another productive day at the office

. when i started here, there were sixteen people in my department. today we're down to three, we're the cream of what had already been a select crop, and we're a pretty tight bunch. three nights a week, our schedules coincide in such a way that allows us a long, leisurely dinner together. 

while we're all interesting people with creative backgrounds and our conversations tend to range over a wide variety of subjects, our perennial focus seems to be [and always has been] food, which we talk about incessantly. first, we cover what each person has brought to the table that night--where we got it, what's in it, what we paid for it and/or how we made it, if it's as good as it was last time. then we talk about what we've eaten since last we saw each other, and then, often as not, we talk about our favorite dishes past and present, with excruciating attention paid to every detail of how each is prepared. 

seriously, we never tire of this shit. 

well, one night not long ago i went off on velveeta/ro-tel queso, about how it had once been a staple of my texas youth and how much i missed it. to my amazement, neither of my colleagues had ever experienced the bliss that is this simple dish, nor could they understand how an ungodly combination of canned tomatoes and an engineered cheese product with a millenial shelf-life could even be edible, much less addictive--i said "don't knock it 'til you've tried it." 

next day sue walked in, dumped the following grocery-sack full of ingredients into my lap and said, "let's do it." and thus white-trash fridays were born. 

sadly, i was too busy gorging myself that particular friday to take pictures of the finished product, but it looked very much like this: it always does--seriously, microwave or stove-top, you can't fuck this stuff up, and i've never met anybody, no matter how high-brow, who didn't love it [this now includes my two colleagues]. 

next white-trash friday, we went with a favorite culinary ensemble from my college days: carl buddig lunch-meat sandwiches on pillowy white bread with cheddar-american cheese, mayo, iceberg lettuce and tomato, lipton california onion dip and ruffles potato chips, as lovingly pictured below: lemme tellya, just buying all this shit was an adventure--i found myself in aisles of the supermarket i hadn't walked in years, but it was totally worth it. and fuck the preservatives--it was a most excellent and gratifying meal. 

which brings us to tonight (yeah, it's only thursday, but it was john's birthday so we made an exception). john's menu was very specific, and straight from his childhood: oscar mayer turkey-bologna sandwiches on wonder bread [and only wonder bread would do--he was like a dog with a bone on the subject], best foods mayo, kraft macaroni-and-cheese with a can of hormel turkey chili thrown in, all accompanied by hawaiian punch. oh, and sara lee pound cake and reddi-whip for dessert. 

i ask you, does it get any more white-trash than this? 

sue volunteered to pick it all up, but called me on the way in and asked, "what about the card?"

i told her i'd take care of it. 

i googled, found the images i wanted, realized that since i was without my laptop i was gonna have to do this without the benefit of photoshop or illustrator, sighed and opened the infernal microsoft word on my office desktop, prepared myself for the inevitable struggle. the front was easy enough: but the inside? fuck--after struggling for an hour trying to get text and pictures to play nice together in word, i finally wised up and did it in powerpoint: turns out the biggest problem involved my dyslexic ass trying to figure out how to turn the paper for each pass through the color laser printer in order to get the sonofabitch to come out right--eventually i succeeded. 

 then a stop downstairs in the copy-room at the paper-cutter, swing by the mailroom for the appropriately-sized envelope, and we're done:

[and thank you, shitty iphone, for these quality photos]

 

oh, and the food: tomorrow i may take a serious shot at doing some actual work.

i couldn't have said it better (assuming i wasn't so internet-numbed that i still had the attention span necessary to form such thoughts, of course)

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on may 7, 2006, harper lee wrote a letter to oprah winfrey (published in O in July 2006), in which she wrote about her love of books as a child and her dedication to the written word:

Now, 75 years later in an abundant society where people have laptops, cell phones, iPods and minds like empty rooms, I still plod along with books.

if this headline doesn't say it all, then i don't know what ever will

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do you get it yet, people?

when the overlords piously bloviate about how all the developed countries of the world must come together, surrender their autonomy to the united nations climate police and destroy what shreds of their economies and standards of living still remain for the sake of some half-assed, bogus science experiment gone wrong, they're only talking about you, the little people.

the architects of this massive fraud will, of course, be exempt from such strictures and be free to continue to rake in millions on their carbon-offset scams and public-speaking engagements, collect their awards and trot the globe in their gulfstreams preaching the virtue of sacrifice.

and yeah, i'm talkin about you, you fat fuck.

the angry blogger

it came to my attention recently [maybe we'll get into how at some unspecified future date] that not only do i positively marinate in negativity each and every day, all day long, i fuckin' thrive on it--even as it's taking its toll.

in retrospect, it seems almost ridiculous that something this obvious hadn't fully occurred to me--i mean, me, mr. self-aware--before, but we all have our blind spots, and i guess this was one of mine.

then i sat back and started counting the ways:

1. the market

first thing in my morning (after waking up mad about having to get up in the first goddam place), i flip on CNBC so i can rail at (a) the idiots who have brought us to the brink of financial collapse, and (b) all the other idiots who, in the face of this looming catastrophe, keep running up the market against all reason and thus blowing the bubble even bigger.

2. the news

next, i settle into my eames throne, open the macbook and hit the news sites--always starting, of course, with the incendiary drudge report--in order to learn what latest outrage the corrupt, idiot politicians have perpetrated upon us while we all slept in order to feather their own nests and fuck us up even further [and if i'm really lucky there'll be a good mass murder or world-government conspiracy or something to really get me going].

3. the blogs

ah, my cherished blogs. first, i make my daily rounds of the left so i can sneer at the liberals for being the self-righteous, deluded idiots they generally are, and then i go to over to the conservatives in order to sneer at them for being equal-but-opposite idiots.

then, the pump properly primed, it's time for that most sure-fire, anger-inducing of activities in which i indulge on any given day:

4. the drive to work

which topic will require a post in itself.

mkf attends a hollywood party

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so the other day i'm online reading a vanity fair article about an old-hollywood architect by the name of john woolf a friend had sent me--a truly fascinating story which explains, among other things, why you see mansard roofs all over america these days--when i unexpectedly come across the following picture of one of this guy's creations and realize i've been there.

* * * * *

one night back in the mid-nineties, i got a phone call from my friend and former roommate dumb-doug [a name used to differentiate him from the other, blonder doug in our circle, the aptly named fun-doug, but that's another story for another day], asking me if i wanted to go to a party.

"you know i don't go to parties."

"it's at bob evans' house."

"i'll be ready in ten minutes."

backstory: at the time, dumb-doug [who in reality was more clueless than dumb, and has since gone on to write at least one successful off-broadway play (and maybe more--i haven't kept track)] was a lawyer working as in-house counsel for a publishing house that specialized in cheesy, celebrity-driven content.

its founder, a flamboyant, hard-driving impresario who, along with his beautiful former-actress wife, had started the company in their garage and built it into a publishing powerhouse, happened to be good friends with mr. evans--and on this particular night, said legendary hollywood producer of such epics as rosemary's baby, love story, the godfather and chinatown had decided (for a reason that escapes me now) to throw a party at his legendary estate in honor of said publisher.

and dumb-doug had to make an appearance and needed a semi-respectable date, which is where i came in.

as we drove [wasn't far--turns out bob and i are homies], doug filled me in on some background which would add a surreal layer of machiavellian intrigue to an evening that really didn't need any embellishment: seems that less than a week after tonight's party honoring doug's boss, doug's boss was gonna turn around and release a salacious tell-all book written by a bunch of former high-priced hookers which would trash the reputations of, among many other hollywood luminaries, the very guy who was throwing the party in his honor.

the fact that i would be one of only four people at the party in possession of this juicy little tidbit made it even sweeter--or so i thought at the time.

my impressions of that night? unfortunately, my memory being what it is [and seeing as how back then i guzzled everything that was handed to me], recollections are spotty, but here are the stand-outs:

warren beatty. in a drab gray windbreaker, who, as soon as we walked in the door and he figured out who doug was, dragged him off my arm and into a corner, where he grilled him relentlessly for half an hour in an effort to figure out how badly he was gonna come off in the forthcoming tell-all book [as it turned out, not bad at all]. as i watched their intense interchange from across the room, all i remember is how small and insubstantial the man came across in real life.

left to my own devices, i wandered, drink in hand, through this wonderland of celebrity as if i owned the place, inserting myself into this group and that, devoid of any sense of intimidation or fear (one of the few advantages of being schizoid).

deborah raffin. this was my first up-close-and-personal experience with the sorta self-discipline combined with expert preservation of the highest order in which hollywood excels. while she had to be in her mid-forties on this particular night, she didn't look a day older than when she'd appeared in the last convertible fifteen years earlier. i told her she looked untouched, and she smiled.

chazz palminteri. while he'd never particularly grabbed me on the big screen, in person (and in stark contrast to mr. beatty), he was this big, smiling, larger-than-life and indescribably magnetic personality who, when he laughed at something i said, put his arm around my shoulder and gave me a rough shake, left me with tingles in places i didn't even know i had.

bob evans and the aforementioned publisher. watching these two arm in arm and smiling--knowing, even if mr. evans did not, that they'd be at each other's throats before the week was out--was interesting, to say the least.

there were lots of other minor celebrities and behind-the-scenes power players--a houseful, in fact--but i can't for the life of me remember 'em (only wish i'd been writing shit down back then, because this story would be so much better).

truth is, i coulda given a rat's ass about most of the people there that night, because as soon as i walked through the gates of woodland (named for one of its bordering streets), i was completely entranced by my surroundings, forgot almost everything else, and could totally understand why mr. evans had sold his soul for the place. small by hollywood-mogul standards, this little masterpiece had an impact far beyond its relatively modest size.

once i managed to drag dumb-doug away from warren's clutches, he and i explored each exquisitely-proportioned room of this magical house, and then wandered the grounds--down the steps and around the oval pool with its fountains to the cabana on the far side [which, since the above picture was taken had been transformed into the screening room in which jack nicholson swears he hasn't he hasn't been laid properly since it burned down], and onto the tennis court beyond.

once we'd had our fill of the outside, we walked back up to the house, gave our thanks to mr. evans [who politely thanked us for coming--he was wearing blue-tinted granny glasses that night, as i recall], and reluctantly took our leave.

damn, i wish there had been little digital cameras back then.

[alternatively, i wish i'd thought to take some screenshots of woodland before i dropped the kid stays in the picture into the mail after v and i just watched it--rent it if you wanna know.]

so where were you?

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like everybody else, i remember exactly where i was when i heard the news: on the school bus, coming home from first grade on a sunny thursday in houston. we were especially raucous that day--only reason i remember this is because, after our bus driver stood up, turned to face us, asked for quiet and told us what had just happened up in dallas, the utter silence the rest of the ride home was deafening.

i remember the bleak stillness up and down birdwood road as i got off the bus and trudged home that day--the street was completely devoid of life. i remember my mother sitting open-mouthed and silent in front of the television when i walked in the door.

as that grim, black-&-white weekend played itself out, three things made an indelible impression on my young psyche: (1) the tv on continuously, with that flag-draped coffin the centerpiece of almost every shot; (2) my mother's sudden cries of "oh my god, they shot him!" as the assassination of the assassin unfolded before her very eyes; and (3) every neighbor who had casually and robustly wished for the downfall of the king being struck dumb with horror when it actually happened.

and to this day--as cynical as i am, and knowing all that i now know about the dark side of camelot--whenever i look up and realize november 22 has rolled around again, it all comes back in a flash.

the whole KSM thing

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while most of the country is scratching their heads trying to figure out the twisted rationale behind the obama administration's decision to forego a military tribunal and try the architect of 9/11 in federal court in new york, to me it was merely another example of how tragically in-over-his-head our young and untried president is.

and as further elements of the story emerge--such as how khalid sheikh mohammed was willing to plead guilty and accept the death penalty without trial at guantanamo--it just gets crazier and crazier.

if you haven't seen the following clip in which senate judiciary committee member lindsay graham (never one of my favorites--until now anyway) questions eric holder on the wisdom of this decision, you need to. the good senator starts out easy, lulls our attorney general into a sense of complacency, sets him up--and then, around 1:50, moves in for the kill.



patrick leahy comes in afterwards and attempts to mitigate the fiasco by blathering about guantanamo for a couple minutes, but the damage is done.

as the foregoing makes painfully clear, holder is not only outta his league, he and his boss haven't even made a half-ass effort at thinking this decision through--not only in terms of the instant case, but as to the precedent it would set should, for instance, osama bin laden be caught. this would be funny as hell if it wasn't so deadly serious.

a couple other senators had some good questions, too:


senator herb kohl (a democrat, btw):

In the worst case scenario and the trial does not result in conviction,
what would be your next steps?

eric holder:

Failure is not an option.

sen. chuck grassley takes a go:

I don’t see how you can say that failure is not an option when you’ve got juries in this country.

holder:

If -- if there were the possibility that a trial were not successful, that would not mean that the person would be released into our country.

wait a minute--what happened to the presumption of innocence until guilt is proven? wouldn't pre-trial statements like this by the prosecution be considered wildly prejudicial? i'll bet KSM's attorneys will think so.

and what all about all the evidence gathered via waterboarding and absent the administration of miranda--isn't that all fruit from a very poisoned tree?

and it's not just holder--his boss the president said something similar to NBC when asked about those who might find KSM's receiving the rights of a US citizen offensive:

I don't think it will be offensive at all when he's convicted and when the death penalty is applied to him.

really, mr. president? a foregone conclusion already?

holder even got his own "i'm the decider" moment.

senator john kyl:

You have repeatedly said that your decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in Article III courts is because that is where you have the best chance to prosecute… How could you be more likely to get a conviction in federal court when Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has already asked to plead guilty before military commission and be executed?

holder:

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is not making this decision. The attorney general of the United States is making this decision.

yeah, and thanks for that one, eric.

why are they doing this? while i have my own theories, here are the reasons the obama administration is spouting in defense of this most boneheaded of decisions:

1. they wanna show the world how "open" and "transparent" our justice system is.

yeah, and all their "he's gonna go down for sure, and if he doesn't, we'll just re-arrest him on other charges so that he never goes free" statements do nothing but reinforce that idea.

2. they wanna show the world that we're "not afraid" to try him in a civilian court.

of course we're not--as long as we have tens of millions of dollars' worth of police and military personnel and firepower paralyzing the city of new york for weeks in order to provide "security" while this farce runs its course.

and the clear message to the world? well, think about it: can you imagine any one westerner whose presence in even the humblest, most backward middle-eastern country could stir up this much shit? yet here we are, the mightiest nation on earth, preparing to call out half the army to protect us in our own country against possible fallout from KSM's fan base when we "try" him.

my prediction is, this show trial will prove to be the greatest propaganda tool radical islam has ever had--even at my most creative, i can't imagine a better way to give aid and comfort to the enemy.

oh, and one other question, mr. failure-is-not-an-option: what is your politically-correct, diversity-loving ass gonna do about the muslims in the jury pool who swear with shifty eyes that they can be impartial?

this is gonna be rich.