Merrill Markoe

writing categories:

Costco: A love story in four acts

I have never been much of a joiner,. I am the rare female whose gender software didn’t come bundled with the genome for love of shopping. That makes me the very portrait of someone who didn’t want the bother of purchasing a membership to a market. I had gotten so used to living in overpriced Los Angeles where buying groceries feels like a mugging that I had given up even looking for a solution.

Tough on Terror, Tough on Stains

Unless I am missing something, it seems like it makes no sense not to acknowledge that the "people" holding our nation's highest political offices are actually just figure heads for consortiums of international corporations. It's easy for us to get confused and think of them as "people" (as in individuals, human beings) because they do peopley kinds of things like get haircuts, go on vacations, shoot other people etc. But the truth is that the only path to truly understanding the behavior of these so-called "people" depends on being able to see through the glossy veneer of their indecipherable yammering to the lobbyists and corporate interests who are really at their core.

Coping with The End of the World

A lot of people think we are living in the end times. One reason some people believe this is that the Mayan calendar apparently ended in 2012. I think you can look at that as a portend of the end of the world or you can look at it as evidence that at the last minute the Mayans turned their calendar over to a lazy Mayan who was sick to death of the repetitive task of writing Tuesday May 5, 2012, Wednesday May 6, 2012, Thursday May 7, 2012 and finally started screaming “For the love of God, you guys, its only 800 AD! We’re already 1200 years ahead. Why can’t we just write ‘and so on, etc.’ on the last page and let someone between now and 2012 do some of the work?”

THE DOG HOLLARER

FADE IN:INTERIOR MIDDLE CLASS SUBURBAN HOME.
We are in the entry hall by the front door where a middle aged woman holding two leashes summons her dogs for a walk.

WOMAN:Who wants to go for a walk? Bosco? Squirty? Walk?

(Two tiny dogs rush out of somewhere, gallop up to the woman and begin to bounce off of her like she is a trampoline.)

The Feast of Zover

Here on the cusp of 2007, as a lot of people celebrate by drinking too much and watching all that desperate TV programming that culminates in a count down where spokesmodel wanna-bes of both genders pretend to be excited when something falls off of something else, I have my own way of ringing in the new year. I celebrate the one holiday about which I am truly passionate.
No, not La Tomatina, an annual event in Valencia Spain where thousands of people throw tomatoes at one another for no discernible reason. Although I guess its no secret that I would like to see La Tomatina replace Valentines Day. And the sooner the better.

SOMETHING EXTREMELY IMPORTANT

Today our friend Paul came to the house in a near dissociative state of panic. Suddenly and without warning it appeared his marriage was unraveling.
He sat down on the big red couch in my living room , I offered him some vodka and he cautiously began to detail his anguish.
“Up until yesterday if you had asked me if my marriage was a happy one, I would have said yes, “ he said, choking back tears, his voice quivering with emotion,” and then last night, out of the blue, my wife comes in and tells me she wants a divorce.”
As Paul spoke , his voice full of shock and misery, our dog Puppyboy, a skinny brown and black Tijuana Shepherd, approached him. It appeared to be one of those moments of poignant intuitive empathy that people and animals sometimes share…right up until the moment I noticed that Puppyboy’s mouth was full of a large black completely deflated soccer ball.

Enough about you: My explanation of narcissism

Every year at Christmas my mother would buy me an expensive piece of clothing that I would never wear. Or, if luck was smiling on me, it might be several pieces of clothing meant to be worn together. I describe the clothing as “expensive” because when my mother gave me these gifts she would make a point of telling me how much everything cost, and how much effort she had expended.

Kim Jong Il on Cinema: A Book Review

Well, ever since I reviewed "Kim Jong Il on Opera" people have been urging me to examine some of his other works.