New series on PBS about the Prohibition...

Sounds awesome, and stories my grandmother told me came to mind. Like the time she was way pregnant and trained to Bawston to get my grandfather some booze. And she had the bottles hidden in pockets sewn inside her dress, And a 'gallant' policeman wanted to accompany her home in her 'state', and all she could hear was 'glugg glugg glugg' She died a thousand deaths in that short walk home. And there was the bathtub gin, and kids selling it strolling their dolls in baby carriages, and hawking their goods. Weird time. I'd enjoy seeing the documentary on this.

The director seems very competent.

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Aha.... a new view of the EU problem.....

Am waiting for her to say it was Goldman Sachs. AHA, she did!

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Sometimes the media is a good thing....

Nice follow up from Monday.

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more demos.... and Michael Moore

Yeah, he grandstands, but he uses his voice well.

I was on the telly-phone tonight with D. She is moving into their apt in the Mühlgasse. She really shot me down about Obama criticising the banks here. The Pot-meet-Kettle thing. I told her not to bother, whe was speaking to the choir...

So it wasn't just me.

I can still go into Austrian outrage mode.

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GOOD....

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Even better... not so much rhetoric...

And I hate the ads they run before a block.... Exxon Mobile and Goldman Sachs... REALLY...

White Shirts are the new Black Shirts? I nuovi fascisti..

The right to protest quietly died under Bush... but O'Donnell gets it right.

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Ewww, am a 'Red Scorpion'

Saturday, I finally gave in, and my knight in my game joined a guild.

Oh Lord, a guild! Buncha crazy people who obsess over some interest they have in common . Although the only ones I know here who are visible are the Carneval ones. Buncha crazies.

So this figure in the game named 'Joe Black', which I found very fitting, as that was Death's name in 'Death Takes a Holiday'... asked me to join his guild, 'Der Fluch'. (The Curse). Turns out my level is too low and would drag the guild's standing down, so he told me to go to the center of Randol, (always the starting place in the game and from the figures there, I call it 'Rambo'). There I should reach 'Sternchen', (little star) and ask for membership in her guild, which is in reality a subdivision of Der Fluch, which he runs.

So I got admitted to the subdivision, the 'Red Scorpions'. ( 'Hey ma, look down, I finally joined a GANG!') The subdivision is for any figure under level fifty, and Sir Arrogant Numbskull is currently stuck at level 33. I believe I made a grievious mistake somewhere, and can't get any quests, which give you loads of points, and have been having to slog my way through the current level by fighting in the dungeon hours, which gives me about a three per cent increase overall. Drives me nuts. It's sort of a limbo phase.

They call it a farming guild... train you up to play with the big guys.

Joe Black told me that once the figure reaches level fifty, I can automatically become a member of 'The Curse'. Now there's something to look forward to....

And then all hell broke loose on the screen. Windows opening up, people welcoming me to the guild, Joe Black still chatting away, Sternchen saying I should ask her for help, and some Titan saying HE was the leader of the Red Scorpions, and I should contact him if I had questions. It got strenuous having a three-way discussion going on.

I'd figured out most of the things that had befuddled me in the early stages of the game, so there wasn't much... although two things really had me stumped. I was supposed to plant a 'seed of life' somewhere, but was damned if I could find where. Turns out they have coordinates on them, so now the problem is finding the right coordinate. Drive me crazy.

So everyone was nice, and polite, and there seem to be no obligations so far. My figure can run around and do what he does, no forced participation in things it isn't capable of yet anyway. The only difference is that if one of the guild runs across you anywhere, they say hello.

Joe Black was on chat the longest. He's thirty. Thank goodness no more fourteen year olds. I play Sir Arrogant when he is asleep... (I hope). Whatever, we had a good chat, and it was all very easy-going and polite.

I did get the impression that there is lots of competition among the guilds to gain new members. They have battles, you see, and you bring 'glory' to the guild. Or something.

Well, that evening there was an 'event', a 'Chaos Battle' in the desert realm. And Sir Arrogant was asked if he wanted to join. So he got transported three minutes before the beginning, and there was a huge crowd there in front of a castle they had to storm.

My figure jumped the gun to get a head start? And promptly inadvertantly jumped the bridge going into it, landed on the grounds outside the bridge, where there were horrible figures marked in red, which meant he didn't have a chance, (adversaries are color coded), and he was promptly killed in the blink of an eye, which ended the battle for him before it even got really started.

Talk about poor eye-hand coordination with the mouse, hey.

Oh well... next time I will get in the back of the line, and know better.

Whoever programs this stuff really know how to keep people playing and stay curious.

Am still getting the other two figures up to snuff. The High Elf is nearly at Sir Arrogant's level and I still maintain he's blatantly gay, but fights well, and I have a Titan who is getting there. It took me weeks to figure out, but.... you always get mostly stuff from other classes or races, and can make a lot of gold selling them. But if you are doing more than one... well there is a warehouse, so you can store the things they need, and they can pick it up and use it when they are playing, which makes the armour issue much better. They were looking absurd wearing stuff that was patched together as you got them otherwise.

I don't know if I will get the other two to join the same guild, but am certainly NOT going to join one called 'Strassenjungs' (Street Boys) Or Geburtstagskind 1 Jahr (Birthday Child 1 year). Way too icky.

Nah, I sorta like 'The Curse'... and don't make any menustration jokes! I hate these words with double meanings!

Several times I've been asked if I wanted armour upgrades from people on line, and sort of refused. The only 'cheating' going on, if well-meant. Although mostly it was stuff I wouldn't be able to use for a long while, or advice on how to tackle something I was having trouble with. This was before the guild. But I would politely thank them, and say I wanted to 'earn' them.

That has always been my problem. If you can't figure it out, you didn't deserve it. Sort of. Someone teaching you how to do something, but you do it on your own? That's ok. So... silly hour is ended.

oh boy... Pot... meet Kettle...

In the German Yahoo news this a.m. is a short blurb about Obama kritising the European Banks, saying they haven't done enough to prevent the current crisis.

Reeeaally--- ummm... I don't think he should be pointing any finger.

If anyone really followed how Greece messed up and caused a domino effect, well it was good old Goldman Sachs who sold them tons of junk, just as they and Bear Stearns and the others did in the mortgage market in the US, and they got left sitting with nada--- and the bonds people got very rich.

So the EU countries went right ahead and did what 'Murka wants... austerity measures for the poor and middle classes, which they don't want to take sitting down.

The media can say that unrest and demonstrations are race-based, or anything more than about what it is. They fought for their social benefits, and they aren't about to give them up without a fight.

This is why I follow US politics... because whatever craziness is building up over there, you can be sure that we'll get it in some form or other, and it used to be in six month's to a year's time. Nowadays? It's only a matter of weeks.

For what it's worth, and for those who read German, the blurb is here.

This freaked me totallly.... About the death penalty....

Lawrence O'Donnel shocked me, after all the upset over Troy Davis' execution. He recounts in horrible detail what other people who have done horrendous things and who were executed in the same time period and who did not get national attention were 'ignored'. I was uncomfortable. Because there was one perp whom I would have loved to have castrated personally and watch him bleed to death. Brewer.

But following his logic, as reprehensible as those criminals were.... he comes to a conclusion that makes sense to me, It makes me uncomfortable, true, as above. But really, who has the right to take another human being's life? They should live long and miserably.

It's strong stuff, but Lawrence O'Donnell was the only voice in this past week who went past the sensationalism, and made sense. I thought it was worth sharing. Passionate and very convincing.

And I always love the hypocrisy of the US pointing their collective fingers at other countries which have firing squads.. (well, Utah does)-.... but think it is ok for them to do it, as 'Gawwds' chosen people...

Still, it chilled me.

Watch.

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Rachel Maddow really sums up the week...

Despicable audiences at the Rethug debates, and the ugly side of the US, the 'Murkins....

And the need for infrastructure. And the governor of Vermont, which is an amazing state, so progressive. It's a fairly long segment, but pulls much together.

And health care.... mind boggling.

Worth watching.

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This is the Obama I like

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There is a site I have been wanting to recomend for a while now...

Steve Hayes, who does 'Tired Old Queen At The Movies'... and the first time I ran across him, he really put me off with his schtick. But he has grown on me, because he really knows what he is talking about. He recommends DVDs that are vintage, and tells you the good stuff he knows about what was behind it all.

I've come to like him. And he never recommends a bomb. I can't find his homepage on short notice, but here's a sample. Be warned, the girl is 'over the top' but knows her stuff.

We did cheat that summer...

Steve, Margot and Chris C and I would sneak out on weekends to see the UNH summer theater productions in English. I don't know if they are always so good, but they had a production of 'A Midsummer's Night Dream' that was so exceptional, and so funny... we went to see it the next night and fell apart laughing.

And we saw 'The Man From La Mancha', which was visually impressive, but easily the weakest of the lot.

And a hilarious version of 'The Importance of Being Earnest.'

And disturbingly... 'The Boys in the Band'. Which I hated. Because it was self-hating. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf magnified to what the author thought was 'GROUND-BREAKING'. If there were anything devised to make gay people self-loathing, I can't think of one. Voyeurism and disgust combined. It was the sour note in a perfect summer.

One where we laughed and which we thoroughly enjoyed. But going to the theater... yeah, we cheated. But it was fun....

You may have noticed

That there is a new widget in my sidebar. Followers. I never mess around with my settings on my site, but got a message that I could put them there. Except they changed the name from 'widget' to 'gadget'. I can't figure out what the difference is, people just keep screwing around with terminology.

So it turned out I have two people who follow the drivel I produce. One person I know personally and like very much. The other? I have no idea. Both are from Graz. Or in Graz... my first is actually from Upper Austria but lives in Graz.

So I thought, 'hokay'... it's nice to have someone interested enough to follow your zig-zag line of thinking, and so I added the widget... or gadget.

What bothered me was the 'join' button, and might give people the wrong idea. So for you US people, if you press it... it just means you read my blathering regularly. It would be nice to see some fambly there.

It isn't like Facebook or carries an obligation. But I do know some of you read.

Can I not look like a wimp?

Thank you.

Hmmm.. Dietrich

Annti was trying to have me guess which old actress she was watching on the tee-vee in NOLA, and I really couldn't guess. Turns out it was 'La Dietrich', the 'divine' Marlene. Gay icon. But not for me. I admired the woman for her courage and pure guts. So I told her the little I do know from this side of the frog pond. I never liked most of her films. But 'The Blue Angel' would rank in one of the top 100 films I have ever seen. Saw it in college during a summer programme that the German government happily paid for. They gave me a grant.... no ties, no obligations, and I ended up being the best in my level, which led a teacher from Munich to encourage me to go there the summer before my jr. year abroad programme, and gave me addresses, and the rest was history.

It was run by the Goethe Institute, and there only two summer schools like that in America. They promote the German language and culture world-wide. One was in my state, the other in San Francisco. I've never experienced anything so intensive, and yet so challenging and pleasureable. In eight weeks.... I did two semesters of what would have been intermediate German. Sound dull? Hardly. It was so exciting. Up till then, I'd been working 80 hour weeks just to pay tuition, commuted the one hour drive just to get to my classes and another hour back, and was fairly overwhelmed, but determined.

So having a leave of absence, and just concentrate on what I wanted to learn? Heaven.

The whole programme was geared to teaching from the level beginners to people working on their graduate programmes. We had our own dorm, our own dining room and the thing was... you had to promise not to speak any english for the entire summer. Everyone helped everyone else. It's incredibly successful.

We had a very structured day. Four hours of class in the morning, a ton of homework, but... since the Uni was not far from the beach, we'd all go out and do it there for the afternoon. Learning and swimming in the ocean, who could complain, hey? I'd gotten my first novella, and got the best advice ever. It was so difficult, and I was looking up every other word. One of my teachers flopped down beside me, and said 'You're doing it wrong. Words will keep coming up and will begin to make sense, and if you only get the gist, leave it. Use the dictionary only when you really get stuck.' Truer words never said, hey. In two weeks I'd finished my first novella, and knew all the fine points of the story. It was like learning to read all over again.

And we were still having fun. Half the staff were from Germany and Austria, the other from my university. And one of the running jokes was... the Germans didn't wear jock straps under their bathing suits. And I think it was a girl named Carol who famously said... 'If you run around like THAT.. they'll either think you are gay... or European.' I fell apart.

Our classmates were people from all over the country. In the evening there were language drills for an hour after dinner. Gruelling, especially for the newbies. But it paid off. There was so much fun, and silliness going on. People would tape signs everywhere to help the newbies. On the stairs... 'Die Treppe, Die Treppen.' My favourite was inside the stalls of the WC... 'Achtung! Fertig! Los!' (Ready? Set? GO!") First time I saw it I fell apart laughing, and couldn't ...go.

After the drills, we got the fun part. For the first four weeks, we saw a German classic silent film, wonderful stuff. When the four weeks were up, the people who had never spoken a word of German before, the newbies, had to get up and perform skits, and it was AMAZING. The silent ones had flash dialogue cards on them, and the beginners had a fiendish delight in yelling them out loud. 'DOCH!' was a favourite. Which sort of means, yes, or 'on the contrary... it has lots of meanings. But is so much fun to use as a contradictary exclamation.

Hard to explain.

Which brings us to the second half of the summer. After week four... we got films with SOUND. And they began with the earliest.... and that is where I saw ''The Blue Angel' for the first time. It was a hammer. As we say. It's incredibly tragic. Staid professor falls for a show-girl who takes him for a ride, and he gets fired, and ends up in the show as an impotent rooster, and goes crazy. Doesn't sound like much, but it was very impressive. The film version of Buddenbrooks also flattened me, a Thomas Mann book that is so rich, it defies description. But the film was sort of like the Cliff Notes version.

So... The Blue Angel. It made Marlene Dietrich a star... world-wide. There was a lot more to the woman, and I admire what she did with her life. But never got into the whole gay adoration thing. I admired her tenaciousness, courage, and never giving up her integrity.

What I forgot to tell Annti. It was the summer of my life. Incredible friendship, bonding, and parties that nearly brought down the roof, and they were hosted by staff on the weekends. It was the closest I got to real 'education', and not 'edumacation'. And I sucked it up.

It wasn't long after when I was back to the real grind when the film Blazing Saddles came out. One of the craziest movies ever made, Mel Brooks. Madeleine Kahn had her first big role. As a saloon entertainer. And she has a big number. 'I'm Tired'. It was the most raucous parody of Dietrich in the Blue Angel, it friggin' floored me, and I still have to laugh till I wanna pee my pants. It helps if you've seen the real version. I DRAGGED Peter to see it later in Graz. He laughed himself silly, but was a bit shocked. The Producers left him spitless. I loved shocking him like that. But this is about Dietrich and Kahn.

May they both rest in peace. And just so's you know... Madeleine Kahn was a trained opera singer.

Sinful pleasures... like reading...so old fashioned...

My Dad, 'da Ven', used to come up all the way to Portland Maine, and my one big thing was he would read to me. Not doing funny voices, he would read... Yeah, the 'rents were splitting up, and the weekends were totally special, because he would be there.

And there was one book I loved, don't remember it... except I loved it, and hearing him read it to me, so I soon knew it by heart. And one day, we were all in the car going somewhere, and I was 'pretending' to read it aloud when something miraculous happened. I was probably five or six years old. The letters suddenly came together, and I wasn't doing it by memory.. everything made sense. It was so exciting. I could READ....

I don't think I let on right away, his visits were too important for me.

So I read everything I could get my hands on, and became a recluse by the age of twelve. I found my surroundings so ugly, books were my escape, and I was already on the classics by then.

The other kids were playing ball and I missed out on the coordination thing? I didn't mind. I wanted Victor Hugo, and be immersed in worlds I never could have imagined.

Which made me a very strange child indeed. The others were out in the alley playing ball? I was in France in my head feeling bad for Jean Valjean. It drove my mother to distraction, hey...

'Get off those cement stairs, you're going to get PILES' (Hemmarhoids)

I went through thousands of books... literally. And would get overloaded, and get rid of the ones I knew I wouldn't read again. When I moved to Europe, I dragged all the ones that were current, about four hundred, in a big box and gave them to my friend John, and said, 'Just throw away what you don't want, I can't ship them, it would cost a fortune.'

But I kept on reading, and averaged about seven a week, some of them large tomes. Until.... I became disillusioned, because no one seemed to be telling me anything new. And got pressured at work, there was no more time on night shifts in winter to do one of my 'comparative' reading in the middle of the night.

And my eyes got weaker, so I sorta stopped.

But I do have a current sinful pleasure. When my game is running, and if the server is overloaded and a new 'realm' is being prepared... instead of cursing and watching the loading bar on the screen, I returned to the Harry Potter series.

Beginning with book one. So while it loads, I read a chapter, really savouring it. The chapters are short, btw. When I first got them, I speed read my way through them like a junkie who'd just gotten a long-needed fix. Now it is just chapter for chapter, and the story is very rich in small details, and the description is wonderful.

Am on the middle of the fourth novel, 'The Goblet of Fire'. It is so pivotal to the entire story, ending with the physical return of the horrible Lord Voldemort. The film was good.... as was 'The Prisoner of Azkaban', but the novel is so long and there was so much left out, it is a veritable pleasure to re-read it. There was nothing about Dobby and Winky in the film, but it was important in the book, and it was Dobby who gives Harry the weed to breathe under water for an hour for the second task, not Neville.

There is so much detail there. Reading it slowly makes me appreciate it so much more.

I hope children will learn the lesson that tolerance is good. The Rethugs have already damned it to death and banned it from libraries, which made me read it in the first place. I'm sure that they think it is subversive and a danger to so-ci-ety. Or what they think counts as one.

It's a beautiful piece of work, so it is a sinful pleasure to re-read it. When I'm through, I will probably go back to Proust and get through it a third time. It's a masterpiece, and fondly remember an evening with Bob and talking and talking in my beautiful kitchen, and so into it. I think it surprised him that I knew it so well, but, Peter had given me the set of 'La Recherche du Temps Perdu' in German translation, an excellent one. Despite the fact that one sentnce could run for over a page and a half, which is strenuous.... I loved it.

So am now on Rowling. Sue me.

I was trying to think of another prime example of ' murkinness here... and Found it...

I could probably look up the name in my diaries, which I kept at the time. I prefer not to look at them at present. But there was this 'woman'.... And she worked at the police department. And she was hateful. She was responsible for giving foreigners a work permit and she HATED foreigners.

For the first three years, I had to get my permit renewed yearly, and it was always a tense time. After that, I got a five year one, so was relieved of a lot of anxiety, because... I fucking set her on fire the second year, she was so rude.

You had to line up in the hall with your papers, and me being your absolute klutz when it came to bureacracy, one thing or the other I would forget to bring with me. That was me, totally scatterbrained.

So this one year, I was in line, mostly with Turks, and bothered by the guy behind me who had no sense of personal distance and kept bumping his crotch in my ass, so it made me very irritated. Not excited, just angry. And if you knew what was good for you, you did NOT just enter after your predecessor left, oh no! Deadly to do that, she was a terror.

So on this one day, she was being her usual terrorising self, rude and insulting, and loudly told her assistant, 'I hate foreigners, they STINK.' How loverly. So it was my turn, and she berated me for not having one of the documents, so I went home to fetch it.

And I got in line, and was finally admitted to her inglorious presence... And leaned very close to her to sign some papers to get my permit. Sort of weaving so it would 'waft' into her oversensitive nostrils.....

Because, Preciousses, Peter had given me a very expensive cologne from Christian Dior, which was lemon based and suits me well. And when I went to get the paper I needed, I applied it so liberally, I 'stank'.

Even then, I was already sort of Austrian, I think. Good pay-back, believe me, and I can't even now describe the look on her face. She recoiled, literally. And that stuff smelled VERY nice.

After that, I always made sure she was on vacation when I had to deal with that office, and the others were very kind and polite. But she was a real hag.

Prabably a Nazi background, who knows.

So yeah, we get the bad apples too.

Just a memory. But I had a hell of a lot of fun doing it.

Gawwd give me strength....

Pat Robertson probably has dementia himself. I hate looking at crazies.

How Rethugs think

What I've said all along, but the incredible audacity of putting it out there like that as if it were something logical and 'acceptable'.... takes my breath away.

Am glad I wasn't fully awake yesterday evening....

We have our own brand of empty-headed yahoos here... (and am referring to the Jonathan Swift brand, not the website).

I had a long nap, and went out for cigarettes. Waking up is a long process for me, so am not up to speed with being quick-witted, which in this case was a good thing.

There was an 'elegant' woman at the vending machine, fumbling around. And said to me in pidgeon german, 'I not know how this works...' If I'd been fully awake, I'd have known she thought I was some 'dirty ferner'.

Instead, I asked, 'What's wrong, is it defective?' In perfect high german.

And she said she didn't know how it worked, the poor dear. 'I keep putting my bank card in, but I can't get any cigarettes out of it.' 'Well, you have to put MONEY into it, just like you do if the store were open, and wanted some.' 'But I wanted to debit it on my bank card.' 'It doesn't work that way.' 'So it's just so that minors can't buy any?' 'That is correct.' Somehow she got two packs out of the machine, and felt vindicated that it was debited to her account. Which is a lie, she'd have had to put in her pin code, and that isn't possible with those vending machines. You CAN do it with a handy (cell phone), but I don't know how it works, to tell the truth, and and told her so as well.

Well, she had her two packs, and gave me a vicious, 'good luck with THAT' as she took off for parts unknown. She was incredibly rude. And basically dumb. Well-dressed, but dumb. If I'd been fully awake, I'd have given her fifteen pieces of my mind for free.

But yes, we have these incredible people who feel 'entitled', and show how lacking they are in intellect as well... and have the gall to look down at everyone around them so they can feel 'superior'. ´So it's not just the 'Murkin blend', Preciousses. There are snots everywhere, believe me. I got mine in no time flat, and congratulated myself for having been restrained, but that isn't really a believable thing. I knew I was quiescent because I wasn't fully awake yet. Otherwise, I might have made a 'SCANDAL'.

And so it goes... to quote Vonnegut.

My BAD...

For those of you who didn't know who I was 'talking' to below, well that must have seemed like a crazy idea... and what with the way prices are nowadays, and all that... well it was bad judgement clouded over by early teen memories.

Ah, the Sixties, hey. One day I was taken aside and asked, 'Hey, ya wanna go to New Yawk for a cuppa corfee? That's all we'll be doing, but we're goin' for corfee.' And I thought, 'Riiight.... this is the craziest thing I ever heard of.'

But of course I jumped at the chance. What an adventure for an early teen! And we drove down there, a six-hour road trip, and we had corfee with his in-laws in Germantown, never saw a glimpse of Manhattan, but it was all fine with me. I was in New Yawk, and had a cuppa corfee. And then we drove back, another six hours... And I thought, 'what a crazy, reckless, adventurous thing to do...'

So they have always been that for me... doing the unexpected, never afraid to try anything new, and so forth and so on.

But I'd hardly published that below, and only did it on the Blog so I could put in some music samples, when my cynical adult thinking cap flew off the dvd cabinet and onto my head. Why would they go all that way for a cup of coffee? And my oldie self said, 'wake up, RenB, there was probably a crisis with her 'rents, one that could only be resolved in person, and they took you to be a buffer, or something.'

I hate my adult cynical thinking cap. I usually try to hide it behind the dvd bookcase, because I don't like it.

And the fact of the matter is.... I don't CARE if that might have been the case. The fact is, they left me completely oblivious and gave me an adventure I will never forget. And THAT was the important thing. I could cite numerous examples of being used as a buffer where it was obvious and ugly, but why go there? No, it was perfect for me, no matter what the real reason was.

You might think I'd have been insufferably priggish on the following school day. 'Whatcha do?'

'Ah, nothin' much... went to New Yawk for a cuppa corfee.' That would have been a conversation stopper. Butcha know what? I didn't. It was my sneakret, my adventure, and I kept it inside and treasured it.

I think the only time I ever mentioned it was when Katrina was closing in on NOLA, and I begged Annti to get in her truck and drive to Atlanta for coffee explaining why it made sense and citing my cousins' example. I never even told Peter about our 'fine adventure'. It's always been mine to savour. And now it isn't any more, if I'm putting it out here.... And thank them for doing something so special for me then, and so many times since.

So, with those pictures in my head, it seemed important to just goad them into action without thinking about costs, and that they probably don't have much to do there any more, now that her parents have passed on... But we all love Sondheim's music, and I meant well.

That's what happens when you become a Broadway musical queen. You get all 'excited'. And then reality bites.

I shall keep my adult cynical thinking cap well hidden, meanwhile.

Thinking caps sorta suck.

This is for my cousins.....

Follies opened in New Yawk. Great reviews, clouded by the memory of what was a gigantic sucess at the time forty years ago, with the gorgeous Alexis Smith, Yvonne De Carlo, Elaine Stritch, and so many incredible people, it boggles the mind, and I kick myself to this day for not having seen it in Bawston.


Except it wasn't a hit at the time and didn't run long. It was incredibly expensive, for one thing, and ahead of it's time. It's about a group of people who had been in a Ziegfeld sort of Follies, the theater they played in is about to be torn down to be made into a parking lot, and Weisman (Ziegfeld) gathers his troupers for a last reunion. So you have the reunion sort of thing, which everyone always dreads, whether it was just high school, or whatever. And a lot of reminiscing. And it is very dark. People still holding torches, people on the verge of nervous breakdowns, and to top it all off, they have a second cast of the people when they were young. There is a fantastic number where the women are looking in the mirror trying to remember who they were, and the younger versions 'mirror' them... innovative, and breathtaking, have seen clips. It's dark, funny, and near-perfect. And by the way, Follies wasn't meant to be the show, but a play on words... as in folie... french for delusion. One of the enduring hits was 'Losing My Mind'.


The music is pastiche, from vaudeville to more modern. Bernadette Peters (a godess if there ever was one) is headlining. And again... that music is classic.


So if you're planning to go to the City... I wouldn't miss it if I were you. And it can be acid as well. Here's a nice sample of what Elaine Stritch did with her signature number Broadway Baby. I love that song, so Jolson. She's 80 now, but killed them at 40.




Another of my favourites is 'Could I Leave You?'. It's so bitter, but we've all been there. I picked the one I liked best. It's quiet at the beginning, but Donna Murphy owned it by the end. I had a few moments like that with Peter.

It's always struck me that when Sondheim composes a waltz.... the text is invariably so negative it jars you. Think of the pie song in Sweeney Todd... it was a waltz. And believe me, every song in the show is stellar. And still sorry I missed it.



So if you have something to do there.... maybe plan a real night out, and have dinner at your favourite restaurant, and see something incredible. It took fourty years to put this together again, and it will be the best anyone will do in a long time.

Since the Berlin Servers are down, and am a bit tired of skeletons with obscene codpieces...

will explain about this photo in a bit. It's been sitting on my desktop for over a week or so now.

There are two things which sort of were running around at a near boil on the back burner of my mind this week.

Culminating in the way Rachel Maddow tossed just about everything of what they had planned to 'cover' the plane crash at the racing track in Reno. My objection? No hard facts... how many dead, how many injured, well obviously a lot of people, judging from the constant replaying of video clips. And yes, tragic. Typical... first the pilot was 83, and a WWII vet, and then it was, oh he was 73, and an experienced racer. Everything speculation, nothing known. I thought that was CNN's M/O.

However.... it wasn't enough to dump the usually interesting things the show has to offer. It wasn't a national tragedy. It was all 'Well this happened, and we don't know the full scope yet.' Typical GARBAGE.

And after the disaster at Ramstein... some people might remember that crash at an air show at a US base in Germany quite a while ago... it is a mystery to me how air shows are still held, let alone that insane sounding race with souped up vintage planes directly over people's heads. (I explained that this morning to my tobacconist, and she LOOKED at me.... and I shrugged and said, 'well, it seems to be the only one. People never seem to learn.')

And all I could hear was Werner's voice in my head... 'why get worked up? It's just Business (dripping acid), and it's just Show Business'. Well... people are dead, after all... Or badly hurt. So why does this merit any mention here? I was thinking of the critically injured who will survive that, and what lies ahead for them... some of them could be financially ruined. Insurance companies are ruthless.

Which brings me to the other topic which has soooo gotten the media's panties in a twist. The reactions of the ultra right wing to Rick Perry defending the death penalty in Texas to resounding cheering, and Ron Paul, who is a medical doctor, saying that if someone hadn't prepared for a medical emergency, they should die.

And the media pundits thought Alan Grayson was committing gross hyperbole when he did his infamous explanation of the Rethug plan for health care. He was serious, and the events of the week only proved how serious he really was. 'Don't get sick. And if you do, die quickly.' Niiiice. And seems true enough given the reactions from them and the Tea Party types.

The 'liberal media' was shocked. So shocked. Hand wringing, head-shaking...

Reallah.... Really? I have never seen such an open show of disingenousness in the course of one week. They've had it slammed in their faces for years now... did they think it was also 'just show business'? These people are fools if they do.

Now let's put the two together, shall we, and yes, we are back to health care, which should be a basic right.

There is a certain percentage of 'Murkins who have some very odd beliefs, which they profess profoundly and loudly to anyone who will listen, and they have this attitude.

It is their firm belief that if you love Gawwd, (whoever she is), you will be successful in all that you endeaver because she will reward you. Simple as that. So if you do NOT succeed.... well, there must be something wrong with you mustn't there? And you will be dropped like the proverbial hot potater. You aren't worthy, because they are self-righteous prigs. And you will no longer fit in their category of a 'good' person. I've run into this so often in my career, and often it was subtle, but the message was clear. I loved to refer to such empty-noggined yahoos as 'The New Romans'. Never knew much, but were proud of it.

They are the meanest of the mean-spirited, and 'think' they are Christian, but in reality they are selfish beggars who have no idea of what the New Testament is about, nor have they read it, am sure. And are all, 'I've got mine, screw everyone else.'

And now let's turn to the critically injured. In the box seats, so they were well-to-do, those tickets probably cost a lot of money. And now they are going to be hit with bills that will drive them into near-poverty, and I wonder how their friends are going to react, because 'help thy neighbor' certainly isn't in their repertoire.

That sounds crass put so bluntly, but it crossed my mind, yes it did.

Put it together... what is the media ON about? Shocked? Give me a break, they are the most cynical people in the world, so making such a fuss now? They've always known what the 'Murkins are like.

To end... 80 per cent of all real Americans I've met are kind, generous, and sometimes too naive for their own good, but have their heart in the right place. It's the others who disgust me, and unfortunately, they have a very large megaphone. Sadly.

Just one more thing----

It's been very warm, and my room temp never goes below 27 degrees C. The fan runs, but doesn't help much. Looking at the bright side, it never went over 30 degrees C this summer inside. Which is like a sauna...

And the few times I was out, I was thinking, 'Oh my, Mark would NOT like this, not at all... slut clothes as far as we can see!' According to my late and dear friend, 'slut clothes' meant 'You are showing more than 90 per cent of your body, and you are not on a BEACH!' He also hated kids who wore baseball caps with the visors on the sides or the back, and found they looked stupid. And before you go thinking 'old fogey', he wasn't even thirty when he told me about his things which irritated him. And was anything but straight-laced. They offended his sense of what was 'right'. Am sure he would shake his head today if inwardly, because it never went away as a fad... just got worse.

And the bad thing is, the people who wear slut clothes are usually the ones who shouldn't.

And I'm going to stop right there. I already know too many dead people who aren't around to talk to and laugh with.

Just daily stuff...

Yeah, have been quiet... damned asthma has kept me mostly in bed, so wasn't really up for my usual jaunts through the internets...

And for another thing... I experienced 9/11 through tee-vee, like the rest of the world, and at this point, haven't much new to say on the subject... other than it fucked up the US so badly, they'll never get over the trauma. And made people more acquiescent in giving up basic rights, and be sheepled. Although I did like the one guy, some pol, who didn't get into the frenzy about this year's terrorist threat, saying 'A car bomb? They go off every day some place in the world..' Which is true enough.

On the other hand... Munich traumatised me, which I only realised much later. I had a ring-side seat watching terrorists mis-treat their captives. It wasn't on the surface, but it took me a long time to get over. I still can't watch any documentary that has to do with it. So I 'get' how it affected the US.

So I took a moratorium on news, sue me. I tend to do that if I haven't anything constructive to say. So I slept. A LOT. And there was still such high humidity, was up some nights and all I could concentrate on was pulling Norbert, version 3.0 up from level one to level six.

Yeah, I went to fantasyland via Last Chaos on-line. In the middle of the night to distract myself from not being able to breathe easily. It's distracting, and I didn't need 'da news' to get me riled up and make it worse.

Norbert is my knight's dragon. Version 3, because it took me long to figure out how to feed them, and the first two died. Some pet owner I'd make.... PETA people would shoot me on sight. I started a second character, 'just for fun' to avoid all the mistakes I made with Sir Arrogant Numbskull. It was easier, knowing the finer points of the game.

He's a High Elf. And I swear, he looks so gay, that so-called 'Armour', you would swear he just got off a circuit party at Fire Island or Miami in the Seventies. And no, never went to one, but saw video clips and read the books about them.... He's a flamer, but makes me chuckle. And he has a cool fire spirit which looks like a coyote, and will be able to attack once he levels up.

And caught up with DOOL for 'da Ven's' sake. I'd told him a couple of weeks ago who was beating up the call girls on the show, and BINGO, was right. 25 points, hoorah.

And got a disappointment yet again... I missed 'Mr. Voice' for the upteenth time on Saturday night, and had sworn I was going to go and take pictures. He gave a free 'unplugged' concert out on the square, and sings rock. He's been around for nearly thirty years, local celebrity. Never went to one of his concerts because I thought anyone with the audacity to call himself that has to be a cheat, but he's survived all this time, so there must be something to it... Was getting ready to go and finally see this paragon of entertainment, and of a sudden, couldn't catch my breath, started to choke, which brings on vomiting, which I hate to death. So scratch the concert. Probably got 'too excited', or something...

So.... one inquiring mind wanted to know what was up. Bored enough? Today the air is relatively dry, so things 'feel' a bit better.

Will still be commenting on things I find, but will slip back into normal posting mode slowly.

Things that irritate me. There is never a pause in election campaigns so that anyone can actually get anything done. Obama was barely elected, it was all about the mid-terms, the mid-terms were not even over, they were on about 2012. How is anyone supposed to work?

AAAAANNND damn the new version of Yahoo mail... if I try to read it on Firefox, it's an exercise in frustration, the screen keeps freezing. Which means having to open the Microshit Explorer, which has as many security holes as a cheap swiss cheese. We hates it, Preciousses, yes, we does...'

And HOW IS IT that the supreme court of Germany can ban Samsug from selling their Tablet in Europe because it looks too much like Apple's? Who'd they have to fuck to get THAT ruling? I smells me a big bisam rat... (0r correction, sewer rat in english...).

The article in the German Yahoo news said that most other European countries would sell the Samsung version anyway, and that Apple will probably litigate country for country...

That brought on another episode for me... talk about killer corporate policies, hey... They should be bought on their merits, and quality. What happened to healthy competition.

And brings me to the last of the things irritating me... unsolicited phone calls, asking you to participate in surveys. Yesterday's was from the IFES institute, one of the big ones. About consumer habits. They'd tried already, had woken me up, and I told the girl I'd been sleeping and was ill, no thanks. Yesterday, her colleague, an older lady, was on the horn. So I played along and endured twenty minutes of 'Twenty Questions'.... just to get them off my back. I'm sure I was a real prize, in that I never buy anything other than food and necessities. She was polite, I was polite, and now I get a nine month respite till someone else disturbs me in my cave. Sheesh.

Trivial, n'est-ce-pas? And that is all I can think of to report on my 'exciting' life. I've learned to like the quiet. No upsets.

Best Ed Show rant ever!

Ripping Marco Rubio a new one.... and Grayson as the topping on the cake...

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Just got some feedback

from Annti, and need to clarify something in the last post. About neglect. I wasn't saying that in reference only to military families. I meant the general population as a whole. There are many forms of neglect, and I think one of them is unintentional, and hardly to be helped.

It concerns the economy, and the fact that two parents working just to make ends meet don't have the time to pay attention to their children, or spot any signs that things might be wrong for them. And that is a form of neglect. Coming home from work, being exhausted and needing one's own space to wind down instead of being there for the children... is understandable, but I still think it is a form of neglect.

And Annti, you can watch as much Rachel Maddow whenever you please.


Link is here.




So I won't back down from that. It just was poorly formulated. Blogger is not my friend this morning.

Actually, that last below reminded me of my fifth grade teacher...

She would lecture us on what was gonna happen when the Russians invaded. Not if, WHEN. 'And they're going to arrest your parents and put them into concentration camps, and indoctrinate them into how they think, and when they come back, you won't know them any more.'

There was a lot more to it, but I later learned she had it from a Reader' s Digest article, and would harangue us with all the bullshit... Kids smell BS from a mile away. But she was colorful and dramatic, and when she'd get on a subject that bored us, someone in the class was bound to say, 'Miss S. How was that again about the Russians invading?' And we'd feel entertained.

Probably to the detriment of my edumacation. But that jackass below? He takes the Miss S. to a new level, scaring army wives. Their kids are gonna be attacked in schools, and on and on. If you ask me, they should be worried their own kids don't do a Columbine for lack of supervision while the parents are trying to make ends meet, and neglecting them. That's a much more probable and scary scenario.

What people do for money.... And I still think Grossman is a sociopath.

And oh yeah, all the women were Miss, our teachers. The school board only wanted spinsters. So it wasn't surprising when they got a bee in their bonnet, and, really, I would have loved to be a fly on the wall when they came back to school in the Fall, and be in the lounge to hear what THEY did on their summer vacation. Thank gawwd that is an era long gone.

This freaks me out fully

To reiterate, you should really see the whole thing. Orwell and Nazi think, and I could just throw up... Murka... not what I grew up with, and not what I considered the best of it to be. And this Grossman guy? You only have to look at him to know he's a psychopath....

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

a different view of the wars....

This is something not talked too much about. The whole series of clips is on the Rachel Maddow website, and I'd recommend watching... Just another view that never gets airing, and Richard Engel really knows the Middle East like the back of his hand... and how the richest just get richer.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Hokay, have been cogitating, which is never a good sign...

Planning my trip to Gamlitz on Tuesday... ooo-hah.... hoping he redcognises me...

But my tobacconist gave me an idea.... her father is going through what Peter is, and sometimes we find five minutes to say something meaningful. And I never hold her up, her place is a gold mine.

But I went ON about finding out my 'friend' on-line is only fourteen, and found it creepy. And she said, 'My brother is sixty-one, and plays games on-line, and he's the oldest in the group.' I think it's good that gemerations play games together.'

And it made me think, which isn't always my strong point if I get emotional about it... but I remembered....

Peter's nursing home has school kids come in and play board games with the oldies. I don't think it traumatises the kids.

So maybe, on the basis of the past week, what with me being the 'leader of the Boy Scouts', and finding that you can teach them things without being all stuffy pedagogue... maybe it would do him some sort of good. Don't know.

And I've learned.... you can learn from the kids as well....

Except: everything has a taint on it for us nowadays. I took care of my youngest cousins every day from their birth, and to think.... well I can't go there. And no one would give me a baby-sitting job nowadays, gawwd help me.... Since the Christian Right painted everyone gay as pedophiles, and 'thank you, Rick Sanatorium, Crazy Eyes Bachman, who should look in the mirror at her friggin' husband, and that harpy from NOM...

The one thing they did was to make us feel guilty to be 'around' a child. And it spreads, hey. Our neighbors with Anna? They were fine with me, but hoo-boy, I wouldn't have DARED to touch her in any way whatsoever, not even to pick her up when she fell down. And one day we were out in the court, and her stroller was off balance the stones were all raggedy, but her mother didn't notice. So I was leaning on it, to keep it steady, and she was worming around in it. There were five people she was talking too, and she finally picked Anna up, and I stood up.... and the carriage fell over.

'So THAT's why you did that....'

'What the hell were YOU thinking?' And I went upstairs.

See?

I would never harm a child ever.

So am of two minds about this. And it saddens me.

That's it, am staying indoors for the rest of the day

Just did my shopping... the last of it... and late. Some guy in passing: 'that Schwule SAU..' (faggot pig... auf deutsch). And thought 'Wha?' Well I got my snigarettes out of the Ma-schine... and this very young couple she hoity toity and a teen, and looks at the pack of cigarettes in my hand and disparagingly says, 'Tschick'. Slang for them, but also disparaging.

And that happening within a minute... I turned around and yelled, 'What the fuck is it to You? I'm not SMOKING them in your ugly face!' Jeebus, where do they get it from? I'd cross her off my Crhristmas list if she was in my fambly, that is for sure.

Had just one more thing to get at the supermarket that I'd forgotten, and asked the cashier if Mars was in a bad constellation, what with people outside being so ornery. She said she didn't know, but it was probably the heat. Right. I said, 'Well, I'm staying INDOORS', that was enough already. Damned Mars constellation...'

Gawwd, I'm getting 'old'.... or Mars affected me too. And that agression... They should park it before they leave their hopeless homes, hey.

Unions, Wisconsin, and teachers retiring in droves

Just a mess. But an interesting look....