Bela is a dog.

"Every dog is different. Just like people, some dogs could live for years after this diagnosis," the vet said. "But most dogs will only have about 3 months."

Aggressive osteosarcoma.

 

Here is where the evil lives.

Bela has been pretty sedentary for the couple weeks since her diagnosis. I've been particularly attentive to her and every rule she's come to know has been dissolved. She eats from the table. Sleeps on the couch. I bought the expensive treats for her: duck jerky and chicken wrapped peanut-butter biscuits. I get nervous the rare times she becomes energetic. I remember once when my cat, Cali, became suddenly overly-affectionate. She climbed into our laps as my family sat in the living room. A few hours later, she passed on, seemingly out of no where. Later we would talk about how she knew the end was coming and made the rounds saying her good-byes. So it makes me nervous when Bela makes an effort to sit next to me.

She is my best friend. I rescued her from the Orange County Humane Society. She had only been there 2 days when I visited. She was the most recent arrival. She was filthy and smelled of death, but she tried her best to push through the fence of her kennel when I walked by. It really bowls me over when I think that there was a time when I had an opportunity to decide if she would be a part of my life. I can't imagine what my life might have been without her. She is my best friend.

There is a song I made up about her. It goes: "Bela is a dog who's got four paws and a furry face." You can sing it to any tune, really. The other day, I got a bit of a chuckle over the irony the song would have if she'd've had her leg amputated. This is, without a doubt, a shit situation. But we're trying to make the best of it.

Talking about something you don't know anything about.

Last summer the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego commissioned a huge piece by Shepard Fairey as part of a street exhibit series called "Viva la Revolución: A Dialogue with the Urban Landscape."

Everything seemed so deliciously coincidental. The piece is located on the side of an Urban Outfitters, a store predicated on superficiality and the coopting of cultural imagery that is watered down and mass-produced because it's "cool." And then we have Fairey, a white kid from South Carolina, being paid by a museum in La Jolla (one of the wealthiest communities in California) to paste up a giant portrait of Angela Davis. Fairey, of course, became famous by using an image of Andre the Giant. The connection to Professional Wrestling, perhaps the most pure and simple commodification of exoticism, racism, sexism and bigotry, is particularly sweet.

When it comes to his art, Fairey states he is not an activist, he only sometimes uses cultural and/or political imagery to communicate his feelings. Fairey's work is controversial, I suppose, in both its nature and content. Fairey, himself, has been repeatedly accused of stealing or at least failing to give credit for the imagery in his art. Likewise, has Urban Outfitters.

Shortly after its completion, it got tagged.  The tagging was a nice commentary on the ephemeral nature of street art, and much more poignant than the original piece, which is merely a staged representation of what it claims to be. The tagging was scrubbed, however, and the piece has remained as is, until recently.

A few weeks after the piece went up, an illustration was posted nearby outlining proposed construction in the adjacent lot that would obscure the piece entirely. A month or so ago, construction began, and in a few weeks it will be gone. I can't help but think that this was all part of the plan, perhaps to legitimize the project. In either case, it seems to be a perfect ending.

rape culture what?

Hall Pass is a film written by the Farrelly brothers (Dumb and Dumber/There's Something About Mary), distributed by New Line/Warner Bros, about two men who are given seven days by their wives to pursue their uncontrollable male urges without consequence, I assume to save their marriage. I'm not the biggest proponent of marriage, but its depiction as the ruination of masculinity is enough to encourage me to pass on the flick.

But what really got my back up was a line from the trailer. One of the main characters is trying out pick up lines on women in a bar. He holds up a napkin and says, "Excuse me, do you think these bar napkins smell like chloroform? I'm kidding. Can I buy you a drink?"

I'm not going to say anything else about this fucked up movie.