MacPhoenix: WebSpaceI mentioned this in passing to Katherine, but I think it is something that I want to write upon more: Strange that the common enemy of the religious right in America and the religious fundamentalist in the Mid East is the urban, liberal East Coasters.
Baseball’s post-season, especially when the Yankees are involved, always gets the oxygen flowing in my red-blooded American lungs. Autumn nights in the ballpark evoke the same emotions in me as summer nights watching fireworks while listening to some Aaron Copland; I get all patriotic and proud of my country and our freedoms and our pastimes.
And then there is the election of Arnold the Barbarian in California. As little as it affects me as a New Yorker, whenever I think about it, I get a sour taste in the back of my throat. I imagine that several Italians had the same feeling when the granddaughter of Mussolini was elected to their parliament a decade ago. It isn’t so much that Guv’ner Arnie won’t be a good politician, or that any damage has been done to the system, but I have to wonder where this might take us ten or twenty years.
So yesterday had me both proud about and embarrassed by my country. I’d like to think that is uniquely American, too, but it may just be me equivocating, again.
If you’re an obsessed liberal like me, you’re already up on the BIG news within the lefty-blogosphere, but for the rest, I have a couple of predictions to make:
And here is why: There is a story that you probably haven’t heard much about yet, unless you read the Washington Post (requires a simple, one-time registration). The long and short of it is two people in the White House exposed the wife of former ambassador Joseph Wilson as an undercover operative for the CIA. Last July, these two shopped around a story about Wilson’s wife to at least six reporters before they got Robert Novak to break the story.
Joseph Wilson, for those who may not recognize the name, went to Niger last year to find out information on the supposed sale of Yellowcake Uranium from Niger to Iraq. The documents Wilson was given were poor forgeries and fakes; there was no sale. Wilson let the Administration back in Washington know this, but the Bushies still felt it would sound good in the State of the Union Address, last January. These are the infamous “sixteen words.” Wilson, sick of hearing the faked documents used as proof of Saddam’s WMD program, told the press in July his findings.
A week later, Novak runs with the story about Wilson’s wife. It was pure revenge from the White House, trying to send a chilling-effect to anyone else who may have the bright idea of exposing the Adminstration’s lies. And it was also highly illegal, a felony that can cost $50,000 in fines and 10 years in prison.
Boys and girls, this is it. This is the big one. This is going to shake up the Bush White House like only one other event in recent history. I’ll leave it up to you to guess which Nixon scandal I am comparing this to.
For MUCH MUCH more coverage of this, read the above linked article in the Washington Post, this article from the Nation (from July when the story was new), and check out ongoing blog coverage from Josh Marshall’s Talking Points Memo, including an interview with Wilson, and Atrios.
There have been a thousand cuts that should have had this Administration bleeding to death and on life-support, but this one has the CIA looking for an arrest from the Justice Department. This cut may have hit an artery.
Edited: Wilson went to Niger not Iraq… duh.
Katherine, Chris, and I went into the City on Sunday morning to see Neil Gaiman. Every year there is a big baker’s-dozen-blocks-down-5th-Avenue event called New York Is Book Country. Neil was signing books for an hour, from 11:30 am to 12:30 pm. Those of you who know me personally would be proud to know I woke up in time to make an 8:40 train into the City, with tremendous help from Katherine.
Once we were in the City, we walked about twenty blocks uptown. The weather was beautiful, and being Sunday, there was very little traffic, pedestrian or otherwise. If I wasn’t so grumpy from waking up early and having no sugar or caffeine, I really would have been enjoying myself. As it was, I was begrudgingly grateful that nothing had gone wrong. It was quite a treat to see 5th Avenue closed off from 42st (where the New York Public Library building sits, clever, no?) all the way up to 55th Street. Neil was going to be signing at 49th, where DC Comics had set up a booth in the Graphic Novel section of the fair. We got there by 10:30, and found just a few people ahead of us, milling about by the platform where Neil would sign.
Now I had to get a book.
Or, in other words, I’m an ass. I’ve been a semi-rabid Gaiman fan for years. I have quite the collection of Sandman-branded merchandise, and I have a half-a-dozen special collectors’ edition books, not Sandman-related, written by Neil. I have the Warning: Contains Language CD. I have a 1000-run edition of Murder Mysteries, hand-bound, published by Biting Dog Press. Sure, I have the Hugo-winning Sandman comic, “Midsummer’s Night Dream,” the only comic ever, and forever, to win. At least 50 things I could have signed by Neil? Yes, a conservative estimate.
So here, I’ve gone into the city without anything, and will have to buy a book. But this was no big deal, really, because I wanted to get a copy of Sandman Endless Nights, the first Sandman-related thing Neil has written in years. I (correctly) assumed that I’d be able to get a copy there, even though I wasn’t sure it had officially come out, yet.
At the DC booth, they had four copies on display, two hardcover, two soft. Of course, I was going to get the hardcover, but, no, DC wasn’t actually selling them. I’d have to go to the Borders down the road, I was told. I set off, leaving Katherine and Chris to wait on line. I walk down to the end of the fair, 55th Street, without seeing a Borders book store. Sweaty and concerned, I saw an information booth and asked the nice woman there where the nearest B. Dalton was.
I don’t know why I do this. B. Dalton hasn’t existed in New York in ten years, I think, and yet ask me to name a book store, and I’ll say B. Dalton without pause.
At any rate, the nice woman at the kiosk was old enough to know that B. Dalton was a book store and directed me to the Borders on 49th Street, where I had just come from. I blinked, thanked her, and then headed back down the road. When I got to 49th Street, doubting-Thomas that I am, I scoffed at the idea that I’d miss the book store. There was no Borders building here, I said to myself. See? It’s not here at all… oh, look, it’s a booth right next to the DC Comics booth. Oh. Right.
I got on line to buy the book, and called over about five feet away from me where Katherine and Chris were still waiting. “Hey, look,” I said, “the book is being sold right here.” I gave a sheepish smile.
Then with book firmly in hand, and paper bracelet, used to guarantee those waiting on line a signature from Neil, firmly on wrist, I waited for another twenty minutes or so for Neil, who arrived and started signing early. What a guy. We were given yellow Post-Its™ to write our name on, so Neil wouldn’t have to guess spellings and such, so when I got up to him, he asked, “Jonathan, is it?”
“Mmm hmm,” I said.
And I wanted to say a thousand things to him! Do you want to go get sushi after this, Neil? Murder Mysteries is my favorite short story, but did you know I never got that one detail about the newspaper story until I read the illustrated version? “Ramadan” was my favorite Sandman story, and I think it perfectly highlighted your amazing ability to join real myths with those you’ve made up yourself and pull them together in one hell of an entertaining story. That’s called pastiche, right? I’m envious that you can write so well, so often, and still have the will and energy to update your online journal. You really connect with your audience. Oh, and Daniel, and Delirium, and Mervyn Pumpkinhead, and Door, and Low-Key, and Wednesday, and Shadow, and Snow, Glass, and Apples….
But what I said, after he drew a really cool, really funky Sandman in silver ink on the inside of Sandman Endless Nights, was, “Thank you, very, very much.”
“Oh, you’re quite welcome,” he said, and I moved aside.
Twenty seconds. Twenty seconds with a man of genius, a man who has entertained and educated me, and countless others, for over ten years. And then I moved aside.
Chris gave him a copy of Good Omens to sign, and he wrote, “Burn this book!” We’re not sure why.
We trekked down to Little Italy afterwards, for the last day of the Feast of San Gennero, and I had a stuffed artichoke, Katherine had a cannoli, and Chris had chicken shish-kabob. Yeah, Chris is a real lover of the Italian food. The crowd was thick, and the sun on our backs got us too hot and too tired too quickly, so we left the City shortly afterwards. But I got my book and my twenty seconds.
Hope to see you next year, Neil.
Recently seen bumper sticker:
The #1 Endangered Species?
The Pre-Born CHILD!
It’s a CHILD …Not a CHOICE!
Quick highlights:
Monday a.m.: Blow circuit on heat lamp by touching electric element to metal. Scare cooks at Applebees with nice 220 volt spark.
Result: Embarrassment
Monday p.m.: Fail to turn gas valve completely off before working on safety valve on stove. Scare cooks at different Applebees by setting own hair on fire.
Result: Mostly an awful smell… and embarrassment
Tuesday p.m.: Run current through poorly re-wired compressor until run capacitor blows from pressure, shooting gooey, battery acid-like substance on self and compressor.
Result: If no one was around to see it, is it still embarrassing? Yes.
Wednesday p.m.: Stop for ambulance going through intersection, get slammed in rear by kid in a Cougar. Bumper on van works well; Cougar’s hood sheared halfway to windshield.
Result: Concern for kid in Cougar, but both walk away without injury. Well, one gets towed away. Oh, and embarrassment.
“Hello?” I say into my cell phone.
A young woman answers, “Dad?”
“Uh, you have the wrong number,” I say.
“Oh,” she suppresses a laugh, “sorry about that.”
“No problem.”
Recently seen bumper sticker: “If you’ve ever heard that little voice in your head… Jesus hears it, too. You are never alone.”
So where was I when it happened?
I was in the middle of the Island, on a diner’s rooftop, working on an exhaust fan. The fan next to me started to hum lower, as if another motor turned on on the same circuit, so I paused to look at it. A freezer compressor about 20 feet away from me turned off and on, and I said to myself, “It would be a strange thing to put both those things on the same circuit.” Then I promptly ignored it and went back to work.
“Hey! Hey, you up there!” I heard below, but ignored it, since no one could actually see me from the ground due to the height of the facade of the building. I continued to work.
“Hey, guy,” I heard in a thick Spanish accent from just behind me. I turned to look, and one of the diner’s cooks had climbed the ladder and was gesturing downwards. “The lights.” Car horns started bleating on Vet’s Highway, below us.
“Huh?” I said and followed the cook back down the ladder. Sure enough all the lights were off inside. The owner of the diner sees me and says, “Hey, what did you do?”
So for about five seconds, I thought I caused the biggest black-out in the Northeast, or at least the diner-in-Islandia black-out. Then I said, “Nothing. I’m not working on the electricity!”
“Oh,” the owner of the diner said, slowly and thoughtfully. “So what happened?” And the rest is all of our collective stories, so you know as much as I do there.
On a different site, I elucidated the obligitory six rules that any drinking game should have. Since it reminded me of good times, I decided to post it here as well, dedicated in fondest memories to Beau: