Searching for a bright today

While the US Presidential horse-race is going on, there are other voter initiatives to consider. I realize that many people who are reading this probably agree with me on this anyways, but I feel I have to say it.

Proposition 8 is one of these voter initiatives - an odious attempt to remove the right to marry for gays and lesbians. The attempt to preserve the sanctity of marriage will do the opposite. Marriage isn't an elite club meant for people who can make babies with one another, and all this does is encourage hatred and the treatment of people as second-class citizens based on who they choose to be in love with. It makes no sense, and it's wrong.

And they're flooding California with outside money - almost $25 million so far, to make this a reality.

There are men and women in California who have been in stable, committed relationships for thirty, forty years or more that have finally had the chance this year to be legally seen as such. When you have to go to the hospital, the person who loves you most should have the chance to visit you. Why should that be taken away from any of us?

Don't let people take that away from anyone here. Vote no on Proposition 8. Donate if you can.

http://www.noonprop8.com/

"Take a picture of yourself, and don't fuck with it. Or something."



Last saturday I dreamt someone I vaguely knew died of a cocaine overdose. Though I woke up, thinking I had dreamt processing his real cocaine overdose, then got confused because I wasn't sure if I dreamt it at night.

The guy a charming young man with bleach-blonde hair who dressed in black collarless button-up shirts and silver jewelry, had a charming, self-critical sense of humor. Kind of looked like a guy colubra and dybbuk67 and I called 'The Young Master'. I felt kind of sad he died, but you know, does it matter? People you don't know die every day. If someone you kind of vaguely know dies, should you really get upset? Life is like that. One day it's not. End of story.

I got this idea in my head to start emailing random people from that time about the guy to see if he was okay, just to be on the safe side. But I would have felt like the biggest dork, worried about some guy I barely knew. Because of, you know, some dream.

About twenty minutes later, after waking up a little, I realized the guy in question had never existed. He was a kind of placeholder - when I dreamt about that time in my life when I went to clubs and stuff, I inserted the guy in my dream as kind of a mnemonic way to remind myself of that time of my life, and over a period of about ten or so years, the guy lived in my dreams on the sidelines, and then, last Saturday, "died". I don't know if that's happened to you before, Gentle Reader. Has it?

Anyways, I stayed at this level of confusion all day long. I think I'm still a little bit confused, somehow. Like for a moment a dream person crossed over to reality but it got caught before something bad could happen.

I bet he never shows up in my dreams again.

In honor of morbidmom04, who missed it, and the US political season.

It's Friday, which makes it lie-day. You can celebrate it by giving me a pleasant lie, about you, me, and a famous person of your choice.

Here's your chance!

dybbuk67 has commanded me (and you, but you might be more resistant to his commands than I am) to quote Douglas Adams.

"There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.
There is another theory which states that this has already happened."

-Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.

I went and got drunk with my coworkers last night, for the first time abusing my company's expenses (a little.) It felt good! And they deserved a free meal, they kicked ass this summer.

Didn't sleep much for a variety of reasons. Woke up tired, drank tons of caffene, realized I had a doctor's appointment.

So I went.

No cancer!



Hooray for no cancer. Although admittedly the chances were slight. And I didn't say anything before because I didn't want to be dramatic and stuff.

Tonight I will celebrate.

By sleeping.

Flight to VT was canceled, though it wasn't canceled when we left for the airport. So walk to BART, BART to SFO, wait in line, deal with cancellation, then... SFO to BART, walk from BART to home... now back and tired.

Supposedly, the storms will let up and I'll be able to fly to VT tomorrow. Supposedly.

Just spent 9 or so hours trying to deal with Comcast at the new place to get the cable hooked up. No dice.

So...

Anyone got any impressions on satellite TV? Anything I should know about if I look into it?

Bill Hicks said it best, I think.



"I always wondered about Jesse's collection of little shoes..."

Seymour M. Hersh's new article on the Bush Administration, funding, and saber-rattling. Yeah, it's politics, yeah, it's long. It's here and worth a read:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/07/080707fa_fact_hersh?currentPage=all


Selected quotes:

"The Administration may have been willing to rely on dissident organizations in Iran even when there was reason to believe that the groups had operated against American interests in the past. The use of Baluchi elements, for example, is problematic, Robert Baer, a former C.I.A. clandestine officer who worked for nearly two decades in South Asia and the Middle East, told me. “The Baluchis are Sunni fundamentalists who hate the regime in Tehran, but you can also describe them as Al Qaeda,” Baer told me. “These are guys who cut off the heads of nonbelievers—in this case, it’s Shiite Iranians. The irony is that we’re once again working with Sunni fundamentalists, just as we did in Afghanistan in the nineteen-eighties.”"

Also:

"The former official said that, a few weeks later, a meeting took place in the Vice-President’s office. “The subject was how to create a casus belli between Tehran and Washington,” he said."

Finished Matter by Iain Banks, which was a good and interesting science fiction novel from someone I expect more than just a good and interesting science fiction novel. Pity, though I'm not sure if I should pity the novel or my expectations more.

Needing a break from 500+ page novels, I dived back into The Best American Short Stories of 2007, this time guest-edited by Stephen King. And once again, I wondered why. What is it about modern American literature where people feel compelled to write about rich white patricians dying and the children feeling sad and/or ambivalent about it?

The good shit deviates from this, but it's pretty spare. John Barth's "Toga Party", a look at aging and retirement that's nothing but rage and fury, blew me away. And William Gay's "Where Will You Go When Your Skin Cannot Contain You" is the most lyrical and moving story about meth-addicted rednecks I've ever read. Uh, not that I've read a lot of them. But it's still an awesome story.

I'm told I should skip ahead to Karen Russel's "St. Lucy's Home For Girls Raised By Wolves", becuase, you know, werewolves; but seriously, how many times can I want to put down a so-called best of anthology before I just give up and toss it?

But I'll probably keep it. King's introduction is fantastic and thought-provoking, if a bit gloomy on the fate of the American short story. I can see lending it to my friends. "Large book for such a short essay, huh? Yyyyeah, about that..."

In my "oh my god my work is insanely stressful right now" period, have I missed people talking about Nine Inch Nails' The Slip?

it's freely downloadable, and I think it's pretty tremendous. Plays on a lot of themes like "With Teeth" but musically seems like a continuation of Year Zero. What do other people think?

Also, I think I need an "I am listening to music" icon.

I haven't really been on board for this last season of House - I liked the old team, not entirely sure I'm fond of the new one.

But this last Monday's episode, the first of a two-parter? On fire, friend. Holy crap!

For kn1ghtshade:

Hey, psst:


http://pgtremblay.livejournal.com/279276.html

Here you can see the helicopters hovering around:

As I'm sitting here, I'm looking over the mission and it's covered in tan smoke. There are sirens, we now hear helicopters.

Can't find anything on the paper or any websites. We just closed the windows because the smoke was getting bad. think it's on around 24th and valencia maybe? And now more sirens.

VOICE 1: Jack, right? Jack Haringa?

VOICE 2: That's me, how can I help-

VOICE 1: Oh good! You remember a few years back, in Denver, a talk about the nature of the Devil?

VOICE 2: Well, I - I mean, I don't exactly remember-

VOICE 1: -Because I had a few ideas based on what you said, you see-

VOICE 2: -I honestly don't remember if I sai-

VOICE 1: -Anyways, let's-

VOICE 2: -I'm really sorry, I-

VOICE 1: -Let's, you see, proceed with the idea of the Devil as a trickster figure, but what if he is, some agent, or somehow in control of all evil in the world? What does this mean for the rest of us?

VOICE 2: I don't think you..wait, the rest of us?

VOICE 1: Yeah, the rest of us! All of us souls rushing to judgment or oblivion, we technically have say over the matter as 'free souls', whatever that means, but if there is a solitary power for good and a solitary power for evil, really, what's the point? We're play-actors, casting shadows with no clue where the light came from. Do you have a comment on that?

VOICE 2: That discussion was years ago. I mean, I was only just standing in for a friend. It's not like I'm an expert. Perhaps you could talk to a theolo-

VOICE 1: No, no, no, no...please! Better late than never, right? I'm aware of your participation but I really do think you could offer some light on-

VOICE 2: -I'm going to have to be firm, here.

VOICE 1: Oh indeed! And speaking of punishment, I was also thinking of the nature of hell and eternity. I mean, you make one or two bad choices and have to spend literally an infinite time in torture being punished for it. And wouldn't you just get used to that punishment over time? Imagine you getting murdered time after time in new and inventive ways. And all for what? It's absurd!

VOICE 2: It's not the only thing.

VOICE 1: I completely agree! I was wondering if you could also comment on the quote - oh where was it.

(a rattling of papers)

VOICE 2: What are you digging out?

VOICE 1: Oh, something Martin Heidegger said in Being and Time that I thought you might have a, eh, particular resonance to and I certainly would appreciate your comment! Oh...where was it...hmm...

VOICE 2: (barely audible) Someone please kill me n-

(end recording)

Today's the first day of my vacation from work.

It's also my birthday.


And I'm sick. Bah.

What're you doing tomorrow?

I'll be at The Sins of the Sirens reading at Borderlands Books with Loren Rhodes and Maria Alexander.

Should be a great reading - I dig hearing both of them read, and they're fantastic authors (as are the other two authors in the collection. Can't wait to get my grubby little hands on the book.)

Who all's going?

http://www.nowpublic.com/strange/another-severed-right-foot-discovered-british-columbia


It seems senseless, but you know.

You know.

You know it makes perfect sense.