J.D. Salinger's Toilet, Asking eBay Price $1million

I know you really don't want to hear about it, but if you really do want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is, what is all this crap about? The J. D. Salinger throne is up for sale. The asking price is $1 million dollars.That is kind of a crazy. It is kind of lousy to take the toilet. People always think there's money to be found in anything, even in the toilet where Mr. Salinger took a crap. I could talk about this more, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth, the whole thing is crap.

The Associated Press reports that a North Carolina dealer brought the "standard white porcelain fixture from a New Hampshire couple who owned a home where the author of Catcher in the Rye once lived. To vouch that this is no phony, Mr Koh, the dealer, has a letter from the homeowner attesting that she and her husband replaced the toilet while remodeling, and that they knew the workmen who installed it decades ago. The receptacle has an eBay asking price of $1 million, though Kohl says he's willing to see what the literary giant's home throne will fetch.The toilet's lid is stamped with a manufacturing date of 1962, well after the 1951 publication date of Salinger's classic novel."

Selling J. D. Sallinger's toilet, asking a million bucks on eBay? To conclude, to borrow more from Salinger, the words of Mr. Spencer as reported by Holden Caulfield, "Life is a game, boy. Life is a game "

Opening Up On Palin

Sarah 'the silly talking' Palin's "reload" comment, in defense of race-ranting-mouth Dr. Laura Schlessinger, has brought the guns on Sarah.

Dr Laura announced that she is quitting radio, because her sponsors announced that they are quitting her, because she ranted the 'n' word at an African-American lady caller, who unwisely phoned the quack shrink for advice. Sarah jumped into the boiling brew like the buffoon she is, with a high school girlish tweet.

" Dr.Laura:don't retreat ... reload! (Steps aside bc her 1st Amend.rights ceased 2exist thx 2activists trying 2silence"isn't American,not fair")• Dr.Laura=even more powerful & effective w/out the shackles, so watch out Constitutional obstructionists. And b thankful 4 her voice,America!

Sarah the dummy. Can't be that dumb, can she?

The Daily Beast, this morning reports --"African--American conservative candidates, columnists, and media figures—who represent the GOP’s only hope for reclaiming the legacy of Lincoln and, with it, long-term demographic relevance—are not amused. They’re now saying what many in the GOP increasingly believe: Sarah Palin is not fit to be a serious leader of the Republican Party."

The Daily beast reports, GOP African-American conservative Michel Faulkner said, “Why Sarah Palin feels she needs to join in to Dr. Laura’s personal meltdown is beyond me. She’s sounding like she just likes to hear her own voice—and the voice that she has is no longer credible. It says that a leading voice among conservatives has joined the ranks of the entertainers—trying to shock us each day with more and more outlandish commentary. And at that moment that person is no longer fit to lead.The constitutional stuff she’s saying doesn’t even make any sense.She doesn’t know what real shackles are… But ‘don’t retreat, reload?’ Lady, are you kidding me? That is scary language in anyone’s terminology. Sarah Palin scares me.”

Syndicated conservative columnist Deroy Murdock said, “Sarah Palin's tweets resemble something scribbled by a ninth-grade cheerleader. Is it asking too much for a reputed American political leader to communicate in complete sentences? Palin's gravitas gap is growing into the Gravitas Canyon. Even worse, she deploys her vacuity to defend an acerbic talk-show host who just detonated herself by tossing around the word 'nigger' on the air 11 times, as if it were a volleyball. The American right can do better than this. And it must."

Read more here.

Sarah Palin is an embarrassment. If she would just stop and listen to herself, she would be an embarrassment to herself. But, I suspect that, she is just too busy talking, and making money at it, as if she is being paid by the word, to take the time to listen to what she is saying.

America Wakes: Part Thirteen- Home

Chapters

1       2

3       4

5       6

7        8

9        10

11      12

 

Just four months into the making of this film, the funding for our first year of research and photography ran out. Part of that was my fault. I had been a bit too optimistic about how far we could stretch each Euro because I wanted so badly to get this project off the ground. The rest of the extraneous spending came from unexpected costs. Pricey hotel rooms, exorbitant taxi cab fares, unmarked tolls, bribes, taxes, equipment registration. Key lime pie. Even with my tiny crew the idea of taking on the entire former United States in one go seems, well, naive. Reluctantly, we packed up all the footage and equipment we hadn't already mailed back to England and boarded a plane for home.

It would be another seven months before I could secure enough resource for a second trip. In the meantime I busied myself with reviewing the raw content, making notes for the eventual editing process and even recording a bit of the voice work for the final product. It felt so strange to do all that work when there was so much we hadn't seen, so many questions we still needed to answer. I'm not going to go so far as to say we spent four months in North America and hadn't even scratched the surface. To be honest, we got more information than has ever been captured by other journalistic endeavors. It was rather like leaving a meal after only finishing the first course. I was still unsatisfied. I was still hungry.

In retrospect, there was at least one blessing to being called home earlier than expected. In reviewing the interview footage we had gathered on the trip I began to notice what one might call "tics" and inconsistencies. I wasn't so foolish as to believe we would be told the absolute truth wherever we went, but I was surprised at the places in which I noticed the signs of dishonesty. People who seemed to have no reason to lie had told us things that simply weren't true. This was not restricted to the halls of power. Some of the people who seemed the most humble turned out to be the most dubious. Bold as it may seem to say it before proffering the evidence, there are lies in America, great lies that threaten to swallow what I am convinced is the most important political development of the century. That in mind, my mission for this project changed, however slightly. I set out to unearth the true history of the American Transition. After the first trip ended, I resolved to do just that, but also to reveal the way certain individuals attempted to smudge the records of history before they were even written. Along the way we ended up making friends, and enemies, in strange places.

 

 

End of Segment I: America Wakes. Coming soon, Segment II: Lies in America

Cher at Caesars Palace, Las Vegas, Nevada

I was blessed to see Cher live in fabulous Las Vegas this past May - it was my birthday present and one that I will never forget. The show basically went through her life in video and song - with many (many) wonderful costume changes. It was a pretty indescribable experience but I will do my best to sum it all up for you without making you too jealous.

The show started out with a little schtick from the woman herself. One of my favorite parts of this was her making fun of her self by saying something like "I bet your all excited to see a senior citizen in her underwear" - and laughs all around! This went on for about 15 minutes and was a little pop culture, shout outs to the gays, and how all the straight men were dragged there by their wives and she knew they all wanted to go back to the slots. Typical Vegas-y stuff if you have seen a performance or two there - but made fabulous by Chers own words.

The show started with some clips of her early life, Sonney, small pre-lesbian (and pre-male) Chastity/Chaz, and some clips from her early movies and television career. This is how the show ran for the most part - there would be clips and video, or a little live dance scene by some of her very talented dancers, while Cher was changing and geting ready for her next live song. She sang all the greats - even my personal, highschool favorite, Believe, but it was towards the end as the show was in chronological order - from old cher... to OLD cher. Ha!

The glitz and glamor of Las Vegas lends itself perfectly to her act and performance. The two unreal entities combine and really create something out of this world. It is something I would reccomend seeing for anyone who is visiting and the experience is something you will never forget (my parents, who also went, still talk about it). There is a small window of performances coming up starting Saturday, September 4th, 2010 and the tickets are comparable in price ($95-$250 plus tax & fees) to other Vegas shows - but this one is truly once in a lifetime (when she is gone - shes gone)! In my honest opinion if you do nothing other than see Cher in Vegas - you will have a great trip (and save some cash on the slots).

What are you waiting for? Get your tickets and enjoy the show!

 

*Make sure to also check out Jamal Story, while you watch - he is scattered throughout the show and does some AMAZING stuff - he is really wonderful!

A Quack's Long Goodbye

Dr. Laura Schlessinger, the right-wing talk radio shrink, under fire for repeatedly using a racial epithet, the N-word 11 times, to a caller on the air, announced  last night on CNN's “Larry King Live” that she has decided to end her show radio show at the end of the year. Why not sooner?

Dr. Schlessinger said, “I want to regain my First Amendment rights. I want to be able to say what’s on my mind and in my heart and what I think is helpful and useful without somebody getting angry, some special interest group deciding this is the time to silence a voice of dissent and attack affiliates, attack sponsors. I’m sort of done with that. I’m not quitting. I feel energized actually — stronger and freer to say the things that I believe need to be said for people in this country."

Right? Dr. Schlessinger wants the right to use the "n" word?! She calls herself a psychologist, a doctor. She is a quack.

Eric Burns the president of Media Matters for America, a media watch group, issued an apt statement after the quack announced that she will quit radio. “Dr. Laura’s radio career ended in disgrace tonight because of the bigoted, ugly and hateful remarks made on her show. Americans have had enough. Listeners are now holding hosts, affiliates, and sponsors accountable for the offensive and inexcusable content on the airwaves.”

The Associated Press reports that "at least two national sponsors of her radio program, General Motors Co., and Motel 6 have pulled out."

Good bye to the quacko. Why won't she leave sooner?

Amy Winehouse & Pee...Wee

Well, this is an oldy - but a goody... well grossy...

Im a huge fan of Amy Winehouse. In fact I aspire to be like her someday. honestly, who wouldn't want to be under the infuence, semi-conscious, out of control, and rich? I guess I do not want to be exactly like her though - I mean she does do and say some pretty bizarro things, but I like to think of them as British and "charming"... sometimes.

I found this little gem of an article about Amy adding her own urine to an oinment for her skin and it got me thinking "Can pee even clear up your skin?". Well, it's at least worth a quick online read about how to accomplish this, right? Well, let me tell you, I was wrong. There were a few sources about slathering pee on yourself as an astringent - after washing your face. Let me get this right... wash my face and then pee on it? Well I guess if crackheads do it (the peeing on your own face part no the washing part) it can't be that bad, right? The jury is still out.

Apparently the reasoning behind all this is that urine is high in natural acidity, meaning you can forego the nasty chemicals (that have probably been tested on animals) and you can avoid all the bad side effects - like rashes, burning, peeling and the other yuckies.

Am I man enough to pee on myself? No. I dont care how many "yellow" hanky socials I might have stumbled into at the daddy bars - it is just not something I can agree with - for me. If your into it get crazy on it! Pee all over and have beautiful, wonderful, fresh, pee smelling skin. You will be the envy of all your peers, maybe you should even involve your peers and have a "pee party"! Although that might be going too far.

If your thinking of being like Amy - try these tips and enjoy a new, relatively fresh face! Its worth mentioning the article that gives you the "how to" does have this to say and I'm not sure if it makes them more or less credible:

"Baby urine is actually more potent, so if you have a baby, why not use what they produce most of? In this case, you can collect the urine in the diaper. Simply push the Q-Tip against the wet spot."

Im not even sure if freak-of-the-week Paul Reubens would agree with this pee crazy fad but I guess its worth a shot if you have really bad, deformed, Amy Winehouse skin.

Mobile Phones: Where Will Technology Take Us?

Once in awhile I like to imagine what my life would be like without my "smartphone" and because of the creepy crawly feeling I get I hold my phone close and hope that it never goes away. It has become an extension of my hand - not so much my face anymore because I rarely "talk" on it. My phone has really become more a part of me than... well actual parts of me. If I need some quick inspiration I open the 3G browser and surf to my hearts content, I can carry on multiple text and instant message conversations, and if I get that terrible "I forgot to pay a bill" feeling I can check all of my accounts with the touch of the screen.

It has made my life so easy that the thought of having a phone with a cord just confounds me - even if I had a corded phone I couldn't do anything with it (without my mobile) because I don't know anyones number. I do have memories of when I was very little and you couldn't even tell who was callling you - it was like a big surprise everytime ("Hello? ... Who is this? Oh...")! It all seems like it was so long ago and for me the phone is advancing so fast, first was call waiting where you could have more than one person on the line at a time (hot dog!), and then caller ID, and then you could block your caller ID if you were stalking someone and didn't want them to know it was you, and then they could get a tracer and call you back by pushing numbers, and then caller ID blocking so anyone who blocks their number  (bill collectors) couldn't ge through, and then it all became mobile, and then texting took off, and then all of the phones got so smart you could use them like 24 hour computers and never be away from the world (or porn) - even for a second!

Its scary, right? All of this has happened in like the last 10 years - you don't even need to stop for directions anymore because the GPS on your phone is generally a lot better at giving them than the elderly man at the corner store, but I digress. I often wonder what the phones will be capable of in the future. It's so Jetson-y to me and even so I could not imagine life without the constant connection but I have a fear this constant connection is what makes us so vulnerable. We can be pinpointed on most any phone (not just the "smart" ones) at any given time. "Hello.. oh Hi BIG BROTHER.. welcome to my private personal life" - might be a phrase that we will want to keep in mind for the foreseeable future. The large companies who supply us with our phones can keep records of our calls, texts, emails, browser history (yes, even your desperate Craigslist Missed Connection post)... everything - for LIFE, and to my knowledge there is no limit on when it may be destroyed or what the effect this information will have in the legal realm.

While I'm thinking about it all - how silly is the "talk to text" someone? Why not just call them if you get to that point?

Anyway, we are all so overloaded with information and technology and the future of phones might make us all even more connected - the phones might even come alive and use us to communicate amongst themselves. It could happen! I have been reading about how our technology is starting to "dumb us down" - in the scary FOX "News" kind of way! If we all get so "slow" over the years why even bother being connected? I guess the manufactured feeling that without that connection, life would be miserable, is reason enough for us to all keep going down this path - but i cld b wrng.

Super Secret Valentine

Are you ready Freddy? It’s almost Valentine’s Day and Freddy’s class is going to have a Valentine’s Day party. Everyone in the class needs to make sure to make enough Valentines to go around for the whole class so no one gets left out. But in Super-Secret Valentine by Abby Klein, Freddy wants to make a super special, one of a kind Valentine for his best friend, Jessie. All the kids in class, especially the class bully, Max already give him a hard time about his friendship with her so he has to try his best to keep his special Valentine’s Day project a secret.

Normally, Freddy’s mom buys already made valentines but this year, she bought all the materials for Freddy and his sister to hand make their cards. Construction paper, glitter, glue, scissors and special shark stickers, Freddy is worried he will never get them all made in time. It will take forever! But he gets started right away. Before he knows it, he’s got them all done, except the one he wants to make for Jessie. His sister quickly notices that Jessie’s is the only one left on his list and teases him about his “girl friend.” Freddy lies and tells her that it’s a super-secret valentine for their mom.

Now what is Freddy to do? He can’t just take the craft supplies up to his room. They are not allowed to have craft stuff anywhere but the kitchen because it could make a huge mess. Freddy’s mom is a major neat freak and if she caught Freddy in his room with it she would flip her lid. Maybe his other best friend Robbie could help him figure out a way to sneak all the stuff up to his room. He is a super smart kid and has helped sneak stuff up before.

Even if Freddy does get the super-secret Valentine done in time without his mom or even worse, his sister Susie finding out, how is he going to give it to Jessie without the other kids at school finding out? They already tease them and they even started singing “two little lovers sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G” making Freddy’s face turn shades of red that he never knew were possible. He was so embarrassed and red that the teacher thought he may have a fever and wanted to send him to the nurse’s office. Will Freddy be able to pull it off?

Donors Take Care

Sperm-donor Offspring Seek Rights and Respect

Item from the Associated Press -- "Offspring of sperm donors seek changes so they can find their fathers more easily, but others worry about the effects of banning anonymous sperm donations. "

Donor dads run for the hills! Your babies are after you!

Why would someone donate to a sperm bank? Do they get paid? Do they want to have anonymous children? Are the donors out to improve the human species by reproducing themselves, anonymously?

And babies why do you want to find these anonymous dads? Health reasons? Do you now need dear old anonymous dad to donate part of his liver too? So many questions and not good enough answers.

Dads if your anonymous kids get rights to know who you are, do they get inheritance rights? What about all those years of child support you missed out on?

Dads head for the hills, your anonymous babies are coming! Or they're trying to come to get you! See the video.

Tug of War In The August Heat

A tug of war in the summer heat?

It is the summer time, August. What else is there to do? It's is too hot to think, and so the residents of two Mississippi River towns have figured out what to do. Why shouldn't they do it?

It is the time of their annual Tug of War contest. A sweaty, can get dirty and grimy, battle of brawn and grip in the crazy heat -- Leave the brains to the people wearing the straw hats. The people have come to chill, to have fun.

Everyone needs fun. If we don't do the silly-crazy now and then, take a break from the serious, take the time out to just have fun, our lives would be boring.. Those moments of play, when we do or watch things that exist for the sole purpose of making us laugh, are what keep us going. Hell, those moments keep the world going.

The Associated Press reports --"Teams from Illinois and Iowa pulled on a 24-hundred foot long, 800 pound (rope) for bragging rights and a coveted bald eagle statue." See the video.

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