Montel Williams threatens National Security

So I read another article of “B” list celebrities behaving stupidly here.  The gist of it is Montel Williams made bizarre threats against reporters who were covering charity work he was doing.

My favorite line from the article is Montel Williams telling someone “Do you know who I am? I’m a big star, and I can look you up, find where you live and blow you up.”

Which is hilarious for so many reasons.  Since when has Montel Williams become a big star?  He runs a day time talk show that is about as hard hitting as a Barbara Walters interview.  As for blowing people up, the only domestic terrorists in recent years have been backed by PETA,  so unless he plans to join Ingrid Newkirk’s cult, he might find it hard to carry out his threats.

My question is, however, does anyone else lose a little respect for celebrities who champion causes that affect them?  I don’t blame anyone for trying to escape the clutches of some horrible disease, but, I have to be a little cynical when they try to take on the mantle of selfless devotee of the afflicted, when, they are really only trying to keep their own butt out of the coffin.  Yes, some good comes out of people like Christopher Reeve, Montel Williams, and Michael J. Fox raising cash for a worthy cause.  I wonder how much attention they paid before their own lives were on the line.

 It seems that people like Elizabeth Taylor and Gregory Peck who raise money for diseases they do not actually have, are becoming increasingly rare.

Getting settled. Again.

Its funny.  You would think that being unemployed would give me a lot of free time.  Unfortunately it has not.

The day after returning to the U.S. I had to server jury duty.  I had been postponing it for about two years with six month extensions.  Apparently the good people at the jury services office just could not understand the concept of living outside the country.  So I got to spend my first full day in the states not enjoying the company of my family, but sleeping in a room full of strangers.  (Going west across the dateline I handle well, but for some reason going east across the Pacific always throws me for a loop and my sleep schedule still isn’t stabilized.  Just last night I couldn’t keep my eyes open past 10:30 and I woke up completely refreshed at the sensible hour of 4:45 in the a.m.)  Obviously no jurors were actually called on that day- they were half ready to riot at having to serve jury duty the day before Thanksgiving.  They would have condemned Mother Theresa to the gas chamber out of spite. 

Being completely jet  lagged while serving jury duty made for an interesting experience.  While sleeping soundly in my chair, some elderly gentleman thought it would be a good idea to wake me up by touching my hand.  I, of course, made the sensible response of leaping out of my chair, and throwing punches in the air.  I might have yelled something too, I am not sure.  I did have the good fortune of being in the courthouse cafeteria and there were few people about.

Also as readers of my blog may have gathered, I am a slightly sarcastic person.  In Japan I usually would make snide remarks about people in English.  While my wife and I were in Europe, I would keep my witty comments confined to the Japanese language.

So while serving jury duty I was watching a young woman play Hearts on a laptop.  I also may have, possibly, commented on her lack of ability at playing the game.  When I allegedly made those comments, I was also possibly located about three feet from her.  Due to my jet-lag, I may have made those comments in English, and in a loud voice.  At which point she may have paused the game, turned around and looked at me.  To which I may or may not have replied “Well, its a good day to practice, right?” and given her a little wave.

Since serving Jury Duty, I had to spend the day at the Social Security office trying to get my wife assigned a SSN.  (A story for another day.)  Coming down with a nasty cold, and my mom undergoing a three hour surgery.  I plan to update more regularly from here on out. 

I dont need a pic of my shoes, thanks

What I want to know is why is it that tourists cannot take a decent picture to save their life.  As C and I travel around we want to get pictures of us together at various land marks.  So doing as tourists do we ask other tourists to take a quick snapshot of us together.

Almost invariably we get shots aimed right at our feet.

What is that? If we wanted to take pictures of our shoes we wouldnt travel 3,000 miles before doing so. (pro tip- if another tourist is standing infront of a famous church, temple castle or whatever, and they ask you to take a picture… they probably do NOT want you to take a picture of their shoes.)  So we have pictures of our shoes at the Eiffle Tower, Notre Dame, the Duomo in Venice. 

 In particular one drunk texas woman offered to take C and my picture at a canal in Venice.  We got a picture of our feet and the pavement of the bridge we were standing on.  As she handed us the camera she litterally crooned “Thats a good picture!”  I just do not understand people.

We have been here in Naples for a few days now.  The name of the city of Naples comes from an ancient Latin word that comes means “It is futile to buy a new car.”  EVERY CAR here has tons of body damage.  It doesnt seem to matter if they are old or new, expensive or cheap.  There is not a car in the city of Naples that doesnt have a few large dents and scratches.  Also apparently the game of Russian roulette is modeled after crossing the street in this city, only the game has slightly less risk.

 There are two strategies for crossing the street-

1. Bob and weave back and forth like a game of real life leap frogger, only you have no extra quarters.

2. Put your head down, shut your eyes and just go for it.

Both seem to have a similar rate of success. 

 One thing that has surpised me about Italy in general is the amount of anti nazi and pro communist graffitti.  It is kind of like finding a whole city where everyone still uses beta-max. (what, they still make you?- thanks Chris Rock)  I mean who is Communist any more? You have Cuba and… Vietnam, kinda…

Yesterday we went to the city of Pompeii.  I was suprised to find that it was a proper city.  I was expecting something alot smaller, but it is almost an amusement park.  There werent that many of the plaster corpses in the city, but what there was were in a shockingly good condition.  One even had visible eyelids.  (Who knew mixing boiling fat with ash could produce such good resolution)  Added to that, on the way to Italy I read a National Geographic that claimed that Mt. Vesuvius was due for an eruption any day now that should vaporize the entire city of Naples.  I am happy I came to Naples but I will be happier to leave uncooked.  It would be my luck to have my flesh vaporized while visiting.

Most of the places are kinda meh.  I got one picture of a fresco of a man weighing his own member.  (Apparently he is equal to one large sack of grain- Apparently they didnt have P.E. class to call eachothers bluff back in the Pax Romana)  The cathouse was pretty interesting.  The fescos form a kind of menu of services availible.  ( I looked, but could find no “buffet” option.) 

Also I learned today that www.weather.com is friggen useless. Well it isint bad if you expect that every weather prediction it makes is 100% wrong.  Here is a brief guide to translating the website-

sunny:  It will rain cats and dogs for the next week.

rainy:  Tank top and shorts weather.

Clear: London-esque fog conditions.Scattered showers:  Hedging their bets, either hot and sunny or cold, windy and rainy.  Most likely the opposite of what you prefer.

Reason I mention this is that C had the big goal of visiting the Blue Grotto on the Isle of Capri.   Yesterday we checked the weather on www.weather.com (I dont know why i always use it- it really is ALWAYS wrong.)  Which predicted rain the whole day today.  So we nixed visiting the Grotto today.

We slept in (through the cheap ferry, of  course) and woke up to clear, blue skys and a beautiful sunny day.

So we gamble and hop on a hydrofoil (at 15 euros each, one way) to Capri.  Get to Capri, buy tickets on a tour boat. (12 euro each)  Then head out to the Blue grotto. (The enterance is only 1 meter in diameter so there is no gaurantee you can actually go inside.)  Then hire a sculled boat to actually enter the blue grotto plus tickets.  (9 euro each tickets plus a 5 euro “tip” for the boat man)  Where we float around in the darki with 10 other boatfulls of strangers.  Every other boatman singing or whistling or whatever they can do to try and get a larger tip from their passengers.  Think every overdone Italian Opera  you have ever heard mixed in a giant martini. 

 Still, the water glowed blue.  It was cool.  Got a bunch of nice video and a few nice pictures inside the grotto.   It was a bit pricy but worth it.  ( I just wish the dozen boatmen would pick the best singer among them to sing instead of hearing every cliche Italian song ever.  One guy was even whistling the theme song to “the Godfather” no murder took place as far as I know.   Too bad.

Afterwards we went down and hung out at the beach until it was time to go back. 

Tomorrow we head out to Rome, the eternal city, second to last stop. (Can you tell this hostel has free internet?  Look how much I wrote, it is almost a proper blog entry.)