food critics who needs them

We take the Greyhound down on friday heading South to attend my grandmothers funeral. A week ago i saw her silent, mute deaf blind . For ten years her memory betrayed her . She would move to another nursing home until she ended up in the hospital , where she lived for three years. I let other people speak for me at the funeral. The eulogy was awkard. It did not give credit to my Grandmothers work on the farm or in the war as a member of W.A.C. Acts of great heroism were preformed by Prarie farmwives and War Relief Workers. They involved nesscary acts of service kept quioet by complacency. They did not grow the grain or kill the Nazis but an army and a farmer live on their stoamch. They made arms, nursed the wounded, kept hungry under rations, they cooked and cleaned and raised children often under crushing lonliness. They settled accounts and kept bankers at bay. They made sure the animals were tended. they had harvest suppers and made sure the church was filled on Sunday . They kept everything in the hosue as wide and straight as the furrows in the field. An act that is much more difficult then most imagine.

After the funeral we made through the dirt roads to the community hall. The barns were still there and every so often a pumpjack. This was land for hay and cattle , the farther southwest you go in Alberta , the more cows and the less grain. The telephone towers have yet to be replaced w. fibre optic cables; To prevent eroison and wind stands of birch , spruce and pine are planted. Every so often you see a verdant patch among the yellow straw. The hay was baled and covered in polyethelne sheets, every so often you saw horses ( roans, arabians, palminos and most commonly quater morgans) Th
ere was even an ostrich farm . The sky was spiting rain and driving in my aunts van i saw a goshhwak .

I got to the hall and it was packed to the rafters filled with countless unknown family . The slab tables had plates of squares and open faced buns slathered in diced meat or egg. I have been to funerals and wedding teas and anniversarys in Sask., Manitoba and Alta. every time they had the same meal and it provides more comfort then you kn ow. I ended up fetching coffee and tea, bringing plates of sandwhiches from the kitchen. Once again more of a woman here.

In town we stayed at the motel. In Olds there was a high school rodeo and football game and everyone but us were rowdy and drunk . They were in there souped up trucks with peacock shirts. I did not escape from black and grey. Picking up a Coke from the supermarket kitty korner there was a notice about the funeral. It was supposed to only go to the post office and the drug store but it ended up everywhere. The legions flag flew half mast and the tacky little polyfab buliding was full when the funeral happened.

There was no minister , a family freind delivered the aforementioned eulogy. the famil;y had its only little ante chamber. The hymns were not grand but plain and practiced . Everyone who was a conrad seemed to be big, not fat or tall but massive and hulking , Like the Black Angus cattle that settled into the crests of couleees

She was too be cremated and entered beside her husband . Thank god that ghastly mechanism that lowered her to the fire was not used. There was no displaying of her body , no ashes in a magony finial or porcelian urn .

I got home two hours ago and this is constructed from scant notes and memory .

Bushes Press secertary said that the news should not release footage of bin Laden "unedited".

That means its our jobs to find all news that is unedited !

In Between 1890 and 1920 the photographing of men in intimate poses was a convention in American Studio Portraits that is explained quite well in this months Art In America . I do not mean erotic photography but fully clothed men with there arms around each other , or on each others thighs or sitting on one anothers laps. Today they look Sweetly Queer , like a piece of found history. But they are more cryptic then that. Aside from the obvious cowpoke on the frontier troubles with cementing core identity after the fact (no woman , you get it where you can) the fact is that men seemed to be more affectionate physically. It seems before Gay became a sexual identity men touched . No one had any suspicions that they may be sexual implications. Living in a Patriarchy where woman were given servile or different positions Men and Woman often had there separate camps . These photographs are cryptic , they seem to live in a place that used to exist between merely friends and lovers .

The other thing the article said is that these photographs are being horded by rural gays. They are found in attics and flea markets and out of the way spaces . Thye are being collected by people who find one of them by acident andd it becomes an act of belief to find all of them .

today i learnt that the promoter and the venue of the momus gig may not know whats going on

i have put almost 750 on this gig already ! If it falls thru heads will role

Today i felt turned on watching fight club, the brawl between Leto and Norton. Then i felt revulsed and guilty . I am not sure how to process this , i have not felt shame about my sexual fantasies in a long time.

Tomorrow i have a dentists appointment . The fear of the dentistis over rode the toothache i have having.

I may be wrong about evidence

Thoughts on Kabul

*In Bushes speech last night he said we need new defenses . Star Wars failed us on September 11. How will it work now ?

*Osma Bin Ladens group work in decentralized cells. It is like a spider web, break one strand and the others can keep working

*They are apparently dropping bombs and food on Afghanistan . How ?

*I have yet to see any really solid evidence to prove Osma is directly responsible .

*Aside from the Texas Journailist and Bill Maher there has not been alot of direct crushing of dissent. But when Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, NBC, CNN, CBC, the assicated press et. al. have the exact same news and i have not heard alot of alternative opinons it seems that dissent has been stifled

*What the fuck does a Homeland Security Advisor do ?

*What are the long term implacations of Bush declaring his agreement with a Palestinan state ?

* This is an idelogical war with no clear aims and no one ever wins those , because we cannot declare a draw . ( cf Vietnam)

*No one has won the Kyber Pass. They pull the swiss defense and no sexy computer guiding missile defense can do boo

* This has been a war since Ishmael was envious of Issac , Reread the Pentatauch

*The FBI is claiming the passengers on board of the airliner that crashed near Camp David " engaged in a fight for there lives " and the US miltary did not shoot anything down

*The phrase Surgical air strikes " . How delicate can you be with tonnes of mass explosives . As well the last time i checked scapels were meant to heal not destroy thosuands of woman and children. The gulf wars strikes were less then 30 % accurate. If a surgeon made 70 mistakes for every operation he would lose his liscence.

*A delightful qoute from Texas Senator Phil Gram, " The Storm Unleashed Sunday will continue until the evil is eradicated. It appeats this is another crusade .

*My partenal grandmother said this weekend that this is what happens when you do not seperate church and state . Shes right .

A couple of other things. I spent three hours listening to Joni Mitchell on the road home. It helped esp. California,

The new pictures of leonard cohen are fab. They are black and white and he no longer seems brooding. He looks transcendant and happy and VERY well dressed

They are bombing kabul because kabul bombed us who needs butter when we have bombs

Yesterday i had dinner at my aunts. it was painfuil enough to make me call the Maybanks who i love and are are the realtives of my great aunt. We went over to there house. My queer uncle (61) and his partner
( 56) were at the kitchen table, with my second cousin once removed ( who is a dancer auditoning at the royal winnipeg) . We bullshitted, caught up, listened to music, gossipped . It become an exchanging of history this weekend !

Today i went to the presbratrion church which seemed overly somber , i wanted to go to Mass and hear the joyful hymns. now i am having Thanksgiving dinner at my Aunts house; as per usual i am curled up in the spare bedroom, listening to Moulin Rouge and typing. They have a farm in the rocky mountain foothills. All the tress seem to be stands of birch caught between the pines. The color is amazing .

The olds presybration church has pasted a notice over two hymns . They say they are not allowed to sing them because the bible did not advocate Female Represantions. Noew if they felt like this why not just avoid singing them ? As well they are not censored in the large print additons.

I am in olds pop. 1200 . My great granmother grew up here. My aunt lives 3 blocks from city hall. Its growing up bit since i saw it last. They have a McDonalds now but aside from that it has not changed.
I can tour downtown in two blocks. They have one cd store, a farm insurance, a liqour store, two macs, a grocery store and 1 1913 lunceonette . LAst year it was the Pig Out Cafe , this year it is AJs. Everyone knows it as the publicl unch counter

We stopped in a roadhouse and had steaks and pie. They overcharged and it gave me gas.

The first thing we did was go to see my grandmother. who cannot recognize us, is blind and deaf and demented . I am typing this from the public library which the librarion has greeted every patron by his or her first name. It has 12 shelves but 8 computers . Progress ?

Bush said the war would be failure Dr Freud please pick up the house phone

The New York Times refuses to allow information about Flordai Elections because it may upset motale. No one knows where Osma Bin Laden is. Does this remind anyone else of the Reichstag fire ?

Its been three days since i have updated this. i am packign to go south for a weekend. Its thanksgiving and it may be the ast time i can see my grandmother. I will hole up in any room that is quiet and either work on the computer or read the tin drum. i really find my extended family nasty, neurotic, and petty. In my house you find a plate , raid the fridge and settle into a corner. There are no places that have rules. I own no coasters ( literally and symboliclly ). The Aunts house i am staying at is a house of order . They have coasters. Every surface of my house has books . We have shelves but they are more often to be found on any availble flat surface. A book that is on there floor gets put away two seconds later.

As well i have a pink mohacian and talk about socialism , they are socreds all the way . There is an imlicit power struggle the minute we walk in the front door . They are the only ones who do not know i am queer.

Today i thought my grandmother had died

she has had alzhiemers and is dying slowly over the last ten years

my aunt left a voice mail and said she had a heart attack , maybe i thought she was release w. mercy.

They defibbed her which seesm to be an act w/o mercy

Thanksgiving is this weekend and we are driving south to eat turkey and avoid any semblanace of emotion .

Geoff

has said some interesting things about comics as well

Some Auxrially information about september 11 :


Trashing another Faith Promoting Legend

Hitchens has a well defined and singular moral sense that is nesscary in these times. Here he takes the piss out of Chomsky

Why have comics become so powerful a form of dissent ?

We have already gotten trouble for overdecorting re: halloween and now paranoid parents wants to elimiante it

War is Peace

Now two happy thoughts :

Beavers are safe in arizona

And i do not drive but if i did it would be a Gay Car

Today i rushed out of the house to catch my ride downtown. Takign the stairs down the subway three or four at a time and not buying a ticket i make the right train. The first thing i see is four very solemn woman in black clothes facing each other. They are sitting down and in their laps cradle well coifed maniquien heads.

a tom tomorrow comic to start your day.