I Got a Crush On...

Okay, I admit it. Reluctantly.

It's irrational, and probably unjustified. Which, I suppose, is what makes it a crush.

He voted for the border fence. He pussed out on that Iran vote. His health care plan was described by one expert (=activist I know) as "terrible." My expert did note, however, that his plan was "no worse than the other two."

So, okay. No worse than the other two is a start. If he's no worse than the other two on Issues, and has that early war opposition going for him, perhaps I can rationalize this by explaining why he wins the other event, Character.

First, this out of the way: Hillary Clinton is a politicobot and we all know it. What's more, I don't appreciate being a pawn in whatever sick hold-my-hand-through-Lewinsky-and-I'll-make-you-president pact this pair has going. Don't drag us into your twisted marriage.

The Clintons act like they get to appoint presidents. And I love how Bill Clinton, having apparently promised this appointment, can't quite seem to follow through. He keeps accidentally (subconsciously?) sabotaging her campaign with his little unscripted Bubba moments.

Oh, but she's a woman? You have to be kidding me. This is some great feminist victory, for the first female president to be a former first lady installed by her husband's political machine? I wash my hands of it.

This too: John Edwards is a weasel. His "populist message" is so much focus-grouped branding bullshit, and he has conveniently shifted that brand from "defender of the poor" to "defender of the middle class"--which, really, could mean anything. Freaking Lou Dobbs thinks he's "defending the middle class."

And however much I might agree that evil corporations are pulling the marionette strings of America, etc, this message is hardly fresh and exciting. Or even utmostly important, considering the many crucial questions we face about war, immigration, global warming, gay rights. He could have done this pseudo-populist shtick in any decade of the 20th century. Come on: this guy's clearly full of shit.

Great, that's out of the way.

Now: Character. This is quite a squirmy topic. I was raised in the kind of old-school lefty household in which Issues mattered and "character" was pretty much considered a made-up concept. (Needless to say, this posed problems beyond politics, but we shan't dally down that road.) My belief was, you vote for the guy whose positions are most correct. Period.

If I start talking about character, it seems inevitable that I'll spew crap like, Character is something you can't really explain, you just have to see it, hear it, feel it. Crap that calls into question one's seriousness and understanding of politics. That makes one sound like the kind of dumbshit who subconsciously chooses a candidate based on the symmetry of his teeth.

But...I must. Because he's got it. It's there in his biography, his experience (if Hillary Clinton hasn't trademarked that word yet.) It's there in his voice, which I could SO listen to for four to eight years.

Barack Obama is the realness.

I trust that he is not running for the presidency just to satisfy narcissistic urges, and that's a rare treat in and of itself. I trust him to show insight, integrity, and good judgment. I trust him to deliberate presidential decisions with probity. Scandalous and shameful though it may be, I think these things matter.



Philosopher-king.


And I relate to him. The other candidates seem to be from another planet (in Kucinich's case, Mars) never mind another generation.

I've only read one of the eight thousand biographies of Abraham Lincoln, and I've gleaned what I know about Obama from sources other than his memoirs (dreading that their politiciany tone would crush my crush), but I do see similarities between the two. They faced outward challenges and internal struggles as young men and they grappled, learning complex lessons that go beyond mere policy. Obama strikes me as capable of becoming a Lincolnesque philospher-king.

Notice I said "capable." He also seems capable of avoiding decisions so as not to disappoint any constituency. Those people-pleasing tendencies I talked about in an old post are a serious hazard. Then again, he also also seems capable of admitting mistakes (preferably using the phrase "bone-headed"), which is everyone's new favorite thing after seven years of Bush.

I never thought I would agree with Andrew Sullivan on anything--well, other than, "I like men"--but his article in the December Atlantic made an excellent point: Obama could help us "get beyond the symbolic battles of the Boomer generation and face today’s actual problems." Amen.

Would Joe Biden care to be his running mate?

Tweet

Always Got the Hind Tit

BOOK REVIEW
Little Heathens




Just when this blog was aching for some white and WASPy subject matter, here comes Little Heathens: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression, a memoir penned by my new imaginary grandma, Mildred Armstrong Kalish.

Little Heathens is deeply cute. And when I say something is cute, by no means am I calling it trivial or cloying. I take my cuteness quite seriously. This book is cute as in wholesome, heart-warming and earnest. It made me feel like I was curled up beside a fire eating fresh-baked cookies in a fuzzy bathrobe with a kitten in my lap.

Speaking of kittens, here's how Kalish and her younger sister bundled up on cold winter nights:

After placing a thick featherbed on the mattress, we covered it with a heavy flannel double-length blanket, which we tucked in at the foot of the bed, creating a snug sack...After donning our heavy wool nighties, we hopped into bed and pulled the blankets and quilts completely over our heads, then snuggled together like two spoons. We were permitted one or two kittens, which would find us on their own and snuggle at our feet near the warm stones.

Permitted one or two kittens. To think, I permit myself one or two kittens regularly.

Harsh Iowa winters are only the beginning. Kalish and her siblings and cousins--the "little heathens" of the title--survive endless chores, lash-enforced rules, a scarcity of modern medicine and mind-boggling levels of thrift. (Scrape insides of eggshells with your finger so as not to miss any precious egg whites.) Kalish's family leaps high hurdles to fulfill basic needs. Just to get dinner on the table, the pig has to be slaughtered, the water pumped, the wood gathered, the fire started, the eggs collected, the vegetables picked, the bread baked.

Oh yeah, and it's the Great Depression.

But the book is written from a child's perspective, and it's really about the best kind of kid stuff: running ecstatically through a rainstorm, picking sun-warmed strawberries, inhaling the sweet smell of a lamb's fur, and tagging along after the Big Kids. The Little Kids, among whom eighty-four year-old Kalish counts herself, are always "getting the hind tit." (Among barnyard litters, the runts settle for the less milky, rearward mammary glands.)

The country pleasures in this book are made all the sweeter by the fact that you get to read with curiosity about the frigid outhouses and entire tedious days spent on laundry without having to experience either.

After one Iowa winter too many, Kalish eventually moved to California. "I prefer to sit by an open fire and listen to Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra sing songs about the ice and the cold and the snow," she writes, "rather than experiencing them firsthand."

Likewise, Little Heathens is the best way to experience, secondhand, childhood on an Iowa farm during the Great Depression.

Tweet

Superhead, Meet Supercleb

BOOK REVIEW
Confessions of a Video Vixen



Got a chick named Super-head
She give super-head
Just moved in the buildin, even gave the super head
Jadakiss, "Blood Pressure"

So begins the story of the most hated woman in hip hop. Well, not with the super getting head, but with Ja Rule and his Murder Inc. compatriots re-gifting the nickname Jadakiss had originally bestowed on the generous lady friend in the song.

Karrine Steffans, hip hop groupie, "video vixen" was the recipient.

I was finally able to get my grubby little hands on her 2005 memoir sans the shame of having to admit I was buying it (great Hannukkah present, Bri, thanks!) and devoured it within seventeen hours of arrival. That the book discussed the respective endowments of Shaq and Vin Diesel had nothing to do with my reading pace.

Want the rest of the list? Kool G Rap, Ice T, Ja Rule, Irv Gotti, "Papa" (=Method Man, according to Crim & Assoc.), Puffy, Ray J, Fred Durst (random!), Xzibit, DMX, Bobby Brown, Jay-Z, Dr. Dre, Usher, probably hundreds of unnamed athletes and music industry execs.

Sup, you could do with some editing. Of those, only Method Man, Vin Diesel and maybe Xzibit actually seem sexy when you think about it. And when you read about it.

Don't read this book unless you're prepared to have a big shit taken on your sexual fantasies about rappers. Kool G Rap beats her, Irv Gotti pimps her. Most of the rest take their fellatio apportionment with bizarre matter-of-factness, buy her some shit and move on.

And she doles out the apportionments in kind, with skillful efficiency. There are actual torrid affairs with a few of the aforementioned, but what takes place with most is a weird, sterile transaction in which both parties seem to know they have to do this, so they get on with it, already. The more famous the man, the less pleasant the sex: witness her mediocre fifteen minutes with Puffy (p. 149), gross baths in Shaq's copious sweat (p. 144) and grimy, late-night hotel encounter with Dr. Dre before he started working out (p. 115).

But the book never really tries to explain why. Readers get to see her being cruelly abused as a child and raped at age thirteen; we generally gather that she has a great gaping void which must be filled with famous cock. She does explain that, through all of it, she is miserable, addicted to fame, money and drugs.

But with her standing right there at the crossroads of so many fascinating social forces--race, fame, sex, gender, hip hop--I couldn't help wanting her to apply more of that fellatistic ambition to her writing, to give me not just the wheres and the hows and what they ordered from room service, but the WHY DID YOU DO THIS?

Maybe it's unfair of me to expect so much in the way of analytical skills from Sup. Although she does reclaim her by-then-shameful nickname at the end of the book's journey, explaining that in England "superhead" means something like "brainiac."

Gripes aside, I like Sup. She certainly does keep it real. It's no fun having the great army of hip hop ready to kill you with its bare hands. She broke the unspoken code and infuriated rappers and their followings, which says a lot about who the code hurt and helped in the first place.

They didn't see it coming, which is kind of delicious. You just get the feeling that all those guys thought they were in the warm mouth of a pleasure robot, not a living woman who just might fuck and tell.

Tweet

Best of Clebilicious

November 2006-November 2007

Clebketeers, it's been one whole glorious year in the 'Sphere. Blogosphere. Thanks to all of you who have been kind enough to stop by during your Internet rounds. As a little thank-you present--at least, I hope it seems like a present--I give you ten posts culled from sixty-four. Think of it as little gems mined from a braindroppings pit.


First post: Fabulous Life Of . (Well, technically, second, but the very first said only, "H...hi.")


Stammering early efforts...
Sexiest Voices
Are You Ready to Make a Difference? (appearances to the contrary, this hilarious one was actually written by Brian)


Light summer fare...
Walnuts v. Walnuts
Time To Break Out the Shorts


Hardball with Clebbie Polwick:
Bush II: More Fun Than Expected


Navel-gazery:
Thirtynothing
You Can Do Sidebends or Situps
If Black People Eat Bagels...


And maybe my best nugget:
Jews Come Out of the Cultural Closet (plus the delectable follow-up)


Drop a comment if you have a favorite! And thanks for reading.

Tweet

My Fascination With Hip Hop -OR- If Black People Eat Bagels, Does That Make It Okay?

Last night, at the Bay Area Record Rockers party The Influence, my friend Matt asked me if I'm into hip hop, or if that's just Crim. I muttered something half-assed about how if he hangs around the American Coot long enough, he'll probably start bird-watching.

But it occurs to me that I've been asking myself the same question.

To wit: if I blast KMEL every time I get in the car, if I catch myself in otherwise casual conversation unleashing diatribes about the phony high-mindedness of Kanye West, if I can recite every word of not just "Bust a Move" and "Baby Got Back," but the double-time Biggie verse on "Notorious Thugs"...

Am I a big hip hop fan?

I try to be a good white girl and listen to rock, but it's really fucking hard. At the peak of my efforts, in high school, I officially listened to just rock, with, like, the requisite Beastie Boys and Bob Marley extras. Only alone in the car did I sneak down the dial to Power 106, where hip hop lives. I didn't even want to program it! Fortunately, at 105.9, it was just four button pushes down--beep-beep-beep-beep--from 106.7 KROQ.

I wasn't always such a little conformist. Earlier I had treasured my cassingles of "Keep Ya Head Up" and "I Get Around," beginning my lifelong study of the ambiguities of Tupac. (He loves women! He hates women! Loves! Hates! Loves! Hates!)

I also tired out my tape of The Chronic, and could spit every nasty, skeezy verse of "Nuthin But A G Thang" by age thirteen. (All you parents, take note: I turned out fine.)

Hell, I was a SoCal kid in the Golden Age of LA rap.

Then came Nirvana and Pearl Jam and four years wandering the desert. By college, I had amassed a collection of what I now know to be exactly the kind of hip hop white college kids listen to: Beastie Boys, Beastie Boys, Tribe Called Quest, more Beastie Boys, Fugees. Nowadays, I suppose that list would be supplanted by Kanye and more Kanye.

Of course it was Crimmie who sealed my fate. Nine years of living with him and his thousands of hip hop records. I usually credit him with getting me to like all this stuff, thus abdicating responsibility. But I wonder if he gave me my affinity for hip hop or if my affinity for hip hop helped feed my affinity for him. He did, after all, woo me by meowing "Push It" by Salt-n-Pepa. (Granted, he has other charms too.)

And cohabiting with those records sure has worn me down. It's not just Snoop, Dre and Pac anymore. I probably couldn't stay in this relationship if I didn't revere Nas. And then there are my secret affairs with Shock G and The Game. Plus I love any beats by Dr. Dre or Timbaland, and probably the Neptunes, too, and anything with either Akon or Nate Dogg singing the hook, and any early 90s LA song with high-pitch synth. Anything by Outkast, whatever the hell Andre 3000 is wearing. All the Bay rappers, especially Keak da Sneak. I've even had to disavow my stated dislike for Wu Tang. So come on in Ghostface and Method Man, RZA, GZA, ODB and all those other ones I can't distinguish. Group hug.

Ever since those days in the closet, the problem has been the same. I don't feel like I should love hip hop. Because it doesn't feel like it should be mine. At my high school, there were plenty of non-white people ready, willing and able to listen to Power 106. I think I felt it was my duty as a white person not to crowd the ranks.

And there are serious questions of cultural appropriation here. Just think the word "wigger." Shudder.

On the other hand...

Black people eat bagels.

Check out the Lakeshore Noah's if you doubt me. So, if black people eat bagels, does that make it okay?

Tweet

Jews Come Out, Part Tsvey

In Jews Come Out of the Cultural Closet, Part I, I asserted that Jews are coming out (in the cultcha) and that Jewishness is, of all things, becoming cool.

"And it's not just the comedy world," I wrote, among other things. "Did the Beastie Boys ever rap about the girlies with the big ole tukheses? Hell no. But hip hop producer Scott Storch--who I'm so not endorsing, btw--calls his production company Tuff Jew. And 50 Cent's team of lawyers? They're called Jew Unit."

Well, as usual, I underestimated just how right I was.

After putting up with much chatter this summer about his post-beef disappearance, Rapper Cam'ron (Killa Cam) recently sent the following cryptic message to MTV:

Killa Season again, you little yentas. November 7th. Cam'ron is anonymous. Dipset!

When Miss Info from Hot 97 asked Cam if he knew what a yenta was, he said:

Hahaha, of course! You know my lawyers are Jewish, they be saying that all the time. So then I was watching Curb Your Enthusiasm, and Larry David—I fucks with Larry—he called Ted Danson a ‘yenta.’ Yo, I fell out laughing. That shit was crazy. I said, that’s exactly what all these folks are doin’, gossiping about me. Yentas.

And then this from Jay-Z's new American Gangster album:

Black Bar Mitzvahs
Mazel Tov
It's a celebration bitches
L'Chaim
I wish for you a hundred years of success
But it's my time

Am I right or fuckin what. Mazel Tov. It's a celebration, bitches.


Research courtesy Crimson & Associates. (Motto: "Get rich and don't spend it.")

Tweet

Fast Times at John W. North High

Of all the people from the John W. North High School Class of '97 stupid enough to plunk down $75 for a reunion, apparently I'm the one who HAS CHANGED THE LEAST. By crowd reaction vote, no less.

Oh sure, I might have pleaded, But, but...what of my crippling back problem and battle back to health? My gain and subsequent loss of some forty pounds? My dripping-with-drama severance from my dictatorial dad? It would have been no use.

I figure if anyone wants to tell me I still seem eighteen, hell, I'll take it. And despite my grumbling about how I had! changed, in point of fact I enjoyed feeling popular and pretending I was following the classic high school reunion narrative of triumphant return.




[In despair with my "I Changed The Least" button.]

But that narrative really requires one to have been a big nerd in high school and I was not. I fought my way hard out of nerddom, disappointing the old dadctator, who desperately wanted me on Academic Decathlon.

There was a huge contingency of unreconstructed nerds at the reunion. And I'll kill a sacred cow here and say that they annoyed me. These may have been the pitiable and picked-on in high school, but they're now full adults with intellectual superiority complexes and no social skills.

Oh, how they disdained the superficialities of the once-popular with their hair and their make-up and their ability to dance. As if the nerd patrol alums don't cling to their own petty shit: techie job titles and enforced-frump outfits and gadgets bought with their new money. Awkward and antisocial just doesn't age well. That classic high school reunion narrative is really about growing out of it.

My friend Shaun was pretty much a nerd when I met him in fifth grade, but that didn't stop me having a fat crush on him. (He responded by throwing rubber balls at me and my sister and shouting, "Big butts! Big butts!") We stayed friends through high school, commiserating over our five hours of nightly homework. And he was the person I most wanted to see at our reunion, because, unlike those unreconstructed nerds, Shaun is a good swan story.

Right around the time I had my back problem, Shaun suffered a medical crisis that left him essentially blind in one eye. I didn't know it then, but he was also struggling with his identity.

The once skinny, slumping salutatorian showed up to the reunion a proud gay man in Diesel jeans, standing his full six feet five inches. He lives in West Hollywood (even!) and has been with his boyfriend for five years now. (Which he says = 30 monogamous gay man years.) And best of all, both our boyfriends are maniacal reef aquarists, which means we'll all have to get together so they can do tank talk.

It's been a tough decade for the Clebster, and it meant a lot to reconnect with an old friend after we've both come such a long way. It also meant a lot when we hit the dance floor and he said I seemed the happiest he's ever seen me. He's known me for eighteen years.




[Sorry ladies, he's gay.]

Lest I get too weepy, though, one more bit of commentary. After my reunion, Bri said my relatively healthy understanding of race made sense. Riverside is a real middle class haven. People who don't have a lot of money move there from LA and Orange County to buy a tract house and nab a slice of American dream pie. The second generation Riversidians are mostly black and Latino (okay, Mexican) and many are upwardly mobile.

Virtually all of the black North alums at the reunion were doctors, lawyers or on their way there. Of course reunions skew to holders of i-Phones, but still. At my high school there was no racial majority and it just wasn't such a thing that white people were richer and black and Mexican people were poorer. Not utopia by a long shot, but not as segregated as New York or, sad to say because I love it so, Oakland.



[Riverside. Not giving a fuck about race since 1992. Or thereabouts.]

When it was time to drive back up to the Bay, Brian unwittingly gave me a poem:

Take the 60
To the 15
To the 10
To the 210
To the 5

We're both native SoCalians, and when we talk freeways down south, the definite articles kick back in. (Nobody in the Bay says the 580.) I made him repeat it a few times, and not just because it's been a while since I've driven out of the Inland Empire.

It sounded like home.

Tweet

Jews Come Out of the Cultural Closet

Ah, what a time to be a Jew. No slavery, no pogroms, no shtetlech, no concentration camps. And for the first time ever, we're cool!

On Wednesday's Daily Show, Jon Stewart Jewed it up with Ted Koppel--"It's like when you're sitting there at Passover..."--as he now does whenever he has on a fellow tribe member and I'm thinking, Jesus. This is almost too much. One more "mishpocheh" or "punim" and I might get nauseous.

(And incidentally, Koppel with Stewart...How many degrees does that put me from Stephen Colbert?)
I mean, yeah, there have always been Jewish entertainers, as is the case in any population that would otherwise be depressed by all the oppression and stuff. I'm sure up in the Catskills they were making gefilte fish gags. But for a while there, even Jewish comedians purveying obviously Jewish humor weren't acknowledging that they were Jewish.

Take Seinfeld. (Please.) His show was all about New York Jews and their neurotic nothing-doing. But did Jerry and Elaine ever flake on a Bat Mitzvah invite or scalp for High Holy Day tickets? Contrast that with Seinfeld co-producer Larry David's current show Curb Your Enthusiasm, in which characters do both. Also on HBO, the most Jewish character ever played by a gentile: Entourage's deliciously dickish Ari Gold.



Sarah Silverman debuted her Comedy Central show last year by warning viewers to expect "full frontal Jewdity."

Shoot, had he come up these days, Jon might not even have felt the need to change his name to Stewart.

And it's not just the comedy world. Did the Beastie Boys ever rap about the girlies with the big ole tukheses? Hell no. But hip hop producer Scott Storch--who I'm so not endorsing, btw--calls his production company Tuff Jew. And 50 Cent's team of lawyers? They're called Jew Unit.



I could go on. I already mentioned Stephen Colbert's 1-800-OOPS-JEW Atonement Line. And one channel up, on E!, Sal Masekela (who is, by the way, the son of South African jazz legend Hugh Masekela, in case you, like me, were wondering like crazy) was wishing the Daily 10 viewership a "Shanah Tovah."

For a little Jewess who grew up in a desert exurb in which "Jew" was not even, for better or worse, a category (the categories: white, black, Mexican), it's all very heartening. When Adam Sandler came out with the Hanukkah Song, I thought that was as good as it was gonna get.

UPDATE: Check out Jews Come Out Part Tsvey.

Tweet

Who I'm Worshiping Now: The Answers

Great sleuthwork, Clebketeers. Lolo wins and Buffy gets a prize, too.

THE ANSWERS:

1. The Known World author Edward P. Jones.

2. TV personality & Clebbie style idol Debbie Matenopoulos.

3. Comedian Demetri Martin. "Other things stop working or they break. But batteries--they die."

4. Person Who Thinks She Can Dance, Sabra. (Or as the show "So You Think You Can Dance" hokily crowned her, "America's Favorite Dancer.")

5. The man Kanye calls to fix his beats: Timbaland. Maybe during their next chat he can also enlighten Mr. West on the delicate art of being a producer who raps. Timbaland knows his $500,000 beats need nothing but a little whipped cream and maybe a cherry, while Kanye smothers on all his crappy bananas and nuts and hot fudge.

6. I haven't once watched her new show 30 Rock because it's on some sort of channel with a low number during the evening hours. But I still have love for Tina Fey.

7. Carmela Polwick is a very small cat. Much smaller than Inguento. Sorry, Inguento.

Tweet

Who I'm Worshiping Now

I've oft been accused of fickle hero worship. Of course that's hogwash. Anyway, here's...

WHO I'M WORSHIPING NOW:
Can you name all seven?



































It's the Greeks, Blacks and Cats edition!


HINTS for people other than Buffy and Brian, who should be able to get a least five each without hints:

1. Proves great work is worth percolating.
2. Cat and Sal would otherwise be awkward.
3. Bm-sh-bm-sh-bm-sh-bm-chicky-chicky: TRENDS.
4. So you think you can...
5. Actually does have motorboat, huge ole house.
6. I forgive the AmEx ad.
7. Seen here worshiping me.


Check out the last edition of Who I'm Worshiping Now.

Tweet

Days of "\ ä \"

A Pronunciation Guide for Gentiles

Stephen Colbert's genetic lineage testing gave him a 75% shot of being Jewish. But the 25% must have won, because as he plugs his 1-888-OOPS-JEW Days of Awe atonement line, he says:

R\ä\SH H\ä\SH\ä\N\ä\
(RAH-SHAH-SHAH-NAH)

and

Y\ä\M K\i\P\u\R
(YAHM KIH-POOR)

As do many gentiles, even those with Jew friends like me or Jon Stewart. I understand. It's weird.

We American Jews make this more confusing by our own ambivalence. We vascillate between old-timey Ashkenaziphilic Yiddish and the ancient/modern Sephardiphilic Hebrew.

It is sometimes said (by Brian), that all rappers are either enunciaters or slurrers. If the two great Jewish languages were rappers, let's just say Hebrew would be the enunciater. Thus the more formal, upright Hebrew pronunciations:

R\o\SH H\ [a'] \SH\ [a'] \N\ [a'] \
[ROSH (rhymes with "roach," not "posh") HAH-SHAH NAH]

and

Y\o\M K\E\P\u\R
[YOME (rhymes with "tome," not "Tom") KEY-POOR]


But when I was a kid, everybody I knew used Americanized Yiddish names for the High Holy Days:

R\ə\SH\ə\ SH\ə\N\ə\
[RUSHA SHUNNA]

and

Y\u\M K\i\PR
[YUM KIPPER]

Got it? Is my poor use of diacritical marks helping?

Seems nowadays nobody but old American Jews use the Yiddishized "Yum Kipper," so I've adapted to the Hebraicized "Yome Key-poor." But the Hebrew sounds too formal for me for New Year's. I still say "Rusha Shunna."

Here's one everyone says right:

SHANAH TOVAH!

WOOHOO! 5768!

Tweet

Harvest Porn

You know you want it.



In each and every one of my first five seasons of gardening, I tried to grow tomatoes and--to greater and lesser extents--failed.

The first year I planted my pots of sorry-ass Sweet 100s on a balcony in Brooklyn with only morning sun. Needless to say, the maters sucked. The next year, I grew glorious heirloom beefsteaks in a sunny community garden plot--and found the two-pounders smashed on the ground by no-good kids just before they ripened.


In my real garden in Oakland, my first year's tomatoes succumbed to verticillium wilt. The beautiful vines turned yellow and then brown and I watched, hapless, helpless, hopeless. The next year, to avoid the dread disease, I planted in ginormo pots. But in my greed and haste, I put two plants to a pot, and by mid-summer they were starving.







Last year, one plant succeeded: a hybrid of acclaimed Italian sauce variety San Marzano called (SO appropriately) Super Marzano. But I didn't want just a bunch of damn paste tomatoes. I wanted big, pornographic heirlooms to slice into a caprese.

So perhaps you'll pardon a bit of horn tootage; I have journeyed from the edge of despair back to faith.

This year I grew EIGHT MILLION* tomatoes:





*Statement should not be taken literally.



Post Script

This has nothing to do with garden porn (well, not much anyway), but I didn't want to give these pictures their own post. I took them at a car show we somehow ended up at in SanJo. I shouldn't pretend not to know: we ended up there because DJ Big Man 808, of the Bay Area Record Rockers, Brian's crew, got us free passes. His brother is the king of car shows and judged the Car-Hopping Contest, a hydraulic olympics.




But I really want to talk to you about the skanks. These of course are the charming young ladies (the youngest looked fifteen) who pose in hoochie outfits with the cars. I did not photograph them posing, as many guys did, because I wanted to capture their humanity. They are seen here walking, standing around and all too human.







What bothers me so much about the skanks--well, many things--but what bothers me most about them is that cars and skanks have nothing to do with each other other than the fact that men want to ogle both. I find this infuriating.

Why should anyone get to have such absurd fantasies fulfilled? And at the cost of another person's dignity, no less. I would love to have a gardening video narrated by The Game wearing a wifebeater and pulling the red Bloods bandanna out of his back jeans pocket to wipe the sweat off his brow as he transplants seedlings--but I don't expect to have this fantasy provided. It just wouldn't be right.

Tweet

*!POP!* Culture Report

David Montero said he feared pop culture was on the decline. I scoffed. I told him there was lots of great new hip hop--although Brian, responsible for bringing said hip hop into our home, Eeyored it and agreed with Montero and Nas that hip hop is dead.

What about Game's "Olde English," the most heart-wrenchingly beautiful song ever? (No, ever. It's not up for debate.) And that Timbaland beat for "The Way I Are" is so awesome that yesterday I played it on my pretend iPod in my head for 35 minutes on the elliptical. (I ain't got no Visa/I ain't got no Red American Express. I burned like a whole muffin's worth of calories!) Even the unbearable ego of Kanye West has managed to turn out two hot new tracks, I told Montero with irrepressible optimism. He's been in Pakistan, so he wasn't up on all this.

He moped on, But what about rock and tv and...Well, said I, what about that Killers song that goes, I don't shine if you don't shine and Sarah Silverman and Stephen Colbert with their own shows? Maybe it's just the first time I've descended from my mountain lair of intellectual superiority to pay attention, but this moment in pop culture seems just great to me. Fandamntastic. Seriously, do you watch Best Week Ever?

Of course I was positioning myself rather dangerously.

The very next day there was this adorable call-and-response on Wild 94.9:

Baby where'd you get your body from
Tell me where'd you get your body from
Baby where'd you get your body from
Tell me where'd you get your body fromI got it from my mama
I got it from my mama
I got it from my mama

At first I couldn't imagine who was responsible for this schlock. I should have put it together immediately that only will.i.am.shameless could make such a horrible, horrible song with a super catchy beat and only Fergie could lower herself enough to sing, All of this stuff right here/I got all this from my mama. As if family shit isn't crazy enough, now we have to bring in this creepy sexiness inheritance idea.

It didn't get better when I heard the new Justin Timberlake/50 Cent song, which sounded like a good idea at first. This track had "matchmaker" written all over it. By which I mean not that it sounded like it should have been on the "Fiddler on the Roof" soundtrack, but that it sounded like a pairing strategically designed by a focus group for audience maximization rather than an organic creative collaboration. I can just imagine some Yenta at the studio thinking, Fitty needs to reach more middle American white kids and Justin needs better hip hop cred...
Oh well.

Tweet

Globalidatin

When my friends, and even my own kin, are turning up with people named Assaf and Mehr on their arms, from Tel Aviv and Lahore, respectively, or contemplating a move to Montreal to be with a canadien airplane mechanic, I have to wonder: has this globalization thing gone too far?

Brian's from Anaheim, and what with the OC/Inland Empire beef, I didn't know if our relationship could make it. When it's 85 degrees and he's wilting from "the heat," I still wonder, Is this going to work out? Are we just...too different?

Tweet

Thirtynothing

I'm turning thirty. What's that? Aren't I six months shy yet of twenty-nine? Oh sure.

But have you ever noticed how shocked and unprepared people are when they hit decades? Ten is fine. (Double-digits!) Twenty is yippee, I'm an adult. After that, decade birthdays are all too often taken as crushing reminders of failed hopes and mortality.

But isn't the real problem that these birthdays take people by surprise? ("Shit! I'm forty! I sort of vaguely thought I was still in my twenties.") This is very startling, and engenders feelings of panic. ("Jesus, I need to get my shit together.") So I'm getting ready for the big three-oh starting toDAY. 542 days should be enough for me to come to grips with everything I haven't accomplished, and maybe accomplish some of it on the side.

So here I sit, almost thirty and acutely aware of it. You may be almost thirty, too. Or possibly almost forty, fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty. (If so, thanks for reading a kid's ramblings!) So I beseech you, start freaking out about it now. In fact, I'm going to start anticipating fifty now, too. It's like saving for retirement, easier if you start young.

I'd like to start anticipating eighty, but that's a bit of an optimistic presumption. Then again, if I start anticipating eighty now, surely I couldn't feel anything but lucky to make it there.

Tweet

You Can Do Sidebends or Situps

“You might be in danger of losing your butt.”

Whoa. I’ve been on a bit of a buff-bridesmaid fitness kick lately, but the possibility Brian now proposes had never crossed my mind.

Buttie and I go back a long way. She burst onto the scene at John W. North High School in ’94, provoking giggles from the guys in my French class when I was called to the blackboard. (Confused about what was so fucking funny, I frantically erased and rewrote my French verbs several times.) Later the same semester, Buttie was grabbed on the stairs en route to the same French class. The perpetrator was a cute senior, a football player and—it merits mention, because butts are racial—black. I was a white freshman aspiring to coolness and, though taken aback, supposed it was a compliment.

Buttie snagged me a man in college. Oh sure, Brian’s probably stuck it out the greater part of a decade thanks to my good character, but it was Buttie that caught his eye in the dining hall of Berkeley’s Clark Kerr dormitory.

So it's worrisome to hear him now, saying, "I just don't want you to be on the J. Lo track." Apparently J. Lo has lost her butt. I hadn't noticed. But then, maybe she was ready to pass that butt torch to Jessica Biel. I can sympathize.

It was when I moved to New York after college that Buttie really started to seem like a liability. I could barely turn a corner in Brooklyn without hearing, "DAMN, where'd you get all that ass from?" One day I was harassed ten times just walking the few blocks to and from my apartment and the Hoyt/Schermerhorn A stop.

Not only did I become terribly self-conscious, I turned into a racial profiler. (I'm not going to dance around the truth here: almost all the guys who harassed me were black. No less an authority than Mixalot himself notes that "the average black man" will surely take an interest if you "pack much back".) I realized how bad the situation had become when I registered a youngish black guy approaching from a side street, and then felt great relief when I noticed he was carrying a coffee--placing him solidly outside the hindquarter harasser demographic.

These days, it's not so bad. I hear it now and then in the Bay. When we were at Hip Hop in the Park last month, I was too busy admiring a ten foot cardoon plant to notice a rapper freestyling for a camera nearby. Brian had to break it to me that Buttie had entered the guy's flow, calling up all the old ambivalences.

I don't think Brian has any reason to worry. Buttie is tenacious, and I'm really not the athletic type. Anyway, I suspect I could be a Nicole Richie stick figure and still have a badonkadonk. I checked in the mirror this morning and she there she was, undiminished.

Even if I could, would I banish Buttie?

Nah. She is me.

Tweet

Too Slicko

Tuesday I saw Michael Moore's new flick "Sicko." Yeah, I know it isn't out yet. Preview screening, bitch.

It's a very powerful movie which I recommend seeing. So kudos to Mr. Moore; I'm no hater. But something about his movies rubs me the wrong way.

His message always seems to be, Things are way simpler than you think. Here's the problem; it's super sucky. Here's the solution; it's super easy. All that's getting in the way are bad guys, but if the salt-of-the-earth heroes of the movie all band together, and you join them, even the bad guys can be overcome.

Well, that may sometimes be the case. But I get this uncomfortable feeling that Moore thinks he has to present me with a watertight oversimplification of an issue in order to convince me of its urgency.

In addition to being a little insulting to us the audience, I think this strategy actually weakens Moore's case. He spends his two hours giving you a sock in the gut, and you're left in speechless agreement. But by the next day the message wears off and your belly feels a little sore.

I guess I'm skeptical of campaigns. I would rather have an issue ripped open and explained in great depth. (And in fairness, Moore does a good bit of both regarding health insurance companies in "Sicko.")

Don't smooth the rough edges, Senor Mooro. Trust us with the messy truth.

Tweet

Walnuts v. Walnuts

I won't even get into the we-couldn't-think-of-anything bullshit passing as profundity in the Sopranos finale. I don't want to say David Chase thinks he's too cool for his own audience, but David Chase thinks he's too cool for his own audience. Also too cool for his given Italian last name. But that's not what I'm here for.

Believe it or not, there was one extraordinary development in the very last ever episode of God's supposed gift to TV viewers: the revelation of skunk-haired mobster Paulie Walnuts' aversion to cats.

Well, this slight was not taken lightly by our own beloved kitty, Paulie Walnuts. My enthusiasm for The Sopranos had not yet waned when we decided to foster a litter of kittens three years ago. Thus did the kittens become Furio, Silvio, Tony, Carmela and, of course, Paulie Walnuts.

Of the bunch, Paulie clearly grew into his name the most. (Fur, Sil and Ton moved on to other households and, like Mr. Chase, other names.) Both Paulies can go from furry and cute to unexpectedly vicious in an instant. Both love to wallow in self-pity, but are also scrappy survivors. Both have an infectious charm. And if you know the Sopranos or the Polwicks, you know the name is amenable to nicking. (See prior posts.)

All of which made the utter rejection by his namesake, not just of him, but of his entire species, utterly devastating to Little Paulie. Two legs broken in one year and now this. He's chewing the extension cord right now. It's just that hard on him.

Tweet

DEEP THOUGHTS

If the sexy never left




then why's everybody on my shit?











(Just ponder it.)

Tweet

Hot Man-On-Man Action

John Amaechi:




This guy's so gorge he's made me rethink myself. You see, I'd always found it incomprehensible the way straight men are into lesbians. They're so delusional, thought I. They don't really want to see two lesbians doing it. They want to see two straight women smooch between tequila shots.

But thanks to Gay Former NBA, I now see that I in fact would enjoy watching two men having sex, provided one of them is John Amaechi.

So, thank you, Mr. Amaechi. Thank you for having a British accent AND being able to palm a basketball. You are a great ambassador for gayness.

Tweet

USELESS VOCABULARY: "busy"

busy [bizee] adj 1. actively and attentively engaged in work 2. not at leisure; otherwise engaged 3. fancying oneself important 4. desperate excuse for not living one's life

This word is severely overused in our culture. Nay, the very concept of "busy" is abused. "Busy" is our catch-all excuse. Not spending enough time with your children? Can't be bothered about global warming? "Busy" trumps all.

Another problem: when someone cries "busy" he is often positioning himself as a pitiable figure, the victim of his busyness. His shoulders should be massaged and his slippers fetched. But being "busy" is, for most, a point of pride (not to mention, a self-inflicted condition). For to be "busy" is, we assume, to be quite important. So "busy" becomes a double-win: you get to feel important and sorry for yourself!

And oh the respect due the "busy"! What greater compliment than "he's a busy man." What greater source of shame than sitting on your ass and doing nothing. Those too important to clean their own houses are held in high esteem.

I know I sound harsh, Clebketeers. My apologies to the innocently and circumstantially busy. I don't speak of you, but of the "busy" epidemic that enables people to run laps on the great rat-treadmill and avoid dealing with their real lives. To just plain stop now and then isn't the worst thing.

Oh, and sorry for the spotty posting lately. I've just been SOOPER busy.

Tweet

Bush II: More Fun Than Expected

When Bush won a second term, didn't you get that doomsday feeling? I did. I remember working up a little list of awful things that could happen, just so I wouldn't be too surprised. Implosion of the planet by environmental abuse, explosion by nuclear bombs, Brian getting drafted to Iraq. You know, daydreams.

Granted, all those things might still happen. But Bush's second term seems more and more like a great period of uncomfortable squirming for the Bush crowd and satisfying revelation for the rest of us. He must wish he lost that election. At least then he wouldn't be the jackass sitting on the throne when the mob comes with the guillotine. I know there are still plenty of horrors being wrought daily by this administration, but pardon me if I enjoy this satisfying denouement. It's the part at the end of the movie when they show a little picture of each Bushie alongside a humiliating capsule description of where they are now.

Tweet

A Little Ten Plaguesy

Sorry for my absence, Clebketeers, but it was a little Ten Plaguesy around Clebilicious way last week. Food poisoning. Kitty surgery. Shell-less eggs. Disappearance of free cable. (Feel free to pour a drop of wine for each plague, lessening your own cup of joy in recognition of my suffering. Or pour for homies lost--interesting how similar are the two customs.)

Anyway, expect intriguing new posts soon. Will they be about Hennessey and Camilla's quest for oranger egg yolks? Or the delicious denouement of Bush's second term? Chickens roosting, either way. Stay tuned.

Tweet

This One's Going Stupid and That One's Going Dumb

Perhaps you're wondering, is Emma a good person? This post should clear up that little matter. For only a person of pristine virtue would teach an afterschool gardening program in deep East Oakland.

What's that you say? Am I getting paid for this supposed selfless act? What difference does it make? Christ, I'm not Ghandi over here.





Since I am not only virtuous, but also charming, I will relate to you a story. If you are familiar with Oakland's own hyphy movement, with its relentless cries of "Go stupid" and "Go dumb," you will appreciate this.










Klarissa, seen up front and proud in the group photo below, is my sassiest gardener. She likes to call me Miss E. She also likes to collect worms. One day, when we were doing a lot of digging, she found two worms and placed them on a board to keep an eye on them. (She would soon be obliged to put them in the compost bin.) The worms began to writhe in frustration at their exposure, flailing their bodies with abandon. Klarissa screeched "Miss E!" until she got my attention, then said, "Look! This one's going stupid and that one's going dumb."



Bonus story: When Klarissa met me last September, she asked what I was. I in turn asked her to clarify. "Like what are you, like Mexican, Puerto Rican..."
I replied that I was Jewish, but she hadn't heard of that.


ABOVE: From left, Jawan, Jose, Antoinette, Aziah, Miss E, Klarissa, [probably the top of Jakhari's head], Nikia, Osiassi (he's Tongan).
WAY ABOVE: Miss E planting tomatoes with top gardeners Jawan and Dylan (he's Belizian).
WAY, WAY ABOVE: On-again, off-again best friends Amber and Nikia do a little pruning.


By the way, do I look pale? Oh right, I'm white.

Tweet

USEFUL VOCABULARY: "to son"

son (v.) [fr. Nas] 1. to utterly humiliate, to shame deeply 2. to outdo a competitor to comic effect; as "Your homemade apple pie is gonna son the shit out of that Marie Callender's pie my brother is bringing."

Origins Battle between Nas and Jay-Z c. 2002. Ended in definitive victory for Nas when he sonned Jay with the release of "Ether."

syn. to ether (v.), ethering (n.); as "Damn, when 'Goat on a Cow' by Lolo Starecheski went up against those other radio documentaries at the Third Coast Festival awards, it was one of the great etherings of all time."



"Ether," lyrics samples:

I've been fucked over, left for dead, dissed and fogotten
Luck ran out, they hoped that I'd be gone, stiff and rotten
Y'all just piss on me, shit on me, spit on my grave (uh)
Talk about me, laugh behind my back but in my face
Y'all some well-wishin, friendly actin, envy hidin snakes
With your hands out for my money, man, how much can I take?

You a fan, a phony, a fake, a pussy, a Stan
I still whip your ass, you thirty-six in a karate class
You Tae-bo hoe

Put it together, I rock hoes, y'all rock fellas
And now y'all try to take my spot, fellas?
Philly's hot rock fellas, put you in a dry spot, fellas
In a pine box with nine shots from my glock, fellas

Tweet

Water To Wash The Dishes, Water To Drink...

It's a rainy day
It's a rainy day
It's raining outside
So I can't go out and play
Why do we need the rain
Anyway?

Anyone recognize this bit of spare but lyrical poetry?

Tweet

Plamegate, baby

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Plamegate is my favorite. (Don't worry, Val, I know you go by your married name.)

Ms. Wilson testified before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Friday, after spending almost four years as the silent hot spy chick at the heart of the CIA leak investigation. I found her previous silence classy and her testimony succinct but fascinating.

If you just want to answer the question of the day by checking out Wilson's blonde mane, go straight to the testimony clip below. But for my fellow Plamegate nerds, some observations first...

Bush adminies and Bob Novak-type creeps have implied all along that the idea of Wilson's cover being blown was bullshit. They loved making it sound like everybody actually knew her status and/or she wasn't an actual spy, but merely a pencil-pusher. (Of course this is tantamount to saying, "I didn't do it, but if I did it wasn't wrong.)

Well V-dub's testimony unequivocally debunks both excuses.

"In the run-up to the war with Iraq I worked in the counter proliferation division of the CIA--still as a covert officer whose affiliation with the CIA was classified," she testified. "I raced to discover solid intelligence for senior policymakers on Iraq's presumed weapons of mass destruction programs." Sounds kinda important.

After the ass-fucking "What I Didn't Find in Africa" (hubby Joe Wilson's now-infamous NYT column) delivered to the Bush administration's rationale for invading Iraq, Bushites also tried to diminish both Wilsons by spreading rumors that Val had sent Joe on his mission to Niger. This made it sound like Joe was a wash-up who needed wifey to find him busywork and Val sound like an unprofessional nepotist.

Well, she set the record straight there, too. "I did not suggest him," Wilson said. "There was no nepotism involved. I didn't have the authority."

Uh! Suck it, Cheney!










QUESTION OF THE DAY:

Who's cuter: me or Valerie Plame Wilson?

HINT: Please say me.

Tweet

!*POP*! Quiz

What rhetorical term applies perfectly to these lyrics from Wash Heights rapper Mims?


This is why I'm hot
I'm hot cuz I'm fly
You ain't cuz you not


HINT: It starts with a "T".

Tweet

Portrait: A Prayerful Pecans

The journey from Log Cabin Republican kitty to Superjew Drag Queen kitty has been a long--but, I think, richly edifying--one.

Tweet

Important Notice

The kitty known to many of you as Paulie Walnuts (aliases P. Kitty, Wally Almonds, Plush Toy, Paulo, Sir Walnuts) will no longer be known as such. He insists that, as of today, he only be referred to by his drag name, Molly Pecans. The name, he says, is an homage to Yiddish film star Molly Picon. (We recently watched "Yidl Mitn Fidl"--that's "Yiddle With The Fiddle" to you goyishkeit types--and it really affected him.)

I want to reiterate, for your safety, that this name change is effective immediately. Persons referring to him by former monikers risk being bitten or scratched. Ms. Pecans also requests that visitors not look him directly in the eye. As usual, any cameras will be confiscated.

Tweet

I Might Hate The Internet

I was just thinking, I might hate the internet. Sure, it has its good points, but there's no need to enumerate them here, as they are so amply celebrated every elsewhere. Especially here--on the Internet.

I just find all the vaunted "connectivity" a little much. Knowing that I can communicate instantaneously with millions the world over creeps me out and makes me feel like a failure. Take this post, for example. Millions could read it! Three will.

In addition to being one of the loneliest, the Internet is one of the meanest places imaginable. Human interaction without human contact tends to be very mean, I suppose. The Internet is probably the worst place to encounter another person--worse than on the freeway, worse than on a telemarketing call. Because in those realms you at least get a voice or a glimpse. The Internet just gives you totally disembodied words. No handwriting even.

So I might hate the Internet. I haven't totally decided.

Tweet

Sexiest Voices

That title was just to lure you. Really I'm here to promote Stewpot.

Just kidding!

Top 5 SEXIEST VOICES

5. SEAN PAUL
Just a Jamaican accent goes a long way. All the better if he favors incomprehensibles like, "The gal dem Schillaci Sean da Paul." Picture him saying:

Just gimme the gees an we be clubbing yow.
Gal a make we please and we be thuggin' now.
Sippin' Hennesey an we'll be bubblin' yow.
Set we mind at ease we got to take it slow.

Also see what I mean about the popularity of my poultry? Hennessey! Sippin'--that sounds obscene!


4. COREY FLINTOFF
Picture him saying: "From NPR News in Washington, I'm Corey Flintoff."


3. SACHA BARON COHEN
Oh I know he's so played out right now, but I can't resist. Hopefully needless to say, I do NOT refer to the Borat voice, but SBC's real voice as revealed to me in his Golden Globe speech. (But the Ali G voice will do, too.) Picture him saying: "I thought to myself, I better win a bloody award for this."


2. PATRICK FITZGERALD
Brooklyn-bred prosecutor of the powerful. Hot. Picture him saying, "At the end of the day what appears is that Mr. Libby's story...was not true. It was false. He was at the beginning of the chain of phone calls, the first official to disclose this information outside the government to a reporter. And then he lied about it afterwards, under oath and repeatedly." Who's your daddy?


1. SHOCK G
Don't think "Humpty Dance." Think "Freaks of the Industry." You know, the one who put the satin on your panties. Picture him saying:

Still bringin satin for them drawers/
Velvet for the mic and got a pound for the cause



I didn't do a ladies category. Any nominees from you lady-lovers? Keisha Cole?

Tweet

Are You Ready To Make a Difference?

Sorry, Clebketeers. I know you've been lonesome for me lately.

Well, I'm back with a very special post. I got an email today that really struck me. It's from an organization called Brian's Lights, which is addressing a problem most of us would prefer to ignore. Here is the email in its entirety:

The Problem
At 7:55 am Brian sat, hunched over his concoction of nonfat yogurt, granola, and sweetened condensed milk. He stared ahead at the 55 gallon marine aquarium in his living room. It was glorious. A labor of love, he basked in its gentle blue glow like a newborn plant on the first day of spring. But there was also a look of melancholy on his face, what some might refer to as a pallor. When his girlfriend/caretaker of 8 years inquired as to his downcast appearance, his reply was heartbreaking: "This is my only tank time of the day."

TT/WT Conflict
You see, Brian had an affliction that affects so many of us in the marine aquarium community: tank time/work time (TT/WT)conflict. Brian was already late for work, yet the swirling mini-sea of life inside his tank had only begun to rouse itself. He had no choice but to console himself with the few stolen minutes that he could grab before work. By the time he returned home, huffing and puffing on his bicycle at 6:00 pm, the lights would be off and the majestic fruit of his labors, the corals and fish and marine invertebrates that he worked so hard for, would be tucked in to bed, fast asleep for another long night. Oh, sure, the fuge lights were on a reverse timer and would come on at 11:00, but who wanted to party down there? That chaeto always seemed like it was coming on to him, and as for those slimeball pods...well, 'nuff said.

The Plain Facts
Consider this: over 90% of amateur marine aquarists have jobs. This statistic alone is staggering. Now consider this fact: many of us have to go to our jobs during what would normally be prime tank time. Because there is so much shame associated with this conflict, the problem often goes underreported. Nevertheless, TT/WT conflict is rampant throughout our community. That's why Brian decided to do something about it, not only for himself, but for all who suffer TT/WT conflict. A charity had to be started, and it had to have Brian's name in it.

Brian's Lights (tm)
For every $30 you contribute to Brian's Lights (tm), a moonlight setup will be installed in a deserving aquarium. With every $40, you can help replace a pair of sick and/or damaged actinic lights. For those in our "Seahorse" category ($80 or more), you can rest assured that Brian and others like him will have metal halides for years to come. But a special place will be reserved in all of our hearts for the "Light of My Life" givers, who donate the opportunity cost of a day's work ($160) to allow Brian and so many other sufferers the simple chance to stay home and stare at our tanks all day.

Not able to afford such a sizable donation? Wait, you can still contribute. For each $10 you give, ("Bubble Algae" class) you can defray the energy costs of running the lights for another hour, giving Brian (and others) precious moments with the tank after work.

From Problem to Solution
There is a way out. All across the country, and indeed the world, people are looking towards their tanks not in sadness, but in hope. I'm asking you to be a part of this change. Reach down, deep down, into your heart and your wallet, and pull out something big.


Brian's Lights (tm) is a nonprofit charity specializing in meeting and solving the lighting needs of today's modern aquarist.

Tweet