this really, really sucks

http://www.yahoo.com/s/135781/*http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20031207/ap_on_re_mi_ea/afghan_attack&cid=540&ncid=716

Chomsky was amazing, as usual. I especially enjoy his understanding of economic issues and his sweeping and thorough knowlege of U.S. and Foreign affairs and history. Not surprisingly, the Lawrence Eagle Tribune refused to cover the event. Not lacking in irony, they endorsed the construction of the ornate Rogers Hall it was held in. I'm in the process of writing a clear, yet nasty letter to the Editor in Chief---nasty meaning upbraiding and critical, but not rude. Rudeness is pretentious I feel and just alienates your audience whereby they just write you off as some fanatic.

I'm reading up now on Chomsky's deliberations on Nixon and Watergate and Bay of Pigs. Intriguing shit .. I recommend it to anyone.

http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/ni/ni-c10-s32.html

Also, check out some of Rich Mackin's letters. These are fucking hilarious:

http://www.richmackin.org/CDCP/BOLmain/BooksOfLetters.html

lacking time here but wanted to post this..i just LOVED it..and Carolyn Myss does kick serious ass

Be Thankful You're Not Dubya
Craving more juicy reasons to offer up profound gratitude this T-day? Try a few of these



By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist Wednesday, November 26, 2003



---------------------------------------------------------------------
This Thanksgiving, as you sip the wine and hug the family and toast the friends and hoard the stuffing and curse the airport security, remember to give thanks you are not G.W. Bush. Hey, it's important.


1) Be thankful that you do not have to suffer Dubya's massive crushing karmic burden, as wrought by inflicting heaps of environmental disaster and vicious unnecessary war and a stunning string of lies lies lies like a firehose of giblet gravy splattered all over the planet.


For it really is all too plain: G.W. Bush is one of the most reviled and openly disrespected major world leaders in modern history. America has never been so embarrassed and reluctant to send a president abroad. We cringe when the man takes the stage. We offer humiliated apologies to our former allies, and to the 200,000 Bush/war protesters in London, just last week.


In Bush's defense, it cannot be easy to be so undeservedly powerful, yet so bumbling and inarticulate and globally loathed for your abhorrent policies and hollow corporate agenda and baffled doofus manner. This Thanksgiving, be grateful you are not him.


2) Thanks, you might want to give, that you are not Iraqi. Be grateful you did not go from brutal scowling despot who at least kept the damn lights on to brutish occupying army no one asked for that is right now laying waste to whatever remains of your once semi-proud oil-rich nation.


Give thanks, furthermore, that you are not one of the estimated 10,000 Iraqi civilians killed to date by U.S. forces, not to mention one of the untold tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers who were hammered by our million pounds of billion-dollar ordnance in the first few days of the massacre. Be grateful you are not dead in the name of American political and petrochemical profiteering.


3) Give thanks you are not a member of the much-abused U.S. military. Sad but true. Be grateful you are not right now suffering that sickening sinking feeling that you are not, in fact, protecting America from any sort of marauding terrorists, or defending our honor, or our way of life, or guarding innocents from swarthy evildoers and nonexistent WMDs.


But that you are, instead, a wholly disposable henchman for the BushCo corporate regime, with the odds increasing every minute that you will soon join the more than 9,000 U.S. wounded or more than 430 "necessary" dead U.S. soldiers Rumsfeld mentions when he shrugs off the latest round of guerrilla bombings that killed another batch of your friends. Support our troops. Bring them home right now.


4) Be grateful BushCo's ratings are slipping lower than an SUV's mpg rating, and there is only one year left until he joins his father as one of those embarrassing historical footnotes, a jagged scar on the heart of a wary America that other countries point to in years to come and say wow that's a nasty scar where'd you get that, and we reply, George W. Bush, and they go, oh my God, that's right. So sorry.


5) Be grateful you are not right now in any way related to, or serve as a spokesperson for, or are employed as one of the apparently very deranged or heavily drugged plastic surgeons who worked on Michael Jackson. This is a gimme.



6) While you're at it, give thanks you're not Paris Hilton, Anna Nicole Smith, Bennifer, Britney, Liza Minnelli, Joan Rivers, Howard Stern, Ann Coulter, Ashton Kutcher, Bill O'Reilly, Anna Kournikova, Madonna or Mary Hart. These are lives you probably do not want to lead. Give thanks your soul is not all withery and Botoxed and that it still manages to radiate cool colors like one of those funky cheesy fiber-optic lamps from the '70s.


7) Be thankful they have yet to figure out a way to blot out the sun. Or, for that matter, the moon.


8) Offer immense gratitude that despite a massive ongoing Herculean effort on the part of numerous world governments to rape and pillage and pretty much slap down most all tender offerings of the planet, Earth still manages to produce for us an astonishing array of flora and fauna and oxygen and edible delicacies and awe-inspiring trees and relentless merciless beauty.


9) Be thankful the planet rather effortlessly continues to baffle scientists and confound astronomers and completely entrance biologists and philosophers and poets. We still, for example, have no idea why whales sing, or how long they live, or where blue whales, the largest and most magnificent creatures on the planet, go to mate. Be grateful for the Mystery.



10) Kneel down, right now, for free speech. Oh yes. We must. Because it is under severe duress. To exercise it now, to speak out against BushCo and war and global corporate profiteering, is a true sign that you are a traitor and an al Qaeda operative and a personal friend of Barbra Streisand. This is what they sneer at you.


Give it up, instead, for free unfettered alt-news sources like truthout.org. And commondreams.org. And alternet.org and counterpunch.com and buzzflash.com and smirkingchimp.com and even Slate and the BBC and The Onion. Cheney scowls, Rove oozes, Ashcroft would love nothing more than to shut down the entire impious godforsaken Internet. Be grateful they can only quiver and hiss and rattle their chains. So far.


11) Molly Ivins. Gore Vidal. Michiko Kakutani. David Foster Wallace. Don DeLillo. Maureen Dowd. Caroline Myss. W.G. Sebald. Tom Robbins. Starhawk. William Rivers Pitt. Rob Brezny. David Attenborough. Dave Eggers. Joseph Campbell. Lewis Lapham. Haruki Murakami. Katha Pollitt. Et al. Thank you.


12) For baskets of locally grown organic small-farm produce delivered to your door. For handmade whiskey-filled chocolate truffles smeared over a lover's tailbone. For Bernese mountain dogs. For the return of Opus. For Rufus Wainwright and Beth Orton and the Mini Cooper. L'Occitane honey incense and the Apple iPod and "Six Feet Under." For Cate Blanchett, The Sun magazine, The New Yorker, Peet's coffee and "Spirited Away."


13) Here is the big cliché. Here is the final praise. It cannot be overstated: Despite an impressive assault on civil liberties, despite savage BushCo attacks on everything from national forests to air quality to rivers and oceans and water quality and health care, despite attempts to numb the national consciousness overall, we must give enormous, unfettered thanks for this incredible and kaleidoscopic America.


Ours remains the most breathtakingly beautiful, diverse, epic, multifaceted, multiorgasmic landscape on the planet today. It's true.


We tend to forget. We take for granted. We presume it must be like this everywhere. But one quick trip abroad will only serve to remind you and reinforce your devout appreciation for what this country can offer, the free expression and the religious autonomy and the clean water and the good dentistry and the fresh produce and the space to explore.


We are deeply flawed. We are massively arrogant. We are bratty and insolent and abusive and sloppy and violent. But we balance it with astounding acts of love and beauty and art, nature preserves and activism and organic awareness and sex positivism and community awareness and quiet personal spiritual questing and lots and lots of great bookstores.


14) Here is where you make you own list. Here is where you set aside the cynicism and the sighing and the bitterness, just for a moment, and get quiet, look around, look inside, check the karmic inventory and offer up heaping pies of gratefulness for what you find.


Sure it seems clichéd. Of course you don't need some holiday to be deeply thankful for the radiance in your life. But, hey, an opportunity is an opportunity. Just remember, big meaty drumsticks of general gratitude are absolutely fine. But the divine, personal gravy is where the real flavor is.
_____________________________________________________________________
Why I Hate Thanksgiving
>by Mitchel Cohen
>
>with much material contributed by Peter Linebaugh
>and others whose names have over the years been lost
>
>
>The year was 1492. The Taino-Arawak people of the Bahamas discovered
>Christopher Columbus on their beach.
>
>Historian Howard Zinn tells us how Arawak men and women, naked, tawny, and
>full of wonder, emerged from their villages onto the island's beaches and
>swam out to get a closer look at the strange big boat. When Columbus and
>his sailors came ashore, carrying swords, speaking oddly, the Arawaks ran
>to greet them, brought them food, water, gifts. Columbus later wrote of
>this in his log. Here is what he wrote:
>
>"They brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other
>things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks' bells. They
>willingly traded everything they owned. They were well-built, with good
>bodies and handsome features. They do not bear arms, and do not know them,
>for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out
>of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of sugar cane. They
>would make fine servants. With 50 men we could subjugate them all and make
>them do whatever we want."
>
>And so the conquest began, and the Thanotocracy -- the regime of death --
>was inaugurated on the continent the Indians called "Turtle Island."
>
>You probably already know a good piece of the story: How Columbus's Army
>took Arawak and Taino people prisoners and insisted that they take him to
>the source of their gold, which they used in tiny ornaments in their ears.
>And how, with utter contempt and cruelty, Columbus took many more Indians
>prisoners and put them aboard the Nina and the Pinta -- the Santa Maria
>having run aground on the island of Hispañola (today, the Dominican
>Republic and Haiti). When some refused to be taken prisoner, they were run
>through with swords and bled to death. Then the Nina and the Pinta set sail
>for the Azores and Spain. During the long voyage, many of the Indian
>prisoners died. Here's part of Columbus's report to Queen Isabella and King
>Ferdinand of Spain:
>
>"The Indians are so naive and so free with their possessions that no one
>who has not witnessed them would believe it. When you ask for something
>they have, they never say no. To the contrary, they offer to share with
>anyone." Columbus concluded his report by asking for a little help from the
>King and Queen, and in return he would bring them "as much gold as they
>need, and as many slaves as they ask."
>
>Columbus returned to the New World -- "new" for Europeans, that is -- with
>17 ships and more than 1,200 men. Their aim was clear: Slaves, and gold.
>They went from island to island in the Caribbean, taking Indians as
>captives. But word spread ahead of them. By the time they got to Fort
>Navidad on Haiti, the Taino had risen up and killed all the sailors left
>behind on the last voyage, after they had roamed the island in gangs raping
>women and taking children and women as slaves. Columbus later wrote: "Let
>us in the name of the Holy Trinity go on sending all the slaves that can be
>sold." The Indians began fighting back, but were no match for the Spaniard
>conquerors, even though they greatly outnumbered them. In eight years,
>Columbus's men murdered more than 100,000 Indians on Haiti alone. Overall,
>dying as slaves in the mines, or directly murdered, or from diseases
>brought to the Caribbean by the Spaniards, over 3 million Indian people
>were murdered between 1494 and 1508.
>
>What Columbus did to the Arawaks of the Bahamas and the Taino of the
>Caribbean, Cortez did to the Aztecs of Mexico, Pizarro to the Incas of
>Peru, and the English settlers of Virginia and Massachusetts to the
>Powhatans and the Pequots. Literally millions of native peoples were
>slaughtered. And the gold, slaves and other resources were used, in Europe,
>to spur the growth of the new money economy rising out of feudalism. Karl
>Marx would later call this "the primitive accumulation of capital." These
>were the violent beginnings of an intricate system of technology, business,
>politics and culture that would dominate the world for the next five
>centuries.
>
>All of this were the preconditions for the first Thanksgiving. In the North
>American English colonies, the pattern was set early, as Columbus had set
>it in the islands of the Bahamas. In 1585, before there was any permanent
>English settlement in Virginia, Richard Grenville landed there with seven
>ships. The Indians he met were hospitable, but when one of them stole a
>small silver cup, Grenville sacked and burned the whole Indian village.
>
>The Jamestown colony was established in Virginia in 1607, inside the
>territory of an Indian confederacy, led by the chief, Powhatan. Powhatan
>watched the English settle on his people's land, but did not attack. And
>the English began starving. Some of them ran away and joined the Indians,
>where they would at least be fed. Indeed, throughout colonial times tens of
>thousands of indentured servants, prisoners and slaves -- from Wales and
>Scotland as well as from Africa -- ran away to live in Indian communities,
>intermarry, and raise their children there.
>
>In the summer of 1610 the governor of Jamestown colony asked Powhatan to
>return the runaways, who were living fully among the Indians. Powhatan left
>the choice to those who ran away, and none wanted to go back. The governor
>of Jamestown then sent soldiers to take revenge. They descended on an
>Indian community, killed 15 or 16 Indians, burned the houses, cut down the
>corn growing around the village, took the female leader of the tribe and
>her children into boats, then ended up throwing the children overboard and
>shooting out their brains in the water. The female leader was later taken
>off the boat and stabbed to death.
>
>By 1621, the atrocities committed by the English had grown, and word spread
>throughout the Indian villages. The Indians fought back, and killed 347
>colonists. From then on it was total war. Not able to enslave the Indians
>the English aristocracy decided to exterminate them.
>
>And then the Pilgrims arrived.
>
>When the Pilgrims came to New England they too were coming not to vacant
>land but to territory inhabited by tribes of Indians. The story goes that
>the Pilgrims, who were Christians of the Puritan sect, were fleeing
>religious persecution in Europe. They had fled England and went to Holland,
>and from there sailed aboard the Mayflower, where they landed at Plymouth
>Rock in what is now Massachusetts.
>
>Religious persecution or not, they immediately turned to their religion to
>rationalize their persecution of others. They appealed to the Bible, Psalms
>2:8: "Ask of me, and I shall give thee, the heathen for thine inheritance,
>and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession." To justify their
>use of force to take the land, they cited Romans 13:2: "Whosoever therefore
>resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist
>shall receive to themselves damnation."
>
>The Puritans lived in uneasy truce with the Pequot Indians, who occupied
>what is now southern Connecticut and Rhode Island. But they wanted them out
>of the way; they wanted their land. And they seemed to want to establish
>their rule firmly over Connecticut settlers in that area.
>
>In 1636 an armed expedition left Boston to attack the Narragansett Indians
>on Block Island. The English landed and killed some Indians, but the rest
>hid in the thick forests of the island and the English went from one
>deserted village to the next, destroying crops. Then they sailed back to
>the mainland and raided Pequot villages along the coast, destroying crops
>again.
>
>The English went on setting fire to wigwams of the village. They burned
>village after village to the ground. As one of the leading theologians of
>his day, Dr. Cotton Mather put it: "It was supposed that no less than 600
>Pequot souls were brought down to hell that day." And Cotton Mather,
>clutching his bible, spurred the English to slaughter more Indians in the
>name of Christianity.
>
>Three hundred thousand Indians were murdered in New England over the next
>few years. It is important to note: The ordinary Englishmen did not want
>this war and often, very often, refused to fight. Some European
>intellectuals like Roger Williams spoke out against it. And some erstwhile
>colonists joined the Indians and even took up arms against the invaders
>from England. It was the Puritan elite who wanted the war, a war for land,
>for gold, for power. And, in the end, the Indian population of 10 million
>that was in North America when Columbus came was reduced to less than one
>million.
>
>The way the different Indian peoples lived -- communally, consensually,
>making decisions through tribal councils, each tribe having different
>sexual/marriage relationships, where many different sexualities were
>practiced as the norm -- contrasted dramatically with the Puritan's
>Christian fundamentalist values. For the Puritans, men decided everything,
>whereas in the Iroquois federation of what is now New York state women
>chose the men who represented the clans at village and tribal councils; it
>was the women who were responsible for deciding on whether or not to go to
>war. The Christian idea of male dominance and female subordination was
>conspicuously absent in Iroquois society.
>
>There were many other cultural differences: The Iroquois did not use harsh
>punishment on children. They did not insist on early weaning or early
>toilet training, but gradually allowed the child to learn to care for
>themselves. And, they did not believe in ownership of land; they utilized
>the land, lived on it. The idea of ownership was ridiculous, absurd. The
>European Christians, on the other hand, in the spirit of the emerging
>capitalism, wanted to own and control everything -- even children and other
>human beings. The pastor of the Pilgrim colony, John Robinson, thus advised
>his parishioners: "And surely there is in all children a stubbornness, and
>stoutness of mind arising from natural pride, which must, in the first
>place, be broken and beaten down; that so the foundation of their education
>being laid in humility and tractableness, other virtues may, in their time,
>be built thereon." That idea sunk in.
>
>One colonist said that the plague that had destroyed the Patuxet people --
>a combination of slavery, murder by the colonists and disease -- was "the
>Wonderful Preparation of the Lord Jesus Christ by His Providence for His
>People's Abode in the Western World." The Pilgrims robbed Wampanoag graves
>for the food that had been buried with the dead for religious reasons.
>Whenever the Pilgrims realized they were being watched, they shot at the
>Wampanoags, and scalped them. Scalping had been unknown among Native
>Americans in New England prior to its introduction by the English, who
>began the practice by offering the heads of their enemies and later
>accepted scalps.
>
>"What do you think of Western Civilization?" Mahatma Gandhi was asked in
>the 1940s. To which Gandhi replied: "Western Civilization? I think it would
>be a good idea." And so enters "Civilization," the civilization of
>Christian Europe, a "civilizing force" that couldn't have been more
>threatened by the beautiful anarchy of the Indians they encountered, and so
>slaughtered them.
>
>These are the Puritans that the Indians "saved", and whom we celebrate in
>the holiday, Thanksgiving. Tisquantum, also known as Squanto, a member of
>the Patuxet Indian nation. Samoset, of the Wabonake Indian nation, which
>lived in Maine. They went to Puritan villages and, having learned to speak
>English, brought deer meat and beaver skins for the hungry, cold Pilgrims.
>Tisquantum stayed with them and helped them survive their first years in
>their New World. He taught them how to navigate the waters, fish and
>cultivate corn and other vegetables. He pointed out poisonous plants and
>showed how other plants could be used as medicines. He also negotiated a
>peace treaty between the Pilgrims and Massasoit, head chief of the
>Wampanoags, a treaty that gave the Pilgrims everything and the Indians
>nothing. And even that treaty was soon broken. All this is celebrated as
>the First Thanksgiving.
>
>My own feeling? The Indians should have let the Pilgrims die. But they
>couldn't do that. Their humanity made them assist other human beings in
>need. And for that beautiful, human, loving connection they -- and those of
>us who are not Indian as well -- paid a terrible price: The genocide of the
>original inhabitants of Turtle Island, what is now America.
>
>Let's look at one example of the Puritan values -- which were not, I
>repeat, the values of the English working class values that we "give
>thanks for" on this holiday. The example of the Maypole, and Mayday.
>
>In 1517, 25 years after Columbus first landed in the Bahamas, the English
>working class staged a huge revolt. This was done through the guilds. King
>Henry VIII brought Lombard bankers from Italy and merchants from France in
>order to undercut wages, lengthen hours, and break the guilds. This
>alliance between international finance, national capital and military
>aristocracy was in the process of merging into the imperialist
>nation-state.
>
>The young workers of London took their revenge upon the merchants. A secret
>rumor said the commonality -- the vision of communal society that would
>counter the rich, the merchants, the industrialists, the nobility and the
>landowners -- would arise on May Day. The King and Lords got frightened --
>householders were armed, a curfew was declared. Two guys didn't hear about
>the curfew (they missed Dan Rather on t.v.). They were arrested. The shout
>went out to mobilize, and 700 workers stormed the jails, throwing bricks,
>hot water, stones. The prisoners were freed. A French capitalist's house
>was trashed.
>
>Then came the repression: Cannons were fired into the city. Three hundred
>were imprisoned, soldiers patrolled the streets, and a proclamation was
>made that no women were allowed to meet together, and that all men should
>"keep their wives in their houses." The prisoners were brought through the
>streets tied in ropes. Some were children. Eleven sets of gallows were set
>up throughout the city. Many were hanged. The authorities showed no mercy,
>but exhibited extreme cruelty.
>
>Thus the dreaded Thanatocracy, the regime of death, was inaugurated in
>answer to proletarian riot at the beginning of capitalism. The May Day
>riots were caused by expropriation (people having been uprooted from their
>lands they had used for centuries in common), and by exploitation (people
>had no jobs, as the monarchy imported capital). Working class women
>organizers and healers who posed an alternative to patriarchal capitalism
>-- were burned at the stake as witches. Enclosure, conquest, famine, war
>and plague ravaged the people who, in losing their commons, also lost a
>place to put their Maypole.
>
>Suddenly, the Maypole became a symbol of rebellion. In 1550 Parliament
>ordered the destruction of Maypoles (just as, during the Vietnam war, the
>U.S.-backed junta in Saigon banned the making of all red cloth, as it was
>being sewn into the blue, yellow and red flags of the National Liberation
>Front).
>
>In 1664, near the end of the Puritans' war against the Pequot Indians, the
>Puritans in England abolished May Day altogether. They had defeated the
>Indians, and they were attempting to defeat the growing proletarian
>insurgency at home as well.
>
>Although translators of the Bible were burned, its last book, Revelation,
>became an anti-authoritarian manual useful to those who would turn the
>Puritan world upside down, such as the Family of Love, the Anabaptists, the
>Diggers, Levellers, Ranters, and Thomas Morton, the man who in 1626 went to
>Merry Mount in Quincy Mass, and with his Indian friends put up the first
>Maypole in America, in contempt of Puritan rule.
>
>The Puritans destroyed it, exiled him, plagued the Indians, and hanged gay
>people and Quakers. Morton had come over on his own, a boat person, an
>immigrant. So was Anna Lee, who came over a few years later, the Manchester
>proletarian who founded the communal living, gender separated Shakers, who
>praised God in ecstatic dance, and who drove the Puritans up the wall.
>
>The story of the Maypole as a symbol of revolt continued. It crossed
>cultures and continued through the ages. In the late 1800s, the Sioux began
>the Ghost Dance in a circle, "with a large pine tree in the center, which
>was covered with strips of cloth of various colors, eagle feathers, stuffed
>birds, claws, and horns, all offerings to the Great Spirit." They didn't
>call it a Maypole and they danced for the unity of all Indians, the return
>of the dead, and the expulsion of the invaders on a particular day, the 4th
>of July, but otherwise it might as well have been a Mayday!
>
>Wovoka, a Nevada Paiute, started it. Expropriated, he cut his hair. To buy
>watermelon he rode boxcars to work in the Oregon hop fields for small
>wages, exploited. The Puget Sound Indians had a new religion -- they
>stopped drinking alcohol, became entranced, and danced for five days,
>jerking twitching, calling for their land back, just like the Shakers!
>Wovoka took this back to Nevada: "All Indians must dance, everywhere, keep
>on dancing." Soon they were. Porcupine took the dance across the Rockies to
>the Sioux. Red Cloud and Sitting Bull advanced the left foot following with
>the right, hardly lifting the feet from the ground. The Federal Agents
>banned the Ghost Dance! They claimed it was a cause of the last Sioux
>outbreak, just as the Puritans had claimed the Maypole had caused the May
>Day proletarian riots, just as the Shakers were dancing people into
>communality and out of Puritanism.
>
>On December 29 1890 the Government (with Hotchkiss guns throwing 2 pound
>explosive shells at 50 a minute -- always developing new weapons!)
>massacred more than 300 men, women and children at Wounded Knee. As in the
>Waco holocaust, or the bombing of MOVE in Philadelphia, the State
>disclaimed responsibility. The Bureau of Ethnology sent out James Mooney to
>investigate. Amid Janet Reno-like tears, he wrote: "The Indians were
>responsible for the engagement."
>
>In 1970, the town of Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts held, as it does each
>year, a Thanksgiving Ceremony given by the townspeople. There are many
>speeches for the crowds who attend. That year -- the year of Nixon's secret
>invasion of Cambodia; the year 4 students were massacred at Kent State and
>13 wounded for opposing the war; the year they tried to electrocute Black
>Panthers Bobby Seale and Erica Huggins -- the Massachusetts Department of
>Commerce asked the Wampanoag Indians to select a speaker to mark the 350th
>anniversary of the Pilgrims' arrival, and the first Thanksgiving.
>
>Frank James, who is a Wampanoag, was selected. But before he was allowed to
>speak he was told to show a copy of his speech to the white people in
>charge of the ceremony. When they saw what he had written, they would not
>allow him to read it.
>
>First, the genocide. Then, the suppression of all discussion about it.
>
>What do Indian people find to be Thankful for in this America? What does
>anyone have to be Thankful for in the genocide of the Indians, that this
>“holyday” commemorates? As we sit with our families on Thanksgiving, taking
>any opportunity we can to get out of work or off the streets and be in a
>warm place with people we love, we realize that all the things we have to
>be thankful for have nothing at all to do with the Pilgrims, nothing at all
>to do with Amerikan history, and everything to do with the alternative,
>anarcho-communist lives the Indian peoples led, before they were massacred
>by the colonists, in the name of privatization of property and the lust for
>gold and labor.
>
>Yes, I am an American. But I am an American in revolt. I am revolted by the
>holiday known as Thanksgiving. I have been accused of wanting to go
>backwards in time, of being against progress. To those charges, I plead
>guilty. I want to go back in time to when people lived communally, before
>the colonists' Christian god was brought to these shores to sanctify their
>terrorism, their slavery, their hatred of children, their oppression of
>women, their holocausts. But that is impossible. So all I look forward to
>the utter destruction of the apparatus of death known as Amerika -- not the
>people, not the beautiful land, but the machinery, the State, the
>capitalism, the Christianity and all that it stands for. I look forward to
>a future where I will have children with Amerika, and … they will be the
>new Indians.
>
>
>------------------------------------
>Mitchel Cohen is co-editor of "Green Politix", the national newspaper of
>the Greens/Green Party USA, www.greenparty.org, and organizes with the
>NoSpray Coalition, www.nospray.org and the Brooklyn Greens.
>
>-------------------------------------
>
>
>In memorium. Lest we forget.
>The First Thanksgiving
>
>From the Community Endeavor News, November, 1995,
>as reprinted in Healing Global Wounds, Fall, 1996
>
>
>The first official Thanksgiving wasn't a festive gathering of Indians
>and Pilgrims, but rather a celebration of the massacre of 700 Pequot
>men, women and children, an anthropologist says. Due to age and illness
>his voice cracks as he talks about the holiday, but William B. Newell,
>84, talks with force as he discusses Thanksgiving. Newell, a Penobscot,
>has degrees from two universities, and was the former chairman of the
>anthropology department at the University of Connecticut.
>
>"Thanksgiving Day was first officially proclaimed by the Governor of the
>Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1637 to commemorate the massacre of 700 men,
>women and children who were celebrating their annual green corn
>dance-Thanksgiving Day to them-in their own house," Newell said.
>
>"Gathered in this place of meeting they were attacked by mercenaries and
>Dutch and English. The Indians were ordered from the building and as
>they came forth they were shot down. The rest were burned alive in the
>building," he said.
>
>Newell based his research on studies of Holland Documents and the 13
>volume Colonial Documentary History, both thick sets of letters and
>reports from colonial officials to their superiors and the king in
>England, and the private papers of Sir William Johnson, British Indian
>agent for the New York colony for 30 years in the mid-1600s.
>
>"My research is authentic because it is documentary," Newell said. "You
>can't get anything more accurate than that because it is first hand. It
>is not hearsay."
>
>Newell said the next 100 Thanksgivings commemorated the killing of the
>Indians at what is now Groton, Ct. [home of a nuclear submarine base]
>rather than a celebration with them. He said the image of Indians and
>Pilgrims sitting around a large table to celebrate Thanksgiving Day was
>"fictitious" although Indians did share food with the first settlers.
>
>
>- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
>- - -
>“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired,
>signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed,
>those who are cold and are not clothed.” Dwight D. Eisenhower

i hopped into a nyc cab on saturday and the cab driver was listening to bachata. he heard me extol its praises to my friend in the back seat and asked me in a thick accent "ooooooooh, you like salsa?" to which i responded with and affirmative "of course" and so he turned it up.

i sat on the bench that simpson discovered ashford, went to a flea market, hung out with tic and tac in washington square park, sat outside at dojo's ...yes outside in late november....went to many, many clubs incl. joe's pub, a gay piano bar, karaoke bar, had a 60 minute chinese massage, bought a hat, took pictures of my friends, stayed up late, awoke to a woman screaming at 4 a.m on 38th and Fifth, visited Grand Central's lovely restroom facilities several times, bought an Earth, Wind and Fire Japanese import for 2 bucks, got screamed at by some Elderly woman with Dementia..."move you sons of bitches" she yelled--it was sadly entertaining, left my white noise maker and books at the Americana Inn, skipped down Christopher street, had a sing-a-long in the car, watched the sunset, read the Village Voice....felt a warm breeze in late november.

i've wondered as of late if it is strange that i tell some of my friends i love them. i actually already wrote this entry and took precautions to not get it erased by writing it in IE, but alas, i got a username error last minute and could not retreive it so im attempting to re-assemble it..will shall see.

i think the universe sensed that i needed this weekend. after a long streak of horrible insomnia, i got to work on friday to find claire busily working. she told me how she had spent the previous night in the hospital with her 82 year old father who has heart disease and some undiagnosed pancreatic issues. somehow she was generous enough to give me an aromatherapy, reflexology treatment. i really have nothing to bitch, moan, sigh or complain about. i really don't.

my friend toby hosted a lamp-shade themed party. i wasn't really planning on doing anything elaborate. i really wasn't, but heather luckily on stand-by for inspiration. i started out thinking i would just do the solar system, but my 3D planets hinged and twisted around my lampshade soon turned into something unintentionally complex and political.

i had some farm animals. two of each. and fake grass and trees. i was originally going to position and glue them on the shade part, but then heather suggested how much easier it would be to just throw all of the stuff on top and the secure it with tape so it wasn't falling on my head. what started out as big bang quickly evolved into this weird big bang versus creationism. i don;t know HOW it happened, but it did and i got a prize for it. a blow up doll keychain named judy and some applause. It was a great novelty until i had to hand it to the lovely, phillipinno cashier at stop and shop so she could swipe my card. she handed it back to me slowly. very slowly.

On saturday i laid low. it was great. then i accepted an invite to Jacques with lar and co. can't pass up an opportunity to Jacques. it was teeming however with rich, newton girl-bacholorette parties that were chauffeured in. i didn't really bother me much, but was really pissing off larry and johnny who looked miserable anyway. i was to into it to notice much . i had a great time. i wish my last entry didn't get trashed. i feel i explained it better then . oh well.

i thank adventured my way over to the bob marley house for a late night soiree. well it was late for me, bout 1:30am. i had a weird experience also. have you ever had someone forget a conversation they had with you bc they were so intoxicated? that happened to me on saturday with a friend who i talked to on the phone the next day and she said "did you ever make it to the party last night"?

i saw van, eddy (newly engaged), some young kids, some punk kids, some hippies from up north. it was actually quite a diverse party. i had an excellent time.

and it was about half way through it that i was sitting on the couch not engaging with anyone. not drinking, with my coat on and someone freed up the bass. i thought about it for about 30 seconds ( i notice any longer than a 30 second moment of indecision is unbearable lately and i avoid it), my heart fluttered, i took a deep breath and took off my jacket. i stood up, walked over and bent down and picked it up much to my own inner protesting.

somehow, it was a five-string bass with an extra "B" string that i didn't know how to maneuver, but i winged it and somehow i wasn't the sonic atrocity that i thought because jonathan asked me to go up again and i was complimented by more than three people. i like it when i have confidence and just say "fuck it" and go. there were ppl up there playing instruments that weren't their primaries so it was all good anyway. i like it when that kinda of creative exploration can happen in a moment and it's comfortable and safe. there was only one other female who did though. a vocalist had done some singing earlier.

now i'm just hoping this entry will save. my west coast plans are still underway although in recent letter to my friend in L.A. i complained about all the pseudo-academic ego floating around boston. she responded by saying "if it's floating around boston, it's driving around L.A. She says there's tons of bulemia there and people are like hyper-shallow..all this I knew. So Brayd brought up the suggestion of Eugene where he is going to become a singer. I'm seriously thinking about it but waiting for that final answer from ..well..
from a higher source than I.. We shall say, but lately trying to make small decisions has been overtime...i wonder how a decision of such a large scale will pan out. I'm sure it will be fine.

why the fuck are people afraid to fly on a plane, but will nearly disembowel themselves for the sake of "looking better"? this woman in boston just died during a gastric bypass surgery because the staple-gun that was supposedly cinching her stomach, misfired. yea. the benefits of modern medicine. it's disgusting.

that said. i am writing in to "Starting over" not because their often-times disengenous pop-psych is awesome to me, but i do want to go to film school and i would not at all mind living in chicago for a few months. oh well, that might make me a sell out.

now, i'm back looking into jp. part of me even feels guilty writing right now, when i could be using the time to find other stuff. like a one bedroom which will likely be insanely exp. but the trip i would have taken to paris could go toward this.

just free forming here...

seems as though i'm back to the drawing board yet again. my paris plans are in the process of falling through. the airline rates are simply too damn high, so i'm gonna have to wait. heather will be disappointed, as will patty, but looks as though dinan isn't even going home for new year for the same reasons as i. oh well.

i quit my hotline job, even though my arm has felt better than it has in years. no i'm sensing that pain in the left that i wasnt feeling due to the worser pain in the right. still, 11-12 intakes per night at 2 hours each is way to much for anyone, Repetitive strain or not.

so i've been antsy. need to fill the space. need to take more action around california residency and stop whining about other people's shit..it will always be there shit..ALWAYS..

hopefully, i'll be in nyc for larry's birthday, and i can find another part-time job, volunteer or otherwise to keep me out of my at-times scary head that tends to work way overtime.

wow. halloween was awwwwsum. obie tryce kinda sucks. man rey http://www.manrayclub.com/ was awwsum. first, we went to phoenix landing which was slightly lame because only about 10 percent of the folks were in costume, which i found kinda odd. i really went to see lisa gene who was planning on being the Queen of Hearts, but she was donning a Medieval Vampy thing that was nontheless fierce. my lovely, butterfly-like roxbury-adoring 19 yr old friend greeted me with a "heeeeeeeeey grrrrrrrrrrrl"...her mom, who did her face makeup shortly afterwords emerged from the bar dressed as pocahantas.

prior to that, i had a ten inch needle in my neck as i crooked it as far to the left as i could on a futuristic looking table. the procedure is currently mimicking all of my worst symptoms. i'm to keep a chart of the changes and rate the pain. i hope it lessens. it was a scary procedure.

i had breakfast with my dad today. it was fucking intense..and scary and great and enlightening and i felt like a huge burden was lifted.. and i went on my way completely changed and grateful that after 28 years my parents are separated..and i can see direct parallels with the stuff my dad has struggled with my own..

it's weird and cool.

so i think i'm going to paris for new years if i can swing a cheap flight. heather, dinan and peruvian patty will all be there at once! it's just too perfect to pass up.

went to van's cd release party and saw eddy and co. --was cool, except my friend kinda jilted me and her male friend that i had just met, for another table of friends she knew. orginally, she said she was sick, which was sorta why i offered to drive even though i always do, but she seemed to liven up once we hit the smokey bar. i told her i was leavin' and her friends offered to bring her home. i'm trying to be compassionate about it, but i thought it was semi-lame and when i left, her male friend was over in the corner by himself.

so man ray is a great freak fest to just be yourself in. there's a different kinda of cordiality there. ppl don;t try and grab at you and everybody was in costume. they played this awesome version of the Nightmare before Christmas theme song that made me very happy. aside from a somewhat pretentious air, i felt really comfortable there and the people/costume watching could not be beat. they even awarded the person with the best costume a trip for two to london. and, looking back, the shear amount of people and costumes in there made me grateful that there was no smoking..not once, did i get burnt, which would have been inevitable otherwise.

vivica fox kinda gets on my nerves....and she should rescind her shout-outs to 50 cent..

i'm supposed to go see larry and heath tomorrow. johnny is leaving. i'm sad and i hope they work it out. i know they wiil, but i just wanna support 'em both through the transition. kinda sucks.

ah, work is so slow. i'm basking in it. i've take advantage of my free time by updating my client's sites, creating a dedication, figuring out how i'm going to pull off my halloween costume, contemplating how annoying my glimpse of the oprah show was today, reading the Artist's way, organizing my applications, paying my student loan, listening to the ambulance diesel engine outside the office window, drinking generic fizzy, flavored stuff...waiting..

yep. I'm a Type-A personality i think. also, i believe my tooth filling is falling out. i felt weird bits of a stony consistency in my mouth during kill bill-felt like i was munching on sand ..and now my grapeseeds are kinda getting caught in this newly available casm in my mouth and it's weird.

and i'm sad about the fires in san diego county. it feels like i just missed it by a few days. i feel horrible for all those displaced folks. i find it surreal how the media is of course focusing on celebrity reactions to the fires and all they can muster up is something like "yea, it's horrible."

i guess i need to rent charlie's angels 2. though i thought it was a deplorably boring and over-the-top movie, though i loved the dylan-as-bowie-like glam chick. her make-up was fierce, so i'd like to get some ideas in my head before i start globbing it on my face.

oh yea, back to the oprah thing. she had some dumb show today about the "angels" line at victoria secret. i've got no qualms at all with lingerie or anything like that, except it's like..here's this full-figured black woman appropriating the "skinny white ideal" and i find it rather lame, particularly since she's certainly not in any dire need for endorsements and she's presented a body-positive attitude in the past. maybe it's O's pressure, but fuck that..there's no excuse. it's like.here let endorse and laud under-fed models one day, than the next do an intimate segment on eating disorders in teenage girls..not cool.

in that same vein, i'm def. disappointed in Dr. Phil for originally appearing genuine about helping people, then jumping on the billion-dollar-diet-industry band wagon. EVIL.

i had this incredible dream about myself and it contained so much material about my life that i can't get into detail here, but one of the very last scenes was me looking at my Rosie-the-riveter type arm..defined and gleaming in the mirror! I've been reveiwing it all week..IT RAWKED. My therapist had a lot to say about it too..incl. that i am celebrating my strength, and not so much concerned with proving anything to anyone else. I do love her.

I got a wicked nice suggestion from this 1st year resident chica at my women's group the other day. She said "do the self-dates..they're yummy" referring to the Artist's way. She had just done a like 50 hour shift too, but then livened up to hi-fi me. It was awesome. Then Elaine, my buddy from way back hugged me and complimented my orangey-bangs. It felt good having gotten weird looks from mostly everyone I come in contact with around here. Then she emailed me to tell me how much i've grown and that she loves me..it was awesome.

Still no calls here...so excited.

So tomorrow, I'll be psyched to sleep some, go buy some costume stuff and hopefully see a movie or something..

I should preserve my arm here, in case i DO get a call.

oh well..

i've decided that maybe i should find me a respectable vampire or something..

cuz the stark class differences in cambridge really annoy me. Monday night i went to the Phoneix for reggae night. The rain made it slow at first, but the first DJ was fierce. Then two other guys came on deck, but I was mostly outside for that waiting on Mary. While I was waiting, I was talking to this 19 year old girl from Roxbury who couldn't get into the club (she stayed outside the whole night. She said, "I hate Cambridge." I was like "do you like Somerville?" to which she replied "No, I like Dorchester, Roxbury..Ashmont..those types of places." Mary heard that segment of the conversation. The girl and I were facing the street and Mary was facing us and the club. Just as said girl was proclaiming her distaste for Cambridge, one of those high-mounted tricyclists rode by. When we finally got back in the club, there were two of the whitest-looking Rude Boys I had ever seen on stage. I mean, it's one thing to appreciate a culture, but to feign a fake accent/patois to do so is rather...um...ODD? I mean, the two looked like they were from Brookline or something and even more annoying was that they kept interrupting these small, snippets of great reggae songs to give a loud "shout-out" and then abruptly change the song. They started to sound like a boot-leg MP3 that one mistakenly downloads instead of the original track and then realizes some amateaur dj has ruined it with esoteric shout-outs. Yea.

I think I'll check out Man Rey this weekend, maybe a party or two. I'm just kinda spent on the whole mentally-ill strangers interrupting my conversations thing (that happened at least 5 times at Someday cafe last night-no joke.) Actually , I think there's like 5 group homes in the area or something which might explain some of that, but I think it's more that Romney sucks and keep cutting Mental health services and now wants to cut Special Needs. So interesting that the platform he ran on was the reclaiming "the disruptive child" in the classroom. I want to do a documentary of all the jaded, overworked teachers in the State and see how they feel about that.

But i digress...and possibly proselytize...

thanks for makin me deeeeeeee snn---yyyyd---errrr"-- Christina Agueilera

saw this horrible McDonald's commercial tonight that features this poor black kid "rapping" about how he has no loot, complete with a dirty look from his presumed girlfriend, when magically he peals a gamepiece off a mcdonald's drinkcup and wins a shopping spree from Best Buy at which point a huge Big Screen TV appears and he's now cuddling with his aforementioned girlfriend who is no longer disappointed by his poverty. This culture so disturbing sometimes, I feel like punching a hot-air balloon then watching it delfate over a Wal-Mart sign.

what an amazing night. me and heath got out and did so much. firstly, she came over from work and we just hung out for a bit here. she changed and i quickly remembered the article i had left in my car about the open studios at Essex Art Center. I gotta say, THIS PLACE was so amazing tonight. Before we even made it to the open studios, we spent a bunch of time in the gallery where the "Juried Art" was featured. Basically some pretentious judging going on, but nonetheless, I got to talk to some of the teachers. They offer great classes there now..Storytelling through Theater..etc. I need to spend more time there, particularly in the dark room. The place has great energy.

Heath nabbed this amazing, honey-drizzled thing that was provided by Cafe Azteca while I people-watched and read the essay on a cool mountain installation. The artist had set up these mountainous sculptures that had mirrors underneath that reflected the bottom surface of the moutains and created this cool-ass pool reflection effect (sorta have to be there).

We finally moved onto our original purpose for being there: the Open Studios. We walk a few paces away to the next mill-building and the first thing i notice is this young Latino boy greeting us "Are you here for the art" he asked firmly in his Johnny Blaze attire. We responded 'yes' and from above I could hear a mix of punk and hip hop. As soon as we got up to the fifth floor, I was like a little kid in a candy shop. There was indie rock band seated around a bunch of paintings and sculpture playing this mellow, ambient music..AND..they were all our age!?!?! I MEAN...lately, all i've been bitching about is the difficulty I'm having finding an artist community in my age group, and here, I'm surrouned by weird, eccentric ppl doing whatever it is that they do and it FELT FUCKING GREAT.

I saw some artwork out of the corner of my eye..blue..and surreal and was like this definitely has to be mi gente. Norma Esperanza Lopez's work was kick-ass and I'm trying to find her card. Another awesome thing was that most of the artists were right there to talk to you and were obviously selling their stuff, but the high-light of my evening, without a doubt was Urban Explosion. We had honestly thought we had seen everything we were gonna see and heath even had made a joke about the "break circle" kinda forming in the back. AT first we thought it was just a bunch o' kids hanging out near this pitch black installation wall. Til the music started. It was some kinda re-mix. Classic rock riff sampled into a break beat. I heard similar stuff at the club tonight..AC/DC Back n Black with Snoop Dogg..pretty funny. They're using the classics now!

Anyway, these kids, ages 12-15, had the livest dance performance I'd ever seen. Their timing was impeccable and the moves were very MJ. This one boy up front was really working it. I had to yell. I couldn't hold back. I felt so proud! And, they went on for a good 7-8 minutes. They were so happy..you could tell, ALL SMILES. I screamed again. After they finished, I told one of the lil' dancers they should be on Apollo Kids and she said "oh, we sent our tape in already.
She said they called themselves "Urban Explosion" and they practiced at the Art Center. You could tell they practice a lot and they were definitely explosive. I'll be bringing some other folks to see them.

WE met up with Lar for the Haunted Mansion. The line was not nearly as bad as it was the year before because we arrived so early. I was definitely psyched and didn't even mind standing outside for nearly two hours. We got thru the haunted forest, accompanied by a group of three little girls who asked if they could "be with us". Upon entering the forest, that "be with you" turned into "can I hold your hand" which was really sweet...until some Jason character with a knife came running across the bridge, screaming. Then the lil girl screaming started, which, If you've never heard it, resembles something like an ultra-sonic eardrum piercer. Then, there was pushing. Why are little girls such easy screamers? All these costumed-35 y.o. dudes were ONLY going up to little girls, which started to feel like this creepy, predator thing. I guess they wouldn't run up to adult men, but STILL..it was weird watching these guys getting off on breathing heavy in some little girl's face...

we got through the damn forest, and got in line for the mansion, when the power went out. in fact, that was one of the 6 or 7 times the power would go out within the next hour or so that we WAITED ..and WAITED some more. Devon assured me this was an unprecedented occurrence at Haunted Mansion, as if gave birth to the damn thing, but apparently the vertigo, 3D spinny-tunnel (RAWK!) thing motor broke. And also, I believe Devon was then delegated the job of spinning the tunnel, which is why I didn't see him.

During our wait outside the house, we amused ourselves in several ways. I was busily evading the 20 questions our newly-acquired adolescent trio were slinging my way, we recited DIO and Iron Maiden lyrics, sang "Dracula," tried to rile the crowed up my chanting "REFUND" and "WE WANNA BE SCARED...WE WANNA BE SCARED"..also, I started in with "What do we want---HAUNTED MANSION...yea, you get the hint. It was funny and obnoxious at the time. It seemed like an eon we were waiting and watching made-up, pseudo experts shuffle in and out of the house. Then, we heard the MUSIC and got in.

This house is the scariest and coolest I've even been too. You can't even visualize where you are after a while (they give you 3D glasses). There are literally times in there where you are in pitch black, unknowns and have to grope your way through or appoint a more fearless leader in which case, a ghoul will shortly pop up and scream in your face..FUN FUN FUN!

The highlight was this cool, Eddy-like Alien thing that was ENORMOUS and I don't even think my 3-D glasses betrayed me. It was OUT there..i dunno who makes these costumes, but they're skilled. I'd love to hang out in one of those rad costumes and freak ppl out all night, course I prob. do that just fine in civilian clothes.

I brought Harry and Leather to Grand China afterward (we had worked up a fierce appetite) and immediately saw Dharma and the back of Sisouk's head. I sensed something was up the way he was absorbing all of Sisouk's attention. I gave 'em a big, bear hug. He was down and out. I figured it involved some financial difficulty, but then I overheard some more retribution thingy when I went to check with Dharma about the tofu status. Trust me, in this area, finding a place that will prepare tofu is like winning the goddammn lotto--IT AIN'T EASY. We ate. Larry accidentally burped in my ear. We belly-lauged. The trinity is back! Thank god..at long last.

Me and Heather were far from done there even though it was past midnight. Lori had text me earlier. Said she'd be at RCB. We got there and I immediately saw three ppl that I either know from high school or didn't want to see, like Peter, my hot-n-cold Bartender friend who now seems to have some expensive habits and tries to sleep with everyone, including myself.

I got up to the dance floor and saw Lori grinding with some boy, which is ironic, because she's only into women. The dance-floor seemed more like a Lion's Ogle-Den, pointing to my comfort-level at "Alternative Clubs"...there's not like ten-million dudes standing around waiting for you to dance like Britney Spears. Heath and I retired to the softy-couch and which point, I experienced one of the TOP MOST EMBARRASSING MOMENTS OF MY LIFE:

We noticed these underage looking boys to the corner. They kept exchanging smiles at which point I said to heath "these boys are young enough to be our children...it was at that moment that i could see one of them in my periphery, pointing and giggling at this small, ball of something on the floor. I couldn't figure out what it was at first. It looked like maybe a scrunchy or a napkin, but I was certain something so mundane would not have elicited such laughter and fascination.

And there it was...MY personal NIGHTMARE, come true, my hair extension (aka. my fake, diva pony-tail) and somehow worked it's way out of my head on one of my earlier trips to the bathroom and it was sitting there, naked, in the light, for everyone's examination. I pretended not to notice thinking my interest would incriminate me by default. It was then, I turned to Heather and confided my intimate secret to which she blurted out laughing ..HYSTERICALLY.

I swung back to the boys who had moved onto something else..prob. enamored by some mid-rif or the fact that they were illegally drinking in a club. I said, .."ok, heather, i'm gonna grab my hair..will you put in your bag?" She easily agreed. Like a frog honing in on it's prey, I leaned forward and swooped my fake hair into safety and then gracefully pretended to not know what it was until Heather hid it's awkwardness in her bag. "I paid a lot of money for that, I said" to which we both bust out laughing. What a goof I am sometimes. The best part is that, she still have my fake hair in her purse. Maybe it will expunge itself onto the counter tomorrow when she goes to pay for her coffee. One can only hope.

saw kill bill tonight. i was one of four in the theater which was very cool. i'm still speechless though. it far surpassed any action film i have ever seen, including the matrix reloaded and possibly even crouching tiger (in terms of stunts). it also is unlike any film i've ever seen in terms of it's violence. there is one scene in particular i'm thinking of where uma's character is slamming the scary hospital orderly's head in the door, REPEATEDLY. I honestly had to look away and felt my muscles tensing up in my chair. it was like this mix of japanese samurai, spaghetti western, indie film. the kitchen scene featured one of my favorite angles ever! it was from the ceiling and i don't know how they did it but it rocked. i give uma mad props for her perfomance. it's some of the best acting i've ever seen her do with the exception of baron munchausen--ok, not really, but she was great. her and her size 11 footsies. were are certainly sisters in kind. i loved the scene in the truck where's she's coaxing her toes our of atrophy. her toes were so realistic and sexy and non-hollywood like. overall, i thought the film was well-made, even though the gore got almost overbearing and the asian school-girl fetish was hardly understated.

i wish i could post more, but i was up til 4.30 am typing narrative reports for some unfortunate folks.

also, i got into a strange predicament today with the new icy-hot ointment i bought for my neck. it involved having to pee and forgetting to wash my hands first. there are just some areas of the body that should never be "icy-hot"...EVER....

thing is as soon as i walked into my job today, i had like 5 intakes. meanwhile, my cohorts were down the convent-hall (yes we are a social services agency that operates out of a slightly-restored convent that has a funky odor to it) eating cheese and fruit. then, i had a supervision with pam, who...is a great lady. she gave me three copies of vegetarian times that she said she didn't need anymore and i joked with her that everyone here overlooks those .bc they're busy reading "Bride" ..heh..


i still need to finish my narrative reports, but i;m now trying to nurture my poor neck..ouchy..it hurtz. i'm also finally watching Heist. I have that here and The Man who wasn't there. Heist is great. I'm glad i didn't listen to Adam's critique. I adore Gene Hackman. He has some wicked aura thing going on and he practically raised himself.

I'm also looking into some host re-selling plans. It may very well be worth it for the amount of domains I have.

havent gotten my lab results back yet, but i forgetfully had some canteloupe tonight and get instantly nauseas. my kat minou loves canteloupe..like, obsessively. he follows me around the apartment as soon as he sees the orangey, circular thing. he then nuzzles his way past me and starts licking the rinds. love my minou.

i'm finding myself in a position to buy a laptop. it's both exciting and weird, coz i've always saved money by building my own desktop. the laptop route is way more practical, however, for writing and coding and stuff.
i keep hearing horrible things about xp, so i might be leaning more towards the mac but like most other stuff, i'm gonna do my homework.

tennis invited me to the chomsky reception in december. i'm excited, but i hope he's not as dry as zinn was. i mean, he had amazing stuff to talk about, but was so monotone that i started to tune out after about 2 hours. i suppose it comes along with being so brilliant.

tried to see kill bill earlier, but massachusetts is sorta lost on the whole late-night movie thing. mary and i are supposed to see it together, but she's been busy writing for ch. 7. i get all the gossip about randy price and crew now. it's pretty comical. she had a head's up on the statehouse's bill to ban smoking in all bars statewide. i got into a debae with devon about that earlier. he seems to think banning smoking is like infringing on a person's most basic civil liberties and the the economic reprecussions will be great. i told him he underestimates ppl's love for company and libations and they'll just go outside now. that's what they do in somerville and it hasn't seemed to cause a revolt yet. for my part, it was kinda cool to go to a show without having someone blowing smoke in my face. i dunno, call me fascist. we did concur on one thing. they could institute a "smoking lounge" in clubs and stuff. it might have been a good compromise, but they seemed to overlook that.

instead of kill bill, i finally bought my bowie tickets. they were obscenely expensive, but i don't care. i missed the opportunity to see him on the heathen tour and thought that might be the last time he would tour. it will be at the fleetcenter, so i doubt it will sell out but you never know. it will be a first visit to fleetcenter for me. i passed by it for almost 2 years on my way to work. all i've seen of it is that annoying budweiser billboard. it will be nice to have the bowie energy there.

i'm frustrated today, though it's evening out now. i was running around crazed to get things done. i'm still waiting on my client to call me back.

just got this weird email from Sen. John Kerry

October 20, 2003




Dear Miss xxxx:

Letter begins here.


Sincerely,

John F. Kerry
United States Senator


I have a fever of 100. Nothing significant, in fact I didn't even know until this cool, Lady-MD from MGH told me so. She is from London, though she hasn't lived there in 15 years. I surprised myself at being able to identify her London accent. While i was describing my weird, stomach symptoms to her, I asked her where my spleen was. She swiftly pulled up her shirt, bearing her tiny lil mid-rif to show me where all my respective parts were. That was the coolest lessson I've ever gotten from a Doctor. She also said my tattoo was amazing and even admitted that stress affects her the same way it does me. I love MGH. I always will. It's such a stark contrast from up north. No comparison.

I got into a little debacle that involved me not being able to supply a stool sample<

I notice everything. I sincerely wish I didn't sometimes. Like the young, moutain-bike-looking couple who came into the clinic looking for a prescription without an exam. I think it involved something of an intimate nature, because I overheard the Nurse informing the young woman that she her bf would need to be examined first upstairs. As they were leaving, the woman was upbraidingly yelled to her bf "this is the most, fucking humiliting thing ever. I just want to get this over with!"

They say artists notice detail. They also say most artists are a tad nutz. I can see that connection now. I didn't 5 years ago. And 10 years ago, my art was too important to even pause to notice anything else, but I digress.

This Elderly man sits down at the table next to me at the hospital cafe. I was busily dumping my leftover Tofu stir-fry into my leftover tomato soup. The tofu stir-fry was coined "Thai", but tasted less like Thai and moreso just had a weird, fishy, cat-food like aftertaste.

We'll call him George. This first thing i noticed about George was his NY yankees hat and his bouncey step. He jostled over holding his tray and we immediately made eye contact. George was about 81 years old with purpose. He had conviction. He knew exactly what he was having for dinner: a dressing-slathered salad with chicken and bottled water, and my conversation, unbenounced to him.

George asked me "how are you today, dear?" I quickly responded, "I'm doing fine thanks, and yourself". "Oh, I'm great. Just getting back from East Boston. I'm a foster grandparent" declared George. "Wow, that's great," I said, even though I wasn't sure precisely what that meant...briefly thought it was some kinda Big Brother-type deal. "Day care costs $200 a day ya know, he piped back quickly. His veracity reminded me of my dad's paternal father, only in a good way. My dad's paternal father was convicted about crappy things like pornography or putting down my South American Abuela.

For about 20 minutes, I drank my hazelnut coffee (which tasted more like that morning's refiltered) while George contemplatingly told me about the 4 and 5 year olds that he helped take care of every day. We talked about the world series and Bush and how different things are for kids nowadays "I never once locked my bike down when i was a kid" he offered. I know, I said, "me neither, we used to go running around the neighborhood til it was dark." I saw myself transcendently saying that sentence and realized i sounded like I, too came up in the 30's and 40's. Who knows? Maybe I did.

It wasn't long before I was questioning why George would go out of his way to eat hospital food, when he didn't work there and wasn't visiting anyone. Last I had checked the lettuce was a neutral shade of brown and all the other ingredients looked like displays from a rest-stop salad bar. "Salad's pretty good here" George firmly interjected after about 30 seconds. Kuo (i noticed his name tag) a small, Asian caf attendant was shuffling around us restocking the napkins passionately. "Yes, i said, "not bad at all. My tomato soup was good." My desire to share something positive with George, a word, a thought a gesture, anything, overrode my desire to be authentic and honest. Sometimes I confuse authenticity with cynicism, but It just felt better to embellish the truth to this man who was so simple and extraordinary, then to remain true to the negative reality of the shitty salad bar.

It was then that George told me how he had never married. How he'd come to East Boston 15 years ago and his one living relative, a sister, had recently died. George couldn't bare to eat alone at home, so he got his breakfast and lunch at his volunteer daycare job, and dinner at the hospital. He reminded me of how I love to be alone. I wondered where my longing for human contact had often went. I remembered this past Sunday, craving it ferociously and not being able to get it. Then I thought, i suppose it's better for George to eat in room full of strangers, than to be alone. Or maybe it matters more what you do during the times in between, than the fact that it's just you. A wave of panic came over me as I studied George's weary Pennsylvania-bred face. "I don't want to be alone microwaving Croissant pockets when I'm 82."

I kept stalling. I had already finished my sour coffee. I had neglected to add the fake sweetener. It might have helped, but no bother. I was waiting for George. He only had a little bit of lettuce left. It was during one of our last 30 second pauses, that George broke into the silence but quietly mumbling, as if he was repenting "When I first came here, I lived in a shelter." I didn't respond. I just let his quiet comment linger in the air. It warranted no response. To respond would have been like telling a friend to hide a scar they've just brandished all their courage to show you.

I asked him if he needed anything else before I left. He looked at my strangely, as if I had sort of overstepped my bounds. I didn't care much. He had made my day.

"Oh no, dear." "I'm all set, here". He said with a smile. "You take care okay?" I offered the same advice back to George and as I turned the corner and was almost out of sight he yelled. "Don't get mugged!" with a chuckle. I laughed back "I'll try not to. You take care, George."

mystic river, the opiate of the poor disguised as intervention..other weird shit

so i just watched this newscast about how masshealth is cutting prescription coverage for certain "unnecessary" psychofarm drugs like neurontin for bi-polar disorder. i dont even know if i can call the media "biased" anymore bc proclivity would imply that they have some knowledge of least one side of an issue and they don't. they interview and dramatize the life experiences of poor, unfortunate people and avoid the underlying issues all-together. they are like the idiot at the table who misses the political conversation and instead comments on how nice someone's outfit is.


anyway, i hate to even joke about siding with romneys legislation bc they suck, but i need to research this more. i wonder how the mass rx commission is justifying this cut. did they finally find out how commonly misdiagnosed bi-polar disorder is or are they just conducting business as usualy by targeting majority of pharmaceutical receiptiants: the poor and the elderly, or both?

it's amazing how Bi-polar disorder didnt even exist a few years ago, but now there is a myriad of really expensive drugs to treat it, such as neurontin which was originally developed for people who experience seizures. i'm definitely not siding with my crappy, uber-conservative state that rewards a construction project that's 8 billion dollars over-budget, and punishes the poor and cuts education, but when more and more symptom-producing meds are making the pharmaceutical industry the richest in the world--drugs like lipitor that have been proven to cause liver disease and other related disorders, drugs that treat the symptoms not the causes of behaviorally preventable diseases like poor diet and high blood pressure and high cholesterol, i take issue. then there's the mythical ssri. ssri's that, in epidemiological studies, have been proven to cause breast and cervival cancer, but Eli-lily's financial influence on main-stream medicine have slanted research and publications on these issues. also, many doctors get penalized by insurance companies if they don't prescribe certain drugs. translation=lots of pharmaceutical companies are getting rich off of fucking people up and their financial influence is re-inventing the medical world. When Eli-Lily was losing their patent on prozac a few years ago, the decided to re-market the drug as "Serefem." You may remember that they made up a new disorder called "PMDD" or pre-menstrual dismorphic disorder. Ironic isn't it? The lucrative treatment came before the actual disorder. Oh, you may have remembered the lame-ass commercial featuring this stressed-out mother having a melt down in the grocery store because she couldn't get her cart out of the carrel..then this cloud-blue "serefem" billows down from the heavens and she's suddenly back to her original baseline of no stress, as would be the case for any overworked, single mother, hypothetically speaking. Like I say, the treatment treats the symptom not the cause and furthermore causes more symptoms, like sexual dysfunction But, uncannily, Pfizer has developed a remarkable new drug for female sexual dysfunction called "female Viagra" so one could take that to counter-act the new side-effects from the previous drug and so on and so forth, the vicious cycle continues. And they're making a mint off of people's vicious cycle, which is more just shear desperation and lack of knowledge.
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Mystic River was a great portrayal of this area, I thought. The character development was amazing and creepy. I Love Marsha Gay-Harding. Mostly because of Casa de los babys and Pollack, but she was great in this too. The acting was great. The lack of resolution at the end of the movie bothered me tho. It seemed like there was new suspicion introduced and thrown in there was this ending moment that portrayed how sick ppl kinda protect each other when they fuck up.

All in all, it was fantastic. Most notable was Tim Robbins, I thought. He's versatile..i know that sounds so trite..but he really is an underrated actor.

Go see it, but don't expect a nice, tightly-wrapped Hollywood ending. You won't get one. I think maybe Eastwood was hoping for that while remaining true to the book.

I have cortisone injection tomorrow. Soon my cat Bella will too. We'll have this great barrier-free species experience, not like we already don't. She's can be itchy. My neck will be sore.

so like, i still am having this freaky muscular spasmy thing going on. the spasm is like a metaphor for my life right now, aptly. as i sit here typing, my cat has just puked. My other, non-puking cat and the puking cat are now converging over the ripe puke and looking at me as if i should do something. i did try to leap into action beforehand but i was a day late with my flimsy napkin. now, the puker is attempting to re-consume the stuff and i'm feeling sick and maybe you reading this are feeling sick as well or maybe there isn't even a 'you' which is cool too so i'll shut up now.

i also, just now can hear someone having sex somewhere in this building, but there shouldn't be anyone doing so and i'm sorta confused and don't know what to do. now, it sounds like someone sobbing. i go to investigate. it's coming from outside. i have no clue what it is. sounds like a human-owl. or an owl who's choking. no fucking clue. just a perfect cap-stone to my weird-ass evening.

starting with...a sincerely annoying and frustrating trip to k-mart. i did get about 5 nice wind chimes with animals on them. i gave the fish one to tharah when i went to pick her up for the movie.we went to the new coen bros. i love their stuff, particularly big lebowski. i never saw raising arizona and i get lectured on it every time i bring it up from larry..that, and st. elmo's fire. i also never saw the big deal about ferris beauler's day off and don't understand why the kind of car he stole from the principal or whatever is a question on who wants to be a millionaire..along with all their other ignoramus questions but that's neither here nor there.

where was i?

oh yes, the film had some flaws throughout the first half, i thought. in typical coen brother style, they did this perry mason spoofy melo-court drama thingy that was sorta funky. they have this knack for being able to part from reality quite often and it still works. well, most of the time.

i thought catherine zeta jones was stunning. in fact, i wondered how she could act and look so aesthetically pleasing, at once. like, for the kiss scene, the continuity of her perfect lipstick was not even interrupted. that was kinda irritating. course, then i got to thinking about expectations..etc..etc..expectations..old husband..commentary film on marriage and divorce..and for that part, it was great. some of the romantic scenes were kinda hokey and it seemed the writers were def. poking fun at both the sanctity of marriage and lawyers..and even the illusion of real integrity on a human level.

oh yea, so movie's out. it's like 11.40. i'm like what do i do with myself now. i suggest a local salsa club. we cant find parking and the parking we do find is like shady as hell. so i sorta drive around aimlessly with T for a while looking for cues. she decides she'd rather go home chill. i drop her off and bag the whole latin idea and head for the gay club. wouldn't you?

i'm driving into the parking lot and the cop is flashing his light right into my car as i drive by. of course, i ignore him, but i realize what he's doing. somehow, that was his numb brain attempt at alerting me to the fact the club is closed. it's 12.20 and i, for one, know it's not closed. i see ppl at the bar thru the window. i just wanna get in for a few to catch up with cj (who's not even there, unbeknown).

long story short, the ass wouldn't let me in. apparently, it's illegal in mass to let patrons into a bar after last call has been announced, so technically, all bars in the half-ass state close at like 12am ..happy clubbing!

so i leave what was my plan b. i remember my plan c just then! robbie said he'd be around a horrible place in nh called grand china. this place stores some bad memories for me, so i figure i'll call. as the number is dialing, i'm hoping he might just wanna have coffee with me or something. i'm way too wired to go home. then i realize, am i sending a weird message if i call a straight guy at 12.29 am, even if i've attempted to make it more than clear that i'm not attracted to him? shit. i then infuse my own awkwardness in to the convo and simultaneously try to sense his, which i do. was it Freud that said analysis is our neuroses?

I pull over. I'm bored. I need human contact. I need a coffee partner. Someone. Anyone. Preferably not mentally ill will suffice. I call like 7 ppl. I call brayd. My buddhist boy in PA who's always around. No dice. No one is available. I'm supposed to go home and be with whatever i'm supposed to be with. I'm pissed. I go home.

I grab CJ's number from my retired cell phone. Call him. He's just left another club. He tells me hes really drunk, but he'll call me if he does "anything other than go home." I'm cold. I get in my PJ's. Chat a bit. Boca Burger-nuke. Lori calls. She just got off work at the club and wants coffee. I'm in my PJ's..i debate..say no, say yes, say no again..say YES, again. We go to Nana's. Lori tells me things that annoy her about her ex-lover using lots of expletives. We're the only two in the diner and I know the owner and the waitress can hear her. I wonder if they are offended. I wonder if they even care or if they think we are trouble-makers. I wonder why i even care what they think, but we head out.

And so we do. During the car-ride home, we exchange a clove cigarette and our mutual frustrations about hooking up and the diff. between hooking up with men and women *she's bi, i'm straight*..and if hooking up implies accountability and why ppl she hooks up with keep calling and why most ppl tend to call too much or not at all. why is there this universal extremes thing in all human behavior, i think. Here's our exit. I wonder why i ponder so much in this town. Does anyone else ponder weird shit like me?


I'm back home again. Round two. It's late. I'm cold. I need to focus when I write, not talk to ppl. Cat is puking. I hear a noise. Sounds like sex or crying or an owl choking.

tired and happy...

i may, in fact, have a kidney stone or something of the like, although i would not know because i received some of the poorest medical treatment of my life today. Wow, i am so negative sometimes, but honestly, this shit was like right outta a bad stephen king novel, complete with the male nurse making sexual comments right in front of me about female nurses walking by and this half-baked MD who thought i was challenging her because i had half a brain..i left. i'm going to a hospital downtown. none o' this backwoods sub-par, leaking roof-catholic hospital crap. all set.

in spite of the pulsating muscle spasms in my tummy, i was able to do what i need to today. found a new host for my client, got my hair cut, talked to my spiritual advisor (don't ask, it's a great help tho), went to larry's and played Taboo until my already throbbing spleen almost bust open. what an awesome, cheap way to fuck off with your friends all night! i think i might tape it next week.

then..i'm on the way to my car and notice this cutie lil sparrow in the middle of the sidewalk. it had just rained and he was just sittin there, motionless. i had a flashback to my squirrelly friend from last summer that i found on the hot, sidewalk. he had fallen out of a tree and had a bloody nose. i nursed the poor chap in my demin coat while i made several calls to the human society and the south boston animal shelter. squirrelly, being just a little babe, was safely relocated to the Northeast Wildlife Animal Rescue league. Heather and Larry, or as I've been known to utter in a thaelic, semi-conscious state "Harry and Leather" never let me live down my animal rescue. So, as I'm standing there in the dim shadow of the Medford streetlights staring at this little bird, I'm thinking "Shit, i wonder if the south boston shelter is open and if they would take a bird?" Should i drive him home and try and nurse 'em back to health, there? should i leave 'em and feel guilty all night? what's wrong with me? just go home! no sooner had all these conflicting thoughts passed thru my mind, was a scooping up my tiny-beaked friend with a limp into my tofu-samosa box that was empty and slated for recycling. i recycle everything. it's kind of hilarious. even those little sweet sauce thingies you get from take-out places. moving on.

anyway, i got the sparrow in the box and he swiftly went ballistic for a minute and tried to fly away, but to no avail. i used another box to coax him in and wondered if he had felt somewhat comforted in the little samosa refuge house i provided him. then i realized, he prob. thought i was preparing to eat him and just wanted to get out. i gathered up my other crap, slowly walked to my car and placed the bird in the box on top of it. he jostled around a bit as if to say "get me the hell outta here" and i realized if i was gonna make the 25 min. drive home, this poor dude would need some airholes. i meagerly tried to cut some holes in with a key, the only sharp object i had---certainly my brain was not one of them at this hour. just then, little sparrow seized his moment and used the roof of my car as a sorta of launch pad. he flew off rather crazily into the night sky and into what looked like a tree tho i'm not sure. hope he's well and got somewhere safe to heal up.

wow, long story about a bird. sorry. i just am a sucker for helpless, furry things on sidewalks.

THE END

Religious sports fans....

I am so grateful that the two bars I went to tonight, mostly to see friends, but also to sorta watch the Red Sox game, were too crowded and annoying to stay at. I, myself, am not much of a sports fan, but it seemed like a somewhat festive opportunity to be with my friends. It was so interesting. A newscaster called it a "luxury" to be able to watch the game from a bar. I disagree.

As soon as I walked in, you could feel the tension in the air. Rows of heads facing upward towards various television screens. No room to walk. Waitresses and bus boys wearing Red Sox jerseys. When I finally found my friends and sat down, I noticed the divergent Yankee section on one side of the table, and the Red Sox on the other. I found out later that the table's yankee fans had formulated a synergistic triangle that covered both sides. People were unusually inhospitable (even for Bostonians) and their intentness on watching this game was obviously taking precedence over acknowledging much else.

The talk of a mythical "yankee triangle" would have been hokey enough for me, except that the three yanks fans were avoiding a lot of movement and trips to the bathroom to preserve the trinity. My die-hard yankee friend felt like she was ruining the energy by being in the same bar she was in last night when the yankees lost. Energy? huh?

I got to thinking. Why to people instantly become spiritual and conversely superstitious around baseball games? All of a sudden you see people with clenched prayer hands. Talk of bizarre superstitious methods like not washing jerseys or sitting in a specific seat are totally justified...albeit, hilarious.


I also don't understand what a "double-play" is. I admit it. I'm not much concerned with commentators personalities or major league politics or anything like that. I really don't care. I also have no animosity towards the yankees and i dont feel the need to jeer them or call them "bitches" or any other nonsense.

With that knowledge, I went into this outing with no expectations other than to be a my conscientious-observer self. Nothing, however, could have prepared me for how stressed out everyone was. I have two best friends. One of my friends is a huge Yankee fan. The other,a loud, boisterous RedSox fan. Well, he's just loud and boisterous and we love it. AT concerts, he's the one everyone wants to talk to because he just goes nuts. Literally. He's got way too much energy. My other friend, a Poughkepsie-based Yankees fan who now lives in Boston proclaimed that she hated the Red ox and would route for the Florida team if the Redsox won. Someone joked that she oughtta dig out her "aqua" attire from the closet. Having suffered taunting the night before for her Yankees allegiance, I think she was feelin' prematurely frustrated. This also being the end of the week, everyone's exhausted and tired and ready for a break.

My Loud, boisterous friend decided he had to leave within moments of her comments about hating the red sox. Personally, i think he was offended. She texted him right away to tell him she even though she hated the red sox, she still loved him. Within a half-hour, we left. i was too intense and stressful for my friend. i was just observing like i always do. i never got too deep into this stuff. it was never a instilled in me, maybe because i was the only girl. i'm glad for it now. i said goodbye to my yanks friend and was on my way to go home or so i thought.

i went to the second bar in an attempt to find an ex-coworker
at an old hang-out. i wasn't going to, but i figured that was my old, anti-social self rearing it's head. it seemed foolish not to at least check as i was in the neighborhood. i said hi to jay the bouncer who was outside with the rest of the buzzed smokers (smoking is banned in boston and nearby cities now). i complimented him on his hair, although it's now an unnatural shade of blonde. a bunch of months ago, he talked me into dying his hair. i thought it was a weird ploy to get over the house. i never called him like a said i would. i felt momentarily disingenuous, not for the unfulfilled offer, but for the compliment. i had to say something though and couldn't think of anything else to buffer the bit of discomfort i feel walkin into an irish pub by myself. that shortly ended after i walked in and saw about 200 ppl just standing wherever there was an inch of space. there were a lot more women then men it seemed, but a lotta riled up folks, nonetheless. but to my delayed pleasure, no one chain-smoking in my face! i should say that i barely noticed the lack of smoke in either bar until i stopped to notice it. i have to say, i do like it. sorry. i couldn't find my co-worker. it just wasn't in the cards. no amount of glove-twisting could have changed that. I went home early. I'm glad i did.

It was a night of seemingly hard feelings over what i perceive to be a a fairly innocuous "game." i dunno, it seems like there's this tacit connection between blind patriotism and blind fanism. why is that? and why do people become really religious all of a sudden over country and baseball?

To watch the footage on the local news now just proves how attached folks get to winning, whether it be a quasi-war or a baseball game. anyone associated with the "other side" is an enemy. that's why fans fight i figure. because the average american thinks in such stark, black and white terms, there can be no in between. you either are or you are not. i remember the same faces yelling "bitch" at the screen tonight, extolling the blue-collar virtues of George W. Bush. We want to see the hero in everyone---the winner in everyone. We want it so bad, we will attack anyone who gets in our way. Is it because we feel like "losers"? And if I ask God to make me win and i still lose, is God a loser too?

I watched footage of traumatized 10 year olds on Landsdowne street who said "this is the worst day of my life." Leave it to pre-pubescence to be melodramatic, but where does that come from? Someone at my table tonight actually said "If the red sox win, I'm going to have the same gut-wrenching feeling i had when Bush won the election." What? I dunno. Really? I just don't get it.

Anyway, that's what happened to me tonight. I'm off to do some stuff tomorrow that will hopefully involve some calmness. In the future, I will likely avoid such heated competitions. It's not the game itself I don't like, it's the reactions that I can't get into.

This being that ripe time of year that...

the dead is unearthed, I thought it fitting to
let y'all know that there is a cool horror-fest going on in Salem MA for those of us who are hopelessly obsessed with b-grade horror flicks:

The Toxic Avenger
Zombie
The Gates of Hell
August Underground's Mordum

Friday October 24th
Museam Place Cinemas
in the mall at museum place
1 Church st.
Salem Mass

all night pass $20
$7.50 per individual show

6PM -Midnight
any questions email
rob@godofvampires.com

Anyone interested in a slick, full-feature film about Chinese Vampire Slayers (eat your heart out Sarah Michelle!), please check out www.godofvampires.com. Robbie forges on with filming. I'm trying to convince my friend Mary to play a vampire, but fear the proposition might have scared her away forever.

In other news, Bush has stated that, the media.....(drum roll.....) IS NOT OBJECTIVE!?!?!? *gasp*