Godcasting

The local paper did a nice job on this story about how churches are grabbing low-power broadcast slots usually associated with punk-anarchist pirate radio stations. So while the techies and early-adopter types were focussing on podcasting, conservative churches gobbled up the broadcast spectrum.

Let's push things forward

Finally ready to tackle my latest project again, I woke up at 5 a.m. and put in a good 90 minutes. The piece I'm working on is the book I started during National Novel Writing Month in November. Back then I got 20,000 words in (you're supposed to write 50,000) and then ran into the sands, as Edmund Wilson is wont to say in "To the Finland Station" (I'm still pluging away at reading it). In the last couple of weeks I've been psyching myself up to begin again, and so this morning I did, taking advantage of the only quiet time I have available -- the hours before dawn.

Similarly, Cris gets most of her studying done at night after I go to bed. She's a night person, I'm a morning person. The only unfortunate effect is that we rarely spend any time in bed together when both of us are awake.

This morning, a gorgeous spring day after yesterday's storms. So beautiful!

California

After church today I chatted up a nice lesbian about my age. She said she had come up from So. Cal. for a few weeks, and I said something about how it must be nice to get away from the rain. Spoke too soon, though, because it started raining like a motherfucker this afternoon. I went over to Oakland to the museum to see their exhibit about California during the Vietnam War years. I was impressed with the size of the crowd, which had a large representation of aging baby boomers who, after going through the exhibit, sat in the cafeteria and reminisced about their experiences then. I was less impressed with the exhibit itself, which was largely composed of memorabilia, posters, clothing and uniforms from the era, and a few photos and video montages. But then I remembered that the Oakland Museum is less an art museum than a history museum.

Then I went to spend an hour with Six at Jenny's house. And on the way back, on the bridge, the rain was hard and the wind was high. I'm driving a new used car, a 93 Acura we got last week, and I was grateful that I wasn't driving Martina, our old MR2, which leaks in the rain.

Martina is now for sale (here's a picture of the same color, make and model) if anybody wants her. Good mechanical condition!

Then back home: feeding the cats, putting away groceries, doing a load of laundry. The glories of bourgeois living.

Culcha

Tonight to the symphony with Katia and Jan. Earlier today I went over to Oakland and back just to feed a cat. And this morning we got a new fridge delivered, with less tsuris than the washer-dryer that was delivered on Sunday. Thus goes our bourgeois life.

He does, however, still need help with the world peace thing

Pope Breathing On His Own
                       -- news headline

Man, I wish I had a job where they set the bar that low.

MSNBC comments: "Some hefty moral values concerns are on the table, starting with the Pope." Aww, is that nice? He's on the table? After all, his tracheotomy only lasted half an hour.

Curfew shall not ring tonight!

Here's a special for my erotic romance-writing friends: Reimagined romance book covers. Don't skip ahead, just keep patiently reading til the last hilarious one.

The 21st century marches on

Another blogger -- the brilliant and very attractive Amy Langfield -- urged me to set up an RSS feed. So I'm giving it a try -- here's the alleged URL. Somebody let me know if it works.

Then I realized her blog had somehow fallen off my list of links. It's back up now.

Much rather read

Finished tonight The Master and Margarita, a lovely, stupendous book. Reading it is like hearing the work of a world-famous composer for the first time, you feel as if you've been missing something. But it's so full of style and literary allusions, 90% of which I don't catch. Reading such masterpieces I'm like a dog watching a baseball game: I don't really follow most of what's going on, though I do enjoy the general athletic air and the sight of men running to and fro. It takes someone like Lizzard to read with all the appreciation such a book should be read with.

Then I turned on the TV for a few moments and turned it off in five minutes. There was something good on, too -- the HBO film Dirty War, being shown on PBS. And on another channel there was Countdown, a show I usually enjoy. But I just couldn't watch, and not just because I'd just finished a splendid book. I haven't felt like watching TV for a few weeks.

I'm sure I'll get over my aversion when baseball season starts, however.

General call: If you live in the snow-covered Twin Cities and you are a good-looking very smart male nerd, I have just the person for you. Act now, this offer will probably not be available for long.

Icon

My friend Martha Baer, whose book Safe came out last month, has a four-part series on security at the Golden Gate Bridge starting on SF Gate today.

Dept. of Orwellian English

Sunday the Mercury-News ran a profile and Q & A with the head of BEA, a company I worked for in 2001 and 2002. Apparently refusing to recognize that most of the world just has problems getting clean drinking water and making it to age 50, he actually said, "What are we here for? We are here because we are trying to change the world." And if you think that's taken out of context, look at the whole section:

Q: What is it like to head a company that has been mentioned as a possible takeover target?

A: I spent nine years working for Sun Microsystems. There was not a day when there weren't rumors that someone was going to acquire Sun. It's the stuff the public loves to talk about, reporters love to ask about.

What are we here for? We are here because we are trying to change the world. I stick my credit card in the machine at the airport and a boarding pass comes out. Being independent is the way to go. I believe that if we were not independent, this could not have been done. The world would still be run completely on IBM.

An airline ticket kiosk -- that's changing the world? I guess maybe it changed the world for the ticket agent the machine replaced.

Then there's always the possibility he should just never speak in public. That was certainly true of a CEO at another company I worked for. The guy was famous for shooting off his mouth. Eventually, in a rare instance of corporate realism, he lost his job.

Meanwhile, on the Gannon/Guckert front, the story is starting to run dry, but this column from an apparently crusty Chicago Tribune reporter offers a great perspective. Having had experience with Republican press-handling efficiency, he just isn't buying the White House's story that they didn't really know, or pay attention to, who "Gannon" was.

The ownership society

My good friend and ex, Catherine (she's seen here, on the far right), who came to the U.S. in 1984 from Paris as a high school dropout, is a living embodiment of the American dream. Over twenty years, while manifestly hating this country's government and its misadvantures, she got a GED, then a college degree, became a citizen, got a master's degree and became a certified Marriage and Family Therapist, and to top it all off, a couple of months ago, bought with her boyfriend of eight years a house in Oakland. I finally had the chance last night to visit the new house last night, and aside from its beauty and the way it already reflects the personalities of my friends, makes me so happy for them, and proud of what she's accomplished.

Bad flash of the day

A man wearing an Army dress uniform visited a woman whose husband is stationed in Iraq and solemnly informed her her husband had been killed. But it was a complete hoax, say military investigators.

The 21st century marches onward

New: Identity theft insurance.

The former Montreal Expos baseball team are now the Washington Nationals. Their game cap looks like the old Senators' cap, with a curly W, but their warmup caps have a funky interlaced DC.

And here's our Not-from-the-Onion headline of the month: 'Wife Swap' show episode becomes nightmare for local family.

Morning edition

Conversation at work between me and the Configuration Management guy, who is in charge of the daily product builds:

Me: Did you get my email?
CM guy: Yes, I did.
Me: Have you ever seen that problem before?
CM guy: No, but I haven't tried to reproduce it yet.
Me: All I did was install the new build, start the server, and try to log in.
CM guy: Oh, never try to do something like that.

It sounds a lot funnier in his French accent.

Welcome, Alexis! At least you got one nice day in SF.

Stratego

I'm not the only pessimist about the American future. This guy has the end game all figured out. He predicts other past-and-future empires, including Russia, China and Japan, are holding strings that when pulled will bring utter collapse to the "Anglo-American empire."

Nice ghost story, but in each case, there's a huge weakness. Russia: too stupid to try to rule the world, too corrupt to try; Putin et al. will be satisfied to bleed their own country dry, then fly off to Rio when it collapses. China: more likely to collapse from an epidemic than take control of the world economy; too large to govern itself, much less half the world. Japan: the best trick they've got is invading China again; China has all the raw materials they need, and they'll be satisfied with that. They're too smart to extend too far from the home islands. No, the country I'd worry about is India. They have an educated populace and way too much to lose. If they team up with an unlikely partner, like Russia, China would shit its pants.

The countries that stand to win in maxi-global games of chicken like this are the non-aligned, very isolated ones. I would say South Africa, but they have that AIDS problem; they're fucked for the next century. Perhaps Brazil, if they can team up on some important stuff with Argentina. Countries with lots of land and lots of natural resources will always win out in the end.

Must be seen to be believed

Widely read anti-conservative blogger Kos previews the ad campaign about to be waged to support Bush's Social Security "reform" -- a campaign designed by the same people who did the anti-Kerry "Swift Boat Veterans" attack spots.

Bad flash of the day

Here's a headline you don't ever want to see:

Baby stable after second head removed

Manar was born with a rare condition known as craniopagus parasiticus, which occurs when an embryo begins to split into identical twins but fails to complete the process. One of the conjoined twins fails to develop fully in the womb.

As in the case of a girl who died after similar surgery in the Dominican Republic a year ago, the second twin had developed no body. The head that was removed from Manar had been capable of smiling and blinking but not independent life, doctors said.

Don't miss the photo on that link. Right after I got over my fit of "holy fucking shit!!" I thought, Hmm, I'll bet there's a Bush-Cheney joke here somewhere.

New morning

Such a lovely, full night of sleep. In middle age, a perfect night of sleep has an almost sexual pleasure, quite apart from any dreams. It carries the same sense of fulfilled release.

Obligatory links: Guardian profile of Rufus Wainwright, a pop singer whose work I've never heard, but it's an interesting article. The Guardian also has a nice overview of the growing press-packing scandal of which "Jeff Gannon" was only one egregious example.

And: There are candid secret tapes of George Bush II as he began his untimately successful run for the presidency in the late 90s.

Aversion

For research for the novel I'm working on, I've been reading the blogs of people who practice yoga. I don't know much about yoga -- except that I hate doing it -- and I figure I can soak up a lot about it from people's writing about their everyday experience. I'm sure each one would tell me that the only way to learn it is to experience it, but I've tried, and it's really not for me.

While I was reading, Cris called from Jenny's in Oakland; she's cat sitting while Jenny is out of town for the weekend. (I went over there last night, though I didn't spend the night as Cris is doing tonight and tomorrow.) When I told her I was reading about yoga -- which she practices occasionally -- she immediately said I ought to do it, that it would be really good for me. So I had to remind her how much I hate doing it, based on my experience in a class at the Sybase gym several years ago.

"Why do you hate it?" she pressed.

"Well," I said, "you know I don't have trouble with forms -- I learned tai chi and really liked it, and I never had any problem with forms in zen practice. But for me doing yoga is like trying to learn a foreign language while having someone smash you in the mouth every couple of minutes."

Not that anyone else is smashing me in the mouth. It's my own body that does it. My body rebels, is utterly at odds with almost any "pose," particularly anything that involves bending over so that my diaphragm is compressed -- it means I can't breathe. Utterly useless.

Boom-boom-boom, boom! Clang, clang, clang!

Last night I had a ot of small, bite-sized dreams -- or maybe several long but very episodic dreams -- only one episode of which I can remember. I was on Columbus Ave. in North Beach, standing across the street from where City Lights Books was supposed to be -- only there was no bookstore. I looked up and down the street to make sure I was in the right block, but there was nothing, only nondescript shops like vacuum cleaner repair shops, the kind you find out on the first ten blocks of Balboa Ave. in the Richmond. It was as if I were in an alternate universe where City Lights had gone out of business in 1967 and North Beach had turned into a boring residential neighborhood with a few boring shops that nobody would want to go to. It was so sad.

Perhaps that's why I found myself down there this afternoon. I was driving up Kearny St. in the drizzle, noticing the bleachers going up and the costumed drum and bugle corps walking by, and I realized the Chinese New Year's parade was tonight. Katia called and we talked about publicity for her upcoming book Crashing America, which will be released this fall by Alyson Press.

I walked around in the drizzle and went to the Lusty Lady and had an early dinner at a nice joint on Broadway where Little Joe's used to be. And I went by City Lights just to make sure it was there.

Then I decided to stay for the Chinese parade, which I hadn't seen in, like, 20 years. I found myself a vantage point by standing on top of a newsrack, and watched the parade go by. It's a little disorganized; the LGBT Freedom Day parade is run with military precision compared to the Chinese parade. They had several marching bands from suburban high schools -- suburban schools being the only ones with enough money for things like marching bands these days. Unfortunately, marching bands no longer play marches, strangely enough. One played "She Loves You" and another played "Ode to Joy." Finally after about the third one had gone by, I shouted, "Play a freakin' march already!"

After about 90 minutes I got off my newsrack and made my way to the car. There was more parade coming, but I was tired and cold of standing on a metal box in the rain, and the cats needed feeding. So I came home.

Bad flash of the day

John Negroponte, one of the Reagan administration's loose cannons in Central America in the 1980s, has done spectacularly well under the Rumsfield-Cheney-Bush administration. After a stint as U.N. ambassador and ambassador to the "new Iraq" (which, you know, is the opposite of the "old Europe"), he has just been named to the post of National Security Czar, or whatever they're calling it.

Next I expect them to appoint G. Gordon Liddy head of the FBI.

Artists only

A strip club in Boise, Idaho has challenged a local ordinance banning nudity by distributing pencils and sketch pads to patrons during 'art night.'"

In the gloaming

The world's greatest webcam (current view) has, at this moment, a gorgeous picture of early-evening wintertime Manhattan. (Update: that link now fixed.) Everything glowing.

Why aren't all exterior webcams set at this height? What good is a webcam on top of a skyscraper, for crying out loud? This webcam is perfectly positioned -- you see up the street for several blocks, but it's also close enough to the ground that you can see what people are wearing, and thus deduce the weather.

I've been to this corner. The cam is inside a small office on the second floor, near the ceiling. You can stand on the opposite corner and wave to your friends in California -- at least I do, when I go to New York.

And to think he played Buddha

On a press tour for his latest film, a sci-fi/fantasy pic called "Constantine," in which he plays a demon-slayer -- can you say "desperately grasping at straws toward the end of a career"? -- Keaunu Reeves was asked about his views of the afterlife. His incoherent answer:

But I've got to say, really, I have no kind of, can I say 'secular religiosity'? ... I don't have a denominational sight. I think, like in the stories that we tell, there is an aspect of the living life informing where we go. A transfiguration, there must be. Energy can't be created or destroyed, and energy flows. It must be in a direction, with some kind of internal, emotive, spiritual direction. It must have some effect somewhere.

Yeah, uh, right. Next question.

To be fair, the aging action star (he just turned 40) was probably in the middle of one of those 20 interviews-in-a-day press junkets, and was probably loopy as hell.

Bad flash of the day

This Ap story about the publishing business features this priceless quote:

"When I'm in a bookstore, I'm sometimes shocked when I look at that price, until I realize that I'm a publisher and we have to charge that much."

That's Jane Friedman of HarperCollins, commenting on the economics of her own business. I wonder if Steve Jobs ever goes into an Apple store and gets sticker shock at what an iPod costs. Nah, didn't think so.

On a happier note

Lest you think I'm terminally depressed or something, let me post this cheery story about a well-known actor helping out some film students. Be sure to scroll down for a still of the actor in his (apparently) famous role as "Father Jack" -- the scariest picture I've seen in a while.

Mene, mene, tekel upharsin

Yesterday I had the realization that my generation -- the baby boom generation -- which has always regarded itself as a great gift to humanity because of all the well-meaning revolutionary ideas, sex, drugs and rock and roll it has given the world -- will soon suffer a crushing reversal of its self-image.

Not because it's getting old (my older brother, born in 1945 while the war was still going on, just turned 60) or because of the consequent burden on Social Security. Not because we refuse to get old, seizing on hair-darkening goop, face-lifting surgery, Viagra, and Mustang convertibles to prolong our melting self-images. Not even because we gave the world George Bush.

The baby boom generation is soon going to be known as the worst generation in history because of what it's done to the world.

How quickly the list comes to mind:

• We failed to halt rapidly spreading pollution and urban sprawl. Global warming is almost a fait accompli, and 75 years from now when coastal cities are being abandoned, the world will curse us.
• We paved over every inch we could, turned the rest into golf courses, and cut down forests at a breathtaking rate, resulting in a huge loss of topsoil and fresh water.
• We used huge amounts of resources to raise beef for American hamburgers, and everywhere a "western" lifestyle takes hold, an obesity epidemic breaks out. Obesity is now a growing problem among middle class youth in India.
• We could have used our resources to stop AIDS cold. But we didn't. Now tens of millions of people will die, and the economies of the poorest countries will suffer the most. Tens of millions of children will grow up orphans, ripe for exploitation by slavers or forced induction as child soldiers, leading to massive destabilization of third world economies. Think Somalia -- now think of fifty countries around the world collapsing like that.
• We bought billions of dolars worth of electronic crap and then threw it away. The poorest of the poor who "recycle" it in third world countries -- that is, who take apart, by hand, computers, TVs and the like to salvage valuable metals -- die from toxic exposure. And if that's the way the industry treats the people who work for them, you can imagine how carelessly they dispose of the plastic and metal refuse after anything valuable is extracted.

I could go on, but you get my point. We, the baby boomers, have this wondrous idea of ourselves, that our enlightened ideas will move the planet forward. Fifty years from now, the evidence will show the opposite, and history will curse us.

Oh -- what are the good things we've done? I think the list would include: Really nice upscale coffee shops -- those are a real gift to the world, aren't they? -- rock and roll, the internet (though I think the jury's still out on that)... Frankly, I'm having trouble thinking of any lasting genuine contributions my generation can take credit for.

So I think the score is something like 63 trillion to 5. We have a lot to be sorry for.

Block that metaphor

"We believe that this is probably a pretty large, sophisticated ring and unfortunately all we got was a shard of glass," Costa told the Associated Press.

-- from a SF Chronicle story about an incident of computer hacking.

Spring is coming in

Drizzle all day yesterday, rain all night. Traffic coming home last night was so heinous I took the train this morning, so I got to listen to the Tracks Up the Tree podcast.

At work, I've been sleepy. I went to bed early enough last night, too. Took a twenty-minute walk in the rain, and that helped a little. But I think I'll also resort to a Diet Coke.

Happy day

One of my all-time favorite movies, Godard's "Masculine Feminine", is being rereleased. I must have seen this ten times when I was in college. It was everything I wanted: cool, mid-sixties, revolutionary yet recognizing the influence of pop culture (this film is the origin of the remarkable phrase "the children of Marx and Coca-Cola" to describe the 60s generation), and best of all, set in Paris. How I longed to be part of that world!

Other favorite Paris films:

Last Tango in Paris

Charade

Diva

Frantic

Fun

Fun reading last night in Alameda. The Spellbinding Tales is located in a dowdy commercial block in the middle of a residential neighborhood a mile from downtown; the store features both new and used books, including some collectibles. Upstairs there's a cozy area where the reading was held. Owner Karen Z. made food and cookies, server wine, and hung pictures by local hereo Debbie Moore, whose work, she reminded me, I published in Frighten the Horses in 1990.

Thanks, friends who came! Including the glamorous Lisa B.

Envoi

This morning I mailed my novel "Make Nice" off to another agent. I haven't tried anyone in several months; I got this name from a friend. In my writing group, we're just at the point of finishing our first go-through of the book, and aside from little things that fellow writers catch, I have to say nothing's dissuaded me from my opinion that it's a good, entertaining book that needs only an audience.

Tomorrow night (see top of page) I'll be reading, not from that novel, but from my published books -- and the bookstore owner is fixing food! And bringing wine! You ought to come. It'll be fun.

Don't you just hate it when your gritty hideout becomes cool

One of my desert pals sent me this horrific article from the LA Times Home section yammering about how chic the Morongo basin is becoming. Everything gets gentrified eventually, even the weird desert out beyond. My pals all live 20 miles east of Joshua Tree, on the other side of Twentynine Palms, but 20 miles is not nearly far enough. My friend's comment, sent with the email, was simply: "WHAT"S HAPPENING???" The answer's in the article, in which a musician is quoted: "We'd seen enough galleries and been to enough gigs and I didn't want to see or hear anything else. All I wanted to do was work."

Arthur Miller

The 20th century's greatest American playwright died last night. Ever since seeing a production of "After the Fall" at a community theater in Austin in 1977, I've loved him. Here's how I painted him in my (still unpublished) novel "Make Nice." The narrator is the protagonist, who's about to interview Miller on the set of "Let's Make Love;" he's accompanied by a verteran reporter named Tragge:

Hawkins leads us out of the sound stage, across an alley full of ladders and lumber and discarded stage flats, and into another stage. The overhead lights are on in here, and the Klieg lights and scaffolding and cranes stand quiet. "Better get what we can," Tragge whispers to me. "I have a feeling Madame is nowhere around."

Arthur Miller -- of all the people on this picture, he's the only one who actually intimidates me a little. We're alike in some ways -- about the same age and we’re both Jews. But while I was busting my ass telling jokes to old farts in the Catskills, he was writing brilliant drama and becoming the toast of Broadway. Then to top it all off -- to show that nothing's out of reach in this country for a smart Jew with glasses -- he married Marilyn Monroe. As if the Pulitzer Prize and all the other awards and honors were not enough, he gets the greatest prize of all, the Queen of the Shiksas.

After crossing the sound stage, we enter a corridor and stop before an unmarked gray metal door. I can hear someone typing inside. Hawkins knocks quietly, and the typing stops. Hawkins opens the door.

"Mr. Miller," he says unctuously, "these are the gentlemen I mentioned."

There stands Arthur Miller, wearing a modest brown suit with a white shirt and tie, the familiar black eyeglasses resting on a nose of some prominence. Curly brown hair, now receding. He smiles politely -- for all its ordinariness, the face that won Marilyn. He shakes hands with us and motions toward a couch. Beyond the desk where Miller is working, the wall is lined with makeup mirrors. The studio has hidden him away in an empty dressing room. "I see they've given you the first class accommodations," I joke.

"What can I do for you fellows?" he asks pleasantly enough, but he seems reserved. I explain our mission and he tells us the story of the film, the same as the others. I ask him about his wife's singing and dancing and he says it's fine. I ask him what kind of work he's doing on the script, and he just says, "Officially, none. Off the record?" he raises an eyebrow at Tragge, who gives a slightly pained nod in return. "Off the record, I've just fiddled a little with it, to tell you the truth. It wasn’t much to start with. It's like a poorly designed house -- you're not going to make it a brilliant piece of architecture just by knocking out a wall or painting it blue. Mainly I'm concerned with some of the dialogue. Making it..." He almost rolls his eyes. "A little more dignified," he finishes.

"Okay, enough of that. Now I’ll go back on the record. 'Let’s Make Love' is a delightful comic fantasy which the American public is going to enjoy very much."

Here's a appreciation of Miller by Harold Pinter, but that NYT link has a trove of reviews and articles going back 60 years. And here's a Nat'l Endowment for the Humanities page.

Hysteria rises

The flapdoodle over the cartoon lesbian couple appearring in the "Buster" cartoon (free reg. req.) continues, as the head of PBS has ordered an internal review of the children's show. (Link courtesy mediaBistro)

I could go into a big rant about WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE, THIS IS A FUCKING CARTOON but I just have to tell myself, Relax, it's just pressure-group tactics, my side does the same thing, it's always darkest just before the dawn, and so forth. The existence of pressure-group tactics does not automatically indicate the rise of fascism. Now, if fundie churches were sending goon squads into the Castro wearing sweatshirts that said Defend the Family, I'd start worrying.

Speaking of fascism, I'm reading The Plot Against America, and I think it's really good. The parallels to today's society are only subtly rendered -- Roth leaves it entirely to the reader to make the connections. Which are there. I like Roth's narrative noice a lot, having read last year "American Pastoral."

Meanwhile, here's a Rolling Stone story about right-wing media company Sinclair Broadcasting, famous for trying to use its group of TV stations to push a right-wing agenda.

Inside on a gorgeous spring day

Damn hourly contractor rate -- today is the most gorgeous day, I'm not getting much done at work, yet here I sit, because I can't afford to take off. I'm going to feel more broke on Saturday, when we go to get our taxes done. I worked from October to the end of the year full time on a 1099 and had no taxes taken out. That's going to be a bite.

Stayed up last night. First I read in the office while Cris studied -- she says it helps someone who's ADD to have someone else in the room providing a sort of anchoring presence. And I can use the concentrated reading time, since I am finally reading something I've been meaning to read for years -- Edmond Wilson's To the Finland Station. This has always seemed to me to be one of the Ultimate Serious Books one has to read, and I've been wanting to, and scared to, tackle it ever since reading Frederick Exley's A Fan's Notes.

In that book, which is basically about the author's horror of mediocrity and obscurity, and how his fear causes him to be an alcoholic, the author mentions that he lives near Wilson, who to him seems like a towering presence. And he mentions Wilson as if anybody would know who Edmund Wilson was. I love it when authors do this -- I've gotten introduced to more authors that way. Because even if everybody is suppsoed to know who that author is, I usually have never heard of him. (I first heard the name of Thomas Merton that way, in William Least Heat Moon's Blue Highways, when the author passes by Merton's monastery.

So anyway, I stayed up reading To the Finland Station, and then I tried to print out my novel to send it to an agent. But the toner ran out halfway through.

Free music

I can't go, but if you're in the neighborhood, go see my friend Lisa sing with her band:

Lisa B’s Luscious Jazz Quartet:

    Lisa B (Lisa Bernstein), singer/songwriter/poet

    Murray Low, keyboard

    Chris Amberger, bass

    Bill Belasco, drums

Saturday, Feb. 12, 1 to 3 p.m.: Love songs old and new



HEAR Music Store, 1809 - 4th St., Berkeley (University exit off 80)  (510) 204-9595

Satire is dead, #927258933344

Another Onion-like story, with the following lead:

Richard Gere is determined to instill his Buddhist beliefs into his son Homer, even though the five-year-old is struggling to understand the actor's religious lessons.

¡Pobre muchacho!

Meanwhile, in Jordan, a man and a woman, each unhappy in marriage, met online and fell in love. When they finally met face to face, they were shocked to find out they were already married to each other. Happy ending? Nope:

Upon seeing Sanaa-alias-Jamila, Bakr-alias-Adnan turned white and screamed at the top of his lungs: "You are divorced, divorced, divorced" -- the traditional manner of officially ending a marriage in Islam.

"You are a liar," Sanaa retorted before fainting, the (report) said.

That's almost too good to be true, so watch this space to see if this turns out to be a hoax or urban legend. (The Jordanian-slash-Islamic angle does seem like an added dash of realism, though.)

Speaking of hoaxes, there's this whole weird story. A man calling himself Jeff Gannon appeared in the White House press room last year, allegedly reporting for something called Talon News. After several bloggers attacked him for quoting White House talking points verbatim in his "news" stories and found links between him and gay erotica websites, he resigned yesterday. All his Talon material has been taken down, but here's Google's cached copy of his bio page from the Talon site.

Republican of the week

Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer met other Plains states governors this week over the severe drought in the Missouri River watershed. There they tried to deal with the fact that the "Master Manual" of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which runs the dams on the river and has the right to control water flow, has hard-and-fast rules about what can be done in drought situations. Gov. Schweitzer delivered this admirable blatt:

"We know there's a master manual, and some highfaluting folks worked on this for a dozen years, and now it's all cast in concrete," Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer told the group, "but when folks don't have water to drink in big cities it becomes a big problem, not a little problem like it is when its 10,000 people on an Indian reservation in North or South Dakota."

Yeah -- stupid Indians! Why do they need water anyway? Aren't they supposed to just eat dirt?

Newsom: I'm not to blame for Kerry defeat

Speaking in Cambridge, SF mayor Gavin Newsom said, "(Gay marriage) was going to be used as a wedge issue regardless of whether or not some crazy mayor was sworn in in San Francisco or not."

I tend to agree. Foamers will always find something to use as a lightning rod. If it hadn't been SF, it would have been the Massachusetts Supreme Court's decision. If it hadn't been them, it would have been something else. The right wing is expert at finding images and issues they can lie about and get their constituency all excited about. What the fuck was it during Xmas -- that liberals were taking the Jesus out of Christmas or some bullshit like that?

The amazing thing to me is -- that's after they won. Bill O'Reilly and his ilk stirred up that whole Xmas controversy five weeks after they won the White House and Congress going away. Yet they were still out there disturbing shit, because they have to keep spewing hate or they disappear. They have nothing else to offer.

Frisco parents threatened with ecstasy cutoff

San Francisco school threatened to move the start of the school year to the week before Labor Day, leading several city parents to protest. The schedule change would mean it would be hard for their teens to attend Burning Man, which is not as much a family event as a family supply source. Teens go to Burning Man, bring back sunburns, STDs, and enough acid and ecstasy for the next year. Under the schools' plan, parents would have to look elsewhere for their drug supply.

Satire is dead, #8923999267204

British television viewers will soon be treated to a reality TV show based on the Guantanamo concentration camp.

"Using an east London warehouse and declassified internal documents obtained from US sources, programme-makers mocked up conditions as they are inside Guantánamo, before subjecting seven volunteers to some of the milder forms of torture alleged to have been used by US authorities. The programme exposed the volunteers, three of whom are Muslim, to 48 hours of 'torture lite' including sleep deprivation, the use of extreme temperatures and 'mild' physical contact."

And they'll be fed food from British pubs, too. Now that's abuse.

Meanwhile, MSNBC published the most Onion-like headline of the week: Teens' online lingo leaves parents baffled.

Woman of the month

The only thing I can find to make fun of in this is that her boat looks sort of like one of those jedi fighter ships in Star Wars. On second thought, how cool is that? Woman breaks solo round-the-world sailing record. It's not even the first time she's sailed solo 'round the world!

Dept. of A job's a job

My friend Marilyn writes, "Laura Antoniou is the keynote speaker for the International Master & Slave Contest at South Plains LeatherFest, taking place the last weekend in February, February 25-27." That event is taking place in Dallas, Tex., for all the leather lifestyle folks in flyover country -- an interesting proposition. It'll definitely be the most interesting thing happening this month in Dallas, a city which is so dull that the only thing you can do there is eat, with a predictable effect on the residents. But my attention was caught by the "keynote speaker" bit. A B&D conference has a "keynote speaker" who is a noted B&D erotica author. I never thought about the possibility of a gig like that. I'm not sure what kind of conference I might be the keynote speaker at -- maybe the conference of geeky people with furtive yet colorful erotic lives who don't really fall under a single label. Master and Slave...  It seems a bit 20th century.

Fortunately pretty far off the scale

Here's a rising star in the firmament of right-wing flamers: one Michael Marcavage. George Bush is too far to the left. He believes the government's responsibility to to fulfill Old Testament law and execute homosexuals. He is oddly obsessed, in fact, with homosexuals. And a 25-year-old virgin. The article includes an entertaining interview with Marcavage's former college roommate, who says, "If you don't agree with what he says, he condemns you."

In a way, the election of Bush protects the rest of us from shits like this. You can bet that if Kerry won (or if Gore had been, you know, re-elected), the far-right would be even more invigorated, as they were with Clinton in office. Now that the Republicans run everything, the brightest flamers like this Marcavage guy are in the gutter. Still, we'll see more of him in the next thirty years.

Morning walk

I took a nice morning walk through the center of the city -- down Shotwell through the Mission District, up 18th to the Castro, then over the hill to Noe Valley. Heading home, I passed the art studio on 23rd and Chattanooga where we had a hugely successful FTH benefit early in 1991. While I was looking at the figure drawings posted in the window, the proprietor walked by, and I asked him if he knew the women, Kathy and Tessa, who lived in the place and ran it then. (He didn't, but knew their names.) He was very friendly and we wound up talking about the benefit of 1991 and he showed me the studio.

After that I called Christine on the phone and we wound up talking for almost an hour, then I handed the phone to Cris, and they're still talking.

Alexis's blog is really fun. I love the dream she posted yesterday, about charging people $20 to feel her tits. Great idea for a story. I've been thinking more about writing short stories lately. I haven't done it in years, since working so much on my unpublished novels. It might be nice to actually finish a few longer pieces I've had lying around -- none of them actually erotica.

At some point, you have to ask -- why bother?

Some traditions just don't translate into the modern era.

In Minneapolis St. Paul, they have something called the Winter Carnival, where "Vulcans" -- not the Star Trek kind, get that out of your head -- cavort. Sadly, one tradition seems to have been effectively castrated into utter incomprehensibility:

Vulcans represent fire and pave the way for summer. They are one of several groups that carry on festival traditions and wear distinctive outfits. Theirs include capes, helmets and goggles. They used to grab women in crowds and kiss them on the face to smudge them with black grease, until a lawsuit in the 1970s stopped the practice. Now, Vulcans have to ask permission to mark anyone on the cheek with their signature 'V' in grease pen.

That's just sad.

Liberty, Equality, Fraternity

The New York Supreme Court ruled today that gay marriage must be allowed, that it harms no one. Read the decision (link from Salon).

Loving Google

I discovered a nice Google trick, especially helpful for technical writers. Enter:

define:"a word or phrase"

and hit Enter. You'll get a page with definitions of "a word or phrase" (the quotes aren't necessary for a single word) from several sources. Try it for this phrase I just got the definition of for my work: What's a star schema?

Every dog has has day, and this one is howling

Daily Telegraph (U.K.): Conservative Christians give Bush ultimatum to ban gay marriage

More evidence of Enron fraud

While it's hard to get really worked up over utility regulation and corporate fraud trials, newly-revealed records of conversations and messages among Enron energy traders contain juicy tidbits. For example:

In May 1998, an internal Enron memo between energy traders
makes reference to a "PHONY import." The note also says California's independent
system operator "will call and tell us we're out of balance, so tell them we intend
to correct the imbalance in the 'hour-ahead' market. In fact, we really intend to
do NOTHING..."

In another scheme, believed to have been nicknamed "Project Stanley" in honor of
the Stanley Cup hockey trophy, Enron traders in Alberta conspired with other
companies to artificially inflate energy prices in Canada in 1999. References
to "Project Stanley" were discovered on former Enron Chief Executive Jeffrey
Skilling's calendar on at least two dates, and recorded phone conversations between
project leader John Lavorato and Enron trader Tim Belden show they knew the
scheme -- similar to those later used in California -- was illegal.

Lavorato: "I'm just, ah, (expletive), I'm just trying to be an honest camper
so I only go to jail once."

Belden: "Well, there you go. At least in only one country (laughs)

Off camera, hostage-takers were weilding a tiny sword

A photograph posted on "an Islamist web site" seems to show a bound U.S. soldier. Actually they were holding an action figure hostage. A savvy toy shop worker spotted the similarities between the alleged hostage and "Special Ops Cody," a model sold in stores on U.S. military bases.

And here's to you, Mrs. Robinson

I don't often read the Cary Tennis relationships column in Salon, but today's features a long letter from a middle-aged woman in love with her son's 18-year-old chum. Funny, I was just thinking about this theme the other day as possible grist for a story. But she makes it sound so pathetic, I dunno.

Dream report

I just woke up from a dream with my friends Christine and Jody in it. I often mention Christine here; she was a dancer then and now is a painter. With Jody, another dancer, the three of us had a performance group in the late 80s called Short on Attitude. We staged shows of our own and friends' work -- dance, performance art and theater -- and also ran a low-tech series called the Hand-To-Mouth Series, where people could come in and do 15-minute pieces. It was great Bohemian fun in the Mission District.

In the dream, I was reading an arts magazine in which Christine and Jody were interviewed about a dance studio they operated and rehearsed in. Then I was watching them perform. It was all as if I was back in 1989.

That's too soon ago to seem so long ago. Only 16 years. I'm willing for 1984-85 to be 20 years ago, but 1989, that's too soon.

The weather took a turn on Saturday and we started a period of sunny, clear days, with the days getting warmer and warmer. Yesterday I went out into the parking lot at work to get something from my car, and the warm sun heated my face as if I were sitting close to a roaring fire. It took me a few minutes looking for my car before I remembered I'd taken the train that day.

E tu madre!

A Newsweek reporter, seemingly rather exhausted and in no mood to put up with fools, took online questions on Wednesday.

Lincoln, RI: The United States spent billions trying to establish democracy in the foreign culture of South Vietnam. What makes us so optimistic that we can do it in the Middle East where none exist now except in Israel?
Rod Nordland: Who's optimistic?

Havre de Gracem, MD: Does the American government intend to start spending less in the Middle East and spending the tax money here at home where it should be spent first so citizens here can have an acceptable standard of living?
Rod Nordland: To be blunt, our standard of living would be pretty severely impacted if gasoline cost $8.00 a gallon, which is what a lot of Europeans pay for it. It's pretty hard to turn your back on the Middle East.

Omaha, NE: What is wrong with Newsweek? Why are you siding with the killers? Please call them what they are. Did you report their positions to Coalition forces? Sunday was a great day for democracy and you choose to side with the killers of women and children and innocent people. That is why I won't subscribe to your magazine. Times are a changing. You might want to change your ways if you want to be a legitimate magazine.
Rod Nordland: I fail to see how writing about the nature of the insurgency is "siding with the killers." Get real. This is a very serious problem we have in Iraq, and it's not going to get solved with this sort of shallow discourse. As someone who has spent a lot of time in Baghdad, where those killers are hunting any foreigner, I hardly have any sympathy for them. Can you even read?

It's not hard to imagine Graham Greene, bottle of whiskey next to his laptop, sighing as he faces yet another contractually obligatory online chat.

Then this morning I didn't have enough milk for my cereal, and it was at that moment that I truly understood Auschwitz.

Courtesy the always engaging Salt blog, a story about the visit of a Rwandan bishop to the U.S., in which he compares the Rwandan genocide to the U.S. church's installation of a gay bishop.

We experienced genocide and the horror that no one in the world came to help us. What has happened in the Episcopal church feels like a genocide, too. But it is spiritual rather than physical.

Thus saith the bishop, one Josias Sendegeya. That reminds me, I had a check bounced by the bank last month -- it felt like a personal Sept. 11 in my life. And when this girl in a bar told me to get lost the other day, I immediately thought of how Rome was sacked by the Vandals.

Eschew traffic

I rode the train today because of yesterday's newspaper.

This morning I got up, fed the cats, and brought in the newspapers. As I was taking off their protective plastic wrappers -- which we recycle to use as bags for cat poop and uneaten cat food -- I realized I had taken yesterday's NYT to work and had never read it; it was still sitting in my backpack.

I'm kind of busy these days at work, and being a contractor, I feel constrained from loafing in a really obvious way. Though obviously I do spend several minutes a day, like this one, blogging.

So I thought, jeez, I'll never read that damn paper -- unless I take the train today.

So I did. And the only problem with the train is finding a place to park. Today I found a place a little over a block away, and I had to hustle to the platform and buy my ticket there before the train arrived. But after that, I planted my butt, turned on the iPod, and opened yesterday's paper.

Riding the train doesn't save any time, but it sure saves anxiety. And also wear and tear on the clutch of my car. Unless I go home at 7:30 p.m., there's no driving home without stopping at least once on the freeway, and sometimes I drive for 10 miles at about 15 miles an hour, clutching like a madman. No, the train is so much better. Except for doing errands.

Nothin' new

Blogs are just modern-day pamphlets ina different form, and Luther and Paine would recognize them, says a USA Today writer.

Our friend the chicken

Al Sharpton, Russell Simmons, and PETA have joined in calling for a boycott of Kentucky Fried Chicken, hoping to pressure the conglomerate that owns the company to adopt rules for better care of the chickens they buy.

This reminded me of a post by Lizzard, who last week wrote of her child saying to her what he thought was a joke:

"That sign says 'chicken wings'. Wouldn't it be funny if chicken wings were really made of chicken?"

"Oh honey. I hate to break it to you. They ARE made of chicken."

*silence*

"You're so funny, Mommy! I mean, made out of REAL chickens."

"Yup, they're made out of chickens. Real chickens. We eat them."

"No. I mean, made out of the REAL WINGS of real chickens that are real live birds with feathers and then they take the wings off and take the feathers off and cook them. That's just silly."

Life is just one heartbreak after another.

A lot of Tea

It may seem like I am Michelle Tea's personal PR service, but look, I just reprint them as she sends them to me, sometimes correcting her spelling.

Upcoming Michelle Tea readings:

• Thursday, Feb. 3 at New Langton Arts, 1246 Folsom St. in San Francisco, with David Larsen
• Saturday, Feb. 5 at the Jon Sims Center at 1519 Mission St., along with Thea Hillman, Simone De La Ghetto "and many others"
• Saturday, Feb. 12, at Barnes & Noble -- I guess she means the only one in San Francisco, at 2552 Taylor St. -- with several other contributors to the MT-edited anthology Without a Net

Finally, Tea's own monthly reading series is next Tuesday:

tuesday, february 8th

the RADAR reading series

a showcase of emerging and underground writers

at the san francisco public library

downstairs in the latino reading room

6:00 sharp   *   all ages   *   free



featuring~



DAISY HERNANDEZ, co-editor of Colonize This! Young Women of Color on 

Today’s Feminism; who has written for ColorLines, Ms., the New York 

Times, and bitch magazine; and whose essays have appeared in the 

anthologies, Without a Net and Border-line Personalities. Daisy is a 

hardcore fuck-or-fight gets-her-nails-done Jersey femme. And, of 

course, a Gemini. 



JUBA KALAMKA, recording artist since 1988 and most recognized for his 

recent work as a founding member of“homo-hop” crew  Deep Dickollective 

(D/DC) and development of the label Sugartruck Recordings; who is a 

former member of groundbreaking queer hip-hop group Rainbow Flava and 

staff writer/illustrator for the bisexual issues magazine Anything That 

Moves; who served as Festival Director for East Bay (Oakland) Pride 

2003 and curated the accompanying PeaceOUT:World HomoHop Festival, now 

in its 4th year. Noted for his dialogues on the convergences and 

conflicts of race, identity, sexuality and class in pop culture, he 

has served as a curator and panelist for numerous organizations and 

national conferences including The San Francisco Black Gay/Lesbian 

Film Festival, GLAAD, Hip Hop As A Movement @ The University of 

Wisconsin-Madison, and Burning Closets @ Oberlin  College.



SHAR REDNOUR, author of The Femme's Guide to the Universe, Virgin Territory 

1 and 2, and the Firecracker award-nominated, Starphkr; who hasbeen 

published in various anthologies including the Best American Erotica series, 

the Best Herotica Series, The Last Sex: Feminism and Outlaw Bodies, Once

Upon A Time, Eros Das Machina, and Leatherwomen 3; who performed her play 

Night Coming as an Artist in Residence at The Jon Sims Center for Performing 

Arts in 2003 and also starred in the role of Aunt Carlene in Ida Acton's 

play Hair Trigger Heart. Shar has performed her mockumentary piece How to 

Fuck In High Heels across the U.S. at universities, bars, galleries, and 

theaters. Shar is an alumni performer and spoken word artist of the radical 

women  performing writers entourage Sister Spit's All-Girl Rambling Road Show.



GREG WHARTON, publisher of Suspect Thoughts Press, named “Best Brand-New, 

Badass, Superqueer Press" by the 2004 San Francisco Bay Guardian’s Best of 

the Bay Awards; who is the author of Johnny Was & Other Tall Tales and the 

editor/co-editor of numerous anthologies including I Do/I Don’t: Queers on 

Marriage and the Lambda Literary Award Finalist The Love That Dare Not Speak 

Its Name: Essays on Queer Desire and Sexuality; and who was included in Out 

magazine’s “Out 100” top success stories for 2004.



readings followed by q & a with the audience



hosted by michelle tea, who will perhaps bake cookies with a 'mardi 

gras' feel, in celebration of fat tuesday. either way, there will be 

cookies. delicious, home-made cookies! ask a question during the q&a, 

get a cookie. a simple plan for a moment of culinary and intellectual 

bliss. see you there.

Stephanie revisited

I heard from yet another old acquaintance of Stephanie, whose memorial page I host. He pointed out that my online tribute didn't say anything about how extremely smart she was, and he's right. He also wrote, "I am stunned that she worked as an exotic dancer, I guess she loosened up a bit after she dried off her wings and flew away." I'd say "loosened up" is an understatement; she was capable of being fairly irrepressible, if not wild. On the other hand, she was depressed a lot, too, unfortunately. Most of all, I think she felt very much like a complete alien in modern society. She had great reserves of, yes, intelligence, love and creativity, but she also usually felt unable to express these gifts, and cut off from humanity in many ways. In a sense, she was the embodiment of the classic superhero -- someone with great powers who is blocked from using them to make herself and others happy, whose powers instead cut them off from others and make them lonely.

Not a week goes by that I don't miss her.

What was that about hopes and dreams for our country?

A study showed one in three high school students believe the First Amendment "goes too far." Other ignorant attitudes shown in the study were:

Fifty percent of students believed the government has a right to restrict indecent material on the internet.

Three quarters think flag-burning is illegal.

And a whopping 17% opined that people should not be free to express unpopular views.

God, how depressing.

Annals of the internet

A convicted child molester was arrested for allegedly using California's new database of registered sex offenders to troll for dates.

What, that's a crime now?

'Zero time for nostalgia'

I loved this interview with Laurie Anderson in the NYT magazine on Sunday. Genuine artists are so straightforward and ready for the next thing. Asked if she would like to bring her work to Broadway, she answers, "I have never seen more than four minutes of a Broadway musical. I went to see 'Cats,' and that is the closest I have ever come to a nervous breakdown."

I enjoy the music as a form, and never having seen "Cats" I can't agree or disagree about that case, but I have the feeling the kind of musical she's talking about -- little more than a theme park ride, with the audience sitting in place while everything else moves -- is not my bag. The closest I've ever come to something like that was "Urinetown," and that was actually pretty traditional as far as the form was concerned, nothing like "Cats." I think those A.L. Weber shows are scary.