Slowly comes the Nurse at dawn.

And at the Center of the Web Lies a Pickle

2009-04-23T12:27:00.000-07:00

Lately on long bus trips I have spent too much time thinking. This is not a surprise.
But I never thought I would be the kind of person to ask these questions so literally. Such as, hey, fuck: what is the best way to live a life?

I think I maybe have an answer, but you might not like it. It's kind of simple.
It doesn't require more time in a university, and it doesn't involve me writing a book.
But perhaps the answer is: a deli.

Think: have you ever spread grainy mustard on a good piece of bread or made a vinaigrette that, in turn, made your day? I could do that. I think so. Repeatedly. In My Deli, I could play music. There would be pickles, and lovely little things.

Some kind of business that sells little things that contribute to something generally good - I'm not sure what - and yet cannot be included in the industry of Selling Stuff that No One Needs That Clutters Houses and Minds and Lives. A bakery. A cheese shop. A soup shop. A taco cart where there are no other taco carts. A hardware store. I don't know.

You eat a sandwich, it goes into you. That's it. My mom will tell you one of her favorite meals was eaten in a parking lot on Hillhurst, and it was a pibil taco and a root beer.

I am a cell in the tourism industry.
I used to be a cell in the health care industry, although that certainly didn't feel like an industry. That just felt like high cortisol levels, ridiculousness, some off-color humor and the crunchy sound the brain makes when it tries to think in a manner that could aid someone's survival. It felt good too though, it felt useful. That was never in question. I could do that again, for a while.

And now I bounce around between borders and it's fun, don't get me wrong, and I've never been happier in some ways, and I'm glad to not be visiting morgues and I'm glad to be out of the North and it's Ways, but it's frivolous and I don't know who I'm helping.
I mean I'm helping a German go from Palenque to Merida, OK.
I'm helping confused Britishers understand the difference between arrachera and cerdo, horchata and jamaica, and to the Canadiasn that chicken is pollo, not po-lo, ok?
Maybe I stand in line with someone and translate for them at the bank. Calculate tip. Make small talk and repeat the same stories. Tell them a little (because I really only know a little) about the places through which I am leading. If I help in any other ways, I don't know what they are.

And you could say that running a deli might not really focus that any better - who am I helping by selling thinly sliced salami?
But at least a deli would let me interact with a wider spectrum of people, instead of just the sick, or just travelers. The sick, well, they couldn't help it, chaos and all, that's how we met each other.
But travelers (including myself) are people of luxury, though most would never admit it. I think the very possibility that you can travel in these places, where the people of those places will never travel themselves, makes you one of the idle rich.
It's ok! Don't feel guilty. Just know that this is true.
Know that it is true that the Mayan baby over there will never grow up to wander through the halls of the Louvre and marvel at the quaint beauty of the French countryside, or eat street food in Bangkok then go back to the hostel to shoot the shit and have that Hostel Conversation with a bunch of red-faced Aussies. I wish it weren't so. What would that even look like? And why is it funny to even think about, a busload of Mayans being dropped off at the Eiffel to take pictures. It is funny because it is highly improbable, because it points to an invisible shittiness that feels FUBAR. That is a jacked thing that I can't fix. Some people think tourism can level the economic field for the poor. I've thought long and hard about it. I have thought, yes, tourism will always be there, it's jacked and its not going away, so how can I make it the *least* jacked? If I could find a solution to ethical travel, I wouldn't berate myself so much for being involved in this industry. I too lazy to do the math.

But then other times, I wonder if people are meant to stay where they were born. This might have worked out better for the world and its people if say, Columbus had stayed at home and been a bankrupt business man and sucked it up. Imagine! Modern day, there would be no Cancun, there would be no factories in China where toddlers sew "Guatemalan" sweaters for conscientious backpackers and group travelers to buy in the highlands of K'iche.

So maybe I stay at home (wherever that is), and travel moreso via my deli goods (Iranian pickles!)than by bus, and heal people with pastrami. Maybe I will one day stand behind a counter full of those pickled things, play good music, make big salads, have a baby or something, drink wine, be a good person, and go to sleep.

[This rant has been brought to you by: too much time off]
[That is a Kool Aid pickle, if you were wondering]

Mojo Wire on the Ebb Tide

2009-03-19T16:27:00.000-07:00

My dad had his coronary arteries manipulated, fabricated and fiddled with, and he came out of surgery a sea creature.
They just don't tell you these things.
"I've just been flayed like a salmon."
"Cut me some slack, guys, I was pryed open like a clam."
Clam Salmon Hank.
And he was - split from stem to stern.
Who knew there was so much sea in the operating room.
The ventilator rises and falls, it's tidelike, and the suction circuit shoots out blood in waves, but that's all.

He is making raspberry jello. I am ripping bits of music from the ether and emptying the dishwasher. We walked in the rain to Yoshi's Sushi and Noodle. We discovered Yoshi's Sushi and Noodle is no more. Today his doctor mentioned Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner when we were talking about opiates. Sometimes he is tired and weak and vulnerable like a fish belly; but then he's talking about boats, wanting to eat barbecue, or oranges and quoting Omar, over the stove: Surely do.

In the nighttime at the hospital, a grouper's head tried to have a conversation with him. Dad said he knew what was going on, but didn't panic because he knew it was all part of the game.
He saw the nursing station morph into a crusty mariner's bar. He said he watched the floor 'with a high index of suspicion', for the floor had become wave. I saw him ask a nurse what the current thought was on Tylenol with codeine versus a Panavision lens.

I was looking through some pictures. I'm putting up this one, since BB King looks like a fish. It came down the Mojo Wire into my dad's camera. Coincidence?

I didn't know what else to write about today. So I just wrote this.

This make me feel better. (Me mejoro.)

2009-03-17T12:04:00.000-07:00

Do The Muertos

2009-03-15T16:39:00.001-07:00

Do The Muertos
Originally uploaded by Sarah Lebo

I have yet to receive the gift of jazz appreciation. Miles Davis still lives behind a locked door for me. But death-jazz - now that I can dig. Watch, and savor.

First Post Since 2008, And It's This:

2009-03-13T09:26:00.000-07:00

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Craziest F#?king Thing I've Ever Heard - Barreleye Fish

Colbert Report Full Episodes
Political Humor

Rap Battle
NASA Name Contest

Faked you out. You thought I wrote something!

Que Onda, Mae?

2008-11-11T08:05:00.000-08:00

October has always been my favorite month. Especially in LA.
Burnt pumpkin, cold winds, etc.
But I left Los Angeles, missing out on burning pumpkins in exchange for say, a more transient thing. So on the 18th at 2:30 AM I flew out over Catalina Island and floated down into San Jose to start my hobo training.
A glimpse:
San Jose aka Chepe, Costa Rica: pineapple breakfasts; clockwork downpours; Bar Chavelona (a mysterious 80's relic complete with pink and purple neon and black formica wraparound bar - the bartender gifted us with Chavelona glasses as souvenirs, the very same kind gas stations and McDonald's used to give away for free, ultimately reconfirming said 80's theme); Bar Chicharronera, full of Chepe hipsters,with the strangest and most wonderful film version of 'Alice' in Wonderland playing in the background -a Kansan, a Canuck and a Tico at my side.

From San Jose went microtripping to La Fortuna: heard the volcano speak while walking through the forest; it was just like an Ent. Town humid, full of rafting guides playing pool and a disco disco disco.
Then to Monteverde, cold and magic. Kicked out of training early in order to get to Mexico City by land. So then San Jose from Monteverde, plane to Guatemala City, microbus to Antigua,shuttle to San Cristobal de Las Casas, 11 hours away, an overnight bus to Oaxaca, another 12 hours. Oaxaca oaxaca oaxaca. Dia de los Muertos, squash blossom quesadillas, a drag show, El Panteon, rum dancing rum.
Oaxaca to Puebla. Puebla to Oaxaca. Oaxaca to San Cristobal de Las Casas: San Juan Chamula and the brain-staining images of its flickering candle-spewn church, the smell of copal, oranges and pine needles, coke bottles in the candlelight, a wave of whispers in Tzotil; Zinacantan, tortillas; Sumidero canyon, yellow iguana, crocodile; Agua Azul, Misol-Ha; Palenque and it's hippies with topknots, panpipes, fire dancers, pizza and jungly goodness; now to Merida. I wait for cenotes!

Hobo Blues

2008-10-21T12:53:00.000-07:00

Cat Power: Metal Heart

2008-04-09T17:00:00.000-07:00

Taxes make me feel all Videotape and stuff.

2008-03-02T17:56:00.000-08:00

Simian Mobile Disco's "I Believe"

2008-03-02T16:00:00.000-08:00

Riddle:
Is the following video

A) Incredibly offensive
B) A smart commentary on the awkward confluence of how we live vs. how they live via the lens of floofy rich kid music
C) A musical version of one of those Day in the Life books (likely of Albania?)
D) None and neither.
Discuss.

I'm Thinking About Doing Some Research

2008-02-14T11:26:00.000-08:00

Sympathy

2008-02-11T22:56:00.001-08:00

Came up in my helmet sound system while steaming down a mountainside yesterday and made the afternoon.

Lynch for iPhone

2008-01-27T21:39:00.000-08:00

Bests

2007-12-31T22:18:00.000-08:00

Drinking rum, listening to Manu Chao at high volume, it's New Year's Eve with your host SL. But I actually don't mind that I have nowhere to be, no group to join tonight. I walked home from work past three separate front yard bonfires on my block, one playing loud merengue on a blaster, another full of giggling hipsters, one fire with no one around it, and that was all new, I've never seen other bonfires before on my block. So hallelujah to New Year's for bringing the fire. I stopped at Von's on the way home to pick up a pineapple (see Bests list below), some Granny Smiths and a packet of dark chocolate M & Ms for a New Year's treat. If you were here on my couch with me you would see I have my little potted winter tree with its glass pickle ornament, an owl, four fish, a pomegranate, a frog and a rooster dangling from it over on the console table. There is a Chinese lucky cat perched on my fireplace-less mantle next to my Selkie platter (a glass plate with a seal on it) which itself is next to a miniature Eiffel tower (from neighbors - I've never been), a Marcel Dzama Tree Man figurine, the optical illusion Neon Bible case (neon pages flutter when you turn it this way and that), and one of my speakers that looks like a jellyfish. I didn't think I had such a fondness for animals.
In the middle of the mantle is a big gaudy mirror with a pagoda carved into the frame. It sits so high up on the mantle that I don't have to look into it. Next to my foot is a stack of Dwell magazines I've never read. I am however reading a book on conquistadors, called Conquistadors. I met a guy from Guatemala who worked for GAP tours and his favorite moment from leading the trips in Spain always came in the churches when a docent had completed their lecture on the nave and asked if anyone had questions and this guy always asked (with, as he said "A gigantic Guatemalan shit-eating grin"): And where did the gold in this magnificent church come from? And he loved to watch the docent try to explain or avoid explaining how the church obtained its murderous sheen by way of stolen Inca gold melted from idols into ingots at factory pace by Pizarro in the 1500s. Prick.

Pizarro is the biggest dickhead I've heard about all week. But my dad forwarded me Bill Maher's List of the 14 Biggest Dickheads of 2007. It couldn't be more concise. I love it.
Here are the other things that made my year full of goodness, kind of sort of in categorical order:

Showing up in my dreams:
There Will Be Blood
Juno
Once
Sunshine
Superbad
The Wind That Shakes the Barley
Eastern Promises
No Country for Old Men
The first 30 minutes of Dewey Cox
The posters for Norbit
Elmo's World: What Makes You Happy?
Hot Fuzz
Right At Your Door
Eagle Vs Shark (bits of it anyway)
Sicko
Harry Potter & TOTP

Constant Rotation:
Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?: Of Montreal
Neon Bible: Arcade Fire
In Rainbows: Radiohead
Super Taranta!: Gogol Bordello
Is Is: Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Challengers: The New Pornographers
Boxer: The National
Random Spirit Lover: Sunset Rubdown
White Chalk: PJ Harvey
La Radiolina: Manu Chao
Armchair Apocrypha: Andrew Bird
Flying Cup Club: Beirut
The Reminder: Feist
No Shouts, No Calls: Electrelane

Flor de Cana rum
Pineapple and cucumber with fresh lime juice, pico de gallo and salt
Pickles! Always pickles, I mean, come on.
Intelligentsia americanos

Assault on Reason, The Gore
Over the Edge: Death in Grand Canyon
501 Spanish Verbs
I'll be honest - I didn't read very much.

30 Rock
The Mighty Boosh
Sopranos
Planet Earth

Moving my body all over the places:
Bike rides in Baja, Griffith Park, Pasadena and Palos Verdes
Hiking in Grand Canyon, Runyon, Griffith and Malibu
Zip lining, clambering in Central America
Skiing at Mammoth
Sailing in Howe Sound

Boo! Thumbs down!: Rafting in Costa Rica.

I wanted to post U2's Windows in the Sky video again as we are about to go around the orbit again on this world gone to utter mindless shit to remind us it's ok to feel good about some things, but some corporate goblin took it off youtube.

Happy New Year if you read this far. Keep your nose clean in 2008! Keep passing the open windows.

On Marijuana: A Treatise

2007-12-19T13:38:00.000-08:00

The Elderly Review: Juno

2007-12-14T20:33:00.000-08:00

I will say no more.

Long Time Coming

2007-11-24T22:10:00.000-08:00

No posts in six months. Just got back from my first dip into Central America.
I:
ate lunch in a massive plant nursery in Antigua, climbed up ruins where I found Mayan owl carvings in Copan, ate Honduran shish kebabs by candlelight in a wonderful spot deep in the heart of darkness, slid down a bench soaking wet with rain and waves to slam into a Honduran on the boat to Utila with a 30 degree pitch, walked, snorkeled and drank in the rain there, ogled the murals of Whale Sharks but never got to meet one, wound around the hills of Honduras while inhaling diesel fumes and listening to the new Radiohead, got dust in my teeth on the schoolbus from the Nicaraguan border to Leon where I got the trots and missed the chance to volcano board, had 8 servings of Cazadores Anejo and 3 Jack Daniels in Grenada, swam in some more rain in a clear volcanic lake with a hangover, looked into an active volcano that leaked out a red glow and sulfuric acid in droplets, crouched at the mouth of a bat cave and felt/smelled the wind of their own wings, stood in a cave in the darkest darkness while sweating and shivering at the same time, learned to play Shithead adequately on the porch of the hotel on Ometepe, consumed an entire (small) bottle of Flor de Cana rum the same evening, did a bad Mick Jagger impersonation under the influence, the next day developed a combo of distributive and hyperthermic shock early in the first hour of an 8 hour clamber up and a slide down a bitch of a volcano only to complete the epic gong show thanks to my orthodontist companero and Ometepeno guide/whipmaster, watched the green world go by on the long dirt road climb of our van as we wound our way up to Monteverde listening to 1987 U2 and the goddamn Eagles, ogled a perfect specimen of Costa Rican manhood instead of the possibly nonexistent Trogons and sloths he pointed out in the dark wet forest above us, zipped into nothingness on a canopy line covered in cloud, leapt three stories and out into an arch over the jungle on a tarzan swing, ate a tremendous bowl of sopa de mariscos, laughed, rode a horse on a muddy road up to a waterfall, almost drowned under a raft on a trip down the Rio Toro on my last day, kissed my Dutch tourmate on the lips when we saw the bridge signifying the end of the river, ate what will likely always be the best pineapple of my life upon returning to the riverbank, cried and was comforted by kindly Tennesseans and my Dutch rescuer Ingmar and group, drove over the hills to San Jose for Argentinian supper of ravioli with artichoke and almond, drank deeply of some wicked Malbec, limped my way onto a plane, felt full of everything and nothing, watched my South Bay surfer seatmate chuckle at Frasier reruns on the monitor through the turbulence, landed at LAX amid the red haze of November, sat on a shuttle for an hour to get home, crawled into my own bed with clean sheets and slept for 18 hours.

Owls, Copan

2007-11-24T22:05:00.000-08:00

Airport Caves, Utila

2007-11-24T21:58:00.000-08:00

When Chungy our 13 year old dive boat captain said we were going to anchor at Airport Caves, I hopefully thought maybe it was called that because it was a place where manta rays congregated.
It's a part of the reef. That sticks out beyond where the old airport used to be.

And Lo! Was Manta Ray Born...

2007-06-18T06:48:00.000-07:00

Wrote my first song yesterday. And Lo!, in another way, a Manta Ray is born.

The Only Fruit of Goodness to Emanate from Pirates 3

2007-06-12T16:06:00.000-07:00

(aside from the ship coming up from underwater scene, and the music box neck amulet thing)

Johnny Depp at a press junket in Japan:

Garth Marengi's Darkplace

2007-06-06T18:07:00.000-07:00

As I enter month two of night shifts, I have been drawn ever more deeply towards BBC comedies. The real reason eludes me. I refer here to 1) The Mighty Boosh, 2) Spaced and 3) Garth Marengi's Darkplace . Each series involves fantasy life within a sad grey repetitive world made of cornershops, alcoholic landlords and pubs. The Mighty Boosh is about two zookeepers: Vince Noir, King of the Mods and Howard Moon, Multi-instrumentalist jazz maverick. Spaced is about two do-nothing roommates in Camden, brought to you by the makers of Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead. And then yesterday I came across Garth Marengi's Darkplace. I can tell you nothing about it, but needless to say it involves a hospital setting, ESP, green smoke machines and numerous soap opera mullets. Nay, mulletinis. Please enjoy some Darkplace below. Full episodes available for the above shows at TV-links>.

Moments: An Ode, and an apology

2007-05-30T13:58:00.000-07:00

We took Dad into the Washington high desert
for birthday reasons
(And yes, they are *both* wearing Old People Eye Surgery Glasses (TM)...American Apparel will be out with their own version soon)

Neko Case came on minus a bass player but plus the bass of Ghostland Observatory spilling over the hill down onto her stage, which really made a mess of things

The lead guy in Citizen Cope looks depressed
Maybe it's because their fan base is majority ruled by shirtless frat bros and their blond bikini hippie-skirted ho's

Dad says if you are a relatively unknown band, you should not banter, as the Long Winters did, saying: "Now it's time to bring out the blue shiny guitar" or make morals to songs like "You should never fall in love with a rock star" and I think this advice is prudent and should be heeded.

Hanna thought I was douchebag for wanting to leave after the Arcade Fire and before Bjork was done but I couldnt stand up without moving when the wind blew and the Blanket Dancers (TM) were working themselves into a frenzy (N.B.: these are the people who dance with a blanket half wrapped around their bodies, and not Bjork's choir who were wearing neon parachute blanket-balloon suits) so I thought it was time.

The wind shut the mainstage down on the the second day. The lights were rolling like they were on waves. Plug got pulled on Polyphonic Spree mid-cheesy choir chorus. So we didn't see Spoon or Interpol or Beastie Boys or Michael Franti . Apparently, in the end they came on at 9 PM and played half-sets and the wind was still going. Anyway, Sasquatch is one of the last places in the country to expect audience participation as regards political outrage, so I don't know how Michael Franti and his heavy-handed self-hero-worship would work anyway. Ten dollars for a tall of Coors was the most outrage people exhibited. Dad said he almost got arrested for bringing in his own water. I think that was his way of bringing the noise.

Mom said the guy in Bad Brains
looks like half of the homeless mentally ill
Dad said Bad Brains were
taking whitey's wallet for a ride

I just think they suck

Mom said Polyphonic Spree might be good if it weren't for the
60 mph winds
Dad just gave them the thumbs down

So to you and to Hanna
I am sorry for the gong show but you are troopers.
Let us say then (or I will say it to myself) that at least we had Manu and the Arcade Fire and a Gospel brunch; that you got to experience the pit and at 59 and 60 years old, that isn't half bad (even if it freaked you out); fashion faux pas too numerous to describe, conversations overheard from tent to tent best unremembered, wind and crazy river Gorges, Of Montreal in the tent in the morning, Trader Joe's, and Sarah Silverman's diarrhea joke.

I should have known better.
Randy Quaid said it best:
Shitter's full!

Win Two

2007-05-30T13:19:00.001-07:00

The Perry, Sasquatch

2007-05-30T13:10:00.001-07:00

Arcade Fire Version 2: Queen Regine

2007-05-30T13:09:00.001-07:00

Originally uploaded by Sarah Lebo

Twice in one week is pretty spoiled. And second row is spoiled. But you have to get close enough so that you can pocket some of their Soul Glow. Hanna and I were surrounded by 19 year old boys and two pairs of sisters apart from us, and none had seen the AF before. There was a six foot drunk in the mix too, but it was an otherwise innocent front row. It is my choice to perceive that the boys were teary towards the end, but they were objectively emanating lots of rock-flavored awe and joy.

And...Spanish DeNiro On Bass

2007-05-30T13:02:00.001-07:00

Spanish DeNiro On Bass
Originally uploaded by Sarah Lebo

AIDS! AIDS! AIDS!

Oyyo yo Oyyo yo Oyyo yo!

2007-05-30T13:00:00.001-07:00

Chao!
Originally uploaded by Sarah Lebo

Theoretically, it was all set out to be a swell surprise for my dad's 60th birthday. Little Hank was, it was hypothesized, to have been driven in the early hours to an undisclosed location for days of unrelenting musical genius and sunshine.
The surprise bit worked. We drove 5 hours south of Vancouver to the Gorge on the Columbia river, and he had no idea what was going on and as a result, Little Hank ate Bit-O-Honey's consecutively to calm his nerves.
We parked the car and set up the gargantuan tent (7 feet tall inside people) and headed towards the entrance to the Sasquatch Festival. En route we were hollered to by chunky bohunks and ordered to imbibe Captain Morgan's from Costco-sized bottle (picture to follow).

The place was full of tools and fools, the occasional nice folks to meet in line or in the pit, a large spoonful of assholes and some crap organization. Sasquatch!! Yeahhh! Lebo organized a gong show of monumental proportions.

Here's Manu Chao, he was great. But what we were all shouting in the middle of each song, I'll never know...."Ey!" or "AIDS!" or "Raze!"

Arcade Fire Version 1: Deer Lake Whoaaah Party

2007-05-30T12:47:00.001-07:00

The Arcade Fire at Deer Lake Park
Originally uploaded by trent_maynard

Flew to Vancouver last week to meet with a citizenship judge. Was another one of these trips made status post a night shift wherein it takes me too long to catch up on my sleep deficit, however in this case, I received a single unit dose of Arcade Fire with my bad sleep juju, for they played at Deer Lake Park (a night after Bjork in the same venue) and lo! I was there, and lo! who did I sit down next to but one memorable fellow West Van secondary student long lost and his fiancee whose acquaintance I had - as chance has it - met at a wedding in Ontario three years ago. It was one of those glorious WTF moments. Now they are officially my favorite new best friends. Let's hope I will email them once in the next two years.

And can I please have the kind of relationship one day where I make "ooos" while my man plays strong chords behind me?

Some live Hungarian Idol

2007-05-14T08:51:00.000-07:00

Here is a version of the song Beirut covered down below (apparently called Ederlezi by Goran Bregovic), as sung on what seems to be Hungarian Idol, by someone with Hungarian hair, a Ms. Magdi Ruzsa.

This magician will now attempt sleep.

Some Live Beirut

2007-05-12T08:18:00.001-07:00

I came home from a hard night's work, and I had this for my breakfast lullaby before falling face down into my pillow. It's as if the Moon had a favorite band that only played happy,end-of-the-harvest celebratory lullabies and they are that band. I hope you know what that/I means.

But He Created You, Evil One

2007-05-12T08:18:00.000-07:00

I am a quarter of the way into Richard Dawkin's The God Delusion. I put it off for a while because I thought the title was too snotty and dismissive. But as I read it, I think it is a perfectly apt phrase. I hereby realize I am a de facto Atheist. This means I cannot be certain there is/are no God(s), but I live my life as if there was/were none. And now, here is some Terry Gilliam on the topic of omniscience and omnipotence...

Gateway and Santa Monica

2007-05-09T14:01:00.000-07:00

Gateway and Santa Monica
Originally uploaded by SHL.

Last night my neighbors and I roamed around all corners of the neighborhood to watch The Great Griffith Park Conflagration of '07. Everyone was out on the sidewalk sitting on street corners, standing on car roofs and front stoops looking westward. If you werent there to see it, it was just like Pele or Mount Doom, where the edges of the fire looked like lava coming down the hillside in very discrete lines. The view from Sunset and Santa Monica, on your left, gave you a night sky that was utterly clear and dark blue and the stars were out. But then you realized they weren't all stars, they mostly news helicopters. It was like looking at a fleet of fishing boats all trolling the same tide, but with copter blades instead of diesel motors. And then the left view was all hellfire and palm trees and plumes of dark red smoke.

Red Shade

2007-05-09T14:00:00.002-07:00

Red Shade
Originally uploaded by Sarah Lebo.

On a note only related by color: have you seen the South Park episode entitled "Ginger Kids". Because, wow is it funny.

Early Fire

2007-05-09T13:59:00.000-07:00

Early
Originally uploaded by Sarah Lebo.

There are so many people in LA who are from other places who might have only new connections, or no connection to Griffith Park so I found a great comment on the LA Times fire blog from a elderly neighborhood boy, and you should read it:

"I was a most fortunate lad in 1950. Had a friend Scott Miller that
lived across the Los Angeles River in a nice house. Scotty and I would walk the trail behind his house, across to river to Travel Town. We would hold up the train, and pretend. I can remember riding our bikes around the golf-course. Probably rode to the observatory once. That was a long-ride for a couple of little kids. The old L.A. Zoo was always my favourite. Long gone now, even before this. Bee's Rock. Lions in their dens. Never knowing what you would find next, hiking around the steep bends, and marvelous trails. It was a "HIKE", to negotiate these paths.

I am so sad. Save the animals captured in the Zoo! Save the trains. Save FERNDALE. Fight the good Fight. My heart is with you!"

Posted by: Robert A. Bedford

Mijares and Will Ferrell

2007-04-16T14:29:00.001-07:00

Please note that Mr. Ferrell is wearing a Mijares t-shirt. This will mean something to you if you grew up in Pasadena. Mijares is Pasadena landmark restraurant and they serve is red-sauce, white-people Mexican food. But it's good. Stiff margaritas. Mijares has a bar where middle aged single alcoholics go for happy hour. In high school when you went to Mijares with your family, you looked at the ground when you walked by the bar. You didnt want to become one of those people. I am thereby announcing a field trip to Mijares.

Hospital Beds

2007-04-15T11:35:00.000-07:00

Last night I parked my car in Jurassic Park, moseyed through a clot of Universal Citywalk patrons who appeared to have been temporarily neon-blinded and/or sausage-stunned - maybe even deadened by the dueling piano-bar - and continued ambling until we walked by an exploding Waterworld ride to arrive at Gibson amphitheater for the KCRW concert.
Immediately, I saw James Blunt leaving the alcohol wristband line. I wonder what it must feel like to see real musicians play real music as an audience member when you are James Blunt.
Then, sequentially, I saw Nate Corddry.
I thought I saw Lauren Ambrose, but I was wrong.

In order:
Breakestra - annoying funk jam band. Pass the peas, right off the bat.

Then:
Cold War Kids. Great, lots of hitting on half empty wine bottles, maracas, etc. See below.

Then:
Rodrigo y Gabriela, who I had never heard of before. So all the better to stun you with. Both play mean, rapid acoustic guitar inspired by "trash metal". I dont think we knew what to do in the audience as a response, maybe offer up first born children. It was that good.

Then: Travis was the surprise guest. I felt kind of bad for them. Well, for anyone coming after Rodrigo y Gabriela. Fran Healy said they were listening backstage and were preparing their own nooses to sling over the rafters since they were on next.
Creepy tall bass player.

Then: Lily Allen. For shame, Lily Allen. For shame. A horn section dressed in Izod. For shame.

Then: The Shins. I don't hate them, but they did not and have not previously changed my life. I always fall asleep, despite their energy. I felt like maybe the lead singer was suicidal. There was something sad about him that I couldn't bear to look at. We decided that the other band members were not letting him speak for this reason. But then he gave a hello to his nieces. I think he is Edward Norton.

Sarah, Human VideoHut

2007-04-03T14:10:00.001-07:00

Immigration: The Human Cost

MC Nuggets represent represent

2007-03-29T15:17:00.000-07:00

Like a Party

2007-03-26T14:45:00.000-07:00

Deaths, Palm Springs artwork, Ikea trips and a Pisco sour.
This in the Week of 29 years!

Here is a birthday-ish video.

A Leprechaun. Or a crackhead.

2007-03-17T12:25:00.000-07:00

The Owl

2007-03-13T18:05:00.000-07:00

Watch. Creepy

For Alex and Heidi

2007-03-05T10:43:00.000-08:00

As per recent discussions:

I work with a lot of spirited, bright, funny, beautiful people. And a large majority of them are peace-loving Christians. It's just the math, it's just how it is. Is the PICU a vortex for that, who knows.
And I won't be at bible study with them anytime soon. But I want the world to know that I have the spirit too.
It just doesnt have a name.
Most often it is music brings out the Spirit for me, so I wanted to offer up an example
where the subject matter so beloved by people I love (and yet sort of far from me) overlaps with the thing that brings out my own brand of Bright White Light (TM).

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Rev. Al Green:

This is also for Bill, Gena, Katie, Jen, Natalie, Stacy, Monica, Fran, and Nick at Nite.
And Rachel. And Hanna.
And Lil' John Frommelt.

Further examples to follow.

Chubby Little Loser

2007-02-27T14:19:00.001-08:00

This is for laughing.

From Ricky Gervais' Extras, Season 2. In which he plays a career extra who then stars in a horribly middle brow sitcom where he wears a wig, Sally Jesse Raphael glasses and blurts out the worst catch phrase ever. Here he is enjoying an evening out as a VIP.

And here he attempts to audition for a play being directed by Ian McKellen.
Again, for laughing.

A Song for An Ad For A Feeling, I Don't Know What (Window in the Skies)

2007-02-26T12:07:00.000-08:00

Ever seen something you were sure was a World Cup/Super Bowl/Olympics ad for Coca Cola or Kodak that was framed by a song that made you feel full of goodness and light but made you suspect some sinister, corporate undertow at work?
Ever seen that kind of thing but different sort of...where the song makes you try to remember some other, older song that never existed...where it is full of the glory and light of music itself but also the passage of time and the somewhat beautiful sad sad sadness that best describes the state of the planet? With a Kindersurprise to boot?
No?

Here. Look. Really.

The Kindersurprise is really good. Did you find it?

Duly and Lovingly Noted Therein:
David Byrne's Shoe Tapping and Boombox
Arcade Fire at Coachella
Young Van Morrison, Breaking It Down
Iggy Pop's Circulatory system
Nina Simone
Baby Keith Richards
Patti Smith

Mom, can you find your friend Flava Flav?

It's ok to feel this good.

Failure Pile, Sadness Bowl

2007-02-08T08:36:00.000-08:00

Hellhound at my heels

2007-02-07T15:24:00.000-08:00

I wanted to change my blog address, but shortening the blog title would result in something approaching erotic fiction: slowlycomes, slowcomes, slowcome, slowlycoming, et ceterae. So I thought, how about I beckon forth ye olde hellhound. Why not!
I considered:
hellhoundatmyheels
hellhoundroundthebend
hellhoundunderthebed
hellhoundeatingcheetos

Anyway, the hellhound was abandoned too.
Sorry, little guy, but I know you're always there when I need you.

Sometimes I have to consciously try so hard to elicit the kind of creative farckle (def.: the lint on your sweater) that used to come so effortlessly once upon a time that I convince myselt that I have lost my true person utterly.

Anyway, I'm back.
Yer pal,
Hellhoundeatinghobbits

Return

2007-01-24T12:56:00.000-08:00

The experiment has failed. The controls and variables were all over the place.
I come back to start anew.
New city (crash! bang!)
New bike (whirrrr)
Lebo 2.0!

goghead

2006-11-30T18:15:00.000-08:00

Originally uploaded by Sarah Lebo.

I think I will come back to you, old blog.
I will abandon my other creative endeavor.
At least I tried.

L
SHL

2006-10-11T17:53:00.000-07:00

All These Things That I Haven't Done Even Though I Think Long And Hard About Them

Dear old blog, I miss you. You are simple and straight up and I dont have to get creatively frustrated with making it look 'special' or 'different'.

I Henceforth Redirect You

2006-03-19T21:45:00.000-08:00

I know I will lose an approximate fifty to seventy-five percent of my 'readership' in doing this.
However:
I henceforth redirect you to my New Blog.

It's not totally finished yet. It might take a long time to load, and you might not be able to see
The Rad-Ass Fonts. Sally forth and let me know.

Dance, magic dance.

Mexicans no know how drive.

2006-03-07T11:32:00.000-08:00

My favorite essay on the sick ethos of Crash winning can be found here.
I burnt my chicken broth while reading the numerous Op-Eds on the story. BURNT my chicken broth, yes.

Today is day five off of work, but it is a sick day and my left eustachian tube is utterly compacted with viral swill, still pressing on my tympanic membrane and the little bones contained therein.

I went to Mammoth this weekend. It was a gong show (on my end). I had all this pent-up excitement to get out of LA and away from work, was told I *really deserved a vacation* and so believed it. Closer to the truth was that I *needed* a vacation.
It has been a few weeks at work where we all felt like King Theoden, looking over the remnants of battle at Helm's Deep: So much death.
So I finagled my way into a group of people heading up to the mountains and upon waking we found high winds, dumping powder and my a throat completely numbed by the toxins of some kind of infection. But did I try to ski nevertheless? Yes I did. The conditions were essentially complete whiteout with intermittent spots of simple high wind. Having not been able to find my contacts, I had to wear my glasses under goggles. These fogged immediately. Nothing could remedy the situation. I became immediately frustrated and Jordan Innes the 7th had to wait for my sorry ass at the bottom of every run, or halfway though. It was awful. We went back to the condo where I found myself febrile, shivering and the boys returned with ginger ale for me. Next day was sunny, I was still sick, but I wanted to have a Do-over of the previous day. And indeed it was a better day. I felt more comfortable on my skis and could wear my prescription sunglasses while enjoying clear visibility, but I still felt like my head was wholly detached from my body and wrapped in a layer of pink insulation foam.
By lunchtime, I was ready to join the rest of the group and not be a complete feeb and maybe even run some blacks.
Alas it was not to be. Mysteriously, no one showed up to the said meeting place for lunch. I felt jilted and dumped and skied the rest of the day alone, in the singles line for lifts. I was trying to tell myself that I shouldnt be mad and shouldnt feel dumped, but guys, I sure did. I tried to tell myself that skiing alone is really not so different from skiing with others. But, well, that's gullcrap. (not an eyelash was batted among them regarding me in such situation).
Nevertheless, I attempted some black runs, my first in many years. i did not snowplow. I did not make out with the mountain face first. I liked my parabolic skis. I was however in excrutiating thigh-pain, thought my quads and lats were going to break my femurs what with all the intensity of my uptight skiing posture in an effort not to fall.
The drive there and back...those bits were enjoyable. The rest of the time I have to say I felt like a chump.

However, there will be do-overs. I intend to sample the local runs this month, and to do so with GREAT LIGHTHEARTED ENJOYMENT. This will be achieved via clarity of sinuses, the company of others and good visibility.

Get on the love train. Join hands.
People of the world now, join me.

Tuesday night, post-shift.

2006-02-28T23:42:00.000-08:00

I've never written a drunken post. So I am being Columbus!
Our evening's sponsors:
Big Wangs (on Hollywood at Selma) where sports bar Calgary meets Howood hipster.
Cabernet sauvignon, probably from a box under the bar
The Valet for the minimall parking lot (wherein Big Wangs is located)
Madonna, American Life (for the unruly drive home-singalong)
Hot and Sour soup, Trader Joe's
Chocolate Sugar Free Jello Pudding
and
The Best of Jiminy Glick
(to which I eat my soup and pudding)

A wide world shout-out to Moon Boots (the next feature on Slowly Comes).

Have a pleasant evening. May the universe bless you.

S

Not the Craic

2006-02-18T22:47:00.000-08:00

dobutamine: beta adrenergic
Originally uploaded by Sarah Lebo.

On Craic:
From the Irish, pronunciation: (crack) n.:a good time, whatever is 'up' e.g. 'What's the craic?' or "how was the craic?" or, "that was good craic".

YES, IT MOST CERTAINLY IS THE CRAIC. GOOD CRAIC:
1) It's All Gone Pete Tong (from the director of FUBAR)
2) The Best of Youth (six hours long. all Italian, all the time)
3) Brianna's French Vinaigrette and Caesar dressings rendering my cruet useless
4) Large artichokes
5) For Real: Okkervil River
6) the Olympian "Joey Cheek"
7) The Blues are Still Blue: Belle and Sebastian
8) dates with parmesan and bacon at AOC
9) Punks in the Beerlight: the Silver Jews
10) The Russian ice skaterman in the pairs, who won, who dropped his partner on her head once, dressed as the Superhero of Air Fresheners.

NO, NO. NOT THE CRAIC AT ALL.
1) The initial and ensuing all-body horror that accompanies one's first medication error, leading to prayers to a God one doesnt believe in, in the staff washroom while sobbing.
Not the craic. Not, not , no no no.

Tiger like a Jelly

2006-02-08T14:18:00.000-08:00

tiger jelly
Originally uploaded by Sarah Lebo.

At my place of work, we have three main elevators that are named after animals: giraffe, peacock, and tiger. My main line is Tiger, and I barely ever use the 'Cock. Near all the elevator entrances are paintings/drawings by children of said animals. This is my favorite. [N.B. - It is entirely possible that I have put up this picture before and forgotten that I did so.]
This painting by a 3 year old perfectly captures how children at this developmental level are unable to pictorally reproduce perspective, yet try nevertheless. I tend towards perkiness when I see this one on my way to nuclear medicine/pharmacy/cafeteria/MRI. Maybe it belongs on cuteoverload. Also, it sort of looks like a rabbit in addition to being both jellyfish and a tiger.

This morning I went to do laundry up by the Gelson's, where the air is clear and I don't have to smell the rotting produce for sale next door at the Armenian grocers like I do at the yellow formica washpalace on Hillhurst.
I was listening to a Ricky Gervais-Stephen Merchant-Karl Pilkington podcast while folding, and there was a woman next to me who made me think she should try being a witch for Halloween because she just has a face made for that kind of thing. I was trying to stifle laughter so as not to make the witch think I was a nutter. If you havent heard it yet, you should try it. But it's a very mean show wherein Karl Pilkington serves as both font and receptacle for all humor therein, so you have been warned. You don't know who he is, and neither did I. Here is his bio.

In sadder news, my narcissus and the other bit of plant life whose name I cannot recall gave up and fell over yesterday. Together.

What is your best approximation of the texture of lobster? I had it for the first time last Friday. Disgusted, it felt like the fish looked in Return of the King, in the gross-out fish eating Gollum scene crossed with firm grapefruit.

Christ on a crutch!

2006-02-04T21:05:00.000-08:00

Christ on a crutch!
Originally uploaded by Sarah Lebo.

Nacho Libre!!!!

A verbis a verbera/acta non verba

2006-01-30T19:11:00.000-08:00

Achill Island
Originally uploaded by Sarah Lebo.

My living room is really quite a blackhole: cluttered with half-opened art supplies, empty glasses lined with dried red wine and root beer, books in stacks, a dead christmas tree, a trying-to-grow pot of paperwhites and me. My taxes have been e-filed. My grad school applications have been sent. I am wearing the new fleece. I worked three days and then a night shift. I saw Casanova and had tom yung koong. I ate a macrobiotic dinner last night with Karen Ma. I wash dishes and have baths. I am more than midway through book two of the Patrick O'Brien books. I realize every day that I have some very high quality friends and other very good half-friends, meaning they are anywhere from one quarter- to one half-good at actually being my friend. This quality issue has nothing to do with frequency of contact but rather other factors. There are those and then there are people we might not talk to in ten years (Karen Ma) and then when we see them we are home again, easy peasy. I worry every day that my very good friends are floating away from me on the tide of our own mutual negligence when it comes to keeping tabs. I bought all these art supplies in an attempt to pull them back against that tide by sending them little thank you notes expressing how much I value them. When I have tried to sit and make something, I accomplish little.
This weekend someone asked me what my bedroom looked like and I said it's my bed and nothing else, and this is true (Eric said this was very Leonard Cohen-y). Some of you may have known me for my previous rooms and my tendency to actually adorn them with remnants and signifiers of my life, and I liked that. I can still do that but it seems that now I am grown, whatever that means. Now I am without the frequent lightning strike of inspiration and
I wonder how much of this is the fault of my work or other things. For example, the other day I spent two hours online researching the approximate cost of a windbeaten cottage on the northwest coast of Ireland where I might one day retreat during winters (for the storms) to write. And yet I could have spent those two hours writing right here, right now and then I wouldnt think so little of myself. Problem solved! Actions not words.

Oh but you say, come now, you sound perfectly depressed, nurse!

I don't really think I am. I think I am tired and that I need to work more diligently at my calligraphy (I bought a kit with the other stuff at the art store) and try to keep my house uncluttered so I can find an available work space when I feel a lightning strike coming on.

That, and more wine, less talk.

When the wind blows

2006-01-16T11:30:00.000-08:00

wish I had that fleece
(mossy mossy teeth)
the brown one, I think the color is Carob
(numb nasopharynx)
half dizzy, mostly cold
(Emergen-C, you're my only hope. Emergen-C, you're my only hope)
Cleaning rangetops with Clorox wipes
(banana tree moving compliantly, sounds like a man in the bushes)
About to make omelette, only to abandon the endeavor
(in the name of love, in the name of love)
Put on hard contacts and I can see my face
(consider the essay sent, consider new alarm clock purchase)
wonder about people and their rationales
(in the name of love, what more in the name of love)
today with two other nurses deconstructed the near dreadlock
of my patient who meanwhile grinned and mouthed words of contentedness
while we all fussed above her
(she is ten but just learning to use her vocal chords)
(there was lots of grape scented conditioner)
I watched as another patient's mother read her the Hungry Caterpillar
(my patient has no mother but has a doting biker daddy)
and couldnt look away.
Went up to see two previous patients on another floor
(one watched the Daily Show with me and showed me his knitting and played me the Star Wars theme on a recorder)
the other giggled in his crib while I pretended to eat his foot like corn on the cob
(he cycled his legs, kicked his mylar Elmo balloon for sport when he was in the ICU)
This could have been a novel
This could have been a short story

Ativan plus Supershuttle = Vancouver

2006-01-10T10:28:00.000-08:00

Like IV fluid, but for mouths
Originally uploaded by Sarah Lebo.

I snowed myself with Ativan yesterday AM prior to departure. Folks, I actually slept on a plane for two and a half hours. I don't remember hearing the engines idle down on descent, nor the captain announcing Mt St Helen's on the right nor the beverage service or the snoring of the snowboarders in the row ahead of me. I believe I have found my ideal dose friends, and it is two point five mgs of lorazepam (my Rx is for 0.5).
Pops and Gaga picked me up in the newest Lebomobile - a 1990 blue-grey Jetta diesel complete with ipod jack!
Gaga (in Gorton's-fisherman-yellow rainwear) welcomed me and then commenced discussion of the H5N1 virus and it's presence in Southeast Asia as pertains to my sister's imminent departure to said region. Then we had hot and sour soup, dry fried green beans, braised tofu and later, over the Daily Show, a mild Chianti. Oh, and my sister didnt know I was coming so that was a good surprise.

For your convenience, I found a painting of hot and sour soup. It might actually be from the author of the famed Everybody (active verb) series (e.g. Everybody Poops, etc), not sure.
the way in which the artist has plumbed the tofu-rich depths of the broth is admirable.

Yippy-yi-yay, yippy-i-o-oh

2006-01-10T10:21:00.000-08:00

marlborotowleroad
Originally uploaded by Sarah Lebo.

You've probably seen this one already. Here it is again!

A horse. Working like a.

2006-01-06T04:04:00.000-08:00

I am in the middle of my first night shift right now. I have two sleeping children in the rooms to my right. Since before Christmas, I've been working a foolish schedule. I made it myself and have only me to blame. I worked 5 12-hrs straight through over Christmas, had one day off, had two on, two off, then three on. Then this morning I slept in until noon. I got a phone call in the middle of omelette-making asking if I could come in for a night shift as they were short. I said yes and promptly swallowed a benadryl and climbed back into bed. O whoa is me, sitting at the tail end of the unit. It's dark and kinda lonely.
How was your new year's? Mildly disappointing but expectedly so? I went to my cousins' house. Everyone but me was on pills. I got lots of massages but early in the night realized I would have to abandon my plan to make out with somebody on such day.

I made something out of artichokes last night. My salmon on Monday was white.
I watched Labyrinth and also Jiminy Glick in La La Wood.

Dance magic dance.
Slap that baby, make it pee!

Written on a Post-it, signifying nothing

2005-12-18T11:50:00.000-08:00

Year's List of Good and Great:

Rory O'Shea Was Here - finding my tattered old fleece in the closet - Thai omelette with scallions and Eric Lane - A History of Violence - the dreams I started remembering again after not remembering any for a year when I sleep in on days off - Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild - The 40-Year-Old Virgin - shrimp boil on restaurant porch in New Iberia, LA - the narcissus and paperwhites I bought at Target that grow right now, mitotically as I type - Batman Begins - learning how to calculate catecholamine and opiate intravenous drips - Walk the Line - hiking in Runyon Canyon and Griffith Park when it's fall and the light gets golden - Millions - wet burritos - discovery of great bras after many years of searching - U2 and dinner in April with Bonnie and Karen - Mysterious Skin - pulling up shrimp traps with Da off West Vancouver in November - Sinead O'Connor's reggae album - Junebug - kale with andouille in my kitchen - Ryan Adams x 2 - breakfast with Mom when it's grey outside - Breakfast on Pluto - Trader Joe's Hot and Sour Soup in glass jar - Everything is Illuminated - hearing a legally blind 70-year-old tell me how she helped steal a public bus to evacute her neighborhood in the Lower Ninth Ward - Brokeback Mountain - Sufjan Stevens' Illinois - Google maps - My Summer of Love - Russell Stover's sugar-free chocolate-covered toffee - The Constant Gardener - watching cooking shows ad nauseam with my sister - Grizzly Man - marcona almonds with rosemary and sea salt from Trader Joe's - Antony and the Johnsons I'm A Bird Now - retractable Sharpie markers - the Weatherman - the treadmill at steep incline for 20 minutes - No Direction Home - first time being a camp nurse - Thumbsucker - a striped scarf when the time is right - Beck's Que Onda Guero and Go It Alone - King Kong - the quad press at 130 lbs - exiting the Arclight, returning in the dark to your car parked on the roof, it's foggy and cold and to the north are at least 12 beams of light from Hollywood Blvd. roving back and forth across the fog - Cat Power and Handsome Boy Modeling School, I've Been Thinking - the Marcel Dzama drawings on the wall at 826LA and the sad ghost Dzama salt and pepper shakers I got at home - The Squid and the Whale - my Christmas tree and its ornaments - Smog, A River Ain't Too Much to Love - Halloween despite having to work the next day - Gustavo Santaolalla who did the music for North Country and Brokeback Mountain and the Motorcycle Diaries - walking to work when it's cold - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds: Lyre of Orpheus and Abbatoir Blues - camping with cousins and their cousins in Santa Barbara - Spoon, Gimme Fiction - Libby's Sense of Style - dinner club sundays - X & Y - Ron being pouty, Harry sitting out the dance, in Goblet of Fire - my neighborsm who carve pumpkins and have dinner with me, just whenever - my Nana, independent film lover, aged 90 - BJ Schwartz and Eric Lane when they are stand-upping it during Trivial Pursuit - the patient in the PICU who has been there for a year, making witches brew with dry ice on Halloween and having frozen grapes and pasta for the nurses and doctors to feel with their eyes closed - my sweet family in general, my sweet friends in general.

Bad and Awful:

Beta blockers - Elizabethtown - my car being dirty most of the time - hypertension - Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Southern storms- Lord of War - empty half-a-bed-syndrome - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - writing personal statements for graduate school applications - skin hunger - wearing gowns at work when your patient is in isolation for infectious disease or immunosuppresive protocol and you take the gown off (there is much static) on your way out of the room and are given really bad shocks by cribs, door handles, water from the faucet and you can see the electric arc - missing family but not being able to tolerate The Vancouver Grey efficiently, therefore leaving one unable to find a compromise between Here and There - the part at the end of Crash where Ludicris chuckles to himself after letting free the Asian slaves and it starts to snow; oh, what a world indeed -the morgue sign-in book - myocardial infarctions - My Humps.

Got My Kong On, Jack Nasty

2005-12-14T19:00:00.000-08:00

I wear a scarf and hat inside my bungalow while sitting here with you, dear reader(s).
What a lovely contrast to the many months of sitting in this very chair, sweating from the face without exerting any energy whatsoever, due to the combo of summer, inadequate air circulation and a general lack of fan(s).
This evening finds me sipping a chemical concoction - decaf, fat and sugar free instant Chai - with my first Personal Christmas (TM) tree ever in the background, a three foot noble fir sitting in sugar water, it's ankle draped with a paisleyed tablecloth, and the shittiest array of tree lighting this side of the Rio Grande. I neglected to purchase those delicate white mini lights, so I've substituted red and blue until such time as I aquire them.
Soundtrack for decorating:
Sam Roberts: Brother Down
Nick Cave: Carry Me
Some new Strokes song
Madonna: X-Static Process
T. Rex: Monolith
Johnny Cash: When the Man Comes Around
Spoon: all of Gimme Fiction
Ted Leo: Me and Mia
The Undertones: Teenage Kicks
(In truth I think the actual decorating only took the length of Van Morrison's Cleaning Windows)

My First Personal Christmas (TM) Glass Ornaments: a pomegranate, a pickle, a frog, a robin, a hen, an owl, a hedgehog, a fish of unknown genus and species, a salmon, a barracuda, a squirrel, a very wee bunny and three Chinese firelantern flowers. Apparently in Germany on Christmas morning families play "hide the pickle" which is akin to hide the matzoh only not Jewish and with a greater propensity to be misread as incestual impropriety. You find the pickle and "win" Christmas or something. Do you think IV catheters would make interesting ornaments? They come in different colors of plastic hub depending on size of needle. I could hang them like those glass icicle ornaments. I would take out the needle first of course. For two Christmases in a row, my mother has made a tree out of pussywillow twigs in a bottle like an empty Hornitos bottle. Five twigs or so, with some orange, white and blue lights adorning them. Classy. We're like that.

This is pretty silly. I'll be working both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, but as it will be a coal-in-my-stocking, lonelyheart time of year, gimme pine needles.

Three people Who Made Me Emote to the Point of Tears This Week While Sitting in the Dark, by Sarah:
1) Ennis Del Mar/Heath Ledger. Waiting in lineup for a matinee of Brokeback Mountain yesterday, watched a parade of ancient gay couples flow out of the Grove theater, holding canes and hands and having red-rimmed eyes. Cardigan-sweater old. Goddamn to you, Loneliness - you make good art.

I now have three favorite man performances of the year: Cillian Murphy, Joaquin Phoenix and Heath. Heath is probably the best of those, ya?

2) Kong/Andy Serkis and Ann Darrow/ Naomi Watts. Now. Well. I went with Eric and Will-Jordan to see Kong at midnight last night in the Cineramadome. We were treated to the trailer for Miami Vice. Someone in our vicinity kept letting off air biscuits, barking spiders, what-have-you. Despite this, and the rising temperature of a sold out cineramadome, the spectacle of Kong was stellar. Yes, too long. Yes, OTT in all respects. Campy, corny a bit. However, um, beautiful? Yes. Yes Petey's a genius, but without Fran Walsh and Phillippa Boyens he would be maybe not so much.. In the OG Kong, Ann is passive, shrieking, and there are those rapey overtones, those Large Evil Black Man/Victimized Virginal White Woman issues. All of course alongside the nasty colonial/savage stuff. In this Kong, Ann is active and she is as much a victim of Carl Denham et al as she plausibly is of Kong (which she isnt anyway, but that's how the film crew sees it). It seems that the business of moviemaking is even worse. Look what happens White Man when you go where you should not. Heart of Darkness...the way Our Lovable Nerds comment on the racist platform of the first movie is brilliant but I'm not telling you how they do it. A lot of it felt like a silent movie, or rather, the most important parts did, aided immensely by the score (written in six weeks!)...but it's wierd to think there is an entirely different one sitting in Howard Shore's computer somewhere. And that face. That sweet sad face.
Jack Black is fucking great.
I cried, yes I did. I cried today even while hearing Ebert's review on podcast. Jordan made fun of me, but that is because he has a pingpong ball for a heart and mine is like a big wet sponge and it leaks sometimes, so what?

.

Welcome to the Hole!

2005-11-22T21:24:00.000-08:00

Part I: Meaningless drivel (movies)
A) Oh Harry Potter the Fourth, you have finally come to be a real movie. How many double entendres did you count? How many Frodo-faces? He made a couple, or rather, the camera did.
And to my dissapointment, the kids don't make face with each other. Sigh.
The people next to me at the Vista wanted to share their popcorn, and so I felt like an orphan taken in from the alleyways of London. The row of gay men in front of me did a synchronized "hand dance" along with the "Enjoy a refreshing cola!" ad before the trailers. People always clap when the ad is over, whoop and holler. It makes me laugh when they do that. People do funny things at the Vista.
B) Joaquin and his not-a-cleft-palate, got-it-in-a-fight-with-my-brother-that-I-refuse-to-talk-about scar. I liked the nuzzling, the scene at the lunch counter, the peanuts, Reese WItherspoon's freckles, and absolutely everything else. Jerry Lee Lewis had some nasty lyrics.
C) I finally got around to seeing Monster too this weekend (and I started Into Thin Air as well, having finished book one of the naval novels). Not a new revelation, but man is Christina Ricci sucky. Fortunately, things tend to work themselves out and henceforth even though I had a hypothesis that maybe Charlize was being overpraised, I was wrong. I would also recommend the HBO documentary.
I am now about to try to watch The Notebook, but I don't think I'll be able to make it through.

Part II: Small, potentially meaningful story from my daily life:
Today was my first day semi-quasi-hemi-solo in the PICU. I had two patients on my own, in the Hole. The Hole is one of our two quad rooms, e.g. there are 4 patients in a room. You might barely leave the Hole for all your 12 hours, except to go for breaks. Sometimes the Holes are vacant and quiet, half-full, and you go about your business. Sometimes you're alone in your hole with an unconscious/sedated patient, so every now and then a heard of medical residents, fellows and attending will meander into the Hole during rounds or someone outside the Hole will pop their head in and say "Come on out of the Hole for a sec". Today there were no vacancies. Four patients, three RNs and two nurse residents, plus assorted family members. Over in one corner was one of my patients, a 14 year old who had taken to yelling "Sarah can you please get my flema?" (phlegm in Spanish, quite endearing). He'd chase this ten minutes later with an expressive sentence en Espanol involving the word 'puta' or 'hija de puta', e.g., some take on "whore". He'd often include his dear mother in the insult. He can't help it. Yesterday he told me to - and I quote -"take it in the ass" when I asked if he wanted pain medicine. We use a universal pain scale with numbers and faces on it to help kids tell us how bad their pain is...I asked him to rate his pain and he said "What the FUCK is wrong with you goddamn people?". He says it with a slur to his speech of course.
I couldnt help but empathize in a way. If I was a teenager and I had a tube coming, say, straight out of the center of my brain and someone asked me to point at a face or a number to describe my pain - no matter how mindful the inquisitor was of not sounding patronizing - I might turn inside out like a sea cucumber after holding up my middle finger to delineate where I fit on the scale.

I was there when some good news about his prognosis came down the line, and there were tears and hugs, so it was a good day.

Using a laser at your place of work: A Primer

2005-11-16T22:18:00.000-08:00

Today was neurology review day for my critical care orientation.
I like neurology.
I've decided.
Here's what we reviewed:
1) neuromuscular blocking agents (paralytics)
2) intracranial pressure monitoring and assessment
and then we were regaled with a bunch of horrific but notable stories involving children and their heads by our beloved mentor Fran, and so we will never forget some very important things.

In the PICU, I am becoming adept at manipulating cockstops (not cockblocks, though maybe that too?).
Would you like me to explain the physics of the pleural cavity? No problem! Whenever you're ready.
We use lasers and levels at the bedside. The laser is used to make sure that the drains we use to drain fluid from the brain are aligned against the proper anatomical reference point. If the drain is lower than the patient's head, too much fluid will drain off, equalling *collapse*. If it's too high, no fluid will drain and the pressure in the brain will increase, equalling *squish*.

After brain class, I went to the laundrymat, folded my clothes, read a chapter of my naval novel, then ate a frozen yogurt with my neighbor.

Yesterday I was at Trader Joe's and next to me in line was the guy who played the character/rugby player "Roy" in "Alive". You'll remember him as the freckled, whinging, anxious, consistently annoying survivor.

I don't know if I told you - and forgive me if I didnt - but I saw Keanu in the parking lot of Home Depot last week. He had just purchased a hot dog from the hot dog cart outside near the garden center.

I lost 3 hours of my life to Netflix last night what with its convoluted yet decidedly wonderful site compiling a massive queue filled with PBS documentaries, Return to Oz and Murderball.

Beat to Quarters!

2005-11-08T22:22:00.000-08:00

Today my special nautical/historical/flauna-flora glossary arrived from Amazon. It is called "A Sea of Words" and it has been described [per back cover of said book] as "A godsend" by the Irish Times. This is because if you attempt to read what I have started reading without it, the harpies will descend to pluck at your eyelashes. Only a nautical savant could understand Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin novels (aka Master and Commander) unaided. And only a savant of a totally different variety would even pick such a book up, in this case a filmic-nursing-marine-oriented savant.

In essence:
I don't have to worry anymore - because now I know what a "cunt-splice" is! No more harried nights!

It's a "type of splice formed when two ropes are overlapped and joined in such a way as to form an EYE" (emphasis belonging to the text)
My friend said to me today: I didnt know you were into boats..
Hey, now! That's because I aren't.

In other news, my Saturday matinee of Jarhead was interrupted by the guy to my left who kept readjusting his package every time...well, every time you saw desert in a frame. Today I learned from NPR that Walter Murch doesnt like attending sets of the films he cuts, so if he has to go on set, he looks at the floor until he sees the director's shoes and then looks up to talk to director and then back to floor and he leaves. he doesnt want to see anything that the audience wont be seeing. How does he know a director by his shoes?

I would recommend Jarhead but only in a dispassionate way. Jake G doesnt make that developmentally delayed voice in this movie, in fact he's pretty good aside from the lobotomized way you feel for his character and everyone around him.

That Bob Dylan PBS thing is amazing. I only just saw it. I like it when he says things like: "It was rightly cold."

More importantly, I would like to recommend Danny Boyle's follow-up to 28 Days Later, which would be Millions, available on DVD.
It is amazing!

I had babka tonight
Exclamation point

This loser took the longest

2005-11-01T10:45:00.000-08:00

Napoleon
Originally uploaded by Sarah Lebo.

Mephisto

2005-11-01T10:44:00.000-08:00

Mephisto
Originally uploaded by Sarah Lebo.

Danielle in her wisdom chose to carve Mephisto last night, which isn't really Mephisto of the shoe company or the German film, but the Bono version of Mephisto circa 1993 when he would dress up like so and phone frmr. President HW Bush from a concert and leave strange messages on the machine.

Why are you wearing that stupid bunny suit?

2005-11-01T10:42:00.001-08:00

Frank
Originally uploaded by Sarah Lebo.

Why are you wearing that stupid man suit...

row o' gourd

2005-11-01T10:42:00.000-08:00

The Pumpkin People
Originally uploaded by Sarah Lebo.

Oh look at the little lighted items in our courtyard. It really lit up our little Gateway Ave kibbutz.

The Pumpkin People

2005-11-01T10:40:00.000-08:00

Dracula Mr Burns
Originally uploaded by Sarah Lebo.

The annual tendinitis-inducing gourd-scoop out came and went.
They make an electric saw for carving pumpkins and I got one.
My neighbors and I carved through the night and some drank egg nog with rum and others ate mediocre chinese food and we had a few little Darth Vaders, an Obi Wan, two red Power Rangers and baby skunk (trick or treating in a stroller) and a boy dressed as a girl. Way to push cultural boundaries (machismo), brother.
So here we have Mr. Burns, a labor of love carved by Shelly.

"In the Christmas pageant, I was a ham."

2005-10-31T09:55:00.000-08:00

Token objet d'inanimate, avec class
Originally uploaded by Sarah Lebo.

My experiences of Halloween as inanimate objects have been as:
1) a trash can
2) an Aquafresh toothpaste pump
3) a McDonald's milkshake.

Innes VII was a polaroid who did vodka shots, thereby truly blending the inanimate and the animate.
I am a lucky girl to have been in the company of so many great people for a night.

The 10

2005-10-31T09:51:00.000-08:00

The 10
Originally uploaded by Sarah Lebo.

So then Robyn had to come and show us all up by being the 10! Being the Dreadfulest Freeway in Los Angeles, The 10 runs east-west from Pomona through Compton to Venice and Santa Monica. If you are driving back from Venice towards the Eastside at about 5 PM, you begin to stare at the veins in your wrist, contemplating an existentially realized death, wondering what your serum carbon monoxide levels are at this point in time. The 405 competes with the 10 for most hideously trafficky LA freeway.

Those four people as that digital clock: 10:34!

2005-10-31T09:43:00.000-08:00

Those four people as that digital clock
Originally uploaded by Sarah Lebo.

Were they brothers and sister? Were they a big giant "couple"? I forgot to ask. they were the best digital clock I've ever seen, and they had the best footwear (not pictured).

The Greatest Shame

2005-10-31T09:42:00.000-08:00

The Greatest Shame
Originally uploaded by Sarah Lebo.

I had many favorite costumes on Saturday evening, however when Mo Twine showed up dressed like Santa, complete with gators (were they for snow or soot or hauling lobster traps?) on, I was sold. Then I looked to my left and saw a small man with a Mexican wrestler's mask on, wearing this World's Greatest Grandma sweatshirt. He was accompanied by a mule/donkey/mouse with a hat that looked to be bought in Cabo San Lucas at Papas & Beer, bearing gigantic balls, supposedly the result of elephantiasis. I am trying to remember the actual animal this man was supposed to be..it had a ridiculously cute name like the pica, but not the pica...if anyone remembers, lemme know. They sat on Mo's lap for a time as you can see here.

Now to cleanse the palate...

2005-10-31T09:35:00.000-08:00

KatAlex
Originally uploaded by Sarah Lebo.

I give you - don't look! - a sexy pink elephant and her polyester, straight-out-of-a-bag prisoner-costumed gigolo, complete with glass of Bordeaux, Classy Hong Kong 1920's Moustache and Yalie eyewear!

The Valve

2005-10-31T09:31:00.000-08:00

The Valve
Originally uploaded by Sarah Lebo.

I want you to know that I have 23 photographs of my pal Eric galavanting as Ignatius J. Reilly and that they will soon be available as a tastefully mounted montage of flannel and hotdogs. I arrived early and therefore began to drink early. I came from work in my scrubs, which made me feel very inadequate as Halloween is my most favorite thing and I had to work this weekend prior. Manta Ray! made no appearance, but she will return once again, headlights a'blazin at a 'ween of the future.
To Eric, I lift my glass.

Quick Film Club Retort Over Eggs and Chinese Broccoli

2005-10-26T12:59:00.000-07:00

my miniature brother
Originally uploaded by Sarah Lebo.

Alex: I hated Everything is Illuminated.

Sarah: I thought it was great.

Alex: It was the worst movie of the year. It was so boring. You only like it because of Frodo. That character was so passive.

Sarah: Yes he was passive, and might I add that your Baggins suggestion is off base.. Eugene Hutz is what is amazing about this movie. The Odessian character arcs are great. Hutz is like one giant Kindersurprise within the milky-chocolatey happy-sad shell of this movie. I also found myself strangely attracted to him. I feel vulnerable now about my movie opinions and am now hesitant to tell you what I really thought about Thumbsucker. God, what a breakfast Alex, thanks.

Alex: (punitively) Lebo, finish the bread and cheese. Eat all your lox! Don't drop any more of that triple cream brie onto the carpet. We just got rid of an infestation.

The Sportsman and the Lone Star and me

2005-10-26T10:59:00.000-07:00

I am sorry to be so full of shit. I'm afraid your kindly offers of laxative tea won't help. I am FOS (which is a real clinical term, by the way, meaning Full of Stool) because I have been lax to regale you with tales of Louisiana and Texas. Maybe this hasnt even crossed your mind and you don't want to hear my stories.
I shall now attempt to do tell you -*despite that* - in point form in order to bring us up to current events.

BEGIN POINT FORM
- Houston is humid which was news to me, and I have a firm belief that it was designed by the same evil genius who engineered Calgary's grid-system-sprawl-hell. Requisite oppositional statement and truth: the people of course, were geniuinely awesome.

- The government put us up at a Ramada in the very south of Houston, almost in Sugarland. When I arrived at the airport, I had been given no info on where to go, who to call, who was meeting me etc..it was Comical!! I thought per chance that someone would be there to greet me, but alas, through some gutsy phone calling to Admirals and Captains, I got the name of the Ramada and sped there taxi-like lickety split.

- The Ramada had poor air circulation yet was conveniently located next to an Indian vegetarian restaurant serving delicacies in the Gujarati style, a Target and the MHMRA, also known in no uncertain terms as The MENTAL HEALTH and MENTAL RETARDATION AUTHORITY of Harris County.

- In Houston, and I'm assuming all of Texas, a sickeningly wealthy family of Greek immigrants, the Pappas, have birthed a series of hangar-type eating establishments. There is Pappas Seafood [300-seater designed to look like an old shrimp shack and/or Floridian highway seafood restaurant], Pappas Smokehouse BBQ [designed to look like an old BBQ hut with Big Jim out back, a'stirrin the sawse], Pappadeux [no identifiable Louisianan motif in the architecture, intense use of seasoned salt on its cajuny items, fried alligator], Papasito's Cantina, Pappas Burgers, Pappas Pizza and Pappas Brothers Steakhouse. I believe we went to 2/7 of their chains.

- I was sworn in by the oath of office by a commander from the US Deparment of Public Health. He was bedecked in the ubiquitous uni-beige uniform, complete with folded naval cap in belt. His name was Gene. I swore my oath and was nervous doing it. Thereafter I was a federalized, unpaid employee of the US Gov't. They never gave us any documentation, no badge announcing our titles, authority etc. In retrospect...WTF?

- I went to the G.R. Brown Convention Center in Houston on my first day. I did triage for the mindblowing medical unit that was set up there by the U of Texas and Scripps of San Diego. They had x-ray and lab capabilities (faster than most hospitals), two mental health trailers with big plastic signs on them that read MENTAL HEALTH (empty folding chairs in the waiting area), two Walgreens pharmacy trailers for filling the one-month free prescriptions that Katrina victims were entitled to.

- At the Brown Convention center, there were thousands of faith-based volunteers wearing bright yellow shirts that said Operation Compassion. If you were an evacuee (or not), you could ask them for directions, they could sit with you and hear your stories. They could sit with you and just hold your hand. The Brown center was brightly lit. There were three long tables lined with many bright red phones like the kind the president has, so that people could call anyone across country to locate lost relatives or arrange travel or just talk. There was an area designated to helping people find housing. There was an area for employment help, with lots of computers and pencils and pads of paper. Somewhere in the fold FEMA was registering people, but I didnt see them. Upstairs was a cafeteria run by volunteers. The sleeping area was the size of a high school football field dotted with neat rows of aerobeds. Volunteers were tucking in sheets and folding newly donated clothing. It was my fellow traveler Mr. Dr. Bill King of Tracy, California who pointed out the unique (and glaring) disparity between the Brown Convention center and the picture we saw in Louisiana. In Houston there was a dignity to that shelter...the spic and span-ness, the visible community of volunteers.

- The one comparable shelter in Louisiana we came across was the Cajundome in Lafayette, but we were denied entrance to it when we asked if we could take a look around to make an assessment of potential healthcare needs. The woman at the gateway wore a sad Red Cross vest, like the kind the Cards wear over the shoulder in Alice in Wonderland. She was a public health nurse from Orange County and she was more than ready to go home. She said she was doing "prison nursing with some mental health on the side". She was a long way from Newport. On the doors to the Cajundome were "no cameras, no photograph" signs. They had metal detectors and police dogs. Diabetics were not allowed to carry their own insulin needles but had to check them in with the Red Cross as if they were children or potential junkies. We saw a good number of military police outside of the Cajundome as well as a hefty Dept of Homeland Security trailer, antennae and satellite dishes pronging out into the night. There were barricades out in front, trash on the ground. There was a curfew. Orange sodium lights made everything that was slightly invisible seem suddenly dodgy, and the police presence didnt contradict such a feeling.

Next time on "Point Form"......The preacher's wife gets into a scrap!

intake and output

2005-10-16T22:20:00.000-07:00

Originally uploaded by Sarah Lebo.

My dad and I had a conversation about marine species this evening.

It is starting to rain.

Today was day two for me in the PICU. It is a different place from where I've been. Today my baby patient breathed helium and oxygen inside a plastic dome that looked like something belonging to a fancy person who happens to live in the Crab Nebula.
When he cried, everyone said it sounded like a person crying from five rooms away.
But no, there he would be, his head under the bell jar, right next to you.

The banana tree outside my bungalow sounds like a man in the bushes.

Don't worry, it really is a tree.

I'm not done telling you about Tx-La but I need to sleep.

Around the week of August 30, 2005

2005-10-07T16:04:00.000-07:00

It feels somewhat deflating to write about this so late, but as I was in Texas and Louisiana last month, I'll tell you about it.

At the start of it all, many of my colleagues and I signed up to be volunteer medical assists with FEMA when the levees broke. They actually called our hospital to make such a list. However, we didn’t hear anything more.
That was the week we all saw the baby held by its mama on CNN, the baby with the floppy arms and pale hands and sunken raccoon eyes held in a chubby embrace outside the Superdome. Perhaps that was the day we saw that man softly place a patchwork blanket over somebody’s grandma who died sitting up in her patchwork wheelchair (duct tape around the armrests, cardboard wrapped around several spokes in the wheels), the man trying not to let out tears as he calmly yet angrily protested such a way to die, to absolutely no one. Everything was like a one-way valve that week. The people of New Orleans emoted outwardly towards us all through the glass of our TV screens, looking up from tar-papered garage roofs, pleading through the lenses of network cameras that were steamed up at the edges from the humidity (those cameras of course imbued with magic powers enabling them to make an appearance where our government could not), teenagers eloquently expounding the disgrace of Iraq in light of their current needs...Their holler was clear but our response was stifled and retarded in the true definition of such a word; our reactions flew back, hit the impermeable surface of the TV screen and rolled right on back into our laps wherein their extreme helplessness became ours (though ours was much less important because it was softened of course, privileged and air conditioned and hydrated with Vitamin Water and adorned with diplomas and iPods and toilets that flushed and lights that clicked on when requested). And so all Our Brilliant Solutions (so passionately discussed over so many lunch hours) and emphatic I-hear-yous and all that Red Cross money at this point was in a sense without horsepower. It’s like that mechanism inside of engines that transfers chemical energy into power and then into movement, it was stuck or malrotated or simply was never there to begin with. I think the people in the Ninth Ward came to know this was true before the floods. For some of them maybe it was an appalling reminder of something familiar they already understood; for us it was simply an apalling revelation.

I wrote an angry letter that night to Bush and to Cheney, that no one will ever read.

I wanted to tell them that my colleagues and I were willing to jump from copters, each bearing 50 liters of IV fluids on our backs, because it was something that would very cheaply and easily arm people against death. Why the fuck weren’t they using us?
I wanted someone to kick and punch.
Later that week Anderson Cooper cried on television twice, one time during a split-screen interview with Governor Blanco wherein he fiestily noted that rats were consuming a corpse to his left and that her thanksgiving to other politicians was an inhumane response to the situation. (Blanco, white.)
So Blanco prayed to lord baby Jesus, suggesting the state of Louisiana do the same and asked for nonspecific help from the federal government. Mayor Nagin decided to enact a mandatory evacuation 2 days late. Heckuva-job-Brownie told Paula Zahn that people at the Convention Center in N.O. were receiving two meals-ready-to-eat per day, and when our anchor denied his data and asked about the situation at the Superdome Mr. Brown, well, Heckuva-job- Brownie says he only that morning knew that those people didn’t have food or water. Our anchor rhetorically spanked him as best she could, which was still feeble but better than nothing (a theme for this whole scenario –some anchor on Fox news even lost his shit) - by asking if that meant the public had better intelligence than the federal government?
Then this past week I read that Brownie, under questioning, stated said the media had been creating “hype” and “fabricating stories of rape and violence” and generally presenting the situation incorrectly. Gee, Brownie, the stories I was told by both 8-year old girls and 82-year old men, I mean, talk about overly vivid and painful imaginative capabilities! And those grandmas – especially the legally blind ones with the acute senses of hearing – well they’re spinning some yarns, I suppose, Sir.
But then they’re like, well…yarns so dark they couldn’t possibly be yarns, y’know?
[I didn’t want to resort to angry sarcasm, but there it goes.]

In response to those emails I sent to Bush and Cheney, I received a rote email requesting patience from the citizenry and reassurance that all arms of government had been activated in response to this national disaster.

I thought of Doc Octagon, because that sentence made me think of “arms”. I thought of how the ground shook in response when he thonked all around Peter Parker’s city, how the bricks sounded when he scrounched down on them. An active sound.

Returning, the heat dives down.

2005-09-22T12:40:00.000-07:00

In Opelousas, Maggie
Originally uploaded by Sarah Lebo.

Started heading home two days ago, leaving the cut-it-it's-so-thick heat of New Iberia, Opelousas and Lafayette, Louisiana for the pressin-down-upon-thee heat of Houston to the smack-you-dry heat of Phoenix (en route to Los Angeles) to the hold-me-its-so-comfortable 76 degrees of L.A. at night, falling asleep sitting up in the Super Shuttle as it wove its way to my street down from others.

I'll return later today to start some entries about my journey to the soft, vulnerable underbelly of America.

Fall Film Roll Call

2005-08-11T12:08:00.000-07:00

Look what I did for you! You're welcome!
Here are links to the trailers of some juicy fil-ims to come this year, picked personally by your favorite ellipitical machining-Registered Nurse.
And yes, some will be poop. Let's be honest, there could also be corn. Or peanuts.
But for now let's use our PMA - that's right, our Positive Mental Attitude - and tightly cross our legs in excitement.

Please feel free to respond in list form with your most eagerly anticipated of this lot (and others). Commentaries, addendums and insults are also acceptable.

JUST ADDED:

Jarhead
Mendes, Gyllenhaal, Saarsgard, Foxx. Gee-zus walks.

Shopgirl
Martin, Danes, Schwartzman

A clip from Green Street Hooligans...curious..may even work.

Get Rich or Die Tryin
Jim Sheridan! Fitty.

Revolver
Guy Ritchie, Liotta, Statham, Andre 3000

Zathura
Jon Favreau....Explorers, Goonies, Space Camp......

Stay
Marc Forster w/ Ryan Gosling, The Return of BD Wong, Naomi "bulimic cheeks pt. 2" Watts (guess who's pt. 1?), and Ewan McMember.

Lord of War
Gattaca/Truman Show's Andrew Niccol w/Nic Cage, Ethan Hawke, Jared "30 Seconds to Mars" Leto, Bridget Moynahan. I once read an interview with Elijah Wood in which he was asked, "Well, since you're so obsessed with music, will you ever start your own band?" to which he responded, "Jesus Christ, no! Have you seen 30 Seconds to Mars? I have seen what actors can do to music. I love music too much to ever hurt it like that" and from then on our imaginary friendship took off (he is reportedly starting up a label soon).

Proof
John Madden w/ Gwynies, Jake G., Hope Davis, A. Hopkins. I really do like her freckles so much, even if she wears repulsively cheesy tank tops that say "Mrs. Martin" as described in that NY Times interview this week.

A History of Violence
David Cronenberg w/ Viggo, Maria Bello, Ed Harris. There might not be anybody with spine-plug sockets or f-able scars in this one, but it looks juicy.

Everything Is Illuminated
Liev Schreiber w/ El Wood, Eugene Hutz. The trailer recovers itself at the end.

Green Street Hooligans
Lexi Alexander w/ El Wood, Charlie Hunnam and Catface McGillicuddy. American goes to England, falls in with soccer hooligans. Laughable concept, yes. Especially laughable in light of casting choices? Certainly.
Any good? Reportedly, very much so.

The New World
Terence Malick w/ the Hirsute Irishman, Batman and others. First trailer was better.

Waiting
Jeremy this one's for you...it might make you want to slam your forehead against the piano keys in aggravation though. Alanis' wife and Anna Faris and that kid from Freaks and Geeks.

Roll Bounce Like a Japanese cowboy, like a brother on skates. And how. Looks v. v. fun but might have corn in it.

Walk the Line
James Mangold w/ Joaquin Phoenix, Reese Witherspoon. What's that smell?

The Brothers Grimm
T. Gilly, Maaat Daaaamon.

Grizzly Man Werner Herzog, so far makes me teary. But we all know that might not signify anything.

Thumbsucker
Mike Mills w/ Vince Vaughn and some kid named Lou Pucci and shit. Lou Pucci is also in Chumscrubber (wherein Jamie Bell stars, it looks bad), which also has three syllables, and which is another movie about existentially tormented adolescent males in the suburbs, which shouldnt be confused either with Brick, which is supposedly the same idea but noir-y and with Joseph Gordon-Levitt (no trailer yet), and why are you wearing that stupid human suit?

Dear Wendy
Thomas Vinterberg (The Celebration) w/ The Suddenly Omnipresent Jamie Bell and Mark Webber.

Elizabethtown
Cameron Crowe and the Elf. Smelllll Baaaaaad. But I could be wrong, I mean, the trailer for Vanilla Sky was awful, right, and that didnt turn out half-....er....

good night, wisconsin.

I sometimes want one of these to come home to.

2005-08-10T20:39:00.000-07:00

Monchichi I Can Play Atari
Originally uploaded by Sarah Lebo.

My Titi monkey would give me a very thorough massage after a long day of pushing, poking, pressing, extracting, teaching, and writing things down.
It could serve me americanos from my (fictional) Francis! Francis! espresso machine on rainy nights in Los Angeles.
It could hide in the closet and come out and say "surprise!" while waving a little white flag and doing a dance.

So, yeah, I saw Bill of Bill and Ted at Trader Joe's on Sunday. What do you got to say about it?

Have you ever eaten quail? I tried to. The articulation of the joints was too human and I couldnt follow through. Little crossed ankles, etc.

Today I was at work, by the elevators coming back from the blood bank, and I was holding a bag of platelets and some patient's dad asked what I was holding and I told him:"Oh, platelets".
Man: "Wow, it looks like gravy. Looks like something you'd eat".
Nurse L: "Yeah, kind of looks like mango juice to me".
And you'd think that was it for comparing blood products to food! But you'd be wrong!
Man (continuing): "Yeah, a sauce for meat. Or maybe clarified butter, like in Indian food. Crazy! You put that into somebody? Does blood look kind of like a sauce-thing?"

And....scene.

Amor Vincit Omnia

2005-07-20T14:56:00.000-07:00

Amor Vincit Omnia
Originally uploaded by Sarah Lebo.

Ok, I dont want to lay a trip on you but it's getting hot in here. I've had to take off almost all my clothes. When cometing the bathtub, a piece of sweat fell twain my eyes and another right up in one. Whilst swiffering the kitchen floor in the halfassed way only the Swiffer is capable of doing, my *upper arm* began to perspire. My insecurities related to wearing sleeveless shirts have had to be chucked today.I am consuming high grade sticky icky New Zealand Artisan water from Trader Joe's, so don't worry, if you were about to start. My couch is filled with down, and is covered with fancy wool fabric. My chairs are similarly dressed. Where do I sit?

On the Soundock, a soundtrack to sweating:
The Ballad of Judas Priest and Frankie Lee: b. Dylan
No Cars Go: Arcade Fire
Something Queeny by Keane
Nautical Disaster: Tragically Hip
Auf Auchse: Franz Ferdinand

For your juxapositioning pleasure: A moment of silence for the Wonka that was.

2005-07-19T18:12:00.000-07:00

Originally uploaded by Sarah Lebo.

Lemme get tutorial here for a moment....I wanna talk Wonka. I saw it last night. I've gone to Slate and the Times and Ebert and on and on. I don't understand how reviewers of the Burton film tend to repeatedly point out that his version is more sinister than Stuart's. Herein I have read the 1971 film described as mellow, even - holy crabcakes, Batman! - dinner-theater-esque.

Ok, so how is such a reading possible, I ask. Here's my take: Wilder's Wonka is more overt in his disdain for the brats. He knows what tools their parents are (Depp's does too but he's so distanced from everyone that it's almost a nonissue). Wilder's Wonka is clearly eccentric but you can tell he's anchored somewhere. Wonka's gravitas is so expertly revealed in the third act in his Half-of-Everything Office with the Gobstopper Theft/Slugworth subplot, wherein we see The Unveiling of Charlie Bucket's Integrity.
Then there is Depp's Wonka. Essentially he seems to cringe and then snap; his velveted man is all over the place and therefore, nowhere in particular. Please note that I do, however, love the braces headgear and Saruman wringing his latex gloves in a moment of angst..

Additionally, Wonka's Wilder drifted off into poetic reverie and when he did so, he was creepy because he seemed omniscient. Depp's Wonka relied on a generic sense of oddity combined with mood imbalance as the source material for "creepy". I think that's a bit cheap. His Wonka is inconsistent and I dont think he ever reveals himself to be someone that Charlie would admire. Weak, but that's just me.

Not everything demands comparison. This I know. In some instances, a work of art requires no contrast in order to make it relevant or revelatory. However, in this case I cannot hold back.
Let us just review some of the juicy wonder that littered Mel Stuart's less-in-accordance-with-the-source-material film of 1971, shall we?

Wonka: "Where is fancy bred, in the heart or in the head?" (Shakespeare + candy = jazz hands! Merchant of Venice)

Veruca Salt: "Snozzberry? Who's ever heard of a snozzberry? "
Wonka: "We are the music-makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams." (Irish poet Arthur O'Shaughnessy)

Tinker: "Up the airy mountain, down the rushy glen, we dare not go a'hunting, for fear of little men. Nobody every goes in, and nobody ever goes out." (Irish Poets Represent! William Allingham of Ballyshannon, Co. Sligo)

Wonka: "The suspense is terrible... I hope it will last." (Irish Trifecta! Wilde, Importance of..)

Wonka: "Not a speck of light is showing / So the danger must be growing / Are the fires of hell a-glowing? / Is the grisly reaper mowing?"

Wonka: "So much time and so little to do. Wait a minute. Strike that. Reverse it."

Mrs. Gloop: "My son. He'll be made into marshmallows in five seconds!"
Willy Wonka: "Impossible, my dear lady. That's absurd. Unthinkable."
Mrs. Gloop: "Why?"
Willy Wonka: "Because that pipe doesn't go to the marshmallow room. It goes to the fudge room."

Wonka: "Wrong, sir. Wrong. Under section 37B of the contract signed by him, it states quite clearly that all offers shall become null and void if - and you can read it for yourself in this photostatic copy - "I, the undersigned, shall forfeit all rights, privileges, and licenses herein and herein contained," et cetera, et cetera..."Fax mentis incendium gloria cultum," et cetera, et cetera..."Nemo bis punitor delicatum". It's all there, black and white, clear as crystal. You stole fizzy lifting drinks. You bumped into the ceiling which now has to be washed and sterilized, so you get nothing. You lose. Good day sir."

Wonka: "All I ask is for a tall ship and a star to sail her by. All aboard everybody." (Irish Poet Tetrafecta?! John Masefield )

Charlie Bucket: "Mr. Wonka, they won't really be burned in the furnace, will they?"
Willy Wonka: "Well, I think that furnace is only lit every other day, so they have a good sporting chance, haven't they?"

Mrs. Gloop: "Don't just stand there - do something!"
Wonka: "Help. Police. Murder."

Mike Teevee: "Look at me. I'm gonna be the first person in the world to be sent by television."
Mrs. Teevee: "Mike, get away from that thing."
Willy Wonka: "Stop. Don't. Come back."

Mrs. Gloop: "Aye. Mr. Wonka help I'm getting squooshed!"
Wonka: "Is it my soul that calls me by my name?" (ShakeySpeare: Romeo & Juliet)

Wonka: "For some moments in life there are no words."

Wonka: "A thing of beauty is a joy forever." (Keats, Endymion)

Wonka: "Around the world and home again, that's the sailors way." (William Allingham, second prop)

Wonka: "Candy is dandy but liquor is quicker" (Ogden Nash)

Wonka: "Bubbles, bubbles everywhere but not a drop to drink." (nod to S. Taylor Coleridge)

Mrs. Gloop: 'You boiled him up, I know it"
Wonka: "Nil desperandum, my dear lady. Across the desert lies the promised land."

Wonka: "So shines a good deed in a weary world." (Merchant of Venice)

And now we have:

Chewing gum is really gross. Chewing gum I hate the most.

Let's boogie.

Ha ha ha ha. You're really weird.

Everything here is eatable. I'm eatable, but that my children is called cannibalism and it is frowned upon in most societies.

Mumbler! (this one is acceptable))

Here we have the Puppet Hospital and Burn Center! (also ok)

"It's suicide for diverticulitis"

2005-06-28T21:20:00.000-07:00

- overheard two seats in front of me at the 18:45 showing of Batman Begins at the Vista Theater, in reference to popcorn.

I feel a little TC-manic right now. But...
That movie.
Is fucking.
awesome. great.

He's all: "I'm not going to kill you, but I don't have to save you"

So pure, so good! (I don't trust myself when I start using exclamation points).
That is my kind of superhero. One who attempts to define himself by the most arduous of all human traits: the ability to keep an even keel.

And, not to brag, but I saw Nelly Furtado standing on the sidewalk outside of Malo on my walk home. So, I'm not sweating it either.
And I just read in Entertainment Weekly that Joseph Gordon-Levitt next project is a thriller wherein he - and I quote - "plays the shady pediatrician lover of ex-Parker's star Mo'Nique". Sigh.

Now, it's 21:25, so that means - that's right - I'm off to the gym.

Byrne in the Fire

2005-06-28T11:53:00.000-07:00

Byrne dances with the fire
Originally uploaded by senorbunch.

Sunday I was bumming, kinda hard.
But then I went last minute to see David Byrne and the Arcade Fire at the Hollywood Bowl with olde friende Karen and my neurotransmitters perked back up again.
(Nota bene to T. Cruise, re: the reality of imbalance of chemicals in the human body...sounds like someone didnt finish tenth grade human biology what with the learning about the homeostasis...ahem, excuse me).

So for those who havent been to the Bowl, it is a little piece of the Lord in Los Angeles. A little bit of Over the Pond, back in the Pond. Some Spain in America. All by which I mean to say you can bring bottles of wine or 24 packs of Pabst Blue Ribbon and drink them openly, in public, beside your Trader Joe's picnic of hummous and rough bread and fancypants cheese of many varieties all while watching the people pass by you. Also, the hills that compose your view look a bit like the dry hills of Mallorca, hence the Spain reference.

The teenagers were going apeshit behind us, requesting Arcade Fire songs from a 1/2 mile away from the stage. Perhaps they are Latin students and have studied the physics of ampitheaters, I dont know, but I do know that they threw peanut M&Ms at me, or in my general direction anyway. What is it with the teenagers? Because I'm not so sure we were so rad. The girl in front of me practically threw down when David Byrne whipped out I Zimbra. Really.
There was a man dancing feverishly on the stairs, he, Mr. The Focus of All Comedic Attention and digital photography-taking.
As my mom says, no one moves like David Byrne.
He wore a pink suit, as you can see. He had the Tosca Strings with him as well as a one man drum section. Those amazing kids from Montreal came out for Naive Melody (This Must Be the Place) and somewhere in the stadium a nurse was beaming.

But the nurse did not beam so much as she did when the DB called out the Extra Action marching band, which is a full marching band complete with flag girls - only the flag girls are also burlesque dancers - and they paraded through the crowd (the 35 dollar seats) and onto the stage where they assembled. Henceforth the horns began to play the refrain from :

Beyonce's "Crazy in Love" and I think you can imagine how DB would sound singin Whoa-oh-uh-oh-uhohuhoh and it was amazing I'll never see anything like that agin.

I would highly recommend that you go sit in the corner and meditate upon that, and try to conjure that very image and sound.

Stop. Think. Tylenol, or Popsicle of Love

2005-06-22T10:25:00.000-07:00

Which of the above will be your summer slogan?
I choose Popsicle of Love, though it's suggestiveness falls dead on my doorstep. (My neighbor is talk-yelling.)

The people at my gym read scripts, or audition sheets on the ellipticals and they talk on phones and some of them have been seen sipping Americanos in between reps. They don't so much actively read the scripts as have them lay about with highlighted lines on the machines. There is one old black man who wears one of those garbage-bag sweating-suits and he is on the bike for about an hour, making notes with a pencil and reading while cycling at a rep rate of about 5 a minute. I worry about him and hyperthermia and once I was looking down upon him from the elliptical behind (in between watching Britney and Kevin: Chaotic, subtitled as though for the hearing impaired) and saw he was writing down engineering stuff. Drawing figures and doing math. (My neighbor is yelling). Britney and Kevin is no shocker. It's vile but not as vile as MTV's "Prom Night" "docs" which nauseate me. Who (that wasnt this kind of person herself) ever asked to have a glimpse into the goings on of the richest, most tan and popular girl's life leading up to the prom? The show is filled with dimwitted adolescent females saying shit like "This is my night. He's not going to ruin my night. He's wearing the white tux" or "I love this spa, I think this is just so important..it's so relaxing because everything else is like, so stressful". Maybe we're supposed to harbor animosity here, because I sure wanted to.
Lately I've been toting my Pediatric Advanced Life Support textbook to the gym. Last week I went through a review on treating shock. Then the chapter on resuscitation drugs. Then the chapter on interpreting cardiac rhythms. I can reliably tell you what to do in case of certain rhythms now. Can be confident of the dose of the shock that is to be given and type of shock.

What do the people at your gyms do?

Bono's been laying down props to my people on this here tour. He gave a shout out in London last night, dedicating something to “the doctors, scientists and nurses who help to keep us alive… especially the nurses”. It's sad that it means so much for a public figure to make such a statement, considering how long my profession has been around and considering that RNs outnumber MDs by some number reminiscent of data from Roman times (slaves:slaveowners = rebellion). You'd think we were obscure or something considering our general lack of mention. But nurses don't do it for recognition, that's why we're nurses. But that has to change. We can't be invisibly going about our days and nights, our skill, our knowledge unseen by the public.
We have to be more concerned with power, more like MDs in that way. Not in a way that alters our aim, not to be greedy or focused on monetary gain, but any power/recognition we obtain will only serve the patient and community. I think nursing might be one of the only places where "trickle down" could work.

I need some laughing, etc.

Yer pal and token RN,
Sarah

mash-up vol. 1

2005-06-16T12:26:00.000-07:00

I'm having problems with ideas this year. The problem is that I have a lot of them that I halfassedly initiate or at least ponder before falling asleep. Then when I have a day off, I go to the gym, shower, clean up a bit and then god knows where the rest of the day goes. I find myself attending to unnecessary organizational activities like restructuring my iPod, then my iTunes library, then moving my only bookshelf from one side of the room to the other. And if I'm scheduled to do some time at 826, you can just write off my entire night with the drive back from Venice. I must say however that traffic on the 10, when at its worst, offers me the ability to practice singing along to traditional ten-minute ballads. This has an awkward consequence though because from it another idea is born,: maybe one day I'll get a 4-track, or garageband, and record my version of said 10 minute ballad. In turn, this then reminds me of a previously abandoned idea wherein I started to outline a workshop I would teach at 826 wherein we would explore the format of the epic poem by writing a Rock Odyssey as a group. I abandoned this idea because I thought it was ultimately stupid and only curious to me.

This week I started to make poster boards for my unit on "Lab Values: a Review" and another one on "Systemic Lupus Erythematosus". I stopped because I didnt have vellum to make the boards aesthetically pleasing.

Oh and then there's that novel, or something like that. I feel nuts on occasion.
(End topic).

Oh my days off. It is enjoyed time but it is almost missing time, especially if season 5 of the Sopranos arrives in my mailbox, or when I watch the three original Star Wars like I did this week, borrowed from my lovely neighbors to the north.

I forgot about the scene in Empire where Han cuts open the guts of the Muk-Muk, or Hua-Hua or Yub-Yub, or whatever that Harryhausen-animatic beast is called, and puts Luke inside to warm him up. Those guts were foul. They really burst forth from the cavity, huh?

I have a new plant on my porch. It is plastic, I got it at Ikea. I think it looks classy but my mother is embarrassed from 2000 miles away.

The new Coldplay is lovely. Why do they get all the guff from people like us when Ryan Adams is equally soundalikey but also very good at it? Also, what is it like to channel the spirits of musicians in the studio when those musicians are still alive? Let's listen in:

[in final playback]
Chris: Johnny, I dont know, don't you think it sounds a bit too, you know, like Mr. The Edge, mate?
Johnny: Yeah, I s'pose. But I really like the harmonic there...
Chris: Well if we just up the wall of sound, maybe it won't be so obvious. I love the way the organ builds, and the jangly bits come in..it's all done out of adoration really, it isnt intentional.
Johnny: Fuck. Reminds me of Where The -
Chris: Homage, ok? Homage. "White Shadows" is like, a prayer to "Boy".
Johnny: Then what are we going to do about "Low"? The bass makes it sound like Eno was at the boards and Lanois has his headscarf on and we're up in the Castle, like it's 1984 and hey there's Bono with his fishmullet. It's just going to be so awkward at the G8 you know? They'll give us hugs but we both know what the subtext is, why they smile when they see us.
Chris: Come on, we're going to be the 34th best band in the world. Give the people yearning and they'll be happy. Listen, I've got to get be at dinner with Apps and Gwyns at Versace's in Portofino by sundown, so let's send it off to print. Fair trade, y'all.

[Ok, so that was shit. apologies].

A light in dark places when all other lights go out.

2005-06-05T10:58:00.000-07:00

A crossbeam has come undone.
The house will still hold but it will shake a little more in the wind.

That is what I feel about the disappearance of Trajan Martin from this green earth.
I cannot claim to have known him for as long or in as much detail as others,
but I nevertheless am able to appreciate the great vacuum that trails behind him, that brushes up against us now.

Here is a glimpse, here you can look in through the window of that house, and just imagine.

Up,up,up we goes

2005-05-27T19:03:00.000-07:00

You're a jackass now, brother.
Originally uploaded by Sarah Lebo.

I may have already revealed the following information to you, but here it is, possibly again:
1) Lili Taylor does radio ads for Tylenol.
2) The voice of Mastercard? Billy Crudup. But maybe you already saw him in the *priceless* gas station ad.
For reals, I think I already told you this stuff.

I can't wait for Sinead O'Connor's new reggae album. She went to live with Burning Spear for many months. It will either be Jupiter-Genius or Pitiful-Sucky.

I was listening to KROQ on the drive back from the OC today in my 1989 U-Haul ten-footer and it's a Nineties weekend folks. That means Soul Asylum, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Foo Fighters, Gin Blossoms, Prodigy - sorry, THE Prodigy -Veruca Salt, Radiohead, Weezer, and the Presidents of the USA. Wow, I could barely type out that last band it's name is so god-awful embarrassing.
When I was driving from Seattle to Vancouver earlier this month, KNDD was having some President of the USA emesis contest. They played a rockblock, and it was somewhat revelatory to know that this could be done with a band like that. It was akin to listening to "Peaches" in 25-minute form, only the chant of "Supersonics" mixed in occasionally.
Folks, the 73, the 405, the 605, the 5 and the 101 shook with the joy of smeary 90's rock as I barrelled side to side back up into the city. Thank you KROQ for putting away your Linkin Park and assorted shit-rock for the afternoon so's I could breathe it all in.

I've been Netflixing season 3 of Six Feet Under. I dont know how they do it. They have so many different directors in a season but they are able to maintain the potency. The roots lie in the writing of course. My favorite character currently is Olivier. I would love to play Olivier, if ever I was asked to play a French-Moroccan male prick art teacher.

Compare with:
The L Word. Firstly, in contrast to Six Feet Under, let's look at title sequences. Where Six Feet has crows and roots of trees, the L Word has a title sequence worth torching. Here you will find a bad song, matched with a collage of gluttonous L.A. Gear images (palm trees, convertibles, sunsets over a downtown skyline, swimming pools, sunglasses, must I go on...).
In the L Word, you will find lots of bad bad bad music, but then you will find an episode with an awkward cameo by Peaches. It will involve dialogue such as: "You guys! Peaches!"
In the L Word there will be acting of a horrifically terrible calibre but then - poof - there is Ossie Davis (playing, notably - uncomfortably - a dying man). Who then dies. The best episode thus far was written by AM Homes.
The press has been asking me which character I would be most likely to want to kiss if forced to under social circumstances. The answer is simple! The guy that lives in the garage.
Fine, ok, that wasnt the answer that was looked for.
Sigh, I would have to pick Shane, and maybe this is because she looks the most like a boy, and she has a tough voice and an angular jaw. She is Gwyneth Paltrow's cousin, per Libby. Shane had a period of very bad hair for some time.
The character I most want to kick to the curb is Jenny, but everyone wants to do that. Mia Kirshner, your dialogue is awful, your dream sequences and literary imaginings make me fast forward on TiVo.
I would recommend a summer of the L Word on DVD for those who might be fans of such fare as America's Next Top Model, What Not to Wear, and Alton Brown's food network shows. Have it for dessert!

Everybody do the merkin!

2005-05-23T22:17:00.000-07:00

Everybody do the merkin!
Originally uploaded by Sarah Lebo.

Today I abandoned work in order to have my right eye examined for it has taken to being red and disturbing and in public places I become self conscious of my eye. Hath been plagued. Me.
So in the Kaiser Permanente waiting room, where I am seated next to an old black lady with a lace hat on who looks and breathes like a fish, they have Oprah on for everyone to be entertained by while waiting for their name to be hollered by the "Yes, a
Man or No, not a man"-receptionist. People can be so confusing what with the sizes of their jaws in proportion to their brows, cant they...

Tom Cruise is the guest, and what I and millions of others witnessed made me wither inside. I withered because of the reaction created by the audience in response to TC's presence and to his ensuing behavior.
I withered because I was stunned by my own powers of perception which allowed me to have a vision in which I could see the two contracts hovering in gold leaf over TC's and Oprah's heads. There was the one that was written between TC and Katie Holmes, wherein she agrees to perform merkin-service for a price and he agrees to fawn shamelessly as only an overcompensating closeted gay man can ("I love women. I love the way they smell. I want to treat my women the way they deserve to be treated. I love my woman"), and the one written between he and Oprah wherein she agrees to vomit forth only sycophantic mummenshantz in her interview, propositioning him with queries about forthcoming marriage proposals.
I wish you could have seen them as I did. In that moment I communed with both Van Morrison and William Blake.
And yet I cannot describe, you must only look
here.

As a palate cleanser, I would suggest you prance over here to see the so-adorable-it's-orgasmic Blur video referenced above.

A Word On Sith:
1) I held back from shouting: "Cast it into the fire!" during the last sequence
2) Why are all the Storm Troopers Maori? Was it always so?
3) Kiss me like you once did on the lake in Naboo!
4) Padme's Paradoxical Pandora's Box: a uterus the size of a woman in her 5th month, bearing full term twins!
5) Why can't it be like it was on the lake in Naboo?
6) Hayden is cut. Dewy. Skranky greasy hair. I bet he can throw down. Mm.
7) Noooooooo! (arches back in anguish). Cut to Vader. Skywalker now Dark.

Traumatic Brain Injury....and you!

2005-05-13T21:52:00.000-07:00

I just got home into hazy nighttime Vancouver from Washington state following a two day sojourn at the Seattle Sheraton for "Brain Injuries: The Conference". I added on the colon, it was just called "Brain Injuries". This was my first conference experience. I spent the first five minutes glaring at the back of one fake-n-bake peroxide blonde in high heels and a booby bib in the front row whose name tag denoted her affiliation to be as RN. I was mortified.
Today in one session on managing challenging behaviors in brain injury patients, the lecturer played us a video of a man going apeshit during physical therapy and calling the RNs and PTs bitches and quentes and his head looked like someone had pushed in on one side with a very large thumb.
There was a knowing laugh that spread amongst the people. How odd that I belong to this community now. I drew pictures of stick people banging on drum kits during most of this session, then I had two episodes of tinnitus (in which I heard someone sigh in my ear, no joke, as well as ringing) so I imbibed a Perrier and was healed.

People with traumatic brain injury have been known to speak in tongues.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN LEBRON JAMES!
LAKERS!
KOBEEE BRYANT!
CHIPS AHOY!

(the above is an outburst witnessed at my workplace. This was then immediately followed by the screamer falling into a deep sleep.)

This is a somewhat hyper post. I have edited it as I have annoyed myself with myself.
FYI to JEB: there is a saying amongst RNs and Physicians in trauma/code scenarios:
"Less than 8, intubate!" which means, if someone has a Glasgow Coma Scale rating of 8 or less, the hour has come for deep intervention.
I would like you all to know that.
S

And it was all Coachella

2005-05-01T15:17:00.000-07:00

I have:
a red nose and scalp from the sun
a sock and watch tan.

I wish:
I had remembered to bring my camera though I know the pictures that would result could only be disappointing. Crowd pictures can be lame. However I could have done a photo essay only on tshirts.
"Would you mind if I touched your butt?"
"More cowbell"
"I'm with Steve/John/Freddy/Chris"
"Me love cookies"
"Slap me some skin"
And on, and on.
I wish I brought my green sunhat.

I saw:
a)The Raveonettes, who are from Denmark, and are capable of speaking perfect English sans accent. They rocked very intensely and cleverly and were clean and well styled.

b) Snow Patrol,who are from Belfast and have been sainted by a reference from the OC, like many others. They suffered initially from sound issues and the lead singer's flat, vanilla voice but they came together towards the end. I forgive the lad his weak rocking abilities simply because he did what most people do not when on stage in that he smiled and laughed persistently throughout.
There was a guy in the crowd wearing the most unforgiveable of all Irish tourist items available for purchase: the tricolor viking hat plus flag as cape.

c) Keane, from "small town in England", were great. My friend Steve remarked that the pianist and the drummer looked like the Bobsy Twins. To me they were just two men flopping up and down in unison at their respective instruments, but the flopping was comedic like the singer's cute slapfaced cheeks. Nice to see a band with a instrument-less singer, a la Mick and Van and Bono.

d) Wilco, at sunset. That was nice. I'm not a huge Wilconian, but it was enjoyable. Tweedy has an unfortunate face but he is crafty at his craft. And the guy on keys looked like Nigel from Spinal Tap.

e)Weezer...what can I say? Weezer is for kids. It's true. I have never felt so old as I did yesterday as I fled out of the crowd after Keane only to have to push against what I will term The Incoming Tide of Utter Tools...alt frat kids, their tow-along girlfriends and high schoolers. Not only did I feel old but I also felt such a bitch. Rivers bowed to the crowd and said "this is fun" so I think he rather enjoyed himself even though he was off key. I used the bathroom at this juncture. I do not say this to point out how cool I am because I didnt want to see Weezer, but voiding felt more important and it won by a long shot as far as priorities go.
f) Bauhaus: Unbelievable. Like an Opera. The only band to have platforms to use for climbing onto simply for dramatic emphasis. First, all we heard was low bass rumbling, tones shifting up and then down again. But from my angle in the front, we could see that off stage right, a man was hanging upside down from a guy wire. For four minutes only we could see this, he just hung there, not moving. Then smoke was sent out and the man was pulled to mid-stage upside down, and he proceeded to arch his back slightly and bring his hand up into little claws like a bat and then he sang the opening number completely upside down. He liked to vamp at the camera like the dramatic German he is.
g) Coldplay. Where Weezer had The Tide of Tools, Coldplay's crowd (in my area) seemed to be mostly clean cut Asian American kids who said things like "Wow, I am smelling a *lot* of pot around here", and who were very cheery with their friends, snapping photos, baseball caps and buttonup shirts, lots of love going around. Coldplay did in fact blow me away, I will say that right now. I did not expect this, and I wouldnt buy a ticket to see Coldplay, but they seem to have learned a few things about live performance and engaging the audience (from, ahem, I wonder who) that works well. They have a formula, and they are very good at it, so much so that I was reminded of the fact that Yellow is one of the best pop songs ever written after hearing it live under a big desert sky. But something about Chris Martin remains unsettling. What is it? I get a wierd vibe off him. He goes to be with Gywneth Paltrow! So wierd, and so cute. He was visibly happy and grateful to be there too and he openly dissed the show they played in Vegas last night and then introduced a Johnny Cash song, or one he wrote for Johnny Cash, or something like that. And lept off the stage like a fool.

There were some other people there: Bloc Party, Spoon, Chemical Brothers, Buck 65, Rilo Kiley but I did not see them. Today is Arcade Fire, Aesop Rock, Gang of Four, Black Star, and a million others.
Next year, there shall be on-site camping and a two-day pass for me.

This has been Sarah Lebo, with a synopsis and a wrap-up.

rush, blood, head

2005-04-29T22:29:00.000-07:00

my little buttercup
Originally uploaded by Sarah Lebo.

here is my house
my bed is my furniture.
my floor is my shelf! there are bags everywhere of unimportant things like party lights and votive candles (we had a party last week)
the picture does not accurately complement the real courtyard mileu. And you cant see the spiders or hornets from here.

I now live in an area that could be mapped out by Beck's "Que Onda". I am between the Vista Theater and Rudy's Barbershop; or, between El Gran Burrito and Tang's Donuts ("I saw a puppet at Tang's with a mullet and a popsicle"); or between Cap N' Cork ("Let's go to Cap N' Cork, I hear they have the new Yanni cassette") and Griffith Park ("Vamos al Griffith Park").
Viva Michael Bolton!

I have a mystery itchy patchy rash on periphery of my face. I feel like Eric Stoltz in M.A.S.K.

This week I was able to tolerate hard contacts for an evening out at the Smog Cutter (1/2 mile from my house) for Alex's birthday. It felt so wierd to have my face exposed to the elements sans glasses.

The topic of hierarchy within the hospital is taking up too much mind-time in my practice of late... I found myself at the bedside the other day admitting a patient, and the medical resident came over from the neighboring unit to do his assessment. I mentioned a strange rash I had noticed on the kid's chest, and this resident - though emanating the rich stink of being in a rush with his quick mannerisms and speedy speech - actually took the time to brush off my observation....he said "All it takes is one sharp fingernail to make all those scratches", and see, he said this after I had already passed along that this child has absent fingernails - no nailbeds. Of course, two minutes later, he has a revelation: This child doesnt have any nails, how interesting!.
The point here is not that I felt my assessment was being ignored because with some physicians that is just true. Nor was I just peeved by his brief patronization during what I had interpreted as an interdisciplinary bedside moment.
No, the point is, at work I keep noticing that I get wrapped up in *their* rush, and it physically makes me want to scream. Both at myself for speeding along beside them, and therefore enrobing myself in the manner of one subserviant, but also at them for their obvious disrespect.
You could say - and they would say - they are very busy, they have many patients to see. This is true, but my colleagues and I also have patients to see, medications to give, parents to talk to, teaching to do, discharges and admissions coming and going, dressings to change, other phone calls to make to other physicians, documentation to make, the bathroom to go to...and yet we RNs make an effort to accomodate that particular kind of stress related to time management on their end.

So now I will resist even more, and I say this to us all: I will not engage in passive aggression, but when I feel the rush coming up inside of me, I will halt and remind myself that it is not I who must meet them but us who must meet each other. If they don't slow down to listen, I will call them on it outside the patient's room.

I have to sleep in my furniture now. Tomorrow Coachella.

In some movies, Adam Sandler makes me cry.
Like Spanglish, which is not that good, but still.

grown

2005-04-16T16:53:00.000-07:00

smoggiest day since I moved here yet
earthquake this a.m. that no one but me noticed
have a new bed. big and for adults. i am an adult now.
moved into apartment shaped like a house
had a love affair with Target and bought magnolia-scented dish soap,
wooden hangers (further proof of being an adult)
made a list with Libby of details for our Great Spring Festival
of this coming week

will seal the deal tomorrow by buying my first proper non
cross-strapped bag. some call it a purse.
dont call it a comeback

Yes, I go to church.

2005-04-07T10:54:00.000-07:00

ellipse
Originally uploaded by Sarah Lebo.

Who told you I didn't? People are forever saying the damnedest things about me.
I don't go regularly; I go every 2-4 years. The city varies but the spiritual root always emanates from the same place.
Because you know, I think it is true that there are some who are holy who walk amongst us.
These individuals are human beings, yes, but are they are able to spread a rare kind of power in alternating forms of joy, integrity and passion.

So the choir numbers roughly in the 10-18,000s. It's that kind of choir.
Last night, my pew partners were the original two, which was the sweetest thing of all (Karen "Malkmus" Ma and Bonnie "Mullen Jr" Harrison).
Our two hour worship was fierce and loving, bedecked in bright lights and red wine.
Our beloved Stocky Irishman in Black, eloquent as per usual, used his lingual talents to devote the energy in the room to the sick of the world. A tear here.
At another juncture, he tried to bottle the energy in the room so that he could peddle it to the world's rich in such a way as to help the world's poor.
He said he had gifted the Pope with a pair of fly shades one summer. The Pope put them on and cocked his head sideways. Seemingly, the weight of the sunglasses pulled his head earthwards.
There was:
Electric Co.. And the Ocean! - The Ocean! I've never heard it live before: "picture in grey, Dorian Grey, just me, by the sea" - I think it's one of the simplest and therefore most efficient songs to lock down the anomie of adolescence. Sunday Bloody Sunday in the old school style: No more! (sing) No More! Wipe your tears away...
There was a grade A ho who jumped onto the catwalk when the Man was dancing with a girl from the audience. Bono grabbed his chosen girl's hand and began to run with her away from Ho, looking back every few seconds to check on Ho's progress. Security tried to take her down but Bono said (and it fit perfectly into the song structure) "It's alright, it's alright" and Ho then got on all fours and turned herself rumpwards. You could actually hear the audience stop singing outloud when her breasts appeared on stage. Only in Los Angeles, we said. And he said.
They closed with "40" and each man put his tool aside one by one (voice, bass, guitar) until only Larry (anointed with partial mullet, unaged, unchanged, pomade liberally applied, still loves Elvis) remained.
Then he was gone too and we went out into the night.
It sticks to you, nights like those. So good.
When I am a rich registered nurse, I am going to take one and all for an evening of singing out loud and love.

Be this riddle or real?

2005-03-23T21:34:00.000-08:00

I know there are whack postings to be found on Craigslist. I know there are ca-razy "Missed Connections" postings.
But this gem was nuzzled in amongst the normal:
one bedroom, Los Feliz.

No more! (wipe your tears away)

2005-03-20T11:44:00.000-08:00

The idea of writing another post for my blog makes me cringe. I do believe I am approaching the point of diminishing returns as regards my tolerance for this medium. Me, me me me me. Blah blah blah. My mother and I are forming a unified front on this.
Some people might initiate an antiblog-blog at this point.
Questions? Comments?