Mother Fears Child's Birthday Celebration Will Be Lost in Sea of Celebrity Deaths

Though Piper Lee turns 11 today, a day she has been counting down for weeks, preparing her family for for months, a day marked on several calendars, chalkboards and ipod reminders, despite all that- less than 18 out of 306 million Americans will take note of the blessed birthday event.
According to recent polls, more people are interested in celebrities than their neighbors. More people scan gossip rags in the checkout line and peruse Yahoo news links on their phones than engage in lively face to face conversation with the person next to them. Sad, but true.

Last night, watching the entertainment programs before SYTYCD started, we were treated to a very lopsided celebrity death wrap up, flipping from Farrah to Michael to Karl and back to Michael and wondered if anyone remembered poor old Ed or the OxyClean dude.

For those who like their figures and percentages here's a bit from: WASHINGTON (AFP) – Nearly 2 out of 3 Americans believe the media gave too much coverage to the death of Michael Jackson and just 3 percent think it was too little, according to a survey published on Wednesday.
29 percent of the 1,000 people polled June 26-29 for the survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press believe the coverage of Jackson's sudden death on Thursday at the age of 50 was the "right amount."
30 percent of those polled said they followed the coverage of Jackson's death "very closely" while 28 percent said they followed it "fairly closely."23 percent said they followed it "not too closely" and 19 percent said they followed it "not at all closely."31 percent said they followed the Jackson story more closely than any other during the week.

Pew said African Americans followed the death of Jackson more closely than the population as a whole with 8 in 10 blacks saying they followed the news of his death very closely compared with 22 percent of whites.

7 in 10 whites said there had been too much coverage compared with 36 percent of blacks.38 percent of those under the age of 40 said they followed the pop star's death very closely compared with 27 percent of those between 40 and 64 and 20 percent of those 65 and older.

The protests in Iran made up 19 percent of the news hole for the week while the Jackson story took up 18 percent, it said. However, from the time the Jackson story broke Thursday afternoon to the end of the day Friday, 60 percent of the news coverage studied was devoted to his death, Pew said. Iran coverage dropped to 7 percent of the news hole during the same period.

31 percent of those surveyed said they followed coverage of the Iranian government's crackdown on election protesters very closely.Pew said the survey of some 1,000 Americans aged 18 years older has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

And now I am 100 percent sure I am statistically brain fried.

* addendum* And now, we add another celebrity death. Rest in peace, Mrs. Slocum.

Another Perspective on Why Writers Write

I am all about the somethingness. Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full.


"The writer must not really know what he is knowing, what he is learning to know when he writes, which is more than the knowing of it. A writer loves the dark, loves it, but is always fumbling around in the light. The writer is separate from his work but that’s all the writer is – what he writes. A writer must be smart but not too smart. He must be reckless and patient and daring and dull – for what is duller than writing, trying to write? And he must never care – caring spoils everything. It compromises the work. It shows the writers’ hand.

The writer doesn’t want to disclose or instruct or advocate, he wants to transmute and disturb. He cherishes the mystery, he cares for it like a fugitive in his cabin, his cave. He doesn’t want to talk it into giving itself up. He would never turn it in to the authorities, the mass mind. The writer is somewhat of a fugitive himself, actually. He wants to escape his time, the obligations of his time, and, by writing, transcend them. The writer does not like to follow orders, not even the orders of his own organizing intellect.

The writer doesn’t trust his enemies, of course, who are wrong about his writing, but he doesn’t trust his friends, either, who he hopes are right. The writer trusts nothing he writes – it should be too reckless and alive for that, it should be beautiful and menacing and slightly out of his control. It should want to live itself somehow.

The writer is never nourished by his own work, it is never satisfying to him. The work is a stranger, it shuns him a little, for the writer is really something of a fool, so engaged in his disengagement, so self-conscious, so eager to serve something greater, which is the writing. Or which could be the writing if only the writer is good enough. The work stands a little apart from the writer, it doesn’t want to go down with him when he stumbles or fails or retreats. The writer must do all of this alone, in secret, in drudgery, in confusion, awkwardly, one word at a time.

The writer is an exhibitionist, and yet he is private….The reality of his life is meaningless….He drinks, he loves unwisely, he’s happy, he’s sick…. It doesn’t matter.

The writer doesn’t write for the reader. He doesn’t write for himself, either. He writes to serve . . . . something. Somethingness. The somethingness that is sheltered by the wings of nothingness – those exquisite, enveloping, protective wings."

-- from Joy Williams’ UNCANNY THE SINGING THAT COMES FROM CERTAIN HUSKS, published in WHY I WRITE, edited by Will Blythe

Part 2 Vacation Post Wherein I teach my kid to steal

Renting a beachfront townhouse is never a bad idea. Easy to reach the beach, private bathrooms and cold beer nearby. Only thing is, other folks may want to join you on your perfectly empty stretch of beach. they may even want to shoot an an for YOLO boards, or COASTAL LIVING.


They might even climb on ladders to get the perfect shot and forget those bags of brand new YOLO t-shirts laying in the sand.... on a path directly to my town house.
They may pack up their boards and their sun hats and their classic VW camper bus and drive off leaving their litter behind. A few plastic sand filled cups, one coffee container and gee, look son... four brand new t-shirts, just our size.

Hey, it made the nonshark attack and the almost drowning and enduring both the shittiest meal ever at Goatfeathers and a 24 hour 10 year old barffest almost forgettable, because who doesn't like free stuff, especially when it feels like you've gotten away with something illegal.

Note to the YOLO board folks. We will wear your shirts proudly and even though, as a friend pointed out, we are inland and nowhere near the beach and YOLO board places... consider this free advertising. You're welcome.

What did you do on summer vacation, Johnny? Well, I almost drowned...

So, yes. I went on vacation. And yep, I actually came back. Dammit. The post delay has many reasons... none of which I want to go into right now, suffice it to say this will be a long one.


Sometimes, when you look at the ocean, you think she is a restful, calm place. A place where romance blooms and sweet nothings are carried by the breeze across sandy dunes to land gently on freckled cheeks slightly scorched by the sun.

Other times, you see her for what she really is- a sly trickster PMS'ing in the worst way. She draws you into her depths taunting you with her cool blue exterior only to turn on you in an instant, roiling up underneath in riptides and evil currents of doom, sending man eating sharks, stinging rays and slimy purple jellyfish your way. She plays with your emotions, come deeper she says, look, a sand bar, here and here too... a place you can rest your tired limbs, a place I will drown you. And no one on land will ever see.

Here's a picture of our beach right after some doofus numbnuts hick yelled, "Shark!" Um. No. Dumbass. That was a ray. And a small one at that. Good Lord, am I glad he wasn't around this morning when the dolphins were swimming by just past the sand bar.

A sand bar that looks like this: A sandbar that teased most of us on land into believing she had a sister sandbar a bit farther out, if we were reading her signs- that come hither beckoning finger that said, swim just a little bit more, just a little more.... okay. now DIE.
Um. yeah. Well. almost.

See, right after the doofus yelled shark and scared everyone out of the water, I had to make a point, so I ran INTO the water and said I was going for a swim. My equally brave and equally stubborn 15 yr old son joined me. Everyone else went back to their coolers of beer.

So we swam, and floated, and joked.. and scared each other a little talking about rays and sharks and big fish underneath us. The shore was far away. Very far away. And the elusive second sand bar? Wasn't a sand bar at all... just more deep, deep water. Hiding a rip tide.
There are very few moments in my 46 years that I have thought I was going to die.
This was one of them.

And you know what I was thinking, as I was sinking? That this would be a totally embarrassing way to go, and that how weak would I be, if I didn't try to save my son, or how he would feel if he had to watch me die... we tried to wave to people on shore, tried to get someone to notice we were in trouble. I wondered how long it would take for a rescue to arrive.
And then, I saw all of these things cross my son's face and I changed my tune.
"C'mon Dude. Backstroke? I'll race you!"

We encouraged each other through the deepest water, out of the riptide, down the shore and finally to a place we could float and then stand and far away from our starting point, we hauled ourselves to shore and fell exhausted in the sand, looked at each other and said, "We almost freaking died out there. omigod."
Back at our sand chairs, under our sun shelter, we found a passed out dad oblivious to our plight and a little girl burying her feet in the sand, not a care in the world.

The irony of the fact that my novel is called, WE'RE NOT WAVING, WE'RE DROWNING is not lost on me. Thanks for the reminder, God. It's me, Linda.

more tomorrow, with a slightly less morose theme I promise

Your regular programming is interrupted to bring you this botox update.

We all knew Mary did it. But when she made fun of herself on live TV, we loved her even more.
You go girl.


2009 Mary publicity shot

The original Mary we all loved to scream with.


She looks so good, am thinking of making dermatologist appointment myself.

Vacation is just not the same without Wi-Fi

Yes. I am officially addicted to the internet. I suppose having my Crackberry connecting me to the etherworld should be enough, but no. So, here I am in a coffeehouse stealing wi-fi airtime and getting my fix.

But in my defense, I have a deadline and the noise of the surf outside my sliding glass doors is a bit distracting.
*sigh*

Let it be known that as soon as the sun shone down ever so brightly, I closed the lid and ran outside, espresso in hand....
next stop?
beach.
and picture downloading
You can take the geek out of the suburbs but you cannot take the laptop out of the geek- or something like that.

My first guest blogger gig.

I'm pleased and flattered to be asked to post with these wonderful writers.

Check it out.

"Back when cocktails were cocktails, son..."

Yep. Back in the good old days...
Days I never had the pleasure to know, when there was an honest glory to the cocktail hour.

Unlike today's "Happy Hour" where cheap drinks or watery beers are offered at discount specials to harried workers who believe the only thing the drink in their hand is good for is to help them forget their day.
I want to be a part of the Cocktailian Culture. A new brand of alcohol imbibers who appreciate fine ingredients, proper glassware and the art of the presentation.

I found out about this seductive subculture last fall when searching for an old moonshine recipe from the days of Prohibition.
Since then, I have become an eager student, reading about the most indispensable part of a true cocktail- that I have never used...
joining a secret society of absinthe drinkers, and reminiscing on my own cocktail-laden youth when I stood at my Daddy's side learning how to mix his six o'clock Perfect Manhattan.
Which this guy does so much better:

Nirvino Presents: The Uptown Manhattan from Nirvino on Vimeo.

Part of it, for me, is the entertainment portion of the cocktail show... the way it looks in the glass, the way the sexy barman puts it together and slides it across the bar to me, the camaraderie of us on the other side of the bar.. the way the glass feels in my hand, how I can appreciate the unique combination in The Home Stretch or a Cora Middleton.
God, the names alone slay me.
I think I would have been the perfect jazz loving bar floosie back in the day... back when a cocktail was a cocktail, son.

According to Esquire mag: these are the best bars in America.
Oddly enough, I am not at all surprised to see I was born less than 15 miles from the #1 bar.

Trimming the Hedges

I thought it was just me who found those new Schick Quattro Trimstyle Razor & Bikini Trimmer TV ads funny and a bit naughty.

The online and European ad looks like this:


and the American ad?
Looks like this.


All those commercials and the music... just makes me laugh and remember this:

Adam Sandler Music Video: Secret - watch more funny videos