Oct 9, 2008
At the congressional hearings, among the craven faces of financial Wizards done in by bad spells, was the kisser of Tony Mozillo, Tony-Tony-Tony — say it as fast you can — Mozillo, who took home $140 million in compensation, while the company he founded, Countrywide Insurance, lost $704 million.... It's the face of Vegas at 4 a.m., lips off the face of a deep sea bass, eyes off a man who died five minutes ago, the tan, leathered skin you find at resorts like Cat Cay and the Palm Spring Racquet Club. A face known to hookers and waiters and limo drivers and all the 'little people.' It's a face that makes the face of Dick Fuld, that most fashionable executive of Lehman Brothers, look distinguished and animated.
Oct 7, 2008
Tonight, when John McCain says the likes of, 'Senator, the fact is we don't really know who you are, you're a mystery, all we know is that you've hung around with terrorists, felons and special interest groups.... "
If I were Barack Obama, I would reply...
"John, enough people in Michigan have decided they know me so that you've stopped running in that state. And enough people feel they know me in 'red' states across the country that your campaign is now trying to turn the public's attention away from the greatest economic calamity since the Great Depression and attack my character with the most scurrilous lies.
"The difference between us is this, John. We both believe in free markets, but I believe freedom comes with responsibility and this is one of those times in American history when we need to find our balance.
"You have a long history of favoring unregulated markets, not least when you tried to help your good friend, Charles Keating whose fraud lead to the collapse of 747 savings and loan institutions and cost taxpayers $3.4 billion. It was the most expensive bailout approved by congress in American history.
"Until now.
"And all along in the last 8 years you've endorsed the administration's position, that the 'fundamentals are strong', that the last thing we need is regulation. Even now you've surrounded yourself wth the very people who created this crisis. Your economic adviser, Phil Gramm, is still in the wings. The man who said this was not a crisis but a delusion. A whine....
"The difference between us is that you're running out the clock on an agenda whose time has past. A time when the interests of a few were put above the interests of many. A time in which a culture of greed was not only accepted but mindlessly, oddly encouraged.
"But now that's over and we begin again, in a new direction."
If I were Barack Obama, I would reply...
"John, enough people in Michigan have decided they know me so that you've stopped running in that state. And enough people feel they know me in 'red' states across the country that your campaign is now trying to turn the public's attention away from the greatest economic calamity since the Great Depression and attack my character with the most scurrilous lies.
"The difference between us is this, John. We both believe in free markets, but I believe freedom comes with responsibility and this is one of those times in American history when we need to find our balance.
"You have a long history of favoring unregulated markets, not least when you tried to help your good friend, Charles Keating whose fraud lead to the collapse of 747 savings and loan institutions and cost taxpayers $3.4 billion. It was the most expensive bailout approved by congress in American history.
"Until now.
"And all along in the last 8 years you've endorsed the administration's position, that the 'fundamentals are strong', that the last thing we need is regulation. Even now you've surrounded yourself wth the very people who created this crisis. Your economic adviser, Phil Gramm, is still in the wings. The man who said this was not a crisis but a delusion. A whine....
"The difference between us is that you're running out the clock on an agenda whose time has past. A time when the interests of a few were put above the interests of many. A time in which a culture of greed was not only accepted but mindlessly, oddly encouraged.
"But now that's over and we begin again, in a new direction."
Oct 6, 2008
Pundits on the radio; John and Sarah Doe; fools on the Thorazine ward keep asking, "well yes, it is to hell in a hand basket and I'm already living below my means. But I don't feel anything; what's it go to do with me?"
It's Cuervo time for the cockroaches in Almogordo, in the still branches of 'fat cottonwood', when all of a sudden the big banjo will play, and the earth will start disemboweling itself, but right now it's that second before the wall's vibrato and all things disappear.
In that second, in Akron, a 90-year-old woman shot herself, twice, in her mortgaged chest, rather than be evicted. Neighbor came in and found her, looked like she was asleep on her bed with a long barelled handgun at her side. Touched her shoulder. "Then she kind of moved toward me a little and I saw that blood, and I said, 'Oh, no. Miss Polk musta done shot herself,'".
She had. And that was before the woman in Redwood Shores, on the sidelines of a U-15 soccer game, on Saturday. She turned to her friend and said, "I just can't spend the money. But I know it looks bad so we've decided to do the minimum. You know, $10,000, just to make the front (yard) look decent and leave it at that."
On 47th Avenue and Judah, outside 7-11, in the nightly drizz, just last night, a homeless man and woman huddling with a fake baby. He would like some change, and in his tone you could hear that the business of being homeless is getting serious.
And so the president is going to tell people: go out on a shopping spree. Buy anything you can! Ross will fill up and there'll be a couple of people in the sweaters aisle at Macy's. Some people will buy an extra large popcorn before the movie. I'll buy a five gallon container of Lupine.
But then there was this story from last weekend...
"This is a perfect American family behind me that has absolutely been destroyed," said a chief from LAPD, standing in front of a house at 20644 Como Lane in Porter Ranch, a gated community in Northridge, where the earthquake was, in a two story house, Spanish-stucco-beige, probably with a kidney-shaped pool and a garden filled with succulent ambitions. The family was Indian. The sheriff went on: "destroyed apparently because of a man who just got stuck in a rabbit hole, if you will, of absolute despair, somehow working his way into believing this to be an acceptable exit."
And he added, "It is critical to step up and recognize we are in some pretty troubled times."
They got the counselors up to the neighborhood to explain to kids how these things happen and it's okay, the guy was troubled, because these are troubling times, but you mustn't despair yourself, don't believe what you imagine, because you can get caught up thinking about how that could have happened, how the father would decide what the order of slaughter would be. Did he start with his oldest son? That would make sense, threat wise. The boy was a sophomore at UCLA. And then his mother-in-law, and finally his two younger children who he loved to death, as it were. And then himself.
Everybody said he loved those kids and how's the counselor going to explain that? They were all smart people. Sure the guy was a little unstable, a little intense and then you wonder him going over to the next door neighbor telling her to close the windows on the side of the house next to his. He said he's heard there were burglars. He knew fear would work and she closed those windows and he killed everyone sometime between Friday night and Sunday. No one knows for sure. Hardly anyone heard the shots.
And so is this one of the lessons of troubled times? The ballad of smart people. And now the world is left to the stupid. How will you ever trust smart people again, no matter where they went to school or what their SAT scores were.
That's Palin's real appeal. Not the fuck-me wink, America's Mary Magdalene willing to take all the men, and women, in the country if that'll do the trick. Don't-cha-know'd it! Smart IS dangerous. Stupid IS safe.
It's Cuervo time for the cockroaches in Almogordo, in the still branches of 'fat cottonwood', when all of a sudden the big banjo will play, and the earth will start disemboweling itself, but right now it's that second before the wall's vibrato and all things disappear.
In that second, in Akron, a 90-year-old woman shot herself, twice, in her mortgaged chest, rather than be evicted. Neighbor came in and found her, looked like she was asleep on her bed with a long barelled handgun at her side. Touched her shoulder. "Then she kind of moved toward me a little and I saw that blood, and I said, 'Oh, no. Miss Polk musta done shot herself,'".
She had. And that was before the woman in Redwood Shores, on the sidelines of a U-15 soccer game, on Saturday. She turned to her friend and said, "I just can't spend the money. But I know it looks bad so we've decided to do the minimum. You know, $10,000, just to make the front (yard) look decent and leave it at that."
On 47th Avenue and Judah, outside 7-11, in the nightly drizz, just last night, a homeless man and woman huddling with a fake baby. He would like some change, and in his tone you could hear that the business of being homeless is getting serious.
And so the president is going to tell people: go out on a shopping spree. Buy anything you can! Ross will fill up and there'll be a couple of people in the sweaters aisle at Macy's. Some people will buy an extra large popcorn before the movie. I'll buy a five gallon container of Lupine.
But then there was this story from last weekend...
"This is a perfect American family behind me that has absolutely been destroyed," said a chief from LAPD, standing in front of a house at 20644 Como Lane in Porter Ranch, a gated community in Northridge, where the earthquake was, in a two story house, Spanish-stucco-beige, probably with a kidney-shaped pool and a garden filled with succulent ambitions. The family was Indian. The sheriff went on: "destroyed apparently because of a man who just got stuck in a rabbit hole, if you will, of absolute despair, somehow working his way into believing this to be an acceptable exit."
And he added, "It is critical to step up and recognize we are in some pretty troubled times."
They got the counselors up to the neighborhood to explain to kids how these things happen and it's okay, the guy was troubled, because these are troubling times, but you mustn't despair yourself, don't believe what you imagine, because you can get caught up thinking about how that could have happened, how the father would decide what the order of slaughter would be. Did he start with his oldest son? That would make sense, threat wise. The boy was a sophomore at UCLA. And then his mother-in-law, and finally his two younger children who he loved to death, as it were. And then himself.
Everybody said he loved those kids and how's the counselor going to explain that? They were all smart people. Sure the guy was a little unstable, a little intense and then you wonder him going over to the next door neighbor telling her to close the windows on the side of the house next to his. He said he's heard there were burglars. He knew fear would work and she closed those windows and he killed everyone sometime between Friday night and Sunday. No one knows for sure. Hardly anyone heard the shots.
And so is this one of the lessons of troubled times? The ballad of smart people. And now the world is left to the stupid. How will you ever trust smart people again, no matter where they went to school or what their SAT scores were.
That's Palin's real appeal. Not the fuck-me wink, America's Mary Magdalene willing to take all the men, and women, in the country if that'll do the trick. Don't-cha-know'd it! Smart IS dangerous. Stupid IS safe.
Sep 29, 2008
Yes, it's true. That thing, which his generation fled like a runaway dog with a foul smell, is back at the screen door. From "Black Tuesday", October 29, 1929 to "Black Monday," September 29, 2008. But for another month and a year you'd have an exact replica. You'd have 80 years on the nogan.
Meanwhile, if you wonder why all these things are happening you understand. The man yelling at you from his shiny black Escalade, calling you a selfish fuck because you parked too close, is not himself. The road rage is everywhere, all the time.
Look at this woman wandering down the middle of Haynes Street in Hillsborough. She's in a house robe and slippers. Perhaps, she went out to get the newspaper and something happened. Or else, she is mildly demented. She has the look of someone who may jump out the window, or off the bridge. She has the look of someone who will die soon. The eyes are enlarged and rounded. According to a recent study, this is the shape of eye, in a young woman, who wants sex. And perhaps this woman wants some sort of carnal contact with God, with a priest she remembers from childhood. Considering what's happening, the problem must be her accounts. She or her husband must be losing everything. There must be some threat that seems unmanageable.
Whatever it is with her and the man in the Escalade the 'only thing to fear is fear itself', is back in town. Someone was saying what a good thing it is. Time to beboot. Reimagine yourself. But it's also a calamity. Don't forget that. The woman on Haynes Street is now running down the middle of the street. She's blond, forties or fifties, her robe is coming undone. She's lost a slipper. She turns away, off to the curb, we pass and she's gone.
Meanwhile, if you wonder why all these things are happening you understand. The man yelling at you from his shiny black Escalade, calling you a selfish fuck because you parked too close, is not himself. The road rage is everywhere, all the time.
Look at this woman wandering down the middle of Haynes Street in Hillsborough. She's in a house robe and slippers. Perhaps, she went out to get the newspaper and something happened. Or else, she is mildly demented. She has the look of someone who may jump out the window, or off the bridge. She has the look of someone who will die soon. The eyes are enlarged and rounded. According to a recent study, this is the shape of eye, in a young woman, who wants sex. And perhaps this woman wants some sort of carnal contact with God, with a priest she remembers from childhood. Considering what's happening, the problem must be her accounts. She or her husband must be losing everything. There must be some threat that seems unmanageable.
Whatever it is with her and the man in the Escalade the 'only thing to fear is fear itself', is back in town. Someone was saying what a good thing it is. Time to beboot. Reimagine yourself. But it's also a calamity. Don't forget that. The woman on Haynes Street is now running down the middle of the street. She's blond, forties or fifties, her robe is coming undone. She's lost a slipper. She turns away, off to the curb, we pass and she's gone.
Sep 18, 2008
There is something about the right wing radio pilots that I find endlessly compelling. Sean Infantity, Linda Engrammatico, and the locally dangerous, ‘I’m a great American, you’re a great American’ — Big Bri-anne Suss-man, the ex-'whether or not I’m a Man', and the Boys in the “White” Hoods…
I listen in streaks. Mostly in traffic on the way home. I listen until I can’t stand it. Sometimes I call in. I write notes as a patient in the Santa Rosa Mental Health Center. "You fucking idiot", I’m saying. "How can ignorance become such arrogance?" I realize how much I miss William F. Buckley and Gore Vidal.
Once, I got on the air and argued that the US should consider withdrawing from the Bejing Olympics to mark the invasion of Tibet. I pointed out that the 1938 olympics were used to validate the Third Reich, even though Jesse Owens ran Aryans into the ground. Sussman disagreed and shut off the discussion.
He does that. They both do that. Get opposition, then hang up. But if Georgia from Freemont calls in to ask whether Obama is going to win simply on the basis of all the money he’s collected, it's a great question and she’s a great American. Or Jake on a red blood cell in his nose calls to say that with Obama you’re gonna get fascist youth police coming into your home to see if you’ve got frosti freeze shaped light bulbs. "Great question, you're a great American. And I'm glad you brought that up. This is really going to be a problem.”
Today, on Hen's titty, T Bone Pickens got on the line. Sean was trying to get him to say that 'drill baby, drill' was meat and right so to do. But T Bone wouldn’t say it. Well, we need more refineries, said Sean. T Bone pointed out most of the refining is being done in Saudi and in the gulf. "There was no reason to build more refineries, and as it was they were operating at about 87 percent anyway. Even if you dug up another million barrels a day you wouldn’t go above capacity."
This is not great American stuff I'm hearing, T Bone.
Sean persisted. "Well what about all the drilling we could be doing?" Yes, said Pickens, there is a lot drilling we could be doing but Big Oil isn’t buying up the tracts at auction. He pointed out that after one recent auction, 90 percent of the tracts were unsold.
The fact is, Big Oil doesn’t care about drilling as much as politicians. Because the know that by the time they get money from developing offshore they'll be fossil fuel themselves.
I wanted to hear more about that. But Infanity didn't like the Boone's direction and ended the call, curtly.
I listen in streaks. Mostly in traffic on the way home. I listen until I can’t stand it. Sometimes I call in. I write notes as a patient in the Santa Rosa Mental Health Center. "You fucking idiot", I’m saying. "How can ignorance become such arrogance?" I realize how much I miss William F. Buckley and Gore Vidal.
Once, I got on the air and argued that the US should consider withdrawing from the Bejing Olympics to mark the invasion of Tibet. I pointed out that the 1938 olympics were used to validate the Third Reich, even though Jesse Owens ran Aryans into the ground. Sussman disagreed and shut off the discussion.
He does that. They both do that. Get opposition, then hang up. But if Georgia from Freemont calls in to ask whether Obama is going to win simply on the basis of all the money he’s collected, it's a great question and she’s a great American. Or Jake on a red blood cell in his nose calls to say that with Obama you’re gonna get fascist youth police coming into your home to see if you’ve got frosti freeze shaped light bulbs. "Great question, you're a great American. And I'm glad you brought that up. This is really going to be a problem.”
Today, on Hen's titty, T Bone Pickens got on the line. Sean was trying to get him to say that 'drill baby, drill' was meat and right so to do. But T Bone wouldn’t say it. Well, we need more refineries, said Sean. T Bone pointed out most of the refining is being done in Saudi and in the gulf. "There was no reason to build more refineries, and as it was they were operating at about 87 percent anyway. Even if you dug up another million barrels a day you wouldn’t go above capacity."
This is not great American stuff I'm hearing, T Bone.
Sean persisted. "Well what about all the drilling we could be doing?" Yes, said Pickens, there is a lot drilling we could be doing but Big Oil isn’t buying up the tracts at auction. He pointed out that after one recent auction, 90 percent of the tracts were unsold.
The fact is, Big Oil doesn’t care about drilling as much as politicians. Because the know that by the time they get money from developing offshore they'll be fossil fuel themselves.
I wanted to hear more about that. But Infanity didn't like the Boone's direction and ended the call, curtly.
Sep 10, 2008
I received this email from a good friend who was sending it on in turn. Perhaps, you've seen it. I cannot vouch for its authenticity.
Here is an introduction by the friend of a woman named Ana who described an encounter she had with John McCain in 2000.
"I am sharing this with you because our "life" literally may depend on getting the word out. I was initially shocked and was sure this letter was some sort of a spam. It is not! I have known Ana for a long time and went to business school with her husband Ravi. After Berkeley business school, Ravi got his MBA from Chicago and has started and sold a number of successful companies. He currently is a Managing Director of a successful private equity firm in the bay area. Ana has a Ph.D in psychology and has a private practice in San Francisco. I am giving you their background so you know that Ana and Ravi are not political activists and are simply two level headed individuals with no axe to grind. In addition, they are among the top 3-5% of our population who will benefit from the McCain tax/economic policy. Therefore, they are speaking out against their economic interest for the benefit of all of us."
My Holiday with McCain
It was just before John McCain’s last run at the presidential nomination in 2000 that my husband and I vacationed in Turtle Island in Fiji with John McCain, Cindy, and their children, including Bridget (their adopted Bangladeshi child).
It was not our intention, but it was our misfortune to be in close quarters with John McCain for almost a week since Turtle Island has a small number of bungalows and their focus on communal meals force all vacationers who are there at the same time to get to know each other intimately.
He arrived at our first group meal and started reading quotes from a pile of William Faulkner books with a forest of Post-Its sticking out of them. As an English Literature major myself, my first thought was “if he likes this so much, why hasn’t he memorized any of this yet?” I soon realized that McCain actually thought we had come on vacation to be a volunteer audience for his “readings” which then became a regular part of each meal. Out of politeness, none of the vacationers initially protested at this intrusion into their blissful holiday, but people’s buttons definitely got pushed as the readings continued day after day.
Unfortunately this was not his only contribution to our mealtime entertainment. He waxed on during one meal about how Indo-Chine women had the best figures and that our American corn-fed women just couldn’t meet up to this standard. He also made it a point that all of us should stop Cindy from having dessert as her weight was too high and made a few comments to Amy, the 25 year old wife of the honeymooning couple from Nebraska that she should eat less as she needed to lose weight.
McCain’s appreciation of the beauty of Asian women was so great that David the American economist had to move his Thai wife to the other side of the table from McCain as McCain kept aggressively flirting with and touching her.
Needless to say I was irritated at his large ego, and his rude behavior towards his wife and other women, but decided he must have some redeeming qualities as he had adopted a handicapped child from Bangladesh. I asked him about this one day and his response was shocking –“Oh, that was Cindy’s idea – I didn’t have anything to do with it. She just went and adopted this thing without even asking me. You can’t imagine how people stare when I wheel this ugly, black thing around in a shopping cart in Arizona. No, it wasn’t my idea at all.”
I actively avoided McCain after that, but unfortunately one day he engaged me in a political discussion which soon got us on the topic of the active US bombing of Iraq at that time. I was shocked when he said “if I was in charge, I would nuke Iraq to teach them a lesson”. Given McCain’s personal experience with the horrors of war I had expected a more balanced point of view. I commented on the tragic consequences of the nuclear attacks on Japan during WWII – but no, he was not to be dissuaded. He went on to say that if it was up to him he would have dropped many more nuclear bombs on Japan. I rapidly extricated myself from this conversation as I could tell that his experience being tortured as a POW didn’t seem to have mellowed out his perspective but rather had made him more aggressive, and vengeful towards the world.
My final encounter with McCain was on the morning that he was leaving Turtle Island. Amy and I were happily eating pancakes when McCain arrived and told Amy that she shouldn’t be having pancakes because she needed to lose weight. Amy burst into tears at this abusive comment. I felt fiercely protective of Amy and immediately turned to McCain and told him to leave her alone. He became very angry and abusive towards me, and said “don’t you know who I am” and I looked him in the face and said “yes, you are the biggest asshole I have ever met” and headed back to my cabin. I am happy to say that later that day when I arrived at lunch I was given a standing ovation by all the guests for having stood up to McCain’s bullying.
Although I have shared my McCain story informally with friends, this is the first time I am making this public. I almost did so in 2000, when McCain first announced his bid for the Republican nomination but it soon became apparent that George Bush was the shoo-in candidate and so I did not act then. However, now that there is a very real possibility that McCain could be elected as our next president, I feel it is my duty as an American citizen to share this story. I can’t imagine a more scary outcome for America than that this abusive, aggressive man should lead our nation. I have observed him in intimate surroundings as he really is, not how the media portrays him to be. If his attitudes toward women, and his treatment of his own family are even a small indicator of his real personality, then I shudder to think what will happen to America were he to be elected as our President.
Here is an introduction by the friend of a woman named Ana who described an encounter she had with John McCain in 2000.
"I am sharing this with you because our "life" literally may depend on getting the word out. I was initially shocked and was sure this letter was some sort of a spam. It is not! I have known Ana for a long time and went to business school with her husband Ravi. After Berkeley business school, Ravi got his MBA from Chicago and has started and sold a number of successful companies. He currently is a Managing Director of a successful private equity firm in the bay area. Ana has a Ph.D in psychology and has a private practice in San Francisco. I am giving you their background so you know that Ana and Ravi are not political activists and are simply two level headed individuals with no axe to grind. In addition, they are among the top 3-5% of our population who will benefit from the McCain tax/economic policy. Therefore, they are speaking out against their economic interest for the benefit of all of us."
My Holiday with McCain
It was just before John McCain’s last run at the presidential nomination in 2000 that my husband and I vacationed in Turtle Island in Fiji with John McCain, Cindy, and their children, including Bridget (their adopted Bangladeshi child).
It was not our intention, but it was our misfortune to be in close quarters with John McCain for almost a week since Turtle Island has a small number of bungalows and their focus on communal meals force all vacationers who are there at the same time to get to know each other intimately.
He arrived at our first group meal and started reading quotes from a pile of William Faulkner books with a forest of Post-Its sticking out of them. As an English Literature major myself, my first thought was “if he likes this so much, why hasn’t he memorized any of this yet?” I soon realized that McCain actually thought we had come on vacation to be a volunteer audience for his “readings” which then became a regular part of each meal. Out of politeness, none of the vacationers initially protested at this intrusion into their blissful holiday, but people’s buttons definitely got pushed as the readings continued day after day.
Unfortunately this was not his only contribution to our mealtime entertainment. He waxed on during one meal about how Indo-Chine women had the best figures and that our American corn-fed women just couldn’t meet up to this standard. He also made it a point that all of us should stop Cindy from having dessert as her weight was too high and made a few comments to Amy, the 25 year old wife of the honeymooning couple from Nebraska that she should eat less as she needed to lose weight.
McCain’s appreciation of the beauty of Asian women was so great that David the American economist had to move his Thai wife to the other side of the table from McCain as McCain kept aggressively flirting with and touching her.
Needless to say I was irritated at his large ego, and his rude behavior towards his wife and other women, but decided he must have some redeeming qualities as he had adopted a handicapped child from Bangladesh. I asked him about this one day and his response was shocking –“Oh, that was Cindy’s idea – I didn’t have anything to do with it. She just went and adopted this thing without even asking me. You can’t imagine how people stare when I wheel this ugly, black thing around in a shopping cart in Arizona. No, it wasn’t my idea at all.”
I actively avoided McCain after that, but unfortunately one day he engaged me in a political discussion which soon got us on the topic of the active US bombing of Iraq at that time. I was shocked when he said “if I was in charge, I would nuke Iraq to teach them a lesson”. Given McCain’s personal experience with the horrors of war I had expected a more balanced point of view. I commented on the tragic consequences of the nuclear attacks on Japan during WWII – but no, he was not to be dissuaded. He went on to say that if it was up to him he would have dropped many more nuclear bombs on Japan. I rapidly extricated myself from this conversation as I could tell that his experience being tortured as a POW didn’t seem to have mellowed out his perspective but rather had made him more aggressive, and vengeful towards the world.
My final encounter with McCain was on the morning that he was leaving Turtle Island. Amy and I were happily eating pancakes when McCain arrived and told Amy that she shouldn’t be having pancakes because she needed to lose weight. Amy burst into tears at this abusive comment. I felt fiercely protective of Amy and immediately turned to McCain and told him to leave her alone. He became very angry and abusive towards me, and said “don’t you know who I am” and I looked him in the face and said “yes, you are the biggest asshole I have ever met” and headed back to my cabin. I am happy to say that later that day when I arrived at lunch I was given a standing ovation by all the guests for having stood up to McCain’s bullying.
Although I have shared my McCain story informally with friends, this is the first time I am making this public. I almost did so in 2000, when McCain first announced his bid for the Republican nomination but it soon became apparent that George Bush was the shoo-in candidate and so I did not act then. However, now that there is a very real possibility that McCain could be elected as our next president, I feel it is my duty as an American citizen to share this story. I can’t imagine a more scary outcome for America than that this abusive, aggressive man should lead our nation. I have observed him in intimate surroundings as he really is, not how the media portrays him to be. If his attitudes toward women, and his treatment of his own family are even a small indicator of his real personality, then I shudder to think what will happen to America were he to be elected as our President.
Sep 2, 2008
No story better catches the nature of Ms. Palin's judgment, and ambition — and finally that of John McCain as well — than the one about the Waslia librarian, a Ms. Baker, who "Sara-dipity" threatened to fire because of certain objectionable books. The new VP has a history of firing and threatening opponents, long before the matter involving her former brother-in-law. No matter. But it's one thing to be a political opportunist and whether genuinely or not, support the NRA and the teaching Creationism in schools, and quite another to fiddle with the content of public libraries. That alone disqualifies her for any serious public office.
And so the McCain candidacy is cracking up, and all the microscopic inspection of nuance and other scenarios can't hide the fact.
But underneath the daily bread of the chattering classes, and I'm one, there was a throw away story, barely believable on its face, about a Dutch spy being recalled from Iran because the Americans are within weeks of launching an attack. The story, as you can see is thin ... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/netherlands/2656680/Dutch-withdraw-spy-from-Iran-because-of-impending-US-attack.html ... Nevertheless, if true, this is one more indication. Certainly, the Israeli media has been hinting for months that something is coming, quite apart from military exercises and huddles with Ms. Rice.
Of course, if you're a cynic you might suspect a GOP-inspired effort to inject enough fear into the body politic that McCain will snatch the presidency at the very last moment. Or you might suspect Bush and Chaney of making one last effort to become bronze images on horseback in the square.
Whatever the justification, you can't miss the foreboding underneath.... An attack on Iran is necessary for so many reasons.
And so the McCain candidacy is cracking up, and all the microscopic inspection of nuance and other scenarios can't hide the fact.
But underneath the daily bread of the chattering classes, and I'm one, there was a throw away story, barely believable on its face, about a Dutch spy being recalled from Iran because the Americans are within weeks of launching an attack. The story, as you can see is thin ... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/netherlands/2656680/Dutch-withdraw-spy-from-Iran-because-of-impending-US-attack.html ... Nevertheless, if true, this is one more indication. Certainly, the Israeli media has been hinting for months that something is coming, quite apart from military exercises and huddles with Ms. Rice.
Of course, if you're a cynic you might suspect a GOP-inspired effort to inject enough fear into the body politic that McCain will snatch the presidency at the very last moment. Or you might suspect Bush and Chaney of making one last effort to become bronze images on horseback in the square.
Whatever the justification, you can't miss the foreboding underneath.... An attack on Iran is necessary for so many reasons.
Aug 28, 2008
Here's another bit of news, this from an inbox at the Parallax Corporation.
What I tell you now is true, to the best of my knowledge. Perhaps better to say, this story was told me by someone who is a 'credible source', a family friend, and although I cannot give a name, suffice to say, a business professional. I talked to this person for a long time and asked many questions. What took hours to tell me can be condensed to a few sentences. Make of it what you will....
Toward 6 p.m. on Friday, August 8 — the night John Edwards appeared on ABC News and admitted having repeatedly lied about an extramarital affair with a 42-year old campaign employee named Rielle Hunter — my friend received a call from someone identifying themselves as a detective with the Los Angeles Police Dept. They wanted to know if my friend would be willing to answer a few questions about a client. The client had had some dealings with Ms. Hunter years before.
My friend was just going off to a long anticipated event and asked if the conversation could be put off until Monday, and added that they didn't really know anything.
The detective said it was important to meet and perhaps he could come and chat for a few minutes. My friend agreed and in less than 15 minutes five men arrived at the office door. There were two uniformed policemen and three detectives, who showed identification, although my friend doesn't remember seeing badges. There may have been a badge but memory doesn't serve.
The men asked if my friend would come "downtown", and ever anxious to please, my friend agreed. My friend was lead from their office to the street where there were two black and white patrol cars and a nondescript black car. My friend was driven to downtown Los Angeles, but not to 1 Police Plaza, rather nearby and down into an underground garage that seemed "endless".
Eventually, the car stopped by a glass doorway with a carpet. My friend doesn't remember any signage on the doors. Then to an elevator up several floors to an office / conference room, which was itself surrounded by glass. Some people were visible through the glass, although not many presumably because it was Friday evening. They were not wearing uniforms.
Two men appeared who identified themselves as being with the DNC. At first, my friend thought that might be a government agency: the department of something or other. Then the idea occurred, the Democratic National Convention. "Is it that?" my friend asked. The men shook their heads. "Or the Democratic National Committee." The men nodded. My friend quickly got the idea that the men would not lie but would not volunteer any information.
My friend was asked countless questions, but knowing so little the conversation didn't go anywhere. The same questions were repeated over and over. "How did your client know Ms. Hunter?" "What service was performed?" "How much was paid?" "Was there any other work your client was involved in for Ms. Hunter" "Do you know Ms. Hunter? "Do you know where she is?"
To the last question, my friend shook their head, although my friend did know where Ms. Hunter was and did have a phone number. However, my friend has never spoken to Ms. Hunter and most of their knowledge of the "Edwards' affair" is from the media.
At one point, the questioners said that my friend's phone records showed that there had been many calls to the client around the time the story broke, some weeks earlier... "Phone records?" My friend began to become both afraid and wary. The men also asked if they could have access to my friend's computer.
My friend spent from 6 p.m. on Friday until 5 a.m. the next morning being questioned. And questioning only ended after my friend finally asked, "Do I need a lawyer for this?" One of the men responded, "I don't know. Do you?" "Well," my friend said, "we'll see. Here is my lawyer's name and perhaps he can help straighten all this out." The lawyer's name drew a reaction, "a flinch" as my friend put it, and shortly afterward the interview ended.
My friend was driven back to their office. Whether their computer had been examined during the 11-hour absence isn't clear. My friend's home, which is near their office, was unlocked, although whether locked or not would make little difference in such a cas.
Who were these men supposedly from the DNC? They showed only modest identification. What was the information they were looking for? How were they able to use LAPD officers in their quest? Where was my friend taken? On whose authority were phones tapped?
And so many other questions....
My friend spoke to people who can, with some authority, speculate the answers to such questions. These people speculated that the visitors were either from the RNC or possibly "Clinton operatives" wanting to gather information that might affect the choice of vice president. Or else, a third possibility, a government agency working on some other tact altogether.....
What I tell you now is true, to the best of my knowledge. Perhaps better to say, this story was told me by someone who is a 'credible source', a family friend, and although I cannot give a name, suffice to say, a business professional. I talked to this person for a long time and asked many questions. What took hours to tell me can be condensed to a few sentences. Make of it what you will....
Toward 6 p.m. on Friday, August 8 — the night John Edwards appeared on ABC News and admitted having repeatedly lied about an extramarital affair with a 42-year old campaign employee named Rielle Hunter — my friend received a call from someone identifying themselves as a detective with the Los Angeles Police Dept. They wanted to know if my friend would be willing to answer a few questions about a client. The client had had some dealings with Ms. Hunter years before.
My friend was just going off to a long anticipated event and asked if the conversation could be put off until Monday, and added that they didn't really know anything.
The detective said it was important to meet and perhaps he could come and chat for a few minutes. My friend agreed and in less than 15 minutes five men arrived at the office door. There were two uniformed policemen and three detectives, who showed identification, although my friend doesn't remember seeing badges. There may have been a badge but memory doesn't serve.
The men asked if my friend would come "downtown", and ever anxious to please, my friend agreed. My friend was lead from their office to the street where there were two black and white patrol cars and a nondescript black car. My friend was driven to downtown Los Angeles, but not to 1 Police Plaza, rather nearby and down into an underground garage that seemed "endless".
Eventually, the car stopped by a glass doorway with a carpet. My friend doesn't remember any signage on the doors. Then to an elevator up several floors to an office / conference room, which was itself surrounded by glass. Some people were visible through the glass, although not many presumably because it was Friday evening. They were not wearing uniforms.
Two men appeared who identified themselves as being with the DNC. At first, my friend thought that might be a government agency: the department of something or other. Then the idea occurred, the Democratic National Convention. "Is it that?" my friend asked. The men shook their heads. "Or the Democratic National Committee." The men nodded. My friend quickly got the idea that the men would not lie but would not volunteer any information.
My friend was asked countless questions, but knowing so little the conversation didn't go anywhere. The same questions were repeated over and over. "How did your client know Ms. Hunter?" "What service was performed?" "How much was paid?" "Was there any other work your client was involved in for Ms. Hunter" "Do you know Ms. Hunter? "Do you know where she is?"
To the last question, my friend shook their head, although my friend did know where Ms. Hunter was and did have a phone number. However, my friend has never spoken to Ms. Hunter and most of their knowledge of the "Edwards' affair" is from the media.
At one point, the questioners said that my friend's phone records showed that there had been many calls to the client around the time the story broke, some weeks earlier... "Phone records?" My friend began to become both afraid and wary. The men also asked if they could have access to my friend's computer.
My friend spent from 6 p.m. on Friday until 5 a.m. the next morning being questioned. And questioning only ended after my friend finally asked, "Do I need a lawyer for this?" One of the men responded, "I don't know. Do you?" "Well," my friend said, "we'll see. Here is my lawyer's name and perhaps he can help straighten all this out." The lawyer's name drew a reaction, "a flinch" as my friend put it, and shortly afterward the interview ended.
My friend was driven back to their office. Whether their computer had been examined during the 11-hour absence isn't clear. My friend's home, which is near their office, was unlocked, although whether locked or not would make little difference in such a cas.
Who were these men supposedly from the DNC? They showed only modest identification. What was the information they were looking for? How were they able to use LAPD officers in their quest? Where was my friend taken? On whose authority were phones tapped?
And so many other questions....
My friend spoke to people who can, with some authority, speculate the answers to such questions. These people speculated that the visitors were either from the RNC or possibly "Clinton operatives" wanting to gather information that might affect the choice of vice president. Or else, a third possibility, a government agency working on some other tact altogether.....
Aug 22, 2008
Six years after having gone to prison, Marjorie Knoeller stood up and was taken off to prison once more, for the same crime. She did not look back. And not out of determination. She wasn't saying,"Look at me, how strong I am." Rather, it was as though to say, "I don't exist. But even if I did, who would be there to receive my look?"
Actually, there was one person who would have received her look, given a gracious smile in return, and shouted out,"It'll be okay, Marjorie. I'll come and see you as soon as I can. It'll be okay." That would be Anna, who arrived in a black dress, at first glance a party-black dress. She had her gray hair just done, had it curly and glamorous, and she wore big dark wraparound glasses, the way movie stars do. She had Henry Miller with her, with his red sweater, walking listlessly and panting, not looking good frankly, head down, dragging his hips. You wondered who was more blind, Anna or her guide. As the dog passed one of the pretties made fun, made little animal noises and scoffed.
And that was that. Marjorie Knoeller, who when she arrived had the expression of a plastic blow-up doll, was lead away like a stray cow to permanent pasture and the victim's partner and sister, and friends and acquaintances, all sighed with relief, and cheered underneath their breath. "Yes," they said and looked across the aisle at the press and other perceived enemies. You'd have thought you were in Argentina with the mothers of "the disappeared."
This colloquium of victims was last seen at the first sentencing hearing in March 2002, but six years later they looked no different. And the mood and look was the same: all in J. Crew and long hair, freshly trimmed, beauties every one, no make-up, no earrings, no body paint. When one looked to the left to see who was on the other side of the courtroom, it was as if they all looked to the left. Militarily, on parade, as one. It's the kind of distingue-beauty and precision you see in a group of anything that's has come of age, that's worked long and hard together to be seen as more than just acceptable. If amazons could be doctors and designers and the celebrated creators of black market derivatives, that's what they were like.
Sharon Smith, the 'lead victim', as someone in the gallery said, did not have her mate with her. For good reason; that would have muddied the moment. Sharon appeared as the aggrieved widow, somberly dressed; in every detail, appropriate and sympathetic. Yet there was something about her demeanor, or the idea of all that had happened, which undermined her dignity. If you knew that she had collected a sizeable settlement from the building where the manslaughter/murder took place. If you knew that she took up with her new partner not long after the death of Diane... If you listened to her speaking to reporters, saying in effect, "No one knows how difficult it has been for ME for the last six years." "Me" was the focus. Nothing about Diane. No abstraction about the crime or the punishment. And no explanation of why it was important to send Marjorie the Hollow back to prison. No cry to deter these kinds of crimes...
No, here the drive seemed for revenge not reform. But why?
Remember, this wasn't a crime-wave crime. Of course, there are many cases in which people don't mind their dogs who then go off and injure or even kill someone, and making owners mindful is a good thing, particularly with the increasing number of 'war dogs'. But those cases are inevitably treated as 'accidents.' Or at worst, manslaughter.
In this case, the jury voted for second degree murder, for the idea that the defendant consciously used their pet like a night club bouncer or a body guard. To intimidate, and in a sense, to project a force that the owners themselves could never possess.
If you have ever seen some of California's other famous victims, you notice the contrast immediately. Think of the great heroes of the victims rights movement in California: Doris Tate, Sharon Sellito, Harriet Solarno, and many others, even Marc Klaas. All lost blood, daughters or brothers, but they turned grief into something else. Now of course you could say, "yes, but isn't there always a desire for the limelight among these crime victims? Isn't that always part of it?"
Perhaps. In my experience, grief sometimes becomes an excuse for men to follow their rage, to indulge an anger long repressed. For women, it may be the opportunity to seize an identity, to have real power.
On the other hand, I think of my stepmother after the murder of her only daughter, and in a way that was even more horrendous than this 'dog mauling.' Knives instead of teeth, for one; a long drawn out kidnapping for another. But my stepmother never did anything in front of cameras, and she's an actress, she could have used the moment for all it was worth. Instead, she hid out. She became invisible. The pain was too great and it never let up. Ever. Still, she has hosted events for victims to raise money to help other victims. For years she went to Doris Tate's, not to hear Doris communicate with spirits from the other side, but to help other victim's live day to day with the unimaginable.
But Sharon Smith's response is different. By some accounts she has worked for the empowerment of people, and for lesbians in particular, and all to the good. But there's been no effort that I know of to work on behalf of victims of dog attacks or to help victims of other crimes. Or to educate citizens about these dangers.... And so you wonder: why is it so important to send Marjorie Knoeller back to prison. This is a woman who belongs in an institution but not in a prison. And she may well serve a sentence, in addition to time already served, which will be longer than for a 'murder of passion'. Or even a convicted drunk driver who gets in a car and runs over someone.
The question deserves some kind of an answer, for her, if not for the rest of us. And so I would suggest that Marjorie symbolizes a more personal kind of villain. Look at Marjorie in this light, in all her banality, in all her ugliness, in all her arrogant ignorance, in the way she not only didn't mind her dogs, but didn't mind life itself; didn't distinguish, perhaps couldn't distinguish, between right and wrong... And in this way does she perhaps appear as the personification of all those people who have said or thought or conveyed the notion — as mother or aunt, neighbor or stranger — "I hate lesbians, I won't tolerate you, I hate what you look like and what you do with each other, and what you stand for, and how act so proud...."
Is Marjorie the whipping post more for what she conveys by her manner than even for her crime?
Meanwhile, Marjorie's husband, the true villain in the case, Robert Noel, didn't appear at the hearing. As always he is never where he is needed. I was told he would not be permitted into the court and was told to stay away. Who knows. In the end, de didn't do anything to help his wife. Not now, not at her trial. Not even when it was clear his sentence was fixed; he never filed an amicus brief; he never said, "I got these dogs. It was my idea from the start. Cornfed was my client. It's all my fault. I knew Marjorie couldn't handle those dogs. We fought about it often. It's my doing. Please don't take out all your wrath on her...."
Or something to that effect. But there was nothing and Sharon never addressed his absence.
As an aside, the court reporter looked exactly like Noel. And for a moment I thought it was a trick or else Noel had smuggled himself in, clubbed the court reporter and taken his place, to have a first-hand view. To suddenly stand up, a last minute Lothario and beg the judge on his wife's behalf. But that was not the case. Anna told me Noel was still out in Fairfield making horse bisquets. He sent some to Anna; Henry took one bite and got badly sick.
Actually, there was one person who would have received her look, given a gracious smile in return, and shouted out,"It'll be okay, Marjorie. I'll come and see you as soon as I can. It'll be okay." That would be Anna, who arrived in a black dress, at first glance a party-black dress. She had her gray hair just done, had it curly and glamorous, and she wore big dark wraparound glasses, the way movie stars do. She had Henry Miller with her, with his red sweater, walking listlessly and panting, not looking good frankly, head down, dragging his hips. You wondered who was more blind, Anna or her guide. As the dog passed one of the pretties made fun, made little animal noises and scoffed.
And that was that. Marjorie Knoeller, who when she arrived had the expression of a plastic blow-up doll, was lead away like a stray cow to permanent pasture and the victim's partner and sister, and friends and acquaintances, all sighed with relief, and cheered underneath their breath. "Yes," they said and looked across the aisle at the press and other perceived enemies. You'd have thought you were in Argentina with the mothers of "the disappeared."
This colloquium of victims was last seen at the first sentencing hearing in March 2002, but six years later they looked no different. And the mood and look was the same: all in J. Crew and long hair, freshly trimmed, beauties every one, no make-up, no earrings, no body paint. When one looked to the left to see who was on the other side of the courtroom, it was as if they all looked to the left. Militarily, on parade, as one. It's the kind of distingue-beauty and precision you see in a group of anything that's has come of age, that's worked long and hard together to be seen as more than just acceptable. If amazons could be doctors and designers and the celebrated creators of black market derivatives, that's what they were like.
Sharon Smith, the 'lead victim', as someone in the gallery said, did not have her mate with her. For good reason; that would have muddied the moment. Sharon appeared as the aggrieved widow, somberly dressed; in every detail, appropriate and sympathetic. Yet there was something about her demeanor, or the idea of all that had happened, which undermined her dignity. If you knew that she had collected a sizeable settlement from the building where the manslaughter/murder took place. If you knew that she took up with her new partner not long after the death of Diane... If you listened to her speaking to reporters, saying in effect, "No one knows how difficult it has been for ME for the last six years." "Me" was the focus. Nothing about Diane. No abstraction about the crime or the punishment. And no explanation of why it was important to send Marjorie the Hollow back to prison. No cry to deter these kinds of crimes...
No, here the drive seemed for revenge not reform. But why?
Remember, this wasn't a crime-wave crime. Of course, there are many cases in which people don't mind their dogs who then go off and injure or even kill someone, and making owners mindful is a good thing, particularly with the increasing number of 'war dogs'. But those cases are inevitably treated as 'accidents.' Or at worst, manslaughter.
In this case, the jury voted for second degree murder, for the idea that the defendant consciously used their pet like a night club bouncer or a body guard. To intimidate, and in a sense, to project a force that the owners themselves could never possess.
If you have ever seen some of California's other famous victims, you notice the contrast immediately. Think of the great heroes of the victims rights movement in California: Doris Tate, Sharon Sellito, Harriet Solarno, and many others, even Marc Klaas. All lost blood, daughters or brothers, but they turned grief into something else. Now of course you could say, "yes, but isn't there always a desire for the limelight among these crime victims? Isn't that always part of it?"
Perhaps. In my experience, grief sometimes becomes an excuse for men to follow their rage, to indulge an anger long repressed. For women, it may be the opportunity to seize an identity, to have real power.
On the other hand, I think of my stepmother after the murder of her only daughter, and in a way that was even more horrendous than this 'dog mauling.' Knives instead of teeth, for one; a long drawn out kidnapping for another. But my stepmother never did anything in front of cameras, and she's an actress, she could have used the moment for all it was worth. Instead, she hid out. She became invisible. The pain was too great and it never let up. Ever. Still, she has hosted events for victims to raise money to help other victims. For years she went to Doris Tate's, not to hear Doris communicate with spirits from the other side, but to help other victim's live day to day with the unimaginable.
But Sharon Smith's response is different. By some accounts she has worked for the empowerment of people, and for lesbians in particular, and all to the good. But there's been no effort that I know of to work on behalf of victims of dog attacks or to help victims of other crimes. Or to educate citizens about these dangers.... And so you wonder: why is it so important to send Marjorie Knoeller back to prison. This is a woman who belongs in an institution but not in a prison. And she may well serve a sentence, in addition to time already served, which will be longer than for a 'murder of passion'. Or even a convicted drunk driver who gets in a car and runs over someone.
The question deserves some kind of an answer, for her, if not for the rest of us. And so I would suggest that Marjorie symbolizes a more personal kind of villain. Look at Marjorie in this light, in all her banality, in all her ugliness, in all her arrogant ignorance, in the way she not only didn't mind her dogs, but didn't mind life itself; didn't distinguish, perhaps couldn't distinguish, between right and wrong... And in this way does she perhaps appear as the personification of all those people who have said or thought or conveyed the notion — as mother or aunt, neighbor or stranger — "I hate lesbians, I won't tolerate you, I hate what you look like and what you do with each other, and what you stand for, and how act so proud...."
Is Marjorie the whipping post more for what she conveys by her manner than even for her crime?
Meanwhile, Marjorie's husband, the true villain in the case, Robert Noel, didn't appear at the hearing. As always he is never where he is needed. I was told he would not be permitted into the court and was told to stay away. Who knows. In the end, de didn't do anything to help his wife. Not now, not at her trial. Not even when it was clear his sentence was fixed; he never filed an amicus brief; he never said, "I got these dogs. It was my idea from the start. Cornfed was my client. It's all my fault. I knew Marjorie couldn't handle those dogs. We fought about it often. It's my doing. Please don't take out all your wrath on her...."
Or something to that effect. But there was nothing and Sharon never addressed his absence.
As an aside, the court reporter looked exactly like Noel. And for a moment I thought it was a trick or else Noel had smuggled himself in, clubbed the court reporter and taken his place, to have a first-hand view. To suddenly stand up, a last minute Lothario and beg the judge on his wife's behalf. But that was not the case. Anna told me Noel was still out in Fairfield making horse bisquets. He sent some to Anna; Henry took one bite and got badly sick.
Aug 18, 2008
An open letter to El Rushbow at the EIB Institute....
"Mega dittos from the Santa Rosa Mental Health Clinic…. You’re a great America, I’m a great American, we’re all great Americans. We’re so glad when you take it to Obama like you did again today and of course it was difficult to answer that question about what’s wrong with America. We couldn’t answer that either, although partly ‘cause we’re all hopped up on Thorazine. But we’re all great Americans and when you’re making as much as you do, there’s nothing wrong with America. But that’s okay because you’re so much smarter than us. Dittos from Raymond, the head nurse. And if you couldn’t be the head of the Harvard Law Review, you can be on radio and hawk mattresses. BTW, we’d like to get some new pads on our walls. Can you help us? A number 5 mattress would about do it. Thank Jesus, you’re not a black street slouch like that Obama. How could you be? Think of all the charity golf you’ve played. What you’ve done to help people in your life... It boggles the mind. We just think of all the goodness you’ve done. THAT’s why you can’t think of any bad things America has done because you ARE America and we love you down here on the psycho ward. You can call us, we can’t call you…"
"Mega dittos from the Santa Rosa Mental Health Clinic…. You’re a great America, I’m a great American, we’re all great Americans. We’re so glad when you take it to Obama like you did again today and of course it was difficult to answer that question about what’s wrong with America. We couldn’t answer that either, although partly ‘cause we’re all hopped up on Thorazine. But we’re all great Americans and when you’re making as much as you do, there’s nothing wrong with America. But that’s okay because you’re so much smarter than us. Dittos from Raymond, the head nurse. And if you couldn’t be the head of the Harvard Law Review, you can be on radio and hawk mattresses. BTW, we’d like to get some new pads on our walls. Can you help us? A number 5 mattress would about do it. Thank Jesus, you’re not a black street slouch like that Obama. How could you be? Think of all the charity golf you’ve played. What you’ve done to help people in your life... It boggles the mind. We just think of all the goodness you’ve done. THAT’s why you can’t think of any bad things America has done because you ARE America and we love you down here on the psycho ward. You can call us, we can’t call you…"
Aug 17, 2008
Here's a Michael Phelps story. He won his 8th Gold last night.
Went to that little hip-pocket mall off Sloat Boulevard. Along the trailing edge of the outer Sunset. You might not have noticed it. The retail line is this, "Buster-Big 5 Shacks up with his Radio-Ross and does Arby in her Dress for Less."
Woman coming along in a shawl. Hawaiian face or maybe Inuit. Holding some soup. A lot of clothes, a lot of layers. Not many front teeth still standing. Sun burned from too much moonlight outdoors. But absolutely clear. Not drunk or drugged. She sits down. "You see that dog?" she says. I didn't see it. She points with her shoulder.
"Found another magic coin."
I'm surprised.
"Yea, i'finds magic coins."
What kinda dog?
"Terrier kind. White, curly hair."
How'd do it?
"Birds. They make a nest, and I guess it drops out, and that dog pick's em up. Animals knows these things."
Amazing.
"Bill over in Produce seen it," she looks off, over her soup, across the mall at the Nob in the Hill. "Dog had a whole mouthful of gold coins."
What kind.
"Jesus coins."
Incredible.
"Got a little picture of Jesus."
On a cross?
"Nope, just standing there in heaven."
Wow. She draws me in. You live out in the Sunset, do you?
"Yea but they blew up my car and now the landlady won't let me back."
Why?
"Those kids. They put sugar in the tank."
That'll do it. What kinda car?
"'68 VW van. Runs real good, 'till now. But I'll go back to school."
Where?
"City College. But they won't let me go back. Mr. Franklin 86'd me."
Why?
What a shrug. "I'm a photo journalist.I like architecture and biology."
But not Mr. Franklin.
"I knew too much. I scared him bad."
How.
"I have that effect. See I'm also an expert in submersibles."
Really.
"I'm a submersible pilot."
For a long time.
"Ever since I could swim."
You like water.
"Phelps got his 8th last night. You saw that?"
Unhuh.
"I taught him those tricks."
Really.
"Actually, I taught his coach. His coach and my parents were close and I showed him how you could these things."
You have a part in history.
"I enjoy it in the subermsible, go under and over the water, for long distances at high speed."
Like whales.
"No, not like whales. I go like a coin."
She asked me if I had any coins. I gave a quarter. "See this?" she said. Then she stood up and skipped the coin down the side walk past Radio Shack, a shoe store and Arby's and two or three other places and then a little white dog saw it and ran after it.
Went to that little hip-pocket mall off Sloat Boulevard. Along the trailing edge of the outer Sunset. You might not have noticed it. The retail line is this, "Buster-Big 5 Shacks up with his Radio-Ross and does Arby in her Dress for Less."
Woman coming along in a shawl. Hawaiian face or maybe Inuit. Holding some soup. A lot of clothes, a lot of layers. Not many front teeth still standing. Sun burned from too much moonlight outdoors. But absolutely clear. Not drunk or drugged. She sits down. "You see that dog?" she says. I didn't see it. She points with her shoulder.
"Found another magic coin."
I'm surprised.
"Yea, i'finds magic coins."
What kinda dog?
"Terrier kind. White, curly hair."
How'd do it?
"Birds. They make a nest, and I guess it drops out, and that dog pick's em up. Animals knows these things."
Amazing.
"Bill over in Produce seen it," she looks off, over her soup, across the mall at the Nob in the Hill. "Dog had a whole mouthful of gold coins."
What kind.
"Jesus coins."
Incredible.
"Got a little picture of Jesus."
On a cross?
"Nope, just standing there in heaven."
Wow. She draws me in. You live out in the Sunset, do you?
"Yea but they blew up my car and now the landlady won't let me back."
Why?
"Those kids. They put sugar in the tank."
That'll do it. What kinda car?
"'68 VW van. Runs real good, 'till now. But I'll go back to school."
Where?
"City College. But they won't let me go back. Mr. Franklin 86'd me."
Why?
What a shrug. "I'm a photo journalist.I like architecture and biology."
But not Mr. Franklin.
"I knew too much. I scared him bad."
How.
"I have that effect. See I'm also an expert in submersibles."
Really.
"I'm a submersible pilot."
For a long time.
"Ever since I could swim."
You like water.
"Phelps got his 8th last night. You saw that?"
Unhuh.
"I taught him those tricks."
Really.
"Actually, I taught his coach. His coach and my parents were close and I showed him how you could these things."
You have a part in history.
"I enjoy it in the subermsible, go under and over the water, for long distances at high speed."
Like whales.
"No, not like whales. I go like a coin."
She asked me if I had any coins. I gave a quarter. "See this?" she said. Then she stood up and skipped the coin down the side walk past Radio Shack, a shoe store and Arby's and two or three other places and then a little white dog saw it and ran after it.
Aug 7, 2008
At Ocean Pizza you can’t hear anything over the hum of the cold drinks refrigerator. You can’t hear anything over the screaming of the couple on reality TV. And just now the owners are having it out; a Greek couple. Something bad has happened and they’re snarling it up. You can’t hear anything. There’s only one customer, an old man sitting under a dirty mural with some tagging somebody tried to wash out. This place is not clean or well lighted. A waiter is sitting at an angle in a booth. If it weren’t for the noise you could hear him sleeping. BTW, the booths appear in good shape. The one new thing in the whole place. Everything else is worn. But the booths look like they’ve been redone. The plastic table tops are red to match, and some weird paisley design like there was just a surgery here and nobody cleaned up the blood yet. “Whatiya want?” the owner’s wife wants to know. The only customer gives an order. It's all he can do to get the words out. Pizza boxes are stacked up against the front window. Oven’s nearly covered over in newspaper clippings from Greek newspapers. There’s a fan set in a panel over the front door. The blades move, but just barely. Like the single screw of a disabled submarine. It’s also cold as hell outside. The waitress/wife is Sandy. Her sister is the psychic next door at Ocean Psychic. All the fortunes are good. “You’re going to get some money… You didn’t know that? It’s coming. I can’t tell you when without doing some more work? Can you come back tomorrow? This is serious. You’re going to receive a lot of money. You’ll never have to work again.” Sandy takes the order and doesn’t say, thank you, and she doesn’t linger. She puts the order down on the counter. “Those people are stupid you got,” she says to her husband in English. It’s a running conversation. It goes on all night. He picks up the order and says something in Greek. “I gotta go,” his wife says in English. “Where you gotta go,” he says in Greek. She tells her husband what to do. There’s only one customer. Wednesday night in August. City College is closed. It’s nearly 9:30. Brett Favre just got traded to the Jets. Man comes outta the kitchen. “No fuckin’ way,” he says. “No fuckin’ way. They’d give him $25 million not to play. Can you imagine? I’d take the $25 million and not play. You got everything, why would you play. You take the $25 million and play with that. Fuckin’ play with yourself and take the $25 million.” All of a sudden it’s time to close. Everybody’s speaking Greek. The last customer is rushed out. He doesn't want to go; he was hoping to stay in place, stay hidden. But they won't let him. You can’t hear anything but the place is definitely closing.
Aug 2, 2008
No popular film better describes America's obsession with fear, despair and veiled hopes then The Dark Knight. That the film is garbled and uneven, often just silly, doesn't dilute the rapture. This beleaguered Batman is, in his muddled way, quintessentially American, from a long legacy of cinematic heros such as old man Hearst in Citizen Kane; the John Wayne character in Red River; Butch Casidy; Cool Hand Luke. Or what about Patton, even Thelma and Louise. All films in which the hero or tandem is not only brash and contra but also reckless, sometimes suicidal.
This summer it's as though we cannot indulge our disillusionment enough. Can't get enough of failed heros barely making it, just as we are barely making it. In the last two months three hits (and the coming James Bond film seems on exactly the same tack) feature deeply disturbed men, which is its own subconscious story, men who are either ridiculously clumsy, drug-ridden or soul-ragged and thoroughly cynical. And for whom taking vengeance is always the temptation...
If Hollywood has a forefinger on society's neck, and you can argue the point many ways, then maybe the studios are getting a pulse here. But how exactly do you read it?
For sure the country has had it with conventional heroes, and now the spin cycle of revere-and-despise runs ever quicker, especially for those people who are supposed to be heroes: the presidential candidates. John McCain has gone from war hero to maverick to a senescent crackpot. Barack Obama, whose chances of becoming president always seem simultaneously locked and unlockable, has gone from underdog to 'the leader for our time' and now back down to, as Sean Hannity puts it — that AM matinee idol for the faint of thought — The Annointed One. Code for 'elitest nigger'. For Panther-X, pinko sympathizer.
Right wing sarcasticas have feasted on the idea that Sen. Obama would suggest Americans pump up their tires and get tuneups to defend against the oil shortage. Forgetting that it will take years to get oil out of American ground, that it will take time just to build the ships needed to drill. Hannity was deeply disturbed at Obama's suggestion and noted that he had never even seen what was under the hood of his Escalade. "Do cars even get tuneups anymore?" he asked.
As an aside Rush Limbaugh was entranced by the story of the Gulf sheik who flew his Lamborghini, the same model as in Batman, to London for an oil change: $10,000 for an oil change. Limbaugh is a big time car aficionado himself, but the reason he loved the story was because it pissed off so many conservationists. "Don't you just love that?" he kept saying.
Reagan conservatives howl when Obama describes McCain's candidacy as cynical, but how else to describe it...
But isn't it interesting how this Batman catches the vibes. Coming from a country that seems plum tuckered out from fear, real and imagined, and just too much reality IV. Now, everything and everyone is under suspicion; no perception or belief is secure. What you thought was true at noon may be the just the opposite by the time you drive home from work. How do you keep your balance in such a situation?
You don't. You assume everything is false, you become lost in the stars, you become paranoid, you become even more cynical than you were, or you pretend to be, all the time hoping that something real will come your way.
Meanwhile, Batman himself seems tired of it all. He's had to do a few flip flops of his own. He's become more and more 'political'. He's also become familiar and so derided. He has few people to back him up. No Robin, no girl friend. He has only his valet and a business colleague, who is up to here with Batman's willingness to suspend constitutional guarantees to get his demon. At the end of The Dark Knight, Batman reminds you of Orestes in Sartre's Les Mouches, forever pursued by flies, a criminal on the run from his incestuous relationship with truth.
The Nolans, the film's directors and writers, have invented a prototype of a new neurotically-efficient hero. It's not enough to have super strength or super intentions, the new hero has to sacrifice himself for the greater good, which is an image we can believe in, even if falsed up, made over; even if the image we believe is nothing behind it.
How cynical is that? Our new hero, to feel genuine, to us as well as to himself, needs to live the appearance of a lie in order to protect an out-of-hope society, so down on itself that it can be trusted only with an appearance. That's cynical. No?
One of the notable scenes in this film is a hospital blowing up, with the joker-terrorist standing in front of the Emergency room sign. The film's one virtue is just this scene and that message: there is no institution that will help you get healthy these days. If you want help, you're going to have to do it yourself, using whatever creativity and instinct you can muster.
This summer it's as though we cannot indulge our disillusionment enough. Can't get enough of failed heros barely making it, just as we are barely making it. In the last two months three hits (and the coming James Bond film seems on exactly the same tack) feature deeply disturbed men, which is its own subconscious story, men who are either ridiculously clumsy, drug-ridden or soul-ragged and thoroughly cynical. And for whom taking vengeance is always the temptation...
If Hollywood has a forefinger on society's neck, and you can argue the point many ways, then maybe the studios are getting a pulse here. But how exactly do you read it?
For sure the country has had it with conventional heroes, and now the spin cycle of revere-and-despise runs ever quicker, especially for those people who are supposed to be heroes: the presidential candidates. John McCain has gone from war hero to maverick to a senescent crackpot. Barack Obama, whose chances of becoming president always seem simultaneously locked and unlockable, has gone from underdog to 'the leader for our time' and now back down to, as Sean Hannity puts it — that AM matinee idol for the faint of thought — The Annointed One. Code for 'elitest nigger'. For Panther-X, pinko sympathizer.
Right wing sarcasticas have feasted on the idea that Sen. Obama would suggest Americans pump up their tires and get tuneups to defend against the oil shortage. Forgetting that it will take years to get oil out of American ground, that it will take time just to build the ships needed to drill. Hannity was deeply disturbed at Obama's suggestion and noted that he had never even seen what was under the hood of his Escalade. "Do cars even get tuneups anymore?" he asked.
As an aside Rush Limbaugh was entranced by the story of the Gulf sheik who flew his Lamborghini, the same model as in Batman, to London for an oil change: $10,000 for an oil change. Limbaugh is a big time car aficionado himself, but the reason he loved the story was because it pissed off so many conservationists. "Don't you just love that?" he kept saying.
Reagan conservatives howl when Obama describes McCain's candidacy as cynical, but how else to describe it...
But isn't it interesting how this Batman catches the vibes. Coming from a country that seems plum tuckered out from fear, real and imagined, and just too much reality IV. Now, everything and everyone is under suspicion; no perception or belief is secure. What you thought was true at noon may be the just the opposite by the time you drive home from work. How do you keep your balance in such a situation?
You don't. You assume everything is false, you become lost in the stars, you become paranoid, you become even more cynical than you were, or you pretend to be, all the time hoping that something real will come your way.
Meanwhile, Batman himself seems tired of it all. He's had to do a few flip flops of his own. He's become more and more 'political'. He's also become familiar and so derided. He has few people to back him up. No Robin, no girl friend. He has only his valet and a business colleague, who is up to here with Batman's willingness to suspend constitutional guarantees to get his demon. At the end of The Dark Knight, Batman reminds you of Orestes in Sartre's Les Mouches, forever pursued by flies, a criminal on the run from his incestuous relationship with truth.
The Nolans, the film's directors and writers, have invented a prototype of a new neurotically-efficient hero. It's not enough to have super strength or super intentions, the new hero has to sacrifice himself for the greater good, which is an image we can believe in, even if falsed up, made over; even if the image we believe is nothing behind it.
How cynical is that? Our new hero, to feel genuine, to us as well as to himself, needs to live the appearance of a lie in order to protect an out-of-hope society, so down on itself that it can be trusted only with an appearance. That's cynical. No?
One of the notable scenes in this film is a hospital blowing up, with the joker-terrorist standing in front of the Emergency room sign. The film's one virtue is just this scene and that message: there is no institution that will help you get healthy these days. If you want help, you're going to have to do it yourself, using whatever creativity and instinct you can muster.
Aug 1, 2008
"You could do it," he was saying. This was my friend I sometimes run into at the Polo Fields. Lately, he's been depressed. "You could actually do it," he kept saying. "What?" I asked. Usually, I don't take his depressions seriously but this time clearly something was the matter.
"What is it?"
He stopped to tell me. The dust swirled at our feet in the late afternoon as it does there on the track.
"I read an article the other day that those people who jump off the bridge, and survive obviously, have this moment of terrible regret. They realize the mistake and that moment of anguish is unholy."
I thought of those people dropping out of the World Trade Center, hand in hand.
"And I remember, do you remember this? The story about the orchid grower, the orchid man from South San Francisco, you know, worked in that place that sells orchids. I can't remember the name. And so he went to the bridge with his young daughter, threw her over and jumped after her. Can you imagine that? Can't you imagine the howling of that man. And the mother who jumped and her son who years later jumped. And that whole business about looking at the city instead of the ocean, because how could you face the nothingness of that, how could go through with it without the comfort of a city view. I know all that. I've read all the stories. I get it. And still. I have lately less to go on. You remember that man I told you about?"
I knew right away who he was talking about.
"Just got up early one morning and shot himself, with his wife upstairs and his son, everybody just about to get up, and what about the damage he's caused. If he knew that, he would never have done it. I know all that. I get all that."
"'But still' you're saying."
"'But still,' I'm saying."
"Talk to me," I said.
"I can't. That's the problem. It's no use. I can't."
So we just stood there, for a very long time. Everything going down. As though you were in the trough waiting for the bow to come up and the boat to follow. But it's the moment of not knowing, that horribly beautiful moment of not knowing whether it will come up.
"What is it?"
He stopped to tell me. The dust swirled at our feet in the late afternoon as it does there on the track.
"I read an article the other day that those people who jump off the bridge, and survive obviously, have this moment of terrible regret. They realize the mistake and that moment of anguish is unholy."
I thought of those people dropping out of the World Trade Center, hand in hand.
"And I remember, do you remember this? The story about the orchid grower, the orchid man from South San Francisco, you know, worked in that place that sells orchids. I can't remember the name. And so he went to the bridge with his young daughter, threw her over and jumped after her. Can you imagine that? Can't you imagine the howling of that man. And the mother who jumped and her son who years later jumped. And that whole business about looking at the city instead of the ocean, because how could you face the nothingness of that, how could go through with it without the comfort of a city view. I know all that. I've read all the stories. I get it. And still. I have lately less to go on. You remember that man I told you about?"
I knew right away who he was talking about.
"Just got up early one morning and shot himself, with his wife upstairs and his son, everybody just about to get up, and what about the damage he's caused. If he knew that, he would never have done it. I know all that. I get all that."
"'But still' you're saying."
"'But still,' I'm saying."
"Talk to me," I said.
"I can't. That's the problem. It's no use. I can't."
So we just stood there, for a very long time. Everything going down. As though you were in the trough waiting for the bow to come up and the boat to follow. But it's the moment of not knowing, that horribly beautiful moment of not knowing whether it will come up.
Jul 25, 2008
What would you call it? An unease, a nameless worry. Even as Sen. Obama wraps up his trip, which would appear to be a great success — he showed he could play the role of statesman and in some way it seemed he already had the job... Still, the speech in Berlin seemed a little off to my ear. He made solid points, he added all the proper retorts to his critics, he made sure to balance criticism of America with his love for America, and he was almost back to his old glory toward the end in describing the challenge of working together toward a shared destiny. But the speech was no reprise of John F. Kennedy's speech. It did not match his Philadelphia race speech. It seemed flat, overly edited. Perhaps, this is because we've heard this message so many times before. But no, there was something else. A tightness. The fear of being ahead not behind. And then add the latest reports of how his press spokespeople have begun to alienate the press. If the choice for a press spokesperson is between acting as a bridge to the press or as a maxie prison guard, his corps has picked the latter. And that always backfires.
It's that football metaphor: how your home team, forever the underdog, is suddenly in the super bowl, and they're ahead by say 3 points, which is about what it is. But the second half has just started and you have the sense they've lost something, they're not making the plays, they're thinking more about what's at stake than how to play the game, how "to do all the things that got you here."
It's that football metaphor: how your home team, forever the underdog, is suddenly in the super bowl, and they're ahead by say 3 points, which is about what it is. But the second half has just started and you have the sense they've lost something, they're not making the plays, they're thinking more about what's at stake than how to play the game, how "to do all the things that got you here."
Jul 15, 2008
At the Moffet courts, he is the court pro, as it were. There is no official pro. The people who come there every day, the old guard, these old Chinese men and Cullen, who cut and dink and play every point as though it's their last, they don't like him because he seems haughty, because he can humiliate you and after he hits a winner he claps for himself.
He was awaiting a student and motioned to me to come on the court. He is slender, Vietnamese, in his 50s, perhaps. I couldn't say. He wore a white baseball cap and old-fashioned white tennis trousers.
He moves very well back and forth along the baseline and hits the way players did in the 1950s, the likes of Tony Trabert and Pancho Conzales and Hoad and Rosewall. He's from that time. He comes from the old Vietnam I expect. I'll bet you he grew up on a large plantation. He hits a backhand with one arm, not two. He drops the head of his racquet on his forehand but without much topspin. The comes low and hard. You have to be on your back foot to get a good return.
He works the angles as you would expect but never comes to the net. Whenever he hits a shot he grunts and many times yells out, "yea." And so whether you are rallying with him or playing against him every shot feels like a put away. When he hits a winner, he claps for himself, his hand against the strings. We rallied for a few minutes and then he said, in a high voice, nearly a scream, "You want to play." It was not as a question.
We began.
He was awaiting a student and motioned to me to come on the court. He is slender, Vietnamese, in his 50s, perhaps. I couldn't say. He wore a white baseball cap and old-fashioned white tennis trousers.
He moves very well back and forth along the baseline and hits the way players did in the 1950s, the likes of Tony Trabert and Pancho Conzales and Hoad and Rosewall. He's from that time. He comes from the old Vietnam I expect. I'll bet you he grew up on a large plantation. He hits a backhand with one arm, not two. He drops the head of his racquet on his forehand but without much topspin. The comes low and hard. You have to be on your back foot to get a good return.
He works the angles as you would expect but never comes to the net. Whenever he hits a shot he grunts and many times yells out, "yea." And so whether you are rallying with him or playing against him every shot feels like a put away. When he hits a winner, he claps for himself, his hand against the strings. We rallied for a few minutes and then he said, in a high voice, nearly a scream, "You want to play." It was not as a question.
We began.
Jul 13, 2008
The other day I got a note from K, the ex-wife of a serial killer named D. He's been on death row at San Q for more than 20 years. I wrote about D years ago, trying to raise questions about his case.
K writes me from time to time and just the other day, with no seque, to say that she was "fascinated by the Jesse Jackson kerfuffle": "His comment, as far as I'm concerned, was bright green envy showing itself."
K got her divorce from D in the mid 90s. They were married on death row and divorced after nearly 10 years? Or maybe it was less. In any case, a marriage of convenience for both. The advantage to the wife, as that old prison adage goes, 'you always know where your husband is at night.' For him, she became his 'gopher' and go-to girl. She believed he was innocent and so justified the bargain.
I had also gotten involved with D's case in the belief that he might be innocent. Guilty of many crimes but not murdering 6 young prostitutes in the spring of 1980. I have told you this story. The trial was a sham. The defense attorney was too drunk to make the case. The jury convicted a man who seemed to be exactly what the prosecution claimed. But was he?
Was he the killer or the woman he lived with occasionally, Carol — a slovenly wreck of a woman, a nurse by day, a devilina by night — who had done the murders with her other acquaintance, Jack. In court, Carol was cast as a defenseless widow from the San Fernando Valley, in the clutches of a panting satyr — which was true about D. In fact, she was defenseless and in a separate trial after D's was convicted in the murder of Jack whom she shot, stabbed and decapitated. She admitted that and also admitted being in a car with D when he killed one of his victims. One of D's crimes involved a girl who had also been decapitated but no one did a forensic analysis to see if the two decapitations had anything in common. And then there was a bloody scalp in Jack's van... Who did that belong to? In the end, were the real killers, Jack and Carol, or D and Carol.
I interviewed Carol twice. She was down east of Los Angeles, in a correctional facility for women. She has since died by the way. Of diabetes. And general collapse. Her spirit is pressed against the bottom of a slag heap in some uninhabitable industrial area in New Jersey.
She and I spent two long sessions together. Alone, in a room. The second time we were abandoned by prison staff who went home at 5 on the nose, forgetting that Carol and I were in a small room off a far hallway in the administration building. This second time I wanted to get the goods on her once and for all, and it came down to whether she would confess that she had been in the car Doug claimed they were in, or the one she had claimed. The difference was vital. Even if she said she couldn't remember or changed her story; that would be enough to encourage efforts for a new trial, which was never had.
And at one point she did seem to admit that the murder had occurred, if I remember correctly and I may not, in the Buick not in the compact. Her story had always involved the compact, and her story was that D was in the driver's seat with a prostitute giving him a blow job and took the gun from Carol who was sitting in the back seat. I always thought the idea that any man, much less D, would shoot a woman with his penis in her mouth, was madness. Especially, D who was a satyr and a coward. He worshipped sexual pleasure, loved prostitutes and was insatiable but not kinky to that point.
His story was that he was in the backseat getting a blow job, a birthday present from Carol, that much was kinky, and that Carol suddenly pulled out a gun and shot the girl. The body was never found. But Carol remembered the whole incident very well, and after seeming to cry for a moment about the murder, suddenly began laughing and purring about what "beautiful tits" the victim had.
There was no darker persona than Carol's and to be around her was to infect yourself with her broken personalities.
Nevertheless, in the end, I got Carol's very damaging story on tape. Carol sat there, trying to seduce me, promising me still more information, careening along with one lens fallen out of her glasses, and so the one eye was magnified, the other with no lens, tiny, a slit. The owl and rat, I always thought.
I got back that night and K insisted I give her the tape with this very damaging story. Later, that night she went to listen to it in her car stereo. Then left the tape in the player which was stolen before the next morning. The loss of that tape was a disaster, and all these years later, although I have all the rest of the interview, I can't remember the details of Carol's admission. I remember that she slipped up and that what she said was very damaging, but that's all.
For her part, K no longer cares about whether D is innocent or not. She last saw him in 1996 and that was enough.
K writes me from time to time and just the other day, with no seque, to say that she was "fascinated by the Jesse Jackson kerfuffle": "His comment, as far as I'm concerned, was bright green envy showing itself."
K got her divorce from D in the mid 90s. They were married on death row and divorced after nearly 10 years? Or maybe it was less. In any case, a marriage of convenience for both. The advantage to the wife, as that old prison adage goes, 'you always know where your husband is at night.' For him, she became his 'gopher' and go-to girl. She believed he was innocent and so justified the bargain.
I had also gotten involved with D's case in the belief that he might be innocent. Guilty of many crimes but not murdering 6 young prostitutes in the spring of 1980. I have told you this story. The trial was a sham. The defense attorney was too drunk to make the case. The jury convicted a man who seemed to be exactly what the prosecution claimed. But was he?
Was he the killer or the woman he lived with occasionally, Carol — a slovenly wreck of a woman, a nurse by day, a devilina by night — who had done the murders with her other acquaintance, Jack. In court, Carol was cast as a defenseless widow from the San Fernando Valley, in the clutches of a panting satyr — which was true about D. In fact, she was defenseless and in a separate trial after D's was convicted in the murder of Jack whom she shot, stabbed and decapitated. She admitted that and also admitted being in a car with D when he killed one of his victims. One of D's crimes involved a girl who had also been decapitated but no one did a forensic analysis to see if the two decapitations had anything in common. And then there was a bloody scalp in Jack's van... Who did that belong to? In the end, were the real killers, Jack and Carol, or D and Carol.
I interviewed Carol twice. She was down east of Los Angeles, in a correctional facility for women. She has since died by the way. Of diabetes. And general collapse. Her spirit is pressed against the bottom of a slag heap in some uninhabitable industrial area in New Jersey.
She and I spent two long sessions together. Alone, in a room. The second time we were abandoned by prison staff who went home at 5 on the nose, forgetting that Carol and I were in a small room off a far hallway in the administration building. This second time I wanted to get the goods on her once and for all, and it came down to whether she would confess that she had been in the car Doug claimed they were in, or the one she had claimed. The difference was vital. Even if she said she couldn't remember or changed her story; that would be enough to encourage efforts for a new trial, which was never had.
And at one point she did seem to admit that the murder had occurred, if I remember correctly and I may not, in the Buick not in the compact. Her story had always involved the compact, and her story was that D was in the driver's seat with a prostitute giving him a blow job and took the gun from Carol who was sitting in the back seat. I always thought the idea that any man, much less D, would shoot a woman with his penis in her mouth, was madness. Especially, D who was a satyr and a coward. He worshipped sexual pleasure, loved prostitutes and was insatiable but not kinky to that point.
His story was that he was in the backseat getting a blow job, a birthday present from Carol, that much was kinky, and that Carol suddenly pulled out a gun and shot the girl. The body was never found. But Carol remembered the whole incident very well, and after seeming to cry for a moment about the murder, suddenly began laughing and purring about what "beautiful tits" the victim had.
There was no darker persona than Carol's and to be around her was to infect yourself with her broken personalities.
Nevertheless, in the end, I got Carol's very damaging story on tape. Carol sat there, trying to seduce me, promising me still more information, careening along with one lens fallen out of her glasses, and so the one eye was magnified, the other with no lens, tiny, a slit. The owl and rat, I always thought.
I got back that night and K insisted I give her the tape with this very damaging story. Later, that night she went to listen to it in her car stereo. Then left the tape in the player which was stolen before the next morning. The loss of that tape was a disaster, and all these years later, although I have all the rest of the interview, I can't remember the details of Carol's admission. I remember that she slipped up and that what she said was very damaging, but that's all.
For her part, K no longer cares about whether D is innocent or not. She last saw him in 1996 and that was enough.
Jul 10, 2008
As a close black friend said, and she was in no mood, "has it occurred to anyone that the reason Jesse Jackson might have said any of this was because he was exactly the kind of person Barack Obama was referring to in these sermons? Exactly the kind! Endlessly cheated on his wife, had a child out of wedlock with his aid — and then gave her $40,000 in cash out of rainbow coalition funds — and has generally been as irresponsible as a man can be. What is there to figure out?"
Jul 8, 2008
Another husband has been reported "unavailable". There's been a whole slew lately. Gone limp, eyes lost that oval look of anticipation, lips reduced to solid yellow lines. Apparently, he has been this way for the last ten years, which came as a surprise to me. I thought his warranty was still good. Who better lived the illusion of the endless bon vivant, drinking, carousing, from one end of the earth to the other. He's a travel writer by profession, now abandoned in the Sierra of his mind. He has arguments: a series of operations; various organs are on the fritz. Run down to his bed, left to listen to traffic and the gardener doing what was always his job. Left to hate himself for being infirm, for being what he always was.
So naturally his wife is disconsolate, with no illusion home. The last lovemaking is not still to come, which whether good or bad, would be memorable for that alone. Any promise has hope in it. But now the last time was so long ago she cannot remember any details, nor does she want to remember. And so what to do?
She has her devices, as she refers to them, and those have provided the jittery part of what she requires but nothing for the slower sensation of skin itself. Lately, she goes for long walks in the park, to keep her enviable shape and to seek refuge in routine. She begins and ends at the rose garden, where she re-examines all the varities, notes the irony of 'Love's Promise' and marvels at how all the roses resemble vaginas within vaginas. And always, like a dope addict, she inhales the scent of 'Marmelaide skies'. On the way out she pauses before the statue of Thomas Masyrk, her one link to an emmigrant past. She is always put off by his look. The bronze and shadow, with hair flat against the head, as though Thomas just got out of the shower. He looks like a 12-year-old boy just getting out of the shower, she thinks. And he looks somber, like her husband actually. He does not look like all the knowledge he discovered provided much hope. He looks like he could say something cruel as easily as something wise.
Her friends have suggested she take a lover. But who? There is the hunky handyman, but married. There is the waiter, around the corner on Lyon Street, but what if he's gay? A woman friend, who's had a lot of experience with this, suggests a certain website where it's easy to find friendly black men. She can tell you 'til the cows come home about black men, how only they know how to touch, how to move, how to prolong. This afficionado is single herself, just now bemoaning the marriage of her ex to a younger, and much worse — an exceptionally wealthy woman.
If this is the era when women are supposed to take over the world, I haven't seen it. Where's the gaiety, when's the party?
For this woman I'm talking about the idea of taking on a black lover is too intense. She doesn't have the cultural stamina for that. And of course what she really needs is someone to just hold her. For a month straight and then maybe some sex, well definitely some sex then. And from there she wants more than a casual affair. She wants to fall in love, to be a Lina and 'swept away in the blue sea of August.'
There was another similar story I heard the other day. From a much older woman. Fifteen years ago her husband ran off with another woman, a showgirl, a skier, a tennis player, who made it clear, there were no strings attached. Oh boy, he liked it that way, and so he never married her. But now he's 90 and the showgirl skier is in her fifties and she also wants another run down the mountain. Not to mention a little heritage fund, a little money for the help please, for the service of it all. I'm getting this, you understand, from the scorned. She describes how at parties, because she had children and they had children and so there are endless events, and when the other woman arrives filled with bangles and smiles, the old and older wife cannot bear the sight. But she wants me to know the secret glee she feels when she catches the trophy wife in a private moment, eyes falling on her trophy and thinking of how heavy it is.
So naturally his wife is disconsolate, with no illusion home. The last lovemaking is not still to come, which whether good or bad, would be memorable for that alone. Any promise has hope in it. But now the last time was so long ago she cannot remember any details, nor does she want to remember. And so what to do?
She has her devices, as she refers to them, and those have provided the jittery part of what she requires but nothing for the slower sensation of skin itself. Lately, she goes for long walks in the park, to keep her enviable shape and to seek refuge in routine. She begins and ends at the rose garden, where she re-examines all the varities, notes the irony of 'Love's Promise' and marvels at how all the roses resemble vaginas within vaginas. And always, like a dope addict, she inhales the scent of 'Marmelaide skies'. On the way out she pauses before the statue of Thomas Masyrk, her one link to an emmigrant past. She is always put off by his look. The bronze and shadow, with hair flat against the head, as though Thomas just got out of the shower. He looks like a 12-year-old boy just getting out of the shower, she thinks. And he looks somber, like her husband actually. He does not look like all the knowledge he discovered provided much hope. He looks like he could say something cruel as easily as something wise.
Her friends have suggested she take a lover. But who? There is the hunky handyman, but married. There is the waiter, around the corner on Lyon Street, but what if he's gay? A woman friend, who's had a lot of experience with this, suggests a certain website where it's easy to find friendly black men. She can tell you 'til the cows come home about black men, how only they know how to touch, how to move, how to prolong. This afficionado is single herself, just now bemoaning the marriage of her ex to a younger, and much worse — an exceptionally wealthy woman.
If this is the era when women are supposed to take over the world, I haven't seen it. Where's the gaiety, when's the party?
For this woman I'm talking about the idea of taking on a black lover is too intense. She doesn't have the cultural stamina for that. And of course what she really needs is someone to just hold her. For a month straight and then maybe some sex, well definitely some sex then. And from there she wants more than a casual affair. She wants to fall in love, to be a Lina and 'swept away in the blue sea of August.'
There was another similar story I heard the other day. From a much older woman. Fifteen years ago her husband ran off with another woman, a showgirl, a skier, a tennis player, who made it clear, there were no strings attached. Oh boy, he liked it that way, and so he never married her. But now he's 90 and the showgirl skier is in her fifties and she also wants another run down the mountain. Not to mention a little heritage fund, a little money for the help please, for the service of it all. I'm getting this, you understand, from the scorned. She describes how at parties, because she had children and they had children and so there are endless events, and when the other woman arrives filled with bangles and smiles, the old and older wife cannot bear the sight. But she wants me to know the secret glee she feels when she catches the trophy wife in a private moment, eyes falling on her trophy and thinking of how heavy it is.
Jul 5, 2008
We reached Nevada City in the late afternoon, and after tea in her garden, with a dozen koi in a pond, we went to the fairgrounds to see the fireworks. M wanted to show us where she'd sung in the local singing group the night before. The place was covered in bodies on blankets, everyone counting down the light. There were booths full of frosties and fries, a woman giving free hugs, an Elvis impersonator and kids darting every which way like ideas in an ill mind. People wore half clothes; they had thick calves and they were uniformly fat. A jabba-the-hut-of-a-man sat in his wheel chair, surly looking, with oxygen streaming into one nostril. We watched the Elvis become Roy Orbison but the songs were too slow, not 45 but 78. This is the country and slow is in, slow is good. Slow is what you need. We sat down on some bleachers and fell back on the empty row behind, M's 85-year-old head on my arm. Wow, we all said. Whoa! Look at that. Just before the show started a DJ with long scraggly white hair and a military cap put on God Save America and God Bless America and The Stars and Stripes Forever. A boy sped by on roller shoes. Girls tried to get each other to dance. There was some line dancing and then a pretty woman did the macarama all by herself, looking neither happy or sad or confident or embarrassed. M kept saying, wasn't this the way it was always supposed to be. Didn't we feel America's heart beating. I said, of course, but I didn't feel that at all. People looked half happy, just a little bewildered. How could it be otherwise with all the Yukons and F150s in the parking lot and local gas near $5. But then out of it all stepped a six-year-old girl, Marilyn Monroe when she was still Norma Jeane Mortenson, a rabbit out of a hat, so blonde, so wistful, dancing around with her American flag on a stick, and in the strobe light, a lithe creature of beauty and talent and possibility. A ghost. And then the fireworks, right over head, red glare and all, until finally an orgy of sound and color, what women are supposed to see when they climax, a truly magnificent expression of bombs bursting. And suddenly it all ended; the bodies drew up their blankets and disappeared.
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