I'm copying and pasting this thread from a Facebook group on feminism. I've abbreviated every poster's name except mine to protect people's privacy. It's a damn interesting thread and worth repeating on this blog.
Topic: The Orange Prize for Fiction & The Fawcett Society
N. (West Midlands) wrote.
Just to let folks know that I have just written an essay on the UK controversy over the existence of this literary prize for women. In the essay I also talk about the work of the excellent Fawcett Society. Hope you enjoy.
Link to N's essay here.
My reply to N's post.
Read your letter/essay. Awesome. Yeah, the complainer is clearly deluded.
While women in the US do make up the majority of college liberal arts programs (English lit, etc.) -- so what? Men still outnumber women 8 to 1 in the technical (and better-paying) fields like engineering.
Of the five English teachers I had in high school, only two were women.
A random sampling of the NY Time's bestseller's list will still show that male authors dominate publishing in America and always have. While more women work in the lower rungs of publishing (admin. assts, readers, proofers, etc) I'm sure most of their employers are men.
J.K. Rowling herself was told by her first publisher to use her initials or else she would be 'less likely' to get published.
I've been told by several fiction lit. professors to use my first initial and/or my nickname (Mel) so as to not give away my sex.
When I was a newspaper reporter in the 1990s, the vast majority of my editors (and upper management like publishers) were men. It's still extremely rare to see a woman editor overseeing a city newspaper.
I think you hit on a really good point in your essay when you talked about high school-aged boys 'zoning out' whenever they were asked to read something by a female author. And I think they are conditioned to behave that way.
"Chick Lit" anyone?
A's reply to my post.
Without even bringing technical fields into the equation, your statement can be clarified even more than while women may make up the majority of college liberal arts programs, college students in general, and even associate professors, they are a clear minority when it comes to being tenured, acting as chairs, and in the upper-level management of colleges (such as Presidents and Provosts).
N's response.
thanks for the response so far. Yes there is that phenomenon of women writers using initials-A.L.Kennedy, A.S. Byatt, and J.K.R herself. Think too of George Eliot, Currer Bell and the rest. Interesting too that you've found yourself in the same position. My other half works in publishing and reports that women are very well represented in the industry in the UK. But well represented enough? There's a lot of tokenism still going on, and many of the key literary editors in Britain are still men. Take the major UK poetry editors: Lee Braxton (Faber), Robin Robertson (Cape), Don Paterson (Picador), Neil Astley (Bloodaxe), Michael Schmidt (Carcanet). Talented they may be, female they are not.
C's response.
With JK Rowling it was more a case of appealing to young boys, who would be less likely to buy a book they might see as 'for girls', it was just to get a wider audience.
I'm not sure that it is a huge problem if young boys are defining their masculinity and want male role models.
I prefer books by women, because I love women and how women write and see the world, and I think this is an area in which I'm not going to be convinced (to buy books by men, which is a huge generalisation, and all I can do is to say simply I prefer books by women), and I'd hate to preach.
By the way I know this is perhaps contraversial and I'm just offering it as my perspective with complete respect.
My reply to C's above post.
>>With JK Rowling it was more a case of appealing to young boys, who would be less likely to buy a book they might see as 'for girls', it was just to get a wider audience.
A-hah, good point. I hadn't even thought of that. Christ, are they really THAT biased toward male authors? That's just tragic.
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Monday, March 31, 2008
A Gentle Intervention
I got turned on to this about two weeks ago, funny as hell. I'm so glad they won a web award.
In other news, I am sick. Yes, after months of skating past the mine field of winter flu colds, I have fallen into a pit of flu-iness. 'A eel like 'RAP!
Bleh!
In other news, I am sick. Yes, after months of skating past the mine field of winter flu colds, I have fallen into a pit of flu-iness. 'A eel like 'RAP!
Bleh!
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Awesome Blog Post
The lady who runs Fugly Horse of the Day just posted the most awesome personal essay about mythical "horse sense" and why some people seem to be these super psychic horse whisperers and why the rest of us just flail away in the saddle feeling like idiots and wondering just what IS going on inside that big furry head???
Thursday, March 06, 2008
Yes, that kind of riding
I did a wild, crazy thing a few weeks back. It's along the lines of taking up surfing at 50 or learning to Rollerblade at 45. I started taking horseback riding lessons at a good school 20 miles north of Seattle.
Between the ages of 11 and 18, I begged, pleaded and pestered my Dad for riding lessons. His answer was always "no way". Horses were (and still are) large dangerous animals, I was (and still am) incredibly accident prone and my Dad was one of the most powerful attorneys in Monterey County. There wasn't a stable in central California that would take me. They were too scared he'd sue them if I slid off and broke an arm (an injury that happens to equestrians with monotonous regularity).
So as part of my effort to have a fun mid-life crisis, I started taking lessons. Last Sunday I tried "posting" for the first time. Of all the wacky physical shit I've done -- swimming laps in an Olympic pool at 29, fighting wildfires at 38 -- this is probably one of the most difficult. It's very technical, you have to concentrate on the horse and you have to time it just right. The video below makes it look effortless. Just bouncing up and down on a saddle, right? Wrong. It's way, way more involved than that.
And if one more idiot tries to equate horseback riding with some weird-ass form of masturbation, I will hit you right in the face with a sweaty, 10-pound horse blanket covered in pooh!
Between the ages of 11 and 18, I begged, pleaded and pestered my Dad for riding lessons. His answer was always "no way". Horses were (and still are) large dangerous animals, I was (and still am) incredibly accident prone and my Dad was one of the most powerful attorneys in Monterey County. There wasn't a stable in central California that would take me. They were too scared he'd sue them if I slid off and broke an arm (an injury that happens to equestrians with monotonous regularity).
So as part of my effort to have a fun mid-life crisis, I started taking lessons. Last Sunday I tried "posting" for the first time. Of all the wacky physical shit I've done -- swimming laps in an Olympic pool at 29, fighting wildfires at 38 -- this is probably one of the most difficult. It's very technical, you have to concentrate on the horse and you have to time it just right. The video below makes it look effortless. Just bouncing up and down on a saddle, right? Wrong. It's way, way more involved than that.
And if one more idiot tries to equate horseback riding with some weird-ass form of masturbation, I will hit you right in the face with a sweaty, 10-pound horse blanket covered in pooh!
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Poo ...
Finally proof that you literally can sell shit to yuppie/hipsters.
This is a luwak, they are a cat/raccoon type creature that lives in the jungles of Indonesia. They eat ripe coffee plant berries and then poop out the coffee beans. And then enterprising Indonesians collect the poop, roast the, uh, beans and sell it as an exotic, expensive coffee.
On a side note, Indonesia is like 99% Muslim. Is this really halal (kosher)? So eating the flesh of pigs is unclean but eating raccoon shit is okay???
That's your moment of Zen on this blog.
This is a luwak, they are a cat/raccoon type creature that lives in the jungles of Indonesia. They eat ripe coffee plant berries and then poop out the coffee beans. And then enterprising Indonesians collect the poop, roast the, uh, beans and sell it as an exotic, expensive coffee.
On a side note, Indonesia is like 99% Muslim. Is this really halal (kosher)? So eating the flesh of pigs is unclean but eating raccoon shit is okay???
That's your moment of Zen on this blog.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Signs of Seattle
There's more where this came from. Check out the latest on my main Flickr account. There's giant bronze robots and carbon emissions.
Thursday, February 07, 2008
F*** Car
I had to rent a Flexcar about a month ago for a big, important job interview way the hell down in SeaTac. When the car sharing company billed me for the one day rental, I was charged $20 in tax. Just TAX for one afternoon! For a Toyota Prius that was so quiet I could barely tell when it was on!
After joining Flexcar I started getting cheerful notice-type emails. Recently, they asked me to email the Washington state legislature regarding these ridiculous taxes on Flexcars (now Zipcar). I dutifully wrote one of the legislative reps and then got this long 'flipper flopping' reply. I'm not gonna post all of it, here's a summary:
Thanks for writing to me about Senate Bill 6484, regarding the exemption of Flexcar from rental car taxes. I think Flexcar is a wonderful service that offers an eco-friendly alternative to car ownership ... Although I support this service, and know that it is different than renting a car at a rental car company, legislation that could potentially create a tax loophole in a major revenue source that funds public transportation must be carefully crafted ... Governor Gregoire has come out in support of exempting car-sharing companies (vs. car rental) from rental car taxes...I am very concerned that a significant loophole will be created in a major revenue source ... blah ... blah ... tax loophole ... blah ... loophole ... loophole
-- Sincerely,
Sen. Mary Margaret
There's nothing quite like watching a marginally liberal state legislator dance around the issue of taxes, especially exorbitant ones that don't affect homeowners, rich Humvee owners, rich hot tub owners, rich people, or rich homeowners who generally have the most say in state legislatures because they generate the biggest chunk of revenues.
Alas, I'm not the first or the last yuppie/hipster/urbanite/non-car owner to get stung by this bee. The Seattlest has covered this issue.
Once again Washington state, and ultimately, all of 'Merkica bows to the will of the few, the spoiled, the Escalande-driving ... and runs over a whole bunch of sincere minimalists in the process.
After joining Flexcar I started getting cheerful notice-type emails. Recently, they asked me to email the Washington state legislature regarding these ridiculous taxes on Flexcars (now Zipcar). I dutifully wrote one of the legislative reps and then got this long 'flipper flopping' reply. I'm not gonna post all of it, here's a summary:
Thanks for writing to me about Senate Bill 6484, regarding the exemption of Flexcar from rental car taxes. I think Flexcar is a wonderful service that offers an eco-friendly alternative to car ownership ... Although I support this service, and know that it is different than renting a car at a rental car company, legislation that could potentially create a tax loophole in a major revenue source that funds public transportation must be carefully crafted ... Governor Gregoire has come out in support of exempting car-sharing companies (vs. car rental) from rental car taxes...I am very concerned that a significant loophole will be created in a major revenue source ... blah ... blah ... tax loophole ... blah ... loophole ... loophole
-- Sincerely,
Sen. Mary Margaret
There's nothing quite like watching a marginally liberal state legislator dance around the issue of taxes, especially exorbitant ones that don't affect homeowners, rich Humvee owners, rich hot tub owners, rich people, or rich homeowners who generally have the most say in state legislatures because they generate the biggest chunk of revenues.
Alas, I'm not the first or the last yuppie/hipster/urbanite/non-car owner to get stung by this bee. The Seattlest has covered this issue.
Once again Washington state, and ultimately, all of 'Merkica bows to the will of the few, the spoiled, the Escalande-driving ... and runs over a whole bunch of sincere minimalists in the process.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Prozac Mtn.
Poor, lovely Heath Ledger is dead dead, damnit. And he seemed to be headed for a spot at the table with the likes of Marlon Brando, Robert DeNiro, etc. A serious actor.
The only thing more appalling than his new taste in party friends (a skeevy-ass Olsen Twin) was all the prescribed meds he was apparently taking.
I wonder what would happen if I mixed Ambien (made me scarily comatose) with one or two SSRIs (two friends have described Zoloft as a great 'high'), some Valium and a Xanax (for the truly comatose)?
What if what was wrong with Ledger was simple nervous exhaustion and a chronic, undiagnosed sleep disorder (the maid said he was snoring)? Having developed apnea, one of the things I've struggled with was when it was explained to me part of the reason you repeatedly wake up with snoring is because YOUR BRAIN IS NOT GETTING ENOUGH OXYGEN and you might DIE if you don't rouse yourself from deep sleep long enough to cough and clear your throat.
But instead, the misinformed medical establishment eagerly wrote him Rx for shit at least as dangerous as the cocaine he may or may not have done.
I'm agreeing more with L. Ron Hubbard's moonies every day.
The only thing more appalling than his new taste in party friends (a skeevy-ass Olsen Twin) was all the prescribed meds he was apparently taking.
I wonder what would happen if I mixed Ambien (made me scarily comatose) with one or two SSRIs (two friends have described Zoloft as a great 'high'), some Valium and a Xanax (for the truly comatose)?
What if what was wrong with Ledger was simple nervous exhaustion and a chronic, undiagnosed sleep disorder (the maid said he was snoring)? Having developed apnea, one of the things I've struggled with was when it was explained to me part of the reason you repeatedly wake up with snoring is because YOUR BRAIN IS NOT GETTING ENOUGH OXYGEN and you might DIE if you don't rouse yourself from deep sleep long enough to cough and clear your throat.
But instead, the misinformed medical establishment eagerly wrote him Rx for shit at least as dangerous as the cocaine he may or may not have done.
I'm agreeing more with L. Ron Hubbard's moonies every day.
Friday, January 25, 2008
A Psycho Near You
Right when I got back from Vancouver a woman in Capitol Hill was murdered. Although I never met her, I occasionally caught her show on the local PBS station and, as cheesy as it sounds, I know people who knew her. She and I (and a ton of others in Seattle) had a lot in common. Single, no kids, career, lived alone, active in the community, had to deal with the odd junkie fucktard, etc.
The Seattle P.D. issued THE most generic artist's sketch the day after she was murdered. The running joke was the perp either looked like every white Hipster dude in CapHill or he looked like every other white junkie panhandling outside Pike Place Market.
The only thing that creeped me about it was he also looked a lot like one of the two tweaker asshats in my building. In early November Tweaker Twin No. 1 popped out of a dark bus stop to start screaming "DON'T EVEN FUCKIN' LOOK AT ME, FUCKIN' BITCH!", sorta muttering 'fuckin' bitch' over and over as meth addicts tend to do. I told him to 'fuck off', kept walking and felt frustrated that I didn't have my phone or stun gun at the time. When I got in my apartment, I called 911 to report a suspicious, known drug user hovering outside my building (again!). Of course, dispatch put me on hold. I don't know if the cops did anything that night, like even so much as drive by. Half the time when the S.P.D. says they're dispatching, that's code for 'doughnuts at 7-11, hurry!'
So when this woman was stabbed to death on New Year's Eve, it creeped me out a bit and I wondered when was the last time I saw Tweaker No. 1 getting buzzed into the building??? Funnily enough, I haven't seen hide nor hair of him since ... about New Year's. Que the Law & Order music.
So they just arrested this guy who is the second "person of interest", this time they got a positive on the DNA. And from the written description they released, he sure sounds like my un-friendly neighborhood meth dealer. I wanna emphasize, this is someone, I have no doubt is capable of flipping out on a meth/heroin cocktail and just randomly attacking someone (preferably smaller, physically weaker) than him.
I'm anxious to see his mugshot when they release it to the Press.
Hmmm, wonder if it's him ...
The Seattle P.D. issued THE most generic artist's sketch the day after she was murdered. The running joke was the perp either looked like every white Hipster dude in CapHill or he looked like every other white junkie panhandling outside Pike Place Market.
The only thing that creeped me about it was he also looked a lot like one of the two tweaker asshats in my building. In early November Tweaker Twin No. 1 popped out of a dark bus stop to start screaming "DON'T EVEN FUCKIN' LOOK AT ME, FUCKIN' BITCH!", sorta muttering 'fuckin' bitch' over and over as meth addicts tend to do. I told him to 'fuck off', kept walking and felt frustrated that I didn't have my phone or stun gun at the time. When I got in my apartment, I called 911 to report a suspicious, known drug user hovering outside my building (again!). Of course, dispatch put me on hold. I don't know if the cops did anything that night, like even so much as drive by. Half the time when the S.P.D. says they're dispatching, that's code for 'doughnuts at 7-11, hurry!'
So when this woman was stabbed to death on New Year's Eve, it creeped me out a bit and I wondered when was the last time I saw Tweaker No. 1 getting buzzed into the building??? Funnily enough, I haven't seen hide nor hair of him since ... about New Year's. Que the Law & Order music.
So they just arrested this guy who is the second "person of interest", this time they got a positive on the DNA. And from the written description they released, he sure sounds like my un-friendly neighborhood meth dealer. I wanna emphasize, this is someone, I have no doubt is capable of flipping out on a meth/heroin cocktail and just randomly attacking someone (preferably smaller, physically weaker) than him.
I'm anxious to see his mugshot when they release it to the Press.
Hmmm, wonder if it's him ...
Friday, January 11, 2008
LMFAO !
The spice must flow, errr?
I stole this from Tiffany's LiveJournal. I had to because when I read one of the comments on it I laughed so hard I blew coffee out my nose and even woke some of my Boeing co-workers up (it's Friday nap time).
Enjoy the weirdness.
Note to Sports Fans:
No one cares. Except you. Professional sports could take a big sigh and die tomorrow and it wouldn't phase me in the least. Seriously.
The only thing on earth more annoying that rabid sports fans: rabid pro-athletes who "Thank God" when they/their team/their gang-o-thugs wins.
Note to Pros: God doesn't care. The Supreme Being/Goddess/DivineConsciousness/SkyBully/Jeesus/Christ ...just ... does ... not ... care.
The only thing on earth more annoying that rabid sports fans: rabid pro-athletes who "Thank God" when they/their team/their gang-o-thugs wins.
Note to Pros: God doesn't care. The Supreme Being/Goddess/DivineConsciousness/SkyBully/Jeesus/Christ ...just ... does ... not ... care.
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
Drama Queen for the Vag Owners
I just couldn't stay away from this dramafest. I was sucked in like a dust bunny into a vacuum.
Gloria Steinem, matriarch of American feminism, wrote what I thought was a pretty damn good essay in the New York Times about Senator Hillary Clinton and all the hoopla surrounding her run for president.
The drama followed Steinem's essay. A lot of it is posted on Slate.com.
And I posted a reply to one blogger on her blog. And then thought, what the hell, and am reposting it here.
So go read Steinhem's essay first before you read the below.
(Bill and Hill, the Paper Chase Years)
* * *
I think it’s almost impossible to not take feminism and civil rights personally.
But I don’t think Gloria was saying ALL women voters do this. I think she meant some or most depending on her argument point or statistic.
She wasn’t suggesting we (you, me, all vagina owners) are betraying our sex for not voting for her. She was implying that we are perceived that way. And we are.
I’ve heard Bill Maher (insightful, funny but a mysogynist) come at female guests on his show from exactly the same angle: Why aren’t YOU voting for her, you vagina owner?!!!
Barack Obama himself pointed out on a 60 Minutes interview months ago that it was condescending to assume that ALL black people would vote for him.
How condescending to assume that ALL women should vote for Hillary. And I think that is what Gloria was pointing out.
And if anybody cares, I'm not particularly fond of Senators Clinton or Obama. They're both products of the corporate-owned Washington political machine and they both supported a foul, fake, hideous war that has cost 500,000+ Iraqis and nearly 5,000 US soldiers their lives.
Gloria Steinem, matriarch of American feminism, wrote what I thought was a pretty damn good essay in the New York Times about Senator Hillary Clinton and all the hoopla surrounding her run for president.
The drama followed Steinem's essay. A lot of it is posted on Slate.com.
And I posted a reply to one blogger on her blog. And then thought, what the hell, and am reposting it here.
So go read Steinhem's essay first before you read the below.
(Bill and Hill, the Paper Chase Years)
* * *
I think it’s almost impossible to not take feminism and civil rights personally.
But I don’t think Gloria was saying ALL women voters do this. I think she meant some or most depending on her argument point or statistic.
She wasn’t suggesting we (you, me, all vagina owners) are betraying our sex for not voting for her. She was implying that we are perceived that way. And we are.
I’ve heard Bill Maher (insightful, funny but a mysogynist) come at female guests on his show from exactly the same angle: Why aren’t YOU voting for her, you vagina owner?!!!
Barack Obama himself pointed out on a 60 Minutes interview months ago that it was condescending to assume that ALL black people would vote for him.
How condescending to assume that ALL women should vote for Hillary. And I think that is what Gloria was pointing out.
And if anybody cares, I'm not particularly fond of Senators Clinton or Obama. They're both products of the corporate-owned Washington political machine and they both supported a foul, fake, hideous war that has cost 500,000+ Iraqis and nearly 5,000 US soldiers their lives.
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Gerbils Vs. Barbie Doll Townhouse
Yep, I'm anti-Xmas. I can't say it was one specific incident that led me to throw in the itchy polyester Santa hat. It may be part of my decline into a bitchy, solitary middle-age. Bill O'Reilly's freak out a while back might have been the last nail in the red and white coffin but the first one was ages ago.
While growing up in rural Nevada, my Dad used to shell out pretty big for my presents. It was the one time of year my Mom would pop a fuse if he failed to spend at least a hundred bucks on me. The rest of the time, he conveniently (and thriftily) forgot he had a third child living with the ex-wife far from the balmy golf courses of California.
When I was 10, the big present I bleated for was a Barbie Doll Townhouse. Not that I actually owned any Barbies. (My staunch feminist leanings were beginning to show). I just wanted a place for Johnny West and family to live and a split-level would be ideal so they could park the plastic ponies downstairs.
When I opened my present, I was a little disappointed in the Townhouse. It was two panels of cardboard printed on one side with some plastic yellow pillars to hold up the other floors.
Johnny West and his pardn'rs weighed more than the whole thing. When I tried to seat Johnny in one of the upper floors, the cardboard sagged perilously.
One day, bored with the whole plastic horse/plastic cowboy collection, I left them strewn in my room. I also had my gerbil family out running free range across the Linoleum. I shut the door of my room and went outside to play in the Siberian-like weather.
When I came back a few hours later, I was shocked to find the house completely collapsed. One yellow pillar was under my bed, and suspiciously, an entire section of printed cardboard had been dragged over to the entrance of the gerbil's cage. My Barbie Doll Townhouse had been reduced to a massive pile of carefully shredded bedding by the industrious gerbils.
Sulking and whining, I kicked the gerbil family rudely out of their fine pile of cardboard and took it out to my Mom where she laughed her ass off. She called the relatives and they all had a good laugh too.
I sulked on the couch and threatened to let our tabby cat, Freddy, have his way with my indolent pet rodents.
I'm not sure if there's anything in this besides some gerbil bedding ... but I don't know that I benefited from being brought up to believe -- like every other kid in America -- that Xmas was just about getting stuff. Just stuff. Usually plastic, guaranteed to break or end up in the back of the closet due to dis-interest.
There are only two presents guaranteed to enthrall children for more than five minutes. A shiny set of keys if they are under three and bedtime story books until they are 12.
If I had kids, I'd stay far from the malls and farther from Toys-R-Us. Forget the lead paint scare. Teach them to play without all the plastic.
While growing up in rural Nevada, my Dad used to shell out pretty big for my presents. It was the one time of year my Mom would pop a fuse if he failed to spend at least a hundred bucks on me. The rest of the time, he conveniently (and thriftily) forgot he had a third child living with the ex-wife far from the balmy golf courses of California.
When I was 10, the big present I bleated for was a Barbie Doll Townhouse. Not that I actually owned any Barbies. (My staunch feminist leanings were beginning to show). I just wanted a place for Johnny West and family to live and a split-level would be ideal so they could park the plastic ponies downstairs.
When I opened my present, I was a little disappointed in the Townhouse. It was two panels of cardboard printed on one side with some plastic yellow pillars to hold up the other floors.
Johnny West and his pardn'rs weighed more than the whole thing. When I tried to seat Johnny in one of the upper floors, the cardboard sagged perilously.
One day, bored with the whole plastic horse/plastic cowboy collection, I left them strewn in my room. I also had my gerbil family out running free range across the Linoleum. I shut the door of my room and went outside to play in the Siberian-like weather.
When I came back a few hours later, I was shocked to find the house completely collapsed. One yellow pillar was under my bed, and suspiciously, an entire section of printed cardboard had been dragged over to the entrance of the gerbil's cage. My Barbie Doll Townhouse had been reduced to a massive pile of carefully shredded bedding by the industrious gerbils.
Sulking and whining, I kicked the gerbil family rudely out of their fine pile of cardboard and took it out to my Mom where she laughed her ass off. She called the relatives and they all had a good laugh too.
I sulked on the couch and threatened to let our tabby cat, Freddy, have his way with my indolent pet rodents.
I'm not sure if there's anything in this besides some gerbil bedding ... but I don't know that I benefited from being brought up to believe -- like every other kid in America -- that Xmas was just about getting stuff. Just stuff. Usually plastic, guaranteed to break or end up in the back of the closet due to dis-interest.
There are only two presents guaranteed to enthrall children for more than five minutes. A shiny set of keys if they are under three and bedtime story books until they are 12.
If I had kids, I'd stay far from the malls and farther from Toys-R-Us. Forget the lead paint scare. Teach them to play without all the plastic.
Saturday, December 01, 2007
A Vain Attempt at Motivation ...
In an effort to escape the cubicle prairie, I submitted copies of a short story I wrote about nine months ago.
A really old, professor-y guy up at Hugo House looked it over in October and right away said, "Why haven't you been published?"
Then he told me about this sea of (mostly) college-based literary anthologies floating on the edge of the fiction publishing world. This ain't literature you would find in the airport gift shop. But since I am PRO-art/writing and since I am PRO-independent anything, I'm plowing through a few of these, even if they don't pick my story to print.
The most prestigious of the lot is McSweeney's, which was founded by Dave Eggers, author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius which sat on the New York Times best seller list for quite a while.
The others are:
Hayden's Ferry Review, which I'm reading right now. Not to brag, but the competition in this one just doesn't look that intimidating. Do these writers really all have PhDs in literature?
This one's based out of Purdue University. You can tell by the very serious font.
This one's out of a Texas university. Note the southwestern motif.
This one's out of Boise State U. I didn't know the literacy rate was high enough in the Potato State to support a college English department, let alone an annual literary anthology. I always thought Idaho was full of meth labs, Mormons, people missing too many teeth, pickups and neo-Nazis. Now, if they'd just build a really big fence around it ...
This one's out of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, which makes more sense. They have lots of time to read in Alaska.
So in six months, hopefully, the SASEs containing rejection letters will began to flow in. Yeah, that was 40 bucks in shipping an' copies well spent.
A really old, professor-y guy up at Hugo House looked it over in October and right away said, "Why haven't you been published?"
Then he told me about this sea of (mostly) college-based literary anthologies floating on the edge of the fiction publishing world. This ain't literature you would find in the airport gift shop. But since I am PRO-art/writing and since I am PRO-independent anything, I'm plowing through a few of these, even if they don't pick my story to print.
The most prestigious of the lot is McSweeney's, which was founded by Dave Eggers, author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius which sat on the New York Times best seller list for quite a while.
The others are:
Hayden's Ferry Review, which I'm reading right now. Not to brag, but the competition in this one just doesn't look that intimidating. Do these writers really all have PhDs in literature?
This one's based out of Purdue University. You can tell by the very serious font.
This one's out of a Texas university. Note the southwestern motif.
This one's out of Boise State U. I didn't know the literacy rate was high enough in the Potato State to support a college English department, let alone an annual literary anthology. I always thought Idaho was full of meth labs, Mormons, people missing too many teeth, pickups and neo-Nazis. Now, if they'd just build a really big fence around it ...
This one's out of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, which makes more sense. They have lots of time to read in Alaska.
So in six months, hopefully, the SASEs containing rejection letters will began to flow in. Yeah, that was 40 bucks in shipping an' copies well spent.
Monday, November 26, 2007
Is it just me ...
... or does anyone else have the urge to lick their TV screen when Lee Pace is on?
Not that I can stand to watch Pushing Daisies. It's this neutered version of "Dead Like Me", may that lovely show R.I.P. And also network commercials make me INSANE. I'll have to buy it on DVD after it gets canceled. Trust me, it will. Inventiveness never goes unpunished in Hollyweird.
And don't hate me for borrowing your fan pics off Flickr. It's a form of flattery ... and also I don't live within a 1,000 miles of Hollywood so it's not like I can stalk him with a camera phone.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Oh, Pommie Geeks
It's been way, way too long since I visited www.b3ta.com. I shouldn't stay away so much. They're doing ninjas again!
In an effort to avoid paying Flickr their damn yearly fee, I've opened multiple accounts but, of course, can't get the little shits to 'link' to one another. Grrr. But you should visit and comment on them. I don't have ninjas but I do have actual knights in actual shining armor that they probably paid a lot of money for.
This is the main Flickr account with herb photos
This is the secondary account with juicy pics from my rockin' new digital camera
And this is the third or back-up account which has a little of both of the above acct's pics
Good luck fellow digital camera ninjas!
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Mess with my mind
I read this article in L.A. Weekly and really liked it. The author -- who's white, male and apparently a member of that elite Hollywood writer posse -- did a good job of revealing the underlying uber creepiness of the Web. People not portraying themselves accurately as a friend used to say.
On top of this, I'm taking a lit class at the Hugo House and reading Don DeLillo who is just fucking up my mind to no end.
And I'm spending quality time in Flickr dragging photo images around (that's St. John's Wort above) and tidying up my profile. I've got a new camera on order from Amazon and I'm tempted to 'go pro' on the Flickr site and pay for a full account.
I'm also slowly getting away from MySpace. What a black hole of stupidity that site has become.
And to think DeLillo predicted this in 1985, even before William Gibson. I get a headache just thinking about it.
On top of this, I'm taking a lit class at the Hugo House and reading Don DeLillo who is just fucking up my mind to no end.
And I'm spending quality time in Flickr dragging photo images around (that's St. John's Wort above) and tidying up my profile. I've got a new camera on order from Amazon and I'm tempted to 'go pro' on the Flickr site and pay for a full account.
I'm also slowly getting away from MySpace. What a black hole of stupidity that site has become.
And to think DeLillo predicted this in 1985, even before William Gibson. I get a headache just thinking about it.
Friday, September 14, 2007
Oh Vancouver
I finally went to freakin' Canada. I mean B.C. is like right there and I've been up here for almost four years so I was really over due for a trip. Unfortunately I had reservations at THE worst youth hostel in all of North America. This caused me to cut my trip way short. I was PMSing real bad, terrified my big backpack was going to disappear if I left it in that toilet of a hostel for even five minutes and I didn't want to get mugged. Yup, I accidentally got the tour of Canada's biggest skid row.
But, in the words of Arnold, "I'll be baaack." Next time either a much nicer hostel or, fuck it, I'll spring for a hotel.
I'm guessing the Couve is about three times the size of Seattle. Their suburb, Burnaby, was like basically what Tacoma is to Seattle. Gorgeous city all in all despite the heroin junkie problem down in Gastown/Hastings.
The aquarium was unbelievably crowded, even on a Tuesday! The belugas were large, smelly and made growling and clicking noises but I heard no 'singing' per se. They had a sea lion that was so big, he looked like he would just eat the other seals if they forgot his lunch.
The people were predictably cool and indifferent to tourists, just like here. Lots of pretty, slim people. Yes, just like Australia, Canada is where they keep all the really pretty white people. Must be all those English, Scottish and Irish genes. Bizarrely, they all looked like they did the Fake Bake thing.
My Vancouver pics on Flickr.
Anyhow, here's the beginning of more photos soon to come. I'm trying Flickr out and so you can click on the upper right to view as a slide show or you can leave comments. Somebody please tell me what the name of that one gothic-style building is.
But, in the words of Arnold, "I'll be baaack." Next time either a much nicer hostel or, fuck it, I'll spring for a hotel.
I'm guessing the Couve is about three times the size of Seattle. Their suburb, Burnaby, was like basically what Tacoma is to Seattle. Gorgeous city all in all despite the heroin junkie problem down in Gastown/Hastings.
The aquarium was unbelievably crowded, even on a Tuesday! The belugas were large, smelly and made growling and clicking noises but I heard no 'singing' per se. They had a sea lion that was so big, he looked like he would just eat the other seals if they forgot his lunch.
The people were predictably cool and indifferent to tourists, just like here. Lots of pretty, slim people. Yes, just like Australia, Canada is where they keep all the really pretty white people. Must be all those English, Scottish and Irish genes. Bizarrely, they all looked like they did the Fake Bake thing.
My Vancouver pics on Flickr.
Anyhow, here's the beginning of more photos soon to come. I'm trying Flickr out and so you can click on the upper right to view as a slide show or you can leave comments. Somebody please tell me what the name of that one gothic-style building is.
Friday, August 03, 2007
HE TOUCHED A DEAD SQUIRREL !
So there I am laid out like a broken NFL player. The first week of July I had my nose completely closed off and tape up to my ears. (The creepy nervous exhaustion that went on for four days courtesy those nasty, filthy anesthesia drugs was NOT helping.) I'm sprawled on St. Claire's sofa in the sweet haven of Lake Stevens. And this woman has cable. So what to do when I can't do anything else? I stare vacantly at the boob tube.
There I am surfing while high on Extra-Strength Tylenol and Valium and all of the sudden I saw HIM on Discovery's Man Versus Wild. This freaky, plastically pretty Brit named "Bear" Grylls (real name Edward - thanks Wikipedia). See "Bear" used to be in the British Special Forces which makes him a lean, mean ... uh, freak ... poncey ... machine?
Don't get me started about how he whips his teeny willie out and, yes, pees on his own t-shirt, because afterward HE PUTS IT ON HIS HEAD. Well, it's "beastly hot" he explains. "Bear" and camera crew are in southern Utah in the middle of summer. (I was in southern Utah in August, mister, and not once did I pee on my clothes. They have Quicky Marts full of bottled water.)
No, no, friend, the piece de resistance came when (I'm shaking as I type this) "Bear" ... touched ... a ... dead ... squirrel. This wasn't just some random carrion like "Bear" would dine on. Oh, no. This was the most putrid, greenish, blow-fly ridden, swollen sack of maggots ever to grace a pond in the southwest. It was the kind of carrion other dead things would try and creep away from on their maggoty little feet. It was that skeevy. "Bear" doesn't just touch the stinking carcass, he gets in the damn water with it, he fucking takes a bath with the thing!
Suddenly, Claire who is crashing around in her kitchen, hears me croak in the most pathetic, nasal voice: "OHMIGOD! COME QUICK! YER MISSING IT! HE TOUCHED A DEAD SQUIRREL! OHMIFUCKINGGOD! GROSS! EEEK!"
There I am surfing while high on Extra-Strength Tylenol and Valium and all of the sudden I saw HIM on Discovery's Man Versus Wild. This freaky, plastically pretty Brit named "Bear" Grylls (real name Edward - thanks Wikipedia). See "Bear" used to be in the British Special Forces which makes him a lean, mean ... uh, freak ... poncey ... machine?
Don't get me started about how he whips his teeny willie out and, yes, pees on his own t-shirt, because afterward HE PUTS IT ON HIS HEAD. Well, it's "beastly hot" he explains. "Bear" and camera crew are in southern Utah in the middle of summer. (I was in southern Utah in August, mister, and not once did I pee on my clothes. They have Quicky Marts full of bottled water.)
No, no, friend, the piece de resistance came when (I'm shaking as I type this) "Bear" ... touched ... a ... dead ... squirrel. This wasn't just some random carrion like "Bear" would dine on. Oh, no. This was the most putrid, greenish, blow-fly ridden, swollen sack of maggots ever to grace a pond in the southwest. It was the kind of carrion other dead things would try and creep away from on their maggoty little feet. It was that skeevy. "Bear" doesn't just touch the stinking carcass, he gets in the damn water with it, he fucking takes a bath with the thing!
Suddenly, Claire who is crashing around in her kitchen, hears me croak in the most pathetic, nasal voice: "OHMIGOD! COME QUICK! YER MISSING IT! HE TOUCHED A DEAD SQUIRREL! OHMIFUCKINGGOD! GROSS! EEEK!"
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Primal Fear & the Little Things
Feeling 90% better this week. Not even on Tylenol anymore. The surgical packing is all outta my nose and it's healing great, just gross skin peeling inside and out and it itches like mad.
I had SOOO much apprehension about this procedure. Still pondering why? Seems like I sailed thru my orthopedic foot surgery in June 2004 and that was far more invasive than this -- they had to break, cut and re-align bones in my right foot followed by six weeks on crutches alone in a three-story walkup. That seems like a cakewalk compared to this.
Have decided there's just something primal/caveman about any sort of dental or facial surgery. The little cave person inside of me was looking at the anesthesiologist and the surgeon last Tuesday and mentally shrieking: "GET AWAY FROM MY FACE!"
It didn't help that every fucking disclaimer/cautionary form (fear file) I had to sign said things like: "Patient is having this procedure to repair compromised airways. Patient understands that medications given during surgery will SUPPRESS breathing and patient may DIE." Between last Thursday the 5th and Saturday night, I got it into my tiny, drug-adled mind that I could not go to sleep or I would DIE. I even remember telling my surrogate nanny, 'watch me while I'm asleep and make sure my lips don't turn blue okay?'
All it takes is a little anesthesia and one bad trip on some oxycodone and I am Paranoid Fear's cowering little bitch.
Course the flip side has been the mornings have never looked more beautiful, the breeze has never felt sweeter, my bed has never looked more relaxing and inviting. Even things like insanely loud traffic and herds of school kids disembarking from buses in front of the Key Arena seem some how precious and worth witnessing.
As Tyler would have said in Fight Club "How's that for a near-life experience?!"
I had SOOO much apprehension about this procedure. Still pondering why? Seems like I sailed thru my orthopedic foot surgery in June 2004 and that was far more invasive than this -- they had to break, cut and re-align bones in my right foot followed by six weeks on crutches alone in a three-story walkup. That seems like a cakewalk compared to this.
Have decided there's just something primal/caveman about any sort of dental or facial surgery. The little cave person inside of me was looking at the anesthesiologist and the surgeon last Tuesday and mentally shrieking: "GET AWAY FROM MY FACE!"
It didn't help that every fucking disclaimer/cautionary form (fear file) I had to sign said things like: "Patient is having this procedure to repair compromised airways. Patient understands that medications given during surgery will SUPPRESS breathing and patient may DIE." Between last Thursday the 5th and Saturday night, I got it into my tiny, drug-adled mind that I could not go to sleep or I would DIE. I even remember telling my surrogate nanny, 'watch me while I'm asleep and make sure my lips don't turn blue okay?'
All it takes is a little anesthesia and one bad trip on some oxycodone and I am Paranoid Fear's cowering little bitch.
Course the flip side has been the mornings have never looked more beautiful, the breeze has never felt sweeter, my bed has never looked more relaxing and inviting. Even things like insanely loud traffic and herds of school kids disembarking from buses in front of the Key Arena seem some how precious and worth witnessing.
As Tyler would have said in Fight Club "How's that for a near-life experience?!"
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Three (Eyeball) Monty
After killing myself for this menial, albeit good-paying job, I've got bennies now. Aetna is cutting nearly $400 a month from my gross earnings to allow me the privilege of only having to do the co-pay thing at the doctor's. Oh, lucky me.
So I went to a Fred Meyer's Optical yesterday for an exam ($70) and then picked out a pair of frames that will hold their fucking shape and theoretically have titanium in them (more expensive!) (All eyeglass frames in the world are made by a half-dozen slaves in a shed somewhere outside of Beijing where they're all chained to some antique metal lathes with little pictures of Chairman Mao glued to the side.)
In honor of my reaching 294 in dog years, I'm now blind close up and at a distance. "Progressive bi-focals" cost more than regular near-sided lenses, apparently three times more.
The conversation went like this: "You have the standard $300 benefit from Aetna. So minus the exam, that's $230 left over. Plus your frames at $149.95 ($150), plus the progressive lenses, plus the anti-scratch plan, minus the reduced glare, minus the (stylish!) thinned edges, leaves you with a total not covered of $284."
Before you accuse me of being a dupe for going to a department store optical dept., you should know I checked out two private eyeglass places. One wanted $140 for the initial exam and the other wanted $300+ for their "cheap" frames which were on sale (keep the image of the slaves chained to a lathe in China in the back of your mind because, trust me, they're not seeing any of this markup profit).
I came out of the eyeglass place feeling ass raped. Is it just me or has a visit to the optician now turned into a game of Three-Card Monty?
Makes me wanna go watch a movie about America's healthcare system (what system?!).
So I went to a Fred Meyer's Optical yesterday for an exam ($70) and then picked out a pair of frames that will hold their fucking shape and theoretically have titanium in them (more expensive!) (All eyeglass frames in the world are made by a half-dozen slaves in a shed somewhere outside of Beijing where they're all chained to some antique metal lathes with little pictures of Chairman Mao glued to the side.)
In honor of my reaching 294 in dog years, I'm now blind close up and at a distance. "Progressive bi-focals" cost more than regular near-sided lenses, apparently three times more.
The conversation went like this: "You have the standard $300 benefit from Aetna. So minus the exam, that's $230 left over. Plus your frames at $149.95 ($150), plus the progressive lenses, plus the anti-scratch plan, minus the reduced glare, minus the (stylish!) thinned edges, leaves you with a total not covered of $284."
Before you accuse me of being a dupe for going to a department store optical dept., you should know I checked out two private eyeglass places. One wanted $140 for the initial exam and the other wanted $300+ for their "cheap" frames which were on sale (keep the image of the slaves chained to a lathe in China in the back of your mind because, trust me, they're not seeing any of this markup profit).
I came out of the eyeglass place feeling ass raped. Is it just me or has a visit to the optician now turned into a game of Three-Card Monty?
Makes me wanna go watch a movie about America's healthcare system (what system?!).
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Pilates O' Death
Pilates is a form of exercise long touted by the svelte, celebrity set. A couple summers ago I bought a DVD of 'beginners' pilates off a discounted book rack. Tried it at home exactly twice. Actually made it half way through the dreary dialogue put one by two, highly toned, tanned and blonde Aussie bimbos. Bimbettes? Bimbii?
Fast forward to here and now and after 1.5 months of sitting on my ever-widening ass at Boeing all day, I decided to join a gym. So I'm going to this 24hr Yuppie Gymboree and today I tried my first real live pilates. Like, in front of other people. Dear Gawd.
The instructor was this friendly, cheerful Asian guy of indeterminate sexual orientation (read: half the male population of Puget Sound) but as soon as the crooning Enya CD started, he turned mean. (Right after it hit me that I was THE oldest, fattest one in the studio).
I vaguely remember him saying something about lying on your back with knees tucked and bent and arms near your head and doing this NIGHTMARISH variation on a stomach crunch. I was supposed to flex my left ribs down toward my left hip and then again on the opposite side. I don't know about most of you, but on me, that part of my body (lats?) is nothing but 100% cellulite.
It wasn't so much a matter of using muscles I didn't know I had as trying to use muscles I haven't had since summer 1996 when I was a lean, mean USFS firefighting machine.
But that's okay because I have wine. Oh, yes. And I have aspirin and ice packs. And I just got the seventh season of "Buffy" on DVD today.
Fast forward to here and now and after 1.5 months of sitting on my ever-widening ass at Boeing all day, I decided to join a gym. So I'm going to this 24hr Yuppie Gymboree and today I tried my first real live pilates. Like, in front of other people. Dear Gawd.
The instructor was this friendly, cheerful Asian guy of indeterminate sexual orientation (read: half the male population of Puget Sound) but as soon as the crooning Enya CD started, he turned mean. (Right after it hit me that I was THE oldest, fattest one in the studio).
I vaguely remember him saying something about lying on your back with knees tucked and bent and arms near your head and doing this NIGHTMARISH variation on a stomach crunch. I was supposed to flex my left ribs down toward my left hip and then again on the opposite side. I don't know about most of you, but on me, that part of my body (lats?) is nothing but 100% cellulite.
It wasn't so much a matter of using muscles I didn't know I had as trying to use muscles I haven't had since summer 1996 when I was a lean, mean USFS firefighting machine.
But that's okay because I have wine. Oh, yes. And I have aspirin and ice packs. And I just got the seventh season of "Buffy" on DVD today.
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Free-Range Psychos
For anybody that might care, I was sorta attacked on Wednesday afternoon. Broad daylight, nice neighborhood, birds chirping, all that.
I had just ridden one of the Boeing Field metro buses back up to downtown, hopped off at the downtown library and was hoofin' it up between Virginia Mason and Harborview Medical Center when this 6'2" black guy with pupils the size of dinner plates came pogoing down the sidewalk.
Got two inches from my nose, started screaming at me, shoved me, yes, it was great fun. Fortunately I had my ear buds in and was listening to my mp3 player so I missed half of the "GONNA FUCK U UP WHITE BITCH" comments. Apparently my wearing sunglasses set him off, tho, probably just the mere fact I was 1) female and 2) a pedestrian would have been enough.
Anyhoo, after a few minutes of "GONNA FUCK U UP!" he bounded down the sidewalk screaming over his shoulder at me.
I was gonna call the Seattle P.D. but as they have the same Catch-n-Release policy as the Portland P.D. I just blew it off.
Irony was I had my stun gun with me, in my freakin' hoodie pocket the whole time. It's this ridiculous dildo-looking thing, 'stun baton' I think the box said.
I just kept flashing on these videos I'd seen on YouTube of idiot drunk kids playing with stun guns. They'd down a shot of tequila, zap themselves and then giggle. I was seriously concerned that Batshit Psycho would have done the same thing since he was obviously flying on the Seattle meth-heroin-cocaine-PCP cocktail so loved by our colorful street people.
Yes, in the Pacific Northwest we don't have mental hospitals anymore. Why that would require actually have a national health plan and an infrastructure for social services and we ain't even got that. Yep, round here all our violent crazies are FREE RANGE -- like the chicken farms only more thrilling.
I had just ridden one of the Boeing Field metro buses back up to downtown, hopped off at the downtown library and was hoofin' it up between Virginia Mason and Harborview Medical Center when this 6'2" black guy with pupils the size of dinner plates came pogoing down the sidewalk.
Got two inches from my nose, started screaming at me, shoved me, yes, it was great fun. Fortunately I had my ear buds in and was listening to my mp3 player so I missed half of the "GONNA FUCK U UP WHITE BITCH" comments. Apparently my wearing sunglasses set him off, tho, probably just the mere fact I was 1) female and 2) a pedestrian would have been enough.
Anyhoo, after a few minutes of "GONNA FUCK U UP!" he bounded down the sidewalk screaming over his shoulder at me.
I was gonna call the Seattle P.D. but as they have the same Catch-n-Release policy as the Portland P.D. I just blew it off.
Irony was I had my stun gun with me, in my freakin' hoodie pocket the whole time. It's this ridiculous dildo-looking thing, 'stun baton' I think the box said.
I just kept flashing on these videos I'd seen on YouTube of idiot drunk kids playing with stun guns. They'd down a shot of tequila, zap themselves and then giggle. I was seriously concerned that Batshit Psycho would have done the same thing since he was obviously flying on the Seattle meth-heroin-cocaine-PCP cocktail so loved by our colorful street people.
Yes, in the Pacific Northwest we don't have mental hospitals anymore. Why that would require actually have a national health plan and an infrastructure for social services and we ain't even got that. Yep, round here all our violent crazies are FREE RANGE -- like the chicken farms only more thrilling.
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
Geek World
It's official. I've attended my first computer convention. I don't know if that makes me a geek tho'. I still can't write XML for shit and I don't know that I ever want to learn Javascript. The only script I wanna write is the kind for movies.
Saturday, April 28th I caught a free charter bus ride courtesy Pogolinux to Bellingham, Wash., the City of Subdued Excitement. Bellingham is 15 miles south of Vancouver, B.C. and the air was filled with the sounds of 'oh geez' and 'aye'. There was also rabid talk about MySQL. I just kept wondering: Sequel to what?
Anyhoo, I found the outdoor sculptures at Bellingham Technical College more interesting than endless pics of true geeks standing behind their various tables gushing geekspeak and drooling over the latest Linux distro. ('Distro' = OS or platform).
And I won't talk about how I spent five hours camped out back in RE Lectronics room coercing three Linux geeks into helping me get that damn, cursed Toshiba laptop working. Suffice it to say, in the end, I donated it to RE Lectronics for parts and they are now supposed to set me up with a trade in.
Tho', I think this will involve me renting a car Memorial Day weekend and driving up there to further coerce them into dusting off an old Dell or Compaq laptop and installing Ubuntu on it for me.
My life is so much more care-free and efficient now that computers are in it. I can just smell the chip sets smoking.
Here's some legit pics from Brian Lane of the various vendors/sponsors and ubergeeks.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
"Rob & Bob have the same job!"
This week has been weird ... and also a goofy testament to everything you've ever heard about the so-called Perfect Resume (like The Perfect Cheer maybe?). I got a contract gig with Boeing this morning.
It's down in that dusty, swampy, kinda sleazy area known as Boeing Field. The Field is home to several top-secret federal offices (seriously, don't tell anyone), frogs, a few eagles, one or two great horned owls and homeless guys that live in the weeds by the Duwamish and are so dirty they're blacker than that terrifying homeless person in David Lynch's Mulholland Drive.
Anyhoozle, this was weird because literally within a half hour of accepting the gig, I got five query emails from other headhunters for tech writing/DTP jobs.
Suddenly, inexplicably my resume no longer has virtual B.O.
Go figure. Saturn has stopped sitting on my astrological southwest node ... errr something.
And the goofy title of this post is a direct quote from my ditzy headhunter: "I'm not sure who's doing the intake paperwork this week. Rob and Bob have the same job. Hey that rhymes! Ta-heee!"
It's down in that dusty, swampy, kinda sleazy area known as Boeing Field. The Field is home to several top-secret federal offices (seriously, don't tell anyone), frogs, a few eagles, one or two great horned owls and homeless guys that live in the weeds by the Duwamish and are so dirty they're blacker than that terrifying homeless person in David Lynch's Mulholland Drive.
Anyhoozle, this was weird because literally within a half hour of accepting the gig, I got five query emails from other headhunters for tech writing/DTP jobs.
Suddenly, inexplicably my resume no longer has virtual B.O.
Go figure. Saturn has stopped sitting on my astrological southwest node ... errr something.
And the goofy title of this post is a direct quote from my ditzy headhunter: "I'm not sure who's doing the intake paperwork this week. Rob and Bob have the same job. Hey that rhymes! Ta-heee!"
Monday, April 09, 2007
Honey, I don’t want your Bubba
Several years ago, one of my reporter friends wrote an article about a brothel in Battle Mountain. While interviewing one of the madams, he asked her what one of the biggest misconceptions was about hooking in a Nevada backwater like B.M. She said small town women universally believe hookers want to ‘steal’ their husbands away. The sweetest quote was: “Honey, I don’t want your Bubba.” I love that.
What’s weird is, I’ve found a disproportionate number of young Smug Marrieds (thanks Helen Fielding) seem to adopt a similar mentality toward all single women every where. Course this isn’t new.
It started in, oh, 1985. I was working a crap landscaping job in Sacramento. I had a co-worker who was a weekend mechanic and I had a question about my disintegrating Chevy Nova. I kept asking my cousin – who was his supervisor – to talk to the grease monkey for me. When she finally cornered him and asked him the question (having to do with the water pump) he blurted out: “I’m MARRIED, ya know!”
Um, that’s great. My question was about my freakin’ car, not your weenie, you dick.
In 2004, a (gasp) married co-worker agree to stop by to try and fix something on my computer. He showed up in a winter jacket, looking extra sweaty and nervous. It was July. The whole time he was in my studio apartment (about 7 ½ minutes) he kept glancing nervously at my bed (it’s a studio, you can’t miss it), my dirty laundry and me. Either the aroma of dirty laundry and the sight of a floppy, used bed is more seductive than a bucket of Calvin Klein perfume or I’m inhabiting a Guy Lair and no one ever told me.
What does go on in their tiny guy minds, I wonder? Do they jack off to fantasies of me (or insert ANY single woman) answering the door in a crouchless teddy with enough makeup on to make John Waters envious?
Fast forward to today and once again I’m dealing with this same weird, pointlessly awkward shit. Recently I had to meet a fellow student to go over a group project that was due in a few days. When my co-student showed up he brought his wife and their brand-new baby. His wife immediately sized me up. WTF? Even if we hypothesized for a second that this guy was single, he’s … just … not … my … type. He’s twitchy, doesn’t wash his hair and we have as much chemistry as a couple of flat sodas.
First thing they do upon arriving at our agreed coffee shop of choice? She plops the baby down in the middle of the table. It’s like: SEE? WE BREED! Yeah, so? You and every Yuppie from here to Ashland, Oregon. And he introduced her to me like three times before she reluctantly disappeared with baby on board to run errands. It was like someone saying to me at a party (in a bar, at a seminar, insert social event here): Hi, I’m MARRIED! This is MY SPOUSE! Did I mention we're MARRIED?!
So I’m hoping some married men, or their wives, can clue me in on what exactly is going on here. The second the ring gets jammed painfully onto his finger do all single women like me everywhere magically, miraculously transform into Kim Baysinger or Britney Spears look-alikes? Does answering the door in baggy sweats and a t-shirt send a secret signal of wild, rampant sexual promiscuity only married men can sense, kinda like whistles only dogs can hear? Do moldering piles of dirty laundry offer a whiff of untold lustful romps yet to come?
I don’t want your Bubba.
What’s weird is, I’ve found a disproportionate number of young Smug Marrieds (thanks Helen Fielding) seem to adopt a similar mentality toward all single women every where. Course this isn’t new.
It started in, oh, 1985. I was working a crap landscaping job in Sacramento. I had a co-worker who was a weekend mechanic and I had a question about my disintegrating Chevy Nova. I kept asking my cousin – who was his supervisor – to talk to the grease monkey for me. When she finally cornered him and asked him the question (having to do with the water pump) he blurted out: “I’m MARRIED, ya know!”
Um, that’s great. My question was about my freakin’ car, not your weenie, you dick.
In 2004, a (gasp) married co-worker agree to stop by to try and fix something on my computer. He showed up in a winter jacket, looking extra sweaty and nervous. It was July. The whole time he was in my studio apartment (about 7 ½ minutes) he kept glancing nervously at my bed (it’s a studio, you can’t miss it), my dirty laundry and me. Either the aroma of dirty laundry and the sight of a floppy, used bed is more seductive than a bucket of Calvin Klein perfume or I’m inhabiting a Guy Lair and no one ever told me.
What does go on in their tiny guy minds, I wonder? Do they jack off to fantasies of me (or insert ANY single woman) answering the door in a crouchless teddy with enough makeup on to make John Waters envious?
Fast forward to today and once again I’m dealing with this same weird, pointlessly awkward shit. Recently I had to meet a fellow student to go over a group project that was due in a few days. When my co-student showed up he brought his wife and their brand-new baby. His wife immediately sized me up. WTF? Even if we hypothesized for a second that this guy was single, he’s … just … not … my … type. He’s twitchy, doesn’t wash his hair and we have as much chemistry as a couple of flat sodas.
First thing they do upon arriving at our agreed coffee shop of choice? She plops the baby down in the middle of the table. It’s like: SEE? WE BREED! Yeah, so? You and every Yuppie from here to Ashland, Oregon. And he introduced her to me like three times before she reluctantly disappeared with baby on board to run errands. It was like someone saying to me at a party (in a bar, at a seminar, insert social event here): Hi, I’m MARRIED! This is MY SPOUSE! Did I mention we're MARRIED?!
So I’m hoping some married men, or their wives, can clue me in on what exactly is going on here. The second the ring gets jammed painfully onto his finger do all single women like me everywhere magically, miraculously transform into Kim Baysinger or Britney Spears look-alikes? Does answering the door in baggy sweats and a t-shirt send a secret signal of wild, rampant sexual promiscuity only married men can sense, kinda like whistles only dogs can hear? Do moldering piles of dirty laundry offer a whiff of untold lustful romps yet to come?
I don’t want your Bubba.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
The Mullet Vs. RuPaul
I saw '300' the other evening. It's based on Frank Miller's black-and-white-and-homophobic-all-over comic books.
Miller is the misogynistic author/graphic novelist who wrote the inspiration for 'Sin City'. In 'Sin City', Mickey Rourke looked more Republican than usual and I saw Jessica Alba's camel toe more times than I wanted to. Plus Toby Maguire was a serial amputator of broad's gams. I know, funny. Toby Maguire as a serial killer. Heehee.
(Free back rubs for hot Greek men!)
So in Miller's vision of the Battle of Thermopylae, King Leonidas is a raging hetero who only yearns for his skinny-as-a-boy wife. Yeah, right. The Greeks loved young, Abercrombie&Fitch-ish punks. I mean loved them. But Miller and director Zack Snyder were havin' none of that! So they made Persian King Xerxes a gold-lame drag queen. Which is weird given Xerxes had a full beard, was about 50 and had a hundred wives, twice as many concubines and rugrats runnin' all over Asia minor.
But the kicker is one of the New People on 'Lost' played Xerxes. Brazilian Rodrigo Santoro who rocks a mullet on 'Lost' is flamin' mo' Xerxes in Snyder/Miller's version of this story. Imagine that. A Brazilian soap opera star playing an ancient Persian emperor ... and playing him gay! VIVA CARNIVALE!
Oh well, Dan Savage said it way better than I just did but then his tolerance for ganja is much greater than mine.
Peace out and bring on the rippling abs!
Miller is the misogynistic author/graphic novelist who wrote the inspiration for 'Sin City'. In 'Sin City', Mickey Rourke looked more Republican than usual and I saw Jessica Alba's camel toe more times than I wanted to. Plus Toby Maguire was a serial amputator of broad's gams. I know, funny. Toby Maguire as a serial killer. Heehee.
So in Miller's vision of the Battle of Thermopylae, King Leonidas is a raging hetero who only yearns for his skinny-as-a-boy wife. Yeah, right. The Greeks loved young, Abercrombie&Fitch-ish punks. I mean loved them. But Miller and director Zack Snyder were havin' none of that! So they made Persian King Xerxes a gold-lame drag queen. Which is weird given Xerxes had a full beard, was about 50 and had a hundred wives, twice as many concubines and rugrats runnin' all over Asia minor.
But the kicker is one of the New People on 'Lost' played Xerxes. Brazilian Rodrigo Santoro who rocks a mullet on 'Lost' is flamin' mo' Xerxes in Snyder/Miller's version of this story. Imagine that. A Brazilian soap opera star playing an ancient Persian emperor ... and playing him gay! VIVA CARNIVALE!
Oh well, Dan Savage said it way better than I just did but then his tolerance for ganja is much greater than mine.
Peace out and bring on the rippling abs!
Monday, March 12, 2007
For Your Edification
Gawd, I should be posting something deep, thoughtful and edifying. But after that last phone call from another asshat IT headhunter I just wanna beat my head against the wall. And then go to Candy Mountain ...
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Literal Shitstorm
About five days ago, when Seattle was having a nice warm spell (55 F!) I went for a jog down at Myrtle Edwards Park along the water. As usual, the wind coming across from the Olympic Peninsula was fierce but at least not really cold.
On my way back home, I walked under some young cottonwoods at the north end of the park. Amid the wind and sideways rain I didn't realize that about 50 starlings were sitting in the trees. All of the sudden I was caught in a literal shitstorm. First one foul glob of guano hit the shoulder of my fleece hoodie (I'd JUST washed it) then I got some in my hair and finally one wad of bird shit hit the side of my glasses and my face.
Gasping with grossness and cussing the birds out, I staggered behind a short, stubby fir tree and cleaned the worst of the shit off. I got home and promptly took a shower. My fleece hoodie went back into the dirty laundry pile and I forgot about it and went to class.
Wednesday night, coming home from class, I started coughing. It felt like an asthma cough. Thursday morning I was feeling pretty bad. Friday, I was in such bad shape I had to have someone fill in for me at the yoga studio on custodian detail. Yesterday, I stupidly went to yoga and tried to workout and then clean. I nearly blacked out I was so dizzy. When I took my temp last night at 7:30pm, it was 101.6 F.
While groggily coughing up phlegm in the shower this a.m., I remember the shitstorm of a few days ago. Did that cause this?!
But then again, I'm reading a lot in one of my holistic MySpace groups about the dangers of dairy products, how they weaken our immune system and how Starbuck's now sells more milk than coffee.
I am sooo all done with lattes. Never fucking again.
On my way back home, I walked under some young cottonwoods at the north end of the park. Amid the wind and sideways rain I didn't realize that about 50 starlings were sitting in the trees. All of the sudden I was caught in a literal shitstorm. First one foul glob of guano hit the shoulder of my fleece hoodie (I'd JUST washed it) then I got some in my hair and finally one wad of bird shit hit the side of my glasses and my face.
Gasping with grossness and cussing the birds out, I staggered behind a short, stubby fir tree and cleaned the worst of the shit off. I got home and promptly took a shower. My fleece hoodie went back into the dirty laundry pile and I forgot about it and went to class.
Wednesday night, coming home from class, I started coughing. It felt like an asthma cough. Thursday morning I was feeling pretty bad. Friday, I was in such bad shape I had to have someone fill in for me at the yoga studio on custodian detail. Yesterday, I stupidly went to yoga and tried to workout and then clean. I nearly blacked out I was so dizzy. When I took my temp last night at 7:30pm, it was 101.6 F.
While groggily coughing up phlegm in the shower this a.m., I remember the shitstorm of a few days ago. Did that cause this?!
But then again, I'm reading a lot in one of my holistic MySpace groups about the dangers of dairy products, how they weaken our immune system and how Starbuck's now sells more milk than coffee.
I am sooo all done with lattes. Never fucking again.
Sunday, February 04, 2007
A Fellow Yogi
I knew Rick Linville only in passing. And I passed him a lot coming and going from the Bikram yoga studio up in CapHill.
He was a tall, ghostly-pale, unassuming guy. He was famous for freaking newcomers out with his noisy deep breathing during the beginning posture and he repeatedly dazzled 20-yr-old athletes with his deft ability to do "doubles", as in doing one hot yoga class right after another. That's like going into a 98-degree room at 4:40pm, doing the exercises and then staying for a second round to finally leave at 8:40pm.
I went to a small memorial at the studio for him last night. There were a lot of candles and flowers, one of the studio owners set up a small shrine in Rick's old position on the floor complete with a basketball and a bottle of his favorite soda. Rick had insulin diabetes (which he monitored with the occasional soda) and end-stage hepatitis which was destroying his liver. He had been coming religiously to the Sweatbox for four years straight and credited it with extending his life.
It was an awesome memorial. We did a 'silent' workout and got to listen to Brian Eno CDs, who Rick liked and it was perfect tunes for the event.
I'm certain Rick is enjoying perfect workouts now in a much nicer studio complete with cosmic sunlight.
Namaste
He was a tall, ghostly-pale, unassuming guy. He was famous for freaking newcomers out with his noisy deep breathing during the beginning posture and he repeatedly dazzled 20-yr-old athletes with his deft ability to do "doubles", as in doing one hot yoga class right after another. That's like going into a 98-degree room at 4:40pm, doing the exercises and then staying for a second round to finally leave at 8:40pm.
I went to a small memorial at the studio for him last night. There were a lot of candles and flowers, one of the studio owners set up a small shrine in Rick's old position on the floor complete with a basketball and a bottle of his favorite soda. Rick had insulin diabetes (which he monitored with the occasional soda) and end-stage hepatitis which was destroying his liver. He had been coming religiously to the Sweatbox for four years straight and credited it with extending his life.
It was an awesome memorial. We did a 'silent' workout and got to listen to Brian Eno CDs, who Rick liked and it was perfect tunes for the event.
I'm certain Rick is enjoying perfect workouts now in a much nicer studio complete with cosmic sunlight.
Namaste
Friday, February 02, 2007
I ... Must ... Emulate
I'm supposed to emulate this guy's writing for my White Papers class.
I still feel kinda sleazy and dirty when I write marketing or ad drivel. It's like a Ganette-Urinal flashback or something and that daft shit, Sloane, is leering down at me asking me how the advertorials for the car dealership insert are coming. Ewww.
Oh well, if things go right, in a couple months I'll be writing for either a place that does genetic mutations or Gates of Borg out at the assimilation center in Redmond.
I'll try and post the link to my white paper when it's done so all of you (all two of you) can point at it and laugh.
I still feel kinda sleazy and dirty when I write marketing or ad drivel. It's like a Ganette-Urinal flashback or something and that daft shit, Sloane, is leering down at me asking me how the advertorials for the car dealership insert are coming. Ewww.
Oh well, if things go right, in a couple months I'll be writing for either a place that does genetic mutations or Gates of Borg out at the assimilation center in Redmond.
I'll try and post the link to my white paper when it's done so all of you (all two of you) can point at it and laugh.
Saturday, January 20, 2007
S.A.M. ... sudden art malaise?
Here's what they've done to my backyard. I'm not thrilled about it. Yeah, yeah at least not another 10-story condo but still. An eraser?!
Seattle Art Museum Sculpture Park
Seattle Art Museum Sculpture Park
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Jesus, the Communist! (Like the musical only with more red)
About three months ago I saw an ad for an anti-Bush/anti-war group meeting. The Seattle chapter of the World Can't Wait had about a dozen members, including a half dozen core members. WCW was mostly middle-aged women and a smattering of idealistic, twenty something college guys. You know the kind -- they make their own punk clothes, are vegan, and write poetry worse than mine when they aren't reading Abbie Hoffman.
The big rally happened right after that first meeting on Oct. 5th. The WCW paid for a permit to meet in a Capital Hill park, had a string of not-terribly-good guest speakers and then we marched downtown. By the time we got downtown, there were about 1,000 people in the group. It was a gorgeous day and the whole thing was fairly successful; aside with WCW being a little pushy with the collection buckets at the rally in the park. They had me and several others wander through the crowd three times to beg for money presumably so WCW could pay for the rally. At least I think that's what the money was for. I've never heard a solid figure on how much was raised that day or what the total cost of the event was.
Afterwards, I went to their weekly meetings every Sunday in a very pretty and very drafty church in Ballard. They were usually two-hour bitchfests about the Bush Regime. Later, I went out in storms to put fliers up on phone poles, light poles, bulletin boards, etc.
The group got some members to fork over for some orange jumpsuits ala Gitmo style and started doing Thursday night vigils in the brutal cold in downtown Seattle. We were there to remind the holiday shoppers that hundreds of foreign nationals were being held illegally in Guantanamo by the Bush Regime and that the Military Commissions Act was an illegal trick that defied every known international law. Fair enough. I went to one of those and held a sign with a 70-year-old woman who had left another activist group because she said: "They were just all about the salmon and protecting the salmon habitat and I was just sick of fish activism." She was a nice lady but I'm not sure she should have been standing outside in the cold when she looked frail enough to blow away.
Things started to get weird. First I had to listen to a very authoritarian twenty something member scold myself and another meeting attendee for 'showing up late'. Well, shit. It's Sunday. It's awful weather out and we're here. (Citizen Alert was always grateful when anybody showed up.)
Then I found out that most of the 'core members' were also communists. That's fine. But they're members of a national organization called the Revolutionary Communist Party. I did a little reading on this group -- and it wasn't easy finding anything on them. The covertness of the RCP weirded me out to no end. I'd met tons of socialists when I was in the UK and especially Australia. Their socialist leanings were no big secret. They wanted national healthcare (the continuation of it) and more corporate accountability. What's wrong with that?!
Every time I asked one of the RCP members what they were about, why they were in WCW, I ran head first into the dreaded Smug Smile. If you've never experienced this, you've never been anywhere near Utah where the Mormons invented and perfected the Smug Smile. The Smug Smile basically sez: "You're wrong, I'm right. You're a sad, misguided unbeliever and you're going to hell. I, however, am going to heaven when I die. My own, personal heaven ... since we've already got most of Idaho by proxy."
I was getting that vibe from the RCP. So I did more reading and finally stumbled upon some truly creepy stuff. Like, for example, the RCP has founded numerous anti-war/anti-establishment groups since the 1980s. Most of these groups steam along for a few years and then just cease to exist. The websites come down, the meetings stop. No explanation. Coming from an environmentalist background I was shocked. The group I was in off and on from 1992-2002, had been in around since the late 1970s when it was founded to stop the MX missile system from being brought into Nevada by the Reagan administration.
I asked a couple of the 'core members' of the RCP what they were doing in the WCW. They assured me that they weren't looking for fresh communist recruits and that they only wanted to work with democrats, republicans, whoever to stop the Bush regime. But every single time I asked them WHAT their best-case scenario was they got cagey. I'd get the Smug Smile. What did the RCP want? A multi-party system? An abolishment of the electoral college? A few seats along side some libertarians and greens in the Senate? They always got super vague and would say things like 'well, that's the first step'. First step to what?
In December I went to a WCW meeting and one of the 'core group' (and RCP member!) announced that he was starting a Seattle chapter of a communist youth brigade. He was looking for members. He was doing exactly what the other RCP folks had told me they would never, do -- using WCW as a place to fish for new members for the RCP. This terribly idealistic kid wanted myself and the half dozen present to start working on fund raising so he and some other 'core group' members (RCP members too!) could fly to NYC and attend a meeting at WCW's national headquarters. I'm just wondering how close the WCW's New York office is to the RCP's national office ...?
I visited the website this guy had put up for the little youth brigade. It has rifles and bayonets as part of the motif.
Because politics -- any version of it -- always has a complicated history, I did a little more research. I learned that Mao, the former 'benevolent dictator' of communist China, was one of the RCP's favorite philosophers and they quote him a lot. I also learned he killed an estimated 15 million Chinese during his Great Upward Movement which was basically a food-for-bombs exchange with the Soviet Union. Chinese starved to death so Mao could arm his 'People's Army' against any real or imagined internal threats ... to him. Like Tibet, for example. A country where today it's illegal to teach the Tibetan language, they have 60% unemployment, thousands of ethnic Chinese were forced to moved there in the 70s and take over Tibetan farms and businesses. Oh yeah, and under Mao, hundreds of thousands of Tibetan Buddhists were executed or imprisoned because 'religion is poison.' And this guy is their rock star.
Then I discovered that the RCP has also founded NION (Not In Our Name), and they've been linked to ANSWER (Act Now Stop War End Racism). So why so many anti-war groups? Why can't the RCP just march under their own banner?
I learned RCP was founded by a 70s activist, Bob Avakian, who has been 'in exile' from the U.S. for decades and gives lectures on the pros of communism via an undisclosed location ala Cheney. He's supposedly an eloquent speaker. Personally, I can barely sit through a six minute lecture let alone a six hour DVD of one. If Mao is the Old Testament god to the RCP, then Avakian is their Jesus Christ. When they talk about him their eyes get real glassy and they get dreamy little grins. (Imagine that politics is your poison ... err drug.)
Finally, I found a couple of websites alleging that the RCP is the only communist party in America that continues to call for the 'violent over throw of the government.' That's right. Rifles and bayonets! Molotov cocktails hitting cop cars. They don't want any seats in Congress. They want to burn Congress to the ground.
Some would argue they're not above using scapegoats to get what they want. What's especially alarming about the RCP is that other, extreme Leftist groups are afraid of them. Anarchists hate the RCP and any of it's off shoots like the WCW with a purple passion. I've had several tell me that the RCP 'sets them up' at protests to get 'taken down by the cops.' An event some what like this occurred on Oct. 5th right here in Rain City. I wrote angry letters to feckless TV reporters over it because of their shoddy coverage of it. Afterwards, I read in a local weekly newspaper that the cops 'received an anonymous tip' that Anarchists were going to be joining the Oct. 5th rally. Hmmm ... wonder who called them???
So I'm done with the World Can't Wait, comrades. I'm all for the removal of the zit that is BushCo from America's ass but I support our democracy, however shabby it's looking, because I am a member of a democracy-by-representation society, not a displaced worker from the Hunan Province looking to re-educate my wayward Tibetan neighbors by forcing them to read the Little Red Book at gunpoint.
The big rally happened right after that first meeting on Oct. 5th. The WCW paid for a permit to meet in a Capital Hill park, had a string of not-terribly-good guest speakers and then we marched downtown. By the time we got downtown, there were about 1,000 people in the group. It was a gorgeous day and the whole thing was fairly successful; aside with WCW being a little pushy with the collection buckets at the rally in the park. They had me and several others wander through the crowd three times to beg for money presumably so WCW could pay for the rally. At least I think that's what the money was for. I've never heard a solid figure on how much was raised that day or what the total cost of the event was.
Afterwards, I went to their weekly meetings every Sunday in a very pretty and very drafty church in Ballard. They were usually two-hour bitchfests about the Bush Regime. Later, I went out in storms to put fliers up on phone poles, light poles, bulletin boards, etc.
The group got some members to fork over for some orange jumpsuits ala Gitmo style and started doing Thursday night vigils in the brutal cold in downtown Seattle. We were there to remind the holiday shoppers that hundreds of foreign nationals were being held illegally in Guantanamo by the Bush Regime and that the Military Commissions Act was an illegal trick that defied every known international law. Fair enough. I went to one of those and held a sign with a 70-year-old woman who had left another activist group because she said: "They were just all about the salmon and protecting the salmon habitat and I was just sick of fish activism." She was a nice lady but I'm not sure she should have been standing outside in the cold when she looked frail enough to blow away.
Things started to get weird. First I had to listen to a very authoritarian twenty something member scold myself and another meeting attendee for 'showing up late'. Well, shit. It's Sunday. It's awful weather out and we're here. (Citizen Alert was always grateful when anybody showed up.)
Then I found out that most of the 'core members' were also communists. That's fine. But they're members of a national organization called the Revolutionary Communist Party. I did a little reading on this group -- and it wasn't easy finding anything on them. The covertness of the RCP weirded me out to no end. I'd met tons of socialists when I was in the UK and especially Australia. Their socialist leanings were no big secret. They wanted national healthcare (the continuation of it) and more corporate accountability. What's wrong with that?!
Every time I asked one of the RCP members what they were about, why they were in WCW, I ran head first into the dreaded Smug Smile. If you've never experienced this, you've never been anywhere near Utah where the Mormons invented and perfected the Smug Smile. The Smug Smile basically sez: "You're wrong, I'm right. You're a sad, misguided unbeliever and you're going to hell. I, however, am going to heaven when I die. My own, personal heaven ... since we've already got most of Idaho by proxy."
I was getting that vibe from the RCP. So I did more reading and finally stumbled upon some truly creepy stuff. Like, for example, the RCP has founded numerous anti-war/anti-establishment groups since the 1980s. Most of these groups steam along for a few years and then just cease to exist. The websites come down, the meetings stop. No explanation. Coming from an environmentalist background I was shocked. The group I was in off and on from 1992-2002, had been in around since the late 1970s when it was founded to stop the MX missile system from being brought into Nevada by the Reagan administration.
I asked a couple of the 'core members' of the RCP what they were doing in the WCW. They assured me that they weren't looking for fresh communist recruits and that they only wanted to work with democrats, republicans, whoever to stop the Bush regime. But every single time I asked them WHAT their best-case scenario was they got cagey. I'd get the Smug Smile. What did the RCP want? A multi-party system? An abolishment of the electoral college? A few seats along side some libertarians and greens in the Senate? They always got super vague and would say things like 'well, that's the first step'. First step to what?
In December I went to a WCW meeting and one of the 'core group' (and RCP member!) announced that he was starting a Seattle chapter of a communist youth brigade. He was looking for members. He was doing exactly what the other RCP folks had told me they would never, do -- using WCW as a place to fish for new members for the RCP. This terribly idealistic kid wanted myself and the half dozen present to start working on fund raising so he and some other 'core group' members (RCP members too!) could fly to NYC and attend a meeting at WCW's national headquarters. I'm just wondering how close the WCW's New York office is to the RCP's national office ...?
I visited the website this guy had put up for the little youth brigade. It has rifles and bayonets as part of the motif.
Because politics -- any version of it -- always has a complicated history, I did a little more research. I learned that Mao, the former 'benevolent dictator' of communist China, was one of the RCP's favorite philosophers and they quote him a lot. I also learned he killed an estimated 15 million Chinese during his Great Upward Movement which was basically a food-for-bombs exchange with the Soviet Union. Chinese starved to death so Mao could arm his 'People's Army' against any real or imagined internal threats ... to him. Like Tibet, for example. A country where today it's illegal to teach the Tibetan language, they have 60% unemployment, thousands of ethnic Chinese were forced to moved there in the 70s and take over Tibetan farms and businesses. Oh yeah, and under Mao, hundreds of thousands of Tibetan Buddhists were executed or imprisoned because 'religion is poison.' And this guy is their rock star.
Then I discovered that the RCP has also founded NION (Not In Our Name), and they've been linked to ANSWER (Act Now Stop War End Racism). So why so many anti-war groups? Why can't the RCP just march under their own banner?
I learned RCP was founded by a 70s activist, Bob Avakian, who has been 'in exile' from the U.S. for decades and gives lectures on the pros of communism via an undisclosed location ala Cheney. He's supposedly an eloquent speaker. Personally, I can barely sit through a six minute lecture let alone a six hour DVD of one. If Mao is the Old Testament god to the RCP, then Avakian is their Jesus Christ. When they talk about him their eyes get real glassy and they get dreamy little grins. (Imagine that politics is your poison ... err drug.)
Finally, I found a couple of websites alleging that the RCP is the only communist party in America that continues to call for the 'violent over throw of the government.' That's right. Rifles and bayonets! Molotov cocktails hitting cop cars. They don't want any seats in Congress. They want to burn Congress to the ground.
Some would argue they're not above using scapegoats to get what they want. What's especially alarming about the RCP is that other, extreme Leftist groups are afraid of them. Anarchists hate the RCP and any of it's off shoots like the WCW with a purple passion. I've had several tell me that the RCP 'sets them up' at protests to get 'taken down by the cops.' An event some what like this occurred on Oct. 5th right here in Rain City. I wrote angry letters to feckless TV reporters over it because of their shoddy coverage of it. Afterwards, I read in a local weekly newspaper that the cops 'received an anonymous tip' that Anarchists were going to be joining the Oct. 5th rally. Hmmm ... wonder who called them???
So I'm done with the World Can't Wait, comrades. I'm all for the removal of the zit that is BushCo from America's ass but I support our democracy, however shabby it's looking, because I am a member of a democracy-by-representation society, not a displaced worker from the Hunan Province looking to re-educate my wayward Tibetan neighbors by forcing them to read the Little Red Book at gunpoint.
Monday, January 01, 2007
Heureux Nouveau Année ... eh?
Maybe it's because I'm stuck on the Dole while I'm waiting for my worker retraining classes to kick in, but I've been staring a lot more wistfully north these days. I don't know ... is the moss really greener on the other side?
I've just got this nagging curiousity about Our Neighbors to the North, those Molson Drinkers ...
I've just got this nagging curiousity about Our Neighbors to the North, those Molson Drinkers ...
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
I Found Him!
I finally found that nude painter I'd seen in a book at Tez's flat in 2003.
He's a UK painter and his stuff is pretty provacative, like his personal life. According to Wikipedia, he's got 40(!) illegitimate children. I wonder how he found the time to paint ...
He's a UK painter and his stuff is pretty provacative, like his personal life. According to Wikipedia, he's got 40(!) illegitimate children. I wonder how he found the time to paint ...
Friday, November 24, 2006
Bareback ... Doctor?
Is it just my imagination or do these two make a hot couple?
I mean, I know Bryan Singer is queer, which is fine. But, ummm, is it just me or have House and Wilson been the secret gay odd couple since at least last season? For chrisstake, Wilson COOKED for House last season. He's clearly the bitch and House is the top. Who cares what these shut-ins say!
I mean, I know Bryan Singer is queer, which is fine. But, ummm, is it just me or have House and Wilson been the secret gay odd couple since at least last season? For chrisstake, Wilson COOKED for House last season. He's clearly the bitch and House is the top. Who cares what these shut-ins say!
Saturday, November 18, 2006
It's Not Who, It's When
I was just watching a tape of Real Time with Bill Maher. This is from a November 3, 2006 airdate on HBO. I was so effing shocked by what one of his panel guests said, I had to sorta take dictation and now I'm gonna post the excerpt here.
Comments?
BILL MAHER: “We’ve had this national debt for 215 years. It was $4 trillion when Bush took office, now it’s doubled. It’s $8 trillion. I know they like to say ‘Democrats are gonna raise your taxes’ but doesn’t SOMEBODY have to pay for this because when the deficit goes up, when the debt goes up -- it’s not who, it’s when. I don’t have kids so I don’t care, but if you do have kids, I would think you’d care?”
ALEC BALDWIN: “What this administration has tried to do is to increase the debt and to spend money on funding this war. And the money has gone into the hands of many, many private contractors and it’s been a big engine in the economy. Many of the people in this country are not enjoying the benefits of this economy but the Dow is up above 12,000. A lot of it has to do with spending on the war. Now this administration doesn’t wanna raise people’s taxes, they wanna shift that debt burden onto the people, so that the service of the debt prevents certain social spending in years to come --“
MAHER: “They wanna starve the people.”
BALDWIN: “Exactly. They wanna disenfranchise Democratic constituents by saying ‘we don’t have the money to pay for your problems because we have to service this huge debt.’ Literally that is their goal.”
MAHER: (to Rep. Jack Kingston R-Georgia) “Is that true?! Are you gonna admit to that one too?”
Comments?
Friday, November 10, 2006
Did you say 'cheap wine'?!
I went to one of these last night at this place. It was a gas but I only stayed to hear the first three poets (there were like 20 signed up to read!) because I was tired, frozen and hungry after holding a protest banner for World Can't Wait for two hours downtown.
I was gonna post a rough, un-edited poem inspired by last night's reading but my order from Campmor just got here and, damnit, I have backpacks, yoga tops and thermal underwear to go play with now. WooT!!!
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
What the Rocky Mtn. State is All About (sing it)!
When I was in Grand Junction, Colorado in Summer 2003 I went into a grocery store in search of some Odwalla juice. You know what I'm talkin' about -- that frothy, flash-frozen goodness that us non-juice machine people live by. When I couldn't find the juice, I asked an employee. He was about 60 years old, white haired and bug-eyed with one of those pretend twangy accents that Coloradians put on to make themselves sound extra inbred.
When I described the product, he said: "Oh-wallah?! Sounds like sometin' tha have in Cale-fornYah or other foreign countries."
I wasn't in the mood to remind this village idiot that California is a STATE, not a foreign country, and has a GNP so large its tax revenues partly fund Colorado's vast federal parks.
That said, here's a ditty to the un-realest state in the union, right next door to (and just a Tabernacle shy of) the State of the Cult where polygamization of child brides in the name of the one true religion still goes on. METH & MAN ASS!
When I described the product, he said: "Oh-wallah?! Sounds like sometin' tha have in Cale-fornYah or other foreign countries."
I wasn't in the mood to remind this village idiot that California is a STATE, not a foreign country, and has a GNP so large its tax revenues partly fund Colorado's vast federal parks.
That said, here's a ditty to the un-realest state in the union, right next door to (and just a Tabernacle shy of) the State of the Cult where polygamization of child brides in the name of the one true religion still goes on. METH & MAN ASS!
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
One Small Step ...
In an effort to curb my rampant net surfing via this CPU (central procrastinating unit), I killed my MySpace account. This is good. I needed a mental health vacation.
I'm not sure which was worse -- having that creepy chick from one of the feminist groups virtually 'stalk' me because I disagreed with her asshat comments about pornography or spending 15 minutes out of every hour of the day in one of the "Lost" newsgroups arguing about the significance of the Dharma Initiative's logo. Ah, yes now onto the MicroSoft training modules and less time wasted on MySpazz with my head up my ass.
Or maybe I could try working on one of my unfinished novels once in a while,
-- Mz M.
I'm not sure which was worse -- having that creepy chick from one of the feminist groups virtually 'stalk' me because I disagreed with her asshat comments about pornography or spending 15 minutes out of every hour of the day in one of the "Lost" newsgroups arguing about the significance of the Dharma Initiative's logo. Ah, yes now onto the MicroSoft training modules and less time wasted on MySpazz with my head up my ass.
Or maybe I could try working on one of my unfinished novels once in a while,
-- Mz M.
Saturday, October 28, 2006
Anarchy Courtesy Uncle Sam
One of the best damn You Tube vids I've watched in a while. Totally explains the 1999 WTO riots. Fuckin' scary and just in time for Halloween.
-- Mz M.
-- Mz M.
Saturday, October 14, 2006
Petite Blonde/Giant Cajones & a TGILF !
My peoples,
Give it up for this little lady. Applaud. Send food. Send Band-Aids for the blisters. Sing her praises far and wide. Damn, that takes balls. Like I said in the Comments section, my overall impression of Los Angeles in January 2002 (sunny, 73 degrees) was: Wow! What a great place to live if it weren't for all these FUCKING CARS.
In other, less globally ecological news, I've got a new celeb crush.
David Krumholtz is sooo fifteen minutes ago! Not only has this theatre geek worked opposite Kevin Spacey on Broadway, nailed an Emmy on a sloppy, stupid David Kelley show but, NO, wait! There's MORE. He also used to be a comic book illustrator and has done the books-on-tape thingie for one of Neil Gaiman's stories. (Gasp!) I'm all a twitter. Ah, but of course, he's married to some blonde bimbo from the South, a mutant Reese-Witherspoon-meets-Cameron-Diaz freak.
I can't wait till we get the back story/history arc on his character on Lost. Oh why do I always fall for the emotionally unbalanced/serial murderer types? Why?!
-- Mz M.
Give it up for this little lady. Applaud. Send food. Send Band-Aids for the blisters. Sing her praises far and wide. Damn, that takes balls. Like I said in the Comments section, my overall impression of Los Angeles in January 2002 (sunny, 73 degrees) was: Wow! What a great place to live if it weren't for all these FUCKING CARS.
In other, less globally ecological news, I've got a new celeb crush.
David Krumholtz is sooo fifteen minutes ago! Not only has this theatre geek worked opposite Kevin Spacey on Broadway, nailed an Emmy on a sloppy, stupid David Kelley show but, NO, wait! There's MORE. He also used to be a comic book illustrator and has done the books-on-tape thingie for one of Neil Gaiman's stories. (Gasp!) I'm all a twitter. Ah, but of course, he's married to some blonde bimbo from the South, a mutant Reese-Witherspoon-meets-Cameron-Diaz freak.
I can't wait till we get the back story/history arc on his character on Lost. Oh why do I always fall for the emotionally unbalanced/serial murderer types? Why?!
-- Mz M.
Sunday, October 08, 2006
Let's Be Kind and Move On
That's what my fine art photography professor used to say about my photos. In light of that and the fact that it's been a while since I held a protest sign in one hand while snapping photos with the other, I'm just gonna post the link for the Post Intelligencer's kick ass photo montage of the Thursday protest. Thank Gawd I didn't make any of them. Let's not zero in on the fat little dutch girl.
-- Mz M.
Monday, October 02, 2006
Civil Disobedience & Near Life Experiences
I went to my first World Can't Wait meet Sunday up in balmy Ballard. We met in this monstrous, three story Methodist church that towered over all the hippie houses in Ballard. Afterwards, I walked home putting up fliers for the big protest on October 5th as I went.
Also on Sunday, I got somefreak out news. My older (not oldest) brother, Dana, apparently hit a deer while riding his motorcycle. My sister-in-law said he basically stove in one side of his rib cage, collapsed a lung and broke both clavicles. Most serious, he 'tore' a section of his heart. He's had three open-heart procedures in the last 72 hours to stop the bleeding.
I've been musing on the number of times I've received batshit emergency news concerning my brothers. One of the earliest was when I was nine and Dana went off a cliff with two of his buddies the night before their graduation from Carmel High. They were driving in a 60's VW Bug and it rolled down an embankment. The friend who was driving (they were all shitfaced) died on impact. My brother, all 6'1" of him, was stuffed in the backseat. He kicked his way out of the VW and wandered with a fractured skull and brain hemorrhage several miles before collapsing in the backyard of some rich lady's estate.
My Mom drove white-knuckled from Reno to California and we stalked the gleaming hallways of posh Monterey General for several days until Dana woke up from his coma. A few weeks later, he was back home and brooding, agitated and driving my Dad insane with his California boy lifestyle. I remember him cutting the cast off his arm with a hand saw stealing two six-packs of beer and then disappearing with one of his friends on the back of a dirt bike for some macho mourning over their slain partner in crime.
We rarely saw Dana when I was growing up. He turned up twice in Reno after the accident, both times in a yellow Corvette Stingray that had come from settlement money after the accident.
The last visit he paid to Mom and me was a few months before the voices in my Mom's head told her to pack everything up and relocate us to Battle Mountain, Nevada before the giant California earthquake hit and caused all the water in Lake Tahoe to slop over like a giant teacup and drown all of Reno.
The visit did not go well. We fought constantly, mostly over Cap'n Crunch cereal, the TV (which monotonously aired the Watergate hearings) and what to do on those boring Nevada afternoons.
After Mom relocated us to the Armpit of America, I saw much less of Dana. I can only remember one very brief visit he paid while I was in junior high school. As we cruised that desiccated, gray-beige hamlet of nothingness, he said to me: "If the world had an asshole, this is right where they'd put it." It was an astute comment.
As relations with my emotionally abusive Dad grew worse, my contact with Dana withered down to a birthday card literally once every ten years usually included with a stern admonishment to "straigten up and fly right" or maybe "strive to perform at your potential". His comments weren't just ridiculing, they read like a fucking pamphlet from the local Army recruiters office. Meanwhile, Mom was reduced to having me phone my well-off Dad every single month for the measly $150 child support so we could pay the electric bill.
In 1985, at my Dad's relentless request, I left the tiny community college in Elko, Nevada where I was on scholarship and moved to Sacramento for a temporary custodial job Dana had lined up for me. It was union and $7 something an hour, big pay for 1985. I think my Dad erroneously believed that some of Dana's talent for making money would rub off on me. It didn't happen.
Dana was a changed person in Sacramento. He was impatient, a devout fitness fanatic and elitist thanks to his youth spent in Monterey. He lived in a gated condo complex off one of the busiest intersections in THE blandest of all California 'burbs. He drove a BMW, wore polo shirts and hunted perky aerobics instructors when he wasn't making his first million. In the six months I lasted in Sacramento, sharing an apartment with three trust funded assholes in one of the poorest neighborhoods, I saw him three times. Once was while at work, cleaning the bathrooms at Cal Expo and he was working as a state cop cum Cal Expo security guard. He even had those cop mirror sunglasses to complete his stoic image.
Dana avoided me like the plague. He eventually sold his start-up business and hit the rare air of the upper class. He had time shares in Mexico, a cabin in Lake Tahoe and several vacations to Europe, Hawaii and Australia. Once every six years my mother got a card from Cancun or Amsterdam. Even less frequently, he would show up on Mom's doorstep with a meek girlfriend in tow, always at least ten years younger than him.
In 1993 when our Mom died, Dana flew me and my Dad up to Washington state to meet my oldest brother, Glenn. We went up in Dana's antique Cessna, another toy gotten from his admission into the Upper Class. September 1993 was a black, ugly time in our already tenuously-shared history and Mom's death seemed to accentuate the ugliness in everyone.
After we had her body shipped back to Reno, everyone left all the funeral arrangements up to me. Dana paid for all of it but I had to do the phone work, the leg work and the numbing job of finding a casket. It wasn't Six Feet Under, it sucked. I remember Dad admonishing Dana for crying at the funeral. Yep, Daddy was that dysfunctional.
Post 1993 I chose, wisely, to avoid my brothers. I did this mostly out of self preservation and also out of the deep need for a mental health vacation from their relentlessly manipulative, misogynistic ways. I didn't need anyone telling me not to swear, what to eat (or not eat) or what to wear. I was an adult -- had been for some time -- and I just couldn't get either of these men to grasp that concept. Their inability to 'get it' -- that I'm an adult, a multifaceted individual with my own valid opinions, beliefs and experiences and someone whom in many ways they've never really met, isn't a roadblock to our relationships, it's the fucking Grand Canyon.
Dana lying in a hospital has me remembering something that happened around the time of his first accident. I think it was a few years after. I was staying at my Dad's in Carmel Valley that summer.
It was hot. There was another drought on. My step-mother was growing more and more resentful of my existence. I'd gotten thrown from a neighbor friend's horse but not seriously hurt. I'd then gotten into an argument with the neighbor friend's younger sister. She'd dragged some other neighborhood teens into it. They were all older than me and more cunning in the ways of ostracizing mouthy, hyperactive twelve year olds like me. To show that I was officially 'out of the club' for the remainder of my summer vacation, they'd thrown my denim jacket up into one of those massive California oaks, like twenty feet up.
The thing about the jacket was Dana had given it to me a few weeks before. He said he'd found it while fishing along the river. I'd seized on the idea of wearing it because it looked exactly like the one he wore. It was cool and my big brother had declared it cool. He knew all about cool. He rode surf boards and drove sports cars too fast.
One afternoon, I dragged him up the road to where the jacket was suspended high in the branches of an oak and pleaded with him to get it down for me. Gaping up at that ridiculously high tree, he kicked at the trunk and said 'hell no'. He said there was no way he was climbing that thing and, besides, he had a party to get to.
He left me standing under that giant tree with the horrible new idea that there were things in this world my brothers were incapable of doing, great dark expanses that they could not cross either by motorbike or Corvette. This is where I first fumbled with the idea that there are lengths too great to go for love.
Right now -- more than anything else in life -- I just want my big brother to get out of his hospital bed, go back in time and climb that oak. And get that stupid denim jacket back for me.
-- Mz M.
Also on Sunday, I got somefreak out news. My older (not oldest) brother, Dana, apparently hit a deer while riding his motorcycle. My sister-in-law said he basically stove in one side of his rib cage, collapsed a lung and broke both clavicles. Most serious, he 'tore' a section of his heart. He's had three open-heart procedures in the last 72 hours to stop the bleeding.
I've been musing on the number of times I've received batshit emergency news concerning my brothers. One of the earliest was when I was nine and Dana went off a cliff with two of his buddies the night before their graduation from Carmel High. They were driving in a 60's VW Bug and it rolled down an embankment. The friend who was driving (they were all shitfaced) died on impact. My brother, all 6'1" of him, was stuffed in the backseat. He kicked his way out of the VW and wandered with a fractured skull and brain hemorrhage several miles before collapsing in the backyard of some rich lady's estate.
My Mom drove white-knuckled from Reno to California and we stalked the gleaming hallways of posh Monterey General for several days until Dana woke up from his coma. A few weeks later, he was back home and brooding, agitated and driving my Dad insane with his California boy lifestyle. I remember him cutting the cast off his arm with a hand saw stealing two six-packs of beer and then disappearing with one of his friends on the back of a dirt bike for some macho mourning over their slain partner in crime.
We rarely saw Dana when I was growing up. He turned up twice in Reno after the accident, both times in a yellow Corvette Stingray that had come from settlement money after the accident.
The last visit he paid to Mom and me was a few months before the voices in my Mom's head told her to pack everything up and relocate us to Battle Mountain, Nevada before the giant California earthquake hit and caused all the water in Lake Tahoe to slop over like a giant teacup and drown all of Reno.
The visit did not go well. We fought constantly, mostly over Cap'n Crunch cereal, the TV (which monotonously aired the Watergate hearings) and what to do on those boring Nevada afternoons.
After Mom relocated us to the Armpit of America, I saw much less of Dana. I can only remember one very brief visit he paid while I was in junior high school. As we cruised that desiccated, gray-beige hamlet of nothingness, he said to me: "If the world had an asshole, this is right where they'd put it." It was an astute comment.
As relations with my emotionally abusive Dad grew worse, my contact with Dana withered down to a birthday card literally once every ten years usually included with a stern admonishment to "straigten up and fly right" or maybe "strive to perform at your potential". His comments weren't just ridiculing, they read like a fucking pamphlet from the local Army recruiters office. Meanwhile, Mom was reduced to having me phone my well-off Dad every single month for the measly $150 child support so we could pay the electric bill.
In 1985, at my Dad's relentless request, I left the tiny community college in Elko, Nevada where I was on scholarship and moved to Sacramento for a temporary custodial job Dana had lined up for me. It was union and $7 something an hour, big pay for 1985. I think my Dad erroneously believed that some of Dana's talent for making money would rub off on me. It didn't happen.
Dana was a changed person in Sacramento. He was impatient, a devout fitness fanatic and elitist thanks to his youth spent in Monterey. He lived in a gated condo complex off one of the busiest intersections in THE blandest of all California 'burbs. He drove a BMW, wore polo shirts and hunted perky aerobics instructors when he wasn't making his first million. In the six months I lasted in Sacramento, sharing an apartment with three trust funded assholes in one of the poorest neighborhoods, I saw him three times. Once was while at work, cleaning the bathrooms at Cal Expo and he was working as a state cop cum Cal Expo security guard. He even had those cop mirror sunglasses to complete his stoic image.
Dana avoided me like the plague. He eventually sold his start-up business and hit the rare air of the upper class. He had time shares in Mexico, a cabin in Lake Tahoe and several vacations to Europe, Hawaii and Australia. Once every six years my mother got a card from Cancun or Amsterdam. Even less frequently, he would show up on Mom's doorstep with a meek girlfriend in tow, always at least ten years younger than him.
In 1993 when our Mom died, Dana flew me and my Dad up to Washington state to meet my oldest brother, Glenn. We went up in Dana's antique Cessna, another toy gotten from his admission into the Upper Class. September 1993 was a black, ugly time in our already tenuously-shared history and Mom's death seemed to accentuate the ugliness in everyone.
After we had her body shipped back to Reno, everyone left all the funeral arrangements up to me. Dana paid for all of it but I had to do the phone work, the leg work and the numbing job of finding a casket. It wasn't Six Feet Under, it sucked. I remember Dad admonishing Dana for crying at the funeral. Yep, Daddy was that dysfunctional.
Post 1993 I chose, wisely, to avoid my brothers. I did this mostly out of self preservation and also out of the deep need for a mental health vacation from their relentlessly manipulative, misogynistic ways. I didn't need anyone telling me not to swear, what to eat (or not eat) or what to wear. I was an adult -- had been for some time -- and I just couldn't get either of these men to grasp that concept. Their inability to 'get it' -- that I'm an adult, a multifaceted individual with my own valid opinions, beliefs and experiences and someone whom in many ways they've never really met, isn't a roadblock to our relationships, it's the fucking Grand Canyon.
Dana lying in a hospital has me remembering something that happened around the time of his first accident. I think it was a few years after. I was staying at my Dad's in Carmel Valley that summer.
It was hot. There was another drought on. My step-mother was growing more and more resentful of my existence. I'd gotten thrown from a neighbor friend's horse but not seriously hurt. I'd then gotten into an argument with the neighbor friend's younger sister. She'd dragged some other neighborhood teens into it. They were all older than me and more cunning in the ways of ostracizing mouthy, hyperactive twelve year olds like me. To show that I was officially 'out of the club' for the remainder of my summer vacation, they'd thrown my denim jacket up into one of those massive California oaks, like twenty feet up.
The thing about the jacket was Dana had given it to me a few weeks before. He said he'd found it while fishing along the river. I'd seized on the idea of wearing it because it looked exactly like the one he wore. It was cool and my big brother had declared it cool. He knew all about cool. He rode surf boards and drove sports cars too fast.
One afternoon, I dragged him up the road to where the jacket was suspended high in the branches of an oak and pleaded with him to get it down for me. Gaping up at that ridiculously high tree, he kicked at the trunk and said 'hell no'. He said there was no way he was climbing that thing and, besides, he had a party to get to.
He left me standing under that giant tree with the horrible new idea that there were things in this world my brothers were incapable of doing, great dark expanses that they could not cross either by motorbike or Corvette. This is where I first fumbled with the idea that there are lengths too great to go for love.
Right now -- more than anything else in life -- I just want my big brother to get out of his hospital bed, go back in time and climb that oak. And get that stupid denim jacket back for me.
-- Mz M.
Sunday, October 01, 2006
YOU Can't Wait
World Can't Wait.org
When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.
When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.
-- Pastor Martin Niemöller
They came first for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,
and by that time no one was left to speak up.
-- New England Holocaust Memorial version
-- Mz M.
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Strange Fruit
Okay, someone please go to this slide show and then identify the fruit for me. I've seen them growing wild out in the Cascades by the meadowful. What the hell are they? Gardeners PLEASE help.
-- Mz M.
P.S. I was wrong about the electric cars! Damnit, they only go about 30mph tops. Shite.
-- Mz M.
P.S. I was wrong about the electric cars! Damnit, they only go about 30mph tops. Shite.
Monday, September 25, 2006
$4,000 Pussy
I'm perplexed by this brave new world.
I mean, you still have to deal with the steaming litter box and the middle-of-the-night lungings at your face and/or loud crashing noises because felines are nocturnal ninnies who want to frolick at 2 a.m. And they still get higher than kites on catnip.
It is cool that they are all going to be showing up neutered/spayed. At least that's one nice twist.
I was always led to believe that the allergy problem was most prominent in un-neutered males, something to do with hormones and saliva.
Now if they could just come up with genetically modified dogs that can bag their own poop ... or even better, use doggie potties.
-- Mz M.
I mean, you still have to deal with the steaming litter box and the middle-of-the-night lungings at your face and/or loud crashing noises because felines are nocturnal ninnies who want to frolick at 2 a.m. And they still get higher than kites on catnip.
It is cool that they are all going to be showing up neutered/spayed. At least that's one nice twist.
I was always led to believe that the allergy problem was most prominent in un-neutered males, something to do with hormones and saliva.
Now if they could just come up with genetically modified dogs that can bag their own poop ... or even better, use doggie potties.
-- Mz M.
Sunday, September 24, 2006
Ultimate Hetero Male Fantasy?
In case you were wondering, James, I've only bought the first one but it ROCKS.
I just put in some hold requests for the next 5 volumes at the Seattle Public Library. At 15-20 bucks a pop, I can't be buying one of these every week.
An, of course, since they started running this thru Vertigo in like 2003, I feel yet again behind the curve.
-- Mz M.
I just put in some hold requests for the next 5 volumes at the Seattle Public Library. At 15-20 bucks a pop, I can't be buying one of these every week.
An, of course, since they started running this thru Vertigo in like 2003, I feel yet again behind the curve.
-- Mz M.
Thursday, September 21, 2006
A View From Harborview Medical Center
I took these pics on Monday evening and really early Tuesday morning after they set me free from yet another weird sleep over at the Sleep Clinic.
I'm experimenting with www.photobucket.com ... let's see how this goes.
This one is my favorite so far.
Click on the link above to read a little about each shot.
-- Mz M.
I'm experimenting with www.photobucket.com ... let's see how this goes.
This one is my favorite so far.
Click on the link above to read a little about each shot.
-- Mz M.
Sunday, September 17, 2006
More Horrors, Same House (Regime)
I just watched this in it's entirety. I urge everybody else to do the same, or better yet, blow 20 bucks and buy the DVD.
Be patient, it takes a while. You might wanna turn the sound off on your computer and walk a way for a couple hours while it downloads the stream.
No big surprise in that "our friends" the Pakistanis had a heavy hand in 9/11.
Just wondering now if the detainees at Git'mo maybe DO know something ... some thing that would incriminate the Bush Regime, not bin Laden. Maybe some Marine-sized interrogator asked Omar the wrong question four years ago during one of their torture sessions. Perhaps something like: "Did you ever see any Westerners while you and your crazy fundamentalist Daddy were staying in Jalalabad?" And poor little Omar -- literally dying to tell the truth -- probably blurted out: "Oh sure, we saw CIA operatives talking with bin Laden all the time. They used to bring us money and guns ... and fruit juice!"
It just gets worse and worse,
-- Mz M.
Be patient, it takes a while. You might wanna turn the sound off on your computer and walk a way for a couple hours while it downloads the stream.
No big surprise in that "our friends" the Pakistanis had a heavy hand in 9/11.
Just wondering now if the detainees at Git'mo maybe DO know something ... some thing that would incriminate the Bush Regime, not bin Laden. Maybe some Marine-sized interrogator asked Omar the wrong question four years ago during one of their torture sessions. Perhaps something like: "Did you ever see any Westerners while you and your crazy fundamentalist Daddy were staying in Jalalabad?" And poor little Omar -- literally dying to tell the truth -- probably blurted out: "Oh sure, we saw CIA operatives talking with bin Laden all the time. They used to bring us money and guns ... and fruit juice!"
It just gets worse and worse,
-- Mz M.
Saturday, September 16, 2006
House of Horrors
I've been listening to Randi Rhodes on Air America talk about the Geneva Conventions all week and then I finished reading this Rolling Stone article last night at like 3a.m. because I couldn't sleep. And then of course, the horror of the Bush Regime sunk in anew and I really couldn't sleep.
Somebody needs to start a letter drive to get this kid and the others like him out of Git'mo. I mean, Marines incarcerating pre-adolecents in some sub-division called 'Camp Iguana'?!
WTF?
I'd like to wake up from this nightmare now,
-- Mz M.
Somebody needs to start a letter drive to get this kid and the others like him out of Git'mo. I mean, Marines incarcerating pre-adolecents in some sub-division called 'Camp Iguana'?!
WTF?
I'd like to wake up from this nightmare now,
-- Mz M.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
-
Several years ago, one of my reporter friends wrote an article about a brothel in Battle Mountain. While interviewing one of the madams, he ...
-
In spring of 1995 I was living in a rental room on an alley west of my university. The room was attached to a sprawling home that had once b... -
I saw something at ComiCon a few weeks ago and it's been bothering me ever since. I'm THE last person on earth to advocate any sort ...