all the lathering

pundits who are still giddy from beating the drum claiming that newsweek=hitler, are running around with hardened nipples with tails wagging like eager dogs who have just been asked wannagooutside wannaGOOUTSIDE!!!

but sadly they still havent even begun to explain why the newsweek story of last week is any different than those printed in the new york times, the bbc, the washington post’s,

or this one from the Philadelphia Inquirer

Lawyers allege abuse of 12 at Guantanamo
by Frank Davies
Jan. 20, 2005

Inquirer Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON – Twelve Kuwaitis held for about three years at the detention center at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have been physically and psychologically abused, their attorneys said yesterday after their first visit with the detainees.

The men were “all very thin, almost emaciated,” and most were being held in isolation, with 45 minutes of exercise a week, only the Koran to read, and no medical treatment, said Tom Wilner, who visited his clients last week.

Some detainees complained of religious humiliation, saying guards had defaced their copies of the Koran and, in one case, had thrown it in a toilet, said Kristine Huskey, who interviewed clients late last month. Others said that pills were hidden in their food and that people came to their cells claiming to be their attorneys, to gain information.

“All have been physically abused, and, however you define the term, the treatment of these men crossed the line,” Wilner said. “There was torture, make no mistake about it.”

nor do they have an answer for the General (the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) who said last week that the the senior commander of Afghanistan last week said that the rioting there had nothing to do with newsweek.

maybe they secretly think that if they keep on beating the drum we’ll get to the real issue: we have no business in iraq and we have less business torturing people in cuba.

since we all know the way to the red states is to run around saying Liberal Media Hurt Hulk

hey wait, what’s this, another report from the past of koran flushing?

The Independent (UK) 8/5/04

A 115-page dossier, Detention in Afghanistan and Guantanamo, produced by the lawyers of three of the recently released British men, said inmates had been shackled, punched, kicked, hooded, and deprived of sleep. Amnesty International condemned the treatment, which drew comparisons with Iraq’s notorious Abu Ghraib prison where inmates were ritually humiliated. British Government agencies were accused of complicity.

In the report, released in New York, Asif Iqbal, Rhuhel Ahmed and Shafiq Rasul – the so-called Tipton Three – said one inmate was threatened after being shown a video in which hooded inmates were forced to sodomise each other. Guards allegedly threw prisoners’ Korans into toilets, while others were injected with drugs, it was claimed.

who i want to find are those who will talk when threatened with a soon-to-be-flushed koran, it reminds me of the PETA girls who get naked on the Howard Stern show when he threatens to kill a cockroach.

as if there wasnt enough hysteria, msnbc blogger keith olberman calls the white house’s actions regarding the newsweek story “treasonous“. are there sweeps weeks on the blogosphere? (maybe that explains the bikini girls on the busblog)

meanwhile Drudge of all people reprints the back n forth today at the white house press briefing where Scott McClellan was asked by a reporter if he thought it was appropriate for the White House to tell a US magazine what to print. without his boy jeff gannon as backup, mcclellan loses.

sk smith + leah + blogebrity + heroine girl

as an older brother it was my job

to detract my alleged bad acts on my little sister.

the relationship wasnt very far removed from the simpsons, which yes, america, was good on sunday

flanders renting a room in his house to two cam girls. classic.

anyway, perhaps newsweek was an only child because if i had been accused for reporting that us interrogators and miltary are desecrating the koran in a way to intimidate prisoners at Guantanamo, id be saying, but she did it first.

and i’d point with my finger. several times.

if i was lucky enough to have access to the internet i would post pictures of miss universe contestants next to my examples.

Washington Post, 3/26/03

Some of the men released today were close-shaven, but most kept their beards. The men who wore their beards in the long fashion of the Taliban complained most about poor treatment at the hands of Americans and insults against Islam.

Ehsannullah, 29, said American soldiers who initially questioned him in Kandahar before shipping him to Guantanamo hit him and taunted him by dumping the Koran in a toilet.

“It was a very bad situation for us,” said Ehsannullah, who comes from the home region of the Taliban leader, Mohammad Omar. “We cried so much and shouted, ‘Please do not do that to the Holy Koran.'”

Merza Khan, who had been captured in northern Afghanistan while fighting for the Taliban, said Americans in Kandahar tied him up and alternately forced him to lie face down on the ground, then squat with his hands on his head for hours. He also said he saw American soldiers throw the Koran on the ground and sit on it while in Kandahar.

BBC, 5/2/05

The brothers said the Americans shaved the inmates’ beards and screamed and swore during the frequent interrogations.

“We were not subjected to any physical torture as such but even shaving our beards and taking off our clothes is a form of cruelty,” said Abdul Rahim.

Abdul Rahim, with his son, says he kept his sanity through poetry

He said a number of Arab prisoners had still not spoken to their investigators after three years to protest at the desecration of the Koran by guards.

New York Times 5/1/05

A high-level military investigation into accusations of detainee abuse at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, has concluded that several prisoners were mistreated or humiliated, perhaps illegally, as a result of efforts to devise innovative methods to gain information, senior military and Pentagon officials say.

The report on the investigation, which is still a few weeks from being completed and released, will deal with accounts by agents for the Federal Bureau of Investigation who complained after witnessing detainees subjected to several forms of harsh treatment.

The F.B.I. agents wrote in memorandums that were never meant to be disclosed publicly that they had seen female interrogators forcibly squeeze male prisoners’ genitals, and that they had witnessed other detainees stripped and shackled low to the floor for many hours.

[…]

The new report by General Schmidt also comes as an increasing number of Guantánamo prisoners who have been released are providing accounts of their treatment for the first time to journalists and supportive American lawyers.

One recently released detainee, interviewed by telephone from Kuwait, said he had witnessed or learned from fellow inmates about many of the abusive practices that have been described in previous reports by nongovernmental groups like the International Committee of the Red Cross.

But that detainee, Nasser Nijer Naser al-Mutairi, also said in a series of interviews with The New York Times that detainees sometimes prevailed over the authorities after protesting conditions with campwide hunger strikes.

Mr. al-Mutairi said there were three major hunger strikes in his more than three years of imprisonment at Guantánamo. He said that after one of them, a protest of guards’ handling of copies of the Koran, which had been tossed into a pile and stepped on, a senior officer delivered an apology over the camp’s loudspeaker system, pledging that such abuses would stop. Interpreters, standing outside each prison block, translated the officer’s apology.

A former interrogator at Guantánamo, in an interview with The Times, confirmed the accounts of the hunger strikes, including the public expression of regret over the treatment of the Korans.

if i was newsweek, and the state department wanted to blame me for causing riots in afghanistan.

first i’d say but i thought General Myers said that wasnt the case

But only a few days earlier, in a briefing on Thursday, Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had said that the senior commander in Afghanistan believed the protests had stemmed from that country’s reconciliation process.

“He thought it was not at all tied to the article in the magazine,” General Myers said. – NYT 5/17/05

and then i’d say how is what we wrote any different than what they wrote?

heres the entirety of what newsweek wrote in their 5/9/05 issue:

Gitmo: SouthCom Showdown

May 9 issue – Investigators probing interrogation abuses at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay have confirmed some infractions alleged in internal FBI e-mails that surfaced late last year. Among the previously unreported cases, sources tell NEWSWEEK:

interrogators, in an attempt to rattle suspects, flushed a Qur’an down a toilet and led a detainee around with a collar and dog leash. An Army spokesman confirms that 10 Gitmo interrogators have already been disciplined for mistreating prisoners, including one woman who took off her top, rubbed her finger through a detainee’s hair and sat on the detainee’s lap.

(New details of sexual abuse—including an instance in which a female interrogator allegedly wiped her red-stained hand on a detainee’s face, telling him it was her menstrual blood—are also in a new book to be published this week by a former Gitmo translator.)

These findings, expected in an upcoming report by the U.S. Southern Command in Miami, could put former Gitmo commander Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller in the hot seat. Two months ago a more senior general, Air Force Lt. Gen. Randall Schmidt, was placed in charge of the SouthCom probe, in part, so Miller could be questioned.

The FBI e-mails indicate that FBI agents quarreled repeatedly with military commanders, including Miller and his predecessor, retired Gen. Michael Dunleavy, over the military’s more aggressive techniques. “Both agreed the bureau has their way of doing business and DOD has their marching orders from the SecDef,” one e-mail stated, referring to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Sources familiar with the SouthCom probe say investigators didn’t find that Miller authorized abusive treatment.

But given the complaints that were being raised, sources say, the report will provoke questions about whether Miller should have known what was happening—and acted to try to prevent it. An Army spokesman declined to comment.

the mistake that newsweek made and continues to make is by giving in after rightfully denying any wrongdoing.

have they learned nothing from big brother bush?

deny everything is so 2005 that if you don’t call bullshit and whine what about the bbc, nyt and wapo, you’ll get accused of being unpatriotic by the instapundit on msnbc.com

and once again i find myself agreeing with the good professor.

bad newsweek.

sploid + welch + san diego

i know exactly how this time off is going to go.

im not going to send out any resumes until its far too late, im not going to work on anything creative until i have no time to, im not going to clean my ridiculously dirty apartment, im not going to work out, im not going to catch up on all the crap my thousand gig tivo keeps suggesting that my black ass watch, im not going to read the bible and write about it in a new secret bible blog,

im not going to go to the movies every day and write about it in a new blog called moviesprettymuchsuck.com, im not going to meet a new girl every day and kiss three a week, im not going to do any new photo essays, im not going to hang out with tsar as they tour around the west, im not going to write something long and interesting for the la weekly, im not going to hitchhike across the country while i sublease my bachelor pads

im not going to organize my computer, my mp3s, my photos, or this website

im not going to cover e3, im not going to intern at the LA Times and get a gig there blogging now that theyve begun to make their online arm better, im not going to write all the cool kids who i love on buzznet, im not going to network throughout the blogosphere so that i can quit hoverring around 2k hits and quadruple that shit like so many others have already done,

and for damn sure im not going to get high every day and write the novel thats in me

im not going to hang out at dodger stadium and sell $2 bags of peanuts for $5

im not going to paint my bedroom, my bathroom, my laundry room, or my tub like ive always promised

im not going to fix the broken window pane behind my tv, im not going to sell 90 per cent of the shit in my house on ebay which is definately shit, im not going to donate anything to the poor even though i now know how sorta scary it is not to know where your next paycheck is coming from

im not going to jog around my neighborhood every afternoon at noon and lose this buddah belly when nobody is out except for the mailman and the dogs and the old ladies and their umbrellas

im not gonna get my bike fixed, or go to the doctor before my medical insurance expires at the end of the month, or take my dentist up on his generous offer, or take anyone up on their generous offers

im not going to watch every baseball game that comes over the satelite, im not going to call my buddy stu from the stern show, im not going to properly thank all my friends from my old department for coming to my farewell party at welch’s, and lord knows im not going to send a card to matt and em for throwing the damn thing which was lovely and wonderful

im not going to write about how the baking powder and water paste solution really did knock down the itching and bloating of my crazy bee sting, im not going to find osama, and im certainly not going to apologize or retract the information that ive received that our gitmo interrogators are doing far more fucked up shit than flushing copies of religious texts down toilets in order to psychologically brutalize illegally incarcerated human beings who at this point couldnt give a shit what you jammed down the head.

im not going to hang out with my xgirlfriend as she prepares to leave town for the peace corps, im not going to hang out with my other xgirlfriend as she does whatever it is that she does two bus lines away from me, im not going to interview the 92 year old lady who lives in a shoe who yesterday told me that if she was younger id be in trouble and then she cackled and hung up

im not going to buy a guitar and learn how to play some chords other than a, c and that other one i know

im not going to go to venice beach and sit on a towel and sell How To Blog to the tourists, im not going to join the mexican ice cup union and scrape ice into cups and squirt flavor on it for the kids, im not going to try out for the dodgers, im not going to convince michael jackson that he needs to hire him to say WTF every time he shuts the door behind him and spends the night with a little boy

im not going to grow a beard until i find work, im not going to think about grad schools, im not going to tell google that i love them but they HAVE to get a delete button on their gmail shit or im… fuck i dont know but it will involve a mean email.

im not going to be a ticket taker at manns chinese, im not going to dress up as bart simpson and pose next to tourists for tips, im not going to audtion to be a dj at my local strip club which has always been my secret ambition because candy is on the the side stage candy everyone

im not going to blog more, im not going to spell check more, im not going to fix my links, im not going to do shit other than waste time get fat get older and ruin this great opportunity i have in front of me, im going to sit in one of my many mansions and do the same old bullshit that ive done for the last four years: diddley squat in lowercase signifying nothing.

scienceblog + terra + gmask got it wrong, the simpsons were great on sunday

miss serbia reminds me of my beautiful wife

moxie who knows a thing or two about floating in a hotel pool and this morning she emailed me and said that if i wanted to swim with her and her girlfriends that wednesday would be the day and i was all why not today what else you girls have to do and she was all we have to tone up.

these are the skinniest girls youve ever met, america. skinniest.

some people think the biggest problems in america is the fact that the republicans are gangbanging the consititution or that we’ve caused such a disturbance in iraq that the secretary of state cant even make a secret trip to baghdad without car bombs exploding or handcuffed executed men being found in the ghettos, or the fact that newsweek reported that us interrogators flushed the koran down a toilet in guantanemo bay in a way to torture afghan prisoners and people started rioting thousands of miles away in the middle east even though this shit has been going on for years.

no the biggest problem facing america is the fact that everyone thinks theyre fat and no one can enjoy eating and walking around and laying out poolside and getting naked on my coffee table without being selfconsious.

im all just dance bitch clearing room for her and threatening to go up there and shwo her how its done.

a man should be able to sit in his layzboy pack a bowl and crack open two miller high lifes and put together a funky little playlist on his itunes without having to tell the ho that she isnt fat eightyfive times. im going to start writing down what lines work and what lines dont because there is a combination

oh you get the hottest girls in la up in here i cant show you my legs.

come on baby you know i have no memory, plus nothing in there is true, im actually a thirty year old virgin, you know those who always talk about it never get it.

youre getting it now

am i?

dont stop, get it, get it
we are your captains in it
steady,
watch me navigate,
ahahahahahhaa.

then after they cover up, then when they go to the hot tub they cover up, then when they walk across the yard to answer the bell from the case of mgd being delivered by pink dot they cover up and i say baby i swear if i was a chick and i had the shit that youve got and some delivery dude was bringing me beer id let him have an eyefull, you dont know men, that would make a mans day.

you dont know women she tells me and its true and im laying there with a gut and this year is the first year ive ever thought twice about taking my shirt off at a pool but shit after what she and i went through who am i kidding

im going to eat cheese on my burgers, im going to have mayo on it, im going to drink regular coke when i want regular coke and its summer if i want ice cream at two am in long beach im going to have a fucking ice cream from a roach coach in long beach.

people are blowing themselves up allegedly because of a magazine that most of these, and this is not a slur its the truth, illiterate fanatics who seem to have run out of reasons to suicide each other

and these fingerpolishing size four hawaiians are convinced that theyre fat.

and as soon as she returns im pitching a tent under my beach towel and i say baby let me show you the difference between what is fat and what is not fat.

and when she comes back with the bowl of pretzels im gonna see if she’ll play a lil game of marco polo with me.

slightly modified.

kitty bukkake + just a girl + sk smith + jenny lee

she wrote a note in a paypal donation comment box

that said Write whatever u want 4 14mins and 20secs. I don’s care what u write jus be urself. KTHXBI! and then flowed me $20.

i wanted to reply back that i wasnt really asking for donations but then i realized i had always taken donations why not now and i also realized that i had her address so i could send her something in return because a post on a blog isnt really having anything, is it? is it? who knows.

i guess we’ve started. its 11:36 sportsfans and this is your pal tone rockin the m-i-c from high atop the thirteenth storie condo of a fine young thing that i found looking for a ride home. i said i might be going that way but i dont have a car she said thats cool do you know how to get there on the bus and i said yes so she said yes and when everyone says yes you know everythings gonna end up with a no somewhere the question is where and to make a drunk story short she still hasnt said no.

ive been in a slump paypal girl ive been in a funk ive been in a drunk ive been in a dump ive been to the mountaintop and ive found the promised land like 169 times but i get cockblocked by the weirdest situations and peoples and sometimes i even cockblock myself both intentionally and unintentionally and its only 11:39.

morrissey is on the itunes and i wonder if this girl is really flagrant in disguise. theres good nudes and bad nudes to anonymous bloggers and one is they could have been holding your hand all night beneath the flowing canopie of their four post princess bed in her daddys condo on wilshire. its a gray morning which meant that normally id sleep in but since this wasnt my place my body clock said get up foo you dont know who these people are and if they find you alone in their babies bed then they’ll think you raped her and ate her or something. 11:41.

ive gotten calls with job offers, little jobs. they could be good they could be bad i dont know what they are, i just dont want them. theres like five places that i would work for today and only half know it. how dumb am i how dumb am i. i remember getting my hs diploma thinking shit man the worlds my oyster which means i will place it to the side and eat the shrimp cuz i dont like oysters. then i got my college dimploma and i didnt even see it until ten years after on my mommas stairwell leading to the basement and i was all so thats what that looks like. in hs they gave us a wallet sized version whihc i carried around for years and years and that one i should put up somewhere cuz hs was a bitch. all you kids out there struggling, let me tell you this, keep your head down and go for the hole. its the hardest thing you’ll ever do. everything else is cake.

i ride the bus and i think i could be a busdriver i look at the cabs and i think i could be a cabbie. i look at the limos and i say shit i could totally be a private driver and id never even have to tell em that i know how to shoot a gun. thats it i tell myself i will be a chauffeur for some old rich family that lives in the hills and gets off on getting driven around by their driver and telling him how to improve on his place in life.

eleven fourty seven and i wonder if there are situations like that where they’ll give the guy a town car and a cell phone and feel good about calling me up day or night and say antonio, cuz that would be my driver name, antonio can you pick up misses at the goldblatts, i apologize i realize its early and id say driving your wife and your family is not just my job its my love and the old dude would laugh and say oh you.

eleven fourty nine and i forget how long im supposed to write this for lets just say something stinks in this house and yes its me but its probably the sink too. ooooh or maybe the garbage. speaking of garbage who the hell unleashed all this german spam? if youre gonna spam, lets get it together. spam us government secrets spam us science revelations, teach us spanish. teach us cuban. teach us how to cook better.

id love to get 113 recipies in my spam box that said viagra cake which in reality was actually a delicious bundt situation that you sprinkle some viagra in the batter, or if you dont have viagra substitute hershey kisses.

its 11:53 and time is up but all i have to say paypal girl is im procrastinating on something that since you gave me twenty bones i will send to you when im done making it. and i thank you for your generosity im lucky even if i have to type near a stinky trash can sprayed with barfed champagne.

abrasivist + the state im in + zulieka + iron mouth has great video of john bolton’s true colors

a long time ago

in a galaxy far far away, there lived three bad roommates in a house in atwater california.

the year was 1994. the beastie boys were recording their last great record a quarter mile away. my roommates were greg vaine, the finest lead guitar player in hollywood at the time, and jeff whalen who liked to wear david hasslehoff capes.

not everything was perfect in our lovely home. jeff and greg were working out songs for a band they were forming, i was lonely and dateless, and when the northridge earthquake hit we could all sense the pressure of being young bachelors in close quaters.

so instead of fighting i suggested that we go down into our tiny basement practice room and deliver angry rock covers to the gods as the afterquakes continually rollicked our abode.

after weeks of playing all the party hits we knew, we realized we had something. it wasnt great, but it was decent, and there was no pressure and no expectations. it was fun, it was dumb, and it was funny.

we called ourselves Chopper One after the news helicopters that reported on the madness that hit our fine city that year: floods, fires, and quakes.

we decided to play our debut to our friends in our home.

greg videotaped it.

dan kern and marc brown, among others were in attendence.

if you click the picture above of miss mexico, miss lebanon, and miss albania you will see us rip through lenny kravitz’s classic hit of the day.

the video is bad and the audio is worse, but perhaps you can witness some of what was, until now, the unearthed glory that was Chopper One.

or you could just click here

jeff whalen’s new band tsar comes out with their second cd on june 7

and yes, tsar is the band that youve seen recently in the new nestle crunch/napster commersh.

greg vaine‘s anniversary with molli is today. happy anniversary kids!

if richard daley wasnt dead,

today would be his 103rd birthday.

he was a crazy mayor, but a great mirror to the city that i grew up in near.

here are some of his more famous quotes, and then a segment from a column that mike royko wrote when the famous Piccasso was unveiled in what is now called Daley Plaza made famous by the climatic finale of the film the blues brothers

I resent insinuendoes.

I’m not the last of the old bosses. I’m the first of the new leaders.

Don’t worry if they’re Democrats or Republicans. Give them service and they’ll become Democrats.

Even the Lord had skeptical members of His party.

Look at our Lords disciples. One denied Him; one doubted Him; one betrayed Him. If our Lord couldn’t have perfection, how are you going to have it in city government?

No poll can equal the day-to-day visits of the men and women of the Democratic Party.

Return to the fundamentals of politics – sell our story door to door.

Television and radio do a wonderful job in focusing attention on the problems of our society.

The Democratic Party is the party that opened its arms. We opened them to every nationality, every creed. We opened them to the immigrants. The Democratic Party is the party of the people.

The police are not here to create disorder, they’re here to preserve disorder.

The strength of the Democratic Party of Cook County is not something that just happened.

They have vilified me, they have crucified me; yes, they have even criticized me.

We all like to hear a man speak out on his convictions and principles. But at the same time, you must understand that when you’re running on a ticket, you’re running with a team.

We are proud to have with us the poet lariat of Chicago.

We as Democrats have no apologies to make to anyone.

We have to face it: in America today the way to have fun and celebrate is to break a store window and take something. That’s the way it is, today in America, and we have to accept it.

We shall reach greater and greater platitudes of achievment.

What is inherently wrong with the word ‘politician’ if the fellow has devoted his life to holding public office and trying to do something for his people?

Chicago Sun-Times
August 16, 1967
“Picasso and the Cultural Rebirth of Chicago”

Mayor Daley walked to the white piece of ribbon and put his hand on it. He was about to give it a pull when the photographers yelled for him to wait. He stood there for a minute and gave them that familiar blend of scowl and smile.

It was good that he waited. This was a moment to think about, to savor what was about to happen. In just a moment, with a snap of the mayor’s wrist, Chicago history would be changed. That’s no small occurrence·the cultural rebirth of a big city.

Out there in the neighborhoods and the suburbs, things probably seemed just the same. People worried about the old things·would they move in and would we move out? Or would we move in and would they move out?

But downtown, the leaders of culture and influence were gathered for a historical event and it was reaching a climax with Mayor Daley standing there ready to pull a ribbon.

Thousands waited in and around the Civic Center plaza. They had listened to the speeches about the Picasso thing. They had heard how it was going to change Chicago’s image.

They had heard three clergymen·a priest, a rabbi, and a Protestant minister·offer eloquent prayers. That’s probably a record for a work by Picasso, a dedicated atheist.

And now the mayor was standing there, ready to pull the ribbon.

You could tell it was a big event by the seating. In the first row on the speakers platform was a lady poet. In the second row was Alderman Tom Keane. And in the third row was P. J. Cullerton, the assessor. When Keane and Cullerton sit behind a lady poet, things are changing.

The only alderman in the front row was Tom Rosenberg. And he was there only because it was a cultural event and he is chairman of the City Council’s Culture Committee, which is in charge of preventing aldermen from spitting, swearing, and snoring during meetings.

The whole thing had been somber and serious. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra had played classical music. It hadn’t played even one chorus of “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.”

Chief Judge John Boyle had said the Picasso would become more famous than the Art Institute’s lions. Boyle has vision.

Someone from the National Council of Arts said it was paying tribute to Mayor Daley. This brought an interested gleam in the eyes of a few ward committeemen.

William Hartmann, the man who thought of the whole thing, told of Picasso’s respect for Mayor Daley. Whenever Hartmann went to see Picasso, the artist asked:

“Is Mayor Daley still mayor of Chicago?”

When Hartmann said this, Mayor Daley bounced up and down in his chair, he laughed so hard. So did a few Republicans in the cheap seats, but they didn’t laugh the same way.

After the ceremony, it came to that final moment the mayor standing there holding the white ribbon.

Then he pulled.

There was a gasp as the light blue covering fell away in several pieces. But it was caused by the basic American fascination for any mechanical feat that goes off as planned.

In an instant the Picasso stood there unveiled for all to see.

A few people applauded. But at best, it was a smattering of applause. Most of the throng was silent.

They had hoped, you see, that it would be what they had heard it would be.

A woman, maybe. A beautiful soaring woman. That is what many art experts and enthusiasts had promised. They had said that we should wait that we should not believe what we saw in the pictures.

If it was a woman, then art experts should put away their books and spend more time in girlie joints.

The silence grew. Then people turned and looked at each other. Some shrugged. Some smiled. Some just stood there, frowning or blank-faced.

Most just turned and walked away. The weakest pinch-hitter on the Cubs receives more cheers.

read the rest of royko’s column + runjenrun + jozjozjoz

the breeze said to get on the bus.

the sun said to get on the bus.

the way the mexican blanket in the french window said oui get on the bus senior made it impossible to resist so the ipod was juiced up, the blogger was juiced up, the books were piled into the back pack

and the bus was taken.

yesterday was the 2 Sunset.

i often find myself in the gentrified los feliz area, but i try to keep it real south of sunset with clipper girls cousin who stays in lil armenia. shes hardly ever home and right now she and her cousin are on their annual vacation in hawaii to enjoy the playoffs with their teammates. cheermates. whatever they call themselves.

the 2 picked me up near vermont and it either goes all the way to gladstones on pch right on the pacific, or if its a short line it will take you right up in the center of uclas surreal campus.

being unchained and in whatevs mode for weeks now i didnt even look to see where we were going or care how long itd take. ive had the hardest time editing this unpublished book of stories, so what a better way to concentrate than howard stern in your ear as you bounce down sunset on an 80 degree saturday afternoon.

another man had joined me in my joyride and when we entered beverly hills he asked the busdriver, hey where does this bus go

this is the short line he told him

but i couldnt hear and i didnt care

ucla was the end of the line.

got out and walked through the east coast architecture sitting in one of the best neighborhoods in town.

acres and acres this thing stretches out for. miles even. miles of prime everything. realestate. history. knowhow. fame. fourtune. excellence.

and yet for some reason a graduate from ucla seems as commonplace as a a blonde in a miniskirt with a louis vitton clutch in the sunshine.

nothing wrong with it, per se, but, you know.

found some shade on a steep slope that overlooked a track n field competition. nearby a brass band was practicing. a fellow visitor who appeared to be from persia approached me and asked if i knew where the library was. she was beautiful and young. at ucsb we had eight libraries so i knew something fishy was going on so i said Como?

she left and i read my little book and thought about danielle and flagrant and ice cream and the hypotenuse of love.

got my reading done and walked to the village while wondering how great a shrink flagrant would be if she told everyone the absolute truth like in the diceman, which now i finally have time to finish, and after getting an ice cream, who did i run across eating an icecream sandwich with her two lovely friends, the hawaiian girl of three weeks ago.

looking lovely.

standing up to give me a hug, which is body language my friends. yes it is.

this is a very small town i thought be nice to everyone

im always nice to everyone she said

and again i had been caught thinking out loud.

congratulations bunny! + congratulations dogboy! + alecia