Two-minute hate (and then some)

My fellow Americans, my fellow citizens of the world, our soliders overseas and at home, the people of the nation of Iraq, and why even you, Mrs. Anthrax and Mr. Chemical Ali--On this lazy, humid afternoon in mid-August, when most of us are droning along in our jobs until quittin' time, on vacation, dodging hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico, or avoiding petrol bombs in public squares, I feel it is my duty to make you aware of the latest official wisdom from the Ministry of Truth with regards to the ongoing war between Oceania and Eurasia, as evidenced by this article from the CNN website, published Wednesday afternoon, 22 August 2007:

U.S. officials rethink hopes for Iraq democracy

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Nightmarish political realities in Baghdad are prompting American officials to curb their vision for democracy in Iraq. Instead, the officials now say they are willing to settle for a government that functions and can bring security . . . .

. . . "Democratic institutions are not necessarily the way ahead in the long-term future," said Brig. Gen. John "Mick" Bednarek, part of Task Force Lightning in Diyala province, one of the war's major battlegrounds . . . .

Hmmm. And, again, altogether now but louder, HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.

So . . . how would this scenario be different than, I dunno, life with Saddam Hussein and the nondemocratic governmental structure that was in place in Iraq in, oh, say, 2003?

Please pardon me for this question if it at all sounds like I'm giving aid and comfort to the enemy, whomever they may be now. I'm frightened of terrorists and fundamentalist social extortionists, both international and homegrown, as much as anyone. However, I guess I'm just confused over why more than 3,700 U.S. soldiers and tens (or hundreds?) of thousands of Iraqis have had to die so that we can get back to the same place we were four years ago.

There were those of us who thought this invasion was a bad idea from the beginning, a classic case of tilting after the wrong windmill--or oil well, as the case may be. Why, even Dick Cheney knew we wouldn't succeed in Iraq--at least the 1994 version of him did. The 1984 version of him has possibly forgotten this point, though. Reeducated right out of him. I envision Cheney in the dreaded Room 101, but instead of being threatened with Winston Smith's great fear (rats), there's a moment involving a remote ranch, a hunting rifle, a shotgun blast, and 24 hours without a visit by medical or police authorities.

Bound to make you change your allegiances. Or die trying.

In times like these, I'm reminded of a bumpersticker my friend the Gladman told me he saw on a car in Texas sometime before the last national election: "If you're not outraged, you're just not paying attention."

Folks, we should be paying very close attention, and we should indeed be outraged. No matter what your political stripe--red, blue, green, pink, or full-spectrum rainbow coalition--this should officially piss you off.

My fear is that it won't, though. I suspect most of us feel helpless in the middle of this muddle, maybe even somewhat depressed or world-weary from it. Thus, if the war hasn't pissed you off so far, if Katrina and the botched response to that didn't madden you, and/or if the constant lying, the excessive greed, and the total lack of interest in good government accompanied by an intense fixation on wielding power at all costs didn't infuriate you, well, I don't know what would.

This isn't condemnation of you, dear reader. I'm as guilty as anyone, maybe more so because I whine publicly and still do little but stew and steam in the August heat. I'm furious, seething, apoplectic, would love to foment revolution, go wild in the streets with protest, and have hyenas with tapeworms feast on the entrails of our leaders--and that's just for this afternoon's entertainment. When I'm really wound up, I have far worse scenarios in mind for the idiots in charge, the expression of which would be ill-advised and liable to prevent me from flying for years to come.

Yet I sit here in my home office typing this blog entry for I don't know who.

What is wrong with me? What is wrong with all of us? What's it going to take to get us angry enough to take action and demand a government that doesn't do what it wants (money, power, control) or what we want (whim by whim by whim), but aims instead to do the right thing for the right reasons?

These aren't necessarily rhetorical questions, guys. The more we tarry, the worse it's going to get for all of us, at home and abroad. We need to figure out answers and take appropriate action, 'cause clearly those who wield power over us aren't paying attention and need to be reminded of who's in charge here. Us.

Agogô a-go-go

Not one to sit on my laurels or even a very hard seat at a concert hall for too long, I've branched out further since the Patti Smith music hall review, becoming not only a passive audience member but an active participant in the performance. Let's chalk it up to being scared/scarred for life by a certain bookcart drill team routine.

By chance, last week my friend Fouchat sent me an email advertising some Latin dance classes to be held in my neighborhood over the past weekend. Latin dance? ¡Ay! Too much sass in the salsa. Too much rhumba in the rumpus. Really, just too many steps to memorize, rinse, repeat. Thanks, I'll stick with the bump. I have ample resources to implement it.

But in the same email was reference to an organization called Samba Pittsburgh (two words you would never really expect to see conjoined, hunh?) and their upcoming percussion and dance workshop. Hmmm, now we're talking.

I have had a fantasy ever since childhood of being a percussionist--except that, in the traditional bass-cymbals-snare universe, I don't orbit so good. Thus, I tend to favor intricate, world-music-oriented drumming, the stuff you find way out in the tabla-conga-bongo solar system. When I lived in D.C. centuries ago, I used to love to hear the African drummers perform at Dupont Circle on a Sunday afternoon. There was little more sublime than enjoying some splendour in the grass with friends, a book, and a blanket, accompanied by the expect drumming and organic, go-with-the-flow rhythms.

Come Saturday, I walked into the Attack Theater in Garfield (or thereabouts), anticipating that the drummers would be off to one side, setting up, and getting ready for their performance, while I would head to the seats on the opposite side and listen attentively.

"Oh, hi, look everyone, he's here for the drumming workshop!" someone said to me, and before I had a chance to say, no, no, I'm just Susie Sorority of the Silent and Extremely Uptight Majority, and I'll stand in the corner, cheers thanks lots, this very friendly woman began introducing me to members of the bateria (the band in Brazilian samba). And then someone handed me an agogô to play.

Agogô? But I just got here . . .

An agogô is this double-bell instrument that you play with a drumstick. You tap out a rhythm that works to "decorate" the sound of the bateria, playing over it to add lightness and color to the bass and the popping, crackling drums. (Editor's note: There are a couple of sound files of an agogô being played here.)

OK, so it's probably the Brazilian equivalent of the triangle, but before long, I was getting the beat, not perfectly but steadily, and following along with the conductor quite well, knowing when to start, increase or decrease speed, and stop, all by listening to him play a whistle and nod his head. There were about six or seven of us in this little bateria, led by an expert and encouraging conductor from São Paulo. And dare I say it? Dare I even think it? After about an hour of practice, we sounded pretty good!

I don't think anyone in Brazil has to worry about samba jobs being outsourced to North America, mind you, but we did alright. In fact, I kept thinking, I want more. I don't want this to end.

But it did, and we moved on to the samba dance workshop, which was really the only thing I intended to participate in all along. Somewhat less successfully, though, I should admit. Oh, I enjoyed it, but I'm not necessarily good at patterned dances. Still, the samba that we practiced wasn't all that patterned--it wasn't the formal, ballroom dancing samba that you might see Apollo Ohno glide (or, worse, Billy Ray Cyrus churn) through on Dancing with the Stars, but, instead, the type of samba you might do at a party in Brazil or as part of a samba school during carnaval.

Eh, despite the lowkey, people's samba approach, I still needed some work. I felt rusty and stiff in my step and awkward in my body. There were probably too many people for the room, and I think by now we know how I feel about crowds. The instructor was a sweetheart, though, and even the professional dancers who were there from the theater's resident company were incredibly charming and mellow, learning and laughing right along with us.

Of course, it wouldn't be a day in my life without a total stranger on a public conveyance confessing their sins to me or, in this case, some bitter crone in a leotard, piled-high hair, and a permanent sneer, glaring at me, seeming to resent my very existence. She spent most of the workshop giving me the hairy eyeball for sweating too much, taking up too much space, or graduating from a state school and not a private one. Or something.

Sigh. Perhaps she didn't like crowds either.

Nonetheless, I made it through the workshop without having Miss Flashdance (what, no cut-off sweatshirt? no welder's hat?) have a Showgirls moment and throw marbles on the floor to ruin my chances for stardom in a gen-u-wine Las Vegas-style review. No, that I did all on my own with my very shaky abilities at being my funky self in a different cultural context.

Nonetheless, I managed to end the day on a high note--an invitation from the music conductor to come practice with the bateria whenever I wanted to. So have agogô will travel!

Since then, I've been surfing the web for agogô and drumsticks--they are surprisingly inexpensive (see note above about Brazil's answer to the triangle)--and think I might just have to make the purchase, then join the band at Flagstaff Hill in Schenley Park on one of these nights when it doesn't rain two inches per hour for a rousing lesson in assault and bateria.

One of the neat things about samba music and samba dancing, at least that I gleaned from these workshops, is that kids, it's OK if you try this at home. Everybody rhumba and anyone can samba. It's not designed to be formal, rigid, oppressively detailed, or exquisitely refined in such a way that one needs to be able to read notes, have an advanced degree in musicology, or be able to turn one's legs backwards from the rest of one's body before stepping out onto the stage. Não, with samba, we're just supposed to get steppin'.

I'll happily comply, whether I find the right agogô or no.

Because too often I've been scared off by doing and trying anything in the realm of art, figuring I don't have what it takes--enough talent, enough coordination, enough skill, enough bravado. As a child, I used to like to draw, but I gave that up, figuring I'd never be Da Vinci or even the artist behind the Magic Drawing-Board on Captain Kangaroo. I used to want to be an architect until I learned there was science and math involved, and Barbie that I am, I quickly realized that math is hard! I've struggled with writing over the years, sometimes doing it, sometimes not, and for years trying to force myself to be a short-story writer, when that is so clearly what I'm not. (All the fiction I make up for this blog really happens.) I didn't try out for grade school band or drama club or perfect my Spanish or finish my African animals origami project because, well, I got busy or felt ashamed or figured I'd never be great, so why try?

Sad, really. Worse, it's just plain pathetic. Forty-five and rarely ever been blissed out in art of his own making.

But what if it's simply a matter of enjoying and doing and not being necessarily great (or even good) at it? What if it's simply a matter of having fun? Birds do it, bees do it, even educated Brazilians apparently do it. Have fun, that is.

So away we agogô. This school for samba looks like it might just teach me more than how to follow steps and feel the beat. The lesson to be learned may turn out to be that, well, there's really no lesson at all. Just have fun.

For all my vague yearnings over the years for more meaning in my life, something deeper, something "real," really all I have ever wanted out of this move to Pittsburgh--or any move for that matter--was a better, more supportive, more freeing environment in which to explore my interests and follow my heart's desires, both the personal and professional ones.

Right now Pittsburgh is playing my song. And not only can I dance to it, I can also accompany it on percussion.

Dancing barefoot

Lest ye think all I've done since I made it to Pittsburgh is eat, think about eating, or write about eating, I'll have you know I have also managed to consume a fair slab of 'Burgher kultur and société.

For example, just a couple of weeks ago, I was fortunate enough to attend the Patti Smith concert at the Carnegie Library Music Hall in Homestead. Fantastic! One of the better concerts I've ever been to and amazing that a woman even older than me (imagine!) can still keep her art, life, and sensibilities fresh and fun.

Yes, Patti Smith and fun. Even harder to imagine than someone older than me with dewy-fresh sensibilities. When I used to read about Patti Smith in the pages of Creem and Rolling Stone way back in the '70s (that's 1970s, not 1870s, smart-alecks) or see her parodied by Gilda Radner in the golden age of Saturday Night Live (remember Candy Slice--that twisted Whitman's Sampler of Mick Jagger and Patti), I just found her scary. Drawn features, rake-thin body shrouded in mannish dress, and that hair, which had obviously never been introduced to Mr. Conditioner. A Breck Girl she wasn't.

This was the age of Charlie's Angels, after all. Having grown up on a steady diet of ABBA, '70s soul and disco (much to the utter shame of my more street-cred siblings), and Aaron Spelling TV, I wasn't quite ready for prime-time Patti. By the time college rolled around, however, punk was in full force as a social and musical statement/style concept and not simply as a pastime for junkies who needed something to do with their hands when they weren't shooting up. Punk's dark-hued and sin-tinged ethos of rebellion was a welcome challenge from what disco had evolved into, which as best as I can deduce was some sort of mutation into drug-addled celebrity pond scum and suburban spouse-swapping trilobites gone wild.

During my high school years, on the radio you could hear Patti Smith's "Because the Night," a song she cowrote with then still dark and brooding Bruce Springsteen. This song was probably mainstream America's first bitter taste of punk and the rawest, darkest, most powerful pop song that Kasey Casem ever had to present on the Top 40. Later in college there were trance-inducing tunes like "Frederick" and "Dancing Barefoot," the latter being one of my all-time favorites, even if I can never quite get the lyrics right.

An adult Patti resurfaced in the late '80s and thanks to my friend the Upstate New Yorker, I've kept up with her career ever since. I don't know that I'm her number one fan like my friend is, but as sort of a tribute to him and because I wanted to see what all the fuss was about, my fellow nouveau Pittsburgher Fouchat and I made it a date to go see her in concert.

I couldn't let the event go by without a little silliness. Knowing that Patti is revered by a certain element, that her rather dense (and, to me, somewhat precious) poetry causes some to writhe in a Teresa of Avila-esque ecstasy, I kept telling my friends that I sure hoped she'd start off with "The Warrior." Or maybe she'd invite Don Henley on stage for an encore, and they could duet on their hit "Sometimes Love Just Ain't Enough." Or perhaps during a lull in the set, I'd flick a Bic and screech out, "Sing 'Goodbye to You'!" (For the record, those are songs by Patty Smyth and Scandal, not Patti Smith, about as far from punk as Britney Spears is from Mother Teresa. Now it's no fun if I have to explain these things . . . .)

Nevertheless, once the concert began, I was all attentivenss and good behavior.

And, wow, what a concert it was. The setting--a restored concert hall from the late 1800s--the music, the band, the crowd, and the Patti herself, all made for a perfect and marvelous moment.

Yes, I did say even the crowd. Have I mentioned that I don't particularly like crowds? Honestly, I don't particularly like a good portion of humanity, for that matter. (Just call me by my maiden name, Miss Anne Thrope.) Generally, in public spaces, especially in ones where people tend to forget that they came to see a performer rather than be a performer, I expect the worst, that the crowd will be filled with persons in the known universe least capable of conducting themselves in a sane, sensible, and sagacious manner.

After all, I did once view an entire Gypsy Kings concert through the bellydancing gyrations of an over-peroxided trophy wife and her lumbering, wasting-away-in-Margaritaville husband, whose dance-style indicated that perhaps he was suffering from the DTs, thought there were rats scampering around his feet, and had decided it best to stomp them to death, not necessarily in any time to any music, real or perceived. This suburban Sid and Nancy managed, on a completely empty row, to position themselves right in front of me and my friends and proceeded to do their own take on the Moroccan mashed potato through most of the concert.

Admit it--you, too, would be contemplating the benefits of a taser-dispenser in the restroom, now wouldn't you?

In Patti's case, I figured the audience would be filled with aging rockers who got lost on the way to the Aerosmith concert. Or, worse, guys and gals who, like, work at the counter at Starbucks/Whole Foods/FedEx Kinko's (or in a mailroom anywhere on Pitt's campus, for that matter) but who are really in, like, a band, ya know.

Surprisingly, though, about 98 percent of the crowd was great--a real mix of ages, ethnicities, genders, and lifestyles. Other than the leftover Grateful Dead campfollowers who arrived during the middle of the fourth (!) song, the only blips on the screen were this aging queen (perma-tan, muscle shirt sans muscles, and too much time spent looking at the crowd looking at him and not the stage) and his hag (frosted [!?!?!] hair in a style reminiscent of the season on Dallas when SueEllen once again got off the bottle and into trouble with that 12-year-old (looking) kid from The Blue Lagoon, also cursed with the same is-everyone-looking-at-me-yet?-'cause-I-am-so-cool/hot! affliction), who crowded the stage at the very start of the concert and no matter what Patti sang, kept up this bizarre, jazzy, finger-clickin' badass-ness during her performance.

Maybe they were thinking they were at an Ella Fitzgerald tribute concert and somehow all those finger pops would bring Ella back to us. I just don't know.

But once the cop gently encouraged them to return to their seats (without a billy club, darn it all) and Patti calmed the audience ("Now I know some of you want to sit, and some of you want to stand, but I'm pretty sure before the evening is over, everyone will have their moment . . . hey, my next career should be in crowd control!"), it was a pitch-perfect evening.

Patti went through some of her better known tracks ("Because the Night," which had me rockin' in the aisles, "Summer Cannibals," and "Gloria," but sadly no "Dancing Barefoot" or "People Have the Power"), as well as a number of songs of her new album. That album, Twelve, features covers of some of her favorite songs. There's quite a range of predilections on display, from Jimi Hendrix to, goodness me, Tears for Fears.

As Ms. Smith predicted, everyone had a chance to do his/her/its own thang--sit, stand, dance, or, like me, all three.

See, we really all can get along. Bliss.

Southern culture on the shelves, part 4

Krispy Kreme. No exclamation mark. Oh, OK, maybe a half one.

After three years without regular access, I have managed to locate and visit one of Pittsburgh's three count 'em three! Krispy Kreme doughnut emporia.

Despite the long absence from nature's perfect food--the hot-off-the-belt, sugary, gooey Krispy Kreme glazed doughnut--I showed some admirable restraint (for me) and had only two doughnuts, neither of which was a traditional glazed. I didn't see the light on, that gluttoness, gluteness beacon in the night that fires a synapse that bellows "hot doughnuts comin' through!"so I stuck with the sticky I know and love best--cake doughnuts--opting for one sour cream and one chocolate.

The sour cream cake--probably my favorite doughnut variety of all time, with the possible exception of some sort of doughnut (or anything) with chocolate on it or in it--did not disappoint. It was an outstanding example of its kind, both sweet and not-sweet, with a slight tang (but, thank goodness, no Tang) to it, solid like cake, but gently yielding to the bite. Bon apetit.

The chocolate cake, though, was in fact a disappointment. I'll never understand how one can screw up chocolate anything, but this sample was not up to the usual Krispy Kreme standard, nor did it represent the "ideal copy" as it were, the official ANSI standard of cake doughnuts the civilized world over.

It tasted . . . funny. I half-wondered whether the store clerk had mistakenly given me a blueberry cake (blech!) instead.

That or KK has started replacing our regular cake doughnut ingredients with those made from Folger's Crystals. That or possibly anti-freeze.

So you gotta think something's gone horribly wrong in the kitchen if'n your chocolate cake is even vaguely reminiscent of blueberry or, worse, conjures up unpleasant images of unleashed pets and freshly drained radiator fluids. That or it's an example of fusion cuisine gone tragically, terribly wrong, reminding me of that odd little Italian-Thai restaurant on Pennsylanvia Avenue in D.C. I frequented years ago. Oh, I so wanted to like it, but, alas, after a number of tries, the pad thai and pesto penne with soggy, overcooked vegetables rendered me bitter and morose.

Getting back to la-not-so-Kreme-de-la-creme for a moment, I don't know what went wrong in the Krispy Factory. Maybe the recipe didn't translate from North Carolinian (where Krispy Kreme brought forth its first offerings) to Pennsylvanian. One too many y'alls and shoogs, none too many slippys and nebbys.

That or the North Carolina begat-ers decided to keep the secret, special recipe to themselves and sent the leftovers from failed culinary experiments out-of-state. Remember what they say about the Mason-Dixon Line: Where the South comes to . . . and the North to . . . um . . . well, you Yankees are better off not knowing.

All I know is that unfortunate bastardization between chocolate and Janitor in a Drum was the first doughnut ever to give me heartburn. So, yeah, I'm thinking anti-freeze. Or weak-willed weed-killer. Or maybe those little sour Chinese candies--you know the type, the ones that taste as if they've been left to soak for a year in a stagnant mix of lye and battery acid--melted down over a can of Sterno and mixed in with some of the meal used to make the casing on a Hot Pocket.

Trust me, stick with the sour cream--or wait for the light to come on and go for the top shelf, reserve glazed. But while we're this far north of the border, we might as well just keep on moving up I-79 toward Erie, hang a right on I-90, then head toward the Ontario border and smack dab into the warm, welcoming, sugar-caked embrace of Tim Horton's.

Ah, blame Canada. Then have another doughnut.

To dye for

Boy, is my face red. Or at least a very deep brown.

After a few recent photos taken of me in which I more closely resembled the Talking Snowman (as voiced by Burl Ives) in the Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer Christmas special--all portly good cheer, all incredibly, indelibly white--I have taken up the habit again of dying my facial hair. I've done it before, but it's always been before some big event--a job interview, a date, a photo op for a spread in Hello! or OK! to show off my fabulous celebrity lifestyle. I've never exactly been consistent with it, though, usually doing it once, then not touching it again (or, as the case may be, re-touching it) for weeks or even months.

Of course, facial hairs are short and tough. As I'm no ZZ Top-wannabe, I am prone to trim, pluck, cut, and otherwise maim mine regularly. Thus, after a dye job, if all goes well, I have about a day or two of hmmm-that's-kinda-dark, followed by a week-and-a-half of hey-that's-more-like-it, before gradually fading into someone who looks like they should whip out a gee-tar and begin the conversation with "Well, you know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen . . . ."

However, you could replace "Vixen" with "Geezer" and perfectly describe me at that stage.

Normally, if things don't go well, it's a case of shoulda-left-it-in-longer. If I'm lazy (who me?) or haven't trimmed the facial hair in a while, then I'll only hit the top hairs on my mustache and goatee, leaving the underside still gray and white. Thus, it will look like I've barely done anything--"something's different about you . . . did you get new glasses?"--but by week's end, all will have returned to its formerly gray, Eastern Bloc state. Day wear, evening wear, swim wear. Blah.

To my surprise, though, I have discovered that there is a third state of being, heretofore unexeperienced by me--that is, leaving in the dye for way too long and combing in the color thoroughly from root to tip. After walking around town all day looking as though a mad clown attacked me with a Sharpie during my sleep, I'm beginning to long for my holly-jolly, Burl Ives-ian self.

The dye I use, Just for Men ('cause goodness knows, none of us he-man types could be caught stocking up on bottles of Lady Clairol or Garnier "Shilled by a Former Star of Sex and the City" Nutrisse) gives you just 5 minutes to achieve magic in the mirror, discovering your new "Mystery Date" self. (Will I be a dream? Or a dud? Or an utter horrorshow?) Just for Men previously made three shades in my range--medium brown, ash brown, and light brown. Ash brown was probably the closest match for me. Despite having medium brown eyebrows and, in a previous life, medium brown hair, my facial hair was a mix of brown, blond, gold, and red. And ash brown, whatever shade that is exactly, seemed to be the shade du moi.

However, apparently, I wasn't the only one confused about what color ash brown actually represented, as I can no longer find that shade on the market, only the light and medium browns. You know, we guys--even us gay ones--lack the gene that distinguishes robin's-egg blue from blue-green, teal, or aquamarine. Keep it simple, Corporate America.

Light brown works OK. I use it, but often the effect is fairly negligible, plus I suspect it's a shade better suited to a man with different, fairer coloring, hair or otherwise. But what do I know? From my understanding, when doing the dye-jobbing, the rule is to go with a shade darker or lighter than your own coloring. But which coloring? Skin? Hair? Original hair--or gray hair? Hair hair--or mustache hair? Eyebrow hair? Eye color? Hunh? I'm confused.

Medium brown definitely colors and covers things up, much like hot asphalt covers the faded, cracked surface of a Pennsylvania highway. But the match is a little too good, so that after a dye job, I end up for a day or so looking a little like Chuck Norris--he of the hair, eyebrows, and beard in an exact match of monochrome-ocrity. Everytime I see him on a commercial for the Total Gym or in a rerun of Walker, Texas Ranger, I tsk-tsk and think, didn't some stylist tell him never to do that? Couldn't someone buy him a rug that contrasts a bit more with the dye? And does he dye his body hair, too? 'Cause from my HDTV vantage, the carpet is matching the drapes a little too well.

But now I'm maybe slightly more sensitive to Chuck's dilemma. Especially after trying to be hyper-efficient and multi-task the other morning (read: just hyper), and while doing so, leaving in the dye for a little longer than 5 minutes. Possibly 6, maybe even a little closer to 6 and 30. I kinda lost count. Now I suddenly am faced (quite literally) with a color that best resembles Hershey's dark chocolate and was probably only 15 seconds away from blue-black. Or, if you prefer, azure.

Not pretty. But, gratefully, not robin's-egg blue either.

So I've gone from the face of some '60s folk singer to that of one looking as though it is covered with a mass of very angry, very brown, flesh-nesting caterpillars--in just five minutes or more! Better living through modern hair products and cosmetics.

I considered calling in sick to work the day I did this--or donning a burka and telling everyone my name is Fatima, and I'm a temp, then ending all further discussion with a loud uuluuluuluuluuluuluuluuluu, followed by the query, "Now where is the photocopying device, please?" But I endured, faced the mirror and the music, and counted myself lucky that I know only a couple of people in this city well enough that they might realize my aesthetic, cosmetic faux pas.

I'm sure Chuck Norris would understand--but would he find it in his chest fur-matted, L'Oreal-colored heart to forgive me? Or would he just laugh, roundhouse kick me in the cojones, and look into the camera to say, "The chief export of Chuck Norris is PAIN"?

I'd be content with the understanding, Mr. Norris. 'Cause, really, I'm worth it.

Southern culture on the shelves, part 3

MoonPies! Found at a rip-and-run-type convenience store near the corner of Braddock and Penn avenues in Pittsburgh's East End.

As you can tell, they were tasty! A double-decker delight of deliciousness!

No R.C. Cola (as the song goes, "an R.C. Cola and an ol' MoonPie!") sightings yet though. But I would also consider a SunDrop, a CheerWine, or a Blenheim Ginger Ale.

Man, I knew there was a reason I moved to a city only 30 miles from West Virginia.