What kind of a life could it be if you don’t have a girlfriend, and you’ve still been too busy to blog?
I’m not sure, either.
Lately I’ve: worked on building a dresser, had a friend from Costa Rica visit, bought a new cellphone, celebrated a wedding, continued to help out in the planning of another, and not gone to the beach. My priorities are all screwed up.
My friend Crob sent me this (you’re big-time now, ba-bee!), knowing that I’m a bleeding heart, tree-hugging, hippy liberal. It’s a pretty sobering view of the progression of deaths over the last 2 years of the “coalition” forces in Iraq.
Of particular interest to me, once the presentation is done, and all of the deaths are represented on screen, you can visually display deaths by participating country. If you un-click all of the also-rans, and end with the U.S,. it’s shocking to see how little the display changes… meaning that the huge majority of fatalities belong to us. The coalition is indeed inredibly unbalanced.
.: Meth abuse at work on the rise
>.: SpongeBob SquarePants selling vegetables
.: Coke using 50k liters/day of water despite a crippling drought. (drink Pepsi)
I’ve either been somehow keeping myself busy, lately, or, nothing of interest has happened to me. I’m hoping it’s the former.
On Saturday, I went to an Indian wedding (which was really a Sri Lankan wedding [which was really a Sri Lankan/Chinese wedding]), which was my first experience outside the North American norm in regards to marital ceremonies.
Actually, that’s not true, last year I was in A & A’s wedding and they had two hippy priests/pastors/spiritual advisors/Scientologists whatever. Scandalous!
Anyway, apparently the thing about Indian weddings (dots not feathers) is that no one really pays all that much attention. I’m not sure if it has to do with the fact that a lot of it is in The Sanskrit, or that it’s more of a private ceremony between the participants, but I spent the entire time wandering around the back, alternatively taking pictures, and talking with friends. This was normal. A lot of people showed up late and just cruised in without looking sheepish, too.
The other thing(s) about Indian weddings is that:
.: they are long
.: there are snacks!
.: the snacks repel most white people
.: there are a lot of hott bollywood women
Also, after 6 or 7 rum & cokes of increasing rum concentration, I am totally into Indian music.
The Floorpie NewsBreak
.: Steve Jobs calls the father of a boy slain for his iPod. Which I think is cool. Doesn't change the tragedy of the matter, of course, but it's cool.
.: Angelina Jolie adopts Ethiopian orphan. Which I think is also cool. Funny, though, that I have no compunctions about dating that twice-divorced single mother of two.
.: London scores 2012 Olympics handing Paris it's 3rd loss in a row. Russian judges score perfect 10's across the board.
.: Prince Albert acknowledges fathering an illegitimate son...in a can!
Bush crashes his bike into a policeman. I used to run into people all the time, too on my bike... when I was 5!
.: 450 sheep jump to their deaths in Turkey, a la lemmings
Tony Pierce (and the Discovery Channel) did this thing, listing his 100 Greatest American Men of all time, in honor of this country’s achievements and whatnot.
I’m totally going to copy his idea as I sit here in the near dark listening to the sounds of the rocket’s red glare that aren’t really rockets (bottle or otherwise) but are instead most likely lame Piccolo Pete’s and snakes… except for the one neighbor who, as time goes on, I’m getting more and more the urge to kill. He or she has the fireworks that squeal really loud for a second and then explode: SCREEEEEEEE-*POP*. It’s the 4th of July, I say to myself, cut the guy some slack, you’re just jealous… which was true 6 hours ago. He or she, however has been steadily at it since around 3 o’clock this afternoon, lighting off what seems to be an infinite supply of these things every 20 seconds or so for the last 9 hours. SCREEEEEEEE-*POP* pause pause SCREEEEEEEE-*POP* pause pause SCREEEEEEEE-*POP*, etc etc ad nauseum. I marvel at how endlessly entertained this guy (or girl) seems to be by something so repetitive and now annoying.
My plan, as midnight approaches, is to light a sparkler, thereby getting this person’s undivided attention. “oooh shiny!” it will say and follow me everywhere. I will then drive slowly up into the Hollywood Hills, fast enough so that it can’t catch me but slow enough to keep it’s interest. Then, I’ll throw the last of my sparklers into the Griffith Observatory’s Planetarium, keeping my neighbor occupied for the next week or so. By the time it emerges, Independence Day should most likley be over and all will be right with the world.
100 (or until I run out), Greatest Americans
by David Kleeman1. Jack Kerouac – for writing the best book ever made
2. Benjamin Franklin – because I watched a History Channel bio on him today, and he kicks ass
3. Thomas Edison – for making light, and it was good
4. Abraham Lincoln – for ending slavery
5. Martin Luther King Jr. – for continuing the fight
6. Alexander Calder – for changing my life
7. The Wright Brothers – for creating dreams
8. Hugh Hefner – for being Hugh Hefner
9. Albert Einstein – Because e=mc2 mothafucka
10. Oprah – because you don’t make a list like this and leave off Oprah
11. Frank Sinatra
12. John Wayne
13. Steven Spielberg
14. Charles Lindbergh
15. Michael Jackson
16. Michael Jordan
17. Lance Armstrong
18. JFK
19. Neil Armstrong
20. Elvis Presley
21. Chuck Yeager
22. Amelia Earhart
23. Angelina Jolie
24. George Washington
25. Howard Hughes
26. Rosa Parks
27. Charles Bukowski
28. Bill Gates
29. Carl Sagan
30. Steve Jobs
31. Magic Johnson
32. Kurt Vonnegut
33. Ernest Hemingway
34. Mark Twain
35. Henry Ford
36. The Wright Brothers
37. Hank Aaron
38. Louis Armstrong
39. Al Green
40. Jimmy Stewart
41. Marilyn Monroe
42. Sammy Davis Jr.
43. Matt Groening
44. Bill Clinton
45. Howard Stern
46. Lewis & Clark
47. Wyatt Earp
48. Every girl I ever loved
49. Thomas Jefferson
50. Jonas Salk
51. Jesse Owens
52. John Glenn
53. Walt Disney
54. Cesar Chavez
55. Ray Charles
56. Stevie Wonder
57. Lucille Ball
58. Cassius Clay
59. Ansel Adams
60. Robert Oppenheimer
61. Edgar Allan Poe
62. Ronald Reagan
63. Sears
64. Kareem Abdul Jabbar
65. Frank Loyd Wright
66. Chuck Berry
67. Charles and Ray Eames
68. Carson
69. Babe Ruth
70. John D. Rockefeller
71. Donald Trump
72. Paris Hilton
73. Alexander Graham Bell
74. Davy Crockett
75. Clara Barton
76. John Steinbeck
77. Bill Murray
78. Les Paul
79. J.D. Salinger
80. Al Capone
81. Bill Shatner
82. P.T. Barnum
83. Mel Blanc
84. Ray Bradbury
85. Georgia O’Keefe
86. John Muir
87. Napolean Dynamite
88.
All weekends should be 3-day weekends; or, more correctly, all weekends should be 3-day weekends in SoCal. Yesterday I went kayaking in the marina, beaching at Venice, and BBQ hosting at my place. I’m a little bit sunburned, have a fridge full of leftovers, and have a new best day ever to add to my list.
Bush slammed for Iraq link to 9/11Critics of the U.S. war in Iraq have condemned President George W. Bush for attempting to link the insurgency there with the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.
In a televised address marking a year since the U.S. handover of sovereignty in Iraq, Bush urged Americans not to “forget the lessons of September 11.”…
…But Democrats accused the president of reviving a questionable link between Iraq and 9/11.
“I think the American people are a lot smarter than that,” Delaware Sen. Joseph Biden said. “They’ve figured this out.”
And in Britain, Lynne Jones, a lawmaker in Prime Minister Tony Blair’s ruling Labour Party, said any attempt to suggest that Iraq was a response to the September 11 attacks was “absolute nonsense.”
“There is absolutely no connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda,” she said.
“What they have ensured, in invading Iraq, is they have actually promoted al Qaeda’s involvement in other countries, including Iraq.”
When are the Bush supporters going to finally come out of the woodwork and admit they were wrong? There was no link between Osama and Saddam. There were no Weapons of Mass Destruction. John Kerry didn’t fake it in Vietnam. And Bush takes waaaay too much vacation. etc etc etc
Both candidates have pretty dismal school records, both candidates are silver-spooned trust fund babies, and both candidates have hot daughters (wait, what?)
So come on, Republicans, just admit that the war was a bad, unjustified idea, and having an alcoholic religious zealot in the White House might not have been such a great idea after all. We’re lazy liberals, man, that’s all we need! We’re not going to go to the actual trouble of doing anything about it. There’s no way we could muster up the energy to go through anything as tedious as an impeachment… I mean we can barely motivate ourselves enough to protest. All we need is for you to admit it.
I am a semi-sporadic story writer. Lately, it’s been more sporadic, than actual; partly due to this blog, but mostly to some other undefined reason. It’s much easier to blame something like floorpie.net than look inward. At any rate, I have (and have had) several friends tell me that I should be a writer, or write scripts for The Simpsons, or whatnot. The thing is, I only have short stories in me, and they’re always dramatic or tragic. Not a bad thing, of course, but I don’t see Homer killing his best friend in an alcoholic fog, and then driving off a cliff to end the guilt (not an actual story, by the way, but maybe it should be).
At any rate, I felt guilty about not really writing that much, lately, and I forced myself to write a few beginnings. You’ll see what I mean about the dramatic thing:
I
I am not a story teller, never claimed to be. I just tell the events how they happened; or, at least how I want to remember them. I am old, and beyond the censure of conscience or vivid memory. There are only a few things I hold as incontrovertible truths about those days. One, James died. Two, Marcus lost what was left of his mind when James lost his will to live; and three, I am here, somehow, to relay the facts.Not awful, right? You’re MAYBE wondering where it’s going… but it’s obviously going somewhere depressing
II
The bullets seemed almost playful, like an overly aggressive child unaware of his own strength. They whizzed by happily, at times caroming off a table top or the concrete floor to go ringing off into the darkness. At times burrowing deep furrows into this same concrete or taking fist-sized chunks out of the pillar Jack was crouching behind.It was a game.
It was game that Jack would prefer to win.
“How did I get here?” Jack wondered aloud to himself, muttering aloud with humor in his voice. “How the fuck did I get here?”
Marginally passable imagery, enticing but played beginning. But a shoot-out? That’s so cliche… I don’t think I could turn that in to anything of substance
III
After she left, this time for the last time, he shut himself off. TO the outside world, he appeared normal. A little understandably sad, a little darker, but fine overall. The wit was still there, the alertness, but he was definitely off… the trick being that he was so good at it, he knew how to appear not to be.And then he was gone. For real this time.
Autobiographical much?
IV
In second half of 1974, late enough to be cool, but too early to be cold, a son was born to a happy… more relieved… couple. The relief came from the accomplishment and the perseverance over an un-said fear. They had lost one, a girl, some years before… not in the routine tragedy of miscarriage, but in something far worse. They had returned from the hospital, that time, to silently pack away the blankets shaded pink, to quietly gather and give away the toys and mobiles and crib. They bottled their sorrow and pain as they packed. For a while, they turned away from one another; not in blame, but in personal despair. Eventually, though they clung to each other, regrouped, reassessed, tried again.A son was born.
This would be the golden child for a time. He had to be, he was living for two. And, before he vanished, he was this impossible thing… somehow.
I’m thinking this one has the most promise…
The problem with all of these is that I never think ahead. I always work things out as I go along… which is probably OK for a short story, but not for something of any length. Actually, is that a problem? Any kind of creativity is good creativity, right?
Went to The Beach 4 out of the last 6 days. This is why you should all live in SoCal.
Day 4, at Huntington, we were out in the line-up and, just as a set was starting to roll in, a dorsal fin broke the surface of the water. I was in the process of catching a wave at the time, and only saw a splash out of the corner of my eye. I had just enough to time to inwardly wonder if I just saw what I thought I just saw before I was busy riding a decent wave. Paddling back out, my thoughts were confirmed, so I paddled all the faster and coasted into the middle of 4 or 5 dolphins playing in the water. They were obviously the real locals, and were taking their rightful place at the front of the line-up.
And for the record, maybe I’m naive, or maybe it’s just because I’m in the water so much, but when I see fins I first thing “dolphin”, and maybe then “genetically mutated sea zebra”. “Shark” is like, 28th on the list.
I’ve seen dolphons in the water before, but never this close (10 feet at the closest), and never this many all at once. As the next wave rolled in, the dolphin closest to me aimed himself (herself?) towards the shore, paused just long enough for the wave to catch up to him, and then launched himself, riding the wave in.
Coolest. thing. ever.
