I’m watching the House [Congressional] hearings on steroid use by athletes–and Roger Clemens, the best baseball pitcher ever, was flatly denying he used any performance enhancers, period. Brian McNamee, his former trainer at the New York Yankees, disagrees and swears he did the injecting…personally.
A reason for the hearings, according to one of the Congressman: Sports figures are heroes to children and if the kids learn that their heroes use steroids to play better and become famous, they will do the same.
The hearings are embarrassing and painful to listen to. Once close friends forced to testify against each other, can you imagine?
What about the movie stars who use botox, face lifts of all kinds, breast enlarging, gastric banding, you get the idea, to improve their box office (and more importantly, DVD) sales?
Just like sports figures, don’t a lot of kids look up to movie stars, too? And, don’t children want to look exactly like them, and aren’t they willing, at a very young age, to go through major face (not just nose jobs) and body changes…..because these kids don’t like what they look like and will do anything to resemble Angeline Jolie.
Will the beautiful people be dragged before a Congressional Committee on the use of beauty aids and surgery to improve looks?
Is there really an ethical difference between someone who goes to the vitamin and supplement store to improve their fitness so they can be their very best– and these athletes and movie stars who use steriods and surgery to accomplish career advantage?
I got my Coastside County Water notice of possible rationing….which must mean the water spigot’s going to be heavily monitored. Why would anyone waste so much money for postage and envelopes? The final water rationing decisions are made by San Francisco, by the way.
Aside from water needed for our usual daily needs, if you enjoy your garden, your green plants and lovely flowers will be victims.
This being, it seems to me, the century of phoniness, where little that is happening or told to us is “real”—pardon me, if I’m being too cynical–whoever comes up with a water-less flower will strike it rich. [And I’m not talking about plastic flowers, ok?]
From: Coastside Cultural Resources of San Mateo County, California (1982)
The Spanish Colonial Revival style structure, also known as Mediterranean, is identified by red roof tile and stark white stucco; although many of these structures today are painted in various hues. There was originally little color, except for the terra cotta of the tile and (frequently) the burnt sienna paint on the wooden window frames. Ornamentation is restrained, with wood or wrought iron used for second-story balcony railings on larger homes and window grills on cottages. Arches are common, either in the front porch, front windows, front door, or all three. Extending from the side of many Spanish Colonial Revival style homes is a stucco wing, with another arched opening. Depending on its size, it may be an entrance to the backyard or to the garage.
Last night, I watched part of the CNN Democratic debate with the two surviving candidates: Hillary and Obama.
Suddenly it seems as if the other “hopefuls” have dropped away overnight. It happened very fast.
What struck me was the love fest. It made us viewers feel good, sure, it did–but isn’t it strange that Hillary and Obama should become so smoochey after they’d been criticized for doing the opposite? For attacking each other on what some called superficial issues?
Who are they listening to?
True, the pundits complained on MSNBC, FOX, CNN & etc. The complaints I’m referring to were Hillary & Obama’s use of traditional (gotcha!) political strategy.
Now, it’s as if the script has been re-written. At least for one night: Let’s try this scene, the writer, director and producer suggested. Let’ see what happens, what the audience says.
And that’s what we got last night: a new scene. Act II called “Let’s Make Lovey-Dovey.”
While it was, indeed, a departure from the expected, would we really want to see Hillary and Obama smiling and supporting each other at all the debates? Wouldn’t their television encounters become dull?
In the end, it’s not the kind of political entertainment we have become accustomed to.
——–
My friend Lynn says: “My opinion? They are aligning themselves for a Clinton/Obama ticket or an Obama/Clinton ticket so they must play nice. Although I don’t know if Hilary would settle for second place. ”
“So you saw Mick Jagger at a Rolling Stones concert. You saw him through the binoculars, man. That’s about as close as you’re going to get.”–Pete Douglas
âThe Bach Society: Every Sunday the Douglas Beach House Becomes an Intimate Setting For Jazz by the Seaâ?
âNobody knew what was going to happen next. Joey Baron was hitting every surface of those drums. He was exploring the undersides of the cymbals, licking his fingers and moaning them across the skins, even hitting the metal stands. His eyes were closed tight, and his black curls shook with the eruptions of his jazz artistâs hands. The sound was like some weird, exciting Indian mystic dream. Even band-leaders Red Rodney and Ira Sullivan looked on in total awe.
âThere was not an unspell-bound set of eyes at the Sunday afternoon session of the Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society as jazz drummer Joey Baron was doing his jobânamely, tearing down and totally reassembling everybodyâs concept of what his instrument could be. As the last of the sunâs rays were hitting the Douglas Beach House at Miramar on Half Moon Bay, Baron was playing jazz.
âA lot of people are intimidated by modern jazz. To paraphrase former down beat editor Grover Sales, jazz musicians have always pushed the technical frontiers of their instruments far beyond classical boundaries, doing things with brass, reeds, the string bass, and drums that symphony players said couldnât—or shouldnâtâbe done.
âBut in the mind of Pete Douglas, jazz impresario of the beachfront Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society, the spontaneity and avant-garde sound of bebop, as played by Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonius Monk, is nothing to be intimidated about.
âWhy are we intimidated?â? a reflective Douglas asks. âJazz musicians of the modern period did not write their music to intimidate us. Itâs part of us. Our musicians are a part of ourselves and when theyâre at their best, weâre going to make discoveries about ourselves. Itâs not a commercial product to appeal to our easiest emotions. Itâs something thatâs digging in and presenting in its different ways what weâre all about.
ââIf we choose to hear the best of our culture, weâre going to enjoy life better, weâre going to know more about what weâre about, and weâre going to have a never- ending venture about life. And what the hell else is there?â
âOver the past two decades, this kind of dedication in the brillance of bebop has been the trademark of Douglasâ Oceanside jazz hangout. Pete Douglasâ âBach Societyâ is special because itâs one of the few small intimate jazz clubs left in the United States where the legends of jazz routinely play.
âHeâs spent his adult life advocating jazz and today, at 57, Pete Douglas is like a patriach of the modern scene. With the hip, bohemian intellect of the 1950s, Douglas reflects, through a wreath of pipe smoke, on the scarcity of small jazz clubs like his own.
ââSince the early modern jazz scene things have changed in the whole entertainment world, man. In the pre-television era, people went out more. They went to clubs and followed their musicians. They singled them out in public, became personal with them. They compared them, man, like swapping baseball cards. It used to be that you hung out in jazz clubs and started picking upon the names and started following these people.
ââWell how can you do that now, when we donât have hardly any small jazz clubs to go and heart great jazz in anymore? Record stores donât let you play the records so you can learn about different bands or particular instrumentalists. And all thatâs left over are these major concerts and festivals where youâre far removed from these musicians and the chance to even talk to them.
