scattered, smothered and incarcerated

apparently, our favorite "hick-hopper" kid rock was arrested this weekend in dekalb, georgia.

according to the atlanta journal-constitution, he "...was finishing up a post-show meal at a Waffle House on Buford Highway about 5:15 a.m. Sunday when a customer recognized a woman in his entourage and began exchanging words with her.

Ritchie joined in the altercation, which soon escalated into a physical fight between the rocker and the man."

kid rock's entourage then jumped into the fight, beat the guy up in the parking lot, got on their giant tour bus and left! because that's what famous people do. they were pulled over, arrested on misdemeanor battery charges, posted bail and paid their fine.

and what happened to the dude who got beat up? why, he was charged with felony criminal damage to property because he broke a window at the waffle house [which costs $500].

i don't know which puzzles me more:

1. kid rock and 5 of his giant friends beat up a guy and they get out of jail on a misdemeanor.

2. a waffle house window costs $500.

3. one guy could break said $500 window.

4. what could be more important than the food at waffle house.

honestly, people. i'm pretty sure angels come down from heaven to snack on waffle house hashbrowns.

but are there nuts in the bread?

recently i was at a dinner party and was asked who i favored as a political candidate.

i felt that my initial response [gagging and spitting my beer across the table] would be considered gauche, so i smiled sweetly and said 'you know, i haven't completely decided.' i tried to impart my philosophy [which admittedly i had determined that exact moment], namely, that political candidates are much like bread in the initial stages; what we have right now are a bunch of blobs of yeast half-risen and ingredients still congealing. nothing that can be considered dough ready for the oven, much less warm loaves of bread.

the older i get and the more informed i get, the more hopeless i feel. politicians, it seems to me, are all the same. it doesn't matter what their party affiliation, their leanings, or their "stances" on the "issues" - it's all a moot point and can change once they reach office. and do the subtle distinctions between candidates actually mean anything? is rudy guiliani that much better than hilary clinton. or vice versa? at this point, i would consider herbert hoover over any of the candidates. everyone sort of bleeds together, like cheap fabric dye in a public laundromat machine: the minutiae will culminate into an overall theme: we're fucked.

so at this dinner party, everyone started talking about how much they love barack obama. and i think that's great. i hope that the fervor these 11 people had for him translates across the country. i hope a fervor for one candidate means a fervor for change. clearly things here need to change. clearly people need to take a stand for change - to want to reverse decisions that aren't working out so well for us all right now. to help ourselves as a country and as a people. as far as i can tell, the list of things that need to change [health care, the iraq war, public education, the economy, our constitutional rights, and so on] is a lot longer than the list of things that don't need to change [our national anthem, baseball as the national pastime, the food pyramid, etc.].

i hope the next president can help the american people more than this current one has. this president, to hearken back to my bread metaphor, was definitely not ready to come out of the oven so soon.

dan becomes blogger

my fabulous friend dan has started blogging!

check him out at : www.gilbysworld.blogspot.com

he's quite the adventurer and is an old-school romantic [ie: loves travel and books and food and people].

he also once made me laugh so hard that i fell down.

i still have the scar on my knee to prove it.

welcome to blogging, dan!

question number 9

just a quick question, for anyone out in that vast void of readership:

at what point do we stop feeling punched in the gut when faced with an ex's apparent successes and happiness?

rock of yawn

alright, y'all. i just watched the rock of love:reunion show.

yawn.

oh, i'm sorry. i totally just fell asleep.

what a BORE. i nearly started vacuuming again just to feel like the earth was still spinning on its axis. i've watched paint drying with more interest. my disappointment in this show is so overwhelming, i'm nearly at a loss for words. nearly. so i'll order my thoughts in list form:

1. riki rachtman as the host. really, ricky? really? this is what you're doing now? hosting the rock of love reunion show? you went from hosting headbanger's ball to the reunion show for rock of love? and your quips. oh, riki. i'd like to punch you in the face for your "quips". when lacey and heather put aside their feud and hug as friends for the show, you chirp with a sickened look on your face "why don't you two hug and make out?" honestly, riki. i've heard 14 year old boys with more pride and better commenting skills. eesh. i feel BAD for you. i honestly do. between you doing this and kurt loder wearing as much eyeliner as john cusack, i can truly admit that i've lost all respect for the old guard of mtv.

2. here's what the vh1 webpage for rock of love says about this episode:
It's reunion time and Bret has gathered all of his ladies for one more night of bawling and brawling. Two of the girls reveal that they have not only moved in together, but that they're sharing the same bed. And then things get even hotter as the girls confront the house troublemaker over past wrongs and host Riki Rachtman has to step in to save Bret from the emotional attack from one contestant who feels that she was used and then cast aside by the rocker. But the biggest sparks fly when Bret is reunited with his "Rock of Love" winner for the very first time since the finale 6 months ago.

a] i must have passed out during the two girls revealing that they're lovers. totally missed that. but i'll tell you this: i saw nothing hot about the confrontation of lacey. it was basically a total publicity stunt for her: her lame band played and she jumped around in tight black hot pants and shrieked about shallow girls. i mean, if she lives off of her investments [as her dad explained in the parents' visit episode], then that means she can spend all of her time practicing her craft, yes? then it should stand to reason that she shouldn't be this bad, yes? ok. just checking.

b] riki didn't have to step nowhere for nothing. i'm assuming this is referring to heather and bret's meeting. there was no emotional attack. unless by emotional attack you mean 'hanging out and giggling about corn nuts' because that's pretty much what happened. it was like the time wyatt and his friend from college who he'd fallen out with about something stupid met up at a bar randomly in ft. lauderdale and within 15 minutes it was like no time had passed and there had been no fight. really, vh1, you're totally mis-representing this snooze fest.

c] sparks flying with bret and jes meeting up. um, yeah. no. not a one. bigger sparks have flown between me and my toenail polish. watching them "reunite" after 6 months apart was like watching my mom and her hair dresser see each other after 6 months. but with less excitement. my mom's pretty bubbly and effusive.

3. since when did men start wearing so much eyeliner? honestly. maybe i'm about 4 years behind this trend, but good god people, did dave navarro involve you all in some sort of eye make-up pyramid scheme? suddenly everywhere i look, people possessing that y chromosome are attacking their lids with kohl. crikey.

4. jes and bret's meeting. wow. nothing. she told him he made a mistake and he should have picked heather. and you know what? on any other show this revelation [or an equivalent] would've had me on the phone with audrey. when jes said that, i kinda went 'mmmm. yes. ok.' she seemed unsurprised by the entire situation. she's a composed lass. a little TOO composed, if you ask me. her reaction was exactly like in college when i hooked up with this kid brian and we went out on a mess of dates for about 2 weeks. then, i went to london for a semester abroad with audrey. i got back, totally disinterested in him: i'd been to london, had sobered up, developed a taste for british lads, had sobered up and returned to school months later totally over poor brian. and so when we ran into each other at the student union, i wasn't all that excited to see him. i was a little cold, a little stand-offish, a little disinterested, a little like...jes.

5. i swear i've seen every single one of these clips. are they saving the best un-aired stuff for the dvd? because i gotta tell you, if i never hear every rose has its thorn again it'll be too soon, so the impetus to buy the show dvd is pretty much nil here. give me something better, vh1! show me that you're good at this reality thing. you're all about celebreality, right? show me what you got! what happened to the surreal life? that was juicy! that was scandalous! this is...oh. what? huh? it appears i fell asleep again just THINKING about rock of love: reunion.

6. do big john and bret look especially rough? no, really, do they? also, what does big john do in real life? was that ever explained? is he really bret's main guy? i kinda like him, like i liked the bald bouncer on jerry springer. like him in a 'if he showed up at my house i'd let him fix my dripping faucet' kind of way.

7. really, does anyone know how to fix a leaky faucet?

just recapping this has bored me to a near-catatonic state. sigh. looks like bret's comeback show kinda fizzled out. much like poison...

how clean is your valley?

i've become obsessed with vacuuming.

ok, with cleaning in general.

ok, more obsessed that usual.

because of R2D2 over here. my adorable little wunderkind of a vacuum, the Kenmore Magic Blue.

he was a birthday present from my parents, and i'll admit that when i got him, i didn't open him up right away. my vacuum was doing alright, and i was pretty obsessed with the Swiffer, so i didn't feel a need to introduce myself to little R2 over here.

but last week, the old vacuum cleaner broke in an unholy way. i won't rehash the details, i'll just throw a few words at you: burnt cord, power surge, burnt motor, dust explosion.

i think you get the idea.

well R2 saved the day when Old Faithful [my vacuum cleaner who outlasted 8 boyfriends and their filth] finally went to that big showroom in the sky. and dammit if this thing isn't light and easy to use. my downstairs neighbors must HATE ME. i know stavros does. if there's one thing that cats really can't stand, it's vacuum cleaners. now, many will argue that the one thing cats can't stand is water or dogs or tape on their backs or loud noises or mice or birds or their owners. but believe me when i tell you that a cat would rather cozy up for eternity with any of those things rather than face a vacuum. so when i turned this puppy on this morning, stavros vanished with a rather bleating little noise and i haven't seen him all day.

which is fine, because that means he'll keep his hair contained to one area and not all over the damn place [including the upper corners of the apartment near the ceiling?!?!?!?].

it's amazing what a good vacuum can do for you. my allergies are better. the place feels nicer to come home to. i'm not spending an arm and a leg on swiffer sheets every week to clear up the dust that's all over the place.

riddle me this, new york: why in sam hill are you so dusty? i don't understand. i don't understand how i can dust and vacuum [and when i dust, i use the allergen free spray stuff and i do a for-real vacuum job, not just a once-over] on a sunday and by tuesday everything is covered in a layer of filth.

i grew up on the beach. i grew up with two brothers. we all surfed. we all played school sports. we were all teenagers at the same time. on the beach. in florida. where there is sand, dirt, grass, pine needles, shells, and various pieces of debris. our house was cleaner than my tiny little apartment is and my mom didn't vacuum nearly as much as i do now. it's become the national pastime here at bexhq. in fact, when i go home for visits, i love lying on the floor and playing with the dogs because the house is SO CLEAN.

is my mother that much better a cleaner than i am? i dunno, she taught me all i know plus she doesn't clean as often.

are there less people in her house, you ask? not really; between her and my dad and the two dogs, plus their random friends and the fact that they live ON THE BEACH, i don't see how that's less dirt than me, my roommate and her boyfriend [who are never here] and stavros, who hasn't left the house since february when i took him forcibly to the vet [my arm has just stopped looking like a prop from hellraiser 9].

so my only conclusion is: this city is DIRTY.

fact: after 1 full day of wandering around in my flip flops in new york, the soles of my feet are black. compare this to 1 full day of wandering around in my flip flops in new smyrna beach [my hometown] where the soles of my feet look like the soles of my feet. sort of khaki colored.

fact: the oscillating fan in my apartment has to be dusted once a week, otherwise the cage and the fan parts are covered in black furry dust. compare this to the oscillating fan in my apartment in college [same fan, same brand] that i never dusted. because it didn't need it.

fact: when my friend came to new york and rode around in the back of a truck for 8 hours [it was for work, don't ask] he blew his nose and his snot was BLACK. compare this to when he was in colorado and blowing his nose and his snot was, well, snotty colored.

is it the condensed nature of the city? all this exhaust, soot, fumes, dirt and grit has a finite amount of space to expand to, thus it expands onto us and then into our homes? is the same amount of exhaust, soot, fumes, dirt and grit in every city in the country but because those cities have more geographical room we don't notice the dirt as much?

it's something to think about. honestly, when you sit down and make a list of all the grody things about new york, all the things that make it a not-so-great-place-to-live, the list gets a little long and depressing. so why do we do it? why do millions of people cram themselves onto this tiny island so desperately?

it's not for our health, i'll tell you that. i don't care what the ratio of good doctors to patients here is: black snot ain't good for you. plus with the cost of health care and the amount of uninsured people...

oh i'm not getting up on my soap box. i'm going to go vacuum the crevice between the stove and the wall. at the very least i'll retrieve the knife my roommate dropped back there last night.