Harry Potter And The Pointless Driven Life

It seems English schoolchildren are being overly "excited" by former Anglican priests who are quickly asked to leave school presentations when they make statements about TV being "crap"and Harry Potter being possibly queer. That boy Harry P. was always a little odd, now wasn't he? But that's the whole point. Odd is not always the "bad news" one might be so terribly afraid of. But don't go telling any priviledged little WASPy school kids such nonsense. They might get all agitated, and thereby forced to consume an extra dose of ritalin from their pusher parents.

And whatever you do, do NOT try to engage priviledged, self-satisfied, smug lawyer-types in a conversation about the very issue that's tearing apart the Episcopal Church while you're at, of all weird things, an Episcopal retreat!

WASP lifestyle-driven yuppies just hate to be mentally agitated, guess that explains their love of drugging-up their small children. And they certainly don't like to think about much beyond the ALTA/country club box about gay rights and certain priests (their own at All Saints', for instance) who might be compelled to take a moral stand one way or the other on the issue of acceptance of homosexuality, or not, in the Anglican church and community.

At a church outing last weekend, I tried to find out about how fellow parishioners were thinking and feeling about our own priest at All Saints', Geoffrey Hoare. His deep reflections and prayer and meditations on the issue of homosexuality, in the Anglican body and in our church, are present in a blog he is keeping while on on his corporately-funded sabbatical to Africa and elsewhere.

Careful what you go looking for, Dear Readers; you might find it. Here's a sampling of the responses I was met with upon bringing up the subject:

"No, I haven't read it." (Translates to: I haven't read anything in the last ten years other than the WSJ at best.)

"What's a blog?"

"Marriage is a man marrying a woman, and that's it."

"He's vulgar (Geoffrey). He uses the "F" word all the time."

"The parish is doing just fine without him."

"He's too intellectual for me. He doesn't get through to me at all."

At that point, I (silently) suggested they all drop the "F" outta All Saints' and opt for the utmost in simplistic drivel by reading The Purpose Driven Life instead of having to deal with Sir Geoffrey's complexities and utter lack of relentlessly cutesy-cute babblings about fantastical "good news."

What a bunch of boring yuppies they were. I was appalled at the extreme lack of intellectual curiosity in just about anything, except for the small matter of me being divorced and a single mom and would thus upset the couples-only seating plan of the dining hall, as one shrieking Muggle of a soccer mom just couldn't wait to point out when I tried to sit down at her married couples-only table.

And yes, that was hurtful, and what a bellowing hag she was, that Yet Another Atlanta Lawyer's Spouse Thing I made the gross mistake of trying to engage in something resembling a conversation. The numbers just don't add up so cutesy-cute and paired-off when you're alone with your kid at a FAMILY retreat.

But let's take a moment and back away from the bitterness and see what Sir Geoffrey has to say lately about what the issue of homosexuality may or may not do for his continuing leadership (I have hope) of this one Atlanta church.

"In the meditation period I re-read Romans 1 and 2. While I have come to accept that the overriding issue of my entire life in ministry will be shaped by discussions about homosexuality, it is not the only or the most important thing to me and I'd like to be able to put it aside. This morning I allowed the faces of many of the people of All Saints' to come before me in prayer.

And here is where I am: I see nothing especially wrong and much that is more than right in the way many of our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters conduct their lives in the faith. I see no reason to bar any of them from the Lord's Table or from offering their gifts in ministry. I pray that our Communion does not ask me to abandon them or ask them to be less than who they find themselves to be.

The phrase that kept coming to my mind as I prayed was "The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep." Without grandiosity or any hint of a savior complex, and with a good measure of fear and trembling, I know that I will stand with those I am called to serve and lead." I hope, --maybe in vain, but I hope that those with power in our church will find a way forward together.

I fear that there is too much hurt and anger free floating around to allow that to happen and once more our sin (the sin of all of us) will lead to an even more broken body of Christ and an even less effective mission. I have heard the argument that we should go our separate ways so that we may all focus more clearly on proclaiming the gospel.

This is dreadful theology for anyone who reads the Gospel of John in which the unity of Jesus' followers is required for the sake of the right proclamation of the good news. Arguments about who fired the first shot, started the war or chose to split the church are not helpful, nor are proposed ways forward that ask us to give up on the people we are given to love and serve. I also, in no way, ask others to stop those ministries of reaching out to people concerned about their obsessions or who experience their lives as disordered.

I hope that in time those who proclaim homosexual people to be "objectively disordered" (a la Benedict XVI) will temper their certitude and maybe do what Archbishop Williams asks, taking another look and perhaps finding things of which they may repent."

Full blog here.

And BTW, least you think me too snarly today, I met and talked and danced with some wonderfully delightful, engaging people while at the All Saints' Kanuga weekend: Keith the Mad Scientist, who likes to banter almost as much as I do; Jan The Doctor and her cheerfully shopping husband; MaryJo, a widowed mom and her sweet angel of a son. That other single mom with that amazing dancer of a three-year old who's name I can't recall right now. And always in my life, my dear kind friends and former neighbors, The Jacobs family.

TV Is Dangerous

Here's a powerful story of immense bravery in the face of unimaginable oppression. Yet this Saudi TV news presenter's story is ultimately hopeful, as it gives a face and a name, a time and a place to a very real force of brave opposition to a cruel and hideous system that will eventually begin to break down, as long as women like Ms. Rania al-Baz are able to fight so hard -- just to stay alive.


From The Guardian, Wednesday Oct. 5:

By the time she was in her early 20s, Rania al-Baz had become one of the best known and best loved faces in her home country of Saudi Arabia. As presenter of a programme called The Kingdom this Morning on state-owned television, her hair was always covered by a hijab, as is required, but her face remained uncovered, and she would choose headscarves of defiantly flamboyant colours to cover her immaculately styled hair.

She became, for hundreds of thousands of Saudi women, admirable, enviable and challenging - and, thus, an implicit threat to a society in which women are forced to cover themselves, are not allowed to drive, cannot vote or participate in political life, cannot leave home unless accompanied by a chaperone or travel without authorisation from a father or husband, and cannot establish a business without a male sponsor.

See and read what happened to Ms. al-Baz here. WARNING, it's ugly. Very ugly. She may or may not have fled to France.

And wouldn't ya know... as soon as I go blogging about women in Saudi, the Ministry of Thought Control there goes and shuts down Blogger.com. Damn them damn them damn them. Hang in there, Ladies. We Yank gals will keep writing anyway. We won't believe the hype until you can read it yourself!

Material Girl

Oh yeah, how could I forget the Big Daddy of all tee shirts, the one I'd go down to the crossroads to get back if I could: The 688 Club anniversary tee that listed, on the B side, all the mindtwistin' acts to ever darken its doorstep -- that infamous hell-hole of 80's band wonderment. I believe I must have seen a good 70% of those shows.

Of course my recall of such defining moments remains as it ever was -- pretty hazy, but what the hell! I survived it all, which is a remarkable thing in itself. A lot of folks, some good, some very very wicked, did not. So cheers to us 80's debauchery survivors! We're the toughest, baddest of the lot.

Sometimes, I still conjure up that stack of burned out TVs-turned-monitors from 688 that stood in the corner by my favorite table and looped a bloody, fanatical, ritual romp of self-flagellation video clips, via a Betamax machine I bet. The TV-stack was spray-painted in dayglow psychedelic colors. To this day, that was one of the best video-as-art installations I've ever seen. Likely ever will, other than astonishing video-installation work done by Iranian-born photog, Shirin Neshat.

Here's a photo by Ms. Neshat I really dig, titled The Rapture:

If anyone out there has any kind of print or clip or ANYTHING relating to 688, please get in touch. Let's do that doc!

Ahh heck Dear Readers, I'd love to sit down and tell you the story of one night alone at that place, but my entirely innocent, everlovin' quest for a clear recall of the time Freddy Vomit fell through the ceiling landed me in such a world 'o heartache that I'm still trying to weed my way through it all, a year later! Maybe some other time...

Jeff Calder's Vest

Every now and then, I get to thinking on whatever happened to all of my favorite rock tee shirts of yesteryear. My true love was a Swimming Pool Q's one that I wore until my (lack of) bra showed through.


And that was way before lingerie became outerware - a nifty trend I don't mind stealing from the younger set on occasion. Another was an Album 88 number, which I'm convinced was stolen - by whom I have no idea, or I'd go back and get the darn thing even 20 years later.

And then there was the Black Flag Tour In My Head one, which to this day never ceases to crack me up. Kinda like a Python line that floats through your brain during a mindnumbing corporate meet-a-thon.

THEM:
"We've got to redirect the paradigm to reflect our inculturation within the upcoming fiscal cycle."
ME:
"Crucifixion?" "No, I'm to be set free."

I kinda miss the little buggers. So I got to thinking about an old timey band from 'round here, The Swimming Pool Q's, and Lordy if they aren't still going at it like the whippersnappers they used to be. The Pool Q's even played, yet again, one of my favorite venues on the planet recently, The Windjammer on Isle of Palms, S.C.

That place is an entire short story in itself. It was a slow night at the Windjammer unless a pack of Navy enlisted guys commenced to beatin' the crap out of a bunch of bat-eared Citadel cadets, or "Knobs" as they were relentlessly taunted. Fortunately, such a show of drunken stupor was an inevitability at the Windjammer, before they closed the Charleston Naval Base at least. I'll never forget some smarty-alekky djs cracking on Navy wives just after Hurricane Hugo. Saying stuff like, "They're going to riot (Navy wives) 'cause their shipment of Twinkies can't get through."

Lordy how I diverge! Back to the concept at hand... I used to sigh and avert my eyes when I'd see one of Jeff Calder's fine, brocade vests turn up at a show. Why was I so shy then? Now that I've got some semblance of nerve about me, I went and morphed into a soccer mom, where it all gets yelled out on the field.

Oh, but there was that fleeting, danceable moment not so long ago when 2004 shifted to '05 with the sound of Pylon at the 40 Watt blaring me right up against where I always wanted to be.

The chronic late bloomer can be a bitterly romantic wench...

Gotta Get Me Some Of That Royal Body-Fresh

Since Gracie De'Luxe En Vie, whoever the hell she is, always likes to, ummm, extend a fine writing credit where a fine local writing credit is due, congrats go to Andisheh Nouraee at Creative Loafing Atlanta for winning Readers' Pick for best Atlanta columnist.

That wacky dude is a relentless source of hilarity in print and assorted other media. Where else would we keep abreast of the latest propaganda-spa products on the global (NOT) market? (Thanks for the heads-up, Ms. En Vie.)

This from Andisheh's latest column:

Usually, it's good policy to ignore everything that North Korea announces via its news agencies. After all, on the same day that the Korean Central News Agency announced the country's intent to de-nuke, it also ran a "news" story proclaiming that North Korean scientists have developed a breakthrough drug called "Royal Body-Fresh" that cures nephritis, diabetes and, I kid you not, bed-wetting - all without side effects. Ask your doctor if Royal Body-Fresh is right for you.

His podcasts here.

The Poetry Of Katrina

MAYA ANGELOU ON KATRINA

When the land became water and
Water thought it was God,
Consuming lives here, sparing lives there,
Swallowing buildings, and devouring cities.
It was power, mighty power, grown careless
And intoxicated with itself, and
The American people were tested...
www.blackamericaweb.com.


SPACEY GRACEY ON KATRINA

When God done flood our party city
It's high time to shelve the pity.
These old ways the wind done gone
Best to gas up 'fore too long
The Hummer we do drive the best
Might keep you drier than the rest.
Some got power, some got fun
Won't be long we're on the run.

Own two legs and shit. You remember those?

Gotta run, find some fun
Gotta run, find some fun.
Oops outta gas. Oops outta gas.

Cultural Drive-By

I've got the blues. Cross-cultural blues induced from my hyper-sensitivity to being too much of a freakish cultural hybrid. I'm some kind of foreign communications stringer in my own backyard. It's just plain darn hard to keep a strong sense of self when the cultural weirdness blues come a callin'.

I've been immersed, once again, in the hyper-networked urban Atlanta landscape of ideas and techies and bloggers and start-ups and investors and too many futurists and RSS overload in my head. So I decide to get away from it all for a weekend, and I end up driving through my own home state, where the side of the road continues to look like this:


Even if that's kinda pretty in that desolate kinda way to you, it sure ain't no Wiki-world 'round those parts! Talk about getting away from it all. It's only getting away to la-la land, folks. Don't over-romanticize what don't need over-romanticizing. In other words, do as I say, not as I tend to do.

Personally, I think I could use a little mercy now. I ain't likely to make it to the big-ass blogger conference, ConvergeSouth, in Greensboro this coming weekend.

I'm the Hank Williams of the bloggersphere, and Lordy wasn't he a pathetic little culture-freak when all gets said and done? About all I'm likely to converge with is a six of Stella and a pack of those "liberal cigarettes", as my dearest righty friend, Jenny K, calls my favorite poison. She on the other hand is still a Marlboro Light kinda gal, God Bless her Bush-lovin' heart. Jenny K's just that ever-lovin' force of friendship that's kept me from drifting too hard in many a direction lately -- and it's all beyond the political at this point...

Even Ashley Smith is getting nowhere faster than me. Talk about the ultimate Fake Christian; Ashley the (former) meth freak, says in her book of Utter Blather that she won't visit Brian Nichols in jail, even though he asked her to. Now that just ain't right, and it sure ain't Christian-like. And ain't it just like an idiot Southerner to start hollerin' for Jesus to get them out of the shit-hole they've managed to dig their own stupid self into yet again?

Ahhhh... sometimes a good whine is just what you need to get up and get out the door.

Decor Items

As mentioned in entry below...

Love The Abaya Girlfriend

Talk about a weird job. Karen Hughes, Bush's full-figured Gal Friday (and he sure has a full-flavored posse of Lady Envoys) is traveling around the Mid-East on a wacko "listening" tupperware party. She has to smile and nod a lot, particularly in Saudi Arabia, where she is appearing, unveiled, talking points in hand, to the Islamic masses. Staying On Message - that sort of shit. Pretty radical work when you think about it, but last I read no fish or bread had been distributed.

Other wacky things she has to do while on the new job, besides prop up the Bush Administration, is listen to weird statements from Saudi women such as this one, "I love my abaya," she (a Saudi woman) explained. "It's convenient and it can be very fashionable." Sure hon. Whatever you say. And Kate Moss went on the 700 Club to snort coke with Pat Robertson!!!

So I'm feeling Ms. Hughes' pain, or cluelessness at least. I'd get in sooooo much trouble over there, laughing my ass off at the non-stop absurdity. I apologize for my lack of global correctness and/or awareness, but these Saudi women are in some serious historical denial. Guess they just can't recognize freedom when it's being waved in front of their faces. Kinda like all those pesky Iraqi insurgents, right?

Just for the record Dear Readers, I keep a souvenir from Saudi Arabia given to me by a former news colleague after her stint covering the First Gulf War. (See above image because this amateur aparatus I'm stuck with for blogging won't let me upload more than one image per entry at them moment. See below for another.)

The journalist, Linda Pattillo, saw some serious front-line action/hell. I can't imagine anything I'd rather NOT do, might break a nail, but Ms. Pattillo did it with zeal and aplomb I'm sure.

So... back to the moralizing tale I was telling... I keep the placard from Saudi, which reads No Women. Women Cannot Be Seated Or Served Here, in my bathroom to remind me every day that dogs are treated better than women in some places of the world, and that some governments cultivate a mandate from their "God" to oppress women in often brutal, inhumane ways. Forget the garden variety tools of oppression, stuff like not allowing women to drive. It's the choppin' off of their freakin' heads we should be focused on.

This token also serves as a constant reminder for me to be conscious and diligent about the rights and fate of women wherever. And more so, to be get out there every day and be a proud and happy and grateful, fun-lovin', hard-working American feminist - because I can. It's a luxury I will never take for granted until every woman can "afford" it. Hear that youngsters out there? Eh?

And one other note. Here's me, your favorite freewheelin' feminist freelancer, working a dangerous corporate cube job while under attack from another fanatical camera crew. Jeez. Hope I go down bravely laughing my ass off.

Oops... maybe later. Having a heck of a time uploading photos right now. Don't know if it's a blogger.com thing or the new-to-me refurbished cheapo digi-cam I bought outta the back of some dude's car the other day.

UPDATE: It was a Blogger.com thing. I have outgrown it already. Gonna have to start spending real money on this thing. Hate when that happens to me in cyberspace. But it inevitably seems to get that point. Kinda like a relationship... at some point you gotta decide if you want to put "real" money into those things too.

Gotta get me one of those camera phones. Talk about a wish list. Did you see the imbedded iPod in the Cingular camera phone out now? Man, oh, man. I normally don't get all worked-up about possessions unless they're the kind with lots of beads, lace, ruffles, spangles, and are made of velvet or butter leather, but even I couldn't help a little Golum-like pang for one of those lovelies. Me wants it...

Extreme Food Critic

In a wonderful obit you will not want to miss, NYT headline declares:
Tobias Schneebaum, Chronicler and Dining Partner of Cannibals, Dies

"In 1955, Mr. Schneebaum, then a painter, won a Fulbright fellowship to study art in Peru. There, he vanished into the jungle and was presumed dead. Seven months later, he emerged, naked and covered in body paint. The experience had transformed him, he would later say, but in a way he could scarcely have imagined.

Theodore Schneebaum was born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, most likely on March 25, 1922 (some sources say 1921), and reared in Brooklyn. Visiting Coney Island as a boy, he was captivated by the Wild Man of Borneo, a sideshow attraction famed for its brute exoticism."

Funny, my brother, John Hurst, had a childhood fascination with The Wild Man Of Borneo, too. Makes me wonder where the hell he is these days...

Read full obit here.

Unfashionably Correct

Awww Jeez. Can't we have an one good anti-war protest in this country that isn't led by total geeks, for once? Cindy Sheehan was caught with that hideous hairdo grinning like a retard all the way to the paddy wagon this weekend. Yuk. I'd put a picture of her on my blog, but I want to keep things real pretty-like on here. I know you can understand my concerns.

Here's my suggestion for keeping things fashionable so that people want to actually look at you, not avert their eyes. All proceeds from the Cafe Press site go to New Orleans hurricane victims.



If you caught the amazing Bob Dylan documentary on PBS last night, you could see angelic young Joan wasn't any fashionista herself. Dylan on the other hand was quite the inadvertent trend setter, but he was no anti-war protest leader. He was, and will always be, far beyond the political. And all the rest of us mere Muggles.

Lordy Lordy, Joan sure loved that boy, now didn't she? What woman wouldn't? But Mr. Scorsese, what's with the yellow-toothed old folkies yammering on 'til the cows came home? Ugghhh and icks abounded. Let's hope tonight's Part 2 brings us immediately into the rock scene. Or to the whitening tooth paste-using population of hanger-oners at least.

Oh yeah, one more item for today, least you think I'm too busy being a clothing consumerist to notice, the insurgency we've flamed in Iraq is keeping busy killing school teachers now. Our tax dollars at work.

Wackos For Dummies

The current crisis of leadership on both sides of the aisle, combined with the coming winter natural gas crisis has The Clusterfuck Nation Chronicles warning of a nation (ours) ripe for a rise in fascism, especially when you toss in our chronic knee-jerk, TV-dependent, megachurched, undereducated Do Something Do Something Do Something NOW mentality. Latest Clusterfuck Nation diary installment here.

And please, eat the BPMs first.

End Of The World As We Know It

And I feel especially fine. Yeah, smooth and cool and damn sure happy to be alive. I just experienced the most wonderful sensation, one that's really stuck with me and replaced my usual scowl with a smile, and just made me feel all warm and sweet and fuzzy and kind-hearted to Republican relatives all weekend long.

"Good Lord, woman," I can hear you hollering. "Have you gone mad? Again?" No, no, no and no. I was just very surprisingly blessed by the eternal light of Jesus while at a kiddy party at a roller skating rink in freakin' Smyrna, GA as I watched rednecks and "urban menace" boy teenagers skate to rap music.

What other explanation could there be? I mean you take a laundry list of all the things I loath most in this world:
-rap music
-male teens
-rednecks
-kiddy birthday parties
-Smyrna, Georgia
and you put 'em all together in one place and what do you get? A thing of beauty. I am sooo not kidding you for once.

Actually, I chanced upon the junior-thugs while at Sparkles, a roller rink in Smyrna, Georgia, Suburban Hell On Earth Capitol Of The World, where I was required to take Ava for Skyler, The Neighborhood Menace's birthday party this past Saturday. The boys there, the ones who were good, were skate-dancing together to a smooth kinda rap with an R&B infusion. Something on popular radio any 15-year old would recognize in a moment. The kids were Jam Skating. And Lord Awmighty, it was just wonderful. I'm serious. They danced on their skates so pretty and smooth and rhythmically that I went into a trance watching them float-dance around the curves in perfect synch with the music.

Of course I went way on back to my skating years, about '76-'78 or thereabouts, when I used to sashay around the local rink to Baby I Love Your Way. I was a pretty decent skater. Fairly graceful and smooth and syched with the sounds they were spinning then: Shannon, Saturday Night, Fooled Around and Fell In Love, If You Leave Me Now... you get the picture. Could've been better if I'd had a chance to practice more, but there just wasn't much concrete 'round the farm in those teen years. Too many chores, too little recreational activities.

Enough nostalgia.... If I hadn't just seen for myself four black men on horseback (western style) leaving a convenience store near Ponce and Boulevard on a sultry Saturday night in late August, I'd sit and argue with you that the Apocalyspe was all a bunch of yadayadayada fundamentalist blather of hooey. Now I might just sit and nod my head, play an Eagles album and enjoy the end of world. At this point, it's all too pleasant to waste time arguing about.

You can see a bit of Jam Skating in the Sparkles video here.

Trail Of Nonsense Continues At AJC

The idiocy rages on through the night over at the AJC, with yet another priceless nugget from our favorite Senior wingnut, Mr. Wooten:

"Two ways the war in Iraq is not like the war in Vietnam:
1) There's no Ho Chi Minh trail for resupply and replacement.
2) The Washington-New York media no longer have the monopoly that enables them to perpetuate gloom-and-doom debate. The Internet, talk radio and 24-hour cable now compete."

I know there is just a treasure trove of feel-good news and delightful photos out of Iraq running around the blogosphere. If only we had a link to get to it all. Try this... www.tonoffuninfalluja.com.

Full lunacy can be found here.

No Internet Hangover for Bush

It’s so sad about President Bush; not only has he been shamed into cutting back on gym time to go about the business of appearing appropriately crestfallen during the Responsibility Admittance Phase of Hurricane Katrina, he can’t even have a lousy drink to shore-up his wounded pride.

Let’s all do some of our famous American praying that President Bush doesn’t relapse with the booze; if he did have one or two stiff ones, even group-think, Oprah types might have a hard time forgiving him if he fell off the wagon now.

Bush has taken a nasty, ugly blow to his popularity - and ego. Even way up in Air Force One or within the muted confines of the Oval Office, he somehow heard the Bush-bashing cacophony coming from the blogosphere alone. It’s so loud now you wonder if even Karl Rove will be left around The White House to hold his hand while he has a good cry.

It didn’t have to be so bad for Bush, on a public relations level at least. He could have given the appearance at least of having been semi-engaged in the events playing out along the Gulf Coast by immediately ending his vacation, had someone insisted for him.

He might have used some of that sculpted body mass he elaborately maintains to be seen pulling a senior citizen to safety. And no, that was not his job, but it sure would have looked good on him.

But it goes much deeper than a photo-op. Those who do their jobs in the hermetically-sealed environment of power and privilege run the risk of, imagine this, being out of touch with the rest of us – at a time when we have never been so in touch ourselves!

We’re tuned-in, plugged-in and communicating with one another like we never have been before. Americans are out here in the real world downloading and pod casting and programming ourselves into a veritable stupor of information. There are now withdrawal studies about those unable to back away from the Internet.

And Bush waits days for an aide to present him with a specially produced DVD of news clips to get a clue as to what’s going on down in New Orleans?

Is not even Fox News blaring through Air Force One during times of grave national concerns?

What is the one prop that’s missing from the hands of ALL the government leaders we’re seeing on TV, at any level? The one thing no modern American, rich or poor, would be caught flooded, evacuated, dead, alive, or practically asleep without? Answer is -- a cell phone!

Even if batteries could not be charged and service was down, I’d be willing to bet that a large percentage of those trapped at the Superdome or New Orleans convention center had a cell phone on them at the time; a wet, useless one no doubt, but nonetheless a personal technology delivery device.

The gross irony here is that average Americans are NOT out of touch. On the contrary. Never before in history have we been so able to communicate with one another. If you’re not working that BlackBerry, you’re a serious nobody these days, no matter what your line of work or play might be.

We Americans like to look busy, even if we’re calling the neighbor to find out if it was Betty Crocker or Duncan Hines she used for the bake sale brownies last week. And some wonder why we don't respond well to leadership that appears so glaringly otherwise?

I want to offer anyone in a position of authority appearing on TV my two-cents worth of PR-related advice: loose the analog-era props and go get yourself a BlackBerry.

What’s with the layers of handlers, the behind-the-shoulder posse and the tired old wooden podiums?

Our government leaders, at every level, have shown themselves to be so behind the techno-communications curve that it seems that they can’t even manufacture a decent photo-op (or disaster-op as Ms. Dowd calls them today) to send a shout-out to the world that they are even semi clued-in.

We were informed Mr. Bush. Too bad you were not.

Your kingdom for a laptop.

And for those who need to bypass that TimesSelect branding effort (sounds like coffee doesn't it?), just drop me a note for the right free tools.

AJC Shows Signs of Alzheimers

Senility is setting in at the AJC. So deep into preserving something that just plain doesn't exist anymore (traditional media), columnist there are cranking-out myopic, last-gasp ravings of the desperately clueless. (I've GOT to stop using that word.) For example, this howlingly absurdist statement from Jim Wooten on 9-18-05:

As he did yet again in Thursday's fireside chat with a country mired in rancor and angst, George W. Bush demonstrated the remarkably adept ability to rise to the moment. Just as his critics are pronouncing him poll-dead and his second term an abject failure, he does two things that mark him as a leader destined to join the ranks of America's greatest presidents.

With thought leadership based on such blazingly pitiful mush, the world now belongs to bloggers.

We can go forward with courageous fire in our lean and mean media-minded hearts, knowing there is nothing standing in our way but a tired old home full of addled-brain geezers. Fire-up those laptops, surf the great expanse of a networked world and never, ever look back.

"Blog like everybody's reading; blog like you've never been dissed. Blog like traditional media doesn't exist; blog like it's hell on earth."
Louise Bryant Park Sun Twain

Life During Wartime

For almost two decades, I have worked in production. This means that for almost two decades, I've drawn a lot of blank stares and "Ohs" when I tell people what I do. Those of you with "normal" jobs like lawyer, doctor, banker, pimp, talk show host, teacher, fry cook, landscaper, money launderer, socialite, socialist, thief, postman have it soooo easy. People can define you and lock you in to the swamp of an unimaginative mind within a fleeting moment or two.

Me, I've spent my entire professional life with most of my family and friends wondering what the hell it is I really do. And I'm sure this extends to the personal as well, but that's another blog altogether.

Let me help clarify what production work is all about. What I often do is make people, who may or may not deserve such treatment, look far more important than they really are; pretty much exactly what producers did last week with W when they tried, and oh how they tried, to "Karl Rove" him (produce him) into trickin' us slow-witted 'Mericans that he was a Genuine Leader. (Note the former ABCer mentioned in excerpt below)

Of course they failed as miserably as I have been known to do, and The Beleaguered Shrub came off looking like he just stepped out of, clueless as ever, a show at Dollywood.

The fiery Ms. Dowd sums up the ludicrous production value of Mr. Bush's speech to the nation this way:

In a ruined city - still largely without power, stinking with piles of garbage and still 40 percent submerged; where people are foraging in the miasma and muck for food, corpses and the sentimental detritus of their lives; and where unbearably sad stories continue to spill out about hordes of evacuees who lost their homes and patients who died in hospitals without either electricity or rescuers - isn't it rather tasteless, not to mention a waste of energy, to haul in White House generators just to give the president a burnished skin tone and a prettified background?

The slick White House TV production team was trying to salvage W.'s "High Noon" snap with some snazzy Hollywood-style lighting - the same Reaganesque stagecraft they had provided when W. made a prime-time television address from Ellis Island on the first anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

On that occasion, Scott Sforza, a former ABC producer, and Bob DeServi, a former NBC cameraman and a lighting expert, rented three barges of giant Musco lights, the kind used for "Monday Night Football" and Rolling Stones concerts, floated them across New York Harbor and illuminated the Statue of Liberty as a backdrop for Mr. Bush.

Before the presidential address, Mr. DeServi was surveying his handiwork in Jackson Square, crowing to reporters about his cathedral: "Oh, it's heated up. It's going to print loud."

As Elisabeth Bumiller, the White House reporter for The Times, noted in a pool report, the image wizards had put up a large swath of military camouflage netting, held in place by bags of rocks and strung on poles, to hide the president from the deserted and desolate streets of the French Quarter ghost town.

The president is still looking for a gauzy beam of unreality in New Orleans - and in Iraq, where a violent rampage has spiked the three-day death tally to over 200.

Dowd's full column here.

On to North Korea for me and Ms. Dowd! What a team. Think we'll find work in them there camps?

It Ain't Easy Bein' Southern

Now for something entirely way too Southern... don't miss Doug Monroe's wonderful, sad, kinda funny Creative Loafing cover story out this week about the life and times of Atlanta writer, Paul Hemphill, who has a new book out about Hank Williams. And yep, critics are raving.

Hemphill used to be one of the most popular columnists in the country. His first book way back when, The Nashville Sound, made him a literary super star. The Nashville Sound remains the definitive story of country music's emergence from the hollow and right on through to the rest of the globe.

Hemphill remains a fixture at Manuel's here in Atlanta every Tuesday (Assisted Literary Living) night. It's really sad when you see how gray the demographic at Manuel's has become. Anyone under 50 should have a sworn responsibility to eat and drink there at least once a week. If that place goes, we've got barely nothin' left of a genuine drinking establishment where real southerners go to talk about things other than their idiotic iPods.

Imagine if Manuel's was to close. Then we'd all get jammed into the Yacht Club for another 20 years! And Lord knows, every single one of us Rising Generation of Old Timer Atlantans has already gotten drunk with, fought with, woke-up with, laughed with, longed for, cried with, rode around town with, yakked with, married, divorced, remarried, slapped the shit out of and pissed-off about every other person in that place.

Go get Mr. Hemphill's book. This is our kinda stuff. There's a signing coming up, too:

Thursday, Sept. 22, 7:30 p.m. Barnes & Noble, 2900 Peachtree Road. 404-261-7747.

Soon enough, we too will be old and dusty and forgotten and prayin' for someone to talk to... hoping just one of those hip lookin' youngsters might download our book, visit our website, listen to our PodCast, visit our blog, pass us by in a place and say, "Hey, didn't you used to..."

Soon enough, soon enough.

What NOT To Wear To The Apocalypse

You will soooo not want to miss a moment of the delightful fury raging through the wingnut blogosphere over the design of the memorial to 9/11 Flight 93, the "Let's Roll" one. And honestly folks, at the risk of sounding like one of 'em, only a totally clueless, PC art-school idiot could've come up with this:

And of course New Orleans is the Crescent City - surely a place where drunks pass-out facing Mecca.

Now if only those pesky jhadists would embrace symbolism the way we upright Americans do, then we could spot 'em coming a mile a way -- and deal with this menace in a more cost-effective, business-like manner.

Lordy Lordy. My My. Cluelessness will never die.

Keep Drinking Beautiful

Does anyone have any information about the fate of the Sazerac Bar? The Sazerac is the stunning, art deco bar of the Fairmont Hotel on Baronne Street in New Orleans.

This charming spot is the perfect example of how European at-heart New Orleans really is. I drank there once, in a delicious romantic haze that lasted way too long. So naturally enough, this lovely establishment is critical to the survival of the nostalgia-ridden, romantic glamour-swamp that is my head.

I loath travel writing (except for yours Timothy), so I'll let you Google more about the Sazerac Bar should you feel so inclined.

And please folks, let's do whatever we can to keep uber-yuppies from going back into New Orleans during the recovery phase with clueless, well-intentioned plans to make this city "new and improved." Other than the levee system, which could use a serious makeover, I do hope all locals will run stupid futurists and their idiotic ideas for "making things better" way outta their town.

Let's all work hard to keep New Orleans sordid!

Anderson Lets Good Ole Boy Hang Himself

As if I wasn't totally smitten already... now Anderson goes and gets on TOP of this outrageous story, one that first appeared in the blogosphere. And one that is, sadly, a likely indicator of how the future will play out in America when The Super-Sized Cluster-Fuck happens.

What happened is that white, do-gooder, Socialist EMT workers stranded during an EMT conference in New Orleans were, post Katrina, attempting to lead a group of huddled (black) masses from NOLA onto a bridge towards Gretna, Louisiana, a suburb of NOLA. The group was turned back by some overly-righteous, overly-fed (white) law enforcement types who proceeded to fire their weaponry over the heads of the sick, the elderly, women and children -- and then took away their freakin' food! At gunpoint.

Hungry were they, uh huh, these troopers. Sheer desperation, no doubt, as their gluttonous intake of several zillion gallons of calories per day was in disaster-related peril. After all, Gretna-area McDonalds had been closed for days. The hormone-laden, factory-farmed meat withdrawal syndrome was starting to hit 'em where it hurt - in their enormously hideous guts and fat-laden hearts.

I wonder if it's not so much that Gretna's whitest and finest didn't want NOLA blacks contaminating their community as they sure didn't want the Socialists! The combination of the two must have called forth their inner bulldog fer sure. Woof woof. Oh, are those cops gonna have some national-exposure 'splainin' to do now. Can't WAIT to watch that unfold.

I'm having some trouble pasting the JavaScript URL in here for you to see Anderson's lovely face/report (and those mini-epaulets on his shirt too. He is soooo channeling Peter Jennings' savoir faireness about right now), so you're going to have to work with me if you want to see AC himself. Here's what to do:

Click here for the CNN home page, then scroll down to the section titled U.S. and click the Video tab there. Then look in the video choices for the one slugged: Bridge Blocked Controversy.

You'll be glad you made the effort, and if there is someone out there who can help me link directly to that video clip on my blog, please give me a shout.

You go ON with your bad self, AC, you go.

Boy Go

Here's yet more proof that God never rests -- from punishing me. The perfect man does exist... on the other team, of course. Looks like this...

Says shit like this in the mainstream media - and gets aways with it, too:

"And when they hear politicians slap - you know, thanking one another, it just, you know, it kind of cuts them the wrong way right now, because literally there was a body on the streets of this town yesterday being eaten by rats because this woman had been laying in the street for 48 hours."

Sigh... AC can come sit on my porch any 'ole time, should he be needin' a fine bit of, uh, re-educatin' downtime.

Full story here.

Mainstream Media Caught Catching On

Is Sky News a CNN product?

Introducing FEMMA

This just in from The Poor Man Institute: For Freeedom, Democracy and a Pony


"(White House Press Secretary Scott) McClellan revealed that the White House would be teaming with NSA scientists to create a massive computer database of lesser officials around the country who could be blamed in the event of an emergency.

From governors and mayors on down to local police chiefs and EMTs, the Super-Computing Accountability Preventition Engine and Government Official Absolving Tool, or SCAPEGOAT, would create a cross-referenced list of patsies nanoseconds after detecting bad press.

This would be the first step of a massive government reorganization, which would see FEMA dissolved, and it, along with the rest of the government, folded into a new department called FEMMA, the Federal Emergency Media Management Agency, to be headed by Karl Rove.

FEMMA would employ a full-time staff of thousands of firemen, soldiers, fighter pilots, astronauts, and other heroic figures for the President to pose with in case of emergency, as well as a state-of-the-art Hollywood soundstage where the President could comfort stunt-victims in an endless array of convincing and topical disaster milieux. This would enable the President to perform all his critical photo-op duties without having to risk the unflattering moments that often plague real scenes of human suffering."

Full story here.

Took The Weekend Off

As I could tell that Ava, who was so unnerved by Katrina that she couldn't even bring herself to utter the word "hurricane" and had to make up some pitiful euphemism about "that thing at the beach, but not our beach" just to attempt to tell me about how scared she was, needed to take a Dr. Phil-recommended empowerment-break from all the chatter (and some TV) coming from the obsessively news-minded adults in her life.

We put together a Lemonade and Krispy Kreme stand out on the side of the road, and Ava and her pal Mia raised $56-bucks in a coupla hours which I will match and send to The Red Cross. I promise not to divert funding elsewhere, like perhaps purchasing tix to see Mary Gauthier on the 24th at the Red Light Cafe.

When I first suggested to Ava that she and her chums sell lemonade to help those who had been really really scared by the storm, she immediately responded, "Cool. Then I can be on TV." Despite the initial narcissistic response, she and Mia were very pro-active and got right into the spirit of it all. And Ava forgot all about TV crews in the process too.

I wondered where this emphasis on PR came from, but then shut-up mentally when I realized that I was likely the primary source. After all, when we ran into a neighbor at the Kroger, I told the neighbor to be sure to visit our lemonade stand-for-a-cause later that same day. Ava then asked, "Why did you tell her about our lemonade stand, Mom?" And I answered, "Marketing Dear, marketing."

When the novelty of making money wore-off, my five-year old sales force abandoned their post for a rowdy game of hide-and-seek, but I was terribly proud of their initiative and genuine enthusiasm for excellent customer service.

That empowerment stuff seems to work well - for kids.

So maybe this will help priviledged five-year olds sleep through the night, the ones who, whew, experience this horror only through, Thank You God, the filter of geographical distance, overly-protective parents and sheer innocence. And if you think making nice-nice and not pointing fingers and "empowering" people with feel-good bullshit is helping anything, then... well, you probably voted for that Accident Waiting To Happen, W, anyway.

Here's what one angry blogger on the scene has to say about trauma, and how we Americans and our ever-lovin' mainstream media just love to pump ourselves up with ludicrous emotional fluff and denial:

"I am sure that there is a special ring of hell for the media: The survivor stories end-on-end for the titillation of the public. I heard Soledad O'Brien say something about the still unrecognized need to address the psychological trauma. I sent a response to the CNN tip-line that there were hordes of every manner of mental health professional working 24/7. CNN's response? Dr. Phil and the stories of the survivors on Larry King.

They went to the guy who lost his clinical license for serious professional infractions to tell the stories? I could see the "entertainer" down there gathering tales of the already exploited so that he and Larry could both pimp their ratings. The real unsung mental health heroes, the counselors, psychologists, social workers and psychiatrists dealing with un-medicated psychosis and severe traumatic responses were represented by Dr. "Keep-It-Real"? We don't need tabloid help from the media."

Yow. Think that stings? Well then, read the rest of this firsthand account. Shocking, heavily editorialized (for good reason it seems) paragraph after paragraph that rips away the filters we've kept on the massive cultural gap that really and truly must exist in this, as another angry blogger calls it, "The United States of Halliburton."

"Over and over, I kept hearing a framing of self that puzzled me until I realized that this is how it must have been for blacks after Reconstruction. Over and over, people said, "everyone has been so wonderful, thank you, thank you." When I said, "there is no need to thank us, you are our fellow citizens and we want to help you -- American to American," there would be a long pause as if the idea of being the same never struck them before."

OWWWW. This hurts... but I can't take my eyes off the page.

Actually, the mainstream media, CNN and CBS in particular, has been using some air-time as a forum for trying to connect all the very seriously displaced families. But don't blink, you might miss it.

Least someone get the seriously ludicrous idea that all bloggers are angry, whining, Socialist, humorless, white-guilt ridden, weak, un-visionary losers, and that this is not freakin' America we're living in fer chrissake, be sure to watch the video on the CNN/People Special Coverage section called: Club Owner Vows To Get Music Pumping.

WARNING: Be sure to stop video presentation if viewing is accompanied by positive, multimedia-related feelings of too much technical priviledge and/or success!

Trying To Break Our Hearts

What is it about New Orleans that goes so far down into our hearts and psyche and changes us forever? The great songwriter, Randy Newman, offers his thoughts about this on NPR today.

Is there anything more plaintive than Aaron Neville singing Randy Newman's song, "Lousisiana 1927?" Neville's rendition is on the tail-end of the Randy Newman NPR interview today. He also sang it on Larry King last night.

Larry King has been very thoughtful and mindful of the musical legacy of New Orleans. He is closing each show in the aftermath of Katrina with a musical guest singing something New Orleans-related. Of course you have to be able to stomach the likes of Celine Dion on some nights, but it's worth the effort.

News, commentary and music all rolled into one show. Right up my alley. Now if they'd just put that human lightbulb, Nancy Grace, on there instead of the ancient Mr. King. I got a feeling she don't know nothin' 'bout music though. Been too busy with all that fancy lawyerin' and such. At least King has an oldtimers keen sense of music's relevance and importance in the cultural gumbo that was New Orleans.

Boy, the media lines are getting seriously blurry now. Thought for a moment I was reading The Onion, but this is actually from The NYT today:

"Some holdouts seem intent on keeping alive the distinct and wild spirit of this city. In the French Quarter, Addie Hall and Zackery Bowen found a unusual way to make sure that police officers regularly patrolled their house. Ms. Hall, 28, a bartender, flashed her breasts at the police vehicles that passed by, ensuring a regular flow of traffic."

Full story (sorry, no cleavage photo though) here.

And folks, I'm kinda burying this interview with an honest-to-God survivor of this horror, courtesy of an amazing Sista In Blogging, Jeneane Sessum, from right here in Hot'lanta. I give you fair warning - it will break your heart.

Boys Just Wanna Have Fun

The NOLA pics below are from pal Timothy State: a world-class, boy-oriented travel writer. Take a quick click to his site and blog, Barnes Place.

New York Times Believes in Ghosts

Can somebody please put Maureen Dowd in touch with Anne Rice? She needs to hire a vampire or two.

"I thought you evacuated the Cambodian baby."

From today's NYT:

"New Orleans's literary lore and tourist lure was its fascination with the dead and undead, its lavish annual Halloween party, its famous above-ground cemeteries, its love of vampires and voodoo and zombies. But now that the city is decimated, reeking with unnecessary death and destruction, the restless spirits of New Orleans will haunt the White House."

Read the full story here.

And more on the Bush Administration's legacy of chaos, confusion, suffering, pain and arrogance from the usually placid Mr. Friedman here.

Censor This!

From the LA Times...

The Show Didn't Benefit by Censors
By Robert Hilburn, Times Staff Writer
September 4, 2005



"As we enter the celebrity telethon phase of the Katrina tragedy, NBC's "A Concert for Hurricane Relief" stands as a blueprint for its own kind of institutional failure. By censoring Grammy-winning rapper Kanye West's remarks critical of President Bush during its West Coast feed of the program Friday night, the network violated the most moving and essential moment in an otherwise sterile, self-serving corporate broadcast.

'It would be most unfortunate,' the network said in a statement defending its action, 'if the efforts of the artists who participated tonight and the generosity of millions of Americans who are helping those in need are overshadowed by one person's opinion.'

Excuse me, but whose tragedy is this: NBC's or America's?"

Read the full story here. Then go screw the network censors! Buy and wear your own personal network on Moe Wampum.

How Do We Love Thee, NOLA? We'll Show Ya

The snaps below are from pals Tom and Cheryl Roche. If you send me your Best of NOLA, I'll put them on the blog. Some things are worth our tears. But then let's dry our eyes, be strong and do whatever we can to help in the Hurrican Katrina relief effort.

And as I like to say...whatever you do, be sure to look good doing it. So here are a coupla cool sites with hip gear. And all proceeds from sales go to hurricane relief efforts. One site even supports New Orleans area bloggers, many who have done amazing things to keep the flow of information going throughout their ordeal. Now how cool is that!

1. I Heart NOLA tee shirts
2. Hip Accessories

Real Leader Sighting

Let the big dogs out! Just when things were at their darkest, General Honore appears outta the blue. And yes, we desperately need a hero right now. This guy is out there barking and biting, and showing a heart and head the size of all America -- in all its wild and amazing glory. Here is a genuine voice of hope for those desitutes in NOLA.



General Honore has ordered troops to point their guns down, look the people in the eye and Get Stuff Done - NOW. It's all about talking loud and with authority, and not being afraid to go and scoop-up the babies falling out of mothers' arms, something he was reported doing on CNN just now, 11:30am, Sept 3, 2005. And he didn't have to bring along his daddy to tell him what to do, either.

Forget lawyers, guns and money - just send this guy! If ever there was a case to be made for requiring military service of our presidents, then here he is.

Speaking of CNN, someone needs to snap-up their military analyst, retired General James Marks. Least I think that's his name. Talk about a born anchorman! What a class-act he appears to be. Wish I could post a picture of him, but can't find one at the moment. Just watch CNN. He's the stunning military man not in uniform, darn it.

Soggy Vampires

No, New Orleans wasn't my city, but I sure loved to party there. It's where the pros go to hone their socializing skills... and now thugs, thieves, murderers, rapists, tormenters, drug addicts and pushers, any of the most rotten scum of the earth too. Who'd have thought we could top Haiti in the abject misery category? Only in America, folks.

Full disclose -- I just came off a week with ABC News here in the Atlanta bureau, headquarters for all of the ABC News operations and coverage in the Southeast. Areas of responsibility include Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, and Texas for some reason. In other words, all states impacted most by Katrina. It's the Hurricane Bureau, a place that exists to support cunning, aggressive, pretty-boy reporters as they hone their field skills and duke it out for on-air time. Personally, I'm digging that David Muir dude about right now.

There's really no place too miserable that money and initiative won't get you in and out of - with amenities even. Like RVs and a/c, water and some food and hot showers - and all the big-daddy electronics you could ever dream of. Only one thing's missing - Peter Jennings.

What the federal government couldn't get rolling on 'cause its ass is too enormously fat to jump when a pesky little bit of anarchy crops up, about five people in Atlanta managed to set in motion with a wave of some very high, Disney-related credit limits. Don't you just hate the "liberal" media? Or do you just secretly loath the rich and the corporate?

Of course I'm sure every terrorist intent on destroying our country is watching the pathetic response time by our clueless feds, or Friends Of W. Heck, I bet even Afghanistan could've raised and dispatched an entire naval fleet with which to invade our country by the time our Great Leadership decided to respond.

In case you missed it, ABC News was at the Louisiana convention center with cameras (NOT blogs) as the first National Guard troops went in to that special cess pool. But did our soldiers set to work aiding and assisting the wretched, sick, huddled, native masses languishing in agony there?

No, instead they immediately set to work like they were an elite, private security force (mercenaries spring to mind), escorting out a Spanish "diplomat" and his family who had been trapped there for days in some gross "diplomatic" snafu, trapped alongside the great seriously unwashed, i.e. poor people. Likely it was just some seriously covert operative on vacation with his mistress. Ooops!

And just to clear up the loose rhetoric flying around our heads, these people in New Orleans are not "refugees." There're freakin' fellow Americans fer chrissake.

Lemme tell you, the SuperDome sure didn't get one piece of lint in it when the Republicans were there in '88. The snaps below are me pretending to work that special event in those clueless times. Ahh to be young and foolish in the eighties, set loose in NOLA with a corporate credit card. Sigh... OK. OK. I'll stop now least I go off on one of my frequent nostalgia-fests right here and now.

Those Spaniards sure had some friends in high places, and it's a shame Bob Woodward, the heir-apparent being groomed to replace Peter (like that's possible), buried this political gem of video at the end of his opening package last night, September 1. I'm trying to find more on this sneaky little incident, but since no one gives a rat's patooty about network news anymore I'm afraid it may get lost amongst the severe shuffle that is this coverage operation. And that's a shame. All the best overtly-sincere-yet-kinda-fakey coverage money can buy, and all America wants is blogs and blather.

Blogs, in case you care, are not considered a real source of news in the real news world. They are referred to as "blather," along with Fox, CNN and any other news entity equipped mostly with alarmist, lip-flappers in air-conditioned offices somewhere in NYC. But even ABC News folk out in the field are allowed a very un-interactive blog of their own on the site, but no one gets to respond back. That's not blogging, folks. That's blathering.

What does it mean to not have money in America? Turn on Fox and find out. Look, there are poor people everywhere! Who'd have thought? Yes, these folk still exist in America. Particularly down south. We just all kinda forgot about 'em. Been soooo busy living the dream.

And if you have the grave misfortune of being poor in America, better use your last few bucks to move inland quick. Or at least until this "phase" of globally-warmed, apocalypse-related, oil crisis kickoff, Atlantic hurricane cycle of a perfect cluster fuck passes over. Or buy a bike. Or hell, just shoot heroin on a beach with smoke blowin' up your ass! We're all gonna live forever anyway, right? Why bother to do a goddamn thing? W's in charge and looking out for each and every one of us. Sleep well.

Personally, I'm hording all my money for the pending Goth Relief Effort telethon.

Death Of Urbanity

The lights of the castle have gone out. The corridors and ballrooms are silent now. The drawbridges have been drawn up and the gates are locked. A world once vibrant with the frenetic pace of life in the moment is returning to the mists of time, shrouded forever into the eerie silence of dreams.

Peter Jennings has died, and with him went the last of the world of network news. And what a world it was.

As fantastical as the fictional wizard school, Hogwarts, is to those who devour the Harry Potter books, network news was once a glorious reality of power and information for the lucky ones – those fortunate to have caught a glimpse of this astonishing empire in its prime. Most of us did, when we once turned on the evening news.

The hallways of ABC News’ Manhattan headquarters were perpetually abuzz with greatness, day and night: kings and queens, quite literally, often passed by, along with presidents, potentates and politicians, generals and spies, movie stars, saints and sinners, cowboys and Indians, princesses and madams, the earnest and the hustler, the boy next door.

There were troops of technology wizards to conjure images from afar – instantly. Newsroom chatter was forever ablaze with stories of heroes, sycophants and psychopaths. Brilliant teachers and thinkers, all with a zeal for the utmost integrity, to instruct the neophytes and flick them away to fetch coffee and doughnuts. Schemers and dreamers behind every door. Power plays abounded. Professional jealousy flared at the drop of a hat. Romances bloomed, or sputtered and died. Ambitions ran rampant, in every direction.

Great rivalries played out amongst the famous houses of ABC, CBS and NBC; money flowed, as did wine and feasting on special occasions such as the massive political conventions. Immense plans were set in motion every day. Even grander ones sprang to life when the catastrophic and the powerful rocked the world.

Pageantry was expected and achieved on a regular basis, as if with mere flourishing of wands to viewers at home. All angles covered in a blaze of cabling and satellite trucks and electronic fury. Pity the poor fool who did not learn to keep up.

Yes, network news was once a reality: perhaps an elitist and fantastic one, but a functioning American reality, and often difficult to get a foot in. But once there, it demanded everything you had to give it. And it gave back, to a greatly revered audience, everything in its remarkable, far-reaching power.

At the center at the center of such a fantastical reality lived a great news wizard who knew no rival – Peter Jennings. Jennings simply ruled ABC News. His word was first, last and never taken lightly. Reigning over a court that knew no bounds, so it seemed, there was always Jennings: larger than life, as courtly as a prince, as charming as Bill Clinton, Jennings talked and edited and courted and edited some more. He simply spun straw into gold with a flick of his pen and a nod of his lovely head. Few dared correct him. He rarely needed correcting.

Peter Jennings was a sight to behold. He knew he was good. A bit smug and self-important he seemed to his critics, those haughtily immune to his immense charm. Jennings was at his best when we were at our worst. While other network anchors lurched about from live-shot to live-shot, scene to scene with no big rhyme or reason, Peter Jennings would lure us into a state of acceptance and understanding with a seamless, flawless command of any event playing out before him. Even the strange and the unfathomable began to make sense when Jennings began to speak.

Whether it was the turning of the millennium, the chaos of 9/11, or the hell of Palestine or Salvador years ago, Jennings could sense a seam, a timeline, a common thread that bound a story together and, more importantly, bound it all back to us, the audience, in a wise and humane way.

He used his uncanny sense of himself, of human nature, to do this, and also what must have been an insatiable demand for knowledge and sheer information, to weave a flawless, poignant, believable story through so many difficult news situations – a beautiful, haunting package of events that always led right back to our own selves somehow.

So with the passing of Jennings goes network news as it used to be – a glorious, raging force that shaped the world for us. But the audience now demands a different world: one on our own fickle terms, one we can program and time and wrap-around our lives in a more user-friendly fashion.

Our reliance on a personality, on those more gifted than us perhaps, those charged with a calling and a purpose, has given way to a ruthless independence and arrogance of our own making.

There is no magical place any longer that strives for integrity and value and professionalism on our behalf. We are on our own, without benefit of the almost supernatural resources of the network, nor the network anchor.

So the hero of the evening anchor gives way to the iPod and the anonymous podcast, the TiVo and the precious, cloistered time of the individual consumer, to the Internet and the blogger, the amateur and the unprofessional.

We have thrown our own selves out of the kingdom and tossed away the key. We need no kings, no princes, and no person of special power to speak for us.

We have given ourselves over to our own devices.

I Failed The Recipe

Oh my. I just baked what has to be the world's ugliest cake. See for yourself. It's so butt-ugly that I can't stop laughing. I mean Spinal Tap-funny laughing! If you can top this, I dare you to try. It was supposed to be a surprise for my niece Emma's Sweet Sixteen birthday. Fortunately, Emma has a highly developed sense of humor. Sorry Emma. Just concentrated proof of my downward mobility.

And yes, Ava thought it was pretty awful too. She said, "Hey Mom, you just made a real mud pie." She loved the fact that most of the actual cake, which tasted delicious, was left hanging precariously along the bottom of the pans though, and wasted no time in scooping up about 60% to cram in her mouth. Another 10% fell on the floor which made Zelma very happy too. NEVER grease cake pans with vegetable oil and powdered cocoa.

Back to Barbie.com karoke for me.

Palmetto State Blues

I'm ashamed to be a native South Carolinian right now. All Rightist Republican smear campaign roads lead straight back to my home state, the backwater swamp that spawned Lee Atwater. The SC idiot-ridden populace aided and abetted the trashing of John McCain's good name and image at time when he, McCain, was getting ready to wipe the floor with W's smirky, frat boy face.

Most South Carolina retards were merrily led via their bovine-like natures, which are quite easily herded into any racist or homophobic frenzy, by Atwater's hideous Toad Man, that devil-spawn He Who Must Not Be Named - Lord Voldemort Rove. Like taking candy from a baby it was so easy, so backwoods is this place.

South Carolina was where Rove honed his power-crazed, mad wizzardry that ultimately led him smugly right on into the Oval Office, where he now sits on the right hand of Smirking Frat Boy and oversees this ultimate wipe-out of anything remotely associated with political truth in America.

I wish I could articulate my anger better over this hideous fleecing we've been hounded into by Republican operatives and conformist, grinning, little truth-eating creatures such as Rove and Robertson and Delay, and every mega-church "disciple" following their retards-only, talking-points road to some tacky-as-shit Judgemental Mall of The Americas. Fortunately, Paul Krugman, in his column today titled Karl Rove's America, is here to tell the story with a little more clarity than I can muster right now.

Sorry-ass, piss-ant state filled with the stupidest, most stubborn, un-evolved Muggles on the planet, excepting some of my immediate family members of course and assorted blogger-psychiatrists. I'm never going back. So there. I know they're all crying in their grits at the thought.

I Heart The Internet - For This Alone

Are you ready to live the bullshit-free life? Toss the pointless relationships that mean absolutely nothing to the whole story you vaguely associate with your Big Quest For Inner Fabulousness? Stand up, be a Real Girl (remember them Catherine? circa '84 I believe!) and start being the hottie of your own dreams. And if you STILL need help on figuring out how to do it, then send these gals a line for some serious real-time advice - if you dare!

Meow Mix

Women! Whatcha gonna do with 'em besides f-'em? They're just too catty and too liberal. Silly us. Here's an excellent column on women opinionists, or lack thereof in the mainstream media.

Lemme just let anyone who reads this in on a little secret: I've contributed "guest" op-eds to the local papers here for about seven years now. I've long lost count of the actual number, but it's up there with total wackos like Susan Estrich fer sure. And I'm just a little bit over being dumbed-down to chronic "guest" status. (Oops. Is my "cattiness" showing? Oh let me apologize immediately. I'm sooooo sorry.)

So if anyone who gives a flying "f" has 3 seconds outta their non-political, busy schedules to give me, please shoot the Op/Ed editor, David Beasley, at the AJC an e-mail asking that they consider running my work on a regular basis. He's at: dbeasley@ajc.com. Call me totally insane for wanting to be a regular, liberal opinionist at a major daily, but hey, what do I know? I'm just a girl.

Blogging Priests

While I eat Cheetos and read the National Enquirer by the Cross Creek pool, all the while ignoring Ava's many "watch me Mommys," our rector from All Saints' here in Atlanta, "Sir" Geoffrey Hoare, is on this amazing, head-inflating tour of Europe and blogging busily away as he merrily expands his horizons. His blog really is something to take a look at.

Here's an interesting tidbit-exerpt from it:

"The classical, the modern, the post modern and so on all need each other, but life is found in and flows from that which is new, creative, sometimes considered ugly at first (Remember how Rodin and the Impressionists were never really acceptable to the academy or in Rodin’s case many who commissioned his work.) The new is dependent on the old yet does not supersede it. I am reminded of how John A. T. Robinson, author of Honest to God (1963) used to talk of how a true radical must be thoroughly ‘rooted’ in the tradition."

(NOTE: To be honest, I don't remember anything about Rodin not finding acceptance by the "academy." But I can tell you all about Gram Parsons having been rejected by the mainstream Nashville scene. I think that's kinda what Geoffery's gettin' at here. Although I doubt Sir Geoffrey's been thinking a whole lot about country music lately.)

Hey Hey Ho Ho, Karl Rove's Gotta Go

Jon Stewart on the White House Press Corps' recent performance:
"We have secretly replaced the White House press corps with actual reporters."

Can you believe it? The White House press corps has finally emerged from whatever stupor it's been under since 9/11. About freakin' time. It's got a heap of catching up to do, and let's hope "it" is not returned to its previous pathetic state-o-mind when the Supreme Court nomination(s) arises soon.

Read for yourself the absolute nothingness of a Bush Administration in deep doo-doo, rivaled only by the nothingness you will find on this blog.


"We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of America dies with it." Edmund R. Murrow

Shame and Hope

From today's NYT...

Here's the world created by racism, violence, hatred, greed, war, terrorism and utter senselessness. Anyone who supports any act of cruelty towards a fellow human being, or who watches passively and allows it to go on, or supports it politically, is simply a stinking evil coward, perpetuating a culture of horror and grief and suffering on the entire world.

And here's the face of hope, also from today's NYT.

We are not afraid of:

• terrorists
• politically-motivated perpetuators of war
• consumeristic greed
• manufactued "values"
• attempts to create a mass culture of fear
• their intolerance and exclusion and false piety
• an evil adminsitration that has tried to manipulate the entire world.

Get it folks... WE ARE NOT AFRAID!

Please, let's all do what whatever we can to stop this idiotic "War On Terrorism." This is not a war on terrorism (the above photo is the real war on terrorism), but a war machine we were ALL misled into launching by blood-thirsty, riotousness liars, fear-mongers, scam-artists and power-crazed hawks.

This talking-points, PR-ridden, manipulative, evil adminsitration does not share MY values. (And mine are DAMN GOOD ones, thank you very much!)

Let's work hard to stop this war now. Bullet-point THAT.

"It doesn't make a damned bit of difference who wins the war to someone who's dead." Joseph Heller , Catch-22

Say Yes To Wow

Is your sex life just not the WOW you always dreamed of? Well, who's isn't, but don't freak out - help is on the way! My friend and brilliant writer and just really damn good person on this planet, Michael Alvear, is coming to HBO to save us all. Michael has been living his fabulous life in London on British TV this summer, as co-host of a Channel 4 reality show called Sex Inspectors. And now HBO has bought the show, a serious WOW for Michael and all those who know him and are just thrilled to see him "take off" so.

The British version of the show will begin weekly air on HBO, starting September 1 at 11pm. So subscribe now and sit back and watch Michael become a star. And believe me, I wouldn't even brag about having a friend in TV, but if anyone has worked so hard at his craft for so long, and if there's anyone out there who deserves to have good, successful things in his life, then it's Michael. He's just a really cool, decent, kind person who manages to take time out from his insanely busy schedule to encourage me to keep writing. Simply put, he helps me keep hope in my life.

When I first started writing and trying to publish little things here and there, Michael was the first person I turned to for advice and help. He extended a hand of kindness and encouragement to me at a time in my life when I thought such things were impossible. He didn't have to do this.

Michael was a successful gay man who, on the surface, I had virtually nothing in common with. He could have brushed me aside like a gnat, but he didn't do that. He took the time to meet with me and talk with me and email me notes of encouragement and invite me to parties, and things like that. I doubt he knows what an influence he's been on me, as he likely thought nothing of being such a genuinely kind, good person. But I was suffering from serious "I'm A Nobody" syndrome at the time I first sought out his guidance. And I may still be a big nobody, but you know, I can deal with that now! And that's in no small part due to Michael's friendship.

So wish him well, invite your friends over, raise a glass to love and hope and sex and dreams, and tune in on Sept. 1st to see the face of deserving success. And oh boy is it a beautiful one - in every sense of the word.

Things You Find Along The Path, If Not Yourself

Whew...

Also, here's a poem from way back when, off of my old website, WaySouth. Seems right again now that it's summer.

Woman Working In Summertime
Summer was here. Same things returned with it, no matter where the company sent its people. Dash from the city heat into the dark, dank air-conditioning of a liquor store. More gin for the tonic. Back out into the glare.

Sunglasses get slammed down from the top of the head. Back at the room-bar, the medicinal lime fizzes the tip of the businesswoman's nose while she takes a sip back to salted porch furniture and the incomprehensible buzz of grownups talking: to the house on The Island for an agitating two weeks. Aunt Bunny's bathing costume is as faded as her Labrador's muzzle.

Everyone never fails to mention how athletic Aunt Bunny was in her day. A beautiful tennis player. Right. Right. Credibility lost long ago on the woman. Bunny had never bothered her Dior lips to boast a confirmation. She was athletic after all. Not a teller of stories.

Aunties and cousins are shrugged off as simply as brushing off sand from the underside of your thighs. The meeting speaker talks about 'cultivating your people-base.' The businesswoman believes she is more a cutter than a cultivator.

She thinks about the gardenia bush behind the beach house -- the house before Hurricane Hugo. The woman thinks pre-hurricane when she remembers her summer times. She was already a professional by the time the big storm came through and caused another house.

The speaker is now saying there are actually four categories of people. Hurricanes have more than that notes the businesswoman. The secret to success in the business world is knowing what kind of people you have working for you, what category they fit into. None of the literature pertains to gardenias. They will be tested for their category nonetheless.

The woman wonders if smelling gardenia blossoms can be addictive. The scent is probably too funereal for that. Too much like church with its heaviness. The business lady is sleepy. Her eyes wander out the windows. "Probably" is not a power word. She uses it all the time. I have bad habits - she supposes.

The speaker does not use the word "funereal" at any time. The people-base in the room is busy at listening well, but she suspects the men of contemplating the airing of their pop-up camper when they get home.

The woman thinks -- inside the pop-up camper box. She knows a couple who bought one recently. They are the only people in their thirties she knows who have purchased anything remotely like that. For some reason, she was surprised to see that pop-up campers were still being manufactured.

The couple had shown the woman a brochure of their pop-up model. It looked cumbersome and over-ripe. That must be why the listening people-base is thinking of airing them out. They have their own summertime to return to.

She doesn't hear a sound of ice cubes clinking in pop-up campers. There are sticky, plastic cups of leftover baby juice baking in the pop-up sink. She hears nothing but that the group is now informed and adjourned.

Her people-base awaits her arrival at the Crown Room. Gin and tonic please. Summer is here. Business lady would like to get to it before they call her flight.

Re-Educate This

The Motherhood has worked me over good this time. It must take me up to the mothership every night and drain my brain something fierce, then set me right back down in la-la land. Everything's confusing me lately. I can't for the life of me figure out if Lil' Kim is now headed to the pokey for refusing to reveal that Karl Rove was seen with WMDs, the wife of a CIA agent and assorted rap stars outside of a nightclub in Mombasa on the night Warren Zevon died.

The whole Judith Miller thing is troubling, because I must confess that for a while there I wasn't really sure if she should be rotting in jail alongside Lil' Kim. And, gulp, I actually subscribe to the NYT. Now if I only would read the thing the way I always intend to every morning at breakfast, I'd have long ago figured out that she, Miller, (hell, Lil' Kim too for not asking if her dates came with guns) should stay there for a good long while, as the rumor is that Karl Rove is The Source. Big shocker there. Judith Miller, essentially, helped furnish the whole WMD house for chrissake. She was practically the freakin' PR agent for the whole Talking Points Administration! Oh my.

I had no idea. I've been pretty busy lately with watching Ava's ongoing reenactment, typically in the front yard of the condo complex, of that critical scene in Racing Stripes where the heroine, Channing, overcomes all the social obstacles in her teenage life by hurling herself on to a speeding zebra and thereby winning the Kentucky Derby-like event and thereby unfreezing her grief-stricken, but also quite yummy, dad's previously-frozen/widowed heart.

My childless, mostly single neighbors have long ago gotten over the sight of a five-year old zooming around the parking circle area while beating herself with an imaginary whip and yelling out such memorable bits of dialog as "Get to the rail, Stripes. There's nothing stopping us now from achieving our foals in life. You've got to watch it bad enough. Sir Trenton's stall needs mucking out. We did it!!! MOMMY! Remember you're NOT Mommy now; you're supposed to be Max."

Only the most child-savvy observer would ever understand that Max is actually on loan from another medium altogether - TV. Max is, of course, the also-quite-yummy riding instructor from The Saddle Club series. Believe me, if there were no Yummy Widowed-While-Tragically-Young Dads in tight jeans sauntering by in all these kiddy shows, I wouldn't be watching them in the first place. I'd be reading the Times since way back when all those WMD were being unearthed right and left in Iraq. And I'd have stood up and hollered about it too, just like all those reporters at all those press conferences W was giving before we set the war machine, excuse me, The War On Terror, in motion.

Of course I don't have a clue as to how the press corps is supposed to be doing its job these days. The Motherhood erased the motherboard for the professional side of my brain long ago. But then again, I would do just fine without one if I ever went back to work in news.