Mickey Z

Cool Observer

Saturday, March 18, 2006

"That's what she said..."

Posted by Mickey Z on 03/18 at 07:39 AM

Top O’ the mornin to you Mickey, and to all yet to arrive here.
I like your Gimbel’s story. During WW2 my family moved to Philadelphia. We lived in the “project” there. Once in a while, Mom would take us to the big city. I still remember going to Gimbels (or was it Macy’s, no Gimbels) to see the Christmas decorations there.
I also like your quote about some of the troops finding their own exit strategy. It is interesting to see how often Rumsfeld uses the fact that ALL of the troops have volunteered to be in Iraq as a justification for keeping them there.
This is a big week-end for the Peace movement. Many people I know are going to Washington. Some VFP’ers are on a long march to New Orleans to protest the war. Today I will, once again return to the scene of my arrest. Some of us will stand vigil there. The sign that I will hold says, “STOP US WAR CRIMES”. I know that it won’t do any good but it is something I just have to do.

Posted by RMJ on from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts 03/18 at 08:17 AM

Good morning, RMJ. I also remember when a trip to Macy’s and Gimbel’s was practically required during Xmas season.

As for the protests this weekend, as you know, I’ve grown rather disillusioned with the same old approach. The UFPJ site (http://unitedforpeace.org) is declaring something like “3 years too many” as if U.S. war crimes were invented by Bush in 2003. I really feel like the stage is being set for a Democrat to run a strong anti-Bush campaign in 2008 and then perpetrate many of the same atrocities once in office (a la Clinton). The only difference will be that after a Dem is elected, half the protestors will go home as if their work is done.

Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 03/18 at 08:42 AM

Mickey, Your comment about protesters ignoring the war crimes committed during Democratic Administrations is so important. I am always confronted with the statement, “But what about Clinton”. I always agree that Clinton is also responsible. Fellow protesters usually don’t like it when I equally condemm the Dems. You also make an important point about how the peace protesters forget about the length of time that the USA has been bombing Iraq. I just happen to have just copied the statement below. It was made by Republican Rep. Ron Paul on 10/10/02.

“...Reality: The “no-fly zones” were never authorized by the United Nations, nor was their 12 year patrol by American and British fighter planes sanctioned by the United Nations. Under UN Security Council Resolution 688 (April, 1991), Iraq’s repression of the Kurds and Shi’ites was condemned, but there was no authorization for “no-fly zones,” much less airstrikes. The resolution only calls for member states to “contribute to humanitarian relief” in the Kurd and Shi’ite areas. Yet the US and British have been bombing Iraq in the “no-fly zones” for 12 years. While one can only condemn any country firing on our pilots, isn’t the real argument whether we should continue to bomb Iraq relentlessly? Just since 1998, some 40,000 sorties have been flown over Iraq....”

THE USA HAS BEEN BOMBING IRAQ SINCE 1991.

Posted by RMJ on from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts 03/18 at 09:08 AM

Department stores...I worked in one after high school. It’s called Foley’s, and it was a brand-new presence in Austin at that time, since all we’d had before was Joske’s and Scarbroughs and the national cheapies (Jacques Penney, Monkey Ward, Sears). Oh yeah, Dillard’s too, forgot about them as I still do.

So I, a callow 19-year-old, went to work in the China, Crystal, Silver, Bridal complex. For them as may not know yet, I’m kinda overbred, so I needed no lessons in the names and positions of the various flatware and chinaware pieces, and also (as my mother was an avid china collector) often knew the names of various patterns and how likely they were to be available.

I was, in short, insufferable, and useful. I got a reputation around town for knowing how to cut through indecision in brides and indifference in grooms to get to the meat of the matter (that’s what he said), and get the Happy Couple in the friggin’ mainframe so they could start receiving their $(&!^& stuff already.

Mothers, then as now, loved me. Even grooms took a shine to me, since I tried to keep things moving along.

Close to the end of my five years there, I was working while going to school and while in the grips of the worst most annihilating depression I can imagine, and if there’s worse I do NOT want to experience it. A couple came in to choose china. They asked one of the other shopgirls where I was, they’d heard SO much about me. Millie, God love her, barely looked up and gestured to where I was holding up the cash register.

The lovebirds (he was gay as a May morning and she couldn’t tell, silly little thing) were discussing the various patterns in a cheap section we hid behind the register stand. Prince Valiant (it was the 80s, the hair! the hair!) was grumbling about how much it cost (it was $20 a place setting faGodsake) and the bride was dithering between itsypinkfleurs and an equally ghastly whoopsieyellafleurs. They turned to me, leaning on the wall, and asked me what I thought.

Bad move. Unless you want the truth or a painfully transparent lie, never ask me what I think. Also, if I haven’t already chimed in with an opinion, means I don’t like it.

“Insipid. Blah colors and who wants to uncover a buncha damn flowers while gagging down cereal at 6am?”

They hustled off and complained I was rude and insensitive and so on and so on. I was called to the Big Boss’s office. She asked if this insanity was true...I said, “Yep, I said it and I meant it, and I quit.”

And from that day to this, after five years of top-producer sales and customer compliments every damn day, I have not so much as considered retail as a job. Too much standing around.

Posted by Mudge on from Austin 03/18 at 10:26 AM

MZ, Leigh Witchel’s blog is a nice tale, enjoyed it and thanks for posting the link! As to Camus, early May seems good.

Hi RMJ! I hope that, before you leave us in 2155, the need for your high-hearted protestin’ ways will at last be cause for celebrating not berating you publicly. Where stands the criminal court case?

And where, may I ask, is everyone else? Tub-thumping Michael said he’d be gone a while, so did Helga, but Chris and Owen and Keir are due...and forevermore, Joe, come home! I miss Hawk, too. CatLady’s just late, I don’t worry about him. And my dear Empress? Kind and gentle soul, where is your healing balm? Not to mention so many others. Is spring break for grown-ups, too? Where’s Jim from Oz?

Grumpf. It’s chilly and rainy today, that sort of negligible-amount-but-extra-wet rain that we get here in spring. Wish it was a steady thunderous downpour.

Posted by Mudge on from Austin 03/18 at 10:45 AM

Stirring:

“Any fool can destroy trees. They cannot defend themselves or run away. And few destroyers of trees ever plant any; nor can planting avail much toward restoring our grand aboriginal giants. It took more than three thousand years to make some of the oldest of the Sequoias, trees that are still standing in perfect strength and beauty, waving and singing in the mighty forests of the Sierra.”
--John Muir, naturalist, explorer, and writer
(1838-1914)
Captcha: Today >sigh< sad but true, even without Gale Norton

Posted by Mudge on from Austin 03/18 at 10:50 AM

Mudge, do you need the Empress’ healing balm for those hot nuts of yours? The ones that you bake with brussels sprouts and apples, of course. Well, I guess a quick story today from me would be mentioning my years’ long habit throughout adolescence of feeding brussels sproust either to my dog or the recessed radiator in the wall in the kitchen whenever my mom would make them-- to this day I fear a tree will sprout in the walls and collapse my mom’s house-- but but the real marvel is that you actually made them sound appealing in that recipe of yours, so bravo.

I’d share my recipe for walnut hummus, but I always forget the exact proportions. Basically replace whatever tahini you’d use, but go a bit heavier with the walnuts, because walnuts are damn good. And good for you. And okay, here’s my seasoning secret: ...oh how frustrating, I can’t find website for it, htere’s none on the container. Well it’s Ad-Vita vegetable soup mix, with a Brooklyn address on the label, no phone number. I can’t explain it, but nothing seasons hummus, or much of anything else, quite like it.

Posted by James on from Hell's Kitchen 03/18 at 11:00 AM

Ad-Vita? It sounds like something Lucy would hawk in a fake 50s commercial....

Posted by Mudge on from Austin 03/18 at 11:51 AM

Ah man, you’re right, now I do wish there was an online presence for the stuff. It’s basically vegetable bouillion powder… look for it in health food stores, if not regular supermarkets… although would Mudge burst into flames if he walked into a health food store?

The stuff has this parsley taste which is just right for hummus, can’t quite explain it. Anway, I’m off to Central Park, handing out leaflets about the big Auto-Free Central Park rally next week:
http://www.transalt.org/campaigns/cpark/index.html

Cars have been occupying Central Park even longer than the U.S. has been occupying Iraq…

Posted by James on from Hell's Kitchen 03/18 at 12:54 PM

Why am I hearing crickets chirping around here today?

Posted by Mudge on from Austin 03/18 at 03:02 PM

Hi Mickey, Mudge, and James....I just got home from the protest. It was so cold it would have taken 10 Mudges to warm me up. My hands are still numb.
Mudge #4, I knew that that was your comment as soon as I got to the crystal, china, silver and bridal part.
I know that protesting does no good. I think that Churchill called it feel good politics. That’s exactly what it is. It’s just that sometimes the frustration level gets so high, I gotta do something. Boycotts and exposing the Dems would do a lot more good but that’s not happening. About the Court case, the State Supreme Court is still trying to decide whether I should go to prison or grant the Appeal of my conviction and retry the case. Either decision is sure to anger some taxpayers, but then again, some people will probably be thrilled that this dangerous criminal is finally behind bars.

Posted by RMJ on from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts 03/18 at 03:38 PM

Hello Expendables. Just stopping in to quiet the crickets. We’re running around with moving-related stuff all day.

Be back soon…

Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 03/18 at 05:12 PM

Mickey, if you need to pick yourself up, or hey anyone who wants to try out something cool, get to Whole Foods or maybe your local Astoria h.f. store and try these: http://www.fieldroast.com/index.htm

I picked up the sausages from Whole Foods last night, not my favorite place to shop, but they got the selection and yeah, some real bargains. Some damn creative use of ‘grain-meat’-- italian style and ‘smoked apple sage’... mmm.

Also picked up the latest Veg News, and besides your column, hey-- have you seen Dennis Kucinich’s wife? Besides being like 7 feet taller than he is, she’s British and unbelieveable gorgeous. And oh yeah, vegan. Gotta work on my career in politics…

Talk later, man…

Posted by James on from Hell's Kitchen 03/18 at 06:24 PM

I went to the anti-war demo in Amsterdam today. Not feel-good politics, but feel bad politics. Just going through the motions, because an anniversary had been reached. And who the hell were those people waving the hammer and sickle? What the #### is that? I do it not to feel good, but to feel bad, to drink to the dregs my involvement in this non-movement.

Walking to the demo I noticed the long lines at Madame Tussauds---people waiting in the bitter cold to pay money to see a bad wax model of Jessica Simpson. (Who the #### is Jessica Simpson?) Far fewer people were there at the demo to hear the names of some 7,000 victims read out.

Inevitably, I spent the following few hours thinking about why it’s so bad, and what would be good. I thought of James---Hell’s Kitchen James---who asks here more than anyone what one can do, or how to be a decent person. Then this quote popped into my head...
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
---"Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver, from Dream Work (1986)

Posted by Keir on from The Hague 03/18 at 08:03 PM

Excellent quote, Keir! Owen sent a Bukowski poem around that I liked as well, ain’t we a literate bunch?!

Posted by Mudge on from Austin 03/18 at 08:46 PM

Hey thank, Keir. I live just blocks away from the main army recruitment station in Times Square (and oddly enough, also the NYC Tussaud’s), and just couldn’t feel motivated to check out whatever was going on there today. I don’t know, it would have been good for some potential interaction, I guess, but I just felt the weight of it like a lot of people have seemed to lately, of the irrelevance of our gestures toward the abstract/distant stuff, like the non-effect we have in protests, vs. the tangible impact we need to be making in our own lives. I mean don’t stop whatever worldly struggles we may have, but take care of ourselves, too and all that.

Let ourselves love what we love, whatever that could be. I think I’ll go look up Mary Oliver, and what I had playing in my iPod on my way back from grocery shopping was Working Class Hero.

...something to be, and if you want to be one, just follow… yourself, right?

Posted by James on from Hell's Kitchen 03/18 at 08:48 PM

Hello again, everyone. Michele and I haven’t moved in 14 years...wow, I forgot how hard this can be (that’s what she said). A full-time job.

Thanks for the great stories, quotes, and comments today. I’m confident things will pick up here. The prodigal Expendables will return and, perhaps, we’ll gain new members. I haven’t had the time (or ambition) to send articles to the lefty sites that post my stuff and that tends to bring in additional voices. With all that’s going on, I feel like anything I’d write is redundant.

Btw, Mudge, I got that Buk poem from Owen also and plan to post it here tomorrow.

In case I can’t get back here tonight: G’night, all.

Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 03/18 at 09:04 PM

I like your Gimbel’s story as well, Mickey! And the rest of the post and the graphics and ...
Back from Melbourne - now I’m playing catch-up on your blogspot and elsewhere.

THE USA HAS BEEN BOMBING IRAQ SINCE 1991. Indeed, Rosemarie!

And ‘hi’ to Mudge, James and Keir.
Mudge: a few days ago I had coffee at a cafe/bistro in the centre of Melbourne. The waitress sounded American, so I asked here where she was from and she replied, you guessed it, AUSTIN. A small world ..

Good night from Melbourne

Posted by Helga Fremlin on from Daylesford, Australia 03/19 at 05:33 AM