The Bob said it best in "Buckets of Rain"

"Life is sad, life is a bust
all you can do, is do what you must
You do what you must do
and you do it well."

But then, when doesn't, or didn't, the Bob say it best?
Today is crazy, hectic, madhouse, insane, busy. Tomorrow, I go back on the road north. With a box full of Dylan and Bruce to keep me company in the car.

I have a commission to finish, and I can't because I'm never home long enough to sew a seam. I have a tree full of mulberries, or it was before the rains came, and I can't pick them to make a pie. Assuming I'd have the time to bake one.

My office is in full-tilt boogie mode, meaning that my boss has left, but not before giving me a stack of work to do. Actually, he's been handing me stuff a page at a time all day, and asking where I am on the stuff he gave me before each time he hands me something new.

Not where I would be if you weren't handing me new crap and asking me how it's going... How's that for an answer?

Unacceptable, most likely. I must run, sweeties, there was someplace on the other side of campus I was supposed to be 15 minutes ago.

Yeah. I got a question for ya. I got it right here.

If the filter on our server can detect and delete viruses, then why the fuck can't it just delete the whole damn thing? Why the fuck do I have to spend my day deleting 200 freaking messages with the subject line of "Important" "Re: Your document" "Hello" "Pictures of You?"
Hello. It was a virus. I don't need to see the spam bot that sent it. And our own fucking servers are infected, or being highjacked, because the new spam is a photo of "lonely girl" who wants to be my friend. And no matter who she is, no matter what first name is used, the mailing address is a hospital server.

Proof Reading: something to be done before a document is approved. Is that so hard? Could that little rule of thumb be taught to the freaking head secretaries at this institution? Huh? Could it? Ya think? Because I have to say that I am really fucking over the whole, "Put this document on line as a PDF (which I am too fucking stupid to be able to create myself, as a head secretary, so you need to do it for me) ASAP and less than 24 hours later, I get the new document with the typos corrected repeat the PDF and ASAP process." I'm just saying.

Here's another tip: if you don't want to spend half an hour sobbing uncontrollably into your napkin, don't watch "Big Fish" if you have either lost a father, or are in the process of losing one. Other than that, the movie is a delight and a wonder.

Ewan McGregor. He can do anything, can't he? I love the smile he used in "Big Fish." It wasn't just a smile, it was, um... Well, every time he flashed it, in my minds eye I could see the big animated star-burst shiny twinkle off his teeth. It was a work of art. It was "ACTING" in all caps. It was brilliant and completely articulated the character.

Well, it's been fun, kiddies, but believe it or not, I actually have some content to post on the hospital's site. I'm sure it's inane, and out of date, and thoroughly pointless, but it is content, so there you are. I'm going to do some "real" work.

In Saturday's Herald was a column by Ana Veciana-Suarez (and let me say right now that I usually read and enjoy her column.... Well, maybe enjoy is a little strong, but I read her regularly and don't gag, so enjoy it is) tackling the weighty issue of Bob Dylan's Victoria's Secret ads. You can read what she has to say here.
This is the response (quite measured, compared to my usual rants, or so the RLA says) that I sent to the Herald. For reasons that will be quite obvious, it'll never see light of day on the Herald's pages, so I present it to you in its entirety.

Last March I wrote the following on my blog:

"More Things I Wish I Never Saw
Friday, March 14, 2003

Last night: TV was on and I was doing a little hand sewing. I hear Bob Dylan's voice and music coming from the TV. I look up. It's an ad for Victoria's Secret.

I shake my head and check the contents of my glass, but no. I am sober and I am straight and that is Bob Dylan being used to advertise women's lingerie. For the past 30 years my friends have ridiculed me for my lewd fantasies involving me and the Bob. Is it possible that someone out there in advertising land thinks that 61-year-old skank is sexy? And sold the concept to a multi-million dollar industry that is, essentially, selling sexual fantasy? Because, let's be honest, Vicky's Secret makes stuff that barely fits and doesn't last. Bob Dylan? Sexual fantasy? To someone other than me?

Frightening. Very, very frightening. Disturbing, even."

That entry received no comments, and the fact that Bob was selling his music to Victoria's Secret passed unremarked upon in most of the popular press. There was barely a ripple about it on the various authorized and unauthorized fan sites.

What a difference a year and a face makes. The current incarnation of this campaign, which shows the ragged old face of my idol, garnered 17,400 hits when I Googled it just now.

Many people have referenced the apocryphal interview of 1965 wherein Mr. Dylan is alleged to have said that he would be willing to sell out for ladies' undergarments. But has anyone actually pulled that interview and quote out of the ether? No. (Google count for that reference? A mere 137 hits, none of which is specific as to where the interview was, or with whom.)

I am not a Dylanologist, but I am a fan. By that, I mean that I have watched and listened and appreciated him over the span of 40 years as his musical interests have changed, as he has donned and discarded his masks (both figurative and literal).

When Ms. Veciana-Suarez decries this latest Dylan event, and says she wants Dylan to be Dylan, what she is really asking of the man who defines mercurial is to be trapped in the amber of time: specifically a time thirty years ago. Has she listened to Time Out of Mind, or Love and Theft? There are no protest songs on either of those, his two most recent albums. There is knowledge of mortality; there is lovesickness and sorrow; there is some fierce rock-a-billy piano work.

So Dylan is selling lingerie? So what. With so much going on in this world, so much, in fact that Ms. Veciana-Suarez would like to see Dylan sing about, why doesn?t she pen a protest of those things, and quit staring into the belly-button lint of throw-away culture?

And thankfully, it was only a test. But when a crusty old fart like my father calls before 9 in the morning to tell you that he wants his family at his hospital bedside, and that said family means you, your husband and your dog, well you just better believe that tracks were made, rubber was burned, etc.

By the time we were crossing the bridge over the South Fork of the St. Lucie (what, three hours after the call?) the old man was grousing that he couldn't understand why we came up right then. Tomorrow would have been fine. Jeez, the way he and my brother were carrying on, we didn't think that there'd be a tomorrow.

By the time we left, yesterday, the old man was giving all of us shit. He's feeling better. The more that he griped, the happier we were.

And now I'm back at the office, grabbing my ankles and saying "Thank you, ma'am, may I have another?"

That was the subject line of the following e-mail. This has to be one of the saddest things I've ever seen come across the virtual transom. This person is trying to apply for a job at the hospital. She wants to be a clerical worker. Here is her e-mail, in its entirety. Only the names and addresses have been removed to protect the guilty.
"I TRAY TO APPLY BY THE APPLICATION BUT SOMETHING HAPPEN WITH THE COMPUTER

I APPLY NOW I F YOUR LET ME APPLY HERE


I APPLY FOR CLERICAL POSITION HERE MY RESUME


Education: English Center August, 1996

Miami Senior HJ August, 1993



Certificates: Business Computer

Application 1

December, 1993

D-Base

April, 1996

Lotus-Beginning Intermediate

April, 1996

Medical office Technology

August, 1996

Windows 95

August, 1996

Business Communication

August, 1996

Ms-Dos

August, 1996



Languages: English and Spanish



References: The English Center

Principal Diaz Fugue.



Work Experience: I have Experience in Teacher Assistant.

When I was in HJ School 1993



Let me work with your for vonlunteer for

One week if any to."

This is just so sad. And she sent it twice, with the same mistakes both times. I forwarded it to the HR department, because who am I to say she isn't qualified to work here? Just because she can't spell or use spell check? Hell, I have vice presidents who can't turn on their own computers, so why should a secretary have to be able to write in English? It's not like it's our primary language in this city, after all.

Another conversation on the train this week was with a woman serving jury duty at the Federal Courthouse. The room was filled to capacity, standing room only, she said. And then they made an announcement that if you didn't think you could speak/understand English well enough to follow along, you could be excused. (No matter that there are translators in the courts.) Two thirds of the room left. And I know she wasn't exaggerating, because the same thing happened to me last year. The room holds several hundred people.

Don't be fooled by the mass exodus, however. Most of the folks who left probably do speak/read/understand English. They just don't want to serve on a jury. Why? Who knows. I sure as hell don't.

The Anti-Christ (my ex-husband) is a criminal defense attorney. The ideal juror is one who doesn't read a newspaper, or listen to the news on the radio, or watch the news on TV. The ideal juror has a flexible view of right and wrong, and an IQ somewhere around dishwater. The idea that those kinds of people could be my peers (jury of one's peers?) makes my blood run cold. Just another reason to keep the proverbial nose clean, then.

I had the most interesting exchange on the train this morning. There was a woman sitting near me with a "Kerry for President" button on her backpack. She also had two boxes of aroma-emitting pastries, but I wasn't interested (Hah. Yeah. Right) in them.

I asked her if she'd heard many comments about her button. She said no, not so much, yet.
I asked her if she was FOR Kerry, or AGAINST Bush. She said, oh man, against Bush. In fact, she said, she had become an American citizen after the 2000 election just so that she could vote against him this year. "I come from Brazil," she said "and so am used to a certain amount of bad stuff, but that? I had to be able to vote to stop this."

She went on to say that there is a fine line between anarchy and democracy, and she sees Bush heading towards anarchy, where he does what he wants and there is no one to stop him. We talked about "The Handmaid's Tale" and how close to the present state of affairs it is. Then we talked about "Wag the Dog" and how it, too, is too eerily close to the truth of our current administration.

I wish more citizens felt like her. That it is our duty, our obligation, to vote. Every time I hear someone say that they don't vote because they don't like the choices, or because they don't believe their vote counts, I could just pull out my hair. Or theirs. Votes don't count only when you don't cast them. Or if you allow them not to count.

In Florida, in the 2000 election, our votes were disallowed by a state government run by the brother of one of the candidates. When the propriety of this was questioned, we were drowned out by the paid voices of the Republican operatives brought in from around the country. The brother in question was appointed President of the United States, and every time he is questioned, the questioner is drowned out by the paid voices of the right wing media. It has become a crime in effect, if not in actual law, to question the government.

But read your constitution. Read your Thomas Jefferson. It is not a crime, it is the duty of every citizen to question the decisions made by our government. If we, as citizens, do not agree with those decisions, then it is our obligation to remove the people speaking in our name.

Regime change begins with you. If you aren't registered to vote, then go out and register. If you don't want to belong to either of the two major parties, then register as an independent, or a Libertarian, or a Green. Just register. Then, just vote.

Until you do, don't complain to me that your vote doesn't count, or that you don't like what's going on in Washington.