i think i'm a mother

this week on battlestar galactica, president roslin outlawed abortion. part of her decision was purely political. the other part was a misguided impulse to save every human life possible, in order to ensure the survival of humanity. yet in so doing she has sanctioned treating half the population as less than human, thereby eroding some of the very humanity she seeks to preserve.

we're supposed to be caught up in the drama that roslin has always been pro-choice, and it's such a hard decision for her to make. like, she is suffering by sacrificing her beliefs for the greater good. (there's that idea again.) but mostly she is capitulating to the demands of one of the 12 tribes, the gemenon, who are devoutly religious and some might say fanatical. they don't believe in abortion (which, until roslin's order, remained legal, as it was before the 12 colonies were decimated by the cylons.) the gemenon also believe the president is a prophet. in other words, they are a big part of her base. that is, until she decides to grant asylum to a young citizen of gemini who sought an abortion on the galactica. roslin at that point feels it's the girl's right to choose her destiny. then dr. baltar reports, when asked, that humanity will be extinct in 18 years at their present rate of reproduction. and also adm. adama reminds her of something she said a while ago, that if humans are to survive they'd better start having babies. next thing you know, women's right to choose is being "justifiably" terminated.

at first this episode really pissed me off, b/c ... duh. fuck that shit. this is just more fascist bull. roslin is too quick to whip out the unilateral edict. there are options. why not encourage reproduction? including asking pregnant women seeking an abortion to at least consider carrying it to term? make it easy for women who don't want to raise a child to give it up to someone who does? i mean, i personally do not wish to birth nor nurture a child. but if the fate of humanity hung in the balance, i could probably squeeze one out. especially if someone else raised it. she issues this proclamation b/c ... they don't have time to at least try other, less draconian methods of increasing the birth rate? drastic measures are called for? society hangs in the balance? hmmm. what sort of healthy society is it gonna be where some measure of the women are forced to give birth? (not to mention, how many doctors can there be in the fleet? she's going to put them in jail if they perform an abortion? it's just stupidly short-sighted. i mean, lock up too many doctors and humanity might not even make it 18 years, fer fucksake.) and what's to stop "progress" from dictating that the next logical step is to force all women to give birth as much as possible?

besides. i'm no scientist, but there are just under 60,000 human survivors, total. even assuming the women are all of childbearing age -- and some of them must be past that ability, i think humanity is doomed no matter what. it's not enough people to repopulate the species. forcing all pregnant women to give birth isn't gonna help that much. consider cloning, people.

was also pissed b/c this episode caused me to agree with baltar, who of course used the moment that the president announced the abortion ban to publicly oppose her decision and announce his own candidacy for president. i don't relish being in agreeance with humanity's betrayer, and i also don't like the implications brought up by baltar being the voice of what most of us would call reason. i mean, what is being said here? that when the chips are down, women actually are just incubators? huh. how ... ironic that a female cylon -- that race that reveres life soooo much it had to try to destroy all homo sapiens -- tells adama that maybe humans don't deserve to survive, while a female human -- that race that reveres life soooo much it created sentient robot servants -- adds evidence to that very theory.

but perhaps a bigger pissoff is, roslin's action makes a certain lot of no sense, at least characterwise. here is the president, who has insisted on preserving the democratic process, having the representative government that they had before the cylon massacre, keeping intact all the laws they used to have. she is even preparing to run for re-election. sure, she's shown an unwavering ability to do what must be done and to sacrifice what needs to be sacrificed, but now she suddenly outlaws abortion without even considering interim measures? and she changes her mind b/c some man shows her the light? gimme a frakkin' break.

and from this viewer's POV, it also bugs that -- on a show where the women so often are driving the action -- suddenly, with this singularly female issue, the drama revolves around what the men do and say. first, there's dr. cottle, the irascible, chain-smoking ship's doctor who's quietly helping out girls in need. he's the one who puts the asylum bug in the gemenon girl's ear, kicking the controversy into motion. and there's adama, who i am going to guess is opposed to abortion anyway, telling roslin to remember the babies. and there is baltar, whose disquieting statistic seems to point roslin down the pro-life path.

eh, but i don't think this is really about abortion. controversial though it shall surely be -- both inside and outside the world of the show -- the abortion thing is sort of a red herring. it pushes a button, sure. but i am thinking it's not so much meant to cause us to waste time on hypothetical debate about our world -- "so, what if the existence of humanity hung in the balance? would it be ok to outlaw abortion then?" "no." "selfish bitch!" -- as it is a means to demonstrate one of the show's favorite ideas: the lies people will believe, and that people in power will tell (even to themselves), in pursuit of the illusory safety and security. (although i do also think the writers delight, sometimes maddeningly, in twisting up our own real-life scenarios to create drama that leaves us questioning our worldview ... more on that later.)

that is, roslin's decision is not reasonable. it is reactionary, arrogant, and fueled by fear, not to mention a need to please both her press secretary and her base. sound familiar? in fact, roslin is like bush in some interesting ways: she is stubborn, she is a true believer, and she is, though not a total leadership novice, not fully prepared to be a crisis president. yet, she is a liberal, and more sympathetic than bush in other ways as well. yet II, she is capable of making breathtakingly bad decisions. and i do not think it coincidental that this same episode revolves around another rash, arrogant -- and disastrous -- decision made by another leader, the commander of the other battlestar, pegasus.

indeed, i don't think roslin's decision is meant to be reasonable, even in the context of the show. will it even make much difference, as noted above? other than alienating her from certain factions, even the mainstream, while keeping her base support? but, again, although it serves its dramatic purpose somewhat spectacularly, the decision she makes is part of the show's recurring desperate-times/desperate-measures theme. we are constantly reminded that humans have a very limited experience with near-extinction -- a condition it has visited upon an alarming number of other species. (hee. it's almost funny, if you think about it. we do not deal well with our own demise. well, who would?)

still, miz prez's edict calls into question the strength of one's convictions in the face of extreme conditions. now, one might face that test and end up like watchmen's rorshach -- blown to cosmic bits by dr. manhattan, b/c he simply couldn't not tell the world the truth, even though he knew the personal consequences for trying to (e.g., oblivion). but rorshach was one lone lunatic; president roslin is responsible for whatever ragtag remnants of humanity are left. (hmmm ... is there that much of a difference?) i suppose it is right that she should question her beliefs, if they seem to contradict her charges' chances for survival.

i've pondered all this so much, my head's beginning to hurt. (so i guess i can say i'm not pissed off at the show, b/c it made me think very deeply.) i even began to opine that maybe it is not right to claim one's right to choose, when the alternative actually might be humanity's demise. (big flaw in that thinking is that i don't actually think humans should perpetuate.) but today i read something in the l.a. times' sunday magazine, now called west (whatever), that made me think, no. the right to bodily integrity is an inalienable one. it has to be. otherwise, we are not fully human. no one is.

in this feature called "rearview mirror," looking back at past events, today we had photographer ansel adams commenting on the california internment camps for japanese americans in WWII. he photographed manzanar. (it was 64 years ago this week that president roosevelt signed the order, as the mag reports, "'against espionage and against sabotage.'") and adams wrote:

"what is the true enemy the democratic peoples are fighting? collectively, the enemy is every nation and every individual of predatory instincts and actions. we fight to assure a cooperative civilization in opposition to the predatory nazis-fascist-militarist methods and ideologies of government. we must prosecute this war with all the ruthless efficiency, stern realism, and clarity of purpose that is at our command. we must not compromise or appease. ...

"we must be certain that, as the rights of the individual are the most sacred elements of our society, we will not allow passion, vengeance, hatred, and racial antagonism to cloud the principles of universal justice and mercy."

is forced pregnancy -- even for the greater good -- a predatory action? i say yes. does it deny the rights of the individual? yes, of course; it's slavery. it is preying on a woman's reproductive capacity, denying her bodily integrity, not only reducing her to a mere vessel but also, particularly in this scenario, treating her as someone who cannot be trusted to make the right decision on her own (so like the anti-choicers in our world), despite the fact that these dire circumstances would be likely, though admittedly not certain, to create in many women a sense that it is their duty to reproduce. but roslin doesn't allow anyone -- other than herself -- to come to that realization. she could be gathering the leaders of the colonies together and working out a way to create the most kid-friendly society in the entire universe. instead, she clamps down with an oppressive, likely useless, law. huh. perhaps caprica boomer is right. maybe we don't deserve to survive.

devils & dust

i do not much care for bruce springsteen. never have. back where i grew up, he is worshipped as a god. one of my own sisters absolutely adores him. but i've just never bought his whole nobility-of-the-working-man shtick. (i'm more a "salt of the earth" gal, myself.) it seems kind of affected. plus, i don't dig his songs or his voice.

all of that said, bruce springsteen pretty much singlehandedly redeemed the music business's annual orgy of self-congratulation (i.e., the grammy awards) last night, not with some glitzy, overwrought production number, but with a simple, passionate solo performance of his tune "devils & dust." at first i was grudgingly paying attention -- yeah, yeah, sober, images of war, lonely vigilance, blah blah -- but then came the chorus:

i got god on my side
i'm just trying to survive
what if what you do to survive
kills the things you love
fear's a powerful thing
it can turn your heart black you can trust
it'll take your god-filled soul
and fill it with devils and dust

now, that's a sentiment for our times, if ever there was one. rather more resonant than, perhaps, "i ain't sayin' she's a gold digga/but she ain't messin' with no broke nigga." (and how come they can't say "nigga" on the grammys, but they can say "ho"? oh, wait -- i know why: BECAUSE BITCHES DON'T MATTER!)

anyway, springsteen sang on, a light in shadow, the imagery of his words coalescing into visions of blood drying on battlefields and mud and bones and dreams and triggers and faith. at the end, he croaked "bring 'em home!" and then disappeared into the darkness behind his spotlight. he needn't have said that -- the message was already clear, not to mention more subtle and universal, and therefore enduring, than any mere slogan.

as for the rest of the grammys. forget the seahawks -- kanye west wuz robbed! admittedly, i truly despite boner. i hate his stupid goggles and his stupid cowboy hat and his stupid sense of self-righteous weenie-ness. but i never hate him more than when he is actually speaking. what he said about the effects of his dad's death, after they won, uh, song of the year, i think, was ok. but his smarmy patter when they won album of the year (for a collection i thought was, like, three years old, but that's just 'cause all u2 sounds basically the same, except for their good singles, of which there are many, and even they often sound alike) -- blathering on about how kanye's day would come, metaphorically smooching gwen stefani's ass (actually rather less nauseating than the picture of him worshipping her pregnant belly, ew!), kowtowing to mccartney, and blah blah blah, oh-we're-not-WORTHY! ugh. just fucking thank god already and get off the damn stage, ya poseur.

other moments of ignominy: alicia keys harmonizing with stevie wonder, in the wrong key; xtina's horrid overwrought turn as, apparently, a lounge singer at the ramada inn by the freeway (a real shame, since the girl has vocal talent; but she needs someone to teach her how to sing); the "uh-huh, uh-huhs" added by (i think) jay-z (or maybe the linkin park guy) in between the lines as mccartney sang "yesterday" (ooo, yeah, that really added sumthin'!); and, shame of shames, the pathetically truncated "tribute" to new orleans that segued from actual nola classic "yes we can can" into, inexplicably, sam cooke singing "in the midnight hour" -- neither of which has anything to do with new orleans! i mean, grammy honcho neil portnow gets up there and delivers an actual heartfelt speech about the tragedy and how we need to support mardi gras and yada yada, and then the official grammy love shown to the city's music lasts maybe two minutes, b/c they apparently wanted to piggyback a tribute to the late wilson pickett on the same number? ugh.

and the sly stone appearance was just weird ... as expected, i suppose. i mean, he just kind of walked away in the middle of his number, leaving a stageful of modern-day pop heroes going, "how do we end this?" ironically, it probably went better than they'd hoped. gonna take you higher, indeed.

synchronicity

earlier this week i was driving up the canyon at night, and i smelled that heady smell of jasmine. actually, i think i smelled it before that -- one weekend evening while taking out the recyclables. it is a promise of spring. anyway, it seemed strong for this time of year, but it's been so warm lately.

earlier tonight i was driving away from ucla, following my annual guest speaking at a friend's pr class at ucla extension. i took hilgard to sunset, and traveling north to sunset i smelled that lovely fragrance again, an almost overwhelming power. i had put the top down, so the very air was suffused with perfume. above me was a starfield, diamond-studded obsidian, and the warm yellow light of the half-disc moon. i reveled in how well the beast handled the street's curves, with their sweet steep cants, gliding through that magical stretch of boulevard and on into west hollywood -- where everything stopped dead and i had to take the long way 'round. pre-grammy parties? must be something making the strip that clogged on a tuesday night.

earlier today i was grasping to articulate to 00soul a sensation i'd been having, a feeling of being asked to be compliant with bad orders, bad data, bad intelligence -- just because. because someone of alleged authority said so. yet we are bombarded with messages to protect our privacy and guard against identity theft and other info-stealing scourges -- at the very same time institutions demand information from us and expect us to acquiesce without question. this very afternoon i had been expected to give up personal information for no logical reason, because it's just for security purposes. huh. what does that mean? and assorted related questions. after a fair amount of confusing, shifting attempts to rationalize absurd demand -- leading to more questions from moi -- i was informed that i am the "only one" who questions these sorts of requests -- oooo, for shame. TROUBLEMAKER!!!!

earlier tonight i was watching jon stewart, who interviewed torie clarke, author of a book called lipstick on a pig: winning in the no-spin era by someone who knows the game. she worked for the pentagon earlier in the bush administration; i am not sure of much else. frankly, the interview was a bit surreal. she seemed at one point to be saying that we are living in a no-spin zone, which stewart pounced on at hilarious length. then she seemed to be saying that the spin on nsa spying wasn't spin but was, in fact, fact. or maybe i was just stoned. then she seemed to be saying that everyone in the government should report on everything they do at all times, so we have ultimate transparency and everyone better understands how things work. and truthiness prevails, i suppose. er, anyway. at one point jon stewart said to her something along the lines of, this government wants to be able to get all information out of us, freely and at its leisure, but it insists on providing us less info about its doings than ever. whoa. wuzn't i just sayin'?...

earlier, after i asked those questions, it was determined that the data originally demanded weren't necessary after all. a name would suffice. at last, some sense. but i cannot really explain what it is about night-blooming jasmine borne on a wisp of santa ana that makes me think about whispers of fascism in the wind.

loose ends

too much happening and not enough will to comment on it all. i've been spending a lot of time tcb-ing and probably an equal amount of a lot of time staring at my navel. boy, there sure is a lotta lint in there.

the holidays flew by, the last two weeks of december filled with social events and fun. me and the chief went to cinespace and saw this tongue-twisting u.k. rapper called lady sovereign. later in the month, 00soul and i got to see los lobos play their kiko album in its entirety at the house of blues. pretty magical stuff. i had drinks with friends and lunch with an editor, fulfilled family obligations and spent a memorable new year's eve with friends.

last month, penn state won the orange bowl and texas beat usc in the rose bowl, so i couldn't ask for a much better end to the college season. the citybeat gang trooped off one night to the opening of a very '60s-hipster-glitzy new bar called saints & sinners, with my old pal lee joseph spinning. i drank martinis out of bowl-sized glasses and slugged back shot versions of their other specialty drinks. ooo. that wasn't wise, but it sure was fun.

doubtless i am burying the lead, b/c the main thing that happened is i flew to my dad's place in florida and drove back in his '66 mustang convertible, my new car. he's been saying for years it is part of my inheritance, and recently he's been threatening to give it to me early. he's finally made good on those threats, although not for any apparent dire reason. he just bought a newer mustang, and his GF has a brand-new mustang convertible, so the '66 gets passed on early. and so now i gotta sell my old faithful '65 pony convertible and get used to this beast, an almost too-nice car with a pony interior, many bells and whistles, a 302 under the hood, and a dual exhaust that burbles in a pleasingly muscular fashion. i am not complaining, but i've had the '65 for something like, close to ten years. it's practically a part of me, and the yellow beast is still an unfamiliar, if willing, conveyance.

so the trip was basically, drive west on interstate 10. except for when i took i-12 around new orleans instead of driving through it. but i still got the triptiks and maps from AAA, along with guidebooks i didn't really need. a triptik is a detailed layout of your route. you can order them via the auto club's website, which is totally awesome. they come spiral-bound in a pamphlet size, personalized with your name on it (hee), and with tons of foldout pages with detail maps of bigger cities along the route and other useful diagrams. and lots of facts about the areas you're passing through.

and pass through is what i did for most of the 3,800-plus-mile journey. police weren't exactly on my back, but i was still runnin'....

monday...

i left dad's around noon and made it to pensacola the first night, as planned, traveling north on the 75 to the 10. 407 miles in 7 hours. it rained off and on, but no major outbursts; the clouds roiled past both dark and light, and as i drove i could sometimes see patches in the near distance where rain was falling. i saw a lot of semis and a ton of road kill -- mostly possums -- plus hawks soaring overhead. it was humid, and i wished it would rain more to break the stifling air. i played favorites from my ipod through the car's cassette stereo. if the woods and fields and road that passed by could seem pretty generic, certain billboards made it clear this was the bible belt: "there is life before birth" (with a picture of a crying newborn on it) and "evacuation route: head for the cross, turn right." riiiiight. there were a few signs of dissent, including a sign posted outside a house in a community near my dad's: "no war. no empire. no occupation." and i saw an electric car with a bumper sticker that said "proud to be a liberal" wending its way boldly among the semis on the highway.

i crossed the bridge over the blackwater river -- just one of many, many bridges i would cross, as the south is apparently the land of bridges -- around sunset. the bridge was under repair, but thankfully two lanes are open going west, so there wasn't much of a slowdown. support columns holding up nothing rose in silhouette against the red-orange sky. low trees on the shores of the river were shrouded in mist -- gray and forbiddingly gorgeous. just on the other side i found my hotel. i ate dinner in the restaurant alone and gazed contemplatively at the endless string of ruby brake lights heading east on the 10.

tuesday...

in the morning i grabbed some free coffee and a bagel from the hotel's complimentary breakfast lounge. (free breakfast and high-speed wireless internet hookups were all i required, and i got both 'most everywhere.) i was on the 10 in a flash, regretting that i didn't take a picture of this enormous bridge being repaired, but ... there was no place to park. i aimed to be in houston by drive's end, passing through the rest of florida, alabama, mississippi, and louisiana all in one day. this was hurricane-aftermath country, although i missed the devastation done to new orleans b/c i took the 12 to bypass it. but along the way i saw enough broken trees and bent-over freeway billboards and half-reconstructed homes to feel a chill from the storms' ghosts. i had been debating whether to go through new orleans anyway, just to see it. i've never been there. i am glad i didn't go. not sure what the traffic would've been like, but more to the point, what i saw was sobering enough. mainly b/c it took so long to drive through all of the areas that had been hit -- most of the day. the scope of it made the devastation at once vaster and more intimate than what has been shown on tv. it was disquieting to the soul, the longer i passed on and on alongside shattered trees and the like.

yet these woods were still standing, only some of its members had fallen. and i began to think that in a way it was a sign of hope. some still stand. more shall grow up. there were also human signs of solidarity: "we will rebuild our community -- together" was a common slogan.

the doc had asked me where i would cross the mississippi river, and i am honestly not sure where that happened. b/c i was so focused on getting where i was going, i was often not totally aware of what was rolling by. i may have gone under it when i crossed into mississippi in a tunnel. or maybe over it on a bridge in louisiana. (yes, my geography sucks. thank the pennsylvania public school system for that.) that bridge loomed like a giant roller-coaster, big and slow but sorta gut-thrilling.

but the most spectacular bridge was the 18 mile or so one that passes over the swampland of louisiana. man. you just roll along, suspended low above the marshes, seeing a dirt track that runs alongside the pillars and wondering who or what lives in that watery world. it was the first of many times i marveled at the road and the feat of engineering it represented. be pretty damn tough to cross the swamp without it.

my schedule and the road commanded me to keep going. it was just as well, for the car attracted a lot of attention. at a travel stop in alabama, i was leaving the store and a man was coming in. he held the door for me, and i tersely said "thank you." apparently, in alabama, this means "please follow me back to my car and proposition me," b/c when i got back into the beast and looked to my left, the fellow was standing right next to the car. i rolled the window down a little and said, "yeah?" and he said, "you wanna sell that car?" i said, "nope." and then he said, without missing a beat (as if this were the real question all along), "what are my chances of getting you and the car?" oh, fer -- take me now you big hunk!!!!!! fucking hell. "pretty much negative," i growled. he tried to say something else. i rolled up the window and said, "gotta go!" started up the beast and jetted on outta there.

the road was in surprisingly good shape for much of the trip, but it was crap as hell in western louisiana, and construction in beaumont, texas, slowed me down a little. as i traveled through houston in the blessed late-evening darkness that followed a blazing, eyeball-searing orange sunset, a horn honked and i instinctively looked to the right. a guy waved tentatively from the driver's side of some late-model sedan. i looked away.

i did 524 miles in 8 1/2 hours. after a few hours my biceps started burning, but they eventually went numb. a few stretches in the hotel room proved surprisingly effective. good thing. i'm in training for a marathon called tomorrow.

wednesday...

this is it, houston to el paso in one day. that's 763 miles. just for fun, the stereo gave up the ghost in the morning, so i was reduced to listening to my ipod through headphones. i had brought a bunch of CDs to put into the car's CD player, but it wasn't working and i couldn't figure out why. i burned some of them onto my laptop and then transferred them to the ipod, so at least i had more of a selection of new stuff.

i don't remember a lot from this day, other than repeatedly thinking that texas is fucking big. i've been through it before, even on this route, but never alone. even the roadkill is bigger -- mostly deer. i think i went slightly mad for a while somewhere in a hilly desert land full of scrubby bushes and grey rocks, a land of nothing but flat-topped mesas and low pointy hills as far as the eye could see. and the eye could see pretty far. i just remember marveling at the landscape and cackling somewhat uncontrollably for a while.

when you're flying along at 70-75 mph (the speed limit is usually 75) for extended periods of time, it begins to feel like you are standing still. the only sport is keeping track of the trucks and how many times you pass them, and how many times they pass you. you see the same vehicles for so long that it feels like some unspoken convoy. the surreality of it all was compounded by the necessity of playing music through headphones. i had a lot of useful music for this leg of the journey -- cracker, grant lee buffalo, a new album by steve wynn & the miracle 3, plus less obvious stuff like imogen heap's latest, old throwing muses, and my own playlist of recent favorite rock tunes.

but this was an endurance test nonpareil. it was often quite windy, and, although the car is stable as can be, it took a lot of concentration and strength to keep a steady course. the worst part of every day on the road was, unfortunately, the hours before sunset -- usually my favorite time of day -- when the glare was at its worst and there seemed no way to alleviate it, despite sunglasses and hats with brims of different lengths. yet after dark proved more challenging, as the 10 is pretty desolate out that way. it got down to just me and the truckers after awhile, and the odd local resident bombing along in his/her giant pickup truck (a staple of texas living, of course) for a few exits. i had to turn off the heat and the music for the last 40 miles, to stay awake. few signs of civilization could be seen to my right, but away to my left glowed the lights of foreign towns -- mexico.

at last i got to el paso. the trip took me about 12 1/2 hours. too much driving for anyone sane. the wind was blasting when i practically fell out of the car to claim my hotel room. i settled in a little, then staggered across the parking lot to a nearby chain restaurant, where i strong-armed the nice young manager into letting me take the rest of my bottle of wine with me. i devoured a steak and a baked potato and a salad. tipped the waitress and the manager and returned to my room with the wine. it was on the third floor, and from the outside landing i could see the lights of ciudad juarez, city of murdered women.

that night while i watched some permutation of "law & order" (a staple of road cable, along with "roseanne" and "MASH" in the middle of the night), i really had to work out the kinks in my neck and shoulders, and my left arm was developing a shooting pain. but at least i was almost out of texas.

thursday...

i was figuring about 7 hours to phoenix, which would be cake compared to the texas marathon. something like 435 miles, i think. i was planning to arrive with time to have dinner with my cousin mark.

i cheered when i passed into new mexico. it was just as damn windy and desert-desolate, but at least it was a different state. after a while the differences became more apparent. rockier hills and mountain formations. the incredibly awesome place known as texas canyon -- it looks like those vertiginous, impossibly balanced rocks you see in the roadrunner cartoons, except it's real. and lots of billboard exhortations to stop at native american- and cowboy-style tourist traps. "we have toe rings!" "...collectible dolls!" "...boots galore!" "...indian jewelry!" etc.

then it was arizona. and i drove on. navigated the tricky world of phoenix freeways and got into my hotel around 7:30, i think. my cousin came by around 8:30, and we went off to eat mexican food at his favorite local. we are both blessed with the conversation gene that's dominant on my dad's side of the family. so there was no loss for talking, although the conversation jumped around a lot, from family to the state of the union and movies and writing fiction and poetry and on and on. (mark is also a writer.) i am so glad we got to hang out, if only for a little while, and i hope to return soon and meet his wife and have more time with them.

now i was spent. it was all i could do to coordinate plans with the divine ms. m, who had flown to nearby scottsdale on thursday so we could hook up for the last leg of the trip. she couldn't take driving all that way -- too much time, and she really gets nervous around semis. but we cooked up this scheme of meeting in phoenix and then driving to 29 palms to meet our friend cindy and stay the night at the funky-cool 29 palms inn. sort of a girls' night out in the desert, i suppose. i agreed to pick m up the next morning around 11:30.

and so ended the solo-flight portion of my journey.

friday...

the resort where ms. m had scored a cheap room via some internet travel website was lovely, but apparently not as nice as it looked. they charged for the same continental breakfast i'd been getting for free all across this great land. and she said the walls were so thin, she could hear her neighbor making noise all night long. huh. sometimes you don't get what you pay for.

on the way in to find her, i parked in the guest lot and hoped no one would mind. i asked a man who worked there if it would be ok. he said, sure, no problem. then he asked me if i was married. sheesh. and people wonder why we say that men are all the same.

i collected the princess, and off we went. we had to go back across phoenix. got breakfast on the other side. hit the road. made amazing time. i was grateful for the passing gear that let me blaze by the trucks at upwards of 85 mph without a hitch. at least i had the presence of mind not to tell her about the pickup truck i'd seen on the highway in new mexico the day before, marooned in the median on four blown tires, its contents pulverized and blanketing the road like a glittering, dusty carpet. pulled over on the right side of the road had been a semi, obviously involved in the accident. i figured the truck tried to pass the semi, got too close, and either it or the truck whipped slightly in the wind. POOF! instant confetti. it's a wonder the people inside weren't killed.

semis don't make me nervous. i grew up around them. and, i dunno. i'm just not a nervous driver, usually.

we found the highway into joshua tree national park and took that to 29 palms. that was the thing she really wanted to do. the timing was perfect, late afternoon, and we wended our way along the desert road, gawking at the landscape. she read from the little map/pamphlet we picked up at the ranger station. we stopped at one point and took some pictures. it was becoming twilight, so the light was changing. i tried to capture this on film. have no idea if i managed.

we emerged from the park just as it became truly dark. it was only a short way to the inn. cindy was waiting for us in this adorable little shack with two bedrooms and a bathroom, and a porch overlooking the lagoon. complete with a hammock!

this portion of the story has been edited to protect the innocent and the guilty, but suffice to say we had a grand time.

saturday...

and in the morning, with coffee and homemade bread in the little restaurant, we ran into a bunch of people we knew from l.a. man, you really just can't get away from it all sometimes. ms. m told them about the car, so everyone trooped over with their coffee and tea cups to take a look at the yellow beast, which was universally proclaimed awesome.

by this time i was knackered in the extreme. i can't remember ever wanting to get home so badly in recent memory. we'd been thinking of doing some shopping at cabazon, but decided to just get some lunch and head home. i took her to burbank to retrieve her car from the airport. it seemed to take forever to drive the last few miles to my own canyon home at twilight. i hauled in my stuff, shut the door, and sat down.

"well," i said, channeling sam gamgee. "i'm back."

love's so tough

steelers RULE!

fucking RULE!

fuckin' right.

excellent game.

that is all.

richard pryor addresses a tearful nation

sometimes i think i've almost fooled myself
sometimes i think i've almost fooled myself
spreading out my wings
above us like a tree,
laughing now, out loud,
almost like i was free...

comedian richard pryor died on saturday of a heart attack. he had been afflicted with multiple sclerosis for some time. strangely, without any warning of his imminent demise, i had earlier in the week found myself dialing up joe henry's 2003 album scar on the ipod, specifically to listen to the song cited in the title above. i wasn't thinking of richard pryor, who is not named in the song itself (which received pryor's blessing), so much as the poignant, contemplative power of the tune, which usually transports me out of whatever careworn world i've fretted myself into. it incorporates an astonishing saxophone solo by the genius ornette coleman, which flutters and stutters, croons and bleats, crescendos madly and crashes down willy-nilly ... an alternately powerful and plaintive, strangely accurate impression of a life, a spirit, an essence. and if you want to hear it, you can listen here.

...anyway, america mourns. sort of.

we have a lot of mournful things on our minds right now, which doesn't mean richard slipped through the cracks. he almost slipped through our hands already, due to the crack, or really the freebase, which isn't the same thing i guess. in 1980 the man lit himself on fire, literally, but it seems to me that long before that, when he started pushing the boundaries with race and sex and profanity, self-immolation was a near-nightly thing, metaphorically speaking.

the nation had already seen some fire-walking comedians -- lenny bruce, dick gregory. but pryor, although regularly launching himself into allegedly forbidden territory, was also quite comfortably mainstream -- he wrote for tv (even winning an emmy), acted in popular films, hosted the academy awards. i have heard this said a lot of johnny cash lately: "he spoke truth to power," and i think that it is true of pryor too. except maybe even more so, b/c often when he was speaking truth to power he had made them pay for the privilege.

i look at you as the thing i wanted most
you look at me, and it's like you've seen a ghost
i wear the face
of all this has cost:
everything you tried to keep away from me,
everything i took from you and lost
all i took from you and lost...

after he nearly burned himself up in 1980 -- suicide attempt? accident? byproduct of drug psychosis? -- he became the phoenix, resurrected from ashes. using the ashes, in fact, as resurrection, eliciting from the nation the same horror/laughter he had done with social, racial, sexual humor.

lights shine above me, they're like your eyes above the street
lights shine below me, they're like stars beneath my feet
i stood on your shoulders
and i walked on my hands,
you watched me while i tried to fall
you couldn't bear to watch me land
try and land...

sometimes we did not watch. donnell told me that pryor emptied out the laugh factory some night when whatever edge he was walking sliced through him instead of cutting the intended target. but sometimes maybe we stared too hard. it seems like now there's only love for him, but he wasn't universally admired when he was shoving into people's faces the things they didn't dare to -- or want to -- consider about this great land. for the people who were open to his message -- and the anger and sense of injustice behind it -- he was a liberator. for the people who weren't, he was a threat. like lenny bruce, he knew the power of words, and he could deftly play with that power. my impression of him is as fearless, but ... i dunno. did he crave the spotlight above all else, as performers often do, whatever their message or mission? did he then fear the loss of attention, maybe more than censure or disease? huh. now i am speculating wildly.

after his illness became known, i think there was a softening toward pryor b/c of it. almost like he was defanged in a way, still alive but not exactly kicking. a relic of sorts, a known quantity, a predictable presence, someone who still stood for what he stood for but yet -- in a world he had helped create, of williamses and murphys and rocks and hickses and probably even foxworthys -- he had made his "contribution," as it could now safely, euphemistically be called. but he would never again make us squirm and chortle with uncomfortable recognition, challenge us on his feet while we sat on our asses.

take me away, carry me like a dove
take me away, carry me like a dove
love me like you're lying
let me feel you near,
remember me for trying
and excuse me while i disappear
excuse me while i disappear...

dear richard: i still see you. rest in peace, motherfucker.

garden of earthly delights, pt. 2

while i was working on yesterday's entry, a bulletin came in from calendar girl:

If you thought the ground level graffiti was cool, you should see the second floor! tuna, tyler, and the gang really had a paint party there and you know what? not a drop, not a speck of spray paint on the kilgallen and mcgee murals. it was magnificent. there they were, the guerrilla and "commissioned" artwork standing side by side, ready to go down together, sacrificed by the institution that once sought to "legitimize" the genre.

whoa. i gave up this experience to see the colts trounce the steelers? ouch.

anyway, happily, today is another day, and i have now seen the second floor. c.g. rather nailed it, description- and meaning-wise, but it is a sight to see. the chief and i got some coffee at the museum and then took a stroll through the graffiti wonderland. almost every inch of wall space was covered with paintings, wheat-pasted paper works, etc. the small clusters of walls that i assume are part of the garage's support system formed perfect multi-paneled canvases, and each one had a different work on it. we walked in small circles to catch all the sides, while tracing a big circle around the garage to take everything in. one wall had an array of skulls on a black background with the call letters of radio stations past and present written on the foreheads. another, two-paneled spread had a blood-red background bearing the words "phoenix rising" next to a colorful rendering of what looked like a woman with wings. above the "phoenix rising" was scrawled "[someone] rest in peace." one papered tableaux looked like old-fashioned wallpaper, with a pattern of ornate oval frames that each contained an image -- the images seemed familiar, like old photographs from history books, "wild west" era stuff of native peoples being tortured, women hanged, and also portraits. i could've pondered that one for a while.

a totem-pole-like pillar of cartoonish faces peered out from the narrow space next to a doorway. shepard fairey's "obey" and "andre the giant" were present -- an homage? the art was very similar. one piece had andre in a star-shaped thought bubble above another character. some other works signed by "eder" were lurid orange and black -- a big bucket containing dregs of dried orange paint was nearby -- depicting soldier-like silhouettes. (it was hard to see all of these larger items b/c there are still so many cars parked in the garage. you could get a clearer view at night.)

the chief and i toured the ground level, too, passing a couple of young guys who were checking out the handiwork as well. down there i saw a name i'd forgotten last night: the seventh letter (which would be "g" -- not sure if it is supposed to be taken literally). wonder if that is a crew or a person. we came across the museum's official slogan -- "experience the world through art" -- stenciled below one of the larger king tut stencils. it had been altered slightly by one of the artists. gazing at it, i couldn't help wondering if the phantom editor actually was an editor, as the tiny little upside-down carat was so precisely placed between the "through" and the "art," with another word painted neatly just above the slogan: "experience the world through graffiti art."

there were so many paintings, so many tags, so much art, my brain was groaning with pleasure. one of these short walls was totally covered with signatures in blue and black. right this minute, for the next couple of days but no longer, this whole garage is a dazzling riot of controlled anarchy, a wonderfully colorful celebration of walls that had been taken for granted for so long, and will soon be forgotten. but not today.

garden of earthly delights

the parking garage at LACMA is supposed to be torn down on thursday. at least, after then we will not be able to park there anymore, allegedly due to demolition. too bad -- we just reclaimed it from the tourists in the wake of king tut. (which ended nov. 20, and, shamefully, i did not go. i guess i am not an egyptomaniac.) something like 900-thousand-plus visitors went to see that show. yeah, and this summer it felt like every single one of them was in front of me at the parking booth, endlessly paying their $5 while i waited in line to get to work.

today the l.a. times ran an op-ed about how the museum's razing of this very same garage to build a new art palace for eli broad will result in it sacrificing commisioned murals by artists barry mcgee and margaret kilgallen. hmmm, i thought. i don't recall seeing those. they must be on the employee-parking level, which is the level above where i park. after reading tyler green's commentary, i had much to think about, as well as a desire to see the murals before they are destroyed, which they surely shall be. (or moved, which would be nicer and would still mean i wouldn't get to see them if i don't go look soon.)

when i parked in the garage this morning, i noticed something was different about the semi-subterranean space. the usually barren walls and bland beige pillars with their little hieroglyphics stencils were covered with graffiti: everything from tags and witty slogans to full-on art from a can. i gawped about in amazement, then went to work, resolving to check it out at the end of the day when most people (and their cars) had gone home.

i had told calendar girl about the graffiti garden, so we explored it together, first walking down a row of the garage and exclaiming over the tags and comments -- from signatures of "tyler" and "tuna" to stuff like "PICASSO SMOKED THE CUSH" and, more plaintively, "when will they let us in?" -- as well as the more abstract attempts at expression, from a minimal, cartoonish self-portrait (?) to a wide tangle of thick, curving black lines, filled in here and there with shocks of dark pink chalk, that looked like a bougainvillea plant, complete with ants walking on the vines. then we did the proper l.a. thing and hopped into my pony and drove around the lot, starting at one end and coming back up where we began on foot. so many colors -- orange, red, black, blue, green, gold. tons of tags, many elegantly scribbled like something you'd see on the declaration of independence. some art was letters, the big phat puffy ones that are so often associated with graffiti. one set of names had their artists' avatars (perhaps) adjacent to their monikers, both wielding magic markers, standing next to each other and bookended by their work. i wondered if they were friends. nearby, next to a pillar, was a neat arrangement of a half-dozen spent spray cans, silent witnesses to the crime.

eh, i mean that metaphorically. this wasn't a crime. it's a building about to be torn down. it's a playground. it's a canvas. it's a fleeting attraction -- i told c.g. that i felt like we were touring the christmas lights in the fancy neighborhoods, creeping slowly along the slanted floor of the garage, stopping the car to gawk at the more complex renderings, some of which painted over the icons of tut's mask and mummy.

it was kind of amazing that these anonymous artists (well, are they really anonymous? they do leave their signatures), this phantom crew, would still go at their work with such decisiveness and creative force. after all, this will all be lost forever when the garage goes. it is to some a tragedy in the case of the mcgee/kilgallen murals, that these known artists' contributions will be lost (esp. kilgallen, who is deceased and died young). yet others would say that the public-art mural is by nature transient, whether it lasts five years or five days, and not meant to be preserved. that seems logical, but there is still a twinge of regret in letting these works crumble so prematurely into dust.

i told c.g. that i would drop her off at her bus stop, but she wanted to go see the soon-to-be-lamented murals. my head was still full of graffiti (and fixed on catching the second half of the steelers getting pounded by the colts -- sob!), however, so i decided to go on home. i will see the murals, however. after all, tomorrow is another day.

masters of war

there is a rat inside the washing machine. i was about to do some laundry when i saw its naked ratty long black tail come curling out of a little space near the top inside, between the washing basket and the body of the machine. i thought for a split second that it was a piece of rubber peeling away from the rim, until it waved around in the air and then slipped back into the crack. then i did the brave thing and shrieked like a girl.

but what the hell -- these last few days some way bigger rats have drawn some way bigger shrieks out of me. not of girly-fear but of full-on womanly rage. mostly i am no longer surprised by anything the ratpublican chicken hawks say or do, but that doesn't mean i am no longer pissed off about it. and something about the casual, smarmy way these ... people ... smear actual war heroes really makes me boil. like dick cheney vs. john mccain on torture. or like pennsylvania u.s rep. john murtha vs. ... well, a lot of people, everyone from white house press toadie scott mcclellan to secdef don rumsfeld.

i know we are in the all-fear-and-loathing/all-the-time mode, but i reserve the right to sputter that this is out of line. the war pigs and their cowed supporters make a broad caricature of murtha's resolution to congress, and then the self-satisfied squinty-eyed beast crows that no one in congress supports "murtha's resolution." they dare to call someone who stands up for the troops in a real way a coward, while they are the ones who are afraid -- of a real discussion about what are we winning there in iraq. and not this lip service of, it's a free country, so everyone has a right to their opinion, but i think murtha is wrong, next question.

let's talk. no, really talk. c'mon, dubya. c'mon, rummy. c'mon, uncle dick. is the cost worth it? u.s. military deaths in iraq are accelerating. and is the world -- are we -- really safer? how come more and more of the people are not on your side? they were on your side. now they are not. why not? don't you want to know? don't you ever think about? hmmm. i just think you don't want to share your ideas with the rest of us. yeah, we can't handle the truth.

rumsfeld said that murtha's call for immediate troop withdrawal isn't supported by a majority of congress. well, it sucks being ahead of your time. and the fate of the troops is on the minds of a lot of americans. (remember them? the folks you're supposed to be representing?) he and all of these oily administration types always start out with the ol' perfunctory acknowledgement that this is a free country and so it is "proper" for people to raise questions and have views. and then they go on to explain why those views are dangerous and why decent people wouldn't express them for fear of endangering our troops and america's position of strength in the world, especially to the terrorists. merely bringing up the issue of troop withdrawal -- though right and proper -- puts not only the troops' lives in danger but also our own right here at home.

but my favorite part was when rumsfeld scolded murtha et al. that words "have effects"! what, ya mean like the words the bush administration said about iraq having weapons of mass destruction it was about to unleash on us? and how it needed the power to deal with a growing threat the scope of which was only unfolding? yeah, how 'bout them words? what effects did they have?

they say it again and again: honor the troops. but murtha's views do not deserve serious consideration b/c they contradict the shiny happy official picture. so maybe it's ... honor the troops -- unless they speak against you. honor the troops, except those who have seen more than you and disagree with your alleged ability to assess what the military needs. honor the troops, except when disrespect is necessary to keep the country on message.

it's actually a familiar refrain. honor the troops, but don't give them the equipment they need to stay alive. honor the troops, but don't dare to reassess our position and tactics, and whether our troops increasingly are targets due to our (lack of) strategy. if there is a chance to get out of this mess before 30 years go by, we should figure it out. it's like, the light is just over there, and a lot of people have seen it, but yet we're still heading away from it. being led away from it, even. bob dylan said it much better, and more succinctly, than i ever could.

and these masters of war who are leading us not the right way, they call a man like murtha misguided. it is kind of funny that scott mcclellan chose to "smear" the marine vet by linking him to michael moore, but i guess that was the worst he could come up with. ah, faithful scott. again playing the rat, all the better for his travelin' boss to play the reasonable man (or not).

eh, but they are rats to a man; their disease manifests more and more each day. and although my short fuse, my hair trigger, sparks off with every passing outrage committed against the righteous -- many friends and neighbors have fallen victim to rants far more protracted and foamy than this one -- in the long term i revel in the rats' reveal. we just gotta yank them into the light before their naked little tails withdraw back out of sight.

ready steady go

* the paul oakenfold track cited above has gotta be the most overused piece of atmospheric music i've heard in ... a while. it played in the bourne identity, which i just watched on DVD. i recognized it from collateral damage, which is actually a later film. and of course all weekend you could hear it in the saab commercials about how the cars are evolved from jets, or whatev.

* everything's '80s, we know that. which i guess even includes a marketplace reenactment of capitalism's final triumph over communism. this time it's not my erstwhile fellow students ironically donning red-star caps cribbed from surplus sources unknown, but teenybopper-trend-pushing alloy.com, currently selling an olive-drab sweatshirt adorned with the red star. b/c marx is so, like, kewl.

* oh, look. alito doesn't think abortion rights are supported by the constitution. i'm so shocked.

* thanks to the good folks of dover, pennsylvania, for braving god's wrath so might their children be not branded idiots. except, there's already a controversy about the voting machines!

* oh, president bush and his dusty old with-us-agin-us rhetoric! somebody ought to tell him that them talking-points hounds ain't gonna hunt no more. oh, somebody did.

* and, OMG! the FDA might not have fully considered all the facts before denying women easier access to the morning-after pill? that's so hard to believe. after all, issues of women's reproductive health are usually so fairly and judiciously considered in this country.

* keep torture legal! yeah, right. because we rilly, rilly need it to get the bad men to tell us where the bomb is before it blows up our leaders.

* finally, on an upbeat note, turns out that all those ads with twins and other hot chicks pushing beer aren't sexist -- they're simply referencing a more egalitarian time.

red planet rock

is it a coincidence that, at a time when mars has swung closer to earth, suddenly the democrats in congress have gotten downright feisty? it is said that the red planet's proximity intensifies feelings of combativeness, aggression, domination. if so, i say make mars work for us! but even if it's not the result of nearness to our solar-system neighbor, sen. harry reid's maneuver today was quite dramatically striking. he certainly caught the GOP off guard.

"they have no convictions, they have no principles, they have no ideas," huffed senate majority leader bill frist about the dems. hello, bill? reality's calling. those talking points won't hunt no more.

of course, it's about fucking time. still, i love that the dems are actually attempting to control the national spin, and demonstrating that they've found a backbone (at least for the moment). fitzgerald hauls scooter's ass up in a sling, and suddenly all white house attention is focused on the new supreme court nominee. indictment, what indictment? oh, that silly thing. well, after all, libby's indictment was only the first time in 135 years that this has happened to a sitting WH staffer ... nothing to see here, folks. move along, now. (and, anyway, we fired him, ok?) hah.

one by one

seems the entire l.a. media world, and probably the new york one and others elsewhere, is talking about the "merger" of new times inc. and village voice media, announced yesterday. the rumors have been flying for months. speculation rose to a fever pitch with salvos fired at NT by publisher bruce brugmann up at the sf bay guardian. this run-up reminded me quite vividly of 1996, the first time NT came to the city of angels -- first buying the village view, and then the los angeles reader, where i worked for 8 1/2 years, my formative media experience ... the years that ruined me forever in terms of ever being able to work a straight job. (uh, ok, except maybe for that stint at disney.com.)

reading the memo from VVM CEO david schneiderman to the staff of the VVM-owned l.a. weekly (which someone emailed to me last night) and the many links that l.a. observed has been amassing to the different stories about this event, i see this is more of a "takeover" than a merger (which is how the NT described it). first off, that's what most independent observers are calling it. and way down somewhere in this new york times piece is this bit of info:

None of the current investors [in VVM] are exiting as part of the merger, although [new times chairman/CEO] Mr. Larkin said the expectation was that he and his partners would buy out the financial backers in five years.

(btw, that should be "none of the current investors IS exiting," but whatev.)

total control is the goal. sounds a lot more like the voice, the l.a. weekly, et al., will be assimilated into the borg-like hive-mind that is the NT papers.

whatever. there will be tons of speculation about what this all means. my own projection is that they are creating an actual nationwide "alternative" entity; maybe someday in the far-projected future, a chain in which all components in the different cities will be unified under one name. (somehow, i don't think that name will be "village voice," but that's just me.) new times sees itself as an alternative to the dailies, so it makes sense to me that, in order to actually compete with the dailies, it would want to have as much national muscle as possible ... and, eventually, the same kind of name recognition as the new york times or washington post. you can't achieve that if all of your publications have different names.

different accounts have already detailed how the new VVM hopes to provide a more attractive vehicle for national advertisers. and i also wonder if the company will farm out to its smaller papers the better-known and higher-profile writers from the bigger papers (something they did in a limited fashion when they had new times l.a.), at least the ones who will play in their more podunk markets. and probably it will attempt to hang onto any of those writers deemed so valuable by filling their heads with notions of nationwide fame/notoriety in the job they already have. i guess this wouldn't work as well with the regional reporting, like with local news. but it sure could work with national stories, not to mention the arts, especially film, and even music.

the online component is not to be underestimated, either -- i am not sure if anyone can compete with free services like craigslist, but the new VVM seems to be positioning itself to try.

finally, on a purely human level, i feel for the people at the l.a. weekly. the uncertainty of the future alone has to suck, a lot. and it isn't going to be pretty when the final deal is done. also from the new york times story linked above:

[NT executive editor Michael] Lacey lamented that during that period [of waiting for justice dept. review of the deal] he and Mr. Larkin would have to refrain from sharing specific plans with employees at Village Voice Media, a silence that he said would only enhance the perception they are the industry's bogeymen.

huh. my impression was that they actually enjoy being scary. now, obviously, i do not know if michael lacey will go into his first meeting with the weekly staffers in the same unpleasant fashion that he approached the staff of the los angeles reader in the summer of '96. trying to be funny, he said to us after we'd filed dutifully into the conference room, "well, the rumors are true. you've been bought by the evil empire!" our stony faces indicated we didn't find that amusing. things went downhill from there. oh, sure. he talked about how talented we all must be, and blah blah blah. but he was there, in part, to stage a very public execution.

at that time, i was on the second week of the two weeks notice i'd given to go off seeking my fortune at an internet company (that is, being the copy editor for disney.com). i had taken that opportunity because i'd wanted to learn more about this newfangled thing called the world wide web, and i'd already done every job at the reader that i wanted to do or could do in the more than eight years i'd worked there. i worked hard at that paper and helped editor/publisher/owner james vowell bring it back to life when it was drowning in the toilet back in 1988. nearly a decade later, i was ready to move on. but when i'd started searching for another job, i'd had no idea the reader was soon to be marked for death. in fact, i was looking forward to maybe contributing sometimes, and to picking it up every week and seeing how it was doing without me. (it only published one more issue after i left.)

lacey went down the line of us sitting at that conference table, shooting figurative bullets into most of my friends: "we don't have a place for you ... you ... you ... ," he said, pointing his lethal finger at each of my colleagues in turn. he paused at me and said, "and you're out, because you don't want to deal with us." hahahaha!! no, actually, mr. lacey, my departure from the reader had nothing to do with you or your company. i said as much. my clarification was, of course, not welcome. after all, he'd made up his mind. why bother him with the facts? this seemed more or less the NT approach the entire time it was in l.a.: that this non-l.a.-based company somehow knew the l.a. market and the readership better than anyone who had worked in l.a. media, ever. of course, that's why it was so wildly successful the first time.

fried my little brains

the santa anas were blowing so fiercely this afternoon. it was hot. following a bad moment at work, i fled to a bench in the shade of the tower to brood. i took my ipod and played the kills' no wow. ate my lunch and drank a huge iced mocha. the sky beyond the shadow was vivid blue, the sun eye-achingly bright. i sat on the bench where the smokers congregate, facing into the arid wind, sunglasses on to protect my contacts. my hair blew straight back. an acrid smell of cigarette smoke curled into my nostrils now and then. across the street, a huge blue tarp billowed like a loose sail from a building being renovated. caught in the gusts, it flapped up and down, exposing and obscuring the blasted guts between a bland facade.

dark tiles on the concrete made a crossroads pattern directly beneath my feet. the music rattled and rumbled and shimmied, and the wind drove on. my sinuses were desiccated; my brain was starting to dry out. it was not a pleasant sensation, but it felt good. i was in the wind. turning to dust.

but the santa anas, famously, have their diabolical side as well. for fires rage all around the city and beyond. we saw one from the window of the ivory tower, far off to the west. later, another column of smoke rose over the hills nearer to us, somewhat left of the HOLLYWOOD sign. as twilight fell, the sky that had been so incredibly clear yesterday -- a rare and marvelous wonder, and a welcome sight to me upon returning from my two-week u.k. jaunt -- was smeared with brown and purple murk. the basin filled up with it. tonight as i waited for the elevator, i caught a whiff of the smoke, on the 22nd floor. at ground level the smell became stronger. the air was cooler, and the wind had died off. but the odor of incineration only intensified as i headed up the canyon.

now the air is thick with the burning smell. outside the street looks faintly foggy, the canyon blurry. the haze is in my eyes, ears, mouth. my steak tasted of ash. it is not too easy, and even less pleasant, to breathe. it is worse to think of what the smoke means. people are losing their homes, businesses ... animals are losing their habitats and probably their lives. they are in the wind. turning to dust.

cruel summer

call it the natural disaster blues. hurricane katrina nearbly obliterates new orleans. the levees break, as has been predicted and fretted over and argued about for some time now in the funds-wrangling arena, where "what have you done for me lately?" is a far more compelling question than "what will you do if the worst comes to pass?" yet-uncounted thousands die, hundreds of thousands more suffer horribly, needlessly, before the usual government disaster forces are mobilized. does the sluggishness have anything to do with the population of new orleans being 70% black? kanye west shouted it to the world -- righteous! -- george bush doesn't care about black people. but part of me just goes ... yeah, well, of course he doesn't. he doesn't care about anybody except his base and his little power group. and even the ones on the inside are only good as long as they follow along. get out of line and you will be run over or pushed out.

which is not to say that racism wasn't a factor. not at all. but what about class? and other, more sinister motivations that supersede the usual persecutions of other? bush ... he cares so little for the black people, or any of the people, suffering in the aftermath of katrina (not just the ones in NOLA, either), that he thought the occasion really called for a folksy little joke about (a) trent lott losing his house and (b) trent lott getting an even more fabulous new house, where dubya could come visit. way to make the big things small, mr. president.

stuff like this makes me truly believe that, to GW, people are abstractions. he really seems to have no empathy. as though he can't quite grasp that other people are human. i think this inability (or unwillingness) to connect to the populace is also evident in the sense that he continues to believe that saying blatantly false things like "i don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees" and doublespeak-tastic stuff like "i am satisfied with the response, i am not satisfied with all of the results" is really gonna get him and his cronies off the hook. the american people may have fallen for that WMD crap once, but they finally have been more demanding about and critical of iraq. think we're gonna back down when it's our own country going to ruin and disgrace? think all those affected are just gonna go, "oh, well, then -- nobody knew what would happen. well, you did the best you could. thanks for the response." those days are over, at least for now. the weasel is turning, at last.

OTOH, dubya is far from alone in his lack of empathy. survivors in new orleans have been excoriated by everyone from media commentators to average people for not leaving when they were ordered to. ok, sure -- there were bound to be some people who stayed behind by choice. but a lot of them didn't choose to stay. and some who did choose to stay were thinking they could ride it out, like they'd often done before. so, they made the wrong call. i just don't think that making the wrong choice -- even if it's b/c they are stupid or uneducated and don't understand all the variables involved in their choice -- makes somebody a bad person. (is this why bush can't admit to making a mistake? b/c only bad people make mistakes? confusing...) but it would seem that a lot of my fellow americans do.

anyway, there's also been the predictable lack of sympathy from various alleged men of god -- you know, new orleans was a harbor of sin just waiting to be cleansed by the lord's hand, and all that. darker minds speculate that, not only being unsympathetic, the administration in fact happily delayed heroic measures or even showing much concern -- i mean, condi kept on shopping in the free world! it's almost outrageous, except after all this time i expect no less than utter indifference from bush's people -- b/c NOLA is a democratic ripple in the republicans' endeavors to control the south outright. someone even said halliburton will get the contract to rebuild the city. i am not sure it was a joke.

and then there are the media. a black man is "looting," white people are "finding" -- but there's no bias. (story courtesy doc40.) see, the white people really did just pick up the soda and the bread that floated by. the story, so quick to justify the use of the milder verb in the white people's case, doesn't offer any explanation of what the black guy was doing. leaving us with the impression, of course, that the caption-writer/photographer was justified in saying he was "looting." whether or not that is the case, however, is purely speculation.

ah, but by far my favorite so far from the fourth estate (print edition -- i have no stomach to watch this on TV, and i'm not talking about the carnage) is this graf from a reuters report today:

After a nightmare confluence of natural disaster and political ineptitude that al Qaeda-linked Web sites called the "wrath of God" striking America, National Guard troops and U.S. marshals patrolled streets stricken in the days after the hurricane by anarchic violence and looting.

oh, yes, al qaeda is mocking us! don't forget it! they are reveling in our suffering!! (never mind about our own preachers saying the same shit.) see how much they hate our freedom?

good job, media lapdogs. keep your eyes on that prize and remind us at every turn about that war on terror. it's costing us a bundle, you know ... and people like the war on terror way better than the war in iraq. so we can't have it slipping in the ratings just yet.

stuck in the middle with you

went down to the sunset junction, to get my fair share of abuse ... .

didn't get any abuse -- unless you count the relentless blaze of the sun, even at 4:30 on sunday afternoon -- but caught the weirdos punkin' the bates stage at 5. leader john denney is a friend of mine, but that has not influenced my opinion that they were awesome! john was fully committed, man, flinging himself about the stage like a man half his age, despite skin-melting heat. they played "we got the neutron bomb" and "shining silver light" and a ramones tune, and all kinds of rad stuff. i think i enjoyed it the most, even though seeing the new york dolls a little later that night was pretty fucking cool.

we wandered around the fair's many blocks of wildly splendored humanity, checked out the retail madness -- every sort of silver trinket, attachable to every body part you could think of; all kinds of colorful clothing; a wide array of musical recordings; temporary tattoos and other body adornments; tchotchkes of many ethnic origins; etc. etc. etc. -- and considered our options for food. finally settled on a $5 torta (each for 00soul and our pals TG and C) and a $3 pupusa (for moi). ohhhh, man, was it good! i wanted a tamale from another stand, but i was too full by the time we were done. bummer. the beer cost twice as much as dinner, but for once i was happy to drink a couple of brews ... something i never do. must've been the heat.

back at the bates stage, the crowd thickened for a set by the eagles of death metal, one of seemingly thousands of side projects to come out of queens of the stone age. leader josh homme and his pals affect a '70s-era "rawk" band persona, which was fairly well executed but became painfully one-note, mainly due to the mustachio'd-and-aviator-shaded homme's limited jokey stage patter: "this one's for the ladies ... we love all the ladies here ... we love all the ladies in los angeles!" -- along with repeated proclamations that various stuff/people rock(s) so hard, and such. it reminded me a little of tenacious d, except the tunes were better. (though they were best when doing covers, like the stealers wheel song that's providing the title of this entry.) and then JACK BLACK hisself came out of the wings to celebrate his birthday (and it really was his b-day) by singing some wacky tune. i thought it was a tenacious d number, but not sure: something about loving the devil and this song?

so then the suicide girls came out and did their lowbrow, high-concept hoochie-coochie thing. my favorite was the one who did a heavy-metal-stripper-chick routine to AC/DC's "you shook me all night long." she wore electrical-tape x's on her tits, shook up beer bottles and sprayed/poured beer all over herself and the audience, and, most incredibly, STAGE-DIVED WHILE NEARLY NAKED!!!! now, that took serious ovaries, man. my least favorite routine was the duo who playfully reenacted the torture scene from reservoir dogs, to the aforementioned "stuck in the middle with you." i guess i'm just not bent the right way, but i don't find pretend pistol-whipping, mutilation, and immolation to be particularly sexy. but, hey, whatever turns you on.

the SGs always give me a slightly weird vibe. they are adorable enough, sure, and i know their "amateur" approach is part of their charm, but many of them don't dance all that well, and their routines are often curiously un-erotic. much has been made in the last few years of the "art" of the striptease, and events like the velvet hammer shows seem to emphasize that element. whereas the SGs can sometimes have an almost desperate feel ... to me, the artful striptease has a bit of a private element to it, something just out of reach of the gradual exposure of flesh, something secret that's going on in the woman's mind, even just something as simple-yet-impenetrable as, what is she thinking about? there is a sense with such a performer that she is taking pleasure in her own routine. whereas the SGs seem so much more outward-reaching (hence, my perception of desperation, i suppose), like they can't enjoy themselves unless they have approval from the audience.

in any event, they made an appropriate opening act for the new york dolls. between their set and the dolls', the sound system played girl groups and opera and country-blues -- singer david johansen's doing, theorized 00soul. it certainly seemed like it. this soundtrack also served to keep the crowd in a mellow mood. the street was packed, and tons of people pushed past us to get closer to the front, but there were very few bad vibes ... although an LAPD helicopter circled around the general area a couple of times.

the dolls were pretty great. johansen and guitarist sylvain sylvain were very funny, telling outrageous lies in between songs -- "memphis minnie wrote this song for us..." ("in my girlish days," great choice); "david wrote this song..." ("pills," actually a bo diddley tune); and (my favorite) "of all the bands that have been influenced by us, the one that really got it right was ... big brother and the holding company!" (just before launching into a sing-along of "another piece of my heart"). they even did a new tune, along with totally killer versions of "who are the mystery girls?," "trash," and "personality crisis." oh, and a shangri-la's tune, "out in the streets," i think, complete with sylvain making motorcycle noises in the background.

they finished up just before 10, and we ambled off to hike the mile or so back to the car. we were just at the edge of the little midway of cheesy carnival rides when there was some more PA noise, and the dolls came back to do "human being." TG fetched us all some bottled water from a nearby vendor, and we stood where we were and just listened. while standing there, we heard a whistling pop come from down below sunset -- it bridges over some small street, not sure what, maybe manzanita? -- and a single strand of orange firework arced through the starry night sky. it sailed into the air and explosively blossomed in a huge red, blue, yellow burst. the ashes rained down on us as the colorful little fires flamed out earthward. the cops to our left looked around dutifully but stayed where they were. we shrugged and laughed and continued on our way.

get behind me satan

the serial killer known as BTK was sentenced today. i couldn't help reading the details of his crimes. i wish that i hadn't. the uk guardian has a story quoting him thusly:

"A dark side is there, but now I think light is beginning to shine," Rader said, his voice choking at times. "Hopefully someday God will accept me."

the man had been the president of his lutheran congregation in wichita. (he was also a boy scout leader.) he's not going to be put to death b/c kansas didn't have the death penalty when he committed his crimes. he's only 60. so he might have a lot of time to sit in his prison cell and see if the light can penetrate further into his darkness. after all, he was a church-going man.

in the same story, the sister of one of his victims says:

"This man needs to be thrown in a deep, dark hole and left to rot. He should never, ever see the light of day ... On the day he dies, Nancy and all of his victims will be waiting with God and watching him as he burns in hell."

this is a perfectly natural and understandable sentiment. if someone murdered my sister, i would want to kill them with my bare hands (and would probably try to), but if i were a religious person, i could totally see relishing the idea of my sister's spirit being able to witness eternal vengeance being wrought upon this man's immortal soul -- any time she wanted to peer down into the fiery pits of hell, point, and laugh at his suffering. it might be a comforting enough revenge fantasy. maybe.

however. in sunday school, i was taught that god loves everyone. and that god wants everyone to live forever. and that all you have to do to live forever is accept jesus as your savior, and repent your sins.

so, here is my question, with absolutely no disrespect intended whatsoever to the families of these victims or the victims themselves. i just can't help wondering:

if there is a god, and if he is the christian god depicted in the bible, then what if rader actually truly repents his sins of torturing and murdering these people? what if, when he dies, he goes to heaven too? what will nancy and all of his victims do then? does heaven give you a different perspective on such a thing? do they have separate areas for people whom god has forgiven, but who might not be able to forgive each other? it is hard to imagine a murder victim seeing their killer in heaven and going, "hey! so you finally got here, huh?" wouldn't they at least be allowed to smack them around for a while? (can noncorporeal beings even do that?) or is it like, "well, god has forgiven him, so you're just going to have to deal?" that doesn't seem fair. and i thought this was a just god? hmmm.

this is just one reason i have problems with religion. it makes no sense at all that there's even a possibility that this guy could go to heaven.

eh, you know what? i don't believe that he is really sorry, anyway. i don't know what he feels he has to gain by taking this tack, but i think it's an act. he told investigators he was a "monster"; he was proud of what he did. and he sure seems like a textbook sociopath. honestly, i am not sure that, even if he is sincere, he could actually get sorry enough for god to let him into heaven. and i really hope not.

this world over

tuesday night at twilight i escaped the ivory tower for a while to take a walk down wilshire. i thought i was going to the office depot next to the sav-on that has closed, but it turned out that the office depot had closed too. oh, well. i needed the exercise, anyway.

it was cooler than it had been in a few days. i was glad i wore my sweater. i smelled the tar smell that always bubbles out of the maintenance holes and sometimes just from cracks in the sidewalk along wilshire. (it's kind of a gross smell, but i like it b/c it reminds me of my childhood.) during the day, this part of the miracle mile is loaded with people -- mostly office workers from the various media companies and other entertainment corporations headquartered in that sprawling complex at curson and other places. small gangs of people wearing business attire and electronic passkeys on lanyards around their necks, clogging up the lunchtime eateries and enjoying the nice weather under umbrellas on the patios.

i still marvel at all the activity. back when the dearly departed l.a. reader had its offices on wilshire (next to the now-closed office depot to which i was fruitlessly trekking) -- from maybe 1989? to 1996 -- the miracle mile was more or less a wasteland. at least when we first moved in. when the media companies started moving in, i remember my boss getting excited about that b/c he had predicted that wilshire would become a thriving location. and, indeed, nowadays, the miracle mile is teeming with bizniz. but after normal hours, the worker bees go home, and a subtle transformation takes place. you start to notice the dumpier elements of the street, all the little flaws that don't seem so obvious in the bright sunlight and amidst all the well-dressed folks.

a homeless man rolled his shopping cart west along the same sidewalk i followed east. i had stopped to check out the wild patterns made by the foliage planted in front of the giant curson complex -- a riot of green, burgundy, pink, and yellow in endless variations. i wished i knew what the plants were called. but i scurried off as mr. homeless approached. i'm not really afraid of homeless people, but when they talk to me -- as they inevitably do -- i always get self-conscious. i suppose in part b/c i am aware of my "privilege" and their lack of same. i can't help feeling sorry for them, and it makes me sad that some people are reduced to this scrabbling, desperate state. they might ask for money, and sometimes i will give it, but sometimes not. i feel guilty when i don't, but sometimes i just don't have a spare buck. usually when i feel guilty i then feel pissed off at society or whatever it is that created the situation where homeless people exist and have to depend on the kindness of strangers to get by.

just opposite the bank at hauser was another homeless caravan, two shopping carts covered by tarps or blankets, pushed up against the fence surrounding that big ol' hole that runs the entire block of wilshire b/w hauser and ridgeley ... a hole that has been there since the reader days. i marveled that it was still there, still unchanged. sometimes there would be kids skateboarding in its depths, but this night all was quiet. it's eerie, a little bit. how come nobody wants to build on that spot? later i reflected that, i guess for a street person a location like that is good for camping. there's not much activity on the street, and no security moving you along. i mean, nobody is going to be paying someone to guard a hole in the ground.

my destination was blocked off by an askew cyclone fence. the outside walls of the ex-drugstore still bore painted signs advertising generic prozac and assuring folks that all insurance plans are honored. the overgrown bushes half-obscuring these signs, and the fence that stood haphazardly upright across the driveway, gave me a weird postapocalyptic feeling, as though i were exploring a long-deserted site on cylon-ravaged caprica, or maybe our own little earth, post global disaster. luckily, the real crisis was no more serious than: office depot's closed too? crap.

i headed down ridgeley to take 8th street back. there's this thing in l.a. where they say that some neighborhoods are "block by block" -- meaning, some blocks are nice/safe, others are not so much, and such contrasts may exist side by side. in the case of ridgeley, the west side of the street b/w wilshire and 8th is a mess: giant bushes of weeds spilling onto the sidewalk and even growing out of the cracks, cast-off furniture, bits of rubble. just a neglected eyesore. but the east side is tidy duplexes painted pretty colors.

just past 8th and hauser i saw a homeless guy who was obviously not all there. he didn't look dangerous, so i just kept walking toward him, rather than crossing the street. he was in stocking feet and too-short khakis. very weatherbeaten and who-knows-what-else-beaten. as i approached him, i just knew he was gonna speak to me. and he said, "can you help a guy out on his birthday?" -- at once sad and surreal. it was almost lynchian, really. i said, "no, sorry," and kept on going. just a little ways past him i saw, on top of a low cinderblock wall, a pair of black slip-on mules. women's shoes, but i still wondered if they were his.

behind the big office complex at curson, i came upon a curving dirt path carved into lush green grass, and a big sign enumerating "park rules." pretty much everything was prohibited: pets, bikes, boomboxes, running about, noisy hobbies, alcohol, etc. etc. the no-fun park. i laughed to myself and thought, "pretty much all you can do here is sit." walked a few more steps, and there sat a man on a bench, enjoying the peacefully bubbling fountain. did i lie? uh-uh.

eighth street kind of rises and curves at some point, and i noticed, while waiting for a light to change, an almost heavenly view of century city to the west, glowing slightly orange with the setting sun. i was standing in a neighborhood of one- to three-story buildings, where everything felt kind of flat, and staring over at this oz-like golden mirage of mid-century office buildings rising in the distance, surrounded by clouds. it looked like a far-off land in a fairy tale. the light changed ... and so did the traffic light. in the deepening dusk i walked along a block full of apartment buildings and condos, passing by fenced-off patios and balconies stacked atop one another, yet there was little noise, hardly a sign of life. the wind that had been strong and chilly on wilshire was suddenly still. there was a silence like the world was waiting for something, that moment after twilight before night really sets in.

i felt like a shadow myself, drifting from the present to the past and back again. thinking about people i have known, and people i have been. so much of the old days are still with me -- i even work with some of the same people now. the times have changed, but don't they always?

no thugs in our house

i made a playlist of some xtc for my portable digital music player this weekend. today i tested it out, plugging the device into speakers in the car and letting it rip, so to speak. soon i found myself bellowing "no thugs in our house" right along with andy partridge at the top of my lungs -- and this was with the top down. before 11 a.m. usually i do not sing in the car unless it's on the way home or i have been drinking (and if i'm singing in front of passengers i have probably been drinking a lot). the song started me thinking, as great pop will do: about the literal story being told -- basically, middle-class parents in something less than denial that their son is a racist terrorizer -- so vividly i could see the characters playing out the tale of the lyrics; about the time and place the song came from, early '80s england; about the ways in which the song applies now ... whether to something like columbine, or more metaphorically to the bush administration and the war on you-know-what (WRT guantanamo bay, abu ghraib, etc.).

the whole fucking world is blowing up, one site at a time. when will it come here? oh, yeah -- it already did. "what is happening now has happened before, and will happen again." that's not scripture, it's battlestar galactica. the world over, cops and soldiers shoot wildly, yet with deadly accuracy, at once in policy and afraid for their own lives ... and innocents die. and they say it is just the collateral damage, just the collateral damage, only the price of freedom, the price of safety, so why you gettin' so upset?

tonight on the way home i continued my way through the xtc playlist, and on came "in loving memory of a name," a genteel pop number by bassist colin moulding (he of the many genteel pop numbers). it's kind of a sappy tune, i guess, in which i imagine the singer sitting in some mossy church graveyard, reflecting on the noble fellows buried at his feet. but, it's like ... somebody was so moved to write a song about people who voluntarily sacrificed themselves for their country. in a way it made me want to visit a place like that when i go to scotland later this summer. in another way it made me wonder if a future generation of pensive, cemetery-sitting, eccentric pop songwriters will be writing odes to all those who accidentally gave their lives for someone else's country.

lionheart

i've been seeing these headlines that harry potter and the half-blood prince is getting panned and such. whatever. i enjoyed it quite a bit. i finished reading it about an hour ago. in some ways it was more like a police procedural than a book about magicians, but ... although the buildup was quite drawn out, it was worth it. it was sad, maybe a little bit predictably so, but i still sniffled a lot and felt sorry for all the inhabitants of hogwarts world and cursed j.k. rowling for her cruelty -- always a good sign. there was one part i thought quite shamelessly ripped from tolkien, but maybe he ripped it too, so ... eh. the book was emotionally satisfying (in a horrible sort of way), and kind of an appropriate tale to be coming to me at this moment, for many reasons. i don't mean to be cryptic but am trying not to be spoiler-y.

i haven't read the criticisms; i don't care to. the books have been lauded, and suddenly, not? i mean ... harry lives. others die. scoundrels triumph. love blossoms. tests are taken. lessons are learned. horror is perpetrated. sorrow is overcome. resolutions are made. strange allies come. horrible betrayals devastate. ideologies clash. motives are uncovered ... etc. no neat resolutions allowed. i love that aspect. er, that is to say -- it's the usual harry potter, painful and funny and engrossing and deeply ... human.

so, eff the critics. it was a bit different from the other books, but i didn't mind that. can't wait for the next one. or to see how they make this one into a movie.

london's burning

the bombings in the london tubes and on a double-decker bus last week have been much discussed and agonized over and speculated upon. simply put, they were horrible, and my heart went out to all the people caught up in the conflagration as i read the early coverage of the attacks. i tend to avoid tv news at all costs, mainly b/c it is just so goddamned hysterical -- even over the most mundane of incidents, to say nothing of something this devastating. but i scoured news websites, especially UK sites from the BBC to the guardian, and the canadian globe and mail, and anything else that popped up on google news links. and, despite a welcome lack of any sort of hysteria, there was still something about the eyewitness reports that made my chest tighten up. the average commuters describing what they saw, heard, and experienced -- in measured, matter-of-fact language that bespoke the stereotypical british stiff upper lip, i suppose, but also a sense of calm and centeredness that comes through in so many elements of british culture and in the british people i know. (hullo, doc.) a feeling that, although this is very bad, it is not the end of the world, and life will go on ... because it must. compare that to the u.s. media's way of ratcheting everything up to a point of anxiety that really makes you feel like there will be nothing else, ever, but whatever moment of horror is being vividly relived and fretted over with wringing hands and in terrified tones.

the doc is going to address much of this at length in a special citybeat commentary this thursday, so i won't blather on about americans' sad obsession with their mythological safety. (although i will admit that i am glad my best friend didn't end up going to london on her most recent vacation jaunt with mr. wonderful ... even though there is scant chance anything would have happened to them.)

just a couple of days before this incident, i was reading james wolcott's long and excellent report/diatribe in the new vanity fair, titled "to live and die in iraq." the subhed frames the piece as a critique of our domestic media's continued unwillingness to face the human toll this war has taken, not only on our own soldiers but on the iraqi people. (and certainly, although he doesn't mention this, on the soldiers of other nations, including our allies the u.k.) one of the things i liked about ginmar's live journal when she was serving in iraq was how she would almost reflexively pay attention to the iraqis she encountered. whether she was telling stories about vendors in the local market, or kids along the side of the road, she took care to notice them and often reflected on the dangers of their lives and how the total uncertainty of their existence contrasted with the determined ways in which they tried to keep on living those lives as normally as possible.

wolcott writes movingly of u.s. soldiers coming home so fucked up by their experiences in afghanistan and iraq that they take deadly risks and in some cases end up like tragic suicide bombs themselves ... but usually ones who only take out themselves. he told one story of an army veteran of afghanistan who, set to be shipped to iraq and consequently miss the birth of his child, drove his girlfriend's SUV into a parking lot of new cars at 90 mph, dying instantly. "he didn't lose control," wolcott quoted a local detective as saying. "he just went right straight through."

the story also spoke of something many have noted, which is the near total absence from our domestic media reports of the iraqi people's suffering. "...the ongoing agony of the iraqi people is the huge, tragic unmentionable in the televised war coverage," wolcott wrote. reports of iraqi police recruits blown up by suicide bombers or other attacks are only dutiful at best, curiously devoid of the de rigueur companion pieces that, were u.s. cops being murdered in such a fashion, would relate in horribly sad detail the truncated lives of spouses, children, parents, friends, and colleagues left behind. fer fucksake, we don't even get much of that with regard to the people left behind when our own soldiers are killed, and we hear nothing about the travails of people having to deal with caring for a badly wounded family member returning from the war. (to say nothing, again, of the toll on our allies.) our soldiers are doing what this government has charged them with doing; for all the platitudes about remember our troops, that same government seems to have a hard time addressing, let alone expressing real emotion over, the natural result of war: the death of these soldiers. as for the iraqi people -- who have done nothing, nothing to us -- forget about it. "the iraqi dead," as wolcott says, "are discounted as the Price of Democracy."

now, it is quite certain that bush wouldn't actually say that the english dead are also the Price of Democracy, but he has certainly been acting like it. all he did manage to squeak out in the immediate aftermath was something like "the war on terror goes on." (and this, mind you, before we really even know who did it and why.) not one single word of condolence for the people who died and those who lost them. nothing. not even a shred of outrage over the targeting of civilians, as london mayor ken livingstone, according to the l.a. times last friday, noted in a statement i found ironic to the point of tears: "this was not a terrorist attack against the mighty and the powerful. it was not aimed at presidents or prime ministers. it was aimed at ordinary, working-class londoners ... an indiscriminate attempt to slaughter, irrespective of any considerations for age, for class, for religion, or whatever."

well ... yes, sir. your countrypersons did not deserve to die; they were innocently going about their business. and our media use your tragedy as an opportunity to fan the flames of fear, to selfishly fret over whether or not we are safe. (no, we're not fucking safe!) and suddenly these news outlets find that the travails of ordinary people suffering in this brave new world of terror without end are not merely the routine collateral damage unworthy of mention in this grand clash b/w good and evil, but people deserving of sorrowful reportage and sympathetic noises. yet still our own leaders seem to choke on any words of comfort or even solidarity, for that matter. remember after 9/11, when the world said that today we are all americans? fat chance of dubya echoing such a sentiment. which means that -- although the u.s. media has a horrible double standard regarding what human losses are and are not worth dwelling on -- even these callous, self-serving, tail-between-their-legs media lapdogs have displayed more compassion than our leaders.