Phi Slamma Jamma

1. Tara VanDerveer, head coach, Stanford (I almost choked on the S word) women's basketball team won her 800th game last night when her team tattooed USF 100-45. Think about that, for a sec. 800 W's in the victory column spanning a 30 year career. And most of those years spent toiling away in the Pac 10 conference; yes, there are always door mats, but in Division 1 ball, there really are no gimmes. The irony of the 800th win was that it came against a team coached by 2 former players, Jeniffer Azzi and Katy Steding, who were members of VanDerveer's 1st Stanford recruiting class. Lost in the hoopla, but not forgotten, are the two national titles and the numerous final four appearance of Stanford under VanDerveer. Blunt and outspoken, once blasting guard play at a press conference, VanDerveer has coached some of the best....Azzi, Starbird, Wideman, Wiggins, and Appel. But then Vanderveer knows guard play; in the mid 70's she was a starting guard at IU for 3 years. Think, maybe, some of that great school's basketball tradition rubbed off on her there?

2. UCONN. The women's basketball team busted John Wooden's record of 88 straight victories last week. Not impressed by girl play? So what, you say? Well just because men are ballers doesn't mean women can't ball too. Ok, so maybe it's small ball. But, even the late John Wooden recognized it. He said women play the game beneath the net, the way it's supposed to be played. Men play impulsively above the net. Geno Auriemma, the UCONN coach (you either love him or hate him) joking with President Obama who called to congratulate the team, said that the team hadn't lost since he took office. The last team to beat UCONN was Stanford in 2008. On Dec 30th, both teams meet in Palo Alto. Get your popcorn ready. It's going to be a brawl.

3. El Presidente. In a devastating one-two combination, which could be labelled: 'The empire strikes back' President Obama delivered the repeal of the 'Don't ask, Don't Tell,' policy and the signing of the Russian Nuclear Arms Treaty in a phi slamma jamma shattering of the back board just weeks after gagging on the extension of the tax cuts for the upper middle class and the wealthy. Basking in the after-glow, the President and his family are in the islands for the holidays; you can take the girls and boys out of the islands...but you can't take the islands out of them. Shaka bro.

Girl on Girl

Hmmm. 2010. Oprah crying on Baba Walters and denying she's a lesbian (really? not her cuppa?); 'The Kids are All Right,' with Annette and Julianne; Sandra Bullock planting one on Meryl at the Academy Awards; Miley Cyrus for her raunchy(she says it was simulated), uh-huh, whatever with a female dancer in Britain; Aubrey Plaza onstage at the MTV awards saying she wanted to 'do' Megan Fox repeatedly...and Salon inking up the 10 steamiest Lesbian movie scenes. WTF is going on? America bored? Can't get enough?

If we indeed, are all watching out there...here's a short list of uh, my favorites that might make you squirm in your seat...or as a teenie heart throb once said in a Rolling Stone interview, 'real high school soakers.'

1. 'Portrait of a Marriage.' 1992. Who knew Masterpiece Theater and the Brits had it in them to
bring Vita Sackville-West's love for Violet Keppel/Trefusis to the screen in a no holds barred presentation. This is terrific drama and Vita had many girl dalliances, among them Virgina Woolf, but Violet was the love of her life, and Vita and Violet could never get enough. But trouble and bad times surfaced as Vita repeatedly strayed. Conveniently, Harold Nicolson, Vita's husband, liked boys. What a couple! Who needs beards?

2. 'Gia.' 2004. Angelina and Elizabeth Mitchell. Sizzle. Gia Carangi was a Philly girl who was stone cold gorgeous. She set the NY modeling world on fire in the mid 70's and early 80's and loved women. Gia, larger than life, and running on fumes became addicted to heroin. On the cover of Vogue and other magazines around the world, she died at 26, one of the first women to succumb to aids. Jolie won the Golden Globe for her portrayal.

3. 'Bound.' 1996. Gina Gershon and Jen Tilley. Gershon's Corky and Tilley's Violet are edgy, and smart; hot together they put the capitol C back into camp and butch/femme sex where it belonged. Gina Gershon peaked like a gyser in Bound. And Jen Tilley never met a card table she didn't like; she is currently an avid poker player in LA. The Wachowski bros who wrote and directed went on to make The Matrix.

4. 'The Runaways'. 2010. Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning burn up the celluloid not only with their fooling around but with all the 'shit' that surrounded the rocking. It's the 1970's. Uppers. Downers. White lines on table tops. Joan Larkin becomes Joan Jett and Cherie Curie, a Valley girl, becomes the front for the Jett band, the Runaways. In the end, the chickens come home to roost, but what a ride for an all girl under-age jail bait band that crested like a tsunami on their smashing Japan tour.

5. 'The Girl Who Played with Fire.' 2010. Noomi Rapace and Yasmine Garbi get it on after a tease in the 'Dragon' installment. Surprisingly, Rapace said that the Swedes reacted negatively to the girl on girl scene. Uh, this, from the country that gave us the great enigmatic, provocative Garbo.

'I read the news today oh, boy...'

30 years? Really? I was sitting in my studio apt, a lovely Berkeley dwelling situated on top of a garage at the end of a long driveway, watching MNF and mulling over the pros and cons of dumping my current philandering girlfriend. Should I or shouldn't I? The dog stood by the door and wanted out. The f'ball game was almost over. The Jets were probably going to kick a field goal to send it into OT. And then...Howard Cosell's voice, that unmistakable quivering nasal sing-song cadence, broke the news of John Lennon's death at the Dakota. I stared in disbelief at the telly, and started to cry. It was a different sort of emotional over-flow; not as shockingly raw as the Kennedy assassination, in retro, it was more of an undefined sadness that swept through me. The music didn't die that day, but another light went out and once again my generation was left to ponder questions that begged sensibility and wholeness from a shattering enigmatic event. The girl friend came over. In my numbness, I relented and didn't kick her out. A mistake. Which took years to rectify.

postscript: Because MNF was the only 'live' event on the telly that night, ABC was asked to interrupt the f'ball game to break the news. In a recording which was aired this morning, Cosell, not sure of the protocol, and a bit daunted by the request, asks Frank Gifford for his opinion. Gifford, much to his credit, immediately recognizes the gravity of the situation, and tells Cosell to do it. Soon after, 24 hour news networks like CNN, MSNBC and FOX cometh forth.

A Tale of Two...

Slouched over and glutted or maybe it was gutted in a post T'day daze, I barred all visitors and watched 2 sensational films this past week.

1. The first was a documentary by Martin Scorsese, 'Public Speaking' chronicling the life and times of the irascible, intellectual, cult figure Fran Lebowitz. Produced by HBO, Scorsese lets the camera roll as Lebowitz holds court at her booth in the Waverly Inn; no topic is off limits. An hour into the film you realize that this is a labor of love by both Scorsese and Lebowitz not so much about Lebowitz but about NYC; how the metropolis has morphed from one decade to the next, (ascension, decline, resurrection,) and what better conduit then one of the era's legendary, astute wits. I remember reading 'Metropolitan Life' in the 70's and thinking wow, I'd just stumbled onto Oscar Wilde's (Lebowitz would prefer I say, Dorothy Parker) doppelganger. I also watched (because we like to watch) Lebowitz carving out and nurturing, through the decades, a very precise physical persona. Cigarette, even to this day. Dark glasses. White long sleeve shirts. Lebowitz never met a pair of blue jeans she didn't love. Hmmm. Was she or wasn't she, a member of the club? Surely smart enough to be one, in the documentary she slides around the answer. Curmudgeon. Unique. A contemporary intellect with chops, this insightful documentary blew me off the couch for a double viewing.

2. Let me now sing the praises of Olivier Assayas. French. Once married to the beautiful Maggie Cheung, and director of the black and white cult film, 'Irma Vep' which is so amazingly good that really what else could follow...but a film with Cheung again in 'Clean' (she won an award) and the very slow, very French, very beautiful 'Summer Hours,' which he wrote last year. Assayas whose work always has an edge to it, whether it's defined by character or music, has catapaulted himself to the upper echelon of the screen pantheon with his latest movie, 'Carlos.' The film is over 5 hours long and a masterpiece. Assayas once said that movies depicted passage of time; 'Carlos' covers 20 years of Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, aka Carlos the Jackal, who roamed from Budapest, Germany, Syria, and France engaged in revolutionary terrorism. Do we care about this character? Yes and no in a peculiar voyeuristic way. The depiction from the mid 70's to the 90's when Carlos is finally captured is compelling stuff. Countries plot against each brazenly. The Syrians hate the Saudis. The German Statsi turns a blind eye. Sudan betrays. The CIA is a neutered specter. Women in this film are portrayed as 1. uncontrollable stone cold trigger happy revolutionists with more cajones than Carlos; or 2. significantly oppressed, marginalized, and manipulated. Fueled by alternative post punk music, a trademark of Assayas (music) the film whizzes through the 5 hours and closes with Los Lobos', 'La Pistola y el corazon' (a personal fave) while the credits roll. As surprising as that choice of music was, nothing could prepare me for Assayas' closing song, 'Little Cloud' by the Incredible String Band at the end of last year's 'Summer Hours.' Are you kidding me? What a man!

Curtains of Light

In 1971, my sister, Carmel and I published a book of poems (by me) and illustrations by her. We were young and vibrant and full of revolutionary energy. I was 25 and my sister a recent transfer from George Washington U was a student at CCAC. We lived on the very street that I now reside upon, with two dogs, (of course) and spent our first Thanksgiving together cooking in an airy kitchen with a screen door and a small stove. I am often reminded of that time as I walk the neighborhood, past the flat we shared, and expect as most of us often do (when caught in one of those timeless vortexes), to hear strains of Joanie Mitchell or the Incredible String Band floating through the air, and see one or two residents smoking on the front porch. Ah, but, tempus fugit. Here are two very youthful pieces from 'Curtains of Light.'

I borrow your name,
Erlinda Cosay,
the ad in the magazine says:
you are five years old,
fatherless,
an Apache Indian,
and you can be bought for $15.00
in silver pieces.
I look at your face,
Erlinda Cosay,
and see nothing.
It is empty.
It is desolate,
life stolen from you.
Do you want to borrow some
American land?
************
Sometimes I wonder
in what city,
in what room,
my shadow lingers.
Does it sit upon
some alcove
gathering aging thoughts
or is it cast
along some pavement
lost in curtains of light.

Beaks Skyward

Let's talk serious Turkey...

1. BP for it's agonizing botched attempts at capping the oil spill off the Louisiana Gulf Coast.

2. Toyota. Denial. Denial. PR disaster...the corporation's lead, as in slow, foot response to the acceleration pedal debacle.

3. The Burmese Military Junta who placed Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, under house arrest in Yangon for 15 of the past 20 years after the NLD (National League for Democracy) won the election in 1990 which would have made Aung San Suu Kyi, Prime Minister of Burma... afraid that hmm, a woman might kick their collective asses, the Junta tried to control and cap Kyi's popularity and movements through house arrest. You tube her recent release.

4. The State of Arizona and it's anti-immigration Law.

5. Kim Jong-il...alleged torpedoing of a South Korean naval ship; the calculated, methodical, starvation of an entire population.

Storm clouds brewing, turkeys. Open beaks wide.

The Good, The Shellacked, and the Ugly

1. The Good: The SF Gate banners read: "Orange Crush." Ok. But, hey, that slogan is alive and well in Denver. It's San Francisco. Where weirdness resides. How about the autumn of love fest? Today, fans in droves lined the streets of the city to celebrate the World Series coming home for the first time in the Giants west coast franchise history. The young pitcher's Bumgarner and Cain have their caps enshrined in the Hall of Fame. Lincecum, the flower power gunslinger, has had 2 jersey's retired to Cooperstown. On a magical fall day that brought out the best in humanity, San Francisco grooved like it was well, circa 1967. Free love and adulation poured out in waves of cheering, roaring fans. Brian Wilson, the mohawk, bearded all world closer, got down from his cable car and walked amongst the masses. Dave Righetti, the pitching coach, choked up and near tears said the win was for everyone in SF, especially the residents of the San Bruno fire. And the Oakland Athletics, the baseball team across the Bay took out a full page ad in the SF Chronicle congratulating the Giants. It doesn't get any better than this.

2. The shellacked: Manning up and not dodging the press, El Presidente used that term to describe the Republican victories across the country last night. Humbled and somber, team Obama is regrouping and sifting through Plan B which will cover the next 2 years. Is the sky falling? Not exactly. But as President Obama said, "I feel bad for the Democrats who supported my agendas and went down to defeat over them."

3. On the horizon and with the moon in some sort of post-Halloween retro melt-down, these e'phant stars are rising: Marco Rubio, Susana Martinez and Scott Walker.

4. The Ugly: Hmmmm. 60 new e'phant seats in the House or Randy Moss. Randy Moss. After shouting profanities at a caterer who was bringing in lunch to the Vikings facility, saying the food was unfit even for his dog, and for publicly ranting how much he missed his ex team the Patriots, and his ex Coach Belichick, Moss was shown the front door by the Vikings who took their magic marker and made an indelible X out of him.

The Dead and the Undead...

1. On the ropes, with one foot straddling the grave: the Texas Rangers. The boys in Red and Blue need to get some mojo going in the Arlington half of the World Series or they are done. Lose game #3 and the Orange and Black can start sliding the Dom Perignon off the ice in San Francisco.

2. The Undead: Jerry Brown. Left to his own devices, Brown who can hear a dime drop in falling snow, finally unleashed a flurry of media ads in the final month of his Cali campaign which woke up snoozing donks from their comatose Whitman stupor. Way to save your ass, Jerry. Didn't your mum tell you not to wait until the last moment to take care of business?

3. The Dead: Meg Whitman's 140 million.

4. Nevada Undead: Harry Reid vs Sharon Angle. Harry, the senate majority leader, and curmudgeon extraordinaire, trailing a tea party candidate who doesn't believe in Social Security or Medicare...will be a humiliating and spectacular defeat for the donks who underestimated Angle; exercised poor judgement, and were guilty of bringing a pocket knife to a gunfight.

5. Tele Dead: Friday Night Lights, one of the greatest series in the past decade, is in it's final year. The show filmed in Austin, Texas was not just about football. Season after season, the production went deep into their characters and brought a wealth of rich story lines from middle America which crossed over; using hand held cameras and scripts which were realistically brilliant, the show was always under-appreciated in the ratings, as most good shows are, but critically acclaimed. Friday Night Lights was the 'My So-Called Life' of the 2000's.

6. Wow. Completely Undead: Sleater-Kinney THE best rock band of the 90's has resurrected and morphed into...The Corin Tucker Band, and Wild Flag, a 4 member band with Janet Weiss and Carrie Brownstein. All systems on go. Turn the lights back on...

"Instant Karma's Going To Get You..."

Yeah, how simple life would be if it were all relative to karma. But, my friends, every now and then the universe throws us a right cross on the chin and why, after the stars have cleared, something marvelous happens. Like in the city by the Bay. The SF Giants led by a baby-face, named Lincecum, pitches tonight trying to put the final choke hold on the Phillies to catapult his team into the World Series. After a dramatic walk off win last night at AT&T Park, a victory would be the cherry on the sundae and drop the city into a frenzy the likes which hasn't been seen around here since, er, the ill fated 1989 Loma Prieta quake-off that pitted the Oakland A's vs the Giants. And how fitting that this adrenalin thumping drama descends on a team which fields peach fuzzy, Posey, Lincecum, and Bumgardner along with Brian Wilson (not the singer) the all world closing pitcher who dyes his beard with bear grease (fiction), sports a mohawk occasionally, and dominated the league in saves this past year...a Giants team with it's chemical past in the rear view mirror, finally devoid of steroid prima donas, and locker room dissensions, now led by a cluster of man children, hit the karma refresh button and finds itself implausibly standing on the brink of the biggest stage of them all.

The bigger story though, resides in Arlington, Texas where the Rangers a franchise now owned by Nolan Ryan, and who have never been to the World Series in their agonizingly riddled history, have the vaunted Yankees on the ropes and will try and close out the deal Friday night. In all of baseball, there is not a better story than the one swirling around Ranger's, center fielder, Josh Hamilton. Hamilton, a stud with the bat, terrorizing the Yankees with his hitting in the playoffs, has a well documented past of bad boy behavior: hard drugs and blackouts, culminated by a stretch of 2 years when he left baseball to detox, find himself, and eventually claw his way back to the major leagues. The World Series in Texas? Bring that baby home to the land of the Pecos...

Ginny Thomas. WTF? Did somebody slip her a barrel of acid tabs? Concussed from a helmet to helmet hit on the playing field? Uh, ask Anita Hill to apologize? After there's ice water in hell.

Happy Scatter Shots

After the last blog, my sister subtly lobbied for more optimistic news. You want it? You got it.
What better way to start with the 33 miners in Chile.

1. Against all odds, and in a feat which re-defines the word, 'survival' (yeah, you, abominable CBS television series) 33 miners gutted it out 1/2 a mile down in the underworld, the belly of the beast, and were brought safely to the surface today after spending two months in 90 degree heat and oppressive claustrophobic conditions. How did they survive? They came together and formed a disciplined plan of survival. They found a small running water fall which they used for showering. They dug 3 wells for drinking water and kept the area clean of waste material. The 33 men exercised by running up and down empty tunnels almost a half mile in length. When they were discovered alive 17 days after the cave-in, the miners had almost exhausted their rations of 2 spoonfuls of tuna, a cup of milk, one cracker, and a spoonful of peach topping which they allowed themselves every other day. Attended to by Doctors on the surface, the miners were sent nutrition packets until their caloric count leveled off. Fresh air was pumped into the tunnel and as their spirits rose, the men requested wine, but got cola instead. Smokers were initially given chewing gum and nicotine patches (are you kidding me?) , and in some sort of Pyrrhic victory were finally slipped 40 cigarettes daily. And why not? Under those circumstances, just days from meeting my maker, I'd like a couple of smokes too. Miraculously, as the 33 miners ascended to the surface, one by one, in a special pair of dark glasses to shield their eyes, the world applauded.

2. After the shooting of Bambi and Old Yeller, all members of the Oakland Police department must now take an annual mandatory dog and wildlife course given by the SPCA.

3. Spaghetti tacos. The rage of the pre-teen diet. Offered as a gag on a nickelodeon show, the double-double carbohydrate meal is the craze. Blogs and recipes for the dish are clogging the 'net' as the food itself chugs towards the crazed armies of ingesting 'tweens spiking their tiny tyke arteries with fat globules the size of chicken nuggets. Any parent that needs to consult sites to figure out the prep work, or even considers making this for their children should be led out into their yard, stood up against a wall, and well, you know...on second thought, Alex and Iz, are these good?

Scatter Shots

1. The Oakland Police fell flat on their collective badges again. Having already made headlines several months ago with the shooting of a fawn, who was lost and wandering around the streets of East Oakland, gunning it down like a rabid pit bull ready to savage them, drew their weapons last week and blasted an 11 year old family pet, Gloria-a yellow Lab (Old Yeller), who was arthritic from hip dysplasia and moved like her limbs were stuck in molasses. Not having learned from the Bambi execution that uh, pepper spray and tasers are available, the Police officer responding to a burglar alarm and believing he was about to be attacked by Gloria (a burglar?) opened fire. Come on, we did not all fall off the turnip truck. The family deeply distraught by the fatal shooting of their loved family pet in it's own yard does not believe the officer's version. The back pedaling Oakland Police Department is working hard to extinguish this latest PR blunder. Gloria's owner who raised her from a pup said the dog for the last several years had trouble getting up and moving. The disturbing fallout once again raises questions about police procedure and behavior.

2. Down in South Fla., Kassim Osgood, a Jacksonville Jaguar tight end, was spending a quiet evening with a friend, Mackenzie Rae Putnal, a Jags cheerleader, at her family home when a gun wielding ex of the cheerleader burst through the door, pistol whipped Kassim and threatened to kill them both. Putnal on the floor with a gun pointing at her head scuffled with the ex who grabbed her cell phone and smashed it. Osgood 6'5" jumped out a 2nd floor window and ran for help leaving Putnal inside (!) with the crazed gunman. Putnal, resourceful, and quick on her feet escaped to her parent's room on the lower level, pulled out a sidearm with an infrared laser sight
and traded gunfire with the ex. The moral of this story, boys and girls, is: don't F with cheerleaders. You never know if they'll go all Evelyn Salt or Nikita on you. Post script...the ex was arrested after fleeing Putnal's home.

Macchiato shots

So there I was in the City where I've left my heart pillowed over the years, in fog enshrouded canyons of the Richmond or the Sunset, along the long windy stretches of crusty Ocean beach, under perfumed eucalyptus groves lost in the Presido...waking in a lovely 3 storied home where the bridge spans and the city lights spill into the living room at night, dreaming of only one thing: double pain au chocolat from Tartine bakery. Proust had his madeline. I would have Tartine's decadent morning offering. Walking briskly through Dolores Park at 7:30am with Marisa, was ironic. We are old now, and rise with purpose. Luck benevolently smiled through the morning chill. No line at Tartine. And no double pain au chocolat! Sold out! WTF. Could we wait 20 minutes for the next bake? A wry smile. As I pointed out before, we're old. And patience abounds. We can out wait even the 2nd coming. The good baker delivers my delectable dream and sets it down before me beside my English breakfast. This is the moment I truly miss the wallop of the black Irish tea, but all moments share tiny imperfections. I stare at the shiny bronze pain top. Taking my fingers I pull apart the pastry bread. Steam rises from the bun, and molten chocolate spills forth. Oh baby! Seizure time. The first bite, pornographic. The second bite, moon trajectory. Every flaky morsel fracking other worldly. To my right, Marisa is polishing off her croissant; she said it was the best one she had ever had outside of France. For a sec, I am not computing what it is she is saying. Unconscious and deep into my own private double pain au chocolat Idaho, I am already mentally tucking in for seconds.

Eileen Nearne...Hero.

Fuggedabout those Covet Affair and la Femme Nikita babes for just a NewYawk minute. Yesterday in the seaside city of Torquay, Eileen Nearne, a spy and WWII hero who died penniless was given a hero's funeral. In attendance were hundreds of mourners, and members of British Legion clubs, representatives of armed forces, military attache from the French embassy in London, and a military bugler and piper. Designated for a pauper's burial, after her body was found, the police discovered the French Croix de Guerre among Eileen Nearne's belongings illuminating the recluse's intensely private life which she lived for decades. During WWII, as a member of Churchill's Special Ops forces conducting espionage and sabotage behind enemy lines, Eileen Nearne was one of 39 British women who were parachuted into France as secret agents. In Paris, Nearne operated a radio which was used to organize weapon drops to the French resistance and to shuttle messages back and forth between London and the resistance preparing the French for the 1944 D day landings. She eluded capture several times, but was finally caught and sent to a camp for women outside of Berlin where thousands died. Repeatedly tortured by the gestapo for her real identity, names of people working in the resistance and her assignments, Nearne never cracked. Even when she blacked out from lack of oxygen while being held under ice cold water, she later said she believed in will and destiny. Shuttled back and forth from Nazi death camp to death camp, head shaved, she was 23 years old. While working 12 hour shifts on a forced road repair in a camp outside of Leipzig, she and 2 other women escaped and linked up with American soldiers who immediately identified her as a Nazi collaborator and held her in a detention center with other captured SS until Britain verified her as a Special Ops agent. After wartime, Eileen Nearne never quite adjusted to civilian life. She missed the life in the shadows, having flourished in it's independence and secrecy. Living alone she shunned all publicity. On a red cushion on top of her casket were displayed the Croix de Guerre, and the MBE (Order of the British Empire)...medals which are given for distinguished acts of heroism and bravery. Had they ever met, Agatha Christie who also lived in Tourqay might have found the makings of a masterpiece in Eileen Nearne's life. Nearne was 89 when she died.

Pictures at 11.

1. Already banned by the Brits, an ad depicting a pregnant nun holding a spoon and a tub of gelato with the caption: "Immaculately Conceived-ice cream is our religion," is rippling shock waves through Europe. The gelato maker, Antonio Federei, said their ice cream ad gently satirized religion. The stylish Italians always one step ahead excel at marketing strategy. Brilliant and ballsy in presentation, somewhere Don Draper is enviously smiling.

2. Meg Whitman. 119 million and not done yet with six weeks to go. Can she buy this election? All polls show that the race is even. On a talk show this morning, Whitman said that the reason she is spending so much is because Jerry Brown has the backing of all the public employees unions. Uh, yeah, Meg. Keep chugging out the spin. Last time I checked a lot of the unions were financially struggling.

3. Reggie Bush. He gave back the Heisman and spoke behind closed doors with the committee. That was a smart move. The committee announced that the 2005 winner's name would be struck from the plaque and vacated. Talking heads on several several sports networks implied that USC had turned their back on Reggie. For the record these are USC's sanctions from the Bush actions: 4 year probation, 2 year ban from all bowl games, loss of 30 football scholarships over a 3 year period, and a stripping by the NCAA of the 14 victories won while Bush was on the team. The sorry truth is that Reggie placed himself ahead of team and school, and in his wake crippled one of the most prestigious programs in the country.

4. Whoa. Terry Bradshaw the hall of fame QB for the Pittsburgh Steelers on the air addressing the Ben Rothlisberger suspension, for violating the personal conduct policy set by the NFL, stemming from an alleged assault of a woman in the off season..."They (the Rooney family, owners of the Steelers, were said to have been outraged) should have dumped you. What you did in my eyes was a lot worse." You go, Terry.

5. Saw a film, "Let the Right One In"(title comes from a song by Morrissey, 'Let the Right One Slip In') directed by Tomas Alfredson a couple of days ago. Released in 2008, a Swedish production, at first glance, that falls into the horror genre. But it is more than a vampire movie. This is the story of Oskar and Eli, both, lonely 12 year olds. What happens between them is the heart of the film. Shot during the winter, this is a powerful movie and makes you re-think certain moments long after the film is over. Rated 97% on Rotten Tomatoes, the movie won hardware at Toronto, Boston and DC. But like so many other foreign films, Hollywood has already cannibalized the movie and spit out their dumbed down version. Why?

Deep Pockets, Cheaters and 9/11

1. When I was involved as a booster for Cal Women's basketball program there were very specific rules that were laid out as to what the NCAA considered improprieties in dealing with college athletes. For example, picking up the check in a restaurant is a no-no. Providing the use of an automobile, verboten. Freebies to community events? Sorry. Invitations to frolic at your summer home? In your dreams. Discounted meals? Out. Lowered rent? Out. In other words, no discounts of any kind. No b'day gifts. No valentines. Etc. Etc. Carved in stone at the top of the NCAA list are these hallowed words: May not give them cash or loans of any kind. Reggie Bush violated the cardinal rule. Rule 1. He was the recipient of cash, cars, a spanking new house for his parents, loans blah blah blah. Talk trash all you want about the agent that led him down temptation road. The finger of blame points directly at Reggie, and his football coach. There was always something pompous and squirrely about Pete Carroll as he paced the sidelines in Berkeley's Memorial stadium. Bear fans were always gleeful at the thought of kicking USC's ass. Feeling the flames, Carroll ejected before the bonfire. No big surprise. Way to go man. Reggie Bush and his record breaking years have been wiped out by USC. Trophies and jersey removed from school display cases. Persona non grata. Shamefully disowned. Uh, give back the Heisman, Reggie. Before you're asked. Or don't you care about your college years now that you have a Superbowl ring?

2. The donks vs the elephants. It's a virtual tie in the polls. If this were a boxing match, Boxer and Brown would be behind in points. Whitman and Fiorina have surged in the polls. Call it apathy. Economic blow back. Whatever. There's something happening here in Cali. The donks need to lose the bullet proof mentality. Bill Clinton is campaigning vigorously in Arkansas for candidates. SOS to Pennsylvania Ave. Whither Barack? Enough of the 'rope-a-dope.' Time to get medieval.

3. On Saturday, 9/11, my niece, Iz, turns 13. Her birthday is a beautiful beacon on a reflective solemn date.

Honor Labor

Labor day is the beginning of the end: So long backyard ques and your tinkling ice cubed glasses. Aloha zillions of sunblock 30 tubes and expanding bathing suits (back to the food table). Good riddance swamp coolers and long sweaty nights. See ya next year nuclear families crisscrossing the continent. Aideu backyard tomatoes dying on the vine. Adios daylight savings and long evening walks. Catch you later alligators...kids filtering back (broomed out the door! ) to education and their own private shenanigans...a national holiday. Labor Day. Signaling the passage from summer to fall. Familiar and fuzzy tabloid? Not so fast. Knowledge is power, my friend. Put this in your pipe and smoke it: The first Monday in September. A celebration conceived by the Central Labor Union of New York (smarta new yawkers) in 1882 to recognize the contributions of the American workers. Ironically, the first Labor day was on a Tuesday. In 1887 Oregon, Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York created a bill which officially sanctioned Labor Day as a holiday. And by 1894 Congress passed legislation declaring the first Monday in September a legal holiday. Traditionally a day laden with speeches and parades celebrating workers and their families. Today a more refined version circulates: officials and the usual talking heads quoted in the news media or you tubed. Sedate after maybe tossing back a couple and thinking about what to pack the kids for lunch tomorrow, or sitting barefoot in a lawn chair soaking up those last lingering summer rays while waiting for the leaves to turn and the NFL season to open, reflect upon the litany of jobs you've ever held, ranking them from worst to first through youth towards retirement. And honor your own labor. And those that came before you.

Scatter Shots

1. Remember the death star in Star Wars? Sure you do. It blasted Alderaan, Princess Leia's home, to moon dust and beyond with turbo lasers and Lucas boy toys. The L.A. county sheriff's department is about to leap frog Grand Moff (Gov.) Tarkin, and co with the installation of an 'Assault Intervention Device,' that will be used to control marauding inmates by blasting them with a beam of excruciating energy that produces a burning sensation. The weapon is 4 feet tall and will be installed on the ceiling and be able to swivel. Physically it is a cross between a robot and a satellite radar. The weapon of mass destruction will be remotely controlled by Tarkin's twin brother in a separate room who will be able to line up targets with a joystick. The ACLU has gone viral and is demanding a meeting. Cmdr. Osborne, a techie for the sheriff's dept, said, 'the neat thing with this device is you experience pain but are not injured by it.' Ohhhh. Ray guns that don't injure. Like the taser? Buck Rodgers says, 'after you.'

2. Ken Melhman, former 'everything' for the repubs (chair of the repub National Committee blah, blah, blah and outed years ago in 2006 on Larry King by Maher and Mike Rodgers where he emphatically denied it is today officially out of the closet. In. Out. Married to Bush. Thanks a lot chump for being so vocal during the Cheney years.

3. The Swedes. Is there something in the water there? Elin Nordegren is the toast of her country. Apparently Swedish woman are taught to be independent, not take any shit, and move on without looking back. Evidently it's part of the culture there. There's something to be said for having a bit of the Salander gene embedded. You think Steig Larsson was on to something?

Part 2: The Girls of Summer 'Bring It'

The Millennium trilogy has held the NY Times best seller list hostage for close to a year. The Stieg Larsson 'Girl' is a ridiculous phenomenon. Red and Blue states can't get enough. People who haven't read one printed page in years are ripping through the books back to back to back. Sensing that the saturation point was a bottomless pit the Swedes wisely cranked out screen adaptations of the trilogy. It was perfect timing. On my flash drive memoirs, filed under the entry 'We Like to Watch' is this: 2010. The summer we became shameless 'ho's' to Lisbeth Salander and Evelyn Salt, as they kicked ass all over the celluloid screen.

1. Noomi Rapace.
Can't see anyone else as Lisbeth Salander, no matter how hard I try. Rapace's performance is edgy. She is the embodiment of Salander, the genius hacker. Rapace says she trained for 7 months, building muscle, learning to ride a 'bike' and getting piercings. 'Point of No Return' was the Hollywood version of Luc Besson's, 'La femme Nikita.' It was a dumbed down version of the original. Just marginally good. Uh, so all eyes will be on Rooney Mara who was named yesterday for the role of the Salander character in the USA version (why oh why?). Feel the pressure, Rooney. Lock yourself in a dark room and watch Rapace over and over again. Good luck in getting the vibe right.

2. Evelyn Salt. Like music to my ears. As good or better (I guess it depends on your point of view) than those Bond or Bourne boys. Finally there is life after Emma Peel! Geezuz. So, parkour..the art of physically, gracefully, flying over, through, or around objects... The first time I saw it was in a French film, District B13. The next time parkour surfaced was in the first Daniel Craig 007 installment, Casino Royale. Over the years, it's made various action movie appearances, but always predominantly practiced by males, traceurs, until Angelina's, Salt. Not sure if all the parkour was done by Angie, but whether it was or not, the attempt at parkour by a woman, traceuses, in a high profile Hollywood action film gets kudos from me. Salt is Angie, and gave every girl out there a new action hero. Sequel soon to follow.

3. Tip of the jockey cap to Marion Cotillard and Ellen Page making the most out of pitifully gratuitous roles in Inception.

'Hey yo, the stars up...'

A line from, 'Long Hard Times to Come' the theme from the series Justified by Gangstagrass is the lead title of this piece. Saturday night I saw the film, Winter's Bone, the Best Picture, winner of the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, directed by Debra Granik and starring Jennifer Lawrence. Looking back at the summer releases, this has been a powerful year for women in the film industry. Categorized by genre, my genre, here are their rankings:

1. Jennifer Lawrence as Ree Dolly in Winter's Bone. This is a raw stark portrait of the 'have nots,' the forgotten, the white disenfranchised America that has been left behind... the crumbling dwellings, the jumbled rust heaps, the suspicion, the miscreants that lie burrowed deep in the hollows of the Ozarks; the burden of living is a way of life. Jennifer Lawrence's, Ree, is the embodiment of resilience; tough, and wise beyond her years, because you have to be to get by in a society that is riddled with secrets, Lawrence's performance lights up the screen and blows away more accomplished actors. In fact, the movie is so good, so distinguished, that at some point you believe you are watching a documentary. A tip of the jockey cap to John Hawkes, the Jewish merchant, Sol, from Deadwood, who as Teardrop should garner awards for a spectacular performance.

2. Tilda Swinton in Io Sono L'amoure.
Aesthetics and the riveting music of Pulitzer Prize composer, John Adams, bolster this labor of love from director Luca Guadagnino, and Tilda Swinton. The film is a guilty pleasure. Sons and daughters. Italian fashion. Sly homage to Hitchcock. And a resurrected Marisa Berenson. What's not to like? Swinton's 30 second performance in Broken Flowers, a personal favorite, surpass the controlled studied portrait of Emma Recchi, but this vehicle, it's splendor, erotic charisma, and transformation is more than good enough.

3. Annette Bening. 'The Kids are All Right' doesn't go anywhere without Bening's Nic. She's the straw that stirs the drink. There is a scene in this movie, where Bening has just made an unpleasant discovery...her face is a classic study of desiccated shock; she is one of the best actors in the industry today and in the spring this performance should add to her already bulging display case of professional hardware.

Next: Part 2...the 'Girls who kicked summer Ass.'

Scatter Shots

I wake up every morning and ask myself not about the meaning of life, but what the F is going on with the weather. It's not debilitating heat. So, I suppose pearls of gratitude should be dribbling from my mouth, instead of this sophomoric whining. Whatever. I like the sound of my voice as it crawls down the blackboard. A bank of fog envelopes the area, and stays and stays; maybe we have lift-off by 2pm if we're lucky. Like Anchorage in November. Five hours of daylight. Is this some kind of Palin joke? A plague on both our houses: the East Bay, and SF? My summer tomatoes in the back yard,which should be plated on mozzarella cheese, drizzled with olive oil, and fresh basil, or crushed and sauced are neon green. A pleasant color for tomatillos, not 'Early Girls.' And while I'm on it, and rolling, I want my fracking skater-boy shorts days! And my flip-flop accessories out of moth balls before it's fall.

Onto the international world. China. What's wrong with my bros (I have to say bros since well, you-know there's the gender thing there) in the Henan Province? If you're plying your wares in the oldest profession, and are picked up for prostitution, the police shackle and parade you like spoils of war, the prisoners (women), barefoot through the crowded streets circa Rome BC. Cheerfully referred to as 'shame parades' there has been so much outrage and public outcry, that the Ministry of Public Security has demanded a stop to the public humiliation. As if...

Prop 8. Struck down last week in Cali. But most likely moving to another venue, the Supreme Court. Exhausting. But full of vinegar and piss. Limp wristed gays. Bull dykes. Uh-huh. A victory. So, bring it. What else you got?

'Frrrreeedom. Just another word?...'

I'm not a parent. But I have read with considerable interest articles in the NY Times and most recently in the SF Chronicle addressing the issue of the independence of children; that is, the precise moment parents choose to let their kids experience the world without them. More specifically this might mean a child walking alone to the store or school, with perhaps peers, but without the parental unit. Agreed, it is a different world today, but I was fortunate to spend my youth in 2 cities: Honolulu and San Francisco. At age 7 I walked through a park behind my house with my cousin and caught the bus to go to a school about a mile away. I played independently in the park after school and walked to the store down the street and around the corner for a pre-dinner sugar fix. Once when I was 12 in SF, I missed the bus which would take me to Kaiser for allergy shots, and walked approximately 15 blocks through some edgy areas. I don't recall being scared, only worried about missing the shots. I'm not sure what constitutes the good ol' days and if striking out early suggests proprietary exploration, or if any of those experiences were meaningful. I can however, tell you that most of them have been damn good memories, while some of them have ended up as bs fodder on a therapist's floor. A life altering decision to go to a wilderness survival camp in Colorado dramatically changed my friend Jane's daughter's outlook on life. Ramona, 15, after spending a day (it might have been 2) and a night alone in the Colorado wild knew that she could stare down anxiety and come up with some sort of coherent response which would challenge conflicting situations and safeguard her well-being. So, yes, I do agree that a taste of freedom here and a taste of freedom there is a confidence booster for kids. Shackles have to come off sometime, right? What they do without the ball and chain is their business. Really. As Bobby Dylan once said: 'they're busy being born.' Ball busting parent? Or control freak? It's always comes down to choices. And thankfully, as an Aunt, a role I truly relish, I don't have to make them.

Breathless

'Breathless' is 50 years old. It is the Kong of the French new wave era. Directed by Jean Luc Godard, 'Breathless' was the alternative in-your-face masterpiece that turned classic French cinema on it's ear. No longer willing to pander to audiences with narratives and precision editing, the new wave era stamped each film with the director's style. Across the Atlantic, Hawks, Ford and Nicholas Ray were admired for their cinematic style. Shot on shoe string budgets, and on location, the young French directors used friends as extras, and improvised dialogue and shots on the fly. 'Breathless' was filmed in Paris and starred a handsome, pouty, lip ( Jagger lips before Jagger) smoking Belmondo, and a Hollywood actress who had previously been thrashed by critics for her film performances in America, Jean Seberg. Seberg was sensational in 'Breathless.' Breaking into French with an American accent, Seberg's, Patricia, was complex. Raoul Coutard, director of photography, captured every Seberg nuance as Godard extracted and Seberg delivered the performance of her life. The characters of Belmondo and Seberg were new wave protagonists...young and rebellious, living outside the boundaries of society. Their story was vibrant; romance that danced along the cliff's edge; jazz notes which filled the screen; long tracking shots and jump cuts filled with natural light. The Euros loved it. Even today, Belmondo's death scene remains a film studies classic. Altman, Scorsese, Coppola and the great Chinese director, Wong Kar Wai have said they were influenced by the French new wave. In his first film, 'Reservoir Dogs' QT dedicated it to Godard. Jean Seberg making questionable choices in her acting career, and constantly involved in abusive serial relationships, died in 1979 at the age of 41 in the back seat of a car in the 16th arrondissement in Paris of alcohol and drugs. She will however, always be the woman that Raoul Coutard's camera loved. 1960. Breathless and immortal, always forever young.

Scatter Shots

1. The French. Most of the time I love all things French. I'm not just talking gastronomy, the arts, or haute couture (I leave that to the other side of my family) but also the alluring language. There isn't anything finer than an afternoon or evening being spell bound by a French film. Well, ok, there's the wine too, but you get the drift. It's a country that at times has been light years ahead of the rest of the continent. Last week, the French lower Parliament voted 335-1 to ban Muslim women from covering their face in public. Whoa, mama. In September, the new law goes to the French senate for final approval. The rotten smell of assimilation pervades Paris. So you get the heebie jeebies from bourqas? So what. On the tolerance scale, the French government laid a goose egg. Black eye intact, the proposed fine that will be levied on any woman caught wearing a bourqa in public ( I confess I would love to free my sisters so they can feel the wind in their hair and the sun on their faces) is $198.00. A provision to this law is that if you are found guilty of forcing a woman to wear a bourqa in public, you, sir, will be fined $19,000. and quite posssibly sentenced to eating French baguettes in the slammer for a year. Oh, I get it now. The French are 'saving' Muslim women from continued enslavement in France. Somehow, the words 'vive la France,' catches in my throat.

2. Because this is an equal opportunity blog: Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani vs the Law. And if you know the song, you know who usually wins. In Iran, Sakineh was accused of committing adultery and soon after being flogged 99 times confessed to her crime. Really? After 99 lashes, she confessed? Huh. No eyewitnesses, the courts need at least 3-4 men or 2 women (because 2 women=1 man) to confirm the allegations but hey no problemo...with a wink of the eye, the Tehran court made up of 5 men sentenced Sakineh to death by stoning. Then something extraordinary happened. Her son came forward and pleaded for her life and her innocence. With the news outlets alerted, Amnesty got involved. Since the beginning of the year, there have been 126 executions in Iran. Tehran back-pedaling from the stoning sentence, is now considering a gentler, kinder form of death: hanging. A sordid side-bar...men who want to get out of marriage often accuse their wives of adultery. Merde. Wake me in a century.

3. And on the 8th day, Tilda made the film, 'I am love.'

4. The 'Kids are all Right.' Indeed they are. Hello Ramona.

5. The Swedes have set film box office records in Europe with the Larsson trilogy beginning with: 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo etc.' Hollywood perceiving that Americans are too impatient (oh please) or too lazy to read subtitles will grind out their version for a 2012 release. Do yourself a favor. There is only one Noomi Rapace. Noomi Rapace=Lisbeth Salander. The Swedes got it right.

'You say you want a revolution...'

Last week I participated in a Bay Area/West coast/East coast phenomenon. Chefs from culinary paradiso's, Chez Panisse, and Eccolo among others have banded together between gigs to being organic sustainable foods to their followers on 'off' days. Not really having a formal plan, the general idea is to inform patrons through email when presentations of restaurant style food offerings would be available for consumer take home. It's dinner without the overhead. A good idea. Sausages, chicken, cakes, pasta, organic pork, pizzas, jams, bread and honey were some of the items listed on the pre-order. Enthusiasm was quickly deflated by high prices. Ok. I admit I'm a bit of a food snob. If I eat out, I want to dine on an entree that I might not have the time to make, or that I can't replicate in my own kitchen, or if I happen to get lucky, hook an invite from my pal, Dave, a former chef. Even though, I've eaten at some of the finest restaurants in San Francisco, and in the East Bay I also have a soft spot for diners with wraparound counters because they can usually bring it. However, there's something going on with the slow food, organic movement which just doesn't feel quite right and needs tweaking. Irony abounded at last week's food pick-up. A converted structure which houses catering on weekdays stood on the corner of a marginal, depressed neighborhood. Uh,I get what's happening here. And I applaud the purveyors of organics and I applaud their supporters. But, until the Whole Foods and the sustainables figure out how to educate (you can write all the books you want but...) and reach out to the population in this country who have neither the monetary resources or who can't differentiate broccoli from a spring onion then there will continue to be perpetuation of those who have and those who don't. So, props to Alice Waters (who has garnered some crappy pub lately) for the school program; and Michelle Obama, who dug in and planted the White House vegetable garden. Also a tip of the jockey cap to hard working, enterprises like Donna's Tamales, and the Berkeley Cheese Board and Collective who have been providing affordable cheeses and breads to patrons for over 20 years, and a slamma jamma to Amy's Foods who took on gluten free. And finally to the Berkeley Bowl, and Monterey Market, the people's produce haven, a double knuckle tap for affordable quantity and quality. Power to the people.

Indie Day Lobs

1. 1976. The Haight had run aground, listing on a pile of rocks waiting for the right set of waves to take it under. Quit the teaching job in the outer Mission, broke up with the first girlfriend, piled my VW bug with belongings and sauntered across the less glamorous bridge to Oakland, the city Gertrude Stein savaged, penning, 'that there's no there there.' Working first at a women's press collective and then a printing shop in West Oakland, where the first sounds I heard was a razor blade in the middle of the day chopping up the contents of a 1/4 packet of coke on a light table, I eked out an existence with misfits just like me. My sister having packed her bags too was in LA working the record industry. Good music always rolled through the print shop; KSAN, the old underground FM flagship station of choice rolled out tasty moments such as, the Blue Plate lunch special. My sister then hooked up with Arista records sent me a couple of large posters (the Mapplethrope album jacket) and tickets to see a NY artist, whom Clive Davis had just signed, perform her first album in SF. Feb. 1976, the Boarding House which was located on Bush St was SRO. Patti Smith walked out on stage. I think she was barefoot. Her voice was bigger than she was. High fuckin' fidelity. It was the most electrifying performance I have ever seen. Yesterday, I finished 'Just Kids.' In the book, Patti Smith writes about being a part of certain events not knowing that they would become 'moments' in time. I knew as people stood on tables roaring for encores, and the lights dimmed again, that I had seen a concert which would become seminal, a benchmark... and for some reason that night, I was cognizant enough to recognize it as a 'moment' in my life; my very own personal Idaho, a lovely silver thread that would always connect me to my past.

2. Angie's Shiloh. Everyone. Give it a rest. So, Shiloh wants to dress like a boy and be a boy. Who cares? She's four. Thank the goddess Angie indulges her. I had the same desires too when I was her age. It could all blow over soon. Or not. Whateva...

3. 750 million. Elin Woods magic number.

4. 140.6 million gallons of oil. 2 1/2 months. The BP tar pit continues.

5. 'I am Love.' Tilda. Tilda. Tilda.

The Wood Shed and the General

General Stanley McChrystal. Suicide mission? Or balls of steel? Now has them pinned to the wall by a pissed off El Presidente. I like the reaction from the White House. Swift and with an injection of testosterone, the muscle flexing left no doubt who was in charge. I have to admit, though, in a sick perverse way, the General let it fly and said things that well, I have dreamed of (many, many times): unleashing, a virtual firestorm, on weak groundless leaders. Jaw dropping, yes. Brutally skewing in the kind of grunt level sarcasm learned from years of trench toiling under pie-in-the-sky civilian administrators who have unrealistic expectations and water cooler diplomacy. You betcha. How did we in the real world survive? By dodging orders and doing it our way. No big surprise. Unless you're in the military and 'only following orders,' or you are the four star general who publicly goes ape in Rolling Stone (I find that a misnomer) for the whole world to read. I get that the General is frustrated. Being on a leash is tough. It's a piss-pot of a war, and we should be outta there. Guys are dying and Washington wants restraint. Let the Afghans go back to their poppy fields. The Iraqs back to whatever. And bring the boys home. Interestingly, Stan and his buddies like Hillary (who knew?), leaving her unscathed in the article, because she supports his efforts on the front lines. On a jet bound for Washington, and 1. soon to be taken to the wood shed by our elected leader, or 2. dropping on his sword while the whole world watches, at this time next week the General could be pushing papers in the USA or sitting on his front porch staring off into the distance watching the dandelions grow.

Real Scatter Shots

1. So BP is getting slammed with 20 billion. Half a continent away, and 35 years later, the Agent orange fallout from the Vietnam war continues to leave a painful legacy. A panel of policymakers, Vietnamese and US, have urgently recommended that Washington pay 300 million (a mere drop in the proverbial slush fund) to clean up the chemical damage from the 20 million gallons of Agent orange/dioxin dumped on South Vietnam from the air between '62 and '71. Agent orange was used to defoliate the forest (better to detect guerrilla fighters) and to destroy crops. Dioxin not only seeped into the soil but defoliated 5 million acres of forest. More insidious however, Agent orange is under the microscope as being responsible for hideous birth defects and continual health problems in the population surrounding contaminated areas. Washington has been reluctant to address the issue claiming it needs more scientific proof.

2. Campbell's soup is recalling 15 million pounds of the popular Spaghetti Os with meatballs, Spaghetti Os A to Z with meatballs, and Spaghetti Os fun shapes with meatballs (cars). Car meatballs? This I want to see. Evidently a cooker in Paris, Texas malfunctioned, under cooking the meat in the balls. Linked to a batch bar coded circa 2008, most of which has unfortunately already been consumed, 35,000 cases are still roaming USA market aisles. At this point, Campbell execs just need to drop on their swords and hope that the 35,000 cases come home to Texas.

3. Utah. Mormie nation. Ronnie Lee Gardner learned early Friday morning that they still shoot murderers in 'BYoungland.' Death by firing squad. WTF? Is this the 1800's? Target pinned to the chest, 5 guys pulled the trigger. Four bullets, one blank.

4. Sarah never smoked, but she impaled herself once again by declaring that firing up a joint in one's residence is uh, no one's business, compared to society's other problems. Up in Humboldt,CA. there's laughter in the hills...

5. World Cup. Raised on NFL pablum, soccer is a bit tough to digest. However, where there is sport, there is action: a stab in the dark...predicted winner, Argentina or the Netherlands.

'Lazing on a sunny afternoon...'

The harpies always started circling at the end of May. It was the same refrain every summer: get a job, or enlist in 6 weeks of summer school. The one significant upside to my adolescent allergies was that it saved my bacon from toiling in the Dole pineapple cannery; once an employment beacon, every kid searching for a summer job could count on being hired by the cannery. Today, the rubber gloved assembly line and the rolling pineapples are a relic of the past. Dole has moved on to cheaper labor in the Philippines and Thailand, but keeps a working plantation on the North Shore of Oahu primarily for tourism purposes. Looking back on all of those high school summers, the math classes were insignificant. Typing 101 was 'user friendly.' Etiquette classes. WTF? And so it went. Kept by daylight. Howling at night. The classic summer cocktail for juvenile shenanigans. Youth has given way to wisdom and treachery. The boys of summer are on the diamond. The Indy 500 has come and gone. World Cup is about to descend. The tomatoes are flowering. The beans are massing. The faaavas have been eaten with Chianti. And the summer reading list has fruited:

1. Any volume of the cult phenomenon Steig Larsson trilogy. The last volume 'Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest' has just been released in hard cover. Soft cover order from the UK for about the same price. The writing might not be exceptional. However, this trilogy is the ultimate summer read.

2. Abraham Verghese's, 'Cutting for Stone.' A great work of fiction by the senior associate chair for theory and practice of medicine at the Stanford school of Medicine.

3. 'Wolf Hall' by Hilary Mantel. What's not to like? It's the two Tom's...Cromwell vs More; Henry vs the Pope. The Boleyn's vs everyone. And the Seymour's in waiting at Wolf Hall.

4. Any work of fiction by Jennifer Egan. A brilliant short story writer...a favorite of the NY Yorker. As good as or maybe better than Ann Beattie.

5. If you can find it...used: 'Foxfire' by Joyce Carol Oates. Written in the style of an adolescent. A bit dated, about a girl gang (!), really not that kind of gang, but interesting; hey, when was the last time anyone read a book about hard scrabble adolescent girls? Here's some trivia...the book was made into a movie and became the first 'real' film that starred Angie Jolie as the character 'Legs' Sadovsky. The movie was filmed in Portland which gave it a poignant quality. Good coming of age fare.

6. 'The Nasty Bits,' a salty, entertaining read by jaded rogue chef, Anthony Bourdain. We love his candor and his outrageous flair.

7. 'War' by Sebastian Junger.

Scatter shots

1. Louisiana just can't catch a break. New Orleans fresh off a super bowl win, and the city in the middle of a revitalization push, got jobbed again. 5,000 feet down, and blowing oil, BP's titanic blunder has sunk the gulf coast shrimp, and oyster industry. Even though, oysters and shrimps have not yet shown any residual effects, who is going to harvest the marine beds when all the boats in the gulf are being used for the clean-up of the disaster, and who exactly in omnivore nation is going to be ordering Gulf coast anything after this debacle? Floridians are growing nervous as blobs of oil begin to wash up on their shoreline. The latest poll shows that 68% of the public are pointing the finger at BP and the Obama administration. The spewing oil poisoning the ecosystem should be a a fucking wake up for proponents of off shore oil drilling. Where are the federal regulations? This is a man-made catastrophe and stands alone in it's disturbing uncontainment.

2. Bud Selig. He ruled today that umpire, Jim Joyce's 'safe' call would remain on record in Armando Galarraga's quest for baseball's 21st perfect game. This was a golden opportunity for Selig to step up to the plate and set the record straight. But, Selig could not pull the trigger and reverse the call. Baseball purists like to think that their game is the perfect sport. And geometrically it is. There is beauty in the dimensions; 90 feet between bases, and 60 feet from mound to home plate. It's a sport controlled by a very subjective high or low strike zone. In Wednesday's game, perfection was denied by human error and ultimately the next day by a poor judgment call.

3. Andre Voznesensky. A popular poet and a sometime pain in the ass to the Soviet Union circa 1960-70's, post Stalin era died this past week. He was 77. Voznesensky and Yevgeny Yevtushenko were 2 of the most charismatic Russians poets of their day; both could fill stadiums when they read. In 1972, Voznesensky toured the USA and gave a reading sponsored by Ferlinghetti's, City Lights, at the Project Artuad in San Francisco. My sister and I on a run of City Lights readings (the photo was taken by Beth Bagby who was at the reading and worked as a photojournalist for the City Lights poetry series) which included Ginsburg, McClure, and others, sat slack jawed as Voznesensky regaled the jammed Artaud in blustering Slavic lyrics. There wasn't a translator. We were mesmerized by his recitations.

4. Tipper and Al. Splitting up? Really? Notification officially sent out as an email. Really, Al? An email?

Punchbowl crater

In high school, the loose kids always joked about making that mid-night caravan up Tantalus drive to do some 'scuba or submarine diving.' Exploring it by day, because I was not yet a fallen Catholic girl, I discovered some amazing look-outs on Tantalus...one of the more spectacular views being Punchbowl crater, the national cemetery of the Pacific dedicated to the soldiers who had fallen in the Pacific campaign. I thought of Punchbowl while watching the HBO series, The Pacific. Raised by parents who heard the bombs exploding at Pearl Harbor, and growing up an islander with very little knowledge of the war in the Pacific theater except for Iwo Jima and Guadalcanal (and really what exactly did I know besides the flag raising), my interest was piqued by the production. Unlike the ground war fought in Europe, with recognizable land marks, and European allies, the campaign in the Pacific fell primarily to the Navy and the US Marines. The series based on 2 Marine memoirs, 'With the old breed at Peleliu and Okinawa' by Eugene Sledge and 'Helmet for my Pillow,' by Robert Leckie follows the 5th Marine regiment, 1st Marine division. Battles on Peleliu, and Cape Gloucester, Okinawa, and Guadalcanal, most of them tiny atolls, fingerlings of death, rift with unbearable heat, unrelenting tropical rain, mud, blood suckers, poisoned water ponds, landscape so terrifyingly unfamiliar, barren, and twisted that it consumed the bravest of men, began in the summer of 1944 against an empire who had dug in and was willing to die in unconventional military fashion. Watching those episodes, I remembered one of my best friend's brother. Don enlisted in the Marines during Vietnam because he wanted to prove to his father that he was tough enough to make it in the corp. He made it, and died on a jungle reconnaissance mission in 1966. Yeah, war is always hell. But, my island or chain of islands survived not because the guys were 'somewhere over there,' but because they were in flotillas bobbing on Pacific waters waiting to disembark, or slogging through some godforsaken atoll up to their Marine asses in mud and guts. The first internment of the remains of thousands of soldiers who had died in the Pacific theater was made at Punchbowl on Jan. 4, 1949. Punchbowl is located in the 'Puowaina' Crater; in Old Hawaii it was known as the 'hill of sacrifice.'

'Live together, die alone'

The initial draw of 'Lost' for me was that it was 98% filmed on location in Hawaii. With the exception of 4 scenes the entire 6 year series was shot primarily on the North Shore of Oahu and in different locales of Honolulu. Thailand, Beirut, Australia, LA, hey, brother, they were all cleverly disguised island locations. 'Lost' did not have the brilliance of a cable production; the series fell below the prominence of 'The Wire,' Six Feet Under,' 'Deadwood,' and even 'BSG,' into a niche however, that was elevated, void of the medical, the jurisprudence, or the CSI populated worlds; 'Lost' was thinking man/woman's 'Lord of the Flies,' vs smoke monster vs ram dass. There was the light and there was the dark. The international cast was immense; each one of them with a compelling story intertwining past, present, future, and even an ambitious visionary 'sideways.' 'Lost' was that piece of mythical tapestry in the Odyssey. The weekly unravelling challenged sensibility. The series was not an easy mid-season, or mid-year pickup. If you inadvertently turned on, tuned in, you probably had to drop out. Story lines arced and collided. This may have been Jack's story. But it was every one's journey. The island's venue served as the backdrop for subcultures, crumbling civilities, and emotional discovery. In the end, the questions far outnumbered the answers. The writers, Lindelof and Cuse respected the characters, and presented closure for many of them in a zig-zag, back and forth story line. The last offering may have been purgatory or death, but in this final emotional film vignette, along with Jack we discover that memories facilitate letting go; that the most important time of his life was spent with this unlikely collection of people: his band, their tribe, a posse. In a quasi philosophical (and why not, the series had characters named Hume, Locke, and Rousseau) context, one accepts death in a place created with loved ones, and then moves onto the next resolution. White light filling the screen. Jack's eye closes. Nice. Perhaps, more philosophical than religious. The opening and closing shot of the final episode, the white sculpted Christ figure, arms akimbo...the church parking lot: my old high school. Past karma. I had the shives, or what kamaiana's call 'chicken skin' running down my arms.

Scatter shots

Wow, what a wealth, a veritable treasure trove, of news this morning. I gulped my tea and wolfed down 2 donuts from my secret supplier as I scanned the lap. Have I mentioned these buttermilk nuggets are the best deep fried diabetic (stole the word from Justified) carbs in Oakland?

Floyd Landis. In 2006 when Landis was accused of testosterone doping in the Tour de France, I asked a couple of my world class cyclist pals if they thought he was clean. They both laughed at my naivety. They said 98% of the tour was dirty. The first man to be stripped of the Tour de France title, Landis spent two million dollars defending himself against the accusations. Today, the disgraced Landis purged himself publicly in a Wall St Journal article and admitted to doping since 2002 when he was a member of the US Postal service team. He also pointed the finger at Lance Armstrong (who has always been under heavy doping suspicion), and other members of the team. Testosterone, human growth hormone, and blood transfusions were on the list of performance enhancing drugs of choice. A long time ago, I remember hearing that Armstrong had a residence in Spain. A friend pointed out that Spain is the chemistry mecca, the mother lode of illegal sports substances. Uh-huh.

Mothers. In long black robes, heads covered, the mothers of imprisoned Sarah Shourd, Shane Bauer, and Josh Fattal after petitioning Tehran for months were granted visitation rights as an Islamic humanitarian gesture. Sarah Shourd was quoted as saying conditions were decent but that she was isolated and lonely. Unofficially charged with espionage, the three young Americans, while hiking wandered into Iranian territory and have been held as political pawns since last July. Sarah Shourd worked as a student in the Main Library of UCB. The whole world is watching, Sarah, especially the blue and gold.

Meg Whitman. 64 million pumped into the campaign trail. I watched the latest 30 second ad, referred to as the 'Plan,' (not to be confused with the brilliant BSG plan) at least 10 times. Using a fade to black and white, Meg swore to secure the border, and continue the war on immigration. She invoked the use of the National Guard, and a litany of no driver's license, no amnesty, and no sanctuary cities. War? Really. Not finished, Meg attacked the unions and state pensions. Whoa. Can and deliver those 30 seconds to SNL. Whitman, stripped of 'sista' and void of hood, joins Carly Fiorina, and Condi Rice in the Gender Pantheon Hall of Shame.

We like to watch

24 is about to wrap. The legend of 24, as anyone who has been chasing the dragon since season 1 knows, is it's ability to go retro 50's on us. Remember how you felt during those Saturday matinees when Buck Rodgers was about to 'eat it' on some wretched creature infested planet and you were sitting there in a pile of candy wrappers, a vast sea of popcorn, Popsicle sticks strewn across the floor, your tiny mind running around in hysterical circles, when those 3 slimy words crawled across the screen: 'to be continued.' Bastards! Someone on the 24 production team was watching. Have the plots on 24 been good? No. Have they been credible? No. Do they resonate with familiarity? Uh, barely. The leading man, Jack Bauer is as friendly as a door knob. I know 7 year old children who are smarter than Kim Bauer, Jack's daughter. Over the past 8 seasons all of Jack's girlfriends were card carrying members of anorexia anon. We did have our 1st Black president on 24. Futuristic reality check. We learned all about torture. Even before we learned the term, 'water boarding.' Another check mark for reality. We had Middle Eastern, Asian, African, and Russian bad guys. 24 knew how to spread the wealth and share the joy. And fantasy. For the last two seasons there has been a woman President. Certain things I learned from the show: I learned how to use the mute button on my remote as Jack was pile driving some poor schmuck, or getting his own high tech battery encrusted nipple piercing. I learned what everyone else learned by watching, that we were all prime voyeurism candidates (hey, it was free...we didn't have to pay) and that we had to look. 24 was loser boy friend or loser girl friend you couldn't turn away from. Call it addiction. Immaturity. Whatever. We liked Jack kicking ass, having his ass kicked, and then Jack resurrecting and kicking more ass. We were enablers chained to the shark pool. Season after season we couldn't wait to jump the shark again with Jack. So long Chloe, the greatest side-kick and shtick woman since...sliced bread. God knows the show needed your scowling face (Jack never emoted) and comedic relief. Does Jack die in the last episode, or does he go riding off (Jack, come back, Jack) into the Malibu sunset on a pair of water skis looking for the next great white? Rest assured. In the end whatever it is that befalls Jack on that final Monday night, the screen will not fade to HBO black.