It's warm and sunny outside. It's a very good day to be a dog.
Today I'm observing New Year's Eve and taking a snow day. I grew up in Pennsylvania so sometimes there was enough snow to close the schools. I remember me and my siblings being glued to the radio, listening to the list of closed schools, and jumping up and down if our school was called. Yay snow day!
Pre-coffee this morning, I had a treat while waiting for the "don't walk" street sign to turn into "walk." As I'm standing on the sidewalk, a Street Sheet vendor was holding up the homeless-and-formerly-homeless published newspaper he's selling and asking me for a dollar.
Three construction workers are in a truck in front of me, pulling some kind of generator on a trailer. They're also waiting for the same light as mine to change. The driver is whistling at me.
There was a pole on the sidewalk between us, so I sort of allowed that to block the whistler's face. It worked for a second. I mean, it's 9AM, can't sexual harassment wait until noon?
So I'm still waiting for the light to change, and telling the Street Sheet guy, "Not today" and I hear a second whistle, and then a third. He's not just whistling, he's goading me.
So I calmly turned to the whistler with my black leather gloved hand in the gentle, universally friendly shape of the finger and quietly uttered to him, "The f*ck is that" as a sentence with a period at the end of it. So he told me to smile, which is equally harassing as whistling. (Do women ever tell men to smile? It's a command, like "sit.")
If I sound angry, I'm absolutely not. The whole reason I'm telling this is because my peaceful and calm reaction to the whistler was appreciated by a guy who naturally looks like Santa. He was shaking his head and cracking up laughing, completely in support of my behalf. I think he just might be telling my story right now.
Then the homeless Street Sheet guy bid me goodbye with, "Have a nice day" and I believe that he meant it.
A superbad loss happened yesterday to so many genres of music: funk, soul, R&B, hip-hop, rap and more. James Brown took his last breath on Christmas morning, but his influence will remain supreme.
In an interview with CNN back in 2000, he said, "I would like to pass on the want to do something...The need is there. Good lyrics are good things, but I would like to pass on that drive, that vigorous undying determination."
We danced and sang to James Brown last night in the living room. I played him last week when I DJed and will do so again many, many more times to come.
Dear friends, family, and dogs in sweaters, here's wishing you peace, prosperity, love and joy today and every day.
This must be what Seal sees every day. Heidi Klum and her naturally scrubbed-looking face. Despite the flyaway hair, she looks squeaky clean and the winter chill has even given her built-in blush.
It's fun seeing no-makeup photos of people who make their livings from their looks. The good bones are the thing, but there really is magic is in the lighting and the makeup. That's why they call them makeup artists. It's an art.
Ever see Pamela Anderson sans the eye goo? She looks like a different person, as if her features are just applied with paint.
Yikes. Thousands are marooned at the airport in the Colorado blizzard and can't leave. Countless more can't arrive.
