Ouch
It might have been the workout I did a couple days before, or the twenty-six-mile bike ride I went on with my dad that afternoon. Really, I don't know what it was. All I know is that I woke up a little before dawn on Sunday morning in the worst pain I could remember. This was wracking pain, which was a new one for me. I couldn't roll over. I couldn't walk, just shuffle. Hell, I could barely stand as the muscles in my back spasmed, over and over. I lay there, trying to sleep, trying to figure out what the hell I had done to myself, trying not to think that something that hurt this bad just had to be permanent. I managed to make it to the shower, figuring maybe the hot water would loosen things up and soothe it a bit. No dice. And since I couldn't turn my upper body, or bend over, or raise my arms above shoulder level, I had to lay back down on my bed, wet, tired, and very, very miserable.
It could have been worse, of course; if you're going to suffer severe back pain, you might as well do it in comfortable surroundings, especially if those comfortable surroundings include your parents' water bed and hot tub, two things which made Sunday a bit more manageable after a lousy start to the day. A visit to my mother's chiropractor the next day, complete with a deep tissue massage and some electronic nerve stimulation, made me mobile again, and by Wednesday I was back in New York and back at work, albeit still a bit sore and still unable to bend fully at the waist. The real pisser, though, is the realization that I can hurt myself like that, that a hard workout or a long bike ride, or even something as stupid as moving a couch or lifting a box of books, can have those kinds of consequences. Learning your own vulnerability and, by extension, mortality, is a bitch, you know?
But all things considered, it all turned out better than I would have expected during my rude awakening early Sunday morning. The nice thing about hurt is that, bad as it feels at the time, the memory of it fades quickly once it's gone.
Fear of the hurt, however, takes a bit longer, and it's going to be a little while before I hit the weights again.
World, Meet World
It's 7:58 AM on Wednesday, August 28th in England, and Warren Ellis is showing the world the World.
Malice in the Madhouse
My friend Michael Malice has forgone his old tricks and come up with a whole bag of entirely new ones, which include breaking into abandoned mental institutions and wearing suits. And here I am, jealous as a schoolgirl 'cause I've been dying to get into that place for years, and he waltzes in with his band of urban marauders as easy as you please. But at least he got some good pictures, and possibly tetanus.
Rock On
Besides changing back to a two-column layout (in these times of thrift and economy, did I really NEED that third column?) and implementing the random header (courtesy of Hivelogic's Image Rotator), I've set it up so that, thanks to Kung-Tunes, the site displays, in addition to whatever's currently playing on my iTunes, the five most recent tracks played.
So, yes, that's right, I've been listening to Bon Jovi's New Jersey repeatedly for the last two hours. Not only listening to it, but ROCKING to it. Rocking hard.
Why, you ask? For the love of God, why?
'Cause you were born to be my baby, and, baby, I was made to be your man.
Dark
The security guard doesn't want to let me go up.
The super's evacuating the building, he says. I'm not supposed to let anybody in.
I think my fiancée's up there, I tell him.
That stairway's pitch black. No emergency lights. The super, he's saying Everybody Out.
I've got a light, I say. Please, I say. I'll talk to the super. I'll tell him.
The security guard hesitates for a minute, then steps away from the stairwell door. You see the super, he says, you tell him I said no.
Will do, I say, on my way up the stairs.
And they ARE pitch black. I've got a tiny, incredibly bright halogen light on my keychain that's just become the most useful thing I've ever owned, and I feel like I'm spelunking, except in the opposite direction.
Six flights later, I run into the flashlight-waving super, who immediately tells me to go back down, he's evacuating the building. I recite my line. He tries a couple more times. Then, realizing it's not going to work, he starts directing a couple other people down and pretends not to notice me as I keep climbing.
Another six flights, and I get to her floor, only to discover that she's gone. You missed her by about fifteen minutes, her boss says, which means I must have missed her on the ground level by less than five.
Back at Tekserve, twelve flights down and ten blocks over, they're gathered around a battery-powered radio in the growing dimness, laughing at the DJ's on one of the local rap stations, surrounded by dark computer screens. No one there's seen a girl with long red hair, but they promise to tell her I've headed home if they do. As I head back out, I hear one of the owners asks if anyone needs some cash, which reminds me why I love working there.
Sixth Avenue is a mess, with traffic at a standstill and the sidewalks packed beyond capacity. Fifth is a bit lighter, with people who aren't cops standing in every intersection directing traffic. The cops are all somewhere else. A woman walking in front of me says something about them bin Laden, that great ghost haunting our dream house, like he's some modern-day Dracula who announces his presence with an all-encompassing darkness and not just a hairy old guy in a turban hiding in a cave. In Union Square, they're all lying in the grass, and there's a pop of a champagne bottle. Then I get to Third Avenue, and I'm following the flood.
I don't really think about anything again until I realize, (a), I'm on the corner of 7th Street, a stone's throw from McSorley's, and (b), I'm really, really tired.
In McSorley's, the taps have just gone down, and they're throwing bottles of their nominal ale in water-filled sinks to cool them. I hope it's cold enough, the bartender says as he slides one over. We're doing our best.
It's not cold, but it's cool enough, and there's a fair share of people to drink it; the tables are all taken, and there's a good number standing at the bar, more in the shadows in the back. The sun is still bright through the windows, sihlouetting the people in front and making the brown bottles glisten. A table in the corner opens up, and I sit down. Flip-flops aren't made for hikes or stairs. My feet hurt. The beer is warm, but good, and I sit and read a little and get my thoughts straight again, and then I go before I get too comfortable.
A couple blocks down, William, from work, is standing on the sidewalk next to a boombox that's playing jazz. William asks how you're feeling, not how you're doing, and he listens to the answer. We greet and shake hands, and I ask him if lives around here. He says he doesn't, he's just checking things out, and I want to ask him how he ended up in the East Village with a boombox playing jazz, and why, but it's getting late, and I've finally been able to get my fiancée on the phone, and now I want to get back to her as soon as possible. So I tell him I'll see him tomorrow, or on Monday if not, and I keep going.
One of the roadways on the Manhattan Bridge looks pretty empty, and I start for it, but hear the policemen directing traffic to the pedestrian walkway, so I head there instead. The walkway is jammed like a cattle car, and first I try to pass on the right, make it through the slow-moving throng, but eventually I give up and just stick to the left in an easy pace and watch the sunset light the Brooklyn Bridge in red hues, the mass of people on its walkway and roadways moving like a river.
It's full dark by the time I'm through Brooklyn Heights and into Cobble Hill, dark like it doesn't get in the city. Too dark to see faces or street signs or cracks in the sidewalk, and the lights of cars headed the other way down Clinton Street blind in their passing. By the time I get to my building in Carroll Gardens, I can only see the faintest shadow of someone sitting on my stoop, but I know who it is anyway.
Later, we go for another walk, but this one is unhurried, with no real purpose, and we marvel at the stars that we never get to see.
Power
Well, the lights are back on, which is nice, even if the sun's up. Now I'm gonna find an air-conditioned movie theatre and catch myself a Western...
Please, Endeth the Lesson
I don't want to harp on this, but it's really annoying the hell out of me...
From Bush's informal news conference last week:
Q: What can you tell the American people about how many more soldiers will die? And, also, your commander in Iraq said yesterday: two years, absolute minimum. Is that an assessment you share?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, first of all, we suffer when we lose life. I mean, our country is a country that grieves with those who sacrifice and our heartfelt sympathies and appreciation go to the loved ones of any soldier who's willing to defend the security of the United States -- and that's what they're doing in Iraq. It's very important to people to understand that this is a part of the war on terror, that we're dealing with terrorists today. We learned a lesson on September the 11th, and that is, our nation is vulnerable to attack. And we're doing everything we can to protect the homeland by making the homeland defense department effective and securing the borders. But the best way to secure America is to get the enemy before they get us. And that's what's happening in Iraq. And we're grateful for the sacrifices of our soldiers. I said, Scott, right after September the 11th, that this war on terror is a different kind of war, and it's going to take a while to win the war on terror. However long it takes to win the war on terror, this administration is committed to doing that, because our most solemn obligation is the protection of the American people. And as I said, the Secretary and I discussed what's happening inside of Iraq and we've got a lot of brave soldiers, slowly but surely demolishing the elements of the Baathist regime, those foreign terrorists who feel like they can use Iraq as a place to arm up and inflict casualty or perhaps gain strength to come and attack Americans elsewhere. We've been there a hundred days. We've made a lot of progress in a hundred days, and I am pleased with the progress we've made, but fully recognize we've got a lot more work to do.
Do you want to add to that, Mr. Secretary?
SECRETARY RUMSFELD: No, sir. (Laughter.)
Second verse, same as the first. Once again, we have a good, and potentially damaging question regarding the military's assement that they expect to be in Iraq for two more years. That's a touchy subject; the American people, particularly those currently wearing desert camouflage, don't want to hear that they're gonna be hearing about soldiers dying in Iraq for another two years. They want to hear, "Okay, we're done. Good job, guys. Let's go home. First beer's on the house" And how does President Bush deal with this sticky subject?
After another trademark quote ("We suffer when we lose life"), he brings up, yet again, the Lesson of September 11th (now apparently known as "September the 11th"), and it's about as applicable to the war in Iraq as it is to campaign finances. And it doesn't answer the question, but who cares? It's September 11th, the biggest (and seemingly the only) weapon in Bush's arsenal of political responses, and it does the job every time.
What's even more disturbing is when the Leader of the Free World starts saying things like, "the best way to secure America is to get the enemy before they get us." Because not only does it further the belief in every other country around the world that we're a bunch of xenophobic warmongers with itchy trigger fingers, it makes our president sound like someone who loved DR. STRANGELOVE but didn't get the joke.
Night Falls on Cobble Hill
An Asian woman, so old that her skin looks like crumpled leather, runs in place in the middle of Court Street. As cars approach, she jogs over to the curb, then back out into the street once they're past.
A couple old Italians sit on lawn chairs on the sidewalk, watching.
"She's been goin' for half-an-hour," says one. "I'm gettin' my exercise just watchin' her."
"She's gonna get herself run over," says another.
Out in the middle of the street again, she runs and runs.
Further down Court, Spider-Man walks down the sidewalk, his pudgy belly rounding out his costume, waving to passers-by and stopping briefly to chat with the guy selling ices and the people having dinner at tables outside the cafés before continuing on. He comes even with me on the opposite side of the street, and as I turn down my block, I think about giving him a wave, but I don't, and he walks on, going to wherever Spider-Man goes when he's done with the day.
This is Brooklyn on a Sunday evening.
Boom
I don't watch much television; especially not lately, what with the bloat of increasingly moronic reality shows that the increasingly desperate networks have been using to fill their schedules the last couple months. I mean, WHO WANT'S TO MARRY MY DAD? Are you kidding me?
So it was a pleasant surprise to discover tonight that BOOMTOWN was back. And it was back with a vengeance. Yeah, sure, I've had some problems with the show in the past, but like I said, it's been a long, dry summer for dramatic entertainment. And despite the incredible silliness of a sub-plot that might as well have been titled "Filler," this episode had me grinning from ear to ear. Why? Because Mykelti Williamson is one of the best actors currently working in television, and because the opportunity to watch Iron Mike take on a couple dozen Russian mobsters with a shotgun is just too damn good to miss. And sure, the scene where he jumps off the roof of a motel with a submachine gun in each hand and crashes onto the hood of a Buick, taking out a score of Russkies on the way down, might be a bit over-the-top, but really, who cares?
Just when you think it can't get any better, it does, as Mike, holding a Russian at gunpoint, walks into the room where Super-Bad Head Commie is holding hostage the mother of the little girl whose testimony can but Super-Bad behind bars, and who was the motivation for the Shootout at the O.K. Motel.
I wanted to give you a message, Mike says. Anyone who threatens that girl or her mother is dead.
What do I care about that guy, says Super-Bad. You don't scare me. I'm gonna--
Mike shoots Super-Bad in the head, turns to the other Russkie, who's just wet himself.
You get my message, Mike asks?
Russkie nods and heads for the hills.
Sure, it's melodramatic. Sure, it's unrealistic. It's also fun as hell, and after all this reality show crap that's passing for entertainment lately, I'll take unreality any day of the week.
Hanging
Someday, I'm going to write a novel about tech support, and the title will be We Are Hanging Here....
Good Reading
A couple years ago, Random House did up two lists of the 100 best novels of the 20th Century One list was chosen by a Board of Prominent Thinkers," the other by a poll of over four hundred thousand readers.
The Top Ten, according to the Board:
1. Ulysses, James Joyce
2. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
3. A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man, James Joyce
4. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
5. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
6. The Sound And The Fury, William Faulkner
7. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
8. Darkness At Noon, Arthur Koestler
9. Sons And Lovers, D. H. Lawrence
10. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
It's not a bad list. Ulysses is a painfully obvious choice for the top slot, and I was a bit disappointed not to see To Kill a Mockingbird or Watership Down in the Top Ten, or even in the list at all. But overall, not bad.
And the Top Ten, according to the readers:
1. Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand
2. The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
3. Battlefield Earth, L. Ron Hubbard
4. The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien
5. To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee
6. 1984, George Orwell
7. Anthem, Ayn Rand
8. We The Living, Ayn Rand
9. Mission Earth, L. Ron Hubbard
10. Fear, L. Ron Hubbard
Of ten slots, four (including the top two) are taken by Ayn Rand and three by L. Ron Hubbard. So if this list is any indication, we have a serious problem:
There are a couple hundred thousand radical über-capitalists and Scientologists running amok. And given that they breed like bunnies and that this poll was taken in 1998, those numbers could be well into half a million by now.
At this point, we're well past the possibility of using non-aggressive methods to curb their numbers, presenting us with a hard choice: herd them into reservations where they can breed in a controlled habitat, or introduce a wild strain of Marxist into their populations to thin their numbers. I'm down with either, but, heaven knows we need to do something soon.
"I Am Curious (Black)!"
This is a moment which speaks most eloquently for itself...
"A Rigli, Rigli Bad Movie"
For God's sake, don't go see GIGLI: it's much more fun to just read the reviews. My personal favorite...
There Is A God
On August 23rd, one of my favorite movies of all time, ALIENS, is showing at Lincoln Center's Walter Reade Theater. In Cinemascope, no less.
Happy happy happy happy.
"And That's Really My Only Comment I Got."
I've been reading the transcript of President Bush's Wednesday press conference, in which he, among other things, announces his intentions to restrict the legal definition of marriage...
...making the term applicable only for heterosexuals and ensuring that same-sex couples can't be legally married (which probably thrilled Vice-President Cheney' lesbian daughter and her partner, and even Cheney himself, who had said just the opposite in a past debate). And what struck me about the question that provoked Bush's typically deplorable, small-minded response is the incongruity of it, given that the press conference up to that point had dealt entirely with the Middle East, and Iraq specifically. Given the circumstances, "What's your view on homosexuality?" is so ridiculously off-topic that it feels like a planted question whose only purpose was to get the ball rolling on this whole heterosexual marriage thing. And it certainly did get that ball rolling, with the Vatican releasing a twelve-page condemnation of homosexuality, gay marriage, and gay adoption the very next day. It's been a banner week for bigoted hypocritical assholes, in other words, and I shudder to think of where that ball's rolling next.
Anyway. Back at the press conference, someone asked a good question that's been kind of lost in the shuffle since:
QUESTION: Mr. President, with no opponent, how can you spend $170 million or more on your primary campaign?
BUSH: Just watch. Keep going.
QUESTION: And with 15 fund-raisers scheduled for the summer months, do you worry about the perception that you're unduly attentive to the interests of people who can afford to spend $2,000 to see you?
BUSH: I think American people, now that they've realized I'm going to seek re-election, expect me to seek re-election. They expect me to actually do what candidates do. And so you're right, I'll be spending some time going out and asking the American people to support me. But most of my time, as I say in my speeches — as I'm sure you've been bored to tears listening to — is that there's a time for politics, and that's going to be later on. I've got a lot to do and I will continue doing my job. And my job will be to work to make America more secure. Steve asked the question about this al-Qaeda possible attack. Every day I am reminded that our nation is still vulnerable. Every day I'm reminded about what 9-11 means to America. That's a lesson, by the way, I'll never forget, the lesson of 9-11, because, and I remember right after 9-11 saying that this will be a different kind of war, but it's a war. And sometimes there'll be action and sometimes there won't, but we're still threatened. And I see that almost every day. And therefore, that is a major part of my job. And the other part of my job that I talked about is, you know, the economic security of the American people. And I spend a lot of time on the economy, going out and talking to the American people about the economy, and will continue to do so. But, no, listen, since I've made the decision to run of course I'm going to do what candidates do. And we're having pretty good success. It's kind of an interesting barometer, early barometer about the support we're garnering.
What do the events of September 11th have to do with Bush blowing $170 million on his political well-being? Absolutely nothing, of course, but it's a great example of his ability to neutralize a potentially damaging issue by changing the topic of conversation to one in which he's portrayed in a better light. And people DO fall for this, believe me. Joe Shmoe sitting at home in Podunk, Iowa, watching the press conference (if anyone even watches those things anymore), won't remember the $170 million...he'll remember the "Lesson of 9-11." Which is, in a nutshell, "Follow the leader and don't think too much."
Don't mind me, I'm just a bit disgusted. If you are, too, go here and download some fliers and post 'em up. They're designed by my talented and swell co-worker Ari, and maybe it'll make you feel better.