After a weekend filled with sun and butterflies...

...I can't help but feel grateful just to be alive.

Sleep well, all.

Apart from homicidal dictators and the occasional all-thumbs editor...

...I try not to wish death upon anyone.

But I was about to link to an interview w/ the nutball Dick Morris when my Blackberry went off. I checked and the New York Times email alert said George Carlin died at his home in Los Angeles.

Fuck.

I petition God for a swap.

(Also, belatedly: Tim Russert R.I.P.)

More:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/24/arts/24carlin.html?hp

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2008/06/dick_morris_is_still_mad_at_th.html#hp

Group nudity, rum drinks, rockin' out : Eric Spitznagel on the high seas

The deeply gifted and forever adored Mr. Spitznagel has an awesome new feature, "Rock the Boat", in the July/August issue of Radar.

Excerpt:

"If you've ever lived in Los Angeles, you've most likely experienced that moment when you're out with your friends and somebody says, 'Hey, we should drive to Las Vegas!' So you all pile into the car thinking you're being spontaneous and wild, until you get about midway through the desert and return to your senses. Las Vegas is never as good as you think it's going to be. Wayne Newton, in actuality, isn't so hilariously kitschy. He's just kind of creepy.

A rock cruise is like Las Vegas with all the exits cut off."

Details:

http://www.radaronline.com/from-the-magazine/2008/06/julyaugust_2008_table_of_contents.php

No one asked Bill Clinton how to fire up the grill:

Michelle Obama has her law degree from Harvard and Cindy McCain has her master's in special education from USC, but thank god we know their favorite recipes:

http://wonkette.com/400510/cindy-mccain-continues-to-steal-easily-googlable-recipes#more-400510

I have no idea if a McCain intern plagiarized this recipe, too (see above), but that's not the point. That these women are queried on baked goods makes me want to cram a flour sifter up some editor's ass.

I think Hillary gave a remarkable speech...

...and that her points on gender were particularly smart and eloquent.

I posted this elsewhere, but if she had set this tone from the get-go, had canned Mark Penn and Patti Solis-Doyle after Iowa, and had somehow, in defiance god and nature, gotten Bill, Terry McAuliffe, and Lanny Davis to shut the hell up for increments exceeding 60 seconds, the outcome might have been different.

I thought her endorsement today, as difficult as it must have been, rang true. I know some Clinton supporters will never vote for Obama--check out the comment section on Hillaryclinton.com--but most Hillary backers are intelligent and engaged, and as November rolls 'round, I think they'll get all hope-y like the rest of us.

Transcript:

http://www.hillaryclinton.com/news/speech/view/?id=7903

Opa, Yasou, et al

Wednesday was one of those days that proves the adage, "man plans, God laughs" and I unexpectedly found myself in Phinney Ridge with a bit of time to kill. I ate at Mae's, of course, because I'm not a communist, then wandered the neighborhood for the first time in months. Turns out a new Greek import food store, The Shop Agora, has opened across the street and I popped in. Discovered it's wonderfully authentic without the contrived "rustic-ness" such venues sometimes feature and that it offers some of the best Greek sweets outside of family holidays. Came away with goods for two friends and for myself, and while I don't eat Greek food that often, when I partake next time, I'll definitely head back:

http://www.theshopagora.com/Agora/Welcome_.html

I'm going to wave the dork flag pretty high here...

...but I'm hugely proud to be an American tonight. And my cousins' kids who are five and under will never know a time in which all this wasn't possible. Onwards!

(Also: five more months to go. Dear god.)

I reiterate my longstanding offer: free head and pizza for whomever finds a cure

The New York Times May 30 CFIDS feature is one of the smartest and most insightful I've encountered. The professor interviewed, Leonard Jason, has it himself and does a fine job illustrating what it's like to live with the illness and why the word "fatigue" is misleading. If you know me, it'd mean a lot if you read it:

http://health.nytimes.com/2008/05/30/health/healthguide/esn-chronicfatigue-expert.html?ex=1212897600&en=9a1504256e54da6a&ei=5070

Thankee kindly. And I should clarify: I will pay for the head and pizza, but I won't provide it myself. Unless you cure it in the next week or so. I'm lookin' at you, CDC researchers.

Et tu, Carrie?

A few years ago, Fran Lebowitz was asked about the recent proliferation of strollers and such on Manhattan's landscape. She replied, essentially, that these same people already have the rest of the country, so why did they need to overrun New York?

I felt something analogous at the 3:15 showing of Sex and the City today. The film is aimed at the type of women who go to New York and take the SATC tour, who don't catch that what made the show great is that its smart, flawed characters would never do something so passive and contrived. The big screen adaptation is a hackneyed romantic comedy and if I hadn't looked forward to it all year, I would have bailed around the time Charlotte, literally, shits her pants. (Okay, I know you don't see a lot of that in rom-coms, but it was the hoariest, dumbest sight gag.)

I completely respect Michael Patrick King, Sarah Jessica Parker, and crew, and I know the financial and demographic aspects of a wide-release feature are very different from that of a premium-cable series. But still. Three fourths of pop culture is aimed at the tour bus women. Couldn't we have kept this one for us?

Lightning round:

As I've noted, the novel has been usurping most of my upright hours. But I've been feeling a bit better lately (again w/ the wood-knocking), so I'm going to try and resume posting here several times a week. To catch up:

1) Still can't wrap my mind around events in Myanmar and in China.

2) Feel awful for Ted Kennedy and his family. While I've made cracks about him before, I usually agree with his policies, but that's not even the point. Brain cancer is a horrific diagnosis and I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

3) R.I.P. Sidney Pollack. He made it look easy.

4) The good part, as it were, of Hillary's RFK comment is that it irrefutably proves a point Phyllis Chesler made over 30 years ago in her seminal work, Women and Madness: that women are humans, with all the greatness and folly that entails. I.e. it's a mistake to cast women in the saint roll because it's infantilizing and, ultimately, inaccurate. In general terms, women and men's strengths and weaknesses are sometimes different, but on the whole, each sex brims with total awesomeness and absolute crap. And maybe that's the strongest argument for shattering the remaining glass ceilings: not all that much is going to change.

5) While we're on the topic, and I've made this point elsewhere, but of course we're going to elect a woman president in the near future. I don't understand all the teeth-grinding editorials suggesting we might not. Women are almost 51% of a nation of roughly 300 million. All of our stars aren't hitched to Senator Clinton's campaign and it's a little bizarre to suggest otherwise.

6) If this doesn't swell your heart with lovely and buoyant feelings, go ahead and swallow the last pill because you're already dead:

http://jezebel.com/5011617/adorable-dog-adopts-orphaned-baby-bunnies

I'll weigh in on a panoply of things...

...later today or Friday. This past week has been a miasma of health and real estate snafus, but I'm pleased to report the novel is still going well. (Wood knocked, salt thrown over shoulder. All that.)

In the meantime, here are excellent recent interviews from two of the very best ladies.

Toni Morrison in Time Magazine:

http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1738303,00.html

Amy Sedaris in The Onion's A.V. Club:

http://www.avclub.com/content/interview/amy_sedaris

On a somewhat related note, Toni Morrison and Alice Walker have endorsed Barack Obama and Maya Angelou is backing Hillary Clinton. Any election wherein authors' support is trumpeted is kind of great.

Myanmar: How to help

CNN has put together a comprehensive list of the best relief agencies regarding Myanmar's cyclone:

http://edition.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2007/impact/

Nope, no discernible connection:

1) Media bloggers who use the term "Fey-tigue" regarding Tina Fey are irredeemable cretins who will toss the Devil's salad in hell, with their eyes open, listening to Jon Bon Jovi discuss how critics don't take him seriously but that he's in it for the fans.

2) When Hillary says she'll "obliterate" Iran if it launches a nuclear strike against Israel, she's being forthright about U.S. policy, if shockingly cavalier concerning civilian casualties. If anyone attacks Israel with nuclear weapons, the U.S. will be ensnared, essentially, in World War III. You can't blame her for the honest response, but I wish she hadn't sounded like Tony Montana while discussing a nightmare scenario that literally could eradicate swaths of humankind.

3) When was the last time you had Eggs Benedict? How great does that sound right now?

4) The cherry blossom trees near my home are blooming and even if Seattle is still ridiculously chilly, it's lovely to watch spring poke through the blanketing gray.

Sadness and salvation:

1) I have no illusions that certain segments of the electorate or the media are going to drop the subject, but I think Obama's press conference yesterday regarding Jeremiah Wright was erudite and wise. If more of the populace were the same, it would be the last of the topic.

2) You have to have gargled a bathtub of crazy to think Michigan, where Clinton was the only major candidate on the ballot, is indicative of anything. Roger Simon of Politico sums up why the junior senator from New York has gone off the rails:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0408/9994.html

3) And because animals often seem like the best reason not to mainline Kahlua and burn this world to the ground, secure in the knowledge that God has one eye closed, here are some photos of pomeranian puppies:

Goddamn Jeremiah Wright:

It's great that Barack Obama remained composed while fielding questions about Pastor Wright today. But in this instance, I feel no pull toward gentility. I've given notable time and money to the Obama campaign and I'm disinclined to stay polite while an addle-brained yahoo attempts to hijack it. (Yes, I know Wright served honorably in the Marines and has spoken vociferously on behalf of the poor and against racial injustice and for that, of course, I respect him. But much like Gloria Steinem, Robin Morgan, and Erica Jong with their pro-Hillary editorials, it's likely Wright's recent words mostly will help himself.)

So, to Jeremiah Wright, I say this: African-Americans aren't a monolith any more than women and I'm in no way telling you what to think or say. Obviously. But it will suck all the dick in the world if the best presidential candidate this country has seen in my lifetime isn't elected, not because most voters rejected his positions, which would sadden a lot of us but would be fair game, but because he once trusted you and you now appear clinically insane. Remember that scene in Jungle Fever where John Turturro futilely explains to the assholes in the diner that David Dinkins and Marion Barry, while both black, are two different guys? And how the assholes can't fathom it, because they're assholes? That's what we're facing come November if you don't step off the national stage immediately. Enough voters will attribute your words to Obama and we'll be heralding President McCain, who, while an honorable man, wants to leave Iraq pretty much never and might not be able to find his car keys by the end of his first term. In large part, an African-American will have prevented an African-American from becoming president.

Which is more odious than any conspiracy you could concoct.

The Good German:

The oft-mentioned, deeply cherished, and awesomely talented Mr. Spitznagel interviews Bob Odenkirk and David Cross for Vanity Fair and I'm happy eight different ways:

http://www.vanityfair.com/ontheweb/blogs/daily/2008/04/david-cross-and.html

I've been listening to Charles Mingus'...

...Mingus Ah Um and this morning I discovered something he said that's note perfect and wise:

"Creativity is more than just being different. Anybody can play weird, that's easy. What's hard is to be as simple as Bach. Making the simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity."

Even the most open-minded among us make jokes about the inbred...

...so I think we should heartily applaud ABC's Charles Gibson and George Stephanopolous for lifting the stigma and demonstrating that, even if your parents share genetic code, you can hold a job and, if you work very hard, moderate a debate between two of the most intelligent and historically relevant presidential candidates of the past few decades. Kudos to ABC's news division for hiring different sorts within the inbred phylum, too: based on tonight's questions, it appears Gibson's parents are first cousins and that Stephanopolous' folks are siblings, maybe even twins.

Americans are ready for change after all.

Gloria Steinem once said that writers don't like writing...

...but they like having written. I sometimes genuinely love the act of writing, but in the larger sense, she's correct. You're isolated when you're working and composing in your head when you're not and this occasionally renders you a tad batshit. But when you're done, it's candy apple delicious and there's nothing so invigorating and humbling as when someone tells you in person or in print that they like your work.

So today it was fun discovering my words linked to a piece in the Guardian U.K. (click on "delivering the punchline himself")...

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/04/wish_they_could_be_like_charli.html

...and on Seattle Daily photo (see blogroll on the right, replete with very kind appellation):

http://seattle-daily-photo.blogspot.com/

Also, I'd like to give shout-outs to New York Daily Photo, Almost One a Day, and Thessaloniki Daily Photo, truly delightful sites that have usurped a bit of my free time lately:

http://newyorkdailyphoto.blogspot.com/

http://almostoneaday.blogspot.com/

http://thessalonikidailyphoto.blogspot.com/

And if you haven't already, check out Rebecca Traister's Salon feature, "Hey, Obama boys: Back off already!". Singularly intelligent and even-handed, Traister's piece is one of the best I've read during this cracker jack season:

http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2008/04/14/obama_supporters/index.html

Words on words and music and some on other words:

My dear friend and fellow scribe, Chris Estey, recently asked me and a scoop of other writers and musicians which album, given our druthers, we'd tackle for the 33 1/3 book series. The answers are featured on Three Imaginary Girls:

http://threeimaginarygirls.com/features/2008apr/whatwouldyour3313be

The aforementioned Mr. Estey is covering the seminal EMP Music Conference all weekend for KEXP and the result is a crackling good time:

http://depts.washington.edu/kexp/blog/?p=5501#comment-85853

My "Bleacher Friction" piece is also on the literary blog I sometimes write for, The Nervous Breakdown, replete w/ lively comments:

http://thenervousbreakdown.com/