Dave Cullen: Oddballs and Oddities

pre-licked

Sat, 15 Oct 2005 19:08:27 GMT

heeheehee.

You know the best invention the post office ever came up with was the pre-licked stamps. So how come they refuse to call them that?

Try it. Walk up to the counter and ask for some of the pre-licked and they'll respond that they have a wide selection of self-adhesive stamps. Say it over and over, as if you were not hearing their translation and they will respond over and over, as if they were not hearing yours.

There must have all been shuttled off to some education seminar somewhere, where they were forbidden to ever utter those words.

But I like them.

NOTICE: See you on the weekends

Mon, 26 Sep 2005 17:17:40 GMT

Hey. You might have noticed I'm rarely here during the week these days.

Yes, by design. Trying to keep my focus entirely on my book during the week. Hence the big one-day bursts on Saturdays and Sundays. So look for me then. (Or on Mondays when you get back to trolling the web at the office, while your boss is away. heeheehee.)

OK, better try that bigger:

LOOK FOR ME MOSTLY ON THE WEEKENDS UNTIL THIS BOOK IS DONE!

Occasionally I may stop by in an evening, if I've had a great day and deserve an indulgence, or maybe once in awhile for a quickie. (Like just now. I figured since I was here to let you know this, I could pound out a quick reaction to the Housewives.)

But hopefully you'll see a lot of self-control.

See you Saturday.

Cleveland Doc Wants to Try Face Transplant

Sun, 18 Sep 2005 02:28:35 GMT

Yes, this is going to happen, soon, and the story alternately made me want to cry and wretch.

The nausea was involuntary. I think it's great that they're doing it, but couldn't control my abdominal reaction at certain points.

A very long and very well-written story for AP.

Like naming a box turtle

Fri, 29 Apr 2005 21:28:43 GMT

Interesting interview with UK Maxim Editor Greg Gutfield in The Black Table.

Not for the faint of heart. Loved this passage from a response about celebrities. (And here I thought there was nothing interesting left to say about that subject):

There are many pleasant, down to earth stars, but in general, it's good to steer clear. There was a study that just came out on the top 10 desires of children. Number one: to be famous. Others on the list: to get free stuff like ice cream and presents, pets that would live forever, no war. This is exactly the same list you'd get from a Hollywood celebrity.

Stars are exactly like children, in that they play all day and never buy stuff like light bulbs. And that makes them susceptible to destructive stuff like new age religions and Michael Moore movies. It's why stars give their kids such funny names. Those are EXACTLY the names you'd give your kid, if you were, say, a kid! Naming a kid, to them, is like naming a turtle. A box turtle.

liver pecking crows?

Fri, 29 Apr 2005 01:02:01 GMT

Terry Schiavo may have transfixxed the country for a week, but the whole now bears down on a tiny pond in Hamburg.

What the hell is behind those exploding toads?

And the first reports seemed quizzical, I had no idea it was this gruesome:

Local environmental workers in Hamburg have described it as a scene out of a horror or science fiction movie, with the bloated frogs agonizing and twitching for several minutes, inflating like a balloon before suddenly bursting.

"It's horrible," biologist Heidi Mayerhoefer was quoted as telling the Hamburger Morgenpost daily.

"The toads burst, the entrails slide out. But the animal isn't immediately dead -- they keep struggling for several minutes."

Normally, I'm not so big on horror movies, real or imagined. But this. I just can't turn away.

Apparently, the trouble has crossed the border to Jutland, Denmark. And continues in Hamburg. And it gets more revolting:

Some vet in Hamburg seems sure it's crows pecking out their livers. Listen to this:

"The crows are clever," said Frank Mutschmann, a Berlin veterinarian who collected and tested specimens at the Hamburg pond. "They learn quickly from watching other crows how to get the livers."

Based on the wounds, Mutschmann said, it appears that a bird pecks into the toad with its beak between the amphibian's chest and abdominal cavity, and the toad puffs itself up as a natural defense mechanism.

But, because the liver is missing and there's a hole in the toad's body, the blood vessels and lungs burst and the other organs ooze out, he said.

AP led with the theory, but wouldn't this activity be highly visible? Aren't there a lot of people watching right now? If they're seeing all the poor suckers grappling in their death throws, wouldn't someone have noticed a thousand crows descending to mount a toad? (Or one incredibly greedy crow with an insatiable hunger for liver darting madly about the pond?)

Over at the Hamburg Institute for Hygiene and the Environment they're rolling their eyes at the bird theory:

We haven't seen that. It might be, it might not be," said institute spokeswoman Janne Kloepper. "It's speculation," until it's observed, she said.

Local authorities are trying to talk people away from a peek at "the death pool." Yeah. I'm sure they're having a lot of success with that. Geraldo is probably boarding a jet even as we speak.

Ah, those exploding toads

Wed, 27 Apr 2005 21:34:49 GMT

Very strange story:

Exploding toads puzzle German scientists

A thousand of them so far, in one month, all in a single pond in Germany.

Got to be a story in there somewhere. Or at least a chapter or a scene.

No time this year to write it, though.

I wonder if I'll ever see it pop up in someone else's work.

Enjoying Slate more for the fat pills

Tue, 26 Apr 2005 17:12:52 GMT

Though Slate is known mainly as a political mag, and almost equally now for culture, I consistently find some of my widest smiles generated by their informational pieces: specifically the Explainer feature, occasionally Medical Examiner, and doubtless a few other incarnations where I've been oblivious to the labels.

Not because they are better than the culture/politics pieces, which are usually quite good and sometimes quite extraordinary. (*One little disclaimer below, but first a quick note on my favorite political piece of the year--in any magazine:

The Pope Didn't End Communism--which not only convinced me of its thesis against all odds, but provided an alternative so powerful it actually shifted my worldview. The best piece written during the entire popewatch, because it went so far beyond anything related to mere popes. And delivered it through a story so gripping and so personal I expect to be retelling it into my 80s.

Yes, Slate can do that stuff exceptionally well. But so does the Times Magazine, so does Salon, and in a different vein so do Harpers and The Atlantic. But none of those add in the unexpected little pleasures of the Explainer and its variations. Slate seems to have that field all to itself. And I never would have expected it, but I perk up every time I see the little entries for them. Truly puts a lot of smiles on my face.

Odd how nobody has thought to steal it yet.

All to itself within the confines of my little world, anyway. I'm sure that if I subscribed to Discover and JAMA, this stuff would all seem redundant and exceptionally shallow. But I don't, and why the hell would I want to? I did enjoy Discover for two or three months back in my 20s, but I quickly discovered I didn't have nearly the time nor energy nor justification in my life for that many plump servings of science.

Slate's Explainer stuff provides just the right dosage, often with just-in-time delivery: like an assortment of interesting aspects of how to select a pope last month--personal favorite: Is the Conclave held in Latin?--or last year, How Do You Pronounce "Abu Ghraib"? (Though the last one just drove me nuts, because no full-time journalist on the planet seemed to have stumbled upon it, or bothered to investigate independently.)

During Big News! interludes they shuck the timeliness, focus on enticing peculiarities.This week included: Does the FBI Have Your Fingerprints?, Who Counts the World's Icebergs?, How Much For That Monkey?

Hennyway. My point? Great piece posted late-late last night called, Someday, There Will Be a Fat Pill. (What the hell are they doing posting stories at 1:32 a.m. PT, by the way? And since they're not really based out of Redmond anymore, it most likely really went up at 4:32 a.m. ET. Yikes.)

So the fat-pill piece. Really interesting read. Incredibly broad, complex subject, whittled down expertly, delivered clearly yet concisely. And a damn good page-scroller, assuming you're into that sort of thing.

---

* But my conscience tugs. (Once a Catholic . . .) It seems a bit disingenuous to heap such praise onto Slate's wonderful culture work--which is actually rivaling Salon these days, sometimes even surpassing it--without finally unloading about the lone perplexing exception. What's with the idiotic and sophomoric TV critic they seem to have plucked out of some high school newspaper? And I don't mean sophomoric in a good way. Don't think South Park; picture Summer from The OC reviewing The Valley. That would be season-one Summer, before Mr. Schwartz wizened her up several notches, to make her a plausible, pleasurable, legitimate foil for Seth.

But they do make up for her with the always trenchant and perceptive David Edelstein on fillums.

Speaking of Seths, how can I get out of here without praising my other perpetual fave, the always delightful (TV) ad report card, where Seth Stevenson rips open the latest abominations and unexpected surprise in the most pervasive art form of our time. (Sorry, but they are. Shitty, but still pervasive.)

For me, Seth provokes the same underlying response as The Daily Show: ahhhhhhhh.

Just when I'm sure my soul is about to explode from the latest outrage, Jon or Seth or Stephen Colbert step up to the mic with a little smirk and reassure me I'm still not the one going crazy. No, nobody is actually swallowing this crap. Well, a few people maybe, but the elated audience response persuades me there are a hell of a lot more gaggers out there than just Jon, Stephen, Seth and me.

Thanks.

An outer body experience

Thu, 16 Sep 2004 04:26:00 GMT

So Oprah is doing this "dream come true" thing, and today's dream was meeting Barry Manilow.

I'm not holding that against Oprah, I just have to relate how one woman described the incident where the show set her up for a surprise meeting with him a few days earlier. "I had no clue! It was absolutely an outer body experience."

No, I didn't hear it wrong. I backed the tivo up six times. And she ennunciated the phrase.

Poor woman. But I'm insanely curious. What in the hell does she think that means? Something so powerful you only feel it in your outer body? In your skin? That seems like a really shallow experience--isn't that the opposite of say, "It was like a stake through my heart"?

Maybe it's when your skin is all tingly, the hairs stand up on your neck. You feel it way in your outer body.

What I would give to question that woman. You think if I wrote Oprah, she'd provide me with an email address? If I said cracking that riddle would be a dream come true?

But here's the other question. How many times has that woman said that in her life and no one has ever corrected her?

Entire bridge stolen in Southern Bosnia

Fri, 27 Aug 2004 16:46:07 GMT

Wow. How do you pass by an AP headline like that?

Maybe I can base a story on that some day.

It was built during the Austro-Hungarian empire (one of my favorite empires--no, seriously; for some reason I'm fascinated by the Hapsburgs), and they got $170 for it.

And in the very same day, we get this one:

Doctors grow new jaw bone in man's back

That one is lengthy, and an unbelievable read. It's really thorough on description of the technique involved, but because it's AP, it neglects to address the most obvious question to the casual reader: did this guy have a jaw sticking out of his back for seven weeks?

How it feels

Fri, 14 May 2004 23:59:28 GMT

Have I mentioned that my ex is beautiful? I believe I have.

And I always imagined how great it must be to be that hot. I got a pretty good sense of it--of the great part of it--hanging out at bars on the rare occasions we did that. He was hit on constantly, never had to buy a drink in his life . . . Literally. It was actually a sore spot with him that when he went out to bars with me, if it looked to obvious he was with me, the freebies would stop arriving, and I'd expect him to buy half the rounds. That really bugged him.

So I had a glimpse, but watching is a whole different thing than experiencing.

Today I got an email informing me I had a message from Brett waiting for me on Connexion, which is more or less the gay Friendster. So I clicked on the link, hit OK at the login page that popped up with my ID and password already entered, and it took me straight to the messages page, the way it always does.

The top message was not from Brett, though, it was from Alex. (Name changed to protect the innocent.) Apparently a new message had arrived since the email alert about the Brett message, but I never looked down to see what Brett had to say, because my eyes refused to relinquish their hold on Alex.

A thumbnail picture pops up next to the subject line of the message, which was "wow," by the way, which grabbed just a fragment of my attention and then sent my imagination reeling.

Alex is not just good looking. Matinee-idol face; taut, sculpted body. Stripped to the waist, just the tip of the bluejeans peaking up over the bottom crop. It was a tough call, but I clicked on the message first, then the picture--but rapid-fire, in separate windows, so they would both come up at the same time, I could gulp one in, then hop right to the other.

Message first:

how are you doing, gorgeous? you are one awesome looking man. will you marry me?

What?

Some kind of cruel joke? Some hottie finally coming to his senses and grabbing me while the going was good?

There was more to the message--apparently we had already corresponded, but he must have changed his picture, I would have remembered.

Back to the profile, plus I clicked on the "View all three of Alex's photos," read the profile while they popped up:

Age: 28.

Second photo: Nearly as stunning, this time in a knit shirt. Nice smile. Better hair. Better shot of his arm, which was a slightly obscured in the first one--thicker, big fat vein running down the edge of the unflexxed bicep, down through the forearm. The first photo was no fluke.

Relationship status: single.

Third photo: Headless bodyshot. In a jockstrap. Unbelievable. Arms hanging at his side this time, allowing his pecs to swell up to full glory. And his arms. Huge.

Occupation: "Pediatrician...love the babies."

Good God. Another doctor. And a nice one. Smart and sweet. Too good to be true. Obviously.

Back to the message. The system shows you all the exchanges back and forth. This was apparently the third between us.

Previous message:

{pleasant reply}

What?

First message:

you are gorgeous, man

OK, OK, who wrote what? He wrote the first one, I responded, he wrote the top one, asking me to marry him. (Joking, obviously, but still.)

What? I never wrote him. And how what was my ex doing in this conversation. Apparently he had written the middle response. When did all this happen? How are we having a three-way message? Ahhhhhhh. My ex referred him to me! How nice of him. He's such a sweetheart, looking out for me like that. And Alex titled his reply "wow" when he caught sight of me? Wow. And asked me to marry him? Too much. Way, way, way too much.

I didn't actually hop out of my chair and literally jump up and down, raise my eyes to heaven and thank God for shining down on me, the way I do occasionally when I sell a big story after a tough fight. Just because I didn't fight hard enough? Or because it was all still a little too screwy.

Like the rest of my inbox. While my eyes refused to take their direct gaze off Alex, my peripheral vision had taken in something not quite right for some time now--for the full forty seconds this elation had been unfolding. What were all those strange faces doing in my inbox?

Not strangers, two of the three visible on the first screen were people I knew, but had not corresponded with on Connexion recently. The third I had never laid eyes on. And his message was unread too.

I scrolled down through the inbox. Somebody else's. More strangers, more acquaintances I hadn't been writing too. How the hell did I get in somebody else's mailbox? There were going to be some pretty angry people if this bug was letting people in all over.

I clicked the home button to see whose it was.

Duh. My ex's. Lots of mutual friends in the inbox. But how did that happen. I clicked the back button to the logon. Oh. His ID, his password. He's been looking after my plants and my blog, resetting my pc, and apparently he took the chance to check his connexion messages once or twice. And clicked the button to let the system remember his password. I came home after a month just Wednesday, so he was the last to log in. Never occurred to me to look at that page. I just see the general outline of it, smack the enter key and I'm in.

So this hottie. This modern day Adonis with a brain and a heart who must have men dropping at his feet morning, noon and night, spots my ex's sweet smile online somehow and contacts him out of the blue to gush.

Can you believe this? Is this what beautiful people do to each other?

I'd be bouncing off the walls if somebody that hot ever responded to one of my overtures politely--after reading all about me and being drawn in by my intellect or personality and making certain allowances for my looks, which aren't bad, but certainly way out his league. I didn't think coverboys ever gushed like that to perfect strangers. Aren't they supposed to wait their to adored first, and only then respond? Not like he'd ever be waiting long.

In my entire life, no one that hot will ever gush at me like that out of the blue, even a dumbass loser prick with no job coming on to me just to flee me out of the little money I have. I would be ecstatic just to have a no-rent loser like that come on to me for a good swindle.

He's got Mr. Perfection popping in? And all he does is respond with a quick one liner, and the god lays it on twice as thick and proposes.

Now I know. Got a taste, anyway, of what life can be like when you're that fucking beautiful. So much better than it looks. All those years watching, I never imagined quite how electrifying it could feel.

Man. And yet it hasn't made him happy all the time, obviously. He's had a rough life. But what I wouldn't give to walk around like a magnet like him pulling in treasures like that.

Two taboos -- sign up now

Wed, 03 Mar 2004 04:03:11 GMT

There are two subjects I've been dying to share with you. But that would be crazy. Can't do it in public, so I'm going to restart my email chronicles on these two subjects.

You're welcome to be included. Send me and email and I'll put you on the list. You can remove yourself at any time.

davecullen at earthlink dot net.

Jumper on the needle

Sat, 28 Feb 2004 23:58:25 GMT

{Written yesterday afternoon. This was my first access to the web since then}:

My friend Tom, who I'm visiting in Seattle before and after the judging, works at KOMO 4, the ABC affiliate. We just pulled up to his building across from the space needle, and he couldn't understand what all the fire trucks were for. Or all the people staring. "They're probably just staring because the other people are," he said.

Nope. The security guard was midly ecstatic. "Did you see the jumper?"

"Really, a jumper?"

Tom has been here three years, this would be his first. Mine too. I've only been here 18 hours. First the sun came out, now this. Did you know moss grows right on the rooftops here? Tom's house is only five years old, and I think I spotted lichen, too. Sprouting right up out of the shingles.

They've got the jumper on channel 86, closed circuit TV, though they still haven't broken in to General Hospital. "They would never break in," a woman calls from the cube next door. "If he goes, they don't want to be live."

They could use a tighter shot on the guy. Kind of hard to tell what he's doing, exactly. The floor is split on whether he's seated or standing. He's moving around quite a bit, but what the hell is he doing?

OK, we've got to get out of here. I've got a lot of Seattle to see, and more work to do for my horrible boss. (One horrilbe boss, one nice one.) Tom has seven hours of activities planned out from 5 p.m. to midnight, and it's 2:30 already. And I can't stay out any later--I promised myself to be tucked in no later than midnight and sober, so I can be alert for my judging tomorrow.

Goodbye Mr. Jumper. I couldn't figure out what to feel about you anyway. It disturbed me just a little, that I couldn't make myself feel anything. Aside from mildly excited. Only when I confirmed jumpers weren't an everyday occurence. My only significant reaction was annoyance. Attempted suicides tend to make my eyes roll. Top of my list of oxymorons. It's really not that hard to kill yourself. "If he's been up there more than ten minutes he's not serious," I said.

I regretted it immediately. Of course they're not serious attempts, they're serious cries for help. Does that make them any less tragic? Of course the guy is more interested in attention than killing himself. He's obvious staggered right off the cliff of desperation already. Why must I begrudge him that?

OK I won't, but I have a hard time respecting him. Surely there was a better approach to this problem.

Here's the reason it gets to me. My reaction would reverse 180 if I met him. Most jumpers, anyway. This I cannot be certain of, but the biggest thing I've learned from reporting is how completely different all these large and small tragedies feel once you meet the participants. He's a unique individual up there with a crazy twisted story that could have taken a hundred billion different turns and if not for the oddest unexpected developments with less predictable consequences, he never would have ended on that needle.

He never planned it this way, he never expected to find himself in whatever private hell he woke up inside this morning, so he hopped in the car and drove himself straight to the tallest escape hatch he could imagine.

I wasn't a big liar when I started this. I'm not actually across from the space needle at this moment, though I was when I started writing, just not when I started typing. I wrote it in my head initially, waiting for that last damn post to post, ready to start typing, but Tom popped his head back in unexpectedly and said we had to go. I wrote a little more in the car when I wasn't talking. He dropped me off in a cool little neighborhood called Alki, on the western side of the sound, across from the city, that suddenly feels like Venice Beach or Daytona. Sandy beach on one side of the road, beach buildings on the other. I like it.

I'm supposed to be doing that work right now, but I just sat down to type in all the stuff I'd already written, but that's where the trouble started. I typed it all in the present tense, because I was merely transcribing what I wrote as it happened. But these new thoughts filtered in as it happened. I didn't know why I felt so conflicted at the time, it was all still confused and frustrating. Lots of little threads, I could feel everyone of them already, but just the little whispers twitching at my cheeks. So this should have been in two parts: as I watched him and an hour later. Two different takes on it, but they all blended into one. But I don't want to go back and rewrite it that way and I told you I have to work.

Saturday night update:

They talked him down. This, of course, did not take 28 hours. That was merely the time it took the news to reach me.

I have not yet learned what got him up there, nor the consequences. I am curious.

Rather Good -- the last bastion goes commercial

Thu, 12 Feb 2004 02:51:09 GMT

Rathergood.com. Love that site (you can click on it right there from my sidebar--been there since they day I learned to create a sidebar), but that's one thing I never expected to go commercial. The Viking Kittens, maybe, but never those moon swooners.

So why'd they have to fuck it up? Have you seen the Subway commercial, or the Quiznos, or whatever the hell it is? (My one joy--it failed to register their product with me.) It's beyond lame, the lyrics don't even try to be funny or clever or absurd. They took the goofiest thing ever, which never ceased to smile me and they didn't even try to adapt it to something comparable. What's the point? It's just stupid.

No really. What is the point? If they take everything good out of it, why do they expect people to like the commercial? Because it's related to something we liked? But the people who liked it will just hate them for it. The other people will be perplexed.

Just more evidence. Rathergood doesn't belong in a Quiznos commercial.

(OK, I lied, I do know. But only because I've been composing this thing for three days. No time to type it in. First time I wrote it in my head, I had no idea, and that up there is how I wrote it. I've seen it constantly since then, though, and just couldn't keep myself from noticing, once I knew I was dissing them: "Who the hell are the morons doing this?" I was hoping it was Subway. I don't like them.)

Why are doing this? What will make them stop.

The biggest story of 2004?

Sun, 28 Dec 2003 19:09:25 GMT

Want to start taking bets?

We never know what's on the horizon to top it, but one story that's hard not to foresee changing most of our lives is the mad cow disease story.

Just one cow, that's all it takes. "That's like saying you only saw one cockroach," my brother said yesterday. If one gets in . . .

Well, one got in, and AP has been reporting that U.S. beef producers have already lost 90% of their exports. Britain fought the problem and fought it, until they finally realized the hard truth: that the only way people were going to start eating their beef again was to slaughter the country's entire cow population. And so they did.

Can you imagine that here? Or what will happen to beef consumption if one cow becomes a hundred? I sure as hell don't want to stop eating beef. Hardly a day goes by when I don't have some. I'm not going to stop eating it the afternoon, but I can easily foresee the day I'm forced to.

I was always skeptical that you could stop something like that at a national boundary, and now one has found its way in. And it's amazing how far and wide one damn cow can travel.

Check out the AP report this morning:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Investigators disclosed Sunday that they have found meat cut from a Holstein sick with mad cow disease was sent to four more states and one territory.

Dr. Kenneth Petersen, an Agriculture Department veterinarian, said investigators have now determined that some of the meat from the cow slaughtered Dec. 9 went to Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana and Guam. Earlier, officials had said most of the meat went to Washington and Oregon, with lesser amounts to California and Nevada, for distribution to consumers.

He stressed that the brains had been removed, so the cow posed no threat. But just wait for her little infected friends to appear.

The gay Friendster

Sun, 16 Nov 2003 18:14:53 GMT

Every once in awhile, I still get a puzzled look when I use the word google, and I refuse to use meterosexual in a sentence, so the main terms currently causing befuddlement in my conversations are blog and Friendster.

You probably know what a blog is if you landed here, but Friendster may still require explanation. Pick up a copy of last month's Spin. The cover story is titled, "More addictive than crack?" and it's referring to the new breed of online software led by Friendster.

How to describe? It's one of those things that are tougher to see the value of until you play with it a bit, but here goes:

It's a way to meet people, not so much for sex, like most earlier profile-based sites, though I'm sure that happens. This breed is all about connecting to people. You post a profile with your interests, pic, etc., and you link to people who are your friends (you can start with me, if you like, if you're here and you've come back more than once), and you can see who they're connected to and they're connected to . . .

You can meet people that way, or just stay in touch. Or remember their name if you met them at a party. Does this graphic from the Friendster site help?

Here's a scenario: you go to a club or a party with a friend, meet some of there friends and there's someone there that you found interesting, but you didn't have a chance to talk much and find out a lot, and/or remember their name, and/or get a number. If they're on here, you can see their picture under your friend's profile, find out more about them, and message them. Blah blah blah.

Of course it depends on lots of people being on there, but these things have been spreading like germ warfare the last several months.

Friendster is the biggest one, by far, so far. (My profile here, though I just signed up two minutes ago, so I'm still friendless.) If you're straight, this is probably the place to start.

Gayboys and lesbos--or breeders looking to diversify their friend catalog--are likely to enjoy Connexion more. It was started by big gay billionaire/philanthropist/tech-wiz Tim Gill (he wrote the original Quark Express program and started Quark a few decades back, then started The Gill Foundation with $300 million of the profits). It has grown wildly in the gay community the past few months.

Connexion also seems to be a big improvement over friendster, as far as I can tell. The same exact basic format, but much easier to get around, to get to your friends' friends. Friendster is actually bugging the crap out of me right at this moment. Maybe user error, but Connexion was a lot more intuitive. I was set up in about a minute flat, and bopping around to different people immediately. You can check out Connexion and link to me here.

(But be prepared: The Connexion link will confront you with a more recent picture of me, taken on my LA trip a few months ago. I hope it doesn't scare you. I'm thinking about posting it on this site once I can get someone to photoshop out the ficus leaves. I think they're fine in the shot there, but I need to crop out the skin below my neck (not that much skin, but too much for here), and it's the oddest thing when I crop it close in all directions. Suddenly the few ficus remaining look like a laurel wreath, but less like Caesar, more like a wood nymph. So I'm holding off for now. But you can let me know what you think about the switch. I've been meaning to test-market the switch since I got back from LA.)

Of course both Connexion and Friendster are free, or I wouldn't be providing space here.

And Connexion is non-profit and assures no spam, ever, and also has an activist component (provides an easy way to register to vote online, tells you were your polling place is, etc., and you can join an activist network to respond to things.)

I have had quite the fun time with Connexion the past couple months, will have to let you know about Friendster.

So regardless of whether you want to play, at least you'll know what the hell people are talking about when they use these terms. Although you may be six months ahead of me. If so, do let me know what the latest thing is that I'm unaware of in the comments.

Theater director's mooning hearing delayed

Wed, 12 Nov 2003 00:43:57 GMT

How culd you resist reading a story with that headline?

Not bad, even for AP.

Following a performance of Richard Wagner's Tristan and Isolde at Rio de Janeiro's municipal theater, Thomas shocked audience members and much of the cast by taking down his pants and displaying his buttocks in response to jeers at the curtain call.

The over-top-production featured sashaying fashion models and an actor playing Sigmund Freud who threw around a white powder meant to be cocaine.

I think I'd like the guy. The AP policy who makes them say buttocks, however . . .

Flynt says he won't use nude Lynch photos

Wed, 12 Nov 2003 00:19:35 GMT

Man, does that guy have photos of everyone naked?

Ever picture yourself becoming famous for something and Larry showing up with shots of you nude. I wonder if he's got any of me. And what I'd have to pay him to publish them. Heeheehee.

Prince Charles the homo? How embarassing

Tue, 11 Nov 2003 15:24:53 GMT

For us homos.

Who knows if it's true, but it's nice to finally learn what the stupid scandal is that the palace is denying without saying what it is.

Apparently the slander laws over there keep the tabloids from spelling it out, but why the hell has AP been "reporting" on it over here without saying what it is either?

Thank God for The Daily Show. Hysterical segment on it just now. ("Yes--[Stephen] Colbert is a genius!" David responded in the comments. Comically speaking, that's no overstatement. I was feeling guilty for not crediting Stephen (Steven?) in the post originally, but the truth was I can never remember which Steven is which on that show. Love them both, but Colbert eventually wins my heart. I love all the correspondents except Ed Helms.)

The rumor isn't that Chuck is gay, just that he gave it a try. Either way, how embarassing. I don't want to be associated with that guy.

-----

Update: Wow, great comments lately, and you never know what direction they're going to turn. Based on the early comments in the first hour, this one tapped into something, but it had nothing to do with those totally irrellevant royals. Something much more culturally significant, The Daily Show.

I read a long interview CBS chief Les Moonves had with Variety last week (thanks for sending it, Joe), which was nearly all blather, but there was an interesting joint lamentation about the fading state of the sitcoms (with Friends, Raymond, Fraiser and (?) all set to retire in '04 or '05, and no real sitcom hit since Malcom in the Middle). Putting aside the idea of Friends as a comic achievement, the sitcoms have gone stale the past few years, but the brilliance has been abounding in other comic forms: The Daily Show, South Park, Queer Eye . . . Queer Eye may not prove sustainable, but it sure was a bolt of joy this summer. And I'm already tiring of Reno 911! but it sure gave me some great moments.

Anyway, when I posted those lines about Stehpen vs Steven, the question did spring to mind about why Colbert is ultimately so more satisfying than Carrel. I was too busy or too lazy to explore it, so thank you very much to Josh, who seems to have snuck his way into my murky subconscious, crstyalized all the little strands floating around those boys and spit out exactly the words I might have said if I had done all the work myself. Or the words I might have hoped to:

as soon as he came on, colbert's been my favorite. carrel is funny in a goofy way, but colbert's segments are much more cerebral--he's got a great persona of an arrogant, cerebral, priss. plus his last name's french.

All the world's a stage, and this guy pulls back the curtain.

Mon, 10 Nov 2003 16:15:40 GMT

I was just writing about Kerry in the Dean blog comments, and the problem of his presentation of self, and I realized I was chanelling one of the more revelatory books of my life.

The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life.

The title pretty much captures what it's all about, the cover fills in the rest--either a couple old ladies in capes and tiaras, or a couple of smirky drag queens impersonating the same. I could never tell which, which just added to the irony. I linked to amazon in the title--click and grin.

I came across the book when it was assigned for a grad school anthro class, so it's definitely the real deal. But it was a gas to read--written for a general audience, none of that withering academic-fog prose.

Great stuff. Will change your whole perception of the humans around you. It's all just a stage, and this guy--Erving Goffman--pulls back the curtain. {I went back and pulled this line out for the title, so I guess now I wrecked my ending thought. At least I cleaned up the Shakespeare quote.}

Amazing Rich Bitches, by Heather Havrilesky

Sun, 26 Oct 2003 02:05:46 GMT

Heather Havrilesky is an amazing writer.

I had no interest whatsoever in her latest "I Like to Watch" column for Salon (on TV). But I read everything she writes because I'm never sorry I did.

This weekend's entry is wonderfully titled (she's responsible for everything but the title) Rhymes with "bitch," a biting and incisive review of three new shows on the rich.

The first two provide hysterical material for Heather to roll around in, which sets up a stunning third act (for the column) that left me speechless.

From the opening of her disection of the second show, "The Simple Life" (premiering -- at least for the time being -- at 8:30 p.m. on Dec. 2), a reality show sending Paris Hilton Nicole Richie down south to stay with the Leding family in a poor town to show what stuck-up bitches they are:

what were they thinking? Are they not familiar with Fox, the network of chaotic evil?

This is just priceless:

Once they meet the Ledings and survey the room where they'll be staying, which is populated by flying insects and has a well in the middle of it ("What's a well?" Paris asks), the true nature of this escapade is beginning to dawn on them. "Maybe Fox didn't invite us out here to demonstrate our fabulousness and break down stereotypes of the rich like they said," their faces say. "Maybe this is really just about making us look like assholes."

But then:

It's hard not to feel a little sorry for the girls when you see their faces drop.

But then they flatly refuse to help the poor grandmother pluck chickens for dinner. When they're instead given $50 and instructed to do the grocery shopping for the family, they sulk around the store looking for the stuff on the list. When the bill comes to $65, the girls simply hand the cashier 50 bucks.

Cashier: Is this all you have?

Nicole: Yeah. Can we just have it?

Cashier: No, you can't just have it! This is not a soup kitchen.

By the time the girls get out to the car, they're angry.

Nicole: He wouldn't just give it to us!

Paris: He was like, "This isn't a soup kitchen."

Nicole: I know! What does that mean, "soup kitchen"?

It gets worse.

But then Heather gets to the third show, and I won't wreck it for you, but it's truly a revelation. And it provided some wonderful insights on the depression I was/am suffering from about my writing and my struggle to pay the rent lately.

I want to be Heather Havrilesky.

Solar storm barrels toward earth

Sat, 25 Oct 2003 06:48:06 GMT

I wish I had more to add to this:

Solar storm barrels towards earth

I do love this imagery (though I saw it described much more vividly in a different piece I saw in print):

The storm, called a "coronal mass ejection," is a mass of solar gas that swept toward Earth at 2 million mph.

What fascinates me is that this all goes on almost invisibly--invisibly to anyone not closely monitoring the sun. It is this enormous storm much larger than our entire planet, it is buffeting out planet, blasting the shit out of it, and it has been going on for all the thousands of years humans have been roaming around the planet and this entire time we've been oblivious to it.

Kind of puts you in your place, doesn't it?

Queen Boudica, Celtic Warrior

Fri, 17 Oct 2003 06:47:05 GMT

Well I finally watched the Masterpiece Theatre on Queen Boudica, the early Celt warrior who stopped the Romans cold in their tracks in Britian--for about 15 minutes. Hard to say the actual amount, from the docudrama, maybe a year?

It was nice to see a Celt finally winning something, although they lost in the end.

Got me scavenging all over for Celtic history, though, and found the BBC actually seems to have the best stuff. You can read about:

The Rebellion of the Iceni, AD 60 (which is what the movie concerns)
A broader overview of the Roman Invasion, AD 43 - 60
A map of the tribes at the time, including the Iceni
And later developments--where the Celts finally ended up: Beginnings of Scotland 400 - 1000

I found a different site with an interesting History of the Celts--with a broader perspective across Europe, though it seems slightly less authoriative (definitely written by a Celt--not quite skeptical enough). Their resources include maps of the Celts in ancient, medieval, and modern times.

The jump from ancient to medieval is heart-stopping sad--if you're a Celt like me, or identify with them for any reason--but medieval to modern is virtually unchanged.

And just so you don't think we were all a bunch of losers, the Celts were fierce warriors, who scared the shit out of the Romans, but they were also fiercely independent, so they alway continued as tribes, never unified, and were always picked off one tribe at a time. (Or one tribe played off against each other.) So strong, just not so bright?

Male contraception

Wed, 08 Oct 2003 19:54:40 GMT

This is interesting. In so many ways.

The AP headline says:

Male contraceptive results show promise

But when you read all the shit the men had to go through--regular injections, surgical implants--it sounds way, way off.

Update:

Readers have informed me (via the comments) how naive my understanding of female contraception was. So maybe not way off. Although the truth is, I bet you'll see a lot more resistance from men.

Not your mother's Barbie

Tue, 07 Oct 2003 19:59:47 GMT

Salon has a story on Barbie collecting today. Hey! Why didn't they ask me to cover it? (I covered it for the New York Times last year, and had quite the time of it.) Oh well.

Looks interesing, though I can't read it till later. Here's the deck head and deck:

Playing with dollz
This isn't your mother's Barbie: Welcome to a Web subculture where pixelated gothic Lolitas, preps and weirdos are good wholesome fun.

I'll report back once I've read it.

Leni Riefenstahl croaked

Thu, 18 Sep 2003 09:50:34 GMT

Leni Riefenstahl croaked? (It's OK to use that word in public on Nazi propogandists.) It's about time.

When did this happen, when I was in NY? I never heard a peep. Thank God for The Daily Show, where I learned about it tonight, and had a good laugh in the process. (Not because she croaked, because they worked it into a very funny Back in Black segment.) All the best information comes from the fake news. Brilliant show all around tonight. Peaked with the lawn-sewage-and-Cher-concert report.

So I googled her, found this brilliant the little obit (now there's a phrase you don't hear too often) in this week's Village Voice. Excerpts (actually, about half of it):

Once upon a time in Berlin, there was a young, blonde, beautiful maiden named Leni, who starred in silent movies and longed to make films herself. Because she was proud and willful and ingenious, she did, eventually being asked to film a giant Nazi rally in 1934 by Adolf Hitler. The whole world knew Hitler was very, very bad, but like Germany herself, Leni enjoyed his attention, and filmed the crowds and hectoring orations with a mythic flare. . . .

When asked [about the propoganda], she'd scoff like an old widow quizzed about wartime one-night stands. Third Reich citizens tried to shrug off the Nazi period, but Leni put her love on film. Everyone saw it. But what did she love? Hitler and fascism, or celluloid, spectacle, muscle, and power sex? She lived a century; now she's gone.

I watched a few of the films in anthro class a couple years ago, and man, was it a big homofest. Really. It was supposed to be all about the German male physical ideal, but it was mostly a bunch of Dolph Lungrens frollicking naked and splashing each other, like the opening of the big orgy scene at the climax of a Falcon video.

I practically got wood watching it, except it was so damn hokey, I was too busy laughing. And it wasn't just me, the straight people snickered the whole way through it, too. (Not pimply freshmen, PhD candidates.) Gay sex comedy? Think she knew it at the time?