...and so we have wrapped up half of 2006. Odd, that.

I took all last week off to do something altruistic. I was involved in a vitality-draining, soul-sucking commitment that broke my old ass plumb the hell down, you know what I'm saying? I was exhausted. Something about dealing with huge terrorist cells of other people's offspring is incredibly enervating.

Dissolving into a puddle Friday night in a compromised state, I downloaded a pitifully remedial little game called "Cake Mania," which I would wager is aimed at 8 to11 year old girls - which just happens to be my demographic. I LOVED it instantly.
(OH, But DON'T download it whatever you do - it's done something wonky to my machine.)

Anyway, I started playing it about 10:45 Friday night, and I knew it must be getting late when the inside of my eyelids started feeling like sandpaper. Yet, still I perservered making cakes and running my little bakery through trials and tribulations and disgruntled customers. It's not a problem--I can quit any time.

Husband came into the room and said "do you know what time it is?" I said no. He said "it's 1:30," and looked at me as if he expected me to sputter an excuse or something. I chirped back - "oh wow, that's late, cool. thanks for telling me."

He turned and went back to bed. About 10 minutes later he came back in with a flourish worthy of Bela Lugosi and squatted in a dancing-about-a-cauldron pose with legs akimbo, arms upstretched like the Planet of the Apes orangutan scarecrows, practically shouting "You're wasting your life!"

I stared at him blankly as is my custom when confronted with abject idiocy. *blink* *blink*

He finally STFU and went to bed. The next day he was all apologies and he said he was sorry that he-- and here he stuck, unable to finish putting into words what he'd done, so I helped him finish the sentence-- "overloaded your jerk chip?"

Yes, he agreed with me.
The whole "wasting your life" thing is relative, innit?

I mean, shit, what the hell was I doing all week when I could have been earning money but no, I gave my time freely and spent hundreds of dollars on extras for the kids at the event??? After all that I was foolishly squandering my time, and certainly was not entitled to a spare minute to cool my boots at the task of some mindless entertainment?

Funny, but from his reaction and the big 5-dimensional drama queen stank, you would think he just busted me with a bottle of everclear in one fist, a joint in the other, engaging in lewd acts with the landscape guy while watching midget porn.

A little bit of perspective and proportionality is always helpful when you're setting out to condemn the people you deal with in life. In the case of someone in your inner circle you wish to remain in contact with, perhaps it's best to give a free pass once in a while, even if you do see them sprawling, glassy-eyed with their fingers twitching on the crack-pipe mouse of a short-bus game. That way apologies are not needed later and one might spare oneself lots of embarrassment.

I'm just saying...

Say it, don't spray it.

I HAVE a fabulous photo of my retainer on my Canon Rebel XT that I spent like a million dollars on, and for some reason my computer suddenly won't pull the images from the camera. I wish I knew someone who knew something about computers so they would help me with this. I'm having this sort of issue quite a lot, lately. Something was working fine on my computer and then little elves came along in daylight (obviously daylight - I'm here half the night!) and body-snatched computer components. Obviously I need to run out and charge a new computer. Dude, I'm getting a Dell.

ANYway. I was going to show you a picture of my bottom retainer, which is sort of an orangey-pink sparkle resin with a little pink and white bunny sticker embedded. It is super-cute. My upper retainer is teal glitter resin with teeny penguin and weenie-dog stickers.

Everyone at my orthodontist's office acted amazed that I wanted the colored wire for my braces - but frankly - if I'm going to be mush-mouthed and sound like a 'tard for months or years, I'd like it to be obvious to others WHY my diction is so, um, moist. I followed suit and requested funky resins for my 'tainers, and why the heck not? No use prevaricating about the bush-- if they actually succeeded in making the resin look natural, well, then your mouth would look deformed inside, wouldn't it? Anyway, the colors were fun and a nice change of pace.

Went today for my two month anniversary checkup since getting my braces off. Ortho takes himself very seriously, and though he seems affable and is a little chatty while he's glomming his mitts all about my piehole, all his assistants stand mute and never participate in the conversation. It's really weird, because with wires and crap sticking out, the guy ends up monologuing. There's been a lot of turnover in assistants, too. I got my braces exactly 23 months ago, and not a single assistant from that date still works for him. I wonder what is up with that? I have a theory...

Anyway, I walked in today and noticed something different and knew it must be his gun-metal gray hair, which was longer and a little bit less buttoned-down than before.
Knowing how seriously he takes himself, I looked for an occasion to rattle his cage. I asked if he changed his hair, and he said he thought he'd let it get a little longer for a change.

As I was leaving, he told me that in 3 months when I come back, he'll instruct me to just wear the retainer for sleeping. YAY! I celebrated by breezing by him and said, "Thanks! See ya then, Hippie!"

Speaking of Glitter - did anyone see that abortion of a movie by the same name starring Mariah Carey? Unbelievably shitty - it's almost worth checking out just to see the unfolding panorama of trite hackneyed dialogue and of course, there is also much enjoyment to be made of Mariah's cringeworthy acting. If you're like me, you'll utter the next line before she does. She's in an abusive relationship and keeps going back to it, and instead of anything realistic happening, he gets bumped off by some gangsta-types on the threshhold of her international stardom, saving the producers the trouble of resolving the sticky wicket of domestic violence. This is sort of a rilly embarrassing knock-off of A Star Is Born (see the 40s original - brilliant film, that.) That was handy, because it saved the filmmakers from having to resolve an ugly scenario that involves a Svengali-type mentor/dominator whose prodigy quickly outgrows him.

Also, check out the best Eric Roberts film Star 80. Tragic story, true, but very well realized in this film. Chilling, actually.

Sorry for any typos/spelling errors, but I'm 'bout near crosseyed, and I'm going to bed. See youse around the blog.

I have fallen in love with cotton pajama bottoms. It's funny - you guys have really kept that a secret.

I'm going to let you in on a little-known fact about pajamas in their most glorious state. In the morning, I'll get out of bed, look at the computer while I munch my cereal, and then go pull weeds in the garden. Then, covered in sweat and grit, I'll jump in the pool still wearing my pajamas.

It's fun to swim around, to tread water with lovely light fabric trailing about you. It feels better than I could possibly describe. You should all run right out and try it this instant - you'll thank me for it. Maybe the Victorians got it right with those bathing costumes with miles and miles of fabric.

Then again, you don't want to go overboard.

Man, blogger's inability to download my photo is harshing my mellow.

I didn't attend university full-time until my early 30s, and at that point I'd read a bit and knew a little about life. While my life experience informed my view of the materials presented, my tiny talent for writing coupled with a penchant for the slightly off-kilter made for great fun. Indeed, I suspect my high marks in courses reflected how refreshing my view of the subject was after the professor read reams of desperately off-mark scratchings from my unengaged peers. My preference was for intense literature classes in which the whole merit of the semester rested on a mere 2 or 3 tests, preferably essay questions.

One particularly memorable course involved the origins of classical literature, with a particular focus on mythology including Gilgamesh and of course, Odysseus. On the final exam for that term, I hit a bit of a hiccup - unusual for me in those settings. The question involved extrapolating what Odysseus' Mrs. had got up to while he was away, the killing of the fatted calf at his homecoming, and yada yada yada. Our study of Odysseus (and my first introduction to that story) had been at the beginning of the semester, and I had rather dismissed the trials of his put-upon wife, Penelope, whose name I had a bitch of a time remembering, simply referring to her in every combination of adjectives for "long-suffering wife" I could conjure.

This was unfortunate, because my head is a zero-sum game- new information is crammed in only by purging the memory banks of other, previously important data that I crammed earlier material out in order to retain. I went round the bend in agonies trying to come up with that ancient sounding name that began with a P.

I made an A+ on that exam. The teacher didn't mention in remarks that I never used Penelope's name, but I clearly knew the story in and out, so perhaps she was giving me a pass. Or perhaps I trumped all other considerations when I cleverly wove a reference to Steve Miller into my recounting of Orpheus and Eurydice.

The story goes that Orpheus and Eurydice are so besotted with each other, that when E. is bitten by a snake and dies, O. is so forlorn that his mourning songs of sweetness and longing inspire the pity of gods of the underworld, and Hades and Persephone tell him they'll let him come to the underworld and spring his wife and bring her back to live with him. The one condition of this arrangement is that when he finds her, he may not look upon her, but must walk ahead of her and not see her until they are out of the underworld. Near the end of the journey - the end is within reach - he turns and glances at her, only to see her wrested from his grasp for all eternity, dadgummit.

Naturally, the line from Steve Miller that comes to mind is from Big Old Jet Airliner, when he says "you've got to go through hell before you get to heaven." I DID get a comment on being the first student to draw such an analogy. Incidentally, despite my garbage in/garbage out airlock on data storage, Steve Miller, old commercial jingles, and every embarrassing thing I've ever done or said seem to be exempt from the ranks of flushable data - those precious things will always be with me.

Anyway, I know reading and writing is not so simple for everyone, but it can be such a delight and such a great escape from mundanaity. What makes it all enjoyable is a very slight shift of focus, like looking at one of those magic eye images where the tiniest shift of focus allows a different dimension to unfold. By all means, we learn by hearing the accepted interpretation of stories, but it is important that we find a personal resonance for these stories and ideas. Also, for me the hallmark of good writing is the reader can take imagery in a wholly different direction than that envisioned by the writer, and in that way, the excitement of a story may expand exponentially. This is (or should be) a universal concept - not everyone can sing well, but everyone can be trained to sing better than they do. Same dif. But I'm rambling again, aren't I?

Oh, and one more thing: some people call me the space cowboy.
Yeah.

All my family came over today for a belated sort of Father's Day gathering. Niece and nephew are spending the night here, and I flipped the tv over to On Demand to find some toons to knock out the wonder boy. He's a little dynamo, and it's hard for him to get to sleep. He was talking about the crocogators and slightly wound up.

I found some Power Puff Girl episodes and turned one on. To my delight, the episode featured Him, who you might have guessed was my favorite villain of the series. He's a magically delicious prancing pooftie bad-guy. Kinda like a darker version of Prince only in red instead of purple.

The floormats of my last pickup were Power Puff Girls, andI sorta think about cleaning them up and putting them in Loulou the Baby Shoe™(my new chariot) sometime. I wish there were Billy & Mandy floormats available. Any cartoon that involves retarded characters with names like Evil con Carne is music to my eyes. Good stuff.

Anyway - sorry I've been sort of a cross-eyedy vegetable when I've posted lately - we should be back to the same old more interesting crap tomorrow if I can get a little rest, and then I'll be back in the swing of leaving my crappy comments on all your blogs, too. Have a great Monday.

police sting nabs flashers on NYC subway

Are flashers dangerous, or just stepping in to fill a void of blog fodder?

I went to Chicago once with a classical vocal ensemble and we went to a tony suburb to the north to rehearse in front of a high school's music students before our big concerts. On the way back to our hotel downtown, we stopped in Evanston to let a couple violinists and a pianist off at Northwestern University to practice. The violinists and the pianist both had international competitions upcoming, and rehearsal space had not really been arranged for them for our trip.

Several hours later, they wrapped up at Northwestern and hopped on the local train system to head back downtown, I suppose that would be the EL.

The violinists were two Korean girls, and the pianist was a brilliant young musician from Russia who I was privileged to have accompany me on a regular basis. A Muscovite, Natasha is a shy and quiet person who lets the piano do her talking. In fact, they were all three very nice and rather sheltered girls who enjoyed a cloistered existence because of their exceptional degree of musicianship.

Heading to downtown Chicago during rush hour is apparently less crowded a trip on the train, and they handily found a bench seat side by side and facing the opposite side of the train. A man got on the train and sat directly opposite them, letting his overcoat fall open to display a vista of wedding tackle arrayed like a bowl of fruit.

Of course they all three noticed and were inwardly freaking out but acting like they didn't notice and not reacting. No doubt, the minute they were out of sight/earshot of the offending person, they dissolved into paroxysms of giggling embarrassment...

When I was about 13, I was walking to school and I heard a big whistle from somewhere behind me. It was very cold and the sun was rising toward my back, and when I turned around, everything looked sparkly, like the trees and houses were diamond encrusted with the sun shining through their coating of ice. It was very bright, but the back of the house from whence the whistle had come was in shadow, so it took my eyes a second to adjust. There, framed in all his naked glory stood the (little did I know) magnificent form of the star of the high school football team. His hair was russet, and the carpet matched the drapes. And the hairy gorilla underarms.

He was probably stoned and thought he'd give someone a thrill. I turned and walked swiftly onward to school. I wish I had a photograph to show you. After that, I took a longer route to school which didn't involve walking past that house.

I didn't tell my dad, because I just thought it was retarded high school boy antics, and my dad would have put a world of hurt on him. And his dad.

Best Halloween costume I've seen was a guy from Dallas named Gary Wendt - a real character. He dressed as a flasher in overcoat, etc., but strapped a camera to his midsection with a spring-loaded device and caught a picture of everyone's reaction as he pulled open the overcoat from his seeming unclothed body. (there were shorts underneath, thank goodness). Like a big old goober, apparently my photo turned out the best, with a look of amazed delight on my face as I looked expectantly at his crotch. No matter what my face said in the photo, I was very relieved when he had on shorts. I actually expected him to have an array of cheap watches for sale when he pulled open the coat.

Today's blog:
What a dame's legs ought to be, according to the Phlegm Institute.

Exhibit A is the famous legs of Betty Grable showing why they were insured for about a million bucks in the 1940s. The idea of these legs--bless them-- got a lot of our guys through WW II, and what could be more American than that? We'll forgive Betty that ghastly frock that is wheeling about her like the rings of Saturn, because she is so damned cute. Hers is a sweetly comic turn in Walter Lang's 1941 joint Moon Over Miami. You must love technicolor.

Next up is the engineering marvels that are the legs of Gwen Stefani. These are textbook gams, barely suggesting there is bone underneath all that girliness, which is a wonderfully female trait, in my opinion. Gwen is so cute that it really wouldn't matter if her legs weren't astonishing, but they are. In a cover story in Vogue a few years ago, I read an interview in which she said she was hungry all the time, but that she was afraid of having the merest bit of extra avoirdupois in photographs or on stage. Sounds a mite obsessive, and a little sad. But still there are those legs. Have a cheeseburger on me, Gwen. You've earned it.

Next, there's the gloriously voluptuous body of Jennifer Tilly, and particularly her very pretty and sorta thick legs. She is a comedic giant in film, although she has been a bit below the radar in general with her role choices. Bullets Over Broadway is worth seeing for her performance alone, not to mention the brilliant other performers in the film, and the acidly comic script, exquisite costuming, etc. She was great in the sort of bad yet riveting Dancing At the Blue Iguana. Yeah, that film was probably panned as a colossal stinker, and I don't care. I don't think she's topless in it, but she does play a goth stripper. I haven't seen her as the Bride of Chucky, but I'll bet she rocked in that one, too. She said laughingly in an interview that she knew when she took that role that her career was on the downhill path.

Finally there is my perennially favorite actress Patricia Arquette. She was a revelation in True Romance, and the scene where she kills James Gandolfini with the typical things one has scattered about a cheap motel room is my all-time favorite fight scene. She was marvelous as a sociopath with the delightfully dry Ellen DeGeneres in Goodbye Lover. GL features a great number of wardrobe changes, and she looks fantastic. Some of the looks she sports in that film are evocative of 40s high glamour and Carmen Miranda/Dorothy Lamour style. Good stuff. Plus, Ellen (playing a cop who is investigating some mysterious deaths in PA's social circle) delivers some golden lines:

DETECTIVE POMPANO (Ellen DeGeneres): Okay, look for the needle in the shit pile. These are crowd shots from all five murders. We wanna separate potential suspects from your average scumbag citizen.
DETECTIVE ROLLINS: Ma'am, you know, we're sworn to serve and protect. If you hate everybody so much, why are you doin' this job?
DETECTIVE POMPANO: Because every once in a while I get to shoot somebody.

Wow, funny how even starting with such a pleasant topic as lovely legs I still manage to end up at misanthropy...

Here's the doglet about 2 months ago. You'll notice the half-mast eyes and tucked tail, indicating the fugue state she enters when she is in the sunshine after being cooped up half a day in the opulent house she has been so generously provided, all the while soaking in the exorbitant air conditioning. She actually stands in the sun, shivering for some reason. Sometimes I think she has doggie Parkinsons- she IS 14 1/2, after all. I keep looking for signs of Katharine Hepburn-ness, but it seems more a case of fleeting moments of quirky behaviour interspersed between protracted bouts of extreme napping that could rival that of any 30 pound house cat. Even for a crotchety old gal, she's still a helluva bitch.

I love love love the stuffing out of Red Dwarf, the British outer-space comedy series. The writing is absolutely brilliant and the acting is spot-on. This, for me, ranks with Star Trek as all-time best tv space series.

The two lowest-ranking people on the vast mining ship Red Dwarf, Lister is a charismatic rule-breaking happy-go-lucky loafer and his roommate Rimmer is a super-dorky by-the-book loser (picture a nakedly ambitious Barney Fife with a yellow streak a mile wide) . Lister is fired and put in stasis before returning to earth for bringing a cat on board the ship. 3 million years later, Lister awakens from stasis to find that all humans on the ship were turned to little piles of powder, and that he is the last living human. Anywhere.

Holly, the ship's computer, has slowly gone mad after twiddling his thumbs for 3 million years. He's adorable - a disembodied head floating on a vid screen. The pregnant cat had her babies on the ship and from them a new life form emerged - a vain dandy James Brown type called Cat.

Turns out the ship's computer has just enough juice to support one hologram of a former shipman as companion, so the perennially dim Holly has chosen neatness freak Rimmer, who constantly harasses Lister about his slob ways. His hologram status is the reason for the H on Rimmer's forehead. Kryten (the android pictured above with Lister actor Craig Charles) is a service android who is picked up a ways into the series from a wrecked space ship. Kryten has a groinal socket for cleaning attachments - you've go to see him vacuuming the place to really appreciate him.

Opening episode of season 7 was Tikka To Ride, in which the ship runs out of curry, which is a disaster of epic proportions to Lister, who is partial to a chili-cheese-chutney-egg sandwich. They manage to travel in time to re-stock curry supplies for the ship, and end up in Dallas Texas, 1963. They accidentally prevent JFK's murder, and he goes on to be prosecuted for crimes and leaves office in manacles. Our heroes travel in time yet again and tell JFK how badly things will end for him on the tarmac of Idlewild airport in NYC. JFK is utterly downtrodden and Lister tells him that in their version of history, JFK died a hero, and this very airport is named after him. Anyway, turns out, they take him along to travel in time yet again and JFK is the mystery gunman on the grassy knoll.

What's not to like? Oh, and the dialogue is brilliant.

Rimmer: We're going to have to switch to Red Alert!
Kryten: Are you sure, Sir? That will mean changing the bulb.

Check it out on Amazon or at the Sad Geezer's Guide to Red Dwarf.

Poppies rank among my favorite flowers. They poke their beardy little pods up through the scalloped-edged leaves, languorously stretching ever skyward until the bud stands a full foot above her lowly earth-bound neighbors. Then the encasement of five-o'clock shadow gives way and a saucy flounce of papery petals unfurl, remarkably tenacious in a windstorm.

The poppy bloom is one of the most elegant of the flower queendom. She is at once classic and contemporary, young and ancient, Asian and New World, highly addictive contraband and peace-and-relief-giving medicine. All this in the clever packaging of a grand dame who is a raving beauty with the gypsy-like self-possession to show up for her photo-shoot without shaving her whiskery legs. Gotta love those poppies!

I really need to take a moment and talk about the Dixie Chicks. Yeah, I'll get to other aspects of this topic, but I really want to get to the issue that's first on everyone's mind when they think of the Dixie Chicks. What the devil were the photographer/stylist/makeup artists up to when they did the make up for the cover shoot for that new cd?

These are not inherently attractive women - let's be honest - and they need all the help they can get, especially now that they all seem like they need a cheeseburger and to be forced to attend a Daughters of the Confederacy meeting. The cover shoot is sort of a sepia toned image with very dark, smudged smoky eye makeup, which makes them look like disembodied bewigged skulls floating above couture-clad stick insects. Empty eyesockets in photos freak me out. It's very strange.

No doubt Natalie Maines' latest ravings are simply another bid to remain relevant in a notoriously fickle market. However, I'm sick of the fence-straddling, and I'm going to call it out when I see it. The published quote from the latest flap is as follows:

"The entire country may disagree with me, but I don't understand the necessity for patriotism," Maines resumes, through gritted teeth. "Why do you have to be a patriot? About what? This land is our land? Why? You can like where you live and like your life, but as for loving the whole country… I don't see why people care about patriotism."

OK, let's peel just a few layers of the irony onion here. Dixie is by definition the states of the Southern and Southeastern US that joined the Confederacy during the US Civil War. Shit. It's just a place, what's the big deal? Why are they not called the "Botswana Maidens," the "Lithuanian Lasses" or the Cantonese--?? I'll stop now. Uh, why are they called the Dixie Chicks? Because when it serves their purpose (like to sell concert tickets and cds) they are stepping up to cash in on the sense of place, pride and regionalism of the people who are considered to be the traditional backbone of the country-music fan base. However, if there's a political point to be made, they are willing to go on record as being above such petty bourgeois concepts such as patriotism and regionalism. Um, ok.

Furthermore, derisively invoking the words "this land is our land" most notably used in the form of the song of the same title by the universally esteemed American folk balladeer Woody Guthrie raised my eyebrows into full-throttle mode. Shit, unfortunate choice of words, I'd say. That song didn't say "golly, what a great country to be white in" or "join your local KKK" or "isn't it great we drove the Indians out so we could wallow in the decadent abundance of this land we intend to ride hard and put up wet." No, Woody Guthrie was dirt-poor and saying that although he had nothing but his guitar and the next train he would hitch a ride on, this land was every bit his as much as any Carnegie or Hearst or Rockefeller, and by golly, he was going to stand up and say so. Guthrie's music was about universality, not exclusivity, and I think for a group like TDC with their folksy roots to go off on such a poorly worded harangue is short-sighted and self-contradictory. Guthrie's song ended "this land was made for you and me," the you in that equation being the collective of everyone who comes here. Even if she didn't intend to quote WG, any former folkie should know better than this horrid faux pas.

And to go back to the old 2003 saw from TDC concert in London in which they whined about our president - some of the most acutely intelligent people I know are from the UK, and they don't assume that we all voted for Bush any more than we can assume they all voted for Thatcher. I know that some in that audience appreciated their comments at that moment, but that statement was tantamount to saying "we know y'all are probably just too thick to know that we didn't all vote for the same guy, so, uh, we want you to know we didn't."

In any case, it makes them seem more nakedly cloying to trade on an image they give lip service to decrying. By all means, trash this country and everything it stands for, protest deposing Saddam Hussein - suck his dick if you like - but before you go shooting your mouth off half-cocked, please invest in a higher-memory irony chip, bitches!

telegraph article on Dixie Chicks

By the way - to all the lovely folks on my blog roll - I've been busier than a one-armed paper hanger lately, so I've not made it round to all of you, but I hope to get back in circulation sometime this week. STILL love all of you, of course!

Flipping thru my dvr yesterday, I found (SURPRISE!) it unintentionally recorded part of the Britney Spears/Matt Lauer interview from last week, so I watched half-assedly whilst working on a creative project.

Yeah, Britney's floppy fake eyelash was totally defeating me. It was like - omg - why not groom/act/dress like total white trash while denying you ARE white trash?! This girl is removing all doubt that she is a packaged product who had no creative control or drive in her career trajectory. She's a product who has been molded according to the desires of focus groups and entertainment executives, and nothing else.

She's gonna crash and burn and if she lives long enough, the come-clean tell-all when she's trying to re-launch her career as an old sad half-used-up has-been at the age of 30 is going to be super ugly. I'm feeling sadder for her by the minute.

Does anyone remember the MTV awards where Britney and Christina Aguilera performed with Madonna, and M kissed Christina on the mouth, a quick, barely happened sort of kiss, and then B & M mugged down? Funny, much was made of that moment, the big kiss and all, and Christina sort of shrank (sp?) into the wallpaper while the other two acted nasty. It's funny how ironically smart Christina now seems for not taking advantage of a potentially outrageously dramatic moment. Oh, and never mind that Christina was the only one with real singing chops on stage that night. I guess she didn't have to resort to gimmicky theatrics to have appeal. But I'm chasing rabbits, aren't I?

Oh, and the shit about child endangerment - totally overblown. The driving with the kid on her lap was stupid, admittedly, but the nearly falling could have happened to anyone, even without platform sandals and a cocktail in the other hand. Who among us could pass the test of this level of scrutiny? None, I'm thinking. The mere fact that she is mobbed by media everywhere she goes would make a person screw up in ways they wouldn't normally.

The question we all need to ask ourselves is after the media have cooked up needle-after-needle-full of Britney mania, and all the while the public helped by holding the spoon, why are the media they so eager to depose her as an American icon? People need to wise up and realize what a fickle whore the media are. Remember what John Lydon said at the beginning of the Sex Pistols' "Anarchy in the UK": Ever get the feeling you're being cheated? We are definitely being cheated, but if we are so stupid collectively, maybe we deserve it. After all, they are not going to give us a true and genuine thing if we can be sated with the patently false and contrived.

Regarding types like Matt Lauer/Katie Couric/blah blah blah celebrity "infotainment" presenters, I give you my take on that. I think there are millions of people sitting home who simply do not get out much, and they see "perky" Katie and pretty boy Matt and they eventually come to think these little people in their televisions are speaking to them, personally, and that they are having a personal relationship with these overpaid poncey shit-for-brains. (Um, WHY are they called "talking heads?") Like I said to my friend Liz on the phone yesterday, "If you get hit on the head with a hammer enough times, eventually you'll just go with it and start bleeding." Hence, love of the tv "talent."

Ew, I just kinda puked in my mouth when I included the word "talent" in that paragraph.
Have a great week.

Today - Father's Day - is an especially important day to me.

I've told you about shooting the guts out of dad's watch with my brother's bb gun when I was about 3, saying I was aiming at my toe, and him telling me he wished I'd hit my toe. Well, that's sort of typical of dad's approach to things with a gentle spirit of humorous good nature. It's not that he was not dismayed to lose a brand new watch, but moreso that he's not a materialistic sort of person, and on some level must have been amused by the event. 37 years later, I still can't believe I didn't get a spanking for that! I would have spanked me.

I could tell you a new story every day for a year and not be finished extolling his admirable qualities. In the early 70s, we had a Bronco II with a powerful winch on the front. We lived in West Memphis Arkansas, across the river from Memphis. The land in that area is completely flat--lots of farmland along the roadways-- and along each roadway a bayou is carved into the earth for drainage/irrigation. When the weather turned cold and we got that rare coating of ice on everything, dad would go out in the Bronco and pull cars full of people out of ditches. I can't tell you how many times I've seen him do things like that and then refuse all offers of payment for his kindness. He would be embarrassed to be asked about it, but if he did talk about it, I believe he would say that God placed someone in his path whose needs he could help meet, and that it is his duty to do so. By observing him I have learned more about true loving kindess than could ever be gleaned from anywhere else.

I think people in this age feel they need to provide their kids with lots of things that show they have high social standing, but that is absolute twaddle. The time people spend with their children is of far greater importance to the child's future than any material object they may be given. I remember sitting in the Bronco and "helping" dad put in a new clutch when I was about 8. I've been hunting with dad, fishing, and on hundreds of thousands of miles of road trips. The summer of 1974 I came to Dallas with dad (mom was expecting sister and stayed home) and he let me man the helm of the radio control. I remember "Sister Golden Hair" by America and Elton warbled "Bennie and the Jets" as I blissed out on the joys of the road in what would become a life-long love affair with driving and listening to good music.

I also remember one two week trip in late '83 up to Arkansas to pick up grandparents, out to California, then up the coast to Washington state, all to visit relatives. We had a 1976 LTD that dad souped up, and it was the ultimate ass-hauling machine. Dad is indefatigable and would drive through the night sometimes, and I'd stay awake with him and talk. (I'm a night owl, too.) We'd slip into the familiar mode of me directing the radio dial, and just talk about things. I knew he could handle it - he's one of those people with such an acute mind that he couldn't accidentally fall asleep, but I hated him to be alone, so I'd stay awake. I loved that - the radio playing softly (Africa by Toto was the song of this trip) everyone else sleeping, and that's when the great unspooling of tales of dad's adventures would occur, spinning magic that only adds to his legend in my heart.

In a way, I owe my fearlessness to him. Dad is a natural-born physical powerhouse who is a bit intimidating, despite his gregarious good nature. People seem to get the message toute-de-suite that his children will not be trifled with. Once my brother was injured in P.E. class, and my dad came to the school and gave the coaches a talking-to. Not only were the teachers mortified of having my brother injured again, they had me sit out P.E. too (I was in the year behind bro's), rather than risk any further injury to the children of such a man. (It's funny when men who think they are badasses meet someone who actually IS a badass!) I'd say those people made a good call. In crises in my adult life, he's rushed to my aid too. I have the confidence that only comes from knowing there is always a giant in my corner, and that no matter what sort of retarded goofball antics I get up to, he loves me unconditionally and will do whatever it takes to defend me.

I have to wrap this up sometime. You know he's a saint to me. If every person were blessed with a father like mine (and I honestly wish everyone did), there would be no need for prisons or homeless resource centers. Dad sent my sister, brother and me into the world with the sense of security one could only have if their papa were a hybrid of Charles Bronson and Mother Teresa, and quite frankly, that is what a father should be. He is incredibly self-effacing, generous, humble and honest and still has managed to provide a gorgeous home to our family and take care of our every need, and then some. He is a good and faithful husband to my mother, and by example I have a real sense of the standard that is the true measure of a man.

Dad is the kindest, fiercest, most brilliant soul I've ever had the privilege to know, and I'm honored to call him mine. I love you, dad. You're the best, and I couldn't be prouder of you. I thank God daily for blessing me to be born into your home.

No good deed goes unpunished.

An acquaintance, Chuck, dropped by the office today and I asked how his trip was to New York recently. He said it was fine, but that something bizarre happened when he got back to Dallas.

Chuck is a big black guy, played college football, but quit to concentrate on his non-athletic studies. He is not personally in danger in the line of work he does, but let's just say it involves what must amount to a steady run of adrenaline when he is on duty, intense situations and harsh environments. He is in his early forties, and is typical of late baby-boomers who were spoon fed post-punk and britcoms, and in a lot of ways he reminds me of my favorite schoolmates of suburbia from the days of yore.

When he was thinking of buying a home earlier in the year, I encouraged him and said he'd be crazy to miss out on the bargain he found. What worried him is the house was in a cloistered little neighborhood in Oak Cliff (just southwest of Downtown) and that he had never lived any place that bordered a rough sort of neighborhood.

He flew in on Sunday, exhausted and ready to be home in his new house, and as he was driving down Hampton road, he saw a young Mexican woman running, maybe 19, carrying a baby car seat with a small infant inside, shrieking and crying, obviously in hysterics.

Chuck pulled over and said "Ma'am, do you need help? Can I give you a ride somewhere, are you alright?"

She got into his car and started telling him where to drive her. She said her boyfriend disappeared with her car and her niece, and the brakes aren't working and he just beat her up, etc. So far, this is hysterical but seems plausible and clearly she needed the help, although she never thanked him or in any way acknowledged that he did her a tremendous kindness. It probably seemed rather "day in the life" to her.

He drove along, and she asked to use his phone. She dialed. Next she started yelling into the phone "You fucking nigger! You are not ever going to put your hands on me again, you motherfucker, or I will kill you!" She hurled the N bomb again and again in an otherwise artfully non-repetitive volley of bilious invective.

Chuck's mouth fell open - here this creature is, accepting a ride from him and using this offensive language as if he were not there. Chuck takes a dim view of such language, and is slowly realizing he's stepped into a real mess.

They arrive at the destination, and she looks around, and instructs Chuck to drive another place nearby. They get there, and she jumps out of the car and runs over to another car, presumably her own -and starts yelling at the man behind the wheel.
I asked Chuck if that guy was, in fact, black. Chuck couldn't see him.
Anyway, she is such a crazed lunatic that the guy floors the accelerator and the car pops the curb, soundly clipping the back of a tricked-out Cadillac Escalade with 20" spinny rims, doing some serious damage and causing quite an uproar.

Oh, the shit is ON at this point. Homeys appear from all over the barrio to see what is happening, and Chuck, being a gainfully employed legal taxpayer, is out of his element. Period. He finds this a tiny bit uncomfortable.

Chuck said to the woman "I have somewhere else I have to be" and she turned to him and cocks her head, and then lays down some neckwork saying "You can't leave now. Nobody's leaving." You see how that works? He was nice to her, and now he'll have to pay. (Incidentally, spellcheck suggested I substitute "Negroes" for "neckwork" in that sentence.)

This is getting creepy for Chuck. He said "I'm not involved, I just tried to help, but I have somewhere else I have to be." He hopped in his car, and took off, relieved that it was all over and he'd soon be at his new home after 2 grueling weeks out of town.

He's driving away, and his cell phone rings, and a man's voice starts yelling and cursing "who the fuck is Chuck? What are you doing with my woman?"