No More Spots

2007-08-23T11:36:00.000-07:00

The Disney theme-park ideas that never came to fruition...

From Wikipedia. I was hoping for some uber-bizarre rides or exhibits, maybe a death-defying plunge into the mascot actors' locker rooms, but these will do. The thrill I got as a young child at Epcot by being able to talk to someone through a television screen was worth the price of admission alone. And the animatronics. One can never have enough animatronics.

I would've paid big bucks to check out the Soviet Union Pavillion. And it's no wonder the Israel idea was shot down over security concerns.

2007-08-10T12:06:00.000-07:00

"To Catch a Predator" needs to go quickly into that dark night, with its head held low...

Former Atlanta Magazine staff scribe Luke Dittrich splendidly writes in this month's issue of Esquire about the NBC journalistic guilty pleasure that is the Chris Hansen-led ratings blockbuster crusade against online sexual predators, focusing on the case of Bill Conradt, a Texas assistant district attorney who killed himself after a SWAT team and the NBC crew descended on his house. Conradt had been exchanging bawdy instant messages with who he thought was an underage boy, who in reality was a 21-year-old aspiring actor hired by NBC. It makes for gripping television, but so do amateur videos of bear attacks and, while I'm at it, this. But more on point, this does it the best.

The piece details some disgusting lapses in journalistic ethics--Hansen allegedly pressuring authorities to get a search warrant--and touches on the dangers of hidden-camera journalism and the murky gray when journalists and law enforcement work together, both looking to come off as heroes and in the process dominate the story rather than the topic or issue at hand. It should be read in its entirety.

I'll admit that I've watched "TCAP," was most entranced by the awkward confrontations between Hansen and then alleged pedophiles, and turned off the show once the gotcha factor was over. The resolution was much less interesting than whatever sensational act transpired. So funny how that parallels the mindset of those involved after hearing Conradt killed himself.

After ending her cell-phone call, Lieutenant Barber looks at the camera. She asks the cameraman a question, speaking loudly enough to be heard above the rumble and whine of the rotors. Although the events of the last couple of days provoke a lot of questions, perhaps the one Lieutenant Barber now asks is the most pertinent. When law enforcement and television entertainment have commingled so completely and so lethally, perhaps there is really only one question left that matters at all.

“We having fun?”
She asks the question, she smiles wide, and then she relays an update Frag gave her a little while ago, something about a three-hundred-pounder nabbed back at the decoy house.

Oy. Give me a break. Find a soul while you're at it. And before the critics ask Esquire why they're defending the deceased alleged predator, it should be noted they're attacking the show.

To end things on a light note, here's perhaps the finest Robert Smigel SNL cartoon, dealing oddly enough, with catching the REAL predator.

2007-07-28T10:58:00.000-07:00

Half-blind with an eyepatch, looking to ace some serves

While sitting on my balcony this morning: A chubby man with an eyepatch, tapping the path before him with a cane, carrying four tennis racquets, a messenger bag draped around his chest.

2007-01-26T21:16:00.000-08:00

From Love God's Way Ministries, the Houston-based cadre of Bible-beating bumbleheads led by its pastor and self-proclaimed healer of homosexuals, Donnie Davies, comes the parent's lone tool to deter their child from the eternal sandbox of hellfire and brimstone.

The List of Bands That Will "Make You" Gay

Why is Ghostface Killah considered a no-brainer by Davies while Morrissey is tagged as "questionable?"

(hat tip to Crooks and Liars)

2006-11-09T10:49:00.000-08:00

Ed Bradley of 60 Minutes Dies

This blog has become some sort of memorial service, first woeing the impending death of Tom Selleck and then weeping about Bob Barker's retirement. Ed Bradley, however, has truly passed after battling a quiet bout of leukemia. Journalism entered my life at an early age through my parents' subscription to LIFE Magazine, my father's devotion to Louis Ruykeyser, and our Sunday night viewings of 60 Minutes. May you rest in peace, Mr. Bradley, and thank you for contributing to our world.

2006-10-31T15:23:00.000-08:00

A Nation Mourns, Allegedlly Fondled "Price is Right" Showcase Girls breathe a sigh of relief

Bob Barker announces he will retire from television after 50 years...

We'll miss you, you Q-tip-microphone totin' son-of-a-gun. Please spay and neuter your pets.

2006-07-10T07:55:00.000-07:00

Newsflash: Italy wins World Cup, celebratory conception and low-employee turnout at all-time high

(Photo: From little ole me, 7/10/06)

Living two blocks from Little Italy, the lead-up to the World Cup final between the namesake motherland and France made for blue shirts and wild cheers. Our windows are ever open so the noise bounced through our apartment much like the horn honking and griping of the two old Italian women who lounge outside their apartment all day. Around 5:30 p.m., Italy won. Moments after I was in a standstill in a two-block orgy of nationalistic pride, exuberance, enthusiasm, and guys dangling dangerously off fire escapes. Wine bottles were shared, soccer balls were kicked to fans gallavanting on rooftops, Italian flags the size of pick-up trucks were flown and general beautiful chaos ensued.

And guys took every chance to grab girls's asses as they ran through the crowd. Because when on Mulberry...

(I was going to post a photo of the Italian Flag and ran "italy condom" through yahoo! photos with hopes of posting something playing off the idea that there was much coitus conducted in the name of celebration last night. The following was what I discovered. I present you with the file that is labeled simply, "condom_dale." Viva Italia, people.)

2006-05-31T12:36:00.000-07:00

Helicopter

We looked so good together on the subway, but we parted at your next stop, and I tried to eat a little better to trim off those pounds, but come on, now, that never works. It takes barbells and trainers and the threat of summer. And only you will make it.

But I feel better. I'm wearing better clothes and walking in new sunglasses, finding that every fantasy you create can become reality if you shove aside a goal, because goals are thoughts more than plans.

I'm buying a bike and building a helicopter on top of my three-story walk-up. Get on your roof and look for me.

Photograph by this guy

2006-05-30T18:36:00.000-07:00

Just Give Her Something to Say

Andy Whistler woke up to a loud thunk against his door followed by silence. He opened it and found Meagan, her nostril bleeding a crimson line that trickled over her and was poised to drip from her chin. She smiled and laughed that uneasy laugh that screamed "take me back" but he just let her in. Meagan spent her days sitting Indian style, cradling wine and twiddling packs of cigarettes and was better off as on the sidelines than running with the bulls. Steel blue eyes, the same size she and we all had as babies, that even in such a stupefying state of drug and drink, told him of her confusion.

He wiped her nose and let her in.

2006-05-17T20:11:00.000-07:00

What Is This "Vision" of Which You Speak?

Growing up a wee lad I had the most tremendous amount of respect for daredevils like Evel Knievel or Jimmy Snuka, wild ass and embattled lunatics who earned their fame by breaking their bones. I wanted to ride a motorcycle or jump off the tops of steel cages. Those dreams died when I realized that glory in aerial stunts is fleeting at best. I now have the utmost respect for a whole different breed of human: blind folk.

Even in the most familiar of surroundings I would not set foot outside of my home were I lacking the gift of sight, that power we use to not only warn of us of large piles of poodle poop but also to spot a mate, be it for life or a night. A cane would bring me no comfort.

Today I spotted a blind Frenchman walking by himself, talking to himself, a grin upon his face as he tapped out his path before him. The chirps of traffic signals told him to stop and go; I'm sure he knew it was a beautiful day by how the sun baked his cheeks. He never knows bad news because he can't read it. But he will never know a photograph or the power of maps.

Photograph by Story Sloane III

2006-05-12T17:03:00.000-07:00

Yes Milton, He's Doing Quite Well These Days

Using a piece of wheat bread I slathered up the remaining cranberry sauce and brought it to my lips, a gob dropping on to my hand-me-down tux, another roll of the eyes from my relatives seated at the circular table. Though the invitation said "dry" I said "no" and proceeded to pound shot after scraping shot from my grandfather's flask, stopping myself from vomiting in the bathroom sink while the priest knuckled and knocked on the door. I ate a flower from the bride's bouquet and dropped two plates of chicken fingers while feigning sobriety. The girl my aunt introduced me to told me my breath could sanitize a lab. I replied that she wouldn't know fun if it crawled up her skirt and bit her.

2006-05-08T23:42:00.000-07:00

I'm Going to Be a Sad Boy When Tom Selleck Leaves the Earth

The only man besides my father who can pull off a moustache. May this clip show you just how much better off we are since we had Mr. Selleck galavanting about in Hawaiian shirts (Magnum, P.I.) and acting as the most debonaire of 1980s NYC bachelors (Three Men and a Baby).

Tom Selleck on "The Daily Show"

2006-05-05T07:45:00.000-07:00

More Imagination

There was a time when rock and roll pranksters had a little bit more panache, be it by using swordfish to sexually satisfy groupies, or wiring your bass drum with small explosives and partially deafening your guitarist after detonating them on live television. Pete Doherty is more subdued and manages to stay in the public eye by tripping over his decadent boots and accidentally always managing to land on a syringe that just happens to be filled with heroin. No more. The artist has moved on to painting masterpieces with blood. His brush? Well, hell, a needle. So speaketh his former manager, James Mullord, whose sangre was extracted by Doherty for one of his works.

"He was very careful, he used a new needle. Pete has become very good at using the syringe, either scratching it on to the paper or spraying an area. It creates an effect a little like a Ralph Steadman cartoon."

I'm sure he's badass. The image of him allegedly injecting a female with heroin, Doherty defends, really was staged and he was merely extracting her blood to use as paint. Yes, Pete, and Jack Ruby was just poking Lee Harvey Oswald in the ribs.

Doherty's Blood Paintings [This Is London, from the Evening Standard]

2006-04-24T16:38:00.000-07:00

Your Baby's Daddy Is...

Maury Povich charged with sexual harassment

2006-04-24T08:10:00.000-07:00

Thunder Without Rain is Like Tonic Without Vodka

This morning at 8:43 a.m. I heard my first thunder in New York City. It was wonderful. The first sound of nature trumping urban life. And no rain followed.

2006-04-22T21:12:00.000-07:00

The Cringe-O-Meter

Yes, as technology brings us closer together it also sadly tears us apart. The impact of being constantly connected and ever alone has left many a keypusher heartbroken and despondent, curled up in pj's watching "Contact" or drinking beer and prank calling public access television (now that's the ticket). Though there are so many people in the box they're looking at, there are none outside their door.

When in doubt, rely on magazine editors. The masters-of-lists are also the wrangler of hormones.

You'll always have the sage advice of how-to articles on issues as complex and hit-or-miss as love. In this example, the writer's use of the "Dave-O-Meter" as a measurement of date ideas is cringeworthy but oh so quirky. Me so lonely. Me so wone-ly, wone-ly, wone-ly.

Great Dating Ideas or How to Recycle the Same Article Countless Times a Year (Yahoo!)

2006-04-13T20:34:00.000-07:00

Alfred Hitchcock and Steam

Gyms at 9:00 a.m. are interesting because every other schlub on a treadmill wonders if the other has a job. The equipment is available for use, the bass thump pumping throughout is not as overbearing, and the men's locker room is a few penises less populated. Mine in particular is filled with these gallavanting jaybirds, the guys who shoot you a quick glance when you're lathering up in the shower and who like to chat in the buff. Somewhere you find the strengh to push on.

The sauna this morning was still warming up so I opted for the tiled rival.

I entered the steam room and was greeted by hiss and mist and the figure of another person faintly visible through the fog. Gold-chain Italians in movies and business tycoons might talk in steam rooms and saunas, but I refrain, and not because it's considered strange or untoward, no far from that. I'm sitting in 140 degrees, my elbows on my knees, and I'm dripping with sweat and inhaling menthol-tinged damp air. It's just not conducive to discussion for me. I sit on the tile and the hiss begins anew.

I lean against the wall and close my eyes as heat envelopes me and think of my life and of words and of how I need to get better sleep, eat a bit better, renew my credit cards, mail resumes, upload my photos, and visit my grandmother in Jersey. She lives a bus ride away and is sleeping on the first floor now, can't make it up the stairs, we'll go get lunch, I say, and she says no, We'll eat cold cuts and talk about how she just doesn't get it anymore, these Koreans with the nail salon and the Russian lady she's paying to drive her to Shop-Rite. I asked her once why she has never told me she loved me and she said they didn't do that in Germany. We have the same face.

The heat becomes too much. I lift my head up off the wall and open my eyes. There before me stands a squatty silhouette, like Alfred Hitchcock's, except he's butt naked and locked like a guard with a fuzzy hat. Just standing there, in a state of naked Zen, his chest expanding wide. Al doesn't stay for the mist to clear and leaves as a shadow figure. I tell the guy sitting next to me that it was an awkward thing to see after snapping out of a daydream.

"Yep," he said. "That kind of shit can be pretty shocking."

2006-04-10T12:47:00.000-07:00

And to think that my birth was protected by a drunken security guard named Merle...

Lions to protect pregnant [Angelina] Jolie's privacy: paper (Reuters)

2006-01-18T18:20:00.000-08:00

Cold Hard Rain in a Big Big City

Today all of Manhattan, and the entire northeast United States I think (no time for forecasts, must do chin ups), was blanketed by clouds and pelted by rain, and it was a day of umbrellas bending backwards from the wind cutting through the skyscrapers. Every block or so you see a brolly's carcass mangled on the sidewalk, and the rain comes down too hard that even if you're unlucky enough to possess one (or just too poor to buy one) and are walking 15 blocks to mail headshots and resumes, you will not pick it up. You won't try to fix it by bending the frame back in shape and rehooking the fabric while the smattering of people hustle by. You'll step over the umbrella and with your hands in your pockets, tuck your head in your coat like a turtle in a war trench, and continue to walk south to a tiny restuarant. And it will be the cheapest and best Mexican food you've had since arriving in this city.

2005-12-25T07:46:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas, My Fellow Countrymen!

May this find you happy and in one piece.

2005-12-15T13:35:00.000-08:00

No I swear I'm not...and I promise I don't

When blood starts trickling out your nose at a party filled with wizened twentysomethings, how do you explain it without sounding like an ass: too much coke or too much booger scraping?

Answer: just simply walk away.

2005-11-29T17:13:00.000-08:00

Thank God for CraigsList...

nude model to pose with fish for tomorrow evening (tuesday)
Reply to: gigs-114378334@craigslist.org
Date: 2005-11-28, 10:07PM EST

model needed to pose with three foot fish for ongoing project for a published book. Established artist and assistant (female) are shooting tomorrow, should only take 1/2 hour. (Fish is fresh from market in the morning.) Looking for all sorts of women. Please email for more info.

* this is in or around chelsea
* no -- it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
* Compensation: $30

114378334

Copyright © 2005 craigslist, inc. terms of use privacy policy feedback foru

2005-11-25T12:21:00.000-08:00

Zee Fake Tree

Duty follows gluttony, and for the first time in the Wheatley family household, the eight-foot tall artificial arboreal delight was erected the day after Thanksgiving. I hauled it up from its cardboard casket in the basement, each piece at a time, snipped the rope wrapping it like a giant green joint, stacked them, and fluffed the "branches." That all this happened while I was in my boxers, my brother typed away on a keyboard, my mother washed dishes and my father watched Jerry Springer reminded me even more that Christmas is to arrive soon.

2005-11-19T07:05:00.000-08:00

The Elevator Ate My Wife

Daniel Gelding made a concerted effort to stop, pouring out bottles of bleach and Windex and reducing his arsenal of paper towels, disinfectant wipes, air fresheners and wood polish twofold. He did the dishes only once every three days and used the Sears-bought washer instead of the scrub method. Daniel's fingers became less coarse and dry and returned to the more suitable form of the hands he had before things got all mucked up, back when he was a respected tailor and a decent husband, a lover of museums and unscented candles. Then an elevator cable snaps and your wife drops with it, and in what can be explained as a horrible turn of events you develop tremors and the skill with which you once were a master now you were a convulsing pin-poking threat. He retreated and started cleaning. And Daniel was going to stop.

2005-11-17T15:30:00.000-08:00

Why does fossilized dung always have to tell the story?

Dinosaurs may have eaten grass (AP)

2005-11-14T12:39:00.000-08:00

Scene outside my window, 3:39 p.m.

The boyfriend was obviously fresh from school, still wearing his backpack, and raging at Olive, the girl who looked like a boy. She had a military buzz-cut that should have been covered by the pink toboggan the boyfriend flailed about. The customers in the pizza parlor were aware of this scene.

"How could you do this to me?" he screamed at her, in her face, as she sobbed and wobbled. He's Italian. He has the accent. "All I wanted to do was get a bite to eat! You can't even go inside this restaurant and get a soda. No, you need alcohol. The girl I was on the phone with last night would have gone. But look at her."

She continued to cry and stagger and was unable to respond. Making her way to a nearby stoop, she aimed her ass for the steps but missed and crumbled to the ground. A passerby offered her help which she refused.

"Nineteen years old," the boyfriend said and gave her the pink toboggan. "And your life is done. How could you do this in two hours? Look at you. Your life is done."

Olive got up and followed him like a sheepish gimp, a puttering jalopy. He told her she loved drama, she loved problems. Olive was happy only when she was sad. Two blocks away I still hear them and she's sitting down again, her pink head resting between her two knobby knees.

2005-11-14T06:43:00.000-08:00

David Carr makes an excellent argument for practicing restraint and establishing some sort of poise in blogging. For too many, condescension and finger-pointing is the only way to make a mark. He questions the ethics and architecture of it all.

Find it here.

2005-10-19T07:10:00.000-07:00

You ain't takin' my 40 cents!!!

Bear with me, people. Because I'm a cheap bastard who refuses to be taxed by eBay just to show off my valuables...I choose to post this photo here. The online auction house wants my quarter, dime and nickel to host what you see above. I say hells no.

It's got the story behind "November Rain" and "Don't Cry," as well as "Estranged." Remember the scribbling at the end of those? It was this guy's name.

If you want it, go here.

UPDATE: The damn thing didn't sell. And Cheney says people are using eBay to make a living.

2005-10-10T20:37:00.000-07:00

From Flagpole...

RIP
Pooper The Wise

On Sept. 11, Pooper, a brown and black tabby of Maine Coon descent, extracted his claws for the last time and passed away roughly 26 years after he entered the world. A regal and rotund beast, he was a friend, a family member and the closest thing this writer has had to a lifelong confidant.

On nightly family walks around our Atlanta neighborhood in 1980, my parents encountered a stray cat that emerged from bushes nightly until he allowed them to gain his trust and convince him to stay. He chose us as much as we chose him. Like a Cuban baseball player, he had no records, and we never could verify his age. At his first checkup, the vet said he appeared to be at least a year old. At the time of his death, according to various different formulas, he would have been the feline equivalent of a nimble and sprightly 120-year-old eunuch.

My mother backed over him with the car without damage, and he survived dogfights and raccoon tussles. He lived through five presidents, several wars and the combined runs of "Cheers," "Family Ties" and "Herman's Head," and nearly matched River Phoenix's time on Earth.

Lately, I watched him fade. His amber marble eyes sank into hollow caves as his fat disappeared and muscles began to atrophy. Pooper could no longer groom himself, so little brown furry dreadlocks twisted. The growl turned into a grumble. He was bowlegged and shaky and lost all interest in food. The delicacies my mother fixed for him - chicken, chili, raw hamburger - were left uneaten.

There were a few last gasps of bravado. After a winter in the kitchen, he started hanging out in my room again, plopping next to my turntable which he covered in cat sneeze. The dreadlocks he shed clung to the fibers of my carpet. His nails grew long and were always extracted and tip-tapped out a shuffling cadence when he patrolled the first floor.

Still, Pooper inhabited the midday sun like a Miami Beach yenta, lying out, passing out, and bathing in the scorching heat.

When his ears failed him, he relied on his eyes. When his sight faded, he chose to keep closer to home, albeit sometimes dangerously; he liked sleeping under my car and many times I would back out of my driveway only to discover my wheels barely missed the bastard. Still he dozed, deaf as nails.

So loyal, he would wait silently with us for the school bus. So caring, he would bathe us with licks. He loved Doritos and cheese and fought raccoons and stood down dogs. Remembering all his former strength and chutzpah, it was painful to see him sound asleep on the porch one night, oblivious to his surroundings as a possum crept close to him and sniffed his impending death.

The day before he died I spent an afternoon fanning away green flies that already pegged him as gone.

The morning he died, I found him cold and slipping, his mouth moving without sound, one eye cloudy, one eye clear. To make him comfortable, my mother and I wrapped him in dryer-toasted towels and sat with him. At 10:50 a.m., he was dead.

In my parent's backyard, next to the skeleton of an old swing set of mine, I dug a hole three feet deep, wrapped his body in a flannel pillowcase, and laid Pooper to rest. Afterward, my mother, father, two of his friends and my mom's divorcée pal conducted an Irish wake with ginger beer and sandwiches. Mom scattered his grave with sunflowers and I checked intermittently at night to see that coyotes from the mountain did not disturb him.

God bless you, you bastard, you orphan, you neutered miracle. May you push up lemon trees and grant us the same sweet sourness in death you gave in life. You were a rarity and a charm and a friend. You are the argument I give whenever somebody says cats suck. Godspeed, bud.

Thomas Wheatley

Thomas Wheatley, a frequent Flagpole contributor and UGA graduate, is a writer and photographer living in Marietta, GA. He can be reached through www.pathofecho.blogspot.com.

2005-09-28T19:00:00.000-07:00

Eating Sushi, Drinking Beer -- The Time Has Come to Leave

I put in my two weeks notice yesterday. In four I should be in New York.
Photo by Thomas Patrick Wheatley/"Toward Adel"/Somewhere on I-75/Sept. 2005

2005-09-08T06:24:00.000-07:00

The Victims of Fibs

The truth began in Marie's approach but ended in her words. She was an actress offstage and the ideal candidate to add to this equation I had created, this perfect little world that I crafted out of white lies and black magic mathematics.

I was doing well in my business; making a killing as a matter of fact. So well that I began to slice a chunk of the pie here and there, padding my expense account while I loaded up my savings. I bought a boat, tools, a bunch of coozies and a tanning bed. I looked like a million bucks, smelled great, slept late. Unlike other schmucks, I wasn't going to slip on no banana peels.

She'd come over and we'd just tell each other lies. My colleagues would come into my office, and we'd tell each other lies. My ex-wife would call me, and she would tell me the truth. And I didn't ever wanna listen because listening just takes too much time. Like my daddy always said, just believe what you want and it'll eventually come true.
Photo by Thomas Patrick Wheatley/"Lonely Man in Paris"/Paris, France/July 2004

2005-09-06T04:13:00.000-07:00

The Day Off in Pyongyang

I walk district by district with my hands in my pockets, stroking a rabbit's foot made from actual rabbit, not brushed cloth or stringy fabrics. I walk to the center of every street corner and then make a 90 degree turn to the right and breathe in. It is timed and appropriate and a remnant of my days in the service.

I walk the boundaries of the city and wonder if I will see the country again.

My meals are solitary, just like my radio time. My rabbit's foot is rotting I think. It is what happens when they use actual rabbit.
Photo Courtesy of the Associated Press, Undated, Uncredited

2005-08-23T16:52:00.000-07:00

William Tell Overtones

She could reach for it. He was nervous, concerned, flustered.

If she moved fast, she could grab the barrel of the gun, wrestle it, twist it from his hands, save the day. She wouldn't have to shoot him, but just turn it on him. She was quick, good at surprises. And she could dance, too.

She could get her picture in the paper. She would use the reward money to buy fake breasts, which she would show off while riding the mechanical bull at honky-tonk bars. She would look 'em in the eye. Make an impact, make change. If she would only reach for it. If she could only do it.
Surveillance video courtesy of the Killeen, Texas Police Department/1.3.02/Any information call (254) 526-TIPS

2005-08-09T03:45:00.000-07:00

A Wink and a Smile

We drank all night.

Me and he, the brothers three, the poet, the doctor and the runner of guns. Add to the clan the moppet, the rake, the cad and the flake, the gambler, the trucker and the weaver of thread. We were poor and still fighting, the war still inviting, the enlistees are enlisting again.

The shots we lined up on newspaper bins outside the silent auction kickstarted our devolution from checkbook patrons into that of weepy weepies, our eyes red from sobbing, our posture poor and sadly authentic for thus far into the ritual. We are a far different breed than the consortium of seal trainers and society hounds gathered inside the aquarium cum gallery behind us.

I began alternating servings of whiskey with cups of coffee, and discovered, if by chance, that no friend pays your tab without wincing. Even if he is a seal trainer with the most vile of crimes to his name.

2005-07-27T15:10:00.000-07:00

Papercut

My son is a genius, a sage and a fighting little lion. H's done more than anyone his age -- he's only twenty-nine, still a baby, yes, but old enough to make fools listen -- and his looks, although he's kind of homey and common, get him in good with folks. Not a threat, you know?

He comes home twice a week from two towns over to work on his sculptures, in the garage, by himself, where I let him do his sort of thing. Well, out there, you know, he can concentrate. He won't let his friends or I see them because they're part of a big collection, and he's gonna reveal them all in one big opening, maybe at the civic center, but who knows. I keep telling him the Guggenheim, but he, hehehe, he always, you know. I think they got a theme, too, those statues he's making. Anyways, I park outside in front of the garage door, because all his art is in these crates and boxes in there, and it won't be for much longer.

It's been five years. I went in there one night, and looking into the room, saw the crates under a big green tarp. Sure, you want to take a peek, but it's gonna be a great day, when they roll out. I think he takes his tools with him, cause mine won't be any good for what he's doing--he got this art bug from his mother anyways. I think he takes naps out there sometimes. I found a sleeping bag, some beer. Helps him relax. Some blood. Cut his hand chiseling, what do I know?

Did I ever notice anything weird about him? I know what you're poking at, officer, but no, not really. He's a rare one, my son, kooky, but a really great kid. He wears glasses, you know, to see things right. Blind without them, but aren't we all.

He's building a bike, too, officer, a motorcycle that he built from scratch. That's under the tarp, out there, too, and from the looks of it, it'll be pretty like the sculptures...strong boy, he is.

I resent that tone, sir. My son is a sage and a prophet and a traveling miracle, and this bike he's building is going to be great, and his mother, God bless her winsome soul, will pull the clouds aside and look down upon he and I and know that we are doing okay, ain't nothing different or weird here. You cannot take him from me, no matter what you think he did.
Photo Courtesy of Getty Images

2005-07-23T06:57:00.000-07:00

Say it With Emoticons

No thanks, Tubby. I'll keep my seat, you can stand. she said with gritted teeth, one hand clutching the pole next to her, the other gripping my arm, digging her nails through my cotton sleeve, crescents etched into my skin.

Twas angry once again, this vitriolic bitch, my old lady, my ball and pain. I arrived into Des Moines on a business trip and fell in love with her during a hangover, half-drunk pillow talk that escalated into a day at the races. I called in and quit (I'm a travel agent, not a hedge fund manager) and was soon hopskotching around the country with her, this so-called DJ, this so-called artist. This so-called spinner of head trips and promise.

Her nails never drew blood, so they never chased me away. They gave me something to trace with my fingertips when I was lost in daydreams of a Seattle costume shop.

I began to realize my dreams were not about achievement but about cities.
Photo by Thomas Wheatley/Amtrak from D.C. to Philadelphia/June 2005

2005-06-22T04:37:00.000-07:00

The Best You Can Remember

Beacon remained the small mythical town in which many dreams play themselves out, populated with familiar faces in unfamiliar houses, three-room shanties with hardwood floors underfoot painted odd colors like those you find in eclectic communities.

In one room were three children which were to be watched and doted upon. In the room adjacent were three bound prowlers I had wrestled and subdued, one of whom had transcended into an intruder. He sat clutching a nasty gash from where he punched his arm through a pane of stained glass.

I had been running late for work (what exactly it was I did escapes me--I just felt a sense of duty) and forgot alltogether to close stormshutters to block out the sun. I chose to watch these manacled prowlers grumble and conspire, their desperate ideas of bravado interrupted by the high-and-lonesome whistles of rural saunterers down the road outside my door.

Painting by William Wright/"Claustrophobia" oil on canvas

2005-04-06T21:07:00.000-07:00

An Honest Living

The truck stop in Seneca, S.C. offered back-room massages for weary truckers--like those plugging down quarters in the unlit game room--and curious motorists like myself. It was at the end of a long hallway past the common bathrooms and 25 cent showers. Like I said, I was curious.

I opened the door to find what equates to a peep show in the Times-Square-of-the-past sans safety glass, the encounter of lonely man and working girl. I dark-eyed from night driving, she bored and heavy-lidded from rag-mag reading. She placed down her glossy, handed me a towel and pointed me in the direction of a toiletless stall so I could change.

In the gaps above and below the orange door, I noticed the lights dim to a hot cinnamon red--all that remained was the twang music playing from the gas station speakers. Upon exiting the stall, I found a large black man seated in the chair by the door, his arms crossed and eyes fixed on me. The woman stood shirtless, her hair wrapped in a shower cap, her hands in rubber gloves. And on the massage table, my shoes in a heavy-duty Ziploc bag.

And this was the vice I had chosen.

Painting by Patricia Chidlaw/"Truck Stop"/2003/from www.trogart.com

2005-03-31T16:00:00.000-08:00

You Wear Me Well

We opted for a lifestyle different from that of our peers; we had no money so therefore we would make no mistakes. On the margins, you and I drove through town at night listening to no music at all, just the chortling of a diesel engine, just the thrill of a long stare at square dancers at gas stations. Each red light, eyes forward. Each yellow light, go faster and through.

To control you was to keep you and to keep you was to love you and to leave you was to give you all the freedom you could have wanted. Look here, my lovely maid, my keeper of things intact. I find you coming back to me, I'll tie you to the tracks. Look here, my lovely nymph, made of silver some copper, no shine. We both have different day jobs now, we both tell clever lies. We both are still in mourning, for a friend left back behind. We both feed off questions, regurgitated in our mind.

And solemn is the pilot who flies the daily route. And awkward is the drunkard who makes it out of the house. And lonely is the copperheard whose venom is never tasted. A weapon, a missile, a predator--potential depleted then wasted.

Photo by TPW/"Copyright"/Paris, France 8/04

2005-03-22T07:45:00.001-08:00

Better Living Through Dentistry

It sits there like a coy boy in a group of eighth graders, half hiding behind the leaders of the pack. Once in his life, he was proud yet modest, honest with good posture. He saw one of his neighbors to the north get cracked, split in half, only to be replaced by a cosmetic cement.

After the braces he was in front and side-by-side with the others. Then came the tranistion into ninth grade, the kisses from girlfriends and exchanging of saliva through lust and soft drinks. He became drunk with alcohol and once in college felt the ravages of cocaine along his soft roots in weary bouts of fingerbrushing with narcotics at 4 am. He became darkened by black coffee, enlightened by green tea.

And the only way to make him proud is to bind him once again.

2005-03-17T11:51:00.000-08:00

The European Invasion

Due to a stagnant economy, staggering debt and a loss of alliance with the world, the United States found itself adrift and alone after gaffes and missteps in the Middle East. Large chunks of North American property were sold to newly allied Eastern European Bloc Allies for the purpose of oversea bases. One of them was several blocks from my house on a now razed National Park and historic mountain.

Construction began immediately, taking the form of a modern building of the Great Pyramids. Through high-powered binoculars one could see people dragging giant stones to create huge towers overlooking the land. And with these immigrating foreign soldiers came their families, their culture and their newfound imperialism. And their boxy vehicles and their grey skies.

It took four years for me to have my friend arrested in the lead up to the war, to save my parents' lives from rebel bullets, to fall in love with the enemy's daughter and to escape from my own country under attack with her.

Photograph by James Nachtwey/Magnum/TIME.com from the book "Inferno"

2005-03-09T07:31:00.000-08:00

The Thin Black Duke

John Wayne wisely never performed in blackface, although he did portray Genghis Khan in The Conqueror--a performance many call his yellowface role (as well as his worst and his most unfortunate-the film's Utah set, 225 miles from a nuclear test site, is accused of giving 90 cast and crew members, including The Duke, cancer). Little do our minds know, but Wayne was a shapeshifter.

My dream last night--influenced heavily by weary eyes, emotional stress and honky tonk alcohol--took place in a newspaper montage of a 1950s black-and-white film, where spinning tabloids rocketed at the viewer, exclaiming what only 48 pt text could back in 24 hour news days. John Wayne, once again it seems, had passed, and only the print media could memorialize him. Unlike Frank Sinatra, whose death was informed to me by Matt Lauer, the written word would break the news.

The media of my dreams decided to pay scant attention to the slow drawing, slow drawl cowboy who was John Wayne. They were all blackface Wayne. Merely seconds after his death, casting calls went out for the actor who would best portray The Duke in his least talked about role: the blackface clown.

There were givens: Tom Hanks, Gene Hackman (one last great time, old buddy). Some oddities: Jamie Foxx, John C. OReilly. The role ultimately went to an unknown, whose sepia headshot he submitted of the blackface Wayne captured the idea: even then much like now, he really should just be very tan.

Who got it right, however? The New Yorker, whose black-and-white cover told the story. A nondescript clown in whiteface, standing before a brick wall of black, a big oval surrounding his booger lips. Us and the world we act like we know, symbolism regardless of race.

2005-02-01T15:25:00.000-08:00

All Doors Lead to Doors

My locker held a locket, and the locket held nothing at all, and upon tossing it to the side I discovered the girl who would ultimately be the martyr of our grade, a soft-spoken pixie of advanced classes and a mainstay on a yearbook masthead. We would go on one date and talk about cannonballs and the importance of grafitti before being split by the choices of PE teams. She reminded me of an obvious fact--this all felt very after-school special, and I informed her that my train of thought was dependent on prior experiences. And then everything ended; I had to gather all my toys, blocks, anger and socks together and try to craft something that would make the exhibit something new. My rent was due and outside there was tear gas and sunshine. All these random thoughts made me a millionaire a million times over and a martyr just like a girl in a hallway who becomes a hero after vaporizing in a car crash.

Photograph by Thomas Wheatley/"Louvre Tiles" Paris, France 8/04

2004-12-29T11:25:00.000-08:00

Hiram and His Visions

It's hard to find braille in prison. Hiram, a lifer without sight, is forced to run his fingers over the cinderblock walls every night to feel some sort of stimulation, allowing the cracks and divets, bumps and grooves to become misspelled words, jumbled poetry, drunken rants. It wasn't that hard to do anymore; he no longer had to close his eyes and concentrate--he could just stand there and absorb it. Each jumbled word was stoically written in capital letters on the black canvas of his mind's sight, except for the once in a while discovery of a risque patch of wall. Then it was cursive. Then it was stimulation. Then it was romance in the abyss.

Photograph by Thomas Wheatley/"Venetian Hostel Tiles" Venice, Italy 7/04

2004-12-12T16:10:00.000-08:00

Such a Thing as an Enemy

I awoke on a black-and-white tiled bathroom floor, my left cheek numb, my right eye shut, my left arm missing. In the brief moment I was seesawing between conciousness and void, I saw the dress of my enemy; shirtless in jeans, brown prison boots and a ski mask with a blue bob. He stood in the doorway and breathed deep, white eyes as light as bone, a hairless cousin of a werewolf. The last time we met, he attacked me through the back door of my parents' house. He has stalked me through urban alleyways on a motorcycle and choked me in a four-star Venetian hotel. The demon in a dream is a recurring character, lying in wait for the changing of the seasons, plotting, training, scanning the blueprints of my mind.

Photograph by Thomas Wheatley/"Rong Rong's Glossies" Athens, Ga. 12/04

2004-11-18T17:23:00.000-08:00

Two Channels on the телевизионный and Nothing's On

The only joy of Communism is never having to decide what the hell you are gonna do. You will wake, you will work, you will queue, you will eat, you will drink (intermittently, throughout the day), you will rinse, repeat and then die in your sleep. You will find this comforting and monotonous, and in the end you will forget about the parallels while breathing breath in cold air, avoiding the visiting COPS camera crew and plotting how your mail-order bride business will ever get past the recruitment stage. Like the Sun and the Moon, the circle will come all the way around again and the 80-way intersection called "choice" will always be a state away.

But fear not, young pilgrim, for your boat has been built. Make your own sail from contracts and quilts and never believe that choice is a curse.

Photograph by Thomas Wheatley/"Communist Statue Park" Budapest, Hungary 7/04

2004-11-11T20:19:00.000-08:00

Phillywonk's Forgotten Entry

According to Thaddeus P. Phillywonk's "Maelstrom of the Animal Mindstorm," the only animals who are at ease with the size that God has bestowed upon them are whales and the long-extinct terradactyl. The rest -- giraffes, horses, elephants and panda bears -- are confused and in a perpetual frenzy of Lennie Syndrome, a debilitating disease named after the mouse-crushing numbskull from "Of Mice and Men." These animals know not what to do with their size or strength; they step on orphanages and antique stores by accident and are hostages to their own carnage.

Add Great Danes to the list. Bollagher, the beast in my care here off Prince Ave., is an off-yellow horsedog who is timid and lovable and clumsy and old. He has the gas of a deathbed Cubs fan and the odor of a bus driver's seat. Yet he is alive and wiry, curious and gentle, and romp dances upstairs every night in a bizarre ritual to remind himself he is indeed alive.

This morning, while charting out a story, he sauntered up next to me, his lips dripping with a mix of drool and water. He begged to have his neck stroked, to feel friction on an itch unreachable. Before I could make contact and ease his pain, his mouth opened and unleashed a burp consisting of half-digested dog food and canine innards.

I can't say this is his worst--my first night here he became a walking, barking whoopie cushion influencing me to leave a book of matches in every single room to which he can find access. He sleeps in the downstairs hallway lined with bookshelves, and when his ass starts rumbling, the pathway takes on a morbid smell of old yellow paper and fart. But he's worth keeping around. Not just for the cliche questions I get when I walk him ("How much he weigh?" "How old is he?" "You ride that thing?"), but for the fact that in his most frantic moments, you see the spectrum of animal emotion, and in the most calm, you see a giant with a heart. The see saw of the animal kingdom.

Photograph by Thomas Wheatley/"Bolly & Mabby" 11/04

2004-11-02T08:50:00.000-08:00

The Daddy-Bought Tattoo on a Range Rover's Ass (long and on purpose)

On the way back from Savannah, stomach reeling from oysters and an early morning screening of "Air Force One," I drove the endless two-lane artery between Soperton and Athens, State Route 15. The road is an anthropological study, showcasing the highs and lows of small-town Georgia, from the quaint window-shopping hominess of Greensboro to the fried chicken shacks of Sparta. The main road connects the students of one of the most enlightened institutions of higher learning in Georgia to their southernly roots and homes. Yet it is a bleak landscape; the stores in between are all empty and the windows are all gone, the homes are lean-to's, and the city square of fair Sparta is downtrodden and alone.

15 was a caravan of Athenians en transit, a one-way snake of SUVs sliding up and down the hills, and on many, nestled in the corner of the rear window, was a smarky little square: a black sticker, with a large white "W," and below this an identifier, like the title of a superhero sequel, "THE PRESIDENT." You've seen this--the bumper label has been decorating Bush supporter vehicles for a little over a year. (The stickers and other Bush merchandise are designed and sold by the Spalding Group, a marketing and promotions company in business exclusively for Republican campaigns). The stickers become so commonplace you doubletake when a passing car does not have one.

The sticker -- which looks like a cousin of (see ripoff) of The W Hotel logo -- is more than just a pseudosophisticated (oh-so-sleek, oh-so-modern) sign of affection for a dunce. It adds to the Bush cult and is a step short of erecting a mighty statue of a serving president--something more acceptable in dictatorships and unheard of in modern-day democracies. Man has seen the tragic results of the overly self-inflated rulers of our day; it is for this we wait for our leaders to pass before we turn them into physical icons. Kennedy was loved when alive, celebrated once dead. Hitler and Stalin became sedentary action figures in their lands, their wayward ideals amplified in stone and steel. For a moment, it seemed like the world understood the danger of this practice, of minting coins with your own profile or giant statues of your hands grasping swords. We seat our rulers at desks to combine a figure of authority with a symbol of productivity. Without a desk, their chair would be a throne.

The cult of George W. Bush is something dangerous, however. Half of the nation has proclaimed him a hero in spite of no courageous act, a success when he is a failure, a visionary when he is blind. A president who hoodwinks the United States of America should be treated as a CEO who lied to the board and the stockholders, not as a first-night waiter who dropped an urn of ice water. He answers to no one and his supporters don't question it. He lets us relax at the subdivision shindig; while we are engaged in badminton, we trust him to watch the kids in the pool and the burgers on the grill. But the kids are drowning, and the meat's burned black, and no one seems to care. The grand plan for democracy in the Middle East has become the play-it-by-ear, "if-we-catch-'em-we-beat-'em" version of chase the tail.

Yet the stickers stick and the signs stand. One by one, these cars passed me, rushing past the havenothings and cotton fields and onto Athens. Deep down, how many of those motorists really support him, really stand for what he says, really feel that he deserves to not just finish what he started, but enact new changes at home and abroad. How many are spoonfed, Republican by lineage and not choice?

Today, there will be another election, and from what I feel, another mighty foul up. I've cast my virgin presidential vote and it is oddly unsettling. It is not so much a heartfelt vouch for a candidate I support, but a weapon against a fool, the sole offensive against the second rush of bumblery, croneyism and the barroom rhetoric that has driven an ideological gash in the nation's heart.

A ramble? Yes. A gathering of thoughts muttered and shouted elsewhere? Yes. A blind stab at hoping I'll eat my words? Of course.

2004-10-25T07:15:00.000-07:00

Weaponry

My father had been receiving death threats and went through the usual course of action for any white, middle-aged male: call the cops, buy a Glock.

The suspect--who it seemed had a knack for doing this kind of thing with medical professionals--had called my father's office several times, threatening to shoot not only him but the nurses, the other doctors and then the rest of the 1,000-plus employees of the adjoining hospital. After six or so calls, enough was deemed enough. Three other doctors purchased Glocks, and an orderly who drives a mammoth safari vehicle bought a .45 powerful enough to shoot through the ancient fragile skin of an elephant. Complete with laser sight. Do not cross such white men.

He brought it home, marveled it at its Ronin-like beauty (black, lightweight, easy-to-clean with safety features galore) and placed it alongside his other sons, the guns in his closet. For the first time, my respectable, bespectacled father had moved past resembling a beat cop with a half-cocked sidearm and into an Austrian terrorist with demands.

On a rainy day, the family drove to a gun store lined with rifles and deer heads, staffed by men wearing Aviators. My mother, who is frightened by guns and hate speech, opted to sit outside the firing lane while he and I squeezed off $20 worth of ammo.

Pistols bring you the same feeling as any type of pill; it does what is intended, produces the effect you desire when you so desire it. The first squeeze is an apprehensive one, filled with images of the gun growing a brain and turning itself on you by a simple twist of the wrist. After that, it's just a process, the thrill on par with a scary movie.

Nothing happened with the crazed ex-patient. The threats stopped, and seeing as this man was a patient with records that listed his address, name--hell, even medical history--I never understood why they couldn't simply arrest him. But my father continues to go to this weapons depot, to stand in a dark alley with a two-dimensional paper threat 50 feet before him, where he triggers steel through air in a process that can now simply be called a hobby, brought to life by empty words from a fool with a scar.

Photograph by Thomas Wheatley

2004-09-25T10:20:00.000-07:00

Report: 10,000 people in U.S. work in forced labor
The Associated PressLast Updated 8:23 am PDT Saturday, September 25, 2004

SAN FRANCISCO - At any given time, some 10,000 people in the United States are forced to work against their will under threat of violence, a new report found.

Their name: interns and movie theater ushers.

2004-09-13T21:26:00.000-07:00

9.11.04 - Exxon Gas Station Country Music Jamboree - Cherokee, N.C.

2004-09-13T20:51:00.000-07:00

Blind Guides Need Not be Trusted...Trust Solar Power

After conferring with my confidante/nightwatchman/trail guide, Manny Toothjeans, I have decided to slap another slice of digital pie on this here screen of yours and yours and mine. Fatigue is still bearing heavy on my mind and spirit, so Liza Minelli and Pat Sajak will just have to take a raincheck on our long-planned gem-and-crystal swap. I returned from perhaps the most couple of days I've spent with complete strangers/new friends (His Blood Warriors, the motorcycle ministry I've been covering) in Cherokee, N.C., a picturesque and incredibly tolerant city to put up with "titties," Vince Neil and 10,000 bikers in a couple of days. I'm working on a 3,000 word recounting of my time with them, which feels too short to give it justice, but I'll do my best.

If you need to contact me, keep on sending souvenirs and knicknacks to the above address or wheatleythomas (at) yahoo (dot) com. Robots are lurking, hungry for data. In the meantime, I'm trying to piece together a more tangible means of viewing my photos. If you have an idea, please tell me. Other than that, I'm battling demons for the time being.

Send turkey bacon and Fanta. And in keeping with what I wrote up there, trust solar power.

2004-08-16T10:33:00.000-07:00

Celebrate My Existence, Minions

It was twenty four years ago today that a redheaded dynamo entered this world.

Last night, my pops decided that it was a good time for an improptu cross country trip to San Francisco. So tonight, we head out for five days, familystyle. Feel free to give me a call, bellysplashers.

2004-08-12T03:56:00.000-07:00

Returning to Humdrum

I'm back in body but not exactly mind, as the past two days I have not slept in the presence of snoring, international spirits and thieves I have tossed and turned due to jetlag. Within a couple of days, things should be on the up and up.

To encapsulate 28 days in the form of a couple of paragraphs would be quite daunting, especially for 7 am. However, I will say that Berlin has bees and bunnies instead of flies and squirrels, Hungarian women are not the Babushkas I expected and Paris is the dirtiest and most beautiful city in the world. We hiked the foothills of the Swiss Alps, stumbled along the canals of Amsterdam and waded in thermal baths with Magyars.

Most of these scenes can be viewed in the link to the right. More will be added as the days go on.

2004-07-13T06:21:00.000-07:00

Off to Europe

I had hoped to post a bunch of photos and an entry before I left, but this is all I have to show. So be it. Expect more (hopefully) along the way. Click on the link to the right for photos (once again, hopefully).

Loafers will be evicted!!!

2004-06-30T07:08:00.001-07:00

Okay, everybody at the same time...What tha fu*k?

In a quick attempt to find pics of Muzzy, the lovable clock-eating cartoon that helped me grasp the Spanish tongue via first-period videos in high school, I stumbled upon this website.

Mind you, it's not for the faint of heart, but nothing says innoncence like a tank-top clad Hawaiian kid holding a .357 Magnum next to a wild boar killed alongside members of his clan.

I'm not against hunting, just kids brandishing hand cannons.

In other news, Flagpole is rebuilidng their website, so the only article available online at the moment is "Metal Chairs & Middle Fingers." The others may/may not be back for a while. If you are here specifically to see them, contact me at the e-mail above.

2004-06-28T06:44:00.000-07:00

Michael Stipe is Stalking Me

For a long time, I thought I would never be exposed to Michael Stipe, that I was simply a minute too late and a pub too mundane to cross paths with him. The strangest of people would say they saw him; professors, columnists, even Carlos, my friend's gigolo Columbian roommate from freshman year.

In the past year, I've had three Stipesodes. One was a face-to-face collision (nearly) as Mikey was leaving Bombay, a vegetarian restaurant next to my apartment building. The last two have happened in the past two nights. The first of which took place Saturday at the 40 Watt, with Stipe really looking like he was in a music video (sans blue eyeband from whatever their last video was and stupid hat a la "Shiny Happy People"). The second being last night, at Hot Corner, a coffe shop. Buddy has style.

The only thrill is knowing that coincidence pointed its picky pistol at me. And that I may just be getting the same oh so sweet travel patterns as Herr Stipe.

2004-06-22T12:32:00.000-07:00

Hugh Hefner is a pig/Hire me, Mr. Hefner

While I understand my current occupation in food service (as so deftly pointed out by Pete McCommons here) will end in two weeks, it is so difficult for me to break away from the title of "student" and into the limbo levitating hell that is "unemployed" or "between jobs."

Yet unlike the field of law, where a prospect is considered by his LSAT score and high marks, or in fishery management, where internships and bravado are deemed desirable, the vast and schizophrenic playing field of journalism looks for clips. And in an article I am currently writing, I held my tongue as not to offend that man in his jammies, Hugh Hefner.

I won't get too in depth to the background of my article, but I compare a nudist to Hugh Hefner, physically and in behaviour (oh so British) and mannerism. However, I pepper the comparison with the fact that this man is not a self-designated elitist like Mr. Hefner. (As you may recall, the Hef decided after writing the manifesto that is the Playboy Philosophy to live the life--sure he could have fallen on his face with it, but he elevated himself to actually become his magazine and the smartest and most visible marketing tool I have ever seen.)

Mr. Hefner (now I show respect) will almost assuredly never see this article. I may not even use the comparison. But it made me wince; the idea of having to look into the eyes of an elderly man who had bedded countless beauties, broke through an addiction to speed and created one of the most lasting pieces of journalism and social commentaries of the 20th century. It made me wonder if I could even muster the words, "yo, Hef...no offense."

I'm sure I won't have to. Tuesday toast to not knowing if I ever will.

2004-06-21T11:36:00.000-07:00

Good Morning, Mountain Boy

Got back at or around 9:00 pm last night after spending a much-needed weekend with the ladyfriend in Western North Carolina. Time was spent here, here and here.

While up there we relaxed, drank wine, became obsessed with Lance Armstrong, battled the world's most gregarious mallard and basked in each other's glory. It was productive and fleeting and everything I could ever want. Expect pics of the two days soon.

Today and tomorrow is entirely devoted to article time. Here's to ending the dependence of heavy-eyed truckers on I-85 nudie bars.

2004-06-15T06:43:00.000-07:00

In an Army of Writers, Everyone's a Turncoat (Slate)

or

Writers Should be Born With Knives in Their Backs

I'll admit that David Brooks initially cast a spell on me. There was just something about his writing (pre-New York Times) that had a flow to it, a certain eloquence, a rambling quality that all meshed in the end. His pieces for The Atlantic, most notably this one, were on point. "Bobos in Paradise," on first read, was an excellent book, although in hindsight my take on it is clouded by his exposed generalizations.

But he has fizzled. Slate's David Plotz has it right when he says that Brooks doesn't have enough material to do two columns a week, especially for a widely viewed behemoth like the Times. I think he is overworked and out of his element.

So right now everyone--including the people who praised him little over a year ago--are lambasting him, saying everything short of "resign." It seems when you make it to one of the many pinnacles in life's endeavors, any effort declared unworthy or insufficient is immediately followed by that six letter word. Be it the presidency, columnist, birthday clown, whatever.

For his sake, this whole situation may die down, at which point he may step down and head back to The Weekly Standard. Or he can just say "damn the [critical] torpedoes, full speed ahead!" After all, it is there, in his own little world, wearing blinders to his critics, where Brooks shines.

2004-06-13T11:24:00.000-07:00

You archie bastards, pass that spliff befo' it gits lingering!!! (The Sun-UK)

The Portuguese police must have a soft, mellow side to allow Brits (and I'm guessing other nationalities) to smoke pot during a soccer game against rival France. Hoping to curb outbreaks of hooliganism, more time will be spent cleaning up nacho trays than teeth, and chants will be somewhat unenthusiastic.

Hasn't the fever pitch been one of soccer's (I'm sorry, football's) biggest draws? The bonfires, the confetti, the roman candles? Will such activities still go on?

I'm sure they will. Not everyone in the crowd will be blowing ganja, and there most likely will still be some pockets of disturbance. But you have to hand it to the Portuguese; if you can't beat them with discipline, please them with tolerance.

And pray to God that methheads don't sneak in among the potheads. Then all hell will break loose. Happy Sunday.

2004-06-07T13:46:00.000-07:00

Okay, Kit, rocket boosters to the keg party! (CNN)

As reported in the news, although oddly not receiving as much as talk as Pres. Reagan's passing, the upcoming G-8 Summit or D-Day, David Hasselhoff was arrested over the weekend on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol.

This is mildly entertaining because he is "one of those" celebrities, the likes of which include John Stamos, Bob Saget --well, okay the whole cast of Full House-- Jaleel White, Pee Wee Herman, Rip Taylor (see yesterday's entry) and so on. These are entertainers and personalities who had the misfortune of having a memorable role they could not escape. While they may have been extremely nice and good hearted people, they struck a chord with the general public as just being weird. Therefore when they are discovered doing something human (DUIs, shoplifting, hell, pleasuring one's self in a porn theater), they seem incredibly tragic.

And here I am adding fuel to the fire. Hang in there, David. Hang in there.

2004-06-07T13:45:00.000-07:00

Couldn't Kit stop him?

2004-06-06T10:33:00.000-07:00

This is a test, using a photo of someone with a lot of luck and a quick ejector seat hand.

2004-06-06T08:38:00.000-07:00

Celebrities are sending me e-mail, the strangest of which comes from still-budding star Hugh Jackman. I never open his messages; he's changed. His subject line usually informs me that "she pays rent with puzzzzzyy/81625" or that he has spyware he wants me to try out. Again, he's changed. It used to be about the stage and screen.

Someone out there creates spam. I hardly think a computer is possible of producing sentences that are (for the most part) legible and clear. And if so, what do these people look like. Are they really hackers in Indonesia or Hong Kong, who smoke cigarettes and only get the most random names of actors whose identities they feel safe to assume? How on Earth am I going to know Hugh Jackman. I might as well know Rip Taylor.

Tomorrow I head back to Athens, or perhaps tonight. My dear O! sweet dear has finished Maymester and is in Charleston/back to Raleigh. Thank God for cars. And planes. And phones. And hearts that beat hard for a person you love.

2004-06-01T14:34:00.000-07:00

There be many a rude bastard in them there hills, or more specifically, them there streets of Athens. Be they customer or stranger, hobo or lollygagger, they find a way into your life somehow or another.

Case in point: I shan't say where I work, as that would not be kosher in this realm. For myself or my employer. There's one guy who comes in and insists on odd combos of paper money and coins, because he uses a moneyclip and one of those plastic coin purses. He likes to keep the girth to a minimum: big bills and as few ones as possible.

Moneyclip Flip Spiceland starts tossing me random coins, coins that have nothing to do with the purchase (total: $4.32; he hands me $5.47). His backwards bartering baffles me--and he snaps at me for it. Doublestitch your pockets or get a debit card.

Sorry for the simple rant. Useless, yes. Unnecessary, yes. Will it ever happen again? Yes.

Went to Helen over this Memorial Day Weekend with AW, who day after day continues to fascinate me and make me ever more thankful. How she puts up with me I have no idea. Perhaps it's the incredibly thin wallet I carry. Or the fact that I know how to live life with change!!! Anyhoo...it's rare when a person can make my heart sour with just a glance.

2004-05-23T14:27:00.000-07:00

In attempts to stay sane while planning not only a trip to Europe (and finding a deal at that), writing articles, looking for a job and plan of attack for dreams and goals and starting a part-time moneymaking gig, I have put full and total faith in caffeine and Welch's fruit snacks.

The effects show on my frame, which has gone from a Chik-Fil-A and Flying Dog tubby to a skinny puppy. Slowing down will bring about serenity.

Yet it's hard to slow down, because I have embarked on a strange period where my mind and body are both on different schedules. Allow me to explain as quickly as possible, since it's been proven that people don't like reading long web entries:

Body got to go to work. Mind got to figure stuff out. Mind can't work at 100% on non-work issues when body got to work. Got to work.

This is stress talking, making me a robot, and deserves no attention. Peace be with you.

2004-05-16T06:44:00.000-07:00

Last night I attended the wedding of a high school friend, Ms. Anna Beth Allen, and her college beau, Tommy Tidwell. Much fun was had by all, and it turns out that "how you doin'" conversations can be quite enjoyable in the wake of mimosas and bellinis. And wine. And stiff stiff drinks.

I actually didn't need to retreat into a cave of alcohol to encounter faces from my past, and I had a good time. We'll avoid the usual dive into how surreal the actual ceremony was, because that's too much opining even for a blog. The truth of the matter: marriage is ready for you when you are ready for it.

My dad, in usual fiesta philosopher form, made a good point. Marriage doesn't matter one bit. It's a finalization, a contract, a word. Life doesn't change after marriage if the bride and groom were living together, existing together, attacking life together, etc. What does change a couple's life? Children. That's something in itself.

And on Sunday we rest.

2004-05-12T14:32:00.000-07:00

Totally, entirely through, but I hit the ground running and have continued working on articles, thoughts, plans, ideas and pep talks to start up fiction again.

Various gifts were handed to me over the course of two days back home: a suit, which looked and felt classy even during the stressful suit-buying process; a DVD/video player, which will come in handy for those rare times when I have a videotape to play (see: porn, bootlegs, hobgoblin snuff films, old home movies); a digital camera, which will come in extremely handy during Europe. Ahhh, Europe. That place where I intend to go and that I have yet to plan. Will come in time.

Got a great call from an editor today, and he's interested in me writing each and every week, and paying me a modest stipend. Thank God for this guy, whose name shall be revealed when all is said and done.

I've been in the biblio all day, and now it is time to feed my face and rest my lids. This should be the first of many posts this summer. Things feel good. Sorry, that sounded like a guy who bought a convertible.

Peace out from the dug out.

2004-05-03T20:44:00.000-07:00

More than two weeks since my last post, but give me a break. I graduated, you nimrods!

On Friday, I was part of a ceremony that I will remember, as opposed to the one that I will participate in on Saturday. The Grady College had a little awards banquet, followed by our convocation at The Classic Center. I was given a certificate for my Hearst Award and a paperweight, respectively, and it was just right.

In the audience I could see my parents and girlfriend, and I could see pride and relief. Not only could I see it, but feel it and embrace it. Like a plant feels sun, like a baby feels a blanket.

I have to admit, in the weeks leading up to the event, I wasn't too thrilled about the whole experience. I felt like I had still something to achieve. Now I realize that is not the case. I've done a lot. I have so much more to do.

I think horoscopes are huge wastes of resources -- time, ink, paper, salary (for the writers), emotion, thought. I read one the other day that made sense, though, and maybe that is the case only because it touched me. "Life is not about finding yourself, but creating yourself." It added something.

In the coming weeks, expect more posts. It's time to work on freelance articles and finding how I'm going to bite life in the neck and draw blood. Good night.

2004-04-16T11:49:00.000-07:00

As stated earlier, Air America is a floppity-flop flop flop. First, checks to the station owners in Chicago and Los Angeles, MRBI, bounced. Then, their programming got yanked and replaced with Spanish-speaking filler. They got a judge involved, who said programming should resume in Chicago. Alas, still no Air America.

Liberal radio will not make it in this country. Or in this world. At first I thought it was only because of the ideals and arguments. Now I realize that the business people in charge cannot run it. Lugheads I tell you.

More later...

2004-04-05T18:03:00.000-07:00

Today is Monday, April 4, and in the United States of America, we are discussing Condoleeza Rice's upcoming testimony, the acquittal of a stone-throwing babykiller mom and steroids in baseball. In North Korea, here is one of the day's headlines:

***************
http://www.kcna.co.jp/index-e.htm

Kim Jong Il Inspects Cattle Ranch of KPA Unit
Pyongyang, April 4 (KCNA) -- Supreme Commander of the Korean People's Army Kim Jong Il, general secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea and chairman of the National Defence Commission of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, inspected the July 18 Cattle Ranch of KPA Unit 580. Going round the exterior and interior of the ranch including cattle sheds, an ensilage processing ground, an epizootic prevention centre and a technical study room, he acquainted himself in detail with the construction of the ranch and breeding.
The cattle ranch has been built in favor of the management and anti-epizootic work and the quality of the construction been ensured on a high level, he said, highly praising the soldier-builders for devoting all their wisdom and enthusiasm to creating one more precious asset conducive to the prosperity of the country.
This ranch can rapidly increase live-stock products as it is located in a good place and its grass field is wide, he said, adding that it should be developed into a large-scale stockbreeding base by making an effective use of its favorable conditions.
In order to build up the ranch prospectively, it is imperative to finish within a few months ahead of schedule the projects which are envisaged at the second stage including the construction of the cultural and welfare facilities and the pavement of roads of the grass fields, he noted.
Saying that what is most important in producing more cattle meat is to choose good stock, he stressed the need to carry through the Party's policy of effecting a radical turn in raising animal breeds.
In order to increase live-stock products, he said, it is necessary to be fully equipped with facilities for scientific research and deepen research and, at the same time, steadily improve the technical level and skill to put breeding on a scientific and technological basis.
He put forward the task of building up a fodder base.
Then he chose the site of a duck farm to be built by servicepersons.
To increase the production of meat, eggs, fish and other subsidiary food is a heavy yet honorable revolutionary task to realize the centuries-old desire of the people, he said, expressing great expectation and conviction that they will perform feats in the struggle to boost the stockbreeding industry of the country at a new higher stage and bring about a decisive turn in improving the standard of the people's living.
He was accompanied by KPA Generals Ri Myong Su, Hyon Chol Hae and Pak Jae Gyong and First Vice Department Director of the WPK Central Committee Ri Yong Chol.
***************

Let the record show that North Koreans are in need of a better news service. And a better country. But first things first, I suppose. Like the location of their duck farms.

All kidding aside, this excerpt is textbook state-run media. You can only think how many of its citizens are angered at this heaping slice of the propaganda pie on the buffet of injustice. If the War on Terror is indeed against all terrorists, then the IRA, hypothetically, should not be too far behind al Qaeda. If the war against brutal dictators and human rights violators is indeed that as well, North Korea will be the next country we shall "liberate."

However, the nation does have a few things going for it. The CIA World Factbook states that the country boasts a 99 percent literacy rate, meaning that all but one percent of the population over the age of 15 can read. If what I have pasted for you is normal reading, then that one percent needs to get on the ball.

My article, a rough draft about small-town professional wrestling, beckons me. However, read all about North Korea's ills at:

www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/kn.html

You'll have to cut and paste that, as blogger is incredibly uncooperative as of late. Good night to all.

2004-03-29T16:40:00.000-08:00

On Wednesday, radio listeners in Chicago, New York and San Francisco will be greeted by a group of new voices espousing familiar ideals. It is Air America Radio, a "progressive" (see liberal) radio network that will fall flat on its face.

Progress Media Inc., Air America's parent company, promises a new outlet for progressive ideas to counter the mainly conservative gabbers out there in radio nation. While I am a champion of the marketplace of ideas, I can do nothing but applaud these blind pioneers in their quest and hope to catch them when they fall. They are fighting a dragon with a butter knife.

Liberal radio is a concept that cannot work. Radio is not tailored to host liberal arguments, as they are complex and branching, requiring bulletpoints to give ground for reasoning and not the ever important soundbyte that conservative hosts like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Martin Savidge utilize and rely on.

The voice of liberals, and the information that comes out of them, are viewed poorly in our world. Not only by the right, but by the non-politicos as well. Limbaugh can steamroll over causes and boast of conservative might, and Hannity can derail and condemn anyone who does not follow the piper from Texas. They are considered at worst loudmouths, and their response to any criticism usually follows the lines of "So what? I'm right."

Liberals, to be honest, sound like whiners when they protest or speak of their beliefs. It is because at the root of the argument, the liberal stance is compassionate and not entirely self-serving. It thinks more about others and in turn is viewed as too huggy and wanting. Conservatism is selfish. Welfare is the active supporting the lazy, and the downtrodden and helpless are the sad remainder in life's equation. As stated earlier, it's cut and dry. Abortion? The taking of a life and a sin. Terrorism? You're with us or against us. Cut and dry. Good soundbytes.

To truly survive and prosper, Air America must take a page from conservative radio's playbook and attract the opposition (labeled in radio as "lurkers") who will bask in countering arguments and call in, vocally proving their participation in the programming. Perhaps they will bring some of their furor from the right of the dial to the left. Air America can over time claim them as a valuable demographic, pimp them out to advertisers and sustain their airtime. Since liberals know what they believe, and don't require their beliefs to be reinforced day in and day out, they are most likely not going to tune in when out of an automobile on the way to work. The ever mobile conservative, tight knuckles and teeth gritting, will be the fuel by which the liberals burn.

2004-03-17T12:39:00.000-08:00

Green drinks me thinks. Today is St. Patrick's Day, the holiday chock full of alcohol and pinching which means nothing but hangovers and bruises for the true Irish like myself. For the first time in what feels like four years, the holiday actually falls on a day where I have to be in school, have duties, must wake up and walk among the living. Previously, they were on weekends or during my Spring Break.

I won't be celebrating this year. Much is to be done in the World of Thomas, which is why this entry must be brutally short. Off to the salt mines of word processing for me.

All the best, messies.

In the meantime, I recommend these...

2004-03-16T08:07:00.000-08:00

Now that we are robotically tapdancing on the Red Planet, I have arrived at the conclusion that astronomers are the happiest people on Earth. They have tapped the keg of delight and become drunk at its spigot, those stargazers, as they peer into the sky and the past at things they will never touch but strive to embrace. They reveal to us all they know and discover, even though a good portion of us don't know what the hell it means. Still, they are cosmic voyeurs who seem thrilled at every pebble found on Mars, every solar flare burst from the Sun.

Notice I don't say astronauts -- astronauts are often very stoic and collected in their thoughts and actions; and for good reason, as they've been off our planet and back again. The recent advancements on Mars has given astronomers a spring in their step and better sex lives, without a doubt. NASA has conducted webcasts of Rover movements, and even Q&A sessions with its female scientists. A smorgasbord of space snippets can be found at . Don't spend too much time there, though. The Flight Director's Update has been shown to cause testicular explosions due to cuddly spaceman cuteness.

Our watchers of the sky are not only giddy at the NASA level, but at the academic level as well. The first science course I took in college was ASTR1020 (Intro to Astronomy). My professor, one Peter Hauschildt, was either German or Austrian, in his late 20s or early 30s, and was undoubtedly one of the coolest sons of bitches I have ever seen. Every Tuesday and Thursday he lectured us enthusiastically in blue jeans and sandals, his thick rimmed glasses zeroing in on every sleeping pupil and medium length hair swaying a half second behind his jutting head. And he wasn't dressing the fit the part; this was how this man was. Several times during the semester, I found him walking through campus with his astro posse which consisted of a couple of TAs who soaked up his quasar machismo and felt invigorated by it. These wannabe Hauschildts had to walk behind the man as he strolled hand-in-hand with his woman, who was also beaming from ear to ear. The only person not impressed by Hauschildt was Hauschildt, which is the true sign of cool. The best part about him was his focus: black holes. Yes! So abstract and dark.

Some of my earliest memories involve astronomers, as my childhood is framed by space shuttle launchings, most notably, the Challenger disaster in 1986. As a young mediaphile, I remember somber press conferences, footage from a camera in mission command (dare I call it Houston?) and the comments of colleagues of those who died in the launching.

Without the dark, the light wouldn't be bright. Space exploration has had many moments of tragedy, and astronomers, even with their sunny dispositions, find these events earthshattering yet reinforcing in their goals. I wonder how they approach their work, by viewing it as war or exploration. While you could equate the two, since they both involve movement, stalemate, loss and gain, they do differ. Do they find the losses inevitable, and perhaps even in their deepest of unspoken thoughts, necessary? I think that they do. Our shuttles are modern sailing ships, and our sails are jets and the cohesion of science and dreams. The loss is not a loss, but a gain, an advance by way of sacrifice.

2004-03-13T10:04:00.000-08:00

My apologies in advance for this travel diary...commentary essays return after this flowery entry...

(Continued from 3/13/04)

Our flight from Atlanta landed at Kalispell International Airport around 10:00 pm Mountain Time. We were immediately approached by a young girl and asked if we were Scott and Thomas. With travelweary eyes we replied that we were, indeed. She was our host, our ride into town, and informed to look out for two guys with shaved heads. Supporting details: one had a goatee, the other had red hair. Eureka. We were off.

The trip was doable by the fact that we opted out of staying at a hotel. While this freed up money, it also meant we were staying a little under an hour away from Big Mt., where we would ski and snowboard. Our lodging was a dog-filled cabin by Lake Flathead, and my bed was a worn shag carpet and camping pillow the size of a book. It was heaven, though, as any energy I could have put into kvetching about my conditions was spent on the days of skiing we enjoyed.

Big Mountain is gorgeous, the ideal location to lock yourself onto two pieces of wood and let the absence of friction determine your outcome. If the world were a table, Big Mt. would sit at the head.

From atop the summit you gaze at Whitefish, a small eclectic town that is undergoing the puberty of ski villages. An influx of celebrities (Demi Moore! Carol Burnett!? Jim Nabors???) and snow enthusiasts has made it a more popular destination, one that is recommended by editors in travel glossies and travelers in airport lounges. The town is growing, as evident in (what appears to be smart) business development and condo/hotel/home construction. You find the wayward post graduate soul working at the eateries and lifts, and the awe-inspired vacationer ambling around town. You find the cliche out West ski town that defies cliches.

Our first two days were spent skiing, although two members of our tight-knit party snowboarded. It was surprisingly easy to find my ski legs again, as I fell down only five times the first day. From my perspective (which is the only one that matters when you are careening down a hill), I did quite well. We all did. I wasn't the tight legged alpine dynamo with an aerodynamic cup on my crotch, but I was able to keep up and lead. Thursday was a much different story.

Since lift tickets are the real kicker in the cost of skiing (boots and skis rent for $15 a day), we decided to enjoy nearby Glacier National Park and hike to Lake Schneider by way of snow shoes.

Glacier was a sight to behold, and if you refer to last night's sappy entry, you'll get all the adjective-heavy imagery. National Parks, while natural, are undoubtedly designed by the route deciders to drop jaws. The road that brought us into the park weaved us down a broad river and next to a lake that reflected the sky and clouds and mountains it calls neighbors. We were to hike a distance of nine miles to an elevation 2,000 feet higher than where we were. Parked next to a lodge closed for the season, we walked to the start of the trail that would take us to our destination, a frozen lake that sits at the joint of two mountain ridges.

Snow shoes are crafty inventions. You strap your toes into two long pieces of plastic and coast over loose snow, the wide surface area keeping you upright and elevated. The plastic never really seems to come off the ground, as your heel is not strapped in and remains free.

They were comfortable, but my boots were not. Blisters developed on both heel within 45 minutes. My body became exhausted around the same time, which I took in stride knowing that I would soon catch my second wind, the relief that comes after your mind and body agree to a suitable amount of exertion. The hike, which was entirely up hill, ground the skin on my heels to the bone, as I could feel liquid flood the loose skin and shift with each step. The short downhill areas of our walk were not a welcome sign for me; I knew that every down meant an even steeper up, and that was where the pain was.

Four and a half miles in we arrived at Lake Schneider, which was covered in ice and snow. In winter, it looked like an unused landing area for rescue helicopters, a clearing in the trees. Totally flat and serene, I was awash in silence and blue, confused by frozen waterfalls and curiously paranoid about the tracks on the other side of the lake. We sat and ate, and at 4:30 pm, began the hike back with daylight burning before us. Unbeknownst to me at the time, one of my blisters (the one treated midhike with mole skin no less) had popped.

Either it was the fact we were going downhill or that I had simply grown accustomed to the pain, but I felt nothing on the way back. My eyes were not focused on our surroundings or on the end of the trail, but the trail itself. The beaten path before me, the path that I focus on only when my next step requires it. The unrelenting moment of now and not next, of here and not there.

It reminds me that looking at now and not next can attack time and its challenges better than any plan is able to.

Northwest Montana is a beautiful and epic landscape that has not changed my life, but enriched it. It did not make me want to toss pizza dough to pay for lift tickets or drop my as yet undecided plans to live in a tree for six months. It did make me want to awe and inspire and choke life by its thick neck.

No more travel entries until I travel once more.

2004-03-12T20:28:00.000-08:00

The West stands out as the face of the Earth, showcasing her wrinkles and age with grace and majesty. Time has morphed her into a wondrous sight of peaks and caps and valleys and ridges.

Earlier tonight, I returned from my first visit to Montana, and if you were to tell me I would utter words like those above a week ago, I would have branded you a liar; such transcendental and mystical babble was more fitting wafting out of a microbrew groupie's wordchute after the lifts close.

It is moving, though, the sight of a landscape so still it can only be called a painting. So powerful it belongs on the back of a newly minted dollar bill.

More to come on the West at a later date...time to see friends. Good night.

2004-02-25T16:54:00.000-08:00

After walking into the Carmike 12 Cinemas in Athens, Ga., I felt that "The Passion of the Christ" was a sort of "Lord of the Rings" for Christians. Here and there, I saw smudges on foreheads, bookmarked bibles under arms and people scribbling in notepads. The scribblers I pigeonholed as sharp-eyed atheists or ministers because the average moviegoer rarely documents what they are watching, and merely wades in it. Once I realized that it was Ash Wednesday, I felt at ease.

The movie, which runs two hours and covers the last 12 hours (plus one resurrection!) of Jesus' life on Earth, is a cinematically gorgeous film that reveres the Son of God and the slow-motion technique. An hour is devoted to his torture at the urging of Jews and by the hands of Romans. The theater was packed and the mood was somber. It was the most crowded cinema I've ever been in at 1:30 pm on a Wednesday.

For months, almost since its inception, people have been discussing the repercussions of putting out a movie like this, pointing fingers at the Jews and easing the blame on the Romans (Pontius Pilate specifically). For the most part, I felt it was incredibly gutsy to take ideas that have been discussed for centuries and put them into a medium that will qualify as "the truth" for millions. Not only will many Christians be so moved as to consider it jaw droppingly accurate (which is impossible to prove), many non-believers will view it as propaganda.

I have no ground to say whether I felt the film was historically accurate, so I won't. Yes, the Jews were portrayed in a bad light. But, if accounts say that they felt threatened by Jesus' influence, and did indeed nearly exhaust themselves getting him crucified, the film is dead on. In terms of storytelling, you could not find a better villain.

But was it anti-Semitic? No. If the movie portrayed Jews as a race of killers, that would be anti-Semitic. Broken down to the bare essentials, the Bible is a story. Did Jews act like that? Really? They did? Then show it. Is there evidence to the contrary? Show that.

The adage that you must not place the sins of the father on the son rings true for all groups. The majority of critics out there don't believe that the film is anti-Semitic, they just think it will evoke anti-Semitic feelings. The only way to stop that is to encourage people to be more open-minded, but in the end, that's left to the person.

It's a fine movie, although it is sometimes a bit too quick to employ the slow-motion technique. Will it usher in a new wave of Christian thought, or maybe just devotion, or will it gently fade into the "good movie" tier of films, like how "The Conversation" is good, but not as good as "The Godfather?" We'll see.

In a conversation with Peter Bart and Peter Guber, Gibson offers some insight into his views on the film. He plans on keeping it intact for the DVD (no unreleased footage or multiple angles), imposing a clause for no-commercials when it comes to network airings and maintaining a watch on the subtitle translation for foreign release. Maybe Gibson's epic is more art than capitalization, as Andy Rooney questioned on 60 Minutes.

I just hope this film doesn't make him smug in all his henceforth interviews. Like Tom Hanks after "Philadelphia." But he's gotten better. Love ya', Tom.

2004-02-24T17:34:00.000-08:00

Time heals all wounds and anxieties. Shortly after my last posting, my book, "The Language of Fear" by Del James arrived, without a scratch and in pristine condition (which is along the same lines as mint condition). Riding on its coattails were four (4) tickets to see Air at EarthLink Live on April 6 in Atlanta. Elevating myself in the travel-weary metal box with flashy, pressable buttons to the ninth floor, I had a feeling of exuberance and finality. Like two anticipated babies, left by the stork. For me and me alone.

The book, which is a collection of short stories dealing with the unseen and unwanted elements of our society -- mainly, drug addiction, street life, substreet life -- is more or less Sunset Strip poetry. The author makes references to the female anatomy in snarled lip callousness, referring to a vagina as the cliche "flower." Bloodstains are referred to as "HIV graffiti." You get the drift, I presume. It's a run-of-the-mill slice from the dark-mind turkey. But it sings in certain areas. James has a clever mind and several stories are actually worth reading. One in particular...

One of the last stories (depends on your edition...though out of print now, there were several runs of "The Language of Fear") is titled "Without You." The story is the inspiration for the three (or four if you count the alternate version of "Don't Cry") videos off the insanely classic Guns n' Roses albums, "Use Your Illusion I & II."

What is most interesting about these videos, as Chuck Klosterman superbly points out in "Fargo Rock City," is that they seem to be in no particular order. The child I was, and in many ways still am, was hungry to wrap my developing fingers on a copy, crease the book in half and flood my eager brain with details of syringes and domestic abuse, crashed wedding cakes and cliff-defying automobiles, as the videos showed me in their nonsequential splendor. My searches would turn up nothing; the book was already hot and gone. Rare book sellers were perplexed by a fifth grader asking for such a title. My mother was equally embarrassed by my request.

I have only glanced at it, and will get to it once I can muster the courage and tact to read it without ruining it. As we speak, it's choking in a Ziploc bag on my bookshelf, a victim of my paranoia and captor of my desire to one day cash it in.

It stinks like an old book. All I know of its lifespan is that I got it from Kentucky (thanks, Pam Baker, whoever the hell you are), and it must be a late printing (date says early 90s, I believe). The foreword is written by Axl Rose, lead singer of the now defunct and never-to-return (embrace the truth, folks) band who acted out James' stories. Plus, Rose describes probing James for video ideas for their stale and tired "The Spaghetti Incident" EP (works great as a coaster). Still, I finally got the book. Thank you, eBay. I am no longer horny in the bidding war (see below post).

To toss it in the ring real quick: 90s rock books are a strange genre...although it probably isn't worth anything on the market, a book by Mark Sperry was the ultimate in f*cked up fiction. Fifth grade is not the age to read about setting bums on fire and ripping off people's flesh. So, I gave it to the seventh grader up the street. Today, he is a filmmaker in NYC. I'm glad it helped him, because it made me want to wash my eyes.

2004-02-17T18:24:00.000-08:00

I have a deep, dark secret that burns inside me like a fireball in a fist. It has for years plagued my conscience, mind and spirit all at once, while maintaining its vicious burden even when other evil feelings attempt to take its place. It sees through new additions. It roars through them like fists through tissue.

Dark enough for you? Eh? After losing my eBay virginity in the UGA Main Library, I have turned into the lovestruck deflowered one. No, I haven't ventured back to the hub of online auctioneers and memento jettisoning. I haven't been poring through the listings, becoming turned on by eye candy, such as trucker hats and old Stryper backstage passes. I have not become an eBay slut, eager to do it again, but this time dirtier, and quicker, right down to the last minute, maybe where someone will catch me.

This writer has become the girl waiting by the phone. Waiting for the love to arrive. It's only been four days.

Opening up my mailbox this afternoon, hoping to find my rare copy of Del James' "The Language of Fear," I was greeted by bound pages.

It was my eagerly awaited Kingsize catalog; the have-it-all tome for men of mass with style. You can't go wrong in size 68 pants with an elastic waistband. You must look good in the gym (either these men are getting bigger or trying to get smaller) in your workout pants with the Hawaiian flower/Japanese script hybrid racing stripe. While the denim fade should come natural for these men, it is available for a couple of dollars more.

I'm so eager for enlightenment, I've read the catalog through and through. And still I sit, lonely by the mail slot, horny in the bidding war.

2004-02-08T11:34:00.000-08:00

In Tom Sinclair's Entertainment Weekly piece "Do The Beatles Still Matter?," he questions whether, 40 years after their appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, if they do in fact, still matter. Gathering opinions from a variety of artists, it turns out they still indeed do. And they always will. They're just too damn good.

The Beatles formed the mold of pop artists and then consistently broke it after every album, constantly evolving their sound and lives in tune with their music. They began as floppy-haired Sunday callers and ended as rooftop poets, with marijuana hangover beards and visions of their own.

As Andre 3000 (perhaps one of the most verifiable contemporary mainstream artists) intelligently states in Sinclair's piece, "They didn't have one style. You can hear their growth from when they were covering American rock & roll songs to writing their own songs, and then going off on their own trippy creations. I can identify with that." The Beatles were mavericks, striking oil with boyish pop that made girls swoon, and then rejecting the sound and moving to a more abstract place, filled with echoes, sitars and mellotrons.

They basically found the formula for gold and decided they didn't need it.

The Beatles' career as The Beatles (and respecting the projects and efforts put out by the members after 1969 as separate and apart) is almost impossible to compare to anything, be it an amusement park ride (too consistently good to be a roller coaster; too dynamic to be a full-circle ferris wheel or parabolic swing) or means of transportation (perhaps a plane, but not all the tracks were soaringly epic; not far-reaching enough to be a catapult). Perhaps that is what makes The Beatles the closest example to an artist in that explaining them only clouds the truth.

In the long-running debate (and understood; every time needs its healthy rivals) between the Rolling Stones and The Beatles, one must give in and end the argument all together. The Stones were bluesmen, music to kick teeth in with, music to get drunk and laid to. The Beatles were musicians, explorers, alchemists and poets. The Stones have essentially been playing the same songs since "Exile on Main Street" (their finest), and should have quit and left their legacy as the greatest screw you band. The Beatles quit when their personal visions became too much to mesh. Blame it on Yoko if you must, but the truth is that it's better they broke up. I can only imagine the tacky stage antics they would employ if they did an arena-sized version of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," with special guest Mark McGrath.

Mr. Sinclair, I hope The Beatles do still matter. In the age of halftime nipple peeps, and May-December diva lesbian kisses, it's vital that artists remember them. There were bands who knew that their hearts and brains combined could intrigue the souls of people with honest efforts alone. Bands such as Wilco, Radiohead, Air, Outkast are some of today's examples. The Beatles were unafraid of offering something, and then offering something entirely different. Their artistic path was brilliant: begin simple, and then build on it, craft it, mold it, multiply it, reverse it and then kiss it all goodbye.

The Beatles changed the art world for the best and forever.

2004-02-05T13:54:00.000-08:00

I'm not the guy you see on ESPN, shirtless, with a specific letter that corresponds to my university on my chest. It doesn't strike a chord with me. In fact, you're lucky to find me actually at a game. Or watching ESPN.

However, it pains me not when my school loses an athletic contest. Glory in sports is ever fleeting, so said a wise man. It pains me more when my school is presented in a false light, or when it is embarrassed by some idiotic misstep by the administration. However, the truth hurts, and you sadly have to embrace not only to save face, but to right some kind of wrong.

Last month, three fraternity brothers of Phi Kappa Psi found a raccoon acting in an erratic manner (see "rabid") next to a dumpster in their parking lot. So, they did what any rightminded citizen would do: they skinned, burned and then ate it. Somewhere in the mix they actually put it out of its misery.

Since the incident, people have been up in arms, with the majority voicing dissent at what occurred, and calling for criminal charges, which appears what happened today (http://onlineathens.com/stories/020504/pmg_raccoon.shtml).

The students involved have apologized, but that doesn't seem to be enough.

Because of the interesting mix that makes this great city, you have down south (I won't call them rednecks) purists yelling that it is no different than hunting, to others saying that those protesting obviously don't know the absolute gourmet appeal of raccoon meat. Some voices in the fray want the students prosecuted and expelled. One voice questioned those speaking for the raccoon's rights, wondering how they felt about abortion when compared to the murder of an animal (http://onlineathens.com/stories/011004/let_20040110018.shtml). The local intelligentsia are involved, plus the townie movement.

You'd think it was local, but it just made The Drudge Report (www.drudgereport.com). Dear God help us.

It's nice to know that when I finally get my piece of paper from UGA, and I hand my resume to a hopeful employer, the first thing that will spring to mind won't be "That University of Georgia is a sound school with a top-notch journalism program and excellent professors, and a vibrant and eclectic surrounding town whose culture is unparalleled."

No, they will think, "Oh, geez, this kid comes from UGA, where they put checkered-past thugs on the athletic teams, let bobos run rampant in administration who siphon funds from deserving teaching positions (take a pay cut, Mr. Adams), and have kids eating raccoons out of dumpsters." Oh, excuse me, next to dumpsters.

I can only hope this won't be the case. I can only hope that Athens will shine once again. Or at least regain a little bit of that luster it proudly boasted when I first arrived.

For your information and consideration...
http://www.enature.com/fieldguide/showSpeciesSH.asp?curGroupID=5&shapeID=1030&curPageNum=3&recnum=MA0029

My love and condolences to Mary Kent Anderson and the entire Anderson family, in Georgia and elsewhere, for the loss of their beloved James "Tommy" Anderson. My heart and support goes out to them, and promises steadfast to remain there.

2004-02-02T13:08:00.000-08:00

Test...simply a test. Now go test yourself.