Art served

Dropped this little tile at an art show over at Artserve in Fort Lauderdale. It's a picture of Penny. Here's her story: Penny cried when she saw Justin walking away from a dumpster with donuts. Six months ago, before the agency laid off Justin, they used to walk to Starbucks together. Now she wanted to take him to breakfast to talk, but how could she when he needed so much more and she was already behind on her condo payments. Instead, she pretended not to see him. Justin died the following Tuesday. Jumped off an overpass by 95. He was still wearing the same Fuck Bush shirt that Penny saw him wearing the previous weekend. He and Penny bought those shirts together. The newspaper article said the jumper’s Fuck Bush shirt had jelly stains on it. That’s how Penny knew it was Justin. Jelly donuts were his favorite.

The art show was great. Paintings, sculpture, films, open mike, some big weird creature roaming around. I think they called him Articide or something. What the hell WAS that?

The Midnight Gardener

While gardening in the middle of the night Christine experiences true moments of clarity. Sometimes digging her hands into the earth to plant seeds by the light of the moon is the only thing that makes sense in this world.

Christine was hungry from all those late nights, so we took her to Royal India on Griffin Road in Dania, and left her in a spot where she's sure to be found. The Baingan Bhartha here is excellent. It's eggplant barbecued in a Tandoori oven and then mashed and garnished with fresh onion, tomato, peas and herbs. It's kind of pumpkin colored and hot and spicy, in a very good way.

Hopefully , someone will give Christine a good home, maybe right there in the restaurant. We think she'd look real nice right over that fireplace. Hint of the day: If your friend tells you that sag, as in mushroom sag, chicken sag, lamb sag or shrimp sag is actually pronounced "shag," and implies that ordering it otherwise could be embarrassing, don't fall for that.

Is it full moon yet?

Don't worry if your 7/4 plans got rained out earlier this week. Fireworks are seriously overrated anyway. This tile was left on a bus bench somewhere near the beach and Oakland Park Blvd. after Renda Writer's Summer Variety Show at Rumor Has It last night ... about a dozen bands from acoustic to hip-hop and funk, some poets, a guy who played one mean harmonica, Free Pizza (the CD, not the food), pool playing and beers, all in one tiny venue crawling with cameramen ... on Galt Ocean Mile. With events like this, who needs fireworks? It was like "spring ... in the winter."

Afterwards, we went to Pizza Rustica for a slice. On the way, just a few doors down, we passed a place that I'm pretty sure said something about an Internet Cafe on the window, but the music was blasting out of there and there was some sorta crazy conga line thing, with about eight hysterically laughing people, that had snaked outside ... It was very funny, so I ran up to take a picture and just as I was about to snap it, they all let go of each other and went back in. It was crazy, but since I have no proof, you'll just have to take my word for it.

While dining on our gigantic slices a few doors down from there, some guy and a woman came running really fast from across Oakland Park Boulevard, where they apparently rolled onto the ground, yelling at each other, while several more people flew across the street to break it up -- a total brawl that ended in one very angry guy with no shirt running around and kicking over bikes and attacking cars, all while screaming at the top of his lungs into his cell phone. My friend Jane said they must have come from that club across the way, where she'd seen a sign that said $20 for all you can drink. I think by that time of night, some had clearly had all they could drink.

I'll be very happy to hang inside tonight and listen to music and paint.

A tile for Joey

I am so incredibly lucky. A friend recently informed me that she had snagged a bunch of small tiles from a pile that one of her neighbors had out for bulk pickup. There were some bigger ones in there, she said but she didn't think I would want those. I went right over and found some really huge tiles ... They're a little too big to carry in my purse and hide somewhere, but I painted one last night to give to my brother for his birthday. He likes to garden. I love it when I can snag something from the bulk pickup pile to paint on. There are lots of smaller purse-size tiles, too. So I'll be painting and hiding some of those very soon.

New barrettes

A friend and I drove by that little Irish place that has always been McGuiness, and noticed the new sign: Barrett's NY Steakhouse. Decided to investigate and upon discovering that nothing had changed, stayed for a drink and dropped off this little tile of Dani & Joe. .... Dani wondered if Joe felt the same way she did. Joe just wondered why she smiled so much and kept saying "awesome." He found her just a little too upbeat and happy, and wondered how much longer before this night would finally be over. ..... We decided that Barrett's NY Steakhouse sounded too stuffy for an informal little Irish pub sorta place, so decided from this point on to call it Barrettes, as in those little things you put in your hair.

"The Countess of Tipico"

Maria knows exactly how many dots are on her shirt, and how many cracks are in the sidewalk between her house and the Mini-Mart. She also knows how many stop signs she passes on the way to work. Counting helps her to feel in control. That's why they call her The Countess.

Dropped The Countess off at Tipico Cafe, so she could count how many people were talking about the new Michael Moore movie Sicko, which was showing right next door at the Sunrise Cinema in Gateway. That's a lot of pissed-off people to count. Maria wishes she could try to count the number of angry people taking to the street in protest of a system that abandons and kills people who don't have the money to pay grossly inflated hospital bills. She wishes there would be too many angry protesting people to count.

She hopes it happens quickly, before millions more people die at the hands of a system that rewards insurance claims reviewers for denying people life-saving care ... in essence, killing them to cut losses for filthy rich corporations whose head honchos get fatter and richer every time one of their paying customers is sentenced to death.

Maria, meanwhile, has a disorder that makes her keep counting things. Her doctor recommended a medication, and even provided Maria with a free sample that the doc got from the pharmaceutical rep the day he took the doc and her entire staff to lunch at an expensive five-star restaurant. Next month, the doc may have to attend a "continuing education" program sponsored by his pharmaceutical company, somewhere in Hawaii, I think. All expenses paid. Maria refused the meds. She likes counting better than she likes pharmaceutical companies. Sometimes, when she can't sleep at night, she counts pharmaceutical company CEOs. She imagines each one in a small locked room with no access to the things they need to live.