LAURAL'S DISH
Laural is our dog, my dog. Everyone else heads off to school, "people like me and Laural" stay home. He's a fine companion, but you have to understand. If he's having a really good time he tries to bite you, me, anyone. Not hard, just…similarly, if you're scratching his belly real good, but then shift to his (apparently less preferable) ears, he'll growl at you. The irregular spelling of his name results from the time that Alexandra and I were mulling the possibilities, in a tunnel in Newton Abbot, when we came across the graffiti: Laura L is a dog.
Laural loves to eat more than any living being ever created, and he will eat absolutely anything. We've weaned him from rocks but he once tried to eat an unopened can of Carlsberg Export. surprise! So his dish frequently has unusual things in it, bits of this or that, absolute treasures that others might consider slightly unfit for human consumption, for whatever stupid reasons.
Beneath please find my literary reflection of Laural's Dish:
Laural's Dish comes out on Fridays, before lunch, usually, but sometimes it comes out on Saturday, pre-dated to make it look like I'm all responsible and got it out in a timely manner.
16 April 2010
In order of whether they were any good or not.
9 April 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/31/nyregion/31drug.html
How can anyone with a brain in their head consider this humane, moral or sane?
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20100331/ts_csm/291698
Cue to corporate America: fruit basket, golden parachute, and start introducing the next Republican goof presidential candidate puppet.
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http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/tre62o08u-us-marijuana-california/
STEVIE WONDER – Songs in the Key of Life (1976) Just in case you're the only person in the whole world who doesn't know—this is one of the musical accomplishments of the 20th century. It straddles-pleasurably and with a sincerity and pathos and aplomb-all those wonderful sounds that we called soul and funk, and pop. It has a message, it has a good message. It must be impossible to hear it and not turn out to be a better person, that hour or so later, and happier, it's a meditation. Every time I listen to it I turn (even) good(er).
Someone borrowed my copy, back in the mid'80s sometime, and this led to a great deal of confusion on my part. I picked up another copy. Then, forgetting that, I picked up another copy at a yard sale. I misfiled it in the stacks, and thought someone borrowed that one, too, confusing it with the initial borrowing or wondered if there was a strange star leading to such things, so I picked up another one at a yard sale. Contemplating the three of them sitting there on my cheap copper & green shag carpet floor in a decaying shack in Ocean Beach one time, one California evening no doubt amidst a gloriously pungent aroma that I can only barely recall (but love every time I smell it again), and awful local cheap white wine that probably deserved a cube of ice...contemplating the three, I resolved to get more.
So every time I saw Songs in the Key of Life at a yard sale for a dollar or so I picked it up, I must have had like seven of them, maybe nine or twelve. It became a wonderful joke. Despite my using my student loans so wisely they eventually ran out (inadequate!!), and I made it to graduation running on fumes, living with a bemused and generous friend downtown.
We were just a block or so off of Balboa Park, a beautiful recreational area facility that-like most of 'em these days-doubled as a gateway for recreational vices. I was walking through just that park one afternoon minding my own business and quite honestly seeking nothing, taking a philosophical sip now and again off a baby bottle of Jack Daniel's.
"Hey man, you want some weed for that walk?!" I looked up from my reverie, to find a quite small black man, maybe in his early '50s.... It was a question well worth entertaining, I thought at the time. Unfortunately I knew enough about such things to know that even park vendors hawked their wares in dimes, every once in awhile (particularly lame) nickels....but I was pretty sure that I didn't have five bucks on me.
I must have smiled-I've always tried to encourage entrepreneurs, and those who go out and seize the day against the grains and bonds that would hold them back. "Sounds good, man, but I don't believe that I'm on the market to make such a purchase at the moment," I said in my blurry law schoolese of the moment... His eyebrows went up: "Why not?"
"Waal, to tell you the truth man, I don't even have five bucks....on me." ( Chris Rocke voce: "Good bet he didn' have it in the bank, neithah!" )
This did very little to discourage the fellow. "Waal....how much you got?" I've also always admired perseverance, which we like to think of as a distinctly American quality. By now I liked the guy, so I offered him the bottle (he declined, "Oh no, man, that shit weirds ya ...but I know some folks like it, you know, it's alright by me, it's..." etc.). My formulations were all but effortless, the American public school system being the finest in the world. "Three bucks and eighty-two cents, man, not enough to be interesting, sorry...."
"Oh NO man, that ain't no problem, I'll jes'...." and with a smile to please Santa and a wink of an eye he had a nickel bag out, and was deducting a very small quantity, that he might presumably work with himself, at some point. "Heah! Howbowdat?" Well, you couldn't argue with the fairness of it, if anything he had given me quite nearly four dollars worth....and so the deal, and a friendship, was consummated.
As we walked on together a few more hundred feet before parting ways, he offered a more formal introduction, "Name's Shorty, man, I been workin' in this park for twenty years!"
I was to meet with Shorty on numerous further occasions, and there's no denying that he was a most conscientious merchant; offering entirely objective, apt and invariably accurate accounts of his wares in advance of the sale, happy and upbeat without variation, it was quite frankly always a pleasure doing business with the man.
I was commiserating on my financial state one glorious sunny afternoon like the California tourist bureau would like you to believe they all are, feeling that feeling like they want you to think you might, groovy an' all, and Shorty....piercing eyes squinting as he thought, rolled out a few questions, I don't remember which ones, I don't remember which order, I don't even recall that they had anything much to do with anything....but I left the session with the good understanding.
Now, I was never all that much of a pot smoker. I mean, I smoked it to some extent or another for nearly 15 years, but largely as a tool of social integration (let's face it, I was a socially retarded 15 year old, after being an American only child living in little German farm towns for a decade)....it worked for me in that way, and in some others....I do not for one moment believe that my relationship with music would be as profound if not for getting stoned and lying on the couch or lawn and listening to album side after album side roll by...but it did effectively, entirely, stifle my ability to communicate verbally. This is not always such a problem for a young man but I doubt that there was ever a time when I preferred getting stoned on its own merits to, for example, launching a bourbon investigation of my interior cosmos (bourbon bringing that babbling right on back!). I'm not suggesting that anyone take weed up if they haven't already, in fact it is something that I left behind nearly 20 years ago now, and I guess I miss the smell and the ritual of breaking up the buds at times, but it's not something that I've ever seriously considered taking back.
I'm just saying that I never smoked all that much weed compared to some folk, and Shorty appreciated that. I mean, my roommate didn't smoke and there were no parties downtown that I considered worth attending, so a joint could last nearly a week. And at the time smokin' an' groovin' a little bit was particularly useful in dealing with anything as boring as writing about anything having to do with laws...and I had to write a few of those down the stretch.
So I got those, couple, joints to help. And Shorty ended up with at least seven copies of Songs in the Key of Life. He loves it man, and he knows how to traffic it, too....Shorty was the all-time KING of Songs in the Key traffickin'....and that's a little like spreadin' gospel, brother.
Although it has nothing to do with my geography, personal habits, intents regarding either or anything much else personal at this point in time.....it is my absolute and distinct and entirely unequivocal honor to wholeheartedly endorse California's ballot initiative to legalize marijuana.
Not to put Shorty out of business-that could never happen-nor to cut into his business-I imagine his clientele is still pretty loyal after 40 years in that park, you don't get deals or customer service like that from Exxon or 7-11....but so that frustrated assholes quit putting good men like Shorty into prison for practicing their chosen (and generally less harmful) profession.
2 April 2010
You know that I couldn't resist this one. It is not however, in my opinion, a political story in any meaningful way, it's just a very funny bit about a certain strain of insanity ( probably: I mean, so far we've heard from the FBI only, and they're not exactly my poster boys for either perfection in accuracy or clarity of competence). It's amusing, of course, only because they got caught before they could hatch their fiendish plot.
I've seen pieces trying to tie these loonies to the Michigan Militia, Tea Party, Republican Party, Sarah Palin, and evangelical Christianity in general. Really? C'mon, this doesn't have anything to do with any of that. No more than the Manson family had to do with the movement to legalize marijuana, or Dr. Kevorkian with birth control. No sensible connection there at all, none.
Do the Hutaree have some relevance to the very relaxed gun control laws in America? They do, but not an awful lot. Loonies find guns wherever they want them, all over the globe. It's not like these guys wouldn't have armed themselves if it had been illegal to do so. If anything, they might have been harder to catch. Anyone who wants a gun more than anything else has typically been able to get one, wherever they are.
The value in this story, at least for the moment and to me, is in the humor of contemplating it as we understand it: The Hutaree Militia (so named in a "secret language" that only they as "the elect" were allowed to know about) was a group of semi-rural white trash trailer-parkers running around heavily armed and wearing faux army suits in the forests of Michigan planning how they were going to help Jesus beat up the anti-Christ...
...this really does deserve some consideration....
So....what? Like they'd be running along and then one of them would yell, "Hey man, if The Devil was over there in them bushes, here's what I'd do!!" and blasts a couple hundred rounds into them bushes. Then they'd all holler "yee-HAW!" an' jump on in and roll a couple thousand rounds into them bushes. Them bushes would be no more, man, as would presumably The Devil have been, if he'd only been stupid enough to try and attack the Good Lord from them bushes...I mean, I hope we can all agree that blowin' The Devil the hell out of them bushes would have constituted a public service. Or also, if The Evil One were treed high in a Michigan poplar, who amongst us could fail to thank a wise and courageous Hutaree for explodin' his sorry red ass right on off of there with a damn grenade? Who would not consider that a good idea, and an appropriate action and response?
The other actions allegedly planned by Hutaree apparently were not, and so for me the story loses its greatest aspect as it heads to court and prison, where no one's going to be particularly interested in the joke. If you look at their (presumably undoctored) web page it's easy enough to see that these guys were heavily armed, extremely racist, dangerous religious nuts, and that something had to be done about them. It is more fun, though, to consider the section in their "Local Threats/Intel" forum where one of them complains that another listens to "Dancing Queen" too much.
I swear, go look at http://www.hutaree.com/forum/
'Course, we're all gonna be pretty damn sorry if the anti-Christ jumps Jesus in the Michigan backwoords, and only the Hutaree Militia could have saved Him...the trial can largely be salvaged if they repeatedly make that point…
When you find a true friend, it is one of life's great pleasures and rewards. We'd met once previously for about half an hour for a pint at Waterloo Station, but I first really got to know Hazel Chandler in Barcelona in 2004. She was filming a segment on me for a pilot for a reality tv show involving various approaches to travel writing. I was supposed to pick her up at the airport. Of course the old VW van broke down on the way, and of course I'd left her mobile number in a tent at the Happy Whale (“La Ballena Allegre”) campground [recommended!]on the edge of town. Repeated telephone calls to the airport failed to locate anyone interested in either paging her or trying to track her down…so our relationship basically started with her sitting around the airport waiting for me for a few hours before she gave up and struck out on her own.
The connection between us was enough to overcome that uncomfortable beginning, and I am proud to call Hazel one of my best friends in the world. It says more than I can write that Theresa has a wall of “family photos,” and Hazel is one of only two non-relatives on it.
It is also worth knowing, for purposes of this interview below, that Hazel is an award-winning documentary maker whose work regularly appears on Al Jazeera and in the better film festivals.
Hazel established and conducts affairs for the charity WAYout, a charity operating primarily in Freetown, Sierra Leone; and one active in transforming the lives of street youths by providing them an opportunity to overcome the severe challenges they face.
Clayton: I read somewhere that Sierra Leone is the poorest country in the world. Is there any kind of social safety net (missionary soup kitchens, for example)? Or is it just like the Haitian earthquake every day?
Hazel: Sierra Leone has been the poorest country in the world according to the UN index. No there aren't any pensions, social services etc. Schools are meant to be free but teachers charge for everything from parents' evening to reports, but before one is outraged at the teachers' actions- bear in mind they only get paid around $100 per month and sometimes that is 3 months late, and they have their own families to support.
All medical care must be paid for. Sierra Leone has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world, too. Women don't seek ante natal care because of the cost and often die on the way to hospital because they leave it too late, fear of the bills.
There are some NGOs doing their bit, but that doesn't replace a national support system. The mercy ships are great.
Having said all that, it is nothing like Haiti. I am always amazed how joyful people are. It's a people who laugh a lot and are strong and inspirational and from whom I have learnt a lot
Clayton: Remember when we were in Barcelona, and you were trying to find a good cheap hotel off La Rambla? There was that great concierge guy, who didn't want to waste his time showing you a room, or generally do anything. ("It's a room. It has a window," he suffers the thought. And upon the suggestion that perhaps a maid could show you, "They're very bee-see..." and only leading to more undeserved frustration on his part). What would you say to the suggestion that "you're just another charity, you want to do good, there are many...they're all very bee-see..."
Hazel: Well we are just another charity, there's no getting away from that but what makes us different (but I don't wish to imply we are the only ones to whom this applies)…is that we may work with fewer kids but we never give up on those kids. We do not do projects just for 2 or 3 years, which is what most projects get funding for. The country is splattered with young people who were part of a project for a while and then, just when it was actually beginning to do something useful and the kids were depending on it, it packed up and went somewhere else. So we never throw anyone back, and commit to their support until they complete education and/or training and possibly beyond that even if that means we do it out of our personal monies- which I do a lot. We also know everyone is an individual so no blanket policy can work for all. We get to know the child and keep trying until we get there with something that works for that young person.
A great weakness in the projects I see, whether they are run by big charities (by far the worst) or small ones, is that they get their funding because they know how to fill in funding application forms. They know if 'diversity' is flavour of the month or 'ex-child combatants,' but they are not necessarily going to do the best job. I have a home in Sierra Leone, know the place well and therefore also know it took about two years before I understood how things work, and I still have a lot to learn.
We also work in the arts, music and film. There are a few local organisations-who are our partners-who are working with the arts and appreciate the power of giving people a voice with a camera, or a means of exploring their experiences through music, but no international ones.
The whole funding machine is a mess but that's a different story, except it was my dismay at the whole thing that led to the idea of putting street kids in touch with UK students, so UK students (future policy makers) could learn first hand about how hard it is to rise out of poverty
Clayton: In the program where you link Sierra Leone youth to UK students by video....there has to be a funny story in there?
Hazel: Not so much a funny story but....the kids here were asking some difficult questions that I thought a group of street kids would not be able to answer. Questions to do with the causes of poverty, why Sierra Leone is so poor etc. But the kids there had a shot at answering these questions. I was expecting blank faces. Then I realised that whilst young people here are watching TV and playing with their wii, kids there largely only have BBC World to listen to, so are very well informed.
One UK student actually refused to believe that anyone lives as these young people do. There was no persuading her otherwise. But here is a quote from one of the schools taking part:
"Street to Street has changed a demotivated and disinterested class into an engaged and captive audience. They love seeing real kids in a real life situation and there is always excitement at seeing the next video installment as they find out what is going on with these increasingly familiar faces. It fits perfectly with Citizenship and Geography themes in school, particularly in developing empathy and taking steps to overcome stereotypes, and the ongoing nature of the project facilitates in-depth learning about another culture in a way a one-off DVD or textbook cannot"
Clayton: I'm looking forward to driving to Freetown with you, and meeting some of your kids, your friends-who are also becoming familiar to me through your stories-in person. How's the bomb detection training coming along? And what's that thing you ate that made you sick (I don't want any of that)?
Hazel: I think it was just turmeric, but in large quantity. A friend here did some research and apparently things like turmeric can carry nasty thingies but I don't remember what. The big thing we foreigners need to watch is palm oil. For a lot of us it acts like a laxative, so try a little before gallumphing down a big plate of rice and potato leaves.
There are a few hotspots on the route down at the moment, but I did my hostile environment training and know what to do if your leg gets blown off. But do you know what to do if mine does?
Clayton (visibly less comfortable): um...No I don't. I guess I'd better figure it out. Why would you ever risk such a thing, when you could instead take a night out in the lights of Soho?
Hazel: Every night Yumyum, ex-street gang leader, phones me. Because it is expensive the calls are very short. Hello Mum- hello how are you? fine!
Thats about it, but it answers the question why do it?
When I think about meeting Yumyum four years ago… A scary young man of 23 whose parents died when he was four, and who had been a child combatant and never had any education. And now he calls me every night. I am overwhelmed by a sense of privilege and pleasure. Why should he have accepted me? But he now says he decided to trust me when I gave him a camera. He shot 100 hours of footage and still has the camera. This was the inspiration for WAYout.
You can support WAYout by pressing this link . They don't ask for much, they know we aren't rich and famous, either. I have a standing order with them that's roughly the equivalent of about a pack of baseball cards per month, I barely even miss it and it makes me feel good because I know it's helping people who deserve a chance.
WAYout is a registered charity in the UK, number 1123777.
Archive
2009
Dish empty ! Now go home
