d u m b m o n k e y

in contrast to the dry & dusty desert southwest...       3.31.06
the S.F. Bay area has been experiencing a great deal of rainy weather. Yourstruly arrived during a bit of respite from the raininess around 10-ish in the Am. Those damned Southwest Airline folks have changed the route of our favorite flight into Oak-town from EPTx by routing it thru Phoenix then Orange County (AKA John Wayne -- yeeeeshhh!) when it used to go thru Albuquerque then direct to Oak-town, often passing over the vicinity of the Grand Canyon, Hoover Damn, and some really lovely mountains somewhere north and east of our destination. Met up with old friend of the Papa-San on the flight out of EPTx, Eric and Ms. Becky were heading to San Francisco to check out the fabulously refurbished De Young museum (Eric's wife used to be the head mucky-muck of the El Paso Museum of Art, recently retired...) so we were able to enjoy passing the time during the flight & the ugly albeit brief delays both in Phoenix & O.C. in conversation.
Damn, it is raining HARD outside right now, about 1 in the Pm hereabouts. Feel like a goddamned lucky apefellah this morning and ourowndamnedself only TOO happy to tell ye why, Binky. First, allow us to mention that once the afternoon kicked into gear yesterday, it did begin to rain again, largely throughout the evening and lightening up overnight, we woke to a beautiful morning, still a bit cloudy but there was some sun and blue sky available. l'Marquis had to get moving early, as we had to get out to lumberyard before it got too late, so we headed off to our favorite coffee stop for many years, Peet's on Solano, scored ourselves a triple shot small cappuccino, needed every bit of lift it was going to provide for project on hand. Ahhhh, you should have been there, amigos, there was an EXTRAORDINARILY beautiful Big Rainbow stretching across the western sky, the highest part of the arc seemingly centered above Solano Ave with one end off towards Berkeley/Emeryville to the south, the other way out in the North Bay. Had to interpret this as a positive sign, good medicine, you see the primary reason to make this trip was to attend to repair of portion of backyard fence at Chez d'Monquis, also known as the Albany house, and we were suffering some degree of trepidation re said project when we arrived yesterday and discovered that 24 of the last 29 days have been rainy ones, and that rain has been forecast thru the next week, with a sizeable storm supposed to arrive on Sunday. Turned out the fence was not in as bad a shape as we had believed so instead of the more sizeable task we imagined we'd have to deal with, and likely not be able to make much headway on that without some cooperation from the Clerk of the Weather, we finessed a quick repair that took about 4 & 1/2 hours, utilizing much of the existing material, replacing two rails with some pressure treated lumber and finishing off the last three boards of the fence as the rain began to fall. Good omen indeed, that rainbow. A bit of work left to do to really complete the job, but the major headache is out of the way, and the celebratory Sapporo we havin' at the moment tastes mighty, mighty good. More later, katz & kitteez, got some sushi for lunch and we be hungry!

perhaps, some manner of prelude...       3.27.06
from something read very recently:

Grief, when it comes, is nothing we expect it to be. It was not what I felt when my parents died: my father died a few days short of his eighty-fifth birthday and my mother a month short of her ninety-first, both after some years of increasing debility. What I felt in each instance was sadness, loneliness (the loneliness of the abandoned child of whatever age), regret for time gone by, for things unsaid, for my inability to share or even in any real way to acknowledge, at the end, the pain and helplessness and physical humiliation they each endured. I understood the inevitability of each of their deaths. I had been expecting (fearing, dreading, anticipating) those deaths all my life. They remained, when they did occur, distanced, at a remove from the ongoing dailiness of my life. After my mother died I received a letter from a friend in Chicago, a former Maryknoll priest, who precisely intuited what I felt. The death of a parent, he wrote, "despite our preparation, indeed, despite our age, dislodges things deep in us, sets off reactions that surprise us and that may cut free memories and feelings that we had thought gone to ground long ago. We might, in that indeterminate period they call mourning, be in a submarine, silent on the ocean's bed, aware of the depth charges, now near and now far, buffeting us with recollections."

Grief turns out to be a place none of us know until we reach it. We anticipate (we know) that someone close to us could die, but we do not look beyond the few days or weeks that immediately follow such an imagined death. We misconstrue the nature of even those few days or weeks. We might expect if the death is sudden to feel shock. We do not expect this shock to be obliterative, dislocating to both body and mind. We might expect that we will be prostrate, inconsolable, crazy with loss. We do not expect to be literally crazy, cool customers who believe that their husband is about to return and need his shoes. In the version of grief we imagine, the model will be "healing." A certain forward movement will prevail. The worst days will be the earliest days. We imagine that the moment to most severely test us will be the funeral, after which this hypthetical healing will take place. When we anticipate the funeral we wonder about failing to "get throught it," rise to the occasion, exhibit the "strength" that invariably gets mentioned as the correct response to death. We anticipate needing to steel ourselves for the moment: will I be able to greet people, will I be able to leave the scene, will I be able even to get dressed that day? We have no way of knowing that this will not be the issue. We have no way of knowing that the funeral itself will be anodyne, a kind of narcotic regression in which we are wrapped in the care of others and the gravity and meaning of the occasion. Nor can we know ahead of the fact (and here lies the heart of the difference between grief as we imagine it and grief as it is) the undending absence that follows, the void, the very opposite of meaning, the relentless succession of moments during which we will confront the experience of meaninglessness itself.

got the ol' red fez on and...       3.25.06
this morning we be tippin' it in the direction of Jenny @ donkey o. d. for sharing the B. Herbert NY Times Select item we mentioned yesterday, George Bush's Trillion-Dollar War; Muchas Gracias, Jenny, the lazy-ass minion who'd been assigned the task of typing up the copy for l'Marquis thanks ye (damn minions have gotten so lazy during this period of transplant to the border, now it's always "Maņana, dude, maņana!"). Next mention is of linky bits of goodness yourstruly wants to share, one of the results that popped up whilst searching out the Herbert/NYT item, One Thousand Reasons; via Information Clearing House, the study that is mentioned in the Herbert piece, THE ECONOMIC COSTS OF THE IRAQ WAR for which l'Marquis is grateful to the timely heads up provided by the good folks at Raw Story.
weird how goal tending calls, made and UN-made, had major effect in last night's Huskies Vs. Huskies AND 'Nova Vs. BC contests; some really great, exciting action in nearly every game on Thursday and Friday...

briefly now, before we forget...       3.24.06
an item that would havebeen part of Tuesday's post, where we made mention of Di-Fi's remarks on Rummy; t'was only yesterday we picked up copy of Sunday NYT (along with Thursday's, no matter it being only a few days before Sunday rolls around again, a habit we've acquired...), A Top-Down Review for the Pentagon. Now we come face to face to ugly reality in today's online news world, in this instance the NYT features catalougued as Times Select stories and yourstruly is gonna have to figure out a way to share that good stuff wit' ye, as there be a very interesting short piece in the Thursday NYT by Bob Herbert entitled George Bush's Trillion-Dollar War. If you happen to be one of those folks who've ponied up for the select online material, ye know where ye can find that story, in the meantime, perhaps one of the remaining minions 'round here will type that thing up to be shared with d'monkey visitors.

YO! Binky!       3.22.06
guess yourstruly wasn't tryin' hard enough. Here's link to Michael Specter's New Yorker piece, "Political Science" mentioned yesterday, and Muchisimas Gracias to Wes Jones for going thru the trouble of making it available to nosotros...

before getting engrossed in the drama of the day...       3.21.06
t'was a week or so ago, whilst perusing the book review section of 3.12 edition of Sunday NY Times, when we came upon review linked here, of two books dealing with climatic change, one of which is written by Elizabeth Kolbert, someone l'Marquis would truly enjoy inviting out to dinner & conversation sometime if such a thing were ever possible. ANYWAY- yourstruly has linked to the "Climate of Man" pieces published in the New Yorker (also included in the reviewed book) in May (or therabouts) of last year, you can find those here and here. Ms. Kolbert's "Watermark" was published in the 2.27.06 edition of the New Yorker, and then (goshdarned US postal service in these parts is beginning to bug the crap outta yourstruly) we discovered her Talk of the Town Comment piece entitled Chilling in the 3.20 issue (we rec'd both the 3.13 AND the 3.20 issue on Friday of last week). In the 3.13 issue is a timely item, "Political Science" by Michael Spector, definitely worth a lengthy perusal (if the damned thing was available online you know el chango tonto would link you up, right Binky? here's a wee interview to make up for it..), particularly alongside this New York Times item from 9.4.05 (which yourstruly might also have mentioned at the time of our intial read of it, but goshdarnitall, just cannot keep up with everything we tryin' SO HARD to keep up with...), also entitled "Political Science". Okay, ourowndamnedself pretty goshdarned certain VERY few of thee will sit there long enough to read all those lovely items but mebbe, just mebbe, ye will print them out, read them while at lunch, on the way to or from work (particularly those of ye regularly commuting via subway, Bart, bus, carshare, whatever...), worth one's while, in our estimation. Some related linky bits here, here and here.

some mention of current events...      
ourowndarnedself not often in agreement with the opinions of Senator Diane Feinstein, but we couldn't agree more with the stance she has taken on shitcanning Donnie Rumsfeld, and don't some of ye believe that it might have made some small measure of difference if he'd been fired right after the ugly realities of Abu Gharaib became public. Very recently some terrible news has surfaced regarding an event which took place in Haditha last year, an ugly and unsettling story it is, as well. Meanwhile, El Estupido hisowndamnedself is currently taking his a dog and pony show on the road, "We're making progress folks...", yah, bullshite,
Mr. Psuedo-President, BullShite!
more later, leastways, that be our intention presently,
more tee shirt info here

many of you stopping by here...       3.18.06
are already aware of l'Marquis' personal frustration and disenchantment
(and that's putting it mildly, eh Binky?) with the Moron-In-Chief and his cad-ministration. What is more frustrating and angst-producing is looking about and seeing how many of our fellow citizens have their heads firmly planted within their posterior regions and are so enamored of the aromas there that they consciously choose to avoid paying attention, seeking out more data in order to become better informed, and that seems (to this dismayed ape-fellah) to be the primary reason we find ourselves in this mess anyway. Before going off on a tangent allow yourstruly to mention two things in particular, the first of which is more applicable to mis amigos out there in the S.F. Bay area, an event scheduled for March 21st. Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq, seminar by Michael R. Gordon, Chief Military Correspondent of the New York Times, to be held at The Graduate School of Journalism and Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley. A related bit of linky business regarding Cobra II is this PBS Newshour segment broadcast yesterday (Friday) in which Margaret Warner interviews Michael Gordon and his co-author, retired Marine Corps Lieutenant General Bernard Trainor. When ourowndamnedself was initially contemplating this post, we imagined going thru some recent editions of d'monkey in order to ferret out previous mention of some of the books we'd read relating to the Mistake In Iraq, mainly because one needs all the help one can get, as attempting to filter that data from the morass of trivia and useless knowledge that comprises easily 90% of l'Marquis' grey matter, well, it be hopeless. Let us make mention of George Packer's The Assassin's Gate while we might though, as it is the most recent book yourstruly has read on the subject, a damned good one it is too,
a fitting gift for that ignoramous in your family.

drivin' while sad...       3.17.06
that phrase popped up during interview overheard yesterday morning whilst yourstruly and the Mama-San were heading to funeral (What? Another?) of dear old family friend. Now, mind ye, t'was not the case that his royal heinieness hisowndamnedself was particularly morose, although some odd empathetic tendency l'Marquis seems to have acquired since the death of the paterfamilias was in full force, the immediate family of la bella signora Olivia was taking her death very hard and we had great sympathy for each and every one of them. It turned out to be a lovely day for a funeral, and Olivia was a person well-loved and respected by many, so there was a sizeable crowd at the viewing, the mass and the graveside service. Ourowndamnedself (and we'll admit that damned might be the operative word in that self-referential construct) is long removed from his Catholic roots, a simpler thing to have accomplished thanks to the grace of the parental units who never enforced those religious duties upon us, unlike the children of many of their peers. A good example was Olivia's family, good and reverent Catholics each one and we hope that they can discover much of their grief assuaged through their faith and support of one another. Yourstruly occasionally discovers himself observing these goings on with some large measure of curiousity allied with recalling similarities amongst different cultures and faiths in the ceremonies surrounding the death of a loved one. Having experienced that singular tribulation not so very long ago and still, admittedly, dealing with echoes of January '04, we now & again find ourself behind the wheel of the monkiemobile or other vehicle, perhaps sometimes as a passenger,
driving while sad.
Oh yah, been hella windy 'round these parts, lightened up a bit this week, thank the goddess. The Momz is having a new roof put on her casita and those windy days that began in earnest last week caused a bit of delay in the process. The remainder of March, typically a windy time of year hereabouts, still looms before us, and we're looking forward to the end of the month when l'Marquis will be winging his way back to the Bay Area (thankful for timely airfare special via Southwest Airlines), he's got a back fence to attend to and no screwing about with halfway measures this time. Hey and March Madness aboundeth, no? Show ye just how far off our feed we be, this is the first year in many (like, uhhhh, 26 or 27 years) that l'Marquis has not indulged in filling out his bracket choices for the NCAA men's college basketball tourney, known far and wide as the Big Dance. This is not to say that we are not watching any of the games, enjoyed some pretty intense action and last second victories during a few of last night's games. Those first and second round games that make up the first weekend of the tourney are often the most rewarding in terms of excitement, certain that many others feel likewise, as once we get to the round of Sixteen, the victory often goes to that higher seeded team, although you'll still find yourstruly watching, hooting aloud, cheering great passes and clutch shooting, appreciating the efforts of these young fellas, all of them just kids, really. Still, far as l'Marquis is concerned, the best time of year, sportswise, and definitely a herald of springtime...

windy as a monkeyfukker 'round here yesterday...       3.9.06
truly unpleasant when these early springtime winds kick up, not sure what the peak gusts topped out at but believe l'Marquis when he tells ye, ye wouldn't want to have been around these parts yesterday and if ye were, ye best be inside. okay now, jessferdahalibut: early spring Ralph is available for thy perusal; t'was just the other day that this poem caught our attention; Some Days I Feel Like Janet Leigh; a couple of reminders why visiting Jon Carroll online is a good thing: When I am an Old Guy, So many things are left intentionally vague., and we ask thee, "Well, Why the hell not?" & continue on in the spirit of jessferdahalibut, one more J.C. piece for good measure, Let me just check the handbook again.; have not posted some tablature-y goodness hereabouts of late, and if ye not fond of Robert Plant, well goshdarnitall, that's just too damn bad, here's Big Log anyway; & then, some miscellaneous bloggy kind of stuff to close out this morning's activities: Watch Blog; L.Rockwell.comblog; Dissident Voice. Enough, basta, no more, alright, we hears ye.

back to thinkin' upon movies...       3.7.06
made mention hereabouts recently about viewing Three Burials of of Melquiades Estrada and whilst yourstruly will easily grant that Three Burials... be a better film than say, oh, 16 Blocks (recently seen as well), there are a number of things in Tommy Lee Jones' film that prevent our being as laudatory as some of folks reviewing it here (ourowndamnedself pretty much in agreement w/Anthony Lane's review), much of what we dislike having to do characterization issues. Harkening back to Crash (& by the way, many of ye might find David Cronenberg's Crash worth your while...), those of ye who have seen it will recall the cop played by Matt Dillon, broadly painted as a racist, without a doubt, those long minutes onscreen of his assault on Thandie Newton's Christine repulse and disgust us, creating an immediate dislike for Officer Ryan, reinforced when Ryan meets up with social worker Shaniqua. Some of that dislike becomes modulated to some degree later when we see Ryan at home with his weak father, suffering from some debilitating illness, then again much later during the reunion with Christine. This happens in a number of places in Crash, where, thanks to the symbiotic relationship between screenplay, actor and director, we see these characters more as "whole" individuals, flawed to be sure, but with some measure of redeeming qualities. Compare Officer Ryan to the Border Patrol agent portrayed by Barry Pepper in Three Burials. Not hard to hate that guy, right from the beginning, and nothing later in the film provides anything more than reinforcement of our dislike. That waitress (played by Melissa Leo), Agent Norton's wife, Lou Ann, the sheriff (Dwight Yoakam), and Tommy Lee's Pete Perkins, all pretty one dimensional characters in our estimation. Without giving too much away in consideration of any reader who intends seeing Three Burials, Lou Ann would be a LOT more believable is she wasn't so "pretty", maybe 20 lbs. overweight and more emphasis on her trailer trashy-ness, particularly when we are asked to suspend our disbelief during that outing that has Pete, Melquiades, Rachel and Lou Ann visiting a motel. Not bloody likely is what l'Marquis was thinking. Granted, some of what is provided for us onscreen is marvelous stuff, that country in the environs of the Big Bend in Texass, nicely shot, well done. Turns out that Mr. Jones happens to be a big fan of Cormac McCarthy, and rumour exists he has penned a screenplay of Blood Meridian but so far has had no luck with generating any interest from the studios. Recently we'd heard some news that he is slated to be in film of McCarthy's latest novel, No Country for Old Men, to be directed by les freres Coen and knowing some of this beforehand had yourstruly imagining some influence on Mr. Jones directorial hand, particularly once the Third Burial sequence of the films kicks into gear. So, okay, Three Burials... not a bad film, not by a long shot, yet l'Marquis be extremely hesitent to call it a great film so we will give it Three Bananas (Great! would be Five on the Chango Tonto Scale...), certainly heads and shoulders above most of that crapola you'll find your local multiplex chock full of. Hey! good news for folks like us, Coming Soon: Wim Wenders' Don't Come Knocking;
Werner Herzog's, The Wild Blue Yonder;
and we'll close with item re Flannery O'Connor and Brad Dourif, both mentioned in appended linky goodness, check out really wonderful film from years back, directed by John Huston hisowndamnedself, Wise Blood...

the fast & the furious, the cheap & the stupid...       3.6.06
that description of the fare available in a typical American multiplex of late comes from Sunday NY Times piece by Manohla Dargis, Hollywood's Crowd Control Problem. Ourowndamnself thought very highly of the five films which received nominations for Best Picture, Oscar-wise, and particularly pleased to see Crash win the damned thing, but would have been happy to see any of those pictures win, truly. Tim Goodman's highlights of the awards telecast is "spot on", as they say. l'Marquis thinks he might have enjoyed sitting thru the Independent Spirit Awards with Mr. Goodman (a much more casual affair than the O's & hosted this year by Sarah Silverman - whooohoo!), which we watched when re-run late Saturday night after returning from afternoon long jam session alongside freres Daniel & David, his longtime amigo Andrew (who plays a mean bass guitar, quelle surprise) and our generous host, Chester. That's his rig you see in that photo included alongside, and, as that man says in the Dire Straits tune, he can make it cry and sing. And the answer is No, ye scrumptious little kumquats you, we haven't got any plans for the musical assemblage at this time, nothing more than a recreational way to exercise one's chops and sharpen some skills.

we'd REALLY like to blacken his Christmas...       3.2.06
AND piss on his door, as well as those of Mssrs Rove, Bush, Cheney, et al...
only an imbecile would attempt equating the Cold War with the cad-ministration's War on Terror, the truly sad thing about all of this is the number of imbeciles that be in complete agreement with Rumsfeld. Then there's that other ignorant dolt, the Moron-In-Chief hisowndamnedself, and we quote: "a billion souls of varied faiths now live side-by-side in freedom and peace." l'Marquis has to ask, Does this guy live on the same planet as the rest of us? NOT the India that yourstruly is familiar with, that's for damned sure. Hey, smoke and mirrors are now working full time in re those embaressing bits of video released recently, no?
tell a friend, Binky, and ask them to tell some of theirs.

I'll blacken your Christmas...       3.1.06
and piss on your door,
You'll cry out for mer-rrrrr-cy, but still there'll be more.
ahhhhh shite, Procol Harum, what a fuckin' great band that was, eh?
T'was oncet upon a time that "Home" and "A Salty Dog" were in bigtime rotation
in the soundtrack of l'Marquis' tumultuous adolescence. Ohhh dem changes...
So, yourstruly gave up on the Vollman book, made it to page 423 and just couldn't handle any more, jeeeebus, already well enough aware of the amount of violence in the world currently, here's yourstruly trying to muck his way through weighty tome that is all about the various whys and wherefores, reasons legitmate & otherwise, that humankind chooses to indulge in what is undoubtedly an infinite capacity for inflicting violence upon one another. Yeeeshhh, enuf a'reddy, dogg...
Some movie related things we wanted to mention something about: Mark Cuban, who owns the Dallas Mavericks (NBA team for those of ye unfamiliar with de world of pro hoops) and made his millions in the early dot com days & still pretty well fuckin' off (good on ye, Mark!) is one of the players behind 2929 Productions and HDnet. These folks are doing something interesting in the business of film production by making low-budget indy films which are simultaneously released into theatres, home video and on the HDnet satellite (mebbe cable too? l'Marquis is uncertain of that). Big name directer Steven Soderburgh is signed to do six pictures for HDnet, and you can find "Bubble" out there right now. Ourowndamnedself was unimpressed, but we did like "The War Within" a lot, if you want to put it on a ratings scale, ok, we give "Bubble" one & a half bananas, T.W.W. two & a half. These films are also being released through Magnolia Pictures, not sure if Cuban has anything to do with MagPictures (a reversal in l'Marquis personal fortunes of late has made it necessary to lay off a few devoted minions, so we unable to do the kind of quality research performed 'round these parts heretofore...) but the title we REALLY want ye to pay attention to out of three mentioned here and now is Nine Lives. Oh, yeah, you so right, Binky, we could have pointed ye to the Metacritic reviews of N.L. but we know ye can find those all by yourowndarnedself, just take our shabby, shaggy visaged word for it, ok? See it. La otra dia we hied our sizeable corpus out to eastside theatre to see Tommy Lee Jones' -- ooooh! 'fore we forget. This be more for the katz in the reading audience than the kitteez, keep a weather eye out for the luminously lovely Amanda Seyfried in one of those Nine Lives-- The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. Been looking forward to seeing what Tommy Lee's directorial debut was all about, having heard so much about it, maybe we get around to chattin' about what we didn't like about it next time.