Feline Warrior

I can’t seem to gather my thoughts tonight. They are a mish-mash of words and meanings. And other stuff. I’ve been thinking about how certain words and phrases have been accepted into our everyday language. Some of them are downright peculiar, at least for everyday talk.

Here’s how it started: I was scrolling through the comments on someone’s MySpace page. A friend of a friend, a woman who seems to be sweet and has several young children. Tucked among the various comments from her friends was one with an illustrated image of a sexy woman and sparkly swirly letters. The personal note from the friend said “Happy Mothers Day!” and the sparkly swirly letters on the image said: “Total MILF Award.”

And it’s supposed to be a compliment… right? I mean, isn’t that how it’s intended to be taken? But it’s such a crude compliment. One woman is telling her friend, also a woman, “You win the ‘Mom I’d Like to Fuck’ Award.”

And the whole pimp this and pimp that thing… Clearly I’m getting old. Pimp wasn’t a cool thing to be that long ago. Well, not in a general population way.

So it’s cool to be phat but you could still get dissed if you are fat. A bitch is still a negative term for a female but calling her a beeyash is funny.

I don’t know. I’m too tired to pursue this anymore tonight. It started earlier then the phone rang, email came in, li’l m messaged me, my spouse called, the cat wanted food, I remembered to water the fuschia. My writing skills suck tonight.

To be continued…

K-Ville

I’m wondering if a TV show set in post-Katrina New Orleans is such a good idea. With so much left to be done in that region, will a television drama minimize the reality while (possibly) getting ratings for the wild-west mentality that at least the commercials portray?

What’s next? Dancing in Darfur?

Pffft!

Bush predicts bloody summer in Iraq - Yahoo! News

Gee, I wonder what else he can predict? It’s like… maaaagic…

Favorite quotes:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - “U.S. President George W. Bush on Thursday predicted a bloody summer in Iraq for U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians, saying he expected insurgents and al Qaeda to step up attacks to try to influence the U.S. debate over how long to stay in Iraq.”

and:

“Asked at a Rose Garden news conference on Thursday how long he believed he could sustain his strategy without significant progress, Bush noted the U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, was to report back on the effects of the new strategy at the end of the summer.”

-oh, good. Just in time to report on whether or not Dubya’s prediction was on target.

Before I plunge into my usual collage of words, let me clarify: Herb Alpert is not now, nor has he ever been, my dad. Just, you know, in case for a sec you thought that’s what I meant.

So I’ve been listening to Herb Alpert for the last few days. Specifically, the album “Going Places.” This record, along with a zillion other Alpert LPs, was in my dad’s record collection. Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass - total classic stuff. There was also the usual Frank S., Ella F., and Dinah W. singing your jazz standards and classics. And of course, no kid’s childhood is complete without at least a little Harry Belafonte. (And that list is really a tip of the musical iceberg.)

A conversation with a colleague brought on this Herb Alpert listening spree. Paul insists that I’m far too young to have listened to Herb Alpert as a child. While I tend to agree with such statements, on principle if for no other reason, the fact remains that I did grow up listening to Herb, plus all those other fine folks I mentioned. And really, it’s not like music fades away over time, like magic ink. Heck, if I had a child, that child would likely grow up up listening to much the same stuff I did. I am a music nerd and snob, it seems. Accent on the nerd.
As usual, I digress…

So Herb Alpert - truly an amazing musician. One hell of an arranger. You can’t dream up those sounds: The crisp, precise, yet heartfelt notes; the balance of frivolity and serious musicianship; and the sheer genius of a Jew making Latino (-style) music famous. In the freakin’ 60’s. C’mon! (Agree or I slap you.)

So picture it: I’m driving along, hitting the back button to hear such classics as “More and More Amor” over and over again. Oh, yeah, this stuff is pretty dated. No way I can pretend I’m jammin’ to something from even the last decade. Still, music makes memories - physical memories, even.

Like all forms of expression, music can make its ways into one’s emotional pores, where it may lay dormant for years -hell, decades- but can easily pop back to a fresh-faced emotion. “Hey, here I am! Your childhood woe!” Or, “Look-a-here, kiddo, you untamed rascal!” Or maybe, “Oh-oh-oh… your innocence… when it was soft as a cotton ball and just as pure…”

Like that.

So then, roof open, windows down, Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass just blasting -hair blowing all over the place- and there they are. Yup. Coulda predicted it, shoulda predicted it. The tears. The damn tears. (Just so you don’t worry, not crazy blinding tears - it was still safe to drive!)

I don’t think I’ve written about this here. Really, I couldn’t. There’s nothing like this, I have no frame of reference. My dad died in November. Yeah. November 14, 2006. One day before his 73rd birthday. Young! But the man lost his will to live oh, so many years ago, so it was actually late coming, his death was.

The crap that I’ve gone through to process my relationships with my family members is simply incredible. I mean, way before November 14th of 2006 and most of it starting when I quit drinking and all that stuff. I took care of him the last two years of his life, which would not have been possible without the afore-referenced processing, and certainly not if I was still drinking. (Good grief, who was it that taught me to drink in the first place?! Henri - my dad!)

Listening to Herb Alpert (it just feels better to say his whole name for some reason) takes me back. Way back. To the white cotton ball of my life: Innocent, hopeful, pure, happy pretty much all the darn time, and too, just like a cotton ball, easily squishable. Able to mop up small amounts of liquid and other such stuff. Useful in art projects. Fun for cats to play with. And so on.
Sigh.

I dare you to listen to “Felicia” and not wonder why Felicia was so sad. You know she was beautiful. But sad. It’s all in the music. Oh, but wait… maybe that was me. Little Franque. What is that sadness? I miss my dad who did not want to live. Who wept when I brought a boombox and a stack of CD’s to the nursing home. He wept and thanked me for putting music back into his life.

But of course, he put it in my life, so it was only fair. Only right. I hope when I’m packin’ my bags for the final journey, some young person makes sure I’m loaded with music.

Aah, the moon moves my blood, words keep my mind awake, art keeps me thinking, and music is what picks my feet up and moves them forward.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There’s more on all of this, but it’s late and I’m tired. Tengo muchos mocos. La nariz está congestionada. ¡Maldiga ese peluquero enfermo!

They’re everywhere on TV these days. All over the radio.Girls love ‘em, guys think they’re cool. Hell, Steven told me today that his motorcycle people love Maroon 5.

I can’t even get close to it. It seems like a formula band. I can’t sense any heart, soul, nothin’. It’s some dudes with nice shoes, snappy suits and at least one really ridiculous hairdo. A strained voice over -thank God- some occasionally interesting grooves.

Which of these definitions do you think applies?

Bah.

I’ve been meaning to tell you about this but am just now getting to it. There’s been a big hoop-lah in the Hamilton Local School District (Franklin County, Ohio) about the reading of Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” (TKAM). And actually, it’s not even the reading of the book - the students are listening to it on tape and “following along.” MmHmm.

So a certain Mr. Hairston, Jr. has taken it up with the school board - he is African American and so is his son, Meshon, an 8th grader whose class is “reading” TKAM. The problem? The “n-word.” Mr. Hairston told channel 4 news “They [the African American students] became the focus and the center of attention,” and “Everybody kind of looked at them every time that word was mentioned. It made them very uncomfortable.”

You can find the story, plus a bunch of responses from viewers, here.

Okay, so this story broke on the news and I dashed to my bookshelf to find my copy of TKAM. It had been years since I’d read it and frankly, it was time for a refresher anyway. But lo and behold, it wasn’t there! Wah! Another case of a loaned book never making its way back home. Thus began my search for the book…

I went first to a used bookseller, but they were fresh out. I headed over to Barnes & Noble, where they had a zillion copies. So at the checkout station, the cashier man commented that the book had been in great demand. I mentioned the controversy, but he said, “No, the 6th graders at blah-blah school are reading it.” StOOpid me, I had to be right (damn my ego!) so pushed onward with the controversy.

Serves me right - the cashier man thought that since Don Imus “quit his job over the same thing” they’d be more careful making the kids read a book with such language.

You can pretty much predict the rest: I pointed out that Imus was fired - he didn’t quit. And that the contexts were hugely different. Literature vs. assholeism. But no, it’s the same. Calling female college athletes “nappy heaaded hos” is the same as the racists in TKAM saying “nigger.” NOT.

Why do I do it? Why? Note to self: Pick your fights.

My spouse and I had a lovely day today. It started early with a drive to my place of employment where there were community activities taking place. He was able to meet some of my colleagues, which was nice - now he’ll have faces to match to names.

Then we had lunch with La Gordita y su esposo Rich. It was lovely. I’ll have to write about Gordita later. It was lovely - oh, I said that. (But it WAS lovely!)

We bought a metal (black) arbor which we then put together ourselves. Whew. I’ll post an images of the arbor and the garden it now enhances sometime soon. It, too, is lovely!

I recognize that this post is very “Dear Diary”-like but I thought it was better to post something than to let myself slide back into bad habits.

Prost!
FW

Dual topic night

Okay, I don’t actually have knitting needles. Instead, take away my poking-around-WP-files needles Thanks to Steven, I’m back up and at ‘em, but if it had been up to me alone, you’d be looking for smoke signals in the sky.

I’ve been listening to this song: “I’ll Find a Way” - Rachael Yamagata

And that video (see above link) just does something to me. The imagery, lyrics, her voice… it reaches inside me, as if touching a memory I’m not certain of.

This is in tune, really, with my mind lately. [No pun intended.] That underlying sadness that waves in and out is more in than out, but at least for today, I’m not viewing it as bad -or good, even- but it just is. It’s okay. And acceptance is key, you know.

So anyway, so much digression tonight– I am struck by the distance between people. We are more connected than ever before– in some ways. And then again, we are apart. My electronic gadgets keep me connected to those with whom I choose to be connected and at the same time keep me separated from anyone else.

It’s like a guest list: Only those on the list get in. Anyone waiting at the doors may or may not get so much as a glance. Unless, of course, it’s necessary in the daily flow of life. I see it in the way people drive (and since my daily journey is about an hour each way, I have plenty of time to observe!) and it makes me sad. People don’t want to just wait for 3 seconds while the car in front of them makes a left turn; they seem to need to zoom right up behind people in a way that at least I see as menacing: “Get out of my way, [fill in the blank with unpleasant words of your choosing].”

I wonder if we’re more disconnected than we are connected. Lately, that’s how I’ve felt. Not only for me personally, but in a very universal sort of way. So I grab my connections where I can; dig into the earth (yay, spring & gardening) to feel a connection to something way, way bigger than me.

Bedtime.