The Bastard Son of Random Musings, Cont'd.

Compare/Contrast.

2007-10-07T21:28:00.000-06:00

So on the morning I head in to the station to gather a recording kit to chase the sampling teams down onto this hard-to-find landing on the Rio Grande, I see this on the sidewalk directly in front of the station:

It reads "Stop WIPP, No nukes 03/23/99". I've never seen it before. Maybe it was painted in sidwalk colours, maybe it got "cleaned off". All I know is this is the first I've seen of it, since it has just rained, and the rain made it come out. It's eerie. Kinda like the shadows of people burnt into the cement in Hiiroshima and Nagasaki. Creepy.

Here's the hard to find spot. Buckman Crossing, Townsite, or Wash, depending what you call it:

Now here's a shot of where I work -- as in "for money". Not half bad, is it? That's just the rear garden to the main guesthouse, by the way:

And of course it's much more colourful now, since this picture was taken before we did the latest colour rotation for Winter.

And here's my merciless taskmaster talking on the telephone. None other than the one and only Charles, about whom someday I intend to write a novel:

How are we different? Hoe are we the same? You decide. The above is Charles in his natural habitat. Here's me in mine.

Random cameraphone pictures.

2007-08-19T20:58:00.000-06:00

Where ever will they sit when winter comes?

This is why I moved the clock into the front bedroom I don't let the cats into. And now, in a completely different vein:

A fun government truck I just happened to follow getting off I-40 while going home one day from working at the Manor. Note the radioactive cargo. I would have loved to ask the driver some questions -- Whatcha got there? Where'dja get it? Whereya headin' to? -- but satisfied myself with taking this picture, instead. (I'm not *that* suicidal.)

Now some pictures from the station:This is the News Booth, located adjacent to the Control Room, with a window looking in on the board. It's my dragon's lair after hours -- where I did most of the editing on the long-form Uranium story. In the day they *try* to keep it clear for phone interviews and downloading sound, and it's also sometimes used to grab "Performance Today" backups in the mornings. Alas, the Captain Picard is a cardboard cutout, though you wouldn't know it from some of the long, involved ethical discussions we have over practicaly every word that gets uttered on air. ;^)
Finally, this is Studio C, from a few weeks back, when I was using it, late at night, to make digital copies of some of my favourite 78 RPM records, which just happen to be located in the file crate in the foreground.

Straddling.

2006-10-09T20:30:00.000-06:00

Behold ye the glory of the International Boundary between los Estados Unidos de Mexico (a la isquierda) and the United States of America (to the right). Yep. One foot in each country. The metal strip in the foundation of the monument *is* the border. This is Mile Marker Zero.

Now, from the US side, looking at both countries. Three ghosts: Mile Marker Zero, the 1968 ASARCO smokestack (Pancho Villa worked for ASARCO -- illegally, I suspect), and the Madero Camp (now a nice, if muddy, grove of trees) from which the 1911 Battle of Juarez was mounted, beginning the Mexican Revolution.

Here are the two more-or-less parallel bridges, built in 1880 and 1888, I believe, by the Southern Pacific and the El Paso & Southwestern Railroads, the first of which brought the railroad to El Paso, the second of which brought copper and radical IWW unionists from the mines in Bisbee, Arizona. I don't remember which bridge is which. They both span the Rio Grande, beneath. That's my little car on the dirt road belonging to U.S. Section of the International Boundary and Water Commission.

That's the road that used to go to Smeltertown, the town that literally got wiped off the map -- and not by flooding, either. (The U.S. Geological Survey's name for the grid I grew up in is still called the "Smeltertown Grid", and I grew up in the U.S. -- though literally South of the Border). Smeltertown is just maybe a couple hundred test wells right now.

To get to Mile Marker Zero without harassment you can't just cross over on that little bridge underneath the railroad trestles, 'cause that "belongs" to the brickworks and they'll chase you off if you even get caught trying. You have to drive up a few miles into New Mexico, then take a certain similar, wildly curving, ill-repaired one-lane road you just have to *know* is there and follow it through the wastes of the bosque, past the brickworks, and down to the water's edge. And good luck not getting hit by a cement truck driving like a bat out of hell, 'cause it's just a well-established fact: "no one ever comes down here".

Here's the sign as tall as I am that got covered in mud during the flooding. Sure am glad I don't live at a similar elevation in the waterless colonias on the other side of the river, like many hundreds of thousands of people do.

And here's the U.S. Congress' answer to all of everybody's problems, forever. I hear it's gonna get higher and fancier and tougher to get through. Which I'm sure won't stop people from going under it. They've been doing it that way for hundreds of years.

It's an amazing, deeply haunting place. It's also a dangerous place. Not so much for robbers; they tend to focus on Mount Cristo Rey and the trains speeding through at Anapra. But it's definitely better to go *with* someone, and *if* you go alone, far better *not* to carry *anything* valauable. Every time you think you've got it all figured out -- like watching out for cement trucks -- there's some new danger waiting for you to do something the slightest bit overconfident.

This is where I learned the hard way not to drive on slag heaps. Ever. However tempting they might be. They look like fun. And I always wonder what's on the other side. The 18-wheelers can make it just fine. But for a little car it is practically quicksand. It is not a joke. There is absolutely *nothing* funny about getting stuck in a slag heap. Getting out the one time I made that mistake counts as one of those "I can't believe I'm still alive" moments.

Plus the Border Patrol tends to discourage people from being any place on public roads or lands from which they might actually be *seen* doing the jobs we pay 'em for.

Mile Marker Zero is a pilgrimmage spot for me. It's just over a mile from where I grew up but getting to it even from that close is *always* an amazing journey. And every object there, right down to the grains of sand in my can of mud, is both somehow sacred and menacing all at once.

Ultimately, I just wanted everyone to know that after taking that picture up at the top I crossed back into the U.S. illegally. No one made me stand in line for hours at the bridge or asked if I was bringing acovados with the pits or sniffed me with the dogs. I dunno, man, just seems to happen any time I go down there. You can't hardly see the plaque on the Mexican side without crossing over, so you just cross over. Then to get back home you can either wander dozens of miles on foot through the colonias where hundreds of women have been disappeared and just hope you survive all the way to the bridge. Or -- you can simply reenter illegally.

Maybe that's why all those people cross. They just want to see what's on the other side.

What keeps them from going back like I reenter illegally as casually as I entered Mexico illegally? Tell you what -- I'd love to try it someday. In reverse. So -- if anyone wants to go with me (I won't do it alone), we will just cross right there and wander through the colonias trying to find the bridge amongst millions of people I don't know and who don't speak my language. What we'll see will be part Baghdad, part Bangladesh, part Calcutta, part Colombia. But hey, I'm sure we'll be fine -- all we're trying to do is re-enter legally. If we're very lucky we might actually make it back into the US within 24 hours.

The offer's open to anyone, but especially if you think the border fence is a good idea, hit me up, we'll make plans, go down, and very simply do it.

I'm going home.

2006-09-21T21:38:00.000-06:00

The public comments deadline for the NNSA's Draft LANL SWEIS has passed.

Please visit me at xeltifon.blogspot.com if you wish to remain apprised of whatever contiunes to happen to me in my daily life.

An unbelievably chaotic weekend.

2006-09-17T21:32:00.000-06:00

Started out nicely enough with me taking Friday off to go down to El Paso for a massive party my mother was throwing for her best freind whose book just came out. Went out to my little garden and whaddaya know -- I've got my first beans. I eat one on the spot and take the other home just to show yeah I really can grow my own beans. Hooray!

On the way down I stop in Hatch, the Chile Capital of the United States. Chile is a huge industry in New Mexico and Hatch is generally regarded as the epicenter of chile production, both for red and green. Chimayo, upriver even from here, is ironically best known for its own specific red variety, the name of which the Bueno Foods Corporation (the well-established statewide purveyor of mediocrity in all things chile- and tortilla-related) notoriously tried to copyright under World Trade Organization provisions treating food as "intellectual property". I say "ironically" because it seems the further north you go the more "green" people order and cook with, the further south, the more red.

Anyway, they got slammed with the flooding in Hatch. I mean *seriously* slammed, as in FEMA's got an emergency headquarters set up in the Village municipal building. A ditch or an arroyo (the story changes, depending who's telling the story) overflowed and basically took out downtown, along with all the trailer parks on the way from the ditch (or arroyo) downtown. I'm taking hundred-year-old storefronts completely collapsed in with straypained "Xes" with codes on the front of the buildings and mud in the streets. Like a little Katrinita. I stopped there instead of Truth or Consequences largely in an effort to be less predictable -- stopping in T or C is one of my little, by now largely predictable "rituals" of addiction -- I buy gas at one specific station and get cigarettes. Anyway, Hatch was in sad shape, but I got two nice ristras for my mother's party and took 'em down. Hatch is recovering, no thanks to FEMA, but thanks to the hundreds of regular citizens unwilling not to go about their lives and let the catasptrophic flooding put a dent in their annual Chile Festival which happened to occur the week after the worst of the flooding.

The good news weatherwise is that it's drying out now. The chiles shouldn't rot.

The party was that night, which is the only reason I took the day off -- I *had to* be there to help out. We were expecting -- and we got -- more guests than we have *ever* had before. (When I worked in foodservice I got into the annoying habit of unintentionally calling dinner guests "customers", now that I'm in insurance, I called them all "patients" -- a shift *not* for the better, which I'll come back to shortly.)

My main job, besides "finishing" all the touches on the magical space that is my mother's garden, was to dice and then fry up ten pounds of boiled yellow potatoes in a complex, precision-timed recipe from India i love and know inside, out, and backwards. I *also* had to build a fire in my grandmother's wood stove in the backyard at the same time, with, get this, mexquite chunks. Mesquite's a great cooking wood -- superb flavour, burns hot, and leaves very little ash, but because it's a hardwood it's tough to get started. Of course since the garden had been preened for months before this event more carefully than it had ever been before, there wasn't a stick of kindling anywhere. I am ashamed to say it but I used a couple of tablespoons of lighter fluid to get it started. Once it was started though, everything was fine for me to warm up tortillas on the stove.

In the meantime my potatoes burned.

So there were maybe eight pounds we could serve instead of ten.

Then in the process of moving dogs and cats from one house to two others, my elderly hermaphrodite Chihuahua ran away. Oh well. He/she/it always wanted to be free, and saw his/her/its chance, and took it.

Then the party was insane.

Sixty people. Over the last 20 years or so we've slowly ratcheted up the number of people we can entertain, always testing the limits. We hit it last Friday. Fifty-seven guests, not counting the eight mariachis, who were amazing. People were everywhere and everyone wanted to talk to me and I had to keep running like mad to keep things going. Same thing for my mother. Forty people we can entertain and still enjoy the party -- sixty means we're always running and it never quite comes together. Plus it's too crowded. It's good we tested the limits, but we have finally found precisely what the limit is.

It didn't help that the guest of honour's mother, who had flown in from California specifically for the event, had an attack of high blood pressure severe enough to land her in the hospital overnight. At least one person who I care about kept getting brushed off just 'cause heh I've gotta run get baby aspirins but don't want to spread panic. Lucky for us there was a pharmacist among the guests and the next door neighbour had a sphygmomanometer he was willing to loan to us. But once she basically started fainting the party kind of ended.

Saturday was calm. I did laundry and read all day.

Sunday was calm. I hated to leave my mother with all the mess to clean up but I had to get back to town. Stopped in Hatch on the way up and got another ristra for myself. It's hangin' out there now, and I just hope nobody steals it. If they do, I hope they eat the damn chiles and don't let 'em go to waste.

It's been a crazy, crazy weekend! I enjoyed it thoroughly but honestly I'm glad it's over, too. Now I can start to settle back into my comfortable routines.

We all knew it was bad, but...

2006-09-12T21:19:00.000-06:00

For one day I'll quit trying to scare you all off and just redirect you to a rather curious news story, unexpectedly entitled

Prozac in Streams Endangering Mussels.

I make my living making sure that data matches and just entering 90862 TX codes for lots of 296.xx DSM-IV coded National Labs workers.

Apparently one of the unintended consequences of my doing so is the extinction of endangered oceanic life-forms.

Who woulda thunk it?

Now if only my boss would offer me mussels in gumbo for lunch one of these days I could become quite thoroughly evil just by saying "sure".

Hint, hint!

:) :)

Happy 11 September, everyone.

2006-09-11T19:10:00.000-06:00

After all, it was a hundred years ago today that Ghandi founded his nonviolent resistance movement in South Africa, now wasn't it?

Let's see. Some other rather more nasty things have happened on this day, as well.

There was the violent coup in Chile against democratically elected Salvador Allende that -- when -- 1973? -- fine, whatever -- put the U.S.-sponsored war criminal General Pinochet in power.

Then there was the loss of those really remarkable buildings in New York. Pity.

I don't mean to be flip about it. Really. But still there is no parity. For every one U.S. citizen who died that day five years ago, easily a hundred or more have died overseas so we can continue to have our own precious cheap oil just since those now demolished buildings were built in the first place.

What can I say? As a culture we seem to value being able to drive clear across town to get an iPod made of plastic to replace the nonobsolete CDs (also made of plastic) which a few short years back replaced our (also plastic, also nonobsolete) cassette tapes which were just suddenly "so yesterday" more than we value human life.

Or, to be fair, and criticize myself where it is due, to buy a 12-string guitar because damn it six strings is just plain not enough! So what, the technology sought out in the end is different -- how the enabling technology different? It is not.

The news this year, perhaps because it is the five-year anniversary, has served as much as anything to just retraumatize us all, as we all relive the moments of disbelief at seeing the towers collapse. "Bullshit", I vividly remember thinking. "It's got to be a special effect." Apparently, based as much as anything on testimonies from freinds living in Manhattan at the time, and on my own subsequent visit to the site, I was sadly mistaken.

Those remarkable buildings are *gone*. I just can not deny it.

But Governor Bush might be well served to learn a lesson from his neoconfederate "patriot" freinds, in rather than going between sites of the attack in quick succession and making "nonpolitical" speeches about it during a campaign season, he might do well to *reenact* the actual events of that historic day and his unique historic part in it.

Imagine if Lincoln were capable of re-enacting his own assasitation! What power there would be in that!

Just picture it! Instead of observing four separate moments of silence in New York (where at the time, he would never have dared to set foot, and apparently hasn't found the courage to visit *since* then on this very day in five long years), he would sit at an elementary school in Florida for seven minutes not knowing what to do (because no one was *telling* him what to do) reading -- no, not the Bible, nor the Quran, nor the Declaration of Independence, nor the U.S. Constitition, but "My Pet Goat". Clearly above his reading level, as he never so much as mouthed the words contained therein. (Too bad he was never subjected to year-after-year testing in schools such as he advocates.)

Then he would disappear for hours until he was shown flying by helicopter into an underground bunker and only many hours later dared to show his chickenshit face on TV (his butt in a non-Gunlocke chair, I might point out) to tell the world that what had transpired was an "apparent terrorist attack".

DUH.

NO SHIT, GEORGIE! And the sky is BLUE. WOW!!!

I am retraumatized, I admit it. A lot of us are. But let's not forget where our chickenshit, unelected, so-called "president" actually cowered on this historic day five years ago: underground. Just like Mr. Hitler, after the fall of Berlin. I suppose I should be expected to give him a pat on the back for not taking cyanide and giving the same to Laura (who I personally assure you is a perfectly delightful hostess) and his dog besides.

Bull-fucking-shit. We would all be far better off if he had shown the basic guts to end his own miserable, worthless life right then and there and let democracy battle out who would take his throne in the absence of the unelected chickenshit so-called "commander in chief".

No such luck.

The hijackers risked and accomplished infinitely more in that one day than Governor Bush has done in his whole miserabe damned worthless cowardly existence.

I do believe the founding fathers had a turn of phrase for that: "unfit to be the ruler of a free people".

Now I shut up.

I hope...

2006-09-10T18:22:00.000-06:00

that before the end of the year, the blog will quit being about "look what a clever person i am, seeing as i just bought this or that thing I didn't need at less than its 'market value'".

I want to hold a hard sale! I can't quite bring myself to do so. I'm terribly attached to all the nice things I've found. But I want to, regardless.

I know better, in the end, than to tie my own value to the things that I buy here or there. I do not mean to imply that because I know how to buy this or that that I'm a "better person" than the person who walks into Goodwill or whatever out of the blue and has no clue where to start looking for bargains. (But truth be told, I know I have a better eye for such things than those who buy all things new.) As for the "sharks", I hate them -- let them take whatever they will from under poor peoples' noses and bear the karma that goes with doing so. Fucking shitheads.

I stand by my prior assertion that being able to do so is some universal way of compensating a person for being born gay in a homophobic society. The question ought to be, then, when do we quit being satisfied with consolation prizes?

But today, it was a Takamine G335 12-string guitar. And today, I managed to recognize that what country a given musical instrument was made in, and when, would count for a great deal less in the long run that how it *played* and what it *sounded* like whenever it was actually *played* in the hands of someone who knew three chords! And even with only six of the twelve strings strung, and even with three of those six strung *backwards* around the capstans with strings *easily* ten years old or more, I recognised the sound of a good solid spruce soundboard and inspected it quite closely, and recognised a good instrument well worth investing in it what the seller was asking.

The instrument's not 100% perfect by any stretch of the imagination. But I did like the way it felt and sounded in my hands, and could tell that a lot that other people did as well from my just playing it however ineptly in that place not particularly frequented by great guitarists.

I strum my chords: Am, E7, Am, E7; Dm, Am, E7, Am; Am, E7, Am, E7; Dm, Am, E7m, Am. C, G, F, E; Am, E7, Am-E7-Am. Total "idiot" progession I'd never dare play in a guitar shop. People start hovering 'round. Time for me to take the guitar and GET OUT 'cause I know someone else will take it the minute I walk away from it.

Strum a chord or two on totally dead strings and get people start hovering around, waiting for you to walk off without buying it = worth buying. Yes, once again, what I do is based on what I think other people might do. I'm not a shark at these places. But I know when the sharks start hovering when it's worthwhile to pick up an instrument. I'm not stewpid. No one else would ever have picked it up, the case it was in was so goddamn ratty, compared to what was hid therein. Better me who might play it than whoever else who'd turn around and sell it for twice what I paid in *their* stall right across the way.

It was sitting in the indoor flea market. Being a guitar, and not being behind glass (as though it were an 1860 Martin like the one they have at Encore Music -- not that they keep their 1860 Martin behind glass, not that I'd ever dare to strum it) I had to pick it up and start messing around with it. Whaddaya know. It's a perfectly respectable instrument, regardless whether whoever owned it before saw fit to scratch out the 'Made in Japan" line from the luthier's label -- like no one would ever notice that hack job among hack jobs, or ever be persuaded to think that "Takamine" was a Spanish luthier. Fuckin' chickenshits. But on the other hand I recognise the sound and look and feel of a solid spruce top when I see one. I recognise that my playing five very basic chords on the damn thing's enough to bring people from all around to see who's makin' music on whatever instrument, however ineptly; all just waiting for me to walk away from it, so they can get a "bargain".

I get home and find out from researching online the price I paid is quite respectable. It's a good instrument, I paid a fair price for it, and can turn around and sell it for what I paid. Enough said.

Of course I had to get fresh strings, which cost ten bucks.

Plus bridgepins, since it was missing six. Whatever.

I reustrung it.

I've heard so many horror stories about how "hard" it is to string 12-string guitars -- about how that upper G string "always" breaks, and all -- that I thought I must be completely mad to even try. Winds up it was a snap. Took more time, to be sure, than restringing a 6-string but a hell of a lot less time that it takes to restring, say, an old piano with its 85-88 always open strings, times however many notes you've got to double and/or triple up.

Got another clock, too. Seth Tomas, probably from the 1890s. It runs fine, chimes nicely, and keeps good enough time. What else can i say? I needed another clock like I needed a hole in the head. But picking up a clock kinda deflected attention from me as "the person who knows guitars worth having", for the time being, at least.

I hate the thrift stores and flea markets. Granted I know whatever I buy there is better bought that stuff bought 100% "new" from retailers. But buying crap I do no need -- new or used -- is no less an addiction than buying cigarettes or alcohol. On moral grounds it maybe beats buying those by a step or two, in that doing so *only* ruins my finances, not my health.

But still the objective is to live simply. And having a 12-string guitar in addition to a 6-string is not quite living simply, however acoustic it may be! I know better. I do. But I refuse to beat myself up over it, which will just open up the way for me to buy 18 string and 24 string acoustic guitars -- which given my state of mind, I have no doubt exist and are out there just waiting for buyers. Buyers like me, who can no more bear to see the instruments go into the hands of non-players than they can bear paying war taxes for one more year.

Every fibre of my being is yelling out "stop!". And for one day, or two days, or three or four days, I'm fine with that! But eventually I get bored and lonely and just plain old tired and go out to buy something else I don't need.

For anyone who's read a year or more you should know this weekend is an anniversary for me. The anniversary of the roughest of many rough weekends. It's almost over. But not quite.

I'll get through it.

Let's just hope I get through it without spending any more money.

Hah!

2006-09-03T20:25:00.001-06:00

I'm not dead yet!

So anyway. Last you heard from me, NNSA was trying to keep the Draft LANL SWEIS out of my hands while smiling at me and saying nice things while I took one goddamn weekend off to listen to some damn fine live music, during which time the SWEIS did in fact show up in my mailbox despite what appears to be deliberate ineptitude either on the part of the NNSA or SAIC (to whom they'd contracted out the job of mailing SWEISes on NNSA's behalf). (I still wonder, and likely always will, whether they'd actually hand-deliver requested documents, but would love to test 'em on it, not that I can in this case, since once again, the US Postal Service *has* earned my admiration in a critical moment by seeing that it did get to me, regardless of those "errors" on the part of the NNSA which invariably favours them.)

See this is one of those things I honestly don't think anyone who doesn't live here ever *really* understands, just like an anti-racist in Mississippi never thinks anyone living anywhere else in the US ever *really* understands his own state's continued apartheid. So with apologies to my few regular readers I have got to say there's just a certain way things happen here that make you feel the pressure if you ever dare to go against whatever the government says you should be saying to them regarding this one industry that supposedly make up whatever percentage of the whole state's economy.

Granted the Frogman guy in Santa Fe with his nice Jewish girlfreind from Boston may understand exactly where I'm coming from, but frankly, the rest of you who live elsewhere almost certainly can't, and I can't reach the Frogman, since doing so would violate otherwise sacred pacts regarding public media.

As for the weird splotches on my skin, well, heh, it ain't KS, if you know what I mean -- or at least, if it is, it's not from exposure to HIV, or if it is, it's not in such a way that's documentable as such, and I intend to keep it that way, even if it kills me. Blah, blah, blah.

So I'm getting way into building stupas. I've done this before. It's a sort of desperation measure. I mean I still intend to write back to NNSA and all before the 20 September deadline and all, but damn it, it's all way the hell so overwhelming that the only thing I absolutely positively know that I can do at this point is build stupas. Yes, building stupas is a big complex process but I've done it before (just like I've folded paper cranes) and yes I know its real effect in terms of society remains largely symbolic and almost entirely hypothetical. It is a desperation measure taken by those who will never, on principle, hurt anybody else.

Beyond that I continue to try and reduce my ridiculously out-of-control spending on crap I absolutely do not need as much as I can on any given day. I may not be eating all raw foods but heh heh I do not eat in restaurants and do not eat a damn thing that's not given to me otherwise that I don't prepare at home. In some persons' eyes yes I know that is "extreme"; in others', it's not near enough, but for me, for the time being, it is what I can do, and I will not make myself miserable over doing that little, though it may seem for the moment all that I can do.

I got a very interesting book (among many others) from the public library (where else?) just yesterday entitled "Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama bin Laden", translated by James Howarth, edited and introduced by Bruce Lawrence, and published by Verso (ISBN 1-844667-045-7) -- typeset, of course, in Bembo. What an utterly marvellous typeface. I love Bembo. (Really, I do. I would almost as gladly read Shrub's inept pronouncements upon world affairs if they were ever set in Bembo, though goodness knows, his regular readers likely find Arial far too "challenging".)

I love librarians. When I was a lone queer teenager in high school in Texas it was one librarian who gave me all the reason that I ever had to live just by allowing me to spend my time in his or her library without ever asking intrusive questions about whether I was on lunch break or skipping classes that I knew would expose me to death threats. I showed up when I showed up and that librarian's never asking me why I showed up when I did kept me alive. Literally.

Of course, this time around, this was the one book of a dozen or so I had to go to get checked out in person, so naturally, instead of pester the poor librarian about "why can't I check this one out on the self-checkout machine like all the others?" and "am I going to get put on some list of undesirables?", I peppered her with all the standard, utterly harmless questions about when is it due and whether I can return books checked out here to other branches, and so on, and so forth.

I think intelligence types call it "chatter".

I know damn well that the so-called "PATRIOT Act" both obligates her to report my checking this particular book out and forbids her from telling me that she's obligated to report me for checking it out. Librarians have gone way the hell out on the limb repeatedly for me, so why should I not go out on the limb for them, just a bit, just this once? You've got to report me? Fine. I won't make your job hard. Here's just tons of "chatter" for you to report when you get questioned, and I'm sorry you will, but damn it, I do want to check out this book. It's too interesting not to.

Now, once again, it's some librarian with guts the size of a Montana sky who gives me the chance to read the words of this gentleman murderer, neither less well intentioned nor any more of a "madman" than our current unelected "president", as he lays out his own vision for a well-ordered universe according to the plan of his "god" which he seems to claim speaks directly to him -- no less than our currently unelected "president".

Yawn. Yes, it's every bit as tedious as reading "Mein Kampf", but no less instrucive in the thinking of those who our unelected leaders unilaterally declare to be our "enemies". (And at least FDR *was* elected.) I am, perhaps, a little bit less bored reading footnotes about Islamist jurists from the 14th century (it is new information to me, at any rate -- never a bad thing) than I was reading about 19th-century "scientific" racists' theories on what persons constituted "Jews" (based largely on then-current, ignorant linguistic theories of "race").

At the same time, I do recognise these same brilliant polemicists' carefully constructed portraits of their "enemies" as such. Reading Mr. bin Laden's words, even in translation, may prove an engaging intellectual excercise for me -- but at heart, however much I find myself bemused by his ideals, I absolutely know he has no place in his world for my own kind -- the people of the bars. Mr. bin Laden may well be motivated at heart by a sense of justice and by what he thinks to be right and wrong based on whatever book he chooses to call sacred and revealed by his own chosen higher power. Good for him. But try and impose your ideals of jurisprudence on me (like the SID of DPS does, for example) and see if I don't fight you tooth and Lee press-on nail in the parking lot at Foxes.

Not that our own unelected so-called "president" thinks any better of us.

Not that he ever did, even when he was the "elected" Governor of Texas, thanks to Karl Rove's dirty tricks and his fraudulent *use* of the far "West Texas town of El Paso" to get elected to statewide office in the first place.

Please forgive me, Governor Ann Richards, for ever speaking ill of you. Ever. If ever I did. Which I honestly don't think I did, at least when it mattered. But if ever I did, please forgive me. I'm sure we disagreed on something and we probably still do. But let's face it -- I've got to ask forgiveness of *someone* at this point, and between you, Mr. Bush, and Mr. bin Laden, you strike me as being my best bet, in regards to the people I dare pretend to represent. If you ever ran for President I might seriously consider supporting you -- but only if you supported withdrawal from Iraq *and* dared to put yourself in the perilous position of an honest broker for peace between Israel and the displaced Palestinians. If ever anyone in Texas could stand up for the reputation of "Texas Democrats", then you could do so, above all others. And let's face it: Texas queers don't mean that much in terms of world peace.

Or do they?

Hilary Who? Acquiescent wife of what warmonger? Oh, him. Right. Yeah. I know compared to Shrub he's a brilliant statesman, but still, I'll vote for Nader, thanks, whatever personal risks come from it.

Meanwhile the faggots, dykes, and queers which the United States will *still* not allow to serve openly in its military forces, regardless whether our specialties (linguistics, &c.) tend to be specifically "mission critical" or not in terms of current international conflicts, are categorically barred from serving on the basis of "don't-ask-don't-tell", a policy endorsed by oh -- what president? Clinton. Yeah, but at least he was elected.

Clinton, the last elected President? I hate to think so. I never liked him. But at least he *was* the President. Not just the Governor of Texas.

Or New Mexico.

What then is the difference where that crucial 10% stands between you and the Islamists who would see us destroyed, utterly? It's not so big an issue as I dare say you would have it be. A bigot is a bigot is a bigot, be they "christian" or "islamist", in a true democracy. Doesn't matter all that much to us, ten whole percent when national elections are decided on percentages of percentages, whether whoever wins hates us with a passion or without one, just on general principle. I hate the rastafarians on principle 'cause thay hate us; but I might gladly see 'em take controls of government for a few years just to see how far they get without us, which, let's face it, they're at least honest about, besides which they could not accomplish anything.

Marriage is absolutely not *the* issue. Not that I wouldn't love to be able to marry. But even as a single man, now, I would love to be treated to the same level of consideration that breeders are now treated based solely on my qualifications.

Still -- that's no reason for a supposedly free press in a supposedly free nation to self-censor Mr. bin Laden's words through the system of interlocking directorates' "filters". So what if a handful of faggots in the U.S. read his words and genuinely understand the betrayal of Palestine by Mufti bin Baz of Saudi Arabia to be just what he says it is -- surely we still won't support him in his overall campagin -- surely self-preservation will kick in.

But that may be the difference between a functional democracy and an ostensible democracy wherein media gatekeepers see fit to self-censor any and all critics of the existing government -- legitimate or illegitimate.

I hardly need point out that my people (queers) would likely have no better place whatever in the (unarticulated) ideal society of Mr. bin Laden they would in the ideal society of the unelected and uneducated madman who now sits in the Oval Office (though not, I'm glad to say, in a Gunlocke chair -- his butt's simply not worthy of a Gunlocke chair, unlike those of nine prior U.S. presidents).

Not that Governor Bush has anything to offer in terms of a contradisctinctory social agenda. In terms of whatever meagre agendas he and his ostensible opponent put forward, they have more in common than in distinction from eachother.

Mr. Bush and Mr. bin Laden depend on eachother. Without either, the other will fall.

Where Governor Bush is concerned, his enemy is his enemy because his enemy, in his words, "hates freedom". The Governor of Texas is literally fighting a scholar -- and not a particularly brilliant one, at that -- on the rhetorical level of a preschooler, by putting words into his mouth, on the apparent assumption that no one is actually reading his enemy's words. Funny how in Mr. bin Laden's statements he never once refers to so vague a concept as "hating freedom", while referring again and again to the concrete ideals of Islamic jurisprudence in the context of several centuries' worth of history.

And yet, in reading his own words -- granted, in translation -- it's very clear where he seems to be coming from. His grievance has nothing whatever to do with "hating freedom" as his most unworthy and unelected foe seems to contend, and does indeed seem to have everything to do with the United States' stated foreign policy objectives as backed up by its actions.

I do not like Mr. bin Laden (nor do I like green eggs and ham), but I no longer wonder why he attracts adherents internationally. In short, in terms of the easy, predetermined "good and evil" story line between international antagonists, he does indees succeed in coming off for many as the lesser of two evils.

I've only read through two of his statements so far. My opinion remains subject to change.

Bluegrass Festival.

2006-08-27T18:08:00.000-06:00

OK, I know.

I am a classical music snob, of the most unbearable "J.S. Bach wrote everything ever worth playing" variety.

So as such, I will say this much -- I've *never* seen the level of techical proficiency on any given instrument, nor the sheer musicisnship involved in playing with others in what amounts to the ever-variable "chamber music" ensembles as I saw at this year's 32nd Annual Santa Fe Bluegreass and Old Time Music Festival.

So you hear the music in the sheet-metal "Small Animal Barn" at the Santa Fe County Fairgrounds, instead of in whatever "acoustically perfect" little adobe church. I can assure you -- if you're a sound technician, you might be well advised to sit near the soundboard -- and if you're not, you're better off sitting as close "center and front" to the stage as you possibly can, regardless, and second-best off sitting near the soundboard.

See, here's the difference (instrumentation notwithstanding) between "folk" music and "classical" music, at least as far as I can tell. In the former, performers wear street clothes, and in the latter, they wear tuxedos. In the former, you will learn who they learned this or that tune from and go on to learn it from them in the jam sessions that follow, whereas in the latter, they will give you what amounts to an academic citation number you can look up in any given library.

So the instruments include banjos and mandolins and guitars and upright bass viols in place of chamber music's violins, violas, and violoncellos. The only instrumental "constant" is the violin -- or "fiddle" -- which is to say, the violin, but for thousands less in terms of dollars when it comes time to buy and sell the damn things of Italian, French, German, or Czechozlovakian vintage.

It is the same exact amazing thrill to be a part of a smallish audience hearing the music live, regardless whether you're listening to a Haydn quartet with an Opus number attached to it or an Irish Jig with a name attached to it that changes depending on who's playing it.

The group "Sweet Sunny South" capitalized on this difference -- giving everyone a stageshow in the process of our listening to their incredible music that harkened back to the 1940's roadhouses. Granted -- any one of their instrumentalists may not have been *the* most technically proficient in their musical craft -- but it quite simply did not matter! Watching all of them play to that single microphone made all the difference in the world, insofar as staging was concerned. All that mattered to any of 'em was what we heard. It showed.

Damn it where are the young people? Where are the queers? Haven't we figured out what's really going on here? Oh, no, it's all "that's for old people" where my own kind are concerned.

Their loss.

Yes, theirs.

On picking your battles.

2006-08-23T20:11:00.000-06:00

The building manager comes by yesterday while I'm out trying to find my brand (Plum Flower) of American Ginseng 'cause it's the only thing that keeps me sane -- or a big part of what keeps me sane, anyway -- and I just *can't* stop taking it for any length of time without going completely mad.

Long story short, the building got sold -- again. Big deal, right? Except this time whoever bought it is the same people who bought the amazing old labs/fallout shelter/factory/bank building next door with the express intent of turning it into expensive condominium lofts. Maybe I wasn't blogging back then, but you may remember (if we corresponded on paper) when our circus clown mayor made his appearance right out front talking about "revitalization" of "urban communities", right before the several-months ordeal of asbestos abatement happening behind my home, 12 hours a day, complete with elderly Cuban immigrant workers taking the brunt of all the carcinogenic risks whose only words in English appeared to be "no asbestos". (To their linguistic credit, they clearly understood enough to say "si, por favor" and "muchisimas gracias, senor" when I offered "water" through the razor-wire topped fence, which clearly, their employers never thought to make available to their own workers.)

If you know the meaning of the term "gentrification" you know where I'm going with this.

It's not good.

The new owners expressed exasperation at most of the tenants paying their rent "late" -- despite previous owners' having used different monthly "due dates" for different tenants in collecting monthly rents, according to their tenants' various long-established needs. So in a sort of backhanded "goodwill gesture" sort of way, the new owners "gave" every single tenant 300 bucks to "get current" on rent with the clear understanding that anyone paying five days after the first of the month will now get evicted, and *fast*.

There are eight apartments here.

There are precisely two tenants who have always paid their rent on time, over the last year and a half.

I'm one of them.

At first it didn't quite sink in. I worried more about the admonition not to open up the sewer drain and thought, regarding this "gift" of three hundred dollars, that "surely they mean the impoverished family next door, and not me". I thought "oh nice, three hundred extra bucks I can use to pay off the credit card". It's not so easy, and one month's worth of usurious interest may just now be the best unjustified few dollars I have ever paid.

The manager, in as low-key a way as he could without screwing over the new owners who pay his salary, made it quite clear to me -- if I want to live here for six months, I *need* to make sure that my rent is paid ahead of time, and without fail -- "gift" of a rent receipt or not. And with public apoligies to him, I am now asking for rent receipts, and checking them each time I pay.

See, one things new owners do sometimes, from what I've heard of other old ramshackle historic apartment complexes in this town getting bulldozed for condominium parking lots, is that they'll give everyone a conditional, one-month "reprieve" from paying rent (like by paying everyones' rents for a month, since they can't do something like that based on the colour of any tenants' skin without breaking the law), and then when someone fails to come through for whatever reason, evict *everyone* with no prior notice *and* condemn the property.

It would seem that in the time I was depending on my mother to "cover" for me financially when I was going through my legal hell, I made the crucial mistake of turning the soil in the place where I lived. I now feel quite attached. This is my home. I've literally got food growing out there in the floodplains of the Rio Bravo -- and if the flodwaters make paint "boil up" on the walls now and then, then so be it. This last unpaved portion of the mother road might almost any day now get paved over for the Hummers of the yuppies who pride themselves on "revitalizing" the "urban community".

I do not know where else I could live in Albuquerque, despite the fact that Don Schrader says (understandably, from where he stands) that I pay "a lot" for rent, despite this being the cheapest 1-bedroom apartment in town.

Like it or not, this is my home. I have no choice but to attempt to parse the new owners' intents and act accordingly. So what if certain appliances do not work correctly. Lives are at stake and it would be selfish of me to move anywhere else for a "better" water heater or stove, even if by so doing I'd pay less out of my own pocket in the short term.

Lucky for me, the once-a-month trek across town to deliver my rent check by hand is by now quite routine. It's a habit I acquired back when I was fresh out of Texas and the building owner's manager was himself queer, and the fact of my driving cross-town meant that I had a place to live in and call my own -- a small price to pay for someone who had moved to the "left coast", and back, twice, only to find he had no place on this earth, save by the very river on whose banks he was born in the first place.

This is the first place I have ever belonged. The possibility of losing it literally moved me to tears last night. It might not be paradise by a long shot, but you show me any other place on the face of the earth with the name "ADAM" carved into the tree outside my own bedroom window -- I will gladly move there.

If anything, having an extra 300 bucks credited to my account should make it easier. I have to assume they are hoping that sooner or later someone will default for whatever good (or not so good) reason on rent. If I want to continue living where I live right now, at this magical spot in the dead-center of the continent, I have to pay my rent a couple of days early now. Every month. Without fail.

I can do it.

And if we *ever* have to throw a "rent party" then goddamn it I've got the instruments and know where I can get cheap beer.

The "gift" is not cash, mind you. It's a receipt. A standard lousy onion-skin thin rent receipt: number 168617 signed by the building manager Peter Dunlap, with 0 balance, 0 due. I've got a good mind to put it in a safety deposit box and pay the September rent with a note on the check saying "October rent". Maybe I will do just exactly that. If push does come to shove, that little onion-skin receipt may well become the only "30 days notice" my neighbours have.

You know -- my neighbours, who I'm not great lifelong freinds with, but who I trust enough to leave my windows and doors open and who in turn trust me enough to tell me when some weirdo (fag or not, sober or not) comes around looking for me disturbing their lives. My neighbours -- including the Dineh family with intermarried families from several different Pueblos who drop in quite unannounced. My neighbours, including the cranky old woman who doesn't speak a word of English and who glowers at me when I take out my trash but can't walk to the mailbox without the help of *her* neighbours who play their music way the hell too loud and whose legal immigration status remains (as far as I know) totally unchecked. My neighbours, including the old Navaho woman next door who gets around (and only barely) with a cane. I hardly know my neighbours but I love 'em, each and every one, and wouldn't trade 'em for the world.

I've got to pay my rent. Regardless. Really -- nothing's changed. Except the stakes are higher now. I can't be one day late for any reason. It's not just for me that I have to pay my own damn rent. It's for the people I live with who might not always be able to pay their own who never could afford the nursing homes which apparently the new owners of the building where I live assume them all to get moved into.

I'm not moving.

Not one inch.

Just try it.

The balance.

2006-08-21T21:57:00.000-06:00

Been avoiding my home group for a while. Not really anyone's business why but let's just say there was stewpid drama I wanted no part of but found myself getting sucked into against my will, so just not going seemed the best thing I could do for a while.

It's always a struggle for me to find the right balance between "being around people" and "having time to myself" -- I can not *ever* let myself get *too* close to other people -- it can be very dangerous. But I also can't shut myself off completely, 'cause I kinda cease everything but basic "life support" level functioning (and don't do that too terribly well, either!). The stewpid drama plus the flooding plus a bunch of other stuff combined and I swung way the hell too far in the direction of isolation this time 'round. I should have recognized it when I started missing jam sessions -- those hours are precious to me -- and to pass 'em up to sit around smoking cigarettes and listening to the radio is passing up on solid gold in favour of pure self-annihilation.

It's like a pendulum finding its equilibrium -- like balancing a clock against the wall -- too much in any which direction and the mechanism doesn't run. I *do* need much more solitude than most people, but I was awfully close to shutting down completely when today I got invited by email to hear someone tell his story at a different group I haven't been to since the days of the crazy nonstop legal troubles, and given who it is who's speaking and who's inviting me, there ain't no way in hell that I *can't* go! To make a long story short I'd like to think that both these people are my freinds. I admire both tremendously, meaning that both have something that I want and am willing to go to any lengths to get. In other words, I owe it to them *and* myself to be there. I would have driven down to Socorro for it if I'd had to, and it would have been worthwhile.

It's a tiny little group, but the story is one of those that has so many elements that belong in that quintessentially gay american novel or movie that it's utterly captivating. I found myself transported just listening to the story. Dunno how much I can really say about it here but wow -- everything was there complete with that amazing sense of place that always comes through in these stories -- all the struggles of the last fifty years, just perfectly and movingly encapsulated in this one person's autobiographical narration. I wish I could have gotten it on tape. It was *that* good.

I needed it. I desperately need to hear these stories. They are my people's creation myths. Without 'em we cannot survive, let alone live.

If you're gay in this country and live to be forty without self-destructing completely you're already an elder with wisdom well worth passing down to younger generations -- regardless whether anybody listens. It's oral transmission at its best whether it happens in a bar or in a meeting or spontaneously between lovers. It is these stories that keep us alive, and more importantly, that give our lives *meaning* when we hear the familiar old narratives told by someone with a few more years' perspective, so that they can stand where we do not yet stand, and say with the simple, convincing authority of having actually survived difficult times and situations that they did so doing this or that. It's so mundane, so practical, so day-to-day it almost hurts. It's the instructions how to handle things straight people can't conceive that we don't ever get in a society that relegates us to invisibility.

We have so precious little of this in the gay community, especially among the men, that we are foolish not to take it anywhere and everywhere we can. Too many of us never make it to a point where we have anything more worth imparting than "how to look fabulous, darling". Too many of us never even get that far.

Homophobia is the enemy. External and internal. Homophobia = coercion in one of its most insidious forms. It gets held up in a mirror and becomes deeply a part of who we are. If we can't figure out how to survive (much less eliminate) it in ourselves, then we can't possibly go on to eliminate it in society. Our first priority has got to be to take care of ourselves. The internalized homophobic tendency is to destroy ourselves. We take the hate society hands us and turn it on ourselves with laser focus. We can't fight homophobia on the societal level unless we can eliminate it from ourselves, against whom we all learned to turn it very early on in life, so that it becomes almost second nature.

I do believe it's possible. I do believe the next best action I can take to eliminate it from myself is simply not to buy or smoke any more cigarettes.

Now coming at it from the other side: I love Murray Bookchin. You know, the crusty old 20th century anarchist philosopher who most black-clad lifestyle anarchists don't ever bother reading, 'cause he roundly excoriates them for taking a social philosophy of cooperative action and turning it inward to the point of dissipating the imperative for revolutionary social change (in the direction of noncoersion, usufruct, and free association) into a hazy cloud of feel-good animistic spiritualism and the empty spectacle of street theatre "demonstrations" which accomplish absolutely nothing. This, too, is something that I struggle with in my own life, in my own way.

They are the same struggle. They are the opposite extremes of the pendulum's swing, and if I am to be a whole and functioning person I have to include elements of both extremes. And one always transforms into the other at the moment of its purest and most self-sufficient functioning.

On the one hand the imperative to act for social change gives life some purpose greater than itself. In short, it makes life worth living. On the other, the strictly apolitical, absolutely narrow, but declaredly social objective of "staying sober and helping others achieve sobriety" makes living possible for people well-acculturated to practicing multiple modes of self-destruction simultaneously by focusing on one single achievable objective necessarily involving both oneself and others. One is all grand and sweeping vision, the other's almost purely personal -- but only almost! -- and also extremely practical. Ironically enough (what would gay men gathered in a room be if not inherently ironic?), these purely personal groups with their narrow, apolitical focus are by definition social, and thus about the closest thing gay men have ever had to noncoercive free associations based on usufruct.

So -- somewhere between those, and incorporating elements of both, lies my own truth. I can't do neither one. I can't do one and not the other. They are irreconcilable, but I can't do one effectively without doing the other, too. I've only just started to live. But now I've gotten so bogged down in MEIs and ALARA and LCFs and DD&D and MDAs and RLWTFs that I've completely lost my bearings and forgotten that BEFORE ALL ELSE I just need not to destroy myself.

You know, "first, do no harm". Can't very convincingly advocate for the nondestruction of all human life forever at the same time I deliberately self destruct, now can I? At the same time, hopefully some of you can at least sympathize that while I deeply appreciate the tools you've given me, as I understand it, it's *you*, my people, the people of the bars and bathhouses, who've given them to me, not a pedantic book from the 'thirties filled with midwestern anachronisms utterly unsuited in my eyes to endless in-depth study. Once again -- this is *my* truth. If it works for me or not nobody else can ever really say, and I mean absolutely *nothing* to detract from your own truth, whatsoever it may be.

Reading SWEISes is fascinating stuff but it's maddeningly easy to get so bogged down in details as to completely lose the bigger picture. Suddenly it's not about the underlying purpose but about the technicalities, which reading is essentially a pornographic enterprise, in that serves to simultaneously engage me and distract me from what's really urgently important. The whole spotted owl absurdity is one such example: it's a *total* red herring. Yes the statement *is* absurd. But if you spend *all* the time you give to this to that one dumb sentence you miss much more important and much more interesting stuff, and the NNSA gets lots of easily classifiable comments on one relatively small thing they propose.

For just one more random example from literally hundreds I could cite: which do you think is preferable: the use of 2.5 million cubic yards of soil and rock "mostly" from LANL resources for "capping" MDAs (Material Disposal Areas) and allowing for nonfixed in-place subsurface gas and vapour contamination, or the use of 1.4 million cubic yards of the same for fill and cover material after removing buried MDAs, thereby eliminating susceptibility of hazardous materials to erosion and other geological processes, but resulting in concurrent increased radiological and nonradiological risks to workers?

Them's yer choices, "A" or "B", at least regarding Table S-18's (titled "Summary of Impacts for Major Material Disposal Area Remediation, Canyon Cleanups, and Other Consent Order Action", p. S-87) "Capping Option" and "Removal Option", and only taking the "Geology and Soils" and "Human Health" Resource Areas (there are a total of eleven different resource areas) into account. (Just for the record I'll go with door number two.) So -- pick yer poison, make your recommendation, and stand by it, before 20 September -- and no, the NNSA's will not consider joining in a rousing chorus of "Kum ba yah" since doing so "would not support the nuclear weapons mission assigned to LANL" (p. S-43) by your elected representatives in Congress.

I'm done with the summary and am going to reread parts of it and FINALLY move from there into volumes I and II (books 1 and 2). Rest assured: moving dirt, subsurface contamination, and risks to workers from either burying or moving wastes are not by any stretch of the imagination the most urgent part of this. Of course more power to anyone who takes on this or any other little corner of this monster proposal as a sort of hobby or pet project and makes a reasoned argument in favour of one option or the other. Teaspoons of sand, baby.

Teaspoons of sand. It really works. If it did not we wouldn't have this EIS to begin with. Prior generations fought so we would have 'em to work with and have a chance to make comments in the first place. We owe it to them to take the opportunity they gave us. And we'll have the legacy of LANL for as long as humankind survives. And there'll always be someone fighting it somewhere. Welcome to the future of mankind.

I've got to focus on the Key Facilities -- you know -- the ones that produce 99% of all radiation doses to the public and workforce and 90% of all liquid and solid radioactive waste (p. S-14). If I had all year I could spend it arguing passionately for moving this much dirt but not that much and on and on. I don't have a year. I have under a month.

So never mind the gibberish, I'm thinking out loud here -- never do know what to think 'til I've written it down. Risky business but that's how blogs work, isn't it? Ideas take form and change.

Among the Key Facilities shown on the lovely map in Figure S-4 ("Location of Key Facilities", p. S-15), the SWEIS identifies the Plutonium Facility Complex (in TA-55, on the north side of Pajarito Road, I do believe) as the site of the "greatest change" under the Expanded Operations Alternative (p. S-37).

That would be where they build all those nice shiny Plutonium pits.

I also do believe -- well, that's another story for another day. It's also in the past and therefore I can't waste my time on it right now.

I think all the craziness that goes with the first few days of not smoking will be adequately well channelled this time that I'll probably succeed in quitting. I've got plenty of cancer risks without the tobacco.

I'm grounded, once again -- oh yes, this is why I am doing it -- because the coercion that drives nuclear proliferation is nothing but my own internalized homophobia (for which read: coercion, specific subtype thereof) carried to its logical, global conclusion. "Us" and "them" thinking run rampant.

The personal is political.

What's that great line from "H.M.S. Pinafore": something like "I am but a living ganglia of irreconcilable antagonisms"?

At least I'm not the only vegan watching taureaumachie anymore.

I want to change the world but know I really can't as long as I am killing myself smoking, smoking, smoking, smoking, and then playing around with EISes in my spare time between cigarettes on weekends. There is a paradox here, somewhere. As long as I destroy myself with my addictions any other good I might do remains mitigated by my own self-destruction. At very least there is a question of hypocrisy. But if my whole life becomes about overcoming this or that unworthy addiction it's very simply not worth living. It's one particular viscious cylce for which, for me, "harm reduction" philosophies plainly don't work.

Either I give up smoking or I go around in circles getting nowhere.

It's definitely time to visit Don.

Thank you, speaker who shall remain anonymous. Thank you, emailer who shall likewise remain anonymous. You grounded me and gave me a big old burst of energy and I'm sorry if I badmouthed your book but it's honestly not "hard" enough to amuse me for long. You've done better than me and if any good comes of this public comment submission you will have had a hand in it and future generations (if there are any) may think well of your memory for it.

Test.

2006-08-19T20:22:00.000-06:00

Heh. It seems to be writing OK.

Apparently I wound up hitting the keyboard shortcut shutting last night in the dark that switched default text handling for my whole computer from "U.S. English" to "Traditional Chinese". Which I suppose would be fine if I really *knew* how to type in Chinese, but I don't (I am sorry to say). It's sort of a one-radical-at-a-time process for me to use from time to time to dilettantishly figure out what medicines I'm getting fed and look 'em up by name in English *and* Chinese. (Aren't computers grand?) Basically you have to know how many strokes are in the radicals to look up individual words built on 'em, which just takes learning how to read and write the language, and I'm about to the point with it all I understand up to maybe five-stroke radicals and can kind of halfway recognize 'em in some of their their altered forms combined with other radicals to make up very basic, common words. It's perfectly logical; it's just a whole different kind of logic, and wrapping your mind around it always is tricky, whatever new language you are trying to deal with.

But typing in Chinese for my blog posts? No way! It would be total gibberish, or else would take an hour and a half to figure out how to say "see Jane run" (more likely in my case, "see Jane needle LI-5", using some rare alternate name for "LI-5" that hasn't been current in four centuries or more, labelling me forever as an adherent to this or that particular school of thought regarding point relationships that I don't really begin to understand).

Good thing I'm in a Mac so figuring out the problem *and* fixing it took under two minutes, even though I haven't dealt with those particular settings at anything approaching that depth (system-wide settings) in many months now.

So I went to Encore Music on Menaul today to get guitar strings and I damn near got in major trouble. See, the only people working there were otherwise engaged so I just casually wandered back into their climate-controlled acoustic instrument room. The door was standing wide open, and just out of respect for the countless (not really -- it's probably just in the dozens) historic instruments contained therein, I *had to* close it, right? Naturally!

Of course, I didn't close it and walk back up to the string counter, I walked in and closed it behind me. Danger, Will Robinson! My god, that place is a museum! And knowing me -- heh heh -- if I can't play like Paganini then damn it I'll just collect all the instruments that he ever played on! Yes! I will die in a shithole tenament surrounded by zillions of dollars worth of instruments I can barely scratch out a tune on if it kills me! (It's nice to have worthwhile ambitions.)

They had a Gretsch banjo from the fifties. I never even knew Gretsch made banjos. I asked some general and pretty ignorant questions about what's the difference between Martin and Taylor guitars blah blah blah and got way better answers than a total newbie like me has any right ever to expect. A 12-string Seagull sort of whispered to me, but not *quite* loud enough for me to actually walk out with. Thank god.

They've got me pegged! I might not buy today but I am always "looking" -- I've got that look in my eyes. Waiting to be called out to by that one *perfect* instrument that I *know* is out there just waiting for me to "rescue" it from -- what -- who knows. Guitar perdition! I promise not to cut your fingerboard and reattach your neck with nut and bolt. I promise not to try and make you look like something you are not. The instruments all understand that much and they all speak to me. Picked up and messed around with several but heh I'm still way happier for now with what I've got. Maybe I could just order strings from 'em by mail order one case at a time and avoid the temptation.

The other day they had a drop-dead gorgeous, early 'sixties Gretsch "Country Gentleman" just hangin' on the wall. You know -- one of those Gretsches way more valuable than what I've got. Named after Chet Atkins and with the higher-end pickups and whatnot. I made one informed comment about it "having my tailpiece" (the "Rally" used the "Country Gentleman's" Bigsby tailpiece, you see) and walked out without asking to see it. It was a solid-body and I didn't want to spend several months rent that I don't already have waiting to be spent -- least of all on an instrument that might just suddenly go unplayable by one wire on one transducer or potentiometer working its way loose. And I knew once I felt it in my hands it would leave with me. Thankfully it was gone by today.

Close call. I need to stay out of guitar shops just as much as possible.

I need to clean my goddamned strings -- I'm sure not cleaning them makes them last for shorter periods of time. I also know I don't *really* play often enough that I should have to replace 'em weekly. (On the psychosomatic side, though, having to replace strings weekly makes me think I am practicing plenty.) I seem to very slightly prefer the sound of the Ernie Ball 11s (high-pitched thereminesque harmonics, baby, all the way) but the D'Addario '12s sound fine and seem to last longer, and take longer to go from "sounding good" to "sounding dead", besides. With the Ernie Ball 11s, I can tell sometimes from one strum to the next that they've just suddenly "gone bad". With the D'Addarios I can just play and play and the sound seems to degrade so gradually that I never absolutely positively know for sure they're "gone" 'til I've gone ahead and replaced 'em, at which point I'm amazed by the difference. I'm not making product endorsements here -- no one has my exact body chemistry I'm sure, and no one who's played guitar one week longer than I have can possibly know less about their strings -- but this is my own observation based on my strings' reactions to my fingers on my guitar.

So why not compare Ernie Ball 12s to D'Addario 12s? Because the only place to get Ernie Ball 12s is from one of the major chain places. I may buy strings from them one time, but never twice. Unless the product they sell proves to be *exactly* what I *absolutely* *need* for my guitar, I'm neither willing to patronize them for that one weekly "need" nor pester the local guitar shop for my specific, small-ticket want. Besides which, with my guitar being in the shape it's in after almost four decades, and with my playing being as amateurish as it is, big fuckin' deal, I'll take the lighter strings and just not risk damaging the neck thanks very much.

Maybe I could play while wearing foodservice latex gloves. Nah. Latex allergy's a bitch. Though maybe playing gloved would be enough to make me famous, total lack of technique notwithstanding. :)

At work -- all the new patients are entered into the system for the new practice -- one of several we're setting up in short order for a variety of reasons that boil down to "health care in this country is fucked up" combined with "increasing centralization of power tends to make for trouble in any industry". Bill offered several times to help me enter 'em but honestly I got into "total control freak" mode and started using hold codes on the patients (in ways he'd never set 'em up) so figured "better that I finish it all than have it be all wholly competent but totally inconsistent just depending on who entered any given patient's data". Kinda shot myself in the foot there for the short-term 'cause it translated to way more work for me which could have been avoided. But that's OK. I'm getting compensated fairly for my work and now *everything* in that one practice (of several we use, sorry to say) works 100% consistently. The worst is also over now, and Friday afternoon I *still* managed to enter (some) charges and mailed out (some) claims. It's been a nerve-wracking week but the worst (for the time being) is over and from now on, with that pracice at least, everything should work smoothly enough that getting the claims paid ought to be a breeze -- which in the world of mental health claims bureaucrats translates to "steady 60 mph winds with gusts up to 120".

The measurably good news is that Blue Cross no longer owes us more money on unpaid claims for total bullshit denials of high-ticket items than any other company. Hooray! They've moved from first on the Insurance Aging Reports to third. The subsequent bad news is that now I've got to follow up on claims for the new "number one" nonpayor, which has an even unfreindlier automated system to navigate through just to ask about the unpaid claims, and which has an even more bullshit reason not to pay. But unlike with Blue Cross, when I started following up with them, we've got all of their goddamn low-down dirty lies documented before we start, right down to who told us what on what day that contradicted what we were told by a different person in the same department on the same day.

The SWEIS -- heh -- I only mention it in passing, here, I swear -- I'm still not through the summary! Got all hung up today on MEIs ("Maximally Exposed Individuals") and LCFs ("Latent Cancer Fatalities") and the statistical calculus of death surrounding the various options' suboptions' proposed outcomes in that regard. It made my head spin trying to figure out just how many US civilians' deaths are considered "acceptable" in the pursuit of "national security". I'm almost done with the summary and hope to use my careful reading of it to figure out what's really important for me to look up in Volume I and Volume II (Books 1 & 2), 'cause there ain't just no way no how I'm gettin' the whole thing read cover-to-cover before the public comments deadline.

If only there were a way to make a living reading SWEISes (just like someone sure makes a living writing 'em), I'd be set!

Maybe I'll make up a cheesy protest song about it. Just imagine that -- countless future generations of musically-inclined, non-scientist nuclear activist types *knowing* just by memorizing a few verses' worth of catchy lyrics what all those nonsensical acronyms stand for. They're *not* all listed in the "Acronyms, Abbreviations, and Conversions Charts" that start on page xi of the Summary, so if you happen to gloss over the first occurrence of an acronym in the text, you are screwed -- you've gotta read backwards to find its first occurrence to know what the hell NNSA is talking about in the first place. My favourite of these unlisted acronyms so far is "ALARA": defined on page S-70 as "Individual worker dose. . . maintained as low as reasonably achievable . . . within applicable regulatory limits".

So "as low as reasonably achievable" = ALARA. Great name for my firstborn daughter if I ever go striaght (fear not!) and marry a hispanic woman and go on to breed (fear not again!).

Do the "applicable regulatory limits" really allow for "reasonably achievable" limits on deadly radioactive poisons in working persons' bodies? I wonder. I honestly don't know. I can not help but think that if they do, they shouldn't. You know, on grounds of that whole "one life wasted is too many" thing. So with apoligies to feminists, you might say that my stance on this is plain downright "pro-life".

Whoever came up with this catchy turn of phrase does deserve a pat on the back. Whoever failed to see that it got into the AACC (which I just made up, read back if you don't underastand it -- I'll give you a hint, which is more than you gave me: it started on page xi of the summary) should definitely get chewed out.

There was a great show on KUNM today about a CD that Bruce Springstein (of all people) made out of Pete Seeger songs. Heh! I played along for everything I could. What can I say? It captured my imagination! I would buy the CD but I've already got two I've promised to listen to that I haven't gotten around to just yet. Live is always better. Better enough that listening to recordings gets put off, while buying recordings from people I have not seen live gets put off even further. So with apoligies now both to Mike and to Amplified Heat, you're at least first and second on my "to do" list ahead of Bruce Springstein.

I'd very much wanted to go out to hear Jerusalem Ridge play at R.B. Winnings Coffeehouse tonight, but I had to miss it 'cause the rain started -- and when the rains start, I don't ever leave my house for any reason! (Sorry, man, but the prospect of losing *everything* I own just doesn't much appeal to me; I've got to "save" at least computer, cats, and guitar; and yeah the flooding's been that bad these last few weeks.)

The open Sunday afternoon jam session tomorrow is held at such hours that the rains won't come while it happens, so I'm safe going to that, even though it'll probably involve a sheepish apology from me to their amazing guitarist who made sure I would go to their concert tonight. (Doesn't help that I don't know his name, but oh well, I've never been good with that, now have I?)

Jerusalem Ridge is a positively breathtaking local bluegrass trio. Everyone in it is young, which alone makes it highly unusual (not to mention "unusually marketable"). But musically, they have got wisdom far beyond their individual *or* collective years: I don't doubt for a minute they've all been playing music since they were in the single digit years. Heard 'em at the first Edgewood concert this year -- and if I'd only heard 'em on the stage, I might have just applauded their efforts in general and politely moved on. As it happened, though, I was lucky enough to catch 'em rehearsing beforehand in the dance barn, where they made music nothing short of flawless. While rehearsing, they clearly neither knew nor cared that I was watching. I was completely captivated. I learned a lot just by watching. I am watching them still, and expect to be watching as long as they stick together, and may well continue watching even if they go their separate ways in good time. I know perfectly well what they're capable of. I hope they never know that I'm watching.

Too much rehearsal? First-time jitters on stage in front of a paying audience? Who knows? On stage, they honestly seemed kinda overwhelmed by the attention and just managed to hold it all together. (Not that I could have done half that much, mind you.) But they're perfectly capable of utterly captivating the imaginations of their listeners and transporting them to places they never consciously imagined possible. Their music is that good.

And if they're worried about audience expectations, well, they might be well advised to know the only thing the audience expects of them is that it not be noticed! We pay to get in to hear you play three chords without too many more mistakes than we would make if we were up on stage ourselves; if you play much better than that (which Jerusalem Ridge does by all measures) then we are more than satisfied.

Self-consciousness and stage fright is a bitch, I know. But trust me on this one -- just getting over it's enough for anyone who can actually play, and you can play incredibly well -- off of eachother, with eachother. Just pretend we aren't there and there's no telling how many people you might reach in time with your music.

Is it possible that the single most important gateway factor in genre differentiation between something as open to all as "bluegrass" and as closed to all as "country" is simply how various ensembles play in front of audiences, based on what they expect their audiences' expectations to be? Surely it's not the presence or absence of visible transducers on instruments' bodies?

Finally, the google ads seem to be working. I figured I'd give 'em a week. I hate being in "voluntary exile" within my own blogspace. But it's taken less than that to get significant "hits" -- enough I can fairly surmise that a certain percent are going on to contact NNSA -- and those hits are not from where I expected 'em, either! And the cost remains modest enough I can kind of afford it for what is at stake.

Please forgive me if I violate some terms of serive agreement provision by discussing these things here at all, but -- I'm a paying customer and I am satisfied. All around. At how much it costs me, at the hits that I'm getting, at how many of those I can reasonably expect to contact the NNSA. I half expected to pay five or ten times as much per "hit" resulting in unverifiable "possible" comments submitted. The final comments submissions remain unverifiable, but I'm not stewpid. I have some notion how many may just follow through.

I'm only sorry (for humanity's sake) that the strident imperative "tell them what you think!" seems to get many more clickthroughs than the far gentler inquisitive "what do you think?"; but that's not google's fault, now is it? Whatever our various political leanings, at this point we're all conditioned to take orders and deconditioned to be asked for input open-endedly. If you can "command" a person open-endedly, then all the better; and so I stand by my imperative -- I don't care if someone reading it disagrees with me completely, just so long as they go on to comment. I do believe more people will support my position than will oppose it; but I support the right of everyone to comment regardless how many or who supports or opposes the position I take.

That's a cultural problem, and either you work the weakness of your underlying culture to your cause's advantage, or you don't and just lose out all around, as do countless others who might otherwise be roused to some participatory democratic action.

I should have figured that out when allegedly volunteering for [blank] animal rights organization way back whenever. But since to the best of my recollection, I never did, never knew anyone in the animal rights community, and just kind of went 100% vegan for two years on a whim, and since I still believe the first, fourth, and fifth amendments to the U.S. Constitution do exist (regardless what the Governor of Texas says), well, that's a lesson it would seem I've never learned 'til now.

We're all deeply conditioned by the culture we live in to do what advertisers tell us to do. Surprise, surprise -- it's the last ad of several that I wrote, with the most strident tone, that's getting the best response, by far. Editing works. No one who clicks through on that will probably ever go on to read this. If you do, and you're reading this now, then you have my apology, but it seems that what works is language that makes readers feel empowered, which they are -- not impassioned pleas, not depseration, not hopelessness, and not vague questions as to what they think of EISes they have never read.

Enough for now. It's time to sleep.

Bad day.

2006-08-17T18:58:00.000-06:00

Got to go to a police substation clear across town tomorrow before work to file a report. That bad. Dumb bitch in a supermarket parking lot backed right up into me. Nearly got lynched by a gang of homphobic weirdos. Damned if I ever buy anything again ever from Juan Brooks' Supermarket at 12th and Candelaria. But if I don't file a report I might be held liable, "right of way" notwithstanding. Dumb bitch. Hate Albuquerque. Anniversary of the five Hyde murders tomorrow. Some justice. 'Nuff Said. Be well.

Why am I here?

2006-08-14T19:41:00.000-06:00

It's not that big a question, really.

Then again, maybe it is, depending how you look at it.

Either I care enough about the end of all humanity to devote my precious online space to it or I am so bent on my own self-aggrandizement that I am now taking up two blogs where formerly one had sufficed.

See, Google has this program called "Ad Words" where for a very modest fee anyone with a webpage of any kind and the price of a set of guitar strings can do this thing every bit as modern as playing "jazz" on a Macaferri guitar called "advertising". Yup. Shameless self-promotion.

So since my main blog's sorta turned into "Draft LANL SWEIS News" combined with generous sprinklings of "Catastrophic Flooding of the Rio Grande", I am temporarily relegating myself to this fine little corner of the online world for all material not diretly related thereunto.

Except for this post.

My handful of regular readers will doubtless hate me for making them come all the way down here to read about -- what? -- not much of anything of consequence, really -- but there ya have it. Just another personal webpage about nothing, which some random insurance claims processin' bureaucrat writes when he can't bear to read any more about the difference between "cast" and "wrought" Plutonium pits because he's only human.

I paid a pittance to run ads for xeltifon.blogspot.com on search results pages and related sites with keywords Google recommended as being appropriate based on a quick check of my main webpage. Whaddaya know -- they *were* appropriate. Startlingly so. Quite a lot of 'em. So the main site's gonna be all about the SWEIS and LANL and stuff 'til the comment deadline passes so I don't mislead the poor souls who think (based on my ads) that they too can "Tell NNSA what you think" about "125 New Warheards a Year" and all sorts of happy stuff like that there ('cause they can, if they want to) by going on endlessly about music, giving baby cactuses to neighbours, or whatever else have you that comes up day to day.

Truth be told, I rather intensely dislike the stridently authoritarian "activist" tone of flat-out commanding anybody to tell anyone else what they think about anything. It appeals to the worst in humanity -- that same exact part of a person that's just dumbly waiting to be told what to do. The same part of the person that's waiting to be told "never mind the civilians, drop that cluster bomb now". The same "sense of duty" and "following orders" that everyone accused in the Nürnberg trials cited as a "defense" of genocidal actions. That's why I also wrote about as many alternate ads asking people "What do you think?" -- to determine which bring in more responses.

I love Google. They seem to operate on the assumption that when second-guessing mere human intentions fails, statistics can perhaps help out, if not get you exactly what you want. It's a gamble I'm willing to take for this because the only other option from where I stand is to do absolutely nothing.

The conundrum, I suppose, is that while I may know which versions of the ad results in "hits" to my website (and I will pay for each and every one), I'll never, ever know for sure which version(s) of the ad lead people to actually submit their own comments before the deadline.

And of course I'll never know what those comments actually are. I won't even ever know how many people who click on the ads will submit their own comments. It is a calculated risk. For all I know I'll get a ton of nuclear scientists who click through thinking "if I don't comment, I'm out of a job". I can only hope that anyone with a vested interest in seeing increased production of Plutonium pits won't be finding out about it from me in the first place, I guess. I can only hope nuclear scientists wanting to work on nuclear weapons research find my writing so downright banal they tune out. If they don't and they go on to comment, well then, that's democracy, I suppose. At least in a world where agencies like the NNSA issue EISes without public notice. I'm hoping, perhaps naively, that more people who click through will oppose ramped up warhead production than support it.

Some of the keyword suggestions were downright weird, but still kind of made sense. Lots were recommended regarding wood finish -- me and my Brinsmead pianos, Gretsch guitars, and Gunlocke chairs. But I selected those I *wanted* used and wrote five different 85-character ads for the page and then just flat-out determined to make the content match the ads. I'd tell you what keywords I chose (they are shockingly good) but I don't want my regulars searching and clicking my ads and just costing me money if they're not gonna bother to write or call the NNSA (toll free). Heh.

The whole idea is to get *more* people to talk to the NNSA, on the (I think reasonable) assumption that more people *don't* want more nuclear warheads than *do* want more nuclear warheads, and if it costs me a tiny bit of money, while making the ME ME ME ME aspect of my blog hunker down for a month or so in this little online fallout shelter then so be it! The people who click through those ads *will* go directly to a "here's what you can do" post, and all "above the fold".

Apologies to Dr. Chomsky, who after all was the person who got me into Linguistics in the first place, but I'm not the mainstream media -- not being such, I see no reason whatever to pretend my "news department" is separate from my "editorial department" which is separate from my "advertising department". I am all three departments, honey. I've got agendas that I'm proud of and they come through everywhere however much I might want to hide 'em, from time to time, for different reasons. I agitate, I organize, I inform, I entertain, and yes, I even sell. I am my own interlocking directorates, and in more ways than one. And if you are a regular, you know exactly what I mean.

The ads, ironically enough, challenge me to write better.

I could write endlessly about the tragically incalculable effects to all life on this planet from nuclear weapons, expound on the arcane academic debates between advocates of one kind of pit or another, blah blah blah, but if I want my ads to run -- and bring in interested readers, and *most* importantly get them to actually comment to the NNSA, then I've got to keep it to the point. Focus: problem, solution, do this. That's a tough one. Especially when trying to whittle down the essence of a three-volume SWEIS to eighty characters for people who know and care less than I do about this. But I know I can do it.

I've written $35,000 Federal Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) grant proposals for small local nonprofits that required me to answer the same four questions written four different ways in four different ways with four different precise maximum word counts. What is your organization's "purpose", "mission", "objective", and "goal", in 40, 15, 74, and 240 words respectively? Or, what are your "resources", who is your "base", who is your "clientele", and who's your "target population" in 200, 125, 50, and 75 words? And on and on, for dozens of pages. I've gotten those grants paid.

Guest editorial for the NM voice saying in 700 words why I oppose anonymous oral home HIV test kits? Easy.

Anyone who thinks I can't be precise or match complicated issues to precise word counts has never seen my *edited* writing. Blogging is reverse editing. You write and what you write gets longer and longer. There are no set limits.

Draft LANL SWEIS. From three volumes considering three "alternative" options to eighty characters to get someone to click on a damn link and email someone referenced on the werbpage that they land on. And what you write in the ad has to match what's on the page you're sending people to look at when they click on it. In theory if the reader doesn't get the gist of it *and* take action within three clicks (including scolls) you're screwed.

So if you also want to write about playing guitar or whatever it has to move.

Easy.

So.

Random Musings, Cont'd. is, for the time being, about LANL and the Draft SWEIS. I owe it to whoever clicks on those damn ads that they "get" what the issue is, up front, and what they can do about it.

The Bastard Son of Random Musings, Cont'd., for the time being, is all about me, me, me, me.

In time I hope to go back home to my dearly beloved Random Musings, Cont'd, but until the deadline's passed and there's no point in advertising further, I'm here -- complete with cats, guitars, weird neighbours, slightly stressful office job, unwelcome visitors, Mexican food so good it hurts, and more.

Random Musings will, thus, for a time, represent the best that I can do. The Bastard Son of Random Musings, Cont'd. (as I have provisionally renamed it) is what I am, for better or for worse.

I got a response today to an email from "E" at the NNSA Los Alamos Site Office. (Elizabeth Withers herself? Her evil, violet-selling twin Eliza in Covent Garden? Who bloody well knows?) Since it doesn't help to get people to comment telling how that came to pass I'll share it here, instead of there.

I neatly wrote out a single sheet letter by hand asking for a "hard copy" of the SWEIS and posted it first class.

A few days later I get a voicemail message from Wilda Portner at SAIC (which she informs me is contracted by NNSA) and says she's gotten my request but needs to know whether I want a paper copy or CD of the Draft LANL SWEIS. Fair enough -- I didn't specify. So I leave her a voicemail saying basically "paper copy please".

An hour or so before, I'd gotten an email from a freind who said he'd tried to email the NNSA at the address I had provided him from his AOL account but that his email had been rejected.

So of course, since I am just the sort of person who checks emails before I check voicemails, I fired off a quick but polite note to the address I had provided him asking again just to make sure they'd gotten my request -- but mostly to determine whether the address was bad (the DOE has certainly been known to provide "public comment" email addresses and forms with permanent fatal errors) or whether it was on my freind's end of things.

Winds up the problem was on his end. The email I got from "E" at LANL_SWEIS@doeal.gov reads, in full:

Dear Mr. West: I picked up your voice mail message last week and a copy of the document is on its way to you. Please let me know if you don't receive it in a couple of days - if we need to, we will deliver it to you. Thank you, E.

Hm. So it seems the National Nuclear Security Administration is willing and able to hand-deliver copies of requested documents *if* the person requesting the document just takes the time to (a) make sure that they got the request, (b) make sure their e-mail address works, and (c) leaves a voicemail message.

Please tell them what you think. Whatever you think. They do give a rat's ass. If your comments don't get what you want, *then* you talk to your Congressmen and Senators (who set LANL's mission).

In the meantime, the "productive" capacity of nuclear weapons in this country lies in the hands of the NNSA, which is bound, under federal law, to take public comments into considertion before making their final determination for the next five years.

The next five years may well be decisive.

And getting IOP claims paid by Blue Cross is still way the hell harder.

Kittens.

2006-04-22T11:44:00.000-06:00

Martinique, in vestibule.

2006-04-15T05:03:00.000-06:00

Again, as I said for Priscilla, please forgive me -- the cameraphone uses high compression by default, and when we've closed and you're the only person left the last thing on my mind is changing camera settings -- so yet again, for all my months-long project of "work in a bar and document it", what comes out in the end that I've got to show for it is a low-resolution, crummy cameraphone picture taken in the only light in the place whereunder *anything* shows up but streaks of light and blurry forms roughly resembling human beings. You'll always be a legend and my cameraphone can't make you less of one. Thank you for everything.

Priscilla.

2006-04-15T04:52:00.000-06:00

A.K.A. Paul who's got so many titles it hurts -- please forgive me -- the lighting and resolution are both utterly dreadful -- but it was either photograph you NOW or never ever have a protograph of you dressed as Priscilla -- so please pardon the crummy cameraphone -- it does not begin to capture your sheer fabulosity, the legendary energy of your performances -- but it does document, however imperfectly, a rare event inside Foxes which sees so many rare events slip silently into the woodwork.

Martinique.

2006-04-11T19:09:00.000-06:00

This is the only shot I have of Martinique that I can use. The others have disappeared, effectively. So it's not the best, but simply what the ghosts'll let me use.

Mr. Chip.

2006-04-10T00:38:00.000-06:00

The veteran bartender and manager of Foxes, after the same good close as that mentioned below.

The intensity of sunlight.

2006-04-10T00:24:00.000-06:00

Reflecting off the Japanese clock in my bedroom. Early morning.

Yes, it's lens flare -- but imagine going to sleep by this each day for two years running.

Your freindly doorman.

2006-04-09T23:57:00.000-06:00

Looking like a damn fool in Foxes' notorious "bitches' corner" after a good close.

David Fleet.

2006-04-09T23:37:00.000-06:00

Looking rather elfish at R.B. Winnings coffeehouse on Harvard St. in Albuquerque. He's standing in front of two of the better known drawings in a series he did collaboratively with David Nakabayashi in 1998-9. I was present during the creation of one of the drawings in this series. It was an unforgettable night.

The picture on the left is of George, who was one of the drummers. The one on the right addresses the plight of the women who work in maquiladoras -- assembly plants created by NAFTA -- of whom more than a thousand have disappeared, and several hundreds' of whose bodies have been found gang raped, mutilated, burned alive, and buried in shallow graves in the vast colonias surrounding Juarez.

I the person of Random Musings, Cont'd.,

2006-04-09T18:31:00.000-06:00

in Order to form a more perfect Blog, establish Readability, insure Reasonable Download Times, provide for the common layout of my public journals, promote the general Welfare of my Readers, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Photographic Supplement for Random Musings, Cont'd.

Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of myself present the Ninth Day of April in the Year of the Common Era two thousand and six and of the Independence of the United States of America the One Hundred and Twenty ninth In witness whereof I have hereunto subscribed my Name,

John Martin West.