Pilate's Dog

indian summer
and i hate the heat, i got a backstreet lover on the passenger seat

Hmm, seems like when I left you before I had resorted to a Friday Five. Right now I'm fried, so this is as good as it's going to get, campers. :-)

1. How are you planning to spend the summer?

Through the end of July, I have some more traveling to do. In August I start a new job. Wheeeee, hats and horns!

2. What was your first summer job?

Lifeguard. Talk about mindnumbing.

3. If you could go anywhere this summer, where would you go?

While not a dream getaway, I would like to get to the Jersey shore to visit with Dave and see his mom for what will probably be the last time.

4. What was your worst vacation ever?

Has to be the group camping trip of a few years ago. Let's see...on the drive up we stopped at a liquor store for "provisions" and in the parking lot I decided to break up the bag of ice by hoisting it over my head and instead of cracking it on the pavement, I brought it down on my right foot and broke two toes. (I didn't know they were broken until we got to camp and I took off my tennis shoe and they swelled up like balloons.) Still on the drive up, we're following the member of our crew who knows the area, we leave paved road for the joys of dirt and have to drive through a shallow creek. (We were not in an SUV.) We pull into a, uh, town to get gas and are promptly greeted by Cujo. He circles the car, howling and slobbering. We don't get out. On to camp in a verrry remote area. (Cue Deliverance banjo music.) As we're setting up our tents, we hear another car approaching. The psychotic ex-boyfriend of one of the crew has followed us. Things are tense, people disappear to do "other things" and since I'm still struggling with my tent, I'm left to make chitchat with the nut job. I finish and excuse myself to take a nap. I awake about an hour later to an acrid smell mixed with smoke. Whack-o has started a campfire and chosen to use aerosol hairspray as the "starter fluid." I now have a wicked headache and am sick to my stomach. That night it rains buckets, whereupon I learn that I have pitched my tent at a slight downward slope. The next day we raft the river and are shot at (!!!) from the opposite bank. We were supposed to float the river and were assured the water was calm from start to finish. After a couple of hours we hear a rumbling in the distance- indeed, there is whitewater ahead. Fabulous. It rains like a mofo for the next three days. We happen upon a piece of wood nailed to a tree near camp. It is about 35 feet up the tree trunk and indicates where the last flood in the area reached. I keep thinking that dying in a flood is something that happens to "other people" and then am distressed to realize that maybe it's my turn to be "other people." To wrap up the trip, on the last day the father of one of the crew (who had a cabin nearby) drowned. Yeah, I'd say that was the worst vacation I've ever had.

5. What was your best vacation ever?

Any vacation where the Tanqueray and tonics flow freely and the company is good gets a thumbs up from me.

everybody had a wet dream


Truth #1: I am getting too old for this.
Truth #2: I wouldn't trade it for the world.


It appears that I have angered the Blogger gods again. I'll break out the toolbelt and see what I can do. So, what's been going on, kids?

i could be there in ten minutes, or so


I'm getting ready to go away for the weekend again, so I'm copping out and doing a quick Friday Five.


1. What's one thing you've always wanted to do, but never have?

Travel to Tibet. It's so expensive and takes so long. I will get there one day. Hopefully when it's free again.

2. When someone asks your opinion about a new haircut/outfit/etc, are you always honest?

If they're a friend, yes. If it's a casual acquaintance, probably not.

3. Have you ever found out something about a friend and then wished you hadn't? What happened?

In college, I found out that a close friend was basically giving blowjobs to anyone who would give him cocaine in return. Definitely TMI, in my book.

4. If you could live in any fictional world (from a book/movie/game/etc.) which would it be and why?

Oh, pick any film from the 30's with Katherine Hepburn or Cary Grant. The Philadelphia Story, maybe. Fabulous house, two suave, handsome guys fighting over you and beaucoup witty conversations.

5. What's one talent/skill you don't have but always wanted?

Probably surfing. I'm trying, really, but I feel I'm destined to be a gremmie for life.

take my hand, not my picture


Do "famous" people owe us anything? Do they make some Faustian bargain whereby they give up their right to privacy? Where should the line be drawn? I've always viewed the cult of celebrity with a jaundiced eye. Certainly, a person works hard for the rewards that fame can bring, but a lot of baggage comes with it that most people are ill-prepared to deal with when it happens. If your fame should last for a number of years, you acclimate and define your own boundaries. Those boundaries have to exist if you're to have any semblance of normalcy. For a significant portion of the population, their purchase of a CD, movie ticket, sports memorabilia, etc. comes with a sense of entitlement to your time. I've spent enough time around people who have a degree of noteriety to have witnessed the gamut of ways to deal with this attention. There's the hand shake and a few words exchanged, the gracious accepting of a personal gift, the pose for a quick picture, the act like I'm not who you think I am move, the brusque autograph with no eye contact and the full-on verbal insult. Why a celebrity chooses a particular response at any given time is a mystery. And a mystery it should remain. How would you feel if you had to explain your every action and have it subjected to public speculation. Puts the F-U in fun, wouldn't you say? I bring this up because there's a certain someone on the net who's pitching a hissy fit today because Ed wouldn't pose for a picture with her and her husband last night at the KC Royals game. She spotted Ed and Jeff sitting in the next section over. She goes over and shakes their hands and chats for a few minutes and then asks for a photo. Ed jokingly defers to bodyguard Pete who says "no." A nice way to let someone down, I think. The problem is once the picture taking starts, it won't let up. The guys are enjoying a game on their night off, are nice enough to acknowledge her and chat, and yet the "no picture" is what she's stuck on and feels compelled to knock them for their "rock star attitudes" this morning. Look, girly, you originally bought a ticket to see a baseball game. Seeing Ed and Jeff was an unexpected bonus. Let it go. It's like the man said in "Corduroy" - take my hand, not my picture.

keeping your boots on, float with the now


Reason #412,647 why Jon Stewart rules:


Rolling Stone: Even the New York Times now, with Jayson Blair fabricating stories, we can't rely on them.

JS: Oh, Jesus Christ. Howell Raines said, "We are not set up if somebody wants to willfully manipulate and mislead us." You're not set up? Your entire organization is investigative reporters! That's all you're set up to do! Now, if you were to say to me, "We're not set up to make Orange Julius and wrap sandwiches," I would say, "You are not. I might have to go to some sort of restaurant for that." But you are set up exactly to check for that shit. How is it you're not set up? It's crazy. And then they do an eight-page mea culpa, the story of Jayson Blair, like he's Lex Luthor. This guy never turned in expense reports! So he travels to places, but it cost him nothing. Is he a hobo? Is he riding the rails? How do they not get that? "I love this guy. We send him to Europe for nothing. He was stowing away on a military plane." It's mind-boggling.


Bed rest and fluids, Ed. I, also, have been hocking up things which the human body should not be producing, but I don't have to sing for 3 hours every night or so. I don't know how you do it. BTW, I think you should fire whoever booked you guys into an outdoor Phoenix venue in June. 96 degrees at 11 p.m. The living definition of whack.

glorified version of a ...


If you need a laugh today, get thee to Neal Pollack's blog and check out his entry for 6/6/03.

ummm...

Is this the lesson to be learned from not backing up your files? I've lost my Flying Squirrel Boy entry. What the? I'm rather fond of the pic, so here it is again. Take that, Blogger!


The Flying Squirrel Boy in his (our!) youth.

people got the power


I've been thinking about the West Memphis Three alot lately. Jessie, Damien and Jason have been sitting in prison for ten years now, Damien on death row. Ten years. If you don't know the background or circumstances of this travesty of justice, please take a look at WM3. To this day, I'm haunted by Jason's remark in the documentary Paradise Lost, "If this can happen to us, it can happen to anybody." Check out the facts of this case and you, too, will realize that it could just as easily be you on death row.



On a related note, Henry Rollins has let it be known that all proceeds from the current Rollins Band tour will be donated to the WM3 organization to help fund the DNA testing that could well prove their innocence. At the time of the original trial, the defense did not have the financial means to conduct DNA testing. Check out the tour dates and if he hits your town, know that your attendance is a step in the direction of righting a horrendous wrong.

a human being that was given to fly


Sonia's comment about having missed Ed's diving into the crowd days got a friend and myself digging up old memories. Yeah, it was thrilling at the time, but as we've all, ahem, gotten older I look back on those days now and think "He could have broken his frickin' neck on any given day." There were a few times even then that I had to look away because I was afraid he would fall - I didn't want to witness the Eddie Pancake. Thankfully, nothing too bad ever happened, but I had to pull out an old photo. Memories, misty watercolor memories...




The Flying Squirrel Boy in his (our!) youth.