I want the Old Republicans back. You know the ones, the ones who touted Reaganomics, free trade and didn't like giving art grants to naked guys with whips up their anuses. I may not have agreed with their policies, but I could have intelligent debate with them. They saw porn, I saw a beautiful black and white photo with excellent composition and thought provoking subject matter. They saw welfare, I saw leveling the playing field.

The kind of Republican one might become with the obtaining of money and the passage of time. The kind I loved to hate during the Clinton Administration.

The new guys are loony. People actually believing in Creationism. Not as a little parable, but FOR REAL.

From the NY Times this morning, in reference about the new pope.

"A few steps away, the Rev. M. Price Oswalt, a priest who serves two parishes in Oklahoma City, was exultant about the cardinals' choice. 'He'll correct the lackadaisical attitudes that have been able to creep into the lives of Catholics,' he said. 'He's going to have a German mentality of leadership: either get on the train or get off the track. He will not put up with rebellious children.' "

German mentality of leadership..get on the train???? Nice anology there, guy from Oklahoma City.

I get what he's saying- hardline, back to the basics and all that. But it's a little too...you know..."why don't you all herd onto this cattle car to Baden Baden" for me.

I've been really busy lately. My Puppetland duties have stepped up, now that we are actually making puppets. They look great so far. A shout out to my friend Heidi in Boston who hipped me to the greatest new material called Fossfoam. Better than Celastic, buckram or felt, we are making giant heads of animals that weigh virtually nothing, yet are very durable. Puppetland cut our build time in half, of course, so even though we are cruising along, there is still a growing sense of panic. I'm also supervising a whole team of people, which means I don't get as much work of my own done because I am piloting 5 others.

I did get to take a whole day off on Sunday, and I went to the Rose Bowl Swap Meet with my friend Vinh. We went early at 7:30am and paid the extra addmission fee of $15 each. It was well worth it. It was much less crowded, temp was cooler and we saw everything quickly and made some decisions. Vinh scored an excellent Haywood Wakefield dresser for less than $200. Steve and Tom showed up later around 10:30am. So did everyone else. Too crowded and too expensive overall. We will check out Long Beach next.

Vinh and Tom just moved to LA. Vinh is an interior designer by trade, and has whipped their new apartment into shape so fast that it gives Mare and Molly a run for the money. I would like to see all of them in a Designer Cage Match. They have to move, unpack and decorate an entire apartment in less than a week. Throw in the extra challenges of pets, babies and unhandy menfolk making suggestions and we got a game. The winner plays Jane Daly and they have to do an entire house.

And I thought I was doing pretty well because all the boxes were unpacked. We moved in November.

Go here now.

25 great sesame street moments, with links and video. He has some great ones, but one of my personal favorites is missing. The Tomato on a kitchen counter singing from "Carmen" with her rubber band mouth. So simple, silly and using stop motion animation.

I was in a hit and run accident today while driving around for work. I'm fine, but my fender's not. It was very Streets of San Francisco with squealing tires, except I didn't then swerve into a pile of empty cardboard boxes or a fruit cart. It was probably a little more Grand Theft Auto, at least from the big grey van's point of view. The other vehicle totally ran a red left turn arrow at top speed, clipped me coming the other direction and sped off as if leaving the scene of a crime. I can now add "Mad Driving Skills" to my list that already includes "Numchuck Skills" and "Bow Hunting Skills."

The cops showed up in a timely manner and were quite nice about the whole thing. A pleasant lady lawyer was right behind me, pulled over to be a witness, and the car was able to at least be driven home and will make on its own power to the body shop. And I never reduced my insurance coverage after the loan was paid off, so I'm covered.

All in all, it could have been a lot worse. I do have a sneaky feeling that whatever money I have to outlay in regards to this event will be about the same amount as the tax return I should be seeing in two weeks. The universe seeks balance. Money in, money out.

I'm sorry. What year is this? What century is this?

Why is this even an issue?

I am certainly not a fan of the pharmaceutical companies, but I believe in prescription drugs and doctors. If a doctor prescribes a certain medication, it is the pharmacist's job to fill it. If you do not like the way this system works, do not become a pharmacist. The current administration really dotes on the drug companies, but yet, their favorite voting block is now deciding what drugs can be sold to whom, when and if at all.

Who are these people? 2 generations ago, we were all about science and the space program. Now, we are actually questioning evolution. We are sugar-coating science so people don't get offended.

What kinds of jobs are the children of these people being trained to do? If they are not going into the sciences, are they going into business? Hopefully, they will bring their morals and family values to the field, and in 15 years, we can have decent health benefits and daycare at all workplaces, as those are great family values.

I thought we had separation of Church and State. And Church was to be interpreted as all the houses-temples, mosques, cathedrals, fairy rings in the forest. That's your personal life, State is everybody's life. I don't want to be lighting sage smudge sticks any more than I want to thank Our Savior, Jesus Christ for whatever.

Can you imagine if the Wiccans got it together to infiltrate Walgreen's? All nail salons seem to be run by Buddists. "I'm sorry, miss. You cannot get your tips filled until you put a small bunch of bananas in front of this Buddha and incense sticks. And really mean it."

If you don't like a small company, you take your business elsewhere. Maybe that's the answer for the folks in the nosy small town. Get your presciptions filled on drugstore.com. Why you choose to live in Harper Valley, I can't understand, but now you can get your birth control.

I wonder if customers also get lectures for other "sex" related items? "Didn't your wife pass away two years ago, Bob? Why would you need Viagra?" "This medication is to treat herpes. Herpes. Hmm."

That SNL character, Church Lady, comes to mind, except now it's Church Guy. Maybe that's one for the comedy notebook...

I heard the pharmacist from Pharmacists for Life on the radio today. The reason why he doesn't want to dispense birth control is that the chemicals are very dangerous to ladies. He is VERY concerned about chemicals. If he doesn't like chemicals, he should be worried about all the chemicals contained in the the other drugs he fills prescriptions for and all of the other chemicals contained in the rest of the drugstore. I should mention he hails from Louisiana, which by all accounts is rather lax aboout following EPA standards and regualtions. (Sorry Simone!)

Last night, a bunch of us went out to a First Friday event at the Natural History Museum here in LA. On the first Friday of the month, the museum tricks itself out with cool lights, bar areas, and bands and DJ's in the various galleries providing music. Our friend Gus was DJ-ing with DubLab. It is a really cool idea, and there were plenty of LA hipsters roaming around.

The museum is massive, so while well attended, it didn't seem overwhelmingly crowded or anything. The best part for me was a special event-related gallery exhibit where visual artists took objects from the museum's holdings and created art installations around/about it.

The people watching was quite interesting. My favorites I kept an eye on were a very, very short couple on a date. They weren't actually midgets, but they were both around 4'9". Another was this extremely hipster young couple. They were both quite thin and wearing hats. He had a homemade knit winter hat in orange, she had on a white bunny fur hunting cap with ear flaps circa 2001. Their need for warmth stood out in the balmy evening. As we were leaving later, they were coming back in. She had ditched the fur hat in favor of some oversized early 80's sunglasses. The third was a young woman who was dancing to music that hadn't started yet. More accurately, she was grooving to the "sound check" and the promise of music. She asked Marty to watch her purse for her. She didn't know Marty, and there was only a dollar in the bag (she said) and pictures. The pictures were the important part for her. Then the music of Build an Ark started and was revealed to be disappointing. Watching her dancing become lackluster and sad was truly the signal that it was time to go.

All in all, I'd say we got $10 worth of fun. Unfortunately, it cost $15. The money does all go back into the museum, so if I look at it over the lifetime arc of museum going, how many times did I just give a dollar for the "suggested donation?"*

Really, it doesn't matter how great an event is, after a long day at work going out at 10pm never ends up being as fun as it used to be. It would have been a great event to be 20 and tripping. Maybe that was what the hat couple were doing.

*Good friends just got back from NYC and confessed to paying one dollar for 3 people's museum admission. In their defense, it was 8:15 pm and it closed at 9pm. I admire their thriftiness.