Austria, art AND NAKED PEOPLE?!?!?!? I'm goin

Austria Museum Lets Naked People in Free
By WILLIAM J. KOLE, Associated Press Writer Fri Jul 29, 6:19 PM ET
VIENNA, Austria - Vienna's prestigious Leopold Museum is usually a pretty buttoned-down place, but on Friday, some of the nudes in its marble galleries were for real.


Scores of naked or scantily clad people wandered the museum, lured by an offer of free entry to "The Naked Truth," a new exhibition of early 1900s erotic art, if they showed up wearing just a swimsuit — or nothing at all.

With a midsummer heat wave sweeping much of Europe, pushing temperatures into the mid-90s Fahrenheit in Vienna, the normally staid museum decided that making the most of its cool, climate-controlled space would be just the ticket to spur interest in the show.

"We find a naked body every bit as beautiful as a clothed one," said Elisabeth Leopold, who founded the museum with her husband, Rudolf. "If they came only out of lust, we have to accept that. We stand for the truth."

Peter Weinhaeupl, the Leopold's commercial director, said the goal was twofold — help people beat the heat while creating a mini-scandal reminiscent of the way the artworks by Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, Oskar Kokoschka and others shocked the public when they first were unveiled a century ago.

"We wanted to give people a chance to cool off, and bring nakedness into the open," he said. "It's a bit of an experiment. Egon Schiele was a young and wild person in his day. He'd want to be here."

Most of those who showed up in little or no attire Friday opted for swimsuits, but a few hardy souls dared to bare more. Among them was Bettina Huth of Stuttgart, Germany, who roamed the exhibition wearing only sandals and a black bikini bottom.

Although she used a program at one point to shield herself from a phalanx of TV cameras, Huth, 52, said she didn't understand what all the fuss was about.

"I go into the steam bath every week, so I'm used to being naked," she said. "I think there's a double morality, especially in America. We lived in California for two years, and I found it strange that my children had to cover themselves up at the beach when they were only 3 or 4 years old. That's ridiculous."

For years, the Austrian capital has been known for a small but lively nudist colony on the Donauinsel, an island in the middle of the Danube River where people disrobe, often startling the unsuspecting joggers, cyclists and rollerbladers who happen upon them.

Overwhelmingly Roman Catholic Austria has always been somewhat more conservative than many other European countries. The Viennese were scandalized when native art nouveau masters like Klimt — best known for his sensuous "The Kiss" and the subject of an upcoming film starring John Malkovich — began producing works that some critics panned as "indecency," "artistic self-pollution" and borderline pornography.

The 180 works on display at the Leopold through Aug. 22 include Klimt's "Nude Veritas," an 1899 painting of a naked young woman with wildflowers in her hair, and Schiele's "Two Female Friends," a 1915 rendition of two nude women entangled in each other's arms.

Max Hollein, director of Frankfurt's Schirn Kunsthalle art museum, likened the public uproar at the time to "the visible outcry at the live transmission from last year's Super Bowl when, for a few seconds, CBS broadcast shots of the singer Janet Jackson's exposed nipple."

Mario Vorhemes, a 20-year-old Vienna resident who strode into the Leopold on Friday wearing nothing but a green and black Speedo, was nonchalant.

"What's the big deal?" he asked. "We're born naked into this world. Why can't we walk around in it without clothes from time to time?"

Elina Ranta, a fully clothed tourist from Finland who checked out the art — and the audience — left amused.

"I thought, 'This is strange. How is this possible in a museum?'" Ranta said. "We've been in many galleries and I've never seen people walking around like this."

"In English, my name means 'beach,'" she added. "That's pretty funny under these circumstances, isn't it?"

___

On the Net:

Leopold Museum, http://www.leopoldmuseum.org

live music from a dead guy

http://www.archive.org/audio/etreelisting-browse.php?collection=etree&cat=Elliott%20Smith

elliott smith concerts.

plus look for Christopher O'riley on www.sweetadeline.net for links to his covers (beautifully done on piano) and radiohead covers that Thom York loved.

Go find em!

something tells me

This is the end of a really odd week. I think I actually got decent sleep. After waking up on moms couch at 3am. I feel like I finally got some rest over there. I made a dandy dinner last night and feel good and energetic this morning. But something tell me that I'm going to need a seatbelt on my chair at work. I may just spontaneously bounce out of the chair at random intervals. I also have to go make it to the opening of a restaurant tonight then tomorrow start on the payout of marathon bday week. Lessee, who's was it in the past 7 days? Senor, Larisa, Dron, BMillah, Adam, Kelly, who else I'm forgetting a few. But thats what I do (forget bdays so if I forgot yours, i'm really bad at remembering bdays-sorry). I will celebrate with some but fuck others as they drop off the radar more than I do. I'm a specialist at dropping off the radar for weeks at a time. But I'm looking forward to festivities cause I've been a homebody all week.

The cat worried me this morning as she wasn't lying next to me. I got up and found her and she had barfed on the floor. I know it was cause she was begging for a bit more food and I gave it to her last night.

kewl

Word of the Day for Thursday July 28, 2005
kismet \KIZ-met; -mit\, noun:
Destiny; fate.


I think kismet will be my second childs name. Now I just hafta have the first kid.





pastapeazy (homogenous amalgamations)

fucking aye

I'm tired, exhausted actually. Today has been one of those days that you look down and think your watch is going to say 9:30 and it's 11am. I'm sleeping but not getting any rest. In fact, upon furthur review, I think I dosed off for a good period of Charlie and the Chocolate factory last night. I don't remember the belching part. I remember very large parts but also remember being extrememly tired. Funny movie, i'm going to see it again. Johnny Depp has, in my opinion created a genre of acting that is almost exclusive in acting that only he can accomplish and usually in Tim Burton movies. Either way he did a great job. But I'm tired, I want to go to sleep. Gonna go home and cook dinner. Was supposed to cook dinner for me and Frosted Flakes but that never came to fruition so I cooked something else. This time I'm just going to make myself a damn good dinner of orange chicken, garden salad, rice, canteloupe, and green beans. I might have to make chocolate chip cookies this weekend as I found like a 100 lb bag of chocolate chips in moms cabinets.

But for the love of god, help me get sleep, i don't want fight club scale insomnia back. That puts me on the verge of psychosis and I'm not needing that right now.

stay off the grass, kid!

I went and hit golf balls and frosted flakes did in fact, flake. I thought that everyone was gonna flake for a while until Adam and Samantha showed up and then others started showing up. It was cool, I got to hit a couple hundred balls, quite well I might add and then give some quick lessons for a couple that had no idea how to hit a ball. The range is open until 11pm and we shut it down, pretty cool. I have blisters on my hands and feet, go figure, not really sure how, maybe it was the shoes, but my hands getting blisters are pretty standard for golf.

oh and this morning the cat found her way under the sheets this morning and started biting my toes. This is one feline that WILL HAVE her breakfast first thing in the morning.

just fuckin batty

I think it's cause I haven't been home although I'm paying it a visit right now, but I'm off, my radar is off, my senses are off, my center is off, my thought patterns are off but not logic, thats there amazingly. I like talking to friends and after having a conversation with a girlfriend of mine thats supposed to go hit golf balls with me tonight (and will remain nameless) but i doubt she will cause she's flakier than breakfast cereal. We were talking about her current man-gaffs and my recent and not-so-recent encounters with the opposite sex, i'm just gonna let a female find me. Fuck it, no use in wasting mental energy with it. I'll waste that when I can actually have the argument about the toilet seat up or down. I've got nothing holding me back or pushing me forward so I'm going to stay my course and say fuuuuuuuuck it, I'm not at all really preoccupied with it but thought I could be. Why? I'm not unhappy that I'm single. I could just use a lay right now. Why mince words? It'll happen, I'm not worried. Thats the only lucid thought I had today, and thats sad. Didn't learn a damn thing today, and I try to learn something new everyday. The day isn't done, and I'm not stayin in tonight.

anybody wanna cat?

This morning the cat layed next to my head and smacked me in the face until i got up and fed her. My alarm was going off, i'd get up, hit snooze and she'd reposition herself to smack in my face with her tail again. Three times dammnit. I'm up already, we'll see how she wakes me up tomorrow.

cocoa in july

It's almost august and i'm drinking hot chocolate. Why? Dunno....

It's surreal staying at my moms house now. I don't really have much of a connection to it. I don't feel like there is a space for me like when i lived there. odd, but good. I'm good with cleaning up after myself immediately cause I feel like mom is watching me. I gotta say the cat is thrilled that I'm home, 5:15am jumps up on chest, 5:15:12 bolts off my chest. 5:17:36 jumps on chest, moves to stand on the side of my head, 5:17:45 jumps off head. 5:20:10 sitting right next to my face making purr/meow sounds, 5:20:30 walks around all over my body. 5:27, get the eff up, go to the bathroom first to make her wait, then feed her, go back to bed. I do like sitting with her though, she's the only thing I've called "baby" in a looooooooong time, and petting her lowers my blood pressure. She's a damn friendly cat with me or anyone that is not my sister or nephews. Mayo will maintain that she's nice to her but the seed was planted long ago with the hissing and the nicknames (and she will defend herself-the sister that is). Funny how she acts different with people then with me. Trusts me I guess. Yeah.......I either want to take my cat with me or get a dog.

It was odd, yesterday my mom called and left a message. I don't usually check messages for like a week, but I called her back and amazingly she had her phone on, but she just started asking me if I was okay, if I hadn't been in any kind of accidents. She said she'd had a dream about me getting into a car accident, then being so upset about that one i got into another, and that I had then flunked out of preschool training. Go figure, she was then worried her house and the animals had suffered because of all the happenings. I assured her that they were at club med, the house was safe, and clean and so was I. She was happy to keep driving then. I guess me ma loves me or just worries about me, but i'm sure it's both.

Safe to say it's nice having a big house fully air conditioned to myself to walk around in my drawers or bday suit if I really hafta, even if theres no cable or high speed internet.

there we go

Got over to moms, doin laundry, then took off to get adam and then head over to the strebs for the baby shower for the twins. Very cool, very hot, and have never heard so many stories about people's worst drug binges, especially out of so many successful people it was pretty funny. Adam and I took off on the Whizzers which was just damn fun altogether. I'll post pics in a while. those things are fun as hell. Then went to meet a couple others for drinks, and some snacks, played with the pooches, I'll post one of those too, then back over to moms for nice cold wonderful air conditioning. Beautiful, just beautiful.

i'd get up by my feet melted

I got home yesterday to a pretty warm house only to experience a brown out and got to sit around wondering if it was just the circuit breaker, it was not. However it WAS over 100 outside and inside was pushing that. I sat outside for an hour or so until I heard every ac unit in the neighborhood click and clack back on. I went back inside to watch my beloved baseball team beat up on the Yankees. I was like putty in the chair and was dozing off over and over it was so hot. But the Angels won.

Following is my transcript to my dear friend that can im faster than a bullet. well shes not at her desk right now so i jsut wanted to use my caffeine overdose properly:

tim: C"MON i'm all hyper and where the hell are you!?!
tim: boooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
tim: BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
tim: boo
tim: scurred ya din't i?
tim: you're gonna get back and theres gonna be a thousand messages
tim: cause i've been flooding saras
tim: told her I feel like larisa
tim: typing all fast and stuff
tim: sending out like 30 messages before any response
tim: it's good times
tim: so it's pretty hot huh?
tim: toohot almost
tim: i'm trying not to spend any time at home
tim: too hot
tim: no ac
tim: freakishly hot
tim: housesitting moms
tim: she's got ac
tim: but doesn't leave til this weekend
tim: so i bribed my brother with dinner and i'm going over there to hang out and weeze his ac
tim: good times
tim: so you're still not back from lunch huh>
tim: c'mon
tim: heyloooooooooooooooooooooo
tim: no oyie either
tim: in detroit
tim: he went to a baseball game yesterdy
tim: or the day before
tim: called me from it
tim: the lucky bastard
tim: yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah
tim: so when you get back i'll probably be at lunch
tim: i like fridays
tim: they're usually slow
tim: people wanting to take 3 day weekends and stuff
tim: do you like hamburgers
tim: i used to put baseball cards in my bike tires and they'd be all clickety clack
tim: i ate all of saras chocolate chip cookies they were good
tim: wish i had more
tim: have you ever tried to count the grains of sand when you're at the beach?
tim: it's hard
tim: theres alot of grains
tim: i betcha theres more sand on one beach than anyone can count
tim: and the
tim: then
tim: you multiply it by how many beaches there are
tim: thats alot of glass
tim: you'd think that when a window breaks they'd recycle it right back into sand
tim: but i guess you can't do that
tim: can you remake it into a window?
tim: is glass recyclable?
tim: hmmmmmmmmmmmm
tim: okay i'm going to blog now
tim: i might include this
tim: in fact
tim: i will


I'm just damn bored today. here's some pics my boy Dean took, he's into photography and photography at our house

mmmmmmmmmmmm

I love the brown rice. just good. Anyone wanna go see earlimart tonight. Free at Hollywood and Highland?

Good job Tim, good job

I woke up at 3:15 on kelly's couch. Good god, I intended on just slipping out and not falling asleep, but I did. The job was to go over and install software have a glass of wine and bail. Well, before you know it, two bottles down, short dark haired irish/mexican with green eyes-lisa (had to be noted), comes over and is sleeping on the next couch and Kelly is sleeping on the floor. Good times. Bunch of drunkards (it went south when the herbals came out.

I managed to get back to my house to pass out in the 85 degree bedroom that I call hell's rest stop. But I'm tired now, really tired. Feel bad for Lisa having to get up at 5:30am to work. I think we might've almost killed both bottles of wine. I think. I want my ring back though, it's somewhere in her couch. How is it that I'm with 2 good looking women drinking wine and smoking pot, we're all sleeping in the same room, and no loving amongst anyone? Thats just bad etiquette on me. Or good, but less entertaining. I'm going back to midwork daydreaming cause I'm not functioning well.

some may say..

I have a fascination with suicidal artists. I say, I have my reasons, but this looks good

http://www.lastdaysmovie.com/site.html

Yeah, yeah elephant sucked, I've heard it but haven't seen it, so lemme decide for myself.

ringtones

Aight, I want my obscure music on my phone. I've tried a couple of emails to my phone, but want to know if theres a site out there that you don't have to pay for shit and you still get reliable somewhat obscure phones. Hit me up.

you ever have one of those days?

Where you'd just rather be at home cleaning, cooking or anything? Damn I don't want to be at work. All I'm thinking about is what I'm making for dinner, the laundry i have to do, and the room cleaning i need. That and a good angel game thats on. Just get me home dammnit!

atleast the weathers nice

Saturday early afternoon. Drive up the coast, check a bunch of campsites (all full) drive back down coast to areas you thought/heard were still open, find out they're not. Drive through campground for 10 minutes to prove them wrong and bring a list of sites that are wide open and listen to mormon ranger asst tell me that we needed to pay $8 just to have driven through and that yeah it's due. We walked back to the car and chilled. I played 4 series of football with some kids, threw 2 tds, one interception for about 65 yrds. It was fun but the fat kid really isn't going to catch the ball. I put it right into his hands and he dropped it, the little kids just wanted to run and not catch anything. Either way, i finished that and we left graciously without paying our $8. We gave up and started driving home. It was right near measly's house but considering I haven't moved anybody's numbers from old phone to new phone I had no way of contacting him and couldn't drive to Pats house to get it as i wasn't driving. Boooo, either way we ate a fabulous lunch in Santa Barbara, toyed with the idea of the shot in the dark that it would be to head up to Mayo's house but decided insane sisters mixed with friends probably wouldn't fit. As we were driving home from the thoroughly enjoyful day of costal driving, Jeff and Shaunna called and offered up their abode. It is a block from the beach and she is 9 months pregnant with twins, and still had us over. We chilled, talked and didn't do a whole bunch but it was damn good company. Until 5:50 this morning when her lovebirds (parrots) started talking, yelling, fighting, playing hockey, and woke me up. it was good. I jammed two pillows on each ear and went back to bed holding that position for another 2 hours. We went to the beach hung out, and went back to house, burned the doober. Drove back to the valley heat bowl. Seriously and increase in temp of about 30 degrees. I was wearing sweats dammnit. Still a good weekend jaunt with old friends. I gotta go change it's way too hot.

we'll see how this pans out

I'm going to try a writing experiment. Myspace has been falling out of my favor with all the hoodlums and perverts. I've never been much for putting my name on it. It's been many and I'll have to recollect before I've posted them all. At one point i had like 7 profiles on friendster. It's been a while. It's like that yahoo acct that you forgot the password to. I have decided to try writing stories about many people and creating whole lives and profiles for them then live as them as the conversation merits. If it's rich, then i create another one. But if it stutters, then i move on to the next story. It'll be a practice for a while as my creative writing is rusty. But I think it's original for something like this microcausm called myspace and you saw it start here.

http://www.myspace.com/133087

Thats my profile, I'm figuring out how to archive the blog so i can start it over. And your comment for me will be deleted unless it was a cool one. Abusive Jesus will live on forever. we'll see, I'll post you on new identities and stories as they're inspired. i'm only beginning to master this internet thing, but my reign will be sweet. I'll tell more as the idea flowers. If it does.

Flame on!!!!

i forgot what i was gonna write here

.....

yeah well, i went to a seminar where I learned interesting things for computer geeks. It was really informative, but I can spare you the details. I have to do it again. Making a nice tasty picnic lunch for myself was the hilight, and reading the paper. I'm helping oyie make some shirts and watching the rest of the angel game then making dinner. Gimme dinner suggestions that are quick and easy, that involve lettuce, chicken, smoked sausage, ground beef, tritip, onions, bell peppers, tortillas, broccoli, cheese, spices, herbs, marinade, limes, wine. I dunno thats what I got, help me out and I'll let you know if it'll hit the pit or not.

I gots tons of drink makins too, (a whole bottle of makers mark-thanks to marzia) vodka, scotch, "liquid panty remover" you'd know if you ever came to my house. It's orange, it's in the freezer and you like it. Pop, bitters, tequila (though i'm not partial), rum, triple sec, puckers, beer.

I'm leaning toward a beer chicken, with a lemon rosemary pepper rub, broccoli peppers, olives, pasta salad, beer bread (gmas recipe-you'd love it trust me, no beer effects of it). I can also makes mom's lumberjack mac and cheese. Shit is good trust me. In fact I might go for that but it'd be a bit warm for 100+ degree weather and no ac. S'okay, some good grass, a bit of wine, my ipod and the kitchen.


I saw something on a notebook that was in my old closet at moms from middle school and I wrote what I saw on the back of a desk, it said:

Grass, Ass, or Gas....no one rides for free!

I think thats my next shirt or something like it designed up. Iconic like.




pasta, wish it was deeper bit beeyonce feat 50 cent came on itunes while I was writing and i didn't change it. It's actually pretty fly. not heavy on my rotation....i gotta quit smokin and typin, shits dangerous.

I love me my museums

Went to LACounty Museum of Art. Met up with Byrd and me ma and got to shoot the shit with Byrd before we went in. He's like my surrogate gay uncle that I've loved like a family member since I was an ittybitty. Also a damn good artist. We started to get into the 2 hour line when one of the ushers grabbed us and ushered us to a line where there was no line, they just zipped us to the front door where we waited about 2 minutes. Place was crowded as hell inside. Good thing they copied all the artifact notes on another placard and put it in front and up high for the people like me that can see over others. I feel kinda bad about King Tutankhamun as this was a nice exhibit of ceremonial artifacts and the such. There was nothing that was normal everyday life, only the artifacts from teh tomb and he was royalty so this was primo stuff. My gripe is that this is someones tomb and it's been thoroughly desecrated. Either way everything was really beautiful, thats for sure. What ticked me off was that if they're going to have all this stuff, I wanted to see the bust or mask from tut's sarcophagus. Nope. They had a digital life size image of his full body ct-scan that changed from every level and had some of the funerary jewelry he wore. It was beautifully done. All the jewelry was awesome but he's considered a god, why wouldn't he have the finest? It was okay, too crowded. I couldn't wait to get out once I got to the last 1/3 of it, and the gift shop sucked. Tons of chotzkes, and nothing that even made me look at it too long.

We all then went to Callendars, which is an upscale Marie Callendars (not what you think really), pretty good restaurant that we usually hit after a show there. But I was happy and ate some good cajun trout. Check it if you really like ancient egypt as it's not a bad show at all, but it's not the Egyptian exhibit from the 80's when the whole shabang was here. Just get ready to wait in line.

I'm skipping my helpdesk seminar Thurs, who's comin with me?

ALSO ON THUR


National Air Guitar Championships
Thur 7.14 (8pm) Key Club (9039 Sunset Blvd, W Hollywood, 310.786.1712) map $15 / $12 advance

Event Info
Not since a pre-icky-business-Tom Cruise shook his tighty whiteys has air guitar been this much fun. At tonight's finals, first LA's axe ace is anointed and then the National Champion is crowned. The guitar may be imaginary, but the rocking out is real. (SND)

i feel like i had a baby....

but without the tearing, bleeding, sweating, back pain, extreme pain, labor and all that good stuff. I actually got kelly to go walking and we did the 5 miles, and shit does my pelvis hurt. Other than that I feel damn good but did the bike ride route on foot. Damn kid! why'd you have to walk so fast with your short legs. My long legs hurt alot more when they gotta go fast! I'm not walking tonight, I'll check you tomorrow!

can i make this last weekend a do over?

Friday we took off straight from work to hit up the OC and saw Moving Units at House of Blues Anaheim with the Wellands. They were good, but need to lay off the smack as they din't look too good. I was on a mission to put the week behind me and drank too much. I felt fine til I got in the car and that was it. I was out and so was my stomach. I'll leave it at that. The next day I finally picked up a new cellie so I can make calls again. Look out for odd pics from me randomly in my world.

Saturday, we tooled back down to the OC and hit up an Angel game with the Wellands. Angels got beat, embarrassingly enough. Now I'm 0-1 on home games dammnit. I'll have to go to a couple more to get the percentage up. But it was a bummer watching them loose. I think it's cause we didn't do the usual seat change to really good seats and watch from field level.



Yesterday had the motivation to make a couple shirts and do not a whole lot of anything else. I'm cleaning today. I did make it over to Mann's Chinese Theater and saw War of the Worlds. Ehhhhhh, it was alright. Not great, not bad, but not great. Let me know what you thought as to how it ended cause I'm not sure still as to how or why it ended the way it did.

Home run derby tonight, then I get to TIVO the all star game tomorrow as I'm going to see artifacts from King Tut. This is a really hot ticket item so I'm jazzed that I get to go, plus ma is damn fun to analyze art with, it's something we've done since I was a wee little laddie. I can hardly wait to get home and clean though as seriously, I couldn't get motivated. I looked on ebay to see if I could buy motivation, but alas, none to be found.

okay

So we watched the Forgotten last night. For about 3/4 of the movie, it's really good. If you have kids then it'll be disturbing, but you get to the end and you wish the dvd, the box, the memory, the idea of the movie would shoot out the damn roof. I hated that ending. There were quite a few moments that I thought it was crazy good, the car accident, the people getting sucked out from where they're at into nowhere. But by the end you wish you had "forgotten" the whole damn movie. We noticed at the beginning that there was an alternate ending. Alternate nothing. I wish that I could forget that one even more. It just left me pissed that 3/4 of a movie could be so good just to fail. Sorry if I ruined it, but you don't want that taste in your mouth. Thank god my sister or mom paid for it as I woulda been ticked that I paid money for it. I'm gonna go over to my moms house tonight to hang with the nephews one last time before they go home. I think they miss their ma, but I'll do my best to have fun. Gramma is doing tons of cool stuff with em but they get bored when she has to do her regular daily stuff and leaves them to play on their own. I'll do my best to keep em busy, even if I have to play kick ball until I'm sick of playing kickball. Or talk star wars. Either way.

This weekend can't come fast enough. We're going to see moving units friday night and then we're going to the Angel game on Saturday. Yeah baby! I'll look wicked stupid in all my red, you can guarantee. Red's my least favorite color but if it has anything to do with the Angels, I'm busting it out. Sunday I'm getting a new phone, I hope. So for those of you that wonder why I don't call or pick up my phone, it's cause my battery lasts about a minute and then dies, and I don't have the ability to call outside my area code on the home phone. Seriously, i know it sucks, but it'll get better as I really need a new phone.

I also have the rest of the photos from the trip so I will only have a couple more posts to go about Costa Rica and then you can start hearing about the pending trip to the Philipines. Woohaa!

wtf?

I'm trying to post, as I have much to say, but it's a busy day in west LA and computers are calling me much louder than everyone else.

Happy 4th

So I got to spend time with all the nephews and niece. It was awesome and did more star wars stuff, more kick ball, a couple trips to Target. Then mom made some kick ass rubbed ribs, corn on the cob, watermelon, and brats. T'was good. Then my mom, and two nephews (who are staying with gramma for the week sans mom) went to a buddies house. His brother is a fireman and a cop and he gets professional grade fireworks and we all got a grand front row show of some really cool fireworks. It was awesome. I'm exhausted tho as I'm back at work and apparently is everyone else and they have all seemed to forget how to use their computers so they're all calling. Tons of overtime today and i'll see if I even get a lunch break. What I wouldn't give to be at home doing laundry. May Buddha help me!

Hope all of yours was as good as mine.

Nephew exercise

Saturday, I got up early and headed to moms as my sister and her two boys were over there. They called me good and early to make sure I was coming over, of course i was but the sun needed to come up. No I surely didn't get home at 4:30 in the morning after watching a girlfriend of mine pee on someones lawn, after a night out with friends just to have the ones tending to her go back to their house for sweet lovin, then get to hold her damn hair while she puked. We sat and talked for a while until she felt good enough atleast to get to my house, but thankfully she sobered up when someone pulled up and shined their lights on her while she was busting the technicolor yawn. She got up to try to fight this person when I yelled out CHILL, oh SHIT!! nice dress. It turned out to be an extremely gay man in a Marilyn Monroe dress. He got out and they bitched at each other for a few minutes until I broke in and started critiquing his/her dress-hat combination in relation to his shaved head and bright lipstick. She cooled down really quick and we all actually rapped for about 30 minutes. Pretty cool guy.....girl, queen....whatever. Drove her to my house and was convinced she was now sober enough to drive home. After drinking all of my Gatorade.

Either way I was up bright and early and went to Mom's and dug for hours in a hotass garage for all my old star wars figures in long ago buried boxes. You see my nephews are currently obsessed with star wars. OBSESSED. I was too at their age so we debated the different merits from the old ones compared to the new ones. I insisted that they would not outdebate me, but they are 8 and 6 and do a pretty good job. However the debate was over when the older stated that Attack of the Clones was the best of all of them. I heartily disagreed and decided if i was to remain wonder-uncle that i must let the conversation die. However we then went inside and watched what else? Star Wars. Then we played kick ball, three flies up and a couple other games, walked to 7-11 and got slurpees, then ate dinner bathed, and went to bed after reading from the Empire Strikes Back book. All the while their mother was feeling like crap and decided to turn in. Did I mention I did the dishes too? Mom and Grandma got the afternoon off. Thank you, TEO. Hear that, it's my horn and I'm tootin the damn thing.

Today I went over to the brothers house and played with his son and got to hold the niece quite a bit (cute lile pudge). Everyone met over there and we all went out to BFE (aka-Norco-Corona; its a desert with alot of horses) at my aunts house for a bbq/party. It was pretty cool, house is pretty new and they have it decked out. They have about 8 sheep, 3 horses, and a dog. The horses are cool as hell and one is the horse my aunt got when i was 5 so we knew each other and she got a rub down from me that she won't soon forget. The male horse was jason and stood about 7 and a half feet tall. Friggin thing was huge. Dunno what breed, but he liked to nip at me and try to get the buttons off my shirt. There was also a moon bounce and tons and tons of food and soda for the kids to enjoy. I spent the day entertaining the older nephews, and keeping an eye on the younger one as he kept running into the tack house. After the million kids rode the horse, lil Chris got up on the horse with me and walked around. Pic will follow as it needs to get developed (what the hell is developing again?). I'm thoroughly tired and a bit sunburned....again. What sucked is all the hot moms thought I was my nephews dad. I don't think so, and well, quite a few seemed single, some were disgusting but no regular ladies my age, either teens or moms. Oh well, I'm good with kids so they all thought i was dad. We got back to my brothers house and played with my youngest nephew for a while and now I'm home and I smell like a barn. I think I want to shower and take a nap, then fold laundry. I'll continue my domestic weekend. Although, I've had one drink to calm me down and I'm buzzed and tired. Too much Vitamin D from senor sun. I may just watch a movie and sleep. I will fold in the morning considering I can't sleep past 7am.

June 18th

So we got up this morning and it wasn't all that great of a sleep. I woke up at 3:55 because the friggin rooster outside my window decided it was a good time for me to get up and go fish or something. I said FU bird and put in earplugs and got another couple hours of sleep. I got up and went and sat on the balcony. These were our friends. Kinda funny, Cat on a hot tin roof, literally.



It was already really hot. We decided to shave Darrens head. It was the theme of the trip, we all had pretty long hair before going and were going to lose it while we were down there for the shear heat factor.



It was pretty cool, that morning a whole bunch of school kids were walking on the beach picking up trash. It was nice to see. I used to do that alot when I was in cub scouts.



And this is Flea, sorry no pics of Tick. This is pretty much where he sat if he wasn't in our chairs or rubbing on dead fish. He really was a sweet dog, and whenever we got up and went to the beach he went with us, no matter what. I'll put the other pic up later.



We decided we were gonna go hit the zipline canopy tour. This shit was cool and we heard nothing but good things so we hut up the last one of the day. It was about a 2 1/2 hour deal and cost $50, but it was worth every single freaking penny.










And then it started raining harder than I've ever seen it rain before. Seriously. Even the monkeys got the hell out of the trees. It was nuts. But even worse with the mom that had really big fake boobs, a white tshirt, no bra and her 19 year old son and his friend. That had to have been fun for the friend. She was a bit embarrassed cause even the guides were making fun of her. Sorry no pics.




We finished that and it was really one of the coolest things I've done in my life and well worth the moolah. We wrung our clothes out cause we were soaked, really, really soaked. We all got back to the house and tried to get our clothes to dry out, took showers, and chilled. Darren and Jaime took the car into town and started to look for a hotel. The rest of us said fuck it and wanted to stay at the house. Hell it costs us each $40 bucks for the whole stay. Oyie, Vic and I sat and read and then Oyie, Flea and I walked on the beach that looked like this hours after a torrential rain.



got a ways down and went back and read some more. We then all went into town and checked out some restaurants and found Wishbones that we pretty much ate at the rest of the time. This is the night that I ate the food that got me sick. A friend later told me its the cheese. He asked me if I ate any and in fact tonight I ate the cheese wrapped fajitas which were damn tasty now but the next day ruined me until well, I'm still feeling the effects. Either way this place was cool. We finished this off and dropped Darren and Jaime off at their hotel in town. Darren was feeling really bad with what I was about to get and wanted to go to bed. Oyie, Vic and I went back to the house after driving through tons of rain and trying to get a phone card so they could call their dads and wish em a happy fathers day. And checking out an overturned car on the side of the road that probably almost got hit by a tour bus in the rain. Again really hard to see, espesh while driving. We sat at the house and watched Frantic with Harrison Ford. Not much to do in the rain but drink beer and sweat. But now we have incense mosquito repellent. This is when they stopped biting me. Finally!

happy friday

So we had a half day and work, and about a 1/4 of the way through it, we had a catered lunch, the whole, office. After we were done with that, we were done for the day. It was pretty cool. I didn't know more than 10 of the 170 someodd people, yet who was the first to volunteer to get a pie in the face? Yeah you know it. I goaded those people like you wouldn't believe and now that I'm home and the whipped cream is starting to sour, i realize I have to take a shower. I heard alot of "who is that guy" cause I really let people have it that couldn't hit me, but thats alright. I stink now and they don't.

You Go Brooke!

Scientologists scare me. It's ironic that Tom Cruise can call psychiatry a pseudo-science when Scientology (oxymoron in itself) is a pseudo-religion. I can't say he's even that great of an actor, as his exremeisms have shown up in his acting techniques in my opinion in his latest movies. But the mind control of dianetics (the skeptics should see the following- http://skepdic.com/dianetic.html) is proven in his latest, seemingly, hysterical outbursts and fits of "mad-passion" for his latest fiance. Seriously, Save Katie! Before it's too late. I'm just greatful that Penelope escapes the clutches of the late L. Ron Hubbard.

Following is Brooke Shields op-ed from todays NYTimes.


I WAS hoping it wouldn't come to this, but after Tom Cruise's interview with Matt Lauer on the NBC show "Today" last week, I feel compelled to speak not just for myself but also for the hundreds of thousands of women who have suffered from postpartum depression. While Mr. Cruise says that Mr. Lauer and I do not "understand the history of psychiatry," I'm going to take a wild guess and say that Mr. Cruise has never suffered from postpartum depression.

Postpartum depression is caused by the hormonal shifts that occur after childbirth. During pregnancy, a woman's level of estrogen and progesterone greatly increases; then, in the first 24 hours after childbirth, the amount of these hormones rapidly drops to normal, nonpregnant levels. This change in hormone levels can lead to reactions that range from restlessness and irritability to feelings of sadness and hopelessness.

I never thought I would have postpartum depression. After two years of trying to conceive and several attempts at in vitro fertilization, I thought I would be overjoyed when my daughter, Rowan Francis, was born in the spring of 2003. But instead I felt completely overwhelmed. This baby was a stranger to me. I didn't know what to do with her. I didn't feel at all joyful. I attributed feelings of doom to simple fatigue and figured that they would eventually go away. But they didn't; in fact, they got worse.

I couldn't bear the sound of Rowan crying, and I dreaded the moments my husband would bring her to me. I wanted her to disappear. I wanted to disappear. At my lowest points, I thought of swallowing a bottle of pills or jumping out the window of my apartment.

I couldn't believe it when my doctor told me that I was suffering from postpartum depression and gave me a prescription for the antidepressant Paxil. I wasn't thrilled to be taking drugs. In fact, I prematurely stopped taking them and had a relapse that almost led me to drive my car into a wall with Rowan in the backseat. But the drugs, along with weekly therapy sessions, are what saved me - and my family.

Since writing about my experiences with the disease, I have been approached by many women who have told me their stories and thanked me for opening up about a topic that is often not discussed because of fear, shame or lack of support and information. Experts estimate that one in 10 women suffer, usually in silence, with this treatable disease. We are living in an era of so-called family values, yet because almost all of the postnatal focus is on the baby, mothers are overlooked and left behind to endure what can be very dark times.

And comments like those made by Tom Cruise are a disservice to mothers everywhere. To suggest that I was wrong to take drugs to deal with my depression, and that instead I should have taken vitamins and exercised shows an utter lack of understanding about postpartum depression and childbirth in general.

If any good can come of Mr. Cruise's ridiculous rant, let's hope that it gives much-needed attention to a serious disease. Perhaps now is the time to call on doctors, particularly obstetricians and pediatricians, to screen for postpartum depression. After all, during the first three months after childbirth, you see a pediatrician at least three times. While pediatricians are trained to take care of children, it would make sense for them to talk with new mothers, ask questions and inform them of the symptoms and treatment should they show signs of postpartum depression.

In a strange way, it was comforting to me when my obstetrician told me that my feelings of extreme despair and my suicidal thoughts were directly tied to a biochemical shift in my body. Once we admit that postpartum is a serious medical condition, then the treatment becomes more available and socially acceptable. With a doctor's care, I have since tapered off the medication, but without it, I wouldn't have become the loving parent I am today.

So, there you have it. It's not the history of psychiatry, but it is my history, personal and real.

Brooke Shields, the author of "Down Came the Rain: My Journey Through Postpartum Depression," is starring in the musical "Chicago" in London.