2005-01-31
When Pushkin comes to shove
Russian literary giant Pushkin labeled as a peddler of porn
It seems the Russian police have cracked down on "obscene" literature. The early poetry of Pushkin and Mikhail Lermontov have been seized and prosecutors are 'studying the volumes' in order to decide what is pornography, and thusly bannable or erotica and therefore salable.
Vladimir Cherkashov, a regional leader of the small Russian United Industrialists party, and a poet himself, read the works in question and was horrified, thinking the poetry would corrupt children.
"I saw myself how teenagers opened books and giggled. In every line of these poems there are only words that begin with the letters zh, b and kh," he added, referring to the first letters of a number of Russian swearwords.
The Scotsman's article points out the irony of this litigious event "considering the unhinged reputation of post-communist Russia, where some news bulletins have featured nude presenters in an effort to attract viewers."
Tricks of the Job Trade in Germany
'If you don't take a job as a prostitute, we can stop your benefits'
The thrust of this story? After legalizing prostitution, brothels had to register employees and any available positions (no pun intended).
"Under Germany's welfare reforms, any woman under 55 who has been out of work for more than a year can be forced to take any available job – including in the sex industry (i.e. prostitute, sex line worker) – or lose her unemployment benefit."
"There is now nothing in the law to stop women from being sent into the sex industry," said Merchthild Garweg, a lawyer from Hamburg who specialises in such cases. "The new regulations say that working in the sex industry is not immoral any more, and so jobs cannot be turned down without a risk to benefits."
I am Not Who I am Not
I am not a sociology professor at UW Madison.
I am not an assistant proffessor of African American literature at Howard Unniversity.
I am not a CNN award winning journalist and film maker.
I am not a country gospel singer.
I am not a porn star.
I am not the author of children's books or cozies or award winning lesbian mysteries.
I am not a lesbian.
I am not a lawyer.
I am not a counselor and psychotherapist.
I am not a medical doctor specialinzing in Otolaryngology.
I am not a Freshman vollyball player at Auburn University.
I am not a San Francisco based interior designer.
I am not 21 years old with a husband named Tim.
I do not have a husband named Chris.
I do not play golf or basketball.
I do not write a Catholic parenting column for the Herlald.
I don't teach.
I don't work for The Providence Journal
I never climbed K2, the world's most feared mountain, make a film and
I didn't write a book about it.
Well, I'm glad that's all cleared up.
Moan Tones
Jameson will talk dirty to you when your phones rings, in English or Spanish.
Of course, you'll have to have a non-U.S. carrier to carry her around with you. No American companies have taken Jameson up on her offer.
Author, Author
Anthony Neil Smith
He was a poet, knew he sucked at it,
and decided to write crime fiction instead.
He wrote and submitted, and nothing quite fitted,
'Til Point Blank told him, "Dude, you'll be read."
What a Super Mullet
2005-01-30
It's not the stuff rebels are made of...
Listen up, young rock gods/goddesses. Invest your money wisely. Do no not end up touring Iowa when your 57. You, too, will end up looking like this.
When told Iowa police were investigating, Noone was surprised and amused.
"It's probably one of the funniest things I've heard in my life," he said shortly before going on stage in Phoenix for a charity concert. Noone estimated the value of the photo to be about 40 cents and offered to reimburse the Val Air - even donate a gold album.
"I can understand if it was Roy Orbison or some valuable picture - but it had zero value," Noone said.
Noone said the West Des Moines complaint qualifies as his first tangle with the law.
"It's not the stuff rebels are made of," he quipped. "I would've liked it to have been arrested at Studio 54 for breaking a window."
Monkeys Pay to See Female Monkey Bottoms
Monkeys
Juice Rewards
Til next Tuesday
I've been disinclined to posting as I get ready and more so after the hurricane hit. The coverage has been devastating. Listening to the reporters as their voices broke, knowing the people that suffer the most are the poor that had no choice but to remain as lack of transportation and inability to rent a hotel room out of town kept them in place.
Husbands held on to their children as their wives were swept away.
The levees could still break.
The only water is polluted.
There is fire everywhere.
This is not the mood I'd hoped to be in as I left for this convention. Beyond low key. Last night I wept as I watched and listened. Tomorrow I will be amidst throngs of people cheerful, drinking, loud. Not sure how I'll fair.
Why...
2005-01-29
A Dark, Bloody Gem
I'll spill the first line:
"You are hearing the screams of a small, fat man."
And from the tone of this, the scene is set for pain and indifference in equal proportions. Throughout the book the reader is encouraged step deep into lightless rooms that narrow until the reader is trapped, barely breathing, when the book is done.
It all takes place in Quinsigamond, New England. A place out of time, inhabited by the tortured and the torturers. The human thread holding it together is Gilrein, a one time cop, now apathetic hack driver.
Behind him, the death of his wife Ceil, a cop killed while working under the twisted genius of the Inspector. Beside him, a unique item sought by men willing to do worse than kill for it and an ex-lover working for a sadistic biblomaniac. Before him, the promise of pain.
This book is wound tightly around words and language. How they can infect, defy and obsess a man until there is nothing left but the word.
Another of only a handful of books that have left me slack-jawed at the sheer genius of the author.
And writers crossing genres love it as much as I do.
from Michael Kimball (author of Undone): "To call this novel a noir thriller is like calling the 9th just one of Beethoven's symphonies.
Jack O'Connell is a writer's writer, and Word Made Flesh is virtuosic. From the first word, he immerses you into barely imaginable darkness of the human psyche. O'Connell's words slice; his images leave you squirming. You'll want to put this book down; in fact, you'll want to take it outside and bury it deep. But you won't be able to. It's the kind of nightmare you don't want to wake up from."
to William Peter Blatty(Exorcist): "Word Made Flesh gripped me from beginning to end."
to George Pelecanos (Soul Circus): "From its bravura opening to its apocalyptic conclusion, Word Made Flesh is a frightening, exhilarating ride. In four remarkable books, Jack O'Connell has riffed on language, fire-cleansed genre conventions, and stripped the artifice from the modern noir novel, creating a body of work both exciting and entirely original. Word Made Flesh has the power, and permanence, of myth."
to Katherine Dunn (the author of another Jen favorite, Geek Love): "The dark incantations that open and close Word Made Flesh are mesmerizing. The scope of the book links enormous and terrifying acts of imagination ... A potent cocktail of Lovecraft, Poe, and hardcore American noir."
And, to fuel the fire, an interview with the Dark Word Master himself. He looks so... normal.
Things to say...
Things you'd love to say at work, but Can't.
Things that are difficult to say when you're drunk.
Things geeks say when pulled over for speeding.
Things to say when BATF troops storm your house.
Things to say to say if you get caught sleeping at your desk.
One of the dumbest things I've heard said happened when a friend's water broke. I called at the soon-to-be dad's house and got his roommate.
When I told him my friends water broke, there was a loooooonnnnggggg pause. Then, "Well, um, do you need me to call a plumber?"
2005-01-28
Magnificent Melons
Talk to my horse, while I finish this ironing. Thank you.
Bitchney Sneers
Man Free because of the Power of Pee
Kral was on holiday and had 60 half-litre bottles of beer in his car for the occasion. After cracking one open to think about the problem he realized he could urinate on the snow to melt it.
"I was scooping the snow from above me and packing it down below the window, and then I peed on it to melt it. It was hard and now my kidneys and liver hurt. But I'm glad the beer I took on holiday turned out to be useful and I managed to get out of there."
Rescue teams found Kral drunk and staggering along a mountain path four days after his Audi was buried in the Slovak Tatra mountains.
We are preparing to destroy you
"This is a new entity that feels very fresh and vital. We are preparing to destroy you," Reznor wrote.
I'm ready to be destroyed. It's been a while.
The group will be touring in support of its first album in almost six years, "With Teeth," which will be released May 3.
Reznor said the new band is "reworking a number of older tracks that still matter to us, while focusing on the new material. This band is capable of a lot, and I trust and respect everyone's musical ability."
So far the only confirmed dates are March 30-31 at London's Astoria.
Hiëronymus Bosch figurines
2005-01-27
So, maybe I'm cool after all!
If Bono does the double thumbs up, than
no one can question my coolness quotant when I do it. No one.
Odd bits
State Sen. Frank Shurden, a defender of cockfighting, has a plan for saving Oklahoma's gamefowl industry. Cockfighters are legally prohibited from pitting birds fitted with razor-like spurs. Shurden is suggesting roosters be given little boxing gloves so they can fight without bloodshed. The proposal is in a bill the Democrat has introduced for the legislative session that begins Feb. 7.
The Supreme Court of Canada has overturned the indecency conviction against Daryl Milland Clark, who was caught masturbating in his living room window. The mid-evening solo act was witnessed by neighbors and police but his lawyer told the high court that he didn't know there were spectators until an officer shone a flashlight at the window.
I'm at a Loss
My friend Drea calls it Crack Couture .
Musty House Fads?
Welcome to a new world of mousing, guys!
Busty Mouse Pads
A version for hetero girls just wouldn't work.
Thanks, JR
A Cinema File
The 50 Top Movie Death Scenes. 
And if your cinema quota has still not been filled:
Greatest Last Film Lines
The Lost Weekend (1945)
25th Hour (2002)
or
"You're talkin' to me?..." in Taxi Driver (1976)
2005-01-26
B-to-the-E
It has caffeine. It has fruit flavoring. It has herbs in the form of guarana and ginseng. It is...
"B" stands for beer, "E" for something "extra!!!!" Yeah, I know. Brilliance has shown it's fickle light upon the creators of that moniker.
It is described as slightly sweet but tart and comes in the aromas of blackberry, raspberry and cherry. See, I mentioned flavoring but I said not word one about aroma. You're excited now, aren't you? Get this! B-to-the-E can be served over ice! Or out of the can! Beer bongs will be better than ever!
Anheuser-Busch said each can of B-to-the-E packs 17 grams of carbohydrates, along with 4.5 percent alcohol by volume, 54 milligrams of caffeine and 145 calories.
By comparison, Anheuser-Busch's Bacardi Silver Low-Carb Black Cherry has 2.6 grams of carbs and 96 calories per 12-ounce serving.
What do these number mean? If you can stand the taste, B-to-the-E will get you drunk fast, keep you awake and fatten your middle section better than anything they've ever put out before!
Whoo.
Because there were just so damn many...
I'm not dead yet.
Almost two hours after the accident, Trooper T.L. Hunt went into the morgue to met with the county coroner, J.B. Perdue. When the two unzipped the body bag to document the man's injuries, they found Green was breathing, though just barely.
"I had to look twice myself just to make sure it was there, that's how subtle it was," Perdue told the Raleigh News Observer.
A trooper raced back to the family's house to tell grieving relatives that Green was alive.
Green is in critical condition and the county attorney's office is investigating how the mistake was made.
Franklin County attorney Darnell Batton said the county's medical director has suspended those who were involved in the incident.
What are the chances?
Thinking he'd simply be given a court date and he'd be outta there, Courtney left the truck idling in the parking lot. But, lo, Courtney was booked into jail. When he told sheriff's deputies about his truck, they cited him for leaving an unattended vehicle and then went outside to turn it off.
By this time, James Thomas, 17, was walking out. Thomas had gone to see if there were any outstanding warrants for him. There weren't. He walked out just as Courtney was walking in.
Later that evening, deputies saw the stolen truck and gave chase. Thomas drove the truck into a tree.
I hope we've all learned a lesson from this. Call first.
I Got Yer Free Speech Right Here!
It started like this:
US politicians are proposing a tough new law on indecency and course language that would provide the benign, whitebread and sleep-inducing entertainment we've all been looking for.
Fines of up to $500,000 (£266,582) could be imposed each time broadcasters transmit nudity or profanities; you know, things we don't hear on the streets or at home. Instigated by the apparently terrifying exposure of Janet Jackson's breast at last year's Superbowl (which cost CBS $550,000 (£293,264), entertainers could also be liable for fines under the proposed legisation from both US politicians and officials from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
Sam Brownbeck, a Republican senator from Kansas, wants a maximum $3 million (£1.6 million) fine for repeated violations.
The current maximum fine of $32,500 (£17,320) is a considered a paltry sum and Republican Fred Upton, chair of the committee responsible for broadcasting, said is "more of a cost of doing business rather than a deterrent".
Oh, what a world, what a world!
I woke up and clung to my Paris Hilton book, knowing that this could never really happen in a country so concerned with freedom and liberty.
$1.3 Trillion in Deficits Forecast Over Decade
Additional war spending will push the federal deficit to $427B for fiscal 2005. In contrast, China's economy grows 9.5 percent in 2004 vs 9.3 percent in 2003.
I think we can hazard a guess as to where quite a bit of American money is going.
Cheerful.
CHEERFUL - Definition
2005-01-25
Shake your Love takes on a whole new meaning
The New York Post says her layout shows a "well-defined, yet very sexy feminine look." Gibson will be in the next issue, strangely right around the time her new single called "Naked" is released.
True Stuff & Nonsense
In Thailand, they taught elephants to paint, dance and play musical instruments. So why not toilet-training the pachyderms?
The Denver Police Department has a staunch Bush supporter on the force. The sergeant allegedly threatened to arrest 26-year-old Shasta Bates for displaying a 'profane' anti-Bush bumper sticker. This harkens back to the Secret Service going after a Georgia man for bumper stickers that relate "hell with Bush" and that refer to the president as a "two-faced murderer." Bumper stickers are a sticky subject for this administration.
Oh, and that guy that auctioned off space on his forehead for advertisement? He got $37,375.
£2,500 haggis
with proceeds going to the tsunami appeal.
Contents of the Trunk
Below you will find my waltz (with plenty of stepping on toes) with the theme.
Dave Zeltserman,
Duane Swierczynski,
Gerald So,
Graham Powell,
J.S. Jordan,
John Rickards,
I Must not Think Bad Thoughts
The first, “Please, please don’t look in the fucking trunk,” followed quickly by “God, this could all be fucking over if they would just look in the fucking trunk.”
The second thought didn’t last long. There would be cuffs on the spot, no questions asked. It would kill his mother when she found out. Literally kill her. Dead. And his father? Just another fuck-up in a long list of fuck-ups, starting early when Derek didn’t make it into peewee football.
“Wuss,” his dad said.
“He’s just a delicate boy,” his mom had pleaded.
“He’s a fuckin’ wuss,” said his dad dismissively. He lifted a finger off the remote and wagged it at his mom. “You made him that way.”
“God made him the way he is. If God is perfect than so is Derek.”
“Then God is a wuss.”
That was straw that broke the camel’s back and next turned round and spat in its eye as far as Derek’s parents were concerned. But it was just the beginning of Derek’s failures in his father’s eyes. He figured out early that he’d be better off just learning to live with utter humiliation. Suck it up, like his dad told him to.
So, nothing new there.
But a few things had changed since then.
Derek had finally found someone he was willing to suck it up for.
He lived in mortal fear of disappointing Zooey. His full blown, worst nightmare come true would be her finding him substandard or inadequate. He’d been through a break-up with one woman he loved with all his heart and it almost killed him. He wouldn’t survive it again.
As he sat behind the wheel of the ancient Buick, he looked in the rearview mirror. The state trooper was doing the check on his license plate. Derek knew he had all of a minute to get himself together. No matter what, he had to keep his cool. Running a hand threw his hair, he sighed deeply then shuddered.
He repeated his mantra to himself under his breath, trying to gain control.
But the image of what was in that trunk shot into his mind and he couldn’t shake it.
If the trooper headed for the trunk, Derek knew he was done. He may as well just eat a bullet from the guy’s service pistol right there on the road out of Brixton.
“Shit!”
After so long, to have it all blow up in his face because of a traffic stop was ridiculous. Stupid! And so fucking typical. He wasn’t speeding. He was being so careful not to go too fast. What the hell went wrong?
“Fuck!”
Derek began to say his mantra again and didn’t stop until the knock on the window.
2 months earlier
Breaking up was hard to do. What a crock of shit, thought Derek. Breaking up is the first stage of a complete fucking nervous breakdown followed by years of bitterness and a lifetime of commitment phobia. After a few beers Gavin got to hear all about. Again.
“First, first there’s that actual moment when you realize the whole relationship is fucked. That’s bad enough. Four years of your life down the fucking drain.”
Derek slammed another empty bottle of Bud on the bar and signaled for another round.
“Then that teary screamfest when she tells you. Tell her it’s your fault, Gav. Never, ever, tell her it’s her fault. Cause you’ll get your ears screamed off and she’ll beat the shit out of you. Look, I’ve still got the bruises.” Derek started untucking his shirt when Gavin quickly grabbed it and pulled it back down. He looked nervously around him but it was Friday and everyone was too drunk to care about Derek’s latest tirade.
“But the worst part of the whole thing, the absolute worst part? Trying to get your stuff out of the apartment. The apartment with both your names on the lease that is full of all the shit you bought together. All of that shit is suddenly hers. She’s keeping the fucking Silver Surfer poster, Gav! Stan Lee signed that poster! She doesn’t even know who the fuck the Silver Surfer is!”
“Derek, this was, like, a week ago that you broke up with her.”
“What, you think I’m going to get over something like that in a week? No, this a lifetime’s worth of hurt she’s given me.” Derek shook his head sorrowfully and necked his beer to the last drop while the next was delivered. Then he turned, mouth open, to further exorcise his Holly demons to Gavin. His pal. His confessor. His best friend. But Gavin was otherwise engaged with a leggy blonde smiling at him over sips from her wine cooler.
“Um, excuse, me. Uh, hello?”
Gavin and the blonde slowly turned to look at Derek.
“I was having an important conversation with my friend.”
“Nope, we’re done.” Gavin said when the girl frowned. He picked up his jacket and steered the blonde to a table in the back.
“But, Gav…”
“Derek, she dumped you.”
“Yeah, and…”
“For another guy.”
“I know. But…”
“You want her back?”
“No.”
“Good. A step in the right direction.”
“But,”
“Just deal with it, Derek. Fuck. It’s been a whole fucking week!”
Derek stared, mouth agape, at Gavin’s retreating back. Then he swung back to his beer.
“Just get over it,” Derek mimicked. “Right. She threw me out on the streets! She hit me! She kept the dog, for Chrissake! I’m the one that brought that fucking dog home from the pound!”
Buzzed and in full misery wallow, Derek put a twenty on the bar to pay his tab. He looked up at the flashing television screen as he zipped up his jacket. An ad for eConnections played silently to an oblivious crowd. Couple after couple on the screen stood against a bulging red heart background as they held hands, nuzzling, happy. Derek felt sad and old, suddenly.
“Don’t want to stay alive, when you’re twenty-five.”
He turned to go and saw the same ad on the television on the front wall. Standing stock still, Derek was hit by sudden inspiration and, rarer still, a small patter of hope. Those nobodies on the screen found someone. Surely he could.
“Fucking dog never liked me, anyway.”
Derek headed home, humming happily, as he mentally wrote a description of himself.
After wading through Lady Seeks Knight in Shining Armor, Horny Mom and Marriage Needed to Access Trust Fund, Derek found a match.
She’d sounded great, no, perfect, in the description:
And Under that Star I was Born
But I’m no Juliet looking for a Romeo and I don’t suffer from Othello syndrome. I’m just a literate girl with gallows humor looking for a boy to swing at the end of my rope. No drugs, no kids, no kidding. You don’t have to be serious to be taken seriously.
Her photo depicted a pretty but not too beautiful girl with a gleam in her eyes that spoke volumes. Derek was more than ready to listen. Coming out of a four year relationship that had ended with his fiancée leaving him for the dog groomer and taking the dog had left him shattered and hopeless. He wasn’t ready for anything serious. But, God, he needed to be taken seriously. Their first date, after a series of gently probing and sarcastic emails, was sublime.
Gavin had sent him off like a preening, gay Dad.
“Don’t wear that shirt. Fuck, Derek, you look like you shop at St. Vincent’s. Well, I know you do, but you don’t have to look like you do. Here let me put this in your hair. It’s gel. I swear to God you won’t look like Cameron Diaz. You should be so lucky. Have you got condoms? It could happen. How can you not be ready? You’re a guy!”
Derek and Zooey walked into the coffee shop at the same time, literally bumping into each other. With quiet apologies, they separated then looked back at the other with mutually raised eyebrows.
“Derek. I’m Zooey. Great to finally meet you.” She held out her hand. Derek took it, and received a firm handshake. “Let’s sit at a booth. I like to stretch out.”
Docilely, Derek followed behind as Zooey cut through the crowd like an icebreaker in the Arctic Ocean. Zooey chose their booth. Zooey ordered their coffee (fair trade!). Zooey decided they should go to dinner (Thai!). Then Zooey decided to take him home. She had her own condoms, thanks anyway.
When Derek woke the next morning, Zooey was in the shower and he was sore as hell. They’d had sex on every flat surface in the place with Zooey directing, posing and pulling him until he begged her for release. He smiled and sighed contentedly.
Easing himself out of bed, he yawned and stretched then followed a beautiful coffee smell. As he walked past the mirrored closet doors, he paused, brows furrowed. Turning his back to the mirrors he could see that he had bruises and a couple of long scratches on his back. Looking down, he saw more bruises on his chest and arms.
“Hmmmpf.” Derek primped a bit, rubbed his hand over a handprint on his thigh, shrugged, then headed for the kitchen, whistling the whole way. No mantras need apply.
When Zooey got out of the shower she sauntered into the kitchen and, without a word, pushed him down into a kitchen chair.
“Good morning!” Derek grinned then extended his lips for a kiss.
Zooey grabbed his coffee, put it on the table and sat facing him on his lap. Derek was pleased.
“I see. Well…”
Smiling, she grabbed him and started where she’d left off the night before.
By that afternoon, Derek would have willingly picked up tampons from the store then shaved his head, held up a day care and eaten a cat turd if she’d asked him to. He was in love.
Within a few weeks, Derek and Zooey had settled into a routine that featured her sex driven ideas quickly followed by his capitulation. When Gavin asked to meet the woman that had healed Derek’s crushed and beer-soaked heart, Derek was excited. Then worried.
What if she saw something in Gavin that she didn’t see in him? Gavin wasn’t a bad looking guy. He had a nice car, a good job. What if Zooey went for him? No. They would never meet. Derek would make sure of that. He came up with a series of deferments, each more ridiculous than the last, until Gavin, annoyed and hurt, stopped asking. Their friendship became strained but Derek was too sated by Zooey to notice.
Zooey never asked about Gavin. Or anyone else in his life, for that matter. She never asked about his favorite color, his middle name or what he wanted to be when he grew up. She took over his life and became a cult with him as the only brainwashed follower. Derek was too sated by Zooey to notice.
But the most docile of sheep have their breaking point. And it is one of life’s chuckling ironies that the sheep are always too far gone to be able to do anything but bleat as they wait for the axe to fall.
The latest idea for a sex-escapade bordered on the impossible and was the most frightening thing Derek had ever been asked to do. It never occurred to him to say no.
That is why, a week later, he found himself waiting in the underground parking lot of Zooey’s building. When he heard the distinctive rattle of her engine approach, he pulled a hood down over his head. It was a bad time to realize he’d done a shit job of cutting the eyeholes but the plan had to move forward.
As the car sputtered to a stop, Derek crept from behind the pillar. Walking softly and carrying a big length of rope, he approached. Zooey stood, pulling her work out gear from the trunk. Just as they had practiced, Derek grabbed her from behind and held her fast to him. She uttered an inarticulate and angry noise before he got a chance to put the duct tape over her mouth. Then he placed a hood similar to his own over her head and wrestled her into the trunk. Tying the ropes tightly, but not too tightly, around her wrists, he couldn’t help but worry that he was hurting her.
“I’m sorry, Zooey, if it hurts.”
An irate ‘mmmmm’ sounded came from the trunk before he slammed the lid down. Sliding behind the wheel, he quickly hot-wired the car and took off. Just before he hit the street, he remembered to take the hood off.
He was well out of town when he saw the lights in the rearview mirror. He slipped the hood under the seat and freaked out.
The knock on the window, anticipated as it was, made Derek jump. He rolled down the window and looked up at the khaki clad state trooper staring down at him in the last light of the day.
Upon request, Derek duly handed over his license and waited for an agonizing ten minutes for the trooper to return.
“Would you step out of the car, sir?”
“What did I do wrong?”
“Just step out of the car.”
Derek unbuckled his seat belt and got out of the car.
“Would you please walk to the side of the road, sir?”
“OK,” nervous and unsure, Derek walked, staring back every few steps to see where the trooper was. He was watching Derek very closely and waited until Derek reached the shoulder to follow him.
“Sir, did you know that you where driving only twenty miles and hour?”
“What?”
“That’s twenty-five miles under the limit. Have you had any alcoholic beverages or taken any illegal drugs today?”
“I don’t even like to take aspirin.”
“Let me take a look at your eyes, sir.”
The trooper came closer and took a close look at Derek’s eyes and sniffed the air when Derek exhaled.
“Are you on any kind of medication?”
“Um, no.”
“Is there any particular reason you were driving so slow?”
“I didn’t know I was. I guess I’ve got a lot on my mind.” Derek’s eyes went to the trunk and back. The trooper’s eyes followed.
As the trooper turned toward the Buick a pick-up came speeding down the road, clipping the trooper’s car as it sped off.
“Shit!”
“He hit your car!”
“No shit, Sherlock!”
The trooper radioed in this latest affront to the law and pointed a finger at Derek,
“You’re damn lucky he came along, fella!”
With the choice between the dim-witted Derek and the asshole that violated his vehicle, the trooper jumped into his car and took off, lights and siren on full blast. The wheels kicked up a cloud of dust that had barely settled before the coughing Derek was once again behind the wheel.
Heading for the empty lot Zooey had told him about, he kept his eyes glued to the speedometer, barely looking up to see where he was going. He spoke his mantra in a frantic voice.
The lot was a welcome site. Derek drove along the dirt road to a mostly collapsed barn. When he got out of the car, he bent over and gagged. He wasn’t made for this kind of stress. He waited until he had himself mostly under control again then went back and opened the trunk.
Zooey was wriggling and making more angry ‘mmmmmm’ noises.
He was about to heft her out of the trunk, but decided to check on her first.
He grabbed the hood and pulled it off.
It wasn’t Zooey.
“Ohmigod!” Hands to his mouth, Derek could feel the bile rise in his throat.
“Oh, fuck!”
He grabbed the corner of the duct tape and ripped it off.
“Jesus fucking Christ!”
The woman who was not Zooey sat up, spitting and swearing. She glared at Derek as Derek stood, mouth open, hands unconsciously pulling at the hair on his head.
She glared, then spat.
“What are you waiting for?”
“What?”
“What the fuck are you waiting for?”
Derek stared.
“Hello? Kidnapper? Rapist? What are you waiting for?”
“I don’t understand.”
“No shit, Sherlock!”
“But, I…” He walked to the trunk and stared down at the sputtering woman. “Why aren’t you screaming?”
“Oh, you need me to scream? Anything to get the ball rolling.” And she began to scream.
“No, no. Stop!” Derek bent down, put a hand over her mouth, holding her gently to him with the other hand. “Please, please, don’t scream.”
He pulled away from her to see her scowling.
“Zooey told me you could do this. She promised me you could handle this.”
“You know Zooey?”
She stared at him for a second, then rolled her eyes.
“I’m her sister. Zudi? See any family resemblance?”
And looking closely, Derek did.
“She didn’t tell me you were this stupid,” Zudi huffed. “But she was right about one thing.”
“What was that?”
“You are a babe.”
With that, Zudi wrapped her legs around him and pulled him into the trunk. He landed heavily on top of her and had just enough time to notice the lid of the trunk coming down before it did, latching into place.
Zudi withdrew her tongue from his mouth.
“What the Hell are we going to do now?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know?”
“I… I…,”
“But, you’re a guy!”
Derek said nothing.
“Fuck!”
Zudi rolled out from under from him and with her hands still tied together began pounding on the trunk and yelling for help.
Derek lay tucked tightly behind her, muttering his mantra.
2005-01-24
Oh, the evil possibilites...
NYC Declares Snow Emergency, But Some Can't Resist Playing in the Snow
So there I am, tired of leg, serene of spirit, cold of toe, bright of eye, four blocks from home after my annual First Blizzard of the Year Bicycle Pilgrimage to Forest Park. I'm riding on the sidewalk because I got tired of stopping every 30 seconds for cars, and a guy steps out of a dark blue Eyewitness News van and aims a video camera at me. I know a "weirdos who go out in blizzards" news story when I be one, so I grin at the guy, and the van window rolls down and a pretty reporter asks if they can talk to me.
Sure, I say. So first I wait while they get footage of a man and his cute baby, and then we do a short interview. I manage a semi-funny line or two, which I figure might make it onto the air. They've been gathering footage in various locations all day, so there's a lot of competition, I'm sure, for what can't be that much airtime.
But I believe I will be on the 11:00 Eyewitness News tonight. Despite the competition, despite the cute baby... I believe they're going to choose me. Why, you say? Why, Keith? Was it your clever, off-the-cuff badinage? Your funny asides to the camera? The sparkle in your cold-quickened demeanor?
No. It's that while they were getting footage of me riding away, I fell over sideways in the snow.
Eyewitness News New York. 11:00 PM tonight.
And it was. On Channel 7 for all to see.
Brace yourself, Robin!
1/8W+(D-d) 3/8xTQ MxNA.
Where: W: Weather D: Debt d: Money due in January pay T: Time since Christmas Q: Time since failed quit attempt M: General motivational levels NA: The need to take action
We suggest therapy, a lot of sugar, a Swedish massage and a hug. Oh, and puppies! Lots of puppies!
C'mon, Cliff! Look! Baba's cheerful!
Nutria Nosh as Hunters Host Chili Cook-off
State wildlife officials in Columbia, South Carolina are a tad worried. It seems a large rodent a.k.a. nutria, genus evident by the large, rodential quality of the teeth, is making it's way into the Savannah River Basin.
This nutria, affectionately called Mark, wonders why people don't like him.
He's a nice nutria, a bit smelly, but
he's harmless in an insistent kind of way.
The furry bucktoothed nutria looks like a mix between a beaver and an English gameshow host and weighs up to 20 pounds. Most non-rodents consider them a nuisance. The nutria, that is. Well, the gameshow hosts as well. Back to the nutria.
They eat marsh plants and dig through dams making a big mess all over the place. And when they're not eating, nutria are racing to reach sexual maturity in order to reproduce. They are described by friend and foe alike as prolific.
Louisiana hunters get $4 a pop and residents are encouraged to eat them. A government site has recipes that include stuffed nutria hindquarters, nutria chili and nutria fricassee. Oddly and ironically, it was fur trappers that introduced to them to North Americas from the South. They came just ahead of the Africanized Bees.
Nutria Gumbo
One wonders which wine to serve.
"We'd rather not have them," agency biologist Jay Butfiloski (real name given readily) said. "It may take a while to see what kind of impact they are going to have."
A tasty one, if anyone's paying attention!
Why Jen really Broke up with Brad
2005-01-23
Laps Lawful, Loehrer Lauds
Strippers had been barred from touching or sitting on the customer’s genital area but defense lawyer James Colin said a lack of specifics made the law impossible to enforce. It stated only that strippers and their patrons should not “fondle” or “caress” each other. It would seem licking, petting and poodling were up for grabs in this semantics snafu.
“It’s too confusing,” Colin said. “No one knows.”
Under Loehrer’s ruling, no dancer in the city can be arrested for violating the municipal code. But, the strippers can be violated if they're arresting. The city is considering an appeal.
Do you speak Engrish?
Then head on over to Engrish.com where Japanese/Chinese/Korean into English translations have gone more than a tad awry.
My favorite so far?
Or is it this one:
Modern Drunkard Magazine
"I think drinking is conducive to a happy family life."
"The most accomplished people have been drinkers."
"Hemingway was a great literary drunk, and I think a lot of teetotalers would trade their lives for his in a second. Alcohol is the great socializer. Can you imagine a world without it? Well, I guess you can -- it's called the Middle East."
The magazine has columns that include:
Dear Concerned Cad:
Dear Concerned Cad:
Just a question that popped into my head at the end of happy hour (and me broke again!). Is it possible to be truly happy without being filthy, stinking rich?
—Poor and Unhappy
Dear Poor:
Well, of course it is. As an astute German nobleman once noted, “No matter how rich you are, you can still only drink 16 or 17 liters of beer a day.”
This month's column: Slurring and Wobbling
This cutting off business is not as easy as it looks.
Gin-Soaked Fiction
Wino Wisdom
“The jukebox is the drunkard’s fireplace.”
Troy B., warming himself to Wheel in the Sky in the Streets of London Pub.
You Know your Drunk When...
You’ve only been drunk once in your life, and so far it’s lasted twenty-three years.
You liver has a restraining order on you.
You can tell the difference between a bottle of Jack and a bottle of Jim by the sound they make hitting the back of your head.
Alcoholism doesn’t run in your family—it takes its own sweet time.
You’ve been cut off during communion.
Comics for AlcoholicsLife imitates fungus
He was found by three children who were out of school because of a teachers strike. The children alerted police who rescued Josuat-Verges from the caves. French media said he had lost 18 kg (40 lb) and was "weak".
2005-01-22
Quote of the Week
"Sometimes when I would come home from school the biggest butterfly or moth you'd ever seen would be just sitting on our front gate. I would climb over the fence, crawl around to the side of the house - anything to avoid having to go through the front gate.
"I have tried to get over it. I walked into the big butterfly cage at the American Museum of Natural History and had the butterflies on me, but that didn't work. I jump out of planes, I could be covered in cockroaches, I do all sorts of things, but I just don't like the feel of butterflies' bodies." - Nicole Kidman
Panda-monium
"Normally they slow down and sleep a lot at this time of year, but it has been so warm in Austria lately that they've been more active than usual."
Yang Yang and Long Hui are also under constant observation by zoo scientists as little is known about the habits of the Giant Panda.
It is hoped the two will mate and return to China as a family group but zoo keepers say that despite their best efforts the pandas are simply much more interested in bamboo than sex.
There are only an estimated 1,600 Giant Pandas left in the wild.
Yorkshire Ripper says, "Please release me, let me go."
"The courts convicted me and now the courts will protect my human rights under Article Eight.
I am no longer an insane or dangerous person and I am not receiving treatment for any form of mental illness and I have not committed any criminal offence in over 25 years."
So says Peter Sutcliffe, breaking a 24 year silence. 
Sutcliffe, currently serving life for the brutal murders of 13 women, has made a case for his release by saying he deserves freedom because he is not being treated for mental illness and has not committed a crime for 25 years.
The statement Sutcliffe allegedly wrote to the Home Office also reads:
"I hope to be getting married on or before May 12, 2005. I am looking forward to the wedding date. Since my conviction, never before have I took such a step but I do so to end further speculation into my life.
"My hope is that my stay at Broadmoor will be reviewed and that they will look favourably on my hopes for my future. And I look forward to the day when my wife and I are allowed to live as one under the same roof in matrimonial harmony."
Bush on Bush
That has got to be embarrassing. Barely into your second term and your dad has to come out and explain what you were talking about.
"People want to read a lot into it that this means new aggression or newly assertive military forces," former President Bush told reporters during an informal visit to the White House briefing room. "That's not what that speech is about. It's about freedom."
In Thursday's speech, Bush said: "We will persistently clarify the choice before every ruler and every nation: The moral choice between oppression, which is always wrong, and freedom, which is eternally right." That raised the question whether Bush intended to apply new standards to allies or partners who keep democracy at arm's length and have poor records on human rights.
Did that mean he would pursue democracy in places like China?
What, and make enemies of the people taking our jobs and sending us nifty electronic devices in exchange?
Would he try to reverse moves toward reinstating authoritarian rule in Russia?
Nooooooo. Someone finally should him a map. He was overheard to say, "Damn! Russia's huge! And people live there? What? It gets cold? Pfffffff..... we're not goin' there!"
How far will he go to challenge the nuclear ambitions of North Korea and Iran?
To the corner and back. After that, he'll need a nap and massage.
"It doesn't mean instant change in every country that's not what he intended," Dad Bush said about his son's second inaugural address.
Just countries with oil. Get with the program, people!
Bio Zappa
For added Zappatude, Zappa Quote of the Day:
Why do you necessarily have to be wrong just because a few million people think you are?
Wasn't it Jack Kerouac that said, Even if I have a rug I have too much?
Its good knowin' he's out there. The Dude. Takin' 'er easy for all us sinners. . . ."
The Short and the Tall of It
You Snooze, I News
2005-01-21
So I got that goin' for me, which is nice.
She posed with him for a photo at a local Roanoke, Va., resturaunt Wednesday, Jan. 19, 2005. Murray stoped at a local Mercedes dealership to have repairs done on his car and took up an offer to go for dinner and drinks with the staff. (AP Photo/Jeff Webb)
The Beast 50 Most Loathsome People in America, 2004
Cartoons taking it up the ass
Hey!
If you can figure this one out, I will send you a copy of my latest fave book and write you a lovely poem!
Rawhead
He goes on to explain the deep tears in his psyche that explain Billy Dye.
"Billy Dye, the writer that Rawhead protects, is partly based on me. Like Billy, I have occasionally had a tendency to shoot off my mouth and behave like a complete prick. Also like Billy, I was once a journalist who openly defied the editors who gave me work and sneered at their magazines. Then I wondered why they stopped offering me work. I was literally my own worst enemy.
My career as an author might have started four years earlier except for an unfortunate incident in the office of a childrens editor. This woman wanted to publish a book Id written. It didnt matter that she was middle class and silly, as English childrens editors tend to be. All I had to do was listen politely to her very minor suggestions for changes and the deal was done. Instead, I tried to steal a book from her office and she caught me in the act. This Editor was so outraged that she decided, there and then, that anyone who stole things wasnt fit to write for children. One minute I was about to sign a book deal, the next minute I was out on the street."
The Butcher of Glastonbury
The Death Prayer: The York Mysteries
The Secret Sexist
The Death Prayer
Rawhead
The Death You Deserve: A Novel
I Love My Smith & Wesson : A Novel
Rawhead in Love
How to Be Bad : A Novel June/05
2005-01-20
Lee Gets Some Marvel Money!
"U.S. District Court Judge Robert W. Sweet found in favor of the comic-book legend on Monday and ruled that Lee is entitled to a 10 percent share of profits earned by Marvel since November 1998."
Many agree that Spiderman's daddy should get some of the money Marvel has made from the many movies featuring Lee driven protagonists made in the past few years.
Lee is bittersweet.
"I am very gratified by the judge's decision, although, since I am deeply fond of Marvel and the people there, I sincerely regret that this situation had to come to this."
Marvel reps say they plan to appeal the decision, and attorney John Turitzen was quick to point out that Lee won't be receiving cash from some of the merchandise from films, which didn't fall under this ruling. So there! How quickly Marvel forgets that just a few years ago they were on a financial precipice.
We gather here today...
In Roswell, New Mexico, a 71-year-old woman was pulled over for a routine traffic stop. This led to the discovery of more than 60 sick and hungry cats in the back of a moving van. One would assume the smell gave the officers just cause to search the van.
In Chongju, South Korea, a fish, the result of artificial insemination between a carp and ayu sweetfish, seems to have developed patterning resembling that of a human being.
A Neapolitan mastiff in Manea, United Kingdom, has broken a world record by giving birth to a litter of 24 mastiff puppies. Double ouch.
And, on a somewhat similar note, a woman in Brazil has given birth to a giant baby. No, not bigfoot's baby. A really, large human baby. It's a boy, weighing 16.7 pounds. Yes, it was by caesarian.
I'm wincing just looking at that photo.
'Yorkshire Ripper' Peter Sutcliffe, (who bares a striking resemblance to author Stephen Booth), sentenced to life in prison for the murder of 13 women, was allowed out of prison for a few hours to visit the place where his father's ashes were scattered last year.
Paris is pissed. Not drunk, just really, really mad!
Oh, and the President was inaugurated. Again. Some were visibly displeased. 
Another Petition
What is it about Ashlee, besides two outstanding and very public humiliations, that has drawn people to her like wasps to a freshly opened Mountain Dew? Why didn't it happen when she was blonde?
I've discovered that any fembot celebrity willing to do ads for Candies is sure to annoy me. But what makes Ashlee so bad for so many of you?
Well, here's it is. Bigger and bolder than it was before. The reason this is the most searched for post on this blog for a week:
This petition is for Geffen records asking them to stop Ashlee Simpson from performing.
There are over 2000 signatures at this point. I imagine there would be many more if this was sent to the audience of the Orange Bowl. I kinda feel bad for her. A victim of nepotism, her evil father, Joe Simpson, has fostered a career that is destined to plunge. Just listen to this guy: ''Jessica never tries to be sexy. She just is sexy. If you put her in a T-shirt or you put her in a bustier, she's sexy in both. She's got double D's! You can't cover those suckers up!" Now that is disgusting.
Wow. Jude's not looking very good there, is he?
Ahem.
In the end, it is the public that decides what happens to faux talent by who's CD's we buy and who we watch.
This does not speak well of us.
As an aside:
Remind you of anyone?Please stop Vanessa Carlton as well
Flobee Hell or Close Your Eyes, I'm Going to Cut Your Hair! or Hair Today, Drunk Tomorrow
Daddy, to show that it's safe, gets his hair cut first. Very short. Then Daddy goes to a Crime Writer's Convention, drinks too much and has to do a panel at 8:00 a.m.
Do not do what Daddy has done!
Props to JR for the brain fart above.
Turn off your bright lights...
Anyway, prostitutes (or harlots, ass-peddlers, floosies, cock-eyed jennies, flatbackers, hobby horses, nightwalkers, window tappers, hip-flippers, nymphs du pave, kittock, sin-sisters, rumpers, goat-milkers, quan-dongs, paphians) in Antwerp complained about the bright lights along the Belgian port city's waterfront. They said it was 'putting off' potential customers.
"We had some remarks from the prostitutes that there was too much light, both for them and the clients," city council spokesman Jorn Verbeeck said. "We are investigating the possibility of lowering the light there."
Jorn, nice, understanding man that he is, is going to be testing a dimming system next week.
2005-01-19
Mounting Tension
The Horror and then the Horror
How many mistakes do you count in the text below?
LONDON (AFP) - Harold Shipman, the family doctor who became Britain's worst-ever serial killer, may have killed 137 patients as a young trainee on top of the 215 killings already attributed to him, an enquiry revealed.
Shipman, who hanged himself aged 57 in his prison cell in January last year, is believed to have carried out some murders while a trainee hospital doctor in Yorkshire, northern England, between 1970 and 1974.
A new report by an inquiry set up to investigate Shipman's decades of murder will publish a report later this month "into 137 deaths that occurred between 1970 and 1974", a preliminary statement by the inquiry team said.
The official probe, led by High Court judge Dame Janet Smithwill, has previously concluded that Shipman was responsible for the deaths of at least 215 of his patients while he worked as a family doctor.
The victims, many elderly women, were killed by lethal injections of morphine over a 23-year period, either at Shipman's one-man practice in Manchester, in the north of England, or at their homes.
The most prolific serial killer ever to be convicted in Britain, Shipman was jailed for life in January 2000 on 15 sample counts of murder. He always denied his crimes.
Smithwill's inquiry team, which was set up following Shipman's conviction in court, will publish their findings about the possible earlier killings on January 27.
Entitled "Shipman: The Final Report", it is the sixth report to be published by the team.
The fifth report, published in December, lambasted Britain's medical watchdog, the General Medical Council, for "looking after their own" rather than protecting patients from bad doctors.
Consider me a Pack Member!
Thanks, guys. It really means a lot.
The Spud goes Bad
I'll even buy her the sandwich.
Check out the rant over at A Small Victory and you, too, will want to buy a complete stranger a sandwich. Yuck!
I was a Rat!
The Guardian has a review of a lovely look at rats in the urban setting called... Rats; A Year with New York's Most Unwanted Inhabitants. The author, Robert Sullivan, spent a year with New York rats and produced a book about the experience. What can you expect from this rodential book?
They have sex-lives at which some of us can only marvel. "If you are in New York while you are reading this sentence," Sullivan says, "or even in any other major city... then you are in proximity to two or more rats having sex."
Sleep well!
Cookie Monster attacked
Lee P. McPhatter intended to introduce the Cookie Monster to his 3 year old daughter. His plans crumbled.
McPhatter says that the Cookie Monster refused to pose for a photo with his daughter.
Police say Lee P. McPhatter was upset that the Cookie Monster would not pose for a picture at the Sesame Place theme park. And what did McPhatter do? Walk away, telling his daughter that Ernie and Bert were no doubt around the corner? Try baiting the blue monster with his namesake? Nope. According to police reports, McPhatter(god, I like typing that name!) shoved and kicked the beloved monster. McPhatter is in Cookie denial.
An early shot of Cookie with Mom Monster
"People started yelling at me that I should be ashamed of myself for hitting Cookie Monster. I did not kick or punch Cookie Monster. The cop did not want to hear my side of the story, and I got arrested," said McPhatter, who described the character as his 3-year-old daughter Mina's favorite. That would be Mina McPhatter.
Middletown police checked on the human inside the blue furr and found Jennie McNelis, 21, with bruised ribs and a cervical sprain. This happened when McPhatter shoved her to the ground, then kicked her in the head and back.
Audrey Shapiro, a Sesame Street spokesmonster, confirmed that the incident took place, but called it a rare event. "Our characters do not act the way this man said," she continued. "It is an honor to be Cookie Monster."
McPhatter is free on $20,000 unsecured bail following the June 9 incident. He said he would fight the charges tooth and nail! Charges include simple assault, harassment and disorderly conduct.
"Why would someone take their 3-year-old daughter to the park and attack Cookie Monster?" he asked. "I would never do that in front of my daughter."
I bet he wouldn't have taken on the Count that way!
Baltimore Birthday Boy or The torch will be passed
The memory of Poe shall live evermore!"
artwork by J.D.Crowe
"This place gives me the creeps!" Vincent Price, 1977
Laura Lippman's Tess Monaghan series has an entire book, In a Strange City, wrapped around the visitor and loads of Poe lore. Poe's House and Museum can be toured.The Real World?
Moscow is going to re-install statues of Stalin.
Iran is now more pissed of that usual with the United States. While they're in the middle of nuclear negotiations with the European Union, Washington threatens a military strike.
"With reliance on enormous popular support, diplomatic capacity and full military capability, the Islamic Republic of Iran will firmly respond to any unwise measure or plan," foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said in a statement responding to "recent comments by US officials".
There are phrases there that can't be used by America right now. Like 'popular support' and 'diplomatic capacity' and 'full military capability'.
I want terrorists caught. I want a stable Middle East. I'm thinking, and yes it's an old song and dance, that because we know North Korea has arms, why not go after them if Iraq isn't enough for our Texan Tough Guy? I think some vague attempt at dipomacy might be good when one notes that if Iran is able to negociate with the EU, that if the U.S. goes in and starts blowing everyone up because they could make bombs, that the U.S. will have no one watching it's back. Russia isn't. China isn't. Japan isn't. If it all comes down to business and money, and it usually does, the U.S. is truly going it alone.
Condoleezza Rice also called for world action to keep Iran from building nuclear weapons. She repeated a threat to haul the Islamic republic before the UN Security Council for sanctions. Which is really ironic when you consider that the UN Security Council wanted to haul the U.S. in for the same thing.
Reuters reports four more years of Bush makes the world anxious.Bush shows no sign of wishing to strengthen the dollar despite the EU's complaints that its exports will suffer, or to answer calls to sign the Kyoto protocol to cut greenhouse gases. Phooey on that!
There is deep resentment in the Arab world where Bush is accused of bias toward Israel. Hey! That's the Sheriff's own personal business! He's in town to clear out the bad guys! Despite criticizism the Sheriff's actions against Arab and Muslim states in the 'war on terror' has brought peacemaking efforts to a standstill and that the Sheriff's home team now faces dire warnings against any new military action in the region. But once that Star was pinned on, the Sheriff took matters into his own hands. It'll all come down to a showdown at the 'I'm OK/You're OK' Corral and the Sheriff won't be in the front lines.
2005-01-18
Lewd is in the eye of the beholder
As a country, there is collapse and rancour over Janet Jackson's nipple. Ashcroft has to have the Spirit of Justice statue draped because the "strongly religious" Mr. Ashcroft was "fed up," and could not abide waggish photographs angled to include his face and the statue's right breast. This fate had also befallen former Attorney General Edwin Meese the day he released the final findings of a pornography commission back in 1986.
And now America has deftly upset another country by wagging a finger in disgust at the human body. Reuters UK has the report:
ATHENS (Reuters) - A clutch of complaints by U.S. viewers that the Athens Olympics opening ceremony featured lewd nudity has incensed the Games chief, who warned American regulators to back off from policing ancient Greek culture.
Gianna Angelopoulos warned the Federal Communications Commission watchdog, sensitive after a deluge of outrage when singer Janet Jackson's breast was exposed at a Super Bowl game, not to punish NBC television that aired the Games.
Male nudity, a woman's breast and simulated sex were the subjects of shrill complaints about the opening ceremony on August 13 which were posted by the FCC on its Web site.
"Far from being indecent, the opening ceremonies were beautiful, enlightening, uplifting and enjoyable," Angelopoulos wrote in a weekend commentary in the Los Angeles Times titled "Since When is Greece's Culture Obscene?"
"Greece does not wish to be drawn into an American culture war. Yet that is exactly what is happening," she said.
The ACLU is fielding lawsuits from gallery owners across the nation like the following:
DALLASThe American Civil Liberties Union of Texas today announced that it has filed a lawsuit against the city of Pilot Point and its police department, charging that police officers violated an art gallery owners freedom of expression by coercing him to remove a mural depicting the biblical story of Eve.
It is unconstitutional for government officials to censor a work of art because it might offend a small group of people, said ACLU of Texas Executive Director Will Harrell. It is also a misuse of resources to have our law enforcement officials act as art critics.
Dwight Wesley Miller drew the attention of local police after displaying a mural depicting the creation of Eve on an exterior wall of his art gallery in the northern Texas town of Pilot Point. The mural borrows heavily from Michelangelos Creation of Adam fresco in the Sistine Chapel, and in particular from a portion of the fresco that depicts God reaching out to touch Adam. At the far end of the mural sits a classical female nude, in a pose that is a variation of Adam in the Michelangelo creation scene. Gods finger points at an apple, a traditional image of the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden, suspended between God and Eve.
Because Eves breasts were bare in the mural, the Pilot Point Police Department repeatedly threatened, in writing, to prosecute Miller under a criminal statute aimed at those who would victimize children by selling or displaying to them hard-core pornography. In order to avoid the expense and embarrassment of being charged with such a sordid crime, Miller covered Eves breasts with a Crime Scene Banner tape.
And I really want to know why. Why people can't stand the image of a body that, if they were to look down whilst they showered, they would see for themselves? Why the human body, when reviled by some, must therefore be censored for everyone? Why some consider all nakedness a form of pornography?
As this is going on, American celebrities wear less and less clothing as they get skinnier and skinnier. Clothing for children and teens is more and more adult. And sexual crimes perpetrated by children are on the rise. This isn't the result of nude paintings, statues and Olympic opening ceremonies. It is a sign of problems within the culture having to do with how we perceive each other as human beings. Anyone that feels severely traumatized by a breast really needs some serious therapy. Not the right to censor an entire country.
Naked is not evil. Naked is as naked does.
Oddness Abounds
Second place, but still damn odd, CNN is reporting a supernatural spa.
At Juve the Spa in this north Atlanta suburb, patrons can get a metaphysical add-on to any spa service, such as a $100 tarot card reading or a $175 one-hour astrological consultation.
For $200 an hour, you can talk to an American Indian shaman at Post Ranch Inn in Big Sur, California. Or try "Soul Regression Therapy," a guided tour through past lives, for $90 an hour at Ruby Room in Chicago, a spa that also touts sessions on "Dream Therapy" and "Energy Healing For Pets."
Thirdly and still odd, the Pope has been gifted with a new Ferrari for his 'humanity race.'
Fourth, a congregation of 'furries' (people that like to dress up as their favorite animals) in San Jose, California:
Part costume party and part role play, Further Confusion, or FurCon, gives grown-ups a place to act out their inter-species fantasies.
The convention includes workshops on such things as puppetry, costume making, writing about mythical creatures and "furry anatomy."
Many of those attending participate in Internet chat rooms for "furries."
"But just because it's weird, it's still perfectly normal to the people involved in it," said raccoon wannabe Lee Strom, 36, of San Leandro, one of the event's founders.Fifth and final reported oddity, in Pildesti, Romania, a family that believed they buried their daughter two years ago were shocked when she came home to vote.
This oddness has been brought to you by:
.
Alliance Broken with I.R.S.
The I.R.S. has spoken.
Richard Hatch, he of the bare-ass Survivor win, failed to report his million dollor earnings to the I.R.S. We can only hope that he will get kicked off the island.
From the Smoking Gun:
The nudity enthusiast, 43, is also charged with filing a false return for 2001 (he allegedly did not report $321,000 paid to him by a Boston radio station). If convicted of the felony charges, Hatch could face a maximum of five years in prison for each count and could be hit with a $250,000 fine.
WTF? Why are these people on my television?
From their website: Richie Rich, a former Ice Capades skater and club kid, and Traver Rains, a real-live rodeo rider, have turned their ability to answer calls into the campy, fashion line, Heatherette. And they know the rules. 'We can turn it around in two days,' says Rich. 'That's the thing with pop stars: Honey, you had better be on it.'
Is anyone shocked to hear that Britney Federline and Mariah Carey are fans? Gah!
So....
2005-01-17
For History Buffs
Uchronia is dedicated to tracking anything published about alernate histories such as what would have happened is George Washington had agreed to be King of the United States?
And
Rulers. An online guide to anyone that ruled somewhere at sometime. As they, themselves, will tell you: This site contains lists of heads of state and heads of government (and, in certain cases, de facto leaders not occupying either of those formal positions) of all countries and territories, going back to about 1700 in most cases. Also included are the subdivisions of various countries (the links are at the bottom of the respective country entries), as well as a selection of international organizations. Recent foreign ministers of all countries are listed separately.
Arms Trade Tracker
Fast Facts from the site include:
The United Nations estimates there to be over 300,000 child soldiers around the world, now serving as combatants in over 30 current conflicts.
The Center for International Policy estimates that around 80% of U.S. arms exports to the developing world go to non-democratic regimes.
There are more landmines planted in Cambodia than people. Cambodia is just one of 64 countries around the world littered with some 100 million anti-personnel landmines.
The U.S. Arms Industry is the second most heavily subsidized industry after agriculture.
Half of the world's governments spend more on defense than health care. Arias Foundation.
The International Red Cross has estimated that one out of every two casualties of war is a civilian caught in the crossfire. NISAT
Casing, Sweet Casing.
It was a Dark and Stormy Night...
Contortionist Cinema
All my Kingdom for a Pizza
One hopes that it was some damn good pizza.
Bush's Glass is Half Full
Washington Post article:
Survey says...
Heads with a Hole
Yes, for those that enjoyed the Gallery of Deep Fried Stuff, feast your eyes on this:
Construction worker, nail gun - the man went to his dentist because of a toothache.
Construction worker, nail gun - he figured it out right away.
Construction worker, nail gun - friend dropped the nail gun on his head.
Construction? worker, banged his head at work - didn't figure out there was a nail in his head for four years.
Woman Types Entire Post While Unconscious!
Speaking of Bono, he's our mullet for this Monday!
This is obviously not a case of a star being made on looks alone. But he looks very sincere, doesn't he? Enjoy!
2005-01-16
All Protein Diet
Oddly, the police have had not 'victims' filling and 'reports'.
"All I've heard is that there's a fellow who is going round attacking people like a dog and biting them," said Josephine McNally, who works at the Old Barley Mow pub in Ward End. "It does put the wind up you."
Why a vampire? Why not the ever popular werewolf or even a flesh-eating zombie? I can't help but think, after all the Anne Rice novels I've read, that a vampire would be more discreet and much more... debonair in the whole affair.
*Stalking by definition implies following someone/something closely and quietly and staying hidden all the while. But the implication, in my fevered brain, is quite comical. I see this figure lurking in alleyways, looking for a plump jugular, carried by a innocent skipping home from the pub. Even innocent hands aren't safe from this marauding Atkin's Dieter gone amok. Someone give the man some jerkie and send him on home.
2005-01-15
A Day in the Life of a ______
Unable to summarize my mood in a single word, I look to the people around me for help.
Web-based email gone/down/wormholed.
Ankle with Achilles tendonititis more swollen and painful than before treatment and therefore on the verge of being casted for eight weeks. In the middle of winter.
Flu. The 'move my eyeballs and the world begins to wobble like warm jello' flu. The 'I have the energy of a dehydrated frog' flu. The 'I'm so out of it I was an hour into a movie before I realized I was watching it' flu.
I so enjoy proneness.
Barely able to hold my big head up for sustained periods of time, I find myself deluged with creativity. Copious notes being taken in very bad handwriting for the lucid moments translation. All of this sans grammar.
I LOVE Diet Coke.
I can hear my fingernails grow.
I constantly smell popcorn yet no popcorn exists in this tiny flu universe.
I think the words 'frommage' and 'crankshaft' are hysterical. Oh, and 'bubble'.
I have lost the ability to pronounce th sounds.
2005-01-14
Does Suffering Bring Grace?
* * * When MSNBC's Scarborough Country wanted the "Catholic church's take" on the tsunami, William Donahue, President of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, was more than happy to oblige. "There is no greater suffering than what Christ did," Donahue said. "In one strange sense, then, what's happening to these poor Asian people is their gift to the world." Donahue's predecessor, conservative Cardinal John O'Connor, also found generosity in perverse places, once clumsily calling the Holocaust Judaism's "gift" to the world.
Harry
Dong Resin gets me in the giggle bone. Again!
Hippos
You'll need:
- 1,000-gallon tank per hippo
- 1,000 gallons of water
- Crane
- 1-pound sedative
- Soothing hippo music
- 2 Aspirin (for you)
From MoversNet, the actual U.S.P.S. guidelines to shipping hippos.
How to pack: Hippos
1. Fill your tank with 800 gallons of water. Start yesterday. Remember, a medium-sized hippo takes up at least 200 gallons. (Just out of curiosity, why do you have a hippo, anyway?)
2. Apply sedative. Take two Aspirin.
3. Hold it, hold it - put the hippo in the tank, first. Start with soothing hippo music, followed by a large winch and crane.
4. Now go relax in a hot bath before the forklift arrives.
WAIVER: We in no way advocate moving a hippo or any animal without the express advice and consent of your local vet or zoo keeper. If you'd like advice from a veterinarian on moving with pets click here .
Rivers vs. Star
Uh-oh! Hollywood's red carpets just got more crowded. It's now Joan and Melissa Rivers versus Star Jones Reynolds in the bid to interview celebrities as they walk towards their awards shows -- such as Sunday's Golden Globes.
Wouldn't it be great if they got into a huge brawl? Time to lay bets on who would win.
I'll put $10 on Reynolds by the 5th 'star'.
Your Stats Could be Wrong!
Anyway...
Strolling around the internet... you see, I don't surf. Me on a surf board would be me falling off if I stood on the thing still on the beach. I am an internet stroller. In no hurry. Smelling the roses, slapping the bugs off my arms and coated with SPF 500. And what did I happen to stumble across on tonight's stroll then this:
Michael J. Totten, who's blog is called Michael J. Totten has discovered that stat counters are undercounting stats! Can you believe it? Wow.
Well, have fun reading the article. I'm going to move on to Dean announcing his bid for the Democratic chair.
I think my dad was right.
We're all doomed.
B'Bye!
2005-01-13
Bored?
History of Robots inthe Victorian Era!
Read illustrated accounts of the world's first robot, the Steam Man, created in 1865! Subsequent automatons such as the Electric Man and the Automatic Man are also profiled. The most comprehensive section, with more than 20 pages, concerns the mechanical man known as Boilerplate--described as "charming" by U.S. News and World Report and declared "cool" by N.A.S.A.!
Still bored? Here ya go:
Visual Thesaurus
Beer Cook
Who Owns What
DoomBuggies
Ferris Bueller's Dance Off!
Ramadan: The Basics
Notorious Portraits
Cell's Alive!
The Monkey Shakespeare Simulator
Programming Language Inventor or Serial Killer?
The German-Hollywood Connection
Eric Idle's Greedy Bastard Tour
Medical History of American Presidents
Extreme Pumpkins
Assignment Calculator
Bodies of Evidence
Dead Man Eating Weblog
The Kermitage
Find the Man's Head
Seuss political cartoons
Allthink
The Moral Sense Test
WhereHaveIBeen.com
New-Wave Photos
Letters of Rejection
ouch.
Check out the woman second from the right.
Get a glass top and you've got yourself a human table.
Human Rights Watch gives the world it's report card.
The U.S.A. and Sudan are on the top of the list. There is a call for prosecutions concerning the torture in Abu Ghraib and it's considered that the peace efforts in the Sudan will bring no one to justice.
While the two threats are not equivalent, the vitality of global human rights depends on a firm response to eachon stopping the Sudanese governments slaughter in Darfur and on fully investigating and prosecuting all those responsible for torture and mistreatment in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo.
"The U.S. government is less and less able to push for justice abroad, because its unwilling to see justice done at home," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch.
And the Sudan needs more extreme action.
Roth also urges the United Nations Commission of Inquiry report to the U.N. Security Council the crimes committed in Darfur. And that the Security Council should refer the Darfur case to the new International Criminal Court.
"The crimes committed in Darfur must not go unpunished," said Roth. The International Criminal Court would be the most efficient and effective institution to prosecute these crimes. The permanent members of the Security Council should not stand in the way of bringing the mass murderers in Darfur to justice.
Human Rights Watch said that the crisis in Darfur cries out for involvement by the major military powers, but they have chosen to be unavailable. The United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia are bogged down in Iraq, with the United States going so far as to say that no new action is dictated by its determination that the killing in Darfur amounts to genocide. France is committed elsewhere in Africa, and Canada is cutting back its peacekeeping commitments, despite promoting the responsibility to protect. NATO is preoccupied in Afghanistan; the European Union is deploying forces in Bosnia.
"Everyone has something more important to do than to save the people of Darfur", said Roth.
What stands out from the report is the effect that the actions of the United States are having on the rest of the world.
By ignoring human rights standards in its reaction to September 11, the Bush administration has made it easier for governments around the world to cite the U.S. example as an excuse to ignore human rights. Egypt has defended a decision to renew its problematic emergency law by referring to U.S. anti-terror legislation. The Malaysian government justifies detention without trial by invoking Guantánamo. Russia cites Abu Ghraib to blame abuses in Chechnya solely on low-level soldiers. Cuba now claims the Bush administration had no moral authority to accuse it of human rights violations.
"Governments facing human rights pressure from the United States now find it easy to turn the tables," said Roth. Washington can't very well uphold principles that it violates itself.
Whoops!
In Washington, D.C., as plans for the inauguration go forward, long standing plans for an overhaul on FBI computer systems, have come to a halt.
The plans, estimated at approximately $170 million, are intended to give FBI agents and analysts an instantaneous and paperless way to manage criminal and terrorism cases. Originally instigated after 9/11, the plans to overhaul have to be overhauled which will probably up the cost to taxpayers.
Christ on the Half Shell
he claims bears the image of Christ.
Um, I don't see it.
Important Safety Tip, Egon. Even Cheap Love Tokens Can Buy Sex
Who knew Madonna's 'Material Girl' video could be so right? New Scientist Magazine!
Apparently, as long as animal courtship has taken place, males haven given gifts to females to seduce them.
But New Scientist wanted to know why do some individuals hand over valuable presents while others get away with common tat?
"For instance, males of some fly species either present females with hard-won edible insects, or inedible seeds or twigs. Some even do both.
The evolutionary benefits of giving gifts that boost reproductive success, such as food, may seem obvious. But Natasha LeBas of the University of St Andrews in Scotland and colleagues believe worthless gifts also give males a selective advantage by reducing the investment they must make to reproduce.
They studied male dance flies mating on Scottish farmland. The researchers replaced the insect gifts being offered with cotton balls - and discovered the cotton-bearing males managed to copulate for just as long . "Selection does seem to act strongly on the males that reduce their investment," LeBas told New Scientist, since this group of flies have evolved several fake gift strategies"Now you know. Whether you show up with the $70.00 'Crazy for you' bear or a limp daisy and a bad poem, the chicks will dig you. If you're a fly.
Facts and Figures
Crazy for You
"A straitjacket is not a symbol that we want to associate with sales of a teddy bear for loved ones over Valentine's Day," says Jerry Goessel, executive director of the Vermont chapter of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill said. "And the use of commitment papers, legal documents committing an individual to involuntary treatment, is not something to be taken casually." I say he gave them more publicity than they could pay for.
I think it's hilarious and cute.
And you don't hear any complaints about the 'Horny Devil' bear, the 'Gangsta of Love' bear or the hip hop inspired 'Loverboy' bear.
2005-01-12
Face Transformer - Meet Bryon
A few people have used the Face Transformer and had results that led them to seek therapy.
Might I suggest that, as opposed to distorting one's self, choose an image that distorts others. A few potential targets: Rush Limbaugh, Paris Hilton and Dennis DeYoung (former lead singer of Styx). Look what it did for the charming and urbane Bryon.
Do you see what potential this tool has? Ray knows! Ask Ray.
Cat Fight Brought to New Level
UPDATE: And she's been acquited of the assault charges but found guilty of violating a protection order and placed on probation for one year.
My Anti-Hero or Jen Goes into Disgust Mode
More Dish on this from Andrew Sullivan at the Daily Dish.
Transformed
My Hero or Jen Goes into Worship Mode. Again.
Hi, Neil --
Happy to answer.
1. If you're writing fiction, the True Secret Answer is "get an
offer." If you've got an offer, you can get an agent. If you don't
have an offer, you don't want the kind of agent you're likely to get.
a. If you're good enough to get published, having an agent may prove
helpful. If you aren't (yet), you definitely don't want the kind of
agent you're going to get.
i. There is no substitute for writing a book that people want to buy
and read. If you can do that, you can get published. If you can't, no
clever workaround will help, because we can't force people to buy and
read books they don't like.
b. Some ways you might get an agent without getting an offer: Be
obviously and extraordinarily good. Sell a lot of short stories. Have
some other seriously hot credentials.
2. Don't start by looking for an agent. Do your research first. Start
by learning about agents, submissions, publishing houses, the
industry, et cetera. Note: This is a huge subject.
a. No matter how you think it works, the publishing industry doesn't
work the way you think it does. This is true even for publishing
professionals. They know how their part of the industry works, and
they know a lot about adjacent areas, but the further afield they go,
the less reliable their expertise will be. People who aren't in the
industry generally don't have a clue.
i. A phenomenal number of articles about how publishing works are
written by people who don't know what they're talking about. This is
partly because writing about writing, or writing about publishing, is
what wanna-be authors do when they've given up on writing, but don't
yet want to admit it. It's also because a made-up version of the
publishing industry is going to be much simpler and more logical than
the real thing, and thus is easier to write about.
ii. Look askance at articles that credit some industry practice to the
stupidity of people working in the industry, who have failed to see
the simple and obvious solution the author of the article is about to
suggest.
3. There are easily as many scam agents, useless agents, and clueless
agents as there are real ones. They all swap bad information with each
other. The difference is that the scammers know it's bad information.
a. You can't research this subject just by getting online and looking.
You have to stick to good sources.
4. Did I mention that any idiot can write a book about how to be a
writer? When you see someone who's never sold a book, but who's
written a book about how to get your book published, and said book was
published by a vanity house, and said author is nevertheless accepted
as an authority on the subject by a great many aspiring writers, you
know you've wandered into strange territory.
a. The scary part is that I've just described more than one
Authoritative Source of Advice about Writing and Publishing.
b. Any idiot can put up a website, too.
c. Check out your source's credentials.
i. It's always worth your while to assess the quality of the info
you're getting, because bad advice can cost you such an inordinate
amount of time and effort.
Southern Mississippi library system bans Jon Stewart's best-selling book
Jon Stewart: Snarky 'Journalist', Geek Heartthrob, Soccer Player
GULFPORT, Miss.AP - Library officials in two southern Mississippi counties have banned Jon Stewart's best-selling "America (The Book)."
Officials say they banned the satirical textbook in eight public libraries last month because they objected to an image of the faces of the U.S. Supreme Court justices superimposed on nine naked bodies.
"I've been a librarian for 40 years and this is the only book I've objected to so strongly that I wouldn't allow it to circulate," said Robert Willits, director of the Jackson-George Regional Library System.
"We're not an adult bookstore. Our entire collection is open to the entire public," he said. "We don't keep things behind a desk. We don't have hidden copies of Playboy that only a few customers can get access to. If they had published the book without that one picture, that one page, we'd have the book."
Hardee's Demographic Ad Choice
3 Guesses who the demographic this ad is aimed towards is...
| The "Fist Girl" ad |
| 56K | 100K |
| Download Windows Media Player |
Playing the part
I was icing my ankles (achilles tendonitis) yesterday and was promtped by boredom to turn on the box. An image of a large man singing gopsel filled the screen.
Hmph! I thought.
That guy looks like Johnny Cash.
It was Johnny Cash. Cash, it turns out, had a rather prolific and strange acting career. In this instance, playing Country and Western singer tahs kills his overpowering wife in a plane crash, while he parachutes to safety. Damn strange. But wonderful to watch. Entranced, I let the ice melt into puddles as Johnny tried to hornswaggle Peter Blake's bumbling but uncanny detective. And, he almost got away with it!
Here are a few choice lines from the episode lifted from TV Tome, where a complete listing of Cash's acting credits can be found.
Edna Brown: May God forgive me for letting a devil help me build a temple.
Tommy Brown: And what if your devil quits. What are you gonna do?
Tommy Brown: You're a sanctimonious hypocrite of a Bible-spouting blackmailer and I've given you your last chance to be fair!
(While inspecting the plane wreckage)
Roland Pangborn: You know something, Lieutenant? I could use a man like you on my team. It's really nothing but detective work.
Columbo: Oh no, thank you very much. You fellas, you have to fly.
Pangborn: Sure. We're all pilots.
Columbo: Oh no, not for me, thank you very much. I wouldn't qualify for that.
Pangborn: Why? We'd teach you.
Columbo: I appreciate it, sir. But, uh, my ears pop in an elevator. As a matter of fact, I don't even like being this tall.
Tommy Brown: And I guess this, all this looks kinda bad, huh? This big house and this party goin' on and everything?
Columbo: No sir, no sir. It's kinda refreshing. You see, in my line of work, homicide, somebody is always, well, dead. That's the only way to put it. I mean they don't even call us in unless that's what it is, somebody dead. So naturally I see a lot of grief.
Columbo: Where did you first learn how to fly?
Brown: Lieutenant, I thought you knew my whole life history by now.
Columbo: Oh no, no. Uh, you know, people think we got all kinds of records on microfilms, all we gotta do is push a button and, uh...
Brown: Well, doncha ya?
Columbo: (pause) Yes, we do. But not everything.
Columbo: I noticed that the arrangement was changed.
Brown: You got a good ear for music.
Columbo: Well, you know I'm Italian.
Brown: Now why would anybody want to kill me?
Columbo: Mr. Brown, I don't know. But you are a celebrity and there are a lot of crackpots in the world and there's just no accounting for people's reactions. I mean sometimes I even wonder about my wife. Not that she's a crackpot.
It Pays to Recycle
It was still full of cash.
Enough to buy a house and take a luxury vacation. The two Norwegians run a recycling company in the western Norway town of Aaroedalen, and had been hired by the Sparebanken Moere bank to remove an outdated automatic teller machine, or ATM, from a gas station, media reported Wednesday. Tofte, 30, said the woman on duty at the gas station was more than a little skeptical when two men showed up with a trolley and a truck, wanting to remove her ATM.
"She calmed down when I explained that the machine was empty and that we had a contract to pick it up," Tofte told the local Romsdals Budstikke newspaper. During their rounds to pick up more scrap, they got a call saying a security guard was seeking the machine.
"The guy was apparently a bit agitated," said Tofte. "He was very eager to empty the cash from the machine." The cash was removed. The bank — which blamed the incident on a communications mix-up — didn't say how much was in the ATM. But Tofte said the guard who emptied the machine told him it was enough to buy a house, take a luxury vacation and still have money to burn.
Privy Privacy?
"The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel unanimously rejected Lonnie Maurice Hill's claim that police who found him with the woman and drugs breached his Fourth Amendment right to privacy, making the drugs illegally seized and unusable as evidence.
Other courts have held that the right of privacy in bathrooms varies case to case, with some judges holding that a stall in a public restroom is not a private place when used for something other than its intended purpose. "The Fourth Amendment protects people and not places," Judge Donald Lay wrote for the three-judge 8th Circuit panel. In Hill's case, "it was not a single person using the single toilet restroom but two persons of opposite gender and, under the circumstances, we hold that they had a diminished expectation of privacy which had expired by the time the officers arrived."
Did Satan make them do it?
"My allegiance is to Satan and I hate Christianity, Judaism and Islam, but I don't hurt anyone," Mr. Romano said. "I take out my anger in mosh pits and S-and-M clubs. I think it's ironic that the Christians got violent with the Satanist."
New York Post Post
But, an 'undercover' BBC reporter infiltrated a London Kabbalah group. He claims to have witnessed Madonna and Guy Ritchie chanting mystic spells. These spells, he was told, would cleanse Chernobyl. Tony Donnelly reports that the Kabbalah dinner turned into "a weird religious service, which started with prayer readings and chanting that culminated in everyone turning to the east, pushing the air with their hands, and crying out 'Cher-er-er-er-nobyl' at the top of their voices. They thought they were curing Chernobyl of radiation, using the power of Kabbalah to drive away the evil."
Unnless provoked.
Can Someone Tell Bush we're Poor?
WASHINGTON (AP) - "America's trade deficit soared to an all-time high of $60.3 billion in November, reflecting record levels for imports of everything from oil and consumer goods to farm products, the government reported Wednesday.
The Commerce Department said the November deficit was up 7.7 percent from an imbalance of $56 billion in October, which had been the previous monthly record. The new record caught private economists by surprise. They had been forecasting a slight narrowing in the November trade gap.
"This caught a lot of us by surprise. We had been anticipating a pull back in the November deficit because of a decline in the price of oil," said Jason Schenker, an economist at Wachovia Bank in Charlotte, N.C.
The trade deficit through November totaled $561.3 billion, far above the previous annual record of $496.5 billion set in 2003, and put the country on track to record a trade imbalance topping $600 billion when the December figures are added."
2005-01-11
Blackwell's Annual Snarkfest
This year's winners of a lot of free publicity whilst being denegrated for bad taste:
#1 Nicollette Sheridan "In barely-there bombs, she's a taste-free pain," Blackwell crowed. "Let's crown her the Tacky Temptress of Wisteria Lane!"
#2 Lindsay Lohan "Overhyped and underdressed," Blackwell stated. "What's happened to Lindsay? When it comes to fashion, she's in a schizophrenic frenzy!"
#3 Tie! Ashlee and Jessica Simpson "From gaudy...to grim...to downright frenetic...these two prove that bad taste is positively genetic!" Blackwell stated. Jessica, a repeat offender, moved, er, up to the number three slot from the fifth-place perch she earned last year.
#4 Courtney Love "Medusa stuck in a meltdown mode!"
#5 Paris Hilton "Paris' 'designer' is obviously on vacation--this is one Hilton that should be closed for renovation!" Blackwell crowed.
#6 Serena Williams
#7 Britney Spears "a clothes encounter of the catastrophic kind!"
#8 Paula Abdul "dresses with all the restraint of a revved-up Simon Cowell!"
#9 Meryl Streep
# 10. Anna Nicole Smith "looks like a rag doll trapped in a wind machine!"
You're Fired!
In fact, there is an International Bloggers’ Bill of Rights available to be signed and a list of company's that have fired people because of the contents of their blogs. This BoR's hopes to establish company policies about blogging that will clarify and prevent further firings.
Winners!
Because if I looked like my dog, I would be a skeleton.
We, the pissed off people
The fact that the grant money is earmarked for other security needs means little, apparently.
Mayor Anthony A. Williams estimated that the city's costs for the inauguration will total $17.3 million, most of it related to security. City officials said they can use an unspent $5.4 million from an annual federal fund that reimburses the District for costs incurred because of its status as the capital. But, they say that leaves $11.9 million not covered. Shrugs were heard throughout the District.
Crosses will be banned from this month's inaugural parade in Washington, D.C.
The Jan. 20 presidential inauguration is causing further controversy by banning crosses(along with bicycles, crates, coffins, cages and statues) from the inaugural parade. The Rev. Patrick Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition is outraged. "Why were crosses singled out over any other religious symbolthe Star of David, Islamic symbols?" Mahoney asked. "This is offensive. It's, in my view, religious bigotry."
And, the phrase "under God" in the president's oath is under attack from an atheist who has filed suit to stop any prayers from being said during the ceremony.
Michael Newdow, an atheist doctor and lawyer from Sacramento, California, who tried to have the phrase "under God" removed from the Pledge of Allegiance now wants to legally prevent President Bush from placing his hand on a Bible while being sworn in at his inauguration.
Newdow has filed a complaint and a motion for preliminary injunction in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, seeking to remove prayer and all "Christian religious acts" from the Jan. 20 inauguration. One wonders what he'd have to say if a Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish or Muslim were taking office. Or, at least I wonder. Of course, I spend time pondering things like where the phrase 'keep your eyes peeled' came from and why rainbows always start with red.
The Constitution does not require the new president to place his hand on a Bible while repeating the oath. The tradition has been kept since George Washington with the exception of Theodore Roosevelt, who did not use a Bible when he took the oath after President William McKinley's 1901 assassination.
Newdow's suit is a little late and a little pointless but it's fun to join all the other lawsuits involved with the inauguration, isn't it? It's the American way.
2005-01-10
When it Sounds Good, it is Good
I come from a family that lived, breathed, exhaled and played music constantly. Music has colored almost every moment of my life that has a memory attached. My childhood overflowed with it. Fats Waller, Chopin, The Andrew Sisters all bring back memories full of sunlight, rain, smiles, pain and the sweetest understanding. It also explains what kind of freaks make up this family.
One of my first memories is of my mother singing Roger (I’ve Always Been Twenty Minutes Ahead of My Time) Miller’s ‘King of the Road’ and ‘You Can’t Rollerskate in a Buffalo Herd’. ‘Do-Wacka-Do’ meant Mom was in an exceptionally good mood. She would dance and sing behind the wheel of our keylime green station wagon on the way to the store, on the way to Aunt Mildred’s house, on vacation. If she was happy, she was singing and dancing.
Another very popular car song was Johnny Cash’s ‘I Walk the Line.’ It was then that I first noted the human habit of lowering chin to chest when the deepest notes are attempted. With every repeated verse, as Johnny’s voice went lower, Karen’s chin followed suit. By the last refrain the bottom half of her face was swallowed up in her shirt. But, damn, could she reach those low notes! Johnny would have no doubt given her a nod and a smile for her efforts. Even when she sang the New Christy Minstrels alternative lyrics. I still remember my Mom speeding along the freeway singing:
“I keep my pant's up with a piece of twine.
I keep my arms wide open all the time.
I keep myself quite willin' all the time.
Because you're mine, please pull the twine.”
As I kid I didn’t know what it meant, but I had a sense that it was naughty. When she laughed and said, “Don’t sing this in front of your father,” I nodded solemnly and then grinned. It was my first secret.
When Dianne and I were still small enough to be smothered by Uncle Doug’s St. Bernard every Christmas, the Jordan clan took a trip to Texas. As we drove over the state line my, Mom grabbed my hand and held it to the dashboard. She said, “Now you’re the first one on the family in Texas!” Wow, was I proud! The Stones ‘Ruby Tuesday’ played in the background and cemented that song as one of my favorites in a strange childhood.
Home wasalways filled with music. The New Christy Minstrels, Harry Belfonte (I thought he was beautiful), Odetta, The Kingston Trio, Simon and Garfunkel and the Beatles. There was one very special Paul McCartney and Wings song that my parents would play if all four of us were good. As you can imagine, this didn’t happen very often. There was an occasion when my parents came back from a night out to find the rug in the living room rolled up and seated on top of it the well-trussed babysitter. The four of were waltzing around on the bare wood floor, oblivious to everything but the music. No Wings music that night!
But, if we were good, Mom would pull out her 'Uncle Albert' 45" and play it over and over for us. Instant joy! That’s when the four us really began to dance!
Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey
by Paul McCartney
We're so sorry Uncle Albert
We're so sorry if we caused you any pain
We're so sorry Uncle Albert
But there's no one left at home
And I believe I'm gonna rain
We're so sorry but we haven't heard a thing all day
We're so Sorry Uncle Albert
But if anything should happen we'll be sure to give a ring
We're so sorry Uncle Albert
But we haven't done a bloody thing all day
We're so sorry Uncle Albert
But the kettle's on the boil and we're so easily called away
Hands across the water (water)
Heads across the sky
Hands across the water (water)
Heads across the sky
Admiral Halsey notified me
He had to have a berth or he couldn't get to sea
I had another look and I had a cup of tea and butter pie
(the butter wouldn't melt so I put it in the pie)
Hands across the water (water)
Heads across the sky
Hands across the water (water)
Heads across the sky
Live a little be a gypsy, get around(get around)
Get your feet up off the ground
Live a little, get around
Live a little be a gypsy, get around(get around)
Get your feet up off the ground
Live a little, get around
Hand across the water (water)
Heads across the sky
Hand across the water (water)
Heads across the sky
Ooo------------Ooo-------------
I asked my Mom years later if I was going to be named George if I’d been a boy. She raised a brow and looked at me like I was nuts. This still happens quite often. Time to expound.
“You know, you named Jon and Paul after John Lennon and Paul McCartney. So I’d be George and Dianne would be Ringo.” Perfect kid logic.
“No,” she laughed. “If you were a boy, you’d have been named Howard.”
I believe the look on my face at that point would best have been described as disgruntled. I am no Howard. One of many reasons I’m so thankful I was born female.
Sometimes my Dad got in on the singing in the truck action. He was no dancer but that man could cut his own mellow Armand kind of groove. The surefire instigator of a song burst was Willie Nelson. Willie has
been beloved by the Jordan family for decades and is still a unifying musical force. ‘Whiskey River’, ‘Mama, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys’ and about a million songs are burned in the Jordan consciousness. The one that really rang my Dad’s bell was Willie’s cover of the Roy Rogers song, ‘Don’t Fence Me In’.
Don't Fence Me In
(chorus:)
Oh, give me land, lots of land
Under starry skies above,
Don't fence me in.
Let me ride through the wild open
Country that I love,
Don't fence me in.
Let me be by myself in the evening breeze-
Listen to the murmur of the cottonwood trees,
Send me off forever, but I ask you please,
Don't fence me in.
Just turn me loose,
Let me straddle my old saddle
Underneath the western sky.
On my cayuse,
Let me wander over yonder
Till I see the mountains rise.
I want to ride to the ridge
Where the west commences,
Gaze at the moon till I lose my senses,
Can't look at hobbles and I can't stand fences,
Don't fence me in.
Wildcat Kelly, back again in town,
Was sitting by his sweetheart's side,
And when his sweetheart said:
"Come on, let's settle down,
Wildcat raised his head and cried:
(chorus)
When he would sing this song, I knew my Dad had a slice of peace in his heart. His soul was light while Willie sang and that was something all too rare for him. I owe Willie a lot for that.
As we all got older, we began to branch off into four musical directions that didn’t really conjoin until our twenties. The few groups that crossed over were the Clash, Van Halen, Queen, Led Zepplin, David
Bowie, Kiss, the Ramones and Kate Bush. Wow, Kate looks lonely with all those guys.
We all listened to Bad Company on the clunky eight-track player as we played Frisbee. Pink Floyd ‘Relics’ got slammed in, as did Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Dreams’. We listened to FM Radio (WQFM and WLPX) as we built haunted houses in the basement and snuck beers on the patio. When the boys went out on weekends, Dianne and I stayed up to watch The Midnight Special and Don Kirschner’s Rock Concert. Mom and Dad left the cable box on and we got to see ‘The Story of O’ and ‘Emmanuelle II’, as well. Rather eye opening, to say the very least.
Jon was all about eighties synth in college. That has become a perenial obssesion. There's a smattering of guitar, of course. But XTC was always a mainstay.
Senses Working Overtime
Hey, hey,
The clouds are whey.
There’s straw for the donkeys,
And the innocents can all sleep safely,
All sleep safely.
My, my,
Sun is pie.
There’s fodder for the cannons,
And the guilty ones can all sleep safely,
All sleep safely.
And all the world is football-shaped
It’s just for me to kick in space
And I can see, hear, smell, touch, taste
And I’ve got one, two, three, four, five
Senses working overtime
Trying to take this all in.
I’ve got one, two, three, four, five
Senses working overtime
Trying to taste the difference
’tween a lemon and a lime
Pain and the pleasure
And the church bells softly chime.
Hey hey,
Night fights day.
There’s food for the thinkers,
And the innocents can all live slowly,
All live slowly.
My, my,
The sky will cry
Jewels for the thirsty,
And the guilty one’s can all die slowly ,
All die slowly.
And all the world is biscuit-shaped,
It’s just for me to feed my face,
And I can see, hear, smell, touch, taste,
And I’ve got one, two, three, four, five,
Senses working overtime
Trying to take this all in.
I’ve got one, two, three, four, five,
Senses working overtime
Trying to taste the difference,
’tween a lemon and a lime,
Pain and the pleasure,
And the church bells softly chime,
And birds might fall from black skies,
And bullies might give you black eyes,
But to me it’s very, very beautiful ¡¦
(england’s glory!)
Beautiful ¡¦
(a striking beauty!)
And all the world is football-shaped,
It’s just for me to kick in space,
And I can see, hear, smell, touch, taste,
And I’ve got one, two, three, four, five,
Senses working overtime
Trying to take this all in
I’ve got one, two, three, four, five
Senses working overtime
Trying to tell the difference
’tween the goods and grime
Turds and treasure
And there’s one, two, three, four, five
Senses working overtime
Trying to take this all in
I’ve got one, two, three, four, five
Senses working overtime
Trying to taste the difference
’tween a lemon and a lime
Pain and the pleasure,
And the church bells softly chime.
Earlier, Ted Nugent was a Jon favorite. A great way to wake us in the morning when there things to be done and no parents to keep us from doing them. Much better than Mom’s choices to get us out of bed when things needed to be done will there were parents to make us do them. Disney’s ‘Electric Light Parade is one 45 that, when I come across it in, I would still like to smash to bits. Oh, the insidious sweetness of that burbly joyfest.
Frank Zappa was Jon’s Guru. Todd Rundgren his Hero. Elvis Costello and Joe Jackson his best buds.
When I asked him, he remembers ‘(Life is a Rock) But the Radio Rolled Me’ and ‘The Night Chicago Died’ as his childhood music memories.
(Life Is A Rock) But The Radio Rolled Me
B.B. Bumble and the Stingers,
Mott the Hoople, Ray Charles Singers,
Lonnie Mack and Twangin' Eddy,
Here's my ring we're going steady.
Take it easy, take me higher,
Liar liar, house on fire,
Locomotion, Poco passion,
Deeper purple, Satisfaction,
Baby baby, gotta gotta,
Gimme gimme, gettin' hotter.
Sammy's cookin', Leslie's Gore,
Ritchie Valens, end of story,
Maha Vishnu, Fujiyama,
Kama Sutra, Rama Lama,
Richard Perry, Spectre Barry,
Righteous, Archies, Nilsson Harry,
Shimmy shimmy, loco boppin',
Fats is back and finger poppin'.
Life is a rock but the radio rolled me:
Gotta turn it up louder,
So my DJ told me;
Life is a rock but the radio rolled me:
At the end of my rainbow
Lies a golden oldie.
FM, AM, hits are clickin',
While the clock is tockin', tickin'.
Friends and Romans, salutations,
Brenda and the Tabulations,
Carly Simon, I behold her,
Rolling Stony centerfolder,
Johnny Cash and Johnny Rivers,
Can't stop now, I've got the shivers.
Mungo Jerry, Peter Peter,
Paul and Paul and Mary Mary,
Dr John, the nightly tripper,
Doris Day and Jack the Ripper.
Got to go sir, got to swelter,
Leon Russell, gimme shelter,
Miracles in smoky places,
Slide guitarists, Fender basses,
Mushroom omelette, Bonnie Bramlett,
Wilson Pickett, stomp and kick it.
Life is a rock but the radio
Life is a rock but the radio
(Whoo!)
(Doo doo doo, doo doo doo)
Arthur Janoff, primal screamin',
Hawkins J. and Dale and Ronnie,
Peter Phil and Mack and Tray
And Denver John and Osmond Donny,
J.J. Cale and ZZ Top,
And L.L. Bean and Dee Dee Dinah,
David Bowie, Steely Dan,
And sing me proud, oh C.C. Rider.
Edgar Winter, Joanie Summers,
Ides of March and Johnny Thunder,
Eric Clapton, pedal wah-wah,
Stephen Foster, doo-dah doo-dah,
Good Vibrations, Help Me Rhonda,
Surfer Girl and Little Honda,
Tighter tighter, honey honey,
Sugar sugar, yummy yummy,
CBS and Warner Brothers,
RCA and all the others.
Life is a rock but the radio rolled me (Life is a rock):
Gotta turn it up louder (Life is a rock),
So my DJ told me (Life is a),
Woh-woh-woh woh-woh.
Life is a rock but the radio rolled me (Life is a rock),
At the end of my rainbow,
Lies a golden oldie.
(Ooh-ooh-ooh ooh ooh-ooh-ooh)
[Spoken] Listen, they're playing our song...
(Ooh-ooh-ooh ooh ooh-ooh-ooh)
(Ooh-ooh-ooh ooh ooh-ooh-ooh)
Gonna take you higher.
(Ooh-ooh-ooh ooh ooh-ooh-ooh)
Gonna take you higher...
Rock it, sock it, Alan Freed me,
Murray Kaufman tried to lead me,
Fish are swimmin', Boston Monkey,
Make it bad and play it funky.
B.B. Bumble and the Stingers,
Mott the Hoople, Ray Charles Singers,
Lonnie Mack and Twangin' Eddy,
Here's my ring we're going steady.
Take it easy, take me higher...
(Ooh-ooh-ooh ooh ooh-ooh-ooh)
Gonna take you higher.
(Ooh-ooh-ooh ooh ooh-ooh-ooh)
Gonna take you higher...
Jon and Paul tried to tape ‘The Night Chicago Died’ from the radio on this crappy little tape player/recorder and they never quite succeeded. They did some other stuff with that tape player/recorder that we won’t get into. Strange boys. The room Jon and Paul shared was decked out
in fluorescent light posters and fishnets full of weird stuff. I would creep in to borrow Electric Light Orchestra, Yes and Cheap Trick. Lord, even Rush’s 2112. Ultimately, Jon remained the most open-minded as we all grew.
Paul steeped himself in Iron Maiden, Blue Oyster Cult and Blondie. I know. He’s a weirdo, too. It’s a part of our genetic makeup. There was some Tom Petty and he was always a Bonnie Raitt fan. But, Paul was a hard ass. It was Paul’s way of telling the world to leave him the hell alone. For the most part, the world did.
I was a musical gad about. I am horrified to admit I was a Leo Sayer fan. At one point I knew how many chest hairs Peter Frampton had. And, I can admit on these pages to an enduring love of Talk Talk, Crowded House, Split Enz, very early R.E.M. and Supertramp. I still own CD's by all of them and I still listen to them. Even in the Quietest Moments. When I came home from yet another ‘I am so misunderstood’ day in high school, Supertramp was the balm that soothed my soul.
Even in The Quietest Moments
Roger Hodgson
Even in the quietest moments
I wish I knew what I had to do
And even though the sun is shining
Well I feel the rain --- here it comes again, dear
And even when you showed me
My heart was out of tune
For there’s a shadow of doubt that’s not letting me find you too soon
The music that you gave me
The language of my soul
Oh lord, I want to be with you.
Won’t you let me come in from the cold?
Don’t you let the sun fade away
Don’t you let the sun fade away
Don’t you let the sun be leaving
Won’t you come to me soon
And even though the stars are listening
And the ocean’s deep, I just go to sleep
And then I create a silent movie
You become the star, is that what you are, dear?
Your whisper tells a secret
Your laughter brings me joy
And a wonder of feeling I’m nature’s own little boy
But still the tears keep falling
They’re raining from the sky
Well there’s a lot of me got to go under before I get high
Don’t you let the sun disappear
Don’t you let the sun disappear
Don’t you let the sun be leaving
No, you can’t be leaving my life
Say that you won’t be leaving my life
Say that you won’t be leaving my life
Say won’t you please, stay won’t you please
Say won’t you please, stay won’t you please
Lord, won’t you come and get into my life
Lord, won’t you come and get into my life
Say won’t you please, stay won’t you please
Say won’t you please, stay won’t you please
Lord, don’t go
And even when the song is over
Where have I been --- was it just a dream?
And though your door is always open
Where do I begin --- may I please come in, dear?
Wow, what a fine example of all the pain, insecurity and angst I felt! I would head for the stereo, put on those huge, clunky headphones and leave the world for the comfort of music. The people that wrote those lyrics understood my pain and articulated it beautifully. I am not ashamed to admit that this song in particular would elicit tears on almost every occasion. Roger Hodgson was my hero. Until I found Brian May. He was my hero for a loooonnnnng time. ‘Sheer Heart Attack’ was and still is one of my all time favorite albums and May is my guitar god for building a guitar from an old cabinet alone. This change in music heroes demonstrated an inner change from tears to… well, let's just say that I wasn’t that much of a weeper anymore.
Long Away
Words and music by Brian May
You might believe in heaven
I would not care to say
For every star in heaven
There's a sad soul here today
Wake up in the morning with a good face
Stare at the moon all day
Lonely as a whisper on a star chase
Does anyone care anyway?
For all the prayers in heaven
So much of life's this way
Did we leave our way behind us?
Such a long long way behind us
Who knows when now who knows where
Where the light of day will find us?
Look for the day
Take heart my friend we love you
Though it seems like you're alone
A million light's above you
Smile down upon your home
Hurry put your troubles in a suitcase
Come let the new child play
Lonely as a whisper on a star chase
I'm leaving here, I'm long away
For all the stars in heaven
I would not live I could not live this way
Did we leave our way behind us?
Such a long long way behind us
Leave it for some hopeless lane
Such a long long way such a long long way
Such a long long way I'm looking for
Still looking for that day
I still think of this song every time I see the moon. Sigh….. what a cheeseball. I have to admit though… many men have sunk to the floor in grateful supplication when they heard I not only knew of Brian May but that my favorite Queen song was ‘Brighton Rock’.
Dianne was and, I guess, still is an odd, cool creature. She has been and always will be a huge Cheap Trick fan. She went through a Journey phase. But, her transitional years can be clarified by the mention of two major albums. Lou Reed – ‘Blue Mask’ and Patti Smith – ‘Easter’. Dianne says ‘Blue Mask’ was the seed of much bad poetry. I say ‘The Heroine’ is a painfully beautiful but kind of down song. A touch depressing. ‘Privilege (Set Me Free)’ was an anthem of internal strife and chaos we both understood deeply. That was a turn out the lights, light the candles and inscense and listen with your whole soul kind of song.
Privilege (Set Me Free)
Word and Music Patti Smith
I see it all before me:
the days of love and torment;
the nights of rock-and-roll.
I see it all before me.
Sometimes my spirit's empty;
don't have the will to go on.
I wish someone would send me
energy.
Give me something.
Give me something to give.
Oh, God, give me something:
a reason to live.
My body is aching.
Don't want sympathy.
Come on. Come and love me.
Come on. Set me free.
Set me free.
The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures.
He leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul.
He leadeth me through the path of righteousness for His name's sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me.
Hey, Lord, I'm waitin' for you.
Oh, God, I'm waitin' for you;
waitin' to open Your ninety-eight wounds
and be Thee, be Thee.
Lead me, oh, lead me.
Leave me something.
Leave me something to live.
Oh, God, give me something:
a reason to live.
I don't want no handout;
no, not sympathy.
Come on. Come and love me.
Come on. Set me free.
Set me free.
Come on. Set me free
Set me free . . .
Oh, I'm so young, so goddamn young.
Oh, I'm so young, so goddamn young.
Oh, I'm so young, so goddamn.
Set me free.
In the presence of my enemies,
Thou anointest my head with oil.
My cup runneth over.
Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life.
And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
Ah, damn, goddamn, goddamn, goddamn.
Here I am.
She moved on to Tom Waits (a living lyric legend) when she was in a good mood. When she was in a nasty mood and the intention was to keep everyone from befouling her airspace with their presence, the turntable spun Nurse With Wound and Christian Death. Now, you must realize, Dianne and I shared a room. Howard Jones and The Crusties don’t always mix. Well, I loved the Crusties. Dianne loathed Howard Jones. What can I say, I am a total geek. I’ve learned to embrace my geekiness. But bless Dianne for giving me some modicum of taste. The two of us went to parties in our teen years where we were chased out by the police and ended up being chased by an entire crew of police (about 50) the night our favorite club, Yano's, was closed. The cops said it was over capacity. They showed up wearing mirrored sunglass (it was night) and smashing billyclubs into their palms. My first real riot. My first real shout match with a cop. He told me, as a teen, that I didn't have any rights. This was after I watched his compatriots beat the shit out of a groups of kids. Ya know, Wendy O. William's styles. Don't think that didn't shape a large portion of my life.
While all of this turbulent music swam past in the Jordan household, my Mom caught and held on to some for herself. Chiefly, Billy Idol and the Cramps. But, one song stands out in my memory. Mom was in the tub, catching a few z’s, when a song came on the radio blasting the house with some T-Rex riffs. My Mom heard this song, jumped out of the tub, grabbed a towel and yelled throw a slightly open door,
“Find out who sings this song! I love this!”
It was the Hollies.
Long Cool Woman
(clarke / cook / greenaway)
Saturday night I was downtown
Working for the FBI
Sitting in a nest of bad men
Whisky bottles piling high
Bootlegging boozer on the west side
Full of people who are doing wrong
Just about to call up the da man
When I heard this woman singing a song
A pair of 45’s made me open my eyes
My temperature started to rise
She was a long cool woman in a black dress
Just a 5’9, beautiful tall
With just one look I was a bad mess
’cos that long cool woman had it all
I saw her headin’ to the table
Well a tall walking big black cat
When charlie said I hope that you’re able boy
Well I’m telling you she knows where it’s at
Well suddenly we heard the sirens
And everybody started to run
A jumping out of doors and tables
Well I heard somebody shooting a gun
Well the da was pumping my left hand
And then she was a-holding my right
Well I told her don’t get scared
’cos you’re gonna be spared
Well I’ve gotta be forgiven
If I wanna spend my living
With a long cool woman in a black dress
Just a 5’9 beautiful tall
Well, with just one look I was a bad mess
’cos that long cool woman had it all
Had it all
My Mom searched high and low for a copy of that song. This was well before MP3’s and it seemed her search would be fruitless. But who should come through for us but our friends at K-Tel? On a compilation record featuring the 'original hits by the original artists' she found the song she’d searched so long for.
Soon, she was bopping down the road listening to ‘White Wedding’, ‘Human Fly’, ‘Love is a Stranger’ and, still, ‘King of the Road’. When I went to visit my brother Paul recently, I went to put a CD on and found a treasure trove of music I’d forgotten. Music I didn’t know he loved. Whiskeytown? Luscious Jackson? Butthole Surfers? Is this really Paul?
Jon is still quite happy with everything he’s ever listened to and notes few regrets in his record collection. He has all of the records Paul and I gladly gave up. His collection broadened considerably when Ruth added her stash to the mix. But, ultimately, the most eclectic collection belongs to Dianne. Everything from Middle Eastern belly dancing music to Sly and the Family Stone to Kronos Quartet to Led Zepplin to Brother to the Yeah, Yeah, Yeah’s and Neil Young.
I don’t own as much music as everyone else. But, there is so much music in my head lending a constant sound track to everything that goes on in my life I don’t need a vast collection. I am the human jukebox. My latest selection includes My Morning Jacket, The High Llamas, Emmy Lou Harris, P.J. Harvey, The Pogues, Keane and 16 Horsepower.
When Johnny Cash and Warren Zevon, a part of every Jordan soul lost some light. Those men still had so much music left in them and so much to give. When they died I felt like yelling, “Hey, I’m not done yet!” There is so much we’ll never get to hear and absorb and we all have so much left to learn.
As I watched interviews gone by with Mr. Cash, I didn’t cry, although tears welled in my eyes. He turned away from the things that would have destroyed him and found life and love. Mr. Zevon defied his death sentence long enough to make new music with old friends and see twin grandchildren born. They were beautiful men and their passing hurts. But the music they made remains to heal everyone left behind.
Myth Conceptions
Everyday, hapless human beings are inundated with information, media blitzes, off hand comments and bad advice. We’ve been told that certain things are so by friends that mean well. They heard about it somewhere and lovingly passed it on. We all hear ever-changing opinions espoused by the press in their march towards being the most up to date, only to have the information change the next week. We hear Surgeon Generals, Presidents, Celebrities, Salespeople and our Moms tells us things with a look of earnestness that suggests they're, at least, are convinced. I am here to tell you that sometimes they are wrong.
Myth#1: We Are a Paperless Society
That’'s the way it was supposed to be. Once files, folders and other information fodder were transferred to computers, we would become a paperless society.
At work, every day, I get stacks of paper put on my desk. When I process this paperwork, I have to make 3 copies for other people. When people where I work get emails, they print them and save them in an e-folder. When we receive faxes, there is a cover letter we usually toss. When we do the faxing, we get a report that says whether or not the fax went through. This is usually tossed. Once an hour, the fax spits out a report of all of its faxes. It'’s proud, it'’s done a lot of work, and I don’'t blame it for wanting to show off a little. We take the report and toss it. If a customer is feeling particularly antsy about a deal that'’s about to go through, they fax and email us the same thing over and over and over. It all gets tossed. When someone calls and one of us isn'’t in, the message gets written on paper. When the message is read, the person is called and the message is tossed. There are long, head nodding, drool inducing meetings after which reams of information replacing last week’s information are handed out. Last weeks information gets tossed.
I did temp work for a file storage company at one point. There were two utterly gigantic buildings, four floors high, containing row after row of files that had to be legally stored for three years. Once a year, a year’s worth of files for whole companies would be tossed. Everyday, forklifts would bring in the new files that needed to be cross-matched into the computer system and stored.
When I got a computer at home, within a week I had to buy a filing cabinet. It is full of research, emails, on-line shopping receipts, cool stuff, game cheats, recipes and scads of other things that I lived without in calm happiness before I got a computer.
When my mom joined the computer age, she suddenly needed a filing cabinet. And, it seems neither of us have the proclivity for tossing paper at home that the work environment fosters. We keep everything. From filing cabinets we'’ve moved onto binders. These can be pulled out so that all of that terribly useful information is close at hand and in an indexed format. You never know when you'’ll need to reference the average wing speed velocity of the African Swallow that instant! And I'’m ready!
People love paper. Having a ‘hard copy’ in front of them makes them feel what they hold in their hands is more official. Just try converting hard-core book buyers to e-books.
Conclusion: Paperless society my big white booty.
Myth#2: MTV is Music Television
It was. It ain’'t no more. Not exactly a newsflash but darn it, I’'m irked. They should really change the name of the channel. SCDCSTV a.k.a. Scantily Clad Drunk College Students TV. Or perhaps WBBTV a.k.a. Whiny Boy Bands TV. Possibly TSSHTTV a.k.a. Twenty Somethings Stuck in a House Together TV. OCRRTV a.k.a. Osbournes Commercials and Re-Runs TV. Or, simply, TTV a.k.a. Teen TV. That’s all it'’s really about.
Do you remember way back in the eighties when MTV played music, talked about music, and spoke to musicians? Turn on VH1 when they have an '“I Love the Eighties/Seventies/nineties/Anytime But Now'” show on. You'’ll see bits of music related items from time to time. And lots of really big hair. Didn'’t VH1 play music once, too?
We’'ve moved through the game show phase. We are stuck in perpetual reality show hell now. God, I’'m glad I'’m not in my twenties anymore!
When I plugged the phrase ‘MTV’ into a search engine, a singles site came up that categorized applicants by their love or hate relationship with the cable giant. That is a sad statement about the power of a cheesy cable channel on our national consciousness.
Conclusion: Um, weird notion but, if you want music there are always CD’'s. Music didn'’t always have pretty moving pictures and boobs.
Myth#3: George W is a serious guy and he means serious business!
MAKE THE PIE HIGHER
by George W. Bush
I think we all agree, the past is over.
This is still a dangerous world.
It's a world of madmen and uncertainty
and potential mental losses.
Rarely is the question asked
Is our children learning?
Will the highways of the Internet become more few?
How many hands have I shaked?
They misunderestimate me.
I am a pitbull on the pantleg of opportunity.
I know that the human being and the fish can coexist.
Families is where our nation finds hope, where our wings take dream.
Put food on your family!
Knock down the tollbooth!
Vulcanize society!
Make the pie higher! Make the pie higher!
Conclusion: This man is a laugh factory! The sheer comic genius is astounding. My favorite thing is the leaning on the podium and being earnest routine. That just cracks me up! Almost as good as Clinton’'s definition of ‘sexual relations’.
Myth#4: Computer Techs Know How to Fix Computers
What happens every time my computer freezes or crashes and I call the help desk?
If you can get a hold of a live human being, this is what you’ll be told:
'“Have you tried re-booting?”'
I try re-booting and re-booting as my frustrations increases to fist shaking proportions until some hapless co-worker comes by, pats me on the shoulder and says, “'It’'s time.”'
I nod sadly and pick up the phone. Re-booting is a way of life for me; a Zen-like experience that helps me to transcend sanity and elevate me to true, blatant crabbiness.
Here's the Jen vs. Tech convo:
“'Have you tried re-booting?”'
“'About a gazillion times,'” I say tearfully. Right.
There is a heavy sigh at the other end of the phone and a whispered, “'Yeah, another one of those!'”
Then, to help them on their quest to help me, “'What were you doing when the computer abandoned you?'” (They know I have technical issues.)
“'Well,'” I say worriedly, “'I was sending an email and it just... stopped.'”
“'Oooohhhh…'” Is the response, with a tone of accusation thrown in to really drive home my ultimate responsibility for this tragedy.' “Sounds like we'’ll have to send someone up.”'
“'Oh, Thank God!'” I weep tears I have been holding back as I load the dart gun and am it at the techie dart board at the far end of my cubicle.
'“Where are you?'” If they are asking from a philosophical standpoint, we’re both in for a long narrative. Fortunately for all of us, that is not the case.
“'I’'m on the second floor of the Customer Fulfillment Department. Pillar E12.'” I realize then that I have become one of the human bingo cards that make up corporate America.
“'We'’ll have someone up today.'”
“'When today?' A reasonable question, no?”
'“Today.”' An asinine answer, no?
“Too dazed and cowered by their obvious technical prowess to complain, I hang up the phone and hit my head on the desk a few times. Seven hours later and twenty minutes later, when I am set to leave work after a day of filing, purging files, re-filing, dusting, re-arranging the stuff on my desk and imbibing three pots of coffee after walking around asking if anyone has any filing they need me to do, Dan the Computer Guy shows up. After booting my computer, it takes all of about five minutes for him to fix the problem. He'’s a chatty guy and spews forth a running dialogue about his dog, his daughter’s first birthday and the NBA draft while I watch over his shoulder trying to figure out how the hell he does what he does so I can do it later. When he'’s done doing what he does, he wishes me a good day, sounds like he means it, and then he'’s swallowed up in the cubicle maze that is Customer Fulfillment.
Conclusion: Computer Techs do know how to fix computers. But, they have really, really mean people answering the phone! Obviously, your narrator needed to vent. Thank you for listening. I feel much better.
Myth#5: Beauty Myths or “But, That’s What My Mom/Best Friend/A Woman at Work Told Me”
They lied to you. They probably didn’'t know they were lying to you. My mom had told me some whoppers with utter sincerity. Of course, my mom loves to mess with my head. My pain and confusion brings her joy. Anyway, for ages women have told each other legends of loveliness thinking they were helping each other. Quite the opposite. Some of myths are amusing while some are just stupid.
Myth: “Cut your hair during a full moon so it grows stronger.” Unless you're really good friends with the Moon Goddess, Diana, and she has a vested interest in your hair, this will not work.
Myth: “Pluck one gray hair and two will grow back.” It may seem that the evil gray hair comes back two-fold, but it is not true. At times the hair can split and give that illusion, but it is just that. An illusion. The Universe is not out to get you. I swear!
Myth: “You can shrink the pores on your face.” Pores will naturally enlarge as you get older due to the downward pull of gravity (especially in the cheek area). Keeping the skin clean will help keep your pores from enlarging. ‘Til Willie Wonka’s Wonkinator becomes fact, they will not shrink.
Myth: “If you shave your legs or bikini line, the hair will grow in blacker/heavier.” I’'ve been hearing this one since I was a wee, innocent pre-teen. And, it is not true. It will not grow back thicker. It will not grow back stronger. It will not grow back faster. It will not grow back better than it was before. It is not bionic hair.
Shaving and cutting a hair does not change its basic genetic make-up. It can seem darker and thicker as it creeps up from underneath your skin, but that, too, is an illusion.
Myth: “Dry skin causes wrinkles.” Dry skin can cause a snowfall of skin. A chaffed feeling from un-exfoliated dry skin. But, the reality is that sun damage and genetics cause wrinkles. Not dryness. And, to complicate dry skin matters further, there is a difference between dry skin and dehydrated skin. True-dry skin = lack of oil. Dehydrated skin = lack of water. You'’ll know dehydrated skin if I call it winter skin. Skin that feels tight and crabby.
Myth: “Your scalp being too dry causes dandruff.” Another nope. Fungus, yeast, rash, shampoo build up, product build up, psoriasis, seborrheic dermatitis and eczema cause flaking and dandruff.
Myth: “You can prevent split ends by using leave-in conditioner and deep treatments.” You can prevent split ends by not driving with the window open while you 80 mph down the freeway. You can prevent split ends by never blow drying your hair, never exposing it to the sun or chemicals and never over brushing it. You can also prevent split ends by constantly shaving your head bald.
Myth: “Your hair will grow faster/thicker if you cut it more often.” Nope. Hair grows at an average rate of half an inch per month. Because each hair shaft is slightly thicker at its base compared to its tip, hair can temporarily appear thicker for about a week after it has been significantly cut. But, cutting hair has absolutely no effect on each strand's thickness or on the number of hairs that will germinate from follicles.
Myth: "No pain, no gain." An exercise fable that extols exercise at a very high intensity or for long hours to get results. Research shows, however, that even low to moderate intensity routines have valuable health benefits. A good general recommendation is to do cardiovascular exercise three to five days a week for 20 to 45 minutes per session at 65 to 80 percent of your maximum heart rate (220 minus your age). This is a level where you are working but aren't gasping for air in fear of imminent collapse.
Myth: “A frequent mistake among women is that lifting weights will turn them into She Hulk. Bodybuilders have spent hours at the gym; some use steroids and most follow stringent diets to realize their bulked up dreams. Compared to men, women have less of the hormone testosterone, which is a major factor in developing large muscles. Strength training approximately two to four times a week, doing a variety of exercises for the major muscle groups, will help lead to a lean and toned appearance. The increase of muscle will help your body to use fat more efficiently and you will lose weight, not blow up like a muscle-bound balloon.
Myth: “If you stop working out, muscle will turn into fat.” Most folks are under the impression that if they stop working out, their muscle will turn into fat. Muscle and fat are two distinct tissues. One can't be converted from one type to the other type. I promise. There is no alchemy taking place inside your body. If you stop exercising, muscle tissue will shrink, so you may feel flabbier. And, when muscles get smaller, they do not need as many calories, so your metabolism slows. With a slower metabolism, if you eat the same amount of calories, you will gain body fat. There is no evil metamorphosis as the gods punish you for laziness.
Myth: “Hair color will give you more white hair.” No, nope, uh-uh. Hair coloration cannot give you more white hair because it does not penetrate your scalp. The whitening of the hair is caused by the inability of the melanocytes to produce melanin. Melanocytes are inside your scalp. They never meet the hair coloring, let alone have a disagreement of such magnitude.
Myth: “Coloring Hair During Pregnancy is Harmful.” Not true, baby blue. Although some doctors disagree amongst themselves, most believe that coloring the hair during pregnancy will not be dangerous to the baby. When in doubt always get your physician’s permission to color your hair during pregnancy. Most experts believe that the key danger with hair coloring is not the application of the product to the scalp but the inhalation of the strong chemical odor.
Myth: “Smoking Causes Gray Hair.” This, my friends, is true. According to J. G. Mosley of the Leigh Infirmary in Lancashire, England in an article in Science News (January 11, 1997) smokers are four times more likely to have gray hair than nonsmokers. Even worse, smoking has been conclusively linked to accelerated hair loss.
Myth: “Wearing Tight Braids, Ponytails or Buns Causes Baldness” This is accurate. Traction alopecia is a very real hair loss condition. It may result from wearing tight ponytails, cornrows or buns over an extended period of time. Avoid this potential problem by opting for looser styles that minimize scalp tension.
Myth: “Vinegar should be used as an after shampoo rinse for shine.” Besides allowing one to smell like poached eggs, the acidity of both of these products was used to help remove soap residue from the hair after washing. They did left the hair shiny and squeaky-clean. However, modern, detergent based, shampoo leaves no soap scum on the hair and, again, with the popularity of hair color and permanent waves, the use of a rinse with this amount of acidity is not recommended.
Myth: “Shaving your legs will cause heavier, darker hair to grow.” Total Myth. Shaving will not make hair grow thicker or darker. We have a certain number of hairs growing on our bodies and this does not change by shaving. Change of color sometimes may occur, but is a natural process whether the hair has been shaved or not.
Myth: “The gene for male pattern baldness comes only from the mother.” The truth is that the gene may be passed to a child from either parent, not just the mother. It isn'’t just our fault, boys!
Myth: “Spit in your bath water three times and you'’ll slow down the aging process.” This is yucky and patently untrue.
Myth#6: Food Facts and Fables or “Don’t Eat Blue Food”
Myth: “Brown eggs are more nutritious than white eggs.” The color of an egg depends on the breed of the chicken that laid the egg and has no association with the nutritional content.
Myth: “Organically grown vegetables are more nutritious than vegetables grown with chemical fertilizers.” Plants absorb the building blocks (nitrogenous compounds, minerals, water etc.) from the soil and synthesize vitamins and other nutrients. If the soil is rich enough to support plants then it is immaterial whether the nutrients are of organic origin or chemical. Therefore, vegetables grown with chemical fertilizers are just as nutritious.
Myth: “Monosodium glutamate, used as a flavor enhance can cause headaches.” My dad is convinced of this no matter what I tell him. Studies have revealed that monosodium glutamate does not cause headaches. Even the World Health Organization has declared monosodium glutamate to be safe. You will never convince my Father of this fact.
Myth: “Food eaten late at night is more fattening.” Most of us believe eating after a certain time in the evening makes the body store more fat because were not burning it off with activity. I was right there with the don'’t eat after a certain time of night crowd. Studies show that a large meal eaten late at night does not make the body store more fat. Instead, it'’s the total amount eaten in a 24-hour period that's significant. Now, it is true that people who skip meals during the day, and then eat massive amounts in the evening are more likely to be overweight than those who eat regularly throughout the day. This is most likely because eating regular meals helps people regulate their appetite and overall food intake. And I think we can all agree that eating massive amounts of anything, at anytime, unless you’re Beldar Conehead, is a bad idea.
Myth: “Brown bread has more fiber than white bread” Once again, color doesn’'t matter. Brown color does not mean a bread is high in fiber. It’'s the bread’s ingredients that make the difference. If your loaf contains whole wheat or other whole grains, then it probably has fiber. The brown color is likely from caramel coloring found in the somewhere in the ingredient list. Bakers are a bunch of carb ridden liars.
Myth: “Frozen and canned vegetables don'’t have the same nutritional value as fresh vegetables” The truth of the matter is that, depending on the handling of the produce, there is little difference. B and C vitamins leech into the water that the canned vegetables are processed in. Usually, people throw that water away. Taking a long slurp of your veggie water is a tonic. I had a friend that did this on a regular basis. I thought he was nuts. Well, I still think he is but he’'s a healthy nut. Physically speaking.
Now, canned or frozen produce may have added sugar or salt, which should be taken into consideration. Sugar and salt should be avoided unless you have a practicing sense of moderation. Raw veggies are best, but any vegetable, in any form, is better than none. Whether iceberg lettuce in salad (nutritionally weaker than darker greens) or cooked carrots from a can, the bottom line is if you’re eating vegetables, you’re making your body happy.
Myth: “Vitamins provide energy.” Calories from fat, carbohydrates, and protein impart energy. Vitamins don't have calories; thusly they don’'t impart you energy. This food fable most likely stems from what B vitamins really do for you. Each of the eight B vitamins plays a critical role in the chemical reactions that release energy from foods. And, of course, it turns ones urine a lovely bright yellow shade. This played a large part in part in some of Andy Warhol’s later paintings cleverly called “Piss Paintings”. This is not a myth-understanding.
Myth: “Fasting flushes out impurities and toxins.” No evidence supports the claim. Sorry all you fasting fanatics. Your body was designed to process food. This includes elimination of naturally occurring toxins such as ammonia that results from the breakdown of protein.
For most people, one-day fasts are neither healthful nor harmful. But longer fasts jeopardize your health. Risks include dehydration, dangerously low blood pressure, muscle and organ tissue breakdown, and irregularity of your heartbeat. Never fast if you have heart disease, insulin-dependent diabetes, or kidney or liver problems. Fasting is not for the faint of heart.
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I realized when I myth took this quest that there were a lot of myths to wade through. As I am now knee deep in legends, mom-lore and funny family fable I bid you adieu until I’m up to the neck.Monday is Mullet Day
Well, it's similiar to the sick fascination I had as a child when I wrapped rubber bands around my fingers until the ends turned purple and felt cold to the touch. Yeah, just like that.
Well, without further a 'do:
2005-01-09
India's untouchables forced out of relief camps
The AP has released a story about Keshvanpalayam, India's untouchables, having suffered as greatly from the tsunami as everyone around them, being forced out of relief camps by higher caste survivors. They have also been denied aid supplies.
"Kuppuswamy Ramachandran, 32, a Dalit or untouchable in India's rigid caste hierarchy, said he and his family were told to leave a relief camp in worst-hit Nagapattinam district where 50 more families were housed.
"The higher caste fishing community did not allow us to sleep in a marriage hall where they are put up because we belong to the lowest caste," Ramachandran said.
"After three days we were moved out to a school but now the school is going to reopen within three days and the teachers drove us out," he said.
"Where will I take my family and children? The school had no lights, toilets or drinking water," available for the displaced. At Keshvanpalayam, the Dalits had only flattened homes to show while survivors elsewhere enjoyed relief supplies such as food, medicines, sleeping mats and kerosene.
No government official or aid has flowed into the village which houses 83 Dalit families more than 30 kilometres (20 miles) from Nagapattinam town.
Chandra Jayaram, 35, who lost her husband to the tsunamis, said her family has not received promised government compensation of 100,000 rupees (2,174 dollars).
"At the relief camps we are treated differently due to our social status. We are not given relief supplies. The fishing community told us not to stay with them. The government says we will not be given anything as we are not affected much," Jayaram said.
S. Karuppiah, field coordinator with the Human Rights Forum for Dalit Liberation, said in some of the villages the dead bodies of untouchables were removed with reluctance.
"The Dalit villages are in most places proving to be the preferred choice of the fishing community to bury the dead. If the Dalits ask for relief materials the government says they can only give the leftovers," Karuppiah said.
"The government is turning a blind eye," he said. "When Dalits bury the dead they are not given gloves or medicines but only alcohol to forget the rotten stench." Another activist, Mahakrishnan Marimuthu, who heads the non-governmental Education and Handicraft Training Trust, said tsunamis dealt a double blow to the caste."
Nonprofit Consumers Union has a new guide to contraception that the seven top types of condoms. The best bags studied did not burst despite vigorous testing.
The top brand, able to take the most punishment, was the Durex Extra Sensitive Lubricated Latex, according to the report.
Other top-performers include the Durex Performax Lubricated, Lifestyles Classic Collection Ultra Sensitive Lubricated and TheyFit Lubricated.
A melon-colored model distributed by Planned Parenthood performed the worst, bursting during a test in which the latex condoms were filled with air.
BBQ Done Java Style
Talk Nerdy to Me
| 11. | (A)bort, (R)etry, (F)ail? R
(A)bort, (R)etry, (F)ail? R (A)bort, (R)etry, (F)ail? F Relationship failed. |
| 10. | Now that Half Life 2 is out, I need to refocus my priorities. |
| 9. | You have been unsubscribed from my dating list. Please click this link to confirm. |
| 8. | I need a lover who understands that 20 hours a day on the Internet is normal. |
| 7. | I don't think we should date any more, but we can still be on each other's buddy lists. |
| 6. | I'd like a true beauty so I don't have to spend so much time photoshopping your ugly face out of our photos. |
| 5. | It's like in X-Men number 135, where Cyclops and Jean Grey (as The Phoenix)... |
| 4. | Let's face it. You love Intel, and I'm an AMD man. It's not going to work out. |
| 3. | What do you mean your EULA says that once I've removed the shrink wrap I can't return it? |
| 2. | After you e-mailed me your full-body shot, I realized I was looking
for someone more feminine |
| 1. | So long and thanks for all the fish. |
Check out the rest of the site for Feng Shui motherboards and Geek Horoscopes.
Relief
I've stopped watching coverage. Seeing people swept away or weeping at the news that someone they love has died is more than I can take. The courage of those that are rebuilding from the literal pieces of their lives leaves me in awe. If I lost so much, I don't know if I'd want to survive. I'm not sure if I could be that brave and strong. But these people protect the little they have and work to help others.
This situation has displayed the best and the worst that humans can be. I hope that, for once, the best part of us will win.
Beauty and the Beast - Slate Style
Why are fat sitcom husbands paired with great-looking wives?
And in ads as well!
Oh, and if you go to that link, ignore the Dr. Phil weight loss ad on the bottom. He's high on my list of faux celebrities making money off of confused Americans. And believe me, there are a lot of us, um... them!
Bill Tracking 2005
It's a Beautiful Day
The Bush administration paid $240,000 of the taxpayers money to commentator Armstrong Williams "to regularly comment on NCLB during the course of his broadcasts," and to interview Education Secretary Rod Paige for TV and radio spots that aired during the show in 2004.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's former finance director, David Rosen, has been indicted on four counts of filing false reports with the Federal Election Commission.
A popular self-taught meterologist, who is legally blind and provides his weather forecasts from home, will return to the airwaves in western Massachusetts after a public outcry over his firing.
Some 30,000 pounds of dog food is on its way to the Middle East to feed a unit of starving Iraqi canines, after an e-mail sent by a local Army Reserve captain elicited offers to help from across the nation.
A nurse faked having cancer and took thousands of dollars that her co-workers raised for her treatment, and stole 54 tablets of the painkiller OxyContin, police said.
And I officially don't care that Jen and Brad broke up.
2005-01-07
‘Oh God, they let me publish that shit?’
"You know, as an artist, it's not my job to fit in; its not my job to belong. I'm not a social worker; I'm not a therapist. It's my job to beat the shit out of the world. I'm not here to make people feel good."
- Sherman Alexie
(interview with Robert Capriccioso from Identity Theory who did the best interview with Alexie I've read)
RC: Do you cringe when you see your own work?
SA: Oh, yeah, all of it; poems, stories, everything. It's going, 'Oh God, they let me publish that shit?'
RC: You have huge fans now; how has this success changed you?
SA: The best thing? When I'm in a store and there's a book I want, I can always buy it. I never have to think about whether or not I can afford the book. I can buy a book a day, two books a day, three books a day, if I want. You talk about luxury, privilege? For me that's privilege, I don't give a shit about driving a great car, living in a mansion. I can buy three books a day.
RC: You recognize that you are famous now, you have a lot of fans, but that will never mean you are a mainstream artist?
SA: Oh no! I'm not Jennifer Lopez.
RC: Will you ever be Jennifer Lopez?
SA: If I keep eating fry bread, maybe. (big laugh) Maybe my ass will get that big. But I doubt it.
Before I just lift the whole thing, please just go read it.
Giggle Fit
My Head at the Dead story:
Mid-summer, Alpine Valley, beautiful blue skies, beautiful tie-dye wearing freaky people, me and my boy posse at a Dead show when I was still young enough to blame all of my bad behavior on that fact alone.
This was my second time tripping and it hit like a ton of nerf bricks. After downing a few liters of water, I headed for the bathrooms for a little 'meditation.'
When I stepped out of the stall the bathroom suddenly became a room the size of, oh, a large stadium. Row after row after row after row after row after row after row after row after row after row after row after row after row of stalls greeted me and my acidic mind. I stood slack jawed then began to panic. I think I may have whimpered.
Out of nowhere, a beautiful (everyone was beautiful that day, except my friend Ross who was very - red) woman stood before me and took my hand. Smiling, she led me past rows infinitum to a door. Opening the door, I stepped through to the sound of music and the warmth of the sun. I turned to say thank you to find the woman slipping back into my former purgatory, no doubt coming to the aid of another hapless idiot.
Greeter Sacked over Bag Photo
Wooten was accused of greeting customers with a computer-generated photo of himself in which he appeared to be naked except for a carefully placed Wal-Mart bag. He then told customers that Wal-Mart was cutting costs and the sack was the company's new uniform. I've the pic but damned if I'm too grossed out to post it. It you really want me to, I will. But only if you really want me to. I mean really.
A supervisor where Wooten had worked for seven years told him to keep the sack to himself after customers complained. Five days later he was fired after displaying the photo again.
Wooten's application for unemployment compensation was then summarily rejected by an administrative law judge. The judge said "a reasonable person would know the act of showing a naked body wearing a Wal-Mart sack would not be good for the employer's business."
Wooten claims not see the harm in the photo. A friend spliced a picture of Wooten's head onto a shot of another man's body and when Wooten saw it, "I pretty near died laughing."
No If Andy's Butt
In the spot for Airborne, a natural cold remedy, the 84-year-old star is in a sauna when someone behind him coughs. He overreacts, jumps up, screams and heads for the door. In his rush, his towel drops, baring his buns for about two seconds.
Rider McDowell, co-owner of Airborne, says it's not exactly titillating stuff. "There's nothing sexual about the ad," McDowell says. "It's tantamount to showing a baby's bottom."
Rooney, who was planning a Super Bowl party, says in a statement he's angry. He wanted to be the butt of this joke: "What we're selling here is something I really believe in, which is an awareness of the germs we're all exposed to. There's nothing sensual about the brief exposure of my backside, and it's not gratuitous. ... It's a fun spot, and the public deserves to see it."
Um... I'm kinda glad I don't have to see it.
Neiman Marcus's Sparkly Spuds
Presenting our exclusive limited-edition Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head, hand-encrusted with sparkling Swarovski® crystals and signed by Jay Strongwater.
• All of the accessories have gotten the crystal treatment, too, from her sensible handbag down to his jaunty pug ears.
• It takes more than 40 hours to cover Mr. P with more than 23,000 Swarovski® crystals in 14 different colors.
• Each stands 8 1/2"H x 8"W x 5"D and arrives in a gift box.
$8,000 each. They're both on backorder with the Mrs. ship date listed as inavailable.
The Smoking 'Fro
The 54-year-old fitness guru (5' 7", 155 pounds) laid the smackdown on one Chris Farney, a 23-year-old Mesa man (6' 1" and 255 pounds) who happens to cage wrestle in his spare time. According to the below Phoenix Police Department report, when Farney spotted Simmons (whose real first name is Milton) walking through the Sky Harbor International Airport, he said, "Look, Richard Simmons. Drop your bags, let's rock to the 50's." Farney told cops he was referring to an old Simmons workout tape. The diminutive star responded by walking over to the strapping Farney and saying, "It's not nice to make fun of people with issues." He then slapped Farney's face. The motorcycle salesman, who was not injured, called cops, who cited an "emotional" and repentant Simmons for assault.
The Smoking Phone
From the Smoking Gun or Dianne's Cyber Playground
TOILET BRUSH THAT WARNS, “DO NOT USE FOR PERSONAL HYGIENE”
A flushable toilet brush that warns users, “Do not use for personal hygiene” has been identified as the nation’s wackiest warning label in an annual contest sponsored by a consumer watchdog group.
The Wacky Warning Label Contest, now in it’s eighth year, is conducted by Michigan Lawsuit Abuse Watch, M-LAW, to reveal how lawsuits, and concern about lawsuits, have created a need for common sense warnings on products.
Winners were chosen from hundreds of labels
Over the past twelve months, M-LAW has received hundreds of labels –- all from products made by American manufacturers -- from people living in many different countries. The winning labels were selected by listeners of the Dick Purtan morning show on Detroit radio station, WOMC-FM from a list of finalists selected by M-LAW. The toilet brush label was found by Ed Gyetvai, of Oldcastle, Ontario. He receives $500 and a copy of the national bestselling book, “The Death of Common Sense,” by Philip K. Howard.
OTHER WINNERS.
The $250 second place award went to Matt Johnson of Naperville, Illinois for a label on a popular scooter for children that warns: “This product moves when used.”
Third place and $100 went to Ann Marie Taylor of Camden, South Carolina who found the following warning on a digital thermometer that can be used to take a person’s temperature several different ways: “Once used rectally, the thermometer should not be used orally.”
Fourth place was a label on an electric hand blender promoted for use in “blending, whipping, chopping and dicing,” that warns: “Never remove food or other items from the blades while the product is operating.” Sent in by Ken Stein of Berkeley, California.
In fifth place was a label on a nine- by three-inch bag of air used as packing material. It carries this warning: “Do not use this product as a toy, pillow, or flotation device.”Sent in by Christen Millard of Westerville, Ohio.
Personally, I think the thermometer is the best one.
The Name Game
It's not unusual for small lakes in out-of-the-way places to have different names because of variations in county, state or other official records, but there are no such indications in this case, said Ken Brown, a land surveyor with the state Department of Natural Resources.
"That means someone is playing a joke, I think," Brown said in all sincerity.
2005-01-06
Raising a Fuerer over Wine
The so-called "Fuehrerwein'' bottles, part of vintner Alessandro Lunardelli's "historic line,'' features 14 different labels portraying Hitler with slogans like "Sieg Heil'' and other Nazis.
The line also includes labels with portraits of other infamous characters of history, such as Italy's former fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, former Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin and former French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte.
Ride on the Peace Train - Just not into U.S.A.
Yusuf Islam was removed from a London-to-Washington flight in September because of suspected links to terrorists - a claim he has strongly denied.
In November, he was awarded the "Man for Peace" prize in Rome by former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who praised him for charity work and standing by his convictions despite personal hardships.
Mr Islam says he has received "more apologies than you can count" from Americans embarrassed after their Government deported him.
"So, I'm quite satisfied with the spirit of most people and probably it was a mistake. But let's hope it will be solved soon. The lawyers are looking into it," he said.
Mr Islam says the binding powers of religions are essential in a post-9/11 world.
"Probably one of the biggest imperatives at this time would be for a greater understanding of the Islamic faith because of the tensions which have built up over the years due to the absence of any accurate information of where true beliefs unite humanity rather than divide," he said.
"I broke through many barriers in order to get through to Islam, and looking back I can see that there are problems in perception.
"But once you reach the great shores of wisdom there are so many beautiful approaches to the one uniting message of religions, which is peace and loving your brother, who you love as yourself."
Mr Islam, who cut his last pop album in 1978, says he is ready to write more songs to promote peace.
"Music is also a great cure and a great healer and I think the time has come probably to re-invest some more time in exploring my creative ideas and that's what I'm doing right now," he said.
"I've got a little tape recorder in my top pocket and I keep it with me. Ideas are flowing."
In 1990 and again in July 2000, he was detained upon arrival and deported from Israel.
Guitar Face
Happy Hippo
The hippopotamus, nicknamed Owen and weighing about 300 kilograms (650 pounds), was swept down Sabaki River into the Indian Ocean, then forced back to shore when tsumani waves struck the Kenyan coast on December 26, before wildlife rangers rescued him.
"It is incredible. A-less-than-a-year-old hippo has adopted a male tortoise, about a century old, and the tortoise seems to be very happy with being a 'mother'," ecologist Paula Kahumbu, who is in charge of Lafarge Park, told AFP.
"After it was swept and lost its mother, the hippo was traumatised. It had to look for something to be a surrogate mother. Fortunately, it landed on the tortoise and established a strong bond. They swim, eat and sleep together," the ecologist added.
Owen, a one year-old baby Hippotamus gets close to his adopted 'mother', a giant male Aldabran tortoise at Kenya's Haller Park, January 6, 2004. The 120-year old giant tortoise living in the Kenyan sanctuary has become inseparable from the baby hippo rescued by game wardens, sanctuary officials said on Thursday. (Peter Greste/Reuters)
"The hippo follows the tortoise exactly the way it follows its mother. If somebody approaches the tortoise, the hippo becomes aggressive, as if protecting its biological mother," Kahumbu added.
"The hippo is a young baby, he was left at a very tender age and by nature, hippos are social animals that like to stay with their mothers for four years," he explained.
In 2002, a barren Kenyan lioness made several attempts to play mother to baby antelopes, one of which ended with a rival lion making a meal out of the calf, and the others when rangers separated the animals.
And they don't eat pears, either?
Geez!
A penis by any other name...
| Your Penis Name is: Bavarian Beefstick
|
My porn star name:
| Your Porn Star Name is: Sweetest Sin
|
My stripper name:
| Your Stripper Name is: Delicious
|
2005-01-05
Soon the Cock will Crow
The lunar cycle begins relatively late this year (on Feb. 9) which means it will not contain "lichun," the auspicious day that marks the start of spring. This earns this coming Year of the Rooster the dubious distinction of being a "widow year," or unlucky for wedlock.
Chinese media have reported that marriage registrations are soaring around the country as people scramble to get hitched in the last days of the Year of the Monkey.
Phantom Post
From the Point of No Return's Review of
Paul Stanely as the Phantom of the Opera stint
in 1999
I was prepared to be disappointed with Paul Stanley's Phantom, but he actually impressed me quite a bit in some parts. Vocally, he was quite good. His acting wasn't bad either, though it seemed to me that he was just trying too hard. Erik is supposed to look effortless, and that's one word I would not use to describe Paul's Phantom. His final lair scene was probably the weakest point, but I still cried...because it was the final show? I don't know.
Paul said a few words at the very end. He thanked Toronto and thanked Pantages for making many peoples dreams come true, including his. He also stated he was the last person hired to do the Phantom and is the last person to leave the stage which was quite an honor. They closed with the entire cast and employees of the Pantages Theatre on stage singing "Music of the Night". And then was closed off with a firecracker display and a spray of confetti with balloons
Dukes of Duh
Stars say they're having fun, but they won't talk about the plot.
"If you want to talk about plot, talk to Jay," Johnny Knoxville, dressed as his Luke Duke character and leaning on the General Lee, said last week, referring to director Jay Chandrasekhar ("Super Troopers," "Club Dread"). "We don't know what the hell is going on."
"We're just having a good time," added Seann William Scott, who is portraying Luke's cousin Bo.
"Yeah, 'Punch this guy,' that's the kind of direction we get," Knoxville said.
Inspired by Pork
Gah! Two dare to speedo, the other hides under furs as the fourth attempts to leave the album altogether.
Furr. Not good enough to be Kiss. But bad enough to want to be Kiss.
Not fond of covers that feature women that look as though they're about to throw a shoe at me and send me to bed without supper.
She's also a bad hair model.
Bought by hundreds of boys in the eighties that didn't care what the music sounded like.
Really no need for me to say anything, is there?
Paddy, Paddy, Paddy. Looking a little too smirky for my taste as he sits in a pair of oversized jeans with his life companion Jeeves.
Heino?
Note the hair, the sunglasses as hairband accessory and the shirt formerly worn by conjoined twins in Iowa.
Lee Prince: Male Prostitute
10 worst album covers of all time
I'll reveal his #10 to get you kids going.
#10- 12 Top Hits (featuring the finest in top hit entertainment)
Have you ever been to one of those parties where everyone sits expectantly and watches two people dance around like retards in a retard shop? Right. No one has, because those parties don't happen. Maybe it was a simpler time when songs like “Poor Little Fool” and “Splish Splash” had some kind of mind controlling power over teenagers. It caused them to pull their pants up too high and wear the worst socks ever made. No wonder there was such condemnation of Rock and Roll in the fifties. Look at what it did to their stupid kids. Granted, this one isn’t terribly offensive, but they get worse.
Inmate sentenced over cheese sandwiches
Douglas Eugene Wilson, 45, pleaded guilty Monday to possession of contraband and was sentenced by District Judge Thomas Kane.
Prosecutors said Wilson had the sandwiches while in jail awaiting trial on the murder charge and he tried to give them to other inmates, which is a violation of jail rules. A sheriff's deputy testified at a hearing in May that they warned Wilson not to pass food to other inmate then shocked him with a stun gun when he ignored them. Wilson was tackled and handcuffed after he reportedly charged a deputy. Second-degree assault and attempted second-degree assault charges against Wilson were dropped in exchange for the contraband guilty plea. "Why are the taxpayers paying the judiciary to hold this hearing on some contraband sandwiches?" he said in a telephone interview with the Gazette of Colorado Springs. "Taxpayers want to know where their money is going -- there it is." Wilson was convicted last month of first-degree murder in the strangling death of Liza Chavez, 37.
Hi, I'm Richard Gere, and I'm speaking for the entire world.
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Personally, I think Gere is an asswipe and he couldn't persuade me to step out of a burning building.
2005-01-04
Grade your Caffeine I.Q.
If you think you know this best pal, think again.
And, as T.R. Reid, the author of the piece says, "Slurped in black coffee or sipped in green tea, gulped down in a soda or knocked back in a headache pill, caffeine is the world's most popular psychoactive drug." I am not in a position to argue.
There is forum dedicated to methods of brewing the perfect pot of coffee and links that explain how Coffee/Caffeine works to the impact of caffeine on health.
First musical purhcase
The first music I spent my own money on:
The Band's Last Waltz on eight-track. I was knee high to a grass blade at the time.
Duane Swierczynski's:
It was the first album I ever purchased.
It was 1981; I was nine years old; sue me.
My mom's first album, purchased in 1954:
Flood the Zone
Industry insiders are aghast at new CNN chief Jonathan Klein's appalling lack of sensitivity to the tsunami disaster in his ongoing media tour today.
Klein told USATODAY that CNN was "able to flood the zone immediately."
"It's jarring," said one news executive. "This guy's obsessed with associating himself with the coverage of this tragedy and he royally sticks his foot in his mouth his first time out of the gate -- could there be a worse choice of words to use after 150,000 people just died in an epic flood of waves?"
I'm thinking, "A huge wave of coverage has hit the island" or "The other news agencies are all washed up" might have been a bit worse. But not much.
Put 'em Up!
The Onion: Who could you take in a fight?
Micky Dolenz: You mean, bring with me to a fight?
O: No, who could you beat up?
MD: [Laughs.] Uh, specifically a name?
O: Yeah, a person in particular. Who do you think you could take?
MD: Well, probably just about anybody, 'cause I'm armed.
Billy Connolly: Who could I take down? Oh, Robin Williams.
O: Robin Williams?
BC: Oh, easy, yeah. I nearly had him last night. They pulled me off him. I nearly socked him on an' away off. Little bastard and his fucking woolly hat. Who does he think he is? As a matter of fact, if he wasn't flying me to L.A. today in his plane, I would have done it. [Connolly and Williams were appearing together at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen. —ed.] I would have fucking had him. If it was my plane, I would have belted him. I just don't happen to have a plane.
Matthew Sweet: [Laughs.] Gee, that's a hard one to answer. I don't know exactly what the angle is. Who could I take in a fight? Anyone I was angry enough at to really want to. But I'm a lover, not a fighter.
Seth Green: [Laughs.] Um, Warwick Davis. He's the guy in Willow, and he played Wicket the Ewok. I'll kick his fuckin' ass. I'll throw him down a fuckin' flight of stairs. I'll grab him by the ankles and shake him out on a fuckin' concrete stairs like an Oriental rug. [Laughs.] I used to think I could take Gary Coleman until he beat up that lady.O: He's like a security guard or something, so he's probably got training.
SG: Right, and I saw that chick. She was big, and he kicked her ass. So now I'm not as sure. I used to think he was the one. [Pauses, laughs.] Warwick Davis is such a good answer, man. [Laughs.] I'll fight the fuck out of Warwick Davis.
Alice Cooper: Um, you'd be surprised. Me, probably not anybody. But Alice is not afraid of anybody. I would take Alice into a biker bar and let him walk in and stare around, and I don't think anyone would hassle him. Myself, I was a track runner. I was a good miler and two-miler. I could outrun just about anybody. [Laughs.] But I think one of the reasons I created Alice was to do my fighting for me. And I'm pretty sure I could take Donny Osmond.
George Carlin: Uh, let's see... Probably Lauren Bacall.
Big Heads
And now, without further preamble, I give you: BIG HEADS!
