don't you just love the beeb?

So maybe you heard that Keith Richards fell out of a palm tree in Fiji - no one's saying why he climbed up that sucker, but he's apparently ok. Momma's glad that not only didn't the heroin kill him, he also survived some island fun.

But God bless the Queen, and the BBC:

"The legendary musician is mid-way through a world tour with the famous British band."
and
"Keith Richards has written some of the most famous guitar riffs in the world."

What insightful journalism!



meta comment to fellow and fellow-ette bloggers: you know how you're writing a post about someone and you want to add a zany picture so you google image the dude and have to search through 10,700 pics to find one shot where he appears to be on crack? well, when you do that with keith the challenge is to find one where he appears to be sane. yeah, i gave up.

hey, we V's have known this all along

"The letter 'W' has entered the mainstream of the Swedish language, getting its own section for the first time in the country's most respected dictionary... While 'W' has long been a letter in its own right in other Nordic languages, Swedish linguists have always viewed it as a lesser sibling of the letter 'V'... the Swedish Academy, which awards the Nobel Prize in literature and whose members are considered the guardians of the Swedish language, decided it was time for 'W' to come out of the shadows."

Yeah maybe, but MommaV says fuck you, W, in any language.


(PS- they call it "double-V"...)

who said the unincorporated town of greenburgh is dull?

Read this.

No, really. Go back and click it.

Unless you're not interested in a 31-year-old college student "angelabella" dominatrix... and cop-spanking. (NB: yo' Momma had to google "angelabella," but you're on your own on that one. And if you're reading this because you googled it and ended here, get the hell outta my house, you creep.)

Ah, Greenburgh.

"pardon this rough, but effective, language"

Remember when Candidate W2000 called NYT reporter Adam Clymer a "major-league asshole" ("big time, big time") in front of an open mic? And before that, in 1988, GWB revealing what he and Poppa GHWB liked to talk about, when not discussing de Toqueville or Machiavelli? Distasteful, but also hard to believe, in these current self-righteous days of the "language" mafia.

Enter Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, R-Mo, who calls constituent an quote asshole unquote in writing... and then, disappointingly, goes all Mission Impossible and disavows all knowledge of how that nasty (only alluded to by AP -"The letter ended with a profane, seven-letter insult beginning with the letter a - "i think you're an... ") crept into her letter. Come on, Jo Ann, goddamnit, have some cojones.

But that brings me to this result of a google news search on asshole . Please, my readers - if any of you are sober today (Lily, can you help me out?) - can someone explain the anatomical discrepancy here?

Berlusconi calls 'asshole' those who don't vote for him
04/05/2006
He used the word "coglioni" - slang for "testicles" - an insult used to belittle people's intelligence. It is common in colloquial Italian but virtually unheard of in political speeches.

Silvio Berlusconi came under fire from Italy's opposition parties on Tuesday after using an offensive term to describe anyone planning to vote for his rival in upcoming elections.

Berlusconi confidently said he was certain he would win re-election on
April 9-10.

"You know why I'm sure?" Berlusconi asked an association of Italian retailers. "Because I have too much respect for the intelligence of Italians to
believe that there are so many 'coglioni' around to vote against their best interest," he said.

The word "coglioni" - slang for "testicles" - is an insult used to belittle people's intelligence. It is common in colloquial Italian but virtually unheard of in political speeches. "Pardon this rough, but effective language," the premier added.

The remark added to an already bitter campaign, hours after a feisty TV debate with centre-left leader Romano Prodi. Prodi said in a statement that the comments had sparked "justifiable indignation".

Berlusconi has lost his popularity recently, largely due to the country's stagnant economy. He was trailing in opinion polls published until late last month, and performed poorly in the first televised face-off compared to the soft-spoken but upbeat Prodi.

On Monday night both leaders traded barbs with sometimes insulting comments.


Look, I know they're Italian, but still balls are balls. And assholes are something else.

* * * *

All of this political asshole talk of course reminds me of Richard Nixon. Not only because he was an asshole, but also because of his referring to Pierre Elliot Trudeau, then PM of Canada, as an "asshole" on one of his home [read: Oval Office] recordings . (To which Trudeau famously replied, "I've been called worse things by better people.") This all came to light only when the transcripts of the tapes were released, years after Watergate, and of course no mainstream newspaper or broadcaster dared utter the offending word then either - except for WBAI radio here in NY (famous of course for the George Carlin 7-dirty-words-FCC confrontation) - where the news anchor reporting the story brazenly said on the air that Richard Nixon had called Pierre Trudeau (and I quote this exactly): "an quote asshole unquote". It was a great day in radio.

a future immigrant home?

So yesterday being Easter Sunday - not one of my favorite holidays as it celebrates a psychotic fantasy, and I don't think such things should be encouraged - but a really pretty day in New York, me and the kid decided to go to the Botanical Gardens to soak up some rays and take some pics and generally just relax and enjoy the return of Spring to the Bronx. So we loaded up on Allegra (thanks Chris-ta-pha - don't you miss Ade's inimitable intonation? - for the plug) and other assorted allergy meds, read the rules (apparently thought to be necessary since the BG is in a somewhat sketchy nabe), and off we went. But as we drove down the forgettably renamed Dr. Theodore Kazimiroff Boulevard - Southern Boulevard to old locals like me - we remembered the hundreds of goyim who take their mothers to see the flowers and realized with a sinking feeling that we'd never get in the parking lot, let alone have ANY tranquility. So we abandoned the plan and drove instead to City Island - "A little bit of New England in the Bronx" - old stomping grounds of my 60s high school youth.

It's a mile-long narrow strip of an island jutting out into Pelham Bay, adjacent to the Long Island Sound, connected to the mainland by a scenic bridge, and full of old slightly run-down but authentic Victorian houses, seafood restaurants, yachting supply stores, The Black Whale I remember so well, antique shops, barely paved lanes and lots of charm with a reggaeton flavor. Latino Cape Cod. Pasty fell in love. "This is it, Mom," she said. "Gonna get me a car..." (yeah, because it's like a three-fare zone to get to civilization) "...and I'm gonna live here." Okay. After she graduates. (Better than Brooklyn, anyway, where I know I'll get lost, and when I get lost I'm like lost in Brooklyn, which is totally intimidating and I'm liable to never be heard from again. Listen up, Swivel.)

So we drive around these quaint dead end streets, sneered at a bit by the locals, but that's good too - I figure they don't like outsiders so that keeps it safe, and she won't be an outsider if she lives there. I'm encouraged. We look at the well-kept little yards, the scenic old waterside cemetery (the only one in New York City) and the totally cool-looking apartments over the shops, thoroughly enjoying the funky weathervanes and nautical nicknacks and the incredible views of the water that's never more than a very short block's walk. "What a great place to chill!" she says, on seeing a stone wall at the water's edge. Bring a few friends along to live with and hey, this could work. It's New York, but it sure feels more relaxed.

We happily meander down one of the few non-dead ends, a little street called Fordham Street that intersects a couple of the even smaller east-west streets, and we're somehow bothered by the sign we see on a fence leading to a pier up ahead at the end: PRISON.

Oh shit.

Restricted area.
Trespassing punishable
by a fine of $600 and
a year in prison.

What. The. Fuck.

"Milly," says I, using an ancient motherly nickname in my distress, "Where is Riker's Island?"

Like she'd know.

This sign, perhaps understandably, put a bit of a pall on the rest of our explorations. But we're talking 2009, so we said we'd look into it and research City Island a bit more. And I did.

Unfortunately. .

So what did I find? Well.....

1. it's not Riker's, it's Hart's - across a VERY NARROW waterway from City Island

2. Hart's Island used to be a prison island

3. some sources say it still is, housing 100 "quality of life" Giuliani-style criminals (wait, this is where they send the squeegee men??) but maybe not, hard to tell (wiki ain't all it's cracked up to be)

4. at one time or another Hart's was:
a Civil War prisoner-of-war camp
a tuberculosis sanitarium
an insane asylum
a poorhouse (yeah, that's what they called it)
a charity hospital for women
a missile base (what?? yeah, an Army NIKE missile base from 1955-61)
a barracks where 3 Germans were held when their U-Boat surfaced off of Long Island in WWII
a reformatory for "misdemeanants"- a k a bad boys
an old men's home
a Phoenix House rehab center
a house for male derelicts

and, since 1869 and still today, with over 800,000 buried bodies: the city’s "Potter’s Field"

which brings me to:
5. that's what the sign is all about - seems they bring prisoners from Riker's over on a bus to City Island's Fordham Street pier, put them on a ferry, and send them to Hart's Island to be gravediggers for the indigent, nameless folk who die and have to be buried by the city, and the inmates get paid between 25 and 35 cents an hour (isn't that illegal? what about minimum wage?) so you know how absolutely happy these inmate gravediggers must be after digging graves, sometimes digging up bodies for newly found families who want to claim them, through a long hot day in the hot beating sun with 25 cents an hour in their pockets... so like what, you don't think it's possible they'll try to overpower their guards and bolt, through the lovely little streets of City Island, easily breaking into the flimsy old bungalows where my baby wants to live?????

And that's not all.

I also uncovered that there may be a serious health problem from the nearby Pelham landfill ... and there are major traffic issues... and developers are snapping up property in hopes of gentrification and consequent soaring prices.

But the worst thing of all may be the deal breaker. Not unlike the horrifying and, yes, revolting revelation that Carmela voted for Bush comes this quote:

''We're a Republican stronghold in a heavily Democratic city.''

Oh no!

City Island has a little time to redeem itself - and it definitely has its positives - but I have to say, Williamsburg is starting to look better, even to this Yankee fan.

"why seward?"

Today in history.....

On April 14, 1865, also Good Friday, Abraham Lincoln was shot and William Seward was stabbed, nearly fatally.

You, too, may have asked, "Why Seward?". Well, ask no more.

(Come, on, you know you see the family resemblance.)

a quiz

Which of these Fall classes is the immigrant registered for?
a. "The Role of Fashion in Nazi Society"
b. "Woody Allen: Love Him or Hate Him, He's MOT"
c. "The Geekness of Alejandro Rey."
d. "Physics for the Undecided."
e. "Beginning Fencing"

Wait - you don't really think they'd put a sword in her hand, do you?

Oh G-d, B'deis. Too much Malaga?

the pc police never get it right

So the new edition of the Eth Cult Field Reporter arrived yesterday (3 copies - they could have saved some $$ by asking us to share) and, as the PC Police are wont, they fall all over themselves so as to not offend, and sure enough, they come up with a new offense.

After receiving (and publishing) a letter of concern from an alum/former teacher, the Reporter revamped the "Public Notice" section, taking the bold step of changing "Weddings" to "Weddings & Unions" and ceasing to ask for "photos of the bride and groom". OK, I too abhor the bigotry that prevents people from marrying whomever they choose, but isn't this just kind of rubbing salt in the wound? And anyway what happened to parallel structure? That would be "Marriages & Unions" wouldn't it? And doesn't one encompass the other? Are we unconsciously pandering to the right while trying to be pc?

So I was thinkin' about that one when my eye was drawn to another new heading: "Babies". Babies? That used to be called "Births & Adoptions" (and I'm sure it must have been just "Births" before that). I'm thinking this decision must have called for the entire Board to be convened - but what were they thinking? What about adopting older children? Can't put them in the "Babies" column, can you. Another step backward, by someone whose offense-o-meter is turned to Super Sensitively Off Base.

But then I come upon this one: "Deaths". So final. What about the Buddhists or Zoroastrians among us? Wouldn't "Departures" be more consonant with their beliefs?

So I came up with a better solution: use a mathematical model. It's a school, right? Here you go:

"Addition": for marriages, unions, domestic partnerships, commitment ceremonies - whatever. One plus one equals two, period.

"Subtraction": for deaths, with or without reincarnation (although we could consider a subhead of "exponents" for rebirths and multiple lives).

"Multiplication": an obvious choice for births, adoptions, and other family expansion, preferably regarding young 'uns, but if your kid got married and you didn't lose a son, but gained a daughter, that works too.

And now I suggest a new category for "Public Notice" (which, by the way, is a rather odd heading itself, but I can't think of a replacement at this late hour):

"Division": yes, for divorces. Hey, maybe people want to have an official announcement, to avoid all those awkward emails.

So that's my take on the renovated Reporter.

Oh, by the way, announced among "Class Notes" of 1995 :

Jordan Bratman married pop singer Christina Aguilera in California.
Groomsmen included classmates Edgar Abrams and Matt Tauber,
as well as Jordan's older brother, Josh '91. Beautiful wedding pictures

were published in OK Magazine.

Meaning wedding or union, we ain't gettin' no free pix.

only love can break a heart

Before the British Invasion - long before Thom Yorke was born - there was Gene Pitney. The quintessential torch singer (also songwriter) with a cry in his voice who could belt out songs like no one else. Just think of the last line of "I'm Gonna be Strong". Some of it may sound a little dated today, but not to me - he did more with heartbreak and lost love than anyone I can think of. And for me he was, and is, always worlds better than Elvis. If you were a girl in junior high in the early 60s, well, Gene Pitney was it. I never did get up to Mohegan Sun with my old friend and fellow traveler Sari to see him perform - we talked about it, planned on doing it now that the kids are all off in college - and today the news came that he died, only age 65, of natural causes in Wales.

I haven't figured out how to do those Shook-type audio links here, or I'd link up a bunch for you. So you'll have to get to itunes yourselves and see what you find. Recommendations? "I Must be Seeing Things" (one of my faves) , "Mecca", "Half Heaven - Half Heartache", "Backstage", "True Love Never Runs Smooth", "Looking thru the Eyes of Love" - and of course "Only Love Can Break a Heart"... I could go on.

Gotta go find my cds - no, I'm going to play the vinyl.

seen in the fwavl-o-sphere*.... thus far

*coinage inspired by SwivelSon

• joyfully announced by the so-called Pasty_Russian (we are not 'pasty', we are 'ivory beige') on MVsa's spiritual momma, inspiration, and all-round mentorblog, the incredibly hilarious UHIB...
  
• appearing as a challenge to his very own family by one Hugh Broughter on a rather degenerate way-too-much-information work of oh-god-I-hope-this-is-fiction, B?YBH (but don't worry, Hugh, I only skimmed the rest of that post - I've known you since you were 4 years old and there is that prom-date connection, and some things I really don't want to know - but you might consider talking to a professional )...
  
• a shout-out - oh no, HOLY SHIT, an actual LINK down there among the links!! (I have arrived!!) - on the multi-talented Shook the Spot's remarkable StheS which out-Gawkers Gawker, every day of the week - and is totally the place to be seen...
  

Thank you, thank you, one and all. Tell your friends!

And send yo' Momma any more nods (and links!) you find...

oh yeah, the farmers

This will be short, because I am too goddamned tired to make it long. Why am I so tired? Because of the goddamned farmers. I mean, who exactly do they pay off to get this goddamned Daylight Savings thing not only in effect, but now in effect for a longer time than ever? I'm from New York. We don't have to get up early in the morning and tend the cows or sow the seeds or whatever the fuck it is that farmers have to do. We don't need extra hours of sunlight so that when we're out plowing the fields we can do it in the sun. We don't plow no stinkin' fields. Yeah, yeah, I know, "it's so nice to have an extra hour of daylight in the evening, blah blah, blah." Hey, genius, we get extra hours in the evening ANYWAY because the goddamn days are getting goddamned longer. Without an act of Congress forcing us to turn our clocks ahead and lose an hour of precious sleep. I hate Daylight Savings Time, I hate the farmers, I hate the government (well, I'd hate them even if they let us keep the real time like we have in the Fall). I love the Fall time change - an extra hour of sleep, you wake up at 8:00 (who am I kidding) and it feels like 9:00. Luxuriously well-rested, you face the day - with DAYLIGHT early in the morning - and yeah, it gets dark early, but that's what happens in the winter ANYWAY. But not this evil "daylight savings" - what daylight are they saving? When the clock says 7AM it feels like 6. In what universe is that good??????? Sorry, but I will be grumpy and out of sorts for days, weeks, thanks to the goddamn farmers. Please bear with me.

On a less testy (I hope) note: welcome, out here in public, to the inimitable, the inestimable, the ineffable Ms. LGAB, who has graced my little bloggeroo's comments with her presence... braving the waters,... joining mes deux enfants magnifiques who always keep me honest and true. (Except that Grandpa H. did not run whiskey from Montreal during Prohibition, not even on his motorcycle. More about Grandpa, no doubt, in posts to come.) Hope more of you will attempt to add clarity to my ravings. That means you, J. Aune.

canadian crazies

Not to brag or anything, but it is a fact that I'm a natural speller. It's half a family trait. I'll spare you the spelling-bee-champion-of-P.S-95 story, but trust me, I never use spell-check. (I'm not a natural typer, however, so most likely any errors you notice here are a result of faulty fast fingers.) But every now and then I look at a word and it looks wrong - case in point, "odiferous" as spelled in my previous post. Not even knowing where the closest dictionary is, I googled it and found two interesting things. One, my spelling is acceptable (found in one dictionary), although there are a lot more hits (found in 27 dictionaries) on an alternate spelling, which I guess kind of puts me out there on my own. But two, and this is the Canadian part... well, read it yourself:

The English version of subsection 17(2) of Schedule II is amended to replace the incorrect spelling of odiferous with the correct spelling Aodoriferous.

"Aodoriferous"?? Smells funny to me. But this link goes beyond mere spelling. Check it out.

(By the way, I consider myself to be one-half Canadian, as my mother was born there, my father was raised there, and the majority of my 25 first cousins say "eh" and "aboot", play hockey, and can flawlessly curse in French - but I still think the country is crazy.)

east side west side

Driving yesterday into the city to meet Son on the East Side, I did what I always do, which is drive down the West Side. Basically I hate the F.D.R. I take the West Side Drive - a lovely ride, far superior to the potholed, prison-island mess of a parking lot along the dull East River. How can you compare the ungainly Triboro to the grace of the George Washington Bridge (even with the after-thought lower level stuck on) with its little lighthouse on one side and sandy beach that Betty took the kindergarten kids to on the other. I ask you: is there a song about the Triboro? NO. But you all know the one about George. Go on, sing it out. The West Side, children, that's the only way to roll.

From the absurd Henry Hudson Bridge that my father always drove way-way out of his way around so as to avoid the 10cent toll which is now what, $2.50? ... to the sadly always odiferous, but Trump-Apprentice-venue sewage treatment plant (with park and skating rink atop) that they couldn't find anywhere other than Harlem to locate, I chuckle at the latest Fairway electronic wisdom, ignore the billboards (there shouldn't be billboards - this is New York, not Ohio), exit at 95th or the marina and arrive on the Upper West Side: familiar, normal, a little grimy but lovable Upper West Side. Where buildings have names associated with them like Shlomo Carlebach and Leonard Nimoy, rather than Archibald Gracie (a rich guy who went bust and had to sell the house which continues to bear his name, thereby rubbing his nose in it) or William Waldorf Astor (a really rich guy who inherited gobs of money and later... bought a couple of magazines to amuse himself). Okay, it's not perfect - there's a fair amount of conspicuous consumption and private-school bullshit on the West too - but it has Murray's and Jerusalem and Rosita's and Columbus Bakery and lighted menorahs in the middle of Broadway. And it has real non-white people who aren't just there because they are delivery men - it's actually integrated. Even has homeless people, and people who talk to themselves out loud, and bodegas, and the occasional street fair. I mean, it's New York.

So I always take the West Side - meander around, getting a good dose of West Side grime and normalcy before plunging into the park and emerging on spiffy, stuffy, so-not-me Fifth Avenue. I always sort of think I should have hit the car wash somewhere around the police station midway through the park, because on the East Side you really don't want to be driving around in an unwashed Subaru, do you. The ladies just might pick up stones in their white gloved hands and throw 'em at you. Or maybe they'll just throw their diamonds. Anyway, fuck that, my 'Ru can take any of their Lexi, any time. Clean or dirty.

So, yesterday as I was driving over to Grandma B's to pick up Son, from the West unto the East, I noticed two women pushing baby carriages on either side of the park. One was an earth mother, wearing colorful socks and Birks, hair in a braid, also half-carrying a recalcitrant 2 year old - looking like a refugee from the City College of my 60s youth. The other was an impossibly thin, blond, beauty queen wearing black leather stiletto boots over spandex and a Missoni* -type long sweater that cried out "I'm still hot even though I just had a baby!" ...

(*TAKE THAT, A**** K*******, whose name I am bleeping so that she doesn't Google herself and find this and then retalitate against my own flesh-and-blood ... V-Ls, especially Lil' One, know lots about European fashion - and by the way that "D-" Zola paper was damn good, with all its metaphoric style, you fascist.)

Anyway, so what's my point? I don't remember. Oh yeah - the point was: Beauty Queen was walking on Amsterdam, a fairly grungy part of Amsterdam at that, and Earth Mother was on Park.

Go figure.

I was going to add some artwork to this post - you know, scenes that illustrate all of my finer points - but it's late and I'm tired. Maybe tomorrow. Oh wait, I do have to add one.

PS - Where I said "yesterday" above I actually meant Thursday, because it's still Friday until I go to sleep. Coming up soon, unless I change my mind: my thoughts about farmers. Happy April Fool's Day. Good night.