You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet

She looked at me with those big brown eyes and said,
You ain't seen nothin' yet.
Buh-buh baybee, you just ain't seen nothin' yet!

-- Bachman Turner Overdrive

Yee-haw, bloglings.... the EveryDay Diva is turning 40 next week. Definitely not your EveryDay kinda day. Truly a time to stop, smell the roses, and think "holy crap." I am both amazed I made it this far, and somewhat unbelieving that it really has all gone by so friggin' fast. Cliches abound. All true.
But, in the spirit of BTO, I'm just gettin' started and anyone who knows me knows those lyrics couldn't possibly hold more truth. So, friends and fans, buckle your seatbelts and put your tray tables in the upright and locked position. I promise that the next 40 will be an even better ride!

Meanwhile, I do hope that by now you have all received and opened your Evite for the upcoming festivities??!! (What?! You didn't get the Evite. Well, I never. EMAIL me immediately and I'll send it to you. With apologies for the fact that my various email address books have more dust bunnies than there are under my bed.)

Remember, the general plan, weekend of Nov 3-5, is:

-- Friday spa day for the girlies and general merriment for all in SF later;
-- Saturday cocktails at the Santa Cruz villa, dinner & beach bonfire to follow;
-- Sunday brunch with Bloody Marys & Jack Daniels pancakes cooked by Chef R.

RSVP ASAP
as I'm trying to get final head counts by the end of this week!
Say YES! I'm in! no matter which part you can/can't do,
and I'll send more details regarding the logistics of each fun-filled frolic!

xoxo Mwah. xoxo

Sum-Sum-Summertime.. Buh Bye!

Summer is officially over.

Sorry peeps, but I go by the fashion calendar -- once it's past Labor Day, stick a fork in summer cuz it's done. No more white shoes until next Memorial Day -- unless you're doing LaCroix cruise wear and you are ACTUALLY ON A CRUISE.

Although here in sunny California 'summer-like time' (no, NOT 'Indian summer' -- that's a weird East Coast summer-in-September thing) will continue for another good 6 weeks or so, hurrah! So yes, you can still wear tank tops, shorts and flip-flops. For a little while. Feel yourself sttreeeeettcchhiing out the season??

Anyway... in chatting with friends and colleagues about what they did over the summer, and the crazy photos they took doing it, I've come up with a theory. Ready?

SUMMER MAKES YOU DO THINGS YOU WOULD NEVER DO ANY OTHER TIME.

And not just because it's warm. Just because it's ... well... summer!

So here is my Short List of Summer Lovin' Stuff:

1. Appreciating the 80s. It lives! That is -- the time-honored tradition of heading out to a block party (if you live on a big urban block), state fair, public beach, city park or other quasi-open-air venue and rockin' out to the likes of Rick Springfield, Charlie Daniels, and The Village People (do click this link if you wanna hum 'Macho Macho Man' all day). Lest you think I jest -- the three aforementioned acts were the headliners for the Marin County and San Mateo County Fairs less than a month ago. Check out my friend KP's blog for photographic proof!

2. Passion for Agriculture. An offshoot of the above-mentioned fair-going, is the burning desire to visit the 4-H pavilion and the development of a deep-seated interest in which pig, exactly, won the grand prize for best... um... porkiness.

3. Smelling Tropical. At no other time... ever... will a guy allow you to slather him with something that smells like coconut, unless you accidentally spill your umbrella-laden girlie drink on him. On the beach, however, boys and girls of all ages merrily trot around drenched in scents that call to mind the fruitiest of the Hawaiian tropics (ya, thus the name, duh). I do swear, though, that that original Coppertone smell brings me right back to summer 1979 and my best little girlfriend and I lying in wait on my front lawn for the 'hot older man' paperboy (he was in HIGH SCHOOL, like whoa, way mature).

4. Loving Fat. How many fried twinkies did you eat this summer?

(SIDEBAR: In researching this blog entry, I have just discovered that Fried Twinkies are also the snack food of choice of the PBR -- that is, the Professional Bull Riding circuit. Wow. Who knew? Click here to check out the FriedTwinkiesNation.com blog. Yee-freakin'-haw, pardner.)

Anyway, my excuses for forgoing any kind of remotely reasonable June-July-August eating habits are far too numerous to number. "I'm on vacation." "It's too hot to eat a REAL meal." (a good one for ice cream) "They're not available other times of the year." "I want one." (trumps all others) Aforementioned fairs and beaches and boardwalks are just chock FULL of scrumptious, somewhat disgusting, wouldn't-eat-it-anywhere-else treats. Yummy. Now back to our regularly scheduled dieting, thankyouverymuch.

5. Riding the Rides, Playing the Games. Santa Cruz, CA is nearby. There's a Boardwalk there. Not to mention the myriad boardwalks I've visited in years past from Wildwood (New Jersey) to Atlantic City (um, New Jersey) to Ocean City (er, New Jersey again but also Maryland) to Santa Monica (ah, back to California). Only in summer has the urge ever struck (and been fulfilled) to actually ride the rickety-looking, clackety-sounding wooden roller coaster. Hey. My chances of survival are at least as good as at any Disney theme park, of late. Moreover, before or after the rides, you will find yourself totally committed to winning the outrageous toss-the-ball-in-the-rigged-milk-can games -- and not minding that you (or your fabulous boyfriend) just paid 27 dollars for a 27-cent stuffed Sponge Bob!

OK... that's my shortlist. What's yours? What do you do in the summer that you reeeeaaallly wouldn't wanna be caught dead doing any other time (that's printable)?? I'd love to hear.

Meanwhile, I have to go polish off my last fried Twinkie of the season.

Reading Lolita in Tehran on Independence Day

There's nothing like a small town 4th of July parade to bring up lots of fierce -- and fiercely cliched -- feelings of national pride, patriotism, and appreciation of all that ye old Republic was (is) built upon and for which it stands. Though 'under God' and 'indivisible' must seem questionable to anyone who's lived, or even glanced at a headline, in the last 40 years or so. Really.

And there is TRULY NOTHING like the Aptos 4th of July parade. Billed as the "world's shortest parade," it's only 2 blocks long.

But oooohhh what a 2 blocks it is.

Take the "Desperate Divas" for example. Paragons of parading pride from the local chapter of the internationally renowned Red Hat Society. Taking pride in their fabulous, whacky, 50-and-over selves -- draped head to toe in violet velvet with scarlet hats and boas. Independence personified. Love, love, love it.



Oh. Have I neglected to mention that Aptos is a suburb of Santa Cruz, CA? Right. Nowhere else in the US, with the possible exception of northern neighbor Berkeley (aka Berzerkely) do they take the right to the 'pursuit of happiness' to quite such an individualized extreme. Oh sure, there were the requisite returned Marines and boy and girl scout troops and high school marching bands. But more in the 'fight for your right to parrrrtay' category were marchers, or really acts, like the aforementioned Divas; the whale driving a car (something to do with the local Honda dealer...I think); the RenFaire people walking with the Klingons (??!!); and Princess Purple -- who can really only properly be appreciated visually (must-see pics below). And no, I don't exactly know what the fascination is with purple. But hey, it works.





In any case, clearly there is still room in this Diva's usually cynical heart to pause at least once a year and to appreciate the obvious freedom we take for granted EveryDay: the freedom to march, walk, talk, sing, dance and wear whatever we please. Even purple. The freedom to read and discuss any ideas that strike our fancy. Such freedom is not so straightforward in much of the world -- but how often do we stop to consider the deeper implications behind that sound bite?

So I spent much of this holiday weekend re-reading Azar Nafisi's outstanding Reading Lolita in Tehran , in which the author chronicles her experiences with 8 of her students who gathered secretly every week to read forbidden Western literature (The Great Gatsby and Lolita were the faves), defying the ruling Islamic Republic -- and all for which it stands -- in post-revolutionary Iran. As a woman, and a self-styled Diva at that, I was particularly horrified not only by the denial to these women of the most basic of human rights to think and speak freely, but also by the denial of the smallest personal feminine freedoms: the right to wear makeup, to use fingernail polish, to dress in colors other than black. (OK that last one doesn't seem so bad -- but it should be a choice, not a mandate.)

And it got me pondering like I used to with groups of friends and grad student TAs on long, rambling, shall we say 'foreign substance-filled' evenings after Realpolitik 101 lectures. Or like yesterday after reading about any number of BushCo's latest attempts to monitor the phone calls and emails of the average US citizen.

So. Freedom isn't free. Saw that on plenty of T-shirts with flags at the parade. And no, in the sense that "free" means "allowed to exist" then freedom is most definitely NOT free nor happening in much of the world.

However, my basic premise is this. Freedom IS, in fact, free. Freedom is the natural state of humankind. Freedom is the state that exists before man, or certain men, impose limitations. Ask John Locke. (He said that natural rights were life, liberty and property, and that all people automatically earned these simply by being born. Look it up.) Even the major religions and George Lucas agree that Christ, Mohammed, Buddha, God and The Force extoll the virtues of free will (which they each then complicitly override in the name of a moral imperative -- but I digress). In the political or socio-geographic sense of living, working, playing and speaking whatever and however an individual decides to (aside from injuring any other individuals), freedom is pretty much universally lauded.

The problem, simply put, is that in any given era/generation, in any given country/region, a handful of men (Genghis Khan, Caesar, George Bush) and/or women (Dido, Cleopatra, Margaret Thatcher) are constantly trying to define and then impose boundaries on the natural freedom of the many, sometimes millions, of individuals under their spheres of influence. And all too frequently the object of the game seems to be the continual constriction of those boundaries to make them ever narrower, ever more restrictive, ever more in line with the imposer's beliefs, desires, and understanding of good/bad.

Be it marking the boundary between Israel and the Gaza Strip with a big wall and patrolled checkpoints; or dividing the capital of Germany and putting up a big wall and patrolled checkpoints; or deciding there are enough brown-skinned day laborers in Southern California and proposing putting up a big wall and patrolled checkpoints (you know there already is one, right?) -- the whole absurd idea seems to be to box in, or shut out, and generally control the behavior of whichever unfortunate population isn't making the rules or doesn't hold the contracts let by the current military-industrial complex.

Don't get me wrong. I know some rules and boundaries are necessary simply for the world to function in any efficient and remotely organized way. Hey, I'm a big fan of Stephen Hawking and chaos theory, but I'm a total freak when the airlines don't run on time. I recognize, even appreciate, the need for civic order and governance. To a degree.

Ah, there's the rub: degree. And WHO exactly sets the bar. So much of what is imposed does not seem necessary to promote the smooth operation of society or -- despite the saintly protestations of those answering to Congressional investigative committees -- to protect the citizenry from immediate danger. As my favorite KPIG commentator Travis T. Hip said recently, we have to stop thinking every time someone lobs a hand grenade in Mosul, it's threatening a grocery store in Minneapolis. So why are millions of your -- and my -- phone calls being monitored? Why are my banking transactions being looked at? (Um, other than those questionable shoe purchases. Ehem.) Why are my Internet chats, website visits, and this blog being monitored? Don't think they are? Think again. Not hundreds. Not terrorist suspects' calls. Millions. 200 million to be exact. Which constitutes our own freedom-speak spouting politicos spying on over 80% of the population. Wow. That's a lotta terrorists. More by percentage than, say, in supposedly terrorist-filled Iraq even. Wow again.

True freedom requires TRUST. And governments, especially fundamentalist governments and our own recently, are not big on trusting their citizens. Again, I don't LIKE that, but I do understand -- to a point. I'm quite sure that gun control is a good idea, for example, despite the framers' 'right to bear arms' intent. And no Charlton Heston, I actually will not pry that rifle outta your cold dead hands -- because the intruder who shot you with it, who bought the bullets down the street at WalMart, will already have stolen it from you.

But seriously, doesn't "Homeland Security" sound even remotely Nazi-like to anyone else? Will there be ceremonies we have to attend soon? Will we be required to salute? And speaking of ceremonies, remind me again how denying a perfectly happy and healthy gay couple the right to marry legally helps fight terrorists. For that matter, why is the $200 fee I pay every year simply to register my car necessary? The road in front of my house is still a mess, so my $$ aren't going there. Since when must the ruling party's private persuasions equate to public policy -- all in the name of protection?? Hey, it's not an original thought, but I have to jump on the bandwagon of those who are commenting that, in protecting our freedom, we are blithely and unprotestingly and dangerously sacrificing being free.

So, let freedom ring. Freely even. In fact, I may go out and buy a big, chunky ring (very in this season) just because I can flaunt any old thing I want to ... so far. But first I think I might re-read Lolita and The Great Gatsby.

And write down everything I'm thinking about in an open public forum for anyone who cares to to digest ... and comment.

The Devil in Mz. Diva

Here's a little teaser pic of your EveryDay Diva as Sydney the Devil (though sans horns in this one) ... Now come see the show! Fabulous opening last weekend... where were you???

Devil's Due at Danville Village Theatre (233 Front Street); runs through Saturday July 1st.