Twice

This is a fun one for those of you who have been with me through the years... check out this month's issue of Rolling Stone - it's the 40 year Anniversary edition. On page 36 you'll see the following picture:

Do you recognize anything? Ok, BESIDES the Grateful Dead!
Look above the sign post...
just to the right of it...
is my old apartment at 545 Ashbury!

We spent several afternoons in that turret, often climbing out the window that lead to the next door neighbor's rooftop. An excellent view for various neighborhood street fairs and late night contemplations and cocktails.

That corner certainly looked different in 1967. By 2001 the hippies had been replaced by teenage bums and their pathetic puppy dogs... hmmm... maybe things hadn't changed too much. But where Jerry is standing in this picture would have been directly in front of a Ben & Jerry's... two guys who made hippie ice cream and even sainted Jerry Garcia with the flavor "Cherry Garcia" (we actually have a pint in our freezer right now) But the writing was on the wall I suppose and even those hippie guys couldn't hold out, eventually selling out to Unilever. Funny to read their mission statement now:

"Capitalism and the wealth it produces do not create opportunity for everyone equally. We recognize that the gap between the rich and the poor is wider than at anytime since the 1920's."

How much did you guys make when you sold out? Even better, Originally, the some of the sales from Cherry Garcia ice cream were donated to the Rex Foundation, which Jerry Garcia founded. NOW, royalties from the Cherry Garcia ice cream and frozen yogurt and pop now go directly to Jerry Garcia's estate. Don't think twice, it's all right...

It ain't no use to sit and wonder why, babe,
It don't matter, anyhow,
An' it ain't no use to sit and wonder why, babe,
If you don't know by now
When your rooster crows at the break of dawn,
Look out your window and Ill be gone,
You're the reason I'm travelin' on,
Don't think twice, it's all right.

...

Where I'm bound I can't tell,
But goodbye's too good a word, gal,
So I'll just say fare thee well.
I ain't sayin' you treated me unkind,
You could have done better but I don't mind,
You just kinda wasted my precious time,
But don't think twice, It's all right.

Prison on Paradise Island

1,500 plus inmates of the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center, Cebu, Philippines reenact "Thriller"!! What could be more frightening?!





http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMnk7lh9M3o

Special Fixin's

This special is available at the Drive Thru, whereas the "Bill Special" was dine-in only...

"Thought" of the Day

"Thoughts determine what you want.
Action determines what you get."

The Universal Donor

Apparently in Japan, it's a popular belief that one's blood type is predictive of their personality type as well as their relationship compatibility. Obviously it's as scientific as astrology but how much would I love that the next time I'm at a bar to hear "Hey baby, what's your blood type?" whispered in my ear rather than "So. What's your sign?"

TYPE A
Gentle, creative, sensitive.
Earnest, fastidious.
TYPE B
Wild, a doer, cheerful.
Selfish, irresponsible.
TYPE AB
Cool, controlled, rational.
Aloof, critical, indecisive.
TYPE O
Agreeable, sociable, an optimist.
Vain, careless.

This seems to be the exact opposite of how your blood can be used in transfusions...
From the Red Cross, if your blood type is:

Type	You Can Give Blood To	You Can Receive Blood From
A+	A+ AB+	A+ A- O+ O-
O+	O+ A+ B+ AB+	O+ O-
B+	B+ AB+	B+ B- O+ O-
AB+	AB+	Everyone
A-	A+ A- AB+ AB-	A- O-
O-	Everyone	O-
B-	B+ B- AB+ AB-	B- O-
AB-	AB+ AB-	AB- A- B- O-

I am Type O.
I am what is known as the "universal donor".
Type A, B, and AB can all take type O in an emergency.
Type positive can take type negative.
But O can only take O and negative can only take negative.
Only 6% of the world has O- blood.

And that I'm beginning to think that my blood type reflects much more about my life than just my personality...

The Dance

I can't remember the last time I woke up to a cloudy morning in New York. After days and weeks of brilliant sunshine and infinite horizons, today began with a sepia-toned skyline through a pointillist window... You have to look twice to see the architecture jutting through a hazy downtown mist behind a rain-spattered window. Ah, to look twice. So seldom do we ever look at all. We take our route, collect our items, do our bidding. Life becomes a series of movements. And rather than struggle to become dancers, we slip too easily into familiar machinations. Until the thunder rolls across the landscape and suddenly you have a reason to look twice. But then again, it's not like we've never seen the rain. Maybe today can just contribute to a long series of things I did before I died: perfected monotony.

Lists. Lists. Lists. Things to do. Things to get. Things to read. Because otherwise, I will forget. Still, today requires a different way of doing things. A way that allows for quick glances to watch the lightning crack across the sky and time to listen to the rain drum against the windows... that allows for today to be different. And perhaps a dance to be dreamt.

Goodreads

There was Friendster. Then MySpace. And LinkedIn. Now Facebook. Maybe it's a way of weeding out the old fogies - just pass them by with another online "i have more friends than you have" quasi-networking site that requires you to build yet another member profile and check back on a daily basis as to who has asked to be your friend. Mindless brainsucks if you ask me. But fun. So when a friend of mine recently sent me an email to join another networking site, I almost deleted it. But this one had an edge, and it was an old friend I haven't spoken to in years. So I clicked through and signed up. And this is networking of a different kind: It's not about setting up a profile; it's not about wasting hours of time trying to find as many friends as possible. It is a site you go to when you want to - where you can see what other people think about the books they've read. GoodReads. I rated a few of books I've read and will go back and throw some more thoughtful reviews up. More than "My favorite tv shows are..." these contributions are read by others and give you a chance, as a reader, to reflect on what you've just experienced. And there's nothing more soothing than a good book...

http://www.goodreads.com

Tea Time!

This is one that I really really want to believe! The BBC reports on a new study finding that...

"Drinking tea is actually better for you than drinking water. Water is essentially replacing fluid. Tea replaces fluids and contains antioxidants so it's got two things going for it."

A whole new world

Only 7%!!

...from www.travbuddy.com

Literary Languishings

Recently I've been seeking nourishment from my surroundings... books, films, theater... reading endlessly and searching between the lines for inspiration and rejuvenation... I find today's literary offerings ridiculously unsatisfying.

I Am Charlotte Simmons - Tom Wolfe's exploration into adolescence and loss of innocence. Charlotte is a prude who goes to college only to succumb to peer pressure. Do I care? The most engaging part of this journey was on Wolfe's behalf: his representation of slang language and vernacular are fantastic - he spells non-words just like you hear in passing. A beautiful translation from the spoken to the written. However, his woefully lame descriptions of college life and horribly trite observations on integral parts of the college scene such as music and athletes accompanied by his fragmented understanding of the culture and characters that exist in the world he is trying to create accent the massive rift between himself and his story that make the writing stifled, bland, and almost laughably bad.

Into the Wild - A journalist follows his curiosity into Alaska's wild to determine just how and why young McCandless perished in the wilderness. A true story recently picked up by Sean Penn for production. Somehow this guy turned a riveting journey into a boring over-extended magazine article. I get the feeling the film will turn out very much the same.

Shanghai Baby - Banned and burned in China. And read cover-to-cover in one evening. Simplistic language and almost painfully generic observations on life ("The joys and sorrows of any one person mean nothing, because the trains massive steel wheels never stop spinning. This is the secret that terrifies everyone in the cities in this fucking material age.") make it easy to take this novel lightly. But there were a few times when the simple "Confucius say" sentences actually hit home and you wonder if Occam's Razor can adequately be applied to literary principles. If only life were as simple and clean as Wei Hui's writing, it might be as easy to get through.

In a Dark Dark House - Neil LaBute's latest play, closing this week off-Broadway. Rave reviews and well-known actors do their best to hold together this transparent piece of theater. Frederick Weller was the lone solider in this battle to keep an obvious plot from revealing itself too early, and despite his delicious performance, the writing of this established playwright refused to allow me to engage. I wanted to be challenged, thrilled, curious. I found myself watching two guys talking around and around in circles. This seemed more like a university level dialogue-writing exercise than the work of a well-known author.

Live Free or Die Hard - I must say, one of the few encounters I've had that I actually enjoyed. Granted it's not sophisticated. But it doesn't try to be. it gives its one-liners with pizazz and its explosions with creativity. Face value fun.

That was frightening: Did I just say I preferred Die Hard over Neil LaBute or Tom Wolfe?!? Can it be true? Why?!? What suffices as literary greatness? The ungraceful exploration of worlds authors can not embrace is hardly greatness. Perhaps Greatness lies in the Truth of the matter. The Truth of the work. The Truth of the story. And the Truth to Die Hard is that it's just an action flick with a bunch of explosions. And the Truth of Wei Hui shines only when she is being true to her simplistic self. But Today requires ingenuity and umph. Literary sensuality, a teasing and exploitation of the senses... and books are starting to feel like theater in their burdensome treks through well-tread psychological landscapes.

Who are today's literary greats?
Where are we to seek refuge against reality?
What book can I pick up next to be engrossed in its characters, its language, its Truth.
Suggestions?

Thought

A flower has to go through a lot of dirt before it can bloom. ~Unknown