Tuesday, September 30, 2003

One by one, they fall...

Now Arianna Huffington is considering dropping out of the California recall race and throwing her support behind Bustamente. Is Arnold terminating these people one by one? Will Californians be stupid enough to elect another actor who leaves most everything to be desired in a political leader.

On the good news side, the Yankees lost the first game of their playoff series and the Giants won the first game of their series. As for Boston vs. Oakland tomorrow night, well, that is difficult for me as I like the A's but I am originally from Boston and still feel some loyalty there. My god, what would I do if the World Series were to feature the Red Sox and the Giants??????????? Yikes!!!!!

Sunday, September 28, 2003

TURN OFF THE DAMNED CELL PHONE

Honestly folks, what is so difficult about the concept of turning off one's cell phone when in a theatre or concert hall?
Here I was at Davies Symphony Hall Friday night enjoying a wonderful performance of Mahler's Symphony No. 4 which was being recorded this week for release on CD, when in the middle of the third movement someone's cell phone starts ringing. After three or four rings Michael Tilson Thomas slammed down his baton and turned and stared out into the audience looking for the vile miscreant. Personally I hope that the person was ejected and banned for life or that he or she will need to be stripped searched prior to ever re-entering the hall again. If a person is in the medical profession they have the option of putting the device on silent/vibrate if they desperately need to be notified of something. Is that so damn difficult???? Fortunately, for me and the other rude people about, guilty parties in such incidents have not been sitting next to me. Had they been in an adjoining seat I might have felt compelled to give them a swift swat with the program and that is just for starters.

As for the concert, MTT and the orchestra backed up several pages to resume and try to re-set the mood but for some reason the level of playing did not quite match what had preceeded the interruption. Maybe they should do as in Japan and block all cell phone signals inside the hall.

Today was the annual Folsom Street Fair but I was feeling lazy, tired, whatever, so I did not go even when a friend called to suggest it. I fear I was somewhat abrupt with Gary and I must apologize for my answer. Next Sunday is the Castro Street Fair and I am not sure if I will even make it to that. Sunday is just too far away at the moment.

Recently I applied for an absentee ballot for th recall election as I will be in Rome that day but so far I have not received it. If it does not arrive in time can I sue the city or the state for being disenfranchized?

By the way, for one of the better blog sites around may I recommend Swimfinssf.

Later folks...

Thursday, September 25, 2003

Just imagine, if television had never been
invented we would be eating Frozen Radio Dinners.

Wednesday, September 24, 2003

Boring television

That is probably what tonight's debate will be among the major candidates in the California recall election. Why is it that Arnold agreed to appear only in this one which has a scripted format? Can't he work without a script? Green party candidate Peter Camejo is my favorite but how much air time will he get and will he have time enough in which to say something meaningful?

What goes around, comes around, but apparently George Bush does not understand that. He refused to work with the U.N. and our Allies in Europe regarding Iraq and now that he wants them to bail us out he is getting a cool reception and probably has no clue as to why. What a dumb ass jerk he is!!!!

As for next year's presidential election, I am still leaning toward Dean and a Dean/Clark ticket would be an interesting one and probably very powerful.

Ah, cool, blessed fog has returned to our once lovely city by the way. I say once because the problem with vagrants and the homeless industry has nearly robbed this city of everything beautiful. This includes city hall (aka: Stupid Hall) where our elected leaders continue to ignore the wishes of the voters. My first choice for mayor from the beginning has been Gavin Newsom but I fear for his safety should he be elected. There are too radical nuts cases in this city that would be after him in one way or another.

Herb Caen used to refer to "The People's Republic of Berkeley" as Berzerkly (? spelling) but that city seems quite tame these days compared to San Francisco.

Ciao!

Monday, September 22, 2003

Bring on the fog!



As I write this the blessed cool air from our natural air conditioning has kicked in. Yesterday it was 97 degrees here in the City by the Bay and I was out in it most of the afternoon at the Networks Coliseum in Oakland watching the A's pound the Mariners 12 - 0. Fortunately our seats were in the shade the entire time or else my already scrambled brain would have been fried even more.

Now Bush and his henchmen are getting a dose of their own medicine as the French government wants a faster timetable for getting Iraq back on its own feet and getting foreign forces out. How does this feel Mr. Bush, you ninny!?!? What's good for the goose is good for the gander as the saying goes but I know Mr. Bush is not going to accept anyones else's decisions but his own. Even if someone walked on water to give him an ultimatum, he would still turn it down.

Speaking of water, I need some cold water.

Saturday, September 20, 2003

Open Wide




LIMA, Ohio - A dentist whose 14-foot toothbrush was pulled from the yard in front of his office is grinning again.

A motorist spotted the red wooden toothbrush Thursday behind a business a few houses down from Dr. Ruhl Warden's dental practice. Warden gladly paid a $100 reward for its return. "I had high expectations I would get it back," he said. "It's hard to hide a 14-foot toothbrush."

The toothbrush was stolen last weekend. Warden has used it as a yard sign for about 20 years. Warden, 74, thinks someone took it as a prank and then brought it back overnight. It looked a little banged up, but won't need any major surgery.

"Different people have tried to have fun with this," he said. "Someone called and said he was Paul Bunyan and he was looking for a toothbrush."

Police don't have any suspects.

Warden, whose hobby is woodworking, crafted the toothbrush out of yellow pine and the bristles from 10-inch-long cedar poles. It weighs between 80 and 100 pounds.

It's not the first time Warden has seen his giant toothbrush disappear. Someone stole it the morning of New Year's Eve 1996. It eventually turned up, damaged and painted blue, about six miles from his office.


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Friday, September 19, 2003

TGIF



Now what? Where do I go from here. I have just finished eating my usual boring lunch and must return to work in a few minutes. Tonight, at least, I have my first symphony concert of the new season at DSH although it features the overly familiar symphony number five of Beethoven. Next week, however, we have a biggee with Mahler's Symphony No. 4.

Had dinner with my friends from the U.K. last night and enjoyed that although the service at Thai Spice was not up to snuff. Must have been the crew on duty that night as all other visits have been fine. Last night the dinner was good as usual but the service was either rushed or inattentive, or both. If that continues, however, they may never see me again as there are so many Thai restaurants in the city to choose from now that ignoring one still leaves me with a very long list of possibilities.

The busy weekend will continue tomorrow morning as I need to get a haircut and do other errands and then my second opera of the 03/04 season takes place at night. It is Mozart's "The Magic Flute" which received a good review on opening night.

On Sunday I am off to the Oakland Coliseum for the Oakland A's/Seattle Mariners game with my friends from the U.K. and it looks as if it will be sunny and hot.

Well, I guess I have killed off enough time here with this drivel and it is time to get back to work.

Bye for now.

Wednesday, September 17, 2003

Say What?

William Soper, who keeps eight pet parrots at his Clock World store in Statesville, North Carolina, was charged with assault for spanking a boy who he claims tried to teach a six-year-old female green-wing parrot to swear. He succeeded getting her to cuss. Soper says he was just defending his property.

Hmm...I wonder if he could teach that parrot to sing?
They don't get it

Officials still wonder why people do not get out to vote. They always complain about low voter turnout but they are apparently clueless. I will make a couple of suggestions to remedy this.

1) Forbid the courts from overturning laws passed by ballot proposition.

2) Forbid Boards of Supervisors or City Councils from overturning laws passed by ballot proposition.

It seems like everytime John or Jane Q. Citizen does something, his or her desires are being overturned by people or courts who think they know better.

As a result of the rampant tampering with the election process, our votes don't count anymore. As a result it is difficult to work up any sort of enthusiasm for voting when you "know" that some public officials or some court is going to nullify or overturn what you and the rest of the citizens just did in the previous election.

So why bother to vote?

Monday, September 15, 2003

Take a number

My friend Donn returns from Singapore this week. Should I tell him to "take a number" so he can get to see me? Frankly, I do not know when I will have time for the next two weeks and this is embarrassing. Never in recent memory has my calender been so full of events in such a short space of time. I hope he is patient.
Are you a "singleton"?

PARIS (Reuters) - Supermarket dating, where singletons can check each other out via the contents of their trolleys, flirt while weighing vegetables and even walk down the aisles together, is coming to Paris.
Lafayette Gourmet, the food hall at the Galeries Lafayettes department store in Paris, is about to unleash the concept on the worldwide capital of romance.

Single shoppers will be identified on Thursday evenings by special purple shopping baskets decorated with a cartoon of a kissing couple, and offered a glass of champagne and a free photograph if they succeed in hooking up with a potential mate.

"We noticed that we have an evening clientele buying single portions of fresh food, so we decided the demand is there," Lafayette Gourmet Director Sylvain Gaudu told Reuters.

Paris, home to around 900,000 singles, many of whom are increasingly working hours as long as in London and New York, has already been introduced to speed dating and online dating.

The "dating market" shopping evenings, an idea imported from the Netherlands, will be jointly run from October 2 with Yahoo!, which already has an online dating service in France.

Once shoppers have made eyes at each other through the cereal packets or brushed past each other at the cheese counter, they will be able to chat each other up openly in the queue for a special checkout counter reserved for singletons.

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And here I thought that the Marina Safeway was noted for that. Well, I guess a good thing can spread.


Sunday, September 14, 2003

Saddest night of the week

That's what Sunday night is. If I can endure this night then I should be able to endure others I guess.

Anyway, the next two weeks are going to be super busy. Friends (actually one penpal and his partner) arrive in the country early in the week and we are to meet for dinner on Thursday night. Then Richard and I have our first symphony concert of the season on Friday night and our second opera of the new season on Saturday night. Then, on Sunday afternoon I will be going to the Oakland A's/Seattle Mariners game with my visitors from the U.K. Then next week I will have another symphony concert and another opera. The week of 9/29 - 10/3 will be rather quiet but then we are off to Rome shortly after that. After this is all over I might need a vacation from everything.

Dick Cheney is now hinting that they may need more than the 87 billion they have already requested for operations in Iraq. This is insane. This is absurd. This is immoral! We need to take care of this country first but no, we wouldn't listen to the U.N. or France or Germany. We had to do it our way. Perhaps with any luck we can salvage something out of this mess by electing someone other than Bush come November 2004. Unfortunately, they can do a lot of damage during the coming fifteen months.

Then there is the horrendous "Patriot Act" and the proposed "Patriot Act II" that Rumsfeld is pushing. This gang in Washington is nuts and very dangerous.

Friday, September 12, 2003

Enough already

Yesterday, Sept. 11th, I had to endure various renditions of "God Bless America" and the National Anthem on KOIT(FM) about every thirty minutes throughout the day. Why? Was this really necessary? As for the National Anthem, it is an anthem, not a pop song or blues or rock song so why do we have to endure such bastardized accounts of it at sporting events? One would never do that to the National Anthems in other countries. There they are played and performed as written. I feel so sorry for servicemen and women who act as color guards at sporting events for these atrocious performances. They stand at attention with their flags while internally they must be squirming at the horrible sounds they are hearing which only occasionally resemble what Francis Scott Key wrote.

Temps will be up over 90F/30C today so I am seeking relief indoors or, if outdoors, in the shade and then only briefly.



Wednesday, September 10, 2003

The Magic Flute

Since I will be seeing that opera next week, I hope I am not plagued by visions of this idiot.
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BERLIN (Reuters) - German police caught a man playing the flute with both hands as he sped through traffic at 80 miles per hour on a busy highway, police said Wednesday.

"He was leaning back in the seat and steering the car with his knees and feet," said Johann Bohnert, a spokesman for police in the town of Traunstein near the Austrian border. "He looked like he'd had practice." He now faces a fine of 50 euros ($56).

The 52-year-old from Salzburg in Austria, birthplace of Mozart, the composer whose works include the opera "The Magic Flute," told police he was not actually blowing the instrument. "He said he was just practicing fingerings," said Bohnert.
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I suppose it is a relief to know that America is not the only place with such idiots behind the wheel but I wonder what the American version would be. It certainly would not involve the playing of classical music. That too highbrow. Too elitist. Too whatever.

Uh-oh. The Bush team is at again. Further erosion of our civil rights is on the horizon with such things as no bail for terrorist suspects and issuance of subpoenas without court approval. In other words, Der Fuhrer in the White House gets to do what he damn well pleases. That is unconstitutional, no ifs, ands or buts.

I believe there is light at the end of the tunnel as I believe many Americans are starting to wake up as to what is going on in Washington D.C. with phony WMDs and phony wars and a budget busting military budget while our homeland infrastructure falls apart.

Although it won't happen because the liberal city of Santa Cruz, California has submitted an impeachment request to the House Judiciary Committee, they are on the right track as there have been a number of impeachable offenses committee by the Bush team.

Our next presidential election is in November 2004 and I feel certain that it will be an extremely divisive campaign that Bush and his henchman will wage but in the end he will lose the election and my personal favorite at this point is still Howard Dean.





Tuesday, September 09, 2003

Busy month

Greetings from San Francisco once again. I am still here although frequently exhausted at the end of the day. I need a vacation and if I make it through the next few weeks that is what I will get with my journey to Rome, Florence, and Venice.

In the meantime I must remain in this country where the federal government continues to embarass me and make me angry. First, they don't want to go through the U.N. nor listen to France and Germany regarding the situation in Irag but now that we can't extricate ourselves from a mess of our own doing, we want the U.N. and France and Germany to send in troops to clean up the mess and they have refused, and rightfully so. What idiots we have in Washington. How so utterly hypocritical! I makes me want to puke.

To make matters worse, congress seems to be willing to go along with the 87 million dollar price tag (or is that 87 billion?) even though our own infrasturcture is falling apart and many people have no health care insurance, or insufficient coverage, especially seniors and retirees. We can't even run our railroads properly. What a mess we have here. Why are we always so quick to spend the money elsewhere? Let's rebuild this country first!

Oh well, politics continues as usual. (see below)

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HOLLYWOOD (Reuters) - They really said it -- notable quotes from the news:

"The reality of it is that I am for the Latin community. I love Mexico. I have done four movies down there."

-- actor and gubernatorial candidate ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER, saying "dirty politics" was to blame for his being uninvited to serve as grand marshal of a Mexican Independence Day parade in East Los Angeles.

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Hasta la vista baby.

(and more later)

Thursday, September 04, 2003

Feeling better

A couple of days ago I was worried about a friend who might have been overly concerned about a planned vacation to Thailand but a call from him on Tuesday night was pleasant and gave no indication of trouble. I guess I just worry too much.

The idiots in Washington D.C. continue to do or say what they please regardless of what other countries think. The Bush regime is so deceived in many matters that if we get through this administration's rule without further damage, it will be a miracle.

It has been nice this week having my co-worker back. She returned on Tuesday following three months on maternity leave-of-absence. It seemed like a l-o-n-g three months to me but now everything is back to normal.

Recall madness seems to spreading as some people in Nevada want to recall Gov. Guinn and now some people in Rohnert Park, California want to recall members of the city council because they are backing a casino to be run by Native Americans. Whatever happened to the ballot box and going out to vote? Certainly recent elections have had very low turnouts so there is no justification for people complaining about what or who they got. If you don't vote, don't complain and don't try to cut someone's term of office short simply because you disagree with what he or she did. The election process is where you decide who to elect or not.

See you at the polls...

Wednesday, September 03, 2003

Idiots in Washington


Great...first Bush and his henchmen reject the U.N.'s plea for go slow in Iraq and give it more time to find WMDs but now we want other countries such as Germany and France to support us in our efforts to stabilize the country and provide more security for our troops as well as the people of Iraq. FAT CHANCE! Why should France, Germany or any other country help out when we ignored them and the U.N. in the first place? We have nothing but a bunch of nincompoops in Washington and as I have said previously, November 2004 can't come soon enough. That is, and only if the Democrats nominate a capable person. Then again, maybe Bush will lose regardless however his supporters will put up one helluva fight and will attempt to tar and feather every Democrat in the country in the process. LIES, LIES, LIES. The Republicans don't care as long as they maintain control of you and me in any way, shape or form that they can.

Monday, September 01, 2003

Is he angry?

Recently I called my friend about our planned vacation to Italy and when trying to look up the flight times, I inadvertently game him the flight time for my next trip to Thailand. He expressed surprise at that but did not say anything at the time. Actually I had told him earlier in the year about it but I guess he forgot or else did not realize that I was serious about returning to BKK. Anyway, I tried to call him Saturday about something but he did not return my call. I tried again yesterday (Sunday) and again, no response.

This is frustrating and if he is bothered by my plans he needs to get over it. I will go where I want, when I want, (if I can afford it) and I don't appreciate anyone pre-judging the situation or passing some moralistic views on regarding their own misconceptions about things. Let me say this however...yes, Bangkok has a certain reputation for its nightlife but then anything I can get there, I can get here too. If just costs more here. Also, I am not spending my entire vacation drinking and carousing at the local bars each night. My body has never been able to handle that and it handles it even less well these days. For that reason I did enjoy and will enjoy my time more in Chiang Mai which is a smaller city and has a slower pace of life. It too, has its night life but then what major city in the world doesn't.

Anyway, I hope my friend is not angry with me as this would put a damper on our trip to Italy. Unfortunately, I worry too, that there may be health problems which are keeping him from contacting me. Now that would be worrisome to say the least. I hope he calls today. If not I will try once again to call him.