IPW

Noise Sando

In further response to the hurt feelings following the mean drawings the Prophet Mohammed, I offer this drawing depicting all the other important figures of world religion. Hopefully this will even the score and we can all just get along. Here you go:

And now to report on the lives that we are living, I will bang a gong that many of you have heard before, ad nauseam. I call this particular firehole: "Noise Sando" or Noise Sandwich for those of you who don't speak Californian. We are the Meat in a noise sandwich. The neighbors upstairs are French. And noisy. Those two things don't necessarily go together but in this case it's relevant. The neighbor next door to us is a musician, on the other side of the hall lives a competitive door slammer. The fellow downstairs is an artist (fueled artistically by Rock). We are the overly old couple in the middle of the sandwich who try hard not make too much noise, not necessarily because we are nice, but we don't want to start a noise war of ever escalating volume. I have now had tepid conversations with all of these people, with the French on several occasions. The latest occasion was during a party they had on Saturday to celebrate their 2nd wedding anniversary. I'm glad we didn't live downstairs from them on their wedding night if their anniversary party and the one they had a few months ago are any indication of their ability to cause a ruckus. As is their habit, they wrote a note alerting the building that it would be shaken to its foundations on this night. Something to the effect of "We are having a party on Saturday night, please come and have drink, if you don't want to come thank you for your patience." We're thinking, What does that mean? You are invited, and now that you are invited we have no obligation to behave responsibly? Several nasty comments were anonymously scrawled on this note (by us) and another one telling them to 'have fun!', perhaps scrawled by them. We were flamming each other, analog style.
We planned accordingly and stayed out very late on that night. That is, we got home at 3:30 in the morning thinking that they would have at least started to mellow. But here is where their nationality comes in. Europeans in general have the uncanny ability to stay up all night long. They seem to equate sleep with fascism. We left our apartment at 10.30 to go to a party at a friend's (nobody lives above or below them if you were thinking you'd caught us in our hypocrite's web) and were startled to see that the French population of Brooklyn was shuffling towards our building like party crazed zombies. They were carrying bottles of wine in their un-dead hands. It is not a coincidence that the dead don't sleep either. When we returned hours later we could see that they were still going strong by the ominously violet lights burning in their windows. Sure enough, as we started to get into bed and put in our earplugs, they turned up the music (Beyoncé) and started riverdancing in tap shoes. In a few seconds, I was re-dressed and walking up the stairs to knock on their door. When one of the guests finally answered I was invited in, a potential partyer. In fact I was quite warmly welcomed by everyone except the hosts who burned a hole through my head with their eyes. How dare you show up after you were invited? I could see thought bubbles above their heads with pictures of me scribbling nasty comments on their ad-hoc advertisement. I was brought to where the royal couple presided and it occurred to me I had entered the Williamsburg Heart of Darkness. Surrounded by cigarette smoke and that malevolent violet light, I pleaded my case for less Beyoncé. "At least turn it down by half" I asked, thinking of a dull thud instead of bone-shaking explosions of base. The crowd grumbled around me. French was spoken. They were thinking about lighting the torches. 'Bruce' the Patriarch, took a long dramatic drag of his cigarette and asked, "I think you live with your girlfriend, yes?"
"Wife" I answered. He nodded as if his intensely insightful question was answered.
A young woman who was not from the Continent whispered quietly that they would try to keep it down and started escorting me to the door, but not before another woman stopped me.
"Why are you complaining? Is it so late?" This was a challenge, who was I to want to sleep on a Saturday night, a fascist?
"Well," I answered, "It is 4am, and we do live right below you, separated by two sheets of plywood."
There was much unrest as the zombies realized I was living flesh, they hungrily licked their lips. My Pocahontas ushered me again towards the door with more promises of silence. And I left to report to my wife.

The music did not stop, but was turned down slightly, and with earplugs in, we gradually nodded off to sleep, tapping our toes to the beat.

I give their party a 2. They get an extra point for atmosphere.

Come, Let's Walk a Mile in Their Flip-Flops

The following entry has been clogging the pipes for a week or so. It reads as a rambling diatribe and does not properly address a very interesting and complex topic, which I would like to do. Maybe I will give it another shot at some point, but in the meantime, please enjoy the entry, which unfortunately despite repeated editings, rates a 2.

I started this entry with a long diatribe about stupid Danish cartoons, angry Muslims, one small point that me and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad agree on, etc. But as I wrote I became depressed. So much bumming in the world. Can't we love? Hmm? Apparently not. The point that Prez Ahmadinejad and I agree upon is that if WE (in this case, the Muslims™) drew mean cartoons about things important to YOU (The West™) you would feel sad. This is only a summation of his otherwise rambling, racist response. We might feel sad and hurt and angry. But we would get over it. Here is where the lines are drawn though. We would get over it, They have not gotten over it. Before you accuse me of using We and They as words of inflamatory oversimplification, let me continue. Why should they get over it? WE are the dominant power! WE would get over it because we aren't insecure about why our clearly superior culture has been subjagated by an inferior one. Things are a lot easier to stomach when at the end of the day when you are still in charge. And the West is in charge for the forseeable future.

Look at it this way (forgive me Choir, if I'm preaching to you) there is a bully on the block. This bully makes the rest of the kids listen to the same music he does. This bully wears cool clothes, because he decided what was cool. The other kids imitate the bully. The bully occasionally beats up your friends. But now, instead of fighting you, the bully and his friends start...what are they doing? They are drawing pictures of you...and your MOM! Well, that's too much. You complain. You draw a picture of the Bully's Mom too, but it seems like a very sad response to everyone, considering the position you are in. The Bully shrugs because at the end of the day, he is still going to beat your ass. Besides, it's not a very good likeness.

There are flaws in my analogy, but this is similar to the way the West is seen in Islamic countries I think. We (The West™) are perceived as the bully no matter how much 'splainin we do. We are bringing you freedom! Hold Still! We...struggle struggle...are going...thwap thonk...to give you Freedom!!!

This Blog Entry Rates a 6

Let me open with a reworking of a cartoon I offered ealier in the blog. You know, the one with the fish. It may not have been very funny, I concede, and that might have been why a few comments suggested that it might work by switching the two character's languages. I wasn't sure about that, but I thought it would be interesting to try. So let's take a look shall we?

You see, now it doesn't work at all because you can't tell what the guy is saying unless you are a Frenchy Francophile Friend of Fromage. I would like to draw funny comics, and I think I have it in me to do it, but I might be too cynical. You need a bit of whimsy to do it well and since I gaffaw at whimsy...well. Actually maybe if do them all in French you won't know they aren't funny! How Whimsical! Or something. Right! Let's get on to matters closer to home.

As reported last time, Friday was Saint Patrick's Day. We celebrated by meeting some Englishmen (and women) at a non-Irish bar called the Musical Box. Not the Music Box as logic might suggest. Because it hadn't even taken the effort to slap a single shamrock in the window, the bar was empty. We arrived via another bar usually serving nothing but Italian fare that had temporarily adopted an Irish theme and therefore was packed, shoulder to drunken shoulder. It seemed to me that even the Spanish places had crudely drawn shamrocks pasted above the doors that heralded their temporary change of national affiliation. Honestly, I could have drawn a leprechaun with a stick of burnt wood on the side of a refrigerator box, served warm cans of Pabst (artfully wrapped in green construction paper) inside and made a killing that night. Shall I wax eloquent about the Irish Race and the years of oppression and abject poverty due to prejudice in this country? The irony that one of the most hated groups of minorities ever to arrive on these shores are now two hundred years later a celebrated ethnicity? No, that would be boring. I'll do it anyway. The thing is, even racism is racist, and oppressed whites generally just mix into the poplation and forget they were ever treated ill. No, once they lost the jaunty accent the Irish became Wasp-ish (technically instead of WASPs they would be WASCs: White Anglo-Saxon Catholics) and their traditions entered the American cultural logbook as our own.

Saturday was the laziest ever, we watched "Howl's Moving Castle" right when we woke up. Very decadent. AH! I forgot. I'm implementing a ratings system based on a French blogger who recently made the news. I'm copying in other words, but I'm using a different scale. He used a scale of 1-20. Dunno why. I'm using a scale of 1-11. Which you should understand. Things that are rated 11 are simply that much better than those rated 10. My fish cartoon for instance is rated 3. The reworked fish cartoon is rated 2. Points taken off in both cases for incomprehensibility. Howl's Moving Castle (one of the Oscar contenders for best animated) is rated 9 which I consider a very good rating. Very dreamlike, excellent scenery. The actual animation of faces and body movement was very Anime though, choppy to say the least. But surrounding effects moved fluidly and beautifully. Impressive. the movie that it beat out was Wallace and Grommit, Curse of the Were-Rabbit which I rate as 7. That's right, even though I like the two characters emmensely I think the story-telling was sub-par and much of cleverness of the short movies they've made has been lost. After Howl, we got even lazier and watched Love Actually which Magda bought me for our anniversary. We've seen it before and both feel it is a excellent romantic comedy. I am a sucker for that stuff, a secret we will keep just between the four of us shall we? I rate it a 9 also.

Saturday evening we watched our friend Chel play at the Knitting Factory, a ultra-hip music venue in Tribeca. She played very well, her set of songs is really outstanding, written and performed by her. While I rate Chel personally very high, I rate the show a 7, only because there seemed to be some (literal)discord amongst Chel and the very talented accompanyment she had, who had already played a very good (9) set of their own and might have been slightly distracted. By the way, I rate Chel's songs a 10 however they might be played. They are that good. (As far as music goes only Sting's 'Fields of Gold', David Gray's 'Babylon', Lauryn Hill's 'Killing Me Softly', and The Streets 'Fit But You Know It' score an 11)...(As of this writing).

Sunday saw a visit to our friend Claudine in her massive Soho loft. Coffee, pastries and good conversation in a spacious, roughly painted, textural, dimly sunlit classic sub-14th street New York space. Very enjoyable. I won't rate the experience since it might become annoying. But it would have two digits if I did. M noted that we haven't gone over to people's houses just for a coffee and a chat in some time, and that that is something she misses from back home (Poznan). It is true, mainly we meet people out at a restaurant and an afternoon in the parlour seems to be out of vogue. I hereby declare it back in vogue, and yes we will be coming over to drink your wine and eat your cheese soon.

Happy St. Paddy's

My one problem with Saint Patrick's Day is not the fact that it celebrates the repression of Gaelic culture in Ireland, nor that it propagates negative stereotypes of Irishmen as wee bearded jumping leprechauns. It is that in this my 32 year, being 1/16th Green Irish, I can't seem to immitate an Irish accent anymore. I woke up this morning and tried to give a brogue "Top o' th' mornin!" to my wife and it came out sounding like I had a bad head cold. "Top ob duh mordin!" What's wrong with me? I had a good Irish accent at one point! It may be that I've spent too much time imitating pirates, who sound like they might be Irish, or English, or Scottish. And nothing like any of them. I once tried my Pirate accent on for a Scotsman and he told me it was "Shite". I was offended. I do a dead good Pirate even if my other accents are lacking.

But it's not Saint Pegleg Blackblood the Drunkard's day, it's Saint Paddy's so I really need to get back on track. This evening I plan to ingest much Irish whiskey which everyone knows is the best way to get your Irish up. I wish you all a good Saint Patrick's and I hope that wee leprechauns crawl down your chimneys and leave great piles of chewing tobacco in your socks (Which I believe should be the new myth associated with this holy day, rather than just drinking copious amounts of Irish made alchohol).

I leave you with this poetic sounding Irish Gaelic saying: "Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig oraibh! An bhfuil tú ar meisce fós?"

And I will leave it to you to translate it.

Losing My Religion

Maybe Ian has something to say about Zoroastrianism? One one my excellent readers got weirded out over the word Zoos, which is a strange word indeed, and after staring at it too long decided I was about to wax poetic about the ancient religion Zoroastrianism. So as an ode to Brandy the Arab™, I will.

Originally spelled "Zorroastrianism" this was one of the world's first monotheistic religions and introduced civilization to such concepts and an eternal battle between good and evil and an afterlife in heaven. It was developed in Persia no earlier than 1700 BCE and no later than 600 BCE and its central revered figure is the shadowy Mexican bandit, Zorro. While little is known about this mysterious deity, it is fairly well documented that he liked to score the letter Z into things with a quick whip of his sword. The central question of the Zorroastorians was, "What Would Zorro Do?" (WWZD) and unlike certain prophets that would follow, the answer was always very simple: He would cut a Z. For example, "This door won't open. WWZD? Aah, cut a Z on it!" The door in question would inevitably fall inwards revealing your surprising presence to the occupants inside.

Some more examples:

Milk has gone bad: Cut a Z
Bills are due: Cut a Z
Unsure which child is pure and which is pure evil: Cut a Z across both of their shirts
Will I go to Heaven?: Cut a Z
A chubby Spaniard has just imprisoned the villagers demanding they give him all their ham: Cut a Z

These are just some of the ingenious ways Zorroastrianism solves life's daily difficulties.

There are some nagging questions dogging the myth of Zorro, for instance, how did he battle the Spanish colonizers in Olde California no earlier than 1700 BCE and no later than 600 BCE when the Spaniards didn't conquer Mexico until 1521 AD? Also troubling are the persistent rumors that Zorro was actually a man named Diego Vega wearing a black sombrero and mask, pathologically cutting stuff with a sword. These are nothing more than rumors and mathematical discrepancies however and should not detract from the importance of actual history. Much like how the Bible doesn't mention dinosaurs and yet there is "evidence" that they existed well before the creation of the earth by Zorro.

What Would Zorro Do to pesky scientists and historians?

Correct.

Blogarrhea

I am exploding with blog. I sense that my absence of late has dissuaded some of my loyal readers, all four of you, from checking in everyday. I even suspect that I maight have lost two or three of you leaving me with perhaps just one. Who may or may not be myself. Is it sad that I'm the only reader of my blog? It is. Don't cry for me Blogarrhea, the truth is I never left you.

I believe that I am much more agreeable to bombarding you (me) with ideas and ridiculousness when I listen to NPR all day. So many enraging things.

One enraging thing: the subject of Zoos.

There are some activists trying to get Elephants out of all zoos in America. You might think that I, as a sappy liberal animal hugger, would think that Elephants should be released from zoos to roam the urban landscape and eat the detritus of our daily lives. Okay, if we were to do that I would be for it. Nothing like living amongst beasts, but I am not actually for ridding zoos of these noble creatures (noble, pants-less creatures). Before you sacrifice me to your buddhist vegan granola god, let me explain. The activists' hearts are surely in the right place, they have watched and observed and fallen in love with elephants. They have seen the behavior of the pachyderm and called it good. They are probably proponents of world wide ivory bans and natural preserves. All these are good things, with one error as I see it. How did they come to love the elephants? THEY SAW THEM IN ZOOS! Because of zoos, people have come to appreciate the wonder of exotic creatures all over the world. And these same people have gone on to fight the good preservation fight to protect the species that are qoing extinct. With the exemption probably of some native African elephant lovers, and the very rich that went on Safari while young, people are exposed to these animals up close in zoos, and only in that way, not on tv or in pictures, can a person gain appreciation for them. When they were imprisoned in small cages with cement walls it was a necessary evil, but those days are gone. Most of the big zoos in America are beatifully landcaped places, built entirely around the animal's comfort. Is it the same as the wild? No, of course not. But the wild wouldn't have been fought for as passionately as it has been if it weren't for zoos.

Plus the word zoo is remarkable for its silly sound.

Speaking of silly sounds, to my friends from New York and Easter-Coasters in general, the state "Oregon" is pronounced Or-e-GEn, not Or-e-GONE.

These are random things that have little to do with the daily workings of our lives in New York, but do have much to do with the thoughts I personally am having while living here. We had an interesting weekend, my next installment will describe some highlights from a very interesting couple of days.

A Winter Drawing on a Summer's Day

Today's high will be 75º in the city. Ridiculous! It's still Winter! I think people would be more concerned with global warming if it was global cooling. High Temperatures? More Beach-front property? Exciting! I have to say it's nice, if seasonally confusing.

To remind myself of what the weather should be right now, I reviewed some of the pictures from the big snow storm and sighed with contentment. I also read the comment by one of you who particularily enjoyed the 'Snowman School' reference. I too enjoyed the idea of the chilly place of learning so I provide for you now a drawing of one its frosty young pupils.

An update on the news story I complained about yesterday, Dubai Ports World has given up in its bid to take over the six American ports, due to the uproar it has caused. George Bush is hopping mad (at his own party and the Dems that piled on to score political points), but I heard on the radio this morning an echo of my own opinion saying that he is responsible for the climate of xenophobia that helped to kill the deal.

Short Political Rant

I find that I have much to rant about these days, as most people. Ranting is a bit boring since it is so much easier to complain than it is to propose solutions, but that doesn't stop most people and it won't stop me today. I want to weigh in on the Dubai Ports deal thing, not only because it is a regional thing having to do (theoretically) with the safety of the area in which I currently live, but because secretly by ranting about it, it might actually become a rave. How is that possible? Alchemy!

Here is the secret: This is a no win situation for the Republicans. And therefore, I rub my hands together and coo.

Here is the background if you haven't been reading your papers (taken directly from CNN and then edited to take boring stuff out): In October 2005, the London-based Peninsular & Oriental (P&O) Steam Navigation Company agreed to be purchased by DP World, a Dubai-based ports company owned by the United Arab Emirates (UAE). As part of the worldwide deal, DP World gained the right to operate in six major U.S. ports, including terminals in the New York/New Jersey area, Philadelphia and New Orleans.

Why is this an issue? Because, say fear-mongers, with Dubai, an Islamic country and a member of the United Arab Emerates in charge of America's ports (instead of the English), it will open the way for the Terrorists™ to shove boat-loads of nukes into our major cities and blow them up! As well as to ship freight-fulls of young eager jihadiis into town. You see, Dubai was one of the many countries through which money travelled to fund the Terrorists™ behind 9-11 (another country involved: America, oops!) So clearly, signing over all of our rights to the Terrorists™ is a bad thing. Right? Right? Well in this climate it is, and this climate of knee jerk nationalism was generated by our boy George Bush. The hilarious thing though, is that George is in bed with so many people with so much money, including the very wealthy Arabs behind this deal that he is demanding the deal go through and is threatening to veto any bill signed to stop the deal (it would be his very first veto in office). This veto would be contrary to the very fear-mongering he has inspired. This is perhaps the moment when my rant turns into a rave. Bush might finally be realizing that he doesn't want a black and white, you're with us or against us type of world, and is now paying the political price for his earlier arrogance. The Republicans in congress have been so wholy indoctrinated by his simple minded rhetoric that they think, that America thinks, that the Dubai Port deal mean Death for American port cities. Which of course we do! Thanks to them!

But the secret is, it doesn't. It turns out that the owner of the contract has nothing at all to do with security at America's ports, that is and will always be the Coast Guard's job, though they are ill-suited to do it (underfunded by Bush). Bush knows this, which is why he was so casual when okaying the deal. But once the attack dogs have been unleashed, you'd better be careful that they don't turn around. By okaying what would have been a huge boon for his pals in the oil industry, he overlooked the anti-islam sentiment he has been allowing to foment in this country for years and now it is Republican v. Republican, The Cooking of the Lame Duck. Attack Dogs coming Home to Roost. Bwuhahahaaha!

So you see, what began as a rant against the idiocy of Congress became a rave for the idiocy of the President. Now hopefully, although we know they won't, the democrats should step back and let them fight it out, because there are no winners here. What simply put is a non-issue has exploded into an firestorm simply because of this right wing opinion that you are either with us, or against us. And Arabs™ are clearly against us.

Chestnuts Are Lazy

I have been a bit lax of late providing you four with entertainment, and I don't have time this morning to wax eloquent about pest control or the odd white stuff that returned again yesterday to the fear of the villagers. So instead I will provide you with the funniest monologue of all time from the first Austin Power's movie. If only I could write half as dementedly:

Dr. Evil on his childhood.

Very well, where do I begin? My father was a relentlessly self-improving
boulangerie owner from Belgium with low-grade narcolepsy and a penchant for
buggery. My mother was a fifteen-year old French prostitute named Chloe with
webbed feet. My father would womanize, he would drink, he would make
outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Sometimes he would
accuse chestnuts of being lazy... the sort of general malaise that only the
genius possess in the insane lament. My childhood was typical... summers in
Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring we'd make meat helmets. When I was
insolent, I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds... pretty
standard, really. At the age of twelve, I received my first scribe. At the
age of fourteen, a Zoastrian named Vilma ritualistically shaved my
testicles. There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum... it's
breathtaking, I suggest you try it.