When I quoted Yoko, I promised that there would be more to come, more things I’ve read that have influenced me, and here it one of the most important. I first read the passage below in a Survey of English Literature, Renaissance to the Present, in 1973. My professor was Ronald Newman (It’s been 35 years, and I still remember his name). He was wonderful, in and of himself, but he made even the dullest of the dead white men fascinating.

But this? This changed my life. Every few years, I go back and read it again, just to make sure I haven’t forgotten anything, to make sure I am still living in the now.

It was one hundred years old when I read it, and in its day was condemned for corrupting a generation of British youth (including and especially Oscar Wilde).

 

RJ, the RLA and I (MJ bailed ‘cause he didn’t think the RLA was coming) went down to the u-pic fields this morning. It’s getting harder and harder to find them, even in the most South Western nooks and crannies of Dade County. Instead of spreading green fields of tomatoes, strawberries and corn, or groves of mangoes, limes and avocados, there are town houses and estate homes. The RLA and I call them mushroom houses, because it seems like after every hard rain, a circle of them sprout up.

They have names like Mediterraneo and Vizcaya, but people, half a million price tag or no, they are still on Krome Avenue, west of which is only the tail end of the Everglades, and they are still in the middle of the great unwashed. I didn’t see a Neiman’s or even a Macy’s in those enormous strip malls today, but there was one each of BJ’s Wholesale Club, Super Wal-Mart, Max’s Something or Other denoting enormous quantities, and Costco. There were Targets and Home Depots and every other variety of big-box supercenters, and maybe two or three u-pics tucked in like stubborn stains of green on the other-wise beige knees of commerce. Or something like that.

RJ’s birthday cake, it all it’s sparkly glory. And yes, it was hot pink on the inside, too. Not quite the perfect maraschino cherry cake, yet, but getting really, really close.

This was in the Miami Herald this morning. It’s part of an on-going exercise in inanity and lameness, but today’s guest diva is someone I admire, and as part of my new year’s gift to you readers (more to come later) I pass it on in its entirety.

How does one become a true artist?

By the fact that you want to be one. I believe that anyone who wants to be an artist can be an artist. It all depends on your outlook on life and about yourself.

You have to know that you have in you all the possibilities that you want. You realize the possibilities by saying to yourself that you are an artist. Start from there and if you do not want to believe that, then why should anyone else believe in you? I always think rejection is temporary. You have a long life and the world is going to go on and on anyway, so you don’t have to be in a rush. Don’t be too impatient; life is very, very long. Realize that now as we speak, and all of a sudden things will happen; good things will come true and the right things will happen. You will get a lot of blessings and sometimes you don’t realize that they are blessings, because they often come in disguise. You are a person with big power and that power has to come out.

By letting it come out, you are actually doing a favor for yourself, the world and the universe.

Yoko Ono

But only on my tongue. In my steadfast belief that one should always get back on the horse that threw you, I spent last night drinking tangerine martinis with the PDB. I think I got up to five, but who's counting?

I did not get sick, despite the fact that dinner consisted of Shorty's BBQ (ribs, vinegar sauce, cole slaw and an ear of Very Greasy corn). I did not even get to the point of laying on the floor.

We drank and paid homage to our fathers and got weepy. We talked about the difference between art and craft. We looked at vintage magazines and analysed the styles, layouts and illustrations. We had fun, in a way that only art-school refuges can have fun.

Chin-chin, sweetiedarlings.

Tomorrow night, RJ is having a birthday par-tay for herself. I've promised to make a cake. I have no idea what cake that might turn out to be, but she's turning 50 and there seems to be a flamingo theme coming on.

I'm thinking that whatever I make, it will have pink icing. And probably be pink inside as well. This is the perfect time for me to find the ultimate marischino/red velvet cake recipe, but I'm not counting on the universe unfolding in quite such perfect synchronicity.

And for the rest of the three-day weekend, I will be sequestered with my code-writing books and I WILL (she says, shaking her fist at the sky) get this damn blog flipped to Expression Engine, because I am back to about 100 spam messages a day, and that, gentle readers, has gotten fucking old.

The Miami Herald's headline, the Boosh White House spin, the AP feed all claim that Gerald Ford "healed our nation" or "united our country" after Watergate. To which claims I call bullshit.

Excuse me, but Mr. Ford's legacy is not some sunny, morning in America era of peace and prosperity (that would have been Bill Clinton). No. Gerald Ford's contribution to American history is: he pardoned that rat bastard Richard Milhouse Nixon. Oh. And he launched Chevy Chase's career.

Let's review. Spiro Agnew was forced to resign in disgrace after it was revealed that he took bribes from contractors while he was Governor of Maryland. Took said bribes IN HIS OFFICE. And then, continued to accept them IN HIS OFFICE in the White House while he was the elected Vice President of the United States. Resigned in disgrace. Replaced, not elected, by Gerald Ford.

Then Richard Nixon, ditto. Forced to resign in disgrace after his role in Watergate and the subsequent cover-ups, stonewalling, demonizing, etc. (Karl Rove learned everything he knows about running a government in the Nixon White House.) was revealed.

And then, Gerald Ford pardoned him... PARDONED the rat bastard. And THAT unified a nation? In outrage, maybe. No, it was just the thin edge of the wedge in the virulent partisanship we see in our country/government today. After the slime and crime of the Nixon era, the Republicans managed to somehow claim the high ground and moral authority they so clearly did not and do not deserve.

Another state funeral for Boosh to preside over, and try to look like a worthy successor to the dearly departed. Considering what a failure Ford was, and what a devious, lying sack of shit Ronald Reagan was (Iran/Contra? Hello? Oliver North? AIDS?), one would think that even the asshat Shrub could look Presidential in that company. He fails completely, even by such low standards.

The only bright spot in this is that Betty Ford will be too classy a dame to pull a Nancy and kiss the coffin. Just make sure that Betty doesn't have a thermos and all will be fine. Maybe Chevy will get a couple of minutes in the spotlight, too.