Oh, it’s all so icky. I mean really sticky, yucky, icky. It’s all of the things that you have purposely avoided; giving away your email address, giving out your mailing address, spam, spam, spam!
And now, with the collecting of coupons, you have to spin your head around like that darling little Linda Blair in the Exorcist. You become a coupon whore, “liking” corporations on Facebook, oh god, that’s so distasteful. You don’t want your real friends to see this and so you create another Facebook account just to cozy up and get the coupons. You also have an email address that is dedicated to this endeavor. This is the way to do it, really it is. Keep these things away from your personal relationships.
Now that you have your new Facebook account you are free to “like” any company, grab those coupons and make hay. But you’re also likely to do a search for “couponing”, “coupons”, etc. so that you can follow the blogs of the peoples who are scouring the internet for corporate coupons and deals and this is really the best thing that you can do. There are tons of couponing blogs out there and if you can consolidate them on your newsfeed, that really saves time. The problem comes when you subscribe to a blog that is unethical and is far more focused on making money off of you than sharing a steal.
I am not above joining an affiliate program, but I give you my word that before I post a link or recommend it, I will really give it a go. There are certain programs that I have tried and tested and love and I will tell you about them, but I have also been lead into some stupid schemes that are just detestable and I really resent the coupon bloggers who are promoting them just to get the few bucks for every sacrificed human.
Clipping coupons has gotten to be so weird. It really does feel a lot like the Occupy Wall Street movement; us against them. They offer the deals and we take them up on them.
Tomorrow, go to CVS, find the travel/trial size section and buy 2 Aveeno Lotions for $1.49 each. First of all, this is awesome lotion that will not fight with your perfume. Second, they are darling, you’ll be happy to have one in your bag. Third, after you pay, you’ll get a $7.00 credit at CVS. So they will pay you $4.00 to buy those little bottles of lotion. Now take those credits and go back on Sunday and get some Kashi bars on sale. Or a lipstick or milk. Eggs. Use those credits!
This is how we live!
PS: I’m not proofreading my own bad self, someone please be my editor!
I’ve always been fascinated with marketing; Advertising Age is my Playgirl. But I’ve never viewed it from this perspective, down here in the trenches. I’ve always shopped the sales and always avoided the center isles of the supermarket. I go to the local Mexican market or the Middle-Eastern market to buy produce because they have variety and it’s amazing how much less it costs. I plan meals based on what’s on sale or what is going to expire, I’ve always done that.
Because of all that, there are a lot of things for sale that I was just not aware of. All of the weird processed foods and convenience dinners and microwave kits are amazing. In the spice isle there is a whole row of blister pack spice kits to make one meal and they are around two bucks each! Dude, please, they must think that we are morons and who the hell is buying those things?
In the last week I’ve noticed a trend in selling air. Hershey’s has a candy bar that is puffed up with air and they keep telling me that it’s fluffy and yummy, or words to that effect. They really want to sell me on the fact that a chocolate bar is better if it’s got air pockets. I realize that the price of cocoa has gone up and so I get where they’re coming from but I’m not going to buy air. Today I saw a coupon for Frisky Crispies cat treats. The selling point? “There’s Air Inside!” No kidding. Apparently cats really like air in their treats. I did clip the coupon on that one because I hear that you can get them for about .13 cents and my cat is discerning enough to eat around the air and she needs to be entertained.
I understand that people are busy and it’s a serious pain in the ass to cook, but the convenience foods are really starting to freak me out now that I’ve seen them. Apparently Pizza Rolls are very popular. Well, those things are great at 3 in the morning if you’re a seriously wasted teenage boy, but what kind of a Mom feeds her strapping young wastrel such things? All of the Totino’s products look disgusting and the coupons are just falling like rain even though these things have been around since I was a waif-like young stoner and my friend and I talked her Mom into buying them for us along with a Sara Lee German Chocolate Cake.
If you want coupons for meat, you’re going to eat a lot of hot dogs and bologna. I have some coupons for baby back ribs that are like gold to me. But Albertson’s does have split chicken breasts with the ribs and skin for .99 cents a pound until Tuesday, I stocked up on that and portioned it and it’s in the freezer except for the portion that I used tonight to make garlic roasted chicken breasts for dinner. I’m never going to buy frozen chicken tenders again, you really do need the inconvenience of the bones and skin to make it taste good. It’s another hedonistic calculus problem with the taste to convenience ratio and in this case, taste wins out by far.
If you want coupons for fresh produce, forget about it. Although I do have one coupon for Driscoll’s raspberries that I’ll use before it expires. Now dairy, I’ve done pretty well with. The Real California dairy people have issued a .pdf coupon that you can print as many times as you’d like and it doesn’t expire until December 31, 2011. That means that from now until then I’ll get .55 cents off of every container of milk that I buy as long as it has that Real California seal on it. Same thing with cheese. The egg people have gifted us with coupons too, they are good on any brand at any store, that’s a cool thing. .55 cents might not seem like a big deal but when you realize that you can get Crest 3D White toothpaste for .37 cents a tube, it starts to have some meaning.
Am I blathering? Well, I have no editor and I’m obsessed, this is what happens.
In this thing you are better off if you give up brand loyalty when you can. I mean I will always buy Best Foods Mayonnaise, Heinz Ketchup, etc. But I could care less about laundry detergent, dish washing detergent, soap, toothpaste, toothbrushes, razors, etc. I have my preferences on some, I guess, but not really. I’ll use whatever’s around. If you’re not careful, you could find yourself being a lab rat for corporations, eating and slathering yourself with all sorts of alien products. I don’t recommend that. There are some very strange products out there and it really doesn’t matter if they are free, you don’t want to touch them or put them in your mouth. Put that down!
You look at a coupon and it says that it will get you 35 Cents if you will go get the scissors and cut it out and save it and remember it and give it to someone who will probably look at you like you’re one of the poor folk and it occurs to you that you could probably find 35 cents in your dryer. But you persevere because these goddam things have been around forever and they must have some value. But there isn’t really all that much in the coupon book that you usually buy and so you give up.
Then you look at the sale ads for your local stores, trying to find some sort of a deal, but, again, just shuffling through, it doesn’t seem worth it, you’d have to drive to 3 different stores to get the good prices and you’d spend more in gas than you’d save.
I’m saying you, but I mean me, as usual.
Well, the thing is that there is an underground economy. If you know me, we’ve talked about it. Nobody has a job and we work for each other and it doesn’t make the papers. Oh, by the way, the papers are dying. Everyone keeps blaming it on the internet but that is so incorrect. The papers are dying because the customer service is so bad that if you want to order more than one copy delivered to the same address, it throws some other country into a state of confusion, even though we all have roommates that steal the crossword and we want our own copy. It took me 3 days of phone calls and emails to get 2 copies of the LA Times and 2 copies of the SGV Tribune delivered to this address. Don’t cry for the Newspapers, as per usual the management is fucked.
But if you really want to take advantage of the offers that are being thrown around, you’ll want to have a number of newspapers, just for the coupons.
Let’s look at a coupon. It might seem like a pain in the ass 35 cent thing that you don’t want to deal with and, really, that might be true. That coupon is a legal document. That 35 cents has taken the expertise of lawyers, marketing, corporate executives, market research, accountants, psychologists, sociologists, and an untold number of secretaries, no matter what they call them these days. All of these brilliant professionals have gathered their intelligence to outsmart you with these little coupons. You know what? Fuck them and their tiny thinking.
They work with the stores, all of the stores and they strategically place ads with the stores. They count on us to be lazy. They trust that we won’t pay attention to the lingo or bother to learn it. They spray all kinds of shit all over the pages of these ads and it is all so confusing and they count on us only focusing on the big words with the stars around them. They create these shopping scenarios and use them as bait, knowing that we don’t really have the tools to take them up on it but we’ll be enticed enough to go in. They lure us into loyalty by offering us rewards that they know we’ll probably throw in the trash. In this economy every coupon is cash and every crazy paper that prints out with your receipt is cash. I’ve gotten to the point where I pick up a $5.00 bill and see it as 5 one dollar coupons.
All I can say is that I’ll take them up on their offers. I want to fit out my earthquake shed, I want to stock up on toothpaste for the next year at 49 cents so that when I run out next month, I won’t have to spend $4.49. I will never pay more than a dollar for a box of cereal, I have a six month supply that I paid 78 cents a box for. The trick is to find everything that you normally buy at the cheapest price by combining store ads, store coupons and manufacturer’s coupons. When you get a hit, you stock up and store that stuff in a cool, dry place. This makes sense to me.
Every year at Holiday time, I make a huge amount of Chex Party Mix and it is expensive, but because I make so much it goes a long way. Last year I was really bummed out because I couldn’t afford the $27.00 it usually took to make it and I was just going to forgo that corporate, but yummy, tradition. But then I found Chex cereal for $2.00 a box and the season was saved. Really, this is Purina Holiday Chow around here, I kind of live on it through the entire holiday season. This year, I promise you, it won’t cost more than $5.00 for the entire batch that takes two turkey roasting pans to contain.
But it is a full-time job. Really, a perfect job for an unemployed obsessive/compulsive who is good at basic math and really annoyed by corporate America and wants to stick it to them. And if you’re good at gaming, that’s a bonus. The coupons are like playing cards, you have to collect them. It’s also a little bit like playing the stock market, things come and go and you have to recognize them when they are here. I really, really love it.
The trick is to get the coupons from the paper and from coupons.com and recognize who is doing a marketing blitz, it’s really pretty obvious from week to week. Then you get the sale ads from the paper or the stores, all of them, and then you match them up and if the stores are also offering coupons, mash them in. Then you look at the sale ads again and take into consideration the often overlooked words “$5.00 off if you buy 10 of any of these products” and it turns out that you have coupons for all of those products and they’re at sale price already and so you use your coupons and you end up paying 20 cents for something that is usually $2.49 and you put your savings toward buying a nice steak.
It takes some time and some effort to do this, believe me you will earn every dollar that you save. You need to look up your store coupon policies for every store you shop at. You need to learn the legal lingo that is on every coupon. If you want to get very serious about it you’re going to need a number of computers to print coupons from because the e-coupons will only print 2 from each computer and sometimes you might need 10 coupons to get a hit. You’ll need to fillet the coupon booklets that you get in the Sunday papers and you’ll need the store ads and coupons and some stores, like Walgreen’s have more coupon books in various areas of the store (beauty, baby, etc.).
The good news is that this is not news. Chances are that when you shove a fistful of coupons at your checkout person, they are going to be on your side. They want to see you win. It is a game, after all.
Here are the sites that I’ve found most useful so far in this passion play (oh, did I mention that you really need to be obsessive/compulsive in order to get through the first month or so?):
Coupons.com (you will need to download a cute little app to print coupons, but it’s OK.)
Then, of course, there’s Grouponfor the most fun deals.
And if you haven’t seen the show “Extreme Couponing” on TLC, you really should. These people are crazy, but so freaking smart.
If you want to start this, clip, download, and print every coupon that you can find. You’ll find that they really are like playing cards and you might need one or some to complete a scenario that will pay off in big savings on something that you want or need. You can donate the things that you acquire and get a tax write off. You can send your unused coupons to Operation Expiration and they will send them to our soldiers who are out of the country. The stores on the base will accept coupons that are expired and make sure that they are distributed to military families in need.
The coupon cult is sort of a wonderful thing. Let’s be Robin Hood!
This is the simplest bread dough that you could ever make. 5 ingredients. You’ll need a Tablespoon measure and a 1 cup measure and a 2 cup measure for water (you’re not going to wash that after you measure water, are you?). I use a stand mixer and I’m very partial to the Sil-pat liners.
2 cups of hot tap water
1 tablespoon of sugar
1 tablespoon of yeast
5 cups of bread flour (approx. $8.00 for 25 lbs. at Smart & Final)
2 teaspoons (approx.) salt
2 tablespoons of olive oil plus more for coating the bowl and moisturizing your hands, arms, legs, neck, face, etc.
Here’s what you do: Turn on the tap and waste a good amount of water while you measure a Tablespoon of sugar into the bowl of a stand mixer. Measure out the 2 cups of hot water and pour it over the sugar. You can turn the tap off now. Feel guilty about all that while you swirl the water around to dissolve the sugar. Now get over it, we’re all gonna die anyway. Sprinkle a tablespoon of yeast over the sweetened water, you can stir that around with a knife if you want, but it doesn’t really need it.
Go on Facebook for about 10 minutes.
When you get back to the yeast, it should be frothy and very busy looking. Throw 5 cups of bread flour on it, then 2 teaspoons of salt (I use the tablespoon measuring spoon and eyeball it), and finally 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Using the dough hook, mix it at about the 2nd speed for about 8 minutes. I set the timer on this, otherwise I’ll loose interest and wander away too far.
At this point you have a dough. A beautiful, malleable dough that has endless possibilities. Pull it all over to one side of the bowl and pour about a tablespoon of olive oil in the center of the bowl. Now pull the dough out, cuz you have both hands and use one of them to smear the olive oil around the bowl. Twirl the dough around in the olive oil so that it’s all covered and then cover the bowl with a dinner plate. You can go spend another hour on Facebook or watch General Hospital or read some chapters in a book now. Maybe mend some socks. However you choose to spend it, you’ve got an hour, no sense getting impatient about it.
The dough should be very large and scary now, on a warm day it will have reached the bottom of the plate. Talk it out of the bowl and onto a large cutting board or a sheet pan with a Sil-pat. As you work with it, it will get less sticky and a little more stubborn. If you just want bread to go with dinner, divide it in two (I use a pastry cutter, or a large Chef’s knife) and shape it into two long loaves. If you do it right, this will look obscene. If it doesn’t cooperate, just let it rest for about 5 minutes. Set the timer, it’s easy to gain so much patience that you just forget about it. When you have the shapes that you want you can use a box cutter with a sharp blade to put some well-considered slashes in it or you can use a pair of scissors to put V cuts along the loaf, this is to let steam escape. If you forget to do this, the bread will come out just fine, quite edible. You may have noticed the lack of “punching”. In this exercise there is no dough violence, the dough gets aired just fine by working with it in a civilized manner. I’ve found the same to be true with children.
If you would like, you can add an egg wash and some sesame seeds now. If you’d rather not, just let it sit there for another hour or so until it gets big and puffy. If your kitchen (or whatever room you’re doing this in) is drafty, you can cover them with a cloth towel or hide them in an unheated oven to rise.
Put them in a preheated oven at 375 degrees F. for 25 minutes. If you’re doing an open house, adjust the temperature to 325 and let them sit there for most of the day, opening the oven door from time to time, and then throw them away at the end of the day. If you’re going to eat them, let them cool down for about 20 minutes before you slice or tear into it.
Now, here’s the thing about this dough: it will be and do whatever you want it to.
“Artisan” Bread: add chopped fresh rosemary and chopped garlic at the same time that you add the flour. Or something else like minced sun-dried tomatoes and fresh basil. Maybe some handfuls of slivered salame and shredded cheese. Greek olives. Trust me, this is fun.
If you want to make baguettes, divide the dough into 4 long loaves instead of two.
If you want to make pizza dough, add a little less flour, just go skimpy on each cup that you measure. After the first rise, divide it between two sheet pans that have been coated with olive oil. Smash it down a bit and then let it rest, keep smashing and spreading it until it covers the entire pan. If it fights, turn your back on it for a few minutes, it will learn. Let it rise for about a half an hour and then cook it for 10 minutes at 375 degrees F. Now smother it in whatever toppings and sauce sound good to you at the moment. This is so excellent for when you don’t have anything in particular for dinner and a lot of leftovers. We’ve made barbecue chicken pizza, Italian sausage pizza, vegetarian pizza, and naked pizza with just some olive oil, herbs and Parmesan (call it Focaccia). Use up your leftovers, cut the pizza into little squares and then freeze them for instant appetizers.
Instead of shaping the dough into two loaves you can divide it up into hamburger or hot dog buns or sandwich rolls. You can divide it even more and put the little balls of dough into a 9×13″ pan and make dinner rolls. An egg wash helps if you want to add sesame seeds or poppy seeds, Parmesan, etc. Melted butter on the top of the finished rolls makes them shiny.
The latest use for this dough is pinwheel appetizers. I make the dough and divide it into 4 parts. Each part gets pressed into a sheet pan about halfway across, lengthwise. Now you can cover it with various condiments and items. Maybe some smokey mustard, roast beef, and cheese. You do have to make the toppings a little thin because now you’re going to roll it, again, lengthwise, and then cut the roll into slices about a half of an inch thick. Put the slices on the baking sheet, let them rise for about a half an hour, and then bake them at 375 degrees F for about 20 minutes. I could probably go on for days with ideas to fill these things but I’ll leave that to you. Put ideas in the comments!
The thing to remember is that this dough works for you-not the other way around, it’s a little like a Pekingese; if you don’t stay in charge, it could take over your life and cause undue worry. If it doesn’t rise, just cover it and walk away, unless your yeast has died, it might just take more time. I’ve used the word “about” a lot, that is because this will work, no matter what you’ve heard, this is just as much of an art project as a science.
You can buy 2 lbs of yeast for the price of a loaf of bread at Costco or Smart & final and it keeps for a very long time in the refrigerator. I wouldn’t bother with those little envelopes.
I think about dying all the time. Half the time it scares the shit out of me and the other half of the time I welcome it and dwell on it.
If Erik the Red got colon cancer, back then, and I got colon cancer right now, the results would be the same. Except for one thing; I would be aware of it and aware that there is a treatment and I would feel guilt because I cannot afford a colonoscopy. I choose Erik as an example because I think that we might be related. The fact is that not one thing has changed. Katie Couric can tell me all day long what I should do, I already get it. My Father died from colon cancer when he was 41. I’ve already outlived him by 9 years and fought with doctors who thought I was too young to worry about it. Every year they found polyps and removed them, gave me some snapshots and sent me home.
Not now. Now those photos of my intestines are just a fond memory. I cannot afford to know what’s going on in my bowels today, that’s their business. I cannot afford a mammogram, and this is kind of a fucked up thing, because I’m smart. OH, and also, I’ve paid attention to all of the campaigns to make me aware. All of the ribbons in all of their colors. I will not wear one of them.
What a waste of money. Instead of saving people, these campaigns are now killing them from knowledge and anxiety.
The ribbons are killing people. Even if you have insurance, can you afford the deductible? The last time I had insurance it was $800.00 a month for a family of three who qualified and the colonoscopy was a $1,000.00 deductible. That was when we thought we had jobs; what a luxury. But you know about it, don’t you? You’re aware of it. You’re aware of breast cancer, you’re aware of colon cancer and AIDS and all sorts of colors and you know exactly what you should do. You need to get a prostate exam. Oh, by the way, anxiety will kill you.
Ten years ago I paid a fuckload for my cell phone but I could connect it to my laptop and use it as a modem. Today, that’s all questionable and pricey. A year ago I could share my iTunes library with my nephew, who was in Iraq (not on vacation), but that technology has been swiped up and hidden.
We are all going to die younger and stupider.
Then what’s going to happen? Honestly, I don’t even want to know. I love my children and my nieces and nephews and it just kills me to see them inherit this horrible, inhumane, ignorance and greed.
I’m just so sorry.
And in the meantime, while we’re all waiting for the world to end, I guess that we should keep wearing the ribbons, just to show what our people died from, or what we are going to die from, a little bit of communication. But don’t give your money to the ribbon-mongers, find someone who has cancer or pulmonary fibrosis, or any number of other things and has no insurance. Save your money for when your friend breaks a wrist, or you break a toe. Or need cough syrup or an aspirin. Stock up on bandages and peroxide.
I think that we’re going to need to treat each other.
PS: This might not be bad news. Hospital contracted infections are the 4th kick ass cause of death. Wooooo Hooooooooooo! You’re kids will get the bill for that!
I’ve been wanting to tell you about the Poets in Distress for months. Oh, my god, so many tales to tell, such a grand night with the punk band “The Dull” opening and followed by a Post Punk Poetry troupe. We have pictures and video.
And then there was Matthew Mars. Are you familiar with Matthew Mars? It used to be Matthew Niblock, but we cannot concern ourselves with that now, it is Matthew Mars and he is amazing. Yes, I’ll need to write a lot about that.
In October James Bolt was here and he performed all over the place. He was incredible and his Mom was here and his girlfriend, Helena Rose, was here and we had an exhibit of her artwork and it was all very, very amazing. Again, there are photos and I am hoping that the video that Helena recorded came out well. Honestly, anything other than video would not convey what happened that night.
November brought Amelie Frank and she seems to me to be the Pied Piper, the room was full of poets. Due to this phenomenon, we decided to have an open reading at the beginning of the entertainment. 10, count ‘em, TEN great poets were in the audience. G. Murray Thomas was here and he was kind enough to run the open reading. What a bunch of lucky creatures we are.
Now we are here. I have one fuckload of typing to do. Trust me, I’ve been taking notes, and yes, names.
Some of the video is lost, some of it found. Photos are few and far between. I’ll write some words. The words need to be written.
The day before yesterday Rick Lupert and Brendan Constantine were here and after all of these things that I’ve told you so far, I’m kind of hyperventilating.
This is a placeholder. I’ll tell you about the artists, I’ll tell you about the audiences, I’ll tell you about the food, I’ll give you recipes. I’ll tell you about the whole damned thing, you know, if you wanna know. Ah, that’s not true, I’ll tell you anyway!
Please accept my apologies for taking so long about it.
The womenfolk’s “liberation” movement crawled along for decades, barely gaining ground. When it really took off was the day that the economy demanded a family have two incomes in order to survive in the style that we had become accustomed to. On that day women “won” the right to go to work and earn a little pin money, stop at the store on the way home for food and nesting materials, make dinner, wipe the kids noses, clean the house, do the laundry, and never, ever let him forget he’s a man. FTW! Pure bullshit, women didn’t win anything; the economy did. Children, families, and our society lost because, out of necessity, it became unfashionable for anyone to stay home. There is no choice anymore, no liberation for anyone because everyone has to work just to pay the mortgage and eat. Please do not misunderstand me and think that I blame men or even the “Stupid White Men”, I do not; we’ve all lost equally. I believe that this is the point where the economy started to rip away the fabric of our society and really destroy families en masse. And yet we celebrate the “right” to leave our children to raise themselves while every available adult goes off to earn a wage.
Now the economy is demanding that we be poor and conserve energy so that there is enough for WalMart. The Green Movement is really taking off! So trendy to re-use, re-purpose, shop at thrift stores, grow a victory garden, ride a bike, share a car. Be poor, it’s fun! The mendacity once again prevails. None of this is fun for us, but it is necessary and so we collectively go into a Soma fog and ride along. The economy asks and we provide. We all know that we’re in the middle of a collapse; as intelligent well-informed people we read about it, prepare for it, tell each other about it. Being unemployed is no longer shameful, being without health insurance is a game of stamina, living conscientiously and efficiently is admirable while conspicuous consumption is gauche, and skills far outweigh higher education on the desirability scale. Do I want my daughter to marry a doctor or a lawyer? Hell no, she needs to find a man who can fix things because it’s all breaking down. Everything that we’ve been taught is a lie anyway and of what use is knowing the past when we are doomed to repeat it and seem incapable as a species to learn from the big mistakes? A better use of time is learning how to bake bread and grow soybeans. Luckily for us, that is in vogue because higher education is prohibitively expensive and there is no money for teachers. Everything has been turned on its head and we’ve all fallen down a rabbit hole. For the most part, teachers make no money and support themselves with a second job. Meanwhile students are going into such debt that student loans surpass the national credit card debt. What are they learning? How will they repay? Who is going to hire them?
As an organism controlled by the economy as its head, “we the people” become a shape shifter and contortionist. We not only believe the big lies, we actively participate in propagating them. I’m not saying that there is no reason to “go green” or that any of these things are bad, I would just like to point out the convenience of the timing. Intelligent activists have been warning us since at least the 70′s that we need to take steps to protect the environment, find alternative energies, and live more responsibly. Nothing that’s happening environmentally right now is unexpected.
My concern with the current situation is that as we busy ourselves trying to figure out how to survive in this brave new world, while retaining some dignity, the Governments are a little slow on the uptake. These machines move very sluggishly and as an entity don’t seem to have a grasp on the real situation. I’ll allow that there seems to be some recognition, otherwise the taco trucks would not flourish as they do. I have to think that the health department is either giving people a little leniency to survive or they are just too busy to keep up with it all (probably the later). As we shuffle into this new mode of living; bartering, making things to sell, building sheds to store rations, the governments are going to need to change as well. Otherwise we will all, each and every one of us, be criminals. The luxury of a building permit is oppressive when you’ve barely scraped up the materials to build your emergency shed. A business license for your blog that brings in small change is a ridiculous fancy. The underground economy that is evolving, the one where we do each others laundry to make the money to pay Edison, is necessary and the only reason that a lot more people are not homeless; but it’s illegal.
On the eighth day God created the Economy and it was scary. Since we all know that the economy is a creature unleashed and uncontrollable, very much like the weather, I suggest that the Governments had better get it together and start working with us instead of trying to save themselves and hold on tight-fisted to the way things were. If we have to re-tool our lives, way of thinking, expectations and heal ourselves, this machine is going to need some adjustments. If they turn us all into criminals with nothing much to lose, it seems to me that there could be some very serious problems.
First thing we do, let’s kill all the economists. Then we can put the meteorologists in charge of predicting economic trends so that we’ll all know what to wear and how to structure our priorities.
*Today’s Hormonescope for Aquarius: I hate to be the one to tell you this but there are more Aquarians in mental institutions than any other sign. Take this as a warning to try and maintain. I know that your mind is going a zillion miles an hour, you just need to sit down and take some nice deep breaths, make a list of your projects, and a Valium® would probably be beneficial.
*Today’s Hormonescope for Aries: As a fire sign you have one fuckload of energy, you’re going to need to shoot it in the right direction. This is the Year of the Tiger, you need to prowl and growl. Take no prisoners! But a Xanax® or five might help.
*Today’s Hormonescope for Cancer: You’re going to need to stop being such an enigma, really, it’s annoying. What is it that you’re looking for; love, money, both? From the charts I cannot figure out if you want everything or are willing to give everything, this might be a problem. Just sit still today, I don’t know what the hell is going on here. Have you tried hormone supplements?
*Today’s Hormonescope for Capricorn: Wow, you are really driven, aren’t you? You are not responsible for all of the repairs that need to be done in the world. You need to have some fun and relaxation to balance out that work load. Viagra® is fun and might take your mind off of that broken roller blade from 1988 that still needs to be fixed.
*Today’s Hormonescope for Gemini: Oh for god’s sake, have you taken your Lithium®? I’ve read Sybill but nothing has prepared me for this. Please, gather yourself and get it together, this multitasking has gotten out of hand. Today is the day to merge and get some things finished. At the very least, do the dishes. Use Dawn® brand dish soap, it cuts the grease.
*Today’s Hormonescope for Leo: You want to be a superstar and you probably will be one since you have all of that very attractive charisma. Either that or a very charming serial killer. It will depend on how well you can take criticism and that will depend on whether or not you remember to take the Prozac®.
*Today’s Hormonescope for Libra: Everything you do or say is wrong and has the potential, nay, probability, of hurting or upsetting someone. For the sake of god and man, stay in bed and don’t try to be cute.
*Today’s Hormonescope for Pisces: You are an extremely talented but highly confused individual. Dexedrine® will brighten every thing up and help you to stop muddling through most days. Without it, you are doomed to emotional idiocy and will spend your life staring out the window and not knowing what you’re looking at. Statistics say that you may end up in prison.
*Today’s Hormonescope for Sagittarius: Please put that bow down, you’re going to shoot someone’s eye out. Who do you think you are, Ted Nugent? You travel a lot but it would be safer for everyone involved if you would stop running with a fistful of arrows. You are prone to motion sickness, Dramamin® should always be in your travel kit.
*Today’s Hormonescope for Scorpio: This chart is freaking me out. According to this you are old and wise and very, very powerful. Eat Red Hots® and pretend that they turn you into Superman, fashioning a cape should keep you busy for a while so that you aren’t tempted to use your powers for evil.
*Today’s Hormonescope for Taurus: Now listen, I know you’re over there on the outside looking over all of the rest of us, that’s cool, but you’re going to have to get in line at some point, I mean, the cafeteria is filling up. When you finally deign to get in line, could you please pay attention and move along? Psychotropic drugs are not for recreational use (although they can be fun!)
*Today’s Hormonescope for Virgo: Do not try to hug every cute thing that you see. Put that thing down and go wash your hands. My god, do you have to love everything? Listen, those mosquitos are not kissing you, you’re going to need some kind of insect repellant. I would go with DDT®.
*Brought to you by “Better Living Through Chemistry”
I’ve seen Ellyn Maybe & her band at a number of events and also when they had their residency at 212 in Santa Monica. Every single time, I find myself grinning like a maniac, I just get so excited by the music and the lyrics and the laughter. It’s impossible not to get caught up in it. Ellyn’s band is phenomenal, so talented and fun: Harlan Steinberger from Hen House Studios, Tommy C. Jordan from Geggy Tah and Robbie Fitzsimmons from Rabbits Running (this link is to a free album download that you should really check). Robbie couldn’t be here for the event but it was so cool to have the three artists who collaborated to create the CD “Rodeo for the Sheepish” all here to play it.
I need to admit here that I became a gushing fan the first time I saw them, and immediately asked Ellyn if she would perform here. I do not know where I get the balls for this stuff, I just couldn’t contain myself and I asked. She said “yes! Yay!” and it turned out that the date was her birthday and so we jumped around some and laughed and it was all giddy. Oh my god, what a responsibility! THE Ellyn Maybe is going to be here on her birthday? How am I going to make that great for her?
What the Tiki Bar looked like.
July 10th was the first time that we had the event outside and it was so nice to be out in the sun and be able to spread out a little. We used the PondWater launching pad, which was once a Tiki Bar until entropy took it’s toll. Everything that you see in this photo is displaced now except for the concrete floor. Todd Kraus and his son, Randy, brought a microphone and amp for Jamey Hecht to use and Randy did a great job with the sound.
Jamey Hecht opened the entertainment by reading 4 sonnets from his book, “Limousine, Midnight Blue“. Honestly, if you haven’t heard of this book then just click on “Jamey Hecht” in the tag cloud over there up and to your right. I have to stop glowing over it, you take over from here. I had specifically asked Jamey if he would read from his translation of Sophocles “Three Theban Plays“. You know, that story of Oedipus is really pretty killer and he tells it so well, I really wanted to see/hear it out in the garden. It was transcendent, so perfect with the birds singing in the background; I could have sworn that I was in Greece and in some other time. I’m going to show you the videos of that here, but you know how that goes; no matter how much I love these videos, they are no replacement for the experience of being in the audience.
So, what to do, what to do, what to do to make Ellyn Maybe’s birthday special and how do you earn Sophocles in your back yard? All I could come up with was the food; make a big cake for Ellyn and some Spanikopita for Sophocles, some carrot-fennel soup, sandwiches, etc. that’s all I got. But you know what did it? Ellyn and the audience made her birthday special. Jamey and Sophocles brought it home. I love so much watching the artists and the audience connect and make the day. At one point during the show the audience broke out with a spontaneous round of “Happy Birthday” and you could feel the warmth and joy between everyone.
Tommy C. Jordan playing our Kalimba
Todd was so smart and he suggested to Eddie and I that we bring out the Bass Kalimba that we had all worked on. Eddie gave it to Tommy and he knew just what to do with it. I was so thrilled because that thing has sat here for a very long time and we found the just right person to make use of it; he played it like it was a normal part of their set and it sounded so awesome! Well, now that I think about it, I’ve seen Tommy play table tops and chair legs and make them sound great. I have spent so much time trying to tune that thing and have never been able to do it, hours and hours of frustration. Harlen gave me the best tip ever and informed me that these instruments don’t need to be tuned, they just need to sound good. Who knew that having a musicologist in the house would provide such relief?
Lori McGinn made the most beautiful Mexican Wedding Cake cookies, they were delicious! Everyone brought such wonderful things, it really did feel like such a celebration, and it was! We had so much fun (I’m speaking for everyone, but we did!).
Here are Ellyn’s videos just to prove it:
Ellyn and her band and Jamey Hecht have humbled me to the point where I lost my stream of consciousness and have struggled to tell you about it. You’ll need to trust me that it was all quite divine.
Poets in Distress
On Saturday, August 14th, the Poets in Distress will be here and The Dull is going to reunite to open the show. I’m not sure what that means, but I suspect that a punk band is going to be in the back yard and a lot of unruly poets. What I know for a fact is that these unruly poets are really good and a lot of fun. Just because they bring chaos with them wherever they go, well, they can’t help that, it’s their lot in life. If you could find your way here to witness this with me, that would pretty much rock.
Picking out which of the limes in the grocer’s basket is the greenest, the ripest, the worthiest, you finish off the thousands of man-hours that went into making them all identical. Agribusiness has taken the three stages of planting, harvest, and distribution and added a fourth, the preliminary genetic erasure of every difference between the specimens. Mass-market produce is aimed at a faceless public of interchangeable consumers who have forgotten both the variety of imperfect nature and the possibility of living a unique life. You need to pretend that one of the limes is perceptibly better than the others, because those limes in the basket are eerily reminiscent of the milling crowd in the store: that greenest, ripest lime is you.
Jamey Hecht is a poet, a scholar, an actor, a journalist, a teacher and a perennial student. His book “Limousine, Midnight Blue” is available from Amazon. His website is jameyhecht.com and you can find his informative and entertaining blog at Poetry, Politics, Collapse. He will be reading at the PondWater Society July event on Saturday, the 10th with Ellyn Maybe and her band, at The Cobalt Cafe on September 28th and back here to do a solo feature at the November event.
