The Breitbart Legacy

Elsewhere in Wingnutville, they’re calling her “Fauxcahontas”.

Which is why I remain calm about the elections this year. The “attacks” are pretty slim so far.

@nojo: Son of RML gets asked by his art teachers to use “Indian” imagary in his works at school. Problem is, our tribe does not have a visual arts tradition. We make stuff like moccasins, snow shoes, pottery, but we don’t create images.

ADD: maybe they do things differently in Oklahoma, but I don’t see a lot of crab meat omelets on the menu at the frybread stands.

If Romney wins I’m done – the country is officially too stupid. There was a chance we were going to move to Florence (Italy, not Alabama) but that dried up. Maybe London, or Toronto, or Vancouver – all great cities. And no political blogging anymore – cars, or celebrities, or cooking.

@redmanlaw: Navajo?

@blogenfreude: If Romney wins I’m done – the country is officially too stupid.

You’re twelve years too late for that. Or eight, if you don’t count the Coup. Or thirty-two. Or forty-four…

@nojo: After 2004 it became too easy to get information. People voted for Reagan because they did not know what a shitbag he was. Now we can google “Reagan racism” and see. If the pig people win this time, I am utterly undone.

@blogenfreude: Vienna. Mélange in the cafés. Pastries to die for. 5 state theatres plus opera, symphony, etc. Walkable, livable, civilized. Or Paris. Rents are reasonable. Food is divine. I admit I have my sights set on Copenhagen, the most literate and engaging capital I know. Or come to Iceland, where wow meets gobsmack. London is too ridiculously expensive for me plus it’s full of Limeys. Actually, it’s mostly full of Russians, Poles, and all points East.

Like you I’m seriously alarmed. I might just put the house on the market come Oct. It will sell quickly being that it’s in a unique position. But how do we take 5 dogs to Europe? On bad days I feel like an Austrian Jew in ’36.

@Benedick: But how do we take 5 dogs to Europe?

In a light tomato sauce?

Seriously, I’d go for Copenhagen or, as SFL just proved, Barcelona or pretty much anywhere else in Spain. They know how to survive financial crises. Oh and also Berlin – I sat next to a German trade official on a white knuckle flight back from Kiplingtown earlier this week, and he says that it “reminds him of New York in the 70s”. I asked if he meant drugs, crime and punk rock, and he said no, but lots of affordable rents, especially in the East.

I on the other hand am living in a country that (a) charges its citizens over 1k to own a cellphone SIM card, (b) seems to have at least five people watching me all the time (are you lost? Need an umbrella? Those are nice shoes! are all comments I got when I asked someone why they were suddenly standing next to me), (c) apparently doesn’t block this site, and (d) sells Bombay Sapphire for about $10 a bottle.

The view of the main pagoda will be particularly sparkly tonight, as I sip a really dry martini and try and fight off this tropical cold that has whipped my butt only one week in.

@Benedick: Copenhagen or Madrid. Amsterdam if you want to ride your bike or have hash. Copenhagen if you want everything to happen two minutes earlier than scheduled. Madrid if you want to have amazing food and a pretty damn good quality of life without the pretentiousness of Paris.

@Beggars Biscuit: Jumping acrobatic cats, that’s all I’m going to say. Throw in an extra 20 bucks as a tip for my household to keep that monastery going.

@Beggars Biscuit: Cheap Sapphire? Can I use my New Mexico concealed handgun license as an international travel document?

@Benedick: And the Carbon Offset Willow? You can’t leave that.

@I’m passing for white: I know, darling. It’s doing well. Meanwhile the poppies got together with the bearded iris to produce a stunning display. Come outside with me now. It’s all black and white and crimson.

Trouble is: all the thousands of bulbs you plant: the endless hours spent weeding; the walks in the endless woods that are what we live in; how can you leave that?

Copenhagen is my choice. But I want to live in the Catskills. Next best thing would be the Snaefellsness peninsula.

@Benedick: I planted dahlias and ranunculus. Only two dahlias are doing their thing. There are 15 rose bushes here. I dead headed them today. One of them is from the ’50s, so that’s cool. I also planted moonflower outside my bedroom window that I grew inside from seed. The herbs I planted, also from seed, look rather peaked. Basil disappeared, cilantro is trying, sage looks okay, and I think nothing will kill the time thyme short of nuclear winter. Pepper and tomato plants are MIA. I think the onions are done, too.

My uncle had a flag pole in the front yard with a light shining on the flag after sundown. Now it’s a big ole hole, and I filled it with wildflowers–supposedly they’ll attract hummingbirds and butterflies. On Monday, I released about 2,000 ladybugs into the roses. They did their thing for a few days, and flew to the sun. Or dropped dead. I hope they laid eggs before their departure.

What I really want to know is if a mimosa will do well here.

Mom has bearded iris, peonies (one belonged to my great grandmother and has lived in at least three yards), elephant ears, ferns, pussy willow, Rose of Sharon, roses, a Japanese maple, and a ton of other things I can never remember that she’s always transplanting. Mowing her lawn is like navigating a fucking obstacle course. She has some sort of giant pink iris thing that is about to bloom. I hate hosta. It’s all over the damn place. Boring. Ugly stick thangs some call flowers.

I’ll go bulb crazy this fall.

What I really need to know is what annual ground cover will do well in sandy soil. We’re going to plant it on my aunt and uncle’s grave and then seed them when I overseed the lawns this fall.

Isn’t it a bit early to be fretting over self-deportation? There’s no indication anybody even likes Mitt. Except, maybe, Mrs. Mitt.

@nojo: She hates him, too.

Shit. I’m not going anywhere. IF <– big "if" he does win, they need me around to do this.

@SanFranLefty: Yes a thousand times to España. I’m traveling to Barcelona, Sitges, and Vilanova in September, and it’s entirely possible that I may lose my passport–whoops. Though with their economy in a depression, I may end up either babysitting or giving blow jobs for cash… or–FSM forbid–both.

@¡Andrew!: I can’t remember if you’re one of the resident vegetarians around here. If you’re not, send me a message at sanfranlefty [at] stinque and I’ll give you some info on this most amazing cash-only locals only Catalonian grilled meats place we went to near Montjuic. Also a great place in El Raval. A lot of Barcelona was a little too Disney-landish for my tastes – Las Ramblas and Barri Gotic felt like being in a freaking mall, waaaaay too many drunken Brits stumbling around everywhere, and three ginormous cruise ships docked there. The Sagrada Familia is so fucking cool and we went there right when it opened so the tourist crush wasn’t too bad, but most of the time in Barcelona was spent near the University in the ghey part of town (we stayed near the four star gay hotel, Hotel Axel) or in the parks of Montjuic trying to get AWAY from tourists. The other Gaudi buildings (Casa Mila and Casa Battlo) are privately owned and charge an arm and a leg (30 euro per person?!) to get in, so we didn’t go. The Park Guell is free, but again, crawling with people. Try to do a day trip to Sant Sadurni d’Anoia to drink cava. The Freixenet factory is pretty impressive, and you can wander around the town and go to the smaller wineries’ tasting rooms. The cava and the red are so good and so damn cheap.

@SanFranLefty: was a vegetarian 8 years, then cured by a beautiful woman bearing a cheeseburger. True story.

@I’m passing for white: Looks like karma came back and bit that bitch in the ass.

@SanFranLefty: I’m so excited to see the fantastic architecture, thanks for the recommendations! I’ve been a vegetarian going on 16 years, so I’m afraid that I’m gonna be eating air sandwiches in España. I’m staying at a bed and breakfast about 20 miles southwest of Barcelona near Sitges, so it’s a bit off the beaten path. There’s a regular commuter train for day trips into town, and the B & B seems to be a great way to meet people and practice my español. Did you have any trouble with the Catalan spoken there (I don’t understand a word–it’s so confusing), or did most everyone speak Spanish?

@nojo: Oregon shout out – I thoroughly enjoyed watching How to Beat the High Co$t of Living last night. Apparently, it was filmed almost totally on location in Eugene, OR, especially featuring the Valley River Center mall.

@¡Andrew!: Whoa…

I covered that shoot for the college rag one night. Don’t recall whether the stars were around; all I remember is the Giant (Empty) Money Ball in the middle of Valley River.

Never seen the movie, however. Guess I should catch up.

@¡Andrew!: Oregon Daily Emerald, September 28, 1979…

When “How to Beat the High Cost of Living” premieres next July, be sure and look for the scene where the Valley River Center manager pours a bag of money into the giant plastic moneyball while an announcer shouts, “There’s definitely more than dollars in there!”

Look fast — it takes only 20 seconds.

But it took almost three hours to shoot.

That’s show biz, in its latest Eugene incarnation…

“How to Beat the High Cost of Living” is the first major film made in Eugene that actually takes place in Eugene. Writer-producer Robert Kaufman needed a shopping center by a river, and VRC was the only location in the country that could fill the bill.

The extras, who are paid minimum wage, have found that movie work is not very glamorous. When the announcer, character actor Al Cecco, told the crowd, “The moneyball is now full,” an older man toward the back noted, “It don’t look full to me.”

“This is too much for me,” said his friend. “I’m going to go and sit down.”

Filming usually starts around 6 p.m., and continues until as late as four in the morning. By that time, most of the extras have rolled out sleeping bags along the mall’s floor — out of camera.

It was still relatively early, when, after setting up the lights and going through a couple of quick rehearsals, the crew was ready to film. “This is picture,” yelled the assistant director. As Cecco droned on, the crowd behind him applauded and cheered — in pantomime. Director Robert Sheerer didn’t like the spontaneity of the crowd, and he ordered another take. Two takes later — almost three hours since they started working on the shot — the assistant director yelled: “That’s a cut… and a print.”

And the tired crowd really cheered.

The story includes a photo identifying “Saturday Night Live’s Jane Curtain”. Since Our Intrepid Reporter correctly spells the name in the story, somebody was asleep at the copy desk that night.

@nojo: Eugene looks absolutely beautiful in the film. And it appears from the Googles that the Valley River Center is still there, largely unchanged on the outside, though apparently several big box stores have sprung up around it.

It was fun for me, since the economic zeitgeist in the film has parallels to the present, and Jane Curtin, Susan St. James, and Jessica Lange were in their 30s–around my age today–when they filmed it.

Stealing a million bucks from a comically huge, plastic money ball is about as sound a financial plan then as it is now–it’s the only way to get ahead.

@blogenfreude: After six years veggie, I was seduced by the promise of home cooking from a beautiful woman while I studied for the bar exam.

The catch, I had to eat what she cooked – meat included. It worked. I’ve been off the wagon, and married to the ever more beautiful woman ever since.

@¡Andrew!: Valley River opened in 1969 or so, as a string of small shops along a long corridor with Penney’s at one end and Meier & Frank at the other. Later, other big-box stores were built out from the middle.

It indeed sits along the Willamette River, with bike paths running for miles on both sides, and four bike/pedestrian bridges connecting them. And yes, Eugene is a beautiful city, although you take that for granted growing up there. It’s something I wouldn’t have noticed until Midwest/East Coast refugees showed up and explained it to me.

Also filmed in Eugene (besides a certain Blockbuster College Comedy): Drive, He Said (1971) and Personal Best (1982). Both, curiously, sports-related movies: Basketball and Track.

I have no memories of Drive, other than it being filmed at Mac Court. But it was directed by Jack Nicholson, and starred Bruce Dern, Karen Black, and Robert Towne (who returned to write and direct Personal Best).

Also in the cast: North Eugene High graduate David Ogden Stiers, who had also performed in Eugene community theater before later donning fatigues for television.

@¡Andrew!: You’re going to be eating a lot of bocadillos de queso and bocadillos de tortilla, my dear. I’m assuming you eat cheese and eggs — if you don’t and you’re a vegan, you will starve in Spain.