By Beauty Damned

Here Comes 2005

Happy NEW YEAR EVERYBODY!!!

New Year's resolutions are brewing.

What's yours?

Gnashing

It's been mentioned several times in the previous thread and written about by at least one other blogger (I imagine more than that), but I am going to personally combust if I do not vent about how much it sickens me that $40 million in donated funds will pay for Bush's inauguration and tax payers will foot the bill for the cost of the biggest inaugural security operation in history. While one of the poorest areas of the world suffers the most astounding natural disaster witnessed in our lifetime, while soldiers and civilians lose their lives everyday in Iraq, the smug asshole who we so unfortunately call our president is planning the biggest bash he can possibly get away with. And, actually, judging by how willingly people look the other way as it happens right before their eyes, he could probably manage to get away with a bit more than that.

I think the cost of the inauguration should just be split up evenly among all Americans who voted for that pestilent scab in the first place. Maybe then they would see the frivolity of it all and the insult that it tosses at all who are currently suffering both here in America and elsewhere. That would seem a hell of a lot more fair and equitable than Exxon/Mobil and other big corporations pitching in and getting four years worth of favorable legislation in return for their contributions for catering and entertainment to be laid at King George's feet.

For some reason, Bush supporters seem to think that as long as the party is paid for with private donations, we shouldn't feel the least bit of compunction about it. Excuse me for being crass, but, Fuck those conscienceless fools. I cannot think of anything more inappropriate at this particular time in history than to throw a big decadent inauguration ceremony in a time of war and global heartbreak. That piece of shit Bush is going to "pay tribute to the troops" during this ceremony??? Pay tribute? How bout paying for armor and support for their families? Who gives a fuck about your useless salute??? A salute isn't going to give a child their parent back or vice versa, or pay for soldiers to have the protection they need out on the battlefield. A salute doesn't do shit.

And nothing, I mean nothing sickened me more than this hypocritical statement by Bush, as pointed out by Mac:

"The time of war is a time of sacrifice, especially for our military families," Bush said, wearing a tan military jacket with epaulets. "I urge every American to find some way to thank our military and to help out the military family down the street."

I guess that means everyone sacrifices except for the wealthiest Americans. They get the tax break that makes it impossible for our government to adequately provide for the troops, so average Americans are asked to make the sacrifice instead. Cool.

Word

I got back to New York tonight. It feels good to be home, though I had a wonderful time out west with friends and family. It always feels good to come home.

We're watching some coverage about this Tsunami. I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say that our hearts are with those who have had to suffer this unthinkable destruction. I guess there's not much to say other than that.

A disaster like that immediately dwarfs manmade devastation such as 9/11. It makes me laugh a little bit when I think of how gung ho America was to go and strike back at the "terrorists who perpetrated 9/11," the "cowardly enemy that lurks in shadows," the "new kind of evil..."

3,000 people died on September 11, 2001, as the result of an evil act of man. The death toll in Asia has reached 60,000 last time I checked, as the result of natural ecological phenomenon. Who do we go after when it is the earth itself that strikes out at us? It kind of makes you think about how pointless it is to start wars of vengeance. Death happens. What sense does it make to keep the cycle of killing going when nature will inevitably do the job for you in time? All you need is patience. We're all heading to the same place.

I wish you all PEACE in your lives.

Progress Report

I took the Greyhound from Portland yesterday morning to save money on a flight or car rental. It wasn't nearly as bad as I'd anticipated. My brother met me in Medford, Oregon and we drove together to our parents' house in Ashland. It felt so great to spend time just hanging out, me and my big bro. We stayed up late last night talking and eating and kicking around the house with his best friend Sam who came to visit. Josh and I were both relieved this morning though when we were walking out of the house to go get coffee and our mom and dad drove up into the driveway. I screamed out loud. I was so happy to see them. They were full of energy and stories about their trip so the four of us went and had coffee and chatted up a storm.

I'm so glad that they are safe and they didn't get kidnapped or abducted by the CIA or get in a terrible car accident. I start to think crazy things when I worry and I was a little worried about them, though I managed to get through the last few days with the stalwart reassurance of my brother that they were surely just having a great time and were unable to call. Well, that was exactly the case.

They found a place that they love in Spain, a storefront office and an apartment to rent, and they had such a great time and all kinds of stories and descriptions to share. They bubbled about how they cannot wait to take us children there to stay in the beautiful paradours (sp?) all over Spain. Josh and I both sheepishly nodded with agreement that we should go soon. Very soon. Haha. I felt like we were little kids sitting there in the backseat of the car, driving through Ashland, listening to our parents talk excitedly about their plans. I'm 26 and he's 28, but at that moment, we were both ten.

So now I'm just waiting for my friend Jenni to come pick me up so we can go to the Rogue Valley Mall and do some shopping. I'm loving every second of this vacation, I gotta tell ya. Now if I could just get my hands on my little sister Ana...where is that little nymph hiding?

An End to the Insanity

I flew in to Portland last night from Newark airport. Darcie and Tom picked me up. Now they are both at work and I'm spending an extremely quiet and pleasant day in their house. I love their new apartment. Darcie has such an amazing decorative touch. It feels comfortable and bright and as if it has everything and anything you could possibly want or need to live happily. I made eggs and bacon and two slices of toast and it was really, really good. I almost felt like cooking it in her pans and in the light, spaciousness of her kitchen, made it taste better. The raspberry jam was sweeter, the bacon crispier, the eggs fluffier...The animals all watched jealously as I scarfed it down and followed the meal with a nice big cold glass of water. Darcie has some of the cutest pets ever. They occasionally growl or hiss at eachother, but mostly they just hang out and look really fuggin adorable.

I absolutely love the silence here and it's nice to feel Oregon wrapped around me again. I'm happiest about the fact that I don't have to do anything today except what I want to do and in whatever order I choose. That's a nice change from the past two weeks which have been dotted with little deadlines and at least one seriously spastic episode of anxiety overload.

Yesterday was a crazy day. I have spent so much money on Christmas presents so far that I could palpably feel the cash being drained from my bank account as if it were the very blood being released from one of my bodily appendages. I went to Target yesterday to finish up some final shopping and ended up spending $300, when I hadn't planned on spending more than a hundred. I didn't regret a single thing I'd purchased, but I did start to have a meltdown about the fact that I was about to travel across country in a couple hours and there were checks that hadn't been deposited that were needed to keep me afloat. I got home about two hours before I needed to leave for the airport and called my parents to find out who would be picking me up in Portland and driving me the 300 miles down to Ashland. I got my brother Josh on the phone. He said my parents have been in Spain for a couple weeks and haven't made contact once, so he was worried. This got me feeling extremely worried and stressed out too.

I tried not to think about where my parents were and why they hadn't called and if they were okay as I rushed to do my last minute packing and wrap all the presents that I was taking with me to Oregon, in addition to those I was leaving behind for Robert to deliver to our friends in NY. Then I started stressing about whether I was going to get to the airport in time and whether I'd packed everything I was going to need. I hadn't eaten a single morsel all day. In the final moments before the car arrived to go to the airport, I was rushing around, feeding the cat, cleaning the kitty litter, putting things away, checking on the internet about renting a car in Portland, rechecking to see if I packed everything...internally losing my grip on sanity. Aaaaahhh!!!! I lost it. Rob called as I was waiting for the cab and I literally fell to pieces, babbling incoherently about my parents and my bank account and all the presents and the cat and the cab and every other irrelevant thing imaginable. It was a definite meltdown.

The ride to the airport ended up costing me $70 with tolls and tip. That hurt. It took a lot out of me yesterday just to prevent myself from having a heart attack over finances. I got my bags checked and through the security pretty quickly, stopped for a salad and a sandwich at the airport diner, boarded my flight and got comfortable in my window seat. The flight was packed, but me and another guy in my row were lucky enought to have one of the only empty seats on the plane right between us. It was nice to have some room to move around during the flight. I slept about three of the six hours it took to fly across the entire length of the United States, and I felt refreshed and more relaxed by the time we taxied into PDX.

Now I am here within the calm, depressurized walls of one of my best friend's apartments, enjoying an almost odd feeling of weightlessness. I am still a little worried about my parents, but if we don't hear from them by tomorrow night, then I'll actually start to feel genuinely concerned. I'm almost sure they're fine and they just forgot to call.

So I think I'm going to catch a bus to Ashland tomorrow. I can't wait to see my sibs. As long as my parents come back soon, this is going to be the best holiday ever.

Letter to the House

I am writing to express my dissatisfaction with our voting system, including but not limited to the non-uniformity of voting rules and requirements across the board, the faultiness of voting machines and incompetence of poll volunteers, evidence of widespread voter suppression and lack of adequate polling locations in lower income areas, and finally, the disturbing practice of spoilage.

I believe that we need serious election reform and that it is a non-partisan issue. I find it unsettling that republicans do not feel an urgency for voting reform simply because their candidate won in this most recent presidential election. The republican party has taken the attitude of "as long as it's not happening to me and our man wins, I don't care if the system is a sham." While problems within our voting system are not exclusively harmful to democrats, if these problems remain unconfronted and unresolved, it WILL and already has been detrimental to our efforts at democracy. America should have the best and most airtight voting system in the world, while instead our voting system is a morass of dubiousness and many who would be responsible for reform just turn the other cheek. How can our leaders admonish Russia for having a corrupted voting system, when ours is equally corrupted but just more skillfully glossed over? That is a hypocrisy I would rather see rectified than continue to see perpetuated.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Maria Carreón

To send your letter to the House Committee demanding election reform visit their website and shoot over an email.

Good Times

Some pleasant things to come home to:

- Two shattered glasses on kitchen floor;

- Busted Chiroflow water pillow on living room floor, leaking everywhere, totally destroyed;

- One large rack of dress shirts in Rob's closet, collapsed;

Smaller treasures:

- Sink full of dishes;

- Thirsty cat (the most plausible culprit of "pleasant surprises" above)

- About four loads of laundry;

- Pile of unwrapped Christmas presents;

- Stack of unopened mail; and

- Empty suitcases that should be filled with the belongings that I plan to take on my trip to Oregon tomorrow

Yay! I can't wait for the rest of my day. Kathleen is on her way over and we're supposed to do final shopping. My company Christmas party was an absolute blast. Maybe I'll have a chance to disclose a few details later. (That's a big maybe). Right now I have to tackle some of these chores. Time to blast some music and get crackin.

Skinny Pants + McDonalds = Not a Chance

Tomorrow is my company Christmas party. I am really looking forward to it, as strange as that may sound. I have never been to the restaurant/club that it's being held at, but I've heard the food and atmosphere are good. It's worth it to go, if for nothing else but the free food, drinks and the comfy ride home in a car paid for by the firm. But I'm lucky enough to also have a lot of coworkers who I really like, so it's always cool to have an opportunity to hang out with them and relax outside of the office. I've got my special outfit all picked out. Since I stopped eating McDonalds cheeseburgers and fries and drinking soda, I have lost enough weight to fit into my sexiest, skinniest pinstripe pants. They're freshly hemmed and ready to go.

On that note, McDonalds seems to be somewhat of a hot topic right now since that movie "Supersize Me" came out, which I haven't yet seen, but I've heard and read enough about it to have a pretty good idea. I was visiting Petebeck's yesterday when a post he'd written about a McDonads actually closing (The shock! The horror!) struck such a nerve that I went off on this crazy rant! (And that's just so out of character for me ;o) I like his site, it's good stuff. Regrettably, he's sick right now, but he's still fun to visit even in his absenteeism! (And I ain't exactly one to talk). So here's my two cents on McDonalds:

It's crazy!

The closest McDonalds to me is exactly three blocks away. I used to go there at least once a week. You see, I was raised by a hippie health food fanatic for a mom and never got to touch fast food until I was in highschool.

In gradeschool it was always fifty-two grain bread, turkey, lettuce, tomato sandwich, a "fruit leather" (if you don't know what that is, just picture exactly what it sounds like) and a carton of milk while other kids ate ham & kraft singles on wonderbread with a fruit rollup (or Hostess Cupcake! OMG!!!) and slurped down "squeeze-its."

When I moved to NY as an adult, and without my mommy's health conscious eye anywhere near, I started to love McDonalds. Oh those breakfasts. Those nothing-could-replace-that-when-you-have-a-hangover breakfasts. Soooo goood.

And yet, when you really think about what you're eating, SO GROSS!!! What is that? That's not an egg. That's a flat round white and yellow hockey puck sitting atop a god-knows-what-the-fuck-is-in-there-sausage, bedecked by a poor excuse for "cheese" and ultimately encased in what we have come to accept as a muffin, which is really the most processed piece of shit imagineable, not a single component having any nutritional value whatsoever. But those big tatertots are bangin. ;o) Really though. Let's be rational. This is a wonderful opportunity for you to stop eating McDonalds.

Last time I ate it I stopped in for two cheeseburgers and a small fries. It tasted fuckin good. Right down to the little sad "onions" on the burgers. But afterwards I went back to my desk and felt overcome by self loathing and an actual physical feeling of fatigue and queaziness. This is not how you're supposed to feel after you eat. You're supposed to be infused with energy. Recharged. McDonalds does the opposite.

So I decided never to eat McDonalds again. And I replaced my daily intake of coca cola with water. I went from 140 lbs to 130 lbs. almost instantaneously.

When I figure out how to quit smoking a pack of cigarettes and consuming three glasses of beer or wine per day, maybe you can actually congratulate me. Hahaa.

Please excuse the obscenely long post. You must have hit a nerve.

He's The Man

I'm helping my dad type revisions to the last chapters of his nearly finished novel. It is a non-fiction tale chronicling his representation of the original owner to the domain name "Sex.com." This article here gives a pretty good summary of what the case was about. It was landmark quality, a huge win for my dad (considering his client's case was one that nobody thought could possibly be won), and in the end, it makes an incredibly good true plot for a story.

Charles Carreon, one of Kremen's lead attorneys, added, "Sex.com provided the best test case imaginable, and Mr. Cohen turned it into a test of endurance. Although Gary takes the top prize, all domain name owners will benefit from the law this case has established..."

Following is a very small excerpt from what is a long, riveting and sordid tale that is much, much more than a courtroom drama or a narrow, technical view of a lawsuit's birth and progression. Every lawsuit is in essence, a story. Some are far more interesting than others. This particular excerpt doesn't hold a great deal of relevance to the premise of the case itself, but it conveys a pretty good picture of my dad's writing style and I loved every minute of it while I was revising it. It also really reminded me of how similar he and I are as people and it made me feel proud to be his daughter.

Eventually, the band starts up. Plutonium Pie, a power trio that plays all original material. There’s only one way to play rock guitar – louder than hell, with total confidence, loving the great big clangorous chord blasting out of a big Marshall amp. You only have to hear a guitarist play a few chords to know whether they have it or not. It’s got to have the acid burn, folded into the melodious, raucous noise that conquers all. This guitarist had it. Big black guitar, huge amp, confident strum, reliable effect. I order another Bass ale and settle back.

As the band gets going, I start to wonder whether the musicians are related by blood or ethnicity. The drummer’s a girl, and all three are dark-skinned, looking very Indian, as in Dravidian, with long wavy hair, black as coal. There are only five people including the barmaid hearing this gig, but the members of Plutonium Pie don’t seem to notice. They nail one tune after another with precision and authority. The drummer flails away beautifully, her hair a dark, penumbral halo around her youthful face. The bass player is always right where he’s supposed to be, and the guitarist is a calm, dark god, working up and down the neck of his instrument, commanding platoons of power chords to destroy each other. Pretty soon I’m dancing around like a fool next to the sprawling metal coils of disemboweled refrigeration equipment.

It continues that way for about an hour. Then the band takes a break to go out on the back porch for some beer and conversation. I buy a round for all the band members. They’re very easy-going, and start rolling joints with that easygoing style musicians have, like having pot and music is a divine right. The swampy night air out on the back porch is thick enough to eat. The porch runs the length of the back of the house, which has lean-to structures built helter-skelter all around it. There are makeshift shades and awnings everywhere, all destroyed by the sun. Even in the dark, with the pot smoke drifting by on the tepid breeze, you can tell everything is sun-beaten. The wood’s rough and splintery, the plastic is frizzy, the cotton awnings are frayed. There is refrigeration equipment everywhere. I wonder idly if Churchill’s doubles as storage space for a refrigeration company.

The band members are fun people. I can’t help but tell them about this crazy case I’m working on. Wow! Sex.com! That’s a mind-blower! A lawyer, you! No shit! Yeah, yeah, no big deal, just y’know… They huff their joints with subdued pleasure, and thank me for the beer, and pretty soon it’s time for them to play more rock and roll, and we blast through to the other side of 2 a.m. By the time I leave, I’m tight with everybody, including the biker chick barmaid and the sad-looking drug dealer I tip for watchin’ my car outside the place. I saw him watchin’ it."

Thanks for Protecting Us

I don't think there's anything I could possibly add to this article from the Guardian:

President Bush wants 'pro-homosexual' drama banned.

Gary Taylor meets the politician in charge of making it happen

Gary Taylor
Thursday December 9, 2004

What should we do with US classics like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof or The Color Purple? "Dig a hole," Gerald Allen recommends, "and dump them in it." Don't laugh. Gerald Allen's book-burying opinions are not a joke.

Earlier this week, Allen got a call from Washington. He will be meeting with President Bush on Monday. I asked him if this was his first invitation to the White House. "Oh no," he laughs. "It's my fifth meeting with Mr Bush."

Bush is interested in Allen's opinions because Allen is an elected Republican representative in the Alabama state legislature. He is Bush's base. Last week, Bush's base introduced a bill that would ban the use of state funds to purchase any books or other materials that "promote homosexuality". Allen does not want taxpayers' money to support "positive depictions of homosexuality as an alternative lifestyle". That's why Tennessee Williams and Alice Walker have got to go.

I ask Allen what prompted this bill. Was one of his children exposed to something in school that he considered inappropriate? Did he see some flamingly gay book displayed prominently at the public library?

No, nothing like that. "It was election day," he explains. Last month, "14 states passed referendums defining marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman". Exit polls asked people what they considered the most important issue, and "moral values in this country" were "the top of the list".

"Traditional family values are under attack," Allen informs me. They've been under attack "for the last 40 years". The enemy, this time, is not al-Qaida. The axis of evil is "Hollywood, the music industry". We have an obligation to "save society from moral destruction". We have to prevent liberal libarians and trendy teachers from "re-engineering society's fabric in the minds of our children". We have to "protect Alabamians".

I ask him, again, for specific examples. Although heterosexuals are apparently an endangered species in Alabama, and although Allen is a local politician who lives a couple miles from my house, he can't produce any local examples. "Go on the internet," he recommends. "Some time when you've got a week to spare," he jokes, "just go on the internet. You'll see."

Actually, I go on the internet every day. But I'm obviously searching for different things. For Allen, the web is just the largest repository in history of urban myths. The internet is even better than the Bible when it comes to spreading unverifiable, unrefutable stories. And urban myths are political realities. Remember, it was an urban myth (an invented court case about a sex education teacher gang-raped by her own students who, when she protested, laughed and said: "But we're just doing what you taught us!") that all but killed sex education in America.

Since Allen couldn't give me a single example of the homosexual equivalent of 9/11, I gave him some. This autumn the University of Alabama theatre department put on an energetic revival of A Chorus Line, which includes, besides "tits and ass", a prominent gay solo number. Would Allen's bill prevent university students from performing A Chorus Line? It isn't that he's against the theatre, Allen explains. "But why can't you do something else?" (They have done other things, of course. But I didn't think it would be a good idea to mention their sold-out productions of Angels in America and The Rocky Horror Show.)

Cutting off funds to theatre departments that put on A Chorus Line or Cat on a Hot Tin Roof may look like censorship, and smell like censorship, but "it's not censorship", Allen hastens to explain. "For instance, there's a reason for stop lights. You're driving a vehicle, you see that stop light, and I hope you stop." Who can argue with something as reasonable as stop lights? Of course, if you're gay, this particular traffic light never changes to green.

It would not be the first time Cat on a Hot Tin Roof ran into censorship. As Nicholas de Jongh documents in his amusingly appalling history of government regulation of the British theatre, the British establishment was no more enthusiastic, half a century ago, than Alabama's Allen. "Once again Mr Williams vomits up the recurring theme of his not too subconscious," the Lord Chamberlain's Chief Examiner wrote in 1955. In the end, it was first performed in London at the New Watergate Club, for "members only", thereby slipping through a loophole in the censorship laws.

But more than one gay playwright is at a stake here. Allen claims he is acting to "encourage and protect our culture". Does "our culture" include Shakespeare? I ask Allen if he would insist that copies of Shakespeare's sonnets be removed from all public libraries. I point out to him that Romeo and Juliet was originally performed by an all-male cast, and that in Shakespeare's lifetime actors and audiences at the public theatres were all accused of being "sodomites". When Romeo wished he "was a glove upon that hand", the cheek that he fantasised about kissing was a male cheek. Next March the Alabama Shakespeare festival will be performing a new production of As You Like It, and its famous scene of a man wooing another man. The Alabama Shakespeare Festival is also the State Theatre of Alabama. Would Allen's bill cut off state funding for Shakespeare?

"Well," he begins, after a pause, "the current draft of the bill does not address how that is going to be handled. I expect details like that to be worked out at the committee stage. Literature like Shakespeare and Hammet [sic] could be left alone." Could be. Not "would be". In any case, he says, "you could tone it down". That way, if you're not paying real close attention, even a college graduate like Allen himself "could easily miss" what was going on, the "subtle" innuendoes and all.

So he regards his gay book ban as a work in progress. His legislation is "a single spoke in the wheel, it doesn't resolve all the issues". This is just the beginning. "To turn a big ship around it takes a lot of time."

But make no mistake, the ship is turning. You can see that on the face of Cornelius Carter, a professor of dance at Alabama and a prize-winning choreographer who, not long ago, was named university teacher of the year for the entire US. Carter is black. He is also gay, and tired of fighting these battles. "I don't know," he says, "if I belong here any more."

Forty years ago, the American defenders of "our culture" and "traditional values" were opposing racial integration. Now, no politician would dare attack Cornelius Carter for being black. But it's perfectly acceptable to discriminate against people for what they do in bed.

"Dig a hole," Gerald Allen recommends, "and dump them in it."

Of course, Allen was talking about books. He was just talking about books. He never said anything about pink triangles.

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

Nothing in Particular

Well there's no shortage of things to blog about, that's for sure.

Bernie Kerik has been shot down out of the sky. The most surprising part about that whole hoopla is that he didn't decline the nomination sooner, since surely he was aware that he owns a closet full of skeletons.

People have gone so ballistic about Pale Male being stripped of his nest that the co-op board who made the decision to remove it from their building is backing into a corner. New Yorkers really can be just like a bunch of angry pitchfork wielding farmers when they put their minds to it.

It's definitely worth mentioning that while the Pale Male story has gotten non-stop coverage in New York over the past few days, the Delaware oil tanker spill has gotten next to none, and I would not have even been aware of it if not for the highly informative "envirospam" (as Geoffrey aptly called it) that I received in my previous thread on the Pale Male topic. It's sickening that spills like this even occur. Almost as sickening as the lack of coverage that they receive. I have to hand it to every single emergency rescue worker who is out there saving wildlife. What a heartbreaking state of affairs. Will the day ever arrive when we no longer allow these kinds of "accidents," and our environment and the wildlife who inhabit it actually become more than collatoral damage in our neverending exploitation of the earth's resources?

Among the tidbits I got wind of from the news this morning was one that made me start foaming at the mouth almost instantaneously: The city is hanging up on public-telephone advertising. Now that doesn't sounds so bad does it? I'll tell you what is fucked about it. If they stop advertising on phone booths, there is no money to pay for phone booths to exist. Meanwhile, there's advertising everywhere. I invite anyone to come and visit New York City and tell me that the most offensive and overzealous advertising is on public telephones! Every day, no matter where you go, you are barraged by advertising. On buses, on billboards, on the sides of buildings, absofuckinglutely everywhere. But while I don't hear anyone talking about taking down all the other advertising that is everywhere else on earth, no one is hesitating for even a moment to start removing public telephones because the advertising is an eyesore! Are you kidding me? I am a person who does not have a cellphone. And I'll tell you honestly that finding a payphone that works in this city is almost impossible. Why? Because no one thinks it important to maintain public telephones since "everyone has cellphones anyway." Newsflash: EVERYONE DOES NOT HAVE A CELLPHONE. And those who don't have one shouldn't be forced to get one because some dumb fucking yuppies don't want to see advertising in their neighborhood in the form of a poster on the side of a public telephone. You bet that same yuppie will be throwing a hissy fit when they're jogging in the park in their J. Crew jogging outfit (that's being advertised on the side of a telephone booth in their neighborhood) and they get mugged and can't find a single public telephone that functions from which to phone the police.

Having public telephones is not only an issue of convenience, but also an issue of safety. Do not discriminate against those who choose not to buy into cellphone mania!!! And all you whiney fucking yuppies who don't want to see the advertisements, here's an idea: why don't you start by not buying so much crap that you don't need. Then you can complain about all the advertisements trying to sell you all that useless shit in the first place. Assholios.

Holiday Cheer

I haven't been the best blogger lately. Been so busy at work I've scarcely thought for a moment about writing or reading until the day is over and then I still have ten more things to do. I don't foresee life being any less hectic until the start of 2005. I'm sure pretty much everyone else out there is in the same boat, but I wouldn't know because I've barely found time to read your blogs! This time of year is always like this.

New York can be one of the best places on earth during the holidays, and it can also be one of the worst. It's the best when you're walking down 6th Avenue looking at all the people and decorations, or anywhere else in the city, observing the holiday hoopla take place around you, having no particular hurry. It's magical if you're ice skating in Central Park, or just watching, and being surrounded by the unearthly glow of the city lights that is never completely extinguished (with the exception of a friendly blackout once in an almost never). The shopping can even be fun, when it's not rushed or wrought with hassle. Man do the storefronts in New York sparkle during the holidays. All the pretty, shiny, colorful things. Soft sweaters and different scarves and sparkly dresses and shimmery tops and comfy looking winter gear...and...well, everything. New York has everything. It can be overwhelming when you're trying to figure out where you need to go, how you're going to get there, what you need to get and how you're going to carry it all, how much it's going to cost, how long it's going to take...just thinking about it is enough to make you want to collapse and take a nap.

I have only gotten a very small start on my Christmas shopping and not a single card in the mail yet, so my stress has just barely begun with office work. I have to cook enchiladas for a party at my boyfriend's house tomorrow, but first I have to go to the store and it's cold and raining and I don't want to. And then I actually have to do the cooking. Not to mention my house could use a cleaning and my cat could use a feeding, before I desert them for the weekend. Could I complain a little more do you think? Sure I can.

As an example of one of the ways in which New York can suck balls pretty much any time of year, but more prominently when it's raining and people are tired and grumpy. I worked hard today. I'm tired. My back aches. But I didn't rush out of work, because I didn't want to stress. Wasn't stressed at all. Even when I'd shut down my computer and realized I needed to boot it back up to get someone's address out of my contacts, I sighed heavily, but sat back down and did what I had to do without allowing myself to be consumed by any anxiety about getting home and to the grocery store (which I'm plainly procrastinating about now). Got all the way to my last stop, through the final turnstile, and halfway up the stairs leading out of the subway before running into anything even remotely aggravating. (Is it sad that that is an achievement in New York? To get home without feeling disgruntled at least once at some stranger or running into some kind of obstacle or minor irritation, be it train trouble, or smelly neighbors or loud teenagers? But then, I guess it's an achievement for anyone who commutes, no matter where they live.) So as I'm coming up the second set of stairs I see that it's raining heavily outside. I stop on the stairs to the far righthand side, so that I wasn't in anyone's way, and went to pull my umbrella from my purse, when some rude bitch shoved me purposefully on her way past me. I said "Excuse me" and she said rudely "you're excused. You're kind of stopping on the stairs." YOU KNOW that right then, even though she was already four steps ahead of me in her hustle, my eyes burned into the back of my head. I called out through the crowd of people, in that delicate way that I have about me, "fuck you BITCH. It's KIND OF fucking raining out and I KIND OF wanted to get my umbrella." She rushed out of the stairwell while shouting "what a mouth you have." I shouted back "A mouth, yeah, but at least I don't push people ASSHOLE!"

I was so mad that I quickly walked half a block to my house, tore off my boots and jacket and dialed Rob to vent. He was busy renting a car for one of his workers and couldn't talk. When I hung up the phone I just had to get out my anger so I cried. I cried because sometimes I just fucking hate rude New Yorkers, even though I'm sure I have been classified in someone's mind as a typical rude New Yorker at one time or another over the past few years. We all let stress and our own personal agendas drive us at times and we momentarily forget civility. And then I remembered that I used to want to go ballistic on stoned hippies and rude rednecks and spacey new age crystal mamas and annoying yuppies in Ashland, Oregon too. For completely different reasons of course. Then I felt better when I remembered that no matter where you are, sometimes you are going to get aggravated with total strangers and it's just a part of life. It reminds me of that saying "sometimes you're the bug and other times you're the windshield."

I'm still glad I told that bitch where to put it though.

Animal Cruelty

This is really one of the most fucked up things I've come across today. I heard it on the news this morning while I was getting ready for work, but didn't fully process it right then. Just thought to myself, "why the hell are these people ripping down a hawk's nest that has been in that same spot for years?"

When I read this it just made me sad.

[W]orkmen raised a scaffold to the top of a Manhattan apartment Tuesday and ripped out the famous red-tailed hawk’s nest.

The act appeared to end an urban drama that has fascinated bird-watchers over the past nine years, as Pale Male and a succession of mates raised 25 chicks — the last trio of fledglings last June — on the narrow 12th floor ledge over Fifth Avenue.

The hawks also achieved a measure of world fame, through television specials and a book, “Red-Tails in Love.” On summer weekends, crowds have gathered at the Central Park boat pond to observe them.

Why would anyone think it would be okay to do this? That was their home. Hopefully, they will find a new one and build a brand new nest. But it's still sad. Nine years is a long time to live in a place to have it suddenly demolished by some asshole real estate company. I'm thinking it might be a good idea to write Brown Harris Stevens a little letter telling them how bad they suck. If you'd like to send them your own thoughts, the mailing address I tracked down is as follows:

655 Madison Ave.
New York, NY 10021
Contact: Hall F. Willkie, President
212-906-9200
fax 212-906-9288

Maybe I'll hand deliver it and give them a piece of my mind while I'm there.

China. What is it good for?

For so long we have maintained a stance of "friendliness" with China. Too fucking friendly. Trying so hard to appease them and look the other way when they invade, murder, torture and oppress others, so that we can share in their resources the same way we have done with Saudi Arabia. Did you know that American pharmaceutical companies can research and manufacture their products for a quarter of the price in China, and are actively seeking the means to do so? Did you know that the Bush administration has provided every incentive for American businesses to manufacture their products in China? Did you know that China maintains a communist and totalitarian government that demands absolute support from its citizens to this very day, tortures and murders its own people (not to mention plenty who are not Chinese and don't even reside on their soil) for various reasons, and that the American government allies itself with them despite our claim that we vehemently frown upon and actively combat such opposition to democracy? We may be friendly with them, but we ought never to forget how militant, focused and unwavering the Chinese government has been throughout history. I ride down the roads of America and see bumper stickers that say "Proud to be an American" and "God Bless America" and I think "too fucking proud." We are the classic example of a country too proud to recognize our weakness. Too proud to recognize that we may think ourselves the most enlightened, but realistically, we are just another country with another government, struggling to hold onto our position in the world, and insisting that we have some great advantage over others. Now we may have some advantage, but over China, we have very little aside from democracy. They have manpower, they have our interests (to which we add vulnerability every day with outsourcing), and they have an unfettered desire to conquer and occupy which, as a government, they've never been particularly timid about. The last of which we would be deeply unwise to underestimate. This is not a government that kneels to pressure or acquiesces to demands. And to think that we will always have the upper hand over them, is patently naive. We should be careful, lest we fall in the same manner as the great Roman empire, which sounds less farfetched with each passing day. Overconfidence is not a virtue. Exhibiting excessive confidence and arrogance while putting yourself in a position of vulnerability does not seem to be the best way to go about foreign relations.

Note: This entry has been modified by a more sober Maria. I wrote this last night when I was three sheets to the wind and if you think it sounds alarmist now, the previous version was hysterical. :o)

Unhelpful China

By Dan Blumenthal

In contrast to its rejection of traditional U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, the Bush administration has largely embraced the traditional approach to the People's Republic of China, the one it inherited from its predecessors. This policy, known as "engagement," is predicated on the belief that as Beijing grows more confident and influential on the global stage, it will act in ways that advance common Sino-American interests. But as China's behavior on key U.S. policies makes clear, while Beijing may speak the language of cooperation, it acts like a strategic competitor.

Consider China's interference in the delicate nuclear negotiations with Iran. The United States and the European Union have taken a "good cop, bad cop" approach to quashing Tehran's nuclear ambitions: The European Union has been offering economic inducements, while the United States has been threatening to refer the matter to the U.N. Security Council.

China, meanwhile, has worked to undermine both the U.S. stick and the E.U. carrot. During the final stages of E.U.-Iranian negotiations in early November, Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing flew to Tehran and announced that China would oppose any effort to haul the Iranian nuclear program before the United Nations.

Li no doubt wanted to secure the multibillion-dollar oil and gas agreement that China had just signed with the mullahs. The deal is reflective of burgeoning Sino-Iranian trade, which increased more than 50 percent last year and has undercut the impact of whatever incentives or sanctions the West might attempt to link to Tehran's disarmament.

A similar calculus of strategic and economic interests has guided China's policy toward Sudan, where Beijing also has extensive energy investments and, not coincidentally, continues to shield Khartoum from U.N. sanctions for its ongoing campaign of violence against the people of Darfur.

In both cases China has demonstrated that it is a more confident global actor, but, contrary to engagement theory, it has used this newfound strength -- and its permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council -- to frustrate U.S.-European objectives.

The spirit of obstructionism rules even in the case of North Korea. By any rational measure, the elimination of Kim Jong Il's nuclear arsenal should be a shared Sino-U.S. interest. Instead, Beijing acts as if the United States and North Korea are equally to blame for the standoff. Styling itself an "honest broker," the Chinese leadership has taken to calling for both sides to be "more flexible." And, when North Korean parliamentary head Kim Yong Nam visited Beijing in October, President Hu Jintao vowed to "enhance bilateral cooperation and coordination in regional and international affairs."

On Taiwan as well, Beijing is using its growing confidence and power to achieve ends at odds with U.S. interests. Washington has long insisted that it does not take a position on the final status of Taiwan -- independence, unification with China or some other arrangement to which the people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait provide their assent. As muddled as this policy may sometimes be, one component has always been clear: The issue must be decided peacefully.

But it increasingly appears that Beijing does not believe in a peaceful resolution. Indeed, the only resolution that would satisfy China is to absorb Taiwan. Beijing is putting great effort and resources into a military buildup with one main goal in mind: coercing Taiwan into accepting unification on China's terms and deterring the United States from keeping its commitment to defend the island democracy.

From Tehran to Taipei, it is past time for U.S. policymakers to recognize that the traditional engagement policy with Beijing -- originally derived from the shared Sino-American interest during the Cold War in containing the Soviet Union -- has become a dangerous anachronism. The policy cedes all initiative to Beijing, which can always threaten worse behavior. Consequently, when China sets back transatlantic efforts to turn the screws on Iran, the United States looks the other way. On North Korea, Beijing earns plaudits in Washington even as it refuses to put any real pressure on Pyongyang. And, on Taiwan, Washington responds to Beijing's intensifying diplomatic pressure -- backed by real and growing military power -- by putting heat on the island's democratically elected leader.

An honest look at Sino-American relations reveals that it is precisely when the United States is not overly solicitous of Beijing that China acts in greater harmony with U.S. interests. It was after decisive U.S. action in Iraq that China pressured North Korea to the negotiating table. Similarly, Chinese flexibility on Taiwan has usually followed breakthroughs in arms sales to Taiwan.

Whether in the case of nuclear proliferation in Iran and North Korea, peace in the Taiwan Strait or human rights abuses in Darfur, U.S. interests will not be advanced by an engagement policy with Beijing that values the atmospherics of a good relationship above all else. A second Bush administration needs to develop a coherent approach to China that accounts for new strategic realities -- with the same iconoclastic spirit that guides its foreign policy elsewhere in the world.

The writer, a resident fellow in Asian studies at the American Enterprise Institute, was until recently the senior country director for China and Taiwan in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He will take questions at 1:30 p.m. today on www.washingtonpost.com.

© 2004 The Washington Post Company

Getalongism

Washington Post writer E.J. Dionne says what I've been thinking about the idea that democrats should "work with" republicans. I've written here before that I think that philosophy of "Getalongism" as Dionne calls it, defeats the entire purpose of a two party system. Partisanship is underrated. Especially by democrats. It seems to me that dems have been steamrolled by republicans (and have all but assisted in their own demise) and are quickly being domesticated the way that cats and dogs are domesticated to be able to live with humans, and as long as democrats play that game and buy into the patronizing calls from republicans to either submit or fail altogether, failure truly will be ours. But that's just about all we'll have when all is said and done. The republicans will be the masters of the house (which they technically already are) and we will just be their domesticated animals. Any democrat who believes that the way to accomplish the goals of the "democratic party" (I say that skeptically) is to submit to the republican majority needs to review history and re-evaluate such a strategy. I can't say enough about how spineless and pathetic I think the democratic party is in general, so I just won't even start in on that.

Get Along? Get Real.

By E. J. Dionne Jr.

The power of negative thinking is greatly underestimated, especially in politics.

Leaders often define themselves by what they are against, and political movements often discover their affirmative purposes when they engage in principled battles against ideas and institutions that they believe are wrong, even evil.

Think of three of our nation's most important and effective presidents. Abraham Lincoln defined himself against the spread of slavery. Franklin D. Roosevelt attacked the "economic royalists" whom he accused of plundering the working class. Ronald Reagan stood against communism's "evil empire" and high taxes.

Today we associate all three with positive achievements. Lincoln preserved the Union and ended slavery. FDR (in addition to winning World War II) gave us a New Deal that encompassed Social Security, minimum wages and the rise of labor. Reagan gets credit for the fall of the Soviet Union and the spread of free-market ideas. Accentuating the negative can eventually achieve the positive.

The power of negative thinking is especially important to opposition parties that have little ability to set government's agenda. Which brings us to today's Democratic Party.

In the wake of President Bush's narrow reelection victory, there's much musing suggesting that Democrats are obligated to try to work constructively with the White House. The advocates of what we'll call Getalongism insist that Democrats will pay a price for "obstruction" -- which of course is just another word for standing up against ideas they oppose.

In a world in which Democratic ideas could get the same attention and the same chance for an open vote in Congress as Bush's, such criticisms might have some bite. But that world does not exist. What is actually being demanded of Democrats is that they work with Republicans to pass programs (such as Social Security privatization) that they oppose on principle.

Bush made things perfectly clear two days after the election when he said he looked forward to working with anyone -- anyone, that is, who favored his agenda. Well, sure. And Democrats would be happy to work with Bush if he put forward ideas they agreed with, such as universal health coverage. Dream on if you think that's in the cards.

Moreover, Republicans now pushing Getalongism on the Democrats had no objection when their own party pursued a scorched-earth strategy against the Clinton administration. Remember Bill Clinton's 1993 economic plan that put the United States on the path to budget surpluses? It passed without a single Republican vote. Republicans predicted doom for the economy. In 1994 Republicans went after Democrats who had voted for Clinton's tax increases. They took back the House of Representatives and the Senate, and paid no price when their predictions of catastrophe proved dead wrong.

Remember the 1993-94 battle over Clinton's health care plan? William Kristol, the Republican strategist and editor, wrote a series of memos urging his party to do all it could to block Clinton's plan and not dare think of compromise.

If Clinton got something like universal health coverage, Kristol warned, "it will revive the reputation of the party that spends and regulates, the Democrats, as the generous protector of middle-class interests. And it will, at the same time, strike a punishing blow against Republican claims to defend the middle class by restraining government."

Naturally those of us who favored giving all Americans health coverage regretted how much influence Kristol's view had on his party. But can anyone now doubt that as a strategic matter, from his side's point of view, Kristol's shrewd counsel of negativism was proved absolutely right? Republicans stopped health care reform, but Clinton took the blame. A chance to show that progressive government could achieve important objectives was lost.

And now the Republicans are moving to weaken Social Security -- one of the great achievements of progressive government -- in the name of strengthening it. They are willing to borrow massive sums to start private accounts that Republican strategists such as Grover Norquist freely concede are designed to create a new generation of stockholders -- and Republicans. Kristol's now irrefutable logic suggests that Democrats would be fools to be complicit with putting the country further into hock to undercut a program that works for the purpose of creating more Republicans.

The same logic applies to other issues, including battles over the judiciary. Republicans did all they could to obstruct Clinton's judicial appointments. Their punishment? More vacancies to fill with right-wingers when Bush became president. Some punishment.

At the heart of Getalongism is the view that Democrats should not dare do what the Republicans did. Could it be that Getalongism is an ideology designed primarily to maintain the Republicans as our nation's permanent governing majority?

© 2004 The Washington Post Company

Avoiding Reality

Weather is bad. World is dark. People are dying.

So instead of writing about the temperature (cold), precipitation (wet), world affairs (disarray) or mortality (depressingly hopeless), I am posting some of the best of my belated halloween photos!

Charles as Bumble Bee

Me as Nurse and Kathleen as Flamingo

Kat and Chas

Maria sneaking up on Tanya (real sneaky)

Am I scary?

Psycho Love (Me and Rob)

Gumby and Ladyfriend

Boyz in the hizzle

Antics

Tanya and her Rob

Me, Jonathan and Rob

Plastic Tits

Sorry about the lack of updates. And now for an episode of random observations by Maria Carreon.

Fake boobs are not very attractive. They all look the same after awhile. I understand what motivates many women to want bigger breasts, but I do not understand why anyone would want to put big plastic sacks of some strange liquid inside their chests, under the skin, to create the appearance that they actually have bigger breasts? Ever heard of a pushup bra? Geez. It just seems like a really extreme procedure. Actually, most plastic surgery seems like a severe form of self mutilation to me. It freaks me out.

When that show "the Swan" had its first season, I watched it out of pure morbid curiosity. It's easy to get sucked into any kind of makeover show because it's only natural to feel curious about what the transformation will look like. I watch that show "Pimp My Ride" and "Trading Spaces" for the same reason. I love seeing shitty cars get turned into dream mobiles and crappy living areas turned into inviting "family rooms." It's cheesy and the entertainment value is really pretty minimal when you think about it. There's no lasting or meaningful impression really. But that's how TV is. Ultimately I have to say that I found the Swan appalling on every level. I feel for those women and all the self esteem issues that they struggle with, but I honestly think there are healthier ways to feel better about yourself.

I was hoping that someone would come out with a show where women changed their diets and exercised and sought therapy, but didn't have plastic surgery. A visit to the dentist, the spa, the hairdresser and the nice clothing boutique is all a very good idea. But does there have to be a gory physical mutilation scene...or ten? I suppose that show "The Biggest Loser" is a step in that direction, while it still plays off of bullshit overcompetativeness that tv seems to be so full of these days with all the reality shows.

Meanwhile, the mental therapy those girls supposedly receive on the Swan didn't seem very substantial or even what the show itself represented it to be. The therapist isn't even a doctor. And they should have been offered therapy before deciding to go through with this "extreme makeover," not while they're going through it! It all seems pretty hokey to me. Like, "hey look! We care about these women. We're giving them therapy because we want them to feel better about themselves! We are not doing this to exploit them! What rea$on would we po$$ibly have for exploiting them? We just want to give them the opportunity to be better looking and of course, happier!" (because the better looking you are, the happier you will be, and the more others will like you). Better looking maybe...2 bit hooker look in the bag, maybe that too. But happier? Really? Are you sure?

I'm not convinced that any of those women are truly happier as a result of extreme plastic surgery. By the time they're done with that, they no longer need therapy to solve their self esteem problems, they now need therapy to come to terms with knowing that they've been fake-afied and aggressively processed through the sytem of a shitty reality, that is that we live in a society where physical attractiveness is bestowed with far more importance than brains or goodness. One would almost think that wealth and youthful beauty were the only thing worth striving for. Of course, that's as old a tradition as any. To put stock in those things. But Americans appear to be particularly attached to the idea that women are worthless if they're not attractive. America seems like it must be the most plastic place on earth.

I wonder if there's a way to find out how many women with fake boobs have been buried in this country since breast implants became popular and to predict how many actual square feet of fake boobs that would make up if you put them altogether on one piece of land. How many fake boobs will be buried in American soil by the year 2100? Do you think at some point all that silicone and plastic will cause a scary environmental effect like that movie the Day After Tomorrow? We are polluting the earth with plastic tits little by little. Because eventually, those things have to be thrown away one way or another.

Toiling

I haven't been in much of a blogging state of mind. I never really talk about work here at BBD, but today's going to be an exception to the rule. As some may have noticed, I've been taking a little break from focusing on politics or other worldly events. I can't really handle the aggravation at the moment and feeling a little distanced from the whole mess right now. No doubt I'll come back around on that one though, so keep your hats on. And not the tinfoil kind. Those don't work. Trust me.

Been tackling a big filing project at work that I resolved to get done before my Christmas vacation, and I'm proud to say that today our records department carted away seven boxes of meticulously organized materials and I still have another three for them to take down tomorrow. From the looks of my boss's offices, that won't be the last of the filing I'll be doing before I go away. Maybe if I'm lucky, they'll procrastinate about it until the new year...If you've never seen the office of a busy shareholder, you don't know a thing about paper. Holy criminey. I have never seen anything the likes of which tobacco and securities litigation can accumulate in the way of documentation. Both of the shareholders I work for have offices that look almost as if the windows opened up and an avalanche of paper was just dropped there behind their desks. To any passerby it just looks like a catastrophe. You can't see an inch of desk space and perhaps you could glimpse a third of the floor space if the person is somewhat organized.

But one of the guys I work for (we'll call him Mr. Green) can find anything in his office, despite the way it looks, even if he's not there to look for it. I remember a time when Mr. Green was away in Scotland and a very important client called. We represent a couple of very prominent news publications here in NY and it was the president of one of those big papers. He needed a court document from his file. I put him on hold a moment and went to look in Mr. Green's office. I knew that there was no hope in this world that I would ever find that particular document among the stacks and slopes and what looks to me like chaos. I told the VIP that I would get back to him right away. I blackberried Mr. Green and tapped my foot impatiently until I finally received a response (thank god for mobile email). He said "In the box under the window to the left of the credenza under a stack of other documents pertaining to a different matter. It is there." I was impressed. And I was able to fax it to the VIP within ten minutes.

The other one, Mr. Red we'll call him, he can't find a thing in his office. His little daughter comes in sometimes and says "daddy! Your office is a mess!" and sometimes she even helps him clean it up. She's 10. I fear she will one day become me. She will actually start to like office work. My parents ruined me by taking me to the office as a child. Being a secretary just came naturally. Oops. Sorry. Administrative Assistant. It probably also has something to do with being a perfectionist and the desire to put order to things. Of course, my true aspiration is writing, and I'm lucky enough to sometimes have time at work to do that. Anyway, I'm sure Mr. Red will send his daughter to good schools and she'll be a brain surgeon or something equally stellar. She's already getting way better grades than I ever got.

I used to work in criminal defense and matrimonial law in Meddy. It was exciting and I liked my job in Oregon. Moving to a NY firm was a lot different. The pay is incomparably better in NY, but the work was a lot more exciting in Oregon. I used to have a big office of my own, and now in NY I have a big desk out in the open for all to observe. I still can't complain about the space since I've got plenty of it where I am, but I do miss having that door to shut sometimes. In criminal and matrimonial, there is lots of client contact and a much wider range of responsibilities. Now I work in one of the top ten largest law firms in the country and I don't have to do half as much. Word processing, phones, filing, that's most of what I do now...all the little things I used to do like calendaring and court runs and bills and meeting with clients and answering their questions on the phone and making sure that all the court deadlines were being met and everyone was paying...I don't have to do any of that anymore. It might sound weird, but sometimes I miss it alot. I don't miss the paychecks though...and honestly, the people I work for are very nice and highly tolerable as far as attorneys go. Trust me on that one too.

Another thing about my job in Oregon was that it was almost impossible to get time off and when I did, I was on the phone with the office making sure that everything was still functioning. It was just me and my boss there at the office in Medford and if I was gone, it was a big deal to leave my responsibilities with someone else. Now it makes no difference. There are floaters and temps galore and anyone can take my place for a week. They won't be half the unstoppable motherfucker that I am when it comes to getting things done and undoubtedly my bosses will employ flattery by telling me how useless the temp was when I return (and will even have saved up work to prove it)...hahaa. I kid! I kid!

My dad called and offered to fly me out to Oregon for Christmas. I couldn't pass on that one so I'm taking a week off and really looking forward to spending the first Christmas in aeons with my family. Seriously. Aeons.

So I've been highly motivated to work my ass off at the office and I'll be feeling good and prepared to leave for a week for a fun and relaxing vacation. I can't wait.

Most Priceless Wedgie

The guy in the blue shorts was not to be missed at Little Stevie's Undeground Garage Festival, which I went to last summer. I'm publishing this photo for anyone who thinks about wearing silky running shorts to a rock concert anytime in the future.