Los Angeles by a huge percentage.

Los Angeles Dept. of Water and Power

So, all it takes is money to fix the world? What a novel idea. How hard is it to move money where it is needed? What blocks it from happening? Only inertia? Special Interests? Fear?


And one more question about money and power:

Who the hell is going to pay for this war in Iraq? Have you seen the bill lately?

The Cost of War

I Can't Get Enough of Those Mother Fucking Snakes

On that Mother Fucking plane.

Look, there has been so much written about this movie that there is not much I can add to it except this:

FIND THE BIGGEST MOVIE THEATRE WITH THE BIGGEST YOUNG CROWD WITHIN A DAY’S FLIGHT FROM YOUR HOUSE, and just go see it.

It’s frigging hilarious. It is honest in its simplicity. And no matter what anyone says, it really is a parody. In fact, my first reaction after the credits rolled was, “That sure was arch.”

It is times like these when we need really smart movies about stupid shit, like snakes on planes, with great actors like Samuel Jackson screaming the title of the movie with the perfectly pitched sprinkling of two motherfuckings.

The creative sum of the flatness of a Gilligan’s Island episode, with the effects of today, well acted by a very savvy cast, filmed crisply, directed with a light/heavy hand, all played out in a ludicrous send up of a disaster movie makes me give this snake filled B flick two rattles up.

Because we need a little ridiculous.

I Say Hizbollah, You Say Hezbollah

No matter how you parse it, the Lebanese are into Hizbollah.

Or is it Hezbollah?

There is a faction of Arabs that want Israel to disappear. And the leader of Iran does have a point, “If the Holocaust problem was in Europe, why don’t the Jews have a place there?”

And then there is the understandable Zionist thing going on about the homeland. Stubborn, hard working Jews are modern, happening people and they laid claim with the help of Merry Old England. Fine.

But all histories and grudges aside, Israel is a nation recognized by the world. And truly, this really is quite a tiny bit of sand we're talking about.
Why not just let it be?

It seems like that would be too easy. Furthermore, it appears to the average eye that there is an Arab culture of discontent and war, even if it’s just a subculture. And Arabs all get it. And so they embrace, in their two-faced way, Hizbollah (Hezbollah?). And no matter what the leaders say, we all just have to admit that they are lying. They will not chase Hezbollah (Hizbollah?) away. Because no matter how funkyfucked they are, they are “one-of-us”. Oh, and they have a lot of cash.

I hate clans. Ethnicity. All of it.

My opinion? Why can’t both teams drop their precious traditions and resentments and just live together? And why do they all have to identify so strongly with their cultures and their religions? Or am I just a naïve American fool for thinking this way?

Give me atheist mutts any day.

The Middle Line

Some say Life is the thing that happens to you while you’re busy making plans for other things.

I think that’s a bit too simple and puts one out of the equation, in a way.

I think there is this mental idea of your life (usually idealized) and then there is the reality of your life and these are Vectors zipping along, obviously dynamic, sometimes volatile, but usually, heading in their own directions pretty steadily. I think Life is the Line between these two lines.

I would imagine, ideally, that one might want all three lines to be one line.
I think, at best, the two outer lines come closer together, making the center line as strong a Vector as possible.

I think the center line is the point of power. It is the place of action.

Here's the Scoop

We saw Scoop tonight.

It’s so silly! But I say that in a good way. It was as light as a popover. Miss Scarlett was funny and cute. Hugh Jackman is ridiculously attractive, all tall and handsome. Woody is jittery as ever, but these days, he seems to have a frozen left eye. Something’s up. Maybe he’s just really old?

The story is a whodunit kind of thing. Nothing new in the terrain. The set up is fun, what with a dead top reporter coming through the magician booth to give clues. And both the London scenes and the countryside scenes throughout are quite beautiful. The cinematographer does a great job. The very dated, bad special effects and the bad costume of death with the sickle only add to the silly charm. And wait until you hear the bad puns. One involves a sandwich and a great artist. You can guess.

Is Scoop one of Woody’s greats? Aw hell no. But at least it’s Woody. He seems less able to come up with complicated stories with nuanced characters as he ages. But at least he started high, so his sinking isn’t so bad. You can see the sketch he’s made. And it’s pleasing, if not fully realized.

And he still rips off other movies, shamelessly. In Point Blank, with its high class girl/low class girl problem and with this movie, the rowboat scene at one point, you get the feeling that Woody Allen loves A Place in the Sun more than he even knows.

Honestly, there’s not much else out there at the plex. So, this was a good choice. And I think for Woody Allen, in the late autumn of his career, it’s not a bad idea to release his trifles during the summer when the adults have nothing else to see anyway. You get the sense that even he knows the gig is up...but he kind of layers that point into the film, too. He’s honest, this guy. You might not like that he has shacked up with his daughter, but as an artist he’s a good one. He uses himself and his understanding of life quite cannily even in something as stupid and fun as this flick.

Get the Scoop. Why not?

Motivation

What compels people?

I had a Reike treatment today...It would be so much fun to make fun of if it didn’t work.

I have been running around town for weeks (okay, months) getting my show up on its feet, starting a new theatre company (The New Theatre) and now, we have a presence and tickets are for sale:

The Fat of the Land My Space
Fat Tickets

Being a producer takes a lot of work. First, we had to raise about twenty-thousand dollars, which we have almost done.

And while that has been going on, we needed to staff up. Staffing is actually the enjoyable part because you get to meet people and you get to host them kindly and you just sit back and see what they have to offer. We had four principal players, but we needed a director, a stage manager, two other actors (who we cast after much gathering and auditioning), an entire design team (Scenic, lights, sound, costume), friends to man the box office, a free-lance publicist, a graphic designer and parking attendants. And who knows who else in the near future.

This, after a couple of months of searching for space, signing a contract, getting the insurance together, having a garage sale and, oh yeah, and still working on raising that twenty k.

You know, I like being busy. And I am super pleased that everyone is off in rehearsals and from reports, I hear they are all having a very good time. We chose talented people who did not have personality problems. It’s so great, really.

But I noticed, in order to get this all going, I had to ramp it up to a pace that was outside my comfort zone. Good, that’s good, we need to do that. You have to jump out of that plane, sometimes. Glad to jump.

But I got tired. So, I called the Reike guy. He came over with the folding, padded table, set it up, started with the Buddhist gong and realigned my chakras. Sure, I twitched a little. And when the Reike Master opened up my heart chakra, I felt complete joy and laughed a lot. But the most amazing thing was the release of energy in the kidney area. Apparently, the kidneys are your “batteries”. I imagine this ancient Chinese idea has something to do with the modern knowledge of electrolytes and adrenal glands. In any event, people who drive hard do a number on the kidney area. And after the treatment, I felt like someone had given that entire kidney area permission to just go slack.

Unreal.

After the treatment was over, I felt like I had been vacationing in Hawaii for ten days.

Why, to get things done, does it take this big push? Couldn’t one do a big push without grinding the kidneys to a pulp?

And furthermore, if the goal of all action is for fulfillment (creative, monetary, emotional, social, etc.)—could it come to a person without having to use such adrenalin? Could a person do what they needed to do, what they wanted to do, without the kidney push?

I’m going to try to head in that direction. Hopefully, it doesn’t mean I have to live in a cave and subsist on jute and worms. But at the same time, being productive is essential. Finding the balance is tricky. But then, isn’t that why we have Californias?

In the meantime, make a reservation, relax, sit back and enjoy the show.
Fat Ticks

A Powerful Point Worth Reiterating

This is one of the EASIEST ways to save energy:

Go to your entertainment area. Are all your boxes plugged into a power strip? If not, go to the store and get one for under ten bucks.

Then, once you are sure all your boxes and your television are plugged into the power strip, shut off the strip.

Simple.

(You may want to keep your cable or dish box out of this scenario since some rely upon remote programming and special timers.)

Components when they are off, yet plugged in, use a load of electricity. Yes, the official quantitative amount is A LOAD.

So take a few minutes to reconfigure your plugs into a power strip and after you are done watching, listening, enjoying your good self, shut it all down. It’s takes just the flip of a switch to help us move toward energy independence.

The Speech

Ladies and gentlemen, leaders of the world. I, the Prime Minister of Israel, am speaking to you from Jerusalem in the face of the terrible pictures from Kfar Kana. Any human heart, wherever it is, must sicken and recoil at the sight of such pictures. There are no words of comfort that can mitigate the enormity of this tragedy. Still, I am looking you straight in the eye and telling you that the State of Israel will continue its military campaign in Lebanon.

The Israel Defense Forces will continue to attack targets from which missiles and Katyusha rockets are fired at hospitals, old age homes and kindergartens in Israel. I have instructed the security forces and the IDF to continue to hunt for the Katyusha stockpiles and launch sites from which these savages are bombarding the State of Israel. We will not hesitate, we will not apologize and we will not back off. If they continue to launch missiles into Israel from Kfar Kana, we will continue to bomb Kfar Kana. Today, tomorrow and the day after tomorrow.
Here, there and everywhere. The children of Kfar Kana could now be sleeping peacefully in their homes, unmolested, had the agents of the devil not taken over their land and turned the lives of our children into hell.

Ladies and gentlemen, it's time you understood: the Jewish state will no longer be trampled upon. We will no longer allow anyone to exploit population centers in order to bomb our citizens. No one will be able to hide anymore behind women and children in order to kill our women and children. This anarchy is over. You can condemn us, you can boycott us, you can stop visiting us and, if necessary, we will stop visiting you.

A voice for six million citizens. Today I am serving as the voice of six million bombarded Israeli citizens who serve as the voice of six million murdered Jews who were melted down to dust and ashes by savages in Europe. In both cases, those responsible for these evil acts were, and are, barbarians devoid of all humanity, who set themselves one simple goal: to wipe the Jewish race off the face of the earth, as Adolph Hitler said, or to wipe the State of Israel off the map, as Mahmoud Ahmedinjad proclaims.

And you - just as you did not take those words seriously then, you are ignoring them again now. And that, ladies and gentlemen, leaders of the world, will not happen again. Never again will we wait for bombs that never came to hit the gas chambers. Never again will we wait for salvation that never arrives. Now we have our own air force. The Jewish people are now capable of standing up to those who seek their destruction those people will no longer be able to hide behind women and children. They will no longer be able to evade their responsibility.

Every place from which a Katyusha is fired into the State of Israel will be a legitimate target for us to attack. This must be stated clearly and publicly, once and for all. You are welcome to judge us, to ostracize us, to boycott us and to vilify us. But to kill us? Absolutely not.

Four months ago I was elected by hundreds of thousands of citizens to the office of Prime Minister of the government of Israel, on the basis of my plan for unilaterally withdrawing from 90 percent of the areas of Judea and Samaria, the birth place and cradle of the Jewish people; to end most of the occupation and to enable the Palestinian people to turn over a new leaf and to calm things down until conditions are ripe for attaining a permanent settlement between us. The Prime Minister who preceded me, Ariel Sharon, made a full withdrawal from the Gaza Strip back to the international border, and gave the Palestinians there a chance to build a new reality for themselves. The Prime Minister who preceded him, Ehud Barak, ended the lengthy Israeli presence in Lebanon and pulled the IDF back to the international border, leaving the land of the cedars to flourish, develop and establish its democracy and its economy.

What did the State of Israel get in exchange for all of this? Did we win even one minute of quiet? Was our hand, outstretched in peace, met with a handshake of encouragement? Ehud Barak's peace initiative at Camp David let loose on us a wave of suicide bombers who smashed and blew to pieces over 1,000 citizens, men, women and children. I don't remember you being so enraged then. Maybe that happened because we did not allow TV close-ups of the dismembered body parts of the Israeli youngsters at the Dolphinarium? Or, of the shattered lives of the people butchered while celebrating the Passover seder at the Park Hotel in Netanya? What can you do -that's the way we are. We don't wave body parts at the camera. We grieve quietly.

We do not dance on the roofs at the sight of the bodies of our enemy's children - we express genuine sorrow and regret. That is the monstrous behavior of our enemies. Now they have risen up against us. Tomorrow they will rise up against you. You are already familiar with the murderous taste of this terror. And you will taste more. In a loud and clear voice. And Ariel Sharon's withdrawal from Gaza. What did it get us? A barrage of Kassem missiles fired at peaceful settlements and the kidnapping of soldiers. Then too, I don't recall you reacting with such alarm. And for six years, the withdrawal from Lebanon has drawn the vituperation and crimes of a dangerous, extremist Iranian agent, who took over an entire country in the name of religious fanaticism and is trying to take Israel hostage on his way to Jerusalem - and from there to Paris and London.

An enormous terrorist infrastructure has been established by Iran on our border, threatening our citizens, growing stronger before our very eyes, awaiting the moment when the land of the Ayatollahs becomes a nuclear power in order to bring us to our knees. And make no mistake - we won't go down alone. You, the leaders of the free and enlightened world, will go down along with us.

So today, here and now, I am putting an end to this parade of hypocrisy. I don't recall such a wave of reaction in the face of the 100 citizens killed every single day in Iraq. Sunnis kill Shiites who kill Sunnis, and all of them kill Americans - and the world remains silent. And I am hard pressed to recall a similar reaction when the Russians destroyed entire villages and burned down large cities in order to repress the revolt in Chechnya. And when NATO bombed Kosovo for almost three months and crushed the civilian population - then you also kept silent. What is it about us, the Jews, the minority, the persecuted, that arouses this cosmic sense of justice in you? What do we have that all the others don't?

In a loud clear voice, looking you straight in the eye, I stand before you openly and I will not apologize. I will not capitulate. I will not whine. This is a battle for our freedom. For our humanity. For the right to lead normal lives within our recognized, legitimate borders. It is also your battle. I pray and I believe that now you will understand that. Because if you don't, you may regret it later, when it's too late.

ISRAEL AND JERUSALEM FACTS
1. ISRAEL BECAME A STATE IN 1312 B.C., TWO MILLENNIA BEFORE ISLAM;


Editor Don's Note: This is quite a speech. And Israel is there...they should be able to live peacefully.

My extreme idea of the day: We should either leave Iraq, or completely colonize it.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

Joey: But I’ve served this state, my country for three terms. How could this happen to me?

Hadassah: Get ready. It’s going to be a great service tonight, boobala.

Joey: I can’t go to the temple. Look what happened last night in London! Are the citizens of the great state of Connecticut so blind that they don’t see that we need to stay the course in Iraq? Don’t they know we have to stand behind the president so he can be strong and make democracy in the Middle East?

Hadassah: Joey, honey, you lost. Does my hair look like a wig?

Joey: But I’m the man! I’ll run an independent campaign that will knock down these ignorant doves. Like smashing through the walls of Jericho!

Hadassah: You and what army, Joe-Joe?

Joey: Our army, Hadassah!

Hadassah: Connecticut doesn’t have an army. Did you get the candles that I like?

Joey: Those extremists. Those damn devils. We have to exterminate them!

Hadassah: You’re getting a little Bergen-Belsen on me, booby. Put on your tallis and get over here.

Joey: But, Had, those Arabs, we have to change them. We just have to. They’re fanatics.

Hadassah: Did you have a B.L.T. today? There’s tomato on your collar.

Joey: You know I don’t eat bacon.

Hadassah: You better not.

Joey: I would never.

Hadassah: It isn’t right. Especially when there’s so much chicken.

Joey: We have to make those Arabs see it our way!

Hadassah: They never will.

Joey: I’m flying to London. I’m going to stand in the middle of Heathrow with all the cameras on me, and I am going to make it known that Joe Lieberman will stay the course! No matter what!

Hadassah: You can’t fly. It’s the Sabbath.

Joey: This is an emergency.

Hadassah: Don’t stretch it, Joe-Joe. Scotland Yard took care of it.

Joey: But the world needs me!

Hadassah: We’ll have the fish you like.

Joey: I won’t be eating fish. I’ll be in London. I always find a way to win. I always cover my ass. I always have a senate seat ready in case I lose. I have to. I know what’s right for the world. I know what’s right for this country. I know what’s right for the Middle East. God is on my side! The world absolutely needs me.

Hadassah: My little gray schmuck, no it doesn’t.

Sometimes, the Head Just Pounds

Last year, when I suffered from a bout of anxiety, brought upon by spending too much time alone, smoking weed, worrying about my book and facing mid-life worries, I became obsessed with my health.

It was not pretty.

I did calm down. I just had to be with people again and I had to cease the weed and I did the ol’ “think good thoughts” thing and I was back on my feet in a great, productive way.

Now, whenever I feel funky about my stomach (which has never been the greatest) or my allergies (which have always plagued me. As a kid---I once went into a coma from a bee sting, another time, they had to put a needle through my chest and into my heart because of some bad reaction)--I simply say, “Well, at least it isn’t Cystic Fibrosis.” I let myself know that what I have isn’t lethal, and, the thing does pass, and I’m back with the greedy and the ambitious, trying to take over the world.

And I am glad for this grateful way of looking at things.

However, sometimes, I just feel like crap. And it so often has to do with the weather...
I’m like a barometer for bad air quality. And I have to say, the air is getting worse.

Every year.

So, I do all these things (Steam, salt water, some drugs) in order to be able to handle it. And I’m not even worried about it. I just take care of it. But I have to say, like the canary in the coal mine, something is up out there.

The Only Sane Thing You Can Do Right Now

Stop everything.

Go in your backyard.

Pick a global-warming ripened tomato.

And make a B.L.T.

Visiting America

I have many friends who work at Disney. It’s just part of the collateral damage of living in Southern California. And though they suffer (having to be at work at 8 a.m., having to work the day after Thanksgiving, having to work Christmas week)—the manager and higher level employees get a bottomless free pass to the theme parks.

When California Adventure opened a few years ago, I thought, “A new theme park...just what the world needs. Oh wait, there’s a ride where you sit in this chair and fly over the major sites of California in an IMAX sort of situation, but all up close and freaky and the chairs tilt and sway in the direction of the movement of the flick so you feel like you are hang gliding over the ocean, desert, Yosemite, San Francisco Bay, Los Angeles, mountains and housing tracts while little vents across from your face blow air at you that smells like where you are—the pine scent worked best—and everyone says it’s pretty cool? Okay, take me! I wanna go on Soarin’ Over California!”

We went there. Today. Mary and Bardo, our friends who both work at Mouseschwitz, came by at noon in their Hybrid vehicle, Disney Silver Passes in hands, and we drove down to Anaheim in Hellish I-5 traffic, parked the car, took the very long, cool looking escalator down from the parking structure, got on the tram to the main entrance of Disneyland and California Adventure which are right across from each other, and smacked our lips in fun anticipation. You know which one is California Adventure by the huge cement free standing letters that spell California about twenty feet from the entrance.

First thing we did, we went over to Soarin’ Over California in the Golden State section of the park and got ourselves fast passes. These are basically reservations to get on the ride at a prescribed time so you don’t have to go through the line.

Then, we thought we’d kill some time and go ride on the Grizzly River rafting company. Big attraction, center of the park. You know, that ride where you sit in a big round raft and go up a hill and then through water slides and such. The company that makes it can set it up anywhere and you can cover it with whatever you like. This one was a kind of Sierra Nevada thing. The plantings were great. They got the trees right—pine and oak. And the fake mountain and streams and waterfalls were pretty cool in that, “Sure, it’s all plastic, but I’m in the mood...” kind of way. We were on line for about forty minutes. Five minutes away from getting on, and the whole Magilla broke down. We waited while repairmen scratched their heads, started it up again for a bit and then it stopped again. In the park for over an hour and all we did was stand in that line. Cranky. I looked at the kid with the C.I.A. printed T-shirt that announced and stood for “Christ is Alive,” and I wondered, “Can he fix this thing?”

We left because our fast passes were ready for using. And use them we did. The Soarin’ over California was cool and pretty much like I described it above. Glad to have done it. Worth the drive down. The cool pine scent. The dizzy heights. The grand California scenery.

After our visual ride experience, we figured we’d go on the huge roller coaster over in the Paradise Pier Section, the other big ride in California Adventure. This area was kind of the best looking part of the park. It was simply a remake of a boardwalk. Like Santa Monica or Santa Cruz. And the rides were very carnival. We got to the entrance of California Screamin’, the coaster, and it, too, like the Grizzly Rafts, was broken.

So, the two biggest rides were busted. We left the park.

We went to Downtown Disney, the open shopping mall connected to the theme parks, with a movie theatre, stores, Disney stores, and ridiculous theme restaurants. We ate at The Rain Forest. The one where every half hour there’s a rain storm and the plastic gorillas and elephants move and make a lot of noise? They must have one in Nanuet by now.

You can imagine how delicious the food was.

It was here, in the Rainforest, where I discovered the most abundant (excepting rodents) American mammal: The humanoid cow.

Now look, none of us are thin any longer. And ten, twenty, even thirty extra pounds on someone isn’t so awful. If you ever get cancer in that condition, you might get a few extra weeks of life. But these people, these people were all between sixty and a hundred pounds overweight. All those planes that flew in all these monsters from all across the land! It was like a horror movie.

And there they were, gorging on huge plates of corporate food that all tasted like sugar and oil, in a plastic Rainforest, swallowing their disappointment for all the broken rides. Can you imagine spending your life savings to take your family to Anaheim and all you get to do is wait in line and then leave because the rides are all broken? And then the consolation prize is heaping mounds of imitation food?

Everyone was enormous. Those poor children! Drinking high fructose corn syrup out of plastic cups that actually flashed with electric rainbow strobe jewels.

After the ogita slather, we escaped from the jungle. Bardo had to go into the Disney store to use his discount to buy a present for a relative. Adam and I waited outside. We sat on a benchy-wall of a planted area and at our feet was a small, round vent about six inches in diameter. And rising up from the slits was the foulest smell of half treated sewage. We had to move over. Who manages the sewage treatment that it actually wafts up into the middle of the Disney food court? Goofy?

When we all piled into the tram and back to the parking structure, the cool looking escalator that we took down was broken, too, so the Disney visitors had to walk down a three story high, stopped escalator. I didn’t have the heart to tell them that the broken escalator was only the beginning.

Can you imagine being from some burb-o-America, slathering your enormous, mis-shapened body into a jet only to land in Anaheim where you will spend what little money you have on entrance fees to a theme park that is broken down and then eat terrible food that does nothing but make you sadder so you then have to work even harder at Walmart so you can save more money to take another dysfunctional, plastic vacation filled with corn syrup?

If Christ is Alive, why the hell isn't he doing something about all this?

God bless America? Raze it.

Who Knows Where the Time Goes?

Okay

Today was my birthday. Do I get a day off from blogging?

I’m sitting here, with a bit of a headache from drinking wine at the Farmers Market. I have this yearly party in the food court. It’s cheap. It’s easy. And you can buy bottles of alcohol at the wine bar. California is a wine friendly state. With my closest friends. Sitting near the raw meat of a butcher shop. Mostly chicken.

Very spirited. Very fun to be 44. Yes. 44.

I mean, who are they kidding?

I am listening to Eva Cassidy (who is now dead) singing Who Knows Where the Time Goes? Nice.

When I die, if I have a tomb stone (which I won’t) but if I do, it would read, “My sinuses never felt better.”

What I want for 44 is better air, lower temperatures and more people laughing and talking to each other on street cars. Maybe go listen to more live music.


Happy Birthday to everyone.

Go to England with my Sister-in-Law

The Lake District

Buy This Book: Coming to My Rescue

How often can one say, "My Recognized-by-the-State-of-California-Domestic-Partner's Mother wrote a book and it has just been published!"

After poking around the commercial publishing world, Judith took the matter into her own hands (rescuing herself again, having done so two other times, first, by surviving, second, by writing this book) and self-published. And here it is. You can buy it today. I particularly love the memoir pieces about growing up in the difficult 1930's and 1940's. Judith was half orphaned as a child but might as well have been completely abandoned. She survives to tell the tale. There are incredibly touching chapters about her relationship with her Aunt, the only adult who really cared about her. A particularly heartbreaking section about Judith visiting her before she died will make you want gentle, real love in your life.

I also very much liked the sections about Judith moving to Connecticut and trying to fit in, going to college and trying to fit in, marrying into a "family-with-lineage" and trying to fit in and never really fitting in.

Interwoven throughout the book is a call to a retro-feminine role of women as caretakers. Some hardass babes may wince at these sections. I found the philosophy pretty clear headed and refreshing.

Coming to My Rescue is about growing up. A young woman comes of age with hardly any support, and flails and sputters in the twisted world of Yankee coldness and survives by the warmth in her own heart and by seeing the warmth in others, especially innocent children. Check it out. Buy a copy for yourself or for your mother or for your favorite aunt or for your local library. This is a touching tale by an author who has examined her life. Published in the newfangled style.

Coming to My Rescue by Judith Malin Waring

This novel is about Mildred Cabell, a woman who, in late middle age, realizes she has always felt “too little”. In trying to understand why, she opens “a place in my head where I’ve kept all the sadness.” There she finds childhood memories of the thousand daily cruelties of a hurting family that has been passing its pain along for generations.

Mildred begins to feel a tenderness towards herself, as well as an anger at the culture for its ongoing blind disregard of the emotional needs of not only its children but also its entire citizenry.

And so her rescue begins.

Find the Cost of Freedom

Okay for me, it was all about David Crosby. Yeah, Neil Young still fashions himself as a rock star. And the unifying theme this evening was anti-war, freedom of speech, etc. and that was supposed to be powerful, and it was in a group cheering/short lived kind of way. But basically, when I go to a CSNY concert at the Hollywood Bowl, I’m only interested in the music, how it sounds.

Though I consider myself a protester, I don’t love protest songs.

But I did love Long Time Gone and Find the Cost of Freedom.

But really, it was all about Crosby. His voice. His cool guitar chords with the intricate picking. His solid stance, no bullshit, just playing music and singing really well. With his Yosemite Sam hairdo and his “I’ve been around, man, I’m just going to do this straight up as best I can,” I was blown away. Almost Cut my Hair. Shit.

When he and Graham Nash did Guinnivere, with only the guitar and the two of them singing, come on, it was frigging relgious. Crosby sings with full command of his voice. Up, plaintive and clear. The guy really is the Poppa Dadddy with the talent.

He was amazing.

But did I say, so was everyone else? The big deal about this concert tonight was really how good these guys still are. All of them. Sure, at times when the set switched to focusing on Stephen Stills or Neil Young, you could just hear the scratch of lawyers pens going over contracts that relegated performance time allotment. But hell, these guys did it pretty smoothly and with great ease and no ego. They took turns backing up the featured guy when he was the lead singer of his song.

Neil Young seemed to be the most preening. But he is a solid lead guitarist and maybe this is what is required to get this leadership thing across. Plus, it takes some good, solid Canadian balls to write a song about impeaching the president for being a liar. When he ended the night with Keep on Rockin’ in a Free World, with no encore, people were truly rocked out, even if we all were over forty.

Stephen Stills is still this blues guy. And he was greatly appreciated. Not my thing, but he was solid as hell and from what I can tell from looking around, he got to the bluesy heart of people in a very direct way.

Graham Nash, well, I mean, he’s amazing filler/sweetness.

Thirty-thousand people on a Monday night in the Hollywood Bowl. It felt like a very important event, what with the Iraq footage and network call letters at the bottom right in a font that looked quite cable TV authentic, the call letters being LWW, “Living With War”.

Exiting was difficult. There were so many people, it was kind of crushing and oddly suggestive of a refugee scenario. We survived.

We are in a redo of the late 1960's---in a stupid mess.

But this time around with this war and this terrible president, there is not the upswing of youth protesting. It’s just old people sitting around complaining and going to a concert on a Monday night for fifty bucks. And then exiting like cows in funnels.

But hell, we’re tired. The kids have to do it. They need to push back from their computers and their Blackberries and save the planet. There needs to be a huge swell. A real one.

It cooled off nicely outside. I was thinking... How great Los Angeles can be. Thinking...What a ridiculously special setting, this Hollywood Bowl. The oaks up on the ridge. The mountains all around.

Knowing...What a fucking amazing day it was when Mamma Cass was swimming in Peter Tork’s pool with these guys in the hills and suggested the formation of this band because she thought they’d do well together.

Traveling to The Great White North

Lucky for me, I enjoy going to Far Northern Idaho for the weekend. My in-laws (most of them) live in Sandpoint, Idaho...a beautiful mountain town snuggled against a forty-mile long lake.

And, also lucky for me, I enjoy the company of the Warings. A fun bunch with big hearts and good minds.

And the huge plus side of all the flying around over such a short period of time is: I had a wheely bag! Made by Charlie Sport and purchased in Jackson Heights, Queens, for thirty dollars. This is the first time in my adult life that a trip has ended and my shoulders are not killing me. I have oft eschewed the luggage on wheels. It just seemed so weak. And whenever you go to the restroom, there your wheels sit, on floors of piss. The shoulder duffel is not that kind of victim.

But dirty wheels are a small price to pay for happy shoulders.

Points of View. Gathering?

The truth is out.

People are coming around to agreeing that we have an ecological nightmare on our hands.

Many religious people feel they have to take care of God’s Planet.

Businessmen are realizing that it makes good green-financial sense to be green.

And intelligent, conscious people have known this for years.

Why is it that it takes people so long to come around? (To Galileo, to Newton, to Darwin?)

My hypothesis of why the religious and the mercantile groups can’t agree with the academic-humanists and why they must wait until it hits them in an entirely different way.

1) The Religious find thinking people to be very cold. As awful as Religionsists are, there is a certain zing in their connection to God, Church and Man. These Religionists want everything to come to them through God—what really is nothing more that warm fuzzy opiate that Marx so often spoke of. If it isn’t warm and Godlike, then it can’t be real. Once they see God’s handiwork being destroyed, however, they start coming around.

2) Businessmen just find the thinking man to be lazy. If a thinking man was any kind of man, he would get off his ass and do something. Build something. Bully a widow into giving away her last fifty-thousand dollars. The businessman has no respect for the thinking man unless the thinking man is coming up with another widget that the businessman can sell. Once they see their empires crumbling because of unsustainable business practices, they start to come around.

Though thinking people are always reviled for challenging the status quo, would it not be so much easier for the Religionists and the Capitalists to accept that most change, at least before and after the dark ages, has been fomented by thinking men? But then, that would require really thinking about it.

I don’t care how smarmy out next president is, as long as he can bring these groups together under a platform of change. We wait.

THE SECOND COMING—William Butler Yeats

TURNING and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of i{Spiritus Mundi}
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Train those Punims!

What is it about traveling by train? Why does it make the heart beat faster, the eyes glow brighter, the fun seem bottomless? Here we go!






And look at the smug joy on Jeff’s face as he takes his first ride on the Gold Line to Pasadena. Does one not see god in that expression? The god of joy and mystery?

Me and My Curly Tale

Many fine people I spoke with today wanted me to get back into acting.

A very odd experience, indeed.

Someone I know is writing an Indie feature for me to be in. I don’t know if this person is just very foolish or afraid to find someone better or thinks I'm just the perfect bulldog for his picture. (Or if he will ever really get down to finishing.)

A very good director and associate of mine in The New Theatre asked me today, “When are you going to do your one man show again?”

And, a producer I had drinks with on La Brea, a lovely friend who has made some very good movies filled with deservedly famous people said, “It’s time for you to do another show like American Air (my one man joint). I’ll do everything I can to help you. You are dynamic, not many people can do what you do, you are a deep thinker with lots of things to say about our culture, and the type of performance that you do is very underrepresented. Plus, it will help sell your book. You should adapt your book.”

And I said, “Okay, I’ll do it!”

This is not the first time I’ve been in a bar and exclaimed, without too much reflection, that I would do something. Sometimes, I follow through.

It was one of those puffy ego days when everyone was feeding me. And oddly enough, I was just recently saying something along the lines of, “I’m so sick of being a brown haired, middle aged guy that no one notices.”

All comments from the you-oughta-be-in-pictures crowd are suspect. Who knows why people ever say anything? But that it came at me today so concentrated makes me think that maybe the hammy pig that lives in me might feel trapped and so he is subconsciously oinking. Does he need a little free range action?

Perhaps I should just go do some karaoke and be done with the urge. Come home and put my flat nose back in my laptop. Tap my cloven feet against the floor. Eat my own crap.

Dan Has the Coolest Job

So, my good friend, Dan, works at Southern California Edison in the internal communications department. He really knows what's going on. And truthfully, Southern California Edison really is trying, in a very public way, to help with this whole energy crunch. Interesting tip:

Consider unplugging consumer electronics when they are not in use. Even
when turned off, CD players in the U.S. consume enough energy in one
year to power the Las Vegas Strip for six months.


I cannot say that I've done this. However, I do think it's a good idea. Maybe just click that power cord for the whole mess of media boxes to the off position when not in use?

What a world.

Los Angeles is so hot and humid, it feels like New Jersey. Interesting. Many people are complaining. Honestly, I just find it very interesting. What's next???

The Real and the Imagined

All of it, all of it, all of it, all religion and philosophy seems to be the tug between the material and the imagining that we are not material.

Now I have no idea what we are. A puppet show for Zeus? Highly evolved plankton? Aliens living in a war torn Matrix? Whatever.

But it does seem true that human beings are very sad that they are material entities who must one day cease to exist. And so, all these ideologies are invented in order to placate the pain of being temporary.

And what seems to be the mental construct that hits the center of this problem is a denial of the material. If the material world is denied, then one cannot be so upset if one is no longer in it one day. Religion certainly does this. It seems to want to deny the material world for some made up situation at the end. But as we all know, pushing an idea away only makes it stronger, so in the end, very religious people become extremely attached to real things, like land.

Extreme intellectuals try to deny the material, getting lost in a world of abstract thinking. This can only lead to anxiety, since the body does want to live a material existence. And usually, the person trapped in his own mind tries to use his thoughts to control others to do his bidding. Material bidding.

The human animal is a driven beast. Territorial. Competitive. Hungry. And all attempts to quash these drives, to deny our material nature, ends up causing ourselves and everyone around us so much pain. And certainly, by denying others their drives, by saying they do not deserve to have their needs met, like the poor or like others who don’t act and behave American, then, nothing but earthly conflict can ensue.

So, one must accept the material world. The material self. And live it. And to accept that life is material for others, too. And to not worry about the end of your particular living body. And to not worry so much about what you own, but to own just enough so that you aren’t miserable. And to hope that others own enough and have enough so they aren’t miserable either. And to stop imaging that one is so much more than an earthbound animal, albeit it, one with a sense of decorum.

The world is material. One must stop denying this. One must take care of the world. One must acknowledge that each individual is grabbing their own goods for their own use. But we can remind each other that each person needs a sense of proportion. And finally, one must understand that life is temporary, for sure, and nothing can be done about that. So, no need to worry, no need for all these religious and other alienating constructs. You weren’t here one hundred years ago, you didn’t worry about not being alive then.

America's Year of the Museum: Spotlight on Sarah Schultz

Why not check out Sarah Schultz, one of my oldest friends on the earth? You know, these little Quicktime videos online are going to be gems twenty years from now. Like watching a Steve McQueen movie. I love the production of this little piece which is part of a collection of museum celebration promotionals for America's Year of the Museum. And I love that Sarah, the last museum official of the piece and the director of education at the Walker, is mostly in voiceover, starting with a visual of Jackie O., and they don't cut to her until she's almost finished when she mentions the importance of using the voice. You have to wonder why, though. She looks so great with that long hair.

Also, I love how the whole thing is very earnest and forthright, which makes it all seem so venerable. And the directness gives it the tone of a Saturday Night Live skit about ernest, forthright, venerable museum people. It reminds me of that little cartoon elk that walked in the snow with classical music playing in the background in the 1970's---promoting real estate in The Poconos. Bravo.


Walker Arts Center

Midweek Party: Hollywood Whores

Tonight, our friend Randy had his going away party. He is leaving the Judge Judy show and moving to Chicago to go to film school.

As the night became more alcohol infused and the drunk karaoke girls became louder yet somehow more tolerable, someone pulled out Bradford’s Emmy from the Ellen Show, Bradford is the host and he was recently fired from being a producer on Ellen, and held it over his head while he wailed on the microphone Radiohead’s Creep.

Yes, Radiohead is now available in kareoke. And it made me very happy to see the silly Emmy used in this way. Those wings on the back of the Emmy are very pointy. Like letter openers or weapons.

Congratulations to The House of Representatives

For voting against the ridiculous Federal Marriage Amendment. By a large margin.

No surprise.

But still, who would have thought Bush would be voted into a second term?

You have to be wary.

In this case, rational men prevailed.

Rest peacefully. A time is gonna come.

Pedaling Against the Spiders

If it’s global warming, so be it. Let people die as they must for the culture to be shocked into understanding what we have done to the earth.

People only understand pain.

Los Angeles has become humid. This is very strange, indeed. And this change of climate has produced so many pests. When you sit in the backyard, you get eaten by mosquitoes. Huge cockroaches come into the house in search of a cooler place to be disgusting. Tiny gnats die in the dog’s water bowl. The refrigerator has dead gnats along the top inside edge of the door, above the butter dish.

But what is the most disturbing is when you have to walk the dog. Spider webs across the sidewalk. It’s like something out of a scary ride in a bad carnival in the 1970’s. Every twenty feet, that sticky little string plants itself on your forehead. And all you can do is wipe.

I’m no arachnophobe, but I don’t like that feeling of spider webs on my face. This is my pain. For my part to combat global warming, I only use my car once each week. I blog about energy use and subways. I close the curtains in the middle of the day so the sun doesn’t turn my tiny bungalow into a solarium. Of course, I could do more, like figure out how to split the water molecule into Oxygen and Hydrogen gas without using any energy except for maybe what I can produce by pedaling a stationary bike. Wait, that’s it.

So, soon, I will be setting up gyms where you can split water. Please join one. It will be called The Hydro-Gym. And then, once all of our fat asses are back in shape and the earth starts cooling down again, then maybe I can walk the dog without that miserable thwack of spider silk sticking to my greasy brow.

The Future is in Trains

Having passed the weekend by subway and by foot, I feel happy to be a part of the ever growing possibilities of living in the future Los Angeles.

Who wouldn't want to go to Rosemead if you could get there from Silver Lake on the
Metro Silver Line?

And look at all the ideas people have come up with for the future of Los Angeles:
The Transit Coalition

I particularly like the Westside Smorgasbord However, I would move the Crenshaw line two blocks West to La Brea and let it go all the way North to the Red Line.

It's going to happen. The Expo Line opens soon.

I can't wait to take it to Culver City, and then stand there in the middle of nowhere and wonder, "When is this thing going to go all the way to the beach?"

What the Hezbollah is Going On?

I mentioned the Israeli who sat next to me on the plane from San Francisco to New York. We talked about the house he was building, using Palestinian labor (“Because it’s so cheap, what other choice do I have?"), where he and his wife and four children will live very close to the future “wall” that is being built around Israel. It was clear to me that his Zionist ass is never going to leave Israel. He is one of many.

So, you just have to say to these Hezbollah-Hamas-Godzilla people, “The Jews ain’t leaving. Go home, eat your chick peas and thank Allah for whatever dust patch you have.”

These people.

In the early 1970’s, while attending the primarily Jewish public school, Bluefield Elementary (which is now a private Yeshiva for Hasidic offspring), sharp girls like Janet Diatlo and Julie Fishkin would give oral reports on the many wars of Israel. 1967, the ones in the 1970’s, on and on. And there was this reverence in their Ashkenazi miens. Their suburban parents taught them to have a strong melancholy sentimentality for their homeland...stronger than anything the Irish or the Italians had naturally, even though the Irish and Italians actually did come from Ireland and Italy. I sort of felt bad for these girls. They didn’t look quite convinced about their connected love of the homeland, but they acted all dewy and caring. They were filled with passion and confusion at once. But it was clear: they were going to obey the cult of Zionism. And, they were going to feel all tingly because they, too, had an “old country”. Note: The Jewish boys were too busy talking about boners to have any sort of idea of what Israel meant to them. Except for maybe Jerome.

The indoctrination of these post WWII minds, of the adults and the female children, was complete. This land was theirs. They felt it in their hearts. They taught it to their daughters. These daughters will become mothers and so the perpetual machine has been invented.

Now, I don’t give a flying matzo who lives there. You can have that strip of sand surrounded by angry lunatics. And I think we can all agree, these Israelis really did have a rough couple of thousand years. They have been pogrommed for eons, and they have an enormous need and they are never leaving.
And these Arabs---some hate that the Jews are there, but some actually don’t care. So, the Israelis, with their greater absolute value in caring, will always prevail. Especially with all of our American money. And frankly, I’m all for the state of Israel, if for no other reason than when all the Jews return to the homeland, all the Right-Wing Christians get to have their Rapture. What a party!

But until the Rapture, I do think this: The Israelis need to push the Palestinians out of their country and then completely close and militarize their borders. And they need to cease using the Palestinians for cheap labor. Because frankly, no matter what the nice Arab worker says to you while he’s hammering nails into the two by fours that are the skeleton of your new three-thousand square foot house right next to his olive grove, as soon as you turn your back, he’s going to call you a dirty Jew.

Oh you Jews, stop giving them work. Stop thinking you will ever get along. Even though you fled Germany as if there was a Holocaust going on there (oh, right, there was) it doesn’t mean you can’t learn a thing or two from the Germans: Hire Turks to do your dirty work.

You will never get along.
Stop mixing economically.
Build that wall.
And have your peace.
I've been listening to this crap since 1967. I'm bored.

Adonai help them all.

Call Me Nellie Forbush

But I have this cockeyed optimistic feeling that my book will be published.
Hell, the first editor is still interested once I get an agent and a hook.

After the despair of a little rejection from some big hitters (with a lot of kind compliments about my writing, but not necessarily the book), I think I just need a good sit down with my manny. I just have to give it the clear-eyed once over with an open mind and just let the editing answer come to me.

Sure, I wrote a memoir with pieces of fiction interweaved and maybe that was a silly idea (though I thought of it as a being constructed like a record album). And I could take out the fiction and leave a straight up memoir and change the title to Open Trench: A Man Abandons Suffern in Search of Fame and Immortality and All He Gets is a Lousy Domestic Partner. A Memoir.
Or just leave it as it is.

But I bet I do a tweaking, settle on a descriptive title and then make sure the pieces relate to the title.

The publishing industry is just as hook obsessed as the film industry. Who knew?
This learning curve, however, is pretty fast. And I feel up to the challenge. Why not?

I think I’ll call my second book something completely unrelated to the pieces within, something like, How to Carve a Beaver.

Gems of Ebay: Your Future Restaurant Awaits You!

My very close friends, Mary and Dan, and I, have begun a little theatre company called The New Theatre. It's actually very exciting though occasionally daunting. But what has been interesting is the fundraising. I thought I would hate it, but I kind of like it. You gather crap and sell it. You send letters to your friends and beg them for ten bucks. It's kind of funny. And in this manner, we have raised about Six-Thousand Dollars. Which is pretty good, considering six weeks ago we had zero.

And now these incredible gems are for sale. I cannot imagine anyone living without them. Don't miss your chance to own this lovely Limoges swag from Judge Judy. It's so frigging gorgeous, you take one look at it, you wish I was selling the whole lot.

And when you're done putting your pills away while contemplating justice, you can invite your friends over for a friendly card game and use this wonderful Fancy Poker Chips and Game Set from Judge Joe Brown.

How do you measure up? Buy this Golden Ruler from Judge Judy and find out for yourself.

There are so many things to sell. Every day. Look around your house, you can sell all of it. At our garage sale, our friend Bradford brought post-its. Guess what? They sold. People will buy anything! It's fantastic.

If you want to start a little endeavor and need a little nest egg, do what we did. Sell stuff on your lawn and ask your friends for nominal sums. You can take advantage of the fact that Americans refuse to save money. Of course, this means we will all have to work through old age or end up in the poor house. But there will be so many of us there it will be quite social.

We're up to 6k. 4 more and we'll be in amazing shape. Maybe I should sell time shares to the guest house in the backyard...

Monday Night at The Movies: Water

Sometimes, when we're feeling all rebellious and wild, we go to the movies on a Monday night. I've been wanting to see WATER for a while now.

"Deepa Mehta's Water is a magnificent film. The ensemble acting of the women in the widows' hostel is exceptional: intimate, painful, wounded, jaundiced, corrupted, tender, tough. The fluid lyricism of the camera provides an unsettling contrast to the arid difficulties of the characters' lives. The film has serious, challenging things to say about the crushing of women by atrophied religious and social dogmas, but, to its great credit, it tells its story from inside its characters, rounding out the human drama of their lives, and unforgettably touching the heart."
- Salman Rushdie

It start's off very slow. I had a feeling it was going to be good. Basically, these women who are widows in India, because of financial reasons, get thrown into a widow's flop house where they are expected to live until they die. Based on some ancient Hindu tradition, a woman may not marry if she is widowed. And often, these women were married at the age of 7, so they could easily be pushed into living in this awful place for most of their lives. It was a devastating movie. It starts with a little girl being hauled off to live with these ancient, bitter widows, and a few sympathetic widows who help her out.

The story takes place in 1938. And Ghandi even makes an appearance. What is so interesting is how the women get small bits of information from the outside world, mostly through local gossip.

The filming is beautiful. The soundtrack is a delight. The story, by the end, is so powerful, you just kind of have to cry. It's summer. There's not so much to see out there. If you have this playing anywhere near you, check it out.

Rejection

Interestingly, my book has been rejected by a publisher and an agent and though, at times, I feel like throwing myself off a bridge would be the most appropriate response, I have decided to live, instead.

Why, I thought the vicissitudes of the publishing world would not apply to me is even beyond my basic artistic narcissism. Somehow, I thought I would not have to deal with the agony of rejection, rewriting, possible failure, etc. Ah.

So here I am. Human, with all the other people who are writing, hoping to get published. I have decided to make the rewriting and the continuation of submitting a positive experience as opposed to the affirmation that what I have to say is without value.

Here I go.

Despair is not an option. Okay, maybe a resting place, but not the ultimate destination.

Norbert: Welcome to Hollywood

Jeff, our very close friend who lives right down the street, picked his rescue cat at the Pasadena shelter and now Norbert has a new home on lovely Sycamore Avenue, right across the street from Petco and Ralphs. Should the cat food at Petco become tiresome, there are cans of tuna at Ralphs. Should the cans of tuna prove to be boring, then right across the street is salmon from Trader Joes.



Cats, as we all know, sleep a lot. Norbert is very sweet and when he isn't resting or sleeping off the sedative used to aid in removing his ear mites, he is extremely affectionate. Norbert is a mutt of a cat, and in the mix is Manx. Apparently, Manx cats are very friendly. Norbert, not being completely Manx, has a tail. This is good. It means he should not have spine problems later in life.



Nobert lets you rub his chest. A true sign of a dog-like cat. And of course, Norbert plays hard and then goes right back to sleep.



Welcome to the neighborhood, Norbert.

Orwellian Time Zones

This, I do not understand. When I travel to the East Coast from Los Angeles, I set my laptop computer and my pocket PC handheld three hours ahead. I leave the setting for both computers as Pacific Time, otherwise, appointments in the handheld get changed.

So, for a few days everything is fine. Then, somehow, either the computer or the handheld figures out that the Pacific Time is actually three hours earlier than what I have set. And the laptop adjusts itself to the real Pacific Time.

How in the world does it know? From emails that arrive? From the cell phone being attached to the laptop as a modem? From government spies sending signals into my computers, into my brain?

Whatever happened to being able to control the time on the devices that you own? Are those days over?

Also, isn’t it amazing that when you walk through security at the airport, the pocket PC is automatically switched to Flight Mode so that its wireless capability is disabled?

Who sets these things up? Where’s my papyrus? Where’s my stone tablet and chisel?

Liberty and Justice for All

Happy Independence from Independence Day. We had our first little dinner party in the apartment tonight with none other than the Chrissy (of Chrissy Caviar fame, Google) and her boyfriend, Dave. Both, Right Wing. Moderate. Not crazy. No more racist than I am. But, Dave IS in the Marines Reserves. And Chrissy, well, she’s Republican by birth.

From our fourth floor window, facing west, we could see the random fireworks over Manhattan and the even bigger (yet smaller appearing because of distance) fireworks over New Jersey. And eventually, listening to all that booming and since I do have the actor gene and I can play the moderate, I dove in!
The big questions to the Marine: Why didn’t we put enough people in Iraq to get it done? Answer: We did have enough, the Turks just didn’t let us use their country and so we couldn’t clean up the Northern Rebels.
Next: Why did they show us some stupid trucks and pretend they were filled with WMD?
Answer: The French and the Germans and the Chinese all agreed that they had WMD.
Next: Bush is so hated, and I admit, it’s mostly a gut reaction from people, they can’t stand looking at him. So, really, I think people are more against his style than his actions. He’s loathsome and plays so stupid. Don’t you think?
Answer: Clinton was a great speaker. After him, anyone would not look so good. Plus, half the country believes he stole the 2000 election so no matter what he does, they hate him.
Next: It’s quite a swing from LBJ’s Great Society to Neocons. It’s been hard to swallow. Don’t you think?
Answer: What is a Neocon? If Wolfowitz’s name was Smith, no one would call him a Neocon. He’s a genius. Saying that the government is controlled by Neocons, it’s the extension of the Jews controlling the media. Neocons are the new Jews.
Next: Well, I’m not Jewish, so, I didn’t go looking for the Jewish thing.
Answer: It’s there.

We did not get heated. In fact, I kind of respect the idea of the grand gesture, the Neocon bluster. Why not? It’s refreshing if not ridiculous. Go blow up a country, sure, why not? Have a great time. See where it ends up. End of empire, maybe?

We landed on a subject that we could definitely agree upon: the poor black folks and how are they ever going to change. And we both agreed that it had to come from within their own community.

Then, we packed up all the leftovers (If you are ever in Jackson Heights, order the chicken from Pio Pio. It’s Peruvian, it’s tasty, it’s cheap, it’s on the corner of 85th and Northern Blvd.) And Chrissy and Dave left the apartment with the food in a big bag, plus the bouquet of carnations Adam bought a couple of days ago.

It’s nice to stay home on Independence Day.