Down the Shore - 2009

We're heading back down to our old haunt, Rehoboth Beach Delaware, for our annual outing. This year we are officially four, with various and sundried drive-by couch-surfers who'll be crashing with us throughout the week.

Here we are:



Just kidding. This is an old snap of the beach patrol in Dewey, the next beach town south of Rehoboth.

Not that I've been very good about posting lately but I'll probably be even worse between now and August 8th, when we return.

Stay out of trouble while your father and I are away and we'll bring you a nice, big box of Dolle's Salt Water Taffy and a stuffed bear from one of the boardwalk arcades.

And keep out of the liquor cabinet.

Love,

Mom

Swimmer Butt

Aside from the Blue Dog Democrats who are effectively and substantially eviscerating anything even approaching universal healthcare in this country, and the Senate Judiciary Committee which finally got off it's collective fat-ass and nominated Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court, there isn't much else in the news except this:



A swimmer named Ricky Berens had a "wardrobe malfunction". And here are the pictures to prove it, above and a close-up, below:



See? There is a God. Sigh.

Borrowed Time

My heart attack is 20 years old this month.

I was on a Metroliner from Wilmington Delaware to New York City at the time. It was a Sunday afternoon. I'd been on vacation that week in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, where I ate badly, smoked like a chimney and drank like a fish.

In other words, business as usual.

A few minutes after the train pulled out of New Brunswick, I caught sight of the (late) Twin Towers of the World Trade Center some 30 miles off in the distance.

That's when I first felt it. A tightness in my chest. It felt like someone had balled up their fist and was shoving it straight up under my sternum. I didn't know that that's where the heart is actually located. I thought "how odd. it must be indigestion." What did I know about heart attacks? Nothing. I thought you were supposed to feel a shooting pain up your arm (I didn't).

It didn't go away.

I got back to New York and I got home.

It didn't go away. I slept fitfully that night.

It was a hundred degrees in New York that July. My ex and I went out to dinner because it was too hot to cook. We went out that Monday night, the next night (Tuesday) and the night after that (Wednesday). We went to dinner at the Post House (a chop and steak joint) that night. I had the prime rib (large), with a baked potato and lots of butter and broccoli with hollandaise sauce (yeah, I know).

After dinner, we decided to walk over to the Lex line from the west side. We got to Astor Place. I collapsed on the platform.

The doctor said I should've died. He said I'd had a massive coronary. I needed a cigarette and a drink when he said that.

I kept drinking and smoking for years afterward. I didn't care. Even though I was a high-powered Wall Streeter at the time, I was very unhappy and wished, deep-down-inside, that I was dead.

I would eventually lose everything (Wall Street, the ex, etc.) I would get sober in 1998. I would have quadruple-bypass surgery in 2004 and quit smoking at the same time. I would have bilateral endarterectomies in 2005. I would be diagnosed with type II diabetes in 2006 and eventually have a stomach bypass in 2008 to fix the diabetes.

Twenty years ago I had a massive coronary.

Twenty years ago, I realize now, God was very busy saving me from myself. Time and time and time again.

I don't doubt it.

Miracles happen. I am one.

North Complicit in Slavery (Film at 11:00!)

Today's title is actually a headline over on CNN right now.

I wonder to myself "what bright young dingbat just found this out?"

As anyone over the age of reason, who has seen the movie "1776", knows:

"Molasses to Rum to Slaves" was sung by Edward Rutledge from South Carolina and directly refers to the triangulation of north/south/caribbean economics in the 18th century.

But even non-musical types have a general knowledge that the North and the South were heavily divided on the issue and not always along geographical lines (Mr. Dickinson of Pennsylvania being a prime example), and that it took all the genial diplomatic skills of Benjamin Franklin himself to eventually broker a deal on the matter, primarily between John Adams of Massachusetts and his followers and Rutledge and his followers. The Virginians, by the way, were ambivalent on the matter.

Franklin could probably not have foreseen just how much long-term damage that deal would inflict on the country, but then, he was faced with the more daunting (and immediate) problem of creating a United States of America, and not merely preserving it.

We were a work in progress then, and we remain so now.

I'm Mad As Hell and I'm Not Going to Take It Anymore!

I am finding more and more support amongst my friends (and here in InternetsLand) for bringing up our collective rage at the sorry state of affairs in this country for LGBTs. I watched President O'Bama do his dog-and-pony for the assembled (unelected) "gay leadership" at the White House, excuse me, OUR White House, on Monday afternoon (early enough in the week to bury it before Friday). The words were comfy and warm however the real support, backed up by actions, was nonexistent. You can go find the video yourselves. The Pink Pussycats (my new term for wimpy "go-along, get-along" Log Cabinish, kiss-ass bloggers and "gay leaders") have the video on all their sites.

David Mixner in his blog today, July 1st, 2009 , said this:

“For me to be a free man doesn't mean I have to make everyone in America like me. In fact the Constitution protects an unpopular minority from the tyranny of a majority.”

This is what he called it: Gay Apartheid

This is what it is: Gay Apartheid

Politicians can mouth off, Religiosos can mouth off, The Powers-That-Be can mouth off, but the net-net is... gay apartheid. Separate, and mostly unequal.

Enough.

And here's Keith Olbermann interviewing Dan Savage last night on the subject of DADT.

Wait for the payoff at the end. Keith swears up a blue streak and it's absolutely worth the wait.

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