Last night was the hottest night every recorded in the history of Austria. Temperature-wise. Which means only one thing, of course: big end-of-school-year gathering in sweltering school. Here’s the equation: (Hot+humid) x Suit = Bad. At one point Alpha, who may have killed a man, asked to see the program, which I had in my pocket. “Ew, it’s all wet,” she said.

Another time, she said to someone we were sitting outside eating sausages and drinking wine with, “well, I just got back from Venice this afternoon.” Apparently she’d been in Venice this week doing something. I did notice I was busier than usual around the house.

Also, when I got home around 9 or so I turned on the sprinkler in the back yard and Alpha said, “Don’t forget to turn it off later on.” And I didn’t. Around midnight I remembered and turned it off. So the yard got a good soaking. I hope it convinces the ants to leave. The backyard is suddenly full of dozens of subterranean ant colonies. Bad for the grass.

Anyway. There was a fashion show. There were kids dancing, Beta among them. Dancing around the gymnasium to various music. They were actually quite good, choreographed by one of the girls, the skinny German one who’d attended a Montessori school. Amazing the variety of boob size and general morphology among seventh graders. I’m just saying. I have to be observant, I’m a writer; details are important.

Man was it hot in the gym. That’s where I handed Alpha the damp program. Then it ended, we staggered outside, some Indio band was playing pan flutes and drums and guitar and some little mandolin type thing and the pan flute player also had a nice little end-blown flute he played well and they also had a fiddler which gave them an almost Irish sound at times; they also sold trinkets high school kids like. We drank iced tea or wine spritzers and ate frankfurters before going back in at the last possible moment for the choir performance.

Gamma was on her best behavior, only farted on my lap a few times and didn’t put up much of a fight when I told her to quit pulling up her dress and flashing her panties at everyone.

Then we drove home. The parking lot was nearly empty when we got out to our cars, since as usual if there’s a party all of us are the last to leave. Then we slept. Then I got up and fed the cats. Now I’m at work sweating.

a_m_b_e_r_4_e_v_e_r: So you’ve got the sperm of Zeus, presumably in some sort of enchanted goblet, right?
a_m_b_e_r_4_e_v_e_r: You bring it down to earth and to my house.
j_dunlevy_69: ok
a_m_b_e_r_4_e_v_e_r: You make love to me! I can’t wait to feel you!

Amber is not really a fourteen-year-old girl.

Jessica’s attack bunny comment further down reminded of something I’d been meaning to mention about the international Cult of Python. Everywhere I go, around the world, I meet people of various walks of life and appearance, nothing else in common but the fact that they snicker when you say “Ministry of Funny Walks” or “I fart in your general direction” or “I didn’t come here for an argument”. Snicker and start reciting the rest of the sketch. Say, in a French accent, “would you like a mint? It eez very seen,” and they answer, in a Mr. Cresote voice, “oh, I’m absolutely stuffed, I couldn’t eat another bite. Oh, alright,” [exploding noises].

I was doing this sort of thing with another photographer just this weekend, an Austrian fellow, standing around the lobby of a luxury hotel in Vienna, waiting to photograph presidents. Is Monty Python the only cultural icon to have this effect, or are there other fan cultures like this? I can’t remember my PIN codes or passwords half the time; I have memorized exactly one poem, but for some reason the Python skits stick with you.

Or do Trekkies do this as well? [Deep, raspy Gorn voice: "Kirk, come to me. I will be quick and merciful... hiss...]

But, just one thing. Even a moron can say something worth considering, is all I’m saying. Who is eradicating what? (that link does not take you to a moron) Your money goes somewhere when you spend it. When you buy cigarettes, it goes into the pockets of big fat monopolies and rich white men who don’t care if you get lung cancer – that’s my biggest motivation in quitting. I drive a car that burns a fossil fuel. Everytime I buy gas, I contribute $30 to continuing the problems in the Middle East, as well as ruining the environment. None of us are innocent.

I am not especially liberal-minded, believe it or not; I am more conservative than anything else, just not in the same way as most people calling themselves conservatives. What the fuck do they want to conserve? Not the environment, not democracy, not civil liberties. What, then?

I printed out a bunch of old posts when I was trying to get Raising Hell started, to have a selection of content to start with. Beta found the printout yesterday and read it. She’ll read anything, like a lot of us. Kleenex boxes, toothpaste tubes, whatever’s handy.

So she read that, asking me to explain words now and then. I was hanging around in her room, reading a magazine, wondering whether I’d written anything lame, until it occurred to me, duh, 90% of what I write is lame, that’s my charm.

Anyway. She read it all. She seemed to like it. Hi, Beta, if you’re reading this. At any rate she still talks to me.

We had a Bug-like drive to school again this morning. “I bet you’re gonna blog this,” she said. “I’ll do a Bug,” I said. Real soon.

I bought two albums a couple days ago, Patty Smith “Easter” and Tom Waits “Used Songs”. The Patty Smith I bought because Beta’s class at school is currently doing some sort of dance to a lame remake of “Because the Night” and I wanted to casually pop in the CD on the way to school one day and have her say “hey, that’s the song we’re dancing to, only better!” which is sort of what happened, only it was me saying, “Hey, that’s the song you’re dancing to, only better!”

Tom Waits I bought because I like him, the new songs better, but the old ones on this album are a good collection and bring back memories, or would if I had any, even though some of the time he sounds to me a lot like a white guy trying to sound black and beatnik at the same time.

What struck me about both albums, though, is how young both musicians are on them. How earnest, especially Patty Smith, with her poetry and “Rock and Roll Nigger,” how did I ever listen to that? Otherwise good stuff, though. The Tom Waits stuff, this “best of” album includes a lot of liner notes and reviews/Rolling Stone articles and stuff from 1975 or so; it reminds me of what Frank Zappa said about rock journalism – “people who can’t write writing for people who can’t read.” But the Waits ages better I think, than Patty.

Whatever. I like the way Tom Waits is going with his new stuff on “Blood Money” and “Alice”. He’s a good match with the German expressionism on “Blood Money” and “Alice” works better than I thought it would. And his face, now wrinkly, is starting to match his voice better.