"Besides, if there is another life after this one, think how much we'll get to laugh watching it all...."--Molly Ivins; "I've always said that in...

...politics, your enemies can't hurt you, but your friends will kill you.”--Ann Richards

As the Texas primary looms, I can't help but wish Molly Ivins and Ann Richards were still alive.

On the precipice of turning 41:

1) Regarding my last post: I was wrong about Denver. All of us who were elected county delegates at Saturday's caucus must attend our legislative district caucus on April 5 and/or the county convention on April 19. Then we attend our congressional district caucus on May 17th. Out of the county delegates, a group of convention delegates is elected. They attend the state convention in Spokane on June 14 and then, of course, the DNC in Denver August 25-28.

At my caucus on Saturday, I was elected precinct secretary and asked to speak on behalf of Obama before being elected one of the county delegates, so I was recording the caucus minutes and discussing with Obama supporters the points we should make and it's entirely possible something got lost in the fray. But I asked a number of detailed questions of those running the show and was under the impression no one was quite sure what the hell was going on. Or if they were clued in, they were unable to elucidate the proceedings.

I still had a number of questions and went to the Washington State Democratic Party web site and as far as I can discern, the info I listed above is correct. I know a whole bunch of writers who tend to vote Democrat and I might corral said scribes and see if all of us can help with the party's written materials. There's no way a button for the state party crab feed should be front and center but the delegates should have to dig around to find what, exactly, we're supposed to do. And I think it's confusing to refer to both county delegates and convention delegates as "delegates", even if the latter is elected from the former. It's sort of like calling prime rib and sirloin steak the same thing because they both come from cow, when really, they're similar but different.

Given the deadlines of my novel and the parameters of my health, I'm not sure if I'm going to try to get elected a convention delegate. I want to go--of course--and am fairly certain one of my editors will assign something in conjunction, but I don't want to end up in a wheelchair with an unfinished novel in order to do so. I've decided to take it day by day: if I'm persistently ambulatory and still writin' well when the congressional district caucus rolls 'round on May 17, I might toss my hat in the ring. We'll see.

[Side note: My condo on Nickerson hasn't sold yet and I'm still registered in that precinct. I'd read that you could "re-register", i.e. update your address and precinct at your new precinct caucus site on caucus day, but so much of what I'd read that week was incorrect, so I decided not to risk it. I caucused at the Coe School on Queen Anne instead of Prospect Church on Cap Hill and while I missed hanging with my new neighbors, it was nice seeing some of my old ones.]

2) What's up with Democrats wringing their hands over the notion of "electability"? Yesterday I read in the New York Times and in the Stranger online two different pieces decrying the impetus to choose a candidate based, in part, on whether she or he can get elected in November. I agree with the larger points: that it's a bit cynical and that it's impossible to predict with utmost certainty what voters will do, particularly this year.

But here's the thing: Democrats haven't won the White House with a significant majority of the popular vote since Carter beat Ford in 1976, and that was in huge part because Ford pardoned Nixon. Clinton didn't win a majority of the popular vote in 1992 or 1996--hey, Ross Perot!--and it left him without a mandate and vulnerable to the Gingrich-led smackdown in 1994. Gore won the popular vote, but just barely, and while it seems clear the Supreme Court decided the outcome, the Florida embarrassment could have been avoided if the esteemed Vice President had won his home state.

So yes, "electability" isn't an ideologically pure notion, but it is an important one. Humphrey, McGovern, Mondale, Dukakis, and Kerry all have one thing in common, you know? I happen to agree with most of Obama's positions--he still hasn't sold me on nuclear energy--and I think he has the best shot to beat McCain, so the electability question isn't a tripwire for me. And no, I'm not naive. I realize I think an African American first-term senator will beat a decorated war hero who's whiter than toothpaste. But I know many life-long Republicans and Bill Clinton voters in several states who are voting for Obama and I think that's significant. No matter what, though, I believe it's crucial to remember how difficult the next nine months will be and that all three candidates have smart, conscientious supporters in their camps.

3) For the most part, being 40 was awesome. The novel, new home, dudes, and donuts. If possible, I heartily recommend living at least this long.

4) And now I'm 41. So far, so good.

It's been a long and invigorating weekend and I can barely keep my eyes open, but...

...I'm pleased to report that at my caucus site on Saturday, I was asked to speak on behalf of the precinct's Obama supporters, then I was asked to be a delegate at the Democratic National Convention. Denver, ho! I know his positions in fair detail, but I intend to learn them as well as Daschle. Re Friday's rally at Key Arena, I'm too tired to elaborate and if you're voting for him, you've read about it by now. Also, I don't want to proselytize.

And because we've got nine months to go and it's important to keep a sense of humor:

http://wonkette.com/354429/which-horrific-swamp-beast-would-you-elect-president

Recappin':

• I figured HRC would take California, but you have to give her props for winning Massachusetts. Obviously, I'm displeased, but I'm not Teddy's biggest fan and I'm intrigued that Massachusetts Dems, of all voters, weren't swayed by the Kennedy mystique. (They weren't swayed by John Kerry or Deval Patrick, either, but that's ultimately less noteworthy.)
  

• I think Obama's momentum will propel him to win the nomination. If I'm wrong, though, like I've said before, I'll back Hillary. I've read a bunch of comments on sundry message boards today wherein supporters of both parties have said they'll jump ship if their candidate isn't the pick. Weird that any voter could lose sight of the Supreme Court.

• My dad grew up under Nazi occupation in Greece and survived the country's subsequent civil war. I have so many family members who grew up without food and shelter, much less the right to vote, so election years always resonate with me. I feel grateful to have been born here and in this era.

• Read that Mitt Romney has spent nearly forty million of his own cash in this campaign. Can't help but think that, after all this dies down, his kids (and presumptive heirs) are going to be pissed.

• Cindy McCain's hair tonight was colored and styled exactly like Gwen Stefani's. Unintentional no doubt (rim shot!), but I like that, while her husband is going on about showing that dipshit Rumsfeld a thing or two, she might be channeling her inner rock star.
  

• I don't understand women who vote for Huckabee. If a candidate proclaimed, "All darkies should fix me a sammich!" she or he wouldn't garner African-American votes. Yet ladies surround Mike on the dais. Evangelicals of any stripe perplex me.

• The 2008 campaign seems like it was scripted by Aaron Sorkin on Red Bull. I mean that in a good way.
  

Or fuck Sam Giancana's mistress:

One of the smartest comments of the week, and certainly the funniest, comes from Ramesh Ponnuru at the National Review re Caroline Kennedy's New York Times editorial endorsing Obama:

"She says that Obama could be a president like her father. I assume that means he'll be overrated, not that he'll bring us to the brink of nuclear war."

I respect Caroline Kennedy quite a bit, but for eight years I attended Catholic schools where JFK was considered on par with Jesus, the Pope and ice cream. So I find it refreshing whenever a more objective view of our thirty-fifth chief executive is presented.

Link:

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MjU5MjJkNjRjODlhZjgzNDQxZDZhYjk4ZTFmZTE2MDI=

The CDC needs to look into this:

For the past two nights, I've slept in my "Team Bukowski" sweatshirt.

Today, I walked without a cane for the first time in a month.

Coincidence?

I don't think so.

It seems strange that a few weeks ago...

...I said that, in spite of my support for Obama, I would "gladly" vote for HRC if she gets the nom. Obviously, I'll still check her name if it comes to that, but it'll be with the enthusiasm I muster for changing the litter box or getting my car serviced.

I'm totally disgusted by the Clintons' recent comportment and that's a hard thing to write because I've considered her a gifted senator and I voted for WJC twice. While even Chelsea would acknowledge her folks sometimes committed acts of preposterous skeev, they seemed to have a greater goal in sight. Now, like breading coats chicken, they are sealed in a crust of venality.

On a related note, and I'm saying this as someone who's been a feminist since she was a little kid, today's statement from N.O.W.'s New York chapter is reductive and verging on paranoid. It's self-evident that you can be a feminist and support Obama--or any candidate besides Huckabee, really--and I can't see how a sentient person concludes otherwise. Kudos to the national chapter for distancing itself.

Heath Ledger 1979-2008

I read about Heath Ledger's untimely death a few hours ago and I still can't wrap my mind around it. His portrayal of Ennis Del Mar in Brokeback Mountain is one for the ages and his role as the damaged son in Monster's Ball sticks in your head like glass in skin. [Sidenote: Billy Bob Thornton, who played Ledger's father in MB, just wrapped a film with Brad Renfro, who died last week. His grief must be intractable.]

Thoughts and prayers to Ledger's family and friends. And to those of journalist Frances Lewine and actress Suzanne Pleshette, both of whom died on Saturday and were classy ladies who forged work of lasting impact.

Melange:

1) Received some very good news yesterday re my novel. Many, many, many hurdles left to clear, but it's nice to have a few behind me.

2) Had another short story accepted. Candy apple awesomeness.

3) A bad cold turned into pneumonia and I'm the weakest I've been since I had surgery five years ago. Have received many offers to help. Haven't taken anyone up on it, but I'm touched by everyone's kindness. Much love, and you guys remain forever on the chocolate list.

4) Reminded again that some individuals cannot metabolize any mention of illness. A tad pathetic, considering all of us are in our forties.

5) B.E.T. founder Bob Johnson just apologized to Barack Obama for the ridiculous comments he made at a Hillary Clinton rally last Sunday, which fell almost ten years to the day after the Monica Lewinsky story broke. Impressed with the Obama camp's wisdom in not responding, "Prior bad acts. Really?"

6) Wish molecular biologists would clone Mike Huckabee so that I could kick someone just like Mike Huckabee in the balls and not get razed by Secret Service.

7) "The West Wing" on DVD is a pneumonic girl's best friend.

And now we momentarily turn our attention to the rock:

Light in the Attic Records asked a bunch of writers and musicians to choose our favorite discs and/or sundry things of 2007. We're listed alphabetically, so I'm several spots below Robert Christgau and directly above Greg Dulli, which pleases me more than snowflakes:

http://www.lightintheattic.net/news/?p=339#more-339

As always, mad love to Light in the Attic publicist and talented scribe, my friend, Mr. Chris Estey.

Election notes:

1) As I wrote the other day, I'm backing Barack Obama, but I'll gladly vote for Hillary Clinton if she's the Democratic candidate. So I can't help but feel irked on her behalf given the inane comments she's endured since Saturday's debate. I like that she got fired up when John Edwards and Obama tag-teamed her and I think her reaction was reasonable and proportionate. I don't get what George Stephanopolous was on about when he said during his post-debate wrap-up (and I'm paraphrasing), that it wasn't "her finest moment". "Fired up" is Edwards' default setting for fuck's sake and no one spills their coffee when he raises his voice. Then today every news outlet in the Western world has run on a seemingly endless loop that clip of Hillary tearing up. Pundits, she's human. I'm sure she digests food, sheds skin, coughs when she's sick and that, if you cut her, she will bleed. Climb off her ass and move on to something to relevant.

2) In what has to be the most surreal moment of the campaign so far, Eugene Mirman shook Mike Huckabee's hand at a campaign stop in New Hampshire this morning. CNN has run the footage several times as part of its NH primary coverage, never once mentioning that the non-descript guy in the diner crowd who smiles and addresses Huckabee is Eugene Mirman. I'm not surprised that no one in the newsroom is familiar with Mirman's work and that makes the whole scenario funnier. I just checked Mirman's site and found no mention of it, but I suspect this won't remain true for long. If he has waffles with Romney next week in Michigan, we'll know something awesome this way comes.

If Top Pot gets converted to a bistro, I will go Bastille on someone:

Last month, in an act bursting with douche-itude, club owner Stephanie Dorgan unceremoniously yanked the plug on Seattle's beloved and historic music venue, the Crocodile Cafe. (Though it's like choosing a favorite bunny, my fondest memory comes from the night I told a friend, "In my heart, I'll always be a sixteen year old R.E.M. fan", not realizing we were within earshot of Peter Buck, who turned around and nodded.)

Yesterday morning, Mom called to tell me that Sunset Bowl, where my brother and my friend, Eva, hurled vending machine cheese and crackers at each other with the force of gladiators and got us kicked out on more than one occasion, has been sold to a developer and likely will be replaced by condos.

Then last night I read that M. Coy Books, a store I have frequented most of my adult life and a favored stop on my Pike Place Market treks, will close in February because the proprietors can no longer afford the lease.

Fuck. Why not turn the Space Needle into a high rise and be done with it?

Or his cigar:

For the past few months, I've been on the fence between Obama and Clinton. While I will gladly vote for either of them in the general election, this morning I made up my mind.

I support Barack Obama because I believe he has the intelligence, compassion, and wherewithal to lead the U.S. in establishing universal (or near-universal) health care, to implement environmentally sound and financially smart energy policies, and to alleviate some of the cynicism and disgust that's become endemic to American politics over the past few decades. I think he understands the complexity and danger of national security issues and that he would be a highly effective communicator when interacting with other heads of state. I like that he reaches out to independents and Republicans because there are individuals with active minds and kind hearts across the spectrum and at this juncture in history, when our survival as a species and our stature as a nation are not necessarily assured, I think it's essential to underscore our commonality or we're really, truly fucked. Obama is the rare politician I'd like to vote for and have lunch with, and assuredly, he would appreciate Mom's baklava.

Please, dear god, never let him stick his member where it does not belong.

There's so much I want to write about...

...and I'll get to it soon, but right now I'm still thinking about the family and friends of Shannon Harps. Their loss and grief must be incalculable.

I had lunch a few blocks away from where Harps was murdered a few hours before she was attacked on New Year's Eve. Due to the savagery of the crime, the Seattle Police Department says not to walk alone on Capitol Hill while the suspect is still at large, and this saddens me, as traipsing the Hill is my favorite part of living here.

Thoughts and prayers to those who knew her.

More:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004105581_webstabbing03m.html

Dear Philip Seymour Hoffman:

I have seen almost every film you've made and have long thought you're one of America's finest actors, but your crackling portrayal of CIA agent Gust Avrakotos in Charlie Wilson's War is more flavorful than bacon and eggs and twice as satisfying. On behalf of smartypants Greeks everywhere, much thanks to you, Aaron Sorkin, Mike Nichols, George Crile, and, of course, Mr. Avrakotos.

Stop by some time and I'll introduce you to the bunnies.

Best to you and yours,
Litsa Dremousis

"Daughter of Destiny: Benazir Bhutto, 1953-2007", by Christopher Hitchens

Hitchens provides a multi-strand analysis of Bhutto's complex tenure, exile, return, and assassination. From today's Slate:

http://www.slate.com/id/2180952/

When I was a kid and my mom would listen to Dolly Parton, my reaction was...

...usually "Mo-ther!" Throughout my pre-pubescent years and then junior high and high school, I loved Donna Summer and Elton John and then the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and the Who and then the Police and R.E.M. and Bob Dylan and could not figure out what my mom heard in this big-haired lady who was even more voluptuous than either of us. (I developed at ten. Yeah, I know.) Of course, as an adult, I've come to appreciate the lilting, soulful twang of Dolly's voice and songs and the warmth of her singular persona. Much like I did with my dad regarding Frank Sinatra, I retroactively apologized to Mom regarding Dolly. (I should note here that I have one of the few moms who pushed her kids to read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas when they were in college and, obviously, she was spot-on with that one, too. Mom's artistic radar is finely tuned.)

As I wrote a few weeks ago, I would be fine if it were already January 2nd. It's not that I'm holiday-averse, but in recent years I've become holiday-neutral. I enjoy sending and receiving cards and reconnecting with loved ones, but I haven't put up a tree since '04 and could do without the incessant carols and forced cheerfulness. However, this brief holiday greeting from the tinseled Ms. Parton is tastier than sugar cookie icing licked straight from the bowl and should warm even the frostiest heart:

http://www.dollypartonmusic.net/site.php?content=splash

Happy holidays, all!

Much love,
Litsa

If you're having a shit-laden day, I suggest reading...

...this piece on "locked-in syndrome" (total body paralysis, except for controlled eye movement) and the new breakthroughs that are turning thoughts into speech. The developments lend genuine hope, are scientifically invigorating, and shift garden variety crapitude into perspective. If I ran the world (and who's to say I won't?), Dr. Phil Kennedy, Dr. Frank Guenther, and their research peers would receive the kind of salary that (fuckwad) Alex Rodriguez apparently found insufficient.

From today's CNN.com, "Scientists seek to help 'locked-in' man speak":

http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/conditions/12/14/locked.in/index.html

Though I can think of a few he left off:

I often agree with Bill Maher's larger points--years ago in Salon he wrote one of my favorite political essays, excoriating the South for not supporting presidential candidates from the rest of the country, and telling them, essentially, to get the fuck over the Confederacy--but I think he's reflexively self-congratulatory, lacking in introspection, and seemingly, a bit of a douche. (Does anyone else remember when he mocked developmentally disabled kids on a segment of "Politically Incorrect"?)

Still, his new piece for Rolling Stone, "Dickheads of the Year: My Picks for the Biggest Assholes of 2007", should be added to school curriculums nationwide:

http://www.rollingstone.com/photos/gallery/17538811/dickheads_of_the_year/photo/1/large

Three new interviews worth your time and money:

1) Ricky Gervais talks to New York Magazine's Adam Sternbergh about the end of Extras, concocting the funny, and his loathing for those who perpetuate mediocrity:

http://nymag.com/arts/tv/features/41525/



2) In Blender's cover story, Jay-Z and Chris Norris discuss how the film, American Gangster, inspired Jay-Z's disc of the same name, why the instantaneousness of mp3s creates a disposable musical culture, and how money can blunt the power of racism:

http://www.blender.com/guide/articles.aspx?ID=2962



3) My gifted and cherished friend, Eric Spitznagel, interviews Tina Fey in the current issue of Playboy, pages 47 through 54. (I'd provide the link, but it's print-only.) The result draws more blood than a drunk wielding a staple gun and unveils the kind of insight rarely seen this side of mukti.

Two of my favorite quotes:

"Will Ferrell tried to stab me once. We had been up all night writing skits for the guy from Dawson's Creek--James Van Der Beek. And you know, it was SNL, so we were all hopped up on goofballs, out of our minds on quaaludes and horse antibiotics. I foolishly made a disparaging joke about Will's skit. I was like, 'Really, dude? A hat salesman who's afraid of hats? That's the best you can come up with?' And he lunged at me with a letter opener. I remember thinking, This guy's a genius. It would be an honor to be killed by him."

And:

"It's this weird fetish with ladies who look like erasers. Holes is holes, as I like to say, but I don't understand the cultural obsession with these weird mental children with orange skin and bleached-out Barbie hair and boyish hips and big fake choppers. They're so close to being trannies. I sometimes feel like, Who are these creatures? And they certainly don't exist only in this magazine. They're everywhere, and that's a reflection of our culture. It's like the difference in our food since the 1970s. It has become overprocessed with all the trans fats. Maybe we need to get organic with these ladies."

TNB on KERO TV:

It's a Catch 22 whenever writers publicly discuss the impetus to write, the psychological effects of isolation, and the mechanics of the publishing industry. For the most part, those who don't write won't understand because they can't. And while I think it's wise to acknowledge the obstacles in any field, I think it's just as unwise to focus on them. So I don't agree with all the opinions expressed therein, but I'm delighted to see the The Nervous Breakdown getting the attention it deserves. Well done, Mr. Belardes!

Nick Belardes reports from Los Angeles for ABC affiliate, KERO Channel 23, on the literary site my compadres and I write for, The Nervous Breakdown:

http://www.turnto23.com/news/14784755/detail.html

Perhaps the most disturbing thing about the new allegations against Senator Larry Craig...

...is that members of both genders seem willing to let him route around their privates. Unless he smells like lilacs and sweats money, I don't understand how this transpires.

More:

http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=3946314&page=1

Or if I wore a shirt that says, "HELLENIC IN A HANDBASKET":

I snagged fresh egg rolls at the QFC deli and just popped them in the oven, drizzled w/ sesame and olive oils and surrounded by a julienned red pepper.

As I was about to toss the packaging, I noticed the brand logo (see above) and that the label proclaimed said contents, "ASIANTIZERS".

Admittedly, this is an 11 on the Obvious Scale and I'm on an important deadline and a bit punchy, but there is something so delightfully ridiculous about all of this that I could only be happier if Ronzoni deemed its noodles, "ITALIANDINNER".

"Good night, Mr. Bronson! Sleep tight!"

A commenter posted this clip on Jezebel today and while I've never really gotten into YouTube and think Jezebel, unfortunately, might be past its expiration date, this '70s Japanese commercial Charles Bronson did for the cologne, Mandom, might be the apotheosis of nut-studded cheeseball goodness:

I happen to be reading (and for the most part, enjoying) Jon Krakauer's...

...Into Thin Air, so I was pleased to discover that Chris Elliott has spoofed ITA and other outdoor adventure tomes with his new "novel", Into Hot Air. He elaborates in an interview with the Seattle Times' Mark Rahner:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/books/2004028288_chriselliott25.html

Is it January 1st yet?

Just checking.

Disparateness:

1) I wrote "Fifty Questions for God" during the summer of 2003, when I was incredibly sick and it seemed as if I'd fallen out of time. It was originally published in the literary journal, The Kitchen Sink, in June 2005 and I posted it last week, in a slightly tweaked form, on The Nervous Breakdown:

http://www.thenervousbreakdown.com/litsa_dremousis/2007/11/fifty-questions.html

2) About once or twice a week, someone lands on this blog after Googling "CFIDS". It's worth noting that in recent months, my mom (who has an acute form of fibromyalgia) and I have benefited from taking coenzyme q10 once daily. We're still symptomatic to the degree that we usually are, but we're able to do more within the course of the day. Detailed info on coenzyme q10 from the Mayo Clinic:

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/coenzyme-q10/NS_patient-coenzymeq10

And because I had to explain CFIDS again this week to someone who really ought to know better by now, how about a refresher course from the Centers for Disease Control?

http://www.cdc.gov/cfs/cfssymptoms.htm

http://www.cdc.gov/cfs/cfsbasicfacts.htm

And from the CFIDS Association of America?

http://www.cfids.org/about-cfids/fact-sheet.asp

3) As everyone with an intact cerebellum knows, Mr. Alexie deservedly won the National Book Award last week. I raise my iced single soy mocha in cheer! Extra baklava forthcoming.

4) And this morning I discovered one of the more prescient quotes in recorded human history:

"In certain trying circumstances, urgent circumstances, desperate circumstances, profanity furnishes a relief denied even to prayer."--Mark Twain

New York update:

As some of you know, I received extremely good news the third week of August, just as I was getting ready to move.

The truncated version is that within a week of one another, an agent at Linda Chester read one of my short stories, Googled me, read more of my work, discovered I'm writing a novel, asked me to send the first two chapters, then an agent at Levine Greenberg read one of my essays and did the exact same thing. I explained to my Esquire editor that I would need time to focus on my book and he sweetly replied, "We're like Motel Six. We'll keep the light on for you."

All meetings in New York last week went extremely well. I'm not being cryptic, but there is so much left to do and this isn't the forum in which to discuss it. As I've told TJ, Eric, and my mom, as I hard as I think this is going to be, it's going to be harder. I feel ready, though.

(Shhh, don't tell anyone: the bunnies write every word.)

Knowing one's place on the food chain and very old as opposed to recently dead bodies:

1) I watched an interview with Senator Joe Biden earlier today and while I generally like him, I couldn't help but notice he imbues each of his words with quasi-weighty melodramatic undertones. It's like he's Blake Carrington's heretofore undiscovered younger brother, Buck, and he's returned to to Denver to claim his rightful place in the clan. You can almost hear him intoning, "Damn it, Alexis, don't talk to me like I'm a ranch hand!" He insisted during the course of the tete a tete that he will be the nominee and that he won't accept the Vice President slot, but that, of course, is crap because almost no one besides his mom and eight other people views him as presidential and being one lodged piece of Beef Wellinton away from the top spot is better than playing craps with Harry Reid and Chris Dodd for the the rest of one's life.

2) From a scientific standpoint, the new pictures of the unmasked King Tut are fascinating. But they have been all the fuck over the news for the past 24 hours and while none of us would be okay with viewing photos of someone's neighbor lying in the morgue, we seem to be fine with looking at the Boy King's mottled flesh over our phad see ew and spring rolls because, after all, he's been dead a really long time. I feel like I missed a meeting on this one.

[I get on a plane in eight hours. Yippee!]

Because tales of coitus-induced seizures never grow old:

I resurrected a short essay first published on The Black Table for The Nervous Breakdown. Originally called, "Seizure Sex", now in its slightly different form, it's titled "Halloween, 1993":

http://www.thenervousbreakdown.com/litsa_dremousis/2007/10/halloween-1993.html

"I'm not going to be happy until every human being on the planet has read something I've written"

Two years ago I interviewed Sherman Alexie for the second time. The interview was going to be a centerpiece of a theme issue for a magazine that I had written for a number of times before. The editors decided to scrap said theme and the interview hung in limbo for nine months before the managing editor killed it.

I've interviewed dozens of individuals from Wanda Sykes to Ron Jeremy and Alexie remains among my favorites, both because his art impacts my life and because he is boundlessly intelligent. He sends my mom the sweetest thank you notes when she sends him baklava, plus, he is the only person who's ever had the balls to write her and say, "Could you please send more?"

Alexie's new book, the autobiographical young adult novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian, was just nominated for a National Book Award. What follows is the introduction to and an excerpt from the interview that never ran. It went up this morning on the literary site I write for, The Nervous Breakdown:

http://www.thenervousbreakdown.com/litsa_dremousis/2007/10/by-litsa-drem-1.html

Pop culture mysteries from the past 24 hours:

1) Why does each vocalist--male or female--featured on the soundtrack to any given episode of Grey's Anatomy sound like Dave Matthews with an estrogen patch?

2) How many of Satan's loads did Dane Cook have to swallow before he got booked into Seattle's massive Key Arena for his upcoming show?

3) Aaron Sorkin is one of the most astute writers in any medium, so why did no one associated with the marketing of his new play, The Farnsworth Invention, kill the um-yeah-no-shit tag line featured in its ads, "The turning point of the 20th century wasn't on television. It was television."?

4) Might we all agree that Carrie Fisher's guest star appearance last night on Tina Fey's wickedly brilliant 30 Rock indicates the possibility of a wise and loving God or universe? (This isn't a "mystery" so much as a question underscoring the potential commonality of all sentient beings.)

"If goodness is assured an ultimate victory over evil, we are in a comedy, and I must say it is an ugly farce...

...considering how we suffer in the course of the contest."

Norman Mailer is interviewed by Michael Lennon in New York Magazine regarding their new book, On God:

http://nymag.com/news/features/38961/

Insightful comments my father made recently that touch, in part, on smoking

1) "Being a writer is like being a smoker. Deep down, you either are or you're not. And either way, you know it."

2) "I like that people in this neighborhood [Capitol Hill, where I recently moved] are unapologetic about smoking. You don't see them crouched and sheepish about it."

[Note: Dad quit smoking in 1974. Safe bet, however, that his version of an afterlife includes Kents.]

I wonder who the dead woman was and why no one claimed her:

From Reuters via Yahoo!:

Notorious Dr. Crippen wrongly hanged, scientists say

Excerpt:

By Michael Kahn

LONDON (Reuters) - It was sensational stuff that riveted a nation: A mild-mannered American doctor poisons then dismembers his unfaithful wife, flees England in disguise with his mistress -- and is caught, tried and hanged.

The problem is that the poisoned corpse that sent Dr Hawley Crippen to the gallows in London in 1910 was not that of his wife, according to new evidence found by U.S. researchers.

A team led by John Trestrail, head of the regional poison centre in Grand Rapids, Michigan, took mitochondrial DNA -- genetic material passed on through the mother -- from a tissue sample from the corpse kept in a London museum.

They then compared it with samples from three of Cora Crippen's female descendants, found after a 7-year search.

"That body was not Cora Crippen's," said David Foran, a forensic biologist at Michigan State University. "We don't know who that body was or how it got there."

More:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071016/sc_nm/science_crippen_dc

"Do you mind changing it? I don't think the Seattle Channel is jizz-friendly"--a producer with A Guide to Visitors

The producers of the Seattle-based story-telling salon, A Guide to Visitors, are among the smartest and funniest individuals I've worked with in the arts. So when they asked me to resurrect a story I'd told onstage last year at the Rendezvous, only this time for the Seattle Channel, I said, "Yea!" even though I was still living out of boxes and had scant few clean shirts.

The show has aired a few times (Channel 21, if you're local) and it's archived online now:

http://www.seattlechannel.org/AGuideToVisitors/

Or if you are jizz-friendly, you can read the original version I wrote for the Black Table three years ago:

http://blacktable.com/waxing041111.htm

Yes, basically:

I had coffee with a new friend this morning and as we were leaving Top Pot, I noticed she was carrying a Believer tote.

"I've written for The Believer," I said.

She replied, "Yeah, I subscribed awhile ago and they sent this bag, but not the actual magazine. I hear they're like that."

"The inside-the-Beltway problem is a type of tunnel vision and a sense of narrow possibilities. It's also a fear of ..."

"...not being Serious with a capital S...In other words, it's much harder to damage your career by consistently supporting war and cruelty than by consistently supporting peace and love. The default position is 'bombs away.' The problem with the outside-the-Beltway mentality is an ignorance of what the actual human pressures and incentives are inside the Beltway, why politicians and pundits behave the way they do, and why that is not necessarily entirely attributable to their moral depravity."

Radar has a new interview with one of my very favorite writers, the ceaselessly compelling Hendrik Hertzberg:

http://radaronline.com/features/2007/10/hendrik_hertzberg_the_new_yorker_charles_kaiser_1.php

And to everyone who has a ball sack:

This appears self-evident, but in case it's not:

Your testes and/or penis will not become disabled if you apologize without someone first drawing you a schematic illustrating why, perchance, an apology might be in order.

[The vaginal cabal does fucked up stuff, too. So not the point right now.]

I'm doing outdoors stuff! (Sort of):

Very much looking forward to ReAct's staged reading of one of my favorite plays, the climbing-based drama, K2, tomorrow at 2:00 p.m. at Elliot Bay Book Company.

Details:

http://www.elliottbaybook.com/events/sep07/react1.jsp

I was born at 10:47 p.m.:

"I came into the world at ten o'clock at night, and I've often thought that was the reason I turned into such a nocturnal creature. When the sun sets, honey, I feel more, oh, alert. More alive. By midnight, I feel fantastic. Even when I was a little girl, my father would shake his head and say, 'Let's just hope you get a job where you work nights.' Little did he know what was in store for me. It takes talent to live at night."--Ava Gardner, from Ava: My Story

Disconcerting:

When you're reading Heather Lewis' Notice--in many ways is a direct descendant of The Story of O in that it induces arousal and nausea in equal measure--and you can't get Jonathan Coulton's "Code Monkey" out of your head.

We're turning in early tonight.

Dear news directors:

I understand that news is a business and that you report to someone who eventually has to report to shareholders, but have you considered the possibility that a significant portion of the viewing public does not give a shit about O.J. Simpson's "latest mess"?

Quandary:

When you groove on almost everything about someone but must contend with the fact he does not like Bob Dylan.

Hey, guy sitting next to me at Top Pot:

While I'm known for them almost as much as anything, it'd be a bit more genteel if you stared less obviously.

Thanks so much,
L

Probably because, thus far, I have neither Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon nor George W. Bush on speed dial:

If you live in Seattle and yearn to be inside even though it's 80 degrees and startlingly beautiful out, come by the Rendezvous tonight at 7 pm for the latest installment of the awesomely awesome A Guide to Visitors storytelling series. It's being filmed for the Seattle Channel and will be televised subsequently and then archived online. So if I curse accidentally, which, as most of you know, I do frequently but on purpose, I will get bleeped and it will be preserved from now until the apocalypse.

Though if Bono can get away with it, why can't I?

More on the Seattle Channel:

http://www.seattlechannel.org/

But that's the beauty of this neighborhood:

There's been a dog barking outside my bedroom window for the last five minutes.

And a guy has been barking right back.

Today has been one of those days where...

...individuals who I thought could hold their shit together have, in fact, been unable to hold their shit together.

So it is with a heart full of gratitude that I thank the barrista who gave me the pink vanilla iced cake donut for free an hour ago.

Carnage has been averted.

Discuss:

I had a dream last night wherein Patton Oswalt and I were eating turkey hoagies.

[Sidenote: Kitchen unpacked and cleaned. Woo hoo!]

Dear "Family Values" Closet Cases:

If you could come out at the same so that all of us might get on with things, that would be swell.

Signed,

Everybody Else

Excerpt:

"When the police interviewed him later, the senator said that 'he has a wide stance when going to the bathroom' and that was why his foot may have touched the officer's, the report said."

More:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/08/28/craig.arrest/index.html

In a much more serious vein:

Our family in Greece is deeply rattled, but unscathed.

Thanks, all, who have asked as to their well-being.

More:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/08/27/greece.fires.ap/index.html

Notes from the move:

The new place is completely painted.

Everything in the bathroom is unpacked, the counters cleaned and the tub scrubbed.

I've put deck chairs on the balcony, so I can overlook the Space Needle and partake in outdoor mochas.

____ is pretty fucking great at ____.

Shelf paper has made me its bitch.

I've replaced the short piece I wrote here last night...

...with the slightly expanded version I wrote for The Nervous Breakdown:

http://www.thenervousbreakdown.com/litsa_dremousis/2007/08/words-i-never-t.html

Okay. Back to packing.

Garage sale!

I've placed ads in all the appropriate venues, but if you want to buy some of my stuff and/or bring me a mocha, feel free to stop by the garage sale I'm having at Mom and Dad's today (Saturday) from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m. (If you know me and you live in town, you know where the folks are located. If you don't remember, call me on my cell.) I'm selling tons of clothes, books, jewelry, collectible mags (Madonna, Nirvana, et al), my dining room table and chairs, desk, bureaus, vinyl, and enough indie rock promo CDs to make the emotards cream their skinny jeans.

Fuck, I've got to get some sleep.

He's shy at first, but you can coax him out of his shell with licorice whips and gumdrops:

JR takes an ax to rock show encores in a new interview on NPR:

http://weekendamerica.publicradio.org/programs/2007/08/11/death_to_the_encore.html

Dear Everyone Who Knows Me:

A few of you already know this, but the oft-discussed move occurs in three and a half weeks. I bought a place on the northwest part of Capitol Hill and to paraphrase the line from A Hard Day's Night, I really dig it and all the other pimply hyperbole.

I'm beat but wonderfully happy.

More very soon,
Litsa

My newest piece for Esquire, "How About a Little Hope?", is here today:

Opinion

How About a Little Hope?

Yes, yes, we know. The world is polluted, Iraq is an utter mess, NBA referees are crooked... Here are 20 quotes from scientists, actors, and convenience store employees who aren't so hopeless.

By Litsa Dremousis (more from this author)

7/30/2007, 8:03 AM

Jump to story

Photo illustration by Eric Gillin, images via iStockPhoto

We are all going to die. But while this is an unfortunate byproduct of still being alive, this fact has taken on a pervasive sense of doom over the last few years. It's not that we're going to die, it's that it's going to happen right now and in an incredibly painful way. Every day it's something new: Bird flu, global warming, terrorism, gun-toting school kids, crazy old Russians stockpiling newer nukes, poisonous Chinese toothpaste...

The list goes on and on. So why do most of us resist the urge to suck down a Vicodin Stoli and call it a day? The reasons are as elusive as they are myriad. American philosopher William James once asked, “Why should we think upon things that are lovely? Because thinking determines life. It is a common habit to blame life upon the environment. Environment modifies life but does not govern life. The soul is stronger than its surroundings.”

Perhaps we're compelled to live not merely because it is a biological imperative, but because we believe things will get better. Maybe hope -- like those cravings for the sex and red meat that will eventually kill us -- is hard-wired into our DNA. Or maybe, more so than anything, hopelessness is the ideological equivalent of legwarmers or the Segway: ostensibly modern, ultimately useless.

Since we're glass half-full people, we asked 20 subjects, What gives you hope? This is what they had to say:

• Patton Oswalt, actor, Ratatouille
• James Cartwright, commander, Navy SEALS
• Yellow Hawk, homeless man
• Sean Carman, attorney, Department of Justice
• Amy Sedaris, writer; actress, Shrek the Third
• Dr. Sylvia Lucas, neurologist and multiple sclerosis researcher
• Brad Listi, novelist, Attention.Deficit.Disorder
• John Roderick, guitarist, The Long Winters
• Ron Jeremy, porn star, All I Want for Christmas Is a Gangbang
• Will Napier, seven-year-old
• Kate Izquierdo, music critic, San Francisco Bay Guardian
• Randal Gage, television news executive, KOCO Channel 5
• Mistress Matisse, professional dominatrix
• Mary Rouvelas, attorney, American Cancer Society
• Kathleen Bresnahan, night-shift hostess, Denny's
• John Vanderslice, singer/songwriter, Emerald City, Pixel Revolt
• George Langley, actor, Enemy of the People
• Arthur Bradford, author; director, Dogwalker, How's Your News?
• Barfly, singer, Saturday Knights
• Sam Arefi, clerk, Union 76 gas station and food mart

"What gives me hope is the dreadful tread of history. Knowing how much closer we’ve been to the edge of destruction, and managed to pull back and save ourselves, means we’re probably going to do okay. I mean, we bounced back from the Black Plague, and the people who did it still believed in goblins. We’ve got iPods and Pinkberry now. We’re bulletproof."
-- Patton Oswalt, actor, Ratatouille

Return to top.

“Nothing ‘gives’ me hope, but I have it. I hope that each of my two sons will grow up to be a better man than I am. Sure, there are other things I hope for but in the grand scheme, they aren't that important. Hope is what one can find within oneself in order to make sense of things and make it all worthwhile. A struggle, no doubt. But if you need someone or something else to give you hope, then you don’t really have it. You just have an excuse.”
-- James Cartwright, commander, Navy SEALS

Return to top.

"The National Rifle Association gives me hope. Peace comes out of the barrel of a gun and whoever has the most bullets wins."
-- Yellow Hawk, homeless man

Return to top.

“When someone is a spectacular failure on every level, it crushes my spirit. When the most powerful man in the world is an arrogant bully who is actually proud of his ignorance, why even get out of bed? But when great people make a small mistake, when they inadvertently reveal their humanity through some small blunder, that gives me hope. I already loved Hugh Grant, but when he was caught getting a $50 b.j. from a sidewalk hooker, he instantly became my favorite actor.”
-- Sean Carman, attorney, Department of Justice

Return to top.

“What keeps me going? The feeling I got back in elementary school when Miss Parker had us plant seeds in the bottom of our Dixie cups and then days later we saw grass. That's hope in a nutshell.”
-- Amy Sedaris, writer; actress, Shrek the Third

Return to top.

“What keeps me working these ridiculous hours is the hope that I can make a difference in peoples' lives when they have no hope. Medicine is not about curing disease. But it’s about providing hope, support, and relief while sickness resolves or comfort, compassion and ease if it cannot.”
-- Dr. Sylvia Lucas, neurologist and multiple sclerosis researcher

Return to top.

“Hope is one of those wonderful lies that we tell ourselves: things will be better tomorrow. The truth is that things might not be better tomorrow. We might get hit by a bus tomorrow. Or an asteroid. Or a bullet train. And if that winds up happening, most of us are hoping for some sort of heavenly afterlife in the Great Beyond. And the interesting thing about this heavenly afterlife is that most of us imagine it as an eternal family reunion in the clouds, even though most of us don’t really like family reunions, and most of us don’t like clouds. And even if we do like family reunions, and we do like clouds, most of us wouldn’t want to be at a cloudy family reunion for eternity. Me personally? My sense of ultimate hope is more polytheistic in nature. I’m hoping for the reunion, certainly, and I’m hoping for the clouds. But I’m also hoping for some sunshine. And a beach. And eighty virgins. And Jesus’ cell phone number. And I’m hoping to be reincarnated as a rock star who also happens to be the fastest man alive. Because I believe it’s so important to stay positive.”
-- Brad Listi, novelist, Attention.Deficit.Disorder

Return to top.

“The Constitution of the United States. It's still the best document of its kind, and written into it are exactly the kind of protections that ensure that no person or group of persons, no matter how diabolical or insane, can hijack the country for much longer than a decade”
-- John Roderick, guitarist, The Long Winters

Return to top.

“What gives me hope is that I’ll have good heath. My dad is eighty-nine, quick-witted, healthy as an ox, and his mom lived to be in her mid-nineties. I have a pet tortoise named Cherry and her lifespan is one hundred and sixty. So God or Mother Nature wants us to live that long to keep tortoises company.”
-- Ron Jeremy, porn star, All I Want for Christmas Is a Gangbang

Return to top.

“I hope to see penguins.”
-- Will Napier, seven-year-old

Return to top.

“City life is a clash of concrete, temper and finance that does little to assuage my darkest social inclinations. But where there is struggle, there is regeneration. I live in hope, then, because despair precludes participating in the war against those who are complacent, those who are cruel, and those who wear deck shoes to the office.”
-- Kate Izquierdo, music critic, San Francisco Bay Guardian

Return to top.

“The surprises keep things interesting. You can't predict how a sunset will flare over the horizon, how swimming in the sea under a warm blue sky will feel.”
-- Randal Gage, television news executive, KOCO Channel 5

Return to top.

"Phrases like 'having hope' and 'what keep me going' to me seem of imply that one is under some sort of ongoing duress. What keeps me going is that I'm happy and I like my life. I don't think of it as having hope, I'm just...happy."
-- Mistress Matisse, professional dominatrix

Return to top.

“I have hope because despite the rapes and murders, there are outpourings of love and sympathy afterwards. Even better, there are the everyday moments, like when I saw two men running with a handkerchief held between them. I found out later they were training for a marathon. One was blind, and the other was leading the way.”
-- Mary Rouvelas, attorney, American Cancer Society

Return to top.

"I'm excited to go to college. That's my next big adventure. I'm modeling with Seattle Models Guild. I'm going to see where it goes. If college doesn't work out, I'll have modeling as a fallback."
-- Kathleen Bresnahan, night-shift hostess, Denny's

Return to top.

“Caffeine gives me hope. Sometimes, when I brew my wicked strong Irish black tea just perfect, about halfway through the mug I feel a clear and overwhelming feeling of optimism. It didn't surprise me when a study a few years ago implied that suicide was much less likely among coffee and tea drinkers.”
-- John Vanderslice, singer/songwriter, Emerald City, Pixel Revolt

Return to top.

“Most recently, what has given me hope comes from Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything where he makes the following observation about the human species: ‘For complex organisms, the average lifespan of a species is only about four million years -- roughly where we are now.’ Maybe our selfish little reign of terror is nearly at its end. Other than that, The Family Circus pretty much gets me out of bed everyday. ‘What are girl chipmunks called? CHICKmunks!’ Priceless.”
-- George Langley, actor, Enemy of the People

Return to top.

“As much as we talk about how everything's going to shit, it really isn't. Young people come along and take a look at things and will surprise us with new ideas. And I recently read Ishmael Beal's book A Long Way Gone. Even though it's filled with horrors and hopeless situations, at least there's this one guy who made it out and wrote this great book. When someone can produce something like that from the madness of his life, it gives me hope.”
-- Arthur Bradford, author; director, Dogwalker, How’s Your News?

Return to top.

“I actually have a tattoo on my left forearm of a cocktail bomb wrapped in a banner with the word ‘hope’ in it. Trying to articulate what that tattoo means usually just makes me sound nuts so I always leave it open to interpretation. What keeps me going is a desperate fear I might miss out on something amazing if I don't keep on truckin'. I mean, the Red Sox won a World Series. What's next? ‘Ghost riding the whip’ in the Olympics? Free wi-fi in Bakersfield? Oh yeah, and 2012. I want to see if the shit really hits the fan when the Mayan calendar expires in 2012. ”
-- Barfly, singer, Saturday Knights

Return to top.

"You know, after what my dad went through, what I do is not that hard. He escaped from Iran during the war with Iraq. He came here with, literally, twenty bucks in his pocket and now he owns a bunch of businesses. So I give myself hope. I wake up each day and say 'I'm happy.'"
-- Sam Arefi, clerk, Union 76 gas station and food mart

Link:

http://www.esquire.com/the-side/opinion/hope071907

Today we salute my cherished friend, Mr. Eric Spitznagel...

...who is not afraid to fly the dork flag very, very high regarding the (sure-to-be-awesome) Simpsons movie:

http://vonnegutsasshole.blogspot.com/2007/07/useless-and-far-too-personal-simpsons.html

I'm not judging. I will be the exact same way when the Sex and the City film is released. (That's right. I said it.)

Or make-up sex and bowling:

I've been an R.E.M. fan since 1983 (my friends and I would pour over the lyrics on Chronic Town and Murmur with the intensity most people reserve for porn or the Bible) and an admirer of Marc Jacob's designs since before he had his own label, when he took over the Perry Ellis house when the latter died. Even with the impending move, I'm not selling my R.E.M. vinyl and the few Marc Jacobs pieces I've been able to afford are among my favorites. But perhaps, like pepperoni pizza and Green and Black chocolate, some things that are sublime individually should never be mixed.

The upcoming Marc Jacobs ads featuring Michael Stipe are a total crapfest:

http://idolator.com/tunes/stand-in-the-place-where-you-are/michael-stipe-auditions-for-american-apparel-modeling-gig-282502.php

There is absolutely no moral or logical reason...

...why prosecutors shouldn't have the option to seek the death penalty in abuse cases this venal and where the defendant's guilt is not in question:

From the Associated Press via CNN:

SAN DIEGO, California (AP) -- A former respiratory therapist was sentenced to more than 45 years in prison Wednesday for sexually preying upon some of the most defenseless patients at the hospital where he worked: children so sick they couldn't speak out.

Wayne Albert Bleyle had pleaded guilty to molesting five disabled children and taking pornographic photographs of others. Prosecutors said he targeted patients who were comatose, brain-damaged or too disabled to talk.

He allegedly told investigators he molested as many as half the children he treated in 10 years working in the convalescent ward at Rady Children's Hospital in San Diego.

More:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/law/07/25/therapist.molest.ap/index.html

Bigger assholes than Lindsay Lohan's parents

I don't usually weigh in on Britney, Jessica, et al because they don't interest me, but Lohan is actually quite talented and perhaps has more in common with Robert Downey Jr. than, say, the Hilton sisters. I'm not underestimating the severity of Lohan's back-to-back DUI charges: my grandmother was permanently injured by a drunk driver and spent the rest of her life in crippling pain. But I have several friends and acquaintances who are recovering alcoholics and/or addicts. I know that addiction doesn't absolve morally or exonerate legally, but that it does explain the neurological underpinnings of certain behavior.

That said, could Lohan have been saddled with more craven and inept parents than her perpetually convicted father and her never-had-it-never-will mom? Yes, but only slightly. Individuals from various historical epochs who are/were bigger assholes than Michael and Dina Lohan:

• Eva Braun: Hitler is the more obvious choice, but Braun willingly and repeatedly gave him beav. Which makes you wonder if she didn't occasionally pull trains with Weimar thieves and child peddlers: it seems unlikely she leapt straight from courting normal fellows to boffing one of the most evil men in history.
  
• The two guys who asked if I wanted "one in front and one in the butt" and said they wanted to "give those curls a pull" when I was walking through Belltown last week on my way to meet TJ. If I could get Titus Andronicus on them--grind them into a pie and feed them to their loved ones--I would, unquestionably. Besides, I know several great musicians who would play a most raucous "Free Litsa!" show.
• The Nazi soldier who shot at my father when he was a kid, thereby permanently lodging shrapnel in his leg. (Yes, I know, another Nazi, but there's room on this list for more than one.)
  
• Ann Coulter. Not only is it okay to refer to Ann Coulter as a "cunt", it shouldn't be okay not to.
• The person married to ______. See "Ann Coulter".
  
• "Papa Doc" Duvalier, the deceased Haitian dictator and father to the only slightly less deranged "Baby Doc" Duvalier. "Papa Doc" would have his enemies decapitated then have their individual heads brought to him on a tray while he was in the bath, where he would stare into their eyes and meditate. You have to wonder from whence the initial impetus sprung, i.e. the first time he thought, "You know, I've got an idea..."
• Anyone who says, "It's all good".

I'm in so much pain right now I can barely stand it and yet...

...I'm mustering the concentration to note that this is one of the most poorly written pieces of shit ever:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steven-weber/now-its-on-to-iran-and-l_b_57468.html

You know you wish you'd thought of it:

• To stave off protracted economic instability, airlines should offer, at a slightly higher rate, flights that bar children under twelve. (I'd suggest charging parents of said kids more, but like swiping ecstasy for Dick Cheney's heart meds or throat-punching Seattleites who refer to New York as "too noisy", it would be illegal.)
• If you don't like Regina Spektor and/or Elliott Smith, you don't get to vote.
• In the eighteen months following a divorce, one relocates to a government-sponsored ranch in say, Wyoming, where therapy and beer are provided for free.
• The stone-throwing scene from "The Lottery" is enacted against those who don't think Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby's recording of Cole Porter's "Well, Did You Evah!" is one of the high points of the twentieth century.
  
• Free head and pizza for whomever cures CFIDS.
  

One more reason I heart Jezebel.com:

I have a love/hate relationship with Gawker Media--sometimes I think they're spot on and others I think they're recklessly cruel--but their latest venture, Jezebel, is wickedly funny and the smartest of the bunch. Today's post on perceptions of curly hair makes me want to buy their editorial staff a round of blueberry-glaze donuts:

http://jezebel.com/gossip/standards-of-beauty/why-is-straight-hair-the-epitome-of-style-280210.php

And if you haven't already, check out the unrelated but equally compelling Feministing.com:

http://feministing.com/

Stuff I don't get:

• Telling me you ate rabbit the other night
  
• The guy with the "Free Tibet" and "Peace is Patriotic" bumper stickers who, while driving like a teeth-grinding meth head, cut me off on Market Street this afternoon
  
• Jamie Lee Curtis' musings on Huffington Post
• Healthy individuals with ample cash and no kids who prattle on that they don't know what they want to do with their lives, expecting sympathy instead of bemused disdain
  
• Journey, then or now (seriously, David Chase, what the fuck?)
• Writers who believe MFAs connote talent
• My downstairs neighbor who beats off loudly (dude, you're solo: color within the lines)
  
• Billy Corgan's sense of self-importance
  
• "Vegetarians" who don't understand that "just eating fish" makes them carnivores
• Anyone who doesn't think Wanda Sykes and Patton Oswalt are totally fucking hilarious
• Deriving anything but time-warping boredom from wedding and baby showers
• Giving a shit about Janet Jackson's weight
  

The Hitch

The introduction is unintentionally hilarious--why bother eating oatmeal for your cholesterol if you knock it back with Scotch, cigarettes and prosciutto?--but the man is staggeringly intelligent and remains one of my favorite writers. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Christopher Hitchens:

http://radaronline.com/features/2007/04/christopher_hitchens_god_is_not_great_1.php

Another gem unearthed in the pre-move excavation:

Q: Does the glamour part of show business put you off?

A: No. Not at all. I love it. It's dress-up. I like all that. It would be awful to lose that. It's like the monarchy. I might not necessarily approve of what it represents, but I'd miss the hats.

--Emma Thompson, Vanity Fair, February 1996. (Interview by Kevin Sessums, photo by Annie Leibovitz.)

At the risk of sounding ethnocentric...

...I'm appalled that such practices continue in any part of the world for any reason, whether it be religious, cultural, or economic. It's just wrong:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/07/05/damon.india.widows/index.html

Everything about this makes me sad

Lauryn Hill is deeply talented and there was a time she seemed lit from within. I hope she finds her way out of the miasma:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/06/29/HILL.TMP

http://blogs.sfweekly.com/shookdown/2007/06/damn_lauryn_hills_train_wreck.php

On a blonde right-wing commentator

Humans die through one of five ways:

• Homicide
• Suicide
• Accident (falling off the roof, etc.)
• Weather (flood, hurricane, et al)
• Illness

An affluent person in the Western world is most likely to succumb to the latter.

Said commentator enjoys making jokes about death in the Edwards family, which would be out of bounds for either party at any time, but seems particularly venal given the state of Elizabeth Edwards' cancer.

And yet, where Mrs. Edwards is, said commentator will one day be, in all probability.

Remember Lee Atwater?

Enough said.

The Rainn King:

Today I encountered a real estate agent who didn't know the square footage of the condominium he was showing.

"I think it's around seven hundred," he said offhandedly.

"Do you know for certain?" I asked.

"No. I left the flyer in my car," he replied, visibly annoyed, as if I'd snatched a fry from his plate or flicked him in the balls.

Perhaps he was having an off-day or is the throes of an existential crisis, unsure if he wants to spend his finite time hawking overpriced conversion units that reek of Hungry Man Dinners and cat piss. But mostly, he seemed bad at his job, a walking refutation of social Darwinism. And also, kind of a schmo.

Which is why, tonight, I salute Rainn Wilson, a.k.a. Dwight Schrute on the U.S. version of "The Office". I have no idea what Wilson is like as a person (and for all I know, he's delightful), but that's not the point. In a world teeming with gas-siphoning scofflaws and pencil-chewing half-wits, the shruggingly disdainful and those who phone it in, Wilson embodies Schrute with the precision and vigor of a heart surgeon on Red Bull. He is, quite simply, good at his job.

And in all forms, good is worth noting.

"I have no desire to go back to Iraq, but here, it's almost like a prison. I want stability, a house, car. I want to get married, to have a life."

Today is World Refugee Day:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/06/20/damon.iraqrefugees/index.html

I just watched President Bush explain on CNN...

...why he vetoed the embryonic stem cell research bill.

I won't address the intellectual and moral incongruity of a man seemingly untroubled by tens of thousands of Iraqi civilian deaths, yet protective of life in its least developed form. And I was going to be flip and joke that if it would cure CFIDS, I would support research that harvested arms and legs from my neighbors' kids.

But the underlying issue--more so than any religious underpinnings-- is that the man does not understand the exigency of circumstances for those who live with chronic illness, injury, or pain, nor how it impacts the lives of their friends, families, and lovers.

In a strange way, he's lucky.

I love the happy parts, too...

...but this might be excessive:

http://fleshbot.com/sex/sexy-science-corner/how-to-see-your-vagina--from-the-inside-270624.php

Could get interesting if they use (hardening chocolate syrup) Magic Shell, though.

Hippie kids report mass sightings of blonde yeti in aviator shades

JR covers Bonnaroo for MSNBC:

http://bonnaroo.msnbc.msn.com/

Unless you're a communist or something

Turns out listening to the Pixies' "Here Comes Your Man", Outkast's "Hey Ya", the Who's "The Kids Are Alright", Oasis' "Up in the Sky", the White Stripes' "Hotel Yorba", and Weezer's "The Good Life" sequentially and at earbleed level is akin to 50 cc's of seratonin injected through the skull and directly into the cerebral cortex.

Occasionally, it is that simple.

Armistead Maupin Lives:

Salon's Laura Miller wrote of Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City books, "As with the Beatles, everyone seems to like Maupin's Tales--and, really, why would you want to find someone who didn't?"

Maupin's work is smart and engaging and tastier than picnic table cobler on a warm June night. The Night Listener and the TotC series were the best part of some otherwise hideous couchbound weeks in '02 and '03 and I'm delighted that his newest, Michael Tolliver Lives, is on stands now.

While I might never forgive the editor who declined to let me interview him and assigned a Q & A with a video-installation artist instead (yeah, I know), I did enjoy Maupin's recent tete a tete with EW:

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20041807,00.html

And mad props to my parents, who not only read "The Cousinfucker" (see yesterday's entry)...

...but who just called to tell me how much they enjoyed it.

That cinches it: no old age home for you guys.

"The Cousinfucker"

My short story, "The Cousinfucker", is in the June issue of the lit journal, Hobart:

http://hobartpulp.com/website/june/dremousis.html

"The sun struggles up another beautiful day/ And I felt glad in my own suspicious way...

...Despite the contradiction and confusion
Felt tragic without reason
There's malice and there's magic in every season..."

Goddamnit, Seattle. Again with the Tevas.

My third piece for Esquire is here:

The Soul Singer in the Shadows

She was Miles Davis' second wife with a killer set of pipes and attitude to spare. For the first time in decades, Betty Davis talks about walking away from the business.

By Litsa Dremousis

5/31/2007, 10:01 AM

If you listen for it, it's there. The faint hint of a growl, like a Bengal tiger rising from a nap. "It doesn't matter," she says when asked if she prefers to be called "Betty" or "Ms. Davis" and the voice is unmistakably that of the legendary funk songstress, the woman who roared "I said if I'm in luck/ I just might get picked up" at the start of her self-titled debut, Betty Davis, thirty-four years ago.

Light in the Attic Records has just re-issued Davis' first two discs, Betty Davis and 1974's They Say I'm Different, Molotov cocktails of sticky sex and unchained rhythmic propulsion. To support the re-releases, she agrees to what is only her seventh interview in the past three decades, conducted by phone from her home in Pittsburgh. She is engaged but reticent, politely and frequently answering questions with the fewest words possible. When asked if her epoch-defining years sometimes feel as if they happened to someone else, her reply is a single snare drum kick with zero elaboration: "Yes."

More:

http://www.esquire.com/the-side/music/betty-davis-053107

This makes me want to move to England...

...right this second:

http://www.winterbournerabbits.co.uk/index.htm

Too fucking tired to concoct a witty headline using the word "filter":

My review of the Betty Davis reissues, Betty Davis and They Say I'm Different, is in the current print issue of Filter and online now:


http://www.filter-mag.com/index.php?id=14465&c=3

I interviewed Annie Stela in the fall and it ran in Filter's Winter '07 print issue. It went online earlier this week:


http://www.filter-mag.com/index.php?id=14508&c=2

Best Sitemeter discovery ever:

Someone in Hsinying, Taiwan landed here tonight after Googling "pull your shit together".

Intelligence and stupidity crop up everywhere, so you can't assume the Justice Department is...

...idiot-free, any more than you can assume the guy who rang up my organic tomato soup yesterday doesn't have Proust tucked in his messenger bag. (The latter is entirely possible: it's one of the things I like most about Seattle.)

That said, isn't there some sort of bar you have to clear, some nominal I.Q. requirement, that precludes the Justice Department hiring someone whose legal reasoning skills amount to:

"I know I crossed the line. But I didn't mean to."

Perhaps Monica Goodling's next job should involve a doodle pad and colored pens.

From Reuters:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070523/pl_nm/usa_prosecutors_dc

[Sidenote: Yes, editor friends, I know there should be question mark outside the above quotation marks. It's ineffective in this context.]

Damned near perfect:

• Mary J. Blige's vocals on "One" with U2
• Fuji apples with Adam's Peanut Butter (creamy)
• Traipsing through Washington Square Park when it's 72 degrees and sunny
• Grabbing cashew chicken at Ballet 3 p.m. on a weekday when it's practically empty, accompanied by the new issue of Vanity Fair
• Each item of clothing in which Ava Gardner was ever photographed
• Adrian Lester's performance in Primary Colors
• Patricia Bosworth's biography of Diane Arbus
• Sinatra's Live in '57
• Red Mill onion rings
• Hemingway's depiction of friendship, love and rivalry among writers in A Moveable Feast
• Reading Betty and Veronica comic books in the backyard as a kid
• The birdnest in the tree near my front door
• Aveda tangerine oil
• Vincent Longo lipstain
• That night
  

I'm in the pre-move excavation process...

...and finding all sorts of ephemera accrued over the years. Thought I'd share this one:

From Mr. Eggers' June 2004 Spin Magazine column:

"So my question: Is there some genetic strain that runs through the Newsom family that makes them courageous, and even a little crazy? And is there any doubt that the two traits must always coexist? You never find courage without a touch of madness, and to live with madness in any quantity you must be strong as an ox."

"I may be obliged to defend/ every love, every ending...

...or maybe there's no obligations now..."

I'm moving.

Finally.

Because this one seems pertinent tonight:

"Everything I did in my life that was worthwhile I caught hell for."--Chief Justice Earl Warren

Elizabetha Regina, Head of the Commonwealth, Lord High Admiral, Supreme Governor of the Church of England, Deliverer of Cockpunches

I have nothing but disdain for liberals who believe hating George Bush is the same as articulating and embracing a cogent ideology. (I was at a party recently where the assembled basically stated that the U.S. had done nothing good in the past 50 years. Ignoring, of course, that this is merely an inversion of right-wing principles.)

That said, I think the current administration is corrupt and hubristic and venal. From the mangled execution of the Iraq war to NIH policy that classifies women in their menstruating years as "pre-pregnant" to the president's illogical tax cuts to the absence of habeus corpus after several years for Guantanamo detainees to the still-shocking fallout from Katrina to the Alberto Gonzales hearings to ignoring the science of climate change (and this, obviously, is an abbreviated list), the W. years have been, in many ways, an umitigated disaster.

Which is why it is my sincerest hope that, at tonight's White House dinner in her honor, Queen Elizabeth cock-punches George Bush with the full force of Zeus. Really, who better to pull this off than Britain's venerated monarch? Her own security detail, who probably view Bush as an uncouth and lobotomized ruffian, are unlikely to stop her. And what can the Secret Service do? Throw her to the parquet floor? Taze her? Abscond with her hat? She's the freaking Queen. Plus, she's 81 years old and unlikely to return to D.C. soon. It doesn't matter if she's crossed off Camp David's guest list. And with anti-U.S. sentiment at an all-time high in England, this presents a unique opportunity for Her Majesty to bolster favor among the Brits.

And if she nutmegs Cheney, I'll walk the Corgis for a year.

Verities:

1) Patton Oswalt's upcoming Werewolves and Lollipops is funnier than dog crap on your sister-in-law's Puma and smarter than a Richie Cunningham science project.

Order here:

http://www.subpop.com/releases/patton_oswalt/full_lengths/werewolves_and_lollipops


2) The more someone purports to be enlightened, the more she or he will be a complete fucking douche nozzle when it comes to understanding chronic illness.

Irrefutable proof that astrology is bullshit:

I just read that Ron Jeremy and James Taylor have the same birthday.

From a back issue of BUST that had fallen behind my couch:

Jill Soloway for BUST:
Do you believe in the possibility of a feminist revolution, post-MySpace? I mean, do you think that there is something that's going to come after all this porno-ization of America?

Amy Poehler:
That's a good question. I don't know. We were just talking about those American Apparel ads. They're fucking gross, man. Look, I love beautiful girls too. I think everyone should be free to have their knee socks and sweaty shorts, but I'm over it. I'm over this weird, exhausted girl. I'm over the girl that's tired and freezing and hungry. I like bossy girls, I always have. I like people filled with life. I'm over this weird media thing with all this, like, hollow-eyed, empty, party crap. I don't know, it seems worse than ever, but maybe it's just because we're getting old.