Jun 27 2002
Kevin's Mailing List
Where, When, How Much, What Flavor.
Kevin's Mailing List
Where, When, How Much, What Flavor.
Is it me or is MTV's new reality show about pledging a sorority about one impure thought away from porn? (via Little Yellow Different)
Allow me to recommend the beautiful documentary Promises, about seven kids growing up in Israel, Jewish, Muslim, religious and secular. Most are between 11-13 and have grown up around bombs, invasions and the murder of friends and family. And while the film offers no solutions, it does put forth the simple idea that perhaps these kids have more perspective on the terrible strive in this country than all the politicians and pundits combined. That perhaps they will grow into adults with the same understanding is the hope glowing beneath the word "promise."
If you're lucky enough to have this film playing near you, see it.
I wrote a bunch yesterday after two days of avoiding it. I feel so good right now. Just wanted to let everyone know.
In its second major death penalty decision in less than a week, the Supreme Court, by a 7-2 vote, has overturned nearly 150 death sentences where a judge instead of jury sentences the accused to death. The ruling indicates that a judge passing a death sentence instead of a jury violates the spirit of the 6th amendment right to a trial by their peers.
More excitingly, yet another blow has been dealt to the crime against democracy that is the death penalty.
Some anti-death penalty resources.
National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty
So Ann Landers has died. She was 83. Born Ester Pauline Friedman, she was a nice Jewish girl from Iowa and the twin sister of Abigal Van Buren, the force behind Dear Abbey. Landers's column began in 1955 and ran until the day of her death, making her one of the most widely read and influential women in America.
Who will advise us now?
Cory Doctorow provides a solid rebuttal over at Boing Boing of NPR's bullet-riddled new policy, forbidding linking to their web site. I'm not as eloquent as Cory so I'll stick with my earlier assertion. Sheer Idiocy.
In a stunning display of rationality, the Supreme Court has voted 6-3 to ban the dealth penalty for retarded defendants. I'm going to be a silly idealist here and say hopefully we're on the road to it being challenged all together. Sadly, 38 states disagree and have not yet realized that the U.S. is both the only democratic country in the world with a dealth penalty and the one with the highest rates of crime and imprisionment.
I suppose there's no need to go much further into the sheer idiocy of NPR's new policy that you request permission to link to their site but if you have a nice juicy one to lob at them, I'd love to hear it.
Praise continues to knock on the door of Central Booking after SF Station featured us this week. My buddy Ev sent a nice note as did Meg from Megnut after I ran into her at the bus stop. Davvy Rothbart, the genius behind Found Magazine also had a few nice things to say. As did plenty of friends and lovers with no web sites, but just as sweet.
The Webbys, which are tonight, got an afterthought mention in the San Francisco Chronicle. Very sad.
I didn't think it was possible but Scooby Doo was the #1 film at the box office this weekend taking in $56.4 million in ticket sales. Hell has offically frozen over.
Central Booking was featured this week at SFSTATION.COM, an city guide alternative to the mostly useless Citysearch. The author Tamar Love runs the Literary Arts section and is both a talent and super person, should you find yourself in need of an editor.
I'd also be interested in hearing if your city had this kind of alternative city guides. If you'd be so inclined:
It hasn't been easy the last few weeks so I've been taking solace in the hilarious commentaries of Sandra Tsing Loh, a great writer and very very funny lady.
Major music labels Sony and Universal Music have significantly relaxed their stance on digital music distribution, allowing customers the right to burn music on to blank CD's and lowering the price of songs to 99 cents a pop. This a very big victory for consumers, music lovers and those who knew all along that policing demand instead of embracing it and treating your customers like the enemy is very poor business practise. Hopefully the others will follow suit.
Though I've been known to engager in an occassional music download myself (*wink*), I don't want to give the impression that it should be one giant free-for-all with no one having to pay for anything. Artists need compensation and independent record stores are in many cases the last guardians of musical diversity in an increasingly consolidated music world. But it's too late to go back to the way it was. Shouldn't this titanic shift in the way music is distributed be seen as an opportunity instead of the end of the world?
If you're a San Franciscan, or the next time you're out here, I highly recommend checking out the Extra Action Marching Band, a rediculously motley crew of trumpeters, drummers, flag twirlers and cheerleaders, most in poor taste and very states of undress. I was fortunate enough to be a party last night where they made a grand entrance by jumping on the furniture, lighting fireworks and molesting the guests.
Jeez, I love this town.
My buddy Mena did a schtick about her favorite Pixies Album over at The Morning News that I rather liked. Suddenly, several people I know, are contributing to this publication. Can anyone? Or do you have to be special?
Am I the only person out there who took one look at this story about the supposed strife between webloggers pre and post September 11 and said "Say what?" I'll admit I have about as much a finger on the pulse of weblogging as I do on say, the latest trends in railsplitting but,
PULLLLEEAASE.
Does this sound like another exercise in "everything was different after 9/11" horsecrap? Or the NYT engaged in its usual "We-don't-really-understand-the-story-so-we'll-phony-up-some-drama-for-it" nonsense? My vote is for both.
And yours?
It appears as though blogroots, once it goes live this week, will indeed fufill the need I indicated earlier for some sort of repository for all that is being written about weblogs these days. We appear to have learned from the gold rush days of the web where no one kept historical records of anything and are now trying to piece that piece of our history together from shards and scraps. So bravo to those behind this project. I'm glad good ideas get spread around.
The thing I love about San Francisco is it's loony interpretation of even the most Middle American of activities. Which is how I ended up playing bingo a few days ago, a game run by men dressed as nuns.
My lovely friend Dinah invited me to Ba Da Bingo, a monthly charitble fundraiser run by the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence a charitble and social justice group of, well, nuns in drag. There are a few female members, too, fabulous all the same. Dinah knows a sister in training which is how we got there. And when we weren't whipping balled up bingo cards at each other, or watching those who mistakenly yell "bingo" when they don't have it get paddled (yes paddled), or watching Gay Rodeo Cowboys get spanked, Dinah briefed me on the organization.
I was mighty impressed. A non-profit organization for over two decades, the Sisters has been a force of education, social activism and good deeds in this city since the late 1970's. Last year alone, they sent a dozen students working for social change to college. This bingo game was a fundraiser for a friend of the organization who was getting evicted for having a dog to help him through a work-related injury.
Ba Da Bingo happens just about every month in the Castro neighborhood of San Francisco. Check it out. You'll have the best water cooler story at work tomorrow. I guarentee it.
What was the last movie you rewatched after not having seem it for a while? Did it hold up or seem silly, dated, whatever? Did you find yourself saying, "Yep, as good as I remember." or saying "I used to like this?"
You tell me yours, I'll tell ya mine. Hint: Chris Rock, as you never seen him before.
It's my buddy Jish's birthday. Happy 31, ya big galut! Hope to run into you soon.
My old buddy and college roommate Justin had all sorts of nice things to say about his visit here to San Francisco.
Okay I went to college with this guy. He thought my newspaper column was funny and I thought he was alright except for the deadly seriousness and naked ambition he applied to student politics. Now I get where all that energy went.
Spent the better part of this evening writing a column for Central Booking, which I said I was going to do when I woke up this morning. I love when I wake up and say "I'm gonna write today" and then actually do it. Makes me feel like I'm not a big stinky liar when someone asks "What do you do?" and I say "I'm a writer."
So I'm proud of myself. Doesn't happen all that often.
Can someone explain to me why the Simpsons are scattered throughout the pages of today's New York Times Book Review? Multiple choice:
A) Apu has a new tell-all memoir out, with shocking homosexual revelations.
B) Gore Vidal has selected Barney Gumble as our "most literate American"
C) It's their "Summer Reading" issue and what says lightwieght, fun-in-the-sun more than those loveable scamps from Springfield?
D) The section has finally wisened up to the fact that their smug, boring, stuck-at-Portnoy's Complaint approach to books is missing a huge swath of the reading public that hasn't yet hit 50 and their ham-handed attempt to curry Gen-X favor by splashing the Simpsons about is as shallow as it is desperate.
But don't let me try to sway you. Vote now...
Goats don't smell all that funny. In fact, they don't smell like much of anything at all. And they're soft and furry, a bit like a kitten. That's what I learned today, on a beautiful Saturday in Sonoma County, where Suzan, myself, her sister Anne Marie and our friend Sophia decided to go bond with some goats. Goats are also in the same animal order as deer. Did you know that? I didn't.
Redwood Hill Farm is a small family-run operation, of about 400 goats on maybe 10 acres of land. I'm a big fan of their vanilla yogurt and I use their soap pretty frequently to keep my skin all nice and smooth (quit laughing). So when I dropped by their booth at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market, where I go nearly every Saturday morning, I noticed they were having an Open Farm Day where you could come visit. I had no real plans, had never been to Sebastapol and believe the best reason to try anything is to have a good story to tell afterward. Three hours later, I'm milking a prize-winning doe named Savanah with udders the size of a bowling ball. She didn't even squirm.
Now I hadn't planned on getting near agriculture of any kind after reading Fast Food Nation, but I tell ya, there's a great sense of relief in knowing where your food comes from and that those in charge of making it aren't a bunch of lunatics spraying hormones everywhere and having the animals tread in their own manure. Redwood Hill is a free range farm which means the goats roam around as they please, nibble grass and hay, and do general goat things until it's time for milking. As long as a goat gives good milk, they stick around. There's a 12-year-old animal, still goating around at Redwood Hill.
Sonoma County is giving a series of tours at different farms this summer. I may go check out a few more, maybe other operations that feed me each week. The farm ain't just for kids. It's where I can go to see who I'm entrusting my body to and the value they place on that trust.
Bookmark Now: Writing in Unreaderly Times edited by Kevin Smokler
