January 31, 2004
Super Fun
Caught some sort of live super bowl celebration on mtv being broadcast from Houston. The crowd kind of sucks. Wanda Sykes came on and was not in true form, Pharrell came on with N.E.R.D. and sang Frontin' which I thought was hot, but the crowd is a bunch of jocks and cheerleaders and just weren't feeling his sexy R&B vibe. I'm sure he gets a better response in New York. The crowd did, however, rock out to Puddle of Mudd and I have to admit, so did I. Who knew I would run into so much eye candy at this ungodly hour. I don't seem to get tired of watching Pharrell -- not to mention that Puddle of Mudd singer. Wes Scantlin is his name. Looked him up and found this little interview with him. He's unlucky in love. That's just too damn bad. Hahaaa. Just kidding Robert.
I am beat. Haven't gotten to sleep anytime before 1:30 a.m. for the past couple weeks. The 25 year old brickhouse is starting to feel it. This week has had some twists. It burned me out. I'm going to sleep until noon tomorrow (today). You betta believe it.
January 29, 2004
Photographs
Kat's the brunette.
Great Adventure:
Kathleen and I. Belmar Beach, NJ.
Not Jessica Alba, but not so bad either!
Below: Me and Jenni, back in the day.
My tattoo
In Love
Femme Fatale, Darcie
Colestine Valley
Vajrasattva
Me and my siblings as kids (Ana and Josh on the right. Me on the left).
Ana and I with Green Tara
My wonderful parents.
This was my brother, Joshua, with Jenni on his left and Kate on his right. He had the most infectious laugh (Sierra and Beau are looking on in the background):
And just for fun, from a similar time period (mid-90s), some Teenage Trouble, left to right, Jenni, Katrina and Me (back when my hair was black!). I love these girls to pieces:
More recently...
January 27, 2004
A Real Big Problem
This shooting has been on the news the past few days and I had to mention it. It seems like these incidents are all too common here in New York. The officer said that pulling the trigger was a "knee-jerk reaction" when the door swung open and that he doesn't even remember shooting this poor kid. If that's an excuse that can keep a person out of jail, then there is no justice in the world. If you are so jumpy that when a door swings open during a routine patrol of an apartment building, you pull out your gun and shoot without a second thought, then you have a problem and you should not be in the business of protecting and serving the public. And the thought that the most that this guy could face is losing his job is even more disturbing. It amazes me that police officers can commit these types of crimes again and again and they just get placed on paid desk duty for a couple of weeks and then they're back to their lives as normal. No consequences for the wicked. This was a murder like any other and should be treated the same. With a long, loooong jail sentence. And in fact, I believe it should be treated as a hate crime since it seems to be a clear case of racism. I have a feeling that if the door had swung open and it had been a young white boy standing on the other side, that gun never would have gone off.
January 22, 2004
SOB, I mean U
Re: State of the Union Speech, President George W. Bush, 2004
I watched almost the entire thing before I had a psychotic episode and had to jump in the shower to cleanse myself of that man's lies. I found many points of interest. Mostly the way that he continually ping ponged between the subject of the Iraqi war and 9/11 (terrorism), once again eluding to (or actually asserting - it's hard to tell the difference) the fact that one supposedly had something to do with the other and that the war in Iraq IS the war on terrorism. This, despite the fact that it has been pointed out repeatedly in the news media and elsewhere that it is a complete lie and that our war in Iraq has nothing whatsoever to do with the terrorism suffered on 9/11, except for the fact that it is inspiring further hatred for our country amongst terrorists. (Funny how that works) It's infuriating to see him continue to press on with that lie. He also did not mention the name Osama Bin Laden ONE time. Not once. Another amazing thing was his talk about gay marriage and the statement that a few "activist judges," as he so ignorantly worded it, should not be able to make a decision regarding this so-called "sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman." Such a disrespectful remark. As if being what he calls an "activist judge" is the worst thing one could be. Of course if they are being an activist in favor of his election or his oil interests or tearing down standards for environmental cleanliness and civil rights, that's all fine and good. It's those liberal activist judges you have to watch out for.
And then on to his unbelievably out of place remarks about athletes and the widespread use of steroids, which hardly seems like an issue deserving of a time spot in the State of the Union address when there are so many other issues which were either ignored, skirted or addressed in an utterly half-assed manner which actually are of great importance. Mysteriously absent from his speech was also his unrealistic space travel program that he was so gung ho about last week. I guess Dick Cheney gave him a talking to. He did not discuss at all how we will pay for our destruction in Iraq or the No Child Left Behind Act, or healthcare reform. And then he hit us with the revelation that we should permanently cut taxes [for the rich]. How does all of this make sense in his mind or that of his advisers?
One thing that did make me throw my head back and laugh out loud though, was when he talked about the yet unfunded "No Child Left Behind Act" during which he stressed the importance of reading and math. Of course, I can't argue with that, but it reminded me of when Michael Moore said something like "there's nothing like a family tragedy to spark activism..."
On the whole I thought he presented the fluff of real issues and not at all in a truthful or genuine way. Filler for an hour forced to speak. He proposed no viable solutions, he justified nothing, he explained nothing. But really, the part of the occasion that affected me the most, the part that made my stomach turn like a cement mixer, had something to do with everyone else in the room. The parade of bile that entered before the speech began, Bush being photographed kissing that cute little girl and hearing his cronies say loudly and proudly "that's the shot of the night guys!," hearing the roar of applause every time he lied, every time he used the word "terrorism" or the phrase "the American people will not get a permission slip from other countries to defend itself!" (Conveniently omitting the fact that we waged pre-emptive war on Iraq and that it had nothing whatsoever to do with defending our country from clear and present danger). That is what scared me the most. The faces of Dick Cheney, Condoleeza Rice, John Ashcroft...so many others... The feeling that the room was full with greed, lies, conscienceless demons flapping their hands to cheer their demon leader. I almost expected a bolt of lightning to flash and to see that beneath their crisp, elated, predominantly white exterior they had contorted faces, hallow and evil. I felt so sad to realize that THAT is our government. Right there. In that room. Those people are making the decisions that affect us all so much. Even the ones that are supposed to be on our side (they're all on the same side), even they clap for this demon with his snakey glinting eyes, his beak nose and his horribly fake grin. All those fluttering hands are the hands that sign our rights away, the hands that dismiss truth and justice in favor of acquiescence to the driving force of money and power. And then I saw the face of Edward Kennedy. His eyes turned down, his head shaking back and forth in disagreement as the president spoke, his lips and jaws set into an expression of frustration and disappointment. That made me even more sad. All in all it was another disturbing political gathering in Bush admin history.
Another thing I thought I might mention is President Bush's appearance at Martin Luther King's grave. The audacity that a person must have to make such a show when it is clear to everyone that MLK would turn over in his grave at the things that have occurred during the W presidency, that Bush does not live or rule by any of the principles that King stood for. I thought that was terrible. The dead man cannot speak out. Cannot say "Mr. Bush I disagree with your war in Iraq. I disagree with your stance on civil rights. I disagree with your opposition to affirmative action..." And here this creep stands over his grave, bestowing flowers and attempting to use touching clichés. Truly amazing and despicable.
January 17, 2004
It's Criminal
I have spent days on end fighting a massive popup onslaught to my computer. I have a cable modem which allows every lowlife scumsuckingfuckface to bombard me with bullshit advertisements. I downloaded some free popup fighting software (not the popup fighting software that the popup extortionists advertise of course). That helped only slightly. I worked and worked on this problem to no avail. The popups just kept coming and I couldn't stop them. I was tearing my hair out and feeling so angry and indignant that I wanted to find the demons causing this affliction and beat them senseless.
It's such an extreme invasion of peace and privacy. It's like having the same telemarketers calling you over and over, but worse. The phone never stops ringing and it's always some fucking parasite trying to find a way to extract your money from your wallet. The one that sends me into a rage are ones that pop up incessantly saying "Do you hate popups? Click here!" and then they want to force you to pay them to make the torment cease. Wait a minute. You are a popup ad? Asking me if I hate popup ads? And you want me to pay you twenty dollars a month so that you will stop? EAT A DICK. That is the most outrageous form of extortion I have ever been subjected to.
But I've finally made it stop by banning every single IP address and every single URL of every last popup that appears on my screan. Ah. Sweet victory.
There needs to be some serious legislation put in place regarding the popup "industry." What they do is unconscionable and it should be stopped.
January 15, 2004
Scruples? I Know Not of Scruples.
Scenario: Guy gets arrested under suspicion of drunk driving. The police confiscate his cash which includes an extremely rare $1000 bill. The mayor of Pine Lawn, Missouri decides that he wants the bill. So he takes it. When the man who was arrested is released and wants his money back, they write him a check and the mayor keeps his thousand dollar bill. The city says this is perfectly fine and that there's nothing the guy can do about it. They'e treating the thousand dollar bill as if it is nothing but plain old currency and that to be written a check for one thousand in exchange is fair and even, but the reality is that the bill is worth far more than one thousand dollars because of its rarity, and the guy is not being properly compensated. There is no way that you can say a thousand dollar check is equal in any way to the thousand dollar bill. The real issue is that the thousand dollar bill is more of an object than it is actually money. The sentimental value of the bill to its owner is far greater than its actual monetary value. The guy has been carrying it around for twenty years. It should be treated as property and be returned to him in the exact form that it was taken. I think this is wrong. Really wrong. And I think that mayor should be tarred and feathered for being a selfish, unscrupulous worm. And what makes him think that whatever comes out of someone's pockets in the police station is free for him to take as he pleases? What a terrible person. And finally, by making the statement that he wants it purely for novelty purposes, the mayor is inadvertently conceding to the fact that he has taken something that has more than mere monetary value. Something which does not belong to him. And when you want to make a trade with someone, you ask. "Hey, want to trade me that thousand dollar bill for ten ones? No? Bummer." Not: "I'll take that!" ...Asshole.
PINE LAWN, Mo. (AP) -- The mayor of this St. Louis suburb fancied a rare $1,000 bill that was seized in a traffic stop, so the town wrote the driver a check and the politician kept the cash.
Not a fair trade, according to the driver, a retired trucker who said he carried the bill in his pocket for two decades. "If you take a personal item from someone, you should give it back,'' Curtis Smith Sr., 71, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. County police and prosecutors found that Pine Lawn officials broke no laws. But Don Schneider, a spokesman for St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch, said "it's a bad idea for a city official or politician to have access to evidence. It creates the appearance of impropriety. We don't advocate doing business that way.'' Calls to City Hall on Thursday seeking comment from Mayor Adrian Wright were not answered.
Experts said collectors will pay $1,300 to $3,500 for the bill showing President Grover Cleveland, depending on its condition. The U.S. government printed its last $1,000 bill in 1934 and took the denomination out of circulation in 1969 after technology replaced paper notes for transfers of large sums. Smith said he got his $1,000 bill through a banking friend about 20 years ago, when that sum could buy what today would cost $1,771, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
Smith's note was seized last April when he was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving. Smith, who lives in nearby Jennings, said he was sleeping off a few drinks in his truck on a lot he owns. According to an official report, Smith was taken to the police station, where the mayor watched as police counted Smith's money, including the $1,000 bill, several $100 bills and a few $2 bills.
Wright said he wanted the bill, which portrays President Grover Cleveland, "as a novelty item, as few people have ever had the opportunity to see a bill in that denomination.'' The mayor fetched 10 $100 bills, and police switched the money and deposited it in an account for seized drug assets, the report said.
In September, county prosecutors refused to charge Smith with selling drugs and ordered the money returned. The city issued Smith a check for $3,231 to cover the $1,000 bill and his other cash.
Smith said he repeatedly called and visited police to ask for his rare bill, but officials refused to return it. City Attorney Mark Zoole said the bill never left City Hall and would be returned to Smith, should he ask for it, once it was no longer considered evidence in a criminal case. Zoole noted, "He, of course, would have to pay for it.''
PAY FOR IT? IT'S ALREADY HIS!!! Who are these numbskulls?
January 12, 2004
Absolutely Evil
The money would have to be raised specially in the small southern African kingdom because the government did not have the funds at present, the paper said. Swaziland, struggling with a devastating drought and a crippling HIV/AIDS epidemic, has an economy that has been in decline for 10 years. GDP growth in 2003/04 is expected to be 1.6 percent, about half the rate two years ago.
"It is true that we will rehabilitate the palace of his majesty and his wives," the palace source told Reuters. "The king's office has put in a request to parliament and to cabinet for approval," said the source, without giving a figure. Two months ago, Mswati hand-picked 17 family members and loyalists to fill cabinet posts. The cabinet is headed by Themba Dlamini, chief executive of the royal conglomerate Tibiyo TakaNgwane.
The chairman of the National Disaster Relief Task Force, Ben Nsibandze, said the drought was the worst in recorded history in Swaziland. The U.N. World Food Program (WFP) says harvests will be down for a fifth successive year. At least a quarter of Swaziland's population of 1.1 million will depend on food aid from the WFP and other sources by the end of January.
Mswati's land and property holdings are extensive, and Tibiyo TakaNgwane holds an interest in most major corporations and enterprises doing business in Swaziland. The wealth of the king is considered a state secret. Last year, $1.5 million was spent on luxury cars and homes for Mswati's elder relatives. Swazi taxpayers lost $45 million on a down payment for a luxury jet for Mswati's personal use when the deal fell through.
HOW DARE HE? HOW DARE HE squander the money of taxpayers on frivolous bullshit, when his "people" are starving and dying of AIDS? How dare he think he & all of his family have the right to live a life of enormous wealth while his "people" are reduced to utter barbarism, begging just for the chance to survive? What a piece of shit. I think I'm going to be sick. What horrible, greedy, incompassionate people inhabit this earth...
January 05, 2004
Feminist Rant
I am so tired of coming across articles about strict Islamic states and countries where anything and everything that might be considered even remotely enjoyable is a fucking crime. No dancing. No drinking. No body conscious clothing. Most of the time these rules are directed towards women more than men. It amazes me that such a large number of people on this planet still think of women as lesser (and cursed) beings who bring bad luck and sin to the world. Instead of making the women wear dumpy frocks, maybe they should just castrate all the men who find anything slightly more revealing too tempting to handle. Just cut off their cojones. That should take care of that little problem.
When I was a teenager I had this sucky job taking phone orders for a catalog company. People dressed so badly there. Tiedyed t-shirts, torn jeans, hideous guys wearing shirts with the sleeves torn off to reveal white, pimpled, hairy arms and minimally hygenic females wearing sloppy tanktops that couldn't contain their bra straps and underarm flaps. Yes there was a dress code and no people did not follow it. I made an effort to look presentable to work everyday despite the deadendedness of the job and the lack of general morale, but you can bet I never wore torn jeans, tiedyes or grubby tanktops to work. One day though, I wore a black button down skirt that reached to my knees and a white sleeveless top (no arm flaps, hair or unsightly blemishes). I was beckoned to human resources and informed of my dress code infraction. It had been brought to their attention by one of the bigwig vice presidents (who had been trolling the area) that my top was inappropriate and to please find something to wear over it or I would need to go home without pay. (Please note that I was a flat chested, bony teenager - nothing hanging out, no cleavage...and no, my nipples were not showing). I borrowed an ugly flannel from a friend, which I'm sure was a big relief to the persistent boner in the VP's pants which was no doubt his primary motivation for getting me in trouble. Now, I may have accepted the notion that perhaps the top was inappropriate for work if I had not gone back to my seat where I had to work beside a fat hippie chick with stringy hair and purple bra straps which were literally FALLING out of her tidyed tanktop along with everything else. I shit you not. No one ever said a word to her.
When I told my mother about the whole incident she had just one thing to say: "only men with hard-ons make issues out of things like that." Anyway, that is only a small incident in my life and I'm sure could not possibly compare with the type of oppression that these women in Islamic countries must endure. The worst is that these extremist leaders & organizations inflict their rules on even non-islamic people who shouldn't have to be subjected to it at all. But I think the bottom line is simple.
Men have always blamed women for their own relentless libidos and for inspiring carnal desires. Right wing Christians blame pornography and loose women for the downfall of humanity and they blame their own sexual transgressions on the same, while Islamic extremists blame even a flash of skin or a lock of hair for all the immorality that exists in the world. But what's really disgusting is them. Their own denial. Their own frustration. Their own self loathing. That and their fear of women. Men who oppress women have an inherent fear that women will harness their true power and take control of all which has been dominated by men. They stamp out the female characteristics that exist within everything in order to wield their masculine ego and their weapons and their "strength." They're so afraid that women are intrinsically stronger on the inside that they must reaffirm their control and power with all they have - physicality. If the women don't do what the men want, they will just have to be beaten until they submit. And since this has been going on for as long as I can possibly imagine, it works. Especially in a society where women are already taught to believe that a beating or even a killing is what they righteously deserve if they disobey a man and his laws. Or what about places where they perform female circumcision so that women will not be able to derive any pleasure from sex acts and therefore will not be unfaithful to their husbands, while their husbands are welcome to do the whole fucking village?
The older I get, and the more I understand the things that are important in this world, the more of a feminist I become. In this country, the most I worry about is catching wind of a macho asshole attitude or being sexually harassed in the work place, or battling in my own romantic relationship for equality. But it is these other countries that concern me, where women's rights are non-existent. It's ugly and evil and I pray that one day these pathetic, inadequate men will stop trying to make themselves feel more powerful by abusing those who they feel inferior to and using their religion as a basis for it.
January 03, 2004
We Made it into the Future
Happy New Year! I know I'm belated. Some blogger I am. I don't even know if I qualify at this point. The concept of a new year is always such a mind trip. Not only do you have to remember to write 04 rather than 03, but you are obligated to wish a happy new year to every last person you encounter and then you also have to resolve to be a better person in the coming year. We all have room for improvement so that whole tradition works out pretty well. Anyone who says "I'm perfectly happy with myself and my life so I don't have any resolutions..." well, they're really full of shit. And anyway, I like turning over new leaves.
I started the year off right. Woke up with a hangover. Me and a lot of other people, I'm sure. So far, I really haven't started doing anything differently. I know I haven't stopped shopping yet. I feel bad almost, for buying sooo much stuff. But I also feel pretty stoked that I'm all set for the new year with shoes and clothing galore. I've been a shopaholic since I started christmas shopping. And I just haven't stopped. We even went to the 99 cent store on New Years Day and I bought a shopping bag full of cheap-o goodies. Little painted vases and picture hooks and nails and plastic beaded bracelets and a camoflauge rain hat. All very necessary objects.
I have a slight tinge of PHAA (post-holiday-alcohol-anxiety). I had stopped drinking completely a couple weeks before Christmas. See, I have always been a drinker. I'm not afraid to admit it. But I want to cut down in a major way. I really want to be healthy, and drinking is not healthy. Neither is smoking or eating one meal a day, but I'm going to work on those things next. First, I really want to push alcohol into the category of less prominent activities in my life. So here I go, into a new year with that resolution.
I also have a couple of others. One is to work on putting together some writing, submitting for publication and to keep working on my art projects and portraits. (I did one of myself for Rob as birthday gift and it turned out kickass.) Another is to focus on taking better care of my mind & body in general. To do more stretching and breathing and meditation to keep my back problems from tormenting me and anxieties from dominating my mind. To accomplish all of these things, I have to dedicate time and energy to each one. So my final resolution would be exactly that. I resolve to find the time & energy in each hectic week to apply to the aforementioned resolutions.
So there you have it. My New Years Resolutions. What are yours?