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07.30.02 finally, after much scrimping and scraping and moaning and groaning, i'm going to work tomorrow. it's temp, but it'll do for now. i'm kind of excited, kind of nervous, but mostly just kind of worried about getting up so damned early! what with the rush to finish school this year and all the trouble finding a job up here, i really haven't been working since september last year. not that i'm worried. but i'd better get to bed soon... #
i never use pictures of boys on my desktop, but when i came across this blazing picture of calvin klein model travis, i couldn't help it. he's so dreamy. anyway, it's great fun to see him every time i roll up a window or hide an application. you can too if you want the image. # ooh! ooh! ooh! the new beth orton album is out today. i've been waiting for it for some time now, so of course i ran out and bought it this afternoon. i really like it, though the differences between this album and the previous (central reservation) seem to be those of a subtle evolution. which isn't a bad thing at all. keep in mind this is a cursory evaluation, i've only listened to it through once. maybe i'll stick an mp3 up soon. # 07.29.02 a new bill being introduced in congress would offer internet broadcasters such as somaFM a reprieve from the recent RIAA sponsored royalty-rape which came from the recent CARP adjustment. the new bill would make fundamental changes to the library of congress' determination processes for royalties due under CARP and would provide a shield for broadcasters with revenue under a predetermined limit. a nice change of pace from the corporate-friendly legislation we've been seeing recently, if it goes through. look for more to come from this in the future. # i went to the dore alley fair yesterday. so um, yeah, it sure was interesting. # 07.28.02 MORE SCARY SCARY ok, so maybe this is getting old, but it's really hard for me to ignore the scarier of our government's turns these days. i try, i really try to leave this stuff for others to write about, but this is, once again, too scary and wrong to ignore. (plus, daypop says only 21 blogs have picked up on this one so far, which is way too few). according to an AP story published last week, shrub is asking congress (who is actually going along with this!) to review the Posse Comitatus Act for what one can only assume is revision or removal. posse comitatus is a law dating back to the civil war reconstruction which very strictly prohibits any branch of the armed services (sans coast guard, part of treasury) from engaging in arrests, searches or seizures. you know, those things that we already have police for. this is a lovely law, because it specifically prevents the federal government from rolling a tank over your home and other sketchy behavior. the fbi has federal authority that should well cover anything that they could hope to justify for the removal of this act. the military has no role in domestic affairs and any such action to change that should be looked at as power mongering and frightening. # i'm very sad to hear that rob lowe may be leaving the west wing next season. he's one of the most fun parts of that show (besides allison janey and mary-louise parker) and anyway, what they hell else does he plan to do? # columnist dan savage (no relation, i assume, to the other savage, who i just saw in austin powers) is holding a reader contest to determine who's boyfriend looks best in his tighty whities. you can check out the site and vote - it's a good laugh and there are even a few genuine hotties in there! take a look at tighty whities are hot. # 07.26.02 i'm sorry but this is just plain stupid. # our home is built on routine. we live among pillars of familiarity, of habit. mornings are for waking up together, lying in bed, too warm under the blanket, listening to the television play price is right or martha stewart living. daytime is productive, work and play. there's music from the radio and music from the keyboards. work sounds like typing, thinking, typing. and there's play, him at chess and me writing aimlessly. the afternoon's are quiet, not much talking. i can see his face from where i sit at the kitchen table. evenings are eating, movies, cooking, television, going out. i'm making dinner, he's washing dishes. eating at the tiny kitchen table, the cat dancing between our legs, asking for scraps. there's time on the computer, time with the tv. the day ends with silent reading and i'm back in the fourth grade. sitting on the couch together, him with his magazine, me with my book. he's under the reading light, i'm curled up against the arm of the sofa. on the table is his glass of juice. i refuse to get my own, drinking only from his. the cat sits on the bed, eyes wide and wild, staring at us, a bug, us, a bug and back to us again. she lets out a little meow, a tiny peep, and it's two am and the day is over. # 07.25.02 hey boys and girls, the unlimited sunshine tour is coming to your town or city! maybe. with a lineup like this (cake, the flaming lips, modest mouse, de la soul and kinky) it just might be worth the slightly-to-rich-for-my-blood ticket price. check it out. # 07.24.02 what? you thought i didn't have anything to do today, didn't you? as if i had finally grown tired of spending all day, every day, sitting here in front of the computer, posting two or three or more updates a day, just for your entertainment. well ha. i've shown you now, haven't i? because i'm pointing you to dayv's euro-blog. because he's doing more interesting things than me. and i have things to do today. # 07.23.02 have you been keeping up with your tech news? if so, you're sure to have heard about the texas based IP hustler Forgent, which in 1997 conveniently acquired a key patent to an algorithm used in the JPEG compression scheme. after sitting on this landmine for a few years, Forgent was gifted serious cash from a secret legal source to pursue it's "Intellectual Property." which, as we all can figure out, is a relative load of crap just waiting for a strong prior-art wind to blow it over. JPEG has existed since the beginning of the Internet as a free and open image format for use in the exchange of images. Forgent is just chasing this rabbit because the patent they've no doubt paid some good money for will expire in 2004, and why not chase down some of big manufacturers now, while they have a chance? so today the register is carrying the news that ISO is planning to pull JPEG as an international standard if Forgent doesn't lay off. having already shucked a few million from Sony, and having a complete dolt for a PR rep (see above article) there seems little chance of that happening. does this mean it's finally PNG's moment in the sun? my stat's site tells me that almost 29 percent of you can't view PNG images, which is an unacceptably high ratio, and current browser support is sketchy at best. PNG-24, the flavor which might actually support a full color photographic image, renders them at almost twice that of a JPEG. so, what will come of our friendly image format? will these IP nazi's chase down the browser people and steal support from us? probably not, but it will be interesting to watch this battle. # it's practically a festival of dan out there today. all the dan's on my link page have posted new self-pics, which are each glorious and fun. check out sparky and dan-o for some cheap thrills. # 07.22.02 THE BOYS IN THE BAND it's radiohead season again, and the boys kicked off the european summer tour last night is lisbon. they're road testing new material that may appear on the next album (think christmas-time). the latest word tonight is that the boys played two sets, the first comprised of all-new material. there were nine new songs debuted (some titles were: 'Scatterbrain', 'Drunken punch up at a wedding' and 'Little baby eyes'). no bootlegs have been made available yet (if you know otherwise, speak up). interestingly, the encore included lift, an old friend who we haven't seen since the pre-kid a tours. this track was rumored to have caused the band much difficulty in the studio and it's potential for release (despite a massive amount of fan support for the song) is questionable. following radiohead may be a bit more difficult now, given that the massive hype-wave that had built up to the release of kid a has washed over us and radiohead has lost a bit of their previous status as the band to watch. that said, EMI is cracking down on illicit mp3s, including concert recordings, so they may be more difficult to come by (although kazaa and the tape-trades will probably stay alive, at least a little). as for recieving word of news, reviews and setlists, that's up in the air too. it seems that the granddaddy of rh fan sites, follow me around is pretty much dead in the water, but green plastic and at ease are likely to keep up. # some of the streets in the city are wind tunnels. i�m walking down a still sidewalk and a block up from me, people are losing their hats. i don�t understand why it happens, but i like to think of the city floating up in the sky, sitting on a cloud, looking down over the rest of the world. maybe if i dig down through the cement, i�ll fall out somewhere over china. then I can just brush the dirt off my clothes and help save all those people who are dying. since i don�t speak chinese, i�ll have to pretend to be a mute. then they�ll call me some name I wont be able to say, and it�ll mean �young man who falls from heaven� or something equally poetic. other languages are always more poetic than our own. # hey, look! dick armey killed the spy vs. spy program (also knowns as TIPS or "creepy ashcroftian citizen-spy evilness"). and he even scrapped the national ID from the homeland security bill. woot! # like the stars falling into alignment, tonight witnessed the simultaneous update of my two most favorite websites. i suppose it's not so rare an occasion as to demand an entire entry, but it was nice to end my evening with new words from my favorite (ok, second favorite) writing men. check out the latest/greatest from david and brent. # it seems odd to note that today (or yesterday, rather) was the birthday of not only my grandmother, but also of our dear daniel. i forgot, of course, to send cards. which is rather normal, as i'm perhaps the worst grandson and friend in the world. i'm sure they've both clued into that by now. i also should mention, mostly because i've been forgetting to, that the rather eloquent and often elusive, international mystery known to us as b. driscoll, has launched his long awaited and highly anticipated website. unfortunately, i can't seem to figure out the rhythm or reason behind his three-column layout, but i rather like the scatter-shot anti-chronology effect it has. # 07.20.02 new mp3! it's gary jules' cover of tears for fears' mad world, found on the donnie darko soundtrack. i really really like this song. there's a video for it on the movie dvd which i've watched high many, many times, in rapid succession. anyway, grab it, like it. # i have so much trouble when i write, drawing the line between cautious editing and self censorship. as much as i try to remove the feeling of "audience" from my writing, i'm painfully self-conscious. i am, without a doubt, my own worst critic. but can i be sure that i'm being too critical, or am i merely gaining the kind of distance required to be objective? sometimes when i need to see where i am, i try to change the perspective. tonight i stood on the bed and looked out over the room. except that everything still looked the same, just further below me. what kind of perspective is that? # tonight the kitty figured out what her scratching box was for. the apartment fell into total silence as we listened to her scrape, scrape her little claws against it. such a proud moment! # 07.19.02 today i bought amelie. and i wrote another grotesque. there's a new cd playing with a rhythm that's sneaking between my words, but it's not doing anything for our singing friend upstairs. come on celine dion, give it a rest already. # 07.18.02 how does it happen that a young man can move the the one of the gayest, clubiest cities in the whole country and not have anyone to go out with? god, i need some friends. # Aaron Swartz reflects on yesterday's apple announcements: I think that it would be great to have some general base and APIs for the stuff in the iApps. They all are doing some attribute-based storage with fast indexing. [...] But what's needed is something to hook them together and make linking easy. # hey, wanna see something cool? it's amazon light! a simple, google-like search interface for the amazon database, thanks to the mega-seller's new web services api. # we like to keep up with movements around here. and good or bad, we like to bring them to you, dear reader. we've been bringing you the latest in movement news for quite some time, reporting on important social movements like women's suffrage and the abolition of slavery. and we report these to you in spite of our own better judgment. which is why i'd like to point out this newest grass roots movement in cd collecting, known as 100 cd's you should remove from your collection immediately. really. and they're not going after obvious straw men albums, like britney spears or ac/dc. no, these folks want you to get rid of albums from nirvana, u2 and the beatles! take a look at the complete list and see how offensive your cd collection is. # 07.17.02 oh yeah, and today was the keynote expo of macworld new york. there were quite a few announcements, although the general feel of the event was sort of lackluster as far as i was concerned. not that apple didn't release a lot of stuff today, just that none of that stuff was groundbreakingly cool. there's a windows version of the ipod (syncs with music match on the pc) and an inline remote control available for the device. and a totally lackluster upgrade to itunes. and an imac with a 17" screen. and a cute little calendar program. the only really fascinating part is the new app called isync which isn't so groundbreaking but is a cool idea and could be very powerful once the scripting kids get their hands on it. eh, who knows. maybe i'm just hard to please. # it seems funny to post a review of dave matthew's new album "busted stuff" considering the leaked version of the album was one of my very posts. the band went back into the studio and re-recorded most of the tracks from that closet-classic. which is a shame, because the reviewer notes that the new versions found on the album have basically had that nasty, dark edge that the lillywhite sessions carried sanded off and polished up a bit. oh well. such is the life when you're a new mega-band. # today's just a newsie kind of day, the sort that puts your brain in consumption mode. here's my hit list:
# 07.16.02 as i get closer to the end of a book, i start to get worried. i tally up the list of unresolved elements in my head and subtract the number of pages left. the problems come up when that ratio turns. i know that there's not enough time for everything to turn out the way i want it. i start to worry, i wonder what kind of compromise the author has made with the plot to finish the story up. i get anxious, both to find out how it ends and to make it last. the end of the book is most critical. i realize that i'm not ready for it to end. i'm not ready to be parted from these characters. i start and stop, putting the book down and picking it back up. i wander into the kitchen and fix myself drink after drink. i got the bathroom, telling myself that i should go now, before i get to the really good part. it's all an exercise in delayed gratification. i wish i would last another day, another week, another month. i wish a book could go on forever. # 07.15.02 DOVES i stopped by the music mega store this evening. i like mega stores, because they have different area, like a theme park. you're now leaving music land. please enjoy your stay here in video world. i walked around like a man who has nowhere to be, largely because i had nowhere to be. in magazine world, i thumbed through some articles about summer movies and new music. it felt very cross-marketed. i paced the isles of book land, waiting for something to fall off the shelf. i found the gallery of regrettable foods. wandering back into video world, i discovered the porn terribly close to the video games. that bothered me a little. i rode the escalator back down to music land and walked around to all of the listening columns. i enjoy sampling the music, but i hate the headphones. why don't they fit my head? i found a column near the door and started listening to doves. i turned the volume low so i could hear the conversations around me. on my right, a slick boy with a lisp stopped a girl with straight brown hair. she was shy, dressed in cute glasses and a blue sweater. he offered her cut, style and color suggestions, using his hands to draw a new hairstyle in the air around her head. he gave her his business card. it must have been a working lunch. outside, a attractive young man with a strong brow stood by the door waiting for someone. he had a blue sweater too. i watched him pacing, his curious eyes searching for someone in the passing crowd. # it seems that the us government is planning a trial run of a massive citizen informant network. does this sound errily familiar to anyone else? i'm afraid i've run out of unique ways to say "this is a scary abuse of power that will threaten our freedom, in return for negligable returns against a threat which may or may not exist and could probably be erradicated or appeased through a more refined and humane foreign policy." anyone? {link via bOING bOING} # i woke up this morning with the feeling that it might rain. it felt like rain. i hope it rains soon, even just a little. i like the wet streets and the sounds of tires throwing mist off the road. # 07.14.02 for a while now, i've wanted to put some real work into my writing. that was the original intent of this site, but somehow i went slightly astray. i'd like to have somewhere that i can write that's quiet, removed, less attached. so once a week and sometimes more, i'll be posting entries to grotesque. maybe in the future both sites will operate cooperatively. # i stopped by the bookstore today. have you read of a heartbreaking work of staggering genius? i've come across many a reference to it recently, and if the back of the book is any indication, this looks like a book that's very post-hype. it looked like an interesting read, and i'm enjoying these pseudo- biographical works more and more. i also picked up a cute little first-novel fiction about a boy who's coping with adolescence after the death of his mother. of course he's discovering his homosexuality at the same time, which is par for course. haven't i read enough of these yet? of course not! i lap up stuff in this over-done genre, sometimes for the embarrassingly bad writing, sometimes for the paper thin characters. it's like candy and it goes down so easy. this one features a lovely literary mistake, front and center - it's first person, present tense, featuring a 17 year old boy who magically appears to have the psychological and literary insight of a 20-something NYU grad with a degree in english and a minor in developmental psychology. makes sense to me. # it's bean city around here, thanks to yesterday's visit to the jelly belly factory. the boyfriend and i got all east bay with byron and dayv, touring the candy factory and the local mall! fun for all, but i don't quite know what i'm going to do with all these jelly beans... # 07.12.02 Takalani Sesame, which is the South African version of popular children's show Sesame Street, will be introducing a new muppet character to the show this fall. but this new muppet isn't quite like your childhood favorites (me: big bird). the as of yet unnamed muppet will be the first ever HIV+ character to join a Sesame Street Workshop program. the aim of the character, according to workshop folks, is to show a strong character with high self-esteem and help teach children that those who have the virus can interact and play in the same ways uninfected children do. "We want to show that here is an HIV-positive member of our community who you can touch and interact with," said Joel Schneider, Sesame Street Workshop VP. the workshop is currently working on plans to introduce a similar character to the US version of the program. {with thanks to chrispaul for the link} # 07.11.02 tickets go on sale tomorrow morning - who wants to go with me? of course, you already knew that he was going back into the studio with producer nigel godrich, who produced mutations. so you wont be surprised to learn that you can hear new songs from the forthcoming album on beck's website. how very weezer of him. # o'reilly has some tips on getting more out of apple's iphoto. i've linked the second page of the article, as the first only deals with some lame tips on "how to take better pictures." but the second half, which deals with some of the logistics of the iphoto library system and how to best organize, catalog and export your pics from the system. i'm disapointed that the author didn't go into greater details about the structure of the database at the heart of iphoto. does anyone know where to find a good discussion of this topic? # should it bother me that my boyfriend talks to his invisible opponents and sings songs to himself while playing chess? doesn't this sound like a lifetime movie about autism? in other news, someone in our building has a strange fondness for stevie nicks. not fleetwood mac, mind you, but solo stevie nicks. normally, i wouldn't mind this too much, except she plays it really loud and sings along as well. and it encourages the boyfriend to retaliate with his own volume pumped stevie nicks, leaving me trapped in the middle of some kind of vh1 deathmatch. # oh great. john ashcroft is sending his civil rights lawyer to help with the Inglewood investigation. that sure makes me feel better. oxymoron if i've ever heard one... # 07.10.02 as of today, i am a professional transient. i am a gypsy of the office space. i am TEMP, FOR HIRE. # SIDEWALK NOTES: men in business suits always walk down the middle of the walk. so do the tourists, although it's usually the bigger ones. the tall women step like gazelles when they walk in the crosswalk, cautiously lifting one leg straight up, sliding it forward and setting it straight back down, hell to toe, just in front of the other. and the shaded side of the street is always more crowded. i ran into a cute young asian couple in the hallway. they were looking at the apartment upstairs. well dressed, attractive, young; he had anime hair, she was wearing tragically hip sun glasses. they spoke softly in chinese, looking at notes she had taken, taking in the atmosphere building. they were thinking that the pads under the hall carpet feels old and worn, and the lobby smells musty. i could tell. i smiled at them as i walked by and they did the same. # 07.09.02 if you try the best you can, the best you can is good enough. there's a new mp3 up today. it's optimistic, because that's how i feel. # 07.08.02 my wit is officially dead. i've allowed it to atrophy, shriveling up into a nasty, rotten little prune of humor. i'm not as young as i used to be, and it's becoming impossible to keep up with these kids today. jessie says "good luck with the scratching." # 07.07.02 does anyone else remember that laborious "future drama" millennium, staring the interminable kris kristofferson? i saw this a bunch when i was a kid (i was 9 when it came out) and i loved the fact that it combined two of my favorite things: time travel and commercial jetliners (i have a strange fascination with big planes). of course, hitting the screen in 1989, as it did, the lynchpin of the plot was that we've destroyed the future through over pollution and reckless living, forcing the remaining living humans (who are predictably maimed, deformed and suffering due to said over pollution) to scavenge people to repopulate the future, by stealing them from the past. ahem. i think kris' career peaked with this winner. # i've been thinking/working on a design recently for a little side project. i find the process terribly frustrating, as it serves only to remind me continually that i can form the ideas, but i can't quite articulate them, visually. and then i see a redesign at riothero and i am overwhelmed with jealousy. some people make design seem so fun... # i know it must be getting serious around here when i find myself perusing recipes at the red kitchen... {link via dollar short} # 07.06.02 "...the product was elegantly designed in classic Apple fashion. They did product design from the outside in." Carey says the company had a vision of what the [iPod] should be and what it should look like. The subsequent design parameters were dictated by its appearance and form factor. boing boing links an article on the design of the ipod. the article focuses on the electronics design chain that was used by apple, and details are often implied or guessed, as cupertino keeps a tight wrap on design and manufacturing details. the electronics in the ipod were not designed by apple, which is unusual for a company that prides itself on ground-up development. the interface and the enclosure however were done in-house, so there are few details on those aspects of the design process (of course, since they would be most interesting). as an aside, it's interesting to note that PortalPlayer, the company which supplied the platform and reference designs for the ipod, was recently chosen as one of Fortune's coolest companies for their contribution to the emerging digital jukebox market. # The butt is not a magical place that only gay people can visit, like a leather bar or the Liberace Museum. i've heard about him before, a lot actually, but i'd never actually taken the initiative to read any of dan savage's columns. there's just something fun about a gay guy writing a sex column for a mixed audience. {motivation courtesy of ryan} # 07.04.02 I HEART BUTTERCUP few people today will still confess to the belief that television is an evil scourge of childhood. it's well accepted, especially by today's liberal press and academia that, done right, the tube might actually have something to teach our children. so it comes as no surprise to find salon writer Heather Havrilesky discussing third-wave feminists on tv today. what is surprising are the subjects of her praise: the powerpuff girls. using the upcoming animated film as a jumping off point, Havrilesky examines and commends Powerpuff creator Craig McCracken for his classically witty children's cartoon. she explains that the show's appeal for it's older audience draws from the writing, which entertains on many different levels. As with classic Bugs Bunny cartoons, the pop cultural references come at lightning speed, and there are so many layers of meaning to navigate, it's sometimes impossible to tell what the real message is. it's in part because of this fearlessness towards complex characterization that McCracken's cartoon girlhero's are earning their titles are feminists. and in small, subtle ways, they're breaking down our old walls, making inroads into the societial "boys only" club. the powerpuff girls are entertaining children and engaging them, such simple means as respecting the intelligence of kids. Instead of painting children as idealized, angelic little innocents and assuming that young viewers can't understand anything but absurdly simple plots, the show's creators fearlessly give us kids as they are -- impulsive to the point of being reckless, imaginative to the point of being self-involved, and misguided to the point of being downright weird. By focusing on kids without getting bogged down in gender, McCracken manages to portray his young characters realistically, thereby appealing to young audiences who recognize themselves and to adult audiences who enjoy recalling the ways their minds worked as children. of course, cartoons are still cartoons. and at first glance, the image of three cartoon little girls with super powers doesn't leap out as an earth shattering advance for feminism and gender equality. but by making the main characters girls, and by making them so uniquely kid-like, something special happens. sure, the powerpuff girls are girly, but more importantly, they're kids. the show is made up of girls, but it isn't strictly for girls. (in fact, a slight majority of the show's audience is young boys.) this crosses over, in gender and in age. if you haven't ever seen the cartoon, look for it on the cartoon network. and read the article. # 07.03.02 i had a strange dream a few nights ago. i can't remember much, but byron was there and at some point, i received a fortune, which read: "six good things will happen to you." and i woke up. # 07.02.02 byron has a great rant that really touches on so many of the things i hated about the people at my old school. except the cheese pizza. because i love cheese pizza. # 07.01.02 i've been playing around with my links page recently. this most recent update has a bunch of new stuff going on. there are a few updates to new links and such. also, i've added some new favorite blogs: everyone's favorite bart and my new boyfriend-to-be, the boy g. in addition to these little things, there are two major revisions. first, i think you'll all enjoy our lovely line of new blogs, fresh for summer. now available under the prosaic* flag is modern blog and two coffees. dan and kevin are joining byron on my spiff-tastic updated hosting plan (thanks again to dreamhost). second, thanks to a handy script borrowed from dave pannett, there's a fun little collection of five blogs i like to read, chosen at random from a much larger list. hit refresh and watch them change - i do, because i just love that trick too much. i know i should have been able to come up with something more groundbreaking than a randomized links page, what with all of this time off i've had, but for the time being, this is what you get. enjoy it. # when did this happen? movable type bumps up to version 2.21, including mySQL support on the backend and something called trackback for following cross-blog discussions. it's just like i was saying before and i've got to download it and play with it. more info on this new feature when i've had time to look around a bit. # fuck. for a while now, i've been tightrope walking my career. i wanted to find the right job. then i wanted to find the right kind of job. the less i found, the more i lowered the standards. but the whole time, i knew that with one simple phonecall, i could get my old job back in prepress. i've hesitated, at first telling myself i should call on a weekly basis, later on a daily basis. but i didn't like the work i did there. i didn't like any of the work that was done there. sure, the people were nice, they were fun, but the work we were all doing together...well, it wasn't nice, and it wasn't fun. but it was my safety net. so finally last week i called. my best-chance opportunity was pushed back to october, and i decided that it was time to return, head hung low. today, my old boss finally called me back. only they're closing. two weeks left. so now i'm stuck up here on this rope and someone's taken my net. # yesterday was san francisco's pride parade. for all intents and purposes, it was my first gay pride event. for example, i watched part of the parade last year, about twenty minutes or so. but i wasn't proud - i was on my way to the store. not this year, no siree. this year i was tempted, encouraged and prodded into attendance by reese, who insisted that i should attend, now that i'm an actual citizen of this fine city. however, upon securing my promise of attendance, he took it to another level. he invited me (and others) to actually march in the parade with the leno/laird contingent. i'm a novice at this, and i suffer from a debilitating self-conciousness as well. walking down the middle of market street with half a million people watching me walk past; not the most inconspicuous place for one to hide. jessie was as nervous as i, but he came along regardless. because that's just the kind of boyfriend he is. we began in the staging area on beale street, where all the floats and cars and wild and crazy dress was taking place. there were naked people, nearly naked people, glittering people, feathered people, dancing people, people with dogs, people with kids and people with mullets. all a bit overwhelming, but what a sight to see. i hung back a bit (my theme for the day) and watched the going's on. it was funny, walking in the parade. somehow, right there in the middle of the road with everyone looking at us, it wasn't so nerve wracking. i wasn't nervous at all, once we started walking. jessie attests to the same experience. i'm more self-conscious riding the bus or dancing at a club than i was walking down the middle of the street with all those people watching. (perhaps it was because i knew nathan was drawing the crowd's attention.) as we're going to bed last night, jessie and i came across a rebroadcast of the parade on tv. they were showing the float that was just a few minutes ahead of us, so we sat up and watched anxiously, surprisingly excited to watch our first moment of tv fame. cut back from commercial, here's the mark leno banner. there's the car with mark in it. there's the shot of mark standing up, waving to the crowd. there's the commentator's talk about mark's campaign. there's the shot of mark sitting back down in the car. there's the commentators noticing that he wasn't wearing shoes in the car. there's the camera, closing in on his socks. there's the commentator's voice telling us about the time she rode in a car and had to take off her heels. there's...wait..back up the tape. freeze frame. there is a half second of us, tiny, blurry, walking behind the car as the camera pans away, back to the next group. so i suppose that means we have 14:59:50 left, right? # « June 2002 | archive index | August 2002 » built with movabletype |
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