Tuesday, December 30, 2003

Salutations

It couldn’t have been New Year’s, could it?  It was definitely a night when everybody was supposed to go out with their favorite people.  For some reason, none of mine were around.  It was my junior year, I think - I had no girlfriend nor anything like one, and all my friends had gone somewhere else.  My choices were to stay at home and drink heavily in a solitary stew, or to get out and be somewhere where other people were.  Even if they weren’t being with me, I could still be with them.  I was a vibrant young person full of vitality and untarnished, more or less, by the patina of cynicism, so I chose to go to CSBG just off campus for a drink or three.  I’d get a little buzz, sort out a few ideas, burn off a little energy.  And, worst coming to worst, I’d feel better about doing something dull than about not doing anything at all. 

My decision to leave the house, brazenly alone, gave me a redoubled sense of potency and capacity.  I could decide for myself; I could have new experiences all on my own.  Friends would have been nice, but not having any wouldn’t stop me.  When I got to the bar it was pretty crowded and busy, with an unusually high percentage of “real” people (as opposed to students).  There were even “grown ups” there - people in their 30s, or, heaven save us, beyond.  There was no good place for me to sit, so I stood near a low dividing wall, by myself, sipping a beer, keeping my own counsel.  There was nobody to talk to, and soon that freed my mind in some interesting new directions.  Without a conversation to maintain, I began to pursue some lines of thought more deeply and seriously than I’d been able to do with my friends.  My mind churned with ideas, internal debates, random neurons firing off into the inner space of my cranium… I was having some big ideas.  It was fun and I was glad to have brought a little notebook so I wouldn’t forget my genius revelations.  I fished it out, flipped it open and started sketching my thoughts into words. 

I wasn’t more than fifteen feet away from a table of grown ups where a woman sat watching me.  I hadn’t paid any attention to her; her party seemed boring and she wasn’t what I’d call visually engaging - she’d just been another face in the crowd so far as I’d been concerned.  But as I wrote my thoughts down in my notebook, all about the essence of self and action and such nonsense, her voice cut through the noise of the bar, cut into my thoughts, disrupting them like a veritable Porlockian traveller.  “He’s writing in his notebook, see?  He’s writing down what people are doing, he’s invading their privacy.  It’s unbelieveably rude.  He must be an actor.” I glanced over.  She looked away but her five friends were not quite so quick.  I caught their collective eye and stepped over to their table.

I’m Rubber; You’re Glue

The thing I’ve decided to complain about today is that I’m too nice a person, and so is everybody else.  This is irritating chiefly because I have generated a few great put-downs that I don’t see myself ever getting a chance to use.  It’s like having a check you can’t cash, or a car you can’t drive - the satisfaction is in the using of it, not the silent harboring of it.  I just want to rip into somebody with a really nasty insult and I am starting to wonder when I’ll find a truly suitable foil.  And - let’s be honest - I am starting to doubt if I could carry it off.  To be this nasty right in somebody’s face - I shudder to consider it.  But apart from that, when will I encounter the festering idiot who deserves this kind of treatment?  Well, my philosophy is, if you can’t spend it all selfishly on yourself, share the wealth with everybody.  If I can’t personally burn anybody with these, maybe one of you can. 

So I present the following for your approval - and may the new year bring you no opportunities whatsoever to use any of these.  Otherwise I’d be wishing you a rather irritating new year, and that’s not the Chucklehut way.

* It’s not you, it’s me.  I’m sick of you.
* I’m sorry, I’m saving myself for a human.
* Please wait here while I see if there’s someone who can stand to be in the same room with you.
* Oh, someone was telling me there was a gas leak.  They must have meant you. 
* Would you please just go infest someone else?

Word of the Year

This link offers you the opportunity to vote for your choice of “word of the year.” From the list they have, I think I’d go with “embedded.” It’s really picked up a lot of currency and texture over the past year.  I’d pick “google” but I think it’s renaissance started well before January 2003. 

I’d expect some of you have your own ideas.  “Spiderhole.” “EuroWiz.” “Wordacious.” “Cromulent.” In fact, just on my way to lunch today I noted an unusual number of both new and used condoms on the sidewalk - I identified four within just a few blocks’ walk.  “This,” I reflected, “is what I’d call a high condomsomtration.” Okay, maybe that sucks, but at least I’m trying.  I invite you to provide a better option.  And if you want to influence my vote, you just go right ahead and try.

Monday, December 29, 2003

You Are Where We Say You Are

The PA system plays a regular patter for each route, but on my way home a few nights ago that system wasn’t working properly.  It sat silently as we rode from the terminal all the way down to Van Ness.  At Van Ness, as usual, there was a wholesale reshuffling of the players, and this boy got on and sat not far from me. 

I sometimes say of myself that I don’t know a pretty man from a homely one, and sometimes that’s true, but even I knew this boy was pretty - and so did he.  Maybe 18, tall and lanky, with the classic A&F look - aroused, yet bored.  He sprawled on an in-facing bench at my knees as I faced forward in the bus.  The seat next to him was empty.

A few miles further along on the ride, among the many new riders boarding the bus at Fillmore, was one deserving of special notice: middle-aged and grizzled, skin toughened by the elements, wearing three coats - or was one a blanket? - and tattered houseslippers, possessed of a questionable knapsack and profoundly deferred prophylaxis… and all this was crowned by a certain ecstatic vapidity, a peculiar twitch at the corners of his vacant smile.  The signs were clear to those ready to read them: he was a jabberer.  He lit upon the vacant seat next to the beautiful boy, grinning like he’d just simultaneously won Powerball and fulfilled a dark sexual fantasy.  The boy shifted slightly in his seat but held off actually demonstrating any discomfiture.  He was in his pose and no freaked-out declasse’ homeless maniac was going to interfere with that. 

The bus took off.  Suddenly, the intercom came erroneously on line with the first announcement in the reel: “38 Limited, Point Lobos; first stop, Fremont and Market.” The homeless guy’s face beamed as if it were electrically powered: “Market and Fremont?  Ha!  We’re way downtown!  We’re way downtown!” The tape loop continued with barely a pause: “Next stop, Market and Sansome.” “Sansome Street!  Sansome Street!  WAY downtown!” “Next stop, Market and Montgomery.” “HAW!  HAW! HAW!!!” He seemed quite self-contained, wasn’t trying to share his joke even as he revelled in it with hooting mirth.  “Geary and Kearney.” “Geary and Leavenworth.” The announcements came quickly on each other’s heels as the tape tried to catch up to the bus.  The homeless guy was slapping his knees, giggling nigh unto incontinence.  The skater boy shifted uncomfortably, glanced over for an instant at the loon gibbering beside him.  “Geary and Van Ness.” “Way, way downtown!”

The unflappable voice of the intercom kept up, street after street, announcing stops that drew ever closer to our actual location.  The bus was by now rumbling up the hill to the west side as the intercom rattled off “Laguna,” “Fillmore,” “Divisadero,” “Baker...” As we reached the top of the hill, the system finally synched and we got our first accurate announcement of the ride: “Geary and Presidio.” The doors slid open and the homeless guy leaned forward, leered at me.  “Guess I’m here!,” he chortled, and, pulling himself to his feet, he stumbled his way down the steps and out of the bus. 

The pretty boy hove a delicate sigh with an ineffable expression of nebulous psychic pain on his flawless face, and repositioned himself in a slightly more languorous slouch.  I smiled at him.  He looked at me, turned away, and sneered.  I think I preferred riding with the homeless guy.  He kind of stank, but he was fun. 

Sunday, December 28, 2003

Return of the King of Rock

Like hell I wasn’t going to see The Return of the King on a big screen.  I’ve missed most every big-screen extravaganza to hit theaters since last year’s The Two Towers, which so profoundly repaid my investment in the cost of a ticket that I knew I’d pay whatever they asked for the privilege of watching this eye-popping epic as it was meant to be seen - in horizon-scraping hugeness with deafening volume and big cushy seats.  Actually, eyes popping was about the only kind of hideous disfigurement I didn’t see happening during the three-movie series, which I deem fully satisfactory.  I would not presume to add my feeble review of this film to those already festooning the world wide web; anyone who wants to know if it’s a good movie or not has enough resources to check without my clogging the information highway further.  Rather, I’d like to take this opportunity simply to reflect on the phenomenon of ROTK and the whole LOTR filmic saga.  Why?  BECAUSE I CANNOT SHUT MY MOUTH EVEN WHEN THERE IS NOTHING REMOTELY WORTH SAYING.

The Ornament Express

Lest you be misled by my prolific writings on matters of judaica and the diasporic tribes, please be advised that we had a very merry if rather secular christmas indeed.  I won’t regale you with the whole recitation or you’d all just be showing up at my doorstep for special pancakes and kitkat disks from Poland and all manner of rum-infused cheer and beer-lubricated tidings.  But I will lay out the deckings for you so that you can appreciate how gut-wrenchingly adorable was our yule. 

We got two mini-trees this year and forsook all tinsel, flocking, angels, and most of the “filler” ornaments.  We just stuck with the really good stuff, which we have in spades.  Thus, the tree in the foyer on the yellow tonsu cabinet bore the following ornaments: blown-glass pharaoh head; “Commie Claus” (a santa-like figure molded out of glass in russia back when it was the USSR, still bearing a “made in USSR” sticker); a shiny glass red pepper; a grinning blown-glass black cat head; a cardboard cutout of a bathing beauty from the 20s; a blown glass pickle; a blown glass frog in a santa hat; a tiny wood-and-plaster replica of a bower with a nest of robin’s eggs; a purple glass globe with a pattern of sparkle garlands around it; a golden apple (not golden delicious, I learned the hard way); and a sparkly gleaming dark purple globe.  Scattered among these were six blown-glass half-painted Soviet ornaments that somewhat resemble ears of corn, painted green, red and yellow. 

The tree atop the big yellow media cabinet was bedecked as follows: a shiny glass green pepper; a blown-glass frog wearing a turban; a sycamore leaf made out of fine golden wire filiments; a small spherical fimo ornament with some sort of “earth goddess” imagery on it; a large blown-glass clown, garrish and rotund; a blown-glass sentrydog, looking solid and alert in a seated posture; a blown-glass crescent moon with a big happy smile on its face; a plastic trollpony (red mane); a sparkly blown-glass ice cream cone; a purple crackle-glass hand-blown globe, richly colored and textured in the victorian manner; a cardboard cut-out fish; Cornboy (another molded-glass soviet ornament, featuring a vaguely humanoid, vaguely vegetable figure with big grinning eyes and a small waistcoat over a body that looks like homuncular corn); a beautifully shaped craftsman-style amber glass ornament that comes to a slight point at the bottom (as do we all, as do we all); a cast-plastic Santa rowing a canoe full of presents; and six more varicolored Soviet corn-esque glass reflector ornaments. 

In addition, this year we got two new ornaments: a really really cool purple enamel globe with indian-style wire and mirrors inset around it, and (one of my gifts to Kel) a hand-blown elephant with rampant trunk.  I think I’ll call him Stampy. 

It’s so freaking jolly hereabouts now that I’m starting to take the cat’s insulin.  Stop by, it’s a party you’ll either never forget or you’ll never remember.  This afternoon: my first assay at Bikram yoga.  I intend to sweat out two cheesecakes, most of a ham, and a pony keg.  Updates to follow, assuming my survival.

Tuesday, December 23, 2003

Hugh Sterno et all

In honor of the impending Yule (watch out!  it’s flaming!), I will post one of my favorite poems, written by the british comedy troupe The Goodies, and appearing in one or another of my old books of theirs: The Cast List to the Movie “White Christmas”:

Emma Dreaming
Arthur White
Chris Muss
Jess Lyke-Dee
Juan Swee
Hugh Sterno
Wendy Treetops-Glissen
Ann Chilledwren
Liz Ann
“Two Ears” Laybelle
Cindy Snow

Emma Dreaming
Arthur White
Chris Musswitt
Avery Chris
Miss Carr
Di Wright
Mayor Dazeby
Happy N. Bright
Ann May Hall
York Rhys
Mrs. Bea White

Damn, I’m a yule fool.  Have a warm, dry evening - unless you have something better planned… in which case, drop me a line, I’m always up for new creative ways to celebrate the season…

Monday, December 22, 2003

PuddleCracker

It was dark December, 6:30 on a cloudy wet night.  I was trudging from the main library to the Van Ness bus stops to get back home.  I came to the corner of Polk Street, surrounded by beaux arts facades, dramatically uplit and triumphantly decorated for the holidays, and found four small figures at the corner.  Four small female forms with dark hair, olive skin, sateen raincoats, rhinestone buckle pumps and tiny flouncy skirts.  One wore a backpack with Hello Kitty on it. 

They weren’t just girls, they were little girls.  No more than seven years old - maybe a five and two sixes?  And with them, their chaperone, a tiny woman, no taller than they were, perhaps in her thirties, with a woman’s face and a small child’s limbs, and dressed identically as her wards.  They were going to see the Nutcracker, just a block down Hayes at the Ballet House; I could already see the columns bedecked with golden lights in the form of toy soldiers. 

The four tiny figures all held hands at the corner in a chain, with the chaperone to one side.  The girls were whispering in an excited hush about “Nutcracker” this and “dancers” that, until one noticed a big puddle in the gutter in front of them.  “Puddle!,” she breathlessly informed her friends.  “Puddle,” they murmurred back to her with approval. 

The light changed and I stepped briskly out into the street. “Layani, DON’T!,” I heard the woman say sharply to one of her charges behind me.  “...puddle,” Layani replied dolefully.

Sunday, December 21, 2003

The Dark Party

Saturday night was the holiday party - the one that matters, the one we were throwing for our closest, oldest friends.  We got up Saturday at a leisurely hour and dawdled in bed before embarking on pretty much a full day of both scurrying and tidying.  We went to Seakor and got the killer kielbasi and the spicy polish mustard; we went to the grocery and got all the various necessities; we went to the fancy-ass grocery and got some rustic camembert and some monster cavern cheese, which I do so love.  We got the dog out just before a cloudburst.  It was a harbinger of good timing to come.

Friday, December 19, 2003

Two Random Food-Related Ruminations

* I was thinking that it would be cool if there were some cheap steakhouse where you could order your food and have a big pimp get you all wasted and ply you with all sorts of illicit activities as they prepare your surf and turf.  Snoop Dogg would be the maitre’ de.  It would be called The Shizzler.

* Someone was trying to convince me that it was good to be copied.  “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,” she told me.  “Yeah,” I replied, “and it’s the cheapest form of vanilla.”

Time for supper.  Or couldn’t you tell?

Story of My Life

Growing up, my parents loved me so much that they tried to teach me the hard lessons, the ones that make for a hard childhood but an honest understanding of this cold world in which we live.  “Do it yourself - no one is going to help you.” “They don’t understand you and they never will.” “No good deed goes unpunished.” I’m still looking for that wonderful re-write of Dr. Seuss that they generated to help me internalize this philosophy - “Horton Hears Squat.”

Thursday, December 18, 2003

Happy Birthdad

We left around 6:30 in the evening and the sky was very dark.  Rain soaked our roads for at least three hours, by which time we were in San Benito County or some damn thing.  At midnight-thirty we finally rolled up to the door of our Santa Barbara motel, which was locked, so we checked in next door and went to a no-frills room with an interior window that looked down into the small lobby where breakfast would be served in six hours. 

The next morning broke clear and we got up early, ran for a few miles along the edge of the beach, had a light continental breakfast (from the lobby it was obvious that the window to our room would have divulged our every intimacy were it left unshuttered), and drove down to LA, or really to the valley - off the 101 in Woodland Hills and along Ventura Boulevard all the way to Universal Studios, then up Lankersheim to Magnolia and back to Woodman, to Ventura, to a lovely bistro where my dad was having his 70th birthday party.

About 40 celebrants were there, even some old relatives I hadn’t seen in 15 years.  Many toasts were given - including two by my step-nephew: 8-3/4 years old, he insisted on making the first toast and, later, on re-toasting to a chorus of “I Went to the Animal Fair,” which we all sang with gusto, flutes of Schramsberg raised aloft.  Lunch was delicious and served with perfect unction.  It was a source of general amusement that the curiously canvas-roofed room contained a brick alcove with a tannenbaum, a santa figurine, and a stack of faux gifts, lending a festive yule spirit to the Rabbi’s party.  It was a matter of more limited amusement (limited mainly to Kel and me I think) that the restaurant was playing rockin’ favorites as background music, which resulted in some ironic pairings - as Dad got up to speak his piece, he was accompanied by Jumpin’ Jack Flash (neither does he jump nor flash, and I don’t even want to think about the rest of it); when I stood for my toast I was accompanied by Nights in White Satin, the propriety of which remains subject to debate.  One nice touch was the centerpieces on the several tables - stacks of four or five childrens’ books wrapped in colored cellophane so the titles could be read - good selections, great tabledressing, brilliant idea - to donate them all after the party to a local elementary school where Connie volunteers.  Dad was never a flowery centerpiece kind of guy anyway, and books seem to be to be a better choice than firearms, which would probably have been Dad’s second choice if not his first. 

After lunch we went back to Dad’s and Con’s place, as did Evi and Scott, to change, redistribute, and take leave - Evi and Scott, to Riverside and then home to Flagstaff; Kel and me, back up the 5 to Bay City.  We were on the road at 4:20; by 6 it was very dark and clouds choked the sky, a heavy mist miasmized on our windshield… but once we got through it, way out in the valley where you see nothing but geometry, even in daylight, time slipped past quickly.  Kel took over the driving for the run over the 152 to Gilroy and thence to the 101 and home, which worked fine for me.  By then the clouds had lifted, or we’d left them behind, and the moon had come out, brilliantly full and low in the sky, casting a perfectly cromulent light that divulged every gully and rise as we climbed into oak-studded mountains, steep and rugged, entirely revealed even to our weak human eyes in the delicate reflected light of that impassive moon, as all the natural creatures of earth rejoiced in the profusion of illumination at night, and I passenged through it all with impugnity as if I’d earned or even deserved it, sitting on my heated pleather seat and watching the planet rotate beneath our wheels, and the mountains gave way to farms and suburbs and actual urbs, and we connected to the 280 and sped through the dark forested valley of quakes, until we got home eventually and I went to sleep.

MORAL: If your dad didn’t have a birthday, chances are, neither would you.

Bald is Beautiful

This site shows me why it’s not enough just to be a musician if you want to be a sexy, hunky chunk of loveable manmeat.  Even if you can play like an angel, you’re not gonna get any action if you dress like a dork.  Is it a cultural thing?  Were these guys studs in their own time and place, or did everybody always laugh at them JUST LIKE I’M DOING NOW?  (link courtesy of Memepool - see my sidebar for “outta the pool”...)

Wednesday, December 17, 2003

Standing Room Only

They were at my bus stop, first of all.  That corner is mine.  And, I was there first, already waiting quietly, minding my own business, before they showed up.  I was in a neutral spot, too, up on the grass on the edge of the greenbelt with plenty of room for people to get around the corner and the trash can and yours truly. 

Then she suddenly showed up, next to me, standing inappropriately closely for anyone but kin, like she was my great aunt or something.  But I’d never seen her before.  She just apparated there at my shoulder with her purple jacket and maroon slacks, almost touching me at the elbow, hip and knee.  I glanced over to assess the nature of this intrusion into my personal space.  She glared straight ahead, overtly ignoring me.  After a few moments sharing my zone of intimacy with her, I discretely retreated to a spot a few steps closer to the glass bus stop shelter.  She waited for me to situate myself and then she swooped in next to me again.  I looked her over more carefully this time: a handsome woman in her 70s, not without charm or beauty, but with such a look on her face - angry and sad, sort of sangry I suppose…. she gave me a thorough glaring and I stepped back.  She strode on past me.  Following her at some remove was a slightly built older gent with shoulder length hair, grey growing out thick under the black, a red Members Only jacket and pressed blue jeans.  I hadn’t noticed him before, he had been standing off to the side.  But when he walked past me to join his lady friend, he jostled me pretty good - almost as if he was elbowing me.  At the time I was willing to impute it to incipient Parkinson’s and I let it go.  I’m an easy-going guy, you know. 

The bus was very crowded; I thankfully got separated from the inappropriately close-standing woman-who-glares and her potentially umbrage-taking wingman.  Eventually, however, they had to walk past me to get off the bus at Divisidero.  On their way out, I avoided all contact with her, physical and visual, as, again, she passed within a nippleflick of me.  He followed her off the bus and this time there was no way to deny it – he gave me a tidy if ineffectual hip and shoulder check as he brushed past.  I was outraged.  I remained outraged as I sat myself down in the seat he’d occupied on the bus, that very self-same plastic bench, where I immediately wrote this essay, lambasting him. 

Honest, I coulda kicked his ass.  It wasn’t worth it.  It’s just what she would have wanted.

visual confirmation

I mentioned a dog.  Folk are posting pictures of their dogs.  I just got a nice one of mine, from my mom.  Please also note other important Chucklehut props: the red soob, the greenbelt across the street, the ample san francisco parking, and of course, my lilsis.  Thanks for your publicity release, Evi, I’ll have your share of royalties stuffed in a schnecken and couriered over post-haste.  And for anyone who doesn’t think this is a damn fine dog, you must need your monitor adjusted.  Cosmo rocks, even if he’s rocking a little bit slower these days.

Tuesday, December 16, 2003

Plastic Fantastic

Children love toys.  But sometimes I think we might do better just turning them loose with a steak knife and some bottlerockets.  I think it’s better for children to get a realistic understanding of this world’s dangers than to teach them that international political figures are just G.I. Joes in updated costumes.  The world is two-dimensional enough already without turning Bush and Hussein into Kens without Barbies.  Although I am now thinking that action figures for Bush, Blair, Hussein and Uday, with a bit of creative work with a welding torch and a video camera, might produce a piece of epic adult satire of a calibre unseen since the South Park Movie.  Get yours now, before they’re all snatched up by pyromaniacs and the criminally perverse....

Good Old Boy

The dog has gotten old.  It’s been 12 years since we got him and he was about a year old then, a 75-lb superball with a pink fist for a tongue and a keenly developed conscience.  Obviously, a good boy.  All his life he’s been smiling, energetic, perky and wagging his little cut-off stump of a tail, ready to stand on his hind legs for a better perspective on the world’s counters or tabletops, alert and primed to leap to his feet at any moment, for any reason.  He was big, fast, and strong - stronger than other dogs his size, so strong that professional trainers of big dogs expressed surprise and admiration.  But more than that, he was vibrant, so full of the pure energy of living that his whole being was like a dance of life.  For year after year, people - even dog people, even vets - would be amazed to learn of his age.  They always asked if he was a puppy, and I got to brag - “no, he’s seven years old; he’s nine; he’s twelve years old....”

Well, now he’s 12 and he looks it.  Suddenly, drastically, our puppy got old.  He has to pull himself up the stairs now using his front legs; the hind ones just don’t have the strength to push him up two flights anymore.  This morning I had to lift him bodily off the ground to put him in the car so he could go to work with Kel, where he has a private kennel.  He barely gets off his bed to greet us when we get home; when a skateboarder rides down the sidewalk in front of the house he can hardly rouse himself to growl and stomp at him through the window.  He needs to go outside more often.  He gets tired faster on our walks.  He is no longer lightning fast - I can finally react faster than he usually does to food on the sidewalk or a squirrel on a tree. 

I took him with me a few mornings ago to the dry cleaner, a two block walk.  We got there and he sat down heavily, curling his hips under him to take the pressure off his dysplasic joints.  The dry cleaner stepped out from behind the counter to greet him, as he’d been greeted there for more than a decade; the dog remained seated even when she offered him her hand.  “Back from a long walk?,” she asked me.  “No, just starting out.  But he’s an old man now,” I replied.  She’s got a dog too, and nodded empathetically. 

Maybe we were only two blocks from home, but I’ve been walking that dog for twelve years now.  I guess that’s a pretty long walk after all.  No wonder he’s tired.  But as we walked back to the flat we saw some pigeons on the sidewalk eating a discarded bagel and he lunged, nailing what was left of the bagel and sucking it down his capacious maw before I could stop him.  Sure, he’s old - but he does seem game for a block or two more at that.

Monday, December 15, 2003

Let’s Get Cracking

Sometimes the world gives you lemons, that’s right.  Sometimes a good solid lemon is exactly what you need.  That’s how I felt last week when I was slowly chewing my way through three inches of corian desktop with the elation of any office drone who has a billion tiny pieces of data to shuffle and reorganize and type into a database.  I was bitter, dark and ready to snap – sort of like a Nestle’s Special bar, but without the classy foil wrapper or butterfat.  Then I saw that we’d gotten some email in the “departmental” mailbox, which I am no longer responsible for checking, but which I sometimes check anyway because some really weird stuff shows up there sometimes.  Like it did last week, when I found this (my responses are in italics):

December 8, 2003
Dear Law Firm:

Already you’re an idiot.  “Dear” Law firm?  Of all the ways you can describe a law firm, “dear” is not one of them.  Next time try “Damn Law Firm.” At least they’ll know you are thinking things through.

How are you?

I’m reading spam.  Does that give you a hint?  I’m having the kind of day where your gibberish is more interesting than my own life.  You are reaching me at the nadir of my existence.  But thanks for asking.  Losers.

The attached files are about the Chinese super fascist gang’s crimes. We are going to bring them to the International court for trial. If you can lend us a hand with your excellent legal knowledge, it will greatly encourage us to launch a worldwide campaign against the Chinese super Fascist. If you need more information about their crimes, please do not hesitate to contact us.

The Chinese “super fascist gang”?  What kind of superfascists are you talking about?  Are they made of pure adamantium, able to punch their way through socialist infrastructure like so many Belgian waffles, linking up with their power rings to create a mechano-Mussolini?  And so you’re going to take them to the “international court.” Is that the court with the special pancakes with lingonberries or suet or sturgeon roe, depending on which country’s specialty you order?  Oh that’s the International House of Justice.  Shows you how “excellent” my legal knowledge is.  I was going to ask for fascists over easy, but now I think they’ll get my order wrong.  This is complicated.  I’ll just stick with hashed brownshirts.

Thank you so much for your time, and I am looking forward to hearing from you soon.
With kind regards.
Sincerely yours,
Qiguan Li
(626) 452-0980

The goal of Anti-Super Fascist Worldwide Alliance is to expose the Chinese super Fascist gang’s crimes: they poisoned people on an international airliner; killed people with bio-chemical poisonous substances, and set fire on passenger planes. They are more evil than Fascist Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Hideki Tojo. They are super Fascist.

It’s important to have goals, I guess.  And alliances.  Especially worldwide alliances.  I hope you and all your friends in the ASFWA have a lot of fun exposing yourselves and each other and the various other things you seem intent on exposing.  From your list of evils, it appears that super fascists used poison on a burning airplane.  I can’t imagine a more shameful abuse of biochemical poisons.  Next time I bet they wise up and just let them eat that crappy Chicken Kiev.  And wasn’t that a non-smoking flight, anyway?  That is evil.  Super evil.  Super fascistic evil.  Well, like I always say, don’t send an ordinary fascist to do a super fascist’s work.  Maybe if your alliance was also super you’d have a better chance.  Then again, you probably wouldn’t be asking for my help.  Really, you don’t need my excellent legal help, you need the Super Friends.  Or just some Quakers, super or not.  They’ll help you calm down a little.

In order to wipe out the most evil super Fascist gang to make our world more peaceful, we hereby appeal for help:
1.  We appeal to you to expose the Chinese super Fascist gang’s crimes to as many people as you can.
2.  We appeal to United Nations, with a comparison of sanctions against Libya for Lockerbie’s air tragedy in 1988, to punish China for Air China’s passenger poisoning in 2000 and the Chinese airplane bombings in 2002. (Libya’s government recently announced that they accepted the responsibility of the airplane bombing, and agreed to pay 2.7 billion U.S. dollars in return for lifting the sanctions against Tripoli imposed by United Nations in 1992.)
3.  We appeal to United Nations to investigate the case that the Chinese super Fascist gang killed a lot of people through bio-chemical poisonous substances, and bring them to the International Court of Justice for trial.
4.  Before the solution of China’s air poisoning and air bombing, we appeal to people of all over the world to resist the Chinese Civil Aviation.

I am exposing everything I can to everyone I meet.  That way I’ll be sure not to miss exposing someone to something that they need to be exposed to.  And it’s all super, don’t think otherwise.  Fascist or not, I’m exposing some super stuff.  You’d love it.  Stop by and I’ll give you a peek.  Let’s not forget that Libya is paying scads of cash because no one would have anything to do with them for the entire run of Seinfeld, whereas China is actually building new planets and selling them to the highest bidder.  They’re our superbuddies, fascistic or not.  Lockerbie is not a helpful point of comparison.  How about a comparison to that evil dude from Rob Roy who punched the woman in the stomach and then burned her house down?  Yeah, that guy’s bad news, and he dressed funny too.  I’d sign on to bust him a new one.  But Libya?  Really, guys – old news.  Let’s move on.  And as for “the case that the CSFG killed a lot of people through bio-chemical poisonous substances….” you’re kind of vague on the details.  How many people were in this lot, and how do you know the chemicals were bio, and what difference does that make anyway?  Plus, I don’t know what you are adding by telling me that the poison was a substance.  But if you know a way to kill a lot of people by using a bio-chemical poisonous notion or idea, do let me in on it.  I have a few lists that I’d like to shorten.  And as for “resisting the Chinese Civil Aviation,” sign me up.  I’m not going to hold the elevator for them, or even return their mail if it’s accidentally delivered to my house.  I resist Chinese Civil Aviation with every mote of strength in my being.  I put all my fealty in Chinese Criminal Aviation.  Those guys know how to party, and you should see the in-flight entertainment.  Let’s just say my tray table was in a fully upright position… yowzah.

We warmly welcome you to join us, take part in the great Anti-Super Fascist Campaign, and bring them to trial in a common effort.
Protect our people, save our earth!
If you have any questions, Please do not hesitate to e-mail us at:  (Volunteer wanted)

Thanks, guys.  I’ll be in touch.  Any enemy of superfascism is a friend of mine.  Did I get that right?  Wait – which earth are we saving?  Are you sure we’re sharing the same one?  Oh whatever, I’ll pitch in anyway.  You guys are just super.

Well that was entertaining.  The next email I got was an urgent plea that I immediately take steps to cleanse my colon.  I tell you, those superfascists must be everywhere.  But at least I now know how to flush them out of their most insidious and sneakiest hiding places.  They’re telling me, “Visit the site to learn how the Ultiamte Colon Cleanser will clean your colon of toxins and unnecessary waste build up.... Through this very special email offer you can try the Ultimate Colon Cleanser risk free for 30 days.” I am hopeful that this product won’t remove the necessary wastes building up in my colon, as I’ve been working on my collection for years now.  Maybe that’s all the superfascist gang really needs – a serious airing out and someone to whisk out the service entry, so to speak.  And I can try it risk free for 30 days - imagine my relief!  Now that they’ve removed the risks, I’d be happy to eat their bizarre internet medicine candy in the hopes that it will cause toxins to erupt from my fundament.  Or maybe I’m misinterpreting their definition of “risk.” Actually, butt poisons are what we lawyers call “inherently dangerous,” under which circumstances “risk free” sounds like “wishful thinking.” When you play with colon toxins, you’re playing with fire.  It all makes me wonder who thinks I need this help.  After all, that incident in the weight room was years ago, I can’t believe they’re still after me for that…

Maybe tomorrow I will be more focused on my site visit letters and schedules of disbursements.  Right now, it sounds like the house needs to be cleaned, inside and out.  Let’s get cracking, my anti-fascist friends!

Sunday, December 14, 2003

Now, the Waiting Begins…

Lodging has been secured for our vacation.

When the Maximus Hits the Gluteus

You there?  Yeah, I didn’t think so.  Me neither.  But man, the places I’ve been when I wasn’t here… You want to talk about exotic locales, exciting adventures, profound realms?  Me neither.  I just hurled myself down into the depths of the SarChasm, and I spent the last week pulling myself back out.  Many things were accomplished.  Vacuuming, laundry, reconciling the bank statement and cleaning up the flotsam of a confused life were not among them, but I can’t be critical of myself.  That’s why you’re here.  Those of you who are here, anyway.  And welcome back.

Monday, December 08, 2003

MONDAY MORNING WRAPUP

This has been among the most intense weekends I’ve ever endured, on the heels of a few pretty damn intense weeks.  I’ve had a cold for eight days, I drove 900 miles in 28 hours, and generally overextended myself.  I’m drowning in ideas I’d just like to sit down and write about - some that are amusing, and some that aren’t.  Life, really, is good.  At least, I’m pretty sure that it is.  But it certainly is interesting, and that merits a bit of writing all on its own. 

But here’s the thing: There are a lot of things that require my attention this week.  Some of them are waiting for me at my office and some are cowering in the dark corners of my apartment, but they all must be done.  I need to concentrate, people.  I need focus.  So for a few days, I’m afraid you’ll have to manage without much chucklehupdating.  There is just too much detail for me to get right, for me not to give it my full attention.  Attentiveness is one of my hallmarks and if I can’t do it right, I oughtn’t try it at all.  That’s my style, people.  It’s who I am.  It’s what I do.  Which is not much, as far as this site goes, for a few days. 

Maybe soon you’ll see a new vision of the Chucklehut.  My crack squad of drowsy engineers is even now procrastinating about coming up with a redesign for the whole damn thing.  But again, that demands attention, which is in short supply (especially with all this cough syrup I’ve been drinking). 

But to thank you for your patience and consideration during this brief hiatus, permit me to recall that last night at 10:30 we drove past Sacred Heart High School where a big sign now reads: “8th Grade Girls - Accepting Applications.” I’m thinking I’d like one.  Maybe something in a volleyball player?  Come on folks, its the holidays - dig deep!

And now - back to my damn life.  Have a happy.  Have two.  See ya soon.

Friday, December 05, 2003

Don’t Touch that Bile!

The good news: I now have a bunch more television stations.

The bad news: I now have a bunch more crappy television stations.  I’m agog at how lame something can be and still make it to prime time.  In fact, there appear to be entire networks now broadcasting 24/7 that have absolutely nothing of value to offer to me as a consumer of television.  Here is the list I have compiled so far of stations, networks, and outlets to which I now have access but to which I will never willingly return as a viewer:

* SCN - Sad Child Network
* CBC - Celebrity Bathroom Channel
* SCS - Screaming Chinese Station
* LTN - Laugh Track Network
* UDC - Ugly Dancers Channel
* IDC - Incompetent Decorating Channel
* BSS - Boring Sports Station
* CAA - Carniverous Action Network
* CCC- Cheap Crap Channel

Actually that last one covers a lot of ground.  At least with this infusion of drek in my life, I’m doing more reading and writing.  If I had TiVo, wouldn’t a bunch of really good programming suddenly appear?  Like on the Interesting Documentary Network or the Nubile Masseusse Station?  That must be what God gets to watch when God watches tv....

Thursday, December 04, 2003

REVENGE IS A DISH BEST SERVED WITH HORSERADISH

This story is ghoulish and disturbing.  $100 million in settlement money for the desecration of countless graves in two Menorah Gardens cemetaries which were “reorganized” to “accomodate” new “residents.” Or alternatively, they were “emptied” of “corpses” so they could “fit in more corpses.” The news story says that superceded remains were “thrown out.” Like you could get away with a few of those hanging out on your curb on large-item pickup day: “A broken cabinet, a ruined chair, Aunt Gladys (may her memory be a blessing) and two other dead dudes - ready for pickup!” Somebody took bodies to the dump.  Somebody did it on purpose.  And now everybody knows. 

The thing that makes me a bit more comfortable with this is that the guys who authorized that big dollar payout haven’t yet begun to feel the sting of the zombie’s whip.  I saw Poltergeist, dudes - your ass is ghost chowder.  Someday you’re gonna wake up with Roy Scheider screaming at you and your eyes dropping into your bathroom sink and hands hardened by latke-making and torah-hefting will burst through your floors to strip the flesh from your bones and drag you into a hellish underworld of flaming blood and supernatural forced circumcisions with molten knives and the horror of waking up at your bar mitzvah in your underware and you’re going to know with your last breath on this side of the mortal curtain that when you mess with Jewish cemetaries in south florida, YOU ARE MESSING WITH THE WRONG CORPSES.

Lesson One: Shut Mouth

So I’m strolling around with my mom and kel and my sister and my mom’s old friend from childhood, near my office, looking for a place for lunch.  It’s a saturday and things are quiet but we decide to check the dim sum place in a nearby food court.  It’s in a space I really like, so I start describing it to everybody.  I wind up telling my mom’s old friend (who lives in town and is very well-off but I have no idea what she ever did for a living) all about the layout of this food court, how the space works, how there’s a waterfall fountain that drops water 70 feet from a fixture way up near the skylights through plain open space to a catchbasin in the middle of the floor, an almost mystical ever-refreshing source of sound and visual stimulation… and mom’s friend listens patiently and then tells me that the water falls as it does because it has oil in it to make the droplets bigger and the splash smaller, and she designed it herself 20 years ago along with the rest of the building. 

I didn’t talk anymore for almost 20 seconds.  That’s close to the record.

A Friend is Just a Weirdo You Haven’t Met

Enough of the maudlin stuff.  I’ve been sick all week but I’m feeling almost human today, and ready to start criticizing and belittling the world again.  Did you miss me, during my recent bout of sentimentality?  Yeah well I didn’t miss you either. 

Over the past few months I’ve been lucky to turn a few “imaginary” friends real - I’ve met blog buddies personally, and in every case, it’s been even better than I could have anticipated.  Cool people, great conversations, a sense of starting not-from-scratch… It’s becoming clear to me that we bloggers are not a random bunch of folk, we are self-selected for both physical and spiritual beauty.  But of course, in any given case, you could be horribly wrong about somebody.  Each time I sat around an empty restaurant or stood alone in a crowded bar, waiting to meet someone who’d been no more than a name on line for me to that moment, I had to ask myself, “so, what do you do if he’s a serial killer?  If she’s a zealot?  If they want to share their passion for ritual scarification with me?” Luckily that’s never actually come to pass, but here is a short list of the things I always hope are not true about the on-line friend I’m about to meet in person for the first time:

* RenFair garb on city streets
* competitive pyromania
* drool shunt
* OCD - with a ballpeen hammer and a squeakytoy
* leper who likes to hug
* armed and angry
* filth-caked hoveldweller
* paranoid bodybuilder

I just run through this list in my mind a few times and then a perfectly lovely and socially appropriate person comes up to tell me that he or she is the person I’ve been waiting for.  Makes me think that keeping this list has helped me avoid run-ins with really dangerously weird folk.  However, you benign weirdos, when are you coming out to California?  We have lots to catch up on!  Just leave the costumes, weapons and pet reptiles at home for our first meeting.  I wouldn’t want you to think I’m boring.

Wednesday, December 03, 2003

They’re Leaving Town

Senior year there were eight of us in a big creepy victorian house on a hill in West Philly.  We lived like kings and knew that the bond we shared among ourselves as housemates was deeper and richer than most people get to experience in a lifetime - all eight of us, a harmonious close-knit non-stop party.  On graduation, some of us moved in together in small apartments and some of us just left town.  We scattered, basically, after one unbelieveably densely-packed year of concentrated life together. 

But then, within several years, the verities persevered - our friendship overcame the discouragement of graduation and the onset of “adult” life.  One of us had bought a home in Philly but the other seven all moved to San Francisco.  We bbq’d together on Sundays; we summited Mt Tam on our mountainbikes; we explored restaurants and attended concerts and helped each other live fully and richly.  We challenged and supported each other.  We had an absolute blast.

Tuesday, December 02, 2003

EAT HEARTY: Cookies of the Gods, and an Improvement Thereon

Contents:
Smoked Trout; Smoked Turkey; Roast Turkey; Stuffing; Green Been Casserole; Beets; Italian Meatballs; Knish; Mashed Potatoes; Gravy; Sweet Roasted Winter Roots (Tsimmis); special Sausage from NYC; Susan Stanberg’s Cranberry Relish; miscellaneous unidentified comestibles.  Arranged and modeled by Chuckles, in his partyparty shirt with a nice glass of kick-ass shiraz. 

RECIPE CORNER: I’ve been getting a few requests for my cookie recipe.  FAR BE IT FROM ME to deny the public what it wants; hence the Schwartzenegger governorship and the popularity of QVC.  Maybe I can even things out and give you something worth having this time.  And that, my friend, is a cookie that will lay you out and leave you shuddering with cocoa-enhanced joy.  Come, read with me, and discover the desserts of legends:

Monday, December 01, 2003

Tranqsgiving - A Celebration of Falling Asleep at the Table

(written late friday night in a nearly-illegible scrawl)

Tonight was unusual.  Tonight 30 or so members of my family got together for thanksgiving.  Games were played and wine was quaffed and connections were forged and reinforced.  It was the realization of the ideal of the holiday, multigenerational and multiethnic and uniformly euphoric.  And in my family, that’s unprecedented.

I grew up with TG as a holiday as dry and tasteless as the turkey we were forced to be thankful for.  My relatives (in this case, on my dad’s side) were moribund and hidebound, and I never felt as if the holiday was much more than an obligation.  I seriously questioned why it would be continued, onerous as it was in practice as I experienced it. 

Then I got a life of my own going, and my friends and I started doing TG each year as a triumphant festival of satiation, something aligned with, and only slightly removed from, a bacchanal.  I grew to look more forward to TG every year as these friends grew more important to me, as my traditions with them deepened, as our lives fructified and our dreams coalesced.  Every year on TG we and our friends ate better, revelled more gladly, and drank more deeply, in celebration of a terrestrial munificence that exceeded our capacity to honor it - so we each cooked out hearts out and brought all we could, fresh bread and soup and salad and fish and turkey and second turkey, stuffing and second stuffing, mashies and roasted potatoes and tsimmis and a dozen other dishes, starchy or green, 20 pies for 30 people plus brownies, cookies, cakes and galettes; Al asleep beneath the table with a drumstick in his hand....  These milestones established for me a proxy family, a band with whom I shared all but blood, and when we celebrated, heaven answered - that’s how much fun we had.  We had so much fun that now my mom and sister and her husband all come out from far afield to share TG with us and our non-consanguinious peers.  And several of our friends, too, have brought family on board - Catherine’s sister, Ralph’s mom, Andy’s sister, Jon’s brother; unrelated relatives, so hamish you could plotz… and the energizing spirit moved among us, creating of our varigated ancestries a verifiable family, made it so compelling and primary that actual family members now come along for the party. 

But tonight [remember, that’s last friday night] was a night for my actual family to come together.  My mom’s family has a big san fran contingent and her cousin hosted a “second thanksgiving.” Cousin Simon and his wife Kim just finished work on their gorgeous three-story totally rebuilt Georgian city house atop a prestigeous hill overlooking downtown and the bay bridge.  There were easily 30 of us from my family, plus Kim has a lot of family in town, either visiting or living here, so we wound up with 20 or so of them as well.  That’s a decent roster for a big festive meal.

The house is encrusted with world-class art (Simon’s the board Chair for the California College of the Arts) and we ate ourselves silly.  I had three glasses of Ravenswood Lodi Zin and two tumblers of Wild Turkey; pork tenderloin, beef stroganoff, cranberry salad, sauteed veg and a staggering array of desserts, not least of which was a towering pile of my own chocolate-painted chocolate chip cookies, which I think I’ll call “heaven’s tears...”

We ate like we’d just invented it, with loud laughter and lots of gravy on the bread.  There must have been 50 of us filing the showcase house, kids riding the elevator and playing hide-and-seek through the walk-through showers, and their parents just standing in the master retreat under the unrefinished redwood coping slats of the conical tower that thrusts upwards overhead, elevating even the most mundane thoughts and gilding them with the confection of the 270-degree christmas-lit downtown view…

then, meat-addled and wine-silly, 20 of us scampered up to the attic where we played Mafia, three generations of players, laughing with and lying to and killing off each other, till the “villagers” were triumphant and we all returned to the living room, 11 pm and time to put the party to bed - the first real family TG I’ve ever had, and, I hope, just the first in a long series. 

So in summary, this year I had two thanksgivings in a row, both highly filling and successful - one, a traditional “friends” thanksgiving where family are infiltrating; and one, a new “family” thanksgiving where I found myself related to some really great friends.  I’m thankful for: thanksgiving, and beloved souls with whom to spend it.  Get that yule cranked up now, because we’re on a tight schedule till the superbowl…