Stephen Sondheim is God

I've nothing to say.

You have many things.

Well, nothing that's not been said.

Said by you, though...

I want to make things that count,
Things that will be new...

Stop worrying if your vision
Is new
Let others make that decision
They usually do.

Anything you do,
Let it come from you.
Then it will be new.

from Sunday in the Park with George.

Signify Palo Alto, Motherfucker

Mercury News:

President Bush's visit to Stanford University's Hoover Institution was quickly moved to another location after more than 1,000 protesters converged around the Hoover tower.

The White House said the protesters blocked the only road into the central areaof the campus where Hoover is located, which forced a meeting with several Hoover fellows to be moved to the campus home of former Secretary of State George Shultz, a Hoover fellow who organized the gathering.

The motorcade instead traveled to the house, which is on the outer edge of campus.

The change in plans delayed the president's arrival by about 15 minutes.

That's my hometown, goddamnit. Thasright.

It's a hap-hap-happy day

As I sit here typing this, to my right there are two big brown shopping bags full of the following just-purchased books:

Bloom County Babylon
The People's Doonesbury
The PreHistory of The Far Side
The Billboard book of #1 Hits
The Devil's Candy
Murphy Brown: Anatomy of a Sitcom
The Moon's a Baloon by David Niven
King of the Night: The Life of Johnny Carson
Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Sometimes Zeppo
Doonesbury: The Original Yale Cartoons

Easy Riders, Raging Bulls
Much Ado About Me by Fred Allen
Until I Find You by John Irving
Prime Time Blues by Donald Bogle
My Father's Daughter by Tina Sinatra
Fletch Reflected by Gregory McDonald
Adventures in the Screen Trade
Down & Dirty Pictures
There Really Was a Hollywood by Janet Leigh
Show & Tell by John Lahr

...all for less than $20.

Library sales. Gotta love 'em.

Hey hey!

You Are Krusty the Clown

You were the class clown as a kid, and you still entertain people. From faking your own death to getting a wacky boob job, you'll do anything for a laugh. You will be remembered for: your face being everywhere, from cereal to home pregnancy tests Your life philosophy: "I heartily endorse this event or product."

The Simpsons Personality Test

Oh, $&#&&%%!

Amy Sherman-Palladino, the creator, chief writer, and showrunner of "Gilmore Girls"is leaving the series at the end of this season. Along with her husband, creative partner (and lucky SOB because he's married to such a writer), Daniel Palladino.

Around the web, this is being compared to Aaron Sorkin's quitting "The West Wing." I won't go quite that far. If only because while it's true that the Palladinos have written the lions share of "Gilmore" scripts, they still haven't written as much as Sorkin did of "West Wing."

But that's splitting hairs, and this is really upsetting news for fans, especially since next year is thought to be the series final. I've been meaning to post something about how I think GG has, in relative quiet, been having one of the best runs in TV history.

Unlike perhaps 98% of all shows that last more than five years, they have yet to have a bad season. Even their fourth year, which is generally held to have been a misstep, seems to me to be deeply underrated, with some of my favorite lines and characters.

I was really looking forward to the Palladinos "bringing it on home" next year. Now I just have two or three more episodes to go and then for better (not likely) or worse (probably) Stars Hollow changes forever.

Sigh...

Cut to Ben banging his head against the computer desk again

Or, "more things I shouldn't do." I shouldn't attempt to read "The Most Popular Lesbian Romance Novel Of All Time." Why? Because on one page....on one flipping page...I find not one, but two fairly specific character traits that I've already assigned to "my girls."

You have to understand, ladies and gentlemen, I have this terrifying fear of being unoriginal. That this thing I've been working on for years is going to come out and be judged "nothing we haven't seen before."

Or perhaps worse-that it won't even get to that stage because editors will say something like "We already have thousands of books like that-and they're written by real women, real lesbians."

The more sensitive among you are beginning to figure out why the notion that a vagina instantly confers upon one deeper feeling, greater strength and talent was such a touchy subject for me last week.

I'm as shocked as you are

At Shakespeare's Sister's, Waveflux found an item that says there's now actual scientific data to support this notion:

When heterosexual men are confronted with images like this we tend to lose all of our critical faculties, and it makes it hard...for us to make decisions.

I know I was having a heck of a time deciding whether to run a picture of Holly Hunter, Nicole Kidman, or both.

But getting back to this incredibly important scientific study, take heart, gentlemen, it's not that we're just dumb guys, apparently, it's that we've got testosterone oozing out our fingertips.

The more testosterone he has, the stronger the effect, according to work by Belgian researchers.

Hush little Cheney, don't say a word

Via The NY Post, Cheney taking a nap during a meeting with the Chinese President.

Ha ha, ha ha, ha

Former Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry said on Thursday he was seriously thinking about another White House bid in 2008 and will decide before the year is out.

"I will make that decision toward the end of the year, but I'm thinking about it hard," Kerry said in response to a question at the Latin Economic Forum at the United Nations.

"If you can get help me find 60,000 votes in Ohio ...," he joked, referring to the close race in that state on which his 2004 loss to President Bush hinged.

Via Pam's House Blend.

The lord helps those who help themselves, John.

This is just for those of you who love the piano as much as I do

And I mean the musical instrument, not the movie (of which I'm not a fan-Jane Campion's films would be better if all her characters were as mute as Holly Hunter in that one). But I digress. NPR's Fresh Air has a selection of appreciations of and interviews about Thelonious Monk.

It's the use of the words "semi-competent" that send a chill down my spine

Kos has a good post building on a piece in The Economist about the question most of us leftys are asking: Just how suicidal are the Democrats? The Economist sez:

The Republicans are so unpopular that any semi-competent opposition party should be sauntering to victory in the mid-term elections in November.

It's true; even Fox-flippin'-news yesterday had Bush's job approval rating at 33%. But as I say, it's those words "semi-competent" that scare me. Ted Kennedy was on Fresh Air and The Daily Show yesterday. I missed the radio appearance but I can tell you that judging from TDS, Sherman's right: It was very much a stay-on-the-talking-points kind of interview. But what were those talking points? The DNC-approved "we can do better" and "withdrawl from Iraq-but with honor!"

Seems to me I've heard the "with honor" thing before in histories of the Vietnam war. It seems to be what we say when, for some reason, we just can't say, you know what, this has been a complete and utter cock-up from the beginning, there is no getting out with honor, and so we just have to get out now.

But anyway, back to The Economist.

"For the Americans in the middle, who have no strong partisan allegiances, we have failed to articulate a real plan or vision," say Markos Moulitsas Zúniga and Jerome Armstrong, two of the most popular Democratic bloggers. "It's not that people know what we stand for and disagree; it's that they have no idea what we stand for," say James Carville and Paul Begala, two of the architects of Bill Clinton's winning presidential campaign in 1992. The junior senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, one of the Democrats' most admired politicians, has tried to make a joke of it. "You hear this constant refrain from our critics that Democrats don't stand for anything," he remarked the other day. "That's really unfair. We do stand for anything."

See, here's why I'm wary of Kos and have little or no interest in reading his book, though I do read the blog (obviously). On the one hand, he says the Democrats have to appeal to the middle. This is the thinking that brought us Kerry '04 and Gore 2000.

Then he says things like this-

The GOP WILL motivate its voters come November. They'll rail on abortion and gays and scary brown people crossing the southern border and how Democrats want to take their Bibles away. And their core supporters will turn out. And Democrats, unless they realize that they need to inspire, will find those huge gains will fail to materialize.

You cannot have leadership without offending someone. Someone once said you could measure Bobby Kennedy's greatness by the number of enemies he had. George Bush and Karl Rove know this, and they don't care who they offend as they seek to inspire and motivate their core supporters.

-with which it it would seem hard to disagree. Except that if memory serves, each and every time a pro-choice, pro-gay or other "special interest" group has stood up and demanded that the Democrats live up to their inspirational rhetoric...or they can't count on their vote... Kos is almost always among the first to say:

"Shut up, man, you're gonna queer the deal!"

I think women and gays and "scary brown people" are to the Democratic party what those not-at-all gullible folks who believe themselves to have a good dose of the Holy Spirit are to the Republicans: People you say the right words to in order to get their votes, regardless of whether you really mean them or not.

And then you turn around and do whatever shitty things will keep you in the lifestyle to which you have become accustomed. And I'm not sure, but I think Kos really, really wants to get accustomed to that lifestyle.

Ted Kennedy is a twit

I mean really, how do you louse up one of the greatest political quotes of all time, as he just did on The Daily Show? The line he tried to use was Will Rogers' "I am not a member of any organized political party...I'm a Democrat."

Only he forgot the word "organized," rendering the joke unfunny and meaningless.

I wonder if Ralph Nader will be any better on The Colbert Report.

Music to Play When I'm Dead

M' learned colleague James "the" Mann recently wrote to me to ask if I'd contribute to a project he's putting together; the idea, to assemble a collection of songs people want played at their funerals or like events.

I am happy to comply as I owe James a favor and as it happens I do have such a list, but I am now going to lessen the value of my contribution by repeating the answers here. Sorry, James. The order of the following has no signifgance...at least that I am aware of...

Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye/Bananarama

Many years ago I told a close friend I wanted this played when I was dead. I was kidding, but she said anyone who knew me would be crying, no doubt in remembrance of my puckish wit.

Frozen In Time/Thompson Twins

The American release of TT's "Side Kicks" (on casette) contained an extra side of remixes, including this mostly-wordless version of an album track. It's a song that, to me, may sum up better than any other my absolute and genuine love of synth.

Steppin' Out/Joe Jackson

The 1986 live version included on his "Live 1980/86" two-album set, wherein he slowed it down into a beautiful ballad that made the lyrics take on new meaning. "We were...steppin' out...into the night...into the light..."

Say Hello, Wave Goodbye (Almighty Radio Edit)/Soft Cell

This is reserved for one of my more toxically cynical moments, but sometimes I can't resist the drama of laying on a room full of dutiful mourners a song whose last words are "Take a look at my face for the last time...I never knew you, you never knew me, say hello, goodbye."

Bon Voyage/George Winston

Composed by Vince Guaraldi for a "Charlie Brown" special, this descending, minor key piece was originally meant to underscore a departure no more permanent than Snoopy being shipped to obedience school (it didn't take). But it's arguably my all-time favorite Guaraldi piece-Great Pumpkin Waltz is its only real rival. It was unrecorded by him, but included by Winston on his tribute solo piano album.

Even more words to live by

As quoted in If You Want To Write, by Brenda Ueland...

Van Gogh said:
"My only anxiety is what I can do...could I not be of use and good for something?...And in a picture I wish to say something that would console as music does."

Let's say I'm beneficent

Student, to Mel Brooks: I think your films are somehow more benevolent and affirmative than Woody Allen's.
Brooks: Let's say I'm beneficent. I produce beneficial things. A psychiatrist once told me he thought my psyche was basically very healthy, because it led to product.

As quoted in Show People, by Kenneth Tynan.

Nude women just can't get a fair shake in America

Texas college bars students from posing for Playboy

Someone call William Donohue, he'll want to speak out against this important affront to civil rights.

(Actually, my favorite thing about this item is these two final paragraphs)

The threatened punishment was met with a yawn by students on campus.

One woman, who professed no desire to pose for Playboy, said Baylor officials had "more important things to worry about" and wondered if male students would face similar punishment if they were seen reading an issue of Playboy featuring Baylor women.

BTW...

...prepare to see the words "Rove," "Karl" and "indictment" in a sentence, probably sometime in the next couple days.

And they fell for that? Wait a minute...

Philip Winikoff walked up to the door of the Lauderdale Lakes apartment carrying a black medical bag.

He told the woman inside he was a doctor from ''North Miami Hospital,'' going door- to-door offering free breast exams.

But authorities say the 76-year-old Winikoff was no doctor. And the medical bag wasn't his, but his wife's. She is a registered nurse.

On Wednesday, Broward sheriff's deputies arrested Winikoff on charges of sexual battery and simple assault. Winikoff allegedly fondled the breasts of two women and then sexually assaulted them.

It's a ''very bizarre crime,'' said BSO spokesman Hugh Graf. ``It may very well be a first.''

Ladies...I ask you...

Full story here.

You know, what's great about Michelle Malkin is that she has a vagina

Which automatically makes her better than someone who happens to have a penis, even when she does things like this (as described by Dave Neiwert):

There is a good reason that using the power of mass media to expose individual citizens' private lives to abuse and threats is considered unethical: It represents unchecked and abusive power. No one interested in holding the public trust should either want or seek it.

Yet this, of course, is exactly what Malkin did this week in publishing, on her blog, the home phone numbers of three students who led anti-military protests on the campus of UC-Santa Cruz.

Predictably, the students were deluged with hate mail and phone calls, including a number of death threats.

Malkin not only refused to take the numbers down -- in response, she reverted to her timeworn victimization schtick, posting some of the nasty e-mails she received in return and pretending there was nothing wrong or unethical in her behavior.

We're all too familiar with this routine. After all, it's what the entirety of her book Unhinged was predicated upon. Malkin, as I said then, is like the lunatic who walks around the public square and pokes people in the eye with a sharp stick, and then is shocked, shocked, that anyone would respond with anger and outrage.

This is not at all unlike something Ann Coulter did once, despite the fact that she too has a vagina...

Yeah, that's probably fair

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