Snow Flurries

1. I was home sick with some sort of flu like illness. Spring 1957? My parents had bought 2nd hand, an Admiral telly which we were only allowed to watch on the weekends after we had finished our home work. Of course if they went out, rules were meant to be broken...like turning on the tube, or letting the dog into the house to roam from room to room. Home alone and feeling crappy, I turned the telly on chugging through the 7 channel offerings and stumbling upon the 1944 movie,'Meet Me in St. Louis,' starring the great Judy Garland. Was this my first musical? No. But there was something magical about Garland's voice as she carried the film's story line from scene to scene. And then a strange unfamiliar thing happened to me. It was in the middle of, 'Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas', and it came from a place deep within me evoking feelings I'd never associated with movies or music or any sort of audio visual stimulation (yeah in the 60's we got a lot of help from our friends) and I was so overwhelmed by the emotional ping ponging of the lyrics and the music tugging at my heart (??), that I started to cry. It was a profound childhood moment. My first. Something other than disappointment, hurt or anger had moved me to tears. And it was stunning. Thank you Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane.

2. SNL. Jimmy Fallon hosting, scored on 2 skits...'Michael Buble Duets,' and the 'Tebow/Jesus'sketch. Instant classics.

3. Guns and riots over the release of the new retro Air Jordans yesterday. Come on, man. WTF?

4. Rooney Mara and Fincher. Fincher got a great performance from Mara in the American
version of 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.'It is darker, and edgier.Great sound track by NIN Trent Reznor.

5. According to noradsanta.org, next stop is Mount Everest, Nepal. Lumps of coal or not, warmest wishes and happy holidays to all.

Tebowed and other musings...

1. If you have been circling the earth in a space capsule or been shackled to the assembly line in the North Pole or just 'tuned out' and channel surf through the spectacle that is the NFL on Sunday, then you are missing one of the greatest stories
of the 2011 season. Tim Tebow. If the pointy ball is not your cup of tea, skip down to the second paragraph and have another cookie. The Tebow phenomenon, six straight wins, orchestrated as come back victories, most of them in the 4th quarter,is a combo of good luck and bad luck. A bad pass, a fumble, a missed field goal...could have derailed the train, but when you're streaking like Tebow is streaking, the bad breaks somehow deposit them at your cleats, and hot damn, you rally,strike the pose and rock the mother fracking free world. Tim Tebow in my league is not PC; the dude's notoriously pro life. Come on, man. But, for all the religion and issues that's he packing, I give him a nod for his exuberance and ferocity. He might not be able to pass like Aaron Rodgers, but he's uh, well a load to bring down and he can lead. This Sunday against the glam QB of the Eastern seaboard, Tom Brady, Tim T. might find himself 'in an unfamiliar position: 'Bradied.'

2. Waiting for Fincher's vision of 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.'
Have no doubt that it will be edgier, darker, and leave nothing to the imagination. Often times, double dipping the imagination is a spoiler. But, in a rare and impressive scene, the spectacular ending of Lars Van Trier's, 'Melancholia' iced the film...and sent it over the top. Sitting there just before the climatic ending, I thought naaaah not going to happen. Frack! So wrong.

3. Iraq. 8 years. Welcome home to the land of the 99%.

Sunday Slices

1. The Descendants. I learned a long time ago when a book is adapted to the screen, shit can happen. But I also came to understand that film translations are another person's canvas. I give you my recipe. You bake the cake. Where I used chocolate; you adopt vanilla. And so it goes. I went to Alexander Payne's film loaded for bear. On edge, I waited for some annoying haole slip. A faux reference; a cultural misstep; an egregious representation...white actors for Asians. Elvis' Hanauma Bay. Yup, I was laying in the weeds shamelessly. And well, when you're not mining for diamonds, but thinking of coal sometimes the cosmic joke is on you. The Descendants in a rather astonishing cultural homage moves seamlessly through the Hawaiian archipelago chain like the proverbial hot knife through butter. It doesn't miss a beat. Kamaaina's distilled through a malahini's lens accompanied by an outrageous soundtrack...nicely done, Mr. Payne. Shaka, bro.

2. Growing up, my canine hero was Rin Tin Tin. I preferred the handsome black and tan markings to the pointy nosed collie on the other telly channel. Milking the popularity of Rinty, H'wood churned out and filled the Saturday matinee screens: Rinty come home. Rinty in the wild. And Rinty at war. I'll never forget the first time that I saw a shell shocked dog in a war movie. The sweet lovable canine hero developed Cujo like instincts. Now, 50 years later, there are reports of dogs serving in Afghanistan and Iraq suffering from PTSD. Vets are treating dogs who have developed troubling changes in personality after increasing exposure to explosions and gunfire; some of the canines become hyper, and aggressive, while others become shy and timid. 'Man's' best friend...

3. More canine. Reports out of Salt Lake, Utah of a duck hunter shot in the pelvic region when his dog stepped on his 12 gauge shotgun laid across the bow of his boat.
27 pellets of bird shot were discharged. Think his safety was on? I'm just saying...

Butterball Tales

Rain on the horizon. Lots of wind leaking into the apt. Cold. Trying to make it into
December without lighting the furnace. But, I'm not holding myself to that pledge; flagellation not part of my religion. Yeah, 'that's me in the corner..' For the first time in 15 years, or is it 20, I am not making the annual sojourn up into the Sierra with my BFF, Jane and her family. The ecstatic birth of Jane's grandson, Luca, so close to thanksgiving precipitated an audible; everyone stays in the Bay Area. While walking in Mt. View the other day, I was tossing through my memories, and recalled that my T'day initiation as an adult was spent in San Francisco with the first girlfriend and the plastic wrapped butterball. We followed the printed directions. No fear. They had a hot line for rookies like us. I would have remembered burning the turkey. Or would I? I know that we had canned jellied cranberries. To this day, I still love the crimson ridged mass (some of us have our clandestine pleasures)... The 2nd significant T'day was spent with my sister at a small apartment we were sharing. We bought a butterball, was there anything else back then, and invited some friends over. I made a couple of pies. We named the turkey after a relative, and while the house filled up with delectable scents, spices, pan drippings, roasting bird, all the familiar chords, evoking past sentiments, we dropped Joni Mitchell's 'Blue'onto the turntable, fired up whatever was available and tucked in for the evening. Tomorrow, decades later, I'll be sitting down at a Thanksgiving table, for only the 2nd or 3rd time as an adult, with my sister; some things have changed. She's a vegetarian. Organic rules the roost. Ah, but, still some things remain the same. Love for the succulent dark. A private moment the following day with jellied cranberry mashed between 2 slices of bread and a mountain of left-overs. Stay warm. Good thoughts to you and yours.

'All the leaves are brown, and the sky is gray....'

1. Jeeeeezuz. Last night I got Tebowed; I took the J-e-t-s to go gang green all over Denver. In the last 5 minutes, of one of the sorriest played NFL games, Tebow's passes were pitiful, and Sanchez, the J-e-t-s QB, regressing dramatically, (what do you expect he went to USC) the Denver Tebows drove 95 yards to win the game. Again. How is that possible? The legend continues.

2. The nation wide 'Occupy' movement finally got those apathetic Cal students up off their collective duffs and into Sproul. The UCPD slyly shadowing the inept political response to the 'Occupy Oakland' activists unleashed batons on students in a disturbing Bull Connorish assault. WTF? The image of the University took a nose dive, and only enraged and galvanized principles. This is....Berkeley. They do revolutions.

3. Pumpkins. Lucky devils. I baked 3 sugar pie candidates to use in breads and uh, well, pies. The affable orange squash is one of the great seasonal pleasures; in my own private idaho: Half Moon Bay, the land o'pumpkins, never gets old or storied. The magical fields run down to the ocean in slick digital orange profusions.

4. On the 30th Anniversary of Natalie Wood's death, she was the straw that stirred James Dean's drink in 'Rebel without a Cause,' the LAPD have re-opened the circumstances surrounding her death. I always thought there was something shady about her accidental drowning.

5. The 114th Big Game. Cal vs Stanford down on the Farm. Let this be swift and painless. Go Bears.

Say it ain't so...

Joe. There isn't enough institutional media spin in the known galactic world to hose, stem, or cap the stench of the colossal scandal that has settled over head football coach Joe Paterno, the former AD, and the former Vice President of Penn St. News sources this morning are now reporting that Jerry Sandusky the former Defensive coordinator of the football team, at one time considered the heir apparent to Paterno's head coaching position, who has been charged by the state Grand Jury with deviate sexual intercourse, corruption of minors, endangering the welfare of a child, and indecent assault could face further accusations; the number of known victims, currently 8, could climb as high as 20. The 2002 alleged assault of a 10 year old boy by Sandusky (already retired but who had access to the Penn St facilities) in the shower at the team's complex and the failure of then AD Tim Curley and Vice President Gary Schultz to report the incident to authorities as required by state law, reeks of the same disturbing amoral behavior repeatedly practiced by the Catholic church when confronted by priest pedophile accusations. There is nothing complex about these institutional cover-ups. It is egregious perpetuation: institution and reputation above all else; a blind eye turned, historically, to heinous acts against women and children. The adults who knowingly participated in the Penn St cover-up...talk is cheap. Remorse, just another word. And forgiveness? Not a fracking chance.

Russian Roulette...the Faultline

Last night as a joke, I emailed a friend, 'see you in 2012...Mayan.' My bad. The goddess doesn't like it when you screw around with ancient mythology. In retro, I should 'can' all doomsday references and take care of my own backyard S**t, the Hayward fault. The Hayward fault is the 'Bay Bridge' of fault lines; 2nd banana to the more powerful, publicity crazed San Andreas fault which shoots off a headline every decade or so. Everyone outside of Cali recognizes the glamorous San Andreas. The Hayward fault garners zero facial recognition. Nada. Except to the populations of Hayward, Oakland, and Berkeley, who reside smugly outside the San Fran glitz, basking in the shadow of the greatest University in the land (and I don't mean the one in Palo Alto), and harboring denial like it was a bogey man hiding under the bed until the Hayward goes off and rears. June 10, 1836, magnitude 6.7; the quake is felt as far away as Monterrey. Oct. 21, 1868, magnitude 7.0; this quake ripped fissures open and some city streets sank. For the past several weeks, the Hayward fault has been alleviating pressure, which, ok, is a good thing; several of the quakes have been centered in Berkeley close to the UC campus, and under the hills. When the epicenter is sitting beneath you, 3.9 feels damn big. And early this morning, 3.6, in the dark, felt like Godzilla was shaking the apt building. No joke. Why? Why do I continue to perpetuate my future demise by an act of nature which every single seismologist predicts is coming? The Hayward fault though, ripe for a monster shake, is not the stuff my nightmares are made of. In my dreams, it's always the same. On a beach or along the seashore. The water recedes and I'm running towards the sea wall. Sometimes I make it. And sometimes I don't. Get those earthquake kits up to date.