One Night on Laurel

Disintegration or Rebirth of a Nation?

2011-11-21T17:20:00.000-08:00

I do ponder exactly WHY there's been such a disconnect between those who want to restore our democracy away from the current direction of special interests back to the interest of the people.

Seems like, in reality, before the Tea Party was basically hijacked by right-wing extremists it had much more in common with the Occupy movement than is commonly believed. Both want freedom, an almost libertarian Utopia.

The difference is really only the social issues manufactured by the religious right, the largely heterosexual christian crowd who condemn gay marriage while their own track record is pushing below fifty per cent success rate.

Or decrying marijuana use while decimating livers and lives through drunken excess. Or celebrating the right to carry assault weapons then decrying urban violence.

Or professing the sanctity of life at inception yet condoning the death penalty.

Otherwise, we all want a sensible tax structure, the right to live as we please as long as we hurt no one else, and the expectation of a comfortable life in the richest large country on the planet. Is that asking to much? Time for a loya jurga with the two groups, and a mind reset.

Welcome aboard, all!

OCCUPY PLUMMER PARK

2011-11-14T19:31:00.000-08:00

WEHO SHOULD not be immune to a bit of healthy protest.

The ENDLESS OVERSPENDING and OVERBUILDING has decimated the friendly,

artsy vibe and caused a cavalcade of congestion on our neighborhood streets.

We need to STOP CITY HALL from killing it ALL.

They just want these big developer projects for funding for higher office campaigns. It's a tradition in our Creative City. It's a bad one.

It's soils everything. I say, call 'em on it and

FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS FAIR AND FINE

get the VERNON-like fat cat politicos OFF council and OUT of our minds, already!

A candidate can win with 100K to challenge them,

but Steve Martin came within 300 votes with just 10K--it can be DONE!!!!

Duty NOW for the FUTURE!

SIGN THE PETITION

Change.org and then search: Plummer

Listen to DEVO! They KNOW! OCCUPY 66 & Sweetzer!!!

Behold The Glorious TAQUILA MOCKINGBIRD

2010-02-24T17:19:00.000-08:00

A fantastic set again from the Amazing

TAQUILA MOCKINGBIRD!

Her quartet of accomplished musicians Blond Moondust, including amazing drummer BOOMBOOM

kept the vibe very, very jazzy as Ms. T went through her standards crooning in a voice at once reminiscent of Billie, Edith, Marlene and even Genya Ravan. Falling In Love Again was captivating and as the classics poured forth, My Funny Valentine reminded us (as did TAQUILA) that she became engaged on Valentine's Day! Host Egor at

Isla Cantina on the Sunset Strip was swept away into another world by her performance...and the guests by the ambience, cuisine and locale. Stay posted for more performances by this most accessible, yet arcane, of divas.

Rumor has it she'll be performing at the SOLAR THE SIGN

benefit @ ISLA CANTINA on March 27th.

BARACKATTACK

2010-01-20T09:44:00.000-08:00

DEMS DID IT TO THEMSELVES

GOSH they're such NICE guys n gals they get STOMPED ON left n right.

Mostly right.

I think if OBAMA had not been swayed by trying so hard to stay the course his advisers suggested, we'd be:

In less debt

Winning hearts and minds in Afghanistan

Calling a Loya Jurga for all Muslims to confront worldwide opinion against radicalism

Working a Peace Corps angle for American youth.

Seems almost every single security/military type is a holdover.

The photo op with

Republican Presidents Bush 43 and Clinton

(you read that right) over Haiti was sickening.

The man who allowed the fiasco after Katrina should not share a photo op at the White House he helped trash.

He should fade into ignominy.

SO NOW the majority is lost in the Senate, even though it barely matters as the Dems let the Healthcare reform bill whittle away to the size of a small band-aid™.

Maybe we need a Teddy ROOSEVELT, not an FDR.

I don't have the answer, and apparently no one else does either.

I have laughed at Becknpalin et al for months now, but it seems this lunatic fringe of a marginalized party is not causing mass defections after all. PROOF that a bevy of self-centered non-compassionate users run the 'Pubs and have since my birth, at least.

BRING ON THE LIBERTARIANS!!!!!!!

The Conspiracy of Conspiracies

2010-01-04T18:56:00.001-08:00

Somedays I can be easily mistaken for BROTHER THEODORE. Waking up and peering from under the covers, blinds tightly drawn, it's easy to imagine that certain elements of this planet are out to get me. And you.

Sure, I've had a few stalkers, probably due to my unbearably intoxicating good looks. A dragqueen, a mixed up bi boy, a geezer: the usual suspects. But they were largely harmless, unlike my current certifiable stalker who sends me threatening e-mails signed, Love and Peace or some such incongruous catchphrase. The internets make it really, really easy to be tracked down, and you don't have to scale my estate walls with duct tape and rope at ready to find me at your mercy.

Big cities are anonymous, good or bad, and it's hard to tell if that person is actually following me down the street and just seems familiar or in fact has TASER™ in hand, ready for a stun and toss in the back of a black SUV headed for the hills, some dungeon or romp room a the ready.

LIVING IN FEAR is not an option, but one thing I learned in NYC at three ayem crossing Cooper Union from Village east to west: STAY ALERT! Look around: looking a little menacing yourself, a little crazy, is always an option. I was never hassled in Manhattan, and this in the Age of Crack, yet.

So if you come up to me on the street because we are facebook™ "Friends" please ID yourself, and give a reference. Otherwise, my BROTHER THEODORE MINDSET might take over and I just might be the one pulling out a TASER™

COPROCK

2009-12-11T19:23:00.000-08:00

Drunken slobs on Paycheck Fridays at the oft-lampooned LA Police Academy, resulting in the DUI death of a young motorcycle officer, wrapping his bike around a post.

LAPD sting operations against gay men in the bushes bordering Weho. The Moreno Valley flack jacket and armed invasion of black-owned barber shops ostensibly for licensing violations. Gay bar patrons harassed and beaten. A homeless women armed with only a screwdriver and obviously mentally disturbed shot like carnival target.

I hereby volunteer to change the course and direction of my colorful life for a new goal:

Teaching sensitivity to men and women in uniform. Not in Iraq or Afghanistan, but in the streets and cars and bedrooms of America, where overzealous and under-trained cops seem to overreact more often than not.

I was recently able to pose a question to new LAPD CHIEF CHARLIE BECK about the above referenced entrapment of gay men, and how LAPD jut didn’t get it. Neither did the West Hollywood Sheriff’s Department, I opined, until we throttled them a bit and got some response…Beck pledged to work toward interagency cooperation, and gosh, I think he really means it. There’s no reason that these organizations aren’t all on the same big, fat, recycled page, the page with large typeface easy to read by all with no subtext and no connotations. Just the facts, ma’am and those facts are that well, let’s not shoot to kill every sing time, or get the wrong address in a raid, or assume guilt based on skin color or location, among other obvious factors.

Imagine, for a moment, you are a black man, established in the

African American community, and bursting in your doorway, ready to haul you off to the hoosegow. The era of water cannons and lynching might well reside in the memory banks of this barber: certainly the history of the struggle is not forgotten.

Perhaps it would be wise to enter with the Board of Barbering and Cosmetology inspectors, ask to see the requisite paperwork, and then act accordingly. I know, that gleaming black leather, shiny firearms and polished badge make it hard to resist leaning on people and using that might. That’s where the training comes into play. That’s where Chief Beck’s Community Policing policy comes into play. Sorry, Gates, it is broke and we do have to fix it. You’re old school and it’s a new era, an era where we work together for the common good, not uncommon greed and power. See you in time for Police Academy 8, or whatever number they’re up to. In this one, there’s less to laugh at, and more to laugh with.

A Poem

2009-10-22T13:08:00.000-07:00

Route 66 Sunday Morning 106 Degrees

The Ford door flies open propelled

massive greasy head of hair falls out

head smashed tight onto the gravel

door swings back hits head hard

settles against ear squeal ringing

aching jaw just cracked with fist

of crazed shirtless tattooed driver

raw anger alive in clenched form

shot with unnerving force

blackout…

brown greasy bag hits pavement

shatters - a muffled smash

hands yank at jeans

in pockets like a hundred wired snakes

few crumpled bills, not ten dollars

snatched as desert water, gone, gone

boot push on crotch as shoulders fall from ford

next rump then legs and a final

kick from a scuffed heel

dust tires screeching silence

hot desert all around waiting

for the buzzard dance

boots akimbo

Patti Has The POWER

2009-09-07T21:13:00.000-07:00

Patti Smith. The Santa Monica Pier. It seems a hundred years ago I bought Horses, and it was the hundredth anniversary of the pier. Kismet! I raced from Wilshire and 6th to the pier, passing bossa nova and musak™ emanating from restaurant to cafe, following the herd through the darkness punctuated with tasteful lighting, across Ocean Avenue and up to the pier entry, where strains of Michael Jackson swamped the atmosphere, drowning out all else. Turn a corner and BOOM it was Patti Smith onstage, with Lenny Kaye going crazy, and Flea on bass. Flea on bass!

It was all there: the cusp of a full moon, referenced with revere by Patti, a Pagan Goddess of the highest order. Thundering chords broke the night, Pissing in a River, now realized as a true anthemic rock classic; PEOPLE HAVE THE POWER, a commercial hit and rad sentiment; a great spoken word diatribe on life in Venice and such; great song after great song. Then it came, "Suddenly, Johnny gets the feeling, he's surrounded by horses, horses, running in from all directions..."

I was hearing my favorite album cut live. Chills, everywhere, racing through the crowd like H1N1, a spasmic waves of white people hippie beach culture euphoria filling the over capacity crowd with a coalescing strength that built and built JESUS DIED FOR SOMEBODY'S SINS BUT NOT MINE!!!

Ellie Greenwich, the amazing songwriter of the 60's-70's was an inspiration for Patti, and she sang a song of hers for the encore.

Magic. Some artists never age, never become irrelevant. Patti Smith was an iconoclast in the seventies, and she's one still. I hung out with her briefly at ONE FIFTH in NYC back in the day, and it was awesome. She was totally unique. I though I was. We got along great. Ah, those days. Winston Watson, my pal hung out on tour with the band for weeks and weeks and loved it. Ah, rock n roll. Nothing like it. Power to the People!!

photo Matt Reno

AMAZING GRACE

2009-07-28T10:36:00.000-07:00

Spectacle. Like the Follies Bergere school of spectacle. A spectacular. In the grand tradition of LIBERACE, NINA HAGEN, SARAH BRIGHTMAN , Genesis Lamb Lies Down era Peter Gabriel,

Diamanda Galás and a slew of shamen and wizards throughout history, GRACE JONES CONQUERED THE HOLLYWOOD BOWL and made us all slaves to her rhythm. Playing dynamic new tracks from the current album HURRICANE, Ms. Jones blew the roof off the-oh, wait, THERE IS NO ROOF, just the stars above and a diva. To hear GRACE JONES live, singing LA VIE EN ROSE without a DAT machine but with an actual band, was magnifique.

Having booked Ms. Jones in the disco days, it's a treasure to see and hear her still in the best of form. I remember her rider in the heady days requested the usual diva excess- white orchids, a slew of fine terry towels, and, written in the actual fax, an eight ball of blow for Ms. J and a gram for each member of her entourage. Ah, the disco days.

I partied with ANDY WARHOL AND GRACE JONES at the LIMELIGHT ATLANTA where she was in her dominatrix mode, men on dog collars and all fours at her feet. Whip in hand. EXCELLENT.

When I lived in Paris, I'd call GRACE and MASSIMO and inevitably her son Paulo would pick up, and try to get me to sign him instead to perform. Hehe. He's the son of artist Jean Paul Goude.

Back to the show. KCRW put together a fine evening, and JOSELLE GILVEZAN (photography for this blog post) and hubby DAN GILVEZAN made for excellent company. Joselle saw GRACE with me at the SPECTRUM DISCO in GAINESVILLE, FLORIDA back in the "DO OR DIE" era. LONG LONG HISTORY there...

Grace's costumes were HIGH ART, designed by Eiko Ishioka and changed out for each song, with witty banter from the diva backstage while changing...the only bummer being not enough time to hear 3-4 more tracks from her near exhaustive repertoire of classic dance tracks. Her work was always edgy, and it's become even more so in the decades between albums. Corporate Cannibal was spectacular as a video clip on the screens...

If you missed the show, you missed a treasured moment in history. Josephine Baker would be smiling down at Grace and offering her props for a life well done. BRAVA!!

Iranamok

2009-06-17T14:00:00.000-07:00

What to make of this IRANIAN REVOLUTION? Or is it that...a country with a majority of its population under the age of twenty-five might not be all enamored with the old folks running the show. Is it that the youth of Iran,

all twittered and cell phoned and texted and netted are yearning for a call to freedom, of personal freedom to live a life unhindered by Islamic Fundamentalism? Is it that non-Islamic minorities in Iran have no voice? Is it that the largely secular youth-not the fanatic Muslim youth of film reel lore-want to

step into the 21st Century?

MAINSTREAM U.S. PRESS has been cautious to play down claims of voter fraud and to state that the MIRACLE OF AHMADINEJAD'S REELECTION is somehow considered credibly by a bulk of Iran's population as indeed a miracle (NYT) yet not elaborating that the true cause is in fact most likely fraud, especially since the opposition candidate lost in his hometown of Tabriz. Candidate Mousavi, a conservative moderate has a massive following. , All "liberal" candidates were purged from running for office-and the threat of assassination has hung over Mousavi's head, even though the current regime has a stated interest in keeping him alive. Should he be killed, riots would inevitably ensue. The dreaded adjunct to the regular secret police has shot and killed protesters in the streets.

The Sorrow of the Pretty

2009-06-09T16:35:00.000-07:00

Seems like there should be a solemn obligation among the liberal and wealthy to donate massively to charitable causes. The results are inarguable. Look, for example, at the great work done by the JIMMY CARTER groups in virtually eliminating guinea worm- a crippling, debilitating water born parasite that no longer plagues great swaths of people. Look at ERIC CLAPTON's substance abuse clinic in the Bahamas. Or BRANGELINA's efforts to restore housing in post-KATRINA NEW ORLEANS. Why, then don't the BEATLES reunite with DHANI HARRISON and SEAN LENNON for a world tour of one year duration, with all profits to benefit the impoverished in third world countries, with expenses coming out of SIR PAUL's BILLIONS of dollars? Or the selfish asses ABBA, who were offered another BILLION DOLLARS to get off their fat asses, bite the animosity bullet and take six months to please their fans and do a great service to the world? Their personal issues transcend the spirit of cooperation for the worthiest of causes- eliminating human suffering? Or is it just their fat asses are unstageworthy? I have an excellent trainer they could work with. Ditto LED ZEPPELIN. Imagine this tour:

ON THE ROAD AGAIN TOUR 2010

THE BEATLES LED ZEPPELIN ABBA

PINK FLOYD STARLAND VOCAL BAND

I'd be so the roadie for that show. You know what? I'd take a year off too and work for free,

after all, IT'S FOR A GOOD CAUSE!!!!!!!

L.A. Thunder

2009-06-03T15:49:00.000-07:00

Seems ODD to see actual weather in L.A.

Clouds, even THUNDER & LIGHTNING are the order of the day.

Between the coffee, the clouds and the indelible image of the Hamburgler, er

DICK CHENEY planted forever like a twisted virus in my line of sight,

the classic FUNK has taken hold, countered by an ebullience that ebbs and wanes like a tide,

washing over me and taking the edge off the grim environs.

I ponder often what life would be like in a different climate than Southern California.

I remember what it has been like in the past.

Freezing cold winters in Bavaria, skiing shirtless in the sunshine in Telluride or Steamboat Springs, powder washing over abs and nipples at full attention...

...or the abject sorrow of damp melancholy permeating Seattle,

an endless mist coercing introspection and loneliness.

This day in L.A. shall pass, as the June Gloom dissipates and the brilliant sunshine bursts forth in a steady ray of warm joy that encompasses all. The gigantic ficus trees, an unlikely cousin of the apartment variety soars skyward to embrace the sun, filled with starlings and a microkingdom of nature's beauty. The towering palms sway in the breeze over Sunset Boulevard, dropping the occasional massive frond with a crack and whoosh onto the unsuspecting passersby or parked cars.

As the seeming shift from Mediterranean arid climate to full on desert seems to take hold here in the southland, the long days seem even drier and hotter than before. Reservoirs run low, creeks dry up and the delicate tropical plantings demand their unfair share of the precious resource. Maybe a day or two of overcast skies isn't such a bad thing after all.

PROP H8 Rally Rocks Boystown Yet Again!

2009-05-27T11:26:00.000-07:00

Last night was yet another march for equality for all. As sis Joselle and I walked over from Bev Hills, we noticed a lack of cars on Santa Monica Boulevard in anticipation of the Prop 8 protest march, but we also noticed a lack of protesters. It was 7:45, well into the scheduled time frame...

downing our Millions of Shakes Paris Hiltons, we promenaded to the center of San Vicente and SMBLVD in the heart of Boystown, surrounded by about 150-200 protesters. The news crews seemed to outnumber the crowd, and we were embarrassed for the community. Postulation:

LGBTQ&Q crowd is just plain tired of it all, worn down by bigotry and ready to collectively withdraw from those who do not want us.

Then, at 8 bells, hurrah! We looked back and HORDES had surged up the boulevard, thousands of marchers. Cameras are flashing so we go to the vortex and there is a petite blonde smiling at us. It's Drew Barrymore

so we go over and catch cosmic dust off her aura. As we march on shake in hand we spot

Robin Tyler and Diane Olson

the lesbian couple who helped initiate the lawsuit that started the debate.

They were dressed all in white, and told us that they'd been all over the planet representin' for the peeps, and we should keep the faith. Robin said, hang in there, civil rights always eventually come to fruition, there is no turning back the march of progress. Inspiring words from leaders we can all admire.

Joselle and I marched up to City Hall and then beat a hasty retreat. Not up for the march for miles, we did our part and then headed back to the safe environs of Villa Gilvezan, where the flat screen and cold Corona made for a pleasant capper to yet another stupendous night in

West Hollywood.

Bombed In Burbank

2009-05-12T17:34:00.000-07:00

Talking to Edward, a courier here in Hollywood. Used to work gate security at Burbank Airport.

The stories! Guy filled a shaving cream canister with cocaine. That would have maybe worked, except he stuck a pipe in the same canister. Metal detector...pipe. Not a good combo. Busted.

Every single day, someone would get busted at Burbank.

Every single day.

One lady refused to be searched when she was setting off the metal detector. She wouldn't relent. So Edgar called the cops, and they came and she had rolls of twenty dollar bills alternated with cocaine wrapped all across her thin frame. She was wearing overalls, and the metal buttons and loops set off the alarm. Note to self: no overalls when muling.

And Aaron Sorkin. Edward popped him. Sez he was red faced and all wobbly. The dope was carrying five-count 'em five metal crack pipes. And five different kinds of drugs, from shrooms to coke. When Edgar grabbed his elbow and pulled him aside, he fainted like a wimp. Later, he claimed that the drugs were planted on him by Edgar and team. Three cameras and overhead mics disproved the idiocy of this claim. As Edgar said, he wouldn't know Sorkin from Adam.

Sorkin got probation. Had he been black, he'd still be in jail today.

No jail time for Aaron.

To claim through his attorneys that the drugs were planted by the security staff is a cowardly act. Shame on him. Shame.

Edgar lost his job when 9/11 occurred and Bush put in government employees.

On that inauspicious day in September, Burbank airport received twenty bomb threats. Twenty. Lot of sick people out there. Who would do this? On that day? Another round of Islamic extremists? Mentally ill agitators? Who? Does that mean every airport in America got dozens of bomb threats on September 11? It boggles the mind. The FBI has notr revealed this to this day.

Even before 9/11, Edgar was a hero. He saved many lives. I'll tell you how. One day, a suspicious carry-on bag was in the x-ray machine, and Edgar noticed it was odd. He'd seen many laptops, but this one was different. The guts were largely missing. The bag was removed, and a special wand that detects explosives was used. Three times it tested positive for C-4, one of the most harmful of chemical explosives. The laptop was rigged to go off at the push of a button. They checked the terrorist's bag further and saw he was only flying with two t shirts and a half empty bottle of vodka. He was a suicide bomber. There was enough explosive to crater the entire airport and much of Burbank, apparently. If Edgar hadn't been alert, that laptop would have gone through to a terminal area, pre-boarding and blown everyone up. When stopped and cuffed, he had no ticket for a flight. He had lied and said he had a Southwest ticket. He didn't.

A robot came and took the bomb away. The FBI took the terrorist, and then came back to the security team. All of Edgar's co-workers had touched the bag. It tested positive also for a corrosive chemical, and the other workers were carted off to a fire station, stripped, given a scrub down shower and their clothes burnt. They were given clothes by the fireman, and reported back to work. Edgar was commended by the FBI and Burbank police. The entire incident was played down as a minor threat, so as not to alarm passengers and others at the airport.

Perhaps if it had been played up and we would all have been more aware, more attention would have been paid to the threat and 9/11 could have been prevented.

Roy's Right Wing Diatribe

2009-05-06T17:15:00.001-07:00

Rwanda is doing it right, after a massive genocide that killed a million Tutsi tribe members by the prevailing Hutus. Today, fifteen years later, the country is in great shape, according to a fine article in The New Yorker by Philip Gourevitch. He recounts how the country has healed its wounds with healing councils and open dialog, culminating in a forgiveness exchange that is both cathartic and monumental in its scope.

Gourevtich tells us Rwanda now has universal health care, has banned plastic bags and has extensive cell phone coverage.

Zimbabwe and other African nations led by despotic rulers are falling apart into massive chaos. It seems odd that as far along as humankind has progressed we still allow for governments to be run by tyrants.

It seems to me the powerful first world nations are okay with this status quo, after all is said, and find these governments stabilize the third world in an endless loop of ongoing corruption. To believe that America or a EU nation couldn't actually devise a stealth exploding cigar or other some such nonsense to assassinate the despot seems incredible. If we can pinpoint a missile to take out a terrorist, how can we believe a presidential palace couldn't be targeted. No one has to claim responsibility. Tyrant gone.

If we can do this, then we can torture. That would be the reason NOT to target Robert Mugabe or an admitted murderer (Raul Castro) or other monster. But, it's the only reason I can think of, if we weigh the value of millions of lives against the actions of one. Who'd make that call? Hell, where do I sign?

The Specter/Spector phenom.

2009-04-29T12:43:00.001-07:00

The Specter/Spector phenom.

Sure it's a stretch, but the spectre of these two men and their transformations is startling.

First Phil Spector, genius savant of the recording industry, let's his demons get the better of him, and pays the price. Life in jail. Mansion gone. Reputation destroyed. His twisted power game, flaunted for decades and never censored from female victims to John Lennon. Power gone mad.

The Republican Party. Power gone mad. Idealogues refusing to strike a note of compromise on any issue, drunk with previous power and now marginalized to a fringe fanatic base. Party gone.

the Grand Old Party is now not so much a party as a warm beer shared among a few pathetic out of touch old men.

Result: good men like Arlen Specter- a moderate and sensible man-moves toward a pragmatic reality and for reasons both philosophical and self serving, defects to the Democrats to help achieve his essential agenda, from health care and health research funding to fighting poverty.

The IRONY is that Republicans, before being hijacked by the Religious Right (not all religious people are right wing, btw) stood for principles of protecting the individual and boosting those who have a desire to excel. Subversion under serial divorce diva Newt Gingrich and bloviating fatheads like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity have tilted the direction to the dark side of self interest over human compassion. The price to be payed is ostracization from the American people, who more and more understand that Democratic ideals of compassion run hand in hand with the philosophy of religious caring and concern for all God's peoples. Such that there is a god up there somewhere. Another issue for another day.

Ban Gang Thugs

2009-04-21T17:03:00.000-07:00

SNOPES CONFIRMS the gang headlights stories are urban legend. News stories about law officials tell us they claim gang murder initiations are mostly myth. There is no blanket concept of having to murder an innocent person to prove your worthiness (!) to be in a gang.

Then comes the story of the two murderers in Oceanside who shot a cop and killed him at a routine traffic stop and claimed they were in a gang initiation that required killing.

Once again, I say it: Outlaw gangs. Period. They are criminal enterprises, and have no other reason to exist. They should be federally outlawed and members who identify with a certain gang or gang element should be required to wear ankle monitors at all times to track their whereabouts, and federal injunctions should be issued to prevent assembly.

Is this a violation of civil rights? No, as under the RICO act your rights can be limited in the interest of fighting crime in a blighted area: in this case, almost all urban and now many suburban areas.

Border tightening? Sure, why not? A federal dna storage requirement for all in America, with a national ID card? How exactly once again does this play into the hands of Big Brother? Is anonymity in a free society an absolute right? I hope you have the answers, 'cause I only have the Big Questions.

THUNDER ROAR

2009-04-15T15:12:00.000-07:00

WHEN I GROW UP seems to be a common word assemblage lately...as in when I grow up I'm going to be a fireman, astronaut, doctor, or--

CRYSTAL METH ADDICT.

WHERE did we go so wrong as a culture that so many from all the strata of society, gay men to trailer trash to young professionals find themselves trapped in a spiral of addiction and despair?

Is it a disconnect from reality that is so desperately desired? Is it the added intensity that comes during sex, hours and hours on end? What, exactly is the draw?

DON'T GET ME WRONG I've tried everything shy of a needle-never understood that much work for a buzz-yet knew to pull back when things were looking too intense. It was a combo of suspect "friends" and loss of productivity, coupled with feeling like shit the next day that would shake me out of a stupor and back to reality. Did I have an ON/OFF switch that others lacked?

Why did some become so addicted to alcohol, drugs or internet porn (Duchovny, listening?) while I could party like a ROCK STAR and then walk away, not JONESING or begging to score at 4 ayem off a dirty street corner? Was there in fact a gene that made one susceptible to repeat desire to the extreme? Science says yes, yet were there in fact other factors involved? Addiction seemed to include all demographics, from RUSH LIMBAUGH to Indio methheads.

I WANT TO blame people for their own actions when they veer wildly out of control, but deeper issues are at stake, and it's just not fair to judge others when we don't know the intimate details of a life gone awry. Conjecture doesn't really help, either. Best to just be supportive if possible. Addicts don't want your opinion, they want their high, from food to heroin to Jack Daniels.

BANNING SUBSTANCES won't change things, for one can always find something to crave uncontrollably if that's intrinsic to one's personality.

I am thankful every day that I can keep these potential problems in check. I wish everyone else could, too. Then friends like JOHNNY THUNDERS and TED DEMME would still be with us today.

Bone crushing as a hobby

2009-04-08T16:22:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, it's just impossible to keep up, even with blogs being "so last year" and the tweet "so last month" it's time for the bytesight, where a single vowel free phrase or even word expresses what passes for thought today, making a haiku seem like a sonnet. Night time is tranquilizer time, soma-fied or ambienced into a lulled state, where the synapses settle and the overworked brain cells stop bouncing in a roiling boil. The anxiety of missing some hot bit of info that keeps us awake is mollified, and deep rest permeates, if only for six hours.

Then, it's up again and out the door. Bluetooth ready, gps set, xm blasting, outer world ignored.

Until it comes crashing in as in a Tom Wolfe novel, an inescapable circumstance, immediately regretted and resented for taking one out of one's embryonic shelter, as a deep sea diver in hot and salty sea.

To write the novel, or novella, or short story, or blurb, old school style, a missive that will never be mainstreamed or scholarly, never read by the few who practice the dying art of staring at non-pc display mediums. Kindle 4 will read to you, anything in the world, in a non-robotic voice, possibly the digitized utterings of a loved one or admired one. Headphones or planted chips keep the chatter active on a loop, constant words a la Fantastic Planet learning headsets... this is the future, where we ship all our paper and ink archaic objects called books to third world countries. Where libraries are ghosttowns save for cyber stations, where our hand held devices rule supreme, where we barely look up from a mugging, even one including us. It's our own version of a craven new word, not a brave new world.

We might think we are informed, but so much is dust in the wind. News is immediate, and yesterday's headlines destined for the junkpile of history. Nothing matters, nor should it. We have reverted to our primal state, and the basics, food, clothing, shelter, now must add online streaming and sexting to the equation.

Soon, all capability of human speech will be abandoned, and we will all become observers.

Only, at that point, one thing is more and more obvious: there will be nothing left to observe.

In a World of Human Wreckage

2009-04-02T10:19:00.000-07:00

Death is everywhere lately. I am fixated on the monsters who plowed into pedestrians at USC here in Los Angeles, killing a young girl and driving five hundred yards with her companion on the windshield, stopping, dragging him off, getting back in the car and fleeing. Monsters, hard to reconcile as human beings. The awfulness of the scenario is so unbearable, it makes me weep and distracts me throughout the day. Coupled with the latest story of the two elderly ladies killed crossing La Brea at Fountain-three blocks from my office-I can not focus on anything right now.

EVERYBODY SLOW DOWN and stop driving on drugs and drink. It's a little late in the game for that kind of sad behavior. Thug life and gangs are partially to blame, and the US needs to have more pilot programs to educate children and keep them out of trouble and harm's way, lest they in turn grow up to be the very monsters who killed these people. Like the drunk girl who smashed into my friend Izzy here on Fountain last year, killing him and throwing him one hundred feet into the air. Senseless tragedy. Hit and run madness. The evil that humans do makes me feel that we don't deserve this thing called life. It's hard to be hopeful. Maybe 2012 won't come soon enough.

Let The Music Play

2009-03-23T17:57:00.000-07:00

THERE IS NOTHING FINER than meeting up with long lost friends, people from your past who were there for the glory years, specifically the heyday of the 80's and 90's, a collaborative mishmash of cultural cataclysm expressed in music (PUNK ROCK, NEW WAVE, ELECTRONIC DANCE outrageous fashion (once again, PUNK; FIORUCCI and rocker/teddy...INDUSTRIAL chic...) and many many more manifestations of a planetary explosion of creativity, built off the creative vibes of the 60's and 70's with a touch of the avant-garde found in classical and jazz music of the era. Art for art sake, money for God's sake...piercings erupted, vinyl receded, color faded, goth had risen, drugs like MDA and MDMA and SHROOMS and yes COKE fed the desires of the coffin creatures and

Klub Kids and dealers, oh my! The birth of Techno at the Hacienda and Chicago house ruling supreme...Peter Gatien's audacious nightclub kingdom, always a refuge from sanity. There were the times that tried men's and women's soles, when we were clad in brutal shoes and danced for hours, sometimes days...Wordy Rappinghood, It's Raining Men, Pride, A Deeper Love, Let The Music Play, Relax ...and through it all DEPECHE MODE bridging every genre without compromise, like the Cure and the Smiths, iconic originals incapable of impure thought...ah, to have lived through those years, and to have survived, unlike Klaus Nomi and the other so-called Gods of our time, though Gods they were...

Rejoice! Hail the 80's!!!

Money Ain't Half What It Used To Be

2009-03-13T14:04:00.000-07:00

Money Money Money...

According to the Levine Report:

45 PERCENT OF WORLD'S WEALTH DESTROYED: Blackstone CEO: Private equity company Blackstone Group LP (BX.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) CEO Stephen Schwarzman said on Tuesday that up to 45 percent of the world's wealth has been destroyed by the global credit crisis. "Between 40 and 45 percent of the world's wealth has been destroyed in little less than a year and a half," Schwarzman told an audience at the Japan Society. "This is absolutely unprecedented in our lifetime."

NOW I don't feel so bad about giving away so much to charity. I have helped a dozen kids get cleft palate surgery, seeded micro funding on three continents, contributed to rain forest purchase through preservation, given to Servicemen's Legal Defense Network, Union of Concerned Scientists and many other causes. Now, money well spent and not lost in a 401K or stocks.

I also spent my money on travel, to visit friends and family, to see a familiar face and hear a known and loved voice speak out in person, not over skype. Great joy has come of this. My carbon footprint has been offset many times over. I fly coach and drive a hybrid, have for years. (Finally, paid for!).

Am I lauding myself here? Perhaps. All I know is my rich rich friends have lost much of their fortune. Nancy Silverton lost five million, almost all her wealth. Others are being mum, but it's lots: even mega mansions are a third of their value. Wish they'd handed me a fat check for a million for being fabulous a year ago. I'd split it with them now. 70-30 my favor. Still a deal!

My Roth IRA is down twelve bucks. I'll live.

FIRST, HANG ALL THE MULLAHS

2009-03-10T12:30:00.000-07:00

What to do with Saudi Arabia? We hear of the KINGDOM (!) loosening its absurd and abusive restrictions on women. They can actually drive a car, if alone or with other related women...progress?? Do they hang young gay men still, a la Iran? Is this religious intolerance waning or still sickeningly prevalent? What do the people say, even the Wahibbists?

This story: SAUDIS ORDER 40 LASHES FOR ELDERLY WOMAN FOR MINGLING: A Saudi Arabian court has sentenced a 75-year-old Syrian woman to 40 lashes, four months imprisonment and deportation from the kingdom for having two unrelated men in her house, according to local media reports. According to the Saudi daily newspaper Al-Watan, troubles for the woman, Khamisa Mohammed Sawadi, began last year when a member of the religious police entered her house in the city of Al-Chamli and found her with two unrelated men, "Fahd" and "Hadian." Fahd told the policeman he had the right to be there, because Sawadi had breast-fed him as a baby and was therefore considered to be a son to her in Islam, according to Al-Watan. Fahd, 24, added that his friend Hadian was escorting him as he delivered bread for the elderly woman. The policeman then arrested both men.

That's messed up. The LEFT side of me wants us to focus all of our efforts to engage these twisted regimes in a dialog that might influence them to actually come out of the stone age and into the light...
The RIGHT side of me, the overshadowed, partially pathetic postage stamp of square centimetres that pass for my right, anyway, wants to send assassin drones over their governing, fatwah dispensing disgusting old men and take them out one by one.

Certainly, there can be a rational justification for this, right? Gawd, someone talk me out of this line of thinking... Indelibly burned into my psyche is the photo of the two young boys in Tehran hanged by edict and a brute assassin for the transgression of homosexuality. Every leader who ended these boys' short lives and had a hand in that decision should suffer the same fate at least. Monsters. Humans masquerading as monsters.

This is not what Islam is supposed to be about. It always had a questionable bent toward violence to the infidel, easily pounced upon by hatemongerers, and the Muslim world sat stoney faced while we lamented 9-11, but really, can we not get the large secular group of Arab and Indonesian and Indian Muslims to rise up and rebel against this jihad idiocy? Can we not get Israel to stop giving them ammo? If I don't get a two state solution soon, I may have to spend the rest of my life decrying the stupidity and suffering caused by a people who have themselves suffered so much.

Surely, they should know better.

Shame all around.

The Exquisite Evil of ALL THINGS LUXE

2009-02-23T17:11:00.001-08:00

Awful Luxury surrounds us here in Hollywood. My couchsurfing Quebecois amis Steve Auclair remarked on the sheer numbing number of Ferraris and Lambos patrolling our streets, the chic shops lining our streets, the busy restaurants and clubs...all the things that now seem...

SAD AND INDULGENT...leftover Robber Baron vestiges from the NOW ENDLESS ME GENERATION, embellishing the excess of the 80's through the 90's and the 00's just the same, a never-ending cavalcade of GREED that GORDON GEKKO cultivated like a hot house orchid, with the great stench aroma referred to by the General in The Big Sleep...

Corrupt, a flower that intoxicates and tricks and fools the victim...this is capitalism. It cannot be contained, and must eventually fall prey to the edicts and will of the few over the many.

Is communism the answer? It's been proven to be an ignoble failure time and again. What of socialism? Can it only work in a society that mixes compassion for all and abject humanism with sensible policies, like population control and advanced education. Sadly, much of the world lacks direction, burdened under the yoke of outdated religious dogmatic stranglehold, depriving humankind of the purity of free thought, based on ancient Greek intellect and seemingly in a continual state of regression, back, back to the Barbarians, whose only motivation was to plunder and conquer, as in some lame twisted video game designed to subvert our youth in Zombiastic warriors, bent on achieving worldwide domination as in a game of RISK.

Only there is no real enemy, so we have to have terrorism, a bred device used to strike fear and terror into the heart of peoples of many countries, oft under the guise of religious preservation, even though most religion preaches a foundation of love, then hypocritically subverts itself for assassin-like animosity and crippling prejudice. There is no just and fair religion: even Buddhism has been subverted to a regimen of sameness that destroys the art of the individual, stifling sexuality, creativity, free thought.

This endless self-absorption is not countered in today's world by anything more than the basic human tenant that we must trust each other, from when we stand in the ATM line to when we hurtle and high speeds encased in steel and surrounded by strangers. This contract we have to respect each other must be enlarged, must be strengthened, so that we care for each other as we would at least an injured dog, and realize that someone mentally hurting is worthy of our compassion, not our contempt. Who can bring about this renaissance in the HUMAN CONDITION? The world has placed its faith not on the shoulders of a pope or preacher: it has chosen one man, and he should be given credence; for that man is BARACK OBAMA.

Unabombers Need Facebook, Too!

2009-02-13T17:37:00.000-08:00

So Joel Stein is pissed about theFacebook 25 Things About Me viral posting, calling it vainglorious and unnecessary. Sure, that may be, but is it really a big deal to slag people telling their friends and admittedly, acquaintances and a few strangers a couple of dozens things about their lives? I for one love scanning these troves, and have found out all kinds of fabulous things about people I did not previously know. Joel's big complaint was that, gosh, people just ain't that interesting and facetiously refers to being more interested in the Ultimate Stranger--a CELEBRITY--than in a dull, boring mere mortal. He should check out the responses from my friends. Maybe it is a bit narcissistic to write about oneself online, but hell, what's a memoir after all? Blather from strangers or incidents of adventure and fun from people I care about?

Granted, I spend ENOUGH time on facebook as is, and accrue a friend or five each day, from my colorful, wacky past. Army brats like me have many people in our memory, and it's quite cool to reconnect, check out their lives, live vicariously through their successes and failures, loves and hates, dreams and dashed hopes. It's great theatre, far more interesting than most if not all fictional characters we invest in on tv, the nets and in those quaint things, books.

Let's keep it all in focus, make our circles large and embrace humankind. It's better than plan b, the Unabomber.

Thieves, Thieves, Tramps and Theives

2009-02-09T16:15:00.000-08:00

Why does a city as together seeming as West Hollywood allow itself to be consumed by a noxious force that wishes to destroy all newcomers as outsiders threatening to kill the hydra? Why do entrenched city councilpersons like Abbe Land, John Duran and uber-tool John Heilman engage in Rovian warfare tactics at the cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars to protect their tired, tired seats? Like barnacles on the Titanic, they just don't get what's happening. But they adjust, and bottom feeding is not so bad, if you've set yourself up as a tyrant. Seems like things could be worse, right? After all, unemployment isn't even officially ten per cent yet, so why shouldn't we needlessly spend our money on some oversized library in a town without children, where every adult is wired and connected, and the monolithic Beverly Hills library is literally blocks away?

No, let's waste taxpayer money on this vanity project, no doubt destined to be labeled

The John Heilman City of West Hollywood Municipal Library and Auditorium.

Let's not forget the imminent destruction of Plummer Park, ripping out the shade trees and pouring thousands of tons of cement onto and into the earth. Underground parking, indeed.

Unable to leave well enough alone, Council won't rest until we are a Villaraigosaesque urban core towering above the thoroughfares, blocking our famed sunlight and further creating parking lot traffic on our streets.

These same few tired faces linger and linger and linger. It's maddening, and the voters just are resigned to their fate under the grinding steel and concrete wheels of this mindless machine.

A sentence or two

2009-02-04T18:33:00.000-08:00

Twitterized beyond comprehension, I collapse and fold in like a stomped origami, a mass of flattened thoughts in shards with no continuity or recognition of the most basic grasp of daily existence as expressed through thoughtful balance and cohesion, long the hallmarks of a constantly growing, developing individual as evidenced throughout human history by things as simple as the discovery of fire and as complex as the Theory of Relativity and other untold massively important and well thought out dicta from varied sources since the development of Deepthink by great minds from every facet of culture and science, be it physics, mathematics, film, sports or any other myriad fields of human endeavor that have enriched the lives of so many here on earth, a tired, dissipated planet fallen prey to the interpretive excesses of these many wondrous discoveries, carried to their ultimate extreme by overreaching minds bent on milking every last bit of power behind every concept, blind to the consequences and often based on such debased motivation as greed and envy, instead of more noble motives, like keeping humankind on an even keel to a better, more inclusive future for all peoples of all nations, whether they have been responsible for development of these great ideas and actions or simply have the good fortune to reap the benefits of the thoughts of the few, the ones who have not been corrupted and have genuine motivation as they help us all solve the profound and seemingly endless tribulations of life in the modern era as reflected in every facet of existence, from science to art to politics to music to medicine to philosophy and other enterprises in our brief stay on this mortal coil: in short, I cannot any longer achieve as the great minds have before me, and I hand over the reins to the next ADHD generation to do as they will.

Fine Endangered Macassar Ebony Waterboard Reserved for RUSH LIMBAUGH

2009-01-28T10:17:00.000-08:00

Let's hold Rush Limbaugh's fat ass off his oceanfront mansion balcony until he effin gets it. What a putz! Drug addled idiot who by his own standards should be in jail. That he has listeners- dwindling, I am sure- at all is a miracle. It's as though some creature from the Spanish Inquisition has reincarnated in the obese husk of a pasty white throwback Golum-like bile filled monster.

No doubt Limbaugh's fat ass would be on a velvet pillow dropping a gavel on great thinkers (Read: liberals) in the age of the Catholic Church Vendetta against Freedom. Or better yet, the bloated "Vizier" whispering conspiratorially into the King's left ear...Gawd, it's one thing to be on the opposing side of history. It's quite another to be so completely out of step with modern thinking that a total one sided view of every macro basis of modern life is under question by a quack pundit hack who spews bile at every turn. To want OBAMA to fail? He is a horse's ass. Phil Hendrie may have a legit claim that certain liberals did want Bush to fail in Iraq- although I think, like me, they didn't want failure, the price of blood and treasure being so unimaginable...just closure and move on. We certainly didn't want failure in Afghanistan, another war we didn't need, one that diplomacy might well have been able to stabilize. We'll never know.

It's troubling that Limbaugh now claims Obama is going to kill talk radio. What? A voice of dissent is one thing, but a hate-filled--and possibly racist, if we dig deep--jerk with a moronic following should be happy he has any platform whatsoever. I would love, personally, to march lockstep with jackbooted comrades and Republican Guard mercenaries onto his acreage and abduct him, waterboard his bloated excess and watch him squirm like a minnow-er, sperm whale- as his precious rights are shed by the very dicta he chooses to live by. But that's just me. He's lucky I am a liberal. This bloviated Fat Bastard needs to look deeply into the mirror, reassess his life, and move in to the light, away from the dank stank of his corpulent mind. It's not too late.

Even he can call Richard Simmons, Ram Dass and a few other clairvoyants and get his fetid shit together. Okay, I spoke my piece. Please forward this to him, and ask him to call me anytime to discuss. Cell direct 323.252.8907

2009-01-23T15:22:00.000-08:00

There it was in black n white in the final edition ever of the Los Angeles Times, or at least presumptively near the end of the reign of the left coast leader:

NEVADA IS CHECKING UNDER THE MATTRESS FOR CASH

The article goes on to discuss legalizing prostitution in Reno and Vegas to raise much-needed cash.

THE VICES ARE CASHING IN!!

Talk of legalizing and taxing hookers and pot.

Why the hell not?

Do it on an interim, trial basis: See how things go.

Get Organized Crime out of the picture.

Get Government involved in something that actually MAKES money.

Imagine PICK YOUR OWN ganja farms in Humboldt County.

Forget Christmas trees, bothersome things...let's go for the CASH CROP!

ERASE THE DEBT in six months.

The state inspects brothels for standards, like a FOUR STAR system.

Regulate pot and have STATE POT SHOPS that will fill up all the closing retail in towns across the U.S. Make it one of our biggest exports and automatically lower the imbalance of imports to exports. LOGIC ALL AROUND!!

Bush Legacy: Lies, Corruption, Murder

2009-01-21T10:52:00.000-08:00

Partisan Politics and the Religious Right/Bush Legacy

...could we be more optimistic in these dangerous times? When that shriveled old church lady Cecily Tyson stood up from the stands at the Obama Inauguration and started praisin' the lord it was a clear reminder that this day meant much to many and everything to some. As a kid my earliest tv memory was the funeral cortege for Kennedy, the constant drum roll, the wagon moving up the avenue, the stark black and white imagery, a nation mourning its loss. To witness this glorious time in US history, this "Post-racial" time, when the white majority is destined to become simply another minority is an absolute highlight of my life, up there with being blessed with cool family and friends like Steve Sillay. It's all good, and I hate to utter the name Bush again in this lifetime, although for many throughout the world it is a name they can never forget, directly responsible for the carnage, mayhem and death that entered their lives needlessly and for which this great land can never fully apologize. War crimes tribunals should be set up to prosecute the PNAC mob of RICO monsters who held this country hostage and decimated our blood and treasure for the sake of the egos of a few men who have never fought in war and whose armchair antics can never be justified. Heads should roll so future power brokers will realize their actions are not without consequence. Impeachment is too late now. It's time for the courts to make men accountable, as they are in all levels of society and government, else this lawless behavior rear its jaundiced head again and further destroy the very fabric of humankind. Let us not forget, in this time of joy, those who have suffered and those who have paid the ultimate price for the callous dogma of a corrupt few.

Prop H8 Still Alive, not well

2009-01-16T08:10:00.000-08:00

Another Final Word on bigotry and Prop 8.

Okay, so there's a populist backlash against the gay community regarding protests and pickets and asking for the head of the bigots who decry gay marriage and claim a banner of religious superiority. Well, guess what? The bottom line is if you support Prop 8 you support discrimination, pure and simple. You are disenfranchising at least ten percent of the population, including a family member or close friend, most likely. It is unfair for some deluded members of the heterosexual community to claim that gays shouldn't be so promiscuous while not allowing them the right to legitimize their relationships. It's oxymoronic, and moronic.

Now, should El Cayote be boycotted? Sure. To blindly follow every tenant of your chosen religion, regardless of origin a cult or sect, often legitimized in the eyes of many by the patina of age, makes one a android: a non-thinking slave robot follower of convention and rule. It is precisely the opposite of what most thoughtful religious leaders of the past would have wanted, from Jesus to Mohammed. Think about it.

Should LA Film Fest director Richard Raddon have stepped down? Hell, he donated a staggering sum - fifteen hundred dollars- to ban gay marriage. That's a lot of moolah, and he must know the level of LGBTQ involvement in the film industry. What a putz.

Howsabout the Cinemark Theater chain? Major contributors, and I will never again darken their doorway, nor will my friends, at least most of them. Alan Stock of said company gave a dollar under ten grand to the pro-Prop 8 forces. And Scott Eckern, director of California Musical Theatre. a non-profit based in Sacramento, resigned under pressure from -hello- gay theatre folk. Frankly, what could be more gay? What was he thinking, to deny his co-workers and ostensibly his friends a basic human right? Who doesn't think that gays will have the right to marry someday soon? Who thinks this will usher in Armegeddon? A bunch of lunatics, that's who.

So, don't come to me with your BS about following every tenant of a religion either way old or, as in the case of Mormonism, ridiculous to the point of ludicrousness.

Golden plates indeed. How can we be so duped? Why settle for this indoctrination? I only hope younger people today will choose humanism as the way to fulfill their existence. If there is an almighty being somewhere, it doesn't give a rat's ass if we on this blue ball are behaving according to a rule book laid down long ago to control the masses. Please, people: WAKE UP!!

The Simple Pleasures

2009-01-12T10:48:00.001-08:00

Disneyland. Last visit: age 13. A few years ago.

A little disappointed, in this steroid society, to see the castle, all squat and unimpressive. Then I realize, the historic preservationist that I am comes to fore, and the castle is from another era...a time when things didn't have to be S U P E R, a time after the Empire State Building when we thought HIGH like Outer Space and the Moon. Everything on earth was scaled down to a human level, from mid-century modern dwellings to sensible cars, Cadillac excluded.

Disney World Orlando killed the scale of the original. Still, we spent a huge bloc of time in Tomorrowland, tasting the future, but missing the earlier version, with it's whimsy and sleek interpretations of tomorrow, from If You Had Wings to the house of the future...the contemporary version was rather charm free, cold and uninvolving: you know, like the future likely really will be.

Money Money Money! You can buy things, buy things, buy useless things with it, and Disneyland is the capitol of Useless Merchandise. Exiting most rides leads directly into a boutique chock full of swag from bling ears to Star Wars and on and on. It's a frenzy, and must be a drag for parents to constantly say no, we aren't going to buy that.

Favorite ride: Nemo subs, even though I really liked the old school ride it replaced.

The Tiki Room EXIT NAZI BIRDS were creepy, please STAND UP, applaud, and while you are at it, walk quickly to the exits without delay...or else! At least it wasn't just the German accented parrot barking commands. I expected Arbiet Macht Frei over the exit doors.

The lines were minimal this time of year, and the rides are still really cool, like SPACE MOUNTAIN and SPLASH MOUNTAIN and MAGIC MOUNTAIN -- oops, wrong park. The staff was a real mix from a Kyle/Time Warner tranny (really!) boarding the JUNGLE CRUISE crowds, to some Olde Folke and fatties...a real sweet cross section of multiculti diverse America. The veggie burger in Tomorrowland (i know...) was reminiscent- no, EXACTLY as one would imagine shoe leather to be. A blowtorch would have made it edible, perhaps.

A beautiful SoCal global warming Friday. One in a million. Eighty degrees this week. Greenhouse gasses, bring it on.

Cultural Implode

2008-12-22T16:53:00.000-08:00

Cultcha collapsing continually

-It's the end of western arts and nothing can stop the decline. After reaching a post - Warholian apex with the Damien Hirst billion dollar money machine, a decline has set in, or erupted as quick as the mortgage meltdown. Museums have lost funding or were accused of squandering their endowments. We ain't talkin' breasts, we're talking money earmarked for art used for other frivolous things, like vainglorious projects and over-hyped touring exhibits and architectural excess, a massive bundle of madness made of solid gold and diamonds. Money has lost its value, become even more of an abstract, ushering in a post-accountability era where printed paper means nothing; where paying 42 mil for a townhouse doesn't seem out of place; where a quadrillionaire from India could build a billion dollar skyscraper just to house his family; where charity heads invest poorly with "advisors" who spend like drunken sailors.

Now comes the news Fields Pianos on Pico Boulevard is shutting its doors after fifty plus years of service to the arts. As the exclusive Southland dealer for Steinway, the collection was superb, and they were known for loaning out their peerless pianos for performances on a regular basis. Once, I recalled seeing a recital featuring Daniel Lessner, friend and composer, that thrilled the throng and stoked a buzz for days and days. This bedrock foundation of the arts, an institution that cultivates newcomers and veterans alike, will be sadly missed and never duplicated. It's closing is indicative of the malaise taking over our country. The economy is in decline, and the first to go is budgeting for the arts. Conservatives have been screaming for the head of PBS for years, and sadly, they may soon have it if cutbacks continue apace. Tragedy. Our cultural output will soon exist as three minute clips on youtube, with no sense of depth or history to reflect on or absorb.

ADHDAmerica cannot spend its precious moments learning to play music, play piano, read music, read novels and biographies. It's finished. What have we left? Near instantaneous gratification, wave after wave, with no real highlights and no peaks, just a deadening sameness in sound and sight and scent and touch and voice, a loop tape of life that means nothing and addresses no one. Nostalgia comes to the fore, as those of us who now know what is missing search desperately for a sweet remnant of our past. Soon, too, those will fade, and the picture will be blank, save for the static and snow on the screens of our lives.

Obama Hates Gay People

2008-12-19T17:02:00.000-08:00

Sayonara Obama

Screw cooperation. There should not be a religious leader doing a convocation at the inaugural.

It's inappropriate. Someone professing thanks to Jesus means nothing to me. It exclusionary and divisive. Keep your dogmatic beliefs at home. They're not welcome in a political atmosphere. And while we're at it, let's ditch the Bible swearing in part. It reeks of and drips with religion. Perhaps more appropriate would be holding a nice, bound copy of the Constitution of the United States of America. In America We Trust. Now, at least...although I think the shameless pandering by Obama with some of his choices irritates me.

When West Hollywood homos had a woody for Hillary, I argued that Bill was not our friend and she was his advisor. After all, he dropped the ball on gays in the military by backing down on discrimination WHILE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF of all the armed forces. Incredible, leaving us with Don't Ask Don't Tell and fired translators and lives ruined. How about DOMA, Defense of Marriage Act? This odious act has and will ruin lives deep into the future. Thanks, Billary.

Then there's the Queen of Soul Ms. Aretha Franklin, Rolling Stone's Best Voice of the Rock Era, who will be wrapped in electroshocked skinned pelts stitched into a cover. Should I bring a spray paint can as well> This queen might get a one-time pass from me.

OBAMA Doesn't like gay people. Because he's black, and blacks are religulous. They in general appropriated a White Jesus from another culture and ran with it, sublimating the pantheon of West African gods as Christian Saints (Voudoun) and out Jesusing the white folks. The big fatal flaw here is that Bible is a tool for literalists, and that's what the AME and other churches have done, love the sinner: hate the sin. In general African Americans do not equate the right of LGBT people to marry with interracial marriage. They don't and you can't make them, no matter how much outreach is planned. It's a fatal flaw of the conceit that those who suffered must fight against bigotry toward others. Look at black leaders: sans Chisholm and Bond, we have a room full of pontificating preachers. Am I painting an entire community with an overly broad brush? Admittedly, yes, but I have the Prop 8 voting record facts to back up this assertion. The solution? I don't know. What I do know is I'll have to decide between throwing donuts at gay hata Warren or shoes at somebody else. Decisions, decisions.

The End Is Nigh

2008-12-14T18:04:00.000-08:00

All signs seem to indicate: The End Is Nigh. I want to grow a long white beard and walk the streets with a placard stating such.

There it was, buried deep in the WORLD section of the LA TIMES:

Brown Haze Dims Skies Worldwide

The story went on to tell of how a dirty brown haze sometimes more than a mile thick is darkening skies over vast areas of Asia and in the Middle East, Africa, the Amazon: all over.

Now, on a good day, with the lame Global Warming Naysayers poo-pooing the crisis, I get mad.

Jerks like the flaming ass who owns THE WEATHER CHANNEL and does not believe in Global Warming at all...imagine, HIM of all people. Right wing idiots who just will not give Al Gore his props on this one. Hannity. Hate the name. What another horse's arse and naysayer. Don't these educated illiterates realize how foolish they will look in, say five years when the ROSS ICE SHELF is ice cubes floating out at sea and that dirty brown haze is the norm, with sunshine poking through five times a year?

The article- a small brief easy to skim over or bypass- goes on to say that these "so-called atmospheric brown clouds" are a mix of particles, ozone and chemicals that come from coal, "clean" coal, auto emissions and the other sundry and various pollutants belched out by the sickening species of planet-killers known as homosapien.

Next up is a Reuters News Service report that the planet is inundated with opportunistic jellyfish swarms, a blight, including one called the New York Bight. The seas are filled with these fish egg eating invasive species, from Monterey Bay to Hawaii to the Baltic Sea.

If you give to a charity this year for the holiday season, and if you are noble enough to tithe, I recommend one specific cause that can help like no other:

PLANNED PARENTHOOD!

2008-12-11T17:12:00.000-08:00

What I like about 2008
ACDC
Steve Sillay, my bestest bud
No On 8 Marches
Political Activism from Young America
The Diving Bell & The Butterfly
The Pic of the 3 Gun Totin' Police Women in Pakistan- Robert Palmer Girls for Sure!!
The Honda Insight to be Reborn as a Four Door in 2009!
Rachel Maddow, the Smartest Pundit in the Room
Black Lips Shows, albums, blog, DEATH ARAB t-shirts
The New Palladium, exactly like the Old Palladium but with AIR!
Louis Garrel dvd extra reading a loving fan mail letter from...a dude! Aw....
My last car payment, like a $400 raise!! Now it breaks down I guess...
OJ
Burning Man! Luna! Igor! Francis! Stacy! Bar Marmont! Isla!
My Couch Surfers!!
Alex Fedotov, Boy Wonder and his Magic Eye & Overpowering will power
A Day Without A Gay spent hanging up Missing Persons flyers. Person found!
The Art of Stephanie Shafer and Jon Eisman
Becoming a Theatre Critic and realizing how hard theatre is!
Seeing Brother Dan Gilvezan in The Concept of Remainders
The New Star Trek!
Joselle's Peppermintini party.
Steve Sillay, of course. Year in, year out my best bud.
The Freedom of a Blog, and the enslavement by same.
Thanksgiving with Family
El Matador Beach This Summer

Oh, yes,
Barack Hussein Obama
and his posse!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS GONE..not wild, just GONE

2008-12-04T14:45:00.000-08:00

The Body Shop burned up this morning. I heard the news choppers at 7 ayem, circling like in the Paris Hilton jail days...sounding as though they were in landing patterns on my coffee table.

I have spent bunches of time in "titty bars" since I can remember...possibly the least stimulated guy in the room, I had a blast nevertheless. Atlanta had the creme de la creme of the country's bars, huge complexes with pools (Taj Mahal) and gilded VIP rooms drenched in...champagne.

As another night club managing partner, I was always welcomed with open arms, particularly since my clientele in Buckhead was a mix of the elite and the strippers in spandex and x dealers in black leather Columbinesque trenches and Z Cavarrici jeans sporting mousse filled mullets. In fact, strippers trying to get in OXYGEN almost never had pay stubs to prove they were in the biz on "industry" night, and to prove their employment, they would bury my face in their cleavage, knowing it was not gonna be harassment on either end...the straight dudes in line would kill to be me!

Most strip clubs seemed to be owned by shady characters, and the Gold Club was the Golden Rule on this perception. One night in the office over cognac and watching dancers through one-way mirrors, one of the managers proudly opened a Halliburton aluminum briefcase and showed off what looked like about 6 kilos of high grade blow. Two famous athletes, who shall remain nameless, where on a couch with eyes wide open. The manager scored a bag, pulled out an eight ball worth and laid it out on the desk. Five hours and a bottle of Hennessey XO later, I left through the private exit and descended to the barren MARTA parking lot where the old Piedmont Flea Market (sob!) used to be, got in the Beemer and buzzed home. Later, the club was closed for racketeering, including relations with the notorious Gambino crime family.

You might also remember the Gold Club from the Madonna visit, where she left with my pal Baby, GF of DJ Randy Easterling from Club Anytime and my club BERLIN. It made international headlines.

Owner Steve Kaplan was sentenced to serious jail time. Kaplan agreed to the following terms: spend three years in prison; relinquish the Gold Club; pay a $5 million fine; pay back up to $250,000 to customers for credit-card fees; pay restitution of up to $50,000 to Delta Air Lines; forfeit $38,400 in cash recovered during a government search. Having skimmed a reported fifty million dollars, that leaves him with appx. 44 million profit from his time at the club, if numbers are correct. Not bad for three years' jail time. Where do I sign?

Remind me to mention a few other Halliburton briefcase incidents involving nightclubs in future blogs...I can't give my full memoir out now: gotta save some for the book publisher.

911 411

2008-12-02T10:43:00.000-08:00

911 411.

WTF is up w/ 911? It's just endless, the conspiracy theories. Me, it's a bit tough to put the building blocks together and watch them tumble to the ground. I believe that it could have been prevented, that there was intelligence regarding the event that was ignored-perhaps wittingly so as to substantiate some foment in the US populace, thus making those responsible subject to murder charges upon investigation. I also believe that the towers fell from the force of the magma like explosions and collapsed like a house of cards through sheer amplified repetition and gravity, like a parking level under an apartment in the Northridge quake times many, many floors of concrete and steel.

Building 7? Hmmm. What to make of building 7...diesel fuel ignited by crashing debris from the two main towers is the official story. It is debunked continuously online, and the argument seems compelling enough. Why would a cement and steel structure collapse like the other two towers, when it was only partially structurally compromised? Diesel fuel as a source...

"Fires have never been known to damage steel columns in high-rise buildings, but if they could, the damage would be produced gradually and would be localized to the areas where the fire was the most intense." Seems odd, as a statement from debunkers, since the other two towers had just collapsed from the fires. Why would the damage be gradual, when a fireball of intense burning power would slam into the steel and we all know how steel is made. FIRE!

What to think? could elements of our govt in collusion with Sheiks and such have caused such intentional havoc? To the end of the enrichment of the few, the hyper wealthy? How much money do they really need? One thing I know, we'll never have a definitive answer, a al grassy knoll. It's creepy, and I want to focus on purple unicorns for the rest of the year. I need a break from the relentless evil of the Republican party. This windchime liberal has had it!!!

Stand Up For Your Rights

2008-11-17T17:37:00.000-08:00

I drove, against advice. I knew a secret downtown parking spot near the Ketchum Y, and driving an Insight, I don't pay meter money in Los Angeles. Those brutish backwaters of West Hollywood and Beverly Hills still charge me to park, heathens! Settled under a gigantic ficus in the shade, I walked the three blocks to the plaza before the iconic Los Angeles City Hall Byzantine art deco phallus, merging with folk of all color, age and sexual identity opposed to Prop 8, the anti-civil rights measure. Banners are hoisted, cheerleaders are hoisted, the air was sparkling, save the occasional smoke plume wafting in from the surrounding fires. It's a good day to be gay.

The crowd builds, and the streets are full of excited marchers assembling, listening intently to a bevy of speakers. Only this march, in this place, would feature a self-creation like Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa telling us he "loves us in every sense of the word" (?) followed by Zena, Warrior Princess. Priceless. Cheerleaders are leading the crowd Bring It On style, flips and pyramids and all. It's a love fest.

The March begins, up the boulevards and around downtown, past the neoclassical facades, and up to the corner of Temple and Spring, where the overpasses look down on the 210 freeway. BINGO!!! There they are, our target audience: the travelers from the Inland Empire and points east, the Less Enlightened who should be made gently aware. Banners are unfurled along the railings over the pedestrian bridges. Flags are waved. A lovely middle-aged dyke next to me is vigorously waiving a rainbow colored stars and stripes flag back and forth, and cars below us are honking and waving and smiling and so very alive. The dyke and I lock eyes, and a lifetime of suppression and suffering melts away as tears fall freely. The young teens and children and old men surrounding us are all jazzed up beyond measure, and when a big truck comes roaring by below us, belting the air horn for all it's worth, we are shouting back in war whoops!!! Next, a police cruiser goes by, honking wildly in support! We cannot believe it: it's like the movie we wanted to see unfurling before our eyes...

And then the cops come, and ask us to disperse, as we are a nuisance to the drivers. An older gay dude is shouting "Don't go! We have the right to peaceable assembly! Protect your rights!"

A police cruiser on the 210 shuts down the west bound lanes below us, and we hear his ominous voice through a speaker "Leave the area immediately! You are a hazard. If you don't take down your banners we will confiscate them." The irony of his totally stopping traffic to prevent a an alleged traffic stoppage is completely lost on him. A large banner is put away, and part of the crowd disperses, while the rest of us stubbornly stand our ground. The yellow-shirted organizers ask us to leave. Still we hold our ground. The occasional middle finger from a disgruntled driver does not disturb us. We have a mission.

The cops lean heavy now, although to be fair they largely stay back, and when I confront two of them over our civil right of assembly, they back off and make sure I know this is a crowd control issue and not a suppressive act. I relent and walk down to Olvera Street, where we have been shunted on our way to a park in Chinatown. The park is lame yet it's a gas to see the Latino community leaving church checking us all out, mostly smiling and waving. They know that this march is as American as it gets, and they are witnessing history. Pride is everywhere.

We circle back to the overpass and wave frantically and excitedly to the drivers again on our way back to City Hall. Friends stop by: Steve Martin, my Y buddies, straight guys with their gf's who support us: it's a totally rad collection of all the best of Los Angeles.

I am exhausted, and walk back to my car in total silence, pull open the door, grab the much needed and now warm water bottle, sit back, take a sip and cry like a baby. Thank you Los Angeles, and people all across this great land who marched in solidarity with us. The magic fairy dust in the air has coated the country like the ashes in Brea and Riverside. Something good surely came of this momentous day of tragedy and joy for our beloved Golden State.

Director. One Word Says It All

2008-11-14T19:33:00.000-08:00

Directors rule. It's a fukkin 'ard ass job, thankless, underpaid (really!) unstable, antagonistic, anti-relationship, introspective, misanthropic, self-loathing, emotionally damaging and infinitely rewarding enterprise. It involves the most troubled creatures to ever walk the earth: no, not serial killers. Actors. The heft of their baggage is legion. The unevenness of even the finest auteur is not legend but the norm. You can be young, you can be old, you can be middle aged, but you can never be a mediocrity. The world won't accept it. Your mythos will crumble. You will damage your own masterworks. The most vital art form of the last two hundred years commands you to achieve an Oath of the Horatii with every endeavor. Talentless hacks surrounding you must be svengalied into greatness...there is no other way. You must divine the inspiration of a master preacher or even GODhead and bring disparate forces to muster to achieve the goal of the common good. That goal would be the influence of a planet, not just a culture. A work of lasting authority, there for the common good of all humanity: a provocative work, a telling work, a self-revelatory work, a missive of import, a universality sans banality, a credo and hallmark to referred to for all time. That is the chore and directive of a great director, a largely singular figure adrift in culture and left to rot when not influential. In short, a man-or woman- for all seasons, good or bad, subdued or delirious. Word.

Ailin' Palin Sailin' Away

2008-11-12T14:44:00.000-08:00

A final word on the dumbing down of AMERICA. If we don't educate the populace, we will always have a privileged core of ivy league legacy politicians muddying the waters...or leaving them still as the case may be. The populist solution, cynically exploited by the odious Republican Party would be Sarah Palin, staggeringly unfit for office beyond mayor of Wassila.

The whole intellect controversy re: Palin could be solved by one gutsy reporter or pundit doing a spot on interview. One need merely request Palin to name five South American countries and their respective leaders. If she would pass this test, we would at least know that she has either finally been properly indoctrinated, or is truly one of limited resources. I suspect the latter, though would like certainty to be the order of the day. Why not know with certainty? If I am more qualified to be vice-president, than hell, off I'll go and pitch it. Can't be worse than pitching movies all this week at the AFM (American Film Market) in Santa Monica at Loew's Hotel and Le Merigot. Film project AGE OF INDIGO got some attention, as did PLEASE SIGN IT LOVE...Everyone was very charming, smart, worldly, and broke. Humiliation come to play...It's a tough time to be peddling movies. Sure, it's recession proof, up to a point, but bank financing is shrinking, and this whole crisis is so Byzantine and rococo that it would take a far greater mind than my own to strip away the multitude of fraudulent layers enveloping the system.

It surely would take someone who knows who is an actual member of NAFTA.

Are we all doomed?

say wha?

2008-11-05T18:21:00.000-08:00

I feel like my life's come full circle, from being an Army™ Brat™ with black friends as a kid and listening to Motown with great love (Cloud Nine? Are you KIDDING?? Masterpiece) to getting pulverized by four black youths in Liemert Park a decade ago. (Upcoming story blog soon) and now President-Elect Obama. Wow, my close proximity to the African-American community has been intense and spectacular. And now this, the rehabilitation of the US as a nation, THE nation, the great everything, Satan if you will, Salvation if you will as well.

Now Obama can repair the damage, and his cabinet will support him as well.

We have a new STAR for the AGES, an obsidian addition to Mount Rushmore like no other. Teddy out, Obama in, thank you Dan Gilvezan.

Now if we could keep those awful awful meddlesome cultists masquerading as Christians from Utah from interfering with California's laws...THEIR idea of marriage is a little, well OFF in my view, dontchathimk? Prop ROY sez no interfering or funds from other states into Cali

-- NOT ON MY WATCH!! BOYCOTT SUNDANCE!! REDFORD, SPEAK UP!!!

2008-11-03T17:17:00.001-08:00

White knuckled anxiety takes over my every pore. What with the Killer Kold descending upon me like a plague of electric locusts, coursing through my throbbing veins, knocking me on my ass and forcing me to miss my High Holy Daze, i.e. Halloween, laying like Camille swathed in bedsheets and watching vintage nouvelle vague while listening to the revelry of a million drag queens...ah, exiling my visitors from the Gulf to San Diego and trying to avoid all pollster results and even Rachel Maddow, new Goddess of a New Age For All Mankind...

OR not...or more of the same old tired shit we've had, repeated ad nauseum yet in an ever diminishing spiral, sucking us into a WHITE HOLE of US vs THEM privilege against the newly homeless masses living off the last of their ebay™ sales when nobody's left to buy...an Omega Man scenario crashing up around us...

OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA is the mantra, a luxe utterance with lingual louche, rolling off the tongue and onto the table, a big, big O as the opener, OOOOOO the utterance of a shepherd BAAA and the most heartfelt word in any language, MAAAAAA...

DON'T STEAL THIS ONE DON'T STEAL THIS ONE DON'T---

THEN AGAIN, Paris is calling her siren song...

A True Halloween Horror Story

2008-10-22T18:52:00.000-07:00

It had to happen. With the world literally crumbling before our eyes, economies collapsing, Afghanistan reverting, icebergs melting, Sarah Palin trying to think and polls tightening, I needed a break. The pressure of every day existence, topped off with eleven hour workdays punctuated with four count em four film projects, couchsurfers, Halloween approaching, it was all becoming too much for a mere white male in the asphalt jungle. I needed an escape, and I did not want to take my drum 'n' bass obsessed Aussie couchsurfer Abbie out to Boystown on top of all else...

so I turned on my newly discovered cable tv system and behold! the wonder and shock and awe that is Janice Dickinson appeared in her majestic Every Day Is Halloween splendor. Once a great supermodel, now an aged kvetch, her Hollywood based reality show reminded me of why I stopped watching reality shows-and all tv- after the first season of Survivor. We watched as some not-so-attractive models pranced and preened their vacuous selves across my big screen (thank G-D I don't have to watch this in HD! The horror!!) and flirted in that ugly house up on Mulholland that apparently no one can live in for long- a cursed mansion on the hill, done up in 90's modern stark white, oversized and odd and looking as though it stepped out as the library from Duvalierville. Creepy, Abbie and I stared at the creature that is Angie Dickinson, misguidedly placing all her faith in her two GBF's, the Hairdresser and the Makeup Artist. Please, Angie, fire them both. Then take a long trip around the world for UNICEF.

By the last of the episodes, we found out that Kehoe was actually really cool, cute and straight...mostly. In this whole debacle of human misery, he comes across as the only real character of the lot. Not that I would make him Culture Minister in my administration or anything. In the final moments, Angie decides L.A. is vacuous, the models really actors and fat, and that "fashion lives in New York" (revelation #26) and ups and moves, firing the fattest and gettin' out of town, freeing up the mansion on the hill for the next freak show of reality tv.

I weep for the future, and I feel dirty, dirty, dirty after spending three hours on this dreck when I could have been dialing undecided voters in Nevada. Last night I made up for it with the ever-faithful Robert Osborne (nice fellah, BTW) and TCM with the original Cat People and I Walked With A Zombie. Somehow, trash culture needs the patina of age. And I don't mean Ms. Dickinson's kind.

The ACORN Falls Far

2008-10-16T08:57:00.000-07:00

Wow- McCain Scandal Posse is in such overdrive, desperately seeking something to brand on Obama- and now comes the ACORN CONTROVERSY, which in reality is no scandal at all, but a self policing effort by a respected urban organizing group that has done much good. ACORN found irregularities in the ballots turned in by paid canvassers. I repeat, ACORN found the problem ballots and reported them as required by law. Does this sound like the act of some group that is trying to slide something by? I think not. Pu-leeze, let's just not go there. Maybe this vitriol directly from the lips of John McCain will sink the negative campaigning circus in American politics forever. Maybe. Then again, there's always a horse's ass like Karl Rove ready to accept the title of Most Reviled Living American as long as a jaundiced agenda makes headway. To see this tiresome effort collapse and be roundly condemned by our citizenry is both fresh and an endorsement of the Obama method of "stick to the issues." Now, I just hope that Obama has the strength to turn this sinking ship around. I hate to compare Bush to Nero, but if the sandal fits...

Meddlesome Utah

2008-10-10T10:54:00.001-07:00

Forget about working within- Mormons have spent a fortune to try and pass the hateful Prop 8 here in California. Out of state forces of darkness wish to deny the right of equal marriage under the law to citizens of our fair Golden State.

It's time to respond, and send a letter or make a call to the state capital in Salt Lake City.

It's time to tell Robert Redford to cancel Sundance this year in protest. Cancel it. Make them realize that they are completely out of sync with the current prevailing sentiment in this great, modern country of ours. The LGBTQ community now so prevalent in Salt Lake City needs to protest these actions by lobbyists for the Mormon Church. It's a sin. Plain and simple, action must be taken. Our Hollywood dollars do not need to be spent in that state...not until they stop their hateful agenda against the rights of ordinary citizens. Shame on them and theirs. Clear thinking Mormons also need to contact the Church and protest. I cannot believe as a bloc they are all filled with this terrible prejudice. Let's let sanity prevail.

Shackles for e mail abuse? Puh-leeze

2008-10-08T16:42:00.000-07:00

David Kernell, the 20 year old who hacked into Sarah Palin's email account, faces five years in prison and a quarter million dollar fine. He should face probation. After all, Palin has admitted that she has sent many, many gubernatorial content emails not through her .gov address but through her personal email. Thus, she hoped to thwart a state record of her correspondence, a flagrant abuse of executive power. She absolutely deserved to be sunshined out on this illegal activity. Kernell, son of Rep. Mike Kernell of Memphis, should be let go if for no other reason than for his impossibly tussled golden locks. I predict that he will become a culture war hero and soon be interviewed on talk radio, with an eventual show on NovaM radio. We owe him a favor in posting these illegal emails to a public website so that the citizens of this great land can see what are politicians might be up to. Set him free and give him a shot on American Idol. Boy has mad skills. And I, for one, am mad at the shackles and leg irons routine: pure symbolic bullshit from our new police state.

Burning Man Burnout Blues

2008-10-01T10:16:00.000-07:00

Finally decompressed from Burning Man. It was a trial coming back to the semi-real world of Hollywood. Same faces, different places. This time with clothes on, mostly. Gads what fun was had. I really, really fell hard for the Man this year. Does that make me gay?

Eleven daze on the playa, in the dust, on a fabulous mix of mind altering intake, often nekkid, in an erratic state of sexual euphoria, kissing strangers, wearing a dress or something like it, grabbing Straight Boy Butt, hanging with the cutest of Brit girls, in Glamazon garb...swilling champagne in a Mongolian Yurt during a whiteout storm that lasts for ten hours...dancing under the stars to Carl Cox for hours and hours...meeting the finest of mortals and possibly a few Gods as well...falling in Crush and out and back in again...feeling sexy and fresh in my dotage...

Gasping at Art in all its incarnations...eating gourmet foods and snow cones with equal fervor...

craving a hot shower, settling for a group splash fest. Making out with a girl...missing the adorable skinny geetar playin' Rusky boy from Camp Delicioso last year...and my friend Andy...

More pics on myspace and on facebook search Roy Oldenkamp

Compassion: A Christian Value Trashed by the Religious Right

2008-09-25T17:10:00.000-07:00

Please take a few hours to check out Religulous. Bill Maher, who can be a va-va-va voom, hubba hubba sexist prig, has put together the final word on primitive cult figure worship, er- I mean, Religion.

Now comes word pastors, preachers, witchdoctors and soothsayers are ganging up in 22 states and preachin' the gospel according to the Republican Party. They are endorsing McCain. The sad irony here is that the Democratic Party has always been the party of the people, the party of compassion and the party of the most devout of them all, the minority American.

The Republican dogma of me, me, me seems decidedly...unChristian. How about the endlessly judgmental attitude of the so-called Religious Right, those that preach exclusion and condemnation? The zealots who are so hung up on abortion and gay rights issues, that they can see nothing else? Sure, we all want fewer abortions. Preaching abstinence only is proven NOT to be the way to get there. These same preachers tell us of the sin of the promiscuous homosexual, then don't allow them the right to marry and live a full life with a significant other. I feel most confident the rate of gay divorce will not be anywhere near the fifty per cent rate of the straight populace. Certainly lesbians will skew the statistics!

Yank the church's tax exempt status. Tax the hell out of them, like anyone else with an agenda to foist on the American people. If they're going to push hate...

that is not a family value. This new "pulpit initiative" is an evil device that erodes the separation of church and state. If that's the way they want to play it, make 'em pay the price. And let's apply those taxes to real sex education.

Plunder Asunder by Dunderhead Nigh

2008-09-24T11:45:00.000-07:00

Let’s see if I have this right.

Investment banks, different from regular banks, are largely unregulated, with oversight being eliminated by Phil Gramm in a Republican dollar grab. This led to the freefall, the bulk purchasing of sketchy mortgages for the quick dollar. The American people were told that home ownership was a G-D given right, and with this interest only loan, they could just sit back and watch the real estate value accrue, possibly flipping in a year or two and using the profits for a hefty down payment on another mortgage. The American Dream. Now deferred indefinitely.

According to many, the records are not public purview, and not even subject to Congressional oversight. Allegedly, many of these mortgages were repeatedly set up on paper at several companies to exaggerate their bottom line.

Now, the cat’s out of the bag. The chickens have really come home to roost, and the good ole taxpayer is to bail out these millionaires in a trillion—or is it two—sweetheart deal.

Let ‘em fail, or readjust as regular banks, so they can steal profits again out of reselling the very mortgages they frauded out the first time. If stocks tumble, so be it. Does anyone not know that the stock market is a gamble? Gambling always has a price to pay.
Let the freefall continue. Cancel the taxpayer funded bailout to the Greed Mongers.

Let the chips fall and then let’s reexamine the American way of life, where ten percent of the world’s population squanders 40% of the planet’s resources. We are becoming the obese cretins of Wall-E and it’s time to rethink all of it. In November, we’ll have a new mindset to lead the country. Someone with fresh ideas. Could he possibly, in any way, do worse than the Old Guard and their ilk? I think not: it’s a risk I am happy, elated, and overjoyed to take.

Oil, Oil Everywhere

2008-08-19T08:29:00.000-07:00

Oil, oil everywhere...and not a drop to spare.

Instead of talk of renewable energy/alternate source energy policy, we now have both parties pushing offshore drilling for oil. Walk around Santa Barbara today, and you are certain to find clumps of crude oil on rocks and on your feet.

As stewards of our seas, it is tragic to think we are encouraging continued oil spills by building more offshore drilling platforms. These platforms will just create more fossil fuels to stimulate global warming™ and cause even greater hurricanes and weather phenomena. It's a vicious cycle, but I have friends and family who live off the giant circular vortex know as the Gulf of Mexico. Trust me, they do not need more trauma.

If a complete horse's arse like T. Boone Pickens (#1 contributor to the Swiftboat PAC) can call for alternative fuel sources, then let's at least be smarter than he might be, billions aside. Wind is free, people. Now that the inestimable Teddy Kennedy is on his last days, the wind farms off Cape Cod might actually be built.

The Old Guard is finished. Are you listening, McCain? Say it ain't so Obama, that you are now in bed with the right wing dogmatics. Fisa, drilling, against gay marriage...what has happened?? I hope with all my heart, as one of your very first supporters, that you are doing Politics As Usual and saying what you must to get in office. But you are going to win by a wide margin, and this compromise is pointless and unnecessary.

The youth of America shall put you in office. They are not being polled, as they only use cell phones and pollsters use old-fashioned land lines. I haven't had a land line in ten years. The UNCOUNTED will affect change in this country, so let's get busy and deal with the real issues, like civil rights for all, health care for all, and yes, dammit, the OPTION for socialized medicine. Two tiers are fine, just so everyone is covered. Who thinks there is something more important than insuring the health of our children and elderly? I thought so.

Obama is fast on his feet. He's agile, not aged. He is NOT SAME OLD, SAME OLD.

Get on the bandwagon people, and let's influence his platform on FISA and marriage. There is no shame to reexamining one's opinion on issues: there's still time to cause positive change.

GET ACTIVE!!!!!!!!!

Don't trust them with a butter knife

2008-08-13T12:30:00.000-07:00

INCOMPREHENSIBLY, you can barely have pubic hair and yet still shoot a gun at people in Washington state. Yep- LBN E-Lert tells us Pamela Almli died while reaching into her backpack on the trail in scenic forested Washington State, shot and killed by a FOURTEEN year old "hunter" during bear hunting (!) season.

What is RIGHT with this scenario?

This kid's parents should be jailed.

The kid should never hold a gun again in this lifetime.

The judiciary and legislature in WA should be held accountable for her death. They are all complicit for condoning the most egregious of egregious laws ever allowed on the books in the US of A. Would WA allow 14 year olds to go into battle? What's the difference, trusting the judgement of a child in either scenario?

And hunting BEARS?? What? I can't believe my eyes! Ted Nugent, you're an asshole. The perfect choice for DICKHEAD RINGLEADER of the onerous NRA. What a bunch of shitheads.

They should all be lined up against a wall and face the fear of the bullet. Better yet, have the marksmen perched in tree hutches from 800 yards with high powered rifles doing the damage.

That's sport. Fuckers. Don't need a gun for fruits and vegetables. Let's indict the NRA for crimes under the RICO act and set it under NRA's cold, dead-like hands. Case closed.

Rebel Rebel Without Applause

2008-08-01T17:39:00.000-07:00

Every January 10th I wear a red sock on my left foot and and a black on my right, just like Plato in Rebel Without A Cause. The film just screened at the Arclight, and my smart newish friend Daniel Wehr (www.lascore.com) loves this film, as do I. We were mesmerized for the entire duration, and I found it difficult to peel my eyes away from the commanding visage of James Dean. His brave performance in this Republican era of American conservatism has to be honored as daring and brilliant. A suffering boy, unsure of why he is a misfit and what to do about it, resonates with me in ways I cannot say. When he says the line I use almost weekly, "You're tearing me apart!" with the look of drunken, complete anguish filling the screen, chills run rampant. His kiss with Natalie Wood is so genuine and sensual, I was actually (ALERT: TMI MOMENT) physically aroused and hung with the image for a good long while.

Sal Mineo, Plato in the film, was killed a day before his 40th birthday in an apparent robbery attempt-though some say gay lover incident- just a few blocks from my home at Villa Allegra on Laurel Avenue here in West Hollywood.

Tragedy seems to follow the famous, and every star associated with this film died before their time, in a gruesome way. A curse? Not likely. Just a sad fact of the excess endemic to the life of a megawatt star.

African Art

2008-07-31T11:43:00.000-07:00

I long to revisit West Africa, this time focussing on the area from Ghana to Benin. I love Nigerian culture, I am really excited by Ibeji twin figures, ashanti art, of course Yoruba Benin bronzes and other great works from the region. I am particularly interested to see how the apparently spreading influence of Islam is changing or influencing the sculpture and other traditional arts of the area. I suspect soon the art of crafting anthropomorphic figures of wood and bronze will sadly fade and nonfigurative art will start to assert itself, as in Islam it is considered tabu to try to replicate the human form.

I am particularly keen to get thoughts of my mentor on this, Dr. Jean Bourgatti, expert on African Art and a true believer in all things Nigerian.

Benin culture has no parallel on earth, closest being ancient Greece. To call the art of Africa "primitive" is pejorative and untrue. The ancient bronzes of Benin are incredibly lifelike and represent a naturalized ideal in sculpture that is uncommon in art of the time. Would love to get back to that world. Again. Especially the Afro-Cuban Voudou angle. To be blogged again soon. Stay tuned.

GLOW SHOW a WHOA!!

2008-07-25T09:42:00.001-07:00

GLOW in Santa Monica last Saturday night was...

peculiar. Imagine tens/hundreds of thousands of Angelenos promenading peacefully along the famous boardwalk--er, cement walk and up to the pier, with its new Ferris Wheel and carny workers and arcade all above a tremendous plinth of sea aged wood...

Electronic blips and bleeps disguised as arrhytmic dance music permeates the perimeter, and light art installations are set like sculpture in the sand. Projections on fabric, iridescent man made jelly fish float on the sea...

Everyone is stoned. A lanky teen is asking me for acid. Parents are with their teens. Stoned.

It's cool. Really cool. Really, really cool. The air is warm, the marine layer sporadic.

It's like three in the afternoon. The Benetton generations lounge on blankets on the sand, emulating the daytime weekend crowds minus the sun and sunscreen. It's three ayem, and this bizarre tableau will go on til dawn, to be replicated again in a year.

As Your (Shadow) President

2008-07-18T15:08:00.000-07:00

President Oldenkamp. Doesn't roll off the tongue so well. But this isn't about image. It's about how I--as your president--plan to turn around the USA.

First, thank you for not voting Republican. If there ever was a noble aspect to that party, well, that's a distant memory. It's the Land of the Selfish White Man and needs a major overhaul. Witness the link to the Judiciary Committee. Contrast the Republicans on the RIGHT of course to the Dems on the LEFT. http://www.judiciary.house.gov/about/members.html

It's time to set some rules here.

1. Universal Health Care. Period. End of Story. If you want elective or VIP service, pay accordingly. Everyone else, cover us and cover us now, encourage medicine in schools, and fund stem cell and other state of the art r & d.

2. Schools. Fix 'em. Pay teachers. Bring back the arts. Public schools are our lifesblood.

3. Gays in the Military. Guess what? They're already there. So, leave 'em alone. As your C0mmander-In-Chief, I will not allow bigotry in the armed forces.

4. Gay Marriage. Not a threat to anyone. Opposition to gay marriage is opposition to all marriage. Think about it.

5. Marijuana. Legalize it. Make the swab test or blood test a police tool to combat hard core stoned drivers. That should be the only restriction. Tax it like hell and pay for our crumbling infrastructure while getting the criminals out of our forests. Win, win, win.

6. Nuclear Weapons and Power. Buh-bye. Why risk the entire planet for an energy source or cataclysmic weapon? It's beyond crazy. People all over Europe are still metastasizing the fallout from Chernobyl. It's forever, people. Harness the winds, tides and sun.

7. Immigration. We have ten guest worker programs already on the books in the U.S. Enforce them, pay workers a proper wage, and if we pay fifty cents more for a head of lettuce, it's still a lot cheaper than a gallon of gas.

8. The U.N. Beef it up. Give it some juice. Make it the world defender, not us. Let's work on things here at home.

Thanks, and I look forward to your vote for my SHADOW PRESIDENCY

this November.

Roy Rogers Oldenkamp, Hollywood, July 2008

The Exquisite Mind of John Saladino

2008-07-11T10:56:00.000-07:00

Photos Above: Saladino sofa, top. CB2 contemporary sofa set, above.

The 80's were renowned for the concept of High-tech, and the uber-God of this genre, John Saladino, has been proven prophetic once again. A glance through contemporary furnishings will give you an idea of the importance of the work of Saladino since the 70's. His stripped down, eclectic style is the current rage, and much of his original furnishings influence what we sit on and place drinks or plasma screens on today. The book High-Tech, the bible of the movement, was vastly influential at the time, and spreads of Saladino's work graced Architectural Digest and other trade publications. His use of raw plywood as flooring, exposed ductwork and steel fixtures presaged an entire era, and is still referred to today.

Granted, a cursory glance through his website, http://www.saladinostyle.com shows his atelier producing more classic, Palladian style interiors, elements are still evident, particularly in the pared-down colour palette and spare furnishings devoid of excess decoration and detail. A trained architect, Saladino understands form and function and integration of aesthetic and shelter. The amount of merit his work has received has been largely under-appreciated and a revival of interest in his early and middle period work should be the next big thing to influence our culture. Oh, wait: it already is: let's just disseminate to the masses.

2008-07-09T13:20:00.000-07:00

Penn Jilette is not convinced about global warming...a skeptic.

Is it fascist to be skeptical and break away from the commonly held belief, to think that the prevailing wisdom might be suspect? Why, normally, Question Authority is a valid phrase, beyond the bumper sticker aspect of its' ringing message. However, when it comes to something with such catastrophic potential as GLOBAL WARMING, well, might one think it would make sense to sound the alarm NO MATTER WHAT and get things moving in a green direction? Does Penn actually think there is no rational wake-up call with a huge preponderance of evidence in the favor of accepting the concept? I mean, really, so we cut back on the waste we as humans spew by the trillions of tons onto our verdant landscape. As for me, one look at the North Pole is ample evidence, and DICK Cheney's headline today of suppression of Global Warming evidence is further fodder for impeachment for the most broken down regime to ever assault our shores, a Tammany Hall clusterfuck of dogmatic demagogues that has set back humankind decades, if not centuries. Holy hell.

Swamp Thing

2008-06-24T16:12:00.000-07:00

Having spent much time in the most peculiar of national appendages, Florida, it's most gratifying to hear of the great success Earth Justice has had in protecting the Everglades. U.S. Sugar, facing mega lawsuit damages under the Clean Water Act has deeded 185,000 acres to Florida. This will aid in the restoration of the state's primary water reservoir and refill for the aquifer, Lake Okeechobee, a gimongous lake who's name in Seminole means "crystal waters pillaged by white invader for a fast buck" or something like that.

The area has been under siege since white folk discovered it, or Ponce de Leon, if you will.

In the mid 20th century, it was the Cross Florida Canal, a shortcut route to the Gulf of Mexico that would have sheered the underground aquifer in half, and cut off fresh water from the Everglades and left it a brackish muck.

One of the great pleasures of this life is an inner tube loll down the Ichetuckneee River in the purest water in the United States. Fresh water, a diminishing commodity and the precious stuff of life: it's value is inestimable. This we realize, when it is gone.

Thoughts on Gay Marriage

2008-06-17T15:15:00.000-07:00

So now LGBTQ&Q people from all over the states are flying in to California to get married, as residency is not a requirement here. The city hall is filled with couples, and Allegra Allison and Jerome Cleary have come up with the clever concept of turning Tara, at 1343 N. Laurel Avenue, into a wedding chapel site, for ceremonies on the great lawn to the south, the front porch, the art gardens adjacent the chauffeur's cottage, the cottage itself, and receptions throughout. Parking of course could be on the premises for small groups and in 8000 Sunset five buildings away. How nice to walk past F. Scott Fitzgerald's apartment and Villa d'Este on the way to Tara.

The verdant grounds of Tara are lush and mature, teeming with nature as a mini-preserve. Coyotes have been spotted on the estate, and the night owl has returned to its perch.

Rather than board up Tara, as the city suggests under the guise of protecting its historic status, it should be set free. Read my linked article in commentary at WeHoNews for more 411. Plummer Park is dull, King's Road Park has no real character, and Weho Park is just grass and basketball. Tara, the colonial revival mansion built on nickelodeon money from 1914 deserves to be revived- if only in the interim- as a wedding site. Later, it should become the Ivy Bottini Center for LGBTQ&Q Studies. Rolls off the tongue, n'est-ce pas?

How Do You Like Your Coffee?

2008-06-13T08:49:00.001-07:00

Never have I understood the disconnect between black and brown peoples.

Sheriff Lee Baca, Latino, running the sheriff department of Los Angeles County, offers great insight in his opinion piece in this week's LA Times. He states that black/brown and brown/black violence is often solely based on minority hatred, no other reason. White people don't lose out in this scenario, so the incentive to reduce the problem is not as urgent.

Baca talks about prison communication programs, where actual dialog eliminates the abstract hatred.

Sure, when you find there is no genuine basis for the resentment, it would naturally mutate to a basic understanding. This is universal, and would benefit the Middle East in major ways, but that's another blog.

As a kid in the Glam Rock era, I moved from a big city to a small town: Denver to Lakeland, Florida. I was totally glittered out, with platforms, Alladin Sanesque hair, rolled up jeans, sparkly knee socks, bangles, blouses, eyeliner. In this town of conservatives, I was embraced by the artsy kids, the cheerleaders and football kids, lauded as a fresh face and treated with respect. The only exception: walking down the breezeway in my clunky wedgies, the sole black kid on campus muttered under his breath, faggot. I was thunderstruck: et tu, Brutus? The irony was not lost on me. I've always had minority friends, being an army brat. We always openly admired the black kids, with their Motown and Stax music, their blown out fros, their colourful clothing...we wanted to be them. We were the first wiggers.

To hate over race is ludicrous. What's the point? What resolution can come of it? Does one desire some Hitlerian extermination of an entire peoples? Tragic, the thought process that this hatred entails. It can eat one alive. Is that any way to live? Look how much hispanic and black cultures have in common...from the Caribbean to the streets of Los Angeles. It's not about guns: it's about love.

Pride In The Hood

2008-06-11T17:58:00.000-07:00

LGBTQ&Q Pride jeez if the letters get much longer we'll just have to call it the alphabet label. Might as well throw in MH for mostly hetero and get it over with. All types were out and much about this year at the WEHO June Gay Pride parade. In my newfound woody for the city (wha?) I participated (silly word) as a Neighborhood Watch Captain. Our theme, developed by the dynamic trio of Conrad, Allegra and William Niesch.

I was the burglar in our theme grouping, flitting sneakily from float to float, dressed all in black and wearing a black mask over my eyes. My tank top showed off my mighty YMCA muscle collection...but wow, was I playin' up the role in the most dramatic fashion. By the time that assemblage got near Robertson Boulevard, things became unbearable. I had been dancing about and prancing through the crowd for miles and in black in the noonday sun. I was shot, and had to sit down for quite awhile afterwards...sheesh, thought I was in great shape. Not so much, I guess. Sis Joselle was a Shopping Diva who littered and was busted...cute.

Fun to hang out earlier in the VIP tent with the Reverend Troy Perry, his partner and the lesbian partners who petitioned to the Cali Supremes and brought the marriage equality issue forward. Yay! Just a special touch to a year of Obama and celebrations. Happy I am. No emoticon needed.

Bombs Away

2008-06-05T17:51:00.000-07:00

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has fired the top brass in the Air Force. The U.S. Air Force has always been considered the elite, creme de la creme of military forces, so for this to take place represents a serious decline in the level of competence in our armed forces, from the top down. If we cannot secure our nuclear arsenal correctly, what hope do we-- and President Obama- have for securing rogue nuclear materiel throughout the rest of the planet? Can there be a more sure sign that now is the time to decommission all warheads and revert to a nuclear-free planet? Apparently, Homer Simpson really is in charge.

Cute fellers

2008-06-04T10:31:00.000-07:00

Nuff said!!!

This Just In O'Billary In: McCain Out

2008-06-03T17:55:00.000-07:00

In a brilliant move, Barack Obama has selected dominatrix Hillary Clinton to be his sparring partner, -er, running mate in the upcoming contest for President. The formidable duo, reminiscent of such awesome teams as Batman and Robin, Starsky and Hutch and Peaches and Herb have set an agenda to rapidly take all the remaining votes-the twelve remaining votes- believed to be firmly in McCain's camp. Plus the vote for Ralph Nader.

THIS JUST IN:

McCain has stepped down from the Presidential contest.

The presumptive nominee has folded his lobbyist filled tent and scurried quietly into the night. In additional startling news, the scattered vestiges of the Republican party have already groomed several replacement candidates for the now truncated campaign, including Bo Derek or Drew Carey as VeePee choices and either new NRA spokesidiot Ted Nugent or the animated corpse of Charlton Heston as the Man In Charge. Rupert Murdoch refused a draft pick, stating that changing the law to include foreign-born despots would take more weeks than even his fortune could muster. The Democratic Party has pledged to return all remaining election donations and urged the electorate to "Party Like It's 1999".

Picky, Picky, Picky

2008-05-29T13:56:00.000-07:00

Picky, Picky,Picky, this picking the delegates fiasco is both riveting and lame at the same time.

Saturday's Ho-Tel meeting in DC to discuss seating delegates from rogue Monster State Florida and exhausted Rust Belt Central HQ Michigan is shaping up to be its own whack bit of lunacy, with the actual concept of punishment for flaunting Democratic Party rules seemingly falling by the wayside. You break the rules, you pay the price, unless you have the duo Banshee team of Billary breathing fire down your neck. The delegate split for Michigan when Obama wasn't even on the ticket is beyond ludicrous. There should be an even delegate split between the two candidates, the Solomonic wisdom so self-evident as to be the only true solution. Might as well do the same in FL. Giving all of MI to Hillary Clinton is not logical. Not at all. There's no justice in that scheme, and scheme it is. Hillary is gonna push this to the convention and that'll leave no time at all for fighting off that crackpot crank Methusalaesque Republican unpopular choice as presumptive candidate what's his name. In the end, Clinton will have done more damage to the Democrats than all the forces of Religious Right extremists combined. How ironic, it takes one to destroy one. A fight's a fight: a spoiler is always just a spoiler.

Too Much Too Late

2008-05-26T15:22:00.000-07:00

Wow- so here it is, cloudy and wet-ish in L.A. for the Memorial Day weekend, allowing for a burial in books and magazines and now, that I have two cool dudes coming to stay for the summer, I went ahead and got cable tv. Figger this will keep them immersed in US cultcha for awhile. This should be an amazing summer time. Gonna hang with Daniel from Bavaria and Marc from Switzerland. As always, I will feel compelled and actually enjoy showing them a good time here in the states. Our image is so fractured and troubled now, I feel I should in fact host the entire planet sans the United States so I can do my part to turn our image around again. Especially the French, who we did a grave disservice to with the Iraq "coalition". Remember Freedom Fries? Sometimes we can be such idiots. The French are the reason we are here today!

Gawd, give us Obama and a chance for redemption. BO, make me veepee. I will be your ambassador and keep the heat off your tail. I will travel the world and win over even the most obstreperous of nations. I will change the way the world views us, not as the most wasteful nation on earth but as the most innovative of countries, loving, caring, giving and concerned for all of humankind. Then I'll push for funding of Planned Parenthood the way it should be done, and perhaps we can reduce the world population to a manageable level. After all, the subtext of virtually every issue before us today is overpopulation, from famine and food prices to overfished oceans and rivers to oil scarcity. Let's look and act macro so we can repair micro.

Time to roll up our sleeves and get busy, Mr. President.

Freeway of love

2008-05-23T17:26:00.000-07:00

It's stormy and rainy and tornado-ey here in So Cal and everyone is geared up to escape, be it a good book and snug covers or a trip to Yosemite, a screening at the Cineramadome of Indy, or a parka picnic at El Matador. Lots of folks are going shopping, everything is marked way down, and those IRS checks are out and cashed. Folks are so tired of Clinton/Obama/McCain that anything seems more interesting. Even though Prop 98 might destroy California as we now know it, we will all merrily go along and try and forget work and politics for at least three days.

Then, the grind continues. Movies to market, last minute trailers to go out, radio spots and tv to create, political points to make, dates to make and break, you know: another day in paradise.

Whalin' Wailin'

2008-05-21T12:19:00.000-07:00

Matthew Barney is a big idiot. Maybe because he's shacked up with Bjork, from Iceland, another whaling outlaw nation, that he doesn't get it and honors a "sacred tradition" of murdering the oceanic behemoths. What a putz. Please, back to football. And the vaseline encrusted workout bench, the restraint series, it's all a bit...

lame. Methinks he doth try too damn hard.

I like whales. Don't you? If you do, log on to my activist site http://www.myspace.com/boycottjapan and sign up and spread the word.

or:

http://www.myspace.com/stopwhaling