I have an idea
I need to write a book about what to do when you are waiting for your doctor’s appointment.
As things stand, it takes forever to get to see the doctor at a reduced price. You have to go to the certain place on the certain day when your certain doctor is actually there---
And even if we do move to a single payer plan, well, for sure, the Republicans will do everything they can to under fund such a thing to prove that it just doesn't work. Kind of like they did with the war (even though they actually wanted it to work). A cheap, sour people, these Republicans.
In either scenario, unless it is an emergency, one waits for the doctor.
So how about a book about what to do for yourself while you wait for days on end for your appointment? With chapter ideas like:
That Nasty Rash: A perfect reason for a three day soak in a bathtub of vinegar.
The Flu: Throw on the ice pack. Enjoy the hallucinations. By the time you get to the doctor, it’ll all be over.
Back Pain: Stop stressing and it’ll go away.
Abdominal Pain: It’s not your gallbladder but go ahead and do the olive oil/lemon juice cleanse anyway. It kills time.
Anxiety: Drink.
Overly Heavy Menstrual Flow: Sin and bear it. Rent Carrie.
Profound Migraine: You’ve all heard the wife’s tale about how to fix this one. Go for it.
Gash: Wrap it tight. Say goodnight.
Warts All Over: You’re probably a witch. Jump in a river and see if you sink or float. If you sink, you’ll drown. If you float, get out, dry off, have some eye of newt.
Generalized Doom: Walk a lot. Steal things.
Allergies: Change location. Steam. Wash your clothes and hair. Keep changing locations, steaming and washing. Eventually, you’ll end up in Iceland. It’s a better place.
Coated Tongue: Finally take your dentist’s advice and buy a tongue scraper. Scrape for three days. Rinse.
Numbness in the Extremities: Just a reaction to the Modern era. Rent old movies. Listen to Sixties, Seventies, even Eighties Pop.
Inexplicable Bad Breath: Throw away all your garlic, onions and socks (the latter is for fetishists only). No need for heavy salamis, either. Then, clean out the entire refrigerator followed by your whole filthy house. Suck on breath mints while working. Sugarfree.
Broken Toes: Think about what stupid thing you did that made this happen. Then think about all the other stupid things you do. Figure out why you do such stupid things. Is it for the attention? Are you just lazy? Or are you, actually, not so bright? Work on figuring out the answers.
So, perhaps there is a method to the madness of healthcare in this country. If it just takes too long to get an appointment, well, maybe you’ll just grin and bear it until the pain goes away and you'll cancel.
It wouldn’t make any sense to have a greater number of available doctors, now, would it? Because that would increase supply, so their fees would decrease. So we must keep the number of available doctors, like available barrels of oil, low.
In a single payer system, would it be better? Since the economic structure would change? So it would not be based on the lack of available physicians? Or am I just being naïve like a blind Canadian?
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
Monday, June 04, 2007
Advice to Writers
When listening to the feedback from critics, play developers and other interested parties:
Take their notes and eat them too.
Take their notes and eat them too.
Friday, June 01, 2007
Greed, Fear and Just Being Here
Isn’t it all just fear? This greed?
If this was truly a “Christian” nation—
Okay, scratch that---
If this was truly an evolved place, wouldn’t we just have it set up so people are safe
and their health care was in place?
The fear, the fear, the fear.
And the bullies, the bullies who use that fear to scramble and control most of the population. And people do it! Hey, nothing wrong with having an occupation. That’s lovely. But shouldn’t it be a little flexi? With all this technology on earth, couldn’t people work a little less, live a little more? Do what they want to do while still putting in their time, being responsible citizens? The truth is, the more people work, the more wealth there is. The more wealth, well, the more expensive things become. Hard to get ahead.
And then there’s all that fear...gluing people in.
I hear things like, “I want to do that but I never could. It’s too expensive.”
Or
“But what if something awful happens?”
Or
“I’m going to work real hard until I’m fifty-five, retire early, and then do what I want to do.”-- But honey, then you’ll be fifty-five.
Or
“I’m doing it for my children.”
Or
“I just hate those damn terrorists in Iraq and the Republicans are going to get rid of them for me, so I can sleep well at night.” ---The Republicans created them to scare you!
Fear, fear, more fear and fear some more.
Fear is a grabby gus. It grabs at you. It grabs at material goods. It just keeps grabbing and grabbing as it goes down kicking and screaming.
No more fear.
And the next time a quaking waif on a ski life wants me to acknowledge how sad and bad the world is and the bottomless goodness of Jesus Christ, I will. And then I’ll simply ask her, “Instead of loving Jesus so much, why don’t you just love me?” Or is that too scary?
If this was truly a “Christian” nation—
Okay, scratch that---
If this was truly an evolved place, wouldn’t we just have it set up so people are safe
and their health care was in place?
The fear, the fear, the fear.
And the bullies, the bullies who use that fear to scramble and control most of the population. And people do it! Hey, nothing wrong with having an occupation. That’s lovely. But shouldn’t it be a little flexi? With all this technology on earth, couldn’t people work a little less, live a little more? Do what they want to do while still putting in their time, being responsible citizens? The truth is, the more people work, the more wealth there is. The more wealth, well, the more expensive things become. Hard to get ahead.
And then there’s all that fear...gluing people in.
I hear things like, “I want to do that but I never could. It’s too expensive.”
Or
“But what if something awful happens?”
Or
“I’m going to work real hard until I’m fifty-five, retire early, and then do what I want to do.”-- But honey, then you’ll be fifty-five.
Or
“I’m doing it for my children.”
Or
“I just hate those damn terrorists in Iraq and the Republicans are going to get rid of them for me, so I can sleep well at night.” ---The Republicans created them to scare you!
Fear, fear, more fear and fear some more.
Fear is a grabby gus. It grabs at you. It grabs at material goods. It just keeps grabbing and grabbing as it goes down kicking and screaming.
No more fear.
And the next time a quaking waif on a ski life wants me to acknowledge how sad and bad the world is and the bottomless goodness of Jesus Christ, I will. And then I’ll simply ask her, “Instead of loving Jesus so much, why don’t you just love me?” Or is that too scary?
Thursday, May 31, 2007
John Lahr Tells it
KISS OF LIFE
Tennessee Williams on a romantic reawakening
BY JOHN LAHR
The New Yorker, May 28, 2007
On December 30, 1947, the thirty-six-year-old Tennessee Williams boarded a ship bound for France, sailing away from America and from the tumultuous success on Broadway, only a few weeks earlier, of “A Streetcar Named Desire.” Almost immediately, he hit creative still water, finding it “Frightfully hard to discover a new vein of material.” When, in late 1948, his play “Summer and Smoke” failed on Broadway, William’s confidence dipped still further; he felt, he said, like a “discredited old conjurer.” To his champion Brooks Atkinson, the drama critic of the Times, he wrote in June, 1949, “The trouble is that you can’t make any real philosophical progress in a couple of years. The scope of understanding enlarges quite slowly, if it enlarges at all, and the scope of interest seems to wait upon understanding...All artists who work from the inside out, have all the same problem: they cannot make sudden, arbitrary changes of matter and treatment until the inner man is ripe for it.”
Tennessee Williams on a romantic reawakening
BY JOHN LAHR
The New Yorker, May 28, 2007
On December 30, 1947, the thirty-six-year-old Tennessee Williams boarded a ship bound for France, sailing away from America and from the tumultuous success on Broadway, only a few weeks earlier, of “A Streetcar Named Desire.” Almost immediately, he hit creative still water, finding it “Frightfully hard to discover a new vein of material.” When, in late 1948, his play “Summer and Smoke” failed on Broadway, William’s confidence dipped still further; he felt, he said, like a “discredited old conjurer.” To his champion Brooks Atkinson, the drama critic of the Times, he wrote in June, 1949, “The trouble is that you can’t make any real philosophical progress in a couple of years. The scope of understanding enlarges quite slowly, if it enlarges at all, and the scope of interest seems to wait upon understanding...All artists who work from the inside out, have all the same problem: they cannot make sudden, arbitrary changes of matter and treatment until the inner man is ripe for it.”
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Cleaning Out
Memorial Day Weekend around here was not about barbecues or swimming. We cleaned out the garage.
It was such a great thing to do. In Los Angeles, you can take all your cans of old poison and electronics to the toxic waste station downtown...guys in gear take it out of your trunk and they sort it all and take care of it for you in an environmentally conscious fashion. Nice.
Then, of course, once you get to cleaning out the garage, you just want to clean out everything.
I got to looking around at my loose pieces of blog papers and here they are, thus, cleaning up my desk. To purge! To clean! To make way for the new and unusual!
Fourteen pieces of paper:
1) People used to be ignorant because they had too little information. Now they are ignorant because they have too much.
2) One cannot succeed in the United States in a whole way because the pressure is to be both rich and virtuous, simultaneously. This is impossible. It leads to neurotic see-saw behavior.
3) Republicans try to trick people into thinking how they think. They fool people into believing they can become wealthy.
4) People do not behave well because they are modeling bad behavior. At the end of the day, we are a monkey-see-monkey-do sort of species. People watch a lot of television. Actors on television are not quite human. They are distant and do not form real relationships in a show. Partly because it’s a show. Partly because television is fast. When working that fast, it’s hard to show natural human behavior. Because the actor is in a time crunch, stressful situation, the behavior is kind of pulled in and self centered. At least this calms the actors down. And people imitate this behavior. This hall of mirrors is making for some very strange behavior and relationships in the rank and file. I have always felt that the invention of the camera pretty much destroyed depth. Cameras do steal souls.
5) You can be nude in Brattleboro, Vermont whenever and wherever you feel like it. How civilized!
6) Hopefully, the rage instilled by bad parenting does not run out midway through an artistic career.
7) Modern civilization has always been a war between the sensualists and the ideologues.
8) Libertarianism sounds fun...until you imagine catching that bullet because you said, “Have a nice day,” to the wrong person.
9) Alpha males take care of much of the material world. Their payment is that they get to take as much of it as they want. And the lower humans in the pecking order allow it. Like chickens.
10) My drag queen name: Helena Hand Basket
11) My optimistic view of how this right/left conflict will end: Nature seeks peace, so liberals will win.
12) Less cars, better air. Let the jobless from Michigan come to Los Angeles to build the railways! Turn Michigan into a big nature preserve.
13) People do not naturally want others in their personal space so at dinner parties, we have to drug each other to get along.
14) At the end of the day, popularity does decide who lives and who dies.
It was such a great thing to do. In Los Angeles, you can take all your cans of old poison and electronics to the toxic waste station downtown...guys in gear take it out of your trunk and they sort it all and take care of it for you in an environmentally conscious fashion. Nice.
Then, of course, once you get to cleaning out the garage, you just want to clean out everything.
I got to looking around at my loose pieces of blog papers and here they are, thus, cleaning up my desk. To purge! To clean! To make way for the new and unusual!
Fourteen pieces of paper:
1) People used to be ignorant because they had too little information. Now they are ignorant because they have too much.
2) One cannot succeed in the United States in a whole way because the pressure is to be both rich and virtuous, simultaneously. This is impossible. It leads to neurotic see-saw behavior.
3) Republicans try to trick people into thinking how they think. They fool people into believing they can become wealthy.
4) People do not behave well because they are modeling bad behavior. At the end of the day, we are a monkey-see-monkey-do sort of species. People watch a lot of television. Actors on television are not quite human. They are distant and do not form real relationships in a show. Partly because it’s a show. Partly because television is fast. When working that fast, it’s hard to show natural human behavior. Because the actor is in a time crunch, stressful situation, the behavior is kind of pulled in and self centered. At least this calms the actors down. And people imitate this behavior. This hall of mirrors is making for some very strange behavior and relationships in the rank and file. I have always felt that the invention of the camera pretty much destroyed depth. Cameras do steal souls.
5) You can be nude in Brattleboro, Vermont whenever and wherever you feel like it. How civilized!
6) Hopefully, the rage instilled by bad parenting does not run out midway through an artistic career.
7) Modern civilization has always been a war between the sensualists and the ideologues.
8) Libertarianism sounds fun...until you imagine catching that bullet because you said, “Have a nice day,” to the wrong person.
9) Alpha males take care of much of the material world. Their payment is that they get to take as much of it as they want. And the lower humans in the pecking order allow it. Like chickens.
10) My drag queen name: Helena Hand Basket
11) My optimistic view of how this right/left conflict will end: Nature seeks peace, so liberals will win.
12) Less cars, better air. Let the jobless from Michigan come to Los Angeles to build the railways! Turn Michigan into a big nature preserve.
13) People do not naturally want others in their personal space so at dinner parties, we have to drug each other to get along.
14) At the end of the day, popularity does decide who lives and who dies.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
ONCE
I didn’t know anything about it, really. We saw ONCE.
I suggest you stop reading this blog entry right now. Come back and read the rest tomorrow after you see this movie tonight.
****************************************
Okay, have you seen the movie yet?
My experience and thoughts:
Cried through most of it. Okay, I’m half Irish....and there’s the sentiment. But the best kind of sentiment.
And it’s a musical.
A pop one. Kind of light U2. Kind of Cat Stevens. Really good music, if you like the soft modal thing building into the high, searching mourning thing. Suspended chords. Aching stuff. The lead actor, Glen Hansard, is the main guy in the Irish band The Frames. He’s pretty amazing with his acting, singing and hair. And the Czech girl, Marketa Irglova. Also, amazing. She’s so young.
ONCE was made for four cents (okay, $150,000. But in movie terms, that’s like four cents). The story is completely simple but surprising, nevertheless. The acting is spot on perfect. Directing and Shots---spot on, too.
Come on. Really. Go see it if you jumped the asterisks and read this blog entry before seeing the movie. Lyrical. Loving. And the best part is, well, how it all goes...I don’t want to oversell it. I went in knowing nothing. So go in knowing nothing and just enjoy yourself.
I wish I suffered from polydactyl disease so I could give this movie three thumbs up.
I suggest you stop reading this blog entry right now. Come back and read the rest tomorrow after you see this movie tonight.
****************************************
Okay, have you seen the movie yet?
My experience and thoughts:
Cried through most of it. Okay, I’m half Irish....and there’s the sentiment. But the best kind of sentiment.
And it’s a musical.
A pop one. Kind of light U2. Kind of Cat Stevens. Really good music, if you like the soft modal thing building into the high, searching mourning thing. Suspended chords. Aching stuff. The lead actor, Glen Hansard, is the main guy in the Irish band The Frames. He’s pretty amazing with his acting, singing and hair. And the Czech girl, Marketa Irglova. Also, amazing. She’s so young.
ONCE was made for four cents (okay, $150,000. But in movie terms, that’s like four cents). The story is completely simple but surprising, nevertheless. The acting is spot on perfect. Directing and Shots---spot on, too.
Come on. Really. Go see it if you jumped the asterisks and read this blog entry before seeing the movie. Lyrical. Loving. And the best part is, well, how it all goes...I don’t want to oversell it. I went in knowing nothing. So go in knowing nothing and just enjoy yourself.
I wish I suffered from polydactyl disease so I could give this movie three thumbs up.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
My Mutt
I got sucked into MMI Genomics.
For $79, you swab the inside of your dog's cheek and you send it in and you recieve a certificate of your dog's breed.
Louise, which I always assumed was a Maltese/Yorkie is definitely part Yorkshire Terrier. But even more than that, she is a Chihuahua. And Whippet. Whippet! MMI Genomics cannot test for Maltese, so I still guess she is part Maltese. Her face is just like a Maltese and so is her fur. Though I am not surprised about Chihuahua. She was an LA stray, after all. When we first got her and she was all mangy, she looked very much like a Chihuahua. I thought, "I have the ugliest little inner city dog, ever!"
But then her fur grew in with the obvious markings of a Yorkie and the ears and coat of a Maltese. I figured she was a mix. If she had been at least 50% one breed, that would have showed up as a primary category. But she isn't that. Louise is, get ready, a mutt.
A brown, black, silver and white mutt made of Chihuahua, Whippet, Yorksire Terrier and probably Maltese. I love her so much.
For $79, you swab the inside of your dog's cheek and you send it in and you recieve a certificate of your dog's breed.
Louise, which I always assumed was a Maltese/Yorkie is definitely part Yorkshire Terrier. But even more than that, she is a Chihuahua. And Whippet. Whippet! MMI Genomics cannot test for Maltese, so I still guess she is part Maltese. Her face is just like a Maltese and so is her fur. Though I am not surprised about Chihuahua. She was an LA stray, after all. When we first got her and she was all mangy, she looked very much like a Chihuahua. I thought, "I have the ugliest little inner city dog, ever!"
But then her fur grew in with the obvious markings of a Yorkie and the ears and coat of a Maltese. I figured she was a mix. If she had been at least 50% one breed, that would have showed up as a primary category. But she isn't that. Louise is, get ready, a mutt.
A brown, black, silver and white mutt made of Chihuahua, Whippet, Yorksire Terrier and probably Maltese. I love her so much.
Oy! The Virgins!
So there I was at the gym, doing the elliptical. Trying to keep down the tonnage...
And who’s up on the screen? Justin Timberlake. Some video. I have no idea which one. They all look the same to me. But then, I’m not a teenager who can distinguish the subtle differences between throbbing pop offerings.
But there it was, the video, in all its unoriginality. Justin, singing at a mike in some kind of bar, with his homies backing him up (obsequiously, naturally) and there, in the room, dozens of dancing women for him to choose from.
He chooses some. He dances with one in particular. But clearly, it’s all about him having the choice of many.
Is this fantasy any different than the Muslim one of forty virgins at death?
Seems to me, at the fundamental biological level, that men have a fantasy of having a load of women at their disposal. Is it distasteful? To some, sure. Is it wrong? No. It just is. Men are like that. If they weren’t like that, the species would not continue.
So, no need to put down the Islamic men who are waiting for their virgins in heaven. It’s not much different than the video fantasy that was in my face at the gym. It’s just that we’re a material culture so we actually make our fantasies come true, or at least play at them in front of the camera and sell it on television.
The longer I watch human beings collide, the more it seems to me that most behavior is just plain biological. It gets expressed differently in different cultures, but the root is the same.
In fact, the most ludicrous acts or the strangest customs, when deconstructed, end up about as prosaic as someone trying to pick someone up at the grocery store for sex. Or for food. Or for both.
And who’s up on the screen? Justin Timberlake. Some video. I have no idea which one. They all look the same to me. But then, I’m not a teenager who can distinguish the subtle differences between throbbing pop offerings.
But there it was, the video, in all its unoriginality. Justin, singing at a mike in some kind of bar, with his homies backing him up (obsequiously, naturally) and there, in the room, dozens of dancing women for him to choose from.
He chooses some. He dances with one in particular. But clearly, it’s all about him having the choice of many.
Is this fantasy any different than the Muslim one of forty virgins at death?
Seems to me, at the fundamental biological level, that men have a fantasy of having a load of women at their disposal. Is it distasteful? To some, sure. Is it wrong? No. It just is. Men are like that. If they weren’t like that, the species would not continue.
So, no need to put down the Islamic men who are waiting for their virgins in heaven. It’s not much different than the video fantasy that was in my face at the gym. It’s just that we’re a material culture so we actually make our fantasies come true, or at least play at them in front of the camera and sell it on television.
The longer I watch human beings collide, the more it seems to me that most behavior is just plain biological. It gets expressed differently in different cultures, but the root is the same.
In fact, the most ludicrous acts or the strangest customs, when deconstructed, end up about as prosaic as someone trying to pick someone up at the grocery store for sex. Or for food. Or for both.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Puritans
Tying health insurance to employers?
All that says is, “Work or Die.”
The United States of America is a work camp.
All that says is, “Work or Die.”
The United States of America is a work camp.
Monday, May 21, 2007
The Play's the Thing
The problem with plays that involve audience participation is the audience. A few meek men with small appeal become emboldened by their new found vocal power in public and they dominate the evening with their clever ravings. They do not take into consideration that they’ve had their turn. As the night wears on, their outbursts become increasingly more stupid at grand frequencies. The annoying honking deafens sensible theatre goers. The ignorant and greasy self appointed court jesters bleat their poor suggestions and odd non sequiturs to such great distraction, that one wishes for a bomb scare. These men lack wit. They darken the evening. They sadden the future.
By the end of the night, one does not remember the show. One only remembers the howling of the weirdos.
So, I promise myself, “Never Again!” And I start my life anew.
By the end of the night, one does not remember the show. One only remembers the howling of the weirdos.
So, I promise myself, “Never Again!” And I start my life anew.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Ultimately Failed
Regarding the Pope’s recent visit to Brazil and his admonishing the listeners for their pleasure-filled way of life, I came to realize Christianity is a failed philosophy-game.
Like Marxism, which did not take into account the ambition and initiative of the individual, Christianity, as preached, does not take into account the sensuality or the creative thinking of the human being.
If Christianity was truly success oriented, it would have had an inclusive policy. It did bend enough to enfold a couple of pagan things like Easter eggs and Christmas trees, but not enough. It turned a blind eye to most individual creativity. It continues to strive to convince and thus continues warring. It fails to conquer.
I believe being unsuccessful is choosing to be in eternal conflict. Relationships or careers that are unsuccessful have the sting of endless combativeness. Christianity has this same thrust.
Buddhism seems to encompass a wider scope of the human experience, but it does not take into account aggression. At least the Western sales force of Buddhism has not presented any kind of aggression as part of the package. Without facing aggression, Buddhism can only fail.
Judaism, one cannot say anything about it, unless one is to be accused of anti-Semitism, so I must leave the Jews alone to circumcision and the boiling of chickens. They are still bruised from their horrendous treatment during the twentieth century. Let them heal, deal, reinvent the wheel.
I do not know enough about the Hindu or Islamic faiths to make any sweeping remarks. But they just don’t feel that winning to me.
If someone wants to win this philosophy/faith contest, they are going to have to come up with a bigger tent, a grander scheme, a material acceptance and an acknowledgment of individual creativity and power. The only way to end all this conflict is to decide to win, absolutely. And the only way to win is to actually have something that works. It can be worldwide. It might be something very simple. Like salt. No one fights any longer over salt. See its ubiquity and how calmness surrounds it? The war about salt is over.
Like Marxism, which did not take into account the ambition and initiative of the individual, Christianity, as preached, does not take into account the sensuality or the creative thinking of the human being.
If Christianity was truly success oriented, it would have had an inclusive policy. It did bend enough to enfold a couple of pagan things like Easter eggs and Christmas trees, but not enough. It turned a blind eye to most individual creativity. It continues to strive to convince and thus continues warring. It fails to conquer.
I believe being unsuccessful is choosing to be in eternal conflict. Relationships or careers that are unsuccessful have the sting of endless combativeness. Christianity has this same thrust.
Buddhism seems to encompass a wider scope of the human experience, but it does not take into account aggression. At least the Western sales force of Buddhism has not presented any kind of aggression as part of the package. Without facing aggression, Buddhism can only fail.
Judaism, one cannot say anything about it, unless one is to be accused of anti-Semitism, so I must leave the Jews alone to circumcision and the boiling of chickens. They are still bruised from their horrendous treatment during the twentieth century. Let them heal, deal, reinvent the wheel.
I do not know enough about the Hindu or Islamic faiths to make any sweeping remarks. But they just don’t feel that winning to me.
If someone wants to win this philosophy/faith contest, they are going to have to come up with a bigger tent, a grander scheme, a material acceptance and an acknowledgment of individual creativity and power. The only way to end all this conflict is to decide to win, absolutely. And the only way to win is to actually have something that works. It can be worldwide. It might be something very simple. Like salt. No one fights any longer over salt. See its ubiquity and how calmness surrounds it? The war about salt is over.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Ralph Ellison
All novels are about certain minorities: the individual is a minority.
-1955 Paris Review interview
-1955 Paris Review interview
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Cabaret
Okay.
I think cabaret shows are where it’s at. First of all, you can drink. Secondly, you can write patter that is rated X and no one minds...and they may even laugh. Thirdly, everyone gets to drink, did I say that? And of course, the last thing is, you get to hear all these people sing.
The cool think about singing is people really do have unique voices. Of course, I’m a sound and language person more than a visual person...so I might be biased. But there’s something about how a person sounds that really appeals to me. Even if it’s in a low ceiling bar in Silverlake on a Monday night. Even if the bar is packed to capacity. Even if the bar smells like ass.
We raised 1700 bucks. It was worth it. And we all got to sing.
Fabulous.
I think cabaret shows are where it’s at. First of all, you can drink. Secondly, you can write patter that is rated X and no one minds...and they may even laugh. Thirdly, everyone gets to drink, did I say that? And of course, the last thing is, you get to hear all these people sing.
The cool think about singing is people really do have unique voices. Of course, I’m a sound and language person more than a visual person...so I might be biased. But there’s something about how a person sounds that really appeals to me. Even if it’s in a low ceiling bar in Silverlake on a Monday night. Even if the bar is packed to capacity. Even if the bar smells like ass.
We raised 1700 bucks. It was worth it. And we all got to sing.
Fabulous.
Monday, May 14, 2007
Medieval Germany
This building is from the Fourteen-hundreds? Yes. Except now it operates as a hotel. Where we stayed. Witches nearby. In the Hartz Mountains. I strongly recommend Goslar.
Nurnberg
Hitler's podium. Freaky. Wrong. Decaying. Oddly, the Germans like to rollerblad in this area. Simply, it's because there is so much asphalt. A practical people.
Rothenburg
Come on! This place is so middle ages charming, you could put your chatty wife in a bronze shame mask, complete with long, ugly metal tongue.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
MONDAY NIGHT BALL
Monday night. May 14. in Silverlake. 8PM. 2538 Hyperion Avenue
HOW SILVERLAKE WAS WON! A jukebox musical about, well, how Silverlake was settled. Written by me and others.
Sung by twenty people.
Hosted by a huge drag queen.
A fundraiser for West Coast Ensemble.
HOW SILVERLAKE WAS WON! A jukebox musical about, well, how Silverlake was settled. Written by me and others.
Sung by twenty people.
Hosted by a huge drag queen.
A fundraiser for West Coast Ensemble.
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Deutschland, Deutschland, Uber Alles
Off to Germany for two weeks.
Hamburg
Erfurt
Munich
Bavaria
Please do return May 10 !
Sincerely
Don.
With pretzels and beer.
Hamburg
Erfurt
Munich
Bavaria
Please do return May 10 !
Sincerely
Don.
With pretzels and beer.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
DELIVER US UNITER!
When is someone going to show up to be the Uniter?
Like Jesus, without all the donkeys?
If someone would just declare themselves "The Uniter"
Maybe all this violent bullshit would stop.
The Uniter has a very difficult job to do, but do it (s)he must.
The goal? To get four major religions together, plus the atheists---and call it a day.
What an amazing pan-community the earth will be! Living in harmony!
The Five groups (tribes), in combination, will make a grand post-post modern civilization. Joy will rule the land, sea and air. All important aspects of human endeavor and psychology will be taken care of.
The Uniter will ensure the new paradigm of the new world order by uniting these five groups, for good.
THE UNITER’S FIVE GROUP COMPOSITION:
The Atheists will bring the material clarity.
The Jews will bring the intellectual inquiry.
The Christians will bring the brotherly love.
The Buddhists will bring the peace of mind.
The Muslims will bring the hummus.
It is going to beautiful. Why, I’d even go to war for it, kill anyone who won’t join!
Like Jesus, without all the donkeys?
If someone would just declare themselves "The Uniter"
Maybe all this violent bullshit would stop.
The Uniter has a very difficult job to do, but do it (s)he must.
The goal? To get four major religions together, plus the atheists---and call it a day.
What an amazing pan-community the earth will be! Living in harmony!
The Five groups (tribes), in combination, will make a grand post-post modern civilization. Joy will rule the land, sea and air. All important aspects of human endeavor and psychology will be taken care of.
The Uniter will ensure the new paradigm of the new world order by uniting these five groups, for good.
THE UNITER’S FIVE GROUP COMPOSITION:
The Atheists will bring the material clarity.
The Jews will bring the intellectual inquiry.
The Christians will bring the brotherly love.
The Buddhists will bring the peace of mind.
The Muslims will bring the hummus.
It is going to beautiful. Why, I’d even go to war for it, kill anyone who won’t join!
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Darwin's Curse
Natural Selection: Among civilized nations, the United States possesses the citizenry that believes in it the least, yet experiences it the most.
Friday, April 20, 2007
Gratitude
I would like to take this blog entry to thank Kennedy, Alito, Roberts, Scalia and Thomas for handing the next presidential election to the Democratic Party.
To trump the health rights of a full grown woman with that of a non-conscious (unwanted) fetus smaller than the size of a gerbil baby— this is an outrage.
Even though second trimester abortions are rare and cumbersome, a woman’s body is her body. Period. It is evident that this decision was made simply because of the reshuffling of Supreme Court personalities. It’s pure politics. And women will fight back.
Personally, if I was a pregnant and I was stressed, poor and carrying a fetus with quite inconvenient DNA—I’d rip out that burden faster than you can say, “If Men got pregnant, all abortions would be legal through kindergarten.”
How on earth can the state take charge of a woman’s right to choose? Are you mad?
How dare you?
And
Thank you.
The pendulum swings back. Always. It’s Physics. It’s going to be lovely.
To trump the health rights of a full grown woman with that of a non-conscious (unwanted) fetus smaller than the size of a gerbil baby— this is an outrage.
Even though second trimester abortions are rare and cumbersome, a woman’s body is her body. Period. It is evident that this decision was made simply because of the reshuffling of Supreme Court personalities. It’s pure politics. And women will fight back.
Personally, if I was a pregnant and I was stressed, poor and carrying a fetus with quite inconvenient DNA—I’d rip out that burden faster than you can say, “If Men got pregnant, all abortions would be legal through kindergarten.”
How on earth can the state take charge of a woman’s right to choose? Are you mad?
How dare you?
And
Thank you.
The pendulum swings back. Always. It’s Physics. It’s going to be lovely.
Thursday, April 19, 2007
The Future is GRAND!
I remain optimistic.
Even though human beings will become extinct, I still think carbon based life forms are pretty cool miracles. I think silicone based life forms would be cool, too...but carbon is easier to work with. Human primates being the lead species is just a lot of monkey business. Smart sponges might be cool. If you take a sponge and put it in a blender, its three layers of cells: endo, meso, ecto, will reform into a proper sponge. Not the same shape as the original, but the endo, meso and ecto will migrate to the right layer of the newly formed organism. Some kind of colony, that sponge is. Let one huge sponge take over.
Even though Georgie Bush the Second is an enormous, psychopathic, idiot bully, I am so happy that I am younger than he is and one day I will get to read the headline, “FORMER PRESIDENT GEORGE BUSH WAS KILLED TODAY BY A PACK OF WILD JACKALS. EVEN HIS HELL DIDN’T WANT HIM.”
A man who hijacks a country, uses it for war profiteering and then smirks and kills people while doing it, well, I am so happy that I have such a great chance of outliving this beast.
Violence, Greed and adherence to fairy tale religion are some of the characteristics natural to Republicans. It is hilarious to watch them get into enormous binds because of these character traits that they name Strength, Industriousness and Faith. To see the mask peel away, to watch strength become violence, to watch industriousness turn into rapacious greed and to see perfectly good brains turn to mush from drinking all that God Kool-Aid...it’s such a show. Though it’s tragic, it’s also kind of funny. And a good laugh is a good laugh. One that should keep us entertained for a while.
As the coyotes fill my neighborhood and the winds blow from the high desert—which never happens after January—and we suffer the driest year on record while New York City receives its heaviest rain storm in three decades---well, you just have to smile and feel warm and cozy, knowing that Mother Earth will take care of herself to get back into balance. I love my Momma.
And though it is a tragedy that a bunch of kids were killed in Virginia---and I am in no way being glib here---you just have to wonder when Americans are going to give up their precious guns. That is going to be such a lovely day.
Just lovely.
Even though human beings will become extinct, I still think carbon based life forms are pretty cool miracles. I think silicone based life forms would be cool, too...but carbon is easier to work with. Human primates being the lead species is just a lot of monkey business. Smart sponges might be cool. If you take a sponge and put it in a blender, its three layers of cells: endo, meso, ecto, will reform into a proper sponge. Not the same shape as the original, but the endo, meso and ecto will migrate to the right layer of the newly formed organism. Some kind of colony, that sponge is. Let one huge sponge take over.
Even though Georgie Bush the Second is an enormous, psychopathic, idiot bully, I am so happy that I am younger than he is and one day I will get to read the headline, “FORMER PRESIDENT GEORGE BUSH WAS KILLED TODAY BY A PACK OF WILD JACKALS. EVEN HIS HELL DIDN’T WANT HIM.”
A man who hijacks a country, uses it for war profiteering and then smirks and kills people while doing it, well, I am so happy that I have such a great chance of outliving this beast.
Violence, Greed and adherence to fairy tale religion are some of the characteristics natural to Republicans. It is hilarious to watch them get into enormous binds because of these character traits that they name Strength, Industriousness and Faith. To see the mask peel away, to watch strength become violence, to watch industriousness turn into rapacious greed and to see perfectly good brains turn to mush from drinking all that God Kool-Aid...it’s such a show. Though it’s tragic, it’s also kind of funny. And a good laugh is a good laugh. One that should keep us entertained for a while.
As the coyotes fill my neighborhood and the winds blow from the high desert—which never happens after January—and we suffer the driest year on record while New York City receives its heaviest rain storm in three decades---well, you just have to smile and feel warm and cozy, knowing that Mother Earth will take care of herself to get back into balance. I love my Momma.
And though it is a tragedy that a bunch of kids were killed in Virginia---and I am in no way being glib here---you just have to wonder when Americans are going to give up their precious guns. That is going to be such a lovely day.
Just lovely.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
April 18, 1974
We had a substitute. Man is she mean! Her last name is Mare, people call her nightmare, I call her a horror movie. I was holding a kid’s 30 cents and I lost it, so I owe him 20 cents cause I gave him 10 cents today. This girl Sonia likes me. I fooled around a lot with Wendeye and some little kids and Greg and John. Well Goodnight
I vaguely remember the bad sub. She was nasty. I wrote cents in the entry as a c with a line through it. I miss that. It used to be above one of the numbers on the typewriter. Sonia--if it's the only Sonia I remember from my hometown, her mother killed her father and then killed herself when we were seniors in high school. Wendy lived on the top floor of our two family house. Greg is my brother. John was our neighbor. This was Sixth grade.
I vaguely remember the bad sub. She was nasty. I wrote cents in the entry as a c with a line through it. I miss that. It used to be above one of the numbers on the typewriter. Sonia--if it's the only Sonia I remember from my hometown, her mother killed her father and then killed herself when we were seniors in high school. Wendy lived on the top floor of our two family house. Greg is my brother. John was our neighbor. This was Sixth grade.
Hungry Critters Looking for Snacks
While walking my dog tonight, I saw a cat quickly scamper up a driveway across the street. Nothing unusual. But I had an odd feeling it was something bigger than a cat. Then, it scampered back down, with another four legged beast.
It was two coyotes.
I’ve heard that we’ve had coyotes on our street. The paper has also mentioned that my neighborhood has become a bit of a coyote playground. It has to do with there being no water, less food, up in the hills. As the natural rainfall diminishes, the amount of edible life diminishes. The coyotes (they are DOGS after all) come down into the neighborhood to scavenge for trash, pussy cats, maybe Louise!
I picked up my pooch. The coyotes were not afraid of me. I clapped my hands for them to go away. They moved a bit. They behaved as if they were very comfortable on my street. I decided to cut the walk short. I didn’t want to have to face two coyotes springing on my pooch. Funny, they kept enough distance to stay away from big ol’ me and they did not even look at Louise, it seemed. But coyotes, like foxes, can be sly. And I wasn’t taking any chances.
Louise and I arrived home, safely. She finished her business in the back yard.
One day, we all may be like these Mansfield coyotes. Wandering around, looking for food. They did not seem unhappy, the coyotes. In fact, these wild beasts loping along the street, appeared very in synch with the world. Not tamed. So pleasing to watch wild things surviving. It might be interesting if we all become untamed, with a lope that is a part of nature’s workings.
Perhaps the job of conservative administrations is to try to return the human animal back to foraging and hunting for existence. They might just love the hunt. Or to be hunted. I’d hunt them.
It was two coyotes.
I’ve heard that we’ve had coyotes on our street. The paper has also mentioned that my neighborhood has become a bit of a coyote playground. It has to do with there being no water, less food, up in the hills. As the natural rainfall diminishes, the amount of edible life diminishes. The coyotes (they are DOGS after all) come down into the neighborhood to scavenge for trash, pussy cats, maybe Louise!
I picked up my pooch. The coyotes were not afraid of me. I clapped my hands for them to go away. They moved a bit. They behaved as if they were very comfortable on my street. I decided to cut the walk short. I didn’t want to have to face two coyotes springing on my pooch. Funny, they kept enough distance to stay away from big ol’ me and they did not even look at Louise, it seemed. But coyotes, like foxes, can be sly. And I wasn’t taking any chances.
Louise and I arrived home, safely. She finished her business in the back yard.
One day, we all may be like these Mansfield coyotes. Wandering around, looking for food. They did not seem unhappy, the coyotes. In fact, these wild beasts loping along the street, appeared very in synch with the world. Not tamed. So pleasing to watch wild things surviving. It might be interesting if we all become untamed, with a lope that is a part of nature’s workings.
Perhaps the job of conservative administrations is to try to return the human animal back to foraging and hunting for existence. They might just love the hunt. Or to be hunted. I’d hunt them.
Monday, April 16, 2007
And Furthermore...
Since we are animals with advanced abstract thinking, does it not seem plausible that the afterlife is nothing more than the will to live and the survival instinct rolled into an abstract construction?
Friday, April 13, 2007
Good and Green and a Warning
One thing you GOTTA go to:
This site:
Vertical Farm
It’s all about the planet, man! Keep it local. Clean the air. Reforest the planet.
One thing you need to AVOID:
The Movie HOAX. Boo. Though the acting is very good, the movie is tedious.
This site:
Vertical Farm
It’s all about the planet, man! Keep it local. Clean the air. Reforest the planet.
One thing you need to AVOID:
The Movie HOAX. Boo. Though the acting is very good, the movie is tedious.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
BananaObamaRama
Two very important things.
Bananas. Basically, guys, we have to stop eating all this food that gets shipped all over the frigging planet. Economies need diversification anyway! So, geneticists, this is where you come in. Make a frigging banana that’ll grow in California. Just do it.
And then, once those are perfected, make a frigging banana that’ll grow in Maine. You can do it. How hard can it be? People just need a nice tasting fruit that peels, loaded with potassium. Come on! You made that ridiculous round seedless watermelon. And apparently, corn is nothing like the original species. Get to it! Food’s gotta go local.
World’s gotta change.
I think Obama is going to be Hilary’s Vice. They’re being quite cordial with each other. I think they know it’s coming down. And if they are a team, I cannot imagine them losing. Of course, I could be completely wrong.
Bananas. Basically, guys, we have to stop eating all this food that gets shipped all over the frigging planet. Economies need diversification anyway! So, geneticists, this is where you come in. Make a frigging banana that’ll grow in California. Just do it.
And then, once those are perfected, make a frigging banana that’ll grow in Maine. You can do it. How hard can it be? People just need a nice tasting fruit that peels, loaded with potassium. Come on! You made that ridiculous round seedless watermelon. And apparently, corn is nothing like the original species. Get to it! Food’s gotta go local.
World’s gotta change.
I think Obama is going to be Hilary’s Vice. They’re being quite cordial with each other. I think they know it’s coming down. And if they are a team, I cannot imagine them losing. Of course, I could be completely wrong.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Grindhouse
No matter what you think, no matter what your resistance, no matter how clever and high brow you think you are. Get over it.
And Go See Grindhouse.
Sure, it’s a few hours at the theatre. Double Feature. Like in the old days. Chill your ass out and go to the movies. Make sure there are people there. You want to see this with screaming teenagers.
The first flick is all zombies and machine guns. The second one—Fucking car killing mayhem. And the bitches are so fucking strong---it makes you want to fucking kill someone with your bare fucking hands.
Go see Grindhouse. Don’t resist it. It’s hideous. It’s an homage. Complete with fake previews of awful crappy movies and an ugly restaurant commercial. The two directors are two of the greatest movie guys alive. It’s worth every minute of your bloody life. Gore. Filth. Survival. Evil. More gore. Death. Destruction. Hot, hard fucking bitches.
GRINDHOUSE
And Go See Grindhouse.
Sure, it’s a few hours at the theatre. Double Feature. Like in the old days. Chill your ass out and go to the movies. Make sure there are people there. You want to see this with screaming teenagers.
The first flick is all zombies and machine guns. The second one—Fucking car killing mayhem. And the bitches are so fucking strong---it makes you want to fucking kill someone with your bare fucking hands.
Go see Grindhouse. Don’t resist it. It’s hideous. It’s an homage. Complete with fake previews of awful crappy movies and an ugly restaurant commercial. The two directors are two of the greatest movie guys alive. It’s worth every minute of your bloody life. Gore. Filth. Survival. Evil. More gore. Death. Destruction. Hot, hard fucking bitches.
GRINDHOUSE
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
A BLOG IS BORN!
My best friend since the beginning of time (okay, since the Seventies) now has a blog. Enjoy it. The first post is a great sneak of the eary goodness. Beautiful and what else would you say? Tell me.
Birds and Art
Birds and Art
Monday, April 09, 2007
WELCOME TO THE WORLD!
August Ulysses Kaufman was born Easter afternoon. The proud parents, Leslie and Daniel, endured sixteen hours of labor. Okay, Leslie endured sixteen hours of labor while Dan took care of everything else.
August came into the world of air breathers at 8lbs 7oz (that's a plump bird) and 21 1/2 inches long. Dang beast is big enough for kindergarten!
I don't know how the women of today do it with these big babies. Don't you think pregnant mommas should go back to Martinis and Marlboros? Shrink these body snatchers a bit?
Congratulations! A big bouncing healthy baby! A citizen of Eagle Rock! A white child with rich grandparents! Enjoy the ride, kid.
August came into the world of air breathers at 8lbs 7oz (that's a plump bird) and 21 1/2 inches long. Dang beast is big enough for kindergarten!
I don't know how the women of today do it with these big babies. Don't you think pregnant mommas should go back to Martinis and Marlboros? Shrink these body snatchers a bit?
Congratulations! A big bouncing healthy baby! A citizen of Eagle Rock! A white child with rich grandparents! Enjoy the ride, kid.
Friday, April 06, 2007
Belly Up
Today, I arrived at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center at 9AM for a slicing.
At 11AM, I was brought into the pre-op, quickly attached to a saline bag. (I actually like the drip. I think it’s the only time my body ends up with the proper electrolytes. That weird, endless LA headache seems to go away.)
The surgery was supposed to be at 11. It didn’t happen until 12:30.
So I had a lot of time to listen. I was lying across from the coffee station in that pre-op room of a thousand movable curtains. I heard a woman getting ready for a second knee surgery to reduce the pain, “But,” the doctor said, “the clicking might still be there.” Another girl, next to me, very young, was getting ready for something or other. She told the nurse that she drinks heavily, socially, only had Tylenol III yesterday and Nighttime Tylenol last night to get to sleep and that she has Gilbert’s disease (turns yellow with jaundice when she’s sick or stressed, just like her father) and in general, sounded a bit silly. Across from me, I could hear the conversation of another patient...getting ready for an abortion. It must have been a bit late in the term and the young woman sounded sad about having this procedure. She talked about seeing a thread that she thought was the umbilical cord in some picture. The doctor told her that there was no cord yet, that it was just the yolk sac. There was mention of a stoma in the cervix through which the procedure would take place, that it was going to be quick. Was this pregnancy entopic? Unwanted? Good baby gone bad? Who knows!
But how weird to listen to all of this. And, how glad am I that I cannot conceive. So much to think about!
I was there for a very simple operation. I had this umbilical hernia. Basically, if one has any hernia at all, one is born with it. It’s, as they say, congenital. It’s just a matter of time before something protrudes. In my case, that happened very young, though I didn’t know it. I basically had a normal inny with a teeny outy in there. That outy wasn’t supposed to be. Who knew? Then, about six years ago, it all started getting quite ugly. And it hurt. And the doctors kept saying, “Just wait. It’s not an emergency.” Eventually, it kept pinging and even turned a bit purple. I made an appointment. The doctor said I should go for it.
Soon after I planned on making a date for the surgery, our electrician who was doing our kitchen, the estimable John Bennett, had to cancel an appointment with us because he had to have emergency surgery because part of his small intestines had protruded through his umbilical hernia, strangulating its blood supply and killing the section. This is apparently very painful and quite deadly if untreated and one of the possible hazards of having an untreated umbilical hernia. They have to go in and cut out that part of the strangled hose.
That did not sound like something I ever wanted to have to face.
So, all the more reason to go under the knife for the simple job of pushing in a little blob of what-not, and sewing up the crevice in the lining.
Done.
I woke up nicely from surgery. Why, I don’t know. But it’s one of my skills. And the day was spent traveling the Vicodin Highway. A very pleasant road trip, indeed.
Boy, am I going to look hot in my bikini this year.
At 11AM, I was brought into the pre-op, quickly attached to a saline bag. (I actually like the drip. I think it’s the only time my body ends up with the proper electrolytes. That weird, endless LA headache seems to go away.)
The surgery was supposed to be at 11. It didn’t happen until 12:30.
So I had a lot of time to listen. I was lying across from the coffee station in that pre-op room of a thousand movable curtains. I heard a woman getting ready for a second knee surgery to reduce the pain, “But,” the doctor said, “the clicking might still be there.” Another girl, next to me, very young, was getting ready for something or other. She told the nurse that she drinks heavily, socially, only had Tylenol III yesterday and Nighttime Tylenol last night to get to sleep and that she has Gilbert’s disease (turns yellow with jaundice when she’s sick or stressed, just like her father) and in general, sounded a bit silly. Across from me, I could hear the conversation of another patient...getting ready for an abortion. It must have been a bit late in the term and the young woman sounded sad about having this procedure. She talked about seeing a thread that she thought was the umbilical cord in some picture. The doctor told her that there was no cord yet, that it was just the yolk sac. There was mention of a stoma in the cervix through which the procedure would take place, that it was going to be quick. Was this pregnancy entopic? Unwanted? Good baby gone bad? Who knows!
But how weird to listen to all of this. And, how glad am I that I cannot conceive. So much to think about!
I was there for a very simple operation. I had this umbilical hernia. Basically, if one has any hernia at all, one is born with it. It’s, as they say, congenital. It’s just a matter of time before something protrudes. In my case, that happened very young, though I didn’t know it. I basically had a normal inny with a teeny outy in there. That outy wasn’t supposed to be. Who knew? Then, about six years ago, it all started getting quite ugly. And it hurt. And the doctors kept saying, “Just wait. It’s not an emergency.” Eventually, it kept pinging and even turned a bit purple. I made an appointment. The doctor said I should go for it.
Soon after I planned on making a date for the surgery, our electrician who was doing our kitchen, the estimable John Bennett, had to cancel an appointment with us because he had to have emergency surgery because part of his small intestines had protruded through his umbilical hernia, strangulating its blood supply and killing the section. This is apparently very painful and quite deadly if untreated and one of the possible hazards of having an untreated umbilical hernia. They have to go in and cut out that part of the strangled hose.
That did not sound like something I ever wanted to have to face.
So, all the more reason to go under the knife for the simple job of pushing in a little blob of what-not, and sewing up the crevice in the lining.
Done.
I woke up nicely from surgery. Why, I don’t know. But it’s one of my skills. And the day was spent traveling the Vicodin Highway. A very pleasant road trip, indeed.
Boy, am I going to look hot in my bikini this year.
Thursday, April 05, 2007
Slice Me Up, Gunther
This morning, at 11 AM, I go under the knife.
What a fun expression. I love strong words with a Germanic base. (Norse, even.)
Knife. Knife. Slice. Knife.
The word says it all.
Knife me. Cut into the flesh. Clean entrance. Knife. Knife.
The doctor puts a KNIFE in the belly.
Such a sharp, clean word. It sounds more like the sound of what it does to flesh than what it would do to a rock or a tree. A knife can clang on a rock. Clang is a great word.
Knife. Strong. Gets the job done. The sharper, the more precise.
I can’t wait to meet my knife.
What a fun expression. I love strong words with a Germanic base. (Norse, even.)
Knife. Knife. Slice. Knife.
The word says it all.
Knife me. Cut into the flesh. Clean entrance. Knife. Knife.
The doctor puts a KNIFE in the belly.
Such a sharp, clean word. It sounds more like the sound of what it does to flesh than what it would do to a rock or a tree. A knife can clang on a rock. Clang is a great word.
Knife. Strong. Gets the job done. The sharper, the more precise.
I can’t wait to meet my knife.
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Free to Be O.C.D.
THE BAD O.C.D.:
I’m so glad I do not need medication for my O.C.D tendencies.
But the question remains: Why do I like the Container Store so much? After finishing our kitchen, we had to buy some shelving to place next to the stacked washer and dryer inside the laundry cupboard that was built with twelve extra inches all along the vertical side for the purpose of detergent and cleaning supplies to rest on neat shelves. We jumped on the ELFA bandwagon. It’s just the coated white bars shelving stuff...but it goes in extremely easily. You just screw in the top cross bar and everything else hangs from it. Fun. Problem solved. And it just feels Swedish and right. In addition, we purchased a little bit of shelf liner for just a couple of shelves (oily things) and a silverware tray. Golden. It all works well.
But in addition, some O.C.D. mania set in. We bought a container or a holder-of-a-something for almost everything else we own. An ironing board and iron holder, a plastic bag dispenser, a sponge holder, all sorts of clips and hooks, a slidey thing for the cleanser basket under the sink, lid holders and spice risers, another big hangy hook, extra collapsible laundry baskets. You name it.
We’re returning all of it. I was not the only guilty party in acquiring all this landfill. A nice O.C.D. guy named Wally helped us to pluck all these crazy things off the shelves even before he designed our very practical ELFA system. Adam, my Recognized-by-the-State-of-California-Domestic-Partner, was just as nuts as I was before we got to the ELFA meat of the matter of our journey, filling up our cart. When we returned home, most of the holders either didn’t fit or were unnecessary or just plain old took up more room than the thing it was supposed to hold. What a load of plastic! It’s so nice that stores these days will take back almost anything. That stuffed gopher. Sure.
Never shop when you’re hungry.
Never go to the Container Store, ever. It just makes you want to box up everything.
And now for THE GOOD O.C.D.:
I had one of those recurring annoying error messages every time I turned off my computer. What could be wrong????
I looked up ccsvchost.exe online (the crux of the error message) and it became clear to me that I had a registry problem. You see---as the years go by and you delete programs from your computer, the registry (the place in the system that makes a list of everything and points things where they need to be pointed, or something) ends up being loaded with all sorts of dead, useless entries. Sometimes, the system reads these as errors. And, having all this old stuff there clogging up the works, slows the machine down. So, what you need is, get ready, A REGISTRY CLEANER! For $29.95, you can buy one and download it and clean your clock. After reading the reviews on CNET.com (my nerdy Bible), I purchased the most highly recommended one, Max Registry Cleaner. It really is wonderful. I did a scan of my registry and it found 1800 items that needed killin’. So I killed them. Then, I scanned my startup menu and got rid of the nonessential items there, making startup faster.
My computer is humming like bird. Though, Max Registry Cleaner now has a little piece in the Startup...which slows the startup down a bit.
As I often say about Norton: The anti-virus IS the virus.
Keep it clean, babies. And at the end of the day for all your productivity, guess what you’ll have? Order and Cleanliness and Dearth of anything else.
And isn’t that what it’s all about?
I’m so glad I do not need medication for my O.C.D tendencies.
But the question remains: Why do I like the Container Store so much? After finishing our kitchen, we had to buy some shelving to place next to the stacked washer and dryer inside the laundry cupboard that was built with twelve extra inches all along the vertical side for the purpose of detergent and cleaning supplies to rest on neat shelves. We jumped on the ELFA bandwagon. It’s just the coated white bars shelving stuff...but it goes in extremely easily. You just screw in the top cross bar and everything else hangs from it. Fun. Problem solved. And it just feels Swedish and right. In addition, we purchased a little bit of shelf liner for just a couple of shelves (oily things) and a silverware tray. Golden. It all works well.
But in addition, some O.C.D. mania set in. We bought a container or a holder-of-a-something for almost everything else we own. An ironing board and iron holder, a plastic bag dispenser, a sponge holder, all sorts of clips and hooks, a slidey thing for the cleanser basket under the sink, lid holders and spice risers, another big hangy hook, extra collapsible laundry baskets. You name it.
We’re returning all of it. I was not the only guilty party in acquiring all this landfill. A nice O.C.D. guy named Wally helped us to pluck all these crazy things off the shelves even before he designed our very practical ELFA system. Adam, my Recognized-by-the-State-of-California-Domestic-Partner, was just as nuts as I was before we got to the ELFA meat of the matter of our journey, filling up our cart. When we returned home, most of the holders either didn’t fit or were unnecessary or just plain old took up more room than the thing it was supposed to hold. What a load of plastic! It’s so nice that stores these days will take back almost anything. That stuffed gopher. Sure.
Never shop when you’re hungry.
Never go to the Container Store, ever. It just makes you want to box up everything.
And now for THE GOOD O.C.D.:
I had one of those recurring annoying error messages every time I turned off my computer. What could be wrong????
I looked up ccsvchost.exe online (the crux of the error message) and it became clear to me that I had a registry problem. You see---as the years go by and you delete programs from your computer, the registry (the place in the system that makes a list of everything and points things where they need to be pointed, or something) ends up being loaded with all sorts of dead, useless entries. Sometimes, the system reads these as errors. And, having all this old stuff there clogging up the works, slows the machine down. So, what you need is, get ready, A REGISTRY CLEANER! For $29.95, you can buy one and download it and clean your clock. After reading the reviews on CNET.com (my nerdy Bible), I purchased the most highly recommended one, Max Registry Cleaner. It really is wonderful. I did a scan of my registry and it found 1800 items that needed killin’. So I killed them. Then, I scanned my startup menu and got rid of the nonessential items there, making startup faster.
My computer is humming like bird. Though, Max Registry Cleaner now has a little piece in the Startup...which slows the startup down a bit.
As I often say about Norton: The anti-virus IS the virus.
Keep it clean, babies. And at the end of the day for all your productivity, guess what you’ll have? Order and Cleanliness and Dearth of anything else.
And isn’t that what it’s all about?
C02: Look Which Way the WIND is BLOWING
How wonderful, yet ludicrous.
It takes the SUPREME COURT to get the EPA to do their JOB?
The big conflict over what is reality is so saddening. That our chief justice does not even believe there is causality between greater C02 concentrations and global warming is a tragedy. Blinded by the denial about what is happening to our planet, like so many other conservatives, our chief justice QUESTIONS the SCIENCE???
Okay, I’m being a sore winner here. But the win was very close and very infuriating. About half this country is wrong on everything. Thank goodness the about-half is now under 50% as opposed to the six years of being just a hair over 50%. There is much to rejoice. But many men clinging together in a bullying denial is a scary, awful situation.
After the war is over and alternative fuels are developed and gay people can marry sans probleme, what then will the wrong 50% find to despise and destroy?
My guess: Transsexuals and National Parks.
It takes the SUPREME COURT to get the EPA to do their JOB?
The big conflict over what is reality is so saddening. That our chief justice does not even believe there is causality between greater C02 concentrations and global warming is a tragedy. Blinded by the denial about what is happening to our planet, like so many other conservatives, our chief justice QUESTIONS the SCIENCE???
Okay, I’m being a sore winner here. But the win was very close and very infuriating. About half this country is wrong on everything. Thank goodness the about-half is now under 50% as opposed to the six years of being just a hair over 50%. There is much to rejoice. But many men clinging together in a bullying denial is a scary, awful situation.
After the war is over and alternative fuels are developed and gay people can marry sans probleme, what then will the wrong 50% find to despise and destroy?
My guess: Transsexuals and National Parks.
Monday, April 02, 2007
The Hills They Are a-Burnin'
What if the Hollywood Sign had burned down? Would a new sign be built to take its place?
I doubt it.
And we would have been left with no discernible landmarks. The palm tree postcards do not represent any specific place.
The Jetson’s LAX former air traffic control tower would have been really silly as the only remaining iconic structure in this Pacific Gothem. Besides, it’s a frigging airport building.
How about something more personal—perhaps the silicone boob? Too many to be unique.
The divorced blond pushing fifty on Rodeo drive? Why bother! That’s like putting a rat on a flag to celebrate the New York subway.
We have almost nothing. No Eiffel Tower. No Empire State Building. Not even a silly Arch denoting the “Gateway to the West.”
If the Hollywood Sign had burned down, we would have become as indiscernible as our neighbors to the East. Another Monrovia or San Dimas.
Without the Hollywood Sign, Los Angeles would appear only as what it is: a cement town of car washes and 99 cent stores of pure, unplanned function. I do somehow like how unapologetic the place is with its splashing exhaust and slapdash bungalows. It is a poetic city. The civic bone of beauty is so bare. Clarity arrives when there is not much in the way to obfuscate one’s vision. But one does like to hang one’s hat on SOMETHING. The edge of the Y in Holly?
I am glad the sign did not burn. The editorials would have been exhausting. The replacement--maybe something hideously overdone.
I once hiked up to the Hollywood Sign. The letters are very big.
I doubt it.
And we would have been left with no discernible landmarks. The palm tree postcards do not represent any specific place.
The Jetson’s LAX former air traffic control tower would have been really silly as the only remaining iconic structure in this Pacific Gothem. Besides, it’s a frigging airport building.
How about something more personal—perhaps the silicone boob? Too many to be unique.
The divorced blond pushing fifty on Rodeo drive? Why bother! That’s like putting a rat on a flag to celebrate the New York subway.
We have almost nothing. No Eiffel Tower. No Empire State Building. Not even a silly Arch denoting the “Gateway to the West.”
If the Hollywood Sign had burned down, we would have become as indiscernible as our neighbors to the East. Another Monrovia or San Dimas.
Without the Hollywood Sign, Los Angeles would appear only as what it is: a cement town of car washes and 99 cent stores of pure, unplanned function. I do somehow like how unapologetic the place is with its splashing exhaust and slapdash bungalows. It is a poetic city. The civic bone of beauty is so bare. Clarity arrives when there is not much in the way to obfuscate one’s vision. But one does like to hang one’s hat on SOMETHING. The edge of the Y in Holly?
I am glad the sign did not burn. The editorials would have been exhausting. The replacement--maybe something hideously overdone.
I once hiked up to the Hollywood Sign. The letters are very big.
Friday, March 30, 2007
Racism in Mammals
I really love dogs from Yorkshire the best.
I was walking Louise tonight and I was thinking, “I have absolutely nothing to blog about. I’m exhausted. It was a long night of poker---$61 win—and this week has been hellish with my little production accounting jobs that are all in the throes of fiscal year end. How dull. Little dull me. Dull. Tired. Chop wood, carry water.:
And then I looked down.
I love my dog. I just love her. I know everyone really loves their dogs. Like everyone thinks their two month old baby is super special. But being aware of these things does not make any of it less true.
My little girl dog is so sweet and cute and affectionate. But because she’s a terrier, she’s quite brazen and sturdy. She is a combination that I can relate to. Could it be because I am basically Irish and Italian---easily wounded yet tough as granite?
Whatever it is, she’s the dog for me.
So though it may have appeared that I had nothing to blog, the deal is---I’m all about love, man, love for my pooch. My gorgeous Yorkshire Terrier from some corner of the world that bred the very perfect dog for me.
Lastly. I don’t want to hear loud Rap music any longer. It’s just, I don’t like drums. I never have. Being a soft hits of the seventies kind of guy, I feel isolated in a world of pounding S.U.V.’s I miss Karen Carpenter. And there is nothing I can do about these feelings but accept my little white old-man pussy-boy taste. I try to be more accepting of music that I don’t like. I can’t do it.
I’m going to bed, right now, to be with my sweet dog. Sweet sweet amazing girl that was born for love. For me to love. Born to kill rats and then lovingly nuzzle up to me with her proud rat breath. It takes all kinds.
I was walking Louise tonight and I was thinking, “I have absolutely nothing to blog about. I’m exhausted. It was a long night of poker---$61 win—and this week has been hellish with my little production accounting jobs that are all in the throes of fiscal year end. How dull. Little dull me. Dull. Tired. Chop wood, carry water.:
And then I looked down.
I love my dog. I just love her. I know everyone really loves their dogs. Like everyone thinks their two month old baby is super special. But being aware of these things does not make any of it less true.
My little girl dog is so sweet and cute and affectionate. But because she’s a terrier, she’s quite brazen and sturdy. She is a combination that I can relate to. Could it be because I am basically Irish and Italian---easily wounded yet tough as granite?
Whatever it is, she’s the dog for me.
So though it may have appeared that I had nothing to blog, the deal is---I’m all about love, man, love for my pooch. My gorgeous Yorkshire Terrier from some corner of the world that bred the very perfect dog for me.
Lastly. I don’t want to hear loud Rap music any longer. It’s just, I don’t like drums. I never have. Being a soft hits of the seventies kind of guy, I feel isolated in a world of pounding S.U.V.’s I miss Karen Carpenter. And there is nothing I can do about these feelings but accept my little white old-man pussy-boy taste. I try to be more accepting of music that I don’t like. I can’t do it.
I’m going to bed, right now, to be with my sweet dog. Sweet sweet amazing girl that was born for love. For me to love. Born to kill rats and then lovingly nuzzle up to me with her proud rat breath. It takes all kinds.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Minimal Misery
I don’t want “ultimate happiness”.
I just want minimal misery.
I am naturally happy. Now, just keep the misery out of my life.
I just want minimal misery.
I am naturally happy. Now, just keep the misery out of my life.
More Reason to Love Paris...
Paris Embraces Plan to Become City of Bikes
By John Ward Anderson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, March 24, 2007; A10
PARIS, March 23 -- Paris is for lovers -- lovers of food and art and wine, lovers of the romantic sort and, starting this summer, lovers of bicycles.
On July 15, the day after Bastille Day, Parisians will wake up to discover thousands of low-cost rental bikes at hundreds of high-tech bicycle stations scattered throughout the city, an ambitious program to cut traffic, reduce pollution, improve parking and enhance the city's image as a greener, quieter, more relaxed place.
By the end of the year, organizers and city officials say, there should be 20,600 bikes at 1,450 stations -- or about one station every 250 yards across the entire city. Based on experience elsewhere -- particularly in Lyon, France’s third-largest city, which launched a similar system two years ago -- regular users of the bikes will ride them almost for free.
"It has completely transformed the landscape of Lyon -- everywhere you see people on the bikes," said Jean-Louis Touraine, the city's deputy mayor. The program was meant "not just to modify the equilibrium between the modes of transportation and reduce air pollution, but also to modify the image of the city and to have a city where humans occupy a larger space."
The Socialist mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delano?, has the same aim, said his aide, Jean-Luc Dumesnil: "We think it could change Paris's image -- make it quieter, less polluted, with a nicer atmosphere, a better way of life."
But there is a practical side, too, Dumesnil said. A recent study analyzed different trips in the city "with a car, bike, taxi and walking, and the bikes were always the fastest."
The Lyon rental bikes, with their distinctive silver frame, red rear-wheel guard, handlebar basket and bell, can also be among the cheapest ways to travel, because the first half-hour is free, and most trips are shorter than that.
"It's faster than the bus or metro, it's good exercise, and it's almost free," said Vianney Paquet, 19, who is studying law in Lyon. Paquet said that he uses the rental bikes four or five times a day and pays 10 euros (about $13) a year, half for an annual membership fee and half for rental credit that he never actually spends because his rides typically last just a few minutes.
Anthonin Darbon, director of Cyclocity, which operates Lyon's program and won the contract to start up and run the one in Paris, said 95 percent of the roughly 20,000 daily bike rentals in Lyon are free because of their length.
Cyclocity is a subsidiary of outdoor advertising behemoth JCDecaux, which runs much smaller bike businesses in Brussels, Vienna and the Spanish cities of Cordoba and Girona. London, Dublin, Sydney and Melbourne reportedly are considering similar rental programs.
The Cyclocity concept evolved from utopian "bike-sharing" ideas that were tried in Europe in the 1960s and '70s, usually modeled on Amsterdam's famous "white bicycle" plan, in which idealistic hippies repaired scores of bicycles, painted them white, and left them on the streets for anyone to use for free. But in the end, the bikes were stolen and became too beat-up to ride. A number of U.S. cities, including Portland, Ore., have also experimented with community-use bicycle programs.
JCDecaux experimented with designs and developed a sturdier, less vandal-prone bike, along with a rental system to discourage theft: Each rider must leave a credit card or refundable deposit of about $195, along with personal information. In Lyon, about 10 percent of the bikes are stolen each year, but many are later recovered, Darbon said.
And to encourage people to return bikes quickly, rental rates rise the longer the bikes are out. In Paris, for instance, renting a bike will be free for the first 30 minutes, $1.30 for the next 30 minutes, $2.60 for the third half-hour, and $5.20 for the fourth half-hour of use and every 30 minutes after that. That makes the cost of a two-hour rental about $9.10.
Membership fees in Paris will be steeper than in Lyon, from $1.30 for one day to about $38 for a year.
The Paris deal will bring the world's biggest bicycle fleet to the City of Light in a complex, 10-year public-private partnership.
JCDecaux will provide all of the bikes (at a cost of about $1,300 apiece) and build the pickup/drop-off stations. Each will have 15 to 40 high-tech racks connected to a centralized computer that can monitor each bike's condition and location. Customers can buy a prepaid card or use a credit card at a computerized console to release a bike.
The company will pay start-up costs of about $115 million and employ the equivalent of about 285 people full time to operate the system and repair the bikes for 10 years. All revenue from the program will go to the city, and the company will also pay Paris a fee of about $4.3 million a year.
In exchange, Paris is giving the company exclusive control over 1,628 city-owned billboards, including the revenue from them, for the same period. About half the billboard space will be given back to the city at no cost for public-interest advertising.
Based on statistics from Lyon, company officials estimate that each bicycle in Paris will be used on average 12 times a day, for a total of about 250,000 trips a day, or 91 million trips a year.
In Lyon, according to deputy mayor Touraine, the city's 3,000 rental bikes have logged about 10 million miles since the program started in May 2005, saving an estimated 3,000 tons of carbon dioxide from being spewed into the air. Overall, vehicle traffic in the city is down 4 percent, he said, and bicycle use has tripled, not just on account of Cyclocity, but also because the program has prompted a boom in private bicycle use and sales.
The main complaint voiced by riders is that at certain times in certain places -- such as mornings at local universities -- all the racks can be occupied, making it impossible to return a bike. "I'm going to start using my own bike, because sometimes there are not enough spaces in the rack" at school, said art student Cecile Noiser, 19.
Company and city officials said that because the system sends in electronic data about which bikes are where, they are exploring ways to redistribute bikes using trucks to better match customers' needs. Touraine said the glitches are minor compared with the benefits.
By John Ward Anderson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, March 24, 2007; A10
PARIS, March 23 -- Paris is for lovers -- lovers of food and art and wine, lovers of the romantic sort and, starting this summer, lovers of bicycles.
On July 15, the day after Bastille Day, Parisians will wake up to discover thousands of low-cost rental bikes at hundreds of high-tech bicycle stations scattered throughout the city, an ambitious program to cut traffic, reduce pollution, improve parking and enhance the city's image as a greener, quieter, more relaxed place.
By the end of the year, organizers and city officials say, there should be 20,600 bikes at 1,450 stations -- or about one station every 250 yards across the entire city. Based on experience elsewhere -- particularly in Lyon, France’s third-largest city, which launched a similar system two years ago -- regular users of the bikes will ride them almost for free.
"It has completely transformed the landscape of Lyon -- everywhere you see people on the bikes," said Jean-Louis Touraine, the city's deputy mayor. The program was meant "not just to modify the equilibrium between the modes of transportation and reduce air pollution, but also to modify the image of the city and to have a city where humans occupy a larger space."
The Socialist mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delano?, has the same aim, said his aide, Jean-Luc Dumesnil: "We think it could change Paris's image -- make it quieter, less polluted, with a nicer atmosphere, a better way of life."
But there is a practical side, too, Dumesnil said. A recent study analyzed different trips in the city "with a car, bike, taxi and walking, and the bikes were always the fastest."
The Lyon rental bikes, with their distinctive silver frame, red rear-wheel guard, handlebar basket and bell, can also be among the cheapest ways to travel, because the first half-hour is free, and most trips are shorter than that.
"It's faster than the bus or metro, it's good exercise, and it's almost free," said Vianney Paquet, 19, who is studying law in Lyon. Paquet said that he uses the rental bikes four or five times a day and pays 10 euros (about $13) a year, half for an annual membership fee and half for rental credit that he never actually spends because his rides typically last just a few minutes.
Anthonin Darbon, director of Cyclocity, which operates Lyon's program and won the contract to start up and run the one in Paris, said 95 percent of the roughly 20,000 daily bike rentals in Lyon are free because of their length.
Cyclocity is a subsidiary of outdoor advertising behemoth JCDecaux, which runs much smaller bike businesses in Brussels, Vienna and the Spanish cities of Cordoba and Girona. London, Dublin, Sydney and Melbourne reportedly are considering similar rental programs.
The Cyclocity concept evolved from utopian "bike-sharing" ideas that were tried in Europe in the 1960s and '70s, usually modeled on Amsterdam's famous "white bicycle" plan, in which idealistic hippies repaired scores of bicycles, painted them white, and left them on the streets for anyone to use for free. But in the end, the bikes were stolen and became too beat-up to ride. A number of U.S. cities, including Portland, Ore., have also experimented with community-use bicycle programs.
JCDecaux experimented with designs and developed a sturdier, less vandal-prone bike, along with a rental system to discourage theft: Each rider must leave a credit card or refundable deposit of about $195, along with personal information. In Lyon, about 10 percent of the bikes are stolen each year, but many are later recovered, Darbon said.
And to encourage people to return bikes quickly, rental rates rise the longer the bikes are out. In Paris, for instance, renting a bike will be free for the first 30 minutes, $1.30 for the next 30 minutes, $2.60 for the third half-hour, and $5.20 for the fourth half-hour of use and every 30 minutes after that. That makes the cost of a two-hour rental about $9.10.
Membership fees in Paris will be steeper than in Lyon, from $1.30 for one day to about $38 for a year.
The Paris deal will bring the world's biggest bicycle fleet to the City of Light in a complex, 10-year public-private partnership.
JCDecaux will provide all of the bikes (at a cost of about $1,300 apiece) and build the pickup/drop-off stations. Each will have 15 to 40 high-tech racks connected to a centralized computer that can monitor each bike's condition and location. Customers can buy a prepaid card or use a credit card at a computerized console to release a bike.
The company will pay start-up costs of about $115 million and employ the equivalent of about 285 people full time to operate the system and repair the bikes for 10 years. All revenue from the program will go to the city, and the company will also pay Paris a fee of about $4.3 million a year.
In exchange, Paris is giving the company exclusive control over 1,628 city-owned billboards, including the revenue from them, for the same period. About half the billboard space will be given back to the city at no cost for public-interest advertising.
Based on statistics from Lyon, company officials estimate that each bicycle in Paris will be used on average 12 times a day, for a total of about 250,000 trips a day, or 91 million trips a year.
In Lyon, according to deputy mayor Touraine, the city's 3,000 rental bikes have logged about 10 million miles since the program started in May 2005, saving an estimated 3,000 tons of carbon dioxide from being spewed into the air. Overall, vehicle traffic in the city is down 4 percent, he said, and bicycle use has tripled, not just on account of Cyclocity, but also because the program has prompted a boom in private bicycle use and sales.
The main complaint voiced by riders is that at certain times in certain places -- such as mornings at local universities -- all the racks can be occupied, making it impossible to return a bike. "I'm going to start using my own bike, because sometimes there are not enough spaces in the rack" at school, said art student Cecile Noiser, 19.
Company and city officials said that because the system sends in electronic data about which bikes are where, they are exploring ways to redistribute bikes using trucks to better match customers' needs. Touraine said the glitches are minor compared with the benefits.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Just in from LAX
I just got home from a couple of flights....Quick here.
The good news, unrelated:
1) Ms. Coulter seems to be falling in esteem, in general.
2) Though I am feeling chubby, there’s still hope.
The good news, unrelated:
1) Ms. Coulter seems to be falling in esteem, in general.
2) Though I am feeling chubby, there’s still hope.
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Brown Vs. Board of Fagunation
It’s like being an African American in 1954!
Today, while Adam, my Recognized-by-the-State-of-California-Domestic-Partner, and I were walking down the road in my parent’s very clean, lovely, lakey subdivision about seven miles west of Palm Beach in Florida, some horrible kid teen screamed out of his window, “FUCKING FAGGOTS!”
It was quite jarring. And I thought, “He must be referring to Adam and those two pretty mallards getting it on over there.”
I’ve been living a peaceful life lately. But really, guys, isn’t it high time that I carry a gun? Or maybe start a rap group that sings, “Kill Straighty and leave him in the gutter, boom, chucka, boom-boom.”?
You know---the only good new is things are so nasty when it comes to the Homos that it means something huge is going on. Of course, we won’t riot. But we must stand up. It’s time. Something big. Can you imagine some kid leaning out his window these days, screaming, “ LAZY NIGGER!” or “GREEDY HEBE!” ?
People out there---you must rise up and help us. We gay folk are less than ten percent of the population. The fundamentalists and the orthodox won’t have us. The homophobes of all stripes won’t have us. Black preachers won’t have us. The military won’t let us be known. But we need some help here. Loud help. Women? Can you jump in here? Midgets with a chip on their shoulder, lend a little hand? Club kids, put some clothes on and march on Washington?
Okay, it was just one little aggressive incident. But can you imagine how many of these gay people have endured in a lifetime? Five-hundred direct attacking remarks in forty years? That would be a low estimate. Twenty-thousand off-the-cuff "harmless" insulting remarks in entertainment and light social situations over the same span? Try five times that much.
Enough.
Time to kick some ass.
Today, while Adam, my Recognized-by-the-State-of-California-Domestic-Partner, and I were walking down the road in my parent’s very clean, lovely, lakey subdivision about seven miles west of Palm Beach in Florida, some horrible kid teen screamed out of his window, “FUCKING FAGGOTS!”
It was quite jarring. And I thought, “He must be referring to Adam and those two pretty mallards getting it on over there.”
I’ve been living a peaceful life lately. But really, guys, isn’t it high time that I carry a gun? Or maybe start a rap group that sings, “Kill Straighty and leave him in the gutter, boom, chucka, boom-boom.”?
You know---the only good new is things are so nasty when it comes to the Homos that it means something huge is going on. Of course, we won’t riot. But we must stand up. It’s time. Something big. Can you imagine some kid leaning out his window these days, screaming, “ LAZY NIGGER!” or “GREEDY HEBE!” ?
People out there---you must rise up and help us. We gay folk are less than ten percent of the population. The fundamentalists and the orthodox won’t have us. The homophobes of all stripes won’t have us. Black preachers won’t have us. The military won’t let us be known. But we need some help here. Loud help. Women? Can you jump in here? Midgets with a chip on their shoulder, lend a little hand? Club kids, put some clothes on and march on Washington?
Okay, it was just one little aggressive incident. But can you imagine how many of these gay people have endured in a lifetime? Five-hundred direct attacking remarks in forty years? That would be a low estimate. Twenty-thousand off-the-cuff "harmless" insulting remarks in entertainment and light social situations over the same span? Try five times that much.
Enough.
Time to kick some ass.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Author Friends
My friends are getting published left and right! It’s great.
Noel Alumit’s book, Talking to the Moon, was number four on the paperback fiction in the LA Times this Sunday! Talking to the Moon is about a Filipino man who is gunned down by a racist hate monger while working as a postman. It’s tragic, yet somehow affirming. His family is around him. The book travels back and forth in time and shows the stark reality of trusting immigrants coming from a naïve culture who land in this rough and tumble America. There’s a bit of a gay thing going on, too, which is always appreciated. Each character has a very unique spiritual bent. The gunned down man is a pagan. His wife is a devout Catholic. Their gay son is basically non-religious. Seemingly at odds, the family comes to the same point in their own way, reaching across time, death and despair.
Talking to the Moon
My old friend from New York, Karen Rizzo, has written a book that is formatted in a very unique way. Things To Bring, S#!T To Do is a memoir, plain and simple. However, it is presented in lists. Karen always made lots of lists and she kept them. And from these shards of must-do’s and memory, she has created a really entertaining, breezy and thoughtful book. Huge things happen to her. She leaves New York City, a place she thought she could never leave. She gets married, has children, deals with the death of both her parents and gets on with it. And she’s funny. She writes as if her book is meant for her best friends. It’s warm. The unique format enhances the ride. She’s survives in a way that is both funny and graceful. She’s an unsung human hero. Great style here.
Things To Bring, S#!t To Do
Noel Alumit’s book, Talking to the Moon, was number four on the paperback fiction in the LA Times this Sunday! Talking to the Moon is about a Filipino man who is gunned down by a racist hate monger while working as a postman. It’s tragic, yet somehow affirming. His family is around him. The book travels back and forth in time and shows the stark reality of trusting immigrants coming from a naïve culture who land in this rough and tumble America. There’s a bit of a gay thing going on, too, which is always appreciated. Each character has a very unique spiritual bent. The gunned down man is a pagan. His wife is a devout Catholic. Their gay son is basically non-religious. Seemingly at odds, the family comes to the same point in their own way, reaching across time, death and despair.
Talking to the Moon
My old friend from New York, Karen Rizzo, has written a book that is formatted in a very unique way. Things To Bring, S#!T To Do is a memoir, plain and simple. However, it is presented in lists. Karen always made lots of lists and she kept them. And from these shards of must-do’s and memory, she has created a really entertaining, breezy and thoughtful book. Huge things happen to her. She leaves New York City, a place she thought she could never leave. She gets married, has children, deals with the death of both her parents and gets on with it. And she’s funny. She writes as if her book is meant for her best friends. It’s warm. The unique format enhances the ride. She’s survives in a way that is both funny and graceful. She’s an unsung human hero. Great style here.
Things To Bring, S#!t To Do
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
While I Was Busy
After lifting my head up after ten weeks of a kitchen remodel, I see that the war is still on?
When are they going to stop this war? At this point, it’s like some crazy person you know who insists on continuing their pursuit of the perfectly tasty and digestible wool meatball.
At some point, it becomes all about stubborn pride, no?
After ten weeks of scraping and painting, I see that this country still hates the homos.
Coulter, that self-loathing drag queen with her fag remark, and that wretched Peter Pace, with his fear and ignorance, calling gay men immoral? I put down my paint brush for this?
After seventy-four days of sweeping, vacuuming and hauling off waste, I finally get my nails clean and take a movie break, and I have to sit through a militaristic propaganda film?
300 was so stupid and so obviously a “stay the course” war propaganda film. It sports a gayish villain and the hero dies at the end in a martyred crucifixion pose. How obvious is this crap? I don’t care how naked these guys are, running around protecting Sparta, the whole thing wreaks of simplistic, moronic thinking—playing to the blood thirsty single- neuroned heads of, well, children, I guess. Children and their trog parents!—because the movie is rated R.
All finished, I look at my kitchen and I can’t believe that we get to live in it.
But sadly, I can’t believe the world the kitchen is in.
When are they going to stop this war? At this point, it’s like some crazy person you know who insists on continuing their pursuit of the perfectly tasty and digestible wool meatball.
At some point, it becomes all about stubborn pride, no?
After ten weeks of scraping and painting, I see that this country still hates the homos.
Coulter, that self-loathing drag queen with her fag remark, and that wretched Peter Pace, with his fear and ignorance, calling gay men immoral? I put down my paint brush for this?
After seventy-four days of sweeping, vacuuming and hauling off waste, I finally get my nails clean and take a movie break, and I have to sit through a militaristic propaganda film?
300 was so stupid and so obviously a “stay the course” war propaganda film. It sports a gayish villain and the hero dies at the end in a martyred crucifixion pose. How obvious is this crap? I don’t care how naked these guys are, running around protecting Sparta, the whole thing wreaks of simplistic, moronic thinking—playing to the blood thirsty single- neuroned heads of, well, children, I guess. Children and their trog parents!—because the movie is rated R.
All finished, I look at my kitchen and I can’t believe that we get to live in it.
But sadly, I can’t believe the world the kitchen is in.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Kitchen Renovation
The Kitchen Renovation is complete. January 6-March 19, 2007.
It was dirty and very inconvenient.
And now---it’s a showroom.
It’s so new! We went full-on bungalow style.
Standing in the middle of it, you just can’t get over how sparkly the new appliances are. And everything works so well. But it was truly a slog.
There are more difficult struggles in life, of course. However, I would place renovating a kitchen as a once-in-a-lifetime-is-enough kind of thing.
Scroll down. Enjoy. Click on a pic to make it larger. Come over for dinner.
It was dirty and very inconvenient.
And now---it’s a showroom.
It’s so new! We went full-on bungalow style.
Standing in the middle of it, you just can’t get over how sparkly the new appliances are. And everything works so well. But it was truly a slog.
There are more difficult struggles in life, of course. However, I would place renovating a kitchen as a once-in-a-lifetime-is-enough kind of thing.
Scroll down. Enjoy. Click on a pic to make it larger. Come over for dinner.
Monday, March 19, 2007
Virginia Woolf
Come on!
Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf was first seen in New York City just three months after I was born?
This is nuts.
I saw it for the first time in its entirety this weekend at The Ahmanson with Kathleen Turner, Bill Irwin, David Furr and Kathleen Early. Directed by Anthony Page.
It was so good. The writing. The writing. The writing. Stunned, really.
Everyone knows the movie. And I love the movie, of course. But the real thing, the real thing, the real thing!
Must be seen.
What they do so brilliantly in this production is they make everyone human. Vulnerable. They are mean and bitter and sad and aggressive and nasty as ever, Martha and George are, but they are not impervious. They get stung. And it hurts. And they counterattack for their lives.
It is truly brilliant.
Knowing that Edward Albee was adopted and that this play is ultimately about the dashed lives of a childless couple reconfirms my theory that the best stuff really is all just autobiography—though, artfully presented.
The language. Film can’t do that. Only theatre can do that. Film can fuss with it a little bit. But language stuff often comes off as annoying in film.
Kathleen Turner was brilliant to do this play at this point in her career.
The whole cast was at a perfect pitch. (Though Kathleen Early as Honey seemed to be channeling Sandy Dennis a bit. Too bad. But her humanity and her drunkeness were all there.)
If it hadn’t closed today, I’d say go see it. If it is revived again with the same cast or some other, go see that one.
Inspiring to see something that amazing. The language so shockingly great. The whole play so intense and so realized.
From before even Kennedy’s assassination. Genius stuff. Good times.
Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf was first seen in New York City just three months after I was born?
This is nuts.
I saw it for the first time in its entirety this weekend at The Ahmanson with Kathleen Turner, Bill Irwin, David Furr and Kathleen Early. Directed by Anthony Page.
It was so good. The writing. The writing. The writing. Stunned, really.
Everyone knows the movie. And I love the movie, of course. But the real thing, the real thing, the real thing!
Must be seen.
What they do so brilliantly in this production is they make everyone human. Vulnerable. They are mean and bitter and sad and aggressive and nasty as ever, Martha and George are, but they are not impervious. They get stung. And it hurts. And they counterattack for their lives.
It is truly brilliant.
Knowing that Edward Albee was adopted and that this play is ultimately about the dashed lives of a childless couple reconfirms my theory that the best stuff really is all just autobiography—though, artfully presented.
The language. Film can’t do that. Only theatre can do that. Film can fuss with it a little bit. But language stuff often comes off as annoying in film.
Kathleen Turner was brilliant to do this play at this point in her career.
The whole cast was at a perfect pitch. (Though Kathleen Early as Honey seemed to be channeling Sandy Dennis a bit. Too bad. But her humanity and her drunkeness were all there.)
If it hadn’t closed today, I’d say go see it. If it is revived again with the same cast or some other, go see that one.
Inspiring to see something that amazing. The language so shockingly great. The whole play so intense and so realized.
From before even Kennedy’s assassination. Genius stuff. Good times.
Friday, March 16, 2007
Friday
Sometimes, the week comes to an end and all you can say is, “Thank God it’s Friday”—even if you don’t believe in God.
Tomorrow is almost our last day of kitchen shenanigans. This has gone on for ten weeks. Monday, the hood will be installed and we will be finished with all the workers.
It will be worth it. But it has been absolutely unfun.
But more importantly—here are two movies you need to see:
ZODIAC
And
THE LIVES OF OTHERS
Just go. See them. Guarantee them.
Tomorrow is almost our last day of kitchen shenanigans. This has gone on for ten weeks. Monday, the hood will be installed and we will be finished with all the workers.
It will be worth it. But it has been absolutely unfun.
But more importantly—here are two movies you need to see:
ZODIAC
And
THE LIVES OF OTHERS
Just go. See them. Guarantee them.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
War
The Free Market. Sure.
But what I can’t stand any longer is the War of Programs gong on in today’s computers.
Google, Yahoo, Apple and Windows are all battling with each other. Yahoo’s home page looks like crap on an iMac. Google’s Blogger templates don’t always work well in Window’s Internet Explorer. Universal file sharing, while pretty good, is awful when it comes to music.
On and On.
Now, I know I am merely jejune when I proffer, “Why can’t we all get along and just make things work seamlessly!” in this world where competition truly is king and admittedly does foster new ideas and services. But all this innovation and slugging-it-out is ugly when I’m on the latest, sexiest Apple at the office and suddenly I have a tiny little field in an online log-in page and I can barely read the squeezed letters because Apple hates Microsoft’s Web Browser.
Personal computers really do feel personal. But corporations run the suckers, no doubt. And these corporations battle it right in our homes. And we feel it.
Blech.
But what I can’t stand any longer is the War of Programs gong on in today’s computers.
Google, Yahoo, Apple and Windows are all battling with each other. Yahoo’s home page looks like crap on an iMac. Google’s Blogger templates don’t always work well in Window’s Internet Explorer. Universal file sharing, while pretty good, is awful when it comes to music.
On and On.
Now, I know I am merely jejune when I proffer, “Why can’t we all get along and just make things work seamlessly!” in this world where competition truly is king and admittedly does foster new ideas and services. But all this innovation and slugging-it-out is ugly when I’m on the latest, sexiest Apple at the office and suddenly I have a tiny little field in an online log-in page and I can barely read the squeezed letters because Apple hates Microsoft’s Web Browser.
Personal computers really do feel personal. But corporations run the suckers, no doubt. And these corporations battle it right in our homes. And we feel it.
Blech.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
The Gold
I had to be in Pasadena at 7:30. Lucky for me, I could take the Metro. How easy was it? Simple. I walked up the street to the Red Line. The train showed up within minutes. I got to Union Station and the Gold Line showed up within two minutes. The Gold Line is particularly enjoyable. My favorite bit is after Chinatown. The train picks up huge speed along the Corn Field (that park just north of downtown) and then goes over the Los Angeles River. It’s pretty dramatic.
To be able to go to Pasadena and to read the paper, relax and not look at the rear end of an S.U.V. is my idea of a vacation.
The trains were pretty full. I wish they were packed.
See the map below. The transit lines are growing. For those who do not live in LA...we also have these funky busways that operate like trains in that they are completely dedicated rights-of-way that do not ride in surface traffic. The only thing is, it’s a bus on a magic road. I have not yet been on the Orange Line out to Woodland Hills. I don’t know what’s stopping me. Could it be I have an aversion to office parks and Islands Restaurants?
Take public transportation in LA. It’s fun. It takes longer, sure. But it’s better for you.
Los Angeles MTA
To be able to go to Pasadena and to read the paper, relax and not look at the rear end of an S.U.V. is my idea of a vacation.
The trains were pretty full. I wish they were packed.
See the map below. The transit lines are growing. For those who do not live in LA...we also have these funky busways that operate like trains in that they are completely dedicated rights-of-way that do not ride in surface traffic. The only thing is, it’s a bus on a magic road. I have not yet been on the Orange Line out to Woodland Hills. I don’t know what’s stopping me. Could it be I have an aversion to office parks and Islands Restaurants?
Take public transportation in LA. It’s fun. It takes longer, sure. But it’s better for you.
Los Angeles MTA
Monday, March 12, 2007
White People Are So Special
Don’t you just feel it?
There’s something about Whitey...with his whiteness.
Standing there, all white, making sure he gets what he wants, in his white way.
It’s beautiful. It’s sexy. Everyone wants to be white.
Everyone.
It’s odd.
Whitey is king. Powerful. Has the key to the silo.
Whitey demands service.
Whitey insists. Whitey plans. Whitey achieves.
How does Whitey do it?
By exploiting, in a very organized manner, every resource on the earth?
By organizing markets so the poorest brown people eat enough and are well enough to work in Whitey’s world...but not much more.
Is Whitey just smarter? Does Whitey have a history of better government and philosophy? Does Whitey deserve the very best? And why does Whitey always get it?
What is the secret to Whitey? Other than a lightening of the skin to allow greater production of Vitamin D in cloudy, northern climes---
Whitey. You did it all. And everyone wants a piece.
You alabaster Gods. You busy busy albino beavers.
Take me out to the ballgame.
There’s something about Whitey...with his whiteness.
Standing there, all white, making sure he gets what he wants, in his white way.
It’s beautiful. It’s sexy. Everyone wants to be white.
Everyone.
It’s odd.
Whitey is king. Powerful. Has the key to the silo.
Whitey demands service.
Whitey insists. Whitey plans. Whitey achieves.
How does Whitey do it?
By exploiting, in a very organized manner, every resource on the earth?
By organizing markets so the poorest brown people eat enough and are well enough to work in Whitey’s world...but not much more.
Is Whitey just smarter? Does Whitey have a history of better government and philosophy? Does Whitey deserve the very best? And why does Whitey always get it?
What is the secret to Whitey? Other than a lightening of the skin to allow greater production of Vitamin D in cloudy, northern climes---
Whitey. You did it all. And everyone wants a piece.
You alabaster Gods. You busy busy albino beavers.
Take me out to the ballgame.
Friday, March 09, 2007
Nanny
Sometimes, as loyal Open Trench blog readers know, I will open a diary to the same date from twenty or thirty years ago and type what happened.
March 9, 1974 was a dull entry so it is not here. But I read about two months of entries. They were short entries because I was just a kid. But what was so sweet about them was how sweet a person can be at that age. It was all about my Nanny, a bunny that never materialized and tropical fish.
My grandmother was living with us for the better part of a year. She was in the middle of a separation from my grandfather and while that was going on he died. My mother got my grandmother an apartment six miles away and we moved her in. For weeks before in the journal, I wrote about my grandmother, the date she was moving. We all helped her move on a Saturday and I stayed over the first night in her apartment. I remember it very well. The towel she laid on the couch where I slept, my incredible sadness that my grandmother, who we called Nanny, was going to live alone for the first time in her life. I was also very aware that she was very aware that this was the last home of her life. It was also a bit institutional in a 1970’s garden apartment, subsidized by the local government kind of way.
On Sunday, I helped with unpacking and cleaning and it came time for my parents to come pick me up. And Nanny kept talking. She did not want to be left alone and in her anxiety she just kept talking and talking about anything. Picture hooks. Pots and pans. The stove. And I felt terrible that I had to leave her alone.
The next two weeks of entries, I wrote about calling Nanny. I called her almost every night. The first weekend after she moved into her apartment, I went over and “I helped clean the rug and had a lot of fun.” And my mother gave me a dollar for helping and then she gave my brother a dollar, even though he didn’t help, because she didn’t want him to feel bad.
The weekend after that was Easter and we had the Easter egg hunt at Nanny’s apartment. It wasn’t too much fun. My Uncle Joe came, too. I think it was a secondary Easter egg hunt. My father was good about dying lots of eggs. I noticed that my mother and my uncle weren’t thrilled to be at Nanny’s apartment. In fact, they both seemed itching to get out of there. I felt terrible that they didn’t really like being there because I loved it. Then, I got a feeling that I wasn’t supposed to like being there either. Besides, I had visited three weekends in a row. It seemed like Nanny was getting used to living there. I went less often and called less often. But I still called and visited a lot.
I was disappointed that Easter because I really wanted a rabbit and I didn’t get one. I kept asking for one and it didn’t happen. I had a rabbit when I was a few years younger. Edgar. And he died. Also, I was terribly allergic to rabbits. And I know my parents didn’t want to get me another one because of my allergies.
Most of the other entries in March and April of 1974 were about stocking and loving my aquarium.
I had an aquarium most of my childhood. I loved tropical fish. My best friendships with other boys growing up were completely centered on being an aquarium hobbyist.
It was all so sweet, the entries that I read. I feel so lucky that 1974 was such a sweet year.
Until I went to college and even during college breaks and after I graduated, I would take Nanny grocery shopping almost every week. We went to Italy together when I was a junior in high school. She was a very difficult personality with a pretty solid strain of Mediterranean bi-polarity. Not medicated. I got along with her extremely well. I understood her intense compulsivity and her loneliness. She died in 1989 of ovarian cancer. I visited her in the hospital every day. When she had a stroke during the last week of her life, she lost her speech. One visit, my brother came with me, and my grandmother, who no longer had the words, pointed at both of us with a fierce, protective look in her eye that meant, “You two take care of each other.” She died and I never quite got over it.
I am still very allergic to rabbits.
March 9, 1974 was a dull entry so it is not here. But I read about two months of entries. They were short entries because I was just a kid. But what was so sweet about them was how sweet a person can be at that age. It was all about my Nanny, a bunny that never materialized and tropical fish.
My grandmother was living with us for the better part of a year. She was in the middle of a separation from my grandfather and while that was going on he died. My mother got my grandmother an apartment six miles away and we moved her in. For weeks before in the journal, I wrote about my grandmother, the date she was moving. We all helped her move on a Saturday and I stayed over the first night in her apartment. I remember it very well. The towel she laid on the couch where I slept, my incredible sadness that my grandmother, who we called Nanny, was going to live alone for the first time in her life. I was also very aware that she was very aware that this was the last home of her life. It was also a bit institutional in a 1970’s garden apartment, subsidized by the local government kind of way.
On Sunday, I helped with unpacking and cleaning and it came time for my parents to come pick me up. And Nanny kept talking. She did not want to be left alone and in her anxiety she just kept talking and talking about anything. Picture hooks. Pots and pans. The stove. And I felt terrible that I had to leave her alone.
The next two weeks of entries, I wrote about calling Nanny. I called her almost every night. The first weekend after she moved into her apartment, I went over and “I helped clean the rug and had a lot of fun.” And my mother gave me a dollar for helping and then she gave my brother a dollar, even though he didn’t help, because she didn’t want him to feel bad.
The weekend after that was Easter and we had the Easter egg hunt at Nanny’s apartment. It wasn’t too much fun. My Uncle Joe came, too. I think it was a secondary Easter egg hunt. My father was good about dying lots of eggs. I noticed that my mother and my uncle weren’t thrilled to be at Nanny’s apartment. In fact, they both seemed itching to get out of there. I felt terrible that they didn’t really like being there because I loved it. Then, I got a feeling that I wasn’t supposed to like being there either. Besides, I had visited three weekends in a row. It seemed like Nanny was getting used to living there. I went less often and called less often. But I still called and visited a lot.
I was disappointed that Easter because I really wanted a rabbit and I didn’t get one. I kept asking for one and it didn’t happen. I had a rabbit when I was a few years younger. Edgar. And he died. Also, I was terribly allergic to rabbits. And I know my parents didn’t want to get me another one because of my allergies.
Most of the other entries in March and April of 1974 were about stocking and loving my aquarium.
I had an aquarium most of my childhood. I loved tropical fish. My best friendships with other boys growing up were completely centered on being an aquarium hobbyist.
It was all so sweet, the entries that I read. I feel so lucky that 1974 was such a sweet year.
Until I went to college and even during college breaks and after I graduated, I would take Nanny grocery shopping almost every week. We went to Italy together when I was a junior in high school. She was a very difficult personality with a pretty solid strain of Mediterranean bi-polarity. Not medicated. I got along with her extremely well. I understood her intense compulsivity and her loneliness. She died in 1989 of ovarian cancer. I visited her in the hospital every day. When she had a stroke during the last week of her life, she lost her speech. One visit, my brother came with me, and my grandmother, who no longer had the words, pointed at both of us with a fierce, protective look in her eye that meant, “You two take care of each other.” She died and I never quite got over it.
I am still very allergic to rabbits.
Thursday, March 08, 2007
Like a Self Cleaning Oven
Arrogance takes care of itself.
The Republicans are getting their desserts. Let Cheney be next, clotted pudding that he is.
The Republicans are getting their desserts. Let Cheney be next, clotted pudding that he is.
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Too Much Sun
If one is a bit obsessive, and I am, there are so many opportunities to avoid the trap.
However, I rarely avoid. I usually take the bait and get my ankle in the steel bear claw.
Apparently, there is a little bit of computer patching, especially for handheld devices, that needs to be done for this earlier-in-the-year than usual Daylight Savings time. I am not a fan of Daylight Savings. I know most people love it. But for someone who already goes to bed very late, this just makes matters worse.
In my desire to dispel some anxiety over my distaste for the government messing with my clocks, I attempted to take some control over this loathsome tradition. I figured I would go ahead and make the patch for my Cingular HTC 8125 pocket PC cell phone. When I got to the web site that Cingular directed me to, sent to me by text message this morning, the site said, “But before you do this patch, make sure you update your ActiveSync to the latest version.” ActiveSync, for those who don’t know, is the software that synchronizes the phone data with Outlook on the computer when they are joined together in USB matrimony.
I did it. I downloaded the new version.
And then I lost three hours of my life.
The joys of sync software are none. Of course, the new software had to set up a new linking between the computer and the handheld and there was still the old linking. And the new software needed me to delete the old for all this to work. And then after that, there were other problems. The sound note I made of the bells ringing from Notre Dame when I was in Paris---it somehow became corrupted and kept causing a sync error. This error was no big deal—however, I would have had to live with the error remarks for the rest of my synching days and I couldn’t have that.
And there was a sharing protocol that wouldn’t let me delete Quasimodo’s bells.
I kept tweaking around. Finally, after much resetting and turning things on and off, I was able to delete the bells and the error message went away.
All this- and I still never got the daylight savings patch.
What a waste of time. Of course, it was the perfect way to avoid writing. But then, I was so annoyed by Microsoft and so annoyed by my own nature to need things perfect that I focused like a dog and finished the first draft of a major television thing I am writing and then went to my friend’s house and we finished the first half of a first draft of our zombie movie. I was obsessive. But I bounced off the obsession into the original plan for the day. The only thing I missed was going to the gym. But isn’t that obsession, anyway?
Beware the patches. Beware computers in general. Beware obsession.
Daylight Savings is not for me.
However, I rarely avoid. I usually take the bait and get my ankle in the steel bear claw.
Apparently, there is a little bit of computer patching, especially for handheld devices, that needs to be done for this earlier-in-the-year than usual Daylight Savings time. I am not a fan of Daylight Savings. I know most people love it. But for someone who already goes to bed very late, this just makes matters worse.
In my desire to dispel some anxiety over my distaste for the government messing with my clocks, I attempted to take some control over this loathsome tradition. I figured I would go ahead and make the patch for my Cingular HTC 8125 pocket PC cell phone. When I got to the web site that Cingular directed me to, sent to me by text message this morning, the site said, “But before you do this patch, make sure you update your ActiveSync to the latest version.” ActiveSync, for those who don’t know, is the software that synchronizes the phone data with Outlook on the computer when they are joined together in USB matrimony.
I did it. I downloaded the new version.
And then I lost three hours of my life.
The joys of sync software are none. Of course, the new software had to set up a new linking between the computer and the handheld and there was still the old linking. And the new software needed me to delete the old for all this to work. And then after that, there were other problems. The sound note I made of the bells ringing from Notre Dame when I was in Paris---it somehow became corrupted and kept causing a sync error. This error was no big deal—however, I would have had to live with the error remarks for the rest of my synching days and I couldn’t have that.
And there was a sharing protocol that wouldn’t let me delete Quasimodo’s bells.
I kept tweaking around. Finally, after much resetting and turning things on and off, I was able to delete the bells and the error message went away.
All this- and I still never got the daylight savings patch.
What a waste of time. Of course, it was the perfect way to avoid writing. But then, I was so annoyed by Microsoft and so annoyed by my own nature to need things perfect that I focused like a dog and finished the first draft of a major television thing I am writing and then went to my friend’s house and we finished the first half of a first draft of our zombie movie. I was obsessive. But I bounced off the obsession into the original plan for the day. The only thing I missed was going to the gym. But isn’t that obsession, anyway?
Beware the patches. Beware computers in general. Beware obsession.
Daylight Savings is not for me.
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
Middle Age: The Chickens Really Do Come Home to Roost
There is something about being in your forties that has a kind of crushed-glass-and-vinegar-enema sensation.
But one must live. Lately, I have been looking at my breakneck running speed--if not in body, at least in mind. And I see that it is STILL about childhood stuff. I think this is why Ann Coulter's horrible comment got to me so much.
There she is, all smug--making a faggot joke. And people, though uncomfortably at first but then whole heartedly, had such a great laugh about it.
I can understand her making fun of the ridiculous hypocrisy of someone going into rehab over calling someone a name. Left Wing people do come across as overly controlling and tyrannically PC. I applaud making fun of that. But to link that onto calling a grown, well respected man a faggot?
Ann is an actress, for sure. Perhaps she is our current day Lenny Bruce (with the soul of Ayn Rand). It's so interesting. And let people do what they want. (I use the N word in ironic post-racist constructions and I chide my Jewish friends for their clannish ways.)
But personally, I find using the pejorative in public assembly damaging. If I ever meet Ann, what could I say to this tall, blond, straight, privileged woman who clearly has a high opinion of herself? "Hey Ann, Why the long face?" Or "Man, you're an idiot. Your diatribes aren't even based upon fact." I think I would say nothing to the nut.
Adam, my recognized-by-the-State-of-California-Domestic-Partner, believes that growing up gay in the 1970's was the toughest time to be gay. It had become very well known by then but was still not at all acceptable. So, one was easily identified and then quickly vilified in turn. Of course, it is a bit gay to think that you are the center of the highest possible era of pain, however---I think his experience of growing up gay in that period was very difficult and his perception of it being quite crappy is, of course, right on.
Not that growing up gay is easy ever. And certainly, it must have been even more awful in earlier decades and centuries when one couldn't even begin to be oneself. Egad.
Pain is pain. And things change at a snail’s pace.
In general, it has been very difficult to live during this administration as a gay person. These right wing loons are bullies and their entertainers are mean spirited and empowered. It seems to me the only thing to do is to organize a gay cross-country walk that begins in New York, weaves its way through the most conservative towns in the country, and ends in Los Angeles. It will be the "I survived the United States" walk.
But one must live. Lately, I have been looking at my breakneck running speed--if not in body, at least in mind. And I see that it is STILL about childhood stuff. I think this is why Ann Coulter's horrible comment got to me so much.
There she is, all smug--making a faggot joke. And people, though uncomfortably at first but then whole heartedly, had such a great laugh about it.
I can understand her making fun of the ridiculous hypocrisy of someone going into rehab over calling someone a name. Left Wing people do come across as overly controlling and tyrannically PC. I applaud making fun of that. But to link that onto calling a grown, well respected man a faggot?
Ann is an actress, for sure. Perhaps she is our current day Lenny Bruce (with the soul of Ayn Rand). It's so interesting. And let people do what they want. (I use the N word in ironic post-racist constructions and I chide my Jewish friends for their clannish ways.)
But personally, I find using the pejorative in public assembly damaging. If I ever meet Ann, what could I say to this tall, blond, straight, privileged woman who clearly has a high opinion of herself? "Hey Ann, Why the long face?" Or "Man, you're an idiot. Your diatribes aren't even based upon fact." I think I would say nothing to the nut.
Adam, my recognized-by-the-State-of-California-Domestic-Partner, believes that growing up gay in the 1970's was the toughest time to be gay. It had become very well known by then but was still not at all acceptable. So, one was easily identified and then quickly vilified in turn. Of course, it is a bit gay to think that you are the center of the highest possible era of pain, however---I think his experience of growing up gay in that period was very difficult and his perception of it being quite crappy is, of course, right on.
Not that growing up gay is easy ever. And certainly, it must have been even more awful in earlier decades and centuries when one couldn't even begin to be oneself. Egad.
Pain is pain. And things change at a snail’s pace.
In general, it has been very difficult to live during this administration as a gay person. These right wing loons are bullies and their entertainers are mean spirited and empowered. It seems to me the only thing to do is to organize a gay cross-country walk that begins in New York, weaves its way through the most conservative towns in the country, and ends in Los Angeles. It will be the "I survived the United States" walk.
Monday, March 05, 2007
BOO
I have to give a big BOO to three entities today:
1) To David Mamet. On Bill Maher last week he warned the Jewish people of America that they were absolutely separate in the United States and to not let themselves be fooled that they have any place in this country outside of the Jewish religion. Why is he so paranoid? One of our smartest playwrights—and he suffers from paranoia? And wants all Jews to be strictly observant and religious so as to be protected and stake a separatist claim? Boo.
2) To The Disney Corporation. They are actually suing the city of Anaheim because Anaheim wants to build condos and affordable housing nearby. Disney claims this will interfere with their business. Meanwhile, Disneyland employees live in awful apartment buildings in the area, eight to a room. Affordable housing could help them. Disneyland thinks it owns Anaheim and treats their employees like slaves. Wretched company. Boo.
3) Ann Coulter. Well, it’s a big Boo to her every single day. But calling a respected politician a faggot? Really? One wonders what happened to her growing up. Was she tongue kissed by her father every morning? Was she forced to wear white jeans to school on heavy flow days? Why is she filled with so much hatred? Perhaps she is nothing more than an attention seeking dog and should be dismissed as the sideshow that she is. Or maybe someone should put a bullet in her head. She is completely awful. BOO.
1) To David Mamet. On Bill Maher last week he warned the Jewish people of America that they were absolutely separate in the United States and to not let themselves be fooled that they have any place in this country outside of the Jewish religion. Why is he so paranoid? One of our smartest playwrights—and he suffers from paranoia? And wants all Jews to be strictly observant and religious so as to be protected and stake a separatist claim? Boo.
2) To The Disney Corporation. They are actually suing the city of Anaheim because Anaheim wants to build condos and affordable housing nearby. Disney claims this will interfere with their business. Meanwhile, Disneyland employees live in awful apartment buildings in the area, eight to a room. Affordable housing could help them. Disneyland thinks it owns Anaheim and treats their employees like slaves. Wretched company. Boo.
3) Ann Coulter. Well, it’s a big Boo to her every single day. But calling a respected politician a faggot? Really? One wonders what happened to her growing up. Was she tongue kissed by her father every morning? Was she forced to wear white jeans to school on heavy flow days? Why is she filled with so much hatred? Perhaps she is nothing more than an attention seeking dog and should be dismissed as the sideshow that she is. Or maybe someone should put a bullet in her head. She is completely awful. BOO.
Friday, March 02, 2007
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Going Under to Stay Above
A strong feeling here. I would like two systems of transport.
One is above ground for people. It’s public. It’s clean. And if you want to be left in peace while you travel, you press a button and the Lucite comes down around you. One could enter these trains. Or, one could have a pod and press in a destination and the pod joins into the stream of other pods. Easy enough.
But the other system I have thought about for years and the one I really want to happen is:
The underground railroad for crap. Yes. Anything you buy gets a code put on it and it goes underground with all the other stuff that people by and when you get home, there it is in your personal underground station. All items would be carried on a conveyer belt (up to a certain weight) and the little conveyer belts only turn on when necessary. The conveyer belt from the street to the building where you live would only turn on if there is a package for you. This would save an enormous amount of energy.
There would be larger tunnels for freight...freight depots would be built around cities and farms. There would be no need for trucks. There would be no need for air pollution.
People would live and travel above ground in fresh air. Personal goods and freight would travel below.
Tunnels of love.
One is above ground for people. It’s public. It’s clean. And if you want to be left in peace while you travel, you press a button and the Lucite comes down around you. One could enter these trains. Or, one could have a pod and press in a destination and the pod joins into the stream of other pods. Easy enough.
But the other system I have thought about for years and the one I really want to happen is:
The underground railroad for crap. Yes. Anything you buy gets a code put on it and it goes underground with all the other stuff that people by and when you get home, there it is in your personal underground station. All items would be carried on a conveyer belt (up to a certain weight) and the little conveyer belts only turn on when necessary. The conveyer belt from the street to the building where you live would only turn on if there is a package for you. This would save an enormous amount of energy.
There would be larger tunnels for freight...freight depots would be built around cities and farms. There would be no need for trucks. There would be no need for air pollution.
People would live and travel above ground in fresh air. Personal goods and freight would travel below.
Tunnels of love.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
The LA Times, North Korea, Snark and Precious French Babies
The LA Times is slowly pushing to the right. This is interesting.
Since the Chicago Tribune took over our little hometown paper here in Southern California, things are getting quite gray.
Specifically, the editorials and the slants of many stories seem to be pro-business. For the most part, I am pro-business. I think it is better for people to work than to just sit around all day thinking about ways to clobber a neighbor over the head for their lamb chops. However, I would never be black-and-white minded enough to ever believe that all work is worth doing or even existing in society.
But what scares me more than our newspaper turning away from the good of the common man to the good of the profit seekers, is the situation in North Korea. Can it be that the stubborn posturing of our right wing government is what made that wretched little country give up its nuclear ambitions? Or was it simply something China made happen?
I don’t know. But I am willing to give our bullying government a little credit for this North Korea thing. I mean, it is a pretty great day when some nutty dictator puts down the plutonium in the name of reducing tension. Of course, a deal was struck and everyone has to pay to make this happen. But still, this is a great thing.
I believe in standing firm. I wish we had simply stood firm with Hussein in Iraq. Maybe he would still be dictator today and Iraq would exist as a stable country.
But back to my reading pleasure. The Los Angeles Times blows. It used to be kooky and snarky and funny. And decidedly leftist. It sneered at power. It chided vanity. It loved the cheap bungalows in far flung burbs, the odd Saturday afternoons at flea markets, the tiny movies and funky bands. It did not take itself too seriously yet held onto strong humanist principles---and in turn won mountains of Pulitzer prizes.
Now?
Blech.
I don’t want to dump my local paper. I love reading about local government regulations. I love reading our fluffy calendar section which is nothing more than a peek into the boudoirs of movie stars. And I love the little map on the back page of the California section. If I see nothing but green circles, it means the air quality is fine and I won’t have sinus trouble. If I see yellow circles hovering near downtown, I know I have to be careful.
But frankly, I might just have to bail on that LA fish-wrap and start getting the New York Times. Sure, I can read the New York Times online---but I hate reading newspapers online.
This LA paper has me upset. It’s hard to stomach right-minded people coming into my home every single day.
Speaking of the right, did you know that France passed a law this week that keeps adoption not-an-option for gay couples for the “good of the child”?
Oddly enough, if you are gay and single you can adopt. But not if you are gay and hooked up. Freaky France.
Since the Chicago Tribune took over our little hometown paper here in Southern California, things are getting quite gray.
Specifically, the editorials and the slants of many stories seem to be pro-business. For the most part, I am pro-business. I think it is better for people to work than to just sit around all day thinking about ways to clobber a neighbor over the head for their lamb chops. However, I would never be black-and-white minded enough to ever believe that all work is worth doing or even existing in society.
But what scares me more than our newspaper turning away from the good of the common man to the good of the profit seekers, is the situation in North Korea. Can it be that the stubborn posturing of our right wing government is what made that wretched little country give up its nuclear ambitions? Or was it simply something China made happen?
I don’t know. But I am willing to give our bullying government a little credit for this North Korea thing. I mean, it is a pretty great day when some nutty dictator puts down the plutonium in the name of reducing tension. Of course, a deal was struck and everyone has to pay to make this happen. But still, this is a great thing.
I believe in standing firm. I wish we had simply stood firm with Hussein in Iraq. Maybe he would still be dictator today and Iraq would exist as a stable country.
But back to my reading pleasure. The Los Angeles Times blows. It used to be kooky and snarky and funny. And decidedly leftist. It sneered at power. It chided vanity. It loved the cheap bungalows in far flung burbs, the odd Saturday afternoons at flea markets, the tiny movies and funky bands. It did not take itself too seriously yet held onto strong humanist principles---and in turn won mountains of Pulitzer prizes.
Now?
Blech.
I don’t want to dump my local paper. I love reading about local government regulations. I love reading our fluffy calendar section which is nothing more than a peek into the boudoirs of movie stars. And I love the little map on the back page of the California section. If I see nothing but green circles, it means the air quality is fine and I won’t have sinus trouble. If I see yellow circles hovering near downtown, I know I have to be careful.
But frankly, I might just have to bail on that LA fish-wrap and start getting the New York Times. Sure, I can read the New York Times online---but I hate reading newspapers online.
This LA paper has me upset. It’s hard to stomach right-minded people coming into my home every single day.
Speaking of the right, did you know that France passed a law this week that keeps adoption not-an-option for gay couples for the “good of the child”?
Oddly enough, if you are gay and single you can adopt. But not if you are gay and hooked up. Freaky France.
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