Monthly Archives: May 2010
Is it weird that I think Junichiro Koizumi is atrractive?
| May 4, 2010 | Filled under Internerd |
I am in the depths of finals, desperately trying to finish up two papers before 5 p.m. today. Only then can I emerge from my dungeon, covered in grime and pale from lack of sunlight.
One paper is about sexual tourism and the other is about something I haven’t quite figured out yet, which sucks because it’s totally due in six hours. In the meantime, I wish I was working on something like this: the feminist implications of Dirty Dancing
Pawdrophenia
| May 5, 2010 | Filled under Internerd |
My first slideshow ever went live on the Houston Press website last night, pictures from Jen’s third annual Pawdrophenia scooter ride benefiting SMART Animal Rescue. I fell in love love love with a pug with a bum leg but CLH would never let me take home another dog. He was so sweet. His name was Obie.
More pictures of the ride on Flickr.
Sweet, sweet Connie was doin’ her act
| May 6, 2010 | Filled under Blog |
OMFG I hung out with Pamela Des Barres last night. Here she is with honky-tonker Mike Stinson.
In the early years of college a friend turned me on to the now-defunct website Groupie Central (accessible by the magic of the Internet Archive). That started an obsession with the phenomenon of groupies, fueled by my already long-standing obsession with music journalism and making zines/trying to interview all the bands I loved who played Oklahoma.
The library had a copy of Des Barres’ book, which I quickly devoured, and from then on I was committed to journaling the exploits of my life (which, by the way, have not included losing my virginity to Jimi Hendrix’s bassist).
Meeting her was a pleasure and if I wasn’t going to New Braunfels for this, the 5th anniversary of my marriage, I would be studiously taking notes in her memoir workshop here this weekend.
I nerded out to her by saying “I read your memoir when I was a kid,” and she replied, “Yeah? Well I have three other books too.” Touché. Then again, when I asked her how she knew Mike she gushed “He’s my boyfriend!” like a 15-year-old girl. So I think we’re even.
You can read my interview with her in the Houston Press.
Category 5
| May 9, 2010 | Filled under Blog, Video |
Rick Mitchell + Jeff Corwin = Hank Schyma, my new crush. We bonded over tornadoes at the Art Car Ball.
This one makes me miss Oklahoma.
I have this rule, see
| May 11, 2010 | Filled under Shorts |
I referenced the Bechdel Test in a longform essay test today about the plight of the female protagonist in Leslie Fiedler’s pattern of the male narrative. I am awesome.
Piano with Wind and Trains
| May 11, 2010 | Filled under Video |
Trailer: Piano with Wind and Trains from Andrew Laker on Vimeo.
I just found out my friend Butch, whom I’ve written about before, has had his first feature-length doc, PIano with Wind and Trains, accepted to the Chagrin Falls International Documentary Film Festival.
Butch and I met while working at a small suburban newspaper — he was a photojournalist and I was in my first real job as a reporter. We had the most evil of editors, but fun coworkers who made the job tolerable and a margin of creative freedom. Later Butch found a job that would let him experiment with video, though he still does a lot of photography work too.
I am excited about this film fest not just because I am credited in the doc as a creative consultant but also because it’s a friggin’ good movie, a heartwarming story, and because I am proud of my friend.
On editorial license
| May 12, 2010 | Filled under Shorts |
As I mentioned yesterday, I have had some shitty editors in my life. I have also had some great ones. I think I’ve cried in front of just about every one of them.
My current editors are pretty awesome — so awesome that I have sent a letter to their bosses and their bosses’ bosses highlighting the ways in which they’ve made my life, and my work, more enjoyable and easier. Which is why this memo, from Village Voice editor Tony Ortega to writer Foster Kamer, makes me giddy.
We put into words the things people actually think and say when they are being honest with each other and not talking in that pretend-voice that the dailies and the television people put on. Right? I mean, that is at the core of this foul-mouthed, truth-telling, non-pandering institution. I mean, that’s the only reason I want to work here, anyway.
It is so heartening to have an editor stand up for the bottom line (the realbottom line, journalistic integrity, not the financial one).
I was awakened at 5 o’clock this morning
| May 13, 2010 | Filled under Shorts |
“I had a dream I was trying to exorcise a demon…”
“And I had all this paperwork to fill out…”
“And I had to get the demon to sign the paperwork too…”
*sighs*
“Stupid thing couldn’t even hold a pen correctly.”
On the blue
| May 14, 2010 | Filled under Internerd |
Wednesday I wrote a post for The Press about the 40th anniversary of the KKK bombing our local Progressive radio station, a radio station that is situation in a house in my neighborhood, just two blocks ways from me.
Wednesday night I was going through my Google Reader and I came across this post on Metafilter.
A story I have written was posted to the front page of Metafilter. A STORY I HAVE WRITTEN WAS POSTED TO THE FRONT PAGE OF METAFILTER!
I’ve been a Mefite for five years and it is consistently one of my favorite websites, for its interesting, sometimes silly, but always intelligent links and discussions. Metafilter’s motto is “Best of the Web” and I’m honored that something I’ve written falls under that category.
Babies are evil
| May 15, 2010 | Filled under Blog, Photo Album |
Don’t you just want to gobble her up?
I spent the last morning of my 20s hanging out with a 5-day-old kid. She is pretty awesome. I even forced an awkward CLH to holding her. I let her sleep on my chest while I laid on the floor, and she was all wrapped up like a Freebird burrito.
When you hold a sweet, innocent baby, you get a kind of warm fuzzy feeling inside. The feeling is so strong I’ve been on a high since this morning. I can’t stop thinking about it. That’s the evilness of babies. They exude this pheromone that makes you love them so that you won’t eat them instead. Seriously. It’s in some medical journal somewhere.
I am the oldest grandchild on one side of my family and the second oldest, by several years, on the other side. Tomorrow I am turning 30 years old, and some of my cousins, ten years younger than me, are already parents. People now feel that it is appropriate to ask me why I don’t have children, and the only answer I have is that I just haven’t felt it yet. Even today, spending all morning with a 5-day-old and a 9-month-old — I didn’t want to put ether one down, but I also didn’t want to take either one home.
30
| May 16, 2010 | Filled under Photo Album |
It’s a tradition in my running club that you buy the club a keg of beer for Happy Hour, to be consumed at Memorial Park, when you have reason to celebrate. I bought a keg of Left Hand Milk Stout and neither rain nor lightening could prevent some hardy friends from consuming (most of) it. At around 8 p.m. it had been raining — pouring — for two hours when a photographer for the Chronicle showed up to take pictures of the crazy runners in the park drinking beer in the rain.
I can spot a lie from a mile away
| May 17, 2010 | Filled under Internerd |
I found this funny little post, 5 Things You Should Know Before Dating a Journalist, to be accurate and entertaining. And No. 3 is mostly true.
Fire and hailstones
| May 18, 2010 | Filled under Blog, Video |
I’ve been obsessed with watching weather videos on Youtube lately. Metafilter is partly to blame, as is The Awl, but the real culprit is El Nino*, which is responsible for the worst winter Houston had in the past 30 years and also the fact that we’re probably gonna have one helluva hurrican’ season.
I also had this thing, when I was a kid, where I felt a kind of strong kinship to any object or event that I could remotely relate to my own personal history. For example, I loved to read stories about The Pilgrims’ Mayflower because my birthday was in May, and in some way felt that made me connected to it. It’s weird, I know. I have also always been fascinated by the eruption of Mt. St. Helens — it happened two days after I was born. I even have a Mt. St. Helens “emerald”, as the true emerald is the birthstone for May.
Best comment in the hailstorm thread: Our planet is fucking awesome.
*Which in Spanish means “the Nino”.
Summer Tour 2010
| May 24, 2010 | Filled under Blog, Shorts |
I’ve been counting down the hours to Wednesday and Memorial Day weekend because our trip to San Antonio for Amerivespa starts off a summer of travel that will take me to the other side of the globe and back. I am excited.
- May 27-31 — AmeriVespa 2010 in San Antonio
- day ride to New Bruanfels to go toobin’
- including a police-escorted ride to the Alamo for a group picture. The mayor is giving the VCOA president the keys to the city! It’s like an episode of Batman or something.
- raffle and party at the 125-year-old Pearl Brewery
- June 2-14 — Florida!
- I’m going diving with manatees!
- Hukilau 2010!
- Somewhere else! But we’re not sure yet! Maybe Key West? Or Tampa!
- June 20-July 13 — Gothenburg, Sweden
- Now it really sounds like a Batman episode!
- Maybe I’ll check out the Epidemic of Art
- 18 hours of sunlight a day!
- The Malm Whale!!!
- July 15-19 — Cloudcroft, NM
- We’re riding the motorcycle from Houston for my family reunion
- Maybe we’ll make a side trip to White Sands
- or hike to the famous rotting railroad trestle one of my relatives helped build
- August 15-22 — maybe back to Sweden?
We’ll only be home about five weeks total during the entire summer. Looking forward to may adventures.
I wish I had a pencil-thin mustache
| May 24, 2010 | Filled under Blog, Internerd, Photo Album |
Why yes, that is me, doing a down-down from a hallowed-out lawn flamingo while tailgating at a sold-out Jimmy Buffett concert.
Here is my review from my first-ever Jimmy Buffet concert.
I regret to inform you that I might now be a Jimmy Buffett fan. I am certainly no Parrothead, but I had a working knowledge of his music before Friday night. However, as I say in the review, it’s fucking impossible not to like the guy. His early work is sentimental without being cloying. His later work is innocent escapism. His politics are sound. And he loves manatees. It’s the first show I’ve been to in a long time in Houston where the drunken crowd didn’t get aggro. It was a damn good time.
You can see a slideshow of pictures here.
* The title of this post? I want to learn that song on the ukulele.
Houston, 1969
| May 25, 2010 | Filled under Blog, Photo Album |
From my friend Swapatorium’s flickr stream:
Yep, that is Dean’s Credit Clothing 41 years ago, when it was actually a clothing store and not a music venue. Also, in the background:
The Lomas & Nettleton Building originally housed offices, but was converted into a residential loft tower in 1999 and renamed the “Franklin Lofts”.
Although given the title of Houston’s first “skyscraper”, the structure is not actually a high-rise. As the Franklin Lofts is considered to be a low-rise building, the 10-story 711 Main, now known as “Capitol Lofts”, which was completed in 1908 and rises 10 floors, was actually the city’s first “high-rise” building to rise at least 10 floors.
Proper Fucking Booming
| May 26, 2010 | Filled under Blog, Photo Album |
The Deepwater Horizon spill is bad. Really bad. But you want to know what’s worse?
Uhh, language is NSFW.
(Via MetaFilter, where the comments are, as always, priceless.)
Those fuckers better not screw up my approaching Florida vacation, and they better not fucking kill off the 8,000 remaining endangered Ridley sea camp turtles that are just beginning to recover from a 1979 oil spill.
