blog crack

a coven of slutty vampires.  

Sorry about the lack of updates over the weekend. Although, I'm not sure to whom I'm apologizing as only, like, three people actually read this blog. And even less leave comments. Ahem.

Anyways, I was out and about celebrating Halloween and had three very late nights in a row which rendered me brain dead and sleeping until ungodly hours of the day. However, I can't say that it wasn't worth it.

I love Halloween! I love any opportunity to dress up, really. And I am saddened to be an adult because I can no longer go trick or treating...which leads me to my first digression.

I think there should be adult trick or treating! I mean kids shouldn't even be eating all that candy. Their tiny little hyperactive system can't even handle a tootsie roll, nonetheless a sack full of sugary delights. But adults can. I think next year I'm starting the first ever Adult Trick or Treating in San Francisco. I have it all figured out and everything. I'm very excited about it already.

Well, there was no candy this year, but there was plenty of ass...I mean, fun. I'm still trying to cope with my costume. Every year, I'm the one with the concept costume. It's very well thought out, creative, funny and, I like to think, intelligent. Last year, the friends and I were synchronized swimmers, the year before we were Jem and the Holograms (on a reunion in Vegas) and the year before that I was post-op Michael Jackson. This year was not like the rest.

We decided to go to a goth party (which, by the way, was a total dud: the music was lame and most of the people weren't even dressed up and 60% of the crowd wasn't even dancing!). One of the friends suggested going as vampires. Surprisingly enough, none of us had ever been a vampire. So we were all game.

Upon some prompting, we decided to slutty it up a little. Now (digression #2), I hate those chicks that use Halloween as an opportunity to dress in lingerie and show the world just how big of a 'ho they actually are. I mean, could you be any more unoriginal and tasteless and lame?

It's obvious that they're vapid, perhaps they should have dressed up in an "intelligent person who has respect for themselves" costume! That would be the real stretch. Basically, I hate any costume with the word "naughty" or "slutty" attached to it.

Well...this year I got turned into the very thing I hate because I was a slutty vampire! And while it felt daring to do so, the whole night I couldn't shake a feeling of creeping self-loathing; the feeling that I was totally lame.

The best part of the night came at 3:30 in the morning (like most best moments do) when we trekked to Sparky's, a 24-hour punk rock kind of place. There was a 30-minute wait but the place was overflowing with be-costumed revelers and so we were sufficiently occupied.

I kept on getting harassed by a guy who was dressed as "the scarecrow" from Batman Begins. It was SO freakin scary! And he was thoroughly enjoying my little squeals of terror.

And while munching on curly fries and chocolate cake, we hooted and hollered as a guy, dressed up as Angus Young, the guitarist from AC/DC, put on the show of all shows (as if the man himself had possessed his body) while "You Shook Me All Night Long" blasted out of stereo system.

And feeling lame or not, I was brimming with the happiness that only comes with youth (a quickly fading youth, but youth nonetheless.) Ah, to be young!

Happy Halloween!!



getting ready... 


sonya, after a snack. 


ann, with her new black hair.  


doing up Jessica. 


Kyu & I.  


The bride awaits.  


Me. I was going for the whole Vampire look but then someone told me I looked like Daryl Hannah's character from Bladerunner.  


Ann's back- I like this photo. 


Vampiresses and a pimp.  

a lush forest? I think not. 

I was on the NYTimes today and I noticed this picture with a little blurb on the sidebar. The real estate agent was describing this mangy pathetic excuse for a backyard as a "lush garden". Are you kidding me? Half the yard is concrete! I know yards in Manhattan are like shots of tequila in Saudi Arabia, but still. This just caught my eye as funny in a surreal kind of way.

Oh, and BTW, the agent was asking 1.5 million for the place - a freakin 2 bedroom!

ouch. 

Okay, any guesses? What exactly's happening here?

Girl: Do you have any more slut-nurses?
Counter guy: No, we're all out of slut-nurses, but we have some slut-devils and some slut-flight attendents.

--Ricky's, 8th Avenue
Overheard by: Josh Caldwell

These brownies taste a little funny...

Here's the story:

=======================================
A taxi driver is on trial for allegedly tainting baked items at the grocery store by sprinkling dried feces on the food. Prosecutors have store surveillance videotapes of two alleged incidents in July.

Behrouz Nahidmobarekeh, 49, is charged with two felony counts of tampering with consumer products.

Customers had complained that the fresh-baked items smelled and tasted like manure.

The defendant, who allegedly had a beef with the store over the way he'd been treated, faces punishment ranging from probation, to two to 20 years in prison.

enough said.  

Holding a poster with photos of some of the 2,000 U.S. military servicemen and women who have died in Iraq, Ken Toughlin poses a question at the Armed Forces Recruitment Center in New York's Times Square. - AP

on the shopping list.  

Saw this sweater in the Times. It's part of the new Stella McCartney collection at H&M. Now I know what I want for x-mas. It's so cute! And it looks warm and comfortable - my two most important criteria for a clothing item.

goodbye. 

Miers Ends Supreme Court Bid After Failing to Win Support

Harriet E. Miers withdrew her nomination for the Supreme Court this morning after weeks of increasingly heated debate over the depth of her conservative beliefs and her qualifications to fill the seat to be vacated by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

to read more

Hasidic boy: Poppola, I heard a rumor that when a cow gets a cut from the milking machine, and blood gets in the milk...they have to turn it into chocolate milk, so people won't know it's there.

Hasidic grandpa: We should be so lucky!

--4 train
Overheard by: Raden Mutter

would *you* like to marry me? 


Can you imagine having to juggle that many wives? And you don't even want to know how many kids he has! That's a lot of mouths to feed.

You may think I'm talking about some Saudi prince or bedouin tribal chief, but I am not. I talking about someone who lives right here in the United States. And he isn't Muslim either -- he's Mormon.

I'm referring to Warren Jeffs, the "absolute leader" of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (they're the Mormons who believe in polygamy).

I read this
recent article in the New York Times. And I am shocked.

The Church also, since there aren't enough wives to go around, take women and children away from their actual husbands and marry them off to someone else. They literally wife swap!

According to the article, "...women are still being removed from their husbands and assigned to other men, and girls under 18 are ordered to become brides of older men on a day's notice, all despite the presence of full-time outside law enforcement.

DeLoy Bateman, a high school science teacher here who left the church several years ago, says his daughter's marriage was recently broken up by church leaders. She was ordered to become the bride of her father-in-law, a man twice her age, Mr. Bateman says.

'This just makes me want to cry,' said Mr. Bateman, a lifelong resident of Colorado City. 'They tore up this marriage and ordered her to have sex with this older man. I've lost my daughter and her children to this church. I have to stand outside on the sidewalk and beg if I want to see my grandchildren.'"

The power of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is concentrated in Colorado City, Ariz., and Hildale, Utah, which have a combined population of about 8,000 people. While polygamy is illegal in this country, Jeffs, "in spite of his being one of the country's most-wanted fugitives, indicted on sexual abuse charges along with eight of his chief followers", is still operating the church with an iron-fist. The F.B.I.'d arrest him, but they can't find him.

"'It's just like the mob,' said Gary Engels, a former police detective who has been retained by county officials to investigate child abuse accusations here. 'The church is able to keep iron-fisted control even though the top leaders are fugitives.'

Church leaders - and officials of the mayor's office, the Police Department and the school board, all of whom are followers - declined to be interviewed."

But just because Jeffs is in hiding, that doesn't mean he can't conduct Church business,

"Five years ago, church leaders ordered all families to withdraw their children from the one big public school here, kindergarten through high school, in favor of home schooling or church schools. The public school instantly lost about 1,000 students, more than two-thirds of enrollment. Yet the church, whose followers account for a majority of the voters, continues to control the school board and - until recent legal action by Mr. Goddard - the school purse strings, which are now frozen.

Mr. Goddard said that while teachers had gone weeks without pay, church officials in control of the district had used public education money to buy a $200,000 airplane and had funneled school funds and property to the church. They also have an administrative staff of 23 people, compared with 6 at other school districts of the same size, he wrote in a report to the Arizona Education Department.

Mr. Jeffs continues to raise money for his church by ordering his leading followers to donate $1,000 a month and everyone else to give 10 percent of income, Mr. Chatwin said. Some of the sect's top leaders have gone to the Texas compound, where a huge stone temple is under construction and new homes are being built, even as this community appears to be withering away.

'If you can visualize a 90-year-old frail woman who has given everything she owns to the cause and has been left penniless - that is the condition of the town right now,' said Jim Hill, an investigator with the office of the Utah attorney general. 'It's been sucked dry by these people.'"

speed demon 

Any guesses as to what's happening here?

Guy on cell: Yeah I know her, my sister went out with her when she was still a man.

--Washington Square Park
Overheard by: Barry Divola

... 

I wrote a piece on Anita Diamant's (she wrote The Red Tent) new novel The Last Days of Dogtown for KQED's* blog Scene and Unseen.

Has anyone read this book already? I would love to hear what you thought about it.

Please check out my review...here and leave me lots of comments!!


*KQED is the the fabulous and amazing public radio, tv and web presence in the Bay Area

Our government must be stopped. If you've haven't been following what been going on, go here.

This is complicated, but here's the watered-down version:

* Dick & Bush want to go to war in Iraq

* Dick & Bush needs a reason to go to war

* Bush says, in his 2003 State of the Union address, that there are weapons of mass destructions in Iraq (asserts that Iraq recently sought significant quantities of Uranium in Africa, more specifically in Niger)

* Joseph Wilson goes to Niger on the C.I.A.'s dime and discovers that the government is totally bullshitting. Wilson finds nothing. Tells everyone the administration is lying.

* Robert Novak, a conservative right-wing journalist, outs Wilson's wife as a covert C.I.A. operative (putting her and all her colleagues lives' on the line)

* The C.I.A freaks out

* The Government freaks out.
Says whoever leaked the info will be fired. Blah Blah Blah.

* Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald is brought on to investigate the leak

* Novak slinks off under a rock. Denies he did anything wrong by outing Ms. Wilson

* Government lets him go. Instead goes after Judith Miller (with the NYT) and Matthew Cooper (Time magazine) to reveal their sources.

* Miller and Cooper are all, "No way! We ain't telling you shit! That's against our journalistic ethics!"

* Karl Rove, Bush's Chief Political Advisor, is brought in to testify. Turns out Rove spoke to both Novak (in 2003) and Cooper. Told them about Ms. Wilson. He is not fired.

* Novak is still getting away scot-free, Copper works out a deal, Miller is thrown in jail and the C.I.A is still pissed

* This week Attorney Fitzgerald is supposed to reveal what he's been doing for the past 2 years. Things are already leaking out...

* It seems like Dick's been busy. It looks like Dick, in an effort to get Wilson to stop telling everyone that Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction and that the war, essentially, is based on a whole lot of bullshit, OUTED his wife's identity as a C.I.A. operative!

Let this be a lesson: nothing gets in the way of Dick & Bush.

This is so gross. This guy climbed INTO a public TOILET. Can you imagine going to the bathroom, looking down, and seeing someone staring up at you! If he was into that crap (no pun intended) why didn't he just place an ad on craigslist like everybody else.

Here's the AP story:

=======================================================

A Maine man arrested after he was found peering at a teenage girl at a rest-stop outhouse pleaded no contest to criminal trespass, and a judge urged him to seek help for whatever drove him to climb into the waste-filled toilet.

Gary J. Moody was given a 30-day sentence that will be suspended if he maintains good behavior for two years. In exchange for his plea, disorderly conduct charges against Moody will be dropped, as well, if he stays out of trouble.

Moody, 45, of Pittston, Maine, was arrested on June 26 after a 14-year-old girl reported hearing a noise and then seeing a face looking up at her from the pit toilet on U.S. Forest Service property in Albany.

District Court Judge Pamela Albee cited Moody's public humiliation from the ensuing publicity in choosing not to send him to jail.

"This gentleman has been subject to a great deal of media scrutiny and drawn to himself, should I say, notoriety. And a healthy share of bathroom humor, if you will. This is a person who deserves some compassion," she said.

She also fined Moody $1,000 and ordered him to pay $700 restitution. The Forest Service spent $700 pumping out the toilet tank because Moody claimed he was trying to retrieve a wedding ring that had dropped into the toilet.

The waste from the tank was pumped through a screen but no ring was found.

Moody was on probation in Maine after being convicted of operating under the influence in June 2004.

Moody, who declined to comment after Monday's trial, is due in court in Maine on Nov. 8 to answer charges of violating terms of his probation by leaving the state and committing a new crime.

Last night the Hollywood Awards took place. Supposedly it's a harbinger of Academy Award nominations, but that is a total load of b.s.

As is proved by this, "A humbled George Lucas, 'Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith', picked up the Hollywood Movie of the Year, an accolade voted on by fans in an online poll."

What?! How could they possibly think Stars Wars III was the best freakin' movie of the year? Are these "fans" smoking crack? And what on-line poll? I wasn't aware of an on-line poll. Were you?

Other winners included Jake Gyllenhaal (Jarhead) for Breakthrough Actor of the Year, Charlize Theron (North Country) for Actress of the Year, and Joaquin Phoenix (Walk the Line) for Actor of the Year.

the face of defiance 

I was going to do my usual "Overheard in NY Conversation of the Day" posting and was going to write about some...interesting mail I've been receiving regarding a personal essay I had written and I was even going to post something on fluffers, but then I read the news: Rosa Parks, 92, has died.

And now I just don't have the heart to post anything else. All that stuff seems so trivial (and it is) compared to the death of a political, social and cultural icon.

*sigh* It makes me sad. I would like to write a beautiful eulogy expressing what her one act of defiance has meant to so many people and what it came to symbolize for the Civil Rights Movement. I would like to write something terribly scholarly on how far people of color in this country have come since then. But I can't. All I can say is this:

They sure don't make them like they used to.

I'll always remember you Rosa Parks, long after you've gone. Thank you.

excellent 

My review:

Just like director Niki Caro's last feature, the widely acclaimed Whale Rider, North Country also focuses on a small, patriarchal community that is forever changed by a female facing insurmountable odds. Although, in this case, an 11-year old Maori girl is replaced with a thirty-something mother in northern Minnesota, it is met with the same impressive results.

North Country tells the true story of the first sexual harassment class action suit in the country. It's 1989 and Josey Aimes (Charlize Theron) is down-and-out. After leaving her abusive husband, she has no other choice but to return to the home of her old-school archconservative parents, Hank and Alice (Richard Jenkins and Sissy Spacek, both of whom are excellent here), with her children in tow.

After she decides, with the encouragement of an old high school friend, Glory (Frances McDormand), to give up washing hair at a beauty parlor and try for a job as a miner at the Pearson Mines where she could earn up to six times as much, her father reacts with, "You wanna be a lesbian now?" Needless to say, he is not happy with the situation. Neither are the hundreds of other men who all work for Pearson, the largest employer in the area.

The women workers have to suffer a myriad of cruelties ranging from having dildos slipped into their lunch pails and insults smeared on the walls of their locker room in feces to getting manhandled and publicly demeaned. In one provocative scene, a port-o-potty is shaken and overturned by a group of men while one of the female workers is trapped inside resulting in humiliation of the most disgusting kind. Josey's main tormentor is Bobby Sharp (Jeremy Renner) who grabs at her at every chance. Fortunately Glory, her co-worker, friend and union rep, is one hell of a tough cookie, which is how she survives for as long as she does. However, when things finally reach their boiling point, Josey decides to take action and sues Pearson for sexual harassment. Woody Harrelson plays her lawyer, Bill White.

The case goes on to set a national precedent. The Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill hearings, occurring at the same time, put the events in the film into context; i.e. you realize just how backwards our country was, especially regarding sexual harassment in the workplace. Caro weaves the hearings into the story perfectly.

The camerawork is beautiful; she can make even smoke stacks and piles of iron ore look striking. Furthermore, the performances are all pitch perfect, right down to the accents. Each actor, from the headlining stars to those in minor roles, expresses their lines with a natural flare. It would have been very easy to make this into some saccharine, feel-good, small-town-girl-makes-good holiday movie, but Caro strays away from all that sentimental foolishness.

She opts to make a movie that rings true and doesn't fluctuate along a wave of a swelling, grandiose soundtrack. This is best demonstrated through a scene in which Josey's father makes a speech at a union meeting. In most cases, the violins would have been cued and the stage would have been set for a Kleenex moment while he made a long, manufactured speech that no one would ever really make. Instead, he delivers a faltering speech that resounds with authenticity and is, therefore, that much more striking.

North Country is the kind of movie you pay to go see in the theater and make sure not to miss. It is both rousing and entertaining. And, who knows, you just may learn something too.


Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Official Movie Web Site

it's not just a building, it's a state of mind 

Sorry for the lack of updates on Thursday/Friday. I had to pull an all-nighter that lasted for 42 hours...so needless to say, I was busy. Thursday I had two deadlines and had to put the weekly SF Station issue to bed, and then on Friday I had visiting family situations.

One of which required me to take a little trip to the Indian embassy, which was pretty much like going to India itself.

Most embassies are full of pomp and circumstance. They're usually situated in really nice, posh areas. The buildings are made of stone or have brick with ivy crawling over the facade. There are giant flags majestically flitting in the wind.

Not the Indian embassy in San Francisco, which is an unassuming two-story affair squeezed between an animal hospital and a little house with over-active pets (a parakeet and a dog who keep squawking at one another). There is no pomp here.

First of all, there are crowds of confused looking brown people outside the doors looking like they don't know what to do with themselves. When you walk inside it looks like you've stepped into an immigration office in some third world country.

It's stuffy. There are babies crying. Everyone looks like they've been waiting in line for hours and hours. It's like going to the DMV.

In all honestly, the place was run pretty efficiently. We were given semi-clear instructions and we really didn't have to wait all that long in the lines in the morning (we did have to wait in the cold in the afternoon when we had to return).

My uncle needed to have his visa transferred from his old passport into his new passport. A simple cut and paste job, right?

Not here. You have to drop off your paperwork by between 11-12pm and then you have to come back and pick it up at 4pm. It literally takes all day!


bread lines or just waiting to be served at the embassy? 

They run the embassy as if it were extension of a bureaucratic office in India. They want to expose you to whole experience. They want all the immigrants to have a nostalgic taste of their beloved homeland.

If they want to show that they're keeping it real, they're doing an excellent job.

Bhaikaka 

I was on Wikipedia (This thing is so freakin' awesome I can't even stand it! It's got everything! And who puts it all in?) the other day and I started searching around.

I wanted to see just how extensive it actually was so I typed in the most random place I know: Vallabh Vidhyanagar, aka V.V.Nagar, a small town in the state of Gujarat, India (the best state in India as we all know).

To those who live in V.V. Nagar, its not so random, but 90% of the rest of the world has never heard of it, including many Gujaratis. Although, really, it's not so out of the way. It's a university town (Sardar Patel University, SPU) and kids from all around the country go there to study. But still. I thought the powers that be that run Wikipedia would most likely not have it listed.

It should be noted here that much of my family lives in good old V.V. Nagar and I, personally, think it's one of the best places on earth. So, you can imagine my excitement when -- lo and behold! -- they had an actual listing of the town of all towns.

After the British left, they created a total vacuum (they liked to destroy places after they colonized them), and we needed to scramble to rebuild the country. Thus, a whole lot of people needed to be educated. As Wikipedia states, "The reason of foundation of the University and the town was to spread the Education in the Rural Areas of Gujarat . . .SPU proved to be a revolution in Gujarat." It was one of the first places in the state where one could be educated. And it was free.

They even mentioned V.V. Nagar's and Sardar Patel University's illustrious founder Shri Bhailal D. Patel, aka Bhaikaka. Who so happens to be my great-grandfather.

And even though I've been inundated with Patel family propaganda my whole entire life about how great he was and how great the university is, it made me really proud to read about the town, the school and my grandfather from sources who weren't directly related to me. It made me that much more honored.

I mean, if Wikipedia has you on file, you've really made it, right?

Week 4. Crackhead intern arrives wearing the same clothes he wore the night before (yet again) and hung over (yet again). At least this time it was an SF Station t-shirt.

This time however he ate lunch, the first time I've seen him putting anything resembling food into his mouth in the month since he's been here (I've also never seen him drink anything).

I gave him a pair of tickets to go see Cirque du Soleil and he spent the next few minutes trying to figure out exactly which girlfriend he would take to go with him. He got a very naughty look in his eye. I think he made me blush.

Girl: So we could hook up, or go to dinner.
Guy: Well, I don't know. Is the sushi really that good?

--outside Nobu, Hudson Street
Overheard by: Michael

brrrrrr... 

So I'm visiting my best friend in London in a few weeks and this morning she emailed me telling me that it's cold, like really, really cold there.

She gave me a list* of things to bring:

Sweaters
Wool socks
A kettle
Gloves with the fingers cut off
A Gore-tex coat
A ski mask
Shoes fit for sub-arctic weather conditions
Some hats
A flask of scotch
Scarves
A bundle of firewood
Blankets
Thermal underwear

Exactly how cold is it in London? She went on to tell me that the heat in her place doesn't get turned on until 7pm (!) and that it only runs for a little while. In NY, I'm pretty sure that's illegal. If it's cold outside, why are they so cheap with the heat?

I asked my writing partner if he thought it would be okay if I brought my little electric heater with me. He told me "no". He said that it would mess up the electricity in the house or something and may blow the circuits. He told me that my best bet to stay warm would be to go somewhere with a lot of Americans; they would understand the need for heat. He suggested McDonald's (kill me now). He said that English people like to suffer and that it made perfect sense to him why there wouldn't be heat in the apartment even though it's cold.

We came to the conclusion that this is why everyone in the U.K.:
A. drinks so much alcohol
B. drinks so much tea
C. smoke so much
D. sleep around like sluts
and E. eat weird meat products.

They need to keep warm!!! I wonder if I'll take up any of these bad habits while on my trip (all except "D")? If I did, no one could blame me, right? I mean, it would be a matter of survival, no?

I'm going to freeze to death aren't I? =(.


*Okay, fine, so maybe I'm exaggerating a little. But most of it is true.

ooooh, you got in trou-ble... 

There are so many possible reasons for what's happening here...