Edwin Decker

My Funeral

2008-09-06T17:58:00Z

I recently read that one of the ways you can make your death easier on loved ones is to let them know what kind of funeral or memorial service you want in advance. What a stellar idea! It makes perfect sense to take the guesswork out of funeral preparations. So, dear loved ones, you may consider this my official sepulchral request. Firstly, my funeral should be two things that most funerals are not: cheap and fun. Just because I'm dead doesn't mean you shouldn't have a good time. As for the cost, everyone knows the death industry is an enormous, inflated flimflam machine. Take heed, my beloved grieving widow, do not let some sleazy funeral director exploit your diminished capacity and coerce you into buying a bunch of overpriced crap I certainly won't be needing: not the diamond studded pall bearer gloves nor the laminated package of 1,000 prayer cards with micro perforation, the Cyprian torchiere lamps with pinkneck bulbs and ruby vigil glass. And for god's sake, do not let him up-sell you on the 20-gauge, gasketed, stainless steel Essex Monarch casket with the otter-fur inner lining and central air conditioning! Just put me in an unfinished plywood box with my New York football Giants blanket and call it a day. Friends: There should be a period of three weeks when my friends routinely experience feelings of great loss. Nothing debilitating, mind you, just, you know, a few times a day you should stop what you're doing, stare vacantly out a window and think, I sure miss that Ed. Even better, you could have a little meltdown, a Why'd it have to be Eddie?! kind of thing. Also, it'd be great if one of my musician friends could write a song about my travails. Obviously, it would be somewhat narcissistic of me to write your song for me for you, so I've only written the intro and chorus. It's a remake of "Hallelujah," the Jeff Buckley version: I heard there was a man in town Who was big and strong and bought the rounds But you don't care for Rumplemintz, now do ya? He was kind and good, and smart and hip Helped kids and strippers, a philanthropist The bartenders cried when he walked in, "Hallelujah." Then repeatedly howl "Hallelujah" in agony, like grave diggers with herniated discs. Family: You should have a general aura of all-consuming sorrow for, say, six to 12 weeks, depending on the relationship. I don't want to be greedy or anything, but if you could just be totally and utterly depressed for at least six weeks, that'd be fine. After that, just think of me with warmth and melancholy. Wife: Ah, my sweet beloved, mournful widow--don't even think about dating anybody for 18 months. I swear to Christ, if you do, I will sell my soul to Satan so I can return to Earth as a melting-faced demon and glut the entrails of anyone you date. Ed Decker 09/03/08]]>

HI MOM

2008-09-06T17:54:05Z

Gregory Page(All Make Believe)

2008-08-28T06:16:25Z

All Make Believe Gregory Page Sounden Records 8.6 stars *Goes well with gramophones and gin martinis Every time I listen to a Gregory Page recording, it reinforces my belief that Page doesn't just write songs, he writes albums. Most artists (and there's nothing wrong with this) write their tunes à la carte, drop them into an album, and give the album a name after the fact. But judging from what I hear on his records, Page comes up with an album concept first, then writes songs that perpetuate the album's theme. I could be wrong about this, but it's certainly how his albums read, especially on Make Believe, Greg Page's 7000th solo album, on which appear music-loving bumble bees, hand-shaking ghosts, silver dollar moons, telephone psychics, automobiles that dream, and bedrooms that rain - all of which, by themselves, are simple metaphors, but combined become important components of the Make Believe theme. Take the title cut for example: "There's a knock at the door My grandparents are here On a holiday from heaven We hug and we cheer And play cards and drink whiskey Then they disappear." The two signature aspects of this album are his lyrical imagery and the bittersweet that oozes from the speakers, thanks, in part, to liberal dashes of the most melancholic instrument in the world, the cello, as well as the violin, which puts the sweet into "bittersweet." Also enhancing the emotive aspect of All Make Believe is the hint of 40's style vocals - a cross between Mel Torme, Nick Drake, and James Blunt - with all of Torme's style, most of Drake's woebegone tone, and none of Blunt's overblown cornball-adry

Remote Control Control FreakThe art and the science of remote control flipping

2008-08-22T18:06:34Z

W., and I are watching television. She is on the couch with the remote control, flipping around the dial searching for something good to watch and I'm on the recliner, staring at her with love and amazement and thinking, This woman is the worst remote control channel flipper ever. Of course, she doesn't get her hands on the remote all that often as I am a bit of a control freak. But in the rare occasion that she does stake claim, she always sends us spiraling into a substandard world of Television Suckland--so much so that I find myself directing her flippages from across the room--"Keep going, keep going, keep going, wait, wait! Go back..."--until the clicker comes sailing through the air toward my head--forcing me to duck--then crashes into the wall behind me and breaks into about three or four pieces, which has me always running over to the injured remote. "Oh no, no, no--are you all right?" I ask the tattered motherboard lying lifeless in my hands, then carefully rebuild it with duct tape and rubber bands, point it at the television, breathe a sigh of relief when the television responds appropriately and shoot angry glares at the heartless devil woman who did this terrible thing to my beloved remote. ]]> Jackass only to stop on Trading Spaces, and I squirm in pain as some entirely unfascinating housewife on my television is delivering an entirely unfascinating soliloquy about which grade of sandpaper to use on the countertop in question and I'm wondering: Why, why, why this when we can watch Steve-O swallow a gold fish and puke it back alive again? This is a woman who wouldn't recognize bad programming if it were called "Fonzie's Place"--featuring Henry Winkler as old man Fonzarelli living in the retirement home, hitting on the old ladies and breaking his hip in every episode. Not only has W. not mastered the art and science that is television remote control operation--she doesn't even realize such art or science exists. Like all arts and sciences, it's the little things that make the difference. For example, say you are watching Law and Order, and a commercial comes on, and you start flipping. An inspired channel scanner knows that during a commercial break, you only have a few minutes before you must return to Law and Order. So there is no point in looking for anything meaningful. But here comes W., passing Girls on Trampolines to find something in a Hepburn or a Sarandon and wasting what valuable little Girls-on-Trampolines viewing time there is left! These are the skills one must master on the journey to Zen flipping. Skills like Immediate Crap Recognition (identifying a crappy program in less than two seconds). Skills like Accurate Channel Return Timing (an inferior flipper will return to the original program too soon, or worse, too late). And, I'm sitting here watching W. erratically flip-flopping between Law and Order and Trading Places like a fish that's been gaffed and tossed onto the dock, and I get to thinking: maybe it's not only my woman who is remote-control challenged. Maybe it's a gender thing. Maybe men are better remote controllers because searching for the perfect show at the perfect time is like the hunting-and-gathering experience. Or maybe a remote control is an extension of the penis (which would explain why men wield it so masterfully while women clumsily wave it around like a cheap strap-on dildo in a third-rate porno). Who knows. All I can say is, that's my lady over there on the couch--viciously clawing the clicker like an owl shredding a bunny--and I wonder, Can I love a woman who treats a clicker so badly? Especially this clicker. All those years of crashing into walls has taken its toll. The battery cover is busted. A rubber band keeps it together. The front plate is missing. The transmitter bulb is exposed. Half the numbers don't work. Still, I love that old bird. She's like an aging Kennedy matriarch: fragile and weak--but still completely in charge. And I don't much care for how W. mistreats her. I say, "Woman, you are the worst remote controller ever. Don't you know there is an art and a science to that?" "You just want me to give you the remote 'cause you're a control freak," she snaps. "You always want to control what we watch." "But honey," I declare, "Just because I'm a control freak doesn't mean I'm not the best person to take control. Besides, where would we be without control freaks? Pub crawls would never make it to the next pub; bands would never make it to the next gig; and strippers would never get hired for the bachelor parties--the world would be in chaos! So why don't you just hand over the remote--carefully please, carefully--and make us some sandwiches or something." ... And here it comes now, the clicker, sailing through the air like a hockey puck. I duck as it soars over my head and crashes into the wall behind me--batteries and springs and circuitry spilling onto the floor like robot vomit. I reassemble it lovingly while W. stirs mayonnaise into a bowl of tuna. Ed Decker Circa 2001

Booze Floozies

2008-08-21T21:32:02Z

Once upon a time, unscrupulous bar owners hired women of questionable repute to boost bar sales. They were called "B Girls" and they flirted with male customers to entice the gentlemen to buy drinks for them. The practice is illegal now. In recent years however liquor and beer companies have employed similar tactics. They hire scantily clad, provocative women to go into bars and inspire alcohol sales, circumnavigating the room like living billboards -- enticing weak or unsuspecting men to buy their liquor brands. I call them Booze Floozies and they are powerful and evil.]]> May 14, 2001: Wednesday, 11:12 pm: You are sitting on a stool at one end of the bar. A Jager brunette is on the other end. She is making her way up the line of customers sitting on bar stools. She approaches the first in line and shoves her chest into his face. He is stunned, as if a grenade threw him out of a foxhole. Her cleavage is so . . . expansive. It's like a fault line. Like her cleavage were the crevice that opens during earthquake and -- before he even knew what she was selling -- he found himself freefalling into her fiery, molten core. "Will you buy a shot of Jagermeister?" She asks. "Must. Have. Jagermeister." he replies. Up the line she comes, to the next guy. "Would you like to buy a shot of Jagermeister?" she coos. "No Thanks," he says, and turns away. She puts her arm around him and whispers in his ear, "Are you sure?" He shrugs and retrieves his wallet. "Two shots of Jager," he tells the barman. Up the line she continues, to the next guy and the next and you watch as men -- men who are stronger, bigger than you -- crumble to the floor in her presence. You worry that you might not be able to resist her siren call. So you begin practicing what you are going to say when she arrives. "No thank you, I don't like Jagermeister. No thank you I don't like Jagermeister. No thank you I don't like Jagermeister..." Up the line she comes. Destroying everything in her path. You see men -- men who were once wild bucking stallions -- rise from the floor, beaten and confused, with the Jager logo branded on their foreheads, and that crazy, cackling floozy waving the still-sizzling branding iron in the air. Up the line she comes, until she is upon you. Flying in your air space. Bombing your silos. Breaking your code. You smell her hot, rank breath and something twinkles in your groin. It feels wonderful. Some would say it feels like love. You say it feels like a mouse scuttling on your testicles like they were exercise wheels. Her eyelashes flutter as she urges you to purchase a shot of Jager. "No you Jager I do not thanks like," you respond. She softly places her hand on your shoulder and tells you to imagine how it would be to drink sweet Jager from her indecent fault line. You shudder, but remain composed. She realizes you are one stubborn bronco. She snaps her fingers and two bejeweled concubines materialize from thin air, presenting you with . . . The Box of Swag. Oh no, not the Box of Swag! Oh yes, the Box of Swag," The concubines place the box before you. Inside is an assortment of trinkets: Jagermeister key chains, Jagermeister patches, Jagermeister stickers, coasters, glasses, mugs and all the meaningless debris you would normally just toss in the trash. Only, now, they are as precious metals. For these are gifts of the booze concubines. "Oh Yes I will buy your Jagermeister," You say, as you frolic in the Box of Swag -- running trinkets through your fingers like a greedy king in a treasure chest -- "And we shall thrash like lovestruck hyenas in a vat of warm grape oil," you say as you reach into the Box of Swag and take a key chain you will never use, a sticker you will never peel, a small box of shot glasses that will gather dust in your cupboard forever, and a hat that will fall apart the first time it touches your stinking, greezy head. Then you pull out your wallet and purchase not one, not two, but thirty-six shots of Jagermeister for you, the girl and -- "Oh hell. . . ring the bell" -- the whole goddam bar. I call them the Booze Floozies and they are powerful and evil.

Cell-phone Liberty(Six reasons why the HANG UP Act is wack)

2008-08-21T21:16:02Z

Recently, the House of Representatives' Transportation and Infrastructure Committee advanced a bill that will permanently ban cell-phone use on planes. The bill, which was approved in committee with bipartisan support, will now move to the full House and potentially become law. Currently, there is a temporary ban on cell-phone calls while airborne. On July 31, the House committee revisited the issue to determine whether to lift the temporary ban. Hence the HANG UP Act (Halting Airplane Noise to Give Us Peace) which, if passed, will fortify the existing airborne ban and extend it to when the plane is on the ground because, according to the committee, cell calls on planes are "unsafe and annoying to passengers." And Congress would know. Who flies more than politicians? Before the bill came to vote, committee members conveyed their personal cell-phone-on-airplane horror stories, such as the congressman who testified that he was forced to endure a nearby passenger discussing her sex life on the phone (oh, the travesty!). Another conveyed a harrowing tale of a man who was on a mobile phone trying to save his marriage before the plane took off. "It was embarrassing having to listen to all that sobbing and pleading," said the congressman. (Sorry if my unraveling existence is making you uncomfortable, Mr. Representative). And, naturally, the terrorism card was played when yet another member claimed she saw somebody using a cell phone to take pictures of "sensitive areas" of the plane's interior. 1. Selfish Congress: Ever notice, when members of the House address a problem that offends their personal bubbles of comfort, they get all gung-ho and bipartisan about it. Even the name of the act has an air of selfishness: Halting Airplane Noise to Give Us Peace. Notice it doesn't say, "to Give The People Peace" or "Give Passengers Peace." Rather, it gives Us peace, as in, we, the big important leader-types, need sanctuary from you, the peons. I know the "U" in Us completes the cute acronym, but still... 2. Inconsistent Logic: What's the difference between sitting next to somebody who's speaking on the phone loudly and sitting next to two people having a loud face-to-face conversation? Seems to me the problem is volume and that the ban--if one must be imposed--should be on loud talking, whether on a phone or not. 3. Terrorist Photography: The anecdote about the passenger (read: terrorist) taking pictures of the plane's interior is fear-mongering personified. I'm quite certain the terrorists know what the insides of planes look like by now. Or do they? Somewhere, in a cave in Afghanistan: Terrorist: "I have returned from my mission, Osama." Osama Bin Laden: "Excellent! Did you take photos of inside of plane?" Terrorist: "Yes, Mr. Laden. Americans are stupid like Siberian dung rats. Look at these sensitive pictures they let me take: Here is picture of head rest, and here is photograph of window, and this thing here is called a bathroom. Note the ingenious technology. Apparently this latch can alternate between displaying 'Occupied' and 'Unoccupied.' I believe we can disassemble this device." OBL: "Good work, my little jihadist! Did you take pictures of overhead compartments?" Terrorist: "Oh crap, I forgot." OBL: "You are dumb as Kashmir cave bat! Go back and take more." Terrorist: "But, B.L., the Americans have just passed law. We cannot use cell phones, even when plane is on ground." OBL: "Then use a digital camera, ye who is dense as hoof of goat." Terrorist: "Hmm, a camera? Of course! Cameras are still totally legal--stupid Americans!" 4. Eavesdropping Gold Mine: Being one of the world's most prolific and blatant eavesdroppers, I, for one, would be stoked to overhear somebody talking about their sex life. Just picture it. You've been flying for half a day, bored to convulsions, the flight attendant cut you off hours ago, the only thing to look at is the male pattern bald spot of the guy sitting in front of you and the in-flight movie is Garfield 2: A Tail of Two Kitties. All I'm saying is, if the woman sitting next to me started talking about how she and her boyfriend invited a team of midget rodeo clowns into their bed the night before, I would get on my knees and thank the deity for such a great and glorious gift as that. 5. Be Careful What You Ask For: Which is worse, overhearing a stranger's personal conversation or being involved in a personal conversation with that stranger? Personally, I would rather listen to a woman describing the scabies infection on her husband's nutsack for an entire flight than have to tolerate her, What-do-you-do-where-are-you-from small-talk interrogation. 6. Safety Hazard: Unless you accidentally drop your talker directly down someone's esophagus, causing him to choke to death, there is no cell-phone safety issue when the plane is grounded. There's no safety issue when the plane is airborne, either. Cell phones operate on an entirely different frequency range than the navigation equipment. That's why the European Commission approved cell-phone use in European airspace. They use rational thought, not fear mongering, to compose laws. Honestly, Congress, you simply must ban this tendency of yours to ban everything that annoys you or that you think annoys us. How about, instead, we all just deal with these minor social inconveniences our own damn selves? Is that woman who's chatting all sexy-sexy on the phone flustering you? Well, just start rubbing yourself and breathing heavy while she talks. Gaze lasciviously at her breasts and whisper, "Hey, lady, could you repeat the part about the midget clowns again?" Isn't that a far more original and effective way to handle life's minor annoyances than to be yet another predictable lummox whose answer for every problem is to ban, banish, blackball, bash or bomb it right out of existence? ]]>

Day Bar

2008-08-20T21:56:38Z

This column is a tribute to day bartenders everywhere. Your typical day bar shift is a sentence. It is the working-on-the-side-of-the-road-picking-up-garbage-in-orange-vests of bar shifts. My brother calls it "Crossing the Desert," because working the day shift is like an arduous trek across a wasteland. For the most part, the day bartender's main task is to set up the bar for the night. The night is where there is life. There is no joy in day bar. There's no spicy Latin funk band to kindle the room, no giggling, perky women with racy shorts clinging to their buttocks, no mammalian mosaics with erect mammilla (Oh, momma!), no flashing lights or disco balls. . . There's only a flickering television and a jukebox that hasn't changed in 12 years. There is no glory in day bar. Being a day bartender is like being that lonesome roadie, setting up the stage in an empty arena for the sold-out rock-and-roll show that night. You scrub the wells, polish the glasses, set up napkins, straws, and ashtrays. You cut fruit, wipe lipstick from wine glasses, count and stock the liquor inventory, clean the brass spigots, de-bleach the rags, scour the sinks, and fill the wells with endless buckets of ice. ]]> Hallelujah! She's lovely, too. Maybe we'll chat. She will bat her eyes and say we're meant for each other. I'll toss my bar towel to the floor and book plane fare to Bali, away from this terrible place. "What'll you have?" you ask. "An application," she replies. "Do you have any jobs available?" Your little heart is broken. The Bali-bound flight plummets to the earth and bursts into flame. You hand her an application and stifle your desire to scream, "Yes! This one! This job is available. You can have this job!" and never, ever look back. To think that you once loved her. Day bar is unsafe. There is no doorman to protect you. No employees to watch your back. You are alone. This is especially disturbing for female bartenders, when they have to kick Johnny the Seven-Foot-Meth-Head-Stalker-Biker-Barmaid-Raper out of the bar. This is not meant to condemn all day customers -- it's just that the psychopaths wandering around outside seem attracted to the warmth of a neon sign, an open door, the clack of a pool table. And the voices they hear in the bar seem friendlier than the ones in their heads. Like the Vacuum Cleaner Lady, for example. It was about 2pm and I was watching the L.A. riots on television. This woman walked in with a black, upright vacuum cleaner that was about as tall as she was. She sat at the bar and ordered a red wine. She said the vacuum cleaner had been a gift from her father. Then she asked if she could vacuum the bar. I thought about it for a moment, understanding that it was an odd request and that she was quite deranged -- but I also recognized that the floor needed a quick pick-me-up. So the woman went to work -- with little success, as the appliance was not plugged in. She just smiled and vacuumed. Then she approached the dance floor and danced with the appliance: a sad, slow, romantic dance. (I'll have what she's having) Worst of all, there is no money in day bar. You barely make enough in tips to pay for lunch and gas. You hate how much money the night crew makes. This one woman who worked day bar didn't want to use the normal tip jar -- the empty, industrial-sized cherry jug -- during her shift. It depressed her knowing how we filled that thing to the brim at night and she could barely cover the bottom of it. She hated, I mean really hated, to even look at the thing. She confided that it made her hate us -- the night crew -- too. I told her I was sorry, but that I had crossed many deserts myself and been as thirsty as she. I told her that someday she, too, would sling drinks on the Good Ship Lollipop booze cruise, where the movie stars and tycoons prefer to drink. I bow to thee, day bartender.

Virtual Avenger

2008-08-15T20:05:07Z

Have you heard about the recent video game, the one where players try to assassinate President Bush? It's called "The Night of Bush Capturing: A Virtual Jihadi" (also known as "Quest for Bush"). Part game, part art exhibit and part political activism, "Quest for Bush" was created by Wafaa Bilal, an artist whose brother was killed in Iraq by U.S. bombs. Bilal created the game to express outrage for his brother's death and, also, as a response to the 2003 game "Quest for Saddam," where the object is to kill the former Iraqi president. Bilal believed "Quest for Saddam" stereotyped Arabs negatively, so he created "Quest for Bush" to "expose racist generalizations," according to his website. In "Quest for Bush," the protagonist player-character is an Iraqi immigrant who is recruited by Al Qaeda to become a suicide bomber targeting the American president. Naturally, there was a torrent of controversy. When Bilal was invited to exhibit the game at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., in February, RPI President Shirley Ann Jackson reportedly shut down the exhibit after a student group's blog called RPI's Arts Department "a safe haven for terrorists." After being ousted from RPI, Bilal moved his exhibit to the "Sanctuary for Independent Media" performance space (also in Troy), where Robert Mirch, the city's public works commissioner--who was outraged by the game's content--used his authority to condemn the building, thereby, once again, shutting the exhibit down.]]> That said, I do understand why Mirch, Jackson and the rest are so offended by "The Night of Bush Capturing: A Virtual Jihadi." But I can't help but wonder: Didn't they feel at least a little uncomfortable stomping on artistic expression like that? Not to mention free speech, freedom to petition the government and the freedom to virtually blast people in the face with a shotgun--all of which are pillars of our Constitution. I have to believe that Mirch, Jackson and all those who supported the censoring of "Quest for Bush" must feel at least a smidgen of guilt for having smacked down both the exhibit and the First Amendment--because you can't kill one without damaging the other. That's just a cold fact of life. It's like insecticide. Sure, it kills the locusts, but it kills the ladybugs, too, and it degrades the quality of the soil, the water and the air. I just have to believe in my heart-of-hearts that even reactionary dimwits like Jackson and Mirch understand the damage their actions have done to the complex ecosystem that is the First Amendment, no matter how deeply they despise the game. Well, I just wanted Mr. Mirch and Ms. Jackson and all their supporters to know that there's a better way to respond to art that offends you. Just retaliate virtually, like Bilal did. For example, instead of degrading the Constitution by banning "Quest for Bush," why not invent a game of your own to express outrage? Just gather some of your tech-savvy friends and develop a game in which you can hunt, capture, torture and kill the artist who created it. You can call it, "Night of Bilal Capturing: A Virtual Waterboarding," during which you play a secret agent commando-type named Biff Blastem, who marches around the city breaking down doors and shooting up living rooms to find the evil terrorist-artist sympathizer. Then, after Bilal is captured, drag him down to the dungeons of Abu Ghraib and virtually torture the snot out of him. (Players can score extra "Humiliation" points for putting women's underwear on Bilal's head and making him climb atop a naked human pyramid.) It's virtual retaliation, man; all the kids are doing it. I mean, that's what "Quest for Bush" is about, right? It was a virtual retribution against the person Bilal felt was responsible for the death of his brother. Same thing with "Grand Theft Auto"--wasn't that a reaction to the unethical violence perpetrated against people of color by certain corrupt police departments? However, since the object of the game is to commit crimes and kill cops, I fully understand why the police, and others, want to ban it. But to the policemen of America--defenders of the Constitution, protectors of life, liberty and the pursuit of virtual face-shooting--I ask you: Instead of going all Rodney King on the First Amendment, wouldn't it be better to get revenge by developing a game of your own? Call it "Rogue Cop" or something, and in it, your player character, Sgt. Rampage, can burst into homes without warrants and go Mortal Kombat on the asses of anyone he catches playing Grand Theft Auto." Then direct Sgt. Rampage to storm the offices of Rockstar Games and shoot everyone in the face with a rocket launcher. There's really no end to the applications: People who are offended by flag desecration can virtually destroy a mob of pinko, hippie, flag-burning undead creatures who have taken over a mall in a new Xbox game called "Night of the Pinko Hippie Flag-Burning Zombies Who Have Taken Over the Mall"; and people who don't want to live in a society that permits gays to marry can create their own civilization in "SimCity: Bigot Planet"; and pro-life extremists can virtually blow up abortion clinics in "Divine Intervention 4: Jesus' Dynamite"; and those who want to permanently ban drinking on the beach can play "Operation Kegger Assault," during which a player character named Dirk Snooty can snipe beach parties from the roof of his multimillion-dollar oceanfront home. It's virtual retaliation, man. Nobody gets hurt, least of all the Constitution. Ed Decker 07/13/08

Ultimate Music Challenge The Finals

2008-08-05T05:54:23Z

Well, the Ultimate Music Challenge is over now. Last night, Sunday, was the finals. It was between 4 bands for a total of 32 thousand dollars in prizes and the show was beyond spectacular. Seriously. We had a Rage Against the Machine Tribute band called Anger is a Gift, a Hard rock cover band called Monsters of Rock, a Motown band called Detroit Underground, and an Alice Cooper tribute band (See photo). Every one of these bands kicked ass. Visit my Judge's Blog to read all about and see who came in first, second and third place.

Attention Visitors - Technical Difficulties

2008-07-31T04:44:04Z

Or... "A Funny Thing Happened to Me on the Way to the Upgrade" Yeah, so maybe you've noticed, but ever since I upgraded to Moveable Type 4.12 blog interface, the content on my site has become all screwed up. Basically, it's a coding issue, with all the apostrophes, quotations and hyphens being converted to these other-worldly symbols seemingly from another galaxy. Such as this bizarre conversion from one of my columns. In her book, Coulter says The Jersey Girls are, â€œself-obsessed,â€ and that they are â€œcelebrity-seeking broads,â€ and even went so far as to call them harpies. Anyway, the only way I can fix this problem is by going into each entry, one at a time, and edit and save so, as they say in the strip malls . . . "WE ARE UNDER CONSTRUCTION - PLEASE EXCUSE OUR APPEARANCE Thanks Ed Decker

Open and Shut (Revisiting the mysterious death of Michelle von Emster)

2008-07-24T07:01:56Z

I just got off the phone with Ralph Collier of the International Shark Committee and am utterly blown away. My knees are weak. My brain is in a haze. And now I'm looking at the blank screen that will become this column thinking, Where on Earth do I begin? In 1994, a "friend" of mine was killed by a "shark" in the waters off Ocean Beach. I put quotes around the word "friend" because Michelle von Emster wasn't a friend-friend, nor was she a girlfriend. She was a young woman whom I fancied for several months, whom I eventually asked out on a date and who accepted. We went out to Winston's, a bar in Ocean Beach, watched bands and drank liquor. At about midnight, we left Winston's, bought some beer and cigarettes, returned to my pad and sat on the couch, where we talked and flirted all night. At one point, she let me take off her shirt so I could see the large butterfly tattoo on her right shoulder blade, after which we kissed and fondled each other until well past dawn. I was crazy about Michelle and was looking forward to seeing her again, and again, and again. But late the next night, Michelle went skinny-dipping off Sunset Cliffs and was attacked and killed by a "shark." I put the word "shark" in quotes because now (thanks in part to phone my conversation with Collier) I don't believe that's what killed her. Here's your backstory: ]]> However, I noticed something peculiar about the reporting. Not every news outlet cited the same statistic. In fact, some of the reports listed Dr. Martin's death as only the second shark fatality in the area, such as ABC News, which reported that "the last fatal shark attack in Southern California was in 1959." And Surfline.com reported the same thing. Even the Union-Tribune (North County edition) reported back in April, "The only fatal shark attack in San Diego County listed by the International Shark Attack File... is the 1959 death of Robert Pamperin at Alligator Head in La Jolla." I was very confused. Michelle was killed by a shark in 1994. The police said it, the media said it and the county Medical Examiner confirmed it. So why was Michelle being ignored by so many news organizations? Rush to judgment At the time of Michelle's death, journalist Neal Matthews wrote a controversial story, published in Boating magazine, called "Who Killed Michelle von Emster?" In the article, he chronicled the reasons why it may not have been a shark that killed Michelle and that there may have been a rush to judgment by the police (who passed the case off to the coroner without batting an eye), the coroner (who neither performed a sexual-assault examination nor took her liver temperature to determine an accurate time of death) and the media (which didn't do it's job as professional skeptics). It was Matthews who told me that the reason for the conflicting stats is because the International Shark File (ISAF)--the world's leading authority of all known shark attacks--did not list Michelle as a confirmed shark fatality based on a lack of evidence. So why the rush to judgment when the shark experts said otherwise? The manner in which I learned Michelle had been killed by a "shark" was brutal. It was three days after our dream date, and I was watching television. I was depressed because she had not called, assuming she was not as impressed by me as I thought she was. I remember sitting on the couch, sullen, watching a local news channel, when a live, on-the-scene report came on about a dead woman who'd just been pulled from the water. They didn't know who she was yet, but the field reporter mentioned an identifying mark on her right shoulder blade. It was half of a large butterfly tattoo, apparently just the wing. The rest of the butterfly, it was surmised, was bitten off by a shark. It can't be her, I thought. I don't remember much else about that day, except that, from the first utterance of the word "shark," the snowball started rolling down the mountain, increasing in size, momentum and ferocity. The verdict was in long before the autopsy. The harbor police said "shark," the lifeguards said "shark," the coroner said "shark," the media said "shark," most of the public said "shark"--so I believed shark. But the shark experts, unbeknownst to me, all said, "Um, no people, probably not shark." A plea for due diligence Shortly after he contacted me last June, I met Matthews for coffee. It was a productive meeting; we decided that there's enough evidence to justify a request to reopen the case. We knew it was a long shot, but we concluded that it was one worth taking, especially since a new chief medical examiner had taken office. His name is Dr. Glenn N. Wagner, and we sent him a formal request, by post: "Dear Dr. Wagner, We are writing to ask you to take another look at the accidental death finding in the case of Michelle von Emster.... We are writers with special interests in the von Emster case. One of us dated Michelle briefly before her death, and the other investigated the case for a story published in Boating magazine in 1994. We believe Dr. Brian Blackbourne's [the previous coroner] conclusions may have been biased because others in the community rushed to judgment about this being a white shark attack. Sincerely, Neal Matthews Edwin Decker" Dr. Wagner responded by post about a week later. The gist was that there did seem to be some questionable evidence, or lack of, but not enough to amend her death certificate, and he closed his letter by saying that "any case can and will be reopened if additional validated information surfaces." So what of this questionable or missing evidence? Before we begin, it should be noted that smaller, blue sharks did feed on Michelle's body post-mortem. It's whether she was killed by a shark that Matthews and I question. Here's why: 1. The Severed Leg Problem: Michelle's leg was cut clean off--not particularly splintered or sheared, as you would expect in a great white attack. In Matthew's 1994 story, George Burgess of the ISAF says he never saw a cut like that in a shark attack. Furthermore, large sharks leave distinctive tooth scrapes and bite marks on bone, yet the leg stump had no such markings. 2. Blunt Force Injuries: Michelle's autopsy revealed that she had a broken pelvis, broken neck and bruised and broken ribs. The coroner said this probably happened when the shark took Michelle's body down to the bottom and collided with the ocean floor. Only problem is, every shark expert I, and Matthews, spoke with has said they never saw a case where this has happened. White sharks are known to bite and back off. Even Wagner, the current coroner, in his response to our June 7 letter, said that these injuries were "atypical for shark injuries." 3. Clothes Never Found: Michelle's body was discovered nude; her clothes were never found. So where did her clothes go? 4. Conspicuous Purse: Michelle's purse was found the next day by the seawall, out in the open, its contents--$27, cigarettes, driver's license and makeup--seemingly undisturbed. Question: If you're going to go skinny-dipping late at night, would you leave your purse in such a conspicuous location? And wouldn't you keep your clothes and your purse together, in one spot? 5. Conditions: It was a midnight swim, in April, when the water was still quite cold--60 degrees, to be exact, which is not a pleasant swimming temperature, especially without a wetsuit, which she owned and kept in her apartment a few blocks away but, for some reason, did not use. 6. Improbability: In 1994, not counting Michelle, there had been only one shark attack in San Diego, and that was nearly 40 years prior. The sheer improbability of it should've been enough to make investigators thoroughly scrutinize her case. At the very least, they should've questioned me. I was one of the last people to see her. And, I went on a date with her. Everybody knows that when you have a suspicious death, you look at the romantic interests: the husband, the boyfriend or, in this case, the suitors. It just seemed like nobody wanted to be bothered, that the snowball had already rolled down the hill, and the snowball said "Shark." Enter Ralph Collier Collier, president and founder of the Shark Research Committee (SRC), is a consultant to all medical examiners along the Pacific Coast of North America. He has published more articles on great white shark attacks than any other ichthyologist in the world. He wrote a book called Shark Attacks of the Twentieth Century, which details every shark bite on the Pacific Coast. Collier reviewed Michelle's case in 1994 and re-reviewed it in 2003. Today, Monday, July 7, 2008, I spoke with him on the phone. Collier offered many scenarios. He said the blunt force trauma could've happened from a fall off the cliffs. He said her leg could have been cut off by a passing motorboat's propeller. He said she could've run into some bad people who did something terrible to her and dumped her in the water. He said there were a thousand possibilities as to what might have happened to Michelle--except being killed by a shark. "Michelle von Emster," he said, "was unequivocally not killed by a shark." He also said I was wasting my time trying to get the case reopened, that there's nothing anyone can do, unless a witness comes forward, which brings me to the reason for this column. After our conversation, I couldn't get the "what if" scenario out of my mind. What if somebody hurt her? What if her killer is still out there? What if there is somebody reading this right now who knows something. I know it's probably futile, but maybe that person is ready to come forward with some information that might provoke the coroner to reopen this case. So, are you out there? Come out, come out wherever you are. Ed Decker 07/23/08 Here is the original article about my date with Michelle Here is the letter from the coroner Here is Neal Matthew's article Who Killed Michelle Von Emster2.doc (open with Word)

John Cusack with a Boom Box

2008-07-19T05:42:02Z

A journalist I know was polling men for a feature story she was working on. It was one of those man-on-the-street type of articles in which everyone's asked the same question and the responses are printed. The question was this: "What's the worst advice you've ever received about dating." I told her, "Oh crap--that's easy!" The worst advice I have ever received was, "Don't give up on love." It's inevitable. Whether there's some new girl you adore who's not reciprocating or a long-term girlfriend who's tired of your horseshit, there's always some idiot in your life telling you not to give up on love, as though you're John Cusack with a boombox outside love's window. "Don't give up" is the second worst piece of dating advice ever. There's another name for guys who don't give up on their romantic interests. They're called "stalkers" and stalking is wrong, unless of course, you're John Cusack with a boom box, in which case it's romantic. ]]> "I know you cannot feel right now. Ashen and fallow. My love for you is about the bear fruit and thus I am about to put the torch to the crop in order to prevent any untoward pining for you in the future. Love is patient and I am willing to suffer and wait alongside you...." Or this one, sent by a university student to a woman who was recently his professor: "Is your [negative] response predicated on the assumption that older women shouldn't date younger men, and by proposing to violate this anachronistic societal norm, I'm doing something inappropriate? If that's the case, I can only say that I expected better from you." Or this: "We may not have known each other over a long time period, but I really opened up my soul to you.... I thought we were really understanding each other and I don't understand why you are willing to just turn your back on this." Or this now-infamous voice mail from Dimitri, who couldn't figure out why Olga wouldn't return his calls: "Maybe you were abused in childhood.... Maybe your mother has cancer, and you're going to chemo.... Maybe you're just a person with an anxiety disorder.... I don't know. But nobody says, 'Call me,' hands a person a business card and then doesn't return calls. It's extremely passive aggressive. You should actually look that up, passive-aggressive personality disorder." What all these men have in common is that they would not give up on love, largely because they're self-involved putzes who forgot that the objects of their desires (emphasis on "objects") are actual living, breathing human beings with their own needs and preferences that these guys simply did not fulfill. I remember one time when I didn't give up on love. I had fallen for this fiery Italian cocktail waitress with big tits and big tats who preferred badass biker guys with big tats and big lats. Lisa and I worked in the same bar together. Periodically, after our shift, we would retire to my apartment to drink gin, snort speed and hump each other till sunrise. Naturally, I was smitten. I tried to romance her; I took her to shows and dinners and spent money, but she was merely having fun. She just wasn't looking for anything serious. If she were looking for a commitment, it certainly wouldn't have been with me. It would've been with Bear, her biker "friend" who frequented the bar. Bear was tall and muscular with long blond biker hair down to the top of his biker buttocks and tattoos of all the hot girls he nailed, or murdered, up and down his biker arms. I, on the other hand, was neither tall nor built, and the only tattoo I ever purchased was a henna jobber of Donald Duck after a trip to Disneyland the previous summer. Simply put, I was out of his league. Still, I kept trying to make her love me. I kept calling and writing and playing the boom box outside her window, only to have her routinely blow me off to ride bitch on the back of Bear's Harley Davidson. Then I'd get all upset and call her up and say, "What the fuck, Lisa?" and she would respond, "I still really like you--can I come over?" and like a schmo, I'd whimper, "Yes, yes, my lovely tweaker biker babe. Come over," and we'd hump each other till sunrise, after which she wouldn't return my calls for a week, and it would be "WTF, Lisa?" all over again. The whole affair, which lasted maybe four months, was a blood-let. But I learned the most valuable lesson of my romantic career. You can't will somebody into liking you, and if you try too hard, it makes you a schlump. OK, sure, maybe there is that one-in-a-zillion possibility that your perseverance will pay off and she'll come bounding into your arms; you'll live happily ever after behind a white picket fence and sell your story to the Lifetime network. But that only happens to guys like John Cusack, whom neither you nor I could ever be. Write to ed@sdcitybeat.com and editor@sdcitybeat.com. Check out www.edwindecker.com.

Ultimate Music Challenge Week 6

2008-07-01T05:53:19Z

The Week 6 winner of the Ultimate Music Challenge has been announced. Click here to read the accompanying blog and some more bitter comments.

Gitmo-a-go-go

2008-06-27T08:07:23Z

Props to the U.S. Supreme Court for making the right decision regarding Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, et al. This was the case about whether the Geneva Conventions apply to prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay. The Bush administration argued that the Gitmo detainees were not, technically, prisoners of war and, therefore, not eligible for Geneva protections. At issue in the case was habeas corpus, the requirement that the government show legitimate reason to detain someone. Thanks to this ruling, the prisoners of Guantanamo Bay have come another step closer to receiving the same legal protections as you and me. Fukken-A! Now, I really hadn't planned on writing about this decision. It seems so utterly obvious why Guantanamo Bay detainees deserve due process; I just figured it would be argued, re-argued and over-argued a million times in the opinionsphere before I could ever publish a single word about it. Instead, I watched and listened as the right-wing blubbermongers blubbered on about how the court's decision puts the rights of foreign terrorists above the safety of Americans, that terrorists aren't deserving of habeas corpus because of their heinous actions and that the decision will cost American lives because the terrorists will all stampede out of Guantanamo like horses running from a burning stable. ]]> Duh! This is Constitution 101, people. It's not about the odiousness of the crime you are accused of; it's whether you committed it in the first place that matters. That's why we require the judicial branch of government to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt using due process. Remember due process? Habeas corpus, Miranda rights, jury of one's peers, probable cause, immunity from cruel and unusual punishment and the equal-protection clause, which is founded on the idea that all men are created equal--not just Americans. Oh, and how about the right to a speedy trial? Is it too much to ask to not have detainees rotting away in Guantanamo Bay for six years before the government decides to try them? Due process, man. It's not just a series of loopholes designed to let criminals go free because we love criminals so much we want to marry them. Due process is the idea that laws and legal proceedings are fair, that the government cannot arbitrarily deny a person's rights to life, liberty or property and, as with the Hamdan case, that the executive branch can't round people up and throw away the key simply because doing so aligns with its agenda. I have no doubt that at least one person in that Gitmo hellhole doesn't deserve to be there. Probably even more, when you consider why, when and how they were collected--during the fog of the Afghanistan war, by teenage soldiers who were scared shitless and receiving faulty intelligence from mercenary informants looking to make a buck. And if I'm wrong about this, then fine--prove it! Prove Salim Ahmed Hamdan is a terrorist. Prove it the right way, the fair way--the American way. On the afforementioned Hannity and Colmes episode, I heard guest John Kasich say this: "It's astounding to compare a [terrorist] to a United States citizen. To say someone who engineered 3,000 deaths on 9/11 should somehow get the same rights as an American citizen, it's insane." John Kasich, as you can well see, is a blubbering baboon. Of course you can compare terrorists to Americans. It's like comparing apples to fruit bowls: Terrorists are people who commit atrocious acts, and Americans are people who live inside the arbitrary borders of America. Terrorists can be Americans, just as easily as apples can be in a fruit bowl. In fact, Americans like Tim McVeigh, Ted Kaczynski, Jeffrey Dahmer, Sam Bowers (Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan), Eric Rudolph ("The Birmingham Bomber" of abortion clinics), Klebold and Harris (Columbine) and Muhammad and Malvo are all as despicable as the people who orchestrated 9/11. Is Kasich saying these American terrorists are more deserving of due process because they're American? What kind of cowshit is that? What does it matter if they live inside the arbitrary borders of the United States? What does it matter if they were rounded up during a war, or during a police action, or during a goddamn clambake? What does it matter how evil their crime or how many killed? What matters is if they did it. Innocent until proven guilty. I know, I know, it's a phrase so often repeated that we've become desensitized to its value. However, contained in this one sentence is the ocean that is our Constitution. Perhaps that's why nobody's mentioned it yet, because sometimes you can't see the ocean from the boat. Or maybe it has been mentioned and I just haven't heard it. All I know is, when I was lying on the couch watching Colmes getting his ass kicked up and down the studio by Hannity and Kasich, well, I had to speak up. I couldn't take the chance that this discussion could continue without it being said somewhere, by someone. So I'm saying it now: A person is innocent until proven guilty. If that concept is fair and right for us, then it's fair and right for all. Ed Decker 6/25/08

Ultimate Music Challenge Week 5

2008-06-24T19:42:19Z

Congratulations Anger is a Gift, the Winner of the 5th round of Ultimate Music challenge at Viejas. Anger is a Rage Against the Machine tribute band. Visit my Judges' Blog to read about the night, and the many controversies swirling around the Anger victory as they move to the next round for a shot at $20,000. They have some competition though, there have been some excellent winners of the previous rounds. It really is a lot of fun, you should come down and check it out.
Ultimate Music Challenge Sunday nights from 6-10pm DreamCatcher Lounge in Viejas.