"Dream On" Christian Falk feat. Robyn & Ola Salo

This one's been out for a couple of years, but I just recently rediscovered it.
Why shouldn't pop-songs occasionally speak to us?

"Ass Juice"

There's a bar in Las Vegas called the "Double Down Saloon". http://doubledownsaloon.com/

Best neighborhood bar I've ever been to. They have a massive collection of 'donated' bras hanging over the entire bar; they have maybe two or three of the saddest slot machines you've ever seen; every conceivable inch of available surface is covered in some sort of graffiti; and the last time I was there three hot strippers 'bellied' up to the bar after their shift ended. If there is (against ALL evidence) some form of 'afterlife' I want to spend the rest of mine in the "Double Down".

They advertise a house specialty called "Ass Juice". I've had it, it's not bad. Maybe a little too sweet; 'chick drink' for the tourists.

You can even buy t-shirts with their logo & a pic of a skeleton squatting over a pint glass, squirting into it with the slogan "Outa Our Ass, Inta' Your Glass."

And yeah, I got one somewhere; I wear it when I'm doing my laundry so the neighbors will give me a wider berth....



Point being; I thought I'd encountered 'ass juice'.
The dice say 'No':

Should you ever find yourself hungover, pinned down in the cold morning light, struggling over which fortified, artificially-fruit-flavored, overly-caffeinated, malt beverage to grab on your way to work, do yourself one last favor & stays the hells aways from 'JOOSE'.

I have never, in my entire life, tasted a previously manufactured, commercially sold, marketed/advertised/pimped beverage that tasted SO RIDICULOUSLY SHITTY.

It comes in several favors, I chose 'orange'. Bad move.

Imagine taking a big bite of fresh orange and then burying your nose deep in your father's/older brother's/creepy uncle's sweaty armpit.

I kid you not, that is EXACTLY the sensation. One helluva blast of citrus, and then the most sweaty socklike aftertaste you can't even try to imagine.

I have no idea how this made it into production. I am being completely serious here; if you open a can, let it sit for a moment, then take a big ol' sniff, it smells EXACTLY like sweaty old gym socks.

The aftertaste is somewhat stronger.

There've been more than a few instances in my drinking career where somebody has stated something along the lines of 'It tastes like ass!" Well, they were wrong. They have no goddamn idea what the phrase 'tastes like ass' truly means.

If you're that self-destructive, if you're that goddamn curious, if you're (like me) open to ANY new experience, well, by all means, track down a can. Just never, NEVER, EVER say I didn't give you enough of a head's up first....

Assjuice like you wouldn't believe.

[Oh, and in case you're wondering, yeah, I held my breath & shot the whole fucker in one. Taste not, want not.]

Serendipitous words....

I stubbed my toe last night on a piece of marble I use to keep the couch from shifting when I drop my fat ass onto it. After the blinding flash of pain subsided, it occurred to me the rock might make for an interesting blog subject.

As you may suspect from the pictures; yes it is indeed a piece from a headstone. No, I didn't break the headstone, but I did find it, alone, near a cemetery I was visiting years ago. (If it's a sin to take a broken headstone from near a cemetery I'm not really worried; I'm going to Hell for some better reasons than that.)

Part of the reason I felt compelled to take it (besides the obvious: it's a fucking headstone!) was that the only letters visible spelt 'ONE'.

'ONE'. For some reason that really struck me, that word, on a headstone. As in, we are all one & the same, we all are alive & will one day die; we are all one in this mortality. 'ONE' day, you too buddy....

It's like reading through some history book and coming across somebody from the 1800's with the same name as you. Kinda takes you out of yourself for a moment.

And I'm reminded of that first impression whenever I look at this hunk of marble. It's sort of a philosophical touchstone, if you will.

But the capper, what gives the thing it's real, zen-like sublimity is this; years later I found a website listing Washington State cemeteries and their occupants. Checking through the names listed for the one where I found this I realized there's only one it could have come from: 'STONE'.

expression

I found this image on one of those photo-caching websites, Flickr or Lumra, a couple of months ago. There were 2 or 3 showing pieces of found-art that'd been, um, found.

Somebody had taken the time to weave broken (or cut) pieces of galvanized chainlink fence into random patterns.

Think about that. I don't know if you've ever worked with/climbed over/cut through (ahem) galvanized chainlink fencing, but it's pretty heavy duty shit. I can't imagine how hard it was to weave, or how long it took to make this. Somebody really wanted to express something with this old piece of broken fence.

Which I guess I understand. I think the artistic urge to express oneself is inherent in everybody, to lesser or greater degrees. Something about being social animals, and needing to feel our feelings are, um, felt by others. And I suppose if the need were great enough and you found the opportunity you would find a way to weave galvanized chainlink fencing.

Either that or one night some crackhead got stuck on what seemed like a really awesome idea.

Oh, and did you notice the checkerboard pattern painted on the roof of the shed? It's the sort of pattern (not usually found in nature) that jumps out to the human eye; that rusty old shed must have been on or near an airstrip. Another form of expression, if you think about it.

Curious old world sometimes.

'Pet Shop Boys' is a pretty sweet band

and Bruce Weber was their secret weapon. that is all.

"Evolve One • Evolve All"

http://www.trojanevolve.com/

Found a coaster at the Ravenna Alehouse promoting a new campaign from Trojan Condoms. The concept is to get us to 'evolve' by using a condom every time. That's actually one of their slogans: 'evolve. use a condom every time'.

The website also sports the slogan: 'real people. evolve', and offers links to the 'Trojan Evolve Campus Comedy Tour', the 'Evolve National Tour', aka the 'Trojan Evolve Bus Tour' (featuring a bus painted with the silhouettes of what appears to be a pig evolving into a sheep-pig hybrid evolving into a man), and a 'How Evolved Are You?' quiz you can take to test your STD knowledge.

Anybody get the irony of this campaign? Evolution cannot happen without sexual reproduction, which can be a bit difficult when wearing a "jimmy hat" (a term I've never heard before but Trojan uses it on the coaster, along with the more common "love glove").

And yes, technically there is evolution in asexual reproduction from random mutations, but that's single-cell life, not the sort of complex life that evolves to the point of self-awareness & marketing campaigns & blogging.

At any rate, this is a fine example of how a little scientific knowledge can be easily misapplied in the public mind. I'm reminded of the use of the phrase, "quantum leap" to describe some great change in technology or action or policy. Strictly speaking a quantum leap represents the smallest measurable change, happening randomly; the exact opposite of what most people use the phrase for.

How evolved are you?

Automotive Natural Selection.

I killed a bird with my car yesterday.

I assume I've killed before. I don't remember the last time it happened, but I'm sure I've hit my share of small animals over the past 22 years I've been driving.

The circumstances were a bit odd this time, though.

I was driving around part of Greenlake on my way from our Phinney Ridge store to our bank. It was early afternoon, around 1pm. The sun was out, it was clear, if a little brisk outside. The road was straight and I was going about 30 mph (okay maybe 40).

About 50 feet out I notice a small bird in my lane, eating what at first glance appears to be a previously crushed bird carcass (which, in fact, it turns out to be). The dining bird is 8" to 10" tall and looks like a tiny falcon, with a light brown coat & hood, white chest, and a distinct raptor beak. It looks up at one point, then goes back to pulling at some red/grey string coming out of the dead bird.

I always drive with my headlights on, so I'm pretty sure he saw me when he looked up. But since he seems unconcerned I give him a blast from my horn.

Sidenote: I have always updated the horn in every car I drive. I speak softly, but carry a big honk. Currently I'm driving an '85 Mazda RX7, a sporty little 2-seater. Hardly a commanding presence, but with the added 137 decibel low-note horn firing in sync with the Mazda's OEM factory horn it's hard not to be noticed. (Standing in front of the car when the horn goes off won't give you a heart attack, but you'll probably clench all your doughnut-shaped muscles.)

He definitely heard me this time. His head pops up, cocks to one side like he's trying to do the math. The crows around here will wait 'til the last possible moment, then step just enough out of your way to let you know they're doing you a favor. His attitude seems about the same, and I expect him to hop out of the way at the final moment.

THUMP!! I feel the impact through the accelerator pedal, through the frame of the car and up into my lower back through the bucket seat (keep in mind in the RX7 my butt's about a foot above the asphalt) .

A quick glance in my side mirror and I see a classic, almost cartoonish, puff of feathers; a down-pillow hit with a squib.

I'm too surprised at first to feel anything except shock. Then I feel a little sad, then a bit self-conscious.

Then contempt. The fucker saw me; we practically looked each other in the eye. And I know damn well he heard me. WTF? I glance back and the feather cloud is settling, but still in evidence.

What a dumbass.

I feel a flutter behind my ribs; something waits for freedom.

BBC Newsnight —Tuesday, 18 November 2008

"In an exclusive interview, the son of novelist Vladimir Nabokov tells Newsnight why he is defying his father's wishes to posthumously publish the controversial writer's final novel."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/7735483.stm

"How the World Views Us"

From last month's Reader's Digest:

A moot point now, to be sure. But I just found the article and I thought it was an interesting metric of how much the Bush administration has managed to fuck up/piss off the rest of the world as well.

"Please furnish copies of all resumes & biographical statements issued by you or any other entity at your discretion sent in the past 10 years."

Oy. Just found a copy of the 63-item questionnaire issued by the Obama administration to any potential appointees:

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/national/13apply_questionnaire.pdf

Just trying to read it made my head hurt & my eyes glaze over. Not that I don't like answering surveys (as anybody who's 'friends' with me on MySpace must realize by now), but seriously, these questions are pretty extent. Here's a quick sampling:


II. (10) Writings: Please list and, if readily available, provide a copy of each book, article, column or publication (including but not limited to any posts or comments on blogs or other websites) you have authored, individually or with others. Please list all aliases or "handles" you have used to communicate on the Internet.

II. (14) Diaries: If you keep or have ever kept a diary that contains anything that could suggest a conflict of interest or be a possible source of embarrassment to you, your family, or the President-Elect if it were made public, please describe.

III. (16) Please list each membership, including any board memberships, you or your spouse have or have had with any political, civic, social, charitable, educational, professional, fraternal, benevolent or religious organization, private club or other membership organization (including any type of tax-exempt organization) during the past ten years. Please include dates of membership and any positions you may have had with the organization.

IV. (24) Please list all loans in excess of $10,000 made to you or your spouse, or by you or your spouse, which existed at anytime during the past ten years. Please specify the creditor or the debtor, interest rate, due date and any other key terms, and identify the purpose for which the liability was incurred. Please also specify the extent to which any such loans contained terms not generally available to the public, such as below-market rates.

IV. (30) Do you, your spouse, or any membership of your immediate family, or business in which you, your spouse, or immediate family members have a substantial interest, have any relationship with any government, whether federal, state, local, Indian or foreign, through contracts, consulting services, grants, loans or guarantees? If yes, please provide details.


My favorite ones are at the very end, under 'Miscellaneous':


VIII. (58) Please provide the URL address of any websites that feature you in either a personal or professional capacity (e.g., Facebook, My Space, etc.)

VII. (59) Do you or any members of your immediate family own a gun? If so, provide complete ownership and registration information. Has the registration ever lapsed? Please also describe how and by whom it is used and whether it has been the cause of any personal injuries or property damage.


But the best is the very last question, I love the way it's worded:


VIII. (63) Please provide any other information, including information about other members of your family, that could suggest a conflict of interest or be a possible source of embarrassment to you, your family, or the President-Elect.


I couldn't answer these without a team of monkey-lawyers working around the clock, and I've never even been in politics, had a bank loan, or owned property.

What's sad though, is that in this current age & day qualifications/experience alone won't get you a position, you also have to be able to cover your, and the President-Elect's, ass from potential embarrassment or litigation.

Hail the Republic.

"I've been on the road doing comedy for ten years now, so bear with me while I plaster on a fake smile and plough through this shit one more time."

A brief sample of Bill Hicks, the closest thing to a spiritual leader I will ever know. And for you kiddies out there, he died in 1994 from pancreatic cancer:

"You ever see a positive story about drugs on the news? Ever?! Me either. Isn't that weird? The news is supposed to be objective.

"Same LSD story every time; we've all heard it:

"Young man takes acid, thinks he can fly. Jumps out of a building. What a tragedy."

"What a dick! Really, if you think about it. If he thought he could fly why didn't he take off from the ground & check it out first? Why give acid a bad name because you're a moron, you know?

"I'd like to see a positive LSD story. Would that be newsworthy just once?

"Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condenced to a slower vibration. That we are all one consiousness going through itself subjectively. There's no such thing as 'death'; 'life' is only a dream and you're the imagination of yourselves. Here's Tom with the weather!"

But what does it mean?

I swear I didn't Photoshop this picture in any way. I was driving home in the rain last night and found myself behind a Mercedes minivan with the vanity plate 'Warm Blood'.

I suppose it could actually stand for 'Worm Boulevard' or 'Warm/Bold', or something else I'm missing. Maybe it's just my predilection for horror films that makes me see 'Warm Blood', but seriously, what do you see when you read 'WRM BLD'?
What does it mean?

"...to be high, live low, stay young forever..."

"The modern picture of the artist began to form: The poor, but free spirit, plebeian but aspiring only to be classless, to cut himself forever free from the bonds of the greedy bourgeoisie, to be whatever the fat burghers feared most, to cross the line wherever they drew it, to look at the world in a way they couldn't see, to be high, live low, stay young forever -- in short, to be the bohemian." —Thomas Wolfe

Not that I really consider myself an artist, just that I've always been disinterested in money. Which in American society more or less labels me a commie-homo-babykilling-witch. Those of you who know me well won't be surprised by the following numbers.

From a recent Social Security missive:
Your Earnings Record
1987 — $671
1988 — $0 —Senior year in HS. Didn't work 'cuz I was popped for 'Criminal Trespass'.
1989 — $1,176
1990 — $8,412
1991 — $12,073
1992 — $16,589
1993 — $17,479
1994 — $20,315
1995 — $19,762 —Wife left me 'cuz of my suicidal depression. Quit my factory job.
1996 — $8,054 —Part time at Crown Books, again.
1997 — $14,199
1998 — $20,238 —Store Manager at Crown, before they shut down.
1999 — $23,525 —Fired from 'Barnes & Noble' for being 12 minutes late.
2000 — $17,216 —Temp jobs for next 4 years.
2001 — $14,523
2002 — $14,091
2003 — $6,919
2004 — $13,300 —Managing Island Video from here on.
2005 — $22,450
2006 — $25,146
2007 — $25,100

So yes, I've never earned more than I have in the last 2 years of my life, and never more than $25,000 per year. Considering that amounts to a 'take home' of around $18,500 per year, and my rent alone is $8,000, you can well imagine how much cash I have to spread about.

On paper it may seem a poor life. But I've never felt the need to sell what I would consider my personal freedoms for a bit more scratch.

Excusing my own laziness? Sure.
Interested in the 'freedom' more income would allow? Not really.
Going to die alone in a pauper's gutter? Most likely.
Forever broke, in basically a stressless existence? Yup.
I can live with that.
Hell, it's only money.

Why I continue to simultaneously hope for/hate all humanity.

Just this morning I discovered the BBC offers free language courses online! 'www.bbc.co.uk/languages'
[I'd make that an actual link, but for some reason I can't get blogspot to recognize the html.]

All-in-one Beginner's Courses, Video Introductions for listening/pronunciation, Learning Games like picture-vocab matchups & crossword puzzles, Test Yourself gauging, Grammar & Dictionary shortcuts, ways to find local classes, Useful Phrases & printable Holiday phrases for traveling.
There's even a section for you to offer your own stories and advice for others learning the language.
All of it free!

As I'm happily exploring the site (and thinking of blogging about my happiness in finding this new toy) I'm also reading one of several blogs I subscribe to; this one points out different pop-culture topics useful for sociological discussion.

Today's blog concerns an American organization called 'English First' at 'www.englishfirst.org'.

They're an organization advocating the adoption of English-only laws in the U.S., which would mean government agencies and officials would not be allowed to conduct any type of business in a language other than English. They also oppose bilingual education and bilingual ballots.

Check out the banner that tops their webpage:

Ironically, they use the upraised torch of a gift from France, 'La Liberté Éclairant le Monde' or 'Liberty Enlightening the World' (okay, now we call her 'the Statue of Liberty') as a symbol to "capture the spirit of immigrants who learned English". Nice. So much for enlightenment.

But what really pisses me off (while at the same time offers the perfect indictment you couldn't dream of topping) about 'English First' is that for an an organization concerned with foreigners somehow diluting the English language, and with people being unable to use the English language correctly they didn't even catch their own mistake in their own banner:

OUR SYMBOL IS THE STATUE OF LIBERTY TORCH CAPTURING THE SPIRIT OF IMMIGRANTS WHO LEARNED ENGLISH AND BECAME FULL MEMBERS OF AMERICANS SOCIETY


It really is an odd sensation to find yourself with two windows open, one offering free resources to learn foreign languages and about foreign cultures, and another offering resources (and incorrect grammar) on how to stop the spread of non-native speakers from spoiling 'our' language.

"The biggest serial killer, we know, is God. The biggest."

The title of this entry is from the Director's commentary to "Fando y Lis" by Alejandro Jodorowsky, who is most likely the most 'artistic' artist alive. By the time he shot his first film, "FyL" in 1968 he'd already staged over 100 plays. Most of which were experimental, "Theatre of the Absurd" in nature.

He's also a novelist, poet, playwright, painter, musician, philosopher and lecturer. Even listening to his running commentary I only grok about half his references; god forbid trying to watch one of his pics without 'Cliff Notes', the guy's just too brilliant.

Oh, and his 1970 film "El Topo" is the film that created the 'midnight movie' concept.

This is from some late commentary in "Fando and Lis". I have kept his English in its Mexican-influenced vernacular. It may seem a bit 'Speedy Gonzales' to us ignorant Americans, but to be honest I bet his English is a shitload better than my , or your, Spanish, so I wouldn't mock if you can't correct him in his native tongue....

At any rate, from a brilliant artist comes a brief description of a moment of drug-induced satori. And one that ranks with any of the best Zen masters:


"In "The Holy Mountain" [1973], the secret producer was John Lennon. Through Apple Records they gave me the money. I had a lot of money.

With Oscar Ichazo, we made a contract of 17,000 dollars. He came to visit me in person to enlighten me of the 17,000 dollar deal. He stayed in Mexico in a big hotel, and he came to me.

I was waiting, trembling because he was going to give me enlightenment [of the value of the deal]. I was trembling - I will know all the secrets of the world!

He put his hands in his pockets and took a paper, and there was a powder in it - it was an orange powder. He said it was the best LSD. It was pure.

I went, "But ah! Never in my life have I had hallucinations." He said, "Now you will have. Take that." Then he put it in water; I drink.

After an hour he said I'd have hallucinations but I have nothing! And he said, "Wait, this is the best marihuana in Colombia." Then he made me smoke a joint and that was fantastic!

I smoked it in front of a big window and started to come all the history of painting - Van Gogh, Renoir... I was so happy to have hallucination.

But it was only a hallucination! That is like the circus, Walt Disney - it's a mystical Walt Disney!

And then he made me to look in front of a mirror, and in front of the mirror I see all my life. I get old; mummy. I have face of animals, I realize what a monstrosity was my body. I was an angel, a demon.

And then he said, "Go inside your heart." And then I went inside my heart and my heart was like an enormous golden cathedral, and I discovered it was my big friend - my heart was my big friend. It was not the instrument who would kill me, it was my eternal big friend.

And I came to a sky of pure light. And then I wanted to continue, but my master was snoring. He was very too tired.

And then the snoring of the master was the ultimate truth!"

"Meet ROVIO"

http://www.meetrovio.com/

Back in the late '80s OMNI magazine had an article about the different ways future-tech would let us explore our world. One of their concepts was for a robot with sound & vision capabilities that you accessed remotely.

Instead of spending the time & energy to physically drag your carcass around the world you'd get to experience it all from the comfort of your couch. Instead of going to Paris, or Peru, or Papua New Guinea you would rent for a few hours a robot that would allow you to stroll the Champs-Élysées or scale the Great Pyramid of Cheops or go diving on the Great Barrier Reef.

ROVIO isn't quite that robot. He's 'tethered' by your wireless network and seems more designed to scare your pets than actually let you "be in two places at the same time" (as they keep repeating on the website).

But I can't help thinking we're slowly getting closer to the 'flying cars' future our culture's always promised is just around the corner. I guess that's what I find intriguing about science fiction, the slide from the 'fiction' side to the 'science' end of things.

"Diane, there are few things in life as simultaneously charming and disturbing as a close examination of the American diet."

Went out to Twin Peaks the other day (Snoqualmie & North Bend for those who don't know what I'm talking about) to take some pictures. After a nice conversation on Ronette Pulaski's bridge with some TP tourists from Edmonton, Canada (!) I drove back to the Double R for the requisite coffee.


Twede's has gone through several incarnations since '89 when it was used by Lynch & Co. as the Double R Diner. Its current version features an expanded menu including (along sides the $4.95 slice of Cherry Pie) a list of ''50 Burgers A to Z'':

Click on the menu picture for a larger version, and browse the many wonderful inventions. They range in price from around $9 up to $16.25 for the Whoa Baby; ''1 whole pound of beef on an 8" bun, with cheddar, lettuce, tomato, and mayo."

But my favorite (and the one I ordered again this time) is the Peanut Butter and Jelly. That's right, pb&j on a burger.


The waitress who took my order kind of laughed while saying "you'll like it!"

When she returned later with it she said to let her know what I thought. I told her I knew I'd like it as I'd had one before. She looked a little puzzled and asked "really?!"

I guess it's something people order out of curiosity, or on a dare, but not something they come back and order because they like it.

(If you look close you can just see a bit of peanut butter sticking out from under the jelly.)

It actually taste a lot better than you'd first imagine. Keep in mind most barbecue sauces use maple syrup or brown sugar; the jelly works the same on a burger. And peanuts, like most nuts, have a somewhat meaty flavor anyways, so the peanut butter blends nicely with the beef.

I'm not sure why they give you the pickles though, that would just be gross.

Heroes are hard to come by these days....

This guy so makes my fucking list.

From the Stranger's Last Days column by David Schmader:

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2008
The week continues with the amazing crime saga that commenced this morning outside a Bank of America in Monroe, Washington, after a man wearing a dark blue shirt, jean shorts, and a dust mask pepper-sprayed an armored-truck guard, seized his bag of money, then ran 100 yards to the Skykomish River to make his escape on an inner tube.

Further amazing details come from KING 5, which confirms today's robber not only had serious inner-tubing skills, but also was a dynamite planner:

"In case anyone was hot on his trail, he had at least a dozen unsuspecting decoys waiting nearby, which he recruited on Craigslist.
'I came across the ad that was for a prevailing wage job for $28.50 an hour,' said Mike,
who saw a Craigslist ad last week looking for workers for a road-maintenance project in Monroe. He said he inquired and was e-mailed back with instructions to meet near the Bank of America in Monroe at 11:00 a.m. Tuesday. He also was told to wear certain work clothing. Yellow vest, safety goggles, a respirator mask... and, if possible, a blue shirt.'"

Investigators continue to search for the flash-mob-inspired bank robber, described as "a white man in his 20s, between 5-foot-7 and 5-foot-10."

More info from the Seattle Times can be found here:

Did inner-tube robber use Craigslist in heist?
Monroe police are searching for a man who robbed an armored-car guard Tuesday morning then fled with the money — down the Skykomish River on an inner tube.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2008217929_robbery01m0.html

Seriously, this made my day!

"Drinking Alone by Moonlight"

Drinking Alone by Moonlight
by Li Po, circa 750 A.D.
(translation by Arthur Waley, 1950)


A cup of wine, under the flowering trees;
I drink alone, for no friend is near.
Raising my cup I beckon the bright moon,
For her, with my shadow, will make three people.

The moon, alas, is no drinker of wine;
Listless, my shadow creeps about at my side.
Yet with the moon as friend and the shadow as slave
I must make merry before the Spring is spent.

To the songs I sing the moon flickers her beams;
In the dance I weave my shadow tangles and breaks.
While we were sober, three shared the fun;
Now we are drunk, each goes their way.
May we long share our eternal friendship,
And meet at last on the Cloudy River of the sky.

"In Defense of Dignity" Dan Savage on the "Death with Dignity" Ballot Measure

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=691855


I am reposting this article by Dan Savage in it's entirety, without permission, because I think everybody should read it, and I want to get it out there for people to see. Not only is it a fine example of modern Gonzo journalism, it expresses the way all intelligent people should address the subject of assisted-suicide more succinctly than any I've seen.

Dan Savage is a writing pimp. It's tragic what he & his family had to go through, but it's inspiring he was able to write about it with both passion and intelligence. (And he's also the only Editorial Director at a national paper who's got the balls, in this day & age, to write "Fuck your God" in a lead article.)

You may not agree with his opinion, you may be offended by the way he writes. But you have to respect his position, and you will be forced to address your own feelings on the subject & what you may face with members of your own family one day.




In Defense of Dignity

I Hate to Play the I-Just-Watched-My-Mother-Die Card—But, Um, I Just Watched My Mother Die
by Dan Savage


I would need the room for a week. That's what I told the front-desk clerk at the Extended Residence Stay America Whatever when I checked in that Sunday night.
At least a week, I said, maybe longer.

My mother had already been in the hospital across the street for nearly a week by the time I arrived in Tucson. She was no stranger to hospitals over the last few years. She'd wake up to find that her breathing was more difficult, or that some new infection was exploiting her weakened immune system, or that some new debilitating side effect from the powerful drugs that were keeping her alive had emerged. My stepfather would rush her to a hospital, and she would come home a few days later having accepted some previously feared development—being hooked up to an oxygen tank, having to use a walker—as her "new normal."

The plan: I would stay in Tucson for three or four days and help my stepfather and aunt look after my mother. Then my brother Billy would fly in from Chicago, take over the helping-out duties and my hotel room, and we'd figure out what to do next.

Before going to the hotel on Sunday night, I got to play cards with my mother and read with her, and things were looking less grim than they had when my aunt called me in Seattle earlier that day and told me to get on an airplane. My mother wasn't getting better, but she wasn't getting worse.

My mother had pulmonary fibrosis, a degenerative lung condition, and we knew enough about the disease to know that dramatic turns for the worse were a possibility. She knew that pulmonary fibrosis would eventually end her life, and she'd done some research into just what sort of an end she could expect. It wasn't going to be pretty. Her lungs were gradually filling with scar tissue. She would, when her time came, slowly and painfully suffocate to death over a period of hours or days. But eight weeks before she wound up in a sprawling, dung-colored hospital in sprawling, dung-colored Tucson, my mother's doctors had given her two to five years to live.

She'd recently marked the five-year anniversary of her diagnosis, an anniversary very few pulmonary fibrosis sufferers live to celebrate. She was terrified, as her fifth anniversary approached, that she wouldn't "beat five." But her spirits lifted when her anniversary came and went, and her doctors gave her years, not months or weeks, to live. That's when she decided to go on this trip with her husband, driving to California and New Mexico and Arizona. She was looking forward to attending her first grandson's high-school graduation, her grade-school class's 50th reunion, a Broadway show.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer's Joel Connelly has written several columns—and several thousand words—blasting Initiative 1000, the November ballot measure in Washington State that would make it legal for physicians to prescribe lethal doses of medication to terminally ill patients. Connelly doesn't like the measure because he believes the purpose of a "democratic society" is to "safeguard and enhance life, especially among the youngest, the weakest, and the suffering"; because he worries that the movement might next "seek to expand conditions for the legal ending of life, as has been done in the Netherlands"; and because out-of-state money has been collected by supporters of Initiative 1000.

"Should Washington be a launching pad for a movement that seeks to transform a crime into a 'medical treatment'?" Connelly thunders.

KUOW has been covering the debate over I-1000, too. In a recent report, two widows were interviewed about the deaths of their husbands. After watching their spouses die, one widow planned to vote for I-1000 and the other planned to vote against it.

The woman voting for the initiative—whose husband died of brain cancer—wants terminally ill people to have a choice at the end of their lives, a choice to end their suffering and hasten an inevitable, rapidly approaching death. The woman voting against the initiative wants—well, she wants what we all want. She wants to have a good death, a peaceful death, a death like the one her husband, um, enjoyed.

"I would like to be enveloped in the love of a good caregiver I would get," she says.

Don't we all want that kind of death? Wouldn't it be wonderful if each of us could enjoy a Hallmark death? Wouldn't it be ideal if each of us passed from this life into the next—aka "the void"—enveloped in the love of good caregivers and under the care of competent "pain management" professionals? But not everyone is so lucky. Some of us have to endure deaths that are gruesome and protracted and excruciatingly painful, deaths that involve pain that cannot be "managed," deaths that our loving caregivers can only stand helplessly by and witness.

"You don't know how you're going to feel at the end of your life," the widow planning to vote for I-1000 says. "I want to have the choices available to me."

Choices.

Exactly. If I-1000 is approved by Washington State voters, the widow opposed to the initiative will not be compelled to end her life with the assistance of a physician. She can choose pain meds and the love of caregivers and die a "natural" death. (What's so "natural" about pain management anyway?) But if I-1000 is rejected, the widow who plans to vote in favor of it will not have the same choice. She will not be able to choose to end her life, and end her suffering, if the pain becomes too much for her to bear.

That's what the debate about I-1000 is really all about: your body, your death, your choice. The passage of I-1000 doesn't impose anything on terminally ill people who reject physician-assisted suicide for religious reasons. But the rejection of I-1000 imposes the values of others on terminally ill people who would like to make that choice for themselves, who should have a right to make that choice for themselves.

And, I'm sorry, but there's nothing about physician-assisted suicide—or, as it should be called, end-of-life pain management—that precludes the presence of loving caregivers. You can be surrounded by love and have access to the best medical care available and still conclude—reasonably and rationally—that you would rather not spend the last few moments of your life in blinding pain or gasping for breath or pumped full of just enough morphine to (hopefully) deaden your pain without deadening you.

On Monday morning, after eliminating all other possibilities (a virus, pneumonia, some rare desert fungus), a doctor pulled me and my stepfather out of my mother's room. They were out of options. Nothing more could be done. Her battered lungs were failing; one had a widening hole in it. Amazingly, the doctor didn't say, "It's over, this is it." He laid out the facts and we stared at him dumbly for that world-without-end moment, and then one of us—my stepfather, me, I don't remember—finally said, "So this is it?"

The doctor nodded.

We somehow managed to hold it together, me and my stepfather. We didn't have the luxury of breaking down. He stepped out of the intensive-care unit to tell my sister and my aunt the news, to confer about how we would break the news to my mother, and to call a priest. I stepped back into her room to sit with her, to hold her hand. I didn't tell her what I knew; it wasn't my place. I would sit with her and wait for my stepfather to return.

Suddenly, the doctor was at the door to my mother's room again. He waved me out into the hall. He needed a medical directive. Immediately. Her vital signs were tanking. If we were going to put a tube in her, and put her on machines that could breathe for her, it had to be now. Right now. So it fell to me to walk back into my mother's room, tell her she was going to die, and lay out her rather limited options. She could be put under and put on machines and live for a day or two in a coma, long enough for her other two children to get down to Tucson and say their good-byes, which she wouldn't be able to hear. Or she could live for maybe another six hours if she continued to wear an oxygen mask that forced air into her lungs with so much force it made her whole body convulse. Or she could take the mask off and suffocate to death. Slowly, painfully, over an hour or two.

It was her choice.

"No mask," she said, "no pain."

Her nurse promised to give her enough morphine to deaden any pain she might feel after my mother made her choice: She would take off the mask. She would go now. I told the doctor and then ran sobbing—no longer trying to hold it together—into the waiting room to get my stepfather, my sister, and my aunt. Things were worse than they were five minutes ago. Get in here, I said, get in here now.

We said our good-byes—doesn't that sound dignified? But her mask was still on and her body still convulsing. Good-byes reduced my affable stepfather to wracking sobs; good-byes sent me and my sister falling to the floor beside our mother's deathbed. We held a phone up to my mother's ear so she could hear one of my brothers shout his good-bye over the whir and thump of the oxygen machine, while we tried desperately to get my other brother on the phone.

In the midst of all of this, a hospital orderly breezed into my mother's room and handed her a menu to fill out for tomorrow's meals. It was a staggering blow, this sudden and unwelcome reminder that tomorrow was coming and my mother wouldn't be part of it, and it felt like we had all just been punched in the stomach. After a this-can't-be- happening pause, my stepfather rose from his chair and barked so loudly at the orderly that she dropped the menu, which fluttered to the floor under my mother's bed.

Then my mother was ready. The mask came off, she held tight to our hands, and the morphine went in. Her grip slackened. My mother was still alive, in there somewhere, beyond our reach. Was she in pain? We don't know. She couldn't talk to us now, or focus on us, but she was awake, her eyes open. She gasped for breath, again and again, and we sat there, traumatized, waiting for her heart to stop, waiting for the very first sound that I had ever heard—my mother's heart beating—to go silent.

People must accept death at "the hour chosen by God," according to Pope Benedict XVI, leader of the Catholic Church, which is pouring money into the campaign against I-1000.

The hour chosen by God? What does that even mean? Without the intervention of man—and medical science—my mother would have died years earlier. And at the end, even without assisted suicide as an option, my mother had to make her choices. Two hours with the mask off? Six with the mask on? Another two days hooked up to machines? Once things were hopeless, she chose the quickest, if not the easiest, exit. Mask off, two hours. That was my mother's choice, not God's.

Did my mother commit suicide? I wonder what the pope might say.

I know what my mother would say: The same church leaders who can't manage to keep priests from raping children aren't entitled to micromanage the final moments of our lives.

If religious people believe assisted suicide is wrong, they have a right to say so. Same for gay marriage and abortion. They oppose them for religious reasons, but it's somehow not enough for them to deny those things to themselves. They have to rush into your intimate life and deny them to you, too—deny you control over your own reproductive organs, deny you the spouse of your choosing, condemn you to pain (or the terror of it) at the end of your life.

The proper response to religious opposition to choice or love or death can be reduced to a series of bumper stickers: Don't approve of abortion? Don't have one. Don't approve of gay marriage? Don't have one. Don't approve of physician-assisted suicide? For Christ's sake, don't have one. But don't tell me I can't have one—each one—because it offends your God.

Fuck your God.

They gave my mother some more morphine—not enough to kill her, only enough to deaden the pain while her lungs finished her off. Still: Was she in pain? I'm haunted by the thought that she could have been in pain—the pain we promised to spare her—but had no way to tell us, no way to ask for more painkillers, no way to let us know that she needed us, that she needed our help, that she needed us to do whatever we could to hasten her inevitable death and end her suffering.
I don't know what my mother would have done if she had had the choice to take a few pills and skip the last two hours of her life. She was a practicing Catholic. But she was also pro-choice, pro–gay marriage, pro–ordaining women. If she could've committed suicide, by her own hand, with a doctor "assisting" only by providing her with drugs and allowing her to administer them to herself, after saying her good-byes, I suspect she would have done so, so great was her fear of dying in pain.

I do know that she should have been allowed to make that choice for herself. It's not a choice that Joel Connelly—or the Catholic Church—had a right to make for her.

I also know that, if my mother needed my help, I would've held a glass of water to her lips, so that she could swallow the pills that would've spared her those two hours of agony.

And that shouldn't be a crime.

From this week's Christian snakeoil salesmen:

I have no problem with other people being religious. I don't have a problem with others trying to spread their beliefs. I don't even have a problem with them trying to swindle money for themselves in the name of their gods.
In fact, it can be a regular source of entertainment, as this week's ransom note of 'money-in-exchange-for-prayer' will show:

(Click on any picture to view larger image.)

"CHOOSE JESUS AND HEAVEN OR..." "SATAN AND ALL ETERNITY IN HELL"

Lyle Lovett as Joseph K. is having a real hard time wrestling with this one. Tough choice, I guess.
Nice suit, though.




This one is absolutely delightful.
—First off, the font used for 'LIFE' and 'DEATH' is clearly the same san-serif one used for LIFE magazine, subtly providing a classic Americana context.
—Secondly, in the first panel Hippy-Jesus is treated like a lowly intern, to be dismissed with a frown and a 'talk to the hand'.
—Thirdly, in the second panel the dialogue between the two is so incongruous, with O. Foolish sounding like a heaving-bossomed heroine from a Harlequin Romance, and Death sounding like a slightly annoyed cube-temp.
—And finally, the overall mix of eras presented is just charming. O. Foolish is clearly a businessman from the 50's (back when smoking at your desk was healthy for you), what with his fountain pen & bow tie , yet he's got a computer with a mouse and stereo speakers (the better for emailing Mrs. O. Foolish Man at home in the kitchen about going out bowling with his fellow Elks?).







This Return Card has a postmark to God, with instructions for him that rank up there at the "affix Extra Savings sticker to Return Card" level.
And I know God is everywhere, but I mean come on, these cards get sorted by the US Post at, like, 30 a second....is He really going to notice this?






And finally, I include the first page of their 4-page rambling only for the salutation. It is wonderfully direct and diffuse at once:

"WE HAVE SOME VERY GOOD NEWS FOR YOU."
"...THE GREATEST AND MOST WONDERFUL MONTHS OF YOUR LIFE."

Followed up with:

"Greetings in Jesus' Name to Someone Connected to this Address."


Heavenly.

It's nerdy & childish & offensive & makes me laugh.

Sue me.

Gotta admire the marketing:

For the functioning alcoholic (er, like me) who's concerned about his carbon-footprint (ha! so not me)....

The world's first Eco Luxury Vodka
[their words, not mine]

From the label:

100% Post-Consumer Resin Bottle & Unique Recyclable Cap

Vodka Distilled for Optimal Eco-Efficiency

Labels Made from 100% Post-Consumer Paper & Water Based Inks


From their website (vodka360.com):

The "green" packaging that surrounds 360 Vodka is the utmost in eco. Our Eco-Audit details the environmental benefits of the packaging.

360 Vodka is crafted from a philosophy for eco-awareness and corporate responsibility. This ideology is then manifested throughout our greener process and greener products.

The vodka in every bottle of 360 is Quadruple Distilled through a highly energy efficient process, with every bushel of grain being fully utilized and nothing going to waste. 360 is also Five Times Filtered and produced in a facility that has improved its eco-footprint measurably over the past 5 years.

I feel better about my drinking already....

"The Corpus Clock & Chronophage"

Watch the 5 minute video, see a delightful artist. This is the sort of marriage between technology and art that makes me happy to be alive.


"He calls the new version of the escapement a Chronophage (time-eater) a fearsome beast which drives the clock, literally eating away time."





(Chronophage is my new favorite word.)

"Viagra makes flowers stand up straight"

I was reading up on the challenges/prices of changing starch from non-edible plants into usable biofuel (hey, it's an interesting engineering question, okay?) and thanks to the nature of Hypertext I eventually stumbled across a précis concerning Viagra/plant erection:


http://student.bmj.com/issues/99/09/news/313.php

"Viagra (sildenafil citrate) is good not only for treating male impotence. Israeli and Australian researchers have discovered that small concentrations of the drug dissolved in a vase of water can also double the shelf life of cut flowers, making them stand up straight for as long as a week beyond their natural life span. "

"In this latest research they found that 1 mg of the drug (compared with 50 mg in one pill taken by impotent men) in a solution was enough to prevent two vases of cut flowers from wilting for as much as a week longer than might be expected."
[Emphasis mine.]

Goes in the "Well, Why The Hell Not" folder....

Absinthe at my 7-11.

This morning I stumbled across a new (to me, at least) energy drink at my local 7-11:









From the 'no-real-argument-for-this-to-exist-but-I'm-kinda-glad-it-does' category.


"Four MaXed"

"Premium Malt Beverage with Caffeine • Wormwood Oil • Taurine • Guarana • Natural and Artificial Flavors and Certified Color (FD&C Red #40 and FD&C Blue #1)

16 fl Oz. • 10.0% Alc/Vol"


Wormwood Oil, of course, contains the active ingredient in Absinthe (Artemisia absinthium) that provides the bitter taste, but more to the point, the thujone that allegedly drove all those bohemian artists crazy back around the fin-de-siècle.

From Erowid.com: "The primary reported effects of wormwood ingestion are a mild, hazy disorientation accompanied by a dreamlike or surreal feeling sometimes called "the dollhouse effect". This refers to the appearance of things as though they are idealized copies of themselves, as if they are from a dollhouse. Other reported effects include a feeling of mental lucidity, stimulation, mild euphoria, and a sense of relaxation."

Now put that in a wine cooler, add caffeine, taurine (aids in quick absorbtion of the other ingrediants), guarana (which contains 5 times as much caffeine by weight as coffee), and some artificial sweeteners.

Then sell it for $1.99 per pint at your neighborhood convenience store. Breakfast of champions.

The only real problem I have with this product is their style in marketing.

From the 'www.drinkfour.com' site, the makers of "Four MaXed" (which takes you to their MySpace page, natch (hey, why pay for a site when you can use a free social-networking one?)):

Great, they're pathetically sexist. Just when I thought I'd found a product crazy enough I could support it.

God is in your checkbook!

I don't know what mailing list I'm on, or how I got there, but weekly I get these odd little offers to send God's agents some cash so they'll prey (whoops! that's pray) for my financial success. This is from yesterday's:



One thing I like about this is that twice on the same page they make a direct association between your writing of a check and your service to your God.


And then the (beautifully rendered) picture itself shows a check being made out directly to Jesus!




And this picture was in the envelope you use to send them your money:


I almost don't have words for it. A beatific, somewhat stoned-with-holiness, white-hippy Jesus, too lost in revery & reverence to actually look at the mail he's to deliver (to dad?)!

And the 'Cartoon Network' quality of the hand & envelope drawn in over Jesus' blessing, changing his gesture of absolution & salvation to a simple mail-snatch! Gorgeous!


Think of the sincerity & piety, of Lordly ministering, these envelope-stuffing wolves manage to imagine for themselves to justify fleecing the believers.

Staggering, wonderful, disgusting, awful and awesome.

This is why Terry Gilliam will always be my favorite director.

From 'Brazil' to 'Fear & Loathing' to 'Baron Munchausen' to 'Tideland', from 'Fisher King' to 'Crimson Permanent Assurance' his films are always full-to-bursting.

Full of life, full of death, full of humor, full of tragedy.

Full, as he says in this clip, "...of magic, wonder. The stuff of dreams".

Original "The Original of Laura" notecards in Nabokov's own hand.

Very special thanks to my dear friend Tom Smith for taking the time & making the effort to track down the August 14th issue of the German weekly "Die Zeit" for me.

As F. Murray Abraham's character Salieri in "Amadeus" says in my favorite scene in all of filmdom, "I was staring through the cage, of those meticulous ink-strokes, at an absolute beauty."

Not that I expect "tOoL" to be an 'absolute beauty', but the simple fact of finding these cards, when for years it was assumed they'd be destroyed forever, gives them a certain enchantment that (for me at least) cannot be dismissed.

Why I love my Long Distance provider....

workingassets.com


I use a company called 'Working Assets' as a Long Distance provider (they recently changed their name to 'Credo' for some reason).

From their website; " Working Assets was created in 1985 on a strong foundation of beliefs, a credo. Supporting peace, equality, human rights and the environment is the reason we exist. That is why each time one of our customers uses our mobile, credit card or long distance services, we donate a portion of their charges to these causes."

Part of your payments to them they give to organizations like Planned Parenthood, Center for Independent Media, Oxfam, Amnesty International, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, etc. Nice & liberal.

In today's mail I received a postcard from them:

The copy reads: "Did your phone help elect Bush/Cheney? AT&T's political action committee contributed the maximum amount allowable by law to the Bush/Cheney campaign — twice."

There's a bit more about switching to Credo Mobile, then it ends with:

"On the other hand, if you're happy with your mobile service just the way it is, accept this photograph — suitable for framing — as your gift from a real, ahem, Richard.

Perfect.

I have a reason to live again, for now....

Nabokov's last work will not be burned


Click the link, read the story. I'll wait.



Know that the reason I gave up on trying to write fiction almost 20 years ago is my irrational fervor for Nabokov's achievement.

He is my god.

In '95, when my life was over for the third or fourth time, Knopf (Random House) published, in hardback, 'the Stories of Vladimir Nabokov'. My daily prayer book. It contains all his previously published short stories, in chronological order, starting with a sweet (if poor) three-pager he wrote when 17, 'the Wood-Sprite'.

I have read it many, many, many, muh-henny times. Each time, though, leaving the last five stories, the last 44 pages of Nabby's fiction I'd ever have. My grail. My 'Kingdom of God'. My salvation. My all.

To this day I have yet to read them. They are my Valhalla.

Now, thanks once more to Mike (the smartest human I've ever known), I find a slight ledge above my current grip I hadn't noticed before.

The last bits of Nabby's literary life are known to any fan. 150-odd 3"x5" cards, carefully if almost illegibly annotated, breaking down the final work of the greatest novelist to choose English as a final language. Left, in his estate, to be destroyed by his lifelong love, and dedicatee of every novel, his wife & partner & love, his wife Vera.

Blessfully, blissfully, she chose to pass on any conflagaritory obligations. (Just thinking about Nabby makes you write worse than you normally do....)

Now, the final inheritor of Nabby's estate, their son Dmitri (the rakish, racecar driving/racecar crashing, orchestra conducting, literary inheriting (and annoyingly fine writer/editor in his own lifetime) son) has announced to the world he too will not follow his father's deathbed wishes to destroy the final, unfinished, unpolished, story.

To be fair, it's well known that Nabokov had a feverish disdain for anybody to see unfinished works. He is well known for writing, complete with asides and jokes and pauses, all and any speech he gave to any college class. (Really. They were published in book-form in the late 70's & persons lucky enough to attend his lectures attest to the almost verbatim transcription).

But readers, like vultures, care not for the bones behind the meat, as it were. Personally, I'd voluntarily lose my left arm (I use my right arm for too many things I enjoy) for a chance to read Nabby's Laura.

For some of us vampires, Nabby's corpus is the final blood we crave. The idea that somewhere, somehow, there's fresh flesh we never had access to before is literally, literarilly, intoxicating. Flesh to get drunk on.

No more mad late-night dreams of how to break into that Swiss bank-vault to get those damn cards....

"The lord giveth, and the lord taketh..."

Feeling a little out-of-sorts last night so after work I went for a drive. Ended up stopping by my favorite bar in Seattle, the "Tin Hat" in Ballard. They sell foam beer-holders with their logo and the phrase "SHUT THE FUCK UP & DRINK!", but that's not why they're my favorite bar.

I hadn't realized it'd been so long since I'd been in. Two things have changed, one good, one bad.

First thing I notice is a neon sign that says 'Kitchen Open Till Midnight', which is definitely intriguing as they usually shut it around 10pm, meaning it would have been too late to get tots.

Now let's take a minute to talk tots. The genius of providing freshly fried tater-tots in a bar environment can not be over-emphasized. The simplicity & purity of the idea of tots at a bar fills me with an almost absurdly spiritual joy. They are the single greatest item available for soaking up the beer (or double gin & bitters, in my case) that's souring your stomach. They are the perfect size for a speed-feed, or the perfect size for steady nibbling. They are perfect for munching by yourself, or for a basket-in-the-middle share with friends. They are starchy & fried & hot & greasy like french fries, but unlike fries are much less greasy & stay hot much longer out of the kitchen. They even hold the katsup better.
And the ones at the Tin Hat, as you may have surmised, are the best in Seattle (The secret may be their sauce; like a creamy spicy katsup. But then again it may not be).

I slide onto a stool, pull out the credit card (you should always run a tab when at a bar, it makes everything easier, and is one of life's little pleasures), order my first of the night's double gin & bitters, ask if the kitchen is really still open. Why yes, I would like to see a menu!

The new bartender delivers my drink and takes my order for tots. I ask him how long the kitchen's been open 'til midnight, he looks at the kitchen and says it's been that way as long as he can remember. Hmm, it has been a while since I've been in.

By my third double g&b I've asked for a takeaway box for what's left of my tots (breakfast!), and become a bit more talkative. From overhearing his conversation with an off-work coworker I've noticed they haven't spoken of John, my usual bartender. I ask if he's still around, but neither of them has even heard of a bartender there named John. I can't even ask where he's gone!

Dang. John had the amazing knack of remembering my usual drink, even when I stayed away (at other bars, not away) for months. He had also, from being attentive & professional, perfected the ratio of gin to bitters to make the best drink. And he was the kind of guy who'd talk if you wanted to, or leave you alone if you wanted to just stare at the back of the bar. And he always poured heavy because I always tipped him heavy. And he's the only bartender in Seattle who's let me stay in the bar after closing and continue drinking (so far, fingers crossed!). Dang, gonna have to train the new guy.

Order my fourth double, ask for the check, tip too much (which is just the right amount).

Oh well, tot's 'til midnight in tribute to John....

Windpipes? Really?

"Anatomy of a hot dog."

"Hot dogs typically contain muscle meat trimmings from pork or beef. Contrary to legend, they do not contain animal eyeballs, hooves or genitals, according to the Hot Dog Council’s Janet Riley.
But the government does allow them to contain pig snouts and stomachs, cow lips and livers, goat gullets and lamb spleens. If they have these byproducts, the label should spell out which ones, a U.S. Department of Agriculture spokeswoman said.

Check the label of a name-brand hot dog, and chances are fat provides around 80 percent of total calories, more than double what’s often advised. What’s more, saturated fat and trans fat — the fats most strongly linked with artery-clogging — are common ingredients, in some cases providing at least half the fat content."


So why did god have to make them taste so damn good?

And what the hell is a 'goat gullet'? That doesn't sound any kinda right....

Check your "Fowler's"....

I have a confession to make: I love our language. Our bastard, spoiled, rule-breaking son-of-a-bitch of a language. Our barroom, locker-room, newsroom language. Our 'lite' language, our media language, our ad-copy language. The language sung in our favorite songs, misused in our beer ads, overused in our sophomoric poetry. I love language, and I delight in our trainwreck of a melting-pot of a mixed-metaphor of a language!

And when you enjoy something (music, movies, food) you look to the process (the guitar, the camera, the spoon). I've therefore spent most of my life reading grammar guides, style books, thesauri. I have a small library of books about writing, books of forgotten words, books about, er, books.

My bible, turned to daily for spiritual guidance, is my 20-plus year old, well loved, well stained American Heritage Dictionary, Second College Edition. (Years ago I got in the habit of making a small tick next to any word I looked up, now roughly 9 out of 10 pages (in a random sampling I just did) have at least one check).

I cherish my old friends Bill Strunk and E. B. White, and turn to them often for corrections on those little rules I never remember.

From Chicago I get the journalist's bible (and the coolest title) the Manual of Style.
Seriously, how cool is that? It should be the name of a Miles Davis album. "Miles Davis, the Manual of Style".

But the one guide I truly cherish, the one that always leaves a smile in the back of my mind, the one I don't turn to often enough is H. W. Fowler's Modern English Usage. Most often simply referred to as Fowler's, it lives by itself with a nice pension in a little cottage just off the Oxford grounds.

It is fastidiously accurate. It is a model of efficiency. It is even, in it's own way, playful (if occasionally cantankerous).

I decided to write this little blog after coming across the following entry while I was thumbing through my copy this morning. It stood out from the other entries concerning correct use of onomatopoeia, the differences between Jacobean, Jacobin, and Jacobite, what etc. really means and when/how it should be used. It is a wonderful example of everything about Fowler's that I love (and by a beautifully circular 'meta-' process, everything I love about our language). It is simple, it is direct, it is even a bit (playfully?) dismissive:

superstitions. Among the most enduring of the superstitions or myths about our language are these: sentences should not begin with and or but; sentences should not end with a preposition; and infinitives should not be 'split'. For further examples of such beliefs, see FETISHES.

Sublime!
(A word I use a little too often; I've yet to find a suitable synonym).

As an occasional law-breaker & firm believer in personal liberties...

...I have a huge problem with this story. I do believe these actions violate your Fourth Amendment rights.

But as a guy who wants every rapist and murder caught, stopped & destructively removed from society (and the gene-pool) I think this is a great development for law enforcement:


Police turn to secret weapon: GPS device
Privacy advocates say electronic tracking violates Fourth Amendment rights

Someone was attacking women in Fairfax County and Alexandria, grabbing them from behind and sometimes punching and molesting them before running away. After logging 11 cases in six months, police finally identified a suspect.

David Lee Foltz Jr., who had served 17 years in prison for rape, lived near the crime scenes. To figure out if Foltz was the assailant, police pulled out their secret weapon: They put a Global Positioning System device on Foltz's van, which allowed them to track his movements.

Police said they soon caught Foltz dragging a woman into a wooded area in Falls Church. After his arrest on Feb. 6, the string of assaults suddenly stopped. The break in the case relied largely on a crime-fighting tool they would rather not discuss.

Across the country, police are using GPS devices to snare thieves, drug dealers, sexual predators and killers, often without a warrant or court order. Privacy advocates said tracking suspects electronically constitutes illegal search and seizure, violating Fourth Amendment rights of protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, and is another step toward George Orwell's Big Brother society. Law enforcement officials, when they discuss the issue at all, said GPS is essentially the same as having an officer trail someone, just cheaper and more accurate. Most of the time, as was done in the Foltz case, judges have sided with police.



Read the whole story here, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26167805
and decide for yourself if this is good news or bad. I still don't know how I feel....

The future will bring some disturbing shit....

"The Most Advanced Quadruped Robot on Earth!"

"BigDog is the alpha male of the Boston Dynamics family of robots. It is a quadruped robot that walks, runs, and climbs on rough terrain and carries heavy loads. BigDog is powered by a gasoline engine that drives a hydraulic actuation system. BigDog's legs are articulated like an animal’s, and have compliant elements that absorb shock and recycle energy from one step to the next. BigDog is the size of a large dog or small mule, measuring 1 meter long, 0.7 meters tall and 75 kg weight."


Check the video they provide for the creapiest robot-walk I've ever seen. I want a large version of this, with a big cab (like a SnoCat) that I can ride around the back-country in, scaring the natives:

http://www.bostondynamics.com/content/sec.php?section=BigDog

Be sure to watch for the point a little over half-way through when they show their beast slipping & sliding & recovering on some ice. You'll swear it's a living creature reacting to its environment.


PS: I ADORE their copy: "BigDog is the alpha male of the Boston Dynamics family of robots." That line has 'Omni Consumer Products' written all over it!

THIS I don't need....

Driving home at 2:30am (a little drunk, a little stoned) on a warm summer morning with the windows down and the college radio station pumping out French hiphop it's easy to feel all is right with the world.

I am not allowed to feel all is right with the world.

Suddenly I'm blinded from behind by those horrible bluedeath headlights. (You know the kind; when they're heading toward you they make the back of your eyes cramp up. When they come up behind you it feels like you're in that pickup that gets stuck on the tracks in 'Close Encounters').

And then I'm being tailgated by the asshole with the 'needles-of-death' headlights.

Now I need to let you know I hate tailgaters. There's very few people & very few actions I hate (truly hate) more than tailgaters.

Until recently in Washington the law was fairly straight forward; in a rear-end accident the car following is at fault. The idea being; if you were following at a safe distance you could have avoided hitting the car in front of you. I used this to my advantage on many occasions.

The most 'famous' being a certain Ms. Crager. She tried to cut me off, even though I had the right-of-way & was already in the intersection. Since she couldn't cut in front of me she decided to tailgate for the next couple of blocks. I slammed on my brakes hard enough she had no chance of avoiding the accident, slamming in to the back of my (piece of shit) car hard enough to push me forward a few feet. Pulling out, feigning an interest in pulling over & exchanging pertinent (though non-existent on my part (thank you Photoshop!)) car insurance information, I led her to the next gas station, then cut through the nearest light as it changed to red.

Went to the liquor store, drove home. When Julie & I got out and checked my rear bumper for damage we found somebody else's license plate stuck in it. Pealing it off it turned out to be a 'vanity plate', with the name MS CRAGR.

Ha! Princess not only fucked up the front of her car, she lost her vanity plate she had to pay extra for!

To this day it hangs on my wall as a 'trophy of war':

Where were we? Oh yeah: 2:30am — drunk & stoned — French hiphop — tailgater.

Before I have a chance to get worked up, the tailgater hits his highbeams, filling my little RX7 with whiteblue disorientation. It's so blinding I can't clearly see the road ahead of me and am forced to follow the white line in the lower right of frame. Very safe.

And then the whole world turns into Spencer's Gifts (and yes I had my camera ready, I do that sometimes when I don't have a weapon with me):



Turns out the rave going on behind me was in reality a Seattle cop, who suddenly decided tailgating me on a back-road at 2:30 in the morning wasn't enough sport, he needed to find a spot with a little more action. He fired up his lightbar & shot past me into the night.

Thanks Seattle police; nothing says 'Preventing crime, enforcing laws, supporting public safety' like tailgating with highbeams on at 2:30am.

Oh, and that last photo perfectly expresses the state of my mind at the instant that cop hit his party lights.

This I don't need....