xtcian

choose one: scylla, charybdis

9/29/05

I've lived through my fair share of apocalypish circumstances: spent fall of 2001 in downtown Manhattan, found myself in the aftermath of Hurricane Opal in 1995 and Fran in 1996, was near the epicenter of the Whittier Quake in 1987, and was a Carolina basketball fan in 2002. However, there's nothing quite like a Los Angeles basin wildfire, and one is burning several miles to the north of us while I speak.

The last few days in LA have been kind of awful: the Santa Ana winds, usually harbingers of clean air from the desert, brought in 100+ degree temperatures and make your lips crack open and bleed while you sleep. It's like living in the mouth of a hair dryer. Worse yet, the winds bring these giant infestations of termites that clog up your bathtub and flitter around like locusts. I went into Lucy's room today, and there were termites all over her crib, like a deleted scene from "The Exorcist."

Wildfires down here are simply Dante-esque in their utter calamity. You can be driving down the freeway and fires will be raging on either side, like those Jack Chick comic tracts about the Rapture. There is this pressing feeling of no escape, and with the news about Alaska melting it feels rather hopeless and bleak. I'm just no good in hot weather, and it seems like that's all the 21st century has to offer.

The only upside to these fires is the smoke that blows to sea, sluicing through the sun and creating these sickeningly beautiful sunsets. I made Tessa and Lucy stop the car so I could take a few pictures where Wilshire Blvd. hits the Pacific:

important to find beauty and drama where you can

nature/nurture

9/28/05

stand clear of the closing doors please

9/27/05

I'm starting to get really homesick. Even though we are in the midst of one of the biggest career cliffhangers possible in the entertainment biz, I heard reports that my pumpkins in Columbia County have grown to the size of Volkswagens, and I just want to be there hitting golf balls at cows.

Every Tuesday I drive 35 miles to play basketball in the San Gabriel Valley, even though nobody there particularly knows me (or particularly likes me) but I keep going, because I love the sport and don't know of any other game in these parts. I long for the Tuesday and Thursday games at Mulberry Street Garden where I can give a sweet pass to Dan Kois and pack the shit out of Lindsay Bowen.

We can see the ocean if we look down the street, and obviously the waters are lovely, but part of me wants to see the brown sludge of the Gowanus Canal lapping against the warehouses of Brooklyn. I miss my local pharmacist on 7th Avenue, where there aren't any 6-foot blondes with giant plastic tits moaning about their managers on their cell phones.

Being a writer in Los Angeles, at many times, feels like being a caged racehorse. So many labyrinthine politics, so much being "on," so much discussion of what you will write that I almost want to rent a houseboat, sail to Guam and write a tortured novel in a fiery burst of page-shredding graphomania. I'll write all over the hull, all down the deck, scribble on all the sails, and expunge verbosity on the poop.

Yes, we're so lucky to be in the game. It beats working construction, operating the cashier station at Hardee's, and taking the toll on I-90. But sighing over a distant homeland is a universal emotion, and homesickness is an equal-opportunity employer.

pop rocks: 2 parts, coke: 1 part, then mix

9/26/05

If one is as prone to falling hook, line and sinker for Generational Theory the way I am, several storylines make a lot of sense from the 1970s until now. The beef with the Silent Generation (born 1925-1942) was that they went through the sexual revolution at the same time the Boomers did, during the late sixties. The problem was, unlike the Boomers, the Silents already had kids, making the little ones suffer through their parents' sexual awakening and key parties. Cue divorce, latchkey kid syndrome, and basically MY generation.

Thus us kids born in the sixties and seventies grew up with a presently-unacceptable amount of danger: no bike helmet laws, lots of eating food off the floor, sitting three inches from the TV, and popping Thalidomide like aspirin. Or, in the case of my family, it was long stretches of untethered drifting followed by periodic bursts of hellish micromanagement. Your mileage might have varied.

Enter the Boomers having kids in the 80s and 90s. I haven't done the comparative research, so don't hold me to this, but the Boomers' kids are the most protected, coddled, mollified, drugged, organized, litigated and structured children in the history of the planet. The Simpsons, as usual, say it best with the omnipresent woman at every school event who wails "won't somebody PLEASE think of the children?!?"

And now, as is evidenced by my blog entry of last Friday, it is our turn to have kids. Back when we were working on the generational books, I gave a lot of thought to how I would raise future children, even though it was to be another decade before Lucy showed up. I kept coming to the same conclusion: a monitored freedom. Take the barefoot learn-for-themselves quality of the 70s that I had, and mix it with the digital know-how and research of the present day.

As many of you with babies know, that is a tightrope the width of a human hair. There's so much information about what your kiddie is ingesting - in the womb, in breastmilk, and in the lungs - that sometimes you just want to hermetically seal your brood inside a giant bottle of Purell.

This is especially a big conflict when it comes to certain drugs a parent needs to emotionally survive, and the conflicting reports of what the drug may or may not do to your little tyke. In circumstances when it seems like all the research is inconclusive, and nobody really knows anything, Tessa and I developed a rule we call the In Case of A Drop in Cabin Pressure Syndrome, shortened to The Oxygen Mask Rule.

When you're on the plane, the flight attendants always tell you to put the oxygen mask on yourself first and then tend to your children. I've always thought this made a lot of sense in pretty much all aspects of childrearing.

Your kid is hearty and chances are it's going to flourish. You, on the other hand, are prone to the vicissitudes of your insane situation. Fix yourself first, keep yourself functioning, and then concentrate on the child.

I don't mean this in the way the Silent Generation did: they "fixed themselves" in order to self-actualize and make themselves better people for themselves only, with the kids as an occasional annoyance. Our generation, in contrast, must "fix itself" in order to become better parents, to breathe deep the oxygen and immediately serve Captain Squirmypants with a clear head.

I knew Tessa first. If Lucy is screaming and Tessa is screaming*, I'm running to take care of Tessa. Tessa is the lighthouse that keeps all our boats from crashing on rocky shores, and Lucy, although I love her more than life itself, is probably just hungry.

*Tessa never screams

i'd recommend the lob wedge, sir

9-25-05

Many of you know Jiffer, my lovely friend (and Pink House alumnus) who is currently in Afghanistan, making sure the elections happen. Jiff was also on her high school golf team in beautiful Door County, Wisconsin, and taught me a few tips last year that truly helped my game when I was first starting.

How are those two related? Glad you asked. I'd heard an interview on NPR with Mohammad Afzal Abdul, the only golf pro at Afghanistan's Kabul Golf Club, where he described the course's peculiar greens and bizarre hazards.

Imagine our delight when we got word yesterday that Jiffer and her partner won the first Kabul Desert Open since the 1979 Soviet invasion! Her friend Tom filed this story for the Telegraph in England, and I'll just let the story speak for itself. Pictures are courtesy Jiff herself.

***

view from the 1st tee

Players dodge the mine hazards at Kabul's golf open
By Tom Coghlan in Kabul
(Filed: 24/09/2005)

A wayward shot could land you in a minefield. The fairway was only recently cleared of three burnt-out Russian tanks and a multi-barrelled rocket launcher.

Afghanistan's only golf course held the first Kabul Desert Open golf tournament since the 1979 Soviet invasion yesterday, despite some unusual "course hazards".

Twenty teams drawn from the city's expatriates competed on the nine-hole course. The tournament's winners were two American UN workers: Sam Hendricks, 35, and Jiffer Bourguignon, 28.

above: Sam swings; below: Jiffer's pelvis

John Dempsey, an American lawyer working for the justice ministry and the event's organiser, told entrants they were playing "at their own risk". However, despite a distant burst of automatic gunfire midway through the day, the sole casualty was a stray goat hit by Mr Hendricks with a drive off the fourth tee. He was allowed to retake the shot.

The club, set in the foothills outside Kabul, opened in 1967 with lush greens and numerous water hazards. Today the fairways are overgrown with thorn bushes, riddled with trenches and the water features have long since dried up.

The fairways are in such a poor condition that shots are played off portable squares of plastic turf. The only bunkers are of the military variety. Instead of greens, there are "browns", made of a mixture of compacted sand and oil, which slope sympathetically towards the hole.

"Attack the course! Play aggressively," read the club instructions. The arrival of the Red Army caused an unwelcome hiatus in the club's history. It only reopened again last year.

While they were here, the Russians were not keen golfers, apart from one ambassador who played frequently off a handicap of 24. Unpopular to this day, Russians are still blackballed from the club.

"Foreigners play here. And Afghans. But not Russians," said the club professional, Mohammad Afzal Abdul, 48, who was imprisoned by the Russians.

He was also arrested and held for two months by the Taliban after they discovered his collection of tournament trophies and accused him of working for foreigners. "They beat me with cables," he said. "All the Taliban are banned from this club and so are al-Qa'eda."

A scratch player who has worked at the club on and off for 30 years, he recalled the 1970s as a golden age when a host of outstanding amateurs were to be found on the links. "One was an Englishman called Murray Poole, a very fine player," said Mr Abdul.

The area has been the scene of fighting at various times during the 30-year war in Afghanistan, most recently in 2001 when fighters loyal to the powerful warlord Abdul Rassul Sayyaf fought against the Hazara warriors of Abdul Ali Mazari.

Kabul Golf Club's caddies

To deter kidnappers, many players yesterday chose to play with an armed caddy, apparently not reassured by the police presence. The club currently has 300 Afghan members and more than 100 foreign members. There is no dress code.

Unusually, given Afghanistan's often restrictive attitude towards women, female members are most welcome. But there is no 19th hole and, given the country's policy on alcohol, no likelihood of one opening soon.

Post Script from Jiffer: yes, Tom got my age wrong - 31 but thank you!
- The goat Sam hit was not hurt in this incident.
- Our caddy was unarmed. love, jiff

and jupiter aligns with mars

9/22/05

Well, here it is, the end of September, and I'd officially like to yell a giant HUZZAH to the Babies of Fiscal Year 2004-05! That's right, we had twelve friends (actually more) give birth to their firstborn this fiscal year, so here's the calendar you've all been waiting for!

at two days

Ms. August: Lucy Kent Blake-Williams - Conceived in the sweltering days of late summer, Lucy is one baby that will never say "no" to vacation! She loves a swimming pool and likes splashing around sans clothes while screaming nonsense!

Mr. September: Hank Drucker - Moody yet brilliant, Hank was born to Nell Casey and Jesse Drucker just after Lucy. Look for him to play 2nd base for the 2026 Mets.

Mr. October: Jackson Bowen - Ladies' man Jack gets going in late fall, just like his father's theater seasons. Born in December to Lindsay and Dana, he has promised to look after Lucy's honor until she can look after it herself.

Ms. November: Polly Gilmore - The tousled-haired child of Laurie Williams Gilmore and Giblet frontman George, her black-Irish locks and brooding Welsh nature make her an autumnal delight!

Mr. December: Noah Lyon-Hartley - Gorgeous blue eyes and a shock of red hair make Jason and Tim's little boy the English bloke you want on your side during a pub fight! A Dickens hero come to life, he'll sing bass during "God Rest Ye Merry"!

Mr. January: Noah Jost - Back to back with another redhead named Noah, Stasia and Jim's handsome fella is a charmer who might be our year's comic, keeping the winters warm and brisk.

Ms. February: Lyra Smith Kois - A Valentine's Day heartbreaker, Lyra strums her own harp. Will any of the boys escape her spell?

Mr. March: Cogan McMichaels - Born with bangs - BANGS I tell you - Cogan's next move will be fronting a hair band before settling into a richly rewarding singer-songwriter oeuvre. Many songs will be written about parents Matt and Carrie, who will try to revoke his poetic license.

Ms. April: Stella Rose Leftwich Murphy - With a name that rivals Lucy's, Hilary Howard and Jy Murphy's punkin arrived just a week before ours. Spring showers us with Stella's wit, destined for the Paper of Record.

Mr. May: Finley Dunn - Summer coming? Finn's your man. Born in December to Pink House alum Penny Franks and Matthew Dunn, Finn will be the first to suggest a plunge in the lake off the rope swing.

Ms. June: Bella Gwendolyn Tessman - Bella made her debut last month to Tessa's cousins Paul and Heather Tessman, and is currently sleeping, dreaming of June flowers and fields of lavender.

Mr. July: Benjamin Samuels - The last of the class of Fiscal Year 2004-05, Virginia Heffernan and David Samuels' very Gentle Ben will be the editor we always wanted: firm, decisive, funny, empathetic... and very loose with his contacts at the New Yorker.

Props also to the other members of the fiscal year (go Kathy, Jenny O. and JJE!) but sleep deprivation is stalling my brain. Also to those friends who plowed the road before us - among them, Cath & Jon, Lorraine & Alex, David & Farah, the Kellerans and all the commenters whose sage advice truly saved our ass in the early trenches. Also, I'd like to thank the Deity of everyone's choice that we were all so blessed with healthy little whippersnappers. I'm in awe of all of them.

Huzzah!

shuffle all songs

9/21/05

parjanya murmured

9/20/05

Today it rained.

I know that means little to everyone else, but here in Venice, the sun has been shining unabated for the entire three months we've been here. It hadn't rained the month before we got here. The blacktop was baked, cracked, there were file cabinets in back yards with papers opened, and a feeling it was never going to rain again.

We saw flashes over the ocean last night, but didn't take them seriously. Maybe it was a ship beacon? A transformer box erupting? And then, this morning, the wistful sound of water beads hitting the roof, and then the palm trees, and then the pelting plush of drops on grass.

Our power went out, as though the utility poles themselves were caught completely unawares. We lay in the 5am half-darkness, just listening to the rain as though it were a once-familiar song with lyrics utterly forgotten.

Later, the sidewalks were clear. Urine that had stained the pavement for months was now washed to sea. It was a clean slate; you could see through the car window once more. The Santa Monica mountains, usually blurs, rose in the distance with dark peaks set sharp against a troubled sky.

For a few hours, Los Angeles almost seemed human, almost seemed like it had moods, was vulnerable. The devastating sameness, the oppressive sunshine had lifted. Jogged into consciousness, I woke up and missed New York terribly.

xaxanprilokevlixec, 800 mg b.i.d. (orally)

9/19/05

Sometimes I accrue such anger in my heart, and have nowhere to put it, which means that you, my fellow blog readers, occasionally suffer for it. I had such a moment this evening while listening to All Things Considered, when I heard a column written by a 33-year-old woman suffering from A.L.S. (Lou Gehrig's Disease), read aloud by her sister. I know I ask a lot, but please give it a listen here - it's short and heartbreaking.

We've had a lot of personal experience with ALS - Tessa's great uncle died from it, as well as her friend Jennifer Estess, who famously created an organization to fight it. At the ALS benefit, we were honored to sit with Christopher Reeve, who told us first-hand how the current administration was keeping stem cell research in the Stone Age.

Tessa will never toot her own horn, so I always toot it for her: she made a documentary called "Project A.L.S." that manages to be both informative and beautifully-rendered, and it won the Audience Award at the Nantucket Film Festival, as well as the Media That Matters award at Human Rights Film Festival. All this to say: we are living in the Dark Age Before Stem Cells Change Everything.

Even select Republicans have seen the light: Orrin Hatch and Arlen Specter have joined with the Democrats to push a national agenda on stem cells, and we could lead the world down the promised road, if it weren't for... yep, you guessed it. George W. Bush. The man has stonewalled every attempt at an honest stem cell program (and no, conservative commenters, don't even TRY to argue that one) and set us back decades. I don't hate right-wingers for being wrong, I hate them for being cruel.

While Bush fucking cleared brush at his farm, Chris Reeve died, then Jennifer Estess, then thousands of other people with A.L.S., Parkinsons, Alzheimers - and right now my own mom may be slowly going blind from macular degeneration. All things that could be cured if we'd been on track with stem cells. Think of the amount of suffering just in this country alone: the men unable to hug their children, the intense pain, the depression, the suicide... all while that smirking fratboy President talks about "cultures of life." Which is a code word for "as long as I keep my conservative base happy, your dad with Alzheimer's can fuck off."

Don't tell me that we're okay because states like New York and California are going ahead with their own stem cell research programs - do you know how much headway we could make if the whole country started a Manhattan Project to eradicate brain disease and paralysis? Plus, it puts more taxpayer onus on those states that are forward-thinking enough to do the research, when it would benefit all Americans (and the whole world, for that matter). It would be just one more thing that the red states would gladly take from us, even while they were "morally opposed" to how we got there. It's enough to make you want to puke all over Oklahoma.

Our friend Josh Shenk has a cover story for the Atlantic Monthly right now (as well as a fabulously well-reviewed book) about Abraham Lincoln's clinical depression, and how it made him better served to get our country through a time of crisis. He conjectured that Lincoln's melancholy allowed him access to creativity, humility, empathy, and a theological relativism... that puts him squarely at odds with Bush, who is said to be HEAVILY medicated for depression.

Granted, the Bush-antidepressant rumor is still filed under "worst-kept secret in Washington," but only a cocktail of SSRIs - like say, Prozac and Zoloft with a Welbutrin chaser - could make a man so visibly unaffected by massive human suffering, and make a President seemingly vacuous and indecisive when we need him most. And listen, if he's NOT on antidepressants, it makes his behavior even worse.

Either way, I had a little daydream. While Darcy Wakefield was describing the hell of dying from A.L.S. above, I dreamt that all current sufferers of debilitating diseases that could be cured by stem cells gathered together. They resurrected the pale ghosts of Reeve and Estess, and they lined up with all their energy for one synaptic moment. All the useless arms and atrophied muscle came to life for a split second, as they all collectively hit Bush in the face with one glorious roundhouse slap.

I'm not violent by nature, and sure, it was a dream, but man, it made me feel better.

nietzsche is dead

9/18/05

Verse XIII of the Swingin' Hit "I'm a Crusty Old Fart Complaining About Kids Today"

Having given more than four years of my life to the student newspaper at the University of North Carolina - and crediting most of my future success to said paper - I feel pretty damned qualified in bitching and moaning about what has become of the Daily Tar Heel.

Last week, one of their columnists, a venomous right-wing guttersnipe named Jillian Bandes, wrote a piece saying that she wished every Arab coming near an airport would get a cavity search, being "sexed up" as they did so. Go ahead and read the article, I dare you. [Oops, it's not there. This has replaced it. Anyone in the comments section find it somewhere? Yes! Thanks, Mr. The Budster!]

After an unusual uproar, the editor of the DTH fired her ass, not for being a racist asshole, but because she'd taken quotes out of context and misled her subjects as to her true intentions. It being a slow post-Katrina news cycle, Yahoo! picked up the story, and then the columnist fired off one last salvo in which she gives a shout-out to her Wiccan God of Venal Cruelty, Ann Coulter herself.

Now, we can get into racial profiling all you want: as an American with a heart, I feel as though none of my fellow countrymen should bear an unfair burden in our democracy, but as an American with a brain, I understand the end-game of racial profiling is a bunch of old Norwegian women with bombs. This girl's article is reptilian hatred being sold as common sense, and it's not even particularly original.

No, I would like to step back a little bit and say what I hate about this shit: it's bad writing.

The editors of the paper should have smelled this car-fart for what it was: a naked attempt at stirring up controversy, and one girl's pathetic lunge at the scraps of right-wing chaff being discarded by the likes of Coulter and Michelle Malkin. One may hate Coulter and Malkin, but at least they're effective conduits of essentially evil misinformation; most of what I read on that DTH page scans like decongestant instructions.

I know how college moves at seven times the speed of the real world, thus everyone in Chapel Hill is sick of thinking about the Brandes brouhaha, and no doubt Jillian herself will use the publicity to land herself a coffee-fetching job at the conservative thinktank of her choice.

But the mediocrity of what used to be the brightest beacon of college journalism continues unabated. You may laugh and make deeply unoriginal "old jokes" about my perceived curmudgeonliness, but the Daily Tar Heel spawned Pulitzer Prize winner Ed Yoder, 3-time Peabody and 10-time Emmy winner Charles Kuralt and, of course, Jeff MacNelly started his comics career there (and then won three Pulitzers).

In my day, the late 80s to early 90s, we were helmed by Jean Lutes - Doctor Jean Lutes to you - who would have NEVER allowed such claptrap to get near her paper. David Surowiecki was taking pictures (and would go on to capture the most horrific moments of 9/11), and current Nation reporter Matt Bivens was editing my column. Future professor at Utah State Brian McCuskey was writing on Tuesdays, now-Hollywood-writer Jim Rash had Thursdays, and they let me have Wednesdays. God, the Dream Team we had: Bill Yelverton, Laura Pearlman, David Rowell, Jennifer Wing, Mondy Lamb... these were people who recruited for and ran a paper that won basketfuls of awards every year.

Yes, the current DTH is run by 19-year-old kids. You know what? We were fucking 19 years old too, and didn't let it get in our way. I've held off criticism for many years, first because I have WAY too much love for the DTH in my heart to wish any ill will, and secondly, because in college, the advice - or opprobrium - of older alumni is about as welcome as herpes simplex 3.

The only reason I bother is because that little student newspaper, tucked away in the virtually-windowless anus of the student union, gave life to every creative dream I've ever had. For a few short years, it gave me - a dorky, friendless, virginal violin player - as much social power in a major university as someone on our basketball team. It let me indulge in exorcising my past and gave me the confidence to dare string words together for a living.

The pinch-hitting DTH editor writes that this column "sparked an outrage that could be quantified as the largest in our history." Oh how wrong you'd be. Forget the Vietnam War - the biggest scandal in DTH history occurred twenty years ago this week, when the editors put a quote by Nietzsche at the bottom of the paper: God is Dead.

What followed were thousands of letters to the editor, entire classes being overtaken by Nietzschian philosophy, liberals throwing water balloons at the crazy groups of galloping Baptists in the Pit, parents threatening to take their kids out of school, and calls for the student newspaper to be defunded. As a silent, brooding, scared freshman, I was stunned that so much dialogue had opened up a floodgate of opposing philosophy. I was IN COLLEGE and it was AWESOME. I ran to the DTH and signed up to report on anything they wanted. My first piece: the return of Halley's Comet.

Get better, Daily Tar Heel. Some other silent, brooding, scared freshman NEEDS you.

for my first wish I'd like unlimited wishes

9/15/05

Okay, I'll tell you three things I want, and then you can tell me three things you want.

I know the world is full of suffering right now, but fuck it, it doesn't stop a boy from daydreaming.

1. An iPod Nano - Naturally, being a class-A fey twee shoulda-been homo and all, I lust for anything Apple has to offer, but I just fondled - FONDLED, I TELLSYA! - the Nano at the Apple Store yesterday, and now I want to be its boyfriend and have a million of its babies. 4 gigs isn't going to set the town on fire, and I already have a Shuffle, but this little bugger makes my heart go PITTERY PATTLY PAT.

2. This Shirt From Banana Republic - Until I moved to New York and became remotely fashion-conscious, I was perfecting the Aging Fratboy™ line of old college shirts with Pi Phi mixers of yore plastered on them, with perhaps a pair of ratty khaki shorts and skater shoes. I still wear that on the weekends, boys and girls, but the keeping up of appearances at these meetings in my mid-to-late-thirties means the occasional Very Nice Shirt. Something about this BanRep number, with its invisible paisley and "yarn-dyed jacquard" enflamed my inner Morrissey.

3. A Ludwig Drum Kit - Man, I'm tired of ruining pencils, tapping out the drum solo to "Wildest Dreams" by Asia, banging on my dashboard, faking air-cymbal crashes to "Everybody Wants You" by Billy Squier. I WANT THE REAL THING!

tell your name, the livelong June, to an admiring Blog

9/14/05

In order to develop ideas for television, you have to have two skills: the ability to pitch the idea in a room full of TV execs, and then the ability to write a brilliant hour-long script. These two talents are so far apart, require such different areas of the human brain, it's a wonder anyone develops the cajones to do it. It's like an Olympic sport where you have to swim 100 meters and then play the Rachmaninoff 2nd Piano Concerto on a clavichord.

I mention this not just because we're doing that very thing, but because the current anti-intellectual atmosphere in this country - as well as the venality shown to people who dare make "art" for a living - means that all creators must also be their own public relations agent. In other eras, you could have been a nebbishy artist cranking out verse like Emily Dickinson stuck in a chamber pot-reeking bedroom and let the words speak for themselves, but not in this environment. Fully 33% of your workload as an artist must be spent promoting yourself (for actors, that might be as high as 85%).

Part of the problem is that so many people want to be actors or musicians that there is a line to get into the line that gets you into the door of an agent, and even if you can crack it, most actors spend hours of their week trying to get their managers interested in their careers again.

It's not just the commercialization of art, nor is it the modern notion that "art is only art if people will pay to consume it." It's more that people want other people to be personable and well-rounded. Your talent set must be bizarrely diversified. Business deals are worked out on the golf course in Administrative America, but there's a rub: you have to be able to play golf.

Does playing golf make you a better manager? Hell no, but it is now a tangential requirement for business. I'm fascinated by the myriad of skills you need to be successful at anything now, as we have truly left the guild age behind: you can be a blacksmith, sure, but you're only going to get the Anderson account if you have a good backhand, know about the special scotch that Macallan has on reserve, and can tell a joke about Janet Reno within 2.4 seconds. In a way, it's no wonder that dorks have taken over America, because we're the only ones that had more than two interests in high school.

I know there are playwrights and scribblers and indie filmmakers out there who say "fuck that, man" and take a perverse glee in how bad they are in crowds. I say that if you're going to adopt this attitude, you had better have a trust fund or be content with nary a soul ever seeing your work. There is so much static in our culture that it will take more than your innate brilliance to let your work slip the surly bonds of your studio and penetrate the brains of your fellow man.

Scream from rooftops if you have to. Be able to wow a room full of executives, even if you're a sculptor. Be able to pitch over the bunker and land on the green, even if you just wanna dance. Don't be proud of your insularity, it only ensures silence.

bring the muzik back

9/13/05

I know I have nearly missed the boat on the cultural phenomenon known as "mash-ups" or This Artist VS. That Artist, but in case you were listening to the Aubrey/Maturin novels for the last three months like I have, it's a fascinating new genre where immensely talented Djs take two well-known songs and literally mash them together, creating something altogether different and, in some cases, gorgeous.

I heard my first mash-up when I downloaded "Sexual High" off Kent's page, a sublime pairing of Radiohead and Marvin Gaye's "Sexual Healing." Then I was in this coffee place last week and realized that the new iTunes allows for music sharing. In other words, if you're sitting near somebody with iTunes, chances are good you can listen to their entire music library without them knowing. I made a new invisible friend Aaron, not more than 50 feet away, who had the most incredible collection of mash-ups I'd ever fathomed.

Immediately, I began downloading some of my favorites, which really have to be heard to be appreciated. There's one in particular by the amazing Mark Vidler called Wrapped Detective, which combines "Watching the Detectives" by Elvis Costello with "Wrapped Around Your Finger" by the Police, with the backbone of "Exodus" by Bob Marley with an inspired dash of Peggy Lee's "Fever" and Led Zep thrown in. Sean, download this.

It's addicting to peruse the various download sites for your favorite artists surgically conjoined at the hip with your other favorite artists - but for you musicologists, it's also vindication for all those years you've been saying that there are really only five pop songs. Lately, I kvetched about Green Day's "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" being basically the same song as "Wonderwall" by Oasis, and VOILA! There's a mash-up to prove it.

I can't imagine most of you won't like DJ Prince's Hey We Will Rock Ya mix of Outkast and Queen, I Hate Music featuring the Hives and Madonna, and even a nice one like the Monkees/Beatles' Paperback Believer.

But it's when the DJs actually add artistry to the specific blend of groups - like ABBA and the Bunnymen or a simply beautiful idea like Crazy Fool, which is "Fool on the Hill" mixed with "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" - that you can see how amazing these guys are.

My absolute favorite is a mash-up with the haunting title I Just Wasn't Made For the Back Seat of My Car, which colludes the heartbreaking song by Brian Wilson with one of my old McCartney favorites. "Back Seat of My Car" is Paul's lush, utterly twee and unabashedly pretty album-ender for "Ram," a song you'd only know if you were a total Beatles nutjob like I was. When you hear a DJ taking a cue from a song like this, you get the share a moment with him or her that is unlike anything else in art: a wink across the room that lets you know they get it too.

Are these mash-ups sacrilege? Probably. Do they run the risk of ruining your favorite songs? Absolutely. But each time you find a good one, you become in on the joke that all music is so utterly related, that goth chicks and metalheads and fey dancers and electronic hipsters all pray to different angles of the same God.

key attached to giant wooden spoon

9/12/05

I'm suffering through some kind of chronic-fatigue virus that is making all my muscles ache and encasing my brain in a shield of lead, so you'll have to excuse the plagiarism of today's entry, BUT... my brother Sean's rant from a few days ago was so goddamn brilliant that I feel it needs to be reprinted here:

***

"Wipe Hands on Pants" by Sean Williams

About ten years ago, I was coming out of a rest-stop bathroom and I asked my brother Ian if he could tell me what someone had written on the bathroom hand-dryer, in lieu of the actual instructions. Even though he hadn't been in there yet, he knew what it said. It used to be that instructions were needed on the hand-dryer in bathrooms, but now, apparently, there's just a picture of someone pressing the button and two hands rubbing together.

(As an aside - these hand dryers (which don't work) don't really need instructions any more because people have basically gotten the hang of them. But for some reason, we still need directions on shampoo? I gotta assume that, unless you've been following Phish since you were in diapers, everyone, even in third world countries, can figure out how to wash their hair. I mean, seriously, if you live in the most desperate circumstances possible, don't you think that learning how to wash your own hair would come months and years before learning the English required to follow the instructions on the back of a shampoo bottle?)

Anyway, there were instructions on the hand dryer that said this.

1. Push button
2. Rub hands under warm air.
3. Turns off automatically.

And almost always, I mean in about 90% of cases, the dryer instructions were altered with a knife or a pen or whatever so that they read.

1. Push butt
2. Rub hands under armhair
3. Turns off automatically
4. Wipe Hands On Pants.

Someone went to every single bathroom in America and took the time to write in the fourth step. Because, frankly, you do have to wipe your hands on your pants. The same pants you wiped your hands on after you coughed last. After you sneezed last. The same pant legs that caught steaming molecules of your last meal. That's where you wipe your damn hands when the air dryer doesn't work.

But that's not my point.

See there are things that people say that they think are funny. A dog will lick its balls, and someone will say "If I could do that, I'd never leave the house". Someone will say "what do they call 100 (fill-in-the-hated-profession-here) at the bottom of a river? - A GOOD START!"

It's boring as hell. GOD it's boring. You people should be fucking ashamed of yourselves.

You know that guy on the train? The guy that woke up just long enough to locate his bottle of cheap liquor and drank from it before passing out again? That guy who just peed on his own clothes? That guy is serving a purpose. Those of you who repeat a joke that someone else told, you are the worst people in the world. The absolute lowest.

But wait, there's more.

Because it isn't just repeating a joke. It's repeating the same fucking idea. Y'all who have lines to pick up girls? Especially lines you've tried before, and they've worked? Y'all should go fucking kill yourselves. The years are ticking away, jackass, the years are running down the drain and you are gonna path-of-least-resistance your way right down to the day you die. You're gonna have kids with one of these dumb ass mental cripples that falls for your line and you guys will have fights that don't make any sense and your kids are gonna grow up and try the same lines you tried and they'll work and some other fucking idiot is gonna procreate and the world is just gonna spin down to dust while NOT A SINGLE ORIGINAL THOUGHT COMES OUT OF YOUR FUCKING HEAD.

But wait one second. That's not my point. This is.

For you fucking idiots who have found a way to jam your heads up your asses about Bush's total failure as our President this last week, purely because you feel like you need to constantly return to the idea that those on the left are ALWAYS wrong and those on the right are ALWAYS right, you're done.

Months of us taking off our shoes at the airport, and all a terrorist had to do was blow a hole in a levee in New Orleans. They could drive an SUV full of fertilizer and fuel oil to the levee, and thousands would have died. But they didn't. We had years of warning, everyone knew the levees would break, and no-one did anything. The Republicans didn't, the Democrats didn't, America is a teaming mess of classism and racism, and these things need to be dealt with on a Federal level.

You can support President Bush after this, of course. This was a monumental mistake, but, provided you believe the rest of what he does makes up for this catastrophe, I don't mind you supporting the President. But if you tell me that the federal government isn't to blame for this...

You're just writing what you've read someone else write. You don't know anything. You are too stupid for me to listen to, and, especially your idiotic blog comments... I mean, you're no better than the wall in some truck stop bathroom, and twice as full of shit.

***

parry thrust parry

9/11/05

One thing we can agree on, regardless of your politics. Remember the following mantra when the worst happens. When the waters come, the bridges come crashing down, the fires erupt, the winds howl and you look towards the orange horizon of what once was your village, you must know by now: Nobody is coming. You are on your own. Only improvisation and your guile will get you through this one. You can tell stories of your escape later, but right now, you must escape.

Read the Maus books, or watch this man's escape from New Orleans: from both you should take the lesson that it will take ingenuity to get through whatever hell is thrown at you. If you don't fancy those odds, then an ounce of preparation can be your insurance.

Tessa and I bought our little place in Columbia County in the months after 9/11 - we thought it was just a place to store furniture from her deceased father, but later we came to understand it as a refuge when things in this country got too out of control. Later, we stocked the basement with canned goods, bottled water and various grains, but now that I've done the research, I didn't do it any of it correctly. If the last four years has taught any of you anything, it's to do these things correctly.

The solar panels and the Prius are all part of the larger picture: yes, we don't wan't to be "part of the problem," but they are also selfish ways to survive when life gets lean for everyone else. And now that we've got little Lucy to rear, I'm edging closer and closer to being "apocalydad," the weird guy in the basement that constructs his own bullets and has disturbing ham radio friends.

In New York City, we're a target for all the big terrorist attacks, but also a debilitating snowstorm that could render us mute for a week, not to mention a repeat of the 2003 blackouts (imagine them lasting more than a few days). Here in Los Angeles, there's always that 8.0 quake around the corner, felling every freeway bridge and collapsing cheap apartment houses.

Yes, I will go back to ranting about bad pop songs and telling butt-sex stories about Carolina eventually, but right now, every single one of you should spend fifteen minutes discussing your escape plan and putting together even a tiny little "to go" bag for you and yours. My Aunt Marilyn, who is Mormon and thus knows a few things about how to survive for a year in a closet, gave me this list for a start. Even if you only buy a few of those things, you'll be stunningly better off.

My family has this meeting place for those of us in Manhattan, as it's an easy jaunt: just take Broadway to 242nd Street and look for the "Comfort Station." We haven't worked out anything in LA yet, but absent a tsunami, the beach where Rose hits the water seems good enough.

Progressives and liberals all thought the government would take care of them in emergencies, but it's obvious this particular administration couldn't save a cat stuck in a tree. Conservatives don't believe government should have to do anything, so you guys ought to be prepared anyway. All I ask is that you people just talk about it for a few minutes. It's a hell of a lot better than spending your last dying minutes surrounded by human feces, your last insulin shot having been stolen by a thug with a gun, awaiting a Greyhound bus that will never come.

I never quote old blogs, but I like this one: "A contingency scheme is a flimsy parasol against the vicissitudes of a wicked world - and everyone knows the easiest way to get God to laugh is to make a plan - but having the Comfort Station is a cool salve for our worst thoughts, even if we pray we'll never need that kind of comfort."

Fuckin-A!

speed to Spica

9/8/05

This blog goes out to my dad, who turned 66 today!

last week in St. Helena

ninth circle

9/7/05

The lovely, talented enchantress Bliss Broyard is from New Orleans, and through some of her friends, we got the following story from Lorrie Beth Slonsky (editor of the medical journal The Gurney Gazette) and Larry Bradshaw, two paramedics who got stuck in the French Quarter while attending a convention. What follows is their harrowing journey out of hell, and while it is long, it is so worth the time. Read it now before this makes the email rounds and thus both Lorrie Beth and Larry end up vilified on conservative blogs. I promise, there is no politics here. Just a true story.

Here it is:

***

HURRICANE KATRINA: OUR EXPERIENCES by Lorrie Beth Slonsky and Larry Bradshaw

Two days after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, the Walgreen's store at
the corner of Royal and Iberville streets remained locked. The dairy display
case was clearly visible through the widows. It was now 48 hours without
electricity, running water, plumbing. The milk, yogurt, and cheeses were
beginning to spoil in the 90-degree heat. The owners and managers had locked
up the food, water, pampers, and prescriptions and fled the City. Outside
Walgreen's windows, residents and tourists grew increasingly thirsty and
hungry.

The much-promised federal, state and local aid never materialized and the
windows at Walgreen's gave way to the looters. There was an alternative. The
cops could have broken one small window and distributed the nuts, fruit
juices, and bottle water in an organized and systematic manner. But they did
not. Instead they spent hours playing cat and mouse, temporarily chasing
away the looters.

We were finally airlifted out of New Orleans two days ago and arrived home
yesterday (Saturday). We have yet to see any of the TV coverage or look at a
newspaper. We are willing to guess that there were no video images or
front-page pictures of European or affluent white tourists looting the
Walgreen's in the French Quarter.

We also suspect the media will have been inundated with "hero" images of the
National Guard, the troops and the police struggling to help the "victims"
of the Hurricane. What you will not see, but what we witnessed, were the
real heroes and sheroes of the hurricane relief effort: the working class of
New Orleans. The maintenance workers who used a fork lift to carry the sick
and disabled. The engineers, who rigged, nurtured and kept the generators
running. The electricians who improvised thick extension cords stretching
over blocks to share the little electricity we had in order to free cars
stuck on rooftop parking lots. Nurses who took over for mechanical
ventilators and spent many hours on end manually forcing air into the lungs
of unconscious patients to keep them alive. Doormen who rescued folks stuck
in elevators.

Refinery workers who broke into boat yards, "stealing" boats to rescue their
neighbors clinging to their roofs in flood waters. Mechanics who helped
hot-wire any car that could be found to ferry people out of the City. And
the food service workers who scoured the commercial kitchens improvising
communal meals for hundreds of those stranded. Most of these workers had
lost their homes, and had not heard from members of their families, yet they
stayed and provided the only infrastructure for the 20% of New Orleans that
was not under water.

On Day 2, there were approximately 500 of us left in the hotels in the
French Quarter. We were a mix of foreign tourists, conference attendees like
ourselves, and locals who had checked into hotels for safety and shelter
from Katrina. Some of us had cell phone contact with family and friends
outside of New Orleans. We were repeatedly told that all sorts of resources
including the National Guard and scores of buses were pouring in to the
City. The buses and the other resources must have been invisible because
none of us had seen them.

We decided we had to save ourselves. So we pooled our money and came up with
$25,000 to have ten buses come and take us out of the City. Those who did
not have the requisite $45.00 for a ticket were subsidized by those who did
have extra money. We waited for 48 hours for the buses, spending the last 12
hours standing outside, sharing the limited water, food, and clothes we had.
We created a priority boarding area for the sick, elderly and new born
babies. We waited late into the night for the "imminent" arrival of the
buses. The buses never arrived. We later learned that the minute the arrived
at the City limits, they were commandeered by the military.

By day 4 our hotels had run out of fuel and water. Sanitation was
dangerously abysmal. As the desperation and despair increased, street crime
as well as water levels began to rise. The hotels turned us out and locked
their doors, telling us that the "officials" told us to report to the
convention center to wait for more buses. As we entered the center of the
City, we finally encountered the National Guard. The Guards told us we would
not be allowed into the Superdome as the City's primary shelter had
descended into a humanitarian and health hellhole. The guards further told
us that the City's only other shelter, the Convention Center, was also
descending into chaos and squalor and that the police were not allowing
anyone else in. Quite naturally, we asked, "If we can't go to the only 2
shelters in the City, what was our alternative?" The guards told us that
that was our problem, and no they did not have extra water to give to us.
This would be the start of our numerous encounters with callous and hostile
"law enforcement".

We walked to the police command center at Harrah's on Canal Street and were
told the same thing, that we were on our own, and no they did not have water
to give us. We now numbered several hundred. We held a mass meeting to
decide a course of action. We agreed to camp outside the police command
post. We would be plainly visible to the media and would constitute a highly
visible embarrassment to the City officials. The police told us that we
could not stay. Regardless, we began to settle in and set up camp. In short
order, the police commander came across the street to address our group. He
told us he had a solution: we should walk to the Pontchartrain Expressway
and cross the greater New Orleans Bridge where the police had buses lined up
to take us out of the City. The crowd cheered and began to move. We called
everyone back and explained to the commander that there had been lots of
misinformation and wrong information and was he sure that there were buses
waiting for us. The commander turned to the crowd and stated emphatically,
"I swear to you that the buses are there."

We organized ourselves and the 200 of us set off for the bridge with great
excitement and hope. As we marched past the convention center, many locals
saw our determined and optimistic group and asked where we were headed. We
told them about the great news. Families immediately grabbed their few
belongings and quickly our numbers doubled and then doubled again. Babies in
strollers now joined us, people using crutches, elderly clasping walkers and
others people in wheelchairs. We marched the 2-3 miles to the freeway and up
the steep incline to the Bridge. It now began to pour down rain, but it did
not dampen our enthusiasm.

As we approached the bridge, armed Gretna sheriffs formed a line across the
foot of the bridge. Before we were close enough to speak, they began firing
their weapons over our heads. This sent the crowd fleeing in various
directions. As the crowd scattered and dissipated, a few of us inched
forward and managed to engage some of the sheriffs in conversation. We told
them of our conversation with the police commander and of the commander's
assurances. The sheriffs informed us there were no buses waiting. The
commander had lied to us to get us to move.

We questioned why we couldn't cross the bridge anyway, especially as there
was little traffic on the 6-lane highway. They responded that the West Bank
was not going to become New Orleans and there would be no Superdomes in
their City. These were code words for if you are poor and black, you are not
crossing the Mississippi River and you were not getting out of New Orleans.

Our small group retreated back down Highway 90 to seek shelter from the rain
under an overpass. We debated our options and in the end decided to build an
encampment in the middle of the Ponchartrain Expressway on the center
divide, between the O'Keefe and Tchoupitoulas exits. We reasoned we would be
visible to everyone, we would have some security being on an elevated
freeway and we could wait and watch for the arrival of the yet to be seen
buses.

All day long, we saw other families, individuals and groups make the same
trip up the incline in an attempt to cross the bridge, only to be turned
away. Some chased away with gunfire, others simply told no, others to be
verbally berated and humiliated. Thousands of New Orleaners were prevented
and prohibited from self-evacuating the City on foot.

 Meanwhile, the only two City shelters sank further into squalor and
disrepair. The only way across the bridge was by vehicle. We saw workers
stealing trucks, buses, moving vans, semi-trucks and any car that could be
hotwired. All were packed with people trying to escape the misery New
Orleans had become.

Our little encampment began to blossom. Someone stole a water delivery truck
and brought it up to us. Let's hear it for looting! A mile or so down the
freeway, an army truck lost a couple of pallets of C-rations on a tight
turn. We ferried the food back to our camp in shopping carts. Now secure
with the two necessities, food and water; cooperation, community, and
creativity flowered. We organized a clean up and hung garbage bags from the
rebar poles. We made beds from wood pallets and cardboard. We designated a
storm drain as the bathroom and the kids built an elaborate enclosure for
privacy out of plastic, broken umbrellas, and other scraps. We even
organized a food recycling system where individuals could swap out parts of
C-rations (applesauce for babies and candies for kids!).

This was a process we saw repeatedly in the aftermath of Katrina.  When
individuals had to fight to find food or water, it meant looking out for
yourself only. You had to do whatever it took to find water for your kids or
food for your parents. When these basic needs were met, people began to look
out for each other, working together and constructing a community.

If the relief organizations had saturated the City with food and water in
the first 2 or 3 days, the desperation, the frustration and the ugliness
would not have set in. Flush with the necessities, we offered food and water
to passing families and individuals. Many decided to stay and join us. Our
encampment grew to 80 or 90 people. From a woman with a battery powered
radio we learned that the media was talking about us. Up in full view on the
freeway, every relief and news organizations saw us on their way into the
City. Officials were being asked what they were going to do about all those
families living up on the freeway? The officials responded they were going
to take care of us. Some of us got a sinking feeling. "Taking care of us"
had an ominous tone to it.

Unfortunately, our sinking feeling (along with the sinking City) was
correct. Just as dusk set in, a Gretna Sheriff showed up, jumped out of his
patrol vehicle, aimed his gun at our faces, screaming, "Get off the fucking
freeway". A helicopter arrived and used the wind from its blades to blow
away our flimsy structures. As we retreated, the sheriff loaded up his truck
with our food and water. Once again, at gunpoint, we were forced off the
freeway. All the law enforcement agencies appeared threatened when we
congregated or congealed into groups of 20 or more. In every congregation of
"victims" they saw "mob" or "riot". We felt safety in numbers. Our "we must
stay together" was impossible because the agencies would force us into small
atomized groups.

In the pandemonium of having our camp raided and destroyed, we scattered
once again. Reduced to a small group of 8 people, in the dark, we sought
refuge in an abandoned school bus, under the freeway on Cilo Street. We were
hiding from possible criminal elements but equally and definitely, we were
hiding from the police and sheriffs with their martial law, curfew and
shoot-to-kill policies.

The next days, our group of 8 walked most of the day, made contact with New
Orleans Fire Department and were eventually airlifted out by an urban search
and rescue team. We were dropped off near the airport and managed to catch a
ride with the National Guard. The two young guardsmen apologized for the
limited response of the Louisiana guards. They explained that a large
section of their unit was in Iraq and that meant they were shorthanded and
were unable to complete all the tasks they were assigned.

We arrived at the airport on the day a massive airlift had begun. The
airport had become another Superdome. We 8 were caught in a press of
humanity as flights were delayed for several hours while George Bush landed
briefly at the airport for a photo op. After being evacuated on a coast
guard cargo plane, we arrived in San Antonio, Texas.

There the humiliation and dehumanization of the official relief effort
continued. We were placed on buses and driven to a large field where we were
forced to sit for hours and hours. Some of the buses did not have
air-conditioners. In the dark, hundreds if us were forced to share two
filthy overflowing porta-potties. Those who managed to make it out with any
possessions (often a few belongings in tattered plastic bags) we were
subjected to two different dog-sniffing searches.

Most of us had not eaten all day because our C-rations had been confiscated
at the airport because the rations set off the metal detectors. Yet, no food
had been provided to the men, women, children, elderly, disabled as they sat
for hours waiting to be "medically screened" to make sure we were not
carrying any communicable diseases.

This official treatment was in sharp contrast to the warm, heart-felt
reception given to us by the ordinary Texans. We saw one airline worker give
her shoes to someone who was barefoot. Strangers on the street offered us
money and toiletries with words of welcome. Throughout, the official relief
effort was callous, inept, and racist. There was more suffering than need
be. Lives were lost that did not need to be lost.

***

merci buckets

9/6/05

Okay, CODE WORD. Which, all you kooky readers should know by now, means I have to tend to baby issues instead of the usual frothing left-wing badinage. So today's topic for the comments is: assume America is more like you want it to be. What things would that include? Here's a few of mine:
- more latté flavors, esp. Irish Cream mandatory at all coffee places
- every town in a desert community has mandatory solar panels (have you ever been to La Quinta or Palm Springs? sheesh)
- musicians have an Artistic License card that get revoked if their last two albums suck
- more lesbians holding hands
- people in studio audiences should only be allowed to laugh if the sitcom joke is actually funny
- mandatory Fried Ice Cream at ALL restaurants, not just Chi-Chi's
- local TV news will be forbidden to run stories like "What You Don't Know About Venetian Blinds May Kill You" (actual story from Raleigh, NC Fox affiliate, circa 1996)
- all expansion teams must wear colors that occur in nature
- New New Orleans built along with Old New Orleans so we have one to spare next time

Yours?

the cornstalk fence

9/5/05

In 1966, Harry Harlow conducted a number of infamous experiments on rhesus monkeys. He had two groups of babies: those who were raised normally by their mothers, and those raised without any motherly touch at all. The death and infection rate among the motherless monkey babies was dramatic, while the other monkeys thrived. However, there was a third group.

This other set of monkeys was provided a "chicken wire" mommy - a monkey-shaped piece of wood, covered in chicken wire and carpet. The baby monkeys clung to these fake mothers for dear life, and while the sickness and mortality rate was pretty high, many of them survived. However, they showed odd behavior later in life, often rocking back and forth with bizarre bursts of rage.

I hate to tell ya, but that's you, Republicans. You have clung to your President - your monkey-shaped, wooden piece of rug - as if your life depended on it, while the rest of us look on in pity and frustration. What I've heard from some of the conservatives, and indeed in some of the comments from the last entry, absolutely stun me. Blaming Clinton? I mean this compassionately: what is wrong with you?

Nobody needs another blog or another op-ed piece decrying the federal government's response to Katrina, or how the director of FEMA got his job because of an old-boy-network favor. The best take-down of the government I've seen in five years is here (hey, if you can quote Ben Stein, I can give you Keith Olbermann) and all you need to do is peek at any Op-Ed page - including the right-leaners - to get a sample of the media's current rage at Bush's machine.

One almost-Shakespearian character in this saturnine saga is Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu, a long-time Capitol Hill shill who began the disaster with her pat, inoffensive "team player" voice, congratulating the President and the response teams (and provoking a devastating take-down from CNN's Anderson Cooper).

It wasn't until it became clear that Karl Rove and Dan Bartlett were beginning a systematic campaign to shift blame to the local governments, presumably starting with Landrieu, that she saw that no player was too small to be sacrificed for Bush's benefit. Then she took a chopper ride with Stephanopoulos over New Orleans in which she finally broke down in sobs, understanding, truly, there was no hope.

To those who are complaining about politicizing such a tragedy, I have to say: fuck you. Republicans have been politicizing while standing on the burned backs of 3,000 of my fellow New Yorkers for four years now. Besides, many of us are going out of our way to do what we can to ease the suffering in the town that provided solace to me and my wife a few days after the Twin Towers came down. We're giving more money to this effort than we've ever given to anything, but if you want a real hero, look no further than my sister Michelle, who was at Ground Zero and is now temporarily quitting her job so that the Red Cross can send her into New Orleans. Maybe I'm not allowed to politicize, but SHE sure as fuck is.

The only levee that refuses the break is the buttress of right-wing delusion holding back the waters of the Bush administration's criminal incompetence. Liberals expecting a tipping point will be sorely disappointed. I wouldn't be surprised to see Bush's ratings actually go up over the next few weeks, as the interior of this nation is unable to assign the man - or his cronies - any blame.

There was a day when I thought this nation's collective wisdom could be altered by facts, but, like Valmont in "Dangerous Liaisons," since the last election "I have no illusions; I lost them in my travels." I suppose the PIPA study was right - in the face of scary elements, this nation has turned blindly to whatever father figure they could get their hands on. In this case, a cardboard rhesus monkey covered with carpet.

In a way, you have to pity conservatives: they were so ripe for the perfect takeover of American culture: the Congress, the Supreme Court and a terrorist attack aligned perfectly for what could have been a Republican FDR. Instead, they - and we - ended up with a disturbed, smirking fratboy who can barely flush his own toilet. You have to think, even the most virulent commenters on this blog have got to be shaking their heads in the dark of their own rooms.

Thus, amidst so much carnage and heartbreak, there is one good thing that has emerged from the hurricane: liberals and progressives will be exonerated by history. Even though we will lose every battle of our present age, the big picture will absolutely show George W. Bush as the worst President in the history of America, flying past Hoover, Harding, and even James Buchanan.

An old WWII poster showed a girl asking her father "What Did You Do In The War, Daddy?" We can look at Lucy, decades from now, when she asks what we did during the worst reign in U.S. history, and we will be able to tell her, with a straight face, that we gave money, helped those less privileged than us, voted against the bad guy time and time again, protected elections, sat on our bed and cried while mothers looked for their babies and policemen killed themselves, and did everything within our power to shed a little light during a very Dark Age.