Ricky Don't Lose That Number

It is true. Nobody calls anymore. I remember eons ago, when I was a young woman, I'd hang my every hope on finding messages in the answering machine when I came home from work. For the most part, the contraption remained stubbornly silent. Or I got calls from horrid schmucks I didn't want to date in the first place. I found it offensive that some overly concerned yenta had given them my phone number without asking first. So rude! But I digress. Now that I am an old, I love coming home to find the answering machine mute and unblinking; the deader, the better. My house is an oasis of quiet bliss. Every time there is a message, I jump from the fright. Except recently. I'm suddenly getting really annoying robo-calls from Charlie Rangel and Gov. Cuomo and these obnoxious politicians who should know better. Apparently, being in the No Call List (it works!) does not exempt us from being pestered by campaign callers. This should be illegal. It drives me crazy. It makes me feel like voting for the other side. It also brings out the Travis Bickle in me. I get an uncontrollable urge to buy myself a green flak jacket, get a mohawk and a sexy mole in one cheek and spray a hail of bullets into whoever is making these calls. "You talkin' to me?" Not anymore!
By the way, don't they know that we all have caller id?
The article in the NYT about the phone going the way of the dodo claims that is rude of people to call you on the phone. It's not rude if they actually know you and if they don't do it at ungodly hours. What I find even more rude and annoying than phone calls is internet chatting. I hate skype. I hate IM. Yes they are very practical, and on ocassion fun, but I rarely jump without warning into someone's busy moments of trolling around on the computer. The phone at least alerts you. I find people who jump into my virtual space on chat is like them walking into my house unannounced and uninvited. What if I'm naked, or wearing pajamas at 5 in the afternoon?
Despite my Travis Bickle tendencies, I pride myself in being a polite person. So I resent the fact that when I choose to ignore a friend who is trying to chat me up in facebook, I look like I am the one being rude. Bottom line is, people should know if they are desired. Facebook is not an equalizer. There are people who I will always be happy to hear from and be interrupted by. You gotta figure out if you are one of them. And you should know.
Many a horrible fight has been had through skype, because people are even more inarticulate and vague in writing than they are when speaking, and one cannot always discern the tone of voice in a skyped argument.  People, if you are going to text or chat, or email, you gotta be precise. Who, when, what, where, how and why?
I get texts from people who do not identify themselves. How the hell am I supposed to know who they are? My phone doesn't always show their name for some reason.
This drives me crazy. 
All this is to say that people should use texting, chatting and email etiquette.

This is Why I Hate Fashion People:

Suzy Menkes in today's New York Times:

"Friends of Mr. Galliano, who would speak only on condition of anonymity, say that they have finally persuaded the troubled designer to go immediately into rehab — and that the pace of fashion today, and particularly the rigorous structure of a corporate fashion house, broke the fragile, artistic creator.

While the vile statements seen coming from Mr. Galliano’s drunken lips on the Internet video deserved the nearly-universal condemnation they were receiving, there is pathos in the vision of one of the world’s most famous — and best paid — designers alone, clutching a glass in a bar". 

Well, BOO HOO.
Fashion people are so enamored of their own obscene irrelevancy, living in their own vulgar bubble of banality, that they can actually utter revolting statements like the one above and they don't even know or understand why this is ghastly. 
If stress were a pre-condition and a justification for bigotry, firefighters, air tower controllers, public school teachers, correctional officers, EMT personnel, nurses, among other professionals, would all be screaming racist rants every day. 
Hell, everybody who works in an office in America would belong to the KKK.
Oh, but those who work in fashion are so special and so extraordinary, so "fragile" and "artistic" and this Galliano downfall is such a tragedy... 

Suzy Menkes, give me a fucking break!
I once heard André Leon Talley say "Fashion is hope". Yeah. Tell that to someone who makes a dollar a year in some cholera infested hellhole in the world. 
Recently, Vogue (a magazine I find deeply offensive) ran a spread about the glamorous wife of the Assad tyrant in Syria. 
I wouldn't be surprised if some designer creates his new collection inspired on Muammar Gaddafi's muumuus. Fashion people are absurd, their world view is absurd and they need to wake up and smell their own bullshit. 

Cranky News Digest

Blood pressure rising as a result of reading the news:

Body scan or aggressive and insensitive pat down? Well, it's been almost ten years since 911 and we're still idiots when it comes to airport security. Given a choice, I much prefer the Israeli trained agent that looks at you in the eye and asks smart questions. I understand the volume of fliers in this country makes this wish of mine utopian, but the TSA needs to admit they are a disaster. Traveling to and from Israel this summer, no one lay a hand or a scanner on me. I didn't have to take my shoes off. I just had to answer a bunch of questions in a process that was actually faster and less annoying than any gauntlet I've ever went through stateside. Many of the questions were personal. I wonder if Americans, with their concern for privacy, and their sensitivity for political correctness, are willing to subject themselves to this kind of human intrusion. Done correctly, absolutely everyone gets profiled, not just the usual brown and turbaned suspects. I can tell you, it is much more polite, much less humiliating and SAFER than the moronic inferno (to borrow from Martin Amis) we've had for years.

Mr. Hoffman said the administration should move away from adding more layers of security for every passenger in response to every new plot and consider an Israeli-style approach to identify passengers who pose a particular risk, based on advance intelligence, questioning travelers and watching their behavior.
“We’ve had nine years of just grafting security measures one on another,” Mr. Hoffman said. “Maybe it’s time to step back, take a hard look and look for a new approach.”

What the fuck has taken them so long? 

Drivers are incensed about the proliferation of bike lanes in Manhattan. 
Guess what? I'm incensed about drivers. They pollute, make noise and clog the city with traffic. This city needs to have more space for bikes and less for cars. And people who drive should grin and bear it. I've been saying this for years. Americans need to wean themselves off their love for the automobile. Manhattan should be a mostly car-free zone (except for small taxis, public transport and delivery trucks). What happens in Brooklyn I don't care, because with all due respect to my adorable friends from that borough, I don't give a shit. But Manhattan should be like Amsterdam or Berlin, where drivers don't kvetch about bikes invading their space. The nerve.

Some Noo Yawkers go to specialists to get rid of their accents. Noooo! Why? This is such a pity. I love accents. For instance, I learned today that the twang of our beloved Mayor Bloomberg is actually Bostonian. I always thought he spoke kinda funny. We don't all want to sound bland and indistinguishable from podunk, do we?  In my building there are still several people who have New York accents so rich, I feel like I'm in a movie. I don't drink coffee, but if I did, I'd drink cawfee.

A Perfect Shitstorm

For weeks I've been waiting for a stroke of inspiration to release one of my deadly rants. Of course, in this country there is a fresh bounty of provocations every day. But some of them are not worth getting our panties up in a bunch about. For instance, I will not waste my time kvetching bitterly about the satanic stupidity of the Tea Partiers. That's way too easy. This one, however, is too good to pass:
Juan Williams gets fired from NPR because he said on Fox News that he is afraid of Muslims on planes. Meanwhile, Bill O'Reilly doesn't get fired from Fox News when he says Muslims perpetrated 9/11. And you know what? They are both right in the most idiotic, simplistic way possible. Which is why nobody should listen to either one of them morons.
O'Reilly is right. The people who attacked us that day were all Muslims. They were extremist Muslims, which are a minority in Islam, but they were nothing other than Muslim. Moreover, they attacked us precisely because we offend their particularly destructive way of interpreting Islam. What is idiotic and irresponsible is to blame absolutely every single Muslim person for 9/11. O'Reilly knows it, and he does it anyway because it means ratings and attention. And probably because he relishes the chaos he unleashes on the well-meaning, like Whoopi and Joy, who should have hollered at him until he walked off the set. Talk the asshole down, instead of playing all high and mighty, huffing and puffing with offense.
As for Juan Williams, I defy any fucking liberal (and I consider myself one, although a tad less tainted by political correctness) to tell me that they don't harbor any kind of stereotypical prejudice in their minds whatsoever, about anyone. And particularly when they are on a plane, or on the subway or anywhere that could bring their noble lives to a spectacular halt.
To O'Reilly's question of whether there is a Muslim dilemma in this country, a better answer would have been: there is only the irresponsible fear-mongering that you people are bent on creating. Otherwise, there is no Muslim dilemma whatsoever. Williams' answer was stupid, but I bet that a lot of people, who are not card carrying racists, relate to it. Let's stop pretending that we navigate this world without making these kinds of assumptions every waking second of our lives, because it is simply not true.
I am a paranoid traveler. I am always checking out everybody on the line to see if someone looks like walking mayhem to me, since I don't trust the morons from the TSA to recognize a live grenade if it explodes in their ass. It could be Oxycontin-Guzzling-Trailer-Trash-Walking-Mayhem, or it could be School-of-Mohammed-Atta-Walking-Mayhem, or a number of other potentially obnoxious fellow travelers (on planes, pretty much anyone under two feet tall gets a red alert from me).
This doesn't mean that I believe that every Muslim is a potential Mohammed Atta (although this is what Fox News and their ilk most fervently wish), or that every white person likes Jell-O with mayo and can't dance. But it infuriates me that NPR fired this idiot for speaking his mind. Since when is being a bleeding heart liberal synonymous with censorship? If you don't want Williams representing your news organization in unsavory places, don't send him to Fox News.
Now, let's remember another professional idiot, Rick Sanchez, who was fired from CNN because he said in so many words that "The Jews" own the media. A half truth, just like O'Reilly's. Some Jews own some media. Not all of them, all of it.
As a Jew, do I think that he should have been fired over the remarks? No. Had he said so on the air while on CNN, maybe. But he was on a satellite radio show with 3 listeners.
Fact is, people think prejudiced thoughts in the comfort of their own minds, but few are as stupid as to utter them in public, especially in this country, where we know better (if people were fired for thinking these kinds of thoughts, more than half the planet would be unemployed). Sanchez could have been made to apologize for spewing resentful, benighted and sclerotic antisemitism in public while representing CNN. Period. At least now we know where he stands.

Liberals have to learn to to relax the thought police and give as good as they get. Otherwise, stop the whining.

El mundo es una cloaca infecta

Translation: The world is an infected sewer. Just read the paper.

This is how I feel about it, hearing about the likes of Carl Paladino and his courting of a repulsive fringe of the fringe attention-seeking giant asshole rabbi. Memo to the both of them: enough with the gay hate. I've fucking had it with all this crap. Why are people so bent out of shape about gays? Most of the time, the most vocal anti-gay people are those who are deathly afraid of being gay themselves. Otherwise, what's it to you? So for fuck's sake, deal with it. Gay people exist, they will continue existing and they are no worse or no better than anyone else. Hence, they deserve exactly the same rights as everyone else. If you can't handle that, go to Iran. Or to Saudi Arabia. There you'll feel right at home.
That asshole Paladino has a gay nephew that all of a sudden didn't show up for work (in his uncle's very own campaign) after his uncle said horrible things about gays. This is the human turd New Yorkers want for a governor? Besides, who the fuck cares about what these ultraorthodox retrogrades think? They don't live in the modern world, They should not count for shit.

I certainly hope that both Rabbi Levin and Paladino choke on their kosher sausages.
Not that I am thrilled by that horrible Cuomo guy, but these are the freaking choices we get in this human sewer we live in. I miss Elliot Spitzer. Who is now pimping himself to CNN. Disgraceful.

I'm very happy about the Chilean miners, but I can't stand how everything becomes a vulgar, mawkish, horrendous circus. How about some dignity? Do people still know the meaning of the word? CNN makes me puke and cringe at the same time. I'm glad I didn't even watch the damn thing. Reading is better. Watching Jon Stewart skewer the whole unseemly carnival of cheese, even better.

And what is the Iranian vantz doing in Lebanon? A missile on his head could help dispel this foul mood of mine.

Then we have his counterpart Avigdor Lieberman, possibly the worst candidate to hold a Foreign Relations post in the history of mankind. A foul, abrasive right-wing asshole.
And don't be surprised if he ends up being prime minister. Israelis, if they continue voting with fear and extremism, are going to end up in even more isolation from the world. The hatred in that region is insurmountable.

No wonder I am in a bad mood.

Read Your Bible

                                                 Read, you putzes!

Thanks to my friend Cathy (and Facebook, lately almost my only source of news) I was alerted to this (from NPR):

The Pew Forum on Religious Religion and Public Life released a survey on religious knowledge today. Atheists and Agnostics scored higher on it than anyone else, closely followed by Jews and Mormons, all Christians, Protestants and Catholics, were far behind.

That's overall, but when you get into specific religions it does show a startling lack of basic knowledge by practitioners. From the report:

More than four-in-ten Catholics in the United States (45%) do not know that their church teaches that the bread and wine used in Communion do not merely symbolize but actually become the body and blood of Christ. About half of Protestants (53%) cannot correctly identify Martin Luther as the person whose writings and actions inspired the Protestant Reformation, which made their religion a separate branch of Christianity. Roughly four-in-ten Jews (43%) do not recognize that Maimonides, one of the most venerated rabbis in history, was Jewish.

The study also showed that Americans have a fairly poor understanding of religions other than their own. Only about half of the people surveyed know that Martin Luther inspired the Reformation, the Dalai Lama is Buddhist, and Joseph Smith was a Mormon.

Atheists and Agnostics scored higher on it than anyone else, closely followed by Jews and Mormons.  Well, excuse me, but I really resent this classification. I am an Atheist Jew, so that must mean I am Bible Expert Number One.
Number two, I think this is more a reflection of how stoopid and ignorant Americans are, rather than agnostics and atheists being geniuses at religion.
I took the quiz. It is so basic, it's appalling. I'm proud to report that I missed just one of the 15 answers and I think it was a trick question.
This useful bit of info is certainly welcome these days, but it is hardly surprising. Agnostics and atheists may not only know more about religion, we actually comport ourselves according to most of the better values of said beliefs, rather than pay hypocritical lip service, in the best of cases, or in the worst, use our special relationship with God to be thoroughly disgusting and abusive human beings (The Pope, The Taliban, all fundamentalists, the ultra-orthodox in Israel, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, televangelists, etc).

Why are Atheists and Agnostics better informed? The Los Angeles Times quotes one of the researchers who has a theory:

American atheists and agnostics tend to be people who grew up in a religious tradition and consciously gave it up, often after a great deal of reflection and study, said Alan Cooperman, associate director for research at the Pew Forum.

"These are people who thought a lot about religion," he said. "They're not indifferent. They care about it."

Also interesting is that Black Protestants and Latino Catholics scored at the bottom of the survey.

I have another theory: people don't read. The less people read, the more on the bottom of the survey they will be. Agnostics and atheists read. I bet that the numbers would support me if anyone took the trouble to statistically confirm this.
Agnostics and atheists are by nature doubters, and doubters tend to be better informed about the choices out there. They don't believe everything they read. But that's because they read.
If you want to know about religion, you have to read the goddamned books. Or at least leaf through them once in a while. Or read other books about them. Otherwise, it's all hearsay, mostly devalued and distorted.
I know about Judaism because it was taught to me at home and at school, more culturally than religiously. I know about Christianity, Catholicism and Protestantism thanks to Henry VIII. I studied English literature and I'll be damned if we weren't taught every Catholic sacrament and every article of faith and that Luther nailed some paper to a Church door, in order that we could better grasp stuff like The Faerie Queene. (I fondly remember the Anabaptists, who greatly impressed me in my college days by running around naked preaching the end of the world).
The little I know about Eastern religions comes from reading The Tao of Physics, watching Kung-Fu and going to yoga and tai chi classes.
About Islam I know even less, but thanks to recent history, I know the minimum.
I'm sick and tired of lazy people who don't read. Ignorant, benighted, idiot people of all races, religions, nationalities, genders and stations in life. I particularly detest those who throw the Bible and religion around as if they had some sort of divine dispensation to feel morally superior, only because they beat their chest regularly in public. Read a freaking book so at least you know what the fuck you are talking about (I'm talking to you, Palin, and the rest of you bunch of smug intellect haters).

Stupid is Winning

During the Bush years one marvelled at the cornucopia of stupidity we had to deal with for eight years, but now it seems to have gotten much worse. Now that the stupids don't have their man in the White House, they are really going above and beyond what is considered reasonable in terms of idiocy. It's getting out of hand.
The Mosque thing. All over America. Listen, I'm not a cheerleader for Islam, but this latest regression to idiotic prejudice is appalling. And it seems to be dangerously contagious. Even the ADL, which is supposed to work tirelessly against all defamation, joined the stupid bandwagon. A real shanda, that one.
It amazes me that the same people who are always spewing patriotic bromides and huffing and puffing about America's freedoms are the first ones willing to tear the Constitution to shreds. They wouldn't know a real human right if it bit them in the ass (unless it was the right to bear arms, which is no right at all). Whatever happened to freedom of religion? Wasn't that how this country was founded in the first place?
Then comes the even more appalling attempt to do away with the 14th amendment.
Everybody covets the American citizenship, rich and poor alike. Rich people from Latin America come to give birth here at tony hospitals in San Diego or Miami so that their progeny can have an American passport. No one cares about that. But if you happen to be poor and brown and working your ass off mowing someone else's golf course, then you can't. Do we really want to be like Germany, which doesn't grant citizenship to children of non-Germans born on its soil? Every time I hear about that one, it seems to me that they didn't quite learn the lessons of their painful past. Sounds pretty awful. Just don't be surprised then when these children grow up to hate your ungrateful, hypocritical, self-serving ass.
A word on Michelle Obama's vacation. All you whiners, get a life. The country could be experiencing a gold rush, and I bet someone would kvetch about how dare she. Yes it's a bad economy, yes, we're all crying all the way from the bank, but so what? The woman has a right to take a vacation, a concept that most Americans do not fully understand, wherever she damn well pleases. If I was her, I'd get out of Dodge too. That she chooses to go to Spain, instead of a ranch in Podunk, and she does it in style, is what is really rubbing you the wrong way. I perceive a frisson of uppityness in the whole outcry. Michelle Obama is stylish, sophisticated and not afraid of abroad, like you ignorant hicks. She is also rich. Deal with it.
President Obama comes out strongly defending the right of the downtown Mosque to exist and then he backtracks. Stupid. Dude, it's time to stop pandering to the haters. You are not going to win any converts. They all think you are a Muslim anyway.

On the other hand, let's count our blessings: thank God for Judge Walker (and for Ted Olson and David Boies). That was very, very smart.

Memo to Manhattan District Attorney:

You better prosecute this bitch.
Otherwise, I will call for a massive rampage of shoplifting at Sephora, since they are so very forgiving. 

I posed this splendid idea to my fellow blogger Laura Martinez, but as she wisely pointed out, if she or I attempt to shoplift $100 worth of beauty goodies, we're as good as deported and wearing pink boxers chez Sheriff Arpaio. (Actually, not me cause ich bin ein American). But maybe Laura and any other girls without the right papers, complexions, connections or last names.
So (and I say this with pain in my heart, for I heart Sephora), let's boycott Sephora, or vote against that particular district attorney when the time comes. Or express our enormous displeasure at the fact that the very spawn of a self-righteous law enforcer, is getting a pass. And that goes for La Lohan, too. Wasn't she supposed to spend 90 days in the slammer?
WTF?
No Justice. No Peace.

I'm Not Making This Up

From the catalogue of a spiritual retreat in upstate NY which shall remain nameless:
• Wild Roots, Woodslore and Wildwoods Wisdom -- WHERE'S THE BAR?
• TangoZen™: Tango with the Buddha -- ISN'T THE BUDDHA TOO FAT TO TANGO? 
• Dance of Liberation®
• Boot Camp for Goddesses® -- EUPHEMISM FOR FAT FARM?
• Overcoming Underearning® -- BY OVERPAYING THE UNDERMINER.
• Naam Yoga™ and Universal Kabbalah -- DO WE GET TO COMMUNE WITH ESTHER?
• Detox Flow® Yoga
• Yoga Tune Up®
• Purna Yoga™ 
• Satyananda Yoga®
• Embodyoga™
• Anusara Yoga®
• Jivamukti Yoga® -- IN WHICH WE MEDITATE THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ® AND ™
• Breema™ -- WHAT FRESH HELL IS THIS?
• Tai Chi Easy™
• ChiWalking®
• ChiRunning®
• VortexHealing®  -- VOID WHERE PROHIBITED
• The Power of Personal Vibrations -- BUMMER. I THOUGHT IT SAID PERSONAL VIBRATORS
• Mindfulness Tools for Living the Full Catastrophe -- I BET THIS ONE IS FOR JEWS.
• Awakening your Authentic Soul Signature -- IS IT LIKE MY VISA SIGNATURE?
• The Art of Extreme Self-Care -- NARCISSISTS WELCOME
• Spring Ecstatic Chant -- ME AFTER SOUP DUMPLINGS AT JOE'S SHANGHAI
• A Gentle Introduction to Skydancing Tantra -- WHATEVER FLOATS YOUR ROOT BEER
• Tree Whispering™ -- WILL I BE SUED IF I DO IT ON MY OWN?
• Social Media Training -- HUH?
• FireWalking: Feel your Fear, Find your Power -- EASY FOR YOU TO SAY
• John of God -- TOO BAD CRUCIFIXION WENT OUT OF STYLE
• How to Write and Publish Spiritual Books -- AND MAKE MILLIONS DOING IT?
• Our Lady of Weight Loss EnLIGHTens -- AMEN, SISTERS
• Creating Photo Prayers -- GIVE ME A FREAKING BREAK
• Off the Mat, into the World® -- AND STILL AN ASSHOLE AT THE END OF THE CLASS
• Self-Healing through Latin Dance -- NO MAMEN 

AND MY OVERWHELMING FAVORITE: Corporate Yogis Unite!

Silvio 1 - Audience 0

Silvio Rodriguez at Carnegie Hall. He still has that beautiful voice at 64. His songs are gorgeous even if half the time I have no idea what they mean. The band, 3 acoustic guitars, drums and a flute, fantastic. He is a wonderful songwriter who has written a catalog of many beautiful, melodic songs. I know these songs too well, yet hearing him live was deeply moving. He is a great artist. Period.
The audience, however, was something else. I can understand their love, devotion, adoration and worship.  But I don't remember being in a concert hall so full of noisy, obnoxious, restless, disrespectful people. Adults who behave like toddlers. People screaming requests at the top of their lungs as if we were in a giant piano bar. Understandably, they want to hear their favorite songs; so do I. But has it not crossed their minds that the artist has constructed a set list of the songs he wants to play in the order he wants to play them and that there is meaning and beauty in this order? He is not the clown you hired for your birthday party. So when Silvio responds the first time if we can let him sing a couple of songs it should be evident that he is asking people to respect the evening he has in mind. Well, the crazy screaming never stopped, in fact, it increased, even as it was clear that he wasn't going to budge. It would piss me off.
I like Silvio as an artist. The whole revolutionary thing is not what sways me. My admiration for him is devoid of the fervor of some of his ardent admirers that conflate the artist with the regime they adore and the Che Guevara T-Shirt, and who would not stop yammering and screaming at him all night long. I have absolutely no patience for these people. So sue me.
At one point he left the stage for a brief intermission but the band remained and played their asses off. However, you could barely hear them because the audience reacted as if they weren't there. They took the time to talk amongst themselves at full volume, call their grandma, go to the bathroom. They gave the musicians wild and loving ovations, but the disrespect to Silvio and his band was appalling. Of course, I'm sure they are not even aware of it, they think their chaotic love is perfect and enough. That respect for the artists and the audience around them is superfluous. But really, Latinos, man qué falta de educación. And this is not a proletariat thing. The tickets were expensive. I paid $80 to sit in Mars.
I know I am a crank. The woman next to me sang all the songs in my ear the entire concert (not a great singer, but at least not out of tune, and to her credit she knew all the lyrics). She was so emotional that I could not bring myself to tell her that I hadn't bought tickets to listen to her. In the end, it was a singalong anyway and since everyone sang, so did I. A committed, loving audience is a wonderful thing and the energy in the air was amazing, (I'm not that cranky) but I wish people were a little more attuned to the artist on the stage, the delicacy of his songs and to the people around them.

Alert the media!

I can't find anything to kvetch or rant about! What is happening to me? Heeeeelp!

I could comment on Rush Limbaugh's broken promise to get the hell out of here and go pester the poor Costa Ricans, but not even that is getting my goat nowadays. These pompous hypocritical, drug addled, fat assed balloons of fetid, putrefying right wing air are so stupid it's almost pointless to make fun of them.
What happened to our healthcare bill? I don't understand the dynamics so I've stopped caring. Where are we on this? Anybody?
By the way, listen to this. I made an appointment to the eye doctor because I think I need new glasses. Can't see, can't hear, quickly becoming an old fartette. Hence, appointment.
They tell me that if I want a new prescription I have to pay $40 extra, because my insurance (which charges a $50 copay) doesn't cover a prescription. What fresh hell, to quote Dorothy Parker, is this? It's like going to the ice cream parlor and they can sell you the cone or the cup or the sprinkles, but not the ice cream.
This country has become an insane asylum. Nothing makes any sense any more. Which is why I am going to Chinatown, to my beloved Mott St. Optical, to get my prescription. This is where I got my bifocals (see old fartette, above), and the saleswoman told me: "You are going to love them. You are going to see everything!".

Perhaps you can enlighten me: why do rich people have reality shows on TV? A world in which the rich behave with even more abject vulgarity than the poor thoroughly depresses me. There are no standards anymore.
Same goes for fucking Lady Gaga. I saw her video with Beyonce (she does not depress me, somehow). Call me an old fartette, but no I didn't like the video. I like the song, but the video's trashy aesthetic is all over the place. What really disgusts me is that it's product placement central, what people in my farkakte business call, with no hint of irony or shame, branded entertainment. That even a music video today has to have product placement makes me gag. So did Virgin Mobile pay for this extended musical masturbation? Or what? Look, motherfuckers, I ain't drinking this Kool-Aid, okay? (unless you pay me handsomely to do it. I'm in advertising after all).
I saw Logorama, the animated short that won the Oscar. This is our world now, and it is not a good thing.
Hey. Looks like I got my kvetching-ranting mojo back.
:)

From the Enchilada Files: The End of Metaphysics

The Paletón Corona (a chocolate covered marshmallow lollipop) used to be an inquisitive child's first introduction to the wonderful world of philosophy and metaphysics.
Here is why:

Used to be, until recently, that the label of the Paletón showed a kid holding in his hand a Paletón, which inside had a kid who held in his hand a Paletón, which in its label had a kid holding in his hand a Paletón, ad infinitum. But more amazingly, this lead your young little kepaleh to think that you yourself were holding in your hand your Paletón, which could very possibly mean that you were just another kid inside the Paletón of a kid bigger than you, who was held in their hand by an even bigger kid and so on and so forth, ad infinitum. This begat enormous questions about our place in the universe and the very nature of our identity. Now all we have is this:

You can see the tragedy. Gone is the kid inside the kid inside the kid. Gone are speculation, awe and wonder. I want to personally murder the marketing genius who thought that taking the label off the inside paletón would create "appetite appeal". But such is the power of destruction, the stupid tunnel vision, of marketing.

From the Enchilada Files: Burrito Rage

You've heard of road rage and airplane rage. Well, there is another kind of rage in town.
Saturday, around 9:30 pm. Matamoros Grocery, Bedford Ave, Williamsburg.

A young, waifish woman with what my mother would call a fart-smeller's face is ordering food at the back counter where two Mexican girls make tacos, sopes, quesadillas, burritos etc. The woman is munching authoritatively on an apple, as if making a point about her healthy food choices. I am starving. Behind me, another couple wants food. The woman needs everything explained to her, as if she's just landed from her own royal planet and does not know how to read a menu. She has endless questions about everything. She finally decides and commands in a nasal drone:
I don't want rice. No rice. I want chicken, avocado, lettuce. What other vegetables do you have? Do you have any other vegetables?
Server: Silence.
The server is not dumb. Her English is limited but enough for doing her job. What she doesn't understand is what part of the menu that lists the ingredients this idiot doesn't get.
The idiot steals a look at the ingredients behind the counter, and still unsatistified, as if Matamoros is hiding a secret cache of mystery vegetables expressly for her, attempts to ask the same question in Spanish, assuming the server did not understand her the first time. Two mangled syllables come out: Tous ba...
The ever patient server starts reciting what there is behind the counter:
Lettuce, avocado, tomatoes, onions, cilantro, jalapeños.
Jalapeños!? I don't want jalapeños.
They are in the pico de gallo.
Is it very spicy?
No, not too spicy.
Okay. You don't have any other vegetables?
This fucking ritual takes the better part of ten minutes. Finally, this mutant allows the rest of us to order our food. I order in Spanish: Three chicken sopes with green sauce to go. The couple orders two chicken quesadillas and two tamales. No special treatment, no substitutions.
As the other server is preparing the food, the mutant (I'm trying to avoid at all costs using the c word, which would describe her to a t) raises her nasal voice in alarm:
Is that for me!? I said no rice!
The cook shoots her as murderous a look as a Mexican underpaid laborer can under the circumstances.
Server: Quítale el arroz (take the rice out).
C:
Yes, I want lots of avocado, and the lettuce, everything inside. Can I have green sauce also? With the pico de gallo? Why is the lettuce not inside? I said everything inside.
The cook starts putting the lettuce inside.
C:
Oh, it's ok, you can leave it out. Forget it, she says with a dismissive sigh, this is all too confusing.
At this point I am trying to restrain myself from bashing her teeth with what remains of her apple. I feel like saying: you know, you entitled little snotnosed bitch, this is not your kitchen where you can nitpick your own food for hours until you are satisfied with the contents. These people are not here to customize your food, goddamit. But I bite my tongue, because if I open my mouth, it will be ugly.
Finally, after all the grief she gives the two women, who have been nothing but patient and kind, she takes her food and doesn't even leave a tip.
I wish she chokes on a particularly fiery piece of jalapeño.

Let me Vent

How does this country infuriate me? Let me count the ways:

1. The fucking bankers (sorry, Joe!) don't like that Obama wants to regulate them so that they won't be able to destroy the American people again, so now they are withholding their contributions to Democratic coffers, and giving money to Republicans. Even those who have been traditionally Democrat and are friends with Obama are behaving like spoiled brats in a sandbox. Have these people no sense of civic responsibility? Have they no integrity? Have they no principles? Is their greed so monstrous that it overrides common sense and decency?
Enough with the rhetorical questions.
Yet who can blame them when our own Supreme Court decides that corporations are as moody and petty as humans and have the right to give unlimited money to candidates that will henceforth and forever suck their dick, thereby destroying democracy as we know it?
2. I was reading the always excellent Jane Mayer about Justice Department chief Eric Holder in The New Yorker and how the Republicans and right wingers are opposing his wanting to try Sheik Khalid Muhammad in a civil court, and everybody is doing their utmost to thwart him, which is way beyond the pale.
Nobody said anything as Satan and Bush ran roughshod over the laws of this country and now they are all but accusing Holder of treason. The article makes the argument that trials in military court are problematic because of little details like torture and illegal proceedings that were legally challenged in some cases all the way up to the Supreme Court. Not only that, but some of those accused terrorists are out scot free, whereas the ones tried according to the laws of this country were given stiffer sentences and are festering in jail. But the opposition wants to destroy this guy for upholding the laws and principles that guarantee that we are not yet a benighted country like Iran.  Feels like we are getting there fast.
3. I have a nagging feeling that the Obama administration, with all its blunders, which are many, is not allowed to govern the way that former incompetent and malevolent administrations were allowed to govern. And call me crazy, but I think it has to do with white shit. To me, the subtext is: yeah you won the election but don't think for a minute we're not going to make your life a living hell if you actually try to rule. With the pretext of partisanship or patriotism or whatever, we are going to undermine you and show you that we actually cannot stop mistrusting and second-guessing you and deep inside we resent that you are ruling us and we're gonna show you who's boss. Call me crazy.
4. Problem is, the administration does not help matters by playing dirty, petty politics and behaving as if they were still campaigning instead of governing. All those supposedly brilliant people like Rahm Emmanuel and David Axelrod and the bunch, they need to start fucking governing this country, not letting the unspeakable leeches of Congress hold this country hostage to their pathetic posturing that doesn't fool anyone. Whores, one and all.
5. That Sarah Palin is classy enough to write a cheat sheet in the palm of her hand is proof of the debasement of standards and the general moronization of this country. I'm sure that her fans think this is endearing, the same old aw shucks shtick that they swallow because they are just as ignorant and vulgar as her.
This reminds me of the time I spent in Killeen, Texas, staying in a hotel near Fort Hood, where I was shooting a commercial for the Army. This hotel did not have a kitchen but it had a dining room (?) and a waitress would take your order and then phone it in for delivery. The first morning we come down for breakfast, we start giving her the order and she has no pen or paper to write it down. She borrows a pen from one of us and proceeds to write the orders on her naked palm. We were flabbergasted. This is the same woman that when I told her I was from Mexico, she told me she had been once in Albuquerque. This kind of hillbilly, illiterate behavior is barely excusable in a regular person who happens to live in the richest, most powerful country on Earth, let alone a crazy ho some people think should run for president.
But if Palin ends up winning, and to judge by the Tea Party nutjobs, and the proverbial incompetence and stupidity of the Democratic party this is entirely possible, this country will completely deserve her. And I hope we get 8 years of her, see if we learn the lesson that ignorance and stupidity are not badges of honor.

What's wrong with people?

Today, I'm walking down Broadway when two fat black teenage girls bursting out of their jeans like lard exploding from a casing, (and not on the young side of teen either) throw an empty bottle of juice on the sidewalk, right by a Halal food vendor. Totally willfully. Just like that. So I say to them, "excuse me guys, you dropped something".
To which one replies, "we know".
I say, "it's garbage, pick it up".
She says, "you pick it up".
I say "pigs", and continue on my way. Halal vendor picks it up (I think).
I don't have the energy (nor the balls perhaps) to start a pissing match with two hippos with attitude. For the next five minutes I feel like running after them and getting into an all out fight, which would probably leave me the consistency of pureed squash.
So here is my fantasy: I take out a gun, point it at the temple of one of them and make them kneel and pick up not only the bottle but any trash that is lying on that block of Broadway. I put the gun all the way inside the mouth of the one with the lip. Cock the gun. Then I make them apologize and promise not to litter ever again.

Dirty Judy. City Avenger.
C'mon, punks. Make my day.
Right.

It's Rain on Your Parade Day

I know it's Friday and we all want to have fun, but today is a perfect day for outrage, brought to you by Goldman Sachs, and Geithner and Co. We are, as Paul Krugman says, being played for suckers by these people. Even evil capitalists are appalled! Bring the guillotine back, I say.

Boycott the Banks As Best You Can

It ain't easy, but someone's got to do it. The banking and credit industry is going to fight tooth and nail Obama's proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency. They are already resorting to ugly tactics with innocent people like me. I get my latest credit card account from TD Bank Visa and I am charged $39 for a late fee (I was late for one day) and $7.80 of unspecified finance charges apparently related to me making a purchase with the stupid card. This beside their 3% charges on foreign purchases. So basically I'm paying these legalized criminals around $65 just because it suits them. I called them and threatened to cancel the card. Supposedly,they waived the late fee and the finance charge to keep me as a customer. I'll believe that when I see it in the next statement.
But this is what I'm going to do. I may cancel the card altogether once I have a zero balance or I will never use it again. Let them spend money sending me shit and let me keep a zero balance on it forever.
These people decided to upgrade everybody into a"Platinum" card that supposedly gives you rewards, although it is not clear what those are or from whom. In the meantime, if you bother to read the fine print, a sort of Brothers Karamazov in very, very small type and very, very intrincate legalese, you realize that they charge usurious charges for absolutely everything, from late fees, to interest rates, to charges they pull liberally out of their wazoo.
I have never paid interest on my Visa card. I only have it in case my Amex is not accepted somewhere.
Well, now I'm going to use it even less. Learned my lesson. From now on, when traveling abroad, I will use my ATM card to change money and try to use the AMEX for everything and pay cash for everything else. Fuck 'em.

This is war.

Street Obstacles

To all those nice people from Children's International, Greenpeace, ACLU, free salon haircuts. etc:
Stop blocking the sidewalk.
You are very annoying.
You should be banned.

PMSy Aphorisms of the Day

• Goodness is overrated.
• There is no such thing as innocent people.
• The world is a putrid, pustulent cesspool.
• Idealism is a waste of time.

Have a nice day! :)

Land O Crooks

As you know, my dear readers, I come from a country that wrote the book on corruption. Every country on Earth is corrupt, but Mexicans are one of the most ingenious people when it comes to making sure corruption works as well as possible. We can be proud of that.
However, as I near almost 20 years living in the United States, I have had an epiphany recently. This country had always represented to me a place where corruption did not thrive easily. There is rule of law. There are safeguards. There is a strong civic culture, a reputation for decency and fairness, supposedly. But the more time I spend here, and the worse the economy gets, I realize that this is a land of crooks and hypocrites and snake oil salesmen and robber barons with a "your money or your life" mentality. It's a place where PT Barnum's dictum about suckers being born every minute seems to apply to the entire citizenship.
This here is the biggest, most entrenched and institutionalized instance of greasing the palm in the known universe. I say this as an American citizen, because it dawns on me that the entire system of government really functions by corruption. Our vote doesn't really count. As long as companies and lobbyists give money to our elected officials, nothing fundamental is ever going to change. There will be no satisfactory comprehensive universal health care, no matter what Obama says (who probably got oodles from big pharma and insurers). There may not be real transportation reform, there will be no real regulation of the banking system, etc, etc.
I'm sure you are all aware that government here does not work for us, the taxpayers. It works for the corporations. That's why we're all screwed.
For the life of me I don't understand why this entire country is not up in arms and storming the barricades over our lack of a health care system.
Maybe when the shit hits the fan and the fat cows start getting way too lean (or in our pathetically particular case, even fatter because healthy food is too expensive), people are going to get their asses off their couches, turn the idiot box off and scream bloody murder.
Just don't hold your breath.