The ChuckleHut

2003-06-24T16:50:00.000-07:00

Maybe you've heard about the occasional disruptions in service that have rendered my blog inaccessible or my comments occasionally nugatory. Maybe you heard this because I've been bellowing in a purple rage out my study window about it. Yesterday commenting was down all day long. Before that I had trouble loading my page. Then there was the thing with not being able to adjust my template for weeks. I have had enough.

PLEASE BE ADVISED that the Chucklehut has MOVED. I am now a Lunanina product, hosted thereat and powered by MT. I'm a bit shocked at how quickly it's happened, but far be it from me to complain about a job well done ahead of schedule. (Well, depending on the job, but I'm not here to quibble.) Any of you who wish ever to pollute your eyes with more of my literary compost are welcome to visit me at my new home:

http://chucklehut.thalysman.com/
The Chucklehut

I'm not leaving you, I'm just going to a better place. Don't make me sit there all alone. It'd be just like jr high all over again. Oh you wish.

2003-06-23T21:55:00.000-07:00

You’ve got to go pretty far to exceed my capacity for spice in my food. Kel once got me a t-shirt that read “food isn’t properly seasoned unless it’s painful to eat.” I don’t know about painful but I do like my head to sweat a little from prandial piquancy. But I wasn’t always this way. I grew up afraid of the little tub of puny vinegary jalapenos outside of every Tommy’s in L.A. But eventually I learned that there was spiritual cleansing and elevation of one’s astral being to be had in the sinus-searing potency of powerful spices. And in that process lies my little story for today.

As I got through college I was becoming more adventurous, experimental, even provocative in my tastes – for food, at least. I was eating viet food and Lebanese food and questionable quality food and pretty much anything that crossed my path, which ranged wide and far and covered some pretty diverse territory. I knew my crème fraische from my crème anglaise.

One of my special favorite places simultaneously to broaden both my perspective and my waistline was an Ethiopian place about a half mile west of my house called Red Sea. Ethiopian restaurants are overwhelmingly named either Blue Nile or Red Sea. It has made me wonder, if one flows into the other, whether there is a Purple Delta somewhere. But anyway.

Let’s take a moment and disabuse those of you who think that Ethiopian food is a plate of sand to be eaten with chopsticks. It has a lot in common with southern Indian food, a variety of savory stews and baked dishes with many excellent meat and veggie options. It’s served on and eaten with sheets of injera - a tangy flat bread perforated with sponge-like holes. The meals are communal, large, delicious, and a lot of fun to eat.

Red Sea. Man, those guys could cook. I’ve eaten at a bunch of east African places since then but those guys were top rate. They blew me away. Their food was delicious, their place was completely mellow, their injera was fun and tasty and they had great spices. Great like good. And great like huge. Everything they served came with a pretty decent kick. I relished it, I savored it, eventually I felt incomplete without it. What can I say. I craved the burn. It had become like a lover.

Unless – you are dining at the junction of sadism and greed. Because , despite the smiles and superficial hospitality they offered there, there’s one thing the good folks at Red Sea never got used to – free water. They sold, beer, didn’t they? And fruit shakes, $4 for 10 oz. of chuggable smoothness. So why should I be slaking my thirst for free? That was a non-starter. Water was not brought to the table. But this was not a generally advertised fact.

Though I had been there many times, I don’t think I was aware of this policy on the particular night to which I herein refer. I went to Red Sea with a few dear friends and $5 in my pocket. I got kitfo – spiced ground beef tartare, a sensational dish when properly done. Truly, it was tasty. It was plentiful. It was within my budget. And it was studded with green peppers. The serious kind. The kind that the police use to incapacitate treehugging mobs.

I experienced instant oral conflagration. I needed help, and quickly. As my throat started closing up and my head ignited into cheerful flames, I called our server over and asked for water. He offered me beer or a shake, but I stuck with what I could afford: water, please. I was clear and articulate. And I waited.

My sinuses had been pumped full of napalm. A cherrybomb had exploded inside of my tongue. A frenzy of demons perforated my forehead with their blazing pitchforks. I was dying. Two more times I asked for water in my usual polite and unassuming way. The server kept bringing out trays of beer and shakes to other tables, but never any water for me.

I could take no more. I reached into the depths of my strength, inflated my lungs from the diaphragm up, and spoke deeply, firmly, and loudly. I had been formally trained to fill a room with my voice, and used all that training to compel compliance. “MAY I PLEASE HAVE A GLASS OF WATER IMMEDIATELY?” Every conversation stopped. People at other tables stopped eating, glanced over to the crimson-headed fellow with the flames shooting out of his ears. The happy faces on the Ethiopian tourism council posters looked away in shame.

My server stepped forward with a 6 oz. glass of water, no ice, and set it desultorily down the table in front of me. I drained it in one gulp. With the same window-rattling voice I said, “THANKS, MAY I PLEASE HAVE ANOTHER GLASS OF WATER?” He looked at me as if I had asked to defile his grandmother’s remains. When he brought me my refill he wouldn’t even look at me.

I didn’t care. I quenched my thirst, extinguished the private version of hell that had erupted in my mouth, and even enjoyed the rest of my meal. By the time I got my water, I had overcome some natural barrier. Enough searing chemical corrosives had seeped into enough of my mouth while I sat there that I was thereafter able to withstand some outrageously overspiced foods. I do have my limits, but they’re significantly higher now. And I wasn’t in the least embarrassed to make such a fuss at the restaurant. Sometimes a glass of water can be the most important thing in the world.

2003-06-23T08:33:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, in honor of the beginning of summer, we engaged in waterborne recreation. Charles and Lori picked us up at 7:30 am for an invigorating drive up to the northern tip of the San Andreas fault. The fault can be clearly seen along much of its length, but nowhere, I think, to better advantage the Pt. Reyes peninsula, where the fault takes the form of a long, skinny finger of an ocean inlet, about a mile wide and running several miles inland, ocean water filling the chasm of the faultline itself. It's so long and narrow, and ends in such an inconveniently isolated and marshy area, that this region, Tomales Bay, remains substantially uninhabited and undeveloped. It's good for oysters, elk (a big herd lives on the western peninsula formed by the bay), and kayaking. Saturday, the latter was our choice.

Charles regaled us on our way in with stories of his recent experiences at a computer convention providing private VIP demos of the upcoming update to his computer game to luminaries such as Robin Williams ("he's tiny, and he's really really old") and Christina Aguillera (who apparently had brought someone along just to ignore stuff for her; her publicist he described as an "unsexy Jon Lovitz" who trailed two paces behind her all day long saying alternately, "thank you so much for everything you do" and "i'm sorry"). Charles can make the ingredients in your multivitamins both interesting and actually informative, so these stories were rollicking sagas that had us well entertained as we rolled though the gorgeous countryside.

We got to the kayak place just after 9 am, signed in, signed waivers, put on wetsuits and spray jackets and reef shoes and PDFs (personal flotation devices, which we're told is the name for lifejackets now that they can't call them that anymore because someone drowned while wearing one and the survivors sued the manufacturer). We rented four aesthetically and hydrodynamically challenged sit-on-tops with rudders and put in at a rocky strand of a muddy beach. We paddled out toward the mouth of the bay against both tide and wind. If we stopped paddling we immediately started drifting backwards. It was a perfect day and we all felt good. Too bad the kayaks were so clumsy and slow. Old women and junkies were zipping past us as if we were standing still. I felt like I was on the nautical equivalent of a Big Wheel - or maybe actually a Sit-n-Spin.

Regardless, the air smelled great, the trees and cliffs were deeply calming, the water felt great beneath me and wildlife abounded. We didn't go far enough to see elk and didn't have the oarpower to go into the deepwater central channel where the whitecaps were breaking, but there were plenty of pelicans and cool unidentified seabirds, an osprey, plus several bat rays and leopard sharks churning the shallows where we paddled. It's quite a rush to look into the water next to you and see a dorsal fin, or the wingtips of a ray skimming along a yard apart next to you. You realize you're not alone, and even though there's no sense of threat whatsoever, it's a sense of smallness and participation.

We turned around at noon and were back on the docks at 1, where Kel and Charles were first to get to the marina where we'd put in. In the ensuing hours the area had taken on a lot of water and was now a wide and deep mud flat into which they both instantly sank to their knees. Kel lost her shoes three times and kicked an enmired rock. Lori and I were warned off, paddled around to the other side of the marina and hauled out without incident. Everybody hosed down, cleaned up, toweled off and got dressed; we then had a lovely lunch at the Olema Farmhouse and I napped in the car coming back home. Welcome to summer. Let the games begin.

And on a note related only by county location and occurrance in continguous weeks, two weekends ago in San Rafael when we went to the streetpainting fair we parked next to a building that housed, according to the sign outside, the following businesses: "Cake Art"; "Diet Center"; "VirtuaLogic"; and "Oddfellows". That's the sort of thing that makes life worth living.

2003-06-20T13:13:00.000-07:00

I suppose that chocolate redi-whip might not be the world's least appetizing looking food. I suppose it's possible that somewhere out there someone's working on Chocolate Miracle Whip.

2003-06-20T13:02:00.000-07:00

CALL ME NICK

Over the past few years I've had a few nicknames thrown at me. Mostly it's "Dan the Man," which (as I think I've said here before) never seemed to fit me very well, but I take it as a compliment. More fitting, or at least more comfortable to me, were Dynamite Dan, Dangerous Dan, and - my personal favorite - Handsome Dan, from a siren beauty who shall HelenJane remain nameless. And, since I'm anything but dangerous or dynamite, I don't put much stock in the accuracy of "handsome" either - but it's nice to hear it anyway.

It's occurred to me that I may be one of those people who doesn't really take on nicknames very well. My own name is probably the most accurate and effective way to call me out. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. In particular, there are a lot of nicknames I don't think I'd like very much - either because they'd make me feel silly or because they are misleading.

As I've been at a very important conference to which I have made innumerable invaluable contributions all day long for two days straight, I now find myself in possession of a notebook with nothing in it but the following LIST OF NICKNAMES I WILL NEVER HAVE FOR BETTER OR WORSE (broken down by general category):

* Creatures: Gato, Monster, Starfish
* Celebrities: Boba, Amazing Mr. Limpet, Tinkerbell
* Plants: Snapdragon, Periwinkle, Lodgepole
* Foods: Pickles, Peaches, Walnuts
* Bodily references: Cheeks, Three-fingers, Dan-the-Tan
* Professions/Descriptives: Invader, Cowboy, Slick
* Tools/Products: Studfinder, Velcro, Ace

I will thank you in advance for avoiding these appellations when referring to me, at least in my presence. If you insist on giving me a nickname, everything else is fair game. I only ask that you be gentle. My walnuts have taken an awful beating already.

2003-06-17T19:11:00.000-07:00

NO, I'm not "taking a break." Breaks are for the winners, for those of us who have earned their rest, those who are satisfied with their lives. They're not for us whores who can't stand to go a day without offering another tidbit, another shred, some craven gleaning to convince ourselves that we are important and loved. And since that sounds pretty much like me, I'm definitely NOT on a "break." That means, I guess, two things: 1) I can't sleep around behind Rachael's back, and 2) you can expect to hear from me again upon my return from the Littlest Big City in America: Sacramento, the home of Kings and governors. I have a two-day conference to attend - I get to be an advisor on the redraft of standards for the provision of legal services to the elderly. I know, I'm even cooler than you thought. The mojo is just erupting out of all my pores. Anyway I hope it's mojo. Cuz now it's all over my shirt, and at least mojo washes out with a little pre-treating.

Upshot: I'll be back on Friday. In the meantime I expect no one to post any comments here, or even to visit. But in parting, here's a little insight into me and my thinking: while I was growing up we had a friday night service every week before supper, with blessings over candles, wine, bread, and special blessings whispered over my sister's and my heads. For the kiddush (wine ceremony), dad always seemed to insist that we have special wine from the state capital. It wasn't till I was well into high school that I realized he wasn't asking for Sacramento wine. Yes that's right - I'm so cute you could hurl. You have two days to recover. Starting --- NOW.

2003-06-17T08:29:00.000-07:00

PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE

ACT 1: Divest Now protests at College Hall. In prominent attendance: me and several of my best friends, including Andy. The next day the campus newspaper has a front page photo of the demonstration on the marble steps of the green stone monstrosity we'd occupied. Andy stands out among six or seven of my other friends in the photo, severe and anachronistic in his trenchcoat and tidy moustache.

ACT 2: Doctor Andy is moving to San Francisco to finish his residency. Already, chance encounters have occurred at sleepy coffeehouses on whacked-out avenues. He'll be moving in with his brother at 10th and California. He'll be working at a big hospital at California and Commonwealth, about two miles east. He arrives amidst fanfare and revelry. Andy is a supercharged person. With Andy, life is always lived to the hilt, and then retold at top volume with bellows of laughter.

ACT 3: It is evening, a few days later. I get a call from Dr. Andy. "Was it you?" I begin to smile but try to staunch it - he'll hear the grin in my voice; it'll be over before it starts. "Me what?," I ask. He's good - he can tell. "Dammit, it was you! How many of them are there?" "How many of what?" "These - these - picture things! I don't know what they are! Did you do this?" Andy is not a merely smart guy - I am actually in awe of his mental capacities. Now that he's been rendered inarticulate, I see that I've pushed him as far as he can go. "Yes, it was me." (Howls of laughter.) "I've got seven of them. Three messages. How am I doing?" "Pretty good. You have all the messages." "How many total?" "That would be telling." Dr. Andy erupts in a familiar roar of hilarity and hangs up after inviting us all over for wine and dinner and wine.

ACT 4 (FLASHBACK): I have brought the College Hall demonstration photo from 6 years ago to work. It's 2-1/2 x 2-1/2 inches; individual faces are about 1/3" square. I put the photo on the photocopier and set it to enlarge, to maximum. The picture comes out big. I enlarge the enlargement. The photo no longer fits on the page; details are growing indistinct among the oily blots of pixel. I continue to enlarge and re-center until the entire page is a welter of smears and spots, barely recognizeable from arm's length as a representation of a human - but at a distance of 20 feet or so it is unmistakeably Andy's face, looking like he had just bedded, and then killed, a beautiful double agent who'd tried to thwart whatever plans he was obviously hatching. He looks knowing. Virile. And Sneaky. I make three copies and attach three captions to these - "Nice Warm Hands," "Le Fromage et Sur la Tete," and (I think) "The Doctor Will See You Now." (If any of you reading this remember for sure, Heidi, let me know.) I run off a bunch of each of them. I go out the night before Dr. Andy gets to town and tape 30 of the posters - 10 of each caption - along his way to and from work, fifteen on either side of the street, well spaced apart, in various locations, at various heights, facing different directions. Dr. Andy sees the first one from across the street and thinks he must be seeing it wrong. Then he sees one up close and confirms his own worst fears. I am not the first suspect he calls but I'm high on the list.

DENOUMENT

Dr. Andy finds posters for about 8 more months. I still have one for a keepsake.

2003-06-16T13:44:00.000-07:00

A SMALL PRICE TO PAY
(sunday night)

It's been a good weekend, a good day. I've lounged, cooked (extraordinary beans and carrots, really quite remarkable, and the cubed zukes and tomatoes in italian herbs went down pretty easy too), talked to dad, repaired the dog run, did the Pt. Bonita ride, went to the gym, bought two pair of pants and two shirts, viewed the eyepopping sidewalk art at the San Rafael Street Painting Festival (including a 1/4 scale representation of the entire sistine chapel roof), and generally had a fine old time. Sure, at this particular moment Kel is plucking my eyebrows and I'm a bit distracted by the regular bursts of searing ocular pain, but it's a small price to pay.

However, there is one impediment to my total nirvanic bliss, my achieving such actualization that I blow myself out of this physical plane into an unexplored dimension. It's me. I'm grinning like a dork, sitting in a big barrel of water, staring at myself. I'll have to get over it eventually, but right now I'm creeping me out.

Here's how it works: Kel has three frames on her dresser. One has displayed, for a long time, a totally cute photo of her at first communion - in keeping with the transubstantive event being memorialized, you could just gobble her up. Then there's a shot of the two of us necking at the MGM lot in 1985 when she came out to visit me during summer break after we met. And now there's a new one, from our recent Mendocino trip.

I took several photos that weekend that turned out rather well, if I do say so myself - mostly landscapes, closeups of details, panoramas... Kel got into a documentary mode and took a stack of pictures of me waving out the back of the car, or walking inexorably toward the photographer. Fun. Not really art. (Note: we both take standard analog photos and we don't have a scanner, so I can't share these shots with you.)

But one photo Kel took is kind of artistic, if only accidentally. She was using a funsaver camera. It's hard to frame your subject with them because you don't view through the lens. By comparison, my old SLR lets me know exactly what I've included in, and excluded from, my photos. Kel didn't have this level of control, so when she shot me at Sweetwater Spa in our private sauna-and-outdoor hot tub suite (on the link, it's the one with the mosaic on the wall), exposed to the unblinking sun in my pink, unprotected altogether, she thought she was photographing my face. And I suppose she was - my face is in the middle of the frame.

There's a lot of wall behind me. And below my face, my arms are stretched out across the top of the wooden tub, the water crystal clear and rising to the top of my chest. My body is plainly visible in the water, from my clavicle down to... well, here's where we got "artistic." At the very bottom of the print, a portion of my body below my navel could be seen through the languid water of the hot tub, in perfect water-distorted focus, an eerie green under the blazing sun overhead. I am depicted exactly to the crease at the proximal insertion of my wang - right down to the edge and no further. Nothing offensive or prurient here - a bit risque, but not giving anything away.

Except: it's all underwater, and something seems to have floated up into the frame just a tiny bit. A smudge. A blur of rosy flesh. An intruder. An inverted dangle. We had just barely perceptibly gone from beefcake to beefstick. Suddenly the broad ecstatic grin on my face took on new meanings, recalled more pungent recollections.

So we had a giggle at the photo and then moved on with life - or so I thought. But when I came into the bedroom this afternoon I found her fitting this lecherous and wangtastic photo into frame #3.

"You're putting that photo in a frame?"
"Yes - I like it. It makes me happy."
"But honey - that's the wang shot."
"That's okay - I cropped it."

Ouch. Just like that. I felt so violated. She had cut off my wang without even offering it a blindfold. I urgently dug among the scraps of photograph on her dresser until I found a long skinny sliver of my center, including the offending, inoffensive, tiny pink smudge. I'll take good care of it - it's been through so much already. And still I grin at myself from that frame. It's as if something good were happening. Even wangless, that was a damn fine hot tub.

2003-06-15T10:42:00.000-07:00

FOAM AND FLUFF

The new thing in my life is foam - and baby, foam is sweet. We got a mattress topper made out of two inches of that memory foam that they make pillows and mattresses out of. It comes vacuum packed in a big baggie, and needs to unclench for several hours before it's ready to change your life. Then you wrestle it into its flannel case, which in turn straps neatly over the corners of your mattress. The bed now feels a bit taller and softer. But we fall asleep very quickly and very deeply on it, we sleep through the night, and we're comfortable in pretty much any position. Kel's work is physically hard; for a long time she couldn't sleep on her side because of sore joints. Now she sleeps fetally and blissfully. I wake up in the morning and it's a deep ethical struggle to convince myself to get out of bed; I go to our studio for some sun salutations and my back is limber, relaxed and strong. It cracks and pops in about a dozen places, too - for me, that's a very good sign.

It's easy for me to make myself feel bad for spending money on a consumer accessory. One could rightly call it undisciplined, even self-indulgent. Those arguments were persuasive and loud when we first brought the giant box home and dumped the lump - hard, convoluted, more like tempeh than bedding - onto the floor. But we are getting so much out of this product now that it's harder for me to be critical of the decision. It's good up here on the foam.

On an unrelated note, I received this link a few days ago from a close and beloved relative. Her message to me was "This site is beautiful! So just click below, sit back, relax and just enjoy the many wonders of our world. You can call it a little mini retreat." I call it creepy and disturbing. Chiang Kai Shek? Budapest? Who selected these photos? Who took them? Why are they being shown to me? Is George Strait making money on this? Why or why not? Please show your work. So with all this going on in my head I really didn't feel like I was on a "mini-retreat." More like a strategic disengagement under heavy insulin. I guess what I'm getting at is this: I may love you dearly but if you know me at all you'll know that I don't want email that will "make me smile." I want email that contains valuable and exciting information, not cloying recycled pap intended only to make me a happier person. I'm happy now, goddamn it. And enough with the smiling. It's making me uncomfortable.

2003-06-13T07:59:00.000-07:00

STREET SEEN

He walks with his jaw set, wearing a light jacket, pressed chinos, walking shoes. He carries in one hand a paper shopping bag from a tony department store, bulging with merchandise; in the other he grips the mouth of a big clear plastic garbage bag stuffed with women's shoes. She is three steps behind him, long straight hair hanging limply over her bony shoulders. She wears a black sweater, a black top, and black leggings - exercise chic. She carries two more paper shopping bags and follows him with visible reluctance, her face twisted in disappointment and despair. He leads her to the shop and brusquely pulls the door open, strides in without waiting for her. She hesitates at the threshold, then opens the door again and enters. The door of the used clothing store slowly closes behind her.

2003-06-12T08:28:00.000-07:00

* I'm sorry.
* Thanks, I guess.
* Well you don't have to be nasty about it.
* What are you talking about?
* I say "I'm sorry." You say "that's okay." We put this behind us and we go on with life.
* Is that so?
* Yes, it is. So where's your "that's okay?"
* I'm not okay. Okay? You screwed up. I'm disappointed and frustrated and mad. But I'm not taking it out on you. I'm just trying to get past the fury I'm feeling. Then you just say "I'm sorry" because you feel bad that I feel bad. Great. You get to feel better that way. But I'm still here, right? I'm still pissed off. I'm still sad and I still have some serious questions. You being sorry doesn't answer those questions. You being sorry doesn't make me feel better. So why should I tell you "it's okay"? Because it's not. It's going pretty lousy.
* Well Jesus you don't have to jump down my throat. I'm just trying to patch things up. This situation may be a wreck but we can treat each other civilly.
* You want me to treat you civilly? What do you mean by that?
* What do I mean? .... With respect. Not needlessly hurtful. With room to appreciate personal tastes and strengths and weaknesses. With an allowance for being human. And all these things - they have to be okay. That's being civil.
* So it can be okay if you space out and blow me off and everything is ruined. That's okay, because it's part of your special unique quality, and I need to be okay with that and not make you feel bad because of it. Am I getting it right?
* Yeah.
* And when this happens, and my plans that I've been pouring myself into, that I've really put a lot of effort into, when all that goes in the crapper because you weren't paying attention, is it okay for me to feel bad?
* I don't know. I guess, as long as you didn't make me feel bad about it too. I would be cool with that.
* So I can feel bad, as long as I don't impose it on you.
* Yeah.
* So when you say 'you're sorry,' I'm over here feeling bad. You get it? You see why I don't want to say "it's okay" right now?
* No - because that makes me feel bad.
* Well I'm sorry about that.
* That's okay.
* Damn right it is.

2003-06-12T07:45:00.000-07:00

On one hand, I love NPR because this morning their musical "button" (that ties two news segments together) for a story on stem cell research was one of my favorite songs by one of my favorite musicians - Jorma Kaukonen's iconic Embryonic Journey (oh you'd recognize it if I played it for you). I could hear that one whizzing past over the heads of 94% of all americans this morning, but at least a few of us appreciated it.

But then there's their weird promo spots. NPR is non-commercial, so it's a minor quibble, but one of their ads is sounding more threatening to me every day. It's from a recycling organization, and they tell us cheerfully, "today an aluminum can, tomorrow a baseball bat." I flinch every time they say it. It sounds like escalation to me - I'll throw this can at you if you don't recycle, and if you try to ignore me, I'm coming at you with an alumiville slugger. And you'd better bundle that cardboard. I'll mulch your polluting ass.

Then there's the Star Date woman. She's starting to creep me out. I seem to remember the same Majel Barret-like omniscience and cheerfulness coming from her when I was in high school. That was almost five hundred years ago! Well time is relative, I move around a lot, and it may not seem that long to you - but I am really getting tired of them wheeling this same announcer out of the Sandy Woods Outhouse every day or so to tell me what I'd be able to see if 1) the sky here wasn't washed out with a billion points of wasted light and 2) the sky here weren't usually as opaque and fuzzy as a down comforter. And it's really not the advice she gives, useless though it is to me - I've grown tired of her invariable sameness and smoothness, replicating the astral movements on which she reports. That's fine for the heavens, but I like people to have a bit more going on. It comes down to this, Sandy: I'm bored with our relationship. You bring me the stars but you don't make me laugh. And I'm a chuckly guy - ask anybody. "Just look three degrees below uranus and marvel in the glory of betelgeuse." Sure, Sandy. I'll catch right up. Just let me get my baseball bat.

2003-06-11T10:41:00.000-07:00

Our stingy quasi-governmental agency does provide one important convenience - a beverage room on every floor with free coffee. Sure, it's not great coffee and I seem to have to brew it a disproportionate share of the time, but what the hell, I get it for free. Most days I never venture farther from my desk than that coffee maker. So I'm glad it's there.

The cool guy who runs purchasing for us, the big NRBQ head around the corner from my cube, set his sights on something more. He put together a tasting this morning for all 200 of us in this building, with eight carafes of regular coffee labled "A" through "H" on conference tables laid out in a "U" shape, and a table full of cookies in the middle. We got taster's scoring sheets, little styro cups, and off we went. Nothing was really good, though some were less bad than others. I had to go back on occasion to realize, for example, that "G" didn't really rate an "8" - it just followed "F", which earned it's ignominous place in the alphabet.

There were several of us milling around conference rooms C-D munching biscotti and petit palmiers, comparing notes on eight regular and four decaf coffee options. I was thinking in terms of body and mouth-feel, piquancy versus tartness, assertiveness versus acerbicness. How the different intermezzo pastries affected my appreciation of different aspects of the java flavor spectra. My whole gustatory vocabulary was wheeled out, polished up, and set in ready running order.

I left it in neutral and limited myself to, "This one is yummy." "Bitter." "This is like water with a brown crayon in it." (A sure crowdpleaser.) "I guess these ones are okay." "I'm getting wired." "Give me that cookie." "She pushed me first." "Put me down."

I don't remember how the rest of the tasting went; I woke up here at my chair with half a biscotti in my fist. I wish I could have stuck around. It looked like it was going to be interesting.

2003-06-10T10:06:00.000-07:00

It occurred to me after a particularly heavy and satisfying meal this weekend (yes, we went to Q again, Tanja was in town for dinner, I finally had the ribs, they are superb) that "bloat" is a really effective word. Lying on my back, a glass of seltzer untouched by my side, I just rolled that word around in my head and it carried a lot of power. It's one of those words that seems to have the very characteristics it describes. It sounds distended. As you can imagine, this was a source of endless fascination to me as I slowly digested my enormous meal. And my egg cream from Toy Boat. I mean, it was right there. I had no choice.

Then this morning I start hearing more about Monkey Pox. You know, prariedog Monkey Pox from asia, appearing on this continent for the first time. I'm thinking, now that's a disease name you can get behind. Nothing there sounds even remotely good. That whole SARS thing was not working for me, I'm sorry. Terrible name. Never really cared. But Monkey Pox? You have my attention. And if you tell me that it's a syndrome, associated also with Monkey Bloat, I'm buying saran wrap, duct tape, face masks, rubber gloves, and a water distillation machine. As far as I'm concerned, the terrorists have won.

2003-06-10T09:42:00.000-07:00

License plate holder seen this weekend on a smaller undistinguished shiny silver coupe: (across the top) I EAT YOUR (across the bottom) HATE LIKE LOVE. I follow at a respectful distance. You just don't know what to expect from some people.

2003-06-10T09:39:00.000-07:00

Problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them. Albert Einstein, Good Earth Tea Bag Tag.

2003-06-10T09:31:00.000-07:00

Last Friday night I took the advice of two of the most sophisticated observers of popular culture I have had the pleasure to meet - my sister, and Mr. G. A'Plenty. Both of them urged me to visit Oakland's Parkway Theater, and I was unable to withstand the onslaught of their combined persuasive powers. As a result I found myself looking up at a traditional theater marquee at nine o'clock at night, paying $5 for a ticket, and negotiating pizza topping preferences with Greg. We would have taken a metal pizza-seeking spindle with a number on top to our seats with our pitcher of Newcastle, but that was my job and therefore it was overlooked. But it was waiting for me when I remembered and went down to look for it, and, once retreived, enabled total pizza delivery convenience.

The scintillating Meredith soon joined us, having ridden over on a mysterious bottle-sprouting bike. She's as lovely as she is witty, which is loads, and it was a pleasure to meet her. The grilled chicken and spinach pizza arrived with the previews, and then we had our BLT - Better Luck Tomorrow, which I really liked. Good writing, good characters, excellent direction and camera work. But after all those years I spent in an asian youth gang, maybe I'm not being objective.

And the Parkway itself is a very cool theater. Low-budget, low-key - professional but self-deprecating, eclectic, and more than anything, comfortable. The rest of the crowd was a very entertaining and mellow mixed bag; the three of us shared a little couch (when I sit next to a man I refuse to call it a 'love seat') with a coffee table at prime footrest height, where our beer and pizza patiently awaited our desire. The screening room was good sized, and though the sound may not have been THX Dolby Invasophonic with tinkle enhancement, I heard just fine.

There's only one thing I found a little weird - the projector was in front of us, at the downstage edge of a long broad raised apron in front of the screen. I always look back at the projector when I go to the movies - all my life except one single time in college. And now at the Parkway. And it looks like I'll be facing that situation more often as I go, because I'm definitely going back to that theater. Maybe it wasn't the single best pizza I've ever had in my life. THEY FREAKING BROUGHT IT TO ME WHERE I SAT ON MY ASS DRINKING BEER WAITING FOR MY MOVIE WITH MY FEET UP. While chatting with Greg, which is always like being a guest on the Today Show or something - you just try to keep up, not make too many mistakes, and let him look good for you both. Once I got my beer I did okay.

2003-06-09T15:58:00.000-07:00

I get to manage the departmental email. I know, I'm an even bigger stud than you thought. Don't get kissdrool on my vestments. I have a point to make. We usually get one or two inquiries a day, about bank accounts or attorney misconduct or electronic forms or other matters remotely connected to my labors. Lately, we've also been getting one email a day from zg88(at)netvigator(dot)com about Zhang Hongbao. Some of these are in chinese but most have been translated. Since May 24 we've gotten the messages with the following "re:" lines on this subject (each one, capitalized and punctuated as in the original email):

* John Kusumi, told about zhang hongbao case
* Zhang Hongbao's ambition
* expert and media's view of zhang hongbao
* Zhang Hongbao was framed by side-person.
* Zhang Hongbao's resume and achievements
* American told about zhang Hongbao
* Nanfang He cheat police, INS and more
* Nanfang He has disease of Manic depression
* Politican's view of Zhang Hongbao
* Nanfang He got ill again this spring
* Nanfang has disease of manic depression
* Image of Zhang Hongbao as a leader
* Comment on the case of zhang Hongbao
* medical expert's opinion on manic depression

As you can see, there's a lot to catch up on in the old Zhang/Nanfang case. I've decided to wait till the video comes to my local outlet. Some reality is best experienced mediated. It comes down to this: I don't care who has manic depression. If you sound like an idiot when you send me unsolicited email, I will treat you like one. Now where's my scepter? I have a religion to found!

2003-06-09T11:53:00.000-07:00

TRENCHANT COMMENTARY

It's so close now I can almost taste the concrete dust in the air. For me it started close to two years ago when David and Kim's cable service was upgraded with about twenty more channels for the same price. We celebrated with them, wondering to ourselves when our pie would rise, in the idiom of our Commander in Chief. Yet the pie rose not. Our upgrade was held back. I called the cable company occasionally to try to learn more but never got them to tell me anything worth knowing.

But six months ago we got a notice that we'd have to have some work done on the house to prepare it for buried cable access for all the services we currently get through a maze of pendulous wire arcs skeining the sky of our street. Apart from their aesthetic limitations, the really great thing about those wires is their special susceptibility to getting taken out by a random limb torn by one of our occasional storms from any of the increasingly mature trees enforsesting the greenbelt across the street from our place. So everything will be better once we get a buried conduit system. Everything. Now you see where I'm coming from.

Friday I found, coming home from work, my sidewalk scrawled over with a maze of lines blocking out the places to dig trenches, to avoid or insert utility boxes, to find access points - a hopscotch game broken, multipied and scattered all the way down the pavement - the prepwork for the tearout portion of the cable job. I am so psyched. We're gonna have trenches.

But one thing does confuse me - with all the utility poles already in the neighborhood, the first phase of this project has been to sink even more of them. I've seen many installed recently, with one lonely wire on some of them and nothing on most. I asked one of the guys putting them in, "Why?" His answser: 'For the underground cable project." I repeated my question; he, his answer. I could have made something out of it. I have vast, barely-tapped capacities to ask exhaustive questions about construction activities. I just let it go.

My question, though, remains: Why, when we're burying all the wires that are now strung on poles, are we putting in more poles? Can't we use the existing poles? Why leave anything on poles at all? And are you aware that if you say or type 'pole' enough times it loses all meaning?

And, here's my point, really: The fact that this is the sort of thing that occupies so much of my thinking is a matter I have to start treating as a symptom of something that may be much more serious. At the very least, this fascination with poles and trenches has some disturbing undertones.

2003-06-06T12:24:00.000-07:00

LITTLE HELP?

I found a new buddy on my way to work today; I picked him up on the street outside the bus terminal and brought him up to my cube. Yeah, I know what it sounds like but it's not what you think. This dude is made out of maroon plastic and he's three inches tall. He's wearing a floor length gown, a pink scarf that covers his lower face, a peaked maroon hat and a big round gold medallion on a gold chain around his neck. His beady yellow eyes glare at me from a black face, and his pointy blue ears stick up through the brim of his hat. His three-fingered hands are blue too, and his right arm is hinged so he can lift a big gold club over his head - the club has a knurled grip and a rounded, flattened distal portion with vague runes on it. A knob protrudes from his left hip, wherewith one (that is, I) can wind him up and make him scurry spasmodically around on my desktop. He's copyright 2003 by Mattel Inc for McDonalds, and was manufactured in China.

I like my new friend. He makes me feel tall, graceful and well-dressed. But here's my question: what the hell IS he?

2003-06-06T10:51:00.000-07:00

SLOW ON THE UPTAKE

Do you ever get the sense that people are looking at you? On my way home last night, after a ~~tedious and repetitive~~rich and fulfilling day, I crammed my little cap on my head, put on my good ol' fleecy cord coat and my shoulder bag, and headed out to the bus station. On the way there, I kept thinking I saw people looking at me. Not in angry or aggressive ways - they seemed to be smiling shyly and turning away discretely. Two strangers said "hi" to me as I passed them on my three-block walk to the bus. The bus was crowded; as I sat in my usual seat the vehicle filled up with people and as my eye scanned the crowd and caught theirs, many of them still seemed to be looking at me. I was getting a bit unnerved - I kept checking to see if my hat was on askew, if my shirt was inside out, my fly open, anything that could have explained the attention I felt I was receiving. I almost asked the very pretty woman sitting across from me in the tight jeans and leather coat who was reading the Victoria's Secret catalogue, but the cat, as it were, got my tongue. But several times I looked up from my writing pad to see her eyes trained in my general direction; each time she looked away, occasionally with a faint smile, never with the rancid scowl of a person trying to discourage unwanted attention. I felt very self-conscious. Checking myself in a mirror when I got home, I found no pen marks on my face, no obvious sartorial errors... I am still at a loss.

However, it puts me in mind of an experience I had a few weeks ago....

That evening I found myself at a bus stop at the intersection of Uptown and Scummyville, where innumerable tourists search their maps and guidebooks and gawk at hookers, junkies, aggressive panhandlers and alienated youth of every description. The sky was murky; I wore dark clothes and maybe a little sneer to keep the lost souls at bay. I stood in the gathering darkness, watching traffic and counting the change in my pocket by feel. And I waited for the bus.

The traffic light turned from red to green and back again, and the cars stacked up in front of me and then scurried away like spawning salmon, the traffic cycling monotonously, world without end. And so it came to pass that I found stopped before me, waiting for a greenie, a particular vehicle. A pickup. Dakota, green, tricked and shiny. It had the mag wheels, the pretty pinstripes, the smoked windows and deluxe interior. And the big guy.

I couldn't tell how big he was since he was sitting in the car, but clearly weight was not proportionate to height. His gut bulged enormously, crowded the steering wheel. His neck swallowed his chin and his eyes peered at me over corpulent cheeks like marbles in lard.

Peered at me. The smoked passenger window slid smoothly down. I didn't move. Neither did he. He just watched me, impassive and massive. His big truck rumbled quietly at my feet. Our eyes were locked. My jaw was clamped and my brow was lowered; the messenger bag strap over my shoulder bulged like a bandolier across my chest, cut hard back against my lats on the other side. My posture was erect. My shoulders bunched involuntarily, protectively. I hooked a thumb under the strap. The light changed. The lead cars crept, rolled, accellerated forward. Without shifting his gaze from me he rolled up his passenger window; then he returned his attention to the road and drove off into the night.

I was already on my bus before I realized he'd been trying to pick me up.

Moral: If you want something, ask for it. You may not get satisfaction but at least people will know where you stand. Especially if you're sitting down.

2003-06-05T08:23:00.000-07:00

I told this story to my friend Anna not long ago, and doing so brought it back to me so vibrantly that I haven't been able to stop thinking of it, and doubt that I'll be able to stop thinking of it until I attend to every detail and re-live it through writing. So today's post is motivated by self-interest, pure and simple. But I think it's a nice story anyway.

BLANKET IMMUNITY

We'd rented a van and filled it with coolers of water and fruit juice, sandwiches and bananas, cookies and chips, and of course patio furniture, pillows and sleeping bags. We drove two hours north to Ventura, to the fairgrounds, and parked next to the rock berm that formed the shoreline. Spray from the waves speckled our windshield within minutes after we'd parked, and although we were technically in an illegal space, we were followed by many thousands of others and within a few hours we could only have been extracted by a helicopter with a winch (or "winchacopter"). The guys in the van right behind us gave us free access to the keg of beer they'd brought, and a general party atmosphere ensued as our transient community of 20,000 gathered for two Dead shows. It was 1984 and there was still an air of authenticity about the scene.

The first show was great, phenomenal really. We returned to the van as the summer night fell, thrilled and energized. We cooked on the rocky shore where the waves washing in jostled the stones and rolled them against and into each other, like so many teeth and bones, a hollow clacking that I could feel deep under my skin. I loved that sound; it soothed me, eased the churning rhythms of the concert out of my blood, replacing them with random organic repetitiveness. I dragged out a chaise lounge from the van and set it up on the shore, ten feet from the breaking surf; I put my sleeping bag on it, climbed in, and drifted into sleep.

Early the next morning the cold started seeping in. I became painfully aware of my knees, my sacrum, the back of my neck, the top of my head. I was dreadfully awake with cold. The sea on the rocks sounded like the chattering jaws of a hypothermia victim, and definitely didn't comfort me or warm me up. A wet Pacific wind can cut to your bones, even in the summer; it feels much colder than people might think. I could feel the vital energy draining out of me as the dew formed on my sleeping bag and face and hair.

Giving up on my sleep in the still of the dawn in the shoreline parking lot, I opened my eyes to see a man approaching me with a large bundle. He was deeply tanned, modestly dressed, looked Mexican, itinerant. He pulled a brightly striped cotton blanket from his bag. "$10," he said with a heavy accent. I reached into the jeans I was still wearing in the sleeping bag - there was one bill in my pocket. A $10. I handed it to him and he draped the blanket over me.

I quickly fell back to sleep, comforted and warm until the day itself grew warm and the parking lot campground was alive with song, smoke and breakfasts cooking on open flames. That day's concert was also fabulous and the blanket came home with me afterwards. Then I took it back to college that fall, and I've kept it with me pretty much ever since. It's an extremely handy blanket, big and soft and sturdy and cheerful. I've used it as a bedcover, a wall hanging, a yoga mat, a serape... and it's been put to a few other choice purposes too. We still use it all the time. I've long since amortized that ten dollar bill, but there's still plenty of comfort and warmth left in my mexican blanket. I can't help but think that that's the warmth of the man who sold it to me, of a benevolent universe that sent him to me at the moment I needed him most. I don't think I spoke to him that morning. But I thank him every time I use it.

2003-06-04T13:43:00.000-07:00

The Tippling Point: Redi Or Not

Wednesday at noon-thirty is the Tipping Point. From here on, I'm getting inexorably closer to my next weekend, instead of farther away from my last one. In honor of this auspicious moment, I'll share my notes on a product I saw up in the Anderson Valley at Greenwood Cellars winery. It's a hippy-dippy place with tie-dyed banners and reggae music playing in the tasting rooms, up-classed with beautifully manicured grounds and a lovely pond with a picnic island. My favorite part, though, was the little rotating display case of canned wine. Most of it was from Europe, and the 80's - a lot of Hock wine, which is no longer fashionable, and a lot of stuff to be served "over ice."

Generally the cans were very similar and unimaginative, but one bore closer inspection: a can of "Redi-Shot" with a Nebraska state "light wine" liquor tax stamp over the pull-tab. It looked old - maybe from the 60s. It was a 10 ounce can, green with chunky white sans-serif lettering. It was produced and bottled by the Redi-Shot Manufacturing Company, Denver Colorado USA. (To distinguish it from some wannabe Denver south of the border, or a Potemkin Denver in Siberia's icy wastelands, I guess). Down the left side of the can were the directives: "Luck" "Cheers" "Here's to You"; on the right were "Here's How" "Bottoms Up" and "Luck" again, either because 1) someone was drinking on the job and spaced out or 2) anyone drinking from this can needed all the luck he could get.

This product is 6% alcohol by volume and claims to be "A carbonated specialty made with wine, sugar, water, flavoring material, ascorbic acid and less than 1/10th of 1% benzoate of soda as a preservative." We are instructed by the label: "Pour over ice / It's ready to serve."

Maybe it's ready to serve - I may not be ready to drink. I like wine, but this stuff I'm not too sure about. First, it's a "specialty." Not just a beverage. I get suspicious when my canned wine claims to be a "specialty." I have doubts it's even an "ordinary-ity." In fact I suspect it's probably a "sub-standard-ity." Note to Redi-Shot: alcohol is supposed to give ME delusions of grandeur, not to indulge in them itself. When I want "specialties" I know where to find them and it's not a can of wine from Denver. Next, I note that the winemakers have added sugar, water, ascorbic acid and benzoate of soda to reduce alcohol content to about half of what I usually drink. This doesn't bode well for the delicacy of the vintner's craft. I'm confirmed in this suspicion by the inclusion of "flavoring material" among the ingredients. I guess this distinguishes them from "flavoring concepts" or "flavorless material." It seems euphemistic, like something is being left out of the description. "This stuff still tastes like donkey wee. Can't we flavor it up at all?" "Sure, sommelier Chugmeister - I have a cherry lifesaver and some leftover auto coolant, they're both sweet and tasty." "Are these physical objects or theoretical constructs, Herr Corkwhiffer?" "Oh they're material entities all right - in fact, the lifesaver is kind of linty." "Then we'll just call them by their generic name and preserve our trade secret - that wine tastes better when you add crap to it."

Anyway, their wine probably tastes better that way. I have my standards. They may be low, but they're there. Redi-Shot wouldn't have made the mark, even when I was in college. I don't do shots of wine. Some things, we're meant to shoot - mescal, alcohol in jello, everclear flavored with nyquil - drinks the enjoyment of which is impaired by the tasting thereof. These drinks have as their saving grace a high alcohol content. Redi-Shot is watered down and still tastes like Mad Dog's juvenile delinquent second cousin. I may be redi for a lot of things, but I don't need any of that shot.

2003-06-04T08:43:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: the events hereinbelow related are true, but took place several years ago. Since then, we've been totally clean. It's dull but it's safe.

Meet the Beetles

It had been going on for months before either of us really brought it up. We knew that speaking of it aloud would validate it, verify its actuality. We opted for denial for a long time, but finally one of us had to say the words, "Do you ever notice these things?," while holding up a grain of brown rice. Or - no, that's not rice, though the right size and shape - but not so regular - those look like legs - oh god it's a beetle, give me strength we've been infested....

We knew it was worse than we saw, which was just a beetle or two each day, sometimes several in the morning after a really warm night, scattered across our stovetop and counter. Always dead or barely moving. We'd wipe them up like so many breadcrumbs. Honestly, there were tiny and seemed much less gross than some other forms of life that might infest our food, but even so, we preferred to live without them and cleaned up very carefully to source them out. This led us to toss a box of instant mashed potatoes that seemed to be about 2/3s beetles, hoping this would fix our problems. But I suspected it wouldn't.

I suspected correctly. We found no beetles for a few months, but eventually a new one showed up. It was back behind the lazy susan in the cabinet, in a very out-of-the-way spot. We pretended again. Again, as the seasons turned and spring ripened, the little buggers came back in force. We'd cleaned everything, checked for holes to the outside, divested ourselves of all instant potato products, but still they showed up, in small numbers but steadily. We went over everything again.

In the midst of this exercise we decided to clear out the old herbs and spices too. We have a capacious spice rack built into a recessed space in a deep cupboard door that used to house an ironing board - now it's got about eight shallow shelves that we fill with spices. Some of these spices we bought long, long ago and are no longer using because all their savory attributes have irretrievably deteriorated. Yet, because we still had half of a huge tub of these various bulk spices, we wouldn't replace them. Old oregano, red pepper flakes gone brown with age, chives that were no longer entitled to use that name... we went through and cleared out a bunch of wizened old seasonings.

As a geek (or geek wannabe, which is even sadder), I alphabetize the spices, so we were nearing the end of the collection when we got to the cool Hungarian paprika in the big metal cannister. We didn't remember where we'd gotten it (we were pretty sure it wasn't Hungary though); it was certainly very good paprika. But we were ona mission to evaluate the quality of every item on those shelves so I pried off the green plastic shaker lid.

Inside was a mass of tiny beetles. They seemed mostly dead. Mostly. They were dusted with fragrant and vibrant paprika. I knew there was plenty of paprika in there; it shook out readily whenever I wanted to use it, which - till then - had been a regular, if occasional, occurrance. But all I could see when I peered into the container was beetles. Hundreds of them. We threw that paprika the hell away. With it went the last of the beetles and the end of the infestations.

It's been years now, beetle-free and proud. I recently was working in the kitchen, opened a new box of sugar, and one of these beetles fell out. I poked at its dead little grain of a body with a wooden skewer. The sugar was glacially white. I was ready to start baking, I didn't want to go out to the store again for more sugar just on account of this one vermin (or is the singular "vermus?"). I decided to dispose of the beetle and forget I'd ever seen it. I knew where it had come from, that there was only one, that it was really someone else's problem down at the C&H plant. And anyway I'd probably inadvertently eaten more than my share of them already back in the gross old days.

Then I began to feel badly for it, dying in a box of sugar. What a way to go. I sometimes imagine myself dying from being buried in a mountain of granulated salt. I'd heard such a story when I was very young and it always struck me as particularly horrible. But to die in a box of sugar, a sweet coffin - the irony could kill you.

2003-06-03T14:10:00.000-07:00

Earlier today I checked my blog and the ad banner across the top featured "the asparagus guy" and advice on seducing the man or woman (or both, I suppose) of your dreams. I was wondering if there was some relationship. Now my ad banner features "Fun Office Accessories - fun stuff for your desk; Tons of office toys" AND "seductive(dot)com - how to seduce men/women - tips, techniques and products affiliate." I'm envisioning some sort of oversized vibrating latex spear of edible grass with a page-a-day dilbert calendar built right in. On the net, all things are connected. To my asparagus.

2003-06-03T13:58:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago my little training class had a guest lecturer. The notes I took of his presentation go like this: "Tonight: a visit from Leon. [blank space] You can tell he's a leader because he's always asking, 'you follow me?'"

Regardless of the paucity of written notes, his presentation was good. I was reminded of it when I watched the Daily Show last night and the guest was a CNN reporter who kept saying, "Let me tell you:..." I realized that he wanted to tell us stuff because he's a news anchor. That the way we express ourselves is a reflection of our psyche.

This made me wonder what phrases I use and what they say about me. For example, I will say "I'm not in the mood for this crap right now" because I'm emotionally sensitive. And I'll say "see you in hell" because I'm a godfearing man. I suppose the thing I say the most, though, is "It's on my prioritized agenda. Do you need me to reprioritize it?" And this tells me that I'm a well-organized, goal-focused ~~weasel~~ professional.

2003-06-03T10:06:00.000-07:00

You know you shouldn't be left alone in a grocery store with credit cards when the only thing that looks more delicious than the Super Sour Trolli Gummy Worms in the eye-level display at the checkout line are the Hostess fruit pies in the next aisle. How can sugar take so many forms, each more irresistable than the last? No, don't tell me - let me savor the individually-wrapped mystery.

2003-06-02T17:15:00.000-07:00

Reprinted from the WSJ by the Daily Fix:

"Bacardi USA has brought out Turi, a high-end vodka from Estonia. The Miami-based unit of Bacardi Ltd. has been spotlighting Turi at high-profile events such as the Costume Institute gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York on May 4. On June 4, members of New York's fashion scene will drink Turi at a KY Jelly event, where they will learn new uses for the product such as hair styling and massage. Bacardi is privately held and has no problem bringing the brand along slowly."

I don't care how slowly you go, KY jelly is not for hair styling. And as for massage, that's not what I meant. Oh, and by the way, what exactly do you mean when you refer to a "KY Jelly event"? Does it mean I have to wear a hat? Even if it musses up my hair? Maybe I can find another place to wear it. KY Jelly has so many uses, especially for those in the "fashion scene." When pants are that tight, a fellow has to use the resources at hand.

Maybe later in the evening they'll drink KY at a Turi vodka event. I sense synergy.

2003-06-02T16:42:00.000-07:00

FRESH MEAT, SNAPPERS AND TAILFEATHERS: the non-bucolic side of Golden Gate Park

On Saturday I went with Dave, Kim and li'l Daisy to the park, where Dave and I played some full-contact whiffleball and Daisy identifed everything that wasn't a tree or some grass as a "rose." Warm weather brought gophers up from their holes, and the gophers brought out some really large hawks that swooped thrillingly down to nab, kill and consume those adorable fuzzy little "lawn rats." Later, we strolled up to Stow Lake, where the eelfeeding guy was doing his thing. He was feeding turtles at that moment, and there were several dozen small ones swarming around in front of him. But he'd occasionally skewer a piece of weiner on a long stick and wave it just above the water, just at the shore. A leathery head the size of my hand crept out of the water to take the meat; the guy pulled back the stick to tease the turtle into showing more of itself. I don't know how big snapping turtles get, but this one was unbelieveably huge. When it stretched out it must have had a foot of neck as thick as my wrist; the shell might have been 2 feet by three feet. He was a monster, and could easily have taken off my finger or worse. After several minutes, we wandered off and Kim found a duck's tail feather - it had a distinctive and amusing curl in the tip. I asked Kim to shake it but she wouldn't. Dave did, but it wasn't the same.

2003-06-02T14:50:00.000-07:00

At the big fancy movie theater I visited yesterday they have named some of their meal packages. For example, a sweaty florid hot dog and a watery fountain soda is called the "Producer's Pick." Because they can't call it what a producer would call it - "inedibly barfacious." A cardboard box full of tired, chewy disks of fried cornmeal becomes "nachos" when a small firkin of rank orange goo is added to one side and a handful of spent and tired jalapeno rounds are desultorily scattered across the top. Then, to this "nachos," you add another medium-sized cup of cola-from-concentrate, brimming with refreshing carbon dioxide and nutritious ice, and the whole package becomes a "Cinema Snack." You know, just like they eat in Cannes.

If there were a theater that served really decent food and beverages, they could easily charge a couple of extra dollars for a ticket. It would be worth it to me to have a nice Steak au Poive with an insoucient cabernet, a port-poached apple for dessert, and maybe a quick backrub before the coming attractions. I'm a reasonable man. Which is to say, I'll cook the steak and apples if someone wants to come over to give me my backrub. I get to pick the movie, though. And for gods sake don't bring any nachos. There are starving frenchmen who need them.

2003-06-02T12:56:00.000-07:00

I've had a few days to think of my departed friend (see below), and a few hours to look at my epitaph to him in living black-n-white. Time enough to appreciate the gifts I was privileged to reap from my time with him, and to remember how he enjoyed a good time, a hearty laugh, and a party that runs late. So, Parke, I'll dedicate this update to you:

A while ago (and I'm not in the mood to find out when or where), I complained about "getters" - people who just get stuff because they're in the right place in the right time. Turns out I'm one of them. It started back when Dave and Kim invited us to get tix for the Hot Tuna show next month, but we couldn't go - we'll be in PA, drinking Yuenglings and playing water volleyball in the pool. But we got the yen to see a concert, and wouldn't you know it, Trey Anastasio was coming to the Warfield and tix were still available. Kel hooked us up with General Admission tickets; this caused some minor consternation because it had been a long time since I staked out a spot on the floor of a hippiefest like I was expecting this show to be. In fact, it was so much of a hippie fest that there was NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT. The Warfield is a beaux-arts freakout with velvet curtains, carved driads, sweeping staircases and an elaborately painted fresco ceiling. The kind of place that clearly inspired the invention and abuse of any number of pharmaceuticals. We got there about 20 minutes early and found a comfortable spot about 50 feet from the stage with excellent sight lines and immediate access to one of the beverage distribution stations. By the time the show was supposed to start, things had gotten rather crowded - but crowded with 1) hippies who 2) had bathed and 3) had money, so there was a general feeling of camaraderie and good cheer. The fellow next to us, and the fellow on the other side next to us, and the freak from Austin who showed up for the second set were all very entertaining conversationalists and ensured that I was further entertained by buying us beer and generally extending the sweaty palm of hospitality. Austin gave Kelly a nice shoulder bag he'd made, and promised me he'd have the show on disk for me within a week. Oh yes and Carlos Santana came out for the third song of the first set and basically played the whole show from then on; he really seemed to be grooving on the five-piece horn/woodwind section. We - all of us - danced for three hours and it felt gooooood.

Sunday was a CostCo run and X-2. I'm having trouble separating the experiences in my mind. Did the dam burst, releasing a fatal flood of bulk ketchup? Did Wolverine find the secret stash of liquified shortening, which made him nigh indestructable? And that giant orange shopping cart - I'm sure it had cloaking capability.... I enjoyed X2, more than CostCo anyway, though I preferred the first XMen movie. Oh shut up. I also saw y tu mama tambien, which was much better than about any movie I've ever seen that had that much boinking in it. It wasn't sex - it was boink. But it looked like some pretty good boink.

In other news, I have no other news. My hand is still slightly stained from my drinks stamp from the Warfield, and my pictures from my Philo trip really should be ready today - the developer got some schmutz on the negatives and it's taking a long time to get them cleaned and reprinted. I'm hungry. I'm bored. And I'm ready to do something unconventional. I'm just not sure yet what that would be. In lieu of something fun, I'll read another budget for work. You know, go with my strengths. It's all I have left - though I leave open the possibility that something more interesting might just fall into my lap. Anything is possible.

2003-06-01T23:37:00.000-07:00

In Honor of a Teacher Who's Finally On Vacation

When I graduated from high school, my school was one of the good ones. Even though it was a public school in a big city, we had a lot of bright dedicated kids, decent facilities, and, most importantly, some damn good teachers. I went from U.S.Grant High to some serious institutions of higher and post-graduate education, yet some of my best teachers were ones I had in high school. I still think of them often, and in that way they continute to teach me - or at least, to instruct me.

Over time I heard that Grant went downhill. It became a campus where most of the students were bussed in, which brought the school a lot of poorly prepared students who didn't get along together very well. Budgets for art and shop were slashed. Teachers who had taught me world history and philosophy were spending most of their time teaching classes in English as a Second Language.

I knew it was bad when NPR ran a piece on the deterioration of the LAUSD and they chose Grant as their poster child. In the course of the story they included a brief comment from one of my old teachers, Parke McAllister. He said something to the effect that, had he all his choices to make again, he'd have gotten out of teaching. He wasn't being appreciated by the students or supported by the system. He was tired of it.

This story ran years ago, maybe as long as six or seven years back, but PM never did quit. He stayed at his post, teaching high school drama and theater to any kid who wanted to live out a dream. He certainly made a huge difference in my life, and for a lot of my friends as well. There were the skills he taught, which we all used and still use to be heard, to be seen - or to become invisible and mute; there were the shy, embarassed kids who learned to respect and enjoy their own company and to find and use the power in their own personalities; and there was the special bond he helped us form among a bunch of maladjusted theater geeks who supported each other - through deaths, miscarriages, breakdowns and revellations. We gave each other emotional space, stability and context, and we made each other proud. And in all these things and more, PM was our example and our inspiration.

I don't know if PM got to share these gifts, foster this environment at all in his later years at Grant. But I deeply value the strength of character he helped me build, the discipline he encouraged me to develop, the emotional vocabulary he taught me and the insights into human behavior he helped me achieve. We thought he was cool because he let us curse and smoke on stage. In the end, I didn't take up smoking as a result of that exposure, but I remember to this day the way he kept us focused, working, and interested, and how he coaxed our best work out of each one of us. He really fit the definition of an educator - one who develops the inner skills and talents of another. I am grateful to have been his student all four years I was in high school.

Late last week I got an email from a friend I hadn't seen since the reunion last year, and prior to that, not since graduation. We'd done a lot of work together in Parke's class. He wrote to me and a few others to let us know that Parke had died. After finishing most of yet another school year, he had checked himself into a hospital a few weeks ago feeling run-down. He was diagnosed with advanced cancer in his lungs and liver, and died after less than a month. I am sorry that no more students will benefit from his pedagogy. He had a hell of a lot to teach.

To Parke McAllister - who helped me learn my cues, my mark, my lines, and my true value to myself and to others. The stage is dark.

2003-05-30T11:11:00.000-07:00

Everything is going very smoothly this week. Work is getting completed, effectively and thoroughly and quickly. I've done more in three days than most men do in seven. Phone calls are getting returned and aren't taking too long. Meetings end on time - or early. My desk is organized and active. I've done all the laundry - and I look great in these jeans. Measurable progress is being made on many critical fronts - travel, home decor, fitness. Today my pictures from the weekend will be ready, and tonight is Happy Hour.

I think I'll spend the rest of the day sitting quietly under my desk. When fate wakes up and realizes I've gotten away with this kind of a week, my ass will be grass. I'll need to keep a low profile.

2003-05-30T10:05:00.000-07:00

MEDIA TOOL

Last week NPR had a story on in the morning about a family from somewhere in Africa, slaves and refugees, who had been resettled in Denver (having been rejected by Massachusetts); the only things in dad’s new world from his old world had to do with farming, which was once what he did. I couldn’t stop thinking about this guy, how disruptive, how isolating it must be for him. And I couldn’t really imagine it, but I wrote a poem about it anyway to quiet the voices.

Then this week NPR had another story on in the morning about a woman in Mali, or near there, who had to sweep all day to keep the desert sand out of the old family house which was far, far out into the isolation of the wastelands. She too got under my skin and took up residence in my tender cranium. Another poem resulted. And here they both are. And they say advertising doesn’t work.

Both my parents lived in bondage
I have always hunger known
the past three years I lived in camps
that no one ever called a home
They turned me back from Holyoke
Because their people have no work
I packed two bags, we rode a plane;
so this is what it’s like in Denver
Christian woman screaming for her
translator and someone laid
out napkins for us but no food
it’s so unreal
gave my boy a hideous
toy doll – a bear they say –
of cloth that’s like the U.S. flag;
he looked at it and screamed – no wonder….
Don’t put metal in the micro
I won’t even touch the micro
in Denver there is much I find
unprecedented, tiring, hard
to understand, to be well understood,
to look or even, sometimes, just to feel
like the rest of them, my neighbors
yes I’m grateful every second for
my life here now but this is all
so very strange
they take me to the seven leven
pull up in the parking lot and
there she sits – a filthy tractor,
nicest one I’ve ever seen
my farm back then was such a dump
but I grew crops
and drove a tractor
just like this one
this I know
I go inside
the multiplicity of choices
never ceases to amaze me
I have too much to understand
but there they are – a barrel of
fresh ears of corn
exactly like my own from home
I cradle one with thirsty fingers
this I understand.

This is the house
that I was born in
the sun comes up here
every morning
this little hut
and so much sand
the desert sea
a lonely land
I have a task
I work all day
it rides my dreams
cant get away
I sweep the desert
from my door
It’s never done
I sweep some more
My mother did this
so did hers
here in this hut
so many years
I love my children
live my life
It’s all I know
it will suffice
we have some water
goats and sheep
at night I go
inside to sleep
my sandy little
desert hut
I sweep you while
my eyes are shut

2003-05-29T14:21:00.000-07:00

Calling All Clowns: Go Somewhere Else and Start Eating Healthy

You like clowns? Me neither. I guess it's because one broke into my home and tied me and my folks up for a weekend of tequila abuse and pet shaving. I've just never forgiven them. That's why this article creeps me out so profoundly. Clowns and protein patties: satan's smorgasboard. Ronald McDonald is just disturbing. Those fry things are weird too.

Choice selections:

"The 40-year-old character will start showing up more -- and in unexpected places. Maybe he'll even perform his new dance "Do the Ronald."" Please don't do this where people are eating - even if it's fast food. Even if it only claims to be food. It's gross enough in there as it is.

"Kids would throw rocks from the parking lot. Sometimes you would get protesters," explains Jeff McMullen, a former Ronald, of Appleton, Wis. "Ronald can't handle that." Ronald is going to have to learn to take care of himself. We won't be around to protect his pansy ass forever.

"Ronald McDonald was the brain-clown of two people: Washington advertising executive Barry Klein and renowned Ringling Bros. clown Michael "Coco" Polakovs. At the time, Mr. Klein's clients included a McDonald's franchisee and a local "Bozo the Clown" television show. Mr. Klein persuaded the franchisee to run commercials on the Bozo show to reach out to children. After the kiddie show was canceled in 1963, Mr. Klein regrouped with Bozo, then played by Willard Scott, who gave the McDonald's clown his name: Ronald McDonald...Mr. Scott, the longtime weatherman for NBC's "Today" show, donned the first Ronald get-up that year, using a paper cup as a nose and a cardboard tray as a hat....When McDonald's decided to make Ronald a national figure in 1966, the company dumped Mr. Scott, fearing it would be hard to find people in each market with Mr. Scott's big build, recalls Mr. Klein. "That was a heartbreaker," says NBC's Mr. Scott. "I was too fat."" Too fat to represent an organization dedicated to the injestion of saturated fats and disks of seasoned arterial plaque on a bun? Consider yourself lucky to have been dropped. Willard, you got out by the skin of your well-worn teeth.

"To mass-produce Ronald like its burgers and fries, McDonald's created a guide in 1972 called "Ronald and How." The book, by longtime McDonald's hands Roy Bergold and Aye Jaye, details everything from how to apply makeup to how to behave around children. According to someone close to the company, the book advises Ronalds "never to initiate a hug" with a child. Instead, Ronalds are to turn slightly to the left and pat the child on the back. That's right clownie, never touch them - in public. Offer them free apple pies if they visit Ronald's Grotto with you. Just ask "Aye Jaye." If you can get him to come out of the ball pit. As they say.

"Another former Ronald pleaded guilty in 1998 to a charge of carrying a concealed weapon in New Hanover County, N.C., and the next year was convicted in county court of making harassing phone calls posing as a Ronald. The judge ordered him to take anger-management classes. "I'm one of the bad-boy Ronalds," says Mr. Maggard, an actor who portrayed Ronald in the mid-'90s. "Am I a bad guy? No, I'm not a bad guy. Did Ronald get in a little trouble down there? Yes."" I don't even want to know down "where" Ronald got into trouble. And what's a harassing call "posing" as "a Ronald?" Was it a videophone? Was he threatening to take a drive thru order incorrectly, or have Jabba the Shakeslurping Hutt sit on somebody?

I'm only going back to McDonalds when they're selling patties made out of Ronald himself - the "Pound 'o' Flesh," perhaps, or "Clownie McNuggets." Meantime, I'm perfectly happy eating flash-frozen lard-on-a-stick. At least the stick has some nutritional value.

2003-05-29T11:55:00.000-07:00

BUGDETS

I'm reading budgets these days. Here's what I've learned: the following typos are strongly recommended if you have a boring document that you'd like to turn into a comedy blockbuster:

"Discountenances" for discontinuances ("the discountenances in payments created financial straits")
"Commiserate" for commensurate ("each was charged his commiserate share")
"Bared" for barred ("he was bared from further relief")

Come on guys, you're lawyers. Is this what you turn in at court? Or, should I say, at curt?

2003-05-29T08:10:00.000-07:00

Aint that a Kick in the Khakis?

Yesterday, it was my turn. I was feeling all positive and proactive, having worked hard, gotten lots done, and then leaving early to go to my interview for assignment to an "adult learner" in my literacy program. It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day and I was dressed unobtrusively in a standard but flattering ensemble. I caught a bus north, rode it with a very mixed bag of denizens and some "deni's" who weren't so "zen," disembarking at the same stop as several pushy youths, a few slowmoving tourists, and a young woman who was walking like she meant business - and not in the fun way. She strode quickly and assertively toward the crosstown busstop that was my destination too, her light skirt swishing and bouncing, doing little to hide her manifold charms.

We were both crossing Geary at Van Ness when I saw him coming. He was older, dressed in regulation shabby pants, bulky coat, layers of dirt over layers of grimy old clothes over many more layers of dirt... he stomped toward me in the intersection like a man on a mission. When we were about a yard apart he reared back and kicked at my gut, his decrepit old boot swinging purposefully but not really very quickly into my demurely tailored french blue (note: would prefer to call it "french blown" in honor of frenching) midsection. I dropped back one step, lifting my hands in a posture of defensive disbelief, ready to catch his foot, remove it, and return it to him as a suppository. He pulled his kick, grumbling, and shambled off across the street.

As I got on the waiting bus the woman in the skirt was right ahead of me and seemed to be grumbling too. She's seen him try to kick someone else a few feet ahead of her in the crosswalk and was upset and a bit pumped up. We got to talking about it. She takes Aikido, she'd have been able to handle anything the old guy had tried to pull. But then something interesting happened: a conversation. We talked about proxemics, Cincinnati (she once saw an outfielder for the Reds at Skyline getting a coney), geology, education... that tough businesslike facade melted as she described her work teaching children, her excitement riding a motorcycle in thick fog... I kept thinking, if that whack job hadn't been playing Jean Clod van Dank in the intersection I'd never have had this conversation. I'd still be mentally toying with the idea of that little skirt flicking back and forth, instead of making genuine contact with a genuinely warm, interesting, helpful person. So she happens to be wearing a cute skirt - so sue me.

I take life as it comes, one random attack at a time. This time it worked out pretty well. Next time I'm in that neighborhood I expect that some hottie in Cesare Catinis and an Ann Taylor suit will probably pull a Billy Jack on my ass and I'll have to sit next to a stinky weirdo on the bus. It all evens out in the end. Luckily, I got to have dessert first.

2003-05-28T12:32:00.000-07:00

Notes from the Road (transcribed for rebroadcast at a more convenient time, like now):

1) The signs read "Traffic Enforced By Aircraft." I thought they'd be more effective if they read, "Traffic Enforced by Armed Aircraft." Hell, I'd stop right there to try to catch a glimpse of them. Or maybe, "Invisible Aircraft." Yeah, that'd keep us guessing.

2) The profusion of wildflowers up the 128 is astonishing. Whole hillsides drenched in color; fields of rippling grass with bright colorful bursts exploding everywhere like frozen fireworks.... One stretch of road was overgrown with rockrose and poppies, which complimented each other very nicely - the dusty fuchsia of the rockroses bumping against the brilliant orange of the poppies... I was thinking if the two were somehow genetically blended you could call them "Pop Rocks."

3) We were leaving a little shop when three people walked in - a man and woman of conservative dress and appearance, and another man who also was conservatively dressed except for his blue bowler hat that dangled yellow yarn wighair. He was trying to look cool, which was a lost cause, so there was a strange discontinuity between his demeanor and his appearance, which was itself a bit discontinuous, with the khakis and polo shirt below and his goofball pielike yarnhead. I suggested, once we were outside, that he had just blown his audition to be the next Wavy Gravy. No, Kel corrected me, that's Wavy's older, straighter brother, Davy. She is wise in the ways of familial extenuations. I stand corrected.

2003-05-28T08:30:00.000-07:00

EASY LIKE SUNDAY MORNING

Sunday morning, up the hill north-west of Philo. Impressions so far: we were wise not to try getting here at night. Just taking 128 off the 101 was a bit of a challenge in daylight. Then, to get to the cabin, we turn off of 128 several miles past a mountain valley hamlet called Philo (population around 500) right next to a longtime favorite winery, and go up a little dirt road for a few miles. The road is barely more than a fire trail, but it's lined with rail fences and utility poles and refurbished old barns that are now family homes on 20 acres each. Or anyway, that's what the road looks like till you get near the end, where it's diving into and out of thick brush and forest and the houses are few and very far between, hidden in dingles deep in the woods. Eventually we hit a T intersection, hang a rickie, and go even deeper into the coastal mountains, into deeper woods, and there, improbably, is another intersection - and at the intersection is a small wooden sign bearing the address of the cabin at the foot of a steep set of tire ruts leading up the hillside. The car complies with our demands, performing flawlessly on our first real road trip and off-road experience since we got it. The gate, when we reach it, is rustic, falling apart - Kel has to hold it open so it doesn't swing shut on us as we drive through.

We continue under a canopy of oak and laurel up the 1/3-mile-long driveway. The cabin is brown, wood, with a loft, a porch - wrap-around, wisteria lattices, stained glass - in sum, very cozy and nice. The dog has been exceptionally good on this long trip; now he's making himself dizzy sniffing everything, even us. Inside, the cabin is adorable. Mismatched furniture, all extremely comfortable; local lore and muckraking newspapers; cool music we aren't familiar with; big open kitchen; big bed with adjustable mattress firmness for either side. The deck overlooks both hills and vales, fading off into a not-perceptibly-habitated distance of vineyards and forests and hazy fog... a small pond sits below the dutch door leading from the back of the kitchen, wild turkeys gobble back and forth in the woods....

Okay, we aren't getting much water pressure from the big tank up the hill but all else is awesome and now it's Sunday morning, we're listening to Zen House (which we brought) and waiting for the pump guy to show up. (Sounds like a porno setup. Coals to Newcastle.) Last night, we went down the hill to the winery on 128 and had a few paired tastings, which revealed some interesting differences in our palates, and admired the folk art, 4th century chinese sculpture, and aboriginal carvings with which the place was, in part, decorated. Afterwards, we went on to Mendocino town, which was even more lush and gorgeous than I'd remembered - I don't think we'd ever been there in the spring before, and the wildflowers were on hyperdrive. Little alleys were choked with bowers and wild lupine and nasturtium, old wood was livid with moss, old hinges on old doors offered studies in color and texture, the Pacific insistently pounding the driftwood-littered shore 70 feet below at the foot of the cliffs - through which the sea has torn a long transverse bore, over which the earth eventually collapsed, through which gaping cave in the headlands we watched waves surge through the cliff bore, while across the street the saltbox romanticism of the town's main drag glowed in the late afternoon....

We walked Ukiah, Main and Albion Streets - the three streets that constitute the part of town that merits walking; we peered in on galleries and browsed some boutiques but it was after 5 and shops were closing, so we made our way back to Beaujolais and ate supper. (Non-foodies: skip to next paragraph.) Kel started with seared scallops, local morrels and asparagus on a bed of asparagus puree, which was decent; I had a smoked chicken salad with local granny smiths and local pecorino-style cheese, which also didn't suck. While ordering we shared a cassis and soda - quite the gustatory stimulant - and Kel had a sparkling wine with her scallops; I had a glass of 2000 Lolonis Sauv Blanc with my salad and another glass of it with my roast sturgeon in truffle reduction with house made tagiatelle (sp?), beets and garden veggies; Kel got a glass of the same wine with her roast chicken in truffle glaze, mashed potatoes and veggies. Both entrees were palatable. For dessert, Kel had fresh banana cake with malted chocolate ice cream and candied bananas; I had a chocolate brioche bread pudding with creme anglaise. Again, not bad, and the place is as comfortable and homey and well-staffed as I ever remembered.

After, we strolled the cafe's lovely gardens, picked up some pastries for (today's) breakfast [remember I wrote this on Sunday] at the local juice bar during their weekly open mike session, and then cruised back inland and up the hill listening to John Mayall's "Wicked Grin." I woke up at 6 this morning and went out to take photos on the property even though it was pretty foggy and grey. (Good texture and depth of color, though.) At noon we're scheduled to be back in Mendo at Sweetwater for an hour in a sauna/hot tub suite, in the nicest hot tub ever to cradle my moist naked self. Maybe I'll do some yoga and prepare myself for a deeper level of relaxation. My time is limited, after all, and my residual tension level is dangerously high.

UPDATE: of course, this was all days ago. But in a sense it endures. Monday was bright and sunny and we had a great breakfast in Booneville and hit four wineries on the way back to the cabin - three of which are truly world class. By coincidence, we brought home three bottles. Now it's wednesday morning and I need to think about work again. But somewhere in the back of those thoughts, my butt is still soaking in that sublime hot tub under the Mendocino sun. Some things are too enjoyable to be left behind when they're over.

2003-05-27T14:30:00.000-07:00

Last week I took a shot at it but I did a poor job of really describing what I look out for when I'm driving - the warning signs of a driver who's likely to slow me down in random and infuriating ways. Billy described just such a situation recently, and it made me think my tongue-in-cheeque expose was anything but useful. In fact it sucked. So here is a better, more clearly conceived, and much more useful taxonomy of warning signs that should make you ask yourself, am I driving behind the automotive equivalent of Abe Simpson or Garrison Keillor - someone who's going to give me a short course in high blood pressure and low tollerance of the frailties of others?

Without further ado: "GET YOUR GARBAGE CART OUT OF MY FACE" SIGNS:
* Older diesel cars
* Cars with lots of exhaust, or a big exhaust stain on their butts
* Cars with overly cute bumper stickers ("Don't Follow Me I'm Lost Too;" "I brake for Unicorns;" "Not Perfect, Just Forgiven")
* Cars loaded with goddamn fuzzy dolls and bobblehead crap
* Cars that seem to be dragging their ass low to the roadbed
* Cars that are really big with drivers that are really small
* Cars with lots of environmental stickers all over them, obscuring window clarity
* Smashed out taillights and/or rear bumper
* Really really dirty cars with really dirty windows
* Cars with unusually tacky faux-wood panelling
* Cars that leave too long a gap between themselves and the car they're trailing
* Self-referential license plates - whether relating to people ("C WONG") or vehicles ("MY 87 CAD")
* Bumper stickers that say "I'd rather be" doing something really sedentary and introspective, like "knitting" or "napping"
* Cars with a license plate dangling precariously
* Cars that are really shiny and still have dealer's plates instead of DMV plates (drivers are so nervous about their new babies)
* Cars with lots of stuff stacked on the roof, especially if there's no roof rack
* Occupied vehicles in my neighborhood

Of course, none of these signs is dispositive; many of them can appear together in a vehicle that's not causing anyone any problems. But that's in other cities, other states. Around me, any of these signs typically means "your enrollment in rageaholics anonymous has expired." Sometimes I can control them with my mind and make them go away. Usually I just seethe until I rip the top off my gearshift knob. You can only imagine how much seething I have to do before I'm driven to such extremes. I'm very attached to my knob.

2003-05-27T12:23:00.000-07:00

Rancho Relaxo My Ass

On our way up north we passed an exit marked "Rancheria." I asked Kel what distinguised a rancheria from a regular, run-of-the-mill ranch. She immediately answered, "Urea." If I'd have been driving, I'd have taken us off the road.

But her begs the more important question: what is this "mill" of which we are said to have the "run"? What does it mean to have "run of" a mill? Is this like a mill with a water wheel, in which case maybe it's "run-off" the mill? Or is it 1/10th of a penny, like the cash value of a coupon, or more like a steel mill - and what do either of those have to do with getting the run, or perhaps, the runs, of a place? The longer I think of it, the less sense it makes and the more unsavory it sounds. And regardless, can you have the run of the mill of a ranch? Can't you just have a run of the ranch all by itself?

I'm overwrought.

2003-05-27T10:13:00.000-07:00

Sometimes when I have a lot I want to say, only the strangest little dollops of it get out. Like, I tend to spoonerize things I hear, switching the first letters or sounds of key words in a phrase. That's why I can never own a Geo Prizm.

2003-05-23T18:01:00.000-07:00

Since I'm out of here so soon, I wanted to throw something up to cover up the embarassing lack of sophistication here at the hut. I was having trouble figuring out what that would be, and then my best friends at the Gillette company solved my problem. I got home Thursday night to find a mysterious cardboard box, addressed to me from them. I tore it open and found a sample razor with three - three! - blades, and also a heartfelt piece of hucksterism and pitchware. It was so fulfilling for me to read, I thought I might make it part of your experience too. And let's face it, after "gross google searches that brought people to my blog" and tirades about television shows, commercial speech is your best source for cynic fodder. So cozy up and let's begin...

First line: " Start Your Day Off Right." These letters are huge; it's the biggest part of the text - and it's all about ME and making MY experience more fulfilling. How can I argue with that? HOW CAN I ARGUE? Right. I'll move on.

"Dear Valued Customer:" My sensors extend. 'Value' is something that you attach to commodities; 'dear' and 'value' in this context take on a sense of synonymity. And what entitles them to call me a customer? Just because I buy their crap? What temerity. What gall. I'm outraged.

"At GilletteÒ, we think that every man deserves the best. And we think that you deserve our best shaving product - our MACH3Ò Turbo."

Is this really what you think out there at Gillette? Because that's a pretty lame excuse for a philosophy. Does every man really deserve the best? Isn't it inevitable that theere would be gradations of bestness to accomodate the billlions of men who apparently all deserve the 'best', from callous murderers and Donald Rumsfeld, to genius philanthropists and myself? So I question the premise from which Messers. Gillette proceed.

But they have a corollary - that they further think that I deserve their best shaving product. This leads me to wonder, when did they arrive at this conclusion? Did they just decide recently? Have they been holding out on me till now? I suppose I must have passed some sort of marketing threshold for inclusion in the "deserves best shaving product" category. I wonder what I did - I think I'd like to do it again. Also, I'm ImpressedÒ that they've RegisteredÒ the Mach3Ò. But I suppose they don't need to worry about it till they reach 5 and Speed sends Spridle and ChimChim over to break some kneecaps.

"Next Generation Triple-Blade Shaving System." Wow! Riker's choice - and you can tell that he throws a manly growth! Plus, triple blading sounds good too. It's 50% better than double blading. At least.

"Protected by over 35 patents, Mach3Ò Turbo features innovations you can feel - 3 Anti-FrictionÔ blades, thinner and more flexible microfins to smooth out your skin, an enhanced IndicatorÒ lubricating strip and a more ergonomic grip."

I'm overwhelmed. Of course, I feel very safe - safer than I've ever known I could feel. The protection of those 35 patents gives me the courage to face a new day, secure in my masculinity. And the innovations incorporated in this tonsorial marvel - I can actually FEEL them! I love the tactile sensations, theyre among my most favorite sensations. Oh, don't make me choose. Here we learn, too, that the blades - all three of them - are Anti-FrictionÔ, which provides a bit less tangible a sense of being protected, but still makes me feel special and proud that I'm now finally qualified to enjoy shaving products that incorporate technology that seems to defeat the very laws of physics, since Anti-FrictionÔ is presumably non-entropic. No wonder they Ô'd it!

BUT WAIT - THERE'S MORE! Remember those thick, rigid maxifins they used to have on Gillette razors, the ones that shredded up your skin? Well market research has pointed them in an exciting new direction on that one - thin, flexible, and micro is so 21st century! It must be the most important development in the history of applied shaving technology. And they sent it to me for free. I'm almost crying.

With this kind of lead-in, they toss off a mention of the 'Enhanced IndicatorÒ Lube Strip' as a throwaway. But I'm a dear valued customer for a reason - I think for myself. Right? So we'll start with the frank acknowledgment that men have lube strips and we use them all the time. It's no big thing, just locker room hijinks. All good clean fun. Guy stuff. Man lube. End of story. But now - ah, but now there's the IndicatorÒ lube strip - and if you break down that word into its component parts, you get a vaguely rude but unintelligible phrase based around the noun "dick" and the past tense verb "ate." So you know it's a powerful lube that will leave your skin moist and pert as a playful honeyed tongue. Ooh! And then they IMPROVED it. Oh goodness how lubricious can I get? Do I have limits? I certainly hope not.

AND. And. And there's a more ergonomic grip. I know it sounds dirty but it's really not. Well, actually... looking at the photo and the device itself, the shaft - or "glans" - of the razor has long vertical grooves, broken up by three sets of three low smooth ridges. On the underside is a pattern of short dimples. You know, for a firm grip. You know, for her pleasure. So that's what ergonomic means.

"The Closest, Most Comfortable Shave Ever." That's a broad statement. Sure, you've made some important strides. But ever? The most? These are an absolute term, in one case, and a subjective term in the other. Just because it's in bold lettering doesn't mean it's truer. I read that on the internet, and it was in bold so I believed it.

"All this advanced design means that you can now enjoy the closest, most comfortable shave with less irritation - even when shaving against the grain."

What do you mean, 'less' irritation? I'm getting a little irritated right now. I expect no irritation. I have enough irritation as it is. I hear you, though, about going against the grain. I'm a rebel, a ronin, an iconoclast with an attitude - 'against the grain' is almost my middle name, except that that would make my whole name 32 letters long. But I'm pretty riled up, anyway. Closest, most comfortable shave my ass. (That wasn't a request, by the way.)

"So enjoy your Mach3Ò Turbo. It's the best you can get."

Oh you bastards. You throw me a parade and then empty your chamberpots on it. I thought I was dear to you. I thought I'd made the cut and you'd let me use your best shaving products. But now I see the truth. This isn't actually the best, or even your best. It's just the best you're willing to sell to me, the best I'll be able to get with my limited resources and questionable psych profile. And even then, I'm expecting irritation.

The signature is "Very truly, Joseph F. Dooley, President, Commercial Operations, North America."

Do you think he noticed that 'truly' rhymes with 'Dooley'? Because if I noticed that, I'd change something. Make it 'fondly' or 'With deepest sympathy' or 'And the horse you rode in on.' There's no rule-y about truly, Dooley. And yes, we should also point out that his name contains the word 'doo.' We don't owe him any respect, he's the freaking PresidentÒ of Commercial OperationsÒ for a whole continent (and one of the good ones, too!). I dont' know what 'commercial operations' are but they sound pretty all-encompassing. Whatever it is, he's old enough to take care of himself. He's telling me that this triple bladed sex toy is the best razor I can hope to get. Well you'd better be right Mr. DooDooHead (bet that one stung, it's been years since he heard it) - otherwise I'll take that better razor and come looking for you. And when I find you I'll give you the closest, most comfortable shave ever. That'll teach you to send me free toiletries.

Meanwhile, Subaru knows I'm a customer too, but so far, no free samples in the mail. Maybe it got misdirected. Speaking of which, I'm off tonight for Philo, Mendocino County, for 3 days of total isolation and rejuvenation, in our first extended road trip in the Forester. Cosmo comes too! And may god have mercy on our souls. Mine, anyway.

2003-05-23T12:09:00.000-07:00

This is why I love Memepool. Just make sure they all wash their hands before they come to the table. You get enough people sticking their heads out of a giant plastic colon, somebody's going to need some extra scrubbing.

2003-05-23T10:46:00.000-07:00

Hail Ukraine! Reenhead, whoever that is, seems to have a cool blog that links to thisdisplay of Ukranian busstops. And I am in a sharing mood.

2003-05-23T10:00:00.000-07:00

I was just sitting at my desk idly thinking of someone and hoping the phone would ring with a call from that person. The phone rings. I'm psychokinetic. I have powers. I made the phone ring. But it's got to be someone else. I don't have that kind of power; even so, I'm kind of buzzed about making the phone ring in the first place even though I don't want to talk to someone other than the person I'd been thinking about. I answer the phone before the second ring, announcing myself with unctious formality. The voice on the other end of the line is not familiar, but has a familiar accent. The name is the same as the person of whom I'd been thinking, who has this trace of a touch of an accent. I don't so much hear it as feel it beneath the words. But it's a different person, with a different set of concerns and issues altogether - which we resolve speedily and cheerfully. So I guess I get about a C+ for having made the phone ring with a call from a person with the same name as the person who I had idly been hoping would call at that moment. I think this qualifies me for social promotion, in educational lingo. That means I don't have to repeat this miracle again, I can go on to the next grade.

2003-05-23T09:58:00.000-07:00

It may only be obvious to me, but to me it's inescapably obvious that the corner of this floor on which I work, down at the opposite end of this side - in other words, I'm south-west, and I'm talking about the north-west corner - so in that corner, it really smells like cat pee. A lot. Not dog. Maybe ferret. But I digress: my question is this - is there anything other than the obvious to make a part of a high-rise cubefarm smell like little Mr. Friskers did some impromptu Jackson Pollock action on the industrial low-nap? It's smelled for days. I was hoping it was just some skeeze with b.o. but it doesn't look like I'm that lucky.

That area is a different department altogether, much larger and less harmonious than mine. I don't want to make waves, talking to someone about the secret kitten someone else is keeping in her file cabinet to try to preserve some vestige of warm human feeling in the harsh, drab world of membership "services," which is a euphemism for billing, which is where the peereek hovers... yes it sounds a bit extreme to me too, but who am I to judge? This would be the very sort of thing I could so easily ruin for everybody, it's better that I just walk around to the coffee station the slightly less convenient way and minimize my exposure to the stench (or, "stenchposure.") You know what cat pee carpet smells like in the morning? Hint: it's not victory.

2003-05-22T16:44:00.000-07:00

Overheard:

- Let me check that out.
- What, these strings? These be solid gol' tips here.
- No, not the pants; down there... those Jordans?
- Oh yeah man, these are new ones.
- Like last year?
- No slick, they bran new. I just got'm today.
- Yeah for real?
- Shit yeah; they four-five hunned dollah but see they gave me a deal and shit...
- Yeah?
- Yeah so now I got a whole houseful of shoes and clothes and all y'all... shit, that's all mine... in fac I'm just goin out ta one o' my Sevilles to check it out, yo.
- Yeah?
- Yeah, cuz that's all you can do when you be retir'd - sit around and count dollah. You know how it be.
- Yeah, I know all about it.
- Yeah, well this my stop. Gimme one, bro.
- Faith, brother.
- Faith. Later.
- Later. Yeah.

2003-05-22T08:23:00.000-07:00

Imagined:

He's hauling ass like people only haul it in the morning. Despite the crisp creases in his pants and the pleats down his pelvis, he's getting his knees up good and high with every stride. He weaves skillfully across six lanes of traffic; I watch him turn the corner and strive for the doors as they close in his face, inches from his outstretched fingers. Undaunted, he starts running again, heading for the next stop and betting traffic is slower than he is. The bag over his shoulders bounces cheerfully as he hurls himself across another intersection, down a block of pedestrians, dancing around an obstacle course of preschool kinds and drunkards, reaching the next stop at the same time as we do on the bus; he lets some pushy old women elbow him aside at the door and then, flushed and panting, climbs in and takes a seat.

His sholders heave; his hands shake as he pulls out a large, archaic cell phone. I can't hear the start of his conversation but I can feel his tension. Phrases filter over to me: "I'm on the bus now... it's not my fault... I ran three blocks... I've got it under control... He's there now? I'll be in in 15 minutes. Damnit I got up early today... No, I... I can fix it ... (a few moments of silence elapse, his face utterly blank as he listens to the voice in his ear) ... Yeah, okay. Okay. As soon as I get there. Fifteen minutes. Thank you. Thank you. Sir."

He terminates the call like he's on Jupiter, like he's lightyears from where he wants to be, where he belongs; like he's 300 pounds heavier, like the ground beneath his feet could just yawn open and suck him under. He presses his forehead into his knuckles. His head swivels suddenly. Our eyes lock. His face glistens with sweat that now runs freely into his freshly pressed shirt collar. He's on the verge of tears. Emotion wells in his eyes as he finds his voice, cracking and drawn; he tells me, panting, "It wasn't my fault."

I can't look away from him. We sit silently for a moment but something needs to be said; the silence is a little short, too empty and unresolved. I speak without thinking much: "Was it ever? Your fault?" He looks back down at his knees and his face drips into his lap.

2003-05-21T16:00:00.000-07:00

Things that worked for me on the season finale of 24: * Jack doing a helicopter on that dude's neck. * SWAT team to the rescue at the last possible moment. * Tony playing it cool.

Things that didn't work so well for me on the season finale of 24: * Kim Bauer survives. * No mention of Nina, the arabic secret agent, the dead cop who was supposed to watch Kim, or Kim's boyfriend in the hospital with the amputated foot. * Noisy hissy soundtrack when David finds out Sherry's been in on the bomb plot for months. * Upswell of soundtrack music when the vp/prez stands down his troops or whatever he does - you can't hear it over the atmosphere.

And did anyone else think that they'd finished the show, for better or worse, and then someone at Division told them that some major character - who doesn't take sultry showers and bubble baths every few episodes - has to get iced? So they just grafted the bioterror plot from an old Mission: Implausable onto President Palmer's palm... the irony is overshadowed by the heartrending clumsiness of this wanna-be plot complication - less of a complication than a transplant, like when you get a frog to grow extra legs.

Conclusion: I can't believe this represented 24 hours of my life, never to be regained, never to be shared with loved ones and supermodels... and I have lost even more self-respect than time in my pursuit of the Cypress Recording and associated source materials. Does this mean I won't watch 24(x3): Jack Bauer and the Temple of Insolent Offspring and Bad Plans Gone Awry? You bet I will. Just let me get my heart refibrillated and I'll be right with you. And don't forget to set your vcrs: The Amazing Race starts May 29th.

2003-05-21T09:59:00.000-07:00

I love it when I get into something and someone I actually like in the media is on about it too within a couple of days. It's not like this often happens, but it's like when I said we should win that war in the middle east and then we did, or when I said I wish the Simpsons was on and then they were. But this time it's personal. Mark Morford, whose Morning Fix is such an important part of my week, and whose cultural explorations and weblinks have so expanded my worldliness, is now pimping this stuff, which I euphorically tasted at their winery just a few days ago - so recently that I can still remember that framboise they poured us - it was presented on a big chinese "two cranes" plate, the classic blue and white willows pattern, in two tiny chocolate cups, dark schmidt chocolate cups molded to resemble interwoven leaves, brimming with a nectar as sanguine and ruddy as blood; a few drops had dripped to the plate through which the white of the china shone deeply pink; the blue came through purple. I took only a moment to savor the weight of the tiny cup, the satin smoothness of the chocolate against my fingertips, and of course the scent of furiously rioting raspberries wafting from the surface of the liquid... I poured the whole thing into my mouth, letting it drip because it's as thick as cough syrup, and then dropped the cup in and chewed it up with a mouth full of liqueur. There were explosions in the vicinity of my endorphin center, and new heights of oral satisfaction were duly recorded. We wound up buying a white before-dinner wine and a raspberry port, which we've been drinking with chocolate as well. Needless to say, they're both superb, and this place is one of our favorites - one of our favorite wineries for years and one of our new favorite places to go.

The upshot: it's fun when a big time media celebrity like Mark Morford pimps something that you just spontaneously recently did on your own. Makes me feel like I'm doing the right thing, that my choices have been officially approved. Maybe that's not healthy. Maybe I shouldn't look to strangers with bylines for my sense of self-worth and the approval I so obviously crave. But you know what? I don't care. That raspberry nectar in the chocolate cup is all I really needed. Judge me as you will.

2003-05-20T15:50:00.000-07:00

Great polychrome eggs! - courtesy of JenB, whom we dearly love...

2003-05-20T13:55:00.000-07:00

Pysanki is a traditional eastern European art form in which eggs – natural or wooden – are intricately painted with geometric designs. It’s a trap for your eyes; you look and try to trace the design to a point of stasis, a place where things start and stop, but you keep slipping back and around… Kel turned me on to pysanky not long after we met. She’s had a few pieces for years and cherishes her little collection. As do I.

So what, for you, might be a pittance, a drachma in the bucket, an inconsequentiality, is truly deeply appreciated in our household. It bespeaks an ancient native exoticism, creaky water heaters and smoky samovars… even that scrap of newsprint, ripped crudely from a sheaf intended for another hemisphere, the letters conspiring and doubling backwards, tarot ads with 900 numbers and slinky skanks for which you felt inexplicably compelled to apologize as it emerged wrapping the brightly painted egg… this wad of smeary paper is itself an artifact of such obscure fascination that it remains crumpled on our dining table as a rough proletarian nest for the egg you brought us…

The egg is in traditional colors – red, brown, green, yellow; it’s a bit smaller than a small chicken egg and has a finely woven cord running from end to end, tacked down with beads and terminating in a delicate tassel. It’s going in the collection. Oh yes and it was wonderful to make your acquaintance. Enjoy your travels!

2003-05-20T12:39:00.000-07:00

I just made reservations for dinner at Cafe Beaujolais next weekend. Mendofreakingcino. 20 unfenced acres for the dog to trample; warm brambly mornings and nights dark and alive with sounds the city overwhelms... I'm ready to start relaxing now, please. NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW DAMNIT NOW NOW NOW yeah I need to get away for a few days I guess

2003-05-20T10:52:00.000-07:00

If you check the sidebar to the right of the article linked below, you can see the other news stories involve exciting rides for paramedics, and the shutting down of a bingo parlor. When a headline refers to the injured parties as "slightly hurt" you know the news just isn't that exciting. Might as well title it "Nothing to see here folks, keep moving along." But then, right in the middle of the Indianapolis Star - just where you always suspected it would be lurking - you find that city officials are investigating a neighborhood dominatrix just around the corner from the catholic school.

"Girls Inc. maintains one of its two Indianapolis locations just three blocks away. Girls Inc. serves 3,500 young girls in Marion County. On her Web site, Donaghy goes by Maitresse Miss Ann of the Dungeon Arts Reformatory....It tells men: "You will find a re-birth by My hand. Do you dare descend My dungeon stairs? Do you dare allow yourself to be this vulnerable, exposed and alive? I am Maitresse Miss Ann, a professional and lifestyle Domina in Indianapolis, Indiana.""

Sounds to me like this is a good chance to try some cross-marketing, if you can say that to the church. Let's get the school and the dungeon working together. Student motivation, faculty enrichment, and alumni gathering place - we'll all go down those dungeon stairs together and see what Indianapolis can do for our self-esteem. Anyway, they say that they're serving 3,500 girls daily just a few blocks away. Man that makes me hungry just thinking about it.

2003-05-20T07:58:00.000-07:00

A SEPARATE PIECE

Some people are just getters. Not go-getters, though sometimes they have to work for their prizes. But I really mean people who get things without trying too hard, who are beneficiaries of the general bounty. People who get cars for free, who win concert tickets, who travel on complimentary airplane tickets (upgraded to first class) to gratis hotel rooms they won in a raffle they entered without paying. Sometimes these people are in the right place at the right time and sometimes they are willing to ask for the big favor that shames me into silence. "The Lord helps those that ask for shit." I'm scraping by, pinching pennies, and someone shows up to flash me the free passes he just scored to the game, assuring me that all the food will be paid for. I don't much care about the game, but I like free stuff and there's only so much vicarious appreciation of it that I can take. Sure, sometimes I've cashed in some cool gifts and unplanned windfalls, but more often I'm stewing in quiet envy at the material advantages that some other people seem to glean from the very zephyrs of springtime. Let me go on notice: I want my piece of whatever's up for grabs. If it's no longer available, I'll take someone else's piece. My appetites are boundless.

Are you going to finish that?

I thought you didn't want any.

I didn't know you were going to make it like that.

Like what?

So nice.

It's just a sandwich. I could have made you one. I offered.

I thought it was going to be like my sandwiches. Mine don't come out so nicely.

What are you talking about?

Is that mustard? And you cut on the diagonal....

Food tastes better on a diagonal.

I'll bet.

Well I am going to finish this.

You don't need any help?

No. Looks like you missed the sandwich bus.

Okay. So, um, are you planning on making another one anytime soon?

2003-05-19T14:45:00.000-07:00

It's a ludicrously nice day outside today; I'm having an "inside" day instead, very productive, kind of cranky. Sunday was the first Bay-to-Breakers I've missed in years - but we had other things to do, and some of them were a lot of fun anyway. This weekend we went to Phipp's Ranch to pick up some exotic field peas and purple-striped lima beans, and to Bonnie Doon for some framboisified port, and then to Phil's for the best seafood available anywhere and honestly people who don't like seafood haven't had it properly prepared... damn that's good eating.... as we were setting out on our 200 mile road trip sunday Kel noticed a sign of good things to come: "Fresh Cherry". Not "cherries," mind you. This sign was out to party. But things rapidly got better. The next sign was for "fresh Local cherry." Because they're always sweetest closer to home.

With all this gallivanting and perigrinating, we didn't watch the B-2-B runners in their papier-mache, grass-skirted, totally-naked beauty. But they all would have been overshadowed by the new neighbor who's finally returned from reconstructive surgery - the Conservatory of Flowers is back and better than ever. A few weeks ago I was driving home late at night and JFK drive in front of the Conservatory was totally empty. I could see that they'd moved the big construction trailers away from the facade and main entry - I could finally see the whole thing for the first time since reconstruction began; I could see it all, unbroken, for the first time since that big storm in '95 busted out so much of it's delicate glaizery and tracery. The interior lights were on and the place shone with the pure clarity of multicolored light - not like before, when the white paint on the old poorly-fitted panes made the whole place seem like a bleached carbuncle, a white elephant - now it's sleek and exuberant and wonderful to see, with jewel glass shooting out beams of purple and green and red just when you least expect them... It's not open to the public yet but that's no never-mind to me. I can see it every time I go running in the park, or go to a friend's house, or just when I have the urge to see something fragile and poetic and transparent and ethereal. It's the biggest freaking diamond in the world and it's in my backyard. I'm not the most active conservator of flowers in my neighborhood, but I'm glad to have it back.

Only downside: tourbusses. Hey, at least I get to run weekly through crowds of photo-snapping Germans and Koreans, a living, breathing, sweating piece of local culture. And if the one bad thing about living near such a treasure as the Conservatory is dealing with the myriad visitors who come to marvel at it, well I guess that's the price I'll pay for living in paradise. Needless to say, it's worth it.

2003-05-19T14:19:00.000-07:00

Ever since Dan Ackroyd did the "Bassamatic" bit on SNL I've been sensitive to the plight of thefish in a blender. Is it art? I don't know, but it sure as hell ain't cuisine.

2003-05-18T12:52:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago Kel acted on a long-standing desire to expand our rap and hiphop collection by picking up a big seller by Nelly, whose work has gone into, among other things, ads for chevrolets, I think. Around the same time a friend sent me a collection of archival Grateful Dead stuff from 1965 and '66. We were both listening to our respective selections quite a lot. We started internalizing the music - it became the soundtrack to our lives. I was telling Kel that I couldn't stop thinking of the chorus of "Fire in the City," an insistently cheerful song about the violent cruelty of intollerance. I quoted the words that were running laps in my head: "What are the thoughts that go racing through your head and mess your mind up, at the sight of a city that's gone completely insane - where will it wind up?" Kel told me that she was having a similar experience with the title track of her album, but she wouldn't repeat the lyrics that were fixated in her brain. "They're full of
words I don't say," she explained.

It seems to me there's a fundamental disconnection when popular, essentially mainstream entertainment products consist so substantially of unspeakable words. And we're not just in the realm of profanity here - Kel can curse with the best of them, given appropriate circumstances. These are terms of racial opprobrium. I'm meeting more and more people who don't use certain words that are hurtful or demeaning to a class of people. I really respect that choice, but I can't say that I've made it myself and that makes me wonder why not. I've even said stupid, cruel, and insensitive things, not maliciously but still in a way that caused pain. I continue to try to make peace with those incidents and the person I was - I am - to have said and done what I've said and done.

Yet I can't bring myself to commit to the idea that I won't say certain words. I'll treat them like the instruments of destruction and devisiveness that they are, and with according respect and delicacy, but I'm not deciding not to say them. Rather, without deciding not to say them, I just generally won't. Every word sometimes needs to be said, and every idea has to be recognized at some point. I can't remove a concept from the universe of discourse just because I find it offensive - but I can try to concentrate on other concepts or less offensive words. And when I have to say what I find offensive, I won't be breaking any rules to say it plainly.

And yes, there are things that I won't say. Not on ethical grounds, or moral grounds, but because I can't get away with it. As a precondition to preserving my stature in society, such as it is, I cannot permit myself to utter what has taken the place of what young people used to say when I was one of them. Youth usage - linguistically speaking - I mean the way young people talk - their vocabulary - anyway, I can understand it, but I cannot effectively use it. By "effective" I mean, able to speak without reducing my audience to such hysterical laughter that I can't be heard, much less understood. When I express myself in the modern idiom it's the verbal version of those 70-year-old women by the beach in the little outfits from The Limited and all that makeup and hairspray - not just anachronistic, but wrong. WRONG.

So I've started compiling a list of things I really am not able to say without making a huge ass out of myself ("Hugh Jass, I have a phone call for Mr. Hugh Jass..."). As to which: If any of you hear me using any of the following words or phrases in any but the most ironic, clinical or representational ways, you are authorized - nay, invited warmly - to bitchslap me.
"Down with": I may be down with something, but I'd better say that I'm "in favor of" or "endorse" it. If I say I'm "down with" something, it's likey to stay down for the count.
"Hella": Despite the apparently Greek derivation, this word in fact has nothing to do with Hellenistic civilizations. Once I made that mistake the first time, I struck the word from my vocabulary forever.
"Peace out": Said by a dude on a skateboard in hemp shorts, it's like "shalom" for the millenial generation. When I say it, it's either like a cop drawing his gun (get your peace out, he's not cooperating fast enough) or some sort of indecent exposure (yes, officer, then I turned around and he had his peace out). Either way, not too flattering for me.
"Props/Peeps": I often wish I could ask for some props for my peeps. Alas, such a request only brings forth choking giggles. My peeps are therefore, at present, still propless. It's a sorce of shame and pain for me.
"Shizzy" or any word inventively reliant on "z"s, "f"s and "sh"s: I tried to use one of these once and my tongue got caught in my blingbling. The embarassment remains with me to this day, though I accidentally swallowed the blingbling.
"Wack": I'm not even sure how to spell this. I can "whack" something, but I can't use the word adjectivally: I can't say something is "wack" with any authority. There's only one response when I say that something is "wack" and that's to point at my face, laughing openly, saying "yeah, dude, it's YOU." I'll save you the trouble. I just won't say it.
"Word": I had a good talk with a guy in his early 20s and he kept on saying "word" in a soft, respectful way. It was meaningful and expressive, but I can't carry it off. I say "word" and people start trying to guess which one I'm thinking of. Fair enough, it's "maladaptive." "Obsolete." "Moribund." After that, they become more pungent.

I know there are a lot more that belong on this list but I am not qualified even to know what they are. I'm going back to my rocker by the fire now, with my bread pudding, port and vitamin E oil. There's not much I can say any longer, but I'm full of creative ideas.

2003-05-16T13:31:00.000-07:00

I CHOO-CHOO-CHOOSE YOU

On Tuesday I suffered a prolonged and embarassingly public election. Some guys get used to these, but I was incommoded in the extreme. And what made it worse is that I'm not usually one to go asking my colleagues, much less strangers at my place of work, to help me with my election, but this time I had no choice. I couldn't handle it by myself. There were five of us, going after just three seats - I've had trouble with these odds before, regardless what manner of seat was at issue. But it seems I've been overstressing. "Dear Union Members, We are pleased to announce the results of the election of bargaining team representatives. We thank all of the candidates for their willingness to serve the membership. The General Unit representatives are: Michael Maacks, Dan Passamaneck, Reginald Wooden. The alternate is Aurora Valencia. The Attorney Unit representative is Rob Henderson."

I stand ready to serve, in whatever capacity would be most serviceable. For example, the fork across the top of the place setting is for dessert. We can discuss dessert in more detail later, if you desire. Just let me slip into a more comfortable constituency.

2003-05-16T12:34:00.000-07:00

Renewing Griffith Observatory: Here's an article with some interesting models of the work being done on one of America's finest buildings. Yes, it's in Los Angeles, they have cool stuff there. Like the "Leonard Nimoy Event Horizon Theater" to be built underground atop Mt. Hollywood, according to these plans. Okay, I love the observatory and the view and the history and the whole thing. But I can't get Nimoy's bit from the Simpsons out of my mind. *** "The cosmic dance continues." "Can I sit next to somebody else?" *** or *** (Quimby:) "May the force be with you." (Nimoy) "Do you even know who I am?" (Quimby) "Yeah, weren't you one of the Little Rascals?" *** Sorry Len, I'm fatally distracted from your unquestioned accomplishments. Homer's monorail costume is just too powerful, even for your dour telepathy.

2003-05-16T11:51:00.000-07:00

I cross the street, not at the marked crosswalk, but from one corner to the opposite corner, with the lights in my favor. I let a car turn left in front of me and then cross the empty road in safety. Another car, travelling parallel, slows to a crawl beside me. An older american sedan, mustylooking; he honks, rolls down his window; I pull off my headphones. He thrusts his pink face out the window into the night toward me, wispy silver hair and a polo shirt framing his expression of concern: "Be careful," he tells me. He veers close to the curb as he stares me down. As he drives on, speeding up marginally, I notice that his headlights and taillights are off.

2003-05-16T10:13:00.000-07:00

The evening in a word, courtesy of Dayv: "Zentastic." This morning, a perfect Klee of a single drop of sangria on the grey fabric of my sack, now stained the color of sweetness.

Bleary breakfast, Kel and my one chance today to be in the same place at the same time. We're stumbling around the kitchen and she wants to know about last night. It was a big night, in part because, among many superlative persons whom I was meeting in person for the first time, one of these was Greg, with whom my prior efforts to consummate our relationship, so to speak, had been a tragic and bloody failure. In full cognizance of the gravity of this occasion, Kel asked a few questions on said subject in particular. I mentioned, in the course of ensuing mumbled recollections about the good doctor, that Greg had brought up the Gilmore Girls in conversation. Kel's face lit up. "Really? He watches Gilmore Girls?" "Yes he does." "This guy may be all right after all!" I don't question her conclusion, but I question her premise.

2003-05-15T11:54:00.000-07:00

The thing I like about this story isn't the image of the independantly prehensile lingual portions, or the idea of letting someone work on my mouth with a scalpel that's been heated with a blowtorch, but the name of the air force base they mention. It's long been one of my favorite names, and isn't it a lucky coinicidence that I just got a letter from my old friend, Peter Johnson, telling me all about his happy family:

"Hello, Chuckles, how's it hanging? Dick and Rod send their love. They're staying over with Grandpa Willie and his ol' buddy Orel; I'm sure they've got their hands full with those boys. I'm going out hunting tomorrow to fire a few off with my brother Lance and his triplets Woody, Tiny and Chubby; the boys wanted to bag something big and hairy for Uncle Randy to take over to Seymour's place at the Air Force Base. Well I'd better go - the cock's gotten loose and he's a real pecker! Stop on by the Johnson place anytime and take a load off! - Your friend, Peter Johnson."

Good people, those Johnsons. And they know better than mess with God's handiwork. Split my tongue? I'll sit this one out. I have enough stuff to spread as it is.

2003-05-14T14:35:00.000-07:00

Lowrider: How big is big enough? It just doesn't get any cooler than this - at ten pixels per meter, you can drag your Narn Frazi Fighter or your Vulcan Warp Sled right on top of a 747. And I thought I was finished with my education. Have a picture ID ready and don't try to bring your manicure set through the transporter. God only knows where those tweezers will wind up.

2003-05-14T12:58:00.000-07:00

Gotta love those Brunching Shuttlecocks. Now that I have a DVD player I can start to appreciate all the special features. Actually, mine came with the PornVision feature too - press the button and clothes are digitally deleted. Gotta watch out when you activate this, though: if it's "on" when you pop in that Golden Girls disk, you may need searing retinal surgery before the image of Estelle Getty's hams stops haunting you. Unless you're into that sort of thing. I guess it takes all kinds.

2003-05-14T11:56:00.000-07:00

Looks like I'll be really cranking out the work today - and I'm comfortable with that. In lieu of a for-real post, here's a brain nugget that's been clogging up my memo book - maybe it can clog up something of yours:

"I reached for his ear... to pull it off, you know... but it was already gone. That's when I realized, I've got to start paying better attention."

When a phrase like this arises fully formed and ostensibly unbidden from one's subconscious, mysterious and inexplicable, monopolizing the mental activity of the better part of a day, well, it raises any number of questions. Since I wouldn't want to hear the answers, I cheerfully ignore them. Have a productive Wednesday. You know they're watching you, right?

2003-05-13T17:12:00.000-07:00

Can I rant? (Can you stop me?) I just went over a few bills that needed paying and noticed a new page with my AT&T bill: each line which incurs long distance charges will be assessed an additional 99 cents. Why? So that AT&T can recover costs under the following expense categories: Interstate Access Charges; regulatory compliance; advocacy costs; and property taxes.

I AM OUTRAGED. It's not like I can do much about it but this is ludicrous. Let's look at these categories:

* The Access Charge is what they have to pay to use someone else's out-of-state lines. I thought that was what I was paying them to handle for me. "Oops, when we agreed to provide a service to you, we didn't realize we'd have to pay for it ourselves - our bad - let's just have you pay us for what we do and cover our costs when we use someone else's service, and call it even." Insulting.

* Next: "regulatory compliance." These guys are in business to make money, not to follow any stinking laws - if that's the way we're going to be about it, making them "comply" with all kinds of bogus "regulations," well there's no reason they should have to foot the bill, right? Regulations are there for the public interest, not AT&T's. Public benefit, public cost. Makes sense? Not really. That's just making me pay extra for someone to follow the rules. "It'll be $200 to fix the wires in your house. Of course, if you want me to comply with regulations, it'll be $250. Your choice." I choose to ducttape you to a sawhorse, but looks like I got strapped down to it already.

* Okay, I'll skip down to property taxes: why am I paying their tax bill? Don't people who own property have an obligation to pay taxes on it? Didn't they realize there would be tax on all that property they bought? Why should I pay for their lack of planning or - dare I say it - for their stupidity? If they don't like the system, they should rent the property they need and let someone else pay the tax. Of course, then we'd probably have to pay an assessment for "leasehold obligations." Dorkwankers.

* And I've saved the most outrageous for last: Advocacy costs. WTF??!!!! This is lobbying, right? They want me to pay for their mouthpieces who are trying to get regulation reduced, to get permissible charges increased, to come up with extra ways to gouge the public and chisle a few more pennies out of an already-stone-broke population? I'd be just as happy if they didn't have advocates at all. I'd prefer not to have to pay them to find new ways to ream me.

What they're doing is making us pay for their business costs, tax burden, and for making our own phone service more expensive and less responsive. And if you don't like it, I have three cubic yards of sand that we can pound together. Ma Bell has always been a whore but now she's pimping us out for her own fun and profit. I feel so cheap.

2003-05-13T07:54:00.000-07:00

I have a bad habit of putting off important choices till the last moment. I might be the first one to put down his menu at our table at a restaurant, but I'll dawdle endlessly over the big stuff. That's why, for example, I never write my academy awards acceptance speech until the telecast begins, and I still haven't hung the priceless art that's been gathering dust around my palatial compound for so many months. I freeze under the pressure of big decisions.

In a small step towards more responsible decisionmaking habits (and isn't it sad that it's come to this, my wanting my decisions to be more responsible, but anyway) I have anticipated a major decision which is looming on the midrange horizon. I know it will leave me stammering, incapable of action if I let it unfold on its own - but this time I see it coming and thereby stand a decent chance of staving off this particular bout of the dithers. I just have to overcome my neurosis and come up with a game plan before it's too late.

To wit: I received not long ago a gift basket containing a variety of comestibles. Some are lasting a long time, like the honey-roasted peanuts; some get et as soon as they're opened, like the caramel corn and the chocolates. Some items were promptly consigned to the compost, like the cheezefud and summir sosijje (neither of which seemed truly to be food to me). But there are a few items that have a sort of intermediate staying power (not unlike myself). These are cellophane bags of brightly colored candy of various sorts. I open a bag and munch a piece or two every day or so; each bag lasts several weeks this way.

I'm nearing the end of my antepenultimate bag, leaving me two bags remaining between which to choose my next selection. I dread having to pick between them, but soon I'll eat my last Super Sour Star (pentagram-shaped jellies, garrishly colored and encrusted in sugar). They are plenty of fun to eat but all good things - especially candy - come to an end. My Sour Stars are going the way of the white dwarf, collapsing to an identity, to exist only in the realm of theoretical physics. So whether I want to or not, I will have to choose one, and only one, bag to open next. I can't have two open bags at once - I lack some basic inhibitory mechanisms and that much access to sweets would surely lead to glucose abuse. And nobody wants to see that.

So help me out here: what should I open next - the Assorted Ultimate Beans, or the Fruit Flashers? Honestly I can imagine a down side to either choice. I've endured some pretty hearty beans in my day, and been flashed by more than my share of fruits. The beans were a bit more intense over the short term, but the flashers really linger in my memory....

2003-05-12T17:45:00.000-07:00

I saw most all of them over the weekend. But sometimes I'm riding shotgun and for some reason the driver in whose discretion I have entrusted my sanity and safety doesn't seem to recognize them, and it's even worse to be trapped passenging behind one of these antisocial angstmongers than to have the wheel in my own hands, silently cursing and fretting as I wrestle my way to a patch of open road. Of course, sometimes I can actually force them to turn or pull over to the side by dint of mental energy alone - that actually worked once this weekend, when the slowmoving Honda just stopped in traffic for no other reason than so that I could get around it and drive at a normal speed.

So here they are, ten warning signs that you are probably behind a bad, slow, thoughtless, or otherwise life-shortening driver:

* Rear windshield is completely obscured by cute fuzzy dolls.
* The sticker of Calvin has him peeing on himself.
* Cigarette in one hand, cellphone in the other, while working with a blowdryer.
* Driver's head keeps disappearing; driver's hands keep pointing in directions other than the road.
* Driver's head appears below the arc of the steering wheel.
* Enormous older car driven by tiny much older person.
* Gas cap is open, with gas nozzle ripped from the pump and dangling.
* Driver is eating - with silverware
* Vehicle stops at all red lights, even when they're several hundred yards away.
* Vehicle maintains safe 30-car-length following distance behind preceeding car.

If you honk at one of these cars, it will stop no matter where it is and how dangerous it is - unless it's already stopped and you need it to get moving, in which case a honk will make it back up into you. There's no solution but to take evasive maneuvers. Or some tranqs. That way, when you slam into their rear bumper as they perform the "understeered merge" or the "traffic hiatus" maneuvers, you'll be nice and relaxed.

2003-05-12T12:22:00.000-07:00

SARSCASTIC

I don't wish to minimize the seriousness of the new epidemic of respiratory illness that has laid low so many good people in Asia and elsewhere. I don not amuse myself with the suffering of others, nor with crises that frighten billions, rock economies, and threaten international relations. This is all serious stuff, and I take it seriously. I have to take something seriously, after all.

But I do think that this disease would be taken even more seriously, treated with the sober dread it deserves, with a different name. Think of the classics: "Plague": the word means pandemic, evokes images of continents infected and agonizing. "Influenza": with the same root word as "influence," this brings to mind an unseen, unstoppable curse that will seek you out as surely as will the light of the moon. "Cholera:" the name means bilious, describing victims writhing in grippe and distress.

Then there's SARS. Thousands of medicine's best minds are working on curing it, preventing it, unlocking its secrets and disarming it. Obviously, none of those doctors double-majored in marketing. "SARS" sounds like somebody's Norwegian uncle, not a deadly illness. Couldn't we have come up with a name as serious as the disease? "Severe Acute" doesn't say "unseen hand of pestilence" or "nations on their deathbeds" or any such thing to me. It just says "we couldn't think of a noun so we used some adjectives." And not even good juicy adjectives, like "fatal" or "infectious" or "moribund." "Severe Acute" is to "acute" as "fucking serious" is to "serious." It adds only emphasis, not significance.

It reminded Kel of the mysterious boxes we see people carting around CostCo, boxes that take up a frighteningly large part of the Escalade-sized carts that haunt those echoing aisles, boxes that read "Creamy Liquid Frying Shortening." In Mad Libs this is "Adjective Adjective Adjective Gerund." (Yes, I always bought the "SmartAss Edition" of Mad Libs. Call it niche marketing.) That's the kind of name that sends a chill down my spine, both because I know what they're describing - a thick oleagenous product in which food can be superheated and made impervious to both liquid and time - and because it's a series of descriptive words that would be better replaced with a single cheerful denominative, like "Goop-o" or "Fritterola" or "AngelWhip." (AngelWhip can be used for a lot of products, actually. You might even wind up using some of them together. "Smear your Angel Whip with AngelWhip for added flexibrication...")

But at least C.L.F.S. says something, though it makes a poor acronym. With a little more effort SARS could have been a more meaningful name too. "Shuddering Adversity Respiratory Syndrome." "Sick And Really Sorry." "Sino-Asiatic Remedy Search." But instead we have to muddle along with a name that says, basically, "awfully bad cough disease." That would be ABCD. I think that acronym is still available, but it's hard to say. CYLUS is a little better: Cough Your Lungs Up Syndrome. Now that would get everybody's attention.

2003-05-12T09:07:00.000-07:00

There are a few places I go to occasionally that seem to mean a lot to me. I mean, I keep returning to these places every year or so, sometimes more often. It's hard to tell; maybe it's even more than that - I probably don't remember every time these places come up. Because they're dream settings. When I dream myself in these places, I know I've been there before; even if it's my first time there in that dream, it's already comforting, or at least contextual. I have a place for that place, if that makes any sense. There's the amusement park, like Disneyland's and Magic Mountain's unholy theme spawn; and the school, with its typical southern California public education design and painters' overrun colors, acres of asphalt with yellow lines and dozens of rooms filled with desks. Most recently it was the house on a lake, modern traditional architecture in a comfortable new development, a concrete-banked urban lake reflecting an azure dusk full of ease and promise... and then there's the other lake, too, enormous and ancient and very dark and deep, a canyon lake in an arid land where trestles tower from the lake surface inexplicably and the earth is as red as the night is black... A couple of times I recall going to some sort of apartment complex, too, where attractive people are interested in me in a variety of interesting ways; the building or buildings are dreary and grey, institutional, but the rooms are all decorated with homey personal touches and there are a lot of private corners where I am invited to relax, explore, and possess... For the record, I never actually experience romance in my dreams, not ever in my life as far as I can recall. I always wake up or the path of the dream gets interrupted or sidetracked. Too often I wake up from a dream set in one of these places (well, usually not the school) having met someone fascinating and lovely and provocative, having spent time with this person in increasingly intimate ways, then waking with my heart pounding in frustration. I wonder what is keeping me from subconscious consummation, but I always remember the dreams, the players, and these places with great fondness, if not yearning.

A few nights ago I had a different sort of dream. I'm a pretty normal-looking guy in real life, but in this dream I had grown bony lesions all over my back. They were like plates or calcified warts; they reminded me of the Elephant Man. They didn't seem to bother me but I knew they had to go. To achieve this goal I was in some sort of hospital or ward, pale green ceramic tiles on the walls and bare metal gurneys and equipment tables scattered around the bare concrete floor. I lay on a gurney and a doctor in a mask cut away my shirt with professional detachment. "Don't watch," he said, and I looked away as I felt his fingers on my chest, isolating my left nipple. He held a big heavy syringe in his hand, like a dentist's novocaine needle. I felt a burning pinch in my nipple; I looked despite myself at the injection going in. The pain was excruciating and the image of the needle stuck in my flesh made me gasp. "I told you not to look," he said sourly, sadly from beneath his mask. "But now it's okay. Go ahead and watch." So I watched as he took another enormous syringe with a long thin silver needle and positioned it over my nipple again. I braced myself; my stomach clenched to see the brutal tool drop toward my defenseless tender aureola. But when it made contact, I couldn't feel it at all. It touched, penetrated, sank into me, an impossible injection, so deep it had to be piercing my heart and lung and driving through to the masses deforming my back. I felt nothing - not even as he cut me open like a side of meat, bloodlessly and neatly. I don't recall how it all ended, but things wound up okay.

2003-05-10T16:15:00.000-07:00

PENANCE

I just bought a small pack of pens, partly as punishment to myself for having forgotten both to bring one along from home or to steal one from work. I hate to be without a pen, even if I don't have anything particular in mind to write down. Often, I get my best ideas when I least expect them, and penlessness at such times renders me as impotent as I'm making it sound. That's a state of being I try to minimize in my life, minimum impotence suggesting maximum potency, so I made myself go out and buy some damn pens. I bought the ones that seemed to offer the best ink-to-pen-to-dollar ratio - I didn't want the cheapest pen, a single pen with gobs of ink in it, because it'd be just as easy to lose a big pen with all my ink as a smaller pen with only some of my ink, and also because big pen = big item in my bag = bigger likelihood of getting crushed and smashed = biggest possible mess. My biggest items are already at terrible risk of getting crushed on a daily basis, regardless where I'm secreting them; I can't go tempting fate indefinitely. So I got a three-pack of ball point pens with rubber grips, despite their stupid name: "Easy Touch." I guess they mean it's easy to touch their pens, or just a touch of pen to paper and it makes a nice clean mark, or really, I don't know why they chose this stupid name. I very nearly bought something else just because I didn't want to support such a bad choice of names. To me it sounds mostly like something that's easy to steal ("dude, those pens are an easy touch - grab another handful while I scarf the bulk candy") or to molest ("start with an easy touch, then move to a vigorous rubbing, and finally jam the whole pen where you think it might be happiest. Oh, don't forget to remove the cap - wouldn't want it falling off and getting lost..."). As pens, they work pretty well, but I think I'm sending the wrong message to the Pilot company. I'll have to learn to live with my weaknesses. And to touch things like I mean it.

2003-05-09T11:51:00.000-07:00

I don't know what kind of cruel joke is being played but things are not as they usually are. I'm used to being fate's plaything, a victim of circumstance and ineptitude, looked upon either with pity or derision by all those whom I encounter. I've gotten comfortable with this. Not exactly happy, but comfortable. When things change, I wonder whether it's good or not. But these days it seems I should just keep my head down and try to ride the wave.

The wave? This is one of my favorite metaphors, one that comes from surfing - letting an indifferent and overwhelming natural order move me forward, cooperating with forces that are too powerful to fight, until my body tumbles and drags against the roiling sands of reality. The gouges and scars I receive in such pummellings are badges of honor, my proof to myself that I have confronted my world and lived through the conflict once again.

But this time the wave means something more: people being friendly, hands extended in fellowship and acceptance. I'm having trouble dealing with it. I keep looking around for a camera crew or a "kick me" sign on my back. There has to be some reason for all the smiles and bonhomie.

This has all been pretty theoretical so far. Let's nail down a few details:

AT WORK: People have been expressing deep joy and appreciation over minor details of my work. When things have gone wrong which I have had some way of anticipating or preventing, others have been bending over backwards to assume total responsibility and to absolve me of any blame. Highly placed and respected individuals in and out of the organization have been complimentary about things that seemed to me unworthy of notice, much less comment. My colleagues have been asking for my help in tones of hushed awe at my prowess and wisdom, and expressing interest and concern over my personal life. As I pull out my directory to call people to follow up on some items they owe me, my finger actually hovering over their phone numbers, my phone rings and it's them, anticipating my request and meeing it and then some. And the crabby IT manager in the cube across from me is asking me what I'd like him to bring back from Australia. (Any ideas? I'd hate to let such an offer go to waste, but all I can think of is one of those hats with the dangling balls around the brim from the University of Wallamaloo, and that's too hard to pack.)

AT CLASS: I just started a short series of classes this week at the main library. On my way, out of the blue, a very pretty stranger asked for directions to the library and we accompanied each other there, during which time she was effusive in her gratitude and enthusiasm for both her destination and my assistance. The class is a lot more fun and more interesting than I'd expected and the other students are a fascinating mixed bag of smart and funny people, who seem to me to be going out of their way to ask my opinion, to confirm and bolster my ideas. The leaders of the class have us brainstorm in "break-out" groups and then, when they're listing our ideas on the big board, attributed some really smart ideas to me that I don't think I ever said, much less thought. After class several of the other students came up to wish me a "good weekend." These are total strangers with a lot on the ball, people among whom I would hope, at best, to be quietly unnoticed. I walked out of the session positively glowing with the good vibes.

ON THE BUS: I took a different line home from class, a "tough" line that runs through the tenderloin and sketchy parts of the Western Addition - a line on which I usually get some hairy eyeballs and scowls. Last night people were grinning openly at me, nodding acknowledgments, apologizing unnecessarily for their proximity. The sweet-looking young woman across from me seemed to be looking at me every time I raised my eyes from my book; when I smiled at her she dropped her eyes to her lap and blushed. The bus driver wished me "good evening" as I disembarked - he hadn't been saying that to the other passengers. And on my ordinary commute this morning, I was offered my favorite "to work" seat right off the bat. I put on headphones to listen to a new disk with excellent syncopated beats and wound up doing a bit of head-nodding to the tunes; others smiled, nodding along with me, and I even got a "thumbs up" from a total stranger. Nobody smelled too strongly, either of b.o. or perfume. I got to work on time. Short of finding money, it doesn't get much better than this on the bus.

Tonight is Happy Hour, and a friend I met a year ago wants to stop by and renew our acquaintence; he's cool and funny and it will be nice to see him again. Kel will be coming along as well, making what is usually a good time even better. It looks like I'll get to meet some "imaginary friends" for a festive supper next week, which makes me feel honored and gratified to be part of a select fraternity. I think I've kicked my cold and it's not raining any more, but the streets still smell pretty fresh. I don't want to rock the boat when it's chugging along so cheerfully - but I do think I ought to be waving back to everybody. Hey everybody - here's a thumbs-up back atcha. In fact, take two - they're small, but they can make a big difference when properly applied. Have an ecstatic weekend, my friends!

2003-05-08T14:24:00.000-07:00

Ass-umption of Risk:"There was no evidence from which a reasonable officer could conclude that the evidence located between [McGee's] buttocks would be destroyed during the time necessary to obtain a warrant."

I've tried to think of more to say here but imagination fails me.

2003-05-08T14:13:00.000-07:00

I've had a cold this week, and complained vociferously of a "frog in my throat." It could have been worse. Frogs are all good fun till someone loses an eye...

2003-05-08T14:10:00.000-07:00

The funny thing is, most churches try to avoid the image of being full of hot air. But get yourself an Inflatable Church and you can fill it with anything you want. Helium for those high-pitched hymns? Nitrous for those tedious sermons? The possibilities are endless. Just be careful with those sharp edges - God wouldn't be happy if you deflated his special place.

2003-05-08T13:46:00.000-07:00

Morning bus: Okay, people, the game is simple. The bus automatically announces your stop - the one where you get off every freaking day. The bus creaks to a gradual stop and, a few moments later, the green light shines and a bunch of people standing next to the door push on it; it opens and they leave. Once they're gone, the doors close. By this point you should be on your feet, bag in hand, on the sidewalk. Instead, you're on your ass, spacing out. No music, no book, no conversation - just two glazed eyeballs and a slack jaw. As the bus begins to move again you leap to your feet, pushing old women and children out of your way, impotently rattling the bars on the doors, screaming, "Back door, you bastard!" The bus drives two more blocks as you sulk and pout, muttering curses until you can leave. And you do this EVERY FREAKING DAY. There is a reason for this: busses are "common carriers," in legal parlance - they can't keep you off just because you're too stupid and thoughtless to understand how they work. You are trapped in a world too complicated for your mental capacities, and I am trapped here with you, as you rain your anger and frustration down on all of us who understand the rules. The guy with mongoloidism, with his name tag, little plastic briefcase, enormously buck teeth and three-inch-thick glasses, seems to have gotten the hang of it. Maybe you can ask him for some help. You'd make his day, and you'd save mine.

Evening bus: The three stood in the doorwell, talking loudly, shouting, screaming their raucous laughter. The bus was not terribly crowded; there was room to stand in the aisle. But they wanted the doorway, and they wouldn't take off their backpacks or move out of the way - even when the doors opened and people had to brush past them to get off the bus. "The word is EXCUSE ME," the tall one shouted at their backs. "Y'all ain't showin' no respect! No respect at'all! Her voice hurt my ears. When they finally used the door they'd been blocking and left us in strange silence, several of us audibly sighed and then shared a quiet laugh at our mutual relief. No one wanted to laugh loudly. We'd heard enough.

2003-05-08T11:05:00.000-07:00

My friend Tanja has a restless, burning curiosity. I think that's why she forwarded to me the following in response to the oft-asked, never-heretofore answered question: what if Shakespeare wrote the Hokey Pokey?

O proud left foot, that ventures quick within
Then soon upon a backward journey lithe.
Anon, once more the gesture, then begin:
Command sinistral pedestal to writhe.
Commence thou then the fervid Hokey-Poke,
A mad gyration, hips in wanton swirl.
To spin! A wilde release from Heaven's yoke.
Blessed dervish! Surely canst go, girl.
The Hoke, the poke -- banish now thy doubt
Verily, I say, 'tis what it's all about.

2003-05-08T08:30:00.000-07:00

Tuesday night I got home a bit late, just in time to watch one of my few prime-time addictions, @$ (that's "24" written in upper-case). It's overwrought and unbelieveable but I enjoy the hell out of it. How can Jack Bauer possibly survive death and drug-induced suffocation, still able to outfight and outshoot army special forces renegades and the former first lady - without a single meal or bathroom break for a whole day? Tune in next week! However, I realized one thing that disturbed me while watching the last episode: the turncoat Chief of Staff, Mike Novak, looks and sounds a lot like a consultant we have hired at work to help us with a major legislative report. Yesterday I had a long phone conference with him and an academic at the Judicial Council, and the whole time I just wanted to demand of him, how could you be so duplicitous? Whose pocket are you hiding in? Who's the puppetmaster, you faithless wanker? For gods sake, he let Ensign Roe get critically injured; regardless that she hasn't played that part in 10 years, old flames still flicker and some things can't be forgiven...

At any rate the whole thing made me very uncomfortable while I was watching the show. As a result, I found myself engaged in a compulsive activity, perhaps as a means of sublimating my tension: eating fortune cookies. I'd picked up a cheap greasy meal at the second-to-closest chinese restaurant (the closest one give me the willies (stir fried)), and they'd given me a whole take-out carton of cookies. By the time @$ was over, I'd plowed through them all - without reading a single fortune. At first I thought this would make me extremely fortunate, but on further reflection I realized that these fortunes were cleverly written so that only those cursed with tragic genius would realize how little real fortune they bore.

In order of my having received them (though I wasn't reading them, I stacked them neatly in order as I opened them), here are my fortunes and their esoteric meanings:

Watch your relations with other people carefully, be reserved. Okay that's smart, my relations can't be trusted with me, much less with other people. I'd better set up a place for them to eat in advance. Good advice.

The philosophy of one generation is the common sense of the next. Sadly, my generation is the one that blows them both off to try to replicate the ''flaming golf cart" prank from Jackass.

You have a quiet and unobtrusive nature. But I hide it behind a blaring and garrish persona. Ironic, eh?

Life to you is a dashing and bold adventure. This sounds more like a laundry detergent ad than anything else. And in fact, my life is very much like laundry - first stiff and formal, then stylish and attractive, then wrinkled and soiled, then stinky and ignored, and finally passed off on someone else to clean up the mess.

Cooperate with those who have both knowhow and integrity. If you can find them. And they share your goals and can stand to put up with you. Otherwise go with the folks with the enormous bankroll and diplomatic immunity. Or supermodels.

Serious trouble will bypass you. Sounds like my heart surgery isn't going to go so well.

Consolidate rather than expand business projects in the near future. Okay, then can I expand my other stuff? Too much consolidation is going to cramp more than just my style.

A good time to start something new. Not complete sentence. Partial fortune confuses. Perhaps good time finish grammar workbook.

The world is always ready to receive talent with open arms. And, alternatively, to kick my no-talent butt to the curb.

You will enjoy financial security, domestic peace, and good health. In the meantime, I guess I'll continue to endure penury, strife and infirmity. At least I have something to look forward to.

You will be surrounded by luxury. Unfortunately, in it I will be an island of deprivation. But the view will be nice.

A friend asks only for your time not your money. 03 07 11 18 24 40 This replaces the "time is money" fortune. They're daring me to win Lotto and see what my friends ask of me. It may turn out that they ask for my time but just take my money. Or they'll take up so much time I pay them to leave. My friends are pretty clever.

You are a practical person with your feet on the ground. However, as soon as I lift one foot I'm Don Quixote on a three-day bender. Or maybe they left out a few letters - I'm practically a person. Hell, at least I came close - that's better than a lot of folks out there.

You will receive some high prize or award. Like a stoned Oscar, or a Grammy all strung out on goofballs. They're going to have to start drugtesting the awards now. "Dude, I represent your outstanding achievement in ... um... man, is that tuxedo vibrating? I can taste the colors!

There's only so much fortune, good or bad, a guy can take. That's when you have to start relying on your own devices, and let fate play you like the knave you are. Since getting all these fortunes I have not yet been able to apply a single one to my own life. I am starting to think that the most accurate advice I got was written on the carton in which my cookies were packaged: "Contents may be Hot/Inspected by Olga A." That Olga is hot stuff, all right. Close cover before striking.

2003-05-07T18:44:00.000-07:00

from ee cummings: "you shall above all things be glad and young"
I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance

2003-05-06T13:54:00.000-07:00

Can you smell that? It’s springtime! The scent of birds newly chirping, freshly mowed easter eggs and the fall fashion preview. Sap is rising, boars are rutting, and the slap of hockypucks is competing with the crack of baseballs against the foreheads of distracted spectators. Ah, springtime. It brings to mind our mysterious, silent arboreal neighbors, the trees. Benign, canopied oxygen factories, offering shade to the overheated and concealment to the prehensile, brachiating, or clambering among us. Among you, anyway. I’ve been fooled too many times by those sneaky bastards. Sure, they look nice on tv, or from the comfort of the navigator’s seat of a speeding car, but some of us have had the questionable pleasure of close personal contact with trees and, let me tell you, they hide a terrible secret. Or anyway some of them do, and I don’t have the patience to sort out the troublemakers from the do-gooders. But if you have that kind of time, I’d like you to wash my car please, and then you can review this short list of TREES THAT WILL MAKE YOU GAG:

(note: I first started thinking along these lines some months ago with a post about the Bay Laurel (March 17 03 if the link doesn't work). That’s a pretty, and pretty hardy, tree, with a kick that will blow your eyes out your earholes if you crush up a few fresh leaves and inhale their scent deeply. Then, a few days ago, while I was breeding thoroughbreds or mapping genomes or something productive, a phrase occurred to me: “Box privet.” I know what it means (you’ll have to scroll down for the reference). I just thought of it and started giggling. Filthy shrubbery, it should be ashamed of itself. But it’s not. So instead I just wallowed in prurient amusement until I thought of writing this. And that’s where babies come from!)

Ailanthus: this tree is invasive and opportunistic, even to the extent of growing in New York City, where nature herself dons a Kevlar vest. Also known as the Tree of Heaven, to which it stinks. “All parts of the tree, especially the flowers, have a strong, offensive odor, which some have likened to peanuts or cashews.” Now, I like my peanuts (when properly enrobed in honey and salt) and cashews (gesheuntheit), but I know when there’s too much of a good thing and this is one of them. Rancid nut stench is not my idea of a preferred scent, especially when it’s infused throughout the breadth and height of an 80 foot tree. Others describe the smell as similar to goat urine. I leave these distinktions to the experts.

Bradford Pear: What a lovely sight, fruit trees in bloom. Look while you can, before your eyes start watering and the abdominal spasms force your attention to lower realms. The fruit is not edible. The trees die after about 30 years. And THEY STINK: “Various sites devoted to tree culture describe the smell variously. Several call it pungent, which is true, but somewhat like saying the Atlantic Ocean is damp. Others compare the scent of Bradford blooms to everything from wet socks to carrion. A student of mine says it's fishy. None quite touched its awfulness for me….Think of a possum that has lain dead in the hot sun for several days being cremated on a pile of burning tires.” For anyone who really likes the smell of burning decomposed marsupial, I believe there are more than enough actual possums around to satisfy your jones. There’s no reason to plant something that will impose that smell on the rest of us every year for a third of a century.

Ecualyptus: I often actually like the smell of eukes. They’re endemic, though not indigenous, in this area. Story goes, the Spanish planted them by the buttload so they could grow wood to make boats – but euke wood is weak and unsuitable for that purpose. The trees grow quickly, yes, but they can be very weak and sometimes limbs fall off. When this happens, the oil has a sharp, pungent odor – not like a cough drop or other menthol product, more like an industrial solvent with week-old compost floating in it. Plus, eukes are not good habitats for birds and their leaves don’t decompose so other things can’t grow around them. Euke forests are quiet and the ground there is barren under a blanket of those leaves. Stinky in so many ways.

Carob: when I asked Kel a few days ago to name a stinky tree, she came up with Carob right away. They’re sturdy, broad trees, they grow well and cast good shade. What do they smell like? There’s no way to put this delicately. They smell like spunk. Jism. Groinsquirt. Babyjuice. They were planted all over my Jr. High; I thought it was just me for the longest time… It’s a smell so rich and pungent you can almost taste it. I wound up walking far out of my way to class every day to avoid the “Saturday night bathhouse” aroma. Even the Straight Dope weighed in on this one, so I know now it wasn’t only a personal problem. Well, maybe partly, but there were extenuating circumstances. It was mainly the trees.

But the winner, by a nose, has got to be the

Gingko: it seems colleges around the country have a predilection for planting these delicate, spindly trees. Maybe because colleges are so full of binge drinkers that everything smells like vomit anyway. Because that’s what a gingko pod smells like. They drop by the buckets in the springtime, waiting for unsuspecting feet to trod upon them, releasing a stench that’s unbelievably rank and persistent. My own alma mater is a beautiful, ivy-covered, tree-lined urban oasis – but damn, if you step on one of those pods on your way to class, leave your shoes in the hallway, puh-leeze. They say our founder, Benjamin Franklin, liked these trees. It’s also said he liked organ meats and iced coffee enemas. That is to say, just because someone liked the smell of vomit two hundred years ago doesn’t mean we have to like it now. And for the record, the link above is funny and generally perceptive, but the smell at issue is not that of dog pudding. It’s emesis. Regurgitation. Heaving the gorge. Unswallowing. Piloting the vitreous buick. Gingkos are the rudest non-digestive thing I’ve encountered in a damn long time.

Now that you’re properly armed against the plots being hatched under our very noses by those petrified ents, the overgrown weeds that stain our air and soil our soil, you can frolic in the vernal groves with abandon. But don’t come crying to me when you smell something gross. I swear, it wasn’t me.

2003-05-05T14:06:00.000-07:00

What A Difference an 'A' Makes....
WHAT WE ARE DOING: Providing legal services to indigent underserved individuals.
WHAT I KEEP TYPING: Providing legal services to indignant undeserved individuals.
So if you are filled with anger aroused by something unjust, unworthy or mean, and haven't earned, or have no right to, what you have or want, we're here for you. The line starts with me. I'm mad as hell and haven't got any right to be.

2003-05-05T12:49:00.000-07:00

Who Watches the Watchmen? This article clears up the question: we'd better, or no one will. These robe-wearing parasites give the law a bad name - and, considering the name it started with, that takes some doing. I offer to you the ignominy of these judicial bottomfeeders both to glory in the downfall of others (a national pastime), and to sharpen our communal resolve to seek out and extirpate injustice - especially when it masquerades as its opposite. Plus, I get to say "extirpate." Twice!

Favorite quote: "In a victim's report, she fingered a man in a long, dark, leather coat." That can be tricky; those bulky outer garments can interfere with digital access (fingers, not numbers). Maybe she was wearing the coat. Maybe they both wore it - it sounds capacious and cozy. It's hard to tell from this article. I'm just thinking, I gotta get me one of those long leather coats. It sounds like they make a pretty powerful impression. And I've got some seriously twitchy fingers.

2003-05-05T08:22:00.000-07:00

Saturday afternoon the manchild downstairs, who struggles daily to overcome the continuing consequences of a serious head injury suffered years ago, waited till we lay down for a couchy nap before turning on the karaoke machine and starting to bellow out his favorite song. It's barely recognizeable as music when he sings, and there is no way to sleep through it. Also, he'll replay and resing the same cloying lovesong (in chinese) dozens of times over, without pause or surcease. But this time he only played though about four iterations of the song before his wavering howl of a voice went silent and he turned off the stereo. I think it was because, after months of working on it, he finally KILLED that song. In condolence, please send money, porn and candy to the Chucklehut. It is how our people mourn.

2003-05-05T08:16:00.000-07:00

It was one of those weekends that seemed to last a week, but that was over so terribly quickly… Regardless, I come not to bury weekend, but to praise it. We started with an unexpectedly phenomenal dinner at Cajun Pacific on Friday night, way out in the boonies on Irving and 47th, where the ocean foam in the air actually flavors the food. I knew it was going to be a good night when, opening the car door in front of our apartment, I found a crisp new five dollar bill on the sidewalk – clearly a sign that I am God’s favorite. We listened to a new gift cd on the way over - archaic Grateful Dead/Warlocks from 1965, charming and blazing… Parking at a rare spot in that crowded neighborhood directly in front of the restaurant, I felt the ride was over too soon, but once I stepped inside I knew I was finally where I was always supposed to be. The meal was outrageous: hot spicy cornbread and richly seasoned jambalaya and a salmon and crawfish etoufee that put my most expensive meal in New Orleans to shame. We didn’t even have enough room for the bread pudding dessert, though it’s one of my all-time favorite foods (in case anyone out there is taking notes on how to keep me chuckling…)

I’ll skip a few moments of the weekend that I prefer to savor in the privacy of my intimate thinking, and advance the playing pieces to Saturday night and another festival of engorgement with Heidi and Dr. Andy, accompanied by the wise and gracious Ralph (who is lending us his Mendocino cabin for Memorial day weekend!) and his enthusiastic daughter Grace. The evening was too richly textured to describe more than selected moments: a hawk hanging hungry in the air, hunting in black silhouette against the silver bay and the jagged blue horizon of downtown in the distance far below our perch atop the Berkeley hills; the cats all out for their dusk constitutionals in the rain-cooled evening; the glory of safely unpacking, bringing upstairs, and installing – correctly, on the first try – Andy’s new 32” tv to the cablebox, VCR, and stereo sound, in spite of nine-year-old Grace’s insistent help… but these are merely pale snapshots, sidewalk chalkart after a storm…

More concrete in my recollection was dinner. We began with antipasto – pickles and olives, roasted red peppers and marinated fennel root, cured porcinis (indescribably delicious, sublime flavor bombs with a texture like velvet), freshly home-smoked salmon (as good as it sounds – no, even better); Caesar salad with ethereal homemade croutons so good I had to fight Grace for them - the foregoing all served with a 97 Schramsburg Blanc de Noirs, dripping with apple and pear flavors, alive with pinpoint effervescence – the finest sparkling wine I’ve tasted in many years, hands down. We followed up by diving headfirst into a huge tureen of Dr. Andy’s “I can revive you later with my car battery” pasta carbonara, little shells with squares of chewy meaty bacon and caramelized onions, rich with yolks and other unholy delectables, served with an Aussie red blend called Hattrick that Ralph, a consummate connoisseur, described accurately as “a purple hammer to the tongue….” Then Heidi’s chocolate chip banana bread and her pineapple bundt cake with vanilla frosting, and a relaxing post-prandial to settle everything down together. In all, an evening that confirms that the good life is going on under my very nose – not such a small area, but one I occasionally overlook regardless.

And the evening’s surreal highlight: watching Former Prime Minister (of Japan) Hashimoto, resplendent in a black tux and incandescent smile, presenting a phallic crystal trophy to Iron Chef Sakai, the champion of the Iron Chefs, who withstood a challenge from France’s youngest three-star chef to earn the (entirely subjective and meaningless) title of “greatest chef (of those agreeing to be on our television show).” Yes, there are four star chefs; they refused to join the Iron Chef menagerie. Yes, there is no way for their competition truly to be objective – it’s like rating perfumes or supermodels or favorite episodes of the Simpsons. Yes, Former Prime Minister Hashimoto was the only one wearing a tux and looked a bit out of place, as if he’d gotten a joke invitation or someone had failed to explain to him what was going on. But this was the very last episode of Iron Chef (until they start filming more of them), and I was able to watch it on a huge television with a picture so clear you could feel the judges vacillate and masticate from the comfort of your own living room, or, in my case, from Andy’s. The featured food was Ron Kon Kai chicken, which looked quite like the same damn chicken we ordinary plebes get to eat, except fattier – one judge actually mentioned as she delicately forked a slab of pure gourmet schmaltz into her piehole that “I would usually hesitate to eat something like this.” History in the making. Sorry you missed it.

But hey, to make up for your tragic failure to participate in such an international culinary media event, here’s my special new discovery, a brand new cinderblock propping up the dusty old RECIPE CORNER:

DAN’S WAKEUP PANCAKES
I love my pancakes and make them in a variety of sophisticated ways. Blueberry juice batter, cranberry-infused maple syrup, chocolate throughout with bits of fried candied banana – the pancake is my canvas, and I am it’s devoted artistic explorer. But I tried a new trick this weekend that worked out shockingly well. Frankly, I thought these pancakes would be so experimental as to be inedible. Instead, Kel kept reaching over from her (really tasty) egg and tomato scramble with chicken and parmesan cheese to snag pieces of my hot puffy delight. (Yes, pancakes. I’m skipping the other bits of the story.) Here’s the trick: start with the “normal” ingredients and proportions: 1-1/4 cups of flour, 1 tablespoon of baking powder, 2 tablespoons of sugar, well-blended. In a separate bowl, lightly beat one egg with a tablespoon or two of oil, same as usual. And now here’s the trick: instead of adding a cup of milk, add half a cup of brewed coffee (not hot) and half a cup of rice milk (which I frankly usually prefer to milk anyway, though typically not for cooking) and mix well. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry all at once; mix only till the dry ingredients aren’t dry any more, and fry on a hot, lightly oiled griddle. Really, they’re surprisingly good.

Next time: making your coffee with burned waffle crumbs and making flour out of dust bunnies. Your guests will never know the difference. Because they’ll be dining elsewhere. Hey, more for you.

2003-05-02T10:49:00.000-07:00

The Daily Fix has given us another reason to question the value of divine intervention. He's pointed us to this article, which concerns the downside to burning your collection of commercial porn. I think we ought to try the opposite experiment: get a religious bookstore to go hard-core and see if they can keep the doors open, so to speak. I think they'd do best with a sort of "cross-over" name (heh). Ecclesi-ecstacies? Dong of Solomon? Hard Coreinthians? Nominations are now open. Help reform your local zealot TODAY!

2003-05-02T09:54:00.000-07:00

Technical update: I got a new home computer last night. I was working with a Compaq Presario 4140, a pentium-1 machine from 1997. It was slow and bulky and severly limited in its capacities. Not unlike myself. BUT. Saint Genius Brain C. (name changed to embarass the innocent) keeps a dozen or so machines at home, running a little model network and quietly plotting the overthrow of various entities. He considered his old pentium-III windows machine obsolete so he gave it to me. Just like that. Plus an external modem, which I'll return because I got mine to work finally; and also a CD writer which like hell I'm ever going to give up. He and our mutual friend, college cohort and Brain's boss, Sha were ready to give me a monitor too if I needed it, but I didn't. I don't want to offend the fates. They've been too good to me lately.

Now everything is different. (At home, on my computer. But that's a damn good start.) Colors are brighter. Sounds are clearer. User-id's are more virile. (I recall in a recent software class that we were instructed to "turn on our extensions" - I was the only one who giggled so I had to cover it with a cough. Dude - I NEVER TURN IT OFF. Luck favors the prepared extension.) My new cpu looks like a black pizza box (it's a back-office model, meant to be rack mounted); it's plain and sturdy, but quick and powerful - not unlike myself. Today I managed to get on line and now the world is my cyber-plaything. Yeah, I'm talking to you, planet. Amuse me.

The purpose of this paean is recognize, for my own psychic well-being, that Brian is the kind of friend that I need to be thankful for, explicitally and intentionally, every day. He's not just the nicest, most open person you could ever hope to meet - he's also whipsmart, generous and has a great sense of humor. I'm grateful for his help and moreso for his friendship. When I sometimes feel down, as I did yesterday for a lot of the day, people like Brian give me perspective. I'm one lucky guy.

So, for you who have made my life so much more meaningful, fun and fulfilling, whether by throwing hardware at me or by dint of other acts of decency and kindness, you are appreciated. And anyone who wants to check out my hardware, well, terms are negotiable.

2003-05-02T09:28:00.000-07:00

It was a beautiful day, and everybody knew it. I knew it; so did Kel, and I think the person or people in the convertible were in on it too. It was hard to tell at first. The driver was definitely a human female, coiffed and animated. On the front passenger seat she'd propped a big black plastic bag full of clothes; the top of the bag rose above the headrest and flopped lazily, catching the swirling gusts of wind and shifting about like a tourist unsure which side has the better view. In the back seat a black dog quivered with glee (thanks Pea), tongue unfurled and lolling. Next to the dog an old hobby horse was propped up against a window, its yarn mane pointing the breeze like so many nautical telltales. The driver was riding the clutch at the top of the hill next to us, slipping back and forth in her lane, waiting for a green light. The bag flopped. The dog hopped around. The hobby horse teetered with every movement of the car. The woman bobbed her head to unheard music. At first glance, I had trouble telling which heads were real.

2003-04-30T16:38:00.000-07:00

RECENT D'ETRE

Of course I didn't forget about you. I had to save a kitten from a burning napalm factory. Twice. So don't get all in a huff. There are demands on my time. And ants in my pants. And they're all for you.

Lacking the mental discipline to think of any one thing for long enough to craft a decent essay about it, let me share a few items that dropped into my brain and got stuck:

On a recently-aired television commercial, a major grocery chain started lauding the services cheerfully provided by their produce specialists, their checkers, and their "meat cutters." We used to have a pretty good word for "meat cutter;" it was butcher. Has that word fallen irreparably into disrepute now that Saddam and Kevin Kline have been pegged with that moniker? What we need is a positive butcher role model. Growing up in LA, we had Farmer John with his "locally dressed pork." Even I knew that mean "killed, skinned and severed in your area code." And he wore a cool hat. Maybe if they gave up those blood-stained aprons for something more stylish, and had big farmer hats. Maybe if they'd stop sharpening that cleaver and whistling the theme from psycho while I'm trying to decide between the rump roast and the london broil. There's got to be a solution here. We can't go much further with all this talk of meat cutters, though; pretty soon the dairy section will have cheese cutters and the whole system will collapse.

On a recently-aired "sponsor ID" on NPR, the sponsor was a huge accounting firm. Their tagline is "The answer is the people of D&T." That's great, unless the question is, "who f'd up my audit? Who got the SEC involved in this? Who's been sleeping with my wife?" Sometimes "the answer is the people of D&T" isn't the answer the people at D&T will want to give.

I recently rented a movie based on the trailer - the montage of scenes cobbled together to make the film attractive to potential viewers. The trailer showed people smiling, then people laughing, then a sexy girl in a school uniform looking coy, then a sexy woman in a red dress posing in front of a window... there were images of people riding bikes cheerfully, powering up a little hill, riding no-handed with arms outstretched... images of tough guys carrying busted bikes and hassling each other... all against a soundtrack of happy, inspirational music. Okay, I like bikes. I like happiness (in moderation). I'm not opposed to sexy girls-n-women, in or out of dresses and uniforms. What the hell, we took the plunge. THE MOVIE WAS UNREMITTINGLY DEPRESSING. Every momentary flash of a grin or ambiguous grimace was included in the trailer, even when the overall scene was tragic and the characters were alienated and miserable. The women were not developed characters worthy of any attention, and they never disrobed or even made out - separately or together. The one character I didn't detest was beaten to a pulp - that was the scene from the trailer of the "tough guy carrying a bike." I might have seen this movie had I known what it was about, but I feel cheated by the trailer - cheated into seeing a movie other than that which I thought I was renting. If the trailer is all blood and gore, I don't expect a delicate love story; if the trailer is all grinning happy people, I don't expect a movie about the degredations of modern city life. I guess I'm encouraging more truth in advertising. Beijing Bicycle isn't a bad movie, unless you saw the trailer first. Oh yes and The Thorn Birds isn't about fighter pilots, and Looking for Mr. Goodbar is more about the peanuts than the chocolate, if you catch my drift. This stuff can be tricky.

2003-04-29T18:45:00.000-07:00

It was early; maybe I heard it wrong. But this morning the radio woke me up with a story about medical lobbying or something equally riveting, and the guy they were interviewing was named Dick Pounder.

Heh.

2003-04-29T17:19:00.000-07:00

Unthinking and herd-like, I am so tickled by Scott’s description of his workspace that I thought I’d do just like he did. In my little cube in the heart of a boring 12-story early-70’s building, I have on my walls, clockwise from the entry: Poster from Asian Art Museum, holograph of pocketwatch, coaster from Hog’s Breath Pub in Australia, phone system cheat sheet, official State Bar Bomb Threat Report Form, promotional booklet from The Pantry open to “20 Head of Beef Cattle are Needed to Supply The Pantry’s Daily Serving of Steak” with b&w photo of four lowing heifers, a poem I wrote, key phone extension lists, photo of me, kel and two friends at my uncle’s house, promotional postcard from “Grateful Dawg,” photo of me, kel and her parents heading onto the Alcatraz ferry, postcard with line drawing of Penn’s University Museum, photo of the Statue of Liberty taken at sunset from the top of the World Trade Center, photo of old cat Sydney, list of all programs with their program numbers, boring pictureless wall calendar, aerial photomap of downtown San Francisco, small Peruvian changepurse, plastic mini-pumpkin, Japanese calligraphy of my name. On my “display shelf” I have a photo of Kel at the Joss House in Mendocino, a photo of me and my 7 college housemates right after graduation, a get-well card with a cool Gorey drawing on it, a photo of Kel at Devil’s Kitchen, bubblestuff, old dry roses in a tumbler, pumpkinhead pez, tiny Tabasco bottle, strange photo-montage tarot deck, “star” eyes sunglasses, foot massage dowel. On my desk I have various work-related papers, in-and-out boxes, rolodex, phone, catalogues from museums I have to return, tumbler full of pens, Lima Ohio mousepad, CPU and monitor, busted halogen desk light, Franklin planner, cds (Jared’s birthday mix [yay!], Wes Montgomery, Ray Charles, Holst’s The Planets, John Mayall), Casio FR=1211S Printing Calculator, package of Glee gum (yay!), baggie of tart-n-tinies (yay!), stacks of evaluation materials and applications, box of Trader Joe’s Masala tea.

How fulfilling. What am I missing? What ought to be proudly displayed in my beige cube, but isn’t on this list?

2003-04-29T16:11:00.000-07:00

Southwest Airlines fires pilots accused of taking off clothes during flight. Really, there's not much more to be said. Except that we understand why they call that bit in the front of the plane a "cockpit," I suppose.

2003-04-29T15:38:00.000-07:00

From "The Iceman" - a catalogue from a museum featuring the artifacts and remains of a copper-age man found frozen in the Alps: "The little pouch contained five items, including a scraper, a drill and a flint flake. A 7.1 cm bone awl was also found. A black mass which could be identified as "true tinder" fungus filled most of the bag.... Fine traces of pyrites show that lumps of pyrites were used to create sparks. None were found in the equipment of the Iceman, however."

Been through this pass so frequently
my pack was fitted to my spine,
the hat I wore had seen new moons
above the searing alpine sky.
My shoes of net and hay had trod
across those mountains many times;
my tinderbox and arrowheads
had warmed and fed me in those climes.

Of course the risk was always there,
but I was confident and strong;
I set out from the valley col -
but I could not have been more wrong.
I reached the camping-place at night;
the wind screamed out a haunted song;
I opened up the tinder kit -
the ore had fallen from the thong.

My hopes of fire quashed by loss
I wrapped myself in skins I'd shorn
secreted myself in a nook
and waited, freezing, for the morn.
I lay out flat against the cold,
my reed cape wrapped around my form;
I concentrated on my heat,
I thought of someplace soft and warm.

I slipped away. A frosty rime
obscured me as I lay supine,
at rest for eons cold and long,
then thawed and wrested with a tong.
For years I lay, my culture's norm,
protected by the snow from storm,
and now, uncovered, withered, shine
my smile back down on those who climb.

2003-04-29T13:46:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I took a nice bike ride out to Point Bonita, Rodeo Beach and Ft. Cronkhite - my old "trainer" ride that took me an hour and twenty minutes no matter the weather or my physical condition. This time we took four hours, but I got to appreciate the flowers and the roaring surf and the frisky frolicking of the dogs on the beach. We noticed that there were some dogs that had a lot of energy and ran everywhere, and some seemed tired - "dog" tired, so to speak. They were lounging in the sand but I thought they'd be more comfortable in a little chair, where they could yip and growl and woof at the other dogs to their hearts' content - but no one seemed to have brought along a barka lounger.

2003-04-29T08:40:00.000-07:00

Maybe I'm a little behind on my "to do" list, but I just finished reading the catalogue for the ol' South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology's "Iceman" exhibit. You know, back in '91 some hikers found a body on a small rock face on top of the Alps, which ultimately turned out to be a dude from about 3500 BCE. Which is pretty cool all by itself, but the catalogue has all kinds of great photos in it of exhumations and detail shots of the contents of the lower intenstine. No, really, anthropology is a lot of fun and very interesting, and I enjoyed the catalogue. ESPECIALLY:

p. 11: "...The official recovery of the body took place on the same day.... On account of the low temperatures during the night, the body was again frozen stuck. It was finally freed with the help of ice-picks and ski-poles. Bits of leather and fur, string, straps and clumps of hay appeared in the process. These were collected in a pile next to the body." Translation: "We got to the top of the freaking alps and, can you believe it, some kind of totally unexpected solid form of water had trapped our glacial corpse. So we grabbed some axes and sticks and whaled on the general area until we smashed our way through to paydirt. But somehow when we were hitting the five-thousand year old wood and fur artifacts with the axes we kinda messed some of them up, so we just heaped that stuff together in a little mound and tried to act like it was like that when we got there." It's not like the dude is going to ask, "what happened to my kindling? Where's my sloeberries?" They just didn't want to come off like a bunch of looters. This is the same general process as is referenced by the phenomenon of the "tel" in the mid-east, except somewhat accellerated. Modern science wins again!

p. 18: "An examination of the gender of the mummy, which could not be definitively established when it was first discovered, was carried out in the Anatomical Institute and revealed it to be male. The equipment also pointed clearly in this direction." I think all that needs to be said here is "heh." Also, I'd like to see the t-shirts that say "My academic advisor went to the Anatomical Institute to establish genders and all I got was this lousy t-shirt." Anything's possible. The mummy himself was wearing a Napster hat, but we can't tell if he got it new or traded it for some mp3s.

Time to resume productive behavior. I'm sure there's some equipment for me to examine somewhere around the Institute...

2003-04-28T08:52:00.000-07:00

THE FIRST AMERICAN MONTY PYTHON FAN OF MY GENERATION

I. My Generation, Baby

The Baby Boom is often described as the demographic surge associated with the post-WWII era here in the US, starting in 1946 and usually ending, for some reason, in 1964. '64 was a big year for a lot of things, but it was a small year for birthing babies. Gen X typically lays claim to '64 through '80, but, just as the BBoom was skewed forward and my '64 cohorts didn't really connect with those 20 years senior to ourselves, most Gen X'ers (such as they are) are younger than I am. I'm the old man to kids, and a kid to old men. I think of those born in my birthyear as "trough babies" - few in number, unbound to any greater group, we fell through the demographic cracks. That being so, I "identify" young. My cousin, three months older than I am, is about 10 years older than I am in every non-chronological way. Hell, I'm a blogger. So I proceed on the premise that I'm one of the first members of the post-baby-boom generation, rather than the youngest boomer in the trailer park.

II. Thank You For Inviting Me Into Your Home

In 1970 I was 6 years old when dad's sabbatical came up. (Not a euphemism.) He took us all with him for six months in warm and sunny Oxford UK, where I learned many useful facts, bad habits and neuroses. I had school every day and an appropriate bedtime, which I respected without the need for my parents to resort to strongarm tactics.

But shortly after our arrival something unanticipated, unprecedented happened. It was nine pm, half an hour after my bedtime. I was awake in my cot in my dark room. From the living room next door I suddenly heard an hysterical sound - laughter, choking, gasps, and the dull regular thump of dad's fist against the arm of his chair. I carefully snuck out to see what was going on, but mom and dad caught me and hustled me back to bed. It was the very first episode of Monty Python and it had taken out my dad. I was duly impressed.

The next day I tried to wheedle some information about the show I'd missed. It was hard to learn much but the name, which I found cheerfully nonsensical; mom would say a few words and toss up her hands in a gigglefit. Dad just said 'it's for grown-ups, they show naked people.' This irresistably compelled me - I had to learn more. But for the remainder of the season I could only sit by the closed door of my bedroom and try to imagine what could be so funny as to render my parents speechless as they watched every episode with religious fervor.

III. Silly English K-nig-g-g-ht

I cherished the notion that Monty Python existed for years upon my return to the land of left-hand drive and the designated hitter. Mom and dad were impressed with my staying power. I would find out about this program. In late '73, And Now For Something Completely Different came out and a piece of it aired on a late-night show one Saturday night. I stayed up till 1 am to see John Cleese reading the news as his desk skittered around the grey english countryside. Then there was an animated boobie. It was hilarious, but I was too fascinated to laugh. At first.

In '75, Holy Grail came out. I saw it early in its run at a big theater in Westwood that had the actual wooden rabbit model on display in the lobby (yes, it's only a model).

Despite its theretofore having been securely fastened to me, I laughed my ass completely off. I'd never seen anything remotely as funny. I paid to see it again three more times and bought the script, which I substantially memorized (including a lengthy and bizarre first draft which barely tracked the actual film at all). The film did so well in the States that PBS started "educating" us with the series itself. It was crude, vulgar, offensive, and sometimes unclad. I was in fifth grade. Mom and dad let me watch every second and I watched like a junky watches skag melt in a spoon. I bought records, including the extremely rare three-sided Matching Tie and Handkerchief. I bought books. I would recite, from memory, not just scenes but whole episodes. I knew, not just the Rutles, but the Rutland Weekend Television album and the Rutland Dirty Weekend book - and that was just Eric and Neil Innes! I was at the 'Live at the Hollywood Bowl' shows. I began to alienate even myself.

IV. My Hovercraft is Full of Eels

The fever broke sometime while I was in college, and now it's been a long time since I've seen Grail. Even though the canonical episodes still sound familiar, I can't quote along with them any more. But that's okay, I've made my mark. I was the only fifth-grader in 1975 to be whistling the Liberty Bell March every day on my way to school, start to finish with raspberry. I can hear that berry even now. It's the sound of freedom. In rude translation from the Hungarian.

2003-04-26T08:14:00.000-07:00

Rumination at 7:32 am, hopelessly awake and moderately hung-over: Give a man a drink and he's buzzed for a while. Teach a man to drink and he's buzzed for a lifetime. You might notice some deterioration in his handwriting, too.

2003-04-25T16:22:00.000-07:00

Category: Self-Adulation
AND I SMELL LIKE ONE TOO

From the filth in which I've wallowed
and abuses that I've swallowed
I have risen up in glory to a place above the sun
Get your ambergris and ivory
Nothing human will survive me
and all the rest can go to hell once my time here is done.
Give it up for modern marvels
have another plate of farfel
If it's all the same to you I'd rather live my life in style
Put a gem in my incisor
Ever older, never wiser
and all who dare oppose me I'll leave drowning in denial.
Rent my service by the hour
Drench your psyche in my power
Take your medicine and smile till your molars turn to dust
Kiss my forehead, give me succor
I'm a crazy motherfucker
coming back to rock your face off and to stimulate your lust.
You can see what is required
if you don't want to be fired
I have one demand - perfection - and I want it all the time
Lift your leg up and salute me
Get your kneepads out and toot me
I control the mighty cosmos for today I'm 39!

Thanks, sincerely, to everyone who's been wishing me such a lovely birthday - it's been by far the nicest part of my day so far. You guys are the best. No, really!

2003-04-25T12:20:00.000-07:00

April 24, 1967

My third birthday is the first one I remember. There had been some build-up so I knew it would be something special. Exactly what it meant, I was not sure, but I knew the date commemorated when I came into the world, a day of fundamental changes. Birthdays therefore were days of great upheaval; they portended something big.

I clearly recall that I lay in my bed on the evening before my third birthday. The bed was in the corner, with a window over my right shoulder. Lights were off. I thought about the change that was upon me. I wondered whether I would undergo a sudden evolution. I was thrilled with the anticipation of discovering what happened when a birthday happened to me. I resolved to stay awake all night and find the answer out.

In the darkness, almost total when the light was first extinguished, the features of the room crept forward slowly to reveal themselves. Soon I could see most everything despite the darkness. I felt secure and comfortable and let my thoughts wander. I counted up the years that I had lived: my first year, in which I had lain; the second (after my first birthday), when I crawled; the third, which I had just completed, when I walked; and now on birthday number three I was to enter my fourth year of life. I expected some great change would come upon me to distinguish this new phase. I could sense it even then. I was lying there thinking of numbers of birthdays, the age I was turning, the number of years since I’d started my life. A door to the interior had opened in my thinking. Things were already getting interesting.

Light from a passing car leapt up and spilled across the facing wall. It frightened me. First, it came from outside, from the cold night world, while I was warm and safe in bed. This led me to consider how the inside was distinct from outside, how my bed sat by a wall that was the only thing that separated me from anything that lurked out there. I realized that, right outside, next to my bed, lay dank untended beds of foliage, alive with bugs – a place I didn’t like to go in broadest daylight. Now it was dark and who knew what was crawling there among those filthy fronds, and here my head was closer to them then I’d ever thought. Just a wall between my tender self and all the creepy creatures of the night. I lay awhile pondering the architecture.

Another car went by and once again the light whipped out across the walls, the shadows crazy out of every corner, spinning, growing, disappearing just as quickly. In that moment chaos erupted in the room, a seething matrix of some alternate environment, an unintelligible flipbook moving faster than I could watch it. A moment afterwards and everything was back to normal. But for that instant light had ripped away the lid that held this quiet world in place, revealing a disrupted chaos I found disturbing. I was no longer sure that I was ready to become a three-year-old. Regardless, I had made a vow to stay up late and witness my own transformation, and I knew my birthday was inevitable. It would happen, even if I tried to hide from it. So I convinced myself that nothing bad had happened yet, and started waiting for the next phenomenon.

It was a long time coming. But slowly, warm brown light spread through the bedroom. Too incrementally for me to mark the change, the light developed next a tinge of red. The air seemed thick. I saw it fill the space up to the ceiling as I stared above me, saw it occupy what I had always thought was empty. The room was full of air and the air was full of swirling, coruscating particles, a breatheable liquid. The air motes scintillated, points of light making lovely patterns. At first, the points were silver-white, but then I started to distinguish colors: yellow, orange, blue and green, and some still silver scattered in among them. All the colors now, washing back and forth like respiration, iridescent and electric. Then I saw a special object floating in the sparkling tide of air. It was composed of rings of color, orange, yellow, red and blue; a white five-pointed star inside it. It glowed in a corona, spinning slowly. When it drifted close enough I reached out gently and grabbed it, held it in my fist. I was careful to make sure it hadn’t slipped away somehow. But when I slowly, oh so slowly opened up my hand, my eyes unblinkingly attentive, I saw the colors of the spinner I had grabbed had been transferred and stained my very flesh. Phosphorescent rings of color covered every finger to the very tip, and in the center of my palm a big blue star rotated joyfully, wrapped inside a series of exquisite bright concentric bands.

After several moments, I no longer could maintain my focus. Tearing eyes demanded that I blink. The colors instantaneously started fading. I slowly let my hand relax and close. The patterns just as slowly were absorbed again into my flesh. But I could see now that there were a lot more spinners floating in the thickly populated air, some with stars like that which I had grabbed, and others that had other patterns. Some were like the beach, and when I captured them and stared with all my energy while opening my hand as slowly as I could, I saw my hand transformed with rippling dunes, long grass blowing in the wind, waves washing down my fingers and kites flying from their tips to wave in the celestial sea of glittering air particles. Some with other patterns made my hand appear to wear a lovely dress, each fingertip the face of a poetic girl, golden hair blowing in the wind, a face too vague to recognize when I looked closely. There were lots of different spinners; each had a different consequence, created different patterns on my hand and in my mind.

Finally, the sky began to lighten. All the colors that had filled the air grew watery with dawn’s approach. It was my birthday. I was three years old, and in the fourth year of my life. I had evolved. I fell asleep, reverberating with the truths revealed to me. When I explained it later to my doctor at my annual physical not very much later, he didn’t seem to understand. It was probably, I thought, because I was not yet communicating clearly. I supposed that that would have to wait till I was four.