Our friend Larry is in town. He is an actor/singer currently working the touring show of Phantom of the Opera. He’s been doing this for several years, and each year the show has a run in Orlando. We have been once, and found it stunning. Daughter and a friend went several days ago. Larry took Daughter, my Honey, and Babycakes and two little friends of hers on a backstage tour a few days ago. Larry has only Mondays off, so we drove down to his hotel in the I-Drive area so he could spend the day with us. We drove around a bit taking pictures (he with his Nikon, me with my Canon). We lunched, and then got some goodies at Whole Foods. We brought him home and the three of us walked around the neighborhood with Lokee (the family dog). Daughter and Babycakes came over after school, and we all dined on the Whole Foods goodies. Later we took Larry back to his hotel. A really fine day weather-wise and a nice visit. Larry is married to Daughter’s first cousin J., and has been a wonderful addition to our family circle. He went out of his way to come to son-in-law’s funeral, and we’ll never forget that.
My Honey bought me a wonderful Valentine’s present, right out of the blue. It’s a 10-20 wide-angle zoom lens. I have been wanting such a thing for quite a while, but didn’t want to just spend the money for it. I consider myself the luckiest of guys because of my Honey (and Daughter, and Babycakes), and if I never received a single present from them, I’d feel the same. They are extraordinarily generous to me in so many ways, the least of which is physical items like presents.
I took the picture above with the new lens. International Drive is the commercial district near Disney World. It is wonderfully tacky, and a great reason to love America (or, perhaps to despair of America). If garish and kitschy will attract tourist business, and it seems to, then the philosophy “if a little’s good more is better” underlies this district. I haven’t done much photography along there, but I think I’m about to. Which means, of course, I’m going to inflict the results on everyone here and on my Flickr page.
I read a column this morning from the Christian Science Monitor. The title: “Why has Hollywood forsaken conservatives?”
The gist of this screed is that the stuff churned out by “Hollywood” is liberal, that sport is made of conservatives, and this is bad. The author, Chris W. Bell, a freelancer, “cringes” when he thinks of how many people don’t know they are being “sold a philosophy” with their entertainment.
He tosses in a non sequitur: “Unfortunately more and more entertainment is offensive.” He gives no examples of this offensiveness, relying, apparently, on his view that the liberal “bias” of “Hollywood” is offensive, at least to him.
Couple of quotes (each an independent paragraph of one sentence, as was the “offesive” quote above.):
“Doesn’t Hollywood realize that a chunk of their customers are conservatives?” He apparently hopes that the first mental construct his beloved conservatives bring to the movie screen or tv is their political stance, not their aesthetic preferences.
“Bias, no matter which was it is directed, harms both liberals and conservatives and anyone in between.” The only “bias” he apparently is concerned with is that others have and express different views than his.
He suggests a a boycott: “Just as we would stop doing business with a butcher who consistently and purposely offended us, we must likewise stop doing business with networks that do the same.”
“Hollywood” has consistently been a whipping boy for conservatives. They somehow imagine that movies and television shows, or more accurately, the people who make them, have less freedom of speech than conservatives (who dominate the press), and corporations (which can spend without limit to promote political/economic causes, according to the Supreme Court). [An aside: did the Supremes mention anything about entertainment corporations having less right to express themselves than, say BigPharma?]
Basically this guy’s column is the same old same old. I find it ironic that this individual avails himself of his right to speak his mind, and finds a public forum for doing so, that is, the corporate moguls of the Christian Science Monitor, allowed his work to be published under their auspices, but he is firmly against those who think others than him having the same right.
He doesn’t mention “Avatar” which has been a target of much conservative wrath, so I’ll do it for him. Does it express “liberal” views in some ways? Okay, if people say so. [I offer the view that to "conservatives" the term "liberal" is quite broad and includes "humanistic," and "secular."] Maybe more to the point, “Avatar” is the biggest-grossing film of all time.
I was going to write about feeling pitiful, but the events and horror in Haiti make that a bit ridiculous.
I barely leave the house lately, except for the odd walk around the neighborhood. More of those walks lately because we are keeping the dog. He’s sweet, I give him lots of affection, but it hasn’t really changed my mind about pets in general and dogs in particular. I kind of like them, I enjoy interacting with them sometimes, but I don’t really want to live with them. If Daughter reads this, she isn’t too take it too seriously, and fret more than she already does that Lokee is an inconvenience to me, to us (she apologizes frequently about it, and she doesn’t have to do that).
There was a “How the Earth Was Made” mini-marathon yesterday (Discovery Channel?). I watched for hours. I know more than I did before about the geological history of certain places: Everest is getting taller; the granite in Yosemite is very hard stuff; the Rockies are rifting; the “Ring of Fire” is restless. The images were pleasing, and I watched it on the plasma TV (I like the picture on it better than the LCD).
1. You can press a button that will make any one person explode. Who would you blow up?
Nobody.
2. You can flip a switch that will wipe any band or musical artist out of existence. Which one will it be?
Any performer wearing a dumbass cowboy hat on stage.
3. Who would you really like to just punch in the face.
Nobody.
4. What is your favorite cheese?
Brie.
5. You can only have one kind of sandwich. Every sandwich ingredient known to humankind is at your immediate disposal. What kind will you make?
A brisket sandwich using my Honey’s home cooked brisket.
6. You have the opportunity to sleep with the movie celebrity of your choice. We are talking no-strings-attached sex and it can only happen once. Who is the lucky celebrity of you choice?
I don’t think of celebrities in this way, and I really want to crap out on this, but to play along I’ll say Ingrid Bergman.
7. You have the opportunity to sleep with the music celebrity of your choice. Whom do you pick?
Same caveat as above. Margo Timmins.
8. Now that you’ve slept with two different people in a row, you seem to be having an excellent day because you just came across a hundred-dollar bill on the sidewalk. Holy shit, a hundred bucks! How are you gonna spend it?
Music.
9. You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go?
Bora Bora.
10. Upon arrival to the aforementioned location, you get off the plane and discover another hundred-dollar bill. Shit! Now that you are in the new location, what are you gonna do?
Buy drinks with umbrellas served in a coconut hull.
11. An angel appears out of Heaven and offers you a lifetime supply of the alcoholic beverage of your choice. It is…?
Creamy lemoncello.
12. Rufus appears out of nowhere with a time-traveling phone booth. You can go anytime in the PAST. What time are you traveling to and what are you going to do when you get there?
Freshman year in college, accept an offer from a young lady that I declined.
13. You discover a beautiful island upon which you may build your own society. You make the rules. What is the first rule you put into place?
No assholes.
14. You have been given the opportunity to create the half-hour TV show of your own design. What is it called and what’s the premise?
A show each episode of which is just one of my favorite singer-songwriters doing his or her thing.
15. What is your favorite curse word?
Fuck.
16. One night you wake up because you heard a noise. You turn on the light to find that you are surrounded by MUMMIES. The mummies aren’t really doing anything, they’re just standing around your bed. What do you do?
Walk like an Egyptian.
17. Your house is on fire, holy shit! You have just enough time to run in there and grab ONE inanimate object. Don’t worry, your loved ones and pets have already made it out safely. So what’s the item?
My True North guitar.
18. The Angel of Death has descended upon you. Fortunately, the Angel of Death is pretty cool and in a good mood, and it offers you a half-hour to do whatever you want before you bite it. Whatcha gonna do in that half-hour?
Eat chocolate and drink red wine.
19. You accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow you with the super-power of your choice! What’s it gonna be?
Teleportation.
20. You can re-live any point of time in your life. The time-span can only be a half-hour, though. What half-hour of your past would you like to experience again?
Being there when Babycakes was born.
21. You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be?
A time I was really not nice, and that’s all I’m going to say about it.
22. You got kicked out of the country for being a time-traveling heathen who sleeps with celebrities and has super-powers. But check out this cool shit… you can move to anywhere else in the world! Bitchin’! What country are you going to live in now?
New Zealand.
23. This question still counts, even for those of you who are under age. Check it out. You have been eternally banned from every single bar in the world except for ONE. Which one is it gonna be?
Roo Bar
24. Hopefully you didn’t mention this in the super-powers question…. If you did, then we’ll just expand on that. Check it out… Suddenly, you have gained the ability to FLOAT!!! Whose house are you going to float to first, and be like “Dude, check it out…I can FLOAT!”?
Babycakes.
25. The constant absorption of magical moonbeams mixed with the radioactive vegetables you consumed earlier has given you the ability to resurrect the dead famous-person of your choice. So which celebrity will you bring back to life?
Robert F. Kennedy
26.The Celestial Gates of Beyond have opened, much to your surprise because you didn’t think such a thing existed. Death appears. As it turns out, Death is actually a pretty cool entity, and happens to be in a fantastic mood. Death offers to return the friend/family-member/person, etc. of your choice to the living world. Who will you bring back?
Babycakes’s Daddy.
27. What’s your theme song?
Wow, this is just really tough because there is so much music that touches me, resonates in my life. Let’s go with “The Parting Glass” for now.
Sagarmatha (Mt. Everest), Disney version, Animal Kingdom.
1. Although I’m retired from the active practice of law, I am still a member of the Bar, and still do stuff for family and friends. Well, that “stuff” has been occupying my attention for a good bit here in the new year. The details are unimportant (as well as private to the clients involved), but I will say that nothing about doing this stuff makes me long to return to the practice of law. Obnoxious lawyers do not just vex the public, they vex the lawyers they deal with, are adversaries with, and, in my experience, do nothing more to advance their clients’ causes than lawyers who behave as professionals.
2) Mrs. Chili nominated me for a “Beautiful Blogger” award. I’m pondering what my responsibilities are. I certainly can’t list the appropriate number of bloggers to pass it along to. My “blogroll” has shrunk considerably this past year. The attrition is sometimes sad (a blogger I enjoyed passed away, another with health problems dropped out of the game). Sometimes the attrition is frustrating (a blogger turned on me because I didn’t have the same opinion about what a public figure said–a blogger I had made a substantial gift to). Most often, it’s just my sense that blogging is, or should be, a dialog, and not the sound of one hand clapping. Oh, I’m probably subject to the “ego” end of blogging like everyone. I like it if someone reads what I have to say, or admires my photographs, but I am not the Oracle at Delphi (meaning I owe respect if I want respect). Some bloggers actually have cute little thingies on their blogs indicating a desire to have some feedback, comments, or at least something to indicate you visited–but seldom if ever reciprocate. Some bloggers have no blogroll–I assume there’s some reason for that. I have, at times, just about quit blogging for lack of feedback. I can just maintain a journal, if I want to talk to myself.
I do keep a folder of blogs which I find worth glancing at from time to time, so I don’t consign someone to the outer darkness if I take them off my blogroll, or never put them on it.
Okay, enough whining. I have made wonderful friends blogging, and so this whole activity has brought me treasure. Those who read my blog will know who I mean, and those who don’t know don’t really need to.
I have made the decision that, from now on, absent some extraordinary event or level of participation, I am only going to have people on my blogroll that I have met in person, and consider to be friends in the “real world.”
It’s a new year and a new decade. These events only come around every so often, every second of every day, to be exact, but us homo sapiens seem to like round numbers, so.
1. It’s been cold here in Central Florida by our standards, below freezing every night for a few so far, with some yet to go. Big cold spell in most of the nation, so I’m not complaining. News last night said 38 below zero temperature (not wind chill) in International Falls, Minnesota. Nippy. The main effect of the cold here is that I go outside (as do many other folks) and cover certain plants with cloths to try to avoid frost damage. It works to some extent, and, of course, not all the foliage here is so wimpy. Why do we plant things which we know will not do well in the frosty days we are going to have every year? I have no answer. Logically, we should have nothing planted in our yards we don’t find growing naturally in the woods. Really. But we don’t. So, we need too much fertilizer, the run off of which damages our waters, and even makes the crystal clear waters bubbling up in our many famous springs less clear. The designated “Wild and Scenic” Wekiva River has more and more duckweed (algae) in it every year. Maybe we can eventually harvest the algae to make fuel. We have to water our tender-hearted plants, rain being undependable for their thirst, thus using up a precious resource, our aquifer. And, of course, these plants (including even the St. Augustine grass in our yards) are prone to pests, disease, and just dying for no apparent reason at all.
2. I was watching two wood storks stroll down the bank outside yesterday. They seemed unconcerned with our problems.
3. I watched “Lions for Lambs” on cable yesterday. I’m not sure the structure of the movie thrilled me (basically three separate settings, two full of dialog, the third full of war and death). As for the message, well, my often-announced view of the war in Afghanistan is that I’m against it.
4. I’ve been spending an inordinate amount of my computer time on Reddit. People say the strangest things, but what I take away is that the modern form of dialog has built-in elements of deceit in it. You see it everywhere, the news, politics, and (of course) television commercials. The basic version is: 1) you recite only those “facts” which favor your position; 2) you offer “facts” you have absolutely no way to substantiate, you cite no sources at all; 3) you call those who disagree with you names, of which “idiot” is one of the mildest; 4) if, by way of comment, let’s say, you receive some cogent point about the issue under discussion, which disagrees with or tends to disprove yours, you ignore it. I could rant on, but I’m not going to.
5. Still regarding Reddit, I’ve been surprised (should I be?) about the general tenor of comments about Israel and Jewish people. I see both overt and covert anti-Semitism. I see Israel presented as a pretty much criminal enterprise bent on “genocide” of the “Palestinian” people. Lots of “war crime” talk about, for example, last year’s conflict between Israel and Gaza, not much mention of suicide bombers and missiles launched against Israel. By the way, I do not put “Palestinian” in quotes to denigrate the Arab peoples who live in Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, and in the surrounding countries (often in refugee camps). I do it that way because there is no country called “Palestine,” I do not accept at face value that the West Bank and Gaza comprise two parts of some whole, and because I do not accept that the various peoples in that area, inclusive of Jews, Muslims, Christians, and everyone else, can never decide to just get along.
6. I saw a bit where some muckety-muck in the GOP hierarchy (party chairman maybe), who I take to be African-American, was touting the party’s current platform as being a really first-class political document. To emphasize that it really was keen, and he really did mean it, he said “honest Injun.” I wonder if, when he goes to buy things in a context where negotiation is useful he “Jews the seller down?” He probably has season tickets to the “Redskins” games. He probably has cute phrases invoking “Spics,” “Greasers,” “Wops,” “Fags,” “Polacks,” etc., but probably not “Darkies.”
7. I have a really hard time figuring out how, if we try to protect ourself from murderers from Islamic countries by acknowledging what we all know about where they generally come from, that’s “racist.” I also would be really sad if anybody were killed because “privacy” considerations kept body scanners out of airports. No, I do not know how well they work, or if they would have stopped the Underwear Bomber. Speaking of whom, some want to deny him due process in the courts, but I didn’t hear any of that stuff when the Shoe Bomber was detained, tried, convicted, and imprisoned. I don’t care if the failed Wal Mart greeters we call TSA Officers giggle because they see somebody’s hernia truss, fake boobs, etc.
8. We let Yemen off the hook when the Cole was attacked (under Bush), now are we going to go to war there because a Nigerian came there, presumable learned a vast store of things about Underwear bombs, and failed to blow up an American plane?
9. I have not read the full text of either the House or Senate health bills, and I have no opinion about them.
10. My only resolve for the New Year is to love the people I love better than I did last year, and to be more patient and tolerant of people I don’t know very well or at all.
LobsterCar
