Our house

is a very, very, very fine house

Hey Joe

I've been told that burying a statute of St. Joseph in the yard will help sell a home. Two people have suggested that recently: one, a practical, hard-working girl who was raised Catholic and is now not; and the other, an impractical, eternally optimistic hard-working girl who is Wiccan.
Okay. What could it hurt?
The Seaside Outlet Mall has a Christian store called "The Tree of Life," where we've bought outrageously over-the-top holy googahs for our friends, primarily the ones who gave us The Last Supper in statue form. That's another story.
The store has descended from amusing to horrifying in their choice of sweetly joyous, vacuous, cartoony Christianity. I was in visual overload and couldn't focus, but walked the ailes anyway looking for St. Joseph. Not finding him, but certain that I was looking in the wrong place, I waited impatiently at the counter while a woman bought at ship that looked more like the Grey Ghost in The Pirates of the Carribean than the apostles' simple fishing boat. After countless attempts at box looking, price checking, and other blather, I finally got the attention of a cashier. The badly re-recorded version of the Crockodile Rock on their Muzak was making me more impatient and disoriented.
No, we don't have a St. Joseph, somebody else was just asking, the statues are over there, but mostly people buy.... I got out. I'm glad St. Joseph wasn't in there. It would have made him less saintly to me.
Back in Astoria for a walk along the river, it occurred to me that there was a Mexican store near the theater, and they'd surely have a candle. Hola! I took French in school, and explaining statue of St. Joseph to someone who does not speak my language exceeds both my Charades and Pictionary skills. After a very lot of time, I found Our Lady of Guadalupe and many versions of the Christ Child, but no St. Joe. Damn!
So, off to Deals Only, where there, too, were other saints, but not Joseph. Poor guy. One of the most selfless of all saints, and you can't even find him. Admitting defeat, I turned to leave, when Paul says, "Wait. Look."
On the shelf below where I was looking, was St. Joseph, holding the baby Jesus. Halle-fucking-lujah. The Atheist (agnostic?) found him and little old Vodou Catholic me didn't. A miracle!
So, off we go with our St. Joseph. Victory!
Then, the real miracle. While we were crossing at the light on Commercial, some bim runs a red light and is nearly blocking the sidewalk. I'm a rage walker, and when cars endanger me, I'm loud. And mean.
I made her stop halfway across the street, and like the man in Tien an Men Square and the tank, I stood her down. Okay, maybe not like the man in Tien an Men Square, but I did stand her down.
Bitch. Hate her.
Then, St. Joseph smiling from his saintly domain, sent me a miracle. He sent a sheriff car to witness the agnostic and I walking him across the street, and smote her down with his righteousness. She was PULLED OVER. Right in front of us!
Thank you, St. Joseph. I'm sorry I've been out of touch for so long, but I have a much more believeable excuse than that jive you got from Mary when she was pregnant. Thank you so much.
Next to Ogu, Vodou deity of iron, war and technology, you are my favorite.
Really.
I know this is asking a lot, but could you please sell our house? I promise that, if you do, I won't promise to say the Rosary every day and break my promise.

Headline News

Where's Walter?

Where's Walter? is a game I play in my head.
It involves finding broadcast news. Real news. Newsy news, like Walter Cronkite used to report.
Celebrity news doesn't count. Actually, that's a point off per story in any broadcast. News that some press person got from the AP wire and reports ver batim doesn't count either, but it's neutral to your Where's Walter points.
News that nobody else has, that somebody goes out and finds, then verifies from another source, is a point. Two points if the person who's talking is the one who went out and found it. (Dan Rather would have gotten two points for the Bush military reserve story, if he had verified it.)
In the last few months, my Where's Walter points have been miserably low.
Those stations that say they're mostly news are all saying the same thing. What's different is their interpretating.
Fox is conservative and yelly. They seem to get more access, because our current Administration is conservative and yelly. And name-cally.
ABC is Dis-news. NBC is GE-news. CNN is Warner Broth-news. CBS is my current favorite because Bob Schieffer is a real news person, but since he's done promos telling me to watch his friend Katy Couric so he can go back to Washington, I've slapped him with hefty celebrity minus points.
It's old news that news is entertainment-Fox, GE, Disney, Viacom and Warner Brothers are hardly fertile breeding ground for Edward R. Murrow.
Just for fun, play Where's Walter with me, and let me know how many points you get over the next month or so.
I won't tell if you get your points from The Daily Show.

Erzulie

Fair Haired Love Goddess

Bitchin

For the last five years or so, I've lived in Astoria, Oregon, the oldest settlement of out-of-towners west of the Mississippi.
At the mouth of the Columbia River, it's where Lewis & Clark bitched and moaned through a rainy winter, just feet from their final destination. "Dismal Nitch" is just up the road, as is "Cape Disappointment." A beautiful, but whiney place.
There's no economy here to speak of. Fisherman have fished the fish and loggers have logged the logs. They are probably the last generation of many who have done the same job as their father's, and now they populate the many local bars and carry on the proud heritage of bitching and moaning.
We live in a huge Queen Anne Victorian, with a Japanese mediation garden where the house next door burned to the ground. Both the house and garden had been sadly neglected when we bought it, and I spent the last five years renovating them close to their former glory. Sounds admirable, but it was work by default. The only other job I could find here was a bartender, and I was never the type that could stand listening to my patrons bitch. Plus, I made friends with the local DA, and I just couldn't put him in the position to prosecute me for smashing a cranky Finn over the head with a bottle of cheap wine.
So the former "Inn Chanted" Bed and Breakfast is for sale, and I prepare my farewell to the grouchy blonde inhabitants of Astoria - the red Finns (commies), the white Finns (not commies), the Norwegiens, the Scandavians, the Danes - and Chinese who canned all the fish caught by the blondes. People say that the "somber" quality of these folks is genetically based, rainy climate and a hard life.
I say bullshit. I'm Irish. I blame my ridiculously high cholesterol on my ancestors who survived the potato famine. Irish knits have family designs in order to identify the unrecognizable fisherman that bob to shore. Rain is a constant in Ireland. And, for no apparent reason, they're happy. They're funny. They're witty and charming. They are great story tellers.
Drinkers, yes. Grouchy, no. At their very worst, profoundly sentimental.
60 Minutes did a segment a few years past, showing a perkly young blonde reporter prowling around Finnland. On a bus to Helsinki, the camera showed scowling men and women who frowned when this girl smiled at them. Throughout the city, she approached Finns who mumbled and snarled suspiciously when she, more and more tenatively, asked about their lives.
Finally, she found their passion - the Tango. At giant dance halls, the men would swig enough vodka to work up the courage to ask a girl to dance, then stride passionately across the floor. My favorite quote was from a man who advised carrying mints to disguise the admittedly unpleasant smell of vomit before asking a girl to dance.
The last segment was a woman, not so much grouchy as grim, who said that her husband had told her he loved her once, and that was enough for her.
Astoria is a beautiful place. The girls are natural blondes, and there are more blondes here than anyplace I've ever seen - and I've lived in Hollywood.
But, we're moving to Portland.
I never learned to Tango.

White Boy With Soul

and White Girl With Vodou

Thievin'

I feel like a thief.
I used be a math tutor in a South Central Los Angeles high school (where I was the only pink person for miles) and found out that, when white people stole pieces of their culture, the black kids changed it immediately. When Santa Monica kids started wearing their baseball caps backwards, South Central kids couldn't turn theirs sideways fast enough.
We tainted their cool.
So, who am I to practice Vodou? It's West African, ten thousand years old and rich in symbolism that's honest about the human condition. Wise and cool. The opposite of Catholic.
Like Muslims, Christians and Jews (MCJs), Vodouissants argue. Should they accept the Christian symbols they adopted to mask their beliefs so the slave owners wouldn't kill them for practicing Vodou? Should white people be welcomed into their culture?
Unlike MCJs, they very, very rarely kill each other. We freak out when a priestess transports the skull of a long dead human on a plane. We don't freak out when we drop bombs on alive people from planes to spread democracy.
I love Vodou, I practice Vodou, I make Vodou dolls, and I'm very, very white. So I'm a thief.
There. I've said it.

He Don't Do the Juice

and..He Don't Bug the Jews

Crazy Cat

One very pretty little cat call himself Mel, got the most glorious blue peepers you ever seen, got his own self pinched for juicin' with some fine kitties, rippin' down the pike, then jawin' and hasselin' with the local brass. This actor kitty got himself a tag for lovin' the Naz, but he missed the lick in his flick.
You see, he was 'whippin' and wailin' on the Naz and missed all his groovy swingin' and swayin, then he put the dues on the Jews.
Now he's bleedin' inside 'cause so many cats and kitties think he's a drag.


Over one month later....
(overature, please)

Gibson apologizes to arresting officers
From World Entertainment News Network
September 03, 2006 9:15 AM EDT
Disgraced Hollywood star MEL GIBSON has finally said sorry to the three police officers he insulted when arrested for drink-driving two months ago.

The PASSION OF THE CHRIST actor sent a female officer a $500 bouquet with a note expressing "sincere apologies" and has invited her and her male colleague, JAMES MEE, to the premiere of his new movie APOCALYPTO.

Gibson launched a blistering volley of abuse against the woman when escorted to his cell, calling her "sugartits", and subjected Mee, who is Jewish, to an anti-Semitic tirade when pulled over in his vehicle.

A colleague of the unnamed female officer says, "Mel has sent her the biggest bunch of flowers she's ever seen with a note. She was quite touched and I'm sure that the two arresting officers will take him up on his invitation."

A writer's dream...a story that comes with its own punchline.