The public & government media, always on heavy-gear footing, has now mechanized into a vulcanesque volcano brew over the crimes in the capitol & apocalyptic climate. Old men who had been FBI director fifteen years ago are now on the C-SPAN tube, yabbering long into the night about how one incident back when they were captain of a Navy gasoline tanker is really relevant to the current Supreme court situation in Washington, followed by a panel of all-Yale graduates discussing the administration’s legal defense of torture… Moral issues, government ethics, I needed an escape from reality, man. Outside the door marked with the neon Exit was the Real World, you know the one in Austin, Tejas. I love watching the Real World and especially discussing it with other people.
During the winter of the first year I lived in Chicago my then-girlfriend came to visit. We bundled up in coats and bussed out to Wicker Park to see where the Real World cast had lived, then out to Humboldt Park to see the artwork they had created while teaching a city youth program. Though I can no longer recall anyone on the Chicago cast, other than a vague recollection of one boy wondering around Boy’s Town, I remember that trip out to the Northwest of the city fondly. And a year later I ended up living out between those same two neighborhoods. Ah, Real World memories.
I just finished watching five episodes of the Real World Austin. Look its not just voyeurism with a dash of laziness (which if I had a line of spices, would be my equivalent to Emeril Lagasse’s Essence); these are Real people and a person, sensitive to reality television and weighted with equal parts spiritual empathy and mobile apathy can easily watch five episodes in a row and love it. Better than listen to various all-Yale former Attorneys General and professors weigh in with explicitly what an array of torture memos assert. Five episodes was nowhere near my threshold for Realness, matter of fact I was left thirsting for more. Hope that Mtv On Demand is one or two episodes behind whats running in prime time, so I can watch the repeats of a couple more episodes on regular cable. When the curly haired dude from Wisconsin & Shanice from the last Real World (which was where? Can’t remember.) went to Fiji and shared a moment that lasted a weekend, walking in the rain together… I felt it here (hand on my heart).
Problem is I heard the beaches in Fiji are covered with sea snakes. Must be kinda yucky, wearing flip flops around all those deadly sea snakes sunning themselves & slithering in & out of your sandwich cooler. But Shanice and Randy… Randy? maybe it was Sean, or Peter or something. Philadelphia! The last one was in Philadelphia and the curly haired man, what was his name… Scooter? built that playground for the munchins. Ricky told me a few days ago that if you pause the Wizard of Oz as Dorothy and Toto are leaving Munchkinland you can see one of the dwarves following off a ladder and dying, possibly intentionally even, and that they left the scene intact on the new DVD. Julie Andrews! Shit, I meant to say… Judy Garland. ?
George the Prez reacted to the news of Vice’s top aides indictment with a fantastically brief briefing on the White House lawn. Rove & Co. staged it so that the Prez had to walk about twenty to thirty steps, around a big ole tree swarmed by squirrels, to the cameras & the press. He said that in America government officials are guilty until proven innocent and what a fine job Scooter had done, shame to see him go, garbled something about protecting Americans and that was it. No questions, nothing, walked away as reporters shouted, “Are you embarressed by this, Mr. Prez?” CSPAN has been playing that press briefing every couple hours.
I am in Connecticut now, with a cat sleeping next to me. My wake up call is 10AM so I must take my cue and transform into a sleeping cat myself. More:
My sister wants everybody to be aware that the Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert, has launched a blog that is less than fabulous in the opinion of this bizzer. Matter of fact I’m the Bizzer of the House.