I Think I Need a Shoehorn

Cali to Maryland to Florida to Maryland to... where next?? It's not just a shipment, it's an adventure!

Oh looky!  It wasn’t enough that my footer forms made it all the way to Laurel (about 15 miles from here) and then went off to Florida.  It wasn’t enough that it took 5 days to get back from Florida (must have stopped for a long meal at every Cracker Barrel along the way).  No, now it gets back to Laurel and the status is…  (wait for it) … Exception. Your shipment is currently within the UPS network; however, an unforeseen event has occurred which could result in a change to the Scheduled Delivery Date.

And, and and!  It’s been forwarded to the facility in the destination city.  No, stupid, it’s already in the destination city! Well let’s see, maybe it has the wrong address.

Shipped To: GLENN DALE, MD, US

Oh crap, wrong address!  Now that “MD” has been changed to mean “Florida”.  Boy, I wish that hadn’t happened.

The British government has apologized for the appalling way it treated one of the men most responsible for winning WWII.

I am both pleased and proud that, thanks to a coalition of computer scientists, historians and LGBT activists, we have this year a chance to mark and celebrate another contribution to Britain’s fight against the darkness of dictatorship; that of code-breaker Alan Turing.

It’s been a long time coming, and it’s good to finally hear something like this from 10 Downing St.

Thousands of people have come together to demand justice for Alan Turing and recognition of the appalling way he was treated. While Turing was dealt with under the law of the time and we can’t put the clock back, his treatment was of course utterly unfair and I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him. Alan and the many thousands of other gay men who were convicted as he was convicted under homophobic laws were treated terribly. Over the years millions more lived in fear of conviction.

If you haven’t heard the story of Turing, it’s fairly well explained in the statement.  The whole thing is on the PM’s website.  Also you should read Cryptonomicon.

I’ve been very confused about some aspects of the health care “debate” recently.  Happily, Roy Zimmerman has explained it all in his latest newsletter:

I’ve been listening – really listening – to the good citizens who oppose health care reform, because I feel it would be easy to miss the subtlety of their reasoning amid the screaming and the booing and the finger-poking and the name-calling and the shoving and the cold-cocking and the Red-scaring and the race-bating. As I see it, their argument breaks down to seven well-considered points:

1. We can’t have a Public Option because options limit Freedom.
2. If we had a government-run health care plan, people would certainly choose it over their own plans because government can’t do anything right.
3. We need “tort reform,” whatever that is.
4. Socialism.
5. Private insurers have an obligation to stockholders and government does not, so government-run health care would concern itself with health, not with profit, and Adam Smith wouldn’t like that.
6. There’s no place for government in health care except when implanted in a woman’s womb.
7. Barack Obama is a Marxist Nazi.
8. And Black.

He forgot “Keep your government hands off my Medicare, you damn dirty ape!”, but otherwise that about sums it up.  Plus, someone can’t count, and I don’t think it’s Roy.

I hope that clarifies things.

Excuse me, sir, can I see your receipt? No.  Thanks, I already paid.  But you have your receipt? Yes, it’s in my wallet, in my pocket.  I need to validate it. Yeah, I really don’t have time.  (I’ve been shopping for 3 hours, and I’m hot and sweaty and not interested in digging around in my pocket for the receipt I just put in there. and you’re stopping me why?)  I need to validate your receipt. No, you really don’t.

Chasing me down out of the store?  Seriously?  At least I am a sir, not some short-haired biker chick who you’ll really piss off.  And how many people walk out without getting validated while you’re following me around?

(No, I’m not going to show you my receipt.  How is it you don’t get that yet?  You gonna charge me with shoplifting, or you gonna let me go?  Or maybe neither, and try to detain me, and good luck with the lawsuit.  Did you really not see me 10 feet from you at the checkout stand?)

No, you don’t need to validate anything.  Well no need to be an asshole about it.

Okay, that’s it.  Were I not tired to death of shopping it was time for a little walk to ask your supervisor if it’s store policy to call customers assholes.  Shirley you know you can’t stop people.

Welcome to my almost-boycott list, Lowe’s.  Along with Home Depot, which leaves a lot of distant places to shop.  Which is why the almost-.  I need a real lumber yard that doesn’t chain across the country.  Hammond Lumber, why do you only live in Maine?

Yes.  Yes, I know ycycle does this better.  Tough.

I hate writer’s block. So here’s something from a few years back that I just dug up.

Why do airlines show such lame movies? Over and over… Lake Placid? Seriously?

                               JEFF BRIDGES
    My God, there's a crocodile-shaped computer animation in that lake!

                                BILL PULLMAN
    EEEK!  I just stepped on something that's so gross they'll have to
    edit it out for the airline audience.

                                BETTY WHITE
    Poor dear, it only ate a bear yesterday, it must be hungry.
    I'll have to feed it its daily cow.  Good thing nobody ever notices
    me doing that.  And thank God for those Golden Girls residuals.
    Do you have any idea how much these things cost?

She leads the REAL COW to the water and slaps its rump.  Close-up shot of a
REAL CROCODILE looking menacing.  Cut to long shot of a MUCH LARGER REALLY
FAKEY LOOKING MECHANICAL CROCODILE lunging clumsily toward an obviously
FAKE COW.  It drags the cow back into the water.

                               LOWELL GEORGE
    Wait, aren't I dead?  I know, I'll fly a helicopter over the lake.
    Audiences love helicopters.

Cut to helicopter in lake.

                               LOWELL GEORGE
    Oh no, my flying machine has crashed into the lake with the crocodile.
    It's a good thing they cut that out for the airline audience.  Some
    of them could be frightened by the sight of such a flimsy plot device.
    Hey where's the croc?

                               BILL PULLMAN
    I don't know!  Quick, jump in the water.

LOWELL GEORGE jumps into the water, then BILL PULLMAN jumps into the water.
Mayhem ensues.  Eventually we see the AMAZING VARIABLE-SIZE crocodile inside
the helicopter.

                               LOWELL GEORGE
    Look, it's trapped.  Wasn't that clever?

                                PASSENGERS
    YAAAAY, now we can watch October Sky for the 27th time!

                                JULIA ROBERTS
    Not until you've watched Notting Hill at least twice more.

Yes it’s totally out of date, but I assure you it was hilarious back in ’99 when I wrote it.

Q. Do you feel you’ve gotten enough recognition for your accomplishments?
A. Lordy, yes, Oodles and oodles.

Michael Collins is one of my favorite astronauts. Gotta love Buzz Aldrin, especially for decking Bart Sibrel, and Gene Cernan I wanna sit down and have dinner and a bottle of wine with. But Collins rocks. Check it out.

And the ape’s curiousity,
Money power wins.
And the yellow soft mountains
Move under him.

Nothing Rhymes with Woman.  Best Carbon Leaf album ever! Nice cover too, all black and orange. Nothing rhymes with orange, either. Coincidence? I think not.

Until now, best Carbon Leaf song? was easy (War Was in Color). Now, not so much. CL lyrics in the past have had a spotty quality to them. Flickers of brilliance bruised by assonant compromises. For every In a window back home/A blue star is traded for gold there was an I will not leave this pulse alone/Though it may take the long way home. Huh?

And here we have an album with several songs at the same level as WWIC. Songwriting still improving after 17 years together? That alone is worthy of the sort of recognition you get from reviews on obscure personal blogs with easily a half-dozen readers. No problem, guys. You’re very welcome.

Continue reading ‘Truman Kind of Rhymes’

Quoting Samuel Beckett here, don’t look at me like that.  This is serious, serious art.  With themes and symbolism and ambiguity and everything.  Literature, man!

Specifically, Waiting for Godot at Roundabout Theatre (in Studio 54).  It is meant as a comedy, but when you read the script it comes off all literary and…  interesting. Funny, but in a cerebral way.  But put Nathan Lane and Bill Irwin, two of the world’s greatest clowns, in the roles of Estragon and Vladimir, add John Goodman as Pozzo and the unknown (to me) John Glover as Lucky, and then turn them loose, and you end up with side-splitting physical comedy.  Turns out the themes and symbolism and whatnot come through just fine when you do that.  Which I guess is why it’s considered a masterpiece.

Yes, we did wonder when Nathan Lane, rolling around on the floor with Goodman and Irwin, said “Who farted?”, whether that was in the original text.  And yes, it is.

Best part was when Estragon took Pozzo’s whip and “attempted” to use it.  30 seconds of Nathan Lane cavorting around the entire stage flailing an 8 foot bullwhip around everywhere.  Somehow without hurting anyone, including himself.  That took some practice, I guarantee.  It took us another minute to recover from laughing about that.

Kudos to director Anthony Page for playing it for the comedy.  I wondered for a millisecond if that would detract from the serious themes.  Nope.

Worth the drive to NYC!

And I was so enjoying waving happily at Air Force One when it flew overhead.  Looks like I’m gonna have to go back to flipping it off.

Hope?  Nope.  Change?  Strange, looks like just another cheesy breezy politician blowin’ in the wind.  Creeping up as close to that center line as he can get.

Obama defends DOMA in federal court. Says banning gay marriage is good for the federal budget. Invokes incest and marrying children.

Bastard.

This Friday will mark 42 years since everyone in the U.S. got the right to marry whomever they want.  Well.  Not quite everyone.  Not quite yet.  Still, it was a massive social change, brought about by a zealous court.  Talk about your judicial activism!  Overturning the clearly expressed and massively supported will of the people, without any such right being explicitly spelled out in the constitution.  If the constitution doesn’t grant the right, how can you overturn democratically enacted laws based on some nebulous concept of “civil rights”?  (Hint:  What part of the 9th amendment don’t you understand?)

Loving v. Virginia.  Was there ever a better-named court case?  This here’s a couple years old, but it still makes me smile:

Loving for All

By Mildred Loving

Prepared for Delivery on June 12, 2007, The 40th Anniversary of the Loving vs. Virginia Announcement

When my late husband, Richard, and I got married in Washington, DC in 1958, it wasn’t to make a political statement or start a fight. We were in love, and we wanted to be married.

We didn’t get married in Washington because we wanted to marry there. We did it there because the government wouldn’t allow us to marry back home in Virginia where we grew up, where we met, where we fell in love, and where we wanted to be together and build our family. You see, I am a woman of color and Richard was white, and at that time people believed it was okay to keep us from marrying because of their ideas of who should marry whom.

When Richard and I came back to our home in Virginia, happily married, we had no intention of battling over the law. We made a commitment to each other in our love and lives, and now had the legal commitment, called marriage, to match. Isn’t that what marriage is?

Not long after our wedding, we were awakened in the middle of the night in our own bedroom by deputy sheriffs and actually arrested for the “crime” of marrying the wrong kind of person. Our marriage certificate was hanging on the wall above the bed. The state prosecuted Richard and me, and after we were found guilty, the judge declared: “Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.” He sentenced us to a year in prison, but offered to suspend the sentence if we left our home in Virginia for 25 years exile.

We left, and got a lawyer. Richard and I had to fight, but still were not fighting for a cause. We were fighting for our love.

Though it turned out we had to fight, happily Richard and I didn’t have to fight alone. Thanks to groups like the ACLU and the NAACP Legal Defense & Education Fund, and so many good people around the country willing to speak up, we took our case for the freedom to marry all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. And on June 12, 1967, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that, “The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men,” a “basic civil right.”

My generation was bitterly divided over something that should have been so clear and right. The majority believed that what the judge said, that it was God’s plan to keep people apart, and that government should discriminate against people in love. But I have lived long enough now to see big changes. The older generation’s fears and prejudices have given way, and today’s young people realize that if someone loves someone they have a right to marry.

Surrounded as I am now by wonderful children and grandchildren, not a day goes by that I don’t think of Richard and our love, our right to marry, and how much it meant to me to have that freedom to marry the person precious to me, even if others thought he was the “wrong kind of person” for me to marry. I believe all Americans, no matter their race, no matter their sex, no matter their sexual orientation, should have that same freedom to marry. Government has no business imposing some people’s religious beliefs over others. Especially if it denies people’s civil rights.

I am still not a political person, but I am proud that Richard’s and my name is on a court case that can help reinforce the love, the commitment, the fairness, and the family that so many people, black or white, young or old, gay or straight seek in life. I support the freedom to marry for all. That’s what Loving, and loving, are all about.