FRIDAY FANDANGLES

I'm sensing an exhaustion among my readership- too many hilarious, passionate, brilliantly conceived and executed essays on the state of humanity and the primordial ooze from whence it all began. So instead, dear readers, some fluffy odds and ends to usher you into your weekend.

But before we get to said fluff, a recommendation for you on the subject of the state of humanity and the planet it depends on, sans ooze. If you don't know who Annie Leonard is, it's time to find out. She has written a book about consumerism and its effect on our planet called The Story of Stuff. I was introduced to this extremely intelligent, dynamic and engaging woman through an interview on Tavis Smiley last night and am now planning on reading the book; in the                                                                            
meantime, I urge you to visit the website where you'll find all relevant info plus videos of  some of her recent interviews. The woman is omnipresent at the moment. May her audience continue to grow.



Glenn Beck made 52 million dollars last year. Yep, I said million. Manny Ramirez is going to make 25 million dollars for (occasionally if he's lucky) hitting a ball with a piece of wood. Who's paying their wages? We are, by showing up to watch them every day. We live in a mysterious neck of the universe.

I heard a nice quote for all those who are striving to realize a dream and may sometimes experience doubt around its eventual fulfillment:

"Invariably, when big dreams come true, and I mean BIG, there is a total metamorphosis of a person's life. Their thoughts change, their words change, decisions are made differently, gratitude is tossed about like rice at a wedding, priorities are rearranged, and optimism soars.... Yeah, they're almost annoying.

You could have guessed all that, huh?

Would you have guessed that these changes, invariably, come before, not after, their dream's manifestation?"

I'm not sure who said that, but I do know this: it wasn't Manny Ramirez or Glenn Beck.

Dancing With The Stars is a farce this year. Buzz Aldrin is 132, Kate Gosselin has some kind of low-level physical retardation (the mental side of things speaks for itself) and I want to waterboard Nicole Scherzinger, the brazen hussey from the Pussycat Dolls who reminds me of the guy who shows up at a friendly whiffleball game, proceeds to beat the living daylights out of everyone while never making an out and then casually mentions as he's leaving that he played in the minor leagues for ten years. Gee, I wonder who's going to get higher scores: the singer/dancer from a successful pop band or the aging astronaut who just snorted four lines of Cialis out the back to try to get in the groove? Please. After  last week's episode I lit a candle, ate some gelfite fish and put an ancient Jewish curse on Miss Pussycat. If she happens to come down with some kind of noxious, spotty rash during the week you know who to thank.

(Above: Nicole Scherzinger... evil.)

As I write this post today I'm sitting on a patio in front of a lovely back yard. Huge lemons hang auspiciously from the lemon tree to my right and blazing maroon bougainvillea surround me on my left. Birds chirp, no clouds beckon to me from a serene blue sky and the faintest breeze causes only the slightest stir. I'm housesitting, deep in the peaceful, irrelevant utopia that is the Valley. There is an eight foot hoop not twenty paces away and at some stage I plan to completely demoralize my girlfriend at a sweaty, erotic game of b-ball which reminds me of a wonderful quote by the late, great Detective Frank Drebbin, Police Squad:

"I like my sex like I like my basketball- one on one, and with as little dribbling as possible."

Amen.