So I've returned to Eugene, Oregon, the land of the disparate university professor and the former metro area home of deceased uberhippie Ken Kesey - of "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest", "Sometimes a Great Notion", and the Electric Kool-Aid Acid test fame. Oddly enough, while Kesey is best remembered for taking more drugs than could potentially kill a horse in one sitting, his main contribution to the world (at least in the Northwest), is that Nancy's yogurt happens to be the best stuff in the world. And his wife, in essence, supported the family for years on the process of taking milk and essentially letting it go bad.
Not a bad gig, if you could get it.
This weekend I was painfully reminded of why I love the city I've chosen to live in. Seattle may be filled with many things. It may have gun shootings in the downtown area, rolling clouds of idiots running amuck in the streets, a cracked-out newspaper columnist whose bid for city council stemmed less from her own skill in local politics and more over a lack of energy from the voting public...but it's still my lovely city by the ocean, with plenty of people and happy drinks for all in the city. And I loves it.
Today I found out that a group of "conservative citizens" from Eugene, the mysterious "Gang of Nine" who published cartoons in the local rag attacking the city council happen to all be disproportionately wealthy individuals who made mundo bucks in the city and have been cheerfully shedding jobs from their companies in lieu of pay cuts across the board. What cheerful little planners they are. If I still lived here, I might actually have to give a rat's ass about important political decisions like where to put the new hospitals, or when I should go back to school (because trying to live on Eugene wages is like trying to grow rice in the desert - an unlikely prospect). So I'm glad I live where I do. It's a good place to live, and I love the job I have.
On other fronts, I've also realized that the American Consumer spends approximately $400 per year on Christmas presents, and totalling up the amount I've spent on family and friends thus far, that's about accurate. Give or take $100. Thank god for holiday bonuses.
Now, I must wrap presents when people aren't looking! Haha!
Friday, December 19, 2003
Garfield the Movie
I am arming a posse now. We will bring the guns, the knives, the diarrhetic babies, the mad cows and the sane cows. WE WILL BURN 20th Century Fox to THE GROUND!
Then, perhaps, we shall be rid of the pestilence that is Garfield.
Seriously. The guy who drew this should have been put out to pasture years ago. No movies. No deals. No bloody animatronic cats. No dancing felines. No cartoons. I will NOT own an orange stripe tabby for these reasons. EVER.
My own cat? Fat. Lazy. Blue-eyed Siamese. Eats asparagus, broccoli, tortilla chips, tuna water (not fish) and wolfs through $50/lb cheese in a single bite (a mistake both of us regretted - both in the pocketbook and the litterbox.
BUT HE'S A CAT. Every cat owner thinks their cat is special, that they have personalities and marvelous connections with their animals. Take my ex-roomie, who owned a cat named Punky.
This guy swore she was the sweetest, most affectionate cat ever. I always wanted to ask him whether that was before or after he fed her the methamphetamines, put her on the mirrored floor of the funhouse and played a loop of the "Been Caught Stealing" song by Jane's Addiction at top decibel. This cat was mean-spirited, vicious, and the few times she did cuddle, she bit me and slashed open my hand.
Thus Punky learned one valuable lesson - and one that Niq (the Siamese) learned long before. Opening a flesh wound in the hand that feeds you food or lets you in the front door? Bad idea. Letting the owner of said hand catch you after you've opened the hand? Worse idea.
When Adam came home he asked what I'd done to Punky. And in truth, all I'd done was wrap her in a towel once I caught her, lock her in his room, and not let her out - due to the fact that I didn't want another flesh wound.
It's the same with dogs and kids. Miracles are universal, folks. Your kid's fingerpaintings are NOT Picasso or Pollack. Your dog uses its tongue for toilet paper.
Get Fuzzy, at least, has a cat who has some form of character. Garfield is not a character. He's not got anything but recognition in comic strips.
Please dear god let this crap die a painful, inglorious death. Couldn't we make a damn Rainbow Brite movie or something about Transformers or maybe even...I don't know, a remake of The Penis Monologues? Garfield is just another cat. Another lame cat. A fat cat. None of these things are funny.
A cat that pees on a live electric wire right after it's been neutered, though...
That's funny as hell.
I am arming a posse now. We will bring the guns, the knives, the diarrhetic babies, the mad cows and the sane cows. WE WILL BURN 20th Century Fox to THE GROUND!
Then, perhaps, we shall be rid of the pestilence that is Garfield.
Seriously. The guy who drew this should have been put out to pasture years ago. No movies. No deals. No bloody animatronic cats. No dancing felines. No cartoons. I will NOT own an orange stripe tabby for these reasons. EVER.
My own cat? Fat. Lazy. Blue-eyed Siamese. Eats asparagus, broccoli, tortilla chips, tuna water (not fish) and wolfs through $50/lb cheese in a single bite (a mistake both of us regretted - both in the pocketbook and the litterbox.
BUT HE'S A CAT. Every cat owner thinks their cat is special, that they have personalities and marvelous connections with their animals. Take my ex-roomie, who owned a cat named Punky.
This guy swore she was the sweetest, most affectionate cat ever. I always wanted to ask him whether that was before or after he fed her the methamphetamines, put her on the mirrored floor of the funhouse and played a loop of the "Been Caught Stealing" song by Jane's Addiction at top decibel. This cat was mean-spirited, vicious, and the few times she did cuddle, she bit me and slashed open my hand.
Thus Punky learned one valuable lesson - and one that Niq (the Siamese) learned long before. Opening a flesh wound in the hand that feeds you food or lets you in the front door? Bad idea. Letting the owner of said hand catch you after you've opened the hand? Worse idea.
When Adam came home he asked what I'd done to Punky. And in truth, all I'd done was wrap her in a towel once I caught her, lock her in his room, and not let her out - due to the fact that I didn't want another flesh wound.
It's the same with dogs and kids. Miracles are universal, folks. Your kid's fingerpaintings are NOT Picasso or Pollack. Your dog uses its tongue for toilet paper.
Get Fuzzy, at least, has a cat who has some form of character. Garfield is not a character. He's not got anything but recognition in comic strips.
Please dear god let this crap die a painful, inglorious death. Couldn't we make a damn Rainbow Brite movie or something about Transformers or maybe even...I don't know, a remake of The Penis Monologues? Garfield is just another cat. Another lame cat. A fat cat. None of these things are funny.
A cat that pees on a live electric wire right after it's been neutered, though...
That's funny as hell.
Wednesday, November 26, 2003
The Wandering Ones by day
If you read this blog, you know several things about me, my life, and my propensity towards waxing poetic at moments that may or may not make sense to others.
Tonight, a chap I know mourns his grandmother - a woman who passed after 93 years upon the spaceship Earth. Sinic, if you're out there, remember these small things:
From what you've told me, your GMa was a wonderful, kind woman who had a marvelous life. Give thanks enough for that.
I remember Paul Wise - my irascible old fart of a grandfather - and his attempts at Thanksgiving Dinner. It wasn't so much that he was a bad cook - it was that he had the worst sense of timing that I've ever seen in a man. The peas would be cold and the potatoes near the boiling point when served. But the dinner was always delicious because it was served with his utmost love and attention.
Not many people strive to the point he did. He scraped and sacrificed for his children to have the opportunities he never had. We lose track of these things.
I will be out of blogging range until Sunday - but till then.
I am thankful for bourbon. The booze of the gods.
I am thankful for family.
I am thankful for those who read my words - be they paid or unpaid.
And I am toasting Sinic and his family in this moment of remembrance - and for that I wish them all the best.
Tonight, the sun never shines on closed doors.
If you read this blog, you know several things about me, my life, and my propensity towards waxing poetic at moments that may or may not make sense to others.
Tonight, a chap I know mourns his grandmother - a woman who passed after 93 years upon the spaceship Earth. Sinic, if you're out there, remember these small things:
From what you've told me, your GMa was a wonderful, kind woman who had a marvelous life. Give thanks enough for that.
I remember Paul Wise - my irascible old fart of a grandfather - and his attempts at Thanksgiving Dinner. It wasn't so much that he was a bad cook - it was that he had the worst sense of timing that I've ever seen in a man. The peas would be cold and the potatoes near the boiling point when served. But the dinner was always delicious because it was served with his utmost love and attention.
Not many people strive to the point he did. He scraped and sacrificed for his children to have the opportunities he never had. We lose track of these things.
I will be out of blogging range until Sunday - but till then.
I am thankful for bourbon. The booze of the gods.
I am thankful for family.
I am thankful for those who read my words - be they paid or unpaid.
And I am toasting Sinic and his family in this moment of remembrance - and for that I wish them all the best.
Tonight, the sun never shines on closed doors.
Monday, November 24, 2003
Match.com: Millions of possibilities to meet your match
It must be said that I have rules and laws regarding dates. Especially ones engaged upon the Internet. Rule number one: expect nothing at all and empty your head in a Zen fashion - in this manner, you are always pleasantly surprised.
So. In the spirit of ending my singleness and the random kisses in the park, I invite the woman I've had coffee and park-walks with four different times out to dinner one Friday evening, and everything is marvelous. We make plans for Sunday night - or, rather, she makes the plans and says, "You have to come have margaritas with me." Since I like both Mexican food and margaritas in equal abundance, I agree - thinking that at the very least, I could repeat the Friday evening holding-hands-in-the-park under moonlit sky and kissing tenderly by softly lapping waves.
Granted, in the above situation she had to stand on a park bench to kiss me (5'1" and 6'5" with boots on) but it was still damn romantic, and here I am, thinking that I, the "Dateless Irish Wonder of the Skin So White Even Lighthouses Say, 'DAMN, BOY!'" might beat the odds and get a girlfriend. Because, let's face it. While being tall, darkhaired and romantic may get you a date, sometimes reality turns around and likes to kick you a few times in the nee-nees, just to make a point.
Illustrated by the following.
I show up at the restaurant, which is pleasantly atmospheric - but turns out to be a restaurant in a chain of many restaraunts - never having dropped this girl off at her house, I do not pick her up. I have not had a cigarette in two weeks, and the strain is lessened somewhat by the patch on my arm - but the minute I walk through the bar and order a dark beer, I CRAVE the sweet nicotine drifting up from the deathsticks held in the local faunas' grasp.
Surprise, she's early - and fifteen minutes early at that. She's flirting with the guy at the bar who's smoking. This isn't a problem, because hey. I know she's here to meet me, and I'm the guy with the sweet ride (hey, my yellow VW Bug from 1974 is a LOVE MACHINE, baby - and any woman who goes out with me in that, as opposed to the silver Honda is just freakin' cool) - while I've met the guy from the bar at a party, where he told me interesting stories about his past, and were I not technically on a date with her, I'd have the impulse to lean towards her and whisper, "That's not a cold sore." She hands his cigarette back to him and smiles, blowing out a small cloud of smoke. I wince. Okay, so I'm not kissing her. Then I notice that she bummed one from him - as he's now holding two. The kiss is back on. Maybe.
We seat ourselves - and she immediately makes it impossible for me to take her coat or pull her chair out for her by slipping around to the opposite side of the table. Then I get a small glare, and a, "Gosh, is chivalry dead?" comment, which immediately means I look at her, and say, "Nope! Just not given any opportunity to present itself, mostly." This segues into a small conversation.
ME:Well, I like to be polite, but I also find that it makes men look like clowns if they try to fall all over themselves to open doors or hold chairs for women. I like doing this sort of thing, I just don't think it's absolutely necessary at all times to follow the conventions.
SHE: But I expect it from guys when I'm out on a date. It's just nice, and all my girlfriends say if a guy doesn't do what you expect him to do, you shouldn't be dating him.
ME:Yes, but you could also get men who do all these things but expect their wives to stay barefoot and pregnant all the time. And maybe that works for some people. But I like to think of my dates as independent people who can do these things for themselves.
SHE: Well, it's just nice.
ME:Wow, look. Salsa! They have decent salsa here.
SHE: I don't eat salsa or chips, actually.
ME: *mouth full of chips and salsa*
SHE: Pause.
ME: *swallow* Why's that?
SHE: I just don't like spicy food that much.
ME:But you like Mexican, right?
SHE: I actually just like the margaritas (as Jon, our waiter, brings hers - in a glass the size of her HEAD.)
ME:Wow. That's a big drink.
SHE: Yep. I love 'em. Sometimes I'll have two.
ME:Know what's in them?
SHE: Lots of alcohol.
At this point I surreptiously check the drink list under the pretext of finding out how much this thing costs - and it's then that I gladly and happily note that I can buy three solid meals, half an ounce of marijuana and a Nigerian child slave for the price of this drink. Top-shelf liquors leap off the page to imprint into my mind.
ME:MY GOD!
SHE: What?
ME:Your drink has Patron in it!
SHE: *sips happily* Yep.
ME:In a margarita? Are they insane? That's sipping tequila!
SHE: Oh, I don't like tequila.
ME:But it's in your drink.
SHE: Yes, but it's mixed with Grand Marnier and other things.
ME:That's the point...Patron is...delicate. Did you know it takes over 100 years to grow the agave plant to maturity - and that's just making sure the tequila gets done right.
SHE: Mmmm. *SLUUUURP*
ME:...are you done with that one already?
She orders and obtains another one. However, at this point, I find that my one pathetic Dos Equis Dark isn't going to cut it. So I order another one, and start in on the chips and salsa.
ME:So, why did you pick Business Development as a career?
SHE: Oh, I get to go to meetings all day and talk with people, and network, and develop things.
ME:So you like the people you network with?
SHE: Not really, they're all kind of dull, you know, and they're older - almost too old to be in the business.
ME:How old is that?
SHE: Thirties, probably?
ME:But what will you do when you get older? I mean, don't you want to keep moving in the career field?
SHE: I plan on getting married.
ME:See, I'd like to go back to school.
SHE: Oh, I did that, but I had to go back for a Windows class.
ME:You mean like development?
SHE: No, just a class on Windows.
ME:.NET development, or the new protocols? I mean, I assume...you said you worked for a software company.
SHE: ME? No no no. I just needed better Powerpoint presentation skills.
ME:So, what do you like to do in the summertime? Hike?
SHE: Oh no, I can't go out. See, I have to have a curling iron and a hot shower every day. If you can guarantee me that, I'll go camping.
ME:You'd like RV camping, then.
SHE: Yeah, but why ride around in a van when you could just go to a spa?
ME:That's not really camping...
We are asked what we want by a snobbish, churlish waiter - my favorite type, whom I love dearly, since it means I get to infuriate him by being excessively polite to him, and she gives me yet another glance that says, "Stand up and be a man! Or something!" But since I adhere to the principles of nirvana (be nice to people when they get more and more upset, and you can ALWAYS make them burn out a fuse by being unflinchingly calm).
I order my standard taco-and-enchilada combination, since I never take food home from a restaurant, having a sister who works in public health. Lo and behold, this girl orders the shrimp taco and fajita combination - and another MARGARITA THE SIZE OF HER FUCKING HEAD.
SHE: Why didn't you tell him off?
ME:Because I know him. He's just being pissy.
SHE: That's no excuse.
ME:No, you don't understand. I KNOW him.
SHE: He's your friend?
ME:No. He works out at my gym, and he looks like he's just having a bad day. Don't worry about it.
(all of this is a lie. Frankly I don't care overmuch about this guy's day. But I'm not going to go alphan male on his butt because BusDev girl wants me to do so.) She asks me about my family, and I tell the amusing stories of my huge Irish family. Then I say:
ME:Tell me about yours.
SHE: Oh, it's not very interesting.
ME:I'd like to know, though.
SHE: My dad doesn't like any of the men I date.
ME:Really.
SHE: I have some issues with my parents.
ME:Oh, that's too bad.
A long, pregnant pause. Then:
ME:So did you get a chance to look at the music calendar in last week's Stranger?
SHE: Not really.
ME:I can't wait for the Paperboys to come back to the Tractor Tavern, how about you?
SHE: I never heard of them.
ME:But I thought you liked them. It said so in your profile.
SHE: Oh. I meant the Paper Boy. He's a hiphop star.
ME:I've never heard of him.
This discussion winds through the deep musical musings of bands such s N'Sync and the literary merits of Pink's "Let's Get the Party Started", and how great it is to have a girl chanting rap lyrics. Finally, before I can stop myself, I say, "You know, I like the old school of rap and hiphop much more than the stuff that's getting produced by the music industry these days, you know, like Run DMC and some of the older rhymes. When it wasn't so much about kicking people or shooting - more like the rhyming and the rhythm. And I heard last week this interview with Ray Charles where he said, "Rap ain't no kinda music"". I do the Ray Charles voice.
SHE stares.
SHE: That's not very funny.
ME:Wha? Who?
SHE: That voice.
ME:What, Ray Charles?
SHE: Yes.
ME:It sounds like him, right?
SHE: Yes, but you're not black.
ME:Wait...
SHE: I just don't think it's very funny.
ME:...long pause...
SHE: *slurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrp*
And now we're ordering margarita number three.
I am now talking about myself and answering all her questions - which are turning into monosyllabic, four-word sentences. By the time I've finished half of my meal, she's burped and unbuttoned her jeans (literally) and is working on her after-dinner drink. And finally, when I put the fork down, she smiles and leans back.
SHE: You know, I did want to talk to you about something.
ME:*mouth full of food, gesturing to continue*
SHE: You see, you're a really nice guy.
ME:*taking sip of beer*
SHE: which is why I think you and I, we're not right for each other.
ME:*blink blink blink*
SHE: I like you, I really do, and you're a nice guy, but I've got so many friends right now, that I think if we kept trying to see each other.
ME:Excuse me.
SHE: Yes?
ME:Okay. So this is a "let's be friends, but not friends" dinner?
SHE: Well, yeah, I didn't want to lead you on or anything.
ME:Oh.
SHE: Because I like you a lot.
ME: (remembering my sister's last words of dating advice): Aha.
SHE: But I don't think we're going to work out.
ME:Gotcha.
SHE: And I hope you don't mind, but I made plans to go out with someone else tonight, as well.
ME: So the movie...
SHE: -Well, I know you bought the tickets for it.
ME: Yep. I should probably call my roommate and see if he wants to go.
SHE: Or you could just give them to me...
I look at her. She's not joking.
ME: Wait, so you want the tickets?
SHE: If you aren't going to use them.
ME: Wait, so you want to go to the movie tonight with this other guy with the tickets I bought.
SHE: Okay, forget it, it was just an idea. (She folds up her napkin and adjusts her purse.)
At this point I'm *pissed*. And my sister is sitting right there on my shoulder, whispering into my ear all the things I've always heard her say about situations like this.
I stand up and say, "Excuse me" and meander back to the bathroom area.
And turn the corner.
And right in front of me is the back door exit.
It takes me ten seconds to wrestle with the ethical implications, which go something like this:
She asked me out to dinner to an expensive restaurant.
She broke up with me.
She admitted to double-booking the date.
She wants the movie tickets I bought early so she can see the movie with this new boy.
She ordered too much food and three giant margaritas.
My tab comes to around $15.
And I'm absolutely positive she isn't going to offer to go dutch on this one.
I walk out the back door and go to my car.
And then I think, "But why not?" And I skip around to the front of the building, where I, with my peeping Tom curiosity, watch her wait with her coat on - obviously waiting for me to come back.
And wait.
And wave and smile at the guy from the bar.
And bum another cigarette. And be told that where she was sitting was non-smoking.
And wait.
Ten minutes passed, and she realizes I'm not coming back.
The look of impatience is now one of rage - she's ticked.
She ripped out a VISA and wrote the whole thing off. I saw the busboy watching her malevolently. In a storm she snaps down the Visa, scribbles her name, and walked out the front door. And from my vantage point in the bushes, I see her downshift into reverse, kill the engine, and tear-ass down the street, wind howling in her blissful rage at being left with the bill for her margaritas and her takeout meal for the week.
I call my roommate Jon and say, "Hey dude. I've got a spare ticket for the show tonight."
Then I call her cell - get her voice mail, and say, "Hope you don't mind if I don't call you ever again," hang up, and slowly drive past her, down the street, where she's been pulled over by a Seattle Police officer. Those images of the margaritas the size of her HEAD come back into my brain, and instead of panicking about their size and cost, I start to grin.
And I'm at Zen again.
It must be said that I have rules and laws regarding dates. Especially ones engaged upon the Internet. Rule number one: expect nothing at all and empty your head in a Zen fashion - in this manner, you are always pleasantly surprised.
So. In the spirit of ending my singleness and the random kisses in the park, I invite the woman I've had coffee and park-walks with four different times out to dinner one Friday evening, and everything is marvelous. We make plans for Sunday night - or, rather, she makes the plans and says, "You have to come have margaritas with me." Since I like both Mexican food and margaritas in equal abundance, I agree - thinking that at the very least, I could repeat the Friday evening holding-hands-in-the-park under moonlit sky and kissing tenderly by softly lapping waves.
Granted, in the above situation she had to stand on a park bench to kiss me (5'1" and 6'5" with boots on) but it was still damn romantic, and here I am, thinking that I, the "Dateless Irish Wonder of the Skin So White Even Lighthouses Say, 'DAMN, BOY!'" might beat the odds and get a girlfriend. Because, let's face it. While being tall, darkhaired and romantic may get you a date, sometimes reality turns around and likes to kick you a few times in the nee-nees, just to make a point.
Illustrated by the following.
I show up at the restaurant, which is pleasantly atmospheric - but turns out to be a restaurant in a chain of many restaraunts - never having dropped this girl off at her house, I do not pick her up. I have not had a cigarette in two weeks, and the strain is lessened somewhat by the patch on my arm - but the minute I walk through the bar and order a dark beer, I CRAVE the sweet nicotine drifting up from the deathsticks held in the local faunas' grasp.
Surprise, she's early - and fifteen minutes early at that. She's flirting with the guy at the bar who's smoking. This isn't a problem, because hey. I know she's here to meet me, and I'm the guy with the sweet ride (hey, my yellow VW Bug from 1974 is a LOVE MACHINE, baby - and any woman who goes out with me in that, as opposed to the silver Honda is just freakin' cool) - while I've met the guy from the bar at a party, where he told me interesting stories about his past, and were I not technically on a date with her, I'd have the impulse to lean towards her and whisper, "That's not a cold sore." She hands his cigarette back to him and smiles, blowing out a small cloud of smoke. I wince. Okay, so I'm not kissing her. Then I notice that she bummed one from him - as he's now holding two. The kiss is back on. Maybe.
We seat ourselves - and she immediately makes it impossible for me to take her coat or pull her chair out for her by slipping around to the opposite side of the table. Then I get a small glare, and a, "Gosh, is chivalry dead?" comment, which immediately means I look at her, and say, "Nope! Just not given any opportunity to present itself, mostly." This segues into a small conversation.
ME:Well, I like to be polite, but I also find that it makes men look like clowns if they try to fall all over themselves to open doors or hold chairs for women. I like doing this sort of thing, I just don't think it's absolutely necessary at all times to follow the conventions.
SHE: But I expect it from guys when I'm out on a date. It's just nice, and all my girlfriends say if a guy doesn't do what you expect him to do, you shouldn't be dating him.
ME:Yes, but you could also get men who do all these things but expect their wives to stay barefoot and pregnant all the time. And maybe that works for some people. But I like to think of my dates as independent people who can do these things for themselves.
SHE: Well, it's just nice.
ME:Wow, look. Salsa! They have decent salsa here.
SHE: I don't eat salsa or chips, actually.
ME: *mouth full of chips and salsa*
SHE: Pause.
ME: *swallow* Why's that?
SHE: I just don't like spicy food that much.
ME:But you like Mexican, right?
SHE: I actually just like the margaritas (as Jon, our waiter, brings hers - in a glass the size of her HEAD.)
ME:Wow. That's a big drink.
SHE: Yep. I love 'em. Sometimes I'll have two.
ME:Know what's in them?
SHE: Lots of alcohol.
At this point I surreptiously check the drink list under the pretext of finding out how much this thing costs - and it's then that I gladly and happily note that I can buy three solid meals, half an ounce of marijuana and a Nigerian child slave for the price of this drink. Top-shelf liquors leap off the page to imprint into my mind.
ME:MY GOD!
SHE: What?
ME:Your drink has Patron in it!
SHE: *sips happily* Yep.
ME:In a margarita? Are they insane? That's sipping tequila!
SHE: Oh, I don't like tequila.
ME:But it's in your drink.
SHE: Yes, but it's mixed with Grand Marnier and other things.
ME:That's the point...Patron is...delicate. Did you know it takes over 100 years to grow the agave plant to maturity - and that's just making sure the tequila gets done right.
SHE: Mmmm. *SLUUUURP*
ME:...are you done with that one already?
She orders and obtains another one. However, at this point, I find that my one pathetic Dos Equis Dark isn't going to cut it. So I order another one, and start in on the chips and salsa.
ME:So, why did you pick Business Development as a career?
SHE: Oh, I get to go to meetings all day and talk with people, and network, and develop things.
ME:So you like the people you network with?
SHE: Not really, they're all kind of dull, you know, and they're older - almost too old to be in the business.
ME:How old is that?
SHE: Thirties, probably?
ME:But what will you do when you get older? I mean, don't you want to keep moving in the career field?
SHE: I plan on getting married.
ME:See, I'd like to go back to school.
SHE: Oh, I did that, but I had to go back for a Windows class.
ME:You mean like development?
SHE: No, just a class on Windows.
ME:.NET development, or the new protocols? I mean, I assume...you said you worked for a software company.
SHE: ME? No no no. I just needed better Powerpoint presentation skills.
ME:So, what do you like to do in the summertime? Hike?
SHE: Oh no, I can't go out. See, I have to have a curling iron and a hot shower every day. If you can guarantee me that, I'll go camping.
ME:You'd like RV camping, then.
SHE: Yeah, but why ride around in a van when you could just go to a spa?
ME:That's not really camping...
We are asked what we want by a snobbish, churlish waiter - my favorite type, whom I love dearly, since it means I get to infuriate him by being excessively polite to him, and she gives me yet another glance that says, "Stand up and be a man! Or something!" But since I adhere to the principles of nirvana (be nice to people when they get more and more upset, and you can ALWAYS make them burn out a fuse by being unflinchingly calm).
I order my standard taco-and-enchilada combination, since I never take food home from a restaurant, having a sister who works in public health. Lo and behold, this girl orders the shrimp taco and fajita combination - and another MARGARITA THE SIZE OF HER FUCKING HEAD.
SHE: Why didn't you tell him off?
ME:Because I know him. He's just being pissy.
SHE: That's no excuse.
ME:No, you don't understand. I KNOW him.
SHE: He's your friend?
ME:No. He works out at my gym, and he looks like he's just having a bad day. Don't worry about it.
(all of this is a lie. Frankly I don't care overmuch about this guy's day. But I'm not going to go alphan male on his butt because BusDev girl wants me to do so.) She asks me about my family, and I tell the amusing stories of my huge Irish family. Then I say:
ME:Tell me about yours.
SHE: Oh, it's not very interesting.
ME:I'd like to know, though.
SHE: My dad doesn't like any of the men I date.
ME:Really.
SHE: I have some issues with my parents.
ME:Oh, that's too bad.
A long, pregnant pause. Then:
ME:So did you get a chance to look at the music calendar in last week's Stranger?
SHE: Not really.
ME:I can't wait for the Paperboys to come back to the Tractor Tavern, how about you?
SHE: I never heard of them.
ME:But I thought you liked them. It said so in your profile.
SHE: Oh. I meant the Paper Boy. He's a hiphop star.
ME:I've never heard of him.
This discussion winds through the deep musical musings of bands such s N'Sync and the literary merits of Pink's "Let's Get the Party Started", and how great it is to have a girl chanting rap lyrics. Finally, before I can stop myself, I say, "You know, I like the old school of rap and hiphop much more than the stuff that's getting produced by the music industry these days, you know, like Run DMC and some of the older rhymes. When it wasn't so much about kicking people or shooting - more like the rhyming and the rhythm. And I heard last week this interview with Ray Charles where he said, "Rap ain't no kinda music"". I do the Ray Charles voice.
SHE stares.
SHE: That's not very funny.
ME:Wha? Who?
SHE: That voice.
ME:What, Ray Charles?
SHE: Yes.
ME:It sounds like him, right?
SHE: Yes, but you're not black.
ME:Wait...
SHE: I just don't think it's very funny.
ME:...long pause...
SHE: *slurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrp*
And now we're ordering margarita number three.
I am now talking about myself and answering all her questions - which are turning into monosyllabic, four-word sentences. By the time I've finished half of my meal, she's burped and unbuttoned her jeans (literally) and is working on her after-dinner drink. And finally, when I put the fork down, she smiles and leans back.
SHE: You know, I did want to talk to you about something.
ME:*mouth full of food, gesturing to continue*
SHE: You see, you're a really nice guy.
ME:*taking sip of beer*
SHE: which is why I think you and I, we're not right for each other.
ME:*blink blink blink*
SHE: I like you, I really do, and you're a nice guy, but I've got so many friends right now, that I think if we kept trying to see each other.
ME:Excuse me.
SHE: Yes?
ME:Okay. So this is a "let's be friends, but not friends" dinner?
SHE: Well, yeah, I didn't want to lead you on or anything.
ME:Oh.
SHE: Because I like you a lot.
ME: (remembering my sister's last words of dating advice): Aha.
SHE: But I don't think we're going to work out.
ME:Gotcha.
SHE: And I hope you don't mind, but I made plans to go out with someone else tonight, as well.
ME: So the movie...
SHE: -Well, I know you bought the tickets for it.
ME: Yep. I should probably call my roommate and see if he wants to go.
SHE: Or you could just give them to me...
I look at her. She's not joking.
ME: Wait, so you want the tickets?
SHE: If you aren't going to use them.
ME: Wait, so you want to go to the movie tonight with this other guy with the tickets I bought.
SHE: Okay, forget it, it was just an idea. (She folds up her napkin and adjusts her purse.)
At this point I'm *pissed*. And my sister is sitting right there on my shoulder, whispering into my ear all the things I've always heard her say about situations like this.
I stand up and say, "Excuse me" and meander back to the bathroom area.
And turn the corner.
And right in front of me is the back door exit.
It takes me ten seconds to wrestle with the ethical implications, which go something like this:
She asked me out to dinner to an expensive restaurant.
She broke up with me.
She admitted to double-booking the date.
She wants the movie tickets I bought early so she can see the movie with this new boy.
She ordered too much food and three giant margaritas.
My tab comes to around $15.
And I'm absolutely positive she isn't going to offer to go dutch on this one.
I walk out the back door and go to my car.
And then I think, "But why not?" And I skip around to the front of the building, where I, with my peeping Tom curiosity, watch her wait with her coat on - obviously waiting for me to come back.
And wait.
And wave and smile at the guy from the bar.
And bum another cigarette. And be told that where she was sitting was non-smoking.
And wait.
Ten minutes passed, and she realizes I'm not coming back.
The look of impatience is now one of rage - she's ticked.
She ripped out a VISA and wrote the whole thing off. I saw the busboy watching her malevolently. In a storm she snaps down the Visa, scribbles her name, and walked out the front door. And from my vantage point in the bushes, I see her downshift into reverse, kill the engine, and tear-ass down the street, wind howling in her blissful rage at being left with the bill for her margaritas and her takeout meal for the week.
I call my roommate Jon and say, "Hey dude. I've got a spare ticket for the show tonight."
Then I call her cell - get her voice mail, and say, "Hope you don't mind if I don't call you ever again," hang up, and slowly drive past her, down the street, where she's been pulled over by a Seattle Police officer. Those images of the margaritas the size of her HEAD come back into my brain, and instead of panicking about their size and cost, I start to grin.
And I'm at Zen again.
Sunday, November 23, 2003
Amazon.com: Computer & Video Games: Unreal Championship
So here's a short thought that cropped up with my good friend John:
John writes: So the other night, a man that I would have at one time considered a friend got pissed off at me, and while I was in the process of attempting to apologize for whatever I had done that pissed him off he decided to hit me a few times. Honestly I've been hit a *lot* harder by my father in the past, and I was also drunk so it didn't hurt at all really. After it was over, I had lost a few drops of blood and he had lost a few friends. So the question is, who really won that fight? Just something for people to think about the next time they think violence will solve their problems.
The other thing is, I love this guy. And I've spent more than my fair share dealing with his crap. (Oh, and John, believe me, you dish out your fair share.) But the other thing is, if you take a swing at anyone, you're done. As far as I'm concerned, I've been in ten fights in my lifetime, and eight coincided with middle and high school. They all sucked. One was in college (as a bouncer) where my advantage lay in the fact that I was a bouncer with a 6 D-Cell Maglite and a hookup with the police department. The last one happened outside a bar and was over faster than it started...a guy pushed past me and threw a punch when I said, "Hey, take it easy there, Jack." Being able to grab the hand as it went by and help the guy along to an upside-down position with a boot in the small of his back didn't hurt, either.
It's not bragging, it's reality - people shouldn't hit. It's not acceptable under any circumstances, sober or drunk. I'm large enough (6'5, 275 lbs) to bark out a "QUIT IT!" when friends of mine get into a tussle. Seriously, though, I swear violent video games have a place in society, and it's to keep folks from acting on their aggressions. If they had had Unreal Championship to blow the aggression out, maybe it wouldn't have happened.
I don't know. I agree with John. Regardless of who this person is, they've lost any potential respect I might have had for them. And they lost him as a friend. Go figure.
So here's a short thought that cropped up with my good friend John:
John writes: So the other night, a man that I would have at one time considered a friend got pissed off at me, and while I was in the process of attempting to apologize for whatever I had done that pissed him off he decided to hit me a few times. Honestly I've been hit a *lot* harder by my father in the past, and I was also drunk so it didn't hurt at all really. After it was over, I had lost a few drops of blood and he had lost a few friends. So the question is, who really won that fight? Just something for people to think about the next time they think violence will solve their problems.
The other thing is, I love this guy. And I've spent more than my fair share dealing with his crap. (Oh, and John, believe me, you dish out your fair share.) But the other thing is, if you take a swing at anyone, you're done. As far as I'm concerned, I've been in ten fights in my lifetime, and eight coincided with middle and high school. They all sucked. One was in college (as a bouncer) where my advantage lay in the fact that I was a bouncer with a 6 D-Cell Maglite and a hookup with the police department. The last one happened outside a bar and was over faster than it started...a guy pushed past me and threw a punch when I said, "Hey, take it easy there, Jack." Being able to grab the hand as it went by and help the guy along to an upside-down position with a boot in the small of his back didn't hurt, either.
It's not bragging, it's reality - people shouldn't hit. It's not acceptable under any circumstances, sober or drunk. I'm large enough (6'5, 275 lbs) to bark out a "QUIT IT!" when friends of mine get into a tussle. Seriously, though, I swear violent video games have a place in society, and it's to keep folks from acting on their aggressions. If they had had Unreal Championship to blow the aggression out, maybe it wouldn't have happened.
I don't know. I agree with John. Regardless of who this person is, they've lost any potential respect I might have had for them. And they lost him as a friend. Go figure.
Thursday, November 20, 2003
So I've not posted in eons. But. I've been doing other things with the length and breadth of my writing talents.
I shall post these shortly, and they'll all be in timeline somewhat similar to that of the posting arena.
But tonight I'm watching movies I got from Netflix, surfing the net, and trying to figure out what the bloody hell my cat is doing to the blankets on the futon. He's being very strange.
I shall post these shortly, and they'll all be in timeline somewhat similar to that of the posting arena.
But tonight I'm watching movies I got from Netflix, surfing the net, and trying to figure out what the bloody hell my cat is doing to the blankets on the futon. He's being very strange.
Wednesday, October 29, 2003
Wishful thinking in the arcane world of spam.
Definition: irony.
Ironic, that both my roommate and I had heard marvelous things of this movie "The Returner".
Last Friday, in bitter glee, we made it to the movie with a flask of whiskey and a bag of Sour Patch Kids to watch this movie surely made and released without anyone's knowledge.
Yesterday Martin finds it on the shelf at our favorite video store, Scarecrow - at which we both stared stupidly at each other and forgot the argument over who has been eating whose spicy condiments and lunchmeats.
'Cause we spent $8.50 apiece to sit in uncomfortable seats when we could have been lounging at home watching it on a massive wall-mounted video screen (that is, once we get the LCD projector and the wall-mounted videoscreen. In the meantime, we figured we'd just watch it on the DVD player downstairs.)
It's still a good movie. I'm still glad we went to go see it.
Really. *GRRRRRRRRRRRRR*
Definition: irony.
Ironic, that both my roommate and I had heard marvelous things of this movie "The Returner".
Last Friday, in bitter glee, we made it to the movie with a flask of whiskey and a bag of Sour Patch Kids to watch this movie surely made and released without anyone's knowledge.
Yesterday Martin finds it on the shelf at our favorite video store, Scarecrow - at which we both stared stupidly at each other and forgot the argument over who has been eating whose spicy condiments and lunchmeats.
'Cause we spent $8.50 apiece to sit in uncomfortable seats when we could have been lounging at home watching it on a massive wall-mounted video screen (that is, once we get the LCD projector and the wall-mounted videoscreen. In the meantime, we figured we'd just watch it on the DVD player downstairs.)
It's still a good movie. I'm still glad we went to go see it.
Really. *GRRRRRRRRRRRRR*
So...
yeah. I've not blogged anything in a while. Mainly due to stress, work, and cheese. Lots of cheese.
On the plus side, I ran into an old college friend this morning while I was dropping off my car for repair - turns out the girl hasn't appeared to age a bit in 6 years.
How the hell can women DO that?
yeah. I've not blogged anything in a while. Mainly due to stress, work, and cheese. Lots of cheese.
On the plus side, I ran into an old college friend this morning while I was dropping off my car for repair - turns out the girl hasn't appeared to age a bit in 6 years.
How the hell can women DO that?
Wednesday, October 22, 2003
GSK Vaccines
You know what sucks most about updating your tetanus shots?
Your left arm (the one they did the Hep B, Tet, Flu, AND blood draw from in one hour) hurts like your friend's been doing the "two for flinching" act that made you finally haul off and deck him one in the seventh grade.
Thus I can't really type as much as I was earlier. This sucketh mucheth. And I can't take the meds I usually do - because I had a small glass of wine with dinner, and I drank orange juice, and I took some niacin, and...well, let's just say Mr. Liver and the Kidney Boys, instead of kissing me on the lips and expressing ever-dying love and devotion, would look upon this as a betrayal...and demand I consume Knob Creek with them of an evening.
Of course, I'm saving that for the birth of my godson Kai and one night when I can clink glasses with my good friend. And not have to drive anywhere, because we'll be toasting to him and his health until the morning.
You know what sucks most about updating your tetanus shots?
Your left arm (the one they did the Hep B, Tet, Flu, AND blood draw from in one hour) hurts like your friend's been doing the "two for flinching" act that made you finally haul off and deck him one in the seventh grade.
Thus I can't really type as much as I was earlier. This sucketh mucheth. And I can't take the meds I usually do - because I had a small glass of wine with dinner, and I drank orange juice, and I took some niacin, and...well, let's just say Mr. Liver and the Kidney Boys, instead of kissing me on the lips and expressing ever-dying love and devotion, would look upon this as a betrayal...and demand I consume Knob Creek with them of an evening.
Of course, I'm saving that for the birth of my godson Kai and one night when I can clink glasses with my good friend. And not have to drive anywhere, because we'll be toasting to him and his health until the morning.
Monday, October 20, 2003
xForums
The frequently asked questions in my life are starting to bug me. Therefore I’ve decided building up this FAQ list is the best thing for it. For once and for all. I’m not answering these questions again.
Q. You’re really tall. Have you always been tall?
No. Once upon a time, my mother, a 6’2” Irish-Germanic lady, married my father, a 6’6” Crow/Scotch Irish man. When I was born I was less than a foot tall. When I was 5 I was still one of the Little People. When I was 14 I hadn’t hit 6’1 yet. When I was 19 I was still growing. Now they think I’m done growing. Yes, I played basketball. Yes, I work out. Yes, I have a hard time walking through houses with low doors. I cannot sleep in Japanese beds, nor do I enjoy showers in motels designed for short people. It sucks.
Q. You’re pretty white for a guy who’s either half or quarter Crow Indian.
Really? Maybe that’s why I keep getting sunburns. Ya dip. I know that. I also don’t know for sure if my dad is full-blood, since Colorado adoption agencies are idiots. And it doesn’t really matter. I’m an American and I’ve been one since I was born here. Might as well be my ethnicity as well as my nationality.
Q. You seem angry a lot of the time…is that an affectation?
If it was, I’d be doing things like slipping out of character and singing “I want to buy the world a Coke” in four-part harmony with the cast from “A Mighty Wind”. I get angry only when there’s things to be angry about. Slimy political actions are one of those things, as are stupid people attempting to portray themselves as intelligent.
Q. Why do you keep talking about the job you had as a bouncer?
Because that was both the best and worst job I’d ever had in my life, and at the risk of sounding patronizing, not many people get a chance to work in a place like that and quit because they wanted to. Some people go to the Arctic Circle and spend their entire year living alone in the cold. Some people do the drugs / alcohol party people circuit. I carded people and shouted into the microphone, “Gentlemen, please give it up for Simone, the very lovely lady coming out to dance for you!” It was the best job because it gave me a vastly unique perspective on human sexuality in its most pathetic, restrained environment…and it was the worst job because I had to deal with that sexuality when it crossed over the lines. Plus, I saw far too many single mothers with ex-husbands in prison not paying child support trying to work a $20 tip out of a soused customer. And I saw honors college students put their clothes back on and get back to studying Organic Chemistry. The day that a woman or man can pay their own college tuition bill with two six-hour shifts per week is the day you can get snooty about taking your clothes off five feet from people and dancing around a pole badly for $100 every five minutes.
Q. Is it true what they say about tall men?
A. Yes. We have big feet.
Q. Is it true what they say about men with big feet?
A. Yes. It’s a bitch finding shoes that fit comfortably.
Q. No no no. I mean the OTHER thing about men who’ve got big feet?
Yeah, I know what you mean. You CAN accidentally press the gas and the brake at the same time if you’re not careful.
Q. No no no! I mean the OTHER thing about men who’ve got big feet!
Comparatively speaking, you might want to ask a biostatistician about that. I wouldn’t know.
Q. Why are you a writer?
Why aren’t you a writer?
Q. Was that the response?
That was the response.
Q. I don’t get it.
Not hard. Being a writer is like being a painter or an artist. You either are or you’re not. You’re drawn to putting words down in a communication form for other people to read, or you’re not. Nobody is BORN a writer. If my parents hadn’t given me books to read and a computer to play with, I would probably not consider myself a writer. I’d be another guy who hadn’t figured out what he wanted to do with his life. I was fortunate enough to have folks who could see talent and skill and let me run with it. Not everyone does.
Q. What type of stuff do you write?
Everything and everything. Ad copy. Web site content. Instruction manuals. Device codes. Poems, prose, short stories long stories, novellas, rhyming poems, metered poems, scientific journal articles, newspaper articles, editorials, columns, personal essays, marketing literature, annual reports, technical documentation, pornography, love letters, job recommendations, novels and memoirs of moments past – all of these, I’ve written.
Q. What do you like to write best?
Stories. For me, writing is not about which sentence goes into which structure. If a story ebbs and flows correctly, it feels right, and there’s a goodness to it that can’t be duplicated. But then, if you look at it the right way, every format and structure of writing is a story.
Q. So what would you call yourself?
A storyteller, first and foremost. If I was an ancient Druid, I’d be the guy singing the songs and teaching the kids through allegory. I love sitting at a table telling a story that slams on someone really annoying sitting within earshot – without that person being able to point to me and say that I was making fun of them. Of course I wasn’t making fun of YOU…I was telling this great story my great-grandfather told me when I was a kid about the angel Gabriel and the seraphim who thought he had all the answers, but turned out to be a Grade A asshole.
Q. You toss in a lot of biblical stuff sometimes. Why?
The Bible’s got some great stories. Samson and Delilah – betrayal by his wife because of jealousy and political pain? Moses, the man who did an incredible thing and led his people to their new homeland while thinking, “What the hell am –I- doing? Shouldn’t I be hanging out with my brother Pharoh?” Mary, the woman who was surrounded by all of the animals in the stable, three wise men smoking something and saying, “We saw a star, dude?” and not flipping out when a holy apparation appears and says, “Hey, you’re having God’s kid. Lucky you,” and then takes off without mentioning whether having a child of God might have some gynecoligcal repercussions.
Q. Do you write stories for people inspired by them? Can you write me a story?
Yes. I can. But you must either fork out $.50 per word in advance and accept what you get after the second edit. And that only entitles you to first North American publishing rights – nothing else. You don’t sell it or its concepts to anyone else or I get to preclaim $50.00 per word and exclusive net profit royalties superceding anyone else’s. Publishing rights expire after 366 days, at point they revert back to the writer – me.
Or if I really like you, I’ll write a story for you.
Q. Where can I buy your work?
Bookstores everywhere! Once I get something published in hardback. It takes more than a year to finish a book. My dad’s been working on four books for ten years. It’s not easy. And we all know the reason you go into fiction writing – it’s for the money. John Grisham, Stephen King, Dean Koontz? Hacks. But they’re rich hacks because they picked the formula and ran with it.
Q. Want to have sex?
YES! Doesn’t everyone?
Q. Why the Drunken Monkey? Why denigrate yourself?
Look, think of it this way. Humans are essentially hairless apes that fell out of trees too much, thus forcing themselves to adapt. We’re the adapters of the world’s species. I work for small companies capable of having R&D without a department dedicated to it.
Also, it must be known that the development of zymurgy – that is, making food and beer with yeast and yeast byproducts – is perhaps the turning point of the human species from foraging to the fostering of civilization. Consuming alcohol produced by yeast cells does two things for me – makes me happy, silly, and giddy – and reaffirms to me that as long as we know how to manufacture alcohol, civilization cannot be totally lost to us.
Also, it must be noted that seven out of the eight American Nobel Peace Prize for literature winners were raging alcoholics.
And I like acting like a monkey in bars. It’s fun.
Q. Want to hang out sometime?
Errrr….yeah, okay. But if I don’t know you, chances are I’d rather meet you at a coffeehouse. If you’re family, you should bloody well know where my phone number is. If you’re a friend, you should BLOODY WELL KNOW WHERE MY PHONE NUMBER IS! And if you’re neither and think I’m just a cool boy with a big, beautiful pair of lobes, you should know this: I live in Seattle, I’m straight, I like girls with active braincells, and I have been stalked before – hence I’m not into meeting at my house. And going out with me is when the curtain rises on ADD theater.
Q. What is ADD Theater?
That’s the name of a forum I check to make sure I’m not the only short-attention-span geek in this world. But it’s pretty much what happens when someone who doesn’t know me or my friends sits and listens to us. We have conversations that start in July for 15 minutes and are resumed in December for 45 minutes before ending sometime in February with three minutes of conclusion.
Thus when I go out or talk with people, I have to warn them three things – I have no inner monologue. I say whatever’s on my mind. And if I think you’re cute, I will ask you out on a date. I’m pretty direct.
Q. But your characters aren’t.
I’m not my characters.
Q. Aren’t some of your characters based on you and your life? For instance, the novel you’re writing set in the post-apocalyptic world – aren’t the characters mostly based off of your friends and family, and your ex-girlfriends?
Yes. But the key word there is “BASED”. And if I lived through a biological cataclysmic event, I might know about it, since I’m not a big fan of the smell of rotting corpses.
Q. You talk about your cat a lot.
Niq’s a cool cat. He’s perhaps the most odd and unusual feline I’ve ever had the pleasure to share space with.
Q. Odd how?
Niq eats things that you would not expect him to…but never when you’re looking right at him. He won’t touch ham, roast beef, salmon, or cantalope. However, he’ll plunge face-first into a pot of cooling broccoli or asparagus and rip open a bag of tortilla chips. He’s even had szechuan Chinese black peppers.
Q. You’re joking. Peppers?
Cat yarf throughout the kitchen. It was incredible. He even got some on the ceiling.
Q. I don’t believe you.
I’ll bring him over, feed him huge amounts of cat food, then let you give him some peppers. Better yet, I’ll give him as much water as he can drink then feed him asparagus and let you smell the catbox when you clean it. Feel free to test this scientifically.
Q. Oh, Niq’s such a sweet cat! I love him!
I love him too, but he’s only sweet because he’s fairly stupid, too. This is the cat who likes the warmth a lit candle provides, but can’t remember how large his butt actually is. Thus he’ll sit down IN the candle on my desk and I’ll hear an earsplitting yowl and smell the sexy scent of burnt cat ass. And a week will pass and HE’LL DO IT AGAIN.
Q. Oh, no way. He’s a great cat.
He –is- a great cat, there’s no question about it. He’s low maintenance, which is rare in Siamese/Burman mixes, but he likes attention and love. He doesn’t have his claws, front or back (which is due to one of his former caretakers not caring a lot about natural animal defenses or cruelty to animals), he ALWAYS uses the litter box, no matter what, he snuggles at night and keeps my feet warm, and he purrs a lot. But he’s also an asparagus-eating, fish-breath spewing, catnip-eating attention whore. I’d clone him if I could
Q. Do you always try to post at least 2,000 words a day?
It’s my goal. I don’t always reach it. When I post at least 2,000 words a day I’ll be putting at least 1 hour of writing in per day on the personal side. Right now I’m trying to get back into shape.
Q. Writing shape?
No. Physical shape. I want to be able to run a 10K in under an hour and drop four waist sizes.
Q. Why?
Because I’m tired of being a fat American who sits around all day in an office. I want to look hot again. And yes, I know I sexy. I know I hot. I just don't want to carry around my extra 40 pounds if it's fat, and not muscle.
Q. You've got to be totally unique in your class of people.
No, I'm not. I'm just a guy who's good at writing who can't seem to keep his mouth shut even when he knows it's for the best. That makes me a writer and a storyteller. I'm just a guy looking for a girl and something real. That makes me human. And I like being human.
The frequently asked questions in my life are starting to bug me. Therefore I’ve decided building up this FAQ list is the best thing for it. For once and for all. I’m not answering these questions again.
Q. You’re really tall. Have you always been tall?
No. Once upon a time, my mother, a 6’2” Irish-Germanic lady, married my father, a 6’6” Crow/Scotch Irish man. When I was born I was less than a foot tall. When I was 5 I was still one of the Little People. When I was 14 I hadn’t hit 6’1 yet. When I was 19 I was still growing. Now they think I’m done growing. Yes, I played basketball. Yes, I work out. Yes, I have a hard time walking through houses with low doors. I cannot sleep in Japanese beds, nor do I enjoy showers in motels designed for short people. It sucks.
Q. You’re pretty white for a guy who’s either half or quarter Crow Indian.
Really? Maybe that’s why I keep getting sunburns. Ya dip. I know that. I also don’t know for sure if my dad is full-blood, since Colorado adoption agencies are idiots. And it doesn’t really matter. I’m an American and I’ve been one since I was born here. Might as well be my ethnicity as well as my nationality.
Q. You seem angry a lot of the time…is that an affectation?
If it was, I’d be doing things like slipping out of character and singing “I want to buy the world a Coke” in four-part harmony with the cast from “A Mighty Wind”. I get angry only when there’s things to be angry about. Slimy political actions are one of those things, as are stupid people attempting to portray themselves as intelligent.
Q. Why do you keep talking about the job you had as a bouncer?
Because that was both the best and worst job I’d ever had in my life, and at the risk of sounding patronizing, not many people get a chance to work in a place like that and quit because they wanted to. Some people go to the Arctic Circle and spend their entire year living alone in the cold. Some people do the drugs / alcohol party people circuit. I carded people and shouted into the microphone, “Gentlemen, please give it up for Simone, the very lovely lady coming out to dance for you!” It was the best job because it gave me a vastly unique perspective on human sexuality in its most pathetic, restrained environment…and it was the worst job because I had to deal with that sexuality when it crossed over the lines. Plus, I saw far too many single mothers with ex-husbands in prison not paying child support trying to work a $20 tip out of a soused customer. And I saw honors college students put their clothes back on and get back to studying Organic Chemistry. The day that a woman or man can pay their own college tuition bill with two six-hour shifts per week is the day you can get snooty about taking your clothes off five feet from people and dancing around a pole badly for $100 every five minutes.
Q. Is it true what they say about tall men?
A. Yes. We have big feet.
Q. Is it true what they say about men with big feet?
A. Yes. It’s a bitch finding shoes that fit comfortably.
Q. No no no. I mean the OTHER thing about men who’ve got big feet?
Yeah, I know what you mean. You CAN accidentally press the gas and the brake at the same time if you’re not careful.
Q. No no no! I mean the OTHER thing about men who’ve got big feet!
Comparatively speaking, you might want to ask a biostatistician about that. I wouldn’t know.
Q. Why are you a writer?
Why aren’t you a writer?
Q. Was that the response?
That was the response.
Q. I don’t get it.
Not hard. Being a writer is like being a painter or an artist. You either are or you’re not. You’re drawn to putting words down in a communication form for other people to read, or you’re not. Nobody is BORN a writer. If my parents hadn’t given me books to read and a computer to play with, I would probably not consider myself a writer. I’d be another guy who hadn’t figured out what he wanted to do with his life. I was fortunate enough to have folks who could see talent and skill and let me run with it. Not everyone does.
Q. What type of stuff do you write?
Everything and everything. Ad copy. Web site content. Instruction manuals. Device codes. Poems, prose, short stories long stories, novellas, rhyming poems, metered poems, scientific journal articles, newspaper articles, editorials, columns, personal essays, marketing literature, annual reports, technical documentation, pornography, love letters, job recommendations, novels and memoirs of moments past – all of these, I’ve written.
Q. What do you like to write best?
Stories. For me, writing is not about which sentence goes into which structure. If a story ebbs and flows correctly, it feels right, and there’s a goodness to it that can’t be duplicated. But then, if you look at it the right way, every format and structure of writing is a story.
Q. So what would you call yourself?
A storyteller, first and foremost. If I was an ancient Druid, I’d be the guy singing the songs and teaching the kids through allegory. I love sitting at a table telling a story that slams on someone really annoying sitting within earshot – without that person being able to point to me and say that I was making fun of them. Of course I wasn’t making fun of YOU…I was telling this great story my great-grandfather told me when I was a kid about the angel Gabriel and the seraphim who thought he had all the answers, but turned out to be a Grade A asshole.
Q. You toss in a lot of biblical stuff sometimes. Why?
The Bible’s got some great stories. Samson and Delilah – betrayal by his wife because of jealousy and political pain? Moses, the man who did an incredible thing and led his people to their new homeland while thinking, “What the hell am –I- doing? Shouldn’t I be hanging out with my brother Pharoh?” Mary, the woman who was surrounded by all of the animals in the stable, three wise men smoking something and saying, “We saw a star, dude?” and not flipping out when a holy apparation appears and says, “Hey, you’re having God’s kid. Lucky you,” and then takes off without mentioning whether having a child of God might have some gynecoligcal repercussions.
Q. Do you write stories for people inspired by them? Can you write me a story?
Yes. I can. But you must either fork out $.50 per word in advance and accept what you get after the second edit. And that only entitles you to first North American publishing rights – nothing else. You don’t sell it or its concepts to anyone else or I get to preclaim $50.00 per word and exclusive net profit royalties superceding anyone else’s. Publishing rights expire after 366 days, at point they revert back to the writer – me.
Or if I really like you, I’ll write a story for you.
Q. Where can I buy your work?
Bookstores everywhere! Once I get something published in hardback. It takes more than a year to finish a book. My dad’s been working on four books for ten years. It’s not easy. And we all know the reason you go into fiction writing – it’s for the money. John Grisham, Stephen King, Dean Koontz? Hacks. But they’re rich hacks because they picked the formula and ran with it.
Q. Want to have sex?
YES! Doesn’t everyone?
Q. Why the Drunken Monkey? Why denigrate yourself?
Look, think of it this way. Humans are essentially hairless apes that fell out of trees too much, thus forcing themselves to adapt. We’re the adapters of the world’s species. I work for small companies capable of having R&D without a department dedicated to it.
Also, it must be known that the development of zymurgy – that is, making food and beer with yeast and yeast byproducts – is perhaps the turning point of the human species from foraging to the fostering of civilization. Consuming alcohol produced by yeast cells does two things for me – makes me happy, silly, and giddy – and reaffirms to me that as long as we know how to manufacture alcohol, civilization cannot be totally lost to us.
Also, it must be noted that seven out of the eight American Nobel Peace Prize for literature winners were raging alcoholics.
And I like acting like a monkey in bars. It’s fun.
Q. Want to hang out sometime?
Errrr….yeah, okay. But if I don’t know you, chances are I’d rather meet you at a coffeehouse. If you’re family, you should bloody well know where my phone number is. If you’re a friend, you should BLOODY WELL KNOW WHERE MY PHONE NUMBER IS! And if you’re neither and think I’m just a cool boy with a big, beautiful pair of lobes, you should know this: I live in Seattle, I’m straight, I like girls with active braincells, and I have been stalked before – hence I’m not into meeting at my house. And going out with me is when the curtain rises on ADD theater.
Q. What is ADD Theater?
That’s the name of a forum I check to make sure I’m not the only short-attention-span geek in this world. But it’s pretty much what happens when someone who doesn’t know me or my friends sits and listens to us. We have conversations that start in July for 15 minutes and are resumed in December for 45 minutes before ending sometime in February with three minutes of conclusion.
Thus when I go out or talk with people, I have to warn them three things – I have no inner monologue. I say whatever’s on my mind. And if I think you’re cute, I will ask you out on a date. I’m pretty direct.
Q. But your characters aren’t.
I’m not my characters.
Q. Aren’t some of your characters based on you and your life? For instance, the novel you’re writing set in the post-apocalyptic world – aren’t the characters mostly based off of your friends and family, and your ex-girlfriends?
Yes. But the key word there is “BASED”. And if I lived through a biological cataclysmic event, I might know about it, since I’m not a big fan of the smell of rotting corpses.
Q. You talk about your cat a lot.
Niq’s a cool cat. He’s perhaps the most odd and unusual feline I’ve ever had the pleasure to share space with.
Q. Odd how?
Niq eats things that you would not expect him to…but never when you’re looking right at him. He won’t touch ham, roast beef, salmon, or cantalope. However, he’ll plunge face-first into a pot of cooling broccoli or asparagus and rip open a bag of tortilla chips. He’s even had szechuan Chinese black peppers.
Q. You’re joking. Peppers?
Cat yarf throughout the kitchen. It was incredible. He even got some on the ceiling.
Q. I don’t believe you.
I’ll bring him over, feed him huge amounts of cat food, then let you give him some peppers. Better yet, I’ll give him as much water as he can drink then feed him asparagus and let you smell the catbox when you clean it. Feel free to test this scientifically.
Q. Oh, Niq’s such a sweet cat! I love him!
I love him too, but he’s only sweet because he’s fairly stupid, too. This is the cat who likes the warmth a lit candle provides, but can’t remember how large his butt actually is. Thus he’ll sit down IN the candle on my desk and I’ll hear an earsplitting yowl and smell the sexy scent of burnt cat ass. And a week will pass and HE’LL DO IT AGAIN.
Q. Oh, no way. He’s a great cat.
He –is- a great cat, there’s no question about it. He’s low maintenance, which is rare in Siamese/Burman mixes, but he likes attention and love. He doesn’t have his claws, front or back (which is due to one of his former caretakers not caring a lot about natural animal defenses or cruelty to animals), he ALWAYS uses the litter box, no matter what, he snuggles at night and keeps my feet warm, and he purrs a lot. But he’s also an asparagus-eating, fish-breath spewing, catnip-eating attention whore. I’d clone him if I could
Q. Do you always try to post at least 2,000 words a day?
It’s my goal. I don’t always reach it. When I post at least 2,000 words a day I’ll be putting at least 1 hour of writing in per day on the personal side. Right now I’m trying to get back into shape.
Q. Writing shape?
No. Physical shape. I want to be able to run a 10K in under an hour and drop four waist sizes.
Q. Why?
Because I’m tired of being a fat American who sits around all day in an office. I want to look hot again. And yes, I know I sexy. I know I hot. I just don't want to carry around my extra 40 pounds if it's fat, and not muscle.
Q. You've got to be totally unique in your class of people.
No, I'm not. I'm just a guy who's good at writing who can't seem to keep his mouth shut even when he knows it's for the best. That makes me a writer and a storyteller. I'm just a guy looking for a girl and something real. That makes me human. And I like being human.
Thursday, October 16, 2003
Fitness on MSN : Exercise & Train
Okay, so I'm going through the lists of things I must and must not do to myself. Numero uno is taken care of - goodbye smoking, forever. Yay. Maybe now I can actually manage to continue this "run five miles every so often" thing I've found myself doing.
So now I get through looking up fitness regiments, looking for my personal combo of yoga, pilates, weighted-combat-moves-set-to-hard-rock-music-ala-capoeria, low-impact cardio, and diet.
As much as I hate to do it, goodbye cheese and dairy. Oh, perhaps we'll meet at the cocktail bar, but for now, sweet curdled goat milk, adieu. And while my mouth still drips for you, deep-fried brie, you're going away too.
And oh, my little lost, loved pastries, rice, breads, and heavy grains...yeah, it was nice seeing you again, but unless you're a pita or whole-wheat, you're not going to be around this boy's mouth.
Beer, however - you stay. I'll make the sacrifices for you. Two a week, that's all, though, and dear bacon, pork, and ham - you're outta here. Cattle and sheep and wild game are it, poultry and fish preferably not found scrounging the bottoms of rivers (hello salmon, my old friend!).
Okay, so diet's squared.
Now I must go through my list of beliefs. As counterpoint, I'll look at the "ultimate male fitness model"'s beliefs for workouts.
1. I believe that cardiovascular exercise and strength training are equally important for everybody -- no matter which you prefer, no matter which is trendier at the moment, and no matter what type of body you have.
Makes sense to me. Even though I still have the bouncer's body, I'm getting the 5-year husband's ass. Not the best thing.
2. I believe in diet as an essential component of fitness, not merely a support strategy.
Okay, makes sense...
3. I believe that exercise done in hard, short bursts will get you into better shape, and get you there faster, than long, slow efforts.
YES! Wait...hard work done over short...um...hrm. Long slow easy work? I like that better...I think.
4. I believe that weight-lifting sessions targeting the big muscles must be interspersed with workouts that focus on strengthening the smaller, more injury-prone muscles and joints.
Makes more sense than anything else, especially if it means I don't have to break out the glucosamine.
5. I believe that muscles should be developed for function, not just display.
Aw, come on! I want man-boobs when I'm fifty! I do! Besides, if I were really built for my job I'd be a 120 lb 5'2" man with perfect vision and the sleep needs of a meth addict.
6. I believe that an overemphasis on crunches and situps is not the way to work your midsection and achieve washboard abs.
Okay, you and I are in happy agreement. I'm more of a "don't do anything that involves the stomach hurting" sort of guy. Holdovers from kickball in the third grade.
7. I believe in drinking buckets of water all day long.
Okay. Buckets of tea, as well, perhaps? I do drink copious amounts of liquid in the form of tea. One gallon of it per day, in fact. The secret is only to drink tea in the morning that tastes like buffalo chips warmed slightly over an open fire (Celestial Seasonings' Morning Thunder, to be precise) and something that you actually LIKE to drink in the afternoon (Tea of Iniquity by the Republic of Tea - green tea and toasted rice). Water is...bland.
8. I believe in stretching as a fitness necessity, not as a warmup, cooldown, or ancillary activity.
Yes! I believe that too! I believe it so much I have not-so-fond memories of hobbling around with a cane to prove it! Insta-convert.
9. I believe in rest but not necessarily in rest days.
Eep...but...what about the hangover days? I mean, there WILL be days when I'm not going running. Can't you give me a day off now and then, o Gods of fitness?
10. I believe in clean living.
Oh, now them's just fightin' words.
*sigh* okay, we'll see how this goes...dammit.
Okay, so I'm going through the lists of things I must and must not do to myself. Numero uno is taken care of - goodbye smoking, forever. Yay. Maybe now I can actually manage to continue this "run five miles every so often" thing I've found myself doing.
So now I get through looking up fitness regiments, looking for my personal combo of yoga, pilates, weighted-combat-moves-set-to-hard-rock-music-ala-capoeria, low-impact cardio, and diet.
As much as I hate to do it, goodbye cheese and dairy. Oh, perhaps we'll meet at the cocktail bar, but for now, sweet curdled goat milk, adieu. And while my mouth still drips for you, deep-fried brie, you're going away too.
And oh, my little lost, loved pastries, rice, breads, and heavy grains...yeah, it was nice seeing you again, but unless you're a pita or whole-wheat, you're not going to be around this boy's mouth.
Beer, however - you stay. I'll make the sacrifices for you. Two a week, that's all, though, and dear bacon, pork, and ham - you're outta here. Cattle and sheep and wild game are it, poultry and fish preferably not found scrounging the bottoms of rivers (hello salmon, my old friend!).
Okay, so diet's squared.
Now I must go through my list of beliefs. As counterpoint, I'll look at the "ultimate male fitness model"'s beliefs for workouts.
1. I believe that cardiovascular exercise and strength training are equally important for everybody -- no matter which you prefer, no matter which is trendier at the moment, and no matter what type of body you have.
Makes sense to me. Even though I still have the bouncer's body, I'm getting the 5-year husband's ass. Not the best thing.
2. I believe in diet as an essential component of fitness, not merely a support strategy.
Okay, makes sense...
3. I believe that exercise done in hard, short bursts will get you into better shape, and get you there faster, than long, slow efforts.
YES! Wait...hard work done over short...um...hrm. Long slow easy work? I like that better...I think.
4. I believe that weight-lifting sessions targeting the big muscles must be interspersed with workouts that focus on strengthening the smaller, more injury-prone muscles and joints.
Makes more sense than anything else, especially if it means I don't have to break out the glucosamine.
5. I believe that muscles should be developed for function, not just display.
Aw, come on! I want man-boobs when I'm fifty! I do! Besides, if I were really built for my job I'd be a 120 lb 5'2" man with perfect vision and the sleep needs of a meth addict.
6. I believe that an overemphasis on crunches and situps is not the way to work your midsection and achieve washboard abs.
Okay, you and I are in happy agreement. I'm more of a "don't do anything that involves the stomach hurting" sort of guy. Holdovers from kickball in the third grade.
7. I believe in drinking buckets of water all day long.
Okay. Buckets of tea, as well, perhaps? I do drink copious amounts of liquid in the form of tea. One gallon of it per day, in fact. The secret is only to drink tea in the morning that tastes like buffalo chips warmed slightly over an open fire (Celestial Seasonings' Morning Thunder, to be precise) and something that you actually LIKE to drink in the afternoon (Tea of Iniquity by the Republic of Tea - green tea and toasted rice). Water is...bland.
8. I believe in stretching as a fitness necessity, not as a warmup, cooldown, or ancillary activity.
Yes! I believe that too! I believe it so much I have not-so-fond memories of hobbling around with a cane to prove it! Insta-convert.
9. I believe in rest but not necessarily in rest days.
Eep...but...what about the hangover days? I mean, there WILL be days when I'm not going running. Can't you give me a day off now and then, o Gods of fitness?
10. I believe in clean living.
Oh, now them's just fightin' words.
*sigh* okay, we'll see how this goes...dammit.
Saturday, October 11, 2003
Thursday, October 09, 2003
CNN.com - Rangel calls for mandatory military service
Just as soon as you thought the Republican administration were the only idiots to hit Washington DC, now we've got Representative Rangel and Senator Hollings clamoring to bring back the draft.
There's multiple reasons I oppose a military draft, or requiring young men to arm up and go parade around the world acting like soldiers - or face three years in federal prison and ex-con wages for the rest of their lives. They're fairly simple: they're sexist; they're ageist; and they're illegal as all hell in the interests of basic human rights (and if they're not, they bloody well should be).
I fully comprehend that the American armed forces are at their lowest possible point in many years. The "changes" advocated by Donald Rumsfeld and his Bush cronies make a professional fighting force lean, mean, and tough...but with limited supply and power due to a lack of people to support them. When we speak of the nation's military, we are primarily speaking of men and women who chose military life because they were fiscally obligated to do so. Someone working at a Burger King for forty hours a week may not be making a safe choice when they enlist as a Marine Corps rifleman, but the retirement is excellent; the benefits are good, and if you manage to spend no money whatsoever for five or six years and let your paychecks pile up, it can be a nice tidy little sum.
But there's a big difference in CHOOSING to be a soldier and being gangraped into doing it by a fatass Represenative who spent HIS military service bitching about how he had to sit in the rearguard. And my, aren't those mosquitoes just the devil?
The policy changes that are being argued, and the necessity of the draft isn't apparent to me. If the draft was established, it would only require that young men between the ages of 18 and 26 be called up to serve their country in time of war, and forced to either prove why they could not be shipped to a different country to kill people, or to find alternative methods of escape. Rangel's arguments that men and women of ethnic minorities are the ones who are disproportionately affected by the military, and so, in a twisted bout of logic, he has assumed that by instituting a draft, fewer men of color will die in foreign lands. And he argues that National Guardsmen join up to march in parades, play at patriotism, and perform public service one weekend a month - not spend their lives in a different country where they get killed.
To me, that reminds me of the episode of "The Simpsons", where Homer, fired from the nuclear plant, sees a commercial on television stating, "The men and women of the U.S. Navy are fighting to protect our freedom on the high seas. But you're at home in Odessa, Texas, washing down a statue. And half the time you serve, you're drunk off your ass. Join the Naval Reserve and protect our freedom."
It's even to the point now where young men and women who thought about joining the Reserve out of patriotism are thinking twice. The money for college is available, but they're balking. And it's not hard to see why. When for thirty years you've been promised you'll stay at home out of harm's way and wash the base chaplain's car as your service to your country, and suddenly you've been plunked in-country to get your left leg blown off...it tends to decrease the glory of being a stay-at-home soldier and part-time patriot.
Rangel's theory is that by instituting the draft, he'll manage to get the rich children slapped into privates' uniforms and placed in harm's way - so their parents will lobby against the war, and the ethnic minorities and the poor will start getting replaced. Unfortunately, Rangel's kind of an idiot, and hasn't read history - that the majority of people in the Vietnam War who went to Vietnam and died were boys from working-class families. Men who were 18 and 19. Vietnam helicopter gunners in had an average life expectancy of 60 seconds. There were reasons people screamed "4-F!" and pretended to be gay to get out of going.
We knew it wasn't an honorable war. It was fifteen years of protest and war and there was nothing we could do about it. Even the change of presidents from JFK to LBJ and Dick Nixon and Ford didn't help. We pulled out long overdue and there's a long wall of black granite with names in 20 pt chiseled type commemorating that great mistake. And no matter what, if you had the body to throw into the conflict, there was a one in five chance you were going to be a name on that wall and a body in a bag sent home by C-130.
Drafting young men for a war that is unjust or unpopular is not a good move for the United States government to consider renewing. And that brings us to the second reason the draft should never be instituted.
Until there's a day when men and women of the ages of 18 and 26 are treated equally in the eyes of the law, in the eyes of the armed service, and given full responsibilities and duties, there is no way I will ever support a military draft. That means women must be given rifles and sniper scopes and tank helmets and Kevlar. Women must be placed into full combat positions and fight and live with other soldiers, and there cannot be the screams of an agonized nation as the Pentagon trumps up a story about a poor little blonde girl from West Virginia who said, "Hey, y'all, I be a soldier too! Get me outta this here holla!" (and quickly ignores the true story of the single black mother who got shot in both ankles while she actually WAS firing back at the Iraqis who captured her convoy). Women must be given full parity - and by that I mean they accept the same burdens as men do in the military. I'm all for equality - but that also means down to the very last core. We must finally get the concept through our heads that men and women are equal in every aspect save interior plumbing - and until the United States is willing to draft young women and send them off to die in foreign fields and suffer gross indignities, then I'm going to encourage every man between 18 and 26 to plunk his ass down and not budge when someone says he has to go off and defend the women and children. The womenfolk can defend their own damn selves now, and it's no longer my social province to even open a door without getting a, "I can do it myself, hole" thrown back at me.
Now, here's the thing - I might actually be FOR compulsory public service. And I say PUBLIC service. That means under a well-thought-out proposal (not Rangel's ill-advised verbal diarhettic race-relations-spawned idiocy), at the age of 18, every man and woman would be required by law to serve in a public capacity, whether that be planting trees in ecologically damaged wild lands, working with police officers in neighborhood patrols, voluntarily joining the military, or working in a city government.. The point is, they could choose what kind of work they would want to do and apply for it, like a job market. Or they could defer it. Or change their minds. The point being, nobody randomly picks them up off the street (or out of school, or their lives, or work) and makes them go goosestepping through the drill because a New York Represenative thinks that having ethnic minorities in the U.S. Armed Forces is totally unfair, and that Al Sharpton oughta hold a press conference.
(A side note: When Al Sharpton says, "Oh no, honey, I ain't that stupid," you know it's a dumb idea.)
This does two things. It gives kids a break from the world of their parents and sets them in an independent frame of mind. There are plenty of benefits - in the first two years of college, most students form their habits. The "freshman Fail" is a prime example of this. Many freshmen wash out because of the pressures of being away from home for the first time and being independent from their parents. By giving youth a place to live and requiring them to give service to the public, those years (or 5,000 man-hours of work distributed over four years) could be spent doing the all important "finding myself" most young men and women go through, with the added advantage that they can save up money for college with the wages they make.
Oh, but then we'd be gutting the current workforce. After all, when your state budgets can't handle payment for teachers to have basic health care and livable wage salaries, how could we expect to hire a teenager for every classroom to keep those kids from being "left behind"? And you'd certainly destroy the funding base for that lucrative music store business. And you'd have to provide full benefits to the kids - all of them. From a rough estimate, that's perhaps 30 million new jobs created in the blink of an eye. Unemployment may sink like a brick, but then who pays for it? That's right - the taxpaying public, putting more burden on the tax base.
Of course, if we don't find a way to send young men and women off to foreign countries where the heat can hit 140 degrees in August to get blown up by people who would rather the US just pack up and go home and leave them alone, we may actually have to find a way to pay them back for forcing them into a uniform and learn to handle a gun.
And if Rangel has his way, the draft will pop up, not allowing the kids who just learned they could vote that right before getting packed up and sent to basic training.
For me, it's a lot simpler. I didn't go into the military because I didn't want to. It's the same thing. Many friends of mine and relatives joined the military of their own free will - and left of their own free will. The thing is, they left because they became disillusioned with the military and the actions it was being required to do.
The Bushies have long said that they run their political apparatus like a business. Well, why do rats leave a ship? Why do National Guardsmen and Reservists leave after 25 years of service? Why do highly-decorated officers sign off in public disclosures of a lack of faith in the military? Is it because Bush and his friends learned their business ethics from Enron, Halliburton, and the Texas Rangers?
It's more likely few Americans faith in this administration's choices. The National Guardsmen in Iraq certainly never signed up for staying a full year. Nobody signed up for it. The decisions of a reckless madman drunk on his own power drove us to this point, and it was only through sudden, sobering reflection on what REALLY happened did George W. Bush start paying attention to the hows and whys of footing the bill for the Imperious Wex syndrome his cronies inflicted upon the Middle East.
When one of my cousins complained that he couldn't get out of the military, I told him, "Hang on there, Mr. Marine, you'll make it." But accompanied in the same letter was, Cous, you knew what the military was when you signed on for it. You knew you could be called up and deployed at any time. You knew this was a possibility. Just because it hasn't happened doesn't mean it won't. Does it suck that you're away from your fiancée? Certainly. Do I have sympathy for you? Sure. But in return for a paycheck, you gave up certain parts of your life, and whether you're a U.S. serviceperson or a draftee, you don't get to make these choices.
I'm concerned most about this haphazard piece of badly-crafted public policy because it's knee-jerk legislation. Rangel and his cronies aren't thinking this through - they have an agenda and they want to make it happen - and they're choosing their time and place. At no other point in the last 40 years, since the start of the Vietnam war, did it even seem necessary to institute the draft. But now things are "bad enough" in Iraq that drafting unwilling conscripts from the ranks of disaffected youth might well seem like a good idea.
Rangel's ultimate reason for this, though, came out when he gave an interview saying that young black men and women, Hispanic men and women and other minorities that were not Asian made up a huge number of the armed forces. To his mind, that's unfair. So instead, he wants to force all of America's youth to fight in a war, regardless of race, creed, or color.
Rangel's argument would be much more effective had he ever served in the military, or if he volunteered men and women in equal number for the draft to do service...with no exclusion for age. 60-year olds with successful businesses and seven-figure salaries, women who attend night school; mothers and fathers and teachers and professors and politicians and homeless men and women, all bundled up and sent off to kill or be killed. Truly representative of the United States. But then, Rangel wouldn't know. Nor would his buddy Hollings. Like Bush and most of his administration, these two Democrats may laud their praises of the land of the free and the home of the brave, but on their off hours manage to fuck it up as quickly as they can.
I agree, though, that Hollings' retirement is one of the best that could possibly happen for the Democratic party. These two men are the Rick Santoriums of the Dems and they managed to screw up as much as they can. By that I mean they actually wield enough power to make bad things happen quickly - and that their ideas, while well-intentioned in some respects, are also so stupidly self-serving...well, I'd definitely back a Republican against these two twits.
It would all be so surreal if I didn't read how Russia's army, full of young men who die at the hands of brutal hazing, training, and torture has produced the largest number of AWOL troops in the nation. They get paid nothing and run away - and these men quickly vanish into the background of Russian society. So if the U.S. does institute the draft, I'm perfectly fine with that...except I'll be a citizen of the Republic of Ireland.
Last week, Rangel said, "I don't think we can afford that. I'm talking about the complaints I'm getting right now from all reserves and guards about their lives being so disrupted. I'm getting major complaints from almost every major unit."
So according to Rangel, it'll be better if instead we will kidnap men and women from their normal lives who never wanted to be in the military at all. Who didn't volunteer. Who DON'T want a gun in their hands and a pack on their back. Whose only reason for being in uniform was having a birthday on the day pulled first out of a tank of water? And does he think the complaints will reduce because we draft young men and women who cannot afford lawyers, expensive educations, or have family members with political connections to keep them out of harms' way? No, Rangel doesn't care anything about that - Rangel's off in his own little world, oblivious to the needs and wants of others. A perfect candidate for Retroactive Abortion if I've ever seen one. As for Hollings, he's been Disney's Bitch for forty years and he['s not about to stop doing stupid shit now.
But then again, Rangel isn't approaching this because he wants men and women to serve their country. He's doing it to piss off the Bushies and the War Hawks - and he's doing a good job of it. But the Korean War vet
Perhaps Rangel and Hollings ought to listen to the men and women they serve, instead of the little voices in their heads. It may well preserve them from the wrath of literally millions of young voters in the future - who resent the implication that they, and they alone, are going to have to fix what the incompetence of this nation's leaders have broken...and do it with a smile.
Frankly, I'd rather see the both of THEM shanghaied into serving again.
Just as soon as you thought the Republican administration were the only idiots to hit Washington DC, now we've got Representative Rangel and Senator Hollings clamoring to bring back the draft.
There's multiple reasons I oppose a military draft, or requiring young men to arm up and go parade around the world acting like soldiers - or face three years in federal prison and ex-con wages for the rest of their lives. They're fairly simple: they're sexist; they're ageist; and they're illegal as all hell in the interests of basic human rights (and if they're not, they bloody well should be).
I fully comprehend that the American armed forces are at their lowest possible point in many years. The "changes" advocated by Donald Rumsfeld and his Bush cronies make a professional fighting force lean, mean, and tough...but with limited supply and power due to a lack of people to support them. When we speak of the nation's military, we are primarily speaking of men and women who chose military life because they were fiscally obligated to do so. Someone working at a Burger King for forty hours a week may not be making a safe choice when they enlist as a Marine Corps rifleman, but the retirement is excellent; the benefits are good, and if you manage to spend no money whatsoever for five or six years and let your paychecks pile up, it can be a nice tidy little sum.
But there's a big difference in CHOOSING to be a soldier and being gangraped into doing it by a fatass Represenative who spent HIS military service bitching about how he had to sit in the rearguard. And my, aren't those mosquitoes just the devil?
The policy changes that are being argued, and the necessity of the draft isn't apparent to me. If the draft was established, it would only require that young men between the ages of 18 and 26 be called up to serve their country in time of war, and forced to either prove why they could not be shipped to a different country to kill people, or to find alternative methods of escape. Rangel's arguments that men and women of ethnic minorities are the ones who are disproportionately affected by the military, and so, in a twisted bout of logic, he has assumed that by instituting a draft, fewer men of color will die in foreign lands. And he argues that National Guardsmen join up to march in parades, play at patriotism, and perform public service one weekend a month - not spend their lives in a different country where they get killed.
To me, that reminds me of the episode of "The Simpsons", where Homer, fired from the nuclear plant, sees a commercial on television stating, "The men and women of the U.S. Navy are fighting to protect our freedom on the high seas. But you're at home in Odessa, Texas, washing down a statue. And half the time you serve, you're drunk off your ass. Join the Naval Reserve and protect our freedom."
It's even to the point now where young men and women who thought about joining the Reserve out of patriotism are thinking twice. The money for college is available, but they're balking. And it's not hard to see why. When for thirty years you've been promised you'll stay at home out of harm's way and wash the base chaplain's car as your service to your country, and suddenly you've been plunked in-country to get your left leg blown off...it tends to decrease the glory of being a stay-at-home soldier and part-time patriot.
Rangel's theory is that by instituting the draft, he'll manage to get the rich children slapped into privates' uniforms and placed in harm's way - so their parents will lobby against the war, and the ethnic minorities and the poor will start getting replaced. Unfortunately, Rangel's kind of an idiot, and hasn't read history - that the majority of people in the Vietnam War who went to Vietnam and died were boys from working-class families. Men who were 18 and 19. Vietnam helicopter gunners in had an average life expectancy of 60 seconds. There were reasons people screamed "4-F!" and pretended to be gay to get out of going.
We knew it wasn't an honorable war. It was fifteen years of protest and war and there was nothing we could do about it. Even the change of presidents from JFK to LBJ and Dick Nixon and Ford didn't help. We pulled out long overdue and there's a long wall of black granite with names in 20 pt chiseled type commemorating that great mistake. And no matter what, if you had the body to throw into the conflict, there was a one in five chance you were going to be a name on that wall and a body in a bag sent home by C-130.
Drafting young men for a war that is unjust or unpopular is not a good move for the United States government to consider renewing. And that brings us to the second reason the draft should never be instituted.
Until there's a day when men and women of the ages of 18 and 26 are treated equally in the eyes of the law, in the eyes of the armed service, and given full responsibilities and duties, there is no way I will ever support a military draft. That means women must be given rifles and sniper scopes and tank helmets and Kevlar. Women must be placed into full combat positions and fight and live with other soldiers, and there cannot be the screams of an agonized nation as the Pentagon trumps up a story about a poor little blonde girl from West Virginia who said, "Hey, y'all, I be a soldier too! Get me outta this here holla!" (and quickly ignores the true story of the single black mother who got shot in both ankles while she actually WAS firing back at the Iraqis who captured her convoy). Women must be given full parity - and by that I mean they accept the same burdens as men do in the military. I'm all for equality - but that also means down to the very last core. We must finally get the concept through our heads that men and women are equal in every aspect save interior plumbing - and until the United States is willing to draft young women and send them off to die in foreign fields and suffer gross indignities, then I'm going to encourage every man between 18 and 26 to plunk his ass down and not budge when someone says he has to go off and defend the women and children. The womenfolk can defend their own damn selves now, and it's no longer my social province to even open a door without getting a, "I can do it myself, hole" thrown back at me.
Now, here's the thing - I might actually be FOR compulsory public service. And I say PUBLIC service. That means under a well-thought-out proposal (not Rangel's ill-advised verbal diarhettic race-relations-spawned idiocy), at the age of 18, every man and woman would be required by law to serve in a public capacity, whether that be planting trees in ecologically damaged wild lands, working with police officers in neighborhood patrols, voluntarily joining the military, or working in a city government.. The point is, they could choose what kind of work they would want to do and apply for it, like a job market. Or they could defer it. Or change their minds. The point being, nobody randomly picks them up off the street (or out of school, or their lives, or work) and makes them go goosestepping through the drill because a New York Represenative thinks that having ethnic minorities in the U.S. Armed Forces is totally unfair, and that Al Sharpton oughta hold a press conference.
(A side note: When Al Sharpton says, "Oh no, honey, I ain't that stupid," you know it's a dumb idea.)
This does two things. It gives kids a break from the world of their parents and sets them in an independent frame of mind. There are plenty of benefits - in the first two years of college, most students form their habits. The "freshman Fail" is a prime example of this. Many freshmen wash out because of the pressures of being away from home for the first time and being independent from their parents. By giving youth a place to live and requiring them to give service to the public, those years (or 5,000 man-hours of work distributed over four years) could be spent doing the all important "finding myself" most young men and women go through, with the added advantage that they can save up money for college with the wages they make.
Oh, but then we'd be gutting the current workforce. After all, when your state budgets can't handle payment for teachers to have basic health care and livable wage salaries, how could we expect to hire a teenager for every classroom to keep those kids from being "left behind"? And you'd certainly destroy the funding base for that lucrative music store business. And you'd have to provide full benefits to the kids - all of them. From a rough estimate, that's perhaps 30 million new jobs created in the blink of an eye. Unemployment may sink like a brick, but then who pays for it? That's right - the taxpaying public, putting more burden on the tax base.
Of course, if we don't find a way to send young men and women off to foreign countries where the heat can hit 140 degrees in August to get blown up by people who would rather the US just pack up and go home and leave them alone, we may actually have to find a way to pay them back for forcing them into a uniform and learn to handle a gun.
And if Rangel has his way, the draft will pop up, not allowing the kids who just learned they could vote that right before getting packed up and sent to basic training.
For me, it's a lot simpler. I didn't go into the military because I didn't want to. It's the same thing. Many friends of mine and relatives joined the military of their own free will - and left of their own free will. The thing is, they left because they became disillusioned with the military and the actions it was being required to do.
The Bushies have long said that they run their political apparatus like a business. Well, why do rats leave a ship? Why do National Guardsmen and Reservists leave after 25 years of service? Why do highly-decorated officers sign off in public disclosures of a lack of faith in the military? Is it because Bush and his friends learned their business ethics from Enron, Halliburton, and the Texas Rangers?
It's more likely few Americans faith in this administration's choices. The National Guardsmen in Iraq certainly never signed up for staying a full year. Nobody signed up for it. The decisions of a reckless madman drunk on his own power drove us to this point, and it was only through sudden, sobering reflection on what REALLY happened did George W. Bush start paying attention to the hows and whys of footing the bill for the Imperious Wex syndrome his cronies inflicted upon the Middle East.
When one of my cousins complained that he couldn't get out of the military, I told him, "Hang on there, Mr. Marine, you'll make it." But accompanied in the same letter was, Cous, you knew what the military was when you signed on for it. You knew you could be called up and deployed at any time. You knew this was a possibility. Just because it hasn't happened doesn't mean it won't. Does it suck that you're away from your fiancée? Certainly. Do I have sympathy for you? Sure. But in return for a paycheck, you gave up certain parts of your life, and whether you're a U.S. serviceperson or a draftee, you don't get to make these choices.
I'm concerned most about this haphazard piece of badly-crafted public policy because it's knee-jerk legislation. Rangel and his cronies aren't thinking this through - they have an agenda and they want to make it happen - and they're choosing their time and place. At no other point in the last 40 years, since the start of the Vietnam war, did it even seem necessary to institute the draft. But now things are "bad enough" in Iraq that drafting unwilling conscripts from the ranks of disaffected youth might well seem like a good idea.
Rangel's ultimate reason for this, though, came out when he gave an interview saying that young black men and women, Hispanic men and women and other minorities that were not Asian made up a huge number of the armed forces. To his mind, that's unfair. So instead, he wants to force all of America's youth to fight in a war, regardless of race, creed, or color.
Rangel's argument would be much more effective had he ever served in the military, or if he volunteered men and women in equal number for the draft to do service...with no exclusion for age. 60-year olds with successful businesses and seven-figure salaries, women who attend night school; mothers and fathers and teachers and professors and politicians and homeless men and women, all bundled up and sent off to kill or be killed. Truly representative of the United States. But then, Rangel wouldn't know. Nor would his buddy Hollings. Like Bush and most of his administration, these two Democrats may laud their praises of the land of the free and the home of the brave, but on their off hours manage to fuck it up as quickly as they can.
I agree, though, that Hollings' retirement is one of the best that could possibly happen for the Democratic party. These two men are the Rick Santoriums of the Dems and they managed to screw up as much as they can. By that I mean they actually wield enough power to make bad things happen quickly - and that their ideas, while well-intentioned in some respects, are also so stupidly self-serving...well, I'd definitely back a Republican against these two twits.
It would all be so surreal if I didn't read how Russia's army, full of young men who die at the hands of brutal hazing, training, and torture has produced the largest number of AWOL troops in the nation. They get paid nothing and run away - and these men quickly vanish into the background of Russian society. So if the U.S. does institute the draft, I'm perfectly fine with that...except I'll be a citizen of the Republic of Ireland.
Last week, Rangel said, "I don't think we can afford that. I'm talking about the complaints I'm getting right now from all reserves and guards about their lives being so disrupted. I'm getting major complaints from almost every major unit."
So according to Rangel, it'll be better if instead we will kidnap men and women from their normal lives who never wanted to be in the military at all. Who didn't volunteer. Who DON'T want a gun in their hands and a pack on their back. Whose only reason for being in uniform was having a birthday on the day pulled first out of a tank of water? And does he think the complaints will reduce because we draft young men and women who cannot afford lawyers, expensive educations, or have family members with political connections to keep them out of harms' way? No, Rangel doesn't care anything about that - Rangel's off in his own little world, oblivious to the needs and wants of others. A perfect candidate for Retroactive Abortion if I've ever seen one. As for Hollings, he's been Disney's Bitch for forty years and he['s not about to stop doing stupid shit now.
But then again, Rangel isn't approaching this because he wants men and women to serve their country. He's doing it to piss off the Bushies and the War Hawks - and he's doing a good job of it. But the Korean War vet
Perhaps Rangel and Hollings ought to listen to the men and women they serve, instead of the little voices in their heads. It may well preserve them from the wrath of literally millions of young voters in the future - who resent the implication that they, and they alone, are going to have to fix what the incompetence of this nation's leaders have broken...and do it with a smile.
Frankly, I'd rather see the both of THEM shanghaied into serving again.
Wednesday, October 08, 2003
Marriage Protection Week, 2003
FUCK.
Seriously. That's all I can say about this.
WHAT. THE. FUCK.
Now what? Will I get tax credits if I go to Vegas for the weekend? Should I get married just so I can have another $3,000 in my pocket while the top 1% get another $300,000 tax credit?
FUCK FUCK FUCK.
I'm pissed. Making rum drinks now.
FUCK.
Seriously. That's all I can say about this.
WHAT. THE. FUCK.
Now what? Will I get tax credits if I go to Vegas for the weekend? Should I get married just so I can have another $3,000 in my pocket while the top 1% get another $300,000 tax credit?
FUCK FUCK FUCK.
I'm pissed. Making rum drinks now.
Today, it's all about you, Ah-nold.
There's nothing I can say about the California gubernatorial election that hasn't been said before. I can only wonder why the friends I have in the state of California were the minority when it came to throwing the democratic processes out the window. I suppose, in a way, that Gray Davis has met defeat for the last time. I sure hope so - his political career appeared to me to be the finest example of how anyone professing the ideals of a Democrat should NOT act.
Much like pseudo-Democrat and apparently "paid" presidential candidate Wesley Clark (who can't even apparently keep a campaign manager for more than a fortnight without pissing them off), Davis had a penchant for adopting the neatest image he could. He was handsome, and surely, somewhat charismatic - but his recall vote mirrored his approval ratings prior to the election. By contrast, his main opponent, Arnold Schwarzenegger had never met an audience he didn't like (and also apparently never met a pair of female body parts he didn't like). Much like Bush, Arnold has a slow manner of speaking left over from years reading out simple sentences for simple people. His logic, while crafted well by others, still lacks the spark that flew through other politicians' platforms.
Now, 11 months after Davis took a second term of office, Arnold has proven that all it takes is money, powerful friends, and a face that you can trust to win an election. The news media fawned over him. From the moment he said he was going to do it - people knew that he was going to win. Those who scoffed (myself among them), assuming that Californians would never choose Arnie as their governor, apparently didn't consult the Minnesota handbook of politicking - if you can make enough people believe you're different, but still comforting, you can rule.
I'm not saying I wanted the porn actress who demanded new taxes on silicone implants, or Gary Coleman to be on the gubernatorial throne. For one thing, the State of California has enough problems without State Police saying, "Whatchoo talking about Willis?" every time the governor has walked in, nor the governor's mansion converted to house an army of cameramen and women in implausible high heels.
What I really wanted was Californians to realize when they were being duped into hijacking the democratic process. The initiative process, instilled to bring "power to the people", now has the ability to change state leaders and force state governments to shell out millions for someone's pet project. With $2 million in the bank and an axe to grind, the Republicans of California locked targets on Davis and sent in Arnold to mop him up. With a presidential election year only a few short months away, it's likely that Californians who awed themselves with the big beefy guy will look straight past the little guy nicknamed "Gilligan" shaking Arnie's hand and vote on a party line.
The rumors that Arnold and Vice-President Dick Cheney went to a meeting with the CEO of Enron Corporation to discuss the quelling of California's $9 billion lawsuit is especially telling. The Enron debacle has been overshadowed by the war on terror, September 11, 2001, the war in Afghanistan, the war in Iraq, and the new Circus Circus that became Sacramento, California. Even the smear campaign thrown at Schwarzenegger in the final hours of the campaign by Davis supporters - while apparently all true, and highly disturbing in its allegations (Schwarzenegger publicly admired Adolf Hitler; multiple molestations of women and girls; admissions of drug use; and backdoor sessions with the Enron people), it still smelled of defeatist mud.
The thing is, California's political processes are almost overbearing. Arnold now resides as the governor of the State of California - a state whose gross domestic economy surpassed France and Italy in the early 2000s. It's a small nation within a nation. And it's still trying to operate as a state.
Here's my thought on California, and bear with me. Break it into two halves. Northern California and Southern California. Do it right there, halfway down the coast. Run a line from Monterey Bay to Boundary Peak and call that your state line. Split it down the middle and let north keep Sacramento and the urban culture of San Francisco; the south gets Fresno and the odd array of people in Los Angeles. Any further along and it'll fracture.
Nothing is sacred any longer - the recall election (originally intended to pull down a governor whose duties shredded law and the will of the people - neither of which Davis could be legitimately accused of doing) can be bought for $2.5 million dollars for the salaries of paid signature gatherers, brought to the ballot for $50,000, and sent up the river with a mass media blitz funded by special interests. In other words, if you've got yourself a spare $10 million lying around, you too can become governor of the state any day you like.
The political process is breaking apart under the stress of the special interests and the people who can roll up that kind of money. George W. Bush is not the popularly elected president of the United States - he's merely the fiscally elected president, and his leadership is sorely lacking.
And, as many Americans know, the people who control the money only allow the unwashed masses so much leeway before they begin to spend for pretty commercials and news coverage. A senator here and a senator there, paid for with campaign contributions, and eventually you may buy as many votes as you can.
In a year or maybe two, maybe the ability to vote will be given based on how much you make per year. If you're living on welfare, you can't vote at all. Prison - likewise. If you're a college student, there's no income for you. Last year's tax return in the thousands of dollars will determine how many votes you get. For W and his pals, it'll be a paltry 5,000 votes apiece. Bill Gates will be the most powerful political entity. Microsoft could rename Washington to Windows Titanium State.
Silly, sure. But it's not far from the reality. And that's more painful than I'd like to let on.
It's painful to watch some days, and more days I look towards the north, imagining that perhaps, just north of the Vancouver-Washington line - there might be a better life. But then I think about Canadian politicians. The slagging economy there. The grand theft auto crime rife throughout the cities on the border. The snarkiness, and the fact that Canadians may be all too polite to each other, but they've still got an inferiority complex the size of Saskatchewan when it comes to their neighbor down south. I can't count how many times I've heard, "You stupid Americans, eh? Can't you elect someone who has more than three brain cells, eh?"
I may just take up stargazing again. Or better yet, I'll be the first sane person to colonize Alpha Centauri...
If they haven't already gotten the fair and balanced reporting of CNN.
There's nothing I can say about the California gubernatorial election that hasn't been said before. I can only wonder why the friends I have in the state of California were the minority when it came to throwing the democratic processes out the window. I suppose, in a way, that Gray Davis has met defeat for the last time. I sure hope so - his political career appeared to me to be the finest example of how anyone professing the ideals of a Democrat should NOT act.
Much like pseudo-Democrat and apparently "paid" presidential candidate Wesley Clark (who can't even apparently keep a campaign manager for more than a fortnight without pissing them off), Davis had a penchant for adopting the neatest image he could. He was handsome, and surely, somewhat charismatic - but his recall vote mirrored his approval ratings prior to the election. By contrast, his main opponent, Arnold Schwarzenegger had never met an audience he didn't like (and also apparently never met a pair of female body parts he didn't like). Much like Bush, Arnold has a slow manner of speaking left over from years reading out simple sentences for simple people. His logic, while crafted well by others, still lacks the spark that flew through other politicians' platforms.
Now, 11 months after Davis took a second term of office, Arnold has proven that all it takes is money, powerful friends, and a face that you can trust to win an election. The news media fawned over him. From the moment he said he was going to do it - people knew that he was going to win. Those who scoffed (myself among them), assuming that Californians would never choose Arnie as their governor, apparently didn't consult the Minnesota handbook of politicking - if you can make enough people believe you're different, but still comforting, you can rule.
I'm not saying I wanted the porn actress who demanded new taxes on silicone implants, or Gary Coleman to be on the gubernatorial throne. For one thing, the State of California has enough problems without State Police saying, "Whatchoo talking about Willis?" every time the governor has walked in, nor the governor's mansion converted to house an army of cameramen and women in implausible high heels.
What I really wanted was Californians to realize when they were being duped into hijacking the democratic process. The initiative process, instilled to bring "power to the people", now has the ability to change state leaders and force state governments to shell out millions for someone's pet project. With $2 million in the bank and an axe to grind, the Republicans of California locked targets on Davis and sent in Arnold to mop him up. With a presidential election year only a few short months away, it's likely that Californians who awed themselves with the big beefy guy will look straight past the little guy nicknamed "Gilligan" shaking Arnie's hand and vote on a party line.
The rumors that Arnold and Vice-President Dick Cheney went to a meeting with the CEO of Enron Corporation to discuss the quelling of California's $9 billion lawsuit is especially telling. The Enron debacle has been overshadowed by the war on terror, September 11, 2001, the war in Afghanistan, the war in Iraq, and the new Circus Circus that became Sacramento, California. Even the smear campaign thrown at Schwarzenegger in the final hours of the campaign by Davis supporters - while apparently all true, and highly disturbing in its allegations (Schwarzenegger publicly admired Adolf Hitler; multiple molestations of women and girls; admissions of drug use; and backdoor sessions with the Enron people), it still smelled of defeatist mud.
The thing is, California's political processes are almost overbearing. Arnold now resides as the governor of the State of California - a state whose gross domestic economy surpassed France and Italy in the early 2000s. It's a small nation within a nation. And it's still trying to operate as a state.
Here's my thought on California, and bear with me. Break it into two halves. Northern California and Southern California. Do it right there, halfway down the coast. Run a line from Monterey Bay to Boundary Peak and call that your state line. Split it down the middle and let north keep Sacramento and the urban culture of San Francisco; the south gets Fresno and the odd array of people in Los Angeles. Any further along and it'll fracture.
Nothing is sacred any longer - the recall election (originally intended to pull down a governor whose duties shredded law and the will of the people - neither of which Davis could be legitimately accused of doing) can be bought for $2.5 million dollars for the salaries of paid signature gatherers, brought to the ballot for $50,000, and sent up the river with a mass media blitz funded by special interests. In other words, if you've got yourself a spare $10 million lying around, you too can become governor of the state any day you like.
The political process is breaking apart under the stress of the special interests and the people who can roll up that kind of money. George W. Bush is not the popularly elected president of the United States - he's merely the fiscally elected president, and his leadership is sorely lacking.
And, as many Americans know, the people who control the money only allow the unwashed masses so much leeway before they begin to spend for pretty commercials and news coverage. A senator here and a senator there, paid for with campaign contributions, and eventually you may buy as many votes as you can.
In a year or maybe two, maybe the ability to vote will be given based on how much you make per year. If you're living on welfare, you can't vote at all. Prison - likewise. If you're a college student, there's no income for you. Last year's tax return in the thousands of dollars will determine how many votes you get. For W and his pals, it'll be a paltry 5,000 votes apiece. Bill Gates will be the most powerful political entity. Microsoft could rename Washington to Windows Titanium State.
Silly, sure. But it's not far from the reality. And that's more painful than I'd like to let on.
It's painful to watch some days, and more days I look towards the north, imagining that perhaps, just north of the Vancouver-Washington line - there might be a better life. But then I think about Canadian politicians. The slagging economy there. The grand theft auto crime rife throughout the cities on the border. The snarkiness, and the fact that Canadians may be all too polite to each other, but they've still got an inferiority complex the size of Saskatchewan when it comes to their neighbor down south. I can't count how many times I've heard, "You stupid Americans, eh? Can't you elect someone who has more than three brain cells, eh?"
I may just take up stargazing again. Or better yet, I'll be the first sane person to colonize Alpha Centauri...
If they haven't already gotten the fair and balanced reporting of CNN.
Tuesday, October 07, 2003
OLGA - The On-Line Guitar Archive
What I don't get is that with the RIAA raising hell with MP3s, they haven't gone after my favorite chord progression site at all.
Nothing better than learning how to play Front 242 on an acoustic guitar. Yeah, baby.
4,000 words last night, 2,500 tonight. But they got put somewhere other than here, because the first ain't going here, and the second...she is part of a book, yes.
On that note, keep in mind that I still have NO unnaturally colored hair on my head. No cigarettes! At all! Yet I forgot to put my patch on today, and thus about 4:45 PM started getting very grumpy. To the point where I started doing the thing where I scream at the radio when I hear George the Boy King's voice on the radio...then when Arnie came on talking about victory in California, I started doing the same.
Now I can never watch a Schwarznegger movie, ever, ever again.
It's a f*&ing sad day for California.
What I don't get is that with the RIAA raising hell with MP3s, they haven't gone after my favorite chord progression site at all.
Nothing better than learning how to play Front 242 on an acoustic guitar. Yeah, baby.
4,000 words last night, 2,500 tonight. But they got put somewhere other than here, because the first ain't going here, and the second...she is part of a book, yes.
On that note, keep in mind that I still have NO unnaturally colored hair on my head. No cigarettes! At all! Yet I forgot to put my patch on today, and thus about 4:45 PM started getting very grumpy. To the point where I started doing the thing where I scream at the radio when I hear George the Boy King's voice on the radio...then when Arnie came on talking about victory in California, I started doing the same.
Now I can never watch a Schwarznegger movie, ever, ever again.
It's a f*&ing sad day for California.
SCARY GO ROUND by John Allison :: MONDAY TO FRIDAY :: COMIC
When I build my pub, I will have one of these in the mens' restroom.
Girls, you can fend for yourselves.
I will post more coherently after my session and sound more intelligent. Bleah.
When I build my pub, I will have one of these in the mens' restroom.
Girls, you can fend for yourselves.
I will post more coherently after my session and sound more intelligent. Bleah.
Thursday, October 02, 2003
The Drunken Monkey Blog
Did I mention that I'm going to dance upon the graves of the guy who invented spam?
400 freakin' numbers. My god. Seriously though, there's something wrong with the world if John Ashcroft is encouraging prosecutors NOT to do a plea bargain in any case if they think they can get the maximum penalty...and then someone in the White House leaked an undercover CIA agent's name to the press.
I really, REALLY would like to see someone in the Bush administration tried for treason. It wouldn't be joyous, but more like a bittersweet moment. Because I'll have confirmed that I need to be in a nation with a dedicated mission and heartfelt enthusiasm for drinking and eating starchy foods.
Oh, Ireland, my ancestral home...why did thou forsake me and send my ancestors to Iowa when you couldn't keep one lousy crop alive?
Did I mention that I'm going to dance upon the graves of the guy who invented spam?
400 freakin' numbers. My god. Seriously though, there's something wrong with the world if John Ashcroft is encouraging prosecutors NOT to do a plea bargain in any case if they think they can get the maximum penalty...and then someone in the White House leaked an undercover CIA agent's name to the press.
I really, REALLY would like to see someone in the Bush administration tried for treason. It wouldn't be joyous, but more like a bittersweet moment. Because I'll have confirmed that I need to be in a nation with a dedicated mission and heartfelt enthusiasm for drinking and eating starchy foods.
Oh, Ireland, my ancestral home...why did thou forsake me and send my ancestors to Iowa when you couldn't keep one lousy crop alive?
Wednesday, October 01, 2003
What the heck *is* emo anyway? I am about a biscuit away from committing sacriligious murder on my ISP. People talk about this, but oh, no. No no no. I'm definitely gonna do it.
I'm a-switchin' to comcast, mo-fos.
Oh yeah. What's emo? Emo is emotional music. Dashboard Confessional? (THEY SUCK.) The White Stripes? (THEY ARKANSAS-SIBLING-LOVING-SUCK). And let's see...oh, hell, the only group that could possibly be considered, potentially, POSSIBLY emo that has made it onto anyone's list is Fugazi...and they just don't suck.
Ha. I'm going to see Primus though. Even though they suck.
I'm a-switchin' to comcast, mo-fos.
Oh yeah. What's emo? Emo is emotional music. Dashboard Confessional? (THEY SUCK.) The White Stripes? (THEY ARKANSAS-SIBLING-LOVING-SUCK). And let's see...oh, hell, the only group that could possibly be considered, potentially, POSSIBLY emo that has made it onto anyone's list is Fugazi...and they just don't suck.
Ha. I'm going to see Primus though. Even though they suck.
Queen of Wands - Friday, January 17, 2003
Oh dear god is this true. Yes. Yes it is.
Women, please take notes.
Oh dear god is this true. Yes. Yes it is.
Women, please take notes.
something positive - the comic equivelant of the island of misfit toys
Why I giggle...
oh, the humanity of it all.
it's to bed for the monkey and his cat.
soon, yes, I shall eviscerate someone in public. Well, verbally, anyway. How many times CAN you go out on a final date with a woman, cheerfully drink a margarita, have her tell you, "I was wrong...I think we aren't really going to be anything more than friends," then cheerfully exit out the kitchen, leaving that sadistic little free-meal cadging twit holding the bill?
The Drunken Monkey Laws of Breaking Up:
Numero Uno:
If you are breaking up with someone, you pay for it. Period. This is why you do so in a coffee house. You can pay for someone's soymilk half-caf half-decaf Mexican chocolate chai drink without a great deal of anger or bitterness. If you're female, and you ask a man out to a fairly expensive restaraunt to tell him that you just "want to be friends"; then proceed to tell him that you have all the friends you really need, and gosh, look at all the people that are out there waiting for you...
...then I'm quite sorry, but all gender chivalric issues aside, YOU are paying for dinner, you cheap gold-digger.
Numero Dos
It is generally considered bad form to ask why someone left you holding the bill in a restaraunt after said experience happened to you. In fact, if you're not totally clueless, you can mark this up to a nice little $20 learning experience on where NOT to break up with someone.
Remember, breaking up is easier AFTER the really nice dinner and the multiple slushy-mixed drinks. Preferably in a lighted area. With people around. So they won't push you off the nearest cliff.
Numbero Tres
By all means, men and women of both genders, single or otherwise, please have the common goddamn decency to just up and say you're not interested by the end of the first thirty minutes. Frankly, the friends I have are cherished but few, and I cheerfully admit it. I don't require a huge social circle and the fact that I have had no sexual attraction to any of them is pretty much one of the make-or-breaks for it. Female friends - all well and good, but we had better not cross the line, because no matter what, you do NOT remain friends.
Numero Quatro
Ah, we're inching to the end here...
Finally, I do find things very amusing, such as the expression on the person's face when she finally realized I wasn't coming back into the restaraunt to pay for her 4+ margarita meal and the triple enchilada meal, of which she ate one-third. It's not so much a gleeful dance upon the graves of the mendaciously malicious (such as Bush finally eating crow that he didn't, nor will ever have direct evidence that ANY of the bullshit that he's been feeding America about Iraq and Saddam Hussien's "imminent threat" to the United States is at all true), but rather a small, smirking point of justice, delivered on the tip of a pen and (I hate to say it, but it's true) digital camera.
But oh no, those pictures are for me. Me, and me alone.
Granted, I would also glory in knocking one of my best friend's wives ex-boyfriends (stay with me here - Guy Who is My Friend is Married To Gloriously Intelligent Woman who at one point in her miguided youth dated the RetroActive Abortion Society posterchild) unconscious and taking gimp pictures of him in leather to be mass-emailed to his company at 3 AM in the morning, but we could always dream about evilness.
I don't know. September's just a bitter month to swallow. I'm done looking. If my geekgirl drops into my lap holding a beer and a guitar, smells of chocolate and musk, and happens to know the full lyrics to "The End of the World As We Know It", I'm not going to ask a whole hell of a lot (or, chances are, check for gender - at this point ANYTHING that close might as well be happiness on a stick).
Three years and somehow I'm still not rid of that nagging feeling that maybe, just maybe, if I hadn't cut my hair, I wouldn't be a single boy in Seattle - I'd be happily married and ekeing out an existence as one of the most learned baristas in Eugene, Oregon.
Material wealth and fiscal happiness or the fact that I'm turning into a true Bitter Single (oh yes, it's the name of the band)?
God help the world if I win the lottery. I might actually kick people in the shins when they asked me if I want to dance once they learned I had $45 million in petty cash.
Thanks, ghosts of ex-girlfriends past. E, S, T and H - y'all did one hell of a number on a boy's psyche.
"If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, you, my friend, just earned your own toll booth."
Ooo, I'm saving that one for the next, "It's not you, it's me. You're such a nice guy," speech.
Am I really this miserable of a bastard, or is it just the fact that my cat seems to be purring a lot more that I've become a reclusive little writer who gets out to the gym, out to work, and out with the gang from work?
No, I forgot - it's this fucking town.
Why I giggle...
oh, the humanity of it all.
it's to bed for the monkey and his cat.
soon, yes, I shall eviscerate someone in public. Well, verbally, anyway. How many times CAN you go out on a final date with a woman, cheerfully drink a margarita, have her tell you, "I was wrong...I think we aren't really going to be anything more than friends," then cheerfully exit out the kitchen, leaving that sadistic little free-meal cadging twit holding the bill?
The Drunken Monkey Laws of Breaking Up:
Numero Uno:
If you are breaking up with someone, you pay for it. Period. This is why you do so in a coffee house. You can pay for someone's soymilk half-caf half-decaf Mexican chocolate chai drink without a great deal of anger or bitterness. If you're female, and you ask a man out to a fairly expensive restaraunt to tell him that you just "want to be friends"; then proceed to tell him that you have all the friends you really need, and gosh, look at all the people that are out there waiting for you...
...then I'm quite sorry, but all gender chivalric issues aside, YOU are paying for dinner, you cheap gold-digger.
Numero Dos
It is generally considered bad form to ask why someone left you holding the bill in a restaraunt after said experience happened to you. In fact, if you're not totally clueless, you can mark this up to a nice little $20 learning experience on where NOT to break up with someone.
Remember, breaking up is easier AFTER the really nice dinner and the multiple slushy-mixed drinks. Preferably in a lighted area. With people around. So they won't push you off the nearest cliff.
Numbero Tres
By all means, men and women of both genders, single or otherwise, please have the common goddamn decency to just up and say you're not interested by the end of the first thirty minutes. Frankly, the friends I have are cherished but few, and I cheerfully admit it. I don't require a huge social circle and the fact that I have had no sexual attraction to any of them is pretty much one of the make-or-breaks for it. Female friends - all well and good, but we had better not cross the line, because no matter what, you do NOT remain friends.
Numero Quatro
Ah, we're inching to the end here...
Finally, I do find things very amusing, such as the expression on the person's face when she finally realized I wasn't coming back into the restaraunt to pay for her 4+ margarita meal and the triple enchilada meal, of which she ate one-third. It's not so much a gleeful dance upon the graves of the mendaciously malicious (such as Bush finally eating crow that he didn't, nor will ever have direct evidence that ANY of the bullshit that he's been feeding America about Iraq and Saddam Hussien's "imminent threat" to the United States is at all true), but rather a small, smirking point of justice, delivered on the tip of a pen and (I hate to say it, but it's true) digital camera.
But oh no, those pictures are for me. Me, and me alone.
Granted, I would also glory in knocking one of my best friend's wives ex-boyfriends (stay with me here - Guy Who is My Friend is Married To Gloriously Intelligent Woman who at one point in her miguided youth dated the RetroActive Abortion Society posterchild) unconscious and taking gimp pictures of him in leather to be mass-emailed to his company at 3 AM in the morning, but we could always dream about evilness.
I don't know. September's just a bitter month to swallow. I'm done looking. If my geekgirl drops into my lap holding a beer and a guitar, smells of chocolate and musk, and happens to know the full lyrics to "The End of the World As We Know It", I'm not going to ask a whole hell of a lot (or, chances are, check for gender - at this point ANYTHING that close might as well be happiness on a stick).
Three years and somehow I'm still not rid of that nagging feeling that maybe, just maybe, if I hadn't cut my hair, I wouldn't be a single boy in Seattle - I'd be happily married and ekeing out an existence as one of the most learned baristas in Eugene, Oregon.
Material wealth and fiscal happiness or the fact that I'm turning into a true Bitter Single (oh yes, it's the name of the band)?
God help the world if I win the lottery. I might actually kick people in the shins when they asked me if I want to dance once they learned I had $45 million in petty cash.
Thanks, ghosts of ex-girlfriends past. E, S, T and H - y'all did one hell of a number on a boy's psyche.
"If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, you, my friend, just earned your own toll booth."
Ooo, I'm saving that one for the next, "It's not you, it's me. You're such a nice guy," speech.
Am I really this miserable of a bastard, or is it just the fact that my cat seems to be purring a lot more that I've become a reclusive little writer who gets out to the gym, out to work, and out with the gang from work?
No, I forgot - it's this fucking town.
Sunday, September 28, 2003
something positive - comics past
Ah, maestro...give me a song for the bitter, shall we?
Tuning up - yes, there's the beat, and we're playing "Give me my money back, you bitch" by Ben Folds Five.
Before I earn the title of "Bitchy McCripple", I shall only say that I'm finished, done, out of here with meeting 'Net daters. Completely. I'm tired of hearing, "Well, you're such a nice guy" - or finding a flip side to it. There's no normalacy to the rhythm of meeting someone you've only spoken to via phone or email.
Henceforth, I shall cheerfully remain single. I quit smoking. I will take capoeria classes and yoga. I will curb my impulses to drink heavily tonight immediately following what shall be gracefully termed a "bad coffee date". I'll jam with the guys twice a week and take bass classes. To wit - I'm going to be my own damn girlfriend and see how well she does. I'm going to volunteer more on the Dean campaign. I'm going to build my trailer for SCA camping, I'm going to sew garb for my soon-to-be nephew (no KJ, NOT your as-of-yet unborn children). I'm going to learn to draw and start an online comic of stick people. I'm going to drive 312 miles south every month and visit my folks, brew beer with my friend Greg, and drive home.
And as for the sex...
Well hell, I have the Internet, yes?
Ah, maestro...give me a song for the bitter, shall we?
Tuning up - yes, there's the beat, and we're playing "Give me my money back, you bitch" by Ben Folds Five.
Before I earn the title of "Bitchy McCripple", I shall only say that I'm finished, done, out of here with meeting 'Net daters. Completely. I'm tired of hearing, "Well, you're such a nice guy" - or finding a flip side to it. There's no normalacy to the rhythm of meeting someone you've only spoken to via phone or email.
Henceforth, I shall cheerfully remain single. I quit smoking. I will take capoeria classes and yoga. I will curb my impulses to drink heavily tonight immediately following what shall be gracefully termed a "bad coffee date". I'll jam with the guys twice a week and take bass classes. To wit - I'm going to be my own damn girlfriend and see how well she does. I'm going to volunteer more on the Dean campaign. I'm going to build my trailer for SCA camping, I'm going to sew garb for my soon-to-be nephew (no KJ, NOT your as-of-yet unborn children). I'm going to learn to draw and start an online comic of stick people. I'm going to drive 312 miles south every month and visit my folks, brew beer with my friend Greg, and drive home.
And as for the sex...
Well hell, I have the Internet, yes?
Monday, September 22, 2003
EFF: How Not To Get Sued by the RIAA for File-sharing
After hearing a program this morning on the local NPR affiliate, KUOW I got in my car and headed north to my job, where intellectual copyright infringement is a naughty, naughty thing.
See, where I work, it's generally considered bad form to rip off someone else's design and pass it as your own. But sometimes that's how things get done. For instance, one of our SUPER SECRET projects had to get shared...and immediately afterwards there were rumors that someone was leaking secrets.
Or, for instance, when I wrote a short story and published it, in addition to my addendum that ALL WORKS WRITTEN IN ANY MEDIUM AT ANY TIME BY MYSELF ARE THE SOLE PROPERTY OF MYSELF AND LEGALLY BOUND TO DIONYSUS MEDIA, LLC , I included a short list of RATES for my work's publishing at the gently nudged standard of $.50 per word if you ask me nicely and go through the aforementioned company (or email me, hammer out publication rights - you get the first North American publishing rights and that's it, period, one-shot, nada else) and write me a check upfront before publishing, we're hunky-dory.
There was a small note that said, "If you choose NOT to go this route and choose to steal my work, you will be charged at the going rate per word that The New York Times pays notables such as Stephen King to write 2,000 words. Namely, around $65 per word. But it was there.
And yes, someone stole one of my stories.
After writing several polite letters to the publisher complete with prepublishing dates (the jerk hadn't even bothered to change the title, just the name of the guy who wrote it) I finally broke down and sent them an envelope containing three things. An intellectual property lawyer's card from Seattle (which I obtained by just walking in, asking for one, and walking out), a short letter noting that I was prepared to give the lawyers all the proceeds from the settlement just to see their pathetic little publishing company go down in flames, and a phone number with a cut-off date.
They pulled the story from the web, published an apology, and cut me a $500.00 check. Nice of them to provide me with tequila and mixers. I don't think I'll ever forget the Patron and Grand Marnier Special Reserve margaritas. Oh no, no, I won't.
The point being, if someone rips off your work and publishes that as their own, that's out and out nastiness. So in a sense, I understand where these people are coming from. But when you sue a 12-year old girl who's living in public housing for $2,000, that's...well, not cool. At all.
The RIAA is a consortium of big-name music industry labels who claim to represent the artists they publish. This is much like saying the slave overlords in Central Africa who use child slavery to harvest cacao beans are really just looking out for the best interests of the children.
Sure, they might not eat if they didn't have the work, but at the same time, the music industry is notorious for screwing artists out of their money - while some exec who couldn't play "Mary Had A Little Lamb" is busy watching an illegal immigrant wash and wax his $100,000 2004 Hummer. Beck was one of these poor souls - a man who had hit records galore and yet somehow wound up OWING his label $100,000 after his tour was over (oh, yes. Anytime a tour date got canceled, he had to shell out for it. Don't get pneumonia if you sign with Sony, apparently.)
The hypocrisy is somewhat unbelievable. According to the logic of the RIAA, I should only buy music I've never heard before. If that were true, Great Big Sea and the Paperboys would never have had a fan who bought their entire discography. The Barenaked Ladies wouldn't have a fanatic pounding on their door to get the Yellow Tape at 3 AM. And I would never have known Sarah Harmer sucked moose butt.
But wait! These are the same guys who said selling used CDs was illegal and proceeded to try to sue record companies that sold used CDs. AND they represent the same companies that attempted to ban all VHS units in the US that had a "record" feature on them. They attempted to make it difficult for independent artists to use CD burners to make music. The theory being, apparently, that if you're not Britney Speared or Madonna/Whore and someone doesn't write your music for you, you're not worth listening to.
Unfortunately for many of the bands I -might- enjoy, this also means that any record company dealing with the RIAA as represenatives are no longer going to get any of my business. If a distributor goes through Columbia - off my list. Avirl Lavingne - gone. Dixie Chicks - not a great loss. Pink - dear god. Elton John - never had any of his CDs. Springsteen - out. Rolling Stones - well, they'll die soon enough anyway.
Columbia Records - Nope.
Island Records - Nope.
Capitol - out.
I'm sure with some more digging I could find a few more out there, but those are the ones I could find who wear the RIAA banner with pride.
From the RIAA.com website:
Of course, the most important component of a CD is the artist’s effort in developing that music. Artists spend a large portion of their creative energy on writing song lyrics and composing music or working with producers and A&R executives to find great songs from great writers. This task can take weeks, months, or even years. The creative ability of these artists to produce the music we love, combined with the time and energy they spend throughout that process is in itself priceless. But while the creative process is priceless, it must be compensated. Artists receive royalties on each recording, which vary according to their contract, and the songwriter gets royalties too. In addition, the label incurs additional costs in finding and signing new artists.
Once an artist or group has songs composed, they must then go into the studio and begin recording. The costs of recording this work, including recording studio fees, studio musicians, sound engineers, producers and others, all must be recovered by the cost of the CD.
Then come marketing and promotion costs -- perhaps the most expensive part of the music business today. They include increasingly expensive video clips, public relations, tour support, marketing campaigns, and promotion to get the songs played on the radio. For example, when you hear a song played on the radio -- that didn’t just happen! Labels make investments in artists by paying for both the production and the promotion of the album, and promotion is very expensive. New technology such as the Internet offers new ways for artists to reach music fans, but it still requires that some entity, whether it is a traditional label or another kind of company, market and promote that artist so that fans are aware of new releases.
So in other words, an ad executive will get paid more than Sheryl Crow for having the "vision" to release her CD at the right market time. Someone out to laud Pink's image will get her another raunchy music video with prepubescent girls dancing around in skintight outfits. Britney Spears' virginity (oops, we meant chastity, oops, we meant madonna/whore image) becomes a marketable commodity.
Does ANYONE else find this a mite offensive?
So rather than deal with the geeks here, I'm going back to the roots. I'm hitting cafes and bars and buying my CDs from guys who play in smoky clubs. Who still dream of hitting the big time. And when they sign with a company that's more about advertising than it is about the music, I'll gently refuse to buy their next CD.
Sigh. Who knew being a responsible consumer could be so much fun?
After hearing a program this morning on the local NPR affiliate, KUOW I got in my car and headed north to my job, where intellectual copyright infringement is a naughty, naughty thing.
See, where I work, it's generally considered bad form to rip off someone else's design and pass it as your own. But sometimes that's how things get done. For instance, one of our SUPER SECRET projects had to get shared...and immediately afterwards there were rumors that someone was leaking secrets.
Or, for instance, when I wrote a short story and published it, in addition to my addendum that ALL WORKS WRITTEN IN ANY MEDIUM AT ANY TIME BY MYSELF ARE THE SOLE PROPERTY OF MYSELF AND LEGALLY BOUND TO DIONYSUS MEDIA, LLC , I included a short list of RATES for my work's publishing at the gently nudged standard of $.50 per word if you ask me nicely and go through the aforementioned company (or email me, hammer out publication rights - you get the first North American publishing rights and that's it, period, one-shot, nada else) and write me a check upfront before publishing, we're hunky-dory.
There was a small note that said, "If you choose NOT to go this route and choose to steal my work, you will be charged at the going rate per word that The New York Times pays notables such as Stephen King to write 2,000 words. Namely, around $65 per word. But it was there.
And yes, someone stole one of my stories.
After writing several polite letters to the publisher complete with prepublishing dates (the jerk hadn't even bothered to change the title, just the name of the guy who wrote it) I finally broke down and sent them an envelope containing three things. An intellectual property lawyer's card from Seattle (which I obtained by just walking in, asking for one, and walking out), a short letter noting that I was prepared to give the lawyers all the proceeds from the settlement just to see their pathetic little publishing company go down in flames, and a phone number with a cut-off date.
They pulled the story from the web, published an apology, and cut me a $500.00 check. Nice of them to provide me with tequila and mixers. I don't think I'll ever forget the Patron and Grand Marnier Special Reserve margaritas. Oh no, no, I won't.
The point being, if someone rips off your work and publishes that as their own, that's out and out nastiness. So in a sense, I understand where these people are coming from. But when you sue a 12-year old girl who's living in public housing for $2,000, that's...well, not cool. At all.
The RIAA is a consortium of big-name music industry labels who claim to represent the artists they publish. This is much like saying the slave overlords in Central Africa who use child slavery to harvest cacao beans are really just looking out for the best interests of the children.
Sure, they might not eat if they didn't have the work, but at the same time, the music industry is notorious for screwing artists out of their money - while some exec who couldn't play "Mary Had A Little Lamb" is busy watching an illegal immigrant wash and wax his $100,000 2004 Hummer. Beck was one of these poor souls - a man who had hit records galore and yet somehow wound up OWING his label $100,000 after his tour was over (oh, yes. Anytime a tour date got canceled, he had to shell out for it. Don't get pneumonia if you sign with Sony, apparently.)
The hypocrisy is somewhat unbelievable. According to the logic of the RIAA, I should only buy music I've never heard before. If that were true, Great Big Sea and the Paperboys would never have had a fan who bought their entire discography. The Barenaked Ladies wouldn't have a fanatic pounding on their door to get the Yellow Tape at 3 AM. And I would never have known Sarah Harmer sucked moose butt.
But wait! These are the same guys who said selling used CDs was illegal and proceeded to try to sue record companies that sold used CDs. AND they represent the same companies that attempted to ban all VHS units in the US that had a "record" feature on them. They attempted to make it difficult for independent artists to use CD burners to make music. The theory being, apparently, that if you're not Britney Speared or Madonna/Whore and someone doesn't write your music for you, you're not worth listening to.
Unfortunately for many of the bands I -might- enjoy, this also means that any record company dealing with the RIAA as represenatives are no longer going to get any of my business. If a distributor goes through Columbia - off my list. Avirl Lavingne - gone. Dixie Chicks - not a great loss. Pink - dear god. Elton John - never had any of his CDs. Springsteen - out. Rolling Stones - well, they'll die soon enough anyway.
Columbia Records - Nope.
Island Records - Nope.
Capitol - out.
I'm sure with some more digging I could find a few more out there, but those are the ones I could find who wear the RIAA banner with pride.
From the RIAA.com website:
Of course, the most important component of a CD is the artist’s effort in developing that music. Artists spend a large portion of their creative energy on writing song lyrics and composing music or working with producers and A&R executives to find great songs from great writers. This task can take weeks, months, or even years. The creative ability of these artists to produce the music we love, combined with the time and energy they spend throughout that process is in itself priceless. But while the creative process is priceless, it must be compensated. Artists receive royalties on each recording, which vary according to their contract, and the songwriter gets royalties too. In addition, the label incurs additional costs in finding and signing new artists.
Once an artist or group has songs composed, they must then go into the studio and begin recording. The costs of recording this work, including recording studio fees, studio musicians, sound engineers, producers and others, all must be recovered by the cost of the CD.
Then come marketing and promotion costs -- perhaps the most expensive part of the music business today. They include increasingly expensive video clips, public relations, tour support, marketing campaigns, and promotion to get the songs played on the radio. For example, when you hear a song played on the radio -- that didn’t just happen! Labels make investments in artists by paying for both the production and the promotion of the album, and promotion is very expensive. New technology such as the Internet offers new ways for artists to reach music fans, but it still requires that some entity, whether it is a traditional label or another kind of company, market and promote that artist so that fans are aware of new releases.
So in other words, an ad executive will get paid more than Sheryl Crow for having the "vision" to release her CD at the right market time. Someone out to laud Pink's image will get her another raunchy music video with prepubescent girls dancing around in skintight outfits. Britney Spears' virginity (oops, we meant chastity, oops, we meant madonna/whore image) becomes a marketable commodity.
Does ANYONE else find this a mite offensive?
So rather than deal with the geeks here, I'm going back to the roots. I'm hitting cafes and bars and buying my CDs from guys who play in smoky clubs. Who still dream of hitting the big time. And when they sign with a company that's more about advertising than it is about the music, I'll gently refuse to buy their next CD.
Sigh. Who knew being a responsible consumer could be so much fun?
Salon.com News | Would you let your sister vote for this man?
Oh HELL no.
Then again, my sister's not a mucking foron.
That's why I love her.
Oh HELL no.
Then again, my sister's not a mucking foron.
That's why I love her.
U.S. News: For better or worse, the Internet is radically changing dating and romance in America(9/29/03)
Oy. I don't know what I'd do if I didn't have Internet dating. Aside from the fact that nobody else in my social circle does it, or thinks it's a good idea...well, let's just say I've had several dates both online and offline since it became a phenomenon.
Online, I've had good dates. Bad dates. Dates where I had to fake a phone call to get out of the room in fifteen minutes. Dates where the girl thought we'd get married in Vegas over the weekend. Dates I thought went swimmingly until the words, "I'm in an open relationship" cropped up. One date, two date, red dates, blue dates. I've been out on the beach and cramped in a Geo Metro, stuck with a girl and all her friends (none of whom I could stand) on a blind date to make it a couples' night out, and when I asked why we weren't going dutch on a blind date, she said, "Oh, because none of my girlfriends ever pay for anything on a date."
Then I've also had marvelous times with people I've never met before, with all sorts of things in common. But, when it comes down to it, I'm just tired of it. Tired of running through the game. I'm over the cheap fling or the three-month relationship that goes nowhere.
Sigh. I suppose the marks are still out on Net dating, but compared to the dating scene in the bar, I'd rather be surfing for women who I know I'll get along with. Once in a while I'll get a man posing as a woman, but the phrase, "Sorry man, I prefer my women with vaginas" usually turns them out the door in search of someone else. I'd still hug or shake hands on the first date and it's rare that I'll go out more than twice with someone that it's obviously NOT working.
My photo was taken in March; I'm updating and surfing for the right one. Maybe I found her; maybe I didn't, but in the meantime, I'm not willing to give up the chance at "Twue Wove" just because someone four years ago called Internet Dating the "loser pages".
Me, I'd rather meet the girl of my dreams - and not lose sleep at night about what I haven't found in the ones I've gone out with.
Oy. I don't know what I'd do if I didn't have Internet dating. Aside from the fact that nobody else in my social circle does it, or thinks it's a good idea...well, let's just say I've had several dates both online and offline since it became a phenomenon.
Online, I've had good dates. Bad dates. Dates where I had to fake a phone call to get out of the room in fifteen minutes. Dates where the girl thought we'd get married in Vegas over the weekend. Dates I thought went swimmingly until the words, "I'm in an open relationship" cropped up. One date, two date, red dates, blue dates. I've been out on the beach and cramped in a Geo Metro, stuck with a girl and all her friends (none of whom I could stand) on a blind date to make it a couples' night out, and when I asked why we weren't going dutch on a blind date, she said, "Oh, because none of my girlfriends ever pay for anything on a date."
Then I've also had marvelous times with people I've never met before, with all sorts of things in common. But, when it comes down to it, I'm just tired of it. Tired of running through the game. I'm over the cheap fling or the three-month relationship that goes nowhere.
Sigh. I suppose the marks are still out on Net dating, but compared to the dating scene in the bar, I'd rather be surfing for women who I know I'll get along with. Once in a while I'll get a man posing as a woman, but the phrase, "Sorry man, I prefer my women with vaginas" usually turns them out the door in search of someone else. I'd still hug or shake hands on the first date and it's rare that I'll go out more than twice with someone that it's obviously NOT working.
My photo was taken in March; I'm updating and surfing for the right one. Maybe I found her; maybe I didn't, but in the meantime, I'm not willing to give up the chance at "Twue Wove" just because someone four years ago called Internet Dating the "loser pages".
Me, I'd rather meet the girl of my dreams - and not lose sleep at night about what I haven't found in the ones I've gone out with.
U.S. News: Was the mission accomplished?
I find this a little disturbing. Recently Bush has been backpedaling his former statements. The "bring 'em on" swagger that characterized a wartime president in full military gear, landing on the deck of an aircraft carrier with his parachute harness emphasized for a crotch-forward photoshoot - has now become a "well, we never really SAID that..."
It's a little like Monica Lewinsky all over again. "I never had sex with that woman." Oh, but she went down on me! But I thought you meant intercourse as a modifier for sex! Of course, the American public knew precisely what happened the minute Monica took the stand, and more media coverage on Monica's presidential fly-tugging ensued than on the massive bombing campaign conducted in Kosovo last year.
What's really disturbing is not that President Bush appeared to lie to the American people - on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, on how much the war would cost, on the economy, on jobs, on education reform, on welfare for crooked CEOs, on financial links from the United States to radicalized Islamic factions pre-9/11, on the $245 million dollars paid to the Taliban regime in the U.S. government's fiscal year of 2000-2001. No no, what's really disturbing is that Americans seem to accept this as par for the course.
We're used to having our public figures lie to us. It's flagrant; it's even in every attack campaign advertisement. Remember Ralph Nader's speech on Al Gore's environmental record? When the Republican National Committee saw it, they found a gold mine. Equally important was Nader's attack on Bush's environmental record (lamentably well-documented in Molly Ivin's recent article in Playboy).
In Bush's America, nothing he says in public can be held against him, politically or otherwise. The people who still support Bush overwhelmingly think of him as an honest guy - when the truth is quite the opposite. There were no smoking holes where WMD could be found, so immediately the blame was laid upon the CIA and the British for providing faulty intelligence to the United States. The spinsters in the White House used the president's image as a goofy, flap-eared, plain-spoken man to conjure up an image of a man who could do no wrong, because the assumption is always made: Bush just ain't that smart.
Unfortunately, the Democrats are right. Bush WAS a nitwit to stand under a banner that read, "Mission Accomplished." As commander-in-chief of the military, Bush had the authority to demand the banner be removed. By virtue of being the highest ranking officer on the deck of the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, regardless of what words came out of his mouth, Bush SAID, "Mission Accomplished". The past five months have proven him more wrong than he could have possibly imagined. If he doesn't want to take responsibility for it, that's fine, but he's the President. And sometimes, the buck has to stop somewhere. If he wasn't responsible for that banner, who was? The captain of the ship? It's hard to believe the captain would leave it up if the President's handlers didn't think it was a good idea. And as Bush has proven time and again, he's not apt to go off the script. It was choreographed to the second, from the press to the speech, to the sailors and soldiers he mocked by wearing a uniform he lost the right to wear when he skipped out on his 18-month stint in the Texas Air National Guard.
Had the occupation of Iraq gone much more smoothly, perhaps the White House would be singing a different tune - one that goes, "Neener neener neener." But caught in a lie of bravado and presidential publicity, the Bushies are scrambling to do damage control. Rumsfeld's Lean, Green Military is stretched thinner than Silly Putty on a Baghdad sidewalk. Ashcroft's police-state Patriot Act is getting the grilling it richly deserves. Rice is dancing from one foot to the next, trying to make things work smoothly, while Powell, cap in hand, must return to the United Nations like a child asking for an allowance after moving out. Ridge resigned from the Homeland Security, and Cheney has returned to the role of aggressive assertion - even when his speeches contradict the President's own words - and the hiding of the Halliburton contracts has started to unravel.
With critics like Ivins, Franken, Hightower and even conservative senators hounding the Bushies' heels, it's easy to understand why Bush and Company aren't standing up straight and admitting they were wrong. It's simple enough to deny things over and over again, as Clinton demonstrated, until you're finally faced with the inescapable truth: Americans may be slow, but they do catch on, eventually. And with more than half a trillion dollars in deficit, the serious questions about the nation's problems can no longer be dismissed with the equivalent of a "Because I said so, that's why! Don't you believe me?"
Maybe the reason Howard Dean is so popular is that so far, he hasn't lied. He hasn't said one thing, then done another. He hasn't given fat contracts to his cronies in backroom deals. He wants to solve the problems - go through, and spring clean. It's an attractive alternative to living in a political and financial squalor of our own making. The Bushies just want to pile everything back in the closet and sweep the blood under the rug. And like any fourth-grader will tell you - that never fools anyone.
Bush talks of sacrifice, and tough roads ahead to march. So who's to make the sacrifice? You can bet it's me and you, and the people Bush calls "hard-working Americans" - men and women in the Heartland of America who don't make enough money to vote Republican - but do anyway. People who know the cost of a loaf of bread. People who can buy a gallon of milk. People who understand what it really means to live on $25,000 a year before taxes, buy their clothes at Target and Wal-Mart, and were never rich enough to get around those pesky drug possession charges. They're of all colors, IQs, creeds, religions, and backgrounds - but unfortunately for the Bush administration, they're finally listening. And they're not liking what they hear.
In his recent address to the American people, Bush talked of sacrifice. I want to know which son or daughter, of which military family he will offer up to the gods of foreign policy next. Three yesterday, maybe one today. Either way, it's going to be a long fifteen months until the fakir's secrets get revealed - and the American people boot Bush and his ilk out of office.
I find this a little disturbing. Recently Bush has been backpedaling his former statements. The "bring 'em on" swagger that characterized a wartime president in full military gear, landing on the deck of an aircraft carrier with his parachute harness emphasized for a crotch-forward photoshoot - has now become a "well, we never really SAID that..."
It's a little like Monica Lewinsky all over again. "I never had sex with that woman." Oh, but she went down on me! But I thought you meant intercourse as a modifier for sex! Of course, the American public knew precisely what happened the minute Monica took the stand, and more media coverage on Monica's presidential fly-tugging ensued than on the massive bombing campaign conducted in Kosovo last year.
What's really disturbing is not that President Bush appeared to lie to the American people - on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, on how much the war would cost, on the economy, on jobs, on education reform, on welfare for crooked CEOs, on financial links from the United States to radicalized Islamic factions pre-9/11, on the $245 million dollars paid to the Taliban regime in the U.S. government's fiscal year of 2000-2001. No no, what's really disturbing is that Americans seem to accept this as par for the course.
We're used to having our public figures lie to us. It's flagrant; it's even in every attack campaign advertisement. Remember Ralph Nader's speech on Al Gore's environmental record? When the Republican National Committee saw it, they found a gold mine. Equally important was Nader's attack on Bush's environmental record (lamentably well-documented in Molly Ivin's recent article in Playboy).
In Bush's America, nothing he says in public can be held against him, politically or otherwise. The people who still support Bush overwhelmingly think of him as an honest guy - when the truth is quite the opposite. There were no smoking holes where WMD could be found, so immediately the blame was laid upon the CIA and the British for providing faulty intelligence to the United States. The spinsters in the White House used the president's image as a goofy, flap-eared, plain-spoken man to conjure up an image of a man who could do no wrong, because the assumption is always made: Bush just ain't that smart.
Unfortunately, the Democrats are right. Bush WAS a nitwit to stand under a banner that read, "Mission Accomplished." As commander-in-chief of the military, Bush had the authority to demand the banner be removed. By virtue of being the highest ranking officer on the deck of the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, regardless of what words came out of his mouth, Bush SAID, "Mission Accomplished". The past five months have proven him more wrong than he could have possibly imagined. If he doesn't want to take responsibility for it, that's fine, but he's the President. And sometimes, the buck has to stop somewhere. If he wasn't responsible for that banner, who was? The captain of the ship? It's hard to believe the captain would leave it up if the President's handlers didn't think it was a good idea. And as Bush has proven time and again, he's not apt to go off the script. It was choreographed to the second, from the press to the speech, to the sailors and soldiers he mocked by wearing a uniform he lost the right to wear when he skipped out on his 18-month stint in the Texas Air National Guard.
Had the occupation of Iraq gone much more smoothly, perhaps the White House would be singing a different tune - one that goes, "Neener neener neener." But caught in a lie of bravado and presidential publicity, the Bushies are scrambling to do damage control. Rumsfeld's Lean, Green Military is stretched thinner than Silly Putty on a Baghdad sidewalk. Ashcroft's police-state Patriot Act is getting the grilling it richly deserves. Rice is dancing from one foot to the next, trying to make things work smoothly, while Powell, cap in hand, must return to the United Nations like a child asking for an allowance after moving out. Ridge resigned from the Homeland Security, and Cheney has returned to the role of aggressive assertion - even when his speeches contradict the President's own words - and the hiding of the Halliburton contracts has started to unravel.
With critics like Ivins, Franken, Hightower and even conservative senators hounding the Bushies' heels, it's easy to understand why Bush and Company aren't standing up straight and admitting they were wrong. It's simple enough to deny things over and over again, as Clinton demonstrated, until you're finally faced with the inescapable truth: Americans may be slow, but they do catch on, eventually. And with more than half a trillion dollars in deficit, the serious questions about the nation's problems can no longer be dismissed with the equivalent of a "Because I said so, that's why! Don't you believe me?"
Maybe the reason Howard Dean is so popular is that so far, he hasn't lied. He hasn't said one thing, then done another. He hasn't given fat contracts to his cronies in backroom deals. He wants to solve the problems - go through, and spring clean. It's an attractive alternative to living in a political and financial squalor of our own making. The Bushies just want to pile everything back in the closet and sweep the blood under the rug. And like any fourth-grader will tell you - that never fools anyone.
Bush talks of sacrifice, and tough roads ahead to march. So who's to make the sacrifice? You can bet it's me and you, and the people Bush calls "hard-working Americans" - men and women in the Heartland of America who don't make enough money to vote Republican - but do anyway. People who know the cost of a loaf of bread. People who can buy a gallon of milk. People who understand what it really means to live on $25,000 a year before taxes, buy their clothes at Target and Wal-Mart, and were never rich enough to get around those pesky drug possession charges. They're of all colors, IQs, creeds, religions, and backgrounds - but unfortunately for the Bush administration, they're finally listening. And they're not liking what they hear.
In his recent address to the American people, Bush talked of sacrifice. I want to know which son or daughter, of which military family he will offer up to the gods of foreign policy next. Three yesterday, maybe one today. Either way, it's going to be a long fifteen months until the fakir's secrets get revealed - and the American people boot Bush and his ilk out of office.
Friday, September 19, 2003
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Galileo on course for suicide mission
So I read in the paper today that because Europa has a surface of nothing but ice and the crash of Galileo would "affect" Europa for future study (jeez, the thing's not much bigger than a computer desk) the NASA scientists decided instead to smush the poor thing down in one of the most volcanic moons of Jupiter.
Wow. And here I thought dropping crap off on random planets was something only stupid people do.
Here's a thought - wouldn't it be slightly less ecologically dense to just send the thing off into the outer rim, past Pluto and Neptune? So why bother crashing the thing at all? To keep a planetoid "pure"? But, since we couldn't do anything with Io (it's ALL volcanoes) we drop it right in the middle of good ol' molten lava.
This is almost as goofy as Bush saying that by cutting down trees we're saving the environment. By killing kids, we're making America safer. By pulling toenails out of Al'Qaeda members, we're making Iraq okay for democracy.
Some days you want to just get one good bitchslap in before they haul you in for assaulting a public figure.
So I read in the paper today that because Europa has a surface of nothing but ice and the crash of Galileo would "affect" Europa for future study (jeez, the thing's not much bigger than a computer desk) the NASA scientists decided instead to smush the poor thing down in one of the most volcanic moons of Jupiter.
Wow. And here I thought dropping crap off on random planets was something only stupid people do.
Here's a thought - wouldn't it be slightly less ecologically dense to just send the thing off into the outer rim, past Pluto and Neptune? So why bother crashing the thing at all? To keep a planetoid "pure"? But, since we couldn't do anything with Io (it's ALL volcanoes) we drop it right in the middle of good ol' molten lava.
This is almost as goofy as Bush saying that by cutting down trees we're saving the environment. By killing kids, we're making America safer. By pulling toenails out of Al'Qaeda members, we're making Iraq okay for democracy.
Some days you want to just get one good bitchslap in before they haul you in for assaulting a public figure.
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