say-tanic

I just finished reading a book by John Burdett called Bangkok 8. It's about a Thai detective trying to solve the murder of a Marine sargeant. While investigating, his partner and best friend is killed, so it turns into a revenge story too. It's really well written - if you like crime fiction, especially Ellroy or Chandler, you'll like this.

Anyway, one of the interesting things about the book is that the main character is a Buddhist, a topic I know nothing about, so today I went to Recycled to find a book about it.

Incidentally, it's hard to find a book about Buddhism that isn't written for someone considering becoming a Buddhist - nearly every one of them I picked up started off saying (in so many words), "So, you want to be a Buddhist!" Sure - as long as I don't have to give up materialism or meat.

So while I'm standing there browsing, this older guy standing a few feet away suddenly starts talking to me. (Vortex Alert ahead.)

"Are you familiar with all this?"

I wondered what this he was talking about. Before I could ask he kept going.

"Do you know where I could find a book about demons? Or satanic possession?" He pronounced it say-tanic.

"Um, well - this is all Eastern religion and philosophy. I think it might be on the next row with the books about Christianity and Catholicism."

I guess he felt the need to explain himself; it's kind of a strange question to ask a total stranger. Did he wake up next to his wife this morning to find that she was speaking Aramaic and had developed an alarmingly limber neck?

"Do you know about Art Bell?"

"Isn't he the radio guy who does all the shows about UFO's?"

"Yeah. Last night was about people who had been possessed."

"Wow, okay. Well, good luck to you." I was trying to edge away, politely. If someone will ask you a question like that, what won't they do?

the swayze

Colin Farrell as Alexander the Great? Whatever. I can't get past the hair. It looks like Patrick the Swayze.  

first amendment for dummies

I've been trying to find some way to get interested in the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth story, but so help me I just can't get there. I'm not all worked up about who did what in the jungles of Vietnam 35 years ago, just like I don't care whether GWB showed up for National Guard duty one week in Alabama. I mean, big picture, okay?

But today, the Bush campaign handed me the opening I was looking for. In this Reuters article, the President promises to take legal action to get the FEC to ban political ads by outside groups (meaning, 527's), including those attacking John Kerry. This is wrong on SO many levels.

Look - if a group of right-wingers calling themselves Nascar Fans for Tobacco and Justice wants to get together, pool their resources, and put political ads in the newspaper or on TV, they get to do that. Likewise, if a group of granola-crunchies called Wiccans and Druids for Peace and Bunnies wants to do the same, that's fine. Why?

BEACUSE IT IS POLITICAL SPEECH. HEY, MISTER PRESIDENT. THE GOVERNMENT DOESN'T GET TO BAN POLITICAL SPEECH. IT'S CALLED THE FIRST FUCKING AMENDMENT.

The article goes on to say that the case is expected to bog down in the courts and have no effect before the election. Which, in a way, is worse - GWB is attempting to look like a nice guy, bowing and scraping before Saint McCain, knowing full well that it's an empty gesture.

I'm also suspicious of the timing. Coincidentally (you decide), this news came out on the same day that polls are showing - for the first time this year - that Bush is leading Kerry by several points.

VERY NICE, MISTER PRESIDENT. NOW THAT THE DAMAGE IS DONE, YOU CAN CALL OFF YOUR DOGS, WHICH COINCIDENTALLY WOULD MEAN CALLING OFF KERRY'S TOO. ASSHOLE.


Listen: if the government is allowed to get away with telling its citizens that they can't organize and engage in free political speech, then we are well and truly fucked. Write your Senator.

judged

I went to the Cupboard this afternoon to pick up some stuff when I noticed two women, a mother and her daughter, in the checkout line in front of me. I know they were mother and daughter because my keen powers of observation picked up on the fact that the younger one called the older one "Mom."

They looked about like the average Cupboard denizen: loose hair, no makeup, jeans and sandals. Oh, but there was one glaring exception, yes. They were wearing matching "Bush/Cheney 04" t-shirts.

They left, and I moved forward. Through the window I watched them get into a Ford Expedition with Oklahoma plates and drive away. As the checkout lady was sacking my groceries, I asked, "I bet you don't see many Bush/Cheney t-shirts in here, do you?"

Instead of the mild, "We Are The World" hippie response I was expecting, she went barking mad:

"NO we DON'T see many Bush/Cheney shirts in here."

Another checker came over to join the hubbub. I don't remember his name, but his tag read, "Best Checker Ever," followed by three exclamation points.

"I was glad they didn't come get in my lane, because I would have opened a big can of politi-whoopass on them! This is America! And they have a right! To think what they want!" - he was completely gibbering now - "But I gave a right too! I can tell them what I think even if I am at work!"

He trailed off lamely, and finished, "I judged them."

"We all did," I replied.

i want a pool

We’re getting a pool!

Okay, X and I are discussing getting a pool. Or, it might be more accurate to say that I’m discussing it and X is snorting in derision.

It’s not like I want a freakin water park back there, with a wave pool and two-story slides or anything. All I’m asking for is a small one, surrounded by bamboo and nice chairs upon which one can recline gracefully. Does that seem unreasonable?

I haven’t made much headway yet, but ever the optimist, I brought it up again last night. I’ve learned over the years that sometimes repetition helps you get what you want.

“I want a pool.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I want a pool.”
“Well, I don’t. They’re a pain in the ass.”
“I want a pool.”
“Jesus Christ.”

This approach was bearing no fruit aside from the increasingly prominent veins in X’s temples. So I tried a tactic I call “painting a picture.” Sometimes this works; I once got him to buy a Waggoner Power Sprayer by pointing out how happy the people on the box were.

“Just imagine how nice it will be to jump in and cool off on a hot summer day.”
“Yeah, in the four months out of the year we can actually use it.”
“No no no. This is a heated pool.”
“Do you know how expensive that would be?”
“But imagine the parties we could have. Our friends would come over. We’d grill assorted tasty meats on the grill and sip adult beverages by the pool, and everyone would be so happy.”
“They’re all vegetarians, and I don’t think any of them are exactly sum worshippers.”

This was getting me nowhere, so I tried being practical.

“If we get a pool, we won’t have so much yard to mow.”
“We? First of all, when do you mow the yard? Second, we’d have to tear up the sprinkler system we just had put in. Also, who’s going to take care of it?”
“I will!”
“You won’t even water the plants. Try again.”
“Well, we could hire…”
“We are NOT hiring a cabana boy. Forget it.”

I even threatened to do it while he was out of town on a trip.

“Maybe you’ll just come home one day and there will be a pool in the backyard.”
“Oh, Jesus.”
“Or better yet, maybe they won’t be finished and you’ll come home to find…”
“…a giant mudhole. Oh, Jesus.”
“Yes, and you’ll fall in with a thud, just like Edina at her father’s funeral. Plunk! Then I shall laugh and you’ll have only yourself to blame. You’ll wail and rend your hair, crying ‘Why didn’t I let him have the pool?’ “
“Oh, Jesus.”

I’m out of ideas. Let me know if you have another approach I should try.

workout

I know that's a thumb with a headband, but what the hell? Did they not realize this looked like a big wet penis? I'll tell you what got a workout when I saw this ad in the paper this morning: my gag reflex. 

quintastic

Am I the only one who can't tell the two barrel-chested tinies apart?

On the other hand, what if they were the Tumbling Triplets? Or if there were five of them, they could be the Gymnastic Quintastics. A whole team of medal-strewn, identical receeding hairlines cartwheeling across Greece. Just think.

exhibit a

Banana Seat hasn't given up trying to get me to join one of his cults. Today he left me a voicemail while I was at work...

Wait, there's something else first. I accidentally left my cell phone at home today. It has one annoying feature: if you have a voicemail, it will ring every 5 minutes until you pick up your message. I got home today and couldn't find my phone. I called from our home number, thinking I would hear it ring, but nothing. Then I thought, "well, maybe it's in the car." So I looked out there, but nada. I came back inside and tried to call my cell number again, when X came out of the shower.

"Do you know where my cell phone is?"
"Yes! It's been ringing off the hook all day! I finally got so sick of it I hid it in my dresser inside a bunch of sweaters!"

I thought about pointing out that cellphones don't, in fact, have hooks, but it didn't seem like a good idea.

Okay. Back to the story. So BS left me a voicemail. He was calling to tell me about a wonderful opportunity to take a course from an outfit called Landmark Education. He's a graduate! He coaches for them now! For only $395, I can learn how to put the past in the past, and invent my future from nothing. I went to their website and reviewed the syllabus, and it looks like every Power of Positive Thinking bullshit corporate seminar I've ever been to. The kind where "fun is mandatory."

Dude, look. I don't have any problem leaving the past in the past. Exhibit A: you.

frisco

I have a relative whose work occasionally requires performing background investigatons on different people. One of the investigative services they use recently rolled out some enhancements, so to test the new features, my relative ran a check on my biological father and sent the results to me.

I haven't seen or heard from him in at least 10 years - a period which included his absence from my college graduation and from his own father's funeral. It's fine with me; between my late grandfather and my stepfather I didn't lack father figures.

This is a guy who lived a Jerry Springer lifestyle long before it was cool; serial marriages, repeated business failures, the occasional child support check, and assorted personal bankruptcies. In fact, the best thing I can say about him is that at some point in the last year he must have shown up on somebody's radar in the state child support office, because out of nowhere my mother got two checks totalling thousand of dollars - a fraction of what he actually owed, but still completely unexpected, especially since his youngest child is 28 years old. (Said child used the proceeds to buy a Mini Cooper.)

Anyhow, I opened the file and it turns out that he lives about 20 minutes away. Not only has he recently acquired a new house, but a new wife to go with it. (I think this makes number five, but who's counting?)

So I spent today imagining a made-for-TV movie, starring me. In the movie, I drive over there. It's a new development, called, I think, Bent Creek. There's a billboard at the entrance that tells me, "Where Families Matter."

The houses, lining streets named Trickling Brook and Oaken River, are all built right up to the edge of their lots. I notice that all the houses have elaborately peaked roofs, just in case we get three feet of snow this winter. There aren't any trees because the ones that were there weren't 'desirable', so the builders clearcut them.

I find Maple Twig road, and then his address. I come to a stop across the street. For some reason I start thinking about Black Mamba pulling up in front of Vernita Green's house, and I wish I had a Pussy Wagon.

This house looks like all the rest. There are two cars in the driveway, a Honda Pilot and a Nissan Sentra. The Sentra has a sticker on the bumper that says, "In Case Of Rapture, This Vehicle Will Not Be Occupied." There's a wreath hanging on the door, a woodcutting of a blond child angel blowing a horn, surrounded by purple and blue eucalyptus leaves.

I get out of my car and walk up to the door. As I pass the Honda I notice a child seat belted into the back and my stomach twists.

I ring the doorbell. What the hell is movie-me doing here? What will movie-me say?

A bosomy woman answers the door a few seconds later. She looks like she's in her late forties. I think she's just gotten home from church because she's wearing the Baptist Matron Uniform: a light gray pantsuit over a white blouse. She's taken off her shoes but not her hose, which are cafeteria lady orange. She has short dark hair that's curled into a football shape around her head.

"Yes?"

Movie-me bursts into tears on this godforsaken porch in Frisco and throws himself at her.

"Mommy!"

random acts of decoupage

I feel a little guilty about posting this, but also a sense of glee.

Guess what? Glee wins. This is an email that an old friend of mine sent to me. I'll call him Banana Seat. (I left the punctuation and grammar as I found it, although I did shape the email into paragraphs; it arrived with a break between each sentence, resembling a grocery list.)

First ever Global call, you are invited to be a founding member and cause the difference. The number is 775-533-8315 and following the instruction and the password will be Passions (72774667). I would like to Have the call, on Saturday at 3pm. Central time for 30 min.

I like the Manchurian Candidate-type opening. Very conspiratorial, almost culty-sounding. So mysterious! And I can't wait to cause the difference! Bonus points for the quasi-religious password.

Have you ever had a dream?

Martin Luther King had a dream; and life itself in this country changed for people of all creeds forever. The only thing it takes to make a dream real is to share it with as many people as possible.

Hm. That's funny. I had a dream a couple of nights ago involving a trapeze and Tobey Maguire, so I shared it with a bunch of people at work. They kept squirming and looking away uncomfortably, but I was determined to make it real so I pressed on. Unfortunately, HR called later in the day and told me to knock it off, or else.

So why am I sending you this email? Because I believe that you, and those you know, are the difference. I am sure that you, as am I, are dedicated that no one is left behind; no community, no child, or our elderly.

What a touching sentiment from a form letter! I feel special.

How can we do this as artists, as people who love to see beauty and inspiration in every aspect of our lives? What does this future look like?

Turning yards of dirt into indigenous gardens that thrive naturally

Bringing beauty to everything we produce, no matter how mundane:
a "Post Box" can become a sculpture that reflects a dream, and inspires

Our grand old landmarks, buildings, and homes become our treasures, lovingly restored and cared for, reminding us of our history.

By being an artist, and using your gift to shape the would around you.

Realizing it takes less effort to consider the possibilities than turn a blind eye.

Random acts of découpage? Spontaneous postbox gildings? Sounds like flash mobs meets art history degree.

Being an artist is being a world leader. Contributing the difference you are to the world, or to a child, may give someone a chance to become free and self-expressed in life, and in turn make a difference for others.

People get into a lot of trouble contributing to minors. No thanks.

This is the dream I am asking you to share.

well, it is a swing state

The governor of New Jersey came out of the closet and resigned today. Apparently he'd been hosing his former "Homeland Security Advisor," a thirty-something Israeli national. I wonder if they played code yellow? Hee.

Also? How fucked up is this?

triplets

Boy, we just keep on vortexing. This is from the Denton Record Chronicle today:

In an ongoing conflict over a woman, a man called police Monday claiming another transient cut him with a knife. The victim, who police say is a transient, said the suspect pulled out a pocket knife and cut him during an argument over the woman. The incident occurred in the 400 block of South Interstate 35E late in the evening.

Where did the victim call from? Do homeless have cellphones now?

The victim had several shallow cuts on his arms and his clothing was cut, according to the police report. The officer was familiar with the suspect, who is one of a set of transient triplets, and the girlfriend, also a transient, police said. He found them, and they told a different story.

Wait a minute. Transient triplets? We have those here?

The suspect said he and the girlfriend have been out of town and returned about two weeks ago. The victim, a former boyfriend of the woman, has been following them around since their return, they said. Both said that there only was an exchange of words between the men. One man said, "It’s a small world," and the other said, "Too small," they said. They believed the victim scratched himself with the knife in order to get the other man thrown in jail so he could have the woman, the couple told the officer.

Man, that's a little too David Lynch for me.

costco v. wal-mart

Really interesting article at Slate today.

piñata

There was an op-ed piece today in the Dallas Morning News by Marciela Sanchez, who normally writes for the Washington Post. Her piece is about how angry we all are and how the presidential election is to blame, with a nonsequitur about the third world thrown in for good measure.

Several psychologists and political scientists I've talked with suggest that politicians aren't helping matters. With people on both sides of the political spectrum feeling stressed, politicians direct anxieties at the other side and use the opportunity not for conciliation, but to rile the masses and turn personal anxiety into public anger.

First of all, what's not to be angry about? We're in a war we can't get out of, the economy continues to suck-a-go-go, and the president can't string two sentences together. His challenger takes every fork in the road he comes across and thinks of terrorism as a law enforcement challenge. Second, "rile the masses?" Who are you, Marie Antoinette? We masses can think for ourselves, thank you.

Curiously, indexes such as the World Values Survey often rank countries such as Mexico, Columbia, and El Salvador among the happiest and most satisfied with life, while the United States and other industrialized nations rank lower, despite much higher economic development and national and individual wealth. The average among Latin American countries surveyed, in fact, is higher than the average industrialized country in terms of happiness and life satisfaction.

"Life satisfaction"? I'll take life expectancy, thanks. And seriously, do you really want to bring Columbia into this? Columbia, which is racked with a super-violent drug trade? And still more seriously, is this woman completely ignorant of Latin American history? Does she know how many revolutions and counter-revolutions that corner of the world has endured at the hands of politicians who "rile the masses and turn personal anxiety into public anger"? And finally, if they're so happy, why do they want to come here so badly?

She concludes, A values debate with political intent might prove productive in an election year, but it is unconstuctive in the long term. It is more likely to lead to new clashes and irritations, and in turn make people feel less content with their everyday lives.

Jesus Christ in a piñata. Values debates are bad because it makes people less content with their everyday lives? So the message is: don't be ambitious, just be content with your lot in life. It reminds me of Charles Dickens, who said in The Chimes:

Oh let us love our occupations,
Bless the squire and his relations,
Live upon our daily rations,
And always know our proper stations.

At least Dickens was kidding.

joe

You might remember a while back I put up a post about Rep. Joe Pitts (R.-PA), who was all upset about UPN making fun of the Amish in Amish in the City. Well, a few days ago I noticed that one of my site visitors was from the "house.gov" domain, which is only used on Capitol Hill. So I checked the referring URL and found out that that person had found my site by doing a Google search on Joe Pitts.

Hmm. Who on Capitol Hill could be doing a Google search on the beloved congressman? I like to imagine ol' Joe hunched over his keyboard late at night, dork in hand, reading his own press and stumbling across my suggestion that he go Cheney himself. Hee. On the other hand, if my taxes get audited next year I'll know why.

Speaking of Joe, today I went to the Cupboard to get a chair massage. After it was over, I picked up a few things and got in the checkout line. In front of me was the butchest woman I've ever seen - 6'4", 250 pounds, blue t-shirt, jeans, and cowboy boots. The best part was her hair, which was straight up Joe Dirt. I loved it; I mean, at some point you have to wake up and say, "fuck it, I look like a dude, so let's go with it." Rock on, sister.

happy birthday to X

Hey, everyone - today is X's birthday, so call him and wish him a happy 39th. Then right after you say it, laugh diabolically. Even if it's not August 4 anymore. Okay? Okay.

I tell you, my list of things I hate keeps getting more explicit by the day:

Retarded dwarves with mops. I just got back from another trip to one of my company's other sites. My first night there, I met some of my work friends at this tourist trap mall-type place for dinner. I pulled into the parking garage and walked toward the elevators when I saw a wee man mopping the concrete. As I was drawing near, he suddenly dropped his mop and went apeshit, bug-eyed with fury:

"You might SLIP ON THE FLOOR! DON'T WALK ON MY FLOOR!" It took several Sierra Nevada Pale Ales to get over that one, let me tell you.

Nothin but kids 'n sports. The next day I was in a meeting with my new team. Most of the meeting was business related, but we broke for lunch in the middle and had "getting to know you" time. Yuk. Anyway, my Midwestern friends could talk about nothing but the latest sports teams, great sports teams of the past, the latest hijinks their little parasites had gotten up to, and coaching little league, which is a twofer. Literally, nothing else. Despite appearances, I don't really hate kids. I just wish people who had them could go ten minutes without bringing them up.

Stinky fat men on airplanes. On the flight home, I was in the window seat, which I hate. It means that I don't have any personal space on one side they way I do when I'm on the aisle. The flight was completely packed, but miracle of miracles, no one was next to me. It was minutes before takeoff and I couldn't believe my luck. Then, at the very last minute, this enormous guy comes lumbering down the aisle, resplendent in short-sleeved dress shirt and slacks. It takes him several tries to wedge himself into the seat next to mine, and just when he's all settled, he raises his arms to open his laptop, and I swear his pits smelled like deviled ham.

I think he heard me gag, though I tried to be quiet about it, because he immediately clamped his arms down again. Unfortunately his arms in the down position were well over the imaginary line separating us, so for the rest of the flight as I tried to read my book, we waged a quiet war of attrition over who would get the armrest: every time he touched me I flinched conspicuously. Then when he pulled away I would put my elbow on the armrest.

Rinse, repeat.