July 31, 2005
Wisconsin Wisdom
Last night, while celebrating summer with fellow midwesterners, a well-spoken, Waldorf-educated thirteen year-old girl asked if I was going to have children.
I told her no, it was unlikely.
She said, "Good, I'm glad."
Surprised, I asked her why.
"Because," she answered, "children would change you."
July 30, 2005
Nora's Paintings On Stuff
I have updated my cafe press store with new products and new paintings on the products. I have also made it so the artwork on most of the t-shirts, etc. have painting titles and signatures under the images. Also most t-shirts now boast "embrace art" on the back sides.
It is possible to change the artwork on each product if the customer requested a different image on a certain style - just give me a heads-up and I can change it in a matter of minutes!
Thanks for shopping at Neiman Marcus, er, I mean - Nora Murphy! (Lots of people were often humored that I worked at a place with the same initials.)
July 27, 2005
Shirtless in Poland
While eating an incredible amount of the most incredible sushi ever last night in Tarzana, MJ, who by the way used to be a nurse and now works in public health, told us about her recent trip to a medical clinic in Poland. She had been feeling a sore throat coming on before she left the U.S. and by the time she woke up in Poland she had thrush. Next door to their hotel was a clinic so she went in and told them her dilemma and they told her it would be the equivalent of 42 U.S. dollars.
She paid and they ushered her in to a room where she was met by a 25 year old male doctor who asked again the problem. She said her throat hurt. He said in a thick accent, "take off your shirt". She pointed to her mouth and her throat and looked quizzical at him. He insisted, "take off your shirt". She took off her shirt which meant she was bare breasted, he looked at her chest and then said, "I show you to specialist."
MJ went to the next room, saw the specialist who gave her herbs and some other medicine and said she'd be fine in no time. She left, was fine in no time and said that even with the puzzling exposure, at $42 it was better health care than she'd ever received in the U.S.
July 26, 2005
Another Ride On The #2, 1985
A black man boards
He has a garment bag
And a large duffle
Goes to the back of the bus
Unloads his wears
Changes into a pin-stripe suit
He is looking for Wilshire and Rodeo
July 24, 2005
Saturday Night
"Once a farm boy always a farm boy."
"Really? What farm were you ever on?"
"Hair farm."
July 23, 2005
Image Control In The 80's
"Do you like this shirt?
I like this shirt.
It says absolutely nothing about me."
July 21, 2005
The #2 Line On A Thursday (1985)
A teen mother boards in Hollywood
With an uncontrollable blond child
He pulls out her hair
She spanks him 25 times
In repetitions of five
Nobody bothers
Beholden only to my hangover
And shitty job
July 20, 2005
80's Momentum Factotum
Yesterday I launched the peeks into my 1980's which come from the musings of many notebooks and letters I kept through the years. Gone are the "innocently cryptic" calendar entries of the 70's and in with the quips and observations of a fashion display maven/bar girl looking for love and comedy and herself...
General Westmoreland died yesterday and it briefly made the end of the evening news. It reminded me of my bus riding days in 80's Hollywood where I was lucky to have regularly ridden the 180/181 route with General Hershey Bar, who always got on at Vermont & Hollywood. The bus was such a depressing thing for me, it was always a bright spot when he got on, greeting the driver and pert near everyone else with, "Hello, General; How ya doin, General", etc. General Hershey Bar was a former vet I believe, who became a war protester along with his side kick, General WasteMoreLand, who I assumed had died before my bus riding time. The Hersh rode, carrying lots of literature and papers, engaging anyone who would listen in a very heated discussion about the current affairs. Man, did he hate Reagan. You're conditioned to ignore everything that happens on the bus and a lot of people tried to ignore The General, but I always perked up when I saw him at the stop. Not only was he enlightening, but his attire was in fashion with the times and I took many cues, as my friends would attest. I even went as him on one particular Halloween to a great Hollywood party where the artist, Tomata du Plenty walked up to me and said, "I know who you are!" The General was always in full military garb with hundreds of medals and buttons and accoutrement sewn on his jacket, including metal airplanes jutting out from his epaulets and on his cap. Mine were plastic and some hung from my ears but it still came across.
I stopped riding the bus on a regular basis eventually but still used it when I needed it and always looked for him. He was pretty old in the 80's so I stopped looking by the early 90's. He was pretty infamous around LA. I'm sure some time between '75 and '90 even General Westmoreland saluted him and if by some miracle General Hershey Bar outlived Westmoreland AND Wastemoreland, I salute him - though what's been going on for the last five years would be enough for him to call for that last bus.
July 19, 2005
An 80's Moment
Bruce Willis overheard at The Improv in 1985 - the start of his rise to being Bruce Willis...
"The spear house
The big fuckin' pink house in Miami
Palm trees and maseratis
It's a weird fuckin' house
My agent sez no man
You can't have it
You're gonna be a big star
No man I don't wanna
Deal with that star shit
Screen a couple shows
Like get the flow of how it's goin'
We're tryin' to do an 80's version
Of a 30's screwball
It's wide open"
July 18, 2005
My One Day Off
The Metro Is Only Five Blocks Away.
The Ride Is Only 28 Minutes To Union Station.
Olvera Street Is The Place For Margaritas and My Favorite Mexican Folk Art Store.
Chinatown Is The Place For Hop Louie's, A Cold Beer And A Snarly Bartender.
July 16, 2005
Here's A Little Story
Paula told me a story last night about her day at work which included a coworkers birthday celebration. This is at a television network...one of the raunchy ones. They hire this poor guy a midget. Not a singing telegram or something mildly embarrassing, but a midget who shows up with balloons and a cake and who allegedly is going to strip. The word gets out, however, that the network attorney who handles sexual harrassment issues is in the building so someone makes sure the guy does not strip. So what does he do in this completely awkward ten minutes? An office mate turns on her iTunes and the little person starts dancing. The belly roll dancing - the amphibious type, on the floor. Some schmuck in the office calls out for the birthday boy to dance with him. The birthday boy is meanwhile trying to edge his way out of the room, but SOMEHOW, SOME WAY, what unfolds has to be a birthday boy's freakin' nightmare for the next forty years. The little guy grabs the birthday boy's thigh, gets under him, picks him up off the ground onto his little shoulders and spins him around. With half the office clapping.
Who's idea was this and who represents this kind of talent are my two biggest questions. And of course, the third being - did the birthday boy run for that attorney?
This reminds me of a wedding I went to back in Illinois some time in the nineties for a couple friends of mine from high school/college. There I was sitting at my table enjoying my cocktail watching the folks dance and mingle while my other girlfriends were roaming outside smoking, etc. All of a sudden the doors to the hall open and in walk two little people dressed in puffy foam costumes that make them look like cartoon white trash bride and groom and their foam heads are larger and taller than their bodies... They proceed to do a routine that lasts, I kid you not, thirty minutes. It included them seating the real bride and groom at the edge of the dance floor to make them watch the show so we were made to watch how they sat uncomfortably with pasted smiles on their faces. The little people danced and made old people dance with them while they played out this mockery of marriage. The scene was that the groom was a complete flirt with everyone in the room, making sexual innuendoes, the bride gets jealous and comedy ensues. With the bad country music they've brought to act this out, this foamy groom at one point shimmies his way toward me, and gets about an inch from my face which is now stone cold when I say through my teeth, "Don't. Touch. Me." He does a mock surprise movement, says something from under his foam, like, "you're a tough egg," and shimmies away and I take a big glug off my cocktail and wonder where the Hell my friends are - they're MISSING IT!
The next day when I was retelling the story to my family, it seemed like most of them had seen this "act" at a wedding or a party or a company picnic before. Big bucks for that kind of "entertainment", I guess - somewhere. My moral to that story is - I don't care if you're an accountant and it's tax season and your fiance' is a physiologist - don't let your brothers plan your wedding.
July 15, 2005
July 13, 2005
OH NO!!!!!
(From Hometown News....)
"Beer drivers strike
By Tim Wagner
STAFF WRITER
MONTGOMERY — Tensions among several union employees at The Superior Beverage Co. — a wholesaler of Anheuser-Busch beers — have come to a head.
Twenty-seven beer-truck drivers and warehouse workers went on strike effective at 4 a.m. Tuesday after contract talks stalled, said John Majewski, president and business representative of West Chicago-based Teamsters Local 673.
Typically, a fleet of 13 beer trucks is deployed each weekday from the distribution center at Orchard Road and Rochester Drive, and each driver makes 15 to 20 stops, Majewski said. The company remained open for business, and management officials said it continued to make deliveries."
PHEW!!!!!
July 07, 2005
Things I Love In San Francisco (Part 3)
It's been a couple weeks already since I went to NoCal, but even with less than 48 hours in the city, I can come up with a thousand things I love including...
...coming out of the underground public transportation system and finding yourself right in the middle of the Gay Pride Parade...
Freedom to fly your colors, freedom to be a prideful community.
July 05, 2005
Images Of A 4th Of July Weekend
Saturday In Santa Monica
Cindy Arrives Home
Quote Of The Weekend: "If I weren't so dead in my heart, I'd be cryin'."
It's All About Heads & Head Gear
July 04, 2005
Timeline Of A Beagle Rescue
7:30 PM Friday: Neighbor boy calls through the back door that a loose dog is running around and wonders if it's Oscar. Oscar is safe inside but we step out the back door and look through the boys apartment complex and see a full-blooded Beagle. We call for it but it runs scared. I go get a handful of treats and walk the block till I turn onto Whipple and see the Beagle in the street. I call to it, she does scared circles till I toss a Charley Bear her way and she grabs it. She comes for more and is obviously hungry. I pick her up and walk the alley back to the apartment. The neighbor boy yells, "She's got it, she's got it!"
7:45 PM: Check her for tags. All she has is a Rabies tag with a San Francisco number. I call it but the office is closed. We feed her and she eats as if starved, drinks as if dehydrated.
8:15 PM: Spot fleas. Give the Beagle a bath, she's pretty filthy as it turns out.. I have one more Frontline dosage so I split it on her and Oscar.
9:00PM: David takes Oscar for a walk and canvases the nearby blocks for anyone looking for a dog. Nobody.
9:30 PM: David takes another walk on his own, further around the neighborhood to look for signs or someone looking for a dog. Nothing.
10:45 PM: Set up camp on the couch for the evening. Put two dog beds near me for Oscar & Beagle to settle in. They don't - they play, they fight for territory, the Beagle paces.
3:00AM: Fall asleep maybe for an hour. Dogs have been circling and Beagle restless and sometimes crying.
4:00 AM: Beagle gets up and drinks entire bowl of water. Circles for a while.
5:00 AM Fall asleep for maybe an hour and a half.
7:00 AM Saturday: Get on the computer, upload a picture of Beagle, design a FOUND DOG flier.
9:00 AM: Printer is not communicating with new Operating System. IM friend, drop & drag file to her and she prints out 20 fliers.
10:00 AM: Drive with Beagle to East Valley Shelter to see if she has a micro-chip. She doesn't. They try to get me to leave her there but I decline and fill out a FOUND DOG paper for them.
11:45 AM: Paula brings over the fliers.
12:15 PM: I call the San Fran number again and get the vet's office that distributed her one and only tag in 2004. They take the number and call me back in fifteen.
12:30 PM: Learn that the Beagle hasn't been in in a year and that the two numbers for the owner are no good. I ask for the name of the owner, the name of the dog and her age. "Penny", and she's three. I'm told I'm a good samaritan.
1:00 PM: Do internet people search on three different search engines. Lycos gives me some matches and one of them is on WHIPPLE! I call the number and it's no good. I call another one that's in N. Hollywood and get a guy who says, Yes, that's my daughter's dog. He just heard about the missing dog a couple hours ago and she must have learned to jump a fence. He's actually 150 miles away and gives me the number to his daughter. I call it and get a guys voicemail. I leave a message and my phone number. I call the Father back. He says yes, that's the husband's voicemail, and that he'd try to get in touch with them too.
3:00 PM: Still no call back. Beagle is sound asleep in a ball on the couch. I try the number again and a woman answers. I ask if I have the right person. Yes. I ask if she's missing something. Uh, a dog, she says? So she says its her sister's dog who is visiting, they are just returning from the shelter and admits that they DIDN'T KNOW SHE WAS MISSING TILL THIS MORNING. She says they'd be home in five minutes. I say why don't you come here. Oh, yeah, okay.
3:10 PM: Woman arrives and I have to coax the Beagle from the couch to come outside and give this woman a very lukewarm greeting. The woman calls her a bad dog. I point out that the tag is old and no good. She says they are going to go right away to get a new one. She ignores me when I tell her Penny was really hungry and she has fleas. She never asks how I found them.
3:12 PM: The husband comes in and coaxes Penny out of my patio by the collar - never picks her up. The woman says she IS SURE that her sister will want to call and thank me. I say great, I left my number on your voicemail...
3:13 PM: Penny is gone and I'm thoroughly tired, pissed and depressed. Nap till 4:45.
5:00 PM - 12AM: Consider dognapping.
Monday: Still no call.
July 01, 2005
Things I Love In San Francisco (Part 2)
Purchased on this trip at City Lights were Burroughs, Bukowski, Maupin & Thompson...
Purchased on this trip at the Farmer's Market at the Ferry Building were goat cheese yogurts & pain du chocolat....
Purchased on this trip were many fashion finds in many thrift stores and shoes with pom poms....
Purchased on this trip were beers, makers rocks. martinis & cosmos...
Purchased on this trip in chinatown were teas, candles, a Miso Pretty bag, and several plates of rice & meats & vegetables in various sauces...
Not purchased on this trip but came in quite handy were layers of long sleeved t-shirts and crocheted scarves...