we’ve been touring with the boys….and eating well…here are some of the places we went in the early fall…and love.

once upon a time in san diego on our way back to phoenix, i asked folks what there that was distinctive to eat. some named some soul food places or italian places but i was hesitant because i get plenty of that in nyc. then stephen said, we do have chino bandito…a chinese mexican fusion. i was really hesitant. steven added that it had been featured on the food network. still apprehensive but a good enough recommendation to try the place. also, the restaurant would be able to accommodate our large post retreat crowd.

i loved it. i got my wife a semi-racist t-shirt and was wondering when i would be able to bring her in person.

a u2 tour stop gave us that chance.

the place was started by a chinese lady…so the legend is shared. the gimmick actually delivers with really good chinese flavors delivered in mexican wraps and styling. there also mexican meats and toppings.  that day we got emerald chicken in a quesadilla and a burrito form, pollo diablo(a spicy chicken) also in quesadilla, jade red chicken in burrito with beans, white rice and the super duper great jerk fried rice. topped off by their snickerdoodle cookie that comes with each combo meal. everything i’ve tried has been magical. you can’t go wrong but we ordered our most favorite items.

make sure to get the sample tour before ordering if you’ve never been there before.

and of course, its the company that help make the meal. thanks to christine, herman, joan and john, brad for coming out. and of course, rebecca for coming out to the supermarket to meet us beforehand because she couldn’t join us for lunch. i love phoenix people!

now theresa is wondering when we can come back again. so am i.

my homage to rem’s its the end of the world as we know it and sport’s illustrated’s sign that the apocalypse is upon us…beyond a moment of zen, this feature displays wtf on steroids! leaving the realm of being humorous or laughable and entering the reality of really disturbing with(at least)one foot in evil territory.

here is the dark side of any major sporting event.  some countries even legalize prostitution during soccer tournaments perhaps in an attempt to capitalize on tax revenue. the bright side is that there are people attempting to help.

Volunteers try to help young sex workers on Super Bowl weekend

(CNN) — Volunteers are taking to the streets of Miami, Florida, this weekend to provide alternatives for teenage girls working the streets as prostitutes on Super Bowl weekend.

Just as Miami’s hotels, restaurants and retail stores are seeing a bump in business for one of the biggest sporting events of the year, law enforcement and social service agencies say they are also witnessing a spike in trafficking of underage sex workers.

“Many social service agencies and law enforcement agencies recognize that there was an increase of victims of trafficking during last year’s Super Bowl,” said Regina Bernadin, Statewide Human Trafficking Coordinator for the Florida Department of Children and Families.

“That correlates with research that whenever there’s a convention, a concert or a large event, traffickers will bring girls to the area to serve the influx of visitors,” she added.

Girls and young women, as well as their pimps, come from as far as New York and Texas to meet the increased demand, says Brad Dennis, director of search operations for KlaasKIDS Foundation, which is spearheading the outreach effort.

“It’s just that party culture,” Dennis said. “Super Bowl is an entertainment event and everyone wants to come down and party and when you throw that mix into an area with lots money to spend, it’s a traffickers’ playground.”

Due to the clandestine nature of underage sex trafficking, it’s hard to track the exact number of girls who are brought in for the Super Bowl and other big events. But a look at online escort listings gives some clues, Dennis said.

One free online site offered 38 ads for Miami on January 16, but more than 200 on Saturday night, he said. It was impossible to tell how many of the advertised escorts might be underage.

On less high-profile weekends in Miami, Trudy Novicki, Executive Director of Kristi House, said her organization looks at the number of reported runaways as an indicator of how many girls could be working in the sex trade.

“We know that a very high percentage of runaways will end up being approached by a pimp within 72 hours of hitting the streets and they will be prostituted in order to survive on the streets,” Novicki said. “So we know there is an extremely high correlation between runaway juveniles and underage prostitution.

Kristi House is also helping to coordinate the Super Bowl weekend outreach, Novicki said.

The profile of a typical runaway cuts across socio-economic lines, Novicki said, but many of them leave home to escape some form of abuse.

In an effort to reach those girls, state and local law enforcement agencies are teaming up with social service agencies to coordinate nighttime outreaches to girls on the streets.

Starting Wednesday, small teams of three or four volunteers have set out each night scoping the streets for potential trafficking victims, covering ground from Fort Lauderdale to South Beach to Hialeah. The hard part isn’t locating the girls but finding an opportunity to approach them without drawing the attention of their pimps, said volunteer Eddy Ameen.

“Safety’s always an issue because we know the girls aren’t alone. We have to make sure we’re not presenting potential harm to them,” said Ameen, executive director of StandUp For Kids Miami.

If they get a girl’s attention, they hand her a card with a hot line number for resources on how to get out of “the life,” Ameen said.

“It’s usually a very brief encounter — just a few minutes, if that. Some may not call the next day or the day after or ever. We can give out card 100 times and maybe five will call. But if they do, we’ve made a difference,” he added.

Another component of the operation aims to educate hotels and the hospitality industry on how to spot sex-trafficking operations on their premises and report it — an approach that yielded the majority of leads at last year’s Super Bowl in Tampa, Florida, according to Dennis.

“Last year we put together 21 leads that we gave to law enforcement, most of them from business owners or hotel owners basically stating I believe I have a trafficker and his girls stay at my hotel,” he said.

“They’d see a lot of traffic coming and going, or girls standing out on corners.,” Dennis added. “Those are all obvious signs, but good on them for actually reporting it.”

The epidemic of underage sex trafficking isn’t contained to Super Bowl weekend. An estimated 100,000 girls in the United States are under the control of a pimp or trafficker, according to Shared Hope Intermational, a nonprofit that works to combat worldwide sex trafficking.

It’s a reality that groups like KlaasKIDS, StandUp For Kids and Kristi House encounter daily, Ameen said.

“The common perception is that the girls enjoy it, they make money, they’re independent or they do it by choice. But when you work with young people selling their bodies, it’s not a choice. It’s a way to survive,” he said.

“I don’t want the idea to go away when Super Bowl ends. The reality is that it’s more concentrated on Super Bowl weekend, but they’re still out there come Monday morning.”

winter means more independent than blockbuster fare though i’ve been spending most of my time catching up on indie releases from late 2009 than from early 2010. i watched brothers based on jim sheridan directing, reportedly great acting turned in by the cast and for a chance to hear the new u2 song rolling through the credits. too bad, this was not a great sheridan outing and the theatre accidentally turned off the sound after the last scene. luckily, the performances did create engagement…but not throughout.

the trailer does a good job not giving away everything though the basic plot structure can be gleaned from it.  two brothers, one respected and one black sheep are the focus of the film. the beloved brother is sent on another tour of duty while the tolerated brother continues to waste his life away.

during a flight mission, the soldier brother is captured but is thought to be dead.  the rest of the film chronicles the transformation of both siblings resulting from this including their eventual reunion and  relationship there after.

while many will complain that the movie was plenty long, ironically i think it isn’t long enough. the passage of time is essential to transformational epics and there weren’t enough connective tissue moments to show the nuances and development.  for example, the time from mourning to life returning to normal via almost slapstick comedic episodes transitioned too quickly. and too suddenly after that, the family was brought together again. more scenes would have allowed us to linger in each emotion.

natalie portman is miscast. she is too attractive and thus distracting. in fact the movie makes constant reference to her radiance as if everybody knew it too.

i don’t think i would watch this again. except maybe to hear the u2 song. but i probably will just find the song on itunes. theresa would have been bored.

i suspect that tivo would not decrease my television watching time but increase it. so alas, i still watch commercials but find fewer folks to discuss them with. i often get blank looks when i ask…have you seen…..?

i realized that if i posted commercials, my audience may actually be watching them for the first time…but then we can talk about them!

here’s the fifth video in my presentation of this clever campaign.

alcohol ads usually take one of two paths…clever funny is one. alcoholic behavior is the second with a possible third way being a hybrid. but most follow the play book of “hello, i am an alcoholic…and this is my life.”

these ads which have been running maybe trailblazing a new path….completely mad. i love these ads…..as opposed to the smirnoff ads that i have been mocking!

these are fun, snarky…and just plain mad!! i love madness.

stay thirsty, mi amigos!

i have a column about comic books but i also wanted one exclusively on collecting(mostly toys). so i thought of the collector…the supervillian identity of the comic book guy on the simpsons….this is a nerdy homage to him, collecting and indirectly to matt groening.

i read somewhere that its part of human nature to collect. so a question to ask, that is strangely revealing, is what is it that we collect?……handbags, music, stamps, coins, shoes, clothes, memories, gadgets, junk, plastic bags to reuse, rocks…

i had been collecting some futurama toys…and some kid robot simpsons toys. then kid robot made futurama toys….i picked up 2 to check them out.

i made a promise to theresa that i would only buy 2 more futurama kid robot figures for a total of 4. well below the 12 available figures out there. i promised. i have kept my promise. in fact, i have not purchased any more futurama kid robot figures at all.

this is the story of how my life works.

theresa’s uncle who works for futurama decides to buy me a whole case of figures. just for fun. no joke. when we arrived in la, he surprised me with it. to theresa’s dismay.

i just shrugged. this is how my life works.

when i went on my graphic novels fast, someone sent me a graphic novel in the mail just because.

on the side of the box, you can see the available characters including 2 chase figures.

the case has a whopping 16 figures in it. it is as big as my daughter. at least when she was in la. in the blog universe, we are still in la and it is still the early fall. i am way behind on my blogging.

the figures are in blind box batch….meaning you don’t know what you will get. what we know is that we we have doubles. theresa’s uncle wants the doubles for his kids(who can say no to that request???). and we get to keep the ones we don’t have already. we take turns opening the boxes……

and this is some of our booty….not bad. aunt su is the big winner, coming up with a lot of rare and special characters.

ironically, i am two figures short of the whole collection. and of course, i have two more figures i am allowed to buy.

but before you run off with the magical ending…the two figures i need are amongst the rarest of the rare. and it looks like kid robot has finished making these figures. sold out.

but that’s ok….these figures were an unexpected gift. and a lot of fun to share with theresa’s family. they were into the blind box, magic thing!

btw, there is some foreshadowing in this photo. foreshadowing is part of this column.

the downside is the waste it takes for westerners to have fun. its an al qaeda motivational shot. speaking of which….they are expected to make a splash in the next 6-7 months. strange that this was not front page news with the ny times.

one of the casualties post zoe has been this column on my blog…i haven’t talked about comics in a long, long time. here’s to the new year and a new start…..

in this segment, i’ll detail my amore for the art and medium of comics. the title comes from a comic shop i frequented as a kid and a nod to my boy q and his blog.

my mom let me read anything and everything when i was a kid. and with nearly weekly visits to forbidden planet on the weekends, i picked up all sorts of titles that became my “friends” during the summers; part of the comic reader childhood experience where imagination, superheroes and pulp literature intersected with long evenings during june, july and august.

and some of those friends in the 80’s were the earth 2/justice society/all star squadron characters. many of these guys are the original versions of familiar characters before the newer modern versions  came; making this batch the senior citizen characters of the universe…old fogies kept alive by writers and readers who are nostalgic for the old days.

but who else would care?

dc would try anyway and there were enough old farts like me buying the stuff to keep the  lines afloat. the trick is bringing in a new audience….the next generations to care.

the dc universe prides itself on being founded on legacies….characters with lineage and histories…with each generation building on the past and adding their own mark.  one of the best at that is current superstar geoff johns who seems to be writing everything and revitalizing all corners of dc:  from the future with the legion of superheroes…to the past with this cast.  his contribution was to develop the future generations of the jsa.

the downside is that geoff johns has left the book and the two books in its place are pretty standard superhero generics. barely memorable stories which is a shame since the two guys on the books have done well elsewhere.

i gave the overall vibe half a year to develop and the pattern has been the same: underwhelming. i’ve had my share of average superhero tales. maybe these really are books for the next generation who haven’t read these stories with these characters.

i need something more….something other. irredeemable for example. starman, an even better example. or sweet tooth which i will discuss next.

duh!journal scours the earth for dumb behavior….some low brow…some high minded…all duh!

peta is the source of many a cringe funny moment. one website commentator said this: ” I don’t even think PETA is a real organization. I think it’s a troupe of sketch comedians trying to say the most insane things they can to get press, who will eventually parlay their efforts into a movie. They can’t be real people. Really, they can’t.”

here’s the story in question:

Groundhog Day: PETA wants to replace Punxsutawney Phil with a robot

Punxsutawney Phil, Groundhog Day’s mascot, may get an early retirement and a cyborg doppelganger, if PETA has its way.

With Groundhog Day just a few hours away, eyes turn toward Gobbler’s Knob in Pennsylvania. Tuesday, Punxsutawney Phil will waddle from his hole, look for his shadow, and announce whether winter will tighten its grasp or step aside for Spring.
But this year, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) thinks it’s time for the nation’s hairiest weatherman to enjoy an early retirement. PETA’s proposal: instead of parading and manhandling the wee groundhog, replace ol’ Phil with a robot.

It’s time to consider “retiring Phil to a sanctuary and replacing him with an electronic groundhog,” says the official PETA blog. “Phil is forced to be on display year round at the local library and is denied the ability to prepare for and enter yearly hibernation…. Add to that the displeasure of large, screaming crowds, flashing lights of cameras, and human handling.”

Animatronics have come a long way – last year, the Horizons blog even joked that President Obama should consider a robot dog. Rather than look for its shadow, an iPhil could analyze the latest weather patterns, perhaps even project how global warning might permanently usher in an early Spring.

Yet, won’t a Phil-bot lack the cuddly charm of a real groundhog?

One PETA commenter thought so: “I think retiring Phil is not the best idea. Is living at a library with children who love him and show him affection that horrible?” asks Adam in response to the post. “He would suffer more hardship back in the wild then continuing what he has been doing his whole life. Also when you say screaming crowds, who is screaming? He’s not Bono.”

The Altoona (Penn.) Mirror, located 90 minutes southeast of Punxsutawney, ran an editorial today denouncing the proposed robot outsourcing. “We agree with William Deeley, president of the Inner Circle of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club, who said Phil is ‘being treated better than the average child in Pennsylvania.’ Indeed, Phil is treated like a king, surely the envy of all of his fellow groundhogs.”

PETA’s animals-in-entertainment specialist, Gemma Vaughan, wrote to Mr. Deeley that “These normally shy animals — who are constantly on alert when they are out of their burrows — become stressed when they are exposed to large, screaming crowds; flashing lights from perhaps hundreds of cameras; and human handling…. Other popular exhibitions have featured robotic penguins and dolphins who swim and communicate just like real animals do, and we think that an animatronic groundhog would similarly mesmerize a crowd full of curious spectators in Punxsutawney.”

Another commenter, Bri, supported PETA’s idea, saying that “I think it is a good idea to retire Phil. Yeah, sure he is living a great life, but that life was not naturally meant to be for him. It would be like keeping a bear in your house to keep as a pet, when it should be in the wild. Phil is not a domesticated animal. He is a groundhog. Living with humans is not natural to a wild animal.”

reminiscing of the good old days when conan was our city’s treasure and we could go see him on a regular basis…at least 3 times a year. so many times that i lost track….i’ll have to count my bracelets.

here we are with him during sketches the time u2 was the sole guest. i was shown licking theresa’s forehead on national tv. besides that, i’ve danced with conan before…i’ve hugged max weinberg…all during preshows.

the good old days….hanging out with our flannery o’connor loving irish friend.

i seem to have a lot of irish friends.

theresa seems to take a lot of pictures like this.

here we are in an illegal picture….didn’t know how illegal until much later when the security made others erase their pictures!!

never made it to the new studio at universal studios…the week we were in la, conan was not taping. but we hope to see the really new studios when he restarts at fox, abc….wherever he lands. we are with coco!

i hope he considers coming back to nyc.

the predecessor to the jon stewarts and the stephen colberts of the world…the one who is the missing link between the fake news of snl and the fake news phenomenon of today(see dl hughley with his show on cnn…cnn!)is craig kilborn. the former sportscenter anchor turned faux headlines anchor turned(now)actor and behind the scenes producer used to have a daily moment of zen on his show. the kids would call it a wtf??? its a crazy, unbelievable, can’t make this up scene that leaves you speechless…and in wonder. i won’t(can’t)do this daily but will post whenever i see something….wow?

in today’s episode,  the leader of the free world bows down to the real leader of the free world.

President won’t interrupt ‘Lost’ premiere

There was some recent angst by fans of the popular ABC series Lost, when rumors circulated that the White House was considering scheduling the State of the Union Address on Feb. 2, which happens to be the series’ premier. Rabid fans even started a Facebook page, called “Americans Against the State of the Union on the Same Night as LOST” to urge Obama to choose a different night for his address.

President Obama’s first State of the Union address has been scheduled for Wednesday, January 27. Barack Obama will speak before a joint session of Congress to outline his agenda for the upcoming year and take a look back at his first year in office, after inheriting a destroyed economy, two wars and years of abuse of our Constitution and rule of law by Bush/Cheney.White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters on Monday that his speech would be broadcast on national television and also streamed live on the White House Web site.

Posted by: CNN.com writer Breeanna Hare and ChattahBox

check out if you have any of the items below to be shipped out of nyc tuesday for haiti relief efforts:

helping haiti — an updates from the charity: water office from charity: water on Vimeo.

There’s a plane leaving NYC for Haiti on Tuesday and we need your help filling it with cargo.

We’ve been in close contact with our field partners, and are turning the charity: water office into a drop-off point for the following items that are most needed in Haiti right now:

Blankets*
Tents*
Soap
Feminine hygiene products
Sleeping bags*
Medical gloves
Bandages/gauze
Cases of bottled water

Please do not mail these items to our office, but rather stop by during these times —

Friday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Saturday 12 p.m. to 4 p.m.
Monday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

IF YOU CAN CARRY THE DONATIONS BY HAND IN ONE LOAD: Please enter through the front door at 200 Varick St. You will need a photo ID to enter the building. We are located on the 2nd floor, Suite 201.

IF YOU ARE A BUSINESS OR ARE DONATING IN BULK: Please email us to schedule a drop-off time (email Lane Wood).

These supplies will be transported next week by Partners in Health to where they are needed most. Our other partners in Haiti, Concern Worldwide US, are sending supplies from Ireland and still have a pressing need for donations.

We still encourage online donations to our partners on the ground, too:

Click here to donate to Partners in Health.
Click here to donate to Concern Worldwide.

Many thanks for all the emergency relief donations to our partners, all the reTweets from our friends around the world and all the hard work to help the hundreds of thousands suffering through this crisis.

*These items can be gently used.