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[Dead Flowers] New title, continuing wordcount

159 pages and moving right along.

Current Mood: working
Current Music: Jefferson Airplane, Eskimo Blue Day

And PW is first out the gate...
I wonder why no one can spell "Kinkaid" at half these review places? When it's RIGHT THERE on the front cover?

However, minor cavil. All in all, not so bad. Although whatever JP is, he is not, alas, witty....

While My Guitar Gently Weeps: A JP Kincaid Mystery Deborah Grabien. Minotaur, $24.99 (288p) ISBN 978-0-312-59096-3

In Grabien's diverting second mystery to feature witty Brit rock musician JP Kincaid (after 2008's Rock and Roll Never Forgets), someone bashes in the head of vocalist Vinny Fabiano with Vinny's own guitar in a San Francisco rehearsal hall. While no one's shedding a lot of tears for the loutish Vinny, who'd recently insulted Bree Godwin, JP's old lady, JP and Bree still want to know what idiot would use a guitar custom-made by luthier Bruno Baines as a murder weapon. Missing from Vinny's stash after the murder is his fabulous pearl-top Zemaitis guitar, similar to one stolen from the Rolling Stones' Ron Wood. JP's perky narration and his love for Bree keep the pages turning. (Sept.)

EDITED to remove not one, but two big honkin' spoilers. I wish some reviewers would think before they published reviews with spoilers in them. How hard can thinking before you print actually be...?

[Even It Up] when you were hungry, I brought you your breakfast in bed

155 pages. Why yes, the dead guy did in fact ingest more than a line of bad blow....

Current Music: Ani DiFranco, Dilate

Ahem....
clearing throat

LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANCE!

Sorry. Yes, it's Tour de France time and I'm actually watching it for the first time in three years, because, well, LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANCE!

And Contador too. But mostly Lance.

Yeah, we'll repeal it - someday - maybe - here, have a cookie....
Today, Lieutenant Dan Choi went before the review board and was fired from the US Military he'd served - for refusing to lie about being gay.

Said President Obama a few days ago, to a group of very unhappy gay activists:

"I want you to know that I expect and hope to be judged not by words, not by promises I've made, but by the promises that my administration keeps...We've been in office six months now. I suspect that by the time this administration is over, I think you guys will have pretty good feelings about the Obama administration."

Yes, well, I'm sure that's making Dan Choi - fired for not lying - feel ever so much better about things. And you know, of all the bullshit I've heard spouted recently, the sheer doubletalk in the above statement really is breathtaking. "I expect to not be judged by promises I've made" - um, wait a minute, want to roll that back a few reels, buckaroo?

Dan Choi now takes his fight to Nancy Pelosi, in hopes that the Speaker - who is also my rep - will defend his worthiness to her Supreme Boss. Since the lady reps my district, and I've watched her political and ethical spine turn to jello these past couple of years, my initial reaction is a hearty "yeah, don't hold your breath, dude".

I call bullshit. And I'm curious as to what my gay friends, or the people in the ranks of those I know and even remotely call friends who claim to support gay equality and rights, are calling this.

Because, truly madly deeply?

I DO judge you on the promises you made. And I call bullshit, yet again. I'm really damned tired of calling bullshit.

I seem to be 55...
...and Nic seems to be 54.

As much as I would like to be able to say "wow, that was random", I have the distinct feeling it isn't.

Huh.

Current Mood: vintage
Current Music: Songbird, in my head

[Even It Up] We have achieved a murder

145 pages.

This scene surprised me, rather.

Substance? Bueller...?
So, the president - who is coming up on 12.5% of his presidency over and done with - has plans to regulate the financial industry.

This, from the article, pretty much sums it up. My bold:

"The plan does not attempt major consolidation of turf-conscious regulatory agencies and does not inject itself into an ongoing debate over whether to bring some insurance companies under federal oversight. Administration officials said those efforts would have distracted from the central mission of addressing the weaknesses that led to the current crisis."

Um - last I looked, AIG was an insurance company. In fact, they're an insurance company to whom enough essentially unregulated money was given in the "bailout" to cover America's uninsured for awhile; as someone who spent her $250 "extra stimulus payment for being disabled" paying a Citi bill that had gone from $68 or so monthly to $260 or so monthly because, hey, why NOT raise consumer credit rates, I'm a little touchy on the subject of exactly how much rregulation should be imposed, and on whom.

And yet, the president doesn't think the insurance giants ought to be part of this regulation he's proposing? A question: if AIG wasn't instrumental in "the weaknesses that led to the current crisis", who in hell was?

Look! Shiny! SHIIIIIIIIIIIIINY! Let's talk about the crisis, put a bandaid on one tiny corner of it, leave the open gaping maw of a wound uncovered, and tell everyone that the bandaid is a noble effort. You know, I have friends on the edge of eviction, a state Unemployment department that has no live humans you can call to ask about why you're not getting paid, and $24B budget crunch here in California that could have been avoided, had our Movie Star governor gone after Cheney, Halliburton et al, and sued over the state's having been held down and raped for energy money by the Enrons out there.

Feh. Back to reading the news out of Iran. The Iranian people apparently have the moral courage our own country seems to have lost.

Current Mood: whatever

It occurs to me, I should explain....
I'm not ignoring anyone. I'm just not reading LJ much at the moment (as in, not unless someone points me at something specific).

I'm spending the bulk of my time at Facebook. That'll cycle around eventually, I'm sure, but there are musician friends at Facebook who, for whatever reason, don't hang out in Livejournal. Those particular wall-to-wall conversations are keeping me on the edge of sanity at the moment.

But the truth is, I've gone deep into an antisocial headspace, and even the interactions with close friends is taking almost more than I've got.

So, please accept apologies if anyone thought I was ignoring them. I'm really not.

[Even It Up] You think you can lay down the how and the where and the when....

135 pages.

I wish I could summon up the will to give a damn right now. Not happening.

[writing, music] The Green Man All Music Summer edition!
I've got two pieces in this one, and very pleased about that.

First up is my review of Mark Karan's solo CD, Walk Through The Fire. This one's my Big Pick - it shares the big chair with Green Day's 21st Century Breakdown.

Then there's the full Summer in Fog City 2009 article. This covers everything from live music recently past (the Sonoma Music Festival with Chris Isaac, the Moonalice release party) to music upcoming (Outside Lands and Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, Boots Hughston's Woodstock 40th Anniversary free show, the Sausalito Arts Festival) to my take on a nice little heap o' CDs: David Gans, NRPS, Bill Cutler and more.

Not going to happen, is it? That regret thing?
So, the man who was going to be a "fierce advocate" for the LGBT community has gone to court to defend DOMA.

Day by day, in every way, I'm a little more resigned to the fact that he isn't going to prove me wrong about him. At least I'm coming by my lack of regret honestly.

Progressive humanist, my ass.

Current Mood: disgusted

And Julian comes through
Nice shiny blurb for the cover of While My Guitar Gently Weeps, from the man who has written the book on the man who - as Nils Lofgren puts it - wrote the book on rock piano:

"Everybody knows there are dirty goings-on in the world of rock music, but nobody has ever captured them as excitingly or convincingly as Deborah Grabien's ingenious JP Kinkaid mysteries. Her storylines keep you guessing up to the end. I've met these people, and her inventive characters and background details are authentically 'right', down to the last plectrum. I loved 'Rock & Roll never Forgets' and she's done it again with 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps' - a brilliant marriage of backstage skullduggery and suspense that draws you right in. Rock On JP! - Julian Dawson, recording artist and author of the upcoming definitiven biography of Nicky Hopkins, the world's greatest session man"

Sent to my editor and publicist. Despite almost no sleep and an uproarious MS relapse, I'm a lot happier now than when I went to bed last night.

Current Mood: pleased

The irony! It burns!
From The Progress Report:

Oh dear gods, the irony, it BURNS:

"Judges Not For Sale

In a 5-4 decision yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled "that elected judges must step aside from cases when large campaign contributions from interested parties create the appearance of bias." The decision, "the first to say the Constitution's due process clause has a role to play in policing the role of money in judicial elections," found that excessive campaign contributions can pose "an unconstitutional threat to a fair trial." In his opinion for the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote, "Not every campaign contribution by a litigant or attorney creates a probability of bias that requires a judge's recusal, but this is an exceptional case." The case in question, which was the basis for a John Grisham legal thriller, involves America's fourth largest coal company, Massey Energy, and its CEO, Don Blankenship. After Massey lost a $50 million verdict in a fraud lawsuit brought by Hugh Caperton and his small, independent Harman Mining Co., Massey appealed the decision. "As the case moved toward appeals, Blankenship contributed $3 million to help unseat incumbent Democratic state supreme court Judge Warren McGraw in his race against a Republican, Charleston lawyer Brent Benjamin -- 60 percent of the total spent in favor of Benjamin and against McGraw." Benjamin won the election and three years later, when Massey's appeal reached the West Virginia Supreme Court, he cast a crucial vote overturning the $50 million verdict. "I remember looking up at a judge who had just gotten $3 million...to be elected and thinking, 'How in the world is this fair?'" said Caperton. Noting Benjamin's refusal to recuse himself, despite repeated requests, Caperton took his case to the Supreme Court. Now, for the first time, the court has "set down a rule for disqualifications arising from money judges receive as they campaign for election to the bench."

'A SERIOUS RISK OF ACTUAL BIAS': "Just as no man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause, similar fears of bias can arise when -- without the consent of the other parties -- a man chooses the judge in his own cause," wrote Kennedy in the majority's opinion, who was joined by Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David Souter, and John Paul Stevens."

Where the hell were they in 2000? When Scalia's kid was in practice with the Bush team's counsel, and Scalia didn't recuse himself? When Clarence Thomas's wife, hired by the Heritage Foundation, stood to make a metric fuckload of money if Bush was handed the presidency, and didn't recuse himself?

Nearly nine years later, we have a wrecked planet and a bankrupt country - and they still have their jobs. Swell.

And that comes on the heels of the "six giant banks agree to repay their TARP bailout money to avoid being restricted from giving cash they make from exorbitant piratical APRs and finance charges to their CEOs are bonuses" news. So, are these six banks being charged, say, 27.2% interest? Which is what they're charging us?

I keep getting told well, yes, of course, the system is flawed, but consider the alternatives. You know what? The present model of democracy is rapidly becoming one of "those" alternatives.

Current Mood: disgusted

I need a break
The Yahoo! headlines:

15 more bodies found in Atlantic Air France crash (AP)

Conservatives racing ahead in EU parliament voting (AP)

Suspect in abortion doctor death warns of violence (AP)

AP NewsBreak: Major problems found in war spending (AP)

Iraqis detain 5 US contractors in Baghdad (AP)

The one that's really worrying me is #2. The rallying point seems to be outrage at corporate bailouts, and the rallying point seems to be global. The only exception is Greece, where the ultra-right already shot themselves in the foot. And really disturbing: that Far Right party win in the North of England. This is a party that doesn't allow non-whites.

I am not happy with anyone in the American government, either in the past nine years or right now. This is going to suck.

edit:

suricattus pointed out in chat that in hard times, Europe has traditionally tended right. Yes indeed. Weimar, anyone...? Brownshirts...?

Seriously. The EU tending ultraconservative has never ever meant good for anyone.

Current Mood: grim
Current Music: Richard Thompson, Needle and Thread

[Even It Up] work work work

127 pages.

Next up after this? Chapter six, a party, and a really unpleasant death.

Sad but true....
I've been having an interesting email conversation with a friend my age, on the subject of balance. Balance is something he wants, and needs; his feeling is that "an eye for an eye" leaves the whole world blind.

That led me to an interesting philosophical point in my own head. I'm not big on the pissy old dudes in the OT and their "Vengeance!" shtick myself: they had this scary tendency, as do their spiritual descendents like Terry Randall, to retain the right of deciding themselves who has transgressed and deserves to lose an eye: Judge, jury, and executioner.

Problem is, I'm equally unthrilled by the idea of enabling the Pol Pots or Adolph Hitlers or Papa Doc Duvaliers or Josef Stalins or George W. Bushs out there by allowing them to walk away from mass murder and genocide and global theft. Crimes against humanity are exactly that.

I think my friend and I are talking about two different layers of balance: there's the daily, reality-based balance, and there's the cosmic balance. Cosmic balance, that's the Big Damned Wheel and shit happens and you cope with it. That one, oblique and out there, has, unfortunately, virtually nothing to do with what I see as the possibility of living in a balanced world.

I don't think that's attainable. Not possible. Because the only way a seesaw levels out is if the parties at both ends of the wooden plank are equally weighted, in cooperation with the fulcrum point.

And that's not happening with the Terry Randalls and the Anne Coulters and the Dick Cheneys. It flat-out isn't.

There's a big damned difference between exacting revenge for the sake of punishment, and stripping someone of their power. And until these people are stripped of their power, and their bully pulpits, and their money, that seesaw aint balancing.

[action] Posting with Ayelet's permission
Just received in email:

"Most of you are used to receiving from me funny little emails, chock full of jokes and self-promotion. But today I'm emailing for a different reason. Today Dr. George Tiller, one of the last late term abortion providers in the country, was assassinated by an anti-abortion maniac, a home-grown American terrorist, brought to you by the likes of Randall Terry and Bill O'Reilly.

Women went to Dr. Tiller when they were given diagnoses of fatal abnormalities, when they'd been sent from doctor to doctor, desperate to find out what was wrong with their babies, only to hear the worst possible news. They came from all over the country, and found in his clinic -- once they'd run the gauntlet of the hysterical and rage-filled protesters -- warmth and sensitivity, support and caring. You can read a few of these women's stories here.

There is no doubt that this vile murder was inspired by the likes of Bill O'Reilly, who targeted Dr. Tiller, and by Operation Rescue and the Kansas anti-choice organizations who put Dr. Tiller's name, his photographs, his home address, and the address of his church up on their websites, the better to facilitate his murder. Organizations like Priests for Life tried to shirk hoped in the beginning even to pin the blame on "an angry post-abortive man or woman, or a misguided activist, or an enemy within the abortion industry." (Yes, that is in fact a quote from their official statement.)

I'm going to ask you to do something for me. I'm going to ask you to make a small donation. $5. $10. $100. Whatever you feel moved to donate, in Dr. Tiller's honor. And in honor of the millions of women like me, whose hearts were broken by pregnancies gone terribly wrong. Women who found only warmth and love in the care of Dr. Tiller and the other courageous few who continue to risk their lives for our sakes.

Donate at:

http://www.prochoice.org/support/index.html

or at:

https://secure.prochoiceamerica.org/site/Donation2?1901.donation=form1&df_id=1901

or at:

http://www.pbscf.org/index_files/pleasedonate.html

They kill us, and still they make us stronger. Let's prove it to them.

Yours,

Ayelet Waldman"

---

If you're not pro-choice, no pressure; I AM pro-choice, and I respect yours. But please, ask yourself if murdering a doctor in church fits your own personal definition of "respect for life".

I just donated.

[Even It Up] Some days, you just gotta write, write, write

119 pages. Still working.

Nic has half the front end of his car in pieces, and we're going southcatfeeding soon. It's turning into a long day.

Nothing left to do but smile, smile, smile....

Current Music: Rod Stewart, Every Picture Tells A Story

Just sent to the California Supreme Court
Emailed, to the only thing resembling an email addy I could find on the site. If you want to try your luck letting them know what you think of their decision, I sent mine to equalaccess@jud.ca.gov

***

To the California Supreme Court: A question. Two questions, actually.

1. The justices (considering this morning's Prop 8 ruling, a highly ironic term) make decisions that affect millions of lives. Why are they so sequestered from public opinion and the people who pay their salaries as to be virtually out of touch with reality? Why is there no obvious "tell the justices what you think" link? They aren't working in a vaccuum - this is the real world, and they're affecting it. Why aren't they living in it?

2. A scenario: let us say that, on the next ballot, a majority of the residents of the state of California decide that abolishing slavery was a bad idea. They get enough signatures on the ballot to qualify for ballot measure status: owning slaves should be legal in the state of California. It goes to the state Supreme Court. Do you ratify it?

Ah, you're probably saying as you roll your judicial eyes, you silly uneducated civilian, you, Federal! That's a civil right we're talking about. We would refer that to SCOTUS.

All righty, then. Let's make it harder: suppose the ballot issue in question was miscgenation. Would you grandfather existing interracial marriages, and outlaw future ones?

In re Prop 8: This was the stupidest decision you could have possibly reached. There is not a single ethical or legal foundation to base it on. It was as boneheaded as it was neanderthal. You've left those of us with hearts, minds and consciences in the state of California ashamed to share borders or even air with you.

In deep disgust,
Deborah Grabien
San Francisco, CA

(And unlike you people, my return email is obvious and utile.)

***

God, what a bunch of fucking stupid wankers. I wonder what'll get on the next ballot? Maybe something like the new Shiia law in Afghanistan? Or, (thank you, Anderson Toone, for this one) California residents are only allowed to marry other California residents?

If this gets to SCOTUS on a further challenge, it's doomed. SCOTUS has no courage at all; it has a right wing majority. Bad combination. Plus, the current president was utterly silent on the subject of gay marriage during the run-up to the vote, so counting on executive backup would be useless.

I've got ten bucks on the table right now - yeah, I know, thanks to the current state of the deficit, it's only worth $4.52 or thereabouts - that says that if this does reach SCOTUS, they either uphold it or kick it back to the state.

Yet another big fat shiny brick in the growing foundation of my misanthropy.

Current Mood: guess