Happy Easter (for reals this time)

If you are so inclined, I hope your Easter celebrations were good.  My day was destroyed by the devastating news that Justin Bieber‘s monkey was confiscated in Germany.  He apparently did not have the correct paperwork for his pet, who is now in quarantine.  This is all true, you can read the story here.  Side question: what is it about fame and fortune that makes people go completely insane?  For Bieber, and I speak from personal experience from my days at RCA Victor (no, not with Bieber), I blame his handlers and the record company execs who treat him like he shits gold.  I worked with artists who completely sane and normal when they started with us and as they asked for things — and got them — they became more and more self centered, whiny and just bat fucking insane.  I was a publicist and I had artists call me at home (and on my cell) pretty much any time they felt so inclined.  Just getting in from a night of partying and you want to know what your Soundscan numbers are?  Just call your publicist.  She doesn’t need to sleep.  PS.  Dear Mr. Bieber, while you are on top of the world now, in a year, or five, no one will care who you are so make sure your financial advisors don’t suck because your music career has an expiration date and I think someone should tell you that.  Don’t take my word for it, ask  someone you trust and who doesn’t depend on you for their living.  If you don’t have a person like that in your life, and you may not (Lindsay Lohan clearly doesn’t either), buy one, rent one, find one on Craig’s list, just do it.  You’ll thank me later.

Luckily, my day was saved by news about this invention.  What is it?  A toothbrush that plays music.  What music?  One Direction was mentioned in the ad I saw.  I MUST GET ONE IMMEDIATELY.  Anyone who knows me knows I love brushing my teeth (seriously, I wake up at night and sometimes get up to brush them), so add One Direction to my tooth brushing, well, it is a glorious time to be alive.  Glorious, I tell you!  Glorious!

Other thoughts from today include…

Who writes the copy for Safeway frozen dinners?  I am lazy and cooking just is too much a lot so I do eat frozen food a lot.  I like the Safeyway dinners because they are decent and cheap but I happened to look at the back of their fettucini alfredo, the description reads “A Delicious Classic with a Delightful Ending” (capitalization is theirs).  What is that all about? You know what that says to me, “If you like it going in, you will love it coming out.” Nothing makes me excited about food like the expectation of an awesome crap later.  To think I thought eating the food was the fun part!

Oh, on my Daily Banter page, which you need to check out right now, I mentioned a humorous story about my mother – and this is one where she doesn’t look bad so I don’t have to worry about that (at least not right now).  When I first moved to Washington, DC, I lived with my mother and her husband.  A few months later, a group of my friends came to DC to attend a pride rally.  They were mostly lesbians, which is only relevant because of what happened when they rang my mother’s door and their reaction.  You see, we also had a family friend visiting and he liked to walk around naked.  He was sleeping on our couch when they rang the bell and naturally answered the door and he was, as usual, naked.  My friends, who may not have seen a naked man in a very long time were not expecting that – “Are you sure this is Alyson’s mother’s house?” They asked.  He assured them that is was and brought them in and then tried to rouse me (it was 7:00 am on a Saturday and I had been out late the night before, yes, I was hungover, sue me).  Then they all sat uncomfortably in the living room.  When my mother returned from the store, her surprise was at my friends’ arrival and my friends were surprised by her reaction to his nakedness, which was no response at all.  Anyway, I was proud of her that day.  Still wish I didn’t have to come out as straight every Christmas but what are you gonna do?

And as it is Easter, I am watching the Wizard of Oz.  This means my obsession with the munchkin suicide.  I don’t care if the “myth” has been debunked, I think it is real.  Please watch this video.

The icing on my day was having to call Comcast as the old cable box I had made me choose between having a picture or audio.  They actually asked me “Which do you want, picture or audio?”   Uh, both?  Anyway, after getting a new box and spending hours dealing with them, it still doesn’t work and after getting the account number, serial numbers for both boxes and more information than I give my physician, they said if I did not give the social security number of the account holder (not mine but I would not give it if it was our of principle) they would “find it hard to believe” that I am authorized to have them send a signal to the box.  I asked the representative what they were thinking.  What, am I part of some crazy gang that breaks into houses and fixes their cable?  Yo, Pete, put down that computer, these people have terrible cable reception, we need to fix this.

Oh, and while I am being random…  I saw three deer in a neighbor’s yard yesterday.  I nearly fainted and thought it was great.  Great, I tell you!  Great!  Then my landlord told me that DC has a new program where sharp shooters can kill deer in Rock Creek Park to reduce their over population.  I never saw Bambi (really, and no, I have not seen ET either) but they looked like her and may meet the same fate (I hear she is shot at the end, talk about a reason not to watch a movie or show it to kids — hey kids, wanna watch a movies about a cute animal that you will love?  Warning: they kill that cute animal at the end. And people think the movies about serial killers I watched as a child were disturbing).

But I have digressed from celebrating Jesus’ rebirth.  I love that what we do for this doesn’t have anything to do with Jesus.  I mean I love peeps as much as the next person but were marshmallows around when Jesus was alive?

Seriously, I hope you had a great day and if this day has meaning for you — I wish you the best.  And I mean that sincerely.

Guest blogger: I am a cat and damnit, I am cranky

Guest blogger:  Hobbes the cat

I am a cat and right now I am pretty fucking pissed off.

For years, I have just dealt with it when I heard how “finicky” cats are, how the people we live with are “crazy cat people” and how we make people sneeze.  I have put up with all of these insults and innuendo but now CNN has just pushed me a stroke too damn far.  That’s right CNN, and you know my buttons really have to be pushed when I stoop to blogging at the bottom of the barrel “news” outlet that is CNN.  I would do a better job of hosting news shows than some of the clowns you hire.  Seriously, one woman told Budget Chairman Ryan that she “didn’t want to get into a numbers game with him.”  Jesus Christ, I am a freaking house cat and I know BUDGETS ARE MADE UP  OF NUMBERS.

But even that crap didn’t piss me off as much as this:http://www.cnn.com/2011/LIVING/05/14/why.cats.bite.mnn/index.html?hpt=C2

What the hell?  I don’t have the same right to personal space as everyone else?  Sure, I appreciate the affection and love but they go out all day — sometimes I get left for DAYS and then they come home and I need to be all instantly in the mood?  What if I was sleeping?  Do you know how tiring my life is?

And to add insult to injury, why is it that everyone thinks all cats are girls?  Do I look like a girl to you?  Do I?  Do I?

Yes, yes I do.  Do you know why?  Because one one winter day several years ago, the people I live with cut my balls off.  That’s right.  Just took me away and had it done.  Did they say boo about it?  No, they did not.  Did they ask if I was ok with it?  No, they did not.  I went to sleep and woke a little lighter.  And really fucking sore.  Bastards.

Note the before and after photos.  The photo on the left is what I had as a kitten.

Ok, this isn’t the easiest picture to make out but do you know hard it is for cat to take of photo of this? Take my word for it, it is a sad state of affairs.

The right is what I carry around now.  I am four years old.  Seriously, if you cannot see a size difference there, you are not looking.

Ok, that first photo is actually the kitten that lives here now, but it could be me.  You don’t know what I looked like when I was a kitten, I didn’t know I needed to take photos to prove the size of my junk.

Do you see why maybe we don’t always feel like snuggling when you get home from work?  We are proud animals.  We deserve some fucking respect.  And hop to with the litter box, I am no fucking mood to smell my own pee

9/11 let’s have some perspective here

First a word of advice for all the GOP hopefuls who will never read this and could not care less about my thoughts but here goes:

If you are in a debate with Rudy Guiliani, unless you are secretly working for him, DO NOT bring up 9/11!  You can be as right as rain on this one — and I personally believe our presence in Iraq has only created a fertile ground for terrorists to recruit and train, which does NOT mean I think the Iraq war caused 9/11 BUT it saved his career.  As a NYer, I lived under him and HATED him as a Mayor.  He was awful.  Police brutality was up by about 30 percent (and real shoot first and ask questions later kind of brutality, like the two people shot 20 times or more when they were ASKED TO GET THEIR ID).  He was a 'tough on crime' kind of guy, so his police broke down the wrong door several times a week?  You wanna safer city, or what?  Whatchu gonna do about it?  But mention 9/11 and he gets to hit one out of the ballpark so do not give him that chance.

As for my position on that day, it's a little complicated.  Being from NY and having lived in both cities that were attacked (ps.  all you 9/11 conspiracy theorists who think your data is backd up by the WAY the towers fell, how EXACTLY does the Pentagon or PA planes figure into your process?) I consider that say to be the worst of my life (to date, hope nothing worse happens).   When I needed comfort — and I was willing to give Dubya a lot of leeway but when he finally emerged, he looked like a deer in the headlights.  I desperately misses President Clinton and was genuinely comforted by Rudy. I never voted for him, wrote letters to his city hall, hated him as Mayor but that day he was the comforting figure I needed, and I am not alone in that.  But it has been six years.  Truth be told I cannot look at the Manhattan skyline without getting a little sick and get lost when I get out of the subway because I have always used those buildings as sort of my compass — get out, see them and know which was south was.  Downtown is different and nothing would make me happier than putting those buildings back EXACTLY as they were.  I digress because for a long time people said that I was too close to this.  My home city was hit so I was personally invested, and I remain so but New Yorkers (sorry DC, people still consider this a NYC traredy despite the Pentagon deaths and injuries and the PA flight) were not the only ones impacted.  I have met people all over the country who changed their lives — moved, bought guns, built shelters, whatever to be safe.  It made us feel — and no joke two days or so before the attacks I remember thinking It's a good thing we have two giant oceans protecting us from terrorists.  We lost that sense of secuity that day.  The problem is we were living in a post 9/11 world long before 9/11.

Tom Friedman (look it up, he has said this a million times) has said, "If you don't visit the bad neighborhoods, hey will visit you."  That is what happened on that day.  I cannot believe that as bad as Bush Jr. is that he knew about tthat attack and did nothing rather he was so focused on Saddam Hussein (Paul O'Neill, Treasury Secretary number one under him said in his book their first Cabinet meeting started with a discussion of how to 'get rid of Saddam') thhreat the real threats were ignored.  Sandy Berger said that he told Condi Rice her biggest issue would be Al Qaeda but she did not get her marching orders from him.  Moreover, her expertise was in the Soviet Union, which does not exist anymore plus Dubya said he wanted 'to be the 'anti-Clinton' and ended our work in Middle East, a mistake most experts think led to the intense violence there in the first 18 months of his presidency.

Back on point, 9/11 made Dubya a President. On 9/10 he was unpopular with the country and had little political capitol on the Hill.  He was weak and vulnerable.  This attack made us all feel we were those things and made him a war time President and could not come at a better time politically (Any Card, former Chief of Staff there did say "You don't roll out new products in August" — he was talking about  the plans to sell the Iraq war but I think it is applicable.)  This is why so many liberals see a conspiracy theory.

So what do we do?  Hawks will say that the 'terroorists hate us because we are free.'  I have two responses to that:

1.  No they do not.  They hate us because we are the Microsoft of the planet, seriously — doesn't everyone hate Microsoft?  Moreover we have a tendency to see things only from our perspective and can be bullies.  Many parts of the world really belive we plan to colonie them and turn everyoene there Christian (happened in Somalia).  We see ourselves as this benevolent giant who just wants everyone to get along.  Others see us as a behemouth military power out to end their way of life.  (When Dubya dropped Christian pamplets on the troops in Iraq, it did us no favors).

 

2.  Even if they do hate our freedom, is the best way to beat to take it away ourselves?  They want to end our way of life so we're going to beat them to the punch?  WTF?  If we ar a beackon of freedom, democracy and rule of law then we have to stay that way.  We also need to stop treating people like dirt and close Gitmo.

3.  Last point:  Gitmo and torture and Abu Grahib.  So you watch Jack Bauer save America, one hour at a time, and honestly his life must suck because I spent at least several hours a day sleeping and I take it he does not.  TORTURE DOES NOT WORK IN GETTING GOOD INFO.  Recently (this was either in the New Yorker or Nation) high ranking military officials went to FOX and asked them to stop all the torture on the show because military personnel now ask: Jack Bauer did it, why can't I? (How reassuring is that our military is taking its cues from a fictional show, nice).  They were ignored because the head of entertainment at FOX didn't think they were right about torture and we all know highly paid network execs probably know best how to keep our civilians safe.  Bottom line though:  when we do something, we set a precedent.  Because I think this is such an important point I am going to painstakingly spell it out.  The US starts to torture people, any crazy dictator (and Saddam was far from the worst of the lot) can then say, "Hey, the US — that beacon of rule of law and freedom does it, why shouldn't I?  And while I am at it, maybe I can torture some Americans.  That sure would be fun."  WE DO NOT CONDONE ACTS AGAINST OTHERS THAT WE DO NOT WANT PERPETRATED AGAINST OUR PEOPLE AND FOR ALL THE CHRISTIANS OUT THERE I THINK YOU HAVE RULE ON THAT, IT GOES DO UNTO OTHERS AS YOU WOULD HAVE THEM DO UNTO YOU.

Wow.  I feel better now.  I wonder if Jack Bauer wears a 'What would Jesus do?" bracelet.  I bet he does.

For the record, I do not blame Jesus for anything.  I think if he were around today he would be APPAULED by what people do in his name but that's just my opinion. 

Anyway, our world is not different, we are not as ignorant as we were.  We need a government that can deal with this reality.

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