I haven’t posted for awhile. A really long while. Been very out of the loop. And though my reasons are good, I don’t need to give any reasons. I’m not Mark Sanford and I won’t be providing a subconscious rambling explaining my whereabouts. Of course, I didn’t disappear and leave South Carolina without a leader or provide any constigency plan in the event of an emergency during my absence.
Suffice to say, I was gone. Now I’m back. And my reasons for being gone, slowly resolving themselves thanks to a cracker jack team and tenacious advocacy. I think I like being mysterious. Since I am usually so straight-forward it’s nice to be elusive once in a while. This is one of those whiles. And again, I’m not Mark Sanford, so if I say it’s none of anyone’s business, it really is.
Not that I have anything to hide. I just don’t have the impetus to expand and besides I think Americans offer up far too much information ie: Mark Sanford’s press conference, Twitter status updates, providing explanations as to why one would want a doggy bag at a restaurant, most blogs, and anything that has to do with Larry David.
Aside from work and the pursuit of intelligent advertising, my spare thoughts are all over the place because I’m back to paying attention to the world outside my window. Paying attention is frustrating. Once you start, it’s hard to stop and there are so many things going on right now, I can’t keep them all straight. I don’t know how the President manages to do all that he does – even with RahmRod by his side.
I had signed up in ‘08 and never used it much because no one else was on it but have been glued of late to Tweetdeck specifically # health care crisis/reform, Iran’s election, climate change legislation, the GOPs holier-than-thou Hypocrisy World Tour, friends from out-of-state and of course, So You Think You Can Dance – I need something to break up the aggravation.
Not sure how often I will post since it isn’t an election cycle and if I am writing someone is usually paying me. That said, if you need ads, send word.
You know it’s one thing to say we need voter education for regular citizens here in Florida (hello Amendment 2) but it seems we need some voter education for our Senators too. Has being under the Bush influence for eight years led to this? You can do very, very bad things and get away with it?
You know what the Senate needs? They need to spend a weekend with my parents cause they would never let you get away with this !@#$%^. My mom would have grounded Lieberman, given him a massive silent treatment and if it was my grandma…. whoa….she would have thrown a shoe at him.
What happened to TIME OUT? What happened to ‘young man, put that gum you’re chewing on your nose and go stand in the corner?’ What about writing I will not question the patriotism of a Presidential candidate 500 times on the blackboard???
I mean seriously, kids get in more trouble for breaking curfew. It’s not like Dad Reid took away his computer, cell phone, and said no car for your buster… try the bus.
Again…. ARGH.
Repeat after me… I still have hope…. I still have hope.. I still have hope….
And to make the migraine I have worse….Sarah Palin wrote me a letter asking if I wanted a full-color brochure about Alaska and invited me to visit. I think I might cover up all the options under the question WHEN ARE YOU PLANNING TO VISIT and just write in… “When your ignorant butt gets thrown out of office.”
On Sunday, after weeks of planning, we pulled it off. A March to Vote through Coconut Grove (Miami) to City Hall. Thanks Commissioner Sarnoff and all the volunteers, including our Fired Up Firefighters. Leading the way was Commissioner Sarnoff, Congressional Candidate Annette Taddeo – who marched in four in heels, and Mayor Manny Diaz.
The energy continued while voters waited on line. Drummers drummed, Espy our stilt walker marched around. We distributed water – generously donated by Max Milam of Milam’s grocery. Probably wasn’t as much fun for McCain supporters but for us, it was a great day indeed.
We were guilty of showing signs of hope. The City of Miami however, called it graffiti.
Two weeks ago my friend Carolyn and I painted a mural on the exterior wall of the house. It’s private property but the City of Miami cited us for violation of city codes. Specifically, Graffiti and erecting a sign without a finalized permit. Now one citation sort of contradicts the other – if it’s graffiti it wouldn’t be a sign, but never mind that right now.
The upshot is that we have a 30-day extension to remove the offensive mural (an anonymous person complained). Simon didn’t want to get into details with the Inspector about the code ordinances, where to read them, and what constitutes what — although the Inspector said had it been a political sign within 30 days of the election it would have been fine.
So Hope was given a stay of execution. And Simon and I are in violation of showing too much hope too soon. We have until November 9th to remove it without incurring fines. whew. Now we can focus on bigger things, like winning the election gosh darnnit.
To the anonymous complainer – when I picture you in my head I can’t help but see the Grinch. A hater of hope. Hope hater.
It all becomes clear though… I mean think about it…. to support McCain and Palin means you have given up all Hope. You have surrendered to hate and fear. And we’ve got a big Notice of Violation that proves it. But we also have 30-days to rub our Hope in your Grinchy-Mavericky-Drill-Here- Drill-Now face, so there.
“… there has never been anything false about hope.”
Simon and I had been wanting to paint a mural of hope on the wall of the property since the acceptance speech at the convention. Finally, last Sunday, Carolyn and I had given ourselves enough time to actually do it.
The wall has gotten great response. Cars honk. People give thumbs up. They shout out Obama as they ride by on bikes. People even stop to take photos. And we met someone who used a photo in a school project. Of course, we knew there would be ’some’ people who might object — one person stuck gum in the O – quickly removed. Another put a McCain sticker on the O – quickly removed. But as a neighbor pointed out, it’s private property. What we never expected stuck to the mural was a notice of violation from the City of Miami claiming we were in violation of ordinances because of Grafitti on the property and that we erected, constructed or posted a sign without a finalized permit.
I kid you not. The code inspector considered it graffiti and the erection, construction, posting etc., of a sign without a finalized permit. If it doesn’t come down by the 6th, Simon gets fined up to $200 a day with threats of liens on the property. So Simon and I are essentially in violation of showing signs of hope. Or murals of hope. Of being hopeful. Of thinking we can be better people, better neighbors, a better a nation, a better planet. To our Hope, we are told Nope by Inspector Rafael Galvez. Makes you wonder if he’s one of the those drivers that give us the finger when we hold signs that say Honk for Peace.
Of course, I was ticked off. Simon just wanted to know if we needed to keep the sign taped the wall and how long we had till we had to paint it. I wasn’t about to cave that quickly. If we are talking to voters every day about restoring the Constitution and protecting our free speech and privacy, I can’t simply grab a paint brush and cover a mural that advocates Hope.
I had gone next door to Melanie and Jose to deliver some Obama schwag and told them about the notice. They had friends over for dinner and as ticked off as I was about the Notice, when I told them, they got even more ticked off. It was a unanimous decision to fight it. Have the house declared a historic site since it’s more than 50 years old. Contact the media, the ACLU.
If graffiti in this instance is considered lettering or numbers painted on a wall – then isn’t a house number on a wall graffiti? This was neither damage to property or unwanted… but think about this for a second….what about instances where someone actually does paint graffiti on your house. Is the City of Miami saying that you are in violation of codes if you were vandalized? Is this where our tax dollars are going? The city considered cutting back picking up trash/yard clippings from once a week to once a month but they have money to burn having Rafael Galvez drive around the Grove?
And we didn’t erect , construct or post a sign. It’s a mural. It doesn’t tell you buy anything, sell anything, eat anything, it doesn’t even tell you to have hope. It’s a wall of hope, around a house of hope, inhabited by hopeful people and a hopeful dog.
Melanie came back to the house and after maybe a minute, Simon picked up the phone and called the ACLU. We’ll see where this goes. Melanie said she would protest if we painted over the mural and would raise a ruckus. But if we are forced to paint over it, who knows, maybe signs of hope will begin popping up all over town. All up and down the street. One a week. Keeping Mr. Galvez busy. He certainly needs some Hope. And I think this country needs some Change.
On Saturday, I was first at bat to testify at a public Field Hearing on the health care crisis in this country. State and Federal Representatives, like John Conyers, were there. Senator Peaden (R), immediately pulled me aside and asked me to come up to Tallahassee to meet with the Governor’s team to discuss the problems I encountered and propose solutions. Thank you Simon and Wendy for coming.
I spoke about the problems I encountered dealing with COBRA, Open Enrollment, the state CFO site, the Department of Labor and being an automatic decline because I have pre-existing conditions. If an educated and tech savvy person has difficulty navigating their way through the labyrinth of a system we have, how are the less educated, less savvy supposed to do it?
I had it posted on youtube and disabled it because I got a call from Peggy Gaines, one of our great leaders. She said that it looks like the whole group of us might be headed to Tallahassee to speak to Congress and also DC.
Congressman Conyers
Navigating the system
Citizens and Congressional Reps after the testimonies were given.
I refused to tune in last night (in part because I was working) but I read Palin’s speech and all I can think is just when you think the Republicans can’t sink any lower, they prove me wrong.
In her snarky attempts to rile up her crowd, Governor Palin showed us who she really was. An ignorant water carrier with no comprehension of subtext and no concept of life in the lower 48 otherwise known as the Continental United States.
The media, from what I have read, have not caught on to two things:
the first – that Palin attacked a candidate that she never met and doesn’t know.
and the second – she insulted every community organizer in the world and said we have no actual responsibilities.
Now the thing about attacking Obama I think is a bit ironic. Since last night was Rudy’s wrap yourself in the memory of the twin towers, a noun, a verb and 911 stampede — for Palin to come out and attack someone based on hearsay, without any first-hand knowledge, comes off sounding like a radical, fundamentalist extremist.
Wait, aren’t they the enemy? The very evil John McCain will stare down with steely eyes and defeat just by exhaling? Has history not taught the Republican party anything? I know science hasn’t but is history too now subject for questioning?
Do they not realize that when they speak, people outside their inner fear mongering circle hear them?
I don’t think so. Because if they considered for a moment that people outside of their ego-maniacal world are watching, they never would have allowed a former PTA, city councilwoman to insult community activists the way she did.
And in doing so, she showed how callow she is, how insensitive the party is, and how ridiculously out of touch they are with, well frankly, the rest of the planet.
Gandhi was a community organizer. Jesus. Martin Luther King Jr. Gloria Steinhem. Moses. Mother Theresa! Every Precinct committee person for their local party is a community organizer. And we all have actual responsibility. I dare say, most of us probably know what the Vice President does without having to look it up on Wikipedia.
Palin might have galvanized the right-wing smear meisters, but she just opened Pandora’s box of activism.
Community Organizers will be opening a Community Organizers for Change office in Coconut Grove on Saturday. 3PM, Grand Avenue near the Ace Theatre. It’s open to everyone and anyone, but Saturday we will be canvassing to bring change to the White House. And Palin is not change. She’s just more of the same. Red meat in a red dress. And when I say ‘thanks but no thanks’ to that, you wont be able to go back and discover I said thanks before I said no thanks.
My cousin had to remind me that when I visited him last year in Alaska, we stopped in Wasilla to use their rest room.
Thursday night was incredible, amazing, historic, overwhelming… pick an adjective. 38 million people tuned in. A bounce in polls was already noticed before the speech. New citizens swarmed the Obama voter registration tables at naturalization ceremonies at the Miami Dade Auditorium.
But the McCain campaign hit back in full force, celebrating the Senator’s 72nd birthday by nominating the Mayor of Mayberry to second highest office in the nation. Introducing Alaska’s Sarah Palin – beauty queen turned PTA mom, turned City Councilwoman, turned mayor of Wasilla, turned Governor of Alaska. She’s anti-choice – even in cases of rape and incest, anti-polar bear, anti-equal rights for all, thinks global warming is NOT man made, had a parent who was a science teacher but thinks creationism should be taught in school, was for the bridge to nowhere before she was against the bridge to nowhere, and oh yeah, she likes to shoot things and then eat them.
It was a Rovian Hail Mary Pass of a pick. We’ll see how she holds up on the campaign trail. At 44, she has five kids, the youngest a special needs infant with Down’s Syndrome. We’ll see how she holds up in a debate on foreign policy with Joe Biden. She’s Commander in Chief of the Alaskan National Guard but has been on record saying she has no idea how we will ever get out of Iraq, and also has said she hasn’t paid attention to the Iraq War, though her oldest son is shipping off there on Sept 11.
She would be a heartbeat away from being President of the United States, but don’t worry, for the next two months she’s going to stay at a Holiday Inn Express.
There are still people, like the cashier I registered to vote last night, who haven’t been paying attention. People, like the kid I met yesterday at Office Depot, who don’t fact check before they forward. People who, for whatever reason, can’t see the obvious difference between what has been and what could be. They rely on tabloids and Ron Fournier’s AP wire stories for news. And the GOP thinks the People Magazine human interest element will outweigh the fact that John McCain has still voted in lock step with George Bush 90% of the time. It’s up to us to see that it doesn’t. This isn’t a student council race. As Dennis said in his speech last week, Wake Up America.
No one knew Palin was McCain’s pick because even McCain didn’t know McCain’s pick. He met her twice. Does Karl Rove also pick out McCain’s pants? John you’re wearing the blue ones today. Obama thought long and hard about who his Veep would be. He knows Joe and trusts him. McCain got a mail order bride. And I am not belittling Palin. She has to wrestle her conscience that she is not only being used as the replacement kitten for the much loved family cat that got run over, but that she will be leaving everything she loves so dearly – small-town America, the nature and wonder of Alaska, ice fishing, snow mobile racing, and wolf hunting to swim with sharks in Washington.
In their consistent patronizing manner, the GOP thinks American’s should buy into this choice because there is no difference between negotiating with hostile youth hockey teams and hostile nations. Loose nukes vs. loose moose – is there really a difference? Apart from the tundra and melting ice caps, Alaska is right next door to Russia, that’s their response to her foreign policy experience. Hello? If living next door to a country gives us foreign policy experience, then everyone in Key West should run for President.
The McCain campaign has run it’s campaign on two messages: POW and experience. They hung their hat on Obama not being experienced so does the whole marketing campaign attack get thrown out the window? Who knows? Blackberries to breast pumps is girl power story, and we shouldn’t underestimate its appeal or her drill here, drill now, kill the bears drill drill drill stance, but Sarah Palin stands for everything that Hillary Clinton has fought against. They are Polar Bear Opposites, and the GOP, who brought you the same brilliant nomination of Harriet Myers, hopes that women will see feminism before philisophy. I for one see through it. Hillary fought tooth and nail for every vote, so I find the insertion of Palin and her glass ceiling references an insult to my intelligence. It’s pandering. Pandering to the conservative guns, g-d, gays base. Pandering to ego bruised women and pandering to disenfranchised Eskimos. But not equal pay pander because John McCain opposes that.
The RNC is starting their convention on Labor Day… And Gustav is barreling his way up toward New Orleans to kick it off. The evangelicals prayed for rain. And they will get it. One week late. Gustav was just upgraded to a cate-freaking-gory 4. Hold onto your hat. Fierce winds from the Gulf are about to collide with a mass of hot air descending from Minneapolis. Yeehaw.
The Republicans are considering a makeover for their convention, and plan on turning it into a relief telethon with the Red Cross. A bit of schadenfreude. McCain might be making his speech from a disaster zone like Bush did at Ground Zero. And it is up to everyone who supports Obama to remind the world that for all his finger pointing, when Katrina hit and New Orleans drowned, it was McCain standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Bush, holding a birthday cake and smiling pretty for the camera.
There may be a ground swell for Sarah, but the swell for Obama is hard to match and in the two months she has, she not only has to capture voters’ hearts and minds, she has to study geography, national policy, foreign policy, debate Joe Biden, deal with an abuse of power investigation against her, and prove to us that she wasn’t chosen as window dressing.
Will people suddenly start taking cardboard cut outs of Sarah and bring them to Denny’s creating such an ear-to-ear grinning frenzy that everyone rushes over to have their photos taken, grabbing bumper stickers and buttons and checking to make sure they’re properly registered to vote? Four of us did that with Barack yesterday – Barackfast – Breakfast with Barry – Bagels with Barack.
Do women as a whole want the party that continually votes against EQUALITY FOR ALL to be the party taking credit for shattering the very glass ceiling that it installed? Give me an 18 million cracks break. We might have the lowest ranked schools in the world, but I am not that stupid.
This race is not about gender. It’s not about race. It’s about policy.
You ever notice those people that can listen to music, live or recorded, and not move, not budge, not tap their foot or even mouth the lyrics much less sing along? They sit there like mannequins or aliens observing human behavior, emotionally removed from their surroundings. Ooga chacka, ooga ooga ooga chacka could be coming through the radio, and they might as well be watching a digital clock waiting for the numbers to change. Those people drive me mental.
#41, Dave Matthews Band
Living in Chicago and San Francisco
I’ve been at concerts and I’ve watched them just sit there impassively. Not me though. I sing along, tap my hand or my foot, sway my head, or get up and dance. I can’t help it. I dunno if it’s genetic, but I come from a bit of a musical family. Not my immediate family – unless you include my dad’s talent at playing the dashboard of the car, but my mom’s dad was a musician. Her brother – my uncle… and his son – my cousin, are tremendously talented. I played the flute as a kid, but mostly I sang. And the mental suitcase in my head is over-stuffed with nearly four decades of lyrics, jingles, School House Rock spots, television theme songs, musical scores, songs in languages I don’t even speak. I even memorized the prepositions to the Beatles, “Eight Days a Week.” I hear a song once and I’ll remember it. I can name that tune in one note.
The Joker, Steve Miller Band Cooking my first dinner with roommates in college Summer A, freshman year
Songs, like smells, have the ability to take us back to a place and time. They provide the soundtrack to the happiest and saddest moments of our lives. Back in the days of tapes, we all had the beach music mix, the break-up and wallow mix, the partying mix and who can forget the make-out mix that always but always… included Roxy Music? No matter how bad your memory, we always seem to remember where we were, whose sofa we were sitting on when a song made an impact on our life, punctuating the moment and becoming a musical photograph for our memory banks. Maybe this is why I get so frustrated that there are people who can appear so unmoved by music. Perhaps they’ve had frontal lobe lobotomies?
One Thing Leads To Another, The Fixx Warm up music for high school gymnastics
Now, I should back up and say I started writing this at 35,000 feet from seat 33a somewhere over dirty clouds and brown, dusty land. I stopped writing to witness scenes here and there from a film that I can only describe as a painfully embarrassing: ‘High School Musical 2’. Then I was writing this from the sofa of my parent’s house on Thanksgiving Day. But I got side-tracked – as in I got sucked into the vortex of cheesy television with my mom. I thought no problem… I will work on it during the flight back. But on the flight back in seat 14F, I was working working… aaaaand chatting with the people next to me aaaaaand I don’t like writing when there’s a strong chance that as stranger sitting an inch away from me can see my thoughts as I type and delete them.
Round Here, Counting Crows Watching it snow from my windowsill Upper East Side, NYC
So this entry has been written from inside of two flying tin cans, under the sunshine of Miami, and bundled up on the sofa of my very cold at the moment sublet in San Francisco. It’s soundtrack has been wide and varied from sad Irish love songs, to cheesy Hindi tunes, to even cheesier songs of teen angst, to cheery Disney songs, to the beats of Matisyahu the Chassidic reggae singer. Eclectic doesn’t cover it.
At The River, Groove Armada Sandboarding down dunes in Swakopmund, Namibia
It’s been an interesting month or so in San Francisco. It’s a great city. The friendliness. The intelligence. The diversity. People claim Miami is diverse but it isn’t really. You basically get variations on a theme. But in SF, cab drivers can talk politics and philosophy. People speak all different languages. Everything and nothing is exotic. In two weeks time I had met more people and became friends with more like-minded people than I had met over the course of five years in Miami. Remarkable.
Otto e Mezzo, Irene Grandi Reading ‘Atlas Shrugged’ at my boyfriend’s flat when I lived in Italy
I liken myself to the gorilla in Aardman’s Creature Comforts who says she doesn’t like the cold and damp and finds that in the London Zoo is she often cold and often damp. When I lived in SF years ago it was in a sunny neighborhood. I only saw fog once and that was at a Giants game. But Nob Hill doesn’t have the protection of a valley. The apartment gets indirect light from the alley, the heat comes on in timed doses and the windows have cracks and don’t close – wow it sounds ghetto but it isn’t. My second week here I walked outside to head downhill to work and I could see fog creeping ominously towards me. It was freaky. And this is when I made my big discovery. Fog is simply humidity. Freaking cold humidity. So my hair looks like crap and I am freezing when it happens. Nice. The day after my run in with the fog, I had a cold. Go figure.
Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots Pt.1, The Flaming Lips Catching a beach ball at their concert on my birthday in SF 2003
A few weeks ago, I was flipping through a paper that I was about to recycle when I saw a concert advert for the Swell Season. I asked my friend Joanne if she wanted to go and I went online looking for tickets. The show was supposedly sold out. I was all ready to buy the tickets when I realized I left my credit card at home, and I went on a crazed search to get the digits without schlepping home to retrieve the card. Even after you answer the security questions Citi won’t give you your card number. No matter what. It’s for my protection… glad I didn’t need to pay for a kidney transplant. It was reassuring to know someone can’t call in and answer obscure security questions I created but annoying as well when I am the person that needs the card number. I wound up getting it with the help of my parents who found an old bill I left at their house.
Leave, Glen Hansard Riding on NY Transit to Jersey to visit my brother and family
So the Swell Season. The band is fronted by Glen Hansard and Marketva Irglova, the stars of the film ‘Once’ by John Carney. Glen was incredible. Funny, self-deprecating, cute Irish accent: “ Tank you. Tanks very much.” Marketa Irglova, his partner, has a lovely voice but no stage presence or passion to speak of. She gets up to sing her song and then sits down. She doesn’t interact with the crowd or connect on any level. She’s young but Glen makes up for her shyness.
I went to see the show in part for a sense of closure. I had seen the film on my birthday with my buddy Rob while I was in NY this summer. (May 28. I’m an XS, and I love red for anyone interested.) We had no idea what the movie was about and had I known, I wouldn’t have seen it. Dead Sea salt into open wounds. I had just broken up with someone, packed up my things, moved out and left him and here I was a week later in NY, on my birthday, watching a film about an Irish busker singing songs of deep iceberg shifting heartache. I mean slit your wrist heartbreak. The songs were so poignant I bought the soundtrack right after seeing the film and the next day had gone back and bought another copy. A week after my birthday was my ex’s and I mailed him the second copy as a gift because he really liked depressing music. To this day I don’t know if he ever received it. Read into that what you will. You certainly won’t be the first.
Dream On, Aerosmith Thanksgiving ‘04 with my entire family – the credits from Olympic hockey movie ‘Miracle’
When I read that the band would be performing live it seemed ba’shert for me to go see the show. The music haunted my summer, and it seemed opportune to really make sure I had rid myself of ghosts. The concert was ghost free. And when it comes out on DVD put it in your rental queue.
Bonito, Jarabe de Palo Walking down California Street and across Sansome to work 2007
Just before flying back home I had gone with Joanne and some of her friends to see “Don,” a cheesy Bollywood musical. Good stuff. Then, the night before I flew home for turkey I had a High School Musical reunion of my own. I met up with my friend Eliza who was spending Thanksgiving in San Francisco. When I was a junior and she was a sophomore we were in ‘Damn Yankees’ together. We both auditioned for the performing arts school, got in and we hadn’t seen each other since I graduated. Reunited through the magic of Facebook.
Eliza at 15 in Damn Yankees
While we were having dinner on Market Street catching up on life I had told her about the film idea I had years ago that I was writing as a novel and she just sat there shaking her head no. She said it wasn’t a novel, it was a screenplay and she could see the scenes in her head. And of course, I agreed since the idea started as a film, I had a soundtrack picked out and had been struggling with the novel concept, on a roll one day and losing patience the next.
My Happiness, Powderfinger Skydiving and Canyoning in Wanaka, New Zealand
The next day I was flying home and I groaned when the captain announced the in-flight entertainment: ‘High School Musical 2.” It would have been nice if it brought back pleasant childhood memories. But this was cringeably bad and because my iPod had died and my laptop was losing juice and I had nothing left to read I felt like I was experiencing nothing short of psychological water-boarding. This has to be on the top five Netflix rentals for the torturers at Gitmo. The music and choreography were dreadful. The singing sounded unnatural and electronically enhanced. It was just awful Mickey Mouse Club, schmaltz marketed to 11-year olds who don’t know any better. And to make matters worse, after it ended they showed that short-lived, ‘Viva Laughlin’. Oh Hugh honey, what were ya’ thinkin? Absolute shite.
Ii. Largo, Vivaldi Canals of Venice, kayaking in Widbey Island, Washington- from the film ‘A Little Romance’
My visit home was great. Good food, good times. I got to catch up with friends and enjoy the sunshine. I saw “No Country for Old Men” which I didn’t like and “Enchanted” which was adorable. I searched my apartment and found the binder that had the original scenes blocked and all my notes for my screenplay. And back to writing I go. So far no characters break out in song. But like the weather in San Francisco, that could change.
What else? Here are some photos of my sublet. If you turn around you see closets and a door. Through the door is the kitchen.
