It's Fat Tuesday: Let's Play!
We had a few days of unseasonably mild weather – a heat wave in February! This caused some of our flora a state of confusion and some premature blooming. Everything is dead again, but spores got out. As a result those poor unfortunates sensitive to it are experiencing their spring allergies before
Lent. Sometimes life just sucks.
All it means to me is that my eyes are watery, I have the occasional sneezing fit that leaves me light-headed and I wake up with puffy eyes. No big deal as far as tragedies and indignities are concerned -- mild stuff, really. But it also tires me out a bit.
So last night I was sitting in the bus in a comatose state (not that there’s anything new or different about that) and I awoke to find these enormous dark brown eyes intently set on me. Attached to those pretty eyes and magnificent lashes was a boy of about 4 years, an Andean little prince, apparently willing me awake.
He waited until the fog lifted from my eyes and then he spoke to me in Spanish,
“I have a truck in this bag. Do you want to play?”
My cruelest month is almost over, and with it goes several anxieties, but I end the month with those beautiful eyes and I urge you to end yours by visiting Eric Lawrie’s site of
Andean Images.
I can’t offer assurances that life will follow a predetermined nice path; that life will be as patient and generous with its toys as my little friend; or that it will be as colorful and breathtaking as Eric’s images. All I can offer you is this: take a nap any time you can, always say yes when someone offers you playtime and seek out beauty and adventure in whatever form it appears before you. Life is short: live it up!
Today is
Fat Tuesday: have a
pancake and let the good times roll.
It's like a sauna in here!
When the ambient temperature in my bedroom goes above 70 degrees, inevitably I start dreaming I'm in Puerto Rico. That's practically the only sure thing that will ever happen in that room.
Last night, as the heat surged, my dreamscape transported me to my grandmother's birthplace in
Guayanilla. Mom and I emerged from an economy car strangely driven by my godmother – who has not touched the wheel of a car since before the inception of the Commonwealth. We came out of the car and found ourselves outside the tiny cemetery. She went in, from afar she yelled something about getting a ride with my cousin and soon she disappeared. (My cousins were nowhere to be found – not a one in the whole place – the flaky bastards.)
We entered the cemetery and found people wandering about, some waiting. There was a small field (corn, rice, cane?). I saw what looked like a small branch of pine, twisted and braided so it looked like a green and spiky crawler. In one end it held a red flower. And it floated in the air as if assisted by an invisible balloon.
It landed atop the head of a mulatto man with stubble. He looked at me and said,
"Isn't this something?!" He wore it as a crown. I thought of Jesus, but this seemed as such an unseemly place for a second coming despite his mysterious ways.
Mom and I waited with the rest of the folks for the bus. But not just any bus: a bus to my old hometown in
Bayamón that would connect us to the Third Avenue bus in Brooklyn.
It was an oddity to be sure, just the heat speaking.
Faster! Higher!! Stronger!!!
This Olympics will forever be special to me for the feelings elicited by the Italians. When Maurizio Margaglio dropped Barbara Fusar Poli with seconds to go in their routine, I thought, “Oh man that sucks!” But I didn’t know it would be a life changing moment for me.
When the music stopped so did my heart; and the breathing of hundreds of thousands of husbands and boyfriends the world over. And I said, “Oh shit, Maurizio is gonna die!” Because surely the daggers aimed at him said: DIE IN PAIN! YOUUUUUUUUU, DID
THIS TO MEEEEEEEEEEE???!!! HOOOOWWWW COULD YOU BE SO FREAKING STUPID! YOU WORTHLESS PIECE OF (raise your hands if you've been there, and done that)
My Italian isn’t great, but Barbara kept muttering something, over and over and over. I got
putana (which means whore). Mom says she was putting Maurizio’s parentage in question (or at least his mother’s virtue at the time of his conception).
The rest was an emotional roller coaster for me. Especially their long program, because for the first time in my life I actually felt bad for a guy and was pulling for him. Poor bastard! I’m glad they found his body still breathing and walking, but Mom suggests he petitions for political asylum at The Vatican. I’m suggesting something far more extreme: complete isolation! Hide out in a cave somewhere in the Pyrenees.
Seriously, maybe Afghanistan. Pull an Osama, dude, because not Providence nor modern man cannot protect you.
When Maurizio started crying (bawling) after the long program it was
catharsis like you’ve never seen it, probably what Aristotle envisioned it when he coined the word. This couple took me through such a maze of emotions that it will make these games one of the most memorable ever.
And after that display of fear-inducing dominance and superiority you have to wonder, had the women been in charge, would the Roman Empire have crumbled like it did? I dare you to think it. (She’ll know…)
(BTW, what the hell were the Israelis thinking when they chose to dance to “Bolero”? I thought Dick Button’s head would explode and his last words would be, “Sacrilegio!!!” And what is with Dick, did someone switch his Thorazine for like massive amounts of estrogen?
When did Dick Button turn into a cranky menopausal chick?!)
Micheal Chertoff: Minimalist Genius!
Sometimes it feels like we are living a bizarre version of "1984" reinterpreted by the Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time-Players on an acid/ganja/coke cocktail with nekkid vodka shots...
"Our logistics capability in Katrina was
woefully inadequate."
Oh yeah, that's showing the world your carnal knowledge of the concept of honesty and truth. But it leaves us wanting more of the sage that is Chertoff. And afraid that George, not able to sound out
'woefully inadequate' will blow kiss him to the unemployment line. Already Scott the Press Secretary quoted the Prez as saying how satisfied he was with the Director's efforts. All we hear is,
"Heck of a job, Jerky!" (And we try to think of the poetry in motion as George's lips quiver when he tries to sound out "woefully inadequate" and he, inevitable, stumbles and stutters and throws his arms up and scrunches his face into the living version of the old vagrant finger puppet.)
I wanted a little more time to slowly melt at his graceful caresses at the obvious, as he self-effacingly shrugged off his own genius into the collective unconscious, each new truth like a thrust in the dark:
Water is wet.
The sky is blue.
Chocolate is tasty.
Paper covers rock.
Buckshot hurts.
OHHH, Michael!!! It's like Shecky Greene turning Sith!
Happy Valentine's Day (or Tuesday, if you please)
Fake holidays get on my nerves. But this one has chocolate, so I tolerate it.
And by tolerate I mean, I try not to shake romantic little idiots. I try to buy my own chocolate. But it does not mean that I don't appreciate the
Anti-Valentine movement.
Bode Miller has been having a pretty bad day, and he woke up half drunk.
What can the rest of us expect from this cruel, cruel world?
Mid February Full Moon
This weekend is of a one-track mindedness. It is all about winter. Tonight, the Winter Olympics open in Torino, Italy. Starting Saturday evening, the northeast is threatened with a blizzard bringing about a foot of snow. In Torino, one of the lame mascots is actually snow. And the other is supposed to be a “playful ice cube.” WTF knows?!
According to the IOC: "Neve" and "Gliz" reflect the spirit of the Italian Olympic event: passion, enthusiasm, culture, elegance, and love of the environment and of sport.
I personally think Pedro Albuquerque (the designer) drew this shit on a cocktail napkin while getting pissed off his brains. Culture and elegance, my ass… All I see is some drunken doodling or work ripped off an average 6 year old.
I dunno, maybe I'm a little cranky.
I admit that I will watch the opening ceremonies, but not because I hold any faith that it will be remotely interesting. In fact, just the opposite:
this is going to suck more rancid eggs than Spring Break in downtown Salt Lake City.There are only two reasons to subject yourselves to this insufferably long idiocy:
1. Alberto Tomba is a charming degenarate who is always about two centimeters from going total apeshit or passing out. Drama, passion!
2. About halfway through what will probably be one of the tackiest and most surreal opening ceremonies in the last decade or so (Italians fancy themselves cultured and edgy – miles ahead of the forefront of trendsetting, but they haven’t contributed anything to the world since Armani thought of the silk tee); Bob Costas, tired and cranky, will start to throw in these subtle jabs at the world for ruining his nap. That’s always fun to listen to (maybe not better than his elevator races' play-by-plays on Letterman, but pretty effing sweet).
Ah, the February Full Moon: cold lunacy! This year: also
leapy!
February Sucks: proof!
This weekend we got more mourning. First we lost
Grandpa (Al Lewis, "Grandpa Munster"). Then came word that
Betty Friedan had passed as well. It seems not many took notice of either, as if dismissing that part of our childhood and youth.
We then had 2 minutes of peace.
Then birds in Italy crapped on Katie Couric. Wait! That's actually pretty freaking funny. It almost makes up for this horrible month, all cocky and leapy this year. Do you think Matt Lauer called her on her cell phone and hissed, "Bird flu: bitch!"? She's just a little too perky. Just once I need to see her depressed and slumped in a dirty pool of her own making. (It's this demonic month speaking, I swear it!)
On another note, Mom and I discovered the most deliciously wicked cooking show parody from BBC2 airing in local PBS stations as filler. It is called
Posh Nosh and it is hillarious! Brilliant comedy, if that's your cup of tea, their
website has hysterical clips.
Okay, I admit it, this February isn't any suckier than January. But there's half of month left in it. Don't just underestimate its ability to awaken at the last moment and bite my ass off. It has happened. It could happen.
Between the paranoia and the anxiety, I can't wait for this frenetic little head trip to end. This month is like one of those guys that appear on the news, with multiple photographs of their victims and is described by neighbors as "kinda a quiet, lonely guy." You laugh nervously because you know February is the stalker of the calendar world and God ain't handing out Orders of Protection for anyone. I mean, really, did you see those birds wantonly soiling Couric?
We're all doomed!
Justice Alito Sees Shadow…
In an unprecedented turn of events, newly minted Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito sees a shadow (whether his own or Scalia’s remains unclear) and sides with the Liberals regarding a death penalty case on his
very first decision.
Many observers, though I’d be damned if I know who these people are, claim that this is neither a surprise nor a foreboding of things to come.
Some feel this might be Alito’s personal tribute to Sandy and that he went all Gloria Gaynor while humming “
I am What I am” as he signed the decision, but these reports are unconfirmed and quite probably unfounded and just another ploy by that Commie Ang Lee to market “Brokeback Mountain” to the 3 straight Academy voters and puerile regular porn lovers in Peoria.
The situation has brought to the forefront of the American national discourse the eternal question,
“Whoa, dude, did hell just freeze over?!” Whatever the case, this decision has given the edge to Punxsutawney Phil in the Battle of the Groundhogs (against Staten Island Chuck). The Pennsylvania rodent predicted another 6 weeks of unseasonably warm winter and Chuck has us buried in an ice age – which is
exactly what should happen as hell thaws.
News the way you’d expect them if you were perpetually having a flashback… (Looks like I picked the wrong existence to quit taking drugs!)
Plays with Matches is in Charge!
I know a woman whose position of “power” has about as much security as a flip-top book of matches at the beach.
The possibilities of things going wrong while striking matches at the beach include burning yourself; an insult really, because it will only last a second and will require no quack to apply gooey stuff on you.
More than likely, as it gets windy, you’ll go through a pile of useless matches without achieving fire for longer than a fraction of a second. And with the close proximity to the sea, it’s likely they’ll get wet and soggy and impossible to strike. This is both fruitless and frustrating.
More importantly, it is virtually impossible to detach a match, flip the cover, strike the match and get a light in one cool move. Usually, you need to use both hands and the gorilla aping wearing a gas mask move. It’s just not cool. It lacks that Fonzie thing.
More than anything she reminds me of those fire-safety-for-kids’ giant matches: foamy (soft) and ridiculous (in a funny way).
I think she’d be really angry if she knew how amusing I find her--especially because it would ruin her apirations to superiority. Her head would explode in a rage – the closest she’d ever come to being an actual match.
