can you say... gulag?

The first amendment apparently does not extend to those caught in the Bush administration gulag:

http://alternet.org/rights/50995/

(just in case you need something fun to read today)

NTD

This news story scares the bejeezus out of me:

http://alternet.org/drugreporter/50948/

For commentary on this incident, we now turn to novelist and Merry Prankster, the late great Ken Kesey:

I believe with the advent of acid, we discovered new ways to think and it has to do with piecing together new thoughts of mind. Why is it that people are so afraid of it? What is it about it that scares people so deeply? Because they are afraid that there is more to reality than they have ever confronted. That there are doors that they are afraid to go in and they don't want us to go in there either, because if we go in there we might learn something that they don't know. And that makes us a little out of their control. - Ken Kesey

NTD

She-Babes Cavalcade of Sports Ruled Not Obscene

I'm not sure whether the ACLU would take this case. But in the virtual world that is Ebay.com, I have a grievance which cannot be properly addressed at this time - but what are blogs for if not to bitch and rail and moan against the great injustices of the word? I'm talking war, Republicans, global warming... and vintage female wrestling videos.

When I offered She-Babes Cavalcade of Sports: Volume One for sale on Ebay, I thought that it might attract the following customers:

- wrestling aficionados
- lesbians
- collectors of the Something Weird video series

The film is comprised of fifties and sixties wrestling footage. There's a roller derby sequence thrown in to round it out. And, yes, there's two loops of gratuitous topless wrestling. But the women do not resemble Jenna Jameson, and there's no - how shall I put this - hitting below the belt. It might be sexy in Soviet-era Siberia, but I've seen hotter episodes of The Partridge Family.

However, about twelve hours after posting the listing, Ebay kicked my video right off their respectable site and offered me a school-marm message about putting THOSE sorts of videos in the adults-only category where they belong - which is where one would find midget pornography and foot worshipping leather daddies. You would have thought that I was the MILF next door offering chocolate chip cookies to unsuspecting choir boys in the neighborhood, just waiting for a chance to corrupt their godly little minds.

I guess that the fun word "She-Babes" and the unrated status of the film raised the red flag. But there's no recourse in the human-free land of Ebay Customer Service.

I'll probably just die one day clutching my unsalable copy of She-Babes Cavalcade of Sports. And the world will wonder why it meant so much to me... and no one might know by then that, for me, it was like Ginsberg's 'Howl' and Miller's 'Tropic of Cancer'... whether or not it is ART might be subjective, but, by God, this thing is not obscene. And if it's for 'mature audiences', then what is 'mature' - grown-ups who love a good wrestling match?

As far as I am concerned: we are ALL She-Babes.

Pssst... hey kid, wanna buy a video?

NTD

Wilderness: Just Call Me Marlin Perkins

We have a cat who lives about half of his waking life on our porch here in south Georgia. He's not OUR cat; he belongs to somebody around here. We call him Homer (as in the Greek author of the Iliad, not Father of Bart). My daughter named him for his relentless meowing, which she believes are elaborate epics he wants to share. His friend Joan the cat sometimes stops by... she's Joan of Arc, named for her considerable courage. I observed her once blocking a hawk from swooping down on our neighborhood chicken. She and the chicken have been pretty tight buddies ever since.

I've owned this house on a residential street less than three blocks from the courthouse since 1993. It has become my personal wildlife sanctuary. I was thinking about it this morning, about how many different critters have lived here or just visited.

Wildlife I have loved watching in my yard includes:
- a deer who quietly wandered across the grass around 3 a.m. once
- bats around the pecan trees at dusk
- an eagle that landed on a large branch for a rest
- the frog that lives in the weeds I used to call a garden
- honeybees in the azalea bushes
- barred owls
- the little green lizards underneath the porch
- bluebirds and cardinals and thrashers
- compost-loving opossums
- butterflies and moths

Wildlife I have wished would move on (or finally did):
- the rat that crawled out of the fireplace and ate my Birkenstock
- the squirrels that tap dance in the attic
- fire ants
- giant man-eating mosquitoes
- termites
- clouds of gnats
- palmetto bugs and silverfish
- bedbugs (tea tree oil and lots of hot water did the trick)
- one mentally ill poodle who wandered away from my neighbor's house

I hope to move permanently to my other home in the mountains within a year. But the thought of leaving this place makes me nostalgic - in advance - for everything that south Georgia is to me.

Except for the gnats, mosquitoes, fire ants and the roaches. There are some things that I won't miss.

NTD

Spain is happening in two weeks.

The panic is setting in. I can't say anything in Spanish which does not appear on El Sombrero's menu. My daughter says that I have to get a debit card, something I have never used in my life. I'm self-employed, buddy, and cash flow usually means CASH. But dollars aren't Euros, so I have to modernize. And she tells me to bring grits and tea bags. My southern girl, after a few months in Europe she misses her Georgia breakfast and sweet iced tea.

I tried on my bathing suits last night and almost cried. And we're staying near the beach.

Pollo y Dos Equis, y'all?
NTD

Dear Ebay,

The weekend was wonderful with you. I felt heady and happy going through my closet and drawers, looking for something to offer you. My Ebay... that's the special page you keep with my name on it, and it had been too long. It almost felt like old times, back around 2000, when I would give you precious little mementoes of my life. You would stuff them in your virtual pockets and gypsy around the globe looking for others who would see the wonder in them. Then they would have to cough up a wad of cash, buy an international money order, and send it to me from Kyoto. Or Queensland. Or Slovenia. It was all so romantic in those pre-Paypal days... I would wait at the window for the postman to arrive, then rush out to see who had sent me an envelope. I would sometimes keep the stamps from the countries I would never see. But I would be happy, knowing that there was a Deadhead in Turkey who needed every eighties issue of Relix magazine, or that a jazz musician in New Zealand would be playing a Count Basie arrangement from my copy of his half-century old songbook.

But, dearest Ebay, things are a little... different between us now. Does that pesky world banking system PayPal really have to follow us everywhere? And why do you charge me so much just to handle a few pairs of high heels (what was I thinking, ever trying to tart myself up like that?) and some vintage items which I have kept on a shelf until we - you and me, Ebay - would have time to be together again? It's like you put on a business suit and tie, and your pocket change doesn't jingle against your thigh anymore. I think that your friend PayPal is handling all your money. And I've heard rumors - tell me that it's not true - that you tell the IRS anything that they ask.

But I'm still hoping that things will work out between us, E. The final value of these seven day auctions will either reveal the old magic, or else I'll have to look elsewhere - my old friend Yard Sale has been calling my name. And Y.S. even loves the ugly, dollar store parts of my life - the plastic containers, the chipped dishes, the collection of t-shirts - things that you never cared about, Ebay. No, Yard Sale might not have the Big Bucks, but Y.S. takes all of me, as I am.

No matter where this relationship goes, Ebay, we'll remember the good times. We'll always have Australia. And the Yucatan. And Alaska... who would have thought that those 1969 Coca-Cola print pants would fly all the way to Juneau? Or my original VHS copy of Easy Rider? Good times, yesiree.

Love,
NTD

In other news...

Happy Earth Day!

Second Runner-Up

Unbelievable.

My recently-shorn daughter, with just a trace of makeup, a bad self-manicure, a streaky airbrush tan, and a mocking giggle, managed to beat out several pageant veterans with their considerable sequin collections to win second runner-up in her high school beauty pageant. Her 'casual attire' included a clearance rack pair of $3.00 capris and a Goodwill polo shirt. Her dress was a marked-down red Marilyn Monroe 7-Year-Itch knee-length number safety-pinned to ensure proper modesty for a seventeen year old high school student. She was Little Miss Sunshine in a roomful of prom queens. Despite my feelings about beauty competitions, I couldn't help but be proud of her ability to charm.

Her drama teacher bought several of us moms drinks at the bar later. The ex-wife of my ex-husband's divorce lawyer and I danced to some righteous Marshall Tucker covers. The local chiropractor played drums. He had sat right behind us earlier at the pageant, yelling support for his onstage daughter Katie who was lovely in pink sateen and black lace.

The daughter and I discussed the evening around 1 a.m. in the Taco Bell drive-through line while watching sorority girls pile into the king cab ahead of us after peeing all over the Bell's shrubbery. We agreed that, sometimes, you just have to say "f*** it" and go with the south Georgia flow, if only to stave off boredom.

Almost everything about small-town pageantry is wrong-headed - like the Deep South emphasis on football, church, and the Civil War, the valuable little truths are usually buried beneath the great good old boy god named Tradition. But the one beautiful thing which I observed at the pageant was not the Miracle of Strapless Bras, or the Value of Hair Extensions - it was the much-more versatile practice of Grace Under Pressure.

NTD

Technically-Challenged

I was screaming in the house alone this morning, cursing the cable company in general and my modem in particular. Thank goodness my daughter missed it all, instead spending the morning at school practicing her runway walk for tonight's beauty pageant (note to self: schedule post-pageant martinis with other liberal mothers who also wonder how they, too, wound up purchasing cherry red nail polish, stiletto heels and tanning salon appointments for their offspring this week). There was no internet service - my provider seemed to have failed me. I pretend that web-codependency is nonexistent in my household. This is the state of denial in which I live, however, evidenced by the various stages of grief which I began experiencing last night when three of the five little modem lights refused to even blink for me.

This morning I was deep in the anger stage, phone book in one hand and phone in the other, preparing to call the service department. I was deciding whether to demand one free month of internet service or two and wondering whether I should go for (1) apeshit righteous indignation or (2) a mature and calm sense of disappointment.

And then I noticed that the cable was unplugged from the modem.

NTD

Let's see, what has happened since Friday the 13th (when I last wrote):

- Stewart and I squandered yet another few seconds of our fifteen minutes of fame by appearing in an Asheville newspaper photograph while hiding behind masks featuring the face of a local councilman. Said council member attended a recent concert at the Civic Center and claimed that the place "smelled like an Amsterdam hash bar". He apparently dispatched every uniform not currently serving in Iraq to make the Civic Center safe for those stricken with reefer madness. As a result, we got to dance at the Widespread Panic show in the shadow of many policeman who were reduced to threatening nicotine addicts with possible expulsion for the sin of smoking cigarettes inside the building. What a waste of taxpayer money. But we got masks of the mocked councilman for souvenirs, and one of them hangs proudly in my bathroom today.

- My lovely youngest daughter turned seventeen on the day we refer to as "Hitler's Birthday Eve" since my kid hates the acknowledgment of her birthday.

- The news this week sucked, of course. I have not turned on the television or consulted YouTube. I know enough about it already, just like everyone does.

- My passport finally arrived. Now I can run away whenever I want.

NTD

Rational thinking which is free from assumptions ends in mysticism... this is the paradox which dominates our spiritual life. - Albert Schweitzer

Dreadless

I think the Kid looks adorable without dreads... think Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday, or Leslie Caron in An American in Paris. I told her so. I also pointed out her swan-like neck which was formerly buried beneath a couple of pounds of matted brown hair. She remained sad. I suggested that she wash out the hair products which salons feel compelled to massage into every customer's scalp - those Laurie Anderson spikes were a bit much. I felt like buying the Kid a drink, but she's only sixteen. So I bought her a giant sweet tea and a plate of pasta instead.

We arrived at the house. Her boyfriend drove up soon afterward. "It's not as bad as I thought it would be", he said. That one's got a way with words, I tell you. But they exchanged such a long silent hug that I had to walk away and give them space. And hopefully, she'll be okay.

This morning as she told me goodbye, the Kid had on a vintage skirt and looked beautiful. Classy, even. I think it's going to be fifties bohemian around here for a while.

NTD

R.I.P. Kurt Vonnegut

If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC

- Kurt Vonnegut, 2006

NTD

The Dreaded Day has Arrived

The Kid woke up this morning and told me that she wanted to cut her dreads off. Today.

So we're going to Savannah in search of a sympathetic stylist. And maybe later, a walk on the beach.

NTD

If only I were a wrinkled, mean-spirited white man...

...like Don Imus. Then I would feel free to insult whoever I want and know that my employer would merely "review the situation" and then tell me to apologize and take two weeks off.

But even if I had the carte blanche that Imus has, I might use it to make constructive remarks rather than calling the Rutgers women's basketball team "nappy-headed hos" or fellow MSNBC employee Contessa Brewer a "fat ass" and a "skank" on-air.

Don Imus went on Al Sharpton's show to allegedly apologize, then blurted out in frustration "I can't get anywhere with you people". Sharpton patiently explained it this way: "This is about setting a precedent that allows racist language to be used in mainstream, federally regulated television and radio. What you said was racist ... This is not about whether you're a good man. It's about how you devalue how my daughter and the daughters of a lot of people listening are going to be looked at in this world".

That is so reasonable, and wise. And yet I get three white people in any room and one of them will smirk upon mention of Al Sharpton, as if he is the punch line to some unspoken racist joke.

Only in America can a white man regularly make racial and sexist slurs while continuing to greet respected commentators and attempt to hold serious political discussions on his show. Why don't Cokie Roberts and Tom Oliphant just say no to appearing on Imus in the Morning?

NTD

Feeling decaffeinated

Coffee leads men to trifle away their time, scald their chops, spend their money, all for a little base, black, thick, nasty, bitter, stinking nauseous puddle water. - The Women's Petition Against Coffee, 1674

Can't write... out of coffee... must go buy some ... will be back....

NTD

Why is it...

... that some people can consume mass quantities of legal and illegal substances and remain standing, while I reluctantly pop a single OTC Claritin to keep the overpollinating symptoms of spring at bay and find myself laid out on the sofa all afternoon?

It's Saturday night - maybe I'll get CRAZY later and swallow a couple of aspirins too.

NTD