I do, although it doesn't seem to be propagating yet. The lovely Kathy over at BlogMoxie has skinned me. (Yes, those are a pair of my own shoes.) And I've never looked better. Now I have to put the rest of GirlyShoes in order.

On the work front, things suck, and then they suck more. Where do I begin? How do they suck? Let me count the ways. They suck to the depth and breadth my soul can reach.

I have had to suffer through two meetings with the PHB and Loogie (from PR). On Friday, and again today. The conversations ran along these lines:
Loogie: This is wrong. Those aren't the medical specialties that we want to highlight.

Me: Those are the ones you gave me when you gave me the architecture I was supposed to follow.

Loogie: They've changed.

Me: Do I know that?

Loogie: You do now.

Loogie: We don't want to use that photo. Change it.

Me: Anything in particular?

Loogie: Anything that represents a money-making specialty.

Me: And that would be?

Loogie: Just pick something.

PHB: Is it hard to change a single image in a Flash animation?

Me: I need a drink

Finally, I'd like to say that, although the milk of human kindness runs in my veins, I have no sympathy for the folks on the west coast of the state who are carrying on like a hurricane never hit there before. My God, people, the entire state is a hurricane magnet, it's not like you live in Iowa, y'know?

Buy fucking shutters. Put them up. Don't build multi-million dollar homes on barrier islands*. Watch the Weather Channel. Evacuate when told.

*Barrier Island. If that name isn't a clue, then what is? Island Whose Only Reason To Exist Is To Be a Buffer For the Mainland When Really Ban Storms Hit?

And that thing that shocked the world? That a barrier island could become two barrier islands with a new channel? Take a look over on the east coast at Hutchinson Island. Happened in the last century. Big storm. Big storm surge. New inlet. End of story.

It's just like the folks living on the banks of the Mississippi. If something is named the 100 Year Flood, isn't that sort of a clue that this shit goes on with some regularity? Don't build on the flood plain. It's just that simple.

This just in from the Kerry campaign:

"Tonight may be your only opportunity to ask George Bush a question before November's election. This is your chance to put him on the spot in front of an audience of millions.

George and Laura Bush will do an exclusive interview with Larry King on CNN at 9:00 p.m. EST. Unlike all of Bush's "Ask the President" events and Cheney's "Town Hall Meetings," where attendees either have to sign Bush-Cheney loyalty oaths or are handpicked by the Bush-Cheney campaign, this event is open to all Americans.

To call in, watch Larry King Live at 9:00 p.m. EST and call the number shown during the program. After you call in, please make sure to share your call-in experience with us. Click here to report.

To email your question before the show begins, click here. Please share the question you email to Larry King with us - we are tracking our supporters' success. Click here to report.

Our goal is to get as many Kerry-Edwards supporters to call in or send an email to Larry King Live as possible. We know that not everyone can get on the air, but the impression we'll make with our thousands of calls and emails will be a lasting one. With your help, everyone working for CNN - producers, writers, editors, and staffers - will realize that George Bush owes Americans a lot of answers:

What does Bush plan to do about the fact that 1.9 million Americans have lost their jobs under his rule? What does Bush plan to do about the fact that 44 million Americans don't have access to health insurance? And how does he expect our children and young people to shoulder a deficit that is already out of control? Or afford education? What is his plan for Iraq?"

I had a question for President Bush:

Have you ever actually read the constitution of the United States? And if so, did you understand it? Specifically the parts about freedom of speech and separation of church and state?

Thank you.

Shot from the balcony, with a telephoto lens. See? I was there. And by then, he'd shaved.

As you all know, I am a devoted, maybe even a little obsessive, fan of Bruce Springsteen. I have been since the first time I ever saw him live, in the Miami Jai Alai Fronton in September of 1975. Let me set the, you'll excuse the expression, stage.

Back in those days, artists weren't as possessive of themselves as they are now, and it was common practice to drag a camera along to a show. Especially for kids like me, art students with more than a passing knowledge of photography. We shot everything. At UM, there was an excellent Student Entertainment Committee, and we had tons of shows on campus, out on the patio overlooking the Olympic-size pool and diving area.

Some of the acts I saw and shot were Elvin Bishop, Billy Joel (Piano Man had just been released), BB King, and Jimmy Buffett. I had seen some major acts off campus, as well: Jefferson Starship, Procol Harum, the Grateful Dead, and Cat Stevens, to name a few. I was a rocker, and a shooter, and a cynical art student and nothing impressed me.

I had Greetings from Asbury Park and The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle, so when Born to Run was released, and the tour to support it was announced, I bought my ticket, loaded up the camera and went to the show with my boyfriend.

There was a problem at the gate: they weren't letting people in. Years later I found out that was because there had been so few tickets sold there was a debate about actually doing the show.

We had seats in the back, but since there were only a few hundred people there, we immediately moved to about the third row, center. I got out the camera, focused on the stage and waited.

A single blue spotlight focused on the mike stand. A raggedy, hairy guy in a denim jacket and a black watchcap stood with his back to the audience. He started to play harmonica. The song was "Thunder Road". By the time they rolled into "Spirits in the Night", I was standing on my chair arms, dancing and my camera was forgotten under my seat. Bruce took a dive into the audience during that song and was passed along hand to hand over peoples heads. He never stopped singing. I never took a shot that night.

I had never seen anything, or heard anything, like him. I had seen God in the form of rock and roll. I was a fan, from that moment on, I was a fan. As we left the show, the boyfriend asked me to stay in Miami after I graduated in December. I turned, looked at him and said (predictably, and please remember I was only 20, so excuse the awfulness of this) "Sorry, Eric, but tramps like us, baby, we were born to run."

I moved to New York City. I met The Coolest Person in the World TM. I saw more rock and roll and took thousands more photos. But I have never, ever, ever, lost my passion for rock or for Bruce. And you know what? Bruce has never, ever lost his passion for the music or his appreciation of his fans. It is a covenant that goes both ways.

I was listening to a bootleg of "Thunder Road" from the mid 70s on the ole i-pod just now, and it all came back. I don't know, I just thought I'd share.

"What ever happened to Fay Wray?
That delicate satin-draped frame?
As it clung to her thigh,
How I started to cry,
Cause I wanted to be dressed just the same"

Dr. Frank N Furter, Rocky Horror Picture Show

Well, she was 96, and frankly, I thought that she'd been dead for decades. But, no.

I'm sorry, I'm just too dispirited to tell you stories of workplace stupidity, or kitchen follies.

The air conditioner, which had been broken for all of June, has just broken again, and the "service" people won't fix it and the "service" desk at Circuit City doesn't want to hear about the lack of service by their contractors.

Don't start me about the concept of service in the service industry. As I said to them last time, "If your contracted HAD actually fixed it, I wouldn't be screaming at you right now, now would I?" Or, on being told that I had called after working hours, "Well, you're working, are you not? You are not a service or an answering machine. And I'm sitting at my desk, talking to you. So both of us are, in fact, at work. How is this not working hours?(BIATCH!!)"

Bite me. Time for lolling in the pool with a tall one.

Hot to you from AP:

Bands Gather to Stump Against Bush
By LARRY McSHANE


NEW YORK (AP) - A collection of more than 20 prominent musicians from John Fogerty to Bruce Springsteen to Pearl Jam joined forces Wednesday calling for President Bush's ouster, announcing an unprecedented series of fund-raising concerts across nine swing states.
"I feel this is one of the most critical elections in my lifetime," Springsteen told The Associated Press in the most overtly political statement of his career. "This wasn't one that a concerned citizen felt comfortable sitting out."

Springsteen was joined by a collection of performers that spanned generations and genres: country act the Dixie Chicks, hip-hoppers Jurassic 5, bluesman Keb' Mo' and classic rockers John Mellencamp and Jackson Browne. The artists, touring under the "Vote for Change" banner, will play 34 shows in 28 cities between Oct. 1-8.

Springsteen's concerns and commitment were shared by other performers, including Dave Matthews and his band.

"It's the first time Bruce and the E Street Band ever stood up and made a clear political statement," Matthews told The AP. "This is the first time we've ever stood as a band, unified, and said we want a change."

The shows, which launch Oct. 1 in Pennsylvania, will take an unusual approach: as many as six concerts on a single day in cities across the states expected to decide the November presidential race. Other stops on the tour are North Carolina, Ohio, Michigan, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Wisconsin and the key state in 2000, Florida.

The money generated will go to America Coming Together, which promises on its Web site to "derail the right-wing Republican agenda by defeating George W. Bush." The anticipated millions of dollars will be spent in the swing states before the presidential election, said ACT president Ellen Malcolm.

The shows will be presented by MoveOn Pac, the electoral arm of the liberal interest group MoveOn.org.

There was no immediate word on prices for tickets, which go on sale Aug. 21 for all the shows. The concerts will pair artists, such as Springsteen and REM, the Dixie Chicks and James Taylor, or Mellencamp and Kenny "Babyface" Edmonds.

Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks, who memorably told a London audience last year that she was ashamed to share her home state of Texas with Bush, echoed Springsteen's comment about the importance of the Nov. 2 election.

"A change is in order," Maines said in an AP interview. "There's never been a political climate like this, which is so the polar opposite of me as a person and what I believe in."
The idea was hatched by several of the acts' managers, and quickly expanded. "Once we started talking to each other, ideas started percolating and other artists started reaching out to us," said Jon Landau, Springsteen's manager.

Many of the acts had a history of social activism, from Browne's anti-nuclear concerts to Mellencamp's Farm Aid shows. Pearl Jam front man Eddie Vedder was a Ralph Nader backer in 2000, but he feels Democratic nominee John Kerry is the choice this time around.
"There's a vote coming up, and a chance to have a regime change at home," Vedder told AP. "I'm feeling the same way, there's a need for change."

I told you all so, I told you, I told you, I told you. I said last week when John Kerry came out to the strains of "No Surrender" that he did it with Bruce's blessings.

Here's the quote from the man his own self, right off his site, and (for the first time that I can remember) over his signature:

"I felt like I couldn't have written the music I've written, and been on stage singing about the things I've sung about for the past twenty-five years and not take part in this particular election."

And here's the letter he ran today in the New York Times:

"CHORDS FOR CHANGE
By BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN
published in The New York Times, August 5, 2004

A nation's artists and musicians have a particular place in its social and political life. Over the years I've tried to think long and hard about what it means to be American: about the distinctive identity and position we have in the world, and how that position is best carried. I've tried to write songs that speak to our pride and criticize our failures.

These questions are at the heart of this election: who we are, what we stand for, why we fight. Personally, for the last 25 years I have always stayed one step away from partisan politics. Instead, I have been partisan about a set of ideals: economic justice, civil rights, a humane foreign policy, freedom and a decent life for all of our citizens. This year, however, for many of us the stakes have risen too high to sit this election out.

Through my work, I've always tried to ask hard questions. Why is it that the wealthiest nation in the world finds it so hard to keep its promise and faith with its weakest citizens? Why do we continue to find it so difficult to see beyond the veil of race? How do we conduct ourselves during difficult times without killing the things we hold dear? Why does the fulfillment of our promise as a people always seem to be just within grasp yet forever out of reach?

I don't think John Kerry and John Edwards have all the answers. I do believe they are sincerely interested in asking the right questions and working their way toward honest solutions. They understand that we need an administration that places a priority on fairness, curiosity, openness, humility, concern for all America's citizens, courage and faith.

People have different notions of these values, and they live them out in different ways. I've tried to sing about some of them in my songs. But I have my own ideas about what they mean, too. That is why I plan to join with many fellow artists, including the Dave Matthews Band, Pearl Jam, R.E.M., the Dixie Chicks, Jurassic 5, James Taylor and Jackson Browne, in touring the country this October. We will be performing under the umbrella of a new group called Vote for Change. Our goal is to change the direction of the government and change the current administration come November.

Like many others, in the aftermath of 9/11, I felt the country's unity. I don't remember anything quite like it. I supported the decision to enter Afghanistan and I hoped that the seriousness of the times would bring forth strength, humility and wisdom in our leaders. Instead, we dived headlong into an unnecessary war in Iraq, offering up the lives of our young men and women under circumstances that are now discredited. We ran record deficits, while simultaneously cutting and squeezing services like afterschool programs. We granted tax cuts to the richest 1 percent (corporate bigwigs, well-to-do guitar players), increasing the division of wealth that threatens to destroy our social contract with one another and render mute the promise of "one nation indivisible."

It is through the truthful exercising of the best of human qualities - respect for others, honesty about ourselves, faith in our ideals - that we come to life in God's eyes. It is how our soul, as a nation and as individuals, is revealed. Our American government has strayed too far from American values. It is time to pick up the pieces and move forward. The country we carry in our hearts is waiting. "

Amen, Bruce. A-fucking-men.