Boy, are my arms tired!

2009-09-13T20:04:00.001-07:00

Get your T-Shirts Here!

It's Fall Fashion Month in New York and time to spruce up your wardrobe. In this new era of frugality, you probably don't have a bucket full of ready cash with which to purchase the latest couture. How about a cheap, new T-shirt instead? Better yet, how about a cheap, new T-shirt that will spark the kind of conversation that makes your friends and co-workers forget that you're wearing the same slacks you've had on for the past decade? Here are three designs created to distract and raise an eyebrow or two.

Don't. Stop, thinking about tomorrow. If Ayn Rand had conceived the philosophy of Nowtro, there would have been no Objectivism for Allen Greenspan to ruin the economy with. Nowtro: the philosophy of being nostalgic for the present. Forget yesterday. Tomorrow is just a fantasy. You're here in this minute. That's it. You don't need anything else.

The US Congress and the FCC brought us the TV Parental Guidelines system of rating content in television programs. But who is letting the world know that you are only suitable for mature audiences? Isn't it time you do everyone a favor and rate yourself? It's only polite.

There's no point in pretending that you don't use social networking programs to stalk everyone you've ever known or want to know. Everyone does it, so don't feel bad. Still, if you find yourself stalking from the first cock's crow until the power company pulls the plug on your computer, maybe it's time to exercise a little moderation. Here's an alliterative a philosophy we can all live with: Twitter Tuesdays, Facebook Fridays, Stalker Sundays. Everything in moderation. Practice it. Wear it.

2007-11-08T07:18:00.000-08:00

Environment (Fuck Yeah!)

After attending an October screening of “Planet in Peril,” CNN’s four-hour long documentary on the state of the environment, I was struck by two distinct ideas. First, the current decimation of the earth’s natural resources is far greater than most people know. Mass animal extinction, deforestation and frightening, climatic change are happening on every continent, People in every country and economic strata are being poisoned by chemical and industrial waste. The air we breathe and the water we drink are unhealthful or in short supply all over the globe. This isn’t some scary future scenario. This is happening right now — and it’s just the tip of those icebergs that are already melting with a rapidity previously envisioned only for much later in the century

Oh yeah, and humans are clearly to blame.

At this point, we’ve caused so much destruction that it should be illegal to drive SUVs, use plastic or paper bags, build new homes without solar panels, plant lawns in the desert, or create more complex, plastic packaging for chewing gum. And frankly, anyone who is still unsure about how the afore-mentioned items affect the degradation of our earth needs to quickly drive their Hummers across its flat surface and then continue right over the edge. Because they, like the dinosaurs, have outlived their usefulness and it’s time to get out of the way in order for those who have been paying attention to make some changes.

Okay, maybe that’s a little harsh. Before now, the majority of Americans — those who reputedly get their news solely from television — have probably not seen anything like CNN’s state-of-the-earth report. Maybe after years of listening to the agenda of an oil-industry-friendly administration, one that has done its utmost to squelch the dissemination any real information about the costs and consequences of global warming, it’s not surprising that people still think it’s okay to drive cars that get only nine miles to the gallon.

But it’s not. So, to sum up: the planet is dying. It affects you adversely. You helped cause this and you should try to help stop it, right now. You need to turn off the lights you’re not using, walk sometimes, not buy a bunch of plastic gewgaws imported from China that you don’t need anyway and, for God’s sake, stop taking up so much room. Also, next time an environmentalist runs for president against a draft dodger — choose the tree-hugger.

The second impression this documentary leaves the viewer with is that CNN’s role as a cultivator of personality over information has finally rendered this once venerable network almost unwatchable. With its three hosts, CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta, and Animal Planet’s Jeff Corwin, “Planet in Peril” is a perfect example of the misguided style of reporting the cable network favors, in which the on-air personalities dominate every frame and every event while the news takes a back seat. It’s sad enough to watch anchors emoting through the events of the day during the nightly shows. But this burlesque of Broadcast News becomes downright offensive when the information being conveyed is much more vital than another shot of O.J. Simpson taking a perp walk.

Anderson Cooper and to a lesser extent Dr. Sanjay Gupta, are so omnipresent in their segments, prancing through polluted backdrops in their sporty, safari clothes and mugging for the camera, that the endangered places, people and species they cover become secondary to the enterprise. Viewers are treated to the adventures of Cooper as he spots his first wild wolf in Yellowstone, works up his nerve to take the plunge into an ice crevice in Greenland and tracks tiger poachers in Cambodia. Gupta keeps all eyes riveted to his chiseled face while his car gets stuck in an African sand dune or when he orders (gasp) penis sushi at a Chinese restaurant. He can’t even back off from his close-ups during a scene in which he compels a widow, whose husband died from environmentally-induced cancer, to cry over her loss. The only thing missing from this silly production is a Team America-like theme song playing in the background. “Environment, fuck yeah!”

Largely exempt from “Planet in Peril’s” theatrical posturing is the third host, Animal Planet’s Jeff Corwin. Corwin, in this instance, is notably capable of putting the work of reporting before his need to share another shot of his twinkling eyes, crinkled with concern. That this wildlife biologist is able to give up some of his face time in order to allow the camera to linger on a lemur or a polar bear — you know, the actual subjects of this program — is because he’s the only one of the three who seems to genuinely like the planet and the creatures on it. In fact, at the screening I attended, where all three hosts made an appearance, Cooper quipped that he hoped they wouldn’t have to make a program like this again because, “I don’t even like nature.”

“Planet in Peril,” to its credit, is full of crucial information about the global crisis. However, its melodramatic, personality-centric packaging diminishes that message. In the end, it’s better than nothing. But if CNN really wanted to help save the planet, rather than promote network stars, they could have edited out the close-ups, presented this information in half the time and given Americans a couple of hours during which to turn off their TVs and save some electricity. How’s that for a carbon offset?�

2007-10-15T20:25:00.000-07:00

Death of a Newspaper

When the small newspaper chain for which I currently work, goes kaput, I will not be surprised. I will be a little sorry, a little sad, a little upset if I'm left without a job, but I will not be surprised. In fact, I would be more surprised if the business survived than failed.

My lack of confidence in the future of this business is due, in part, to my pessimism about the future of the entire newspaper business. During the past 10 years, daily, weekly and monthly papers have been bought and sold like cheap whores. Many of these publications, like the Los Angeles Times, were once proud, respected institutions. However, formerly great or not, the Internet has taken a bite out of publishers' advertising dollars with a ruthlessness that has been too substantial for the industry to weather.

The papers that are not sold are shut down. That is what I expect will happen to our little chain. I can't predict how soon it will happen. But, due to pressures internal and external it is marked for failure. It's like the American economy in microcosm. No matter how much money Alan Greenspan flooded the system with, he couldn't keep the real estate implosion away forever -- actually he kept it away long enough to beat a hasty retreat so he didn't have to deal with it on his own watch.

Too bad we can't print money instead of news.

2007-08-21T07:30:00.000-07:00

DESPERATE HOUSECATS

My cat Percy has hyperthyroidism. And she’s not alone. According to scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), there is an epidemic of thyroid disease raging throughout America’s cat population. It's caused by exposure to toxic flame retardants found in many household products and some cat food.

Thyroid disease in cats was rare until the 1980s, when large amounts of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PDBEs) began to be used in the manufacture of products like electronics, furniture cushions, mattresses and the padding under carpets — you know, pretty much everything in your house. Cats in California were the first to come down with the disease in droves because our fair state has the strictest mandates for fire-retardant furniture.

What’s great for firemen, it turns out, is not so great for indoor felines who are exposed all day to the dust created by treated fabrics and appliances. Plus, if those cats are also being fed wet food made from fish, they are at even greater risk for this illness. That's because, like all toxic things, PCBEs flow gently to the sea to fuse with all life in their path.

Hyperthyroidism in cats is a serious condition that causes the animal’s heart to race ceaselessly. Left untreated, it leads to premature death. Symptoms include weight loss that occurs despite consistent feeding, agitation and changes in the cat’s voice. If kitty’s soothing little trill has changed to a nasty meowl, it’s time for a trip to the veterinarian.

While Americans love their pets to ridiculous excess and want them to live long, healthy lives, the real concern for the EPA is that household PDBEs pose a health danger to humans. These toxic chemicals have been building up in the environment, in wildlife, in the oceans and inside people’s bodies for several decades. If what has happened to cats, whose exposure has been higher than their owners’, relative to their size, correlates to the human condition — as the EPA fears — then we may yet be in for a heart-pounding, toxic surprise — one we can’t even blame on the Chinese.

Or can we?

2006-07-21T21:48:00.000-07:00

FOWL MESSAGES

They’re fucking with eggs again. Yes, those versatile, delicious, protein-packed little nuggets that come from chickens are under attack. But unlike the assault by the ersatz-nutrition industry during the 1970s — that equated over-easy with overly-hard arteries and left poultry farmers with yolk on their faces — today it’s the advertising industry that’s turning this almost-perfect food into something distasteful.

This week CBS announced that it had hired a company called EggFusion to begin laser-imprinting advertising onto the pristine shells of eggs. Now, when you make that omelet or soufflé, you’ll be forced to read some idiotic, punny message like: “CSI - Crack the Case on CBS” or “The Amazing Race - Scramble to Win on CBS.”

Americans are already so inundated with advertising that it is impossible to make it though a day without having a logo imprinted upon one's unconscious. I’m not talking about traditional ads, like those found in publications or on billboards. I’m talking about entire buildings and vehicles covered with printed Mylar messages. I’m talking about product placements in every movie and TV show. I’m talking about the fifteen minutes of commercials one pays to see before watching a film in a multi-plex. I’m talking about urinals, kindergarteners’ milk cartons and even one’s clothing covered with inescapable messages to consume ever more.

Food — at least, once it’s taken out of its packaging — has been one of the last refuges from advertising. But EggFusion and CBS have put an end to that. And, if that isn’t enough to make one want to barf, US Airways also announced this week that it would begin printing advertising on its airsickness bags.

Where does it end? Will we soon see ads on the skins of fruits and vegetables — or do obese Americans not eat enough healthy food to make that venue worthwhile? How about media messages on toilet paper? That’s a blank surface no one’s staked a claim to yet. NBC could take the initiative and print little witticisms like “Same old shit, different night,” or “Must Pee TV,” and place them in every crapper in the country.

Unless we’re ready to see the Statue of Liberty sporting a Nike swoosh, or the Golden Gate Bridge covered with photos of Jessica Simpson ass in cut-offs, it’s time to put an end to marketers’ power to transform everything from our landscape to our breakfasts into advertising. Since the only thing that works to change the way American companies do business is to hurt them financially, I say, it’s time to boycott eggs and those who have turned them into marketing tools. If A&P stores — where the first of this eggvertising will appear — EggFusion, CBS and farmers across the country see that their intrusive messages, not only don’t work, but are eliciting a negative response, then maybe they’ll get their slimy paws off of our food.

Today it's eggs. Tomorrow it could be the sidewalk in front of your house that's relentlessly urging you to buy something. Reject the assault. Reject the eggs. And, most of all, tell CBS to fuck off.

2006-06-26T06:43:00.000-07:00

Here's another one Fake Gay News didn't use.

Pat Robertson Blames Global Warming on Hot Air from Lesbian Talk Shows

During his 700 Club broadcast last Sunday, televangelist Pat Robertson told followers that proliferation of lesbian talk shows was the real cause of global warming.

“All those Ellens and Rosies on TV with their endless talk, talk, talk, are emitting harmful hot air into an already overheated atmosphere. And I predict that as soon as O’Donnell joins The View, Americans will feel the wrath of God in ways that make Hurricane Katrina look like a walk in the park.”

Robertson, like many powerful leaders from the Christian right, has, until now, agreed with the Bush administration on its stance that “the jury was still out” on the causes of global warming, and could not be credibly attributed to human interference. But in this startling turn-around he admitted, “I now firmly believe that people are the cause of the greenhouse effect and all its manifestations from polar meltdowns to freak storms. Not because good, Christian families exercise their God-given right to burn one gallon of gas for every ten miles they drive in their SUVs, but because gays just won’t stop the witty banter.”

Standing in front of a graphic illustrating hurricane activity during the last four decades Robertson said. “It’s clear that the frequency and severity of storms rose dramatically in the mid-1990s. And it’s no coincidence that this was the very time frame during which lesbian Rosie O’Donnell was hosting her daytime program. And don’t get me started on Ellen’s dancing. Talk is cheap, but aerobic activity really makes my blood — and God’s — boil.”

Don Righwood, a spokesperson from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration could not confirm the science behind Robertson’s theory. “As far as we can tell,” said Rightwood, “Paul Lynde and Charles Nelson Reilly spent years chatting up Merv Griffin and it never caused even one gloomy day — much less a category four hurricane.”

Still, Roberston, long noted for his thoughtful rhetoric — like when he called for the assassination of Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez or claimed to be able to leg press 2,000 lbs.— is not shaken by government statistics. “Science scmience,” he responded. “If we listened to scientists we’d all believe in evolution or that the earth was round. Sheesh!”

Robertson further admonished his flock for pushing the ratings of lesbian television programs into Emmy-winning territory. “Sure they seem like nice women. Sure they like children and care about the state of the world. Sure, they’re entertaining. But, that’s not what matters. What matters is that every time you tune into one of their shows, you’re not watching me. And if my ratings go down, there will surely be hell to pay.”

2006-06-14T07:08:00.000-07:00

FAKE GAY NEWS

Recently, I began writing for the satirical website Fake Gay News. It’s based on The Onion’s model, only written by lesbians about GLBT issues. (This constrains the humor, but we do our best). Within two weeks after starting, Erosion Media, the company that owns Fake Gay News and sister sites After Ellen and After Elton, was sold to Logo, the gay cable station. Logo, itself, is owned by corporate media behemoth, Viacom. So, it looks like I’m writing for Viacom, which will really spiff-up my resume.

It’s intriguing to see which of my stories FGN will post, and which get rejected. For instance, they liked one about how children raised by same sex couples were just as unruly as children from straight homes. However, they did not post one about “dolphin safe” underwear. I suspect that some of the stories they reject are just not that funny. It wouldn't be the first time I'm the only one laughing at my jokes.

Still, in the interest of science, I will be posting my rejects here.

New ‘Dolphin Safe’ Garment Line Accidentally Swells Lesbian Ranks Nationwide

What started as a conversation between one lesbian and her hot, bi-curious, college roommate has turned into an inadvertent new wave of lesbian recruitment the magnitude of which has not been seen since toaster ovens were first offered to new converts.

“There we were, sitting on my bed. I’d lighted some candles and was pretending to help her study for her women’s history exam,” explained Annette Klondike. “Well, one thing led to another. Then, just as we were rounding third base, she stopped dead in her tracks and asked, “Is it safe?”

It’s a familiar question to many lesbians who grew up in an era in which mothers would not let their children touch a tuna salad sandwich unless the can from which it was made had a perky dolphin on the label.

“At first I thought she was talking about STDs. Then it dawned on me that what she really meant was that if it smells like fish, it needs a seal of approval,” said Klondike of the “ah-ha” moment from which “Dolphin Safe” lesbian underwear was born.

The line of bikinis, thongs and boxer shorts designed and sold by Klondike’s Something’s Fishy label — featuring a familiar smiling dolphin, and the word “safe” silk-screened onto the crotch — began in her dorm room that semester. After selling out her first run of 100 pairs by word-of-mouth, she opened an e-shop on the Internet two years ago and began selling the undies in earnest.

Business was brisk from the beginning, but what really astonished Klondike were the letters she began receiving from customers.

One such missive, from the thousands she receives, expresses a recurring sentiment: “I was sitting on the fence about this gay thing because I wasn’t sure if any animals would be harmed by my urges. But, once I saw that happy dolphin peeking out at me, I knew I what I was about to do was, not only right for me as a person, but right for the planet, too.”

In addition to letters from new converts, she receives many notes of gratitude from dyed-in-the-wool lesbians who tell her that her products have allowed them to score with women they once thought untouchable.

Most surprising, is that her panty line has been responsible for a new boom of conversions to the ranks of lesbians nationwide. Membership in PFLAG, GLADD, the Lesbian Avengers, Dykes on Bikes and other GLBT organizations has doubled since The Gap began selling the Something’s Fishy line in their retail stores last November.

PFLAG spokesperson Betty DeGeneres recently admitted that there was only so much her daughter could do on her own. “Yes, our organization was inundated with new members after my daughter came out on national TV. Everyone wants to identify with someone rich and famous. However, Annette’s tasteful line of undergarments has made coming-out a green alternative, and one that everybody can swallow — hook, line and sinker,” she quipped.

Cities across the country are already wondering how they will accommodate the extra visitors to GLBT Pride celebrations in June. San Francisco’s mayor, Gavin Newsom, says that, in addition to shutting down the Castro neighborhood and the downtown parade route, he’s planning to rope off most of Chinatown, the Mission, North Beach, the Wharf and SOMA to contain the overflow. “It’s always great to host a Pride celebration. But, with all the additional women this year, I’m a little worried. What if their periods synch-up?”

None of this is a problem to Klondike, who is currently finalizing a deal to sell her products in Target stores. With this new distribution contract, she said, she hopes to achieve the kind of penetration that has eluded her in the past.

And what happened to that sexy roommate whose hesitation began this lesbian juggernaut?

“You know how it goes,” Annette said. “She ended up with my ex and they’re trying to get pregnant. But it’s got me thinking about Underoos.”

2005-10-10T07:39:00.000-07:00

THE NIGHT OF A THOUSAND HAS-BEENS

I’ve long joked about producing an evening of variety entertainment, which I refer to as, The Night of a Thousand Has-Beens. I’d always imagined it would be hosted by Pia Zadora and Jaleel White (who played Urkel on Family Matters). They would begin the evening by singing something like a medley of “There’s No Business Like Show Business” and “Ebony and Ivory. The format would loosely resemble an awards show, complete with a red carpet entrance, an endless stream of over-dressed people making podium speeches and tacky song and dance acts. Of course, no actual awards would be handed out, but it would be a last hurrah of sorts for people like Barry Williams, Stella Stevens and Mary Lou Rettin.

Perhaps the window of opportunity for this type of extravaganza has passed. First of all, former celebrities who used to go off to set up pet shelters in small towns — and leave the public to wonder “what ever happened to them” — have now found new lives parodying themselves on reality television shows. For example, on their VH1 program “My Fair Brady,” Chris Knight and Florence Henderson reenact a facsimile of their Mother and son television roles in which Henderson gives Knight psychological advice about his new relationship with a much younger girlfriend. Or, how about Danny Bonaduce’s, “Breaking Bonaduce,” in which he takes a camera into his marriage counseling sessions to expose the kind of ugly, real-life dysfunction no one could make up. (Too bad Florence Henderson isn’t Danny’s counselor. Think of the possibilities.)

For those who don’t have the nerve or lack of esteem to bare themselves, doogie-poo-and-all, Osbourne-style on reality shows, there is yet another venue: Larry King Live on CNN. Where else can one tune in to see the geriatric and mean-spirited Jerry Lewis being treated like he’s still the funniest man alive? Who, but Larry would have the nerve to celebrate the nuptials of Liza Minnelli and her obviously gay husband — on more than one occasion, and without irony? And who, but the man who foisted Nancy Grace on the unsuspecting public, is so interested in the wives, children and parents of dead or washed-up stars that he has spent the golden years of his career interviewing them?

If ever there was to be a Night of a Thousand Has-Beens, Larry King’s recent 25-year Anniversary party, held at Spago Restaurant, was surely it. There were some who likely couldn’t be taken off of life-support or leave their rehabs, in order to attend, but here’s who came:
Clay Aiken, Valerie Allen, Tom Arnold, Marcia Clark, Joan Dangerfield (wife of deceased Rodney), Angie Dickenson, Barbara Eden, Farrah Fawcett, Mark Geragos, Kathy Griffin, Josh Grobin, Merle Haggard, Terri Hatcher, Tippi Hedren, Marilu Henner, Dennis Hopper, Joe Jackson, Jermaine Jackson, LaToya Jackson (but not Michael), Jenny Jones, Wynonna Judd, Frank Langella, Cloris Leachman (hey, how did she get on this list), Richard Lewis, Ian McShane, Jayne Meadows, Mike and Irena Medavoy, Donna Mills, Poppy Montgomery, Paul Reiser, Eva Marie Saint, Connie Seleca, Tony Shaloub, Bob Shapiro, William Shatner, Joe and Tina Simpson (Jessica and Ashlee’s parents), Tina Sinatra, Anna Nicole Smith, Suzanne Sommers, Connie Stevens, Rod Stewart, John Tesh, Alan Thicke, Tanya Tucker, Lindsay Wagner, Raquel Welch and Warren G.

All I want to know is, who the hell forgot to invite David Gest and Elizabeth Smart’s parents? And, more importantly, why, oh why, wasn’t the whole thing on TV?

2005-09-23T05:57:00.000-07:00

NEW ORLEANS

—Autumnal Equinox, 2005

2005-09-20T20:27:00.000-07:00

(MORE) DISASTER DISPATCHES
(Notes from C.B., CNN Producer)

September 20, 2005
—New Orleans, LA

The city, as I’ve observed it, in the past few days:

Fewer animals and people roam the streets of New Orleans. There remain some holdouts from several species. Residents of Algiers seem eager to return home, however Mother Nature may have something to say about that.

The smell of raw sewage has abated, somewhat. The countless flies and mosquitoes have been reduced by aerial spraying. You walk and drive through certain sections and the air almost seems clean, particularly in Algiers. In Jefferson Parish, businesses are opening. Buds Broiler on Clearview, Comeaux appliances, a Wal-Mart in Kenner and other places are very real signs of hope. Water has receded to near the Lake. In these areas that are coming back to life refrigerators, carpeting, insulation and other refuse is strewn about the sidewalks for a garbage pick up which, eventually will come — no one knows when. To that end, garbage is accruing throughout the city.

Cleanup has begun and streets are looking better each day, but the bagged garbage goes nowhere, it just sits and rots further. Stop signs are up at intersections downtown — where streetlights once functioned. Lawless driving conditions scare me more than the crime or disease “epidemics” ever did.

Rita looms large on the horizon and is, at least the ostensibly, reason that Nagin has ceased repopulation of select, largely dry neighborhoods. If the storm hits St. Tammany, as one model projects, the catastrophic flooding and levee breaks will be a potential knockout blow to the region and to New Orleans, in particular. Officials told me today that they are planning to use Behrman Recreation Center on the West Bank and the Convention Center on the East Bank to evacuate the remaining residents of Orleans Parish. Currently, the rec center is populated with contractors who are camping out and doing tree and debris removal. All of these folks would have to go.

On a personal note, I saw my own brother today, TWICE! I have made plans to leave the region on Saturday for some r&r in L.A.. That said, if it looks like Rita is headed our way, I know myself well enough to believe that I won’t be able to make myself go. Sneaky Pete [my boss] and I may have to hunker down in a bunker and bicker with each other through the storm, and yes, I do have a pack of cards.

Go Saints!

2005-09-18T08:19:00.000-07:00

TAKING MATTERS INTO THEIR OWN HANDS

“Thomas, Tracy and Jeremy saved my life,” Latosha Ross said to the crowd gathered at NoHo Modern Furniture in North Hollywood, last Friday night. The more than 100 guests milling around the store, opened three years ago by Thomas Hayes and Jeremy Petty, were there to attend a benefit for Ross and her daughter, Keairria Shorter, who were adopted by NoHo Modern’s owners in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Like many, Hayes and his wife Tracy, along with Petty, had been sickened by the televised scenes of human devastation wrought by the nation’s largest natural disaster in a century. They wanted to help, yet, “we didn’t feel that good about just giving money to an anonymous entity,” Petty explained. “People like to feel like they’re doing something directly.”

“My friend Jill, was traveling to Alabama to do hurricane relief work,” Hayes related. “I asked her to look out for a family we could help. I wanted to send a check to someone specifically.” Jill found Ross and her daughter. Residents of Gulf Port, MI, the two had been living on the roof of their apartment building, with a dozen other survivors, for six days. Subsisting on scant rations of Vienna sausages and storm water doused with bleach, they were sick, tired and losing hope by the time they were discovered.

“Jill called to tell me about this family and asked me if I’d like to take them in,” Hayes recalls. This was a much larger commitment than merely mailing a check. Yet, without hesitation, plane tickets were purchased, and a room in Hayes’ Valley Village home was hastily painted and furnished to accommodate the survivors.

Ross and Shorter arrived on September 6, to begin the process of building a new life in Los Angeles. With help from NoHo Modern’s supporters, abundant donations were collected to clothe the two, and Keairria, 8, was immediately enrolled in Colfax Avenue Elementary School. However, persistent bouts of gastrointestinal illness caused her to miss much of her first two weeks of third grade. After several trips to emergency clinics, a pediatrician was found who would treat Keairria gratis. This same doctor also convinced Huntington Medical Center in Pasadena to donate their services — where it was finally determined that the girl was suffering from salmonella poisoning. By the night of the reception, Keairria was on the mend and enjoying the festivities.

Though Ross and Shorter have been saved from their immediate devastation, there is much more to do to get their lives on track. Now that her daughter is out of danger, Ross, who had worked as a sous chef in a Gulf Port casino, has begun looking for a job. Then there is the matter of finding a permanent home. The $5,000 collected at the fundraiser, and another $5000 in cash and gift cards donated previously, will help with this — as will the offers of play dates, jobs leads and other assistance that have come from NoHo Modern’s extended group of friends.

There is much they will need to learn outside of the realm of basic survival skills to make the transition from living in the South to living in California. The West Coast is a vastly different place than the one from which they came, and the culture shock that has begun to set in has been as surprising to Hayes and Petty as it has to Ross and Shorter.

As if seeing her first Whole Foods store wasn’t startling enough, by way of example, Hayes related that he had to “sit Latosha down and explain to her that she couldn’t just yell at her kid in public in California. I told her that it was okay to do that in the South, but here you would get reported and have your kid taken away from you.”

Petty added that they don’t want to just be the two white guys who keep telling her what to do with her child, her money or her life. “Right now she probably thinks of us as angels of mercy. But, there will come a point when she’s going to want to do what she wants to do.” He is determined to make sure that when that time comes, she will have the tools to take care of herself. “I don’t want her to blow the money on cigarettes, alcohol and things like rental furniture,” he said. “I don’t want her paying all those poverty taxes. In fact, our accountant has offered to help her with her finances.”

What began as a quest to write a check for a needy family has turned into a long-term relationship. While, it may be a long time before Ross becomes comfortable in her new Southern California home, Hayes and Petty plan to continue to help until she is.

“I don’t intend to drop off. I intend to be involved in their lives for a long time,” said Petty. “They say you can give someone a fish, or you can teach them to fish and they’ll be able to take care of themselves. That’s what we are trying to do.”

Read more about the family on Petty’s blog: http://katrinahurricanelosangeles.blogspot.com/ or contact them directly at NoHo Modern, 11225 Magnolia Blvd., North Hollywood, CA 91601; 818-505-1297.

2005-09-13T06:44:00.000-07:00

DISASTER DISPATCHES
(Notes from C.B., CNN Producer)

September 8, 2005
—New Orleans, LA

Out with the US Humane Society in New Orleans East, where it looks as if the area was carpet bombed. The animal situation everywhere is just terrible. Yesterday in St Bernard (to cover nursing home tragedy) I saw tons of dogs, all with collars and tags, running around in packs, scrounging for food and hanging around humans presumably for food and companionship. Many dogs were tied up before their owners evacuated the area. I also saw a dead horse and several who looked malnourished, grazing. Herons, Chicken Hawks, Egrets and other birds are drinking and hanging out in the death water. Have seen horses grazing on a bywater neutral ground recently, too. Pigeons around town are clearly starving as well, no one to feed them. Dead animals are everywhere. Mosquitoes are huge and worse than ever.

The human stories are so searing, yet in some ways this is even more terrible. The animals, which counted on humans to protect them, have been let down and will likely have to be put down or hunted down and shot. It is all just so heartbreaking.

On a more heartening note, I just visited with a woman named Delia LaBarre, in Warehouse District, who refuses to leave. Says the old buildings were built to withstand storms and is willing to rough it in order to preserve the spirit of the city. She said if the city had spent as much time over the past year on an evacuation plan [as it did] worrying about whether the Saints were moving, then many less people would have died. Food for thought.

September 12, 2005
—New Orleans, LA

Went out to New Orleans East. I saw a boat towing three, oozing dead bodies out of a hospital there. I nearly passed out/puked from heat and odor.

At another hospital, formerly known as Baptist now called Memorial, supposedly 45 total are dead inside. I’m hearing that they maxed out the morgue early on and then everyone who was on electric-generated life support died. They stacked bodies in chapel.

While waiting for bodies to be removed I see starving cats and hear wailing and barking dogs, abandoned and locked inside their homes.

I am just sickened on every level.

2005-09-12T07:19:00.001-07:00

THE NEW DARK AGES

Last week, a friend wrote me this:

“I keep thinking about all those dystopic novels I've read (Handmaid's Tale, "He, She and It")—this is always how it starts (end days), with cities being wiped out by huge weather patterns (that have come about due to global warming), masses of people dying, phones failing, diseases spreading.”

I replied that we were seeing the “end days.” But, I wasn’t sure if they were going to look like either a Margaret Atwood novel or the apocalypse of the bible. Surely, end of the world I was brought up to live in is occurring. Let me elaborate.

In the 1960s, I assumed that when I was a “grown up,” my world would still resemble the one I saw around me — and the ways it would be different would be improvements on the past. My adult world would have Social Security for the old, housing programs and welfare for the poor, and good, public schools. The vast wealth in the US coffers would assure that health care was available to all, museums were free and children did not go hungry. Racism and sexism would be a thing of the past (not to mention homophobia) and the government would be proudly secular while upholding the rights of people to believe and espouse any religious view they might enjoy. Wars would be relatively passé and the military would primarily be a place where those with little means could earn their way through college, by serving the peacetime needs of the country. Unions would protect the wages of working people, and their wealth would allow them to live better lives. Corporations would be regulated so that they would neither become monopolies nor run roughshod over government and the general public. The natural environment would be seen as a precious gem that sustains all life and would be treated with reverence. Science would advance to create new methods of creating fuels to heat and move people from one place to another. Nuclear power would be abandoned for safer technologies like solar power.

None of this has come to pass. In fact, this description of the past, and what I believed would be the natural outgrowth of the policies and politics of the 1960s seems almost like I am describing a socialist state and not the capitalistic US.

Social Security has been raided and is on the verge of being destroyed. Housing for the poor is decrepit where it is not nonexistent. Welfare has been cut. Public schools provide educations roundly thought to be sub-par. There is no national health care system, and the poor are mostly without any care. Even the emergency rooms they could once count on to help them are being closed, for lack of money, at many hospitals across the nation. Racism, sexism and homophobia are rampant. The crisis in the poor, black South, the Christian Right’s attack on women’s rights and their equally virulent attack on gays who want to marry are proof of that. The federal government is more openly religious, and conservatively religious at that than it has been for half a century. Wars are now fought because we want to, not out of necessity. The poor still enter military service in the hope that they will find a better life, but now, more often, end up as cannon fodder for the government. Unions are embattled, if not dead. In fact, the current president has done nothing but enact laws that enslave the working classes to corporate bosses. And the corporations are so unregulated that they are able to exploit the poor as well as monetarily defraud the nation as a whole. It is common knowledge that they buy legislators to make sure that, as entities, they are unfettered in their profit-making. The environment is being degraded more each day and, for the first time in decades, there is talk of building new nuclear power plants. The only new fuel being talked about these days is hydrogen, which no one has figured out how to produce or distribute easily or cheaply. Meanwhile, Americans drive cars that use more gasoline than ever before, eroding the last stores of oil on earth — stores for which the US sends children to fight and die to acquire. Hell, even museums aren’t free anymore.

This is not the world to which I was looking forward. This is not a forward-thinking world in the least. In fact, if the Enlightenment was time when educated people rejected traditional religious and political ideals, then this return to pre-WWII values can be likened to a return to the Dark Ages. All we need now are the witch trials?

2005-09-02T08:18:00.000-07:00

THE DISASTROUS PRESIDENT

As George Bush might say, being president is hard work. During his watch America has seen three major disasters: the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York; the ongoing war in Iraq; and the destruction of New Orleans and much of the Gulf States by hurricane Katrina. I don’t mean to minimize the plight of those who survived landslides and fires in California or the string of hurricanes that hit Florida last year. Those survivors would surely have a legitimate argument about being included on this list. But, for the sake of argument, let’s agree that those three catastrophes listed have drained the resources of the U.S. like nothing the country has seen in a century.

Of the three, only one has been a disaster of choice, namely, the war in Iraq. Most now agree that the reasons given to fight there were lies put forward by the current administration in Washington D.C. who wanted to remove Saddam Hussein and begin a process of — depending who you ask — either claiming rights to the largest, known oil reserves on the globe, or spreading democracy in the Middle East. Either way, the results of the lies that began this conflict with no end, have been costly — not just in terms of the billions spent on this war of choice, but the cost in lives and the impact on survivors.

It would be difficult to make the argument that George Bush is to blame for the attacks that befell New York in 2001. However, the two subsequent disasters can be pinned on him either in full or in part. Certainly the Gulf War is entirely his doing. His administration cooked the books, so to speak, to create the need for a war that didn’t need to happen. Without prevarication, it is fair to say that the responsibility for the war rests entirely on his shoulders.

The chaos and loss of life that have come in the wake of Hurricane Katrina can also be blamed on Mr. Bush. There are myriad reasons why this is true. First, the war he created has robbed the country, and the South, in this instance, of much needed emergency workers and National Guardsmen who have been deployed to Iraq, rather than left where they are needed, in the homeland, to protect the security of U.S. citizens.

As an editorial in the September 2, 2005 New York Times, “The Man-Made Disaster,” puts it:

“Watching helplessly from afar, many citizens wondered whether rescue operations were hampered because almost one-third of the men and women of the Louisiana National Guard, and an even higher percentage of the Mississippi National Guard, were 7,000 miles away, fighting in Iraq. That's an even bigger loss than the raw numbers suggest because many of these part-time soldiers had to leave behind their full-time jobs in police and fire departments or their jobs as paramedics. Regardless of whether they wear public safety uniforms in civilian life, the guardsmen in Iraq are a crucial resource sorely missed during these early days, when hours have literally meant the difference between evacuation and inundation, between civic order and chaos, between life and death.”

The war has not only robbed the country of necessary human resources, it has robbed every last person of the federal resources — namely, the money — needed to pay for these kinds of tragedies. Between the costs of rebuilding New York, the cost of the unnecessary war in Iraq and the numerous tax cuts enacted by George Bush’s administration, the U. S. is already a debtor nation to the tune of trillions of dollars — and it is still unclear how much money rebuilding Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana will cost.

The second part of this equation that is George Bush’s fault is that his administration cut the money earmarked to go to the Army Corps of Engineers to modernize and shore up the sinking levees surrounding New Orleans. Before 9/11, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has already listed a hurricane hitting that venerable city as one of the most likely catastrophic disasters the nation could face. Uncannily, they described how the city would be left under 20-feet of water. Yet, despite this warning, Mr. Bush saw fit to cut 80 percent from the Army Corps budget, money needed to pay for the work to prevent this type of disaster. In 2002 the head of the Corps, under threat of being fired for criticizing these cuts, resigned.

In addition, the effectiveness of FEMA itself, now part of Homeland Security, has been undermined by Bush’s administration. As James Lee Witt, head of the agency during the Clinton years said during a Congressional hearing last year:

"I am extremely concerned that the ability of our nation to prepare for and respond to disasters has been sharply eroded. I hear from emergency managers, local and state leaders, and first responders nearly every day that the FEMA they knew and worked well with has now disappeared."

President Bush remarked this week, about the flooding in New Orleans, that no one had expected a levy breach. This is as credible as the claim that Saddam Hussein was reconstituting his nuclear arms program. In other words, it is an utter lie.

The current crisis has taken the spotlight off of the Cindy Sheehan vigil. Sheehan is the mother of an American solider in Iraq who wanted to ask the President one, simple question: why her son had to die. Yet, despite camping out in Crawford, Texas, while the hard-working Bush was taking a five-week vacation — a vacation that was part of cumulative break time longer other president in history — Mr. Bush would not answer her question.

What will he do when the relatives of the many who have died and are dying today in the Gulf States want to know why their loved ones have perished? Will the President deny them an answer as well? If his track record is any indication, they will be fed more of the never-ending falsehoods that emerge from the White House on a daily basis.

Yes, being president is hard work. Harder still when, as president, you cut funding for every program in America that people count upon — like emergency management — in favor of fighting wars which seem only to enrich a few wealthy corporations and their cronies.

America has experienced three major disasters since George Bush has become president. That’s not counting the fourth, his presidency itself. It will be years before New Orleans, Biloxi, Gulf Port and other cities recover from this hurricane. But, it will take the country decades to recover from George Bush.

2005-08-24T07:41:00.000-07:00

IMAGINARY FRIENDS
I lost some friends Sunday night: the Fishers and the Chenowiths. David, Nate, Claire, Ruth and Brenda were not people I could call up for an in-depth, analytical chat when I had a bad day, or smoke a joint with to celebrate a good one. Still, I have spent many nights basking in the cold comfort of their company and I miss them already.

The Fishers and Chenowiths were characters on the HBO series, Six Feet Under, which aired its final episode this past Sunday. That I think of them as friends is not a comment on my tenuous grasp of the differences between real and imaginary companions so much as a testament to the emotional veracity of this stand-out television program.

It’s not as if I felt this way about Ross and Rachel, Greg and Marcia or even Cagney and Lacey. In fact, none of these characters ascended beyond the acquaintance level in my imagination. Because, let’s face it, you can’t be friends — even the imaginary type — with people with whom you have nothing in common. I admit, I hung out with “Friends” — maybe I even used them to get through a few tough evenings when I was lonely or didn’t have access to cable — but we were never really friends.

The Fisher family, however, were people with whom I had a scary abundance of things in common. For the first time in 45 years of watching TV, on Six Feet Under I saw my own life reflected in, not just one character, an aspect of a single personality or in a very special episode, but in a whole clan that trouped across my Trinitron, week after week.

Much like Nate, I was ambivalent about relationships, but desperate for connection. Similar to David, I was gay, passive-aggressive and filled with anxiety. Comparable to Claire, I was an artist who was unsure what to do with my unsquelchable urge to create.

The Fisher matriarch, Ruth, was much like my own mother: often padding around all day in her robe, paralyzed with regret about the consequences of poor life choices. Brenda, Nate’s, Sylvia Plath-stand-in, on-again-off-again mate, was the embodiment of all the smart, damaged, fantastic best friends I’ve collected for decades.

And these are just some of the main characters. The peripheral cast, including Brenda’s mentally ill brother, Ruth’s similarly disturbed second husband and her wacky, Topanga Canyon-lovin' sister, plus David’s boyfriend, Keith, all spoke to me as recognizable folks as well.

What’s more, all of them inhabited the bleached-blonde landscape of my childhood and much of my adult life, namely, Los Angeles. Not the Los Angeles of Entourage, where everyone is a celebrity or aspires to be, but the day-to-day, ordinary Los Angeles of working people looking for their slice of the pie and dying a little bit each day whether or not they find it. That much of America probably didn’t recognize this world as a reflection of real life is not my concern. I don’t recognize The Bachelor as real life either.

I will continue to watch TV, much as everyone else does. But I will sorely miss the one program that showcased the existence of characters who had a lifestyle to which I did not have to aspire — because, for once, I was already living that life.

2005-08-20T07:59:00.000-07:00

WHAT IF THEY STARTED A MAGAZINE AND NOBODY WROTE?
The publisher of the paper I work for recently said that he had discovered the dirty little secret of publishing: underpaying writers. The first piece I got paid to write netted me $15. That was in 1979. Twenty-six years later, the paper for which I work pays $25 to $50 per article. If you drive a very small car, publishing an article still, just about, pays for one tank of gas. Of course, if you had to do any driving to report for that article you would end up in the monetary hole.

Granted, there are writers who make much more money than the amount paid by community newspapers. On the whole, however, writers are the lowest paid members of whatever industry they work within. Copywriters make less in the advertising world than account executive or creative directors. Newspaper reporters make less than publishers or salespeople. Notoriously, screenwriters make far less than almost anyone else who is instrumental in getting movie made.

The pragmatic Dorothy Allison once pointed out that, “you write because you have to, not because you’re going to get rich.” She said this to a group of women who were taking a class she was teaching that was sponsored by the City of San Francisco. This class coincided with the several month period during which she was competing for the National Book Award for her novel “Bastard Out of Carolina.” “Look at me,” she remarked, “I wrote a book and was nominated for an award, and I still have to teach. You write for love. And for most people, writing will always be a second job.”

It is that love of words, and the inherent necessity that some individuals feel to write, that keeps the media world chugging along — and keeps publishers in the black while their content creators see red.

The alternative media is no exception to this rule. Though the members of the Association of Alternative Newspapers (AAN) like to portray themselves as nobler than their corporate counterparts, the sad reality is that corporations own most of the alternative weeklies in America. For writers the evolution of the weekly from independently owned to what it is today has been disastrous.

At the beginning, reporters and writers at AAN papers did write for love, for clips and mostly for peanuts. As the papers grew more profitable, writers benefited by getting larger salaries, though never comparable to the money publishers and sales managers were pulling down. A few papers, like New York’s venerable Village Voice, were finally forced to pay writers a living wage, when its writers joined a union.

That changed last week when editor-in-chief Don Forst announced to senior editors, at the 50-year-old Voice, that pay for a large portion of the paper’s content would be cut 20 to 45 percent. Just six weeks earlier the union had negotiated a new contract for writers, which definitely had not cut pay for writing.

The staff believes this is management’s way of getting pay in line with the rates paid by New Times, the “golden arches” of the AAN corporations — notorious for buying papers, firing the staffs and making the papers into cookie cutter versions of their neo-con-spewing mother-ship, the Phoenix New Times. Rumor has it, that New Times is swooping down to snatch up the Voice.

Voice writers and their union are threatening action in the form of a walk-out. It sounds grand, this idea that writers will rise up and demand a living wage, or stop creating content. The reality is, that newspapers, across the board — not to mention magazines, agencies and other businesses that depend on editorial content — are paying lower wages than they did during the ‘90s. (This is true of almost all businesses, as it is a buyers’, not a sellers’ market in terms of employment these days.) If the Voice writers walk out and refuse to work, it will be more difficult for them to find comparable jobs, than it will be for the managers to find a new crop of writers willing to work for the love of seeing their name in 14 point type.

One can almost picture the managers of these companies sitting around, assuring themselves that all they’ll need to do is call some relatively literate bloggers to come fill in. The reality is, that might just work. Let’s hope for the sake of the Voice writers, and, in the end, all writers, that the desire to be published will be outweighed by the desire to show that content shouldn’t be something publishers rely on getting for less than they pay for having their BMWs detailed.

Underpaying writers is the dirty, little secret of the publishing industry. But, now the secret is out. It may not make any difference in our capitalist, free market economy where there is always a lower-paid worker to displace one making a living wage. Still, shouldn’t there be some rule that makes it illegal to use the word, “alternative” to describe practices that are as common as they are immoral?

2005-08-18T06:40:00.000-07:00

A SECOND OPINION
The gynecologist agreed to fit me into her ever-so-busy schedule even though she wasn’t seeing new patients. I was grateful for this, since I wanted to “get to the bottom” of things. Still, I was still peeved that I had to wait in her office for an hour beyond the agreed-upon appointment time in order to finally see her..

After reading all of Vogue, the only magazine in the examination room, while wondering if I should just leave because my time was as valuable as hers, she finally burst into the room. She was one of those wiry and wired type of people who talk fast, move fast and seem to have a million things to do that don’t include you so they have to hurry you along to get to something or someone more important. Simply put, her manner was not comforting.

We discussed my case for a few minutes while she scribbled things on my chart and nodded. “I’m going to do another ultrasound. I think you were just ovulating and we won’t find anything this time,” she declared, finally.

So, off we went to the ultrasound room. “Take your clothes off from the waist down,” she said as she hurried out of the room. After sitting on the table, pantless, for another fifteen minutes she finally returned and proceeded, with little ado, to put a finger up my vagina and another one up my anus (just to get me in the mood, I think.) After that violation she moved on to the ultrasound.

“See, it’s nothing. Here, take a look at the screen if you don’t believe me.”

She turned the cooter computer’s monitor toward me and I looked at some black blobs flit across the screen. “That’s your left ovary. Just some eggs. They must have scanned you just as you were ovulating and didn’t read the pictures right. See?”

I was going to have to take her word for this. My ability to read an ultrasound is less skilled than, well… my first doctor’s. But then, that is why she referred me,

“They should never do these ultrasounds when women are ovulating. They should just do them when you’re already bleeding. It’s so much better.”

Indeed.

“Just to make sure everything is all right, which I think it is, I’m going to do a cervical biopsy. It will hurt a little. Like a bad cramp, really.

A bad cramp, I thought. I’ve had very bad cramps throughout my life. I can handle a bad cramp.

She called a nurse into the room. “So you’ll have someone to hold onto.” As if I would need someone to hold onto for cramps.

Next, she shoved a speculum into my vagina and cranked it open. This had gotten more unpleasant with each passing moment. “Relax,” the nurse said. Naturally I tensed up as I felt the doctor entering me with a long, plastic instrument.

“Nurse, get the forceps, She’s small and I need to open her up,” I heard from behind the sheet.

The next thing I knew, there was pain; probing and pain that was decidedly not like a cramp. I could feel her sticking the instrument up me again and again while she pushed down on my stomach. She was like a pilot circling the airport, again and again, looking for a safe decent. After she had made her approach for the sixth or seventh time, she seemed ready to come in for a landing.

“Okay, cough,” she said.

I coughed and heard a simultaneous snipping sound that accompanied by blinding pain. I grabbed the nurse’s hand, which I proceeded to crush —as I would have a bullet between my teeth — while I let out a string of curses.

“Jesus Christ, Mother Fucking, Son of a Bitch, Goddamn, Shit!” I stopped short of adding cunt, because it seemed wrong under the circumstances. I’ll bet they wished they’d just given me the bullet.

The blinding pain of the cut was followed by what did feel like a terrible cramping.

“Are you done?” I demanded in a strangled voice.

“Yes,” she replied continuing to probe around, with the speculum remaining inside me cranked to the wide position. “I’m just making sure you don’t bleed.”

Within two minutes, the cramps had subsided and my breathing returned to normal.

“You know, women who are having fertility treatments do this kind of thing all the time,” she informed me as I put my pants back on.

All the more reason to be glad I had no desire to reproduce, I thought. If this is the kind of thing women do “all the time,” when they’ve waited too long to have kids, I could only wonder why adoption wasn’t even more popular.

“I don’t think we’ll find anything on the biopsy, but I’ll let you know. The rest, however, is fine. No cyst, no uterine wall abnormalities. You’re lucky, if we’d found that, I would have had to do a DNC.”

I was lucky, I thought, as I got the hell out of there. I was lucky I was only going through menopause and not trying to conceive at the same time. I was lucky there was no cyst. I was lucky to be getting away from this office.

Thirty minutes later, after I stopped shaking, I felt better than I had in weeks.

2005-08-13T05:48:00.000-07:00

SLEEPLESS IN THE VALLEY
I can’t sleep anymore. After 45 years of loving sleep more than any other activity; of being able to fall asleep and stay that way for ten hours at a time; of being able to sleep early and late and nap, to boot, my body has stopped resting for more than six hours a night. This means that when my cat starts to agitate for food, generally around 4:30 a.m., I am up for the day.

My acupuncturist says it’s because I have an excess of heat. Heat around my heart. “Are you anxious or worried about anything?” she asks. “Anxiety is my natural state,” I answer.

I’m anxious all right. I’m anxious about possibly having to move from the home I’ve made. I’m anxious about the job I have that feels like a hopeless dead end. I’m anxious about my health. I’m anxious about getting older and feeling trapped in Los Angeles, a town where I’ve always felt ill-at-ease.

But, here’s the good thing about never sleeping past 4:30 a.m. I get a chance to write, which is one of the few things that alleviates my anxiety. I get to watch the sun come up. I get to have a few hours to myself during which it is okay to let the disquiet wash over me and make it’s way to wherever it goes (my ovaries, it seems). I am able to plan my day, and when I’m alert enough, even follow through.

I’ve read that this sleepless state is common for women going through “the change.” I’ve also read that I need to get a handle on my anxieties or I’m going to get sick. I’ve read lots of things that are helpful in the ways they illuminate my symptoms and make them seem relatively natural. Still, mostly I’m too tired to do much with this knowledge.

The fuzzy, circular thinking that is the product of how my mind works in general, and the way the fluctuating hormones are wreaking havoc on me in particular, is not helping to produce a clear picture of what to do next. However, I am making the rounds of various medical professionals with the hope that my physical symptoms will be lessened. Perhaps then a plan will begin to emerge.

2005-08-11T06:15:00.000-07:00

PERI-MENOPOTTER AND THE VAGINAL STONE
While much of the country is spending the summer reading the new Harry Potter novel, I am struggling to accept the limitations of a new job, freaking out over the idea that I may have to move soon and going through the palpably disturbing beginnings of peri-menopause.

The "change" made it's first appearance late last year in the form of irregular periods. When I say irregular, I mean having two, full periods per month — though, of course, not every month. In fact, after having my hormones checked by my doctor, and being told they were are normal levels, I promptly had four more periods within two months.

Now, eight months after my last check-up, and some prodding from my acupuncturist, I decided to get another test. This time my doctor thought it best to schedule an ultrasound as well. “Have you ever had a vaginal ultrasound?” she asked me while writing out the prescription. “No,” I gulped. “Well, they insert a wand that’s about the size of a tampon into you and move it around to get the pictures.”

That didn’t sound so bad, I thought and promptly made my appointment. However, four days later, when I was laying on the gurney with my pants down and I saw the “wand,” I became a bit alarmed. It was decidedly not the size of a tampon. In fact, it looked like something I once bought at the Good Vibrations store in San Francisco. While this may have been exciting in another context, it was decidedly fear-provoking in this one. Fear, as you may know, does not relax the vagina. Fear makes the vagina contract to a size that is not welcoming to probes of any size — or galaxy.

Despite my trepidation, the procedure turned out to be a piece of cake. It was more gooey than invasive and I sort of enjoyed watching the shapes on the Cooter Computer. I was a bit concerned when the technician kept stopping on one dark, round mass and measuring it, but I let it go when she explained that it was my ovary. Wow, I thought, I’m getting to see inside my body. That’s my freaking ovary! I left feeling a kind of exhilaration and awe — both about the human body and the state of technology.

That lasted until the next day when I came home to a phone message from the doctor asking me to call her. “I got your ultrasound results. We should talk and get to the bottom of what's going on in these pictures.” This did not sound like the cheery message she’d left months earlier when she told me the results of my mammogram (Hooter Computer) and blood tests were fine. “Getting to the bottom,” of anything sounds ominous. I felt a tiny, cold wave of dread begin to lap at my feet.

After playing phone tag for most of the next day, she finally got me on the phone just as I was sitting down to have lunch at an Italian restaurant. I think people who answer the phone in restaurants are fucking assholes. However, in this instance I thought it would be acceptible to abandon my rigid ideas of etiquette.

“You have a two-centimeter cyst on your left ovary,” she announced. “You also have some fluid in your uterus and the walls of the uterus art too thick for the amount of bleeding you’ve been having. The fluid could be due to the cyst having already ruptured, but I don’t know. I also don’t understand why the uterus wall is so thick. I’d like to refer you to a gynecologist to do some more tests.” Having that big, dripping slice of pizza was sounding less appealing by the moment.

Though I’ve not begun “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” I have been reading “The Wisdom of Menopause,” by Dr. Christiane Northup. Perhaps you’ve seen her ever-present visage on PBS, talking about women’s health issues. In any case, her book makes it clear that uterine growths are common at this stage of life and are generally benign. She also believes that stress and dissatisfaction with life will only exacerbate the symptoms of menopause and other diseases in mid-life women. In other words, stress=cysts. I’m pretty sure this will be resolved with some discomfort, but little lasting affect. I am not so sure, however, that my life, as it stands, will hold up to the kind of scrutiny under which I need to place it to begin to get myself strong and healthy enough to withstand “the change.”

2005-08-05T06:23:00.000-07:00

THE NEIGHBORHOOD AS NICHE

Community Newspapers are on the rise. In a 2002 article for Publishers Auxiliary, entitled “The Future for Weeklies is Rosy Indeed,” newspaper consultant Ken Blum wrote: "The stats for dailies are sobering, even alarming. In 1970, according to the National Newspaper Association of America, 77.6 percent of adults more than 18 years of age read a daily newspaper over the course of a week. In 2000, that figure was down to 56.9 percent."

On the other hand, during the five years from 1998 to 2003, the circulation of paid weeklies is expected to increase by 3.1 percent.

The declining circulation of big city dailies has been big and bad news for many years now. Some dailies, like the San Jose Mercury News are fighting back by attempting to make their papers "more local, more useful and easier to navigate." However, the niche for local news is being filled more rapidly across the country by the kind of papers that are willing to run crime blotters, pictures of little league players and news about the infighting of neighborhood councils. And these weekly papers, unlike the alternative variety, have hit upon a circulation model that really works. Instead of being placed at distribution points, like stores, where readers have to make an effort to pick them up, these local weeklies are being delivered to homes — free of charge.

While, for some, having a small, local paper left on their doorstep is just one more thing to step over on their way to other pursuits, for most, the local news, delivered without cost or effort is a both a relief and a convenience.

At the Studio City Sun, Jim, Kelly and the rest of us, are betting on the future of these papers. Since we have all come of age in the alternative weekly world, we are well aware that the future financial success of what we’re doing will rely upon turning one paper into two, and two into four and four into an empire.

I would be willing to speculate that the reason people seem hungry for this type of paper, at least in Los Angeles, is that many are realizing that despite the vast geographic swaths that encompass the city, they don’t really leave their neighborhoods anyway, unless forced. In other words, after commuting for hours to work each day, they last thing people want to do is spend more time in their cars on the weekends driving to stores or cultural events. Sure, it’s worth making the trek to the Disney Concert Hall, or the beach, but most people would rather shop at a local store than travel across town to save $50 on a piece of furniture.

Second, in a world where the events of the day are leaving people feeling more powerless than ever, focusing on local issues provides a sense of power that doesn’t exist in other realms. The ability to influence one’s environment is a sorely lacking on the national, state or even city scale for most people. But while you might not be able to do anything about the war in Iraq, no matter how many MoveOn.org letters you send to your congressperson, you can attend the homeowners association meeting in your neighborhood and make a stink about pressing matters like litter, or the need for more signals at crosswalks.

Every neighborhood, or borough, it seems, is a small town. The more the community newspapers service those small towns — with their local coverage and local advertising — the more they will become indispensable. At least, we hope so.

For my part, I just want a job I don’t hate.

2005-08-03T07:35:00.000-07:00

DEATH OF THE WEEKLY

By this time of year, mid-Summer, I’m usually working relatively steadily at Warner Bros. and not worrying too much about paying my bills. However, two months ago I was approached by some old friends about working for them, and decided to leave the sporadic-but-well-paying freelance-work-world behind — at least for the present.

Jim and Kelly, two people I’ve known since we were all snorting and toking kids in our twenties at the LA Weekly, asked if I would come to work on their community newspapers, the Studio City Sun and the Sherman Oaks Sun. After my stint in Highland Park, I had come to the conclusion that, community papers were not only viable, they were vital.

I live with a news junkie: someone who watches TV news for most of the day. Admittedly, it is part of her job to do this. Still, as I’ve gotten older I’ve seen the need for keeping on top of the news. As the mainstream media outlets become more biased, or spineless in their reporting — as they have all become willing to use newspeak to color perceptions — it is almost incumbent upon one to gather as much data as possible in order to determine what is actually happening in our country, or the rest of the world.

Jim, Kelly and I all came of age during the boom years of the alternative press. When I speak of alternative, I mean the leftish-entertainment weeklies that sprang up in just about every major town across the US during the 1980s and 1990s. Who knew that these papers, often outlets for the kind of local reporting that wasn’t being done elsewhere, would fall victim to the kind of corporatization that they had once eschewed? As conglomerates began to buy up the papers where we worked, local voices became less relevant to publishers as it became clear that costs could be kept in check through syndication and other methods of stamping out what was genuinely local. Though many of these papers, now almost all part of national chains, have kept some local flavor, in many ways they have become out-of-step with their communities.

Plus, who the hell needs another CD or movie review?

There was always a disconnect within the Association of Alternative Weeklies (AAN). For one thing, five minutes at an AAN convention made it clear that weeklies were primarily controlled by white men. Women and people of color were almost entirely absent from positions of authority — like the editor and publisher jobs. Sure women could run production departments, but content and business were controlled by men — men who thought that basing their economic model on running endless advertising for prostitutes was “freedom of speech,” and not exploitation.

But the era of the weekly is on the wane. Receipts are down. Interest is down. And not only are metropolitan dailies covering much of the ground that weeklies once held on to as their own—like quirky arts coverage — or publishing their own weeklies, internet sites have taken over the lefty politics. Enter the community paper.

Free of hooker advertising, free of useless national punditry and free of the hundredth movie review for an awful Michael Bay film that most would rather see on DVD anyway, community papers are filling a much needed niche.

After all, it’s all about niche markets now.

2005-08-02T07:22:00.000-07:00

DESPERATION JOBS – Part III

Like most of us, me included, Patrick had a little trouble dealing with reality. Even after telling him I was leaving, he still kept behaving as if I was staying on. He tried to get me involved in future planning and other activities that made it seem like I was in for the long haul. I let him think what he wanted without much verbal resistance. I didn’t know how crazy he might get if I just stated the obvious. Some people don’t take kindly to having their fantasies revealed for what they are.

In actuality, I had agreed to stay to produce one more issue, which may have been a mistake on my part — but I both needed the money and hate to leave anyone dangling in the wind professionally. The first day I showed up to work on the new issue, he moved the deadline forward by a week to accommodate an event that he had previously ignored that had to be covered in the paper. In addition, the long-distance editor made it clear that he only had “weekends and nights to devote to the paper,” and couldn’t get anything done sooner. I immediately regretted staying.

The managing editor, Sam, was pretty stoical about all of this. She’d been there for months, and had seen it all before. I guess she needed the job to get her immigration status legitimized, because I couldn’t imagine why else she would put up with the nonsense. She was professional and a good writer. Still, it wasn’t until my last day there — again, working days after the print deadline — that she told me about her personal needs. Further, she told me that the reason the editor didn’t give much to the process, and the reason neither Patrick nor his wife held the guy’s feet to the fire about it, was that he was owed a year in back pay.

A year. Wow. That made me wonder what I was going to be up against when it came time to get my check. As long as Patrick had you in his office every day and had to face you, he was pretty good about paying — though he did frequently claim he “forgot” to write your check on payday. Still, he always came through within a semi-reasonable time frame. But knowing he hadn’t paid the editor for a year worried me.

Since he was in denial about my leaving, my plan was to finish the issue I’d promised to do and then show up one more day, present him with an invoice and get paid before I left. However, it was not to be. Instead I got a call from The WB and went in to work there for a week. On the one hand, it was a good thing because they always pay on time. On the other hand, e-mailing an invoice and relying on Patrick to post my check seemed like a bad idea. Particularly since he’d have to deal with the reality of my actual absence, and to him that was a betrayal. Since he bought lunch for everyone each day, he believed he was a nice guy who deserved undying loyalty. From my perspective, getting mediocre take-out every afternoon is less appealing that knowing how much time I have to spend at work, what days that work will need to be performed and, most importantly, when I will be paid. Not having someone treat my time with respect makes me regard him or her as less than nice. But that’s me.

In the end, it took over a month to get my money. I sent many electronic missives asking for the check, reminding him about the check and finally demanding the check. It was only when he needed a favor that he called me and acted like he’d had a check waiting for me the whole time and just “forgot” to put it in the mail. His new artist had planned to leave for a vacation and now he hoped I’d fill in for an issue. I took the opportunity to pretend I would consider his offer, and drove to his garage to get my pay and run.

The thing is, he was a nice guy in many respects. However, there is some kind of myopia that happens with certain kinds of entrepreneurs. They want to make their dreams a reality, and don’t take other people’s needs into consideration as part of the process. Maybe it’s not their job to do that. Still, I don’t see how one can be a success in life — not fully a success as a human being — without thinking about other people’s needs to some extent.

On the other hand, this is why I need to get back into Alanon. I think far too much about other people’s needs, and get involved too often with people who only think about their own.

2005-07-27T07:34:00.000-07:00

DESPERATION JOBS – Part II

After a year working with James and his wife on their community newspapers, published in Northeast Los Angeles, I had reached my limit on dealing with incompetence, lying and perpetual drama. Admittedly, there was something fun about putting together the papers that had kept me there for as long as I had. Mostly it was that I could do what I wanted in terms of design. They were so grateful that someone had made their product look professional, that they let me call the shots in terms of design. Plus, they had somehow managed to hire a smart, efficient editor, Mindy, with whom I enjoyed working and commiserating. Additionally, I could do it all from my own home. However, Mindy alone wasn’t enough to get me to cope eternally with their utter lack of professionalism. When their antics reached a crescendo, this past winter (see Community Characters) I finally ran for sanity.

Since my regular freelance employer had been laying-off long-time employees I knew I couldn’t count on getting calls from them, so I was forced to find something else to tide me over. What I found was a job at a publication called Below the Line. BTL is a trade paper, like Variety, for “below the line” movie talent. Instead of headshots and news blurbs about the latest producer or director to make a deal in Hollywood — the stuff that fills Variety and the Hollywood Reporter — BTL features headshots of and blurbs about the latest cinematographer or set decorator to sign on to a film or TV show. It was not scintillating stuff, but not utterly offensive either.

The ad to which I had responded called for a newspaper layout artist to put together a monthly paper. As a part-time gig it seemed like it would provide enough money to pay the bills and leave me time for more lucrative freelancing besides. I suppose I should have been tipped off to what the situation would be like on the day of my interview. I knew that the office was in a garage next to the house. Though, the garage-office-thing is a sure sign that there are no benefits being offered, the poverty it implies does not necessarily rule out the possibility that working there could pay the bills and provide some laughs until one’s ship comes in.

My vision of a pristine guest-house-like garage filled with semi-professional workers was dispelled as I fought my way up the driveway through the cast-off bicycles, scooters, plastic armor, stacks of undistributed papers, dozens of trash barrels, random pieces of lumber and oil-oozing SUVs. I met Patrick, a long-haired, fun-looking guy in said driveway and he led me in though the filthy (rat-infested, I later discovered) garage filled with a startling amount of people and into the messy back yard where we sat down at a moldering picnic bench to talk about the job.

My experience with the term “layout artist” had been that it means one puts together previously collected pieces of a publication using guidelines already established. However, the day I began working I found out that there were few guidelines, and that it was also my job to find most of the artwork to go with the stories. That, by itself wouldn’t have been so bad, but I had negotiated my pay rate based on the standard I had imagined, and this was going to be a lot more work than I’d bargained for.

It wasn’t just that there was more work to do than I’d thought; it was that there was no system in place to make the gathering of art simple, or even efficient. In fact, even when I found artwork, it would often be the wrong artwork because stories never came in until after deadline and once they arrived would announce entirely different needs than the ones the editor and I had imagined. There was no system for informing me what was really needed, the top editor lived 3,000 miles away and was seemingly uninterested in the paper and, in general, the work itself resembled the workplace in its utter lack of organization. On top of that, the print deadlines for the paper were different every month and even those kept changing. Patrick had no compunction about putting out an April issue in May if it suited him.

I learned all of this on the first day and found myself crying on the way to work by the second. Not an auspicious sign. Still, I’d quit James’ paper and had to carry on until I found something else. I managed to put out the first issue two days past deadline, working until 11p.m. and jumping every time I’d hear a rat in the rafters threatening to leap down onto my shoulders.

I informed Patrick that I was quitting the next day.

2005-07-26T20:33:00.000-07:00

DESPERATION JOBS - Part 1

My first foray into seriously underpaid publishing work was with LA Alternative Press in January of 2004. January is the time of year when I have the least money, the most pressing bills and my unemployment customarily runs out. So, for a couple of years now, I have taken “desperation” jobs to fill those first couple months of the year — at least until The WB creative department calls with their offers of overpayment in exchange for being able to treat me with as little respect as is possible without my head exploding all over their tastefully designed offices.

LA Alternative Press is owned and run by a married couple: Martin Albornoz and Yvette Doss. Unlike other couples I’ve worked for (James and his wife, for instance) Martin and Yvette were very professional around the office regarding their relationship. I didn’t hear fighting. I didn’t see saliva exchanges. I didn’t feel like I was being made privy to too much personal information.

The thing was, they were nice people. And I truly appreciated that they were nice people. After years of freelancing at the afore-mentioned WB and my year at the mind-bogglingly abusive Variety, I was starved for niceness.

Plus, they had political views much like mine, which made me feel comfortable. They were respectful of my ideas in a way that made me feel useful. They invited me to lunch and made me feel like one of the gang. After years of working for people who could barely remember my name; people who didn’t bother to look up when I needed ask questions about important work matters; people who, after I told a joke, stared at me with a glaze over their eyes thicker than the one on the Krispy Kreeme doughnut they were pretending not to eat — Martin and Yvette were a dream team.

The thing was, they didn’t have any money. So, though I liked them and their little paper, I couldn’t take seriously a job that paid me the below average, part-time wage they offered. In fact, I only lasted four months before I split to work for James. As discussed earlier, he was awful, but he paid me twice as much.

Martin and Yvette have somehow survived, despite the fact that I believe they bungled early on by changing their publication’s focus from Silverlake to greater Los Angeles. (More about that later.) We exchanged some e-mail earlier this year. They are still nice.

2005-03-02T16:51:00.000-08:00

COMMUNITY PUBLISHING CHARACTERS

I have completed the grueling, monthly process of putting together three more newspapers for "James". Again, the lack of organization was stunning, the last minute changes and mistakes and drama were mind-numbing. In fact, they somehow surpassed previous months' debacles.

It was a particularly weird month since James' business partner in one of the papers was murdered on Valentine's Day by her husband in a murder-suicide. Terrible story: A very effective, apparently much liked, businesswoman, killed by her philandering spouse. It threw James and the production of the paper into a downward spiral that didn't end until 24-hours past the print deadline. It didn't help that the editor he's hired to create content for the publication seems to have no experience and no interest in learning the ropes.

THE TROUBLES I'VE SEEN

The murder certainly created a crisis. However, there has been some kind of drama enacted almost every month for the past year involving James, his family or his partners. First there was the crisis of James and his wife selling their house. They managed to get into a screaming fight with the buyers because they'd negotiated to leave their washer and dryer with the house and then renegged on the deal at the last minute. The buyers called the cops.

Then there was the crisis of the ad salesperson who turned out to be a speed freak and kept the checks she was getting. James' wife tried to confront her and got into another fight.

Next, their son was bitten by a dog.

Following that, after a difficult pregnancy, Jame's wife had her baby three months early which necessitated a long hospital stay. Meanwhile, their new home had been a construction area for months as they performed vast remodeling.

So, one day, while the roof was off and the roofer nowhere to be found, a rain storm began. It dumped two inches of rain into their house and made it uninhabitable. It had to be taken down to the studs.

The family moved into a rented house and tried to get construction to begin anew. After the insurance company gave them a chunk of money to begin the work, James lent it to a business associate. When James asked the insurance company for more money, they asked for receipts on the work that had been previously done. Since he couldn't get it, and the "friend" had not repaid the money, the house continued to sit.

This month was the murder. Plus, James' wife got into a car accident. And their computer went down.

FAILING UPWARD

James told me, once again, when he came to pick up my work, that he's being offered a chance to buy the Wave Group. The Small Business Association wants to give him $1 million to buy it, and they will forgive an additional $10 million in loans that Wave owes. He will get, what he terms, "a profit generating machine," with no debts and no money spent on his part.

I also finally got a look at the rate card for the papers I've been working on. Though James cries "poor," at every turn, after some calculations it became clear that he could be clearing over $10,000 per month on the papers. The figure is probably less since he can't get several of his clients to pay, and the ads he has designed are riddled with errors, leading to further non-payment. Still, he has to be making enough to be stretching the truth when he acts like a pauper and claims he can't pay writers the paltry amounts he owes them.

Perhaps this is what success looks like. You start a business. You convince actually skilled people to help you for little money. You convince others to help you and never pay them. You fuck up in all the details of running the business, except in the presentation of a successful front to the world. You plead poor to your staff to keep them in the dark. Finally, you meet someone, who has no knowledge of the inner workings of your business and convince them to lend you millions of dollars to get control of an old and actually, viable business.

I can only imagine that, if this happens, the next thing will be to mismanage those new papers until the are faced with bankruptcy once again. And then, on to the next loan and bigger opportunity. Thank God for capitalism.

2005-02-15T19:14:00.000-08:00

REVENGE IS A DISH BEST ENACTED USING AN UNREAD BLOGSPOT
(Well, maybe not "best").

For the past ten months I have been designing and editing three papers for a publisher in Highland Park, CA. When I first saw these newspapers, I knew that anything I could add to them would be an improvement on what was then being done, both in terms of content and presentation. In fact, the editorial content was less literate than that found in most U.S. high school newspapers, and the design resembled something done by a victim of poorly administered, and dangerously repetitive Electro-Shock Therapy.

James, as I’ll call the publisher of these papers, initially attempted to wow me with his grandiose scheme to turn these papers into the foundation of a publishing empire that would rival Rupert Murdoch’s. He even bragged about how he had contacted Murdoch for advice.

Despite my horror at his choice in role models, I attempted to tell him that I believed there was a place for vital, community newspapers that were geared towards the working-class people in the neighborhoods where he distributed his products. Because, well, I do.

So, I designed a new look for the papers, along a folksy model, and proceeded to put them together each month. This was largely a nightmare, because, though there was little timely content and James had a month to sell the ads, he never began working on the papers until after the deadline had passed each month. Between his lack of organization, seeming laziness and illiterate editorial contributions, the process was grueling.

Now, almost a year after beginning work on these papers, James has hired two, actually capable editors. (Well, one is capable.) However, since he is still in charge of the advertising, putting the papers together is still an incredibly painful process. Additionally, James still insists on writing his own embarrassing content, mostly a week past the deadline, and insists on its inclusion.

What is truly amazing is that, though he is incompetent in just about every aspect of publishing, he still manages to get these papers out each month. Admittedly, it is mainly due to my ability to pump out pages at the last minute (and the editors’ ability to turn his illiterate ramblings into almost readable narrative.) Even more amazing, he now claims that a bank is begging him to buy the Wave Newspaper Group in Los Angeles. These community papers, including La Ola and E Scene, mainly serving the African American and Latino markets in LA are in bankruptcy and are looking for a buyer.

It is mind-boggling to imagine that someone who runs three papers so poorly may be getting a chance to run 15 more. Perhaps he will fail upward, like George W. Bush. Bush was adept at running businesses into the ground and then being handed better ones to ruin. I’m just glad that James is not a U. S. citizen, or he might rise to inconceivable heights.

2003-02-21T14:39:00.000-08:00

WINNING IS EVERYTHING

I don't know who would want to read my own pontifications on a regular basis, but I'm willing to keep a diary online if it, at the least, doesn't harm anyone. I am sitting at my freelance job with lots of time to kill and have already entered all the online sweepstakes I can find. I'm hoping to get a new car, and since I am a freelancer (as I mentioned), I would love to get one for nothing. Not that winning prizes costs nothing. It is an odd trap, really. First you are smitten with the idea that you can somehow get something for nothing. Then you start putting in the time it takes to enter contests. Soon you are spending hours online, typing in your name and address in the hope that you will win a transformational prize like an auto or a trip to Europe. After all, time is money. If you're going to spend all that time the reward had better justify the expenditure. As time goes by, and you don't win a house or speedboat, you begin to enter contests for tiny prizes like pencils and bags of peanuts — and you do it with a gusto you once reserved for large cash jackpots. Oddly, the bags of nuts mollify sufficiently to make you spend another two hours online the next day, doing the same thing, praying for another legume win. At this point, if I don't enter at least ten contest a day I feel like I'm losing out on something. I know what I'm really losing out on is my life, or at least the portion I could be enjoying otherwise if I wasn't typing my name into little boxes all day. There is no free lunch