Thursday, November 30, 2006

Why I'll Never Make Good

Because I just feel like a nap.

Tom Tom Club

Um, I'm a little confused by this one. Read it, then we can discuss.

How is the song "You've lost that lovin' feeling," a positive choice for a wedding, or a "symbol of (TomKat's) love"? I know when I reach that point in a relationship, that's just the time I feel like getting hitched.

Has anyone else paid attention to those lyrics? Maybe I'm reading to much into, "and there's no tenderness like before in your fingertips," or "now your starting to criticize the little things I do. It makes me just feel like crying," but it doesn't seem to bode well.

I guess when "Scientology is the basis of their companionship," they can just "audit" all the bad feelings away. It's about as romantic as Moonie Mass-Nuptuals.

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Computard

I imagine whatever relative measure of respect you might have for this site and its authoress would be critically damaged, if you could hear the whining and the occasional inflamed shriek as I fail to comprehend the most basic maneuvers of bloggery. The switch to BetaBlogger went smoothly, and the template shift was pretty easy, despite losing all past taglines in the masthead. Happily, the new one is centered, and that pleases what little sense of order we possess.

However, the moon phase calendar is gone, and my sitemeter disappeared and would not be reapplied to the bottom of the page. So now it sits ungainly and garish, like a tinseled rainbow epaulette, upon the shoulder of right margin archives (I abhor the new lineup there). That process was overlong.

The most vexing chore has been trying to use the new and improved "click and drag" template reorganization, which seems to do nothing but cluster and obscure the blocks of blog section, and had me audibly frustrated in the pathetic manner of a tantrumic schoolgirl. It's not a pleasant sound, I'm sure; my dog examined me with uncertainty an unease. So if anyone knows how to use the new system, which has clearly been dumbed down to the point that a cashier at McDonald's would be more adept at this than I, let me know.

Also, my flimsy iBook power cord is dying. How do you pay $1600 for a laptop and then risk unuse because Apple was too cheap to make a strong enough connection between the ac plug and the wires? Eighty bucks for a whole new one? I don't think so, I just hope I can resplice it.

Googly-Eyed

One of the benefits of the Site Meter is tracking the key words people have typed into search engines which have led them to your blog. Though this happens nearly every day, the last 48 hours have been the most abundant search period ever for this blog.

Here's what brought 'em (and sometimes where they came from):

-You fill up my senses (SUNY Fredonia)
-peris, fairies and goddesses (Hillegom, Netherlands. Figures, the Flemish are a bit "touched.")
-charm school (Westchester, IL)
-paradise we found was always frail (Austin, Texas. Always wanted to go there.)
-first birthday charm (Law firm in Indianapolis)
-snakes on a plane scientific analysis (Clark Cty. School Board, Las Vegas, NV)
-school thought for the day (State of Georgia/Board of Regents)
-charm school for lawyers (pharmaceutical research co., Malvern, PA)
-guam snakes 2006 (NYC)
-Portland escort Janessa
-aedh wishes for the clothes of heaven words (Dublin, duh.)
-charm school Christian (Texas? Shocking.)
-clean subconsious bhajan
-grendel snakes symbol (Dallas, Texas. Dang.)
-"thing for jewish"

The first four lines almost read like a poem or a choppy song lyric.

The presence of the Georgia School Board made me shudder to think of my sorry influence upon Southern children, particularly as the place it took them was the refrigerator guarded by greedy dogs (11/25 post).

Charm school alone or plus something, is a usual route here, for obvious reasons. However, a finishing course for attorneys was something altogether new and humorous to me. You doing a post-grad year there, Stitch?

Don't know what to think about the Ophidians in that US Territory, or what they might be up to in 2006. I had a pewter platter from Guam as a kid. No idea why or what happened to it. I'm sure that was a casualty of my mother's aforementioned Stalinist Purges. That's alright, it was a piece of junk anyway.

As for Janessa, despite the fact that we are from the same hometown, I never met her, nor do those words appear consecutively in any post on my blog. Anyway, I don't know why you guys always lose a nice girl's phone number. Oh wait, the search originated in Los Angeles, so that explains a lot. Janessa, don't take any wooden nickels.

Which brings is to the query from Athens as to the hygienics of the subconscious mind. I can't say boo about Yogi Bhajan's, but when I think about Janessa, well, let's just say there are demons in the Attic.

"thing for jewish," that about sums it up, though I've been off they jocks for quite a while now. Simple twist of fate, is all. Thanks for asking though, Tel Aviv.

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

As If Just Being An Actor Isn't Humiliation Enough


Had lunch with my thespian friend today, who just completed an indie horror film in which he plays a burn victim. Worked with an aspiring actress who is the daughter of a B-list somebody. The upstart male lead, son of a D-list nobody, kept hitting on her, insisting that as an alleged Method Actor, he'd hand in a better performance if they slept together.

I asked my dear friend if that makes him a Rhythm Method Actor, to which he replied, barely able to contain his laughing disdain, "He said he practices the Stanley Kowalski Method."

Apparently they don't read any plays at that school.

Monday, November 27, 2006

I Ain't Sayin' She's a Well-Digger...

but great grandfather was, and a water witch to boot. So too became his young daughter, my maternal grandmother, a dowser. Virginia, at eight, was more adept with a divining rod than her elder papa, so he took her in his truck across the Kansas country side and provided this essential service to the farmers in the area.

Of etymological interest is the latin for divining rod, Virgula divina, meaning "little rod" or, vividly enough, "little penis," the root being virga, rod. I find this funny given the similarity of my grandmother's name which, of course, means "virgin," from Latin virgo. Perhaps those more schooled in Latin (which probably means most of you), can tell me where these two split, and from what older root, though the dictionaries I perused offered no such connection. I couldn't find a trace of an Indo-European root that would explain the polarity of these meanings. It's a true yin and yang situation.

That's all, I just thought you should know.

Oh Mandy

If "you gave without taking," how come "you came"?

(with apologies to Manilow)

Advise

Does anyone out there, who actually happens to have enough fortitude, interest, and attention span to read through the damned info page, know of any reason, other than my obvious dearth of posts, why I should not switch over to the new Blogger format? Change is scary, and I'm scurd.

If I take the leap of faith, will the tagline in my masthead suddenly center itself?

So many considerations.

***(the first sentence of this post was amended, as it was an incomplete thought, which just goes to show you how little attention span I have, currently. also, i split an infinitive. the horror.)***

Saturday, November 25, 2006

Canine Thought for the Day

Every time a refrigerator door opens, it does not signify a treat for dogs.

Macho Libre

"Feminism's purpose is the investigation of truth, not the perpetuation of blame."

- Erica Jong

Friday, November 24, 2006

Medicine

This is for you, Huck, as it seems a thing that would make you chuckle. Hope it helps what ails you.

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Our Lady

Where the hill crests on Vista del Mar, here in Beachwood Canyon, there once was a small grotto embedded in a stone wall right at the corner of the block. Inside stood a statue of the Guadalupe, or Mary. At night, driving past, she was lit up with votives at her feet. Little spaces like this one, more than any great work of art, are always the most pleasing to me. Small personal places that are set on a visible edge of private property, to share. No sight of this fifty-year-old alcove failed to elicit a smile.

Unfortunately, about two years ago, a moving truck took out the entire section of wall where the sculpture hung. I recall a posting in our little canyon newspaper trying to collect funds to rebuild it, but nothing has changed the jagged hole where the tribute once hung.



Today as I walked past the spot with my dog, I was thinking about what spaces, public art, historical bldgs., community gardens, parks, even old drive-in ice cream stops are worth saving. The erasure of histories is noisome to me. When the Arrow Club, one of the few Deco buildings in Portland, came down for a swank yet ungainly hotel several years ago, I felt it like the sorrow of food poisoning in my gut.

Maybe it is because I know how painstaking the work of those craftspeople was, and how work like that is almost never affordable in our modern economy. Maybe it's the human energy, the soul's imprint on those spaces - all the builders, employees, patrons, even the interlopers, who passed through there, died there, made love in the back hallways. Maybe it's simply my love of the beautiful. Maybe it's an aversion to change.

Still, life is growing and passing away, transformation and adaptation, and that is beautiful too. I guess I just prefer to hold onto what was good about the old, while embracing the new.

I hope that hole in the wall grows back. Guadalupe's feast day is 12/12, by the way.

Thursday, November 09, 2006

A Cop-Out

Is how I would define the last two posts, entirely purloined, seeing as how these days I am entirely unburdened by original thought. So sue me. Sue me for the $2 of ad revenue I've netted on my blog, even though I'm disallowed from mentioning it ever since I allowed their parasitical presence last May, back when I was getting two thousand hits a day for that Snakes on a Plane business. That'll buy you a Butterfinger and a Coke, if you're buying in a cheap part of town. The ad co. doesn't even cut you a check for less than $20, and I won't see that for years.

Someday I'll figure out why I have nothing to say anymore, but here are my top theories:

1) I have a boyfriend now, and everyone knows that regular sex kills off most other drives.

2) I'm nervous about seeing my brother this weekend. The last time was when I was nineteen, and before that eight.

3) It's Santa Ana season (winds from the desert that heat up and dry out Los Angeles this time of year), which is said to make people crazy, and at the very least, clearly causes allergies.

4) A very close friend of mine whose aesthetic opinion I revere, very tactlessly took a big shit all over the world of blogging (not mine specifically), and I haven't quite been the same ever since, even though I couldn't disagree more. That's a topic for another time, though.

5) I've already emptied out the contents of my head, heart and soul, and there ain't nothing else in there. Which brings us to-

6) That one Scientology course I was subjected to has taken its toll, and now that I've met Xenu, I'm completely uninteresting. That reminds me, if you knew and Googled my name, you would see that I was subjected to a Scientology course a few years ago, a thing I would have assume was private and not a matter of public record. I don't think you can find my transcript from Brown anywhere on the web, or my attendance at any other church, for that matter. This is really a drag, but oddly enough, it is not the L-Rons (wasn't that a Phil Spector girl group in the early 60s?), who are to blame, rather, one of their detractors. Some numbskull from "The Truth about Scientology" was trying to show what a large (60%) number of students fail to return for any subsequent tutelage, myself included. So, now she's "outed" me as a member of something to which I do not belong, ascribe, subscribe or prescribe, and any time someone does a little research on me, they will have a false impression. It would be like you assuming that just because the ad co. placed Christian banners on my blog, that I am a Bible thumper. There, justice is served. Well done, Nikki at "The Truth." Jesus is not my Lord and Savior, L Ron is not my co-pilot, and I did not inhale, nor did I have sexual relations with that woman!

This actually almost cost me the formation my last relationship. When we'd just started dating, the fellow in question uncovered this fact in just the way I've mentioned, and had great reservation about pursuing anything further. Of course, he was a total fucking hypocrite, as he had done quite a turn with the fine folks at Landmark Education, which took over where Est left off.

7) I've tired of talking about me, me, me. Naw, scratch that one.

8) Early onset Alzheimer's.

9) Five years in Los Angeles.

Erection

Evidently some people feel that coverage of the Spears/Federline tragedy should not have superseded those who Rock the Vote. Huck and H/Aytch wrote about the recent political changing of the guard, as it were.

As did Grant Miller. Sir, to you.

Unremitting Failure adds (I can never simply link to his individual posts, unfortunately):

"Concession Speech

Unremitting Failure would like to thank everyone (that's you, Joe Jarvis!) who voted for us across the country yesterday. Your vote (singular) of support is much appreciated. But more than that it is--given our crackpot stands on most of the issues of the day--highly disturbing. Nevertheless, we stand tall, our belief in failure and futility as the twin pillars of the American Way of Life unshaken. Let us be clear about this--even should victory someday overwhelm us, and even should demon success take us in its jaws and shake us, we will hold true to the ideal that has preserved us: namely, that every man and woman has the inalienable right to fail in their own way, whether they want to or not. Thank you, and God Bless."

Then there's ma boy, Stitch, who has taken to cross-dressing in a burka, but he's still quite handsome, even under all that yardage.

Spears-Carrying

Y'all have gone a bit Britney crazy, and if it weren't for your blogs I wouldn't even know they split the sheets. Apparently, my eyes are glued shut as I pass the magazine rack at the grocery check-out stand, not unlike the undiscerning and pious monkey.

Grant Miller's Officially commented.

Unremitting Failure's take"

"Britney Files for Divorce


Like America, it took her years of getting fucked by an idiot to realize she'd made a mistake."

This from The Dooce!:

Chaotic no More

Wednesday, 08 November 2006

A few of you have written to ask what I think of the divorce filing heard round the world, that which Ms. Spears has drawn up against the burrowing wombat who has had access to her credit cards for the last two years, he who regularly feasts on rubber boots and sprinkler heads, he whose life is a fart joke. And I’ve been trying to come up with a way to sum up my feelings, and I guess there’s no easy way to say this because you never hope for the dissolution of a family, especially when young children are involved. But, the fact that she decided finally to flick him off her collar like a hardened, crusty booger is almost RIGHT THERE with the Democrats taking back the House in terms of hope for the future of America.

And did you see how she looked the previous night when she made a surprise appearance on Letterman? Her make-up was clean, and her dress was classy, and her hair was freshly washed and styled, as if someone somewhere found the right sequence of hillbilly lingo to convince her that she will not be forsaking her heritage if she spends a few dollars on hygiene. Although, you shouldn’t read that as a dig on the way she looked before, because I do believe that there was an undeniable authenticity to the way she showed up to interviews looking like a mother whose one-year-old had just puked up formula all over the front of the rayon blouse she bought special at Ross, and she didn’t have time to wipe all the splatter out of her bangs. I identified with that.

But I also identify with this Britney, the one who looks happy and vibrant and ready once again for the world to ogle her spectacular boobs. Because if there is one thing Britney is good at, it’s embodying every incarnation of crazy — the tired crazy, the manic crazy, the hormonal and thought she couldn’t get pregnant while breastfeeding crazy — and here she is as The Other Side of Crazy where it seems like she’s finally taking charge and saying, you know what? Enough. I’d like to feel good about myself for a while. Let’s make that happen.

You could say I’m a tiny bit thrilled.

I’m headed out to New York City very early tomorrow (Thursday) morning and will be staying through the weekend for a few engagements. Not sure yet what sights I’m going to see or what shops or restaurants I’m going to hit, and since I haven’t been in over 10 years I’m curious as to what the city will mean to me this time, now as an older, non-Mormon adult with cash. Jon and Leta are staying home which means I may end up hibernating in the hotel room trying to coax Leta into singing Mormon hymns over the phone one more time. Jesus, he wants her for a sunbeam.

And The Stitch roasted her too.

Monday, November 06, 2006

Like Stomp in a China Shop

Never mind the Scientology, Beck's amazing.

Friday, November 03, 2006

Sing for Your Supper

The album is out, do you have your copy yet? Here are the Driveblind lads at the 3rd St. Promenade. Great song.





Upcoming Shows (view all)
Nov 10 2006 4:00P
Independent Denver, Colorado

Nov 11 2006 2:00P
Graywhale Salt Lake City, Utah

Nov 14 2006 6:00P
Rasputin Berkeley, California

Nov 15 2006 6:00P
Dimple Records Sacramento, California

Nov 17 2006 12:00P
Hoodlums Tempe, Arizona

Nov 18 2006 4:00P
Zia Record Exchange Tucson, Arizona

Food for Thought


Citizen H has come to my rescue after I hollered from the locked room in the cold stone tower of my writer's block. (The views expressed do not represent the opinions of the Blog administrator, her affiliates, or dog. Then again, they might.):

"Seems NYC is pretty serious about imposing a ban on trans-fats in restaurants. This is the point where taxpayers should be screaming for elected officials' heads on pikes, for wasting taxpayer money on useless legislation when there is a glut of other serious items in need of attention.

Simply stated, if someone chooses to wage jihad on their arteries and wastelines, it's their prerogative. Yes, there's an obesity problem in this nation; but frankly, that's not any elected official's business. This is not a nanny state, or at least it shouldn't be. Let natural selection take its course--weed out the slow, weak, and stupid, but by their own actions or inactions.

It's not up to any political or judicial entity to dictate what anyone eats or otherwise does to themselves.

I know this stand can anger anti-abortion advocates, but frankly, they can bugger themselves (without govt. prying, intrusion, or legislation.)

Many of the same people who bemoan "choice" and promote legislation to overturn it complain on the other hand about government intrusion into other aspects of their lives. You can't have it both ways. So deal with it, OK?

In the mean time, quit tossing taxpayer time and money down the tubes for political points or asinine public health crusades. Save the health mania for outbreaks. If nothing else, it would cost less to start an advertising campaign on the risks of transfats. Doctors do that already for high-risk patients.

If healthcare costs for the morbidly obese, diabetics, heart disease sufferers, or those whose lives are impacted severely by poor dietary choices are the concern, counsel them on the risks.

Honestly, if those at risk are stupid enough to continue to make bad decisions with their health, the costs of further care should come out of their own pockets."

Thanks H, for chewing the fat.