I’ve been posting a lot in my own blog about doing yoga. I started taking yoga classes nine weeks ago because I thought it would be a nice workout without killing me. I was out of shape. Okay, technically round is a shape. I’ve kind of wanted to take yoga for awhile but there wasn’t a class near me in Ohio and, well, yoga sounds so woo-woo. As I mentioned in my own blog, my instructor’s name was Sapphire, which worried me*. In the first class, I was a little worried when we talked about opening the colon. I braced myself and waited for the onslaught of chakras and energy coursing through my body.

To quote myself: They… say appalling new age things in yoga. I took a class where we concentrated on our back muscles. (That’s a good thing, actually. When I told my doctor I was taking yoga he said he often tells men in their forties that if they want to avoid back surgery, they should start taking yoga right now.) The teacher started talking about how we would be lifting our palate. Yeah, we would be lifting the roof of our mouth. And when we did that, our breath energy (our prana) would circulate down our spine to our sitting bone and then come back up the front of our body to our heart. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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The burn is much better, thanks. A more substantive post will follow. But first, via Scientist, Interrupted, another brilliant ad.

There is some question as to whether it is really banned, but either way, it’s a hoot. Enjoy.

The demise of Jerry Falwell this week has caused me to once again fleetingly meditate on one of my favorite subjects — Teletubbies.

No, just kidding. I meant to type — Death.

There were a couple of years, not so long ago, when I was barely hanging on by my fingernails. And I have fingernails so short as to be almost non-existent.

My old friend Brian Robertson turned me on to Leonard Cohen then, because he knew exactly what I was going through, and it was the best he could do for me.

Cohen’s big hit, in 1969, was ‘Suzanne’. As he aged, his voice deepened until it now sounds something like God would sound like, if he actually, you know, existed.

Leonard helped me make it through some infinitely long nights.

His stuff is generally dark and sorrowful, though there are some startling exceptions. Love underlies all of it. His music reminds you that you’re not alone when it gets as bleak as Arctic midnight.

Clicking the pic takes you to a live performance of his classic ‘Who By Fire’. I personally find Sonny Rollins’s sax soloes a bit over-the-top, but others love them.

If you’ve never been so close to the edge that all you can see is velvet black emptiness, all this may seem silly or pretentious to you. But if you have been there, or are there, I highly recommend Cohen’s music to you. You might want to start with ‘More Best of Leonard Cohen‘.

My life is pretty good these days. But there is no light without darkness.

And vice-versa, of course.

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If you’d like to see Leonard when he’s feeling whimsical, check out: ‘First We Take Manhattan‘.

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The Dude and I were on vacation this week. This was as close to a real vacation as we’ve had in the last twenty years. (I’m not including business trips with extra days or family trips in that measure. Trust me, not vacations.)

On the whole, I don’t like traveling. I’m like good brie — I don’t travel well. I hate the pre-vacation preparations: the packing, the asking of favors (“Will you feed the cats?” “Can you take care of the dog?”) and the inevitable moment when The Dude will get sick.

Now sometimes, he’s actually sick, but mostly he’s sick in an Alvy Singer kind of way. And if you haven’t seen ANNIE HALL, well, that last joke was completely lost on you. Sorry. My bad.

And I could handle the rest of these things were traveling not such a nightmare. I’ve heard stories about the golden age of travel. Apparently, you would board a cruise ship and sail off for exotic destinations whilst wearing fabulous clothes and dining on fine cuisine. Of course, to have this sort of experience you needed valets and maids and an assortment of people whose sole job it was to make your every moment as pleasant as possible. And assloads of money helped, too.

Nowadays, travel has lost any of the charms it once had. Especially airline travel. First class is what coach class once was and coach is now just a cattle car adventure.

So, we get to the airport early to go through security. I’ve prepared for this: I’m wearing slip-off shoes and an underwire-less bra. Because, you know, if my boobs aren’t sagging, the terrorists win.

I have all the necessities for air travel in Amurika 2007: a 3 oz tube (or less!) of lotion, water (this I’m forced to buy once I’m inside the terminal because unless I’ve paid four bucks for the same bottle of water I could bring from home, say it with me: The Terrorists Win!), Pop Tarts (the perfect food for traveling: requires no heat or refrigeration and it is, as long as you stick to the plain fruit flavors, non-contentious on the tum); and a warm shawl.

Now, most of you guys and some of you gals won’t get the shawl thing. However, I’ve rarely been on a flight that wasn’t like being in a meat locker. And no, I am not going to use that airline blanket. I’ve read letters to PENTHOUSE and I’m pretty sure I know what’s been going on under those things. Ewwwwwww.

After going through security, we look for a place to settle to wait for the boarding call. The options are limited. Either we sit in the seat with the questionable stains or we sit next to the guy who’s talking on his phone except he doesn’t have one. Stains it is.

At last we’re allowed to board. This means we’re fed into the jetway and get to wait in the heat until they decide to let us inside the plane.

And here’s the fun part – watching all these other passengers cram their possessions into the overhead bins because heaven forbid they should wait for their luggage at baggage pickup. My especial faves are the ones who put their stuff in a bin well ahead of where they’re sitting so they don’t have to carry it as far when they deplane. Jesus, dude, check that fricking bag and get on with your life.

I could go on about the guy who won’t stop talking to you, or the girl who decided to paint her nails, or the kid who won’t stop kicking the back of your seat, but we’ve all been there.

Yes, travel is broadening. But, like Dorothy, for me, there’s no place like home.

Erudite and Dashing Grandmaster James Gunn.

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This is Tillie. 

Tillie thought she was cool.  Tillie thought she could handle the rock’n'roll lifestyle.  She thought she could handle the sex, the drugs, and the endless kibble.

But Tillie was wrong. 

She couldn’t handle the sex, because she was “fixed” and didn’t know what it was. 

And she couldn’t handle the drugs, because the rabies shots made her drowsy.

So that left the kibble.  And the rawhide.  And the rock’n'roll.

Well, look at Tillie now.  Tripping on the brown Eukanuba.  Stoned on the Milk Bone.

Waiting on a belly rub that may never come.

So, parents, teach your puppies well.

If they ask for corn, beware.  And if they ask for sweet potatoes, hold an intervention.

Because the next thing you know, they’ll dig a groove at an Allman Brothers show and wind up eating a peach.   Or they’ll hound Van Morrison for some Tupelo honey.  Or they’ll track Arlo Guthrie to Alice’s Restaurant for a Thanksgiving dinner that couldn’t be beat.  Or they’ll wag their tails to get backstage at a Rolling Stones gig so they can chew on some old leather.

They might even join a band of their own, go to the Caribbean to play reggae, and come back as –

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The Jerry Falwell Special Edition of the Teletubbies.

Not Safe For Work.

Click the pic.

I was in the kitchen shucking corn on the cob, and Shelly, the miniature dachshund was standing looking up at me hopefully. When Shelly looks up, she is so short that she tends to pick up one paw. This, combined with her perpetually worried expression, gives her a kind of winsomeness that it takes awhile to understand is an accident of nature unrelated to her actual emotional state. Sort of like the fixed smile of a bottle-nosed dolphin.

I could suddenly imagine a conversation with Shelly as I shucked corn.

“Can I have some?” she would say. She’s little, about twelve pounds, so it helps to imagine a voice that goes with that.

“You wouldn’t like it.”

“I like it,” she says hopefully.

“You don’t even know what it is,” I say.

“What is it?”

“Corn,” I say.

“I like it,” she says.

I ignore her. You’re supposed to ignore begging dogs.

“Can I have some?” she says.

“You don’t even know that you’d like it. It’s a vegetable. Raw.”

She watches me without a glimmer of comprehension.

“Can I have some?” she says again.

“You don’t want it. You don’t even know what it is,” I say.

“Corn?” she says.

“You don’t know what corn is.”

“I like it.”

“No you don’t.”

Pause.

“Can I have some?”

I think it’s just as well they don’t talk.

This week, fellow Brainiacs, I’m traveling on business again, and even more brain-dead than usual. But I did want to share a cool image: here is a shot of a volcanic eruption under a glacier in Gimsvotn, Iceland:

My book (which I’m nearly finished with! about which, more later) features an eruption (albeit not a volcanic one) under ice, and that’s my flimsy excuse for sharing this. Besides which, it’s just a cool picture. Enjoy.

MSNBC Article

I hope he went to where ever he needed to go.

In any case, I’m glad he’s there now, and not here any more. It’s best for all of us.

I have been musing, of late, about trolls. Trolls on line, trolls in person. There’s been all this flap about a Blogger’s Code of Conduct, with many sources weighing in. A Code of Conduct seems like a particularly toothless way of dealing with Trolls. What works better is to have someone on hand to take on Troll whumping duty; but it has to be the right person, someone temperamentally and creatively suited to the job. My friend Teresa Nielsen Hayden, who has been moderating discussions on Making Light for some years now, has been justly extolled by Cory Doctorow as a Troll whisperer. Her unwillingness to suffer rudeness, wedded to a creative soul and a sense of humor, ensures that Trolls are swatted down with a minimum of disruption to the rest of community.

Because disruption is what a Troll lives for. Trolls are not interested in reasoned discourse or argument; they’re interested in roiling the waters. Many Trolls believe that they are simply arguing a point or defending themselves from attack, but no: the tactics of a Troll pretty much rule that out. And a troll’s triumph, the thing that makes him feel all creamy and delicious, is reducing others to spitting idiocy. Like this: a BBC reporter completely losing it when trying to interview a spokesman for Scientology.

Note the technique: the Troll dodges any useful response to a question and starts talking straight through the interviewer until the interviewer (who said later, in his apology, that his only defense was that he’d been among Scientologists for a week and his patience and temper were fraying) explodes in frustration. And who winds up feeling guilty? Not the Troll. Just watcing the clip makes me want to lie down.

I’m not a Troll-fighter by nature. I’m a pretty good Troll-ignorer, however. What’s your tactic?

“Mom, Dad’s bleeding on the floor again!”

My Fellow Americans,

It is with a great deal of humility that I carry out my patriotic duty to link to this post by Ken Houghton at Marginal Utility:

My Unity Party Ticket

Only once in several generations does an idea so right, so mind-bendingly appropriate, appear.

Ken’s post was an inspired response to Erin’s post at the Handbook:

If You Elect Me As The Next President Of The United States Of America

I’ll be setting up a PayPal account soon to accept donations, and a MySpace page to deal with the expected surge in grass-roots activism.

I’m sure that Erin can easily (oh, so very easily) be persuaded to release exclusive nude campaign pics to our supporters.

Thanking You in Advance for Your Money,

Vice-President Harper

Okay, this vid absolutely had to be instantly promoted to full post status. Click the pic.

From a comment by LDA that was obvoiusly the result of painstaking and brilliant research.

I’ve only seen two minutes of it so far, but there’s no way that it’s not going to be featured on EOB.

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EDIT: I just finished viewing the whole film. It is, unsurprisingly, a work of sustained genius.

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This is not a picture of me, though I’ve frequently been accused of looking much like that dude. I’m sure that people also often thought he was me.

Into the Wayback Machine again, Sherman. In the late Sixties, and for much of the Seventies, I was the Director of the Inlet Drug Crisis Center. Which means much less than you think it should. We were all a bunch of Goddam Hippies, and it was largely a title bestowed upon me so that I could deal with the straights who demanded hierarchy in organizations that they were contemplating giving money to.

Among other efforts, we often provided medical care at rock concerts. It was usually primitive stuff, with an aid station set up from superfluous furniture at the venue, some volunteers cruising the crowd in case somebody got into trouble, and a couple of nurses and maybe a doctor at the station. If somebody got too sick, we called an ambulance. As far as I know, we never lost anybody at one of those events.

Through much of the Seventies, the Hofheinz Pavilion at the University of Houston was a major venue for rock concerts.

We worked the Rolling Stones double-header on June 25, 1972 with a much larger crew than usual. It was boiling, hysterical chaos throughout, as were most of the Stones concerts on that tour. The cops were out of control, fearful of a riot, and violently harassing the kids.

Who were crazed in return. There were too many teeny-boppers of both genders, kids who by all rights shouldn’t have been allowed out without a parent in attendance. They didn’t know how to behave. There were speed-crazed gate-crashers. There were a lot of heavy drugs circulating, and overdoses, and group-vomiting, and freaking-out to be had. Read the Wiki in the link above to get a flavor of what I’m talking about. We worked hard that day and night, and it was scary.

Madness, pure and simple. Everything else aside, the crowd that night was the sort that gives a bad name to drug abuse.

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