Last Thursday was Thanksgiving Day in America, so I donned my turkey hat, and told the kids that instead of the traditional turkey dinner this year, that we would be starting a new tradition.  Then I showed them the can of Unicorn meat I brought:

Dear President Obama,

I am one of your biggest supporters.  I believe what you have accomplished in two years has restored our country’s reputation around the world and helped millions of hard working Americans.  I have sometimes wished that you could move faster on many things (Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, Guantanamo Bay & Afghanistan to name a few), but I trust your judgment and know that you are working as hard as you can. 

That said, I must take issue with your recent stance on the tightened security policies of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).  You say you “get it“, but I’m not sure that you do.  I know that the Republican Party and Fox News are up in arms about the new measures; and though I rarely agree with Fox News, I must yield to them on this matter.  However, I don’t necessarily agree with them for the same reasons.  I’m not really concerned with someone “touching my junk” when I go through a pat down; nor am I personally worried about:

• The pat down leaving me covered in my own urine
• Having to remove my prosthetic breast
• Having my young son strip searched in front of everyone in the airport
• Removing my leg braces
• Throwing up on the plane due to repressed memories surfacing
• My 3 year old little girl screaming “Stop touching me!”

What I am worried about Mr. President is the bureaucratization of terror.  Starting with the failed policies of your predecessor, the TSA has become a laughing stock.  They are inept at best, criminal at worst.  Though America isn’t Israel, we could learn a lot from the Israelis.  It’s called behavioral profiling not racial profiling.  You can’t profile breast implants and shoes.  It’s about being smarter, not reacting every time someone tries to ignite their underwear.

As someone who used to fly 3-4 times a week for 13 years all around the world, I can honestly say I’m glad I’m done.  I will opt out of these ridiculous policies, because they are nothing more than theater of the absurd.  We’re not safer.  The terrorists are laughing at us.  Every time I hear the words “I’ll put up with anything if it makes us safer…” I cringe.  People who spew such nonsense don’t fly more than once or twice a year, and are woefully misinformed.  If I were you Mr. President, I would immediately fire Janet Incompetano and John Pistole.  Replace them with people who possess the same critical thinking skills that you do, and can respond to this mounting public outcry. 

If you figure this out Mr. President, people will begin flying again.  I was going to fly somewhere for Thanksgiving this week.  I have canceled my trip.  If I’m meant to die in a terrorist attack, so be it.  I’ve had a good life.  No amount of groping or probing will keep me safer.  The terrorists are smarter than that.  I do somewhat wish I was flying this week though, as I would love to have someone videotape me while I’m being patted down.  Did you ever see the movie, When Harry Met Sally?  Think of this scene, and then think of me being patted down by the TSA.  Trust me Mr. President.  I have a flare for the dramatic, and that would be one hell of a viral video.

Dog Bless America,

Carey

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Speaking of government bureaucracy, I just posted the following on Yelp:

Going to West Hollywood City Hall at 8 AM on a Monday morning is the worst way to start your week.  I needed to pull a permit to replace some windows in my condo.  After waiting for the receptionist to finish a personal phone call, I was directed to the second floor.  They have the slowest elevator I’ve ever seen, and no stairs for the public.  Up to the second floor I went.  There was one person at a desk texting on his cell phone, paying no attention, and another at a counter helping a contractor; who had blueprints laid out from hell to breakfast.  After 5 minutes of no one acknowledging my presence, I finally interrupted the texter who then told me I needed to go to Planning.  I went to Planning and waited until the most jaded, bitter, bureaucratic queen I’ve ever met showed up.  He looked at my paperwork and let out a heavy sigh.  He handed me a form to fill out, and started pecking on his keyboard, seemingly exasperated.  He kept asking me questions about my windows and I kept referring him to the drawings and plans that I had meticulously prepared.  After 15 minutes of dramatic paper shuffling, he sent me down to the cashier to pay $97.11 for “zoning clearance”.

I took the elevator back downstairs and gave the cashier my debit card and asked if I could also pay for my parking permits.  She told me that Parking Permits were handled in another department.  I walked to that department and met Junior Jaded Bitter Bureaucrat #2.  He told me they only accept Parking Permit requests via mail.  I informed him that it was the 21st Century and that I check my mail two or three times a year at best.  I asked if I could just pay for the permit there, and was told they only accept checks by mail.  I informed him I didn’t have a checkbook, because again, it was the 21st Century.  I haven’t written a check in 10 years, and wasn’t about to go to my bank and request a cashier’s check as he suggested.  The 80′s called.  They want their payment methods back!  He finally acquiesced and let me pay the $44 for the parking permits by debit card.  A small victory, but it felt good.

I then had to take the elevator back upstairs to show my receipt to Planning, who directed me to Permits, where I had to basically start over.  As it turns out, Jaded Bitter Bureaucrat #1 was delightful compared to Jaded Bitter Bureaucrat #3, who worked in Permits and clearly hated life.  He looked at me, waiting for me to tell him what I needed without even asking if he could help me.  The staring contest went on for several seconds until he finally broke down and asked what I was there for.  I told him I needed a window permit.  He asked if I had filled out an application, and I said I thought I had.  He said it wasn’t in the paperwork, and directed me to a wall of forms where I had to search for the right one.  He asked for a letter from my Homeowner’s Association, which I told him I had given to the Permits Department.  He rolled his eyes and walked away.  5 minutes later, he came back with my Homeowner’s Association letter.  He then asked how many windows I was replacing and I told him three, as documented right in front of him.  He asked how many bedrooms I had, and I pointed to the clearly drawn layout right in front of his face.  He found out that one of the windows needed to be lowered, thanks to a ridiculously archaic city code, so he had to get his supervisor and lumbered away.  5 minutes went by and the supervisor sauntered up.  We’ll call him Ultimate Bitter Jaded Bureaucrat #4, who ended up being the most jaded and bitter of them all.  He was clearly the highest paid too, as evidenced by his Dolce & Gabbana sweater and Botoxed face that had not smiled since the first Bush administration.  (The other two were wearing Izod and Ralph Lauren accordingly.  It was a chilly day.)  He proceeded to look at my drawings and draw identical lines on them to accentuate my lines.  He took his time, and shuffled a lot of paper even more dramatically then JBB #1 (He must have had a Master’s in paper shuffling).  He basically did nothing but huff and puff for 10 minutes and ask me questions that I had already been asked 3 times; the answers to which were clearly documented.  He then sent me back downstairs in the elevator from hell (to hell?) to pay $341.17 for my permit. 

I then took the elevator back up to purgatory, where I watched JBB #3 slowly stamp all of my paperwork, and hand it to me without as much as a whisper.  I asked if that was all I needed and he nodded affirmatively.  I know that no bureaucracy is fun to deal with, but West Hollywood is supposed to be a friendly, progressive city.  The staff at City Hall rivaled the TSA in terms of bitterness and rudeness.  I’m surprised they didn’t pat me down!  I payed them $482.28 for nothing but condescension and laziness.  For those of you who think living in a city like this would be all pink roses and rainbow flags, this is a cautionary tale.  I won’t even go into how one of the mayors here thinks that a ban on smoking is ridiculous, because West Hollywood is all about sex and rock & roll.  Ugh.  In the few short years that West Hollywood has been a city, the bureaucrats have made it no different than any other greedy, over regulated place to live.  If property values weren’t still so low, you can bet I would be looking for another place to live.  Until then, I’m going to manage with what I have.  I have no desire to deal with the city again.  The whole experience left me jaded…and bitter.

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If you’ve read this far, you’re probably looking for some photos from the week.  Here they are:

What follows, are two completely unrelated stories that are ultimately about hope and inspiration:

I would like everyone to grab a box of tissues and read this story.  I want you to think about it the next time you get angry while driving.  I know I will.  I’m an admittedly terrible driver, and have been guilty of road rage many times.  I’ve been working on driving more calmly for several years, but living in Los Angeles, relapses are easy.  I hope that the memory of what happened to this family and their little boy will forever stay with me when I’m behind the wheel. Life is indeed too short.

When a porn star and a college student driving through the San Fernando Valley fell into conflict, a Bangladeshi American family suffered the consequences

Los Angeles magazine, February 2010

On the Internet you can watch a four-minute video clip of Ayman Arif dancing. The venue is a bedroom in his Northridge home; his stage, a comforter patterned with sunflowers. Taking his cues from a Bollywood spectacular playing on the television, the four-year-old Bangladeshi American boy wriggles, twirls, and bounds. On his bare chest he wears the pink string sash of the Brahman jester he is pretending to be. His mop of brown hair gives way to a wide forehead, and his dark brown eyes are bright with fire as he sings along to the Bengali-language soundtrack. One moment he’s wagging a stern finger, the next he’s clasping his hands to his heart or pumping an outstretched palm toward the heavens.  

On Tuesday, October 9, 2007, some ten months after her son’s impromptu performance made it onto YouTube, Syeda Arif was readying her family for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr—three days of gift giving, party hopping,overeating, and prayer to conclude the fast of Ramadan. At 30, Syeda was petite, with almond-shaped eyes and a husky laugh. She and her husband, Amir, lived in a Bangladeshi enclave in the northwest San Fernando Valley. Her father had been twice nominated to the Bangladeshi parliament, and Amir liked to say that she made friends with the ease of a born politician.

Around noon in the gathering heat of the day, Syeda buckled her two-month-old daughter, Ikra, into the car seat in her Honda Civic and drove to the home of Romey Islam, one of her best friends. The Islams lived in a modest gray ranch house on Sherman Way near Van Nuys Airport. Its soundproof front windows looked out onto a six-lane river of crosstown traffic that, like the row of palm trees lining the sidewalk, continued as far as the eye could follow. Read more…

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And keeping in the vain of “life’s too short”, here’s another article I highly recommend taking the time to read.  It’s an inspiring look at Roger Ebert, perhaps the best known film critic in America.  Those of you in other countries have probably never heard of him, but I’ve always had a special affinity for Mr. Ebert.  He was a fixture in Chicago where I grew up, and his movie reviews with Gene Siskel and patented “thumbs up or down” are legendary.  Five years ago, when the movie “Rent” came out, I was very excited.  Any regular reader of this space knows that seeing the musical “Rent” in 1996 was a seminal event in my life.  I went on to see the show 15 times in 15 different countries!  While I was a bit underwhelmed by the transition from stage to screen; subsequent viewings of the movie made me appreciate it more.  Upon realizing this, I wrote to Mr. Ebert to take issue with a few of the comments he made in his review of the film.  Imagine my surprise the next day, when I got a personal response from Roger Ebert from his personal email address; and he actually agreed with me!  I thought that was a very classy thing for him to do.  At the time, I had no idea of the huge medical ordeals he was facing.  I read this article last night and it brought tears to my eyes. Roger Ebert is a class act. This is the story of a life well lived and it’s worth your time. 

February 16, 2010, 7:01 AM

Roger Ebert: The Essential Man

It has been nearly four years since Roger Ebert lost his lower jaw and his ability to speak. Now television’s most famous movie critic is rarely seen and never heard, but his words have never stopped.  Read more…

PLUS: Have You Seen All of the Essential Movies?

By Chris Jones

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It was a very busy weekend at The Hotel Careyfornia, filled with many of my blog’s namesakes, primarily dogs (4), kids (3), and sunsets (2).  Thankfully, there was little mention of Sarah Palin and her redneck teleprompter!  Friday, Seth and Hannah came by with Garbo & Ruby.  On Saturday, David & Rebecca came with the two girls and Chanel the dog (just like last Valentine’s Day, when I went to Gay Traffic School!).  Despite snow in 49 of the 50 United States, it was 75° (24° C) in L.A. and we hiked up to the “new” Hollywood sign.  It’s been covered by conservationists temporarily to prevent land development at one of the last untouched parts of Los Angeles. After a quick trip to Millions of Milkshakes, we headed to The Getty Center for sunset (it’s free after 5:00 on Saturdays!).   We capped the night off celebrating the Lunar New Year with delicious Thai food.  Sunday, Claudio, Ryan, Omar & Chazz came to dance the Valentine’s night away at Avalon.  Tonight, Tyson (who took time out of his busy TV appearance schedule), met me and Chazz for dinner at Hollywood & Highland.  I’m exhausted.  Is it the weekend yet??

The Hollywood Christmas Parade isn’t quite the caliber of Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade, but it’s been a tradition here since 1928.  It features extremely D-List celebrities like Susan Lucci, Lorenzo Lamas, Lee Majors and the minor castmembers of Glee, The Office and a slew of soap operas.  Add some assorted marching bands, balloons, floats and Santa Claus with fake snow on a red carpet and well, you get the idea. 

The temperature in L.A. yesterday afternoon was a balmy 80° F (27° C).  By the time the parade started at 6 PM, it had dropped to a bone chilling, wintry 65° F (18° C).  I’m dog sitting for Garbo & Ruby this week, so we headed to the parade route to meet my aunt and cousins who were dressed like they were at the North Pole!  We enjoyed ourselves, but the real fun came after the parade as I was walking home.  I sneaked on to the red carpet and let the dogs play in the “snow” in front of the Kodak Theater.  They had a blast:

Earlier today, while the rest of the world focused on MJ’s funeral plans, (some are saying up to a million mourners could pour into Los Angeles, making it bigger than Elvis and Princess Diana…I sure am glad I’m leaving for Italy Thursday!!) Farrah Fawcett was remembered in a private funeral mass downtown.  I was in the 6th grade and had just turned 11 years old on September 22, 1976 when Charlie’s Angels premiered on television.  I was instantly smitten with all of the “Angels” and Farrah Fawcett held a special fascination for my prepubescent self.  Perhaps it was the diva in her that attracted me, but nevertheless in that Bicentennial year, it was all “Angels” all the time for me and much of America.  I collected photos and clippings from every magazine I could find, and kept them in a special box that I made that looked like this:

20 years ago, I worked for a bank in Chicago that used a vendor that I worked with extensively.  Eventually, I became friends with one of the vendor’s employees, Todd, who lived in Portland, OR.  One thing led to another, and long story short I went to work for the company, and worked there for 13 years while traveling the world.  When I met first met Todd and his wife Laura, they were newly married and had no kids.  17 years ago, Taylor was born.  He and I were always close, and when Oreo died, Taylor was only 5 years old, and he took it particularly hard.  He had a stuffed animal that he had also named Oreo, and he wanted me to have him.  I convinced him to take care of “his Oreo” for me while I traveled and he faithfully did. 

Fast forward 12 years, and Taylor is going to be a senior in high school!  He’s in the Future Business Leaders of America and is staying with me for a few days to see the sites and look at college campuses.  He wanted to see Michael Jackson’s star, so this afternoon we braved the crowds and headed to the Walk of Fame.  Later we went to dinner and to see The Hangover, which was hilarious.  I’m dog sitting again, so we took Garbo & Ruby for frozen yogurt at midnight. 

My friend Marc told me the other day that my blog should be called:

OK fine, point taken!  I guess he’s right…guilty as charged.  I’m the kiddy, puppy, sunny anti Palin blogger.  The pictures I took Sunday and Monday are of a kid (Hannah), dogs (Garbo, Ruby & Chazz) and a sunset.  LOL.  I guess I should be amazed that anyone still reads this blog (besides mothers and pet owners of the aforementioned, vampires and Levi Johnston (Sarah Palin’s future son-in-law.)).

And speaking of Sarah “The Anti-Christ” Palin, this was on Huff Post today:

But lest you think I’m a 4 trick pony, don’t forget that from January to May you probably have to add one more moniker to my blog…American Idol.  LOL.

Yes, once again, American Idol is upon us.  At its best, the show extols the American Dream.  At its worst, it brings out the schadenfruede in all of us.  Due to my proximity to the show, I tend to get a lot of blogworthy material every season.  Whether it’s my photos from the finales, or my take on some of the ridiculous aspects of the show and the culture that has sprung up around it.  I am curious to know if there will be changes as a result of the suicide in front of Paula Abdul’s house.  I always knew that being mean to mentally unstable people could have disastrous results.  I mean, just listen to these actual Simon Cowell insults:

Every once in a while I’ll go in to Facebook’s Classmate Search and type the name of my high school and college to see who pops up.  The fact that I graduated from high school in 1983 used to make me the oldest living human on Facebook, but no more.  Yesterday, I found several old friends, some I thought I would never see or hear from again!

Some of the messages we exchanged really made me smile.  The fact that my name came up at Thanksgiving 25 years after high school was a delightful surprise.  I didn’t have a whole lot of friends back then and it wasn’t the happiest time of my life.  These people don’t know how much their friendship meant to me during some very dark days.  It reminded me of this situation with another old high school aquaintance last year.  It just goes to show that you should always treat people nicely and with respect.  You may never know how much it means to them.

“I” woke up this morning with Garbo on one side of my pillow and Ruby on the top against my head.  LOL.  I wish I could have taken a picture, it was so cute.  Anyway, Seth and Jessica came home today, so I’m sleeping alone again.    I had a good time with the dogs as usual.  Here are a few photos:

Lisa thinks I’ve been wasting too much negative energy on Sarah Palin of late, but I respectfully think that we must remain vigilant, so that Governor Avon Lady never gets so close to the presidency again.  Bill Maher really sums up my feelings perfectly here.  “I’m trying not to be mean, but I’m sorry, I can’t…”  It’s worth watching to the end:

If only she went away this easily:

This bit about Prop 8 appeared on the same Bill Maher show, and brings up some good points about the “elephant in the room (Religion…you can’t poke in the naughty place…)” at about 2:35.

So yes, it is a new day…but we still have a ways to go!

Andrew Sullivan wrote this on his blog today, and it’s worth clicking through to read the whole thing:

I received emails about this all day long from friends all over the world.  They were shocked and dismayed that this could happen on such an otherwise historic day in America.  Tonight however, the citizens of Los Angeles decided to march.  I’m dog-sitting for Garbo & Ruby this week, and since the march was right outside my home, I decided to let the dogs witness a little history!