Bamboo Blossom Lane

Justin Injustice?

Okay, so Janet Jackson's nipple was seen on TV during the Superbowl--we know that--in fact, every person on the planet seems to know that whereas not many noted that 139 people were killed by a suicide bomber in Iraq that same day.

I don't know if the incident was planned as a publicity stunt or it really did happen by accident--that is really immaterial (so to speak). But here's the thing: first of all, what is the big deal? The famous Superbowl commercials had women baring everything but their nips and that was okay. It was also okay for a bunch of supermodels to play football in their underwear at the "Lingerie Bowl" (now that's a cultural event we can be proud of!) and I'll bet ya could see a bit of T&A on TV that day! And the television show "ER" was going to bare an older woman's breast on primetime but the producers cut the segment after the Janet mishap. Darn that Janet Jackson--now we can't even see boobs on medical shows. Maybe they should have digitally erased the pink part and just aired the rest.

And then there's the fact that Janet didn't rip off half her top by herself, in fact she didn't rip it off at all--Justin Timberlake did. So Janet is being ostracized 'cause we saw her (woohoo) nipple, but what about the guy who bared it? He wasn't banned from the Grammys. He attended and picked up 2 awards. Maybe it should have been three--one for acting the innocent. It seems to me that he should shoulder half the blame here. Afterall, if he would have refused to do it, it wouldn't have happened.

Ladies--let's all rush out to buy nipple shields justin case.

Yeah, We Felt It

LA
December 22, 2003

I’m sitting in an interview in a room on the 9th floor of one of those rock-and-roll buildings—the kind built on rollers so they swing and sway instead of shake and crack with an earthquake. A 6.5 hit and we definitely rocked and rolled. I was sitting in a chair with wheels to boot—thought I was having a MAJOR dizzy spell. Woo-hoo! Perimenopause RULES! But it kept going so I turned to the woman interviewing me and said, “is this a stress interview or are we having an earthquake”? I thought that was a bit of on-the-spot genius on my part but she didn’t even laugh! It took her a minute longer to even realize that we were in a serious shake situation. Maybe she’s pausing too.

My friends in Orange County felt nothing—hmmm, indicative of a larger problem perhaps?—telling me how lucky I was to be in the right place at the right time. Ma Nature’s little holiday dance. Wouldn’t have wanted to miss it.

Cheers!

Dogs Can Be Weirdoes Too

Did you ever have a dog do a double take at you? I was minding my own business walking the Backbay and I happened upon a guy and his dog. The guy was weird, no doubt (he may actually live on Bamboo Blossom Lane although I’ve never seen him). Dressed in black nylon head to toe with a black backpack with plastic bags tied to it—Savon bags I think--maybe for doggie doo. He looked like a big walking (or jogging, rather) lawn and leaf bag. There was a long green tube that stretched from the backpack to somewhere in the front but I was scared to look at it closely enough to figure out what it was for. He made swishy noises when he jogged, what with all the plastic he was wearing, and I gave him a pretty wide berth--you never know about Backbay People. What I can’t figure out is how he could stand to jog in that outfit. It was 80 degrees and full sun. He must have been totally soaked under all that plastic. A big black jogging water balloon.

But I digress. None of that seemed to bother the dog. The dog was a regular looking beagleoid type: white with brown and black spots and big brown eyes. He looked cute so as I passed them (they had stopped for some reason) I turned my head a little to get a better look at the dog’s face. He looked up at my face, then he did this big double take! You could just hear his little doggie brain doing a big Scooby Doo “huunh?” noise but he had a twinge of fear in his eye too—what was that all about?

I kind of laughed and kept going but as I thought about it later it began to haunt me. What the heck? I didn’t even know dogs did double takes! What was he thinking? What was he SEEING? Did I look like I had cat fur on my face or a small bird in my mouth? Did he think he knew me from somewhere? Geez, now I’m paranoid. That dog has something on me and his owner is not to be reckoned with. Another Backbay weirdo and his weirdo dog.

The Spitting Guy

The Spitting Guy lives down the street near the end of the cul-de-sac. He drives a black Cherokee from which he does drive-by spittings onto Gunman’s van. No one can quite figure what made Gunman the recipient of the Spitting Guy’s (SG) disgusting emissions but Sage thinks it had something to do with Gunman having dated SG’s cute neighbor. Not being man enough to confront Gunman face to face, he stealth spits huge, bubbly, DNA-laden loogies onto the windows of Gunman’s van.

What is it about guys and spitting, anyway? Guys spit when they exercise, they spit when they have colds and they spit just for the heck of it often making really disgusting noises while they excavate semi-solid material from the far corners of their nasal pharynx prior to the actual act. Afterwards they look at it as if some portion of their worth as a man is measured by the amount of salivary gland extract they deposit in public—it’s a source of pride.

I don’t see women spitting--is it a testosterone thing? Is it menstrual envy? Men can’t menstruate so they spit? Maybe we should start a line of men’s hygiene products marketed towards the spitters. I would like to see a full grocery aisle devoted to such products and see men have to use a good portion of their disposable income buying baby blue, Polo-scented spit rags which they have to carry everywhere in a fanny pack during their spitting time which, by the way, seems to be ALL the time—not just confined to one phase of the moon. And when men go to the doctor the first thing they should be asked is: “When is the last time you spit? Any pain when spitting? How are your moods before and after spitting? Turn your head and spit. “ I’m surprised they haven’t made it a sport.

There’s some kind of weird karma for spitting as I recall from my years on the yoga mat in a room full of male renunciants (all non-spitters). Yes, now I remember: the karma for spitting is getting bitten by bugs! Of course we all get bitten by bugs so perhaps we’ve all been spitters or at least indulged from time-to-time in our past lives. I admit I’ve spit on occasion. Like if a bug flies in my mouth I’ll definitely try to spit it out, so maybe there is a connection. Bug flies in mouth, bug drowns in saliva and is spit out—forcefully and with disgust. Next lifetime, bug (carrying residual anger) bites spitter. Karma!

We have never actually caught SG in the act. He may be a nocturnal spitter discharging his disgusting drool only by the light of the moon (and the street lights), but whatever time of day he spits he is amazingly prolific and precise. How does he do it? Does he use some kind of contraption or targeting device? When Gunman’s van is parked in the front, on the street, the driver’s side window is the target. When Gunman parks in the space between the buildings in the back, the back window gets it. These logistics led us to believe that this is a drive-by spitting since it’s always the window closest to the street or alley that receives the insult, but the question remains as to how SG delivers the goods from the driver’s side of his vehicle to the window of the van? That would require an awe-inspiring eight foot spit! No wonder Gunman and Sage. speak in hushed tones the morning after an attack. SG of Bamboo Blossom Lane is truly the supervillian of spitting.

You Pick Up Weirdoes

Maybe that’s my problem: I pick up weirdoes. Maven says weirdoes just glom on to me, that I wear them in my aura. I think she’s right--it’s been a problem since my childhood. I always thought I was just being nice to people, and I WAS nice. I was nice to people who weren’t even cheerleaders, and they glommed onto me until my cool friends noticed and I had to start ignoring them.

Over the years I’ve tried to change to attract more normal people but I don’t think I’m a good judge of normalcy plus, to tell you the truth, I don’t think normal people want that much to do with me—they just stay away. Normal people can somehow sense the vibration of a person who resides on the far side of the bell curve from a mile away. That’s probably why I don’t really even see any normal people. They sense me coming and move away before I get a glimpse of them. I’m like Pig Pen carrying around a murky cloud of lost souls whining and snapping in my aura. I’m sure this frightens the poor normal people and, with a slightly terrified glint in their eyes, they just skittle away—sideways, like little crabs. (No! That wasn’t fair--these are normal people—they don’t skittle!)

Take Barbie for instance. Barbie had to move to Seattle to get away. Barbie and I were way into Ken Wilber for a while. No, he’s not a screen writer, he’s a New Age philosopher and I was hoping that reading him would make me more normal and would attract more normal people into my life. (See how deep the problem goes?) Barbie wanted to order Ken’s entire signed works just so she could have a set of books that said “To Barbie, From Ken”. Hahahahahaha. That would have been worth the $150 or so worth of brain-numbing text.

I Woke Up in a Terminator Movie

October 2003, somewhere in Orange County, CA

The sky was orange and raining ashes, the air was thick with smoke, there was no food or transportation and Ah-nuld was governor.

Yeah, the fire at Rancho Cucamonga is many miles inland but because of the Santa Ana winds we are getting the fallout at the beach. The ash not only covers everything in white and gray soot but it "seeds" the marine layer causing fog which then captures more ash. The dew on cars has turned into a pasty goo of wet ash that dries into a cast-like thing and sloughs off in little sheets. The fresh stuff flies around when you drive and when you open the car door it all swirls in. The air stinks and makes your eyes and sinuses burn; I'm wearing a dust mask outside and people don't even seem to notice. Maybe I can work it into a Halloween costume but maybe it’s not weird enough—everybody’s starting to wear them.

The weirdest thing though is the light. It's just wrong. It's very dark here--imagine 7pm light at 10am in the morning, but the angle of the light is 10am--that screws with your brain. And it's orange which somehow makes the traffic lights look purple and people keep running the lights because they can't remember if the top purple one is green or is the bottom purple one?

I am waiting for the one-eyed dude wearing heavy artillery to show up but maybe he's already in Sacramento trying to resolve the mass transit strike. I am hoping he will bring diet tonic water which cannot be found anywhere due to the grocery strike. Gin and diet Shasta grapefruit soda isn't that bad though.