Mind Vomit by the ikss ~ a journal
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�Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead�
-Lucille Ball
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."
--Theodore Roosevelt, 1918
REGISTER TO VOTE
"The time is always right to do what is right"
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
"The "seven social sins": Knowledge without character,
Science without humanity,
Wealth without work,
Commerce without morality,
Politics without principles,
Pleasure without conscience,
Worship without self-sacrifice."
--Gandhi
"We have not inherited the world from our forfathers -
We have borrowed it from our children."
--Kashmiri, proverb
At any rate...Rest in Peace, Warren Zevon.
Local news provided by:
Metro Networks
Cancer Claims Singer, Songwriter
Billboard.com is reporting singer and songwriter Warren Zevon has died of cancer. Zevon, 56, was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer last year. A spokesman told the entertainment Web site Zevon died peacefully in his home Sunday. Zevon scored his biggest hit with the 1978 song "Werewolves of London." He also wrote and recorded popular songs including "Poor, Poor Pitiful Me" and "Hasten Down the Wind."
~~~
Hey, kids.
It would appear that I haven�t been very vocal �round these parts, lately. At least, not me, personally. So what�s been going on in ikss-land, you may be wondering. Well, I�ll tell ya.
Not a hell of a lot, really.
Let�s begin with Thursday evening, shall we?
As promised, I went to the Kucinich MeetUp in Long Beach at 7:00pm. We had a very small crowd (about 1/3 of the size of our Orange County group last month), but in truth that made things a bit easier. Since this was our first meeting, we decided what committees we�ll need and got volunteers to head almost all of them. It�s good to have those things out of the way. In future, it will now be easy just to fill in members of the committees and everyone will now who to contact for what.
In case you were wondering, I am the Tabling Events Coordinator and the Letter-Writing Campaign Co-Coordinator. I get to write lots of letters to newspapers and magazines and, as an added bonus, I get to set up tables filled with Kucinich literature and coordinate the staffing of such tables at local events, fairs and the like. For instance, I am scheduling people to work at one on Sunday.
I�m so important.
After the meeting and also as promised, I went to the Prospector and hung out for a while, socializing with Smithereens-Mike and his bandmates. I had fun, but it was nothing earth-shattering. New bars are always fun to discover, though, and this was a new one for me. They had a cute as hell bartender who was far too young for me and has a girlfriend anyway, but he was a joy to watch. Nice guy, too, by all appearances.
I went to an all-day seminar on Friday, Highly Effective Criticism and Discipline. Boring as it sounds, this was actually one of the best seminars I have ever been to. I picked up a lot of valuable information and hints. I also ordered $200 in supplementary instructional materials. Thankfully, my company will reimburse me and hopefully soon or some checks of mine may�uh�bounce�
Friday night was when my weekend-joy began. Or was supposed to. Or may have. Or something. It was just weird.
Sondra met me at my pad at about 6:30 and we went off to Limericks. We each had like three glasses of wine (actually, I think Sondra had one more glass than I) and talked. What started out as good clean fun, though, did not end well.
Drinking with Sondra is always a roll of the dice � you never know what you�re gonna get out of her when she drinks. She started out nice and reasonable enough, but ended up getting very weird and talking to like every bozo in the joint.
I have no problem at all talking to new people, especially when I have been drinking, as alcohol makes me Everybody�s Best Friend. But A) I didn�t drink enough to get tipsy and therefore kept my wits about me and B) Sondra was talking to everybody. I used the word bozo for a reason here, people.
I don�t even mind that she was talking to bozos, except for two reasons: 1) She was only doing so in an effort to get someone to buy us drinks, which I am against in principal and 2) She started saying some weird shit about how I don�t know how to be sociable because I wasn�t going out of my way to talk to just any old bozo.
There are times when I hate being around drunk people. Like, especially when I am not one of them.
So in the course of the evening, we met a short bald guy from Minnesota (although Sondra kept trying to convince him he was really from Michigan) who said some really nice things about how lovely my eyes are and oh, also about how well-formed his own calves are; a nice-enough-apparent-alcoholic from some place in England I had never heard of and whose wife completely understands that he just has to be free to go drink at the pub every night for a couple of hours (I have to admit that I understood only about 50% of what this man was saying); the bartender, who within minutes of meeting us was accused (by Sondra, of course) of being a homosexual (not that she was really offensive about it, except that her comment had nothing whatsoever to so with any matter at hand); and the most normal and interesting person of the night: a balding man with a gray, ZZ Top beard down to his nipples who studies in a seminary.
It was an odd night, all told. The bar-bozos were harmless and all; it was Sondra that kind of weirded me out. The thing is, she ran out of money and so stopped drinking, even though it was obvious she wanted to continue. Well, I didn�t offer to buy her any drinks. I knew I was going to want to leave soon and I didn�t think she needed any more to drink because she was driving home. Moreover, I always end up buying her drinks or dinner or both when we go out and I didn�t want to last week. Frankly, it was all I could do to afford to take myself out. But after her money dried up, her personality took a weird turn. I don�t even know how to explain it.
We sat there, not drinking and talking to assorted bozos, for over two hours before we left. I was hoping she would be plenty-sober by then and I think she was. Apparently, she made it home OK, as I called her the next day to make sure. I don�t think I shall be asking Sondra to go out for Happy Hour any time in the near future, however. The whole thing just left me with a bad feeling in my gut.
So Saturday morning, John and I walked to breakfast and then continued to walk for a while. I think our total was about five miles - not anywhere near what I should have walked this weekend. I skipped out on the foot clinic I was thinking of going to Saturday morning, too. Frankly, I just couldn�t get out of bed early enough to go.
After our walk and a little relaxation afterward, we ran some errands and ended up shopping for a Hawaiian shirt for John to wear to a luau-themed party his sister threw Saturday night. There just happens to be a Hawaiian shirt store down the street from where I live. John found a very groovy one that doesn�t look so overwhelmingly-Hawaiian shirt-ish that he can�t wear it anywhere but to a luau. Good thing he can wear it elsewhere, because it cost him like $80 and we were only at his sister�s luau for like two hours.
I don�t much care for John�s sister, Kitty. I don�t much care for her odd collection of friends, either. I did get to see John�s mom, whom I love, and other people I am fond of, so at least the two hours was not complete hell for me. And it was only two hours, after all � John is not exactly a party animal and I knew going in that we wouldn�t stay late because of that fact. One treat: they had some homemade �jungle juice� at this party, which was very yummy. I have no idea how many forms of alcohol were in that concoction, but I had a fun time drinking it.
Sunday was spent�in bed. Aside from doing three loads of laundry, I spent the day laying in front on the t.v. with John. We ordered Chinese food for a late lunch/early dinner and practiced the Art of Being Lazy all damn day long.
Aside from feeling guilty about not taking even a short walk, it was a fun day, really.
~~~
P.S. I have something to say to those of you in D-Land who have made comments in relation to Kucinich's positions on NAFTA and WTO after last week's debate: While his views on these issues (as well as several others, let's be honest) may fail to get him elected, he is not going to change them. He doesn't change his positions just because they may not be very popular. He is a man of conviction, in case you haven't read my previous entries about him.
Kucinich's conviction and integrity are what make him different and dare I say better than...well, pretty much any other politician out there since Jimmy Carter lost the presidency.
The thing is, while I feel Kucinich will have an uphill battle in relation to these particular issues should he be elected president, I also feel it's better to know where our future president really stands on the issues and what he will fight for. I would also suggest that you read more about just how he plans on eliminating the WTO and NAFTA at his page.
Nobody has said anything offensive or even argumentative about his positions (at least not the people I am talking about), don't get me wrong. I just think it's interesting that the words used have been along the lines of "he is not going to get elected if he continues to maintain his position that the WTO and NAFTA should be eliminated" and the like. As if, with a little coaching and change in position, he will win.
Im probably just making mountains out of molehills, though.
~~~
Quote a Day, 9/5/03:
Imagine what a harmonious world it could be if every single person, both young and old shared a little of what he is good at doing. -- Quincy Jones
9/7/03:
In the long run, it's not a question of whether they deserve to be forgiven. You're not forgiving them for their sake. You're doing it for yourself. For your own health and well-being, forgiveness is simply the most energy-efficient option. It frees you from the incredibly toxic, debilitating drain of holding a grudge. Don't let these people live rent free in your head. If they hurt you before, why let them keep doing it year after year in your mind? It's not worth it but it takes heart effort to stop it. You can muster that heart power to forgive them as a way of looking out for yourself. It's one thing you can be totally selfish about. -- Doc Childre
9/8/03:
We must not cease from exploration; the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we began and to know the place for the first time. -- T. S. Eliot
Inspiration of the Day:
A tidy father. A messy bedroom. And a determined teenage daughter. These ingredients spawned a grass-roots charity run by a 17-year-old girl who is donating 400 backpacks stuffed with notebooks, Pok�mon folders and pencil boxes to needy kids. Winnie Kao's 'Packs of Love' began in spring 2002 when her father lectured her about the mounds of school supplies cluttering her room and about how privileged she was to have all that stuff. Her Dad's message stuck and she took it a step further -- she decided to give back to those who weren't as fortunate as her. http://charityfocus.org/php-bin/qad.php?n=959
Be The Change:
Take a lesson and turn it into an opportunity of service.
~~~
Word of the Day for Monday September 8, 2003:
defenestrate dee-FEN-uh-strayt, transitive verb: To throw out of a window.
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~~~~~~~~~~~peace, love and smooches~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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