New Making Fiends short is here! Go! Watch!

Also fer szandara:

Meet Blogger James Lileks who rants a little like you on the subject of perfect moms (although he's a stay-at-home dad). Also, meet his hero, The Slacker Mom, who also sounds like she's had a pretty long conversation with you. Heh.

Thank heavens. This supermom thing drives me nuts and I'm not even a mom.

Also, can someone please explain this?




So, I assume from this image I'm supposed to believe that the AARP, that bastion of liberal hotbeddism is for gay marriage and for killing U.S. soldiers? Really? I'm pretty sure my AARP-member parents would've mentioned that this was the AARP's sooper sekrit agenda (which you can only access once you're 55) if this was the case.

This will teach the AARP. Never, ever work with the criminal Bush Administration. You were willing to work with them for the pharmaceutical company welfare bill Medicaid Prescription Drug Cluster Fuck Bill. But, naughty naughty, you're opposing the Social Security privatization bill, so Rove and company (re: the Swift Boat Veterans for Lies Truth) are coming after you.

Here's hoping the weight of angry grey-haired citizens will crush this like a bug.

( Looooong rant on Social Security lies...bad words ahead )

People who are interested in comprehensive Social Security coverage, please check out Talking Points Memo and The Social Security Network.

Anyway, on to more pleasant subjects.

I have to tip my hat again to huzzlewhat and her Seeing Africa for the sheer amount of research she put in to that story.

I've been organizing research and notes on my upcoming Africander Soundtrack full of World Music goodness to put in the storyline/linear notes and it's been pretty insane. My inner researcher addict is getting off on the Web sites and home access to the library network's magazine articles database.

I've been researching and reading about the Dogon in Mali far more than is entirely sane or healthy for the past few days. I made reference to this tribe in Cuckoo in the Nest and just decided to start my research there. The serendipity is just...

A culture of masks. An area where white people would not be necessarily out of place because anthropologists are all over these people since they still hold on to their animistic beliefs.

And can I mention? The Dogon consider craftsmen (including woodworkers) as having some supernatural abilities, including speaking to the spirits of the ancestors and settling disputes between people. Heeeee! PERFECT!

No. Not writing story. Writing linear notes. Yes I'm insane. Shut up.

This ten things meme...

Ten things that I've done that you probably haven't.

10) When I was a reporter I corresponded with a convicted murderer locked up in a federal pen for killing a woman and two children. I needed to ask questions about an appeal his lawyer was filing. Although I never got an answer to my questions, he used to send me postcards every other month that scared the crap out of me.

9) Talked to two cosmonauts on the Space Station Mir via ham radio.

8) Attended the 2001 ACE Awards in Beverly Hills where I met the film editors for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Almost Famous, and Traffic. During that same trip, I also met Clint Eastwood's film editor.

7) Interviewed a film editor whose career started with the Burns and Allen Show and ended with The Milagro Beanfield War. This guy had stories, let me tell you.

6) Spent a day with homeless people so I could write a day-in-the-life story for a newspaper. My city editor was such an idiot that he sent another petite woman (a photographer) with me to hang around about a dozen homeless guys, half of whom were mentally ill, the other half of whom were high. Good times. To this day I can't smell patchouli without getting ill.

5) Personally asked President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore questions. President Clinton was during a town hall meeting in New Hampshire. Vice President Gore was during a press conference in New Hampshire.

4) Got my ass chewed out by in person by Alan Keyes when he was running for president in the 1992 election because I dared question him in my role as a reporter. [Note: He most recently ran against Barak Obama in the Illinois senatorial race for the 2004 elections.] He claimed that his pro-life stance was in the Declaration of Independence. I asked him where it was because I sure as hell don't remember reading anything about abortion in the Declaration of Indepedence. By the time he was done screaming in my face and drenching me in spittle, nearly 60 people were ready to hang me from the highest tree on the property. Do I have to tell you that I still hold a grudge against the son of a bitch? Am I shocked he tossed his own daughter out of the house after she stepped out of the closet? Shit no. I put nothing past any guy who'd advocate (to my face) smacking me around until some sense was pounded in my head while he was running a presidential campaign surrounded by his adoring followers. And yes, I grabbed him on his way out the door and gave him a very loud piece of my mind because he was such an ass.

*ahem*

3) During confirmation, I walked up to the bishop and called him, "Your bishopness." To his face. The nuns were horrified. From that time forward, all Confirmation candidates were schooled in "Church etiquette" and threatened with death if they didn't call the bishop, "Your excellency."

2) Slapped a complete stranger across the face while riding the T in Boston because he asked me to. I slapped him so hard that I left an imprint of my hand on his face. I ran the hell off the T while his buddies were yelling and laughing that it was soooo cooooool.

1) Grew up in a haunted house. The ghost's name is Jimmy. He's been known to throw candles at people's heads, run up and down stairs, play with our pets, play all the ornaments on Christmas trees, play with electronic equipment, and do other assorted strange things to remind us that he's still around.