I seem to have lost my pen.

YouTube is a horrible timesuck.  Thanks Mahalo for helping me not waste my time!  Oh, and these are not appropriate for little children.

• Bud Light Swear commercial
• This was banned, for good reason.   Wait for it!
• This b**** be catchy, yo.  

ben’s brilliant margaritas

simple, but brilliant. of course. 2 oz tequila, 1 oz mathilde orange xo liqueur (or triple sec / cointreau / grand marnier), .5 oz lime juice (fresh is good), sugar (as needed).

brilliant. and particularly smashing on a warm day. 1.5 oz tequila, 1 oz mathilde orange xo liqueur, .5 oz lime juice, 4 oz frozen mango pieces (or strawberry), sugar (as needed).

$22 for a year of hosting with a sick amount of features. Use a coupon, any coupon, but preferably one like ninetyseven. ’nuff said.

From Found magazine comes another useful note:

Metacafe is a phenomenally good waste of time. Many many great videos here. Of particular note is, of course, Triumph The Insult Comic Dog.

Browsing the missed connections on craigslist randomly this evening netted me the following gem.

–
A lifetime in a glance - m4w - 35
Reply to: pers-117734802@craigslist.org
Date: 2005-12-12, 6:06PM CST

Ours eyes met, briefly, as we each traipsed along the paths of our lives.
Fate had brought us to proximity; and we briefly acknowledged each other’s presence.
As we fell into each other’s field of vision, I saw the imperceptible yet definite change in your expression…a moment of quiet surprise. An entire lifetime flashed in your expression.
It was a fleeting moment filled with dates and mutual experiences. Families and friends. Nuptials and plans. And children. Many of our fair, gorgeous children erupting joyfully from your fertile womb, each a testament to our love.
In that moment I saw your laugh lines deepen, your hair turn a proud gray, and I heard our many children and grandchildren spin stories of our passionate love.
As our brief connection ended, we continue to traipse about our lives. Each passing second sends our love further into the realm of impossibility.
I never knew you, yet your love made my life complete.

* this is in or around Austin
–

and the response:

–
Re: A Lifetime in a Glance - w4m
Reply to: pers-117787596@craigslist.org
Date: 2005-12-12, 10:22PM CST

This wasn’t by any chance in the vegetable section was it?

* this is in or around austin
–

The phone was ringing. It was a loud ring, high-pitched and insistent. The phone was black, heavy, sitting in the middle of the floor like a piece of furniture. It would ring once, and then stop.

He stood in the doorway, hair wet, naked. Water pooled on the floor around his pale feet. He’d been standing there for at least a few minutes, staring at the phone. The ring would pierce the silence, and then stop again. He tried to imagine that there was a strict interval between the rings, but it was hard to guess in the darkness.

He moved toward the phone, slowly, pausing with each step. He worried that if he moved too quickly the ringing might stop entirely. Between every ring he would move one step, and then another.

Just as the phone began to chirp he grabbed the handset and threw it quickly to his ear. In that moment he didn’t know what to say. He wanted to demand to know the caller’s name or their intent or find out how he or she knew this number, which he didn’t even know.

“Allo.”

He hadn’t said a word but it was him speaking. He clearly heard his own voice.

“Allo?”

He tried to respond, but his voice was echoing too loudly now.

“Wer ist das?” The words were in German, but it was clearly him speaking.

He put down the phone, not on the cradle but next to it. The phone was wet. The black ceramic shone slightly from the streetlamp outside. The light was a cool blue, and it complemented the smooth blackness of the phone.

He walked back to the bath, trailing water behind him. Steam had encompassed the room and the darkness felt wet, pressing down on him. He opened the window to release it, and slid back into the bath.

The phone rang again, and then stopped. It was fainter this time though and he thought perhaps he was hearing it through the window. A ring, and then nothing, for … 20 seconds it might have been. The night did not reveal the passing of time.

He closed his eyes. The water was warm, and if he slid his head underneath the surface of it, all he could hear was the vibration of the telephone as it started to ring. Not the end of the ring, just the beginning.

The bath grew cold, and he sat up to draw another when he realized that the ringing had stopped entirely. He stood up and went to the doorway.

The phone was scattered around the room. The handset completely crushed and the phone line was torn from the wall, leaving bits of plaster everywhere admist the plastic and metal of the phone. The metal keypad was lying in the corner, and he bent to examine it. Underneath, etched with a sharp tool of some sort, were the words wer bist du.

He mouthed the words, and said them out loud. They sounded familiar as they resonated in his ear, deep and comforting, firmly spoken but soft to his ear. “Wer bist du.”

The blue light reflected off the water as he turned the keypad around in his hands. The metal of the keypad in his hand felt cool. He brushed some plaster from it, and ran his fingers over the words, trying to feel the purpose of the person who had scractched them there. Whoever had done this had taken their time, moving up and down as they scraped permanently into the metal. Wer bist du.

He went back to the bath and drained it. The tub was stained from years of rust and there was no soap, no towels. He turned the water on as hot as he could make it and filled the tub slowly, stepping in as it reached ankle height. It was cold this night and the window was still open. He shut it, hard, and the light faded a bit as the window began to cloud with steam. He sank again into the water, feeling a shap pain at first but quickly relaxing into the comfort of the hot water. His eyes were heavy now, and the steam soothed his throat.

His eyes snapped open suddenly. The ringing had begun again and was sharp now, close, he felt it in his teeth and it made his head ache. He grimaced and opened his jaw as widely as he could in an attempt to ease the pain, but the ringing became louder and louder. “Wer bist du!” he yelled. It was the only thing he could muster. “Wer bist du!” He jumped up out of the tub, hand pressed hard just below his temple, and slammed his fist into the wall next to the sink, cracking part of the tile, which fell from the wall. He grabbed the ragged piece of tile and forced it as hard as he could underneath one of his molars. He felt a pop in his jaw and the pain in his head subsided for a moment.

He stared into the mirror. The mirror was white with steam and he smeared clear a spot with his palm. His face was bloody and his eyes looked almost black in the half-light. He spat and heard the dull clink of his tooth hitting the ceramic of the sink. As he looked up his eyes caught a shadow in the mirror outlined by the steam. Something was written there. He struggled to make it out in the dark and opened to window to let in the light of the streetlamp. It was in German, but this time as he spoke it aloud he understood it. Let go.

His head ached as he sat down on the edge of the bath. He ran the words around on his tongue. “Loslassen”. Let go.

I know, he thought. I understand. The words came again. Wer bist du — who are you?. Lights began dancing in his eyes. There were images now of a field in the summertime, him standing there surrounded by flowers, Aloud he yelled “ich verstehe!” He felt the searing pain in his law, and the ringing was so loud that he couldn’t hear himself yelling above it. “ICH VERSTEHE!” He shut his eyes against the light which was now pouring through the window, blinding him.

The ringing stopped. “I understand” he whispered. Ich verstehe. His head felt suddenly light, and he fell to the floor.

One summer I had a job supervising twenty children aged between 2 and 6 years old on field trips for soft-serve ice cream, and in particular, supervising a very special child named P.J. (Granted, I had other responsibilities, like supervising field trips to the fire station or to the Olive Garden, or making sure that while on the playground the gang of 4 year old boys were not able to complete their goal of knocking down all the 4 year old girls simultaneously. But really, my specific tasks usually involved either ice cream or P.J., but not necessarily in that order.)

We went for soft-serve about twice a week, in part because all kids love ice cream (except for a boy named Sam, who loved ice cream but was lactose intolerant, who instead of eating ice cream was resigned to sitting in a corner looking depressed and lactose free), in part because it was down the street and didn’t require that we take the city bus (which, by the way, we did at least once a week for other activities, such as visiting the fire station, which unfortunately was not down the street), but mostly because we adults required at least a few minutes of quiet from time to time. It was also an excuse to get out of the classroom whenever the teacher got bored, which seemed to happen more often as the summer wore on. “OK Mr. Littler!” she would bark at me in her commanding yet musical voice. “Get everyone lined up, we’re going out!”

All the kids would rush to the door, at which point we would confirm that everyone had the requisite $1.00 for ice cream. Those that didn’t would stand in line looking dejected and confused, no doubt wondering how their parents could have forgotten that today was THE DAY.

There is a unique and poorly understood art to executing a field trip down the street to the Dairy Queen with twenty 4-ish year old children, and we had this art mastered. The first element of the trip was negotiating the sidewalk that took us across one of the most dangerous intersections in town. There were a few components key to our success: double-file, children holding hands with their partner and younger always paired with older; either myself or the teacher leading, holding the hand of one of the younger or more problematic children (such as P.J., who was either severely ADHD or was recovering from a recent head injury); and finally the other adult in the rear, also holding the hand of a young and/or problematic child. An outside observer might have guessed that we were training the children for a future in ROTC.

Crossing the street was always a healthy challenge because, for whatever reason, there was no crosswalk. There might have been a stop light somewhere a few miles down the road, but in the height of summer and while herding a few dozen small children there is a tendency to say “fuck the stop lights” (muttered under one’s breath but said nonetheless). It then fell upon me to determine the best interval at which to cross the street, as well as, if necessary, stop traffic momentarily. (Fortunately it is not hard to stop traffic when one has a column of small children at one’s disposal.)

Typically the scene was something like this: with the children lined up on the sidewalk, I would first determine how long it would take for 20 children to cross a 4 lane street (2 lanes on either side, approx 10 foot per lane, for a total of 40 feet road width), and arrived at the calculation of 10-20 seconds, with 20 seconds being a safe maximum. I would then calculate in my head the approximate speed of the cars coming toward us vs. the distance from a fixed landmark down the road, simultaneously in both directions, to arrive at a “time window” which would allow us to cross the street without any casualties. After a minute or two the required gap of approximately 20 seconds (car traveling toward us from perhaps 1/4 mile distance) would appear, and I would yell “GO!!” and yank the young/problematic child in my possession forward across the street, causing the pair of children behind us to move lest they break rank with their unit.

Once we made it across the street the next task was to get all the children settled in booths inside the Dairy Queen. Once again, a tremendous amount of coordination was required as one had to take care not to seat certain children together (for example, P.J. and Sam were lethal when paired, as the end result was either unstoppable bouts of laughter or quiet purposeful discussions followed by Sam erupting in tears.) About every 15 seconds I was forced to repeat “keep your hands in your laps!” or the equally challenging “keep your lips together!” just to maintain control. (Managing children, I learned quickly, required an absolute and unwavering sense of control and confidence, which was very apparent to the children based on your body language. Still it had to be enforced by constant reminders of “appropriate” behavior.)

Now that the children were settled I had to obtain the 20 or so ice cream cones. The first time I did this I made the mistake of taking requests. You see it is a very bad thing to ask a gang of 2-6 year olds whether they want vanilla or chocolate, cup or cone, sprinkles or no sprinkles. Let me repeat that: a very bad thing. The problem with taking requests is that a) children don’t know what they want, seriously now people, all they want is the damn ice cream and b) once you get them what they ask for, you then have to deal with the inevitable “but I didn’t WANT sprinkles”, etc. which at that point can only be countered by a firm “DEAL with it” but which then usually results in a sorely pitiful looking and loudly crying child. Which then causes the automatic “sympathy response” of “oh HONEY, I’m SOO sorry, what can I DO?”, which is unavoidable by even the most cruel of adults.

I learned my lesson quickly though, and my routine quickly involved providing every child with the same ice cream cone (sometimes along with a look that implied “DEAL with it” when the situation required). At this point we achieved what we had come for, unbeknownst to the happy children surrounding us: for approximately 5-6 minutes there was absolute SILENCE. This was not the kind of silence of sleeping children, which is pleasant but which one seldom is awake to enjoy. No, this was the kind of silence marked by the achievement of a great and arduous task, such as the peace that follows a long and sustained bloody conflict between foreign countries, or the rest that follows after weeks and weeks of digging ditches in the middle of a harsh winter in Siberia, or perhaps Minneapolis. For once, I could sit (and there is very little sitting involved supervising children, if only because suddenly you are not longer able to easily pick them up) and not say a word.

Or at least I could sit for 1 of those 5-6 minutes, because even the quietest of moments were usually punctuated by the phrase “P.J., hands to YOURSELF”.

The Guardian has an interesting article about Francesco Rosi, who was in many ways influentual to the likes of Coppola, Scorsese, and others.

When I was a teenager my father decided to go to Israel. “Why?” I asked him. “A business trip,” he said. “I have to sign some papers.” In an attempt to be logical and practical I said “why can’t you just do that from here?” “It’s better to do it there,” he replied.

He took me with him.

Later he told me that his girlfriend was Jewish and he was thinking about converting. The idea of my father having a girlfriend was a bit shocking. And yet the idea of my father (whose crooked British nose was broken ages ago during a particularly rough rugby match) wearing a yarmulke was even more shocking. Or perhaps wickedly funny at any rate.

We flew with a Jewish friend of his who was on some kind of pilgrimage to the holy land. His friend demanded that we fly first class. He fought with a French woman when he refused to put out his cigarette during the flight. “It’s my right,” he said. “An 11 hour flight and I’m entitled to a cigarette!” After a stewardess calmed the yelling he lit his cigarette, content. My father waited until we landed to light his.

Before Tel Aviv we made as stop at some airport that the pilots wouldn’t disclose. They brought dogs on board and hauled off the trash bins from the toilets. “They’re checking for bombs,” my father told me. I wondered why they didn’t do that in New York before we took off, but I suppose they had their reasons. My father told me about the Israeli military agents that were most certainly on board, watching for terrorists. I imagined that I could spot them, two men sitting a bit too straight, alert and wearing suit coats.

Tel Aviv was just like New York City, except that the buildings were not tall, and there were no homeless people on the streets. We took a cab to the hotel and my father’s friend asked the cabbie to help him brush up on his Yiddish. The cabbie was from Palestine and they argued over the tip.

We went to the Old City of Jerusalem and walked to the Western Wall. I got up close and touched the uneven stones, pulling out a piece of paper from within one of the cracks. Only later did I realize that I had stolen someone’s prayer.

Past the Wall was a Jewish temple adorned with signs that clearly stated “NO PHOTOGRAPHY”, but my father did his best to sneak a few pictures anyway. He got away with it of course and ran out as though he had just captured a prize trophy. I saw the pictures later; they were mostly of creased well worn shoes and dusty stone.

I was sick much of that trip. I ate something in a café that perhaps didn’t agree with me. I remember driving up a mountain in a small car so that my father’s friend could plant a tree on rocky slope. I wanted to sleep, or die, or both, or at least vomit, which I couldn’t muster the strength to do. Instead we drove up the mountain, and I looked down, thinking about raising my camera for a picture but instead burning the images into my head. Everything below me was aglow. I imagined falling off the edge into nothingness.

My father’s friend went home to New York, and my illness, which made possible the painful indifference to his rudeness, began to fade. My father insisted on renting a car and driving to the Dead Sea. He wanted to touch and perhaps float in the ocean where you couldn’t drown if you tried. He told me how the water had healing powers.

We drove out of Tel Aviv, past Israeli soldiers with rifles pointed down, past small bunkers with thick concrete walls. We were leaving something, I thought to myself, not knowing what, not realizing that the country of Israel had just ended. As we pulled onto the highway I heard a loud BANG at the back of the car. It was as though something had exploded. My head whipped back and I expected to see a piece of the car lying behind us in the road. Instead I saw boys throwing rocks. “Drive faster!” I yelled at my father. The boys disappeared into the background. I wondered how a pair of Brits (not to mention one who sounded rather like an American) could be mistaken for Israelis. I wondered what an Israeli looked like.

We drove for hours through the sand dunes and saw nothing. There were no cars, no buildings, no life. My father stopped. “Wait here,” he said, as he grabbed his camera and tripod. He trekked out a few hundred yards into the sand and began setting up. I looked out past him and saw something, perhaps a shape, perhaps not. I sat in the hot car.

My father suddenly started and threw his camera into the back of the car. “Let’s go,” he grunted. “What’s wrong?” I said. “I saw something,” he said, looking a bit frightened but quickly strong again. I hadn’t thought to be afraid until I saw the look on his face, but it hit me and I began to feel panic. He smiled then, looking relieved, and said in his deep and subtly musical voice, “ah it was nothing, I was just being paranoid”. I didn’t believe him, but we were moving again, and I felt safe.