Armin Van Buuren At Sacramento's "Empire" Nightclub

Left: Armin Van Buuren starts his set.

With resignation, I accepted that accepting dinner at Sally's Sunday evening meant that I couldn't go to see famed DJ Armin Van Buuren at Empire, but one of the oddities of the end of daylight savings time was that it felt late even though the clock said it was early. So, I left Sally's at what seemed like a late hour according to the body's circadian clock, but I was still able to make it to Empire on-time and catch the show!

Trying to get the technology going....


The human heart as a V-8 internal combustion engine. Nice!

Bedazzled!

The view from above.

This cross-like stance was characteristic for Armin Van Buuren (granted, over the din it's hard for the DJ to communicate with the audience, but Van Buuren consciously chose religious symbology, and the theme of love, for his message). With his projections he seemed to be emphasizing something called UR (an acronym for Universal Religion), Chapter 4. Discotheques are 'sonic cathedrals' and it's hardly surprising, with all the accolades that they get and the energy they summon, that DJs feel in-touch with something deeper - something truly religious. They don't call it 'Trance' for nothing!

Visible in this photo is one of the go-go dancer cages at Empire. Early in the evening, I saw two women in the club with heads covered - Muslim women, evidently. Later in the evening, I saw one of the women dancing in a go-go dancer's cage, with head still covered, of course. Now THAT I've never seen before! Interesting night!

I was surprised, given the concrete tilt-up nature of the nightclub, that the evening wasn't louder. When DJ Tiesto was in town, the volume was so loud that the hairs jumped on your arms and made your skin feel like it was crawling with beetles. I didn't get that feeling Sunday night.

I learned some surprising things about the Empire nightclub. At one point, a drop of water hit my forearm. I eventually realized that water was condensing on the air conditioning conduits above and dripping onto the floor (and people) below. It's hard to tell what was more unbelievable: that it was so humid, or that the conduits were so cold that condensation would occur.

At one point, I realized that my zipper was down. No second chance to make a first impression, as they say! Here is a bit of my own video:




Here is one of Armin Van Buuren's recent music videos, with some Australian and New Zealand footage, for local color.




The best part of Armin Van Buuren's show was the karaoke-style sing-along for Oceanlab's "On A Good Day". Wonderful choice! Here is the official video assembled from submittals from Oceanlab's fans:



And the lyrics, of course:

Little bit lost and...
A little bit lonely
Little bit cold here
A little bit feared

But I hold on
And I Feel strong
And I Know that I can
Getting used to it
Lit the fuse to it
Like to know who I am

Been talking to myself forever, yeah
And how I wish I knew me better, yeah
Still sitting on a shelf and never
Never seen the sun shine brighter
And it feels like me On a good day
And it feels like me On a good day

I'm a little bit hemmed in
A little bit isolated
A little bit hopeful
A little bit cold

But I hold on
And I Feel strong
And I Know that I can
Getting used to it
Lit the fuse to it
Like to know who I am

Been talking to myself forever, yeah
And how I wish I knew me better, yeah
Still sitting on a shelf and never
Never seen the sun shine brighter...
And it feels like me
On a good day

Been talking to myself forever, yeah
And how I wish I knew me better, yeah
Still sitting on a shelf and never
Never seen the sun shine brighter
And it feels like me
On a good day

Halloween Party At The Red Lion Inn

KHITS KCCL FM Oldies Radio 92.1 hosted this costume party, featuring the "Unknown Comic" doing standup comedy. Here, he wears an all-purpose paper sack on his head.

I was impressed how this fellow could keep going on and on. The jokes were often lame, but there were so many of them, and they went for hours!

My favorite example: Two blondes put the last piece in a jigsaw puzzle, were overjoyed, and started celebrating. A fellow asked what was so special about that and they said they had been working on the puzzle for four months. "Four months!" he said. "Yes," they replied, "but look at the label on the box: three-to-five years!"

Music was provided by the oldies band "Too Smooth".

The people at the party were interesting. One woman in her fifties said that she and her friend were crossing things off their list of things to do before they die. Neither had been in a bar since they were 21 years old and tonight was the night they decided to return!

Another fellow stood by the door and muttered rather incoherently to himself, often responding to voices that weren't there. He said: "You are an elder!" I wondered if he thought I was some kind of Jedi, or maybe Yoda himself; He eventually revealed that he was "on mushrooms." Ah-ha! That explains it!

There were several witches at the party, but the Young Witch was by far the most interesting person at the party. She was in that difficult-to-reach state: Happy Drunk. She was capable of doing almost anything at the drop of her pointed hat. For example, the Unknown Comic started to set up a joke: "Some people say I have a drinking problem..." Before he could finish the setup she replied, in the most charming way possible "I do!" The audience roared! She started dancing with me and then abruptly dragged me up to the front of the room for a vigorous swing dance. Very fun! I gave her an impetuous kiss on the cheek. She smiled.

But not all was well in Witch land. Just before the costume contest started a grim, clenched-jawed brother/husband/boyfriend suddenly appeared, seemingly from nowhere, clamped her wrist in an iron grip, and hauled her off the dance floor, out the door, out the hotel, and away from the fun. Jealousy - the green-eyed monster - reared its ugly head and diminished the fun of the party.


The costume contestants line up in order to vie for the $ 921.00 grand prize.

Several semi-finalists: The White Rabbit half of 'Alice in Wonderland', The Blind Ref, A Bag of Groceries, some weird fellow that looked like Howard Stern, and Jetta as the Two-Headed Woman.

I didn't wear a costume, and so it was extra-amusing to hear one fellow offer 'Rick Moranis' as his candidate.


The eventual winner: "Three Blind Mice"

Halloween Night Crash

A dark-colored sedan blocks the northbound lanes of the Capitol City Freeway near the N Street exit. 

Gotta be careful driving around!  We are all vulnerable (I have no word regarding Mary Young's accident apart from what daughter Wendy has posted on Facebook).

Not Many Monsters For Trick-Or-Treat

Just four little demons this Halloween.  I guess there aren't that many kids where I live.....

Stick Management Morphs Into Leaf Management

A Visit With Bill O'Brien

Bill O'Brien has been bedridden for much of this decade, but he's still curious about the Sacramento Modern Dance scene....

Goodpasture Syndrome

On Friday came news that Dr. F. has a very rare disease called Goodpasture Syndrome, an auto-immune ailment sometimes associated with young people inhaling solvents.

He was always interested in the price of gasoline; has he also been siphoning the stuff?  Otherwise, how to explain the strange ailment?  Unless he got the worst of very slim odds by accident.

Birthday Dinner At Biba's

Nice dinner (pork chop, in Italian)!  Even met Biba!  Fun!

Crushed By The Money

Gavin Newsom decides to throw in the towel:

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom made a surprise announcement Friday afternoon that he was dropping out of the gubernatorial race, leaving the Democrats with no declared candidate for the top statewide office.

Attorney General Jerry Brown has opened an exploratory committee for governor but has yet to formally announce his candidacy.

Nonetheless, Brown has opened a wide lead over Newsom in both fund-raising and in polls.

"You Must Always Blow On The Pie"

...[P]olice dog handler Guy Baldwin, who was captured on camera dishing out unusual advice to a late-night car jacker caught in the act.

When the teenage criminal claimed hunger as an alibi, saying he was just on his way to the petrol station to buy a meat pie, the sergeant came up with this quick-witted reply.

"Three o'clock in the morning, that pie has probably been in the warming drawer for about 12 hours.

"It will be thermo-nuclear - always blow on the pie. Safer communities together," Baldwin said, using the long-standing New Zealand Police slogan.

Wall Street Cratering Today

It's those Black Tuesday Anniversary Blues!

Actually, the stock market has been running on fumes, and it's about time someone noticed.

Stocks plunged Friday, erasing all of the previous day's big gains, as a drop in consumer spending fanned worries that the economic recovery won't be sustainable.

Major stock indexes tumbled more than 2 percent in afternoon trading, including the Dow Jones industrials, which gave back all of Thursday's 200-point gain. The biggest declines were among banks, energy and materials companies.

As stocks fell, investors moved to safer assets like the dollar and Treasurys. At the same time, the Chicago Board Options Exchange's Volatility Index, known as the market's fear gauge, soared nearly 25 percent to 30.88, the highest since early July. Its historical average is 18-20. It hit a record 89.5 a year ago.

The decline in stocks marked an about-face for the market, which had rallied on Thursday after the government reported a 3.5 percent jump in gross domestic product in the third quarter.

Investors started shedding stocks after the Labor Department said personal spending fell 0.5 percent in September. Though the decline was in line with forecasts, it was the largest drop in nine months and followed a 1.3 percent jump in August fueled by the government's popular Cash for Clunkers car rebate program.

The day's report cast further doubt on the economy's recovery, which many economists fear has been driven by the government stimulus measures. Without a rebound in consumer spending, which makes up a major part of the U.S. economy, investors worry the recovery won't last.

Weather Guess

In a week, a weather system is forecast to develop north of the Hawaiian Islands.  That might be a good place to start to bring rain to California in, say, two weeks from now....

Changing The Channel

Jerry reports the latest:

Political Comment?

The McDonald's in downtown San Jose has changed the channels on its TVs from Fox News to the Cartoon Channel.

I reply:

Yes, I bet it is a political comment! Sometimes the politics gets a bit much, particularly for a commercial establishment that caters to the public.

I knew some kind of watershed had been reached when, immediately after the 2005 election, local Sacramento Talk Radio station KFBK gave inflammatory DJ Mark Williams the boot, and started emphasizing sports and finance in its coverage. I don't know why that election - Arnold lost his ballot initiatives that year and so maybe it was an intraparty bloodletting of some sort - but it made the airwaves more-tolerable. Now Williams is trying to be one of the national leaders of the Teabaggers, but at least I don't have to listen to him all the time.

May the Cartoon Channel reign supreme forevermore at the downtown San Jose McDonald's!

Jerry replies:

And nobody noticed the change!

Daily Reach

Figures don't lie (but do liars figure?)

Disobedient Toddler

Cults pose perils:

Home video of Javon Thompson and his mother Ria Ramkissoon doesn't hint at the dark future awaiting them, when they became swept up in the religious cult of Queen Antoinette.

Authorities say cult members starved 1-year-old Javon Thompson because the boy did not say "Amen" after meals.

Today Is The 80th Anniversary Of Black Tuesday

And the start of the Great Depression!

Coyotes Attack!

Coyotes attack! I would never have believed such a thing was possible:

A PROMISING young Canadian musician has been attacked and killed by coyotes while on a tour promoting her new album.

Taylor Mitchell, 19, was considered a rising star of the folk music scene, having just earned a Canadian Folk Music Awards nomination.

She was hiking alone on the Syline Trail in Cape Breton Highlands National Park when a pair of coyotes attacked her.

Tourists rushed to her aid when they heard her screams and found Mitchell bleeding heavily from mulitple wounds "all over her body", according to The Canadian Press.

"She was losing a considerable amount of blood from her wounds," paramedic Paul Maynard told TCP.

One of the animals was later shot by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, but the other got away.

Park officials said it was highly unusual for coyotes to be involved in such an aggressive attack.

Mitchell was due to play at a concert after her hike and was on her first tour of the Candaian east coast.

Werecat

It's late October, which means Deborah has slipped into Halloween mode - Merrrorrrw!:

When you're driving those lonely Arizona highways and see a hitchhiker on the side of the road look at the phase the moon is in. You never know who or what you're picking up!

Standup At T2's (aka Trino's)

After Improv class, Jetta called to do a little post-mortem on the improv sketch that failed:

Jetta: Why didn't you catch on to what I was doing?

Marc: Because I couldn't figure it out!

Jetta: What's to figure out? I addressed you as 'Harry', and then got down on my knee to propose marriage to you, and then said this was going to cause trouble with our parents. So the natural conclusion is.....is.......

Marc: Is what? I couldn't figure it out!

Jetta: The natural conclusion is that I'm a man! Proposing gay marriage!

Marc: But you're not a man! I couldn't make that connection!

Jetta: But why?

Marc: Because you're not a man!

Jetta: You'll have to think faster than that if we're going to work on a routine. Now, since I'm having dental work done on Friday I want to sing karaoke tonight, but you instead should check out Trino's. They have an open mike there on Wednesday night and I figure we could do an improv routine there next week. Do you know about Trino's? You sometimes see strange things there. It's a place for swingers.

Marc: Like swing dancers?

Jetta: No, like wife-swappers. I wonder if they have secret rooms there. Go and check out the standup at Trino's.

I had a very hazy recollection of a hazy memory from the early 90's about some kind of swingers' club in the news. This club must be the place. Do people still do that? It sounds like like a very Seventies thing to do. Or a Sixties thing. Or something. But, hey, I'm into nostalgia!

So, feeling a bit dubious about the whole idea, after doing aerobics and eating dinner, I headed out to find Trino's on Fulton Avenue, and worried whether I might be the appetizer, the entree, or the dessert.

I opened the door to a nearly-empty club and was greeted by a one-eyed surfer dude. The odd thing is that I thought I recognized him. But then I think I recognize everyone. I notice that as I age nearly everyone looks slightly familiar (I'll end up like those folks in the nursing home who wave and smile at every passerby), and decided soon afterwards that I had no idea who he was at all.

The club was decked out in Halloween splendor, with slightly racy paintings on the wall. The evening was slow starting (poor turnout). There were no signs of secret rooms (except maybe some kind of a locker under lock and key).

"It's group sex night here at T2's tonight," one of the MCs helpfully announced. "We'll be playing Twister shortly! We have Crisco and baby oil for everyone!" Funny! But the temperature was about 55 degrees F (the door to the patio was open) so it would be a brisk and very invigorating group sex experience for everybody - if anyone showed up.

One of the other MC's came over and talked. He had been doing standup for several years and recommended sfstandup.com as a source for locations and dates of open mike nights, and other standup venues, in the Bay Area, and Sacramento too. Wednesday night meant open mike at Trino's. Speaking about this club, he added: "Friday is couples' night."

Ah, "couples' night"!

After a while, several comics showed up. So, three guests (four if you counted surfer dude), plus about six comics. The humor was a bit rough, and amazingly crude. Sometimes funny too!

All the while, the comics looked at me and tried to figure out what my game was.

At the end of the evening, one of the MCs did the unexpected and handed me the mike. I jumped up and identified myself as 'Marc Valdez'. The Latino comic with the funny jokes about la migra said "Valdez? We figured you were Jewish!" I smiled and launched into my (crude) story about a late-night walk on the Las Vegas Strip, about 1980. They liked the story and applauded. I thanked them for helping me lose my standup virginity and promised to return next week.

Afterwards, I talked to one comic who had been complaining about being unemployed. I suddenly realized he had been travelling the standup circuit - he had been, until recently, touring and getting paid to do standup, so unemployment was a different experience for him than for most people. "I don't know anything about standup, " I said. "No one does," he said, "until you do it, and then it's too late!"

The club owner was passing out flyers announced the club's name change, from Trino's to T2. He had just purchased the place, and it was time to announce the change to the world!

We're Going To Need A Bigger Boat

The Queensland coast is rattled by evidence that a particularly large shark is out there, somewhere, and the urgent calls to remove existing protections against sharks because of the toll on dolphins, turtles, and whales is falling on deaf ears:

A 'monster' great white shark measuring up to 20 ft long is on the prowl off a popular Queensland beach, according to officials.

Swimmers were warned to stay out of the water off Stradbroke Island after the shark mauled another smaller great white which had been hooked on a baited drum line.

The 10-foot great white was almost bitten in half.

The fictional shark at the centre of the Steven Spielberg blockbuster Jaws was estimated to be just five feet longer.

...News of the shocking attack on the smaller shark has sent jitters along the Queensland coast from Stradbroke Island, near Brisbane, to the Sunshine Coast further north down to the tourist mecca of Surfers Paradise, south of Brisbane.

'Whatever attacked and took chunks out of this big shark must be massive,' said 19-year-old surfer Ashton Smith. 'I've heard about the big one that's lurking out there somewhere.

...Many of the popular beaches in Queensland are protected by nets and what are known as drumlines - a series of baited hooks that hang from buoys placed in a line about 500 yards from beaches.

...The Queensland State Government has been under pressure in recent weeks to scale down the shark net and drumline programme because environmentalists say that whales and other big fish are becoming trapped in the nets.

But Fisheries Minister Tim Mulherin said the capture of the badly injured 10ft shark - and the indication of a much larger one being in the area - showed the necessity to keep the nets and drumlines in place.

Darren Kindleysides, director of the Australian Marine Conservation Society, said the nets were working but at huge cost to whales, dolphins and turtles.

When Roadkill Gets The Last Laugh

Egads! With pictures too!:

When a brother and sister struck a coyote at 75mph they assumed they had killed the animal and drove on.

They didn't realise this was the toughest creature ever to survive a hit-and-run.

Eight hours, two fuel stops, and 600 miles later they found the wild animal embedded in their front fender - and very much alive.

And - as if to prove the point - the wily coyote later escaped from where it was being kept to recover.

From "The Onion"

More Americans Falling For 'Get Rich Slowly Over A Lifetime Of Hard Work' Schemes

A report released Monday by the Omaha-based public-interest group Aurora indicates that increasing numbers of Americans are being defrauded by schemes that offer financial reward for a lifetime of hard work. "People don't realize that long-term savings and loyalty to one company don't pan out," said Sylvia Girouard, the study's author. Girouard added that steady employment which claims to offer long-term financial gain in the form of a pension plan is nothing more than an elaborate Ponzi scheme.

Suze Orman Likes The Debtor Revolt Idea

Of course, E. is way ahead of them. She stopped paying her credit cards years ago. So, it's time to at least think about doing the same.

Peak Unemployment Generally Comes Two Years After Recession Ends

And our recession has barely ended yet.

So It's Really Come To This

The Governator tells legislators: "F*** You".

Yes, Ahnold was that breath of fresh air we really needed....

You Can't Make Fun Of Us, And Make A Profit Too

But isn't that the American Way? So, what we end up with is the ultimate frivolous lawsuit. Tort reform, anyone?:

In one of the more well-executed and sophisticated pranks in modern memory, the Yes Men faked a press conference on Oct. 19, announcing that the Chamber had changed its position on climate change. Some big-name news organizations, including the New York Times and Reuters, fell for the stunt. The result: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is spitting mad, and on Monday the organization filed a complaint in U.S. District Court in Washington D.C., seeking redress for "the Defendants' fraudulent acts and misappropriation of its valuable intellectual property."

You might think that an organization boasting as long a history and as much accumulated savvy about how the American political system works as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce would know better than to pick a fight with satirical hoaxsters who will only gain from more publicity. This is not the kind of behavior we expect from such an august institution. As Corynne McSherry, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is representing the Yes Men in its legal battle with the Chamber, told Salon, "We are surprised and disappointed that the Chamber of Commerce has chosen to go to court over obvious political criticism."

But the foundation of the Chamber's complaint is that the Yes Men are not engaging in legitimate political criticism, that in fact their real aim is to commercially profit from their Chamber impersonation.

From the complaint (Italics mine):

Defendants had a common plan to engage in acts that violated multiple laws. These acts deceived the press and public, and caused injury to the Chamber, while promoting the commercial ventures of certain of the Defendants who trade under the name "The Yes Men." The acts are nothing less than commercial identity theft masquerading as social activism. These infringing and fraudulent acts are antithetical to public debate on important issues, because they prevent the public and the press from knowing the true position of the intellectual property owner whose trademarks and copyrights were used without permission, and they disguise the true motives of the persons who took that property. In short, such conduct is destructive of public discourse, and cannot be tolerated under the law.

Some might argue that the Chamber of Commerce, which has been fighting tooth and nail to hamstring government efforts at accomplishing both financial sector reform and limiting greenhouse gas emissions, has done more damage to public discourse through its self-interested lobbying than anything that a handful of comedians might have accomplished. Others might wonder whether, deep in the woods of the 21st century, when every possible aspect of human civilization has been commodified and commercialized, any meaningful contradiction still exists between the goals of social activism and the goals of commercial profit. A social activist still has to eat, right? Isn't it in the best tradition of American entrepreneurship that one should be able to capitalize on one's political activity? Doesn't that fit in with the Chamber's (trademarked) slogan "The Spirit of Enterprise"?

But following the twists and turns of this truly postmodern case will be interesting, because, at least judging from the Chamber's complaint (which is far more informative about how the hoax was accomplished than any news report I've seen has yet managed to put together), the Yes Men did explicitly set up their prank as part of the publicity for a new movie,"The Yes Men Fix the World," that premiered days afterward. And the Yes Men do stand to profit from their successful impersonation.

More from the complaint:

Defendant Servin's and Defendant Vamos are actors, screenwriters, directors, and entrepreneurs whose ventures include multiple web sites, blogs, an online store, a book, and two motion pictures. Whether operating under one of their many individual aliases or collectively as the "Yes Men," the tactics of Servin and Vamos are designed to drive business to their ventures and generate sales of merchandise, including t-shirts ($20.00), DVD's of their 2004 movie, "The Yes Men" ($20.00), the Yes Men book, -- signed by the authors -- ($14.95) and movie posters ($20.00). For those inclined to purchase, the Yes Men's store accepts MasterCard, Visa, American Express, and Diner's Club.

Is the implication here that if you accept major credit cards, you undermine the integrity of your political activism? Does anyone at the Chamber understand the ludicrous irony of a lobbying organization that exists to protect the profits of its clients against all encroachment criticizing others for their pecuniary motivations?

The Chamber claims that it has suffered monetary damages from the Yes Men's satire, and it is asking not only that the Court order the Yes Men to cease any or all activities referencing the Chamber's activities, but that the Chamber be granted a portion of whatever profits the Yes Men reap in the future. This is the equivalent of a multi-car irony pileup.

But the funniest part of this whole story is the Chamber's complaint that the Yes Men's parody "has caused harm to the reputation and goodwill of the Chamber."

Sorry, guys, but you pulled off that feat all by your lonesome.

Likin' The Opt-Out

That speed bump of condensed evil, Joseph Lieberman, is up to his tricks today, so who knows if Opt-Out will ever come to pass, but Andrew Sullivan sees the problems it provides to conservatives:

Imagine Republicans in state legislatures having to argue and posture against an affordable health insurance plan for the folks, as O'Reilly calls them, while evil liberals provide it elsewhere. Now, of course, if the public option is a disaster in some states, this argument could work in the long run. But in the short run? It's political nightmare for the right as it is currently constituted. In fact, I can see a public option becoming the equivalent of Medicare in the public psyche if it works as it should. Try running against Medicare.

The genius of the opt-out is that it coopts the states' rights argument (just as ending the prohibition on marijuana does); it has the potential to make "liberalism' popular again; it has easily demonized opponents - the health insurance industry; and it forces Republicans not to rail against socialism in the abstract but to oppose actual benefits for the working poor in reality.

It's a brutal, Chicago-style political maneuver. And Obama appears not to be the person really pushing it.

Opt-Out

Initially it looks like a good deal - better than liberals might have first expected. It may force red staters to make good on their anti-Washington rhetoric by sacrificing real money, and thus lose the pleasant rhetorical world they have long inhabited, where they could say whatever and never have a cost attached to it:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced what we've been reporting today - the merged health care bill will include a public option allowing states to opt-out.

"Under this concept states will be able to determine whether the public option works best for them," Reid told reporters. He said it was the "fairest" way to go.

Reid (D-NV) said after "countless hours" of talking to his caucus, there is a "strong consensus" for this plan. He said he will not submit a plan with a triggered public option to the Congressional Budget Office.

"As we've gone through this process, I've concluded, with the support of the White House and Senators. Dodd and Baucus, that the best way to move forward is to include a public option with an opt out provision for states," Reid said.

Reid said he was "disappointed" the public option had "frightened" Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) but that he hoped she would "come back."

"I spoke to Olympia on Friday...and at this stage she does not like the public option of any kind. And so, we'll have to move forward on this, and there will come a time I hope, where she sees the wisdom of supporting a health care bill," he said.

"We hope Olympia will come back, she's worked hard, she's a very good legislator," Reid added.

He also blasted Republicans, saying he can count the moderates in the GOP on "two fingers."

"Thriller" In Citrus Heights

Because zombies rule!:

In the end, no records were broken. But for a few minutes late Sunday afternoon, zombies stomped out the steps of a familiar dance in a courtyard between shops at the Marketplace at Birdcage, welcoming Halloween early.

The community participation dance, patterned after Michael Jackson's 1983 "Thriller" video, drew 79 dancers, from the very young to the elderly, and a whole lot of observers.

...Why "Thriller"? Why now?

..."Michael Jackson is one of my favorite singers," said Czeslawa. "And I really like the dance."

"You Become The Pig"

This sounds like fun - being a chainsaw-wielding pig at Universal Studios' Halloween Horror Nights:

During my first solo attempt at attacking the passing Terror Tram, I failed badly. It took five tugs to start the chainsaw. Flustered, I rushed out to the tram and flailed aimlessly at the confused passengers. The long hair from the mask covered my face, obscuring my view. I stumbled on a fallen branch. Nobody was scared.

Winded and defeated, I plodded back into the woods and plopped down on the log.
“Any advice?” I asked Cullen.

“You’ve got to rev the engine more,” he said, in apt understatement.

I watched Cullen and Vawtor, studying their technique: the hidden sound of the rip-snorting engine chortling to life, the frightening sudden charge toward the tram, the lunging and lurching swings of the saw from a menacing crouched position. It was like a choreographed dance of death and destruction that lasted only 15 seconds.

As the night progressed, my scare skills improved.

WaMu - The Bottom Of The Barrel

Just how bad was Washington Mutual with respect to the housing crisis? Via Andrew Leonard, the Seattle Times has been looking into the matter (Part I, Part II):

"I don't think Killinger intentionally set out to cut corners," said one senior executive who spoke on condition of anonymity. "But he certainly created an atmosphere in which doing the easy thing rather than the hard thing was OK."

Even the most notorious murder case of the 1990s made a cameo appearance, as Chapman learned in early 2007.

"Someone in Florida had made a second-mortgage loan to O.J. Simpson, and I just about blew my top, because there was this huge judgment against him from his wife's parents," she recalled. Simpson had been acquitted of killing his wife Nicole and her friend but was later found liable for their deaths in a civil lawsuit; that judgment took precedence over other debts, such as if Simpson defaulted on his WaMu loan.

"When I asked how we could possibly foreclose on it, they said there was a letter in the file from O.J. Simpson saying 'the judgment is no good, because I didn't do it.' "

Maybe A Learning Situation?

Nothing promotes learning like having everyone in town repeatedly kick your ass:

TAOS, N.M. – Larry Whitten marched into this northern New Mexico town in late July on a mission: resurrect a failing hotel.

The tough-talking former Marine immediately laid down some new rules. Among them, he forbade the Hispanic workers at the run-down, Southwestern adobe-style hotel from speaking Spanish in his presence (he thought they'd be talking about him), and ordered some to Anglicize their names.

No more Martin (Mahr-TEEN). It was plain-old Martin. No more Marcos. Now it would be Mark.

Whitten's management style had worked for him as he's turned around other distressed hotels he bought in recent years across the country.

The 63-year-old Texan, however, wasn't prepared for what followed.

His rules and his firing of several Hispanic employees angered his employees and many in this liberal enclave of 5,000 residents at the base of the Sangre de Cristo mountains, where the most alternative of lifestyles can find a home and where Spanish language, culture and traditions have a long and revered history.

"I came into this landmine of Anglos versus Spanish versus Mexicans versus Indians versus everybody up here. I'm just doing what I've always done," he says.

Former workers, their relatives and some town residents picketed across the street from the hotel.

"I do feel he's a racist, but he's a racist out of ignorance. He doesn't know that what he's doing is wrong," says protester Juanito Burns Jr., who identified himself as prime minister of an activist group called Los Brown Berets de Nuevo Mexico.

The Virginia-born Whitten had spent 40 years in the hotel business, turning around more than 20 hotels in Texas, Oklahoma, Florida and South Carolina, before moving with his wife to Taos from Abilene, Texas. He had visited Taos before, and liked its beauty. When Whitten saw that the Paragon Inn was up for sale, he jumped at it.

...After he arrived, Whitten met with the employees. He says he immediately noticed that they were hostile to his management style and worried they might start talking about him in Spanish.

"Because of that, I asked the people in my presence to speak only English because I do not understand Spanish," Whitten says. "I've been working 24 years in Texas and we have a lot of Spanish people there. I've never had to ask anyone to speak only English in front of me because I've never had a reason to."

Some employees were fired, Whitten says, because they were hostile and insubordinate. He says they called him "a white (N-word)."

Fired hotel manager Kathy Archuleta says the workers initially tried to adjust to his style. "We had already gone through four or five owners before him, so we knew what to expect," Archuleta says. "I told (the workers) we needed to give him a chance."

Then Whitten told some employees he was changing their Spanish first names. Whitten says it's a routine practice at his hotels to change first names of employees who work the front desk phones or deal directly with guests if their names are difficult to understand or pronounce.

"It has nothing to do with racism. I'm not doing it for any reason other than for the satisfaction of my guests, because people calling from all over America don't know the Spanish accents or the Spanish culture or Spanish anything," Whitten says.

Martin Gutierrez, another fired employee, says he felt disrespected when he was told to use the unaccented Martin as his name. He says he told Whitten that Spanish was spoken in New Mexico before English. "He told me he didn't care what I thought because this was his business," Gutierrez says.

"I don't have to change my name and language or heritage," he says. "I'm professional the way I am."

After the firings, the New Mexico chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens, a national civil rights group, sent Whitten a letter, raising concerns about treatment of Hispanic workers. Whitten says he sent them a letter and posted messages on the hotel marquee, alleging that the group referred to him with a racial slur. LULAC denied the charge.

The messages and comments he made in interviews with local media, including referring to townsfolk as "mountain people" and "potheads who escaped society," further enflamed tensions.

Taos Mayor Darren Cordova says Whitten wasn't doing anything illegal. But he says Whitten failed to better familiarize himself with the town and its culture before deciding to buy the hotel for $2 million. "Taos is so unique that you would not do anything in Taos that you would do elsewhere," he says.

Whitten grew subdued as a two-hour interview with The Associated Press progressed. He said he was sorry for the misunderstanding and insisted he has never been against any culture.

"What kind of fool or idiot or poor businessman would I be to orchestrate this whole crazy thing that's costed me a lot of time, money and aggravation?" Whitten said.

Whitten should have dealt with the situation differently, especially in a majority Hispanic town, said 71-year-old Taos artist Ken O'Neil, while sipping his afternoon coffee on the town's historic plaza.

"To make demands like he did just seems over the top," he says. "Nobody won here. It's not always about winning. Sometimes, it's about what you learn."

All Alone On The Bus

I don't know for sure (maybe John can illuminate me), but from this graph, I'm guessing it sucks to ride the bus in Oklahoma City.

Kylie Serendipity

Posting my ten Kylie Las Vegas YouTube videos has been a great experience! I have gathered two correspondents; one from El Paso, and one from Albuquerque.

Besides having a great pre-show story, the El Paso correspondent mentioned meeting two people from Albuquerque. So I E-Mailed the Albuquerque correspondent:

Say, through YouTube E-mail, Ive been in contact with a fellow from El Paso who was at the Las Vegas Kylie concert and says he met two guys from Albuquerque. As far as I can tell, both you and he were near the stage in about the same place. I am curious whether you recognize yourself in his description. Of course, there may have been other people from Albuquerque nearby too, but it would be pretty cool if you were the same fellow.

The Albuquerque correspondent replied:

LMAO that was us.. i kept opening the ittle rope for the dancers and stuff and after the cute boys finished coming thru i let him take it over! he was right there with us the whole time.. nice guy!

The Who Who Knew Too Much

Last night, I dreamt that I stumbled across Mrs. Mayor of Whoville, in my basement, shredding documents.

Vegan Restaurant

Jetta: The restaurant is in Carmichael near College Oaks and Auburn. My friends will meet us there. Tonight is half-off night: they don't do coupons there, but everything is half-off. It's 100% vegan and it's great. You can't order any meat or dairy or egg product. I know that is very unusual for you and will make your mouth fall off.

Marc: Can I order any baby back spare ribs?

Jetta: No, you can't order any baby back spare ribs. This restaurant has only real food, the stuff you should have been eating all along, and not the artificial crap that you are used to eating everywhere else. You'll love it.

Marc: Can I order a milkshake?

Jetta: No, you can't order a milkshake. But they do have tofu and eggplant. Do you like tofu and eggplant?

Marc: I don't like eggplant and I'm so-so about tofu.

Jetta: You'll love it!

(pulling into the parking lot)

Marc: Is that the restaurant there, the one with the "Donut Happy" sign?

Jetta (sarcastically): That's right, they put a vegan restaurant in a donut shop! No, it's over there, labelled "vegetarian restaurant"!
------------------
(Apparently the place is called Noble Vegetarian).

The food was excellent, including the eggplant, and the noodle plate with the vegebeef strips that I had. And half-off, the price was more than reasonable. Afterwards, we decided to all become rich by patenting tofu donuts.

Stick Management

This afternoon, I spent time sweepeing leaves and clipping small branches and various sticks from the trees and bushes around my house. Can't say I even properly started - the tree canopy is still full of broken stuff I can't reach. And most of the leaves are still up in the trees.

The neighbor lady is moving out to West Sacramento - like all the other next-door tenants, the high rent here eventually killed her.

Autumn is here and it's now crystal clear: 2009 was a banner year for sticks!

Capital Choreography Competition

In a special tribute at the Capital Choreography Competition (the emotional heart of the spectacle), Sacramento Ballet's great ballerina Kirsten Bloom danced the Rose Adagio from Act I of Tchaikovsky's 'Sleeping Beauty' (before departing for maternity leave).

Here, at left, she accepts the audience's standing ovation, and below, a standing ovation from her fellow dancers.

Nice show tonight (and also, previously, on Oct. 17th) at the Crest Theatre in Sacramento! Three works were premiered, in this order:

"Almost A Story Ballet", by Viktor Kabaniaev;

"On Frail Wings", by Amy Seiwart; and,

"The Ratio", by Matthew Neenan.

In the audience voting portion of the show, I reasoned that when the audience was presented with three works of approximately equal merit, at voting time, the audience would always favor the third one, because it was the last work presented and the freshest in their mind. The third work was the odds-on favorite, all else being equal. So, to be fair, in my mind, it was important to vote for the first work presented.

Nevertheless, the audience tripped me up. The audience ultimately favored the second work presented. The judges, however, chose the last work presented as the contest's winner.

In all fairness, all three works were great! Everyone's a winner in a show like this!

I Doubt This Ended Well

Tonight in West Sacramento, driving into Sacramento from the west on Highway 50, I could see and smell lots of smoke pouring out a car being towed by Jack's Towing Company. The back of the towed car had been smashed and the smoke seemed to be pouring from the rear wheel wells. Perhaps the car was in 'park' rather than 'neutral', or maybe the wheel wells were damaged, or the parking brake was on? In any event, nighttime and all, the driver of the tow truck was blithely ignorant of the catastrophe developing immediately behind him.

I pulled up beside the tow truck on the right and started flashing my high beams, and honking. But before I actually got the driver's attention I was compelled to exit the highway (the right lane there is a must exit for Jefferson Blvd.)

I wonder what transpired from all that?

Kylie Fan Shares Vegas Story

Via YouTube, a Kylie fan who was also at the Las Vegas concert at the Palms Pearl Concert Theatre on October 3rd shares his most-unusual experience about queueing early and meeting great people. The 'Better The Devil You Know' video he refers to is here:

HI! MY NAME IS RUBS, SHORT FOR RUBEN. THANKS FOR YOUR EMAIL. DUDE, FIRST OF ALL I STAYED IN LINE SINCE 1 P.M. ALL THE WAY UNTIL THEY LET US IN AND THEY PUT OUR WRIST BANDS. YOU WOULD NOT BELIEVE ME IF I TOLD YOU THAT BETWEEN ME AND THESE TWO GUYS FROM ALBURQUERQUE NM (I HOPE I SPELLED THAT RIGHT!) WHERE LETTING SECURITY IN AT THE BEGINNING, BUT THEN THEY DECIDED TO HAVE SOME DRINKS AND LEFT THAT DUTY TO ME. WELL, AS SOON AS I TOOK OVER, I LET THE MALE DANCERS IN, LATER THE BAND MEMBERS, THEN THE TOUR MANAGER, THEN HER MAKE UP STYLIST, HER PROMO & PUBLISIST. I WOULD HAVE LET KYLIE'S GAY HUSBAND IN, THE WILLIAM BAKER GUY, BUT HE DECIDED TO ENTER FROM THE RIGHT SIDE OF WHERE I WAS. THEN, IF YOU GO TO KYLIE'S OFFICIAL WEB PAGE, OR EVEN ON YOUTUBE, I MET THE GUY THAT GOT PROPS FOR DRESSING LIKE A LEAPORD. HE WAS FROM CHINA, CAME ALL THE WAY FROM NEW YORK, AND FROM THE FIRST SHOW IN I BELIEVE IT WAS SAN FRANSICO. PS THE GUY GOT AN AUTOGRAPH DEDICATED BOOK FROM KYLIE @ THE END AND I ALSO MET THE FAN THAT WAS DRESSED AS FOOTBALL KYLIE FROM THE NEW YORK BLOG! AFTER THEY LET US FORM IN LINE NEXT TO THE DOORS, A NEAR RIOT ALMOST STARTED WHEN THIS LADY TOLD US TO COME BACK @ 7 WHEN THE DOORS OPENED, AFTER HER BOSS HAD TOLD US TO GET IN LINE. SUFFICE TO SAY, I WAS VERY BLESSED TO HAVE GOTTEN SO CLOSE TO ARTISTIC, NON STUDIO MAGIC, HUMAN PERFECTION. I TELL MY FRIENDS HERE IN EL PASO THAT IF YOU TAKE THE VOCAL POWER OF WHITNEY HOUSTON (BEFORE DRUGS THAT IS)+THE ENERGY OF A JANET JACKSON CONCERT+THE PRODUCTION VALUE OF A MADONNA CONCERT = KYLIE! I CAN HONESTLY SAY I CAN DIE IN PEACE SINCE I HAVE SEEN ALL OF THE GREATS MENTIONED. BY THE WAY, IN THE BETTER THE DEVIL YOU KNOW, I'M RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE GUYS WHO THREW THE BALLOON IN THE CROWD, AND ON STAGE, THEY WERE FROM OKLAHOMA!

Leave Us Alone; We're Busy

We said leave us alone!:

WASHINGTON - Federal investigators are scrambling to determine what happened aboard a Northwest Airlines jetliner whose crew flew 150 miles past its destination while air traffic controllers, other pilots and even a flight attendant back in the cabin tried to get their attention.

Investigators don't know whether the pilots may have fallen asleep, but National Transportation Safety Board spokesman Keith Holloway said today that fatigue and cockpit distraction will be looked into.

...The crew told authorities they were distracted during a heated discussion over airline policy, the NTSB said.

Wednesday night, the airliner with more than 140 passengers aboard zoomed past Minneapolis at 37,000 feet at what was supposed to be the end of a flight from San Diego. Worried about who was actually at the controls, officials asked the crew to prove who they were by executing turns after they finally were contacted.

On the ground, police and FBI agents prepared for the worst, and the Air National Guard put fighter jets on alert at two locations as the drama unfolded.

Pilots from two other planes in the vicinity were finally able to reach the pilots using a different radio frequency, a controllers union spokesman said. A flight attendant in the cabin also was able to contact them by intercom, said a source close to the investigation who wasn't authorized to talk publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

By that time, the Airbus A320 was over Eau Claire, Wis., and the pilots had been out of communication with air traffic controllers for over an hour. They turned back and landed safely in Minneapolis, the plane's scheduled destination.

Sunland

Deborah writes:

Here's a favorite sign from Tucson, AZ.

"When Donna Lee's Studebaker broke down on the beach she took it in stride and was glad she brought her suit."

Art Imitates Life Imitates Art

Deborah likes neon, as seen here in "Diving".



And the neon diver still dives in Mesa!

"This Love" - The Veronicas

Exploring The Early History Of Hip Hop, With The Aid Of A Banjolele

Twenty percent of your midterm score will be based on this material.

Cheney's Recent Comments

Joan Walsh has the best take:

Where do I begin? How does a man who spent much of his vice presidency hiding in a secret bunker get off accusing the president of being "afraid"? How does a guy who got five deferments from service in Vietnam, because he famously had "other priorities," call someone else a coward? (Still, Chickenhawk Cheney had no problem sending other people's children off to die in needless wars.) How does a guy who dropped the ball on the Afghan war, letting Osama bin Laden escape and the Taliban retrench, blame someone else for "dithering" on Afghanistan?

I Like The Pugnacious Democrat

It's time to give Alan Grayson his due. We need stand-up representatives like him!

One of the most annoying things about periods of time when Republicans dominate national politics is having them question the patriotism of anyone and everyone who doesn't think exactly like them. Having a Democrat do the same could be problematic in the end.

On the other hand, we have just one Democratic officeholder doing it now, when we have (or have had) EVERY Republican officeholder doing it, aided 24/7 by the Right Wing Noise Machine. Turnabout is fair play.:

Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL), however, believes that an enemies list is exactly where Fox belongs.

"Fox News and their Republican collaborators are the enemy of America," Grayson told MSNBC's Ed Schultz on Wednesday. "They're the enemy of anybody who cares about health care in this country, the enemy of anybody who cares about educating their children, the enemy of anybody who wants energy independence or anything good for this country. And certainly the enemy of peace, there's no doubt about that. They are the enemy."

Time To 'Think Of England'

OK Marc, it's time to think of something else besides women dancers - something like traffic engineering, for example, and this excellent example of a cloverstack interchange.

Unmata Tribal Fest 09

But I wasn't really looking for Kings dancers, as nice as they are. Instead, what I wanted to learn was - within a local Sacramento context, of course - what are the points of contact between Belly Dancing and Hip Hop?

This video single-handedly answers that question.

Sacramento Kings Dance Team Auditions

From July.

No, nothing to object to here, no sir!

Rogue Arctic Elephant On Questionable Rampage Impales A RINO

Movement conservative Sarah Palin chooses a different path than party conservative Richard Nixon took to win power within the Republican Party. Nixon worked within the party at all times, no matter what he may have felt. Palin doesn't see the need for that discipline. That's a bad sign for both Palin and for the Republican Party. Palin will no doubt learn the hard way about defying her party's elders (feeble as they may be these days) on important matters like endorsements:

Former Alaska GOP Gov. Sarah Palin on Thursday endorsed Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman over Dede Scozzafava, the Republican Party's choice, in the special election for New York’s 23rd congressional district.

“The people of the 23rd Congressional District of New York are ready to shake things up, and Doug Hoffman is coming on strong as Election Day approaches! He needs our help now,” Palin wrote in a statement that will be posted on her Facebook page late Thursday.

“I am very pleased to announce my support for Doug Hoffman in his fight to be the next Representative from New York's 23rd Congressional district. It's my honor to endorse Doug and to do what I can to help him win, including having my political action committee, SarahPAC, donate to his campaign the maximum contribution allowed by law,” Palin continued. “Our nation is at a crossroads, and this is once again a 'time for choosing.'”

Scozzafava has been plagued throughout her campaign by grassroots conservative activists who have questioned her credentials, and Palin is the latest in a slew of prominent national conservatives who have weighed in for Hoffman.

...“Political parties must stand for something. When Republicans were in the wilderness in the late 1970s, Ronald Reagan knew that the doctrine of ‘blurring the lines’ between parties was not an appropriate way to win elections,” she added, launching into an attack of the Republican Party.

“Unfortunately, the Republican Party today has decided to choose a candidate that more than blurs the lines, and there is no real difference between the Democrat and the Republican in this race. This is why Doug Hoffman is running on the Conservative Party's ticket,” she wrote. “Republicans and conservatives around the country are sending an important message to the Republican establishment in their outstanding grassroots support for Doug Hoffman: no more politics as usual.”

PC Run Amok

I agree that PC has run amok in Waiau. Rural communities have their own standards that should be given precedence here. As much as I like rabbits, in New Zealand, the original Paradise For Birds, they are pests. Rabbits there need to be flung, stomped, broken, and ground into a fine powdery meal. Do you see what they - rightfully - do to Cane Toads in Australia? Why should rabbits be any different?

In the contest, which is held each year to coincide with the start of the pig hunt, children see how far they can throw a dead rabbit.

But the RSPCA said the rabbit-throw sent a message to children that dead animals were fun and could legitimately be used as a form of entertainment.

Charles Cadwallader, animal cruelty inspector, said the rabbit-throw was also cruel.

"Do you throw your dead grandmother around for a joke at her funeral?" he said.

However, not everyone in the town agrees with the ban.

The organiser of the pig hunt, Jo Moriarty, said the decision to can the event was political correctness gone mad.

"You know, the children of the community here are fantastic, they love their animals," she told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Ms Moriarty said children communities like Waiau had a better respect for animals because they are brought up with them.

Rabbits are considered to be pests in New Zealand.

The country has more than 30 million wild rabbits, which cause an estimated $22 million worth of damage. In Waiau there are farmers employed full time for rabbit eradication.

Theater Fundraising Meeting

Last night, the DMTC Fundraising Committee met. Committee members had different ideas regarding how best to raise funds, but there was general unanimity on the idea that the theater should have just as much money as possible! I'd issue a report to that effect, but it's probably best to just shut up and raise money.....

Yes, can't forget, the upcoming DMTC Karaoke (10/24) and Poker (11/7) fundraising nights!

We're Number One!: In Australia, They're Still At The Drunken Riding Mower Stage

A motorized menace:

DULUTH, Minn. (AP) -- A Minnesota man has pleaded guilty to driving his motorized La-Z-Boy chair while drunk. A criminal complaint says 62-year-old Dennis LeRoy Anderson told police he left a bar in the northern Minnesota town of Proctor on his chair after drinking eight or nine beers.

Prosecutors say Anderson's blood alcohol content was 0.29, more than three times the legal limit, when he crashed into a parked vehicle in August 2008. He was not seriously injured.

Police said the chair was powered by a converted lawnmower and had a stereo and cup holders.

Sixth Judicial District Judge Heather Sweetland stayed 180 days of jail time Monday and ordered two years of probation for Anderson.

The Internet Neighborhood Is A Cozy Place

After posting the blog entry about the "Cary Grant" biography, the author Marc Elliot E-Mailed just to say hi!

Slipperier Than An Eel

Or never there to begin with:

The UK's biggest ever investigation of sex trafficking failed to find a single person who had forced anybody into prostitution in spite of hundreds of raids on sex workers in a six-month campaign by government departments, specialist agencies and every police force in the country.

The failure has been disclosed by a Guardian investigation which also suggests that the scale of and nature of sex trafficking into the UK has been exaggerated by politicians and media.

Current and former ministers have claimed that thousands of women have been imported into the UK and forced to work as sex slaves, but most of these statements were either based on distortions of quoted sources or fabrications without any source at all.

...The analysis, produced by the police Human Trafficking Centre in Sheffield and marked "restricted", suggests there was a striking shortage of sex traffickers to be found in spite of six months of effort by all 55 police forces in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland together with the UK Border Agency, the Serious and Organised Crime Agency, the Foreign Office, the Northern Ireland Office, the Scottish government, the Crown Prosecution Service and various NGOs in what was trumpeted as "the largest ever police crackdown on human trafficking".

The analysis reveals that 10 of the 55 police forces never found anyone to arrest. And 122 of the 528 arrests announced by police never happened: they were wrongly recorded either through honest bureaucratic error or apparent deceit by forces trying to chalk up arrests which they had not made. Among the 406 real arrests, more than half of those arrested (230) were women, and most were never implicated in trafficking at all.

Of the 406 real arrests, 153 had been released weeks before the police announced the success of the operation: 106 of them without any charge at all and 47 after being cautioned for minor offences. Most of the remaining 253 were not accused of trafficking: 73 were charged with immigration breaches; 76 were eventually convicted of non-trafficking offences involving drugs, driving or management of a brothel; others died, absconded or disappeared off police records.

Although police described the operation as "the culmination of months of planning and intelligence-gathering from all those stakeholders involved", the reality was that, during six months of national effort, they found only 96 people to arrest for trafficking, of whom 67 were charged.

Forty-seven of those never made it to court.

Only 22 people were finally prosecuted for trafficking, including two women who had originally been "rescued" as supposed victims. Seven of them were acquitted. The end result was that, after raiding 822 brothels, flats and massage parlours all over the UK, Pentameter finally convicted of trafficking a grand total of only 15 men and women.

Police claimed that Pentameter used the international definition of sex trafficking contained in the UN's Palermo protocol, which involves the use of coercion or deceit to transport an unwilling man or woman into prostitution. But, in reality, Pentameter used a very different definition, from the UK's 2003 Sexual Offences Act, which makes it an offence to transport a man or woman into prostitution even if this involves assisting a willing sex worker.

Internal police documents reveal that 10 of Pentameter's 15 convictions were of men and women who were jailed on the basis that there was no evidence of their coercing the prostitutes they had worked with. There were just five men who were convicted of importing women and forcing them to work as prostitutes. These genuinely were traffickers, but none of them was detected by Pentameter, although its investigations are still continuing.

Two of them — Zhen Xu and Fei Zhang — had been in custody since March 2007, a clear seven months before Pentameter started work in October 2007.

The other three, Ali Arslan, Edward Facuna and Roman Pacan, were arrested and charged as a result of an operation which began when a female victim went to police in April 2006, well over a year before Pentameter Two began, although the arrests were made while Pentameter was running.

The head of the UK Human Trafficking Centre, Grahame Maxwell, who is chief constable of North Yorkshire, acknowledged the importance of the figures: "The facts speak for themselves. I'm not trying to argue with them in any shape or form," he said.

Seagull Takes Unexpected Interest In The News

Channel Nine, Melbourne, faces a new avian dilemma.

How To Aggravate A Judge

By blaming someone else:

Bernard B. Kerik, the city’s former police commissioner, was sent to jail Tuesday by a federal judge who said Mr. Kerik had leaked sealed information from his future criminal trial as part of an attempt to generate public sympathy.

Judge Stephen C. Robinson of Federal District Court in White Plains revoked Mr. Kerik’s $500,000 bail and delivered a withering criticism of Mr. Kerik from the bench, describing him as a “toxic combination of self-minded focus and arrogance.”

“And I fear that combination leads him to believe his ends justify his means,” Judge Robinson said. “He sees the court’s rulings as an inconvenience, something to be ignored, and an obstacle to be circumvented.”

Mr. Kerik, 54, who was once President Bush’s top choice to lead the Department of Homeland Security, faces three criminal trials in federal court. Jury selection in the first trial — in which he faces corruption, conspiracy and tax fraud charges — is to begin on Monday.

Judge Robinson said Mr. Kerik had violated the terms of his bail in providing the sealed information to a New Jersey lawyer who has helped raise money for Mr. Kerik’s defense but is not formally part of the defense team.

The lawyer, Anthony K. Modafferi III, e-mailed the material to The Washington Times in an effort to generate coverage that would disparage prosecutors, Judge Robinson said. The judge did not reveal the nature of the information, which remains under seal, but said the newspaper did not publish any of it.

...Interestingly, both the judge and the defendant worked under former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani. Mr. Kerik was appointed commissioner of the Correction and Police Departments by Mr. Giuliani and later worked at Mr. Giuliani’s private consulting firm. In the 1980s, Judge Robinson served as a federal prosecutor under Mr. Giuliani, who was then the United States attorney in Manhattan.

...Prosecutors have alleged that while Mr. Kerik was correction commissioner, a construction company paid for renovations at his home in the Bronx in the hope that he would help the company obtain a city license.

Mr. Kerik also faces federal charges that he failed to report more than $500,000 in income while he was in charge of the Correction and Police Departments, and that he provided false information while being considered for the nomination as secretary of homeland security.

Mr. Kerik has pleaded not guilty to the federal charges. In 2006, he pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors in state court stemming from the apartment renovation.

The issue of leaked material in the first federal case had been brewing for some time.

Last year, prosecutors accused another lawyer, who was not formally involved in the Kerik case, of passing confidential information, which they said he had obtained from Mr. Kerik, to potential witnesses. At that time, Judge Robinson threatened Mr. Kerik with jail if he ever again violated the consent order barring parties in the case from revealing confidential information about it.

Last month, Judge Robinson asked the defense team to submit briefs about the e-mail message from Mr. Modafferi.

“My thought is the relationship between Mr. Modafferi and Mr. Kerik has little to do with legal counsel,” the judge said at the time. “He’s hired Mr. Modafferi as a propagandist and chief fund-raiser.”

On Tuesday, Michael F. Bachner, a lawyer for Mr. Kerik, argued that the consent order was vague. Defense lawyers said that the e-mail message that Mr. Kerik sent to Mr. Modafferi was labeled “confidential” and that Mr. Kerik believed that Mr. Modafferi would understand that it could not be made public.

“There is no way that Mr. Kerik would engage in conduct that was bound to be discovered, and he had no reason to anger this court,” Mr. Bachner said.

Mr. Bachner later added, “Mr. Modafferi ran with that ball on his own, which nobody condoned.”

Judge Robinson’s rejection of that position went on at considerable length. He quoted much of Shakespeare’s Sonnet No. 29 in likening Mr. Kerik to a man who, “in disgrace with Fortune and men’s eyes,” laments his “outcast state.”

...Thomas A. Reppetto, who co-wrote a history of the Police Department, said Mr. Kerik was the first former city police commissioner to be put in jail, and would be the first to be convicted of a crime should he be found guilty.

“There have been investigations, but nothing like this,” said Mr. Reppetto.

There Is A Frog Somewhere In My Back Yard

As long as I had rabbits, cats, and dogs living with me, the amphibians stayed away. But now that there are just handfuls of birds (plus the odd cat from next door) passing through the back yard, the amphibians are finally starting to make their move....

I Prefer To Starve, Thank You

Today, I am wandering through a dense thicket of gratuitous advice from the Government of Canada. Example:

Eating well on outings

•Don't start a strenuous activity on an empty stomach.
•If the activity is longer than three hours, plan to bring along at least a snack.
•Bring foods that are easy to carry and provide plenty of energy, such as citrus fruits or carrot and turnip sticks.
•Don't forget something to drink, exercise causes the body to lose moisture. Fatigue can be a sign of dehydration.

Playing Doctor On The Internet

I'm guessing I injured my left ankle's tibial anterior ligament.

Not that I'd ever talk to a doctor about it, if I have a choice. 'Cause what are they going to say? "Rest-Ice-Compression-Elevation, yada-yada-yada."

I should probably change the blogpost title to "Using The Internet As A Health Resource".

Retirement Investments Recovering

The rally on Wall Street has gone on long enough that my 401(K) is beginning to look viable again. The big question, though, is why. If anything, the real economy continues to deteriorate. Surely the improvement can't last.....

Probably best not to gaze too long into the mouth of the gift horse, lest it all disappear again.....

RIP, Vic Mizzy

Wherever there's a rerun, there he is!:

Burlingame on Monday described the themes for "The Addams Family" and "Green Acres" as "two of the best-remembered sitcom themes of all time."

"Vic was an old-school songwriter who believed in melody and hummability," Burlingame said. "He thought that people ought to be able to easily remember a theme.

"Vic was one of the wittiest composers I ever met, and he had an uncanny ability to incorporate his own personal sense of humor into his music."

Mizzy's use of bass harmonica and fuzz guitar in the music of "Green Acres," for example, "was somehow perfect for that show's setting, and it only added to the humor of the situations," Burlingame said.

In the case of "The Addams Family," he said, "you've got the harpsichord, which lends this antique, sort of macabre quality to the theme. But then you add the lyrics, which make it funny. So you have the perfect combination of macabre and amusing. It was just right for that show's sensibility."

Cary Grant: A Biography, By Marc Elliot

I finished reading this book, which I read at the insistence of my friend Jetta, who said: “You’ve got to read this book! You’ve GOT to read this book!!”

And she was right!

It's amazing, considering how pinched the circumstances most people faced during the Depression, just how expansive and interesting a life that Briton Archibald Leach (aka Cary Grant) was able to fashion for himself, based on his grace (he started life in the circus as a stiltwalker), his physical conditioning, his fine acting talent, and his extraordinary good looks. His father and family could be cruel to him too: told that his mother had unexpectedly died when he was ten, her continued existence was not revealed to him for twenty years. One strange life!

Amazing too are the number of film roles that Cary Grant rejected - the Reject Filmography. The history of cinema would have been much, much different had Grant changed his mind. "The Music Man" with Cary Grant instead of Robert Preston would have been - truly different!

Here are excerpts from another review, by Anthony D'Amato that does better justice to the subject (even as he pushes a theory of androgyny that doesn't necessarily work for me):

First and most obviously, Grant was your basic bisexual. He lived openly with Randolph Scott and had serial affairs with other men. He also married, for love, five women. “Every one of my wives left me”, he told The New York Times in 1971.

In addition to the five Mrs Grants, Cary became totally smitten with several of his leading ladies such as Katharine Hepburn, Irene Dunne, Eva Marie Saint, Sophia Loren, and Grace Kelly. It’s noteworthy that every one of these world-class beauties rejected his passionate advances. Was it because they detected a certain insincerity in Grant? An incapacity for true love? One cannot tell on the screen what Cary Grant is really thinking – a mysteriousness that’s indeed part of his magnetism. He could make screen love to a tarantula and do it just as convincingly as with Kate, Sophia, or Grace.

Prior to The Awful Truth ([Leo McCarey] 1937), a romantic male who was at once charming, intelligent, romantic, sensitive, witty, sexy, rascally, and as beautiful as a leading lady simply did not exist in American movies.

Hollywood’s first generation of leading men, Eliot continues, were the courtly European types with sculpted moustaches such as Ronald Colman, elderly lechers like Adolphe Menjou, or devilish hedonists like Rudolph Valentino. Then as the talkies took over in the early 1930s, the image shifted toward the humorless hunk – Gary Cooper, Clark Gable, Gregory Peck, and John Wayne.

Although these guy types may have represented the ideal male of the era, there was nothing remotely androgynous about any of them. Eliot quotes Andrew Britton, writing in Cine-Action, who nailed the Cary Grant difference:

Grant’s performance in The Awful Truth (co-starring Irene Dunne) was “remarkable for the extent to which gender characteristics assigned to women could be presented as being desirable and attractive in a man.”

This androgyny made for high-voltage comedy on the screen as Cary Grant and Irene Dunne continually tried to one-up each other. But the lasting impact of the film and those that were to follow was on world culture – it was OK for men to be like Cary Grant.

The third component of my androgyny theory is the consummate care that Grant took with his image, both on screen and off. He only wore custom-made suits and shirts. Eliot tells us: “He advised men who wanted to emulate him to never wear suspenders, belts, or garters but instead to go with hidden waist-tabs to keep their pants up and straight.” His most important obsession was keeping his waist slim. He also carried a toothbrush with him at all times, and after a smoke or after lunch or dinner with his friends, he would excuse himself and go to the men’s room to brush his teeth. He worked out every day. He paid as much attention to his face as Marilyn Monroe paid to hers. During the filming of Blonde Venus (1932), director Josef von Sternberg took a comb and parted Grant’s hair on the right side rather than the left, the way Grant had always combed it before. For the rest of his life Grant kept his hair that way. I had never noticed the right-sided parting until Eliot’s book brought it to my attention. However, I have always noticed subliminally that there was something magnetic about Grant’s hair, something that created a pleasant kind of tension. It’s like the well-placed beauty mole near Cindy Crawford’s lips – the mole that made her a model.

...There was no “method” in Grant’s acting of the kind we might associate with the early Marlon Brando. Grant was a “natural” actor, which means he had to work furiously hard in order to appear natural. In this respect he reminds me of the sublime natural actress Nicole Kidman. What made it especially hard for Grant, however, was that his naturalism was based on an androgynous model that he was inventing at the same time that he was trying to be true to it. He was his own work-in-progress.

...In addition to being a natural actor, Grant was an interactive actor. He worried over the scripts, taking notes and discussing lines with his directors. He came up with witty lines not only for himself but for his co-stars. Some directors are annoyed when the actor on the set “knows better”. But the best directors, such as Alfred Hitchcock, positively welcome creative input from the actors. Indeed, Hitchcock cast his movies on the expectation that by choosing great actors, they would make important contributions to the production. It should come as no surprise that Hitchcock’s all-time favourite actor was Cary Grant.

As if to return the favour, Cary Grant gave the best performances of his career in films directed by Hitchcock: Suspicion (1941), Notorious (1946), To Catch a Thief (1955), and North by Northwest (1959). Marc Eliot’s favourite is North by Northwest; mine is Notorious.

When he was directing movies in London, Hitchcock watched Grant’s movies with great interest. On the other side of the pond, Grant was an avid student of Hitchcock’s films. When Hitchcock came over permanently to Hollywood in 1939, he lost no time in contacting Grant for a new project eventually called Suspicion. Hitchcock’s interest in Grant was not just because of marquee power. Rather, Hitchcock saw something in Grant’s screen performances that wasn’t there.

What Hitchcock saw, as Eliot so well describes, was the possibility of a hidden dark interior in Grant’s screen persona. Given the right role, Hitchcock thought, the dark interior could be brought out and pitted against the light comedic exterior, with the result that Grant would be a walking composite of precisely the good vs. evil tension that makes a screen thriller exciting. The audience would be torn between rooting for Grant as the good guy and hating him for being the bad guy. And Grant, with his precise facial control and body language, would be the person to pull off this feat.

...Maybe the hardest thing to do in criticising a movie is to imagine what it would be like with a different actor playing the lead. Would The Bridge on the River Kwai (David Lean, 1957) have been improved if Grant hadn’t turned down the William Holden role? I think so, to the following extent: that Grant would have been better playing off against Alec Guinness and making him more believable. Holden’s serviceable acting gave Guinness too much room to sail off into the domain of the comic book. Grant also rejected the lead in The Music Man (Morton DaCosta, 1962), which then was given to Robert Preston. Preston was splendid in the role he had originated on the Broadway stage, and his comedic timing was as good as Grant’s would have been. But the musical sags badly when Preston tries to romance the town librarian Shirley Jones. Preston is simply not believable; he looks too old and worn for her. Grant would have been completely believable and the movie at that point would have soared instead of sagged. But get this: Grant was in fact fourteen years older than Preston.

I could go on and on with the Reject Filmography of Cary Grant. Let me list just a few with the name of the actor who eventually got the lead role:

Around the World in Eighty Days (Michael Anderson, 1956) – David Niven
Can-Can (Walter Lang, 1960) – Frank Sinatra
Guys and Dolls (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1955) – Marlon Brando
Lolita (Stanley Kubrick, 1962) – James Mason
My Fair Lady (George Cukor, 1964) – Rex Harrison
Roman Holiday (William Wyler, 1953) – Gregory Peck
Sabrina (Billy Wilder, 1954) – Humphrey Bogart
A Star is Born (George Cukor, 1954) – James Mason
What’s Up, Doc? (Peter Bogdanovich, 1972) – Ryan O’Neal

These films are all-time classics. Could they actually have been improved if Grant had accepted the lead role? Readers can answer this question for themselves. It is a question we perhaps would not even think of asking of any other movie star.

Warmest September, Evah! (At Least, Until Next Year)

Plus, California had it's warmest September on record.

Worldwide, it was the second-warmest September on record.