Yesterday, big Salon published a piece by Tracy Clark-Flory concerning the genre of contemporary pornography called, alternately, upskirt or downblouse photography. Her write-up demonstrated remarkable detachment and restraint, I thought. It was well-researched and thorough, ye… Read full post »

There are all kind of pretty birds here in the Hawaiian Islands, though perhaps not as many as I might have thought. Most of the endemic birds--those birds blown in from somewhere else long ago--have mostly been wiped out by encroaching species, so that's no different from a lot… Read full post »

This is the only high school-related pic I can find. I don't have my senior portrait. I probably would have married this woman, had I not been sort of a jerk and a moron. I shouldn't be posting this.

 But if I had simply told you I… Read full post »

So, I'm still trying to catch up with all of the Olympic Judo. There are seven weight classes, and I've resolved to watch it all. Today, watching the "half-heavyweight" division, as two players bowed onto the mat, I said to myself, "why is that woman fighting with that man?".

It was… Read full post »

 I am scourged by dogs. My daughter's neurotic dog--which at some point became two dogs, one neurotic and one, um, (may I use the "B" word here? ) assigned by Satan to torment me. Then, there's my mother's dog, which is sometimes my sister's dog. It's complicated. And then,… Read full post »

If anyone wants to trash John Edwards, they can be my guest. I was supporting his candidacy all the way back to 2006. His ideals best reflected my own. I thought he was presidential material. To find out later that he had mined his own harbor was a disappointment. It was… Read full post »

These are some images from a recent weekend visit to Chicago, where Laura was reengineering some telephone systems for Dell Computer. I don't always have the time to get away for the weekend with my wife, so this was a special treat for us.

… Read full post »

I was gone a lot in October. I spent only one weekend at home. Among other places, I went to Chicago to visit my wife, who was on a work assignment. I went "home" to Longview, behind the Pine Curtain. We drove to Corpus Christi and Padre Island to visit my… Read full post »

  Cheese dumplings are a family recipe, passed down at least since Grandma Clark, (my great-grandmother). I have never seen anything remotely like them in restaurants; I think they are a German dish. 

Cheese dumplings are a delicacy. (As a general rule, delicacies are mostly… Read full post »

Last year, as I have endlessly gone on and on about, Laura spent three months in Malaysia for Dell Computer. I followed, on Dell's dime, for a three-week vacation that simply cannot be described in words.

This is a flower, possibly some kind of bromeliad or orchid,… Read full post »

As JoeInAustin has already ably reported, Saturday was Eeyore's Birthday Party, an annual Austin pagan-celebrated rite. Its prurient pleasure is something I never miss when I can. Instead, yesterday morning we set out to see some friends in east Texas, to inspect progress on their lake house, where c… Read full post »

You will have to do some reading to get all the way to the bottom, and I'd about just as soon you didn't. But I promised. ( I probably won't leave this post up very long, though. ) Please feel free to skip straight to the bottom and just read the… Read full post »

 I hesitate even to bring this up, because it seems like someone at a Lions Club meeting recruiting for the Masonic Lodge, but it turns out I have another on-line obsession besides OS. Besides being WhoNvitedHim to you, my faithful readers, I also am known as "your spirit… Read full post »

Check out this guy. That's Matt Berninger, frontman and chief crooner for the indie band The National. I love this band, its lyrics steeped in cynicism and sometimes seedy sexuality. I sang in several choirs, but I was never in a band. But if I were a… Read full post »

Joni Mitchell's song River is among the saddest of popular Christmas tunes. True to her muse, Joni's song offers a lament about parting with a lover during the holiday season, then feeling so ashamed and despondent that "I wish I had a river, I could skate away on..." It/… Read full post »

I am surely not one to be throwing stones. My house is made almost entirely of glass. I really don't care whether you are liberal, conservative, or just a southern dumbass like me; say whatever you want. But have a care for your audience. Here in polite osciety, it is perfectly… Read full post »

I was born in 1955, smack in the middle of the Baby Boom. I came of age just as the Vietnam war was ending and just as a lot of women were shouting out an angry What The Fuck#%? at American society. I grew up in a conservative household, in amongst… Read full post »

Until recent times, artists and writers, musicians and movie stars, mostly maintained an impenetrable barrier between themselves and their fans. This barrier was recognized and respected and, for a time was one of the constants of 20th century society. Many of us loved Paul Newman, but none… Read full post »

As our Hawaiian vacation begins to wind down--meaning that we may be near the end of these insufferable posts about how much fun I'm having here in paradise--I want to take a few moments to write about my wife. Just after we arrived in Hawaii, we went to dinner… Read full post »

1. When I was younger, I had red hair. I hated my red hair, because adults would invariably remark on it, interrogating me with "Where did you get your red hair?", a question that made no sense to a four-year-old. (Where did I get my hair?) People compared me to Ron… Read full post »

Last night it stormed, and there were tornadoes dropping out of the sky all over town. With a sixteen-year-old roof, I'm not averse to a few quarter-sized hailstones ricocheting off the shingles, and I went out back to check out the prospects. What I found instead was a… Read full post »

Some people are annoyed that "Open", as Sloan calls it, is using advertising to make ends meet. Me, I'm annoyed at the people who are annoyed. This seems like a pose to me. Listen up, because I'm only going to say this once: it's called a scroll bar; you'll find it… Read full post »

Jonathan Coulton's uniquely skewed brilliance was on dazzling display last night at Antone's. South Austin Jody took me on as merch assistant at Coulton's set, which means I got in early and free, met Jonathan Coulton before and after the show, and hung out with the smartest audience in… Read full post »

One Sunday afternoon, I was hanging out with my friend Jody, in South Austin. We weren't really doing anything worth mentioning, but at some point there was a knock at the door. It was Jody's friend, whom she had asked to stop by to perform a Tarot reading;… Read full post »

They may not roll out the red carpet for you--an afternoon of Margaritas and Tex-Mex food on S. Congress Avenue are as close as it gets--but neither does Austin roll up the sidewalks at dusk. January 24 seems not to be a peak night for musical offerings. However, on the Friday… Read full post »