Random notes on Halloween….

-Considering tonight is Sunday and last night was the night that had all the big parties, tonight being Halloween feels anti-climatic. Yeah, people are in costume and, yeah, the Castro is happening, but, oh well. It's hard to get the party groove on when all I'm thinking about is the couch, some TV, and sleep. Hell, I turned on the TV this morning, saw all these people talking about Halloween and I actually had to think for a few minutes before I realized that today was Halloween and not last night.

-Kids today love (love!) their 80's music. Which means having lots of fun-filled conversations like these while at parties.
Me (as the DJ puts on the always rocking "It Takes Two" by Rob Base & DJ Ez Rock): Just wondering, but how old were you when this song came out?
Friend: I was 7th grade.
Other friend: Wow, you're that old? I was in fifth grade then. How old were you?
Me: Uh, I was in Junior year. Of college.

-Got a pair of cheapo Elvis Presley sunglasses at work for the office Halloween party, the kind that have rock star frames and fake sideburns hanging down from the sides of the stems. Put them on in front of a mirror and I realized it didn't make me look like Elvis, it made me look like a Hasid, albeit the hippest Hasid you'll ever see. So I put on a black hat, black jacket and pants, and went to the party as (take your pick) either a Jewish Elvis or a hip Hasid.

I am such a bad Jew.

-And speaking of being a bad Jew, I noticed that people either got the outfit or didn't, usually depending on their knowledge of Judaism. Sometime early in the party, some girl cornered me and after telling me how much she loved my costume (score!) she started telling me about how much she respects Jewish people because of how we've survived four thousand years of oppression. For fifteen minutes. Now, for a few minutes, I started to think I'm about to have my Portnoy moment, my using white liberal guilt to, as the kids say, "hit it." You know, get a little back for the four-thousand years of oppression. I know it works for other minorities, but didn't realize it still worked for us Jews. But after about fifteen minutes of all of this, I realized that despite all of my Zionist Indoctrination and years of Hebrew school, not even I could play along for fifteen minutes of discussion on the suffering of my people. So I bailed

-Another woman loved my costume. She had a bit of an accent so I asked her about her accent and where was she from. She then proceeded to get upset because I said she had an accent and even though her dad is Nicaraguan and her mother Mexican, she was born in America and most definitely did not have an accent. Sorry. My bad. Bitch did have an accident, though. Guess she didn't respect my people for four-thousand years of suffering.

-Sometime last night at the party, I remembered a Halloween Party I went to while in Paris during the '92 election. Half the people at the party were French and the other half were Americans and a few days earlier, the International Herald Tribune had a big headline about how Bush Sr. was closing the gap in polls with Clinton. As we sat there at this amazing party, Notre Dame in the backround and the Pompidou center off to the side, all of us ex-Pats sat around the table and had a long, half-way serious discussion about whether or not we were going to go home if Bush won. That was a hell of a party. And yes, we all came home. I'm sure that discussion is going on all over the world these days.

More craziness-

Sunday's New York Times' Magazine has a story about religion encroaching into the workplace. The picture they put on the Web site is of one person sitting at one side of a desk, holding hands with a couple sitting across from him, in prayer. The caption to the picture?

Chuck Ripka, a mortgage banker, asking the Lord (sic) to help Matt and Jaimie Deboer get a good price for their home.

I can see God, as that's happening, checking his prayer voice-mails and thinking to Himself "hmmm, let's see, all those people in Africa are praying to me because they're dying from AIDS, then there's all those poor beat up Iraqi's, and there's a million prayers once again for some food to be put on the table, what to do...what to do? I know, I'll help Matt and Jaimie Doebor get a good price on their home!"

Question- Wouldn't asking for something so trivial as a good price on a home be against the very nature of religion? Would Jesus Do that?

There's craziness and then there's craziness:

From Salon- NASA photo analyst: Bush wore a device during debate

Love this story but even I have to admit this is a little bit over the top.

Then there's this one-
The fake troops in Bush's new ad

Wonder if that's where they got those wolves for the TV commercial

Oh, and this one's pretty good too-

MISSING EXPLOSIVES-Video Shows G.I.'s at Weapon Cache

So busted.

Yep, it's Wednesday, which can only mean one thing- new West Wing. Just kidding. What Wednesday means is, of course, it's time for the Bay Guardian Wank of the Week. Yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Today we're going to explore the exciting world of identity politics. I know- there's nothing more exciting than identity politics. Whether it's the exciting world of barbershops or the musings of a gay, err excuse me, queer activist/writer/"literary provocateur" this week's Bay Guardian explores it all.

This week's wank is the introduction to said musings of queer activist/writer/"literary provocateur," Matt Bernstein Sycamore, who, as the article points out, is leader of the "queer resistance" movement. This particular wank has nothing to do with identity politics or gay politics or politics anything. As your humble blogger is not a member of that team, I have no right to say what the what is involving internecine pissing contests in the gay community. As a wanna-be writer, however, I can say something about this:

"KENNETH REXROTH, one of the most interesting of the poets who've lived in San Francisco, said in his autobiography, "I have spent my life striving to write the way I talk." Mattilda, a.k.a. Matt Bernstein Sycamore, the prolific San Francisco editor, performer, and writer, has developed the skill of writing the way he thinks. His prose is a device implanted in the reader's brain, compelling accompaniment as he relates, in a voice that ranges from manic chatter to profound speechlessness, upward zips to euphoric pinnacles and vertiginous crashes to unplumbable depths. It's a door into the spirit of a young person committed to beauty in a world whose intimacies are instantly corroded. The work is calculated to cause indigestion in those raised on the junk-food confessionals of Oprah culture. However sensational the topics appear – prostitution, incest, insurrection – Mattilda matches immediacy with intelligence and rawness with poignancy"

And, in case you were wondering what the writer thinks, try this one for size:

What I am interested in is a radical outsider perspective, a queer identity that's about transforming sexuality and revolutionizing gender and taking apart capitalist tyranny, one that's about building community and family outside of traditional models; something that's challenging and seeking to dismantle the larger systems that are oppressing us in the first place."

Reverand!

And the Sox won the Series.

Let's say that again- the Sox won the Series.

Now, how about that?

You know what this means? Things like Bucky "Bleepin'" Dent and Bill Buckner don't mean anything anymore. A huge part of the mythology of a much mythologized sport is now meaningless. And not that I'm a big Sox fan- in fact, at one point this year I was going to go on about how sick I was becoming of Sox fans- but I am a baseball fan and if you're a baseball fan this is a huge friggin' deal.

But you know what I'm thinking? You know who I feel sorry for now? Well, besides Nomar. Cubs fans. Why? Because the Cubs and the Sox fans were two peas in a pod, the Crosby and Hope of loserdom. Now that the Sox have won, the Cubs are now the biggest loser in that they're now the only loser. It's kind of like if you're single for a long time and had another really good friend who was single and for long periods of time, you could always cheer yourself up by saying "well, at least Joe Bob is a big of a loser as I am." Then, suddenly, out of nowhere, Joe Bob gets a girlfriend and settles down. Now, you can't say that anymore. That's the Cubs.

I'm guessing this is a sign of getting older, but my eyebrows are starting to get a little long. I got one or two strands that are totally out of control and are swooping down into my eyes. When I try and push them back into place, they either bounce back to where they were or go flying up towards my forehead. Sometimes they just kind of curl outwards, like Leonid Brezhnev eyebrows. So naturally, I'm starting to totally obsess over the eyebrows, to the point where I'm finding myself playing with them on BART, trying to smooth them back into place.

All I can say is it's way better than hair in the ears.

Tomorrow, from what I hear, there will be a full moon. And a lunar eclipse. And a blood-red moon. With all that harmonic convergance type thing going on, it can only mean one thing- Sox sweep to win the World Series.

?

My, what strange times we live in.

You have to wonder too if all these once in a lifetime omens, all these portents and omens, could mean another once in a lifetime thing- a Democrat winning the White House. A boy can dream, can't he? You know, a lot of people are saying things like "Thank God the election is about to end." I don't see it that way. Things are too close right now, too scary, despite it all (there's a certain surreal quality to opening up the New York Times and seeing these headlines- Tons of Explosives Missing in Iraq, Iraqi Forces Slaughtered in Massacre, and Bush Up in Latest Poll). I want this election to go and on and on until it's a sure bet Kerry will win. You figure that at some point, the longer this thing lasts, people will finally catch on. Obviousness is obvious for a reason.

Besides, this election is kind of like baseball. There's a day in, day out quality to it, like a baseball season. Everyday you turn on the news, check and what's going on to the point where it becomes part of the daily rhythym of it all. Some days you're like "woo hoo,we're gonna win it all" and some days you're like "we're doomed." And then it all ends and all suddenly you got nothing else to read about. Just like SportsCenter isn't the same when baseball season isn't happening (sorry, five days of news reports about football practices just isn't that exciting), the news isn't the same without the election. On the other hand, I can also finally watch the news without wanting to throw things.

We work with an outside agency to deal with most of our projects. Since I've been working at Super-Mondo Corporation (herewith known now as S.M.C), everyone's been bitching about them. Everytime they make a mistake, which happens, I hear an endless amount of griping about what a crappy job they do (not that it doesn't happen. And not that we don't make our fair share of mistakes or they don't catch a fair share of ours). I also hear that someday in the future, we'll let them go and take everything in-house.

With all sorts of re-orging going on, that day might be happening pretty soon. In fact, it's kind of sort of happening now. As a result, whenever they do something wrong, it's one more nail in an increasingly nailed shut coffin.

While I agree it's a smart business decision, I also know that the agency employs a whole bunch of people just working on our account. I know this because at one point, I actually interviewed for a position there when they got the account (irony of ironies, I know). The problem I'm having is that I'm thinking that a whole bunch of people might just get laid off when we pull the account and for obvious reasons, I'm a little sensitive towards people being laid off. I don't want to have anything to do with anyone getting laid off, no way, no how.

As a result, I find myself defending them a bit more than I should, or at least not playing in the little bashing games that people play when something happens. I've also been trying to throw them work, albeit pretty feebly (I don't have much sway in that regards). When I talk to one of them on the phone, especially totally cute AE who promised to give me bagels next time she's down at the office and who I know is a major-league stresser, I feel like warning them. And when stuff comes down, and something came down today, I feel caught in the middle of it all and hope I'm not seen as one of those people trying to pull the plug.

All important story on Yahoo today- Did 'SNL' Gaffe Expose Simpson Vocal Aid?

NEW YORK - Singer Ashlee Simpson (news)'s "extra help" may have been exposed when a "Saturday Night Live" audience heard her voice — singing the wrong song — while she held a microphone at her waist.

Say it ain't so Ashlee.

First the Sox beat the Yankees, now this. See, I told you we're in some sort of space/time continuum tear.

So yeah, I upped the Cable Package this weekend. You know, I haven't been watching as much TV as I used to and was kind of okay with it. Of course, I've been substituting it with Web surfing, but Web surfing is much better, right? But now that I got hundreds and hundreds of channels to choose from, screw the internet.

A friend tipped me off to the fact I now have On-Demand among my choices. For those not in the know, it basically means that I have hundreds of things I can choose to watch anytime I want to. Which is how on Saturday morning, while lying in bed trying to recover from a really nasty hangover, I watched the Sopranos episode where Janice shoots Richie Aprile from start to finish. Yep, On Demand means that anytime I want, I can watch "the Sopranos," "Curb Your Enthusiasm," or "Return of the King." Best part of the whole thing? 24-hours of Skinemax.

Bet you'd never guess what I did all weekend?

Was at the laundry place today and thought I saw this guy with some gnarly kind of ear piercing. I was wrong. It turned out to be just some funky, super hi-tech earpiece gadget for his cell phone. All of which suddenly gave me the idea that maybe that could be the new big thing- earpiece earings. What says cutting edge more like hi-tech piercings? It's cutting edge both in terms of urban primitive style and Matrix-like tech style.

And here's another bright idea I had, it's for a reality show kind of like "the Bachelor" or "the Bachelorette" except it features people competing to be somebody's best friend. You star the show with some nebbish guy with tons of money, the kind of guy who wants a lot of friends but is too dorky to have any, give him a reason why people would want to be his best friend (millions in Google stock? Hot sisters? Box seats to ball games?). Then watch as twenty-five other dudes compete to be his best friends. Watch as all the guys live in some ridden down, bachelor-style apartment competing with each other. Gawk as they all have "hang out" dates where the contestants and the main guy go to sports bars and watch games together, play video games, and watch porn. Thrill to see who the main guy picks, having his assistant pass out a can of Bud to the people he wants to keep on. Feel the heat as contestants compete in things like beer chugging, "Godfather" movie quotes, and playing wing-man.

You could do it with women too. That would probably be way more fun (let's face it, male bonding is kind of boring). Just imagine the cat fights that'll break out.

Oh, and I also did something else today that's big news. After reading a story in the SF Weekly about people travelling to swing states to monitor all the elections and make sure everyone who is registered to vote does, I decided to join the good fight and took all of five seconds to give money to the campaign. Yep, some people have been working on this campaign for years, spending 20 hours a day trudging through Ohio or some other boring-ass swing state and I spent all of five seconds to do my part.

On the other hand, I did something. Well something other than occasionally rant on this blog to three people who read this thing. And who knows, maybe that $50 is the one that puts John Kerry over the top?

Oh Dear God, let it be true.

I swear I didn't mean to. I swear I wasn't going to do it- it just happened. "The Office Christmas Special" is on BBC America this weekend and as I went to basic cable and don't have BBC America wanted to see it. So I had to order up on my cable package.

So, naturally, forty bucks later, I'm now back to having the gold package- HBO, Skinemax, and the Encore movie channels.

Believe it or not, I was kind of okay with only basic cable. It's even been good in that I've been watching a lot less tv these days than I used to (I just surf the Web all night). But, I gave in. What can I say? And in just flipping through the channels tonight and stumbling onto a "Sopranos" episode, a Larry David special, and a showing of "Boogie Nights" all I can say is Cable, baby, Cable!

One more thing about the whole Sox victory. You know the scene in the redone version of "Return of the Jedi" where when the Empire is beaten, you see scenes of people celebrating throughout the Empire? Like everyone's cheering and partying and statues of the Empire are being torn down.

Last night's game was like that. The complete and total smack-down of the Evil Empire.

I apologize but there will be no Wank of the Week this week as we are too busy contemplating the meaning of the Red Sox victory tonight. How can anyone else care about anything else? I mean, this is much bigger than a Sign of the Apocalypse, cats and dogs living together type thing. This is a break in the space/time continuum type thing. A tear in the fabric of existence type thing. A reconsider the nature of the universe type thing. What will the rabbis say? The Pope? John Stewart?

It's kind of like everything is possible now.

Speaking of which, the bar I went to watch the game was some divey bar on Valencia Street. I guess weeks ago, the friends of one of the bar regulars decided to set up a bachelor party at the bar for tonight, not realizing, of course, that maybe the biggest baseball game in history was going to be played. So it's the start of the ninth inning, the place is packed with everyone watching the game, and all of a sudden the jukebox goes on, cranking out No Doubt's "Hella Good." And I'm thinking who the hell is actually putting music on a jukebox at the start of the ninth inning of a game 7? Next thing I know, at one side of the bar, the bachelor dude is sitting on a chair and some stripper, who had just walked in looking not like a stripper at all, is giving him a lap dance. In front of not only his friends, but everyone gathered at the bar to watch the game. Now this creates a dilemma, maybe one of the toughest dilemmas your average guy has to face- watch epic sports moment or watch a stripper giving some guy a lap dance? And for those wondering, the answer seems to be, it's watched the stripper. Everyone in the bar, which was about thirty people, watched the lap dance. I'm also thinking that if the guy whose getting married is a Red Sox fan, it could easily be the Greatest Moment of His Life. How many other people can say that they've been tied up on a chair and given a lap dance while watching his beloved baseball team beat the Yankees?

See what I mean about how everything is all crazy now?

Got in this morning and got one of those stupid "network update" notices on my computer as soon as I logged in. I friggin' hate PC's and that's one of the reasons- Big Brother Microsoft constantly bugging you about things you don't really need. Usually I just ignore it, but this time, for whatever reason (lack of coffee? The rain? Being upset that John Kerry had the audacity to refer to Dick Cheney's gay daughter as gay?), I clicked on it. Yeah, I know. In truth, the real reason why I clicked on it is because for some stupid reason I thought if I clicked on it just this once, I wouldn't get bugged for the next couple of weeks.

Two minutes later, right in the middle of something, the computer shut down and restarted. Except it didn't really restart, it just kind of stayed in limbo land. I could see all of my icons on the desktop but I couldn't get anything to happen when I clicked on them. I couldn't even shut the computer down. Which meant, once again, calling Sanjay in Bombay. Which didn't really thrill me considering how well my telephone was working (more about that later).

Luckily, Super-Mondo Corporation actually has one or two IT people, all of whom are there mainly to service Macs. So I called one of them and somebody showed up and half an hour later, I had computer. Turns out by getting one of those wonderful updates, it completely junked the network system and threw everything out of whack.

Lesson: Macs rule.

As for the voice-mail, I walked in and actually saw that I had a voice-mail message. So I thought the phone was working. I was wrong. Several people who reached me said they couldn't leave a message, that they just got an error message. I even tried myself and nothing worked. Finally, I called Tech Support and found out that my voice-mail hadn't been turned on. Two and a half days after initially calling them. All of this just so I could my name to show up on other people's caller ID.

Later that day, I got a couple of voice-mail messages so I thought I had voice-mail working. It wasn't. What was happening is that they turned on my old voice-mail, under my old number, but hadn't turned on my new voice-mail with my new number. If somebody called my old number, they wouldn't get me, but they'd get my voice-mail. But if they called me, they could get me, but not my voice-mail.

Good thing they have this high-tech voice-mail system.

Wowzers.

Earlier today I told somebody that I was willing to put money on the fact that the Sox were going to lose in some sort of horrible fashion tonight. They didn't. A couple of days ago, I was all prepared to write some sort of "so sick of Sox fans"/"the Red Sox have jumped the shark" type posting, but not anymore.

What we have here is some serious, capital E, epic baseball. Actually, what we have here is some serious, capital E sports. Here's the thing about baseball- no sport, not any other sport, can even cook up something this epic. Two storied rivals, three game rally, two extra-inning battles, couple of controversial calls- the whole thing. Not basketball, not soccer, not hockey and not even big bad football can come up with something this good.

Damn.

Guess the loss in horrible fashion comes tomorrow.

It used to be easy. You get a new job and when the person you replace leaves, you just go into the phone Audix system, change your password, and say your new phone message. Et viola- you're all set up on the phone.

But no, that would be too easy.

See, Super Mondo Corporation doesn't believe in simple, plan, boring old voice mail systems like that. Instead, they have this super automated system that not only allows for caller ID, but sends the voice-mail message to your computer so if listening to the voice-mail message on the phone isn't edgy enough, you can listen to it on your iTunes. I know, so, so cutting edge.

For the past couple of months, I've been able to access voice-mail no problem, but when I called somebody, I showed up as the person who I replaced on people's caller ID. So I decided to finally deal with it cause, obviously, I couldn't just punch in a code and have my name show up. I called IT support in Bangalore or New Delhi, or where have you, and told them to switch my voice-mail system. A day later, I got a ticket saying they did.

Now, for some reason, I thought that was it. Like all they had to do was go into a computer and switch out the old name with my name. But no. Turns out they had to give me a brand new phone number to do it. But to make life easier, they just switched one of the numbers so I went from 8514 to 8314. They also didn't tell me that they would do it. Well, actually, that's not true. On my work order ticket and my e-mail they gave me my new number but didn't actually say it was a new number. Yeah, stupid me, except that since I wasn't exactly expecting to get a new number I wasn't really looking for a new number. And considering only one number changed, it wasn't completely obvious. I mean, if you're going to change somebody's phone number, shouldn't you tell them that it's a new number? Shouldn't the word "new" be on there somewhere?

Now, I think all of this was explained to me this morning, but when I saw the blinking light and checked my voice-mail, my voice-mail suddenly went bye-bye. I got the .wav file to listen to on my computer but Sanjay's English wasn't so good and my headphones sucked so it made no sense to me. Regardless, none of it really mattered because I also noticed that my password no longer worked.

But wait, it gets better. Since I didn't know they changed phone numbers, nobody else did. Turns out they didn't tell anyone, not even the receptionist at the front desk who might actually need to know stuff like that. So, basically, for the past couple of days everyone whose been calling me has been getting my old voice-mail, the one that worked but had a different name as it's caller ID, and leaving messages. Messages I couldn't get because, well, it's not my number anymore.

Best part? Guess what I'm doing tomorrow morning? Phone call to tech support- yee haw!

I'm sorry for the lack of postings, this weekend. This weekend I've gotten a massage, slept way too much, and went to yoga class. Oh, and drank for about ten hours at Oktoberfest, but I'm trying to not think of that (you know the scary things about beer steins is that they're so huge that you really do get a sense of just how much you've drank. I mean, if you drank, say, ten bottles of beer, it doesn't quite look that bad. Drink four steins and you start adding up the amount of alcohol there- about a gallon- and Betty Ford doesn't seem like such a bad place to go). In other words, I've been feeling like a big tub of goo all weekend (tonight's burrito dinner didn't help). Will bring the fun again tomorrow. We hope.

(okay, here's another thing to ponder- met someone at Oktoberfest whose new boyfriend has a really bad moustache, a full on Dave Wannsted type of moustache. Can anyone really respect anyone who wears that kind of moustache? And can anyone respect the person whose dating the person who wears that kind of moustache? Seriously).

I've had a lot of people asking me lately how work is- a natural question if ever there was, and the truth is I don't really want to talk about it. In actuality, it's going fairly well, even with the news that my boss quit to take another job (never underestimate the importance of a non-crazy boss). In fact, in some ways, everything's going swimmingly. Which is why I don't like to talk about it- I am totally afraid that I'm somehow going to jinx it.

The evil eye does hear all.

It doesn't help too that at pretty much the same point at my last job, two months in, I also had that feeling of well-being and confidence. I even left on my three-day trip, the one that doomed me for eternity, thinking that I finally felt like I got a handle on everything and was ready to go kick some butt as soon as I got back. Which, of course, is the exact point where everything went to hell. Of course, the difference between then and now is, well, see above note about the joys of having a non-crazy boss. I also feel much more comfortable and at ease at this job than I ever did at the last job, probably because I don't have to worry about my boss eavesdropping on conversations from around the corner.

So if somebody asks me how work is going and I say "fine" please don't take it as me not wanting to talk about it out of rudeness. Just see it as me not me not wanting to talk about it for fear that the moment that I tell somebody it's going great, it'll all start falling apart.

Not so totally random song going through my head due to seeing "Team America" today:

America, FUCK YEAH!
Going to save the motherfuckin' day yeah,
America, FUCK YEAH!
Freedom is the only way.
Terrorists, your game is through,
It's time for you to answer to
America, FUCK YEAH!

And yes, the movie is about as brilliant as you pretty much think it's going to be (thank God too- I was a little worried about this movie. The "South Park" movie was so good that I was pretty sure they'd never be able to top it). I can also say without a hint of exaggeration taht this movie features the best puppet sex scene ever.

It seems like lately almost every big media player has been issuing some sort of retraction or another, usually over those wacky missing WMDs. In spirit of these retractions, we here at Hooray for Anything are going to issue our own retraction. Last week we called Pufi Ami Yumi "an obscure Japanese band." We were wrong. Turns out that they're big enough with the hipster set that they were listed on Gawker as a "thing to do." If something is big enough to be in with New York hipsters than obviously they're not that obscure. We apologize. We didn't know. Plus, we like parallel sentence construction and calling them "obscure" fit into the sentence construction.

We still, however, maintain that writing an attack on smug elitist music snobs by writing about foreign Japanese pop bands is still a little on the pot calling the kettle black side of things. After all, what point is there in listening to non-English speaking bands if it isn't to impress people that you know bands from other countries? Besides, Japanese pop-culture obsessives are one of those little know subsets of sub-culture, usually consisting of Japanese ex-pats and white guys with an Asian fetish. Isn't the very point of being part of a sub-culture to be slightly on the elitist side of things?

Anyways, after stressing out last week about being able to find something, then spending both the lunch break and BART ride home reading the issue cover-to-cover to bring you the best in Wankdom, the writers of the Bay Guardian were nice enough to produce some wanking material straight off. This is the first paragraph of a review of the new movie "Tarnation," a movie made-up of old videos and other elements of "found" filmmaking. Extra points in this blurb for name checking Duchamp.

"EVERY GENERATION SINCE the onslaught of camcorder technology, and a few generations before, has secured its very own "found" filmmaker. Like Duchamp, choosing his ready-mades, critics and programmers and high-profile auteurs have selected – seemingly out of the blue – trademarked unknowns to carry an idea, usually awesomely expressed, to the general public. The found filmmaker doesn't arrive through the same old channels, hasn't hit up the usual funders, hasn't been bounced around talent agencies or even gone to film school, but shows up naked on Culture Beach with some treasure, dug up from the bottom of the ocean, that forwards a particular school of thought's prophesies about the future of film."


PS- for an added bonus, check out this review of some sort of art thing that we don't even know how to even describe- "Version". If the above wank is merely just a wank, this one is autoerotic asphyxiation

I'm so loving the President Milli Vanilli stories, you know the one about "the bulge." And yeah, if you watch him for a bit, it totally makes sense only in that once you start thinking about it, it's all you can think about. Did Karl Rove forward him that statement? Whose feeding him all those cornball jokes? Is anyone telling him to move the left side of his face? I'm sure that everyone whose heard that story is thinking the exact same thing right now which is why it's so beautiful.

If the Democrats were smart, they should hire just about every intelligence/security person they can find and have them bombarding that place with radio sensors. Hell, I'd have satellites trying to pick stuff up cause if it's true, you can start printing those John Kerry Inaugural tickets now. Unless somehow the Red States still somehow vote the President back into office, in which case we can pretty much just pack it in now as a country.

Between the remnants of this bug, the heat, and a scorching case of insomnia, last night's sleep just might have been Worst. Sleep. Ever. One of those 2:30 in the morning and reading a book in hopes that it'll put you to sleep type jobbers.

The result of which is that I blew off my 6:30 alarm and got up to the 7:30 alarm. I hopped on the BART that would get me to the 9 AM shuttle in plenty of time, but it got held up in Colma and pulled into the BART station ten minutes late. Missed the shuttle. So I talked the only other co-worker who was also stranded with me into sharing a cab. There was no cab there so we called. At 9:30, one showed up and took us to work, a drive of five to ten miles on the 101. Got stuck in traffic. Pull into the office a little after ten, about forty minutes after we got into the cab and almost two hours after I had originally planned to get into work.

As I got into the office, I noticed that everyone in my department wasn't there. R'uh oh. I quickly check my e-mail and see that a quicky departmental meeting was called for 10. Fifteen minutes late for the meeting, I run in there just to catch the tail end of my boss telling everyone that she has just gotten a new job and handed in her two week notice.

How was your morning?

PS- While not thrilled that my boss is leaving- besides hiring me she wasn't, and this is key, crazy- I did get a measure of satisfaction in knowing that I managed to once again pull together a string of mysterious "days off" and figure out that what happened was going to happen. I'm good. I'm so good, in fact, that I should hire myself out to companies to help figure out whether something's happening with their employees. Or, employees could hire me to figure out if they're about to be outsourced. Then again, considering my employment luck, I'd pretty much make sure everyone would be outsourced.

I went to Yoga class at that place around the corner from me last night and only one other person showed up. And Thank God too. I got there somewhat early and it was only the teacher and I (who was busy stretching his feet behind his head and complaining how tight he was) and I kept on thinking to myself "please, let somebody else come, please…."

And speaking of yoga class….

When people do show up, I've noticed that the regulars really know each other. So much so that everyone hugs. Everyone. Guys hug women, women hug women, and men hug men. And not just "hi" hugs, but full-on, deep and meaningful stare into the eyes kind of hugs. A class last week actually started late because they had trouble getting an earlier class to disperse. Throw in how everyone has that kind of blissed out, happy look and I'm beginning to think that maybe the place is kind of a cult. Like if I ever go to one of those yoga retreats (and that would never happen because more than a couple of hours with yoga-heads doing "mindful" stuff would have me doing Jager shots and cranking AC/DC like nobody's business) I'd find myself starting to donate all my money to the "co-op" board that runs the place and moving to some place in Oregon. But if it isn't a cult, does that mean that if I keep on going, I'm going to have to start hugging people? Will I ruin everyone's flow by not hugging? Will it be sending out negative vibes?

Anyways, the class goes on and once again I find myself having to partner up with someone. Luckily, this time it's fairly easy as the way the mats are situated, it's fairly obvious I'll be partnering up with the woman to my right. She's a bit younger, slightly on the hot side and much, much, more flexible than me. We first have to partner up to do some stretch where she lies on her back and I have to pull her arms up so she can get some lift- no big deal. But then there's the other stretch.

In this one, she has to sit on her knees while I stand right in front of her. Then, I have to grab hold of her sides and once I have her, she has to arch her back and stretch backwards so that the only thing pretty much in my view is her, umm, chest. Now the thing is that in order to help her pose and to help my pose (holding her like that isn't the easiest thing to do you know), as well as my breathing, I have to stare straight ahead. This despite the fact that if I were to stare at what I was forced to stare at under other circumstances, I would pretty much get thrown out of class.

Stretch over, I'm feeling pretty awkward. I mean, I've had dates (lots of dates) that weren't as exciting. I felt like I should have at least gotten her name or bought her a drink. So I'm kind of wondering, is it bad yoga karma to partner and run?

There's this guy who sells his own comic books who always hangs out at the corner of 16th & Valencia. This evening, as I passed him, he started yelling at me "that's it, that's it…keep on looking down…just ignore me, that's it….."

Is it me, or is this not the best way to drum up business? Especially when you're selling comic books, not exactly something most people find that necessary for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And we're not even talking like Spiderman Edition 6 (or whatever it is- I am not a comic book geek so I have no idea what it all means). We're talking stuff he made and photocopied at Kinko's to sell on the street. I mean, if I wanted to get harassed by somebody for not giving them money, the twenty or thirty homeless people I see between 16th street and my apartment could harass me. Hell, my homeless neighbor is back and napping all afternoon.

He's been out there for months trying to sell his wares and I guess it's not going very well. First he was charging a dollar, then he was charging whatever anybody wanted to pay him, and now he's basically yelling at people to buy his stuff. The thing is that when he first started doing it, I thought it was pretty impressive. There he was, a wanna be comic book artist trying to sell his stuff, being pro-active about it. Sometimes I even thought about buying his stuff just because I admired the guys guts. Now, don't think it's happening.

Remember when you were a kid and did something wrong and got totally busted by your parents? And even though you knew you were wrong, you could never, ever admit to it so when the parents came down on you, you'd kind of plead away, getting increasingly more desperate as the confrontation went on? And how you just kept on flailing, throwing everything out there in case something stuck, knowing full well nothing would?

That's how the President sounded during Friday night's debate- a whiny, desperate teenager who got caught throwing a beer bash. Not very attractive if you ask me. In fact, I thought it was such a rout I switched over from the debate to MTV to watch the "Making of: Team America" a movie whose obviousness in seeing should be apparent in all (puppet sex!). The President looked so bad at certain points that at one point during the debate I was wondering whether Bush was purposely doing some sort of rope-a-dope strategy, thinking to lure Kerry into such a state of over-confidence that he would drop his guard a bit and go back to being flip-flopp-y and drone-y. Which kind of happened. Kerry got so over-confident he made a few half-hearted attempts at jokes, which he should never, under any circumstances, try to do.

Of course, by the end of the debate, it appeared that the rope-a-dope strategy might have worked as the punditry class all praised the President for not being as bad as he was during the first debate. Which isn't really saying much now is it? In fact, some of them even thought Bush won just because he didn't totally make a jackass out of himself. Once again, we come to the fact that the President seems to be graded on a different curve than most people, that if he strings more than a few sentences together and doesn't look like he's about to throw a temper tantrum, he's praised. Dude's been President for three and a half years. Dude's leader of the Free World. Isn't it about time we start judging him as such? I mean the guy had a question about the Supreme Court and says he doesn't want to have a Supreme Court that supports the Dred Scott case. Shouldn't the President of the United States be expected to name a Supreme Court case other than one that was passed over a hundred and fifty years ago? Is coming out against slavery really a bold move? He even got the particulars of the decision wrong.

Which brings up one of the big things about the debates, how they're "scored" by the pundits. After each debate, all the pundits start talking about things like "tone" or "look". They're being graded on presentation, as if it was a Beauty School Pageant. It's so prevalent that when you listen to those "Man in the Street" type bits with supposed undecided voters, they all start sounding like pundits themselves, talking about how each candidate seemed. Everyone's a pundit these days. But the one thing they always never actually talk about is what they said. Like if they're lying through their teeth.

Which brings us to the Vice-Presidential debate. Afterwards, everyone was pretty much saying the same sort of thing about Cheney- "wow, what presence! What command! What knowledge!" As far as I know, with the exception of maybe one or two Talking Heads, nobody pointed that commanding, knowledgeable Cheney was lying through his teeth. And we're not even talking about the "who are you? I've never seen you in my life" lie. I'm talking about the "tell people Al Queda and Iraq were in cahoots with each other? Who Me?" thing or even the "only 50% of the troops are American because you keep on forgetting about all the unemployed Iraqi's we've given a gun too and told them to go save their country" thing. But it doesn't matter that Cheney was lying because, gosh darnit, he looked so commanding doing it. Even after admitting that Cheney was lying about never meeting Edwards, Chris Mathews was still talking up that little bit, saying how effective it was. Even if it was total B.S. Hello?

Yes, the press does have their little "Fact Check" section, which usually, in an effort to remain "balanced" always ends with the something like "while Cheney lied about Saddam Hussein being responsible for 9/11, having WMD's, and him marrying Britney Spears, John Edwards was also misleading when he stated that the deficit would be 5.3 trillion dollars when according to the non-partisan "Superfriends Think-Tank League" the deficit will be only 5.1 trillion. So you can see, both candidates were slippery with the truth." But still. When pressed on the issue of how these lies keep on getting repeated without anyone calling them on it, the press just usually shrugs it's collective shoulders and says "well, the Republicans are much better at it." Which, if you follow to it's logical conclusion, means that the press is basically admitting that the Republicans keep on winning elections because they lie and are okay with it.

Wake up white people, wake up....

Not that what I think matters or considered relevant to matters discussed forthwith, but is it me or is going shopping at Safeway in leather, thigh-high go-go boots with tiny (tiny) leather shorts maybe a bit too much? Throw in the guy wearing a kilt and the other guy so decked out in 80's regalia- keyboard tie, greasy curly Weird Al hair, and black jacket- that I half expected him to jump into his car after shopping to go play keytar in an 80's cover band and you have one weird day at Safeway.

Yep, I'm back, although a little flu-ish. Damn bug has been going around and because I catch everything that goes around (thank God I'm not living in the Middle Ages) I caught it. Well, somewhat. I'm in that limbo-land between being sick and being well and I hate being in limbo-land. If I'm going to be sick, just let me be sick and get it over with instead of being just sick enough to feel schleppy but not sick enough to feel guilty about spending a day resting at home when it's beautiful out. I mean, if you're sick you get to feel sick and take care of yourself and do the "oh, poor sick me" routine which is all part of the fun of being sick. When you're in the middle between sick and well, you can't quite do that. Plus, all things considering, I can't get sick. That's one of the problems with contracting- no work means no Benjamins and right now I'm all about the Benjamins.

Now that the Bay Guardian Wank of the Week has gone big-time, I'm feeling a little angsty about it. I mean, now that I'm going to get several, maybe even tens of hits now wanting to see what the Wank is all about, what happens if I got nothing? What happens if I don't have anything this week? What if the Bay Guardian got a copy-editor? Or even an editor? I feel like Barry Bonds must feel when he actually gets pitched to.

Luckily (or unluckily considering I have to read all this), this week was a treasure trove, a veritable embarrassment of riches. It's both the Endorsement Issue (vote for this candidate because he/she/what-have-you is an independent and tough-minded candidate who agrees with everything we want them to!) and (AND!) a special Music Section. We're talking about an issue that features an entire story on some guy who makes CD's of plant noises. We're talking about a film column about "the auteur" of Winnipeg that actually uses the word "oeuvre" and Welles-ian".

Truth is, I'd like to give the award to a column on Japanese pop-stars Puffy AmiYumi for the sheer "pot, meet kettle"-ness in it being a screed against smug, elitist music critics all in defense of an obscure Japanese band. Because nothing says I'm not a smug, elitist music critic like defending obscure foreign bands. Okay, sure, they're Big in Japan but doesn't that statement pretty much sum it up right there? (side note- let's say said band wasn't on a Japanese cartoon, but say, an American TV cartoon on the ABC Family Network. And let's say that they were huge with the kiddies. Would the music critic be writing gushing reviews of CD's and comparing them to other obscure, uber-hip bands like Elephant 6 or Olivia Tremor Control?). But we won't because everyone's coming here for the Money Quote and the Money Quote is what you'll get. Besides, we'll leave the summary of the Bay Guardian to sister-site SFist and the lovely and talented Rita (who hopefully isn't too drunk while writing the summary).

Instead, we give you this quote from a review of the movie "Dig!", a movie that actually looks kind of cool. It's a documentary following two rivals bands as they tour, record, and all that other VH-1 "Behind the Music" type-stuff (which the reviewer details as "Homeric in scope if it weren't so Dickensian in squalorous detail.").

So, without further ado, here is (drum roll please), the Bay Guardian Wank of the Week-

" MUSIC CAN BE owned, but aura can't. Aura can't even be borrowed, really. But it can be capitalized on. Sometimes the process involves transcendental moments in crowded, sweat-soaked rooms that smell faintly of urine, beer, last decade's cigarettes, and tomorrow's orgasm."

My job is so good in those all-important intangible ways that I'm totally and thoroughly convinced that the job can't last. I mean, I'm getting paid way more money than I ever have (and paid weekly), work between 35-40 hours a week, have a non-crazy boss, and in a place with a gym, free juice in the kitchen area and employee discounts on things like cell phones and Ipods. There's no way in hell this can last- it's way too good. Throw in a huge reorg and all sorts of political doings involving the higher ups and I'm even that much more convinced of the fact I got 'til maybe the end of the year before it all comes crashing down.

All things considering, the smart thing to do would be to lay low, not spend any money, and save. Then save some more. So far I'm not doing very well. I know I should save and I know (trust me) how important it is not spend all my money now, but I'm not thinking that way.

There was an episode of "Taxi" that for some reason always stuck in my head. It's one where the Reverand Jim (I think it was him) found out that he inherited a lot of money from his dad. He decides to celebrate by getting himself a fancy apartment in Manhattan, which he does, but screws up while renting it. See, the monthly rent was so high that he thought it was for the entire year and signed away only to discover that he was wrong that he was about to blow most of his money on only one month of rent. Instead of bailing on the apartment and saving the money, he just decides to go for it. Every night he and the gang throw parties at the apartment and live it up, thinking if you're gonna wind up losing it all, you might as well go down in style.

Which is kind of what I'm thinking right now. If I'm gonna go down on this job, I'm gonna go down in style. I'll probably never be making this kind of money again so I'm thinking I'm gonna enjoy it while it lasts.

One of the only few good things about the SF Weekly is the cartoon "PUNI." A couple of weeks ago, "PUNI" had a cartoon making fun of all the turf-wars going on in the Mission- hipsters vs. Yuppies, people who live of a life of poverty as a statement vs. people who live of a life poverty because they're poor, non-crackheads vs. crackheads, etc. It was pretty frickin' funny. Naturally, this didn't go over very well and the SF Weekly got bombarded with letters complaining about some of the racist bits in the piece (apparently, nobody is complaining about all the busts on Yuppies and Hipsters? No Peace, No Justice…..). Which is fine, that'll happen. Well, the Board of Supervisors of our fair city, having nothing better to do after they've attempted to block the naming of Candlestick Park, want to pass a resolution condemning the cartoon.

So, to sum up, some homeless guy using my doorstop as a pillow is okay but writing a satirical comic strip isn't. And smoking in the park is bad, but shooting up in the park isn't.

This city is pretty silly.

I was at yoga class this morning (and yes, there were other people there) when the teacher asked everyone to partner-up for the next set of poses. Nobody wanted to partner with me. There I was, in yoga class, walking around looking for somebody who'd hold my pose for me. I swear in the back of my head, I could hear "Stairway to Heaven" playing in the background and see couples huddled together in the dark corner of the yoga studio making out. Isn't the asking of people to look for partners the opposite of yoga philosophy? Isn't the whole point of yoga that it's not like High School gym class?

Speaking of yoga, I started wondering what would happen if someone who was running for President was into yoga. Not to sound like some total New Age, Californian, but I do think that yoga is a really good thing. It keeps you in shape, makes you more flexible, and more importantly, keeps you centered and grounded. Being centered and grounded could be considered a good trait to have in a President because there's less of a chance to do screwy. Like, say invading some country that had nothing to do with a recent attack just because you're all pissed off and want to go kick some ass. Unfortunately, just think what would happen if a candidate actually owned up to doing yoga? And what would happen if photos got out of said candidate in yoga clothes doing, say, Warrior Pose. I guess the reason for thinking all this is because fact that John Kerry likes to wind-surf is considered a problem because wind-surfing is seen as an "elitist" sport (unlike, say, golf. And nevermind that most people under 40 think windsurfing is like a totally bitching sport. And nevermind too that most Americans probably don't even think about it as such but the press does so after the press says "John Kerry is showing he's an elitist by wind-surfing a hundred billion times, the American people start thinking that only because it's been drummed into their heads. And nevermind the fact that so frickin' what the he likes to windsurf? Don't these people who talk about such things have anything else to talk about? Like, umm, a war?).

So just imagine if it comes out that John Kerry likes to do yoga. And not only that, photos of him come out with him in poses. Just think of the brouhaha. Think of the ads that come out accusing him of being some New Age hippie. Or the one that shows him doing poses and says "Just as John Kerry is flexible doing yoga, John Kerry is flexible on his stand on Iraq." Or just imagine how unsubtle Dick Cheney would be, playing the pussy-card even harder because John Kerry doesn't play sports, eat meat, and have multiple heart bypass surgeries like most red-blooded Jesus-loving Americans.

I'm also thinking that other than Dennis Kucinich, there's probably one more politicians out there who do yoga. It is pretty trendy these days and, hell, there's probably some Yoga Lobby group out there willing to pay for their Yoga classes. But all things considering, I'm sure they'd want to keep it hidden. Which is why I wouldn't be surprised if there's like some sort of secret Yoga class in the Senate Chambers that nobody knows about. Or maybe some congressman go to Bikram classes, but only in disguise. Or maybe they've even paid off some yoga class in Dupont Circle or something where it closes down early so that the entire Congressional Delegation from Oklahoma could do some classes (like the Congressional Delegation from Oklahoma would do yoga. Or at least, not unless it was a Church-sponsored event).

While my previous Homeless Neighbor is now gone- I guess he found a better spot- another one has moved in. This one, however, doesn't like the alcove next to my apartment door, he likes the apartment door. So much so, he's using it as a pillow. Not only that, I guess he must have just gone shopping for food because all of his food, some of it half-eaten, is strewn all around him. It is, as they say, quite a sight. And yes, the question that needs to be asked is how is this happening? There doesn't appear to be anyone doing anything about it. Everyone's just stepping over him, either walking down the street or coming in and out of my apartment building. All this within half-a-block of a police station. And I wonder this too- if I do something about the homeless guy myself, like call the cops to have them do something in San Francisco parlance, does this make me the bad guy for not wanting to step over somebody when I come home from lunch?