good grief!

David is in Donna. Donna is actually a town in Texas. He and I collaborated on a Christmas song a few days ago and had a great time. The Vince Garibaldi classic Charlie Brown Christmas was the track that we chose to attack. He took a very smooth, classic approach and I went a little more divergent.

Wednesday in the park with george

Standing in Lafayette park Wednesday afternoon was very chilly. It was a windy 30 degrees, but the cold temperatures did not deter. About 75 transplanted and uprooted Louisianians attended a rally to rebuild New Orleans and the gulf coast.

We gathered with fun protest signs and plenty of spirit. I held my "Katrina blows & FEMA sucks!" sign and bobbed it up and down as we chanted, shouted and generally acted up just behind 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. I doubt that George W. was listening to us, because he was holed up doing damage control because the New York Times was about to publish the fact that he'd okayed spying on U.S. citizenry without any judicial review.

Mrs. Landrieu laughed at my sign and told me that she agreed with it. Before long, about 15 or 20 reporters appeared. We carefully orchestrated ourselves, making sure camera angles were just so and I had a team of 4 people making sure my hair and makeup was just so. We stood so the cameras would have the White House North lawn right at our backs. After Landrieu spoke, the Lt. Governor gave a brief speech. I had to leave when he started, though, because my lunch break was over!

It was a worthwhile little gathering and I was glad to see people as outraged by the hypocrisy and incompetence of the administration as I had been. The "Save the Wetlands" people were there, also, passing out bumper stickers. Another group had a nice sticker that said simply, "ReNew Orleans." How eloquent. Two or three posters simply had a picture of W himself, in the Jackson Square speech, iconic and yet somehow less than impressive, in front of that Andrew Jackson statue, with a quote of his promise to "do whatever it takes to rebuild New Orleans." That was nice.

Glad I went! I feel like I've officially paid back Louisiana for everything that it's given me.

Strange, but I didn't see very much coverage of the rally beyond this.

my humps

Postcard from the culturewars

Okay. I know I'm not in the forefront of a cultural revolution or anything. I realize that there's nothing fabulashly unique about this. It is not a thing of otherworldly beauty. "Transcendent" is not the word you'd use to describe it.

But I am truly mesmerized by this "distill every hip-hop cliche into a single song. It's all there, from greed to lust to envy. All in one song. And the kids are loving it. Just ask little Cassidy. (Boy, I'll bet that somebody's really proud of Daddy's Little Whore!) Or the creative boys from exclamation films. (You go, you crazy gaysians!)

I disagree with Slate's point of view -- "[it's] a song so awful it hurts the mind." I think that "My Humps" is simply a big parody of the whole hip-hop world view. Human beings are not commodities to be bought and sold. Our minds and souls are worth more than brand name labels, flashy jewelry and appropriately sized mammary glands. And they know it. And now, so do you, Cassidy!

I'm going shopping for some bling now,
Jblend

I've got my Kringle on.

Wow. Amazing Christmas rush this year. I don't know why I've gotten an extra dosage of holiday spirit. It's usually pretty lackluster until December 20-something. But this year, I've got my Kringle on, big time. I slapped together this and even this, while humming holiday music the whole entire time. Very strange.

Maybe it was that eggnog enema I got at the salon last week....