Ask and I Shall Receive

Just a few minutes after my call for news, I got this email from my fave cuz:

Fake novelist in your 'hood! according to the SFGate, the former JT Leroy is a waitress in Rockridge: "These days, she is out of the literary limelight and back pocketing tips on the night shift at Soi 4, a Thai restaurant in Oakland's Rockridge district." how exciting!

Which incarnation of JT Leroy, though? It's the person who was dressing as JT, not the person writing as JT. Something you can take from this article is that Savannah Knoop is almost as annoying as JT Leroy, which I didn't think was possible.

We get Soi4 take out all the time, and the owner's kid goes to Broccoli Montessori. I am annoyed that I have only 1 degree of separation from this twit.

Help!

I am at that point on my To Do list where everything has been on there for two weeks, or will take more than 10 minutes to complete, and therefore I cannot Do it. SO, I am trolling the internet and my readers for good stories. Here's one. They pulled a naked crackhead out of the jaws of an alligator down in Florida. Begrudgingly, it seems. "He admitted that he'd been smoking crack cocaine. But still, it's a human life," (The sherriff) said at a news conference. "Our deputies don't ask questions, they respond and they save people." That's big of them.

Also, ho hum, Britney Spears is hanging out with Paris Hilton, either cutting in half or doubling the number of disaster-prone moments that Us Weekly can cover.

A Point That Bears Repeating

It's the holiday season, so I just wanted to remind everyone: Do They Know It's Christmas Time? is such a stupid song. I heard an a capella version the other day on the radio (I was trying to change lanes, so I couldn't change the station) and just thought, again, "They may or may not know, but they certainly don't give a shit."

And there won't be snow in Africa this Christmastime
The greatest gift they'll get this year is life(Oooh)
Where nothing ever grows
No rain or rivers flow
Do they know it's Christmastime at all?

I doubt you need me to chronicle the ways in which this is stupid. You've already done it yourself annually for the past 20 years. But it's that time of year again, so in your festive spirits, do not forget to be angry about the absurdity of these lyrics. Happy Holidays.

Shooting Fish in a Barrel

Here's your BPN post o' the day:

How to properly dispose of placenta in freezer

We took our baby's placenta home in the hopes of planting it under a tree, forgetting that we are renters with no backyard.Now, it's in our freezer and I wanted advice about proper disposal (it's considered biohazardous waste). Can we take it back to Kaiser? Other ideas? needing freezer space back

What.were.they.thinking.exactly? And what do they need the freezer back for? Thanksgiving leftovers? You made your bed, placenta-keepers, and now you need to sleep in it.

In other news, I saw a truck today that said

Crime Scene Clean-up, Inc. Homicide Suicide Accidental Death 24 Hour Service

Good to know that's out there, I guess.

Not much going on otherwise. I am wiped out from all this work and kids and sh*t.

Outraged Defense of a Friend

The other day, I directed you to read a piece concerning a certain Toothbrush-of-the-Month Club, written by our pal Jay Wexler. You probably nodded your head throughout, thinking, my toothbrush is stanky, I could totally use a toothbrush-a-month.

Well, this hater just doesn't get it. OF COURSE, FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE IS CANADIAN! How else would they give voice to the inner yearnings of Americans? There are several problems with "Z.D. Smith's" doubt-a-rama. First of all, Canadians understand Americans (and by this, I mean, United-States-of-Americans) better than Americans do. Second, FBOFW is about the human condition, not about national identity. Finally, Canadians live on the continent of North America, thus making them American. Sheesh. So fear not the unlikelihood of tenure, Jay Wexler. Your piece on the shits-and-giggles of the SCOTUS doomed that long ago.

Your Little Dose of Methadone

I've been getting some complaints about my absence from the blog. I didn't even realize it had been a week. One reader suggested that I get an assistant to handle things at work, to free me up to write. It's a great idea, but, really its an unfunded mandate. Plus, this week the blog could practically write itself. OJ? Kramer? Riot Grrl mothering? So very much to annoy me, so little time.

Brook and I will be unveiling our "Smile Rockridge" campaign any day now, so check back for updates. We welcome designs for T-shirts, bumper stickers (preferably along the lines of "I heart smiles and I heart Rockridge and I vote" or somesuch), etc. I was thinking maybe we could draw the library into it, make a read-a-thon part of the celebration. But that might just be because I love read-a-thons. For those of you who don't live in the neighborhood, here's the issue: We live in possibly the nicest place on the planet, in one of its nicest neighborhoods, and people on the street refuse to smile or make eye contact. They aggressive frown at you when you walk by them. It's a very walkable place too, so we get frowned at a lot. We cannot figure out what's going on. So in addition to a design contest and a read-a-thon, Smile Rockridge (tm) also welcomes psychoanalysis. A therapy- in, if you will. I think the kick-off week for this campaign is off to a great start and I welcome your comments and suggestions.

Toothbrushes

Toothbrushes toothbrushes toothbrushes.

By the way, is Lincoln Chafee going to go back to being a blacksmith now??

Tummy Grumbles to Paladar T

Paladar Temescal gets a mention in the LA Times in an article on underground restaurants. Congratulations, Melissa and Hannah! Great job this weekend!

Children, Acting Nice

To compensate for the hundreds of times I have forbidden Liam from touching Quinn, I let him hold the baby on his lap this morning. Here's the result:


I learned today that two acquaintances, totally separate and unrelated, had committed suicide. I've also learned other sad things this week, which made me feel old, and, at the same time, naive. I'm being intentionally vague, and mention all this just to say, take care of the ones you love and love them. Thanks.

Thanks But No Thanks

There are problem hundreds of reasons why the Democrats won big yesterday. I am almost certain that this book, Why Mommy Is A Democrat, helped very little. Even with a portion of the sales going to help Democratic candidates.

A New Day

It looks like “Art” did his part, and helped sweep the Dems into power. Very big heavy sighs of relief. This may be the first time that the homophobia of evangelical Christians helped get Democrats elected. The news was reporting that voters were concerned about “corruption” but, like the “values” voters of 2004, this is a code word for homa-sexuals. Only this time, the gays are Republican, and the bans on gay marriage propositions reminded nut-wingers to vote Democrat, as the party of non-pedophiliac, non-methhead gays.

This morning I heard John Tester call Iraq a “quagmire” and Harry Reid called it a “morass”, words no Dem would use yesterday. Well, let’s call it like we see it and be honest now. Very good very good.

May Election Season Never End

I cannot tell you how much I love this story. If this were in a novel, you'd be, like, yeah right. So much hypocrisy. I really hope it torpedoes Colorado's dumb anti-gay-marriage ballot measure. And with Rev. Ted Haggard calling himself "Art" for the purposes of his meth-fueled trysts, I wonder, How does one choose a nom de perv? Is it like the old "Porn Name" game, where you take your first pet's name and the street you grew up on to figure out what you'd be called if you made adult movies. Depending on the pet, and the street, I could be "Frick and Frack Rural Route 4" or "Raindrop Oakland" or, best of all, "Flynn Kimbark", which sounds more like my Lady and the Tramp 3: Bow Wow Wow (straight to video) name.

Anyway, I digress. Maybe Art is somehow a nod to The Naughty Reverend's defense that he never really did meth. He just, you know, wanted to see what it felt like to buy it. It was an experience that he needed so that he could dance about it. Or translate in Chiaro-oscuro or whatever his particular medium is. Or maybe Art was the father of a childhood friend, who was a police officer that Haggard always looked up to, and Haggard wanted to follow into public service, and now, when he's not ministering to his 14,000 member flock, he goes undercover to help do drug and sex-ring busts for, but he can't tell that part of the story yet, because that would hurt an ongoing investigation.

Whatever it is, it's clear we have not heard the whole story yet.