'Bourgeoisification, the suburbanisation of the soul'

This remarkable interview with author J.G. Ballard has a lot of wonderful and arresting quotes, including:

The destruction of the World Trade Center on 9/11 has not yet been repackaged into something with more consumer appeal, I notice. Another revolutionary event, the assassination of JFK, was rapidly defused by the intense media coverage, the endless replaying of the Zapruder film, and the vast proliferation of conspiracy theories. But Kennedy was himself largely a media construct, with an emotional appeal that was as calculated as any advertising campaign. His life and death were both complete fictions, or very nearly. A real revolution, as 9/11 was in its way, will always come out of some unexpected corner of the sky...

But there is something deeply suffocating about life today in the prosperous west. Bourgeoisification, the suburbanisation of the soul, proceeds at an unnerving pace. Tyranny becomes docile and subservient, and a soft totalitarianism prevails, as obsequious as a wine waiter. Nothing is allowed to distress and unsettle us. The politics of the playgroup rules us all.

Emphasis mine. I thought the last bit about how politicians and the media coddle the masses perfectly fit the current military strategy of minimizing casualties, not of civilians, but of the military itself.

Some good writing can also be found in David Denby's review of Fahrenheit 9/11 in the New Yorker. Worth reading in the run-up to the film's premiere.

Finally, this bizarre story about Britney Spears totally losing it when a car being driven by her mother knocks down a photographer is worth looking at for the pictures alone.

See it all comes round to Mel Gibson sooner or later

I was reading this entertaining first-person piece on drug addiction when I was brought up short by this sentence:

The irony of the drug experience is that it comes from an outgrowth of genuine longing, a reaching out for meaning, a yearning for transcendence and salvation, and it ends with sitting in a darkened room staring miserably at the wall.

All you have to do is substitute the word "Zen" for "drug" in that sentence and it still makes perfect sense. The author, by the way, is a British performance artist who became infamous for having himself crucified in 2000.

Get a job, you bum

Among the many, many articles being published in advance of the premiere this Friday of "Fahrenheit 9/11" -- the Michael Moore film which hopes to do nothing less than bring about the defeat of Bush in November -- is this one from the Cincinnatti Post, which includes this intriguing, and encouraging, bit of analysis (emphasis mine):

For months "Fahrenheit 9/11" has been a subject of heated discussions on op-ed pages in newspapers and talk shows, but it isn't the only documentary (a term that applies here in its broadest sense) to tap into today's political anxieties. Several other "impressionistic" documentaries, all with a dissident touch, are in theaters or on their way. They include "Control Room" (now showing at the Esquire Theatre in Clifton), about the Al Jazeera TV network; "The Corporation," a look at corporate policies and everyday American life; and "The Hunting of the President," which asks whether there was a vast conspiracy -- or a series of little ones -- to destroy the Clinton administration.

Nonfiction films have been growing in popularity of late, but this season's batch is joining a chorus of already raised voices. Some observers see a renewed interest in political ferment in today's media, extending from bestselling books on the Bush administration by journalist Bob Woodward, to the strongest flood of protest songs in 30 years, to the rise of talk radio on both the left and the right.

"Popular culture is embracing politics in a way it hasn't since the 1960s," says Joel Bakan, co-writer of "The Corporation" and author of the Free Press book on which that movie is based.

Oh -- popular culture is embracing politics. Not people.

Censorship is the best compliment

The fact that a conservative group has begun urging movie theaters not to show Michael Moore's "9/11" film can only be interpreted as a sign of sheer panic. Could it possibly be that good?

OK, this is getting weird

On June 9 I wrote of getting a call from a recruiter. I subsequently arranged with that woman to visit her company tomorrow for a job interview. Yesterday I got still another piece of email from a recruiter, this time one with Oracle.

Oracle is a huge, aggressive company with a terrible reputation for using up and spitting out tech writers, and I don't think I could ever work for its founder, one of the richest, most arrogant people in the country. Still, it's weird how recruiters are suddenly calling me like crazy (or what passes for "like crazy" for me -- three times in a single month) after a year and a half of exile from the tech industry.

If you've lost Garrison Keillor, you've lost America

Could this be Bush's Cronkite moment?

As I wrote Sunday, Garrison Keillor went off on the Abu Ghraib torture scandal in the middle of his monologue Saturday. They've just posted the show, and if you want to listen to the monologue, click on "Segment 8." The rant (transcribed here) happens at minute 16 of the segment.

Dept. of high crimes and misdemeanors

Rumsfield ordered an Iraqi prisoner hidden from the Red Cross. The arrogance is astonishing. Is there anything these shits won't descend to in order to salvage their war?

As if there aren't enough books already

Did another turn at the l.n.c.b. last night, something I masochistically continue to do once or twice a month. I say I'm doing it for the money, but by the time I get done paying for gas, bridge tolls, the food I inevitably buy at a discount from their cafe, and the book I can't stop myself from buying (I get an employee discount, who could resist!), I barely clear $25 for a five-hour shift. So why the hell do I continue? I really don't know. In addition to taking up a whole evening, it's exhausting.

But for those of you who want to add to the millions of books on sale in America, you can always try this: software that "helps."

My chosen writing aide is a CD-rom from Creativity Software Ltd called NewNovelist which, according to the blurb on the back, "takes you on a journey; it harnesses your creativity and helps you write your own novel." The Sunday Times said, "the magic of NewNovelist is that it doesn't feel as if you are writing a book." Great! That's how I've been feeling for years!

Dept. of Chutzpah

The leading figure in the sports steroid scandal has offered to tell investigators everything he knows, in exchange for leniency, saying he alone can ensure a "clean" Olympic team. Translation: He'll rat on all his clients and wrap himself in the flag. Yeah, that would totally cancel out all the scandal. Sure.

Velvet Aboveground

Here's Nico, famous Warholite and singer for the Velvet Underground, in her pre-Warhol days as a fashion model. Wow! (More at http://smironne.free.fr/NICO/mode.html. Links courtesy BoingBoing.)

Australian getup of the year

Get a load of these costumes. No, they're not superheroes or scuba divers. They're Olympic athletes. Especially dig the crotch protector on that cyclist.

Yahoo ups storage to 100MB

Responding to Google's GMail tactic, Yahoo on Tuesday will announce that it's raising storage on its free email accounts to 100MB. Great, more room for all that spam I'm getting every day.

Chelsea morning

Here's Chelsea Clinton, all dolled up at the unveiling of her sluttish dad's official portrait. Dunno about that dye job, but her New York Look certainly passes. (Is that her boyfriend sitting next to her? Looks like a nebbish.)

I, too, was a paper millionaire

The excerpt published on Salon today from James Marcus's "Amazonia" -- his book about his employment at amazon.com and participation in the dotcom boom -- largely echoes my experience. In September 1999, I was hired by a newly-minted company called Commerce One and given a few thousand shares of stock options. Because it was two months after the IPO, I assumed there was little chance the stock would go over the $54 strike price at which my options were granted. But the bubble had just begun, and over the next six months the stock split twice and went to the equivalent of $900. By December all the employees -- or at least the ones who had joined with or before me -- were positively giddy; the ones who had joined recently had stock options that would never be worth anything. One of the original engineers quit and cashed out; a reporter wrote an story about how he bought his old high school math teacher a Masarati.

For several months, my options made me a paper millionaire. And like Marcus, I was lucky enough to be able to cash in a fraction of those options, before getting laid off in January 2001. By the end of that year the company -- along with many other dotcom startups -- was in the toilet. The beautiful sine curve described by the stock price was positively ballistic.

British graft in China

This story about opening Beijing's first fish and chips restaurant is amusing on its own, but what struck me was the expression "hard graft" at the end of the story. Apparantly this is a British expression for "hard work." Go figure.

Garrison Keillor speaks out against Bush's torture policy
during 'News from Lake Wobegon' monologue

I turned on the radio as I was driving home from church and caught the end of Garrison Keillor's centerpiece monologue from his long-running Prarie Home Companion show. I'm not quite sure how he got off on this topic, but he suddenly started sounding very political.

Update:here is the show in question, broadcast June 12. Listen to "Segment 8" which includes the "News from Lake Wobegon" monologue; the rant starts at about 16 minutes in, and you can fast-forward to it.

Transcript:

Richard Nixon, now there was a man. To read that he got really loaded at the White House -- I liked that about him. To read that he got really loaded, so that Henry Kissinger was afraid to let him talk on the telephone, the President. He was a man who knew something about darkness, Richard Nixon. I could imagine him walking around with a couple of big double Manhattans, getting a little high on it. You could write a country song about Richard M. Nixon, you sure could. "He thought about Cambodia / And he had to face the truth, / So he reached for the whiskey and that sweet Vermouth." You could write a song about him.

But nowadays we're stone cold sober, stone cold sober -- Lord help us. And the terrible things that righteous people can do -- God knows. God knows, friends. [Applause] People without a shred of self-doubt -- a person without any doubt is a monster. I'm horrified -- [Applause, cheers] I'm horrified at the thought that torture of prisoners is American policy. It just terribly horrifies me. [Applause] Say I'm wrong. I hope to be wrong. But I would hate to see enlisted men and women being made scapegoats in order to protect policymakers. [Applause, cheers] America doesn't stand for torture. It's not who we are. [Applause] America is a refuge for people who have suffered from torture and oppression, and if we practice it ourselves, then what plan does God have for us?

So much for that

I didn't watch a single minute of the Reagan ceremonies. All that state-funeral stuff is probably useful when a President dies in office, because people are dealing with the shock. But when a guy dies of Alzheimer's, everyone's dealt with him dying a long time before he actually goes. Therefore the extensive coverage -- not "wall to wall" like this guy complains, but extensive enough -- was simply the Republicans showing off. Fox news, of course, jacked off on the casket all week long; most other news outlets had at least a token number of stories reminding people that Reagan had not actually, when president, been universally loved.

Of course, Reagan's death couldn't have happened at a better time. The absolute worst time, of course, would have been right before the Democratic Convention -- instead of the Democrats getting a free ride for a week, they would have had to share screen space with the funeral. Now that would have been a media disaster. Second worst time would have been anytime during the two months before the election.

But in early June, we get it out of the way. Kerry loses a week, but has plenty of time to make it up. It didn't overshadow the reports from the 9/11 commission or the committee investigating Abu Ghraib, both of which are due out this summer. In short, nobody will be thinking about Reagan by the time the Democrats meet in Boston.

Something to do

This gathering is becoming the place to be:

Writers With Drinks spoken word variety shows, featuring a mixture of comedy, poetry, literature, erotica and other genres. This time out, we feature Emmy-winning television writer and music journalist David Mills, Hugo and Nebula-winning science fiction author Terry Bisson, slam champion poet Meliza Banales, Ferro-Grumley-award winning literary writer Trebor Healey, sex worker activist Scarlet Harlot and the comedy duo Carole Murphy and Mitzi Fitzsimmons.

Cover: $3 to $5 sliding scale, all proceeds to other.
Where: The Make Out Room, 3225 22nd. St. btw. Mission and Valencia (in SF)
When: Saturday, June 12, 7:30 PM SHARP to 9:30 PM SHARP, doors open at 7 PM

No picnic

Despite the fact that the Japanese economy is still in the toilet, young Americans and others are still finding their way there, as they have for the last 40 years or so, to teach English, strip, and perform other tasks only gaijin can do. This fellow is among the latest to discover the frustrating aspects of living in Japan. You know what -- everything he says is true. But he still sounds like a wanker, because there are an equal number of delightful things about the place. Besides, now that he's broken up with his girlfriend (or so he reports), I'll bet one of his female students has been just waiting to shag him.

When I was teaching English in Japan -- and it's been 15 years now -- I had a student who absolutely wanted to jump me. But I was leery of cultural and ethical considerations, and I hesitated. Finally the girl got tired of waiting and wrote me an absolutely classic kissoff note, which I still have. As for other gaijin, most of them tended to fuck each other. But some of the American men were in Japan in the first place because they couuldn't hack social relationships with other Westerners; they found Japanese girlfriends easily. I'm thinking of one guy in particular who joined the staff at our school. He was an utter pill, and balding to boot, but he hadn't been there three weeks before he bagged a gorgeous gym trainer.

So Mr. Evan Vella, stop bitching and start shagging. You'll probably even learn the language along the way.

Tea on books

After a rocky start, writer Michelle Tea -- one of the few people left alive who really deserves the epithet "Fabulous" -- returns to the online publication Beyong Chron with an entertaniing tour of the recent book industry confab in Chicago. You must read it.

Winds of change blowing?

The economy must genuinely be picking up. I got email from yet another recruiter. This one just picked my resume off Monster.com and sent me a job description. The job would actually be for one of my old employers, unfortunately one out in Pleasanton. It would figure for me to land yet another job in fucking Pleasanton.

Those nutty antipodeans

Been a while since a good story from Australia. How about the woman who became nationally known for insisting on her right to suicide to save herself from suffering from cancer -- and after she succeeded in killing herself, was found to not have cancer?

It's inappropriate and needs to be stopped

A television ad for the remake of "The Stepford Wives" includes an image resembling a topless Condoleeza Rice as well as a picture of Hilary Clinton that "morphs" into a grinning housewife bearing a sheet of cookies.

But what you really wanted were profiles of the performers at the center of the porn industry AIDS scare. The article includes this arresting sentence:

Her hair was Audrey Hepburn short, a cut she gave herself the night she set her boyfriend's bed on fire.

Is that a good first sentence of a novel, or what?

A strange, windy day

In Italy, they're agog over a Satanic rock-and-roll murder.

In San Francisco, vaguely anti-something protesters suggested chocolate, massage and barter as alternatives to the biotech industry. Connections unclear.

In England, "Children are confused about the dangers posed by using the internet with some believing it puts them at risk of catching HIV or being abducted by aliens."

In Oklahoma, a mountain lion that had wandered all the way down from South Dakota was struck and killed by a train. For those who have no idea of the geographic relationship between those two states, the story helpfully explains the cat travelled something like 700 miles. I guess if I went that far I'd be too tired to dodge a train too. The best part of the story is the laconic quotes of slack-jawed yokels, like "All I can relate it to is I've run over two bobcats on state highways and one on a county road."

End of an era (noting to do with Reagan either)

I got my tongue pierced on Dec. 30, 1993, and it's been pierced ever since, pleasing lovers, getting in the way of dentists, and taking co-workers aback for more than a decade. Today, while I was standing in line at the supermarket, it came out.

The jewelry of the tongue piercing is a post -- a steel bar about an inch and a half long -- with a little steel ball on either end. One of the balls screws off for removal. Today, it came off by itself. I took it out of my mouth, then removed the rest of the apparatus, which came out cleanly and painlessly. (A lot less painfully than it went in, I must say.) I stared at it in wonder for a minute, then put it in my pocket.

I wondered from time to time, over the last ten years, if and when I would ever take it out. Now that it's come out on its own, I think I'm liable to leave it out. Saves me the trouble of making the decision. I love it when that happens.

San Francisco, a world class city

Radicals protesting the U.S. presence in Iraq clashed yesterday in San Franicsco with 500 counter-demonstrators who supported Israel.

I was going to say this was an only-in-SF thing, but on second thought, I could see it happening in New York, too -- but only if the anti-war protests in New York are led by the same coalition of self-loathing post-Communist radicals, anarchists and haters.

Meanwhile, a different coalition of the unwilling is massing to demonstrate at an upcoming biotech conference. And let's not forget the parade to end all parades, the annual San Francisco Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride March and Celebration (whew) which brings to a climax a whole week of queer parties, festivals (including the annual Frameline film festival, formerly known as the Lesbian-Gay Film Festival.

I think I just heard the 20th century end

That was me driving down 24th St. in Noe Valley, honking my horn and yelling out the window "Reagan's dead!!" I went to the cat food store, walked in and announced "Reagan's dead!" The people inside gave nonplussed looks. "And on that note," I added, "I need a cat poop scooper."

By 3:00 p.m., two hours after the announcement, ABC TV already had a logo up, so I think they won that one. One good thing about the reverential television coverage: they show Reagan getting shot over and over. Second good thing: Relief from endless D-Day footage.

Classic amnesia case

This story is bizarrely similar to the premise of Nicole Krause's novel Man Walks Into a Room. It's from today's Desert Dispatch (Barstow, Calif.). Quoted in its entirety:

Thursday, June 3, 2004

Man found wandering in desert adjusting to life at home

By IAN MORRISON/Staff Writer

Michael Dennis Schroeder's memories have been a little more elusive than he expected and he's still dealing with a vicious headache, he said.

Schroeder may not remember much of anything, but at least he feels a sense of association to his wife and son, who scooped him up from Arrowhead Regional Medical Center in Colton, and took him home to Alabama last week, he said in a phone interview.

California Highway Patrol officers picked up Schroeder, 38, of Piedmont, Ala., on the evening of May 18 in Barstow wandering around dazed and apparently suffering from amnesia, on Fort Irwin Road.

He was identified by his wife a few days later after Barstow Sheriff's Deputies discovered an abandoned Chevrolet Cheyenne pickup truck in the Rainbow Basin area, east of Hinkley. Deputies ran the license plate and linked it to a missing person's report filed out of Piedmont, Ala.

Schroeder, who spent five days at Arrowhead Regional Medical Center, still can't find any reason for his condition. Doctors ran a battery of tests on his body and mind, such as an MRI and a CAT scan, but found nothing wrong with him, he said.

His wife Sally, his sister-in-law, and his son, arrived at the hospital by car on May 23. They met with Schroeder and his doctor twice that day, to make sure he was in the right condition to travel. He was discharged the next day and taken home to Piedmont, Ala, he said.

He may have been back with his family but not much else has improved, he said.

He lost his job at Picture Perfect Lawncare and Maintenance because he could not recall how to do it. He also had to leave his truck in California because he could not pay the $700 to get it out of the police impound, he said.

"Unfortunately, the memories aren't doing so well either," Schroeder said.

CHP Officer Jeff Moran said Schroeder was severely sunburned and dehydrated when police found him. He also said Schroeder had no recollection of who he was or how he got there.

Schroeder said the last thing he can remember is hiking near a peak when he suddenly saw a mountain lion and fell down a steep slop. He said he woke up some time later without any belongings and walked around the desert for two days before he was found.

Since he's been home, he has spent a lot of time meeting old friends, relatives and co-workers. Sometimes he can remember flashes of incidents with people he meets but no memories of their relationships with him ever seem to return, he said.

"It's not exactly a fairy tale ending but I'm working on it," he said.

He also said doctors told him he has an artery in the back of his neck that looks considerably smaller than it should be, which may hold the answer to his problems.

"There's going to be lot more doctor's visits in the future," Schroeder said.

According to his wife, he was last seen three days before he was found on Fort Irwin Road. He left his job in Alabama that afternoon to go cash his paycheck and never returned. His truck was found 10 miles from where he was picked up, with a note pinned to the windshield that read "We have found God."

Piedmont is a small town in the northeast corner of Alabama, more than 2,000 miles from where Schroeder's pickup truck was found.

There's no such thing as bad publicity

This is quoted in its entirety from a piece of email that's being forwarded around. I don't see what they're so upset by, though -- you couldn't buy this kind of publicity. Indeed, this is the opposite of what people complain about when they say, "I couldn't get arrested in this town."

Many of you have probably heard that the artist Steve Kurtz was detained by the FBI and is now being investigated under the Homeland Security Act. He and the collective he is in, Critical Art Ensemble, were preparing a really cool installation for a show on interventionist art at MASS MOCA. The piece had lab equipment that allowed a visitor to bring any kind of food and have it tested for genetically modified organisms. Here is a description of the piece:

Free Range Grain is a live, performative action. CAE/da Costa/Shyu has constructed a portable, public lab to test foods for the more common genetic modifications. People bring us foods that they find suspect for whatever reason, and we test them over a 72-hour period to see if their suspicions are justified. While we will not be able to say conclusively that a given food is genetically modified (although we can offer strong probability as whether it is), we can test for conclusive negatives, and we can bring issues of food purity into the realm of public discourse.

You can get more info about this piece at website:
http://www.critical-art.net/biotech/free/index.html and more info about their work generally at http://www.critical-art.net.

While we were at MASS MOCA at the opening of the intervenionist show (minus the seized installation), two other members of Critical Art Ensemble were served with subpoenas for a grand jury. The subpoenas indicated that the FBI is moving forward with charging Steve of creating biological weapons for this art piece! There is more info about the case, at http://www.rtmark.com/CAEdefense/

These are very serious charges that will be hard to fight and could lead to a drawn out trial. Steve is going to need our help to stay out of jail! Since we were all there at MASS MOCA, we talked about a couple of things we can do immediately to help. The first is to bring as much publicity as possible to the case while contextualizing the work that Critical Art Ensemble has been doing in the field of biotechnology. A second it to work together to fundraise for legal fees -- unfortunately, criminal attorneys do not do pro bono work. The third, for the moment, is to join the listserve mentioned below to remain updated on actions being taken to support Steve and the collective.

You can also just make a donation online at: http://www.rtmark.com/CAEdefense/

websites:
critical art ensemble: http://www.critical-art.net
rtmark site about the case: http://www.rtmark.com/CAEdefense/
critical art ensemble listserve: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CAE_Defense

The dog ate her underwear

I recently made an offhand comment that the Bazima blog had become "irrelevant." She wrote me a few weeks later asking what I meant by that, and it was a little hard to say. I think I wrote that after her blog seemed to be turning into something mainly about slacker fashion and name dropping.

Then today Gawker linked to her latest entry, pronouncing it "relevant."

Okay, but I have no idea what she means when she refers to "guys who go commando." Let's see... There you go. It means wearing trousers without having first bothered to put on underwear. The expression reportedly was popularized in an episode of "Friends." In 1996.

Monks in the news

LA Times, 1 Jun 04: Followers of Thich Naht Hahn turn shooting range into monastery.

E-Commerce Times, 30 May 04: Wisconsin Cistercians cash in on refilled printer ink cartidges.

Six Buddhist monks who had never played football before suited up for a charity game in Scotland.

'Partial-birth abortion' ban declared unconstitutional

A U.S. District Court judge today declared the ban on "partial-birth abortions" unconstitutional, with an appeal to the liberal 9th Circuit guaranteed. PDF of the judge's order.

Today's big accomplishment

Well, despite the utter lack of help from HP/Compaq's tech support regime, I managed to solve the technical problem with printing from my new laptop (see last entry).

The problem was: when trying to download a driver from HP's support website, the download didn't work. Not just today, but every day for the last ten days. You hit the "download" button and the only thing that happens is a status bar inches forward, and then after a minute the whole thing times out and you go to a HTTP error page that says "This page not available."

But I noticed that the URL given in the HTTP error page was preserved -- it was an HTTP referral to an HP FTP site. So I used my FTP client (CuteFTP) to FTP into their website where, after a lot of searching, I found the .exe file the original download was trying to grab. I FTP'd it to my laptop and unzipped it.

I still had to install it, but I eventually figured out how to do that, as well as how to create a "standard TCP/IP port" for the laptop to use to connect to the printer over the wireless network here at home.

Finally, after 2 hours and 40 minutes (including the hour wasted calling HP's tech support) -- not to mention the 10 days I wasted trying to download the file from their website -- I was able to print.

My stunning experience with HP/Compaq tech support

As I've mentioned, I bought a Compaq Presario 2500 laptop online. It was delivered about 10 days ago, and the setup was quick and easy, except for one thing: It wouldn't connect to my HP LaserJet printer.

Simple matter of downloading a printer driver, you'd think. Sure thing -- but every time I went to the HP support website and tried to download a driver, the operation timed out before the download began. So after several days of trying that, I just decided to call Compaq tech support.

Oy vey.

I began at exactly 4:00 p.m. PDT today, starting with the 800 number in the leaflet that came with the laptop. Here's what happened.

4:00 p.m. -- I place the call to 1-800-652-6672. An automated system asks me to state my product model name and number. Various ringing and clicking follows, then an automated voice asks me to hold, and hold music starts.

4:07 p.m. -- I talk to my first human. Speaking in a heavy accent of unknown provenance, the person asks me my name and phone number and whether this is my first call to Compaq. Then they ask me what my problem is. When I say I'm having trouble connecting my new laptop to my printer, the person tells me they'll transfer me. I'm asked to hold. More music -- a lot of music.

4:25 p.m. -- A second person comes on the line and, in another heavy (but different) accent, repeats the questions about my name and phone number. When I describe my problem, they say I've been transferred to the wrong place. Hold please. More music. I'm getting really tired of that tune.

4:33 p.m. -- A third person comes on the line, speaking yet another heavy accent. Same questions. I describe my problem. Says I'm still in the wrong place.

I say, "Excuse me, but you're the third person I've been transferred to. Can't you make sure I'm going to be transferred to the right place?" The person says they're sorry, and hold please. More music -- a different tune, this time. Oddly, that makes me feel as if I'm getting somewhere. Silly me.

4:36 p.m. -- A woman comes on the line and says, "I'm the call supervisor. I'm very sorry your call has been misrouted." I say thank you. She asks me to state my problem again, and I do. She asks me to hold.

4:42 p.m. -- The fifth person comes on the line, this one with an American accent. I describe my problem once again.

"Oh," the guy says, "Your problem is that you've been telling them it's a Compaq problem. Really you need to talk to HP people. The Compaq people won't know what to do."

"Obviously," I say.

"I'll have to transfer you to the HP printer department," he says.

"Okay," I say, "but are you sure this is the last time?"

4:51 p.m. -- A sixth person comes on the line, another person with an American accent. I describe the problem one more time. (Oh, did I mention that every single person asks my name and phone number? And I give it to them every time.) Unfortunately, the sixth person is not the right person either.

I'm almost crying by this point. "Please make sure I end up in the right place this time," I plead.

4:57 p.m. -- A seventh person comes on the line. She says something about call rollover. "But you're the seventh person I've talked to!" I protest. "I've been getting transferred all over the world. I have a really simple problem."

"Unfortunately," she says, "it's after business hours. The HP printer people have gone home and won't be back until 6:00 a.m. Tuesday morning."

After several seconds of stunned silence, I finally stammer: "What time zone?!"

"Mountain."

And with that, I hang up.

The economy must really be picking up

Strangely, I've been getting calls this week from recruiters for tech industry jobs. And I thought that was so 20th century. Who knows, I may actually make more than $20,000 this year.

Protestant 'blues'

Quite wonderful profile of John Updike in the Guardian. One passage describes my present universe to a T:

Americans, he says, are "trying to figure out how to be happy", but lately "it occurred to me that I have some of my father's depressive temperament. He used to sit in a chair and say, 'I've got the blues'. And I didn't know what the blues was. Why should he have the blues? It might be a tendency of Protestants in general. There's a kind of gloom, fear of death, fear of meaninglessness, and literary activity is one way of staving it off, isn't it? When you're writing something, you're relatively innocent. Time goes by so fast, I find, when I'm writing. It speeds by."

Those nutty antipodians

Australian Prime Minister John Howard (now there's a memorable name) doesn't want gays to be able to marry in Australia. Members of Howard's own party protested his statements.

At least they're going to shut down the city for a reason

First, Kerry hinted that he might delay accepting his party's nomination at thus summer's Democratic Convention in Boston. Then this week it was revealed that, because of security concerns, all highways and mass transit near the central location of the confab would be shut down. That had people wondering just what kind of farce this was getting to be. Kerry has the votes for the nomination, and we're shutting down half a city to formalize it -- but then we're not formalizing it? What kind of farce would that be?

Yesterday, someone finally thought all this through, and Kerry backed off on the plan to delay acceptance.

How to increase attendance

How did I miss this? The Observer, May 9: "Encouraging schoolchildren to experiment with oral sex could prove the most effective way of curbing teenage pregnancy rates, a government study has found."

Kerry raises pressure

John Kerry responded to today's terror non-alert with skepticism: "We deserve a president of the United States who doesn't make homeland security a photo opportunity. We deserve a president who makes America safer."

Man, he better hope he's right. Otherwise he's going to wind up looking like an asshole.

Fundies: We hate, fear happy kids

MTV announced it would start a new cable channel aimed at queer teens and young people. The NYT got this astonishing quote from a fundamentalist spokesman:

"You have a kid who is looking to fit in, and here you have a network that looks very inviting, very accepting, and this young kid is going to get a false representation of what homosexuality has to offer," Mr. Haley said. "I really am sad and fearful for these kids who are going to want to be as happy and as happy-go-lucky as Will is on 'Will & Grace.'"

The blog The Minor Fall, the Major Lift headlined its entry about this as "The Homosexual Agenda... Revealed!" But I think the shoe is on the other foot. It's the fundies whose agenda is exposed by the quote. They simply hate the idea that young people can be happy and enjoy themselves outside church-sanctioned activities.

It's possible to make way too much of one quote, but it shows how besieged fundies truly feel in modern society, that they could be so threatened by... a mainstream network sitcom.

You mean it's not performance art?

One look at the vibrant colors in these costumes -- oops, I mean prison jumpsuits and military uniforms -- against the cool slate-blue gravel, and you realize the visual potential for theater out of all this.

The lead NYT article today, detailing a wider range of abusive incidents than previously has been confirmed, includes allegations against a unit from San Francisco (about 3/4 of the way down in the story):

In what appeared to be a serious case of abuse over a prolonged period of time, unidentified enlisted members of the 223rd Military Intelligence Battalion, part of the California National Guard, were accused of abusing Iraqi detainees at a center in Samarra, north of Baghdad.

The unit, based in San Francisco, operated under the command of the Third Infantry Division, the armored force that led the Army assault on Baghdad last April and continued to patrol the city and the surrounding region into the summer.

According to the Army summary, members of the 223rd "struck and pulled the hair of detainees" during interrogations over a period that lasted 10 weeks. The summary said they "forced into asphyxiations numerous detainees in an attempt to obtain information."

Perhaps the only thing that can save Bush at this point would be a terrorist attack in the U.S. If I lived in Boston or New York, I think I'd consider taking that sabbatical in Spain until Xmas.

Hopper paintings on line

Brits are exulting over travelling Edward Hopper exhibit. The Guardian has a lot of Hopper's paintings online, and points to the Tate Museum's own Hopper site. And a Google image search for Hopper turns up scads of high-quality online images.

For something completely different, check out this wonderful online gallery of pre-war Japanese postcards.

Sex antics

San Francisco cops are "giggling" over a porn film starring two cops. Because it's SF, they won't be fired.

Two links from Romenesko: about Harvard's sex magazine, and a story on Rosie O'Donnell's wish to start a new magazine "for gay families." Meanwhile all eyes were on the Calif. Supreme Court as it heard arguments over the same-sex marriage explosion in San Francisco.

Proof that gay marriage is ruining Massachusetts

The Boston Archdiocese plans to close 60 of its 357 parishes. Just the first sign of the Apocalypse.

As Bush spoke last night, I wondered why he wasn't mentioning this

The Washingtonienne affair continues to dominate the blogosphere as nothing else has since the Paris Hilton sex tape. And in many ways, this is bigger than the P.H. thing, because it involves real people, whereas P.H. is merely a caricature famous for nothing but being a party-crazed slut. Washingtonienne, on the other hand, actually held a job, and is going to cash in bigtime on her notoriety.

Besides, she's cuter.

Here's info galore on the (now former) Capitol aide, and here (courtesy Wonkette) is a rumor about a six-figure Playboy offer. But read the whole entry for even more rumors. Man, talk about something billowing out of control. And Bush thinks he he has problems!

Finalist, Bush administration slogan

"The Christian in me says it's wrong, but the corrections officer in me says, 'I love to make a grown man piss himself.'"

That's Spec. Charles Graner, one of the grinning perpetrators of the Abu Ghraib abuses, quoted in "secret documents" laying out the events leading to the publicizing of the abuse scandal. The article contains many such amazing quotes.

And in the Guardian, Susan Sontag chimes in with a "shocked, shocked" essay. A conservative answers back, comparing Sontag to Michael Moore, also known for his willingness to criticize his government. Wow, what's more shocking?

And you thought Nixon was crazy

Here's what it's really like to have an insane person as head of state: say hello to Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe who, among other things, announced that his country would refuse international food aid in the coming year despite forecasts of widespread famine.

I think it's time for you to specifically consider salads

Among its other charms, the HBO series "The Sopranos" provides plenty of humor through the characters' frequent malapropisms. One of the best was when a character, complaining of a frustrating situation,lamented: "It's like an albacore around my neck!!" Last night's episode brought another classic, one which you can't help applying to current events: "We're in a stagmire."

If the gum-chewing character Adriana is on your mind, read this interview from Australia's The Age, and this more recent Assoc. Press piece broadly hinting at what was going to happen to her character in last night's episode.

Boomity boom

It's mid-afternoon on Sunday, a gorgeous cool sunny day. In Precita Park a block away, a lot of drumming has just started up. I recognize the distinctive rhyths of a samba batteria, and I remember that Carnaval is next weekend. Unlike the Cinco de Mayo celebration, which exists primarily as a neighborhood street fair, Carnaval is a real city-wide event. Since there are not, of course, enough Brazilians to have a whole Carnaval, people from all over the city join samba groups, make spangled costumes, learn complex dance steps or drumming rhythms, and parade for about three miles on an invariably rainy Sunday. (The whole of May might be gorgeous, but Carnaval Sunday, which is always the last Sunday in May in San Francisco, is almost always crappy.) It's a great parade, rain or shine.

So they're upwind in the park practicing, making an amazing racket.