Land of the Lost (Power)

Still.

Oh good. It will cool off to 95 by Tuesday.

Power Out, Sweatbox City

Hundred thousand people without power from a crazed storm on Friday night, including us – I mean – especially us. Golf outings were postponed. People provided pictures of storm damage. Some via god himself. These are from me and my internet connection is from the local DoubleTree Hotel. I cannot live without fans.

  

  

One Dollar Into Five

Mid-week summary: Nashville, scratch-offs, dead lawn empty stadium push-ups with no shirt, and a record store bathroom.

And one dum migraine.

Entitled

I slept in until noon. Nothing good happens before noon anyway.

That is a little play on what my dad used to say about my curfew --“Nothing good happens after midnight – you don’t need to be out with the riff-raff.” He was so wrong. Do you know how many “buyers” don’t get out of their dishwashing jobs until after midnight? Do you know how many fistfights I got to see after midnight (slightly more than I saw in daylight)? If I hadn’t been practicing my rebellion, I wouldn’t have seen D___ J____ punch out S____ H____n’s windshield in front of M___ H_______ house on that warm august evening in ‘91. Valuable lesson learned: you may not remember the reason for the fight but you always remember the damage.

I’m organizing a fist-fight story zine – to commemorate the last, great generation of young people (mine) so holler at me. Things today aren’t nearly as exciting – maybe nothing good happens after 2012…

Last week the LA Times posted an article about the new trend in young, unemployed singles; enjoyment. Seems it’s blowing people’s mind that young people gladly take their unemployment checks and go golfing. Somewhere in the article they say it is part of the “entitlement” generation. I think they are misusing the term. When it comes to current issues of entitlement I think more of – AIG & Countrywide (and some of the banks that took a chunk of a trillion dollar bailout) and not so much some poor schmuks that got liberal arts degrees and are now only qualified to use Twitter. Who wouldn’t want to enjoy their unemployment?

French Cooking

I hope that I won’t have to post any more food rants (we all know what a telling sign of mental desperation they can be). I fear the last one might have isolated a few of my many readers. I think I was inspired by the preview for that Julia Childs/cooking blog movie that I saw before “Angels & Demons”. What happens when all new movies are unwatchable? Is it the end of cinema? Do people care? What will happen to us? Can you really write a script about a blogger chef? Did anyone see “No Reservations”?

Underwater and Undercooked Rant

I DECLARE: As of last night, I have eaten at my very last sushi restaurant. I don’t eat sushi. I don’t like the taste of almost all fish. It is gag-a-rif-ic to me for three major reasons: temperature, texture, and the haunting scent/taste of sea murder. It reminds me of being nearly drowned to death and emotionally abused at the Grosse Ile Yacht Club and also I am severely allergic. A few of these things are true. It doesn’t matter. I hate seaweed just as much. I can’t even smell the side of a toy boat without yacking and I don’t understand ingesting something that smells like the main ingredient of  phrase spoken when things turn bad (something is fishy here).

I have several friends that hate red meat and a couple that claim to have caught gluten intolerance in the past food-allergy-centric decade. Fine, fine. Different strokes. They too have a few blacklisted menu items, but I am certain that they don’t have to deal with the cultural backlash and social awkwardness that comes from not eating sushi. People (a term I use to cover – um – people of the eastern and western and southern United States) simply cannot get over it. I don’t know if it is their own self-doubt or WWII/Internment camp guilt (second mention this week) or what, but I have had an easier time smoking a cigarette outside of a Gilda’s club (true) than I have just ordering some soup at a Japanese restaurant while they order up their overpriced and undercooked chunks of shit-swimming fish flesh.

In the past I have gone along with my friends to sushi places because they were visiting from out-of-town or severely craving sushi or whatever, and I have said “I don’t eat sushi, I’ll just get soup or beer or some other kind of belly wash – you just enjoy yourself.” But it’s not going to happen anymore because the enjoyment never happens – it is certain that, after being seated, the topic of how I don’t eat sushi will be brought up – not by me, but by the sushi eater. And all it ever does is highlight our differences in taste and it makes everything suspect and unfun.

I can eat pepperoni pizza in front of a vegetarian, what is so hard about enjoying sushi without me eating it? I personally don’t wonder about things like, “how can you NOT like this?!!” (a common statement made by diners choking on seaweed). I know that like snowflakes and thumbprints, we all are different. And just like the fact that I can eat brussel sprouts and olives while you gag, I don’t eat or enjoy the same raw sea beasts that brighten your day. More importantly, I don’t equate your lack of taste for red meat with the typical self-loathing of guilty over-educated Americans (ok, maybe I do…)

What IS this thing about equating cuisine taste with culture? Why do we only selectively insist on false authenticity? If you can eat with chopsticks are you cultured? I remember a story about a friend of a friend that was appalled that a certain Thai restaurant didn’t provide chopsticks (even though forks are totally a-ok in Thailand). Last night I heard the table of polo-shirted southern men joke with the asian waitress (at the sushi restaurant) about how they were just going to order chicken fingers and honey mustard sauce – signifying that they were not typical low-brow uncultured customers. Later when the check came they joked with her that they would be paying with food stamps. How hilarious. I’ll take a quiet alcoholic or near-dead anorexic over an outspoken sushi eater* any day.

* Tested truth: Soy Chai Latte drinkers are actually the most obnoxious people in the western hemisphere. I worked at starbucks. I can confirm this. People that like caramel are generally nice.

Powdery Magnolias

Enjoyed today:

• Moist, grey movable pre-storm Tennessee sky
• Plastic-like magnolia blossoms
• Yoga instructions given by instructor with southern accent, “dawn dawg”
• Fight about Tarantino
• La Croix canned water and two cans of canned sparkling wine
• Pear shaped kitchen timer

The Longest Yard

Favorite ruinenlust sighting yesterday was at Shelby Farms Lucius Burch Jr National Area:

A special place in my heart is reserved for dusty, abandoned, or overgrown ball fields and decaying stands. My old favorite is at Manzanar (visited 06-2006):

Zombieball later?

Thus

Memphis so far:

• Pork eaten:  (est.) 4oz.
• Giant slabs of wood from ill-constructed new table dropped on feet:  (est.) 1 – not my feet though
• Boxes emptied: 2
• Space Bags that re-inflated within 24 hours: 3 (of 5)
• Italian festivals: 1
• Text messages asking “How’s Memphis?!”: 20
• Cheery responses given: 10

These are a few things that would make my life easier in the coming weeks:

1. More hangers
2. A little less humidity on the uptake – outside
3. Have the Lakers win the NBA Championship (not because I am really rooting for them but because the aliens will then leave my new home and life can get back to business)
4. A debutant ball so I could be introduced to southern society and maybe be lucky enough to get featured here
5. A job producing the “Quit Your Job Advice Show”

On The Move.

I just sent my better half a phone pic of a mini mustard bottle. It is the international (maybe even intergalatical) symbol of room service. He hasn’t messaged me back and I can only assume that he is jealous.

TNT keeps going out on my TV but I can still hear the desperation of the Cavs. I got some pop and apples at a grocer called Harris Teeter and my checker-outer guy had a limey accent. It was ok with me but the frazzled momish lady holding three gallons of ice cream was so confused that when he told her he was waiting on a price check that she said, “I’m sorry, you are confusing me.”

Today reminded me that we are conditioned from birth to anticipate a transformational moment with consumerist fervor. I think of a transformational moment as a defining event that says, “I was this, and now I am that.” Today I woke up a Michigan resident and by nightfall I am (shopping at Harris Teeter) claiming Tennessee as my home.

I blame movies or fairy tales or new country or old punch lines or Casey Kasem – who knows really - but whatever it is – It seems like we expect a lot from these namable/giftable moments, but rarely is it a moment that makes things happen. A decision maybe, an eight hour car ride maybe, but not one thing.

More to the point, it seems we try to commemorate events like graduation and moving and births and weddings and suicides with gifts “so you will remember the day forever.”

For example: the untimely gift of a flower in a glass vase (full of water) given to me by my mother when I was loading my car this morning.

She told me it was so I would have something to hold flowers in my new home. A sweet and unpractical gesture since I wasn’t even able to pack a tootsie roll piggy bank and a certain bottle of shampoo because it was too breakable – this move is a 700-mile move light. So I had to leave the flower and the water and the vase and drive away with the horrible guilt that you can only get from being home and getting odd gifts from your family. 

Believe me, save your gifts – or make them edible - I will never forget these moments.

“You can never run away, never. The only way out is in.” - Lola in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (audiobook I just finished on my ride)

Packed.

Up Against an Old Giant

 

I’m moving again and I feel less like packing than last time and last time ended with me calling a St. Vincent De Paul truck to pick up everything that wouldn’t fit in my sedan just so K and I could make our reservation at Mandalay Bay.

Comforting prickly plant facts:

 

The Saguaro Cactus don’t even get their wings – I mean arms - until they have been around for 200 years.

Cactus need very little water to survive.

Cactus look good in direct sunlight.

Tune In

To the Vistas Video Vimeo Channel for more great, brief, and confusing Vistas Videos like this one:

I added several more. I am always looking for submissions and people with steady hands.

Dirty Lensed Look At Death Valley

New in the Vistas Video Channel:

Desert Attack

Jamie is clueless as Bethany runs to save Kelly from certain demolition. A ghost mounts a bicycle. It is sunny.

Home. Facing the Sun.

 

                                                                         Cari’s here!

To battle jetlag you must not take time so seriously.

You also can try some hangover remedies (because jetlag can make you feel like you beer bonged your way home) specifically the kinds that include raw eggs and V8 juice.

But what really works is to stay up until midnight local time and no matter what –go to sleep at midnight local time - and I am trying - at all costs. Even if it means one more Michelob Ultra Lime Cactus flavored drink and one more episode of Unwrapped. (I’m obviously a tastemaker and gourmet)

I have every intention of posting mindscrambling photo essays of my trip. Soon. You can look forward to: impressive taxidermy, Arizona Jaguars, giant cactus, ill ballerinas and fresh desert dancers, infinite hot land love, measurable friendship, wings of airplanes, LA light, and a bit o green-tinted Dodger Stadium.

Til then. Hang tuff.

Out of Town Again

Headed west! Check Tumblr for pic updates – see you back on May 18th!

FlowePow

 

Another day with the sis in West Mich. Tuliptime, Bison, Wooden Shoes, Swingsets on Lake Michigan, and millions of dead bugs and gallons of their guts on my windshield.

Complete and Total Flash Authorization

We ran into him outside first, the ageless Gerald R. Ford Museum security guard, K was holding an umbrella and he said to her, “you think that is really necessary?” And she stepped out of the rain puddle near the astronaut statue and into the sunlight. She didn’t ask if the umbrella was legal because she knew that he was a security guard, not a cop. He dealt only with order while cops deal with the law.

He’d already lingered too long, he was the cable guy, the mall cop in the movies, the boring cousin, the ex-con on day release.

We lost him during the first part of our tour and saved The White House in Miniature until the end of our museum visit, knowing that the sight of miniature things would make us pass out (as it does for most women) and we were working on a new Vistas Video when he came out of a dark corner, his voice again directed at K, “you have a pan-o-ram-ick camera?”

“Nope, we are very busy doing something extremely awesome with a regular camera.”

“You want to see the room where the Monica Lewinsky thing happened?” He points to a bottom corner office in the elaborate mini white house. Gross.

And then he hands us a brochure, “This is the last one from the back rooms. It’s from the 70s.”

This is the front and the back and an excerpt from a creepy color drawing inside that was placed between the LBJ and Nixon entries:

He watched us circle the house, this security guy, the miniature-ness was not making me feel like passing out because every time I tried to point something out to  K, like a hockey game live on a mini tv set, he, the security guy would comment on it. Every time I tried to take a picture of her and he’d say “Ha! That is a cool shot. You want to use your flash? You can you know, I will let you. You normally can’t.”

“No, that’s ok. I don’t need a flash.”

K tells me she saw him try to offer a small child some unpackaged skittles from his pocket and the kid refused and left the room.

He makes a few more Monica Lewinsky references.

You can hear him here a lil bit (try not to pass out from the mini-ness)

He finally asks us if we want our picture taken together. We agreed and stood in front of the miniature White House, looking like giant glamazons about to smash the nation’s capital. And he snaps one, looks at it and says, “Ooooh. It’s a little dark. I’m going to have to turn the flash on. It’s cool though. I can authorize it.” And zing, the flash goes off and he hands the camera back to us.

A sound comes from his shoulder and he leans into his security guard radio contraption and says, “No, it’s cool. I authorized it.” He looks at us, “they caught your flash,” and we are like ok, who gives a F and he says, “don’t worry, I told them I ok-ed it.”

“Thanks,” we said.

Now if this thirty year old exhibit wastes away from the decay-inducing light of harsh electronic flash bulbs, it should be known that it is this young security guard, suffering from boredom-induced borderline personality disorder, handing out authorizations to anybody. With people like him guarding our nation’s precious artifacts, who needs a Library of Congress or rules, or laws, or order?

Lil May!

Happy May Day to all you Labor people and pagans.

I’m looking forward to many things this month like seeing my LA friends, and Martha, and the desert, and Arizona, and moving to Memphis and finishing up my job and sweating in the south, but I can’t wait for all the days with the lil drawings:

Man in Space! Truman’s Birthday! JFK’s Birthday! Lindenbergh’s Flight!

Today’s Brain File

• Muriel Rukeyser
• How They See Us
• Chuck Bowden and The Sicario
• Los Angeles Police Historical Society
• Cadillac
  

Carnivorous and/or Dead Flowers, Yes.

I loved all the daffodils and tulips and hyacinths at the Meijer Gardens today but I especially liked the plants that feed off bug flesh.

Paul Chester, Plastic Molester

My mom took fifteen minutes to tell me that she pulled a blow-up doll out of the ditch near the field across the road. note: she was wearing gloves

She is not the best storyteller because she leaves out parts, essential parts – like leaving out the time and place and sometimes the circumstances of the event. I think she does this because she believes withholding creates narrative suspense but in reality it is just confusing. (This was also her parenting method in case anyone wants to know why I always think you are messing with me) She skips from “I found a plastic bag on my walk” to “and then I see it – hair and that mouth! A mouth just. She looks frightened. Oh my ...”

And I have no idea what she is talking about but she looks at me, waiting for me to make the connection from plastic bag to sex toy in the weeds and I am thinking what on earth is she talking about? Did she find a dead girl? A wet ferret? A photograph? An invitation to another baby shower? Is she talking to someone in the other room? What?

But eventually the story takes shape and my mom leads me outside to the family trash bin and opens up a black plastic bag.

“It must have been there all winter! Look at her hair.”

Seeing a violated, deflated, and discarded plastic person crumpled up next to your parents empty Dream Dinner containers is more upsetting than you’d think. I don’t want to have this image in my mind so I share it with you. When you look at it. Think of your mother.

To Be Like Elvis Spaghetti

Is to smell of The Parkview, to reek like the inside of a can of Chef-Boyardee Beefaroni emptied yesterday, to gather like the crust near the spout on the top of that plastic ketchup container, and to slime like like a noodle gone rogue six cycles in a dishwasher.

That’s it. That is how I feel.

Faves.

Things that remind me of Friends

Late night drive. Back from Memphis. Good luck making sense of this late night post.

I usually park my car at one of the cheap lots two miles from airport so I have to take a shuttle bus back with the rest of the traveling poor. I like it because I get to interact with people at the peak of their travel fatigue.

There is always someone that talks about the weather and how they should have brought some sunshine back from Vegas/Hawaii/North Carolina.

And often there’s a pissy wife pissing on her husbands good time.

Or a big ol’ shuckster business guy making friends with everybody.

Or an old couple complaining about what a hassle it is to fly.

I would think they (the old folk) would be really glad that we can travel by air nowadays because I used to play that “Oregon Trail” video game and I seem to remember that repairing wagon wheels (which, by the way break very often) always took two days minimum off a pilgrimage.

I didn’t get to take the monorail 1/3 of the way across the Mississippi River today because everything except Schwabs is closed on Monday. But there will be plenty of time for that when I return.

Upon my return, I will also find out more about the painting in this room:

Props to the stylish and haunting mannequins in The Woodruf-Fontaine House. Here are some things that remind me of Beth.

Out and About

I'm off to The Bluff City. Check le Tumblr for on-the-go pics.

And here is a drawing of my favorite Memphis Pre-War Apartment Building, The Parkview:

What is this?

I want to prove that it is possible to have a blog that isn’t rant-based, but I’ll wait until I share the last two paragraphs of an LA Times article about the new HBO Movie “Grey Gardens”:

It's true. Toward the end of the HBO film, Little Edie's black and white jacquard pants, paired with a black lace who-knows-what draped over her top and head, reminded me of Marni, the quirky Italian collection designed by Consuelo Castiglioni.
But really, this film and the documentary get at the very core of style, which is not about fitting in or following a trend, but making the most of what you've got. And in times like these, it's nice to be reminded that style doesn't cost a thing.

OH. THAT is what the documentary was about. STYLE.

It’s not about following a trend! Just be yourself.

That information is so new and refreshing. I feel like I just drank a wheelbarrow full of concrete while sitting in a tub of honey.

AuthentiK Beauty

I picked up this free pub on campus last week. Every article in it is written by the same author, a woman who calls herself an Inner Beauty Psychologist and writes MA, MA, PsyD after her name.

I don't want to scan too much without permish but here is a page from the "Is he an Appetizer, Dessert, Meat & Potatoes or Full Course Meal Man?" - We all knew Clinton is a "dessert" man from his jellbell and the way he loves to feel guilty!

Seeing this in a picked-over stack next to the main Detroit alt weekly at the student center got me so inspired! I want to do my own inner/outer beauty post-cosmo, post-prepackaged food era, publication.

I will write articles about What to Do With "his baby" After You Have It.

I will sign all my articles S__andSo__, BFA, MA, UFO.

Wink.

Instant Urban Legend

Today was the first day everyone was back on campus after the shooting. I have decided to call it the shooting even though when I addressed my class I use the terms “tragic event” and “crazy female-hating-shotgun-toting-fucker invasion” and “the, ya know, thing that happened here.”

I knew that I’d get to hear the other side of the whole ordeal if I opened it up to the class. One of my back-of-the-room students told everyone about how during an attendance call in an earlier class, a professor called out the name of the shooter and her class went silent. She hadn’t even known that the shooter was her student. According to the storyteller, the prof started crying and said something about how he (the shooter) was so quiet, she never knew. She cried so much that she sent the students home. Other stories circulating were something about phone calls the shooter made to the Detroit Police warning them what he was going to do, another about an ongoing MySpace fight that got out of hand, another about how so and so had just talked to the victim and they knew something was wrong, and another few suggestions about connections to religious cults.

There is something about violent crime or gnarly events that ignite the storyteller in all of us. I’ve been around just enough violent crime to know that no story, no event ever goes un-topped. Either someone adds some flavor to the original event or someone has to tell about the time this one girl rrrrreally got shot, or this one family was held hostage and robbed, or this one crazy homicidal maniac did this or that with a curling iron…

It feels like something is happening when we tell  horrific stories, we listen, we shake our heads, we can’t even believe how awful people can be. And today, when I looked around the room at the faces of the people listening, among the raised eyebrows and tilted heads I recognized the few drawn faces of those that had lived out one of those stories before. The last time I felt that uncomfortable I ended up in a three-month malt liquor and codeine syrup stupor.

I hope everyone pulls through.