Yes, Virginia, the Dow CAN Hit Zero

Rule Number One. The Dow can hit zero (and, if you haven't written any naked calls, it'll definitely stop there).

The Dow didn't actually hit zero today. But it sure looked like it was trying.

The bailout failed. Even my dingbat Republican Representative voted against it.

But here's whats important.

This is Reaganomics, in it's most grotesque form, coming home to roost. Reaganomics, aka "Voodoo Economics", turned the financing of our nation on it's head. Reagan railed against taxes, and especially railed against the Democrats who raised them.

What he proposed (and got) instead, was debt. Rather than taxing us to finance the government and to buy swell stuff from foreigners (like oil) he, instead, foisted off the bill to future generations.

Rather than being a Tax and Spend Democrat, he became a Borrow and Spend Republican. His cavalier disregard for future generations was sloughed off as "don't worry -- we'll be wealthy" and by freakishly Pollyanaish thinking on his part.

After him, rather than raise taxes, the Republicans kept cutting them -- and raising the debt ceiling to pay for all the shit we actually needed -- like an Army and a Navy and an Air Force and oil. Not to mention some piddling-assed social welfare programs which they blamed for everything and then slashed the f*ck out of.

Nobody has envisioned and carried out Ronnie Raygun's dream of a debt-ridden tomorrow (and tax-free today!) better than our current president, George W. SilverSpoonissoontobesentpackingbacktoTexas-ThankYewJeebus.

I think that Ronnie was kind of hoping that we'd all be dead by the time the bills came due.

Which just goes to show you -- never trust an out of work actor (or writer, or a faux Good 'Ol Boy who never worked a day in his life) -- especially when it comes time to pay the bills.

The Big Five-Oh

As I tiptoed onto the scales, stark naked, at 4:55 a.m. this morning I wasn't looking for anything spectacular. But then I looked down.

229 pounds, it read in it's ominous red lcd display.

My God. I've lost 51 pounds since August 11th.

Then I had a glass of orange juice (pulpless, no sugar added) and checked my weight again. 230. Crap. Only 50 pounds.

I'm amazed.

I ordered new belts and a new Meltonian jacket from Orvis yesterday. While I was there I ordered up some brass luggage tags, engraved with my name and address, on the outside chance that I might want to travel again -- now that I'm trim and svelte and lovely to look at once again.

Listen, all joking aside, if there is anyone out there who drops in here now and then (we used to call those folks "lurkers" back on Compuserve in the middle ages of the 90's) who suffers from even mild obesity and also has Type II Diabetes and Sleep Apnea, don't even think twice about this -- find a bariatric surgeon in your health plan and schedule a consultation regarding Roux en Y gastric bypass with her/him NOW. Yes, your insurance company will make you jump through endless hoops to have it done, but just do it.

It will transform your life as much as it's transformed mine.

Babies, I've gone from being a sick old man to being a hot middle-aged guy (again). And it was worth every single thing I went through to get here.

On to politics and the election.

Apparently Sarah Palin is as stupid as she sounds. I've been watching interviews with her on YouTube and if the question is too uncomfortable she falls right back onto her talking points. And she manages to mangle those, too.

Do YOU really want this woman to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency? I don't.

Meanwhile, I see that Senator McCain, at the White House shouting match yesterday, singlehandedly caused the financial sector bailout to fall apart, which is totally okay by me. Nobody except God came and bailed me out when I got into trouble starting 14 years ago. And with God's help, I dug my own way out. As far as I'm concerned, all those big institutions can do exactly the same thing. So they'd better hit their knees and start asking heaven for some heavy duty assistance.

Check-In

I saw the Internist last Wednesday for my first post-operative physical. He clocked a 43 pound weight loss so far. The following were flags for concern on my blood work: Calcium maxed out -- quit taking calcium citrate supplement and get another blood test this week. PSA double what it should be, call urologist and do a go-see ASAP. Other than that, A-OK.

The next day, last Thursday, I saw the surgeon. He clocked a 45 pound loss. Pronounced that "another 20 pounds and you will be a success." Hell, I'm a success now! Gave me permission to leave the liquid diet and embark on solids again. Got the necessary cheat-sheets for what to eat and what to avoid... at least in the early stages.

Monday morning the long-missing cardiologist called ME at the office. Net-net, quit taking cholesterol reducing drugs and come and see him in December (which seems to be a very popular month for follow-up visits to doctors these days).

I am now officially cured of everything (well, Type II Diabetes and my cholesterol problem) and am completely off all meds except for a vitamin supplement and 2 Lyrica caps every evening (for the neuropathic pains in my feet.)

Left the office early in order to see Doctor Pee-Pee. He said (after I told him everything I'd been through in the last six weeks) "HELL, you may have picked up a mild urinary tract infection from the Foley catheter in the hospital, which would send your PSA through the roof. Here's scrip for another test. Get it done in late October and then we'll take another look at it."

Okay by me.

Got home early after seeing him. Weighed in. Lost another 2 pounds (47 total now). Closing in on 50.

Pulled over 20 pairs of too-large summer and winter pants out of the closet and began looking for consignment stores in the area where I can at least attempt to recoup some of my investment in them. If none of them pan out, off the pants go to the Salvation Army.

My Internist advised me, as he was looming over my nearly naked body last week, "Take it from somebody who's been there. GET RID OF YOUR FAT CLOTHES. It'll help you to avoid the temptation to 'just slip into a next larger size this week'." I took his advice to heart. BTW, my Internist is a hunk without an ounce of discernible fat on him. Too bad he's married.

Here's a snap I took of myself a week ago (at 5 weeks post surgery) ... when I'd only lost about 40 pounds.

The target remains elusive. I'd like to lose 2 more sizes, which would put me at about 190 pounds. But that was my college weight, when I had a metabolism. Realistically, I'm with the surgeon. 20 more pounds and I'll be a very happy camper.

More will be revealed. I'll try to get another picture of me this coming weekend, if the weather cooperates (4 days of rain are predicted starting Thursday... the remnants of something or other).

Best Snappy Comeback This Political Season (so far)

Susan Sarandon:

"Jesus was a community organizer.... and Pontius Pilate was a governor."

All Is Forgiven

I worked up the nerve to call Lehman Brothers today and actually got through to a human being. A human being who put me through to another human being in the Human Resources Department (or what's left of it).

That nice lady looked me up in the system and, indeed, there I was, in all of my

FULLY VESTED
FULLY FUNDED
FULLY PROTECTED

glory. She then gave me a magical 800 number (well, an 866 number) at Fidelity devoted solely to people like me who had worked at Lehman. I called the number and got a bright, young, lad.

He reiterated what the lady in HR had told me. But he added some stuff. First he fixed me up with on-line access to my retirement information. But then he told me that when I retire (assuming it's age 65) I'll collect:

$849.95 per month

for the rest of my life.

On top of my social security.

And 401-ks.

I'M RICH!! RICH, I TELL YOU!!!!

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!! (Hey, it's about $600 more per month than I thought I was gonna get.)

So even though Lehman is in the crapper, and even though the unhappiest years of my life were spent on Wall Street, it wasn't a total loss.

That $850 a month will be some blood money I'll be happy to take.

Fall of the House of Lehman

Disclosure: I worked at Lehman (variously named during my tenure: Shearson-American Express, Shearson-Lehman Brothers, Shearson-Lehman-Hutton and, just before I left, plain old Lehman Brothers) from December 1983 (just prior to Lehman being acquired by Shearson in the Spring of 1984) until January or February of 1992.

I was "supposed" to have been fully vested in their in-house pension fund after five years of continuous service. It remains to be seen if there's any pension fund left now that the house has collapsed.

We (by which I mean Shearson American Express) acquired Lehman in a fire sale brought about by internal fighting at the old firm. The place was not on the verge of collapse financially, but it was on the verge of collapse politically. Finally, they sold themselves to us. It was an uncomfortable marriage from the outset. It had actually been pushed on us by our corporate parent, the American Express Company, who wanted to RAPIDLY pump up piddling little Shearson into a world-class brokerage powerhouse. However, there was baggage.

One suitcase of which was and is Richard J. Fuld. He was the head of trading at Lehman at the time of the acquisition. Lehman was a fixed-income behemoth when we bought them.

As the years went by the Lehmanites exercised their power and eventually forced out all of the top equity people and replaced them with their own, hand-picked, asskissers. My department was eventually handed over to two people wholly incompetent to head Equity Trading. Eventually Mr. Fuld became co-chief executive and, finally, the sole chief executive of the firm.

One of the reasons I left the firm was because of the wholescale movement of funds (there's no other way to describe it) which occured every New Year's Day when the Lehman Brothers "secret partnerships" would, without notice, dip into the profits of each department of the firm and skim untold millions of dollars off the departmental P&L statements and onto the books of the SPs. These partnerships had, I guess, been "grandfathered" in as part of the deal during the acquistion in '84.

When I found out what was happening I asked one of the vice-treasurers what was going on with my departments (suddenly missing) $600,000. This was her response.

"Oh... that's Mr. Fuld's."

"Kiss my fucking ass" I thought. "Oh." I said.

I made up my mind, on the spot, to seek employment elsewhere. I did NOT want to have to sit in a witness box in a Chancery Courtroom in Delaware someday and answer questions posed by the shareholders of American Express as to where their profits were going.

Maybe the whole thing was legal. Maybe not. I don't know. I got out.

That was 16 years ago.

Do I blame Dick Fuld for the collapse of Lehman (again)? Nah. I remember something that Peter Cohen once said to me. "You don't run big corporations... they run you."

I'm sure nobody is more shell-shocked today at Lehman Brothers than Dick Fuld.

But I still want my piddling-assed pension.

40 - Finally

It's official. I've now lost 40 pounds since my surgery on August 11th.

Here's the skinny on all that. My nutritionist (perky Stacy) wants me to get back to my college weight, which was about 4 pounds. I was 24 when I went to college (Viet Nam, the Navy and several other hiccups occurred along the way) and I had a metabolism in those days. Hence, no matter what I poured down my throat (Burger King, Booze, Boy Butter) it didn't stick around. In fact, it didn't stick to anything, not even my ribs. Those were the good old days.

Nowdays, of course, I can LOOK at a piece of pecan pie and gain 5 pounds.

But those days are over. No more "pieces" of anything. From now on, it'll be "bites", if even that.

Still, I think that trying to get back to my college weight (okay, it was 190 pounds) might be a little unreasonable. I was kind of hoping to get back to my weight around age 30... ish. Say, 210 or 220. In which case I only have to lose another 20 or 30 pounds and I'll be done. But to get to 190 I'll have to drop another 50 pounds and that sounds way too much like a year-long project to me.

People ask me if I crave anything. No, I answer, because no matter what I ingest (and it's still mostly liquids) I fill up after two swallows. My new tummy only holds about 4 ounces of anything.

Well, that's not completely true. There is one thing I crave above all else. It's not prime rib or pork chops or baked potatoes or asparagus with hollandaise sauce.

It's popcorn.

Not microwave popcorn, either, but corn popped in a big pot on the stove and then smothered in melted "I Can't Believe JoyZeeBoy Thinks This Crap is Butter."

It's worse when I think about going to the movies and not being able to have a 10 pound bag of popcorn cooked in God-Only-Knows-What, dripping with crankcase leavings and washed down by a Bladder-Buster of my favorite beverage, 64 ounces of Diet Coke which is higher in caffeine to offset the loss of sugar -- wasn't that thoughtful of the Coca-Cola people?

So, you see, I don't really have any cravings.

At least not until I lose another 20 pounds. Or 50, if that Nazi Nutritionist of mine, Stacy, gets her way.

So, what's new?

I'm back. Yeah, I know, whoop-di-goddamned-do.

I forgot to send my gut pix to the office, where I'm currently goofing off instead of working. So you'll have to wait for those.

The surgery didn't go horribly awry, although there were "complications." Enough complications for them to have shot me up with 4 units of blood, kept me in the hospital for two additional days, and to have filled me with bag after bag of saline solution.

When I was discharged on Friday August 15th I spent the first week at home just trying to void myself through whatever outlet was handy of the gallons of salt water they'd inflated me with.

I remember watching Michael Phelps (endlessly) while I was in the hospital. Every time I came out of yet another coma there he was, slithering through the water like a water snake. Swimmers have the oddest bodies.

Then, after I'd had a week to adjust to reality, the conventions started. Initially I was kind of surprised by Barack's choice of Joe Biden (from my home state of Delaware). But upon reflection he seemed the best choice if Senator Obama hoped to deflect Republican criticism of his LACK OF EXPERIENCE IN FOREIGN AFFAIRS, which seemed likely given the fact that the GOP had been doing just that for months.

Then, of course, the Gay Old Party turned right around and picked the most unqualified person, male or female, to have run for the vice presidency since Spiro Agnew (another state governor who eventually wound up in prison -- which, with any luck, started a trend.)

And that brings us up to date on external affairs.

Now, as to the surgery.

I have lost nearly 40 pounds in 4 weeks. I've had to have additional holes punched in some belts, and to have some inches of webbing removed from others. I'm not quite down to the next size in pants (although all my workmakes insist that I am). I can eat (if you call "drinking" "eating") about 4 ounces at a clip. For a real treat I've started having 2.5 ounces of tuna at lunch (1 6 oz. can of tuna packed in water mixed with 2 heaping tablespoons of low-fat mayo) this week.

I can button the collar buttons on my shirts again. The weight loss began, as it always does, with the face and the ass. While not exactly gaunt, my face is decidedly less "jolly" than it had been. My formerly well-padded behind no longer exists. It's actually painful to sit in the same position for any length of time. Our office ops manager is ordering a pillow for me to sit on.

My first day back at work was Monday of this week. By Tuesday morning my feet were killing me. I hadn't worn dress shoes in a month, only deck shoes. The streets of New York didn't help matters.

Despite the initial complications (and week of hourly trips to the can), I have no regrets. I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

Oh, and finally there's this.

My diabetes is resolved. I've been off all medicines since the day before my surgery. My blood sugar (which I continue to monitor daily) has dropped completely back to the "normal" range of 90-110.

I feel wonderful.

Signed, Sealed, Delivered

It is done. As of 3:00 p.m. yesterday afternoon I got final approval for my upcoming bariatric surgery from my cardiology group (after much drama - theirs, not mine) and the insurance carrier. I'm scheduled for surgery this coming Monday, August 11th (time TBA).

Yesterday morning was spent having my pre-admission work done at the hospital. I'm now tagged like a bull walrus, with various colored wrist-bands indicating that I've been x-rayed, peed into a lab vial and had a quart or two of blood drawn.

On Tuesday I had my final "go-see" with the surgeon. He said that the next time I saw him he'd be in scrubs. To which I added, "and some amateur from anesthesiology will be trying to put in an A-line, with no luck, and blood'll be spraying all over the staging area."

He looked kind of freaked out and asked me why I thought that? "Because, " I said, "that's what happened the LAST time I had surgery."

I've been cut up so much in the last 4 years that I'm a) an old hand at it and b) pretty cynical about the whole affair.

Still, I have confidence in him. Him being my surgeon.

Everyone has been taking great pains to stress just how much of a "lifestyle" change this is going to entail. Like they're asking me to turn straight or something. That, of course, simply will never happen.

But I do know a thing or two about lifestyle changes. I did, after all, forsake my best friend, and public enemy number one, alcohol 10 plus years ago. Changing the way I "think" is nothing new to me. I do it all the time. Now.

I'm back at work today and tomorrow and then... that's it.

FYI, I'm still computerless at home (who has time to fix or replace that?) If I'm bored on Saturday and I find I have money to burn, I'll try to get a new one, bring it home and set it up before I go into the hospital. Otherwise, if you have my phone numbers, call me late next week. Theoretically I should be home Wednesday afternoon.

The current plan, with my surgeon's blessing, is to be out of work for about a month, or up to six weeks if he so determines. THIS WORKS FOR ME!!! I love "recuperating."

And if you're so inclined, and you have a favorite deity or higher power you talk to, please put in a good word for me next Monday morning, will ya?

I'd really appreciate it.

Death of a Computer

The Sony VAIO died. Again. This is the 2nd time it's fried a boot drive. I'm sick and tired of Sony computers.

TV's yes. I'll buy a Sony TV any time. But never again will I plunk down a grand for one of their computing products. They suck.

I asked Bev what she uses at home ("Dude! You're gettin' a Dell!")

I asked my friends what they use (everything from hand-me-downs to do-it-yourselfers).

There was a time when I was grateful to get a hand-me-down 1.2ghz Dell with zero expansion slots and a 20gig drive.

There was also a time when I thought it would be "fun" to build my own PC from scratch (motherboard, drives, keyboards, cards, cases with neon lights and watercooled CPUs).

But those days are gone. Too.

I'd like a pc that doesn't lull me into a false sense of security and then blow up on me.

This is not what I needed to kill time the week before my surgery.

I am annoyed.

AND IT'S ALL SONY'S FAULT!!!!!

And The Days Dwindle Down....

Here is how my mind works: Let's say that I wake up in the morning and have 300 things to be grateful for and 2 things to be pissed off about. Guess what I'll spend the day dwelling on?

My life these days is basically happy, loving and secure. I'm surrounded by people I love and whom love me. So, naturally, I spent most of this week being pissed off at my cardiologist who have the NERVE to go on vacation when I needed him to be in town to do some paperwork so I can have my surgery a week from Monday.

Am I crazy?

Yes.

Then, of course, his office called yesterday and we got it all straightened out and now I won't have to postpone the surgery after all and it's still on for a week from this coming Monday (August 11th -- send cash.)

This also means that I get to spend this weekend and next loitering in the stacks at BJ's and Sam's Club looking for bargain cases of College Inn Lo-Fat Chicken Broth and tons of sugar-free Jello (ibid) and other stuff to try to ingest since I'll have to live on that stuff for about a month, supplemented only by the prayers of other recovering alkies and gallons of liquid vitamins.

But this is good. I am eager to have my Type II Diabetes "resolved" (doctors don't like the word "cured"). I am eager not to wind up, like so many of my immediate ancestors did, blind and footless, strapped into wheelchairs in hellhole nursing homes.

I am eager to not have that happen to me.

And for that I am truly grateful.

Maybe I'll get some photos of my weekend and post 'em here next week. BUT NO PROMISES.

Inda Gude Ol Sommer Stein

Today's title refers to a line I heard on a show called "I've Got A Secret", hosted by one Gary Moore (Thomas Garrison Morfit) which aired on CBS-TV from 1833 until 1902. What can I tell you? It's a slow news day and my mind wanders easily these days.

But it also refers to the fact that it is summertime and I have more photos of the Fabulous Jersey Shore to post. So let's get cracking:

Here's one of the boardwalk attractions. I forget what they call it, but they strap you into a cage attached to two counterweighted cables and then launch you, straight up about 200', after which you bounce up and down, up and down, until you upchuck all the delicious Philly cheesesteaks, South Street pizza and 2 and a half pounds of pink spun sugar you scarfed down before plunking down your ten bucks to ride this sadistic monstrosity.







Looks like fun, huh?











Next up we have food.









and more food:













and touring beautiful Cape May:

























And, finally, no trip to the Jersey shore would be complete without losing your shirt at some cockamamie game of chance.





Maybe more tomorrow...

Wildwood Nights!

Here's the view of the ocean from the boardwalk. Note the half-mile hike to the water line. And that sand is not loose (actually a good thing). It's more like tightly packed wet cement. Do not attempt to cross it on a hot summer's day in bare feet. You'll wish you were dead before you're halfway to the ocean.




On the right is a piece of the 2-mile long boardwalk. Note the two "concrete runways" that run parallel to each other, with yellow outside warning stripes, the entire length of the boardwalk. You need to stay on your toes on this boardwalk. The next picture will show you why.





You and your friends will be strolling, casually, down the boardwalk when all of a sudden this pre-recorded PRONUNCIAMENTO will blare out from behind you

"WATCH THE TRAM CAR, PLEASE. WATCH THE TRAM CAR, PLEASE. WATCH THE TRAM CAR, PLEASE."

Thus scaring the crap out of you and your associates. After the first few times you do get used to it and learn a) not to walk along on the cement portion of the boardwalk where the tram car runs and b) to stand to the side and watch OTHER tourists get the crap scared out of them!

By the way, the Tramcar is a real bargain at two bucks a pop after you've spent hours schlepping up and down the boardwalk on a steamy July afternoon.


But here's the real reason one comes to Wildwood, New Jersey. It's a town out of time. It's permanently locked in the year 1959. All the drive-in joints and motels look like something out of "American Graffiti" with "space-age" designs and doo-wop motifs.




And the locals revel in it. So do the tourists.

Biggest surprise of the trip (aside from how things have changed since, oh, 1964) were the bajillions of French-Canadians who obviously have chosen the south Jersey Shore as their summer residence ("chez ete"). I heard more bad French than I did bad English last week.

And speaking of bad English, here's how we old poops whiled away our evenings, playing cutthroat games of Scrabble.





Here's a close-up of the same board:



My so-called friends are the types of people who spend the winter memorizing all the words that begin with "Q" and don't require a "U."

The bastards.

Enough for today. More photos tomorrow. If you're real nice.

I'm a Dope.

Yes, I was down the (Jersey) shore all last week and had a swell time.

Yes, I took pictures.

Yes, I uploaded them to my pc at home.

Yes, I created a slide show in PDF format which I sent to my friends who were down the shore with me.

Yes, I forgot to forward the individual pictures to me at my office email address.

Yes, I'll post some pictures ... tomorrow.

Oh, and I attended 12-Step meetings from Cape May to Avalon. It's a wonder those people manage to stay sober (just kidding -- we alkies always think that people elsewhere are clueless about recovery).

So, stay tuned.

More will be revealed.

Really.

====================================================
Addenda:

It would be a cold day in hell before I attended something called "ComicCon" or something like that in San Diego (or anywhere else, for that matter). Even so, the event is, apparently, not without it's charms.

To wit: Click HERE (warning: NSFW bespandexed nutsack on display).

We're Off!

It's been a busy week. Much too busy to have written about it until now.

Come to think of it, though, there's no time now, either.

Tomorrow morning my friends and I are off to the South Jersey Shore, to the Doo-Wop Capital of the world, Wildwood, NJ.

I had the day off to prepare and to see the nutritionist one more time before my surgery and my opthalmologist as a follow-up to my eyelid surgery in May.

There were also quick trips to Barnes & Noble to buy a new road map atlas of NJ and some magazines, and to Shop-Rite to pick up farm fresh herbs because there are no farms near Wildwood, New Jersey, here in the Garden State, where the corn is as high as an elephants eye these days.

Nor do they sell toilet paper, kleenex, toothpaste or deodorant there, either. So, of course, I must pack all of those things.

Am I crazy? YOU BET!

This is my favorite part of any vacation. Making myself nuts in advance of it. I'm actually fun to watch.

While I'm gone please try to behave yourselves, don't let the world blow up, and, if possible, kill a homophobe for Christ!

Nobody deserves it more.

I'll see you in a week and, MORE IMPORTANTLY, you will see ME in a week because I have my phabulous new digital camera with the 1gig memory card capable of holding 399 pictures.

Love to you all...

Brush Up Yer Resumes

Okay boys and girls, it's time to start brushin' up yer resumes. Soon (and sooner than you think, although not nearly soon enough) there'll be a new administration in Washington, D.C., and you know what that means...

A whole passle of new Republican Congresscritters are gonna be a-comin' to town and there's nothing they need more than a bunch of overqualified, Type-A, alcoholic, closeted, self-loathing, queer as a three-dollar bill office staffers, who can type a hundred words a minute with no errors and who have heard of this "interwebs" thing.

You'll be in rehab in no time as you drink and drug yourselves into nightly oblivion, unaware of and/or in denial about the gnawing cancer of self-loathing that's eating you alive as you slavishly serve the fag-bashing hypocrites who walked into office ON YOUR BACKS!

Like John McCain. He's against gay marriage and gay adoptions. Like where does he get off talking about marriage? Didn't he dump wife number 1 as soon as she became an inconvenient (and incapacitated) truth for the beer heiress he's married to now?

I may be wrong.

But never mind that, we're talking JOBS here.

Perhaps the only jobs remaining in America, come next January 20th, no matter who wins.

If Barack keeps his focus on one thing, and one thing only, he'll have a hard time losing in November.

"IT'S THE ECONOMY, STUPID."

Like Sands through the Hourglass....

I wish I had something refreshing or exciting to say, but I don't. In fact either I've achieved nirvana and am in a constant state of serene bliss or, more likely, I've finally reached the age of being a boring-assed old fart.

And to be honest, I'll take either.

I often think that I've already had 2 or 3 lifetimes worth of excitement, glamour and sophistication.

I also often think that I've already had all the hurt and drama I can (or want to) handle.

These days I'm happy to get together with old friends to share a week at the beach, lots of yuks and belly laughs, cutthroat games of Scrabble or Hearts, good homecooked meals, days on the beach acting like 12 year olds or nights on the boardwalk doing exactly the same thing.

So I should be delirious the week after next, when a bunch of us head down to the south Jersey Shore, to the beach town of Wildwood aka the "Irish Riviera", which I haven't been to since I was 14 years old. I can't wait to go back. I've changed a lot over the years. So has Wildwood.













In honor of the occasion I've broken down and bought a new digital camera (a Nikon S550) with which I hope to take tons of photos to post, since I can't possibly send all of you boxes of Salt Water Taffy from the New Jersey Shore!





The emails are flying back and forth between the housemates regarding who's bringing what, especially the really import stuff, like this:

















Because this is what the beach looks like on a hot, July afternoon.















or else this:



I can't wait until next weekend.

REVISED: Down with Tyranny Tuesday

This is a redacted version of yesterday's post.

Aside from the fact that I had the most meaningful conversation with my Dad last night that I have ever had with him, there's nothing much to report on the home front. Except that I'm mighty grateful to have been sober long enough for our relationship to have evolved into something I've spent a lifetime wishing we had.

It's a beautiful thing.

Moving right along, it has come to my attention that King George V made a speech on the 4th of July and, apparently, some people actually listened to it. Enough, in fact, to know that he deliberately misquoted Thomas Jefferson by excising a reference to the populace throwing off the tyranny of "monkish" mindlessness, etc., etc.

Apparently KGV has a problem getting behind the idea of the people throwing off anything. Such as tyranny. Especially his.

Here are some other spiffy quotes from Thos. Jefferson, chief author of the Declaration of Independence and fierce opponent of mindless obeisance to tyrants on the subject of religion.

"Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity."
-Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782

"But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."
-Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782

"Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law."
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814

"In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own."
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Horatio G. Spafford, March 17, 1814

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Mitt Romney did some fudge-packing over the weekend.



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John McCain's minions of evil ejected a little old lady librarian from some get-together in Denver because she had a sign saying that "McCain=Bush." My question, posed elsewhere, is don't the Republicans like Bush anymore?

(The following is a video of the action that ensued, plus some commentary from MSNBC):



Note that the 12'9" cops fairly loom over the little old lady.


-------------------------------------

And, finally, there's this. Apparently there really is such a thing. In Ft. Smith, Arkansas. Which may explain a lot of Bill Clinton's hard-coding.

(NOTE: This, apparently, was an elaborately staged gag by Sascha Baron Cohen for some upcoming movie of his... still, I think it's funny enough to leave it.)


-------------------------------------

Have a great Tuesday. And don't forget to call the folks. You never know how much longer you'll have 'em.

Hooray for the Red, White & Blue.

Did you all have a wonderful 4th? I went to see "Hancock", which I liked. It was rainy, hot and humid here in the east so I found ways to spend time indoors.

On Saturday I drove to downstate Delaware to visit my folks who are old and not doing so well. I'm glad I went. Dad is in physical rehab so I took my stepmom out for dinner. She was craving Chinese buffet, so we had Chinese buffet. She was sad to see me leave. Dad looked very frail. Much frailer than I'd like him to be. But God doesn't solicit my opinions, thank goodness, otherwise the universe would've been blown to smithereens eons ago. I felt very mortal when I left them late that afternoon.

I drove straight up to Wilmington and then took I-95 to the grand bypass around Philadelplhia known, locally, as "the Blue Route." It swings you west and north of the city until it connects with the PA Turnpike. I was heading towards Doylestown, and a 12-Step meeting I really like (LGBT). I hadn't been there in a couple of months due to gas prices (it's about a 90 mile roundtrip which, I know, is a spin around the block for Californians, but it's real distance to us wimpy Easterners.)

Sunday I slept in until 7:00 a.m., made a real breakfast, watched Sunday Morning and went to the movies again, to see "Wanted" with Angelina Jolie, Morgan Freeman and James McAvoy. I liked it, too.

Then I was the guest speaker at a 12-Step meeting devoted exclusively to the 2nd Step of Recovery ("Came to believe that a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity.") It's a tricky step. Note that it says it could restore me, not that it WOULD restore me to sanity. I didn't exactly ace it, but I spoke from the heart which is all one can expect. I think my mind is still on my aging and frail parents. And the few remaining brain cells I didn't kill with booze and drugs are, from time to time, waving "bye-bye" to each other.

It wasn't much of a holiday weekend. I did get to see some of the fireworks from the Esplanade in Boston on TV. Craig Ferguson, who hosts the show after Letterman, was hosting and he announced that he'd recently become an American citizen. I thought that was nice.

At this point I'd like to say something snide and snotty about the passing of Jesse Helms but, you know what? Why bother. Wherever he went, let him be. He, like Bush, is no longer worth any effort from those they are leaving behind.

IRAQ! Brought to you tonight by....

At last someone has grown balls enough to parody what's REALLY going on here in America -- the commercialization of death, war and patriotism.

The Onion (which apparently has enormous resources) has done a bang-up job of visciously satirizing the totally commercial nature of our current wars; wars of Big Business, unlike World War II, in which there were clearly good guys (us) and bad guys (our now and forever eternal enemies, the Japs and Krauts).

These days, what passes for a "just war" is more like "Iraq - Sponsored by KKR, Halliburton and those wonderful folks who brought you five buck a gallon gasoline, ExxonMobilChevronSunocoGettyBPCitGo!"

Here's one dead soldier's life being honored by Home Depot. Remember, this is totally satire. The dead soldier is a fictional character and the people in this spot are all actors.


Home Depot Honors Fallen Soldiers With Great Prices On Tools

We are this close

to becoming a Christian theocracy.

The RRR has been waging this "cultural war" against the left for decades now, based primarily on a few wedge issues such as abortion, women's rights (in general), immigration, gay rights and the whole idea of the "nanny state" vs. the "corporate welfare" state.

The left has, traditionally, not stooped to the level of the right in pandering to the baser fears of the ultra-religionists (and I'm sure that the right would counter that they have not stooped to the level of pandering to the cock-sucking baby-aborters, either).

Political discourse is at an all time low thanks to us creating generations of distrustful, sarcastic, snarky, pot-shotting, zinger-flinging, Swift-Boating, general all-round snowball throwing, accompanied by taunts of "NEENER, NEENER, NEENER!", voters. Thank you, Richard Milhouse Nixon - you slimy, conniving, red-baiting, anti-semitic, racist, fucking dirtbag - may God rest your soul.

In short, the fault, Dear Brutus, lies not in our stars but within ourselves, to quote some old Brit.

Having said, what's my point? The Political Right moved the Religious Right into the White House. Only they weren't "just" the Religious Right. They were THEIR Religious Right. The Right Religious Right. The Religious Right who think and act and speak like Republicans, because they ARE Republicans.

Now Barack has proposed doing the same. At first I was appalled... until I realized that it wasn't "exactly" the same. If the other side can pack the Faith-Based Initiative office with RRR Christians, why can't Barack pack the office with moderate to lefty Christians, instead? People more like me. People with affiliations such as the United Church of Christ? Or the Metropolitan Community Churches? Or the Unitarian Universalist Churches?

Now these are churches I can live with!

Yeah, I know. It's a slippery slope he's proposing to march down. But he didn't invent the slope. And nobody can blame us for simply acknowledging that the rules of the game have changed -- re-written against the clear will of the Founders by the party of Lincoln, who'd probably shit himself if he knew what his Grand Old Party had gotten up to in the last 50 years.

But I'm willing to let Barack take a shot at it. Especially if it means we have a better shot at winning the Presidency in the fall.

After all, why in the hell should the Republicans own all the Christians? Why can't we own some of them, too?

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.

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

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.

==========================================================
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.

==========================================================
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.