Maxed Out

The Romans knew a thing or two about keeping the crowd diverted. Hence the expression "bread and circuses" which pretty much summed up their solution to vexing social problems.

Feed the crowds and give 'em dead bodies to cheer about.

And while the front page of today's NYTimes doesn't offer much in the way of edible goodness, it does offer a fair amount of spectacle to slather over.

In one article Senator McCain has outlined his broad proposals for the US economy which consist, mostly, of tax cuts. For rich people. What chutzpah. How daring. Breathtaking. Yawn.

That's on the left side of the page. On the right side we have a headline "Big Tax Breaks for Businesses in Housing Bill." Well of course there are. Only an idiot wouldn't know that when Joe Blow gets fifty cents from Uncle Sugar, General Motors will get 100 bajillion dollars as part of the same deal. Tsk. Tsk. Everyone knows that.

Then, in the middle, we have "Iraqi Unit Flees Sadr City, Despite American's Plea" in which we read about an Iraqi army unit which turned tail and ran in the middle of the night, leaving an American patrol to fend for itself, despite the outright begging of the American commander. It's nice to see the Iraqi's finally shifting for themselves. We should be able to leave there in no time.

Like, literally, in no time. Never. Ever.

The final lead item is headlined, "Pope, in U.S., is 'Ashamed' of Pedophile Priests." That's nice. They ought to be. But how about a little shame for all the heretics they burned at the stakes over the millenia? Or the bloody crusades? Or how they turned a blind eye to millions of other atrocities over the centuries when it was very convenient to do so (or inconvenient not to)?

Is it asking too much for the world to be slightly less pigheaded, stupid, cowardly and greedy than it apparently is?

Have we maxed out on our collective credit card of common sense?

Sigh.

I guess it really is a dog-eat-dog world. And to paraphrase Norm from Cheers, "most of us are wearing Milk Bone underwear!"

Bawl Street Journal

Stampede, do not sashay, saunter or gambol, on over to the Huffington Post and dig down around for an article about a Wall Street Journal parody which is being published this week.

Actually, you can simply click HERE to go to the page.

Read the article (and be forwarned, this is NSFW due to the nudity of a sketch of a certain Faux News Favorite), but be sure to check out the embedded video.

Itself purports to be a parody of a certain Australian News Mogul, but it sure as hell looks to me like the so-called actor is the real deal.

Check it out for yourselves.

And then run out to a newstand and find the parody of the paper itself. The last time I saw one of those was in the 80's, when I worked on Wall Street. It was a devastating take on the business then and I have no doubt that it'll be equally eviscerating now.

Cranky & Bizzy

Last Friday I was "informed" that from now on I am responsible for making sure that one of the associates I work for enters his time in our bookkeeping system on a more timely basis than a) once a month and b) whenever he feels like it.

I hate being the babysitter to somebody who makes 3 times what I make who won't do what he's supposed to do.

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To make Friday even worse I was told that starting this week I would have to work on a SEC document that needs to be created and filed on behalf of one of our clients.

SEC documents are formatting nightmares. To make matters "easier" the powers that be decided to a) use a form for the document which is Edgarized on the internet at the SEC website (don't ask and I won't tell). Then they decided to divvy up the document amongst six different secretaries to tidy it up. The only problem with that being that six secretaries have six different ways of tidying up.

On Monday morning all six pieces were forwarded to me for assembly.

What a friggin' mess. I might as well have typed the entire document myself, from scratch.

I've spent the remainder of this week getting it (it now tops out at over 100 pages) into some semblance of readable shape.
==============================
But enough grousing.

Let's talk about General Westmoreland Petraeus. I understand that he testified before somebody yesterday or the other day. Things are just swell. We should "stay the course." Or some bullshit like that. I guess he's jockeying for the job of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs someday. Trust me, though. He won't get it.

Is it just my imagination or are we in VietNam all over again?

Ya know, sometimes I like to speculate on exactly what we could've bought with that Trillion Dollars we've thrown away trying to subjugate a bunch of hotheaded religious nuts in a country that brings exactly nothing to our strategic party. Perhaps we could've found the cure's for cancer, AIDS, ALS, multiple sclerosis and muscular dystrophy? Or provided free education for every American under the age of 25 up to and including college? Or ... well, I'm sure you have some good ideas, too. Let's hear 'em!

===========================
There are some shining spots in this week, though. Today is pay day and tomorrow is Friday!

And that makes life worth living.

You Can Always Tell A Codependent

But Not Much.

The other morning I splurged after my morning 12-Step meeting and went out for coffee with some of my tribe. As we settled down in the far corner of the coffee shop section at Barnes & Noble, the subject came up, as it often does with newcomers who don't know any better, about how other people in the program REALLY need help and what can be done to help them.

I do my best to squash such gossiping before it gets out of hand by pointing out that prayers are always good and that no matter what, we really need to keep the focus on ourselves throughout our sobriety. Fat lot of good that does.

In 10 years of continuous sobriety I've met few recovering alcoholics who weren't, to some degree or another, also recovering codependents. Especially people who are also Adult Children of Alcoholics (boy, does it come with that territory!)

And if there's one thing CODA's are good at, it's taking the heat off themselves by putting it on somebody else (a drunken parent, sibling, significant other, the guy or gal sitting across from them at meetings, etc).

The difficulty comes when you have 10 years, like I do, and you know that your primary purpose is to stay sober and to help another alcoholic to achieve sobriety.

When, then, is it appropriate to discuss what clearly is the borderline mental illness of a group member? Who becomes the anointed adult in a group, charged with approaching someone like that with the advice that their needs are "clearly beyond the scope of any 12-Step program and, therefore, we advise you to seek professional assistance outside of the rooms?"

These are ticklish and uncertain issues for us. Bill W. (one of the granddads of 12-Step programs) never hesitated to jump right in, no matter the consequences, with lots of advice for people, helpful or otherwise. But times were different then.

The temptation to succumb to the need to "fix someone" is at the very core of a codependent's addiction. That addiction being to do everything within their power to avoid having any attention drawn to their addictions (it's tricky, but runs along the line of "as long as everyone is looking at Uncle Joe's drinking problem, nobody will notice what a drunk I've become!"), or, in the case of someone already in recovery, to not have attention drawn to their own (possibly marginal) efforts by focusing a beam of negative energy on someone else's recovery. Someone who may lack the mental or emotional resources to have the sort of recovery many of us desire.

But like all human behaviors, codependency is fraught with pitfalls. Not the least of which is that we run the danger of eventually having that same spotlight shone on ourselves, and our peccadiloes.

You know, I've gotten so much self-awareness in the last 10 years that it seems to some of my friends that I do nothing but spend most of my time self-co-dependently analyzing my every thought, word and motive. We even have an expression for that (surprise, surprise!)

We call it "analysis until paralysis." And yes, I'm guilty of that a lot of the time (not all of it, though).

Like Buddha, we are all seeking "the Middle Way." Balance.

Have an angst free weekend everybody. And remember to keep the focus on yourselves (unless you're a newly minted grandparent in which case it's perfectly alright to keep the focus on the baby).

Tahhred

I'm tahhred. I don't know why. I slept like a baby last night, across the river in Queens with some friends at their beautiful apartment.

I think it might be just because it's Spring and the weather is changing, and the days are longer and I'm older.

Or something like that.

I spent the night in town because I'd been invited to speak at a 12-Step meeting after work last night. The meeting was going to run late and I didn't want to have to dash for the bus, so my friend stepped up to the plate and invited me to crash at his place.

He even cooked a delicious meal for his wife and I.

I slept in until 5:30 this morning, a good 45 minutes past my usual arising time.

But now I'm tahhred, and ready for bed.

Funny thing about rest. It's like a drug. The more you get, the more you want.

And this alkie can really relate to that!

Throw the Old Bastards Out!

Okay, I'm a big kid now and I understand that the Republican's stole the 2000 election for GWB in Florida partly in retaliation for the Democrats having stolen the 1960 election for JFK in Illinois. Payback in politics, can be a real bitch. We hated Nixon. They hated Gore (well actually they hated Clinton, but they couldn't get even with him directly, so Gore had to do).

Today I read that Karl Rove had the nerve to refer to Barack Obama as "arrogant." Barack? Arrogant? The Pillsbury Doughboy actually had the nerve to say that? About anyone? If there's anybody who served in the White House in the last 8 years who has less right to call anybody "arrogant" it's Rove.

Worse, it's that time of the political cycle where PLMs (people like me) get thrown under the bus for political gain (again). It was on the ticker this morning that Teddy K. (D-MA) is tossing some of us in front of mass transit by threatening to introduce the tranny-excluding ENDA bill to the Senate.

Sigh.

Both sides of the aisle piss me off. Neither side of the aisle ever wholeheartedly represents my wants and aspirations.

I am the Alienated American.

I do not believe that the United States of America is a "Force for Good" in the world. I do believe that it is merely "a force" and, like all forces, it needs to be carefully watched. I agree with Winston Churchill's observation that "America can always be relied upon to do the right thing.... having exhausted every other possibility."

Which is not to say that we are utterly without charm. We have many redeeming qualities (industriousness, creativity, compassion, just to name a few). But the one quality I admire the most is our ability to finally get thoroughly fed up.

Once upon a time we Americans sat idly on our hands while a far-away power imposed it's will and it's armies upon us. It taxed us without representing us. It took and took and took and gave us nothing in return except it's overbearing arrogance and a common mother-tongue. This sorry state of affairs went on for decades until we, the people, finally said, "FTS (f*ck this sh*t)ENOUGH IS ENOUGH."

The crowd that occupies the acreage inside the Beltway these days would do well to remember what happened when the American People in those days finally got fed up with the pricks with the guns. We threw the bastards out.

Here's my current deal.

We've had as president, since the year I was born (1948), the following (initials, party, term(s))

HST (D-1), DDE (R-2), JFK (D-3/4), LBJ (D-1 1/4), RMN (R-1 1/2), GAF (R- 1/2), JEC (D-1), RR (R-2), GHWB (R-1), WJC (D-2), GWB (R-2).

That's six terms for the Democrats (24 years) and nine terms for the Republicans (36 years).

As far as I'm concerned we've had way too many Republican presidents in my lifetime and REALLY way too many Bush's and Clintons.

Barack's my Main Man from here on out.

Run Away, Run Away

I've gotten boxed into a corner.

A couple of years ago a buddy of mine in my home group made a bet with me. He'd just spent a half-dozen years being a "househusband" while his wife, a high-powered poobah in something or other, was the breadwinner in the family. He stayed home, cooked, cleaned and, in between, got sober.

"If I ever get a job, you'll start dating", he said.

Well, that seemed innocuous (and improbable) enough. I knew enough about him to know that he'd never give up his cushy gig as wife and mother, notwithstanding his successful previous career at a national broadcasting network here in NYC.

"Done" I said.

Long story short, the SOB decided to try his hand at investment banking and damned if he didn't just close his first deal!

It's not the dating I mind, but there was a subsequent codicil to the bet. That if he was successful at becoming an investment banker, I'd give serious thought to going to work with him in putting deals together.

He could scarcely contain his glee when he called me with the good news this morning.

I don't know whether to jump off the Verrazano Bridge or to toss myself under a downtown express train.

After all, what's wrong with living alone, like a hermit, in sublime isolation with a virtually do-nothing job that pays "okay" for somebody who's 25 and just starting out in life?

Plenty, apparently.

I'm scheduled to speak at a 12-Step meeting tomorrow evening after work, at 6:30 p.m., here on the upper east side of Manhattan. So I asked my friend if I could spend the night with he and his wife, who live right over the river in Queens. He agreed, as long as he and I have "the chat."

Oh, swell.

Well, there's one good thing about this. At least I won't spend all my time between now and tomorrow night worrying myself sick over speaking before a bunch of strangers at a 12-Step meeting.

No. Instead I'll spend all my time worrying about the impending conversation with my friend over my future plans.

I HATE thinking about the future. And I'm clueless when it comes to planning.

I'd much rather run away. Just like I've done a thousand times before.

I really must ask Bev

I really must ask Bev how she manages all this blogging stuff.

I had a post ready to go (two of them, in fact) on Tradition Three, one of which I posted last week.

Then, today, I went to create a new post and KAFLOOEY, I wound up blowing up my hard-earned post du jour and wound up posting the 2nd draft of the post regarding Tradition Three I had leftover from last week.

Now, I can hold forth for hours with the best of them in recovery meetings, but two posts, virtually back to back, on the same subject, is a little much, even for a self-absorbed alkie like me.

My friend Bev, on the other hand, apparently posts about as much as Arianna Huffington does on a good day, not including video logs, cake-baking and puppy-tending.

Somewhere in there she manages to find time to whiz down to Santa Barbara to attend showers (wedding and baby), weddings, births, christenings, bat mitzvahs and God only knows what else. Drive visitors into San Francisco for the Cook's Tour of the place (hold on... this is Lombard Street) and still have time to drive up to Marin to have lunch with her Mom.

I don't know how the woman does it.

I wish she'd fill in for me now and then.

I need to go lie down now.

The Righteously Saved

I know I've beaten this subject into the dust, but I feel compelled, today, to rant, yet again, on the subjects of presumptivness and certitude amongst the Righteously Saved.

The Righteously Saved think that we are a Christian Nation, founded by Christians, on a Christian basis and that our Constitution and laws should be based on a strictly Fundamentalist Reading of Selected Passages from some book they believe that God wrote and tossed out of Heaven one day in 1603 or something.

The Righteously Saved believe that I deliberately chose a lifestyle that flies in the face of their beliefs for the sole purpose of pissing them, and their God, off.

The Righteously Saved believe that the Godly States of America were mandated by Heaven to spread the Gospel, by the sword if necessary, to the rest of the world and that it is our God-Given Duty to do so.

The Righteously Saved believe that there should be no comingling of the races.

The Righteously Saved believe that all men should be Rich... and White... and in charge... of everything. Everyone else can either die or move to Europe.

The Righteously Saved believe that women are brood mares who exist solely to provide pleasure for Rich, White men, also to cook for them and to bear as many of their babies as they can before they wear out and die.

The Righteously Saved believe that Jesus was the Waspiest looking Jew-Boy you've ever seen in your life.

The Righteously Saved believe that the Republican Party has won every war since the Spanish-American War (hint: that was the LAST war they won).

The Righteously Saved believe that not only should we not admit the foreign spouses of LGBT Americans but, instead, that LGBT Americans should be de-ported to somewhere else.

The Righteously Saved believe that I should believe what they believe and that if I don't (or won't, or can't) then the very least I can do is to shut up and pretend that I do.

The Righteously Saved believe that I have an agenda.

But oddly enough, when I look around, the only agenda I see has the words "Righteously Saved" written all over it.

The Only Requirement for Membership

My 12-Step Program, in addition to it's 12 Steps, also has 12 Traditions. In a Program that really doesn't have any rules or regulations, our Traditions lay down the groundwork under which we operate. Each of the Traditions has equal weight, and each is equally important.

Part of our Program's lore has it that "the Steps keep us from killing ourselves... the Traditions, however, keep us from killing each other."

Boy, ain't that the truth.

Oftentimes meetings dedicated to the Steps (cleverly entitled "Step Meetings") will reserve one meeting a month for a discussion of that month's Tradition. March, for example, being the third month would be reserved for Tradition Three, "The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking."

Period. That's it. There are no other admission requirements to the Program. You're a member if you say you're a member, and nobody can throw you out or blackball you as long as you have a desire to stop drinking.

The Traditions have their genesis in the early days of the Program, when we were a far more secretive (and frightened) society than we are today. Some groups didn't want blacks as members. Or Catholics. Or Jews. Our literature (in a book we call the "Twelve and Twelve" - the Steps and Traditions) even mentions that in the old days groups would (or wanted to) bar "beggars, tramps, asylum inmates, prisoners, queers, plain crackpots, and fallen women..." (yes, this is a direct quote -- one which usually causes gales of laughter in meetings today).

Even a loose reading of that paragraph would've probably disqualified most of our membership, way back when. I, personally, qualify in several of those categories!

Tonight, at a meeting here in New York, I'll be speaking on the subject of our Third Tradition.

Apparently, the mere act of not picking up a drink, one day at a time for 10 years, qualifies me to hold forth at length on this subject.

What they don't know is that I'll be lucky if I don't throw up on the first three rows of attendees.

And this is how we keep each other sober (with a healthy serving of God's help along the way.)

God, please give me strength and inspiration to a.) not make a complete ass of myself and b.) to actually have something worthwhile to say.

Take the Accent Test!

What American accent do you have? Your Result: Philadelphia Your accent is as Philadelphian as a cheesesteak! If you're not from Philadelphia, then you're from someplace near there like south Jersey, Baltimore, or Wilmington. if you've ever journeyed to some far off place where people don't know that Philly has an accent, someone may have thought you talked a little weird even though they didn't have a clue what accent it was they heard.
The Midland
The Inland North
The South
The Northeast
Boston
The West
North Central
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Obsession du Jour? Tires!

It all started when I noticed that the OEM tires on my 2005 Honda Element, some pieces of crap made by Goodyear, were starting to lose their tread. At 25,000 miles. I know a guy who rides my commuter bus, who has the same car, but an earlier model year. He said he'd put Michelin's on his and was looking forward to getting 60,000 trouble-free miles out of them.

Well, that started me on my quest. Keep in mind that there's no imminent danger of the car falling off the road, or of the tires suddenly exploding in a parking lot. I've probably got about 3 or 4 months before things start getting really ugly, treadwise.

So I decided to start looking for a place to buy the recommended Michelin's, over the weekend.

I dropped by the local STS store on Saturday morning. The particular model of tire I need, LTS M/S, P215/70R16 99S, is on something called "national backorder" which means nobody can get 'em, and nobody can order 'em.

PANIC! HORROR!!

A simple little exploratory outing had suddenly turned into a matter of life or death.

I detoured down Route 130 towards Bordentown, to the nearest BJ's. They didn't have it in stock, either. Same story.

YIKES.

Now, of course, I'm terrified to drive.

By yesterday afternoon I wanted to know, personally, from Michelin headquarters in France, WHY these tires are on national backorder and WHEN, precisely, I might expect to see them being delivered for installation on my car.

As if they'll tell me. But really...

don't these people know who I think I am??

If they know what's good for them, they'll start pooing tires later on today.

Am I crazy?

Nah.

How British Politicians Handle It!

No blabbage today. Just two clips from the BBC series "Little Britain" in which a local politician puts a helluva lot of spin on his sexual dalliances. Note the reactions from the long-suffering spouse. Both are courtesy of YouTube (and how did we ever live without that?)



and this one:

Good Friday

Today would be a great time for me to thoroughly disrepect those who fervently believe that what they believe is what everybody ought to believe or else we should get the hell out, but unlike certain dipshit, asshole bigots who think

A B S O L U T L E Y - N O T H I N G

about trampling, trashing and totally destroying my life, and dispensing an unending stream of vitriolic bullshit about me (without even knowing me) in the process (i.e. that I "chose" to be gay -- that one is really a hoot -- and really pisses me off) in order to further their beliefs, I won't.

I have too much respect for faith in general. I know I wouldn't like it very much if I was attacked on the basis of my faith. My faith doesn't come with a bible (unless you consider The Big Book of my 12-Step Program to be a "bible", which I don't). Nor does it come with a hierarchy (lamas, ministers, deacons, monks, bishops, archbishops, popes, presidents, emperors or kings). Nor does it have a vast bureaucracy.

My faith is pretty simple, actually.

There is a God.

I'm not Her.

There are no Virgins who have babies, or endless cycles of reincarnation or 20 pound books that God drops out of Heaven, fully writ in 16th century Olde Englishe.

There are no thundering, mounted hordes of horsemen, riding out of the Arabian desert, spreading their beliefs at the point of a sword.

There are no inquisitions, or auto da feys or dunking chairs or burnings at the stake.

There is no such thing as heresy.

There is no such thing as blasphemy.

All there is is the simple, pure belief that there is a Power Greater than Me...

and that I'm not Her (and no, there's no belief that God is one sex or another. That's ridiculous. God just "is." God doesn't need an "other" in order to create. If God wills it, it is. I just use the feminine pronoun to piss people off.)

What others believe is their business. I make no attempt to dictate to them on the basis of MY opinions about faith and belief.

And I would certainly never make any attempt to have my spiritual beliefs encrusted in our flag and enshrined in our constitution or laws.

"When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross." (although often attributed, there's no clear-cut source for that quote. Some think it was Upton Sinclair, others think it was Sinclair Lewis. My vote goes to Shari Lewis, via Lambchop.)

No matter what you believe, may you have a joyous and peaceful weekend.

This weekend and always.

Despair, Teen-Angst & Island Suicides

Interesting little article in today's NYTimes about a cluster of teen suicides on Nantucket.

I know a thing or two about teen angst and/or despair. Fortunately for me, when I was a teen, I was able to keep the vivid dramas I concocted for myself on a daily basis completely within my head and never seized upon the opportunity of a classmate's suicide to jump on the do-it-in-yourself bandwagon.

I believe in the theory of "cluster" suicides, especially among teens. Teens do everything in packs, including offing themselves. It's chic. It's dramatic (THEY'LL BE SORRY! -- uh, no, they won't). It makes a real statement.

It's also a permanent solution to temporary problems.

But try telling that to a 16 year old. Anything that runs past midnight tonight IS permanent in their books.

I know that when I was 16 I would never have believed things were going to get better. Mostly because for 16 years they hadn't. That's what comes from living with drunks while trying to raise yourself. What I didn't realize, though, was that in time they'd all die and I had the option to make things better for myself, once they were out of the way. So that long after they were gone I kept living every day as though they were still around and still making me miserable.

Silly me.

Naturally, I drowned those (self-inflicted) painful feelings with booze. Others choose drugs. Still others choose both.

Personally, I think that suicidal teenagers would be far better off becoming drunks. At least in the short run. Booze numbs the pain, no matter what the source, and, God willing, there'll be time enough later to sober up, after the source of the original pain is long-gone. I know that sounds irresponsible or callous. Rest assured, it's not. I'm certain that I would've been dead decades ago if booze hadn't numbed me to life until I was ready to accept life on it's terms.

Accompanying the article is a picture of a hand-written note taped to a classroom door in Nantucket High. It's a quote by Eleanor Roosevelt:

"Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life."

Good words to share with a despairing teen. Good words, too, for the rest of us.

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On a completely different (and more frivolous) subject, here is the question du jour:

Is Dale Earnhardt, Jr. a Big 'Mo? Click here to find out for yourself.

All Fall Down!

A week ago we found out that the governor of New York, Mr. Goody Two-Shoes, was schtupping some high-priced slut from New Jersey.

On Saturday, just around the corner from my office, a construction crane collapsed trashing 2 city blocks, destroying a couple of buildings and killing God knows how many.

On Sunday the venerable investment house of Bear Stearns (aka "Da Bear") was sold to JPMorganChase for about $2 bucks a share. The building it occupies at the corner of 47th Street and Madison Avenue is worth more.

Today the speculation surrounds the rumors that the brokerage house of Lehman Brothers might be next (I certainly hope not. They owe me a pension!)

No wonder people drink! Especially in this city. Times either are very very good, or else they suck donkey.

Today the city has it's annual celebration which involves tens of thousands of Italian, Polish and Jewish teenagers who arrive on trains and buses to imbibe obscene quantities of green beer, festoon themselves with buttons and hats which invite the world to "Kiss Me! I'm Irish!" and to vomit said green beer in the middle of, and all the way up, Fifth Avenue, so the marchers can find their way from 42nd Street to 86th Street. At that point the parade disperses and, by 5 o'clock this afternoon just about every cop and firefighter in town will be drunk out of their minds and hanging out the open doors of every Irish Pub on Manhattan's (usually) fashionable Upper East Side.

It's a great time to knock off a few banks. Ain't no way you'll get caught.

I only suggest that because, well, times are hard. Even if Georgie Porgie can't or won't see it.

So, Happy St. Paddy's Day, everyone.

Eat, drink and be merry! But especially, drink (if you can).

(And for those who keep track of such things, I am one-quarter Irish, one-quarter English, one-quarter Scot and one-quarter Welsh. Now you know why I never stood a chance.)

Cash & Prizes

I started to get sober 10 years ago, a week ago last Saturday. That's a lot of sober time. It also represents a period spent mending a lot of fences (and erecting a few new ones, too).

I got an e-mail this morning from a guy I've known since October of 1971. I think we probably liked each other a lot back then. I remember thinking, in those days, how nice he was and how I wished I could be a part of his inner circle of friends. But my disease took me elsewhere and even though we'd maintained a very loose contact with each other over the years, I never had that close friendship I would've liked to have had.

That all changed after I started getting sober. And that e-mail he sent me detailed, in a very short paragraph, how much I've come to mean to him in the last 10 years.

It made me so happy that I started to cry.

When I wrote back I tried to find the right words to let him know how grateful I am that by getting sober I've been able to finally get something I've wanted for years. To be his friend.

For the last several years he and his life partner, and another friend of ours, have vacationed together for a week or two just about every summer. My emailing friend and I tend to be early risers and I love spending a quiet hour or so with him every morning, sitting out on the screened porch, or on the deck, or somewhere overlooking the beach or water, just drinking coffee and yapping about nothing, something, everything.

The best gifts I've gotten in sobriety are the gifts of love and friendship. Anything else is just "stuff."

For an alkie like me, it takes a long time to come to appreciate the really important things in life. I'm grateful that I "got it" before it was too late.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Sally Kern - Politician, Mother, Christian, Asshole

A self-loathing Christian woman (and Oklahoma politician, but I repeat myself), Sally Kern, who failed so miserably at motherhood that one of her sons turned out queer is now blaming the entire LGBT community (with our vast, hidden, agenda) for making him that way, even though he attended nothing but Baptist Schools throughout his childhood. Momma is denying that Jesse's gay, but Qweerty has unearthed some interesting court documents. Read about it here.

She also claimed that we're out to kill her, but that turned out to be a lie, too. Click here for details on that.

I know this is old news, but hey, what can I do? Spitzer resigned already, thus depriving blogging pundits such as moi of days of gleeful condemnation.

Let's all move to Oklahoma and make this good, Christian woman's life a living hell!

Meet the New Governor of New York State

That gentleman to the right is the new governor of New York State. His name is David Paterson. Click here to read his Wiki entry. He sort of got the job by default. His predecessor resigned because he violated a whole bunch of laws and ethics by transporting money, via the banking system, in order to solicit a prostitute (violates: The Mann Act), not to mention just being an all-around sleaze-ball, hypocrite, just like all the Republican and Christian assholes who've gotten caught with their hands in the sexual cookie jar over the past few years.

So, the "Steamroller" is gone and now New York has it's first African-American, visually impaired (i.e., legally blind), governor.

I personally like Governor Paterson. He likes LGBT people. He's been pro-marriage for us since the early 90's. He, his wife and kids, live in Harlem, a district he has represented for decades. His father was important in both New York and National Democratic politics (vice-chair of the national party organization).

Governor Paterson has also staunchly defended stem-cell research.

Now Spitzer is gone. It's time to move on.

The King is dead. Long live the King.

Idiotlogues

This is the cover of today's NY Post. It features soon-to-be ex-Governor of New York, Eliot Spitzer, aka "Mr. Clean" and his long-suffering wife who probably looks a lot better when she hasn't been crying.

Spitzer made a lot of enemies in New York during his crusades against organized crime and Wall Street corruption over the years, while he was State Attorney General, and before that when he worked in the NYC District Attorney's office under mob-buster Bob Morgenthau.

He always talked a good game about being pure.

Pure as the driven slush, as it turns out.

He's just another ideologue, the worst kind of politician. The Mark Foley kind of politician. The Larry Craig kind of politician. The kind of politician who'd happily tell YOU how you should live YOUR life while his was a dirty, little shithole.

I'm not terribly sorry this happened to him. He ruined some nice people during his single-minded quests to stamp out crime. People who's only crimes were to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. He took no prisoners and was pretty unforgiving. Now, of course, he appears on tv, looking all contrite and beaten, like a whipped puppy. Looking for forgiveness, no doubt. Asshole.

Why is there always, ALWAYS, a long-suffering wife at the side, sucking it up in public on behalf of the all-important male's career? I wish his wife had whipped out a gun and shot his ass or, at the very least, pistol-whipped it. Now THAT would've been good tv.

Spitzer is now a drag on the Democratic Party during a very important Presidential Election Cycle,

He should resign immediately and start hanging out with his fellow ideologues who got caught with their hands in the sexual cookie jars, Mark Foley, Larry Craig and that jerk out in Colorado who headed up an anti-queer evangelical church even while he was hiring male hustlers and doing drugs.

I didn't invent the world, but I do believe that he who lives by the sword should probably die by it. And those who never give forgiveness should probably forget about ever getting it.

10 Years and 2 Days

Saturday night was great.

I belong to a gay 12-Step group in Pennsylvania which was celebrating it's 13th Anniversary Saturday night, the same time I was celebrating my 10th anniversary of sobriety. The group's chairman had invited me to be one of three guest speakers that evening. I asked my sponsor (and his wife) if they'd come to this "eatin' meetin'" and present me with my 10-year medallion there. He said yes. By the way, we call them eatin' meetins' because group anniversaries are traditionally started with a big, sit-down buffet dinner. And when gay people are involved, the food is, of course, FABULOUS!

To be honest, though, I'd been dreading the day for weeks. I was nervous that I'd make a fool of myself in front of 50 or 60 people. (it turned out to be more like 80.)

I needn't have worried. The group chairman made a big fuss over me by announcing from the podium that we had a "special" anniversary that night and then he called me and my sponsor up on the dais. My sponsor made a lovely speech about how I came along just at the right time in HIS recovery, and about how much he liked working with me and being my friend over the last 8 years. He gave me the medallion and a big hug and we went back to our seats.

Seconds later I was called back to the podium, as the first speaker of the evening. I don't remember what I said (the best shares are totally unrehearsed -- or "unpremeditated" as I call them), but whatever it was, it was mostly about love and gratitude with very little emphasis on the old, drinking parts of the story, except for enough to "qualify" as an alcoholic. Although I doubt that anyone would doubt that. Most of my friends have far too much first-hand experience with me to the contrary.

But it was the first time in my memory that I told my story pretty much leaving out all the gory details of my victimhood. Somewhere along the way in sobriety I realized that people had long ago stopped hurting me and that I was only hurting myself. Over and over again. By making bad choices and by opting, continually, for pain over joy.

Anyway, it was a quick speech, probably less than the 15 minutes I was supposed to speak. But I hate speakers who drone on, long after they've run out of things to say (okay, I'll stop typing now).

A number of people came up to me after the meeting to thank me for what I'd said. I was floating around on cloud nine.

But what mattered most Saturday night was that I was surrounded by people who mean the world to me, whether they were there in body, or there in spirit.

You see, I've come to realize that I am loved. And that I am capable of giving a lot of love in return.

March 8, 1998

I won't be posting anything over the weekend, so I might as well get this over with now.

Tomorrow is my 10th anniversary of sobriety. 10 years since my last drunk. 10 years of trying to learn to be a sober adult (not as easy a task as it might sound).

10 years of going to meetings, working the steps, working with others, often getting frustrated, occasionally feeling grateful and always, ALWAYS, learning patience, tolerance and acceptance. 10 years of FINALLY letting go of past slights and hurts, of learning forgiveness for others and forgiveness of myself. 10 years of learning compassion for others and compassion for me. 10 years of learning that there is some bad in the best of us and some good in the worst.

10 years of becoming a better person than I was during the first 49 years of my life.

10 years since I woke up in jail; homeless, penniless, careerless, loveless and drunk.

10 years that have been the most wonderful ten years of my life.

I thank God and the granddaddy of all 12-Step Programs for this life I've been given.

Dear God, please don't let me screw this thing up. And, if it be your will, please grant me another 10 years of sober, happy, joyous and free living. I promise to do everything I can to make it worth your while.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Putting the "Wild" Back Into Wildwood!

From the pure 50's & 60's kitsch of Atlantic Avenue with all of it's "space age" motels, to the quarter-mile wide beach (quite a hike on a broiling hot summer day), to it's 3-mile long boardwalk lined with "bad fer ya" fast-food joints, arcades, shops and amusement piers, nothing says "summer" to me more than Wildwood, New Jersey. Unless, of course, it's Bobby Rydell singing "Wildwood Days."

This takes me right back to my childhood, and to some very happy memories. I even plan to hit the Doo-Wop Hall of Fame while we're there this summer.

In it's day, Wildwood was where American Bandstand spent it's summers.

I can hardly wait. Meanwhile, check these out. The first is actually a parody of a Red Hot Chili Peppers song that was done by WMMR-FM in Philly (my old college days radio station). It's cute, though. The 2nd one has a problem (initially) with the controls. You'll probably have to jiggle it or something, but it's worth the effort. It closes with Bette Midler's beautiful rendition of "Under the Boardwalk" that brings tears to my eyes.



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or this one:

Taking the Verizon BS by the Horns!

Just when life seems serenely complacent something invariably comes along to throw a wrench into my spiritual works.

Since last week I've been harrassed at home by a renegade robo-phone which attack-dials my number, seemingly in six hour increments, around the clock. It scared the crap out of me at 3:30 in the morning last Friday. I've since turned the ringer off on the extension in the bedroom. But it still calls.

Naturally there are no human beings at the phone company over the weekend (and it was foolish of me to have ever thought otherwise) so it was a pointless effort to reach one until they all came in, hungry and hung-over, on Monday. It was then that I found out that in order to do this properly I would have to await the phantom robo-dialer again and, as soon as it had called and hung up, I was to press *57 which would, apparently, register the offender's number with the phone company for later tracing.

It would also, it seems, cost me a buck. I like that. You could be getting threatening calls from your crazy ex and, in order to get the phone company to cooperate with the police, YOU would have to plunk down a dollar of your hard-earned cash, in advance.

Now there's service! N'est pas?

Well, the phantom struck again last night. I was on my cellphone at the time (why do I still have two phones, I wonder?), so I struggled with yakking into the cellphone at the same time I was trying to press the (star)57 thingie. I hope I managed it.

I called the phone company this morning to report to them that I'd captured the culprit, red-handed, and registered the number, according to specifications.

They told me to wait another 48 hours to "make sure" they'd taken care of it.

Why is it that I seriously doubt that this will take care of it?

And why do I live in an age where "customer service" is just a load of corporate bullshit?

Giving Up the 80's on 8

I unsubscribed to XM Satellite Radio today. I'd been a loyal subscriber for 2 years and 9 days. But when an invoice recently showed up inviting me to re-up for another 2 year stint I looked at the price, nearly $300.00, and thought, "Hey! Fuck this! I want a TIVO!"

"Sarah" in Mumbai did what she could to inveigle me back with enticements including a "heavily discounted" year of service (seventy-seven bucks) or even a "free 3-month trial subscription... WHILE I THOUGHT ABOUT IT." I thanked her very politely, because Indian people are nothing if not polite, and said a firm "no."

In a thrice it was all over between me (and Sarah) and XM. When I get back to the park and ride this evening and turn the car radio on, my commuting life will have gone from over 200 channels of reruns (and still there's nothing on, BUT HEY, AT LEAST IT'S COMMERCIAL FREE!) to a handful (40 or 50) of commercial radio stations from New York and Philadelphia, i.e. "ground zero" for radio in the good old U.S. of A.

Does anybody know how much a TIVO subscription costs per month?

a la recherche du temps perdu (part trois)

I didn't do squat this past weekend. Not diddly-squat.

Oh, I got the chores done, alright. But beyond that I was a comfy-chair potato all Saturday and Sunday afternoons. My big living room window faces southwest and both days were sunny. I have a couple of huge plants in front of the window which gives the rest of the room a leafy, "jungly" feel, as the sun passes through the leaves and paints dappled images on the carpet and opposite wall, over the piano.

It was delicious, knowing I didn't have a care in the world, or a commitment unfulfilled, scrunching myself down into the cushions, tv remote in one hand, the other artfully draped over the side of the armrest, dozing in and out of deep, restful sleep... from 2 until past 4:00 p.m.

That is my idea of a perfect afternoon. No drama. No place to be. Nothing hanging over my head (that I'm aware of).

I did finish one little project. An dear old friend of mine sent me a package which arrived Friday. It contained a box of slides, taken at a Halloween party she threw either in 1984 or 1985. She doesn't have a scanner and I was more than happy to scan them all in as JPEGs and to e-mail them back to her, which I did and finished late Saturday night (I sent them right after SNL signed off).

I was in a couple of the shots. I was dressed in one of my old Navy-issue Nomex (fire retardant) flight suits and a "Jungle Jim hat" and had come as a commando of some sort. I also had a toy machine gun. They voted me "Most Macho" for the evening. I do remember that. Imagine trying to hail a taxi in New York these days dressed like that, Halloween or not. That's me up there. Kinda cute, huh?

I don't remember ever being that young. Or that good looking. It's shocking, sometimes, to see our younger selves. In this particular case, that was a lifetime ago. Literally. It's such a cliche to say "If I'd only known then...", but I have to admit that if I had known then what I know now, it's highly unlikely I'd be here today.

You see, I was headed straight to hell and didn't know it. Which is just as well. Because, as Jack Nicholson once noted, I couldn't "handle the truth."

Or, maybe, I was just too friggin' lazy to do anything about it. Until it was too late.

High-Class Problems

I'm in agony right now. It's a week to my 12th-Step anniversary (10 years on March 8th, thankyewverymuch) and all I can think about is:

a) where are we going to vacation this summer?

and

b) when should I have my gastric bypass?

My life never used to be full of high-class problems like these. It used to be full of high-class problems like "when the fuck is the liquor store going to open?" and "how can I get rid of all these empty scotch bottles in the middle of the night so the garbage men won't suspect me a being a drunk?"

And no, I'm not kidding. My mind really did used to think of things like that.

I found myself thinking this morning (never a good idea), during the mind-numbing bus ride into the city, about how much money I'm saving versus how much money I am putting aside for my medical FSA (flexible spending account) versus how much I am withholding for my 401-K.

Those are awfully "adult" sorts of subjects for me to be pondering at 6:20 a.m. Time was, at that hour, I was just getting home from the after-hours clubs. And SAVING money was never on my mind, only spending it. There was plenty more where that came from!

This weekend I plan to have no problems whatsoever. I'm seeing the podiatrist tomorrow morning for my quarterly inspection (all diabetics should get... and SEE... a podiatrist.) After that I've got 2 or 3 12-Step meetings planned, maybe a movie. Perhaps something with Will Ferrell? Spare me the groans, I'm entitled to some cheap laughs now and then.

I want lots of "Easy Does It" and "One Day at a Time" this weekend. Not to project the wreckage of the future or anything, but next weekend I'm going to be a friggin' basket-case.

Stuff

If the Texas and Ohio primaries both go for Barack then Hillary should gracefully and quickly step aside and throw her support his way.

No nasty floor fights, no wrangling over superdelegates. Let's unite behind the frontrunner, grab control of the government, and throw the bastards out.

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I probably should feel sorrier about the passing of W.F. Buckley, Jr. (of Yale, sir), but I don't. He reeked of Yankee snobbery and his politics were to the right of Atilla the Hun. I remember seeing him on Firing Line as a teenager and thinking to myself, "What a child of leisure and privilege."

Mabe I am a mentally ill liberal, after all. Or just jealous. Or I've hated him because he was Catholic.

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Pari passu. I was complimented (I think) yesterday for using this legal term, usually associated with financial arrangements, but really meaning "equal steps," more or less . I've definitely spent too many eons hanging around lawyers when all I really wanted was to be in SHOW BIZ!

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I was reading someone else's blog this morning and they mentioned that no one had ever written a really good comedy about incest.

Oh, yes they have.

"What the Butler Saw" by Joe Orton (a true perv, God rest his twisted little soul) is rife with incest, Elektra/Oedipus issues and all around sick fun. Needless to say, I played the lead in a college production. We brought down the house, not to mention the wrath of the college administration.

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I'm jonzin' for the Doc. I've been waiting to hear from Dr. Diabetes all day. I want his blessing to see the gastric surgeon I found. I won't call and make an appointment until my endocrinologist signs off on it.

HURRY UP AND CALL, DAMMIT.

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William F. Buckley, Crypto-Fascist, is Correcting Usage in Heaven

"Conservative author, essayist, columnist, pundit, smug asshole, gadabout, secret spook, and blue-blooded creep William F. Buckley is dead."

So begins the tasteful obit just posted at Gawker.com. You can read the whole thing here.

Hot Male Teens Wanted! - No Experience Necessary!!

Are you tired of right-wing, closeted homosexuals who hide behind Ms. God’s skirts and spew highly selective venom in order to provide a cover for their own outwardly projected self-loathing denial? I know I am.

I mean, is there anyone over the age of 6 who doesn’t understand, on a deep-down-inside gut level, that despite all the religious rationalizations, the “real” reason behind most rampant homophobia is because that for the ‘phobes to accept homosexuality on a pari passu basis with heterosexuality would be akin to admitting that they, personally, had chosen incorrectly and, in fact, that they had been needlessly missing out on years of hot, steamy fun with the real objects of their sexual longings, i.e., people of the same sex. Only incidentally would it provide a slight, and easily ironed over, wrinkle in their religious beliefs.

To simply accept who they really are would instantly drain all the fun (i.e. “drama”) out of cruising rest stops, bookstores, baths, bars and Senate cloakrooms, sneaking around looking for a little furtive man-on-teen action with a total stranger with whom they would never be obliged to form a lifelong bond. Well, except maybe for the summer.

For them to accept the normalcy of their own innate homosexuality would be to make it as mundane and uninteresting as being straight. Ho-hum. Yawn. “Did you remember to put the trash out honey?”

After all, who wouldn't like to duck into some squalid, XXX video arcade (or Congressional men’s room) to quickly dump a hot, steaming load into a warm, wet, welcoming young male mouth before sneaking back to their utterly boring, thoroughly Christian, All-American lives?

I suspect that Larry Craig would!

And from what I hear, he’s looking for summer interns!

The lucky stiffs. Er. Um.

Wildwood Nights

I didn't post anything yesterday because I was just too damned busy. End of story.

Today's title refers to a beach town in New Jersey. It's a part of my childhood. When I was little my grandmother would take me there every August for a few days (we weren't rich so week-long vacations were unheard of), around the Catholic Feast of the Assumption (August 15th) which Irish superstition holds is an auspicious day to put one's "feet into the water" to cure whatever variety of ills one has.

Nevertheless, Nana keeled over dead at 62 of a massive coronary brought on by years of drinking and smoking. But her feet were gorgeous.

Those few days every year were some of the happiest days of my childhood. I loved Wildwood, or as it's known in Philadelphia and Wilmington, "the Irish Riviera". It had a mile-long boardwalk, loaded with arcades, rides and fast-food take-outs of the disgustingly beach-front variety. For a buck or two a night (we're talking the late 50's, early 60's here) you could have a swell time, eat some pizza, ride the scary rides until you puked, ate cotton-candy, won a stuffed toy at a shooting gallery and played pinball or ski-ball until well past 11 p.m.

The last time my Nana and I went there was in 1962. I had just turned 13 and it was getting to the point where it was totally inappropriate for me to share a bedroom in one of the Irish-run bed and breakfasts there with my grandmother. Rather than cruise the boardwalk that year, I totally checked out and went to an air-conditioned movie theater on the boardwalk where I saw, in glorious CinemaScope, David Lean's ravishingly beautiful motion picture, "Lawrence of Arabia", which made an indelible mark on me. I changed a lot during that first year of puberty. I acknowledged to myself that I was gay (or queer, or different or something) and that Roman Catholicism and I were irrevocably on divergent paths from then on. I also knew that I was "okay" and that it was the religions which were fucked up.

Anyway, that August was the last time I set foot in Wildwood until about 9 years ago, when I got my first car in many decades. I drove down there on a whim one Saturday in February or March of 1999. It was cold and wet and rainy but just seeing the place made me want to come back.

And now it looks like I will. My closest friends and I are looking to spend a week there this coming July. We're looking at condo rentals now.

I hope I'm not setting myself up for some sort of disappointment.

Usual & Customary

I have a headache like you wouldn't believe. I spent the better part of 2 hours today on the phone with my insurance company, trying to find out if I could get the foremost expert on gastric bypass surgery in New Jersey to perform mine.

Short answer? Only if I'm rich enough not to need insurance. The doctor in question doesn't take insurance (except Medicare). My insurance company, to go out of network, I would have to cough up a) $750.00 deductible PLUS 20% PLUS whatever the bill ran above the "Usual and Customary" fees for the area I live in.

The top surgeon charges $12,500.00 for a Rouen en Y bypass (that's the biggie, the lap-band is only $7,500.), so you can see that it would wind up costing me a personal bundle to get this done by the best guy around.

The nice lady at the insurance company tried to help me find someone else, but all she could come up with were a bunch of doctors in northern Jersey, across the river from New York City.

Eventually, though, I found a website that listed pretty much all of the surgeons in New Jersey who do this. There's even one who heads up a department for this at a major hospital near where I live. I could go with him, but to be honest he doesn't seem to have as much experience as the other guy.

Owell. Now I get to decide.

I think I'll think it over for awhile.

p.s. It snowed like hell this morning and our offices are closing at 3:30 today (45 minutes from now). It's time to look busy before I go catch a bus.

HOT FLASH.... 3 DOWN 1 TO GO!

After I posted my blog today my internist called and we had a spirited discussion about having the gastric bypass surgery.

Net-net? He'll sign off on it, too. That's 3 doctors down and only 1 to go.

Tomorrow I call the surgeon's office and schedule an appointment.

I like it when things move right along.

Two Down, Two to Go.

Well, true to his nurse's word, my cardiologist called me this afternoon and we had a nice little telecon for about 10 minutes regarding my suitability as a surgical candidate for gastric bypass surgery. He was solicitous. He was concerned, lest I hadn't explored all of the available options (Rouen en Y vs. adjustable band, etc.). But at the end of the conversation, when I put it to him point blank, he agreed that I could tolerate ALL variations of the surgery with no foreseeable threat to my heart and that he would, indeed, sign off on it in writing.

So, having gotten my endocrinologist and cardiologist on-board, that leaves my internist and, finally, the nebulous surgeon who will actually perform this miracle surgery.

Actually, I know who it will probably be. Both doctors mentioned his name in the course of my conversations with them. He has a rather thriving surgical practice in the area, devoted entirely to gastric bypasses.

Moreover, he does these surgeries at Princeton Hospital and not at Robert Wood Johnson Hospital.

This is the same Princeton Hospital that's aka Princeton Plainsboro Hospital, where Dr. House malpractices medicine. It's also where the ambulance took me on January 4th with blood gushing from my forehead.

I have a feeling that if I can get my internist in line with my surgical expectations, the actual surgeon will have no problem whatsoever in taking my insurance company's ill-gotten premiums.

I haven't been this excited about something since 2005, when they sliced open my carotids and sucked the congealed cholesterol out of both of them.

I hope I'm not getting hooked on being mutilated.

Tattoos would be cheaper.

Viscious Queens & Gastric Bypasses

I had a lovely time in Rehoboth this past weekend. The hotel was full of nearly 400 viscious queens sober, friendly LGBTs from Maine to Virginia and westward to Illinois. They all hardly noticed my bad eye, sloppy jeans, flabby ass and sagging tits inner beauty, which glows brighter with every passing decade year.

Sunday afternoon finally sadly arrived and it was time to bid a fond go fuck yourselves farewell to my loving soulmates in recovery.

60 minutes later I was at my sisters house in Newark, Delaware, sponging a free meal out of her and my brother-in-law.

After mooching some leftovers "for later" I headed home to my own bed. Thank God. I did have a nice time, and my hotel room was faboo (I had an oceanfront room), but I do miss my nice, ultra-firm mattress when I travel.

Monday was a "no-stress" day for me which involved little more than a meeting, shopping and napping.

Tuesday was busy, although I was still off work. I had an appointment with Dr. Diabetes up at Robert Wood Johnson Hopsital in New Brunswick. I was armed with all the articles I'd been saving for the last six weeks about treatments for diabetes. He was over an hour late to see me. it turned out that all of his other patients had ALSO come armed for their visits and they were all demanding changes in their treatments.

"Look," I said to him, "I'm going to be 60 years old this summer. With any luck I'll have another 25 or 30 years... and I do NOT want to spend them, as so many members of my family did, blind and limbless in wheelchairs parked in state run institutional hellholes. If there's a snowballs chance in hell that having gastric bypass will help me avoid that, SIGN ME UP!"

He smiled and said that I was an ideal candidate and that he would have no problem whatsoever going to bat for me with the insurance goons, provided, however (I've been around lawyers too long), that I get my cardiologist to agree (that my heart can stand the strain of surgery). He added that it was likely that I would lose 50-75 pounds, that I would be able to go totally off my diabetes medications, that my cholesterol would drop like a rock, that I'd feel better, that there'd be certain other intangible (and tangible) benefits and that he wholeheartedly advocated me having it done.

I was floored. Needless to say I called my cardio guy's office as soon as I got home (gotta program all these guys into my cellphone!). He's out sick. WHAT? A DOCTOR GETS SICK? THE NERVE. But his nurse assured me that he'd have no problem going along with this because of the added benefits it would give my heart (less stress, lower cholesterol, etc.).

So, this gastric bypass is starting to look like a "win-win" situation for me.

Now I just have to a) find a surgical group that performs this kind of surgery and b) get the insurance company to agree to cough up for it.

Oh? Is that all?

We're Off On the Road to Judea....

Big Mel Brooks fan here, hence the Subject line today. It's a lyric from a throwaway number in Mel's "History of the World" when the gang escapes from Rome and takes off for the Holy Land.

And today, I'm off on the road to my own, personal Holy Land for the weekend. For others of my ilk (young, tall, dark and ruggedly handsome), that would be Provincetown or Key West or Fire Island. For me, it's Rehoboth Beach, Delaware (motto "The Summer Capital!" because it's the closest shore resort to D.C.).

Yes, it's time for the annual LGBT "Roundup" for recovering drunks, druggies, foodies, spendies, co-dependies, adult children and Gawd only knows what else. As some of you might recall, I had a great time there last year and had been looking forward to going again all year. That was before I got hideously mangled in the bathtub back in early January, though. I'm sure those vacuous, superficial queens, sober or not, will take one look at me and immediately vomit in the lobby plants. Not that I have a tendency to project the wreckage of the future or anything.

Anyway, at the very least I'll have a nice dinner tonight at my favorite restaurant in Rehoboth, the Blue Moon. And I guess I'll enjoy either Bingo or the movie after the big Meeting tonight.

And it'll be nice to see old friends again. Lots of them. And to sit in on the workshops all day tomorrow. And then there's the banquet tomorrow night, with another Big Meeting and countdown, followed by disco dancing until 2:00 a.m. ('cause without drug inducements, we can't stay up later than that these days).

And there'll be another wonderful speaker meeting Sunday morning, along with a great buffet breakfast, followed by a powerful closing ceremony which includes a group recitation of the Serenity Prayer (amazing when said aloud by over 400 people).

Okay, so maybe it won't be so bad after all. Maybe I'll even have a great time.

I'm nothing, if not an optimist!

I'll be out of touch for the next few days, so have a great extended weekend everyone!

My Flaming Valentine...

February 14th. Valentine's Day. Although, when I was a child, if anyone in my fifth grade class was foolish (or forgetful) enough to refer to today as "Valentine's Day" they would've promptly gotten their ears boxed by Sister Joseph Claire who was conducting a one-nun battle against the creeping heathenism in the world, as evidenced by the unsaved hordes attempt to hijack the Feast Day of a Roman Catholic Saint and turn it into something mundane, pedestrian and worst, irreligious, like a day devoted to love and to lovers. When it should be a day spent contemplating Christian pain and martyrdom. God knows, SHE was a martyr and a right royal pain.

Whatever. Like most Catholic theology, though, it's based primarily on a bunch of half-truths, outright lies and a healthy serving of dogmatic horseshit. There were three people whom it might've been based on, spread out over five centuries. But, at the end of the day, who really gives a rat's ass? Even the Church eventually gave up on St. Valentine and dropped him from the calendar in 1969 (along with St. Christopher).

My sister in blogging, Bev, over at Funny The World, blogged today about the childhood pain of not getting any Valentine cards or gifts.

Initially I thought that nobody loved me but, in truth, I didn't want to get any Valentine's Day tokens. In fact, though, I didn't want to GET them because I didn't want to GIVE them.

And why was that? Well, primarily because I knew that even though Robert M***** was probably going to grow up to be either a priest or a hairdresser, he probably wouldn't have appreciated getting a great big smack on the lips from me during recess in the Fifth grade.

Even though he was the CUTEST WIDDLE FING (There. My dirty little secret is out. I had the hots for Robert M***** in the Fifth grade).

Since I could never express my proper feelings towards the real objects of my romantic attractions as a child in Catholic School in the 1950s-60s, I dreaded the approach of this day every year and was glad when it was finally over.

There are some things in life which, having missed experiencing them in one's youth, can never be captured again.

The innocent joy of asking someone to "Be My Valentine" is one of them.

I envy the young lovers of the world.

Suck it up, kids. Nothing lasts forever.

Gott segnen der Reichstag!

I mean, the Senate. Yesterday they handed our Beloved Führer President Bush yet another victory over the decadent Jewish/Communist/Homosexual cabal by voting umpteen thousand to zip to continue allowing warrantless wiretaps and, in a fit of governmental compassion, it pre-forgave the entire telecommunications industry for selling out the people of the United States in the name of "national security", or some half-baked bullshit like that.

Can't we just hire call-girls to keep the black agencies entertained, instead? It works on The Hill. That and steroids.

Meanwhile, though (shock of shocks) I find myself believing more and more that maybe, just maybe, a whole bunch of Americans might be ready to sign off on having our very first African-American President.

I, who for the longest time pinched my nose and settled for Billary, am now ready to throw some serious schekels (Fifty bucks) towards Barry's campaign. And I NEVER (willingly) give money to politicians!

For those of you who follow such things, on Tuesday there might've been a hint of the sea-change that America is on the verge of making.

Don't laugh, but in it's over 100 years the Westminster Kennel Club, at its annual show, has NEVER voted a Beagle "Best in Show." A lowly Beagle? Puhleeze. But this year they did it. An adorable little guy named "Uno" (real name: "Ch. K-run's Park Me In First") took the top prize in Madison Square Garden on Tuesday night. It's easy to see why. He may not have a lot of what we would call "experience", but he sure does have a helluva lot of easy-to-love personality.

You can watch the adorable little (15 inches) shit win here:



And if HE can win, maybe President Obama isn't such a far-fetched idea after all!

It's Snowing!

For the first time this winter we're actually having real, live "snow." Last week the temps floated up around the 60's. But right now it's coming down in what is known loosely, in this part of the country, as a "snow squall." Not enough to be a blizzard, but enough to be annoying.

We've been having one of those Global Warming Winters that you hear so much about although my friends on the Left Coast would probably chime in that they're experiencing the same thing what with incessant rains, winds and mudslides.

I can take the cold of winter, but my fascination with snowstorms ended around 1960, when I stopped hitching rides on my Flexible Flyer sled, running out from between parked cars in order to throw myself to the roadway on the sled, while simultaneously wildly grabbing for the rear bumper of a car, a city bus, or an 18-wheeler. That, incidentally, was our idea of "fun" when I was a child. Until it invariably involved somebody losing a limb or a life and then we all got yelled at and grounded.

Snow, especially heavy snow, is now a major pain in the ass. Right now I'm sitting here trying to remember if I put the heavy duty ice scraper/snow brush in the back seat of the car, or if I left it at home. I don't worry about driving in the snow so much anymore, ever since I got the Honda Element. It has automatic 4-wheel drive, which kicks in when it senses that all the wheels are not spinning at the same speed. That baby has no problems with snow.

This, I think, is one of the consequences of aging. I love having seasons. I can't imagine living in a never-ending paradise where it's always 78 degrees and sunny. I would sorely miss the ravishingly gorgeous colors on a brilliant, crisp October morning, or the sublime pleasure of watching an entire street in my little town suddenly burst into riotous bloom on a warm, lazy, Spring afternoon.

But Winter?

Feh. What useful purpose does winter serve? (And all my skier friends can spare me the hate calls and emails).

Bitch-Fest Monday

Every morning, at 6:00 a.m., an oddly shaped truck takes off from the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel. There is a driver and a lone SOB in the back, whose job it is is to poke thousands of plastic pipes, neatly stacked in the truck, into holes cut into the pavement on the left lane of the outbound side, all the way up the helix and out I-495, to the entrance of the NJ Turnpike.

When it completes its mission those little stanchions delineate the special HOV bus lane, which will only remain in service until 10:00 a.m., the official end of the "morning rush." After that the truck reverses course and collects all the little pipes until, once again, it hits the entrance to the tunnel, where it will wait on the tarmac until called into service the next business day.

Only there was no special bus lane today. It seems that it rained over the weekend. Hard. And the water filled up the holes in the highway. Then, last night, the water in the holes froze.

Three guesses what they couldn't stick into the holes this morning. Right. The plastic pipes. Thus causing many tens of thousands of people to be late for work today. My bus driver opted for the scenic route, via 1&9, to Hoboken, through the Holland Tunnel and up the West Side Highway (past a lot of long forgotten gay bars I went to when I first moved to New York in the 12th Century) then up 10th Avenue to the Deuce. Er, sorry, 42nd Street (it was called "the deuce" by the low-lifes who hung out there before Guiliani went and Disneyfied the place).

This comes right in the midst of New Jersey Governor Corzine's big marketing campaign to get people to go along with his plan to double turnpike fares in the next year. And every two years thereafter until 2020.

Yeah. Right. Sign me up, Jon.

Friday? Already?

I can feel the excitement mounting. A week from today I'll be driving south to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware for the annual "Roundup."

A roundup is (usually) a weekend get-together in some resort town of several hundred like-minded people in recovery (in our case, LGBT people). There'll be workshops and games and hanging out and reconnecting with old friends from all over and making new friends who'll be there for the first time.

Last year we had nearly 400 people at the Rehoboth Roundup. That's quite a crowd for a beachfront hotel on the east coast... in the middle of February. Needless to say, nobody comes for the sunbathing or to frolic in the surf.

Last year I got to three roundups; the Rehoboth one in February, the 1st ever New Jersey roundup in September and the Philadelphia roundup in October. For my money, Rehoboth is the best of them all (I haven't gotten to any of the truly humongous roundups. I understand the one in Key West is... well, it's Key West without the booze).

I just made my dinner reservation for next Friday night at The Blue Moon restaurant. I made it "for two" on the outside chance that some guy actually would be willing to have dinner with me.

I don't talk much about dating because I haven't been on a date since 1999 (a blind date which was a catastrophe). Prior to that I hadn't really dated since the 70's. But I'd like to change that. There is one guy who is a regular at these things whom I'd like to ask out. We'll see.

Rather than dwelling on what a miserable week it's been, politically speaking, I'd rather look to the good times ahead.

And if and when the time comes that we have President McCain and Vice-President Huckabee???

I'll kill myself.

But I'll worry about that then.

Have a lovely weekend everybody. I intend to have one.

Death of a Rental

I don't know how to put this genteely, so I'll just blurt it out.

The vacation house that I used to rent, along with a bunch of my college friends, mostly during my drinking years, will probably be going off the market soon. Like, this afternoon.

It's owners were Mr. & Mrs. John McWethy of Washington, DC. The house was located (on stilts) in a posh, gated, beach-front community just north of the sleepy little town of Bethany Beach, Delaware. It was a real extravaganza of a place, just steps from the water. We rented the place for easily 6 or 7 years, 2 weeks at a time. It was big and comfy, the way beach houses should be, with decks all over the place to watch sunrises and sunsets.

John McWethy was a noted ABC correspondent both locally in Washington, and nationally on the network. He sometimes substituted as a weekend anchor on the ABC Evening News.

An hour or so ago John was killed in a horrible skiing accident out in Colorado. He slammed into a tree at pretty high speed and his chest suffered massive crushing injuries.

Most of us had never met the McWethys. One of our tribe, though, had a first-hand connection to them. He works at ABC News here in New York and, in fact, that's how we first found out that John and his wife would, on occasion, rent out the house to "trusted" renters. Mr. R. was our in and, to the best of our knowledge, towards the end of our renting days, we were just about the only people left that they would let rent the place.

Mr. McWethy, wherever you are, thank you for renting us your beach house for years and years. We had a lot of fun, a lot of laughs, there. I'm sure you and your family did, too.

I'm sorry you got hurt and died. I hope it didn't hurt for long. At least you were doing something you loved when it happened.

Best of luck, wherever you are.

Blue Flu

It's been pandemonium around here for the last couple of days what with the ticker-tape parade up the Canyon of Heroes on lower Broadway up to City Hall in honor of our very own New York Giants (team colors, blue & white) win in SuperBowl XLsomething.

Oh, yeah, and we all went to the polls yesterday, too. "We" being the Blue States of New York, Connecticut and New Jersey.

I nearly didn't make it to the polls thanks to the hard work and barely noticeable efforts of both Academy Bus Lines and Suburban Transit (aka "Coach USA" which is actually owned, in Scotland, by a couple of ultra-right wing religious jerks who are brother and sister, anti-abortion, anti-gay and union busting... but I digress).

At the height of the evening rush hour both of those fine bus companies took it upon themselves to not bother sending buses to pick up commuters at the Port Authority building on 42nd Street and Eighth Avenue for the trek home to New Jersey.

In fact, over 7 buses failed to show up over the course of 1 hour. Believe me, by then the lines were snaking from the Ninth Avenue side of the building all the way back to the Eighth Avenue side.

I called both companies this morning and, very politely, inquired as to what the problem had been.

Naturally, it came as a complete surporse to both of them that they had failed to win their wings last night and just naturally assumed that we, the commuters had offended God in some way which FORCED their buses to be delayed, but that it certainly wasn't THEIR fault that our lives suck.

They were supposed to have gotten back to me with some answers.

Three guesses as to whether or not they did.

Despite their best efforts to steal the elections, I managed to get to the polls at home 15 minutes before they closed.

I wish I could vote on whether or not bus dispatchers (those lying sacks of crap) should life or die.

The Emperor JoyZeeBoy wouldn't hesitate to give them all a grandiose "thumbs down."

Splenda Bowl Sundae!

I arose early on Splenda Bowl Sundae. I had a boatload of stuff to get done before I could settle myself down in front of the tv to rate several hours worth of commercials which had been specifically created for this annual mega-marketing event. I believe there's a football game in there, somewhere, too.

I dropped off the laundry, went to a 12-Step meeting, schmoozed with some recovering people like myself afterward and then drove into beautiful, downtown Trenton ("What Trenton Makes, the World Takes") to spend an hour or so working with a sponsee of mine on something we refer to as "The Big Book." We read 2 chapters and discussed a range of issues that they stirred up and then I headed home.

Don't faint, but I actually paid attention to the game and was glad when our own NY Giants proceeded to hand Tom Brady his own ass on a silver platter.

I was even gladder that that jerk (and all around poor sport) New England coach Bill Belichick got served a healthy serving of crow.

But, of course, the highlight of the game was the Budweiser commercial with the poor Clydesdale who didn't make the cut of the current year's team (of horses). To the rousing theme of "Rocky" a friendly Dalmation rose to the occasion and proceeded to devise a training program for the horse which would've done Sly Stallone proud. Needless to say, a year later, the horse made the team.

I loved it. It made me cry.

Oh, yeah, and New York/New Jersey won, too.

TAKE THAT, BOSTON. YOU SCROD MUNCHING JERKS.

But I'm not gloating.

Heh.

Bizzy Saturday

I've been pretty busy lately, for an inveterate lazy-assed couch potato.

It rained like an SOB here on Friday which always causes massive backups and delays on the NJTurnpike, at the entrance to the pike from the Lincoln Tunnel extension (I-495). I was cranky and wet by the time I got home at 7:30.

Then I had to be up at the crack of dawn on Saturday because it was time for Mr. Honda's 30,000 mile checkup (his pediatrician days are over -- now he has to go to the grown-up doctor, turn his exhaust pipe and, er, cough). Because it was an all-day (and $575.00) affair, they gave me a lovely loaner, a 2006 Honda Accord, which is pretty luxurious compared to the shake, rattle and roll of the Element. But I wouldn't swap my spacious Element for anything. Every time I got in and out of the Accord I had to fold myself in half to get through the door.

I killed Saturday afternoon by going to see "The Kite Runner." It's a toe-tapping musical comedy about Afghani class structures, revolution, communism, more revolution, religious fanaticism, pedophilia, denial, lies, cancer, backstabbing and, eventually, a happy ending in the New World. It reminded me of my childhood. I exited the theater humming the kite flying.

The car didn't drive noticeably better after its day at the Spa. I could've gotten a two-hour massage for considerably less.

Saturday night I drove 50 miles to my usual Saturday night 12-Step meeting for the LGBT community over in Pennsylvania. We meet in a Unitarian Church there. Unfortunately the church decided to have a Monte Carlo night that night, too, and all the adults were drinking and gambling in the meeting room next to ours, while all of their evil-seed offspring were upstairs, in the sanctuary, dancing up a storm to music that was deafening to us down below.

I had a splitting headache by the end of the hour -- and didn't hear a word that anyone said.

I collapsed in the big, comfy chair in front of the tv when I got home and promptly fell asleep until 1:30 a.m.

Despite my bitching, it was, all-in-all, a very good day.

Lost

I've been freaking a little lately over the seeming inability of my left eyelid to rise above "half-mast" ever since the accident at the beginning of the month. So last week I called the opthalmologist I saw that fateful day and got an appointment to see him on Wednesday of this week.

He put my mind at ease.

Basically, he said that yes, it isn't healing the way he (and probably I) would like but not to worry, it is fixable. However, he cautioned about plunging too soon into a surgical solution to a problem which still, might, fix itself. If I opted for instant surgery I might wind up having to have it done twice, once to fix the damage and twice to fix the cure.

He advised waiting another 2 months, until April, at which time we'll look at it again and decide then whether or not to take the surgical route.

The surgery, by the way, is little more than a routine "lid-lift" which he would do on an out-patient basis in his office. He showed me some photos of others whom he has performed this surgery on and they all looked fine to me.

I didn't waste any time after that exam in calling all my friends and sharing the good news with them! I was relieved, and so were they.

I got home that afternoon and found an odd little card with a note from my late mother's cousin asking me to give him a call, that he had something he wished to discuss with me.

Naturally my fevered alcoholic brain leapt to all kinds of wild-assed conclusions about what he wanted to talk about, without a shred of evidence to back up any one of them. The absolute last course of action would be to just pick up the phone and call and ask him what he wants.

Heaven forbid!

Yet, that's what I did. Last night. Before the (truncated season) premiere of "Lost."

He's rounding up pallbearers for his (yet to be announced) funeral.

I told him, "yeah, sure, whatever, sign me up." I understand that with the death of his brother a few months ago, he's feeling very alone and very mortal these days (he's a whopping 14 years older than me.) I feel that way sometimes, too. That's why I'm signing up with the Neptune Society to have everything preplanned, right down to the cremation and scattering at sea. If any relatives or friends want to come along, that'll be fine, but there's no requirement for anyone to attend the festivities, when the time eventually comes.

But my 2nd cousin adheres to his Catholic faith which, although it permits cremation, forbids scattering the ashes. So no matter what, there'll still be something of him that'll have to be carted to the graveyard and planted in the plot.

I want to join Carl Sagan (or Gene Roddenberry) and return as quickly as possible to my natural state as "star stuff" among the elements which compose the universe.

I mention all this because as a recently converted and thoroughly devout fan of "Lost" I am amazed at the number of non-deaths on that show. Nobody on that damn island seems to stay dead, no matter what.

If you looked real close last night, at the scene where Hurley found the shack where Ben once took Locke to meet "Jacob" and did a frame-by-frame exam of whoever it was sitting in the rocker, you would've seen Jack's late father. And the last time anybody knew, he was dead in a coffin in the cargo hold of the crashed airliner.

Like I said, nobody stays dead for long in "Lost."

I wonder who'll come back to life next?