Mark W. Lee

Happy Valentine's Day Sweeties....

2012-02-14T05:14:00.000-08:00

Dateline: Rome (c. 496 CE) - As you can see friends, the whole St. Valentine's day thing was a fraud from the beginning. Hell even the Pope back then didn't know who this asshole was. I guess it is fitting that the main cash flow for the commodities themselves (viz. cocao trees and rose buds) goes primarily to the Catholic countries in what I like to call the 'browner' sections of our half of the globe.

The rest of the bread (say, 98.3%) stays right here in the good old USA. So slurp up. You can spend 4 or 5 hundred today on the chick you're sleeping with knowing that you're being a good American.

A few thoughts though - if you even suspect you're treating her any more than about 50% better than on an average day - then why bother? Bitch probably isn't your REAL Valentine anyway and you've known it for years (don't worry, she has too...). I'm not ranting here - I'm just saying that real heart stealers are treated like Valentines all day/every day.

And don't get the idea I'm not sweet on Valentine's day or any of the other (vaguely Roman) economic and social rituals we practice. I just don't think, that, you know... we think about the TRUE MEANING of St. Valentine's Day. Which boils down to:

A: There IS no fucking true meaning to it - like all our myths.

B: There IS a lot of evidence that practicing love and kindess is a good idea - the Buddhists recommend daily immersion in the activity.

C: If this is the only day you feel like your REALLY showing her how much you love her: do her (and me?) a favor: Pick out at least one more day per year to do it. Then work up from there to 365.

My observations on love should not be taken as medical or spiritual advice. If you are having issues with your love life - do what everyone else does: talk to your mother.

M. Lee
In love w/ it all
& a certain specific heart thief...

Dueling Echo Chambers

2011-11-29T22:52:00.000-08:00

"SOCIALIST"

NATIONAL SOCIALIST

Where Is Kafka When You Need Him?

To what has to be the continuing existential chagrin of Jon Huntsman (arguably the most electable Republican in a deck filled with jokers...) professor Newton Leroy Gingrich has plopped himself into the musical chair stenciled "Anybody but Romney". The one freshly vacated last week by serial groper Herman "Who's Your Godfather?" Cain. Latest in a seemingly endless stream of Mitt Romney straw men, Newt (PhD European History, Tulane 1971) - no stranger to Swinger family values himself - has been running around the country for several months reminding everyone how brilliant he is.

While it may be difficult to argue that being the smartest guy in the room is an especially valuable qualification in the mind of the average Republican voter, there has never been any realistic alternative to "letting Newt be Newt." Given the notional half life of Republican front runners this season, the party will need additional cannon fodder for the primaries if it is to continue denying Mr. Romney till next summer. The nightmare scenario (for both Donkeys and Elephants) is that once Santorum is fed into the wood chipper in the late Spring, Huntsman ascends to the ABR chair at some implacably late moment and ends up with the nod in Tampa. This would accomplish two things: the GOP proves (against all odds) that it remains capable of nominating a candidate with an IQ above room temp, and; Obama is - finally - placed in actual danger of rejoining the ranks of the Community Organizer profession.

Believe me no one is more aware that the word 'surreal' is overused than I am, but at some point in this bizarre process one must begin to seriously contemplate the notion that Ron Paul (following the untimely death of President Bachman) ends up with the nuclear launch codes. I'm not saying that three cabinet departments, a return to the gold standard and the imprisonment of the entire Fed board of governors for treason is necessarily a bad thing. But I am saying that, at some point, what passes for the Republican polity in The Greatest Country In The History Of The World better turn off the televisions and begin seriously thinking about precisely what it is that they're up to.

Not to say that my close friends in the Democratic mosh pit aren't driving a little drunk themselves. Insisting that Obama endorse transgender marriage (you have to think about that one for a few moments) and post-natal abortions in cases of disappointing eye color is not an ideal path to consensus building either. Not content with having sent a more than faintly liberal black man to Pennsylvania Avenue, the Left seems to have sneaked a look at the Right's playbook and become complicit in the conspiracy to jam a rag down the mouth of the Center. For that matter, where's the Silent Majority when you need them?

(Don't answer that - I know, they're glued to Dancing With The Stars wolfing pork flavored textured corn gluten. Or plotting FarmVille strategies.)

I know that once you reach the point where you think everybody is crazy, you're usually the next one who ends up in a straight jacket. But I have a friend who went to Yale who's driving around Houston with a 'Honkies for Cain' bumper sticker on his Bentley.

I am not making this up.

If things don't begin to resolve themselves into a little more cogent scenario by the Super Bowl, I'm going to lay in a supply of blotter acid and launch a 'Draft Berlusconi' movement. In addition to a fondness for the same shade of pancake foundation, Silvio and House Speaker Boehner have enough in common to be a plausible ticket for what I'm calling the Dada Party.

I know, I know, the former Italian prime minister is not a native born American - but then again, neither is Hussein Obama. Besides: do I look like I actually give a shit? To paraphrase Dylan, you don't need a particle physicist to tell you that the world is stranger than you can imagine.

A THANXGIVING MASSAGE

2011-11-26T11:48:00.000-08:00

"Before you eat 'em, you gotta kill 'em."

-Genghis Khan, probably apocryphal

We note (just below the picture of 'black friday' campouts) that the Bundesbank had what might be called... uh... uneven results on it's sovereign debt auction yesterday. One assumes the US long bond yield will continue it's inexorable march to 200BPS and gold (although we are unsure what it actually tastes like - but those with serious long positions may be contemplating the notion...) will hold up as the sole appetizing financial instrument in the Known Universe.

In other news, noted financial commentator Mark Lee and his daughter will journeying perilously close to the Louisiana border to visit his sister and assorted lovingly dysfunctional relatives for the noon meal. Some estimates as to the number of fatalities occurring below the Mason-Dixon Line due to incidents involving deep frying whole turkeys run into to dozens.

A search for light news on this most American of Holidays (still the greatest country on earth - if you leave off certain minor European tax havens and most of Scandinavia) reveals that legendary New York literary house Alfred A. Knopf continues to redesign it's iconic Borzoi imprint with seemingly every book it brings out these days. This trend (known as 'dynamic logo') seems to be gathering steam as various commercial enterprises appear to be willing to try anything at all to sell products to consumers who have no cash (old news) and rapidly shrinking access to credit (see also above re: German bonds). While these sorts of things are still of limited interest to the general reader, we predict that an increasing public fascination with useless observations (a trend which has been on the rise since the dawn of Christendom) will remain real, yet stubbornly inscrutable.

For those fortunate few of you who missed Susan Stamberg's unbearable NPR Thanksgiving piece yesterday - rest assured, the recipe for that bizarre onion infested cranberry sauce that she recounts in elemental detail each year does not seem to have changed. We speculate that the concoction (which appears to have only marginal use as a comestible) may prove of some value as a poultice to sooth fried turkey injuries. Those of you with connections to BigPharma take note.

As we remind every year at this moment: the best cure for TG Day indigestion is prophylactic in nature. Those of you who are able should stick primarily to fluids (viz: ethanol and its constituents) and treat the solid food offerings as appetizers. In the event you fall short, remember that the omeprazole molecule is available as a generic in Northern Mexico for six cents or so per dose. Alternatively, you can tap your 'health plan' (a funky euphemism if ever there was one) for a $400 bottle of Nexium. Again - those of you with connections to BigPharma, take note...

In closing, let me remark that there comes a time in every failed creative persons bio-rhythmic cycle that the sorts of things above simply must be written down. I thank you for sitting through this (did any of you?) and hope that you and Mrs. Lincoln richly enjoy the play.

God bless America. And if You would, Sir - throw in a little of that ol' white magic for the Euro.

Eat up - before your higher self rebels.

Mark Lee

-still nursing old culinary woundings from a confusing childhood

Other Fish To Fry . . .

2011-10-15T09:48:00.000-07:00

OCCUPIED . . . (with other matters)

Chick with nose ring - thinks you're an asshole

Volker Rule Author: can evaporate 1/3 of your income

They say - and they are right - when trying to explain difficult things it is best to resort to simple examples which can give the uninformed a 'feel' for the issues. ...so, Question: If you were a rich guy living in New York and found out the two folks above were extremely pissed at you, who would you try to straighten it out with first?

It occurred to me last Sunday (when many of my readers were no doubt in church houses) to visit the operational church of America. Wall Street is, as you have no doubt heard, neither occupied by protesters nor is it available to be occupied by protesters. Wandering around on Wall Street in war paint at 3 am has always been a pretty sure ticket to plastic handcuffs (at best). After 9-11 the American church has been guarded as well as most military installations. If you think the NYC cops are irritated (to the point of needlessly pepper spraying chicks like the one above) check out the attitude of the BlackWater types that the NYSE hires to keep an eye on the $25 trillion or so they have stashed away down there.

"Occupy This..."

New York's finest, guarding the Circus at Zuccotti Park

"Help you with something?"

Later that day...two doors down from the New York Stock Exchange

A lot of what you're hearing about these protests is, strictly speaking, true enough. Allow me to sum it up? (again, bringing to bear the tools of simplicity) "The protest lacks a unifying theme and its participants are molly coddled little pricks." Simplicity frequently requires recourse to bluntness.

Reaction from actual Wall Street figures has been a hodge-podge ranging from willingness to engage the protesters to basically calling them all idiots. These reactions call to mind those of various individuals in the Obama administration when seeking to engage the Tea Party...

Unemployed Columbia MBA reading "Occupied Wall Street Journal"

Still living in the East Village on old man's dime, railing against Capitalism

A more coherent agenda?

Tea Partying Social Security recipient railing against Socialism

Huh?

Keep that Nazi out of out of my over-alls

Fact is, whether you're gonna call bullshit on the over arching unfairness and greed of capitalism or the madness that has become Washington after 250 years of governing history's most renown culture of crybabies, you're very likely going to have a little trouble wrapping up your message in easily digestible proto-memes. Perhaps if they are lucky - no one will step forward to make it all too clear. The Occupier movement could end up with its very own Sarah Palin. That would probably clear things up.

Clearer heads on both Wall Street and Main Street (along, one can only hope, with a few of the heads in that park on lower Broadway) are well aware that the protest sign we all should be carrying might look something like this:

Take your medicine - before you get really sick

Whether you're old and scared of the government socializing your Medicare or young and too impatient to ride out the economic cycle, things might get a little dicey for you in the coming decades. But then again - that's life. And death (with or without the panels.)

But cheer up - those guys with all the money on Wall Street won't actually let you starve. Who would be left to buy the IPods?

Casual Protester, Apple Customer

NYU Nursing Student M.S. Lee - fair weather protester spends 21st birthday Occupying Wall Street

Interviewer: How long will you be protesting today?

Protester: Until my father agrees to take me to Century 21.

Interviewer: I understand it's your 21st birthday today?

Protester: You ought to know.

* * *

One thing's sure: making a lot of money has never been a meek man's game. Whether it's the threat of losing your bay house courtesy of Darth Volker or having some lesbian economics PhD start a global smear campaign against you (which might just be deserved...and cost you your other bay house) you've got to earn your keep boys.

Idealism is no picnic either is it?

Best of luck to you all.

M. Lee

NYC, Oct 11, 2011

The Job Market Is a Goddamned JUNGLE these days . . .

2011-08-12T17:00:00.000-07:00

Recently, I began looking for honest work. It's starting to look like this blog thing is not going to pan out in the financial way I had hoped. Having updated my resume, I invite suggestions and comments from my followers. My ideal job (or, as we used to call it "Objective") would be CFO of a publicly traded company - preferably something on the NYSE. Please pass this along to any suitable persons who may be interested. Thanks!

Mark W. Lee, CPA

Curriculum Vitae

(truth and lies w/ pictures)

Mr. Lee was born sometime in the late 1950’s aboard a Japanese fishing vessel probably operating illegally in the Gulf of Mexico. The product of the only Anglos billeted on the “Shame of Hirohito” (the cook and security director) he was reared on a diet of Circus Peanuts© and various beverage alcohols.

The young Lee was placed alone in an emergency evacuation pod sometime after his fifth birthday and landed in the small resort town of South Padre Island, Texas. He lived alone there in an unfinished, abandoned high-rise condominium project for many years until its deliberate implosion by Mexican developers in the early 1990’s (developers he would, ironically, work for in subsequent years.) He was not informed of the implosion event and barely escaped alive.

After the loss of his beloved condo, Mr. Lee wandered through the English speaking world in a state of profound ennui. He was able (through sheer pluck and abundance of natural luck, but very little native ability) to become educated in media and business at two state supported universities in Texas. He holds undergraduate degrees in Radio/Television/Film and Accounting but has recently supported himself as an apprentice sorcerer – conjuring sticks being his current area of interest.

Mr. Lee’s daughter (Matty Sloan Lee, RN) lives in Brooklyn, NY and collaborates with him on many of his less dangerous business ventures. She is wanted by authorities in Ireland for having spirited away a rare children’s book from the James Joyce Museum in Dublin. Father and daughter have spent a significant portion of their financial resources fighting this extradition action and the Joyce volume reportedly remains on display in an undisclosed location in the greater New York City area.

In late 2009, after exposing several of his business partners as frauds in a local scandal involving overbilling which received significant coverage in the Houston press, Mr. Lee was paid a significant sum of money and constrained from further practice of public accountancy in the United States by an unusually stringent non-competition/non-disparagement contract he reluctantly agreed to.

Unable to practice his accustomed mode of piracy (viz. technical accounting and litigation consulting) he divides his time between New York City and a small co-op apartment on Olympus Mons where he studies the effects of lessened gravity. His recent publication “Magical Properties of Milk Glutens in Artificially Induced Micro-gravity Environments” (Nature, February 2010) was greeted with protracted yawns by the physics community. Noted nanotechnology researcher Robert Curl, Pitzer-Schlumberger Professor of Natural Sciences at Rice University, remarked that Lee “[manages] to publish in peer reviewed journals without so much as a PhD – I can only attribute this to his rumored use of black magic.” Lee has claimed, without providing any evidence, that Curl’s nanotechnology breakthroughs resulted largely from a series of conversations the two had at the student bar “Valhalla” in the late 80’s. Curl admits to knowing Lee but brands such claims “the musings of an untreated drug addict.”

Lee has never forcefully responded to the drug use claims but has stated in an interview that he has “never, not once, resorted to black magic to get things published – at most, orange magic.” (Wired magazine, September, 2002)

Mark Lee is frequently (and, say most observers, completely unaccountably) the subject of media interest in the alternative press. He is rarely photographed except in elaborately staged ‘snopshats’ which accompany his scientific publications. The photo below was taken by the son of infamous paparazzo Ron Galella in a church in Paris (reportedly Notre Dame). In his last known public appearance, Mr. Lee is seen fleeing in horror after becoming aware of an elaborate practical joke played on him by his daughter involving an actual Roman Catholic confirmation ceremony in which he narrowly escaped becoming a member of what he describes as “[that] fucking pagan religion run by Nazi, dick sucking potentate Jo-Jo Ratzinger” (see Interview magazine, December 2008)

Recent unconfirmed reports that Lee is selling decorative, high quality magic wands in New York City remain largely unsubstantiated. This Village Voice photo lends some credence to those rumors but the subject has been identified only as an overweight (and possibly overwrought) tourist – Lee is nowhere in sight. Anonymous sources (most of whom are alcoholics) claiming to be associates of Mr. Lee say he is selling the wands, but demanding such high prices for them that business is bad. Speculation is that he has taken up with a young Asian pornographer and is planning his next monetization event.

For more information, contact the Sabine Pass, Texas police department.

© 2010, Clubnano Publishing Ventures, Ltd. Unauthorized duplication except for use of short excerpts for literary reviews can result in fines, imprisonment, death, shortness of pants, delayed sexual development and, ultimately juvenile dementia – even if you’re not an actual juvenile, but just frequently act like one.

Who Needs a Publisher When You've Got a Blogspot Account?

2011-08-12T15:25:00.000-07:00

Crazy, Sexy, Cool Geniuses!

Studies show most funny people are scary smart...

Some of my friends have been passing around the insanely funny book "The Internet is a Playground - irreverent online correspondences of an evil online genius" and the associated website www.27bslash6.com/.

It has occurred to more than one of them that your earnest blogger would be more than capable of expanding his (already expansive) business interests into such environs. I normally don't publish any of my emails on this blog. They typically contain overly cruel and thoughtless content which I prefer that hapless targets receive covertly via a blind forward rather than seeing it splashed on a widely followed blog (over 38 hits just this month.)

Just this once, I'll make an exception. However, should my hit count rise into three digits as a result, I suggest my numerous acquaintances begin constructing cover stories as to why they know me (my actual friends have had these at the ready for years.) There is a trove of material in my Gmail 'sent items' every bit as pithy as David Thorne's and God help everyone if I ever discover that it's worth anything . . .

from	John Kramar jesk@yahoo.com
to		Mark Lee <markwendelllee@gmail.com>
date		Fri, Aug 12, 2011 at 3:02 PM
subject		in case you missed it

I can imagine you writing most of this book, in fact, all of it, depending on your view of cats.

from	Mark Lee markwendelllee@gmail.com
to		John Kramar <jesk@yahoo.com>
date		Fri, Aug 12, 2011 at 4:45 PM
subject		Re: in case you missed it

Yes - he is one funny Aussie! - and who knew there even was such a thing? I can only hope that if you were to hear him speaking these hilarities rather than writing them, the effect would not be totally lost. The first 'mate' that fell from his foggoty lips would probably force the conclusion he was just another above average IQ Southern Hemisphere asshole with felon great grandparents who is on a (temporary) lucky streak. Think Rupert Murdoch.

Thank you for saying that you believed I could have written the book myself. I thought the very same thing. But I bet this - I bet this fellow couldn't write a 324 page single spaced Form 10K for some broke dick drilling company which complied precisely with all relevant provisions of the Securities Act of 1934 yet was barren of a single piece of phrasing possessed of even a scintilla of humor. However: I understand perfectly what a Kiwi is. In fact, I use them all the time when whipping up those memorable summer salads of mine. Although the flesh of the Kiwi bird tastes like putrified watermelon and biting into those little seeds is reminiscent of snacking on test tubes, the meat has that wonderful green shade that never fails to brighten up an otherwise dull (and poorly attended) poolside get together. Besides, who do I even know who can distinguish New Zealand from Australia anyway?

So, before feeling sorry for me just because I've never been signed by a famous Fifth Avenue publishing house and fewer than 100 people a month read my blog - which is not only more humorous and thoughtful than this guy's but also uses tons more big words - think about this: while he probably spends his days smoking really good Northern California hydro and sifting through thousands of emails from adoring fans, I can say with perfect confidence that he's never once experienced the joy of making an earnest business proposal in front of a room full of small town politicians (and their retarded constituents) which has less than a one in a hundred chance of netting him more than the $11,000 he spent getting the meeting set up over the previous 7 months.

When pondering such depressing inequities between two random english speaking males with white skin possessed of equally witty dispositions (not to mention strikingly similar views regarding the Felis Catus genus) it is also useful to remember that, owing to a mere accident of birth he is not eligible to become President of the United States - still the most powerful job in the known universe. Not to mention the fact that, while he too is probably vaguely familiar with terms like "taxonomy," he seems to rarely incorporate scientific arcana into his posts. It is these sorts of differences which distinguish the merely clever publishing royalty recipient from the profoundly deep satirist with a mailbox full of collection notices. And don't forget this: while it is true that most good looking chicks prefer fat bank accounts over outsized cranial volume, the really interesting ones with great personalities will generally gravitate to a fellow like me every time.

FUCK IT ALL - I just noticed that I used the snappy construction "possessed of" twice in the same email. I'm going to have to erase this and start all over...

________________________________
Mark W. Lee
Club Capital Group
101 Crawford St. #203
Mailstop A-10
Houston, TX 77002-2198

Mark W. Lee, CPA
213 Prospect Ave
Second Floor
Brooklyn, NY 11215

clubcg.com / markleecpa.com
(832) 335-4215

Three Hail Marys and a Laura Palmer's Father

2011-08-06T17:48:00.000-07:00

The Society for Urging the Exercise of Extreme Caution in the Voting Booth

Leland Palmer Rick Perry

Separated @ Birth?

There is some chance that another talentless, religious poser from Texas may once again succeed a highly intelligent, East Coast educated, elitist Democratic president. There is also some chance that, as a possible artifact of the Fox News / MSNBC bipolarity (or the Wall Street Jornal / Huffington Post bipolarity - feel free to chose your favorite juxtaposition of dueling crackpot media deathstars) that passes for political debate in the country - this may be the new normal.

I'm really a little pissed at myself today. Due to a prior commitment, I had convinced myself that Texas Governor Rick Perry's 'National Day of Prayer' (or whatever the fuck it was) was going to be tomorrow (Sunday 8/7). It was, in fact, held in my adopted hometown of Houston today (8/6). I was actually planning to attend holding up a protest sign - something in my 54 years I have avoided doing. Not the least because (as an aspiring elitist myself) I always thought people looked stupid holding protest signs. As fate would have it - I was attending another event (few elitists, no protesters) in La Grange, Texas - a city known primarily for a defunct whore house. As ever - irony is not dead, not even feeling poorly.

The author: snapping fotoz of dangerous helicopters Hydrating Agitator

So, while I was taking bad pictures at the La Grange Experimental Aircraft Fly-in (left) some lucky bastard was annoying the ersatz Christians at the Rick Perry For President Trial Balloon Rally (or The National Day of Prayer and Fasting - or whatever the fuck it was) at Reliant Stadium.

I have to balance the fact that I had a great time with Pilot Jeff Weiss and Co-Pilot Gifford Hill VFRing from West Houston Airport to La Grange, Texas - with the profound disappointment that I feel at having missed my very first ever (and probably very last ever) mass nut-case political event. Note: there really isn't any other kind.

As (some of) you will deduce from the lead photographs above of Laura Palmer's father and aspiring political Mullah James Richard "Rick" ("I prefer to call him Dick") Perry, my thesis here is that there is high correlation between a 90's television character who is possessed by dark, evil forces which cause him to (innocently) murder his daughter and an 80's era politician who is possessed by dark, evil forces which cause him to (on purpose) seek power way in excess of his demonstrated wisdom and ability to handle it.

Dick Perry was Gore's Texas campaign chairman in 1988 OK, that doesn't really mean anything, but I had to work that information in for the benefit the hand waiving Evangelicals gathered today at Reliant to pray for my soul who think Global Warming is a sulfurous plot from the nether reaches of certain Democrat Satanist sewing circles...

Are we doomed to swerve drunkenly in the electoral SUV between the left shoulder (Carter, Clinton, Obama) to the right (Reagan, Bush, . . . Perry?) I'm not sure there is a centrist politician remaining in the country with any interest in the presidency; but if there is I'm sure Bill O' Reilly (or Bill Maher) would make short work of pointing out his lack of ideologically gore infested incisors as evidence of catastrophic effeteness.

And speaking of elitists (were we?) - when did Rupert Murdoch (that simple ranch hand from Down Under) turn the corner on convincing Joe Six Pack (Mary Ecstasy Tab?) that the country should be run by some down home soccer mom like Sarah Palin? As far as I'm concerned, if Nikita Khrushchev reincarnates and starts waving around cobalt salted MIRVs, I am shade more comfortable with some asshole lawyer from Yale having the Football codes than I am . . . Michelle Bachman (BA, Winona State University 1978; JD Oral Roberts University 1986).

But you can absolutely count on this "Fuck the Evil Smart Guys" theme to run central to any Dick Perry presidential bid. He is, of course, exquisitely qualified to be rankled by intelligence. I present for your inspection, the Governor's college transcript:

Richard "Rick" ["Dick"] Perry - BS Animal Science '72 - GPA 2.01

As you can see, after exiting the Paint Creek Rural HS in Haskell, Texas - right around the time Bill Clinton was not inhaling at Oxford - Dick distinguished himself at Texas A&M (a school that only people who have graduated from seem to think of as a great hall of learning; witness the practice in urban centers of Texas -but nowhere else- of alums obsessively hiring one another.) Bonus: Perry was in the Corps of Cadets so, if elected, is sure to continue slaughtering the ragheads (and their children.)

Full disclosure: I got a BA from Stephen F. Austin State University in 1981 after five years of exhaustive study in the Radio/Television/Film field - racking up a 2.9 GPA. Two points: I was inhaling - a lot - and I have never thought I had enough sense to run for President.

I guess I can understand that people are getting a little fed up with Harvard educated Obama and all those silly assed Ivy League wonks he brought to the Capitol with him. But does this really make you winsome and goose bumpy for cats like John Ashcroft (OK - Ashcroft did go to Yale, but he was a monumental asshole...)

In the spirit of not bitching about a problem unless you can offer a solution I present a modest proposal. Let's elect Jeff Weiss and Gifford Hill (the aforementioned flying team in the Bonanza single engine today) as our next Prez & VP. I guarantee you both of them are smarter than Sarah Palin - otherwise I would have never gotten into an airplane with them at the controls. I am also in possession of sound evidence that neither Jeff nor Gifford are Ivy League material. Let's do the smart thing - ignore FOX and MSNBC and look toward the center - the political space most of the guys who are flying the planes you are riding in inhabit.

Yuppie Republic

2011-08-02T12:30:00.000-07:00

CONGRATULATIONS: YOU HAVE BEEN PRE-APPROVED...

When my sister phoned me the other day to weigh in on the debt ceiling debate, I began to feel the camera angle slanting and the parallax shifting... you know that stomach turning sensation a talented effects editor can induce in you as you watch your favorite summer horror flick. You know the scene, the formerly sunny girlfriend begins to feel something is not quite right when the newish boyfriend curses out the hapless waiter in the Chinese restaurant. "If I didn't want fucking white chicken meat I wouldn't have ordered fucking white meat chicken..."

Debbie has an undergrad in philosophy and is a social services worker. Although she certainly is capable of deep thinking, and practices the art frequently, macroeconomic matters are not something she has previously been overly interested in.

As one of the founding fathers of modern political kleptocratic theory (Joseph Kennedy) once sagely observed, when you start getting stock tips from shoeshine boys - it's time to get out of the market...

And so it is that I find it necessary to offer my humble, misguided commentary - especially now that the fake crisis (the only type we tend to pay mind to in the United States, a country so fabulously wealthy that the most pressing health issue is obesity among the poor...) has passed. Whew. Hope none of you cats was holding his breath. In any event, you can exhale now - and started sniffing the sweet smell of (refunded) United States Treasury debt instruments; as well as their evil spawn Repos, Commercial Paper, and a lot of other abracadabra backed up by dozens of 4 inch black binder notebooks containing millions of random words, the upshot of which are, at the end of the day.... "Who's your favorite nuclear weapon wielding Daddy!"

Japanese style 'just in time' funding methodology

"Congratulations, you have been selected as one who has earned the right to carry the enclosed symbol of success and brilliance. The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are pleased to provide you with the InterGalactic Centurion Card. The Card, which comes with no pre-set spending limit, is ready for your use as soon as you sign the back have the NSA decrypt the activation algorithm." the letter might read.

Terms And Conditions

Term: Due three days prior to the next regularly scheduled national election.

Annual Fee: $2 Trillion (non refundable)

Rate: The rate will be calculated based on the following formula: A committee (the exact identity of which is none of your actual business) will calculate a floating rate which shall be the difference between a ratio the numerator of which is the product of the percentage of the US population currently prescribed anti-depressive medication multiplied by one half of the percentage of a random statistic published by the US Commerce Department and the denominator of which is the global supply of lying bullshit (which shall be determined with reference to one of the following indices: The O'Reilly Factor short term vomit inducer vertices, The Walnut Journal batshit crazy editorial page 'bloody murder' factor or a raw number equal to the count of Huffington Post articles which accuse anyone in America with a net worth greater than $561.23 of being a murdering plutocrat) and the riskless rate of return - which, let's face it is the most indeterminable and worthless estimate around these days, given that the Chinese Communists are manipulating the value of the base currency of this index. [Note: any disagreement with the above index calculation as to either fairness, clarity or any other reason will require the debtor to explain in detail a random piece of Congressional legislation passed within the previous 90 days prior to the disagreement; such legislation shall be at least 3,200 pages in length.]

Guarantors: The People's Republic of China; A random sampling of blood fanged hedge fund apparatchiks; The pension fund of the Public Utilities Worker's Union of Latvia; Northern Life Insurance Association ('the quiet company'); A certain randomly selected "EE" series savings bond holder in in Box Butte County Nebraska; and the ignorant spineless bastards most closely associated with the necessity of this Debt Instrument (hereinafter referred to as: The Citizens of The United States of America)

Events of Default: N/A

Covenants: The US Congress shall provide a monthly report to the Syndicate Committee no later than 2.3 seconds prior to midnight on the last day of each century (hence the moniker: "Centurion Card") which contains information sufficient for the committee to determine that the US Secretary of the Treasury is breathing. There are no other covenants.

* * *

What, you think this is funny? OK, maybe just a little.

But do me a favor will you Amerika: Please return to watching 'America's Got Dance Fever!' or 'Are You Smarter than a Congressional Republican' or whatever shit you were TeeVee-ing before you all started to weigh in on a topic about which, if you think the fucking politicians you elected are clueless about, you obviously don't practice a lot of introspection.

And remember, as President Obama (as well as all the white ones) said "You live in the greatest country the world has ever known!" OK - one last thing: Get out there and SHOP will you - your new card is good till you elect the next round of idiots.

It's been a long Silly Season - and the primaries are still months away...

I'm all for raising the retirement age to death. How about you?

Ted Kazinsky

-SuperMax, possibly not forever though...

The Inscrutability of Fear

2011-07-25T18:57:00.000-07:00

Occasionally, one of you (at most, two) will email and ask "Why are you not writing your blog anymore." In all honesty, I can't really say anything about that which would form any sort of coherent explanation for you - or myself, for all that matters.

Sometimes, the brilliance just doesn't seem to want to commit itself to the written word. Not to say that there aren't, at any given moment, a number of brightly shining rants simmering somewhere in that scary tunnel between my amygdala and neocortex. Because there are you know.

I present a series of random questions which, though they may be ultimately answerless, should nonetheless receive some level of study. The amount of study such questions may actually, ultimately warrant is an equation which will not be solved without turning the lights up a notch. Which brings me to:

More to Fear than Fear itself?

1. If the Republican Party leadership is really so concerned about the heavy metal pollution occasioned by compact fluorescent bulbs, why did so many of them use old school rectal (thus mercury filled) thermometers on their infant children? If tight assholes are a heritable trait - and I have no science to support this theory but only substantial anecdotal evidence - wouldn't this have been be an extremely dangerous practice?

2. If women are the weaker sex, why are so many married men demonstrably terrified of their wives?

3. If lawyers can scare the shit out of people by simply sending them pieces of paper with black toner powder electrostatically affixed to them, imagine the panic which would ensue if they sent live snakes instead. OK, that's not a question.

4. Is the fact that the latest mass murderer of global repute a Norwegian evidence of progress in the GWOT? Yes, the Pentagon actually uses this acronym for the Global War On Terror

5. Stated as a percentage, what proportion of automobile horn honks in Houston result from an impulse to scold as opposed to the stated purpose of those horns - to avoid danger?

6. If the middle class is in serious trouble, and the ruling class has its hand on the money, why are so many of the former obese, while so many of the latter dangerously thin?

As you might guess, I do have some ideas about these matters... But it may be several more months before I can find the time to write about them.

I am horribly busy.

Cool Hunting

2011-04-02T18:02:00.000-07:00

The Real King of Leon

I strolled over to Discovery Green this afternoon to take in the free Kings Of Leon show. I don't know much about the Kings - but my daughter tells me they are about as hip as hip gets these days. I do so like to keep my finger on that whole thing - but clearly, my estimation of what's cool has . . . evolved.

It's an agonizing thing, and not a little pathetic, fronting contemporary cool when you're 54 years old. I mean, it's difficult enough maintaining old school cool at this age. Quincy Jones (a fairly low-temp dude in his day) once observed "By the time you think about being cool, generally, you've already missed the bus." Remembering that always kills my cool-buzz.

So my meager cool-hunting skills generally draw me to guys like the white suited dandy above rather than the actual, mediated, contemporary coolness of Kings of Leon. I urge you click on the photo above to get the full experience of the King of Leon. As I often say - there's a lot going on there - particularly the mailbox stick-on letters spelling out his name (affixed to left lapel).

A lot of out-of-town cool was transpiring on The Green. The Final Four is in Houston and there are a lot of guests visting. So you don't get the idea that I only see cool in 60 year old black guys with zoot-suit sensibilities, I present the second coolest act I caught at the Kings of Leon show:

The Duchess of Leon

This young lady demonstrated cool sitting on the ground motionless, with a pensive stare that more called to mind sitting on a lonely beach somewhere. She could have been stoned I guess - but I don't think so.

Water, water everywhere, though not a drop to drink

One has to be observant in large crowds to pick out cool. There is so much that's ... not. At the end of the day though, rock-star cool probably always has an edge over either young cool or old school cool. Whether you're Caleb Followill (29) or Keith Richards (67), rock-star cool is transcendant.

The Followill brothers - with cousin Matthew

But if it's true that cool is what cool does - then what am I doing writing about it. I'm outta here - it's Saturday night...

(Immediately after finishing this piece your blogger went to bed at approximately 8:30 pm in his fashionable downtown loft - the a/c was set on 62.)

Parking with the Homeboys

2011-04-01T13:24:00.000-07:00

(editor's note: this is not an april fools letter)

April 1, 2011

Dear Sir? Madam?

Thanks so much for your note! Clearly, we are are suffering from the same annoyance – having paid for a parking spot, we find ourselves without one.

Fortunate (though inconsiderate) fellow that I am however - I get treated to a little something extra.

The occasional smart assed note from you. I appreciate the demonstration of your firm grasp on the obvious. Although it is likely that I don’t read as well (or as deeply) as you, I assure you I understand the phrase “Reserved Parking”. I don’t even have to sound out the letters or anything.

I’m not suggesting that a busy, important, reserved parking spot holder like yourself should consider perhaps parking in another spot. By all means – THAT IS YOUR SPOT – and you deserve nothing less than getting to park there. The mere thought that you might be forced to park… say three spaces away - - - is as discomfiting for me as it is for you.

So, next time the uncovered parking is full – uncovered parking for which I pay, just as you pay for covered parking – instead of causing some minor inconvenience to a note writing dandy like yourself, I’ll just park out on the street. That way, you won’t have to park three spaces away from your reserved spot – and I can get a ticket.

Sound good?

Let’s stay in touch, OK? Next time I park in your space, come on up and you can toss off your amusing remarks to me in person, that way I won’t have to wonder about the character of your anger (minor annoyance? rage? other issues?) but can rather get a full, in person dose of just how big of an asshole you actually are.

I’m up in 203.

Ciao,

Mark Lee

Park Carefully . . .

How I Roll

2011-03-26T14:11:00.000-07:00

I live a block north of Minute Maid Park in Houston. This Saturday afternoon, the parking lot between my building and the baseball diamond lit up. I'm not really sure what to make of it - or even call it.

Mexican Gangster Hip Hop with Hydraulic Cars Rally?

Doubtless, it was actually called something else. Intrigued, I crossed the 300 feet between me and the PayWall, talked myself into an orange freebie bracelet and started snapping. Hey dude, I've snuck into bigger deals than this before. I once got within 10 feet of Mick Jagger with nothing but a suit and a yellow crucifix. (This was a while before I quit drinking.)

"Machete"

You want me to turn down what, Esse?

fellow vip attendee

The white guy in the Mercedes w/ the $7,000 camera gets in free

props to: Low-G - DopeHouse Records Houston

It's been a while (ok, perhaps, forever) since I've closely inspected Low Rider cars. The state of the art seems to be enough amplification to resurrect Kurt Cobain and a set (or two) of vertically opening doors. The doors are about 6000Pesos per each to trick out. The amps. You can spend whatever you like on the amps.

"Yo - you know what this means>>?"

actually, every cholo in the house was respectful, cool and in some cases, very cool...

This is not the first time your blog writer has covered these flavors of events. I was a cub reporter covering Quinceañeras in East Texas in 1997. Well, for one night I was. I speak enough spanish to get laughed at but (generally) not beaten up.

You ever wondered how those hydraulic gangster cars work?

Hint: If Home Slice punches the "Pancake" button (upper right) - hit the deck...

You ever wondered how viral marketing worked?

Hint: Music must also be good...

I'm not the first (but probably not the last) guy you wanna call to get information about Mexican Hip Hop. (However, I did have the vacated po box of Rap-A-Lot Records at the Heights post office back in the 90s...). Last I knew, the state of the art was ... Cypress Hill? Clearly, I was out of my depth with Low-G and the other members of the Dope House stable. Paul Wall?

Bueller?

God?

Dope House in the house?

Mark Lee, CPA partners with dopehouse records to host the CholoCar Spectacular, in his front yard.

2pm till

"Wherever you go, there are reminders everywhere that you are, no matter where or when, in a spectacularly unique confluence of history."
Leon CholoCar Spectacular Participant

I think I'll go out tonight and if The Dope House crew is still in the house (or, the front yard, as it were) when I return I'm gonna head down there and join them. What, you think I'm gonna ask them to turn it down?

Peace out and the rest.

Mark Lee

-former DJ, bitch

The moon is following me . . .

2011-03-20T02:41:00.000-07:00

THE BIG ONE

Moonrise over east Houston

Even accidental students of etymology are almost certain to know the celestial roots of the term lunatic. The moon is routinely credited with influence in human affairs for which it is very likely (though who could really know) blameless. What is certain is that people - neolithic and post modern - keep a very close eye on the moon. It's probably natural that we've developed the impression that she is keeping a close eye on us as well.

Last night on the eve of the Vernal Equinox a friend brought me to a gathering he billed as 'a gathering of Druids celebrating the close approach of the moon'. There is a little hippy hollow neighborhood in near east Houston where the residents and their friends regularly celebrate the full moon with a little get together. There are drums, Rice professors, brownies (which it was stressed by the host were not 'the good ones') and more than a few women a variety of which we used to describe in college as 'Middle Earth Lunch Room Types'.

I didn't get the impression there were any actual Druids in attendance, but there was some occasionally spirited drumming and a casually interesting conversation (which I had some hand in instigating) about the prospects for development in the little Hollow. Our host was apparently in the midst of a long tail real estate play which would end (in some indefinite future) with the brown fields 10,000 feet east of Chase Tower turning into some sort of latter day... Houston Heights.

Springtime in Houston . . . even a Druid liberal democrat's thoughts turn to . . . real estate development.

People have been watching the sky (and fluctuations of real estate price levels) for a long long time. Mostly to good effect I would speculate. Besides leading to the discovery of black holes (and high density building strategies) keeping one eye on the sky and one on the ground below seems like the most natural thing in the world. I'm all for it.

The brownies were very good but didn't appear to be the good ones. I may've overdressed. It would be unfair to say that everyone had on tie-dyes. It would not be unfair to say that style was... represented. There was the requisite attorney-cum-artist in attendance. I always spot those, being and accountant-cum-artist. There was even a fat Mexican eating a prodigious share of the (admittedly plentiful) queso. In short - no question we were in Houston. If you stood still for a moment out on the perimeter of the fire's light and listened to the drumming... you could smell the faint long chain molocules wafting from the Ship Channel.

The moon only gets this close every twenty years or so they say. The 'supermoon' should not be confused with the 'blue moon' - though it very likely is. I guess. Pop Quiz (i) what is a blue moon? (ii) how is Easter fixed? and, (iii) what was the first word spoken from the surface of the moon? Those scoring 100% in 20 seconds or less without reference to Google are officially... Houston Druids.
(answers in comments section below)

The rest of you just have to keep reading about the supermoons and the bluemoons and the harvestmoons and the bloodburningmoons and all the other moons we love and fear and celebrate... on the internet. The true lunatic Druids among us will be in Houston's near east Hippie Hollow every month playing bongos at the sky.

JPEG image of last evening's Super Moon - internet compression

and photoshop color enhancement provided to approximate the real experience.

Brother, can you spare a PET scan?

2011-03-13T07:03:00.000-07:00

Positron Emission Tomography Imaging System: $2.5 million

In a previous post, I declined to antagonize my physician with my views on 'Socialized Medicine' and wrote instead of the joys of acquiring coronary arterial disease. On reflection, I've uncapped my pen and return to address the raging debate regarding the spearhead of the transformation of American Capitalist Democracy into .... something . . . Darker.

ObamaCare Namesake

Hartford CT or Washington DC?

This is a question I ask when discussing the national health care crisis with people. Generally these are people who are not, let us be clear, experiencing any sorts of actual health care crises. Except occasionally in the form of having an actual health issue. In which case the cream of American medical prowess is brought instantly to bear – very often saving the life of a sixty year old who would have simply, died, forty years ago. This is what’s known as a ‘good outcome’ when analyzing the sociological dimension of health care.

About 14% of the population (43 millions) in one form or another, or to one degree or another are much less assured of these good outcomes and can, in fact, experience just the opposite – call them bad outcomes or, more than occasionally, you could call it: death. In the sense that the sick person does, in fact, expire lifeless from the condition that the ‘good outcome’ subject survives intact (physically and financially).

The reasons for the difference in outcomes for the two persons we consider above are as numerous (and, in some sense… numinous) as there are people to argue their own granular points of view. The facts, however, are subject to very limited dispute possessed of any analytical rigor.

So, why does Joe Smith (age 58, lawyer in New York City, educated in a good northeastern school) survive early course chemotherapy for colon cancer and emerge free of the disease 11 months later and live until he is 87 – whereas Jonas Lyons (age 53, dishwasher at Denny’s in Hattiesburg MS, ex-con, high school dropout) find himself in a rather uncomfortable interview with St. Peter 5 months after getting a bad stomach ache? Again – pick your reason, pick your argument, your philosophical base of righteousness (or guilt or certainty, or … what have you) and debate it all you like.

These discussions don’t change the facts. There are some haves and some have nots in this very central (economically and socially) sphere of the American life. Should there be? I would say no. Others would say (grudgingly, perhaps sadly even) – yes.

In my mind this have/have not condition is the central pivot around which the thorny and passionate (passion – in the sense of… well, death) opinions and beliefs which concern the issue compete in the social and political marketplace.

Virtually (actually, literally) all of the rich, Western democratic nation-states have pretty much come down on this issue previously. And somewhat emphatically. They have said, as peoples of diverse and distinct national character, but shared economic and social values, in essence, no. No, there should not be a medical ‘underclass’ in their societies.

They have implemented this national decision in various ways – described, typically, by opponents of health care reform in the United States as ‘socialized medicine’. For various reasons (brevity, unwillingness to engage in the tedious linguistics of bipolar party politics, and so forth) I will, as lawyers occasionally do, stipulate that we may use this (incendiary dog whistle of a term) to describe the medical systems of:

The United Kingdom

Australia

France

Germany

Italy

Japan

Norway

Spain

And dozens of other first world countries with (otherwise) capitalistic economic systems and long(ish) but stable traditions of what even Bill O’Reilly would have to concede are democratic governmental features.

Socialized Medicine. On the right hand side of the discussion.

Haves/Have nots. Representing the left.

It could be argued that the central differences in these points of view regard the choice of where one would care to have the medical decisions which are out of his control made. Washington? Or Hartford? (shorthand for ‘private medical insurance’ – and all that that means in this context)

Due in some measure to the influence and persuasiveness of people like Roger Ailes, what was once mild distaste for government activism in the service of improving the lot of the less fortunate is now, in some significant minority of Americans, an abiding, vituperative hate. This hate frequently is observed in admixture with the word "Socialism!"

Americans have decided, with reference to nothing more than mass media information of questionable objectivity (and perhaps their own well nourished sense of greed – in large part also fed by media spreading the religions of consumerism, individualism and… ultimately capitalism) that ‘ObamaCare’ is going to bankrupt the Federal government and usher in an era of socialism.

A bumper sticker making the rounds . . .

Pretty much the same thing was slated to occur at the dawn of Social Security (1934). It was going to happen again when Medicare/Medicaid (1965) was instituted.

Old Glory’s stars intact, yet to have morphed into little hammers and sickles.

I assure you, the capitalists remain firmly in charge here. And they’re doing pretty good, thanks for asking. The few actual socialists there are in the United States are… well, let’s face it – the vast majority of them are what you might call, with a snigger and a snark, SINOs (Socialists in Name Only).

Socialist Cabinet Minister: Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates

Socialism? I’ll resist the temptation to be drawn into an argument possessed of such obviously ridiculous features. I mean, you know… even if we are turning into a ‘socialist welfare state’ under that wild eyed foreigner Barak Hussein Obama… I assure you the adults (capitalists) are still very much in charge. In fact those very same capitalists are making out quite nicely in the ‘socialized economies’ like… well... Trivia question: Where is Goldman Sachs’ second largest office in terms of profit production?

Goldman Sachs International

Peterborough Court

133 Fleet Street

...deep in the socialist bowels of the City of London.

Anyone with a background in statistics and economics can paint a scary picture of America’s headlong rush into the hand basket of hell as a result of ‘socialistic’ programs. Having a background in both – I feel it wiser (and more honest) to simply state the facts:

The citizenry at large, with the full support of a majority of their elected representatives, have previously decided to spend approximately 10% of the national income on transferring tax payments to the care of the aged (Social Security and Medicare) and the poor (Medicaid)

It could be argued, it is argued, that ObamaCare is simply attempting to steer some of that largesse to the 45 million citizens who were left out of the private insurance lottery. Winners in that lottery receive (tongue out of cheek) ‘the finest healthcare in the world’.

Losers get . . . well, they get what they get. It’s all over the map. The new healthcare program – assuming its opponents don’t get it thrown out, which is unlikely in the extreme, no matter the (mostly stupid) posturing now taking place – attempts to close the have/have not gap. And if that proposition scares the hell out of you, I might suggest that you read your Bible. Not that I’m much of a Bible reader, but it seems a lot of folks who are up in arms about these issues do refer to that book from time to time. Sometimes a little more frequently than is comfortable for the 60 percent of us who don’t claim to darken a church house door every week.

Recent health care reform legislation passed by your elected representatives, and mine – and let’s be clear: a majority of those men and women voted for these changes, and we elected them – seeks to remedy some rather glaring shortcomings and inequities of the healthcare system. Whether it will do this or not remains to be seen. What is not in question here is that these inequities and shortcomings exist.

I’m content to let the matter, as envisioned in the massive new law, play out. Contrary to the catcalls of the right regarding the profound ineptitude of the United States Federal Government, one might take the position that the old boys (and girls) seem to have done pretty well in a host of their other historical undertakings.

You can get anywhere in this country in three days with $500 on the Interstate System
(and yes, ok, the national endowment for the humanities funds godless homosexual artists)
The military establishment has a perfect record of preventing successful invasion here since the British left last time
Nuclear power produces 20% of our electricity with a fuel source which would never have been developed in the private sector
(Velcro... NASA... ok, the jury's out on whether this was a good or a bad thing)
We did go to the goddamned moon
OK, just one more: while there are plenty of seniors who don’t live in the lap of luxury, Social Security and Medicare provide for the basic human needs for the vast majority of them.

Anyone who argues that: (i) these accomplishments - all conceived, executed and paid for by the Federal Government - are illusory or accidental and; (ii) the Federal Government has utterly lost its capacity and ability to repeat feats of this scope and import is, in my view... may I say it?.... unpatriotic. I won't. I don't wave the flag very often, really never. It's always felt a little silly to me. I can assure anyone who cares to debate (such an asinine topic) that I am every bit as red blooded a American Capitalist Pig as is Newt Grin-grinch. Just like him - I could probably take up residence in 100 or so countries next week if I took a mind to. Neither of us have. We also have this in common: we both grin a lot and spout off a lot of opinion that we are convinced is correct with out the slightest bit of evidence past our own self satisfied opinion of ourselves.

So Newt- as one southern cat to another:

Please, let's at least cut out cut out all the 'socialism', 'un-American' rhetorical horse shit can we?

Please?

Fucking pretty please (if that would work...)

* * *

Dueling Pop/Op Art

Will ObamaCare:

Bankrupt the country?
Diminish the overall quality and quantity of healthcare?
Turn us all into feckless Maoists?

Beats me. I do know this though: most of those selling this story have functioning health insurance cards in their wallets. They get colonoscopies at 50 years old for $85 and die of strokes in nursing homes at 94. Many fewer of them die of late diagnosed diseases which kill a startlingly large number of less fortunate Americans.

Are the haves greedy? Are the have nots stupid or lazy or undeserving? Outside my scope here. Will ObamaCare bankrupt the country and lower the average level and quality of care in the United States? I don’t know. No one else does either.

I can speak from both sides of the outcome matrix (as well, be assured, as both sides of my mouth). I’ve had private insurance and gotten $45,000 operations that saved my life in private hospital rooms. I’ve also been without insurance for significant portions of my life and avoided seeking medical care. As it turns out – I haven’t died yet. Karma or roll of dice - that's my story.

My position is that I’m willing to take my chances with the soulless socialist bureaucrats in Washington rather than negotiate these matters with some $38,000 a year analyst in a call center in Hartford. Actually, I’ve done both. Seriously – I’ll go with the government worker.

If my risky decision above is implemented and the cost of healthcare to the society shrinks from 1 in 7 dollars sluiced through the economy to 1 in 13 (like in the Peoples Republic of… Japan, where they die at 82 – we die at 77) I’m willing to live with it.

choose carefully

3/13/2011

1,620 words

(Mental) Health Food

2011-03-09T12:36:00.000-08:00

The Sign is Crooked, the Patty: Straight Beef

My internist (I provide him with obtuse philosophy, he interprets my EKGs) emailed me recently to inquire about my meager output in 2011. I threatened him with a forthcoming post on socialized medicine. Being a central committee member, clearly, I'm all for it... being a Rotary Club Republican he, clearly, is not. Upon reflection however, do I really want to unnecessarily antagonize a man charged with keeping me alive?

Nonetheless.

I can't recall ever having heard anyone say "I really don't like hamburgers." I know a lot of people who don't eat hamburgers for a variety of reasons (veganism, heart attacks) but I'm not sure there is an American alive who actually doesn't appreciate that intense level of high caliber deliciousness a well tempered hamburger provides. I will posit (when speaking of vices, academic nomenclature can provide an aura of benignity) that the mental health benefits of 3,200 calories of hamburger, O-rings and carbonated sugar much more than offset any theoretical arterial damage or BMI puffing related downside.

With this theory in mind my friend Michael Keller and I made a visit to Bellaire Broiler Burger (BBB) at lunch time today. He and I dine frequently on the diverse hamburger offerings a city of five million makes possible. BBB represents the cream of the Old School. You will note that the link above does not direct you to the BBB website. There is no BBB website. Cyberspace being what it is however, there is no shortage of gush regarding this beloved institution.

BBB does not have what architects refer to as a strong arrival sequence. I'm not sure what the building was originally, but it is unlikely that the facility was , um... made to order for BBB.

1966 KFC Store or Esso Station? You make the call.

Stepping inside, things don't improve rapidly - or at all.

Greco Roman Plaster of Paris finished in Huffable Gold Spray Paint

Depressing yet Nauseating 50s Esthetic

If, at this point, you're thinking "You don't go there for the ambiance." you are correct in a measure even you can't fathom. To paraphrase James Carville: "It's the cholesterol, stupid." I ordered the imaginatively named "Hamburger No. 2" and added cheese (you can chose American or... just kidding) and bacon. As the IPhone shot below clearly illustrates, when you order bacon on a BBB No. 2 - they put some Goddamn bacon on it.

Also pictured: 700 calories of Hellmann's

Michael and I generally (being what used to be called Yuppies - however neither of us is either particularly young or any longer upwardly mobile...) go in for a more refined hamburger experience. Foie Gras infused offerings and $19 pulled beef sliders for example. But for a signal example of the Great American Hamburger - BBB is difficult to beat. BBB is everything McDonald's is not. For one thing, there is the classic, uninterested, slightly hostile counter help. The fifty something lady (I would bet next month's Sirius Solutions check her name is Mabel) gave me a flat, slightly menacing stare as I waited for her to greet me. She out-waited me. I relayed my order quickly and succinctly - she grunted and then turned her gaze on Michael, who did the same. I handed her a twenty (5 dollars more than necessary for two bacon/cheeses, O-rings, Lay's and two Cokes) and she handed the change back to Michael. Whether this was some weird hillbilly passive aggressive thing, or she just didn't make a distinction between us, I don't know. I don't want to know. I just wanted the burger.

And I got it, about 3 minutes later. It was everything the ill-fated McDLT never was. A lot of ingredients (not just lettuce), fresh (but certainly not house baked) bun and enough meat to clear up the mystery of why we need CAFOs in this country. About 6 minutes of mutual silence (excepting sounds of manic ingestion) and we were finished and out of there. BBB does not induce post prandial malingering (see photos above) and one suspects Mabel would not find this acceptable in any event.

So, Tom, I've spared you my left wing screed regarding ObamaCare - but a few more meals like this, and I'll need it more than ever...

* * *

Low Temp Football Revolution (What?)

2011-02-03T18:30:00.000-08:00

High levels of both design awareness and nutritional value...

It can get a little depressing in the run up to Super Bowl Weekend for a guy like me. Don't get me wrong, I think it's generally a positive thing that America has found a substitute religion in professional sports. God knows we need one. To my way of thinking Lebron James is every bit as valid a candidate for sainthood as some members of the Catholic demi-pantheon. Consider St. Gertrude - who protects from unreasonable fear of rodents.

For someone who doesn't watch football however, the Lord still provides. How about this for a well timed act of God: an arctic weather system during Super Bowl Week - in Texas. The giddiness flowing from this confluence of two of my favorite things (lemming weather dread and recurrent media event syndrome) is almost overwhelming. The prospect of God himself shaving 2-3% off the NFL's annual $5 billion payday is almost piling on.

It's always a challenge to avoid participating in the the Irwin Allen aspect of weather preparedness on those exceedingly rare days when temperatures head below 25 in these parts of Texas. I am generally able to stay calm.

The sense of palpable doom was enhanced in major Lone Star population centers (excepting perhaps Travis county with its socialist public utility infrastructure) when "ERCOT authorized a series of 'rolling blackouts' [due to] the unusual amount of power demand associated with the weather system." Those who did the merest amount of information gathering beyond the TeeVee news (perhaps 43 people in the Houston metropolitan area) would learn that these (12-15 minute) brownouts were generally related to planned maintenance outages at several peaker plants around the Texas grid.

No matter. The disaster cum entertainment event now had the twin hooks of frozen roadways and momentary light switch failure. And all this 3 days before the Super Bowl. Which was being played in Dallas. The real storm (viz. the media one) was on. There's no act of God more powerful than a man made one. (See for example, the Trinity test site near Alamogordo, NM)

Local grocery outlets did little to encourage maintenance of cool heads. General managers of area chains were quick to make themselves available to utter pronouncements which only vaguely hinted at the coming disaster - and their corporate mission to see us all through these dangerous moments with adequate amounts of drinking water, packaged corn refinery formulations and Twizzlers™. Those few households who did not possess $51 dollars worth of Copper Tops™^? (leftover from the previous winter's two day run of 29 degree days) were gently reminded of . . . IKE. Yikes.

Citizens with a minimum of two to three weeks of driving experience north of Amarillo were treated to freeways and work places which appeared downright dystopic and enjoyed a day or two of rare weekday calm while their fellows stayed home with eyes glued to the local news (which seemed to be running a suspicious number of grocery spots) and their corn starched fingers glued to quickly emptying yet bottomless bowls of microwaved vermont cheddar cheese guacamole dipped pork meatballs - foreshadowing Sunday's culinary madness.

If you're going to perish in a winter storm exacerbated by a power black out (on the eve of the Super Bowl!), you might as well have a well stocked larder and a full stomach.

Mediated crumbs of conventional wisdom such as these will soon consume us straight out of the Great Recession.

The actual perfect storm will consist of: a full thaw (about 40 minutes of above 32 degree readings) arriving on the Saturday before Super Sunday in time for a few hours in the local mall and (yet more) stocking up at the grocery section in the neighborhood Super Wal Mart. The great warming will be in full swing at kick-off time Sunday when Steel meets Cheese in the (covered, climate controlled, $3 billion) palace that the taxpayers of Dallas built for the unusually fatuous (even by billionaire standards) Jerral Jones.

I'm rooting (as always) for myself. If the Prozac takes hold in time for me to avoid suicide from the sheer sadness of all of this, I'm going to be warm and toasty in time to watch the real show on Sunday night - a commercial for the Chevy Volt which will inform America that General Motors will soon have the fucking Arabs vanquished.

Getting into the true spirit, I've just booked a flight to Alexandria. Hopefully the internet will be back on in time for me to watch the Packers (and Anderson Cooper) take sound beatings at the hands of a righteous enemy.

Praise Allah - and Roger Goodell.

Squire Godell in warmer times (not pictured: Mohammed)

With Friends Like These . . .

2011-02-03T12:23:00.000-08:00

ANTI-SOCIAL NETWORKING DISORDER

MARK ZUCKERBERG - Newest smartest guy on the planet . . .

Like many post-modern gazillionaires (are there any other kind?) Mark Zuckerberg followed the time-tested formula for amassing a large fortune.

1. Steal a good idea from someone.

2. Get a trusted friend or associate to pay for the groundwork.

3. Betray the friend or associate and sue everybody involved.

4. Sell half the deal to a VC thereby at least assuring yourself of multi-millionaire status even if the thing flops.

5. Last (and certainly least) begin having your public relations machine describe you as a 'philanthropist' after you start giving away amounts which are, relatively speaking, roughly akin to what you and I drop into the Salvation Army bucket at Christmas.

5.5 (optional) Once the word is out that you're a raving, lunatic larcenist, adopt a self satisfied pose which prominently features your far above average IQ and the notion that others just don't understand what you're doing for the culture - for humanity.

(By far the biggest problem w/ step 5.5 is that there are at least 50,000 people with the same IQ, several of whom inevitably work for the San Jose Mercury News, and who will soon enough begin to publish expositive articles detailing just how big of a prick you really are...)

In short - a perfect business plan for the Second Guilded Age. As a post-Marxist, I view phenomena like Facebook and Linked-In roughly on the same par that your average Jehova's Witness views abortion.

I uniformly advise all children that literally everything they write on Facebook, as well as everything written about them will, in the fullness of time, be published on the front page of the New York Times. Not the first time a grown up has, with honorable intent, invented a monster to scare a child.

I absolutely love the term 'social networking'. A perky euphemism which the data marketing industry has coined and stuffed down the lexicon tube. May I offer that the state of the art be more accurately be described as 'skeezy advertising to idiots with valid, functioning credit card numbers'.

Not that there isn't some social good flowing from Facebook. The time gang members spend on the site must surely take away from the time they are spending committing non-virtual crimes.

I noted during my year on Facebook that there were no virtually positive aspects to the activity. The most disturbing negative aspect was that people who hadn't been in touch for years could suddenly pop up out of nowhere. Some deep knowledge dislodged when I would follow up on these long lost 'friends'. Alas, there was usually a pretty good reason we were no longer in touch. Almost without exception, anyone I could possibly want to be in contact with is normally in the I-phone.

Do you really want Dabney Berkowitz from Sunny Side High School asking "What [you've] been up to lately??!!" if you didn't really share what you were up to with her when you were class-mates?

Thought not.

A fleeting tinge of self satisfaction was felt the day I shuttered my Facebook 'account' (wonderful slang for 'granting a large transnational corporation complete, unsupervised and unfettered access to information one probably wouldn't give the entirety of to his closest associates or family').

I did this the day the movie 'The Social Network' was released. Somehow, it seemed the right time.

To sum up I refer you to the promotional tag line of 'The Social Network':

"You don't make 500 million friends without making a few enemies"

I'll say.

Count me among them.

I hear they're growing like Kudzu over at 'Linked In' too. This site is (if such a thing is actually conceivable) an even more potentially horrid thing than Facebook. Take all of the wonderful attributes of Facebook, then cut out the innocent children and harmless, facile adults. You're left with a bunch of rabid, moist-fanged middle managers anxious to put a spike in their cube-mate to secure a nine thousand dollar raise.

Now THAT's cooking with gas, don't you think?

Winter Solstice Week...

2010-12-27T10:08:00.000-08:00

...and a Boy's Thoughts turn to Baby Jesus

What Christmas Means To Me

Despite the secularist hose-clamp placed on good old Xmas for the last decade or so in the service of interpersonal realpolitik, there's little escape from the evidence that Christmas means Christ for a majority of Americans. Most seem to have accepted the desiccation of this soft, chewy candy center at their cultural core peaceably enough. Last time I brought anything up about 'Holiday' vs. 'Christmas' nomenclature I found myself arguing the side of 'Christmas' against a CEO who claimed to regularly attend bible study. She insisted that the company party invitations describe a Holiday Celebration rather than my (neanderthal) Christmas Party.

I've got to say, at that point I wasn't arguing with much feeling. Being a non-Christian about ten months shy of being run out of town on a rail by that particular CEO (we both knew it was coming) I was defending a position about which I had little feeling against an opponent whose only reason I had left to engage was sporting in nature.

Moments like this will prevent me from ever boarding the 'death of irony' train. Are they still selling seats on that one? And how's business?

Where we going with this? First, I'll spare you - and me - the whole commercialization of the sacred thing. Not only has it been done to death and done well, but at this point many of us (now that we've commercialized everything from hospitals to highways and the military to motherhood) might be suspicious of anything that can't be quantified on the crawl below the CNBC guy.

Christmas....... sales (... I .... read .....) .....may .........set........ record ......in .......2010........

What would Baby Jesus do? Raise interest rates 25 BPS?

All I really know about Christmas is what I read in the New Testament. Disclosure: I've only read those translations prepared by scheming Renaissance power brokers with an axe to grind. Just like most of you. Those versions don't mention much about on-line vs. traditional retail sales mix or year over year aggregate credit card debt, but I did note the appearance of three 'wise' men from another province, bringing gifts and making predictions of great things. If these guys aren't the spiritual progenitors of a Goldman sales team calling on the newly formed water supply district in the newly liberated (politically and economically) province of Macedonia... then the kid ain't the Son of God.

Having said all that... I'll leave the rest to you.

Mono Poly Champeeeen of Stinson Beach

2010-12-21T19:01:00.000-08:00

Sloan Lee analyzes the relative merits of Community Chest vs. Chance

I suppose it was inevitable that my daughter would someday begin to surpass me in mental dexterity, strategic thinking and sheer competitive ruthlessness (ok, that last one I'm not much on...). That day, as it turns out, was today.

I began playing Monopoly at around four years old. With an older brother and sister, it was necessary to learn board and card games early - or chance being left out of all the fun. After 6th grade or so, I probably didn't play the game more than once or twice... until Sloan turned five.

I taught her to play and, like everything else she tries, she caught on pretty quickly. She and I played hundreds of games and I would never 'let' her win. She lost a lot of rounds of Monopoly - but she never lost her enthusiasm for the game.

Slowly she got better and better.

She flew out to California to visit me last week and we played a little Monopoly. I won the first game. She talked about her 'strategy' and indicated that she would beat me the second go round.

She did.

Before I brought her to the airport this morning, we played another game. And at long last, she took me for two out of three.

I know she was happy.

Well, Sloan has now advanced her token to the Baltimore-Washington Int'l airport and I am left out here on the west coast, attempting to roll doubles and maybe end up taking a walk on the Boardwalk.

It may be a while before we get to play again. We're meeting up in Tokyo in a couple of weeks and I don't think taking a board game in my luggage will happen.

There's always Brooklyn in the late Spring. That gives me a good four months or so to revise my strategy.

* * *

Crabby Patty

2010-12-13T10:24:00.000-08:00

On the Coast of Sonoma County

One of the great things about having a lot of well travelled friends is that no matter where I go (and I go a lot . . . ) someone I know has always been there before.

My pal Richard, who has travelled the world taking beautiful pictures suggested a look at Bodega Bay, 50 miles up the coast from here. He mentioned this is the area where Hitchcock shot parts of The Birds.

Immediately upon arriving (as these things will) my plan changed for Bodega Bay. The first place I walked into had this really weird display of Hitchcock and Birds items. I lingered over the 1963 TV Guide... but at $49...

The familiar sights/sounds/smells/vibe of a fishing harvest being bought were in the air. Being from a coastal region myself, and having been involved with seafood in a variety of ways since birth (eating, overeating, buying, selling, cooking) I had to get a closer look...

They'd eat you first if they could

It was a live Dungeness crab off-load. I noted that the basics of purchasing a trawler catch hadn't changed all that much in the last 40 years. The Captain/Owner stands at the back of the boat, watching like a hawk; they buyer sits in a chair on shore with a clipboard, watching like a hawk; a team composed equally of deck hands and dockhands accomplishes the task of moving the catch from the hold to the packaging to be loaded on the truck.

Selling crabs in Bodega Bay - counting beans from the back of the boat

It's a very coordinated, efficient and mostly silent operation and I knew better than to ask any stupid questions. OK, I did ask one stupid question and got away with it: the forklift driver allowed that each truck left full with 12,000 pounds of live crabs.

Loading semis - 6 tons live Dungeness, 15 tons H2O

Granted, most of my experience is with the Blue crab down on the Gulf Coast, but it seemed to me this larger, oranger crab was just as anxious to bite people as they were as anxious to bite him...

Tourists are quicker than crabs

M. Lee

-bodega bay, ca

Write What You Know

2010-12-11T12:38:00.001-08:00

The Thin Line Betwixt

Sloan Lee – heading up a fairy swarm in the East Village

Thank god the semester is over. Not mine, Sloan's. She’d been pretty much failing all semester and, unaccountably, has squeaked through her first round of nursing school clinicals with four A’s and a B.

In a call about 11 weeks ago my daughter frantically related the news that: (i) she would unlikely be able to get through nursing school; (ii) would probably have to drop out; (iii) maybe have to change majors, but; (iv) they may not let her change majors because she was admitted specifically to the nursing school . . . This was all pretty breathless.

Zen like calm seasoned my warm, smiling rebuff to the panic… I reminded Sloan she was not only smart, but funny, lucky, zany, loveable, and just an all around good person. I reminded her that she had been making A’s w/ a sprinkling of B’s w/o break since kindergarten. I expressed my doubt this would change.

"Nursing school is different . . . "

Or not.

4 A’s, a B

Before news of her squeaking by broke, she was so upset she literally ran away from home a few times. I had to keep reminding her she was living on her own, and it was tough to, actually, you know, run away, for her these days.

Her boyfriend relented and posted missing signs around town in an attempt to have Sloan ('s sanity) returned.

Thank god. Over.

I’m not sure what we could have done with her if she’d had to leave nursing school. She turned twenty years old last month, only has about 80 hours of college work completed.

Basically, washed up.

Sloan Lee – showing up on milk cartons in the greater NYC area this Halloween

Actually, she could probably craft a reasonably adequate career (financially) working as a lower Manhattan guerilla baby sitter. I think she’s been pulling down a grand or so a month doing that the last few years.

I cautioned her not only to take excellent care of the children, but also only raid the food in the refrigerator which has already been opened.

She seemed already aware of these babysitting conventions.

Babysitter to the Stars? – Lee w/ VMA in home of downtown record producer client . . .

I am not but certain that the next three semesters will contain a sprinkling of B’s to attend the swarm of A’s . . . and a RN license to follow.

Or, some sort of drop-out situation.

There’s always Broadway?

… or the mean streets.

Scourge of East Coast hip-hop scene

M. Lee

-Stinson Beach

Falling off the Edge of the World

2010-12-09T10:58:00.001-08:00

The Horizon

Pacific coast flora, or Matrix war fighter?

There is a sensation, variously called vertigo, dizziness, panic; this sensation can come strongly to a person standing on a seashore on a certain kind of grey day. There is sometimes a merging of the horizon that occurs when the color of the sky, the haze in the air, and the calmness of the water combine to erase this familiar (and perhaps seldom considered) reckoning point of our lives.

I am told that pilots dangerously lose the horizon – and have instruments to minimize the problem. When experiencing the vertigo which results from this loss of horizontal reckoning, I struggle to make it remain.

Vertigo can be an interesting sensation if you know what’s causing it. This is the sort of thing people riding amusement park offerings are after I guess. But the sudden loss of clarity about which way is up – or where is the water and where is the sky – and where am I – seems instructive and clearing to me.

This loss of balance is pretty much what I am looking for when I meditate. I seem to find it more surely though, walking a grey beach on a mist morning.

Wait are those . . . UFOs?

No, my sense of the firm world returns and in a few moments it becomes clear I have come upon nothing more than three lifeguard stations wintering in the picnic area, well away from the breakers.

Next time you lose the horizon, don't be so quick to find it again.

M. Lee

Mark W. Lee: Regionalism and Assholes

2010-12-07T11:55:00.000-08:00

Mark W. Lee: Regionalism and Assholes: "(a familiar story . . .) Bolinas Lagoon this morning - land worth saving I move around a lot and through the years have developed a sort..."

Regionalism and Assholes

2010-12-07T09:09:00.000-08:00

(a familiar story . . .)

Bolinas Lagoon this morning - land worth saving

I move around a lot and through the years have developed a sort of practice you could call… ‘the quick draw method of developing ersatz familiarity’. Actually, don’t call it that.

My routine can be accomplished in a day or two in a small town, usually faster in a big city. Cities are more what Julian Assange might call, transparent. Part of this includes going to the nearest grocery store and picking up a random selection of the free press. Free as respects pocket change – not the first amendment.

You can tell (at least I can tell) a lot about a community by scanning the giveaway press offerings. The reasons I believe this are nuanced and not interesting – take it on faith?

The first thing I noted down at the Stinson Beach Market on the southwest coast of Marin County is… the giveaway press is not all free. Several of the small tabloids weighing down the counter were, the proprietor Sergio informed me, priced on the masthead. I bought $6.10 worth with a coffee and Sergio seemed a lot friendlier when I got to talking to him. You can also get your first blush of local lore from the guy who sells you the papers.

(Sergio, oddly, reminded me of my sainted father. My father was not a Hispanic Californian with a wry sense of humor. However, like my father, Sergio had set up a small market in a coastal community of 1,000 permanent – and a gazillion visiting – residents and was getting $7.00 a package for Oreos)

The first story I read in the first paper on the stack (the West Marin Citizen – Pt. Reyes Station, CA, publisher/editor: Mr. Joel Hack -Joel Hack?) was not your garden variety small town lead.

Some asshole Texan (with the acutely unfortunate name of Tobin Whamond) had been attempting for the last four years to remove a large parcel of land from a preservation trust and plant cabbages on it. Seems we Texans are destined to frequently oblige the archetype liberal regions always seem to be tarring us with.

Why is that, sugar?

I’m not all that sure it was cabbages, but mention was made of ‘drilling wells’ and I’m assuming old Tobin was trying to produce farming water and not hydrocarbons. I know Texans can be assholes, but the rich ones are generally not that stupid.

There are notable exceptions to that rule.

Bush.

Joel Hack, editor? Tobin Whamond, Texan? Bush! (Bush?) This was starting to feel like a pot-boiler.

I considered running Mr. Whamond to ground to find out what his deal was, maybe see if I knew anyone who knew him. I was getting interested in the story the same way I am always fascinated by the obligatory Asshole Texan piece the New York Times runs, without fail, at least once a month.

But then, seemingly as quickly as it had begun, the story ended with Tobin Whamond utterly vanquished.

Mr. Whamond’s next door neighbors Joel Coen and Francis McDormand wrote him a check - though they seemed to have waited four years. Was Coen observing Tobin’s machinations to serve his own machinations related some bizarre story idea?

No less strange things (both as regards rich Texans and even richer Showfolk) have, in fact occurred. But no matter… I wanted some facts.

It didn’t seem that West Marin Citizen reporter Andrea Blum was able to get anything out of Coen or McDormand past the eloquent press release describing the sale in oblique terms. A nearby neighbor chatted easily enough and Andrea wrapped the story with his thought that it was “[a] wonderful day in the neighborhood…Everybody is as happy as could be.”

The neighbor may not realize that even Mr. Whamond is likely happy as a clam. Defeat means nothing to The Asshole Texan if accompanied by a large wad of cash money - this dimension of the archetype, I can vouch for.

Why do you think they call them assholes anyway?

I’ve met and forgotten more assholes in Texas than anyone in Marin County ever has. Being (factually) a Texan and (arguably) an asshole myself, I can nonetheless hold two ideas in my head at the same time.

I get the fact that Tobin wanted to do something with his land. I get the fact that Joel and Francis didn’t want someone setting up a 45 acre broccoli operation next door to their $35 million Marin County coastal paradise.

I also get the fact that the asshole with the most money … wins. That is to say, the wealth of a region generally holds sway regarding what transpires in that region.

As I understand it, this is why they have refineries on the coast of Texas and land preservation trusts and movie studios on the coast of California. Although, I am told there are a few cabbages further inland. Now that I think of it, there’s a movie studio in Dallas as well. But I think it’s mostly Doritos commercials that they do there.

What really worries me is that Rupert Murdoch sells a lot of papers and media in both places – and everywhere in between. Clearly enough; that’s another blog.

* * *

ClubNano Studios, west

I think I’ll enjoy my winter in California. Maybe I’ll bump into Joel and Francis down at the Market and ask them how much they had to pay to make the asshole Texan go away. “Much more than we would have to pay to make you go away.” they might say, accurately sizing me up as only a wannabe.

Mark W. Lee, CPA
-Stinson Beach
licensed in Texas, New York & (soon) California – thus potentially serving over 90% of all rich assholes in the united states…

In the desert near Phoenix

2010-12-01T05:21:00.000-08:00

Taliesin West

Wanted: Iconoclast

Must be willing to risk chance of having a successful career every day. Ability to annoy and enrage friends and critics alike central to your success. Pay is dependant solely on ability but typically ranges from nothing to very little. However, some Iconoclasts make millions and inhabit history books. Application is simple: begin breaking rules today.

"Coming in the house would be something like putting on your hat and going outdoors."

- Frank Lloyd Wright, on one of his designs

On his death in 1959 at the age of 91, Frank Lloyd Wright had over one hundred active projects on his desk. Many notable men work until the day they die productively and well. Mr. Wright worked better, the nearer to the end of his life he approached.

Standing in any of the low slung rooms of the sumptuous structures of his complex at Taliesin West in Scottsdale, AZ it is difficult to imagine a more successful, celebrated – and rare – iconoclast than Frank Lloyd Wright. The spaces are at once vaguely disconcerting (due primarily to their profound originality) and, once you have a chance to settle in, they are also the most delightful, purposeful and amusing spaces I have ever inhabited indoors.

There are touches everywhere, indoors and out, of Wright’s seemingly fanatical application of original ideas. Clearly, and frankly, not all of those ideas worked perfectly well – as even the tour guide acknowledged. But the over all effect of being in several Wright designed spaces, sitting down for a moment on his furniture and just inhabiting for a moment is this: you come away completely convinced (and such is not always the case, is it?) that the experts, critics, and scholars are absolutely correct. Frank Lloyd Wright was very simply the very best architect the nation ever produced.

purloined view of Frank's aluminum bathroom...

Taliesin West operates an accredited architecture school which admits 35 students a year. Out of several thousand expressions of interest, it was explained that interest in attending the school at Scottsdale on the Taliesin property (about 550 acres of mostly virgin Sonoran desert in northwest suburban Phoenix) dwindles when students are informed they will be designing, constructing… and living in, their own personal dorm room for the duration of their education. Each of these personal structures, averaging maybe 200 square feet, is a central component of the style of education that the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture practices. Namely: you better design something you’d like to live in.

Over twenty shades of red appear in the Taliesin West pallet - pictured: theater chairs with the first known instance of 'aisle path lighting'

Wright certainly did. He designed, built, lived, worked, and taught at Taliesin West for the last 30 or so winters of his life – commuting between another facility (along with his students and everybody else in the household) in Wisconsin. The architecture students still make the yearly trek to Spring Green located on the Wisconsin river near Wright’s birthplace in Madison.

I’ve not verified this, but the tour guide reported that Wright designed over 1,200 structures and perhaps half of them have ever been built. Someone does put up a Wright structure every once in a while, the last one was completed last year somewhere. If you’re interested in being an iconoclast, and if you’re rich, you should consider building one. Plans can be made available as I understand it.

Archer sculpted by architecture school student

Not everyone who pisses off the establishment and defies convention at every turn is rewarded with the successes of Frank Lloyd Wright, but most of the iconoclasts I have known seem to live a fuller life and have more fun. They just may have to do it in a 200 square foot bungalow in the middle of the desert.

Sounds OK to me.

M. Lee

-on the road to SF

Keeping Austin Weird Requires no Additional Funding

2010-11-23T05:23:00.001-08:00

The 9^th Annual East Austin Studio Tour wrapped up last weekend and a friend and I drove over to check on the state of the visual arts in Austin.

First of all – the name of the event is EAST. That was a relief. The official moniker being too way too much of a mouthful. (We kept calling it the Austin Art Crawl – everyone seemed to know what we were talking about.) The first thing we noticed about EAST, on the drive over, was that the catalog produced for the event (which concerns a couple of hundred artists, many of whom are starving…) looked like it cost a half a million or so to design and produce. And this is East Austin after all – most of the money is on the other side of 35.

The fine print reveals that this rouge bunch of loft crawlers with their ribs showing through their personally screened T-shirts is funded up by the City, the State and the Feds. What else, really could you expect – I mean it is the political center of the third most important state in the Union. Even the weird-arrati here know how to throw a really big show – and get the government to pay for it. If this is starting to sound like some sort of Fox News rant – it ain’t.

Simple jealousy.

In a town that can produce the following scene in a ‘nothing special just walking down the street’ context:

(he: Alternative Medicine MD she: Hair Designer)

… it’s very hard not to feel at home and have a great time.

I was always vaguely bothered by Austin. Sort of like NYC, the residents seemed just a little too pleased to be living in such a cool fucking place, you know? Of course, spending a little time in Austin (or NYC) leads to the inevitable conclusion that it is a cool fucking place – I’m just always a little irritated to have to return to Houston.

Houston, of course, has its charms.

Hell, me, for one. And all my pals. And the Astrodome. I could go on. I won’t.

EAST is best taken in a smallish 3 hour dose. Otherwise, you might end up getting out your check book and leasing a loft. You could easily forget you had to be back on Tuesday to work on closing the Sloane account…

Not one to avoid getting in on the action – even though my artistic proclivity and ability is meager - I doctored Anne Genung’s fabulous piece “The Mexican Scientist” with a little of my own graffiti. She did leave a perfectly tempting empty cartoon bubble coming out of the cat’s mouth…

Anne’s Original:

'Mexican Scientist' - by Anne Genung

My Desecration:

'Silica Gel' - by Mark Lee, CPA

At this point, it would be appropriate for me to thank Anne for allowing me to use her work and . . . etc. etc. Except that she hasn’t. But I emailed 'Silica Gel' to her and she didn’t send back any threatening communication. So I’m just gonna go with it. Anne's moving this week anyway – so she’s probably too busy to sue me anyway.

S. Dali

-furiously twirling mustache

P-I-Z-Z-A !

2010-11-23T03:55:00.000-08:00

Title of the post catch your eye? This ain't what you think. Only Expressionists and fans of the Fluxus need proceed.

VIDEO ON DEMAND

A friend of mine who builds $3 million homes for spoiled rich people (and then puts up with enormous amounts of shit from them in the ensuing 12-18 month process) recently sent me a link to a video. Danny is a guy who, if he sends a link to a video: I watch it. Unlike many, he is not given to spastic email forwards.

I got to thinking about it. I've only forwarded one Utube video to anyone this year...

From the vaults of my 'way too weird to be true even in America' file is this video featuring the Olson Twins. It is an edit of a piece taken from one of their Disney Network shows - one presumes this was prior to the anorexia, cocaine and lawyers beginning to have their inevitable effects on these little women.

Given subsequent developments, not only as regards the personal situation of the Olsons, but say, the increasing incidence of Type II diabetes in the Disney Channel's primary target audience, I see the video as a piece of found performance art of grotesquely elegant irony.

Will you allow a Twilight Zone introduction?

"Ladies and gentlemen, I invite you into the world.... of: Pizza."

(click here post haste: the mood is set . . . )

R. Serling

- currently dead of lung cancer

Owls Kick Serious Ass

2010-11-20T23:15:00.000-08:00

The great thing about not being a football fan when you go to a football game is you're freer to pay close attention to the human spectacle rather than the sporting aspect of the event. There's no better place to do this than going to a football game at an Ivy League University. The players are smart, the parents are rich - and most everyone is good looking.

Since we don't actually have an Ivy school here in Houston (well, not officially) I leapt at the chance to wrangle myself (and my camera) onto the sidelines for this Saturday's noon-time game at Rice University. Like the Manhattanite who has never been out to the Statue of Liberty, unaccountably I have not seen the football Owls in action before. My old friends Terry O'Rourke and Marc Hill (Harris County 1st Assistant Attorney and previous Harris County 1st Assistant Attorney, respectively) suggested I remedy that shortcoming. I have been in Houston two decades now.

from left: Marc Hill, Sammy, Terry O'Rourke

I also met a new friend Mr. Brett Wagner when I attended the tailgate party of the players' parents.

No ordinary drunken fan shindig this event, regularly hosted by Marc and his lovely wife, it features catered food (enormous quantity; very non-tailgate quality), a pep-talk from the head coach and former Owl standout - and current uber-booster - Brett Wagner working the crowd like a politician. Brett's my new favorite lawyer: his specialty is. . . suing other lawyers. What's not to love? Brett made a 10 second call on his cell phone and 5 minutes later someone appeared with a sideline pass for me.

Like I said: Brett's my new favorite lawyer.

I know a lot of lawyers.

After the party I got to walk down the tunnel with Brett and enter the football stadium in proper fashion: with a made guy, walking onto the field. I didn't even have to pay - although I did have a ticket in my pocket supplied by Mr. Hill. Apparently, when you enter through the player's tunnel with Brett Wagner, you don't get bothered with details like tickets. After haunting the sidelines for about a quarter, attempting to behave like a professional photographer, I started feeling like an interloper and decided to exit through the tunnel (again... Brett's pass).

Brett Wagner being interviewed on the Owl's sideline

For those interested, here are a (few other shots).

My sincere thanks for the hospitality of the Rice players' parents club and Mr. O'Rourke and Hill and of course Brett Wagner.

By the way, the Owls sent a humiliated (62-38) East Carolina Pirate squad back to Greenville wishing they would have never made the trip.

2010-11-15T04:04:00.000-08:00

November 6, 2010 Lagrange, Texas

My pal Jeff Weiss flew me over to Lagrange for a short walkabout around the Lagrange Annual Experimental Aircraft and Classic Thunderbird Automobile Show and BarbeeQue. I'm not sure that the event actually had a name that long and confusing, but given that, well....given that that's what the thing was - if it wasn't called "The Lagrange Annual Experimental Aircraft and Classic Thunderbird Automobile Show and BarbeQue" - it should have been.

Maybe it was really called that.

There were a lot of airplanes (both experimental and regular old FAA certified to carry more than one passenger type planes - which, incidentally is what I flew over in... experimentation and aviation are not two words which mix well for me, personally...); there were a lot of obsessively restored and maintained T-Birds; and, as these things go - the BBQ wasn't all that bad.

I liked this airplane so much I added it to my consulting website. It was not an experimental airplane either. However, as it was built in 1947 (giving it that sort of rakish Indiana Jones look I was going for on my website... or something....) for all intents and purposes it was, for me - experimental.

An aircraft built before the era of Glass Cockpits, GPS, Intertial GPS Autopilots, that sort of thing... I'll pass on being a passenger. They look great, though.... One exception: I've always wanted to go flying in a DC 3. Seems like it would be like river rafting or something...

This WAS NOT my mother's T-Bird. She had one when I was a kid - but boy it didn't look like this one.

Thanks to Mr. Weiss for the great, brief and thoroughly enjoyable trip. He even let me fly most of the way home. 2,500 ft. visibility about a million miles and not a cloud in the sky - 65 nautical miles straight in one direction. This is the flight plan you want if your pilot is a CPA whose only interaction with the FAA is paying passenger security fees in large US airports . . .

(c) Mark W. Lee (clubnano, llc)

Rally to Restore Sanity Likely Won’t

2010-11-07T12:28:00.001-08:00

October 31, 2010 – Washington D.C.

Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, Comedy Central’s fair haired money makers, staged a Halloween eve rally on the Mall billed as the “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear”. The “or fear” part being a nod to Mr. Colbert – who responded to Mr. Stewart’s original sanity restoration project by launching his own “March to Keep Fear Alive”. The rallies were combined (once executives at Viacom understood, one imagines, how much these things cost) and a significant portion of the audiences of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report showed up to support the cause.

A chief criterion of success for the political rally these days, an obsession which dates from the Million Man March in 1995, is crowd size. Not wanting to be drawn into the various controversies occasioned by arguments about these things the US Park Service, the federal agency responsible for the National Mall, generally is reluctant to comment on crowd estimates. Smart. If size matters then a safe assumption is that 250,000 Americans showed up in the nation’s capital seeking to restore sanity - or maintain fear.

Estimating crowd size is not a particularly complex (or failure prone) science. Are such things as dueling crowd estimates these events typically leave in their media wake an indication political insanity?

Hardly.

It is unlikely that the political discourse in the United States is, in fact, insane. And if it were, the chances a couple of comedians and a quarter million sign carrying, well meaning liberals could do much to remedy the situation are limited.

Mr. Stewart is a brilliant and canny showman (disclosure: the Daily Show is the only television program I watch with any regularity). He’s funny, extremely smart and as this event shows, an ascendant star. Since taking over the Daily Show a decade ago he has steadily built ratings and provided hilarious and frequently intelligent insights on the political scene. In the process Mr. Stewart has acquired that most sought after prize in the post-modern world - The Brand.

That said, Jon Stewart is no serious student of political history. In fairness, few of us are. The country is certainly not enjoying the drowsy civility of the Eisenhower era at the moment. However, the climate of American political discourse is probably no more ‘insane’ than it was in the 1890’s when Sumner Redstone’s capitalist ancestor William Randolph Hurst was instrumental in starting a war with Spain. It was then that the term (but not the art of) ‘yellow journalism’ was born.

Granted, when Bill O’Reilly or Rush Limbaugh enrage the American Left with their views on immigration or taxation, the urge to describe their ideas as crazy is compelling. Cooler heads generally know that it’s mostly about selling newspapers (or TV ratings, or page views…)

Messrs. Hearst and Pulitzer: meet Glenn Beck and Chris Mathews.

The hyperbole game in our country is a cherished and well practiced art by both politicians and media practitioners. It’s not going away anytime soon. Does this mean the pundits and politicians – or the citizenry – have taken leave of their collective senses?

Probably not.

John L. Lewis described FDR’s first VP as “[a] labor-baiting, poker-playing, whiskey-drinking evil old man.” This doesn’t ring the modern ear as jarringly as Mr. Limbaugh’s “Ayatollah Obama” remarks or Bill Mahr’s description of the 9/11 hijackers as “brave”; what constitutes insane exists chiefly in the ear of the beholder.

Political correctness being what it is, political insanity is diagnosed with a frequency approaching childhood ADHD.

The Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear will do little to improve the current tone of political debate. I’m not certain that’s even a worthy goal. But the current climate of political discussion is neither insane nor particularly unique. We are simply at the normative crest on the wave that has been resonating the tone of free speech in the U.S. since before the Revolutionary War.

I’ll take the Huffington Post and Matt Drudge - and you too Jon.

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markwendelllee@gmail.com