Not that I'd see "Rent" anyways (puh-leeze), but any chance, any smidgeon of chance, we'd have about seeing it was totally shot down when we saw "Team America." Cause there's no way anyone could take that stupid-ass play seriously after what "Team America" did to that play.

C'mon everybody we got quilting to do!

Not going to go into much detail about Thanksgiving vacation, but let's just say this: Fear the low-flushing, family room toilet after a turkey and mashed potatoes dinner in a cabin with only two toilets and fourteen people.

(actually, for those of you new to this here blog, there's a lot more to say, about family and snow, and eating all day long, but there's nothing inherently funny in that. Toilets break downs,however, are funny).

The weirdest thing happened on one of my flights back from the East Coast yesterday- they actually played a movie I wanted to watch on one of the flights. Usually, when you open up one of those in-flight magazines to read what movies are available, you’ll see that all the other flights have movies like "The Godfather," "Star Wars" and "Zoolander" (I love Zoolander) showing while you’re stuck with "Herbie the Love: Starring Lindsey Lohan" (which I actually watched coming home from Germany out of boredom and wasn’t half bad for a movie that you watch only to kill two hours out of a ten hour flight).

The movie was the redone "Willie Wonka" which is the perfect in-flight movie: a movie that you kind of want to see, but don’t want to spend any money in seeing. It wasn’t that bad, actually, although, yes, the original is a hundred times better.

On the way over, they actually showed the redone "Bad News Bears," another movie I thought would make a perfect in-flight movie. After fifteen minutes, I gave up and went back to reading. Unlike "Willie Wonka," which was original enough to make it interesting, "Bad News Bears" was pretty much like the original and since I’ve seen the original about twenty times (especially lately as it’s been on cable a lot and it’s one of those movies that’s totally watchable whenever you click on it), I already knew what was coming. Why sit through the movie when I had already seen it. Or kind of already seen it. Besides, I kept on saying to myself things like "what’s up with Engleberg? That’s totally not Engleberg. And what the hell is up with Kelly Leak?"

Oh yeah, one more plane flying note: to the family sitting behind me at the Albany airport, if you’re all doing the People Magazine crossword puzzle and have to resort to going to Google on your Blackberry to get answers to the questions and still can’t figure out the answers, I’d give up on the idea that one of the kids will someday grow up to win a Nobel Prize. Or any prize, actually. Except for maybe "Most Popular Kid On Campus" at the local Community College.

Well, it appears I hit the blogging big-time these past few days. First I discovered that bloggers can actually party like rock stars. And then I checked my e-mail this evening to see if the Commish had sent out the Fantasy Football recap yet (7-3, baby!) only to discover that I pissed off a real live Live 105 DJ. That's way crazier than pissing off a Neo-Nazi.

Zoinks.

Now if somebody would just friggin call me back.

PS- for those of you keeping score at home, so far I'm managed to piss off a neo-nazi, some religious conservative freak, the Bay Guardian, the society columnist of the Chron, and Live 105. I am a bitter, bitter man.

Great Moments In Television History:

As I was flipping through the channels, I noticed that CNN Headline News was conducting an interview with THE Tony Orlando and Dawn. As a still-moustached Tony Orlando began talking about how their brand new, thirty years in the making reunion album is some of the best work they've ever done, the studio host leans and excitedly asks: "is the magic still there?"

So whose the crazier one here? The one who couldn't make it to Harry Potter because they really wanted to wait in line to check out the new H&M even though she could go any time else or the other person, being me, who couldn't believe that their friend didn't have time to wait in line for a couple of hours to get good seats to see Harry Potter even though it'll be playing in theaters for awhile?

And by the way, Harry Potter was really good.

A few quickies:

-Somebody at work keeps on pissing all over the toilet lids. Which means that whoever is doing it is not only not pissing but not lifting the lid to piss. And I'm not pissed because of the mess it leaves on my favorite stall (the big handicap one for a floor with no handicapped men) but I'm pissed because it breaks some kind of guy code. We all have lousy aim and we all make messes, but we all know this and so don't leave messes all over things we might be sitting on.

-Is South Park showing signs of the Shark Jumpage?

-I went to get a flu shot today so I'll stop being sick but they wouldn't let me. Because I'm sick.

-You know how there was that car crash with Paris, Paris' BFF Kim Stewart, Paris' boyfriend Stavros, and one of those lame-o's on "Laguna Beach" which they all survived? Just think, the world came that close to being a better place. Seriously, would that really have been considered a tragedy? You know, the scary thing about it is that if Paris had been killed, with the way the world is going, she probably would have achieved some Marilyn type martyrdom. You know, the whole live fast, die young, leave a good looking corpse. So maybe it was a good thing she survived.

-The problem with Bush's approval rating at 34% is that it really can't get that much lower. At some point, he'll go up to like 42% or something and the press will be calling it a comeback and saying he's rallying when in reality, his numbers have gone from dreadful to still entirely sucky. And the thing is that now that the Republicans are trying to fight back against all the bad news, it's only a matter of time before the press goes pliant again and buys into the shtick. It's already happening. Deep down, we know they'll all get away with it.

Stupid, friggin ABC. The whole country is travelling next Wednesday and you decide to go show a new episode of "Lost." Not only a new episode, but a gosh-darn, everyone reunites and Anna Lucia and Sayid get medieval on each other.

Thanks a friggin lot. I'll be in the Albany airport when that episode airs and I know I'm not the only one.

I'm not, right?

PS- loved the scene with Anna Lucia and the "Peace Corp" guy up on the mountain. You just know something bad was up, you just didn't know when it would happen.

PPS- Is this a sign of geekitude when while watching the "Extended" part of "Lost" and the "extended" bit just turned out to be scenes from the previous few episodes, my reaction was "oh, I bet the message boards are burning up right now." Worst. Extended. Episode. Ever. Plus, if you noticed, they totally could have gotten that into the hour, but instead they just upped the commercials. Why do that? Was it just to fuck with people's Tivos? It did with mine (I think) because it didn't flip over to "South Park."

I got nothing.

Well, actually I do-- I have one of those stupid bugs that's going around. It's quite hellish, actually-- it's one of those low-grade type thingies that just never goes away. Never, ever, ever, ever. And it changes up on me too in that every day it's something new. Before, it was a tired, schleppy thing and now it's a tired, nauseous, trouble swallowing type thingy. And it's making me even more apathetic and lazy than I normally am, which isn't good and totally frying my brain at work.

I'm sick of soup, sick of not having energy, sick of only drinking tea. I want coffee, damnit.

I miss coffee. I miss the smell of it, I miss having it with the morning paper, I miss the first rush of caffiene as it courses through the body and wakes everything up. And you know what I miss the most? It's having the coffee cup in one hand and walking around with it, like it's an extension of the arm. I don't know what it is but it's kind of a reassuring thing, walking around with that cup. It says "I'm a man on the go. I'm a man who appreciates the finer things in life. I'm a man whose totally addicted to something that might not be great for him."

While in Vienna I broke down and went into a Starbucks for some coffee. It wasn't because there was no coffee to be around (there is the Vienna blend coffee for crissakes) but you couldn't get coffee without having to sit down at some cafe and wasting a half-an-hour to an hour just to have coffee. Which is great in some ways, not great when you just want to get some coffee and go and don't want to spend half-an-hour philosophizing and waiting for the waiter to come by with the bill.

The thing was in looking back at, part of the reason why I think I went for the Starbucks coffee is I missed walking around with the cup of coffee in my hand. Like I had gone half-way around the world and needed the cup of coffee to walk around with to give me just enough feeling of home and feeling of who I am that it was something I needed to kick the trip in high gear.

Or aybe it was the jet lag.

On Friday night I thought I was just going out for a drink or two with a friend. So we went to North Beach and ran into some other people I know. And a drink or two turned into, well, a bit more. Not to mention getting home around 2.

Drinks turned into dinner, dinner turned into the Lusty Lady, and the Lusty Lady turned into taking a tour of Coppola’s Zoetrope Production Studios and infamous Flatiron building, you know the one on Columbus that’s green and kind of triangular. It’s one of my favorite buildings in the city and one I’ve always wanted to take a tour of. Well, I got to. I also got to see the private bar and screening room down below.

And yeah, it was so more exciting than the Lusty Lady, which is what I’m sure most people are going "wait, what was that again?"

Wasn’t my idea.

I’ve been there a few times, back when I was younger and maybe a few years later when we discovered a co-worker was working occasional nights there. What I remember is basically you go into this booth, a screen comes up, and just like in Madonna’s "Open Your Heart to Me" somebody dances in the center while everyone watches from a booth. The main advantage of the Lusty Lady is unlike all the other places in North Beach, there’s no cover charge. In fact, just a minutes worth of "entertainment" is only $2.

Usually, when the screen comes up, you get to look at a couple of naked women maybe dancing but mainly looking completely bored trying to pretend to look sexy. I swear that one time I went, it looked like someone was doing homework. But this time the screen comes up and there’s a woman completely in front of me shimmying. And when I say completely in front of me, I mean completely in front of me.

She does a couple of moves and looks down at me and realizes that between my trying to do as much as possible to keep as little of my body from touching any part of the booth of possible and my discomfort in the whole, shall we say nearness of the whole thing, I didn’t look like I was enjoying myself. Plus there’s the fact that I’m not quite into the Suicide Girls look and my dancer was completely into the Suicide Girl thing and so I was probably spending too much time looking at the much cuter non-Suicide Girl behind her. So she leans down and starts talking to me, telling me that I should try to enjoy myself more. And not in a nice way, either, more like kind of a bitchy, "I just showed you parts of me only my doctor really sees, the least you can do is try to look slightly happy to be here" tone of voice.

Let’s just say the moment the screen went down, I got out of their as fast I could. It’s one thing to see way too much of someone’s anatomy, a whole other thing when they try to engage you in conversation, but a whole other thing when they start giving you attitude for not being impressed.

Now that the Republicans are in their Winter of Discontent and are busy either fleeing in the sinking ship or busy purging from their ranks the non-idealogically pure, we of the Bluish persuasion are not supposed to take much glee from it. The world is a dangerous place, they say, and while the GOP has seriously fucked themselves, considering there's still three (!) more years left in the Bush Presidency, it's not good for our country that things are this way. Which is true in a way. We are at war not just in Iraq but with terrorists and you can't but help think that in whatever damp, dark cave (or probably more like Pakistani chalet) Bin Laden is holed up in, he's lighting up a big fat stogy and drinking some champagne in truimph knowing that his little 9/11 stunt managed to do some serious fucking shit up.

To which all I can say is screw that. Karma can be a bitch sometimes and as the Greeks know, when the hubris kicks in, it's nothing but entertaining. Personally, we won't be happy until Rove is getting bitch-slapped by someone in prison, Cheney has to go into hiding for real, and Bush is chased out of DC all tarred and feathered and wearing a sign that says "Worst. President. Ever."

But in all of this hoopla, there's one thing that gives me some pause. Which is this- think of one Democrat who makes your heart go pitter patter and makes you want to go out right now and fight.

Can't do it, can you? Biden? Whatever. Schumer? Putz. Hillary? Too busy trying to appear not scary. Kerry? Blogga, please. Watch any of them on TV and they all look the same- mealy mouthed and whimpy and unable to say anything or think anything that shows even a glimmer of cojones.

Want more evidence? Which Senators are leading the fight against torture? John McCain and Lindsey Graham, two Republicans.

Sigh.

The Unforgettable Fire

For whatever reason, I went to listen to my CD of U2's "Unforgettable Fire" (yes, I'm still in a U2 mood and yes, it's one of my favorite albums. "A Sort of Homecoming," which for some random reason reminds us of driving around Toronto, is one of our fave U2 songs). Anyways, when I put the disc in, my iTunes thingy said I put in "War" and even went so far as to list all of the songs from "War" instead of "The Unforgettable Fire." So while listening to "Homecoming," my computer says I'm listening to "Sunday, Bloody Sunday." And while I think I'm hearing "Bad," my computer is telling me I'm really listening to "Two Hearts Beat as One" (another fave song, by the way, and one I can't figure out they never play anymore or isn't played on the radio).

I can't even begin to figure out why this is happening.

OH MY GAWD. Thanks to Cherry and Mrs. Cherry I snuck down to first level seats and was like 30 yards or so away from Bono! He sang right in front of me! In fact, I think he LOOKED RIGHT AT ME!!!!!

But that's not what I'm here to talk about today. What I'm here to talk about was all the Jews for Jesus people out in front of the Oakland Coliseum handing out flyers. Why? Because while most Jews for Jesus look like schlumpy middle-aged people, the kind of people who have cult member written all over them, the one's outside the arena, for the most part, we're cute Jewish women.

Which is sad.

What happened? How did they get all screwed up? Is it one of those whacky things that we Jews sometimes go through, like the whole BuJew thing? What do their parents think? And what would the reaction be if a Jew, like, say me, were to bring a nice Jews for Jesus-ish girl home to meet the parents? Would it be good? Bad? After all, they are Jewish. It's just that they believe in the one fundamental difference between us and Christians. On the other hand, I don't think the "For Jesus" part would make much of a difference to little Lynx and Lamb of Prussian Blue or any of their fans.

I can't believe "Seinfeld" or "Curb" ever dealt with this subject before and left it up to me.

You know how they always come out with these dumb studies about wasted work time. Like "we lose on the average 8,345 hours a day due to people checking e-mail?" Or "people talking about 'Everybody Loves Raymond' the morning after the show causes an average of five minutes of lost productivity a day?"

I wonder what the study would say about lost productivity due to today's big story:Cheerleaders Arrested After Allegedy Having Sex in Stall

I didn't do pretty much anything this week as I've been on the edge of being sick since last Wednesday or so. In fact, I was pretty sick on Thursday, but still managed to make it into work on Thursday and Friday.

So I decided that not being a big fan of being sick, I'd take care of myself and rest up this weekend, trying to recover. Which wasn't a lot of fun. I wasn't sick enough to actually be sick (you know, bed ridden), but just sick enough that everyone in awhile I'd just get this general feeling of schleppiness. The worst thing, though, is that I was just well enough to feel completely energetic and up. So I spent most of my time like the proverbial rat in a cage all weekend, too afraid of feeling worse to do anything, too well to really be sick.

The worst part, by Sunday afternoon, I thought I had beaten it. I mean, I spent pretty much all day Friday and Saturday doing nothing but reading and watching TV. And then, right in the middle of seeing "Jarhead," I got that feeling again that I'm sick.

And it's like, if I'm going to do nothing on a weekend to try and recover and not be sick only to find out that I'm still sick by the end of the weekend, I should have gone out.

I saw "Jarhead" today and I have to say, it was pretty good. I especially like the decision the director made throughout the movie that to help convey the sense of on-the-edge of insanity, he occasionally throws in dissonant sounds, like the sound of a crying baby. Throughout the movie, in just completely random places, there'd be the sound of a baby crying or gurgling or just making baby noises. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. I have to admit the big scene, where they finally get a chance to do something, the baby crying doesn't quite work, but that's just my opinion.

And you're probably wondering, what baby crying on the soundtrack? Well, it had to be on the soundtrack, because only complete idiots would bring their baby to see "Jarhead."

Just for shits and giggles, here's my favorite recent musical downloads:

Jefferson Starship "Find Your Way Back"
The Black Crowes- "Descending"
Triumph- "Magic Power"
Mariah Carey- "We Belong Together"
Guns N' Roses- "You Could Be Mine"
Afghan Whigs- "The Temple" (it's a cover of a song from Jesus Christ Superstar and yes, it rocks)
Badly Drawn Boy- "The Shining"
Led Zeppelin- "Your Time is Going to Come"

And "We Belong Together" is a great song.

Anyhoo, a friend and I were talking about what we've been listening to lately. I've been having trouble with that question lately as I don't really know what I've been listening to. Or there's nothing really that I've been listening to, I'm just listening to crap that I've downloaded, which, as you can see, is a bit all over the place. My friend, who is a musician, said that he's only been listening to the discs of his friends' band that were burned for him.

Which is when it occured to me that one of the things about all this new fangled music stuff is that in a way, it's making what we listen to more insular. Because a lot of people, like me, aren't really out there listening to new stuff that's out there in the pop culture landscape, but are mainly listening to stuff that they can find elsewhere. Which is great in a way- I have about eighteen hours worth of music on my computer, all of which are songs that I like. When I'm home, all I pretty much listen to is my mp3s off a computer. But I've lost a lot interest in checking out what's out there because I'm completely happy with what I can find online. Same with my friend- he's only checking out his friends' stuff.

Which is a great thing for music in a way in that there's more stuff out there and more stuff accessible but also really bad for music because it's so much harder to get anyone to care to give it a listen.

So it turns out I can make decisions. Good one's too, one's that make me all warm and fuzzy inside. I, in fact, woke up this morning knowing full well what I wanted to do.

Fred Taylor for Eli Manning.

Which I guess makes me a huge Giants fan now.

Anyways, tonight there was the Dia de los Muertos thing going on in the Mission. It was pretty cool. But all I can say is people here in the city really like dressing up in costumes and dancing to drums.

In fact, considering half of the people who were either walking around or marching, it looks like if you want to hold a parade, just bring a drum circle and certain people will follow, like rats following Patchoulie Pied Piper.

I was actually amazed at how much work into a whole bunch of the stuff there, including the costumes. Between Burning Man and Halloween, how do these people have all the time to put this stuff together. Or did they just grab their Burning Man costumes and wear that? And aren't they burnt out on all this stuff?

And finally, there is this observation- does everything in this city have to carry with it an anti-war, Bush is Hitler protests? Yeah, you can make kind of a connection between a Day of the Dead thing in the war, but do you have to? And is attaching an anti-war flyer to one of the altars appropiate?

When I go to work, I get off a bus that stops across the street from my building. To get to my building, you have to cross a street with a stop light and a very long wait. There's not that much traffic.

At the cross walk, if there's no car coming, I walk. Even if there's no "Walk" sign. And sometimes, if there's only a few cars or cars coming but still far away, I'll cross anyways. Cause I hate waiting.

I've noticed, however, that when I cross, I'll look back at all the other people who got off the stop with me and they're all standing there, waiting for the "walk" signal. They'll sit there and wait, and wait, and wait even if there's no cars to be found.

Is it wrong for to cross? It's breaking the law in a way, or at least going against order. And if you don't do what you're told and follow order, there's anarchy. On the other hand, it strikes me as totally stupid to sit there and wait at a cross walk for imaginary cars to go past. Is it just my complete inability to follow any rule deemed as silly? Am I just smarter than anyone? Or am I a scofflaw?

I have noticed, however, that one of my fellow travelers, the Ignatius Reilly character, is starting to follow me across. Sometimes he's even more daring than I am.

And this kind of makes me proud.

In my head, I think I'm decisive, able to make the big decisions come big decision time. I consider myself as having good instincts, good intellect, good senses. And then, when it's time to make a decision, I can't do it. And I hate myself for it.

Here I am, at a crossroads, about to make one of the biggest decisions somebody can make at this time of year and I have no idea what to do. Not only do I not know what I want to do, but in my desperate attempt to come up with a workable solution, I made things worse. I carved myself new options, new choices. And I'm totally stuck.

I mean, so Daunte Culpepper went down. So I have no Quarterback right now. It's not like he's been that good to begin with. Yet, I've won six in a row. Six. I'm in second place and on a roll. Do I trade Fitzgerald for Bledsoe? Or trade Fitzgerald for Brunell and Jurvecious? Or Taylor for Manning? Or do I just hold tight, don't ruin a good thing. After all, I haven't gotten that much production from my QB position to begin with.

And in a weird way, this whole thing would be easier if I wasn't winning so much. If I was 4-4, the decision would be easy. Even if I was 5-3. But 6-2 with a six game winning streak? The Yankees or the Sox would totally be dealing, but the White Sox won and they very noteably didn't change a damn thing come trade time. Neither did the Astros. On the other hand, when the Sox traded Nomah last year, it was the catalyst for them to win it all.

Damnit, how does anyone make decisions?

PS- I was at a friend's house on Sunday. He and another friend also do fantasy football. All afternoon, each one of us would peak at the scores, or fight the urge to peak at our score.

Damn you, fantasy football, damn you.