R.I.P. Slats and kind thoughts to his loved ones in their time of grief:

My third piece for KOMO 4's Capitol Hill blog went up yesterday:

http://capitolhill.komonews.com/content/slats-longtime-seattle-musician-and-capitol-hill-denizen-has-died

Obits of this sort break your heart. And I feel fortunate my editor let me run it the way I chose, without bothering his loved ones in their agony.

My second installment for KOMO 4's Capitol Hill blog went up...

...yesterday:

http://capitolhill.komonews.com/content/captiol-hills-whimsy-full-bloom

It's probably the easiest assignment I've had, but fun nonetheless and I like my editor a lot. And while my health stays in remission, I've been sending out longer pieces to larger venues again. So this is a tasty side-dish while I continue to whip up entrees.

For her loved ones' sake...

...I'm glad her body was found:

http://www.komonews.com/news/local/87615727.html

But still. Everything about this is haunting and sad.

Thinking of her friends and family.

I write and take pics for KOMO 4's Capitol Hill blog now:

My first piece for the Capitol Hill blog on komonews.com is up now:

http://capitolhill.komonews.com/content/dusk-taskent-park-boylston-ave-east

So part of what I do here and on Facebook, I now do for KOMO 4's site. I'm about to turn in my second post and am enjoying myself so far. (Very friendly editor helps.)

Feel free to send me Capitol Hill info that might be relevant.

Haiti, two months later:

I've known since he died five months ago that I've been incredibly fortunate to be surrounded by ceaselessly, unfailingly kind family and friends and that, also, I'm grieving in a part of the world in which I have access to ample food, clean water, a safe home and freedom of speech. (A large swath of my family lived under Nazi occupation; when my father's mother died when he was six, he had no grief counseling because, indeed, he had no food or shelter.)

So I keep returning to Haiti again and again. Like everyone I know who is in a position to donate to relief efforts, I've done so repeatedly. But I keep thinking of the 1.2 million displaced individuals who are grieving multiple loved ones without privacy or even basic sanitation.

Liesl Gernholtz of Human Rights Watch writes for the Daily Beast on the particular horrors in the quake's aftermath endemic to women, many of whom of have been raped in the resulting breakdown of any infrastructure:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-03-09/haitis-rape-crisis/

Ian Urbina writes for the New York Times on the particular hardships of Haiti's elderly, who survived both Duvalier regimes and Haiti's continuing AIDS crisis only to face the quake's nearly unfathomable devastation at the end of their lives:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/12/world/americas/12elderly.html?hp

Ah, the majesty of nature:

Tragically and horrifically, she is now the sixth climber or hiker to die in the Pacific Northwest since TJ died 22 weeks ago:

http://www.kptv.com/news/22803873/detail.html

Long story; inside joke:

Neal and Jack.

Thank you, internet...

...for introducing me in one week to two opinions so earth-shatteringly stupid that their proponents should be flogged then sterilized: 1) Kathryn Bigelow had an Oscar in each hand, "but no one to hug." 2) The Who "aren't in the pantheon with the Beatles and the Stones."

I have to live in a world wherein TJ is dead but these cocksuckers draw breath? Holy fucking jesus goddammed christ.

Hand-off!:

I'm on deadline. Read Eric's wickedly funny Vanity Fair breakdown of last night's Steve Martin/Alec Baldwin pairing:

http://www.vanityfair.com/online/oscars/2010/03/steve-martin-vs-alec-baldwin.html

This is the first year since 1992...

...he and I won't be betting on the Oscars and it's one more thing that feels horribly awry.

Still it's easy for me to choose my favorite films of 2009: the myriad we saw together while he was alive.

Greetings and salutations:

Like most sites on the web, The Slippery Fish has Sitemeter software installed and has had so for several years. I've always kept the Sitemeter logo displayed on the bottom left (scroll all the way down) instead of electing to hide it, as is the more standard practice, because it's fair to let readers know I can see their IP number, ISP, city, state, country, page hits, searches that preceded their arrival here, searches they conduct once they are here, whether they email an entry and if so which one, the entries they click on, the duration of each page view, the duration of their entire stay, if they have the site bookmarked or search for it individually several times a day, etc. As I said, nearly every web site features Sitemeter or equivalent software. This is common knowledge in 2010.

As with everything I write for public consumption, it is, in fact, for public consumption. I don't reveal secrets here, i.e. while much of the content is personal, none of it is private. So for the tiny but persistent band who still routinely searches for any shred about him here, and in some cases repeats this action daily, by all means, continue. I won't reveal your names. But keep in mind I'm not searching the web (or anywhere else) for information about him.

Because I don't have to.

Okay, this is a tough one, but we're at the 72 hour mark now:

One of my closest friends was in France when the massive storm, Xynthia, hit three days ago and none of us have heard back from him yet. Much of France is still without power so we're hoping this or something equally benign is the tripwire.

Still, the good thoughts would be appreciated.

[Postscript 2:15 p.m. My friend is fine. He wasn't checking email so he never got his brother's messages. Also, he didn't realize the extent of damage to the country and that President Sarkozy has declared a state of emergency in France. I.e. my friend had no idea there was reason for a number of us to be worried.]

Thanks to all involved! Also, high five, Canoe Club. And yet:

Felt bisected last night: really enjoyed telling another story as part of the A Guide to Visitors salon and, as always, loved working with the AGTV producers; spent time w/ excellent friends in attendance; was tickled by the capacity crowd; found everyone on the bill compelling; and am groovin' on the new(ish) Canoe Club venue. Overwhelmingly wish my story had been about anything else, though. But what other story is important now?

More on the Canoe Club:

http://canoesocialclub.com/

I've had rabbits for twelve years...

...and can attest, as can anyone who has lived with them, that they are highly intelligent and social companion animals. It's one thing to eat them out of exigency, another matter entirely to ingest them by choice. The New York Times feature briefly touches on this issue, but largely avoids it:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/03/dining/03rabbit.html

Eating rabbit is akin to eating cat or dog.

Ten hours in and...

...so far, March seems scripted by Edgar Allan Poe after a large pot of coffee.

Some days, all you can do is breathe and keep writing.

A Guide to Visitors, 8 p.m. Tuesday March 2nd at the Canoe Club:

Pleased to announce that a month ago, I had another piece accepted to A Guide to Visitors, the story-telling salon. The evening's theme this round? "Seattle Stories".

Details:

http://agtv.org/calendar.html

More on A Guide to Visitors (for the uninitiated, no, it has nothing to do with tourism, guiding or visitors):

http://agtv.org/press.html

Striking, saddening reports and video from the devastation in Chile:

One of the more evocative and comprehensive pieces I've read so far. Scroll down for video embedded on the lower left side:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/world/americas/28chile.html?hp

As if I haven't encountered enough hyprocrisy from skull-dented, Bible-thumping lunatics in recent months:

Yesterday a woman called me from a listed Seattle number, relayed the name of her Bible group and asked, "We're in your neighborhood and with everything going on in the world today, I wondered if I could read you some Scripture passages?"

It's axiomatic that extremists in all belief and/or philosophical systems fuck things up for everybody. Still can't decide whether or not to post the group's number, though.

Yippee! More good news re the Smith Mag book:

Smith Magazine's newest book, It All Changed in an Instant: More Six Word Memoirs (HarperCollins) in which, as previously noted, I am included alongside some of my very favorite writers, is featured on Huffington Post today:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/26/six-word-memoirs-james-fr_n_466011.html

I'm watching the bipartisan health care summit at Blair House...

...and among other inanities, I don't understand how Senator Kyl (R-Arizona) has deduced that President Obama's health care plan is a "job killer". Besides the pesky fact it's inaccurate, Kyl's pronouncement is designed to terrify the very populace, the middle class and the lower income, the bill helps the most.

A year into the president's first term, ninety-nine percent of Republicans have made it abundantly clear they are going to declare him a big-government favoring, tax-increasing socialist regardless of what he actually favors. He could provide each American home with free gas for a year and the G.O.P. would still maintain the president hates the nation's cars.

Enough already. Reconciliation it is.