Now We're Showing Those Damned Commies!

Because we're not selling them Ipods.

How much more stupid can this get?

Oh.. it won't work..

Kim, who engineered a secret nuclear weapons program, has other options for obtaining the high-end consumer electronics and other items he wants.

Rock Rolls the 7-11

I was going to go to sleep but I must report a classic moment at the 7-11. I go over there to purchase some certain legal items that I can, by means of chemistry, turn into something like diet items (Oh, you all know!) and the nice Persian dude behind the counter looks at my shirt and says, "those are some pretty girls."

You see the freaking picture from my shirt and it's the New York Dolls 20 years AFTER they could try to carry off the 'dressing like chicks' thing.

I don't guess the guy is Muslim, but if he is, he won't be too picky about his virgins in heaven.

Good god.. the 60 year old Dolls!

Compressed Courses and Laggardly Instructors

So, at "Just Barely Accredited Online Master's Program" the cram our courses into gnarly little indigestible 4-week modules. As I've noted elsewhere, this leaves very little room for learning moments and many instructors don't even try. If I hadn't been a voracious reader and had my experience writing a couple of MAs for money I would be totally lost. But I understand what I have to do and understand the compressed schedule.. it is 16-18 weeks (depending on semester length) crammed into 4.

Which brings me to my complaint about the professors.. if they don't get me back my grades within a week isn't that like a 4-week wait after a 'normal' class? I work at a CC in California and if grades aren't turned in within one week of the end of the semester it's a cause for major trauma. This would work out to be about 1.75 days in the compressed semester (that might be wrong, there's a reason my degree won't be in maths!). Went I went to Big Important State University, they had assignments back within two weeks.

Shouldn't the evil profs have to live to some kind of standard?

Whaaaaaah! I want my "A!"

/whine

It Might Be a Guy Thing?

Or it could just be me..

But just now means that I haven't had a shower in 106 hours...
And I like it... my hair is a sculptural statement on beauty and age...
I've also been wearing the same T-shirt for almost 100 hours
I just did shave for the first time in those 106 hours, since trying to shave that much beard off early on a Monday morning usually means a nasty cut or a patch that is missed.
But all in all...?
I don't miss the shower at all.

Working my way to the trailer park!

Education is Evil and the Maths Support It

Knowledge = Power¹

Power = Corruption²

ergo

Study Hard and Become Evil!
(Hey, it works for lawyers)

-------------------------------------------------------

¹ "Knowledge is Power"
Sir Francis Bacon

² "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely"
Lord Acton

Holiday in the Sun

Turkey Day came fresh and bright, which was a nice thing after the rain-squalls of the previous night. The lovely BAG had been poking around in the little envelope in which our cabin key had been packed and, lo and behold, she pulled out two squares of paper. Each piece was a free breakfast at the restaurant at the campsite and so our question of where we would be having breakfast was solved.If the woman who checked us in had mentioned this little bonanza, neither of us had heard her do so and that made this a lovely surprise.

I drank the wine that I hadn't spilled the previous night (yeah, I know, complete wino move) sent the first post from yesterday off and we got our stuff together to go out a-beachin!

That picture over on the left is the carefree BAG heading down the hill from our cold cabin. You can see it was pretty darned nice. If by nice you mean puny and windswept. But, you know - nice.

The thing over there on the right is the Eye of Sauron from the lovely semi-sculpture, semi-garden place between the restaurant and the store of the campsite.

Breakfast was good and we headed on out.

The f irst beach, which the BAG INSISTED we visit, turns out upon internet research, to be a nude beach. This would explain the old fat guy walking around nude. It still doesn't quite explain why the BAG enjoyed it so much. Unlike the last time we stumbled (well, me anyway) across a nude beach, I couldn't get the classic pic of the guy washing his hands in the creek. Those proto-Neanderthal shots are the bomb!

Anyway, the second beach was very nice as well, as the pic to the right should hint at. At about 2 it started to get extremely windy and cold, so we headed up the highway towards a road along a creek that had been recommended by the campsite hosts. It was incredibly boring and the road ended abruptly, which we took as a sign to head back to the campsite.

By this time we were a bit hungry but since we had reservations for a complete Thanksgiving dinner we didn't want to eat much. So we grabbed some cheese and pemmican (can't escape from the BAGs essential Cheyennese nature!) and headed back to the cabin to eat.

We opened the pemmican and it was wondrous "State Miracle Pemmican!" The first piece I pulled out is over there on the left - an exact representation of the state of California (with the lines of fat which laced the meat exactly describing our internal waterways and freeway system). It was a complete miracle and I celebrated it by scarfing the stuff right down.

About 30 seconds later the BAG pulled out a piece and started laughing.

She had pulled Montana.

Later, I caught her chewing on yet another piece of the meat in a vain effort to turn it into something resembling Texas.

But the first two were legit, and if this ever happens again I believe the BAG will have a strong argument for three different miracles and thus an induction into the ranks of saints in the Catholic Church.

The lord moves in mysterious ways.

After this it was all just waiting for dinner, which was quite satisfactory and one thing about getting a plate at a restaurant is that it interferes with gluttony. This is a good thing. Dinner didn't start until 7:45 and by the time we got back to the cabin it was time to get under the covers, fire up the matress heater and cling together ("cuddle" as the BAG insists on referring to it) for heat.

Not quite a Thanksgiving like the epic one in Death Valley, but better than staying at home and watching football games.

HAPPY BIRD-EATING DAY! (Featuring hot, bird-on-bird action!)

Amusingly, when the BAG and I arrived at the first beach (mis-named "Bonny Doon," at least for one of the seagulls in the picture) we came across this lovely Thanksgiving tableaux.

And we wish the same to you and alla yours!

;-)

Holiday in Camp Odious

So, like, right after I got off the intarwebs last night I did a very unclever thing. I had purchased a lovely bottle of wine but had neglected to bring a cup. The lovely BAG opined that I should just drink from the bottle, but not wanting to live out her memories of reservation life (and mindful that one of my front teeth is still glued in some 15 years after the glue should have failed) I decided not to swing a big old bottle of wine around and instead found an old Arrowhead water bottle that was in the lesSUV. I filled it and it looked something like the picture you see over there to the left. And it worked well for 23 seconds.

It's failure is represented in the picture to the right.

Which is the upper right corner of our bed. And, unfortunately, where my laptop had been sitting at the time of the spill.

I swiped the laptop away in a hurry and asked the BAG to get the big pillow - I turned the computer so that the keyboard was upside down and parrallel to the ground. Fortunately my speed, and gravity, were my allies, and despite the fact that I had pretty seriously splattered the keyboard, everything works.

Except the BAGs brain, since about 5 minutes later she asked me, in apparent seriousness, if my computer had "fried yet."

It's at moments like this I understand that battering can conceivably have a decent reason.....

yeesh. as the BAG would say.

In any case, I am far to ghey to beat a woman, so we cleaned up the best we could and then slid into the bed. The bed is heated which is a good thing. The "cabin" is canvas and it is really freaking cold. The bathroom is close, but outside, and for some reason when we got here the windows were uncovered. As the bed warmed up we felt better (the smell of wine that permeated the beddings helped reassure me) and when the rain squalls came we congratulated ourselves on not having gone camping, and turned over in our very warm bed.

The rest was sleep.

JC Auto: Born on a Holiday

Off on a holiday. Got started a little late as I had to attend the Associated Students Meeting at Swamp Valley College. The AS sat around for a half hour bemoaning the fact that they didn't have a quorum (50% of all members plus one), which was (a key word here)15 members. Only 10 members were present. After that half hour someone said, "it sure is hard to get 15 members with all the members who are no longer part of the AS because we've suspended them for not coming to meetings."

About two of us got this immediately - if you're waiting for suspended members to be part of a quorum for a number of members that includes suspended members?

Let's just say you can suspend my member anytime you want.

So the chair gathered up all the name tags and started tossing out suspended ones until she had only the missing members who weren't suspended. Eight. Which means the total number of valid members was 18 and there had been a quorum from the start.

43 minutes after scheduled time, the meeting started. My report is early and was brief and I snuck out shortly thereafter.

Picked up the POSSLQ and literally shot over the windiest highway out of Hometown USA. No traffic at all, which is quite odd for a Thanksgiving eve, though the newsradio was reporting trouble getting to ski and gambling destinations.

We also shot up the prettiest coastline in the world and I stopped to take that orange picture (the one without the booze in it).

Unfortunately it took me a while to find a place to pull off the road, and by the time I did it was a bit dark for an ideal photo in a handheld camera type environment thingie.

So that is what you get.

The BAG was so impressed by all this natural splendor (She is one of the dirt-people, you know!) that she spent the entire time

I was trying to find a vantage place for my photo, sitting the lesSUV minutely inspecting the dust on my dashboard.

Like she hadn't seen that a million times before.

I tried to snap a candid shot, but with the self-reflexive narcissism of the truly inspired self-centered, she has a weird radar for cameras and wheeled around and gave me her biggest possible grimace.

That's gonna be some skull when it's up on someone's fireplace mantle.

We stopped off to get a flashlight and some batteries and decided to eat at the Mexican place next to the store. Unfortunately, no one had informed the BAG that Mexican food might include such oddities as burritos, chimichangas, or tacos.

One look at the menu and she wheeled about, out the door and to the completely closed coffee shop next door.

After I explained what the upside down chairs on tables, and turned off lights meant, we hopped back in the lesSUV and headed towards are campsite.

With the native tracking skills of the BAG and my superior intellect and map reading ability, we shot right past the entry to our little campground.

Good enough news as the next turnaround had a lovely little restaurant at which we ate dinner. I had a turkey sandwich and the BAG ordered that traditional Mexican dish, the calimari sandwich, with potatot chips from a bag. You could practically hear the mariachis play!

I was amused because the drink menu included the unusual, "soju saki cocktail" which sounded like just the thing that might be peace to even the warring Japanese and Koreans surrounding Dokdo (look it up, I know you don't know).

Just so I could say I did, I had the Soju Sea Breeze (something like it anyway, neither the waitress nor I knew the ingredients for the thing and when I took a picture of it, the lovely BAG added a traditional Korean gesture to the whole thing - the pointless peace sign in the background.

She could be a finger model, if it weren't for that whole twisted little finger thingy.

We paid (that is to say I did) and headed back to our lovely lodge, which is nestled in the headlands below the foothills (I'm confused) above the ocean. The place is spartan, but we saw several deer, and the mattress is heated, so we will alternately be cooking (me when the BAG has the thing turned on) and freezing (The BAG when I surreptitiously turn it off) and there will be no sleep all night as we fight over control of this.

Happy Thanksgiving Eve, or something.

There is only one outlet in the place, and it serves the lights and the mattress-heater (and I know better than to unplug that) and so I will flail this up to the web, and if the battery on the laptop holds up, take a few more pics from this evening and post them in a bit.

If not, I will simply fight with the BAG.

PAPERS AS THEY SHOULD BE WROTE (Day Three)

So when you take a day off from work to write your paper, is it wrong to find yourself, at 10:42 in the morning, drinking that beer you didn't have last night? And listening to Nick Lowe and the New York Dolls?

What if you are in bed and, if you consider a t-shirt and underpants a matched pair, you aren't very matched at all?

Is it a mitigating circumstance that the weather in Hometown USA is depressing and gray?

Probably not... so I have done a bit of work on the paper... I am up to 1,000 words or so although two paragraphs are still almost complete plagiarism and some vestigial memory reminds me that this is a "very bad thing!" Before I left work last night I printed out my clipped notes, almost 30 pages of them, so when I do get revved up it should be a very short and disorganized wade through a bunch of silly crap to get the other 2k words written.

Anyway, with plagiarism in italics, here is the critter as she exists..

In Kim Yong Ik’s, "They Won't Crack It Open," readers find a brilliant but rather surprising and subtle examination of the destructive effects of racial essentialism. Kim takes a multicultural lens and by inverting it tells a deeply personal, but at the same time generally applicable tale of how racial essentialism can destroy individuals. Part of the literary beauty of this piece is that it takes a path usually not taken and, when arriving at the common destination, more clearly limns the difficulties of arriving there.

Part of the subtlety is that Kim is writing about racial (social really) essentialism in the United States that has nothing to do with racism or foreigners and little to do with immigrants. Kim uses a kind of reverse etching to sharply outline the effect that dominant culture essentialism has on its less successful members.

To simplify Dyson, essentialism is based upon the philosophical claim that any particular racial entity can be, at least theoretically, defined by a finite list of criteria which must all be present in order for an entity to belong to that race or ethnicity.

Some Philosophical Conclusions from Essentialism
The essentialist claim that only people within a group can understand the group leads us to the good old “slippery slope” argument (one of my favorite straw men) If I can't be a feminist because I haven't had the experiences of a woman, then we might say that an American feminist can't really be a feminist because she hasn't experienced the sort of oppression of women that, say, a woman from China has (or vice versa! The Chinese feminist can't be a real feminist because she hasn't experienced the sort of oppression that American woman have!). The point here is that if different experiences are seen as dividing lines, then there have to be good reasons to draw those lines one place (between male and female feminists) and not others (between American feminists and Chinese feminists). So far I haven't been shown any good reasons for doing so.

Essentialism is also divisive by nature (it has a black and white, or, in or out nature), and by implication this divisiveness is permanent and can’t be overcome. That seems wrong to me--I don't see feminism, for instance, as inherently female--historically its ideas came from the reaction of women to their own oppression, but reacting to oppression isn't 'female'.

It may be a function of a multicultural environment today and not a clever stratagem by Kim, but the title is a lovely mis-signifier as it seems to be considering the United States from the perspective of a visitor or immigrant who can’t get in. Yet, like the coconut that will never be cracked, the title signifies the “inner” circle that unfortunate citizens of the United States can never achieve.

It is worth admitting that Dick and his mother aren’t completely insiders. They are immigrants to the United States as well. Dick’s mother is clearly an immigrant ( 52) and Dick’s birthplace is never explicitly mentioned, although it is likely

Mom’s blindness!

Brilliant description of the distance of proximity, “When he was away, he was so good to me, writing to me every week. Now at home he never talks to me and gets cross with me easy.” (52)

Dick’s largesse to the Korean children is stolen. When, just prior to leaving Korean he brings blankets and food to the blind children, it is the fruit of larceny, “Later an army investigator had come a few times inquiring about some missing army goods.” (53) Dick can only live out the “Greatest Show on Earth” when he is divorced from it and even then he must steal from it’s fringe traveling show.

“The Greatest Show on Earth” is clearly a metaphor for the United States and when Kim gets here and it is clear that it shuts down for the season, that it’s geography is limited, and that not all are invited to see it, he metaphorically sees that it is only a vision, not a reality.

The blind Korean kids are at least two kinds of metaphors
1) The third world looking on, uncomprehending
2) Uncorrupted innocence

The fact they will never crack the coconut (and what another lovely symbol!) may mean that they will never taste the liquor within, but also that they will never be disappointed by contents they might not understand

Kim cleverly contrasts and compares the experience of Dick’s mothers to Korea. By doing this, Kim orientalizes (in the sense Edward Said would use the word) the lifestyle of poor white United States Citizens.

Kim typically wrote stories, although in English and for and English audience, of Korea. "They Won't Crack It Open” is a fairly substantial departure from this ouvre.

The intro is brilliant once you finish the story and as you read it you wonder how much is intentional and how much is (THAT WORD FOR EXTRA LUCKY). As you go on and experience the clever imagery and subtle wordplay that Kim uses throughout, you realize it is primarily intentional

Compare to frozen hands story for the pain coming from “within” the culture. Dick is essentially killed by the expectation of his own culture. Kim brilliantly models this as his cab driver takes the narrator from the airport through the steps of decline. (INSERT THE DRIVE)

PAPERS AS THEY SHOULD BE WROTE (Day Two-point-five)

Brilliant.

All sources found and I've reread the story. It is better on second reading and I think this guy is gonna become the subject of my thesis. The story is fricking subtle and the title makes you go in (well, in a multicultural lit class) with false expectations.

Anyway... we're at the point right after this line (which is dead on where I should be):

In Kim Yong Ik’s, "They Won't Crack It Open," readers find a brilliant but rather surprising and subtle examination of the destructive effects of racial essentialism. Kim takes a multicultural lens and by inverting it tells a deeply personal, but at the same time generally applicable tale of how racial essentialism can destroy individuals. Part of the literary beauty of this piece is that it takes a path usually not taken and, when arriving at the common destination, more clearly limns the difficulties of arriving there.

Part of the subtlety is that Kim is writing about racial (social really) essentialism in the United States that has nothing to do with racism or foreigners and little to do with immigrants.

Kim cleverly contrasts and compares the experience of Dick’s mothers to Korea. By doing this, Kim orientalizes (in the sense Edward Said would use the word) the lifestyle of poor white United States Citizens.

Kim typically wrote stories, although in English and for and English audience, of Korea. "They Won't Crack It Open” is a fairly substantial departure from this ouvre.

The intro is brilliant once you finish the story and as you read it you wonder how much is intentional and how much is (THAT WORD FOR EXTRA LUCKY). As you go on and experience the clever imagery and subtle wordplay that Kim uses throughout, you realize it is primarily intentional

Compare to frozen hands story for the pain coming from “within” the culture. Dick is essentially killed by the expectation of his own culture. Kim brilliantly models this as his cab driver takes the narrator from the airport through the steps of decline. (INSERT THE DRIVE)



WORKS CITED

Book Title: The Shapes and Styles of Asian American Prose Fiction. Contributors: Esther Mikyung Ghymn - author. Publisher: Peter Lang Publishing. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 1992. Page Number: 29.

Book Title: Nationalism and the Construction of Korean Identity. Contributors: Hyung Il Pai - editor, Timothy R. Tangherlini - editor. Publisher: Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California. Place of Publication: Berkeley, CA. Publication Year: 1998.

Book Title: Japan and the Enemies of Open Political Science. Contributors: David Williams - author. Publisher: Routledge. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 1996. Page Number: 142.

The Melancholy of Race. Contributors: Anne Anlin Cheng - author. Publisher: Oxford University Press. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 2000. Page Number: 26.

Article Title: Cross-Cultural Reading versus Textual Accessibility in Multicultural Literature. Contributors: Seiwoong Oh - author. Journal Title: MELUS. Volume: 18. Issue: 2. Publication Year: 1993. Page Number: 3+. COPYRIGHT 1993 The Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnics Literature of the United States; COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group

Affliction and Opportunity: Korean Literature in Diaspora, a Brief Overview. Contributors: Kichung Kim - author. Journal Title: Korean Studies. Volume: 25. Issue: 2. Publication Year: 2001. Page Number: 261+. COPYRIGHT 2001 University of Hawaii Press; COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group

PAPERS AS THEY SHOULD BE WROTE (Day Two)

It is just about noon and the only new thing I have is that I am up to 3 external sources...

to wit:

WORKS CITED

Book Title: The Shapes and Styles of Asian American Prose Fiction. Contributors: Esther Mikyung Ghymn - author. Publisher: Peter Lang Publishing. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 1992. Page Number: 29.

Book Title: Nationalism and the Construction of Korean Identity. Contributors: Hyung Il Pai - editor, Timothy R. Tangherlini - editor. Publisher: Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California. Place of Publication: Berkeley, CA. Publication Year: 1998.

Book Title: Japan and the Enemies of Open Political Science. Contributors: David Williams - author. Publisher: Routledge. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 1996. Page Number: 142.

This is actually grand - if I have all my sources lined up by bar-time tonite I should be in good shape.

Why my BAG must die..

So I'm struggling with a word... as my 1.5 reader(s?) might have noted in my previous post I left in a marker for a word I couldn't remember.

It went like this: (THAT WORD FOR EXTRA LUCKY)

And when the BAG came to sleep I said that the word I couldn't remember started with an "S" and that this kind of forgetfulness was the beginning of the damage old age would do to me until it finally turfed me.

I gave her the same permission I have given my sister, "shoot me in the back of my head when I no longer make sense."

This may not be the best permission to give a girlfriend whom you are soon to leave for Korea. I may be the last victim of the Korean war!

So I, stutter (another word beginning with s) that it wasn't "synchronicity" (after a horrible flashback to what the Police devolved to) and it wasn't some other word that I can't remember now (and why is the BAG out of the room and why do I hear a gun cocking?). EDIT - THE WORD WAS "SYNERGY" GAWDAMMIT!"

So just as I'm heading to the reverse dictionary online, the BAG says "look it up," and I try to wrestle the gun from her hand and shoot her in the head, but as we struggle for possession of the firearm, the page loads.

So, for the moment, no one dies.

837 bad reverse definitions come up the web page. And they aren't even in alphabetical order, or any other kind of order - they are completely random.

And the BAG says..

says...

says..

"that's not serendipitous"

And since that is the word I have been searching for for over 15 minutes, I'm not sure if I should kiss the biatch or kill her.

I'm a compromiser though. So she got kissed.

Now I'm looking for a relatively remote place with very soft earth.

I think you know what I'm saying.

PAPERS AS THEY SHOULD BE WROTE (Dolls conclusion to come - which matters only to me!)

So,

as all two (including me) readers know, in my last course in the "Just Barely Accredited Master's Program" I managed to blow the deadline for my paper and end up having to write it in one day. It was a good day as I had a hamburger and some beers, but it was not quite the amount of time I need to turn out the decent high-velocity collection of signifiers.

This all had dire consequences as I got a B on that paper and got my first course grade that wasn't an A. I suspect the shock of this event will eventually drive me to drink. My friends will be shocked and dismayed.

For now I struggle on manfully.

And, with the next paper coming up, I decided that starting with 3.5 days to go might work.

I'm just a crazy kid with a dream.

So I'm working on Kim Yong Ik's brilliant story "They Won't Crack It Open" which I'm morally certain only got into my "multicultural" textbook because the editor's didn't actually understand what Kim was saying (about which I will say more in my paper).

Anyway, with The Bizarre Alien Girlfriend in the next room watching Nazis on the history channel, eating the heads off of spring robins and sucking down root beer, I've been alone here in the room and I've started my paper. As of 10 pm in Hometown USA, this is what I have...

In Kim Yong Ik’s, "They Won't Crack It Open," readers find a brilliant but rather surprising and subtle examination of the destructive effects of racial essentialism. Kim takes a multicultural lens and by inverting it tells a deeply personal, but at the same time generally applicable tale of how racial essentialism can destroy individuals. Part of the literary beauty of this piece is that it takes a path usually not taken and, by arriving at a common destination, more clearly limns the difficulties of traveling there.

Kim typically wrote stories, although in English and for and English audience, of Korea. "They Won't Crack It Open” is a fairly substantial departure from this ouvre.

The intro is brilliant once you finish the story and as you read it you wonder how much is intentional and how much is (THAT WORD FOR EXTRA LUCKY). As you go on and experience the clever imagery and subtle wordplay that Kim uses throughout, you realize it is primarily intentional

Compare to frozen hands story for the pain coming from “within” the culture. Dick is essentially killed by the expectation of his own culture. Kim brilliantly models this as his cab driver takes the narrator from the airport through the steps of decline. (INSERT THE DRIVE)

We interrupt *almost* NY Doll blogging for this meme from The Sister

1. FIRST NAME? Charles

2. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE? Yes

3. WHEN DID YOU LAST CRY? If you count a tear of joy? New York Dolls, Portland. Friday.

4. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING? I don’t have “handwriting” in the traditional sense that implies communication.

5. WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE LUNCHMEAT? The mystery one.

6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS
WITH YOU? Probably not, primarily because neither of us would really like other people.

7. DO YOU HAVE A JOURNAL? Sort of. I blog and write all the time. But it’s spread out between this venue, that venue, and some cocktail napkins.

8. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS? Yes. Because you cannot go to heaven unless you have all your original body parts. Teeth don’t count.

9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP? If the bungee cord was on the floor? I would jump it.

10. FAVOURITE CEREAL? Like my sister, Fruit Loops

11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF? Sometimes.

12. DO YOU THINK YOU ARE STRONG? Hmmmmm.. in some ways, not others.. I think I am reasonably stoic. Physically, my legs are strong. After a beer or two my breath is strong. I have no idea how this adds up.

13. WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE ICE CREAM FLAVOUR? Cookie Dough

14. SHOE SIZE? US 9 to 9.5

15. RED OR PINK? Absolutely.

16. WHAT IS THE LEAST FAVOURITE THING ABOUT
YOURSELF? In order of impotence… er.. IMPORTANCE!?!?!? Oh.. never mind. ;-)

17. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST? What an odd question. I think I miss my deceased cat, Eddie Debartolo as president of the 9ers, and an old friend or two. Living? I dunno, I can get pretty far on without having to be in contact with people I know I’m cool with.

18. DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO SEND THIS BACK TO YOU?
This question makes me wonder how horrible it would actually be if I knew “everyone.” Fucking nightmare.

19. WHAT COLOUR PANTS AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING? Black levis and grey tennies

20. LAST THING YOU ATE? Togos small 22, no mayo or salt.

21. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW? My iPod.. Just now “All You Young Punks” by the Clash. Before – “Dance Like a Monkey” New York Dolls”

22. IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOUR WOULD YOU BE? Flesh

23. FAVOURITE SMELL? Urban Category – first rain on pavement. Nature Category – Sierra Meadow.

24. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE
PHONE? An answering machine at work, which is ideal as I hate the fucking phone.

25. THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE YOU ARE
ATTRACTED TO? It’s never the same

26. DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU? Well, duuuuh!

27. FAVOURITE DRINK? Beer. How proletarian. ;-)

28. FAVOURITE SPORT? Football (and not that commie overseas kind that abjures use of the opposable thumb. What IS wrong with Europe?)

29. EYE COLOR? brown

30. HAT SIZE: Uh… size? Don’t all baseball caps come with the adjustable backs?

31. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS? Nope

32. FAVOURITE FOOD? Pizza?

33. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS? Happy endings with masseuses. Scary movies in theaters…

34. WHAT COLOUR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING? Black and Pink.

35. SUMMER OR WINTER? Screw your reductive questions. Autumn.

36. HUGS OR KISSES? Hugs, I guess.

37. FAVOURITE DESSERT? I’m not that keen on desserts. Whiskey?

38. WHO IS MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND? I am only sending this back to my sister and Kari who sent it to my sister (cause Kari is my little English Rose with just the slightest bit of blight, woodiness and a couple of runners coming off here and there)

39. LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND? Should I care?

40. WHAT BOOKS ARE YOU READING? A bunch of crap for my “Just Barely Accredited Master’s Degree” and a book of essays by Christopher Hitchens who, when he puts down the neo-con bong, can be a really great cultural writer.

41. WHAT'S ON YOUR MOUSE PAD? Mouse pad? I use a laptop most of the time and my optical mouse on the desktop doesn’t need a mouse pad. What millennium were these questions formulated for?

42. WHAT DID YOU WATCH LAST NIGHT ON TV? Football

43. FAVOURITE SOUNDS? Ocean Waves

44. ROLLING STONE OR BEATLES. Stones

45. THE FURTHEST YOU'VE BEEN FROM HOME? Seoul

46. WHAT'S YOUR SPECIAL TALENT? Apathy.

47. WHERE WERE YOU BORN? Palo Alto, CA, USA

48. WHO SENT THIS TO YOU? The Sister.

all the way to the first band..

We got situated in the hotel and, told there would be a 20 minute wait for a cab, I went into the bar and had a beer. Well, ordered a beer, since the cab came in about 5 minutes. The Sister was dressed up all fashionably and had two original New York Dolls slices of vinyl that she hoped to get signed. I had to leave my camera at home as the venue was a no photo type of deal. We headed over to the venue. Got there and although the tickets said the show began at 8:30 there was a sign on the door that said it would open at 9. There was also a skinny kid pounding frantically on the door and hollering at the employees inside. He hammered and hammered until the employees came over to reassure us that the show would be at 8:30 (This turned out to be a lie of sorts.. the doors opened at 8:30, but the show began spot on at 9:30)

The kid’s name was Alex, skinny with a big nose and bigger enthusiasm. Alex also had an accent that veered from Liverpool to Jersey (sometimes by way of a planet outside our solar system) and often in the space of one word. He said he knew a good place to go to get a drink and took us around the corner to Shanghai something or other. We had a drink and he told us amusing story after amusing story, none of which would have been even slightly believable to a massively retarded cosmetology student. He was an actor who had done landscaping for over 15 years. Since he was only 23, this meant he must have done the bulk of his acting before he was 8 years old and entered the industry. He knew where to get drugs, didn’t do them, and drank Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer (this, at least, was true). He was so entertaining that, when he went off to purchase a drink I started to ask The Sister if we should drop our spare ticket (I had purchased 3 because they were cheap) on this kid and I wasn’t halfway through beginning the question when she just nodded yes. As he was about to go off and get his ticket, we told him the good news.

He squealed like he had just won the Mrs. America contest except that this year it included a surprise violation by dilde. After another drink we headed off to the venue and, just as it started to rain, entered. Our IDs were checked (they are relentless about this in Portland and the fact I’m pushing advanced old age had no effect on this) and we were in a nice small venue with two bars and some theater seating around the edges. Being early, we grabbed a handful of them and some beers.

The start of the show was “announced” when the PA blared out “Devil With a Blue Dress” and three women in nice skimpy outfits began to dance. The first band was the winner of some local radio contest and thus no better or no worse than any other local band that might win a contest no one cares about. They could have been the Flaming Oh’s from Minneapolis or Hoi Polloi from Berkeley. They were somewhat hampered by the fact their front man couldn’t sing. I think they were called “The Charms” although they had none. The crowd was filtering in and contained all the ‘types’ you’d expect – a hipster with spit curls on his sideburns; the guy who orders two drinks at the bar and drops the first empty cup on the bar even before he gets his change; the fat guy in the pink shirt with the pink stripe in his beard; Tattoed freaks; ugly young men and women who choose ugly fashion to accentuate their failings; even a guy in a tie-dyed t-shirt who couldn’t have looked more out of place if he’d been wearing a nun’s wimple – in fact that might have fit in better.

So I just drank more…

Next…. What the makeup can’t hide can’t be made up with a kiss…

Dolls.. Day One... the Journey

Seeing the Dolls

The Journey of 1,000 Miles. No. Really!

The morning came early, and if it was bright with dew I was too tired and cranky to notice. I left Hometown USA before 7 and the moon was still up in the sky. The moon would be that impossibly small white dot above the tree in the crummy picture I have over there on the left. Because it was only a partial holiday, the roads were clear and I headed towards Sacramento to meet my sister. She was descending from her mighty mountain redoubt and our brilliant plan was to meet at the airport, stash her car in the long-term parking and then head up the Big Highway to Portland. Which we did. On the way out I received a phone call from the Korean Couple (who were heading to Portland on an entirely different quest of their own) and it appeared they were about 30 minutes ahead of me. And we drove.

And we drove.

And we drove.

And we drove some more.

And we were still in California.

I had no idea this was such a big state.

Crossing Over

Somewhere around Yreka the Korean Couple called and it seemed like we had made up some time on them. We were just heading into Yreka as they were heading out the other side and so we made plans to meet them for lunch in Ashland Oregon. They drove into town and found a little Thai restaurant and sat down and waited for us. The restaurant was nice and that little shrine over there on the right was in their front yard with two slices of pumpkin pie on the offering board. The Koreans would not let me eat any of this, so we decided to drive on. Since I had two beers I let The Sister drive. Which she did for about 10 minutes before she decided that she had to go to the bathroom. The bathrooms in public rest stops, you see, are so much more convenient than the hideous slop-filled bogs one tends to find in restaurants.

Or something.

We stopped for that and since it was so much fun we decided to stop a few miles on down the road to get some gas for the lesSUV.

Finally out of the boring top of California we cruised through southern Oregon until it began to rain. And I mean really rain. The Sister was still driving and we really couldn't see more than 100 yards ahead of us. This was made extra cool by the fact that we were in logging territory and there were logging trucks all over the road. What wasn't logging trucks was commercial trucks. Oddly, in Oregon, where you can't pump your own gas because that would apparently piss off the handicapped, you can drive a commercial truck with two articulations (so, three cargo areas each with their own set of wheels). I presume that by allowing this kind of dangerous rig on the freeways (freeways, by the way, on which you can't drive studded tires because they trash the road... unlike trucks with chains?) Oregon is attempting to ensure a steady stream of handicapped drivers who will continue to militate against the rest of us pumping our own gas.

The rain finally slackened and we drove through a couple of dark towns (I was driving by now). Another feature of the drive was the first porno-shops I have ever seen perched on the edge of a freeway and with enormous and tall neon signs. The Sister thinks that these are there to cater to the lonely truckers and when I saw one directly in the middle of a truck stop (between the closed café and the diesel pumps) I gathered that she was correct.

Just as we were within 5 miles of our exit in Portland (and goggling at the traffic jam of cars heading out of town) traffic slammed to a halt. We crawled the next 2 miles speculating on why the traffic was so bad. As we headed around a broad turn The Sister looked far ahead into the fast lane and said, "because some stupid morons got in an accident in the fast lane."

Sure enough, some stupid morons had got into an accident in the fast lane. And one set of those stupid morons was The Koreans! They were parked in the half-lane between the fast lane and the Jersey Barriers looking at the rear of their truck. Someone had rear-ended them, so they weren't acually the morons, but since I didn't know the other folks involved I cursed the Koreans, all Asian drivers, and their children down 13 generations. I had sobered up since lunch, and I was getting cranky.

We cruised into Portland and crossing the river was just gorgeous. The rain had stopped and the skyline was lit. We quickly descended into the bar area of town and found our hotel. When I got into my room I looked on the nightstand and saw the scene you see to the left. A branded condom on top of a little card that said "Yes." I was impressed and looked around a bit more. Nothing but some earplugs, but now I was really impressed. I quickly figured out the card went on the outside of my door and so I put the two pair of earplugs on the night-stand, the card in the door with the "Yes" clearly visible, and slapped the condom on my johnson. I thought that this was the best damned room service idea I had ever heard of. I laid back and awaited my yodeling sex slave!

When the maid came in to change the sheet (probably confused that I had apparently managed to soil them within 30 minutes of getting in my room) my misunderstanding on the use of the condom and the "Yes" card was eventually resolved in a humorous way.

If by humorous you mean the police were involved as well as a police baton and the condom.

I was ready for the Dolls!

Rocks, Rolls

So if you find yourself crying at a rock show are you gay?

If you are is it because you are twitching along to the NY Dolls?

Or is it just the gayness of crying?

And why, on the way to Portland, did we we pass Mr. Ed the translator on the side of a rain-wet road, after he had apparently been rear-ended?

And why is it 3:24 on Saturday morning and I' m still awake?

Because I'm going to sleep...

Until Sunday (except for silly college things, maybe, sort of)

Best rock show evar....

First Election in Some Time

That I've gone to bed without a hangover the night before... last time I went to sleep believing in victory I woke up and Bush was president.

Locally we have the Terminator beating a bore and a couple of other Republicans in on his coat-tails. No big deal, the republicans here actually think and learn (well, Arnold seems to) which separates them from Repubs out of the state. Locally McInerny seems to be beating Pombo in District 11 (Pombo loses at least 2% in any election for his "gay caballero" moustache) and that unbelievable piece of shit Santorum is down and out. I hear Katherine Harris also lost.

The House is good and the Senate might work out depending on some real nailbiters that are still up for grabs. Now the Demos have to figure out how to not do a piss-poor job and leave the field open for the next Republican set of campaigns which would claim that this (really rather weak, for all it's excellence) midterm election victory and lack of results would prove the Democrats can't govern. Which, since everything is fucked up, could happen. The Republican trick is to irrevocably break everything and then turn to Democrats and ask, "well, how would *you* fix this pile of rubble?"

US voters are normally to short-memoried to remember who effed things up (and also the idiot citizens voted for the bunglers) and Demos still haven't figured out a tack to deal with this.

Anyway.. if I'm in charge of the Democratic Brain Trust, right after I make forced homosexual inter-racial abortion mandatory for minors in my ganja-camps, I adopt the following stragedies:

1) Give up on restrictive gun control -- because you can't trust the government and if dumb rednecks kill their own kids or blow the heads off their own erections at night? It's a bonus. Punish people who misuse guns and let it go. Bonus points? Many hunters (Cheney hunts humans, so he is exempt) are environmentalist -- you can't hunt duck, say, without wetlands...


2) Abandon gay marriage -- it's a puny and insignificant thing that pisses the sexually insecure off. There are legal ways to do the exact same thing. Sorry gays, but you can still be fabulous.

3) Don't make abortion a litmus test (this should go for the looney right as well, but, well, they're looney, so they can still be concerned). Fight for abortion rights on libertarian grounds, not moral ones.

After that, I smoke some medicinal marijuana with a couple of illegal immigrants I know.

Later?

We do some welfare fraud and steal car tires.

Rooms Redux

The last post gathered such universal approbation ("it is so clean," raved anonymous) that I thought I'd post the other two pics that might tie the whole thing together..



this is the living room and it contains, as the clever eye might see, the refrigerator over there on the LEFT side. It also has the TV (inexplicably showing Rachel Ray) and the door to the dreaded outside world. This room is only used for watching the tube, so it is a bit underdecorated.

All of this is neatly tied together by the "closet in the middle of the house" which looks like this (from the living room)



with door number one leading to the kitchen, door number two leading to the bathroom and door number three (with it's charming glass window indicating the basic "garageness" of the entire proceedings) leading to the bedroom.

So (and entirely not to scale) it looks something like this:



and that is the pad.

TOMORROW - "Inside My Dental Work!"

In the rooms where I live

My mother says she reads this thing now and then..

and I've moved and she (well, anyone, really) has never seen the pad. So tonight, after sending off some slightly honeyed high-velocity doggie-biscuits of prose to my "Just Barely Accredited Master's Program" I wandered the inside chambers of my own personal Taj Mahal and snapped off a few shots.

Which is local slang for smoking crack and masturbating.

After I woke up from that bother, I grabbed the camera to show what my lovely converted garage looks like....

This is the kitchen (no oven, which is a bit of a drag) and yes, the entire doorframe is in that shot and, no, there is no refrigerator, but worry not little ones (the refrigerator will show up in tomorrow's shocking and revealing photos)..



I primarily use the kitchen to heat the place on cooler mornings.

The bathroom is directly opposite this (I suppose tomorrow I will take some exterior shots and draw some kind of layout) and it is a shotgun bathroom if one ever existed.



you can't see the shower and bath because they are to the left (as you look) of the toilet and behind the slight wall you see just past the wood cabinet.

And then, the lovely bedroom which is quite spacious and (with the light you see on the ceiling turned off and my lamps on) very feng-shuied in my personal way. Of course using the fish-eye-ish lens means the books on my dresser loom scarily, but that's just how it's gotta be...