The inaugural storytelling theme was “the law” and I got on board both because I’ve been I’ve been buried for a long time in solitary writing and because the topic hit a nerve. The extent to which modern conservative governments are flagrantly breaking the law really upsets me.

I originally wanted to do a bunch of short stories about the scandals that are linked to up above, but time got the better of me. I only managed to bang out one before the June 26th reading.

The event was, I think, a big success. There was some comedy, some drama and some dramedy.

I thought it’d be fun to post up the story that I read that night along with a song that I think works well with the theme.

Hope you like it…

Six Four Two One Short Stories About The Law

Once upon a time a young woman fell in love. The woman’s name was America and she was smart and beautiful and practically virginal. She graduated near the top of her high school class and went away to college to study biology.

America had an easy lyrical laugh and a sprinkling of adorable freckles. Her hair was long and healthy and as golden as the sun-drenched wheat belt that stretched from Siskiyou County in the north all the way to Imperial County in the south in her home state of California.

On the first day of her undergraduate Molecular Embryology class, America met a young man named Vigor. Vigor was smart and strong and practically virginal. Vigor was a high school track-and-field champ and had gone away to college to study agriculture. Vigor was tall and broad shouldered. He had kind eyes. His hair was thick and neat and as dark as the seam of ebony marble that wound through the Cascade Mountain Range in his home state of California.

Vigor and America became lab partners, then study partners, then tennis partners. Eventually Vigor asked America if she would become his life partner as well.

Despite the fact that America and Vigor were raised in large tight-knit families, they were determined that their wedding would not be a slavish imitation of ancestral traditions. The ceremony would, above all else, be a true reflection of their green and matchless love. So even though America had been raised Roman Catholic and although Vigor had grown up Southern Baptist, in the spirit of ecumenical harmony the young couple decided that their marriage would take place on the neutral ground of the Kern County Courthouse in Bakersfield, California.

America and Vigor had arranged for their solemnizing ceremony to take place on Friday the 27th of June 2008. It would be the perfect day for a summer wedding, they thought. The spring planting and first cycle of weeding would be long-completed and school would be out for the tow-headed army of nieces and nephews who’d be pouring in from all over the state. If Vigor’s well-thumbed almanac was right, they would exchange their vows on a warm and cloudless day with temperatures dropping low enough in the evening to allow for the use of fashionable wraps and dinner jackets.

When there were only two weeks remaining before the big day, America allowed herself to enjoy a brief moment of self-congratulatory calm. She’d inherited her meticulous nature from her mother and had dutifully dug to the bottom of a highly detailed to do list. There was only one last item to attend to.

America popped open her laptop and surfed over to the Kern County Courthouse Web site. A few additional out of town guests had asked to attend the ceremony and she wanted to make sure that they wouldn’t tip the scales on the wedding hall’s fire regulations.

America was floored by what she found online.

The note was written on the Kern County Clerk’s Web page under the heading, “Marriage Licenses”. America read through it several times until tears of frustration and anger welled up in the corners of her clear blue eyes.

The note said:

The County Clerk’s office will not solemnize weddings after June 13, 2008. We will not have the staff or space to deal with an increase in both licenses and ceremonies. Because of long-term administrative plans, budgetary reasons, and the need to increase security for elections, the Clerk’s office will cease solemnizing weddings, which is discretionary on the part of the County Clerk. As done in other counties, information necessary to solemnize marriages will be made available to those acquiring licenses.

America was shocked. How could this be possible? She’d planned for every contingency. The tents were ordered, the caterers were booked. The Byzantine seating arrangement had been hammered down for over a month. And now, suddenly, the county clerk wouldn’t be performing marriages anymore?

The young woman turned her attention back to the Internet, conducted a flurry of probing research and then picked up the phone. She dialed the Kern County Clerk, a woman named Ann Barnett.

“Hello Ann,” America said as cheerfully as she could manage, “It’s America.”

America listened patiently as the older woman spoke.

“Yes, I see,” America said, “And that’s exactly what’s up on the Web site, but I have a few questions. I mean you say that you don’t have the staff or space to deal with the ceremonies but…”

She took a deep breath and charged ahead.

“I did some research and learned that you and your predecessors typically perform over 40% of Kern County marriages. And I know for a fact that the Kern County Courthouse has two huge rooms dedicated specifically for marriages because as you’re no doubt aware, I had one booked.

“Yes Ann, yes…”

America listened again.

“Yes, but Ann, as to the financial argument, as I’m sure you know the president of the California Association of Clerks and Election officials was recently quoted by Reuters saying that contrary to your claim, marriage ceremonies actually make money. In fact, according to the Bakersfield Califonian newspaper, Kern County civil ceremonies pull in an average of $50,000 a year. And as for staffing, those ceremonies take, on average, seven minutes to perform by staff who are paid less than $20 an hour.”

America listened to one final burst from the County Clerk. She sighed.

“To be honest Ann, the security issue seems like the weakest argument of all,” she said. “If it wasn’t a problem for the past two decades, why would it suddenly become one now?”

“Look Ann,” America said, “Let’s level with each other. Woman to woman.”

She chose an even tone and spoke clearly and calmly into the receiver.

“Ann are you sure that your decision doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that California’s Supreme Court struck down the state’s ban on same-sex marriage on May 15th in a broadly worded decision that would invalidate any law that discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation that comes into effect two days from now on June 15th?

“And isn’t it true that you requested that the County Counsel file a brief with the California Supreme Court opposing implementation of the May 15th ruling allowing gay marriage and that you subsequently made the decision to shut down all marriages when that same counsel advised that it would be illegal for you to only marry couples of your own choosing?

“And don’t you find it bit too ironic, Ann, that each of the five Californian counties who have decided to stop performing any marriages in the face of this decision have all voted staunchly Republican for over 40 years? I mean I know Republicans have said that gay marriage would ruin traditional marriage but I’m not sure this is what they had–”

But she didn’t get to finish her sentence. The line went dead.

Ann Barnett had hung up on America.

(Click to play song…)

. . .

Here’s my little coda: if history has taught us anything it’s that people who line up against equality and love have been proven to be on the wrong side of the issue again and again and again.

As of right now, five four Republican-leaning counties in California have stopped solemnizing any marriages, gay or straight, fulfilling that age-old conservative adage, “If you can have it, no-one can.”

The counties are:

Merced County – strongly Republican (reversed its decision under intense pressure)
Claveras County – Republican since 1964
Kern County – Republican since 1964
Butte County – Republican since 1964
Kings County – Republican since 1964

You can contact the Kern County Clerk at the following co-ordinates:

Ann K. Barnett
1115 Truxtun Avenue
Bakersfield, CA 93301-4639
Regular Office Hours 8:00 AM - 5:00 PM Mon-Fri
Open To The Public 8:30 AM - 4:00 PM Mon-Fri
(661) 868-3588

Here’s what happened when I tried to get in touch with Videotron’s tech support via chat this morning (notice that they have removed the timestamp from their previous chat interface).

For all of its life so far the book that I’ve been writing has only existed in my head and on the computer screen. No one else (including my best buddy life-partner) has seen or read a word of it… Until now. [Cue the dramatic music.]

Late last night after piloting our new electric scooter through the mean streets of Montreal, Jeanne and I laid eyes on the first-ever printed pages of The Virus Makers.

I finished the first draft of this Young Adult novel at the end of March and my soccer-loving, boy-fathering, cousin-in-law Peter Coles kindly offered to print it up for me. Pete’s the VP of Sales and Marketing at Arcprint (and imaging) and it seemed appropriate that the book be birthed back in Vancouver where I first started writing it in the spring of 2006.

I’ll speak more about the book in, I’m sure, way too many subsequent posts, but for now I just want to fête the newly corporeal block of text that is the first draft of The Virus Makers!

Betty Boop started out her cartoon life as a dog-like creation of Max Fleischer (an animation legend who helped bring Popeye, Superman and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer to life).

Boop first appeared in the early 1930s sporting a decidedly 1920s style — it was all about the saucy little flapper dress, jazz beats and wry winks to sexily intoxicated good times. Eventually she was toned down (yet another black mark on the morality police) and her popularity waned.

One thing that makes Betty Boop’s earlier cartoons so great was that, unlike other movie-makers at the time, Max Fleischer wasn’t afraid to work with black musicians.

Check out the incredible1933 Betty Boop cartoon Snow White below (not to be confused with the Disney version that came out four years later: You can read Time’s 1937 review of that movie here).

Fleischer’s inspired version of Snow White features an incredible section with Koko the Clown dancing in a skeletal underworld. Koko was voiced by none other than Cab Calloway doing an amazing version of St. James Infirmary Blues…

(This film was chosen for preservation by the U.S. Library of Congress in the National Film Registry in 1994.)

Over the next little while I’ll be modifying the look-and-feel of the site as well as its focus. The site (now simply jwhiting at jwhiting.com) will serve as my professional face-to-the world.

Although I’m not entirely comfortable with the idea, in order to advance a big-ish project that’s coming down the pipe I have to get into the business of self-promotion. Expect some more talk about my writing and what I’m up to and less about my gift wishes and what I’m laughing at. Also expect the site to look a bit wonky and going up and down before everything gets back on track.

Thanks.

Jason

Jeanne and I recently became proud owners of a 100% electric Vespa-like thrill ride fun ride called the EVT-168. And if we ever hit the big-time, we hope that the electric vehicle upgrade path leads towards the ready-for-purchase beast above.

I recently wrote about the Tesla Roadster for Lycos and I don’t think they’ll mind if I reproduce the text here where no one will ever notice it (links embedded in the text)…

Tesla Roadster

If the future of transportation looks like this, let’s hit the fast-forward button pronto.

Even though the Tesla Roadster is working through some prototype issues (like trying to find a transmission that can withstand the kick-assedness of an over-powerful engine that supplies continuous torque) the stats on this vehicle are pick-your-jaw-off-the-floor incredible:

0 to 60 mph in under 4 seconds in a 220 mile range, zero-emission, 2¢/mile thrill-ride.

It’s electronic, guilt-free automotive sexiness.

Tesla is planning to offer more modestly priced versions of their cars in the future (the Roadster retails at about $100,000) and is also going to sell fun add-ons like solar panels that can be installed on the roof of your garage that give enough juice to power you through about 50 miles per day. That’s 100% off-the-grid sweetness. George Clooney already has one, shouldn’t you?

(Don’t have the scratch for that kind of electric ride? Why not look into one of the many, ever-improving, electric motorcycles and scooters that are coming down the pipe?)

There’s no reason why something that’s on the Internet in Kansas shouldn’t be available in Kingston, Khartoum or Kuala Lumpur. It’s not the ‘AmericaWeb’ or the ‘IranNet’ or the ‘ChinaTubes’. It’s the Internet. The whole point is that it should be available everywhere all the time. If you start to parse the Internet out according to any arbitrary set of rules, you rob it of its value, its very reason for being.

That said, imagine how much my ass was chapped this afternoon by this total dick move from Yahoo:

Mere minutes ago, I surf over to ‘my.yahoo.com’ where a specially placed Yahoo banner ad catches my eye. The ad is apparently promoting new skins/themes for the ‘My Yahoo’ page.

The first banner ad I saw said:

“The new backgrounds and layouts are awesome!” - S.

(Click the ad below to see the full-size image:)

Now while I’ll admit that I’m not completely satisfied with my current ‘My Yahoo’ background and layout, it generally takes more than one recommendation by a person who can’t even be bothered to include more than their first initial to convince me to click on a banner ad. I mean who does this ‘S.’ man/woman/dog think they are anyhow?

And that’s when I was hit by the follow up pitch:

“Blows the old one out of the water!” - N.

(Again, click the banner below to see the full-size image:)

I momentarily stumble over the “old one” comment. (I thought we were just talking about backgrounds and layouts… Weren’t there several, albeit mediocre, old ones?) But then I see that this is an entirely new recommendation. Holy shit. Both S. and N. have weighed in on this issue with full-bore exclamation-mark-laden enthusiasm.

What the hell, I decide. If it’s good enough for two of the most common letters in the English language, then it must be good enough for me…

Trembling with anticipatory glee, I click on the exciting yellow ‘Show Me’ button.

Here’s the full-page message that follows:

We appreciate your interest in the new My Yahoo! Beta. Unfortunately it is only open to My Yahoo! users in specific countries.

Um, then why…? But…? Really…? [Sighs, pushes back from computer. Goes to read a book.]

The Wire: Season 4 was just delivered to my door from Amazon.com.

Checking my Visa statement, the purchase, including shipping, cost me $36.40.

If I was to have bought this item at Amazon.ca, it looks like I would have paid, uh, $62.59!

Canadian retailers better get in line. Consumers aren’t stupid.

Happy Yule!

J.

Over the course of a few weeks, Jeanne and I worked with a variety of microphones, locations, friends and family (thanks to Massimo, DeAnne, Joanne, Graham, George and Beryl). With audio in-hand, the Jeanster and I then huddled together in the bowels of the CBC Montreal mothership with CBC producer Frank Opolko (an all around great guy and comedy radio legend who produced Radio One’s most popular comedy show ever “Madly Off in all Directions”).

The demo has been sent off to Tom Anniko, CBC’s radio ‘decider’. We should hear back by the end of April.

In the meantime, we’d really appreciate hearing what you think about the demo. You can leave your comments right here on this post.

(As always, iTunes users can subscribe to the irregularly updated SDtSU podcast by clicking here. If you don’t use iTunes, you can subscribe to the podfeed by copying this link into your podcast player.)