Hail the Norton I - Emperor of the United States!

I first encountered the story of Norton when I read "Three Septembers and a January" from Fables and Reflections (Sandman VI) by Neil Gaiman, about five years ago. I was fascinated with his character so I did a quick google to find out more about him.

The Emperor is based on a historical figure named Joshua Norton, an English businessman from the 1840's who came to California to make his fortune, and instead, ended up losing it, supposedly in a lawsuit over a rice futures contract. (Norton, seeing the huge population in San Francisco's Chinatown, was trying to corner the market on rice.) Whether he was mad before or the deal sent him over the edge, Norton ended up living on the streets of San Francisco and soon issued a proclamation declaring himself the Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico. That a homeless fellow might indulge in delusions of grandeur is not unusual; that an entire city would be complicit in the delusion is.

The tailors of San Francisco supplied with Norton with top hats and grand tailcoats with gold braiding and epaulets. Restaurants allowed the Emperor to eat for free, and printers not only printed and posted Norton's proclamations, they created currency with his image on it, which was accepted from him by local businesses. Papers covered Norton as if he were a legitimate politician, despite some of his more insane proclamations: that a bridge be built across the Golden Gate, that another be built across the bay to Oakland, and that a league of nations be formed to resolve disputes without war.

The people of the city treated Nortin with great respect, and he them, as if they were indeed his subjects and he a benevolent ruler. There is a story that Emperor Norton even diverted a race riot in Chinatown when, after a crop failure in California's Central Valley, jobless men blamed the Chinese for their fate and stormed the neighborhood bent on burning it to the ground. Supposedly, Norton stopped them by putting himself between the workers and Chinese and reciting the Lord's Prayer.

In 1867, a police officer named Armand Barbier arrested Norton for the purpose of committing him to involuntary treatment for a mental disorder. The arrest outraged the citizens of San Francisco and sparked a number of scathing editorials in the newspapers. Police Chief Patrick Crowley speedily rectified matters by ordering Norton released and issuing a formal apology on behalf of the police force. Chief Crowley observed of the self-styled monarch "that he had shed no blood; robbed no one; and despoiled no country; which is more than can be said of his fellows in that line." Norton was magnanimous enough to grant an "Imperial Pardon" to the errant young police officer. Possibly as a result of this scandal, all police officers of San Francisco thereafter saluted Norton as he passed in the street.

When Emperor Norton died in 1880, more than 30,000 people marched in his funeral procession. His passing was marked by a total eclipse of the sun.

text based on You Suck by Christopher Moore and Wikipedia

Sick Leave

every now and again, i get sick and i am forced to go on leave from work for a couple of weeks at a time. as i sit here in bed, watching the days slip by, i remember a man with whom i had the privilege of being my mentor and my friend, sid gomez hildawa.

he once sent me a text message, asking my thoughts regarding his new blog. we exchanged opinions, and he decided to stick to naming it The SGH Foster-A-Poem Homepage. he asked me to choose a poem that i would like to take care of, and i selected Sick Leave, for obvious reasons.

and now, i would like to share with you the poem that reflects my current state of mind.

Sick Leave


Like a patch of skin spared
from sunburn by a shield
of cloth or sunblock lotion,
there's a rectangle on the wall
lighter than the wall itself,
where a painting used to hang.
Now that the artwork is gone,
visitors ask, "What used to be
there?,"
as if they hadn't seen the piece
before,
or maybe not carefully enough.
"Wasn't there a woman seated
in a cafe?, Didn't she have a glass
of wine, or some company?,"
The damp ground, eavesdropping
almost shifts, holding up a house
whose wall holds up a rusty nail
in its perpetual upturned pose,
holding up no answer.

On my fourth day in hospital
with dextrose feeding me twenty
drops a minute, I picture in my mind
a space I may have left behind,
not entirely empty, but of air
made thinner by my absence,
or of a lighter tissue,
so that people pause, inquire,
and imagine what used to be there.


"So where's the painting now?"



vvvvv

(With reference to Juan Luna's painting, "Parisian Life")

For more of his works, please visit http://lihawad.blogspot.com

Sid, you are sorely missed.

more doggie pics

mi boys

monster dawg

ah...duh?

look at me, i'm so cute

ready to slob

Meet Reeta

You've met Odin, and Chen, now meet Reeta, Odin's sister. She's Odin's littermate, with the official name of Calista of Stronghold. She weighs 40kgs, and is a master escape artist. She loves my tita's cats, and lets them bully her when feeding time comes.

She is a guaranteed softie.

chen

grocery shopping

i was looking at my blog just now and noticed that it's full of odin's pics and stories. it's now 7:47am and my brain is officially fried. i'll do a proper post on him when i have enough energy to do so. for now, here's chen when he was just two months old and could still fit in a grocery basket. enjoy!

a star is born (?)

who? me?

i took odin out for his morning walk today. i decided to take one of our shorter routes because the sun was already too hot for the both of us. we walked down quezon avenue and went straight to a fast food chain in pantranco to grab my lunch. on the way back, i thought it would be better if we walked down panay avenue because there was more shade there.

there was more traffic than usual, and there were a lot of people all huddled together in the middle of the street. i wondered what they were all doing standing under the heat. they didn't even have umbrellas with them! somebody could have had heatstroke! and then, i saw what they were gawking at. a film crew was shooting a scene in the local veterinary clinic.

i hesitated and wondered if we would be let through the street. then i decided that i didn't want to go back to quezon avenue because it was too damn hot, and i could walk anywhere i wish to go. this is my neighborhood, after all!

as i walked past the crowd, a man on the other side of the clinic told me that i could pass, provided that i just walked straight ahead and as natural as possible. nothing to it, i thought to myself. what the heck do i care about those actors anyway? it wasn't as if i'm a fan or anything. (well, they may be well-established stars, for all i care. but i don't watch tv these days so i don't know who's who in the showbiz world).

when i passed the clinic, i breathed a sigh of relief. finally, we can go home in peace...or so i thought...

"hey you! hold up!"

i continued walking as naturally and as fast my feet could take me, without looking back.

"i said you! stop! lady with the red shirt and the big dog! wait! come back!"
"were you talking to me? i'm sorry! did i ruin your shot?"
"nah, you were great! that dog is huge! what kind of dog is that? nevermind. i want you to walk again, as naturally as possible."
"ah...sure. if you say so."

and so we walked past the fighting couple in the vet clinic. again and again, take after take. when i saw that odin couldn't take the heat any longer, we just continued walking towards home - oblivious to the pleadings of the film crew. after all, my priority is odin's health, not his stardom.

i never ever thought that one of my dogs would ever on tv. but for two straight days, the two rival networks featured him - well, kind of. but still. hmm...now that i think of it, i never even asked what the title of the soap opera was. i wouldn't be able to see odin's teleserye debut! waah!

mr. wednesday

mondio ring is one of the toughest dog sports out there. it is a protection sport that tests the ability of the dog to protect both himself and his handler, even through extreme distractions. the sport trials are similar to the work performed by police dogs and the competition consists of obedience, jumps, and protection.

10 kilos of pure deadweight

i remember when i was still living near broadway centrum. my apartment was just in front of one of the country's most reputable canine training facilities. every tuesday and thursday nights, i would take my then 3 month old rottweiler to the training sessions. odin didn't like going out too much back then. he just wouldn't budge when i took him outside, so i had to carry him all the way to the training grounds. he was only 3 months old but he was almost 10 kilos - i almost always have asthma attacks during those days. but it didn't matter. the people there were so friendly and encouraging, even to a noob in mondio like me. they would each in turn give me tips on how to raise odin properly - from feeding him, exercising him, and to motivating him - all for free! we all prepared him for the upcat of the sport - but when the time came for him to take the test, he...um...ah...failed.

yes, he failed. why? he was too darn nice - and lazy. he didn't seem to see the point on why he had to attack a defenseless piece of sack. we tried changing it to his favorite rag, but it just didn't work. he would just stare at it for a few moments and then space out the other way, oblivious to the whole group egging him to just attack the freakin piece of cloth. they all told me not to lose hope, and for us to try again the next training session - which we did again and again and again. hell, 2 month old mals were out killing arm sleeves, for chrissakes! why couldn't he just take a darn bite out of a sodding sack?

then, i got promoted and got transferred to another account at a different site and i moved to an apartment that was nearer to my new office. needless to say, i had erratic working hours, and i couldn't just carry odin to the training grounds any longer. and so, odin lived the life of a pampered house pet. but i still had dreams that one day, even if odin wouldn't be able to participate in mondio ring competition, he would still be a fairly competent protection dog.

summer pet fair at the city

when i found out last week that there was going to be a mondio ring fun match at the summer pet fair at the sm north edsa, i tried to think of way of how i would be able to bring him so we would both be able to watch great dogs in action. i don't have a car and i've never taken him to places that we wouldn't be able to walk to. i decided to just try my luck and see if any taxi drivers would let me bring a big dog (he is now 48 kilos). good thing i was able to flag down a cab. the driver was a nice old chap, and he didn't mind odin drooling all over the backseat. (if bychance you're reading this, i'm so sorry! you have my eternal gratitude!)

but alas! when we got to the venue, they were already awarding the winners of the fun match. nonetheless, i was able to speak with eugene reyes and he told me to bring odin back to check if he finally has the drive fit for the sport.

since we were already there, we decided to see the other activities lined up for the afternoon. while waiting for the big, burly men to set up the equipment needed for the weight pulling contest, i took odin to the grooming station and asked the gentleman to clean his ears. as he was about to put the cotton swab inside his ears, odin suddenly pulled away and faced the other way, rubbing his butt against the poor guy's face. i was laughing so hard when i saw a guy from one of the major networks was filming us. i tried to move away from the direction of the camera so he could focus on odin's antics, but odin seemed to sense what was going on and just dragged me to the other side of the venue.

we went to watch the circus dogs perform their tricks. the two rival networks were covering the dancing poodles and the counting labs, so odin and i moved a wee bit to the side to where the petting zoo was. (i was watching a morning show earlier, and i saw the two of us pass by in the background, when they were featuring the basketball playing yellow labrador) inside the playpen were all sorts of toy dogs and kids were playing with them. i didn't want him to step on the tiny dogs, so we moved to near the entrance.

then, people started appraoching us and asking if they could pet odin. now, i know full well that in the wrong hands, rottweilers are a very dangerous breed and they have the strongest bite force amongst all domesticated animals. but i have been handling dogs for quite a long time, and i know his temperament. the worst that he could do is sniff your crotch and slobber you all over with goo. so i told them yes, they could pet odin; and no, i didn't mind if they took a photo with him. i moved so i wouldn't be a part of their pictures. babies rode him like a horse and one even kicked him in the face; nervous teenaged girls patted him nervously; big men patted him enthusiastically; and matronas, with all their fancy jewelry and make-up, hugged him tightly. and his reaction to all of these? he just stared at them and snorted and looked as if nothing interesting was happening!

oblivious to it all

it was about 5 in the afternoon when we decided to close shop and head home. i knew that i would have a difficult time in finding a cab if it was already evening. as we were driving back home with odin panting heavily in my lap, i couldn't help myself thinking, "poof! what just happened is proof that my dream of having him as a good protection dog is now kaput!"