Open Mike Wednesday

Well, not really. More like a hodge-podge Wednesday... only without mentions of Christianist shootouts or family killings, because they're actually pretty sad stories, when you think about it.

First up, we have this cute photo:



Just because I have a soft spot in my heart for heartless fat-cats everywhere. It started on Wall Street, back in the 80's (of course), but then my friend Jan started collecting real fat cats (of the variety in the picture above) and I started falling in love with them, and vice versa, as the years rolled by.

But my favorite story du jour concerns Senator David Vitter (remember the diaper-loving client of a DC Madam? Yup, the same). Apparently he went ape-shit at Dulles last week when a plane had the nerve to leave without him.

First off, I copied the story from Wonkette, with a pointer, at the end, to the original source of the story:

Hooker-using diaper fetishist Senator David Vitter freaked out at Dulles airport after he missed his flight back to New Orleans. He arrived at his gate to discover that doors had closed and he could not board his flight. A normal person would say, “Oh well, can you try to get me on the next flight then?” but Senator Vitter yelled about how he was a senator and therefore endowed with special powers of douchebaggery. Then he opened the security door, which set off an alarm, and the airline employee he’d been chewing out was all Hey man that is really not cool, and David Vitter ran off like a pussy while the employee looked for a security guard. What an awful human. [Raw Story]

Eleven Years

Yesterday was my 11th sobriety anniversary. In fact, it was exactly Sunday, March 8, 1998 that (so far) I had my last drink of alcohol.

In fact, that last drink was AFTER I'd gotten out of jail that morning. Yes. Jail. On a drunk-driving charge from Saturday night. I awoke that Sunday morning in a cell, my clothes piled neatly on the floor ourside of my cell... safely out of reach (lest I do something stupid, like fashion a noose from my trousers). It took most of the last $220 I had in my wallet to get out of jail that morning. I still had part of a 1.75 liter bottle of rotgut vodka back in my small room at my brother's house, where I'd spent the previous 3 months sleeping on a paper-thin mattress on the attic floor. I polished it off before I passed out for the last time. I hated myself and wished I were dead.

Two days later I attended my first 12-Step meeting, at 7:00 a.m. on Tuesday morning, March 10, 1998.

After that there were court dates, a loss of license for 6 months, fines, insurance surcharges, court-mandated attendance at something called IDRC (Intoxicated Driver Resource Center) and, finally, court-ordered attendance at 12-Step meetings for the next year.

By the time the court got around to that, though, I'd already been attending meetings for 3 months. In fact, I'd gotten my 90-Day pin the day before my first court appearance.

11 years later... during which there've been no police, no courts, no insurance surcharges and, most importantly of all, no court-mandated attendance at 12-Step meetings (I run to them of my own volition these days).

I've come to realize a lot of things in those 11 years. I've come to realize that there is a God and that I'm not him (or her). I've also come to believe that there is a plan, which is not my plan and that God, frankly, doesn't give a rat's ass about my opinions regarding that plan, but that my job is to show up for that plan and to do my best to implement that plan. It makes life so much easier when we stop trying to be God... and get rid of that massive chip on our shoulders because we are not God.

I have loving friends and family. For a long time I didn't. I like being around people today. For a long time I didn't.

I go to a Step meeting on Sunday mornings in the sleepy little town of Plainsboro, NJ (home of the non-existent Princeton-Plainsboro Hospital where House practices being a medical jerk). My sponsor goes to the meeting with me. It allows us to have some valuable "face-time" every week. He gave me my 11 year piece at the meeting yesterday.

I love my sponsor. He's my best friend. He puts up with a lot of crap and neediness from me. He thinks I'm a good friend, too. He's told me so. We're good for each other. He and his wife have taken good care of me over the years. They've been there for me with all my medical crap over the years. I would take bullets for them.

So today I start my 12th year of sobriety. I started it the same way I started my sobriety on a dismal, friendless and hopeless Sunday morning in 1998.

One Day at a Time.

Gay Marriage, Prop 8 and Voter Initiatives

The whole business with Proposition 8 in California, the original ruling, the 18,000 or so marriages, the voter initiative last November, the fallout from that, the whole debacle over Mormon involvement and, finally, yesterday's hearing in the California State Supreme Court led my friend Bev, over at FunnyTheWorld, to post about it today (SPOILER ALERT: She's frustrated), which prompted me to post a reply.

I hate to brag (shut up, Bev) but I will. It was so good (and to be honest Bev encouraged me to send it to the Court) that I decided to post it here.

What follows is a direct copy of my post:

"Well, here's my deal on all that Prop 8 stuff.

When I moved to Seattle, back in '76 and fresh out of college back here in the east, I was shocked (and that's not hyperbole, that's what I was) to find out that you good folks out west (Washington, Oregon, California and, probably, some other states as well) had this loose cannon thingie called "Voter Initiatives" which, basically, overrode the Federal Founders express desire to provide built-in protections for all minorities against the TYRANNY of the majority.

I figured it out in about five minutes.

[Furthermore,] over the ensuing 33 years I have yet to see any evidence that the voter initiative process is anything more (or less) than a loaded gun in the hands of overly-emotional 3 year olds. There are reasons it takes a 2/3 votes of both houses of Congress AND of all the states in order to modify our national constitution.

The Founders were not idiots. Lynch mobs, though, usually are."

---- nb: I later posted an addendum to that noting that I was wrong, that it takes 3/4's of the state legislatures to ratify a constitutional amendment.

Rudderless

Addiction and lack of direction go hand in hand. It’s difficult to pinpoint just which one comes first. I generally opt for starting out life with a lack of direction, booze and drugs to follow (shortly).

I grew up surrounded by a bunch of aimless, drunken, souls whose main ambitions every week were to survive and then to get blasted on Saturday night.

Nobody ever sat me down and said, “What would you like to do?” Nobody ever showed that much interest in me. The general attitudes around my childhood home were a) that I was a burden for them to endure and b) that I was a handy weapon my mother could use against my father and c) that children should be seen and not heard. Nor did anyone try to give me a leg up on life by teaching me anything (worthwhile, or not). Frankly, they didn’t have very much to offer. I was a bright kid, who could’ve done a lot if I’d been given half a chance (or even some outside tutoring). Regrettably, I had to figure everything out for myself (becoming an autodidact) and it came as a rude shock when, in the middle of the 9th grade, I realized that I couldn’t teach myself algebra. I threw in the towel on education when I hit that brick wall. I barely managed to finish high school, despite the kindness and interest of a handful of teachers. I was too ashamed to ask any of them for help.

My primary responsibilities as a kid were a) to keep up appearances in Catholic (and later, public) school so that no attention would ever be drawn to what was actually happening in my house and b) to clean up after the alcohol-fueled messes.

Consequently, I’ve never aspired to be successful. I’ve never aspired to “having a career” or even having a job that I would be remotely interested in. If I mastered something, I got bored with it. If it was too hard (i.e., it took more than a week to learn) I quickly lost interest and tossed it aside.

The same went for people. Either I mastered them overnight, or they fell by the wayside.

And there were careers and relationships. To all outward appearances, both were lovely. But they weren't. They were empty shams.

Nothing fulfilled me. Nothing gave me a sense of being. I spent most of my life being a big, empty, nothing.

Only recently have I begun to realize that all those things I failed to get in childhood (including having decent role models for healthy relationships) I was now in an ideal position to give as a sober adult.

The rooms of 12-Step programs are full of needy people, who, like me, grew up empty, desperate for loving direction, kindly help and moral support. I had the opportunity to “be” the very thing I so desperately craved. I could be the loving father and mother to others that I never had for myself.

I had a chance, at long last, to be fulfilled.

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

p.s. I'm watching the live stream of the California Supreme Court hearing on the constitutionality of Prop 8. So far I'm having a hard time pinning down the court's attitude.

But it's March fer cryin' out loud...

9:00 a.m., Monday, March 2, 2009. From my living room window. Click on the photo to "embiggen" it (which my friend Joe J. over at Joe.My.God likes to say.)

I woke up at 5:00 a.m., looked outside and said to myself, "ain't no way I'm truckin' into NYC today." Then I turned on the local news. The NYC schools are closed, and they never close the schools in New York. So it was bad. I went back to bed for another hour, got up and checked the weather again. Still snowing. I called the office and left a voicemail saying that I wouldn't be in today.

Then, of course, being the good little alkie that I am, I showered, shaved, dressed, went out and dug the car out and drove off to a 12-Step meeting that meets at 7:00 a.m., six days a week in the local Presbyterian Church. The diehards were all there. The amateurs always stay home.

They say we're going on daylight savings time this coming weekend and that Spring is merely 3 weeks off.

Somebody should tell Mother Nature that winter is over. Like She cares.

Reaganomics 101

In case you slept through last couple of semesters (29 years), let’s recap:

Reaganomics, also once known as “voodoo economics” (coined by Bush, Sr.) had its origins in two basic premises; lower taxes and a smaller government. We got one of those.

It was to be implemented by the then Director of the Office of Management and Budget, David Stockman (remember him?), who had to defend the concept to the Congress. Amongst other things he attended divinity school.

Notwithstanding all the fancy-schmancy, high-falootin’ terminology and pedigree of Reaganomics, it really boiled down to this:

With the Democrats you get “tax and spend” economics (not for the last 29 years).

With Reaganomics you get “borrow and spend” economics (the last 29 years).

So here’s a hot flash for all of you “Greed is Good” Reaganistas out there:

The fiscal chickens have come home to roost. By the thousands, by the millions, by the billions and by the trillions.

Citibank has been all but nationalized. Bank of America is about to have its underwear crawled through by the Feds and NY State in search of corporate mis and malfeasance. A handful, comparatively speaking, of ultra-rich motherfuckers, mostly Republican, have gotten even more ultra-rich (and became even bigger motherfuckers) at the expense of the vast majority of hard-working schlubby Americans, amongst whom I count myself.

We are in a period of profound economic depression, likely to last for a decade or so and, finally, there’s this:

We are trillions of dollars in debt to the Chinese, and not the “good” Chinese, either, but rather the bad Chinese. They all but own us and could send a bunch of lawyers over here to foreclose, if they had lawyers and laws.

This, then, is the legacy that we are leaving to our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. This, then, is the legacy of Ronald Reagan and Reaganomics.

Never vote for an actor for President. It’s bad enough voting for one as Governor of California.

Things are pretty bleak out there.

And the Oscar Goes to...

I think it's fair to say that this was the year when the Oscar finally went to the Industry. The category? Queer History, of course, but also in the category of "Fuck the Base."

Lance Black's speech managed to sneak out onto the airwaves before the homophobic christianist parents of Amerika had time to switch their sets off and before their precious, innocent, 30 year old offspring heard the good news that it's "okay to be gay in God's eyes." That infuriated the Freepers. Heh.

Then came Sean's lovely speech. Which wasn't bad for a straight guy with a bad-boy reputation.

The internets are atwitter (and afacebooked) with apoplectic Westboro Baptist Wannabe's all bemoaning the end of civilization now that the Queers have hijacked Hollywood! (Who'll show up next? Teh Jews?)

Before the awards, I jabbed my friend Steve Schalchlin in the internetual ribs by stating that the Oscars were "not the gayest award night of the year", that, in fact, the annual Tony Award broadcast was far gayer.

Well, I stand corrected. This year's Oscar broadcast was screamingly, deliciously, fabulously Queer!

And now, the endless thanks.

Thanks to the gayest straight man in show biz.... Hugh Jackman!!!!

Thanks also to the music producer of the show. I was entranced by the lush, symphonic background music lifted straight out of the great movie scores of decades past, including pieces from "Lawrence of Arabia" and "The Magnificent Seven." Enthralling.

And finally, Oscar producers take note: next year's co-hosts should DEFINITELY be Steve Martin and Tina Fey and you're total idiots if you don't start planning for that right now.

The Tony's are gonna seem pretty tame this year... if, indeed, they even bother to have 'em.

Gay News Thursday

But first, a quick follow-up to yesterday's post. My 12-Step recovery home group gave me what I'd been looking for my entire life. To wit, a group of loving adults who may not have always had the right answer, but their hearts were always in the right place, who cared for and fretted over me when I was barely capable of taking care of myself. From them I learned how to be a grown-up, how to face my fears, how to accept the unchangeable past and how to move past it. From them I learned to be responsible for my own failures (and successes), and to stop trying to fix blame (and credit) somewhere else.

In short, they are the loving parents I always knew I was missing as a child. And it is that abundance of unconditional love I received from them which it's my duty to pass along to the "youngsters" I come across in recovery.

And that is how it works.

Moving right along....

My buddy Jake over at NoFo wrote a letter responding to a sort of op-ed essay that appeared in the February 9th Newsweek by an evangelical Christian named Robert Mouw who defended his vote in favor of Prop 8 in California last November. The piece, as you might expect, is full of self-pity and outright lies. Jake takes Mouw apart in his response. Needless to say, Newsweek (wimps that they are), didn't run it, but Jake has posted most of it (along with parts of Mouw's original essay) HERE.

In other gay news, in case you didn't know it (or else forgot), it's Oscar weekend. The weekend begins with the Independent Spirit Awards live from a circus tent on the beach in Santa Monica or Venice or someplace -- with lots of drunk movie stars, wannabes, moochers and hangers-on. the Indies'll be broadcast Saturday on IFC (live) at 5:00 p.m. ET / 2:00 p.m. PT and again that night on AMC (edited) starting at 10:00 p.m. ET & PT.

Sunday, of course, is the most sacred night of the year for Hollywood. It's Oscar night. And this years guest host is (be still my beating, girlish, heart) HUGH JACKMAN (SCREECHING)!!!!!!

I'd pay good money just to watch the man disrobe. And have. I saw "The Boy From Oz" on B'way a couple of years back. Hugh's not only hunky, but the boy can sing and dance, too. A fact which the viewing public will find out for themselves on Sunday night, when they get a load of the big opening number starring Hugh and being staged by his fellow Aussie, the new King of Movie Musicals, Baz Luhrmann.

I suspect that most of the fanboys of Wolverine and X-Men out there will be losing their shit when they see all 6 feet 4 inches of HJ strutting his shit all over the stage of the Kodak Theater in a great, big musical tribute to Gawd-Only-Knows-What.

So, if you're in the mood to recharge your gay batteries, go read Jake's piece to get your self-righteous self all fired up (and then DO something about it, fer Chrissakes), then be sure to tune in this weekend for hour upon hour of pure Gollywood Fun & Glam!

p.s. I'm posting this a little early to give you time to run out and see both "Slumdog Millionaire" and "The Reader" tomorrow because, if you don't, you're gonna feel like a fool come Sunday evening.

My Sober Job.

The title is an inside-joke for those in recovery. It refers to the certain knowledge amongst recovering drunks and druggies that "God is our employer" and that He has only one job for us which is "to stay sober and to help another alcoholic to achieve sobriety."

Accepting that as a given, our real job then becomes that of trying to find the best way to fulfill God's intention for us, given our own individual talents... and limitations.

I'll tell you why this has been on my mind. This past weekend I was at a LGBT 12-Step Roundup in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. Roundups are weekend long (generally) events wherein hundreds of recovering lesbian, gay, bi and transgendered folks get together for workshops and for a lot of sober socializing and fun. This year a friend from my Friday night 12-Step group decided to tag along. He has about 4 years of sobriety. As the weekend progressed it became increasingly clear that he had a very hard time socializing with other people there. Every time I'd turn around, there he'd be, either directly at my back or elbow, just this short of being stuck up my ass like a clingy, needy, bashful, socially-inept 4 year old... or else he'd be way off in a corner, all by himself, looking lost and forlorn.

It started to really annoy me that he wouldn't "play well with others." I kept saying things to him like, "Would you like Daddy to arrange a play-date for you?"

Eventually it became clear that that's exactly what he was hoping daddy would do.

My whole childhood was one spent hoping and praying that one day my own (real) daddy would finally come along and rescue me from the clutches of the Evil Queen (my alcoholic mother). He never did show up and by the time I got to know him, as an adult, I realized that even if he had shown up, he wouldn't have been much of a prize for, it turned out, that my Prince Charming had issues of his own.

So, in light of my experience with my friend over the weekend, and based on my own past experience, it slowly started to dawn on me this week that maybe my role in sobriety is supposed to be that of a sober father-figure. That lacking any childhood father-figure of my own, I was perfectly free to create myself as the sort of father I'd always wished I'd had when I was a kid. And that I could share that "uber-papa personna" I'd create with other men in recovery who were desperately seeking a daddy, too.

As much as it annoys me (and let's face it, God's will is almost always annoying), maybe it's time for me to start paying attention to what my real job is in life.

Sigh.

p.s. I'm aware of the high degree of codependency this could lead one into. Still, it does make a weird sort of sense to me.

The Third Story

Charles Busch's new play, "The Third Story", opened last night. Here is the poster for the show:



That's Charles over there on the right, brandishing the gun. Yes, he's in drag. Great drag. Drag that would make Barbara Stanwyck proud. Drag that would make Bette Davis eat her frickin' heart out.

My college roomie and I saw the play on Saturday. I thought it was wonderful. Ben Brantley, in today's NYTimes, didn't quite agree with me. He thought Mr. Busch's co-star, Kathleen Turner:



didn't have enough to do. "Hey", I said to myself when I read that, "She's an old broad. What the frig did he expect her to do? Cartwheels, ferchrissakes?" He also bitched that it was overwritten and could use some judicious weed-whacking.

Okay, so it's a couple of movies within a play. It's complicated. It's fun. If you can't keep up, stay the frig outta the theater. TV is for the brain-dead. Theater is for those of us with a few brain cells left.

The cast is terrific. The audience obviously adored Kathleen and Charles (myself included). And unlike at those overpriced Disney-fied productions you see uptown, the audience did NOT instantly leap to it's feet upon the final curtain to lavish unwarranted praise upon a bunch of class-B performers in a class-C production. The audience I saw it with applauded (and "bravaed") lustily, but respectfully kept it's seats until the cast had left the stage.

It's playing at the Lucille Lortel Theater, down on Christopher Street (deep in the heart of Greenwich Village). If you're in town and looking for a fun way to spend a couple of hours for about sixty bucks, go see it.

And if, like me, you're of a "certain age" it will undoubtedly stir up memories of your childhood, which you spent hiding out on Saturdays in movie palaces of yore, while golden goddesses of the silver screen stirred your fevered imaginations and who, decades later, still make us feel all warm and cozy inside. Even while brandishing a gun.

TiVo

The guys from Verizon showed up on Wednesday morning to install the Super-Secret Decoder Cards in my new TiVo.

Thank God one of them had actually "seen" a TiVo before Wednesday. Between the 2 of them it took less than 2 hours to do what a qualified technician should've been able to do in 1 hour. This is known as "job security." In all fairness to them, they are "phone company" employees which, in the past, meant hours of boredom hanging off of telephone poles, or down in freezing cold manholes, splicing miles of copper cable together in order to form "The Bell System." These days, though, it's just as likely to mean "the cable company" or "the computer guys." They don't know what the hell their job descriptions are any more. I feel for them.

This is what my TiVo looks like from the front:



This is what it does: It's a digital video recorder. It has an onscreen program guide that puts Verizon's to shame. All you have to do is "point and click" to record any show on the schedule. You can even tell it to record an entire season for you with just a few clicks. It holds up to 180 hours of regular programming (or 20 hours of HD programming). I can stick another (external) hard drive on the thing to up the recordable ante to nearly 200 hours of HD programming and nearly 1,000 hours of regular.

It does all kinds of other "tricks" with time and space (it's nearly as good as an episode of "Lost"). My favorite trick so far is, if I'm watching a show in "real time" and the phone rings all I have to do is hit the "Pause" button on the remote. The picture will instantly freeze. I take the call and after I hang up, 20 minutes later, hit the "Play" button and it will continue playing, as though I had been playing back a tape or a DVD.

It also learns and makes suggestions about things I might enjoy based on my past viewing patterns. This is both good news and bad news.

I am very excited about my TiVo. I'll be even more excited when the TiVo company issues me a refund for the defective unit they originally sold me.

Meanwhile, though, I'm a happy camper.

p.s.

Tomorrow I'm seeing the new Charles Busch play "The Third Story" also starring Kathleen Turner ("Body Heat", "War of the Roses", voice of Jessica Rabbit in "Who Killed Roger Rabbit?")

Full review to follow.

Ted Haggard on Oprah and HBO!

Here's a nice photo of Oprah and her boyfriend, Stedman Graham (wink, wink).



And speaking of closet cases and their beards, guess who's gonna be on Oprah tomorrow???!!!!

OMFG, YOU'RE LIKE TOTALLY RIGHT!!!!


[REUTERS/Phil McCarten (UNITED STATES)]

Ted Haggard and his long-suffering and even longer-lied-to wife!!!!! That's who!!!! Can you believe it??!! And can you stand the absolute symmetry of it?

I know I can't. And what pure dumb luck on my part. I've already put in for the day off (to spend the day waiting to get the frickin' TiVo set up by Verizon), so I'll be, like, totally able to watch the lyin' sack of shit show!

I'm so excited, I THINK I JUST WET MYSELF!!!

Needless to say, I can hardly wait to see this AND the new Alexandra Pelosi biotrashing of Ted, "The Trials of Ted Haggard", coming up on HBO starting this Thursday, January 29, 2009 at 8:00 p.m. (EST).

There's nothing I enjoy more than watching some fag-bashing, self-loathing, closet-case, piece of crap get what's coming to him on national tv. And this week, I hit the jackpot!

Gay Kultcha

I spotted this over at JoeMyGod's website today and decided to poach post it here.

This guy is terrific. His name is Matt Alber. He used to sing with "Chanticleer." Apparently this video has been playing on Logo for a couple of weeks now. It's entitled "End of the World" and by the end of the song I think you'll be in love with Matt, too. Or, at least, the song.

Enjoy.

St. Francis Bites the Dust

Nothing sucks the fun out of life faster, or more efficiently, than a well-placed article in l'Osservatore Romano, the official newspaper of the Vatican. Today is no exception.

It turns out that the St. Francis Prayer:

Lord, make me a channel of thy peace;
that where there is hatred, I may bring love;
that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness;
that where there is discord, I may bring harmony;
that where there is error, I may bring truth;
that where there is doubt, I may bring faith;
that where there is despair, I may bring hope;
that where there are shadows, I may bring light;
that where there is sadness, I may bring joy.
Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted;
to understand, than to be understood;
to love, than to be loved.
For it is by self-forgetting that one finds.
It is by forgiving that one is forgiven.
It is by dying that one awakens to eternal life.
Amen.

is a fraud. Remember when they announced that St. Christopher was a fraud, too? You gotta love Catholicism whose motto seems to be "Believe what we tell you or you will spend eternity in hell!!!!! Until we tell you otherwise, after which all bets are off." Oh, and by the way Galileo, we were wrong. SOOORRRYYYYY!!!.

With such a laissez-faire attitude, it's a wonder anyone bothers to believe anything the Church tells us when it'll all be repealed in a couple of hundred years with a shrug of the shoulders and a big, "Oh well, shit happens!" from whoever happens to be in charge then.

This is one case, however, where I don't really care that the prayer ascribed to Francis of Assisi wasn't actually written by him.

And the reason for that is that it's a wonderful prayer. No matter who uttered it first.

In my particular 12-Step Program, an essay on our 11th Step quotes the entire prayer. The 11th Step, for the uninitiated, states that we will "Try through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understand Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out." It's a pretty tall order. And it's just about the only way we recovering drunks can stay sober.

This prayer has helped millions of recovering drunks to stay focused on the most important things in our lives, i.e. our need to be spiritually dependent upon a power greater than ourselves and the importance of reaching out to help other recovering alcholics as a way of avoiding self-centeredness. For it is by "self-forgetting" that one finds.

Hey! It's working for me. Unlike religion.

The Homosexual Agenda

Is now published on the White House website! You can read it here:

And even after the fuckups regarding Rick Warren and Gene Robinson, I have to hope that there are, at least, some good intentions towards the LGBT community by the new administration. Provided, of course, that they don't pull a Clinton on us and throw us under the first bus that comes along.

Only time will tell --- and I am willing to give the new President time. After all, we gave Dubya eight years to royally fuck things up, didn't we?

Peace.

My Long National Nightmare is Finally Over

When I started this blog my little "Backward Bush" clock at the bottom indicated that we still had over 700 (more) days of Bush as President.

Now that clock has run out and I have removed the computer code that kept it in place for well over two years. Tomorrow (as of this writing), in accordance with the dictates of our Constitution, President Obama will take the oath of office at exactly noon as our 44th President of these United States. And whatshisname will fade, quickly I hope, into well-deserved oblivion.

I feel like I can finally breath for the first time in many years. And for that, I am truly grateful and thank God!

Dating Straight Men

BroHarmony.Com - A Place for Dudes to Meet Other Dudes @ Yahoo! Video

HELP!!!!

Should I buy the above-referenced gizmo? They want nearly $650.00 (including tax) for it. That's with a "lifetime subscription" to the updating service which, apparently, is indispensible if you're going to get the gadget to begin with.

Oh, it's a High-Definition TiVo (20 hrs. of hd or 180 hrs of regular tv).

All this just so I can watch the upcoming season of "Lost" within 48 hours of the broadcast. That's not completely true, there might be one or two other shows I'd "time shift" with it.

I'm only thinking about this because a) my 20 year old Panasonic S-VHS recorder (which cost a grand when IT was new) finally died a horrible death and b) I'm pretty certain there's no point in investing any more money in VHS technology.

So, what do you folks think? Blow the big $$$$'s and finally get with the 21st Century program here... or continue to be my old, Luddite self, trudging along the canal paths of 17th century technology?

I await YOUR decision.

Thank yew.

Memory Lane (ROM, RAM & HD)

Something popped into my head today. A fond memory of my first personal computer, purchased at the expense of a big-assed Wall Street brokerage house, for a whopping $6,000.00. I was told by the head of the equities trading department, whose approval was needed for the purchase, to hide the PC "under" my desk. Reason? So that visiting clients wouldn't think that we were "using video games to make investment decisions." I kid you not. That's what he told me.

Anyway, it was an IBM PC-XT. It came with 256kbytes of RAM and a 5Mbyte hard drive. Yeah, I know. Laughable. Mine had a color monitor, unlike the one shown below:



I wasn't the only PC "guru" on the trading floor, however. I had a counterpart who worked on the Risk Arbitrage Desk, a PhD from Cambridge University in England who happened to have a pirated version of a game called:



I loved Digger. I would spend hours ostensibly working but actually playing Digger. If anyone asked what I was doing my stock response was "Solving a programming problem" and that would shut them up.

In time the hardware outstripped the ability of Digger to keep up with it. By the time we graduated from a PC-AT (8Mhz) to a Compaq 386/16 (16Mhz), the game became impossible to play due to the zippier performance speed of the CPU (is this byte-head enough for you?).

I never got into any other "arcade" pc games the way I had with Digger. Some of the happiest moments of my life were spent zoning out (checking out) with Digger.

It didn't help matters that the musical background that accompanied the game was a famous song from the early 80's, "Popcorn." Click on it, below.

Christianist Hypocrite Asks for Tolerance

Some guy named Jordan Lorance, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, a nonprofit organization of Christian attorneys, has an editorial over on CNN arguing in favor of "tolerance" towards Rick Warren and his appearance on the podium during President-elect Obama's inauguration. Read it by clicking HERE.

He is, of course, incensed, that "we" aren't practicing the same sort of tolerance we are demanding (meaning, of course, that we aren't entitled to tolerance unless we're willing to give it and, therefore, they are justified in denying us tolerance because we're so intolerant --- capeesh?)

He waves the usual flags of America, marriage, motherhood, tradition, bullshit, etc.

And, as usual, I have one question for Mr. Lorance. Where are the n-word-hating cross-burners on the podium? (his answer: "it's not the same." my answer: "yes, it is.")

We will never have peace in the Middle East because both sides intractably hate each other -- for reasons that have nothing to do with anything other than religious beliefs because they are, undeniably, first cousins in all other respects. And they know this but neither side wants to be the first to "drop the rocks" of hatred towards each other because in their society that would be seen as a sign of weakness.

I think it's pretty clear that religious testosterone is behind our problems here, too.

Goodbye 2008

I started out 2008 looking somewhat like this:








and finished up 2008 looking a lot like this:












It hasn't been easy. Along the way there were numerous doctors appointments, dangerous surgery, support groups (other than 12-Step) and a lot of trial and error experiments with food, many of which ended in vomiting.

But I would do it again in a heartbeat.

Look, I've had a lot of medical challenges in recovery. Every thing from quadruple bypass surgery to this, gastric bypass surgery.

And this is the only one which, I feel, was truly life-altering.

I won't miss 2008. I'm hoping to use my vacation time in 2009 for actual vacations, rather than recuperating from surgery.

Here's to 2009. May it be a blessed, peaceful, calm, healthy and serene year for us all.

Peace.

-JoyZeeBoy

Lah-di-Dah....

Before you start nagging I have an alibi for my absence. Boredom. Actually, I was shaking my ass and hanging out with my grandnieces and grandnephews in Delaware over the Christmas holidays and couldn't have cared less about asshole preachers who are speaking at the upcoming inaugural, or douchebag president-elects who care more about moving to the right than they do about DOING what's right. Asshole.

So shut yer traps and let me wish you all a joyous, happy & healthy New Year or whatever it is that you celebrate around your house at this time of the year! (Saturnalia?)

This was my 11th sober Christmas, in case anybody is counting, and although the fear of being magically struck drunk has long since left me, it can still be a time of dredging up and sifting through unpleasant childhood memories of the drunks I lived with while I was raising myself. Fortunately, I don't do much of that anymore. I have, finally, put most of those demons to rest and choose to live, instead, in the present moment rather than the dreary past.

I'm almost ready to have a boyfriend (don't faint).

There are a couple of headlines in today's celebu-news which caught my fancy. The first pertains to the movie-going experience in general. I love movies. Always have. I hid out a lot in movie theaters as a kid. So imagine my delight when I read this:

"Philly filmgoer gets firing squad for yakking during 'Benjamin Button'."

We easterners don't fuck around when it comes to our movies. BTW, I saw "Benjamin Button" last week and thoroughly liked it, even if it is just like "Forrest Gump" only with Brad Pitt instead of Tom Hanks. So go see it.

I also saw "Doubt" and, as you'd expect, when Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman collide the sparks fairly fly off the screen. I was SPELLBOUND.

Now, in recovery news, there's this hi-larious item regarding "Choices" the upscale, pricey, Malibu Rehab for folks who like to recover AND go clubbing (it's ads state that they do NOT believe in the 'disease concept' of addiction, nor do they preach 12-Step recovery). I'm sure it works for somebody, but it sure wouldn't have worked for me.

Times are hard and they're trying to drum up business by luring in D-list celebutards to tout the place. Read about it here.

If I don't get around to posting again before Thursday, I want all (2) of you to have a safe, sane and sober New Year's and remember, if you insist on getting drunk, for God's sake have the common sense to stay home to do it.

Peace.

Political Calculus

I lifted this, verbatim, from JoeMyGod's website today.

Obama Responds To Rick Warren Flap
=====================================================
Barack Obama was questioned about his selection of Rick Warren during a televised press conference this morning. His response:
=====================================================
I am a fierce advocate for equality for gay and -- well, let me start by talking about my own views. I think it is no secret that I am a fierce advocate for equality for gay and lesbian Americans. It is something I have been consistent on and something I intend to continue to be consistent on during my presidency. What I've also said is that it is important for America to come together even though we may have disagreements on certain social issues. And I would note that a couple of years ago I was invited to Rick Warren's church to speak, despite his awareness that I held views entirely contrary to his when it came to gay and lesbian rights, when it came to issues like abortion. Nevertheless, I had an opportunity to speak, and that dialogue, I think, is a part of what my campaign's been all about, that we're never going to agree on every single issue. What we have to do is create an atmosphere where we can disagree without being disagreeable, and then focus on those things that we hold in common as Americans. So Rick Warren has been invited to speak, Dr. Joseph Lowery -- who has deeply contrasting views to Rick Warren about a whole host of issues -- is also speaking.
===================================================

John Aravosis at AmericaBlog reacts:
===================================================

Great, then where are the racists, Mr. Obama? We don't see you embracing too many of them in the name of learning to agree to disagree. Or does your desire to create a new "atmosphere," and reach out to our enemies, stop when it's your own people, your own children, you'd be betraying? Funny how you only reach across the aisle when it's someone else's family, gay families in particular, getting the shaft.

===================================================
And this is from yours truly, JoyZeeBoy:

In other words, how many more times do we have to get beaten up in order to be allowed to sit at the table? What is the political calculus here? Do we need to put in a hundred or two hundred or three hundred years of being "less than" and "left behind", like a certain other minority did, before we finally are allowed to have our piece of the pie?

I'm just curious, as I lie here beneath this bus, wondering how much longer I have to put up with being somebody's fucking "issue" rather than being treated like the human being I am.

Merry Automotive Christmas!

As anyone over the age of, oh, say, reason knows, Detroit saw (or should've seen) the handwriting on the wall during the Arab Oil Embargo of 1973.

And it did abso-fucking-lutley nothing about it.

Eventually that particular oil crisis subsided, OPEC was created, the cartel started fixing prices and we became little more than Harem girls to a bunch of Middle East potentates.

All thanks to Detroit.

Now, of course, the Pep Boys have come, hat in hand and blaming the unions for all their problems, before Congress, begging for $$$$ to help the cash-strapped automakers "get through" this "difficult time."

As others have noted, nobody helped the autoworkers in Indiana and Michigan and elsewhere when the Pep Boys started shipping all the manufacturing jobs overseas, not merely to save money in manufacturing but, rather, to MAXIMIZE PROFITS FOR THE AUTO COMPANY SHAREHOLDERS which, incidently, included most of the senior management of the companies.

As a recovered alcoholic, I'm here to tell you that until somebody hits "bottom" they have absolutely zero impetus to change.

And if there's one thing I've learned in 12-Step recovery, it's this:

"If you keep on doing what you did, you will keep on getting what you got."

So the Pep Boys can bitch and whine and carry on and get out their blamethrowers and try to pin the blame on the labor donkey all they want, the fact is that the TOP of the industry is rotten to the core and has been ever since the end of World War II.

This is what unrestrained, ungoverned Capitalism looks like. It looks like greed run amok. It looks like "get the government off our backs and let the markets take care of the problems."

It looks like a bunch of empty suits begging the American public for more drug money, so it can keep on doing exactly what it always did, making shoddy merchandise and then guilt-tripping the public into buying it.

It looks like shit. It smells like shit. It is shit.

Viscious Queens

Hey! Remember when "viscious queen" meant some limp-wristed drag queen who'd scratch your eyes out? Bitch!

I do.

But to hear the latest crap out of the RRR, you'd think we've been living in gyms for the last 30 years (we have) and pumping ourselves up (we did) and taking self-defense lessons and are now:

S U P E R Q U E E R S!

making the world unsafe for God-fearing folk such as they. I also remember a time when, with the swing of a baseball bat, or a well-timed public raid on a bar or a bathhouse, they could count on us to slink back into our shame-filled closets, where we belonged.

Well, they can't count on that anymore. We lost that shame. It turned out that the shame wasn't ours to begin with, it was THEIR shame which they foisted off on us. We had nothing to be ashamed of. Never did.

And with the shame, went the guilt. And with the guilt went any impetus for us to care what they think. We are now beyond their control.

And they know it. And they are starting to get scared. And they should.

Why I Love Jon Stewart

In case you missed Wednesday night's broadcast of "The Daily Show" starring Jon Stewart (the cutest Jewish boy there is).

His guest, Mike Huckabee. And before I go any further, let me tell you right now that I have been told, point blank, by somebody from Arkansas who knows him well, that Mike Huckabee is, quote, "a fraud." Caveat emptor: My source is a rabid Democrat.

Just sayin'.

Here's the clip on gay marriage. Jon is wonderful. Huckabee sticks to the talking points.



Here's the line that bears repeating:

“It’s a travesty that it’s forced … that someone who is gay has to ‘make their case’…”

I have always felt as though I had to defend that which I am. And how ridiculous is that?

And let's not forget:

“Religion is far more of a choice than homosexuality..”

to which I always add, "Choice? I had a choice? To what? Admit it?"

Be afraid Huckabee. Be very, very afraid.

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like ... Seattle!

For reasons I still don't understand, even 32 years after the fact, there was a time when I thought it would be a swell idea to take two hostages and move to Seattle from Newark, Delaware. It wasn't long after we arrived there that it became clear why that wasn't such a good idea. Such as winter.

No, not just winter. I was used to winters, fairly harsh mid-Atlantic winters, with howling gales and blinding blizzards. But in Seattle, although there was no snow, there was a total dearth of sunshine. And although it wasn't "freezing", it was damned cold. And damned damp. The sheets were always cold and damp. So were the bath towels. From late September of 1976 until, so it seemed, the following May, I swear we had a total of about 20 minutes of sunshine and I started to mildew.

From May to September, of course, the sun never bothered to set. It turns out that if Seattle were on the east coast it would be somewhere along the same latitude as, oh, say, Newfoundland, or St. Petersburg or someplace like that.

After two winters out there I ran, screaming, back into the warm, heaving bosom of the east coast, New York City in particular, where I lived, miserably, for the next 20 years. But that had nothing to do with the weather. Before the emails start, I have been back to Seattle numerous times over the years, and it was never as awful as I remember those two winters being. In fact, it's been downright gorgeous, even in the dead of winter. Go figure. Probably due to Global Warming or something.

I bring this up because today's weather in New York is eerily reminiscent of the weather during my two winters in Seattle, i.e., dark, cold, damp and just plain shitty.

But at least it ain't snowing.

For that you'll have to visit New Orleans.

The Heartbreak of Butt Itch

There's no polite way to put this but ever since my surgery in August (70 pounds and 3 waist sizes lost so far), I've been having a slight problem with sore butt.

The weight started falling off my face and back first. The gut was the last to go. It happened so quickly that my center of sitting gravity shifted and what had been a nicely padded portion of my nether regions was suddenly being rubbed raw by my skivvies as I sat, day after day, once I'd returned to work.

I tried creams.

I tried salves.

I tried Gold Bond powders of various compositions.

Nothing worked. And it hurt like hell to commute for an hour each way every day on seats covered in ancient upholstery most likely made from horse hair. It hurt to sit for any period of time.

Finally, I saw a dermotologist. He instantly knew what the problem was, prescribed some steroidal crap for it and told me to only use it for 2 weeks and, after that, the coup de grace,

to slather on a healthy serving of plain, unadulterated, unfumed, petrolatum every morning after I bathed.

And so I did.

Ahhhhh. What a relief.

I've oft heard it said, from childhood on, that as the years pass we become more and more childlike until, at the end, we're as helpless as newborns.

And now I know why. Now if someone would only come and change my diddie.

Disingenuous Hypocrisy

We live in an age of disingenuous hypocrisy. One example of which is, I can bash the bejeezus out of you and your kind for centuries but the minute you bash back I get all outraged and indignant that you would have the temerity to disagree with me and, worse, to hit back.

I think we all know who I'm talking about here.

There's a full page ad in today's NYTimes (click on image to embiggen it):

This ad does just that. You see, for over a 1,000 years certain groups of religious believers have bashed queers, burnt us at the stake, slammed us into prisons and iron maidens, tortured us on the rack, ran us out of town, shoved red-hot pokers up our asses and, when no one was looking, kidnapped young boys into indentured servitude, cut their balls off so they wouldn't lose their lovely soprano voices and, when no one was looking (i.e. most of the time) buggered the crap out of the adorable little cherubs until they were finally ready for the priesthood.

And nobody said a thing about it until this past century. Really, not until the last 50 years or so.

Now, the tables are turning and all of a sudden the bashers are fearful of being bashed. The bashers are typical schoolyard bullies, terrorizing anyone who doesn't stand up to them, running away in fear the minute somebody socks them in the nose and screaming bloody murder to the powers that be for protection from the victim.

It's always about blaming the victim. Hitler blamed the victims. Kristianity has always blamed it's victims ("If only Galileo would swallow his pride and deny the scientific evidence...").

And victims co-dependently go along with it by doing nothing. More people should turn around and sock the bullies in the noses. Literally. Figuratively. Immediately. Put up with no shit from anybody. Gay people are just as entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of the American Dream, in full equality, as anyone else is.

And as MY God is MY witness, I will never again play dead for the heterosexist patriarchy which is about to find it's world turned upside down and it's worst nightmares coming true.

World AIDS Day

I have a sneaking suspicion that if Harvey Milk were still alive, he'd be at the forefront of the war against AIDS.

The first person I knew who died of this disease was an architect friend of mine named John. John was a quiet, tall redhead. Sweet as they come. And then, one day, he was gone. It all seemed to happen so quickly.

He was the tip of the iceberg. In quick succession a number of friends started becoming ill with exotic illnesses, some of which we'd never even heard of. Thrush. Kaposi's Sarcoma. And the ever present (and always fatal), pneumonia.

When our next door neighbor, Lee, passed away my ex and I both started getting nervous. My ex had had a brief flingette with Lee just before we met. And in those days, nobody knew anything about the incubation period for the "gay disease."

But the wolf stayed away from our door. In time the medicines got better. "Cocktails" started coming along and people who, only a decade before, would've surely died, started living longer and longer.

Today I know some people who've been living with HIV for over two decades. But there is still no cure. Maybe there'll never be a cure. But more needs to be done.

I hope everyone out there will, at the very least, stop today at some point and maybe think about someone they knew who died from AIDS, or maybe someone they know who is living with HIV. Or, of the millions and millions of people in other parts of the world who aren't nearly rich enough to afford the treatments currently available, or whose national governments think that they are merely getting what they deserved.

There is no more imperious urge in human beings, after the need for food and shelter, than for sexual companionship. Not one single human being who died of AIDS "deserved" to die from it. That's just plain bullshit to think that they did. People cannot be categorized as "innocent victims" or "deserving victims." Nobody deserved this. Nobody did anything to deserve this.

And it is not some sort of divine retribution any more than the bubonic plague was divine retribution on Europe for it's medieval sinfulness.

Stop. Think. Act.

Lives depend on it.

Here are some scheduled events for New York City today:

CANDLE LIGHT VIGIL begins at 6PM
Gay Men's Health Crisis - Tisch Building Lobby
119 West 24th St. (btwn 6th/7th Ave.)

CANDLE LIGHT PROCESSION to Judson Memorial Church:
55 Washington Square South (at Thompson St.)
Time of Reflection to those we have lost to AIDS:
Begins at 6:30PM (for those not at Candlelight Vigil)
World AIDS Day Program:
Begins at 7PM

And here's the official FaceBook page.

Harvey Who?

I'm coming into Manhattan this Friday to see "Gypsy" with Patti Lupone at a special holiday matinee. It's required in order to keep up my standing in the gay union (One Jules Styne musical PLUS a Gay Diva = 1,000 BONUS QUEER POINTS).

After copping my ticket (great seat, too. Aisle seat, 5th row Mezz -- the ideal seat for any musical, especially at the St. James Theater) I realized that I was going to be in town "for the evening" and that I could either a) see another show (big $) OR b) see the movie "Milk" which opens tomorrow in "selected cities" (translation = "cities with humongous gay and/or ultra-liberal populations, many of whom are either in show biz or they know people who are), namely Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York.



Being the sort of guy I am (on a budget), I decided to see "Milk." Then I decided to invite some other gay people I know who are also in recovery. I called my friend "M" first and blurted out my plan. "Oh", he said, "I'd LOVE to go." Well, that was easy. Then he added, "Who was Milk?"

WHO WAS MILK???!!!! I was horrified. Appalled. Scandalized. Don't they teach these kids ANYTHING these days? They don't know where Zimbabwe is and they never heard of Harvey Milk. Tsk. Tsk.

Granted, "M" was exactly 1 year old when Harvey and George Moscone were assassinated, thus, sadly, launching Dianne Feinstein's political career on the national stage with her tearful announcement on nationwide TV of the deaths of the Mayor and city Supervisor. He was unaware, too, of Dan White and the ridiculous "Twinkie Defense." Or the fact that White, after a few years in prison, was set free, only to off himself a short time later.

I jettisoned plans to invite anyone else and determined that "M" was going to be my gay good deed of the month. I was going to educate this lad, whether he wanted it or not.

Seriously, though, we shouldn't be too surprised that Prop 8 passed in California, given the lousy job my generation has done of keeping the gay lib flame alive AND of passing along gay history to the next generation of gay, lesbian and transgendered youth.

But it was so easy to give up. The "Uncle Moms" among us made it easy to surrender, with their soothing talk of "making nice with the straights" and "it'll come... in time.... just give it time." It was about assuaging the feelings of straight people ... and denying and subjugating our own. It was about making straight people "comfortable" with having us around.

BULLFRIGGINSHIT. We should've been out there marching and demonstrating and making straight people VERY uncomfortable all along. But then AIDS came along and some of us actually bought into the RRR (radical religulous right - or Rockin' Ronnie Reagan)'s assertions that we were being "punished" for our previously hedonistic lifestyle, when, in fact, AIDS had been around for a hundred years, was primarily transmitted via heterosexual intercourse in Africa and was no more "our fault" than the sun, the moon or the stars. That, coupled with the Uncle Mom's pleadings to "play nice" proved to be too much for the handful of radicals who remained.

By the time the 80's were over, the few radical faeries left got involved in either ACT-UP or Queer Nation, both of which groups eventually succumbed to political infighting and subsequent fracturing.

Maybe it's radical time again. I feel emboldened, even at the ripe old age of 60, to once again take to the streets (this time without the aid of "marshals" and "permits" and "police escorts") to make the point that:

I'M MAD AS HELL AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE!!!!

Screw the establishment.

Oh, and marriage is just the tip of my iceberg. Full, unfettered, equal protection and rights under the law, is what I want. And when do I want it? 1972.

I think Harvey would've approved.


p.s. I got tickets to see the revival of "West Side Story" this coming March, too. I'm in Show-Queen Heaven right now.

I Knew There'd Be Trouble...

... the first time I addressed a community college law enforcement psych class in Delaware, sometime in 1973. The question was asked of me:

"WHEN DID YOU DECIDE TO BE GAY?"

Excuse me? "Decide?" Decide what? To admit it? Recently. Decide that I knew? Oh, it was the First Grade (when I knew I wanted to be naked and alone with our school bus driver ... I just didn't know why I wanted that. At least, not yet.)

Decide? What a ridiculous question. As though anyone in their right mind, circa 1972, would suddenly and magically "decide" to be gay. I might as well decide to have tuberculosis or leprosy, or "decide" to piss off most people by being something they were afraid of ... or, more to the point, were afraid that they might catch it... or even worse, afraid that they already "had it."

But over the years, as I've mentioned here before, I came to realize, painfully slowly, that the reason most people conclude that there was a decision to be made was, because, well... ahem, how do I put this delicately? Oh, right, I can't. They conclude that I decided BECAUSE THEY HAD DECIDED TO NOT BE GAY, that's why.

Look. You can argue Kinsey's statistics forever. Shave a percentage point here, pad another one there. But the inescapable, fundamental reality he discovered is this:

Human sexuality is, for over 90% of the population, fluid. In other words, the vast majority of people either swing, or they're easily capable of it.

Only a teensy percentage of the human race has their sexuality written in stone. Oh, lucky me. Oh, lucky them.

I can't even think straight (and never have.) There are some who can't even think gay.

But lots and lots of people can think gay, but choose not to. And lots and lots of other people can think straight, but choose not to. Then there are schmucks like me, in the remaining 4% or so on the gay side, who've never been fascinated by breasts, have never wondered what a woman's sexual package looks like, have never imagined being alone and naked with one of them.

And there's another 4% or so, all the way over there somewhere, who are my mirror image, and have never given a moments thought to the joys of same-sex attraction.

That just leaves 92% of the human race, perverts all, who have no standards whatsoever and who would sleep with just about anything that walked in the door. You know who I'm talking about. YOU, you freak!

====================================================
p.s. visit this website to determine which kind of Blogger YOU are!

http://www.typealyzer.com

Here's mine:

The analysis indicates that the author of http://joyzeeboy.blogspot.com is of the type:
I. ESTJ - The Guardians

The organizing and efficient type. They are especially attuned to setting goals and managing available resources to get the job done. Once they've made up their mind on something, it can be quite difficult to convince otherwise. They listen to hard facts and can have a hard time accepting new or innovative ways of doing things.

The Guardians are often happy working in highly structured work environments where everyone knows the rules of the job. They respect authority and are loyal team players.

===================================
Yeah, that's me. Pig-headed and loyal.

Addiction

The Big Three automakers are begging Congress for $25b to "help them out" of the current crisis.

That's junkie talk for "we're gonna keep on doing what we did and you'll keep on getting what you got" in return for it.

In short, there's no impetus in the handout for them to actually change anything about the way they act, react, think or do business.

The junkie analogy is apt. I know a thing or three about addiction, being a recovering drunk myself. I certainly know enough to not give cash to people or institutions like me. The minute your back is turned, they or I will be right up to our old tricks again. That is absolutely true of the auto makers.

They have not learned much since the Arab Oil Embargo of 1973. How do I know that? Easy. SUVs. Period. But the Japanese learned plenty. And that's when the Japs started selling lots of cars here. Oh, Detroit paid some modest lip service to it -- by modestly improving mileage and lowering emissions year after year -- but not without a lot of whining and foot-dragging in the process.

And now the junkies from Motown are standing there, arms outstretched, pleading national security and love of the Fatherland and bullshit like that.

And you know what I say? Go ahead. Give 'em the money. And then nationalize their asses "in the name of national security and love of the Fatherland."

Gay Lib - 4.0

[Both posters copyright Austin Cline]

The internets is atwitter with news that Gay Lib has been re-born, re-furbished, re-packaged and is hot-to-trot. It turns out that a whole generation (which one is it, Gen AA? Gen BBB?) has just "discovered" that you can take to the streets to register your dissatisfaction with things in general, including the status quo.

Well, whoop-di-friggin-do.

We boomers managed to organize anti-war demonstrations with 500,000 people using little more than telephones (anybody remember them?) and things called "Underground Newspapers" such as The Village Voice, The Great Speckled Bird and my favorite in Washington, DC, The Quicksilver Times. Granted, it took somewhat longer than 72 hours to throw these things together, given the lack of the internet, PDA's, iPhones, Crackberries and the other assorted electronic effluvia of modern life.

By my real point today is that everyone's ire seems to be pointed at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Said organization apparently ordered it's members to cough up tons of money they didn't have in order to BACK passage of Preparation H8 in California.

So, many of my young compatriots have focused all of their anger, bile and ire on... LDS.

Don't get me wrong. I'm no fan of organized religions which I personally think are just money making machines for the folks who run 'em. And they use the concept of "sin" to keep their membership in line ... and to try to keep the rest of us in line, too.

But, as my friend Jake on his blog, Nofo, says (and I'm totally paraphrasing him here), their "mythology doesn't trump my reality" or words to that effect. I couldn't agree more. This country has, for too long and way too often, allowed people's fervent beliefs in fables and fantasies to dictate public policy.

We have, over the centuries, used such fervently held beliefs to rationalize the heinous institution of slavery. We used such beliefs to try, time and time again to "regulate" sin, such as we did with Prohibition. But the truth is that we are a nation of adulterous, drunken, philandering, lying, cheating, backstabbing Puritans. We sin without remorse except for the remorse of being caught at it. And then we cry and wail and blame it on the fact that we were molested as youngsters or we blame it on the booze, or the pharmaceuticals we've been taking.

And now, I'm ashamed to say, my fellow gays blame OUR failure to bash down Prep H8 on a church whose major sin seems to have been that they were better organized than we were. God love the folks at HRC, GLAAD and a handful of other groups. They tried.

However....

someone in the late 70's said that the Gay Rights Movement was doomed to failure because we were such a disparate group, lacking a single, unique and public "marker" indicating who and what we are. It's too easy for many of us to "pass". And many of us opt for "passing" rather than electing to do the really heavy lifting involved in being professionaly queer.

I'm sincerely glad to see the youngsters starting to exercise some political muscle. I hope they don't give up the way a lot of us did way back when. I also hope they'll remember this:

The Fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars.... but in ourselves.

Oh, and some advice for the Professional Kristians out there, too. There is nothing fragile about you. You hold all the cards and you know it. So quit playing the f*cking victim here.

Gay people ARE the victims and you ARE the bashers.

And, on a lighter note....

Blechh. I'm fed up with the elections, PropH8 and who accidentally voted for what because they never thought that it would actually "affect" anybody.... It's time to move forward into the holidays!

And since it promises to be a Pretty Crappy Christmas, economy-wise (thereby forcing everyone to actually look for reasons to be grateful to spend time with their families) I decided to go in search of my absolutely favoritest holiday treat, the Drifters singing their Doo-Wop version of "White Christmas" with Santa and the animated reindeer.

Only I found this instead. I don't know who actually had the lamps made and then took the time to program and sync the lights to the music and then to drag out the videocam to capture the whole thing on video tape... but whoever they are, they are either from a) Queens or b) New Jersey and in either case, they have entirely too much time on their hands, so I instantly fell in love with it.

Do hang on until Rudolph finally chimes in... it's absolutely worth it. Enjoy.

More Weird Bigots

Betcha never thought a show queen would be against gay rights, didja? Well, check out these two stories regarding one Scott Eckern, artistic director of the California Musical Theater in Sacramento, CA.

It turns out that Scotty-kins gave $1,000 to the PRO H8 side in the recent election. I guess he's a nice Mormon boy or something -- although that does beg the question, what the f*ck is he doing in show biz if he's not one of the Osmonds?

It reminds me of a story that circulated around the time when Bill Clinton was floating the idea of repealing the ban on gays in the military and lots of folks, in and out of uniform, got their knickers in a twist over it. One interviewer asked an Air Force colonel about it and the response was, (seriously), "if he does that I'll resign my commission and go to work for a civilian airline."

Clearly this colonel hadn't done much civilian flying if he thought he was going to avoid GAY people by working for United because recreational travel is a great way to avoid that nasty queer element. And so is Musical Theater!!!!!

Anyway, check out these two stories regarding Mr. Show Biz. And be sure to check out the embedded "tool" in the 1st article which you can use to look up which of your neighbors gave money to the cause.... either ours ... or theirs.

Start here:

http://www.americablog.com/2008/11/never-ever-cross-show-queen.html

then go here:

http://guydads.blogspot.com/2008/11/california-musical-theatre-artistic.html

Nothing to see here...

Rather than reading my usual blather today, go read this instead.

Jake and his DP (domestic partner) are awesome.

Gay is the New Black!

It's official. After losing Proposition after Proposition regarding marriage, civil unions and rights in general to a populace which clearly likes it's hot, steamy, same-sex on same-sex sex strictly on the DL .... and wants it kept that way, I can confidently state that Gay is the New Black.

Why?

Because it's no longer cool to hate Black. And why is that important?

Because we are a nation that always champions underdogs. Particularly those who have to suffer and claw and bite and crawl their way out from underneath to achieve full equality with the blow-hard asshole rich Plutocrats who think they own this Country.

And now that African-Americans have (finally) captured the White House (which I wholeheartedly support, believe me), it's time for America to find a new group which is personally responsible for all the misery in the nation. In short, it's time to create a new class of underdogs we can all be fearful of, and fret about, and hope and pray to God they never come to power and who need to be kept in their place, at the back of the bus and at the end of the line, at the business-end of a firehose or at the muzzle of a Police dog.

And that would be us fags.

Hooray. Our time has finally come.

Thanks a bunch California, Florida and Arizona for every little crumb you throw us.

Assholes.

[On the other hand, today's NYTimes has a soothing editorial for jangled LGBT nerves. You can read it here.]

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More stuff

I read over at Joe.My.God that some hard-core Christianist Groups are trolling the internets today, looking for "evidence" that some gay bloggers (such as Joe) are "inciting" their LGBT readers to violence against peace (and queer) loving pro Prop 8 types .... in order to sic the cops on us.

So forget what I said about getting together and roving the streets late at night and beating up lone, innocent, heterosexual boys.

Offer 'em blowjobs, instead! That'll REALLY piss off the Fundies!!!!

A New Beginning

We may have lost on Prop. 8 in California (although Gloria Allred is already stirring up lawsuits on the matter), but we captured the Federal Government.

Today's front page of the New York Times about sums it up:



[Click on Front Page to Embiggen]

Thank God.

Goodbye, George. Don't let the door hit you in the ass...

on your way out.



Tomorrow America goes to the polls and, no matter what happens, by the end of the day, or days, or the week, we will in all likelihood have a brand-spanking-new President elect.

And that lame assed douchebag who has lurked in the White House for nearly 8 years while his cronies ravaged the Constitution, New Orleans and the Economy, will finally have to face the fact that the party is OVER and in just a few weeks he'll be leaving town... for good.

This was the national debt on the day he took office:

$5.7 T (that's "T" as in "Trillion")

today its:

$10.5 T (yes, "T" as in "Trillion." Are you learning-impaired or something?)

(here's the fun website the Treasury runs where you can check this out for yourselves: http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np


One man. 8 Years. Nearly 5 Trillion Smackeroos. Wouldn't you like to know where it went? I would. War, mostly. War in Afghanistan. War in Iraq. War in general. "Look, Daddy, I can WIN the war you lost!!!" "Look, Daddy, I'm as good as Jeb!!!" "Please love me, daddy."

I know I'll find myself on Wednesday morning thinking, "Oh, Jeebus, are you STILL in the White House? When the hell are you moving out?" It's gonna be a long couple of months until late January when Barack Obama is sworn in as our next President, Chief Magistrate and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States of America.

An aside to the idiots out there. If you are a civilian the President is NOT "your Commander-in-Chief" or "my Commander-in-Chief." He is merely THE Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. No need to salute him. We do not live in a military dictatorship (yet). And unlike the Queen of England, he does not Troop the Colours in front of his Army every year.

You can almost feel New York on the verge of exhaling a collective sigh of relief now that our long national nightmare is nearly over.

Thank God.

POPCORN!

I went to the movies yesterday afternoon. Originally I'd intended to see the Angelina Jolie thing, "Changeling" but I wimped out at the last minute because, you see, well... ahem, Kevin Smith has a new movie out.

Kevin Smith is a movie director and local (JoyZee) boy. He lives over in Red Bank, near the shore, and has a video store there. He shot his breakthrough indie, "Clerks" over there. And "Clerks II" and (my personal favorite) "Dogma." And others. I feel that it's important to support your local artist(s), so I plunked my money down at the AMC Googoolplex in Hamilton yesterday afternoon and bought a ticket to see "Zack and Miri Make a Porno." It stars Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks. The supporting cast consists mostly of the usual characters from Smith's rep company. Even Jason Mewes, who usually plays the foulmouthed horndog "Jay" of Jay and Silent Bob (Smith) plays a totally different type of character in this one (except he's still horny) ... and does a "full-monty" near the end that's well worth the price of admission.

I recommend it IF you're a die-hard Smith fan. Otherwise you'll be put off by the never-ceasing stream of obscenities and boob-shots.

Maybe I'll see Angelina today.

But here's the real news. I stopped by the concession stand (which I've avoided since my surgery in August) and, gasp, bought:



I didn't go ape-shit. I bought a small bag. And no sodas (carbonation is forbidden for now and all eternity) -- I got a bottled water instead.

I enjoyed that small bag of popcorn more than I've enjoyed anything else since my dietary habits were forced to change. Popcorn was the one thing I've been craving the most. There is nothing more satisfying to me than scrunching down in a theater seat and enjoying a movie with a nice bag of popcorn.

Life (and movies) is good. Are good? Oh, screw it. I'm a happy puppy today.