Had a celebrity sighting today which isn’t unusual in Los Angeles. I was walking on Larchmont to get some pizza from Village Pizza because I figured I had fallen so far off my diet I might as well have some of the best pizza in LA.

I am a bit of a pizza snob. I’m one of those annoying people that doesn’t consider Pizza Hut to be pizza. Dough, sauce and cheese does not equal pizza. It is barely food.

Sitting outside at one of the restaurants was Peter Dinklage. He looked right at me and I looked right at him and I managed to control myself from shrieking, “I love you!”

The first thing I ever saw him in was Living In Oblivion (which is a really great little movie if you haven’t seen it) and I think it is a sin that he wasn’t nominated forThe Station Agent.

I’ve only attacked a celebrity once. I was in the Apple store in Old Town Pasadena and Dennis Haysbert came in with a boy I assumed was his son. I wasn’t going to say anything to him then I decided what the hell. I really think he is wonderful. So I walked up to him and said, “I’m terribly sorry to bother you but I really enjoyed your work in Far From Heaven. “ He stuck out his hand and shook mine and graciously said, “Thank you.”

I just really wanted to tell him how much I respected his work on that movie. He is someone else that was looked over when Oscar nominations went out.

My favorite celebrity sighting occurred four years ago. I was in Quality waiting for Mike to meet me for breakfast. I was writing in my moleskine journal when he showed up.

“Can I see your journal?”

“What? Why?”

“I want to write something.”

He took my journal wrote something and handed it back to me. I looked at the page .

JULIA ROBERTS –>

I slowly turned to my right and there four feet from me was. . . Julia Roberts.

I have always been more Inspector Clouseau than Sherlock Holmes.

No Comments »

This essay from the Lexington Herald-Leader made me cry.

Posted on Fri, Aug. 12, 2005

By Missy Comley Beattie

He is number 1,828, 1,829 or 1,830. We don’t know for sure, because so many died last week.

Marine Lance Cpl. Chase Johnson Comley died when his vehicle was hit head on by a suicide bomber. His death admits his family to a club no one wants to join: the grieving, questioning families who have heard the dreaded ring of the doorbell followed by a messenger’s words, “We regretfully inform you that your son …”

You realize that nothing you’ve thought, done or felt has prepared you for this reality. The feeling is so much worse than a broken heart. It is an evisceration.

As I write, Chase is being flown to Dover Air Force Base. His 6-foot-4 body is in a coffin draped with the American flag. He loved his family, his country, his Sayre classmates and his life, but we don’t think he loved his mission in Iraq.

When he was recruited, he told us he would be deployed to Japan. He called every week when he wasn’t in the field to tell us he was counting the days until his return. He tried to sound upbeat, probably for our benefit, but his father could detect in Chase’s voice more than a hint of futility and will never say, “my son died doing what he loved.”

For those of you who still trust the Bush administration — and your percentage diminishes every day — let me tell you that my nephew Chase Johnson Comley did not die to preserve your freedoms. He was not presented flowers by grateful Iraqis, welcoming him as their liberator.

He died fighting a senseless war for oil and contracts, ensuring the increased wealth of President Bush and his administration’s friends.

He died long after Bush, in his testosterone-charged, theatrical, soldier-for-a-day role, announced on an aircraft carrier beneath a “Mission Accomplished” banner that major combat was over.

He died in a country erupting into civil war and turned into a hellhole by Bush, a place where democracy has no chance of prevailing, a country that will become a theocracy like Saudi Arabia.

Have we won the hearts and the minds of the Iraqi people? Apparently not.

Have we spent more than half a trillion dollars — an amount that continues to rise — in a war that King Abdullah advised Bush against because it would disrupt the Middle East? Apparently so.

Consider what the money spent on this could have done for health care, our children’s education or a true humanitarian intervention in Sudan. And then think about Bush’s inauguration. Picture the lavish parties, the couture gown worn by Laura Bush. And imagine the cost of the security for the event.

And then think about Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld when he visits our troops. Picture his heavily armored vehicle, a machine impregnable to almost anything the insurgents toss in its path, while our troops are not provided sufficient armor to survive an improvised explosive device.

Think of the mismanagement of this entire war effort. Consider what we’ve lost. Too much. Think of what we’ve gained. Nothing.

And think of someone who says, “We will not cut and run,” but who did just that years ago when he was called.

Think about a man who speaks about a culture of life when the words fit a wedge issue such as abortion or the right to die when medical effort has failed.

Then think about this war, Bush’s not-so-intelligently designed culture of death.

Think, too, about naming a campaign “Shock and Awe” as if it’s a movie and, therefore, unreal. And then think that this, perhaps. is one of the problems.

For many Americans, the war is an abstraction. But it is not an abstraction for the innocent Iraqis whose lives have been devastated by our smart bombs. And it certainly is not an abstraction for those of us who have heard the words that change lives forever.

So think of my family’s grief — grief that will never end. Think of all the families. Think of the wounded, the maimed, the psychologically scarred.

And then consider: The preservation of our freedom rests not on U.S. imperialism but on actively changing foreign policies that are conquest-oriented and that dehumanize our own young who become fodder for endless war as well as people in other countries who are so geographically distant that they become abstract.

The answer is not Bush’s mantra: “They’re jealous of our freedoms.”

And, finally, think about flowers: The flowers for Chase Comley will be presented not by grateful Iraqis but by loved ones honoring him as he’s lowered to his grave and buried in our hearts.
—————————————————————————–

Missy Comley Beattie of New York is the aunt of Marine Lance Cpl. Chase J. Comley of Lexington who was killed in Iraq last weekend.

No Comments »

149. I have been very bad. Copious amounts of ice cream have been consumed.

1 Comment »

Having worked in customer service this cracks me up. On the other end, Comcast is my cable company and there is a special level in hell for some of the people that I talked to from there. . . .

Woman Gets Cable Bill With Derogatory Name
LaChania Govan said she got bounced around by her cable company when she called to complain. She made dozens of calls and was even transferred to a person who spoke Spanish — a language she doesn’t understand.

But when she got her August bill from Comcast she had no trouble understanding she’d made somebody mad. It was addressed to “Bitch Dog.”

“I was like you got to be freaking kidding me,” said Govan, 25. “I was so mad I couldn’t even cuss.”

Govan said the only thing she did to Comcast employees that might be considered rude came after a few dozen calls when she felt she was treated shabbily. “I did tell them, ‘You know what, it has to be a qualification to work for your company that you have to be rude,’” she said.

Govan said she talked to a supervisor and he offered her two months free service, which she turned down.

Finally Wednesday, about two weeks after she got her bill, somebody from the company left a message on her answering machine in which the caller apologized.

Comcast officials said it shouldn’t have happened.

“We only use the actual customers names on the bill,” said Patricia Andrews-Keenan, a Comcast spokeswoman.

Company officials went through the records and identified two people who were involved with the name change and fired them, Andrews-Keenan said. It’s unknown why the employees did it.

In another case, Peoples Energy customer Jefferoy Barnes started getting letters addressed to “Jeffery Scrotum Bag Barnes.”

“I had no bad words at all. I guess the earliest letter is dated in May and from then on up until now my name has been listed as Jeffery Scrotum Bag Barnes and I have no idea why.”

Barnes said he received an apologetic call from a company official. He also has contacted an attorney to determine if he can take legal action.

A Peoples Energy spokeswoman called the letter inexcusable.

1 Comment »

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing…

-Macbeth’s soliloquy in act 5, scene 5

I came across a blog recently of a single mom with an alcoholic abusive ex husband that refused to pay her child support. She was struggling to make ends meet by cleaning houses and was trying to go to school to be a paralegal. She wrote for only March and April and then it stops. I felt rather ashamed that I was off in London having the time of my life while at the exact same time this woman was freaking out about just surviving. I sent her an e-mail telling her that I hope that she was okay.

I haven’t heard from her.

There is something very wrong that this woman is struggling as hard as she can to take care of her daughter and to put herself into a position to earn more and it isn’t enough. No health insurance, not enough food, do I pay the gas or the electric bill bullshit.

It makes me feel ashamed about the stuff I whine about in my own life.

I have tried to stay away from writing my own thoughts on politics. Why? To be frank, my mom reads this and there is really no need to upset her. We have come to an understanding that we fundamentally disagree and that is okay. We still love each other. So, I edit myself from raging when W takes a week of vacation for every soldier killed in Iraq.

What I have done is occasionally post articles that others have composed that I think are interesting and are better written than anything I could throw together. When I was in London, there was a different worldview from American essays, which I found valuable.

There have been quite a few things I have come across recently. Some old. Some new. Sadly, they all make me really blue.

E.L. Doctorow’s essay, The Unfeeling President was originally published on Thursday, September 9, 2004 by the Easthampton Star / Long Island, New York.

Maureen Dowd’s August 17th NY Times Op-Ed about The President’s insistence to be on vacation while things spiral even more out of control in Iraq. You will have to register to read it, but it is free.

Marc Cooper’s article Sour Grapes was published in the August 12-18 edition on the LA Weekly. There have been a number of farm workers that have died this year because of the conditions that they are forced to work in. Where is the union? What have we learned since 1939 when The Grapes of Wrath was published?

I can’t find an online copy of “The Recruiter’s War by Michael Bronner, so if you can pick up the September copy of Vanity Fair (You may have seen it. The one with Jennifer Aniston on the cover. And yes, that is why I bought the magazine. To read her interview. Yes, I can admit there is a part of me that is a star fucker.) But the article I am encouraging you to read is about Marine Corps recruiters. The Vanity Fair blurb: It’s a different kind of hell for military recruiters “trolling” strip malls and high schools in an increasingly desperate effort to fill their quotas. With army and Marine sources, Michael Bronner lays bare a system of manipulation, fraud, and, in one case, fatal pressure. Portraits by Harry Benson.

An interview with Cindy Sheehan from October 7, 2004 long before her recent attempt to speak to the President. I’m sorry, but it makes my stomach turn that he called her “Mom.” He couldn’t take the time to use his short-term memory to memorize her name and the name of her son that died?

I really respect what this woman is doing, taking action.

The most I have done is a few Peace Marches before the war, forwarding a bunch of e-mails, this blog, drunken conversations with other liberals where we solve world hunger, war and try to understand the popularity of Jessica Simpson, and oh yeah. I voted. (It really bothers me how many Americans choose to not vote. People have been beaten so you can vote. Gone to jail. Died. So you. Yes you. No, not the white guy with property- sit down. You were always set up. But the rest of you. You should be ashamed of yourself.)

Anyway, I respect her, but I worry for her. She seems to be so consumed with hate that she hasn’t been able to mourn her son.

Okay. This idiot is sound and furyed out.

No Comments »

I left my ATM card in the machine.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

1 Comment »

I will need to find something like this in London when I finally get off the boat.

School offers crash soccer course for women

A German adult education center is offering a women-only crash course on the basics of soccer to prepare them for next year’s World Cup.

The Training Center in the southern city of Nuremberg promises those who enroll in the course, entitled “Understand Soccer — Women Want to Know Now!,” an overview of the game’s rules and language, as well as a potted history of some of the soccer’s leading players.

Nuremberg will be one of the 12 host cities for World Cup matches in 2006 and was also a venue for Confederations Cup matches in June 2005.

“Ever wonder why men love soccer so much?” the school’s website asks. “Do you want to know why referees call off-sides? With nothing but the World Cup on the airwaves, you now have the chance to understand what everyone’s talking about.”

The course, taught by two women, includes an excursion to a Bundesliga match.

1 Comment »

Movers showed up at 7:00 PM. Really nice guys but by the time they were done at 10:30 I was ready to pass out.

Stuart wanted to know how many boxes so I said 30 which is actually rather less than what it really is. He freaked slightly and kept accusing me of taking a piss. I’m going to try and arrange it so it doesn’t arrive until I get there.

Now I just need to sell or donate everything else and find Gordon and George a new home. . .

No Comments »

I stayed up to 3:30 AM yesterday finishing my additions to the Great Tower of Crap. Movers were supposed to be here at 10:00 so I woke up at 7:00 so I could throw out a bunch of trash that you always discover that you have when you open the closets where you stuff the Christmas decorations.

My plan was to go back to bed after they left.

1:30 still no movers. I call and they changed the time on me to 3-5. Fine. Whatever. Bastards. Sleep is for the week.

It is now after 6PM no mover guys. My contact at Southern Wind said this company has never bailed on him before and if they don’t show up they will knock some money off my quote and he will sort it that they come on a Saturday. I don’t have a lot of vacation time to take and sit on my ass and get nothing flippen done.

Anyhoo. I am relaxing on the sofa watching Being There, one of my favorite flicks. I have Thai food from Sanamluang.

It will all work out. Eventually.

2 Comments »

My crap is all stacked waiting to be put in boxes and taken away by the movers. I am a little frightened by the size of it all. Especially when you consider that I am selling or giving away so much other stuff.

Stu and Jen are going to shit.

Garbo thought she would go exploring when the pile was in its infancy.

2 Comments »