We're the subjects of an article

We are the subjects of an in-depth article today with a glamorous photo of Amy. The link is http://www.gtweekly.com/arts/story.2006-07-19.4141159636

If you think this is the end of the Amy publicity onslaught, you are wrong. Mattel is releasing a whole line of Amy swag next month --- Amy tote bags, Amy compacts, Amy hairbrushes, etc.

Today I received a message!!!!

This is incredible. Today, my blog received an actual message!!!!!!!!!! you will have to scroll down to find it, but this now proves that I have at least one reader again. I'm sorry if I alienated my readership before, though there is no way of knowing this for sure because of the zero messages I received. I don't want to end up like the Dixie Chicks, alienating their whole fan base. I don't disagree with the Chicks' politics but it's silly to insult absolutely everyone who buys your records, down to the last person. It's kind of like Barney going up on stage in England and saying, "Guess what, I hate kids secretly. They are dirty and smelly!'' So if you're still out there, I promise to pander to your tastes and wants. Unfortunately this means that I will have to take feedback.

Guess WHAT --- starting today, people can now write into this blog more easily

I often notice that no one ever writes into the blog. Aside from the fact that the blog is, at times, quite boring, there is another reason for this; it is almost impossible to post your messages on the blog!! For some reason, my blog is set up to make message posting extremely difficult. Before today, you had to create a blog of your own (how boring) or join the Witness Protection Program just to get a message to Cactuseaters. But no longer. After some minor tweaks, my Web designer has opened up the feedback floodgates. Now absolutely anyone with an opposable thumb can write into this blog. So go ahead and let me know you are out there (or don't, and that way I will know for sure that the blog is boring and that I must pander) best wishes from Cactuseaters

Everyone wish my father a happy birthday

My father is rolling up here to celebrate his 80th birthday tomorrow. My sister and brother-in-law have something special planned for him. Moving to NYC has given me a chance to trace my father's footsteps. I had a great experience walking around his childhood haunts in the Lower East Side of Manhattan with him this year. He's originally from the Alphabet City area but spent his formative years in the Lower East and later in the South Bronx (he still has a very faint accent from those times) We toured the Tenement Museum, which features a perfectly preserved set of rooms that look almost exactly like the ones in which he grew up. For extra authenticity, they don't bother with such fripperies as air conditioning. The neighborhood has changed --- no more pushcarts, stickball, and nag horses pulling loads of shmattes. A half-century ago, Mayor LaGuardia had a huge chunk of this neighborhood pulled down in a slum clearance project. Now, 26-story projects have taken the place of his tenement. We couldn't even find the intersection on which he lived. There is a quite a disparity between hip wealth and old-style Lower East now. In certain sections of the Lower East you can buy $6 chocolate bars and $9 tubs of gelato from the storefronts on the street level of old brownstones --- but you can still see the zig-zagging fire escapes , the live poultry traders and the cheap-suit hawkers. Katz's is still there, they still glare at you when you order but give you free samples of pastrami. We ate huge corn beef sandwiches and had Brooklyn Lagers there a few months back. Katz's, when he was growing up, was an unimaginable luxury for him. "I was aware of it but never ate there,'' he said. Now he's getting a chance to see the world and enjoy his retirement. Father is a terrific raconteur, full of dramatic and funny stories. In spite of his urban background, he also introduced me to backcountry trekking in the mountains. I'm looking forward to some good wine and snacks with him tomorrow.

I am slathered with hot coffee!!!

One morning, I took the borrowed beagle out to Full Of Beans Coffee House, near the beach, to get two huge take-away cups of coffee for me and my wife. The dog was going crazy inside the store, and sniffed a box full of Keebler peanut butter fingers and tried to eat a scone. The owner gave the dog a milk biscuit --- which the borrowed beagle did not like at all--- and then handed me the two beyond-molten coffees without even offering me a tray. So here's what I did. I tied the beagle to one of the belt loops of my jeans and staggered out of the coffee shop, with the beagle sniffing every spot of gum and every gross food item on the sidewalk. Every time the beagle would rush forward to lick or sniff something or somebody, my coffees would lurch forward, spewing their brown contents all over my shirt and pants and all over the racks of newspapers in front of the Pixie Plaza. I lurched down the street, my beagle running loops around my legs, my coffee flying all over the place. By the time I got back to my wife, my large coffee was a small and her medium was gone.

Mom, please skip over this message. It's about dingos. The message just below it is about your birthday.

I wish the people who live near me would respect leash laws on the beach. I understand that Santa Cruz is made up of people with libertarian impulses. However, it's unfortunate that libertarians all own 250-pound untrained dingos that should be pacing the Dangerous Animals enclosure of some scumbo roadside zoo instead of hanging around on the beach, eating other dogs and people. My borrowed beagle puppy is getting sick of big pooches coming up from behind and sniffing her in ungainly areas and then trying to jump on her and then trying to eat me. Today the ugliest dog I've ever seen came stomping over to us, no leash in sight. I tried to be polite so I stopped running with my borrowed puppy and let the walking dishrag sniff and snort and belch at my puppy for a while. Just then, the dog's owner stopped and scolded me loudly for letting his dog sniff my beagle. "If you're out for a run, then keep on running, pal,'' he said. Yesterday, two Pekingeses shoved me into the water and tried to take my sandwich.

It's My Mother's Birthday Today

And, since I am living in New York (though not at the moment) I want to thank her for imparting a fascination with, and appreciation of, great art, especially modern art. She introduced me to the work of David Smith, Isamo Naguchi, Jasper Johns, Georgia O'Keeffe (I always butcher her name), Otto Dix, Roy Lichtenstein, Mark Rothko, Red Grooms and many others. Because of her, I have a good sense of things like Dada, action painting, pop art, etc. She's a highly regarded docent at the Los Angeles County Museum Of Art. LACMA was recently mentioned as a 'locals recommend it' spot in the Frommers travel magazine.

cactuseaters

cactuseaters --- how do I remove the stupid thing that says "O comments'' at the bottom of each entry?

Neko Case

Aside from the fact that I got shushed for good reason for talking during the opening act, and aside from the fact that the fellow sitting right in front of me had a rather wide skull and a lot of hair, and sometimes fidgeted, I had a splendid time at the Neko Case show at the Rio theater. Her music sounds like the jukebox in the last bar on earth. Her voice is powerful and scary. I like what they've done with the Rio. It used to be a shut-down movie theater with the words "Capitalism Kills'' on its fly-blown marquee. Now they have bands there all the time. Another sign that Santa Cruz has returned.

Maple Leaf Falls

Yesterday we took a hike into the Forest of Nisene Marks, down a set of steep canyons and second-growth forests, on an eroded path over planks that were railroad ties long ago. We dropped into a ravine and ended up hiking straight into a creek, dead-ending at a waterfall into a pool full of twigs, boulders and newts. There were tripping roots, redwoods forming rings and overhangs with shaggy grass and moss dripping off them. We saw a lot of oozing banana slugs along the way (they look like slices of under-ripe mango) and blue-winged moths in the ferns. Not a soul was out there, and I found a spot where you can lean into the sunshine and feel the mist in your face -- and if you keep still enough, dragonflies will land on your shoulder and stay there until you shoo them away.

I was just kidding about asking my four readers to stop reading my stupid blog

OK readers where did you go? I was just kidding when I told you that my life is not an open book. It is!!!! Give me some sorta sign. Look alive.

Widen Highway One --- and make it taller, too

I am in Santa Cruz for the summer. It's a wonderful experience, except for Highway One, which is crammed with people all of the time. Out here in Santa Cruz, widening Highway One is a very controversial issue. In fact there is a contingent of people that wants to reduce Highway One to just one lane, with a special diamond lane for unicycles running straight through the middle. The result is a sludgy highway. Yesterday it took me four and a half hours just to go a couple of kilometers. So here is my idea: widen Highway One from two to 18 lanes (18 on both sides.) Also make it taller by adding monorails and suspension bridges on top of it and tunnels underneath. All houses on either side of the highway will be seized by Eminem's Domain. (that's when you play bad music so loudly that people will leave their houses forever.) No more delays. Just do it.

Downtown Santa Cruz is less skanky than before ...

I like the new stores. The street musicians have most of the strings on their instruments now. Last time I was there, I saw just one frightening person, with a big beard and wild eyes. He was standing on a bench, yelling, "I am a little baby. Waaaaaaahhh! Waaaah!''

Zlog

My readership has returned to zero!! I will now feel less self-conscious about future posts.

A blog with zero readers is, technically, a 'zlog.'

Zlog

My readership has returned to zero!! I will now feel less self-conscious about future posts.

A blog with zero readers is, technically, a 'zlog.'

Beagle, one. Miscreant, zero

The other day, I left my recyclables container out for a few hours after the garbagemen came. I won't do that again. The neighbors are mostly very nice here but there is a house nearby with aging frat boys. One of them unzipped his pants and was, apparently, about to pee in our recyclables container (!!!!) but our borrowed beagle leapt up and howled through the fence, scaring him pretty badly. He zipped up and went elsewhere. I retrieved our recyclables container and it seems OK.

How to make MOLE and then have a bad hangover

My head is pounding right now because I went to a mole-making party at our friend Fidel's place yesterday and had too much tequila. Keep in mind. This is an experiential meal. This is not an exact science. Don't ask me about tablespoons and exact measurements because they do not exist. A certain amount of trial and error is involved. your basic ingredients will be La Abuelita mexican chocolate, pasilla peppers, lots of garlic, cloves, about three pounds of chicken (drumstick and breast combination according to your preference) and about two pounds of potatoes. Here's how it works: the first thing you do is down a shot of good tequila so you can work up the gumption to go to the store and buy 16 ounces, at least, of dried pasilla (sp?) peppers. Then boil up about 6 drumsticks and two pounds of chicken breast in just enough water to cover them. In a separate pot, boil up about two pounds of yukon potatoes. Leave the skins on!! Take the peppers and remove most of the seeds from them, in between taking big gulps of Corona and Anchor Steam to give you energy to take the seeds out. Then throw the peppers (without the seeds. They will burn the hell out of your mouth and you will be sorry. Trust me. Do not eat them!!) in a big cast-iron pan with an entire bulb of garlic. Cook it up in a few dollops of vegetable oil. It will smoke and burn a bit so make sure you're running the fan as fast as it will go. Wait about five minutes until the pasillas start to change color. Then stuff them in the blender with about ten whole cloves and put the blender on 'pulverize.' Put a hockey puck of La Abuelita Mexican chocolate in there and keep on blending with about a half a cup of chicken soup. At this point, the blender will cease to function. Send someone sober back home to get another blender. Wait a half an hour for the guy to come back, then keep blending. boil up about 10 drumsticks and two pounds of chicken breasts, and in a separate pot boil up a bunch of yukon potatoes, skins on. Dump the contents of the first and second blenders into the pot. Salt to taste. Serve with warm tortillas and potato chips that have been well-doused with Chrystal hot sauce. Trust me, it's damned good.

Omitting critical pieces of information is not lying.

I am dog-sitting in a lovely house. (I don't own the house.) The other day a man came up and said, 'what a lovely paint job on your house! I especially like the sun design near the door! The place is just beautiful.'' And instead of saying, 'hey, this is not my house,' I just said, "Thanks,'' as if to imply I painted the house and own it.

Doggie update

To all: The dog is doing very well -- she is happy and comfortable and is great company, too. Question --- do they make Altoids for dogs? (not just our dog but all dogs?)

My power will increase

I am very excited about my new job. I'm going to be the assistant lieutenant in the Santa Cruz-area division of a private nonprofit. Basically, I am in charge of secret operations in Aptos, making sure things that run smoothly. At this point I am pretty much an inspector but if I get promoted, my power will increase exponentially! I'll tell you how it goes.