this amused me

Mel Gibson - drunk and anti-semitic in california...

i'm on vacation from august 30th to september 15th. the countdown starts tomorrow - a little early, i realize, but i need something good to look forward to.

does anyone know about life in new mexico? i may want to live there. i've never lived in the southwest and i hear it's a dry heat... ;)

there is no good news

the bill that would make it a crime to take a pregnant girl across state lines for an abortion without her parents' knowledge passed in the Senate.

Gonzales lobbies Congress for torture shield - the War Crimes Act of 1996 (which was passed by the republicans, no less) criminalizes violations of the Geneva Conventions governing conduct in war and threatens the death penalty if U.S.-held detainees die in custody from abusive treatment. well, this may just come back and bite the current administration, and our military troops, by the way, in the ass. it's making the Bush administration nervous that officials and troops involved in handling detainee matters might be accused of committing war crimes, and prosecuted at some point in U.S. courts. reaaaallly??! (said like fezzy from ron & fez, of course)

will durst on the G8 summit, talking with your mouth full and an un-welcomed neck massage.

republican pete mcloskey sees the need for a democratic majority in the US house of representatives in 2007. we'll see...

exxon/mobil reports a 10.36 BILLION dollar profit this quarter. it's second best quarter EVER! woohoo. how much does it cost to fill your tank now? almost as much...

i won't even get into the whole middle east disaster - it's paralyzing.
it's no wonder i read a lot.

stuff i forgot to mention

talk about cashing in on christianity... by the way, the shoes leave 'follow jesus' footprints in the wearer's wake


this is by nicholas roerich, a russian painter everyone should know about. it's called a bridge to glory. he spent part of his life in russia, where he was born, part in america, and some in india. there's a museum on west 107th street that's pretty cool.

look at more of his paintings here

go see manu chao in prospect park as part of the celebrate brooklyn series

random particles of interest

i watched this documentary last night and i’m still unsure how i feel about it. the premise is: a texas man crosses the border into Mexico to find Mexican wives for lonely white
guys. he’s got an as on the highway and everything - if you’ve got 3 grand, he’ll find you a woman. they follow him around while he conducts his ‘bidness’ – the whole process from getting the men to Mexico, placing a personal ad in the local paper, to scheduling appointments with various women. his spanish is so-so but none of the men i saw spoke a word of anything but english. at one point, ‘cowboy cupid’- (which is how he sees himself) his real name is ivan thompson, compares women to horses – his commentary is supposed to induce laughter, not derision, but i didn’t find it all too funny. he found himself a Mexican wife, got divorced a year later because ‘she pissed me off’ and the RE-married her 2 years later because he said he really cared about her. they divorced again because she wanted to ‘learn english.’ he said ‘she got a car, a cell phone and then became the boss of me, the house, the kids, (which were HERS, i might add) and even the farm.’ he divorced her the 2nd time because she all of the sudden became ‘americanized.’ he sure as shit couldn’t have his woman thinking and doing for herself now, could he? oy vey, this movie pissed me off. but sometimes he was really likable. i dunno. i hope someone else has seen it or will see it and tell me how they feel about it.


i just need about 35 million more dollars so i can charter a flight to the moon and walk around all weight-less and stuff...

slide trumpeter and bandleader Steven Bernstein’s take on Prince's Darling Nikki

pelican bay prisoner Donny Johnson just had an art show at a gallery in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. his postcard sized paintings are created not with paints, because he's not allowed to have them, but with M&M's.
thanks,christina

friday's show and links

friday night at irving plaza was the Ozomatli show -
i won’t even get into how awful the opening band was, but i will say this: they did a song about palestine called blood in the streets. there, enough said.
OZOMATLI however, were fantastic. they opened with Chango which got the crowd – who until that point had been a typical NYC crowd – unmoving and detached – shaking its collective ass. between some new stuff that sounded pretty good to me they did dos cosas ciertas, como ves, cumbia de los muertos, ya viene el sol (one of my favorites), cuando canto - which made me indescribably happy, and my theme song déjame en paz (leave me in peace, just so you know). they ended with la misma cancion as per usual and the jumping into the crowd for the end samba. michelle got some good mini-video from her phone.
anyhow, i had a great time even though the sound could have been better – why does the sound always suck at irving? and man it was HOT in there. coming outside felt like being in air conditioning and it was 80 degrees out!! i wish i could’ve gone to the Philly show last night. oh well. and now it’ll be a really long time before they come back again...


here’s some news...

the new christian religion – tastes great or less filling?

hate groups in the military– quel surprise!!

juan pablo montoya - to jump to ganassi’s nascar team

and spoon-face wins in france. - blah blah blah...

links a-plenty

villeneuve thinking about jumping the pond to nascar says that it won't feel like a step down because it's like... totally different. um, yeah, TOTALLY.
and i'm only mentioning in passing that spoon-face schumacher won at Indy.

pedrosa takes the win at Donington with rossi finishing 2nd despite starting 12th with a broken bone and colin edwards, after taking a big spill last week finishes 6th. nice.

cali bikers ride to hollister
despite the town's decision to forgo the annual run to celebrate (why?) marlon brando's movie The Wild One. the town said it was too much of a hassle.

my favorite article title of the day goes to the LA Times for this one If only gay sex caused global warming!

the Cannabis Club - all you need is a doctor's note gotta love san francisco!

election in mexico too close to call so BOTH candidates claim victory.

Ozomatli count down: T minus 10 days...wheeee

books, racing and random links

4 DAYS OFF – in a row!!

here’s the latest book list:

1) ernesto galarza’s Barrio Boy
2) mario t. garcía’s Ruben Salazar: Border Correspondent
3) americo paredes’s With his Pistol in his Hand
4) rodolfo acuña’s Occupied America: A History of Chicanos
5) danielle trussoni’s Falling Through the Earth: a memoir
6) eyal press’s Absolute Convictions” my father, a city, and the conflict that divided america
7) murray forman and mark anthony neal’s That’s the Joint! The Hip-Hop Studies Reader
8) james t. murray and karla l. murray’s Broken Windows: Graffiti NYC
9) jill jonnes’s South Bronx Rising: The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of an American City
10) kenneth cain’s Emergency Sex and Other Desperate Measures: A True Story from Hell on Earth

david coulthard on american fans

scary moment for colin edwards who looked set to win the Dutch GP, but good for nicky hayden (even though he overshot the last corner).
I'm not sure it will be possible to ride without painkillers for 30 laps so says rossi
who is racing in donington tomorrow despite a broken bone in his wrist. it seems there are a bunch of walking wounded this week.

viva la pink taco restaurant in scottsdale,arizona and the daily show for always staying on top on the latest breaking stories... and speaking of the daily show - did you catch the stephen hawking segment? no? well, here it is
>stephen hawking - total horndog?

F1 update and other racing news

remember the indianapolis formula 1 debacle last year?
no? well, read this and you'll be up to speed (so to speak)
and just one year later... federal judge rules on fan law suit.
Honda says there will be no repeat of last years tire problems what with all the testing they've done at Indy already
an axl rose spotting? at silverstone racetrack - as a guest of mercedes benz, yet.

and for those MotoGP fans - valentino rossi rode one hell of a race at Mugello as he and 4 other guys battled one another for the win.

rally racing coming to ireland?

and i couldn't pass up the opportunity to include an article on the World Cup that made mention of the marvelous Maradona

on a personal note: today is my son's 21st birthday.
and as Vizzini in the Princess Bride repeats: INCONCEIVABLE

books, dogs and whatnot

i’ve been taking petra the wonder wimp to this dog park melissa found for the last couple of weeks and she LOVES it! sometimes there are 15 or more dogs running crazy there – she sure loves to run. we spent about an hour and a half hanging out and i thought that she’d be real tired when we got back home – but NOPE. she was still a little feisty. later on though, she finally gave in and collapsed into a coma. it’s great watching her play. there was a little white pomeranian who petra thought was her own personal plaything. she tried picking him up by his little harness so he could go wherever she went. the woman who brought the dog, stitch is his name, didn’t seem to mind and actually thought it was funny. also funny – knowing the all the dog’s names, but not their owners.

i forgot to mention that i got my Ozomatli tickets for july. am i excited?
HELL YEAH!!

ok. here’s the long-awaited (yeah, right) booklist:


1) Scott Bradfield’s Dream of the Wolf
2) Cherokee Paul McDonald’s Into the Green
3) Edna OBrien’s Mother Ireland
4) Janice Galloway’s The Trick is to Keep Breathing
5) Bino Relauyo’s The Umbrella Country
6) Éilís Ní Dhuibhne’s Inland Ice and Other Stories
7) Neil Gaiman’s Angels & Visitations
8) Don Winslow’s The Power of the Dog
9) Lori Lansen’s The Girls
10) Colson Whitehead’s Apex Hides the Hurt
11) Juan Ramirez’s A Patriot After All: The Story of a Chicano Vietnam Vet
12) Juan Felipe Herrera’s Mayan Drifter: Chicano poet in the lowlands of America
13) Luis Alberto Urrea’s The Devil’s Highway: A True Story
14) Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus: the story behind who changed the Bible and why

just in case you have too much time on your hands...

from the How-To section on my custom-built Google homepage. jealous, right? spinning pencil? you can also learn how to make chocolate milk?!
i didn't read them, so i don't know if they work - i don't have THAT much time on my hands...!

hey - have a great weekend everybody.
happy BBQ'ing

so, i’m in love.

his name is Francisco X. Alarcón.
though we shall not likely meet, his poetry is enough.
he wrote this collection called Snake Poems, an Aztec Invocation.
ok, check this out –
in 1629, Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón, a catholic priest from Atenango
(in what’s now the state of Guerrero, Mexico) wrote a manuscript on
Native American beliefs called Tratado de las supersticiones y costumbres
gentílicas que oy viven entre los indios naturales desta Nueva España.
in english that’s Treatise on the superstitions and heathen customs that today live among the Indians Native to this New Spain. not a good guy, this Alarcón.
he wrote to expose the ‘heathen’ practices among the Indians to extend the repressive practices of the Spanish Inquisition . but the interesting thing was that by writing all these spells and curing remedies down he created the only comprehensive compilation in existence. so a few hundred years later, along comes Francisco X of the same last name and he makes poetry out of it while passing along the knowledge. his poetry is spare, but only in actual word count.
the ones that he chooses resonate and seem to echo from the head to the heart
and back again. absolutely spellbinding. here are a few so you can see what i mean.

I’m Not Really Crying
it’s just
the sheer
number
of chopped
onions
in the world

Mestizo
my name
is not
Francisco
there is
an Arab
within me
who prays
three times
each day
behind
my Roman
nose
there is
a Phoenician
smiling
my eyes
still see
Sevilla
but
my mouth
is Olmec
my dark
hands are
Toltec
my cheekbones
fierce
Chichimec
my feet
recognize
no border
no rule
no code
no lord
for this
wanderer’s
heart

Never Alone
always
this caressing
Wind
this Earth
whispering
to our feet
this boundless
desire
of being
grass
tree
corazón

Day and Night
I bleed
in silence
all alone

Martín
Mariana
Domingo

in fields
in streets
in cells
my fists
hit
walls
whips
undress
my ribs
from
my mouth
come out
broken teeth
blood
butterflies

some news and some books

i may be obssessed about Easter Island but i just really, really want to go.


if you're still in college trying to figure out what to major in and you're kind of - well, really smart, think about psychometrics. it's all about academic test-makers. very interesting stuff.

talk about big brother! watching television isn't obnoxious enough?

seal your secrets... and have them displayed on 44th street?!


1. kim stanley robinson's Forty Signs of Rain
2. lynn foster's A Brief History of Central America
3. jim sagel's El Santo Queso: Cuentos
4. jaime suchlicki's Mexico: From Montezuma to NAFTA, Chiapas, and Beyond
5. celia wakefield's Under the Tabachin Tree: A New Home in Mexico
6. eric burdon's Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood
7. mark kurlansky's Boogaloo on 2nd Avenue

walking the dog has been made much more pleasant in recent days. one being the nice warm weather and the second being the delivery of an ipod that my employer promised me months ago. she got them (3) for free from some fundraising chick she knows. so yay for me! and i went out and spent 30 bucks (why are all ipod accessories 30 bucks, BTW?) on one of those arm band thingies. so now there's a new bounce to my step at 6 freakin 45 AM!!

books - no, i haven't stopped reading just

been real lazy about posting...

1) john ketwig's ...and a hard rain fell

2) uzodinma iweala's Beasts of No Nation

3) mary gaitskill's Veronica

4) mirta ojito's Finding Mañana: A Memoir of a Cuban Exodus

5) campbell mcgrath's Pax Atomica: Poems

6) ken dornstein's The Boy Who Fell Out of the Sky: A True Story

7) mario vargas llosa's The Feast of the Goat

8) julia alvarez's How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accents

9) julia alvarez's In the Time of the Butterflies

10) elizabeth strout's Abide With Me

11) christopher moore's The Stupidest Angel

12) christopher moore's A Dirty Job: A Novel

13) sonia nazario's Enrique's Journey

14) edward james olmos (editor) Vietnam Veteranos : Chicanos Recall the War

15) victor serge's The Case of Comrade Tulayev

16) mikhail bulgakov's The Master and Margarita

i love this poem a day thing...

Permanently
-Kenneth Koch


One day the Nouns were clustered in the street.
An Adjective walked by, with her dark beauty.
The Nouns were struck, moved, changed.
The next day a Verb drove up, and created the Sentence.

Each Sentence says one thing—for example, "Although it was a dark rainy
day when the Adjective walked by, I shall remember the pure and sweet
expression on her face until the day I perish from the green, effective
earth."
Or, "Will you please close the window, Andrew?"
Or, for example, "Thank you, the pink pot of flowers on the window sill
has changed color recently to a light yellow, due to the heat from the
boiler factory which exists nearby."

In the springtime the Sentences and the Nouns lay silently on the grass.
A lonely Conjunction here and there would call, "And! But!"
But the Adjective did not emerge.

As the Adjective is lost in the sentence,
So I am lost in your eyes, ears, nose, and throat—
You have enchanted me with a single kiss
Which can never be undone
Until the destruction of language.


beautiful day today. i'm heading out with the dog...

more step, less hobble

so my friend christina is working at the Center for Sex & Culture in San Francisco for the next couple of months. in addition to all the cataloging she's doing, she also attends events there. i spoke to her yesterday and she told me about the one they had the night before - something about sex and superheroes - i dunno. but she told me about this really drunk woman who got pissy with her (she was working the door) because there was no smoking allowed in the room and if she wanted to smoke, she had to go down 2 flights of stairs. robert, christina's boss asked her what was going on and she told him about the obnoxious drunk lady. he asked her where she went and christina looked inside the room where the event was and pointed the woman out to robert by saying AND I QUOTE 'look, she's the one straddling Batman' i never thought i'd hear that sentence from - well - from ANYONE!! too funny.

my foot feels better although i was just getting used to my son and his friends calling me Hob - my foot turned the craziest colors. i watched a lot of movies since i wasn't really getting around too much. i liked Capote, i liked Broken Flowers, (especially the soundtrack) i didn't like Junebug, or The Ice Harvest . i've also been watching the series American Family (i got the dvd box set) and i'm really enjoying it. it was on PBS a few years ago. Edward James Olmos, Esai Morales, Sonia Braga - takes place in L.A. good stuff. i also watched Godspell - does anyone remember this musical/movie? 1972 or3 i think. it's based on the gospel according to St. Matthew. filmed entirely on new york streets and central park, and washington square and features as Jesus, Victor Garber. yeah, the name sounded familiar to me and he also looked real familiar, but it wasn't until my son said hey, isn't that the guy from Alias? you know, jennifer garner's father? and bingo, he was right. singing and everything. huh.
well, gotta get moving -

I stumble along . . . with a tumble and fall

yeah. so as i was leaving for 13 last night i took a header down my steps. not ALL of them mind you, but the last 6 or so. did something horrible to my right foot. emergency room, x-rays, blah blah blah and 6 hours later home with a bad sprain. i didn't even get any good painkillers out of the whole ordeal. AND i worked a full day today. man am i one sore sister tonight. ace bandages (i didn't even know they still used those!) ice and elevation are the order of the evening. steven is in charge of the pooch.

i'm out.

short and sweet

dame puro amor para que viva mejor.


oh, and formula 1 was in melbourne, australia where fernando alonso beat out kimi raikkonen for the win. he (alonso) reminds me more and more of ayrton senna. there's an AMERICAN in formula 1 this year! scott speed (yes, that actually IS his name) and he's been around the racing scene for a while - he started in karts at 12 i think. i can't seem to find out if he's lake speed's son though. he was a nascar driver back in the day, but also was an international karting champ so maybe? if anyone knows...
oh also - why is david coultard STILL racing? he lost his edge ages ago. he should act or something. anyhow, nice to see some cars going fast.

it's been a minute...

bolthouse farms perfectly protein mocha cappuccino. get it.

i've not been around much lately, but it's not like anyone really reads this on the regular anyhow, so i don't feel that bad. it's finally getting warmer out and this makes taking the dog out at 6AM not such a terrible thing.
work is stupid, so we shall dispense with any further mention.
my son (finally) got his own computer so i have mine all to myself. now i can find & trash all his hidden porn stuff!! haha. i bet he DOES have some, too. he's going to be 21 in june - not that that has anything to do with him downloading porn, but it just sorta hit me. thank god i'm not getting any older. (c'mon, play along, dammit!)
i watched the Situation Room with wolf blitzer last night. his guests were lou dobbs and jorge ramos (of telemundo) and they were squaring off about the proposed immigration bills by the senate and the house. nothing was actually said because the two were so antagonistic towards one another that all that happened was interrupted yelling. so much for a calm debate about important issues . then i watched the chapelle show and that was WAY more entertaining. i have a list of books but i'm too lazy to list them right now. i will recommend christopher moore's newest book called A Dirty Job - A Novel. as always it was HI-larious and seriously fun.

well, time to feed el perro.
more later...



i just saw this this morning and couldn't stop laughing. so read and enjoy! Aussie thieves try to steal a koala to sell for drug money

books and reunions

1. italo svevo’s Confessions of Zeno
2. hartley goodweather’s DreadfulWater Shows Up
3. barry crimmins’s Never Shake Hands with a War Criminal
4. luis alberto urrea’s By the Lake of Sleeping Children
5. wally lamb’s Couldn’t Keep it to Myself
6. jason deparle’s American Dream: 3 Women, 10 Kids, and a Nation’s Drive to End Welfare
7. donovan webster’s The Burma Road
8. jonathan shay’s Achilles in Vietnam
9. roger bonair-agard, stephen colman, guy lecharles gonzalez, alix olson and lynne procope’s Burning Down the House
10. jonathan lethem’s The Fortress of Solitude


so my trip to sarasota (fla) to visit my father after 10 years of not seeing him. yeah. all in all a good trip. he picked me up from the tampa airport, and since i hadn’t seen him in so long, i was really worried that i’d walk right by him. and guess what? i would have had he not said my name. the years have shortened him! he used to be 5’11 or so and now – my height. 5’7. and his eye disease – the same one onassis had – changed the shape of his face a bit, although as soon as i really looked at him he was my father the way i remembered him. i stayed at his house, which is a very nice 2 bedroom condo. nice grounds, nice pool. he is the president of the tenant’s association, so he screens potential applicants – you can rent or buy a place – i think he’s stacked the deck with attractive younger people – especially women –
some things never change, i guess, even when you’re 73. we went out to chili’s for a quick dinner and then came back and talked the night away. i wanted to know more about the history of my family and the relationships that formed my childhood. he had plenty of stories. he was always a good storyteller. it’s quite amazing how many names he remembers from the past and instances that barely made a blip on my radar screen. he kept asking if i remembered this or that and i had to say no to a fair amount of them. my memory has these blank spaces and doesn’t become a solid bunch of recollections until year 11 for me. anyhow, we had a good talk, ate chocolate ice cream and cookies and called it a night at around 1:30am. i got into bed to read. i put my headphones on – i hadn’t listened to any music all night and that’s a rare thing – the orisha’s were calling me – and i settled into luis alberto urrea’s 2nd book about life in tijuana. when out of the corner of my eye i sense movement. now i know florida is big on insects. BIG insects, so i thought it was a june bug or some other obnoxious flying, walking, creepy thing. nope. i was wrong. it was a gi-normous brown fuzzy tarantula looking spider. i don’t remember breathing. just slipping out of bed, tip-toeing to where my shoes were, creeping like a ninja to where it was and whacking the shit out of it with the shoe. my NEW shoe. well, i hadn’t anticipated the guts of the thing to be as...substantial as they were. i just ruined my father’s beige carpet. shit. i slipped out of the room – thankfully he seemed to be asleep – went into the kitchen and found (what luck) and canister of resolve carpet cleaner. spider guts obliterated from said carpet. whew! saturday we were having brunch at a great place (i was assured) called The Boathouse at the Hiatt hotel with my cousin Mark. really lovely. good food too. Mark never showed. asshole. i haven’t seen the man in a zillion years – probably since his bar mitzvah - he’s 50 now -. then i got to drive the camaro over to Longboat Key which is where all the people with money (and there are A LOT of those) hang out. then out to Siesta Key which is where all the artist’s hang out. which Key did i like better? you don’t even have to ask. Siesta is a beautiful little hamlet. walked on the beach awhile – dad stayed near the bar – he doesn’t drink anymore though – he just feels more comfortable there i guess. dinner was at a fancy italian restaurant – cafe baci, i think. nice place. more talk. no more spiders. back to tampa airport sunday for my 12:30pm flight home. next time around, he’s going to come here and visit.

well, i guess that’s it. tomorrow is the orchid show at the Botannical Gardens.

Kafka's doll story

has anyone ever heard this? he was visiting dora diamont in berlin. they were walking in a park when they came upon this crying girl. kafka asked her what the matter was. she told him that she had lost her doll. he then told her not to worry since the doll was actually away on a trip, not lost. she didn’t believe him so he told her that he had a letter from the doll. when the little girl asked him to show it to her, he said that he had not brought it with him, but if she came back the next day, he would bring it. he came back the next day after spending countless hours working on this letter. and every day for 3 weeks, he brought the girl another one. he spent a lot of time, and put a lot of thought into these letters. finally, he had to come up with a believable ending. (he was leaving germany) he decided to have the doll get married. he wrote about the man she was engaged to, the preparations for the wedding, everything. by this time, the girl was so enamored of the story, that she had quite forgotten that the doll was gone.

i wonder what became of her and if she still has those letters.
she’d be in her 90’s i guess. huh.