Saturday, October 31, 2009
HALF A LOAF
This is a great list.
One Hundred Things Restaurant Staffers Should Never Do
I figure this goes for any service business. The spirit if not the letter.
Or, in life!
Number 41 is a pet peeve of mine. And fucking everyone says it. Not good.
This is only the first 50. The rest will be next week.
Thank you for reading this.
Now. Repeat after me: "You are welcome".
Labels: culture
BOOKER ESCAPES
Yesterday, it was walk time and so I was looking for Booker.
Not in the dining room, not in the living room, not in the guest room which he sometimes considers his own, not in his bed in our room. Not in the house.
I go outside. Not in the east yard, not in the south yard, not in the north yard, arrrghhh!
The gardeners, a new crew, the same outfit, left the back back gate open.
I didn't panic too much.
I heard a faint bark. How far can he be?
I went in the house and turned the corner at the kitchen and there was a louder bark.
Booker was at the front door wanting to come in.
He had gone around the wall, up the lane and into the driveway.
John says that once he got a certain distance he figured it was easier to go to the front. He also had to hear me calling his name.
Now, while this is a bit unsettling, the fact is that this is a good thing.
Since he has been here we have had the admonition from rescue about rescue dogs bolting. They don't know where they are going so much, just there. So we have that drilled into our brains.
Now, he has demonstrated that he is not going to go anywhere. This is home. He knows his way around the wall and he knows how to get us to come to the door and open it.
A relief.
Not that I want the bastards to let the gate open but this is going to happen again sometime. We can rest assured that after 5 months with us, Booker is home. This is it. And he knows it. So do we.
Labels: Booker
HUNG
Today's movie was the Russian version of Twelve Angry Men
and it is a much more elaborate production. Very well constructed. Acted.
The structure is simple. Jurors, sure of the defendants guilt all hurry to reach a verdict when one man says "not guilty".
Incredulous, they take it from there.
Each has a chance to tell his story. Each has a hook into the case.
The defendant in this case is Chechen and, therefore, a minority with a strong ethnic prejudice against him.
His story is interwoven with the drama in the jury room and so the action is taken "outside" to break the monotony which was so difficult to shake in the first film.
There is also more closure after the verdict here and we are taken into that situation as well.
It is a long film, 160 minutes. This breaks my rule on long films. The time flows quite quickly. I only looked at my watch twice.
The other thing about this film is that it is post-modern. It breaks the Chechen story up in abstract bits. We put it together. In a way, that story has nothing to do with the verdict except to paint a clearer picture of the situation of the defendant.
I liked it very much. I will give it a 4 out of Netflix5.
J STREET
You know I have been a long critic of the Israel lobby. They have "forced" all administrations since the Second World War to conform to a lock-step approach to Middle Eastern policy both to the detriment of the US and Israel itself.
They are unforgiving, inflexible and filled with hatred for the Palestinians.
I am not a big fan of the Palestinians either but I know that they have been severely kicked around by generations of Israelis and the Israeli government.
Yesterday I saw a film from Israel itself describing the horrendous Israeli record.
Now there is a new jewish lobby. More moderate.
I love the name. "J Street" rhymes with K Street. There is no J street in DC. Guess they mean "jew".
Moderate in America’s Jewish Lobby Causes a Stir
When I write this I have to think that, if I was more important, I would be attacked this afternoon as anti-semitic.
This is the game that the traditional American Jewish lobby plays.
I hate this kind of thing. They can be right bastards.
The Obamas are not going to play the old games. They are encouraging the moderate jews by reaching out to them.
Good for them.
Labels: Administration Obama, Israel
DON'T STOP, KEEP ON GOING
It is rare for me to finish reading a novel and then wish that it was not over.
I have had this sensation for two days about
I put it down last night and it is still resonating with me.
Mostly I miss the short episodes of the long story. Quite satisfying in themselves.
The writing is Grade A and the concept of the book is totally enagaging. I would pick the book up and in one short sitting could have a complete and satisfying trip to another world.
Grossman has managed to take the fantasy genré by the scruff of the neck and shake it around, turn it upside down and bring it into the 21st century.
The young hero or anti-hero is Quentin Coldwater. Right there you have an idea of what will be going on. What's in a name? A disaffected, bored, overachieving young adult finds that an interview for acceptance to Princeton has quite a different outcome than he might ever have expected. And he has a very lively imagination.
I think what is really very skillful in this book is that Grossman has been able to incorporate some of the best elements and clichés of fantasy fiction and put them into very fresh contemporary terms. Quentin is angst filled, purposeless and finds little satisfaction in his considerable talents. Others are more appreciative of him than he is of himself. Here is a character to ache for. To hope for his self realization and "coming of age".
Once he starts that interview for Princeton, he is on his way. Magic portals and all. Every gimmick you remember from reading this stuff, and I have read a lot, is here in a funny, often hilarious and sometimes scary and upsetting potpourri.
I have not been reporting on my reading for quite awhile. Somehow, writing about reading hasn't seemed as interesting or germane as writing about life.
But this case is an exception. The story is not done in my head. I am going back and finding cues and clues. I know that I will read this again in the not too distant future. And enjoy it even more.
Maybe Grossman will adopt another familiar fantasy fiction strategy and make a series out of this.
I certainly hope so.
Labels: books
Friday, October 30, 2009
DAZED AND REPRESSED
Today's film was the Israeli animated memoir of Ari Folman
Vals Im Bashir / Waltz With Bashir (2008)
The subject is the collective and individual Israeli detachment from the Christian Philangist massacre of thousands of Palestinians in 1982. Israel had invaded Lebanon and were occupying Bairut. Bashir, the charismatic leader of the philangists had been assassinated and this was a revenge massacre. The Israeli's stood by and let it happen. When there was "enough" they stopped it.
The parallels with Warsaw and the Nazi's "just following orders" thing touches this horrendous chapter in a horrendous series of Middle East war.
For Folman, who cannot remember where he was or what he was doing at the time, it is necessary to go and find out, if he can, what his part in it actually was. He is having nightmares. The same one. Twenty years later. No relief.
He goes and talks to as many people as he can find who would know about those times. The interviews are real but because many of the people did not want to be photographed, he uses animation and, in some cases, actors to voice the parts of the people he talks to.
Some are friends who were there with him. Others are public figures who were involved. Still others are professionals, psychologists and others, who can explain for us the mental gymnastics of repressed memory and detachment in the face of an atrocity.
The film is very engaging. The animation is unusual. Not humanly "perfect" as far as movement is concerned but, in fact, perfect in capturing the telling gestures of the people involved.
Finally, Folman remembers. He was in the direct periphery of the massacre itself and witnessed the aftermath of the mass of the dead. He was with the early detachment that entered the camp where the massacre occurred.
At the end, as he regains his memory, we switch to actual color photography. The distance afforded by the cartoons is broken and we are in the heart of the proceedings with Folman.
I will give this a 4 out of Netflix5. I would not mind seeing this again particularly to get the connections, laterally, between the people who are interviewed. They were all there together.
MORE BULLSHIT FROM THE THOUGHT POLICE
Drop the Halloween Mask ! You Might Scare Somebody
What is the point of Halloween if there are no ghouls or vampires.
They are sucking the life out of our culture. The technocrats.
It used to be the church ladies but they had no power. Where did these bastards get theirs?
We will be sitting Halloween out again. There are no kids in our neighborhood whether they are wielding chain saws or wearing acceptable princess costumes.
There are a few princesses who live here but they won't be out for trick or treat. At least not out on the street.
I get nostalgic about Halloween. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
I never, ever one a prize for a costume as a child or adult but that bummer aside, we did have fun through the years.
The last time John and I dressed up we were candy kisses. The "Sweetest couple in Palm Springs". Before that was Batman and Robin with fake pecs. Or maybe it was the other way around.
Labels: holidays, thought police
Thursday, October 29, 2009
PAYING RESPECTS
Obama pulled an all nighter to pay respects to the recent war dead.
Very powerful.
Obama Visits Returning War Dead
Again, I am totally awed by this man's ability to strike the right chord. To walk the walk.
Labels: Administration Obama
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
FACE TO FACE
Today is the last "early action" interview for MIT. I have had five.
These are the kids who opt to get their acceptance early and commit to joining the next class.
They will either be accepted, rejected or deferred.
All my early action kids were deferred last year. A good thing in a way as they will be reconsidered in the next go-round but bad in that they are left in limbo.
After all, they wanted action to be early!
They are rarely happy about it. I got a few emails on it.
The next batch will be later in November as we head into the next end of year deadline.
I still enjoy doing this. That is a good thing.
And I think that I am good at it too.
Labels: MIT
CLOSET CASES
It has been my experience that the most virulent homophobes are often actual closet case homosexuals or, by inspection, highly repressed queers who have some nifty ways to sublimate.
The rest are validly hetero church ladies, male and female, who need something to throw rocks at.
I found this "find" by Kevin Drum most interesting.
Priests of both the RC and Episcopal variety often fall into this class of men that I have met.
They are sometimes nancier than my most flaming friends. They are full of themselves in prissy ways that only seem to validate one's assumption about the gender that they jerk off to. When it comes to haute couture, as our man here says, there is no parallel.
Just look at the Pope. The fags are definitely in the ascendancy.
The jury is out on John Paul. We think that he was just an outright bigot and poly flagellant. Beat up on everyone.
That having been said, I will return to my normally serene acceptance of the deviant nature of the holy church and the rackets they perpetrate in so many ways every day in every far flung country of the world.
The pink mafia, indeed.
Labels: christist watch
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
YEH BUT I THOUGHT OF IT FIRST
Andrew fucking Sullivan, who I don't read anymore and Kevin Drum agree with me on the political genius of the state opt out public option.
It is good for the people and good for the Democrats.
Can you see the red state GOPs fighting what, right now and growing, 58% of the country wants?
And, it has the immediate effect of offering political cover to Democrats and Republicans why may want to vote for it but are afraid for the backlash from the teabaggers.
Labels: Administration Obama
INSTANT LIFE
Jeez! It's Tuesday already.
Time is collapsing on me.
It seems that the regular weekly things that I do (house cleaning, the recycle pickup) are all happening faster. A shorter duration between them.
Before I know it, I am doing my Tuesday routine at the gym again. Cardio for 30, twists, chest, triceps, abs.
I think this speeding up of time feeds to the notion of eternal life. As time between events comes more quickly or seems to, then the natural extension is to have all of life, the week or month or year, happen all at the same time. Dig it?
So, eventually, if it is all happening now it is happening forever.
I don't spend a lot of time on this. Not out of fear or aversion to the thoughts. Rather than make me anxious, I am somehow comforted about the idea of everything now in and instant. Or everything forever.
It rounds off the edges of considering my non-existence. When I consider it.
I suppose this reflection goes along with a day of wills and trusts. So be it.
If your head is spinning now, don't worry. As time speeds up for you, it will become a part of the natural process. There is nothing scary about it.
LAWYERED UP
John, Booker and I went to the lawyer yesterday to sign up the papers for our trusts and wills and shit.
It was a pleasant enough experience. We have an attorney who likes dogs.
Booker is very well behaved in situations like this. He is not pushy or all over himself with excitement. He is nice to the people. Sits and watches and then lies down when he is not participating.
Of course, the best part is riding in the Jeep from here to there and there to here.
I am the same way with the legal stuff. I like the ride to and from. Especially from.
They will send the bill. Cringe. But it is necessary. Not for me but I don't want to leave a mess. At least that kind. Actually, part of it is for me, the living will part of it. It tells them how and when to pull the plug.
It was a nice outing. The desert is at its autumn best. Not in the way of golden trees. Although we do have some. More in the light. October light. The mountains are magnificent and we were out in the valley far enough to catch the grand view.
They are massive and still impress.
There are a lot of early thrills in Palm Springs which we now take for granted but not the scenery. It is eternally, spiritually inspiring.
AN MERRITTORIUS IDEA
I was at MIT, on the way home for a holiday, before I got clued in about the Merritt Parkway.
My freshman year I hitched a ride with a kid who drove from Boston to New Rochelle where I got a train, then a bus, to my Pocono home.
Over the years, I drove the Merritt and the Wilbur Cross and the Sawmill. Lovely four lane highways that had been built in the 30s as part of the post depression "stimulus". The WPA.
Look at this. The LIFE cover when it was completed.
By the time I got to them, the trees and landscaping had grown to their full flower. And flower they did. Every spring. Summer was exuberant. Fall gorgeously orange and yellow.
They are disappearing. They don't conform to the new federal specs. Well, they are a bit of a crap shoot on the entrance and exit ramps. And at 70mph, where the scenery goes to a blur, they are a bit passé.
And they are endangered and perservations are coming to their rescue. A whole parkway as a landmark. Imagine.
And here it is featured in the LATimes today. Of all places. There has never, ever been a freeway like this in California although they would like to think there is/was.
Preserving the Merritt Parkway's bridges to the past.
Monday, October 26, 2009
OPTING OUT IS HARD TO DO
I think that there is some genius in the public option with an "opt out" provision for the states, the current compromise for people who want to water down or hide out from the pure public option. Medicare for all.
When it goes to the states there will be rant and rave in some of them. Already Pawlenty, who is an asshole, has said that he will lead the fight against it in his state. After all, he is going to be running for President and needs the wing nuts.
But I think that this will be like the stimulus. You can opt out of it if you want but at your political peril.
There is a very high majority in favor of the public option. Medicare for all. No politician, even a right winger, will think twice before really, really sinking it.
It is like the guys who preached out against the stimulus money and then took it. And took credit for getting it!
I believe that there are very few, if any states, that will opt out. But the cover for Senators who worry about reelection is that they did a good thing.
Any legislation that allows a Senator to be two faced is likely to be successful.
Legislation that allows them hide out and pass the hot potato on is even better.
Labels: health, republican whack jobs
Sunday, October 25, 2009
PAPERED OVER
Today, Kevin Drum writes about the life expectancy of newspapers. Hard copy that is. Newsprint.
He postulates that three or four things will knock the papers off by 2015. Or sooner.
One is that the newspaper is expendable in a poor economy with excellent alternatives. $500 dollars a year is a lot of money.
Second, the decreasing sales is leading to deterioration of the product as staff is fired and sections downsized or eliminated completely.
Third, the paper reader is in the older generation and we are dying off.
He cites the LATimes which we take. You "take" a paper. Somehow you don't buy it. Maybe that is part of the problem. They did act like utilities once. I take my electricity and gas. The only source.
I have been close to stopping the LATimes. But it makes for a great half hour or more in the morning. A breakfast companion.
One good thing about the LATimes, I think, is that as they shut down their expensive stuff (international and national reporters, the magazine and so on) they enhanced local, regional and statewide coverage. There is no alternative to this and they do a very good job.
I am still on for the duration.
Another interesting thing is that the LATimes has done a remarkably quick job of turning its web edition around. It is actually pretty good now.
This seems to be a bit suicidal. But they have to do it. Otherwise they are dead, dead.
And it means that the LATimes will be there for me on line when I give up the paper.
I know I will be able to live without it. I have given up far more dependent things in recent years (running, smoking, hiking, outdoor bicycling, going out to the movies, for a few). And I don't really miss them too much. I still have an occasional smoking dream or think about a smoke when I am in just the right situation. If I see a runner I sort of drift out of body over to his form and feel the wind in my face and the burn in my legs.
Maybe I can get the same bit of lift from the on line paper. A bit of the smell of pulp and ink. The feel of big paper in my hands.
A life long newspaper reader. I just didn't know it would be the paper that would expire before I do.
In any case, it will be a race to the finish. If it has to be one of us who dies first, let it be the LATimes. I will handle it.
Labels: culture, internet, life, technology
PRIDE GOETH IN THE FALL
Booker and I went past a friend's house yesterday and he was outside admiring the work he had done on a big plywood dog silhouette for a float in the Gay Pride Parade. I asked it it was a gay dog. My friend is not gay. At least not professed. Or, as they use to say in the NYTimes, "self-avowed".
He told me that the dog would have a rainbow ribbon on as he sat on a float for the animal shelter.
"Oh!", I said.
We chatted for a few minutes about it. It was good work. My dad made jigsaw things and my friend had not done it in 20 years. And so on.
I went away a bit agog. Here it will be Gay Pride Week in Palm Springs in two weeks. It is held at this time rather than the Stonewall time because it is hot in late June and there are no tourists. Already a commercial raison d'etre. And then, the parade. Here we now have floats and paraders who have nothing to do with gay or any of it. It is a commercial. They are selling themselves to us.
When I came in, it was all gay and it was just us, the people marching for equal rights. It was scary. There weren't many straight people on the sidewalks and what there were were not very friendly.
Then we got to Phase II. The "pride" phase. It became commercially gay. You had to belong to a group. It was selling gay and gay business to the city. Believe me, when you have the State Street Bank gay contingent, you have reached a certain point of acceptance.
Now we have the non-gays selling to us.
I have always found the notion of "pride" dubious, to say the least, especially as many parts of these parades are not anything to be proud of. I won't itemize. Draw your own conclusions.
But there has been this shift. Last year and maybe before, the Grand Marshal of the parade wasn't even gay. The last time I went to it the Marshal was a closeted, until then I guess, gay. Michael Feinstein.
Well, times change but not much. We are still doing ourselves in by coopting for the heteros.
And there will be a carnival for most of the days with booths to sell us things.
I know. I know. The price of progress. Mediocrity.
Labels: gay history, gay life, gay rights
TIME WAS
Today's film was Terence Davies'
This ode to Liverpool, Davies' home town, and the revelations of his life there, combined with archival and current photos and films, make up a stirring documentary of, well, time and a city.
I think that Davies is reaching for the feel in every city of decay and its inevitability. He begins, obviously, with a reading of Shelley's Ozymandias which is not hitting us over the head to hard with his intention.
But there is something subtler here. It is that realization in youth that what we see is not permanent. Hidden away in the back streets are the foundations of yesterday. The decaying buildings. The old people. When we look on these in our youth we are brought up short to realize the inevitability of time and our own mortality. Live in the moment or die before you die.
Terence Davies is queer so he has some things to say about wasted life trying the old (church) ways and he is curmudgeonly antagonistic toward royalty and all the establishment crap that so dominates British society. Or has in the past.
I think that the right word for this is "impressionistic" but there are some good solid bits to bite on and laugh or feel sad and nostalgic whether your past is buried in Liverpool or wherever you have lived before.
I liked it a lot and might even be willing to see it again some time. It takes a while to "get it" and some of the footage is riveting.
That would make it a 4 out of Netflix5.
Davies is new to me. I think that I will try some of his other films. There aren't many. He has been anti-establishment from the start and he will not compromise in his work. It slows him down. So be it.
Labels: film, films, gay history, gay life
Saturday, October 24, 2009
MORE TRIBUTES
Today there is a nice appreciation of Soupy Sales in the LATimes.
Soupy Sales, hip and elemental
Do you see? The LATimes finally has a decent looking web site with pictures although the one they have of Soupy is way off who he was. Never mind. This one is more the mood.
I have read a lot of reaction to this guy. I loved him and, it turns out, so did a lot of other people of a certain age.
One thing that I read reminded me of the urban legend that Soupy hid dirty jokes in his schtick to kids. He knew the adults were watching.
This may be true but it would only be part of the story.
His whole thing was aimed at adults and people and kids and everyone. It was high energy stuff with a lot of words.
In this piece, he reminds me that Soup always had the crew laughing. There was no audience other than the floor people. And they would go nuts sometimes.
Even Soupy could not contain himself. He laughed at his own jokes. Everything was delivered in full chortle.
In the photo his huge dog White Fang prepares to deliver a pie in the face. We never saw anything other than White Fang's paw. Part of what was funny about him.
They did not have a script. They worked live. They had "ideas" and most of his stuff was a riff on these "ideas". Amazing. Look at what we lost when they started taping and when they got afraid of what could go out on the air.
They will show the most tawdry crap today on tape but a spontaneous human performance, no.
There is "late night" but that is taped too. Most of it.
Remember that Soupy Sales performed mostly in the day time in the early years. Without a net. Wonderful.
Labels: fun, life, television
AUTO-NUMERIC RESTART
The inevitable has occurred.
Today is the day that a new area code has been added to Riverside County. The population explosion is here.
I wonder, though, with all the foreclosures and failures of the development "industry" whether they need the new code or not. Can we roll it back?
I suppose not.
It has already been hashed over and over.
Actually, we would not have been affected by the original proposal but the San Diego people who would have been affected bitched out and so they made us all have an overlay. Can you believe that it rates an item in the Wikipedia?
Now we all have to dial ten digits. Well, no we won't. It is all automatic once I put it into my phone. And did I say "dial"? I haven't "dialed" a number for thirty (?) years. I have punched numbers. The dial went out a long time ago. It is still in existence though. As I was working on this I saw that there is still a dial setup in Death Valley and a few other isolated places.
I made a call this morning and "she" said without any explanation that the number was no good. Period.
I realized. It is 10/24/09. Shit.
So I went through my cell phone and changed all the numbers without a prefix to numbers with a prefix. I also dropped a bunch of numbers that no longer apply. Four moved. Two dead. A couple no longer on my list of callees.
It wasn't too bad.
I realize I am not the first to have this happen. If I were out in LA land, I would have had to do it two or three times.
The new prefix is 442. I don't know anyone who has it but I suppose it will come along.
Change. Growth. Oh, well.
Labels: life, technology
THIS IS WHERE I CAME IN
Today's Richard Linklater film was
This is the film that got me started on the Linklater Film Fest and the last film in the sequence.
This is done in 'motion capture" where the acting is real but transformed to drawing and additional animation. Wonderful for the topic. Dreams.
I realize now that this film has elements of many previous "serious" Linklater films. It has the same frequent train rides (You Can't Learn to Plow a Field From a Book, his first feature length film undistributed. He does all the movie's parts. Camera, acting, editing and so on).
It has the walking and talking that we saw in his first distributed feature Slackers.
It has the ideas of what is real and what is imagined/dreamed.
It has Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke who had just done Before Sunset. There is Speed Levitch the run-on tour guide from the 20 minute Live from Shiva's Dance Floor The lead is Wiley Wiggins from Dazed and Confused, the second distributed film.
Steven Soderbergh shows up. And so on.
It is fun to see these bits and pieces.
Ebert has written two pieces on the film. Here is the later one.
I have really enjoyed this series of films and look forward to seeing his latest, Me and Orson Welles, which comes out soon. I think that it is a mix of a film for himself and for "them".
Oh. Waking Life is already a 5 out of Netflix5. I will see it again, for sure.
OPENING UP
I haven't written about Booker for awhile.
They told us that he would be adapted to his new home after three months and that is true. But they didn't say and we didn't really think about the fact that he would keep opening up after that. He is a joy. We forget that he has five years of life to bring into the house somehow. It won't happen in a few months.
Socially, he has been wonderful with us but cool to others. "hello, how are you, goodbye". People and dogs. He is rarely, actively, unfriendly. He will not take any shit from another dog particular a male who wants to get on top. Dominance. He growls and makes a move. They get off fast.
But generally, he is a cool dude who doesn't get all excited over people or dogs outside our tight family circle.
This is the opposite of Franklin who was everyone's friend and if not today, tomorrow. And people felt it. The whole neighborhood grieved his loss. The Neighborhood Organization newsletter mentioned the loss of "our beloved Franklin".
People, in fact, have had some trouble with this new Airedale. The non-Franklin. Almost the anti-Franklin. This cool dude who doesn't go all high energy on them. They compare. Booker doesn't give a shit and we are close to that. At first we explained and defend but we quit that. He was suffering a bit from comparison but, as his own nice guy, we became loyal and just moved on.
But it is not all coolness. Not all introversion of a friendly sort. He has had some building relationships which are just now bearing fruit.
Yesterday he played with Franklin's best friend Bruno like a puppy for the first time. I was outdoors with him (he won't go beyond the apron of the drive without one of us) and he took off. I got alarmed but it was OK.
It was his friend Bruno. Frolic. Joy. Our friends Dan and Tom were very pleased. We were delighted. They have been buddies but the wraps came off yesterday.
He has also adopted the pool man, Frank, another special Franklin friend who, we are happy to say, did not treat Booker as the non-Franklin. He has been friendly and open and not pushed. He has won out and so has the pup. We watched yesterday as Frank, who loves dogs, and Booker wandered from job to job at the pool and equipment. Booker following like a little boy. Helping. Very nice.
And we have also reaped the benefits of a more open Book, so to speak.
The other night he barked at us and we finally figured that he wanted us to pet him. Not that he is lacking for petting but this was new. He has been very vocal from the beginning. Purrs when petted, grumbles, sighs, snores, just plain talks. And he has barked at us partly for fun and also to get our asses going on the walk, to the spa, on with his supper or whatever else we are supposed to do.
So John got him into the living room and we lay on the carpet - all three - and really had a dog pile. Bites, rolls, all of it. We have had a little of this before but this was a marathon.
He loves his toys. Yesterday was cleaning day. They go on a chair in the living room. All the toys MUST be in the living room. There used to be a toy shelf off the kitchen at his nose level but that will not do. Nor is it OK for the outside toys, I so carefully selected for him, to remain outside.
If you take his stuff elsewhere he puts it back where it belongs. In the living room.
He can move something, not us. It is fun to see him after Mari leaves. He goes and roots through the pile and finds what he wants and goes to play with it. Then comes back and gets the next thing. By the end of the evening, the pile has been distributed around the room.
I know all this sounds kind of trivial but for our sober Airedale it is a real breakthrough. He is so patient and so bound to us that we have never doubted his affection and happiness. Now we see it more and more.
He is a great walker. Even in the heat, he would bound out for the full time allotted. He loves the Jeep and the rides. He sits in the back as though he is Mr. Millionbucks being chauffeured around town. Seein' the sights. He is one of those dogs who seems to enjoy every aspect of his life no matter what is happening.
A lot of people come to the house. He is a great, if not effusive, host. He meets them at the gate and, we have learned, needs to see them off. Out of the yard. If we miss that part he wanders around looking for them and giving us the eye.
We can leave him alone and he does OK. He is way happy when we return and we have a great reunion.
When one of us goes out for awhile it is alright but he really wants both of us here and together. We are stuck. No divorces.
His health is excellent. No trips to the Doc.
John is doing the grooming and Booker looks pretty good. He is a little fuzzy now but he will be clipped this weekend. It is also time for a bath.
I look back now at the days right after Franklin's death and our indecision about whether or not to get another dog. Then the sudden urge to search for a rescue dog. Finding him almost immediately just after he had been placed with the rescue outfit. A series of steps which have led to this wonderful experience we are sharing with Booker. Our big boy.
I can now admit how scary this was and how much we both wanted and worried about his fitting in.
Even his size was intimidating at first. He is, at his prime weight, 30% heavier than Franklin. A gentle giant.
But here we are. Success for all of us. He has worked hard as have we. The results are very gratifying.
Labels: Booker
Friday, October 23, 2009
TECHIE
Obama visited MIT today and delivered a high powered speech:
Pushing for Energy Legislation, Obama Takes On Critics
It was fun to see him in Kresge Auditorium and Dave sent a film of his arrival in Cambridge. The fast cars and all.
He toured the school then made the speech. A few jokes about MIT being the most prestigious institution in that part of Cambridge. Traditional rival Harvard is the institution in the other part of Cambridge. Obama went to the Law School.
He said that some students were dismantling his motorcade to put on the top of the great dome. And someone gave him a card with the periodic table on it. "What's with that"? he said. Laughter at the cluelessness of arts guys generally.
But Obama is not clueless to the fact that technology is going to be the saving of the world from climate change. He knows that new energy sources rely on new technologies. MIT is a leader. He went to the right place.
I regard it as the same as going to visit the troops in a war. This is a war. Against ignorance first and the actual threat, second. Until we win the first, the second it up for grabs.
Incidentally, not one of the lefty blogs that I read covered this speech. So hard to listen to technical shit, huh? It pisses me off.
Labels: Administration Obama
GOOD BAD GUYS
Today's Richard Linklater film was
This is Linklater's first big budget film and it sort of runs away with him. The production values are terrific as is the camera work. There is a lot of innovation.
The true to the bone story is thin as most true stories are. This is why Hollywood stuffs them with nonsense.
Since Linklater didn't stuff, it is a little lame. We could have done with a good 90 minutes.
The Newton brothers see crime as an occupation and robbing banks as a mere leveling of the social playing field.
They are also good at it.
They rob a lot of banks, have one romance, show a lot of brotherly love, no one gets hurt much and they all pay the price by going to prison.
The credits are side by side with two television interviews with two of the surviving boys who had a great life as far as I can tell.
It was guilty fun. The boys are all young actors not terribly experienced so they don't wring a lot out of what there is to their parts.
The talk is good as it is in all Linklater films.
I will give it a 3 out of Netflix5 because I liked it moderately but not effusively. I sure wouldn't want to see it again. Great trains, incidentally. Wonderful explosions of period banks.
SALES OVER
One of the funniest guys died today.
Soupy Sales, Slapstick Comedian, Dies at 83
He was side achingly, gasping for breath funny.
On the surface, he played to kids. In reality the show hit at the hip young, and old, adult crowd.
Crammed with standard bits, Sales caromed from one side of the set to another. Answering a knock at the door (we would not see who was there until famous fans began to ask for a shot on the show), working his puppets (White Fang above, only the paw), going through some slapstick bit with an unseen cast of characters (the naked lady was one, on a kids' show) or just standing there goofing.
I saw him for many years because he started in NYC before he was syndicated.
A lot of people got him confused with Pinky Lee who was similar but not at all the same. Sales never played the "fairy" card where Pinky, an ex-burlesque comedian, was fey to a fault. And funny.
He might be more like Paul Reubens and his character, Pee Wee Herman, but also not fey and definitely not in sort of nerd drag.
Soupy wore regular clothes but would don a funny bow tie. Otherwise it was chinos and sweater. Sales was who he was although mugging was definitely part of the picture.
Sales had a second career as a game show participant. Equally hilarious in prime time, he was a regular on What's My Line? and others.He was an expert with pie throwing. Mostly at himself. A big corny joke. A pie.
There is a much more exhaustive and funny review of Soupy Sales here.
Soupy didn't make it to 90, he was 83, but I put him down as a hero anyway.
I laugh as I type this. And he is gone now. Really gone. Goodbye Soup.
Here, take one in the face.
Labels: fun, heroes, life, television
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
BIZZY
Another busy day. Two visitors and a house cleaner. Back to front. No time. Yikes! What happened to retirement?
Labels: life
NO SHOW
Today's movie was cancelled since I felt rushed. I had a lot on my plate and the movie just scrunched me in tighter than an older retired man ought to feel scrunched.
I made good use of the "free" time though.
I cut my hair. That takes 20-30 minutes by the time I primp it and look at all angles and so on.
Then, I went out and reset the sprinklers which have been on FULL for the newly seeded grass. It is that time of year and they soak the seed. It has been two weeks. The new grass looks great. Emerald. Enough water.
I also set the water to OFF for Friday when the guys come to cut it and do other yard work. If the ground is moist the mower fucks up the new planting. I wish, actually, they would use the weed whacker for the grass. But they won't. So I have cut the water for all little lawns off for the day.
We have mini-lawns. It is a nod to water conservation and a kind of neat landscaping idea. Out back we have alternative diagonal squares of gravel and lawn.
A lot of people have gone to all gravel. Austere. This preserves a bit of green with half the space seeded.
Some day, I suppose, I will break down and do the whole property in low water gravel and plants. Not yet. I recycle pretty good though!
I watered out front. The poinsettia is getting new leaves. Whether it will do this fast enough for the holidays is up to the poinsettia. I planted this after last year's holidays and it did fine until summer when most of the leaves burned.
I looked the plant up and they said that I should have cut it down to the base. 4 inch stems.
Well, maybe, but most of this advice is for places where it is humid and there is rain and not a desert. So I think the leaves would have burned worse had I pruned it.
I don't know.
We shall see what we shall see.
I also read more than I planned of the book that is now on my desk, The Magicians by Lev Grossman. It is so fantastic. Literally. It is the first book I have had for awhile that I just want to pick up and finish, NOW.
So that is how I used my extra two hours and I still have ten minutes left.
The market went to shit today in the last minute because my bank, Wells Fargo, seems to be in trouble again.
Don't worry. I won't pull my checking account out. I have to admit that we did pull our savings account out a while ago, though.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
PLAYING THE GAME
Today's Richard Linklater film was the documentary
on the career and philosophy of Augie Garrido, the winner of a bunch of national college world series. First at UC at Fullerton and then at University of Texas.
Coach Garrido has an inspiring life story and a philosophy of teaching which is very good to see. I felt quite at home in his world. He teaches young men and brings out their characters rather than trying to form them into his image of what a ball player should be.
He is a great guy to watch and Linklater, in his first full length documentary, uses all his technical brilliance to tell a story with a strong narrative. That is as a director. As a former ball player at UT, he has an insiders view of the game. Very nice.
You do not have to know or even appreciate baseball to like this film. It is about life and living.
If you do rent it be sure to watch the uncensored version. Coach Garrido's use of the full venacular is quite inspiring and, sometimes, even spectacular.
Here is another guy who is almost as old as I am living a full and happy professional life.
I have seen this a few times in the last days. Maybe I should get a job. But I already had one.
I will rate this a 3 out of Netflix5.
Monday, October 19, 2009
IRREGULAR NOT
I don't want to embarrass any member of the family but we had something of a poop crisis the last two days.
Booker is as regular as clockwork. One big dump in the AM walk and another in the PM walk. Always the same. Good big biscuits.
And always on the walks. Never in the back yard where Franklin always did his business.
Then, last night no poop. This morning no poop.
Alarms go off.
We think about the vet.
Then, we thought to look out back.
There they are. Two good big biscuits.
I guess anyone is allowed to change their toilet routines. I spent 6 years picking up the dump of the day out back. I can do it again. Maybe Booker could learn to do what this guy is doing.
This is also at a time when Booker is beginning to find recreational purpose out back by himself. He has not done that much so far, preferring, I think to be with us rather than alone. A getting used to being here thing. Or fear of separation. He does have a little of that.
Anyway. No vet. A good walk and play outside in the yard deserves a good dump. All is well with the world. We can rest easy.
Booker is happy because we have quit looking worried and talking about him over his head.
Labels: Booker
SPEED FREAK
Today's Richard Linklater film was a short
Live From Shiva's Dance Floor (2003)
This is a 20 minute film with a NYC tour guide Speed Levitch holding forth about the Twin Towers, New York and the results of 9-11.
This guy could be a character in the fictional Slackers and he is the real deal.
I am not sure of the story behind the making of this film but that connection has to be a part of Linklater's attraction.
It is pretty good and prompted me to see more of Levitch in an earlier documentary featuring him as a tour guide.
He is supposed to be the most famous one.
This film gives a bigger picture of this guy and it is pretty good until he gets to rant on about his philosophy and you understand why Linklater knew that he was only good for 20 minutes. At 90 minutes he gets really annoying and thin.
I don't know how long you would have him on a tour.
He is a slacker. You see where he lives and how he lives and there is nothing wrong about that but there is not a lot of depth to a slacker's story. It is more about who they are. Out here. Right now.
I enjoyed the Linklater film and will give it a 3 out of Netflix5.
The biodoc was OK but I had to FF and that makes it a 2 out of Netflix5.
A BIGGER SPLASH OVER THERE
In 1974 I saw a film called
It was a unique experience. A fictional story about a real artist, David Hockney, and his real friends.
There was painting, there was life, there was a style of life which was beyond bohemian in a good way.
Hockney was a counterculturist. A pop artist. The story and the people were an expression of his art as well as a description of his art. Not the same thing.
I have seen the film a few times since. It not only holds up but is, in terms of Hockney's subsequent, wildly creative and prolific career, quite prophetic.
I have watched his life and his work over time. I have been influenced about it. One cannot have moved to southern California and not be aware of Hockney's take on it.
Well, you could, but it is more fun knowing about Hockney.
He has had an interesting life. He has become nearly totally deaf. He has become an "establishment" artist in a way that only Hockney could become one.
He continues to create prolifically and has totally adopted the new technology. He has iPod paintings which were among the first. Now it is almost a cliché. Cover of The New Yorker by someone else who was cheered as wildly innovative.
He has influenced thousands of young artists in many fields other than "painting".
Now, a profile and a report on the latest work.
David Hockney’s Long Road Home
He has gone back to the UK. Home. Well, he is still living here part time but he is mostly there.
Hockney is 71. Close to my age.
The film that I saw in 1974 was very important to me. It showed me that I could have another life than the one I had thought I would or should have.
I am very grateful to him for living his life out and being fully visible. Making his life his art, part of the time.
I suppose that I should bring out some of the subtext here. Hockney is gay, is in a long time relationship and, in the film, was completely open about his life and quite happy and unrepentant for it. A role model. A hero. People who are out and about are the revolutionaries who have made it possible for me to have had a first wedding anniversary. Rights advance when straight people know who gay people are. And so on.
Let's keep it on the art part. He is a great artist of our time and should be grandly applauded. Standing O.
Labels: art, gay history, gay life, heroes
Sunday, October 18, 2009
AWOL
It used to be an absentee ballot. It was hard to get. You had to say that you were really, really going to be out of town. I remember some other process like a note from your mother or something.
Now, it is not an absentee ballot. It is the vote by mail ballot and they really, really want you to use it.
So much so that they have made it hard to really, really vote in a real machine.
So hard and difficult that we caved into the inevitable and today I sent in my mail-in ballot.
It wasn't hard to do. There are only two Council members and three Water Agency people to pick.
There was one question which was a no brainer. Updating the phone tax to include cell phones. Christ, how long has it taken for them to get with that program?
What was hard was finding two City Council candidates I could vote for. I only wanted one incumbent to stay. The new candidates are almost universally unqualified with no previous city government experience. No Planning Commission members, the traditional route, oddly. No people who had served on some other voluntary capacity. No former City employee even. There is almost always one of those although I would not vote for him or her.
So, I voted for only one.
Yes to the question. Get the money now!
Water Agency members get voted out. I always vote against the incumbents. I want new blood in the water.
WHY HE GOT IT
For the idiots and malcontents who question Obama's Nobel, here is a think piece. But as it involves thinking, it will probably not have much of an impact.
'They are saluting his commitment to disarmament'
Since most of the sniping is partisan, it will not go away. But still. Fuck 'em.
I know. Not very pacific of me, is it?
I get so tired of the nastiness. And then I get nasty too.
Even at this basic level we can see why the spiral of conflict is so dangerous.
It is human. It requires a moral leadership to change the arc of ancient combativeness.
And another thing. The so-called "peace sign" is actually a call for nuclear disarmament. Ban the bomb.
People used to shed blood under this sign, particularly in England. Not today.
Labels: Administration Obama, republican whack jobs
SPOOO
Ooops reversed.
Tom fixed my archives and they are restored.
I have a history again.
It is good to have someone in the family who can speak HTML fluently.
I only have pidgeon HTML myself.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
THIRTY
I am 30 years clean and sober today.
10,950 days.
One at a time.
I find this more amazing than my age which is amazing enough.
I remember my first sober days very clearly. They were not pretty. But they were spent with people, like me, who had found a way to stay sober and they generously shared it with me.
They gave me a good foundation to stand on. Over the years there have been many others.
I will be spending this morning with a lot of those people.
I am very grateful.
Labels: alcohol
Friday, October 16, 2009
THE DURABLE HILLARY
There has been a lot of bullshit lately about how Hillary is being upstaged.
I have been dubious about this. I don't think you upstage her.
The other thing is that, if you watch the news for news and not opinion burnishing, she has been everywhere doing yeoman's work. Yeowoman's?
Try this from my old friend Kevin Drum. He agrees.
I really admire her and her work. I like to see her laughing which she does a lot.
I pore over the photos that are released. She is having a good time and so are the people that are with her.
Labels: Administration Obama, Hillary Clinton
Thursday, October 15, 2009
BUSY BUSY
An MIT applicant interview in half an hour. Not a lot of time today for some reason.
It can't be the Friday food shopping although I did have to wait for a woman who only had a little money and coupons and the coupons didn't all fit.
Somehow, I was able to generate compassion rather than impatience. These are hard times.
It is a warmer day in PS today. We have the air on. Indian summer.
We have the indians for it. The Caliente band of the Morongo. They are richer than Croesus. They own a lot of the land we are on and lease it. Not us, actually but a lot of other people and businesses.
Then there are two gambling (gaming-hah!) casinos. A little slow right now but a lot of people see the chance (slim to none) to get some bucks while they are otherwise unemployed. Nuts.
How did I get off on that?
Gotta get ready to talk high school talk.
Come to think of it, the odds of getting into MIT are pretty slim too.
15,000 kids apply and less than 1500 get in. 10:1 against.
They know this and keep coming.
The difference here is that the returns after entry are greatly in favor. MIT grads will have a life of open doors and abundant opportunity. I speak first hand.
OOPS
I edited the margins today. I decided that the "links" served no useful purpose so I eliminated them.
In the process, somehow, I eliminated the listing of archives.
I am hoping to get some help finding them again. They are there.
The fact is that I never used them at all. But there is a certain satisfaction in seeing them pile up. Accumulation.
I will get over it but, right now, I am a little upset.
Probably more from embarrassment about making a mistake than any actual loss.
"Blogger" is like a lot of these free services. No help. Well, there is but it is a wikiboard. We will see what we will see.
I am sure it is some code that I left out of the HTML. But I don't know which one it would be. Otherwise I wouldn't have left it out.
If there is anything I have learned a dozen times from the internet is to back up stuff. To try it out before I finalize it. To be sure that the thing I am taking out it the thing I want to take out.
I have had to relearn these lessons a dozen times. Now plus one more time.
HANDS ON
The Senate has started to take the "gang of six" health care reform proposal to the next level.
A group of senators met and a group of White House staff showed up to participate.
Here is Steve Benen's summation of the meeting.
The White House sent Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, Director of the White House Office for Health Reform's Nancy-Ann DeParle, OMB Director Peter Orszag, Director of Legislative Affairs Phil Schiliro, White House Senate Liaison Shawn Maher, and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. In other words, Obama administration officials outnumbered senators two to one. We can probably safely describe this as a "hands-on" approach.I love it.
If you read enough lefty blogs (don't, it will give you a headache), you will read that Obama is softballing it and not really working to reign the congress in.
Hah!
The chess player has more "men" on the board.
Here is the whole article.
I notice that they did not invite Olympia Snowe, now reputed by some talking heads, to be the new power on health care reform. Once things get rolling watch her melt into the background. She will still be a vote but she is not "dictating" to the powers that be. The ones we voted for.
Labels: Administration Obama
TODAY
Busy today with two visits and the benevolent intrusion of the house cleaning gang of one.
This means that Booker and I have to move to the rear of the house about 1030 AM and then stay there until noon.
We manage to get through this inconvenience by napping it out.
When we get up and back up front, the house is transformed. It smells great. Things are right where they are supposed to be.
But we soon take care of that.
All of Booker's toys will be in a living room chair.
This will not do. He will get them all down and display them on the floor.
We originally had dog toys on a table in the sunroom.
This was not OK with him.
He took them all to the living room. Again and again.
So we gave up.
If you come to visit us now you will have to walk through dog toys to find a seat.
Win a few, lose a few.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
SEASONAL
The guy came today to do the autumn heat and air system check.
It is winter.
We need new gas jets things on the main heater. 300 some bucks. It is OK. Life is all maintenance and this is expected. Better it than me.
Labels: heat
CHANGING MY TUNE
We used to keep our "local" classical station on all day. KUSC in LA. They have a local transmitter.
Little by little this got cut down. We were busy, it was annoying or something.
Then, during one of their awful fund raising sessions, we turned it off and never turned it back on.
The silence was nice for quite awhile but, lately, a side effect has kicked in.
The only real music that I hear on a regular basis is the canned stuff at the gym which repeats and repeats.
The result is that I am "hearing" one or another of these old rock songs in my head during the day. Not good. Spiritually thin. Repetitive.
So, for the first time since I had the iMac, I am tuning into some classical music stations. Today is the CBC classical station. It seems to have more excerpts than I like. This is fairly common now. Not many stations believe their listeners will stay with a full symphony or quartet. There is no choral music here. But that is for today. At least it is not some obscure one hit wonder who is eking royalties out of the bottom rung Golds Gym Network. Or the tired old Beach Boys who are still singing like there is no tomorrow. It makes for a curious experience if one knows what happened next but not for long.
Labels: music
SPORTMANSHIT
Today's Richard Linklater film was the final remake (there were three) of
In this one, Billy Bob Thornton rechannels Walter Matthau's original misanthropy into a neater package.
This is the anti-Disney film. A kids film which is rated PG-13. The word "fuck" is not used but everything else is.
Linklater turns the genré of the kid sports films on its head. This is his metier. Gentle subversion.
He seems to make one film for himself and one movie for them but the ones for "them" are really for himself as well.
In this one, Greg Kennear is the clean jockish coach of the opposing ball team. His cracks gradually grow so that we see underneath all the good sportsmanship bullshit.
Thornton, on the other hand, is a bad boy and so are the kids on the team. If not bad, they are defective in some way. Outcasts.
The process of reclamation is fun to watch.
Also, Linklater was a baseball player and the last twenty minutes show the excitement of the game when it is played to the hilt. Really.
I liked it. I am glad that I saw it.
I will give it a 3 out of Netflix5*.
*Let's review the rating system. If I hated it and skipped through the film it is a 1. If I didn't like it but watched it through anyway, it is a 2. If it is good and one time is enough, it gets a 3. A 4 says that I wouldn't mind at all seeing it again. A 5 is a commitment to see it again and perhaps again and again.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
TOUGH TIMES
Tom found this.
Everything's Amazing--Nobody's Happy.
I never saw the guy before. Pretty good.
Labels: culture
NOT SO MUCH
When I get all het up about something some fucking airhead says on cable news I lose perspective.
Kevin Drum brings me back.
I knew, but forget, that the people who watch cable news in the day average in the hundreds of thousands. Not millions.
A lot of the noise is in an echo chamber. A closed system.
And then I read about the cable news stuff in some of the blogs. So it amplifies.
There is sure a huge difference between the NYTimes which I read on line every day and cable. Audience and numbers of people. Millions. Not big but bigger. And sane.
A lot of this has to do with what I expose myself to. Peace of mind is a lot more important than a deconstruction of Glen Beck or any of the lesser idiots and wing nuts who are out there working to attract eyes to ads. Noise.
This doesn't mean that they don't have impact. They do. They stimulate other broadcasters, and to some extent, newspapers.
I often see a watered down version of some hyper ventilated news item on CNN a day or two later. With both sides. Pap actually.
So there it is.
Put in its place for today.
And tomorrow it will rear its ugly head again in my mind. But not out there.
Labels: republican whack jobs, television
HEAD TRIP
Today's Richard Linklater film was
This adaptation of a Philip K. Dick novel is done in rotoscope images in the same way as Linklater's Waking Life (2001).
The technique here is far ahead of the other film but then this is more realistic where the other was a dream world. It is good stuff. Very apt for the science fiction core of this story.
It has Keanu Reeves, Robert Downey Jr. and Winona Ryder.
Very good. Downey is possibly working from real memory in his portrayal of a latter day, very funny, speed freak.
In a lesser role, Woody Harrelson is, well, a great Woody Harrelson.
This film, as with many of Linklater's works, rides on the language. The long talky parts. The speedy one liners. It is word dense. Great.
It does not pander at any time. We are not given a pat resolution. But there is some hope in the ending. Nice enough.
I will give this 4 out of Netflix5. It would be nice to hear the yakking again.
Monday, October 12, 2009
A PLUS
I had a physical last Thursday.
I go twice a year. This is the big one. EKG. The works.
I got an A+.
Good cholesterol, little bad.
Great PSA which is as it should be since my prostate is supposed to be dead. A shriveled radiated husk. It means that I have another year cancer free. Now going on 14.
And so on.
I am grateful. A lot of people around me are having a lot of age stuff and other illness. I will try to remain in good to excellent condition for the duration how ever long that may be.
Labels: health
Sunday, October 11, 2009
GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN
The house is quiet. Everyone has gone. We had a great four days of family time. Very nice.
This was Booker's first time with the larger family and he was fine with it. He let everyone sit in his living room where he keeps all his toys and even agreed to share some of them and played nice.
There will be a little sleep to catch up on. I have already started that project.
The weather today is very unfriendly to visitors. Cloudy. Cool. It held out just long enough.
We are getting the southern end of a storm which could dump snow already on the midwest and east.
Not us.
OUR FIRST
Today is our first wedding anniversary.
We were married in the back yard, with a hundred friends and family watching, one year ago today.
John made a beautiful husband.
This happened in our 33d year together. Now it is 34.
That makes it a little time warpy. In our heads we have been married for a very long time. Maybe not 34 years. More like, say, 1980, when we decided that we would be together. Period. No games about an open relationship or any of the other dodges people use to shy away from commitment.
At that time, monogamy looked quaint. Now, not so much.
I look around and see the people who seek half way measures in relationships and realize that simply would not work for me.
As long as there is an escape hatch, the pain of growing up and having a true relationship with another human being is compromised. The commitment is lessened. Denial grows. The unsaid remains buried. One becomes sick with secrets and unexpressed thoughts.
I don't mean to stress the negative here. There is a lot of joy from commitment. Freedom. The ability to trust and be trusted.
But growing through selfishness, liberating oneself from the corrosive acids of self obsession, are a priceless spiritual experience. One way that can be obtained is by living together a day at a time with another human being. All the way.
Length of time is not the issue here. Some people have had this experience and then have it peter out and move on.
We have not had that experience. We are still at it. The joy and the pain and the growing. To death do us part.
I finally know what that phrase actually means. It is the real deal.
One would think that after 34 years together and 29 of those years committed, one would be blasé about marriage.
Some people do say that they "have been together and are "married" so why get "married"?
Well, let me tell you a few reasons.
For one, it is the ultimate playing out of a saga that began with Stonewall all those years ago. The culmination of one big branch on the gay rights tree.
Having been part of the movement all this time it is the only natural next step to take.
Another reason. Because we can! Do it. Nail it. Have it down in black and white. Celebrate it. Take the relationship to a new level.
Need another reason? Because, despite our hard shell, we are, inside, very vulnerable as gay couples without social endorsement.
From the minute we stepped into the County Clerk's office where we were welcomed with open arms to the final "I do", we were swept into a process so confirming and supportive that we were amazed. We became tearful and gorged with good feelings of inclusion and support.
It does make a difference and don't let anyone tell you it does not.
I still thrill a bit when I refer to "my husband". We used to say that before it was real and now it is quite emphatically real and it has a huge impact on the way I feel about me and us together.
Another reason it was good to get married? Because it is fun and we are part of a grateful minority of gay couples in California who had the privilege and took it and ran with the whole idea.
Finally because I always wanted a husband and now I have one. For real.
Labels: gay life, gay marriage, gay wedding, life
ALL TIED UP
I suppose, at one time, the referendum process had California at the forefront of participatory government. Democratic.
Now, it has gotten us into a tangle of conflicting and restricting laws and regulations.
The Judicial branch seldom speaks out but here we have our Chief Justice weighing in.
Top Judge Calls Calif. Government ‘Dysfunctional’
There is a conference next week on a new constitution. This will be the only salvation from all the gridlocks (plural) that plague the state.
I think this is why the USA is a republic and not a pure democracy.
Labels: California
Saturday, October 10, 2009
"CHILDLISHLY IMPATIENT
Frank Kameny is the father of gay rights in this country. This is a great interview.
He has an admonition for the younger gay people who are so impatient over Obama's failure to grant all their wishes in his first days. Me too.
‘Things Take Time,’ Gay Activist Says of Work
Of course, that is not to say that the protests and impatience are not useful.
They are.
The tension between good governance and the wish for change is ages long. Gay rights are no exception.
Labels: gay rights
