Monday, January 26, 2004

posted by: copernicus on 1/26/2004 02:48:00 PM
Puerto Aventuras Vol. 3

"Wed the 21st, 9 pm

Well, it's about 24 hours later and I'm back from the Cozumel dive trip. It was just as beautiful as I remembered. Parrotfish, stingrays, sea urchins, blue tangs, lobsters, Queen Angelfish, moray eels, barracuda, a Midnight Parrotfish (dark blue instead of the normal green and very rare), and even an 8 foot Nurse shark.

Still, nothing compares to the Great Barrier Reef. It's the only single living organism visible from orbit. As beautiful as this place is, it's like comparing the Appalachians and the Rockies. Tomorrow is the big day, and there is a problem with the camera. Our camera is rated to 50 feet below water, but we'll need a flash in the caverns which we don't have. The dive shop had a reloadable dive camera with a flash and rated to 90 feet below, but sold the last one before we got there this morning. It would be an incredible waste to not be able to show anyone what we dove.

I don't feel much like writing tonight, sorry, I'm just not in the mood for some reason. Except to say that I nailed a friend of mine today. Rodney was sitting on the edge of the pool, and his boyfriend Mike was in the water trying to coax him in. Rodney was bitching about the cold water and being prissy, so I got a running start, leapt over his head and did a cannonball about 2 feet in front of him. When I surfaced, he was standing, dripping wet and screamed: "You motherfucker! Don't make me embarrass you by having a nelly fag kick a staightboy's ass!"

Mike thought it was hilarious. I'm going to read my book and go to bed. No drinking on dive days.

Goodnight.
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One more thing, an excerpt from the book I'm reading in bed right now. This is for Todd and Molly, who have also long heard the music:

RANDOM QUOTE OF THE DAY

"These people were a mere 3 or 4 generation removed from their nomadic past, when they were as rootless as the sand dunes, or rather rooted in the knowledge that the journeying itself was home."
-Salman Rushdie-The Satanic Verses-1988
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I couldn't sleep, so I went downstairs for a virgin Bahama Mama, and overheard 2 Americans weighing the relative "hotness" of Pamela Anderson vs. Carmen Electra. You can call me crazy, but I've never thought either one was a hottie. Too fake, too plastic, too much of what my friend Paula would call "skeezy". I have friends who would disagree, but these are the same friends who subscribe to Hustler and Penthouse, where all the women have bleach blonde hair and fake tits.

I like natural beauty, subtle or preferably no make-up, hair that's not full of chemicals and won't burst into flames if an errant sparks lands on it. And I don't like breast implants. I mean, if it's a medical necessity like a crippling psychological stigma or a mastectomy or 4 kids worth of breast feeding, go for it, do what you gotta do. But I'm in love with the complex and astonishing beauty of the female body, the natural female body, and Pamela Anderson doesn't fall into that category. She is the result of a plastic surgeon's craftsmanship, not her own D.N.A. Look what plastic surgery did to Michael Jackson, and I think you'll see where I'm coming from.

When I think of hot celebrities, I seem to be attracted to unusual looking girls. Don't get me wrong, I had my adolescent crushes in Diane Lane when I saw The Outsiders, Tawny Kittaen in Bachelor Party and Meg Ryan in anything from the late 80's-early 90's, but who do I really think is beautiful? The unusual looking girls:

Ione Skye in Say Anything,
Clea Duvall in most of her projects (I can't put my finger on why, but she's got something in her eyes),
Fairuza Balk (I know, she plays psychos and wears make-up, but even as a goth-chick she's still got it),
and of course Emily Lloyd, always liked her, and most of my friends don't see it.

Sure there's the J-Lo's and Anna Kournikova's of the world, but I'd take Emily Lloyd in Coming Home or A River Runs Through It any day over those two. Let the rest of America fight over the superficial plastic women, I know where the real beauty is. Call me crazy, that's just the way I see it.

And while we're discussing under-rated women, Holly Hunter is probably my favorite actress working today. I fell in love the first time I saw Raising Arizona when she uttered a sobbing : "My fee-ance left me." and "Give me that baby you warthog from hell!". And Home For the Holidays is one of my all-time favorite holiday movies. The relationship her character has with her brother in that movie makes me feel lucky to know that kind of bond with another human being. I know alot of people who's family relationships are more like the one she has with her sister, and I cannot comprehend how blood relatives can treat each other that way. You are supposed to fight & protect for that which you love, goddamnit.
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I just thought of something that made me laugh. I once saw a t-shirt I appreciated at an Ani Di Franco show that said: "Nerdy girls make me hot"
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Another random thought-
How come none of the abstract painters of I've ever heard of are female?
Is Georgia O'Keefe all we've got. Frida Kahlo?
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