my day as a roller coaster ride

Wake up. Looks bright out. No wait--it is fuckin nice out! Drive to work. The radio announces Terri Schiavo's death. Mood darkens slightly. But there is hardly any traffic! Drink more coffee. Mood begins to brighten. Arrive at work.

Work. The women at work understand it is now spring. They are wearing skirts! Strappy sandals! Bright colors with floral patterns! But wait--they are all younger. And thinner. With perfectly french-manicured toe nails. I am not yet prepared for this. Vow to go home and shave legs, wax eyebrows, loose 10 pounds. Depression. Confusion. Should I get bangs again? Maybe that will solve all problems! Confer with gals at work and they agree: bangs!

Lunch break. Go to the farmer's market. There are strawberries! The first of the season! But still too expensive. Instead buy fava beans. Think about making a pasta with the fava beans. Know that they will take forever to shell. But it will be worth it!

Work is over. Drive to meet a girlfriend for art-watching and dinner. Start thinking about finances. Finding a roommate. The haircut appointment to have foxy bangs again. Gripping depression in conjunction with severe cramping. Sudden recollection that may have just taken 6 Ibuprofen by accident. Meant only to take 3! Fleeting panic that may have just killed myself! Arrive at destination. Can't find parking. Admit defeat and park in the over-priced lot.

Talk with girlfriend. Commiserate over never going out. So glad we decided to finally do this! Look at great art! See video installation and think: I could do this myself. This could be new calling! Love this stuff! Think more about why I don't do it. Feelings of insecurity tinged with envy.

Dinner. Where to go? Craving for sushi. Punk rock local secret sushi place? No wait! Immediate service! Loud music and raucous clientele! Abalone in season! More sake! More raw fish! Catching up! Mariachi band now playing in punk rock local secret sushi place! We'll start our own band! I can play the keyboards and sing off-key in spanish! She can play the marimbas and the clarinet! We will be called the cupcakes!

After dinner. Walk in hip neighborhood. Many kids but also many crackheads. Obviously, spring! Go to Indian ice-creamery. Mango ice-cream! Cardamom rose ice-cream! More walking in hip neighborhood. But it's so early. But we're so tired. Decide to drive home.

Come home. Feed the cat. Check emails. Write list of things to accomplish for tomorrow's day off. Cramping continues. Self-reflection. Introspection. Slight anxiety about all that needs to happen on day off. Compulsion to write in blog. Guilt if not entered into daily. Sleep deprivation. Dehydration. Typing skills slipping. Exhaustion wins. Turn in for evening.

dating inequities

This is a story about someone else. About a good, good friend o'mine. Pretty much the funniest guy I know about who doesn't know he's funny. He lives in a college town where he teaches (at the college). There is no one in his dating pool; the only options are either his very young students or his elderly tenure-tracked colleagues who are already married and divorced a coupla times.

He frequents the local movie theatre that plays independent films and documentaries. We can call it the art house. One day he sees a woman he went to school with working there. A woman close to him in age. A woman. Without a ring. Possibly available. From that point forward, he vows to get to know this woman better. He does not watch movies at the first-run theatres or in the big city. He saves all the movies, so he can watch them at the art house. Watch them maybe 2 or 3 times.

Mostly she works the register. Mostly there are other people around, either customers or employees. He waits for the right opportunity. He calls. He asks my advice. He realizes he needs to make a move sometime soon. He calls up old college friends to find out if she has a boyfriend. If she is married. He says she does not wear a ring. We all urge him to act!

One day he arrives at the art house and she is not there. Just when he had mustered the courage to ask her out! He comes back again and she is still not there. He panics! Has his window of opportunity slipped away? He searches for her online. He contacts the alumni registry. He sends her an email, that will be forwarded to her through the registry. He asks if she no longer works at the art house. He asks if she'd like to meet sometime for coffee or dinner. It's a shot in the dark.

He hears back from her! Only a few days later. She has quit the art house! She does want to meet! But then, he notices a curious thing. Her name on the return email has her last name plus another name. A name that sounds peculiarly like another last name. Only it's before her last name, where one might insert a middle name. Let's say whereas he knew her as Andrea Kunft, her name on the email appears as Andrea Cleever + Kunft. Mysterious. What does the plus signify? If she were married, would it not be Kunft hypen Cleever? He calls again. What does it all mean? I assure him she is not married otherwise, why would she agree to go out with him? With nary an afterthought? I can't convince him. He is prepared for the worst.

They make plans to meet near her work. The day finally comes and there is a huge snow storm. He calls. He cancels. She suggests they try again next week. He agrees. He calls to ask if it is a bad sign that she didn't want to reschedule sooner. He is really prepared for the worst.

It's the day before they are supposed to meet. He calls. He is in a panic. He has a huge pimple on his nose. Should he cancel? He soaks it in hot water and salt and believes this will reduce the bump. I tell him he is crazy. Just, get it over with! Either it will or it will not happen. Out of your hands. Let destiny run its course!

He calls. The date has just ended. The date was not a date as it turns out. Not only is she married, she is four months pregnant! She tells him this casually over dinner! He realizes she must have assumed he was gay. When he moved to San Francisco after college, everyone thought it was because he was gay. He hopes word doesn't come back to her that he was asking around about her availability. He wonders if this means he has to now to pretend to be gay to save face. He tells me he'll call me back. When the next dating crisis ensues.

My Dinner With DeAndre

Last night DeAndre flew in from Portland. He arrived world-weary...

...but my home cookin cheered him right up.

As usual, he made me laugh.

And he drank too much.

He started browsing through my bookshelves and sure enough found the William T. Vollman tome he had given me two Christmases ago. He insisted on reading it aloud.



He went on and on.

It started to piss me off.

Things got a little ugly.

And then he just passed out.It was pretty late. I was tired.

In the morning we said goodbye.

Thank you packphour!

Ahead of the curve

After setting my clock forward and assuming last Sunday was Easter, I got off to a bit of a rocky start today. Nonetheless, after waiting for Bachelorette for over an hour and a half(!), we got down to the business of the day: strategic goal planning. As part of our government-sponsored artist-in-rehab training we're supposed to meet once a month to write down all our goals and then turn them in for evaluation. OK, in our case, it's more like once every three months, but, as it turns out, this was particularly good timing. After reviewing the goals I had written three months ago, I realized that, "getting O on board to have a baby" just wasn't gonna happen any time soon. A lot of crossing out, a lot of rearranging, and our priorities were becoming more and more aligned: hers "dating more" and mine: "start dating".

We then had to come up with an action plan. In other words, what are the small steps we could take in order to achieve our goals? I thought one solution might be to get a dog. Chicks with dogs seem so approachable! And yet, so obviously single! Having a dog would also put the kabash on the disease that seems to be going around: "the need to have a baby" and, thus, we would be killing two birds with one stone.

Bachelorette thought having her friends set her up, could be a viable option she hadn't yet fully explored. We quickly ran through our own list of available men with whom we could set each other up. Basically, the list included two kinds of men: those we had formerly dated and those we would never in a million years date. As we compared notes we realized that many of the men I had put in the never-in-a-million-years category, were, of course, men she was currently dating.

Finally, although we are both in the artist recovery program, we agreed art residencies were the perfect place for romantic hook-ups. We'd heard many o'tale of passionate coupling and prolific art-making, and in some cases even, passionate coupling amid prolific art-making. We weren't quite sure, though, if our sponsors would go for that. But it definitely merited further exploration.

After the strategic planning session I have to say, I felt pretty lousy. Sensing my mood shift, Bachelorette told me she had read somewhere that 90% of heterosexual relationships fail. And the fact that I had been in two somewhat successful almost-3-year relationships actually put me way ahead of the curve.

Photo blatantly pilfered from the Cremaster Cycle...I haven't seen them neither.

Since when is pfft a word? now slightly re-edited

I had the pleasure of commiserating with another unmarried, recently-dumped, hasn't-produced-any-children female friend. I'm telling you, we are hard to come by these days.



We swapped humiliating stories over Belgian beer and oysters.

Me: The ex came by to finally haul off the last bit of his furniture. In exchange, he left behind: a substantial amount of dust where the furniture was, a bag of shoes he told me I could throw out and some loose change spilled all over the rug. Lucky me. I'm rich in dust bunnies and spare change.

She: He dumped her one night after they'd gone out to a nice dinner, engaged in pleasant conversation and returned to his apartment for snogging. Then he simply said that he "didn't find her that interesting anymore."

Me: My mom who was visiting recently, told me she would consider giving me the money she'd set aside for my wedding.

She: He picked her up at a bar mitzvah with the winning line, "Nice skirt!"

She: The last 7 men she dated have all married the next person they dated.

Me: I just got an evite to the wedding of the person I dumped so I could date the guy who just dumped me.

It went on and to keep at least some shred of dignity, I'll have to leave the rest at the bar. As we were leaving the bar at an hour far too early to save any face, we saw a faded old sign for fun busses to Reno. We pictured ourselves on that bus, side by side with the seniors, shipped into Reno for a night of bingo. At least, we could laugh at that.

art by Richard Prince

Permanent Booty Call, yea or nay?

So Booty Call, henceforth to be known as BC, rang me up last night and wanted to see "how I was doing." Could this be a sign of something more permanent evolving here? Is he suggesting he be my main Booty mate? Is this a good thing? Let's look at the pros and the cons of the situation.

Con: BC, being an ex, is someone I vowed I would never sleep with again.
Pro: I am a much better human being when getting laid.

Con: Having a permanent BC could keep me from pursuing other more meaningful relationships.
Pro: Do I really need more meaningful relationships?

Con: It cuts into my blogging time.
Pro: It could give me something interesting to blog about.

Con: He smokes cigarettes.
Pro: What's wrong with cigarettes?

Con: He drank all of my single malt.
Pro: He's not there in the morning.

Con: I know all his worst traits.
Pro: No surprises.

Con: Nothing more can ever be wrought out of this union, so why even pursue it?
Pro: Thank God!

All in all, it looks like the pros might be winning. Yea or nay?

The Stars We Are

I once helped a woman die. I guess my story is a little different from those in the papers these days since it was my Grandma and she was already quite old.

Her name was Joyce. At one time she worked as an elevator operator at Magnums and, like many of her generation, she still used the word, "colored." I was never her favorite but even my sister who was, had to agree, she loved her cats more than any of us. Add to that fact a cantankerous spirit and you can see where I'm going here.

One day my mom called and Grandma was sick. She had broken her hip, she was in the hospital, and she was far away from most of us. Except for me. I wasn't so far away that I couldn't drive out and see her. So said my mom.

Everything changes when you enter a hospital. And when you are there visiting an older person...what am I trying to say here...everyone but you knows you are there to say goodbye.

Here, maybe it's time to have that wee pour of scotch. Through the window of her hospital room I saw Grandma and what I saw made me realize that it had actually been a long time. A real long time since I had seen her. My dad arrived moments later, convinced I had the wrong room. "Is that my mom? That's not my mom." We held our breath and walked in.

She was connected to a million different things, but the most absurd was a giant astronaut-like helmet on her head. This was a small woman under normal circumstances. A woman who had dieted, drank and suntanned a good portion of her life. But that day she was as new to me as the machines lined up by her bed.

It wasn't hard to start taking control of things. I guess it came to me naturally. My dad could barely hold her hand and, what with this being an HMO and all, I immediately understood that you had to fight for the small victories: the pitcher of ice-water, the chairs for us to sit in, any shred of information. You learned the doctors' schedules so you could ask them questions, you befriended the night nurses because they were always nicer, you went and got the popsicles your damn self.

She was coherent and then she was gone. She was frightened and then mean to the asian nurses. She told me that I had never been her favorite, but that she was considering changing her mind. She told me that the stuffed animal I had brought her was not a tiger but a leopard because leopards have spots.

Night one I spent on a small cot lying next to her constantly waking and checking for her breathing. Night two I sat by her bed all night, having promised the nurses they wouldn't need to tie her down because I would keep her from taking off the oxygen mask. Night three I cried and it was mostly from exhaustion.

There were decisions to be made. Legal decisions. And I had to translate all of them to my dad who refused to comprehend the options that were being laid out in front of him like the last hand of a poker game. But we were way ahead of him. He was still asking questions like, "Will she ever walk again?"

When she was lucid, I did whatever it was that she wanted. Went back to her house to grab her checkbooks, dialed one of her friends on the hospital phone so she could tell them, "It's Joyce. I'm at the hospital and I don"t know when I'm getting out." I called all of the family and begged them to come out. I rubbed lotion into her hands every time they pulled out the IVs, and, even though it's not my strongest suit, I tried to make her laugh.

And then the stuffed animals starting scaring her, the photos we had taped up of all the grandchildren were too ominous, and the doctors and nurses, well, they were just trying to kill her.

At that point, she weighed 85 pounds. She was having trouble swallowing. She had mostly stopped talking. They were going to have to stick a tube down her throat.

It was one of the night nurses who pulled me aside one day and told me. I knew it wasn't part of her job. This was a state-run institution and counseling wasn't included. She told me that my grandma was not getting any better. She told me that I should convince my dad to say goodbye to his mother. And she told me that my grandma didn't have to hang around for our sakes.

I can't say it got much easier after that. I never convinced my dad. But when I held my grandmother's hand and for a second I saw her eyes bright and wide, I took that moment to tell her, it was alright by me.

what I am not

I cannot play the dozens. This was a popular sport when I was growing up and sadly enough, I was never any good at it.

Nor can I bake bread. This pains me deeply. I have tried on multiple occasions, but the bread just will not rise.

OK let's talk about knitting. I once made a latch-hook rug of Oscar the Grouch, but beyond that I have not yet progressed.

I cannot tell a joke. OK, I know exactly one joke, I've known it for some 10 years now and I first learned it in Spanish which is probably why it has stuck with such allegiance. It's not exactly funny, but it does have to do with Salvador Dali and Pablo Picasso taking a walk on the beach.

I cannot drive a car with a manual transmission. Practically every man I have ever dated has tried to teach me. I have remained stubbornly ignorant.

I am horribly tone-deaf. I once took a singing class at the local JC. We discovered I had a wide range, a booming voice, a keen interest, but alas this one critical detail was missing.

Which brings me to the next on the list. Despite having taken piano lessons for almost 8 years, I cannot play an instrument.

I do not remember my first birthday. Nor my second. Nor many of those that followed.

And oh yeah, I can't remember anybody else's birthday. I am convinced this has quite a lot to do with the fact that my own birthday falls on a holiday. If yours fell on a well-known holiday, I could, perhaps, remember it.

I cannot juggle with more than 2 objects. All those years of clown school and they wouldn't let me graduate because of one minor detail.

I cannot play Bridge. Nor can I play Mah Jong. Lord only knows what I have been missing.

Chances are, I could not perform an emergency tracheotomy if it were needed.

I cannot wiggle my ears, make my tongue into a taco, nor flare my nostrils. And I have to admit, I have never spent much time trying.

Just to be clear. I am not a contortionist.

Four square was never my game.

I roll a piss-poor joint.

I would prefer not to give you a haircut.

And I would be lying if I said I could explain to you M-theory, the theory formerly known as Strings.

Is it just me or does this baby bear a striking resemblance to Kurt?

some things i think you should know about my mom

5 minutes before our scheduled 20-minute trial massage she decides she does not really like being relaxed.

Midway through fancy dinner she exclaims, "Growing old is not for pussies!"

Driving back to the hotel it's, "Don't be alarmed-
My Dad, "I'm not."
Mom, "-but there's a large pill stuck in my throat."

The thing about it is, like all moms, she drives me absolutely batty.
And the thing about it is, she says whatever the hell she wants, even if it's utterly banal, "crossing-the-line", or just completely false.
And the final thing about it is, when I grow up I am going to be just like her.

I promise this is gonna be a good one

OK, perhaps I lie.

The parents are in town for approximately 30 hours on The Annual Daughter Pilgrimage. I guess I should be lucky they aren't the kind of folks who will actually want to stay with me, meet any of my friends, or, heaven forbid, ask me how I'm doing.

Tangent 1.
Spent the entire day listening to Joe Frank and cleaning the house in preparation. If any of you grew up in LA as I did, you well know Joe Frank. I first discovered him as a bored teenager, driving the vast LA freeways, and soon found the antidote to my listlessness. The mysterious voice, those elaborate yarns and his dark, dark humor, ah, heaven. I would say he has more to do with who I became than all 12 years of Catholic School. This about sums it all up perfectly: A Winter Love Story. Or go here and scroll down to Joe.

Tangent 2.
Rent-a-German. C'mon you know you need one!

Adam G., 48 (San Francisco):
"It was awesome! Having a German at the office for a week was a huge success! Since then, my relationship with my co-workers has improved big time! I'll definitely do it again- It was, like, oh my god, this is so it!"

Tangent 3 and then I'm hauling off to bed.
At dinner with the parents and we were discussing getting massages at the fancy hotel they are staying in.

mom: I've never had a massage.
me: You've never had a-?!
mom: For 50 minutes?! What if it hurts?
me, pointing at dad: And you don't like anyone touching your feet?
dad: Yes, together, we make one fucked up person.

Perhaps the secret to their success?

Kenneth, what is the frequency?

Last night's booty call was a resounding success!

Which brings me to this morning's dilemna, should I clean the house for me mum who will be rolling into town in a few hours?

In 1997, based on a tip from a psychiatrist, Dan Rather's attacker was identified as William Tager. According to the psychiatrist, Tager, who was currently serving time for killing an NBC stagehand, blamed news media for beaming signals into his head, and thought if he could just find out the correct frequency, he could block those signals that were constantly assailing him. Hence the enigmatic inquiry.

the four moods I inhabit

1. punchy = elated/drunk/sleep-deprived
2. cagey = flirty or oblique references to the past/present/future
3. cranky = woe-is-me
4. and bitchy = combatant

1 and 2 occasionally combine as do 3 and 4. And things can get downright ugly when 2 and 4 bump into each other.

You might be wondering what mood inhabits me today.
Well, let me tell you. I am number 3: CRANKY (although as of late it seems that I have been mostly number 2: CAGEY).

This is an adjustment from the old:
"Describe how you are feeling today as if it were a weather forecast?"
"OK, I am ___ ." (stormy, sunny, cloudy or 45% humidity with a slight chance of showers)

I am number 3: CRANKY because a) I am working today b) I just discovered that Sasha- Frere Jones is neither a woman nor black and I find that deeply unsettling and c) I once again, forgot to plan social activities for Saturday night, something that keeps biting me in the ass now that I am no longer in a relationship where these kinds of issues are moot.

Art by Desiree Arlette Holman

[Editor's note: We apologize for Casey's late-night obtuse blog posting. We can only suggest it had something to do with the dinner she had with her ex-husband, the argument she and her ex got into about which dumplings to order, the parking situation on her street, and the five episodes of Newsroom she then watched. While we here in Mudville strongly encourage free speech, creative exploration and the pursuit of intellectual growth, we must also urge her to take a much-needed vacation.]

start a love train, love train

think about calling up all your exes and asking them what went wrong.

think about asking them why they never got married. why they went into rehab. why they decided to have kids with someone else. why they became scientologists. why they turned to schopenhaur and turned their backs on kant. why they went off the grid. why they took a vow of silence and never spoke again.

could it have anything possibly to do with you?

think about all those conversations you had with your therapist. think about how your therapist said it always begins with your mother. think about your mother's kitchen. you know what that's supposed to represent, right? think about what your therapist is thinking right now.

and what about the person who cleans your house? do they look through your drawers? have they made an extra key? are they smelling your dirty underwear? have they found where you hide your expired credit cards? do they cut their toe nails with your toe nail clipper? are they taking cat naps in your bed?

and the babysitter? is she running up your phone bill? does she know your all your internet passwords? does she replace your ice cream with that of a lesser brand? is that the reason you're always running out of toilet paper? could she speak another language that you don't know about?

then there's the mailman. he comes to your house. he knows where you live. he visits you everyday. could there be an ulterior motive here? do all mail carriers now wear bullet-proof vests?

what about the telemarketer? how do they always know when you have just walked in the door? how do they know to call just when you are expecting that very important phone call? is it crime to tell them that you aren't the person they are trying to reach? what if you said you were dead? can they tell when you are lying?

one year my mom decided i would be pierrot for halloween and so i was a french clown who did not speak for halloween. there is also a japanese rock band that goes by the name pierrot.

cupcake vs. shortcake and then throw in some beefcake

On behalf of half of my ancestry, I'd like to formally wish you a Happy Saint Patrick's day. May the river beside you be flowing green. For this special occasion I will be utilizing capitalization in the formation of all of my sentences.

I would also like to acknowledge that I once dated a man named:

Oden Sarto Connolly

Now, that's a name you can hang your hat on.

In lieu of having very little to say but with the insatiable need to be charming/amusing/loved I leave you with this:

Ten Ways to Avoid Lending Your Wheelbarrow to Anybody

1 PATRIOTIC

May I borrow your wheelbarrow?
I didn't lay down my life in World War II
so that you could borrow my wheelbarrow.

2 SNOBBISH

May I borrow your wheelbarrow?
Unfortunately Lord Goodman is using it.

3 OVERWEENING

May I borrow your wheelbarrow?
It is too mighty a conveyance to be wielded
by any mortal save myself.

4 PIOUS

May I borrow your wheelbarrow?
My wheelbarrow is reserved for religious ceremonies.

5 MELODRAMATIC

May I borrow your wheelbarrow?
I would sooner be broken on its wheel
and buried in its barrow.

6 PATHETIC

May I borrow your wheelbarrow?
I am dying of schizophrenia
and all you can talk about is wheelbarrows.

7 DEFENSIVE

May I borrow your wheelbarrow?
Do you think I'm made of wheelbarrows?

8 SINISTER

May I borrow your wheelbarrow?
It is full of blood.

9 LECHEROUS

May I borrow your wheelbarrow?
Only if I can fuck your wife in it.

10 PHILOSOPHICAL

May I borrow your wheelbarrow?
What is a wheelbarrow?

-- Adrian Mitchell

a, b, c and then d

real quick here because i am trying to get my lazy ass to the gym but for some inexplicable reason this is sticking in my head so it must mean i should be writing it down, you know, purging it from my system.

a. when i was growing up my mom used to wake up in the middle of the night screaming, "mommy, mommy, mommy!" It sounded pretty much like you'd think it would. This happened pretty much every night and often many times a night. we lived in a 2 bedroom apartment.

b. my real father either 1) killed himself or 2) fell in front of a train when he was 25. previously he had convinced a few hospitals that he was schizophrenic.

c. i once heard a frightening program on NPR where they interviewed schizophrenics who talked about what it was like to have voices in their head. then the schizophrenic mimicked the voices and they were creepy. i mean it was the creepiest thing i'd ever head. one of the voices was the devil.

d. perhaps influenced by c and definitely by a and b (although many years later) i sometimes hear a voice say my name when i am in bed falling asleep. it jolts me the hell right out of bed. the voice is right in my ear like a stern whisper. at first it was the voice of my mom, then it was that devil voice. i can't sleep afterwards and if i try, it might happen multiple times in a night. it happened again last night, but only once and this time it was a man's voice that i recognize but can't quite place.

this leads me to conclude i either 1) have a ghost in my house 2) am simply dreaming or 3) am really going crazy.


But it really scares the bejesus outta me.

14 reasons

that 14-year-olds rule

1. they will tell you if you say something really, really dumb--immediately--by groaning loudly and mercilessly and rolling their eyes. for example don't be saying shizzle around them.

2. they will ask you questions that you can actually answer like, "ok, so what does wake and bake mean?"

3. they complain about all the dumb things they have to memorize in school and you can be thankful you've already paid those dues.

4. at 14 there is a wide range of emotional maturity in their classes. you can hear vivid accounts about boys who lick their hands and try to touch everyone or teen hootchies who make it onto the jerry springer show.

5. their idea of a fun time is going out with the specific intention to irritate tourists...or just anyone really.

6. nothing impresses them, so don't even try.

7. and that's why it's cool when they just call you up and wanna hang out.

8. they talk to themselves or they say what they think or they mean what they aren't really saying but you get the picture anyways.

9. it is a time of high drama and utter boredom.

10. they are pretty damn silly like they had just eaten a bunch of pot brownies. and maybe they have.

11. P.E. and all exercise is to be avoided at all costs.

12. you can turn them on to music like le tigre that will definitely annoy their mothers and for which they will forever be indebted to you.

13. they are just way, way cooler than you ever were or will ever be.

tonight the bottle let me down

Dear diary,
today, yesterday and tomorrow no one is/would/will go with me to the bob dylan and merle haggard show. if i am honest with myself it is only merle i really want to see and i would like to be close enough to see the yellow of his eyes. and so what if the tickets cost $66 a pop? what if i never get to see him goddammit? what is so wrong with my friends that they are not willing to shell out the cash and do not understand the significance of this monumental occasion? what if he dies soon like johnny and waylon, whom i didn't get to see neither. what, I ask, is wrong with these friends i have chosen? why have they abandoned me in my darkest hour ? why am i sitting here with a bottle of maker's mark, trying to remember the words to white line fever and no one to accompany me on the gee-tar?

two things I overheard

Said the man to his wife while shopping at Whole Foods, "Do we really need organic pretzels?"

Mother/daughter exchange at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.
Daughter, "Do crabs talk?"
Mother, "No."
Daughter, "Why not?"
Mother "Because that's the way god wanted it.

Art by John Patrick McKenzie of Creativity Explored.

those sheets are dirty and so are you

In one corner of the ring, we have freshly laundered sheets.
In the opposing corner, we have sleeping alone.

the offending dog

you can discover the darnedest things about a town reading the local rag's police logs or talking to cabbies about their gun laws [editor's note: this one is purely stolen from a david sedaris short story and is not actually anything casey's done...yet.]

here are some of the highlights from the Carmel Pine Cone:

Feb 27
A vehicle was parked by San Carlos Street with expired registration. The vehicle was towed.

Ex-boyfriend continued to harass his girlfriend with phone calls to her workplace. The suspect has been told by an officer to stop but continues to call anyway.

Engine was dispatched at 1625 hours to report of a person stuck in the elevator in the building at Junipero and Fifth. Upon arrival, found a building under construction with no elevator yet installed.

Unknown suspects stole more than $20,000 in golf clubs during a burglary at the golf club on Carmel Valley Road.

A 53-year-old female reported she lost a wheel cover to her 1997 BMW on 02-09 on Carmel Valley Road somewhere between Highway 1 and Chelsey Road.

March 1
Female Casanova Street resident reported a chirping sound coming from her kitchen. She also saw a beige sedan across the street that left when she went toward it. She wanted the incident documented.

Female reported she lost a diamond from her ring setting. The stone is described as a rose cut — 1/3 carat. She believes that she lost the stone in the area of Mission and Fifth or at the Monterey Airport on or about 02-28.

March 2
Female indicated that a male subject contacted her as she was leaving her hotel room on Lincoln Street. Initially, the subject was sitting in a black-colored vehicle parked adjacent to her room. He exited the vehicle and contacted her. The subject asked her for a date. She did not accept his invitation and left. Later on, the subject forwarded the female a letter via the front desk clerk of the hotel. The letter indicated he would attempt to contact her Friday morning, 03-04, between 0900 and 0915 hours. A close patrol is requested.

A female called the desk advising she saw a male subject take a surfboard out of another pickup parked on Scenic and put it in his. This occurred between noon and 1300 hours. The subject had a black pickup with a “for sale” sign in the window. As of this report, no thefts reported.

Female stated she was walking her daughter’s pet dog when another dog began to charge at her while they were on Mission Street. The owner of the offending dog came out to intervene. The female called to report what had occurred. Met with the citizen who owns the offending dog and counseled him in regards to the Carmel Municipal Code statutes. No further action.

A 45-year-old female Forest Lake Road resident reported having ongoing problems with her ex-husband.

March 3
During the evening, unknown suspect(s) stole 20 folding chairs from the alley behind an Ocean Avenue restaurant.

Subject reported a number of items left behind in the Del Mar parking lot. The subject believed it was suspicious and called police. It appeared the items may have
been forgotten. The items were booked into the CPD property room.

Female reported her lady’s wristwatch missing from her bedroom in the residence at Casanova and Palou. The watch was last seen on Monday. She believes it was stolen but could not provide any information or evidence to support a theft.

A 44-year-old male Robinson Canyon Road resident reported the door to his trailer kicked in by a Buddhist monk who then threatened him.

and on the 7th day god created road trips

people forget how fuckin easy it is to go on a road trip. hell, even i forget. but a road trip is a beautiful thing. you can always rent a car if you don't have one. you can go alone or with others. you can ask friends for suggestions. and someone will usually come through with a connection to a perfect getaway that's basically free. c'mon it's the american way. it's like, fuckin writ into our constitution.

this time my friend chela came through with an invitation for us to stay in the perky 93-yr-old ms. cynthia williams' shack. we were told to arrive with some nice sherry, cynthia's beverage of choice.

this is the shack that cynthia built.



these are the chickens who laid the eggs we ate in the shack that cynthia built.



this is window by which we sat eating our eggs laid by the chickens outside of the shack that cynthia built.



this is the view of the water below the window by which we sat eating our eggs laid by the chickens outside of the shack that cynthia built.



these are the fellas trying to view the otters down in the water below the window by which we sat eating our eggs laid by the chickens outside of the shack that cynthia built.



these are the otters the fellas are trying to view down in the water below the window by which we sat eating our eggs laid by the chickens outside of the shack that cynthia built.



i can't see them either.

i want the meats encased

Lyle flew in from chicago bearing gifts of encased meats, chocolate and german wine.

And here is a little ditty for you, the hot doug song

i'm brave but i'm chicken shit

60 years ago we bombed the shit out of Tokyo. Burned it to the ground.

Today it is Edie Brickell's birthday who became popular with a song for which I felt, at best, ambivilant--including the line, "philosophy is a walk on slippery rocks." I felt the same ambivalence towards that other supposed chic anthem, Alanis Morissette's Hand in Pocket, that came a decade or so later. Chic music, like chic flicks can really suck. Which by the way, reminds me, wasn't Sideways the equilvalent for guys of a chick flick?

For the first time this year the political party, Sinn Fein is not invited to the White House for St. Patrick's Day. Instead are invited the 5 McCartney sisters. McCartney, a Belfast civilian, was killed earlier this year by IRA members in a bar room brawl. The IRA apparently threatened the 70 eyewitnesses at the bar not to come forward with any information. And then they offered to shoot the four men involved in the murder themselves. The family politely declined.

All of these things I learned on NPR this morning. Which is one helluva way to wake up. For some special reason I can only listen to news or talk radio in the morning when driving to work. It makes me feel too lonely to just listen to music. And too sorry for myself when its so early. I guess I need to know the world, at least some part of it, is awake with me.

The photo is by photogram artist Adam Fuss.

daddy, daddy you bastard, I'm through

Q: What weighs over a ton, is 10 feet high, made of lead paint, and devours your life for eight years?

A: A rose.

Well, not any rose, but “The Rose,” a monumental painting which completely consumed Bay Area artist Jay DeFeo’s life and severely damaged her health just as she was on the cusp of national recognition as a leading figure in the San Francisco Beat scene.

Bruce Conner, artist and close personal friend of DeFeo, documented the removal of “The Rose” from Fillmore Street in his intimate and melancholy film, “The White Rose.” Conner, who still lives and works in San Francisco, recently gave Bancroft correspondence concerning his and DeFeo’s frustrated efforts to conserve and find a permanent home for her colossal masterpiece.

Conner's film, silent and shot on a hand cranked Bolex, stutters and starts, much how I imagine the process was for making "The Rose" all those damn hard years.

How can something be so full of despair and hope at the same time?

foglio di tempo

Can someone please translate this? It was left on my monitor this morning:
Foglio di tempo-prima di partire. A secret admirer? An apocalyptic warning? A cry for help I wrote to myself?

one minute reviews on monday

The Newsroom- This is Canadian TV from the mid 90's and you will like it. Delivered with all the rapid fire of a Lenny Bruce monologue, this series, with its dark humor and bumbling antihero, is similar to both The Office and our own, Curb Your Enthusiasm. And like the other two shows, the creator and writer of the show, in this case, Ken Finkleman, is also its main star. Racist, sexist and never the apologist, these are the men we love to hate. Perhaps a show like this couldn't survive on the air today with so many popular sendups of the news like The Daily Show, but this is a biting satire that entertains as much as it repels.

The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill- had the worst music of any documentary I've ever seen. If you can get past that, this is a sweet documentary about a flock of wild parrots that mysteriously thrive in middle of San Francisco and the deadbeat cum naturalist who watches over them. The birds definitely steal the show with their charm and striking personalities, and like our guide, Mark Bittner, we can't help comparing our own lives to them.

Walking on Water-Jamie and I couldn't agree on a film that we both hadn't seen and wasn't one that was playing at the local cinema in Poughkeepsie where he lives and where the woman of his dreams works. So we settled on this Israeli film, because when was the last time you saw an Israeli film? But, alas, that wasn't enough of a saving grace to redeem this picture. It was corny and implausible with a promising homoerotic subplot that never panned out.

Deadwood- The only reason I broke down and rented this was because of an absorbing article about its creator, David Milch, that was featured in The New Yorker. Milch's OCD, extreme working habits and unlikely muses made it sound like pure genius. Throw dirt on your face, scowl a lot and mumble making sure the only audible words are: fuck, cocksucker and cunt and there you have Deadwood. Because I happen to like those three words I will watch the next few episodes and see where it takes me.