Once in a Blue Moon..

It happens every 19 years. A blue moon sighting on New Year's eve; that's a long time to go between indigo drinks. If you're out celebrating or in your jammies on the couch waiting for the Times Square ball to drop, imagine where you might be standing or reclining for the next rare occurrence. Dispensing with official lists...noteworthy reads for the year were 'City of Thieves' (a book with legs..the undisputed king of the hill) by David Benioff; 'Outliers' by Malcolm Gladwell; 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' by Stieg Larsson; and 'Unaccustomed Earth' by Jumpha Lahiri. Best musical moment: Bono and the Mick torching the stage in a duet of U2's 'Stuck in a moment You can't get out of.' Yow. Same set featured the Edge warbling a couple of up scale notes. And Fergie jamming with Mick in a smoking rendition of 'Gimme Shelter' . Double yow. The christening of this past decade as the 'oughts'(my unique spelling)...who comes up with this dribble? I reacted like Homer Simpson. OMG. I'd rather have my face idling in a large plate of donuts. Lots of glaze. Substance for awhile. And then the sugar rush.. but let's think this through for a sec..ok, maybe we 'ought' to have recalled Bush. We uh, 'ought' not to have whacked Iraq. Financial collapse 'ought' not to have happened; We 'ought' to pay more attention to global warming. Katrina survivors deserved more than 'ought.' And so it went ought and ought. As I reach for my donut, fresh and warm, from the best kept secret in Temescal, that old 'Who' refrain has re-surfaced in my head...'meet the new boss'...I hope it's not true, but as we all drop kick this last decade over the blue moon tomorrow night, indulge yourself for one more day before you invoke an 'ought.'

In our cups or not...

Santa's now over South Africa. This is uh, an eggnog fact. At this rate if you don't have a lump of coal in your stocking, you can expect, the Santas (flying on boxes of nodoz) of the world to deliver to 887 children every couple of seconds just to make your rooftop by daybreak. While the presto yule log glows in the fireplace here is my list of the best movies of 2009. On top of the heap stands Kathryn Bigelow for bringing it in 'The Hurt Locker.' In no particular order after that is:
'An Education' because the Brits know complicated drama; 'Inglorious Bastards,'QT's own particular vision of a vengeful moment in WWII; 'Ponyo,' from the national treasure, Hayao Miyazaki; 'Public Enemy' by the neon one, Michael Mann, with Johnny Depp in a stylized gansta movie; 'Up in the Air' George Clooney's vehicle. Really? Vera Farmiga was Clooney's equal and brought it too; 'Broken Embraces,' film noir Spanish style by Pedro Almodovar with a ravishing Penelope Cruz (the color is sensational); 'Avatar' James Cameron's ode to the childhood matinee which left you gaping at the big screen as it swept you away to another world. Good tidings to all of you out there.

The Thanator of Hollywood...

James Cameron. He's bad ass and brilliant. Anyone who doesn't like Sci-Fi check out right now. I've just spent 3 hours with a pair of 3D glasses plastered over my face experiencing the second coming. It was pure product; it was unadulterated, and it was tasty spectacle. On every level, Avatar is rocket ship trajectory. Some movie aficionados were anticipating 'eyeball rape.' That's not exactly 'pc' lingo, but I understand it's launching point, because at the epic's end my eyeballs were numb 'gelatinous orbs' (a line from BSG). Cameron might be the only Hollywood director who consistently dishes up strong, ballsy, female characters. He gave us Ripley in Aliens who out bitched the Alien Queen; Sarah Connor, 0% body fat, wasting liquid robocops in T2; and his small box (TV) creation, Dark Angel, made Jessica Alba well, um, Jessica Alba/Max a hot genetically engineered paramilitary young woman on the lam. Yes boys and girls, it's true. Cameron loves chicks in his flicks, and on Pandora, in a pivotal anti-climatic gesture, he invokes the Great Mother and drops her smack dab in the middle of our adolescent squirming laps (WTF is going on here). The joke's on us. Nature lives through the goddess. Even on a world 125 years into the future. Blessed be! But we all knew that didn't we? Avatar is technology at it's edgiest. Every scene, every nuance was sensational. With a nod and a wink, Cameron brings back Sigourney Weaver too. This is as good as it gets. Better than the great Lord of the Rings trilogy? Uh, different. LOTR, the perfect storm, took you to the dark recesses of your mind and pushed you towards Mordor the abyss of no return. Avatar is other worldly. But familiar. There is the primordial forest; the indigenous population; corporate greed; military shock and awe; environmental issues; banshees, and love. See it in 3D, the way Cameron envisoned it. p.s. the Thanator is the donkey Kong predator on Pandora.

'Are you hungry did you eat before the show?'...

Tis the season. Maybe I'm just a special little freak, but I keep my gifting lists for years. I'm not saying they're stored in some tidy box alphabetically, but they're on my bureau stashed under other scraps of important data, some of which are clearly outdated, like the lunch receipt from In n Out burgers in Davis circa 2007 or the latest alcohol bill from Eddie's liquors. When my nephew and niece, Alex and Iz were younger than they are...little imps running around the playground carefree and wild, the labours of homework and exams but a tiny gleam in their undomesticated eye, I used to agonize over what to get them for the holidays. I soon learned what others had learned before me...that on Christmas morning, all unwrapped goodies became the flavor of the moment. Now that the toys of childhood are almost a distant memory, and the kids have moved to the next level, I find myself indebted to Mr. Lincoln, and Mr. Grant. It's true. Money talks. Cash is king. And I now have more more time to devote to other holiday traditions like uh, baking. In the true spirit of the season, here's a recipe for the best shortbread you'll eat all year: Jed's Shortbread...

1lb salted butter, 1 pinch salt, 1 cup sugar, 1 1/4 cup rice flour, 4 cups flour.
Cream butter, salt and sugar. Add the rice flour, then the other cups of flour
slowly to the point where the dough is not too dry. Shape with cookie cutters
on an 11x17 sheet. Bake 325 for 30-45 minutes. These rock!

'Can you picture what we'll be, so limitless and free?'...

Mountain View Cemetery. A gleaming nugget in a sluice filled basin known as Oakland. I collected fauna and foliage on the cemetery grounds for the first Thanksgiving I shared with my sister. She was an art student at CCA (C) and I was recovering from a bad break-up with my first girl friend. We lived in a small apartment, why, on the very street I now reside upon. The neighbors were suspicious of us, long haired hippies, and were always calling the cops for some piddly infraction. Did I know that Mountain View was going to be the beginning of a long and beautiful friendship? No. But, like a good thing, it began slowly. And then like the catchy theme song of an addicting show (hmmmm 'Friday Night Lights') that zaps those precious neuron crystals, the resume built. Over the years, I ran my dogs there, dodging cemetery security; I knew all the back paths and overgrown eucalyptus groves. So did they. I buried a couple of cats (why not) at the top of the hill, the one with the spectacular 180 view of Lake Merritt, and the Bay Bridge. I've eaten croissants and picnic lunches and hobnobbed with the Crockers as I was smoking and digesting. For weeks, I brought my coffee and sat alone next to Cogswell, or the Krafts balling my eyes out after breakups. I've walked the headstones pondering lives and exits. Isn't this what Frederick Law Olmstead had in mind when he landscaped the area in 1862? Not quite, I'm certain, but if one can't be in Central Park, or France, then this is the next best thing to being there. Mountain View has the scope of the Parisian monuments, and the broad avenues and hills of an old world city. It's the best kept secret in the area, except for the runners/joggers most of whom are women. On any morning just after the sun crests the eastern piedmont hills even in winter, for what is winter in Cali, Olmstead's vision quietly springs to life.

lions and Tigers and bears, oh my...

There's always something deliciously transfixing, obscenely sophomoric when the rich and famous fall head-first into uh, a big steaming pile. We don't care, but we want to know. Titillated by a flaying five iron, a Cadillac escalade's air bags which didn't deploy (huh?) after hitting a hydrant and a tree, and not one but 2 women who have surfaced as potential dalliances, there's grist for weeks. You play with the zipper, sometimes you get caught in the zipper. There isn't a suit in the world who could spin this caper.
Before el Presidente speaks this evening, word is already leaking out that 30,000 more troops are being committed to Afghanistan. I understand the concept of keeping America safe. But this military intervention is wearing thin and has all the earmarks of a borderline bust. More of our young men and women will die in a country which is unforgiving, mired in religious fervor (which we could never wrap our heads around) and a perpetual cash cow for the opiate drug trade.
Interventions. I have several friends who need them. But I know them. And I love them. Detox one person? Maybe. If you're lucky.
So, there are these 2 guys I know, maybe you heard...one of them is trying to find the yellow brick road; the other one is behind a curtain in the Emerald City.