consumer victory

The warranty on my car just paid off big time. With 97,700 miles out of the 100,000 the warranty allows, I just had a really weird obscure electrical problem. It took them all week to fix, including taking the seat out of the car, replacing various parts and having that not fix it, calling the mothership, ordering a “multiplexer”, and crying out in rage and despair to the uncaring Demiurge.

My cost? $50. This is only the second time in five years that anything broke on the car, so my total cost for non-consumables under warranty has been $100. On this repair I had to replace the rear vision mirror, which the warranty doesn’t cover, so that and the interval service and the week-long electrical diagnostic ordeal cost me a total of $380.

I heart Acura.

I departed from you; I never knew you.

If you want to know why I turned my back on “the Church” forever, look no further than this video.

Dawkins is usually annoying, although he’s quiet in this clip. Haggard is the sneering, hateful, ignorant, hypocritical face of American Evangelical Christianity unveiled.

Eleven years of trying to break bread with people like that was enough. How many times did I literally sit at a table with people and listen to them express their hate for everyone like me? Churches were behind enemy lines. If discovered, I would be shot.

Of course I never believed that Christianity itself demanded that I love money, hate gay people, and support bombing babies while I opposed abortions, or any of it. The trouble is, that’s where it led. The strain of belief that moved my heart moved the people around me to nauseating moral, political, and scientific conclusions about the world. And if they wavered an inch, it seemed, they’d lose eternal life. I looked around me at my fellow American evangelicals and saw the Inquisition and the Crusades, not Christ.

Since then, believers and others have often said “Those people and their views should not have killed your faith; they’re not what it’s about. Why can’t you still believe?”

I’ll leave my answer to the man in red type:

Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. — Matthew 7:15-17

The fruits of Christianity — and other religions that promise salvation from death — are bitter. I couldn’t practice a faith that was attracting, encouraging, creating murderous chauvinism and warmongering and a hatred of knowledge. Evangelicals supported wars and executions, preferred disease and death to sexual immorality, rejected science, and expressed open hatred for people like me and my family and friends. I could smell brimstone at church. If the New Testament is at all accurate, Jesus was a great guy. But he’s been a terrible influence despite his best efforts.

To the tiny number of people who share my concerns and stay, and try to “light their corner”, I offer this: I respect your courage tremendously. You’re far stronger than I ever was. Every time I was among the faithful I had at least one moment where I had to think: Speak up? Leave? Or just do nothing? I did all three att different times, without changing anyone else’s opinion or doing much for my own conscience.

The rest of you, goodbye and good riddance. I don’t break bread with people like Pastor Haggard.

I didn’t even have to post to LJ, it was a good day

Went to the LA Auto Show with zebulon_y and friendly_bandit and had a good time. It was about equal parts “Wow neat!”, “Wow, that’s kind of..” and “Wow, that’s just fucked-up”.

All the car manufacturers were showing off their golf carts. I will complain about golf carts some other time.

I got a dirty look from the Dodge spokesdroid when I said “Check this out, 14 miles per gallon in 2006!” loudly at the Charger SRT. “Guess you’ve got to really like that cruisin’ lifestyle!” I bellowed at him cheerfully. I sat in my future girlfriend, the Mazdaspeed 6, and in my other future girlfriend, the Subaru Legacy GT. I was surprisingly impressed by some of the big campervan things. That mercedes van that Dodge brought over from Europe is nicely done. We did not go into the Hall of Supercars because it was stuffed with hu-mans.

The best thing there was in the aftermarket hall. Someone has made the ultimate spinner, and it wasn’t even on the wheel. It was in the back of an SUV on display. It had lights on it that made patterns, nice, but then when it started spinning the lights made pictures! Like the American Flag, and Famous Art Type Pictures, and Hip Hop Lifestyle Imagery. It was one of those things that went so far into stupid that it wrapped right back around into art. It needs to go into a museum right now.

We went to Kappo Honda and had good japanese food with Lisa. I consumed: Tonkatsu,, hamachi sashimi, special toasted onigiri with eel, and some chicken udon. It was very, very, very, very, very good.

New Year’s Song

This song was written by my best L.A. friend, Greg Franco. It’s about a New Year’s Eve party I attended, which was I think 1992-3. It was one of Greg’s “radio show” parties where we had a DJ setup and people did shifts as the DJ while backannouncing songs radio style.

Like most of the gathering then it was an emotional evening. We all had too much to drink and most of us were unhappy about the poverty, stupidity, and anomie of our lives as 20-something failures in the big city. We listened to underground music and old soul and Tim Buckley and hugged each other and guzzled cheap beer and bourbon. Most of us stayed up all night.

I have a very clear memory of dawn in that apartment in the Valley. Everything was grey, from the sky to the carpet, and it was cold. I had a mild alcohol headache and the cramps you get from sleeping on a too-small sofa. Someone was still spinning records quietly and I could hear Nick Drake’s “Time Has Told Me” from the next room. Dawn lasted for about three days. It’s one of those frozen moments I can look at any time.

Greg’s song captures that night and morning perfectly, I think.

Ferdinand – 31 (.mp3)

Annals of Education: The Spit Monster

I had an uneventful education. As a good student in a well-funded suburban district, I spent my primary school years dutifully studying and excelling without many distractions. Problems with other kids were limited to schoolyard bullying which in retrospect was very mild.

Kindergarten started easily. I’d been to preschool and didn’t have the adjustment issues some other kids did; it was just another school. I was no good at cut and paste and had a hell of a time getting all the numbers up to 20 in a row, but otherwise it was fun and easy. It was the time, however, that I faced my worst adversary in 12 years of education…

The Spit Monster.

I forget the kid’s name; let’s call him Greg. He was a round kid with a round face and a bowl cut. He always wore horizontally striped shirts and looked like one of the Peanuts kids, probably Linus. He was as they said then “hyperactive” and was always getting into trouble. Once when a girl fell off the monkey bars and broke her arm, it was suspected that he’d pushed her.

One day Greg decided that he was a new supervillain: The Spit Monster. The Spit Monster ran around the playground playing a one-way game of tag in which he spit on people. He tried to spit in the face but would settle for the back or side of the head. His reign of terror began at morning break one day and lasted approximately 5 minutes. After spitting on five or six kids, the Spit Monster found me cowering behind the merry go round and cornered me in perfect position. I didn’t get my hands up in time and he got me full in the face.

I nearly barfed. Not sure why I didn’t; I have a notoriously quick gag reflex. Gathering my composure a bit, I ran into the classroom and complained to a teacher.

The Spit Monster was immediately arrested. He was unrepentant, saying only “I’m the SPIT MONSTER!” when asked what he was doing. Due to the seriousness of the crime and lack of remorse of the criminal, he was told to go to the principal’s office, no doubt for summary execution. He marched off in style, head held high.

That was the end of the story for me, but for the Monster himself it was only the beginning. Because the Spit Monster was not going to any punk-ass principal’s office. He knew that he needed to appeal to a higher authority: his mother.

The trouble here is that his mother was not at home. He knew where she worked, though, at the mall. There was only one thing to do. Like Frodo Baggins, he had the burden of a quest, and he rose to the challenge. Stopping by his house down the street, he got on his tricycle and headed across town.

For an idea of the scale of the Monster’s journey, here’s the Google Maps directions. Five miles is a long way on a tricycle, and there are hills involved. Leaving at maybe 10:30 a.m., he arrived in mid afternoon at his mother’s job and announced himself and his mission; he required justice.

Needless to say there was a huge shitstorm. A new policy was instituted in which children being sent to the principal were accompanied, and more attention was paid to entry and exit from the school. The question of how many people must have seen him pedaling furiously down sidewalks for five miles and let it slide was worrying, too.

But the Spit Monster never returned. We just got Greg, and as far as I can remember he never bugged anyone again after that. He didn’t have to. We all knew that he was a Luciferian antihero, a bandit rebel, and the best playground supervillain ever. Today I salute the Spit Monster again, despite nearly barfing. Ride on!

A day to remember a lost friend: D Boon

d.boon

Dennes Dale Boon died on this day in 1985. Some people like to remember John Lennon on his death day, for me it’s D. Boon and the end of the Minutemen.

D. Boon was a fat guy in a uniquely weird punk band. He was a working class guy with a great mind and a huge heart. I went to countless Minutemen shows for the two years I had the privilege of being his fan. To me he meant a whole world view: resistance to Reaganism, the DIY ethic, punk rock that was passionate for change, and just plain old big sweaty fun.

I saw the Minutemen at colleges, in bars, on big stages, in record stores, on the street, in the middle of nowhere, anywhere they played. I jumped up and down and shouted and sang the lyrics with them, dived for the set list after shows, yelled out requests and got them played. Double Nickels on the Dime was a life-changing record for me.

I want to thank D. Boon for teaching me that resistance is possible, that art is for everyone to make, and that you can dance your ass off and make your point at the same time. I’ve missed him for 20 years now, but he gave me that.

Here’s the first of their songs I ever heard, in 1983 on KPFK:

Little Man with a Gun in his Hand (MP3, 4.5M)

Timeline, with Mac & Cheese

1965: Milk

1968: Nilla wafers, punch, mac and cheese

1972: Baguette, cheese, ham, café au lait

1974: Rice Krispies, peanut butter sandwiches, mac and cheese, chocolate milk

1977: Curry chicken sandwiches, ginger beer, Pop Rocks, Wil Wrights ice cream, Chef Boyardee Ravioli

1980: Mac and cheese, Carls Jr. fries, Szechuan Beef, André “champagne”

1983: Tommy’s chili cheeseburgers, Pepsi, Captain Crunch, pizza, pad thai

1986: Cuban roast chicken, Bohemia beer, Thai peanut chicken & spinach

1991: Subway sandwich special of the day, Jack Daniels, spicy peanut dumplings, ramen

1993: Subway sandwich special of the day, spaghetti, cheap Dutch beer from TJs

1994: Special of the day at hospital cafeteria, Cassell’s burger, Tommy’s burger, Guinness, supermarket roast chicken, mac and cheese.

1996: Los Primos burritos, potato fritters, quiche, potato salad, Seghesio Zinfandel

1998: Maker’s Mark, Glacier Vodka, sautéed scallops, Lundberg Wild Blend Rice, Pilsner Urquell, Pepcid AC, fettucine alfredo, blackout cake, mac and cheese.

2003: Brita filtered water, eggplant & cashew stirfry, sweet red pepper salad, chicken Marsala, clementines, nonfat yogurt with berries, homemade bread.

2005: Aberlour A’Bunadh, lamb curry, mac and cheese, TJs frozen tamales, pasta e fagiole, cornbread, coleslaw, San Pellegrino, tomato/artichoke salad.

good day.

Didn’t have to do much work. salome_st_john took me to dinner at Lido Diner for my birthday and I ate chicken fried ~~snake~~ steak. Went to D’s and saw changeng‘s holiday show including audience participation craziness as documented in the last entry. bruisedhips, klikitak, and the_angelmoroni were… …entertaining as a singing group.

I saw people I hadn’t seen in forever and met some nice new people. Hi there mcpino! Also, people I hadn’t seen happy for months were practically glowing, which was awesome.

There was a fair amount of Six Degrees of WTF as people from different bits of my life recognized each other. “Oh, he’s the one in the motorcycle crash picture!” etc. There was some high-quality storytelling also, including: the awkwardness of a first BDSM date; a sweaty guy who brought a scorpion into the coffeehouse today just sitting on his hand; Jonathan Richman; and other stuff I forgot.

There was a guy with long grey hair and a leather jacket and a pockmarked face and he looked exactly like Bob Forrest from Thelonious Monster if Bob had aged normally since 1985. I wonder.

Stuart played really well, including a version of the Twelve Days of Christmas that sounded like it was done by the Curse Pirate on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.

Now I’m having an ’01 Mondavi Merlot in my house that has the heater fixed finally. Life is good tonight.

drink

My first drunk was at 15 on André “Champagne” chased with Moosehead beer. I’m not sure if André is still sold. It was so bad that you got the aftertaste a week before you drank it. Seriously horrid shit at about $3.99 a bottle if I recall correctly. The Moosehead was necessary to drive out the evil.

The second drunkest I ever was was on New Year’s Eve 1993. I had maybe 8 or 9 strong good German beers and then an indeterminate quantity of Irish whisky. I was not hung over the next day but I got a flu that lasted a week.

The only time I drank myself sick was on port wine in 1989. Haven’t enjoyed port so much since.

The drunkest I ever got was New Year’s Eve 1998. I think it was ’98. For local reference it was the New Year’s at the House of Despair, when Travis B. was making Kamikazes and Irish Dan went for a walk and fell asleep under a bush. Apparently I made sense and was amusing despite consuming an entire bottle of Glacier Vodka.

The worst alcohol experience I can remember was the night my college friend Kermit and I had to fill out some shifts at the radio station and decided that we would do 12 hours in a row and consume a case of beer in the process. We did indeed complete the entire 12 hours and consume the entire case. It was sort of a test run for how gross and tired and woozy and headachy we could get. The last couple of hours were a haze of missed segues, very slow backsell, and an inability to count to five. I slept for another 12 hours.

The best alcohol experience I can remember was with my family one Christmas when my brother had a couple of bottles of Gavi de Gavi (good Italian white wine), which was almost sparkling and really dry and good, and went beautifully with the meal, and I had about a 2 hour steady buzz with good conversation.

The strangest alcohol-related situation I’ve had was the year and change that I didn’t have alcohol at all. I was taking some meds that didn’t allow drinking. That was the time I found out that almost all parties suck, because I was stone cold sober and I could clearly see people standing around fearfully or wandering from group to group sadly and aimlessly, pouring anesthesia into their faces. That was also the time I found that I only missed alcohol as wine or beer with dinner, and otherwise I could take it or leave it.

The scariest drinking I saw was at my newspaper job. The sales guys there were mostly end-stage alcohol and drug dependency cases. One guy drove a former ice cream truck to work, unlicensed and unregistered and weaving from lane to lane. He carried a mug of “coffee” around that was straight Jack Daniels. Two other guys were doing the cocaine and alcohol dance. Those bastards taught me how to drink: double greyhounds at the Two Guys from Italy downstairs from the office, black & tans at the pub down the street. I bet most of those guys are dead now.

The French word for “pudding” is apparently “pudding”

I had a really great dinner with salome_st_john tonight. Mmm, Pescadou. Great food, great wine, great conversation. It’s interesting how someone with whom I have so much in common has had a totally different life.

Also, I had a hell of a steak au poivre. God damn.

Brain lady was productive today. I was drifting into a very unpleasant mental state in which everything distracted and irritated me. If I was working on something and someone asked me a question, it was hard not to snap. My thinking was clouded, too; it was hard to find words. And decisions were nearly impossible. I got the technical rundown on which squishy brain parts were responsible for this. It wasn’t the multitasking function this time, which was interesting. So then beep boop neurofeedback on different sites this time. I left much calmer.

Saw Michelle & Joy at D’s. Hadn’t seen Joy in forever. Her father has died and the family is going through the expected horrors. I managed not to propose marriage to Michelle again; I’m quite proud of myself. Later had a convo with Chris-with-the-old-laptop about crazy health food store types and the belief in essences, “natural” medicine, and huge doses of everything.

There is now a cat leaning on my leg.

Tonight I smoked for the first time in at least a year. It was nice. It tasted like my first cigar.

Good night to Mr. and Mrs. America and all the ships at sea, I guess.