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Rants to You All! (or: Hey, you kids, get off of my lawn!)



Rants Archives, 1: 1/24/02-5/1/02

Rants Archives, 2: 5/12/02-7/7/02

Huddled over the icy glow of my laptop, coffee getting colder by the second, I pause only for an occasional cigarette, and to wonder if it's the cocktail hour yet ....



Tuesday, December 17, 2002:

Kissinger, Buffy and Massive Butt-Kicking

It's that special time of the year, when all our thoughts get all warm and cozy, and I for one can only think of one thing:

(ahem)

HOW, how will Buffy and the Scooby Gang, even if aided by Giles (or "the coffee guy", as Corso calls him, bless his New York heart) defeat the First Evil?? I mean, this thing was around before mankind even existed, and it's been using images of Mom and Tara against them. Mom and Tara , people!  And the principal - good or evil?

(ahem)

Oh, yeah, and did you hear that Kissinger resigned from his job as 9/11 "investigator" because he didn't want to reveal his clients in full disclosure? Conflict, schmonflict! I guess he figured what's a little undisclosed fact here and there between old business associates and war buddies? **shudder** I'm glad the rest of the world noticed there was something terribly wrong with that lil' job assignment. Kind of like putting Bush on a special task force to get to the bottom of the Iran-Contra thing. Oh, wait.... Well, you get the picture.

And speaking of butt-kicking, have you seen Alias, most notably last week's episode? Poor Marshall. All he ever wanted to do was make a cooler gadget. Sidney had better put on a punk rock wig and start kicking some large amounts of butt if she intends to get to him before a big chunk of his brain is removed by Wheelchair Boy.

I'm sorry, do I seem a bit psychotic, a tad frenzied to you? Must be the holiday season. I still have shopping to do. Am doing early Christmas with Corso tomorrow since he's going to New York Friday. He better like his present, because the man at the goldfish store said he wouldn't take it back. Kidding! I'm kidding.

Okay, that's all the news that's fit to print tonight. I'm off to bed. Turn out the light when you're through, and turn down the damn thermostat!



Monday, November 11, 2002:

Bedknobs and Bathmats

Let me just begin by saying, yes, I know it's been almost two months since last I ranted. As I recently told a friend, I was on strike because I don't pay me very well. My management threatened to hire a scab and artistic me finally caved, afraid that whoever the management replaced me with would do a much better job at being me. So here I am.

So first of all, do you recall the bathmat that I mentioned, 'way back in August? (See below, August 5th entry if you really care...) What happened was, Mr. M. had supplied the bathroom that Rose, Mari and I all share with a very tasteful and HUGE bathmat - and let me tell you, it's a nice one! - at the beginning of our collective stay here back in June. In a fit of efficiency and what I like to think of as housemate-y goodwill, I tossed the bathmat into the wash one Sunday night, only to have it shrink up on me. (Apparently, it was dry-clean only. Huh. Go figure.) Well, it took a while, but I finally replaced it and, at Mari's suggestion, am placing a comparison photo below:

As you can see, the unwashed mat is considerably larger than the washed and shrunken mat, which also has the bad habit of shedding little thready bits all over. Mr. M. had difficulty believing that these were, in fact, the same mats at one point in time, but I assure you, they share an ID number.  And yes, I have far, far too much time on my hands.

But I digress. I also recently bought a big rosewood teak Baroque sleigh bed,which will take a while to be delivered, I am told, but I can't wait for its arrival. Yay! I can finally luxuriate.

So what else have I been doing? Uhm, writing a new book. I'm alternately excited about/frustrated with it, and it keeps me away from doing updates here, so...forgive my rare appearances.

Halloween brought only two freakin' trick-or-treaters to the door. Goddamn. What the hell is this world coming to? Lucky for me, it also brought AmyBunny's fantabulous party, where I found everyone to be delightful.Particularly. I was Evil Willow, Amy was Columbia from Rocky Horror PictureShow, we had an Edward Scissorhands roaming the premises, and Laurenn's costume was amazing! It was an x-ray specs dress made of chicken wire.

I suppose here is where I could rant an awful lot about the political state of things, but I sense that's worth a separate entry. I would go Green Party if I felt they had the right answer, but sadly, hugging the world doesn't seem altogether right if the world doesn't want you to hug it. I liked most of their propositions, though, so I have to say, mmmmm, lemme think about it. I've definitely soured on the whole two-party thing, and when I went to vote I felt like I may as well be playing with a Playskool Voting Machine by Matel. Ah, well, it's all part of living in this Modern World. Chin-chin, and extra-happy welcome to the world to Signa Maxine Mascot . Hope you enjoy your stay. The food and toys aren't bad.

Saturday, September 21, 2002:

It has been brought to my attention recently that if I simply stayed at home, I could avoid dealing with things such as traffic, angst, pretentious strangers and drunken frat boys. Yes, I thought, but then I'd probably NEVER leave the house. With that thought in mind, I braved last night's New Wave City 10 Year Anniversary Party. I'm gonna skip all the stuff about the traffic (except to say it SUCKED) and the creepy frat boy (excecpt to say I almost decked one, who deserved it) and just focus on the nice. I'll add the photos soon, too. It was nice to see my Top Ten Choices on the Wall, and I have to say, I do stand by them. And I did a lot of dancing to a lot of great music. If I had to do it again, I'd show up wearing jeans and a t-shirt, rather than the party clothes I wore, which were great for socializing but not so much for dancing. Plus, I'm not a big fan of being grabbed by strange men. As Buffy would say, "Raise your hand if EWWW!" I felt quite icki-fied for a moment there. Oh, and the guy with the fake English accent won the prize for Best Argument for Staying Home. But you know, Skip and Shindog played the best music perhaps ever, including "Quarterdrawing of the Dogs" (when was the last time you heard that???) by Siouxsie, and some other obscure greats. **sigh** I can't remember the last time I made it till almost 3. I don't like closing out the place completely though; always leave before the lights come on, I say.

Tonight's agenda: "Manos, the Hands of Fate"! I know, I'm a glutton for punishment. I should be sleeping. Kevin went on a bike ride and rewarded the house with chinese food and a visit to BevMo. Man, I cannot wake up. Maybe if I just have a nap first...

Wednesday, September 18, 2002:

Can't rant. Busy writing. And coughing. That is all. Oh, and welcome back, Kevin.


Wednesday, August 14, 2002

Odor is Particulate and Why the American Red Cross Can BITE ME

And what exactly do I mean when I say odor is particulate? I'm just sayin', is all. Let's just say, for example, that you have a really stinky kitchen carpet. And you just can't take it anymore, and decide to take it up. Let's just ignore, for the moment, the fact that there is carpet in the kitchen over nice wooden floors, and probably has been for about 25-plus years. Kevin, Mari, Rose and I all shake our heads over this puzzling fact on a daily basis. But as August temperatures rose, so did certain odors, and finally, we reached a consensus that something should really be done. No amount of carpet cleaning seemed to be helping. And after a rather sweaty trip to Home Depot, we took up the carpets in the eating area and discovered:

Lots of carpet adhesive. Stuck to wood floors. Smelling really bad. And so I say to you once again: Odor is particulate, and I like dust masks. I have to hand it to Kevin, who has done most, if not all of the heavy-duty scraping: You, Sir, are either a very hard worker, or possibly nuts. Either way, your tenants love you and bid the dissipating odors farewell. Godspeed!

So, why do I hate the American Red Cross? Well, hate is such an UGLY word. But at this moment, I am rather displeased with them. Last night, they called me (at work, which, if I had a job that required me to pay attention, might be a bad thing) and asked - no, begged! - me to come in and give blood. I said, "Well, you know I had a tattoo last June." They said that's fine, it's only less than a year that's a problem. So fine, I make an appointment for today, Wednesday morning. I even set my goddam alarm clock and everything.

I get down there, and wait, read their SIX PAGE form (well, mostly read it - I got to the part about the Mad Cow Disease (CJD, as Josh B. reminds me) and travelling in England and just kind of breezed past it because I recalled two years ago we went through the whole I-was-in-England-for-4-months-in-1987 thing, and they SAID it was FINE then. WELL....I filled out their form, which asked if I had travelled outside the US for more than 3 months since 1980. Hmmm, kind of limiting, but okay. I circled YES and turned in the form, and waited another ten or fifteen before they called me in.

I'm not even going to go into the freaking homophobic questions on the form about have I slept with any men who've slept with men since 1977 (hello, I'm pretty sure that's not the only way to get AIDS, and I'm also pretty sure HIV and Hepatitis are not the only blood diseases one should be on the lookout for). I understand that the Red Cross has its concerns. People with tattoos and "at-risk" partners, well, I guess everyone is just supposed to know the sexual history of everyone they've been with. But that's a subject for another day. I'm talking about wasting an hour of my time because I went to freaking England for 4 months in 1987, which was okay by the Red Cross two years ago, but apparently not anymore. I looked at the nurse and blinked. "But you used my blood two years ago. It's the same blood," I said. "Did you read the sheet?" she asked, somewhat snappily. Oh, good Lord. Not the SHEET. She's going to use the SHEET over LOGIC. "No," I said, "It's the same blood you used two years ago. Same trip, same blood." She sighed, "They changed the rules in October. Until they come up with a way to test for it, we can't take it anymore." Great, thanks for wasting my goddam time. I mean, they had my fucking chart when they called me, so why did they call me? So, you know, that's it. I'm not donating anymore of my goddam blood.

Excuse me, I'm going to go get a whole mess of tattoos now.


Monday, August 5, 2002

Patrick Swayze, Part Deux, and Krav Maga - Everybody's Doing It

I know! Look how good I'm being! But this will be a short one, because I have to run out to Bed, Bath & Beyond to replace the bathmat I washed last night that K. bought that's apparently dry clean only. I mean really - who makes dry clean only bathmats? Granted, it was not specifically a bathmat, but that's what we use it for, and I should have looked at the tag before tossing it, devil-may-care, into the washer last night between episodes of "Futurama" and "Simpsons". Rest assured, however, I had nothing but the best intentions. Sincerely.

So getting back to Patrick Swayze, I told Pam about my opinions on the subject (see below for link to hilarious review of Road House at www.moviesthatsuck.com) and his award winning bad performance in Road House . "Diane," she immediately reminded me, "How could you forget the line, 'The PAIN don't HURT!'?" Ah, yes! - how could I forget? The pain, Patrick, the pain don't hurt.

Pam also reminded me Patrick seemed to become legitamate in the late '90s, with To Wong Foo, yadda yadda. I still think Donnie Darko rules all, though.

Are you wondering what this Krav Maga thing is yet? Well click on the word then, listen to me rant. Pam was cluing me in a bit - apparently, it's all the rage in L.A., and the press media ads usually consist of a hot chick in spandex. Krav Maga is being billed as some kind of Israeli fighting technique, and is thus the coolest new form of martial art since Tae Bo, which, I'd like to add, is neither martial nor art, but is simply bad for your joints and causes repetitive stress injuries.

So what does Krav Maga bode for the future of martial arts? Absolutely nothing. It may be a legitamate fighting technique, but what the hell does that have to do with exercise, and a bunch of people in a gym wearing spandex trying to stay in shape? For years now, people have tried to make exercise more entertaining by imagining that kicking the air made them more bad-ass. Newsflash: It doesn't. Now, they want to imagine that they're being patriotic by kicking Palestinian air? Whatever.

This all leads me to want to sound all scholarly and quote from Hamlet , even though I had to ask Chris J. and Kevin where this came from the other day, so don't go thinking I'm smart. Just think of Withnail, pictured above, reciting this to the caged hyaenas at the zoo:

"I have of late--but wherefore I know not--lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not me: no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so." - Hamlet , Act II, Scene 2

Ms. Cantwell holds up her glass carefully. "Chin chin."


Friday, August 2, 2002

When Patrick Swayze Was King

Hi. Give me a minute - I know I left my coffee here somewhere. Ah, there it is. Sweet nectar of the gods. Anyway, I've decided to start giving titles to these rants of mine, as if that made them make any more sense. Things at the Manor have smoothed out, as the floors are being polished the foundation repaired by the ever-talented Jesse and Chris, who are currently dust-covered as I write this. Sunday, Kevin, Mari and I had a cozy evening of housework and dinner over "Futurama", "Simpsons" and "Alias", the last of which appears to be about a college girl who doubles as a secret agent and gets to wear tight black clothing and kick shit a lot. Quentin Tarantino appeared and said smarmy things to her, and she kicked him a few times, as well. Kevin commented, "I think I know why Mari likes this show."

So getting back to my title above, some of you may be asking, when exactly was Patrick Swayze King (I'd have linked a photo, but frankly, the fact that I've clicked on dozens of Swayze film sites from work is both disturbing and embarassing without having to go onto the fan sites to get a damn photo)? Well, there are a few different theories on this point. I believe most would argue that it was during the late 1980s, specifically, the Dirty Dancing epoch. If you're talking mainstream teenland, then yes, I would have to agree. (And speaking of the '80s, if you live in the Bay Area, keep your ears to the ground to catch info on the New Wave City Ten Year Anniversary in September - it'll be a blast....). HOWEVER, if you're my friend Pam, you may argue that Patrick Swayze was actually King two years later, when the muscles had hardened a bit more and he was roughing people up in movies like Next of Kin and Road House and uttering really laughably bad lines that frankly I just can't remember anymore. Can you? Please e-mail them to an old lady with bad memory...

Note that I am completely going to ignore Ghost in the King Line-Up. What a stupid fucking film. Even Flatliners was better than that piece of dreck, and that's saying an awful lot (Speaking of Flatliners, did you notice that all the medical school classes were being taught in big, open, draughty rooms of apparently an art museum? Where's Herbert West snapping his pencil when you need him? Adrian Lyne, we heart you!). Okay, so back to Patrick Swayze. I have decided that he fully matured as an actor in 2001, when he appeared in Donnie Darko as a self-help guru who tries to "help" teens. I almost just blew some of the scenes, but thought the better of it. For those of you who've seen it, I'll just drop the code words: "FEAR" and "LOVE" - that should be enough. Yes, Patrick Swayze has reclaimed the crown, only in an entirely different and disturbing way.

As I have settled into the Manor, and into life once more after last year's Series of Unsettling Events (I am thinking of contacting Lemony Snicket to record them), I have once more been feeling the urge to go out and about again, something I was beginning to think I would never again feel like doing. After a minor set-back this week, the roommates have rallied 'round and I must admit, I am looking forward to New Wave City's upcoming event on August 9th, and of course the Ten-Year Anniversary in September. Tomorrow, Saturday, is a "Date with Diane" night with Rose and Mari, meant to boost my spirits after yet another failed romance (I know! must be my hairspray) - we're off to S.F In the meantime, I'll bid you a fond farewell for the evening; Ms. Cantwell needs her beauty sleep, and she also has to clean her damn room.