...but now I see

I was sitting in a coffee shop in downtown Anchorage, killing time and playing on the 'net. I had been there for several hours on account that I had almost 12 to slaughter. Anyway, it was the kind of place that locked their restrooms to prevent non customers from wandering in and relieving themselves; the key was tied to an espresso filter and left laying on the counter. All this was explained in a sign on the bathroom door

A blind man comes into the shop, wagging about his cane. He goes over to the restroom-- I think nothing of it. About ten minutes later, I too needed to use the facilities. I get the key, head to the restroom, and find the blind man and his cane patiently waiting outside, apparently under the impression the lavatory was occupied-- clearly, he was unable to read the sign.

Overcome with a sense of awkwardness, I returned the key to the counter and fled into the gray Alaskan afternoon.

It occurred to me that this might have made me a terrible person. Karma confirmed this.

At the airport, right before boarding the plane, a man says to me, "Has anyone ever told you that you look like Larry the Cable Guy?" I, quite frankly, wanted to die. I hurried onto the plane and sat down for my five hour flight, only to discover a banshee infant to my right and an ape-like child napping to my left. The ape-like child was very well behaved for the entire flight; the banshee child lived up to it's name.

I am very tired.

Bush/Nixon

I know that the above picture is... aggressive, but this is not, really, going to be a tirade comparing our most disgraced president to the controversial man who just left office.  They are not really the same in any way, other than infamy, in my opinion.

First though, a little bit about the Academy award nominated Frost/Nixon.  It is fine.  It is entertaining, and occasionally it reaches beyond into moments that are truly extraordinary but they, alas, do not last.  The film is directed rather pedestrianly, but no one can be expected, least of all Ron Howard, to reinvent the wheel with what is essentially a performance piece.  And, yes, that's what it is.  Frank Langella as Richard M. Nixon is sublime, Michael Sheen as David Frost is very good; Rebecca Hall is beautiful, Kevin Bacon is steely, Oliver Platt is comic relief-- everyone does a fine job.   

Instead, this is a post (like a similar post on Gus van Sant's Milk) about how bloody goddamn timely the film is.  The David Frost interviews were the point when an angry, disillusioned America got what they wanted (and deserved) from a president who had tarnished the office, the country, and himself: not necessarily an apology, but at least an admission of guilt.  Afterwards, they were free to move on.

And here we are, in 2009, deserving the same thing from a man guilty of the same sins.  Richard Nixon (according to Howard's film and most widely accepted accounts of him) was an intelligent man, ill-at-ease with himself.  He had the brevity to accept guilt, inwardly at least (the Frost confession is still far from an outright confession), and contained the admirable ability to self-doubt.  George W. Bush is of middling intelligent, filled with bravado-- I doubt he believes he has done anything wrong, nor could he ever admit to doing so.

And that is a shame.  More shameful, however, is that there is no clamor for any such apology for any alleged wrongdoings... or even a clear explanation.  Despite all the blatant lies about such a wide range of things and all the lives ruined because of said lies, no one seems to care... It's as if the last eight years, with all their horrendous nonsense, were just one of those things.  And, I suppose, it is-- in the modern age of American and world politics-- but only because we allow it to.

I suppose that John F. Kennedy was the last time America actually believed in any of it's leaders (of course, I could be wrong-- maybe we've always mistrusted and blindly accepted, from Washington and Jefferson through the modern day-- maybe we've always elected shepherd instead of Commanders in Chief and history has convinced us otherwise) then he was shot and we were given Johnson and his Vietnam fiasco followed by the Nixon scandals.  Behold, the fathers of American cynicism, producing their heirs in Reagen, Clinton and the Bushes.  Is Obama any better?  Theoretically, a week in, he seems honest anyway, which is refreshing change.

Yes, I know that Bush will never apologize or even admit any wrongdoings in his eight years in office-- he will ride horses and drink O'Douls content with his legacy.   America needed to heal after Watergate-- we demanded something from Nixon, he replied, and left us with bitter scars.  I think we need to heal again after eight years of executive misuse-- yet we demand nothing from Bush, he acts accordingly, and leaves us with open wounds.

On the Birthday of Jackson Pollock...

...allow me a moment to decry the fact that I have been to Cody, Wyoming, the birthplace of the great painter, and was aghast to find that, for the most part, the otherwise lovely town is unaware that they are, in fact, the birthplace of Jackson Pollock. 

They are, however, greatly aware that their town was founded by Buffalo Bill Cody.  They hold a rodeo in his honor.  The kind woman at the Chamber of Commerce offered plenty of information on said rodeo.  She did not know who Jackson Pollock was. 

Two previously posted personal photos from the National Gallery in Washington, D.C.

On Missing Trains

Of all the stories posted here-in, this is perhaps the one of which I am least proud.  Stories of drugged and drunken exploits come with moderate bragging rights, travel tales have their own appeal, but this is a tragedy of hubris and stupidity of which I am ashamed.  To begin, some back ground information:

The Amtrak passenger train City of New Orleans passes through Newbern, Tennessee on it's north-south run from Chicago to New Orleans.  My family live a bit more than an hour from Newbern and when traveling home for a visit this train is the most comfortable, most cost-efficient and generally the easiest mode of transport.  I have ridden this train several times and boarded and exited at this station each time.

So, poised to board the train early in the morning of December 26th me and my father (a semi-driver for more than 35 years) arrived at the station, watched a few freight trains pass, and ascertained that the the tracks to our left headed north and the tracks to the right headed south.  We were so sound in our knowledge that when an Amtrak passenger train came rolling up at precisely the time my New Orleans-bound train was scheduled to arrive, that we watched it stop, watched passengers deboard, and watched it roll away certain in our sense of cardinal directions and positive that that train had come from New Orleans and was headed to Chicago.

Newbern is an unmanned station, so there was no one to ask as to how late my train was going to be.  We did however ask one of recently exited passengers from where she originated.  When she said Chicago, I stared at her disbelievingly, then stared at the tracks and realized that we had been wrong.  I had missed the train, or rather, mistook the train, which is probably just as bad.

Deeply shamed, me and my father were.  We studied the tracks for a while and decided that even if we were wrong, we were wrong in the most logical way and that our wrong assumption was the easiest assumption to make.  We drove away, cursing the silly train for traveling north to south in such a haphazard way.  Pride cometh before the fall-- I boarded the train later in the week and arrived safely back in the Crescent City.

Smells like a wet dog...

I see plenty of bad movies, in theaters and out, and am not always inspired to write a missive of them, but with Slumdog Millionaire I think it important I do.  The film is, to say the least, well received.  It's garnered several year-end critics prizes and Golden Globe nominations, it has a 93% approval rating on Rotten Tomato (for comparison, Milk also has 93%, Doubt has 76% and Australia a mere 53%) and won the Audience Award at the Toronto Film Festival.  The film seems poised to walk headfirst into several Oscar nominations once they are announced and I stand back, aghast, at all this critical praise for such a terrible film.  Here is a film almost as awful as it's title, and there will be a backlash.  Here is this year's Crash.  I want it known I was against it from the first, and didn't jump aboard once it became trendy.

     Let me point out that I went in predisposed to pleasure-- you're looking at a Danny Boyle fan.  Trainspotting.  28 Days Later.  Millions.  These are all good films (okay, Trainspotting is a great film, but this is not a post about that.)  Yet here... here he has the most simplistic, nonsense, annoying, stupid story to tell and despite abundant style and beautiful, kinetic location shooting he can't rise above it. 

Here is a film about a poor slumdog from the streets of Mumbai whose destiny is to reunite and live happily ever after with a girl from his youth.  Throw in the fact that the girl is kept by gangsters, one of which is the slumdog's brother and that can either add a level of intrigue and emotional resonance to the whole affair or turn it pedestrian, either way, still not ridiculous.  Now let's mix in the fact that the boy's destiny leads him to the Indian version of 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire' so that... the girl can see him on TV and come to the studio and find him.  Ehh, okay... a film with a stupid premise can still prevail.  This one doesn't.

For starters, the structure is annoying.  The boy is being interrogated and tortured because officials are certain he cheated to get as far as he did on the game show.  Of course he didn't and he explains in flashback how destiny gave him the exact answers to the exact questions he would be asked.  This could work with a little finesse and subtlety, but instead we seem hammered down by the fact that DESTINY HAS BROUGHT HIM HERE! He is asked who invented the revolver-- cut to a scene where his brother threatens him with a Colt.  He's asked a question about a Bollywood movie star-- this leads to an anecdote where he falls into a pay toilet and runs about covered in shit.  Oh destiny, you wily muse!  The editing of the question and the answer so deliberately draws attention to the destiny device, which can't sustain much scrutiny.

So, the destiny angle doesn't work and grows extremely tedious extremely fast.  It goes unanswered how he passed the preliminary exams to get on the show, or what posseses him to even try-- however, I'm not sure the film realizes it leaves him no motivation.  There's a curious scene in an office building where he seems poised to call the show... but instead calls his brother, who, as earlier stated, is a gangster.  The gangster episodes seem as though someone owns copies of Boyz N the Hood and Scarface and keeps them on continuous loop until they are engrained in the psyche permanently.  No one in these scenes behaves plausibly at any time.  Consider, as an example, a scene where the brother climbs into a bathtub filled with cash to be shot down in a barrage of gunfire.  Why?  Metaphor, I suppose.

What this film needs is a nice shot of whimsy and some common sense.  Boyle never satisfyingly works together the juxtaposition of the harsh environment with the fairy tale story, and that handicaps him fatally.  And it doesn't help that the destiny/romance plot line is SO SO SO predictable and uninvolving.  I couldn't get behind anything I was seeing on the screen.  There's no way such fluff could generate real emotions and the film is far to high-minded to adequately manipulate them.  I think Boyle wanted to create something about how hope can survive in the harshest of places, a lovely little piece that would show the dark underbelly of extreme poverty and make it accessible to the masses through a charming against-all-odds romance.  Epic fail, Mr. Boyle.

These characters!  Dev Patel plays the lead boy with all the charisma of a wet mop.  He has one expression-- put-upon, and watching him trying to act his way through is like chasing a deer through the woods with a meat cleaver.  Frieda Pinto, as the girl, is stunningly lovely, yet hopelessly stupid and vapid.  The brother character is nothing mre than a plot device used to elicit emotional responses from the hero.  He has no motivations, no desires, no anything.  Just cue cards reading 'maudlin', 'vile', and 'irritating' to which he imitates in accordance. And the host of the show makes Regis Philbin look like Oscar Wilde.

Oh. My. God.  This film is just awful-- trite, stupid and, worst of all, boring.  And the fact that it's receiving such praise is baffling.  I know it's been a hard year, with a brutal election and an endless war and a downward-spiraling economy and everyone wants to be heart-warmed, or at least reminded that there are people worse off than they are, but seriously, this year also brought us Wall-E and Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day... hell, even Funny Games was more pleasant than this.

How Far We've Come

I'll say very little about the technical and cinematic qualities of Gus Van Sant's film, Milk.  It is a good movie, probably as good as you expect it to be and maybe a little more.  It represents a return to mainstream cinema for Van Sant, but not a surrender to it.  The indie spirit still occasionally shines through.  It contains very strong work from Sean Penn, James Franco and Josh Brolin, possibly the best work of any of their careers, and they are all very likely Oscar contenders.  As a film, it is very successful.

As a cultural statement it is enraging and a more than a little disappointing.  The major conflict of the film (and of Milk's political career) is a campaign to prevent anti-discrimination laws in California that prevent teachers from being fired based on sexual orientation from being overturned.  The campaign succeeded, and the laws stayed.  However, the film deals with this development in a bit of muted joy, probably for two reasons-- the first is that it has an assassination to hurry on to and the second is that Van Sant realizes what a hollow victory it really was.  

You won't learn this from the film, but today, right now, in 2008 in the United States there are still thirty (30) states where someone can legally lose their job simply for being a homosexual.   

Read that again.  That is more than half of the country. And, of course, that doesn't include the vicious 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' military policies endorsed by the federal government.  And the gay marriage debacle, which came to a head when the citizens of California deemed they could take away constitutionally granted rights from homosexuals by passing Proposition 8.

That is infuriating.  Imagine a child asks for a coat to wear on a snowy day.  You tell it no and send it off to school.  It gets used to the cold.   Now imagine you gave the child a coat, sat it outside in the snow for a moment and then took the coat away.  That child will revolt against you.  If you show someone the light and then close them off from it, their wanting will be your end.

Where was Milk prior to November 4th?  Oliver Stone's ineffectual W. was rushed out prior to the elections in hopes it could make a difference.  But that project was too soon, too current to have an impact.  History will judge Bush in 30 years, once the facts are in, in ways far different than the present may judge him now.  But Milk?  Milk could have had an impact.  Yet... it was delayed, coming out instead in the midst of awards season.  Ironically, it's good enough it would have been remembered had it come out in October.  What a wasted opportunity. 

Proposition 8 is government sanctioned bigotry, propelled by religions that have subjugated and oppressed since their inceptions.  There are thorny political topics out there, where many different views must be considered (immigration, abortion).  Gay marriage is not one of them.  If you oppose gay marriage, you are a bigot.  If you say it 'destroys the American family' you are a bigot and a liar.  If you believe it actually has any affect on the American family at all, I'll join you in a march in favor of criminalizing divorce.  I'll join you on a march forcing heterosexual couples to procreate.  And if you oppose gay marriage on religious grounds, you're a brain-washed bigot with no sense of irony.  

Speaking of a sense of irony, seeing how California has taken away civil rights, I have a new plan to get the country out of recession.  Let's re-enslave African Americans.  Forcing them back into chains will quickly and decisively cut down on the business expenses of banks, auto-makers, and corporations.  Afterwards, a campaign to take the vote away from women.

Wednesday is national 'Day Without A Gay', where homosexuals are encouraged to call in gay from work and instead volunteer for GLBT rights.  They are also encouraged to only support GLBT friendly businesses.  I suppose civil disobedience is a justifiable response-- I'll be participating.  But kindness can only get you so far.  As 70s activists cried, "Civil Liberties or Civil War".  We will not roll over without a fight.

  
And finally, to all you closeted, discreet, 'straight' guys out there who troll Craigslist and gay bars, fuck you.  Fuck you all.  It's your cowardice that has allowed decades of injustice to your own people, whether you accept them as so or not.  You are fearful little children whose timidity and terror have caused the Stonewall riots, the White Night riots, killed Brandon Teena and Matthew Shepard and allowed Proposition Eight to pass.  You should be beaten out of the closet.  Grow some balls and be a man, don't just blow one.

Kicking and Screaming Out of the Closet

I'm tottering somewhere between amusement, outrage and satisfaction.  I have just been told that I'm not gay enough.  To work in a gay bar.  As security.

Well, they didn't say it quite like that.  They were kinder.  They told me that they didn't like to hire straight guys because they seldom worked out very well in the high-volume, sometimes handsy atmosphere.  I nodded, although I was a bit confused as to why this information was being presented.  Then we talked about my experience and whether I had any past gay bar experience.  Of course I had, in DC, at the Eagle, but since that was such a short gig and not even listed on my application I left it out.  I instead turned the focus to Ohm in New Orleans, which is, unfortunately, straight.

After a few more needling, back-handed searching remarks it became clear that they thought I was some recession-driven, economically desperate straight boy willing to do anything for a job.  So I had to come out of the closet, again, and prove that I was really an only moderately desperate gay boy who would do anything for a job granted it didn't involve a background check (They always come back negatively due to discrepancies with my tax returns and my registered addresses and my job history.  That's the major problem with transient wanderings).  Well, I burst forth from the closet and was met with... skepticism.  They didn't believe me... they pretended to, as not to be rude, but clearly they thought I was a opportunistic heterosexual pining for a part-time gig.  Stupid beard, I blame you for this...

Oilcan Harry's claims to be the most popular club in Austin, gay or straight, and for all I know that is true.  It certainly seemed way to nelly to be a place I would want to hang out on the weekends, but maybe in Austin effeminate heterosexuals flock there with the fags to escape the pretentious stench of Lone Star-drenched hole in the wall indie clubs.  I have no idea.  I do know that they called me back and told me that they would keep my application but could not offer me a position at this time.

When supporting anti-discrimination laws based on sexual orientation, this is not the situation I imagined.  I feel like I just went to California and tried to buy a marriage licence ... only to be turned away because they didn't think I was an American citizen.  

Preaching to the Choir: An Angry Rant

Hey, Oliver Stone... I'm pretty sure I dislike George W. Bush just as much as you do.  I'm willing to bet that I think he's just as stupid, and as much of a liar, and as big a war-monger, and as strung-up a puppet, and as lousy a bourgeois pig as you do Oliver... but seriously, perhaps your new movie poster is a bit tacky?  Or really, in all honesty, really really REALLY tacky?  So tacky, in fact, I think less of Josh Brolin for being part of it?  In fact, Olive, I think your whole movie is an awful, awful idea.  You say that it will be fair and balanced (like that poster, right?  Fair and balanced) but it won't.  It will be a big shouting mess of liberal propaganda, and we expect that from you.  You're not really what this post is about.  It's all those other big shouting messes of liberal propaganda I've had to suffer through in the last couple of years.

It's been said that there's nothing worse than a bad argument for an idea you hold dear.  That's very true, and if I have to see one more god-awful argument for a 'liberal' concept that I completely agree with (like, say, "The environment is good" or "I wish so many people didn't have to die in Iraq for no good cause") I'm going to... well, I'm going to gripe here on this blog. Again.

I think we can blame most of my anger on Paul Haggis, a terrible filmmaker who is responsible for three of the least subtle, most angering films I've seen in a long time:  Million Dollar Baby, Crash, and In the Valley of Elah.  All his films start out the same-- well conceived films about interesting characters doing interesting things, but always devolve into awful, awful scenes and shots that beat you over the head senselessly to make sure you GET HIS MESSAGE!!!  And these scenes always ruin the movies for me, because they annoy me in their blatant "shoutisms".  

Paul Haggis seems to have bred a follower in Gavin Hood as well, who made the simply lousy torture tome Rendition, featuring a pregnant Reese Witherspoon trying to convince folks that America shouldn't torture innocent people.  Well, no shit!  That film was bad even aside from the screaming simplicity of it's politics, poorly made and unbearably stupid.

And I recently saw Happy Feet, which started out as just an annoying children's film about penguins, but quickly devolved into an infuriating rage-fest about overfishing.  Seriously, that is a horrible, horrible film.  I think less of Nicole Kidman for being a part of it, and I thought that after Birth she was scott-free to do anything she wanted. 

Now, please, don't mistake what I'm bitching about.  I'm not complaining about political movies, or movies with political messages.  There have been recent politically-themed films about most of these issues that I found anywhere from entertaining to exceptional (The Day After Tomorrow, Stop-Loss, Lions for Lambs, There Will Be Blood) I'm complaining about these films that lack subtlety, tact, common sense and, subsequently, worth.  These movies create baseball bats out of their beliefs and hit you with them until you turn off the television or concede to them.  And I want to concede to them, I really do, because I agree whole-heartedly with everything they say.  But I hate passionately the way they say it.

Tangled Up In Blue

(...and, by the way, we're going to stay on this Bob Dylan train until it derails.  It tickles me.)

Everything went wrong this weekend, and I have no one but myself to blame.  Well, no one but myself for most of it.  

I certainly isn't my fault that the stupid NOPD came into the Ohm on Friday and shut the fucking place down at 2:30am, threatening to throw everyone in jail and neighing incessantly about stupid 'curfew'.  Nor is it my fault that, to avoid the same thing happening again we shut Ohm down at two the next night, which prevented anyone from making any money because, let's be honest, no one comes out on Saturday before 2 anyway.  So, we went to Amps to relax with free drinks and, y'know what?, stupid fucking NOPD rolled in about 3 and shut them down, too.  Ridiculous fuckfaces.

My blame comes into play with the fact that Jen was in town from Baltimore for a couple of days and I wanted to see her and didn't, and that I had a comp ticket to the Saints game on Sunday and didn't go.  After spending Friday night and Saturday night twisted on tequila, coffee, and coke I crashed and crashed hard come Sunday morning, missing noon kick-off by three hours and Jen lunch by four.  So, if I had behaved and acted responsibly, I could have seen Jen and gone to the game, but would have never broken into a pool to go skinny dipping, camped in the back of a car for 4 hours, or done lines in the bathroom of a CCs on Magazine Street.  I'm not sure the scales don't level out here.   

But anyway, we are all Sisyphus' children, and like a fool I have descended back into the quagmire that is New Orleans Boutique Hotels.  I was officially brought back onto staff in a ridiculous meeting on Monday, and will return to the office as soon as the phones are corrected (they still are undergoing post-Gustav problems).  I am not happy about this situation-- I am pretty sure I will regret it, and become bitter and miserable before I leave.  But, even if you know you're in a circle, it doesn't mean you can break out.  Fuck it-- I'm in New Orleans until after Halloween.

Fare Evasion

I delight in subways. Any town with an underground train is by the very addition a delightful place. So when I say that Washington, DC has my least favorite of all subways, be aware that that is like saying black walnut is my least favorite flavor of ice cream. It's ice cream, you see, and even the worst is wondrous. But, to subways.

In Chicago, regardless of where you wish to go, it costs a flat rate to ride the train. Not so in Washington. Different stops require a different fare, and this chart of charges seems as haphazard as a rope bridge in an Indiana Jones film. Anyway, so when you board the train, you run your fare card through the little machine, and when you exit you do the same, only it calculates how much your ride costs and then deducts the value. But, let's say your ride costs $2.10 and your card has a $1.95 value. What do you do? Well, you have to get out of line and go to another machine and put in the .15 cents before being allowed to leave the station.

I see what you are wondering-- what happens if you perchance to be out of cash? Well, you are expected to live permenantly in the subway station, of course. This happened to me recently.

Without change, with my useless debit card and unwilling to live in the tunnels forever, I made sure no one was watching and jumped the two foot barrier seperating me from freedom. And, of course, bumped into Angry Station Worker.

"What are you doing? That is Fare Evasion!" He cried.
"It want's .15 cents. The ATM won't accept my debit card and I don't have any cash on me."
"Did you know that Fare Evasion carries a fine of $50,000 and is illegal?" Came his retort.
"Well, is panhandling illegal, because it's my only option for getting any change."
"This is not about panhandling!" He shouted, growing frantic and red-faced. "This is about FARE EVASION. FARE EVASION! Give me your fare card."

I gave him my fare card and he sent me on my way, with stern warning that should this happen again I would be fined and taken to jail. After all, Fare Evasion is illegal.

I walked away witht he valuable knowledge that the District of Columbia would rather fill it's subway tunnels with beggars that charge a flat rate to board a train, like any rational city.

Duncannon

For the first days of my journey, things have gone, to say the least, poorly. After my flight from Chicago I arrived by bus in Harrisburg, Pa. Duncannon, Pa is a popular trail town about 15 miles north. I tried to hitch a ride along the highways and failed miserably, walking abou twelve miles into town and in the process pulling a muscle in my knee. Someone stopped for me just outside Duncannon. This compares little, though, to issues that commenced in town. I stayed the night at the Doyle Hotel, a delightful little place designed mainly for thr-hikers. I awoke early on Memorial Day morning, and spent a good hour reading on a bench outside a park. I needed to go to the grocer (about a half-mile uphill out of town) so, having seen no one around or in the park this early on a holiday, I ditched my pack in the bushes and went on to the store. Coming back 45 minutes later, the pack was gone. I spent most of the day looking around Duncannon for my pack, talking to the PA State Troopers, and being coddled consolingly by the folks at the Doyle. Finally, the signs I posted offering a reward were of use. My pack was returned without my Ipod, camera, flashlight, or pocket knife-- but with the more pivotal gear. I've recently obtained a new flashlight, the folks at the Doyle gave me a pocket knife, and I bought a new camera. Everything is looking up.

Doyle Hotel-- World's Best Chilli!

PS- Everyone on the trail goes by a 'trail name'. Mine is Jude.

Hamburger or steak? Hamburger or steak?

A little rage at a stupid person and a stupid behavior:

I was at an IHOP, it was early in the morning and sitting adjacent to me was a three top of highway patrolmen. Or maybe NOPD. Either way, it's irrelevant. They were law enforcment officers, regardless of their exact affiliation. Anywho, they were waiting for their food, and I was waiting for my food and the waitress was ready to go home because it was about 4:30am.

And then she brought out their food and she asked, very kindly "Who had the big steak omlette?" And one of the patrolmen said, quite frankly, "I don't know what I ordered." I wanted to get up from my booth, take that heavy porcelain plate from the waitress's hand and bash him over the head with it until he cried.

I have waited tables and I have been to many different restaurants. There is absolutely no fucking reason for you to order food and then, ten minutes later, have no idea what it was you ordered. Are you that easily distracted? Could you even read the menu?

Hold on though, let me clarify something: actually there are two situation where it is acceptable.

1. You are intoxicated. If you are high or drunk, you're forgiven for not knowing what you ordered. You're not forgiven for being a public nuisance, but you are forgiven for not remembering what kind of food you requested.

2. You're in a restaurant that is of an ethnicity with which you are not familiar. Japanese, Thai, African, Lebanese, maybe even Chinese-- so you don't quite remember what you ordered? Okay, whatever, it's probably chicken and rice stretched out into eighteen syllables-- you don't deserve to have your nipples chopped off and shoved down your throat.

But if you are a highway patrolman who is on duty (and therefore, theoretically, sober) and at an IHOP, there is no excuse for this annoying, frustrating, unforgivable ignorance. I'm suprised you were able to drive your car to the IHOP in the first place. It terrifies me you are allowed into a profession that allows you to carry a gun.

There is no more frustrating waste of a server's time than to spend three minutes pondering what type of food you ordered 15 minutes ago. If you can't remember this simple, obvious thing, can I really trust you with any food at all? Do you know how to chew? Mightn't you choke? That's a liability. On one plate I have a hamburger. On the other is a steak. Which is yours? Oh, you don't know? You deserve to starve.

It's The End Of The World As We Know It

Ode to joy, today we changed PM systems in the office.  Goodbye Profit Manager.  Hello WebRezPro.  I do not feel fine.

I miss you so very, very much Profit Manager.  I know, I know... there were times when I told you to fuck off, when you just wouldn't operate the way I wanted, when one of the silly little quirks you have would get on my last nerve, but you know what, Profit Manager?  I really loved you.  I knew you like the back of my hand.  You were functional.  I could do anything with you that I needed.  You were a little piece of reliability in an unreliable world.

But oh, WebRezPro!  You are a hot mess.  You are a piece of work, that's what you are!  Have you taken a look at yourself in the mirror lately?  What in God's name makes you think you should dress up and go out on the town disguised as a PM system?  You really shouldn't.  You're like a hot transexual-- you have a few good qualities, but no one wants to take you home.

Did you know, WRP, that it takes me twice, sometimes three times as long to do things with you than with Profit Manager?  Did you know, that being a web-bases program, when our internet shods out, we can't do a goddamn thing but sit around the office and eat candy?  Did you know that your group programming is like a gift from Satan, sent to drive us out of our minds?  There is already so much pressure in our office, WRP!  We are like a boiler overflowing with nerves and angst.  We do not need you bringing anymore nonsense into our professional lives.

What's that you say?  Oh, I see.  You're a remarkably cheap PM system.  You cost half as much as Profit Manager?  Well, fuck.  I guess you get what you pay for.  It's clear the reason you are so cheap, WebRezPro, is because you are shit.  You are a big, steaming pile of horse manure.  You are a tire with no tread.  You are a whore with syphilis.  You are an old sock lying on the side of the highway.

Do you know what I'm doing right now, WRP?  I'm praising karma that I have less than a month left to spend with you, before I leave that office and the grip of terror you have over it.  You may rule them, WRP, but you shan't rule me.

And here's to you, Profit Manager.  You won't be forgotten.

Death of a Dream

It was like making the long trek to Mecca only to find yourself at Sea World.  It was like taking the stairs to the top of the Empire State Building and looking out over Fort Worth.  It was awful-- an explosion of despair and pain.  The end of an era.  The death of a dream.

I walked again tonight, as I often do, to the most beautiful house in New Orleans.  I shall not go again.  It has been tainted.  Ruined.  Those people who live there, those awful, awful souls have turned their beautiful, majestic delight into a canvas of blasphemy and blackness.  I hate them deeply and with yearning.

Shall I begin by saying that they do not own a cat?  The way the curtains were pushed back ever so slightly so suggested that a feline presence slid in between the fabric and the glass and stared unimpressed upon the world while he licked his paws clean.  This is not the case.  They do own a pet, but it is not a cat.  It is a big, grotesque English Bulldog, fat and stupid.  The size of a pot-bellied pig it lumbers about, all brown and white and ridiculous.  It is so fat it doesn't walk, it waddles.  It is a disgusting beast.  That is lives in such a beautiful house makes me yearn to pull out my BB gun and fire a pellet into it's immensity.  It's so hideous my heart breaks because of it's existence.

But, oh, worse horrors did I find upon my final journey to the once-magical place.  Do you remember, from examining the photos of the house, the flag-holder that hung empty on the front of the house?  It is empty no longer.  The house's lovely visage has been tainted by an American flag.  And, no, not a tasteful, subtle decently-sized American flag-- a huge, tacky unbearable flag just whipping in the breeze.  The kind of flag that murdered John Lennon.  The kind of flag that rapes children and steps on the heads of kittens.  It made me want to vomit.

So stricken with sadness I wandered away with a heavy heart and sobbed into the dark, melancholy New Orleans night.  The world shan't ever be the same.  A little piece of my heart has been rent forth and scattered across the ground like the ashes from an alter to God.  There is no more magic in the world.  It had been replaced with poison and bile.

"Greed is Good." A Democrat's Praise of the Reagan Era (WTF?)

"(Ronald) Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it," Barack Obama told the Reno Gazette-Journal.

If you don't stop, Barack, the Republicans will win.  This is your second verbal mishap in as many days.

"...he and his rivals were asked to name their biggest weakness. Obama answered first, saying he has a messy desk and needs help managing paperwork - something his opponents have since used to suggest he's not up to managing the country. Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards said his biggest weakness is that he has a powerful response to seeing pain in others, and Clinton said she gets impatient to bring change to America."  (chortle)  From CBS News.

Sure, it's all nonsensical political grandstanding--but, God help me, if you fuck this up and by some strange mishap Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee is elected president...

Well, if that happens we'll all suffer enough, and no further action by myself would be necessary.  

Please win. 

Stop, Disney. Stop

Look at this utter nonsense.  I think I threw up a little in my mouth.

Have you ever seen such garish, humiliating, stupid costumes?  Why is that crab the size of a palomino?  Why didn't they use puppets, a la The Lion King?  And are those dancers really on roller skates?  And why is that set so goddamn ugly?   For that matter, why is Ariel so goddamn ugly?  And who decided to cast Sebastian as a screeching fag?  Ugh.

Hell, they ruined Tarzan...why not The Little Mermaid?  Sacrilege this is, pure sacrilege.

27 Dresses--What the critics are saying

"After Knocked Up, this is a step down for the gifted Katherine Heigl, who deserves a better vehicle than this fluffy, formulaic, retro romantic comedy, which makes a strong case for a moratorium on wedding flicks and wedding gowns." Emanuel Levy

"It's white-lace porn for girls of every age, and the way that it revels in that get-me-to-the-altar mood, to the point of making anyone who isn't getting married feel like a loser, is the picture's key selling point." Owen Gleiberman

"Agonizing, flaccid, and about as romantic as bottle of flat champagne, 27 Dresses is a perfect example of the stereotypical Hollywood romantic comedies that Judd Apatow's 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up successfully disemboweled." Cole Smithey

"Its supposed feminism never gets past advocating a woman's right to literally chase after her dreamboat to ensure the attainment of her own perfect moment at the altar." Nick Schager

This goes out with a big 'fuck you' to Katherine Heigl.

Current Obsession: Hating Mike Huckabee and Katherine Heigl

I hate you both so very, very much.  Sometimes I lie awake at night and seethe.

Why don't the two of you get married and be loathsome together?  You can go on a honeymoon to Fiji.  Hopefully for you, Mike, that won't be the island to which you've banished all the world's AIDS patients.  Perhaps on the way to Fiji your plane will crash and you'll be stranded forever together on a raft in the Pacific, with no one to endlessly annoy but driftwood and the occasional tropical fowl.  Hopefully for you, Katherine, you'll never wash up on shore and be subjected to see '27 Dresses', your movie about a woman who is desperate to get married.  Can she not be happy and productive as a single person?  That's a helpful portrayal of women.

 You should never be allowed in public to irritate good people ever again.  

Ugh.  You both suck.

Please go away.

Why I Hate Telephones: A Couple of Tales from the Reservations Office

It was Friday afternoon, after 5:30.  I was the only one in the office.  The phone rang. 

It was a delightful woman who wanted to cancel her reservation.  She couldn't because a.) she had booked with hotels.com and I can't cancel those reservations--only hotels.com can.  So calling me to gripe is pointless and b.) she had a 24 cancellation deadline and she was past it.  So we argued for a while.

Now, if that were that, it would be like a dozen other calls I receive every day, nothing notable at all.  So, are you ready for the SINGLE GREATEST MISUSE OF LOGIC IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD???  ARE YOU???

Woman: Well, I don’t see why I can’t just cancel my credit card.  Then you won’t get paid anyway.  

And she hangs up.  

Really?  REALLY?  You’re going to cancel your credit card so we can’t get paid?  Does your drivers license say "fucking moron" so you can be easily identified?  Don’t you realize that you’ve ALREADY PAID for the room?  You paid for it when you booked it--that's how 3rd party internet sites work!  You paid a company who has to pay us whether they can get paid from you or not.  And, by the way, they aren’t going to let you cancel a credit card with a thousand dollar balance.  You're a fool.

I love Fridays.

The phone rings again.

JH: New Orleans Boutique Hotels 

Man: New Orleans?  I’m trying to reach a hotel in Mexico.

JH: Right. They work out of this office as well, but they’ve gone home.  You’ll have to call back on Monday.  

(Side note:  Can someone please explain to my why SO MANY PEOPLE don't understand that we share an office with the reservationists from a couple of other hotels?  That sometimes the lines get crossed and I answer a call for a customer that I can't help?  Is it actually something impossible to grasp?)

Man: Well, how do I know this is legitimate, if you're in America?

Maybe that's a simple question to answer for the people who actually work at that hotel.  I, however, do not.  So I answered...

JH: Umm...I guess you’ll have to take us at face value.

Man: Face value (his voice filled with indignation)?  How can you possibly take reservations for a hotel in Mexico if you’re in New Orleans?

JH: Well, I don’t anyway, but the people who do use the internet. (You know, that thing Al Gore invented before he invented global warming...)

At this point, despite being told that I could not help him in anyway, Man began to blurt out lots and lots of (ignorant) questions with a voice rife with loathing.  Questions that I could not answer.  Questions about the hotel.  Questions about our legitimacy.  Then, he asked me why I couldn't take a reservation for the hotel.  I tried to explain, again, that I didn't work for them.  He didn't understand--perhaps he was autistic. Regardless of his mental deficiency, I was bored with this nonsense.  I hung up.

God, that feeling of indifference you feel after you turn in your resignation notice is liberating.