I just got off the phone with my friend Elizabeth in Miami.
“When are you coming back to Miami?” she asks.
Ah, geez. It figures that I had to go all the way to Miami to start dating again. Wonder what the credit limit on my Visa is.
Apr 082004
Apr 082004
Republicans were rubbing their hands together in glee back in 2000 when Ralph Nader was running for President. I say turn-about is fair play. Let’s all sign this petition urging former Alabama judge and certifiable right wing nutjob Roy Moore to run for prez under the banner of the Constitutional Party, whoever the hell they are. After all, Bush really isn’t the Bible thumper he pretends to be. I mean, what’s all this namby-pamby garbage from him about respecting all world religions? Shouldn’t he be forcing the Army and Marines to forcibly convert those misguided heathens in Iraq and Afghanistan? C’mon, Roy! Your people need you!
For my fellow electronica music freaks: a catchy version of “Man of Constant Sorrow” that will get your body rockin’ and booty shakin’.
Apr 072004
Here’s one word to describe Air America, the new liberal talk radio network: craptacular. Granted, I’ve only listened to Al Franken’s show. Maybe the other hosts are better. But Al couldn’t interview his way out of a paper bag. He even has the assistance of Katherine Lanpher, a former Minnesota Public Radio personality, but she basically plays Ed McMahon to Al’s uber-boring Johnny Carson. The show inflicts the most pain when they try to be funny. It’s like listening to a bad skit put on by a couple eighth-grade English teachers on open house night. Hopefully, they’ll learn to relax and actually listen to their guests. And the whole network has this white, middle-class, Starbucks vibe going on. They need to get Chris Rock or Margaret Cho on the air. Cuz the way things are going now, Air America will be dead and gone in six months.
Ugh, too many evening meetings this week and not enough writing time. Remind me not to join any more committees.
Apr 062004
I want to give a big shout-out to my friend Molly. Molly and I were friends in college and I recently learned that she has found a job with the state of Wisconsin that is almost identical to mine. When you think about how specialized our field is, it’s kind of remarkable that we would end up doing the same kind of work. Life is strange, no?
I’m bored with slapping around Dennis Kucinich, so I’m going to make Ralph Nader my bitch for a while. I thought this story was telling: Nader couldn’t get 1,000 people at a caucus to get him on the ballot in Oregon. A measly 1,000. But he still gets 4-5% in the national polls, which mystifies the hell out of me. I like to think that most of these people expressing a preference for Nader are going to come back to reality once the chips are on the table.
I got a phone call yesterday from Gillette Hospital asking me to participate in a repeat performance of a continuing legal education class I did last year. It was something that sprang out of the Supreme Court case that concerned my law clerk experience. Have I written about that here? Tell me if I haven’t. Anyway, I guess the CLE brought in some significant donations to the hospital, thus the encore. I’m looking forward to doing it again. I still have a yearning to teach someday and this is the closest thing I can get for now.
Apr 052004
Peter Gabriel is working on a Myst game. Poor Peter, but his last album did kinda suck, so maybe he needs the money. I never could get into Myst. It struck me as a pretentious slide show with obscure puzzles. Which reminds me. I was poking through my hard drive and found my collection of old Infocom games. Talk about old skool. Before you had your fancy Nintendos and Segas, there was Infocom. I used to spend hours in front of my old Apple IIe, slowly typing out commands like PUT BABEL FISH IN EAR or KILL GNU WITH CROWBAR. i was always bugging my dad to get me the latest Infocom adventure when they came out. And then, a couple months later, the hint book with the invisible ink clues. I think I liked them because even though they were text-based games, they were so well-written that I could clearly see those places in my mind’s eye. When I look at them now, it’s with a mixture of nostalgia and respect. Games are a thousand times more sophisticated today, but I’ve rarely been immersed in them like I was when I was twelve, bathed in the green glow of a monitor and making friends with a robot named Floyd.
Apr 042004
The switch to Daylight Savings Time always throws me off a little. The sun lingers in the sky well past dinnertime, which seems unnatural to my winter-addled brain. But it’s a sign that summer approaches, which is always welcome news in these parts.
Some good news in the Minneapolis paper today. Kerry leads Bush by twelve points in Minnesota. It’s even months before the election and much can change, but seeing those numbers still gave me a warm fuzzy this morning.
Apr 032004
Slate discusses the newfound popularity former Senator Max Cleland is enjoying within the Democratic Party. They point out how he and John Kerry have become joined at the hip lately, appearing together at all kinds of fundraisers and campaign rallies. Which, when you think about it, is kind of odd. Cleland was a so-so senator with a decidedly conservative bent. I don’t think he and Kerry were all buddy-buddy when they were both on the Hill. So what gives? My theory: it’s the wheelchair. Cleland is a ready-made symbol of Democratic outrage at Republican dirty tricks. “Look what those Republicans did to this poor man in the wheelchair! We’ll get those bastards! ” Hey, whatever works. But it does strike me as just a tad condescending. If Cleland wasn’t in a wheelchair, he’d be just another poor schlub who got bitch-slapped by the GOP in 2002. Instead, he’s some kind of hero. I’m not saying that’s right or wrong, but I think it reveals some interesting things about the intersection of disability and politics.
Hellboy was the shiznit. Lots of great eye candy, but also a film with a surprising amount of depth and feeling with a solid ethical center. Hellboy is kind of unique in that he’s a blue-collar superhero with a blue-collar perspective on the world. Kind of an oversized Teamster with red skin and questionable parentage.
Finally, for your Saturday evening reflection, here are some pictures of a lovely Buddhist sand mandala.
Apr 022004
I’m supposed to go to my district convention tomorrow. I should have considered the timing a little further before volunteering because I’m not quite back to full speed yet. It’s funny how I was humming along on all cylinders in Miami and now I feel like simply sitting on my ass all day. Er, I guess I do that anyway, but you know what I mean.
Does the FCC really have nothing better to do than watch soaps and gripe about too many people taking their shirts off? Does this fear of a little bare flesh make sense in a world where every newspaper and news broadcast is plastered with images of charred bodies dangling from a bridge? A recent episode of South Park did a hilarious job of deconstructing the sex/violence dichotomy in American culture. I won’t summarize the plot except to say it’s the one where the kids get their hands on some way cool samurai weapons. The episode also does a great riff on Japanese anime.
Think I’ll go see Hellboy tomorrow. Elvis Mitchell in the NYT gave it a glowing review, which kind of surprised me. I’ve never read the comic, so I have no fanboy expectations going in.
Apr 012004
I came across this little blurb entitled “Thirteen Ways to Raise A Nonreader.” Clever. When I was a kid, I would read at the dinner table. It pissed off my parents to no end, but I think they let it slide to get me to eat a little more (I wasn’t a big eater back then). All that dinner time reading was probably good preparation for college and law school. Then again, I kind of flubbed my way through my Victorian Novel exam because I never finished Middlemarch. I think I still got an A, though. And in the unlikely event that I ever produce children, I’ll actively encourage them to read at dinner, so long as it’s nothing by Tom Clancy or Danielle Steele.
Mar 312004
I’m still feeling a bit out of it. I didn’t realize I was so tired until I started falling asleep in my chair at, like, 8:30 last night. While in Miami, I think I averaged maybe 4-5 hours of sleep each night and it’s probably catching up with me. And I’m kind of amazed that everything went so smoothly. No equipment failures or forgotten items. Northwest Airlines actually seemed to handle my stuff with a good deal of care, which hasn’t always been the case. When we arrived in Miami last week, we were stopped by a couple who had a daughter on a ventilator. They asked us how the hell we managed to fly with a vent. We told them that sometimes you just have to take risks and, like the commercial says, just do it. I’m so glad I had the opportunity to experience those six days in Miami. For me, life is all about experiencing everything this mad, beautiful world has to offer. And I had some fucking outstanding experiences over the last week. When I think about everything I saw and did and felt…I can barely describe how good it is to be alive
A couple more pictures. Here I am enjoying a margarita at a South Beach restaurant.
And here’s a good example of the many funky Art Deco hotels that are scattered around Miami Beach.
