Dark Matter

Most of you know that I’ve been in bad financial straits for a bit.

I was scheduled to go to Austin, TX for NPS. I’ve been waiting for a ticket voucher I earned through a product rebate to book flights — it was for a full price ticket.

The voucher hasn’t arrived, so I started booking flights today, thinking I could scrape by with money.

I hunted all the appropriate websites. I found a decent fare (277 roundtrip) and booked it through Priceline.

Priceline took the booking, but stated that they were having processing trouble and would e-mail me the confirmation.

I received an e-mail about an hour later stating that the processing center had lost my information, and I had to rebook.

In that hour, the flight I’d looked to be on had gone up by close to 200 dollars.

I can’t afford to go — can’t drive because I need to sleep with my equipment and can’t do that in a car.

Unless I hit the lottery like now, I can’t go.

This is terrible — I had agreed to go to do a bunch of stuff, and now it’s all gone.

Last straw.

a rare sighting…

Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki says the US can go home anytime it wants, as one of his ministers expresses frustration that the country’s being treated like an experiment in an American Lab.

Here’s a link to the story: http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/07/14/iraq.military.ap/index.html

Seriously, this ought to be the test of whether or not Bush and Co. truly believe their crap rhetoric about Iraq being a representative democracy and a truly sovereign nation. If they want us out, we ought to go, no questions asked. That’s the way that stuff is supposed to work, right?

And as for the minister’s comments — really, is there anything to say about that that he didn’t say? He’s right, of course. And that’s precisely why the US troops aren’t going anywhere for a bit — say, 10 years or so.

This is funnier than it should be:

Hetfield Held Up for ‘Taliban’ Beard
AOL
Posted: 2007-07-09 10:13:25
Filed Under: Music

(July 9) — Metallica’s Live Earth performance almost faded to black before it even happened, thanks to British airport officials who held their lead singer at a terminal because of his “Taliban-like beard.”

According to the British newspaper The Times, as reported by the New Zealand Herald, metal pioneer James Hetfield was held up and subjected to a line of questioning due to his facial hair following a tense week in the United Kingdom after foiled terror plots and an attack in Scotland.

The Times reports that airport security officials were embarrassed and let Hetfield go after he explained he was a member of the legendary rock band.

Tangentially, I know it’s deeply uncool to say it, but I’m still a Metallica fan — I’ve liked all the albums from the beginning, and think the crap they take for not being the same band they started as is pretty uncalled for. If you’re writing the same poetry (oops, I mean music) at 40 that you were at 20, you’re pretty much, um, AC/DC. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I think change and experimentation are ok.

Rumors that Metallica’s next album will be named “Tales of the Great Satan” remain unconfirmed at press time.

Icchus has kind of stalled in his adjustment process — stays under the couch all day, then cries off and on and haunts you all night. I’m worried that it might be too much of a change for him — will give it another day or so and if it doesn’t shift much, I may have to return him.

sniffle.

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GotPoetry.com has a cool new feature that allows you to create a fully formatted chapbook from the finished poems you’ve posted on line at pretty much the push of a button.

I’ve been planning to play with it for a bit and create a new chapbook. Noticing that the theme of a lot of my poems lately have ot do with what it means to be “American.”

Anyone else have any interesting themes in the their work lately?

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Listening to Miles on a warm afternoon — specifically, “Seven Steps To Heaven” — is a glorious thing.

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I need a NYC fix soon. Would love to hunt down a feature for Duende, or myself solo as second choice; barring that, just get down and soak up some NYC summer.

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Business trips this week and next to McLean VA (this week, Thursday nite/Friday AM) and Harrisburg PA (next week, Thursday/Friday). The second one is a sudden request, which is good because I’m broker than broke right now — still dumbfounded as to how I’m going to afford Austin.

Speaking of which — I’ve been emailing Mike Henry in follow up to a couple of emails regarding NPS events he sent me a while back, and I’m getting no response. I know he’s crazy busy right now, but I am getting antsy about not having info. Any idea who to get in touch with that might be less crazed right now?

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I picked up two cheap CDs this PM when I was over at Circuit City getting a laptop stand (this thing gets warm). Both are of traditional Indian ragas, something I used to listen to a lot at one point. Am looking forward to this.

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I’m a hermit these days, but that’s OK. Waterfire in Providence tonight, I think — cheap and pretty.

He’s curled up next to me on the couch right now.

He doesn’t like flash photos, so I think I’ll wait till tomorrow to show him off.

Glad he’s settling in.

I’ll post pictures of him as soon as he comes out from under the couch.

He was out for about two hours this early AM, yowling and nervous…but then he went back under the couch and went back to sleep.

He did eat a little, I think…hard to tell.

to have at least one picture of my lovely cat Icchus posted here, if he ever comes out from under the couch.

Why?

Because I’m going to go get my CAT!

He’s joining the household today. I have missed him. YAY!

Photos later…

Yup — hard to believe, but there it is:

http://www.gotpoetry.com/News/article/sid=5401.html

If you read it and feel moved to comment, please comment there on the column, ok?

Utne Reader last month had a couple of thought provoking articles that I think the Left ought to be tuning into right now.

One details the steady decrease in the importance and impact of demonstrations and public protests as tools for change.

The other (written by an organizer of Food Not Bombs) deals with the myth of the success of non violent protest (yes, including Gandhi) and how violence has actually been the deciding force in most instances of social change where nonviolence is celebrated.

Food for thought, o peaceful ones.

It’s too hot to be alive right now. Maybe tomorrow?