Daily Loaf

“Hi!  I live in Tampa. A while ago, I dreamt that I was getting married. Everything seemed to be normal at the wedding, until I looked at a picture that someone had taken. My gown was black, as were my bridesmaids. The whole male wedding party was also wearing nothing but black! I’m only 14 years old, don’t have a boyfriend, and definitely DON’T want to be married. Can you tell me what this means?” (sic)

It’s interesting that at an age when young girls fantasize about boys, weddings, marriage, etc., you are sooo adamant that you DON’T want to get married.  What’s up with that?

I’ll tell you. Read the rest of this entry »

Dream Momma,
I was in my car waiting in line at a gas station. When it was my turn to put gas in my car the pump was dry. I was furious all of the other drivers got gas and I didn’t.

Dear Gas Station Dreamer,
Did you know that the booze we all swill down with reckless abandon and the gas we all pump into our cars non-stop share a common chemical?  Reading your dream conjured up an image of a guy sucking on the end of a gas pump line. I pay attention to my images; they’re my buddies and usually spot on.  I tell you this because I think you’re a drunk being challenged not to drink.

Read the rest of this entry »

Teenage mom moves in with older boyfriend who owns a python. Brings toddler along. In July, the python gets out of its cage in the middle of the night and strangles 2-year-old Shaiunna Hare. One can’t help but wonder — who’s mom going to sue?

[About Daily Best of the Bay: Creative Loafing is posting writers' and editors' picks for Best of the Bay 2009 each day until the BOTB issue is released on Sept. 16. Vote now for your own BOTB choices in our Readers' Poll!]

Catherine Durkin Robinson is a “feminist mother of twins” and a political blogger, working under the title Out in Left Field.

The Hillsborough medical examiner told a group of reporters outside his Temple Terrace offices that he found no evidence of trauma or head injury that would have caused the sudden death of TV pitchman Billy Mays. Instead, he found evidence of heart disease, including an enlarged left ventricle and an oversized heart weighing in excess of 500 grams, that would be consistent with a sudden death even in somebody as young as 50, as Mays was.

The coroner is withholding any final cause of death until further tests, including toxicology tests.

Police tow doctor’s car, hope to find clues about Jackson’s death.

ABC: Michael Jackson’s death caps years of ill health.

ABC: Who will get custody of Jackson’s kids?

Phoenix New Times: 10 random thoughts about Michael Jackson’s death.

Newsday: Comparing Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley.

Here are some links to various stories about Michael Jackson’s death and its aftermath:

New links as of 2 p.m.

Police tow doctor’s car, hope to find clues about Jackson’s death.

ABC: Michael Jackson’s death caps years of ill health.

ABC: Who will get custody of Jackson’s kids?

Phoenix New Times: 10 random thoughts about Michael Jackson’s death.

Newsday: Comparing Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley.

_____________

Jermaine Jackson explains details.

A look back at Michael Jackson’s life in photos.

Reactions from friends and stars: Britney Spears, Diddy Combs, Quincy Jones and more.

AP: “World Mourns King of Pop”

Jackson’s scheduled London concerts leave a tangled business mess. $85 million in advance ticket sales.

Billboard; King of the pop charts.

MTV News: “Michael Jackson and MTV — From Epic Videos to Show-Stealing Performances.”

Phil Spector was photographed by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation in June 2009 after his arrest on murder charges (Spector was sentenced to 19 years in prison following his conviction for murdering actress Lana Clarkson, whom he shot to death in his Los Angeles home in February 2003) . And it turns out that crazy hairdo he sported in court (seen here) was not actually his real hair. Why would a man wear such a strange looking wig? Maybe because without it, he resembles Gollum from the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

See the horror below:

Read the rest of this entry »

“Hi Dream Momma,  I dreamed I was visiting my aunt, uncle and cousins as a child.  In their kitchen there was a hole at the baseboard and I could see little mice through it. I was scared until I realized they were afraid of me and not coming out.”

Hmmm, mice. Hmmm, family. This dream is a little sketchy but here goes. First, I’m assuming the dreamer is an adult but in the dream he/she is a child again.  Often. something going on in real time echoes an unconscious  memory that pops up as a dream.  Symbolically, mice mean disease, proliferation, and quietness.  So, my first question is; does this family have any hidden (baseboard) illnesses that are genetic (family) in nature?

Next we have fear.  Why are the mice afraid of the dreamer?  What power does the dreamer possess?Does the dreamer have “cat energy?” Remember, we’re not talking about real mice, but symbolic mice that may represent a genetic family illness. To get even trickier the illness can be symbolic too, i.e. not physical.  If it is physical think of illnesses that are quiet in nature, i.e. high blood pressure.

That’s the best I can do with the info involved.  Love to hear back from dreamer with more details and feedback on my feedback.

Dream Momma

The Canadian manufactured performance enhancement diet supplement Hydroxycut, used for weight loss and body building, has been pulled from the market in a voluntary recall at the request of the US Food and Drug Administration.

This is technically not a drug and is advertised as a “Diet Supplement”. The distress to the liver caused by this supplement has caused 23 reports of liver problems including the death due to liver failure a 17 year old boy. In at least one case a person survived their trouble by receiving a liver transplant. Read the rest of this entry »

It was maybe the first impacting death to reach me first via Twitter: Augusto Boal died at the age of 78 Friday from respiratory failure after a long battle with leukemia.

I was immediately transported back in time to the first time I’d studied the theater legend in undergrad at USF — I’m pretty sure it was during a course taught by Nancy Cole called something to the effect of The Theater of Post-Cultural Pluralism. I’d go a lot more in-depth the next year in Dr. Pat Finelli’s Senior Colloqium class (perhaps the best class I had as an undergrad theater student). By the time I’d moved on to UF for grad school, Boal would be shoulder to shoulder in my theatrical Mount Rushmore, joining Dario Fo, Jerzy Grotowski and Peter Brook.

Two of Boal’s books — Theater of the Oppressed and Games for Actors and Non-Actors — still hold special spots on my bookshelf. What was fresh and exciting about Augusto Boal to me as a student in the mid-’90s (he developed his methods in the ’50s and ’60s) was that he worked lifelong to completely demysitify the form, worked tirelessly to put art and power into the hands of the common citizen and worked to use the form as a tool for change.

He worked with professionals, he worked with farmers — give him bodies and he’d create. Some of his work laid the foundation for what we’d today call drama therapy (which he called Forum Theater), where “spect-actors” would work through scenarios of oppression toward change. Boal’s methods encourage an actual dialogue with the audience as opposed to simple one-sided conversation. Theater was to be an active relationship.  He created and taught others how to create theater ripped from local news or based on current or proposed legislation. He created what was called “Invisible Theater” that could spring up anywhere and where those witnessing wouldn’t be clued in that it was performance.

His work was regarded as dangerous — the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil from the ’60s to the ’80s detained, arrested, jailed and tortured Boal before finally exiling him to Argentina.  He returned home in the late ’80s after that regime’s collapse. Read the rest of this entry »

This new and exciting strain of swine influenza has Mexico running in circles looking for a US Citizen to blame for the epidemic.  The CDC is running in circles hoping that this flu strain is just a late bloomer and will not become an historic event that exposes the limited control Public Health actually has over the public’s health; and the rest of us, hungry for yet another reason to fret, hang on every word that is being scrawled or belched about this airborne death. Read the rest of this entry »