Angels and Others

Well the holiday food onslaught has begun.Right now in my office there are no less than five kinds of festive snack treats. No one seem s to know exactly where they come from, they just appear in the break room in the morning waiting to be eaten. While I’m not much given conspiracy theories I have entertained the thought that the snacks are delivered overnight by malicious imps fired by Santa and now in the employ of an underworld cabal made up of the owners of gyms and weight management systems. Does anybody even know what Jenny Craig looks like? A more plausible (but far less interesting) theory is that my co-workers have brought these sugary treasures to the office motivated less by the holiday sprit (although I’m sure that plays some part) and more by the desire to have them out of the house. Now I’m sure that the covert purveyors of these things both sweet and savory believe that they are spreading holiday cheer and no doubt they are. To those of us wh

Thanksgiving Day (or as it was known in our house, The Day When Mommy Cries) is now upon us and you either have or soon will eat a meal certain to equal or surpass the annual nutritional intake of a good sized Bengali village. I have not returned to my ancestral lands for today’s annual celebration of all things caloric but instead will be spending the day with husband and a good sized group of extended family and scatterings here in LA . It was during a discussion of this ad hoc gathering that I came to realize that while the components of the traditional Thanksgiving meal are fairly standard, turkey, stuffing (or “ dressing” if your dad wore a tie to work), sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce and the obligatory vegetables, the composition of said components varies greatly and opinions regarding this composition occupy a space in the holder’s heart somewhere between religious belief and the love of a first born child. While strong opinion abounds concerning almost every aspect

Artist and comrade  Carl A Affarian​ reminded me in a beautiful post today that our struggle for social justice continues. "The Struggle. The Struggle" I'm reminded of the words of two of our sisters in the struggle, first  #AudreLorde said, “Everything we do must contribute to the struggle, because everything they do contributes to grinding us into dust, and we will not be ground.” and second, Maxine Wolfe "It doesn't matter who's on the inside. Anybody can cut you a fucking deal.What matters it who's on the outside and how loud they're screaming." Keep screaming! Stonewall Riots New York City June 28,1969

1 While there are indeed two sides to every story, sometimes both sides are stupid. 2 if you think your life is crappy take a walk through the halls of Family Court at 111 Hill Street in Los Angeles. Your life is great. 3 Dress for comfort. Someone will always look worse than you. Always. 4 Judges and lawyers earn every dime they make. Mostly because they have to deal each other. 5 No one will confess. No matter how much you want them to. 6 No one will shout "You can't handle the truth ". No matter how much you want them to. 7 "Good" cafeteria meatloaf is still cafeteria meatloaf. 8 The courtrooms are kind of crummy. Those big impressive courts that you see on TV are...well...on TV. 9 The  ‪#‎ LemonadeLA‬  @MoCA might be the best lunch spot in Downtown LA 10 Law is beautiful and terrible and justice is a funny thing. 

Channel surfing the other night I came across something that I hadn't seen for quite awhile. No not Mexican midget wrestling, you can catch that on LA cable access Fridays at 2AM.   I saw a Bowflex ad and I was a little shocked. This ad was well … I don’t quite no how to say this…straight. This made me more than a little nostalgic for those good ‘ol man on man soft core commercials from the 80’s and 90’s.   Now those of you old enough to remember "Frankie Say.." t-shirts surely also remember these spots .   The young fair haired man-child clad only in a headband, red gym shorts, tennis shoes and baby oil goes through a series of muscle flexing exercises while an announcer extols the virtues of the machine in his best Barry White basso. Then after nearly ten minutes of slow pans across taught glistening man flesh some sweaty girl enters holding a towel to frighten all the gay away. I’m sure that for 10 or 12 people this ad was an informative pitch for an expensive pie

    The time of the Krampus is upon us. Every year we look forward to his Teutonic Yuletide child snatching and extreme corporal punishment.  We also have to ask if any culture with a nasty Christmas imp that punishes naughty children can be all bad. OK other than that business in the 1940's?