My brilliant friend breaks down the atrocity of Gaza flotilla for you

My most learned friend Dr. Joseph Fitsanakis wrote this great article. He is a well respected worldwide authority on intelligence matters. Why he and his equally brilliant wife consent to hang around Sparky and I sometimes is a mystery to me.

Oh yeah, he also writes for this great blog as well. Go check it out some time.

Sweet sweet swag

Look what my monkey ass got:
My buddy Keith got it for me.

Happy Birthdays!

Happy birthday wishes go out today to a couple of the most important people in my life.

It's my friend and brother from another mother Todd Covert's birthday today!
Todd is one of the finest improv guys on the planet. He's a damn fine guitarist as well. And he makes me laugh like nobody else can. Happy birthday you bastard!


And as luck would have it, it's also Sparky's birthday today too!
Your chocolate cake won't be as fancy as the one above honey, but it'll be good nonetheless. Happy birthday sweetie! And thanks for putting up with me for another year.

Yay June 25th!

Who's holding our Crunky now?

The hostess with the mostess the lovely and super foxy Miss Donna is holding our...hang on, that's not Crunky she's got, it's dessert plates! Miss Donna is not holding our Crunky now, false alarm. Sorry. You may now go back about your regularly scheduled business.

Cake?

We went to a wedding at our friend Michelle's house and this was the groom's cake. It was unholy good cake. It was slap yo momma good cake. The wedding and the folks who were there were nice but the cake was out of this world. Holy hell, I love me some cake.

Who's swagging me now?

My old buddy from college Yvonne is swagging me now. She sent me this little art piece that I'm going to frame and hang in my home office. You really can't fully appreciate how cool this piece is because my scanner did not pick up all the nuances and material thatthe artist put into it. Nonetheless, thanks a million Yvonne! You're the best!

Graphic Novel Reviews

Fables: Animal Farm is the second volume in the graphic novel series that tells the story of what happened to all the fairy tale characters after they got run out of their kingdoms by the mysterious 'Other.'

In this edition of the ongoing Fables saga we find out that the animals from all the famous fairy tales now live on a magically protected farm in upstate New York. But all is not well on that farm. Some of the animals resent having to be cooped up forever on a farm never to interact with humans out side it's borders ever again, because after all if talking animals were discovered then it might blow it for all the other fairy tale people who do live among humans. So the disaffected animals decide to revolt and they stage a revolution.

Into this this atmosphere step the feuding sisters Snow White and Rose Red. One of the sisters chooses to help the animals and the other chooses to try and stop them. One wins, the other doesn't. You'll have to read the novel to find out which one wins and which sister loses.

This edition of the Fables saga is just as good as the first one. It's a story well told with top notch art. If your local library doesn't carry this title like mine does then go buy it at your local comic book store, it's well worth the price you'll pay for it.

Some of you will be familiar with Ghost World from it cinematic adaption.

For those of you who aren't the bottom line on this graphic novel is that is tells the story of a couple of teen age girls on the cusp of graduating high school. That's it. I know, it sounds boring but honestly it's not. It's an amazing 'slice of life graphic novel.' It's even more amazing that a story about the lives of two teenage girls was written and drawn by a man, Daniel Clowes.

Clowes delves deep into their lives and he shows some funny bits, some futile bits, some fumbling bits, and at times the most disconcerting bits of these two girls lives. His graphic novel is very different from the film they made of it, which is actually a good thing. It's good because if they had made a film version of this novel with out changing anything then the film would have been a huge downer that nobody would have seen. They took the best bit out of the book and they expanded some others to get the movie version and in this case I liked the movie version a little better than the book.

I recommend both highly though.

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I got both of these at my local library and I want to give a special shout out to the folks at the Johnson City Public Library, especially the new head of that august institution. I know he's been instrumental in bringing more and more graphic novels to our library and for that he deserves a high amount of praise. And I'd say that even if he wasn't a friend.

Separated at birth?

Hot British fantasy writer Susanna Clarke
and blog hottie Suzy the Quaker vixen.

Swag Update

Long time blog pal Matty Boy sent me this little dude: He's skateboarding cape wearing vampire monkey. It came with a little ring and chain so one could use him as a key chain if one wishes but I didn't put it on him. He has joined his other simain brothers atop my computer tower:Yay swag! Yay Matty Boy! Yay giant women who Matty Boy loves!

Swag update

My old college buddy Joe sent me some cool swag. He picked me up a couple of packs of these:
How nifty is that?

I hooked back up with Joe through our mutual college buddy Yvonne and I hooked back up with Yvonne through Facebook. We're all burning up teh internets now with emails and Facebook posts and chats. I know when he invented the internet Al Gore was only trying to make the dream of a free porn delivery system real but I'm loving this side effect of Al's invention.

Thanks for the swag Joe! You rock buddy.

Blog plug

My friend Joseph Fitzinakis, the smartest guy in the world, has a new blog out. It's all about the murky world of intelligence. Joseph, seen here in the foreground stroking his oh so manly beard at our holiday party a few weeks ago, has a PHD in intelligence. So unlike others who write about the world of spies and spying, Joseph knows what the heck he's talking about when he writes about that kind of stuff. You can see his great new blog by clicking here. If you want unbiased information on intelligence issues, then add him to your blog roll and read him every day.

Finally

Back in August my friend Keith and his family drove across the country to be in Denver for a few days right before the Democratic party convention started. While he was out there he picked me up a cool poster and I finally got it framed and hung in my office.
As you can see, it looks smashing. Thanks Keith!

That's the way the cookies crumble

As we set out for the cookie making festivities in Knoxville yesterday it began to snow. We got a few flurries at first and then the sky opened up and it poured snow as we made our way down the highway. Near whiteout conditions prevailed for many many miles but I did not let it stop me, okay so maybe I exaggerate, but I swear at points the snow was sticking to the interstate and or blowing like crazy. I drove on knowing that there were many cookies to be made, many people to see, many bad jokes to be made, and a few beers to be drunk at our destination. The snow and bitter cold were not going to keep us from attending one of our beloved holiday traditions. And so boys and girls, after a little over an hour and a half of heroic driving, which was mixed in with a good bit of whining on my part, we arrived at our friends Todd and Donna's place.

We said our hellos to our hostwho was 'kickin' it West Coast style' as my peeps in the street say. And found our hostess who was, as you can plainly see, already drinking. Have no fear though, we hobbled her so that she could not drive later. No need to thank me, I'm just doing my part as a conscientious citizen.

Whoever said that strangers are just friends you haven't met yet has never been to a cookie making party at the Covert's house. There were a ton of new people at this years party and as usual I forgot their names almost as soon as they were introduced to me. Screw it though, lets meet some of the new folks. The cute gal in the plain apron was working too hard to put up with my nonsense. The little gal behind her I'm pretty sure she just wandered because she was enticed by the smell of baked goods. The woman washing dishes I met last year. She thought she'd make me remember her name by wearing an apron with her name on it. Ha! I foiled her plans by staring her her boobs when I talked to her. That'll teach her to try to make me learn when I don't want to.

The blurry gal tried asked me to stop taking her photo. I got a pretty strong vibe that she was in the Witness Protection program or something but I'm an inconsiderate bastard and I took her photo anyway. Look at the guy and the gal in the background, they weren't making cookies, they were eating them! Egad! If you look above the beardy guy's head you can see that Donna has Santa's balls in a jar on top of that shelf. No wonder the guy comes only once a year. Zing! Thank you, thank you, I'm here all week. Try the Tofurkey and don't forget to tip your waitress after the show. Here's more new people making cookies. The only one who's name I remember is the gal on the left, her name is Sarah. I hope she forgets that I used this unflattering picture of her by the time next year's party rolls around. In addition to remembering Sarah's name, I remembered the names of some other people as well.
This is Donna's boss Jaycene (I'm not sure if I'm spelling her name right but come on people, I did good just to remember it!). You can power a small subdivision with the energy produced from Jaycene's smile. I knew Jaycene from my days when I was in Knoxville's only performing improv comedy group. She'd come to see the show and even if we sucked on the nights she came she would always tell us we did a good job.

I also remembered this gal's name. Her name is Sparky. Isn't she cute? The gal with the arrows pointing to her is Cathy. For the second year in a row Cathy is the MVP of the party. She baked her booty off and made sure things ran like clockwork. I'm pretty sure I named her MVP of the party last year so once again she'll receive either a lovely gift pack valued at over $10,000 or she'll get the sincere thanks of a smart ass party goer.

But of course the main purpose of the party is to make cookies. Here's some gratuitous cookies shots: Ha! I just threw that last one in to see if you were paying attention. When I saw people rolling these little balls of dough up I began making all sorts of ball jokes. I'd repeat a few here but this is a family blog god damn it. And there's no fucking place for smutty jokes about nuts. Speaking of nuts though, when the spicy nuts came out of the oven I put some on my chin and I said, "Hey look, I've got hot nuts on my chin! Who among you hasn't had hot spicy nuts on your chin at one time or another?" Some people didn't spprecitate my 'humor' and they fled down stairs where they enjoyed the song stylings of Todd and his buddy who's name I forgot. Todd is a very talented guitar player and singer. He digs Elvis Costello maybe even more than I do and we both appreciate Elvis's lovely Canadian wife Diana Krall. Mmmmmmm, Diana Krall, hubba hubba. He sang and played a bunch and his buddy backed him up on that thing in his lap. It's called a Zen Drum and it's got a bazillion drum sounds in it, all you have to do it to hook it up and press the big black buttons.

All in all we had a good time, as we do every year. It's nice seeing our old friends and meeting so many new friends. It's even nicer getting to take a big tin of freshly baked cookies home at the end of the night. Thanks for having us Donna and Todd! Happy Christmas you crazy kids!

Rolling in dough

It's that time of year again. It's Covert Cookie Saturday and we're off to Knoxville soon to be enslaved by a wine swilling madwoman.How could we refuse this year's invitation to help her bake all her Christmas cookies? Here's what this year's invite looked like:

"You are cordially invited to come to Todd and Donna's to help bake Christmas cookies.

Come along quietly and nobody gets hurt.And no complaining this year or we'll get our armed guards to use their soon to be banned semi automatic weapons on your lazy ass.

Oh, and all that happy holidays shit too."

So as you can see we're looking forward to it. I'll post pictures and a made up pack of lies about every one who attends this year's extravaganza sometime tomorrow. Mazel tov bitches!

I'd be quite the catch but they won't chase me

Since I jumped into this whole Facebook thingy a bit more I've come back into contact with some old college friends. And just like in college they fall into two distinct groups, one group of them I partied and hung out with, the other I didn't. I've been exchanging emails and all sorts of memories with my old party pals but the folks I didn't party with I have hardly exchanged much with except for the cursory greeting and 'friend adding.'

The thing I find funny about all this that a couple of my old college friends have become ministers and as soon as they found out I was a card carrying atheist, and the card I carry is my library card, they stopped communicating with me. No more messages on my Facebook wall, no emails, nothing. I'm grateful they don't, but you'd think they try to save my soul or something. You'd think they at least be cordial on the off chance that I might turn to them to find out about the good news about Jeebus H Christ. But just like in college it turns out that the religious people only want to be be around others who think like them or who they think they can brainwash into thinking like them.

I'm glad I've reconnected with my old party buddies even though we live hundreds of miles apart. And as far as the god squadders who I've reconnected with, the way I feel about them is just about the same way I felt about them in college, which is to say, I can take them or leave them and mostly I leave them.

Oh, and I'm glad that I connected with some of my blog pals on Facebook because it helps me get to know you a little better and we share a different side of our selves on there. But if I don't return good karma, or throw more "snowballs," or pass you "drinks," then I apologize. I'm still a Facebook rookie and I don't spend enough time there to be all hip to the latest advances in Facebookism.

I live in a magical place where Thanksgiving meals never end

The table was set and at about 3:45 yesterday afternoon Sparky's family came over for dinner. Unfortunately Sparky's work friend couldn't make it because her little girl got sick. I was bummed because I was looking forward to seeing the little tyke because she and I have something in common, we've both had open heart surgery. I had mine at age 42 and little Maria had hers before she turned 2, she was born with a heart defect that they had to correct before her heart grew any bigger than it was then. Thankfully she made it through her operation with flying colors, and she probably shed a few less tears and complained less than I did when I had my open heart surgery. I had bought her a little book and I got the stuffed animals out for her to play with but sadly she caught some snotty nosed brat's cold in day care and she couldn't come. Here's hoping my lil' surgery buddy gets well soon!

Anyway, here's the Thanksgiving day supper she missed out on:

1. Turkey

2. Dressing

3. Sweet potato casserole

4. Stuffed mushrooms

5. Chips and homemade salsa

6. Fresh cut celery, carrots, and cherry tomatoes

7. Home made dip

8. Broccoli/cauliflower salad

9. Baked butternut squash with toasted pecans and bleu cheese

10. Cooked carrots

11. Cranberries

12. Gravy

13. Brussels sprouts

14. Mashed potatoes

15. Spicy shrimp

16. Homemade bread with herbed butter

With all that food you'd think we lay off the dessert wouldn't you? Well, you'd be wrong. Here's the dessert and drink table:

1. Red velvet cake

2. Pumpkin pie

3. Pecan pie

4. Homemade banana bread

5. Homemade pecan and chocolate chip cookies

6. Fruit salad

7. Pumpkin pie cake

8. Sweet tea

9. Unsweet tea

That's Sparky's dad pouring himself some unsweet tea. I showed him the post where I used his old army picture and he wanted to thank all of you for your nice comments, especially you K. Line.

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We'll be having leftovers of that fine meal for a couple of days to come and tomorrow we go over to our friend Snad's house for Thanksgiving dinner with her and her husband, her brother Mike and his sons, and some other friends. We're looking forward to it because our friend Snad is not only a great commenter on my blog, she's also a damn fine cook and a great hostess.

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In other good news I got an email from my old college buddy who just moved to Mumbai. He told me he's fine and that he was good and far from the terrorist fray.

Have great weekend kids, and happy eating!

Un film fest de Monkey (part 2)

Night seven: Neo realism and it's discontent
I dig the Italian neo realist films of the late '40's and '50's and I love Open City the most out of those films. I saw parts of it in college and I finally saw the whole thing a few years ago. It's an impressive bit of film making.

And to lighten the mood after Open City we'll screen this light comedy that playfully and gently mocks those overly earnest neo realist films. The Icicle Thief is a treat all the way around. I first saw it at an art house theatre down the street from my old apartment in Roanoke VA.
Night eight: Grandin Memories in black and white
I loved the Grandin so much that I had to devote a night to a few of the many films I saw there. Very often I was the only person in the theatre when they'd run some of the lesser known art house or independent films and I clearly remember being the only one in the place when I saw this over looked gem:
Say what you will about Robin Givens, in this movie she shone brighter than the sun. It's a crime that this film did not do better at the box office.

It's also a crime that White Mischief isn't out on DVD. This film is about some debauched Brits who live in Africa, sure that doesn't sound like much to base a movie on but believe me, it's kick ass good. Greta Saachi never looked better and her performance in this film is off the hook good.

Night nine: Hollywood comes to me
Yes, kids, I'd screen the film I'm in. Hey come on, not only am I in it, it's also a good little movie. Katherine Keener is very funny in this movie and Sam Rockwell is good in it too, as is John Turtrruo. It's another overlooked film of the past few years. Not only was I in a film but a few films have been made near places I used to live. Parts of Crazy People were shot in Roanoke when I lived there, in fact one scene was shot across the street from my old apartment. They also shot parts of What About Bob? near Roanoke when I lived there.

Night ten: Monkey business!
Did you think I'd not show some movies with primates in them? We'll screen this classic:And then this classic which I saw for the first time at the Grandin Theatre:The day this film opened they put up on the marquee, "Now showing: Gorillas in the Midst." Thankfully someone noticed the mistake and it was changed later that day.

Night eleven: Bill Murray
Bill Murray has always been one of my favorite comedian/actors. Since I already screened one of his early works I'll use this night to show off some of his later stuff.

His supporting role as the shady lawyer in this fine film is one of his best. He's the much needed comic relief in this sexy suspense flick. The whole thing works all the way around and who knew Neve Campbell could be so conniving?

We'll close Bill Murray night with one of my new favorite's of his: Night twelve: Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it

History has always been one of my passions, I did major in it in college after all, and so we'll close my personal film festival with a couple of historical films made by one of America's best film makers, John Sayles.This great film shows the story of the Matewan massacre that took place in Matewan WV. It's a damn fine realistic and sympathetic portrayal of the south that is not burdened by big time actors who do shitty southern accents and go all "actorly" on our asses. Chris Cooper deserved an Oscar for his role in this film.

And finally we'd end with this sports drama about the Chicago Black Sox. It's one of the most poignant films ever made. The entire cast gives great performances in this movie and among them those of Studs Terkel, John Cusack, Charlie Sheen, and Bill Irwin really stand out.

Thanks for the tag PJ, this was a fun meme and it reminded me of how much I love films.

Bele Chere, mon amour

The last full weekend in July means one thing in Asheville, NC and that one thing is the street fair/festival called Bele Chere. We've been attending Bele Chere on and off for about 10 to 12 years now and we've grown to really like it, provided the weather is not scorchingly hot and dismally humid. Since the weather recently has been neither, we decided to hook up with our friends Todd and Donna and take in this the 30th edition of Bele Chere. While we waited for Todd and Donna to arrive from Knoxville Sparky perused some of the artists booths and I got to see a fabulous show put on by Baton Woman (I have no idea what her real name is). Baton Woman is a gal who is in her mid to late 30's, she's rail thin, and very energetic. I was innocently snapping photos faster than a Japanese tourist when I heard her loud music coming from her portable tape player. Then I turned and I saw her doing a kick ass baton twirling routine. She was tossing that baton high and catching it, smiling and showing off all the while. It was a treat to see her work her baton magic. By the time she finished she was beaming with joy. She smiled and waved to the five or six of us who watched her and I started applauding because she put on one heck of a performance. I tossed a buck and some change in her tip bucket and I told her she was great. You could have powered a small city with the wattage of her smile when she heard me say that.

Our friends Todd and Donna finally showed up and we all started taking in the artsy/craftsy booths, the public service booths, the hippie vendors booths, and of course we suffered through some bad music: This flute guy was playing some serious screeching shitty stuff. I wanted to ask him if he took requests and if he said he did then I was going to request he stop playing but alas I did not. I settled for making snide remarks about his awful musical stylings with my buddy Todd. Speaking of music, we watched this guy with a drum walk up and start to jam with the three other guys. They smiled and let him sit in for about half a song but when he his drumming started to drown out their playing they ran him off.

We walked around for a good couple of hours taking in all that Bele Chere had to offer before we succumbed to hunger. I was perfectly willing to eat the fare from the street food vendors but my companions wanted to go inside where there was air conditioning and have a sit down meal. Thank goodness I followed them into this restaurant. The food was fantastic, I had shrimp and Cajun sausage with a brown gravy over polenta cakes, and despite the surliness of our waitress the whole experience was nice. I'd definitely go back there but not if that cranky gal was my waitress. As the day wore on the temperature went higher and the ones who suffered the most were little fair skinned white kids. In the above picture the woman in the wheel chair was trying to comfort the squirming kid in the stroller but as you can tell he was hatin' on her efforts.
One of the great things about Bele Chere is how community activist organizations use it to spread their messages. PETA has a booth, the ACLU, various conservation groups, and all kinds of political organizations have booths as well. This year I was glad to see that the Obama campaign had booths all over the place and they were registering voters right and left. They also were not content just to sit there so they'd send out people into the crowds to ask if anyone wanted to get registered. I had about three of their people at various times ask me if I was signed up to vote. I looked for Bush McCain backers and Republicans who wanted to get people registered to vote but I found none. How shocking.

On the fashion front, this look was not as popular this year:But the gals who are still using it are still cute as buttons.Thankfully the "wok hat" look was confined to this one gal.

Most of the artsy types had signs up asking people not to take photos of their art and I complied, with a few exceptions. One of the exceptions was this artist who makes metal fish and mermaids. I love this guy's work. When I hit the lottery jackpot I'm going to buy some of his art.

Since I'm back on artists there were a couple of neat performance artists that we got to see.These two little gals, ages probably in the range of 10 to 12, act was to recite song lyrics in unison and then they'd just suddenly freeze and glare at one another. Then after a moment or two they'd start up again in unison. It was kind of unsettling to see them but after watching for a minute or so their act became kind of cool.This chick is one of a cadre of young people who dress up like statues and beat on a drum. They'll stand stock still and then every three minutes or so they'll beat out a rat-a-tat-tat and then freeze again. If you toss them a tip they'll bow as a way to say thanks for your generosity. Some of them, like this chick, do it well and they have great make up and costumes, but some who do this really suck at it.

Of course no outdoor gathering below the Mason Dixon line would be complete without some Christian kill joy trying to ruin everyone else's good time.These pricks stood on a street corner and tried to make the rest of us frightened enough to join them in their delusional religion that's based on fear, obedience to the patriarchy, and death and dismemberment. And they were joined by a couple of asshole who spread the "good news" about how all of us who do not believe as they do are going to burn in hell because we don't take the metaphor of Jesus as seriously as they do. Oh well, some people are never so happy as when they're ruining it for the rest of us.

On the plus side there were some celebrities at Bele Chere this year. New York Times columnist, bestselling author, and Bush administration apologist Thomas Friedman had a booth where he tried to tell anyone who would listen that we need to give the war in Iraq another six months before we even think of pulling out and he also preached about how much we should all love globalization even though it's ruining our economy, our food system, and our lives. As you can see his booth was not well attended at all.

Douchebag Man was also in attendance at this year's Bele Chere. Never heard of Douchebag Man? Aside from his biggest super power, which is being a huge douche, he also has the ability to bore small children and to cause apathy and indifference in adults. Perhaps he was there on behalf of the McCain campaign.
And finally we spotted a member of the Loyal Order of The Water Buffalo dancing to the strains of a Zydeco band, that's him in the fuzzy blue hat. I tried to get a better shot of him but his dance moves made that impossible.

All in all we had a lot of fun at this years Bele Chere and you can see all the other pictures I took over there by clicking here. I'm already looking forward to going to next year's edition of Bele Chere.