Witching Hour

I am not a nice girl. I am not a sweet woman. The clock just struck truth and madness. I started this mermaid symbology to tap into my inner beauty but my inner beauty is dark and strange. On Saturday I was toted in a bicycle chariot up California Avenue by a potion brewing warrior. We kissed in the shadows and now I finally release my inner mother nature. This year, boys and girls, mother nature is tsunamis and tornados. She is moonstruck coyotes clamoring at the cataclysm. She laps up chaos and laughs at your dismantled structures. This siren sings sailors from their personal bondage and throws mona lisa smirks from her island.

Swim, bitches, swim.

(Credits to Dean and Diamanda Galas for inspiring this train of madness. Also to Tray Mead for the image.)

Caverns

I think I've fallen into a cavern. It's very pretty; lots of stalagtites and stalgmites but it's twisty and complicated so it's taking all of my energy and concentration to navigate the terrain. Here are some bits & pieces.

I spent the better part of a week in New York so my son could visit colleges. This was our first visit to NYC. It was very cool and it wasn't the least bit intimidating coming from Chicago -- just a little more cramped but very energetic, so it all balances out. Looks like the kid is going to Brooklyn College to study film production, so I'll be visiting there quite a bit. But I'm not moving there because 5 straight days of me and the kid and nobody else has convinced both of us that him moving far away for awhile really is a very, very good idea. (Is "awhile" a real word?)

Meanwhile, I'm still in graduate school which is intensifying. By the time he leaves town, I'll be able to work about 15 hours a day on all of the research projects around here (including my thesis) plus I just ordered a bunch of Tony Horton DVDs, so I'm intending to counteract empty nest syndrome by co-publishing scientific journal articles and recreating the ass I had before I was a mom. (The ass part probably won't happen exactly like that but it is important to have goals in this world.)

While we were in New York, we went to a taping of "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon". His show isn't very funny yet but he seems gracious and his house band is the Roots (I think I've previously mentioned my intense respect and attraction to Questlove) so really, the music was the best part of the show. There was a musical guest the night we attended called Liquid Liquid.

*

Liquid Liquid was a New York No Wave art band form the late 70s that "never quite caught on completely". (That's what lifelong friend of percussionist Dennis Young told me. I was sitting next to him and Dennis's wife and I'm nosy so I started asking questions after eavesdropping.) Of note, Liquid Liquid created the famous bass line sampled by Grandmaster and the Sugar Hill Houseband in that old 80s hip hop standard "White Lines".

*

That bass line comes from the song "Cavern", which Liquid Liquid played (splendidly) with the Roots on the episode the kid and I attended and that was one of the more spectacular 30 minutes of live music I have ever witnessed. And I have witnessed many hours of live music. So here is a link to the version of the song that aired on the show that night. This is very good but it isn't quite the same as being in a 100 person TV studio with all of that sound wrapping you up in its fingers and stroking you home. But go watch it.

Video: Liquid Liquid Plays “Cavern” on Jimmy Fallon with Help from The Roots

(Not aired was a first taping of "Cavern" and another recording of their song "Optimo".)

(Also, I think there should be a learning curve allowance for late night talk shows. It's a whole different thing than stand up, writing and performing in sketch comedy, etc. And let it be said now that Mr. Fallon has excellent taste in music.)

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Monday Night Purgatory

I wanted to go to Weeds tonight for the open mike poetry because it was the annual Erotica Valentine's reading but I'm feeling decidely UN-erotic. I've never been very good at writing erotica, either. My work goes quickly pornographic and it doesn't take long to turn completely hardcore. Then Gregorio sent out a message that there would be filming and we should dress up and then possibly fall in love with someone. The pressure was mounting. Then I got my period (see what I mean about the suddenly hardcore) and had to drive to the far south side to visit someone in the hospital. Also, whenever I go to Weeds I end up drinking a bunch of tequilas and the next thing I know it's 4:30 a.m. and I'm getting thrown out of the Old Town Ale House. I wouldn't feel right tomorrow morning asking the patients how much they've been drinking while tequila and lime seep out of my pores and the seven dwarves sing "heigh ho" in my skull while driving sledgehammers against my temples.

I hate working in the mornings. It is decidedly not erotic.

A Slogan I Can Get Behind

I just bought a box of these buttons from the Evil Slut Clique. I love it because it's funny, sarcastic and cheap. All of this while celebrating the holidays and making fun of the religious right. Merry, merry!!!
And then after I purchased them BlogHo suddenly posted again. And then an old Smiths' song I hadn't heard in years came on the music station I'm streaming (which doesn't really have anything to do with hoes, but it still pleased me). Oh, ho ho holy angels I have heard on high -- hooray!!!

Naiad

Today is a breathtaking gift of Nature all rolling green with her azure cap and puffy cumulus feathers. Wandering away from my house, I encounter brick-painted, huddling homes from two centuries ago built by immigrant Irish who saved a few pennies and built a new community in a triangle a couple miles removed from the death-stench stockyards of their employment. Today there still exists a few Irish and Poles but now it is mostly comprised of upwardly-moblie Mexican nationals who have yard sales on Saturdays and fiestas on Sundays.

The triangle is bordered by Archer Avenue (formerly the Road to Widow Brown's) which reaches out from Chinatown into the wandering desires of Resurrection Mary. This is the southern border of Mount Pleasant, which settles along the river. The Chicago River is now the home of haunted steel mills and scarred ports. Most of it is vacant although the passing trains graon on their tracks day and night like a grandfather on the porch warning against the transcience of our values.

Here, the river itself is spanned by several suspension bridges still studied today by rapt mechanical engineers. The river, far below me, appears in the sunlight as a chunk of amber hiding in its depths some winged prehistoric creature. With its ornaments of railroad ties and ordered train cars and abandoned factories and graffittied granaries it stands in stark contrast to the lake it flows from -- divorced from natural union by dynamite. Once I visited her here among the broken factories and prarie flowers and I came back with a baby. Once I led a parade to meet her at her contrived lake source and dyed her the color of envy.

I am never far from her for long.

Tuning in...

I need to tune into another psychic station for a few days, because the state of the world is so not good right now -- honestly, my state of mind isn't so good either. I haven't been feeling well. I am in the wrong line of work. And yet somehow, I feel like I'm on the cusp of figuring something important out -- if only I could break through that final layer of skin, rip off the scabs or something.

Also -- mermaids have very dramatic, passionate love lives but not such stable ones. This is mostly a result of personal choices with the occasional lifestyle consequence thrown in... some of us are not really cut out for domesticity. And don't ever let anyone shame you into being something you are not or wearing costumes that don't fit.

Pirates are sexy and roguish and best of all, impermanent. I am not stupid. I knew that ship would set sail eventually. In fact, I counted on it -- torn between the tight excited flush of eploration and the desire to return to the ocean floor to mull it all over.

Unraveleing a tangle of thoughts, sensations and emotions is a joy unto itself.

Vets 4 Peace

Today, about half a dozen veterans climbed a fence and hung a sign on the national archive -- the building which houses the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

"We take this action as a last resort," their statement added। "For years we have pursued every avenue open to good, vigilant citizens to bring these men to justice, to re-establish the rule of law, and to restore the balance of power described in our Constitution। We are not disturbing the peace; we are attempting to restore the peace। We are not conducting ourselves in a disorderly manner; our action is well-ordered and well-considered. We are not trespassing; we have come to the home of our Constitution to honor our oath to defend it."

-- Veterans for Peace

"Waiting For My Man"

In case you hadn't noticed yet, I have a very intense and admittedly bizarre crush on John Leguizamo. (He's sexy, smart, an author, a playwright and he chooses interesting roles -- for example he played Toulouse-Lautrec and an MD who snorted lines off his married mistress' ass on primetime network TV while brandishing a gun and admonishing his residents to stay abreast of the latest medical research. Also he was in a Romero zombie movie and I can really only love a man who knows what to do in case of zombie pandemic.)

Anyway... Leguizamo is in town -- actually, he and Freddy Rodriguez (another man with a zombie pandemic plan) are filming a movie in my neighborhood and like my neighborhood, it's called Humboldt Park. (I am not afraid to tell you where I live because you are way too much of a wimpy crybaby to come here and find me.)

I know he's married, but I figure since we'll be in the same neighborhood, I'll have him over for some barbeque and beer... that's all, because I'm actually a lady even if I am occasionally lascivious and often way too tough for you.

I Heart Heifer

Heifer International is an excellent organization that helps families around the world begin sustaining agricultural businesses that can permanantly improve the recipient's quality of life. They enact the principle of Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. Teach him how to fish and he'll eat forever.

Not that the people Heifer Int. helps need to be taught how to fish -- I despise that notion that because someone is poor or wasn't born in Europe or North America they don't know how to farm, fish or irriagte, etc. What Heifer does provide is a gift that grows and provides. You can buy a family in Africa a flock of chicks which will grow to lay eggs which provides extra money to send the kids to school and protein-rich eggs for their growing brains and so on...

You can buy a llama for an Andean family which provides clothing and income for a family. (I love llamas!)

You can buy a hive of honeybees for a South American family which may become their entire livelihood and saves our gringo butts at the same time, because all of these disappearing bees can not be good for any of us.

You can help supply seeds in the Hudson Valley or gardens in Dallas, Texas. You can provide much needed livestock to farm families in the Mississippi Delta.

Actually, Heifer's entire gift catalog is very cool and you should check it out. You'll note that even if you can't afford to buy an entire item, you can donate towards an item -- so you can still help, even if you aren't water buffalo rich.

AND RIGHT NOW the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will match donations up to $42.8 million in Kenya and Rwanda. So if you think this sounds like a great cause, now would be the time to contribute -- more bang for your buck, etc.

Sorry for the commercial, but I think this is a worthwhile and well-established organization.

Romance Challenge 2008

A couple of weeks ago I told my friend Dennis I was tired of working in an office and I wanted to stay home and crank out several romance novels every year instead. I chose this particular genre because I find it formulaic, popular (read lucrative) and intellectually simple. I also imagined that by injecting the occasional period setting, I could happily spend hours and hours learning the details of certain historic and cultural eras.

Sometimes, I'm a snotty bitch.

Dennis is a good soul. He said I needed to set a deadline, show him my first five pages, and in the spirit of good sportspersonship he would play, too. And so was born Romance Challenge 2008. On Saturday, February 2nd, 2008 at high noon we are meeting at Street Side in the back horseshoe booth with the first 5 pages of our original romance novels. The idea is catching on like wildfire among the drunky, boho neighborhoodies -- after all, we have to find something else to do with our hands and mouths now that we can no longer smoke anywhere -- and we're expecting a small crowd.

An unexpected treat is all of the fun we're having pointing out some of the flotsam and jetsam of random conversations that should be used as first lines or titles like, "Sweaty Breasts and Cigarettes" or "I felt like I was riding a very erotic horse" or "I realized she was probably a man, but we had a good time so I asked her out again." (By the way, those are all copyrighted snippets, so no plagery, please.)

But therein lies the crux of Romance Challenge 2008 for me. I want to write a pure, sweet -- hopefully highly readable and intellectually stimulating -- romance novel. I want to be pure to the genre. I realize I've spent this lifetime smothering nearly every romantic sentiment or impulse I've ever had and I think I would be cheating myself if I didn't give in to that strange, stereotypically soft and feminine and foreign mood, at least once. Even if I only do it on paper.

And it's difficult. Everything I've come up with so far smacks of cynical satire. But I will not give in to my monkey mind's desire to protect me from flowering into a silly, vulnerable fool. I will write a fucking love story even if it makes me weep.

Wanna play?

Fearless, Foolish Frivolity

I haven't completely lost consciousness. I am not sticking my head in the sand, but I have had to adjust perspective. You see, bad shit is happening because of my country and I am ashamed and sickened and saddened...and...and...

But what else can I say about that?

I still pay attention and contact my representatives and yell, scream, coerce and debate. But really, what else can I say about that. I feel like Cassandra screaming into a hurricane. Very, very bad shit is happening because of and within my country -- and I don't presume to compare the wussy miseries occurring within to the tragic blood-letting without, but the voodoo hoodoo hippie dilletante in me knows it's all connected like some global geopolitical version of reflexology. Just remember; we did not elect that sick, fascist fuck twice and that did not change any outcomes.

All of that being said anyway...frivolity...

I've decided to adopt the bullshit hoodoo voodoo hippie dilletante perspective of giving energy to that which is good and denying energy to that which really needed to disappear 8 years ago. I intend to project joy, gratitude, love and luck like some demented karmic Pollyanna in hopes that maybe THAT will work a little better than the bitching and testifying. That's probably a messed-up wrong-headed approach to generating joy, gratitude, love and luck, but I'm going to let form follow function in this case.

So:
Here's to all of the love we make, break and take. Here's to the attending pain it comes with which reminds you love is bigger than sweetness and more love and luck to those who are too chicken to love and too candy-assed to get hurt.

Here's to the woods and all of those who protect them, as well as those who enjoy them.

Here's to being one lucky woman because I have so many I love, not to mention the greatest kid in the world.

Here's to my fat ass which keeps me warm and is an excellent, portable, ergonomic cushion.

Here's to the whiskey which fertilized this bullshit post.

Here's to getting kissed so deep, sweet and well the arches of your feet break out in a sweat.

And here's to you. Thanks for stopping by.

Purge - ery

Greetings, pumpkins! I hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving -- even those of you who live in countries where you don't sacrifice turkeys to the Land Lord in his infinite wisdom for the real estate windfall created by decimation of the native population while drinking beer at noon and pointing larger, shinier pieces from the butcher block at first degree relatives because triptophen causes a feeling of distrust.

But I'm just cynical this year because I spent all of Wednesday and Thursday in the throes of a wicked stomach flu complete with repetitive projectile vomiting. I had a piece of dry toast and half a cup of peppermint tea around 6 pm for Thanksgiving dinner. Boo-hoo, poor me, etc., etc...

Anyway, I woke up Friday STARVING, so my friend Baldie took me out to brunch and then we bopped around -- stopping in a comic book store. While perusing the numerous fiddy cent bins, I discovered a comic called My Monkey's Name Is Jennifer by Ken Knudsten. Of course, I purchased the three random issues I found, because "It's a scientifically proven fact that everyone's favorite word is their own name."

That quote is from Lars and the Real Girl, which is the fan-freaking-tastic movie that Baldie and I went to see at the neighborhood theater. I give it five stars, several dozen outloud laughs and three hankies. It's the heartwarming story of a pathologically isolative nice guy named Lars, who buys a custom made sex doll on the internet, puts her in a wheelchair and introduces her around town as his girlfriend Bianca. It's kind of a post-modernist re-telling of The Velveteen Rabbit for adults. Go see it A.S.A.P.

Then Baldie and I went bar hopping, ending up with Pauly in Boystown where 2 wonderful things happened:

1. I got to watch a buff young man gyrate in velour hotpants which had a kind of penis bustier -- a cocktier? -- sewn in them.
2. I really, REALLY had to pee at one point, and the sexy and extremely sweet drag queen dancing with me in the hallway bathroom line danced me in ahead of her -- even though she was in front of me. (Maybe my moves betrayed my urgency?)

I'm thinking, however, that you're probably going to only ever be platonic friends with someone who says, "What a great day! I've had so much fun with you! Do you want to go to Boystown, now?" Even if he is straight, he probably doesn't like you in that way (Unless, he's kinky.)

Either way, I guess...

Schoolgirl Crushes I Have Nursed

Randolph Mantooth ...

Cher, before the plastic surgery ....

Wonder Woman (gulp!)

Who is hotter -- Bo Duke or the General Lee?

Every dorky girl who grew up in the 80s is in love with Han Solo and his roguish ways...

Prince or the Artist Formerly Known As Prince and back to Prince -- I've had an ongoing crush on him since I was 12 years old. I don't care if he's a midget, the man can write a dirty groove.

Cusack from The Sure Thing and in most everything ...



All of the many faces of Gary Oldman -- although he's kind of at his sexiest as a vampire.

Uma -- Hindi Goddess of Light and Mountains...

Jello .. how I loved your depth, brains and impish ways. I wanted to run away to San Francisco and be your campaign manager/ concubine.

Bob Marley please Satisfy My Soul

Angelina Jolie... back when she was crazy.

I'm not sure why, but I love Leguizamo...

Tank Girl, but of course....

just one more?

he precedes himself in sleep pleads his case to my subconscious seduces me with my own id and then comes closer casually in reality as if he needn't try

no, that's a lie

the part about reality in reality he chases me for as long as it takes closing his ears to seven thousand "no"s which pass from my lips he has kissed seven thousand times and i hold him in contempt because he doesn't hold me but i always seem to weaken to collapse to fall into bed again accidentally at request number seven thousand and one

i like to piss him off i purposefully court his ire and always ask him how his girlfriend is but he comes again and again and there really are no girlfriends music is his mistress he is his own best friend which is good since he has neither money nor emotion and he rambles on about politics for hours watching cspan until my teeth chatter i will not take off my clothes until he turns off the television his secret fantasy is getting head on his mushy gold couch while watching cheney's impeachment hearings

i have asked him seven thousand times to leave me in peace and peacefully seven thousand times he has refused

If You Want Me To Stay

If You Want Me To Stay on Rhapsody

I've been running with a couple of "gentlemen" for awhile and I've just decided that I'm done with them.

I want someone who will say to me, "If you want me to stay..." And frankly I'm sick and tired of the same-old-bland-emotionally-stunted-stagnant-sterile-and-vacant deals I've settled for. Who wants a lifetime of cold oatmeal?

Also, it isn't just about my want. I would really like to meet up with someone who has wants regarding me. I wouldn't mind fulfilling some of them.

In any case, I don't really care if I meet someone else or not. I'm good at being single. I just know that the situation was completely aggravating and unfulfilling to me and I refuse to be locked into some ridiculous script in which I can either play the role of the doormat or the bitch. I'm not so good at those things. No, thank you. Time to make a new movie.

Okay, but here's the thing ... I really love to be in love. To rather radically paraphrase Rob Brezny when describing those born under my sign, we were made by love of love for love to love. So, I'm going to spend the entire month of September in love. I am going to romance literature, music, friendship -- you get the cheddary picture.

And today, I am in love with If You Want Me To Stay, written by Sylvester Stewart in 1973 and performed by Sly and the Family Stone. That bass line makes my heart leap and my ass move. Aaahhhh.... sweetness. You should do yourself a favor, click the rhapsody link at the top of this post and listen for yourself.

Al

In case you may have been under the mistaken impression that I am normal; I am in love with Al Swearengen.

Anyone who can pontificate so articulately the muddy stream-of-consciousness that is human baggage moving on the conveyor belt of survival whilst receiving oral pleasure, is a precious purveyor of American Isolationism.

Ahhh... the sweet soliloquy of human depravity! Oh, my connoisseur of connivance! Oh, flesh peddler! Oh, murderous blade to the whiskey throat!

Ah, me...

Pain or damage don’t end the world, or despair or fucking beatings. The world ends when you’re dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man—and give some back.

(A young Ian McShane for your viewing pleasure.)

Remember ...

It's better to die on your feet, than live on your knees.

Mas vale morir de pie que vivir arodillado.

--Emilano Zapata

Stupid Games

"You!" said the Caterpillar contemptuously. "Who are you?"

Which brought them back again to the beginning of the conversation. Alice felt a little irritated at the Caterpillar's making such very short remarks, and she drew herself up and said, very gravely, "I think you ought to tell me who you are, first."

"Why?" said the Caterpillar.

Here was another puzzling question; and, as Alice could not think of any good reason, and as the Caterpillar seemed to be in a very unpleasant state of mind, she turned away.

"Come back!" the Caterpillar called after her. "I've something important to say!"

This sounded promising, certainly: Alice turned and came back again.

"Keep your temper," said the Caterpillar.

"Is that all?" said Alice, swallowing down her anger as well as she could.

"No," said the Caterpillar.

--Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Lewis Carroll

Confession

I’ve been feeling the need to make some massive changes in my life. After much contemplation, here is the plan:

I’m turning in my feminist credentials. I don’t know why I’ve wasted so much time trying to insure equal pay for myself, when clearly the world is designed on a merit system and the white – skinned male is its most oppressed minority.

Since it was Ann Coulter who showed me the error of my ways, it’s time I confessed that I have a massive crush on her. I want to run my fingers over her painfully well-defined skeleton. I’m buying a snub-nose .44 so I can impress her with my straight shooting, take-charge attitude and general blood lust.

I want to whisper “Liberal” in her ear until she prays to me in public schools. I want to give her 27 cents of every dollar I earn. I want to buy us matching Mickey Mouse sweatshirts and skip through Disney World, holding hands but never marrying – because that would undermine the entire institution of marriage, help the terrorists win and cause all bibles to simultaneously, spontaneously combust. (And the bible is the best book ever written – and really, the only book worth reading.)

No, sadly I can never marry Ann Coulter – but once I quit working with schizophrenics and start working for the prison lobby (we need to lock up those unemployed scumbags), I will then be able to buy Ann her dream home in Celebration, Florida – Disney’s planned community.

Once we’ve set up house in Celebration, Ann will start spelling her name correctly – with an “e” at the end. She will put her hair in hot rollers and style it big so it fluffs out under her cartwheel hat. (She’s tall. She can pull off a cartwheel hat.) She’ll layer frothy crinolines under her wide, feminine skirts because she knows I enjoy the way they set off the severe lines of her chicken legs. She’ll throw away her suits and stop writing, because once I’ve rescued her from the horrible fate of an unloved woman she won’t be forced to work in the media anymore like some common slut. She’ll stay home, keeping my house, cooking me nutritious meals of pork and buying me the very best scotch with my fat prison profits.

After all, someone has to be the man.


(Enjoy the day.)

Sometimes Florida Is Kinda Gauche

One of the local newscasters just had his tidy whities in a bundle because... if Castro dies, then Miami is planning a celebration -- of his death, mind you -- in the Orange Bowl, which could preempt the Superbowl.


I am rather nauseous.


We are overcome by anguish at this illogical moment of humanity.

-Ernesto "Che" Guevara