A couple of summers ago, as is my wont, I traveled to the beach with books I had carefully selected over the course of several months. As is also my wont, I didn’t find any of them satisfying as beach reading. The level of my restlessness at our annual beach trip with my family would rank high on any machine designed to measure such things. I’d love a machine of that type for myself. I could tune it on on various people and see how tense/restless/about to flay their skin off they were. It would be much easier that reading the tension in the corners of people’s eyes.

Anyway, the place where we usually go to the beach has just the one bookstore and prominently features authors from the South Carolina lowcountry. (It drives my copy editor Honey wild that there is no consistency in how one “styles” (as she would say) those two words referring to the swampy beachy part of the more southern of the Carolinas). I’m not a big fan of most Southern writing, post, say, Yoknapatawpha, so the lowcountry fare wasn’t going to do much for me. I chose, instead, a book called The Ruins. I didn’t like it, which was a pleasant serendipity for Honey, who promptly started it and then recounted the plot to me when she was done.

I liked her telling of it much better than the 30 pages or so that I read of the book itself. Now, if you pay any attention to the current movie releases, you’ll know that it has just been released as a film. The LA Times review described it as: “depressingly inert and blithely gruesome.” The basic story of the The Ruins centers around killer ivy that eats you inside out.

Killer ivy should not be confused with Poison Ivy.

That’s Poison Ivy.

That’s killer ivy that eats you from the inside out.

I think I ended up reading a Spanish novel whose name escapes me right at the moment at the beach that summer.

Flash forward to this morning. I sometimes read the Sunday paper in what we call “the middle room.”

Aside: does everyone have these kinds of labels for rooms? When I was growing up we referred to one room in our house as the “green room” even though it wasn’t. I do understand it had been at one point.

Anyway, Honey and I are two people with many more pets than we need. We also have more bedrooms than we need. The “middle room” is a very small bedroom that we’ve turned into a sort of denette. I like to use it sometimes to escape the various technologies in my life. So, this morning, I retreated into it to read the paper. I was finishing the travel section (always my last section–paper section preference sorting is important to me) and I rolled my head around on my neck as I sometimes do.

As I did so, I noticed a vine. A vine. IN THE HOUSE. Poking out from under the blinds. Killer ivy. In the retreat room. It had grown THROUGH the window. Ok, really, it had grown through the gap in our 50 year old windowsill, but still.

Ten minutes of mild effort and I pulled all the ivy off the side of the house and Honey got the inside ivy into the trash can.

I’m not sure what lesson to take from all of this Sunday drama. One, lesson to be learned certainly focuses on using the middle/retreat room more and scouting it for unauthorized plant life more often. Another is that neither Honey nor I should really be allowed to own a home if we can’t control our ivy.

Finally, for those of you who see me IRL, could you keep an eye out? If I start looking like that girl in The Ruins, help me somehow. Calling me “depressingly inert” might be a place to start.

Ok, a quick Friday thought…

I heart Lost. Really really heart it. Need to watch it again from the beginning heart it.

Also, I heart Elizabeth Mitchell. She’s so dreamy.

She’s my tv girlfriend. Teresa said it’s ok to have a tv girlfriend and she’s mine.

(To be clear, I have now claimed both Elizabeth Mitchell and Sequoia National Park. Entitlements that are meaningless=fun.)

I’m not going to write just now about having had a really nice lunch today with The Misanthrope and Bitch, PhD, which was very cool on lots of levels.

I’m not going to do that because I have little zingy feelings right now. Why? Glad you asked.

My previous post got a comment while I was at the aformentioned lunch from one of Miss Washington’s gay dads. I didn’t write much about her in my post, mostly because I don’t know enough about pageants to work up the right level of outrage over her not winning. But I’m going to go for it now.

One week on, I have to say I haven’t gotten less irritated about the outcome. Let’s start with some objective facts…

Miss Washington, Elyse Umemoto, and Miss Indiana, Nicole Rash, made the top three on both Miss America Reality Check and Miss America proper. (I should not that I just went to the Miss Indiana pageant site and had a hard time finding Ms. Rash’s last name. She’s not just “Nicole,” folks). At any rate, this suggests to me that if TLC and the Miss America people were really interested in a new kind of Miss America, that those two women should have been numbers one and two.

I don’t see much point in bashing the other contestants. Rather, I want to focus on why Ms. Umemoto should have won. Let’s go positive on this, shall we? Ok, I may have a negative moment or two. We’ll see. Stay tuned.

The notion that Miss America should be the new “it” girl seems perfect for Ms. Umemoto.

Why do I say that?

Well let’s start with her ethnic heritage. She’s Japanese, oh, and German, also she’s Latino and Yakama Native American. Got that? I like to think of America as an interesting place where people come together and influence one another in all sort of ways. Someone with a complex and rich heritage seems ideal for our new “it girl” don’t you think? We’ve done blond before. We’ve done Midwest before. How about Pacific Rim? Word to Seattle. Thanks for the coffee thing. Also, thanks for two Miss America posts.

Ok, next criteria–what does she stand for? Two things. Embracing diversity. Seems right. (Would someone tell Bill Clinton to shut about about race, by the way?) The other thing? Empowering women. The it girl gets it.

I thought she was funny and charming throughout the reality show. Then came the red carpet moment. She spoke out about her gay dads and called herself liberal. Word to your mom, dad, dad, and dad. You’re stunning.

As I said, I’m no pageant expert, so I can only say that she seemed fine in the various walks (swimsuit, evening wear). Her rendition of the Robbie Williams tune seemed way more, oh I don’t know, connected to the aughts than tap dancing or Judy Garland songs. She stayed in tune too, which I more than my ear said about the winner. (Yes, my ear can talk and yes that was a little negativity).

I have no doubt that Ms. Umemoto will succeed in whatever she decides to take on. (I gather from reading around that she won Miss Seattle in her first attempt at the pageant thing. Pretty impressive, if you think about it. A lot of the women she was up against have been competing in pageants their whole lives. Trust me, there are women in the South who have entire worlds revolving around the pageant circuit). I wish her nothing but the best as she embarks on her post-Miss America chapter. Still, I can’t help thinking that a Miss America with gay dads, a feminist bent, a rich and diverse heritage, and liberal politics would have been awfully nice. I know I would have paid attention beyond last Saturday.

Thanks, Gary, for prompting me to write this. All the best to you, your partner, and your daughter.

To quote Elyse (I hope it’s ok to call her that once), “how do you like them apples?” Quite a lot from what I can tell.

Despite The Onion’s recent headline and the general, shall we say, over-attention to the last season of The Wire on sites that I read frequently (Salon, Slate, etc.), I am going to write about it anyway. Don’t read if’n you don’t want to.

There is a trope in television that send me into little fits of apoplexy. An episode is devoted to a character. I spend that hour thinking about how much I love that character, how television can be really good, how it transforms itself from banality into, well, something a little more. Then the character dies and I feel really sad. I’m a sucker for it every time.

I first noticed it when they shot Tara on Buffy The Vampire Slayer. There’s plenty written on that death as well, so I’ll leave it there.

The Wire really likes to play me this way. The nexus of the problem is twofold. First, I find the “bad guy” characters on The Wire deeply appealing because they are complete characters, nuanced and complex. I could not shut up about how great Idris Elba was as Stringer Bell and when he died his clearly inevitable death, I was really sad and mad. Idris Elba didn’t die. The show ends in six episodes. Still, writing about it even now makes me cranky. The second part of the problem lies in their very identity. They’re bad guys. Bad guys die because they’re criminals and shoot each other. I really like Snoop for example, who’s long term health as a character I have no real confidence in. Ditto Omar. Killing people as a profession is not high on the actuarial tables.

Last night, they did it to me again. Honey and I watch this fabulous episode and I keep talking about how much I’ve come to like Prop Joe. Could I have seen his death at the end of the episode coming? Sure. Did I? Nope.

“Woe to them that call evil good and good evil.” So said Prop Joe last night (on a flower card for a dead man). I’ve always thought of Bunk Moreland as the character most likely to tell the truth about the totality of what happens in the Baltimore of The Wire. Joe’s quote from Isaiah comes as close to the worldview as anything. Marlo’s unwillingness to see anything as evil does not bode well for the happiness quotient as the series comes to a close.

I can be suckered in by television on several levels. On Saturday, I watched the Miss America pageant. Yes, indeed, you read that right? Why? Well, I had watched a couple of episodes of Miss America Reality Check and was rooting for Miss Washington, Elyse Umemoto, she of the gay dads and the liberal politics. She came in third to a woman who sang one of the cheesiest rendition of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” I’ve heard. That’s saying something, too because that song will cheese up without much help. Two hours of my life I don’t get back, that pageant.

So, David Simon, et. al. didn’t need to do much to lure me in. I guess I should also feel grateful that they didn’t kill Kima Greggs when they could have in season 1.

Speaking of Sunday night television…if someone wants to kill Jenny Schecter, feel free.

In the meantime, just a little sporks shout-out to Robert Chew as Proposition Joe Stewart.

Sometimes you see it coming. Usually I don’t. The good news is that it’s just tv and if the writers don’t come back soon, I can just watch sports. But then, that doesn’t always go like I want it to, either. Ok, never mind, I’ll just stop watching.

Or not.

Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are (warble) blue…

Honey and I were watching “Everest: Beyond the Limit” the other night. The narrator noted that the Nepalese were born to climb the great mountains of their country. Their hearts are bigger. Their lungs are bigger. It reminded me (and I said out loud) of the piece that I read in the L.A. Times last week about Disneyland redesigning the “It’s a Small World” ride. It seems that the boats keep bottoming out. Disneyland, not wanting to alienate its visitors, has refused to blame the expanding American (and non-American) waistlines on the problem. Instead they argue that years of fiberglass build-up on the boats and water channel have made the ride less functional. The problem, apparently, is so acute, that they’ve built a platform near the Canadian Mounties to help people out of the boats so the ride doesn’t get held up too long. Listening to that song a few MORE times than the ride normally requires may be too much for people.

At any rate, I remarked, upon hearing the narration about the Nepalese, that Americans are born to bottom-out Small World boats. My Honey laughed. I like making my Honey laugh.

I liked this Shakespeare thing. It has nothing to do with what we’re born to do. Still. Macbeth would have been way different with sporks.

Is this a spork which I see before me,
Its handle toward my hand?

Which work of Shakespeare was the original quote from?

Get your own quotes:

I am well aware that the SkyMall catalog is simply a distraction that the airlines provide me with on the plane. The companies that populate it are hoping I’ll buy something.

Treecup and I once played a game on the way to a conference where we opened the SkyMall catalog. Here’s how it worked. I’d open the book to a particular page and pick out the item I most thought she would want, even if it was a page full of NFL pool balls. There couldn’t be anything less suited to Treecup than NFL pool balls. Then she picked out the thing she would buy on that page.   Then we’d switch and she’d try to guess my preferences.  (The answer couldn’t be “nothing.” In our imaginary SkyMall world, you had to buy something on every page. Delta and Hammacher Schlemmer would be so pleased. Them and the NFL pool ball people.) It was an amusing and interesting exercise in how well we knew one another.

My father travels a lot and when I ask him for gift suggestions, he is likely as not to come up with something from the SkyMall like a shower squeegee. I don’t feel compelled to buy him the actual shower squeegee from the catalog, nor is he hoping for it. He just liked the idea of the shower squeegee. Thusly, he is now able to squeegee his shower at will.

Anyway, when I flew home on Wednesday, I noticed a product that made me sad in the SkyMall. Not sad like the anti-gay freaks protesting at soldiers funerals. Not that sad. Still.

Here it is:

It’s described as:

“Safe laser beam toy keeps your cat entertained for hours on end, so you can do other things.”

Ok, I will admit that our four (how did that happen?) pets always often sometimes drive me crazy. But they’re our pets. I brought them (or helped bring them) into our home. I should play with them. If the cats like laser pointers (and boy, do they), I should wield said pointer and move it around for them. Really.  With my own hands.  Even though I hurt my shoulder the other day bench pressing my honey.  I have a left hand.  It has a wrist that works.

The “you don’t have to play with you cat” laser thingy is yet another example of our continuing slide into desperation.

I should note that, as I wrote this, Biscuit had cornered Halo under my desk. Biscuit is now outside and I have tried to coax Halo out of her lair. I’m not sure where my laser pointer is, though. So she’ll have to make do with my petting her should I be successful in the extraction.

Yesterday, Honey and I were done with our lunch. We had stopped at a restaurant in Ventura on the way back from a nice weekend away up the Central Coast. I had bidness at the branch of the system of which my university is a part at which I most covet a job. Did you follow that?  I would like to work where we went.

One of my students asked me last week, in reference to the midterm, whether I would “write the question in really hard professor language.” Another said, rather quickly, “don’t give her any ideas!”

Anyway, nice weekend to be ended with lunch in Ventura.

We had good sandwiches but were both struck by how loud the place we had chosen was. They had four teevees going. Two with football and two with bull-riding. They were also playing music rather loudly. Our waiter was taking a bit getting us the check and I heard Honey singing “Help Me Rhonda” along with the music. I should note, quickly and vigorously, that Honey isn’t a big Beach Boys fan. She can articulate this better than I. Indeed, she did so as we drove back to the freeway, explaining that, while she liked some Brian Wilson songs, the popular one were ubiquitous and not appealing to her. That’s a paraphrase, but I think I got the gist.

I have other reasons for not liking that particular song. The good news is that I see my therapist tonight and “Help Me Rhonda” could well come up. Once I’ve processed, I may share out.

Honey and I agreed, and, indeed, have discussed and agreed on this before, that music in restaurants, well, sucks. It’s loud. It interrupts both conversation and contemplative silence. It panders to the worst in music. It’s either noise (pablum pop stripped of lyrics) or intrusive (Beach Boys). Either way, I’d like modern America a wee bit quieter. Ok, a lot quieter.

I know that there are undoubtedly studies that show that people are happier when they have music while they eat.  It fills lulls in conversations and give those (theoretically) poor souls eating alone something to think about.  But I think focus groups of this type have caused more harm than good.  I like the sound of people talking and of dishes being moved around.  I like these sounds whether alone or with people.     I also like to be able to hear my dinner companion(s).  And to read when alone.

I’m sure there are people who want to be the bringee in a world that is far too loud.  Count me as not among that group.

Somebody turn down the damn music.  I’m never, ever, going to help Brian Wilson or Rhonda, so no need to implore me to do so.

Ok, here’s the deal. Scout and I had never watched The L Word before this season.

Scout doesn’t so much like the lesbian cinema/tv thing. I’m always trying to convince her to go to the new lesbian movie because “this one is supposed to be good.” Don’t get her started about the various ones we’ve gone to. She doesn’t like them. Name one. We’ve seen it. She hated it.

So…tv seemed safer and she’s much more indulgent. She watched Buffy with me during the Willow/Tara greatness and indulges my Elizabeth Mitchell fixation which dates back to the Kerry Weaver coming out storyline on er. Lost is back soon. Sigh. I love me some Elizabeth Mitchell. Anyway, I’ll go low on tv. I watch South of Nowhere on The N. Yep, The N–that’s Nickelodeon’s teen channel. Mmmm Hmmm.

Why not The L Word then? I can’t explain it, really. We’ve always been HBO people and just got Showtime recently. We were earlier Netflix adopters and I could have queued it up. There are Showtime preview weekends. There are ways. For three seasons, no L Word for us. This despite the fact that scout works to promote the Gay Agenda™. We’ve had opportunities. Hell, we live in Southern California. We could be living the show if we wanted. (Not). When is that damn radio show on KCRW anyway? I listen to that station a lot.

So this season we have Showtime and we’ve been watching. I have to say that we are enjoying how badly written it is more than anything else. (No offense to big fans).

Here’s what’s pleased me the most, though…

We were watching last week and I said, “Alice is the hottest.” (Scout is particularly anti-Shane, so I figured Alice was an ok preference to state). Scout said, “that’s Liesha Hailey and she’s actually a lesbian.” I was so proud of myself. Spot the gay girl in the cast and think she’s hot. How many points do I get? Wait, have I lost them all before I said something for never having watched the show before? Or for loving a woman who hates lesbian movies and tv? Ah well, we’ve got this week’s episode on the tifaux. Scout, I’m sure, can hardly wait.

So, Honey is sleeping in a chair. And she keeps saying that I don’t want her to come back to the bed because I like watching SportsCenter on ESPN to fall asleep to. I told her yesterday that I would give up SportsCenter forever if she would come back. I wrote a song about it. It sounds ok in my head, but I’m sure the meter on it is just shit. Still, it has all the classic elements: abandonment, sports, and dogs. Oh and hope. It also has hope. ☺

SportsCenter Blues

My sweet baby loves me truly,
Woo-woo
But she’s been sleepin’ in the chair
Mmm Hmmm
Her back ain’t so good no more, nooo
And the bed hurts her sumpin fierce

So late at night I lie there
All alone and sad
Watching on the tee vee
About the sports of ball

Base and foot are best
Though girls’ hoops is
Ok too

Spare me the hockey
And those stupid cars
Going round and round and round
MMM HMM

Who do I have for solace?
Well my good old Biscuit dog
She’s all black and spaniel soft
But it ain’t like my sweet girl

Now those Relax the Back
Folks seemed nice
Til they took my girl away
Now all I got is SportsCenter
And things just ain’t the same.

Someday she’ll come back to me
That sweet girl of mine
And then I’ll give up teevee
And lie in her arms
Dreaming of sports no more.

Woo-Woo.

Sometime ago I was a student in a summer program at a prestigious university in the South. It was before I graduated from high school and I went to take some college courses the summer before my senior year.

I loved it and decided that I had to go to that college. When I think about it in hindsight, I realize that I liked it because it was college and because I had a major league crush on my roommate.

One afternoon, it started to rain and a huge mud puddle formed in the courtyard of our dorm. People began to run into the building and grab one another and throw folks in the mud. Everyone seemed to be getting thrown in. I waited and waited and no one came to get me to throw me in. The level of popularity of those being thrown in had dipped below my perception of my own. And yet there I was, dry. I watched for a long time and then went out for a walk in the rain.

That story sounds is a more somber introduction than the following entry warrants. I don’t usually get invited to do memes and didn’t get invited to do this one. But I’m doing it anyway. I’m not waiting around to get thrown in the mud any longer. So… the meme is seven songs that you’re into right now and why.

1. “They Call the Wind Maria” sung by Ed Ames (originally from the Broadway musical Paint Your Wagon, Lerner and Lowe, 1951). This one is weird, I admit. We were watching e.r. the other day and John Mahoney sang a song and it reminded me of when John Cullum sang this song on an episode back in 2000 or so. Off to itunes I went. I settled on Ames’ version because it was the closest to how I remembered Cullum’s. Convoluted path, but still a great song. Ames is a pop singer of a certain type from the 60s and has done some acting as well. I LOVE the cover of his “best of” album. He’s wearing a fisherman’s sweater.

2. “Come What May” sung by Ewan MacGregor and Nicole Kidman from the Moulin Rouge soundtrack. This movie, which is as close to a carnivalesque experience as I have ever had in the theater, has a terrific soundtrack. This was the original they put on it to try to get the Oscar for Best Original Song. Unfortunately, it was disqualified for consideration because it was written for (but unused in) director/writer Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet. A beautiful love song. I’m still impressed with MacGregor’s voice and he and Kidman harmonize really nicely on this song.

3. “Three County Highway,” “Fly Away,” and “Rock and Roll Heaven’s Gate” sung by the Indigo Girls from their album Despite Our Differences. Ok, this is cheating. These are my three favorite songs from the new album. I can’t decide which I like best. It’s a terrific album and the live EP that comes with the dulux edition is worth the extra dough. Pink’s harmony on “Rock and Roll Heaven’s Gate” adds a really nice complexity.

4. From the new to the old… the other album in HEAVY rotation in my car (aka the little blue truck) is Emmylou Harris’ Red Dirt Girl from 2000. “My Baby Needs a Shepherd” is my song obsession du jour from that album. Sad and beautiful.
“My baby needs a pilot
She has no magic wand
To help her part the troubled waters
Of the Rubicon
But in my soul I know she’ll
Have to go this one alone
After all that is only way she’s ever known.”

5. Always in my mind a bit is Mary Chapin Carpenter’s “Jubilee.” I blogged about it a while ago.

6. Evanescence “Fallen” Because I hide my head in the sand, I didn’t know about this song until this summer and Rock Star . A couple of people sang it and then Storm Large sang it. That got me to download it. By the way, Storm sang the National Anthem for the finale of The Contender. She can sing ANYthing.

7. “Winter” by Joshua Radin. Honey thinks he’s soporific. Whatever.

8. One more because if you don’t get invited, you can make up your own rules…
“Trouble” by Bonnie McKee. The only song I’ve gotten as a free “discovery download” on itunes that I really like. She kicks ass on this song. Great on the ipod while cycling the dirt path Honey calls, “thorn row” because it creates so many flats.

So…
My roommate? She and I talked through college but I lost track of her. Just as well, I guess. She probably wouldn’t have liked any of these songs.

As for me, I didn’t get thrown into the mud. I also didn’t get into that college.

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