Then we'll cut up the Constitution and make yellow ribbons out of it.

From Democracy Now...

American Legion Declares War on Peace Movement
The organization the American Legion has voted at its national convention to target peace activists and the antiwar movement. The group boasts nearly 3 million members. The group's national commander called for an end to all "public protests" and what he called "media events" against the war, even though they are protected by the Bill of Rights. Thomas Cadmus told the convention "The American Legion will stand against anyone and any group that would demoralize our troops, or worse, endanger their lives by encouraging terrorists to continue their cowardly attacks against freedom-loving peoples. The delegates voted to use whatever means necessary to "ensure the united backing of the American people to support our troops and the global war on terrorism."

Chaka's licking the carpet. She has to stay inside in the mornings because the mailman is all freaked out. I guess she growled at him. I probably would have also considering his Dufus shades and liederhoesen like back-support.
I'm blowing out of here...so long Boise. I actually like Boise. It's a nice little small town. It's quiet and yet they have some cool bars and it's beautiful up here. But my time has come. My foray into the the world of construction-remodeling has made me realize manual labor sucks. Breathing in plaster dust while hauling eighty pounds of broken tiles, plaster and wooden lathe on your back, doing it for seven hours and then doing the same thing again the next day and then the next, well, you get the idea. Sysiphus had the idea.
so, yes chaka is licking the carpet...I am trying to figure out how to get my shit back to san francisco even though I'm headed east. ups, us mail, uship.com?
A friend is driving East and I'm going to meet up with her in salt lake city and then we'll drive the little fiat to New Joysey. Oy gevalt!

mmm...smoke..good

mmm...smoke..good
Originally uploaded by catherine magma.

Here in Boise...Wali took off to go camping and I came down with some bug. So I hauled my ass down to Blockbuster and rented Sideways and Sin city. Sideways was great and Sin City was better than I expected. I thought Mickey Rourke looked a little like the Beast from Jean Cocteau's Belle et Bette.
Also got The Bride of Frankenstein, M (by Fritz Lang),Amarcord, and A Bullet in the Head(john Woo).(from the library-much cheaper)
the BOF was great. I can't believe I never saw it. The monster starts drinking and smoking and then he wants a woman. He and Doctor Posterius(whatver) force Henry Frankenstein to create the monster's bride and when he does she is a twitchy freaky thing with great eyes who promptly rejects the monster. Classic James Whale.
M has a young peter Lorre as a murdering child molester in 1930's Berlin. Alot of the movie has an almost documentary feel as they indicate all the latest types of detective capabilites to track down this insane killer who is terrorizing the city. Shots of people analyzing handwriting(unfilled loops indicate an indolent, lazy type of character, such as an actor), tracking down types of paper used in candy stores, etc.
The scene where Lorre is put to trial by the criminals of the city(who captured him because the cops kept busting their hangouts and messing up their biz.)is excellent. Peter Lorre pulls out all the stops.
Amarcord is great. Memories of small town italy from the thirties as only Fellini can do it(although Woody Allen tried).One great scene is when the family goes on a horse carriage trip to the farm and on the way they pick up the uncle who is at the Institution. After lunch and a few glasses of wine the odd uncle climbs to the top of a tree and starts yelling "I WANT A WOMAN!" over and over and won't come down.

I can relate.

Drink and Dial

A friend of mine called me and played back a message I had left him last Friday or early Saturday. I didn't remember calling him but when I heard the fitful starts and whining pejorativisms I painfully recalled making said call.
If there are any ohers out there to whom I may have rang up in my inebriated state please accept my, ah fuck it, consider yourself lucky.

I do remember get 86'ed from The Torch, a local strip club, but that's another story.

8/18/2005

hmm
Originally uploaded by catherine magma.

pope visits german homeland

When did we start using the term Homeland? After the events of 7-11? What a God-Awful way to refer to our country. It seems very germanic, nationalistic, fascist, and Orwellian.
We just got a T1 line here at the house of eternal re-modification, Boise division. So now I guess I'll have to get caught up on current events. Has Karl Rove been arrested yet? Ha-ha, That's a good one.
Oh and who gives a fuck about the shuttle?
Jeebus help me.

ooh comments

I received two comments on my last brilliant post and was feeling pretty good about myself. These people seemed to enjoy my blog and they were going to tell their friends! Gosh. I guess I have just about the best blog I know.
Then I realized they were probably some sort of automatically generated comment that puts in a link to someone's commercial website. One was for ceiling fans. Side note: You can't cut off your head with a ceiling fan. Even if you use an upside down lawnmower with custom reinforced blades. they will give you a nasty whack but the force of the blades will push your head away thus impeding severance.
the other comment site was for something called life wave. some doo-hickus that gives you untold energy. Around here in Boise that's known as Methamphetamine.
Boo-yah!

Library internet

So I discovered the internet terminals here in the Boise library where you can actually sit down. oh boy. Also you can use them for a whole hour. They have all the internets.
This not having a computer biz is starting to suck.
I must admit the people that work here at the library are amazingly helpful. At one point there were three people trying to help me track down a book. After twenty minutes they found it on a cart in the basement. Damn. In "Frisco" it would have been more like a shrug.
I love using the "Frisco". It really shakes folks up.
As you can tell things are pretty darn exciting here in Boise. But the weather is hot and excellent. Totally. Right now at my apartment in "Frisco" Its probably about fifty degrees with a wind chill factor that is rivalled by those living near Lake Huron.
Hmm.
Magwa kill the greybeard and all of his seed.

bbq-oise

Bill's barbecuing drunken chicken on the Char-Broil wearing his vintage celtics apron that mimics Larry Birds uniform circa 83? including short shorts. the mitt is a tiny basketball. the grissom t-shirt adds to the mayhem.

Oh Yeah ?

Just a note: Fuck You!


This message courtey of Maker's Mark.

& tHE pIPELINE

Boise

Well here I am in Boise. I really don't feel like writing anything because I'm standing at the computer terminal in the the Boise Library. They don't provide chairs for people who use the internet computers. Why the hell not? You can use the internet for a half hour for free but I guess they don't want you to be comfortable while you do it.
There are some real hipster freaks here in Boise. Some dude surprised me while I was waiting for the light to change. I heard somebody say hey buddy and when I turned around this 65 year old long haired dude who was shaking and whose eyes were functioning independently of each other and his brain was about five inches from me.
"Hey .....man....canyousparesome........change?"
I thought he was going to stab me with a used syringe.
"Uh no, and back off."
So much for compassion on a daily basis.
Speaking of compassion the Dalai Lama is coming to Sun Valley and will be speaking for free. I saw the Dalai Lama at UC Santa Cruz in 1982(?). He was pretty cool and funny.
I also saw Buckminster Fuller speak at UCSC around the same time. He talked for at least six hours straight without stopping except to take a drink of water. It was pretty amazing. He started in about the origins of technology from the beginning of sailing and then just kept going.
Outside of Boise are three geodesic domes that house the Holy church of the Baptized Christ Child or some such mumbo jumbo...

Last Day in Vegas chapter seven

Ephraim Pai had a bad day. He played poker for eleven hours and ended up winning exactly 27 dollars. At one point he had been up over four hundred. He knew there was a spirit residing in the chair that he had been using and although he had replaced the chair he was almost sure the spirit had followed him. He knew how devious these spirits could be and he held them almost completely accountable for his string of bad luck. Of course the fact that he had tried to draw to an inside straight at least three times had nothing to do with it.
He put the key in the ignition and pulled out of the parking spot. He had been playing poker at the home of one Charles Ignatz. He always wondered what kind of a name Ignatz was. German? Jewish? Czechslovakian? He didn't bother to ask because he thought Charles might be offended. Charles was a rather overweight balding gay man who wore loud tropical shirts, drank quantities of gin and tonic and smoked salem 100's while they played cards. Ephraim didn't drink or smoke but neither bothered him. He could play cards in the middle of a blizzard sitting on a block of ice.
He knew his wife would not be happy with him if he told her how much he made so he had stopped telling her. She had an income from her family that they used for for all the bills and if Ephraim didn't ask her for money he wouldn't hear any grief. His wife was a strange bird who was pretty easy going and usually seemed happy although she didn't talk much and spent most of her time reading books that Ephraim had never heard of. Ephraim didn't read much. He watched some tv but most of the time he was playing poker or looking for a game. He had quite a few friends who regularly hosted poker games and Ephraim would sometimes drive two hundreds miles for a good game.
He pulled into the driveway of his house and his wife and son were standing on the front lawn.
"Look what Johnnie found."
His wife held up a one hundred dollar bill.

Mega Million Fever

from sf gate:

-- If you knew one person in Canada, and you had to draw at random one name out of a hat containing the names of every person in Canada, you would be 5.7 times more likely to draw your friend's name than hit the Mega Millions jackpot.


Source: Mike Orkin, Ph.D., managing scientist at Exponent Corp., statistics professor at California State University East Bay

happy father's day

My dad, living it up in Puerto Vallarta. At father's day yesterday out in Livermore he paid my nephew Alec $1 for each fly he killed(in the house). Alec made $12, although three of them were from a spider web.

The Source

JABBERWOCKY
Lewis Carroll


`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.


"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.


`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

Downing st. memos..ho hum..

Why is it that the mainstream media here in the U.S. have been treating the Downing Street memos as some kind of quirky European boo-boo? Oh... Ho hum, those silly Brits with their snooty sense of propriety about International Law.
When I did see an article in the U.S. press the emphasis was on the fact that we knew we didn't have an exit strategy instead of the real story which is that the whole entry strategy was a calculated, cynical, unlawful, unconstitutional manipulation of "Intelligience" to justify and scare the public into accepting a pre-determined agenda to invade a country that posed no real threat to the United States.
Is the whole Ho -hum quality to the non-reporting of this story because it's pretty much old news? Didn't we already know that Bush and his pack of lying cronies did everything they could to sell us on this debacle? How many different reasons were given by the Bush administration to justify the war...something like 34?
Don't we already know that we were screwed and are still getting screwed?
To the tune of how many billions?
And instead of having this stupid war to consume our minds, money, and energy, what could we have done as a nation in the meantime?
Healthcare? Shore up Soc. Security? Gain real intelligience about how to identify and reduce the possibilites for terrorist action in the future?


ho hum, ho hum.

Goin' to Boise

Goin'to Boise
Originally uploaded by catherine magma.

Last Day in Vegas chapter six

On his twelfth birthday Johnnie decided it was time to spend some of his ill-gotten gain. He had waited for three years thinking that the authorities and/or the family of Richie Patterson would probably catch up to him. He realized they probably didn't know the value of the baseball cards and so were oblivious to their financial loss and he had counted on the fact that since Richie was not allowed to play with even toy guns he would probably not tell his mother that he had traded the cards for a broken pellet rifle.
Johnnie had hidden the money inside the wall behind the bathtub. He had double-bagged it and when he retrieved it he found it was still in good condition. He still hadn't come up with a plan of what to do with the money. He knew that if he started buying things his naturally suspicious father would wonder where he was getting the money and would probably assume that johnnie was shoplifting.
Johnnie decided what he needed was a lawyer. Someone who could invest the money for him, create an account for him, like a trust, and wouldn't tell his parents. He assumed that this would not be an easy thing to do for he sensed that most lawyers didn't have time for crazy kids and their ill-gotten booty. He needed someone who was slightly crooked themselves but not crooked enough to want to face the spectre of being known as the lawyer who had fleeced a twelve year old asian kid.
Johnnie got the yellow pages down from the shelf in the kitchen. He started thumbing through the pages and found the section on lawyers. Some of them had big ads. Johnnie knew his man would not have a big ad. He started reading the names that were listed with just an address and phone number. Most of the lawyers were located downtown, near the Capitol, or in the industrial park area. He was looking for someone in an out-of-the-way location.
He came upon a name. Richard Zellmer. 116 Farthing street.
"Farting street" Johnnie said aloud. "That's got to be my man."
Johnnie knew Farthing street was adjacent to the railroad tracks on what was known as the poor part of town. Johnnie tried not to ride his bike around down there because he had been chased and had rocks thrown at him by name-calling local kids.
They had called him gook-boy and chinaman. There weren't too many asians in Austin in those days and even though it was fairly liberal for Texas it was still redneck country.
Johnnie went back into his room and took the bagged money back to the bathroom and stowed it away again. Then he thought about it and pulled out two one hundred dollar bills. He packed up the rest and pushed it into the wall behind the tub. He put the money in his sock, re-tied his shoe, got his bike from the backyard and headed off into the hot Austin summer afternoon.

Zellmer's office was on the second floor of what looked like an old run-down condominium of the stucco variety. The r at the end of his name had fallen off or been pried off so the sign said Richard Zellme Attorney at Law.
'Buy and Zell me' Johnnie thought to himself.
When he got to the door it seemed more like an apartment than an office and Johnnie could hear a television from behind the door. He wasn't sure if he should just go in or ring the bell. He rang the doorbell.
He could hear someone moving around inside and then a voice.
"Hold on, I'll be right there."
More sounds of things being pushed around as if Zellmer was frantically cleaning up in expectation of a big client.
Finally the door opened and a man who looked like he had just woken up from a three day binge opened the door. His hair was greasy and pushed back. He needed a shave desperately. His shirt was wrinkled and had what looked like spaghetti sauce splattered on it. Johnnie thought for a second that it might be blood and then he realized if it was blood it would be probably be brown.
"What do you want?"
Zellmer's professionalism didn't seem to extend to a twelve year old asian kid wearing a Texas Longhorns baseball hat.
Johhnie was a bit taken aback. He was starting to rethink his plan. The new plan was to get the fuck out of there as soon as possible.
"Well, what do you want? Ya little fuck."
Now Johnnie was pissed. He didn't give a crap for this low life but he realized he probably wouldn't find anyone more suitable for what he had in mind.
Johnnie bent down and pulled one of the hundred dollar bills from his sock.
"Are you Richard Zell-me, the lawyer?"
Zellmer looked irritated.
"Zellmer. Yes, I am a lawyer. What do you want?"
Johnnie waved the hundred dollar bill in front of Zellmer's bloodshot eyes.
"Want to make some cash?"
Zellmer's eyes widened. This was a first for him. Most of his clients were small-time divorce cases, petty criminal defense cases, or boring procedural trust issues.
"What's the deal?"
"May I come in?" Johnnie decided to play it cool. He wanted to handle himself like James Garner from the Rockford files.
"Yeah, yeah. Come on in." Zellmer opened the door.
Johnnie walked in and took a look around the room. Empty pizza boxes were strewn about haphazardly. The coffee table was covered with empty beer bottles and a spilled ashtray. There was a small mirror on the table with smudges on it. Around the room papers and boxes of more papers were strewn about as if someone had been rifling through them looking for something. The carpet was shit-green and most of the furniture looked like it had come from the Knights of Templar thrift store down the street. A large color TV was on with the sound down and Gene Rayburn was silently presiding over the Matchgame 74 crew. Charles Nelson Reilly looked like he was having a good time.
"Nice place you've got here." Johnnie remarked snidely.
"Ok wise-guy, what's the deal? Where did you get the C-note?"
Johnnie stopped and thought for a second.
"It's not important where I got it. I just want to know if I can hire you to do something for me."
"What's that? What is it you want done and let me tell you I don't do too much for a hundred bucks."
"I've got more. That's the problem. I came into some cash and I can't let my parents know about it. My father's got a gambling problem and I want to keep it away from him. I want you to set up an account for me so I can buy stocks and stuff. I'll pay you two thousand dollars to set it up. But I want it all done with receipts, notarized, the whole deal."
"Two thousand bucks. That's not bad. How much money do you have kid?"
"I want to invest ten thousand dollars."
Zellmer stood there and thought about it.
"Okay, let me do some research and I'll see what I can do. When can you get me the two thousand?"
"Here's a hundred bucks. I'll give you the rest when I see the papers and have made sure the account is for real."
Johhnie held out the the bill. Zellmer snatched it from his hand and held it up to the light.
"Okay kid. Come back on Wednesday and I'll let you know what I've come up with."
Johnnie left, got on his bike and rode home. Before he got home he took out the other hundred dollar bill and when he walked in the door he started yelling.
"Mom, mom! Look what I found! A hundred dollar bill! On my birthday!"
Johnnie's mother Su Han Yan Gow put down her copy of Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead and stared with her mouth open at the hundred dollar bill.

Idaho?

I remember being in Idaho back in the sixties when I was kid. I'm not sure what we doing there. Maybe we were on some family vacation in our red squareback VW or perhaps when we were moving to California from New Hampshire. All I remember is being in Sun Valley, Idaho, which is a big ski resort, in the middle of the summer and it was hot. I remember being in a hotel or restaurant, someplace kind of nice, but they had what looked like aluminum foil in these neat square panels on the walls and people had pressed or scratched their names and initials all over the walls. I thought it was the coolest thing.
That's all I remember of Idaho.

Anne Bancroft

Anne Bancroft
Originally uploaded by catherine magma.