Charles in existential hell

If there had never been an "I want to be your tampon" story; if there had never been a Diana marriage and death; if he had not lived his entire life waiting for his mother to die -- you would know everything you need to know about Prince Charles from his recent encounter with the press:

"'I can't bear that man anyway. He's so awful, he really is. I hate these people,' Charles added as a not so sotto voce running commentary to his sons when [a journalist] ruthlessly probed the prince's feelings about his forthcoming wedding. For public consumption, he merely said: 'I am glad you have heard of it.'

The mumbled exchanges began with Charles asking his two sons: 'Do I put my arms around you?'

Prince William replied: 'No, don't, but you can take the horrible glasses away.'

Charles said: 'Do not be rude about my glasses, I couldn't bear it if you were.'

Urged by a member of the press to 'look like you know each other', the two princes leaned into their father, who put his arms around them.

Charles then muttered: 'What do we do?'

William replied: 'Keep smiling, keep smiling.' "

I'll bet George Bush's hidden audio prompter is starting to look pretty good to the prince right now.

Been comatose so long it looks like death to me

This story on the after math of Schiavo's death is remarkable only for one quote, from a 15-year-old girl named, improbably, Harvest:

"It grieves my heart to know God's heart is grieving."

There's a nice circular rhythm to that.

(Someone in 1990 named her daughter Harvest? What was going on in that family?)

Also notable: the crowd of protestors included "Cuban nationalists." Just as I thought. The tipoff was the level of hysteria combined with the persence of crucifixes.

Begging the question

Inquiring minds want to know: which sushi restaurant? Boing Boing: Wearing John Malkovich: actor launches men's clothing line.

Birds of Hawaii

Another totally hilarious post by flea on One Good Thing. In this episode, she witnesses feral tropical birds devour a couple's room-service breakfast, and fires a shot across the bow of a busybody acquaintance.

She tells herself working mothers are selfish because they don't sacrifice the way she does. For me, and evidently for her, staying at home is a sacrifice. ... She expressed mock surprise for months every single time she saw me at home, until I asked her to please knock it off. After that, she moved away from the "you never spend time with your kids angle" to the vast philosophical differences in our parenting styles. I am the type of mother who yells, "Damn it, Alex, put that kitchen knife down and bring me another beer!" ... She spanks her kid, and I swear this is true, for displaying behaviors I would give Alex a gold star for.

Badger would totally heart her.

America's Endless News Loop

Tina Brown's column in the Washington Post is often mocked, but she's trying. In this week's blatt she addresses the phenomenon of news as melodrama, calling the warhorse stories-of-the-week "hourly Passion plays" in which "the endlessly repeated tape loop of Terri's gaping mouth has become as ubiquitous as Starbucks."

The current mania for any story with a religious angle is just the latest index of the post-election angst in executive suites about the terror of being out of touch with suburban mega-churches and other manifestations of the supposed Real America. God forbid, so to speak, that anyone should stand up and suggest that Mozart might be as worthwhile as NASCAR, or that it might be as important for the soul to read Philip Roth as the hokey bromides of "The Purpose Driven Life."

Why I love this city

Tomorrow's April 1, which means it's time for the St. Stupid's Day Parade through San Francisco's financial district. Join a few hundred performance artists, out-of-work clowns, strippers blinking in the sunlight, and a number of Burning Man types as they jape and caper before the temples of lucre. Check this Google image search for pix of previous celebrations. It's been an annual event for at least 20 years.

In the year 2525

What is it this week with all the foot amputations? We had a kid who lost a foot playing basketball, another guy who jumped off an overpass onto a freeway with one of his feet winding up 45 miles away, and now the Episcopal Bishop of LA Has Surgery to Remove Foot because of a staph infection. And I haven't even even mentioned the lady who found a finger in her chili, or the story about the Malaysian car thieves who defeated biometric fingerprint-reading car locks by chopping off a victim's finger and using it to enter, start, and steal the car.

Remember how people used to predict that "in the future" people's extremities would fall off from disuse? Maybe it's got something to do with that. Yes, it's a sign of the last days!

Real eating

Here's a nice piece. An American journalist got four French food writers to address some of the dictums in "French Women Don't Get Fat" -- portion control, eating only "real" food, etc. The results are very interesting, if lengthy.

Biting through

Here's your tip for the day: If you wear those 30-day extended-wear contact lenses, and you can't remember when you put them in the last time, but you think it might be 30 or even 45 days, because after all they are starting to bother you a little, TAKE THE DAMN THINGS OUT. Failing to heed this advice, you might spend most of your workday with a nice cold can of Diet Coke pressed up against your eye.

Like me.

Here are some more things: Wouldn't you like to have a National Association of Witches t-shirt? Sure you would. I promise it's not one of those neo-pagan things. Its promulgator has a very funny blog.

On Saturday, my gorgeous and competent friend Katia Noyes is reading from her new book Crashing America. I promise you're going to get real tired of hearing about it, since it's not even April yet and the book doesn't come out until fall. But I am going to bust my ass for her book because I think it's terrific.

Finally, I brought out a new issue of the church newsletter I edit. I switched to MS Publisher instead of the even worse MS Word to lay out this issue. I swear you have to be crazy to lay out a newsletter using MS Word -- I discovered tricks I wish I never knew. Only drawback to the new system was that I had to print the 11x17 masters out at Kinkos for $. Hey, has anybody else noticed the service at Kinkos really sucks since FedEx bought them? They're always understaffed. Say goodbye to overnight service there.

Good deed of the day

I don't remember ever even hearing a song by Fiona Apple before, and suddenly I love the songs, five of which I've heard, from her lost album "Extraordinary Machine". Read that Chronicle article, then go here and listen to some of the songs. They are fucking great.

Bad flash of the day

Foot May Be Suicide Victim's

Bad flash of the day

News story: Wisconsin Professor to Test Stun Guns on Pigs. Hey! Teacher! Leave those pigs alone!

Then there's this: Jerry Falwell in critical condition. My initial reaction was glee. Then I thought, well, that's not very nice. Or mature. Or enlightened. Or compassionate. So I thought about it for a while longer. Finally I decided that if I happened to be at the man's bedside, I would probably feel compassion, not glee. Life's too short to sneer at someone on their deathbed. If it were Cheney, on the other hand,that would be a real challenge.

Then I found this: Falwell compared his own medical problems to Terri Schaivo's. God, they make it hard to be a fucking Christian.

Bush might do this, but he would insist on being 'the man'

Visiting Japan to promote his new movie, actor Richard Gere was taken aback when Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi attempted to foxtrot with the Hollywood star, exclaiming "Shall We Dance" -- the title of Gere's new movie. But there's more:

Mr Koizumi, whose popularity has dipped of late, has been known to perform with stars before. Two years ago, he sang the Elvis Presley hit "I want you, I need you, I love you" with actor Tom Cruise.

Now that's just crazy. Cruise is clearly a Sting man.

Literary events

You could do a lot worse than to go to:

• Tuesday, 29 March, 6:00 pm: Tea's own RADAR reading series at the San Francisco Public Library (location), this month with Jewelle Gomez, Jamison Green, Amy Mahoney and Truong Tran
• Thursday, March 31, 7:30 pm, Modern Times Bookstore, 888 Valencia St., with Michelle Tea and Ali Liebegott
• Saturday, April 2, 8:00 pm at Varnish Fine Arts, Natoma and 2nd Sts.(location), a benefit for femina potens, with Michelle Tea, Ali Liebegott, Ricky Lee, Cindy Emch, Katia Noyes and others
• Sunday, April 3 at 7:30 pm, at Sadie's Flying Elephant at Potrero and Mariposa Sts. (location), with Ali Liebegott and Anna Joy Springer, follwed by a queer open mic.

Lot of boyish dykes at that last one, I'll wager.

Bad flash of the day

In a freak accident, a 10-year-old boy's hands and left foot were severed as he played basketball. Somehow a wall collapsed after he slam-dunked a ball -- that's some dunking power -- and his extremities were cut off by the "bricks' sharp edges" and a "rain gutter." Happy ending, though -- surgeons successfully reattached all three extremities.

Hangover

57 percent of Australians equate the threat of Islamic terrorism with the threat posed by the US and its imperial foreign policy.

In other news: Melting pop star Michael Jackson says the example of Nelson Mandela gives him "strength". Jackson alleged his legal problems were the result of a conspiracy to take over rights to the huge catalog of pop songs he owns the right to. Of course, it makes as much sense as the hysterical antics of the protestors on the hospice lawn in Florida.

I was thinking about another Florida case which also centered around the custody of someone essentially helpless: the Elian Gonzalez case. I'm willing to bet some of the same nutballs outside the hospice in Pinellas Park were also trying to keep the Cuban child from being seized and deported. The larger issue, of why wacky shit like this always seems to happen in Florida, is still a mystery.

Cloudy Easter

Last night's Easter Vigil will be remembered. We turned out all the lights because the service is supposed to begin in darkness; people had candles. Then came word that the entire block had lost power. We continued. Power came back on briefly, and as it was now time in the service for the lights to come on again, everyone blew out their candles. Then it went off again five minutes later, and the candles had to be distributed and lit again.

The Chronicle has a big feature on St. Boniface, the Franciscan parish in the Tenderloin where they let the homeless sleep in the pews all morning long. Great photos with that story.

Books are stupid things

My new favorite blog is Books Suck My Ass by Royce Singleton. His main theory is that 99% of all books completely suck because they are written with only wealthy yuppies in mind. His blog is profane to the max, and really funny.

Pictures are back! Not that I got a new digital camera -- but I found that when you take a roll of film to Walgreens now, they give you a CD with the photos on it in addition to prints. Wow.

Tonight: the Easter Vigil. I do not, as I'd hoped, get to sing the Exultet. But I'll be in the show anyway, and perhaps get to do one of the readings.

Block that metaphor!

A professor at Loyola Univ. has likened coed dorms to brothels (rr -- userid hardbo8878@dodgeit.com / password hardboil) in an essay in Christianity Today. But don't blame his Jesuit employers -- he's Armenian Orthodox. Here's a choice excerpt:

Still, in most American college coed dorms, the flesh of our daughters is being served up daily like snack jerky. No longer need young men be wolves or foxes to consume that flesh. There are no fences to jump or chicken coops to break into. The gates are wide open and no guard dogs have been posted. It is easy come and easy go. Nor are our daughters the only ones getting hurt. The sex carnival that is college life today is also doing great damage to our sons' characters, deforming their attitudes toward the opposite sex. I am witnessing a perceptible dissipation of manly virtue in the young men I teach.

I got a little mixed up about who the foxes and who the chickens are in that extended metaphor, but I get the point: Loyola is Party Central. Sounds like somebody's not getting any!

Maybe she was trying to say 'I want to be left alone'

Terri Schiavo's parents are reported as telling a federal judge today that their daughter attempted to say ''I want to live'' a week ago. Fortunately, this circus does have an end, and it won't come too soon for anybody except the Bush brothers and their ilk. They're making enough political hay out of this whole farce to coast til the mid-term elections.

In the Chronicle, Mark Morford asks, "Are we entering a new dark age?" I'm afraid so, though I hope he's overstating things just a bit. Last time I looked, we still had a free press, and internal visas were not required for interstate travel. But ask me again in 2010.

She's a 19th century fox

Special to literary types: Charlotte Bronte was really a filthy, sex-obsessed genius, says a new biography.

If you'd like something a little more modern, check out this new blog which posts true, and well-written, stories of sex.

Six years gone

Today's the sixth anniversary of the death of Stephanie, an ex-lover. She was a fierce girl whose whole being was dedicated to love. I know that sounds kind of woo-woo, and sentimental when we're talking about a sex worker, but it was true. No meanness, no grudges, no competitiveness. At work she mentored new employees. In the world she battled depression but was always capable of seeing comic weirdness that made her laugh. Once we were walking near the Castro District during Halloween, when both straight and queer people come in outrageous costumes. A group of five sorority girls walked by dressed as enormous dice. "This is what I wish every day were like," she said dreamily.

I continue to hear, once in a while, from people who knew her where she grew up, or where she went to college. To them she's like a comet who visited for a short time and then disappeared into space. I had a longer run with her, and I'm so grateful for that.

If you can't be married, you're not 'domestic'

In a bizarre twist to the gay marriage rollercoaster, an Ohio judge has ruled that the state's ban on gay marriage means no unmarried people can be charged with domestic violence.

Frederick Birk, 42, of Cleveland, is accused of slapping and pushing his live-in girlfriend during a January argument over a pack of cigarettes.

Birk's public defender, David Magee, had asked the judge to throw out the domestic violence charge because of the new wording in Ohio's constitution that prohibits any state or local law that would "create or recognize a legal status for relationships of unmarried individuals."

Before the amendment, courts applied the domestic violence law by defining a family as including an unmarried couple living together as would a husband and wife, the judge said. Now courts can't do that because of the gay marriage amendment, Friedman wrote.

"By mandating that the State deny any legal recognition 'that intends to approximate the design, significance or effect of marriage' to relationships between unmarried individuals, the Ohio Constitution now appears to threaten the limited protections previously available to them by law," he wrote.

Death of a dancer

I just learned that an old comrade, a local dancer named Keriac, died last week. I met her soon after coming to San Francisco in 1979 to do contact improvisation, and we were members of Walkabout Dance Collective together. After I left the group in 1981, I didn't see too much of her, but I was pleased to see that she built a successful career in Germany and the U.S.

Her memorial will be on April 23 at 1:00 pm at her studio, 1805 Divisadero St. in SF.

Bjork discovers feminism

'I have been noticing how much harder it is for me and my girlfriends to juggle things than it is for men. In the 1990s, there was a lot of optimism: we thought we'd finally sorted out equal rights for men and women ... and then suddenly it just crashed. I think this is my first time in all the hundreds of interviews I've done, that I've actually jumped on the feminist bandwagon. In the past I always wanted to change the subject. But I think now it's time to bring up all these issues. ... You can't ever say, "OK, we sorted out corruption and everyone is equal." So I might become a feminist in my old age!'

The concern over phantoms

Really great post by Badger on the fluffdiddle over Terry Schaivo and how it's similar to the alligator tears cried over Lacy Peterson:

Think for a bit about the meaning of this hoo-ha and how it's centering around women who can't speak up for themselves and who fundamentally AREN'T THERE, who aren't human. Massive over-concern for their plight shows up how no one cares about women who are actually alive, and what injustices or problems they face.

I see it all as a naked display of power. The Bush bros. and their ilk don't give a shit about all the disabled people in the country, as they cut their Medicaid and public transit and education dollars. They're just making it a huge deal because they can, the same way Mel Gibson made that psychotic crucifixion film just because he could -- in order to get people all excited. Meanwhile public education in this country, to pick one thing at random, goes to hell. But a special session of Congress to pass a meaningless bill for the benefit of a single person who's a vegetable? No problem!

Cris mentioned that the woman's parents, who have sued to keep her taking nourishment, have basically said that if the courts don't uphold their position, it means Terri goes to hell, because suicide's a sin. What the fuck? If that's what they're really saying, then they're proving the other side's point: that she does not want to be kept alive artificially. Hello?

Still thinking

Though I haven't been working much on my new novel-in-progress, I did get a good idea this morning during the silent period of Morning Prayer. A feel for the whole second part of the book.

I've been having all these writer meetings and conversations lately -- it's fun. Did websites for Katia and Martha, had dinner with Cynthia, and corresponded with the only other NaNoWriMo author who listed her influences as Richard Brautigan and Kathy Acker. Reading this writer's partial manuscript was like traveling in a new country.

Rain finally stopped, too late for my friend Sara, who now has a kitchen full of rain.

When work is done

Boy, I blogged like a mozzerfucker at work today, while alternately updating the training class and trying to keep from nodding off. I'm getting plenty of sleep these days so I just don't understand why I get so sleepy during the day. I guess getting no exercise at all has something to do with it. Since pulling a muscle in my leg a week or two ago, I have been super-careful with it, also known as super-sedentary. But I think it's getting better, so after this week I really must get back on the treadmill.

I'm not kidding. It's a real treadmill. It's in the basement. Which is a good thing, since rain continues to fall. Cris is down there exercising right now.

Meanwhile, I've been trying to throw together an other issue of the church newsletter. I've been avoiding transcribing an interview I did last week with one of the pastors who's leaving. But I'll have to do it tomorrow night.

A bridge too far

Courtesy Sfist, here's how the new Bay Bridge will fit into the existing tunnel through Yerba Buena Island -- they're going to build two parallel ramps for detours and funnel all traffic onto them while they tear down and then replace the existing viaduct that connects the tunnel to the existing bridge.

If they ever find the money, that is. The latest story is all about how much it's all going to cost. I seriously doubt I'll ever see it all completed by the time I'm 60 -- which is 11 years from now.

For those not in SF, this is not about replacing the picturesque suspension portion of the Bay Bridge:

They're leaving that up. It's about replacing the cantilever portion, which was damaged in the 1989 earthquake:

Lesbians are us

I just noticed -- I mean, I did an ego search on Google for references to my books -- that the first edition of my book Too Beautiful is listed on Amazon.com under Health, Mind & Body > Sex > Sex Instruction > Lesbians. (Scroll down to No. 20.)

I'm flattered. But buy the new edition instead -- it has more stories. And whiter paper.

Law and order

Still drizzling, as it has for almost a week. We got a two-week break in early March but since about the 17th it's been positively Portland-like around here.

This morning Cris wanted to go to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to hear arguments in a death penalty appeal, and I went along. The case turned out to be quite a soap opera -- one of the judges on the appeals bench suggested it was a case fit for "Law and Order," and another called it "bizarre." The defendant was heavily brain-damaged, his public defender slept with the prosecutor, and the judge later confessed to being a marijuana "addict." I was so curious I did a little searching on the web and came up with this entertaining story on the judge's woes.

Even without all that interest, the trip would have been a treat. The Federal Courthouse in San Francisco is a Beaux Arts beauty which was completely restored after the 1989 earthquake. Inside it's all marble, brass, wood, with stained-glass skylights -- absolutely gorgeous.

There's no such thing as bad publicity

A costumer for singer Kylie Minogue said the corset he made for her tour would contract her waist to 16 inches. A retraction was eventually issued, but:

As stunts go, it was magnificent - everyone was a winner. The PRs have got publicity for her tour, the newspapers were able to run sexy pictures of one of the nation's favourite pop divas in a revealing outfit and an even better bonus - the story sprogged spin-offs keeping us all entertained for nearly a week.

Attentive readers will note the presence of "sprog" as a verb, indicating the story's provenance as -- yep, Australia.

If you don't like your job, do something else

A Mississippi OB-GYN who performed 35,000 abortions over the years got so sick of his job that he began fucking up. Over a four-year period beginning in 2000, one woman died and three others suffered massive hemorrhaging. Finally his license was suspended. Pleading for his license to be restored, he admitted that he didn't like doing abortions but needed the money to support his family -- maybe not the best approach to take. He didn't get his license back.

The closing of his clinic now leaves the entire state of Mississippi with only one clinic where abortions are performed.

He also said "You can't make software without breaking the build"

Look, it's the perfect shirt for tech writers. Unfortunately, they seem to be out of men's sizes.

RTFM stands for "read the fucking manual." Of course, no one does. I have to explain to my mother every time I call just what a manual is -- because she never reads them either. Nevertheless, I am still employed, along with a shrinking legion of technical writers.

A couple weeks ago I talked to a former boss. She had recently come back from Bangalore where she helped start a team of tech writers there. One shudders at the thought, though all they're going to do is write "release notes" on updated code -- and release notes are the most gnomic kinds of documentation there are. If you can't understand them, it's almost better.

The 21st century marches on

In Australia, they're agog over a story involving a cabinet minister and a sound man. A month ago the minister announced the recordist, who works for the national TV network and regularly stuck microphones in the minister's face for years, was actually the politician's long-lost son. Now it turns out, whoops, DNA reveals he isn't, actually.

Another bad investment

I liked this Minnesota story of a former Hollywood courtesan hoodwinked by a mobster into thinking her story would be turned into a movie.

She found out it took more than a pretty face to make it. She met the "wrong kind" of men, who steered her toward the life of a glorified hooker. She was taken to Las Vegas, where she transformed herself into a highly requested casino "escort" who mainly worked for the Sands, the Sahara, the Desert Inn and the Flamingo. ...

After years of failed attempts, Jane McCormick thought her compelling life story finally was going Hollywood.

Louis Eppolito, the man who charged the 61-year-old woman $45,000 to write a screenplay about her life ... said he planned to form his own film production company. Her tale of serving as party girl and escort for Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Danny Thomas and deep-pocketed casino high rollers was second on the new company's to-do list.

Unfortunately Eppolito was not only a former cop and bit actor but an actual hit man and drug dealer who was arrested Mar. 8 and charged with many federal crimes.

And it's going to be up for more than 15 minutes

In a NYT Magazine interview, disgraced Republican shill Jeff Gannon plays Andy Warhol: "At some point in the future, everyone is going to have a picture on the Internet that they are unhappy about." (Link courtesy Wonkette.)

He's right! Check out this atrocity (scroll down to 7th picture). Got me when eating a Polish dog. That's not fair.

How things really get done

Sarah, 27, who works in publishing and waits tables on weekends to make ends meet, generally hits up exclusive bars and clubs like Frederick's and SoHo House two or three times a week with a group of girlfriends for cocktails, and to find cute, wealthy guys.

"I'm not getting any younger and I need someone who is going in the right direction in life," says Sarah. "I will not date an artist of any sort."

Sarah and the cute, wealthy guys deserve each other. Because when she's 44 and her formerly cute, even wealthier husband starts fucking another 27-year-old girl in "publishing," she's going to get just what she wanted. NY Daily News story courtesy Amy's Robot. And this just in, also in today's NYDN: People like to hang out in Starbucks. One patron is quoted as saying, "Sadly, this is one of the highlights of my social life." She should read the other story.

Honorable mention, strangest link farm reference

I have a free account on Googlert, which alerts me to webpages that have newly linked to my site. Like most automated searches, it sometimes finds things that other automated tools have put together, resulting in this classic:

So there's a server in Germany that turns web page text into backwards writing. Okay. Something really dopey and nerdly about that. Maybe Jamie or another geek friend can explain.

Safety first

In the Chronicle this morning, a nice pair of stories on the new book a Safe, coedited by former Wired editor Katrina Heron and my gorgeous pal Martha Baer (whose minimalist website I put together, by the way). One of the things I really like about the inteview the Chron did with Martha and the others is the explanation of how a bunch of Kerry-voting Bay Area liberals can still get into the terrorism story.

GMail to go

Though I have, like, 50 invites which ANYONE may now have, you don't have to depend on me, for Google just announced it's opening its GMail service to a wider public -- not just people like me who use its Blogger service.

Why should you be interested in GMail? It's fast, it's very searchable, it handles large attachments beautifully (unlike Yahoo mail), and you get, what, 1 GB of storage space? 10 GB? Something huge.

I love this dirty town

This is a posting on tribe.net:

Fetish Creations is a new studio producing custom fetish and pornographic movies.

We would like you to come enjoy some beer and porn with us. Meet the producers and other models.

On Wednesday, March 23rd, doors open at 7:30pm, and at 8:00pm we will be screening our first two films, "Dirty Little Mind," and "Peep Showdown."

The screening will be held in San Francisco's SOMA district.
For information on the location and directions, please RSVP to
fetishcreations@gmail.com by 4pm on Wednesday, March 23rd.

And this is on Craigslist:

Flaming Lotus Girls benefit
Join us Friday, March 18th for our photography show and to enjoy delectable treats as DJs Mobutta and Majitope provide groovy ambiance. Olivier Bonin (http://madnomad.net/madlog) will show an artful documentary of the FLG and we’ll round the night out with a performance from Samsara (www.samsarasong.org) featuring the FLG’s own Rebecca Hotmetal Anders with Jamie Ben-Azay and Susan Appe.

Gorgeous photography and artwork has been donated for sale by Flaming Lotus Girls Lynn Bryant, Karen Cusolito, B’Anna Federico, Nicola Ginzler, Suzun Hughes, Catherine Lynch and Michael Prados, with other contributions from Michael P. Byrne, Heather Gallagher, Jessica Hobbs, Richard Kadrey, Rik Livingston, Caroline Miller, Tristan Savatier and Karl Seifert. Send the FLG out to the desert! Buy a gorgeous bit of Flaming Lotus artwork, grab a raffle ticket, or acquire a steamy Flaming Lotus poster calendar to help fund our newest project for Burning Man 2005! Artwork will be for sale for as low as $10 to match all budgets.

When/Where:
Friday and Saturday, March 18th-19th, 2005
Friday: DJs and Entertainment, 5-11pm
Saturday: Open Studio 12-4pm

Dogpatch Studios, 991 Tennessee Street, San Francisco
Free! Proceeds from art sales go toward the Flaming Lotus Girls
www.flaminglotus.com

Now, with more screaming and shooting

It rained today for the first time in two weeks -- all day long, drizzle ranging to a steady light rain. At the end of the day I really didn't want to sit in traffic in the rain all the way home -- it's bad enough at rush hour -- so I went to see a movie, Be Cool. A few entertaining moments, but mostly just a lot of posturing, posing, preening, gun pointing, screamed obscenities, faux gangsterism... And Uma Thurman, she's going to regret it. Only 34, she looks 44. Maybe they deliberately made her look old to make John Travolta -- playing possibly the only Hollywood-producer character in movie history to wear all black -- look decent. It's going to be all downhill for Uma after this -- she's going to start playing the mothers of teenage stars, then the mothers of ingenues, then -- darkness.

Speaking of stars who look like hell, Dig this Boing Boing posting.

Unkissed

No, I did not go to SxSW, and though I went to college in Austin, I've been back only once in 24 years. Nice town though.

You say that like it's a bad thing

Under The Roofs of Paris is pure pornography, and well, it is sick. I enjoyed the book immensely, mostly because it left me gaping at the obscenity Miller put into words: incest relationships, black masses at the French countryside, tricking prudent American women into orgies, and teenager whores are just the beginning in this 126 page book. There is a very loose plot that revolves around sex and I would suggest that you do not approach Under The Roofs of Paris unless you are already perverted or have a desire to be.

         -- The Millions (A Blog About Books)

I don't know about you, but I take that as a dare.

"Rocks" -- yeah, something like that

Excellent expose of the ubiquitous "free iPod" "offer" which, if not a scam, is certainly a racket.

Also in the news, did you see the story about the planned Letterman baby kidnapping? Just another sign of the growing divide in the U.S. between the wealthy and privileged, on the one hand, and the increasingly desperate working-slash-lower class, on the other. I mean, where does this sort of thing happen? Brazil. Russia. Mexico.

In other words, this is a sign that the U.S. is becoming more and more like a third world country. Here's a free book title for somebody who wants to write a best-selling nonfiction book: Third World America. Subtitle: Desperation and Despair. Chapter headings: The rise in kidnapping. American brownfields. Public housing: the death of a dream. The disaster of public education. The angry working class. Spiritual escapism. Bread and circuses: celebrity trials, blockbuster cinema, and the decline of cultural literacy.

Okay, I'll stop.

We don't need another hero

Boy, you could see this coming. No sooner did that woman in Georgia use an evangelical Christian best-seller to talk down a fleeing murderer than right-wingers jumped all over the story, lionizing the woman as a champion. Well, I'm happy for her. She'll get a book deal and a movie deal and her life will turn around. And she did handle the situation beautifully. I just hope she won't become an insufferable, ubiquitous tool of the right wing now. Because we have enough of those, you know?

Dept. of original thinkers

Last night I had the privilege of dinner with author Cynthia Heimel, the humorist whose books have titles like Get Your Tongue Out Of My Mouth, I'm Kissing You Goodbye! and If You Can't Live Without Me, Why Aren't You Dead Yet?. We were discussing possible gigs, and I offered, "Well, there's always Chick Lit." She looked at me as if I'd belched. "Chick Lit," I repeated more clearly.

"Oh, that," she said. "I can't write that stuff." She paused to sip her Diet Coke. "Of course, I did invent it."

Yes, she did. I noted that on the Amazon page for one of her books, one of the user-reviewers has written: "If you are a conservative and not a feminist, this book is sure to irritate you." I hope someone says that about me some day.

Something to do: SF edition

SF's sex underground gets busy with a cabaret show where "single men need a license to attend." Anything MC'd by Paul Nathan is guaranteed to be good.

Something to do: New York edition

Lucky residents of Gotham can hie themselves to a forum on Anais Nin at the CUNY Graduate Center -- free!

That listing in the Village Voice leads with an arresting quote from the famous female eroticist: "To be lost in a woman's sexuality is to be truly lost." That reminded me of another story I just saw, about Jane Fonda's new autobiography and her description of how annoyed she was with husband Roger Vadim -- who had previously been married to Brigette Bardot, and perhaps gotten the wrong idea somewhere around that time -- when he invited a redheaded French prostitute to a threesome. In addition, to please him, Fonda "ceased eating except for crusts from his bread and rinds from his camembert." Clearly Jane wasn't cut out for life as a bottom. She seems much happier married to media mogul Ted Turner.

But to get back to that threesome thing -- Fonda thinks she was annoyed -- imagine the hooker's reaction. She gets to go to bed with Jane Fonda but finds Fonda's not into it.

And speaking of movie stars whose erotic life doesn't match their on-screen persona, don't forget the best political scandal of 2004 -- when it came out that actress Jeri Ryan had alleged in divorce papers that her husband tried to make her go to sex parties -- forcing him to drop out of the race and throwing the open Senate seat to Barack Obama. Actually, I shouldn't say Jeri Ryan's "on-screen persona" ever encouraged anyone to think she was sexually libertine. Her on-screen persona is pure ice queen; it's her figure that makes people get ideas. Perhaps the same was true for Fonda.

Dept. of free speech

Here's an interesting tale from SF Indymedia -- a site where progressive activists post their news (and where sometimes what passes for "news" is merely paranoid fantasy): Two women noticed a neo-Nazi skinhead recruiting in a Mission District coffeehouse and, after discussing the situation with "comrades" and informing the cafe's clerk, forced the skinhead to cut his recruitment talk short and leave.

My first reaction was that if the details of the report are to be believed, it seems they handled the situation rather well. They didn't beat the guy up or threaten him, they just made him stop what he was doing by the sheer force of their presence. On the other hand, the skinhead was correct in asserting his right to free speech; even this biased report doesn't suggest he was breaking any law or urging that laws be broken. I think it's admirable that the women stood up for what they believed, but I think the best thing would be to have sat down at the table with him and engaged him in debate.

Stolpa award nominee!

It's not often we have an nominee for the Stolpa Award -- the award that combines the concept of "too stupid to live" with the aggravating circumstances of endangering your whole family in the process.

From Cambodia comes this story of people who are so poor they dig up unexploded mines for scrap.

[The village of] Choam Ksant has its charms, but its inhabitants are poor, and in the dry season they can not make any money from planting rice. They have to find other ways of bringing in cash, including gathering UXO* for scrap. At the back of a well-kept cafe, a pile of rusted rockets and shells could be seen, waiting for a buyer.

* UXO = Unexploded Ordinance.

The Stolpa Award is named for the man who, in 1993, decided to take a short cut on a lonely highway, passing signs that said it was closed for the winter. The car became stuck in a blizzard. After three days, he left his wife and baby in the car and went to find help. Lucky for him, he found a CalTrans truck several miles down the road, and the family was rescued. Their reward? A half-million dollar deal to turn their "story" into a TV movie. Both adults did, however, lose parts of their feet. Now that's inspirational!

That's just Wong

Stacy Wong is starting a blog for everyone named Stacy Wong. She emphasizes: "Stacy Wongs only!"

This has real promise. It would be great to have a blog for all the Mark Pritchards -- especially that guy who thinks he is the living incarnation of "Demon Beelzebub"! I'd love to hear what he has to say about, for example, the Giants' threat to steal more bases this year. Of course first I'd have to explain what baseball is, and I'm not sure you can do that in less than a lifetime.

Squashed activist's family sues bulldozer maker

Parents of peace activist Rachel Corrie, who was flattened when she stood in front of a bulldozer about to demolish a Gaza Strip house, are suing the bulldozer manufacturer, claiming it illegally sent its products to the Middle East "knowing the machines would endanger lives."

I've always been dubious about the Corrie story. When I heard it, my first reaction was, "That showed admirable courage." My second reaction was, "Didn't anybody tell her that standing in front of a bulldozer is supposed to be a symbolic protest?" Then when I was at Holden Village later that year, the staff practically canonized her at a prayer service devoted to peacemaking. That got to be a bit much. It shows classic American problems with perspective. Hundreds of people die every year in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- but when a pretty blonde dies by accident, we're supposed to get all worked up.

The picture's from the BBC story at that link. Why does it look like she's standing next to a garage in Wisconsin? Is that what Gaza looks like?

The 21st Century marches on

Rand Morimoto, president of Convergent Computing, spends more than 100 hours a week bolstering the image of his Oakland-based Internet security company, which has 65 employees. Even though he receives 30 vacation days a year, he uses only five of them -- for Christmas and a few other special occasions.

"The tough part about vacation is I work twice as many hours before I leave on vacation to prepare to go," he said. "And then when I get back, I work twice as many hours to catch up."

Despite Morimoto's non-stop schedule, he doesn't consider himself "overworked."

"I work for myself, and I choose to work as hard as I do,'' he said. "In this economy, you've got to work hard to keep your job. I choose to work my butt off."

I'm sorry, sir, but you are mentally ill.

It was a wine-dark and stormy night

In New York, they're going to read the Odyssey all night long on April 1st.

Ambitious writer's suicide

All the noise about Hunter S. Thompson's suicide has obscured a story that is, in my opinion, much more interesting: the fall of San Jose Mercury-News investigative reporter Gary Webb. Webb became nationally famous for reporting links between the CIA and drug trafficking, but when some problems were found with his stories, the newspaper published retractions and eventually forced Webb to resign. His career in a tailspin, he eventually killed himself in December, 2004. Today the Mercury-News published a long and fascinating portrait of Webb describing his career and his downfall.

The bad kind of Lutheran

Readers who followed the recent story about the apprehension of the BTK killer in Kansas might have noticed that the man who was nabbed for the crime spree was not only a good Lutheran but had recently been elected president of his congregation council -- a position equivalent to chairing the board of a small nonprofit. At the time, I think I just made a joke about this to Cris and then forgot about it.

But on Monday night I had occasion to bring it up when I was being interviewed by a reporter about being both a churchgoer and an erotica writer. (I'll link to the interview when it gets posted.) The reporter asked me whether people at church knew about my sex writing and whether I'd gotten any shit about it, and I said no, it's pretty hard to shock people in San Francisco, especially at a church that's two-thirds gay and on the edge of the Castro District. I then brought up the BTK killer, who was said to snoop around town trying to catch people in minor infractions, and my father, who seemed to have a similarly judgmental and suspicious attitude about everything. He embodied something typical about the conservative brand of Lutheranism I was raised in -- suspicious, critical, quick to see the negative side of everything.

Well, my father's been dead for several years, but I guess all this talk about him brought him back in my mind, because last night I dreamt that I was about to show him some stuff I had drawn -- some kind of big comix that were funny and satirical -- and I felt very nervous because I feared he would be judgmental and condemning as usual. I never actually got to show him the comix and see his reaction, however, because Cris's alarm went off, waking me up and ending the dream.

My father was very much a mid-20th century person. He worked hard all his life and never strayed; in that, he was a good man. Sort of like the BTK killer. He did a lot to take care of his family. But he wasn't emotionally caring or encouraging, and he hated my loose-cannon creativity.

Yet I retain a lot of those suspicious, critical traits too. When Cris suggests some project to change something in the house or the garden, I always see the disadvantages first and am quick to voice them. So while it's sad that my main memory of my father is so negative, it's even worse that I retain some of the traits that I myself found oppressive. That's really one of the main reasons I don't have children: I hate the idea of passing these negative personality traits along from generation to generation and being helpless to prevent it.

And in fact, I am doing the same thing with this post: focussing on the melancholy side of things. I can't say this trait has been bad for my writing, however; the sadness that so many people remark on in my sex stories -- a sadness I don't intend as such -- is one thing that makes them interesting. Aside from all the fucking.

Form is emptiness / Emptiness form /
Illusion and delusion are still the norm

The Buddhist Channel, a Buddhist news website, is looking for rappers to turn Buddhist sutras into rap lyrics. Among the proposals are the Heart Sutra and the Ten Precepts.

So all you 21st century dharma bums, there's something to think about on that cushion. Come to think of it, this is an evil plot. Once you got a rap version of a sutra in your head, you'd never get it out, and your meditation practice would be destroyed.

Spring thaw

While the hills are green and wildflowers abound, it may be that the icejam around my novel -- the one I finished and have been trying to sell -- may be breaking. I wrote recently of posting the notes from the writing of the book and of sending out new queries. Now the editor I queried directly has gotten a fellow editor interested in seeing the manuscript. It's like a fresh hope springing up. Not that I can forget all the times I've been disappointed before, but it's good simply still to have hope.

Gay weddings on again?

Calif. Judge Strikes Down Anti-Gay Marriage Law as unconstitutional. Woo hoo!

A reporter asked me today where I stood on this issue "as a Christian" (he was interviewing me for an unrelated story). I replied that I believed this was an issue of justice, and that my call as a Christian is to bring about a more just society. The same applies, of course, to the issue of whether LGBT people can be priests, bishops, ministers, etc. -- an issue currently threatening several Protestant denominations. It's about justice -- what could be simpler?

Swooping low

Driving down to work today, past the airport, I saw something unnerving. Usually planes come in for a long approach over the bay from the southeast. I saw a jet airliner crossing the freeway east to west at low altitude -- say 800-1000 feet -- at a spot I've never seen a plane before. It banked low over Millbrae and headed for a landing on a runway in an approximately southeast-to-northeast direction. I have never seen a plane fly low over Millbrae (a small town across the freeway and slightly south of the airport) before. I wondered if there was some kind of emergency, but now, two hours later, I don't see any news reports about a flaming crash, so I guess things turned out OK.

Martina for sale

Today an automotive day -- After errands in the morning, I took Martina, our MR2, for a triple dose of maintenance. First an oil change, then a tuneup, finally a super-wash -- because someone is coming at 2:30 to possibly buy her. I feel bad because I told the guy she had 150,000 miles and she actually has 155,900 -- I suppose it doesn't make a huge amount of difference at that level of mileage but I don't want him to feel like I'm trying to trick him about anything. The car's strengths and weaknesses are pretty visible. I should pick the car up from the tuneup in half an hour and then take her for the wash and final clean-out. Good old Martina, which went down to Wonder Valley at least three times, once with me and Cris, later with me and Stephanie, finally me on my own. And I've commuted in Martina for the last six years.

Sara came over to garden with Cris. It's a cool foggy day after yesterday's incredible sun and warmth. San Franciscans can really only take three days of sunny warmth before wishing for the fog again, so today is actually perfect.

Update:

Martina was sold, so I removed the link to the Craigslist ad.

In the middle of the afternoon I got some sort of horrid leg cramp, and I've been limping around the house ever since (it's now 10:45 pm). So I wasn't able to go to Writers with Drinks after all, darn it.

Totally San Francisco

Here's a classic SF story about "earthquake shacks" -- leftover temporary housing from the earthquake that happeneed 99 years ago -- that are still standing being removed for historical rehabilitation.

What makes this a classic SF story is its connection to the earthquake. Basically only four things have ever happened in SF: the Gold Rush, the earthquake, the Summer of Love, and the queer revolution -- and the last two may be combined. In order for something to be a classic SF story, it has to be connected with one of those somehow.

For example, the infamous dog mauling case that happened a few years ago: the victim was a lesbian, the lawyers who cared for the dog had some kind of weird crypto-sexual relationship with the convict who who actually owned him, and the case became the impetus for a new California law giving domestic partners greater rights. And, of course, it was also a classic SF story because of its sheer bizarre nature.

Or another classic SF story, which took place in about 1980. At the famous Condor Club in San Francisco there was a grand piano which was the stage on which Carol Doda descended from the ceiling during her long run there. By 1980 Doda made only the occasional appearance but the piano was still functional. One night after the club closed, one of the strippers was fucking one of the club's doormen on top of the piano when somehow the mechanism became engaged and the piano began ascending. The girl managed to jump off but the 300-pound doorman couldn't, and was crushed against the ceiling. That is so classic I don't even need to explain why. Unfortunately that incident is not recorded anywhere on the internet. Maybe I'll have to go to the library to actually get the story and type it in, because it really should live on.

Spring now fully sprung

It's like 80 degrees outside, the cherry trees are blooming, and winter is over with a capital O-for-orgasm. Yesterday I saw a hummingbird trying to get up close and personal with some almost unnoticeable blooms on the eucalyptus tree outside my office window. (The blooms look like this -- the white ones -- only we're not in South Africa, so they're very small and hard to see -- unless, I guess, you're a hummingbird.) Just now I had lunch with Jenny, who just got a job in another software company down here in Redwood City. Ate at Hometown Noodle Co., and the lunch was really great.

Continuing my nothing-to-lose-so-why-not-go-for-it approach to getting my book published, I sent an email query to the only editor I even remotely know -- someone who worked at Cleis when they published my sex stories. I should have pinged him as soon as I found out, at least a year ago, that he had moved on from Cleis to a mainstream publisher and become an editor. So here's hoping he'll at least be interested, despite me not having an agent. Probably every single Cleis author hoping to go mainstream contacts him, but (I repeat) I have nothing to lose!

Aaaaaand we're back

Blogger was completely broken, at least for me, until a few minutes ago. I tried to publish that last entry at 7:30 this morning. So I've got a bit of catching up to do.

I'm so excited that someone answered my Mechanical Servants question -- and like 36 hours after I posted it. Man, I didn't know the internet was like a Magic 8 Ball, only with better answers. So for my next trick, I want to know what happened to one of my college girlfriends, Meta Bach. Her unusual name gets exactly no hits.

Dreaming of the future

I've been very get-on-with-it for the last couple weeks. After I posted the notes file for my unpublished novel Make Nice, I sent off three blind queries this Monday. Last night I went over to Katia's to help her build a website for her upcoming novel, which will be published in a few months, and I did the same for Martha a few days ago. And to top it all off, I readied my application for the Squaw Valley Writers conference, which I usually don't complete until May.

So last night I had a lovely dream of writerly success. Charlie Anders was showing me a clip from the New York Review of Books -- it was a long piece about my work. Later in the dream I was listening to and coaching young writers, who were happy to have my ear. Does that sound silly? Well, it sure was a nice dream.

Yes, it's still holding up

The Beatles' music, that is. And my iPod must love it. I have over 2200 tracks on my iPod, only 150 of which are Beatles songs -- but Shuffle just gave me three in a row.

However, "Polythene Pam" is not meant to be listened to by itself. It cuts off right in the middle of George's guitar solo, right before John says, "Oh, look out now."

Nevertheless, this is a good day.

God shed his grace on thee

Someone is advertizing for participants an an ecstasy survey (link to tribe.net posting). If you're "part of the dance community, and have extensive knowledge of ecstasy use and distribution within the community," you can get $100 for answering their questions. I love this country!

Nerd of the month

A German teen hacked the iPod OS by "listening" to its clicks -- the UI feedback sounds it is designed to make when a user manipulated the "clickwheel."

Man, never underestimate the power of a curious teenager armed with a little technology and a lot of free time. You know why you never hear of Japanese teenagers doing stuff like this, despite their equal fascination with technology? They don't have time. They're too busy going to cram schools. And in the U.S., homework is increasing as parents desperately try to distract children from sex, drugs and rock and roll. So now people wonder whether the whole homework thing has gone too far -- still have time to be children? If they don't have time to screw around with their own projects, where will we get the next generation of geeks?

Update: Check out this interesting debate from another position on Salon.com. One person writes:

Gen Y has been raised in an anti-reality vacuum. Everybody's a winner, everybody gets a trophy, even the preschoolers get a graduation ceremony, everybody's special, there are no such things as wrong answers, don't say no to them -- it hurts their widdle self-esteem. As always, once the kids are no longer small and cute, the truth dawns: You're not special, you can't have everything you want, there are no do-overs, and the weak members of the herd are culled by the lions. When you stumble, there are a billion others, bloodthirstily waiting to take your place. Life's tough.

Strangely, I find myself in sympathy with that view.
 

On another subject:

Great post on Gov. Schwa. on SFist.

Wear a kimono, ride the bus free

In Kyoto, which is a real city as opposed to something like Colonial Williamsburg, they're offering free public transport and admission to tourist attractions for anyone wearing kimono. If you don't have one, you can rent one for $28/day. I don't know if that includes assistance with putting it on.

I think this is a fine idea, one that should be extended to other cities. For example, in San Francisco, free bus rides for anyone wearing a leather jacket and piercings (though that would probably bankrupt Muni). In Houston, a free admission to the Astrodome for anyone wearing a brown polyester suit and cowboy boots. In Chicago, a Cubs jacket and blue jeans gets you in free to the Museum of Science and Industry. In New York, wearing all black gets you a free ride on the Staten Island Ferry. What's that you say? The Staten Island Ferry is already free? OK, a free admission to MOMA -- since the only people there are tourists anyway. I've heard the locals are waiting a year to let the crowds clear out.

Art appreciation corner

This butt is just bionic. It's beyond anything. It's unbelievable. Imagine having access to that?
      -- R. Crumb

The Guardian profiles R. Cumb today, and it's well worth reading.

Post-modern dance never went away, really

At least that's what it looked like a little after 2 pm today on the corner of 43rd and 5th in New York City. Photo courtesy of the world's best webcam.

That reminds me: Revolutionary choreographer and filmmaker Yvonne Rainer will be speaking at Harvard on Tuesday, March 17.

 

 

 

Dept. of Tough Love

LIFE IS MEANT NOT ONLY TO BE LIVED, BUT CELEBRATED!
        -- greeting card seen at supermarket this morning

Unless it's their birthday, I can't imagine giving that card to somebody. What's it mean? "Get off your butt, you fucking slacker, and into some self-realization. Stop being so negative about everything and start acting happy. If you can't celebrate your own life, celebrate mine, because it's a lot better than yours, everyone can see that. Just cheer up, or else!"

HE SLAUGHTERED THE WHOLE FRENCH LANGUAGE, BUT SHE WENT OUT WITH HIM ANYWAY
        -- slogan on a Gap billboard, next to a photograph of a woman (torso shown only) wearing a green sweater

"At Gap, we know you have low self-esteem to the point of anorexia -- that's why we love you, because that's the only way to make our clothes look good. So date that poser you met at the Truffaut festival last night -- you deserve nothing more!"

How I wrote my novel

I posted the file of notes I kept while working on my novel Make Nice. The notes (1.1 MB PDF) begin in 1996 with a bare idea for a novel, and go through the research, writing, and rewriting of the book. You'll see my process as I refine ideas and plot points, figure out what works and what doesn't, discover new characters, and finally reach the extremely satisfying point of finishing the book.

I haven't seen anyone else post something like this, so maybe someone will be interested. (They would undoubtedly be more interesting if I actually managed to get the book itself published, but they'll have to do for now, aside from this chapter-long excerpt.)

Padded life

This Salon interview with Thomas De Zengotita really rocked me. Supposedly the author wrote a book about the over-mediation of society, just like ten other books in the last ten years (cf. Data Smog, 1998). But the interview touches on such a wide range of subjects, all allegedly covered under the guy's theory. Psychology, economics, child development, solutions to world poverty, the difference between choices and options, and iPods -- it's all in there. At least it's all in the interview.

I'd rush out and buy the book, only I'm afraid it's not as interesting as this interview. Pieces like this make me glad I'm a Salon Premium subscriber.

Blue Motel Room

Favorite lyrics of the day:

You and me, we're like America and Russia
We're always keeping score
We're always balancing the power
And that can get to be a cold cold war
We're going to have to hold ourselves a peace talk
In some neutral cafe
You lay down your sneaking round the town, honey
And I'll lay down the highway

Adventures in media

BART will let Viacom test advertising in the tunnels between stations using hundreds of posters arrayed to act like a flipbook animation.

I can think of much better uses for that technology.

Meanwhile, a spunky student-paper sex columnist has parlayed her work into a novel about a student-paper sex columnist. Now why didn't I think of that approach when I was a student-paper entertainment writer? Probably because I wasn't as cute a 21-year-old as she is. Coincidentally, the Baltimore Sun just published an article about student sex columnists, saying such work "can really spice up a resume." (Link courtesy Romenesko.)

Bad flash of the day

Is it a Burning Man costume? Not necessarily, though it might be helpful if you can't find your way back to your tent some night. It's the Sleeping Bag Dress, a self-inflatable garment/shelter. Link courtesy BoingBoing.

 

 

 

A lucky day for writers

My fabulous friend and fellow writer Sara Miles called to tell me her latest book proposal, on her work with food pantries, is being considered by a major publisher. "So it might be a good idea to send in that application for Squaw," she urged. Yes! I don't have that ready, but I do have a few query letters set to go. Go, little queries!

The first noble truth

The BBC has a multi-part series on prostitution, the sex industry, and porn in the U.K., titled Streets of Vice. Today's installment begins with the sentence "These days anyone can set up a website and become a porn star." Anyone? Yes, judging from the article, which features an obese 59-year-old woman called Francesca. I liked one of the comments at the end:

This shows the complete lack of morals of many people in this world. Shame on this woman. Instead of spending her last years usefully and being of benefit to society, she is leading a decadent and useless life!!
-- Padma, India

To which her customers might respond, who says she's not being useful? But I get Padma's point. There are so many other things one might be doing. What Padma fails to take into account is that some people are just exhibitionists, and if you get paid as well, then what modern person could resist? Only someone who has dedicated her life to reducing suffering.

All the world's just more decoration

I hope this will be the ONLY Michael Jackson-related posting. Ever.

If you've happened to notice, on any of the ubiquitous news fottage of Jackson entering the courthouse for his child molestation trial, he wears a suit with some sort of emblem or medal on the breast pocket. Turns out it's a real medal, and the Austrians are pissed. He probably just thought it was some trinket, but it's a medal awarded to eminent artists and others in Austria, perhaps a bit like the French Legion of Honor. And he hasn't been awarded it. No doubt he thinks the world just exists as his bauble, but this is a particularly shameless example. I'll bet he couldn't even find Austria on a map.

And now for the good news

Yesterday voters in Topeka Kan. -- home of the execrable "God hates fags" cult of Fred Phelps -- rejected efforts to repeal a non-discrimination ordinance, as well as a run by by a Phelps family member to unseat the town's only openly gay city council member. On the other hand, the non-discrimination ordinance was only upheld by a 53-47 margin. That's Kansas, one of the reddest states in the nation.
 

By the way

Last night I fixed the comments feature, and also added permalinks to the site, so readers can now comment and link to their hearts' content. Hail Alexa, first to comment. Finally, I improved the truly awful layout of the Archives page, though it's still pretty bad.

Just think what John Belushi could do with this

"My intention is to impact the culture [of America]," she says. "The people are the most important component of a society, and so that's where the battle for the minds needs to be waged."

Naomi sounds like a well-seasoned politician. But she is in fact a first year student at Patrick Henry College, America's first university established primarily for evangelical Christian home-schooled children.

That's from this BBC story: Educating America's Christian Right:

They are also all deeply religious and committed to transforming America. In fact, all students have to sign a statement before they arrive, confirming, among other things, that they have a literal belief in the teachings of the Bible.

Just what the country needs, isn't it? More literal-minded fundamentalists. And yet every single one of these kids and the adults in charge would probably say they hate Islamic fundamentalism, which does exactly the same thing: drums a conservative, supposedly "literal" interpretation of the Koran into the minds of young kids.

God, sometimes I honestly do fear for the country. On the other hand, this takes some of the onus off my generation. Train enough of these fundie shits and we're off the hook for what happens next.

This is why I started my own magazine

Got another rejection from another agent today:

I gave this book my best shot over my winter reading break --- it just did not grab me.

All I can ask is for the person to read it and give it a chance. Still, rejection sucks. I dunno what's going to happen with this book (PDF excerpt). Self publishing is the kiss of death. I've got to keep trying to get it published by somebody.

Something to do

My friend Lisa B is performing this Saturday:

Lisa B’s Luscious Jazz (and Spoken Word) Quartet:
   Lisa B (Lisa Bernstein), singer/songwriter/poet
   Murray Low, keyboard (from Machete)
   Chris Amberger, bass (local monster formerly with Art Blakey)
   Bill Belasco, drums (tasteful, dynamic groovemaster)

Enjoy the swank, roomy, inviting atmosphere; great tapas and drinks; wonderful sound system; and my exciting jazz band.

Friday March 4, 7 - 9 p.m. @ Seventeenth, 510  17th St., San Pablo and Telegraph, Oakland. (510) 433-0577   $5 cover.

Adventures in outer space

Tom DeLay says Constitution doesn't have any guaranteed separation of church and state. Now let's imagine him on the Supreme Court! Fucking EEEEEEKK!

Old lady gives finger to giant health corp

An 82-year-old woman in Marin County can't walk and thus has refused to leave her hospital bed for a year, saying:

"When you pay Kaiser insurance month after month for 50 years like I have, you expect to be treated like a good patient and a human being," Nome said the other day from her hospital bed. "If I had known that Kaiser would take me for only a couple of days and then would expect my family to take care of me, I would have paid my family what I paid for insurance."

I love this story, and the Chronicle did a good job with it, pointing out that it's merely an extreme example of the problem where:

People like Nome pay for insurance all their lives and expect a certain level of care when they get old. So, health care advocates say, it should not come as a surprise that they get angry when they discover their needs are not covered -- even if some don't complain and few take their grievances to anywhere near the extreme that Nome has.

"It does point out that there is a lack of long-term care policy in this country," said Anthony Wright, the executive director of the advocacy group Health Access California. "It is a patchwork system in terms of what kind of institutions and what kind of home-based care is available, and a lot of people fall through the cracks."