The new season of Six Feet Under premieres on HBO tonight and I’m dutifully TiVo’ing it. When it’s good, the show is brilliant and funny. When it’s not so good, it’s still a decent soap opera. I would totally date the character of Claire. She’s cute and creative and sarcastic and a little fucked up but she has insight into her own fucked-upness. We would sit in some coffeehouse and talk for hours about how stupid and shallow human beings are (except us, of course).
I got a nice letter from Wells Fargo, my former mortgage holder, saying that they had sent me a refund check in February for a goodly amount and why hadn’t I cashed it yet? This was news to me. I can’t figure out why they would owe me a refund. But who am I to turn down their money? So I filled out the form asking them to reissue the check. I can always use a little extra scratch to pay down my credit card and maybe put a little towards some new toys.
I know you will find this news as shocking as I did: Karl Rove and his subordinates in the Bush campaign tried to incorporate Reagan’s legacy into a new series of campaign ads. These ads did not go over too well with the Reagan-Is-God crowd and now the campaign is being urged to destroy the ads before the public sees them. You have to wonder how desperate things are in the Bush campaign when they resort to co-opting the legacy of a dead president before said president’s body is even in the ground. The very idea of comparing this Bush to Reagan is absurd and I don’t think even the most ardent conservative would disagree with me.
But if you do, you can comment to your heart’s content.
It’s been overcast all day, but the sky just turned a pretty scary black. Like close-all-the-windows-and-cower-in-the-bathroom kind of black. Thunderstorms used to completely terrify me when I was a kid. Remember how some local television stations used to put a little “W” in the corner of the screen when there was a severe weather watch for the area? I would freak whenever that popped up on the screen. But like most kids, I outgrew my fears and the only concern running through my head is weather I should be concerned about a power surge. For the last year or two years, I’ve been telling myself that I need to get a UPS for my computer and I still haven’t gotten around to it. I would be so screwed if something happened to my system. I’ve backed up a few things, but a crash would still be disastrous. Buh-bye mp3 collection. Buh bye to all the stuff I’ve written over the last nine years or so. I should invest in a DVD burner, back up the mission critical stuff, and quit tempting the fates.
The trailer for Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 is out. I will almost definitely see it on opening weekend. The scene at the end of the trailer is absolutely classic. It sums up Bush’s style of governing in ten seconds. Watch it for yourself and see if you agree.
And by the way, Mr. Ray Bradbury, you need to take a chill pill. Did nobody tell you there’s no copyright on book titles? Jeez, when did one of my favorite writers turn into an old coot?
I know I said I was going to write something about the stem cell controversy today, but I want to save that for a time when my heart’s a little more into it. I went in for a wheelchair fitting today and the radio in the waiting room was tuned to Rush Limbaugh. The man’s rantings gave me a headache. But I got to sit in my new chair and it’s pretty sweet. The thing turns on a dime and doesn’t have some of the jerky motion of my current chair. It needs a couple minor modifications and then I should be good to go. I’ll post some pictures for those of you who want to compare it with your own ride.
Just talked to my sister, who is back on American soil today after a semester in France. Her French is probably better than mine now and I bet she’s smoking Gauloises and reading Camus all the time. Brat.
Can someone score me a Gmail invitation? All the cool kids are getting them…
Remember how Nixon was the only one who could go to China? Ariel Sharon may be inching closer to becoming Israel’s Nixon. His government is on the brink of collapse because of his plan to evacuate settlers from the Gaza and parts of the West Bank. I don’t agree with the context of the pullout; I’d rather see it as part of a negotiated settlement with the Palestinians. But this is probably the best we can hope for given the current political climate in Israel. My brother was in Israel back in 2000, just before the last major peace push at Camp David. He said that most people seemed prepared for a comprehensive peace agreement and that there wasn’t much interest in holding on to the territories. And then everything went to hell, at least in part because of Arafat’s inability to put the interests of his people ahead of his own neck. In the end, the political result may be the same. Israel will leave most (but not all) of the territories and a de facto Palestinian state will emerge. It remains unclear exactly how the Palestinians will govern themselves. Basic services, like trash collection and police force, will have to be quickly established by the Palestinian Authority for it to retain whatever scraps of credibility it has left. Otherwise, a group like Hamas, which has already outshined the Authority in its ability to provide social services to those living in Gaza, will seize the opportunity to make a power grab in the territories. And a Palestinian state dominated by Hamas does not fill me with a warm, fuzzy feeling.
Boy, it’s fun to give opinions about stuff I’m barely qualified to talk about. Tomorrow, stem cells.
I may treat myself to a showing of Phantom of the Opera next month. I’ve seen it a couple times before, once in San Francisco and once here. Musicals typically don’t do much for me, but I have a soft spot for this one. The whole disfigured-artist-suffering-from-unrequited-love thing somehow resonates with me for reasons I can’t explain. And it’s playing at the Orpheum, which is only a few blocks from my building. There’s a whole string of theaters in my neighborhood; the Orpheum, the State, the Pantages. And in another year or so, the new Guthrie will be completed on the riverfront, also within walking distance. See, this is why I live downtown. Even though I may only make it to these establishments a couple times a year, I like knowing they’re nearby.
Just passed 200 pages in the book. About friggin’ time.
Here are some pictures from yesterday:
St. Paul’s finest.
A woman, her child, and her dog enjoying the fine day.
A Peruvian band that was quite good.
Okay, this one requires some explanation. To the best of my recollection, I was not gawking at these women. I think my nurse set me up with an opportune picture. But you get an idea of how a crowd of people looks from my perspective. Anyway, the picture made me laugh and I decided to post it while hoping that my female readership won’t lynch me.
It was simply too gorgeous to stay inside today, so I spent much of the day away from my desk. First, I went to Uncle Hugo’s to pick up some summer reading. It’s a funky store with lots of old paperbacks and a knowledgeable staff, but like I’ve written before, it’s a pain in the ass to navigate in a wheelchair. Books are scattered everywhere and I came damn close to toppling over a couple stacks. But the staff were very helpful and retrieved a bunch of titles for me, which encourages my philosophy of supporting local businesses. Then I spent a few hours at Grand Ole Day in St. Paul. It’s a kind of street fair that runs along historic Grand Avenue, with a lot of live music and pretty good people watching. It used to be called Grand Ole Days, but I think they had to cut it down to one day for budget reasons. I’ll post some pictures I took later tonight or tomorrow. I’ve lived here nine years and this was my first time at that event. There’s a few other things like that which I’ve never made it to, like the Aquatennial and Taste of Minnesota. I’m going to try to remedy that this summer.
And today was the first day where it really felt like summer. The sun was warm on my face and the air smelled like cut grass and barbecue sauce. And I was walking around and thinking it would be nice to have someone to hang out with and do typical summer stuff, like hang at the lakes. Maybe I should start going to these public gatherings wearing a big sandwich board that says FREE LEGAL ADVICE IN EXCHANGE FOR CASUAL DATE.
Yup, that would work.
Ronald Reagan died a couple hours ago. To live with Alzheimer’s as long as he did is a fate I wouldn’t wish on anyone. Reagan was a fixture in my childhood and early adolescence. He had as much influence on my own liberal politics as anyone. Even at ten years old, I was afraid that Reagan would deliver the entire world into nuclear oblivion. It will be interesting to see whether the imminent onslaught of media tributes will give much attention to his early political life, when Reagan was a solid FDR Democrat. Someone else said Reagan’s political transformation mirrored a shift in the entire nation towards a more conservative worldview. I’m not so sure about that. The pendulum is always swinging back and forth in this country. Conservatives have certainly become increasingly conservative, but there still exists a vast middle ground in the body politic that seems willing to move slightly to the left or the right depending on which way the wind is blowing. Reagan was very good at reaching out to those people. Every president after Reagan has emulated (some more successfully than others) his style of communication. Reagan was the MTV of presidents, placing style over substance. And that tradition continues today.