Vacations in a box
The lost book series
Novelty Tee shirts
more obsolete words

Hey! I've disappeared but now I've reappeared. I have much to say that has happened since my last post almost a month ago but I just wanted to let everyone know that I have in the last several days updated my personal website and now it has just about everything I've ever made on it that is any good. There are some crappy things still laying around in my house, but give me time... Anyways, please check it out and let me know if you have any suggestions. It's still at my UB address, but soon it will be cartagraphy.com...

When I win the lottery, even my goats will be dripping in dia-monds...

ChurchofJulie? Can I marry myself? It seems inevitable anyway. Talk I about arranged marriages. I'll change my (our) last name to Mrs. and Mrs. Narcissa!!

Yesterday morning I woke up with only one line from my dream in my head: "Don't bury your talents in the ground!"

For anyone who knows the story, then maybe you think like I do, that it's about having faith in yourself, and being true to yourself and "your calling". If you are, then your talents will multiply, and build on themselves. But if you bury your talents in the ground, even what you had will be lost, taken away from you by your faithlessness and lack of purpose.

Easier said than done, eh? We all have something we can do that no one else can do, but do we have the courage to do it? Do be do be do, as Sinatra would say. I feel like I keep getting diverted from my purpose by either neccessity or plain old fear. But as the zen masters say, you don't "find" your way, the way is always there, you just have to merge with it.

This morning I woke up from my dream with only one line in my head, "She likes Marvin Gaye, Luther Vandross, a little Anita..." You know the rest. It seemed like regualr old dream dross. Only I was picturing myself writing the words in this little update window. So here I am...

In other news, Jennifer Lopez's mother just won $2 million dollars at a casino in Vegas. It broke a record. Have the Lopezes made a pact with the devil, cause that's just too much luck for one family. If you spent only about $30,000 a year you could live for over sixty years on that money, for me that would be well into my nineties. I could write some books, paint some paintings, travel the world, start that goat farm I've always dreamed of. That's it! I'm gonna start playing the lottery, even though my sister has always called it a "tax for the gullible..."

don't bogart that photo by dulce pinzon!


while i'm sad i missed lilho's (e:peeps) party, which sounds like it was a blast, saturday night i had an awesome time in toronto with moriah (the mysterious m) seeing this band pictured above, called ANTIBALAS AFROBEAT BAND . Antibalas means "bulletproof" in Spanish. this picture is not from the show I saw but it gives a good idea of what it looked/felt/smelt like. the band rocked and torontonians really know how to jam. plus oh! canada is just so darn cool. the more i go there the more i want to emigrate. more on that later...

so here's how it happened, which is kinda a funny story. i was listening to my favorite radio station online, KEXP seattle, you really should check it out-- it's simply indy heaven and i heard this song playing what i thought was the grand Fela Anikulapo ("one who carries death in his pouch") Kuti (in my links www.felaproject.net) so i was like whoa cool, fela, and i looked on kexp's site and it wasn't him but antibalas so i was like whoa cool *living* afrobeat legends so i went to *their* site and low and behold they were playing in toronto at the worl' famous horseshoe tavern in just five days. how's that for happy fate! or maybe just a really good coincidence.

but! all good things demand a struggle! moriah drove, god bless her, and we got into town about 9:30, haggled with the parking attendant, okay, the show was supposed to start at 10:30. it was listed as 10:30 & 12:00, so we thought, cool, 2 shows, we'll catch one, drive home, be cozy in bed by 3 at the latest. so we go get some canadian-mexican food (NAFTA fusion cusine?) and then walk across the street to the show which is... you guessed it, sold out. now don't we look dumb. and here on the way up we had been saying how people are always nice to moriah and me when we go out cause we look like happy librarians but this bouncer was like, typical: "no tickets, come back at 12, can't promise much, don't know anything."

so it’s drizzling. and cold. but luckily we're on Queen Street, the only street I ever really go to in toronto, so we ask someone where a good bar is and he recommends a dive called the cameron which turns out not to be dive-y at all (like our dear ole pink) but funky coolicious and when we tell the bartender our dilemma he says "quel drag" which i thought was too funny. even urbane! so we had a five dollar drink to think and decided we would hold out til 12. "at least we're not at the (dear ole) pink" was our mantra, since our watery hole we know and love is becoming a bit too known and loved after 10 consecutive weekends. the bartender also said there were "twenty acts" behind the red velvet curtain in the back but moriah went to explore and reported the much feared folksy strummer atop a stool surrounded by long suffering but supportive friends. we ran away.

back to the horseshoe. the bouncer was sending us major mixed messages. bouncers! it was almost 12 by now, but he explained that the 10:30 and 12 thing was not 2 shows, but the break *in between* one show, and maybe at 12 they would let in 10 more people. maybe. and then it was also clear that we could go in at least to the front bar part, which we could have done all along and at least listened to the first set sitting at the bar. but i wasn't about to complain to the dude since he held our fates in his clammy paws. so in we went.

oh, the bar was cool! people were so cool but not terminally, i'm-trying-like-reallah-hard, cool, you know, but just naturally cool. like indigenous city folk are. and they were smoking! YOU CAN SMOKE! inside! everywhere! well almost. and not just cigarettes. more on that later... so we sat at the bar and had two more five dollar drinks and waited until 12 when the kafkaesque bouncer might admit us into
t
he
tower. we watched hockey, which by national law must be on the television in every public place in canada, which i hadn't realized. i even got chatted up by the most beautiful shaved headed boy which was flattering but flabbergasting. it turns out i'm not ugly and stupid I JUST LIVE IN BUFFALO! what a relief! but, beauty though the boy was, it was 12:05 and moriah had tried to ask at 11:55 so now it was my turn. i deserted the hottie and went to beg the doorman, explain that kizmet had brought us here, well, actually moriah had brought us here, but still it took two hours and the planets somewhat aligning! so i begged and sighed, and he shook his head, and i had just given up and was going back in when, like a rock falling from the sky, the squatty senior senor bouncer said wait, what, how many people and I said "only 2! WOMEN!" which sometimes helps (i was feeling high on femininty after the chatting) and he said "show me" (??) so I dragged him into the bar to prove that Moriah also exists and also is female and he said "The thing is I only have one ticket" and I pointed to Moriah and said "look how skinny she is she hardly takes up any room!" which while writing it makes me realize that that was maybe not the most generous thing to say to moriah, although i envy her willowyness, but it somehow convinced the square-shaped bouncer and he nodded and let us in! wee hoo! at the full ticket price, of course.

so we missed half the show, but the second set didn't give any indication that they band was playing at half-steam. to the contrary, they were warmed up and rearin' to go. there were like twelve+ musicians crammed close together under the pink and green lights: all kindsa brass, percussion, keyboards, cowbells, you name it. every time i looked up on stage i saw a new person! i was like, what's that dude playing, oh yeah, the bead covered gourd of course. the crowd was a groovy mix of jam band hippies, glorious dreadlocked ladies, and generally lovely multi-ethnic booty shakers. the air was a pleasant aroma of vegan sweat, smoke shop oils, and smoke shop smoke, if you get my wiff. since antibalas really models itself off of fela the music was pretty politically critical, "what is this america" and "si se puede" were two of the more biting but uplifting songs. antibalas is based in brooklyn so i ate up their righteous indignation. (if they were canadian i would have been offended, but that's my paranoid patriotism for you, by my rules *we* get to criticize us but when anyone else does i bristle.) one thing to know about fela was that he tried to seced from nigeria and start his own nation and he had so many followers that they really did form an autonomous zone for a time, kalakuta, until of course, they got raided and gun-butt beaten and thrown out of windows (fela's mother included.) like fela, the lead singer of antibalas, amayo, has just about enough charisma to start a movement. i know i would follow him fer sure. but maybe more in an un-ironic deadhead fashion than an ends-in-my-defenestration sense.

so for the rest of the night everyone was too nice. we shook our booties in excellent company. i was able to buy two cd's for $20 american dollars rather than $30 since the guy didn't have change. we had an "i’m american" moment but you should have seen how he scrunched his nose when I said i lived in Buffalo. it was almost like he felt sorry for me, and i didn't exactly defend my choice of hometowns. but he did say their drummer was from buffalo. also, the bartender in the back bar gave me a drink for thirty cents less 'cause that's all the money i had, a small human gesture, but the kinda thing that sometimes gets overlooked in less humane joints. then when i lit a cigarette in what turned out to be the one part of the bar where you couldn't smoke he stopped me by saying "I hate to be a killjoy but..." which was the nicest possible admonition. I'm so sick of NY bartenders treating me like a junior h
ighsch
ooler
caught puffing in the bathroom in between periods, with their smarmy "you should know better" rebukes.

when it was all over, we got chatted up again by some boys who were impressed that girls could roll their own cigarettes and listen to fela kuti. gasp! quel drag, to use a well-worn phrase. but it was 2AM and we still had a two hour drive ahead of us. again, moriah is the most stalwart superwoman in the history of ever. if i had been driving i surely would have killed us. on the way home i mostly just tried to babble senselessly to try to keep her awake, which worked pretty well until *I* fell asleep! it was one of those narcoleptic hypnotist sleeps like "and now you close your ten-ton eyelids and instantly begin dreaming!" when i woke up we were just outside of fort erie, not the way we had come or the way i knew and i was like "where are we" and a little grouchy. we both just really wanted to get home. so we ended up going over the peace bridge, all good, but we went through the truck entrance and of course the storm troopers didn't like that and reproofed us and i was thinking "come on, can't you see were exhausted, but happy, librarians just coming home!" then of course we seemed to have no choice but to get on 190 south and i was like "eeps! get off before we end up in springville" so i said take the 5 which is duh, the skyway, so detour under the skyway, (my planned rendezvous spot with self-inflicted death) back onto the 5, the 190 north, and finally home sweaty home. I can't believe we made it alive! But all good things end with near-death exhaustion.

all day the next day i suffered from post-party depression. i looked online to see how you can move to canada. there's a point system. extra points for higher degrees, yippee. but also you have to prove you can support yourself for sixth months, which for one person is just under $8,000. which you can't borrow. considering that I already owe the federal government my first born (book or baby)... well, i don't see saving money anywhere on my near horizon. so for now i will just have to be content with more mad midnight drives to the horseshoe. anyone up for tobin sprout with elf power 4/19 or sebadoh 4/23?

Don't be depressed about the sorry nature of our democracy! In so many ways we are better informed and more engaged than any generation before us. And the fact that we can even have these conversations, or demand accountability from our leaders, is what makes America so awesome. Try to say this stuff in Saudi Arabia for example. Other countries are cool, especially when they are more culturally liberal, or secular, than ours, but they all they their own issues too. France has to deal with its Muslim communities, for example, instead of just pushing them to the margins. And talk about political control of the media! How 'bout Berlusconi baby! Honestly I believe that America, while by no means perfect, has the best chance to become the most diverse, open, free society in history-- but we have a long way to go and a lot of work to do, which we are trying to do. It's hard but not impossible. The only reason I rant with such fervor is my ultimate faith and optimism that all of us can work together to make our ideals real!

As for the tattoo discussions, I too am considering getting one. sb, your scarab beetle chest design is awesome! maybe throw some blue birds in on either side? (kidding!) I'm thinking I want this deer/goat/horse thing that was found on the mummified shoulder of a scythian warrior princess. It's one of the oldest tattoos in the world:



mmmmmm.... ancient beauty...

It should be obvious to everyone that there is much more to the American political system than just what's written in the Constitution, which is merely a framework for basic ideals. It’s not just the populace or the president, the legislative or the judicial branches, the founding documents or 200 years of legal precedent, that define our government, but a combined whole which is greater than any of those parts. So when I say the two-party system is entrenched, I wasn't referring to the Constitution, but to the tangled mass of rules, regulations, and expectations that control our voting process. In fact, anyone who was registered in a third or independent party, like I was, and who tried to vote in the primaries this year, as I did, would have found out just how entrenched the two-party system is. In many states, independents are not able to participate in primaries. Obviously there is something wrong with that, but the way to address it is to engage on that level of government to create an empowered third party, not chop the head off the left by starting at the top. Third party candidates who run for president do little to build or secure a long-term base of support, but rather give the impression that they are impulsive or invisible entities who make their decision on a whim and don't represent an identifiable body of the American people. This is why many Americans think Greens or other third-party candidates are marginalized and self-serving, because their candidates and supporters don't show much presence in other levels of government and then emerge only for a national election. If you want to change that perception, then get out and get organizing. Or run for office yourself.

However, there are representatives in the Democratic party who have been elected and who have sustained an effort to advance progressive causes over years of service. Two great examples are in fact Dennis Kucinich and Carol Mosley Braun, both of whom were not "unelectable", which they well demonstrated by being elected to the House of Representatives and the Senate, respectively. The real reason that Kucinich and Mosley Braun dropped out of the race, or struggled to gain support, was more about financial problems than electability concerns. They simply couldn't raise enough money. If you want to change that, then donate to the campaigns you support, and vote for elected officials who support campaign finance reform. But understand that political change, not just in this country or period, but always, happens slowly and only because an informed populace persistently pursues it.

There was another candidate in this campaign, however, who did raise a lot of money, built what seemed like a solid grassroots organization, and garnered a lot of "free media" with his progressive message and innovative methods. Anybody remember him? Yeah, that's right, Howard Dean. Now, here's a candidate all us "leftist" should have loved. And boy did we. Loved him so much in fact that we put a bumper sticker on our cars or a button on our chests, and then sat on our asses at home while the really politically engaged people voted. Dean led in Iowa for month and lost. Kerry caught a big upswing after winning Iowa that boosted him in New Hampshire and the rest of the primaries. That's how primaries work. Dean basically got sold out by his brave new supporters, the optimistic young people who were "gonna change the country." The morning after the Iowa caucuses, Dean precinct captain, a bemused George Davey said, "I think if we could blame [Dean's loss] on anyone, blame it on the 18- to 25-year-olds, because they were nonexistent." Davey had hoped for 25 to 50 18-25 year-olds to show up at the caucus. Guess how many put the Game Boy down long enough to come? Just 1. So while it's one thing to plaster our bumpers or our blogs with our windy political aspirations, it does come down to o
ne
s
imple thing: voting.

However, if you think your vote should somehow be your sacrosanct expression of your individual view, then you don't understand what a democracy is. A democracy is not about unique or extreme views, it is meant to create the law of the majority, which is the mean, the lowest common denominator that we can all agree to. Now, you may think this is not the best of all possible worlds. Great. Neither do I. So support and rally for another political system, like Anarcho-syndicalism. But understand that "supporting" doesn't mean spouting off to your friends, alone, at home. It means a life time of organizing, struggling, and very possibly getting whupped down by the people in power, only in the end to make a little progress. Again, that's the reality of political change. Martin Luther King didn't sit at home or in his congregation saying, if "I had my way...". He went out to the people and shared his vision, got arrested, beaten, maligned by the FBI, and finally murdered. But he opened a flood gate of change. That takes real courage, and I wish to god more of us had it. But it also means, in a democracy, convincing others of the clarity and righteousness of your position. You don't do that just by voting. Voting is the minimum, but it is also a requisite. We have to understand that when we vote, our "view" of how this country should be gets thrown in with the barmaids and the CEOs, the bigots and the white-haired old ladies. The checks and balances inherent in this system (and they are hard wired into the Constitution) are designed to prevent extremists, and that includes us, from telling everyone else what to do. And that I can actually live with. Besides, don't forget that those checks and balances do just that. Remember Clinton proposed universal health care and it got shot down in the house. If, by some anomaly, a third party candidate did somehow get elected to the Presidency, it would be naive to assume that everyone in the house and senate would merely fall at their feet and grant them their wishes.

The problem, as I tried to point out yesterday, is that too many of us on the left are naive and narcissistic enough to believe that our individualist views should be respected absolutely, and to me that is merely absolutism. Reactionary insistence that only your view is the justifiable one is fascism, whether on the right or the left. And too often, the really committed leftists fall into squabbling that allows an absolutist power structure to emerge, whether from the opposition or from within their own ranks. I gave some examples yesterday about how self-righteous leftists turn against each other and lose what momentum they had by hair-splitting and one-upping each other. Another good example is the Russian Communist Party's International Congresses, where the Leninists and the Trotskyites tore into each other with such fury and frequency, and guess who eventually came out on top, Stalin. I was not by any means suggesting that that we were "restricting our democratic freedom" when we make a mature, rational choice to find commonalities where differences would mean disaster, to join forces where our enemies would like nothing more than to divide us, and to balance our own views and needs with a feasible agenda that benefits the greater good. That's what political engagement is, the contract we make with society to curtail some of our individual aims when they come into conflict with what we know and understand would be better for us all. That is, in fact, what democratic, in the sense of collective, freedom really is.

And so, leftists, here we stand once again, poised at a moment where we can choose to stand together with our collective energies, or allow dogma and mis-information to divide us. That’s what is making me so angry about Nader's campaign. Anyone who is actually familiar with Senator Kerry's voting record and viewpoints would see that he represents not only many of the progressive ideals we hold dear, but a
lso ha
s the
skills and appeal it takes to get elected in this country. I urge you once again to review, or view for the first time, his stand on gay marriage: he supports giving states the right to create civil unions; or his environmental policies: he's against drilling in ANWAR (but that's just a token for anyone who says it, because it’s really just a symbolic "pristine" paradise with an equally symbolic amount of crude. The more important decisions come up over the course of Kerry's 30 years in political life, when he has supported increasing gas taxes, against practically EVERYBODY's wishes, developing alternative energy sources like ethanol, and going after polluters.) He's for abortion rights, against the death penalty, against renewing the patriot act and against cutting veteran's benefits. Budgets and health care proposals are always fudged in campaigns, I don't see how it could be any other way when projecting so far ahead, but the ethic is there to back the rhetoric. If you have any doubts, go to his senate home page and look at his voting record (which not all senators make so readily available on their sites.) It's kerry.senate.gov and his record is under a menu called legislation. Before anyone denounces a candidate based on what they think they know, they should be familiar with their public record. That’s our most basic responsibility as voters.

As for the (supposed lack of) differences between George Bush and John Kerry, I will once again extend an invitation to meet you in the alley. Also, I think, (as another blogger points out in a most excellent rant ) that's a tired argument left over from 2000 when Gore, who was a centrist center Democrat, and Bush, who was playing himself off at the time as a centrist, moderate, "compassionate" conservative, did seem to have a lot of similarities. But this time around it's very different. I don't need to remind anyone what George Bush's “compassion” looks like. Let's just say that when Nixon's prosecuting attorney (John Dean, whose new book is "Worse than Watergate") says Bush is the worst, most secretive, undemocratic president we've ever had, then it seems practically irrational to compare Bush to any other president before him, Democrat or Republican. He's violated the best tenants of both parties by curtailing civil liberties, running huge deficits, etc. You know the drill. But if you know the drill, everything he's done, how can anyone with a straight face say that Al Gore would have been just the same, or that a Kerry administration would have the gall to do what the Cheney/Wolfowitz/Rumsfeld/Perle monster machine has cooked up?

I don't think people will still be saying that Bush was just like Gore would have been thirty years from now either. And it’s not just because of things like the Patriot Act, or banning partial birth abortions, or even a Constitutional amendment against gay marriage. All those things can be undone. But some decisions will ripple on for years to come. For example, remember that Presidents have the power to make LIFETIME appointments to our highest courts, which are the real lawmakers in this country, not the politicians. If you don't understand the power of judicial appointments, then you're missing a whole dimension of influence that determines policy for decades to come, if not permanently. The Supreme Court, which is precariously divided as it is, is not the only bench in Bush's sights, but also the circuit courts that control major portions of the country and determine which cases make it to the Supreme Court and which don’t. Bush's court appointments, as you all well know, have been some of the most conservative in decades. Given another fours years, he may make appointments that we'll never recover from that will set judicial precedent and direct policy in dangerous directions. Can you imagine saying
that abou
t Gore?

n
The Bush administration is like nothing before or hopefully after it. But, hmmmm, there are some people who *do* seem the same this time around, in fact, it's Kerry and Nader. They've been friends for over thirty years and recently met to work out a strategy for defeating Bush (although Nader still refuses to drop out and give his endorsement to the more viable candidate.)

I'm not alone in feeling that Nader’s decision to run this fall is not in the best interests of our country. As a case in point, people on the right are practically cheering him on . If Nader actually wanted to build progressive support, then he wouldn't be making such a bull-headed move (or breaking with the Green Party, his best chance for long-term organizing.) And to say he didn't hurt Gore in 2000 is also not true. I mean, (oh god I never thought I'd say this,) even Pat Buchanan had the decency not to run in states where the race was close. But Nader plowed ahead. Since he's declared his intention to run, progressive icons no less than Michael Moore, (who supported him in 2000), Howard Dean, and the editors of The Nation have all begged him not to do it, and have encouraged liberals not to vote this term for third-party candidates. Now is the time for liberals to unite our energies despite minor differences, or else by our short-sightedness we will hand Bush a second term. Even Howard Dean has said "Those who truly want America's leaders to stand up to the corporate special interests and build a better country for working people should recognize that, in 2004, a vote for Ralph Nader is, plain and simple, a vote to re-elect George W. Bush. I hope that Ralph Nader will withdraw his candidacy in the best interests of the country we hope to become."

If a third party is what we want, then we need to dig in and do it, but not by starting from the top down, and certainly not at a time when our democracy is in danger. Nader is obviously one of the most crucial proponents for progressive change in this country, and he's been an influence on me ever since I was a little girl, when he'd already been hard at work for thirty years. Nader is a great leader, and he should continue to lead us. But he should lead us to a victory, not another embarrassing rout. It's not coercion to say that voting for anyone other than Kerry will be a decision all Americans could come to regret, it's a fact. As far as I'm concerned there is only one party now, and there is only one logical choice for citizens who value their rights and the ideals we believe in: vote Democrat in November.

And if you don't believe me, ask The Nation:
or Howard Dean

In fact, there may end up only being one party if George Bush gets re-elected this fall. We all know what he's done in four years, imagine how much worse it will be if he has another term. Well, to all those petulant, deluded, self-righteous, juvenile so-called "leftists" out there, take a look at this:



I can only say that right now I am furious. In fact, livid. I'm practically shaking. Those small percentage points shaved off by Nader's absolutely pointless campaign will guarantee us another four years of Bush and his murderous backers. Yeah, that's really progress. I never vented in 2000, well, maybe a little, because theoretically I believed we should have a third party. But guess what people, there WILL NEVER BE A THIRD PARTY! This is not a parliamentary system and it never has been. It has always been built on entrenched binaries. Any quixotic attempts to break off and form a third party will only split the vote and ensure victory to the other side. (see clinton vs. bush/perot, and the different results on pollingreport.com if nader would just drop out of the frickin' race-- suprise surprise, kerry wins.)

so, yeah, kerry is a politician-- he takes special interest money, he's a big fat gagillionaire, and like clinton, he would do all kinds of dastardly things, beyond a doubt. but look at the alternative, which isn't nader, but a garunteed victory to george bush. anyone who says that kerry would be just as bad as bush can hash that out with me in a one-on-one "conversation". in a back alley. because that's just stupid.

don't forget that the nazis were elected by the german people, in part because the left was so fragmented by its own pointless, self-serving divisions. same thing in the spanish civil war, franco won because the anarchists and the communists undermined each other. the real reason the left never holds together, as far as i can see, is that most leftists are immature idiots who would cut off their own noses and end up spiting all of us.

wow, what a relief it is for me to finally vent what i've always felt. it's nader's fault, and it will be nader's fault again. i feel almost zen about it. thanks, "progressives", for four more years of mein prezident.

instead of doing thing i really really should be doing i worked on these obsolete artifacts all day. they are for a show in baltimore this saturday so i have to pack them up and mail them right away if i want them to make it. the full definitions of these actual english words are in the entry below. my favorite artifact is "liripoop" cause it looks like a turd!

My April resolutions:

1) Don't be a fool!

2) All strip, all day.

3) Smoke, but be happier. I figure my mongo stress is worse for me than smoking. So I will boldly puff away, while smiling.

4) Replan my entire life, including the past, which could use some revision.

5) Attempt to not burn bridges, merely drape traffic-stopping attention-diverting banners off of them.

6) Make E-strip banners

7) Rather than limiting what I eat, I'm going to limit what I shit out. Good-for-me foods will stay in my system and continue to provide nutrients while making my belly bulge in a frightening way. Twinkies will pass through my system whole and unchanged.

8) Watch more sports. Instead of exercising I will raise my heart rate by getting really into sports and leaping up and hollering at the TV. This (doesn't) work for millions of NFL, NBA, PGA, NAFTA, wait, USTA fans.

9) Land dream job.

10) Quit dream job.

and finally...

11)Think of pointless journal topics that get my name to the top of the list fast!