Inside Looking Outside Looking Inside (or, My Weekend at the Tavern...)

Notte Primo

When September wanes, it's time to bust out to a certain filmy gathering at the Tavern, where a random smattering of food chain offerings within any radius of the lens spend three hours trying to find each other. It's Fellini meets Tati in an endless circle of interior mirrors. Somehow, it's loveable.

Some clear things seemed to become messy. But in distress at potentially offending friends, peers, employers and le date, it is comforting to know that 2:30am found most folks making a mess.

Dude-- someone said Manohla Dargis was wasted!!

Notte Secondo



Less than twenty-four hours later places Mitchissmo on the outside as a hungry fly on the wall, taking sweet refuge in her nutty head, all behind a still camera at the house of mirrors again. She is paid to make memories, Italian style, for a Cathy and Johnny from Long Island.

She wonders when they met, how it went on their first date, and if they're gonna make it. She wonders if it will last. She wonders if they'll end up alone again. She wonders if her camera is working.

Page 16

There, snuck in on page sixteen, in a small left column of the New York Times, was the news that the FBI had gunned down one Filiberto Ojeda Rios, a Puerto Rican Freedom Fighter.

If it had not been for a friend who was enmeshed in the situation hours after it happened on Friday (and hence uncharacteristically late), I would not have known. And then I knew how little I knew. Which puts me in the category of "most people." So I made sure to look for it. I had to dig, but it was there, a vague and bland account. Although it sure did sound different than the first hand account I caught wind of.

I wonder if anyone reads page sixteen.

Bustin' Out

Yesterday Mitchissmo kicked breast cancer ass with a 26:39 for the 5k "Race for the Cure".

AND, best of all, so far she's raised $2,275-- putting her in the top 7% of fundraisers for the race to benefit breast cancer. SO FAR... Because we also disocvered that not only are they still taking donations through October 31, but if she gets to $4,000, she gets a prize!

On the eve of the great Sarah McEneaney heading into chemo, go here to pitch in against what's becoming chick flu.

Support Mitchissmo's Run for Breast Cancer

Breast Cancer is bad. Running is good. Go here to support Mitchissmo run a 5k and raise money for the Komen Breast Cancer Foundation in Sunday's "Race For the Cure" in Central Park.

She's raised $755. And she wants to do more. And run faster. Even though her ankle really hurts due to tripping on a cobblestone this past weekend...

Summer 2005: Summer of Adulthood

As the summer unrolled, there was wonder at what this summer would be, what Summer Themes would take shape. It all became conclusive when I overheard this...

Inner Child: Where the hell did you come from?

Inner Elder: You seemed to need some help.

Inner Child: Did not.

Inner Elder: I think you did.

Inner Child: Did not. Screw you.

Inner Elder: Right. Anyway, thought I'd step in 'cuz that thing over there, hoo-wee! Needed to let go of that monster before it bit your hand off.

Inner Child: Whatever. I was just telling it like it was. And running with it.

Inner Elder: And I think that's where I came in and caught the wand, toots. Relay style.

Inner Child: Oh, so you're kicking me out and taking over, huh? [expletive] After all the work I've done around here, [expletive]ing typical fascist [expletive].

Inner Elder: [sigh] For a little bit, anyway. [arms open wide to show great expanse of future] See, by Management declaring that you are no longer who we are but I am who we are, I'm going to see us through a period of being really purposeful and direct, with a tense jaw, a tight belt and little if any risk taking, adhering to advice from pseudo-professionals, most of which is ill-formed, unwarranted and soul killing. Besides, child-- look at you. You're exhausted. You're a bloody wreck. Get a facial, take a nap and I'll wake you up when I'm not who we are, and we'll back to you being us.

Inner Child: Fine. [snore]

Seven Years Ago Today

Seven years ago today I got that call, the call that one lives in fear of. It was 5:10pm when my aunt reached me. The thing itself had happend at 11:45 a.m.

My mother sent me the newspaper article from the Canadian county where it happened. They showed a picture of the car overturned on the road, rescue workers gathered around the car. The picture must have been taken hours after the accident-- the feeling is casual, getting work done.

(Tragedy and accidents used to be things that happened to other people.)

Now when I think of this picture I remember vividly the firemen looking at the camera, talking about something and laughing. Life goes on.

As I look at it again today, what strikes me is how the man crouching down by the passenger's seat-- where my father had been alive hours before-- looks like my father. They even crouch the same. I had not noticed that before.

The worst thing is how your memory fades their face. Even the most important person's physical presence retreats fast.

The last time I saw my father was on the beach. He told me to be good, then walked into the waves holding hands with my mom.

In Our Face Part III: Poor People are Yucky

If y'all are worth your salt, you either already know or would love to hear (go CNN!) that Barbara Bush blew the cover on her son's faux-homey-country accent to reveal the 'old silver spoon we know is indeed quite well lodged... in various places.

In an interview on National Public Radio:

"What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas."

Thousands of hurricane refugees were sitting on or near their green army cots, perhaps thinking of lunch, presumably waiting to be fed something hearty. Anything but cake.

"Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality...And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them."

Yuck yuck yuck. Even avid Republicans like this journalist-- who usually defend Bush under any circumstances given some good Rove spin-- are finding it hard to get back on the wagon after Barbara was at it:

I was all set to defend President Bush as a guy who really doesn't want poor black people in Louisiana and Mississippi to die of starvation and disease, no matter what the Democrats say.

But then Barbara Bush, the president's mom, went and dusted off the Bush family silver foot Monday. And she used it.

The Right Establishment has revealed what they are. For ten days now. Don't let Rove reverse the tide again. They've given their necks on a silver platter. For goodness' sake, go Dems, go go go.

In Our Face- Part II: One Happy Ending

My friend Siege of the photoblog the Daily Siege, had not heard from his mother, a resident of New Orleans, for over a week. We were keeping our fingers crossed while he went nuts with anxiety, trying to trace her down at various shelters. I'm sure a lot of us were getting pessimistic. He was getting ready to go down there himself.

Finally, last night she called him.

Hello?
Clayton James!
Mom you're ok!
Yeah, baby, we OK. We're at Tom's abandoned house in Slidell.
Where were you when the storm hit?
We went to a shelter in Kiln. Awwwbaby it was bad, the roof got torn off, we had no food, no medicine, no tampons, 400 of us. I worked myself ragged taking care of old people, we had to get out and check on the trailer.
How is it? Did it survive?
No, it was under 28 feet of water. Me and Dalton been trying to clean up as best we can, but there's four feet of muck on the floor, even shrimp and Mississippi carp in it (crying) and even mold's started to grow, it's totally wrecked.
We're coming down Wednesday or Thursday.
No, baby, save your money, everything's totally destroyed down here. The Gulf Coast is totally destroyed. There's Guardsman with rifles and bullet-proof vests, there's a 7pm curfew, we had to sneak in the back roads to get to the trailer, Winn Dixie's open again, but there's two hour lines for food and water, another two hour line to get gas from the Guardsman. It's bad. So bad. (crying) They so desperate everywhere, New Orleans is hell.
I know I know we're coming down.
Call everybody you can and tell them I'm OK and where I'm at.
I will I will
Baby I got to go these people are leaving now.
Wait give me directions to where you're at!
They're leaving, I got to go, I love you
I love you too..



To get more, real information, stay tuned to the good sources:

www.diversityinc.com
www.alternet.org
www.blackelectorate.com
www.npr.org
www.daveyd.com
www.slate.com
www.bet.com
www.allhiphop.com

In Our Face- Part I

It is uncommon to not have TV. And yet I do not have TV.
As a result, I'm not used to turning on a TV.

As I headed out to the small Wyoming airport Thursday morning, the four year old boy where I was staying turned on his cartoons and stopped at a channel with Katrina footage. In sixty seconds I understood the power of television.

Only when your eyes can take in images can you grasp the visceral events of tragedy and atrocity. You can be told the words "towers fell" or "hurricane," but it all means nothing unless you see what it does, and how many it leaves behind...and who it leaves behind, days later...



The lesson in the impact of imagery was well learned by the government when the images of Vietnam came home, a lesson put to the test in the Gulf War of 1991, the media coverage of which one official said "we learned from Vietnam, and we will not have another Vietnam." Indeed, in Desert Storm cameras were only allowed to be set up on a far away terrace as the "fireworks" of Baghdad exploded. They even looked pretty-- harmless, bloodless things.

Somehow, the cameras-- for once, once! beyond the Bush White House's control--- got to Katrina (days) before help did, way before Bush coolly flew over it all in a photo op.

To mention the income level and skin color of the people left screaming for help in New Orleans all week would not only be repeating the TV and blog chatter, but is simply not informative. Any blog reader or TV watcher has eyes, and our eyes saw poverty poverty poverty, black black black, with the rare exception of an elderly or very poor white. What it was was an acidic, ugly mirror on the true America, shoved right in our face and simultaneously beamed out to the rest of the world. While the News Media has been coerced over the last four years into focusing on sappy-music and over-digi-graphic laden human interest stories about lost dogs, runaway brides, the righteous poetry of Evangelicals and the scandal of gay marriage, it has turned a blind eye to the Bush Administration's sky-rocketing tax cuts for the uber-rich and program cuts for everything from education to the (now step-by step prophetic) hurricane planning for New Orleans' levees. America's class divide has reached all new, scary proportions.

Last week the reality of America was all on display, and it made all of us, Right Wing and Left Wing alike, squirm, if not scream. If the Right has won its ideological war, it may not have succeeded in making us morally pure of thought but has certainly succeeded in hoodwinking us into leaving the poor, the weak, and the sick and suffering not just behind, but behind to rot. Last week we learned, much to our shock, while the sitcoms and reality shows have droned on season after season, a huge slice of its viewers live in a third world America. And last week they, the hidden ones, finally had the cameras on them for a change.

It is hard at moments like this for many of us not to sound polemic. It's a symptom of outrage.

In the fall of 2004 I went to Florida to canvass for Kerry because I thought (and have been proven) that George Bush is the worst thing for this country, not only in terms of what he had done and would do to private and civil rights, environmental health and, well, anything concerning 99.5% of people, but particularly because he had such flagrant disregard, if not hatred, for the working class and the poor.

It took me months to recoup the money I spent on that Florida canvassing trip and the $200 I gave to his campaign, and I wondered how useful I can really be to inspire change. It all made me have an important realization: the best way to be an effective Liberal is to be a rich Liberal. That's how I can advocate for the poor.

So far, this year I've gotten a lot of work. I even just got health care. So far, it has been the best year yet.

Footnotes:

You callin'' me a Liberal? Go ahead, call me the L-word. I remember pre-Goldwater-- Liberal used to be a great word, up there with Love. Here's what it means, man. From Angry Bear, a good read:

So if I had to encapsulate in a few words why I describe myself as a liberal, I would simply say this: I believe in bad luck. I think that a huge number of the forces that affect most people's lives are outside of their control - the parents that they were born to, the quality of their local educational opportunities, the management of the company that they happen to work for, the fortunes of the city or town in which they happen to live, or the industry in which they happen to find work - and that individuals who suffer from a bad family, poor education, being laid off, or a hurricaine, should not be left to live with the consequences of their plain bad luck without help from society at large.

And this, lest you think me too L... even life-long Republicans are sickened, as here from an ex-Marine:

It's over kids. Katrina put her stamp on the end times. I don't want this to be a political diatribe, but the confidence in our duly elected representatives has vanished. Everyone now knows that "there but for the grace of God go I". We've "screwed the pooch". Lack of empathy, added to hubris, multiplied by incompetence has left us little to count on.

Those of you who have rented and maintained a cash position will have the last laugh. Well, maybe not a laugh, but at least a sigh of relief.

Some economists say we'll have hyper-inflation, followed by deflation, for others it's the converse - don't matter.

Look, I'm an old man - a War Baby - before you hyper ventilating Gen X's, Gen Y's, or Z'ers start frothing at the mouth about Baby Boomers stealing your posterity - I've seen Harry Truman resolve to liberate Quemoy and Matsu, JFK embarrassed by the Bay of Pigs, LBJ seeing all those "lights at the end of the tunnel" in Viet Nam - Hell, I was there, and I was just hope'in the lights weren't go'in out on me - Richard Nixon proclaiming he's "not a crook", Jerry Ford sporting a "WIN" button (Whip Inflation Now). Jimmy Carter wearing his sweater on TV, asking us to please turn down the thermostat, Ronnie proclaiming that the liberation of Granada is bigger than D-Day. Saw Bush 41 and the rest of the world go into the desert and do a really decent job of it. Saw Clinton weather a political storm and give us peace and prosperity. Seen it, done it, lived it - but until this turd landed in the White House, I've not seen anything like this.

So, don't despair if your priced out of a house right now - save the cash, love your family, and by all means make plans to not become someone in front of the NOLA Convention Center.

I want the best for my country and its citizens, but prepare for some really tough times - I tell my friends and family that "once around the block is enough". You young people are going to have it really hard - please take care of one another, and remember that look'in after the "commonweal" is what will get you through. And that ain't communism - that's just common sense.