The Blah in Blogging

This afternoon, Sajid and I were sitting in the room adjacent to the living room (some might call it a dining room, but I don't because dining rooms are stuffy. I prefer to think of it as the eating nook.), when we heard a woman on the T.V. say this:

"Do you think Maddox never smiles for the camera because he's sick of the Paparazzi or because he was forced to get a Mohawk??!!"

Sajid: Who is Maddox?
Me: Angelina Jolie's adopted son.
Sajid: Oh, the Japanese kid?
Me: I think he's from Cambodia.

Pause

Me again: I don't know what recess of my brain I pulled that information from.

But I do. I do know. The woman who made the comment was in a commercial on the channel serving as the playground of my most shameful guilty pleasure. The guilty pleasure is soaking in 1/2 hours' worth of inane chatter set to images of famous people; the playground is the E! Network.

There. I said it.

I think of it this way. I don't watch much T.V. When I do, I might as well do it right. I mean, why pretend there are shows that are "good for you" or "intelligent?" Ok, the occasional show on the History Channel, Discovery Channel, or PBS might be good for you or intelligent. But I mean, I listen to informative talk radio, I read books. Why not let the T.V. be the place to really just let my mind turn to mushy goo for a while?

I don't really feel that way about it. I truly do feel guilty every time I watch anything on E! The lamest part about it is that I don't even know who half the stars are or what they're famous for. I have seen many many images of Eva Longoria and heard a fair bit of commentary on her, and I have no idea what she does. Actress? Model? Singer?

Here's the loop:

Do you see me in it anywhere?

And yet, and yet. I know who Maddox is and where he's from. I stop short at caring, but I do know. What to make of this?

I think what I like most about pictures of stars is seeing what they're wearing. There's a dress shop in the Pruneyard shopping center that often has beautiful gowns in the window. I've walked by that window so many times and thought, 'now if I only had an upcoming red carpet event to attend.' But alas, even if I had an event, the carpet would likely be closer to the shag variety. Famous people get to dress up all the time. The whole 9, all the time! They probably get sick of it, but still.

As nice to look at as the gowns are, what I really marvel at is the pants that famous women wear. So many of the woman are of amazon height like me, but miraculously, their pants are always, always long enough; they can even wear heels and their pants are still long enough.

I told Sajid that if I were rich, I wouldn't buy a big house or a crazy car or bling. No, my big indulgence would be a personal tailor who crafted special pants just for me. They would be long long long, big enough in the hips and tight enough in the waist. And they wouldn't have the mega long crotch that most "tall" length pants do. Hey! I said I was tall, not long-crotched. What is that about?!

While I'm on the subject, I did find a decent pair of jeans after an intense search that lasted weeks. Recently, my friend Nicole sent me the link to a website her honey Raul had worked on. Zafu is a site solely devoted to helping women find the right pair of jeans. I tried it out, plugged in all my stats, and like magic, the website brought up about 20 pairs of jeans in all prices ranges. The pair I had found on my own after the exhaustive search was among them. Gals, save your precious crude oil derivative and check it out!

Well, we're a long way from where this started (refugee children from Cambodia, to refresh your memory), but that's what put the blah in blogging right?


Yeah. What he said.

Somebody Find This Dog!

This small sign (the size of a piece of copy paper) has been taped to a post on my street since, well, 8/11 (some time in the pm).

It makes me laugh every time I pass it. The obvious questions arise. What kind of dog? Why no picture to help us identify the dog?

The desperation in the exclamation marks!!

And the sad face. The sad face! Aww. Is it meant to depict the owner or the dog? Both?

It makes me want to find the dog just so I can make that sad face go away.

Has anyone seen a lost dog with a look on its face like it's been missing since the evening of August 11th?

What the World Needs Now is...

It looks like this

...but also like this

It moves like this

...and like this

...and like this

But whatever it looks like or moves like or sounds like, it feels like this

Yaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!

It's the San Francisco Love Fest and before I go on I should mention that it happened last weekend. But I wanted to share the love here so any future would-be revelers have the 4-1-1. The Love Fest begins with a parade of floats, and each float hosts a different DJ (the DJs all play different styles of trance music). The parade ends at City Hall, and all the streets nearby are then closed to traffic. The floats park and then people just dance until evening, then spill into nearby clubs for after parties.

According the website, these are the values and intentions of the event:

...a free parade that celebrates music, love, diversity, tolerance, dance, and community is something we believe in strongly, and believe America needs now more than ever. Dance music has always had a special ability to bring people together in the shared beauty of a universal vibe. Our community by and large remains 'underground' in U.S. pop culture due to very little support from radio and MTV, etc. We know that in a culture awash in conflict, materialism, superficial concerns, and greed, an event of this kind can lift the spirits and the hopes of those who to surrender to its power. The power of dance. The power of music. The power of community. We're taking it to the streets letting the vibe and the cooperation and respect of the people taking part in it be a message of hope in dark times. We intend to make the event a platform for dance music to reach more ears in America and beyond, to carry a message of love and hope, to be a vehicle for helping organizations doing good in the world, and for dancing our asses off surrounded by friendly freaks.

The Love Fest definitely attracts its share of friendly freaks, friendly being the operative word. I've really never been in a place where people seemed so incredibly kind and accepting and truly just interested in having fun. There was none of the super-sexed vibe found at many other such gatherings or at any club. In the trance music realm, it really seems like boys and girls are equal creatures, just out for music, out for movement, out for fun. We had a great time.

Only in San Francisco can something like this happen on the steps of City Hall. Beautiful.

Lage Raho Munna Bhai!

When was the last time you watched a movie that had an intermission (chai and samosas available for snacking in the lobby)? How about one during which, without warning and having no apparent connection to plausibility, all actors on screen broke into song and dance?

If the answer is "never" or "not recently," you haven't been spending enough time in places like the NAZ8 Cinema.

Sajid and I often rent Bollywood movies at home, and many times they are so ludicrous we end up turning them off or falling asleep. Sometimes a really good one comes along, and during crucial moments I make myself imagine that everybody in real life sings and dances spontaneously, in public, in a highly choreographed manner, thereby allowing my mind to temporarily suspend disbelief. I'm okay with musicals as a genre, but when every drama, comedy, or action movie doubles as musical, it strikes me as a little strange. Anyway, during the better movies, I get over that.

Last night was the first time we went to see a Bollywood movie in the theater. What got us there was this movie
which is the second in a series ("Lage Raho Munna Bhai" means, roughly, "Carry On, Childlike Gangsta Bro"), the first of which I haven't seen but have heard many good things about. If the title and movie poster make it seem like a super-cheese, antic-filled goofball comedy, the marketing firm responsible for it has done its job well. However, to my surprise, this movie had a lot more to it.

The whole premise of the plot is that the guy in the red blazer decides to learn about Mahatma Gandhi in order to impress the girl, whose grandfather (and hence, her, as the dutiful granddaughter) holds Gandhi in high esteem and hosts a sort of club that honors the late leader. Red blazer (whose name is "Munna Bhai") is a con artist and thug of sorts, and lies his way close to the girl. Man, if I had a nickel for everytime that old pretent-you-know-about-Gandhi-to-get-the-girl plotline was used...

What happens is that, in studying to learn more about Gandhi (referred to affectionately as "Bapu," meaning Granddad, by his admirers), Munna Bhai begins to hallucinate conversations with Bapu and starts living his life in accordance with Gandhian values and practices. I know, I know, it still sounds ultra cheesy. And yes, it was. But it was funny, and at times very moving. I, no sucker for romantic comedies, believe me, believe me (!) and usually critical of movies to the point of cruelty, found myself crying a few times as I watched how the introduction of Bapu's ideals changed the lives of the characters. Ultimately, the movie had a strong effect on me. It was so fun and positive and sweet that I left the theater happier than I've ever left a movie since I don't know when.

And the thing is, Gandhi's preachings of peace, goodwill, patience, honesty, humility, empathy...they are all timeless and relevant. I left the theater re-thinking the post I wrote yesterday about my neighbors. I wondered what a peace-loving, patient, honest, humble, empathetic person would do in a similar situation. Oh my, do I feel a "What would Gandhi do?" bumper sticker coming on? No. But I can't say I didn't ask myself the question.

I think I've been short on kindness lately. I think I've let my cynical, critical, yucky poopoo side out to play way too much, even if only in my thoughts, and it leaves me feeling, well, yucky poopoo. I needed last night's kick in the ass, and I'm grateful.



I'm keeping this picture on my desktop for inspiration.

Who ARE the People in Your Neighborhood?

The first thing our neighbor Dennis ever said to us was, "hey, you wanna put a lock on that garage door?" And that was a fitting welcome to the neighborhood, given our experience since.

We met our neighbors "Betty" and "Josephine" (real names unknown--firstly because they never introduced themselves; I haven't seen "Betty" since and "Josephine" and her family moved away after we'd been living next door for about 3 months) when they came to our front door bearing a list of grievances.

The way they came to the door is almost as strange as the complaints they brought with them. I had just left the house and Sajid was in the bathroom. They banged on the door and he asked if they could hold on a minute because he was in the bathroom. They insisted, "it'll only take a minute." Sajid came to the door and these two elderly women launched into a tirade about the laundry I'd left hanging to dry on our front porch.

Sajid apologized, though he was then as confused and I still am about what is so offensive about hanging laundry (no underwear, no bras, just clothes). They also complained that we come home late at night and that Sajid parked his car in the driveway (of all places). Okay. We entertained their complaints for a while. No laundry hanging to dry, tiptoeing in at night, and no parking in the driveway until we realized everybody else was. Then we figured it was okay.

The second time "Josephine" came to our front door, she asked if we knew anything about her teenaged daughter's missing (read stolen) bicycle, which we did not, to the suspiscious disappointment of Josie.

We first met Rebecca when she came to our front door with a similar matter. Did we know anything, by chance, about her missing (stolen) laundry basket, which she'd left in the laundry room? No, again.

Doesn't anybody shake hands and introduce themselves anymore? Or is the default to meet when you have some bone to pick?

One afternoon, we were having a barbeque with some friends at the park across the street. Sajid found a plastic table in a storage maintenance area by the apartments and picked it up to use for our barbeque. He was halfway across the street when he heard Dennis's voice from the darkness beyond his closed screen door. "Amigo," the voice said, "that's my table."

So Sajid took that to mean, "That's my table and you can't use it," and he put it back. I'm wondering if Dennis thinks my husband is Mexican or Spanish-speaking of some other country origin, or if he just addresses everybody as "amigo," even when the rest of what he has to say is not the least bit friendly.

We pretty much resigned ourselves to the idea that we would not be friends with the neighbors. Except for Greg. Greg lived across the way, and he was very friendly. He used to volunteer to fix things and was generally helpful to everybody. He was a nice exception. We thought he got along with everyone until the night he knocked on our door as we were about to go to dinner. He told Sajid he was planning to kick Dennis's ass (or something like that, I don't know it was very strange). He handed Sajid a pair of plastic handcuffs and a sock, all the while saying something about how there would never be any marks (?). I don't know what all was going on between them, but Greg kept talking about how Dennis was drunk and about to drive and how it was his (our?) responsibility to stop him. We went to dinner while Greg took off after Dennis, plastic handcuffs and sock in hand. We have no idea what happened after that.

One day, after Josephine and family moved out, her husband, another nice but very quiet exception to the rudeness we'd encountered thus far, came back to the house to do a final clearing out. He had a conversation with Sajid that afternoon and ended up telling him a story about when he was growing up. He said an African-American family moved into the neighborhood when he was about 10-years-old, and that he always felt bad about the way people (all white until then) treated that family. Sajid took this as a kind of apology on behalf of his wife, and figured it might not have exactly been his imagination that the neighborhood was a little chilly.


Why do I bring all this stuff up now, here? I'd been okay with the not-so-friendly neighborhood, but it's on my mind again. A new couple moved in last month, young (younger than us, I believe), and friendly. We both met both of them on separate occasions, and they seemed pleasant enough. But last week I said "hi" to the girl, and she totally ignored me. The same day I was cleaning out the garage, and the guy took one step out of the house, saw me there, and went back inside. I don't get it. What happened? I haven't even seen these people enough to have the chance to offend them, and neither has Sajid.

Believe me, we are nice people. We are even friends with Rebecca now, now that she no longer thinks we stole her laundry basket. I don't know what the deal is with the rest of the neighborhood. I'll say that it's very patriotic, very much of the older demographic, and somewhat conservative (the first question "Betty" asked Greg when he moved in was (not if, but) where he went to church). Could it be that we just don't fit the profile when it comes to welcome neighbors? I don't know.

Part of me thinks that neighborliness just isn't what it used to be. When I was young, we lived with my grandparents. We knew the Guataramas next door, one-legged Bruce across the street, Pat from two doors down, a real Betty across the street from her, the Banuelos' a whole block away. We knew everyone in the neighborhood, and all their kids, too. The families had been there for generations.

Are there places in San Jose where this is the norm? I would like to find one and live there. There is this idea I have in my head that somewhere, neighbors still come over to borrow a cup of sugar, still have block parties, still acknowledge each other's existence.


Who are the people in your neighborhood? For your sake, I hope they are nicer than those in mine :(

Next Man, Please (Please!)

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I'll explain why one day.