RIP Gary Gygax

Gary Gygax, creator of D&D, died this week.

Someone (not me) brilliantly said "He must have rolled a 1." Another person commented on a web site: "He missed his saving throw."

Unfortunately most of the obits were dry and written by people who didn't even make an effort to understand.

to read a really great obit:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/06/DDSCVE5B2.DTL&type=DD

D&D

Went to a Dungeons & Dragons convention today ... as an observer, not a player. Not that I didn't want to play!! Saw a lot of people there who reminded me of friends... a total blast from the past. Dude, there were tons of games all going on at once. Gamers basically took over the whole hotel - they switched out beds for tables, and people were going basically 24-7 (and it's a four-day convention. MAN I couldn't stay up like that, not anymore).

The people I talked to were super cool and interesting. Someone should do a really good documentary about this subculture. It's not what you'd think.

Uphill in the snow with no shoes...for Bon Jovi

I grew up in a small Kansas town where you had to make your own fun.

For me, 'fun' consisted of lying on my bedroom floor for hours on end listening to my single-deck "ghetto blaster" with my little sister, cutting pictures of big-haired, lipsticked men out of Circus magazine.

When I was 12, I was introduced to "heavy metal," and it became my life. I loved the riffs, those raspy voices, the gritty LA scene (even though I'd never been to California, I read plenty about the clubs along the Sunset Strip and the bands that ruled the area). I plastered my bedroom walls with pinups of Vince Neil (during his fishnet phase), Def Leppard (during their one-armed drummer phase) and Jon Bon Jovi (during his ... wow, he really has always looked the same, hasn't he?)

Course now I realize that music was about as 'metal' as Vanilla Ice is 'rap.' But I digress.

Because my town was so small ... and so ... uh ... Kansan, and because this was in the 80s before the Internet, I had to put a lot of work into this hobby. I couldn't just jump on YouTube and find my favorite Motley Crue or WASP video. I had to watch MTV for eight hours, waiting for that five-minute piece of heaven. (I still remember the day the "Girls, Girls, Girls" video debuted. MTV, which usually saved hard rock for Saturday nights between 11 and 2 a.m., had generously decided to play the video every hour on the hour. It was the best day EVER).

I think about kids now, and the ease with which they download their music, and it's sad to me. There's no anticipation, no precious waiting. For me, that was most of the fun. Reading articles for MONTHS before a new album dropped, talking with friends about whether the band would release a hard-rock single first, or the ballad first. Would they do a video? And would Tawny Kitaen be in it humping a car?

These days, we're bombarded with new music. A song is popular for about a pico-second, and it's on to the next thing. Everyone's in such a hurry to MOVE ON that the musicians don't even wait for a song to drop off the charts before doing a 'remake.'

Take that stupid "Umbrella" song. There are at least three versions I've heard, from three different artists, and I feel like they all came out the same day. Who did it first? Who wrote it? Oh wait, dumb question. There's only, like, one writer in the U.S. That Scott Storch guy writes everyone's songs while wearing that douche hat and thouse douche gold chains, and then all the artists play 'rock, paper, scissor' to see who gets to sing it first. No one even writes their own shit anymore. Not only that, but the grammar's bad. ("Does his gifts come from the heart?" - uh... Come on, Backstreet Boys. Fourth grade much?).

Believe me, I know there's good stuff out there. You just have to look harder nowadays, shoveling through all the absolute shite littering the air waves. It just didn't used to be this hard.

OK I'm getting way off topic.
I just remember being a kid, and being friggin' HUNGRY for new music, and then a bunch of stuff would come out and I'd feel satisfied. Don't get me wrong. I know the music industry was manufactured back then, too, but dude, those bands, at least, were real. They'd all played the bar circuit trying to get noticed, they'd all lived in shitty apartments, and they wrote their own STUFF. When I saw the Guns N' Roses "Welcome to the Jungle" video for the first time, I felt SATISFIED and soo incredibly hyped, to the point of not being able to sleep. Alright I was weird, did I ever say I wasn't?

Just a couple of stories - the hardships and the payoffs:
My sister reminded me recently about how, at 13 when I wanted to get Bon Jovi's "7800 Degrees Fahrenheit" album, it was BLIZZARDING outside. I made my mom drive me anyway, and by the time we got home, the power was out. BUMMER. I rummaged around in the junk drawer and found batteries for the ole 'ghetto' and listened by candlelight till 2 in the morning.

When Girls Girls Girls came out in the summer of 1987, my sister and I WALKED five miles to the music store first thing that morning to get it, only to find they didn't open till 11 a.m. Then we went to Alco (2 miles away). Didn't have it. Then we went to K-Mart (another half-mile away). There, we were assaulted by an old man masturbating inside his overalls in front of the door... ("Hello Ladies!" jerk jerk jerk) ...

It was like the cosmos was saying, "If you can get through this obstacle course, kids - 110 degree heat, speeding cars, masturbating men - you can have the album!" We eventually made our way back to the music store, cause it was 11 a.m. by then.

And lastly: my mom would make me go to church on Saturday afternoons, or I couldn't stay up and watch Headbangers' Ball that night. She knew I wouldn't be able to stay up till 2 a.m., when the show ended, and then get up to go to church at 8 a.m. on Sunday. What middle schooler WILLINGLY goes to church at 5:30 on a Saturday?

But it was worth it, man. I would sit wide-eyed, inches from the TV, constantly toggling the volume buttons ... trying to hear, but trying not to wake the snoring parents down the hall. It was my weekly crack.

Now, you'd just TiVo Headbangers Ball and watch it the next day. Hmph.

These days, I'm an iTunes freak. But I do find that I don't savor new releases as much, even those by my favorite bands. I think it's because there are no memories attached to them. There's no blizzard, no masterbating grandpa. No hardship, no waiting.

So here's my plan, ill-conceived as it may seem:

I'm going to stalk Mike Patton (of Faith No More, Mr. Bungle and Peeping Tom fame).

It's totally the type of thing I would have done with my sister or friends - case a hotel looking for a touring rockstar, and then conspire about how to break in and steal a pair of his underwear. It's feet on the pavement, it's anticipation even if I never really see him. Patton lives in San Francisco ... very near me ... so why not? I'm also going to get into Vince Neil's gated community if it kills me. He lives in Blackhawk, also near me. That's not considered stalking, because I'm not going to pursue him over time, like I will Mr. Patton. :) With Vince, I'm going to see if I can get in once, get an autograph, and that'll be that. (I'm over the fishnet stalkings, I guess.)

Hear that Mike? It's going to be systematic. You'd better get a pit bull or a pirhana.

OR...Plan B: Do another Peeping Tom album.... And drag it out a year, hype it up, get us all excited.

And then blow our minds. :)

No need for a video featuring Tawny Kitaen, though (she's a husband-beating hag these days anyway). Just you and your glorious, non-Storch talent.

** p.s. for those of you who don't get the Kitaen reference, go to YouTube, that lovely digital memory bank, and look up Whitesnake's "Here I Go Again."

*** p.p.s. OK just kidding on the Patton stuff. Don't call the cops. I mean, I'm gonna do it ... the stalking I mean ... but ... just ... don't call the cops.

Twins

My favorite (FAVORITE) passage from "The Prince of Tides," by Pat Conroy, one of my favorite books:

"I thought of a dream I used to have of Savannah and me in the womb, floating side by side in our mother's inland sea — hearts forming together, fingers moving, the patient blue coloring of four sightless eyes in the darkness, the blond hair flowing like underwater grass, the half-formed brains sensing the presence of the other, gathering comfort from that nameless communion which sprang up between us before we were born.

"In the life before life, in the breathless womb and wordless safety of bloodstreams, I dreamed that something special happened to us, that there was a moment of divine sight known only to twins, of recognition when we turned toward each other in a roll that took weeks and she said, "Hello Tom," and I, who would grow accustomed to miracles, who would always believe in magic, would cry out, "Hello Savannah," and then happily, transcendentally, we would await our birth so the lifelong dialogue could begin.

"I first knew of my sister's light in the darkness."

Oh my god, doesn't it bring tears to your eyes? Ashley and I were talking about this passage the other day. I talked about how I'd fantasized about having a twin when I was a kid (my mom's a twin and amazingly, her mom is a twin, too ... why couldn't I be a twin?) I knew two sets by the time I was five (one set of boys and one set of girls). I so envied their closeness. I was lucky to have a little sister, though, who, throughout most of our youth, was attached to my hip. :) Some of my favorite memories are growing up with her. Now she's in the Midwest and I'm in California and I miss those afternoons in my room where we'd listen to music and lay there with each other without saying a word.

But Ashley said she thinks this passage doesn't necessarily have to evoke feelings about family. That it's about closeness, period ... the kind that just unfolds without force and remains for decades and decades, floating around in the cosmos.

I know what it's like to be so close with someone you forget whose molecules are whose. They're all mixed together in a jumbled mess, and you love so much it aches and fills you up with sunshine at the same time. GOD! SAP! HAAAGHT! K, I need to start talking about snot bubbles or something.

Mostly, I just wanted to type this passage out because I love it, and nothing I could say here could even do it justice. This is for me, so I can come back and look at it and remember why we're all here in the first place.

This is a tad different than my Lance Bass post, I have to say ...

the trouble with media...

"The problem with you bums is you never leave a guy alone. Unless you're leavin' him alone."

-- Herbert Stemple in "Quiz Show," to newspaper photographers begging for a photo of him and Charles Van Doren

say it ain't so part deux

Today, all the stuffed animals came flying out of Lance Bass's closet, screaming "he's gay, he's gay!" And at that same moment, my world wilted. Because I wanted to marry Lance Bass, in all of his spikey-haired, space-walking glory. Even though I couldn't really discern his voice from the other *N Syncers, I loved his the most, and thought I really had a chance.

OK, so I'm 32 and kinda ugly. And maybe I live hundreds of miles away and am kind of a hermit and maybe a little bit of a metalhead. but ... it could happen! My crush on Lance Bass was an anomoly, but I like to think maybe that's why it was meant to be.

Everyone made fun of me at work today for freaking out about this news. I learned about the latest development while on the phone. When I got off, my boss was concerned ... 'what's wrong?' he said, and was all too genuine (which made me feel bad. the last time I freaked out like that on the phone was when Jason Newstead "quit" Metallica). I told him, and he laughed.

Laughed.

One colleague said, "girls everywhere are jumping out of second-story windows" ...

everyone thought my grief was a joke. No one believed me when I said I have the Lance Bass Bobblehead...

But donna knows, don't you, donna? Because you gave it to me!

I should call you, because you'll understand.

for now, I'm telling myself this gay talk is for publicity.

If you're reading this, Lance, call me. We have lots to talk about.

OK so maybe that's a joke ... but I do have this strange connection to N Sync. I had just finished school and had some downtime. As I told another colleague today, it was during this time that I lay on the couch like a lazy sack, after working myself to death for three years (grad school). I watched A LOT of MTV and ate and ate until I exploded. I stayed horizontal till I got bedsores because I was tired, tired, tired, oh, and tired. For a month. And during this time, N Sync was at its peak ... I hated it at first, but the more I heard them, the more they grew on me. And by the time I decided to be a productive member of society and get a job, the songs had etched themselves on my brain (bye bye bye... I'm checkin out I'm signin' off . . . Don't wanna be the loser and I've had enough Don't wanna be your fool ...). Lance seemed sensitive and he and I bonded right away.

others made fun, and I defended him. sigh ... well, Lance, I wish you luck. Just know that if you change your mind, I'll always be here. My door is always open.

Peace out...

Please Harry, don't die!

So, 11 minutes ago, the SF Chronicle just posted an article ... an interview with author JK Rowling, where she says two of the major Harry Potter characters could die by the end of Book 7, the final HP book.

Say it ain't so!

There are also rumblings, rumors and whatnot, that she will kill off Harry, too. Here's what the story says:

"I have never been tempted to kill him off before the final because I've always planned seven books, and I want to finish on seven books," Rowling said Monday on TV here.

"I can completely understand, however, the mentality of an author who thinks, `Well, I'm gonna kill them off because that means there can be no non-author-written sequels. So it will end with me, and after I'm dead and gone they won't be able to bring back the character'."

See those little single quote marks inside the quotes? that means she's paraphrasing someone else's thought .. Let's HOPE!

I mean, some non-JK Rowling writer/author could find a way to bring him back from the dead, regardless of whether JK kills him off, sort of the way Jason Vorhees always manages to survive the Friday the 13th movies. Fan fiction writers are already doing it with Sirius Black, you know?

People won't stand for Harry dying ... they'll revolt. They'll riot in the streets, I swear to God.

Yet sadly, his death would fit in with a theory I have rolling around in my brain right now ... about a major plot twist I'm predicting for Book 7. Me and a million other people, probably.

Sigh ... I imagine the message boards are smokin' right now.

Please Harry, don't die.
Pleease JK ... don't kill him off. He's so sweet and moral and good and he deserves to live.

goodbye, best friend

so, my best friend is moving away next week. And I am inconsolable. I posted this elsewhere, but wanted to put it here, too. So here goes.

I met her when I was 29 (now I'm 31) and it was so strange because I thought I'd already met everyone who was going to really matter in my life. We haven't known each other long but it's one of those all-consuming friendships where you can't imagine a life at all beforehand. And no, we're not gay.

It was my first day on a new job. I had come from a company where I'd been sort of raked over the coals, esteem-wise. My boss had been younger than me and one of those managers who never really learned how to deal with people. And while I generally liked everyone over there and loved many aspects of my job, it was time to leave. I walked into this new place energized and ready for something new.

Ashley was sitting at her desk with her back facing the door and I remember her popping up like a little gopher to shake my hand and her eyes were big (not like Jennifer Wilbanks, but wide open, like they were taking everything in.) She is a lot like me in that way.

She started asking me question after question ... where are you from? what do you do? what do you know? what's your name? and we jibber jabbered like auctioneers for a good ten minutes before my new boss came in and said "time to go to lunch!" That meant me and the new boss, but not Ashley. I didn't walk out of the room, I backed out, and we were still talking. It was like being separated from someone after an anticipated reunion. That sounds dramatic but that's really how it was.

The way she explains it: I walked in standing super straight, eyes open (not like Jennifer Wilbanks), like "I'm here. What's up, guys" ... alert and confident like a warrior ready for battle. And that's how we've come to think of ourselves, the two warriors who always end up in the shitstorm together. I've said it to her a million times and she's said it to me - we wouldn't want to be in the shitstorm with anyone else.

In the last three years or so, we've been through a lot: Job changes, a breakup, health scares, money troubles, work drama, and all I have to say is thank god for her or I'd be dead in a ditch somewhere from the stress of it all. It's strange how life is, how when one of us is down in the dumps or bawling and blotchy faced because of some crisis, the other one is always there. I have scooped her up and she's scooped me up. She's been my blanket, my comfort in the dark of night, like a mama in a rocking chair.

But of course, there can be no talk about Ashley or about me without feces coming up once or twice or a million times. "that's a bunch of SHIT!" she'll say on the phone, in response to some BS thing that happened to me at work. Or, we'll see someone walking down the street looking like he has to go (or just went). Or maybe we ran into someone who had a little feekeez smeared on his arm. Hey, it's happened.

Ash does this imitation of a dude walking down the street in Walnut Creek (it has to be Walnut Creek) with a load in his drawers ... the best is when she's wearing these little grey Express pants and her little tiny legs are prancing oh-so-carefully so the doo in the drawers doesn't get too disturbed. Guess you just have to see it.

Then there was the time my car wouldn't start in the parking garage at midnight, and we got in to wait for a ride only to discover the electric locks were also dead. Yep, we were stuck inside and it only took about 25 minutes for us to get hungry. And to start saying things like "you know, if this turns into hours, I may have to eat your arm..." Then when Brad got there to help us, the darn thing started. If Ashley hadn't been there, he wouldn't have believed the car really died (cause I'm dumb that way).

I could tell a million stories. About Benoit, the imaginary french man that only comes out when we're eating Crepes at Crepes A Go Go. Or about the Indian restuarant in Berkeley that has the most heavenly lamb (to the point where we'd both fantasize about it at work ... a big giant piece of lamb floating in outer space). About the goatboy that shook Ashley's hand, then galloped into the sunset. We've had such adventures. Sigh.

She's only going to LA, for godsake, only a mere 6 hours away, but it's been heartwrenching. You should see us, cramming as many activities as we can into the weekends. "But she's leaving," I say to my boyfriend after informing him that he'll have to spend yet another weekend without me around.

I wish we had all the time in the world, because all of our outings seem to end too soon. I wish we could have more conversations, so I could tell her that no, her legs aren't crooked and that her face doesn't really look like an avalanche (she's beautiful, in case you're wondering. Classic-like). I try to tell her things sometimes, but I cry easily and it gets stuck in my throat.

Even when we're 80 and sitting on our porches talking to each other about the feces in our depends, I'll still have a hard time explaining to her what she's meant to me, and how I would be so, so lost without her. If I died today, I'd tell those on the other side that I've met everyone I'm meant to meet, and that Ashley was the cherry on top of the sundae.

We'll see each other often, even after she jumps in her car wednesday, ready to travel to SoCal with her 15,000 boxes of books. And if she ever needs a warm blanket in the dead of night, or needs some TP cause she's out, I'll be in my car, racin' on down to LA with the Charmin.

love you, Ashley.