it's definitely something to be home alone and coincidentally break through a creative block. i get by with a little help from my friends. and when it rains it pours. literally. it's great.

anyway, below are photos from last week. usually during lunches and over the weekend.

spain says...

CNN STORY HIGHLIGHTS:
- Truckers say strike by drivers over fuel costs could bring Spain to standstill
- 90,000 drivers called to take part in strike that began early Monday
- Gas stations in Madrid and region of Catalonia began to report fuel shortages
- Europeans faced with higher fuel prices than elsewhere

“The strike was not expected to have a major effect on city food markets until later in the week.”

Let me tell you though, just 24 hours into the transportistas’ strike, they are already sending a strong message. In my office alone we don’t have water because our local supermarket doesn’t have any to sell.

Imagine if the whole world were in on this. I think that would be a very beautiful event to witness.

mz. cocco says it better than i ever could

Misogyny I Won't Miss

By Marie Cocco
Thursday, May 15, 2008



As the Democratic nomination contest slouches toward a close, it's time to take stock of what I will not miss.

I will not miss seeing advertisements for T-shirts that bear the slogan "Bros before Hos." The shirts depict Barack Obama (the Bro) and Hillary Clinton (the Ho) and are widely sold on the Internet.

I will not miss walking past airport concessions selling the Hillary Nutcracker, a device in which a pantsuit-clad Clinton doll opens her legs to reveal stainless-steel thighs that, well, bust nuts. I won't miss television and newspaper stories that make light of the novelty item.

I won't miss episodes like the one in which liberal radio personality Randi Rhodes called Clinton a "big [expletive] whore" and said the same about former vice presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro. Rhodes was appearing at an event sponsored by a San Francisco radio station, before an audience of appreciative Obama supporters -- one of whom had promoted the evening on the presumptive Democratic nominee's official campaign Web site.

I won't miss Citizens United Not Timid (no acronym, please), an anti-Clinton group founded by Republican guru Roger Stone.

Political discourse will at last be free of jokes like this one, told last week by magician Penn Jillette on MSNBC: "Obama did great in February, and that's because that was Black History Month. And now Hillary's doing much better 'cause it's White Bitch Month, right?" Co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski rebuked Jillette.

I won't miss political commentators (including National Public Radio political editor Ken Rudin and Andrew Sullivan, the columnist and blogger) who compare Clinton to the Glenn Close character in the movie "Fatal Attraction." In the iconic 1987 film, Close played an independent New York woman who has an affair with a married man played by Michael Douglas. When the liaison ends, the jilted woman becomes a deranged, knife-wielding stalker who terrorizes the man's blissful suburban family. Message: Psychopathic home-wrecker, begone.

The airwaves will at last be free of comments that liken Clinton to a "she-devil" (Chris Matthews on MSNBC, who helpfully supplied an on-screen mock-up of Clinton sprouting horns). Or those who offer that she's "looking like everyone's first wife standing outside a probate court" (Mike Barnicle, also on MSNBC).

But perhaps it is not wives who are so very problematic. Maybe it's mothers. Because, after all, Clinton is more like "a scolding mother, talking down to a child" (Jack Cafferty on CNN).

When all other images fail, there is one other I will not miss. That is, the down-to-the-basics, simplest one: "White women are a problem, that's -- you know, we all live with that" (William Kristol of Fox News).

I won't miss reading another treatise by a man or woman, of the left or right, who says that sexism has had not even a teeny-weeny bit of influence on the course of the Democratic campaign. To hint that sexism might possibly have had a minimal role is to play that risible "gender card."

Most of all, I will not miss the silence.

I will not miss the deafening, depressing silence of Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean or other leading Democrats, who to my knowledge (with the exception of Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland) haven't publicly uttered a word of outrage at the unrelenting, sex-based hate that has been hurled at a former first lady and two-term senator from New York. Among those holding their tongues are hundreds of Democrats for whom Clinton has campaigned and raised millions of dollars. Don Imus endured more public ire from the political class when he insulted the Rutgers University women's basketball team.

Would the silence prevail if Obama's likeness were put on a tap-dancing doll that was sold at airports? Would the media figures who dole out precious face time to these politicians be such pals if they'd compared Obama with a character in a blaxploitation film? And how would crude references to Obama's sex organs play?

There are many reasons Clinton is losing the nomination contest, some having to do with her strategic mistakes, others with the groundswell for "change." But for all Clinton's political blemishes, the darker stain that has been exposed is the hatred of women that is accepted as a part of our culture.

Marie Cocco is syndicated by the Washington Post Writers Group. Her e-mail address is mariecocco@washpost.com.

details

in regards to the democratic primaries, it seems like the time between january and now has been an eternity. and during these last four months, the media has been thorough in reporting obama news, but not so much on hillary. so i figured i could help them out by filling that gap a little bit.

here is a re-cap of the states won by hillary:

New Hampshire
Nevada
Arizona
Arkansas
California
Massachusetts
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
Oklahoma
Tennessee
Ohio
Rhode Island
Texas
Pennsylvania
Indiana
West Virginia
Kentucky

while i will vote for whoever the declared democratic presidential nominee is come november 4 (only a complete moron would do otherwise), consider this: no candidate has ever won the presidency without winning one of the aforementioned states.

by the way, according to the latest abc/washington post poll, 59% of blacks support hillary as VP if obama wins the nomination. 64% of democrats think she should stay in the race.

obama/clinton. clinton/obama. either way, we could basically pop open the pink champagne bottle now because this is a sure win! money in the bank.

this entry was brought to you by the word "choice" - as in the freedom of - and the punctuation "?", as in ask some.

indulgences

rainy look. d&g/gossip girl inspired.
i don't usually do this. however, on friday as i was walking to the office, some young-looking dude who walked past me told me more or less that what i was wearing (my rainy look) was bad and that i'm only getting what i deserved (which was his not being able to take his eyes off me, apparently). two things came to mind immediately: he was blaming me for his ability to see, and i wished i knew how to say in spanish, "please go to church and pray for me" (ahora yo sé como decirlo). what really annoyed me was that he started saying what he said when he was behind me. homie hadn't even seen the front of my outfit and was already judging me? at least wait til you see the whole package before you strike your gavel, shit. you and your tired sergio tacchini track jacket, baggy jeans over ballet-slipper-looking adidas sneaker get-up. for real though.

ah, that dude cracked me up. shredded baggy-jean bottoms cleaning the street as he walked and shit.

fine lines...

the only difference between now and the reagan years is that my parents aren't threatening to divorce each other over money woes these days. they're actually chilling (dad's retired now after thirty years of federal service). and while gas prices may be ridiculously high ($3.95 at my local pump), the good thing is that i'm inclined to spend just that more time with my folks instead of immediately jumping in my car to consume something.

yesterday while driving west on santa monica blvd. from m+b gallery, i was tripping on a caltrans sign on the side of the road. it said that as of january 08 it's illegal to smoke in your car if there's a minor riding with you. so basically, i should be carding kids before i let them in my ride. hahahaha

the thing is, i'm the happiest i've ever been. i am home! the Man keeps dropping his fear bombs, but the truth is he's the Old Man now. no matter how much botox he injects, his shit's tired. and i'm laughing, loving, and smoking through it all.

"roll that shit, light that shit, smoke..."

san buenaventura-eisenhour

"ang haba,"/"it's so long," (and accompanied by laughter) is what some people tell me about my new last name. yes, i realize that. "but you're married now," "why do want to keep your maiden name," and "oh, you're one of those modern women," are just some of the suggestions/comments that follow.

do i really need to explain my reasons for keeping MY name? shouldn't my partner feel even the least bit lucky that i decided to even add his name to mine?

other comments i receive from people obviously have to do with the historic significance of mackenzie's last name; how having his last name would open more doors for me. okay, anyone who knows me would know my retort to that comment. shiiiit.

anyway, el periódico el país wrote an interesting article about female public figures vs. male public figures. (might need a translation tool)

oh god, i guess this is becoming another women rant... rarr.

a couple of days ago, they had a little thing on the "stir" that angela merkel of germany caused with the outfit she wore to the opera last week. fucking media had the nerve to call it news that the neckline on her gown was too low. give me a fucking break. maybe these idiots hate their mothers for not breastfeeding them or something, but for real though. i hate to think that her breasts could be newsworthy. or that this is what we're calling journalism these days. hey weirdos, when female babies are born into the world, we come out with breasts already on us. it's so annoying how society (a.k.a. men) decided that the shit that we're born with should work against us. insecure, megalo idiots.

on the flipside, spanish p.m. zapatero swore in his cabinet this week - the first time in spanish history where there are an equal number of men and women in the cabinet. a month back i wrote about carme chacón being the first woman in government to be pregnant during her term. well, she's been up'd to defense minister. some international headlines state that spain is "absorbing the shock" of it. my reaction? first woman defense minister in spain. 7 months pregnant. 63% of spain supports her. i tear up just thinking about it.

so sick. and yes, in manolos. (ib times pics)
last thing: when i think about the u.s. possibly electing our first female prez, the LAST thing on my mind is her competence in regards to foreign policy, moreso the middle east crises. meaning, i’ve heard my female peers (journalists and otherwise) claim that it's "obvious" why hillary wouldn't be able to achieve peace out there. hmm… at work we’ve recently acquired two mid-east accounts and no one has room on their plate to deal with them. so although i’d never dealt directly with a client before, they decided to try me out with them. my experience so far: while there was a language barrier to get past at first, one of them just handed me a big chunk of cash for product that they don’t even want yet. so my question is, what's so obvious? last i remember it’s obvious that john mccain wouldn’t be able to – or actually, doesn’t want to achieve peace in the middle east.

how come men are never doubted of their ability to do anything progressive when they're the majority of people who are dropping bombs right now?

am i trippin?

i'm smizzing and flipping through the paper, and this is what i'm reading in the design column, where i usually read about who won the best product design or what uniquely expensive piece of furniture i should aspire to afford and own one day, so i can say "why yes, it's a cassina. i found it in italy last summer":

"... the lettering. Obama's identity contrasts a Hillaryesque serif typeface with a squiggle-free sans-serif presumably to imply that he combines gravitas with youthful vigor. Originally the letters were upper and lower case, which designers generally deploy to convey friendliness. As the campaign progressed, they have switched to all-upper case, which looks more authoritative, just what Obama wants. The sans-serif font changed, too: from Gill Sans, created by the British designer Eric Gill in the early 1900s, to a contemporary American one, Gotham..."

(ok, in case you missed it, this was what i'm reading under the ART section, in the DESIGN column.) so homegirl goes on forever, analyzing logo placements, comparing his branding to that of MTV's and Saks' (...scary...), bloo blee, and then this:

"Obama's design team has developed customized identities for each state - with the sunrise symbol tucked inside a letter - and various interest groups. "Environmentalists for Obama" sports a green and yellow sunrise; the "Kids" in "Kids for Obama" is in hand-drawn lettering; and so on. You don't need a doctorate in semiotics to decode them, or to realize that Obama isn't just trying to prove that he is design-savvier than his rivals, but that he is better equipped to steer America through the complexities of contemporary life."

shit's hilarious.

stop talking

everybody just relax now. there's nothing to "fear." race and sex and polls blah and blah. who the fuck cares. hahahaha.

don't believe the hype.

stay sucka free!

to my fellow donkies

hear her out. (yahoo pics)
how do i say this? i was born a democrat. and just as i was born a pilipino-american woman, i think it's important to know the roots of each part of my being. which is why i think it's so great that mz. geraldine ferraro, our party's first woman VP candidate in '84, wrote the op-ed piece below.

i just don't want people to get shit twisted, you know what i mean? i tell someone i'm for hillary, and the response i get is that i'm not hip to shit because "everyone's behind obama, didn't you know?" y'all, this election is not like getting your hands on the latest nike limited-ed/collab air-max-re-issued-for-the-millionth-time kind of shit! it's about the future of our country. and i'm just saying, at the very least let's understand the foundation of our party before we become suckers to the media yet again.


The Democrats need them
By Geraldine A. Ferraro

International Herald Tribune, Monday, February 25, 2008

As the race for the Democratic presidential nomination nears its end and attention turns to the role of America's so-called superdelegates in choosing the nominee, it is instructive to look at why my party created this class of delegates.

After the 1980 presidential election, the Democratic Party was in disarray. That year, Senator Ted Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, had challenged President Jimmy Carter for the presidential nomination, and Kennedy took the fight to the convention floor by proposing 23 amendments to the party platform. When it was all over, members of Congress who were concerned about their re-election walked away from the president and from the party. The rest of the campaign was plagued by infighting.

In 1982, we tried to remedy some of the party's internal problems by creating the Hunt Commission, which reformed the way the party selects its presidential nominees. Because I was then the vice chairwoman of the House Democratic Caucus, Tip O'Neill, the speaker of the House, appointed me as his representative to the commission. The commission considered several reforms, but one of the most significant was the creation of superdelegates, the reform in which I was most involved.

Democrats had to figure out a way to unify our party. What better way than to get elected officials involved in writing the platform, sitting on the credentials committee and helping to write the rules that the party would play by?

Most officeholders, however, were reluctant to run as delegates in a primary election - running against a constituent who really wants to be a delegate to the party's national convention is not exactly good politics.

So we created superdelegates and gave that designation to every Democratic member of Congress. Today the 796 superdelegates also include governors, former presidents and vice presidents, and members of the Democratic National Committee and former heads of the national committee.

These superdelegates, we reasoned, are the party's leaders. They are the ones who can bring together the most liberal members of our party with the most conservative and reach accommodation. They would help write the platform. They would determine if a delegate should be seated. They would help determine the rules. And having done so, they would have no excuse to walk away from the party or its presidential nominee.

It worked. In 1984 I headed the party's platform committee. We produced the longest platform in Democratic history, a document that stated the party's principles in broad terms that neither the most liberal nor the most conservative elected officials would denounce. It generated no fights at the convention. It was a document that no one would walk away from. We lost in 1984, big time. But that loss had nothing to do with Democratic Party infighting.

Today, with the possibility that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama will end up with about the same number of delegates after all 50 states have held their primaries and caucuses, the pundits and many others are saying that superdelegates should not decide who the nominee will be. That decision, they say, should rest with the rank-and-file Democrats who went to the polls and voted.

But the superdelegates were created to lead, not to follow. They were, and are, expected to determine what is best for our party and best for the country. I would hope that is why many superdelegates have already chosen a candidate to support.

Besides, the delegate totals from primaries and caucuses do not necessarily reflect the will of rank-and-file Democrats. Most Democrats have not been heard from at the polls. We have all been impressed by the turnout for this year's primaries. But turnout for primaries and caucuses is notoriously low. It would be shocking if 30 percent of registered Democrats have participated.

If that is the case, we could end up with a nominee who has been actively supported by, at most, 15 percent of registered Democrats. That's hardly a grassroots mandate.

More important, although many states like New York have closed primaries in which only enrolled Democrats are allowed to vote, in many other states Republicans and independents can make the difference by voting in Democratic primaries or caucuses.

In the Democratic primary in South Carolina, tens of thousands of Republicans and independents no doubt voted, many of them for Obama. The same rules prevail at the Iowa caucuses, in which Obama also triumphed. He won his delegates fair and square, but those delegates represent the wishes not only of grassroots Democrats, but also Republicans and independents. If rank-and-file Democrats should decide who the party's nominee is, each state should pass a rule allowing only people who have been registered in the Democratic Party for a given time - not nonmembers or day-of registrants - to vote for the party's nominee.

Perhaps because I have endorsed Clinton, I have noticed that most of the people complaining about the influence of the superdelegates are supporters of Obama. I can't help thinking that their problem with the superdelegates may not be that they're "unrepresentative," but rather that they are perceived as disproportionately likely to support Clinton.

And I am watching, with great disappointment, people whom I respect in the Congress who endorsed Clinton now switching to Obama with the excuse that their constituents have spoken.

If Obama wins the nomination, those members are undoubtedly concerned that they would be inviting a primary challenge in their next re-election campaign by failing to support his candidacy.

But if they are actually upset over the diminished clout of rank-and-file Democrats in the presidential nominating process, then I would love to see them agitating to force the party to seat the delegates elected by the voters in Florida and Michigan. In those two states, the votes of thousands of rank-and-file party members will not be counted because their states voted on dates earlier than those authorized by the national party.

Because both states went strongly for Clinton, standing up for the voices of grassroots Democrats in Florida and Michigan would prove the integrity of the superdelegate-bashers. The people of those states surely don't deserve to be disenfranchised simply because the leaders of their state parties brought them to the polls on a day that had not been endorsed by the leaders of our national party - a slight the voters might not easily forget in November.

As it happens, the superdelegates themselves can solve this problem. At this summer's Democratic national convention in Denver, the superdelegates could assert their leadership on the credentials and rules committees. That is, after all, one of the reasons they were created in the first place in 1982.

Geraldine A. Ferraro, a lawyer and a former member of Congress, was the Democratic vice presidential candidate in 1984.

not much for words these days

i think i'm going through a reality check this year. it's pretty intense. probably why i haven't been saying much at all since january. mackenzie mentioned the other day a great quote from Tao Te Ching that basically sums up my silence - or at least, my lack of words:

Do you have the patience to wait
till your mud settles and the water is clear?
Can you remain unmoving
till the right action arises by itself?
~translated by stephen mitchell

speaking of which, doonesbury today sums up my thoughts on the current race to the white house:

appearances

so it's a blessing/curse mix living out on this side of the world. blessing because i can hide from the rest of the world (but def not from reality)... curse because it's harder to keep in touch with the rest of the world as well. anyway, enough hiding.

since the new year, it's been non-stop moving motion forward forward keep going. bread and butter came and went - for once, there were a couple of significant parties that i went to... which means that b&b is gaining some cool factor from america. meaning, at the element party, bam showed up and don p. did a live painting; and at this amazing venue next to the mnac, charles (dad-in-law) threw the launch party for this warhol line he's directing (all the sales proceeds go to the warhol foundation in nyc).

of course i have to mention that i also turned 31 in january.

i don't know what else to say. i've been so busy writing about other people that it's hard to focus on writing about me. things are great. barcelona is good. "i guess things are looking up for old liz lemon."

hey you, need to get out of town for a bit? come to barcelona. then we can hide, but stay in touch more easily together!

me these days.

it's time for time

me these days.

after l.a., being back in barca was like quiet time.. well, not so quiet often too.. but i've just noticed that i am all about me right now. like i'm on some sort of rampage of making sure my ambition isn't hampered by stupid shit. shit, as in non-progressive, repetitive and un-lucrative shit. you know, it's a nothing's-getting-in-the-way type vibe i'm feeling about me lately. maybe jupiter and pluto joining capricorn these days has something to do with it.

also, back to the whole l.a. trip, i think i'm reacting to every separate detail of that trip now with my whole i-am-a-woman-rarr thing i'm acting out these days. it's a mix of re-connecting with the people i love out there, planning a wedding, the great weather, soaking in my culture, observing changes, finding out new things, great qualities from all the loved ones. so much love...

and then there's being on the other side of the pond too. aha. again, if i could live in two cities at once, it would be barca and l.a. it's as if these two cities are brother and sister.

so the last two months have been very reactive, me being reactive. like a fucking bomb. (smiling) i just gotta watch the thuggish ruggish attitude that i've been indulging with, reacting to all of the confusion. it's no good for the san b. heart. i get too worked up at times. to say the least.

they say that a way to a man's heart is through his stomach. what's the way to a woman's? break it down for me someone.


ah, cava during lunch at the cerveseria catalana.
here's another thing, i've been enjoying a drink more often these days as well.

cerveseria catalana.

we're reviewing tapas bars. mackenzie at casa alfonso.

hotel maj/chanel front lit up for navidad.

ps de gracia. one thing that makes being here nice during the holidays is that it feels like christmas.
marketing with taste.


xmas shopping.

ducked the rain and saw the che exhibit.
the one photo took of homie by a leica m2 becomes the symbol of revolution.

britt and i somewhere in the barrio gotico.

la boqueria.

inger and charles at rosa negra.

mezcal at rosa negra.

ideas.

if you gave me a penny for every distraction i have, i'd be straight chilling right now. that's the question: how do i turn a distraction into money? the answer might well be to work with the distraction, no? or, get paid to be distracted? but isn't that the whole point of a distraction? to take you away from your focus? couldn't the distraction become the focus? wait, that's obsession.

focus.

i found this book at hennessey+ingalls by paul arden called, "it's not how good you are, it's how good you want to be." and it's basically become my handbag bible. i carry it around with me everywhere. and every once in a while during the day, i'll take it out, open to a random page, and read. it's totally helping my game in a huge way. today my fave excerpt of the book is:

do not covet your ideas... at work, people are secretive with ideas... the problem with hoarding is you end up living off your reserves. eventually you'll become stale. if you give away everything you have, you are left with nothing. this forces you to look, to be aware, to replenish. somehow the more you give away, the more comes back to you. ideas are open knowledge. don't claim ownership. they're not your ideas anyway, they're someone else's. they are out there floating by on the ether. you just have to put yourself in a frame of mind to pick them up.

i don't know what to call this.

so i'm digging through google to see what all the hype on ron paul is about, but for some reason, my instinct is telling me that that's all this guy is: hype. let's just put it this way, any dude who comes off first by saying shit like they're the voice for a "foreign policy of freedom;" that they've "stood alone for freedom for many years;" and that they're "a true defender of liberty" must think that i'm some idiot. i'm not buying it. sorry folks, you can try to school me on this dude, but this is what i'm telling you:

ron paul is the new all-over-print shirt.

how are my peers born & bred in l.a., city or suburb igual, trying to talk to me about being libertarian? i'm talking about being over the invasion of iraq and it's like, "oh you're a libertarian too?" hmmm, i'm just not sure that a lot of my peers who are waving the ron paul flag really get what's going on. it's like howard dean in '04.

hmmm... ok for real though, a will ferrell character or some c-list model/actor (but really porn star) comes to mind whenever i hear the name ron paul. i see the ron paul '08 bumper stickers and i'm thinking it's some joke like the spears/lohan '08 stuff.

honestly.

vanessa

breakfast at grey dog's.