Literature Rodeo

Interview Palin!

Your chance to interview McCain's vice-presidential pick, Sarah Palin!

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He Did It Alright

Political Porn

Worth watching in its entirety...

Diesel Turns XXX

Diesel SFW XXX - Watch more free videos

No Serious Person...

I love this quote from Ron Reagan, Jr. (yes, he is the son of the former president).

"...the media has to pretend that there are two viable candidacies here...where there really aren't. There's Obama and Biden, and then there's the joke, which is McCain/Palin. No serious person could any more look at McCain/Palin and say 'that seems like a reasonable alternative,' it just doesn't exist anymore."

Read the rest here.

Clay Wright: 1938-2008

Clay Wright, Cindy's father, passed away about an hour and a half ago. I didn't know Clay very well. I regret that. The time I did spend with him though, was memorable. He had a calm presence. He didn't talk a lot, but when he did you knew he had something to say. That's my memory of Clay--quiet and thoughtful. And smart. And loving. I know he was loving because I could see it in the way he looked at Cindy, at the way he looked at his wife Judy, and in the way he talked about his children and grandchildren. And I know he was loving because of the way Cindy talks about him. She said he was the one person in her life who "got her." They shared a bond that, even from the outside, was both real and magical. Having lost my father a few years ago, I can only imagine the pain and grief she is going through right now.

Clay was the perfect balance to Cindy's mom, Judy--she was the sail in their relationship, and he was the ship. They spent nearly 50 years together--she was just 15 when they met. Her pain I can't even begin to imagine.

My heart goes out to Clay's family tonight--Judy, Cindy and Pete, Steve, Christen and Eric, and Tyler and Austin. I wish I could offer more than platitudes but, sometimes, that's all that comes. Wave upon wave of I'm so sorry, and my thoughts are with you, and if you need anything... But life is like that, I guess. We always think there's going to be more time and, then, when it's over, the family is left, alone with their grief, and a bunch of well-meaning platitudes from people like me, heartfelt as they may be. Peace, love, peace, love, peace...

David Foster Wallace

Mark Morford has a great piece today about the late, great David Foster Wallace...

David Foster Wallace
All literary flags at half-mast, rightfully so. In memoriam
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Let me, if you will, merely add my name to the chorus of the shocked, distraught and saddened sighs going out in response to the news of David Foster Wallace's apparent suicide. Let me do so with reverence, and humble gratitude.

See, I have few literary heroes, certainly almost no one from this online news medium and only a handful from the "serious" writerly universe. Even while having my brain profoundly scrambled by the UC Berkeley English department way back when, a delightfully thorough immersion into the finest literary minds of all time, it's still only been a precious few scribes who've ever managed break through my finicky intellectual resistance and annoying writerly jadedness and really stick to the ribs of my id.

Read the rest here.

Conjunction Disfunction

Between Spanish classes and Burning Man prep, event, and cleanup, the summer got away from me blogging-wise. I know in my previous post of a month and a half ago I said no more political rants, diatribes, or filler but I lied (not cynical, calculated, ruthless John McCain-style, mind-you). A lot has changed since I wrote that post (how naive I was back then). We're in a post-Palin world now and the stakes for the future of our democracy have never been higher. Expect more political rants and videos like this in the weeks to come: