In a perfect universe:

Bill Clinton would still be president.

There would be a BLT w/ thinly sliced avacodo and a side order of hash browns on my bedside table tomorrow morning.

War, poverty, disease, illiteracy, religious fanaticism, overpopulation and global warming would disappear faster than paychecks at casinos.

Most men wouldn't be easily threatened.

I'd have *all the clothes.*

My parents would be healthy and I'd be living in New York, right this second.

Love--and bunnies--would last forever.

If Armistead Maupin doesn't write about this, I will:

Gay Porn Star Serves Moguls

New York Post Online Edition: gossip

If inclined, please disseminate this post from Salon's War Room '04 column:

Salon.com Politics

Hersh: Children sodomized at Abu Ghraib, on tape

After Donald Rumsfeld testified on the Hill about Abu Ghraib in May, there was talk of more photos and video in the Pentagon's custody more horrific than anything made public so far. "If these are released to the public, obviously it's going to make matters worse," Rumsfeld said. Since then, the Washington Post has disclosed some new details and images of abuse at the prison. But if Seymour Hersh is right, it all gets much worse.

Hersh gave a speech last week to the ACLU making the charge that children were sodomized in front of women in the prison, and the Pentagon has tape of it. The speech was first reported in a New York Sun story last week, which was in turn posted on Jim Romenesko's media blog, and now EdCone.com and other blogs are linking to the video. We transcribed the critical section here (it starts at about 1:31:00 into the ACLU video.) At the start of the transcript here, you can see how Hersh was struggling over what he should say:

"Debating about it, ummm ... Some of the worst things that happened you don't know about, okay? Videos, um, there are women there. Some of you may have read that they were passing letters out, communications out to their men. This is at Abu Ghraib ... The women were passing messages out saying 'Please come and kill me, because of what's happened' and basically what happened is that those women who were arrested with young boys, children in cases that have been recorded. The boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling. And the worst above all of that is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking that your government has. They are in total terror. It's going to come out."

"It's impossible to say to yourself how did we get there? Who are we? Who are these people that sent us there? When I did My Lai I was very troubled like anybody in his right mind would be about what happened. I ended up in something I wrote saying in the end I said that the people who did the killing were as much victims as the people they killed because of the scars they had, I can tell you some of the personal stories by some of the people who were in these units witnessed this. I can also tell you written complaints were made to the highest officers and so we're dealing with a enormous massive amount of criminal wrongdoing that was covered up at the highest command out there and higher, and we have to get to it and we will. We will. You know there's enough out there, they can't (Applause). .... So it's going to be an interesting election year."

Notes from a similar speech Hersh gave in Chicago in June were posted on Brad DeLong's blog. Rick Pearlstein, who watched the speech, wrote: "[Hersh] said that after he broke Abu Ghraib people are coming out of the woodwork to tell him this stuff. He said he had seen all the Abu Ghraib pictures. He said, 'You haven't begun to see evil...' then trailed off. He said, 'horrible things done to children of women prisoners, as the cameras run.' He looked frightened."

So, there are several questions here: Has Hersh actually seen the video he described to the ACLU, and why hasn't he written about it yet? Will he be forced to elaborate in more public venues now that these two speeches are getting so much attention, at least in the blogosphere? And who else has seen the video, if it exists -- will journalists see and report on it? did senators see these images when they had their closed-door sessions with the Abu Ghraib evidence? -- and what is being done about it?

-- Geraldine Sealey

[09:26 PDT, July 15, 2004]

And then Dave Eggers and I went shopping for pants in SoHo...

...and grabbed coffee at Dean and DeLuca. (You know, the one in my mind):

My first piece for McSweeney's is here!

McSweeney's Internet Tendency: If Charles Bukowski Had Written Children's Books.

Six strangers have linked it to their blogs, so I thought I'd do the same. It ran on McSweeney's front page for three days--I have a screenshot--but I don't know how to hyperlink it, so y'all are going to have to take my word for it.

My mom likes to say, "Life shits on everyone eventually. Enjoy the good times while they're here."

I agree and I'm enjoying.

(Not now, Dave. I'm on deadline.)

Lou Reed's late-eighties Honda scooter ads came dangerously close:

When Stephen Dorff played proto-Beatle Stuart Sutcliffe in the film, "Backbeat", he embodied the hushed, aching loveliness of the doomed bassist. A decade later, Dorff portrays some wanged-out jealous boyfriend in the new Britney Spears video.

Has there ever been a more precipitous decline in rock 'n' coolness?

Late Night Confessions:

1) I don't like yoga.

2) I have a subscription to US Magazine.

3) My brother and my two first cousins all married virgins, making me--by default--the family whore.

4) One of my exes married a woman whose IQ rivals that of the average cobb salad.

5) I made up two words this week, "awesomeosity" and "dicklicker":

"I got accepted into McSweeney's! *Awesomeosity!*"

"Nice lane change, *dicklicker!*"

6) When I see people wearing fleece pullovers and Tevas, I sometimes want to kick them.

7) Other times, I want to trip them.

8) I'm always thinking of you, New York.

Handi-Wipes Might Be Good, Too:

The past six weeks have been surreal. I haven't divulged most details to even my closest friends and I'm not ready to spill them here, either.

I need a distraction. If Amazon let you compile a life wish list, mine would read:

#1 Courtney Taylor's penis
#2 32 oz. of Kahlua
#3 A clean, flat surface

I've got #3 locked and it's only Monday. Think I'll slip into my fishnets. Just in case.

I'm also the Henry Miller of shoes:

My theater friends used to say that I'm the Bukowski of desserts, so I know whereof I speak when I vociferously recommend the new line of chocolates, Cocoa Pete's. The flavors, textures, packaging, and price comprise the perfect dessert, or PMS dinner.

If only writers landed endorsement deals.

Cocoa Pete's Chocolate Adventures

Buckingham's Chalice:

A few months ago, I wrote that Lindsey Buckingham now looks like a haggard English professor.

A retraction of sorts: I'm watching the Fleetwood Mac documentary on VH1 and next to Mick Fleetwood and John McVie, Buckingham's visage is positively dewy. In addition to the bongwater, Buckingham clearly drank from the cup of life, too.

[Note: Dear Stevie, your cracked gravel voice still breaks my heart.]

The Blair Bitch Project:

I'm really ill and missed most of my friend's birthday party tonight. (By the time I got there, I had to leave. Otherwise, I wouldn't have been able to drive home safely.) I was looking forward to toasting her on her big night and I'm bummed.

I've got awful chills so I've changed into flannel pajamas, my robe with the puppy dogs on it, and thick wool socks. (The latter comprise the only garments I own from that style-chomping black hole, REI.)

It is in this mood and under these circumstances that I've turned on the television and inadvertantly encountered Katie Couric's interview with Jayson Blair. I loathe Blair for all the obvious reasons, but here's the truly absurd thing: he's explaining to Couric that his bipolar disorder played a role in the grotesque deception he perpetrated at The New York Times. A manic depressive New York writer: that's *historically unprecedented.* He must feel like a two-headed baby. With fins. If mood disorders gave writers permission not to do their jobs, homo sapiens would still be scrawling in the dirt with sticks.

This day is over. I'm going to sleep.

Millions have died in the past four years. Nader still draws breath:

Question for the gods: Why?

Salon.com News | Ralph Nader announces run for presidency

And now, [expletive] stuff I'm not at all grateful for and loathe in the very core of my being:

1) These goddamned fucking chills.
2) This cocksucking fever.
3) Whatever the hell is making my lymph nodes feel like rocks.
4) This ass-sucking, motherfucking nausea.
5) Apparently having pissed off gravity.
6) Running out of profanity, not symptoms.

Or anyone else's kids, either:

Re John Kerry and the buzz that he might--or might not--have nailed someone else while married to Teresa (DRUDGE REPORT 2004?), could we all just agree that as long as the candidates aren't fucking their own kids, *it just doesn't matter?*

"Said it once before/But it bears repeating now"--The White Stripes

Today is my birthday: five and a half hours in, and so far, 37 is quite fun. One of my friends (affectionately) teased me about my recent entry re gratefulness, but on your birthday, you can't help but get a bit contemplative.

So, fuck it: I've got some wonderful people in my life and I love what I do. I really am grateful.

Let the mockery resume.

At what point does CPR become kissing the dead?

Sometimes no amount of effort will bring a friendship back to life.

A momentary lapse of glibness:

Some days are so good, so unexpectedly delightful, that all you can do is give thanks.

To all of the extraordinarily intelligent and kind people in my life--living and dead--and to Whomever got the ball rolling: Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Dude, where's my adrenaline?

An alarmingly talented and really sweet new friend asked me to pitch something to his editor. I emailed my ideas yesterday and now I'm punchy, but in a really good mood.

I'm allergic to everything in them, but today I celebrate: w/in the hour, two slices of pizza and a Diet Coke will sit before me. Woo-hoo! (That's how Fitzgerald and Bukowski tore it up, right?) For health reasons and totally against my will, I might be one of the more monastic writers of all time.

But, hey, except for Sofia Coppola, I've got the best shoes.

They should hear my dad discuss "that asshole" Aaron Brown:

Since June, I've maintained that Senator John Kerry provides the Democrats' best hope for reclaiming the White House, so I'm delighted with the results of Iowa's caucus. I agree with w/ Governor Howard Dean's critics: he's unelectable on a national level; he's a huge fucking crybaby; and his understanding of foreign affairs is limited at best. (Try Osama bin Laden before a jury? I'm a lifelong progressive, but I think that's an inane and dangerous response to the most blatant act of war committed against the U.S. in the past fifty years.)

That being said, the pundits are making way too big of a deal out of Dean's post-Iowa speech to his supporters. (Salon.com Politics) Yes, Dean got riled up and, yes, there was some yelling involved, but it's not as if he took a swig of Jim Beam and gutted a volunteer with a shiv. He publicly displayed emotion and spoke with his hands. Perhaps said pundits should interact with Mediterranean families and gain some perspective.

To the teams at CNN, The New York Times, Salon, and Fox, I extend an invitation: Join us for Sunday dinner. I dare you.

I recently stumbled across Ralph Waldo Emerson's definition of success:

"To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children ... to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived."

To which I'll add: the affection of rabbits, too.

My Digittante interview with photographer Amanda Koster is up--yea!

Excerpt:

Amanda Koster is the rare artist who prompts you to call your friends and issue mandates: “You’ve got to check out this person’s stuff. No, really, right now.” When my editor first told me about “this great photographer”, I was skeptical. Not because I don’t trust his judgement—I do—but because, like writing, photography seems to attract poseurs and dilettantes. Someone picks up a camera, shoots their roommate in black and white, and—boom—they think they’re Diane Arbus. Then I went to her web site, amandakoster.com, and viewed a collection of her work.

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