Junk Mail Derby Update
Tuesday October 19th 2004, 2:20 pm
I was wrong in my predictions, though anything can happen within the next two weeks. Unfortunately.
The winner by volume is Santa Monicans for Sensible Priorities and its variations. Oh, I’m sure they’re all different groups made of civic-minded citizens and business owners, but they’ve dumped the most crap in our mailbox so far. They’re also beating Loosened Tie Guy’s team in the race for the Annoyance Ribbon, simply by bitching the most. Now, I know they can’t propose any policy or endorse any candidates, ’cause they’d probably have to change the filing status and come under some oversight. Whatever. Their job is to complain about the City Council, and complain they do. Rather than make me want to vote the bastards out, it makes me want to keep ‘em in, just to stick it to these whiners. Of course, the whole thing could be a brilliant ploy and the whiners could really be working for the Council…I don’t know. I’m not a jouralist, and I haven’t been able to find much in the local throwaway papers. Either way, they’re in the lead.
And a special “Fuck you!” to Victor Elizalde for robocalling me twice so far. I suppose the email I sent to Victor and his PR manager, Jean-Marie Winikates, didn’t quite sink in when I asked to be left the hell alone. But, then again, a campaign that thinks that annoying its potential constituency is a winning strategy doesn’t need my help. Oh, and a tip of the middle finger to Jean-Marie for the non-apology apology s/he sent me; there’s nothing quite as bowel-churningly bad as the way flacks pervert the English language. Thanks, babe. Get stuffed.
I’ll Take the Reality-Based Community, Please…
Tuesday October 19th 2004, 1:59 pm
If you haven’t read Ron Suskind’s article in the New York Times Magazine, “Without A Doubt,” go. Dude, go and read. And the next time someone accuses me of being a soft, lefty liberal who doesn’t live in the real world, I’ll send him this:
In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn’t like about Bush’s former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House’s displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn’t fully comprehend — but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.
The aide said that guys like me were ”in what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people who ”believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ”That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he continued. ”We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”
You know, if I had any outrage left, I’d use really naughty words right now. All I can manage is this: if the Bush Administration’s reality building is anything like its nation building, the space-time continuum is due for some big-budget special effect collapse any day now. Though I hope the Bush Administration collapses in on itself before we get to that point.
Is it just me…
Thursday October 14th 2004, 11:50 pm
…or does George Soros sound like Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog? Without the put-downs and poop references, I mean.
Also
Tuesday October 05th 2004, 3:47 pm
Almost forgot: Dan Santat, who was kind enough to illustrate my short novella, “Greaseguns & Feathers,” has a book of his own in real live bookstores: “The Guild of Geniuses”. It’s a children’s book, but it’s the kind of children’s book that adults will dig, too. It’s got giant robots, friendly monkeys, and scientists with scooters and fezzes. Buy it. Make Dan rich. Now.
Fictionados
Tuesday October 05th 2004, 3:31 pm
Something I should mention: I joined a writing group about a month ago, and it’s been the motivation I’ve been missing for a good long while. Motivation isn’t quite strong enough; lighting a fire under my ass, that’s more like it.
Our group is called the Fictionados. We have a theme song that uses the tune from the Canyonero song. And we are going to kick some ass.
I mention this because some of my fellow Fictionados have stuff that’s coming out, and I think it’d be good of you to go and read it. So go and read Jason Stoddard’s “Revision” and Ashleigh Raine’s “Things That Go Bump In The Night”, then tell the publishers how much you loved them.
I submitted my first story to the group last week. After I get back the critiques and edit it, I’ll post it here for your perusal.
Kobe Beef and Fois Gras
Monday October 04th 2004, 10:55 pm
I have heard of Kobe beef and foie gras all my adult, gustatory life. I’ve always thought they are two items that are more symbols than foodstuffs. They’re the kind of thing that foodies swoon over, literally swoon, as if Larousse himself has risen from the grave, brought produce grown in the Garden of Eden and whipped up a meal using pots and pans forged on the Anvil of Hephestus. You can eat food, you can appreciate food, but only assholes who don’t know how to cook swoon over food, and only over food like Kobe beef and foie gras.
Friday night, I became one of those assholes.
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