Those Thievin' Albanians!

Watch our President get his wristwatch stolen by someone in the adoring Albanian crowd. The theft happens between :54 and 1:02 on the video, and it's clearly visible if you watch closely. You'll see a man's hand slide down the President's arm to steady it as he removes the watch, a classic pickpocket technique.



Of course, the White House press office is saying, "Who you gonna believe? Us, or your lyin' eyes?" because I guess it's important to not offend Albanians now....and funnily enough they have about three versions of the story going around, I guess to see which one tests better. If anyone still needs convincing that this administration's reflexive position is to LIE need look no further than AlbanianWristwatchGate. Why not just say, "Yes, someone in the large crowd stole the President's wristwatch while he was shaking hands. Next question." Because they are TERRIFIED that someone would look at that and see weakness or bumbling, and it is better to LIE than to be perceived as a weak bumbler, especially when you are, in fact, a weak bumbler.

Smart people grow out of this mindset by middle school.

(Random Albanian jokes: Why's the Albanian economy in crisis? Their donkey died! How do you stop the Albanian war machine? Shoot the soldier who's pushing it!)

Drink Up Kids, Mommy's Got To Step Out For A Bit

A stay-at-home mom gets 27 months in jail for providing booze for a party of teenagers during which:

A) No one tested was legally intoxicated.

B) No one present was allowed to leave, much less drive.

WHAT THE FUCK HAS BEEN SUBSTITUTED FOR OUR JUSTICE SYSTEM?

Should she be prosecuted for providing alcohol to a minor? Sure, and given probation. But 27 months in jail?

Don't we have better ways of using our community resources?

Oh, that's right -- the prosecutor has to get re-elected.

Dammit

I get everything squared away, all chores done, I sit down, and I'm ready to play LOTRO.

The servers are down.

Dammit.

Rock For Light

Do some good and get a rocking tune: Green Day's cover of John Lennon's "Working Class Hero" is on iTunes. Your dollar (less one cent) goes to Amnesty International.

It's actually better than I expected it to be.

Favorite New Band

Lucero.

I hate the fact that I missed these guys opening for DBT last winter. I've made up for it by plopping down cool green on everything available from them on iTunes.

They really scratch my alt-Skynard itch. Countrified rock songs, or rockified country songs? All I know is that whiskey rasp and twang makes me wanna drive fast and howl at the moon.



Love Ben's comment in the interview: "I don't mind ripping Bruce Springsteen off. That's not done enough nowadays."

Prettiest Girl At The Dance

Beware: dorky gaming post ahead.

I worked my first toon up to 20th level and became increasingly irritated. Hunters are useless against multiple mobs, and frustrating in fellowships because all the mobs will gallop past the champs and guards to get to Mr. Feeble, the hunter. This is NO FUN, so I started a second guy with the idea that I would go in a completely opposite direction.

So I rolled up a dwarf minstrel, and the game is fun again. Minstrels are LOTRO's healing class, but most of their low-level heals also do damage. I realized how much better this class was when I got jumped by three mobs, all at or above my level, and after a somewhat protracted battle found my toon standing over their bodies with most of my MP left. Cool.

But the best part was completely unexpected. Minstrels are a necessity in fellowship quests, and there seems to be a dearth of them at all levels. So I can mosey out to whatever site I want to work on and it's almost guaranteed that there's a group of tanks (and a couple of fifth-wheel hunters) looking for a minstrel. It's like being the easy girl in high school: sure, you get a lot of attention, and afterwards you feel sorta used...but it gets you LOTS of experience.

Babs Gives Rosie Reach-Around, Sez Joe

On WFAN/MSNBC this morning Joe Scarborough said that Barbara Walters "gave Rosie (O'Donnell) a reach-around" by not explicitly repudiating her tinfoil-hat 9i/11 conspiracy theories.

This tasteless comment would have made for funny morning talk had the assembled chatterboxes not then spent the ensuing five minutes snickering about how naughty Joe was for saying it.

He had a point: Babs' dewy send-off for Rosie was a disingenuous bit of theater, and sitting next to her "dear friend" for months on the show should have afforded Babs the time to give Rosie the thirty-second overview of structural engineering necessary to debunk that looniness.

Remember back when Barbara Walters was a real reporter?

Yeah, me neither.

A Video Camera, A Tokyo Sushi Bar

Someone placed a video camera on the conveyor belt in a Tokyo sushi bar. The resulting four-minute video is a warm and welcoming relief from misanthropy. The almost invisible smile on the woman's face at 1:13 is delightful. It ends too abruptly in that it would be nice if the camera made it back around to the couple who placed it there, but it's four minutes of cheerful healthy awesome.

Democrats' Plan: Run In Circles Shrieking And Flapping Hands

I'm so disgusted by the Democratic gutlessness on display on Capitol Hill today. Nobody's willing to stick their neck out and take a stand on their principles. And then we wonder why our kids are disaffected and shallow. I could just spit.

I expect arrogant and gratuitous acts of senseless incompetence from the Bush administration. But this latest war funding bill is another pork-laden slap in the face to the idea that the Democrats are anything more than a timid bunch of quislings.

Cause here's the truth about "timetables" that I've yet to hear any pundit say out loud: no one, not a soul, truly believes they mean a damn thing. The terrorists don't really think that if we SAY we're gonna leave on June 3, 2008, at 6:52 AM that we'll really DO that. The US military doesn't really believe that if Congress TELLS them to leave on June 3 that they actually have to be gone by that date. The public, wearily well-acquainted with a lying, secretive, incompetent administration, doesn't believe anything anyone says.

So Democrats aren't even willing to set HYPOTHETICAL boundaries on Bush's madness. Cowards! Yellow-dog, craven cowards!

A Pall In The Air

The wildfires in Florida and a breeze blowing in off the Gulf of Mexico have conspired to cast a smoky gray pall over Birmingham. People sniff the air nervously and pick at their clothes. It's like walking around with a little alarm going off deep in the reptile brain: there is a fire somewhere, run! But cats seem nonplussed, so I'll take a cue from them and not worry about it.

Today is check-up day for Mom, and after multiple grumps about, "I hate going to the doctor," she's fresh as a daisy and looking forward to a ride in the car. Maybe we'll go eat lunch afterwards, but the les time I have to spend out in the muggy soup that passes for air today the happier I'll be. I guess we picked a good day to hafta wait in an air-conditioned doctor's office.

Topper Price, RIP

If you spent any time at all in Southside Birmingham in the past 20 years, you probably met Topper Price. He was a harmonica player and fixture on the local bar scene. That wailing harmonica that opens the one hit song Brother Caine had? That's Topper.

He was found dead in his Southside apartment Friday. He was 54. That sucks. I won't pretend I was his best friend or anything, but I had met the guy numerous times, and I know people who played in his band, The Upsetters. Topper was a smart, funny, cynical guy who was the living embodiment of "local character". He'll be missed.

Alcoholic Blackout

Tonight, I went to Atlanta to see the Arctic Monkeys.

I guess they rocked.

I really don't remember anything about the show. I mean, nothing. I remember seeing the opening band, Be Your Own Pet, but the rest of the night is a blur. The Tabernacle in Atlanta has a smoking section beneath the main stage, and the bartender in charge of said section took a liking to me and started feeding me shots of Cuervo Gold, leading to a a genuinely huge memory lapse.

For what it is worth, Be Your Own Pet fucking rocked.

My friends tell me I liked the Arctic Monkeys. Can't imagine how I wouldn't -- it's a great space, acoustically true, accommodating and tilting down toward the stage, like every good theater. I'll bet that I look good on the dance flooor, don't know what I'm dancing for. There is evidence that standing beneath a high ceiling increases creative thought, and while I can't vouch for that, it does seem true.

I went with Tim and Terry, which made for a good mix. Tim has every twittering neurosis known to man, and Terry has hereditary spastic paraparesis, so he's forced to be calm. Being with Terry is a weird blessing: it makes me aware of the stuff I can see that he can't (he's one of the roughly one percent of folks with his condition who have ocular and mandibular complications, meaning he's functionally blind and very difficult to understand). The huge crane hanging over that office building, the 8-year-old kid with the "Sarcasm Is A Free Service" shirt, the girl with the slutty tattoo , The Mark of the Skank, peeping from beneath her T-shirt. Describing this to him makes it more real. Plus, Terry says surprisingly illuminating things, like when Tim was commenting on the abundance of cute young girls at the show, he remarked, "Yeah, and they all smell like soap and lavender", which instantly made them all the more desirable to me. I guess the old cliche about smell compensating for sight has some validity, or else Terry was going around sniffing people, which is entirely possible. Just because he's a blind spastic doesn't necessarily mean that he's a nice guy.

Rock music isn't dangerous any more. Guys with strollers were negotiating for balcony seating as we went in. It was odd to see people with 3G cellphones setting up the shot and acting like National Geographic photographers.

I felt old.

Moral Majority Membership Now At Zero

"The idea that religion and politics don't mix was invented by the Devil to keep Christians from running their own country."

"AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals; it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals."

"There is no separation of church and state. Modern US Supreme Courts have raped the Constitution and raped the Christian faith and raped the churches by misinterpreting what the Founders had in mind in the First Amendment to the Constitution."

"I do not believe the homosexual community deserves minority status. One's misbehavior does not qualify him or her for minority status. Blacks, Hispanics, women, etc., are God-ordained minorities who do indeed deserve minority status."

"The Jews are returning to their land of unbelief. They are spiritually blind and desperately in need of their Messiah and Savior."

" If you're not a born-again Christian, you're a failure as a human being."

For more of these priceless gems of timeless wisdom, see Positive Atheism's big scary list of Jerry Falwell quotations.

Falwell also said on CNN a few years ago that he was confident he would see Jesus return in his lifetime. How'd that one work out for you, you smug stupid fuck?

Rot in hell, Jerry! Garcia and Falwell, for that matter.

Pat'll be joining you there before too long. And Dobson's getting up there, too, though one would think that being so vituperatively bilious can't be very heart-healthy. Maybe once those two shuffle off to eternal damnation, comparatively sane people will take over. Like Rick Warren, who looks he should be holding a festive cocktail on a veranda somewhere while hosting an infomercial; or Joel Osteen, who's every bit as creepy-looking as Pat Robertson but who sounds more like Tony Robbins.

One down, two to go.

Chappy, The Game Was Called Zork

...but it wasn't the first one, it was several generations of Zork down the line.

I've got my guy up to level 8 in LOTRO, but... did everyone playing this game decide to by an elf hunter (I mean, an elf who is a hunter, not one who hunts elves)? Or is it just the server I'm on?

God, I'm such a fucking dork.

But I hafta admit the game is getting more fun. I'm just now starting to grasp the crafting system and the game economy. Actually made a "friend", in that I helped him finish a quest and then he helped me finish one and we added each other to the "friend page" thingy. We went goblin hunting, and since he was also an elf hunter (I'm really uncomfortable with the slipperiness of that terminology, and wish "hunter elf" were used in its stead. See single-sentence paragraph, above.), we could set a couple of traps and then fill the trapped goblins with arrows. And if one broke through, one of us would engage it and the other could keep firing arrows. It worked pretty well. Until there were five goblins, and we were getting our asses kicked, and some sympathetic minstrel wandered by and healed me enough to finish the fight. And it doesn't seem like any of the healing potions work in combat, which is fucking stupid. Or maybe I just haven't figured out what the right equippable item is that heals in combat.

And my character is wearing a silly-looking hat, but I can't seem to find a better replacement. I chose "explorer" as my professional, only to read later that I've essentially doomed my guy to the life of a serf, harvesting resources for others to profit from.

But monster play kicks in at level 10...

So there's that...

In Which We Are Bored By Virtual Worlds

I played Ultima Online for like a minnit back in the day. It was more frustrating than fun. I futzed around with Active Worlds, too. No joy there. That's the summation of my experience with "virtual worlds" or MMORPGs.

But I've just gotten the Internet access back on at Mom's house, and with a shiny new computer and a cable modem (plus an old crazy lady to take care of, which requires, it seems, a specific form of focused inattention) I figured the time was ripe to try another online game. Oops, I mean "virtual world". Cuz an "online game" would be something like Counterstrike or Halo, you know, something fun, whereas a virtual world implies that I have a persistent identity in a staged milieu, you know, like life would be if God were a game designer.*

I knew I didn't want to play WoW, because everyone I know who plays WoW is WAY too into it, so I considered EVEOnline. I'd heard it described as "a spreadsheet simulator...in space" and that sounded rather appealing, actually, because I am a dork.

Then Lord of the Rings Online caught my attention. I'd read Tolkien as a kid, and just as I'd tossed aside my Big Wheel for a real bike I'd tossed aside Tolkien for "real literature". (C'mon fanboys, hate on that. Tolkien took 200 pages and entire geneologies to invoke a sense of wonder, Borges can do it in a paragraph. Who's the better writer? Oh, that's right...Tolkien fans don't read outside the canon.) But I have fond memories of the books, and I liked Peter Jackson's films, and I figured the Middle Earth mythos might weed out a certain percentage of the usual numbskulls (this logic is akin to thinking that the best place to pick up smart girls is at Star Trek conventions -- I think the women at Star Trek conventions probably ARE significantly smarter than their barfly peers, but...there are trade-offs involved).

So I gave LOTRO a spin. Logged on to a newbie server, made (heh...I almost said "rolled up"...I am so old...)an elf hunter, Fithion of Mirkwood.

The server was filled with elf hunters. Elves, at least. OK, that's cool, let's just scope stuff out. I'll reroll a hobbit burglar later, because that's what I really wanted to play, but I figured everyone else would want to play that as well, so I defaulted to elf hunter. So did everyone else. The game begins and NPCs are yellin' at me to do stuff. Huh? I don't even know the controls yet! I'm a console guy -- WASD doesn't come naturally. Plus, having not RTFM, I don't know how to communicate with other players. Where's that window? How do I...oh, I see. Gosh, this is pretty. Ooh a goblin! What's "attack"? Hm. I'm "incapacitated". I respawn. I have a bow. Let's click the red thing with an arrow in it and see what that does. Cool. I have little trouble dispatching the onrushing goblin pincushion with my "Dull Knife". But I still haven't mastered the controls. It doesn't feel right. I wade through a few more goblins. Some dude, elf or human, can't really tell, helps me out when I'm suddenly jumped by a lynx. Thx, I type, or thought I did, when the map comes up. Dammit. The guy stands there for a second, obviously communicating with me in some window I haven't found yet. I really need to RTFM. I find the NPC with the glowing ring over his head, like a perpendicular halo. Hey! I leveled up!

I could go on, but basically I ran around for an hour or so killing lynxes, looting my kills, and practicing basic combat skillz. I see that I reheal over time but my equipment damage is cumulative. I think anything that accumulates damage should have a meter I can see, but maybe I just don't grasp the interface yet. Again, RTFM. I get a quest to bring back lynx pelts. Covered, I think, then realize my inventory consists of lynx PAWS, not lynx PELTS.

Overwhelmed by the semantic distinction and its implications, I log out.

I have Much To Learn. But do I want to learn it? What do I get out of my investment of time and energy (not to mention $$$)?

Here's what I'll do. I'll play the game long enough to master the controls, I'll RTFM, and I'll make an effort to do something besides solo. I may go surf right now and see what I can learn. But initial impressions are not positive.

I mean, I love the idea. I spend half my time online reading about the construction and analysis of virtual worlds, because I do believe that this is a technology in its infancy and we've not yet reached our Buster Keaton, much less our Orson Welles, to push the film analogy until it breaks. But between idea and execution lies...an uncanny valley.

Mama We're All Krazee Now

American culture is schizoid.

We spend billions on porn and preach abstinence in schools. We have draconian drug laws and we consume more drugs than any other country. We "demand educational excellence" and then practice social promotion. We teach our children not to lie or to steal...until they get to business school. We uphold "family values", but we have the highest rate of single mothers in poverty in the developed world. We talk about "freedom" and we lock up more people per capita than anyone on the planet. Beer ads urge us to drink their products...in moderation. But not behind the wheel of that car designed to do 130 mph, 'cause the speed limit is 65. The "Partnership for a Drug-Free America" PSA is sandwiched between adds for Zoloft and Cialis.

All this sprang to mind after I read this. The state of Alabama, Big Brass Buckle of the Bible Belt, in the form of the House Education Policy Committee (their motto: "Keep 'em dumb and fulla cum!") is considering a proposal for "Christian Heritage Week" in our schools.

Feel that icy shiver down your spine?

XBollixed

The gaming press is awash in stories about the Xbox 360's unreliability. Huh, thought I. Mine works fine.

Well, it did until yesterday.

The Red Ring of Death. Three flashing red lights, in a pattern the woefully incomplete manual does not mention.

I call Microsoft Xbox 360 Customer Support. This, I think, will take all day and make for a bleakly funny blog post.

At first it seems my instinct is right. "Max" answers, a creepy electronic voice that oozes the same sort of false bonhomie as the robots at the beginning of "Westworld". Max uses hip, slangy words and phrases like "Gotcha!" and "Great!" and "No problem!". Max soothes me with the promise of help (after regretting to tell me that due to call volume help may be delayed)and offers a list of possible things I can say to make Max keep talking to me. Suddenly it seems very important to keep Max talking to me, as I have now invested a good eight minutes of my life listening to him. I say, "three flashing red lights!", one of the phrases Max has suggested.

"Gotcha!" sez Max. "I can help you with that!" Hooray!

Max walks me through the process. Patiently. Gently. He guides me step by step. Unplug power supply, decouple hard drive, replug power supply, boot, check power supply light, look at console and there should be a pleasing green glow. Turn off, unplug, recouple hard drive, replug, reboot.

Max wants me to succeed. I can hear it in his voice.

"Did this fix your problem?" Max asks.

Max, I have failed you. Three flashing red lights. Max is silent a moment. Thinking, perhaps, or mourning the loss of a brother machine. Max recommends I visit the website and check out document 90345667122345356832345^3. I sigh. Max has turned against me.

"If you would like to speak to an agent, say 'agent'," Max suggests, but now he sounds hesitant, like he doesn't really mean it. Max is giving me mixed signals, and it's creeping me out.

"Agent!" I say, and Max blips me over into telimbo, without so much as a goodbye, a simple humble acknowledgment of our time spent together. Robot asshole, I think.

But before I can even complete the thought there's an actual human being on the line. I marvel at a "hold" actually being a "hold" instead of an "interminable wait until you lose patience and hang up". Kudos, Microsoft, I think.

But before I can complete THAT thought, said human being, whom I can clearly hear breathing and rustling paper amidst the background chatter of the call center, disconnects me.

Click. Bzzzz. "If you'd like to make a call..."

I've worked in call centers. Dropping calls like that will get your ass fired. She should have just muted me and rode the call for three or four minutes before hanging up, or whatever length she needed to shave her talk time without looking like she's shorting calls (which is exactly what she's doing). That's what I would have done. I sigh and call Max back.

"Xbox console Xbox 360 three flashing red lights agent," I tell Max, who must be ashamed of how we last parted, as he is much less vocal this time.

After a similarly short hold, a real person smoothly and professionally gets my registration information and informs me that I have a hardware problem, my console is still under warranty, and they'll send me shipping materials to send it back to them prepaid via UPS.

Oh.

I don't even get to fight about this? I don't have to storm into Best Buy waving my extended service plan and demanding satisfaction? I can just...send it to you and you'll fix it?

OK.

I mean, I have a washing machine that I paid like $130 bucks for fourteen years ago and it runs like a top. It's a wet, spinning electrical appliance, for fuck's sake. You'd expect something to go wrong. Of course, when something DOES go wrong, I'll just buy a new one, since the new ones are probably more efficient and probably still don't cost much more than $200.

But a sleek $399 whangdoodley console, that gets used WAY less than our washing machine (OK, maybe not, but it's close), that's nothing more than an expensive paperweight unless you feed it $60 games, goes tits-up in less than a year. They damn well better make it work!

I don't have an end to this, because the story really isn't over yet - I've yet to receive the shipping materials, so we'll see how this all plays out.

Drunks Against Mad Mothers Gets New Member

Cincinnati cop & recipient of MADD award ticketing for DUI.

Heh.

Orson Whales

Inbred Anachronism Sez What?

The Queen of England is visiting Churchill Downs, and track employees have had to take an etiquette class so as to not offend Her Royal Pomposity.

Didn't we fight a revolution so we wouldn't have to kowtow to royalty?

Let your hair down, Liz. Limber up with a couple of mint juleps, play the ponies, and pretty soon you'll be out back of the paddock sparkin' one up with the stableboys and playing quarters for shotglasses of Pabst Blue Ribbon.

Farm Out!

So I'm clickety-clickin through MetaTalk, the snarky white underbelly of MetaFilter, and I see a call-out for awesomeness, which leads me to a great response on Ask MetaFilter to a question I didn't know I cared about: farm history.

Now that, friends, is what the Internet is good for (and at).

I can't wait for the third installment.

Where Are The NHL Playoffs?

The Buffalo Sabres are locked in an epic playoff battle with the New York Rangers. The Rangers roared back after a thrilling double-overtime win to even the series at 2-2.

At least that's what I've read online. I guess I should be able to find clips of the game with a little googling, but why haven't the playoffs been televised? (At least, anywhere besides some channel in the cable high-number ghetto that isn't included in basic cable?)

I'd really like to be watching the grizzled vets Brendan Shanahan and Jaromir Jagr, together for the first time on a playoff team after a combined 322 playoff games, facing the young, hard-skating, high-scoring Sabres, led by Daniel Briere and Thomas Vanek.

Go Sluggalos!

I hope the Stanley Cup will be on TV, at least.

CBGB's Last Song

Robert Quine Lester Bangs. Peter Laughner. Johnny Thunders. Stiv Bators, Joe Fuckin' Strummer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2jhOoJMrZQ&NR=1

"Thirty-three years, that's the same age as Jesus."

You Light Up My Life

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Agl4IvNnQPo

Oh my God.

Your Alabama Tax $$$ At Work

Did you know that if you are a resident of the state of Alabama you can sign up at your local library for access to the Alabama Virtual Library? It's free, and you get access to the online Oxford English Dictionary!

There's also a bunch of databases I haven't nosed around in yet. Much of the site is meant for kids doing research papers, but it's worth a trip to the library for free access to the OED, the second greatest accomplishment in the English language after the King James Bible (suck it, Shakespeare!). That's a savings of $295 per year!

Do other states offer this? I mean, the OE-fuckin-D. How cool is that?

My Wireless "Broadband" Sucks

This is like dial-up, only three times more expensive. Any time I send data from a form like blogger or Metafilter, the connection resets.

Why can't I have nice things?

Earl Greyhound Rocks The Nick

OK, so it's been a few days since the Earl Greyhound show, but I needed time to staunch the bleeding from my ears and to properly assimilate their CD, Soft Targets, before revealing to the world that I have found the Keepers of the Rawk and they are a skinny guy from Brooklyn, a bass player who taught your kids phonics, and a drummer with the biggest bass drum I've ever seen on stage at The Nick, with the chops to match.

Call them retro, call them Zepplinesque, make comparisons to the Black Keys, whatever. These guys were loud, proud, and unbowed. They TORE UP a mostly empty room but the squall stayed focused. The outlines of the song were never far away and like the best blues Earl Greyhound used repetition and variation as a motif, not an excuse for jam-band wankery.

They fucking rocked.

Go see them, and go buy their record.

(They were actually the opening band for Rose Hill Drive, of whom I can honestly say I heard the first two songs and then I left.)

An Overdue Eulogy

One of the myriad of reasons I abruptly stopped blogging last November was the death of my friend, Marty. He died the day before Thanksgiving. He was 39. He overdosed on heroin. He was one of my best friends. You know, you have your "friends" and then your "Friends", and then you have the people that you know have your back and will take a bullet for you. That was Marty. We met many years ago through mutual friends, and our initial attraction was LSD, Captain Beefheart, and hardcore punk. Once we met, we never lost contact. I talked to Marty at least once a month, every month, for fifteen years. When I was unemployed, he hired me on as a plumber's apprentice and kept my bills paid. When he was innit wif Mr. Shizznit, I paid his bail.

For most of the time I knew him, Marty never touched heroin. We smoked weed, maybe sniffed a little blow once and again, drank like fish, and chased wimmin. Marty was six-foot-three and maybe a charitable 350 pounds. He was a force of nature, and I miss him. I wrote this rambling sketch in the hours after I'd heard he passed on:

Fugazi @ Tuxedo Junction

let me piss up yr ass @ The Nick

Jonathan Richman is a goddamn carpetbagger @ Zydeco

"Fajita!"

"Viva Los Santos!" SCOTS @ the Nick

Almost starting a race riot in Montevallo

Destroying Dave's truck

"Friend, let me tell you about Jesus!" in Richard's alley

First let me get the cliches out of the way -- he was larger than life, he lived more in 40 years than most men do in 80, he had a big heart, a big soul, a big presence. I knew Marty for half my life. I never knew anyone like him.

To Marty: you stupid fuck, how dare you check out on your mom like this? She deserves better, and you loved her more than this.

Tattered flannel, overalls, a blown-out cowboy hat and shitkicker boots. A persona deliberately veering into caricature, a plea veiled with a shout. Marty embraced the world and all its weird wonder without fear or flinching because that's what good strong Southern men do -- we stand up and we take it on the chin and we keep swinging, not because it's right and proper and honorable or even smart or advisable but because it's all we can do, it's all we can hope for: our daddies gave us spines and hands and our mommas gave us hearts and minds and its our job to put it all together and shape ourselves and stand for something.

And Marty stood for something -- he was a nexus, a locus, he was a bridge between people. He brought together plumbers and artists, hippies and rednecks, losers, winners, and dreamers.

We all have our demons, and Marty had his share. Like many of us, Marty danced with his demons. We can learn this lesson -- we are not big enough to embrace the whole of the earth. We lack the requisite strength and grace to rise above the snares. But we can learn from his fall -- we can grow, we can change, we can learn from our history and embrace the past by confronting the future.

That doesn't do him justice. I have a story in me about Dave's truck, and that'll be fun to read. I just figured that the least I could do for someone who functioned his whole entire life on Navajo time (that's racist, I know, but I could have said "French time" except I figured the Navajo would be more understanding) would appreciate a eulogy published five months late.

Way To Go Loretta!

Loretta Nall's Kafkaesque nightmare with the Powers of Tallapoosa County is finally over, and for once the good guys won!

A Musical Day

Seeking beauty in my dreary life, today I visited that quaintest of emporia, the CD store. I bought a collection of Bach's solo violin works, a Mastodon record, and Charles Ives' 2nd & 4th symphonies.

I get home and there's a big fat care package from my pal Ace in Yonkers, a belated birthday present that contains CDs as diverse as Yo-Yo Ma playing Bach, the new Modest Mouse, Van Halen I ("Runnin' with the Devil"! rawk!), and some Beck I haven't yet heard; along with artsy ephemera that Noo Yawk intelligentsia must attract like magnets draw iron filings.

So a sonically happy day. Couple that with the fact that I have several good books lined up to read (including Guns, Germs, and Steel, which I've been meaning to get to for more than a year), I'm aurally and intellectually well-provisioned, so bring on the Apocalypse (we won't lose power, will we?).

Hello, World!

Hello?

I'm back.

Didja miss me?

I missed you, too.

I have lotsa stuff to talk about.

I'm gonna leave all the insane drunken posts I made last fall in place, just as sort of an object lesson for what NOT to do. A constant admonishment.

I'll try to more closely craft the longer posts, or at least edit the fuckers before displaying my ineptitude for all the world to see.

I'll start tagging posts, too, having finally seen the light. The tags, of course, will be whimsical and misleading, thereby rendering them useless.

I have (intermittently) reliable Internet access now, which is a delight, having had none for many months. So expect more bilious idiocy to drop at any moment.

You're on notice, Internets.

Proof Joe Theismann Is An Idiot

During the Monday Night game, Raiders QB Andrew Walters tossed a long bomb to Randy Moss, who was double-covered some 40 yards downfield. Moss grabbed the ball away from the cornerback, but a punishing hit by the crossing safety separated him from the ball, and almost separated his head from his shoulders.

Opined Theismann, "They should do that more often. If you throw that ball to Randy Moss five times, he's going to come down with it twice. The percentages are in his favor."

Two out of five is forty percent, you dumbass.

NB: prior post edited to remove material offensive to some readers. You know who you are. Blake.

Yummy Booze!

If you pour a shot of Bushmill's Irish whiskey into an Imperial pint glass of hard cider, you come up with an enticing combo.

Tag Cloud Of State Of The Union Speeches

Cool! Click the link, requires Flash.

I Believe Weird Shit

I believe that we would be able to manage the oceans better if we learned to talk to dophins (and porpoises, of course). Then we could have seafood for centuries, not just the next fifty years.

I believe that the deliberate hunting and killing of humans by elephants says something profoundly distubing about our place in the world.

I believe that many animals are tasty. No, I KNOW that.

I belive that when otters can blog, that'll be something to see.

What Libertarianism Lacks

I know, I know, most everyone who's ever read my blog thinks I'm an anarcho-syndicalist. And I will vote for Loretta Nall, the Liberetarian candidate, for governor when I vote Tuesday.

I will vote for her because not only is she the best candidate for the job, but also she represents the only party actually concerned with the real issues facing real people. She talks about prison reform, and education, and ending the senseless prosecution of marijuana smokers. She has real ideas about how to fit this shit together. She has an actual VISION of what the future could be like, if we'd just vote her in.

But there are no Libertarian candidates running in any other race I'm voting on on Tuesday. Aty least, I don't think there are. You'd think that my interest in Ms. Nall's candidacy (and look, y'all, Bob Riley isn't really all that bad compared to what we have faced in the past) would have sparked some sort of comminique from some Alabama Libertarian flunkie somewhere. You'd think they would at least see the sense in ACTING like a normal political party during election season.

That's not me pleading for attention (READ MY BLOG, BITCHES.). That's me observing that having staffers that sat down and did frequent search-engine sweeps and responded appropriately could possibly grow the fucking party from irrelevance to, uh...relevance.

Loretta is screaming into the void.

She's right, she's absofuckintively right about a preponderence of issues, and I sense that she's actually willing to listen to reasoned discussion about the balance of the issues. What a radical concept. Common sense.

But I can't vote for common sense, I can only vote for a Democrat.

I Love The New York Times

And one of my reasons is images like this.

It presents a beautiful ambiguity, but it clearly illustraters the slug: "Leaders of 48 of the 53 African countries are to arrive in Beijing this weekend for a huge diplomatic event, the China-Africa forum."

That's great photography.

Alabama Family Values

Click the link, bring a puke bucket.

Tehran's Having A TV Party Tonight

I wonder if the powers-that-be felt a certain sickening sense of cultural deja vu when they read this in a recent Wall Street Journal. A priveleged elite whose wealth insulates them from an intrusive theocracy that same wealth supports. Hmm.

Don't talk about politics, we don't wanna know
we're dedicated to our favorite show!

Points to anyone under 25 who gets the Black Flag reference.

Ooohh. Blogger Beta

Google sez they wanna plant a chip in my hed.

Paranoid Leftist Rant: We're Doomed

OK, here's what's gonna happen in my nightmares. Obama and Clinton run in 2008. McCain is unmanned by GOP backbiting and the lingering miasma of Bush and the Dems are swept into office, Hil as POTUS and Barack as VPOTUS.

Out come the snipers.

A woman and a black guy -- who gets shot first?

It has to be Clinton, thus eerily fulfilling the whole go from the Senate to the Presidency and get whacked thing (Kennedy, Harding, Garfield..). But once the first female President is gunned down, it's only logical to go after the veep, now the first non-white guy to hold the office. Horrors!

And so the already overrepresented rural frothy white guys who comprise an exceedingly miniscule proportion of the population compared to their inordinate power will get their way again and make the world safe for more of the same: environmental devastation, corporate collusion in government overreach, the whole military-industrial-complex nightmare that Mr. Repulican himself, DDE, warned us about.

It's globalization. The good guys can't win. The invisible hand is around our collective throats. No matter how good our policy, no matter how clever its implemetation, we'll still be trumped by the abyss of global inequity, and no matter how many dollars or people or Segways we toss into its maw, it will never be sated. The hunger will always exceed the banquet.

Because we are human, and we are hunters, and it is never enough.

And so we are doomed.

That is my nightmare. Please tell me I'm wrong.

Where've I Been The Past Month?

Oh, nowhere really. Here. At Mom's. Waiting in line at Wal-Mart to buy waxy apples and AAA batteries. Everywhere but the Internet.

Tonight, it seems, the 'Net gods smile. I am amazed, and unprepared.

And I have nothing to say.

Drunkem Ranting

At what point in the generational transition from Da Greatest to Da Leastest did the values of the Enlightenment get thrown out the fucking window? Why isn't there rioting in the streets over the Decider publically advocating torture with a wink and a nod? For that matter, why haven't investment banks and hedge funds been burned to the ground over the wanton mismanagement of middle-class American pensions, not to mention the failure of the minimum wage to keep up with the cost of living? Why hasn't ANYONE who means ANYTHING said, "You know, we could fight the War on Terror more effectively if we stopped throwing money at stupid shit, like the War on Drugs, and that would also give us a big PR bonus, since we wouldn't have to use seatbelt laws as a pretext to search vehicles and waste our patrolmens' time when they could be out tracking down real criminals. And we could, like, train them to distinguish Sikhs from bomb-throwing Islamofascists. And stuff."

I can't really blame Hugo Chavez for seizing the opportunity to get his anti-Bush freak on. If you handed me a microphone in a room full of world potentates, I'm sure I'd say something even more offensive. The demonification of Bush is perfectly pitched to strike right at the hearts of fuzzy-headed American liberals, who see Chavez's promise of "low-cost" gas to "poor" Americans as a gesture of solidarity with some cruddy 1930s suspender-sportin' "working man" instead of the crude political calculus that it is. Whussup w/ Danny Glover, anyway?

See, Venezuela and Iran HAVE petroleum reserves. In spades. We use WAY more than our share of oil. It is the economic underpinning of our economy. Venezuela has GI-FUCKING-NORMOUS petroleum deposits. The catch is that it's really, really hard to get to, and the capital investment of actually tapping that vast (and submarine) resource is so high that only a few select players can sit at the table. Venezuela's made sure that US oil companies won't be sitting in on that meeting. In the age of the "global economy" (police state, I'm just sayin') that rules out a lotta players. So who's left? A bunch of people who were hoo-hawing and high-fiving when Chavez made the "it still stinks of sulfur" comment. (And combining that rhetoric with the very humble traditional crossing-of-oneself-while-miming-kissing-a-rosary -- brilliant. Millions of otherwise noncomittal Catholics just started admiring your "spunk".) Too bad you shut down all the opposition newspapers and radio stations, Mr. Chavez, it would've played well.

My father and my uncle Bill actually went to Venezuela before the Chavez regime to look into some sort of hazily-described "mining venture". That's when I knew the Venezuelan government would fall to a populist socialist. My dad's idea of making money was simple and stubborn: save, save, save, buy some land, rent, rent, rent, save, save, save, sell, pleaseJesus, sell, profit. It worked. My uncle Bill, who was halfway between my father and uncle Palmer on the Family Integrity Black Sheep Scale, had a somewhat slipperier concept. He'd take a flyer, now and then. (Palmer, just to flesh the story out, once bought a decrepit hotel in the middle of downtown for ONE DOLLAR at a city auction, went in and strpiied out all the AC units, copper and hardware, sold his loot to the junkyard, and then turned around and resold the property at a necessarily hefty profit.) The point, I guess, is that if the least scammed guy in a family of scammers from MOODY, ALA-FUCKIN'-BAMA can get interested in a Venezuelan profiteering scheme, then where's the hope for us all.

OK, that was a totally bogus conclusion.

I guess my point is, bravo, Sr. Chavez, for successfully shaking your fist and encouraging your fair-weather friend in Iran to spout equally eyebrow-raising invective. I look forward to your economic policy meeting with the Iranian officials. You'll find it a whole lot more amenable right here in the US. Why? Because that's how capitalism works, bubbe, we don't hafta like you, but all the money is green.

Until China goes all-in, and then we're fucked.

Debra Lafave Should Totally Do Porno

OK, it's really old, but I've been outta Net for a few.

In the past couple of days (editor: weeks), male viewers of cable news networks echoed this sentiment: "I would hit it."

"It" being Debra Lafave, the stunningly gorgeous "child predator" and "deviant" who just waltzed out of her trial with no jail time. Perhaps the fact that she's a green-eyed blonde with beestung lips and a body that don't stop had something to do with it. Perhaps it was having savvy attorneys who knew that any jury containing at least one heterosexual male with at least 20/30 vision wouldn't convict her of murder if she were found bloody and laughing atop a pile of fresh corpses.

Pretty girls get what they want. That's the lesson this teacher taught her class, at least the ones who weren't selected for private tutoring. And that student, I'm guessing, isn't going to be scarred for life by the whole horrible trauma of sex with a beautiful, willing woman. Girls have to learn not to have sex with every boy who wants it. This is a much, much harder lesson than what boys learn: have sex with every girl who'll let you.

For a man, taking advantage of a 14-year-old girl is a selfish abuse of power that rises to the level of serious criminal deviance. For a woman, taking advantage of a 14-year-old boy is simply a selfish abuse of power. It may or may not be truly criminally deviant. Yeah, this is a double standard. Well, welcome to the real world, hippy.

And that's why, in this case, the system worked. A jury of her peers recognized that there was essentially NO VICTIM in this case, and they decided appropriately.

"But a haggard witchy 50-year-old with halitosis and dandruff and unspeakable personal hygiene wouldv'e been sent down for 25 years!"

That's because life is better if you are young and beautiful.

Why The Hell Not

OK, I Laughed

The truth hurts.

Holy Fuck, MORMONS!!!!

So I'm googling about, and I read the excellent MeFi pot thread, and I thinks to myself, Self, I thinks, I wonder if my marijuana-related misdeeds are recorded somewhere in teh dim dank bowels of teh intarweb>? I type my last name and the word "marijuana" into Google. And I stumble acorss an intricately detailed, exhaustively documented, painstakingly researched family history.

Of Mormons.

WTF?

Then I think, well, there must be plenty more folks sharing my patronym back in the old country. So it makes semse that some of us went West instead of South and ended up in a different perverse subculture. Still, it makes me wonder. Is my whole family's geneology on file somewhere in a vast warehouse in Salt Lake City?

So I google further and I find that yes, my whole family's geneology IS, in fact, online in a vast warehouse in Salt Lake City.

Jesus fuck.

I'm related to Mormons.

I'm not sure how I should feel about this. I mean, most of the Mormons I know are cool, not that I know many, 'cause they generally get eaten in these parts, at least as appetizers, if not as whole elaborate apple-in-mouth long-pig banquet dining features, like Unitarians.

It makes sense, though, because there is a very deep part of me that yearns for special underwear.

President Macklin, Part Three

"So, sir," Frank began. "This is...unusual, and I..."

"Here's the deal, Frank." Macklin leaned forward on his elbows and watched Frank roll the joint. "My wife is a drunk, my Presidency is a wreck, the nation's foundering in debt, much of the world hates us, and I've had enough."

Frank licked the doobie and produced a lighter. "OK. So what else is new?"

"That's why I keep you around." Macklin sighed. "No, Frank, I'm really going to do something about it. I'm holding a press conference. Not tomorrow, I'll be hung-over and the speech isn't ready. But Friday. I want your help writing this speech."

Frank looked doubtful. "Friday. Not good. The press will shred us on the weekend chat shows."

"See? That's just what I'm sick of. All this posturing, all this jockeying for position, this trasparent manipulative fakery..." Macklin realized his voice was rising and he was flapping his hands. He reached for the proffered joint, hit it, and immediately doubled over coughing, almost knocking himself out on the edge of his desk.

"Easy, sir. Can I bring you some water?"

"Stop...with the sir....or I start calling you...'Smithers'," Macklin gasped, his eyes streaming. "Jesus Christ -- pot really is stronger now than it used to be. I thought that was just ONDCP bullshit. Where'd you...no, never mind." He took a fortifying slug from the decanter and the burn worked magic on his raw throat. "Ahhhhhh. Here, Frank, have a drink."

"Do you have an ashtray?"

"Use the floor."

Frank pursed his lips and cast about for a piece of paper. As Macklin watched, absorbed, Frank folded the paper into an origami ashtray.

"That's the most useless skill I've ever seen demonstrated."

"It's useful right now, isn't it? I studied math in college and got into origami for a few months."

"It's an ashtray made of paper. That's like building a dam out of Jell-O."

"Or maybe like a taco salad? Hmm?"

"Only if you smoke it...wait, let's get back to the speech."

"Is this going to be like that guy in 'Network'? Do you plan to publically implode and take all of our careers with you?"

Macklin fixed Frank with the hairy eyeball. "I'm not a gravy train, Frank. And most of 'us' are guns-for-hire, anyway."

"I've always dreamed of a career in food service."

"Oh, fuck you. You'll have a think-tank gig within weeks. This is about principles."

"So this IS going to destroy my career."

Macklin paused and inhaled more gently. This hit stayed down. He exhaled and took a deep breath. "Yes, Frank, it might."

Frank took back the joint and leaned back in the chair, arms crossed. "OK, convince me this is worth it."

W00t!

How 'bout them Falcons?

And major kudos to Troy University (which I still think of as Troy State) for scaring the hell out of Florida State on Saturday.

Seems some prescient blogger was just writing about that very scenario....hmmm.....

Drug War Ads Counterproductive, GAO Says

Perhaps having the ads sandwiched between ads for Paxil and Cialis has something to do with it. Just Say No to cognitive dissonance.

Sportin' Life

Hindsight being what it is, I'm regretting missing out on last weekend's Tennesse-Montana State-Florida State parlay, the proceeds of which probably could finance a private Caribbean isle. I wish I could remember which stuffed shirt opined on ESPN last week that he expected no upsets on opening weekend so I could point a virtual finger and snicker in his direction. SEC teams win at home against the PAC-10, period.

Sportswriters are among the lowest of the low, down there with international arms dealers and Gary Glitter. But one of my favorite parts of the almost-upon-us NFL season is Gregg Easterbrook's TMQ column. I think I've mentioned it here before, but I felt the need to plug it again this season, despite the latest column's casual backhand slap to my state's (Troy University) Trojans and his indubitably crack-induced assessment of the Falcons (6-10? Bah.). His day job at The Brookings Institute leads to some interesting cross-pollination, and he is both refreshingly lucid in his football analysis and charmingly fanboy is his appreciation for pretty cheerleaders.

I second his motion for more TV time for NFL cheerleaders. They're down there on the sidelines all dolled-up and jumping around so people will look at them, no? The least we can do is oblige. Of course, that would mean we'd have to pay them more, and we all know that the only women in the country allowed to profit from professional football are players' wives and Suzy Kolber.

In this week's column, Easterbrook complains, "...football-factory big-college football ... can choose many opponents, and increasingly choose cupcakes with cherries on top." He points to West Virginia, and looking at their schedule it's hard to argue with him. But I'll offer a counterpoint -- some of those cupcakes may turn into real competitors down the road. UAB, a cupcake squad if there ever was one, fought Oklahoma to a standstill for three and a half quarters last weekend in front of the largest crowd in Oklahoma football history. They lost, because of some guy named Adrian Peterson who'll probably win some trophy called the Heisman, but they made a LOT of people go, "UAB? Huh?" And tiny Troy gets to go on the road for a three-game slog through Florida State, Georgia Tech, and Nebraska -- that's some serious seasoning for Troy's players, and some serious money for a small school. This cherry-picking process can make small programs more competitive and show the nation players that might otherwise get overlooked, like UAB QB Sam Hunt, who came into the game fighting for a starting role and left as the undisputed team leader. So while I have a problem with the big schools being able to schedule ringers, it seems inevitable that if this continues some of these ringers are going to get up off the canvas and start punching back.

Speaking of punching, another ESPN Page Two column caught my eye. Replete with references to Fight Club and hot pants, Mary Buckheit's column is all atwitter over the UFC. She gushes, "Our generation is embracing a new breed of bout .... It's not hype or press conferences or fluff that gives birth to thousands of UFC fans. It's the reality of the whole thing. It's the hard-hitting mix of punching and grappling. It's the blunt competition and simplicity of a one-on-one fight. It's the brutal honesty of a fist, and the frank candor of a knockout. It's something we can wrap our minds around. Finally."

I look forward to her coverage of muay thai. Manly!

President Macklin, Part Two (Fiction)

(This story is continuing only because Dave Miller was kind enough to express some interest. This is for you, Dave!)


The President was staring woozily at his speech's working title, "Fuck This Shit, Solve Your Own Goddamn Problems: An Act of Political Suicide" when he heard the beep from his desk.

"Do you have the weed, Frank?"

"May I see you in your office, sir?"

"Unless I've cunningly concealed myself beneath the desk, you may. C'mon in."

Macklin set the speech aside and went to straighten his tie, then remembered that he no longer gave a damn. Frank came through the door with a stack of files and plopped them into the overstuffed chair by the Oval Office door. One of Macklin's predecessors had gotten his knob slobbed in that chair, rumor had it. Macklin had never even sat in. He used it as a staging area for paperwork.

Frank was a tall, sandy-haired man with pretentious little spectacles that he wore on the end of his nose, making him look much older than he was. Macklin liked him. Frank had worked for him since Macklin was a rookie representative. It was Frank who'd taught him the ropes. Good assistants are to politicians like good caddies are to golfers, he thought, not for the first time.

Frank pulled a baggie out of his chinos and placed it on the desk. "Here you are, sir. I don't want to know."

"What's there to know? I haven't smoked pot since high school, ok, maybe since college. I just needed the stress relief, you know?"

"Sir, are you intoxicated?"

"No, Frank, I'm drunk. Knee-walkin', bitch-slappin', piss-yourself drunk. And I'm about to be high, too. Did you bring some papers?"

"I..." Frank sighed. "Let me run to my car."

"Good man, Frank. Prepared. Were you a Boy Scout?"

Frank turned at the door and made a face. "They don't like 'my kind' in the Boy Scouts."

"Scout leaders only bugger the straight ones, huh?"

Frank opened his mouth, shut it again. "I'll be right back. Shall I send the non-essential staff home?"

"Jesus Christ, there are still people here? Yes, yes, send them off. It's a special night, Frank."

Macklin turned to the rapidly depleting decanter and thought better of another swallow. He didn't want to pass out, just get good and wasted to work up the courage for what needed to be done. He stoppered the bottle and replaced it on the sideboard, then thought better of it and put it back on his desk. Frank might want some, and Frank was essential to the plan. Hell, once Frank heard the plan, Frank would NEED a drink.

He wrote a few more lines of the speech, then reread what he had written. It was no Gettysburg Address, but so far so good. It was quiet in his office. Depressingly so. A powerful man alone with his thoughts in this quiet office might begin to think very strange things. Macklin shook his head.

"Man, am I trashed. Need some music." In one of her few thoughtful acts, Ol' Sparky had bought him one of those whizzy Bose CD player thingies a few years ago. It was on a shelf, buried beneath stacks of position papers and spreadsheets. He dug it out and was trying to figure out how to work it when Frank returned.

"Make this play music." He stabbed fruitlessly at the little white buttons on the CD player thingie.

"Sir, let me." Frank interceded and soon the office was filled with a honey-voiced tenor singing Schubert.

"That's gay. Sorry, Frank. Got any good CDs?"

"Do you like metal?"

"I like old metal, like Sabbath and Priest and Metallica. I don't like that Cookie Monster stuff."

"I've got just the thing. It's in my desk."

President Macklin wondered briefly about his gay metalhead assistant. He'd known Frank for twelve years, almost as long as he'd known Ol' Sparky, and he'd never known the guy liked heavy music. Live and learn, die and forget it all.

Frank came back with a stack of CDs. "Pick one."

"Are you running a radio station out of your desk? Christ, Frank. Let's see what we have. Marilyn Manson. That's so yesterday. Candiria. Never heard of them. Dillenger Escape Plan. Great name. What do they sound like?"

"A garbage truck running over a pack of dogs. Repeatedly. Very growly."

"OK, maybe later. Aha! Put this in. I like this."

A moment later the opening strains of Megadeth's "Peace Sells, But Who's Buying?" shook the office. Macklin turned it down a bit, picked up the rolling papers Frank had left on the desk. "How do you roll a joint?"

Frank cracked his knuckles. "Shall I do the honors?"

"Be my guest."

(Be sure to tune in for next week's episode, wherein the plot actually advances and we get to the point of the whole thing! Yay!)

Can Bush Google?

Evidently not. Because the answer to the Iran problem is right under our noses.
The idea of a thorium-based nuclear reactor is anything but new -- the idea has been around since the dawn of the Atomic Age. But recent engineering innovations and better mining equipment and techniques make this alternative to a plutonium and uranium reactor cost-effective. Looking more closely, it's also a little accounting legerdemain factored in: the half-life of thorium is only 500 years (compared to 10,000 for some nuclear waste), and it is much less radioactive than uranium waste to begin with, so a significant savings comes when disposal costs are factored in. Plus, where is all this thorium? Turns out that most of it seems to be found in Australia, India, Norway, Canada, and right here at home.

So here we have a safer nuclear technology built on US (and Indian) patents and reliant on raw materials we and our allies produce. Why not offer this to Iran? They can't build missiles out of thorium, they won't have any excuse to stockpile uranium, and they'll have reliable nuclear power of a form that makes economic and environmental sense. Plus, the spent material from a thorium reactor is unsuitable for building nuclear weapons. Ta-da. Apocalypse averted.

I Neglect My Blog

Here's the start of a story. Know me now before The New Yorker makes me famous.

President Hugh C. Macklin closed his eyes, leaned back in his chair, and contemplated political suicide. It felt good. He opened one eye long enough to glance at the clock. If he made the call now, he could be the lead story on the evening news.

"That's the night that the lights went out in Georgia," he sang aloud to the empty Oval Office. "That's the night that they hung an innocent man."

There was a pack of Pall Mall filters in his desk drawer. Macklin toyed with the idea of lighting one, put it aside. His desk bleeped.

"Go ahead," he said automatically, wincing at the interruption.

"Sir?"

Macklin sighed. "No, Frank, this is Elvis. What?"

"Line three -- it's Mrs. Macklin."

"Thank you, Frank. Put Ol' Sparky through." No time like the present. When opportunity knocks, and all that. He opened his desk drawer and pawed for the pack of smokes. His desk made a blippety sound and then the voice of his wife blared forth.

"Honey, I'm in Baton Rouge at that thing with those people and I don't think I'll be back in town tonight because the weather's really bad and there's this reception that you KNOW will drag on forever and Curtis and and Nisha think it'd be easier to go directly from here to LA rather than having to fly back home and then leave again in the morning."

Macklin heard in the background a sussurus of conversation and the clink of glasses, then the unmistakeable "pop" that comes only from an inexperienced person opening a bottle of champagne. She was in a restaurant. No, that was being naively charitable. She was in a bar. Baton Rouge is to bars like houses are to termites. He lit the Pall Mall and gratefully sucked down its calming, cancerous smoke.

"Okay. Be safe, and call me when you leave for LA," he said, then realized he'd chickened out. "Oh, and honey? I want a divorce."

"Wh..." He hung up. There were no ashtrays in the Oval Office. He tapped the ash into his hand and wiped it on his suit pants. What the fuck. Step One complete. Step Two required further shoring-up. There was a cut crystal decanter half-full of some exotic decoction on the sideboard. Macklin hadn't touched it in in his two years in office, and he hoped it wasn't some sort of colored water. He opened it and sniffed. Ah. Some sort of brandy or cognac. Armagnac, maybe. He left the stopper on the sideboard and brought the decanter to his desk. When he hefted it to his lips, it rolled down his throat like hot honey. Delicious. A fire lit deep in his belly. He thumpoed the decanter to the desk and watched the amber liquid slosh through the crystal facets. He turned his attention back to his cigarette. The penultimate drag, he thought, exhaling, is always the best. People think it's the first drag, but it's not. It's that next-to-last drag.

He addressed the desk. "Frank?"

"Sir?"

"Find me some weed."

I'm sor..." He hung up again. Presidents could do that. Hang up on underlings. Issue orders. Start shit. He had the desk page his appointment secretary. She was away from her desk, so it took a message. Sometimes, even Presidents get voicemail. "Sue -- cancel all my appointments for the afternoon, even the one with whats-her-name from Australia. If they ask, tell them I'm drunk."

He took another slug from the decanter and smiled.

Zombies! And Spelling!

Zombie Letters from e-zombie.com


I'm spellin' with zombies!

Hooray Connectivity

Haven't been online in over a week and I'm jonesing like a junkie for a fix. I lap up some higher mathemetics at the Times, and zip over to MetFilter for a little netly nebbishness. Then to the wonderful Arts & Letters Daily where I find I can serendipitously indulge in that easiest and most satisfying of online endeavors, Coulter-bashing.

I love the Internet.

The Casual Violations Of Alzheimer's Disease

We're private people.

Except for me, braying my woes about teh Intarweb, my family has always favored discretion over disclosure. This seems to me a perfectly sensible policy and Dr. Phil can go fuck himself, because we all know that too much familial truth is perhaps more unbearable than not enough. Hell, I was a teenager before I discovered my paternal grandfather had sired seven kids and then hied his sorry ass to Texas. I was in my thirties before I knew my mother had had a brief (and, I'm sure, tempestuous and romantic) marriage to a French soldier at the outset of WWII, before she met the man who would father me and be her husband for 52 years. Neither of these facts are particularly relevant to anything other than filling out the parental backstory, so to speak, no matter how much psychologists would like to believe otherwise.

But now it's different. As I daily dig through layers of stuff that Mom has accumulated, I find the kind of personal reminders and notes-to-self that give me an insight on my mother that I never had before. For instance, my Mom has sorted, stacked and tied with string every Sierra Club newsletter she's recieved in the past five years.

Mom has never recycled a can in her life. We brought him an injured baby bird home once, but the cat ate it.

And not just the Sierra Club. The Wilderness Society, the Nature Conservancy, Give Guns To Pandas, you name it. I haven't asked her where this eco-consciousness is coming from, because I fear that the answer is she probably sent one or more of them money and now she's on their sucker list.

And other things. A drawing. A smiling cat sketched on the back of a white paper bag. Broad, sweeping strokes. Beneath the portrait is written "Suki!" in curly girlish letters, the spike of the exclamation point bouncing on a a squat fat heart. I don't know who drew it. Mom didn't remember. Who knows how long it had been there.

And this is the surface. I've just gotten out the whisk broom. Wait'll it's time for the shovels. And Mom feels this, I think, as a violation. An intrusion, a meddling in her affairs. She squawked about me cleaning off the kitchen table today.

But just on that table I saw the sad neglect that comes with a mind newly unraveling. This all happened so fast. Last Christmas she was in my kitchen with my mother-in-law, clucking over the sweet potatoes and telling me I'd put too much salt in the green beans.

Eight months later, she can't remember what she had for lunch five minutes ago and is agitated when I tell her I've already brought the mail in. You're sure? Did you check? I checked. You're sure? Really, I am.

This will only get worse.

I Love Lester Bangs, And I'd Like To Emulate Him, Except For The Dead Part

A reconsideration of the greatest essayist of our age.

Don't Push The Button

See, I told you not to push the button.

Also, Don't Shoot The Puppy.

We Must Defend Our Search Engines

Unbelievable.

I write heartfelt posts about life-changing family crises, and no one comments (hyperbole). I criticize ask.com and two snarks appear almost immediately. This is just like MetaFilter.

Teh Intraweb: Land'O'Perspecative.

I presume that I'm being pwned because ask.com actually has a picture of d if you query "d boon" and google does not. How nice for them. Irrelevant. The question wasn't "who is Mike Ness?", it was "how tall is Mike Ness?", a better test of the underlying search heuristics.

The second comment claims that google doesn'tr know who d is. I beg to differ, using the same damn screen.

Assholes. Posting anonymously, of course.

A Reason To Love Google

So we're driving home from Weezie's house (Who's Weezie? That, my friend, is privileged information.), and the question arises: how tall is Mike Ness? Rather, how SHORT is Mike Ness? We know he's no giant, because he refers to some height issues in the live Social Distortion CD that's spinning as we drive (referring to fights in the parking lot before shows, he sez something like "Well I was only four foot nine in tenth grade and I kicked the SHIT outta 'em!" thus exhibiting the classic Napoleonic traits of Short Man Syndrome). But how short is short?

And I've been watching this stupid reality show on NBC called "Treasure Hunters" (fuck a corplink) and in a heavy-handed example of product placement the contestants are always saying things like, "Let's try 'Ask.com'!"

I figure "how tall is Mike Ness?" would be a great test of their search algorith. So we get home, I fire up Ol' Sparky, and I type "how tall is mike ness" into ask.com's search box. I get this. No help.

I go to Google. I type "mike ness height" and I get this. Bam! I don't even need to click through. He's 5'7", surely a candidate for Short Man Syndrome. Theory confirmed. Elapsed search time: seconds.

Then I figure, well, that's not really fair to ask.com since I refined my search term before googling it. So just for shits and giggles, I try "mike ness height" at ask.com, resulting in this.

See why Google rules? That's just BETTER.

Driving Miss Crazy

So I've figured out what Mom likes to do: ride in the car.

As long as we're in motion, she's engaged. She reads the road signs, the bumper stickers, signage on shopping malls. Every few minutes she asks, "Where are we going?" and I tell her (lunch, the doctor, Sam's Club for toilet paper and cat food, Mars, Cambodia, it really doesn't seem to matter what I say). "Oh," she responds, "That sounds nice."

And for the duration of the drive she is happy.

So I've taken to going the long way 'round. Extending every drive to its maximum, even inventing destinations so we can drive more.

"Let's drive by the movie theater and see what's playing," I suggest.

"Oh! I've never seen a movie!" Mom beams in anticipation.

Hmm. I know for a fact that Dad and I went to see a Charlie Brown movie (the Great Pumpkin?) while Mom went to "A Clockwork Orange", but I say nothing. I also remember rapturous retellings of "Gone With The Wind" that she went to at the Alabama Theatre. I briefly reflect on the fact that the last movie I saw with my Mom was when she took me and a bunch of my friends to the Alabama Theatre to see the 1976 "King Kong" and Michael Rasberry bought Ju-ju-bees and Mom thought it was strange that the boy didn't buy chocolate and popcorn like a good right-thinking American. Now there's nothing at the suburban gargantu-plex that catches her eye, and there's not even anything I want to see. We were hoping for "A Prairie Home Companion" but it's nowhere near our end of town.

We drive away and do our shopping. Back at the house, Mom is irritable. "The heat! It got to me. I'm going to sit in front of the fan." I unload the TP and paper towels and sundries. I marvel again at the power of the warehouse store: 72 rolls of toilet paper, divided among three people, for only $15.00. That's 4.8 rolls per person, and how long would it take me to go through a whole roll? I was assigned one in jail, guarded it zealously, even slept on it, and still there was plenty left at the end of my thirty-day sentence. Of course, the whole shitting-in-public thing kinda weirded my bowels, but still.... So one roll for one persom for one month. That's a TWO-YEAR supply for our little threesome, for only $15.00!

Of course, I also bought a box of frozen White Castle cheeseburgers, a month's supply of Glucophage and Pravochol, enough paper towels to cover a sizeable portion of Alabama's navigable waterways, and an ant trap.

(I applaud the young woman at the pharmacy who gamefully volunteered to check us out and then demonstrated her competence with one of those cord-free barcode scanners. She was a real time-saver.)

"I have to go home. There's raw chicken in the trunk and it's 100 degrees out here."

"I don't want you to leave," Mom said.

"I know, but I'm getting all my shit packed to move back in with you, and the sooner I get that done, the sooner I'll be here," I say.

Mom smiles.

And that's really all I can ask for.

Best Mel Gibson Headline So Far

Excuse the bandwagon-jumping, but this made me giggle.

From Defamer.com: "Hollywood's Power Jews Pause From War Planning To React To Mel"

Now THAT'S funny.

When In Doubt, Blog About Sports

NFL training camps started this week, so I checked in with my Birds to see how it's going. I find some guy named Mo who has a blog. He manages to blog every single minute of his day and say absolutely nothing. I can achieve this by blogging weekly, ands with much less expenditure of time and effort. The Falcons look...well, better this year. Roddy White is going to be a great wide receivcer. Maybe if I say that enough it'll come true. Vick will learn to plant his feet. Vick will learn to plant his feet.

The offense might be suspect, hinging on the mercurial Vick, an aging (but brilliant) one-cut-and-go running back in Warrick Dunn, and the recuperating Crumpler and Duckett; but the defense will be good, maybe better than good. The addition of Lawyer Milloy in the backfield and John Abraham on the line is huge. Funny, though -- they couldn't stop the run last year so the strategy this year is to dare teams to run at them? Hmm. Just win ten games, guys. That's all I ask. Win ten games and get a wild-card spot.

In other NFL news, this sucks, whether you give a damn about the Browns or not.

I Sleep Late, Yet Get Shit Done

Mom and I met today with LB and I'm feeling somewhat reassured. We tied up loose ends re living wills and POAs, and I noted with naive satisfaction that the accompanying files, most of which we never touched, made a pleasingly thick two-foot stack on the conference table. It's been my experience that the more burdened with files an attorney is, the better your representation. Ever been standing before a judge when your court-appointed schnook comes flying in late, holding a blank legal pad and a ballpoint pen? I have. That's a bad feeling.

Mom was in a sunny mood despite the sweltering heat. She ate all of her hamburger and stole half my fries at lunch. I saw her sneak a splash of sweet tea into her iced tea on the way out the door, but I figured she's taken her meds for the day and I've combed her house for sugary snackitude, so I let her pull one over on me. Sometimes it does a body good to feel like you're getting away with something. I hadn't intended to dine chez Ronald, but we got a late start and I wasn't exactly sure where LB's office was, so I wanted to allow enough time to get lost in the wilds of the Tiny Kingdom. Homewood, actually. Then I drove right to it and we were twenty minutes early. Oh well. On the way, we passed a sign directing people to The Islamic Academy of Alabama, which I didn't even know existed.

So I pick up a copy of US News & World Report as we settle in to wait and I see this article, positing a link between Alzheimer's disease and diabetes. Interesting. Everything is connected.

Now I've got to start packing this house, a dreadful prospect that brings out the packrat AND the neatnik in me so I agonize over throwing everything away versus saving and labeling it all in logically organized boxes; this leads to the worst of all comprimises, where I just start stuffing shit randomly into whichever box will hold it and then hope to sort it all out later, which of course never gets done and leads to an attic piled with dusty boxes marked "Books and Skillets" or "Bathroom and Patio" while downstairs I spend a vexing week looking for my favorite spatula before giving up and buying another one.

Of course, I have the luxury of not really having a timetable, and I can take the time to do it right. In fact I'm blessed in many ways. We have an attorney, long-term care insurance, a house that's paid for, and enough residual income to keep the lights on and the phone bill paid. Things could be a whole hell of a lot worse.

Until Inconvenience Do Us Part

I think I'm about to be single. Or, at least "separated". Lady declines to join me when we hafta move back into Mom's house.

"I can't be a nursemaid, and I can't bear her times ten following me around and digging through my stuff," she sez.

Overwhelmed by her empathy and compassion, as well as her can-do spirit and commitment to our almost 13-year-old marriage, I say little. Inside, I fume.

I could write a caustic diatribe on how this is a betrayal on every significant level, but I won't. I won't point out that when she was diagnosed with MS I took it in stride. I won't mention that in one of his last acts on this earth my dad had a wheelchair ramp built around the side of the house for her, anticipating the day that the house would be ours. I won't point out that Mom made the down payment on our nice little condo as a late wedding gift. I won't point out how fucked-up and selfish it is to abandon the person you ostensibly love right when things get tough.

I love her more than I've ever loved anyone. (Not true. I loved Laura Billings more, but she's dead, by all accounts. Lupus. I have a knack for picking the afflicted, I guess.) But still, I love my wife deeply and sincerely, but this pronouncement makes me question everything. Maybe she's off her meds. Maybe she's just on the rag. How sexist is that? Yeah, well.

I was implicitly counting on her help. I need her. For her hands and back and brain, sure, but also for her delight in the Simpsons, her love of the New York Dolls, the smell of her hair. For the way she makes the best coffee on earth. Her unerring ability to locate anything I've misplaced, a trait we attribute to "the homing uterus". For 13 years of in-jokes and do-you-remembers.

At the moment, I'm kinda numb. In a way, I feel liberated. Unfettered. But I also feel very, very alone. I've become accustomed to being half of a dyad, and this is going to take some getting used to.

I love her. I wish her the best. But without her, I'll be better able to make snap decisinos, to suffer minor indignities, and to grit my teeth and push on through.

So I tell myself.

Roald Dahl Puts It In Perspective

The life of a writer is absolute hell compared with the life of a businessman. The writer has to force himself to go to work…. Two hours of writing fiction leaves this particular writer absolutely drained. For those two hours he has been miles away, he has been somewhere else, in a different place with totally different people, and the effort of swimming back into normal surroundings is very great. It is almost a shock. The writer walks out of his workroom in a daze. He wants a drink. He needs it. It happens to be a fact that nearly every writer of fiction in the world drinks more whisky than is good for him. He does it to give himself faith, hope, and courage. A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom.

Not that I'm a writer or anything. But it's cool to think about being one.

1337h4rdc0r3m0th4fuck4

I spent more than one hundred hours playing The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind.

This guy beats it in under ten minutes, no cheats used.

Grumble Grumble Grumble

Bush's decision to veto the stem cell bill is politcal hypocrisy of the rankest sort, distasteful and amoral in every way. Thousands of frozen embryos are destroyed every year by fertility clinics. Each one of those embryos is a source of human stem cells. Either mandate that fertility clincs keep their frozen embryos in perpetuity, the morally rigorous position (and the end of fertility treatment); or, since you've already allowed the sixteen extant stem cell lines already propagated to continue, admit that the use of these embryonic cells for medical research is the right thing to do.

Hey, I Know, Now I'll Lose My Job

Fuck 'em.

I can make more oney grubbing for aluminum cans on the side of the road, if it comes to that. Fuck 'em, fuck 'em, fuck 'em. I just can't deal with that clusterfuck for one more minute. Took yesterday off with an eye infection and was told I needed a doctor's excuse to return to work. Sure. Can I afford to go to a doctor without health insurance? I don't think so. So.....fuck 'em.

In other news: townhouse for sale by owner, great location, 3 BR, 2.5 BA. Close to schools, churches, shopping, and interstate. Quiet community, great nieghbors. Priced to sell! Owners must go!

"I Think I'm Going Crazy"

My Mom has Alzheimer's disease.

We found out two weeks ago. I was at work and I got a call from my wife. She said, "Call your Mom. She's acting funny, and it kinda scared me." So I called Mom (hey, look, I used the work phone to make a personal call. Fire me, asshats!) and asked her what was up. She said, "I was going to the store and I backed out of the gararge and then I couldn't figure out how to close the garage door. I think I'm going crazy." I asked her if she lost the remote. She acted like she'd never heard of a remote control. She was concerned that if she got out to close the garage door, then she'd be locked in the garage and the car would be running on the other side of the door. Without stopping to unravel the knot of irrationality contained in THAT statement, I told her to leave the car where it was, go in the house, and I'd be right over. When I got there she was flustered and upset. I calmed her down and put the car away (and took her car keys). I asked if she'd been taking her medicine, and again she looked at me like I was speaking Chinese. "I'm not on any medicine," she snapped, somewhat affronted by the suggestion. I went to the cabinet and looked at her meds. It looked like she'd been ignoring them for days, if not weeks.

We scheduled a doctor's appointment for the next morning, and he took one look at her and put her in the hospital. She stayed three or four days, and came out feeling better, with her blood pressure under control and her blood sugar regulated. A CAT scan showed moderate brain atrophy consistent with senile dementia.

The doctor asked her questions. "Who's the President?" She didn't know. "What year is it?" No clue. Now, my mom reads ten newsmagazines a week, is glued to CNN, and last year could probably have told you the name of the assistant undersecretary of the Department of the Interior. She follows politics like I follow the NFL; that is to say, closely.

I felt ice water drip down my spine when I watched my mother struggle to come up with the name of the president she loathes above all other politicians and then fail. She knew something was wrong. But she didn't know why, or how, or what to do. She looked frail, and scared, and vulnerable. It was wrenching. I wanted to cry. I wanted to hug her and make everything better. I wanted to run screaming from the room.

A trip back to the doctor this week confirmed the diagnosis. After the appointment, I took her out to lunch. The hospital is in a part of town near where she grew up, and my friend Adam recently bought a restuarant nearby that is famous for its fresh vegetables and home-made pies. On the trip there, Mom wold look out the window and say things like, "My first boyfriend lived down that street. He rode a motorcycle and my daddy thought he was dangerous. He died in the war."

"That's the church where your uncle got married. The first time. He doesn't talk about her. It was a pretty wedding, even though it rained. They had the reception at the Elk's Lodge. Can you imagine?"

"The trolley ran through here. You could ride it to downtown for a nickel."

"Don't turn left here. If you go up one block, you can turn on a one-way street that takes us right where we're headed."

Perfectly normal, even knowledgeable. Then she'd ask, "Did we already go to the doctor?"

At lunch, Mom demonstrated that her appetite is as yet untouched. She cleaned her plate (fried snapper, squash casserole, green beans)and hungrily eyed my roast beef until I gave her some. We ate well (though we skipped the pie: Adam, I'm coming back for a piece of lemon ice-box when I don't have a diabetic with me).

Then we went shopping for those items that are perpetually on the list: cat food, kibble, and litter. At the big-box warehouse store where we go to buy cat food by the metric ton, we lined up to wait in line to check out and Mom suddenly becomes agitated. "I lost my car keys! Where are the car keys?" I showed her that I had the keys, reassured her that the car was OK, that I was driving today, and that everything was all right. Then, as I loaded our cart (home delivery of cat food and litter would make someone a lot of money, I think), Mom paid. Twice.

Or, she tried to. The nice woman at the checkout, a zaftig, smiling, round-cheeked young lady with beautiful mocha skin that a supermodel would kill for, looked at me quizzically. I took back the second credit card and put it in Mom's wallet. Mom sighed. "I guess I shouldn't go shopping alone from now on," she said sadly. She looked at me with such unconprehending despair that I think I died a little bit.

"It's OK, Mom. I'm here to take care of you." I tried to smile, but it felt like a rictus and I'm sure it looked as false as it felt. I took her home, got her settled, gave her her meds, came home, told Lady she had the helm, and drank myself insensate. (OK, five beers

So now wheels are in motion. Doctors and lawyers and insurance agents squawking like carrion birds over a still-twitching roadkill. I shouldn't say that. I'm going to depend a lot on these high-dollar professionals in the coming months and years. But as someone who's always believed that the least trustworthy individual on the planet is a white man in a suit, I have a sinking suspicion I'm about to live out my worst nightmare.

Gee, BOP, sucks for you -- but how about your MOM?! How about HER living out HER worst nightmare? This woman watched her sister descend into abject dementia. She saw her little sister go through what she's now facing, and she saw that it was sad and ugly and undignified and protracted and hellish. What's THAT gotta be like?

And when I'm speaking and my words get tangled up or I forget my point before I get to it or I momentarily blank on a name I've known for ages, what's that? Is it the normal blips of aging and wear-and-tear, or is it something much more sinister tapping me on the shoulder and daring me to turn and face it?

My mother met her sister's death with remarkable equanimity. She had been fading for years and the end, Mom felt, was a blessing for her and her family. Mom had already said goodbye, though she continued to visit her and check in and do all that, she knew her sister was essentially gone long before her physical shell gave out. At least that's how she acted. My family reserves the melodrama for inconsequential tiffs, and meets the important stuff head-on with stoic shrugs and determination.

In a very important way, she's provided me a template.

I hope.

I think my blog has a new topic.

Goddammit.

Proof Of The Imminent Apocalypse

Read my book! But first, "The Dance Of Love"! Hit it, boys...

The Sports Draught

Gone. All gone.

And Wimbledon doesn't count.

We have reached the nadir of the sports broadcasting cycle. ESPN has nothing better to show during the day than bowling. Sure, I can watch the rest of the World Cup and pull for Italy (and Ghana! as Jon Stewart said, "not the most malnourished country in southwestern Africa."). And there's maybe one major league lacrosse game somewhere on some channel at least once a week, if I'm lucky enough to find it.

And then there's baseball. It's June. Who gives a damn until September and the Braves suck this year anyway. I like Ozzie Guillen, though, and I like him even more for calling Jay Mariotti a fag. "Pompous, bloated toad" might have been more appropriate and less offensive, but I can't quibble with the sentiment.

And after watching Esera Tuaolo tonight on Big Idea with Whatshisname I thought, you know, if gay men in pro sports want to be able to come out to their teammates, they're going to have to win a few locker romm fistfights in the process, and wearing a lime green shirt and whining about acceptance won't get them there. A lot of noses, mostly black ones, but a few white ones, too, got bloodied during the Civil Rights movement, so I think these guys have to be willing to pick a few fights. I mean, Tuaolo played fucking nose tackle. I'm sure during his nine-year career, playing on one NFC Championship team, he had occassion to hear some 5'10" 175-lb cornerback crack a gay joke. Then he should have kicked the guy's ass and said, "You just got beat up by a fag. How's that feel?"

Strength respects strength, and two weeks later they'll all be singing Kumbaya and Tualo will STILL be enduring gay jokes, but they'll be told much, much more respectfully.

That wasn't even what I wanted to blog about but now the connection, she flickers.

On Clothes

Aesthetic decisions rise from the urge to individuate.

One of the first such impulses I remember having happened to me in the Skee-Ball pavilion at Six Flags Over Georgia in 1977, when I was eleven. I'm still confident in my Skee-Ball skillz, but at eleven I was untouchable. I had accumulated an unweildy pile of tickets, and I was intent on winning a CB radio, but Mom and Dad came to collect us and I had to cash in my tickets. At the booth, a T-shirt caught my eye. It was canary yellow, and had one of those heavy puffy sparkly rubbery 70s iron-on decals on the front that had a picture of a Basil-Wolverton-style green-furred, popeyed drooling monstrosity motoring down the road in a Corvette convertible. Swooshing around the beast were the words, "Corvette: Wrap Your Ass In Fiberglas". I fell in love with it. I had enough tickets. It would be mine. I pointed and handed over the tickets.
"Oh no. Pick something else." Mom.
"Why?" Me.
"It's ugly. You don't want to waste your winnings on that ugly shirt."
Then I made my first aesthetic individuating announcement. "It's not ugly. It's cool."
"It's not polite. You can't wear it outside."
"Can I wear it home?" God, what a wuss I was! I'd already CONCEDED the terms of use!
"No."
"Why?"
A sigh, an eyebrow.
"It's because it says ay ess ess, right?"
"Right. That's just dumb. You don't want a dumb, ugly shirt."
Aha. Her mistake. She'd already conceded possession of thew shirt, and had moved on to terms of use. I pressed the issue.
"You let me buy those Car-toons magazines with all the monsters in it and stuff." This was true. (It was also true that my parents had a handsome Al Capp volume that featured Basil Wolverton's contest-winning drawing of Lena the Hyena, perhaps explaining their tolerance of the work of Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, but I didn't put all that together until years later.)

Connection flickers. I'll post now.

Anyway, I got to keep the shirt, I only wore it at home, my friend Wallace laughewd at me when he saw me in it and I don't think I ever wore it again.

But I still rule at Skee-Ball, and there are many ugly things I find quite beautiful.

A Miracle Signal

I am not dead or imprisoned, merely Internet-impaired and inconstant.

Here's a tad of what got written but not posted in the past weeks (a month), and I've yet to check my e-mail. I shudder to think of it. The perfunctory followed by the increasingly indignant.

Mormons That Make Even Mormoms Look Sane

Why is Warren Jeffs an obsession of CNN yet the Reverend Moon is not? Oh yeah, I forgot. But CNN is painting this as an imminent Waco-type debacle. At least Anderson Cooper is. OK, so keeping women and children as chattel is reprehensible and the Welfare fraud is mind-boggling, but it poses an interesting question: how far are we willing to go to preserve "religious freedom"? Where is the intersection of God's law and man's? Polygamy is a fascinating issue, because it has both political parties bending themselves into pretzels to accomodate their distaste. Liberals are left arguing that these poor women are brainwashed and coerced, not exactly a ringing endorsement of gender equality.

*snip*

Anyway.

I'm off to check e-mail.