Worst Month Ever

Well, thank God that's nearly over! June, I mean. It was my worst June ever (and that includes all the spoiled birthdays I had during the 15 years my ex and I suffered each other's company).

Here's a photo of Shrub before he was anybody, summing up my attitude towards this past month.



Or, perhaps, he's just telegraphing his opinion of the American People in the face of $5.00 a gallon gasoline.

Probably both.

One of my oldest friends died in June. I turned 60. I lost my cellphone. The air conditioner died. My dad's in the hospital and my step-mom is losing her mind to dementia (bringing back ever so fond memories of my birth mom's slide into insanity, and how I had to face that all on my own... while drinking), losing my 12-Step program's 10th "anniversary piece" at the movies last Saturday night (go see "Wall-E"... it's adorable and easily the best film this year, so far), and probably some other crap that I've totally forgotten.

We have a saying in 12-Step recovery to the effect that it won't be a major catastrophe that sends us back out drinking but, rather, it'll be "a broken shoelace" that breaks the camel's back.

I tell you, if it weren't for my sponsor, his wife, my friends and family I chose, I can easily see how I could've slipped right back into active addiction, even after 10 years of sobriety.

And then, this morning, I stumbled across two images on the internet which struck me dumb. They're both images of God's enduring love for mankind, his constant "tweaking" of the human genome and the spectacular results which even accidents behind the Divine Plan can achieve.

Here they are:



That's the singer "Pink", over there.



And that's Matthew McConaughey, with the "glutes of death", to the right. As though you needed directions to find either of them.

With two such lovely specimens running around loose, I just might decide to stay sober for another day or two on the outside chance I suddenly win the lottery and the grand prize is the boy model.

Bullshit Thursday!

Karl Rove, on some Faux news yakking head program last night, maintained that Barack Obama is arrogant.

When I stopped pissing myself because I was laughing so hard, I tried to remember just how humble the Bush White House has been for the last nearly 8 years.

Nothing self-righteous about that crowd, nosireebob. "Contempt Prior to Examination" being their motto and all. Karl is contemptuous of anything to which he hasn't even given a cursory glance. George is arrogant, too. But his arrogance is just born out of sheer stupidity.

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I see that Don't Ask, Don't Tell is back in the news. For some reason.

Look, here's the bottom line on all this:

There was a time, not so long ago, when religious people practiced their religion privately. They differentiated between their personal moral beliefs and the need to accommodate differently held beliefs in a pluralistic society.

So we were led to believe. BULLSHIT. This was never the case. We pretended that we were one, big happy family but that only worked as long as everyone PRETENDED to be the same as everyone else, to play by the same rules, and to act as if we all believed the same collection of fairy tales about God and Country.

It was okay to be gay as long as a) you pretended you weren't and b) you kept your mouth shut about it. In other words, it was okay to be gay.... as long as you weren't.

And that's what Don't Ask, Don't Tell is really about. It's okay for YOU to be gay, as long as I don't have to think about it!

It's all about accommodating somebody else's religious prejudices.

Nothing more. Nothing less. Nothing else.

Institutionalized religious bigotry posing as military necessity.

And that, my friends, is a heaping load of Bullshit for today!

No News...

Is possibly good news.

Id est, after PDF'ing the clearance letter from Dr. Assman to Dr. Gastric-Bypass yesterday, I haven't heard a word from Dr. G-B informing me that I had better let Dr. A have his way with me or else my insurance company won't pick up the tab for my impending surgery.

I'm assuming, therefore, that Dr. G-B is good, and that we're on track for me to have this surgery done on August 11th, come Hell or High Water.

Yeah, Hooray!

This might happen after all.

The Assman Cometh

Well I saw the assman yesterday afternoon. That's the technical term for their profession. Others refer to them as "gastroenterologists."

I prefer assman.

All I wanted was a lousy letter from him validating that I have a standard plumbing installation down there. He should know. Three years ago he shoved a 6' pipe up my ass and had a look around.

Instead, what I got, was a non-stop inquisition/bitch fest about his crazy-assed daughter, the law school maven, who informed daddy recently that she wants to practice entertainment law and didn't I agree with him that she was nuts and she should do something practical, like corporate law, instead?

Frankly, I don't give a crap if she graduates or not, works in entertainment law or takes up pole-dancing for a living.

All I want was a letter.

I got a sort of letter, the bottom-line of which is that although he clears me for the surgery, it is WITH THE UNDERSTANDING that he'd like to perform an endoscopy on me prior to the bariatric surgery.

Doctor's love to pile-on when they smell a few insurance bucks to be made in the process.

They love, even more, accusing lawyers of piling on when they go to them with their "simple, little, straightforward" malpractice suits.

Whatever.

I got the letter, such as it is, and faxed it over to my surgeon today. I put a note on it asking him to call me if he wants me to have the pipe up the butt... again.

As we say in my 12-Step Program... "more will be revealed."

But not, apparently, until I get home tonight and check my messages (doctors are also too cheap to call long distance from New Jersey to New York).

Doctors. Feh.

Here's the modern version of the Iron Maiden the assman wants to use on me.

Sh*t, P*ss, C*nt, F*ck, C*cksucker, Motherf*cker & T*ts

George Carlin died yesterday at the age of 71.

Judy Garland died in 1969 at the age of 40-something.

They didn't have much in common, but they did both choose to die on my birthday.

Judy on my 21st, George on my 60th.

I'm off to see my gastroenterologist now to get his blessing to have the bariatric surgery in August.

If he gives me any crap about it I swear I'll rip his friggin' head off and poop in the hole.

I am in NO mood for anybody's bullshit today.

Happy post solstice, everybody!

The Big Six-Oh

Let's just get this over with. I'll be 60 on Sunday.

There. I said it. 60.

Here's a recent photo:



This is how they count to 60 on Fire Island and in Provincetown and Rehoboth:

"57, 58, 59, ten-thousand..."

Gay people aren't supposed to live to be 60. If we're truly fabulous (and drunken sluts) we should die, fabulously, by the time we're 40 ... or 45 if you really stretch it.

So here are my weekend plans (and if you want to make God laugh, just tell her your plans):

Saturday:

7:00 a.m. drop off cleaning and dry-cleaning. pick up same from last week.
7:15 a.m. sit down with the Saturday NYTimes, a couple of trail-mix bars and a steaming cup of soon-to-be-a-thing-of-the-past coffee.
9:00 a.m. freshen up a great deal.
10:00 a.m. attend a 12-Step meeting (with my sponsor) in Princeton
11:30 a.m. haircut in Princeton at "La Jolie" or, as I call it, "La Faggy."
12:15 p.m. pick up a new air conditioner for the living room at the Home Depot on Route 1.
(maybe a movie somewhere in here)
4:00 p.m. arrive at my sponsor's house so he, his wife and mother-in-law can take me out for a sober evening of turning 60. As opposed to how I'd LIKE to spend the evening.
10:00 p.m. bed

Sunday

All day Death Watch in bed; blinds closed; phone unplugged; giant bags of Ruffles potato chips and cases of flavored water from Tarjay, strewn about the room.

Monday

Old Age.

I feel better already.

Bullshit Thursday!

Pictures speak a thousand words. Especially when it comes to typos. Here are a few billion words.



Note that this is the same "Barach" Obama with a Jewish branch of the family, headed by "Baruch" Obama.

And now, just in time for your summer movie-going pleasure (or whatever):



I have to admit, I've heard stories regarding Mr. Smith's allegedly awe-inspiring bulging basket of goodies. Certainly "above-average."

Our "Gratuitously Insulting Lapel Button of the Week Award" goes to the Texas Republican Party who, during their recent convention, had a vendor booth selling these tasteful little items:



Tacky, no?

And finally we have this:



In which there is nothing... abso-fucking-lutely nothing... wrong.

Just stare at it for awhile. Everything else eventually becomes meaningless.

Sigh.

Old Queens

When I got home last night there was a message on my answering machine from my (half)-brother. Our dad is in the hospital. He was delirious and suffering from dehydration (the two go hand-in-hand with the elderly) on Monday, had driven HIMSELF to the hospital (pain-in-the-ass-never-ask-for-help type that he, and the rest of us, is and are).

There is just he and my step-mom in the house. There's plenty of family within driving distance, however. My step-mom's mind is shot and she really shouldn't be left alone. Dad had sense enough to get himself to the emergency room. However, he did not have sense enough (or time enough) to drop her someplace where she'd be safe -- from herself and others. So she was left home, alone.

Although he's 83, he'll probably be fine. This time. But the time is coming when "something" will "have to be done about" them both.

I have a half-sister and half-brother. Dad is really more their dad than mine. Aside from the sperm donation he didn't really have anything to do with me until I was an adult. That wasn't his "fault" (my birth mom was a vindictive, hateful bitch, not to put too fine a point on it), but we don't have a typical father-son dynamic in our relationship. We're more like cordial friends. We certainly don't feel obligated towards each other for anything. Or, at least, I don't.

And that's why I think that they are more my half-siblings problem than mine. Nobody helped me with my birth mom when the time came for me to become her legal guardian and to commit her to a nursing home. I had to walk through that pretty much alone. With an expensive law-firm in Wilmington, Delaware. My mom didn't have any friends at the end of her life, and she'd blown through about five husbands. Nobody wanted anything to do with her -- but it fell to the "dutiful son (me!)" to see to it that she was cared for. If you call old-age hell-holes "care."

So, forgive me for wanting to keep a polite distance from the current familial drama.

However, this coming on top of "H"'s death last week has left me even more distanced from life than usual. And it's not helping matters that this coming Sunday

I__T_U_R_N__S_I_X_T_Y

Is it any wonder, then, that I occasionally lapse into thinking "Please God, just let me die peacefully in my sleep Saturday night"?

At least I'll look pretty good. I'm getting my hair done Saturday morning.

And my friends, L&M, are taking me out for a birthday dinner Saturday night.

Come to think of it, things are actually pretty good right now.

But come Sunday, if I live that long, I, like the late lamented Quentin Crisp, will officially become

One of the Stately Homos of America!

I Didn't Make It.

We tried. But my friend, "H", passed away Friday morning. After some last-minute teleconferencing with my friends in New York, we decided to press ahead with our visit and offer what aid and solace we could to "H"'s surviving partner, "S."

Again, we had decided in advance that we would do our utmost to make this weekend not about US and OUR loss, but about our fond (and mostly funny) memories of "H."

Because "H" had an entire different life after 1998 than the one I had known between 1977, when we met in Seattle and 1996 when my life started falling apart and H & S were living in Seattle and had no idea, H had developed a whole new set of friends ... mostly academicians. H had gone and gotten a doctorate while I wasn't looking and was an associate professor of literature at a major state college here in the east.

Believe me, it came as a complete surprise to his "new crowd" that "H" had once operated an adult movie theater in the seamiest part of Seattle.

Or that "H" and I had once recruited another friend of ours, a guy named Ed (who was the trashiest slut we knew) to escort us for our virginal trips to "the baths" in the fall of 1977.

H & I were inseparable buddies in the summer, fall and winter of '77 until I left Seattle to move to New York in March of 1978. It's hard to believe that we managed to squeeze so much life into such a short period of time. But with all the exhuberence and endurance of youth, we did manage it. In those 9 short months we became BFF's. Or so we thought. When the time came to say goodbye, we both dissolved into tears at the thought of being thousands of miles away from each other.

But I did move -- and both of our lives continued and "H" eventually moved to New York a year or so later. By that time I was getting involved with my ex and it was clear to both H and me that our "drinking and disco days" were now a thing of the past.

I wouldn't give up that time we had together for anything. Despite the fact that he was 8 years younger than me, "H" opened my eyes to many things and helped to polish what was still a diamond in the rough (me).

So though I didn't get a chance to tell him goodbye... it doesn't matter. In fact, there is no "goodbye." What I got instead was a rekindling of all kinds of fond memories of my youth that nothing can take away from me. "H" is still very much alive, and still 21, in the only places that matter.... in my memories and in my heart.

I love you, H. I always did and I always will.

-R

South Cackalakie Lubs Jeebus!

I don't.

The State's Rightists are at it agin... sorry, again. This time down south. WAY down south. Pretty soon you'll be able to get the above referenced 'vanity' plate in the glorious state of South Carolina! Pride of the Confederacy (they fired the first shot against Ft. Sumpter).

But I suppose vanity is not one of the deadly sins as long as you're VAIN for Jesus!

I also suppose that some half-assed country lawyer, posing as the state's attorney-general, actually approved this. Possibly he never heard of the Constitution.

This is the same crowd that claims that they are in favor of "state's rights" yet fight, tooth and nail, to get federal amendments to the Constitution banning gay marriage and banning flag burnings and banning a woman's right to choose. The fucking hypocrites (but it's "OK" to be a hypocrite for Jesus!).

This is the same crowd that claims they are against "social-engineering" by "activist judges" yet see nothing wrong with us, as a nation, shoving an alien form of government down another nation's throat, or shoving the Christian religion down the unwilling throats of millions of Americans, like me, who do not believe in it. And never will.

This is the same crowd that will not be content until every woman is shoved back into a back-alley abortion mill, until every LGBT person is forced to retreat to the closet and until everybody else thinks and feels and acts exactly like them.

Or, as someone else put it today, until we all become members of the

Borg.

Death

My former college roommate has a lovely, Victorian-inspired, plaque in his bathroom that shows a pale, thin young lady, plaintively holding a long silk scarf and intoning, "O, DEATH..."

It always reminds me of the opening animation to the old "Mystery" theater which used to air on Thursdays, then Sunday nights on PBS. It was based on the cartoons of Edward Gorey, and was very high camp. So, generally, was the show itself ("Rumpole of the Bailey" being my personal favorite -- sorry, "favourite").

Well, that young lady in the driving rain was me last night when I got home from work. The Maytag had died. No, not a washing machine. An air conditioner. I bought the Maytag window unit at Home Depot about 5 years ago and it had occupied the place of honor in a side window to my upstairs apartment in the ancient Victorian from Hell where I rent, ever since.

I pressed the "ON" button on the remote and, "KAFUT", it died. Dropped dead. Went to meet it's maker. Oh, the lights came on, and you could hear weird noises coming from within, but nothing was moving. Certainly not the fan.

Since I'm a fat, lazy, hot old bastard I am NOT going to live like this. I realize that appliances have become like personal computers, i.e. commodity items merely to be replaced, not repaired. So there is nothing else for it, it has to be replaced. ASAP.

This, by the way, is why there are no longer any manufacturing jobs in America. Everybody wants to buy a $375.00 air conditioner for $99.00. And now we can. Made in Mexico. Or Guatemala. Or some third-world country. Thank you, NAFTA. And they fall apart the day they turn five.

That is why tonight I will replace the dead Maytag with either a LG or a Frigidaire. At least the LG has the advantage of being made in a country where people actually still care about things like quality and craftmanship. South Korea.

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I received a lunchtime phone call from one of my friends in NY. Our friend, Mr. "H", has had a stroke and has taken a quick turn for the worse. It looks like rather than lollygagging our way up there for the 4th of July, instead we'll be organizing a hasty trip up to northeast Connecticut for this weekend.

I hope we are in time to let him know -- that he is loved.

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One final note on death. I went ahead and scheduled my upcoming bariatric surgery for August 11th without giving it much thought.

It turns out (and I should've remembered this) that that is the birthday of one of my closest friends AND my 12-Step sponsor, "L".

I've had to give him my solemn promise that I will NOT die during the surgery. I hadn't planned on it, in any case.

Another friend of his actually did die on his birthday a decade or so back and he hasn't been quite the same ever since.

I love my friends who are delicate that way.

Danger, Will Robinson, Danger!!!!

There are rumors floating around that one of the names being considered as Barry's Vice-President is that of Sam Nunn, former senator from Georgia and former Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

That would be a catastrophe for the LGBT Community. This is the same Sam Nunn who immediately pulled the rug out from under the newly elected Bill Clinton in 1993 by engaging in self-serving political grandstanding by touring military bases all around the country and getting service members to "co-sign his bullshit" by getting them to say that such a policy would be detrimental to unit cohesion and morale (bullcrap) and by also engaging in a lot of public Pentagon-Ass-Kissing.

Senator Nunn was very good at kissing brass-ass.

But now he's "seen the light" and is, magically, proposing that it might be time to "revisit" the issue by having a "Pentagon Study" [translation= buried alive] conducted.

This is a straightforward, self-serving, crock of political shit from a man who would love to be Barry's Veep and would callously slap lipstick on his past personal pigs in order to make them seem more palatable to today's clearly different society!

You can read the whole story over at the Huffington Post by clicking HERE.



Meanwhile, back at the ranch, The Decider Douche is actually experiencing a "feeling" [whatever that is] regarding his legacy. Apparently he "regrets" that people will remember him as a warmonger as opposed to remembering him for what he really is, i.e. a drunken, Yalie frat-boy. Poor baby. You can get the details regarding that crap over in the UK by clicking HERE.

Let's all be grateful that there's only 222 days left in office for Captain America, after which he will, we can all hope, slip back into ignominious anonymity, a fate he so richly deserves.

We're Havin' a Heat Wave

Sheesh, is it hot out there! It's usually along about day 3 of eastern heatwaves that the whole infrastructure starts coming undone -- from burned out power lines, blown manhole covers, fires, subway outages and buses breaking down with overheated engines and totally dead air-conditioning systems.

But, so far, so good. The only major transit outage so far is the PATH trains (Port Authority Trans-Hudson Railroad). The electrical grid seems to be holding up with only occasional "brown-outs" to indicate that ConEd is re-balancing the system.

I turned in at 9:30 last night and it was lights out at 9:45. I slept like a baby with the fan blowing full blast on me, and the AC on low. By dawn, though, you could've hung meat in my bedroom (no comments about "hung" and/or "meat", please) so it was a shock to walk out into the rest of the apartment when I got up this morning.

============================================

My friends from New York and I have made reservations to stay at a hotel up near where our friends "H" and "S" live. The plan is to spend the long 4th of July weekend with them.

I got more information about "H"'s condition on the overnight news wire (e-mails post-midnight). He had been battling liver cancer for years and it had been in remission for some time. However it recently recurred and, eventually, it spread from his liver to his spine.

I've asked God to grant "H" the grace and strength to endure whatever God has planned for him -- and to grant "S" the strength to endure the unendurable when the time eventually comes.

I've also asked God to help ME to be a friend among friends, to keep my head, to avoid drama, and to keep the focus entirely on the people who need it most right now, my friends.

Stormy Weather

It's hotter'n hell here in the east. It has been since last Saturday and it shows every intention of staying this way for another day or two.

Up above is a shot of the crowds at Robert Moses State Park, on Long Island, over the weekend.

I had a sort of date Saturday night with a guy in my 12-Step program whom I've been interested in for years (he's taller than me!!) and he's been sober for about 27 years now. However, we had a chaperone, a fellow who is new to the area and was looking for something to do Saturday night, so he invited himself along with us.

We had dinner first and then went to see and hear the New Jersey Gay Men's Chorus perform up north in the state. It was broiling in the church where they were performing. But that didn't matter. They performed with brio, sensitivity and a real feeling for the material. They even managed to find a mezzo to perform with them (a REAL lady). Their rendition of the Habanera from Bizet's "Carmen" was breathtaking and they captured the flavor of a group of [straight] men enthralled by the gypsy cigarette girl who ruins men's lives, Carmen. The melody of the chorus is absolutely haunting and even though I'm not an opera queen, it is one of my favorite arias.

We didn't get home until way past midnight. Not that it mattered. It was still over 80 degrees in central New Jersey at that hour. I cranked up the a/c in my bedroom, and slept under a sheet. And nothing else.

That's the "weather" part of the subject of today's post. The "stormy" part starts now.

I had an e-mail today from an old friend of mine. He informed me that he'd gotten a phone call over the weekend from another friend of ours, "S", informing him that the "S's" lover, "H", a man we've known for many decades, has been sent home from the hospital to die of pancreatic cancer.

My emotions are all over the place. I first met "H" in Seattle in the summer of 1977, right after I broke up with my lover number 2. "H" and I quickly became drinking and disco-dancing buddies and were pretty inseparable every Friday and Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons for the next 9 months or so... until I moved to New York in the spring of 1978.

Eventually "H" moved to New York too where we rekindled our friendship. "H" acquired the boyfriend who called us over the weekend and, in time, we all settled down in various domestic partnerships. Eventually "H" and "S" moved back to Seattle where "H" finished his degrees, eventually getting a doctorate. After that he became a college professor, first in Texas and later in Connecticut.

When I broke up with my partner of 15 years, in the summer and fall of 1994, S&H had long since moved away and, by the time they moved back to the northeast, I was at my bottom in central New Jersey and they, by default, remained friends with my ex.

I have to admit that I've always had a touch of resentment about that, since my ex wouldn't have known any of these people if it hadn't been for me. My ex wasn't terribly lovable and was woefully lacking in certain social skills.

Anyway, that's all water over the dam now. Now my friend is dying and I want him to know that I love him, that even though we haven't been a part of each other's lives for many years now, I have always loved him and I will miss him terribly when he is gone.

Life is short, people. Real short. Go do something you've been meaning to do but have kept putting off. You never know.

Gastric Bypass - Part Trois

But first... a message about Broadway! This piece, produced by Tony-Chasing wunderkind Cubby Bernstein (http://www.cubbybernstein.com/), takes place in the dressing room of "Xanadu" star Cheyenne Jackson. It's a fierce, hot, tranny mess! Enjoy!



And be sure to watch this year's Tony broadcast on CBS, Sunday, June 15, 2008 starting at 8:00 p.m. (EDT)

Now, about yesterday. Another day off visiting doctors. 9:00 a.m. with the surgeon. Actually with his nurse. I'm good to go. I'm scheduled for surgery on Monday, August 11th. In the afternoon I saw the shrink who grilled me for 45 minutes about my addiction(s), recovery, past, present and hopes for the future.

Net-net, he's happy to sign off for the insurance company and attest to the fact that I'm doing this for all the right reasons.

This leaves me with another visit to the nutritionist, an office visit with a gastroenterologist followed a week later by an upper-sigmoidoscopy, lab work for the hospital, one final consult with the surgeon and then, finally, I'll be good to go.

Now I can almost enjoy my summer vacation.

Have a great weekend everyone! Love to Aunt Lou and Uncle Fred and all the cousins!

JoyZeeBoy

Flabbergasted!

I really shouldn't be surprised, but I am.

It is so abundantly clear to me now exactly what sort of political machines Hillary and Bill Clinton are. Apparently the deal (with the devil and with each other) decades ago, when they first met, was that Bill would get to be president first and Hill would get her shot at it second.

And she is NOT about to call it quits. Not without taking somebody prisoner. Like the candidate presumptive.

I guess she really thinks that she's going to bargain with him from a position of strength. For what? The Vice-Presidency? Probably. She'd make a shitty Supreme Court Justice. She's way too polarizing and way too flammable for that. But to allow her, and that skirt-chasing bum husband of hers, to sit at the table of power.... again... would be unconscionable.

I feel it in my gut. If she became vice-president she would spend 4 years looking for ways to subtly sabotage President Obama's chances for re-election, so that she could snatch the office away from him. I believe she's just that desperate.

Now, to give her her due, she has clearly broken through the glass ceiling to the White House. In future elections it simply won't be important what the sex or color of the candidates are. The Democratic Party has done this, not the Republican Party (the party of Lincoln, as they love to point out).

But I hope that Senator Obama has the sense to realize that, rather than being an asset, she would be a toxic presence in his administration.

Other than that, he could select the Jackass as his running mate, and I'd still vote for him.

So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehn, now get the F* out of here!

Okay, it's official. Hillary is now the creature that will not die. Most of us were kind of banking on and hoping that tonight, at her "press conference" here in New York, she would graciously throw in the towel and offer her support to Barry.

But, nooooooooooooa. According to the latest reports, her spokesperson (and all round nut job) Terry McAuliffe, is saying that she will NOT bow out tonight, leaving open the probability that she's still horse-trading with the Obama people for a Supreme Court nomination and the total assumption of her leftover campaign debt in exchange for her gracefully throwing in the towel sometime later in the week.

Under NO circumstances should Barack offer Hillary the Vice-Presidency.

Anything that keeps her away from the presidency at this point will be okay in my book. I'm afraid that I've started to side with the pundits (including the author of the anti-Bill article in this month's Vanity Fair - and the spouse of former Clinton White House Spokesperson, Dee Dee Myers - Todd Purdham) who think that the farther away from the White House we can keep the Clintons, the better off the nation will be.

Hill and Bill are too enamored of power. Not only that but they're starting to act and sound like the Bush's, and acting as though they are ENTITLED to occupy positions of power; that the nation owes them something.

Nobody in Washington, from the top down or the bottom up, is "entitled" to anything in terms of an elected office. All elected officials serve at the discretion of the electorate. This is a dictatorship of the proletariat, in it's purest sense of the words. When we tossed George III out on his royal ass it was with the understanding that with him went the ancient idea of some sort of "divine right" of Kings or Princes or Presidents or Senators or Representatives.

The People Rule and the People Reign (as much as Dick Cheney might like to disagree).

When President Obama is sworn in next January, I hope he keeps that in mind.

And the Clintons can join Dubya down in Texas for some good old-fashioned, shit-kickin', crow eatin'.

I won't miss any of the crazy-assed, power-hungry, mofos.

Summer Lovin'

I couldn't resist putting that in, above. I love bubble-gummy, brain-dead pop tunes from every decade. Yes, it's Sheena Easton doing "Morning Train."

But this is serious. It's time for me to put together my annual "play list" of beach music for our upcoming week-long jaunt to Wildwood, New Jersey.

A moment's explanation. Wildwood is tightly wound up with my childhood. My grandmother took me there for the Feast of the Assumption every year (August 15), starting when I was about 8 or 9 and continuing until I was 13. She liked to soak her feet in the ocean on the Feast Day of the Virgin's Bodily Assumption into Heaven (look, if you're not Catholic, you're not going to understand any of this, so just move along.)

It was the late 50's and early 60's. Those days of "Wildwood Nights" (by Bobby Rydell). The boardwalk was one of the largest in the world. There were amusement piers all along it's length, in addition to game arcades, rides and tons of beach food establishments selling Philly cheesesteaks, candy apples, cotton candy, Fralinger's Salt Water Taffy and all of it washed down with genuine "Frank's" ginger ale.

It was paradise to a 10 year old. And a buck or two would last the night.

Besides, Wildwood was where all the "cool kids" who appeared daily on American Bandstand, when it was still in Philadelphia, came for the summer. They all had summer jobs working those arcade games, rides and short-order cooking at those fast food joints.

I haven't been there since the summer I turned 14. 1962. I remember the year because rather than doing "kid stuff" that summer, I couldn't wait to see "Lawrence of Arabia" which was playing at a theater on the boardwalk. I was officially too grown up to be at the beach with my Nana. It was no longer seemly for an older woman, clearly not my mother, to be escorting me around town -- and vice versa.

Anyway, after many decades my college buddies and I decided to try for Wildwood this year after two years of Cape Cod and eons of summers at the Delaware shore before that.

So I decided to put together a play list of songs which I can download to my MP3 player and plug into my portable stereo for playing at the beach this summer.

This is what I've come up with so far:

Title .................................Artist
Heat Wave...................... Martha & the Vandellas
Under the Boardwalk .. The Drifters
Wipe Out........................ The Surfaris
Good Vibrations............ Beach Boys
Surfin’ USA ....................Beach Boys
California Girls ..............Beach Boys
Satisfaction ....................Rolling Stones
Summer in the City ......Lovin’ Spoonful
Happy Together ...........The Turtles
Summer Wind ...............Frank Sinatra
Up On The Roof ...........The Drifters
Wildwood Days .............Bobby Rydell
Kokomo .........................Beach Boys
Telstar ..........................The Ventures
Octopus’s Garden .......The Beatles
Walkin’ on Sunshine ....Katrina and The Waves
Glad All Over ................Dave Clark Five

If anybody has any suggestions for other "summer-beach" type pop tunes over 20 years old, please feel free to post 'em. I'm all ears.