DEAN make pancakes for imaginary children.

In case no one is paying attention, I think a certain Howard DEAN is on the way to becoming the next chairman of the Democratic National Convention. I think the only way for a viable opposition party to exist and stand a chance in the 2006 and 2008 elections are for the Democrats to enact drastic change on a local county and state level--and DEAN is a fella willing to do the legwork. He rubs a lot of established Democrats the wrong way, but in a manner that I like a lot. The standard Dems are the ones who lose elections and support, and I think that's obvious to everyone except them. After the November election I wasn't sure if the Democratic Party could do anything to get my faith back, but under DEAN I think they have a chance to do some of the right things. It means I'll have to pack away my DEAN 2008 signs, but if it means a stronger (or actual) opposition to Bush and the Republicans, I'll take it.

The 12 Labors of Superman

It might be a few weeks old by now, but there's an excellent interview with Grant Morrison up at Newsarama about his upcoming All-Star Superman project with Frank Quitely. I like Grant's interviews almost as much as his comics--he's always interesting and entertaining and storytelling. I've never thought about Superman very much, being a Marvel kid growing up and all, and he's always seemed to be a pretty boring character. When I was 18 or 19 I came up with a very involved Golden Age to the modern-era storyline that involved a cast of superheroes that mirrored the Marvel and DC lines, but played out in what I thought of as the Watchmen mold--I took fantastic ideas and then tried to play it straight. The only thing that made sense for the Superman-style character (I named him "Mr. Victory"--he showed up in 1939, keep in mind) was to have him fly off into space for a few decades, traveling the cosmos, before returning with the intention of re-molding human civilization to his liking. Something Grant touches on in this interview is that in our world, the real world, we tend to view people who are different and/or successful with mistrust and hate. But the thing about comics is that you can write about a world that *isn't* ours. Hell, that's the thing about all fiction, and it's something I think a lot of people forget about.

"That would never happen," is probably the most common complaint, ever, lobbed at any piece of fiction. Whether it's teenagers going into a dark room, a couple staying together when it seems like they should part, a rocket ship from another world crash-landing in Kansas and being discovered by a loving, but childless, couple--"it would never happen like that." But the thing is, it doesn't have to--hell, it's not supposed to. It's a made-up story. Everything you read on the page or see on the screen is a choice the writer makes, and makes for a reason. So in comics, and specifically in DC Comics, most folks love Superman, super-powered stranger from another world or not.

As far as writing about Superman, one comment from Grant really got my brain working. He was at the San Diego Comic-Con a few years ago, out front talking with then-JLA editor Dan Raspler. Someone in a Superman outfit comes walking by--and if you've been to a comic show you know the sort of dude I mean--and Grant and Dan started asking him questions, which he answered in-character. Things like what he thought of Batman, stuff like that, and the dude in the suit was all about it. But what struck me was when Grant said this:

"The thing that really hit me though, wasn't so much what he was saying as how he was sitting. The guy was perched on a bollard with one knee drawn up, chin resting on his arms. He looked totally relaxed...and I suddenly realized this was how Superman would sit. He wouldn't puff out his chest or posture heroically, he would be totally chilled. If nothing can hurt you, you can afford to be cool. A man like Superman would never have to tense against the cold; never have to flinch in the face of a blow. He would be completely laid back, un-tense. With this image of Superman relaxing on a cloud looking out for us all in my head, I rushed back to my hotel room and filled dozens of pages of my notebook with notes and drawings."

And somehow, that's how I've never thought of Superman. As a guy sitting on a bench, a guy I could write about. That image, plus Grant's overarching idea for his All-Star story--"The 12 Labors of Superman"--that gets me excited to see what Grant and Frank are going to do with this character and in this comic book. Well, that, and this statement:

"I just read - yesterday in fact - the story 'Superman's New Power' which appeared in Superman #125 from November 1958. And guess what Superman's new power was in the 'conservative' ‘50s. That's right - it's a teeny-tiny little Superman who shoots out from the palm of the big Superman's hand and does everything better than Superman himself, leaving the full-size Superman feeling redundant and worthless. Holy analysis, Batman! It's mindbending, brilliant and eerie work. This is what it would be like if Charlie Kaufmann wrote and directed the Superman movie and it's far from goofy or childish, it's genuinely affecting and slightly disturbing to read Superman saying stuff like 'Everyone's impressed except ME! Don't they understand how I feel -- playing second fiddle to a miniature duplicate of myself...a sort of SUPER-IMP?'

"And people think I'M weird ? I %$%$^ wish I was weird like this! I wish pop comics today had the balls to be as poetic and poignant and truly 'all-ages' again, and a little less self-conscious. I feel a little ashamed for not even daring to think of a magnificent tiny Superman who makes the real Superman feel inadequate every time he springs from his hand. Those kinds of stories were like weird fever dreams and they sold millions and millions of copies every month."

And THAT'S what I've been thinking about lately, even before I read this interview. That's the thing I started to tap into when I wrote "She's the Speckle," which a few of you have read--I didn't think about the kinds of stories I write or where I wanted that particular story to go, I just let it go where it would. I let weird ideas come into my mind and I put them on the page, not bothering to think about short story structure, or what the flow of the piece as a whole would be. And the story I wrote is strange and has a weird rhythm to it, but it's a rhythm all the same. And it feels like I'm on to something with it. It's missing in some of the things I've written since, when I've fallen back into old habits of storytelling, when I've held back from something--not when I've thought of something and not written it down, but when I've thought something and not pushed myself to think of something stranger, or something bigger or slightly beyond what I was willing to settle for.

In 1958 someone wrote a Superman story--and it couldn't have been more than 20 pages--where a tiny Superman shot out of the palm of the normal Superman, and made the normal Superman feel inferior. I know a whole lot of really good writers these days, but none of them have done anything lately as weird and as wonderful as that. But they should be--I should be--and like Grant, we should all be a little ashamed that we haven't dared to think of anything like that yet.

Sweet, Sweet Justice

50 in 05: We3

#2: We3 by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely. A serialized graphic novel not yet available in a collection, We3 is all the same the best comic book I’ve read in a long time, and the most technically proficient. We3 is part of a movement that doesn’t have a name yet, but I bet it will before the year ends. It takes an animal adventure story (think Homeward Bound) and mixes it up with a cyborg adventure story (think Universal Soldier) and plays it straight. It’s some sort of popular post-modern fiction blend, and Grant’s doing it well before the trend even hits.

I’ve loved Frank Quitely’s work since he teamed with Grant on Flex Mentallo, another brilliant comic that will probably never be available in a collection. There’s a page in the third issue of We3 that literally made my mouth drop open—two of the animals that have escaped from the government’s military program that created them are fighting another that has been sent after them. The resulting combat breaks through a brick wall—and through a panel at the bottom of the page—and the result is an almost 3D effect that leaves the characters about to rocket off of the bottom of the page. Another page is made up of at least 20 panels, some big and some small and some overlapping and yet it reads like a dream. I’ve been reading comics for more than 20 years now, so it’s hard for me to think of how this book might look to someone that didn’t grow learning the language of sequential art (and if you don’t know that there is a language of sequential art, pick up Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics—and really, you know you should have done that a long time ago), but to me it’s a welcome evolution in how the interiors of comics should look.

As a writer I’d love to know more about Grant and Frank’s working relationship—the same day I picked up the last issue of We3 I picked up JLA CLASSIFIED #3, also written by Grant Morrison, but illustrated by Ed McGuinness. It’s a straight superhero story, but it’s sub-par for Morrison. It’s vague and unclear (and not in a good way) and moves too fast—the flow of the art doesn’t help the story, and in fact makes it more confusion. In the 90’s Grant Morrison was one of the innovators of “decompressed storytelling,” which pushed characters aside in favor of big plots and big action. Grant was really good at it and this JLA story was a return to that kind of storytelling—but next to We3 (and in the face of the upcoming Seven Soldiers of Victory project), it proves that Grant is better off when he’s trying his hand at something new instead of returning to something old.

Real Quick-Like

RQL is back on the fast track, and this is what you need to know:

* * * * *

Real Quick-Like

Topic: Last to see them alive.

Ready and go! Procrastination is not your friend, dear writer. From the gut, stories, essays, fiction and non. You write ‘em, we want ‘em. Let the topic inspire you, and then send it on.

No time for writer’s block. We are looking for original, unpublished work from writers of all shapes and sizes, deadline February 14, 2005. Adhere to the date, stick to the topic, keep it under 3,000 words and all other rules be damned.

No, you will not be paid. Not just yet. But you will see your work in print alongside other talented writers and distributed to every web ring, zine shop and department store bathroom from Jersey to Sausalito.

Please send submissions and questions electronically to rql@realquicklike.com with your name and contact information. Published work for first publication rights only. Accepted work will be compiled into a real pretty-like journal, with funds determining whether pretty means tri-color glossy or stapled together on neon green copy paper. Winners will receive one complimentary copy.

No excuses! Submission is free, with no limit to the number of pieces you can submit. Now go make your mama proud.

24 Hours . . .

Some of you might know and some of you might not, but for nearly a year I've been working on a http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifphoto project at 24HrsInAYear. The plan was to take one picture a day at a set time, and moving that time forward by an hour every two weeks or so, so that on the first day I was taking the picture between 12 and 1 in the morning, and by the end I would be taking it between 11 and 12 at night, giving me 366 views of my life that ranged an entire day. I've been taking the pictures and posting them and not going through to check my progress as I worked. But the project is set to end on February 8th, and I don't have the pictures saved anywhere except the website, so this past week I went through and saved them all to my computer, arranging them in folders, and labeling them.

I wasn't sure, when I started, how the whole thing would turn out. It's strange to look back over them and see where I was and who I was with at a given time almost a year ago. Looking over the pictures, June comes back the clearest--looking at those pictures, those 5-6AM shots, I can really feel June and early summer. There are pictures of open windows and bookshelves--mine, and other people's--that make me think of the breeze. In Jill's bedroom, at night, it sounded like the ocean, and I told her so. Today, in late January, and with a different girl on my mind, I'd forgotten a lot of what June felt like. I'd reorganized it in my brain, maybe. Even though Jill isn't in many of those pictures, physically I mean, I see a lot of her all the same. Those pictures bring back the abstract feeling of summer.

There are a lot of abstract feelings in those pictures, and a lot of nights that I can remember clearly only because of the pictures. When I go on vacations, I'm the sort of guy who never brings a camera, but is glad when my friends do. I think the experience of a new place is best taken in when you're focusing on being there NOW, instead of taking a picture to savor later. That's why I liked this project--most of the pictures are pretty mundane. Most of the pictures are from my apartment, of empty dishes or bathroom towels drying. I'm shaving in one of them. A few are from classrooms and a few are in cars. Some are of other people, strangers and friends, and sometimes I told them what I was doing and sometimes I didn't. Once, I was yelled at over what was in a picture, or what was perceived to be there.

As of today, being Monday, January 24th, I'm in the 11-12 slot that will wrap the project up. I still haven't decided if I'll keep going or not--most of the people who enjoy seeing the pictures and have told me so have been strangers, and that makes me want to continue. I also think it would be interesting to have another year to compare this one to, to see if I get out of the house more, or to see who sticks around and who leaves, or to see what abstract feelings I can capture over the next 365 days. In any event, if anyone has ever checked in on these pictures from time to time, I think this is an interesting point to look at them again. I'd love to hear what patterns other people see, if there are any to be seen.

Here are a few pictures I really liked when I was going through them again:





moblog.co.uk/blog/24HrsInAYear

The Stars Are Right

I'm posting some of the pictures I took during my moblog hiatus--I just put up some Halloween pictures, including video of the Great Cthulhu.

The Question of Our Time . . .

Tackling a new letter, I'd first hit the find and replace key and change every "cum" to "come" (an average of 19 changes per letter). As per my style sheet, I'd make sure every "doggie-style" was hyphenated, every "bunghole" was not, every "blowjob" was one word, every "daisy chain" was two. Picture, if you will, all of this being dispatched with a 10-month-old baby draped over my lap. In our cozy, kinky domesticity I enlisted my wife to proofread, which she'd do during commercials of "20/20." "Honey," I'd call out from my study, "is 'dream cock' hyphenated?"

All of this and more musings from a porn magazine copy-editor in the link. Found via Bookslut.

Everyone is Barefoot Except Him

The strangest thing, to Ricky, was the garbage can. Out in the woods, in a clearing in the woods, all pine trees and up the hill from a stream, and there, just inside the trees again, a metal garbage can like you'd see in a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles video game, all lines up the side and dented lid.

"That garbage can is so weird," he said.

"Why?" Mary asked, digging in her backpack for a toothbrush.

"It's the woods," Ricky said. "Nature!"

"It's a campground," Mary said, finding her toothbrush and standing up. "It cost seventy-five bucks just to stay here tonight."

Splashing and laughing drifted up the hill from where Ben and Samantha were flirting. Ricky wondered if this was a set-up. Ben and Sam had been sort-of-dating for years and when Ben invited Ricky on an overnight camping trip (Ben had a knack for putting together last-minute adventures) he knew Sam would be here, but Mary was a surprise. She was a friend of Sam's and pretty, but had not been talkative on the three-hour drive. Ricky thought maybe it was a set-up, and maybe she was disappointed. He had a goatee and a paunch and wore a brown button-up shirt in the woods.

As she walked away from him he held up his cell phone, looked at her ass on the viewscreen, and took a picture. He looked at the frozen image, denim from the waist down and trees beyond, and he pressed the phone against his nose and smelled it. It was new. He liked to take pictures with it, but he was embarrassed for people to see him take pictures with it. When they did he mumbled something like, "Just gonna take a picture here," and then he did, not taking time to aim it, hoping it came across like he meant not to aim it, like he didn't like aiming it.

He sat alone, giving Mary enough time to get down to the stream, before standing up and following her. He'd wanted to go down before, but he didn't want to be the one to interrupt Ben and Sam; then he didn't want to seem to be following Mary too closely. He held his phone in his hands and walked down the hill. Ben and Sam had their pantlegs rolled up and were jumping from rock to rock in the shallow stream, kicking water at each other and laughing, holding their arms out for balance. Mary sat at the edge, barefoot and watching them and smiling. Ricky smiled too, leaned against a tree and took a picture of them. No one notices, so he took a picture of Mary watching them. She was smiling and holding her knees and Ricky liked it. He decided that if he liked her later and if she wasn't mean to him, he'd show her the picture.

He pushed buttons on his phone and followed the menu to the option marked "Games." He opened one called "Fortune Teller" that was marked with the pixellated picture of a blue turban with a red ruby in the center.

Mary looked up and him. "You're out here in the beautiful world and you're playing with your phone?"

"It's telling me my future," Ricky said.

"What's it say?" she asked.

Ricky read it and smiled. "You will be eaten by a bear," he said.

Score One for Science!

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- A federal judge in Atlanta, Georgia, has ruled that a suburban county school district's textbook stickers referring to evolution as "a theory not a fact" are unconstitutional.

In ruling that the stickers violate the constitutionally mandated separation between church and state, U.S. District Judge Clarence Cooper ruled that labeling evolution a "theory" played on the popular definition of the word as a "hunch" and could confuse students.

The stickers read, "This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered."

The disclaimers were put in the books by school officials in 2002.

"Due to the manner in which the sticker refers to evolution as a theory, the sticker also has the effect of undermining evolution education to the benefit of those Cobb County citizens who would prefer that students maintain their religious beliefs regarding the origin of life," Cooper wrote in his ruling.

(. . . more in link . . .)

Futurephone is Go!

I was having trouble emailing pictures with my futurephone for the longest time, but I finally sorted it all out last night. So everything other than my 24 Hrs. project are going back up right here. Viva technology!

HB to MMS

Ben Folds and I would like to congratulate Meredith . . .



. . . on seeing another birthday. For a brief moment in time, she's way older than I can ever imagine being myself. Congrats, Mer!

Stetson

I walked to the grocery store because I don't have a car. I feel pretty good about not having a car, but I seem to be the only one who feels that way. It was snowy and slushy and icy, all the more reason, thought I, to be glad that I don't have a car. The only slipping and sliding I have to worry about is from my own two feets.

There was an old man trudging through the parking lot behind me. He breathed like an old man. He was 60something, 70something. He had a wrinkly old weathered face and he wore a thin brown jacket. He wore brown pants too, really tight ones that showed off his surpringly plump butt. There were cowboy-style curley-somethings on his back pockets. He wore cowboy boots and a white cowboy hat, a tall one, that was not the least bit dirty. Someone in an SUV came driving our way, the wrong way down the parking lot lane.

"Yer goin' the wrong way, dummy!" the old cowboy yelled. The driver honked.

I laughed and I thought, yeah, you are going the wrong way, dummy.

50 in 05

#1: Chronicles Volume One, by Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan has been floating around the periphery of my musical tastes since high school, when I found the Beatles and figured out that musicians my parents' age might have known what they were doing after all; but all the same, I never found the right way in until this past summer when a friend made a few mix cds for me filled with nothing but Dylan. Even then I didn't get it at first, but I listened a few a times and let the songs roll around in my head. I kept going back to a few in particular, "Positvely 4th Street" and "Love Sick" and "Tangled Up in Blue." I got out the three-disc set I'd bought back in high school, listened to once and never gone back to, three of the early pre-electric albums. "I Shall Be Free no. 10" tickled something that it hadn't tickled before and I went back to those mix cds again. I downloaded "Like a Rollin' Stone" and the album "Desire," listened to "Wigwam" from the Royal Tenenbaums soundtrack. I started to wonder about Bob Dylan as an artist and his book kept popping up on "Best of 2004" lists, so I walked to my friendly neighborhood bookstore and took one home with me.

It's not straight autobiography, and thank goodness for that. It jumps around in time and he allows himself the freedom to let his language roam, to write about what he wants to write about when he wants to write about it. It's all interesting and he talks a lot about process and about living with the fame, or trying to avoid it, about opening up to friends and living around and through the songs he writes. My favorite parts where the beginning and the end, the two chapters that dealt with his early years in New York and how he first found folk music and Woody Guthrie. It was when he seemed most open to the world. The other chapters dealt with the recording of certain albums, of trying to evade fame, and he seemed cut off from something, struggling to find the way in to whatever it was he'd hit so effortlessly before. Maybe he went wrong somewhere and became the sort of man he hadn't anticipated . . . he makes few references to the motorcycle accident that seemed to have changed his life, but in one telling reference to it he says it was the day Robert Zimmerman died. There's a lot still unsaid there, but that's okay. You don't need to say it all.

All told, I'm glad I read it. I could see going back to that first chapter again, and to the last one, but probably not to the rest. I can't even say I'll go back to the other two volumes that are supposed to be coming, but there is a lot more in his music to sift through and discover. I'm glad I have these mixes as a touchstone, a place to start. As to one of the best books of 2004, hell, I don't know. Who thinks like that about books?

Kyle Gets Into Trouble

I finished my meal (and that pie was good!) and Carol approached, scribbling on her pad again. I was learning that I was a common man after all, and that what I needed most was a common meal cooked by a common wife. I asked her, “Carol, are you married?”

She cocked an eye and looked at me. “No, I ain’t married.”

“And how did you manage to escape some gentleman’s eye for all this time?”

“For all this time? Well gee, I just don’t know. A lady learns some tricks in her old age, I reckon.”

The construction workers laughed, and I knew at last they had accepted me. But I longed to become more, to transcend the plateau where they had crested.

“Gonna be anything else, hon?” Carol, sweet Carol asked me, wiping the countertop with a rag in one had, looking up at me lazily with her eyes.

I looked down at the crumbs of my pumpkin pie and felt the bubbles of romance in my tummy. I looked back up at her saggy eyes and said, “Carol, I think love you.”

“Aw, honey.” She shook her head and wiped her nose with the same rag she had used on the counter. “No honey, you sure don’t.”

“I do!” I said. “I’ve thought on this hard and long, eating my meatloaf and my buttered roll, and my pumpkin pie most of all. Carol, I want to make babies with you. I want to take you to my office Christmas party. I want to have daughters, I want to have six daughters, and I want to fold down the business section of the newspaper to see you teaching them how to apply eye shadow.”

Carol avoided my gaze, no doubt, I thought at the time, to hide from me her tears of joy. The construction workers were silent behind us.

Carol collected my empty plates. I was beaming my love into her brain. “Aw, shit,” she said, and I loved her for her simple, profane ways. “Shit honey, stone-cold disturbed.”

The construction workers laughed, but it was restrained. Even they could sense the change that was coming.

I clenched my jaw, I clenched my fist, I leaned forward on the counter. “Carol, I want to make sweet love to you. On this very countertop.”

“Okay honey, I think you got to go.” She turned to step away, plates in hand, and I couldn’t bear to let her go until she understood. I grabbed her wrist and she dropped a plate. It broke.

(The plate, that is. Not her lovely, bony wrist.)

“Hey!” she said, and struggled, but I held fast. She yelled, “Phil!”

But before Phil could materialize from the back, the gaggle of construction workers arose from their booths. There had to be a dozen—no, a baker’s dozen—of them, and each rose to sweet Carol’s defense. They meant well, I knew, and I was certain we would all laugh over this in the end, but there was not time to make them understand. I swept up the ketchup bottle with my free hand, and the bottle was red and squeeze-ready. I held tight to my love with other. I pointed the bottle at my foes.

“Stay back!” I said. “This doesn’t concern you!”

The construction workers tightened into a single mass of opposition and neared me. I thrust the bottle at them. They retreated. Others came from behind and I spun, and pointed the ketchup anew. “This will stain!” I said, and they knew it was true.

I heard a squeak from the direction of the kitchen as the door swung open and Phil emerged from its depths. He was an Asian man, a small one and fat, and he hurled an orange, and his aim was true. I struck my temple and darkness took me.

Will Eisner, 1917-2005

I will miss Will Eisner. He died today, a few days after undergoing quadruple bypass surgery. http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

WillEisner.com is his official website and had a lengthly biography and such. Will wrote and drews the Spirit and a Contract with God and Comics and Sequential Art. He knew a lot about comics and he thought a lot about comics and he elevated the art form just by being in it.

More from the Horseshoe Cafe

“Hey there, hon. Ya lost?”

“Oh, no, ma’am. No indeed. I am here for a piece of pie.”

“We got pie. That all you want?”

“I believe so, yes.”

“Meatloaf is on special.”

Meatloaf is on special! I hadn’t had meatloaf in years! Not since I lived at home, not since before I left for college.

“Meatloaf,” I said. “Meatloaf sounds marvelous!”

“Whatever you say, hon. Comes with mashed potatoes and gravy and a drink.”

“Please, yes. The meatloaf special, and pumpkin pie for dessert.” I rapped the countertop with my bare knuckles.

“You got it,” she said, and she scribbled on her pad, and she pinned it to a silver rotating wheel sitting in the window to the kitchen. “Meatloaf, Phil!” she called.

Phil, who I presumed to be the cook, grunted unseen and made up my meatloaf and mashed potatoes and gravy.

Egads! Never had a loaf of meat entranced me so. It made the colors of the café dance in my eyes and it made the speckles on the countertop move in my heart. And Carol, she was the speckle of them all. She was the dancey, curvy thing against the flat surface of my heart. She was older than I, to be sure, by a good twenty years, but she bore her experience like a beauty mark. She wore glasses that were tinted peach and a barrette in her hair that kept it from falling in her face as he wiped down tables and countertops. The construction workers smiled at her and gave her sass, and she sassed them right back. An example:

“Hey there, honey. You got some pie for me?”

“All the pie you’re gonna get is in that spinnin’ case right over there.”

“How ‘bout you spin that case over here to me?”

“You better watch the door don’t close on your fingers, you go reachin’ for it.”

“Aw, come on now, Carol. I just want a little piece.”

“Yeah? Well I want me a big piece, so I guess I gotta keep lookin’.”

And all the other construction workers laughed, and I laughed too, loudly and with a mouth full of meat. They looked at me warily as I did so, not quite sure what to make of me yet. They’d figure me out in time, I was sure, but I already knew in my heart that I was one of them.

Help:

It seems like I've been reading Young Men Coming of Age stories for my entire life, and particularly recently. Does anyone know of any good Young Women Coming of Age stories? Books, comics, short stories, etc.

Entering the Horseshoe Cafe

I slowed my pace and frowned and considered. I love the air in autumn, even still, and especially at Monument Circle on my lunch break. It just smells . . . orange, if that makes sense to you. Like fall. And fall (and orange) tastes like pumpkin pie. Why, why pumpkin pie! I wanted a piece of pumpkin pie, I wanted it right then, and more than anything else in the whole wide world! I looked around the Circle for where I might buy a piece of pie, like a pie stand, or, or wherever they sold pie from. My god, where did they sell pie from? I don’t know that I’d ever bought pie somewhere before. I was never much of a dessert man, truth be told, and when I was I almost always, without fail, opted for the tiramisu. My eyes spied a sign, one with flashing red and yellow bulbs, right across the Circle, almost 180 degrees from Bagel Hut, and the sign read Horseshoe-flash-Café-flash-Horseshoe-flash-Café-flash. Horseshoe Café! It had big windows and booths, and even a counter, if my eyes didn’t lie. Even from across the Circle I could tell that this, this was a real diner, the kind you might see on the television, the kind that might, in the fall, serve pumpkin pie.

I pushed the door opened and a bell jingled, a bell tied to the corner of the door with a shoestring. It was a new shoestring, white and fresh and straight from the package. The floor of the diner was linoleum and the tables were too, and the seats in the booths were padded and puffy. The stools at the counter were padded and puffy and everything, the stools and the counter and the tables and the seats and the floor and the walls, they were speckled gray over their own colors of white or green or red. A metallic silver something surrounded everything, and the whole place glowed with the residue of a powerful cleanser. There were a few men occupying the booths, burly and unshaven and of the construction worker variety. They wore mesh caps that said things like “Boone Construction Co.” and “Harvey’s Heavy Lifting,” and then had a picture of a crane. It was quaint and folksy and somewhere, meat was sizzling.

I sidled up to the counter and had a seat, a smile on my face. The most radiant vision of beauty approached from behind the counter. Her nametag read Carol.

Merchandising!

Flush with gift certificates and xmas cash, I took a trip to my local video distributor and comic book shop, respectively, this week. Just in case you were wondering what to read, watch, and why:

THE OFFICE SPECIAL: 90 minutes and a few extras, wrapping up most of the loose-ends from Series Two. It's one of those things I'm sorry to see end, but all the same, it has the best ending I could have hoped for. It's TV done right, folks.

JLA CLASSIFIED 1&2 by Grant Morrison and Ed McGuinness: Nearly 10 years ago (egads!) Grant Morrison helped start a trend in superhero comics that is only now quieting down, and in the first two parts of this three-part story he's returning to the JLA for a spell. I liked issue one a lot, introducing menacing villains and lots of supporting characters that I don't know but get the gist of all the same; issue two felt a little flat, however, as if it was simply taking 20-odd pages to make sure I understood all that happened in the last issue. I'll definitely pick up the next issue to see how it all turns out, but I'm grateful that this is only a brief return for Grant. I'd rather see him do new things, like We3 and the upcoming Seven Soldiers project for DC.

CONCRETE: THE HUMAN DILEMMA 1 by Paul Chadwick. I was surprised to see this one out. I haven't kept up on Previews in a long time, and it seems like it's been a good five years since the last CONCRETE series. I picked it up, but I wasn't sure what to expect after all that time--if the series would still hold up, or if I'd still be interested in it. There were a few neat tricks--the x-ray shot into Larry's brain on page 7 was neat--but mostly it feels like Paul and the character are revisiting themes that have already been covered. THINK LIKE A MOUNTAIN seemed to move the character in a new direction and STRANGE ARMOR was a way to re-examine the character's beginnings through that new lens, but one issue in to this six-part series, THE HUMAN DILEMMA feels like a step backwards. But I'm interested enough to see how it pans out. I thought it was interesting that the cover is signed "Paul Chadwick '01."

THE SHAOLIN COWBOY 1 by Geoff Darrow. Also a surprise--I had no idea Darrow had a new project coming out, and I don't even remember his last one. I've also never heard of "Burlyman Entertainment," but the inside cover says it's a Wachowski Brothers venture. The plot feeds off of cliched characters I feel like I've seen a thousand times, but Darrow's art is intricate and itriguing. I especially like the ten-page panel in the middle of the book, and the lizard's movement across panels in the beginning. If it survies to issue 2, I'll pick it up again.

QUIT CITY by Warren Ellis and Laurenn McCubbin. This is the only title from Ellis's Apparat project that I picked up--though I love Carla Speed McNeil, the artist on FRANK IRONWINE, it looked like the sort of character and story I've seen from Ellis before. QUIT CITY did too, but I don't have as much work from McCubbin as I do from McNeil on my bookshelf. McCubbin's faces are strange, beautiful and familiar--almost distractingly so, but I was alright with that, considering the plot was nothing new from Ellis. I wonder if he's more interested in packaging than story these days, and if he'd just be happier as an editor/publisher than a writer. That way he could wonder and experiment with form and format all day, and let other folks craft the stories that utilized them. He's been dipping his toes in a lot of different pools since TRANSMET ended, and with the exception of the soon-to-conclude PLANETARY (which, admittedly, is a holdover from the project he started while TRANSMET was still alive), none of them have really flipped my skirt. That said, it's well worth the price for McCubbin's work. That said:

OCEAN 1&2 by Warren Ellis and Chris Sprouse. Much of the above applies here; it looks wonderful, blue and big, but Ellis isn't doing anything he hasn't done before. His main character here has appeared other places, in other forms, many times before. I don't mind reading Morrison tread on old ground in JLA CLASSIFIED because he's doing We3 at the same time; with Ellis, I don't see that same kind of newness and boundary-pushing.

BELLY BUTTON COMIX #2 by Sophie. I haven't read all of this one yet--I flipped through it and got caught up in two pages of a longer story about a guy and gal meeting on a train (or bus, perhaps), looking at each others' sketch books, and going home to sleep together. I wanted to see how it ended, so I picked it up. Artistically, it has a polished-Jeffrey Brown kind of feel to it, from the two pages I saw, at least.

DIRTY FOUND #1. I love FOUND magazine, and this is a special issue with "the KINKIEST, RAUNCHIEST submissions to've been passed to your friends at FOUND." Dirty emails, dirty photographs, dirty drawings, dirty love notes, and best of all, stories of where and how they were discovered. If you like peeking into other people's sock drawers, and by god I know that you do, go find you some Dirty Found.

If I May:

My Grandma died on Xmas Eve. The family was over for dinner and gift exchanging. The clearest memory I have of Grandma isn't about her directly, but the painting of Jesus she had hanging in her old blue house. It's hanging in her new white house too, I imagine, but it's in the blue one where I remember it. That white house was never a Grandma sort of place, to me, even though I'm sure she liked it a lot better than the blue one.

That painting was the first exposure I had to Jesus, as a man or a force or whatever he might be to you. I asked my mom (because I was a shy kid, and had a hard time asking things of grown-ups who weren't my parents) if that person in the painting was Grandpa as a young man. She said he wasn't. I asked if he was a relative. She said he wasn't. So, I asked, why did Grandma have a painting of some dude in her living room?

I don't remember how the conversation went. I don't have kids, so I don't know how that conversation works at all, but I imagine it's a weird one. Grown-ups are busy most of the time informing kids as to how things work--logical outcomes and methods of reasoning. If it's raining outside, and you go outside, you get wet. If the stove is hot, and you touch the stove, you get burned. And then they have to explain abstract concepts like faith and supernatural ones like men with beards raising from the dead. When things like that happen in the movies and it freaks us, as kids, out, our folks tell us it's just a movie. But that guy in the painting, he did it for real. But, er, no one else can do it. Ever. Well, my own prejudice is leaking through here, and this is supposed to be about something else.

I have fluctuating opinions about death. Logically, on days when I'm feeling logical, I suppose that nothing happens at all. Hopefully, on days when I'm feeling hopeful, I suppose that there are things in the universe I'm not quite capable of understanding, in which case something might happen after all.

On this trip to Ohio I read a book called American Skin by Don De Grazia. In the book, Alex Verdi explains about babies. I'll paraphrase.

You know babies? You know how we're told, that when babies are babies, and their mother or father or anyone else leaves the room, the baby is incapable of reasoning that they'll come back. The baby figures they can't see them, so they don't exist anymore. Alex Verdi, in the book, explains death as being like that. It's like (and this is me, further opining) when adults leave the kids alone to go do adult-things. The kids don't yet have the capacity to understand what they adults are doing. Grandma is like that now, maybe. She's gone, but only in the sense that the rest of us left don't quite understand what she's up to. But eventually we'll figure it out, and we'll trust that those left will figure it out in time, too. It's no use explaining to the kids left in the nursery, because they just have the tools to understand it yet.

I wonder what will happen to that picture of Jesus. I hope it doesn't end up sad and lonely in some yard sale. I know, in my head, that it doesn't matter what happens to that picture of Jesus, that it's not Grandma's concern anymore, and that letting it go back into the stream of people will allow it to alter more lives the way it altered mine, by bringing Jesus up in the first place. But all the same, I hope that Jesus finds a good home.

Double Are Dee

After a spirited discussion at the Loft at Kensington:





We got our serious Double Are Dee Bowl on.



And then Betsy found True Love.



Happy Xmas, you two!

Outlaw Chess

Mr Fischer has been on the run from the US authorities for more than a decade, after being accused of breaking international sanctions by visiting Yugoslavia to take part in a chess match in 1992.

A brilliant but mercurial player, Mr Fischer became a grandmaster at 15 and shot to fame in 1972 when he beat Boris Spassky of the then Soviet Union.

He held the title of world chess champion until 1975, and resurfaced in Yugoslavia for the dramatic 1992 rematch against Mr Spassky.

He won the game, but disappeared when the US authorities announced they wanted to prosecute him over the $3m he earned for playing, which Washington said violated US and United Nations bans on doing business in the country.

Give the people what they want

Pentagon Memos and Mo'

From the Pentagon's Defense Science Board:

Opinion surveys conducted by Zogby International, the Pew Research Center, Gallup (CNN/USA Today), and the Department of State (INR) reveal widespread animosity toward the United States and its policies. A year and a half after going to war in Iraq, Arab/Muslim anger has intensified. Data from Zogby International in July 2004, for example, show that the U.S. is viewed unfavorably by overwhelming majorities in Egypt (98 percent), Saudi Arabia (94 percent), Morocco (88 percent), and Jordan (78 percent). The war has increased mistrust of America in Europe, weakened support for the war on terrorism, and undermined U.S. credibility worldwide. Media commentary is consistent with polling data. In a State Department (INR) survey of editorials and op-eds in 72 countries, 82.5% of commentaries were negative, 17.5% positive.

. . .

We call it a war on terrorism, but Muslims in contrast see a history-shaking movement of Islamic restoration. This is not simply a religious revival, however, but also a renewal of the Muslim World itself. And it has taken form through many variant movements, both moderate and militant, with many millions of adherents, of which radical fighters are only a small part. Moreover, these movements for restoration also represent, in their variant visions, the reality of multiple identities within Islam.

If there is one overarching goal they share, it is the overthrow of what Islamists call the "apostate" regimes: the tyrannies of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Jordan, and the Gulf states. They are the main target of the broader Islamist movement, as well as the actual fighter groups. The United States finds itself in the strategically awkward -- and potentially dangerous -- situation of being the longstanding prop and alliance partner of these authoritarian regimes. Without the U.S. these regimes could not survive. Thus the U.S. has strongly taken sides in a desperate struggle that is both broadly cast for all Muslims and country-specific.

This is the larger strategic context, and it is acutely uncomfortable: U.S. policies and actions are increasingly seen by the overwhelming majority of Muslims as a threat to the survival of Islam itself.

. . .

There's even more at DailyKos, including continued coverage of DEAN'S growing bid for DNC Chair.

PrePorkChop

When you order a hog in my neighborhood, this is how they bring it to you:

Parody Comics Seized by Customs

Grabbed this from the Beat:

U.S. Government Seizes Parody Comics At Customs

On October 27, U.S. Customs sent a letter to Top Shelf Productions notifying them that copies of the anthology Stripburger had been seized, charging that the stories "Richie Bush" by Peter Kuper and "Moj Stub" (translated, "My Pole") by Bojan Redzic constituted "clearly piratical copies" of registered and recorded copyrights. The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund has retained counsel to challenge these seizures.

"Richie Bush," appearing in Stripburger (Vol. 12) #37, is a four-page parody of Richie Rich that also satirizes the Bush Administration by superimposing the personalities of the President's cabinet on the characters from the comic. "My Pole," appearing in Stripburger (Vol. 3) # 4-5, which was published in 1994, is an eight-page ecology parable in Slovenian that makes visual homage to Snoopy, Charlie Brown, and Woodstock in three panels. Customs seized five copies of the issue with the Peanuts reference and fourteen copies of the issue containing "Richie Bush." The stories were both published in the middle of their respective issues and no graphics from either story appeared on the covers.

Top Shelf is the American agent for Stripburger, an Eastern European comics publisher that releases anthologies of comics from cartoonists around the globe. The comics that were seized were sent along as an extra in a shipment of The Miniburger Dirty Dozen, a boxed set of mini comics that Top Shelf imported to offer in the Direct Market and at conventions. Top Shelf did not order the seized issues of the anthology.

Upon investigating the shipment, Customs released the copies of Miniburger, but held the issues of Stripburger, giving Top Shelf thirty days to either forfeit the shipment, request administrative relief, or initiate court action.

At the urging of Stripburger, Top Shelf and CBLDF President Chris Staros brought the case to the attention of the Fund as a potential news story. CBLDF Executive Director Charles Brownstein felt the matter warranted serious legal attention, so it was sent to Burton Joseph, the Fund's legal counsel, whose opinion was that Customs was unlawfully holding First Amendment protected speech. The option of pursuing court action on First Amendment grounds was then taken to the CBLDF Board of Directors, which unanimously voted 8-0 to take up the case; Chris Staros recused himself from the vote.

On November 24, the Fund retained counsel in Charleston, SC who hand-delivered a letter to Customs stating that the comics are protected under existing First Amendment case law and should be either immediately released or that court action should be initiated.
"In this case, it looks like Customs is overreaching its authority," Staros says. "The comics in question are clearly within the acceptable bounds of parody, and there is absolutely no likelihood that consumers would confuse these works with the subjects that they are parodying."

Brownstein stated, "The stories that were seized are short segments within larger anthologies that in no way represented the content as anything other than what it is. The charge that these are piratical copies of existing copyrights is not only wrong-headed, but the seizure amounts to an unlawful prior restraint of protected speech. It is our hope that Customs will recognize that they have acted in error in seizing these stories and release them immediately. If not, we are prepared to go to court to protect the First Amendment rights that are endangered by this misguided action."

First Amend-what?

This story has been making the blog-rounds the past few days, but in case it's been missed:

MONTGOMERY - An Alabama lawmaker who sought to ban gay marriages now wants to ban novels with gay characters from public libraries, including university libraries.

A bill by Rep. Gerald Allen, R-Cottondale, would prohibit the use of public funds for "the purchase of textbooks or library materials that recognize or promote homosexuality as an acceptable lifestyle." Allen said he filed the bill to protect children from the "homosexual agenda."

Allen said that if his bill passes, novels with gay protagonists and college textbooks that suggest homosexuality is natural would have to be removed from library shelves and destroyed.

"I guess we dig a big hole and dump them in and bury them," he said.

. . .

The fella also proposed legislation banning gay marriage in Alabama, but it wasn't approved. I don't imagine this will be either, but all the same, it's best not to let this sort of thing be ignored. Michael Schaub at Bookslut is goodly enough to offer Rep. Allen's phone number, so do give him a call at (205) 556-5310 to express your thoughts on this.

Speaking of help . . .

Does anyone know of any good politically-minded blogs? I used to be on the Atrios bandwagon, but in the months directly prior to the election, he kind of lost me. Now he seems to spend a lot of time blogging about his cats. I kind of like DailyKos, because at least he's covering the DEAN/Democratic Party stuff. If anyone has any ideas, holla.

Word Searches?

My pal AnnieD is getting a cyborg leg in a few weeks. She sends out the following appeal:

"My people:

I am getting ready to hunker down for three weeks or so and learn how to walk again. Yes, that's right--AnnieD is finally getting her funny leg fixed on December 17, and I'm going to be bored to tears for about 65% of the time. Oh, there's grad school applications to complete, methamphetamine to manufacture, and that whole zine thing that still needs to get done--but then what? Huh? All I can tell you is that the last time I was incapacitated I became terribly addicted to an online, type-fast-as-you-can word-search game where I befriended the nation's unemployed and developed carpal tunnel syndrome. And I played--no lie--9,991 games. (They're *only* 30-seconds long...so um.)

Not this time.

This time I am armed with a Netflix account and a library within close proximity. I will limp past the beguiling ways of the Internet and fulfill my destiny to become a couch potato. You can help. Please email me and tell me what great movies/great books you've watched/read lately, so I can add them to my to-do list. If nothing comes to mind, then tell me your favorites. Or both! If you can provide neither, please send me some money.

Thank you, and goodbye."

If you have any recommendations, do post them in the comments.

Potatoes of the Sun

There was a pounding in my ears, my heart or his feet and I couldn’t tell which. Both, maybe, or something else entirely. I ran down the hill, and I don’t know why, because I didn’t know where else to go to, I guess. I ran down the hill, taking smaller steps than I had going up it, trying to keep my legs ahead of the rest of my body. I heard a pounding in my ears, my heart or his feet.

It was dark out, closer to the next morning than last night. The grass was slick and I slipped in my shoes and fell back, both feet in the air, one foot up higher than the other, one arm up above me, the other behind to catch my fall. I landed on my butt, and then on my right hand, and I felt a sharp pain in my wrist. I got up immediately, not looking behind me and not even hearing. I got up immediately and I ran again and I slipped again and I fell again, this time forward, both hands held out before me. I landed on both hands, a sharp in my right wrist again, and then my palms slipped out from under me and I landed on my stomach. I bent my knees and raised up my legs, ready to kick myself forward and further down the hill, thinking now that I could hide in the ditch maybe, in the dry creek bed. Before I could kick off and further away, a hand grabbed my foot and pulled me back down to Earth. I twisted my head around and saw that devil, that mask, that man from the woods. I couldn’t see his eyeballs in the mask; in their place there were two black buckets of night surrounded by red devil. The face was rubber and expressionless and I panicked. His hand was gripped tightly on my calf and he was laying stomach-down on the hill, just like me, and I don’t know if he threw himself at me or if he had been crawling after me like a worm, like a snake, like a thousand-legger with feelers instead of eyes. I kicked at his devil-face with my free foot, but he clamped it down with his free hand (or claw, I don’t know) and he crawled forward, pinning my legs beneath his chest. He reached his hands forward, pulling himself up and over my body. His body was hot and heavy on top of me. I wriggled, tried to get out from under him, and his hands found my arms and were bigger than my arms and pinned them down. I kept wriggling and got an arm loose, reached forward and dug my fingers into the dirt, pulled myself forward before he crushed my arm under his hand again, but that let me wriggle my other hand free and I pulled forward some more, but he just kept pulling himself along with me like we were one multi-limbed, gibbering, wriggling thing.

I called out. I yelled, out loud, and I don’t know what I said. It felt like my voice, and it might have just been this wordless noise, it felt like my voice was trapped and sucked in by the gravity of his body, he was a black hole that nothing could escape. I could hear sounds through his mask, sounds like grunting, and I felt something against the back of my leg, something like I don’t want to say, something he pushed against me again and again and I screamed again and maybe I screamed for help.

He pinned my hands down with his hands and my legs down with his legs and only my head and face were off the ground, but I could feel something sharp against the top of my head, his chin pushing me down, but I resisted it and held my head up as best I could. I yelled but I couldn’t hear it, I could only hear him, could only hear him grunting and laughing and feel that thing against the back of my leg. The rest of me went still because I didn’t like it when I wriggled against him, I didn’t like it when he pressed harder against me the more I moved.

He suddenly yelled in surprise and jerked his body upward. He was still and he seemed to be looking and listening, he was not making sounds. I jerked again, and then a third time, and before the fourth time I could hear the air parting and space splitting apart, I heard the smack of something into his side and he lurched himself off of me. I laid flat on the grass and the man stood up and was struck again, I heard him being hit by something again and again, thump-thump-thwak, and I turned my head to see him and saw the small dark shapes striking him and bouncing off of him and hitting the ground at his feet. I saw Jesus somewhere behind me, winding up with his hands held tightly to his chest, one knee in the air, standing on one foot, dressed in a white robe and a baseball cap, a red one for the Cincinnati Reds. I saw an “01” stitched onto the back of his robe and I saw Jesus let loose a knuckleball that caught fire as it left his mitt, blazed through the sky, and struck this man from the woods square in the chest. The man ran, disappearing down the hill and into the woods, behind a bustle and thustle of sticks on the ground and red and orange leaves.

I raised myself up and saw potatoes on the ground around me, potatoes on the ground where the man had been. I sat up and looked up the hill and saw my friends, saw Shaun and Jerry and Face, potatoes of salvation in their hands even still, and I swear to god, but the sun was rising, red and orange and streaming behind them. It rose behind my friends and behind the hill and behind the trailer where Shaun’s parents still slept. Potatoes of the sun, driving the devil back into the dark.

Comicblog!

I'm sure all the other nerds know this already, but Jim Lee--he of X-Men, Batman, Superman fame--has a blog that he updates fairly regularly. I haven't bought a Jim Lee comic in a long time, but I do think he's a really good super-hero artist--and the blog is an interesting look into a comic book artist's life and work schedule. He posts a lot of sketches and works-in-progress, including, lately, video of him drawing and inking pages and sketches.

I always enjoy reading work journals of other people, especially comics folks. Until the work journals start to fill up with pictures of half-naked ladies I used to date and people pooping on things, anyway.

It looks like an 'e'

I kiss her index finger first, three light pecks on the spiral of her fingerprint. She looks at me with eyes too big for her head, and brown, and I look back and try not to smile. I kiss her middle finger second, three light pecks on the spiral of her fingerprint. The corners of her mouth are tugged by strings. I kiss her ring finger third, three light pecks on the spiral of her fingerprint. Her hair spills across her shoulders and across my pillow, and it’s curly and spirally. I liked it from the start, but I didn’t swoon until I saw it in a ponytail, pulled tight and curling down her back. I kiss her pinky finger fourth, three light pecks on the spiral of her fingerprint. She licks her lips to make sure they’re wet and she watches what I do next. I kiss her thumb fifth, three light pecks on the spiral of her thumbprint. She smiles at last and her lips are pink borders and her teeth are white, smooth, beautiful tombstones. I kiss the palm of her hand, once, long and slow. She closes her fingers around my face, and I laugh, too. She presses her hand against my face, wriggling her fingers and tightening her grip. I lick her palm and she pulls away, but she laughs, and we scoot our bodies closer, both at the same time. I kiss her mouth like there was nothing else I could do, and she kisses me back, and I'm so glad that at last I’ve done it first.

Dreamblog, pt. 3

Shaun reaches a point in his story where he stops, and he decides he wants to start writing on some of the pictures that are hanging on the walls. He finds one and starts to fill in the empty spaces on the paper. He’s writing about the new job he’s been offered. They want to pay him 3 million dollars for the year, to watch TV in public places, like restaurants or landromats or bars, to watch anything except the news. If he goes somewhere and the news is on, he has to change the station. His last job paid equally well. He was paid to go about his normal life, but he couldn’t brush, clean, or pick at his teeth for an entire year. This is how he makes his living, by taking jobs like this.

He’s telling us this, and he tells us he’s dead. He tells us he’s killed himself, shot himself in the head sometime in the recent past. “Who has all this money to just throw at someone for such a stupid reason?” he says. “And I thought this, this is what’s wrong with America. And if this is what’s wrong with America, then this is what’s wrong with the world. And if I’m doing it, if I’m accepting the money, then I’m what’s wrong with America. So if I’m what’s wrong with America, then I’m what’s wrong with the world.”

I tell myself, my dream self tells my real self, to tell Annie about this later. We’d been talking about something like this, about people our age who are out in the world and retreat when it becomes harder and scarier than we thought it would be. We talked about why this is, if it’s a societal thing or a generational thing, and I think I’ve figured out the answer. I think I’ve figured out that the state of the world and the state of the nation has made some people our age realize that if America is fucked up, and if we’re America, then we’re fucked up. And there’s nowhere to go back to, to make it right, because it’s always been fucked up, only they didn’t know it before. And so, in my dream, Shaun tells us that’s why he shot himself.

I wonder, if someone could go back in time, if they could see all of us, me and Shaun and Adrian and Jarrod and Doug D, if they could see us playing basketball and video games and picking on each other and laughing, if they could find the one who would shoot himself fifteen years later. Shaun was the best of all of us, the best shooter, the highest jumper, the fastest runner; the first to get a car and a serious girlfriend and the first to get a job and buy a house. But now, instead of being a teenager at the top of the pile, he’s a mediocre man with a mediocre job, just like the rest of us. I wonder, in my dream, if that was part of it too, if it shook him to his core to find out that that was as good as it got.

Dreamblog, pt. 2

We ride our bikes further down the paved road, through the trees. Shaun leads us on his bike to a paved path that turns and twists and ramps up, moving up to the top of a great stone tower in the middle of the woods. The path is broken up and ragged and the turns are sudden and sharp. The brakes on my bike hardly work, so I have to walk it up. Shaun and Doug D are ahead of me, Jarrod and Adrian behind. The great stone slab rises even higher than Josh Kramer’s house. Moving up the ramp, we encounter a woman who was riding down in a motorized wheelchair. She’s Josh Kramer’s mom, who turns around and follows us back up to the top. Three sides of the slab have stone walls that are covered with graffiti and artwork. Phrases, pictures, drawing hanging up—I take pictures of them with my futurephone while the others park their bikes and look. Shaun finds a piece of chalk and starts writing on the walls, improving a story about JFK being shot. He lets the words come out, telling the story out loud as he writes it. Whenever he stumbles, whenever a word doesn’t come automatically, he looks to the rest of us, to everyone who is listening to him, which is everyone but me, and the wiggles his fingers back and forth, and he takes the first word he hears, making it part of the story and moving forward from there. When he runs out of space, he simply moves to the next area of bare wall.

I’m not paying attention as Shaun tells his story. Josh Kramer shows up, from his house I guess, and says I should check out this story that Shaun is telling. I start to listen and I take pictures of Shaun with my phone. Shaun notices, but pretends not to. I notice that he hasn’t shaved today, that he has enough stubble that could turn into a full beard if he let it grow. I think it’s strange to see such a thing on a face that I knew so well from when I was a kid, from when we played basketball every weekend and were chased up hills by men who lived in the woods.

Dreamblog, pt. 1

On a trip with Shaun, Adrian, Jarrod, and Doug D, on our bikes. Our bikes are all old—the brakes don’t work very well and they’re all colored brown and tan and bland. We ride past a general store and stop to pick up some supplies for our trip. The shopkeeper is an old man, and while we’re in the store he’s talking about how he hates Jews. The others walk out, ignoring him with their heads down. I stay, arguing with him. I keep starting to leave, but the old man says something else that winds me up. I tell him, “You people want the Old South back, but you can’t have it. The Old South is dead, no one wants it anymore.”

I’m holding up a dustpan and waving it at him, thinking about hitting him with it. The old man holds up a piece of pipe and tells me it costs $1.37. If I want to wave something in his face, I should buy it and he’ll know I’m serious, that I’m a man. I leave the store and get on my bike and catch up with the others.

We ride down a paved road through the woods, passing Josh Kramer’s house. Doug D asks if we’ve ever seen the inside, because it’s really nice. Shaun said he’s seen it; Doug D asks if it was when Shaun was there at a sleepover with Jarrod and Shaun says yes. I’ve seen the inside too, at a sleepover with Jarrod, but no one asks me.

"Then wash your hands and make me a cheese sandwich."

$28,000 later.

Miami Street Folklore

To homeless children sleeping on the street, neon is as comforting as a night-light. Angels love colored light too. After nightfall in downtown Miami, they nibble on the NationsBank building -- always drenched in a green, pink, or golden glow. "They eat light so they can fly," eight-year-old Andre tells the children sitting on the patio of the Salvation Army's emergency shelter on NW 38th Street. Andre explains that the angels hide in the building while they study battle maps. "There's a lot of killing going on in Miami," he says. "You want to fight, want to learn how to live, you got to learn the secret stories." The small group listens intently to these tales told by homeless children in shelters.

On Christmas night a year ago, God fled Heaven to escape an audacious demon attack -- a celestial Tet Offensive. The demons smashed to dust his palace of beautiful blue-moon marble. TV news kept it secret, but homeless children in shelters across the country report being awakened from troubled sleep and alerted by dead relatives. No one knows why God has never reappeared, leaving his stunned angels to defend his earthly estate against assaults from Hell. "Demons found doors to our world," adds eight-year-old Miguel, who sits before Andre with the other children at the Salvation Army shelter. The demons' gateways from Hell include abandoned refrigerators, mirrors, Ghost Town (the nickname shelter children have for a cemetery somewhere in Dade County), and Jeep Cherokees with "black windows." The demons are nourished by dark human emotions: jealousy, hate, fear.

One demon is feared even by Satan. In Miami shelters, children know her by two names: Bloody Mary and La Llorona (the Crying Woman). She weeps blood or black tears from ghoulish empty sockets and feeds on children's terror. When a child is killed accidentally in gang crossfire or is murdered, she croons with joy. "If you wake at night and see her," a ten-year-old says softly, "her clothes be blowing back, even in a room where there is no wind. And you know she's marked you for killing."

The homeless children's chief ally is a beautiful angel they have nicknamed the Blue Lady. She has pale blue skin and lives in the ocean, but she is hobbled by a spell. "The demons made it so she only has power if you know her secret name," says Andre, whose mother has been through three rehabilitation programs for crack addiction. "If you and your friends on a corner on a street when a car comes shooting bullets and only one child yells out her true name, all will be safe. Even if bullets tearing your skin, the Blue Lady makes them fall on the ground. She can talk to us, even without her name. She says: 'Hold on.'"

. . . According to the Dade Homeless Trust, approximately 1800 homeless children currently find themselves bounced between the county's various shelters and the streets. For these children, lasting bonds of friendship are impossible; nothing is permanent. A common rule among homeless parents is that everything a child owns must fit into a small plastic bag for fast packing. But during their brief stays in the shelters, children can meet and tell each other stories that get them through the harshest nights.

More in the link. I'm not positive, but I think I found this story via Neil Gaiman's blog.

EDIT: Fixed the link. Er, if anyone's still listening.

Embedded Reporter in Iraq

"I see an old man in a red kaffiyeh lying against the back wall. Another is face down next to him, his hand on the old man's lap - as if he were trying to take cover. I squat beside them, inches away and begin to videotape them. Then I notice that the blood coming from the old man's nose is bubbling. A sign he is still breathing. So is the man next to him.

While I continue to tape, a marine walks up to the other two bodies about 15 feet away, but also lying against the same back wall. Then I hear him say this about one of the men: "He's fucking faking he's dead - he's faking he's fucking dead."

Through my viewfinder I can see him raise the muzzle of his rifle in the direction of the wounded Iraqi. There are no sudden movements, no reaching or lunging.

However, the marine could legitimately believe the man poses some kind of danger. Maybe he's going to cover him while another marine searches for weapons. Instead, he pulls the trigger. There is a small splatter against the back wall and the man's leg slumps down. "Well he's dead now," says another marine in the background."

. . . more in the link . . .

Wow, you know what?

Scott Bakula



Is



Baktacular!

These are the People in Your Neighborhood

Found via TalkLeft. The full story is at the website:

A California judge yesterday told a 24 year old marijuana possessor that he could either go to jail or join the military.

Brian Barr was the victim of a home burglary. He shot and killed the intruder, and all agreed it was a justifiable act. Barr, while waiting for the cops to come, hid his marijuana stash. What upset the Judge was that Barr had a weapon and marijuana in his home.

Even the DA was surprised because people in that county are usually sent to drug treatment, not prison. And the military suggestion was never discussed and had never occurred in the county before.

I Am A Brilliant Team

Warren Ellis has a new STREAMING up. I'm not sure I buy the whole novella argument he's making, but I like this sentiment a whole lot:

"In that same interview, twenty years ago, Alan said that twelve top-flight committed writers handling, say, three monthlies each, could change the face of the medium. Lots of things have altered since, but try this: twelve brilliant teams producing three novellas each in one year. Wouldn't that be something?"

Zombivania, 6-5000

MistressFoy has posted a proto-preview to the zombie picture she and Jen K. are making. I helped out for a day or two this summer, mostly by applying zombie makeup and holding things where they needed to be held. You can see it here. My favorite part is still the zombie lightbulb-string-twirl at the very end.

Things I Wish They Would Name The Movie:

"Zombies Are Forever"
"100% Zombie"
"Z-O-M-B-I-E"
"Dude, Where's My Brain?"
"Zombies Gone Wild!"
"Zombie Humping, 1999"
"Faster Pussycat, Zombie! Zombie!"
"Zombiville, USA"
"An American Zombie in America"
"Zombies, Away!"
"Pay to the Order Of: Zombie!"
"Zombie-Oh"
"Dead Can Dance"
"Q: What's That Eating My Mom? A: Zombies!"
"Undead America"
"Mid-Western Zombies Crave Human Flesh"

Death Masks

From the Thanatos Death Mask Gallery:

"A death mask is a wax or plaster cast of a mold taken from the face of a deceased person. Death masks are true portraits, although changes are occasionally made in the eyes of the mask to make it appear as though the subject were alive. For the last few centuries they have been kept as mementos of the dead, much like postmortem photography."

The index doesn't include names, but if you click on a picture it tells you who it is. I think it's especially neat to see folks like Benjamin Franklin, who we don't have any photographs of. There's also this one:



puported to be of a certain William Shakespeare. I've articles that say, yes, it's definitely the Bard; and I've read articles that say, no, it's certainly not. But either way, it's a death mask of someone, and it's been around for a few centuries.

A quick visit to the bottom of this comment page from Making Light's will give you names and links directly to all of the death masks at Thanatos.

With You, Always.

Brought to my attention by the thousand-times-talented Amy, who is part of the BigConfusionArt team: He's always over your shoulder.

When you're studying . . .



. . . cleaning someone's teeth . . .



. . . or driving a truck.



There are oh-so-many more at the artist's site. Of particular note is the french horn player.

More Double M

This is the last Michael Moore letter I'll reproduce for awhile, I promise. It was sent to me by Erik Wenzel, artist extrodinaire, who has many smart things to say about the current political and social landscape on his own blog. Wow, that sound so adult!


11/5/04

Dear Friends,

Ok, it sucks. Really sucks. But before you go and cash it all in, let's, in
the words of Monty Python, 'always look on the bright side of life!' There
IS some good news from Tuesday's election.

Here are 17 reasons not to slit your wrists:

1. It is against the law for George W. Bush to run for president again.

2. Bush's victory was the NARROWEST win for a sitting president since
Woodrow Wilson in 1916.

3. The only age group in which the majority voted for Kerry was young adults
(Kerry: 54%, Bush: 44%), proving once again that your parents are always
wrong and you should never listen to them.

4. In spite of Bush's win, the majority of Americans still think the
country is headed in the wrong direction (56%

), think the war wasn't worth fighting (51%
), and don't approve of the job
George W. Bush is doing (52%
). (Note to
foreigners: Don't try to figure this one out.  It's an American thing, like
Pop Tarts.)

5. The Republicans will not have a filibuster-proof 60-seat majority in the
Senate. If the Democrats do their job, Bush won't be able to pack the
Supreme Court with right-wing ideologues. Did I say "if the Democrats do
their job?" Um, maybe better to scratch this one.

6. Michigan voted for Kerry! So did the entire Northeast, the birthplace of
our democracy. So did 6 of the 8 Great Lakes States. And the whole West
Coast! Plus Hawaii. Ok, that's a start. We've got most of the fresh water,
all of Broadway, and Mt. St. Helens. We can dehydrate them or bury them in
lava. And no more show tunes!

7. Once again we are reminded that the buckeye is a nut, and not just any
old nut -- a poisonous nut. A great nation was felled by a poisonous nut.
May Ohio State pay dearly this Saturday when it faces Michigan.

8. 88% of Bush's support came from white voters. In 50 years, America will
no longer have a white majority. Hey, 50 years isn't such a long time! If
you're ten years old and reading this, your golden years will be truly
golden and you will be well cared for in your old age.

9. Gays, thanks to the ballot measures passed on Tuesday, cannot get married
in 11 new states. Thank God. Just think of all those wedding gifts we won't
have to buy now.

10. Five more African Americans were elected as members of Congress,
including the return of Cynthia McKinney of Georgia. It's always good to
have more blacks in there fighting for us and doing the job our candidates
can't.

11. The CEO of Coors was defeated for Senate in Colorado. Drink up!

12. Admit it: We like the Bush twins and we don't want them to go away.

13. At the state legislative level, Democrats picked up a net of at least 3
chambers in Tuesday's elections. Of the 98 partisan-controlled state
legislative chambers (house/assembly and senate), Democrats went into the
2004 elections in control of 44 chambers, Republicans controlled 53
chambers, and 1 chamber was tied. After Tuesday, Democrats now control 47
chambers, Republicans control 49 chambers, 1 chamber is tied and 1 chamber
(Montana House) is still undecided.

14. Bush is now a lame duck president. He will have no greater moment than
the one he's having this week. It's all downhill for him from here on out --
and, more significantly, he's just not going to want to do all the hard work
that will be expected of him. It'll be like everyone's last month in 12th
grade -- you've already made it, so it's party time! Perhaps he'll treat the
next four years like a permanent Friday, spending even more time at the
ranch or in Kennebunkport. And why shouldn't he? He's already proved his
point, avenged his father and kicked our ass.

15. Should Bush decide to show up to work and take this country down a very
dark road, it is also just as likely that either of the following two
scenarios will happen: a) Now that he doesn't ever need to pander to the
Christian conservatives again to get elected, someone may whisper in his ear
that he should spend these last four years building "a legacy" so that
history will render a kinder verdict on him and thus he will not push for
too aggressive a right-wing agenda; or b) He will become so cocky and
arrogant -- and thus, reckless -- that he will commit a blunder of such
major proportions that even his own party will have to remove him from
office.

16. There are nearly 300 million Americans -- 200 million of them of voting
age. We only lost by three and a half million! That's not a landslide -- it
means we're almost there. Imagine losing by 20 million. If you had 58 yards
to go before you reached the goal line and then you barreled down 55 of
those yards, would you stop on the three yard line, pick up the ball and go
home crying -- especially when you get to start the next down on the three
yard line? Of course not! Buck up! Have hope! More sports analogies are
coming!!!

17. Finally and most importantly, over 55 million Americans voted for the
candidate dubbed "The #1 Liberal in the Senate." That's more than the total
number of voters who voted for either Reagan, Bush I, Clinton or Gore.
Again, more people voted for Kerry than Reagan. If the media are looking for
a trend it should be this -- that so many Americans were, for the first time
since Kennedy, willing to vote for an out-and-out liberal. The country has
always been filled with evangelicals -- that is not news. What IS news is
that so many people have shifted toward a Massachusetts liberal. In fact,
that's BIG news. Which means, don't expect the mainstream media, the ones
who brought you the Iraq War, to ever report the real truth about November
2, 2004. In fact, it's better that they don't. We'll need the element of
surprise in 2008.

Feeling better? I hope so. As my friend Mort wrote me yesterday, "My
Romanian grandfather used to say to me, 'Remember, Morton, this is such a
wonderful country  -- it doesn't even need a president!'"

But it needs us. Rest up, I'll write you again tomorrow.

Yours,

Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
www.michaelmoore.com

. . . going to shows . . .

Before the sinus medication makes me pass out . . .

I was thinking about SHOWS lately. The kids these days, they like the shows. The rock shows, the live shows, the show shows. They like going to shows, they like being tired from going to shows, they like bouncing cooly and/or standing silently and enjoying their shows.

I do not like going to shows.

For the longest time, I couldn't put my finger on why. I like music, and I like live music, and I like dancing to live music. It's kind of fun looking like a jackass, you know? But Going To Shows, I've never enjoyed. I recently the Empty Space by Peter Brook, which is a book abou theatre. It classifies theatre as Deadly, Holy, and Rough--Deadly is what a lot of theatre becomes, Holy is what it longs to be, and Rough is what it has to start out as if it wants to become that. The theatre is holy by nature, it's ritual--it's more than storytelling, it's an agreement and a collaboration between the people on stage and those in the audience. Theatre becomes deadly when it strives only for holy and forgets about the rough. The rough theatre is the vulgar theatre, it's puppet shows and smut. It's Shakespeare, you know? The rough theatre is when the actors from the House walk around in the lobby before showtime, already in costume. The rough theatre is accepting the audience as collaborators, in presenting a show to them instead of telling them to watch it. When it's rough, by nature it is elevated to holy--but it can't stay there for too long, or it becomes deadly.

The surest way to become deadly is to aim for only the holy. When a troupe puts on Shakespeare and think it means fake accents and elaborate costumes. It happens when the theatre, when the show exists with a gulf between itself and the audience.

I'm also reading the Grapes of Wrath, and I just got to a part where they're square dancing. The Joads are staying in a government camp, and every Saturday night they have a dance. There's a band, and the band plays, and there's square dancing. And that was it! With square dancing, there's music, but it's not about just that. It's not about standing at the edge of the stage and gazing up in awe and wonder, in seeing a person play in the flesh. It's about the music being played, right there in the same room, so you can dance to it. So you can swing someone around by the arm, look like a god damn fool, and have a good time doing it.

Going to Shows is like that. It's going to see a band play, or it's going to hear music, it's aiming for the holy, and it's deadly. It's moved away from something that was once really fun. It's not rough anymore. It's smokey and it's sweaty, but it's not vulgar. It's practiced and it's cool, but it's not embarrassing.

I don't like going to shows.

Oh, hell.

Ohio, thou has forsaken me.

A Letter From Michael Moore

11/1/04

Friends,

This is it. ONE DAY LEFT. There are many things I’d like to say. I’ve been on the road getting out the vote for 51 straight days so I haven’t had much time to write. So I’ve put together a bunch of notes to various groups all in this one letter. Please feel free to copy and send whatever portions are appropriate to your friends and family as you spend these last 24 hours trying to convince whomever you can to show up and vote for John Kerry.

Here are my final words…

To Decent Conservatives and Recovering Republicans:

In your heart of hearts you know Bush is a miserable failure. From having no plan on what to do in Iraq once he conquered Baghdad to the 380 missing tons of explosives that could be used to kill our brave young men and women, this guy doesn’t have a clue how to fight and win a war. You should see the mail I’ve been getting lately from our troops over there. They know how much the Iraqi people hate them. They are sitting ducks anytime they go out on the road. Many believe we are not that far away from a Tet-style offensive inside the Green Zone with hundreds of Americans and Brits killed.
Bush refused to go after and capture Osama bin Laden. He fought, every step of the way, the investigation into the 9/11 attacks. Who on earth would oppose such a thing? If 3,000 people died at your place of work and your boss said we don’t need to find out why or how it happened, he’d be thrown out on his ear. Bush’s behavior after this great tragedy alone is reason enough for his removal.
You already know that George W. Bush is the farthest thing from a conservative. He’s a reckless spender who has run up record-breaking deficits and the biggest debt in our history. He believes in having the government pry into everything from your library records to your bedroom. He has hit you with hidden taxes with his tax cuts for the rich.
I know many of you don’t like Bush, but are unsure of Kerry. Give the new guy a chance. He won’t raise your taxes (unless you are super-rich), he won’t take your hunting gun away, and he won’t make you visit France. He risked his life for you many years ago. He’s asking for the chance to do it again. Scott McConnell at The American Conservative magazine has endorsed him. What more do you need?

To My Friends on the Left:

Okay, Kerry isn’t everything you wished he would be. You’re right. He’s not you! Or me. But we’re not on the ballot – Kerry is. Yes, Kerry was wrong to vote for authorization for war in Iraq but he was in step with 70% of the American public who was being lied to by Bush & Co. And once everyone learned the truth, the majority turned against the war. Kerry has had only one position on the war – he believed his president.
President Kerry had better bring the troops home right away. My prediction: Kerry’s roots are anti-war. He has seen the horrors of war and because of that he will avoid war unless it is absolutely necessary. Ask most vets. But don’t ask someone whose only horror was when he arrived too late for a kegger in Alabama.
There’s a reason Bush calls Kerry the Number One Liberal in the Senate – THAT’S BECAUSE HE IS THE NUMBER ONE LIBERAL IN THE SENATE! What more do you want? My friends, this is about as good as it gets when voting for the Democrat. We don’t have the #29 Liberal running or the #14 Liberal or even the #2 Liberal – we got #1! When has that ever happened?
Those of us who may be to the left of the #1 liberal Democrat should remember that this year conservative Democrats have had to make a far greater shift in their position to back Kerry than we have. We’re the ones always being asked to make the huge compromises and to always vote holding our noses. No nose holding this time. This #1 liberal is not the tweedledee to Bush’s tweedledum.

To Nader Voters:

See the above note.
Ralph’s own party, the Green Party, would not endorse his run this year. That’s because those of us who want to build a third party in this country know that the only way to do this is to build bridges with those who believe in the issues Nader believes in. But not one of those people will sacrifice the chance to remove George W. Bush from the White House on Tuesday. The choice here is clear: do we join with our friends, or do we piss on them?
After the debacle of 2000, the Democrats got smart and abandoned the conservative wing of their party. That’s why 8 of the 9 Democrats in the primaries this year were from the liberal wing. Ralph should take credit for that and declare victory. It’s so sad that he doesn’t realize the good he’s accomplished. But for reasons only known to him, he’s more angry at the Democrats than he is at Bush. He has lost his compass. I worry he has lost his mind. But he still gives a great speech!
And Lila Lipscomb, the mother from Flint who lost her son in Iraq, she still grieves -- as do the mothers of 1,120 others (not to mention the mothers of the 100,000 Iraqis who have died because of Bush’s war). That’s what this election is about. Not Ralph proving some point. Almost none of us on his 2000 advisory group are supporting him this year. His total lack of respect for his best friends should tell all of you something about what he really thinks of you, too.

To the Non-Swing States:

Stop listening to how your vote doesn’t count in this election and that your state is already decided for Kerry or Bush. It is critical that you vote because we not only need to give Kerry the electoral win, but he needs to have a HUGE mandate with an ENORMOUS popular vote victory as well. It will be impossible for him to get anything done for four years if there is no clear mandate. We must not only defeat Bush, we must put a stake in the heart of the right-wing, neo-con movement. If you live in New York, California, Illinois, Texas, the Northeast or the Deep South, you need to vote and you need to bring ten people with you to the polls. If you live in a state where we have the chance to elect the Democrat to the Senate or the House, you need to vote. Turn off the TV. Quit listening to news media that has a vested interest in repeating to you over and over that your vote does not count. It does.
If you have friends or relatives who live in the 30-plus non-swing states, call them and remind them how important it is that Kerry gets a massive popular vote victory.

To Non-Voters:

I understand why you stopped voting. Politicians suck. Nothing ever seems to change. You’re only one vote.
Yes, politicians suck. But so do car salesmen – and that hasn’t stopped you from buying a car. Politicians only respond to the threat of the angry mob also known as the voting public. If most people don’t vote, that’s good news for them ‘cause then they don’t have to answer to the majority.
Almost fifty percent of Americans don’t vote. That means you belong to the largest political party in America – the Non-Voting Party. That means you hold all the power to toss George W. Bush out of the Oval Office. How cool is that?
I believe that we are going to have the largest election turnout in our lifetime tomorrow. You don’t want to miss out on that. The lines at the polls are going to be long and raucous and fun. It is an historic election. You won’t want to say that you were the only one who wasn’t there. Promise me you’ll vote, just this one time.

To All First-Time Voters:

Welcome to the longest running, uninterrupted democracy on earth! You own it. It’s yours.
A few words about how messy it’s going to be tomorrow. The lines are going to be long. Bring your iPods. Better yet, bring a friend or two. The election officials have no clue just how many millions are going to show up at the polls. This will be the largest turnout in our lifetime. They don’t have enough machines. They are going to have to send for more ballots.
And they are going to make it difficult for you to vote. The new law says if this is your first time voting you must bring ID with you that matches the address you are registered at.
If for some reason they can’t find your name on the voting rolls, you have the right to ask for a provisional ballot, which you can fill out and then sort things out later.
If you have any problems at the polling place, please call 1-866-OUR-VOTE. The people there can tell you how to find the precinct where you should be voting, get you legal help if you are denied the right to vote, or answer any other questions you may have.
If you need any help figuring out the ballot, don’t be afraid to ask. If you screw up your ballot, you can ask for another one. In fact, the law allows you to screw up your ballot two times before you finally have to submit your final ballot! Be careful to vote on the line that says John F. Kerry/John Edwards. Don’t vote for more than one Presidential, Senate or House candidate or you ballot won’t be counted. If your polling place has a stub or a receipt from your ballot, make sure they give you one.
Thanks for joining us. Democracy is not a spectator sport. It only works when we all come off the bench and participate.

To African Americans:

First of all, let’s just acknowledge what you already know: America is a country which still has a race problem, to put it nicely. Al Gore would be president today had thousands of African Americans not had their right to vote stolen from them in Florida in 2000.
Here is my commitment: I will do everything I can to make sure that this will not happen again. And I’m not the only one making this pledge. Thousands of volunteer lawyers are flying to Florida to act as poll watchers and intervene should there be any attempts to deny anyone their right to vote. They will NOT be messing around.
For my part, I have organized an army of 1,200 professional and amateur filmmakers who will be armed with video cameras throughout the states of Florida and Ohio. At the first sign of criminality, we will dispatch a camera crew to where the vote fraud is taking place and record what is going on. We will put a big public spotlight on any wrongdoing by Republican officials in those two states. They will not get away with this as they did in 2000.
In Ohio, the Republicans are sending almost 2,000 paid “poll challengers” into the black precincts of Cleveland in an attempt to stop African Americans from voting. This action is beyond despicable. Do not let this stop you from voting. I, and thousand of others, will be there to fight for you and protect you.

To George W.:

I know it’s gotta be rough for you right now. Hey, we’ve all been there. “You’re fired” are two horrible words when put together in that order. Bin Laden surfacing this weekend to remind the American people of your total and complete failure to capture him was a cruel trick or treat. But there he was. 3,000 people were killed and he’s laughing in your face. Why did you stop our Special Forces from going after him? Why did you forget about bin Laden on the DAY AFTER 9/11 and tell your terrorism czar to concentrate on Iraq instead?
There he was, OBL, all tan and rested and on videotape (hey, did you get the feeling that he had a bootleg of my movie? Are there DVD players in those caves in Afghanistan?)
Speaking of my movie – can I ask you a personal question before we part ways for good on Tuesday? Why did you and your friends fund SIX “documentaries” trashing me -- but only ONE film against Kerry? C’mon, he was the candidate, not me. What a waste of your time and resources! Sure, I know what your pollsters told you, that the film had convinced some people to vote you out. I just want you to know that that was not my original intent. Funny things happen at the movies. Hope you get to see a few at the multiplex in Waco. It’s a great way to relax.

To John Kerry:

Thank you.
And don’t worry – none of us are going away after you are inaugurated. We’ll be there to hold your hand and keep you honest. Don’t let us down. We’re betting you won’t. So is the rest of the world.

That’s it. See you at the polls – and at the victory party tomorrow night.

Yours,
Michael Moore
www.michaelmoore.com
MMFlint@aol.com