Leaving my work for the last time was surreal to say the least. I had been there for over nine years! Sure I was little more than a young pup when I started, practically a foetus really. I learned an incredible amount about myself throughout my time there and gained a wealth of experience from the highs and lows of the working world. I also had fabulous colleagues some of whom became extremely good friends. So it was no surprise that when I left, it was with hugs and red eyes rather than handshakes and a smile. My very special office mate was the hardest goodbye of all and she followed me down the hall in a stream of tears as if waving me off to war.

Trying hard to keep it together I walked out the lobby for the last time when one of the security officers grabbed my hand and shook it vigorously. Do this for all of us who wish they could! he said before saying goodbye. I waved one last farewell to it all and left for good.

It was only when I was cycling away that I started puzzling his words. Just what does he think I’m going to do? I mean it’s not as if I’m heading off to outer space. But I slowly realised  that quitting your job in the middle of a disastrous economic recession to go travelling on money that was in your pension fund is not the sort of thing everyone does. And it is kind of exciting I suppose…

And then it dawned on me. Actually, it is incredibly exciting! Hey, look at me I shouted in my head – I’m a spaceman!

With apologies to the artist who styles themself as “Kondou Mu”, who did the adaptation of Kiyohiko Azuma’s Yotsuba&! image to Bakemonogatari.

By Machetera - A Yoani Sánchez se le aflojó un tornillo

Now en français! Cuba: Yoani Sánchez, La “Blogueuse Star” Cubaine: Une Folle Furieuse

Britney Spears

Untreated mental illness is never a lovely thing to gaze upon, so in the case of Yoani Sánchez, the self-proclaimed “blocked” Cuban blogger, it’s hard to fathom the cruelty of a U.S. State Department which in lieu of quietly suggesting psychological help for its client blogger, amplifies and repeats her ravings for the simple reason that they are so very helpful to the propaganda war against Cuba going on fifty years now.

On Monday, November 9, the same State Department which remained stoically silent in the face of so many criminal assaults and murders carried out by its client putschists in Honduras over the past four months, moved itself to issue a statement in which it “strongly deplore[d] the assault on bloggers Yoani Sanchez, Orlando Luis Pardo, and Claudia Cadelo.” Taking the Cuban government over its knee once again, it delivered a lecture about repression and violence, freedom and reconciliation.  There are multiple problems with the State Department’s touching level of concern, though.

First, there’s no independent confirmation of the claims of the three itinerant bloggers that they were forced into a black Chinese car driven by state security and then beaten in order to not attend a seriously strange demonstration (Against violence? In Cuba?  Come on…).  And considering Yoani’s predilection for gobbling up Cuba’s scarce bandwidth in order to upload pictures and videos of herself, the lack of photographic evidence for the claimed beating is remarkable.  The exhibitionist blogger who doesn’t flinch at dressing up as a clownish parody of a German(?) tourist in order to create a spectacle at an otherwise serious gathering of journalists and academics, is suddenly reticent, shy and withdrawn, privately nursing her self-reported wounds with the assistance of her local medical clinic.  (Whose services, she naturally does not mention, were provided free of charge.)

When doubts are raised about the oddly dramatic nature of Yoani’s tale, she posts again – still no pictures – accusing the doubting Thomases in her case of engaging in a game of blame-the-victim.  It’s a curious pathology.  Whether Sánchez is a paranoid bipolar personality, or a bipolar personality with paranoid tendencies is something for Cuban mental health professionals to decide, but the evidence is becoming quite clear – the pronounced and repeated delusions of grandeur coupled with tall tales about persecution which are clearly designed for foreign consumption indicate a troubled young woman whose skewed perception of reality is being stoked, rather than calmed.

Reinaldo Escobar - Loving husband or svengali?

Her husband, Reinaldo Escobar, a washed-up ex-journalist with a trail of burned bridges within the Cuban dissident community, bears much of the blame, in my opinion.  According to Yoani, she and Reinaldo returned to Cuba from a rather uncomfortable existence in Switzerland where due to his advanced age and inability to master a foreign language, his employment prospects were precisely the same as for any other immigrant in a similar situation – hard, menial, poorly paid.  It was not exactly the kind of lifestyle either of them had in mind, and indeed it compares rather unfavorably with swanning around the Melia Cohiba hotel in Havana, carting brand new laptops and making hidden camera videos of themselves harassing the hired help while their assistant, Ernesto Hernández Busto, rattles the begging cup on their behalf in Barcelona. (Hernández Busto, a Cuban surviving in that costly city with no visible means of income has his own blog, Penúltimos Días, where he reprints Yoani’s posts,  and collects “donations” in support of her efforts.)

Ernesto Hernández Busto - "Have cup, will travel."

For ages now, Yoani has been longing to be arrested, but her greatest sorrow is that she cannot and never will be arrested in Cuba for the reason she most desires – that of making a fool of herself.  She knows very well that she can, however, be arrested for taking money from foreign interests in order to attack Cuba and this is where Hernández Busto’s help is invaluable; putting an extra level of distance between Yoani and her sponsors.

I’ve never considered it particularly productive to wonder about anyone’s possible CIA affiliation, because whether someone is or is not an agent is not the important question – what needs to be asked is whether the person’s activities are or are not useful to the Company.  In Yoani’s and Reinaldo’s case, the answer is an indisputable yes. After Yoani’s performance at the Internet discussion sponsored by Temas magazine at Fresa y Chocolate in Havana last week, while Reinaldo was holding an impromptu press conference for the foreign press on the street, she immediately went forth to grant a loony interview to nothing less than the CIA-sponsored Radio Martí.

Yoani in her invisibility wig

Claiming that she was forced to wear a ridiculous platinum blonde wig in order to evade the police security around her building (not, it must be noted, to gain entrance to the event at Fresa y Chocolate – that was never her claim) the lies continued to tumble forth, including one about Cuban journalist Rosa Miriam Elizalde accusing her of being a CIA agent – something which never crossed Elizalde’s lips.  Rosa Miriam’s contribution to the discussion was calm, eloquent, never personal; she pointed out that in regard to the Internet, Cuba is enduring something practically schizophrenic.  While the island struggles with the very real technological obstacles imposed upon it by the U.S.-led blockade, outside Cuba, there is an overabundance of criticism unleashed upon it for the censorship claimed by Yoani.  “One of the things you have to ask yourself is how such visibility is obtained?…It’s a political manipulation; you have to look at it in context,” said Rosa Miriam.

Yoani is so intimidated by Rosa Miriam that she could not bring herself to even utter her name, nor her real title (editor of Cubadebate.cu), preferring instead to mis-characterize her as an anonymous university professor on the attack, both in the interview with Radio Martí and at her own blog.  Jorge Sariol, another Cuban journalist who was present for the performance, wrote the following at his blog:

“Later, came the public participation; some candid, roughly disguised, others incisive, naively disguised, some serious, others neither one nor the other, until one arrived claiming that she was making a ‘mockery of the police persecution’ under cover of a platinum wig that actually made her invisible…well, to herself anyway; she took the wig off theatrically and began to speak, it was more like a soap opera than anything else.

A thousand watt lightbulb vying for attention could not have done it better, because what was said were a few mashed up bits of nonsense that had very little to do with the debate and only provoked a polite rustling from a few of the animatronic seals.  I was disappointed by this Yoani, considered by certain press to be one of the 100 most I-don’t-know-what persons in the world.

I disapprove of debates where the arguer is devalued rather than the arguments but in this case that’s not even necessary.  I thought that between all that, the discourse had to be of some caliber, or her manners or attitude.  But all I saw was a little clown.  Worse, a grotesque little clown.  And certain foreign colleagues swallowed it, hook, line and sinker.

Or were they dining knowingly?

I don’t know which it was, but something didn’t fit in the comedy I saw.”

Rosa Baéz, another Cuban journalist present reported the event this way, in her article titled “When Lying Becomes a Vice:”

“To encourage this idea of Cuba as a country that restricts Internet access, a number of people have come forth, elevated to the level of [public] ‘figures’ courtesy of dollars and media manipulation.  I had the misfortune of participating for the first time, live and in person, in one of the performances of Yoani Sánchez, the ’star blogger,’ otherwise known by this editor as the ‘wormy blogger’ for her obvious animal resemblance, as well as the similar physical characteristics evident between the two, for her ‘relevance’: both serve as bait. There at Fresa y Chocolate, we heard lie after lie, about the supposed censorship of her site, Generación Y (which is completely duplicated elsewhere, also under her name, and is promoted as a ‘Cuban voice’ which in itself proves the fallacy of this supposed censorship: the blog is blocked and yet its clone is allowed to be visible in all its ’splendor?’  It’s completely illogical!)  Also in her speech, she referred to certain other supposedly blocked or censored sites, among others that of her partner, Claudia Codelo (Octavo cerco) that also has no proof of being fenced in, not even by the most minimal fence, as can be proven on this screenshot taken from my PC:

I was also able to look at some of the links Yoani shows off at her clone, such as for example Bloggers Cuba; Itinerario blogger (where I got a good laugh at the cyber-terrorism classes she gives at her ‘besieged home.’  How did the 13 or 14 participants get around the ‘police barricade’ outside her home?  Are they such modern ninjas that they climbed the outer walls, 14 stories up to her apartment?)”

Baez includes this observation from Rosa Miriam Elizalde:

“It’s tiresome.  When we write in the Cuban press, we know well enough, and we’re used to it; what can you do if lots of people are committed to selective reading, to lies instead of reality, to absurdity as a currency? […] But the most tiresome is not this unbearable trickle of platitudes, something that has been taking place for more than four decades with anything that concerns Cuba, and that sooner or later comes down like a deflated hot-air balloon.  The most truly exhausting thing is that from day to day, that which could be called ‘the incorporation of lying,’ extends and grows; this frivolous way of putting everything in the country under a prejudicial label.  And that’s not only harmful and corrupt, it’s irrational and fanatical.”

And so we come to the latest irrational and fanatical Yoani/Reinaldo production, just days after the wigged display at Fresa y Chocolate; complete with claims of mysterious black security vehicles, secret police beatings, fear of kidnapping – no kidding, that’s why Yoani claimed she refused to enter an unmarked car; she feared being kidnapped or maybe even raped, as though she were in Bogotá rather than Havana.  Or Tegucigalpa for that matter.

The scene as written by Yoani/Reinaldo is made for Hollywood:

“Orlando was already inside [the car], immobilized by a karate hold that kept his head glued to the floor.  One [of them] put his knee on my chest and the other, hit me in the kidneys from the passenger seat and hit my head so that I would open my mouth and spit out the paper.  For a moment I felt as though I would never get out of that car.  ‘This is it, Yoani,’ ‘The clowning around is over,’ said the one seated in front who was pulling my hair.  In the back seat a rare spectacle ensued: my legs in the air, my face reddening from the pressure and my body in pain, while Orlando was pinned by a professional thug on the other side.  I just managed to grab [the thug’s] testicles, through his pants, in an act of desperation.  I sunk in my fingernails, imagining that he was going to continue to smash my chest until the very last breath.  ‘Kill me already,’ I yelled, with the last breath remaining to me, and the one in the front seat told the younger one ‘Let her breathe.’”

The script was stirring but not uncritically received, except at the State Department and the offices of Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Lincoln Diaz Balart.  One commenter noted wryly, “How did Yoani sink her fingernails anywhere when it is obvious that she has none?”

Suddenly the story shifts a little.  Yoani tells the BBC that the real bruising blows were delivered to her bum, which naturally she cannot expose, while insisting that her cheek and eyebrow were swollen over the weekend (again miraculously healed by Monday).  And ludicrous photos and videos were finally released, reminiscent of the world-class faker Armando Valladares: Yoani With Crutch, Yoani Limping About in Great Pain.  But truth be told, Valladares was a piker in comparison to Yoani; his fabulations about paralysis only revealed when he was finally released from prison on the condition that he walk on his own two feet up and down the stairs from the airplane that delivered him to Miami.  Valladares’s lies were concocted to gain his release from prison.  Yoani’s on the other hand seem crafted to lead her there, even though the Cuban government is plainly unwilling to indulge this peculiar sick fantasy.

Meanwhile, Cuba’s serious internet deficiency continues; its professional journalists, scientists, educators and technicians struggle daily with the hobbling characteristics of an internet connection that is so slow and costly as to feel positively stone-age in this era of fiber optics and widespread DSL, in the developed world anyway.  It must be frustrating and infuriating to continually have to deal with the utter indifference of the foreign press to such an appalling story, as it prefers instead to feast on the pathological sideshow provided by Yoani and Reinaldo.  Yet as long as the show completes its designed function – funding the family business while diverting attention from the real news and demonizing Cuba into the bargain – the mental toll it takes on anyone else is very much beside the point.

Machetera is a member of Tlaxcala, the network of translators for linguistic diversity. This article may be reprinted as long as the content remains unaltered, and the author is cited.

Quote of the Day:

Then move the trees, the copses nod,
Wings flutter, voices hover clear:
“O just and faithful knight of God!
Ride on! the prize is near.”
So pass I hostel, hall, and grange;
By bridge and ford, by park and pale,
All-arm’d I ride, whate’er betide,
Until I find the holy Grail.

–”Sir Galahad”, Alfred, Lord Tennyson

TB, as any resident of the Travellinbaen Universe knows, harbors the open, not uncommon, secret longing to someday make a buck at this writing thing. It’s the quixotic corner of my life devoted to the pursuit of greatness. I’ve been afflicted with this goal all my life. It’s just lately been something I’ve given conscious thought to though.

For a couple of weeks, friend of the TBU MDM has been posting historical information on Pascagoula baseball. Many readers know that MDM achieved “greatness” as a centerfielder, not only in high school but in college too, though he always saves his praise for others. Like many ‘Goula boys, there were years when my target for achieving greatness was to follow in MDM’s footsteps. I was obsessed with the game throughout my older childhood and adolescence. Obsession be damned, greatness on the diamond eluded me.

But the dream of greatness and the fanciful schemes for achieving it predated even those years. I vividly recall as a kindergartner daydreams of escaping the drudgery of school by saving everyone from a fire or a Russian invasion or maybe an evil wizard. I would climb to the air ducts that lined the corner of the ceiling and crawl along them, making my way to safety, bringing with me only the cute redhead I’d never talked to, until I could go for help and return in glory to save everyone else. In first grade I seized on the small hole in the plaster behind my desk and spent the entire “quiet game” each day imagining the pirate treasure hidden within that I would find and that would allow me to escape the prison that was “all day” school. The influence of knights and soldiers and pirates and princes in the books I knew undoubtedly served as inspiration. I still gravitate to tales of adventure, even if I only blog about the occasional high-minded tomes of my personal bibliography. Thanks to the miracle of Kindle and the availability of free public domain classics I’ve been devouring the tales of King Arthur and his Round Table this last week and thinking about heroes, champions and greatness much as I did long ago.

Nowadays I spend my idle time thinking of the latest idea for a novel, or a memoir, maybe even a screenplay. I know there are millions out there with the same dream. I know the odds of becoming published by any entity not lorded over by myself are enormous. I know that I have good days and bad and that the good days are not yet good enough. But I’m gradually learning my strengths and weaknesses, above all my limitations. And I’m convinced that greatness as I define it, to be a published writer, is possible even if its unlikely. I can see it through the fog, I feel like I can almost grasp it sometimes, but I am afraid any sudden movement on my part may cause it to disappear. So I carefully move forward, searching for the right voice, the right subject, the right vehicle…searching, when there’s time.

I think it is a good thing to harbor delusions of grandeur, so long as they are kept in proper perspective. For years in my life, the goal of greatness lay dormant. From the day I started college through seven years of quasi-education through a decade of decadence as a single professional man with a little jingle in my pocket, I thought little of achievements beyond outdrinking my ARB’s (which I largely accomplished) or charming the little red head across the bar (also blondes and brunettes–which I only occasionally accomplished). One of the benefits of settling down as a family man has been that the innate desire for a measure of immortality regained purchase on the slippery ledges of my mind where before all of my faculties had been devoted to more base and immediate pursuits. The quest for greatness doesn’t take priority in my life, far from it. But its nice to have a dream, especially one immune to destruction by rotator cuff, poor eyesight, or the evil magic of a damsel in the wood.

———————————————————————-

I’d love to have comments on this thread, like all my posts, but do me a favor–refrain from either encouraging me or dashing my dreams, that’s not the point and I hesitate to even publish this essay for fear that it looks like I’m fishing for compliments. Your residency here is encouragement enough, in fact, for better or worse, its your continued presence more than anything that challenges me and keeps me going. I’m more interested in if anyone else harbors these type dreams, whether focused on the family, career, arts, music, athletics or whatever or if you once did and got over it. Or some other angle, just don’t embarrass me with either kindness or cruelty, just on this post.

It was 1973 and there is an American social psychologist David Rosenhan who was confident that he could have “sane” people go into a mental health facility by fabricating symptoms of a mental disorder and get a common diagnosis. They went to the hospitals crisis center and claimed that they were hearing voices.  When asked what the voices were saying they responded “empty,” “hollow,” and “thud” (Rosenhan, 1973).  There were five men and three women who were pseudo patients. All eight were admitted to twelve different hospitals over a period of time. Upon admission on to the unit all of the pseudo patients stopped the fabrication of any symptoms. Seven of the pseudo patients were admitted to the mental health facility with a diagnosis of Schizophrenia. One was diagnosed with Major Depression. However, all pseudo patients were discharged from the mental health facility with a diagnosis of Schizophrenia in remission.

During their hospitalization they took notes of everything; their surrounds, other patients’ reaction to them, and hospital staff. None of the hospital staff realized that they did not have any form of mental illness. All of the pseudo patients were prescribed medication to help with their “voices”, but none of them actually took it. They would “cheek their meds”. They would pretend to take it and then return to their rooms and flush it down the toilet. The pseudo patients soon realized everyone was “cheeking their meds”; as they would find other patients medications also being flushed down the toilet. Real patients were starting to notice that the pseudo patient did not have mental disorder. Nevertheless, they reassured the patients that “they were sick before” but improved during their hospital stay (Rosenhan, 1973). Even Rosenhan participated in his own study; he had an hour and a half conversation with the psychiatrist about something only mental health professionals would know, after getting the records of his hospital stay, the psychiatrist said that he had “delusions of grandeur”.

There were two parts to Rosenhan’s study the first part was to show how easy it was to get a diagnosis, the second part was to see how much hospital staff interacted with patients. Also they were to observe; if they maintained eye contact while asked a question and what kind of answer they received. Pseudo patients were to ask staff:”Pardon me, Mr. [or Dr. or Mrs.] X, could you tell me when I will be eligible for grounds privileges?” (or “… when I will be presented at the staff meeting?” or “… when I am likely to be discharged?”) (Rosenhan, 1973)  Most of the time pseudo patients got a one sentence answer when asking a nurse and usually had a very hard time even finding a psychiatrist to speak to; only one time did a pseudo patient have a full conversation with a nurse. Pseudo patient also noticed how much patient-staff segregation there was in four public hospitals; pseudo patient called the glassed areas “the cage” (Rosenhan, 1973). Pseudo patients saw that hospital staff rarely came out of the “cage”; they interpreted that as hospital staff was feeling as if they would catch their mental disorders.  Staff occasionally came out to “mingle” with patients while they were in the watching television. But only in one hospital did one staff member play cards with a patient. Hospital Staff usually only interacted with patients while doing the mandatory tasks such as running groups and giving out meds.

Patients often felt they were invisible to staff, they felt totally powerless and felt as if there was some major depersonalization going on. Patients were “shorn of credibility by virtue of his psychiatric label” (Rosenhan, 1973). Patients felt that their label of mental illness made them powerless in the eyes of the hospital staff. They had no privacy at all; the staff was not understanding at all with patients and would look at everything the patients did as pathological. Participants in the study knew they did belong in this sort of institution but they did succumb to some aspects of depersonalization, “a graduate student in psychology who was a participant, asked his wife to bring his textbooks to the hospital so he could catch up on his homework” (Rosenhan, 1973). The length of the pseudo patients’ hospitalizations ranged from seven to fifty-two days, with an average stay lasting nineteen days (Hansell and Damour, 2007). After Rosenhan disclosed that he sent pseudo patients into numerous mental health facilities, he said that one of more pseudo patients would be admitted in the next three months. Staff were to rate all new admissions on a ten point scale, one meant that the patient was a pseudo patient. “Over three months one hundred and ninety three patients were admitted but none of them were pseudo patients but forty-one patients were said to be fake by one staff member. Twenty-three were suspected by a psychiatrist and nineteen were suspected by a psychiatrist and a staff member” (Rosenhan, 1973).

A View from Being on the Inside

Being admitted into a mental health facility is a very scary thing. The whole process is very degrading, the body search, and staff going through ones belongings. Meeting with a psychiatrist for a maximum of ten minutes, who decides the fate of your mental status and changes one’s life as they know it because you now have a diagnosis. As in the Rosenhan study there were type-two errors happening; diagnosing one with a mental disorder/illness when they did not have one at all, as they were just pseudo patients in Rosenhan’s study. This is cause for great discomfort in one’s life as it changes everything; one now has a label that is put on them with their diagnosis, possibly not even being the correct one. One already has a label before the diagnosis as one being admitted to a mental health facility makes them “crazy”. Mental health has such a stigma attached to it, but with medical issues such as cancer there is not that stigma to stay away from one who has it. One having a mental disorder may have this illness as a pre existing condition, something that just happens beyond one’s control. It may be a chemical imbalance in ones brain, or an adaptation that had to happen in order for one to stay alive. Mental health should not have the kind of stigma that it has had since the ancient Greeks and Romans, it is 2009 and times are changing, technology is increasing. But yet there are still things scientists still do not know about it, “more people suffer from depression than heart disease, cancer and AIDS combined” (Skodol, 2007). One who suffers from a mental illness most likely always has an option to be on some type of medication; while medication can help some it may hinder others. Most hospital facilities tend to medicate for everything slowly adding to the idea of a “Prozac Nation”. It is fascinating that mental health facilities do not check their patients’ mouth to make sure they have taken their proper medication. In mental health facilities in 2009, they usually check ones mouth to make sure that medication is properly swallowed.

 There could be a correlation with Rosenhan’s study and the length of stay with patients in nineteen seventy-three. If patients were not taking their medication and disposing of it in the toilet as patients and pseudo patients did in the study they would not be able to receive the benefits of the medication. Medication can have great benefits for some patients especially patients with chemical imbalances within their brain. In 2009 in some mental health facilities the staff interacts with patients quite often, a lot more than in the Rosenhan study. Staff interaction can be a key component in maintaining calm, quiet within their unit. If staff does not interact with patients then they will not know if there is a patient having a difficult time. Also a psychiatrist should always observe a patients behavior because it could be different then what is exhibited within their consultations. Psychiatrists, nurses, and therapists should always be willing to answer ones questions when it concerns appropriate matters. As in Rosenhan’s study the patients of 2009 also feel as they have no privacy within a mental health facility mostly because of shared rooms. A lot of the common comforts of one’s home do not exist within a mental health facility; such as food choices and comfortable beds. But also patients have to realize that for some mental health facilities are not a choice, it is not a vacation destination. Mental health facilities do have their flaws but they do help one stay safe from danger.

Conclusion

David Rosenhan’s study showed the United States a lot about mental health and its practices. It also showed the stigma of mental health that still exists today. Pseudo patients got to experience what it is like to be in a mental health facility in the United States. Pseudo patients may still exist today within mental health facilities. Many aspects of the mental system got light shed on them, possibly changing the practices within them. Possibly having a smaller ratio between staff and patient, maybe more time out of “the cage”? Consequently, a change in medication procedures, limiting the amount of patients “cheeking” their meds by checking their mouths before they leave the medication window changes the effect of medication on a patient.  What has not changed from 1973 is the stigma of one’s mental illness. There is still a great deal of repercussion in relation to the type-two errors occurring in psychiatry. Misdiagnosis is prevalent among a percentage who claims to have a mental disorder. Just as in Rosenhan’s study with type-one errors there are professionals in mental health facilities today that feel some patients to be pseudo patients, in some cases it could be a manifestation of one’s symptoms, but no one really knows, not even scientists. When psychology students read of Rosenhan’s study they get to see the advancements in mental health and things that have remained the same. It is all in perspective.

There is more trady business I need to be doin’.  This is The To-Do List, sponsored by Subway & Tristar (just kidding… someday I will get a consistent and large enough amount of hits per day to be sponsored by card companies & people who want stuff reviewed though).

• Send another SASE to Mario (never even got the first one sent, d’oh!) for three quite frankly (Get it, cuz Frank Gifford is one of ‘em? Laugh with me!) awesome football relics from a recent box break.  This one goes on top because I’m on the clock here.  I’m going to send some extra top loaders too.  I think I’ve got somewhere around half a 60 ct. box of off-brand ones that I picked up at Toys ‘R Us when I was probably still in my teens that should work well for his shipping style.

• Get a replacement package together for JD’s Daddy.  Someone jacked most of my first trade somewhere between here & there.  Ya know, for my $7.62 (it was a pretty big package), you’d think I could rest easy knowing it’d make it in one piece with no trouble whatsoever.  Whatever mail piratin’ f***head stole it, I hope they get paper cuts from the cards.  I could’ve bought a pack of oh so misleadingly named Legendary Cuts for roughly the same price.  At least when I got screwed over that way, I’ll be getting a few cards, not losing well over 100.

Oh well, I can get rid of my Max Scherzers now at least.

• Working on something with Brian for my Texas Rangers hits.

• Wicked Ortega has some more Maybins & M. Cabreras & Manny bat card and probably a Greinke auto coming to him.

• I still owe Da Rook some ‘08 & ‘09 UDX and maybe some ‘06 topps, and of course there will be Braves.

• I have a Kershaw to send Night Owl.

• Still gotta send Dayf some cards.

• Shot Not Taken… I’ve got most of what I already had for you together.  I can send out what I’ve got and wait do the TNA cards later if you want.

• Cardboard Problem~

Marie, you are officially getting the Pujols Ticket Stub for the Ramirez & Sandberg jerseys.  Also, did you ever get my email about the cards I have of the other guys you collect?

And for Sooz, I guess all that is left is for me to get around to finally coming to a final conclusion on which Ichiros I need from your list.  At most, I only have a half dozen I think (it was four last time I checked, but I think I may have pulled one or two more since then).

• I still have some ‘09 A&G regular minis & mini SPs to send Nachos Grande for some clunkers & stuff.  I think I will just see that they are sent out in short order and mess with sending him some Reds later.

If I have missed anybody, and I’m sure I have, please let me know.  When I reach my 5000 hit anniversary, we’re gonna have my first real contest.  5000 hits is the uncirculated anniversary, you know. ;3

My unrelated notes for this post are as follows…

Did Braylon Edwards just have the ultimate falling up experience or what?  Beating up LeBron’s little buddy got him shipped off from the sucktastic Cleveland Browns to the quite possibly legitimate contender Jets?!?!  How is that punishment?  Granted, it sounds like there is a small chance of him getting suspended for a few weeks, but dude, UP-FREAKIN’-GRADE.

Also, what is up with the Eagles backups?  EVERY SINGLE TIME McNabb goes out with injury, his backups play like freakin’ superstars without exception.  It’s hard to have sympathy for a rich & famous QB with ridiculous athletic ability & lots of endorsment deals, but sometimes it’s hard not to feel bad for him.  Dude’s been nothing less than a great player and a class act, but fate seems to have been conspiring against him in Philly ever since he got drafted.

I’ve been stuck in that sick-but-not-quite-sick mode for the past couple of days.  It’s almost somehow worse than being full blown sick.  You don’t feel bad enough to be completely out of commission, but you don’t feel good enough to go about life like normal.  It kinda sucks.

That’s all for this one.  There is a sketch card project and sleep to catch up on.

Until our next…

We hate Writing Ramblings, and we especially hate the post, “My Wife, the Literary Genius.”

1. WE HATE that your wife understands you so well. She is sick of hearing your bad stories, which aren’t even stories. We suspect that your inability to construct a cohesive narrative is why you write for children, who you hope don’t know any better.

2. WE HATE that you don’t understand your wife at all, and that you think of her as a cartoon character in the animated feature of your life.

Virginia Woolf all anime'd up?

It isn’t that she isn’t listening, it’s that she is, and knows for certain that she has made a huge mistake.

3. WE HATE that your “books” are self-published. There is a legitimate process you could go through in order to get those published, you know. And don’t give us any of that romantic “But it worked for Nicholas Evans and Walt Whitman” crap. Nicholas Evans is a hack, and Walt Whitman didn’t live in an era with a billion publishers who would publish anything that has a prayer of selling (anything but your books, apparently).

4. WE HATE your titles. “T’Aragam” and “Duke Dookum”? You couldn’t get closer to “Aragon” or “Duke Nuke ‘em”? Hoping that publishers wouldn’t notice that the very first thing about the books is that they are derivative?

5. WE HATE that you bask in the adulation of your comments section, and then respond to said adulation as though taking a curtain call. It’s a blog, not the National Book Awards, and they are other despondent, unemployed, anonymous writers, not the PEN committee.

Years ago, someone I knew that was heavily into astrology forecasted that there would come a time – by the end of the current decade – when the U.S. (and presumably Canada) would be hit by a financial tsunami that would render the dollar mere mattress stuffing.

Well, it looks like the pot is a’boiling…..

September 30th – D-Day for U.S. – Have You been Paying Attention? Are you Prepared?

Here’s the link:

According to the enclosed report, that time is right around the corner. The big house of cards that we call the financial “system” which is based on practices we common folks could never get away with and which are not well known – because we common folks would object!

The banks have had their way for the longest time and now the jig appears to be up, but you haven’ heard a whisper about it from the mass media. They’d rather talk about anything else.

The other day in leafy Georgetown, a French historian – and, alas!, soon to be economist – made a remarkable observation. Unaware that I recently abandoned my obsession with difference for an obsession with similarity, he claimed that Washington DC in 2009 must resemble fin de siècle Vienna. I pounced.

His argument – my recollection of which is smudged by several bottles of wine that followed his exposé – is that contemporary DC and imperial Vienna share far-reaching delusions of grandeur. Größenwahn, in Kaiserlingo.

The parallel is compelling. Vienna’s fin de siècle Hofräte, K&K confectioners and psychoanalysts are DC’s hill staffers, spin doctors and fitness gurus. (For a great film on DC fitness gurus, watch Burn After Reading. For more on spin doctoring watch the same film or watch out for my blog on Campaign Management classes, coming soon).

Vienna had 8-horse coaches; DC has 500-horsepower SUVs. The Pestsäule am Graben is an ornate and less phallic Washington Memorial. Here and there, neoclassical columns are ubiquitous, as are large avenues named after important states, such as Pennsylvania Avenue or Kärtner Straße. In both imperial hubs, regal government officials pranced about deploying troops to discipline unruly minorities or borders. The Naturhistorische Museum had Steller’s sea cow , the Aerospace museum has spaceships and unmanned battle drones. That is just the surface!

The extinct Sea Cow (Hydrodamalis gigas)

MQ-9 Reaper, a hunter-killer surveillance UAV used by US and UK in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Größenwahn, of course, goes much deeper. It lives in the heads of policymakers who can pull the plug on millions, and in the heads of their eager disciples, who hope to do the same one day. It lives in the curt frowns of waiters who are used to serving Chateau Mouton Rothschild Pauillac 1986, not the cheapest bottled Bud please. Quite frankly, it resides in the mere possibility of wielding absolute power.

Of course, delusions of grandeur are still delusions, and so my brief postulation begs the question whether Americans will fall from grace, just like the Austrians did? This is where I disagree with my French friend. I don’t think so – and in fact I don’t think the analogy carries very far at all – if only because I am better at spotting difference than its reverse.

Friday afternoon, I found myself at a friend’s house, re-watching Coraline. The first time I saw it, I’d gone to the movies with my parents and little brother. Cringing, I’d accepted the 3-D glasses, knowing I was in for a slightly painful experience. I’ve never been a fan of 3-D technology (it never seems to work quite right–maybe it’s my astigmatism), and I knew that having lost a contact lens in the car on the way to the theater couldn’t help. I liked the movie: the animation, sound, and editing added up to a dark, imaginative atmosphere, and the story-telling was clever, conflict-rich, and–a true triumph for anything related to the horror genre–not derivative in the least. Sadly, I spent the whole movie alternating between wearing glasses that made me dizzy and watching a blurry screen with one eye closed.  Being, in my estimation, a movie that relies heavily on the viewer’s sense of atmosphere, I’d been looking forward to watching “Coraline” on DVD, to give it a chance to really shine in the absence of my own myopic crises.

I wasn’t disappointed. The artwork spoke much more subtly and interestingly, though there were a few annoying shots which were obviously designed only to show off the 3-D imaging (needles poking straight at the screen, items plunging directly at the “lens,” etc.). I even bumped the movie up two spots to #5 for the year. Still, I’m not sure I’ve had a real chance to grasp the full feeling the movie inspires, not because of visual barriers, but because of a different, though equally sinister interloper: my friend’s new roommate.

This girl (we’ll call her “Joann,” because that’s her name) is a fine person, I’m sure. In our few opportunities to interact in the weeks since she moved in, I’ve found no reasons to dislike her. She seems kind and generally fun to be around. After Friday, though, one other thing is clear. Joann has no understanding of the rules of movie-watching, nor any intuitive, empathetic ability to sense when she is causing others pain. As soon as the credits rolled and Joann left the room, the collective, relieved exhalation was audible, and that’s when I knew something had to be done, as much for Joann’s sake as for ours.

So, Joann, if you’re reading this, know that I say these things out of love, both love for movies and for humanity in general. Here are a few rules that, if followed, will make your movie-watching persona match with the other lovable characteristics you seem to have mastered. Once and for all, here are the rules of social movie-watching, listed in ascending order of offense prevented. Master them, and I promise I will never again fantasize about smothering you with couch pillows.

1. Talking, if audible, must be more interesting than the obscured cinematic material, and must be interesting to all affected parties.

There are those who would completely outlaw talking during movies. These people should watch movies alone. Still, few things have as high a capacity for annoyance as superfluous movie-talking. How do you know what should be said and what should be stifled? It’s mostly an intuitive filter, but the above rule works 99% of the time. Here are a few additional guidelines:

ALWAYS ACCEPTABLE:

• Emergency notifications: “Joe–I just remembered that I’m supposed to tell you that your mom’s dead.”
• Making fun of Sarah Jessica Parker, whether or not she is currently on screen.

NEVER ACCEPTABLE:

• Pointless, bland commentaries (i.e. “This movie sucks.” or “This movie is weird.”), especially if negative or repeated.
• One-on-one conversations audible to others. Text each other, if you must.

CONTEXT DEPENDENT:

• Jokes are acceptable, as long as they are hilarious, brief (preferably one-liners), and movie-related. Anything else had better be really funny. Always acceptable: “That’s what she said.”
• Sharing your trivial knowledge with others (i.e. “that camera angle is obviously an homage to John Huston”) is allowed, as long as everyone else is at least as big a douche as you are.

2. Questions and other excessive interruptions must be important enough to warrant the use of your DVD player’s “pause” function. If interrupting is absolutely necessary, use that button.

Pausing a movie is annoying, but it is much less annoying than trying to field questions and pay attention to a movie at the same time. This also helps filter out the dumb questions. Most people know better than to pause “Fargo” to ask “Is that the guy from Lost?”

PAUSE-WORTHY QUESTIONS:

• “What kind of pizza should I order?”
• “What other movie is she/he in?” (provided that the actor is sufficiently obscure and trying to figure it out is causing you physical pain)
• “What did he/she say?” (provided that the line seems essential to understanding the movie and it comes at a highly pausable moment, like the end of a non-climactic scene)
• “Wait, what the hell just happened?” (provided that you preface the question by first acknowledging that you’re a moron)

NOT PAUSE-WORTHY:

• “How was your day?”
• Any plot-related questions in the first half-hour. This is my personal pet-peeve. A movie will start in media res, and the second the main characters appear, someone will ask, “Wait, are they married or something?” or “What’s in that bag?” I think we can all rest assured that the director will find it necessary to eventually let us know whether the main characters are married or not. If you don’t know what’s in the bag, odds are no one does, and if it matters, we’ll probably all find out together. Exercise patience and let the filmmaker give you information when she wants you to have it.

3. Absolutely no interruptions during any possibly climactic moment.

If your phone rings during a movie, you have three options. To answer and have a conversation, loudly so as to be heard above the sound of the movie, is not one of them. Option #1 (answering it and hanging up quickly with a “watching a movie–I’ll call you back”) is no longer available during a high-tension moment. The pause button is also off-limits in these situations. The remaining two options are: silence it and don’t answer it; or. silence it, leave the room, answer it, have your conversation, come back, take your seat, and try to catch up without asking any questions.

Some people seem to struggle to identify climaxes in story-structure. These people, if they insist on watching movies, probably don’t get much out of it anyway, and should leave the room anytime their phones ring. They are also probably poor lovers.

4. Do not give voice to your inner detective.

People react differently to suspense or mystery. Many people feel a strong compulsion to solve the mystery before the answer is revealed–Encyclopedia Brown style. That’s cool, and although I prefer to take things as they come, I understand why someone might feel this way. The problem arises when your hypotheses and astute mental workings start escaping through your mouth. Before you decide to vocally guess whodunnit or how the plot’s going to twist, let’s use a little logic to examine the possible consequences.

- When you make this sort of guess you are either (A) wrong or (B) right.

A) If you’re wrong, you look stupid.

B) If you’re right, everyone hates you for ruining the movie.

I don’t care if you’re Hercule Poirot. There’s no way around these two outcomes. So the next time you think the main character’s actually a ghost or his friend is just inside his head, keep it to yourself.

5. If you are not an originally-invited member of the movie party, feel free to join us. Just don’t assume you have any rights.

This includes your right to complain, your snacking rights, and your license to pause.

That’s all I can think of now. Anyone have any rules to add/remove/modify? Sound off in the comments. We also need to come up with some suitable, compassionate, yet sufficiently crippling, punishment for violations. Maybe something involving sofa pillows?

UPDATE: I’m watching State of Play with my family, and it’s helped make it clear that these rules (especially #3) don’t really apply when you’re watching a sucky movie. There is nothing wrong with interrupting this movie’s “climax” to point out that you liked this movie better the first time they made it, in 1993, when Russell Crowe was still black.

Lt. Aldo Raine and his branding iron.

Anyone who’s seen Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds knows where this post’s title comes from. I don’t think this is giving anything away, but SPOILER ALERT or whatever the hell you’re supposed to say. Those eight words up there are the last bad-ass words in the whole bad-ass movie, spoken by Brad Pitt’s bad-ass character, Lieutenant Aldo Raines, after doing something that could probably only be adequately described as really bad-ass.

But here’s the kicker: when I heard those eight words, I knew instantly they were Tarantino’s message to both his fans and his detractors. I knew it as clearly as if he’d swapped out the reel to a shot of just his face, cackling as the entire film industry burned down around him. ”Like it or not,” he seems to say, “if you love movies–I mean if you really love movies–you have no choice but to come begging to me. Because, when it comes to sheer movie magic, I’ve got a motherf–king corner on the motherf–king market.”

I know. I’m probably overstating my case here. It’s not really fair to put those kinds of words in Tarantino’s mouth. Even by his standards, that’s pretty arrogant stuff, especially when it’s derived from one line from one character at the end of one movie.  But you see, that’s exactly it! It’s not just that one line–it’s every blessed second. Basterds absolutely bleeds superiority, and I don’t mean a sense of superiority–I mean the real thing. In terms of ambition, scope, and pure, pound-for-pound cajones, it’s just heads and tails above almost everything else being made today.

It starts in the opening chapter, which could have been, and as Tarantino admits, pretty much was, ripped straight out of the best of Sergio Leone–a metaphysical gunfight between a fast-drawing, corrupt sheriff and an overmatched farmhand. The scene just drips tension. Christoph Waltz, playing the SS “Jew-Hunter” sent to France to eradicate the remnant Jews, is blistering, and Denis Menochet doesn’t miss a beat as the heartbreakingly human object of Waltz’s interrogation. Menochet isn’t on screen for more than fifteen minutes or so, but his brief performance, like Viola Davis’s in Doubt and Michael Shannon’s in Revolutionary Road, will haunt you.

Basterds doesn’t let up. We meet Lt. Aldo Raines and his crew of Nazi-brutalizing, American jews, and we’re simultaneously delighted and disgusted by the way they mow down “Natzis.” Although Tarantino avoids even glancing at the sweeping battlefront vistas we’ve grown to expect from movies about the second World War, he certainly isn’t a wallflower. He plunges straight into the tension of the occupation and the psycho-political heart of the conflict, seemingly not even hesitating to blast through barriers of history–what Pi Patel might have called, “dry, yeastless factuality.” It’s obvious Tarantino’s saying something about the strength of story and film, and he does so in a way that doesn’t let you ignore it, even if it means you hate it.

And it’s certainly conceivable that one could hate it. It’s not a perfect film by any stretch of the imagination.  The “basterds” at times, seem almost an afterthought, as Tarantino delves deeper into other stories. I can easuly imagine someone taking umbrage at Tarantino’s revisionism. Hitler is a figure that commands powerful emotions, and to play around with the truth of who he was and how he died is a dangerous plan. Really, I don’t blame anyone for completely dismissing this movie. The only inappropriate reaction to it is ambivalence. Tarantino doesn’t leave us the option. It’s either treasure, or it’s trash.

In Inglorious Basterds, Lt. Aldo Raines goes about his mission without the slightest twinge of misgiving or remorse. Similarly, Tarantino is a filmmaker on a mission, a mission to take us places we’ve never been but, at least in his view, we desperately need to go. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that QT views himself as a sort of Aldo Raines–a plodding, but focused outsider, with both the delicacy and the punch of a prizefighter, storming the barricades of our occupied imaginations and carving his initials in all of us. Perhaps the genius of IB is actually that, whether or not Tarantino actually succeeds in any of this is moot. In the end, it doesn’t matter if it works. because deep down, we all desperately wish it would.

Saturday, Aug. 29 @ 9:30p
Even a day after yesterday afternoon’s meeting, I am exhausted and have mostly done nothing today except read, then finish this book I picked up last Wed.

Awareness of that book came to me via an Amazon.ca email entry into my yahoo.ca mailbox that was so gloriously incongruent that I thought, “Oh WTF! I needed some something offbeat.”

Amazon figured that because I’d bought “The Corporate Blogging Book” (a waste of time – don’t bother) that i might like Undiscovered Gryl and this time they were right. The book was characterized as being “dark” which intrigued me because that’s how some people describe my story writing. How dark could it be? It would be a good gauge for me.

I liked the book – some great lines and I became a driven reader as some of the themes of the main character’s life were present in my family as well. Finished it during a hot bath this afternoon – sad ending, though. In ploughing through it, though, I’ve realized how much I miss reading and made a point to do more of it and, more importantly, how much I miss writing my creative stuff.

“The Meeting” aftermath
After departing from a post-meeting dinner with Mr. Now, I was practically numb with fatigue and couldn’t figure out what to do with what was left of Friday night. That would be all of it since it was only 8 o’clock.

Didn’t want to get high, or drunk, or talk to anyone, or go see a band, or talk on the phone, or smoke a cigarette so I settled for a couple of drinks at a bar, hoping the Argos could demonstrate at least middling competence against Calgary. ‘Got home and my back was in the red zone of pain (tension) plus I had a sore throat – which I still have today, Saturday.

Sore back? What does that mean for someone who’s had surgery? It means it kills! ‘Had to brace myself against the car when I locked it, had to put on shoes while lying on the bed – because it’d locked up. Pain pills? I don’t take them ’cause they do fuck-all and just make me groggy. Most assuredly, I do not feel like moving around so I stayed put.

So, Saturday was spent mostly doing nuthin’ – and I didn’t care about anything – but wrote 1/2 of this post and got some errands done but mostly nuthin’. My back, in as shit shape as it is, determines things….

The Main Event
What was remarkable about it was how much I didn’t say. I kept myself pretty buttoned down and zippered up until the end.

I began by giving an account of what had transpired thus far, where “we” were, where we were going, what was left to do, yadda-yadda-yadda. Mr. Now than began his dissertation, bolstered by a top notch PowerPoint presentation which was about the best I’d ever seen. None of that fading-in bullshit or rotating points crap, but instead some great effects and high-art presentation effects such as posed questions, comparisons between “our” site and others that offer similar services, nicer, friendlier colours, and so on.

His verbal presentation was part commentary, part blunt force trauma questions based on gun metal logic, but without any humiliation or the power moves so prevalent in lesser skilled practitioners.

During one of Mr. Now’s early monologues, a part of me left my body and imagined itself baking on a striped blacktop highway in the desert region of California where the air was still and hot and all i could feel was a radiant sun enveloping me in its oven-like grasp.

Minutes passed and soon the vacationing part of me re-joined its physical casing only to be braced by the subject matter now up for discussion: the training videos. They were too long, unneeded, a waste of a month, etc. Gracefully and unobtrusively, I excused myself for the washroom as I just couldn’t bear to here this all over again. ‘Got back in time to hear Mr. Client say he’d take them down (off the site). OMG: Finally!

The Other Side of the Coin
Something else came up and the fellow went for a bobsled run of his own. As he spoke, I realized that he was making a kind of ’sense’ but he hadn’t asked anyone in the outside world for their opinion – and didn’t want it either. I knew that first hand. He actually “thought” that “people were talking about it” but that was a Fantastic Four ‘reach.’

Today, if you are not front and center with value that is a demonstrated, people forget, then ignore you, especially if this is what you’re claiming.

Mr. Now then began vigorously impugning (nice word, he? Miss Dictionary would be proud) it means “challenging”) him for not following my directives, advice, and ideas as he proceeded further into what he wanted to cover. And we got into everything, just as we had discussed beforehand; nothing was left to chance. The project could still be saved but major surgery was needed.

Nap Time Helps Out
An unscheduled nap on my living room floor on Saturday night enabled me to write this post but I skipped a party that was an hour’s drive away where I’d had a drab time last time I went. That was when i was given a turn on Rock Band as vocalist and overpowered the dullards in attendance with a stirring rendition – only the first 2-3 lines – of Mountain’s Mississippi Queen:

I have the pipes when I want them but these sheltered souls communicated, not so subtlety, that they were quite happy, overjoyed really, with the mediocrity that was formerly in front of the mic. In general, I do not get along with what I call “mellow roast” people. They make me sick.

Back to the Meeting
Mr. Shaw continued his masterful point-counterpoint, plain talking ‘here’s what I think’ comments, asked for the client’s views, then mine on a couple of things and, to cut to the chase, a lots of defensive postures and mind changing was going on. The site, for one thing, would now be taken down for good which is what I told the guy to do 2 months ago because it was incomplete. But he was stubborn and refused passively. “Ok, says burger maker Harvey’s, “Have it your way!”

‘Turns out we were all operating on a massive set of different assumptions: his and mine and on all fronts. This fellow had managed big projects before but they weren’t salesy ones; they were tech ones which are totally different. So the entire process, thus far, had been driven by non-street, web/customer priorities.

Mr. Now recommended I be placed in charge from this point forward – which made sense but it had to come from the mouth of someone else and Mr. Now was an excellent choice because, as I later found out, he’d spent time in both sales and marketing positions and our knowledge bases were comparable.

Just then, the programmer-that-I-don’t-know-wtf-he-is-up-to-and-have-never-known popped in to tell us an engaging story about electrical interfaces. This guy could very well be constructed from silicon and he is one dull mf. Mr. Client went into autopilot and it instantly became clear how this project had gotten so lost. They were like two little gerbils rolling about in wood shavings, all giddy about what the software could now do – which meant diddley to anyone outside their auras.

My turn
I said my piece, raising my voice only once (said Mr. Now) but making about 5 points: 1) The concept, as it was, was un-sale-able, and I wouldn’t even try, 2) He could never present again as 3 people took me out in the hall after his hour-long prep talk to tell me that, 3) I’d given up 3 weeks ago and lost all belief, 4) My rep was flapping in the breeze because there’s been no contact with people for a month, & 5) …..I can’t remember. Maybe that right now, the project was a dead duck.

However, I “still thought his idea was about the best I’d ever heard of – and that remains true – and that’s why I was still involved and I think it’s very important that it happen.”

He confided in me that maybe I “probably wanted to beat him up” but I let it go (knowing I had far more sinister tortures in mind) and said that we should “move on,” which was true. Again.

So, this is where it stands. It’s proposal time and the chance to really do this thing the way it can be done, make history, provide mega-value, generate mucho denaro, become famous and who knows what else.

I will now take another hot bath and try – again – to do some stretching and back exercises as this is the only way I’m going to get back to where I was this time last year: total health and vitality.

I’m tall, dark…and the other thing?

- all of the above, 29, los angeles

You so lucky to have me

So on the blogosphere, here’s how it typiclly works: Jackass blogger who’s as qualified to write about relationships as Osama Bin Ladin is to teach a tolerance seminar spouts off ad infinetum about what the other gender is doing wrong. Blogger throws out incindiary insults in order to get mad comments and eventually be nominated for a Black Weblogs award. Commentors respond with vitriol and anger and get into fights amongst themselves. Usually, their comments begin as such:

“Wait just a second. I’m a good black woman and….”

“This is the realest post I ever read. As one of the few good black men….”

But let’s reel this thing in for a second. What exactly do you mean by a “good black person?” And isn’t the underlying tone that the rest of the blacks are “bad.” What is it that separates you from your lazy, heathenish brethren and makes you such a catch? I specifically ask this because I often wonder, if you’re so “good”, why is it that you’re so single and yet members of your gender who you view as your inferior are booed up?

“I want to express my anger and frustration as a man with the women I feel are miseducated, misinformed, and ill-prepared about their responsibilities in getting and maintaining a relationship with a man of quality,”

says Dante Moore, author of the book, “The Re-Education of the Female.”

You can tell I'm a good man from the soft lighting and my unbuttoned shirt

“James,” is tired of women taking him for his money.  He claims he can’t find a good woman to save his life.  He b*tches and moans about how the women he dates are worthless and laments about how he could never wife any of the women ends up stumbling over.  However, James is frequently heard saying the following statements:  “I am a young and powerful professional,  I have a house, like 2 cars, I went to an Ivy League school, I have two degrees, I make like 6 figures……etc etc etc.  James is frequently heard spewing all of his resume stats somewhere during his first time meeting a new woman.  To me, it sounds like the teacher and Peppermint Patty….wooowaaawaawaaa.   James acts like he is Prince Hakim and the royal rose petal throwers from Zamunda are supposed to monitor his every move and also keep stacks of his resumes on hand to staple to his forehead  and to slap random women with his wallet upon his entrance into a room.

From our friends at P.O.S.H.

“I KNOW I am a good woman and a great catch, if I do say so myself.  No, I don’t go around qoting my stats or throwing my good woman weight around, but I know my parents raised me right and I am an asset.  Most of my friends share my qualities because you surround yourself with people you aspire to be like or who have like goals and ambitions.

I am a Christian woman, a well educated attorney, and I am  on my ish daily handling my business.  I can throw down in the kitchen, organize a dinner party in minutes, attend a Sorority or Links function, and swing a mean hammer around the house.  I listen well, communicate my issues, and try to not let my take charge personality strip a man of his hunt and gather mentality.  I understand the principle of a man running a household, which makes me a little old fashioned in my beliefs.   Which is why I said asset ladies.  ( I know I will get a few hate comments off that one).  So why are so many good women like myself single?  Because men are too caught up in their own issues and miss out.”

Men Run and Choose Lesser Candidates Because Its Easy – no matter how you swing it, only strong men are not intimimdated by a good woman who has her shit together.  If I had a dollar for everytime some man told me he felt like he couldn’t match my hustle, I could help with the bailout myself.  Men say they want a woman who cooks, is a mini mogul herself blah blah blah…but when it comes down to it, the Girl at the Gap and the one who can’t cook are easily disposed of.  Its so much harder to throw away a quality candidate…so instead men run from the qualified and languish in the land of easy and free cheeks.”

Also from P.O.S.H.

See the view? That means I'm gooder than them ground floor hoes you deal with.

So we’re all these great people, so much better than the riff-raff and filth who run around in relationships. So what gives? Are we having trouble communicating our hotness to other folks. Is our sales and PR staff just out to lunch? I mean why else wouldn’t people be lining up to court and sleep with us if we’re as much the shit as we say we are? Or is this just a case of Grade Inflation, like I talked about a couple weeks ago? Are the things we claim make us such a great catch really not that hot? Are we selling seatwarmers to Saudi Arabians? You tell me.

I have spent every day of this summer eagerly refreshing my in-box to see if the results of my master’s dissertation had come in. And still nothing. Now the reason for my impatience isn’t that I am eager to see the fruits of my labour or am excited to progress up the career ladder. At this stage I’ve all but forgotten what the dissertation was even about. The real reason I am looking forward to it is that I can then demand everyone to call me Master. And demand I will!

To distract I have busied myself not only with being horribly sick but also with lots of chores I’ve been putting off.  Top on the list was to begin making arrangements for my big trip in January. So in a fit of productivity I contacted a rental agency to enquire how one went about renting out their beloved Manhattan-Style Loft Apartment. Before I knew what was happening a representative had come round to view the place and take photos. A couple of days later I had a lady come by who had seen the ad and was very interested. She loved the place and yesterday contracts were signed. She moves in on the 1st of December. 

Sitting at home last night I was ridiculously pleased with myself that everything had gone so smoothly – if only everything was quite so easy. And then a shiver went up my spine as I realised I would be a landlord! After a long history of being a tenant I would now be a landlord. Scary!

And then an even more incredible thought erupted – to hell with Master, I can now insist that everyone calls me Lord!

Doing much better than when i last checked in.  finished my draft of The Play That Was Lost yesterday at an airport terminal – again. (incidentally wondering if The Play That Was Lost is a better title than the one I’m currently working with.)

fuck yes

there are few good feelings like the exhilaration of finishing a draft of a play but this time i feel tremendous relief to be moving on to other projects – some short form, completing that screenplay, etc.. And although i have little justification for feeling this way, i’ve been scolding myself for months for taking too long and doing too much work on what is essentially a first draft. my gut is telling me that i must have done something wrong to be trudging along in the mud and obsessing over and incessantly tweaking this silly draft in a way i’ve never obsessed or tweaked before.

Am i being a little mean to myself?  To expand on some themes Chiara touched on in her last post…  How can a young writer ever measure how successfully they are doing their job? by the number of completed works? by hours spent plugging away? cups of coffee consumed? What?

as unanswerable a question as this should be, there are always those with strong opinions indeed:

when you are a writer first learning your craft, there is never a shortage of people available to give you some advice on the topic of productivity:  you should get up early. you should set goals. you should let it happen naturally.  you should write in solitude.  you should write in cafés. you should take criticism.  you should listen to your own voice. you should not worry if you’re not producing work.  if you aren’t writing every day you aren’t a writer at all.

Mario Fratti, badass playwright

while at NYU, i had the good fortune to meet Mario Fratti – a playwright who was a guest speaker in my renaissance drama class.  he was pro-structure, pro-discipline, pro-craft and big into the de-mystification of the writing process – no “muses” no mysterious natural “voice”, just hard work and craft. And if I really needed more proof that this guy had it all figured out, the gentleman is a master of productivity. according to his website, Fratti has written nearly 70 plays and his work has been produced in over 600 theaters. what the fuck.

the time i had to question Mr. Fratti on his incredible success was sadly limited. I squeaked in just one question: “Mr. Fratti,” I asked. “You must work on multiple plays at once, am I correct?”

“Never,” he said.

Never?! You gotta be kidding me, sir! Like many college students it was in my very nature to be a multi-tasker.  How could such an extreme level of focus be possible by a mere mortal…? But this was Mario Fratti talking. Mario Fratti, my newly adopted Hero of Playwriting. It had to be true.  The only conclusion to be made was that I was on the wrong track and I needed to seriously rethink my process if I was ever going to amount to anything at all.

Three years later I am not yet the Perfect Playwriting Machine – and I’m afraid I’ve even let other more loosey-goosey, hippy-dippy writing philosophies infiltrate my otherwise robotic mind.  Sometimes… I even let writing happen all on its own.

I figure probably 95 per cent of why I have been discouraged with my progress on this piece has nothing to do with not feeling productive – but rather that I am disturbed that this piece has been the sole, primary focus of my heart and mind for nearly a year.  Where does that come from?  I got the idea somewhere along the line that as a young person I should be a certain kind of writer. I have the enormous expectation of having dozens of projects, one after the other… simultaneously — dozens and dozens of projects until damn, you can’t believe I’ve got so many projects because really – that’s a lot of projects. But this year – my first year out in the real world as a real writer – that just hasn’t been the case.

If I can put forth my own self-serving platitude for the ermging writer, I believe that the most difficult thing that (s)he will have to learn is when to stop listening to all the damn advice about what a writer is supposed to be – and just allow his/herself to be a writer of whatever kind that works.

There are days when cycling suddenly becomes effortless: flying up hills that you could only previously crawl up, speeding along in the biggest gear. You think, in your vanity, that it is you – your new exercise regime, your newly trim figure, your increasing fitness. Or perhaps it is your shiny new bike, or even this piece of freshly laid shiny new road before you. Whatever it might be, you wing along with a song in your heart, faster and further than you have ever gone before.

And then you turn around to go home, and discover that it was, in fact, a tail wind.

I’m a professional existentialist who maintains a mantra of, “remain optimistically pessimistic”. I very well may be the coolest nerd you’ve ever met.

- deeply shallow, 28, los angeles

The first thing you need to know about me is that I’m more than just a piece of meat.

- little winky fat face, 26, culver city

Even in their most lucid moments wingnuts are not, as a rule, very reality-centered;  but when it comes to their SaWah, they devolve from merely delusional to demonstrably batshit insane.  For a prime example, look no further than Freepsville.

Following her weird and incoherent press conference Friday, there’s been much speculation as to why Palin’s bailin’.  Here’s one Freeper’s read –  it was a Battle Cry, a Declaration of War.  AIIEEEEEE! (emphasis laughingly added):

Sarah Palin just made a covert Declaration Of War
n/a | 7/3/09 | Ron C

Posted on Fri Jul 3 21:02:00 2009 by Ron C.

Ever notice? When she’s angry, she starts talking a little faster, her eyes lids narrow a tad, and she talks through lips that are a bit closer together – and that faint frown of hers becomes almost permanent, yet a smile remains. She displayed all of those signs today. She didn’t say it in so many words, but if I don’t miss my bet, Sarah Palin just declared all-out war on the left – and believe me, she can wage that war like no other – as has been well demonstrated.

No, she’s not about to run off into seclusion – no, she isn’t tired of politics – and most definitely she isn’t going to join some third-party. This lady is a well-known fighter. She will gather resources, do research, write a book, and enlist an army to fight with her. When that army attacks, squish-GOP kooks and Democrats alike will run in fear, try to hide and cry for help from presstitutes and leftist media whores.

There are many on the right that think that Sarah Palin should go quietly off into the Alaskan outback to fish for salmon. Sorry about that – she will quite likely remain an Alaskan, and yes she’ll do a lot of fishing – a lot of it the political kind, and she’ll skin her political prey, barbeque and roast them – then serve them up for ridicule.

We’ve not seen the last of her – nor have those on the commie-left – all of us have only seen the beginning.

So sit back and wait – many of us will likely get a draft notice in the not distant future.

We have a population intent on fighting back hard – against criminal government, and its betrayal of America. The call to battle began weeks ago, and today as millions join in a revolution already well underway – an accomplish fighter just declared her intention to lead – full time.

Just my 2 cents…

I’m afraid 2 cents is several orders of magnitude more than that particular slice of wingnut wisdom is worth.  (Unless it’s satire, in which case:  Well done!)

(via Pam’s House Blend)

]]> http://madameaddams.wordpress.com/2009/07/01/album-review-delusions-of-grandeur-jonny-mernagh-2007/ Wed, 01 Jul 2009 20:05:00 +0000 Michelle http://madameaddams.wordpress.com/2009/07/01/album-review-delusions-of-grandeur-jonny-mernagh-2007/

It is rare nowadays that a musician exhibits the potential for good lyricism through the vernacular. Welshman, Jonny Mernagh, manages to do just this in his debut effort ‘Delusions of Grandeur’. The album displays an nice acoustic blend akin to the sounds of the late 1960’s tradition of rock. There are inflections of jazz and blues throughout the album’s tone as well as a nod to the style of rock in the early 90’s .

As an opening track, ‘No Man’s Land’ creates a lasting impression of what is to follow on the album. The musical composition seems nicely-thought out and creates a subtle background for the lyrics. The track has a propensity to convey the notion of searching for answers within an emotional haze of confusion and loss. This idea reappears throughout the ten track listing in various facets. ‘Colours of Autumn’ introduces the visual and colourful side of ‘Delusions of Grandeur’. Reflective and self-aware, the song is both despondent yet hopeful especially in the mentioning of ‘the endless autumn air’.

‘Maybe I’d Miss You’ allows for a certain aptitude with the vernacular to come to the forefront. The next offering ‘Hooked On You’ is perhaps one of the most promising tracks on the album. With it’s light, joyful tone it is both easy-listening and catchy. Musically, the arrangement is reminiscent of early 90’s rock. The most notable quality of this track are the vocals. Although unique, the raw, gravel-esque tones connote inflections of a young Kelly Jones. This quality is also heard in ‘Hold That Smile’. The repetition of the lyric ‘as long as I’ve got self-belief/I will just survive’ creates a despondence that is lifted towards the end of the song, particularly in the title. A liberated aura surrounds the track, especially in the closing line ‘hold that smile forever’.

The theme of visualisation within the album continues with ‘Another Broken Heart’. The track highlights the influence of colour and art on Mernagh’s work. Alluding to various professions and humanities, the track emits a clear adoration on the artist’s part for his craft. Following on from this is the appropriately named ‘Shades of Green’. This track is rather interesting for its use of a specific colour, particularly an earth colour and one traditionally linked with envy. The mention of ‘the fountain/beyond the wishing-well’ implies an allusion to the search for luck and contentment. Similarly, ‘Shine On’ is visually thought provoking. The guitar riff is simple yet contributes aptly to the vocals. Here, Mernagh forges his easy articulation as something of a trademark. The song becomes slightly dizzying towards the very end – one gets the feeling that this was the desired effect – and creates a sense of strength that emanates from the track.

A highlight of the album is ‘Lost’, a track that hearkens back to a long-lost era of classic songwriting. Musically, the tone is soothingly listenable. The album closes with the track ‘Farewell’ a nicely honed ode to the cessation of life and it’s hurdles.

To say that ‘Delusions of Grandeur’ sounds like anyone else would be a misrepresentation. Instead, it is a new and intriguing sound. Mernagh’s voice is infused with a rawness that is counteraacted by an underlying softer tone. The occasional strains of a latter-day John Lennon to be heard within his vocals are quite promising. As a debut album, ‘Delusions of Grandeur’ is impressive for its harmonious structure as well as the multi-faceted lyricism that is omnipresent.

Overall, it is clear that this is an artist who loves his craft and has contributed a quality to it. ‘Delusions of Grandeur’ is a fine achievement and casts a challenge for Mernagh’s next offering ‘The Hour Glass’.