queer theory applied to war

No. This isn't going to be some philosophical treatise on the heterosexism and war. (I'm not that well-researched and you're not that patient.)

The Queer Part
Here the deal. Most queer people look like, well, most straight people. With some fabulous and delicious exceptions.

Fabulous:

Delicious:

The way you change the uninformed is to inform them, right? Come out. It can be as simple as one of those ubiquitous rainbow stickers (gag, yes, but I have a variation on my vehicle), telling your cube neighbor that you are a dyke, faggot, trannie or biwhore (modify for your own world) or referring to your significant other as partner or lover or anything but my friend. (Those first three options suck, in my opinion, but not as much as the fourth. We have not come up with anything better yet, so use what you've got.)

Demystify/put a face on the boogieman. And liberate yourself in the process.

The War Part
So if this war makes you want to scream "The Emperor is NAKED and he's mowing down civilians and civil rights." Then, goddammit, come out about it. Seriously, do something. Bumpersticker. T-shirt. Letters to your congressional leaders. Send money to progressive organizations committed to change. Tell your neighbor. Protest.

I'm jaded about the political process and I'm not sure protesting on the street is the key to change. But I sure as fuck know that:

• sitting at home crying over videos of maimed Iraqi children, or
• raging silently over the revisionist bullshit pouring our of the mouth of that moron at the helm
  

isn't going to change a goddamned thing.

marriedtothesea.com

file under "i wish i'd have thought of that"

Teen:
So, this one time I got kicked out of Barnes and Noble for moving all the Bibles to the 'Fiction' section...
--74th & Columbus

my avatar salutes hillary

Ah, shit, I couldn't help it. Here's my Simpsons avatar. I'm convinced that someone will (and should) do their psychology thesis on Simpsons avatar creation: how we see ourselves as cartoon characters and how that perception measures up to how others see us. My daughter created one and the resemblance (actual and symbolic) was uncanny.

This morning we went to see Hillary Clinton speak at the Communication Workers of America hall. Aside from the entertainment being way too religious (read: Southern Christian) and long, Hillary's stump speech was impressive. She is painted as so cold in the media and that's not at all how she came across. She's smart and strong and would make a great president. The Democrats have a respectable bunch of candidates. It gives me hope.

this should cheer you right up

Fell off the (sane) wagon and watched network television last night. The good thing is that I didn't have to wait for the morning hangover to chastise me. No. Commercials and talentless hosts are like drinking Big Daddy's Ass Burn Hot Sauce after your ulcer perforates. Instant feedback that you're ass deep in a bad idea.

Have you seen the new McDonalds' ads? Soulless marketers trying to convince us that McDs offers a healthy menu by spelling their name with fresh produce. The golden arches made out of grape tomatoes. Brought to you by the godfathers of extruded foods and slicked-up colons.

Tried to find my happy place this week and last. Fucking door was dead-bolted. Could only access my Almost Happy Place: where you dream about but never really get to smack anyone. Don't know why I'm having such a fucking hard time lately. I blame it on the dizzying cocktail of

• medications playing whack-a-mole with my moods,
• work that makes me feel hollow,
• stealth hormones cruising my system,
• powerful heat and weak air conditioners,
• pervasive and often unfounded money angst,
• way too much:
• political awareness,
• food industry awareness,
• health industry awareness, and
• a growing fear that I've lost my way.
  

And, nutballs, I'm not talking about my spiritual salvation here. I'm talking about the desire to do what I love being replaced by inertia. Lethargy. Perhaps, godhelpme, ennui.

Please file this under self-indulgent caterwauling and either forget about it or quote from it when I get too high and mighty. It won't stop me from pummeling you but think of how much you'll enjoy pissing me off.

symantec or syphilis...give me a minute to decide

Had the most blindingly bad tech support experience ever last night—and I've racked up some major time on the phone with techies in my nerdy life. I went to the Symantec Norton Anti-Virus for Mac product page and clicked on upgrade. Purchased the product and as I was about to download, I realized that the product upgrade was for Windows machines. Go figure.

After some unforgivable web maze shenanigans, I found the support "we'll call you" form. The only positive part of this labyrinthian nightmare was that they called me within 5 minutes.

I'm not sure that I can put into words how abysmal my Symantec customer service experience was with one earnest but inept CSR named Maximus. Almost breathtaking in its shititude.

Here's a brief not-verbatim* selection of my torturous conversation with Max (and godhelpme, this really is a prime example of why outsourcing tech support to other countries can be even more maddening than dealing with lousy support in your own culture):

(we're at least 15 minutes into this ordeal by now)
Max: Okay, I need to log this information.
Me: (waiting)
Max: Okay?
Me: Yes. Sure.
Max: Okay. Please hold on while I log this in.
Me: Fine.
Max: I apologize for the inconvenience.
Me: (waiting, because I felt by this time that I had given him the immense amount of support and loving assurance that he apparently needed.)
Max: Hello? (almost panicky-sounding) Are you still there?
Me: Yes. Yes, of course.
Max: Okay, okay. I'm almost finished. Just another minute. Just another minute.
Me: (swearing silently) That's fine.
Ten minutes and 10 repetitions later
Max: Okay. You will have a refund in a couple of days. In 4-7 working days.
Me: Uh...okay. So you said I can just order the Mac Upgrade with you, right?
Max: Yes. I need to go check with my manager. Okay?
Me: Sure.
Max: You hold and I'll go check.
Me: Fine.
Max: I apologize for the inconvenience.
Me: Really, it's fine. Go ahead.

10 variations on this theme and 5 minutes later:

Max: I cannot order this for you to download but I can tell you the web address and help you order it online.
Me: That's alright, I already have the site open. That's how I found the [superlative] tech support [I am presently enjoying].
Max: (Begins what scarring experience now tells me will be a 10-minute explanation about why he can't do what he said he could do earlier. The bowing, scraping and overexplaining is so homocidally tedious that I will spare you the verbiage. I cut him off.)
Me: No, really, Max, it's fine. I'm on the site right now and I'm not going to have a problem. Thanks. That's all I need.
Max: You will be receiving an email about this customer support. (Unbelievable. Add more filler here. Lorem ipsum...) Are you happy with the support I have provided? (etc. ad nauseum)
Me: Yes. Yes. You bet, Max. Everything is great. Gotta go now.
Max: Have a good day, I mean have a good evening. You have been a very nice customer...
Me: Bye-bye Max. (click)

No kidding, this experience dragged on for 30-40 minutes. Every minute of it longer than the previous. If I hadn't been concerned about making sure he refunded my account (and I won't be know if that's actually happened for a few more days) I would have just hung up.

Norton had already been irritating me with their pester bot programs and their bullshit policies. This was the coup de grâce. I'm done. My friend Dave recommended ClamX instead and I'm willing to try some random cephalopod- pelecypod-inspired freeware rather than ever deal with Norton/Symantec again.

*not verbatim because I don't monitor my own conversations. Evidently I don't give a fuck about quality assurance or training.

overheard at work

"intertwingled"

Some people might think this is kind of cute. You know, intertwined becomes comingled. Twingly. But in the serious attempt at corporate bugfuckery that spawned this oral plop, it's not.

addendum (referring to a project):

"I'm going to be working towards it but I won't be working on it...if you know what I mean."

No, really. Corporate crapspeak. Every fucking day. I deserve a commendation for staying the fist of death.

not to impune the reputations of my favorite gamers

Tough Talk from a Guy in a Dungeons and Dragons Tee

from Overheard in New York

Old man: Let the people off the train first! Let the people off first! You know the rules!
Young man: Sir, this is New York. There are no rules. You're living in a fantasy world.

--1 train, 110th St

sundry school in three panels

You know how you could just watch a hundred Simpsons episodes just to see the creative way Matt Groening changes up the family rush to the couch part? I feel the same way about Red Meat titles. Here's a happy Sunday Red Meat for y'all who missed church this morning. Again.

post-eugene-post

Spent a long (but not long enough) weekend in Eugene, Oregon visiting my kids and hanging out with their friends. I love that I have children who can pre-sort the masses for me and cull out the best contestants. Almost without exception the people they like and respect are people I would want to count as my friends. And I was not disappointed. What a great time.

Of course, I'm fairly awash in post-visit blues. Not overwhelmingly, just normally. I like/love these two humans I helped usher into the world. They are (and I know this is not always the case with the fruit of our loins) my people. Bright, complex and funny. Full of intensity and ideas. Lovers of language and food and faraway places. In spite of my selfish moments of missing their presence close-by, I am delighted that they choose to take on the world in their very different but inspiring quests. Sigh.

blogs, blags, blugs

I don't care if everyone has a fucking blog and it's all sooo trendy. The people at dailykos.com and wemakemoneynotart.com have enriched my life to the point that I can't imagine a world without this medium. You have to sift through a lot of shit but there are gems out there, people.

P.S. I almost forgot the inspirational Jesus of the Week site. This week's jotw (7.28.07) is as rich as always. Jesus the gymnast. Doing the crucifix. Oh...well, jesus, this is awesome.

some nyt disappointment

From fair.org this entry:

A Meet the Press appearance offers insight into the source of misinformation so frequent in New York Times columnist Brooks' writing. His citation of Times reporter John Burns when asserting that postponing withdrawal would "prevent 10,000 Iraqi deaths a month" prompts questioning from fellow guest Woodward, if not from their "bulldog" host:

Woodward: "10,000 dying"... where does that come from?

Brooks: Well, A, it comes from John Burns. Second, it comes from the national intelligence...

Woodward: Well, no, he doesn’t say 10,000.

Brooks: Well, no, no, but it talks about genocide.

Woodward: Yeah.

Brooks: So I just picked that 10,000 out of the air.

Meanwhile, epidemiologists who have applied the standard tools of their profession to Iraq and concluded that the death toll under U.S. occupation is approximately 15,000 a month do not have David Brooks' access to the mainstream media discussion.

Once upon a time we could depend on the New York Times to be the last word in unbiased, hard journalism. Those simpler times are gone. While there may be much that the NYT still does well, the difficult work of ferreting out the truth is back to our own hunting and gathering. That's serious work. Maybe it always was/should have been up to us to investigate, but christ, it would have been nice to depend on a few professionals out there.

new yarmulke for your putz

The Houston Press cover article this week is entitled "The Fantastic Foreskin." First of all, kudos to the clever writer who penned that. Anyway, the article is about circumcised men who feel that they are "missing something" and employ all sorts of weights and pulleys to "create" a new beanie for their little guy.

Hmmm. I am pretty adamantly opposed to circumcision, even though I succumbed to pressure and had my son circumcised twenty-odd years ago. (Actually, it was witnessing that procedure that cemented my opposition to this archaic and unnecessary practice.)

However, reversing the process seems problematic. Like making a turtleneck out of a scoop neck by stretching it. Seems like the end result would be...I don't know, ill-fitting.

tidbits

Holy Shit
I was doing some research...okay, I was stumped on a NYT crossword puzzle clue (Will Shortz can shake his finger at me 'til it falls off–I'm okay with that.) and stumbled upon these two pontifical gems:

461-468 A.D. Pope HILARIUS
468-483 A.D. Pope SIMPLICIUS

In light of the recent reversion to the Me Catholic | You Heathen categorization of the world (thank your Herr Benedick), I yearn for simpler, more hilarious times.

Another epiphenita
I have come to the conclusion that successful relationships, by that I mean mostly happy and somewhat long-lasting, are not primarily the result of love and common interests but of complementary dysfunctions. You find someone who can tolerate your nose-picking and whose toenail biting does not make you homicidal. Done.

Handmade
There's a site called The Letter Project based on the simple premise that everyone deserves to get a letter. No gimmicks, no advertising. Just some guy named Rick who will send you a letter if you ask him. Handwritten and unique. The only way you can "support" the project is to send Rick stamps. I so love this idea, I sent him some new lighthouse stamps with a letter of my own. Within the week I received a real letter. A truly lovely letter about what I wrote to him and his bike ride that day. I am moved beyond explanation by this uncomplicated gesture. I will write him back. Perhaps a greater tribute would be to make it my goal to regularly send handwritten letters to others...

State of the Nation
An idiot* monkey throwing his poo around still retains a modicum of cute. A retarded* ape with a machine gun, mowing folks down while throwing his shit around has rounded the bend to diabolical. Time to find Marlin, Jim and the big tranquilizer dart.

*let's not insult the regular primates, people.

you wonder why women love gay men?

A man writes to Dan Savage about his shameful sexual attraction to fat women. Dan Savage writes back and, among other things, tells him "You're a cowardly, hateful piece of shit." [5 July 2007]

I love Dan Savage.

trompe tower o jesus

You know, I do love me some trompe-l'œil and some Jesus of the Week. Somewhere in my stony non-believing heart, a happy little song is playing for this one. It's all about creating illusions to deceive perception. Yeah, that's the way Christianity looks to me...

What are these three ladies doing strolling past
a twenty-foot Jesus with their heads down?
Is that one chica talking on her iPhone?
Pay attention, girls! Jesus is right above you on a brick wall
looking like He's gonna drop the Bible on your heads!
—jotw

bulletin to houston motorists

Signal first. Brake second.
Assholes.

discovery channel deja vue

The frogs are back. This is the third night of relentless trilling. Now I know why we eat them.

wow

I don't have cable, so I missed this special commentary Tuesday night (July 3, 2007) on MSNBC. But I do have access to YouTube. Watch this incredible response to Bush handing Scooter Libby his Get Out of Jail Free Card by Keith Olbermann. It's been so long since I've witnessed a mainstream television or print journalist be this honest (about anything, not the least of which is Bush's exponentially disastrous presidency), I could have wept. Some might say it's easier to criticize now that Bush's numbers are in the toilet...so how come we're not hearing much more of this? Like, every single day?

While I'm on my pinko commie fag liberal rant, go see Sicko. Really, stop pissing around about it and just go.

oh ye goddessless

Street preacher: Oh, you poor ladies. You are on your way to Hell. Stop holding each other like that! Don't you know that lesbianism is a sin?
Girl: Dude, that's my mom!

--Jay St

file under "o" for omg

From the sorbet of sites, have one between each political blog:

Ghetto chick: Excuse me! Excuse me! What's the name of the towers that got knocked down?
Incredulous passerby: Umm . . . The World Trade Center.
Ghetto chick to thug boyfriend: See! I told you it wasn't none of that twin towers. You thinking of Lord of the Rings.

--Vesey St

tuesday morning pick-me-up

Once again, from OverheardInNewYork.com:

Older man hugging younger man: Wassup, my nigga?
Younger man: Dad, cut it out. We're white.

--Leonard & Lafayette St

This shit slays me.

holy shit, something REAL

Weasels 'n Polecats
I've come up with a ferret analogy of why some of my co-workers make me absofuckinglutely crazy. I like ferrets. Mostly from a distance and behind glass but occasionally in the flesh as well. I believe if I had to cohabitate in close quarters with them, however, I'd swell up with hives and homicidal urges. So it's a proximity thing. Once in a while a potential irritant is tolerable, perhaps even likeable. Increase the exposure to 9 hours a day with only a fabric covered divider and well, you see where I'm going with this.

Playing-nice-with-others theory aside, the fact is most days I ought to be annoyed at the mindless, spin-saturated, jargon-rife patter. It is insulting and fucks over language and meaning. It is a sacrilege to truth and direct communication. For example, a direct quote I heard with my own bleeding ears:

"[let's have them]...take a very detailed, cursory glance."

Sweartogod. And that's just the surface rash. The real carcinogens dwell beneath the surface.

When someone shovels conference room-loads of bullshit and everyone around them fawns: Isn't she smart? Isn't he corporate material? it's all I can do to keep from standing on the "desk" surface of my demoralizing miniature cube and scream, "But the Emperor is Naked and He Has a Hard-On and Why Can't You See It"?

But, you know, that way unemployment lies...and this approach would have me standing on restaurant tables, car roofs and government agency countertops and the whole thing makes me too weary to bark.

Commentaterheads
Now, the latest trend in online news is to invite the public to comment on editorials, stories and whatnot. The rationale behind this is wreathed in inclusiveness and the voice of democracy and it makes me want to puke. First of all, the impetus behind this is like the impetus behind most noble crap: money. Page clicks, in this case. Give people the ability to publish their two-cents or just read the two-cents of their "regular guy" neighbor and you get more page clicks. More page clicks attracts more advertisers. Please don't make me connect any more dots.

And there's the other part of this hot new approach that sickens me. You see, the idealistic believer in democracy who has a cube of her own in the mayhem that is my head gets pummeled whenever I read the puling, lobotomied comments. Bovine troglodytes with keyboards. Racist illiterates and simpletons manipulated by fear. The self-righteous and the smug. These are my fellow Americans (insert your own country). From these lowing masses would be chosen a jury of my peers. It's another thought that chills me into staying my hand everyday.

Is that a voice in the wilderness?
Then I read something as real and raw and bullshit-free as this blog: Violent Acres*. A woman who writes about the idiocy of the war on drugs. She tells the self-pity-free, flat-out horror story of her childhood and how the system didn't just fail her, it rubberstamped her abusers.

And I, non-believer and skeptic, understand for just a moment why people form congregations.

I love that this woman doesn't give a shit about my approval. I love that she doesn't hesitate to say riotously "unladylike" things. She's not interested in playing fact wars. She draws conclusions based on her experience and observation and can't understand why so many people can't fucking do that. She doesn't think she's a good writer and in that she's dead wrong. Her writing has power and cohesion. She doesn't invite comments. I understand that. I write for the two-dozen people I've invited to read my cerebral, foul-mouthed opinionated diatribes, and it took forever to decide to publish anything to the "world."

V, you fucking rock. And I think you're full of shit and right on.

*I wholeheartedly thank my good and anonymous friend for this gem of a link and several others. My life is richer because of you.

houston mid-june a.m.

Our vehicles were sweating this morning. Not dew-covered. Dew implies something cool and refreshing. When you wake up to a humid 75°F, it's sweat. Warm, oily car perspiration.

pink dispair

dailykos
There's a blog I really like called the dailykos.com. Markos Moulitsas Zúniga began the blog in 2002. For me, he has all the progressive credibility credentials: ex-military, fled El Salvador as a child with his family, educated, informed, intelligent and articulate. Yes, it's liberal and so am I and of course, I don't take every word as canonized truth–it's just more information than I'm ever going to get from corporate media. He has a bunch of contributing editors to his site and I generally find the writing and links very informative.

pink pinko baby
And I love that bloggers can periodically include bits of their personal lives. Someone once said that all politics are personal and that simple cliche bears repeating. The human element can be as strong a bond as philosophical agreement.

I read with mixed feelings this entry about his two-month old daughter which features a picture of the beautiful baby. I am as big a fan of infants as some of my sisteren are of puppies and kittens and the like. Even wrinkly red, vernix-caseosa-coated, meconium-extruding newborns are irresistible to me. Which is why my feelings are mixed. She is a lovely child. But as I looked at the photo I was dismayed at the pink, puffy-sleeved, sweet-sweet-sweet embroidered dress/blouse she was wearing for this special photo.

Ach. I love pink. But when we dress our babies in hyper-gendered outfits we handle them differently. We place exagerrated emphasis on gender importance. We handle the spun-cotton-candy-sugar like spun glass. We handle the navy blue-clad more...firmly. I can't seem to make many inroads on this issue with even my most progressive acquaintances. I get their "oh, she's on her feminist rant again" tolerantly amused faces.

There's nothing wrong with the delicate or the rough-and-tumble. However, let's seriously question the one-or-the-other approach that saturates gender perception.

get a gun, daddy
In addition to the traditional portrayal of femininitude, were the predictable comments about having a daughter:

When you have a boy, you only have to worry about 1 penis.
When you have a girl, you have to worry about five million penises.

It's always amusing to see my friends have to pull out the daddy card and be that scary man that scares off the boyfriends. A buddy of mine is already talking about getting a rifle, and his daughter's only a year old.

Well, shit. These are supposedly non-conservative, untraditional commenters. These are the liberals, feminists and progressives. And while some add disclaimers to their references about "sugar & spice," there is wistful attachment to these traditional descriptions.

When you begin with the premise that the world is chock-full of penis-wielding intruders and little girls must be protected by their daddies, you strip away the potential survival power that a female might have and replace it with fear and helplessness.

This isn't just about pink dresses.

renegade ex-mormon with coffee

Letter I recently wrote to my daughter:

as luck or coincidence would have it, the science of sleep came up in my netflix queue and arrived the same week as the 25th "anniversary of my wakefulness." June 14th, 1982: i was told i had narcolepsy and that diagnosis (and treatment) marked a dramatic change in my life.

but i never stopped loving the feeling of falling asleep.

the movie was enchanting. especially the corrugated cardboardness of it all. and how could one not delight in cotton-turned-clouds? anyway, it's making me rethink my "chaos" and how much i love having creative materials around me.

love,
mom

Narcolepsy is comedy fodder. And it should be. It's a quirky disorder that doesn't kill you but can muffle much of life's bright color if undiagnosed. But, it is a funny problem. I am grateful to the quacky internist who suggested that I might have a sleep disorder. I would have been hard-pressed to accomplish a third of what I have done in my life thus far, in that sleepy state.

Re: this post's title
Having been raised Mormon, I was ironically barred from the only non-prescription and universally available stimulant: caffeine. When I discovered coffee after my diagnosis (it was the only alternative to prescription drugs that were not an option while breast-feeding aforementioned daughter in her infancy) my system seized upon this substance. I was AMAZINGLY awake. And my virginal digestive system was in an uproar. Good times.

if i spend too much time trying to figure out this post's title i'll never get it written

Not enough people are talking about impeaching Bush. What more does he have to do before we slap our collective forehead and say WTF? I say impeach the bastard. Then, try him for war crimes. Any other world leader with his arrogant, murderous audacity would be dragged in front of an international council and unanimously condemned.

I've been learning a little bit more about a blogging legend who passed away last week. Steven Gilliard was the founder of thenewsblog.net, died at 42 and left a big hole in the progressive blogging community. As I researched the life of this intelligent, informed man, I was amazed at the persistence of so many dedicated political bloggers out there. Ferreting out all the empty or inaccurate news and dragging it into the open. Don't they get overwhelmed by the insanity and deception? Maybe they do but I'm so glad they're out there digging around the morass of fear-fueled and lackluster media reporting.

So I'm on an RSS feeding frenzy lately. Fair.org and dailykos.com have joined the well-loved Rude Pundit to fill in some of the big holes in our glassy-eyed media reports. If I have to see one more homepage story about American Idol or Paris Hilton I will leap off the edge of my cube sohelpmegod.

more miscellanea

Advertising Tomfoolery
There's a new Lamisil (athlete's foot treatment) commercial where the locker room socks all become hand puppets bemoaning the fungus they battle. I want to see a Vagisil commercial where the panty crotches in the dressing room all come to life to trade yeast infection war stories.

That Ol' Taiwanese Whale Tail
Okay, so MSNBC ran this story three or four years ago, but I've been re-reading a few of my books lately and in that sprit, I say some stories are worth a second telling:

Residents of Tainan learned a lesson in whale biology after the decomposing remains of a 60-ton sperm whale exploded on a busy street, showering nearby cars and shops with blood and organs and stopping traffic for hours.

The 56-foot-long whale had been on a truck headed for a necropsy by researchers, when gases from internal decay caused its entrails to explode in the southern city of Tainan.

Once moved to a nearby nature preserve, the male specimen -- the largest whale ever recorded in Taiwan -- drew the attention of locals because of its large penis, measured at some five feet, the Taipei Times reported. "More than 100 Tainan city residents, mostly men, have reportedly gone to see the corpse to 'experience' the size of its penis," the newspaper reported.

I am not saying that there isn't something ironic about men (whose average height is not much greater than the gawked-over phallus) gathering to view the ginormous pecker served up on a platter of exploded whale...sperm whale, at that. But irony is upstaged by the reporter's/translator's choice of words, "men...gone to 'experience' the size of its penis." That just provides the wrong visual.

Anna Nicole Smith Autopsy Report
And in the continued spirit of old news, I would be remiss in keeping my two cents on this one.

I am fascinated by autopsy reports. And, predictable as it is, this one's begging for commentary. I know, I know, I'm just like one of the millions of sensationalism crackheads in this country. But how can you resist an autopsy report with such a litany of tattoos, plastic surgeries and drugs in starring and supporting roles? All you would expect from the queen of shallow tackiness. So it was somewhat disappointing to read this rude little line:

"The anus is unremarkable."

I'm just saying the medical examiners could have been a little more sensitive. Maybe "The anus is real cute but not tattooed or nothin'." or "The anus appears normal but we're sure it's seen its share of action." Don't treat the anus like an autopsy afterthought. Have some respect for dead assholes.

Election Whipping Hijos du Jour
It's no surprise to all but the dullest-witted observers that campaigns usually rely on some cultural boogie-man to con the shit-scared masses into voting conservatively. So I'm here to announce that we, The Queers of America, are temporarily passing the torch to the Brown People currently being used to whip simple-minded Americans into a frightened frenzy. Paper covers Rock; Rock breaks Scissors; Scissors cut Paper; and Xenophobia trumps Homophobia this year.

But never fear, oh, reviled immigrants, this is a relay race and the baton will come back around to us. Except for all you gay wetbacks...you, mis amigos, are fucked.

Speaking of Queers
It's gay, gay, gay month, once again. There's a group here called POMPOM (say what you want but those queens are clever) for People Opposed to Moving the Parade Out of Montrose. I can't imagine what dunderbrain wants to strip the last bit of local color out of Montrose by moving the parade. Pretty soon Montrose is going to be the legitimate offspring of Rice Village and Bellaire instead of the riotous bastard child of Pasadena and River Oaks. What a shameful price to pay for middle-class respectability.

The only reason to move the Parade is to take it on the road: this year to Kingwood, next year to Orange, then, The Woodlands, Vidor and maybe a few sashays through good ol' godfearing, Bush-dwelling Tanglewilde. Otherwise, leave it the fuck alone.

We'll be out there either marching or cheering from the sidelines. And checking out the sistahs and the drag queens and the fashion-plate guys and the baby dykes...oh, wait, they supposedly hate that expression. How about lesbianettes? Yeah, we'll be checking out the lesbianettes, too.

what was i supposed to remember again?

Happy Memorial Day, people...whatever that means to each of you.
Here's another happy eavesdropping moment from Overheard in New York:

Jesus-freak: ...And let it be known that if you disobey the holy book and God's laws, you are eternally damned.
Queer: So, what happens to me if I'm gay?
Jesus-freak: You're going to Hell in a hand basket!
Queer: Well, that hand basket better be fucking Prada, bitch!

--42nd St station

I've been too fucking busy lately...but not too busy to reflect on passing of Jerry FallDowntoHellWell. The Rude Pundit and Christopher Hitchens have so beautifully captured my sentiments I don't want to say anything more so as not to muddy up the righteous waters of their holy writ.

In other news, the city of Houston makes their street cleaning crew wear robin's-egg-blue and buttercup-yellow (<--that's buttercup-yellow) uniforms. While I applaud them for taking a stance against army green or industrial khaki, I think they've swung a little too far out on that color wheel pendulum. Those litter-stick-wielding workers look like the disgruntled section of the Easter parade.

Wish I could share more but I've got domestic chores calling me. Their voices sound just like Patty and Selma Bouvier.

malaprop delight

Grammatical sloppiness irritates me. Run spellcheck, proofread your word usage and make the extra effort to get your verbs to play nice with your nouns.

But sometimes the (mostly unconscious) slap-happy use of an expression completely enchants me (from foundmagazine.com):

"No holes barred" is a bastardization of "no holds barred" which refers to a sort of free-for-all approach to wrestling/boxing that has been adapted to any activity that is free from restriction.

In this form (Oh, I do wish it was intentional!) it's sex trade offering tongue-in-cheek...Oh god, I kill myself. Okay, Okay. Find the malaprops/misusage in this:

As we close the physical year's books, we've scoured every crook and nanny for incontinencies and, for all intense purposes, last year's budget demonstrated the perineal financial health we have all come to except. No holes barred.

Language is endlessly delightful.

superhero delusions

Hats off to the Rude Pundit and his treatise on Delusionality. No really, the man is fucking on target and riotously funny.

And this from boingboing.net: Real Life Underwear Perverts in the News. There's too much funny bizarreness for me to focus on in this story. Several details from thesmokinggun.com, however, stand out:

APRIL 24--Meet Dr. Raymond Adamcik. The Florida man, dressed as Captain America and with a burrito stuffed in his tights, was arrested Saturday night for allegedly groping women at a Melbourne bar. Adamcik was part of a pub crawl in which participants wore costumes. While at the On Tap bar, Adamcik, 54, allegedly touched the genital areas of two women, according to a Melbourne Police Department report. "Because there were so many cartoon characters in the bar at this time, all Captain Americas were asked to go outside for a possible identification," notes the report.

In the police report, the boyfriend of one of the assaulted woman is identified as Kenneth Tingley. Tingley, for fuckssake. It's wrong, wrong, wrong that this makes me laugh.

On a more sober note, here are some video posts of veterans who oppose the administration's war policy. The first half-dozen are quite good.

comments that make me sputter

Here is a good example of the kind of feedback that makes me worry about being the lead story of the Weekly World News when I snap.

setting: Associate Creative Director of Ad Agency to Copywriter, asking to add unnecessary fluff to a basic banner:
"Add a roll-over state. People love roll-overs"
"Well, if that's the case, why don't we add puppies to the ad? Because everyone loves puppies"

In my opinion, the perfect response. Puppies can also be replaced with 12 exclamation points or anything with that dazzling sparkle star.

This from a site Adverbatims.blogspot.com that collects foolish quotes by and to Communications, Advertising and Marketing professionals. The Unholy Trinity. But I'm 100% sure everyone gets these kind of comments in their respective professions.

Thank you, Barry for linking to this site.

Fier & Imus

My buddy Eric forwarded this NYT op-ed piece by Harvey Fierstein on the Don Imus' craptacular exit. Here are the first two paragraphs:

AMERICA is watching Don Imus’s self-immolation in a state of shock and awe. And I’m watching America with wry amusement.

Since I’m a second-class citizen — a gay man — my seats for the ballgame of American discourse are way back in the bleachers. I don’t have to wait long for a shock jock or stand-up comedian to slip up with hateful epithets aimed at me and mine. Hate speak against homosexuals is as commonplace as spam. It’s daily traffic for those who profess themselves to be regular Joes, men of God, public servants who live off my tax dollars, as well as any number of celebrities.

Fierstein's points are good and important but I must add I really enjoyed the Rude Pundit's take on the whole Don Imus brouhaha. I love that word. Brouhaha It sounds so like an evil laugh should sound.

marketing isn't always evil

Pimping for the man has taught me some very important life lessons. This photo clearly points out the importance of location and timing.
(Jesus of the Week, I idolatrize thee.)

87? did i say 87? i meant to say 107. really.

The article is titled, NYC admits problems after rat infestation at fast-food restaurant

Here is a snippet:

On Feb. 22, [health inspector] Thomas documented only 87 rat droppings and didn't cite an additional 20, which would have caused the restaurant to fail the inspection and could have forced it to close immediately, the department said. The next day, video of rats scampering throughout the eatery surfaced.

Okay. Let me get this straight. Part of health inspector's jobs are to actually count (like a pharmacist?) each little piece of rodent poo and write that number down? Are the accounted droppings then gathered up as evidence or do they remain there on the crusty floor for diners to gaze at as they chow down on their drumstick-n-thigh special?

Second issue: Eighty-seven bits o' rat shit are simply not enough to close an eatery? Nope, seems that 107 is the magic number. Need 20 more or the frying continues. Wow. What if one turd breaks and "appears" to be two? That could throw the whole thing off. This shit counting is more complex than it appears. Time was a handful of rat shit was pretty much all it took.

See the fast food rat here.

larry jerkhead

I hate to blow the soon-to-be abused clever little nickname for Anna Nicole's babydaddy on a blog title but I couldn't figure out how to make Birkhead rhyme with smegma.

Everything repugnant about modern society captured in the triumphant pump of a fist, cheesy thumbs-up and humble "I told you so."

"I won the million-dollar baby! My sperm rocks!"

One particular unprotected, sloppy romp with shit-for-brains/tits-for-days and Mr. Classy is golden! His 15-seconds of ejaculated fame.

Okay. We can all agree that this little girl didn't have a chance in hell of a tragedy-free life since zygotehood. Her mother was trash and everyone poking the trash was repugnant. The thing that reeks of Americana in all this is not that Anna Nicole was vapid and fucked up. It's not even that all the men surrounding her could have only wanted sex and money from her, despite her sterling command of the English language. It isn't even that three men and a goat have come forward with claims of paternity in the legal orgy following her death.

It's that all of this crass, tragic, shallow behavior is not being camouflaged in the slightest way by respect for a dead mother, a dead brother, a rejected/disturbed but grieving grandmother and last, and evidently least, an orphaned infant. No. Not even a nod in the direction of discretion. Not even a hint of humility at the challenges of new fatherhood. This is the look of someone who has just had his pony cross the finish line first. This is the face of a man who just watched the fifth Lotto ball drop in his favor.

If I were the judge and had the power, these two photographs would cancel Larry Jerkhead's claim to fatherhood. Permanently.

5 a.m.

Woke up this morning at the end of the drowning dream. Kept swimming furiously to the surface as it receded and my lungs felt filled to bursting. I fucking hate that dream. Jaw clenched and mind racing, I couldn't get back to sleep (it's Saturday, damn it all) and then, a thunderstorm came through. Two rounds of lighting and the rumbling of thunder and I slipped back into unconsciouness. Ahhh.

is that mollusk running out of your nose?

An acquaintance was telling me about his sick niece and remarked that she was miserable in part because she had crustaceans all around her eyes.

I laughed so hard my arthropods flared up.

(This just in: Jesus had a bad case of the crustaceans once, too.)

blag, blag, blag

When you invert the first two consonant sounds in a word or phrase sometimes it means something else or just sounds good. Like kitchen and chicken. Or crooks and nannies instead of nooks and crannies. Well, lately I've been calling my blog, my glob. I like the way it sounds. Bloggers are getting a lot of shit for being so trendy and/or full of inflated self-importance. It's good to poke fun at blogging even though, you know, I'm so not like those other globbers.

I think this guy is funny. Unexpectedly science-math-nerd poignant funny.

I'm not a high maintenance kind of woman...

...Sometimes a clever statement is all I need to resurrect a crapulent day.

My brother-in-law, the one that once sent me nunchucks anonymously (bless his divine humor), saw this and sent it to me yesterday:

Creationists should not be allowed to burn fossil fuel.

See? All better now.

finally, a hobo name to be proud of

I'm not saying that I will never have another hobo name but this first one will always hold a special place in my heart:

Inside-Out Mathilda

A long-awaited epiphenita, this one.

The origin comes from a more-often-than-normal tendency of mine to leave the house with an article of clothing on inside-out, backwards, mismatched or missing. This happened when I was a kid. A teenager. A young adult and it happened last month and again last week. A sign, I sigh, of my lifelong inability to give enough weight* to appearance. It's not that I don't care. I just don't care as much as most people. I can say this, because I rarely see my female or male coworkers with mismatched shoes, inside-out t-shirts, skirts spun around, etc. And I'm always looking for comrades in carelessness.

The Mathilda is a conglomeration: Tom Waits song, my ancient aunt and any name that hides the word math. So there you have it. From Inside-Out Mathilda who loves stew and swearing, too.

*pun gleefully intended

in awe of the rude

My friend Bryan made a comment on my last blog that referenced The Rude Pundit. He included a warning, because the Rude Pundit is not for the faint of heart or anyone who thinks George Bush is not laps ahead of Nixon and Harding in the race for the all-time worst president this country has ever had. I love the creative fucking ballsiness of it all. Statements like "no one...would have given a happy monkey fuck about the damn thing" leave me wheezing. I live for expressions like happy monkey fuck.

When my normal breathing resumed, I read this snippet and wondered if my old inhaler was still functional:

In answer to a couple of whiny questions about yesterday's post regarding the Fox "News" website's home page headlines being nearly completely devoid of anything remotely related to news, listen, you wads of fuck:

1. It wasn't photoshopped. If the Rude Pundit were going to waste his time photoshopping a Fox web page, it'd have a headline like "Rupert Murdoch Raped By Angry Wallaby"...

I am also partial to "wads of fuck" and references to wallaby sex.

One of the harsh lessons of adulthood is that no matter how much you might have in common with someone, nor how much you like and respect them, your humor Venn Diagrams may not intersect. Enough. With that disclaimer, I will say that I think that the Rude Pundit is too goddamn funny. And it's okay if you don't. It's okay if you sniff disapprovingly at me and my vulgar ways during high tea. Ms. Fussypants.

the peter principal, in general

General Peter Pace: "I believe that homosexual acts between individuals[*] are immoral, and that we should not condone immoral acts." General Pace said he believed homosexuality was like adultery, the military doesn't condone either. [source]

Peter, Peter, Peter.

General Pace thinks the queers are immoral. No major surprise there (I am a pun-lovin fool). However, when in uniform, speaking as a military leader (not as Peter Pace The Everyman Self-Righteous Prick) he is not smart enough to keep his own holier-than-thou ideas private (make me stop).

Here's the obvious problem with aiming that moral flamethrower: there is no end to the list of things or people that an individual might label "immoral." So pretty soon, everything's on fire. And everyone's incendiary is pointed in a different direction. If PP finds adultery immoral and homosexuality immoral and behaviors worthy of military punishment, what's to stop him from throwing interracial marriage into the conflagration? Or gamblers? Or atheists? Or women who work while their husbands are at home raising the chitlins?

It's a Pandora's box old Pete is opening up and it's got teeth. I'm not saying he doesn't have the right to his own ignorant opinions. I just don't think he ought to be espousing them from the military pulpit.

*one more thing, and this is just my wordsmithing pettiness, but this phrase "homosexual acts between individuals" has gotten stuck in my craw. Does this imply that homosexual acts between groups are okie-dokie? Or is he reassuring us that that homosexual acts between, let's say, two fruitflies or two german shepherds are not a punishable military offense?

when i die, remember something funny i said

When a comedian dies, you just want to remember why they made you laugh. CNN had a few Richard Jeni quotes and these are my favorites:

On religion: "You're basically killing each other to see who's got the better imaginary friend."

On Chicago: "I think that's how Chicago got started. A bunch of people in New York said, 'Gee, I'm enjoying the crime and the poverty, but it just isn't cold enough. Let's go west.' "

rainy days and dst mondays

This was a tough daylight savings time "spring forward" Monday. At 5 a.m. (or so) a fantastic thunder and lightning storm opened up in Houston. About 20 feet above our roof, it seemed. Not only should you get to stay in bed when it's dark and thundering and you're short an hour of sleep but you shouldn't have to leave all that bliss to slog around in the rain.

However, let me set the record straight, I'm not blaming DST. I'm really pretty neutral on that hotly debated yawn. The only beef I have with the subject is when people talk about how great it is to get an extra hour of daylight. People, we're not getting an extra hour of daylight. We don't have that kind of power. We're shifting our workday to take advantage of the natural system of the earth's rotation blah blah blah, not the other way around. Stop mucking up the science with sloppy descriptions. For petesake.

country goodness

Just got back from the grocery store. I try and comfort myself with the cow-milking, butter-churning alternative to shopping but I still hate it.

Whenever possible, I try and buy free-range products. Like eggs from cage-free chickens. Barbara worked on a chicken farm in her colorful youth and her descriptions of that abuse make the extra dollar I shell out well worth it. So I bring home my reduced-guilt eggs. They are each stamped with, what one assumes is the mark of free chickens everywhere, a little red symbol. It seems a bit fussy but maybe the department of poultry rights insists on the labels.

What I really don't understand are the little bits of hen crap left on the shells. If they go to the trouble to stamp each egg, (and presumably the ink won't stick to dirty eggs) they must have to clean them first. My theory is that they take the pristine eggs, stamp them and then have a poultry poop sprayer that imparts a so-fresh-from-the-farm-they-still-have-chicken-shit-on-them authenticity.

Shit sprayers. The best metaphor for the field of advertising/marketing. I should know, that's where I work. Bill Hicks, rest his ranting soul, would probably agree.

which way to the pub, old bean?

Every month or so, it seems, there's a headline about a motorist's death due to driving the wrong way on a one-way street. Seriously, this is a regular story. And I find it incredible. One must assume the bulk of these fatalities have some drug-related factor to them (and for the most part, I mean alcohol).

It would be easy to understand, let's say, turning the wrong way on a one-way street downtown. It's a confusing grid if you're not used to it. But you don't tend to pick up enough speed for fatalities partly because the ability to spot oncoming cars from a distance is quite good. Which leads to the stranger fact that most of these accidents occur on the freeway. On the freeway.

Driving on the right side of the road is about as ingrained as gas-pedal-to-the-right, brake-pedal-to-the-left in this country. Shit, in the whole western hemisphere. So, even drunk, wouldn't you have one of those, "what about this just feels wrong?" moments? These are not soused Brits speeding willy-nilly southbound down I-45 north at 2 a.m., blissfully unaware of which side of the pond they're on.

It's not that I don't believe in the power of drunken misdirection. I just have never been so drunk that I thought going downstairs would lead me to the roof.

crazy old man

Robert is the senior citizen who lives next door to us. For years, I just referred to him as old fucker. He is racist, sexist and has a tendency to impose himself like a sticky booger. I suspected that he was not "right in the head" since we first moved here 13 years ago but he was such an irritation that I couldn't dredge up much compassion over this. He lives in the house that I believe he grew up in. He lived there with his mother until she passed away. Like 100 years ago.

He has a couple of "friends" who are homeless or not all there either. Most of the time their exchanges consist of yelling at each other through his screen door. Sometimes they are fighting and sometimes they are just conversing. Sometimes, I wish I owned a fire hose.

Ocassionally, it gets too loud to ignore. Then it is ALL I can do to resist bellowing from my front porch, "Would you two nutcakes please hold it down? I know it's hard to hear yourselves speak over the voices in your heads but I am going to have to apply for membership in your batshit crazy club if you don't fucking learn to rant more quietly." I do resist, however, because recently Robert came by and explained through his saliva-encrusted lips that he has The Alzheimers. It takes some of the steam out of my vehemence and helps me to retract my claws. A little.

Our tenant recently had piano movers come and move a little upright piano into his garage apartment. Robert saw the moving truck and asked anyone who made eye contact with him that day, "Are the lesbians moving?" "Do you think the two lesbians are moving out?" "I think the lesbian woman are moving!" Even his enthusiasm didn't piss me off.

investigate this

Headline in today's Chronicle:

Houston police probe rape of pregnant woman

Surely we can find a better word to describe a rape investigation than "probe."

must...get...up

Sometimes when people say, so what have you been doing lately? A voice in my head softly prods, "say 'retaining fluids'" or when someone asks me what I'm doing for lunch, my hoarse whisperer urges, "say that you can't leave because you're working on your thrombosis" or "love to join you but if I move I'll lose all the work I've put into making this blood clot."

sirens must jar the hell out of them

My mom and dad are 70-ish and live in a retirement community. They are happier than I've ever known them to be. They have dinner parties and go swimming and bike riding. Mom said they had to go to a funeral last week. She said it like she does, matter-of-factly, implying that funerals were pretty much part of the package at their age. She mentioned ambulances coming and going. It dawned on me how ambulance sirens must jar the hell out of them.

When I get older, I hope I find a community like theirs (but I'm not moving to Florida). I hope I never stop swearing. If my brain stays healthy and my body gets decrepit and anyone within earshot says, "but her mind is still sharp as a tack" I will hurl my colostomy bag at them, sohelpmegod.

the wacko cracko world of dolls

Sometimes an epiphenita is nothing more than remembering a soft-focus childhood moment in the harsh light of maturity and education. Digging around the doll graveyard dredged up the following oddities:

Tiffany Taylor Doll 1974-76 (Ideal Toy Corp)


"She's blonde, she's brunette! 19 inches of what you want her to be. To change hair color quick-as-a-wink rotate top of her head." So what is it about being about to rotate a doll's scalp 180° that seems kind of nauseating? I mean, is having reversible hair worth all that violence?

Mommy's Having A Baby 1992 (Tyco)


Well. I'm of two minds on this failed attempt. It's not a bad idea to demystify pregnancy and defy the yuck attitudes surrounding it. That's a good thing.
However, here are just a sprinkling of my concerns with preggo doll:

• First, she looks like she's 8 years old. That's creepy.
• Second, the baby comes out of a fold of her dress. Now, I suspect we're not ready for Vaginal Delivery Mommy (with Velcro®!) but on a topic which is so poorly addressed with most children, I am put off by this sanitized version of birth.
• Third, immediately upon giving birth Mommy is standing there in her perfect size 8 sundress with her clean, quiet infant and nary a milk stain on her petite plastic breasts. We must stop lying to the children. Especially to the little girls who will grow up to be royally pissed off post-partum mothers.

Growing Up Skipper (and her brunette afterthought clone: Growing Up Ginger) 1975-77 (Mattel)




Finally, the pièce de résistance and inspiration for today's walk down mammary lane. First, the mechanics: Skipper is a nice little girl until your crank her arm around clockwise at which point her waist (freakishly) elongates and her flat chest sprouts demure breasts. Voila! she is transformed into a nubile teen.

Once again, I'm split on this intellectually. Those crazy toy designers at Mattel gave conservative and traditional dollery the heave-ho and tackled the uncharted borderlands of toy puberty. I give kudos to the attempt, however unsuccessful.

Then again, there are so many things wrong with this. Not the least of which is the number of SkipperGinger dolls who became amputees due to the "enthusiastic" arm twisting by many a little boy, and truth be told, quite a number of little girls. Because Logic bates you: if one revolution gives you a B cup, what would you have after three?

more on doll weirdness

We are a prurient puritanical nation because puberty is taboo and porn is not.

Growing up Skipper highlights this gap and begs for sequels: First Period Peggy, Noturnal Emissions Emile (just fill up the reservoir with Ivory Liquid®!), Bobby Boner Doll and of course, Pubic Hair Paul(a) which I envision would work very much like the Play Doh® Fun Factory. A lever in the arm or leg would force squiggles of pubic hair to be extruded out of "pore" holes in the crotch, armpits, legs, face, etc. Naturally, this would make the smooth asexual crotches sort of a moot point, so that would have to be addressed...well, it'll never happen outside of liberal hippie world because mature or not, grown women and, increasingly, grown men are supposed to be as hairless as possible. Which is fucktarded and pedophilic in my opinion. (Thank you Barry for the vocabulary reminder.) But I digress.

Dolls are strange cultural barometers. Even as a child, I found Barbies vapid. Okay, I liked making clothes for them (design/crafts nerd) and coupling them with GI Joe, Ken or each other for space-age-polyvinyl-chloride sex games. But even that grew boring. As I got older I saw the damage done by promoting Barbie as the beauty ideal. And before all you Barbie lovers get indignant and fall off your stands, Barbie is just the symbol of our society's unhealthy and inflexible standard of beauty for women. In this case, however, I think it would be okay to shoot the messenger.

working girl

I created an advertisement for a snake oil salesman recently and it made me feel dirty. But not in a good way.

brahmzzzz

We went to the symphony last Friday. It had been a week full of late nights and pressure. Not a good lead-in to a Brahms performance or any classical music, for that matter – Brahms didn't just write lullabies, you know. Anyhow, here are some observations from the evening. They've been translated from my blind scrawls across several pages of the program/magazine (why are those things so lengthy? I can never find the program I'm there to see without wading through pages of musician bio puff pieces and endless ads for upscale everything):

• The first part of the program was a piece composed by GL Frank. The GL stands for Gabriela Lena. It was very cool to hear the "world premiere" (whatever that really means) of a work by a female composer. Especially since she spoke to the audience and seemed genuinely delighted about being there.
• By the way, she is of Peruvian-Jewish-Chinese heritage. They got to check off a lot of boxes on their how-diverse-are-we form.
• I enjoyed her "tone poem" entitled "La Llorona," written for viola and orchestra.
• As the violist prepared to play, I noticed that his mannerisms were not unlike a batter's in the batting box. Funny little stretches and stances.
• Second part was Brahms "A German Requiem." Written, so the slick program notes say, after the death of his mother.
  
• 160 or so black-and-white-clad members of the Houston Symphony Chorus filled the tiered rows (for godsakes, don't call them bleachers) behind the orchestra.I'm not a big fan of choruses. One might say I'm not a team player; I prefer soloists. However the chorus added quite a bit to the requiem-ness and I thoroughly enjoyed listening to them.
• During the delightful, chaotic orchestra tune-up, I wished the chorus members would join in, each humming a note until they knocked the flatness or sharpness out of it. It would have been a symphony cacophony. (I love saying shit like that more than I can explain.)
  
• In spite of the fact that I had a bad case of the fidgets (like some strung out tweaker, I could not sit still), I ended up falling asleep during the fifth movement of Brahms' somber piece.
• Barbara woke me up before I started snoring. I think.
• Finally, what's up with all the fucking posturing at classical presentations? Stop that dramatic 20-second pause between the first violinist sitting down and the conductor striding in. It's annoying and affected. So are the four encores. Enough. Stop it. This isn't the royal court. Music is reward enough without all your pompous frippery.