Stan’s Obligatory Blog

Today I went to the Nuart to see “The Unforeseen“. This is a documentary about land use and development in Austin, Texas. We lived there for four years from 1991 to 1995, and were witness to a bit of the debate over development there. In particular, there was a big controversy about development in the Barton Creek watershed. The environmentalists said that it would degrade the water quality of the water in Barton Springs, which feed the city swimming hole. There was a big referendum campaign when we were there, with the city voting to stop the development. So then the developer had the state legislature pass a bill to overrule the city. This bill was vetoed by Governor Ann Richards. But then, when George W. became governor, they passed it again, and he signed. And apparently, all the bad predictions have come true. The film included underwater views at the springs in 1996 and 2004, and the difference in the water clarity was stunning.

As much as I’ve always said that I hated living in Austin, there’s really nothing wrong with the place. It just wasn’t where I wanted to live. But I was always curious about what had happened with the Barton Creek development issue, since that was such a large part of local politics during our time there.

And one other treat was that I got to meet Carol, who I’ve known online for several years but never met in person before. So that was fun.

This afternoon, we all went over to West Hollywood to see “What Would Jesus Buy?” at the Sunset 5. I think that this may be the first time we’ve taken Lucinda to see and art-house movie, and it turned out to be quite a little adventure.

The film follows Reverend Billy from the Church of Stop Shopping when he and the Stop Shopping Gospel Choir go on a nationwide tour to try to stop the commercialization of Christmas and to raise awareness of the costs of our consumer culture. They visited the Mall of America, Disneyland, and lots of places in between, preaching the gospel of anti-consumerism. It was hilarious.

For a special treat, the director was there to answer questions after the film. The film was produced by Morgan Spurlock, who did “Supersize Me”, and this film is done in a similar style, with Reverend Billy and the choir doing guerilla ‘interventions’ at big-box stores and malls. He uses his bullhorn to preach of the coming ‘Shopocalypse’. They also performed exorcisms of credit cards to drive out the demons of debt. Overall, it was a fun time, even though Lucinda was the only child in the audience.

I found this article on BME the other day:

www.bmezine.com/news/guest/20070818.html

It’s the story of a man named Louis who was a pioneer in the field of body and genital piercing. Reading the story, I realized that we had met him once. Back in 1988, we went to a video show and party at EZTV in West Hollywood. And we met him. He was a nice guy. But when I got to the surprise ending of the story, I just about fell out of my chair.

After reading the article, I heard that one of his old rings is on display at Anomaly Piercing here in Pasadena. So I stopped by on my way home to see it.

In the kink world it’s sometimes said that the weirdest people are Republicans.

I saw this in the parking lot at the grocery store in our neighborhood.

So I’ve been reading a lot lately about Alberto Gonzales and the firings of the U.S. Attorneys. And I remembered that I went to college with him. I didn’t know him at the time, but we were at Rice at the same time for one year. So I dug out my 1979 yearbook to have a look at his “senior box”.

The Rice yearbook gives all graduating seniors a little space to put anything they want in the book. So here’s Alberto Gonzales’s. Note first that in those days, he went by “Al”. I guess it wasn’t considered an advantage to be ‘ethnic’ yet. His box is pretty standard. It doesn’t give a lot of insight into his character. Unless you consider ‘bland’ to be a form of character. But perhaps that’s what’s necessary to be the President’s toady.

Anyway, it’s not really significant, but I found it slightly amusing.

Today we went to the Center for Inquiry in Hollywood to hear a talk by Marty Klein titled “America’s War on Sex: Why the Christian Right is Obsessed With Your Sexuality”. This talk came highly recommended, since Nina Hartley said he was a good speaker when I’d mentioned to her that we were going to go.

His talk was very good and very entertaining. Sadly, it was also a bit depressing, but that wasn’t due to his delivery or skill. It was just the subject matter. The most memorable quote:

“Conservatives want to make government smaller. They want to shrink it down until it can fit under your bedroom door.”

Anyway, it was a fun time, and afterward, we went to Babeland and bought a new sex toy. That seemed appropriate in some way.

And Nina was right. Marty Klein is a good speaker, and if you get a chance, go see him.

That someday we might see this all across this great land of ours:

Now I know it’s probably naive to think that the Republican Party could go out of business, but hey, everybody’s entitled to have a pipe dream…

I don’t usually write about politics here, but I had a funny thought today.

Tuesday is Election Day in the USA. And right now, the talk is that the Republican Party is in trouble. Something about incompetence and corruption. But that doesn’t matter. The thing is…

We should all vote for Democrats this time. Because it’ll be a larf.

If the Democrats take control of both houses of Congress, they can launch simultaneous impeachments against President Bush and Vice President Cheney. Now comes the fun part. If they are removed from office, the new President will be… the new Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. At this point, the entire Republican Party will shit their pants. And that would be fun to watch, and easily worth the price of admission.

So in about 18 months, you might be seeing Rush Limbaugh squirming on TV, and it won’t be because he’s making fun of people with Parkinson’s Disease. No, it will be because he has a big, fresh, steaming dookie in his pants. And that would be a laugh riot.