Route 1 Diaries

The War on Christmas

2006-11-29T13:12:00.000-05:00

Sigh. There's a clever new email making the rounds this Christmas season:

Twas the month before Christmas
When all through our land,
Not a Christian was praying
Nor taking a stand.

See the PC Police had taken away,
The reason for Christmas - no one could say.
The children were told by their schools not to sing,A
bout Shepherds and Wise Men and Angels and things.

It might hurt people's feelings, the teachers would say
December 25th is just a "Holiday".
Yet the shoppers were ready with cash, checks and credit
Pushing folks down to the floor just to get it!
CDs from Madonna, an X BOX, an I-pod
Something was changing, something quite odd!

Retailers promoted Ramadan and Kwanzaa
In hopes to sell books by Franken & Fonda.
As Targets were hanging their trees upside down
At Lowe's the word Christmas - was no where to be found.

At K-Mart and Staples and Penny's and Sears
You won't hear the word Christmas; it won't touch your ears.
Inclusive, sensitive, Di-ver-si-ty
Are words that were used to intimidate me.

Now Daschle, Now Darden, Now Sharpton, Wolf Blitzen
On Boxer, on Rather, on Kerry, on Clinton!
At the top of the Senate, there arose such a clatter
To eliminate Jesus, in all public matter.

And we spoke not a word, as they took away our faith
Forbidden to speak of salvation and grace.
The true Gift of Christmas was exchanged and discarded
The reason for the season, stopped before it started.

So as you celebrate "Winter Break" under your "Dream Tree"
Sipping your Starbucks, listen to me.
Choose your words carefully, choose what you say
Shout MERRY CHRISTMAS, not Happy Holiday!

And my response. Feel free to cut and paste it yourself, should you choose:

‘Twas some weeks before Christmas, and all thru the town,
decorations were hung over trees not yet brown.
“Why the rush?” I did muse, “to be merry and gay,
when we’ve not even set our Thanksgiving buffet?”

Yet the ‘Christians’ were out, and they dared to declare,
“You won’t let us be Christians! It just isn’t fair!
We want to hear 'Christmas' when we go to the stores,
To buy our big-screen TVs and dress our daughters like whores!”

I puzzled a bit at their public distress;
Surely Jesus would not have endorsed such a mess?
It was He, after all, who was heard to intone,
“When you pray, go away, thou shalt do it alone!” (Matthew 6:5-6)

“You have every freedom in this land of ours,
To go pray in the courthouses, schools, even bars!
The problem, you see, is that if you had your druthers
You’d dictate the prayers that should be said by all others!”

“But our nation,” they cried, “is a Christian-y land,
We’re being oppressed, you don’t understand!
The Founding Fathers were God-fearing all,
They would want us to celebrate Mass at the mall!”

I puzzled some more, for a cursory glance
Through the History books showed a very slim chance
That the great men who founded our Nation would care
If you’re Christian or Jewish or something more rare!

Washington, Jefferson, Adams, and Paine,
State-sponsored worship they all did disdain.
One can imagine just how much more
They would have detested religion pushed by a store!

“Besides,” I then thought, “I’m as Christian as you,
but have many friends – Atheist, Muslim, and Jew.
My ‘Happy Holidays’ doesn’t slight your belief,
But acknowledges theirs – so what’s your beef?”

But my words of good sense fell on ignorant ears,
Who continued to rail against imaginary fears.
So to you, dearest friends, these four words I transmit;
Happy Holidays to all – even dumb hypocrites.

Ted's Haggard, pt. 2

2006-11-11T19:06:00.001-05:00

And just when you thought the religious right couldn't be any more hypocritical than it already is.....

They knew he was gay all along.

The money quote: Sheldon disclosed that he and “a lot” of others knew about Haggard’s homosexuality “for awhile ... but we weren’t sure just how to deal with it.”

Ted's haggard

2006-11-06T09:30:00.000-05:00

Well, anyone who couldn't tell at first sight that Ted Haggard is gay is at best stupid, at worst severely mentally handicapped.

Plus, I wonder why it's news anymore when a Republican and/or Fundamentalist Christian is revealed as a hypocrite.

Jet, however, has taken particular delight in this particular downfall, having spent part of his childhood in a non-denominational Fundamentalist "New-Life" -ish congregation. He had this to say:

Perhaps it is not a Christian thing for me to say, but I'm delighted that a man, who based his life on preaching and promoting a doctrine contrary to our healthy commitment, has been ironically brought down by the very vice he worked to suppress with hatred and criticism.

My Life's Purpose

2006-10-30T19:40:00.000-05:00

Has been found. See here.

600

2006-10-15T16:06:00.000-05:00

Feh. A milestone is a milestone. And because I'm now an "eductaor", the item that put me over the mark was 25% off at Borders.

Why I hate Heloise

2006-09-10T13:23:00.000-05:00

The Florida Times-Union, Thursday, September 7, 2006: (I apologize in advance for the salty language. Reading Heloise sends me into a rage that cannot be described. I really may need medication for it someday.)

Dear Heloise: So often when we go to eat Mexican food, we do not eat all the chips they bring with the salsa. I always take them home, crush them and freeze them. They make an excellent topping for casseroles, squash, taco bake, hash browns or any of your favorites.
R. Neuse, Seguin, Texas

Well, Mr. or Mrs. Neuse, my first piece of advice is to stop throwing around phrases like "taco bake" like people will even know what the hell you are talking about. I imagine it could have easily been grouped under the all-encompassing "casseroles". Oh, and by the way, I weep for your dinner guests who are being served casseroles topped with old thawed corn chips that probably were stale before you even crushed them up and snuck them out of the restaurant in your pocketbook.

My other source of concern is, who the fuck doesn't eat all the chips they bring with the salsa at a Mexican restaurant?!? I can't get enough chips at a Mexican restaurant, they have to bring me three or four baskets before the meal is served, and at least two after.

And just when I thought I would never see anything as stupid as a reader writing to Heloise to suggest doing crossword puzzles in pencil, rather than pen....

Dear Heloise: I always have a pitcher of iced tea in my fridge. When I feel like having a cup of hot tea, I just pour a cup of iced tea in a cup and put it in the microwave.
Margaret Caswell, Waterloo, N.Y.

A quick Google search shows that a Margaret Caswell was a teacher at DeWitt High School between 1955-1962. If it is indeed the same Margaret Caswell, I think she may have since turned retarded. I mean, what happens if she uses up all of her iced tea making hot tea, and then wants iced tea all of a sudden? Besides, retarded people shouldn't be playing with microwaves OR hot liquids.

After the rains....

2006-09-10T10:44:00.000-05:00

...the whole neighborhood smells like licorice. Very STRONGLY of licorice. I really have no explanation for it, unless the Maxwell House plant is adding anise to its coffee, or perhaps there's been an uprising in the harbour and angry natives have dumped a shipload of ouzo overboard.

Crikey.

2006-09-04T17:21:00.000-05:00

All the menacing creatures he's wrestled to the ground without a scratch, and he gets killed by a stingray?

That's wrong, man.

Why couldn't something sting Paris Hilton, or Jessica Simpson, or someone equally as useless?

Is God Angry, part 2; or, A Question of Karma

2006-09-01T21:28:00.000-05:00

In the past four days, I have been unexpectedly granted three different gift cards. The first was from the check out lady at Target, who, after ringing up Arrested Development Season 3 (which rocks, by the way) gave me a free five-dollar gift card, with which I bought Mars Attacks.

Later that day, while escorting Mother Rubble to the Gospel World store to look for stick on geegaws for her Worship and Music poster for the Church Talent Fair, I found a Barnes and Noble gift card with a remaining value of eleven dollars and forty cents on the ground, with which I bought Wicked, the book, which I read a number of years ago in the midst of a string of panic attacks, so I don't really remember what happened in it, not that my reading comprehension and retention is that great even in the best of times.

Today, after returning from my first day of teaching at my alma mater, I found a Best Buy gift card lying on the curb in front of my house. Remaining value, forty dollars even. Which means it's probably never even been used.

Is this bounty a gift from the heavens, a reward for being kind and good in the face of grief and despair? Or is it a cruel test, and am I stcking up more bad karma for myself by taking these cards as my own and wantonly using them for my own selfish ends?

I am hoping the former, as Jet and I will be going to Best Buy tomorrow just as soon as the termite men have come to do their inspection.

Could even a trickster god be cruel enough to plant a Best Buy gift card with forty dollars left on it in front of my house?

Just the Roof, please, continued

2006-08-31T09:39:00.000-05:00

When Jet came home from work last night, Dill the Crooked Roofer was sitting across the street from our house in his dilapidated van, staring at our house.

Jet asked him if he needed to speak with him. "Not unless you have any money," was the reply.

The police, apparently, can do nothing unless and until he encroaches on the property or makes an explicit threat.

You should know, of course, that we have not paid Dill the Crooked Roofer the balance of our bill, and are suing him to get our deposit back. Which he should know about by now. Which means he is angry, and stupid, and likely possesses firearms.

Sigh.

Code Dependent has just posted her first new blog in two years. So no more grousing about how infrequently I post.

Unemployable, continued

2006-08-29T08:00:00.000-05:00

Okay, I'm starting not to get the joke.

Yesterday, having filled out an online application for a temp company, and having an interview appointment automatically scheduled for me, I received a call from girl-at-the-temp-agency-with-a-perky-name-that-probably-dots-her-I's-with-hearts.

Perky: "Hello, Bamm-Bamm? It's about your appointment tomorrow. I just screened your application and I'm sorry to say you don't meet our core requirements."

Me: "And those are?"

Perky: "Mid- to upper-level management, and data entry."

Me: "...um, that covers three of the five jobs that are listed on my application."

Perky: "I'm sorry, but I screened your application and you don't meet our core requirements."

I repeat, this is for temp work. Which a chimp could do.

Oh, plus, I'm petty and vindictive. The company was Apple One. Spread the word.

Is God angry?

2006-08-27T15:04:00.000-05:00

Six weeks after buying this house, we have a live termite infestation, any sign of which somehow evaded the pre-sale termite inspection.

I'm still unemployed and unemployable.

And here's the path of Hurricane Ernesto, set to hit our definitely-not-able-to-withstand-a-hurricane-roof at 8am on Friday - the day I'm supposed to start my one-day-a-week job, which is thus far my only form of employment:

I'm just sayin'.

Dog Park

2006-08-27T14:16:00.000-05:00

One thing I WILL give this town credit for is its dog park, "a 42-acre swim and play park for people and their doggies (over 25 acres are currently fenced)! The park is the country's largest completely fenced dog park--a true heaven on earth for dogs!"

Heaven for most dogs, I suppose....Frito Joe for instance, who will chase and pester any dog no matter how big, and bark at the top of his lungs when he can't catch them, which he can't, because despite being slim and wiry he is composed entirely of sinew and is just a hair slower than every other dog in the park.

Poor Dino (the sweetest dog that ever lived on the earth in all of history), on the other hand, could take it or leave it (mostly leave it I imagine). When approached by another dog for a friendly sniff-up, she will curl into a ball, preferably under the legs of Jet or me. If we are not available, she will approach any strangers who happen to be standing by (because this is a dog park, these strangers are usually old men or lesbians, or old lesbians). If no legs are available, she will growl and snarl and make herself out to be the sort of undesirable cur that is unwelcome at the dog park, even though she is, as I mentioned, the sweetest dog that ever lived on the earth in all of history.

If pressed into activity, she will chase only Frito Joe, seemingly for the express purpose of preventing him from having any fun. As she can run roughly at the speed of sound, her self-appointed task is easily accomplished. She will carefully choose a moment when she is able to gain access to Frito Joe without having to touch or be touched by any other dogs, then take off like a discharged bullet, tackle Frito Joe to the ground, and resume her position of safety under someone's legs.

This isn't leading to any pithy revelation about real life, I just wanted to upload a picture of the dogs.

Limbo

2006-08-26T10:33:00.000-05:00

Having spent the past three days back in DC, I am faced with the startling fact that, just like they say, you can't go home again. But I'm jaded and cranky and not at all prepared to embrace my new life and town. What's a boy to do?

Plus I'm still forty, and have no idea what I'm supposed to do with THAT knowledge.

Plus I'm apparently unemployable (see previous post). Okay, I haven't sent out, like, thirty-thousand blind resumes a day, like I've heard some people say they do, but I HAVE diligently scanned the newspapers and websites for local jobs that I am eminently qualified for, and been perky and affable in every interview I've gone on, and STILL nothing.

Well, except for the teaching one day a week at one of my Alma Maters, which gave my self-confidence a boost but is nonetheless an hour and a half away and will only net me a cool five grand a year, which is not going to be enough to keep my DVD habit going, and I already have the DT's from not having been to Best Buy in over two months.

Speaking of Best Buy, I would NOT be above working there, IF they were hiring, which they're not. Nor is Borders, or Barnes and Noble. The only box store offering the possibility of gainful employ is Michael's Crafts, but when I went in to ask for an application, after having been brusquely put off by the managerette, I inexplicable burst into tears and had to race back to my car. I suppose it was the possibility of having to scrawl my own name on my smock with a fabric marker that set me off, I don't know. Perhaps I'll go back this week. Now that I have one day of the week accounted for, I only need to find something for the other four.

Just to keep my options open, I DID ensure that I would have a place at the Cathedral should Jet and I suddenly return to DC, and was assured that I would indeed have a place - and all because I'm good and pure. I didn't even have to give out money or sexual favors. I also insisted that in the meantime, I be called back should anyone of importance die and have a service at the Cathedral, another assurance that was graciously granted me.

Oh, and lest I forget, Jet Screamer has started his own blog. Nothing much there yet, but keep hounding him, he's sure to have some juicy posts for us real soon.

Unemployable

2006-08-26T09:37:00.000-05:00

How in the crap am I not qualified to be a bank teller?!? A CHIMP can be a bank teller.

Sigh.

Just the roof, please

2006-08-17T10:23:00.000-05:00

When one’s business is named “Just So-and-So”…..”Just Cakes” perhaps, or “Just Rivets”, it would seem to imply that said business has made such an art of, say , cakes or rivets, that they’ve abandoned all other pursuits to ensure that their cakes or rivets are the cream of their respective crops.

Unless you’re in the South. Jacksonville, as we’re discovering, IS the South, unlike the rest of Florida, which is a giant beach town. Even the parts that aren’t on the Beach. Jacksonville is more accurately thought of as belonging to southern Georgia, and I mean that in the worst possible sense.

In the South, naming your business “Just So-and So”…for the sake of argument, I’ll say “Just Roofing”…means that you’ve so screwed up every other endeavor that you’ve only one endeavor to screw up. Like roofs. Specifically, our roof. Our historic pressed-tin roof that the city would only allow us to replace with another pressed-tin roof, which was supposed to be complete before we even moved in yet wasn’t even BEGUN until two weeks AFTER we’d moved in, and was supposed to be completed in four days but wasn’t NEAR completion for four weeks, and now may or may not be complete – we’re not sure because the city has halted all work permits issued to our roofer, Dill, and if we want the roof to be put on correctly we’ll have to hire another company to rip the whole thing off and start from scratch.

I suppose we should have taken a bit more notice when the crackerjack carpentry team next door kept ridiculing the progress Dill was making on our roof, or when they reported that Dill’s helpers were sitting up on the roof smoking pot every time Dill left the site. But it wasn’t until water poured from the attic into our upstairs hallway that we really started to suspect that something might not be kosher. Then when the city inspector walked up into the attic, whistled under his breath, and said “Oh, shit”. Oh, and of course, when we found out Dill’s State license had been suspended since March, with no one ever bothering to tell the city. Things like that really start to pique one’s interest.

Other than that, the neighborhood remains…interesting. We attended Jacksonville’s recent Gay Pride Festival with some neighbors we met at the neighborhood dog walk. Granted, Jet and I may be a bit biased, as the last Pride Festival we attended jointly was in San Francisco….but fifty middle-aged people milling around a street corner while a lonely DJ blasts music in their ears doesn’t say to me “gay”, “pride”, OR “festival”.

Jet and I have been traveling across the river to the tony part of town to do our shopping, except in the direst of emergencies, like when we wake up on Sunday morning and have no coffee. It was just such a Sunday morning recently, and I dashed down to the local Stab-n-Save to grab a can of Folger’s, arriving just in time to witness the after effects of a homeless person taking a shit right in the middle of aisle ten. Not the coffee aisle, thankfully.

Contrast this with events on the other extreme, like the well-dressed white couple that drives by our house in a golf cart, both of them holding full goblets of Merlot, announcing that they’re “snooping things out”. I don’t even know what that means. But I like to think I’m a little smarter than to drive the streets with an open container of liquor in a slow-moving vehicle. That’s just asking for trouble.

Oh, and did I mention I’m forty? What am I supposed to do now?

2 things you never want to hear from your waking or sleeping spouse

2006-08-07T05:40:00.000-05:00

Waking: "Baaaaaaam! Frito Joe has an erection and he's doing something to the carpet!"

Sleeping: "Bamm, PLEASE! Don't kill those kittens!"

Moving Day

2006-07-20T15:18:00.000-05:00

Well...not REALLY moving day, since we moved in last week to our stately home at 5135 Kensington Avenue, where gentle breezes carrying the sound of children's laughter sway the tall, majestic trees.

By day.

By night, the stifling, putrid air carries the sound of either firecrackers or gunfire (we haven't quite decided yet), the rumble of city busses (as our house lies on the temporary bus route), and the shouts and catcalls of the drunk, high, and indigent - or as Jet calls them, "the colorful foot traffic".

They say it will get better. Soon. The people next door say it's already unrecognizable from when they moved in four years ago. Floozy Flingland's boyfriend C-Lo has a friend here who says much quicker than five years. But Jet and I have had a hard week, so we're having trouble accentuating the positive right now.

How hard? Not, like, death and destruction hard, just inconvenient hard really. Which is bad enough when coupled with a last-ditch but futile effort to not even move away in the first place, and the constant struggle to force one's mind to believe that this will all probably look really good in hindsight.

So, to summarize:

July 8: We pack up in the morning with the help of our dear friends, choking back tears all the while, and once the dear friends left us alone we cried and cried. And cried. Well, Jet mostly, as I'm stoic and believe that feelings are like treasures, to be buried. We wasted no time in getting on the road once we were packed, as we had already rented back from the new owners for two days, and had promised faithfully to be out by sundown.

Another neighbor reported that Pedro and Inez, the new owners, descended on the house like a swarm of locusts once they knew we were gone. To rid it of our evil, I'd imagine.

We stayed the night in Swampscent, North Carolina, and had to take a smoking room as that was the only way they would let us bring Dino and Frito Joe.

July 9: We continued the drive to Bremerhaven, where Jet will soon assume his glorious new position (I may have failed to mention that, in the interim between getting hired and starting to work, Jet has already been promoted to a position of some authority by his new boss, Johnny Depp.) The drive was arduous, especially for Jet, who was driving the moving van with our girly pickup truck in tow. At least I had the complete works of David Sedaris on CD to keep me company. Of course, I DID have Dino and Frito Joe, who need constant attention and talking-to in baby language, so I reserve my right to whine a little.

We arrived at sundown at the Marriott Residence Inn, which I can HIGHLY recommend for anyone who may be traveling in the near future. It does cost a little more, naturally, but as a wise charwoman once told me after I complained about the bathtub ring in my room at the Dollar Inn in Jeffersonville, Ohio; "You get what you pay for".

I will now insert an interesting anecdote, that being that Jet once found Nancy Marriott's wallet in a practice room down at the college, and turned it in, and did not get a reward, even though Nancy Marriott could buy and sell us all.

July 10: We sat around all day, as the closing was delayed by 24 hours, through no fault of our own.

July 11: We dragged poor Dino and Frito Joe all over the town, to lots and lots of places that they weren't allowed into. We were hopeful that we would be able to unload a few of our precious belongings before the closing, but naturally that would have been logical and simple, so it wasn't meant to be. Finally, at sundown, we were handed the keys and started to unload.

Now the house, viewed in isolation, really is lovely to behold. A two-story frame vernacular built in 1909, all the original woodwork throughout the house has been restored. There are three bedroom, two updated baths, and a room downstairs which we can teach from. Even an upstairs walk-out balcony, of which I've always dreamed.

But the neighborhood. I mean, we KNEW we were buying into a transitional area. I guess we just thought it would be a little further up the scale than it actually is.

Our neighbors, Skipper and Prison Doctor (who are separated but still live together, we think, or not - it's hard to tell and you KNOW how we hate to pry) told us that we should leave nothing on the front porch that we didn't want to see stolen. Even though we have a latchable gate and several hundred watts of motion-sensitive security lights. "Surely," we thought, "no one would be foolish enough to try and steal our giant fifty-pound statue of Buddha. It will certainly be all right here on the front porch."

Well, it WAS all right, for nearly a week, until said security lighting was actually installed and activated.

But here's the thing - why would anyone who doesn't care about the teachings of Buddha want to have a Buddha statue?

And anyone who DOES care about Buddha's teachings wouldn't steal, right? Especially not steal something that weighs fifty pounds and is awkward to carry and will not be easy to make a quick getaway with, after setting off motion-activated lights...

...and yet the thoughtful thief, perhaps in an effort to balance out his or her karma, took the time to close and re-latch the gate behind them.

Anyway, back to our story.

July 12: Mother Rubble, Code Dependent, and Nephew Ratched arrived to help us finish unloading the truck. Which is a lucky thing, as without their help our piano would still be sitting out in the street - or, perhaps, being wheeled down the street with a Buddha statue perched on top.

Mother Rubble actually didn't do much lifting, but once the air conditioning broke down she was happy as a clam, and she loves the hot.

Yes, I said the air conditioning broke down.

The day we moved in.

July 13-17: A blur, really, as the air conditioning was still broken, and the hot makes me woozy. Evidently, we moved some things around, and unpacked some boxes, and set up some bookshelves and such. I DO recall going to church, as Jet laid twenty bucks in the collection plate, leading me to think that's things would surely get better after such a generous tithe.

Well, the air conditioning is working now. But then Buddha got stolen. So I don't know what to think.

Snarky Reviews: Superman Returns

2006-06-29T10:11:00.000-05:00

Saw my first summer blockbuster of the season last night, as I am wont to do in summer blockbuster season (X-Men 3 doesn’t count, as it wasn’t summer yet, and it wasn’t a blockbuster….though it was fine.)

So, Superman Returns. I’m going to tell you all about it, so if you don’t want to know what happens, just scroll up to the top of the page, the right hand corner, and click “next blog”.

Still here? Okay, then – Superman Returns apparently constitutes a bit of revisionist history, a world in which Superman III and Superman IV: The Quest For Peace never happened. Which is fine by me, and I would imagine fine by anyone who saw Superman III and Superman IV: The Quest For Peace. The events follow Superman II…rather, I should say, they pick up five years after Superman II, as the opening credits inform us that Superman has been in outer space for the past five years, looking for his home planet of Krypton (yes, we all remember that Krypton exploded, as does Superman himself…why exactly he went to look for it is never quite explained).

Superman II, you’ll recall, involved Superman giving up his powers and sleeping with Lois Lane. This becomes an important plot point later, so don’t forget it.

True Superphiles will also instantly realize that the five-year gap conveniently allows for the events of the film classic, Supergirl, which I saw in Chicago on Thanksgiving Day almost 22 years ago with JubJub, who will be visiting this weekend with her new boyfriend Babaloo.

But I digress.

After the five-years-later explanation, and a dizzying ride through space while the credits roll, we pick up at the Kent farmstead in…well, I don’t know where it is. Kansas? Indiana? Someplace flat and expansive. Mother Kent (Eva-Marie Saint) is puttering around her kitchen, which apparently hasn’t been updated since about 1927, judging by the antique ice box with a Marconi wireless perched precariously on top. Her scrubbing of the laundry on a washboard is interrupted by a fiery meteor which lands in the back forty, so she hops into her Model T pickup and heads out to find:

1) a giant smoldering crystalline something-or-other, and
2) her adopted son Superman (Brandon Routh), naked and stumbling around the field

She takes him home and spruces him up, whereupon he plays a mean trick on the family dog, has a flashback to his childhood, watches the news, offers no explanation about where he’s been, mumbles something, and leaves.

We then head to Metropolis, where Supes has re-donned his Clark Kent disguise and assumed his old duties as a mild-mannered reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper (I won’t bore you here with my treatise on how, psychologically, I believe that Clark is the authentic person and Superman the disguise, which puts me in opposition to pretty much everyone else in the world). Clark’s hopes for picking up his life exactly where it left off are dashed when he discovers that Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth), his former paramour, is living with the boss’s nephew (James Marsden), has an asthmatic out-of-wedlock child (Tristan Lake Leabu), and is about to accept a Pulitzer for her opinion piece “Why The World Doesn’t Need Superman”. Whoops.

Before he has time to brood about it, however, he’s called upon to save a crashing plane-connected-to-a-space-shuttle (don’t ask) which just happens to include passenger Lois Lane. He saves the plane in a spectacular display of special effects wizardry, sets it down on the pitcher’s mound of Yankees Stadium, and if you don’t get a lump in your throat as the crowd erupts in cheers then, my friend, you have no soul.

Meanwhile, Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey), his gun moll Kitty (Parker Posey) and three (maybe four, I had trouble telling them apart, except that one had a video camera) generic stoolies are planning their revenge against the newly-returned Superman. Revenge includes picking up on Lex’s obsession with beachfront property from the 1978 film. Only this time, Lex has stolen power crystals from Superman’s long-abandoned Fortress of Solitude, which he is going to use to create a new continent in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, flooding all of North America and leaving a huge, craggy, crystalline continent that no one would want to live on in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

After much hand-wringing and soul-searching on the parts of Lois, Superman, and Lois’ live-in boyfriend - interspersed with gee-whizzical scenes of Superman saving people and stuff – Lois ends up trapped on Lex Luthor’s yacht with her asthmatic out-of-wedlock child, headed out to sea with Lex to create his new continent. Which, incidentally, will be laced full of Kryptonite so that Superman can’t stop him. They are rescued by Lois’ live-in boyfriend, but not before one of the generic stoolies has a piano thrown at him by the asthmatic out-of-wedlock child, pretty much confirming everyone’s assumption that Superman is Lois’ baby daddy. Superman then arrives to save all of them, then gets weakened by Kryptonite, then gets shivved by Lex Luthor, then gets rescued by the people HE had just rescued. Then he flies up into the sky to soak up some sunlight and flies back down to Earth to beat Lex and – wait for it – lift the entire new continent up into space and fling it toward the sun.

Then he plummets to Earth, powerless, and dies. Or not. It’s a tense few minutes.

Lois manages to get into the hospital with her no-longer-asthmatic out-of-wedlock child, where she kisses Superman on the lips, reveals that he’s her baby daddy, and then goes on about her business. Either the kiss or the revelation of parentage does the trick, because next thing you know the big blue is up and around, creeping into the kid’s bedroom while he’s asleep to whisper some mumbo-jumbo about the father becoming the son, and other useless drivel you’ll recall being uttered by Dead Marlon Brando earlier in the film.

So, there we have it. The movie ends with Superman flying off to stop some more deli robberies, leaving Lois living with her child and her boyfriend who is not the father of her child, but still thinks he is. It’s a pretty big genie they’ve let out of the bottle, it will be interesting to see how they follow up.

Performances: I was awfully worried when Brandon Routh first appeared on the screen. He mumbled and appeared to have little idea that he was in a movie, or even awake. But he grew on me. His instructions were apparently to “channel Christopher Reeve”, a challenge he accepted with gusto. His speech patterns and mannerisms might as well be Reeve himself. And actually, I like his Clark Kent better than Reeve. More natural, less of an obvious put-on.

Kate Bosworth. Sigh. She gives it her best shot, but she’s far too young to be playing Lois Lane, especially a Lois Lane that has a five year old child and a Pulitzer. She’s far from the worst Lois Lane (hello, Teri Hatcher) but I fear it won’t be a high point of her career, nor a character-defining performance like Margot Kidder’s.

Kevin Spacey. Parker Posey. I want to like them both, especially Posey, but…well….they just…they both seem to play the same character, no matter what movie they’re in. Spacey the smarmy ham, Posey the crazy chick. There is nothing remarkable about either performance, certainly nothing unique that they bring to their characters. Lex Luthor should be terrifying in his evil, and he’s not. And, I certainly never thought I’d pine for Valerie Perrine’s Miss Tessmacher, but there you have it. I do.

James Marsden has his role as a pretty face down pat. Actually, I was pleasantly surprised to find that, unencumbered by his X-Men Cyclops shades, he can turn in a moving and subtle performance. He might have actually been a good Superman, if not for the fact that he appears to be about five-foot two. And as I mentioned above, he’s awfully pretty.

Dead Marlon Brando appears, to what purpose I still don't know. Honestly, his face is obscured by so much digitized vaseline-lens effect, it could have been anyone spewing metaphysical drivel with marbles in their mouth.

There is one perfect match of character and actor, Sam Huntington’s Jimmy Olsen. Perfect. He needs more to do in the sequel.

There are nice cameos by Noel Neill and Jack Larson, Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen from the 1950’s television show. Larson, as you’ll recall, is now an acclaimed playwright, and was the longtime partner of James Bridges, director of The Paper Chase, The China Syndrome, and Urban Cowboy. But you knew that.

Gripes: The costume. He looks like a Nicaraguan hooker. And Routh has this weird sort of love-handley thing that doesn't lend itself to wearing bikini trunks.

The hair. Director Bryan Singer is gay, so one would think he could employ a decent hairdresser. Kate Bosworth looks like she combed hers with an egg-beater. And Routh's...well....look, I KNOW Superman's hair in the comics is black with navy-blue highlights. That's because it's a comic book. That does NOT mean you have to dye his hair with jet-black shoe polish, and give him a wig like a 70's porn star. The movie-going public WILL accept a Superman with a weight line and a haircolor that occurs in nature.

The child. Are there no longer child actors that look and act like children, instead of like Damien?

The Christ symbology. Okay, I get it. You don't have to freaking pound me over the head with it.

So…not the best movie I’ve ever seen, certainly far from the worst. I give it a B+. Review over!

Now – get over to Monk-E-Mail and amuse yourself the rest of the day.

Dogs at work

2006-06-23T12:09:00.000-05:00

It's National Bring Your Dogs to Work Day, and so I've brought mine, which I planned to do even before I knew it WAS National Bring your Dogs to Work Day, because everyone in the prestigious scientific society where I work is gone to Boston for the Annual Meeting, except for me, Palsy, Poinsettia, Wendy the Lost Girl, Pregnant Rebecca, Sinthia, and the Phantom of the Eighth Floor, who hates dogs.

Dino is a perfect lady, of course, and Frito Joe is well-behaved unless I decide I need to go to the bathroom, or to the kitchen, or the fax machine, or anywhere besides my cubicle, which has been cordoned off with two recycle buckets and a trash can to keep the little darlings from running around the office.

Thus far we have endured a building-wide fire evacuation, an impending thunderstorm, and queen-of-inappropriate-discussion Palsy wondering aloud why Frito Joe was interested in her crotch, since "I'm not on my cycle". Classy.

What the - - -

2006-06-22T11:21:00.000-05:00

First, I was horrified.

Then, intrigued.

Now I'm just jealous that she'll probably make more money this year than I will in my whole life.

The Integrity of Ugly

2006-06-20T10:31:00.000-05:00

Everyone in the apartment complex I lived in knew who Ugly was. Ugly was the resident tomcat. Ugly loved three things in this world: fighting, eating garbage, and, shall we say, loving. These three things, together with a life spent outside, had taken their toll on Ugly.

To start with, he had only one eye, and where the other should have been, was a gaping hole. He was also missing his ear on the same side. His left foot appeared to have been badly broken at one time, and had healed at an unnatural angle, making him look like he was always turning the corner. His tail had long been lost, leaving only the smallest stub which he would constantly jerk and twitch. Ugly would have been a dark gray, striped tabby except for the sores covering his head and neck. Even his shoulders were covered with thick, yellowing scabs.

Every time someone saw Ugly, there was the same reaction...That's one UGLY cat! All the children were warned not to touch him, the adults threw rocks at him, hosed him down, squirted him when he tried to come in their homes, or shut his paws in the door when he would not leave. Ugly always had the same reaction. If you turned the hose on him, he would stand there, getting soaked until you gave up and quit. If you threw things at him, he would curl his lanky body around your feet in forgiveness.

Whenever he spied children, he would come running, meowing frantically, bumping his head against the ir hands, begging for their love. If you ever picked him up, he would immediately begin suckling on your shirt, earrings, whatever he could find.

One day Ugly tried to be friendly to the neighbor's huskies. They did not respond kindly, and Ugly was badly mauled. From my apartment I could hear his screams, and I rushed to his aid. By the time I got to him, it was apparent that Ugly's sad life was almost at an end. Ugly lay in a wet puddle, his back legs and lower back twisted grossly out of shape, a gaping tear in the white stripe of fur that ran down his front.

As I picked him up and tried to carry him home, I could hear him wheezing and gasping and I could feel him struggling. It must be hurting him terribly, I thought. Then I felt a familiar tugging, sucking sensation on my ear. Ugly, in so much pain and suffering, obviously dying, was trying to suckle my ear. I pulled him closer to me, and he bumped the palm of my hand with his head, then he turned his one golden eye towards me, and I could hear the distinct sound of purring.

Even in the greatest pain, that ugly, battle-scarred cat was asking only for a little affection, perhaps some compassion. At that moment, I thought Ugly was the most beautiful, loving creature I had ever seen. Never once did he try to bite or scratch me, try to get away from me, or struggle in any way. Ugly just looked up at me completely trusting in me to relieve his pain. Ugly died in my arms before I could get inside, but I sat and held him for a long time afterwards, thinking about how one scarred, deformed little stray could so alter my opinion about what it means to have true pureness of spirit, to love so totally and truly.

Ugly taught me more about giving and compassion than a thousand books, lectures, or talk show specials ever could, and for that I will always be thankful. He had been scarred on the outside, but I was scarred on the inside, and it was time for me to move on and learn to love truly and deeply, to give my total to those I cared for. Many people want to be richer, more successful, well-liked, or beautiful. But for me? I will always try to be Ugly.

--Author Unknown

Okay, so...

2006-06-13T09:04:00.000-05:00

...I may have failed at my New Year's Resolution to post every day. Okay, yes, I HAVE failed. I'm a big fat failure. What are you going to do, fire me?

I have no excuse, really. Just, you know, busying myself with preparations for moving and such, to accomadate Jet's new job.

Oh, by the way, Jet has a new job. And so we'll be moving. Next month. To an historic house that needs no improvements, in a hip urban neighborhood. Every gay man's dream.

So, I'm off this afternoon on the final leg of a tour with the National Cathedral Choir, which has frankly been the bane of my existence for the past two weeks. I really like the IDEA of singing at the cathedral, but the reality of not sleeping in my own bed and being surrounded by fourth-grade boys and/or high school girls is another matter entirely. Plus, apparently, I'm not as young as I like to think I am. According to my body.

Not that it was entirely bad, as last week in Chicago I got to see our dear friends JubJub and Bette-Midler's-Secret-Daughter, but I would have just as soon gone to Chicago just to see them, and be done with it.

Then Mother Rubble, in Ohio for her High School Reunion, met me in Indianapolis along with cousin Shella, and put me to shame with the results of her new health kick. Advised me that I better start walking those dogs a few more miles a day than what I been a doin'.

Speaking of those dogs, the cruelest blow was that travel on Sunday prevented me from attending the Adopted-from-the-pound Reunion picnic, which disappointed me to no end. But a kindly stranger took pictures for me, which I spent a long time yesterday making into a Warhol-esque print that I will further refine as soon as I don't have to rely on my work computer's substandard graphics software, then market and sell on posters, t-shirts, and calendars:

Submitted without comment

2006-04-03T14:14:00.000-05:00

Go Go Porno Rangers

2006-03-17T14:14:00.000-05:00

You know how you fantasize about something for a REALLY long time, and then when it finally comes true, it's really just not as exciting as it was in your fantasies?

Yeah, me too.

My Second Meme

2006-03-15T08:25:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Drew for the tag.

Here are the rules: Drew poses a question to me, and I answer it. Then I pose my own question and tag others; then they ask their own question and tag others, and so on... just like a seventies shampoo commercial!

Drew's question to me is “If you could go back in time and relive any moment in your life exactly as it originally happened, what would you choose to experience again? (Note: You cannot alter the out come; you'd just relive the experience).”

Okay, I thought and thought, and had a lot of trouble coming up with something that I wouldn't want to fiddle with and change a little, either the circumstances or my reaction to the circumstances...so I finally settled on this:

When I was sixteen, my great Uncle B____ passed on. He was the brother of my grandmother, Mrs. W____ (the one with the castle down the street - see below). An interesting character, he; never married, but was "engaged" to the same woman for over sixty years. His fiancée was the youngest child of the richest family in town, and years later found out that the woman she believed to be her mother was actually her grandmother - her real mother was her "sister", Princess. And yes, Princess was REALLY her name.

But I digress.

Uncle B___ lived on a farm, though WHAT exactly he farmed I never knew. He occasionally had sheep in his barn, though they weren't his as I recall. There was corn, I suppose, possibly other grain crops, but when I was growing up we were never there long enough for me to properly explore the fields - not like the heady days of Mother Rubble's youth, when all the cousins in the family would gather and spend the entire summer there.

The farmhouse was where Uncle B___, Mrs. W____, and all their siblings had been born and raised. The farm sat a little ways out of town, along a creek where Mother Rubble used to fish - though by my day, the creek was obscured by a highway and an abandoned Drive In.

The house was a standard late-19th Century design, with a ground-floor living area and a large, usable attic space. In my youth, when we would visit the farm, visitors entered through the back door, which led to the kitchen. Adjoining the kitchen was the indoor bathroom (a later addition, naturally) and the "dining" room, which was piled high with papers and magazines and was where Uncle B___ slept. And until the day he died, those were the only three rooms of the house I had ever seen.

After his death, the contents of the house were to be sold at auction, so Mother Rubble and Big Ray and I went up one Saturday to clear out anything of value that the family might want to keep. While Big Ray and Mother Rubble were busy collecting little treasures like paper bags full of money that were hidden in the dining room, I had a chance to explore the parts of the house that I had never seen.

The upstairs room, once the children's sleeping quarters, had only an old rusty bed frame and a closet full of family photographs - the old-timety photographs where no one ever smiled, and had vacant, expressionless yet luminescent eyes, like Melissa Sue Anderson on Little House on the Prairie. Of particular interest was a photograph of Aunt O___, grandmother's oldest sister, who died of scarlet fever at age sixteen. In contrast to the other photos, hers depicted a bright, lively girl with thick ringlets of blond hair falling about her shoulders, as delicate as a china doll. I imagined that, had she lived, she would have become an international beauty and sailed back and forth to Europe with her financier husband.

The true treasure, though, was the front parlor. Its existence was completely unknown to me (remember, I had only ever entered from the back door - the front porch was overgrown with weeds, so I had never even crept up and looked into the front windows). The parlor probably hadn't seen a human being since about 1940, and looked as if it hadn't been altered for about thirty years before that. There were a few pictures on the walls, which were covered with a patterned Victorian-era wallpaper. There was a high-backed, red-upholstered settee of some sort, with low, round-topped table. Also an upright piano, with stacks and stacks of sheet music, primarily early 20th-Century popular songs. And a bookcase - the bookcase!

I pause here to inform the reader that I am obsessed with historic ephemera - obsessed - which is to be borne in mind as you read on.

I suppose it would be really swell to, say, be in such a situation and stumble upon a first edition Tom Sawyer, or Of Human Bondage, or something, but I infinitely preferred what I DID find - a collection of MacGuffey Readers, Farmer's Almanacs from the late 1800's, and lots and lots of popular fiction of the turn of the century, tales of hardscrabble orphan boys traveling the world on steamer ships, and rose-cheeked maidens suffering some sort of cruel existence until the day when they can be married to their true love.

And then, the find of all finds, the very mention of which made Mother Rubble drop something breakable, make an inhuman sound, and rush into the parlor; behind the other books, obviously quite intentionally placed there so as to be concealed, was a huge, illustrated, wood-bound German Bible, the Bible of Wilhelm Forster (1749o-1815), an ancestor who was the first Lutheran missionary in the Ohio Territory. The Bible had been a point of some contention in the family for years and years - everyone wanting it, no one knowing who had it - and the person that DID have disavowing any knowledge of its whereabouts.

So that's it, that's what I would re-live, my day of uncovering hidden rooms, family secrets and commonplace reading material of a bygone era.

Now for my question, which is multi-part: You wake up tomorrow morning, and can have TWO super-powers of your choice. 1) What would they be; 2) How would you use them, and; 3) why would you use them that way?

I'm tagging LSBB, Doc Johnston, Li'l Erika, and Niece Ratched.

The Castle Down the Street

2006-03-10T10:41:00.000-05:00

Six doors down from my mother’s childhood home was a castle, with a carriage house at the gate. As it was still the home of my grandmother during MY childhood, I had many occasions to pass by and daydream about what it might be like to live in a castle. The property was surrounded by a six or seven-foot high brick wall, and a clever and limber child (I remain clever, but not so limber) could shimmy up the wall and peer over into the property. If you walked around the corner, you could peer through the iron entrance gates, although the view of the house was blocked by the carriage house from this angle.

By my time the house had been long abandoned – and before I was quite an adult, it had been carved up and made part of a soulless condominium development. Occasionally, pre-development, there would be a car parked outside the house, and all the neighborhood children would become very excited at the prospect that someone was moving in, or even better, that the mysterious long-absent owners had returned from their years-long world travels and come home to live out the rest of their days.

Code Dependent snuck into the house once – I can’t recall all the details, but I’m going to go ahead and make up a story, and say she snuck in there to make out with a boy. If I recall her report correctly, there were still plenty of fine draperies and the like, even though the house was unlived in.

The entire neighborhood, including my grandmother’s house, was built along the crest of a hill that gently sloped down toward the Scioto River. The owner of the castle was Sylvio Casparis, who founded the Casparis Stone Company in 1892, which merged with three other companies to become the Marble Cliff Quarries in 1913. The quarries could be seen from the top floor of the castle, so he could keep tabs on any shiftless laborers to make sure they were earning their penny a week.

Barely a stone’s throw from the castle was the home of Samuel Prescott Bush, ( yes, THAT Bush – he was W’s great-grandpappy). He was president and general manager of Buckeye Steel Castings Company (Buckeye Steel) on Columbus' south side (external and internal views on the right).

The home, built in 1908, was sold in 1929 to Detroit socialite Anna Dodge Dillman, the wife of Columbus-born silent film actor Hugh Dillman and widow of Horace Dodge, founder with his brother John of the Dodge Automobile Company. Mrs. Dillman (inset, lower left), the wife of Columbus-born silent film actor Hugh Dillman and widow of Horace Dodge, founder with his brother John of the Dodge Automobile Company. Mrs. Dillman was one of the country's wealthiest women in the mid-1920s, and with Horace built the splendid Rose Terrace home in Grosse Pointe Michigan. Mrs. Dillman bought the Bush home for her husband's family to live in, and in the late 1940s sold it to the Carmelite nuns. By my day, the original house had been incorporated into St Raphael's Home for the Aged, but the home has since moved and the house is being developed for a dreaded condo development.

My grandmother’s house was built on property that had once belonged to the Aladdin Country Club, and the former site of the clubhouse was in the woods just behind her house. The indentation of the clubhouse’s foundation could still be seen, as well as the circular gravel drive seen in the picture below.

Of course, the woods, foundation, and circular drive are all gone now....condos. Not to mention, my junior high band teacher bought my grandmother's house and has built it up so that you couldn't even get to the woods if they WERE there.

If you’re waiting for this all to tie into some profound analogy to my life, stop holding your breath. I just found the pictures online and have nothing better to do.

Are you a sissy?

2006-03-08T13:28:00.001-05:00

Explained at last, the time-honored rite of passage for 2nd-grade boys everywhere....The Sissy Test!

Step 1: Rub a spot on the back of your hand with a pencil eraser 200 times.

Step 2: Immediately run your hand under ice-cold running water.

Step 3: If you flinch or yelp, you are a sissy.

Step 4: The next day, proudly show the scar on the back of your hand and assure any non-witnesses that you did not flinch or yelp.

ALTERNATE METHOD FOR ADULT MEN WHO ARE PUSHING MIDDLE AGE

Step 1: Get such dry skin in the winter that you absentmindedly scratch at the back of your hand all day.

Step 2: In the course of performing your morning toilet, run your hand under ice-cold running water.

Step 3: Flinch and yelp.

Are YOU surrounded by Muppets?

2006-03-07T16:14:00.000-05:00

I am, apparently. I scored as Farscape. And I never even watched the show.

My First Meme

2006-03-06T09:31:00.000-05:00

I've been tagged by Drew, and am eternally grateful. And to think, before I started reading random blogs last week, I didn't even know what a meme was!

These are the rules.

1. Thank the person that tagged you. Thank you, Drew.

2. List 5 random/strange/weird things about you. See below.

3. Tag 5 other people. They will be random people, maybe, unless I try tagging Code Dependent. Or Plate-Of-Shrimp, both of whom could use a good kick in the ass to start blogging again.

So here are my five things:

1. Since Jet and I have been together (13 years as of Feb. 10, but don't feel obligated to send a gift) we have always lived within five miles of US Route 1. This is in two different states, four different cities and seven different domiciles. Now, facing an imminent move to a new city through which Route 1 runs, I am under the obsessive belief that we must continue to live within five miles of it. I'm also planning to drive the length of it one day and write a coffee table picture book about my travels.

2. I don't have any desire to be the boss of anything, ever. I used to really beat myself up about it, but after taking a Meyers-Briggs test (I'm solidly INF, usually followed by J but sometimes P, depending on the day) I realized that that's just the way I am, and it's okay to be that way. Besides, quite selfishly, after accepting myself for being that way I realized that being second in command is often a much more powerful position than being in charge. All the power, none of the blame.

Not that I couldn't be an effective leader if I HAD to be, mind you.

3. On a similar note, I am obsessed with secondary characters in television, movies, comic books, etc. The more of a cipher they are, the more I like them. I am compelled to learn every bit of minutiae there is about them, and sometimes, to create an imaginary background for them out of whole cloth. I suppose this proves to myself that even though I don't want to be the boss of anything ever, I'm still an interesting person. You can read my top ten list of secondary characters here and here, though in re-reading it I'm reminded that I forgot to add Ann Curry to the list.

4. When I'm alone in the car, or sometimes the shower, I practice my half of important conversations that I anticipate having. I have a scenario for every possible reaction from the other person, and in my practice I am always calm, cool, and have an unlimited vocabulary.

And yet, with all my practice, I am still awkward and fumble for words when having the conversation in real life.

Practicing conversations sounds like a good idea when I read it in print, but it doesn't feel like such a good idea when, say, you accidentally dial your home phone while you're in the car having a practice conversation, and your home answering machine picks up and records you talking to yourself for a good long time, and someone, say Jet, listens to the message, and then you have to explain to Jet that you often hold practice conversations with yourself.

5. Billy Baldwin stole a cab from me once.

Senator Speedo

2006-03-01T11:53:00.000-05:00

My dreamboat State Senator, whom Jet and I used to frequently spot tooling around in his convertible roadster, did the right thing yesterday by saving the life of his fiercest political opponent.

I guess he's not entirely a dick, then. Good to know.

What am I doing wrong?

2006-02-24T15:38:00.000-05:00

Okay, I know I've been gone awhile, but I've been busy trolling the internet to read other people's blogs, to see if if I could sort of hone my style, since I get no comments anymore and I suppose it must be my fault. And what I find is that most people are so desperately unhappy! Wives whose husbands ridicule them day at night and shout obscenities at them, and men in their fifties who are married with children and just now figuring out that they're gay, and people who have emotional meltdowns at work, like, three times a week, and the like.

Turmoil I can't even imagine, which means I'm either extremely stable, or in extreme denial.

But really, if Jet and I have a disagreement, we just work it out, and that's that. One of us will compromise, and then get our way the next time. Or, more likely, we will each give up SOMETHING for the sake of a peaceful resolution. Done. Neither one of us has any concept of dragging an argument out to ensure that we get our own way.

That just seems like common sense to me, why wouldn't EVERYONE do it?

And when something is wrong at work, which of course it sometimes is, I can't imagine having a meltdown about it, or hurling obscenities, or anything. I mean, either find a way to solve the problem or suck it up, it's really that simple, isn't it?

Am I missing something?

Adam Sandler is a retarded moron

2006-02-09T09:02:00.000-05:00

There, I said it, and I don't care who knows it.

Hollywood Reporter is....well, reporting that Adam Sandler, in his never-ending crusade to latch onto the latest movie-making trends and taint them with his "talent" forever, will soon start filming "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry", wherein he and Kevin James play firefighters who pretend to be a gay couple in order to receive domestic partner benefits.

Look, Sandler, we're happy with the whole "Hollywood loves the gays" thing, when it actually produces something positive and enlightening, but YOUR moron help we DON'T need.

Startling Predictions: the poster is going to have big, block letters in fire engine red, a dalmation is going to be the ringbearer, with the ring on a pillow in its mouth (this will also be on the poster), and Kevin James at some point will do an embarrassing dance lifted straight from the choreography of the fat guys who dance at football games. Eugene Levy will cash a paycheck to play either Sandler's distraught father or a bumbling fire chief who gets involved by futily trying to get them thrown off the job. The dog will bite him in the nuts and/or he will be saved by the titular characters in the least threatening onscreen fire ever. Many firehose jokes are sure to be included and some ex-Maxim model "actress" will play the girl whose very existence threatens to out ('unout'?) them.

It will gross a billion dollars domestically and set gay rights back to pre-Stonewall levels, and spawn a sequel starring Queen Latifah.

Mark my words.

Some good advice from the business world

2006-02-09T09:00:00.000-05:00

Okay, if your wife calls all hysterical because the baby’s umbilical nub has fallen off and been eaten by the dog, it’s probably a good idea to take your phone off SPEAKER so the whole office can’t hear it.

Yes, it really happened.

The Inevitable Consequence of a LIfe Devoted to Pop Culture

2006-02-08T09:23:00.000-05:00

So last night I dreamt that I was a cast member on Saturday Night Live, and Heath Ledger was the guest host. And after the show, or perhaps before, Heath was kind enough to indulge me in a photo shoot of the two of us, wearing cowboy clothes and cuddling together on a billowy satin sheet. Nothing sexual, you understand (he's not my type) just lots of cutesy, "look-at-us-aren't-we-clever-and-entertaining" sorts of shots, the kind that might be taken as publicity for a TV show.

Oh, and the photo shoot was taking place in my old elementary school. Weird, huh?

Hooray for Hollywood

2006-02-07T09:41:00.000-05:00

Little Sister Bamm-Bamm and her boytoy Ragu are fresh back from Hollywood, where they attended the premier of the smash new musical "Rock of Ages", starring Tenacious D alum (and special friend of LSBB) Kyle Gass ....and, "smash" might be a bit premature since it got a lukewarm reception from Variety but, oh well.

Despite ignoring my sure-fire advice on how to meet a celebrity (which involves going to The Brown Derby for lunch, spilling food on a celebrity, inviting them back to your hotel, disguising yourself with a fake nose and then lighting said nose on fire) they still managed to spot and mingle with lots and lots of B-and-below level celebs, and even a couple of A's.

We'll start with the two I'd be crowing about if I were them - Kathy Najimy and Jonathan Silverman. Kathy's husband is in the show, and Jonathan - well, I don't know what he was doing there, I suppose it's none of my business, really. LSBB reports that Kathy Najimy is funny and nice, just as I've long suspected.

Kathy's husband Dan Finnerty, as I mentioned, is in the show. I don't know why he's flipping off the camera, it doesn't seem awfully polite to me. Although, I'll allow the possibility that it's an eccentric habit, much like that of my father, who only refrained from flipping off the camera if the photo was taken at church (and even then I'm not sure what he might have been doing behind his back).

Emily Mortimer. I have no idea who she is.

Ditto with CC Deville of Poison and Jack Blades of Night Ranger. Though I have heard of Poison and Night Ranger.

And, from the "THEY still get invited to things?!?" file....Fred Dryer, of TV's "Hunter", and Toni Basil, of "Hey, Mickey, You're So Fine, You're So Fine You Blow My Mind" fame.

Fred Dryer, former football player, has a giant wiener. I've seen photographic proof.

Toni Basil looks like she smashed into Bjørk and the two of them merged into a single, unattractive being.

Remember - breathe!

2006-02-02T11:33:00.000-05:00

A message from "celebrity" and acne sufferer, Jessica Simpson:

hello friends,

it's jess! i just wanted to let ya'll know that with everything we go through in life, the good, the bad, the ugly, the sad, the right, the wrong, the think we don't belong, we all have to allow our hearts to remain open to create who we are. find that for yourself no matter what. take the advice from the wisdom of those we love. remember that bad company corrupts good character. and breathe to allow yourself the freedom to just be. getting to know yourself is so important. spend time alone with your thoughts for this creates a world of true serenity. do not be afraid. inner beauty, outward charm. greet everyone we meet with a smile (unless it is paparazzi.haha), a smile is contagious. i love you guys so much and appreciate the support through all the unfortunate pain of loss. what doesn't kill us makes us stronger. carry on. soar. glide. fly. this is a wonderful life.

love,
jess

I hate her with the heat of a thousand suns.

Free

2006-01-31T10:50:00.000-05:00

My workplace is obsessed with food. Hardly a day passes without an email who's subject line promises "Beef Stew in 8th Floor Kitchen - Help yourself", or a chirpy message from my arch-nemesis, Ned Noxley, promoting the hellish "Baked Goods in Meetings Dept".

Management struck quite a blow last week with the announcement that popcorn would henceforth be banned: “At this time, because we have been unable to avoid burning popcorn, we will no longer have it available in the kitchens” (‘we’ in this case being CRYSTAL IN SOCIETY SERVICES, who apparently cannot make a bag of microwave popcorn without burning it, since she has done so THREE TIMES, twice causing the evacuation of the entire building. Oh, by the way, microwave popcorn is the EASIEST FUCKING FOOD IN THE WORLD TO MAKE.)

Anyway, today I was greeted by a strange sight in the 9th floor kitchen – a lone box of Barilla Ditalini, with a post-it note attached that said “Free”. I’m not sure if it’s a political statement, a modern art installation, or a sad reflection of a co-worker’s need to bring a 39-cent box of pasta to work in order to get rid of it. What am I to think?

This just in

2006-01-30T13:38:00.000-05:00

A Psychological Study finds Bush backers more biased against blacks.

In other news, studies indicate the Pope may be Catholic.

This Modern World

2006-01-25T09:09:00.000-05:00

Wow, cutting and pasting someone else's work sure makes things easy on me!

Why didn't I think of that?

2006-01-23T14:16:00.000-05:00

Real life Super-Heroes.

In Indianapolis.

And I'm not even kidding.

Still waiting for the morning I wake up with superpowers, myself.

And speaking of infinite....

2006-01-20T12:38:00.000-05:00

...I think I'm a Deist. What do I do next?

Crisis on Infinite Earths (and I'm not feeling so hot myself)

2006-01-19T13:39:00.000-05:00

An offhanded reference to “poor Superboy” in an email, and I’m barraged by questions about what it meant, by people who didn’t understand the significance of my grief. Well, here we go. You asked for it.

As you may or may not know, I have been a lifelong devotee of DC Comics, a respected and powerful comics publisher since 1935 (you’ve surely heard of a few of their characters: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, et al). I never cared much for DC’s Johnny-come-lately competition, Marvel – call me naïve if you must, but as an eight year old child, I was always a bit more taken with Superman juggling the moon than with Spider-Man worrying about how he was going to pay his rent.

(Besides, Spider-Man is a fucking idiot. If you don’t believe me, pick a random week and read his eponymous newspaper strip, where you’re likely to find him, say, flying to Los Angeles but forgetting that he has his Spider-Man costume IN HIS CARRY-ON.)

Anyway, DC comics started the super-hero craze in 1938, with the publication of Action Comics #1, and the debut of Superman.

Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Hawkman, Green Lantern, and a slew of other costumed vigilantes followed in his wake, and lasted through about 1951, when the Golden Age of the superhero died out to be replaced by cowboys, giant gorillas, and sometimes, cowboys fighting giant gorillas.

So, super-heroes died down for a while, but then in 1956 DC decided to try and refurbish a few of their bigger second bananas from the 30’s and 40’s. Beginning with The Flash, and followed in quick succession by Green Lantern, the Atom, and Hawkman, they soon repopulated their fictional universe with heroes who shared the code-names of their Golden Age counterparts, but little else.

The problem, of course, was that the big guns, and a couple of small guns – Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Arrow, and my boy Aquaman – had NOT ceased publication for those few years. So, while you had a Flash with a different identity than that of the 1940’s Flash, you had a Superman who was STILL Clark Kent, a Batman who was STILL Bruce Waye, etc…who had interacted with the 1940’s characters and were now interacting with the new characters as well.

DC’s solution was to create a multiverse, and if you’re unfamiliar with quantum physics I’ll summarize: theoretically, an infinite number of universes could exists within the same space, but each universe would have its own unique vibrational rate, so the different universes couldn’t interact – unless, of course, you live in a comic book, in which case interacting with a parallel universe is as easy as flipping on a light switch.

The fun began with a meeting of the Flash with his 1940’s counterpart, which established the existence of Earth-1 (the “modern” Earth, where super-heroes had arisen fairly recently) and Earth-2 (the “Golden Age” Earth, where the heroes had arisen in World War II and were now nearing retirement).

Quick on the heels of that story came the first meeting between the Justice League of America (Earth-1) and the Justice Society of America (Earth-2), where it was established that while some heroes had counterparts that were clearly different people (Flash, Green Lantern), other heroes (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman) had counterparts who were nearly identical, except for the age difference. This led to several intriguing-but-barely-investigated story possibilities – for instance, the Earth-2 Batman retired, married Catwoman, and had a daughter who became a super-hero herself.

Internal consistency problem solved? No, for the parallel Earths conceit soon got out of hand. Earth – 3 was introduced, a world with no super-heroes, only super-villains. Earth-S was introduced to house Captain Marvel and company (you may know his better by his magic word, “Shazam”), characters acquired from the defunct Fawcett comics. Another set of acquisitions from Quality Comics (Plastic Man and friends) led to the creation of Earth-X, a world where the Nazis had won World War II. And so on.

For their fiftieth anniversary in 1985, the powers-that-be at DC comics decided that they were going to “clean house”, and did so with the 12-issue limited series Crisis on Infinite Earths (the title being an homage to what were then annual meetings between the Justice League and the Justice Society, which always had “Crisis” in the title).

The story, in short: A galactic villain, the Anti-Monitor, decides that all universes composed of positive matter (in other words, all universes) need to be destroyed, and so he sets about doing just that. A lot of hullabaloo ensues, involving every character that DC had ever published, and in the end all the superheroes travel back to the beginning of time and change history, so that instead of a multiple universes being created, only ONE universe was.

The resulting single Earth, in the present, is an amalgamation of the previously-parallel Earths, supposedly preserving the “best” of all realities: The Justice Society did fight during World War II, but without Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, who according to the new history had not debuted until the modern era.

The Anti-Monitor is finally destroyed by the last remaining “stragglers” from the multiverse, who didn’t fit in the new history: The Golden-Age Superman from Earth 2; Alexander Luthor (son of Earth-3’s Lex Luthor, that world’s first and only super-hero); and the Superboy of Earth Prime (Earth Prime being, supposedly, “our” Earth). Once the Anti-Monitor is disposed of, Alexander Luthor takes the stragglers (along with the Golden Age Lois Lane) off into some sort of ambiguous “paradise”, presumably never to be seen again.

Still with me? Because now is where the fun really begins. Everyone at DC comics circa 1985 apparently had their heads up their asses, or was on drugs, or something, because no one apparently thought ahead to how such a radical change of fictional history would affect the fictional universe as it moved forward. Their first editorial mandate was that all the super-heroes WOULD remember the pre-Crisis multiverse - but a few months later it was decided to revamp Superman, giving him a completely different origin and toned-down powers, and making him the only living survivor of the planet Krypton – which meant that he could not remember having once been MORE powerful, nor could he remember his cousin Supergirl, who had died with great fanfare during the Crisis itself. So, all of a sudden, NO ONE remembered their pre-Crisis life.

Which meant that for all intents and purposes, no story published in the previous fifty years had really "happened".

While the revamp of Superman still had him debuting “several years ago”, the revamp of Wonder Woman had her debuting concurrently with the present – meaning that she now debuted after her own teen sidekick, Wonder Girl.

Batman inexplicably became a psychopathic asshole, who despite hating everyone and everything, was still unwilling to put a bullet through the head of the mass-murdering Joker, who crippled Batgirl and murdered Robin.

Hawkman, who was shown in several post-crisis stories as the same lovable galoot with a mace that he had always been, all of a sudden was also shown to be debuting in the present…which meant that he was not only invalidating all his pre-crisis appearances, but several post-crisis ones as well.

Essentially, the advice to creators seemed to be that they could do whatever the hell they wanted, without worrying about how to explain it.

(For the record, I will here state that the concept of parallel Earths never gave me one iota of confusion, even as a young child – as evidenced by the fact that I have written up to this point without needing to surf the internet for reference).

Now, twenty years later, and with a whole slew of continuity nightmares on their hands, DC has decided to revisit the whole mess with Infinite Crisis, a 7-issue “sequel” (currently on issue 4). The whole DC line has apparently been gearing up for this for quite a while, with lots of intentional continuity screw-ups which will apparently be explained, and lots of bloody super-hero deaths, and an apparent avoidance of any post-crisis editorial lapses (in March, the entire line-up – every title DC publishes – will “jump ahead” one year, so that creators can have a fresh start without screwing things up).

Infinite Crisis, so far, has revealed that the Earth-2 Superman, Lois Lane, Alexander Luthor, and Earth Prime Superboy have been not in paradise, but someplace where they could observe the amalgamated Earth, and boy are they pissed! Most especially Superman, who feels that the modern heroes have strayed from the classic ideal and really made a mess of things. His plan is to somehow “re-do” the crisis, so that instead of Earth-1 being the template for the amalgamated Earth, it will be Earth-2.

Unfortunately for Supes, Alexander Luthor has some sort of other plan which has yet to be fully revealed, and he’s duped Superboy into being his patsy. In issue 4, for example, Superboy-Prime is sent out to talk to the current Superboy (who is not Superman as a boy, but rather a clone created while Superman was dead – still with me?) and ends up accidentally killing about ten people, by knocking their heads off, ripping off their arms, that sort of thing.

Whoopsie!

At the end of issue 4, Alexander Luthor succeeds in splitting the amalgamated Earth back into Earth-1 and Earth-2, though as I hinted earlier, that doesn’t seem to be the complete goal of his machinations (though Golden Age Superman thinks it is).

So, we’ll see. I can’t see how they could possibly put the genie back in the bottle at this point, because they’ve had a whole bunch of characters start remembering their pre-Crisis lives, and now there appear to be two Earths again, which I can’t imagine being an editorial goal, but the only way out of it is to do a universe-wide memory wipe again, which would sort of be a cop-out.

Oh, yeah, and poor Superboy.

Because no one asked...

2006-01-17T13:28:00.000-05:00

...here is a listing of all the DVDs I own.

Don't tell Jet, but including the wish list and all the bootleg DVDs, it's almost 600 items!

Since joining Netflix, I've cut way back on movie purchases, but I'm quite sure that someday I'll own DVD season sets of every television show I've ever liked in my whole life.

I mean, really, when something like THIS can be on the market, the sky's the limit.

Awwwwwwww !

2006-01-13T15:13:00.000-05:00

If it was still alive, I'd want to adopt it. Honest!

Denmark, Schmenmark

2006-01-13T14:33:00.000-05:00

Code Dependent has gently suggested that my obsession with Denmark be redirected northeast, to Norway, due in part to Filius Sororis' own obsession with Denmark's once-conjoined Northern neighbor.

I suppose my recently-discovered affections COULD be transferred with little trouble - after all, I have always liked the Norway pavillion at EPCOT (with one notable exceotion - see below).

The pros:

1) Vikings!

2) killer sweaters

3) An only slightly less-attractive Royal Family

4) I'll likely be performing a commissioned work by a Norwegian composer next year, and may be going there anyway, so I may as well get used to the idea

5) Norway pisses Condi Rice off like sweet little Denmark never could

The cons:

1) Norway claims a 100% literacy rate, but I have my doubts. As you know, I work at a major peer-reviewed scientific publication, and last year saw only 10 submissions from Norway, as opposed to 77 from Sweden, 63 from Denmark and 45 from Finland. Makes me think all the smart people are fleeing the country

2) The only actual person I've ever known from Norway is a dumbass, and mean

3) Norway's traditional Christmas dessert, "rice cream with red fruit sauce", looks like bloody vomit

4) Jet and I ate once at the Akershus in EPCOT's Norway pavillion. The waitress, who insisted on talking to us through our entire meal, had a voice that sounded like a dolphin squealing mixed with shattering glass

Well, so I guess my cons are a little superficial, hmmm?

Hulp, ben ik bezeten door het Deens!

2006-01-11T14:35:00.000-05:00

I can't explain it, so don't ask me - but I've been seized by a sudden and inescapable obsession with Denmark.

It's a little disconcerting, frankly. I don't care for Hans Chrisian Andersen stories, and I'm not even particularly fond of the breakfast pastries.

I'm not Danish, nor are any of my kin - and yet, even a cursory examination of the Rubble traditional dietary habits will reveal several curiously Danish-like elements such as kale, pickled herring, and slathering every sandwich with butter no matter what else goes on it.

I AM Lutheran, as are 96% of Danish nationals.

And I DO like Legos (product of Denmark!)

Perhaps it's the uniformly attractive Danish Royal Family (well, except for Princess Elizabeth - she looks as if she's been kept away from the public eye for quite some time.)

Or maybe it's my envy and admiration of Denmark's 100% literacy rate.

Whatever it is, I'm about through with it, so any advice on ridding myself of this compulsion is welcome.

Things I don't understand the appeal of

2006-01-10T15:44:00.000-05:00

Number 1: iPods

And the Oscar goes to...

2006-01-09T15:24:00.000-05:00

....Heath Ledger, if there's any justice in the world.

Which there isn't, so it probably won't.

So, yes, we've seen Brokeback Mountain, and...well....

Feh. Not the best, not the worst movie I've ever seen. Towards the "best" end, I just don't seem to be as crazy about it as everyone else in America. Even though I cried at the end.

I also cry at the end of The Color Purple, even though I've seen it a billion times, and aven though it's completely manipulative, and even if the last five minutes is ALL I WATCH.

Anyway, I digress...

If you've already seen the movie, go ahead and highlight the missing text below to see what I think. If not, just skip ahead, and if you choose to highlight anyway don't blame me for spoiling anything.

First of all, Brokeback is NOT about "gay cowboys" as 1) there are no COWS in the entire movie, and 2) neither of the leading characters ever self-identifies as gay.

Second of all, I suppose that what keeps me from giving it a glowing review is the fact that these two men are irresistably drawn to each other over the course of twenty years, at the expense of their families and careers, and the payoff seems to be getting drunk and having hot gay sex. Now, I'm not one to pass on either, but there's more to romance than THAT. I wanted to see a little more of what made them SO in love with each other.

In short, I came away feeling that if they HAD been able to be together, it wouldn't have worked out very well.

Plus Jack Twist was a cheater.

Plus Heath Ledger has a weird chest hair pattern. Kind of like he spread Elmer's glue on his chest and rolled around on some SOS pads.

Plus this picture of Heath Ledger naked is nowhere to be seen in the whole movie!

But that's just my take.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
High school dropout-turned-Nostradamus scholar John Hogue has issued his predictions for 2006. Fascinating, prescient, ridiculous, or a logical extension of current events - depending on your point of view.

I just wish he'd get an editor. Valerie PALME?

Tina! Bring me the axe!

2006-01-06T15:54:00.000-05:00

More on Mother Rubble - family lore records that, at age 2, riding the train from Columbus to Louisville, she sat on Joan Crawford's lap (what Joan Crawford was doing in Columbus OR Louisville remains a mystery).

What is a bigger mystery is how an idea that LSBB had never occured to me, being that I can quote any line from "Mommie Dearest" on command, like a drop-the-needle Music History test. In LSBB's boredom-induced fantasy, Baby Mother Rubble was actually adopted by Joan Crawford, instead of Baby Cristina, and this alternate Mother Rubble grew up hating the dirt and not Helga.

At this moment, LSBB is working up an impersonation of Mother Rubble doing all of Cristina's lines from Mommie Dearest, surely the best movie since...oh, Girls Will Be Girls, or The Best of Everything. When it's perfected, I'll see if I can't attach a sound clip.

The continuing ballad(s) of Frito Joe

2006-01-05T13:11:00.000-05:00

So, today I discovered that a co-worker, who apparently has even more time on her hands than I do, has developed a whole Frito Joe mythology with which to delight her family and friends. I had wondered why she was CONSTANTLY pressing me for juicy, antic-filled stories of Frito Joe's mischievous behavior, but hadn't imagined that she would use them to craft a whole little Frito Joe-centric world for herself. Not unlike what Jet and I do with grocery store clerks.

Frito Joe, incidentally, snuck out of the house last night at 3 am, to eat cat shit.

Happy Birthday to Mother Rubble, 77 and still going strong. (I'd say she's over the moon with glee, except I'd be afraid of causing offense. Long story. Suffice it to say she's probably visited this page once or twice.)

Here she is in her glory days as Head of Archery at Grandview Heights High School, 1947. (Which she has no memory of - I asked.)

Now for a couple of thumbnail reviews of the year's most anticipated films:

Narnia: Perfection. I was crying from beginning to end, it was so perfect. Go see it at once, and plan to spend the day and see it several times in succession.

King Kong: Sucks, and sucks hard. Really cut me to the quick, as I was waiting for it all year long. I LOVED Lord of the Rings (well, up until the giggly slo-mo pillow fight scene) but never imagined that Peter Jackson would deliver such a leaden monstrosity ( pun intended).

And I mean, really - Jack Black? Was EVERY OTHER CHARACTER ACTOR IN HOLLYWOOD busy?

Naomi Watts and Jamie Bell escape with their dignity, just.

Bareback Mounting (tee hee): Haven't seen it yet, will go this weekend, but I have to admit to a great deal of trepidation. I mean, having exposed the undercurrent of homoeroticism inherent in ALL male adventure fiction, and taken it to its logical conclusion, what's left for us poor little gay boys who love to watch Westerns and War films and Gladiator movies and professional wrestling SOLELY to pick up all the gay subtext? It seems to me that Brokeback has kind of spoiled things forever! Well, I suppose I'll see.

Speaking of gay subtext, I leave you with a book recommendation: The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson by Robert Hofler. PLENTY of delicious fifties' Hollywood gay gossip. Don't miss the revelations about Guy Madison and Rory Calhoun, you won't be sorry!

I hereby resolve...

2006-01-04T14:58:00.000-05:00

Okay, I’m back. With a New Year's resolution (only three days late!)– I will post something, every day, no matter how senseless or banal. Happy now? So stop bugging me already!

A brief catch-up:

November: started kitchen renovations, JUST in time for Thanksgiving. Spent a lot of time standing around acting incompetent, and handing Jet ...oh, what are those things that men use to fix things...oh, yeah, tools. Major contribution: insisiting that the color scheme be this and this to go along with the Jet-chosen this and this.

Thanksgiving: Finished the kitchen in the knick of time and welcomed Jub Jub for a few days, as well as Penelope Pitstop and her husband Hairy James, and Penelope's father, who Jet has a crush on. Hopes for a romantic pairing between Jub Jub and Mr. Pitstop fell through, sadly.

December: Worked too hard in too many different places and got cranky and jaded.

Christmas: Welcomed Mother Rubble for a nice long visit, and tried to work through the crankiness with varying amounts of success.

Gifts: The next two volumes in The Complete Peanuts, which held a surprising revelation for me, given that I am a fan of both Peanuts and long-forgotten characters: the long-forgotten Peanuts character Charlotte Braun.

Jet got everything his heart desired, only he didn't know it until he got it, because he doesn't care about presents one single bit, so it's up to me to decide what he wants, and then get it. (Okay, so it's maybe not EVERYTHING his heart desired, but it was three seasons of Northern Exposure on DVD, secured at a remarkable discount, so it's a start.)

January: Went to New Year's Day party at the home of FitzJames and Kitten, where Mother Rubble not only sat at the piano and sang "Won't You Come Home Bill Bailey", but also her signature song, "Low and Lonely". The only dowwnside was the presence of the odious Mr. R, who has only four topics of conversation:

1) How much money he has

2) How many famous people he knows

3) How many houses he owns

4) Las Vegas

Mr. R. is some sort of representative for the Las Vegas Visitor's Bureau, or something as well as a progessional male escort who squires old women around because their husbands don't want to be botehred with them. He also manages to make racist comments, even though his partner is black. Odious, I tell you.

So, then, all caught up. Tomorrow – movie reviews! (but if you just can't wait another single second, go here and raise my Amazon reviewer rank.)

Dogs in Costumes

2005-11-04T11:48:00.000-05:00

So, Niece Ratchet thinks we are turning into those creepy kind of people who dress up their dogs for each season and parade them around the shopping malls and such.

She adds, "Well, at least it's not cats."

Steve Klein is my new best friend

2005-10-21T08:41:00.000-05:00

From the Raleigh-Durham News & Observer:

Homosexuality is very complex behavior; it appears in every generation, in every culture and in many species besides our own. It can't be a product of evolution because homosexuals don't reproduce. Homosexuality must be a product of Intelligent Design.

Steve Klein
Raleigh

Grill of my dreams, part 2

2005-10-05T10:20:00.000-05:00

For those keeping breathless track of these sorts of things, LSBB has successfully completed "Phase 1" of her oral reconstruction, which apparently involves filing her teeth down into pointy nubs so that a wax representation of her eventual new teeth can be fitted over. Something like this:

More horror stories from the dentist's chair to come!

Phil 'er up

2005-10-05T10:12:00.000-05:00

My prayers have been answered at last: idiotic hayseed blowhard Dr. Phil is finally going to get his comeuppance. Seems his “ultimate weight-loss solution”, which involves not only diet and exercise, but $120/month worth of pills, DOESN’T WORK.

Which should have been patently obvious to everyone, since he and his moon-faced not-a-teen son are STILL FAT.

Well, at least he has berating the psychologically weak, offering them no solutions, and terrorizing his wife to fall back on.

Oh, and speaking of terrorizing, I suppose I’m behind the times in announcing that mumbly-mouthed actor Nicholas Cage has successfully ruined his infant son’s life by naming him Kal-El, which is as many of you will know, Superman’s Kryptonian name.

Incidentally, Mr. Cage Senior speaks fluent Klingon, but failed high school French.

Okay, I made that last part up. The only benefit I see for Mr. Cage Junior is that Apple Paltrow will have someone to hang out with on the playground.

As I write (October 5, 2005, 9:55 am) a mysterious package has been found at the White House. What’s the mystery? I could have told them – it’s a rolled up sock.

You've HAD it, Noxley

2005-09-21T13:53:00.000-05:00

Ned Noxley, who walks by my desk at least five times a day, yet has never smiled, made eye contact or said hello even though I have worked here for A YEAR AND A HALF, has waited until I start a diet to reveal that his "roommate" works at a bakery, and is apparently compelled to bring home all the leftover baked goods at the end of every day, which Noxley then brings to work (as it's patently obvious that he, himself, hasn't eaten a baked good in about 25 years).

He then sends out cheery e-mails with the subject line "Baked goods for all in the Meetings Dept!", meaning that to AVOID the temptation of sweet, delicious baked goods, I have to take the LONG way to get to the restroom or the elevators or anywhere else I need to go!

And then, today, the last straw: sending NO email warning, and simply placing the sweet, delicious baked goods in the kitchen, where I HAVE to go to get my sugar-free Jell-o cups and calorie-free water.

Damn you, Noxley.

Well, a word to the wise: if you're going to mess with me, and prance around not being friendly, maybe you should make sure there are no pictures floating around the internet of you being sold at a gay bachelor auction.

Oh, and PS - I know how old you are. You may think you've cheated the reaper by casting off all your free baked goods, but you're not fooling ME.

Oh, and PPS - you have the same name as my DOG, dude.

Grill of my dreams

2005-09-21T13:26:00.000-05:00

So, LSBB, who has been complaining about her teeth for years (thinking they make her look ugly, which they DON'T) is finally to have them all shined up and/or replaced. I'm not exactly clear on the precise procedure, but I'm sure it involves needles and plaster, so I'm keeping myself ignorant of the details. She's certain her problems stem from our childhood visits to Dr. Eldritch, the Nazi orthodontist, who would clasp his hands together in glee when she would arrive for her check-up and say "Its time to tighten zee braces!", and then there would be a thunder clap in the distance (of course, I never had any problem, as my teeth straightened into textbook perfection with only eight months in braces and have remained perfect to this very day). At any rate, LSBB's teeth, in a few short days, will be transformed from this:

to THIS....

In other news, the National Enquirer is reporting that President Bush is drinking again. Thank God. Maybe things'll start to look up.

Can I get a little Aqua-Love?

2005-09-20T15:53:00.000-05:00

Have you ever been next to someone who smelled so strongly of being unwashed that the smell stayed with you long after the person was gone? Well, if not, you should be sure and go to a comic book convention next time one rolls through your town, as I did last Saturday.

Lest you mock, be aware that I will brook no jesting, and have been looking forward to said event for two years, since I had to skip last year. So there.

The first time I went, I had a pitiful little twenty dollars to spend, and so bought my first black-market bootleg DVD, Song of the South. This time around, I came armed with plenty of dough, as well as a carefully-researched list of things I wanted and how much they cost on eBay, so I didn’t overspend in the heady rush of seeing real items in front of my eyes.

So, first to the bootleg DVDs, which I’m now careful to limit to things I’m certain will NEVER be released commercially:

The Banana Splits (the complete 1968 series)
Jason of Star Command
Supergrass (a British movie with Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French)
Pufnstuf, the Movie (with special guest star Mama Cass as Witch Hazel)
Three unreleased super-hero tv pilots (Aquaman, Power Pack, and the Human Target starring Rick Springfield)
And, for Jet: Captain Eo, the special edition

Then, on over to the comics side of the hall to pick up a ton of Adventure and Aquaman comics, bringing me ever closer to my lifelong goal of owning every 1970’s appearance of Aquaman ever.

Pardon?

Because 1970’s Aquaman rules, punk, and I won’t hear anything against him.

Now, if by “1970’s Aquaman” you think I’m talking about the lame-ass, emasculated fool on Superfriends who’s primary skill seemed to be riding a jet ski and sending small schools of perch to attack nuclear subs and the like, then you’ve got another think coming. Unfortunately, the powers-that-be (also know as Time-Life-Warner-AOL, or whatever the hell it’s called now), who seem to own every cartoon character EVER, have done little to correct this impression of Aquaman. Rather, they seem to have bought into it themselves, and have struggled fruitlessly to re-invent Aquaman for a cool, hip audience, instead of just going back to what worked just fine for, oh, about 35 years.

Don’t get me wrong - by “worked”, I don’t mean that Aquaman was ever a sales dynamo, nor is he ever likely to be. He is, after all, sort of limited by his environment (as LSBB remarks, “How much crime could there be underwater?”) nonetheless, he was a good, solid, dependable secondary character, who headlined his own feature through the “dark ages” of the early 1950’s (when Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and fellow second-stringer Green Arrow were then only other survivors), he had his own pre-Superfriends cartoon show, and his wife even had her own "Super-Queen Posin' Doll".

Yes, wife, for Aquaman was the first of the super-hero set to marry his long-time girlfriend, Mera. Mera was the queen of an inter-dimensional water world who forsook her throne in order to marry Aquaman and help him fight crime. She had the ability to make water hard (among other things, one would presume - rrrrrrowl!) and shape it into giant fists and battering rams and....well, yeah, that's pretty much it.

My presumption is that Aquaman hurried the wedding along to quell rumors about he and Aqualad, a purple-eyed Atlantean orphan that Aquaman had taken in years earlier. Poor kid always looked a little fey to me, despite the presence of his “girlfriend”, Aquagirl

Mera and Big A had a baby (wait for it…….Aquababy) who was later killed by Aquaman’s arch-foe Black Manta (a family death...another first!) Once Aquababy died, all bets were off. The powers-that-be set off on their ill-advised coarse of making Aquaman “hip” and “relevant” by:

Driving Mera crazy, having her try and kill Aquaman, and then sending her back to her own dimension
Having Aquagirl drown to death in a toxic chemical spill
Having Aqualad grow up, become a sorcerer, and change his name to “Tempest”, and get a new costume that still made him look like a fag
Revealing that Aquaman had an illegitimate Eskimo son who inexplicably has Mera’s hard-water powers
Having Aquaman get his hand chewed off by a school of piranhas, replace his lost hand with a harpoon, grow a beard (and sometimes chest hair, depending on the artist - a bright spot in a sea of bad ideas) and wear armor
Having Aquaman have an affair with a human-dolphin hybrid, who then had an affair with Tempest, who impregnated her
Having Aquaman get a new hand made of water, and wear some of Abba's old stage outfits

Currently on the comics scene, Aquaman has put his orange shirt back on, and protects the city of Sub Diego (previously San Diego, only now it’s submerged in the Pacific Ocean. Yeah, I think it sounds stupid, too.)

But, I have my seventies’ comics, and that’s just fine.

The wonderful world of Nature

2005-09-20T10:30:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm not sure how wonderful it is. If this had fallen onto my head, instead of into our water feature, I might be dead now, or at least in the nuthouse:

What the hell kind of butterfly is THAT going to turn into? Mothra?

And just because I can, here are Dino and Frito Joe (photos courtesy Floozy Flingland, whose shapely gams can be seen if you look hard)

So, I guess Jet and I are high-falutin' bourgeoisie now, as we have a private trainer coming to the cave tonight to knock some sense into Frito Joe. Not that he's all THAT bad - but, when he was found chewing on the new area rug, that had been bought to replace the area rug he had ALREADY destroyed, we thought maybe something should be done. Oh, and I guess I'd prefer my underwear not be taken out of the laundry basket and drug around the backyard. Every day. Sometimes more than once.

Gee, Dubya

2005-09-16T14:23:00.000-05:00

So, Bush's National Day of Prayer, and a Presidential service at the National Cathedral. I had to get up at o-dark-thirty to be at the Cathedral in plenty of time to sit around and wait for two hours til I could be escorted through security.

As for the service itself, once it finally started, I must grudgingly admit it was actually nice, and appropriate. I've been trying to think of something to be catty and bitchy about, but I'm having trouble.

Okay, I'll be a little catty - I sang a solo, and while I was singing, the only person in the Presidential party (Dubya and Pickles, Dick and Lynn, Condi, Rummy and Gonzo) that looked like he was enjoying himself was RUMMY.

Dubya looked up and smirked, I'm not sure if that meant he liked what he heard or not.

Condi, throughout, looked like she was absorbing everything for later regurgitation on an exam.

Dick, as always, looked like he crapped his pants and has been sitting in it for about an hour.

Laura has fresh blond highlights, and looks like she's had her face pulled back and stapled from behind.

Lynn, also, looked a little pinched. But I suppose I can't blame her, if she has to wake up next to Dick every morning.

Gonzo - well, he's short, and he was behind Lynn, so I couodn't see too much of him. I WILL report that he was the only one to cross humself at the end of the service.

Anyway, I digress... Bush spoke and sounded almost like a Democrat. One memorable line: "As we clear away the debris of a hurricane, let us also clear away the legacy of inequality." This, after a sermon (I can't remember the guy's name, but certainly he must have been hand-picked by Bush) that dealt with the story of the Good Samaritan, and spent a long time talking about how we, as Americans, must reach out to those less advantaged and raise them up to a level where they have a fighting chance.

I was seated behind Bush during his remarks, so I couldn't see him, but I was struck that his delivery sounded uncharacteristically natural and un-stilted...he didn't stammer, and only once did he say "drowned" when he meant "drown". If I believed that his policies would be in accordance with the words he spoke today (I don't), I would ALMOST be tempted to vote for him.

Geez, I feel dirty for saying that.

Well, pigs DO fly after all

2005-09-13T13:05:00.000-05:00

So, after two weeks of doing everything possible to shift blame, and scolding others for trying to assign blame, President Bush finally takes responsibility for something.

Too bad his empty words mean nothing to dead people, and very little to those who know he's a pathological liar, a puppet of his handlers, and a dry drunk.

I'm just sayin'.

See you in church on Friday, Dubya!

If you get Raptured, can I have your car?

2005-09-09T15:36:00.000-05:00

Right on schedule, the Baptists are falling all over themselves to blame Katrina on the gays.

This, despite the fact that the only area of New Orleans left relatively untouched is the French Quarter - WHICH IS WHERE ALL THE GAYS ARE.

Speaking of, I'll be singing at the President's Katrina Prayer Service next Friday. I'll have a full, snarky report. Watch this space!

Nero Fiddling, part II

2005-08-31T13:27:00.000-05:00

President Bush "surveys hurricane damage in New Orleans" from the antiseptic confines of Air Force One.

Frito Joe-Iraq explained!

2005-08-31T08:46:00.000-05:00

See, Frito Joe is Iraq, and I'm the United States, and.....ummmm......well, it made sense to me when I was half-asleep, shuffling down the hallway.

Natural Disaster? Check. Dumbass Fundamentalist Explanation? Check.

2005-08-31T08:36:00.000-05:00

The following comes from Salon.com. Words fail.

We knew this was coming. Two days after 9/11, Jerry Falwell took to the airwaves to proclaim that God had allowed the United States to be attacked because "the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians" had tried to transform America into a secular society. Just this weekend, wingnuts from the Westboro Baptist Church turned out at the funerals of two fallen soldiers to say that God is punishing the United States in Iraq for its tolerance of homosexuality back home. So when Hurricane Katrina hit land yesterday, we knew it was only a matter of time before we'd be hearing from the lunatic fringe again. And now, here it is. In an e-mail message we just received, a group calling itself Columbia Christians for Life alerts us to the fact that a satellite image of Hurricane Katrina as it hit the Gulf Coast Monday looks just like a six-week-old fetus.

"The image of the hurricane ... with its eye already ashore at 12:32 p.m. Monday, August 29, looks like a fetus (unborn human baby) facing to the left (west) in the womb, in the early weeks of gestation (approx. 6 weeks)," the e-mail message says. "Even the orange color of the image is reminiscent of a commonly used pro-life picture of early prenatal development." And in case you're not getting the point, the e-mail message spells it out in black and white: "Louisiana has 10 child-murder-by-abortion centers," the groups says, and "five are in New Orleans."

But why would God single out Louisiana? Other states have many more abortion clinics, and Louisiana and the other states hit hardest by Katrina all voted for the pro-life president of the United States. It didn't add up for us at first, but the Columbia Christians for Life have an answer for everything. God has already punished California with earthquakes, forest fires and mudslides; New York with 9/11; and Florida with Hurricanes Bonnie, Charley, Frances, Ivan, Jeanne and the early version of Katrina.

Umm....maybe my weather nerd roots are showing, but....doesn't EVERY hurricane pretty much look like a fetus?

Nero Fiddling While the Big Easy Drowns

2005-08-30T14:23:00.000-05:00

He can't meet with the mother of a fallen soldier....

2005-08-30T12:29:00.000-05:00

...but he has time to fucking call a cartoon character?!?

Thanks for the comments, assh*oles

2005-08-30T12:25:00.000-05:00

Well, that's it. The blogosphere is ruined.

Click on the "Comments" to "The Ballad of Frito Joe: Part II". I'll wait.

Spam Comments!!! What the *!&@%?

The Ballad of Frito Joe, Part II: An Iraq Analogy

2005-08-30T10:32:00.000-05:00

Our beagle puppy dog, Frito Joe, is a bundle of trouble. Has a mind of his own. Wild. We got him, and insisted on keeping him, against our own and others’ better judgment. But now, he’s ours, and we’ve accepted the responsibility for raising him up to be a good boy.

Frito Joe is crate-trained, and sleeps in his kennel all night. The trouble is, my partner and I wake up at 7 am. Frito Joe wakes up at 6. Wakes up whining. A soul-piercing whine, that cannot be blocked out by closed doors and roaring fans.

For the past several weeks, we’ve held our ground, determined that Frito Joe would stay in his kennel until 7 am, no matter how much he whined, because that’s what WE wanted him to do. No matter how much discomfort and sleeplessness it caused us, we were bound and determined that he would stay in that kennel until 7 am, because we were in charge, and that was the way we wanted it, and that was that.

Until this morning.

Worn down by the relentless, soul-piercing whine, I gave in. I shuffled into the living room at 6 am, and let Frito Joe out of his kennel, expecting that I would either have to remain awake, vigilant, keeping him out of trouble, or that I would go back to bed and wake up an hour later and find the house chewed to bits.

So what happened?

Frito Joe followed me back to bed, climbed in with me, and slept silent and motionless at my feet until 7. We both won.

Well done, Sister Suffragette

2005-08-26T14:08:00.000-05:00

Happy Birthday, Women’s Vote! Yes, 85 five years ago today, the fairer sex gained the ability to have their vote ignored just like the men! Or something like that. I was always taught to the test, so I’m a little hazy on the details. And, as many of you know, I get all my news from conspiratorial websites, the Today Show, and the Style section of the Washington Post. And the Style section’s on shaky ground, since I really only read the comics therein, and the comics are starting to freak me out a little. See, it’s coming up on Blondie’s 75th anniversary, and apparently a gaggle of comic strip creators got together (i.e., were ordered by King Features Syndicate) to help the old gal celebrate. So, for about two months now, Blondie and her dimwitted husband Dagwood have been planning their “anniversary” party, and now, suddenly, there seems to be some sort of comics page-wide conspiracy to make sure the point is not lost on anyone. The chain of events, as I’ve seen them thus far:

Blondie and Dagwood start planning their anniversary
Blondie and Dagwood start sending out party invitations
In his own strip, Garfield and his creepy asexual owner Jon receive an invitation to the party, hand-delivered by Dagwood

The King of Id, in HIS own strip, receives a Dagwood sandwich

Now we begin the even-more-blatant cross-marketing, which to my mind is a bit disconcerting, especially if you’re reading the comics while sitting on the toilet, having had too much to drink the night before:

Dagwood appears, playing poker, with the fellas over in Beetle Bailey

Hagar the Horrible appears alongside Dagwood in Dagwood’s barber shop

Grimm the Dog is caught drinking out of Blondie and Dagwood’s toilet

Dagwood introduces the King of Id to his boss, Mr. Dithers

And, in perhaps the most disturbing scene of all (yes, even more disturbing than Dagwood taking a 12th-Century VIKING MARAUDER to his barber…) The cats from Mutts are looking for a pink sock in their own strip, and CONTINUE LOOKING FOR THE SAME SOCK IN BLONDIE’S LAUNDRY BASKET.

I mean, it’s a nice idea and all, but through all this cute cross-promotion, it has become obvious that every comic strip character is aware that they are, in fact, comic strip characters, and not real people. Which instantly diminishes their ability to offer pithy social commentary. Thank God Doonesbury and Opus haven’t gotten mixed up in it. YET. I shudder to imagine what the next two weeks will bring.

I’m sure no one’s much interested in exploring the history of the venerable Blondie franchise, but since I make it my business to know such things, and I’ve nothing else to do, I’ll run down the highlights:

Blondie (Maiden name: Boopadoop – subtle, huh?) began life in 1930 as one of a slew of “flapper-girl” comic strips popular at the time. Blondie was a not-so-bright gal from the wrong side of the tracks, who somehow fell in with the bumbling and not-too-attractive Dagwood Bumstead, playboy son of railroad tycoon J. Bolling Bumstead. Soon, Dagwood became her steady beau, just as the Depression was really getting going and people started not-so-much cottoning to the wacky adventures of a billionaire playboy. So, under threat of disinheritance, and after a 28-day hunger strike, Dagwood decided to make Blondie an honest woman. Now they were poor and on their and struggling to make a living, just like the rest of America. Ta-da!

Children soon followed: Alexander nee "Baby Dumpling", followed by Cookie - apparently, giving your child a hooker's name wasn't such a big deal back in the day. Contrary to comics tradition, these children actually aged (until they became uncharacteristically polite and helpful teenagers, where they have been stuck for years) and the sanitized strip has gamely tried to keep up with “modern” life (Blondie now owns her own business, Dagwood is a webmaster, and the couple have been to marriage counseling!)

Their popularity reached its zenith beginning in 1939, with a series of 28 “Blondie” films starring Arthur Lake and Penny Singleton, and featuring early film appearances of Rita Haworth and William Frawley. The films are pleasant in an unremarkable, formulaic, slapstickian “Little Rascals” way. Arthur Lake went on to portray Dagwood in a subsequent TV series, to his eternal delight I’m sure. Singleton was pegged as a commie in the witch hunts of the 50’s; nonetheless she went on to become the vice president of the American Guild of Variety Artists, the voice of Jane Jetson, and to make a fortune off residuals from reruns of “Blondie” movies, since she had been prescient enough to invent the concept of residuals, coin the phrase, and have it written into her contract. Right on, sister!

But, Uh-Oh, Those Summer Nights

2005-08-22T14:12:00.000-05:00

You may know that I love Lucy. You may also know that I love Jesus. But I NEVER would have thought of combining my loves into one ludicrous whole. Speaking of loving Lucy, I guess I’m not the only one, as she’s just been voted most popular dead celebrity. One would guess that much of that popularity rests on the success of her classic sitcoms, all of which aired prior to 1975. Following this logic, one could surmise that most people under, say, 25 or so, would ONLY know Lucy from reruns of those classic shows. So why, I ask you, did CNN decide to honor the occasion with what I can only imagine is the WORST photo ever taken of the poor dear.

I suppose I’m backfrom my self-imposed exile, having had someone threaten the nuclear option, i.e. deleting my link from their favorites list. (Floozy Flingland, the dear heart, who moved away last weekend to a glorious new positin in Bremerhaven. So, for HER, here I am.) I have no excuse for being away so long, since I sit at this desk every day, stretching our 45 minutes of work into eight hours, but let’s just say I was overcome by the languid malaise of summer and leave it at that, hmmm?

Plus, I keep thinking, “Oh, today I’ll make some sort of superficial pithy comment on the political climate, and everyone will titter, and on we’ll go with our lives.” But honestly, pithiness doesn’t seem to quite do it anymore. I’m so angry and depressed and outraged every time I hear something about President Bush, I could just scream. Honest. I really think there’s something desperately wrong with our country, and I’m not sure exactly what can be done about it. Ideas welcome.

And don't get me started on James Dobson (who is of the devil) and his advice on raising a non-homosexual son. Apparently it's as simple as showing your little one an adult male penis!

Speaking of Bush, click here if you want to see Jenna’s (warning – mature content!) I SHOULD feel bad about passing this sort of thing on, but she talked all the way through her father’s inaugural worship service, and my solo, so she deserves it. Plus she’s a filthy drunk.

So, summer….as you may know, the performing work pretty much grinds to a halt over the summer, and Jet and I have lots more free time to play with. The problem is, I have some sort of psychological disorder (I suspect OCD, or schizophrenia) that prevents me from relishing in relaxation. I always think I should be doing something productive, and when I’m not, I feel guilty and anxious. Often I think I could relieve the anxiety by distracting myself with something, but every distraction I think of seems woefully inadequate. So I just end up doing nothing, and THEN I feel guilty because I’ve wasted xxx number of hours. What the flip? Jet has it too, so I know it’s not just a psychological disorder that makes me THINK I have a psychological disorder. Not to imply that we don’t have SOME fun.

Frito Joe, I’m occasionally happy to say, is still with us. But, Lord Jesus, the chewing. We’ve so far replaced one area rug and six throw pillows that were victims of his indiscriminate gnawing. Oh, and a container of Bath & Body Works Satsuma Lip Balm, and a bottle of Visine. And several pair of socks, which we are usually able to track down easily. I sometimes have to retrieve my sweatpants or underwear from the backyard as well.

In July, Jet and I went south to see our respective families, and spend a relaxing week in the Florida hot. Mother Rubble plans meals years in advance, so there was plenty to eat, and we finally got hip to the idea that, if people want to see us, they have to come to US, and not make us drive all over creation. Worked like a charm.

Code Dependent joined us on the trip back, and stayed a spell before joining Mr. Dependent and Lil’ Dependent in West Virginian wilderness, where her father-in-law, Poopdeck Pappy, owns a vast tract of property and a country chateau. Her report from the front:

Thursday was spent going to the Wal-Mart in Lewisburg, an hour or so each way. We did the grocery shopping and came home and I cooked dinner.

Friday we actually got out and about on the property, found property lines, visited some neighbors and did some target shooting up in the woods. Lil’ Dependent is a very good shot and I am not bad either. His big project was knocking a dead tree down by shooting at the trunk until he knocked enough of the wood away that it fell. (Took till Sunday.)

Friday evening, Mr. Dependent and I got back to the house at around 7:30 from visiting neighbors and Poopdeck Pappy (who had stayed at home) called us into the living room to tell us "something important." He said,"Mrs. Dependent, I've decided to throw a party tomorrow night for the neighborhood that you will hostess. We'll have hot dogs, hamburgers, slaw and beans and you can go to the store with Debbie (a 40-something booze hound that lives down the road who helped with Mrs. Poopdeck and now stays around to do his laundry, as he cannot operate the washer, take him to the store, as he cannot drive, and plot ways to cheat his heirs out of his estate when he dies) and get everything you need.”

So, Saturday was spent getting all that together. Went pretty well, considering. I foolishly purchased beer along with the soft drinks and no one drank any as they were all "too religious". Luckily, Debbie thought to go to the community center and get the big drink coolers for some lemonade and sweet tea. Funniest conversation of the night was when I was talking to a 70-ish woman, Marm Porterfield. I asked where she lived and she told me which house in the valley was hers. Then she said,"My husband died in December, so I've lived alone since then. My daughter lives in the valley and I have a son up in Covington he's married to a black girl we just love her they've been married 18 years she's his third wife but she's the best one and we just love her." Wonder if he ever brings her down to visit. Funniest name in the valley: Sonny Loony, the used car salesman. (Wouldn't he just about have to be?)

Poopdeck has this hired hand, John, who is kept busy building stone bridges and trying to control the flow of water that comes rushing off the mountain whenever it rains. He is a nice enough feller- seems honest, is grateful for the work and seems to have a good
deal of respect for Poopdeck. He is about 23, I think, (very easy on the eyes as
well!) Brought his wife, who looks about 16, and two of his FIVE children to
the party (she is his third wife- everyone seems to have been married more than onc't). Anyway, Mr. Dependent was talking to John just before we left yesterday, to ask him to keep an eye on the Debbie situation and call collect if he had any suspicion that she might be preparing to stab the elder Achor while he sleeps. Mr. Dependent asked if there was anyone else in the valley who might help out with household chores and John said, "Well
thar's that one woman who was at the party, Marie. You know, she came with her
mama, has dark hair and glasses- looks like she's never been married."

We finally figured out that "looks like she's never been married" must be
valley speak for lesbian.

Jet, after years and years of worry, has finally found a new job that will secure the happiness of us all. I’d tell you more, but he hasn’t actually STARTED yet….I’ll wait and see if he likes it before I get snarky about it.

My own job has been a flurry of activity with hirings and firings – I figure I’m safe as long as Bossman keeps telling me WHO’S getting fired before it happens. Last to go was Miss Mousy, who spoke so quickly and quietly I often had to ask her to repeat herself several times, even if she was standing right next to me. Except when Bossman was gone. Then she would scream obscenities into the phone, or to the computer, or just into the air for all I know. Word has it that Zynthia is next to go, as she was asked during her evaluation not to make personal calls all day long, and responded with a potty-mouthed memo cc’d to every department head in the company. Then asked for a month off.

I, of course, continue to be a model employee, despite spending most of my day surfing the internet.

Jet and I read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince the very SECOND it came out (okay, we chickened out and didn’t go to the bookstore at midnight, but we went the next day.) In the unlikely event that there’s anyone who really cares about such things that hasn’t finished the book yet, here are my predictions for the next book. Highlight the area below:

Dumbledore IS dead, and Snape DID kill him, but he was ordered to, by Dumbledore. Snape is still on the side of good.

Harry’s scar is a horcrux, but Voldemort doesn’t know it. V. thinks there are only six horcurxes, but there are seven (Harry’s scar is the seventh) and it will somehow contribute to V.’s ultimate defeat.

Snape is the half-brother of Harry’s mother. His birth name is Esperus Evans (which, when the letters are jumbled, becomes Severus Snape). That’s why he regrets calling Lily a mudblood, and why he is protecting Harry. Oh, and he was also present when Harry’s parents were killed.

Remember these, because if any of them are true I want royalties.

Spent last weekend at LSBB’s, where Mother Rubble was visiting, and a lovely time was had by all (except, possibly, LSBB, who had a houseful of messy people, and two pair of flip-flops ruined by Frito Joe.) Had a great deal of fun thinking up imaginary horrible food with which to torment
the children, Peeps and Ragu Too - among them Coconut Shrimp Blizzard, French Onion Soupcicles, and V8 Roll-Ups.

And Code Dependent was back briefly this weekend, to do a quick and dirty recording job. The producers and arranger were, naturally enough, wowed by her professionalism and talent, so much so that they called Jet and I to come on up and do some small backup things – and then, when they heard US, had us re-record some things that had already been recorded by a lesser singer. Tee hee, superiority is fun!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I’ve found a new hobby, writing bitchy reviews on Amazon. I'm hoping if enough of you go there and vote for me, I'll win a prize - like, my whole wish list. I promise I'll share!

That's all, I think. While you wait for me to inevitable disappoint you again, go join the evolution vs. creationism debate, here and here. Ta ta!

The Ballad of Frito Joe

2005-06-15T15:42:00.000-05:00

Well, okay, I’ll come back. Stop complaining! CodeDependent thinks I’m afraid of success, and since I’m so universally popular, I’m hiding my light under a bushel. Hmmmmph. I prefer to think that the news, and every thing that I could conceivably comment on, is so obviously stupid already that it’s hard for me to make snarky comments to point out how stupid it is.

So, a couple of brief tidbits:

I, nor anyone in my immediate circle, cared who Deep Throat was. And we’re all awfully depressed that the free press that existed thirty years ago during Watergate is nothing but an historic relic. If you’ve been watching or reading the mainstream press, you probably don’t know that Rep. Conyers will be holding a hearing tomorrow to raise questions about the Downing Street Memo, which proves that President Bush intended to invade Iraq all along, and lied to the American people. Since Terri Schiavo’s autopsy results are in, and Michael Jackson has been found not guilty, there is a SLIM chance that you will hear about this tomorrow, but don’t forget – there’s still a missing white woman in Aruba, and the media LOVES missing white women! If she’s found tonight or tomorrow, you can bet that’ll carry the news through Monday.

Anyway, I’ve been obsessed with finding out every thing there is to no about dogs, which brings me to Frito Joe, our new little foundling. Jet and I saw him about two months ago, when we were looking for a baby brother for Dino, the sweetest dog that ever lived on the Earth. Frito Joe is a homely little thing, and when we first saw him, wasn’t housebroken, and hadn’t been bathed very frequently by his foster family. We filled out paperwork to start the adoption process, but realized the housebreaking thing wouldn’t exactly suit our busy, on-the-go lifestyles. So we withdrew our interest.

Several weeks later, the SPCA helpfully emailed us information on a different prospective new baby brother, which we traveled to see at an adoption show. And there was Frito Joe, still dirty and unadopted, but (as hastily pointed out by his foster mother), housebroken at last.

So, we indicated a renewed interest.

This was a on a day that I was en route to Atlanta, to attend the Council of Science Editors Annual meeting.

Regarding Atlanta, what’s the big deal? The highlight of my stay was finding that there’s a Dairy Queen adjoining the Hyatt Regency.

Regarding the Council of Science Editors – lots and LOTS of justified open hostility toward the Bush Administration I the scientific community. They are under attack, and they know it, and they’re not going to take it lying down. And they’re THIS close to figuring out how to clone. If I were a Republican, I’d be watching my back.

I did have a delightful Thai dinner with my cousin Dang, recently divorced from wife number two and on the prowl for number three. Though he’s no longer the strapping, golden-haired youth he was, oh, about 30 years ago, I still have a clear-as-a-bell memory of Dang’s brother, Jame Gumm, taking me out in the woods when I was a wee thing, and leaving me there. Not being one to be left, I set off to find my own way back and promptly found myself stuck in a thicket of briars with bees swarming all around me. Wherupon strapping, golden-haired Dang strode through the underbrush and plucked me up to safety.

So, I came home from my restful stay in Atlanta to find that not only had our renewed interest in Frito Joe been renewed and acknowledged, but that he had been delivered to our tasteful suburban home and been in the sole care of the harried Jet for two days.

Not only that, but Dino didn’t seem to like him very much. Probably because, never having heard the word “no” in her whole life, she was now hearing it all the time, loudly, and likely had no idea that it wasn’t directed at her.

Plus he bites her. All the time.

So, we decided Frito Joe would go right back to his foster mother, no questions asked, and we would go right back to our peaceful, idyllic lives with Dino.

This was on Wednesday. The foster mother agreed to pick him up on Saturday.

If not for the constant crying by Jet and I at the prospect of spurning him again, it probably would have worked.

But, alas, Frito Joe is ours now, and likely will be forever. Dino is grudgingly beginning to accept him, and as soon as we teach him not to dig at the lining of the water feature, I imagine he’ll be a delight.

Well, hope springs eternal.

Back soon – in the meantime, Floozy Flingland wants you to read all about the Lost Boys, Fundamentalist Mormon boys who get kicked out of their homes when they come of age to be competition for the elders. Grim stuff, if you can take it!

Riddle me this....

2005-05-18T14:05:00.000-05:00

... which wiry Pittsburgh native passed away yesterday?

And riddle me this while you're at it….who the hell is casting the X-Men movies, Helen Keller?

Jet and I were greeted this morning with the happy news that possibly our favorite show ever will be on DVD this summer. If you like Upstairs, Downstairs and its ilk, you’ll certainly like House of Eliott…but if you’re unwilling to make the financial commitment on a non-entity, go get French and Saunders: At the Movies and watch their hi-larious parody, House of Idiot. You’ll get the idea.

And I would be remiss in my duties if I didn’t mention that I only discovered HoE because it was on PBS after Mother Rubble’s favorite British production, Ballykissangel, also on DVD and worth a look, if you like priests flirting with barmaids and country veterinarians and folksy Irish humour, and that sort of thing.

Since most of you will be saving time and money by NOT watching either of the above, there’s still time to watch the 14 wonderful episodes of Firefly, Before it becomes a major motion picture in September. You can even come to my house if you want, I’ll watch them all again and again. I’ll make popcorn. You’ll love it.

And now you know what I do with the sudden addition of unstructured free time into my schedule, think of TV and boss other people around.

Alert reader Floozy Flingland tells us that Dingleberry Dynasty, whom I first told you about last year, will soon be headlining in their own feature film. Well, good for them. I wonder if they’ll have the guy dress like a dog and hump everybody. I’m betting we all liked the offbeat-mockumentary-like band movie the first time we saw it, when it was called Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

But I digress.

What does everyone think of me and Jet’s new teenage crush? Too bad there’s no American politician ballsy enough for us to get dreamy-eyed over.

Shamefull self admissions, good for the soul

2005-05-17T13:17:00.000-05:00

Mind you, I’m not talking about the sort of self-discovery, like, “I’m a transvestite serial killer” (that is, a serial killer who IS a transvestite, not a serial killer OF transvestites). I’m talking about the sort of harmless thing where, if your friends knew, you might be mightily embarrassed. But, if you’re man enough to accept your own peculiar behavior, everyone can just move on with their lives and nobody gets hurt.

Here are my two shameful self-admissions for the day:

1) I have an odd but irresistible attraction to bubblegum pop re-interpretations of songs from Disney movies. EVEN IF THEY INVOLVE AARON CARTER OR JESSICA SIMPSON.
2) When I wear a pink t-shirt, I look like a giant wad of bubblegum stuck on two moving sticks.

There, now don’t we all feel better?

Speaking of disturbing facts about people, pro-life militant and spokesman for the Fundamentalist terrorist organization “Army of God”, Neal Horsely, admitted to professional milquetoast alan colmes last week, on National radio, that he has had sex with a mule.

Honest.

That’s maybe not so disturbing, depending on your world view (I hate to draw conclusions about my readership). But what IS disturbing is that he apparently thinks having sex with mules is something everyone does.

The transcript follows:

colmes: Is it true?
Horsley: Hey, Alan, if you want to accuse me of having sex when I was a fool, I did everything that crossed my mind that looked like I...
colmes: You had sex with animals?
Horsley: Absolutely. I was a fool. When you grow up on a farm in Georgia, your first girlfriend is a mule.
colmes: I'm not so sure that that is so.
Horsley: You didn't grow up on a farm in Georgia, did you?
colmes: Are you suggesting that everybody who grows up on a farm in Georgia has a mule as a girlfriend?
Horsley: It has historically been the case. You people are so far removed from the reality... Welcome to domestic life on the farm...
...
Horsley: You experiment with anything that moves when you are growing up sexually. You're naive. You know better than that... If it's warm and it's damp and it vibrates you might in fact have sex with it.

Heh, heh, you said it Neal. I…errrr…..um, forget it. I have nothing.

You’ve probably heard about last weekend’s brouhaha in St. Paul, where a Catholic priest denied communion to 100 people because they were wearing rainbow-colored sashes.

Well, I don’t know why they don’t just turn Episcopal.

Anyway, it reminded me of a good homily on a similar subject by the usually-dreadfully-boring father Pat Earl at Holy Trinity in Georgetown. Read it. Do as I say.

An speaking of unjustified hatred and fear of gays, Republican Alabama lawmaker Gerald Allen says homosexuality is an unacceptable lifestyle. His proposed solution is to prevent public school libraries from buying or stocking the shelves with literature or plays written by gay authors, regardless of content.

Let’s see, that would include, oh, EVERY AUTHOR OF NOTE IN THE PAST THREE THOUSAND YEARS.

On the plus side, I may finally have found a market for my pet project, Cliff’s notes for the collected works of Clive Cussler.

That’s all for today. Now go buy a Superman medal.

Road rage...or at least discomfort!

2005-05-11T14:39:00.000-05:00

So yesterday, I was driving home to make Jet’s supper, and the car in front of me, an SUV, had a bumper sticker that said “Marriage = man + woman” (only the “man” and “woman” were pictograms like on restroom doors, just in case anyone missed the point or couldn't read). The vehicle was also adorned with the requisite “God Bless America” bumper sticker, a magnetic “Support Our Troops” yellow ribbon (which, by the way, are MADE IN CHINA and DON’T SUPPORT OUR TROOPS), and a dashboard full of sun-bleached beanie babies. I was struck by the sudden urge to follow the vehicle in question – not to be confrontational or anything (since I’m passive-aggressive), but just out of an intense curiosity to see who was driving, and where they were going, and see if I could glean in their appearance a sense of what sorts of fears and insecurities they must live with on a daily basis to feel compelled to display it so publicly.

Well, I didn’t, because I had a sack full of pork chops, and I’m intensely afraid that I’m going to be poisoned by bad meat someday, so I had to get right home to put them in the fridge.

But it started an idea brewing, and I think I may have found a new mission: to create progressive tracts, of the Jack Chick variety, which I can leave on windshields of offensive cars. Plot ideas welcome.

I never watch the insipid Jay Leno if I can help it, but did anyone catch Bright Eyes’ performance last week? He sang a little ditty (well, maybe sang is a bit generous) called “When The President Talks to God”:

When the president talks to God
Are the conversations brief or long?
Does he ask to rape our women’s' rights
And send poor farm kids off to die?
Does God suggest an oil hike
When the president talks to God?

When the president talks to God
Are the consonants all hard or soft?
Is he resolute all down the line?
Is every issue black or white?
Does what God say ever change his mind
When the president talks to God?

When the president talks to God
Does he fake that drawl or merely nod?
Agree which convicts should be killed?
Where prisons should be built and filled?
Which voter fraud must be concealed
When the president talks to God?

When the president talks to God
I wonder which one plays the better cop
We should find some jobs. the ghetto's broke
No, they're lazy, George, I say we don't
Just give 'em more liquor stores and dirty coke
That's what God recommends

When the president talks to God
Do they drink near beer and go play golf
While they pick which countries to invade
Which Muslim souls still can be saved?
I guess god just calls a spade a spade
When the president talks to God

When the president talks to God
Does he ever think that maybe he's not?
That that voice is just inside his head
When he kneels next to the presidential bed
Does he ever smell his own bullshit
When the president talks to God?
I doubt it

And speaking of God, here’s a link to the sermon by George Regas I mentioned last week, in defense of ecumenicalism.

And speaking of the National Cathedral, last week the Queen Mother of Swaziland was there!

And speaking of the President, is he retarded? Here’s a transcript of a recent exchange from his Social Security-a-Palooza tour. He was addressing Fidel Vagas, a fellow Republican who had come out to support his hare-brained scheme:

PRESIDENT BUSH: Great job, thanks for coming. The fact that you went to Harvard bothers me more than the fact that you didn't vote for me.

MR. VARGAS: We both went to HBS [Harvard Business School].

PRESIDENT BUSH: That's right. I forgot that part. Good job. Thanks for coming.

Is he…I mean….uh, forget it. I have nothing.

When I get done reading Christian comic book tracts, and am still bored, I turn to my other favorite pastime, reading internet comic book message boards.

Where one STILL can’t escape religious arguments.

To wit: a recent posting on the DC Comics website, where “sensorsnake” has a TERRIFIC idea for a new super-hero:

I propose DC adds a new superhero to the JLA. His name is Shepard and he fights injustice and evil in a Christian way. While the JLA fights to protect earth from alien threats, Shepard's focus would be to protect innocents such as unborn children. What does everyone think?

Rest assured, “everyone” didn’t think much of sensorsnake’s brainstorm. I guess Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, et al, who defend the defenseless, protect the innocent, have a high moral code that prevents them from killing even the vilest of bad guys, and generally, well, ACT LIKE CHRISTIANS, aren't enough, now we need a super-hero who specializes in bombing abortion clinics?

Heh. If Superman showed up tomorrow, in the real world, James Dobson (who is of the devil ) and his ilk would denounce him as the Antichrist by sundown.

Also good for laughs is the personal web domain of John Byrne. Byrne, a powerhouse comic book artist who began his career in the early 70’s, and became a superstar of sorts for his work on The X-Men in the late 70’s/ early 80’s, is at least 50% responsible for the X-Men being such a viable movie franchise.

Lately, like the last 15 years or so, he’s become a trifle unhinged, attacking other creators, attacking his own fans, and generally being a giant dick.

Here’s a recent exchange, which began because Byrne was enraged by people who use the term “word bubble” (which is apparently incorrect) instead of “word balloon” (which is, apparently, correct).

So, a message board visitor said:
Then this all brings up the question of language. Do words have inherent meanings or just those we ascribe to them? If enough pros, in addition to the fans, say "speech bubble" then why wouldn't "bubble" be just as valid as "balloon"? JB says "balloon", someone else says "bubble", and they could both be right.
To which, Byrne responds:
There are lots of people who call Black people "niggers". Are both terms "right"? You seem to have missed the rather important point that my response indicated roughly the same percentage of fans and pros use the improper terms for various elements of what we do -- but that percentage does not approach a balance. It is not that roughly half say "balloon" and half say "bubble". It is that some say "bubble" and they are wrong.
Another user states:
Um, we don't avoid using the word "nigger" because it's incorrect usage. We avoid using it because it's incredibly racist and hateful. Is there an ethnic group that's impugned when someone says "thought bubbles" instead of "thought balloons"?
Byrne again:
"Um..." in point of fact there are plenty of people who use the word "nigger" because that is the word they use, not because they imagine it has any negative racial connotations. That's precisely why I chose that word as my illustration.
Another response from the crowd:
Enough already with the casual tossing around of racist epithets!John, you cannot possibly be that ignorant to believe that people who use racial slurs do so without any negative intent or connotation. If you do indeed believe that, I strongly encourage you to seek some counsel and educate yourself on the matter, if you don't want to take my word for it. I've only been black and lived in this country for, oh, my entire life, so I may not be aware of how things really are out there...We spend an awful lot of time on this board dealing with the issue of respect, as it pertains to comic book characters, comic book terminology, reverence for creator's original visions, nicknames for comic book characters, etc. People tread lightly on eggshells out of fear of upsetting you and your many rules for how seriously this wonderful hobby of our should be taken, both by us within it and by those civilians outside of it. How about we extend that same measure of respect to the people who participate in this board?We're supposed to take your word for how things should be in the industry, how characters are supposed to be treated, etc because of your years of experience. How about you extend me the same courtesy on this issue?This isn't about political correctness, or "looking for something to be offended by." It is simply a matter of consideration and manners...There were an infinite number of comparatives you could have chosen to illustrate your point about correct comic book terminology. The fact that you chose the one you did...why?I think we get your point. They are balloons, not bubbles. Fine. Your comparative example sucked. Just as you ask us not to use terms that bother, offend or piss you off, I'm asking you publicly to not use racially insensitive terms and epithets on the board as well. Or is that something you would have a problem with?
Once again, Byrne replies:
Ignorance is the key, but not on my part. There are many places in this country where people to this day use "nigger" when referring to Black people because that's the word they use. They don't think of it as a racial slur. They don't think about it at all, in fact. It simply is.This is not even considering Black people who themselves use the word. We cannot, surely, imagine that it is used in that context as a racial slur?"Nigger" is -- like so many others -- a word with a complex etymology and an even more complex pattern of use.

Other highlights of Byrne’s rantings include his proclamation that Hispanic women with blond hair look like hookers. Not to be missed!

And finally, I leave you with this. Ta ta!

Every time....

2005-04-27T15:10:00.000-05:00

....I see the name "Malachy", I think of the movie "Children of the Corn", which for some reason was my favorite movie for, oh, about three teenage years.

I'm sure it had NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with Peter Horton spending half the movie with his shirt off.

Anyway, I set out to refute the kooky prognostications of St. Malachy, and promised to do it “tomorrow”, which was about a week ago. So sue me. I’ve been ever so busy trying to “gather research” (also known as mindlessly surfing the internet) and, the simple fact is, EVERYONE BELIEVES IT. So I’m just going to have to do it myself. What else should I expect from a nation that thinks an oil stain on a freeway underpass is the Virgin Mary?

To recap: St. Malachy (1094-1148) was an Irish Benedictine bishop who is said to have predicted, by means of brief phrases for each one, a characteristic feature of the reign of every Roman Catholic pope, from the beginning of the papacy to the very end. A total of 112 popes were listed in a book published by Benedictine friar Arnold de Wyon in the year 1590.
The authenticity of the book has been doubted since the 17th century and, in fact, it is now widely assumed that the “prophecies” were written by Wyon himself. There are no mentions of Malachy's Prophecies prior to 1590 in any official or unofficial Church record, and none of Malachy's contemporaries (including Bernard of Clairvaux, who wrote Malachy's biography and was his close friend) reference the document, and as the Benedictines at the time of Arnold de Wyon's "discovery" were fighting for their survival (many of their monasteries had been sacked and their members killed during the wars of the Protestant Reformation) and a document that showed the Benedictines in a good light would have been a godsend to the embattled order, and as the manuscript has itself disappeared and only notes about its contents survive, most contemporary, responsible, reputable scholars believe the thing to be a fake from beginning to end. Including me.

The descriptive phrases of popes BEFORE Wion’s time are quite accurate, while those coming after require a good deal of stretching to make them fit. For instance, the phrase attributed to the late John Paul II was "De Labore Solis" (Of the Solar Eclipse, or From the Toil of the Sun). Most scholars of prophecy seem to think this fits because of the “fact” that John Paul II was born during a solar eclipse.

A partial solar eclipse.

Visible only in Australia (he was born in Poland. Very far from Australia.)

Pope Benedict XVI is Pope # 111 in Malachy’s list, “The Glory of the Olive”. His choice of the name Benedict seems to instantly fulfill the prophecy, Saint Benedict purportedly prophesied that before the end of the world his Order, known also as the Olivetans, will triumphantly lead the Catholic Church in its final fight against evil.

Except, well, that’s fudging things a little bit, because the Olivetans are a particular sect of the Benedictines. All Olivetans are Benedictines, but not all Benedictines are Olivetans. Plus, the Pope isn’t a Benedictine.

So, to be completely sure that Pope Benedict XVI IS the fulfillment of prophecy, we better look for something a little less tenuous. Maybe he likes martinis? (Trust me, I’ve known some Catholics in my day, and they can put the hooch away!)

There is also every reason to believe that the Vatican is not only well aware of Malachy’s prophecy, but actively trying to make it look as though each new Pope is fulfilling it.

Like the fact that a Papal portrait gallery in the Vatican only has two more empty spaces in it; one for Benedict, and one for his successor, which would bring us to the end of Malachy’s list and, presumably, to the end of the world.

Like the fact that the American Cardinal Spellman was so eager to become Pope that when Piux XII was near death and the next Pope, according to Malachy, was to be "pastor et nauta" (shepherd and navigator), he hired an Italian sailor to take him on a cruise down the Tiber River with a flock of sheep on board. It didn't take; the next Pope was Angelo Roncalli, who took the name John XXIII. He had served for a time in Venice, a city of many waterways where EVERYONE’S a sailor, and after his election, he promised to be a "good shepherd" to his flock.

Um, yeah, well…that’s kind of the Pope’s JOB, isn’t it?

So, that’s my take. If there’s one thing Carl Sagan taught me, it’s that specious reasoning is for sissies!

Now, at the risk of offending all my Catholic pals, I’m afraid I’ve raised a quizzical eyebrow or two at some of the pronouncements of this new Pope of theirs. Like that all Protestant denominations are “sects”, and the sex-abuse scandal was just “a secular attack on the Church”, and the like.

But THIS takes the cake.

He says Harry potter books "undermine the soul of Christianity".

No word yet whether priests molesting children has the same effect.

Speaking of religion, I had to sing last Saturday at the installation of the new Dean of the National Cathedral, Samuel Lloyd. Nothing TOO interesting, except that Sandra Day O’Connor was there, and she looks EXACTLY like Grandma Walton. I’m not kidding.

But then, the next day, the Dean’s pal George Regas sermonized, and said all manner of shocking things, like he didn’t think Christ was the ONLY way to God, and how we should work in concert with other religions for social justice, and all sorts of hate-filled ideas like that. A quick Google search showed me all sorts of reasons to like Dr. Regas, like this and this , and so I dropped him an email of appreciation, and he wrote back the very same day! I’m a reg’lar ambassador of good will!

Money quote: “God, for me, is defined by Christ, but not confined by Christ”

Preach on, brother.

Also last weekend, Jet and I officially became Americans. That is, we used the extra money from refinancing our mortgage to buy things we didn’t really need, like a front-loading washer and a surround sound system. Let me tell you, I’m sure I don’t know how I survived without either one for so long. Isn’t capitalism great?

So great, in fact, that some people are desperately filling the internet with lies to get here. Case in Point: “Yulia”, a sweet young Russian gal who’s been corresponding with LSBB’s friend “RJ”. How he got involved I’m still not sure of, but this girl is working him but good.

I mean, how is a poor defenseless straight man supposed to react when receiving in his inbox the following:

By the way I like oral and normal (usual) sex. I DISLIKE sexual orgies and group sex. But I like to try something new in sex relations and I like some experiments.

Errrr…..nice to meet you, too! Oh, she also dislikes anal sex and gay people, in case you were wondering.

Of course, after enticing him with carnal thoughts, she drops the bomb:

Yesterday before I gone to sleep I thought about us so much and I understood that I falling in love to you. With every day you take more and more space in my head. And I think about you constantly. I had a dream and in my dream I saw you RJ! All the night you was in front of my eyes. When I got up I thought about it and I believe it's not bychance. I want to tell you that I really sense the feeling to you. And I want to let you know that we need to meet each other.Don't you think so? Our meeting will be great thing in our lifes. Do you agree with me? I have insuperable wish to meet you in person. I believe it can be possible! This is real thing! I think if we will want it we need to have meeting. I believe our meeting will help to know usbetter and more closer! I'm sure that I would like to meet you RJ. I feel that you have become more closer to me. I tell you all about my life and I will tell more if you will ask. I feel that you have become more than just a friend to me and I want to tellyou three words of love. But you must know I want to tell you it now! I had a dream about our meeting! I really want to know you, speak to you, take your hand and see your eyes. Maybe it's very frankly now but it's true and I don't want to hide it. I always say the true and don't like when people lie. I hate it!

Of course, love does come at a price…

I have the good news for you! Yesterday I make the application for a cominginto your country and I will get the visa for it soon! I went in the organization which makes the documents for a coming through embassy. I hope I will get the documents permitting to come! Today I will give them the medical informations and other types of papers for registration of visa. All necessary documents will cost about 314 dollars for me.

And then…

I want to ask you my RJ: CAN YOU FIND OUT INFORMATION ABOUT COST OF FLIGHTTICKET YOU? FROM MOSCOW TO NEAREST INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TO YOU. I ask you because I really need in this information.

LSBB thinks she’s a poor heartsick girl who desperately wants a way out of her Siberian hovel, but I’ve got money on the table that within three days she asks him to pony up the 314 dollars, or perhaps tests his mettle first by asking him to send a sewing machine to her mother or something. The suspense, I can’t stand it!

Well, THAT didn't take long

2005-04-19T16:31:00.000-05:00

Cardinal Ratzinger will be Pope Benedict XVI (despite the breathless commentary from a CNN commentator that they had just announced “Pope Decimi Sextus”. Idiot.)

So, we’ll see how it goes. He’s 78, I guess he won’t have much time to do much harm, despite the fact that he once called homosexuality a tendency toward "intrinsic moral evil" and dismissed the uproar over priestly pedophilia in the United States as a "planned campaign" against the church.

Just for kicks, let’s review the prophecy of St. Malachi that I discussed in my previous post, shall we? Malachi’s sobriquets for the last few Popes read as follows:

· Paul VI. The words of the 108th prophecy are "Flos Florum" (Flower of Flowers). The 108th pope after Innocent II was Paul VI (1963-78). His coat of arms included three fleurs-de-lis (iris blossoms).

· John Paul I. The 109th is "De Medietate Lunae" (Of the Half Moon). The corresponding pope was John Paul I (1978-78), who was born in the diocese of Belluno (beautiful moon) and was baptized Albino Luciani (white light). He became pope on August 26, 1978, when the moon appeared exactly half full. It was in its waning phase. He died the following month, soon after an eclipse of the moon.

· John Paul II. The 110th is "De Labore Solis" (Of the Solar Eclipse, or From the Toil of the Sun). The corresponding pope was John Paul II (1978-2005). John Paul II was born on May 8, 1920 during an eclipse of the sun. Like the sun, he came out of the East (Poland). Like the sun, he visited countries all around the globe.

The 111th prophecy is "Gloria Olivae" (The Glory of the Olive). The meaning of the olive is unclear. The Order of Saint Benedict – not St. Malachy – has claimed that this pope will come from its ranks and Saint Benedict himself prophesied that before the end of the world his Order, known also as the Olivetans, will triumphantly lead the Catholic Church in its final fight against evil.

So…Pope Benedict. Does he know something we don't?

The 112th prophecy says, "In the final persecution of the Holy Roman Church there will reign Petrus Romanus (Peter the Roman), who will feed his flock amid many tribulations; after which the seven-hilled city will be destroyed and the dreadful Judge will judge the people.
Trouble is, Petrus Romanus may not actually be St. Malachi’s work, but a much later addition. Meaning Benedict is it, kids.

Jesus is coming, look busy!

Except....it might all be hooey. Skeptic's counterpoint coming tomorrow!

Who is Matt Lattimore?

2005-04-19T08:37:00.000-05:00

And why is he popping up on my computer screen about A BILLION TIMES A DAY, telling me to buy a Titanium Turbo razor? I don’t WANT a Titanium Turbo razor, especially not if it’s recommended by someone whose claim to fame is starring in something with “Sasquatch" in the title.

So the Pope is dead, I suppose you’ve heard. And now they’re trying to pick a new one. I wouldn’t be in such a hurry if I were them, seeing as how St. Malachi prophesied back in the day that there would only be two more popes before the end of the world. Seems to me they’d want to stretch it out a little bit.

Plus, all the candidates that are in the running seem to be on their last legs. Correlate this with the Mayan prophecy that the world will end December 21, 2012, by which time we could have easily gone through two more papal geezers, and it seems they’d maybe want to consider finding a precocious child pope or two. Like they do with the Dalai Lama.

High-school-dropout-turned-prophet John Hogue has his own cheery ideas about the future of the papacy and the coming global conflagration. Enjoy!

Not that I mean to sound flip. Mother Rubble made sure we grew up with a healthy respect for our Catholic neighbors and their Holy See, and although we were not Catholic ourselves, we DID have a souvenir mug collection with pictures of Pope Pius, or John, or somebody. Or maybe it was Santa Claus, I was never sure.

Oh, and if you’re still interested, click here to read about some of the nastier Popes in history.

And if you’re still interested after that, click here to get your very own Jesus doll. With Kung-Fu grip!

Not only that, but a little research revealed that one can acquire a doll of almost ANY hitorical or popular personage, including Twiggy, Snoop Doggy Dog, Andy Warhol, and….um, well, I guess it’s Christopher Walken.

Jet and I are so tired we can hardly see straight. On top of doing an opera down at the college, we spent a harried three weeks preparing a cabaret show of French pop music, which we then performed with our musical director, Patrick Fitzjames, down at the Atlas Theater in Northeast DC, at the corner of Slash Avenue and Grab Street. Of course it ended up being the smash sensation of the age – at least for the twenty-five people that attended – and instantly launched us into the upper echelons of the local cabaret scene. The only one who didn’t like it was the uppity “producer”, who was, apparently, in charge although he had been out of town until the actual day of the performance. He informed Jet that we had “the basis for a good show”. Well, he’s just jealous. Hmmph.

So the week before the French show, I was having nosebleeds every day, and in fact had one the very DAY of the show, and bled all over my new lavender shirt bought especially for said show, and had to change to my gold shirt, also bought especially for said show, because I couldn’t decide between them. So the next day I went to my doctor, Dr. Prissy Hindu, who likes to offer his opinion without actually examining you, who poo-pooed my idea of the nosebleeds being caused by Rinocort spray, and insisted it was my blood pressure, and gave me blood pressure medicine which makes me tired and my stomach hurt. Even though my blood pressure is ALWAYS 130 over 70, except for that ONE day when I was at the doctor, nervous because my nose was bleeding all over my new shirts. And that’s what leads me to now, sitting here exhausted and with a sore stomach.

At least, I THINK it’s the blood pressure medicine making me tired, even though I sleep and sleep. Being a hypochondriac, it could also be mono, bird flu, or lyme disease. Or, perhaps I’ve inherited Mother Rubble’s genetic disease of being “born tired”.

Along with new shirts-especially-for-shows, Jet and I bought new tuxedos for our active performing careers, and shoes and things. Well, actually Jet bought shoes. I took a pair of shoes up to the counter, as they were the most comfortable shoes EVER, as if magic elves had come in my sleep and made them JUST for me, and the shopgirl informed me that they were actually NOT the shoes that belonged in the box, but in fact that it appeared someone had come in, put on the pair of new shoes, and left their old, used shoes behind in the box. I almost bought them anyway, but they wouldn’t let me. Sigh. Which convinces me that there are no shoes in the whole world for me that don’t look like they should be worn by old arthritic lesbians.

So, that’s all for now. Oh, except for this. Ta ta!

In other news: Hell freezes over

2005-03-24T16:45:00.000-05:00

Well, Mother Rubble is online. It’s the sixth sign of the apocalypse.

While there’s still time, feel free to drop her a line (but be gentle, she’s new.)

As I write (March 24, 4:15 pm) Terri Schiavo’s parents have submitted ANOTHER appeal to the Federal Court.

As I wrote the other day, I waffled for a long while on this whole issue. But the past few days, in doing my research, I’ve come to the conclusion that Mrs. Schiavo’s parents, pitiable as they are, are just plain crazy.

The most telling evidence in my assessment was a report by the Mrs. Schiavo’s court-appointed Guardian Ad Litem, who spent considerable time with her, her husband and parents. From the report (emphases mine):

Testimony provided by members of the Schindler family included very personal statements about their desire and intention to ensure that Theresa remain alive. Throughout the course of the litigation, deposition and trial testimony by members of the Schindler family voiced the disturbing belief that they would keep Theresa alive at any and all costs. Nearly gruesome examples were given, eliciting agreement by family members that in the event Theresa should contract diabetes and subsequent gangrene in each of her limbs, they would agree to amputate each limb, and would then, were she to be diagnosed with heart disease, perform open heart surgery. There was additional, difficult testimony that appeared to establish that despite the sad and undesirable condition of Theresa, the parents still derived joy from having her alive, even if Theresa might not be at all aware of her environment given the persistent vegetative state. Within the testimony, as part of the hypotheticals presented, Schindler family members stated that even if Theresa had told them of her intention to have artificial nutrition withdrawn, they would not do it. Throughout this painful and difficult trial, the family acknowledged that Theresa was in a diagnosed persistent vegetative state.

And….

In 2000, despite conceding their daughter's persistent vegetative state, the Schindlers said they still believed she knew when they were there. When Felos, Michael Schiavo's lawyer, asked Bob Schindler if he thought Terri would be tormented by her current state, he replied ''Yes,'' but added, ''she's not that cognizant to be aware of it.''

It’s clear to me from the above that Mrs. Schiavo’s parents simply can’t let go, and perhaps have a bit of a control issue.

But any sympathy I might have felt for the Schindlers for their delusions of eventual recovery for their daughter has been whittled away by the ghoulishly political behavior of the Repugnantan party. To wit:

Tom Delay’s assertion that God sent Terri Schiavo to Earth in order to expose the vast liberal conspiracy threatening conservatives everywhere:

“One thing that God has brought to us is Terry Schiavo, to help us elevate the visibility of what is going on in America … This is exactly the issue that is going on in America, of attacks against the conservative movement, against me and many others … a huge nationwide concerted effort to destroy everything we believe in.”

DeLay’s, and the President’s, sudden concern for the welfare of those in vegetative states is remarkable, considering that in 1999 they could have done something to stop a Texas ruling which allowed people who wanted to be kept alive and whose families were in unanimous agreement that they wanted to be kept alive to be taken, involuntarily, off life support if the facility they were in decided that they weren't able to pay for the treatment that would sustain their lives. Especially if they were black.

Feverishly pro-Bush radio host Glenn Beck, who has offered to buy Terri Schiavo from her husband. Oh, and on his website, you can buy a T-shirt with Michael Schiavo’s picture on it, which says “I starved my wife to death”. Classy! (And in case you were wondering, Michael Schiavo relinquished his right to make the decision to remove his wife’s feeding tube. That’s how it ended up in the courts in the first place. The decision was the court’s. The decision would not change, even if her parents were to gain custody.)

And Dr. Bill Frist, who diagnosed Mrs. Schiavo via videotape and used that as a basis to give her already-addled parents false hope for her eventual recovery. Interesting in that he had this to say about the death of Democrat Christopher Reeve:

"I find it opportunistic to use the death of someone like Christopher Reeve -- I think it is shameful -- in order to mislead the American people," Frist said. "We should be offering people hope, but neither physicians, scientists, public servants or trial lawyers like John Edwards should be offering hype."It is cruel to people who have disabilities and chronic diseases, and, on top of that, it's dishonest. It's giving false hope to people, and I can tell you as a physician who's treated scores of thousands of patients that you don't give them false hope."

The hypocrisy of proclaiming a “culture of life” is astounding, in a world where 20,000 people a day die as a direct result of poverty, 100,000 innocent civilians have been killed in Iraq, and Michael Schiavo and Judge Greer continue to receive death threats from “religious” folk across the nation.

Jesuit theologian John J. Paris has this to say to the zealous among us:

Here's the question I ask of these right-to-lifers, including Vatican bishops: as we enter into Holy Week and we proclaim that death is not triumphant and that with the power of resurrection and the glory of Easter we have the triumph of Christ over death, what are they talking about by presenting death as an unmitigated evil? It doesn’t fit Christian context.

And my last sad, unfortunate truth for today: Terri Schiavo, who previously had the option to either die with dignity, or be kept alive with dignity, now has grandstanding Repugnantans to thank for stripping away any dignity she might have had.

Way to go, GOP!

What's that smell...?

2005-03-18T16:11:00.000-05:00

...Why....it's Jesus!

Sorry I've been gone - I can hardly fend off the complaints of my, apparently, innumerable fans. I’ve been busy, you see, though I know you’re all busy and that’s no excuse.

So, let’s see…I went to Charleston, SC last week to a seminar about the online submission system that most medical journals use. Charleston is built on top of a swamp, you see, which you can tell by the swampy smell that permeates the town. Except for the lobby of my hotel, which smelled like asparagus piss. Beggars shouldn’t be choosers, I guess – I DID have free wireless internet access in my room, a sofa AND an easy chair, and room service that was quick as you please. Plus, every item on the room service menu came with either fried green tomatoes OR buttermilk-fried oysters. Yum!

There was a gal at the conference who couldn’t stop talking about the excitement of being on the volunteer fire department, back in Kansas or New Jersey wherever she was from. I bet it IS exciting, especially for the people whose homes are on fire, since she also disclosed that she’s BLIND IN ONE EYE.

And the person who drives the fire truck is deaf.

I returned to face an endless week of rehearsals and performances. Jet and I have ill-advisedly consented to help out the kids down at the college with their production of La Boheme. We’re making a pretty penny to do so, but I think we would have been better off to stay poor and have a free evening now and again. Plus we both work in churches, and it’s the Easter season, and if you’re not aware, it’s a pretty big deal for most churches. Plus we were doing a concert with the Washington Bach Consort, which made us mad because the hired soloists from out of town were not very good, and the people who did little tiny solos from the choir, like ME, were BETTER, and some people, like ME, who saw the Washington Post reviewer feverishly scribbling on his pad every time I sang my little insignificant solos, expected to wake up to the Tuesday Post to find that I at last had a champion in the Press, who would decry the hateful practice of flying in out-of-town soloists while local talent languishes in the choir. But it was not to be.

Poor Jet had to have a stress test yesterday, and the nurses made such a patchwork of his chest hair that he decided to trim it down to the nub when he got home. If you’ve ever SEEN Jet’s chest, you can imagine it was quite a chore. I imagine SOME gals would be delighted to have a clean-shaven husband, (like the young lady recently being squired by LSBB’s friend Doctor J, until he noticed a line her email that read “Men rock – except the hairy ones. Can’t deal with that shit.”) but not me! I’m just counting the days til it grows back!

I just don’t know what to think about this Terri Schiavo business...I was tending to come down on the side of the parents, so I asked Code Dependent for the buzz in the medical community, and she’s of a mind to let her go. And trust me, if Code “Softest Heart in Show Business” Dependent says it’s time to let go, then it’s time to let go. (And, Republicans, by “letting go” I DON’T mean parading Ms. Schiavo in front of Congress to “testify”, or comparing her state to that of a crumpled hundred dollar bill.)

I INSIST everyone go to the video store right away, and rent or buy the series set of Firefly, the late lamented FOX series by Buffy-creator Joss Whedon (who also writes a mean X-Men comic, and has just been signed to write and direct a new Wonder Woman movie). See, it’s kind of imperative that you do this for me, because then you’ll have time to fall in love with all the characters, and then you’ll go see the movie version when it comes out in September, and then FOX will regret canceling it, and it will come back on TV, and Jet and I will be happy. So just do it. Honest, have I ever steered you wrong?

Commandments, shmammandments

2005-03-03T11:25:00.000-05:00

So the Supreme Court continues hearing oral arguments today about the constitutionality of displaying the Ten Commandments on government property. Opponents to the displays argue that it’s a blatant governmental sponsorship of a particular religion, which violates the First Amendment.

Those in favor of such displays countered yesterday that, in fact, the Ten Commandments are not even religious. Who knew?

Well, since the Ten Commandments ARE, apparently, the basis of our laws, I suppose, we ought to, you know, actually enforce them. At least one or two. Let’s run down the list, shall we?

Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Should be easy to enforce, once we decide once and for all who the “me” is that’s speaking, and then deport all the Hindus, Sikhs, Wiccans, Buddhists, Agnostics, Atheists, Humanists, and I would imagine most Catholics, Jews, and progressive Protestants. Oh, and we’ll also have to repeal that pesky First Amendment.

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me. And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments. Let’s see, no smiling Jesus on velvet paintings. Oh, and no naturalistic painting or sculpture. Or photography. Oh, and, effective immediately, descendents of criminals are responsible for the crimes of their ancestors, to the fourth generation.

Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. Well, in the original meaning, it dealt with using God’s name in a contract. Like, you know, when you swear on the Bible in court or, say, at your inauguration as President of the United States.

Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it. Guess we’ll have to stop selling liquor on Sundays, huh? Except, of course, that the Sabbath is Saturday, meaning that this commandment is broken by nearly every facet of society, including EVERY CHRISTIAN DENOMINATION IN AMERICA. Whoops! Oh, and technically, you’re really not supposed to do anything but rest on the Sabbath, including anything fun and relaxing. Just a slight technicality.

Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee. We’ll save a bundle of tax dollars when we eliminate Child Protective Services, since children in abusive homes will have no option to get out. And we can probably do away with Medicaid and Social Security altogether, since elderly parents will be living with their children until they die.

Thou shalt not kill. Don’t panic, Republicans! According to the letter of the law, the following persons may still be killed:

· Persons found guilty of temple prostitution
· engaged women who are seduced by a man other than her future husband
· women who practice black magic
· women who are raped in urban areas
· children who curse their parents
· some non-virgin brides
· Jews who collect firewood on Saturday to keep their families from freezing
· persons proselytizing in favor of another religion
· persons worshiping a deity other than Yahweh
· strangers who enter the temple

I suppose this list can conceivably apply to Iraqis and Iranians, so we’re okay there, but it looks like the death penalty will have to go.

Thou shalt not commit adultery. Again, fellas, not to worry! This refers ONLY to a man engaging in sexual intercourse with a woman who is betrothed or married to another man. So I suggest you choose virgins for your extramarital affairs. Oh, and – masturbation’s out. Sorry, gents. Ladies, you can do whatever you please, since under the new laws you will be property and inconsequential. Sorry about that. On the plus side, since we’re limiting things to just these 10 commandments, gay sex is A-OK!

Thou shalt not steal. I, ummm….er……okay, you got me. This one is already illegal.

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. I guess television and movies will already be illegal with the graven images thing, and this ought to do away with conservative talk radio…I smell a renaissance of live theatre!

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's. So long, Capitalism, been nice knowing ya!

I suggest a compromise on the issue that's sure to please everyone - round-the-clock screenings of The Ten Commandments at all government facilities. Yul Brynner's manly scowl, the way Anne Baxter sort of pouts every time she purrs "Oh....Mooooses", an appearance by my dear aquantiance, Riselle Bain....and HESTON RULES, BABY!

And don't get me started on the f&%@ing monkey

2005-03-02T14:12:00.000-05:00

Okay, I’m back. Seriously. My boss, Dr. Phil’s Good Twin, is back from his kidney-removal surgery, and so I can safely goof off again, though Poinsettia has now gotten in the habit of asking me how to do EVERYTHING, regardless of how many times she’s been shown how to do it before, and if said task involves her actually spending more than five minutes doing it, she sighs loudly and complains about how much work she has.

Anyway, here I’ve been sitting around feeling sorry for myself all month, and grousing about life and work and such, and being apathetic about nearly everything, and after all that, my wonderfulness cannot be hidden, and in fact is endorsed in print by The Washington Post. Not to mention my forthcoming CD release, featuring my solo which was stolen from a little child who still gives me dirty looks. It almost makes being mind-numbingly busy worth it. Almost.

My only joy in the past month has been in snatching up DVD bargains and hard-to-find bootleg movies and such. Like yesterday, when I bought this at Target for $29.99, even though its retail value is $90. I can only imagine the embarrassment in the stock room when the pricing mix-up is discovered.

I also FINALLY received my black market movies ordered well before Christmas – I guess the black market movie business gets busy over the holidays. So I got, much to my delight and Jet’s chagrin:

- Every episode of the original Space Ghost, featuring teenage siblings and a monkey

- Every Superfriends short produced between 1981 and 1983, featuring teenage siblings and a monkey.

- Every episode of Electra Woman and Dyna Girl –just one teenager and no monkeys, unless you count actor Norman Alden.

If you ever want a refreshing reminder of what you learned from mass media as a child, sit down to a few hours of back-to-back Superfriends episodes. It’s an eye-opening experience. Some common through-lines:

1)If you are NOT white and American, then your superhero name should probably include your skin color, or should be stereotypically representative of your cultural heritage. Oh, and you can ignore the laws of physics.

Exhibit A, the “International” Superfriends, who despite being from the four corners of the Earth, always seem to be hanging out at the Hall of Justice waiting for trouble:

Apache Chief - Can grow to 50 feet high by saying “Enek Chok”.
Wears a leather vest and matching loincloth - even though his crotch is plainly visible to anyone of normal size who happens to be standing under him. Once shouted “Enek Chok” over and over until he was BIGGER THAN THE EARTH. When saying anything other than “Enek Chok”, he speaks like he’s had a stroke.

Samurai – Can turn into cyclones, fires, and other things that the writers made up as they went along. Dressed in a green bathrobe-diaper sort of thing, which I’m reasonably sure real Samurais never wore.

Black Vulcan – “Hey, everybody, did you hear? He’s BLACK. Not that you could tell, what with his bikini shorts and tunic open to his navel. Better add the “black” in front of his name so everybody knows his race right off.” Black Vulcan can turn his legs into lightning, which enables him to do lots of things that real lightning can do, like fly through space unaided and travel through time. Shockingly, didn’t speak in jive.

El Dorado – He’s Mexican. You know this because he’s named after a Mexican City. An imaginary Mexican City. And he speaks perfect English except for when he has to say “yes”, or “friend”. He wears a blanket, which he can use to wrap around himself and disappear – just like real Mexicans!

Rima the Jungle Girl – Not quite sure what sister’s deal is. She’s from South America, but has white hair and doesn’t speak in regional dialect. She’s barefoot and wears a potato sack no matter the weather, and manages to find vines to swing from, even in the middle of Washington, DC. In her favor, she always has to be picked up for missions, and doesn’t seem to loiter in the Hall of Justice like the boys do.

2) Every scientist, astronaut, archaeologist, and teenager has access to a direct video uplink to the Hall of Justice’s “Trouble Alert”. One caveat: if a teenager’s crisis is particularly pedestrian or commonplace, then they apparently ONLY have access to the “teen trouble alert”, which bypasses the Superfriends proper and only alerts the Wondertwins, Zan and Jayna. Such commonplace problems include teens who drive too fast, sass their parents or spend nights in haunted houses on a dare. The Wonderwtins subsequently get captured or trapped, because they are tools, and have to be rescued by a real Superfriend anyway, so why they bother with their own alert system I’ll never know.

Jayna, as you may remember, can turn into any animal. ANY animal. But instead of turning into a kodiak bear or sperm whale and whupping some ass, she relies on a steady menu of sparrows, giraffes, gophers, and the like.

Zan can turn into anything made of water, ice, or steam. Like “gelatin dessert”, which he actually changed into once. I didn’t make that up. Zan apparently shares a sort of psychic link with Jayna, so that if she changes into, say, a kangaroo, he will instinctively change into, say, an ice bowling ball. (Kangaroos are renowned for their bowling skill, I guess). I didn’t make that up, either. Zan also feels compelled to announce that the object he’s turning into will be made of ice, even though THAT’S ALL HE CAN TURN INTO. Like, maybe, if he accidentally said “form of a wrench”, he might actually turn into a WRENCH, instead of one made of ice.

Retards.

Poor Dino, having tasted freedom for a brief moment, has had it snatched away from her just like that. You see, Jet installed a doggie door for our little precious, at the urging of the Gay Reverend, who was horrified when we revealed over dinner that Dino sat on the sofa all day watching BBC America and waiting for us to come home.

So after three weeks, we finally got Dino to go through the door without being manhandled, assuming that, since she came back inside while we WERE home, she would do the same when we WEREN'T.

Well, our kindly neighbor Miz Smif came over the other night to reveal that she had been called by Mrs. Kravitz on the next street over, who threatened to call Animal Control because Dino was outside ALL DAY, in the FREEZING SNOW, barking. Oh, you can't imagine our horror and sadness, and to think that we could have been a segment on "Animal Precinct"! So, the doggie door is closed until summer. Or until we get another dog to boss Dino around.

That's all for now. I pledge to be more regular from now on, don't despair!

Large and In Charge

2005-02-10T11:49:00.000-05:00

Well, my plan of disappearing for a week just to see if anyone missed me seems to have worked, as I’ve been practically inundated with requests, nay DEMANDS that I post something. And here I thought no one cared.

The problem lately is that my boss, Dr. Phil’s good twin, has taken the dramatic step of having a kidney removed (I assume the surgery wasn’t for cosmetic reasons, but one never knows these days). And, because I’ve done such a good job these past months of surfing the internet all day and doing just enough work to appear competent, I’ve been left in charge of production operations for my major scientific peer-reviewed journal, and my two co-workers, Poinsettia and Palsy. Poinsettia is from Argentina, and tells me she would go dancing every day if she had the money, and plays Andrea Bocelli CDs at top volume (while singing along, off-key), and has the amazing ability to be shown a task repeatedly one day, and the next day have no recollection of how to do said task, nor that she was ever shown how.

Palsy has a framed copy of the serenity prayer on her desk, leading me to believe that she may be in AA, yet she smells like booze, and sleeps at her desk during her lunch hour. Most of my workday is taken up with doing her work, as she can’t seem to get any of it done herself.

Both ladies are black belts in karate, which I am not, so I just go about my business, keep my mouth shut, and write about them behind their backs.

I’m also doing quite possibly the stupidest opera ever written, where the director is determined to make us rehearse for a full three hours a night, whether we need to or not. If we run out of things to rehearse, the rest of the time is filled by the director or conductor telling mind-numbingly boring stories and name-dropping. I was informed the other night that the costume department has nothing to fit my manly frame, and apparently no money to spend getting me something, so I’m on my own in aquiring a costume. Lack of funds must be why the conductor wears the same dirty jeans every night. You may think I would be stricken by the indignity of it all; on the contrary, I can guarantee I will be the best looking thing on stage.

Having been gone, I’m coming in on the tail end of all this Jeff Gannon brouhaha – you know, the “reporter” from Talon “News” Service, who despite having no journalism credentials was given unprecedented access to White House Press Briefings, where he was wont to feed Scott "Caught-in-the-headlights" McClellan staged questions culled from Sean Hannity talking points.

It also seems that he may have been involved in the outing of undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame , a Federal crime.

Oh, and more amazingly, he’s gay military escort service websites. Not strictly illegal, but against the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and awfully hypocritical for someone who has promoted "ex-gays," defended Bush on gay marriage, and defended Rick Santorum’s equating gay sex with bestiality.

And I’m willing to bet the whole thing blows over by Saturday, thanks to the “liberal” media who lets Bush get away with anything.

Sigh.

Bamm-Bamm’s bigger brother, Randy-Randy, is also having surgery today, to remove his bladder, prostate, and whatever else needs to be removed to ensure that no cancer remains. The surgery is being done by Randy-Randy’s ex-wife’s new husband, a gifted and magnanimous urologist.

In a stunning show of humility, Randy-Randy’s ex-wife, Satan, is insisting that the credit for the life-saving surgery belongs entirely to her, because she GOT MARRIED TO A UROLOGIST.

Randy-Randy will appreciate your good wishes, and I’ll report what I hear from Mother Rubble, who has gone to tend him in his convalescence.

In happier news, horse-faced people the world over are rejoicing at the news that those lovebirds, Charles and Camilla, will be married next month.

Think she’ll wear white?

Also wed this week is long-suffering single gal Cathy, who finally married her gay boyfriend of 75 years, Irving. I am assured the wedding will not affect Cathy’s ability to cram her unreadable strip with too many damn words, but I sure will miss the hilarity of trying on swimsuits in the Spring!

Speaking of marriage, or close approximation thereof, Jet and I celebrate 12 years of blissful togetherness today. I’m eagerly awaiting his arrival for lunch, which is likely the only time we’ll see each other for more than five minutes this week, though he sent me a lovely bouquet of multi-colored roses for my desk, and he’ll receive his dozen red today. Mother Rubble sent a lovely card, and we’ll celebrate with a pot-luck with friends in a couple of days. Take that, James Dobson!

And isn't "frog" a slang word for....

2005-01-28T09:40:00.000-05:00

More from “Dr.” James Dobson, whom as you’ll recall is of the devil.

If you can stomach it, head on over to the Focus On The Family Website, then look for the link to Ribbits, a magical land filled with anthropomorphic Frogs.

At least three of whom have prominent pelvic bulges protruding from their nether regions. One of the frogs who sports wood is also purple, which is a clear indication he is gay.

Further examination of the Froggy Friends cast list reveals a Brazilian drag queen, and Sally, who “has a habit of breaking out into song and quoting lines from classic movies”.

Where’s a good homosexuality detection expert when you need one?

I urge you to Write to Dr. Dobson or simply dial 1-800-A-FAMILY and ask him why he's subjecting America’s children to such filth.

Go, you Chicken Fat, Go!

2005-01-27T15:51:00.000-05:00

The final nail in the coffin of purity and goodness. Sigh.

More on the SpongeBob Squarepants outing…another organization has apparently confirmed
confirmed “Dr.” Dobson’s suspicions about our poor little sea creature.

From the article:

A "homosexuality detection expert" at the similarly conservative Family Research Council told the NY Times that words like "tolerance" and "diversity" are part of a "coded language that is regularly used by the homosexual community."

I’m not sure which is creepier – that tolerance and diversity are bad words, or that an organization actually pays someone to be a homosexuality detection expert.

I detect it every day, for free, and I’m never wrong. Premature and optimistic in some cases, perhaps, but not wrong. Maybe I should be charging a consultation fee?

For all you busy mothers out there - Xavix Interactive Technologies has finally perfected technology to ensure that your children will never have to leave the house again! Now they can work up a sweat playing simulated versions of such American classics as bowling and baseball, without the risk that they might actually have to interact with a real person, especially one of another race.

Jesus, even I might actually get off my ass and drive to the bowling alley if I want to go bowling.

Poor LSBB is working so hard to make a better life for herself. She toiled for a year before being offered health insurance, and even excelling all that time she’s still low man on the totem pole. The latest insult is her new colleague Jessica the Hut, who waltzed in only to receive a better office and more smoke breaks per day than anyone else. As her nom de guerre might imply, she is ponderously fat – so fat that she informed LSBB that she didn’t even know she was pregnant (with her son-named-after-a-dog, Milo) until she was six months along. (Not being a medical professional I suppose I shouldn’t speak to such matters, but…wouldn’t you start to think something was up if you didn’t have a period for, like, two or three months?) When asked if she quit smoking during her pregnancy, she answered, “Well....................yeah, i mean, when I found out!" (Again, NOT a doctor, but…if you’ve already smoked for the first two trimesters, why bother quitting for the third?) The very picture of idealized motherhood, Jessica paid extra to have a c-section a week before her due date…so she could attend a PRINCE CONCERT.

Ms. Hut wears gargantuan Tori Amos concert t-shirts to work, apparently, and in fact has sent Ms. Amos several hand-crafted gifts, which she then follows up on via email to ensure that her gifts have been received and are being used for their intended purpose – say, as a door-stop in the studio or something. I’m CERTAIN Tori is touched by the thought.

As this week began with the most depressing day of the year, followed Tuesday by my singing at the memorial service for Washington Post columnist Marjorie Williams – where her high school chum Mary Chapin Carpenter sang a tearful goodbye, followed by Ms. Williams’ young children eloquently reading Shakespeare, followed by her 8-year old daughter singing “Fields of Gold” with a mournful, grown-up-sounding voice – you can imagine I was ready for a pick-me-up. Which arrived in the guise of a video of the only remaining episode of Luci’s Toy Shop, the beloved local children’s television show that anyone growing up in Columbus, Ohio from 1960-1972 will surely remember.

I don’t know WHY there’s only one show left, but there is, and it’s not a very good one, and it’s from before I was born, but I delighted to see it just the same. Luci, then, was a perky Sandy Duncan-esque gal who wore a red- and white-striped pinafore dress (every little girl in Columbus had an exact copy!) and, obviously, hung out in a Toy Shop, joined by her puppet friends Stanley Mouse, Mr. Dragon, Walrus, Pierre Poodle, Wonder Witch, Baby Giraffe, et al. I myself had all the knockoff puppets there were when I was a lad, including Charlie Horse who had to be operated with two hands!

This episode has something to do with a circus, and Luci’s efforts to enlist her pals to audition for it, only everyone runs away to join a real circus, because they don’t know about the auditions, except they don’t really run away….something like that. I suspect the episode had been written, bleary-eyed, over a cup of coffee at the all-night diner, because Luci keeps looking desperately off screen for cue cards, and situations that are resolved one minute are still present the next.

The most surreal moments are when Luci reaches into the sky to beat an imaginary gong, which even though imaginary, is apparently located somewhere because she looks frantically for it, and acts as if there’s a risk it won’t be found. Once struck, the gong magically blanks out the screen for a few seconds, and when the picture comes back we are greeted by a new puppet friend, Chan Ten, a shocking Chinese caricature who says things like “Me rikey” and “Gorry”. I have no recollection of Chan, I think he must have been fazed out by the time I came along, but I’ll be sure to ask Code Dependent about it.

The rest of the show is spent dancing to songs from the Mary Poppins soundtrack, and trying to prevent Dragon from getting angry (because when he does so, he turns from a puppet into an adult man wearing a vaguely dragon-shaped bedsheet, with dress slacks and wingtips sticking out the bottom. And who wants THAT?)

And just when you think the fun is over, the tape keeps going….first comes a series of news clips talking about the anniversary of Luci’s Toy Shop, and what Luci’s doing now, and how another local children’s show had recently filmed a special reunion/tribute/documentary thingie about Luci.

And THEN…a Buckeye Potato Chip commercial from the 60’s, with a dancing cartoon female potato chip (it’s hard to explain).

And THEN…the actual reunion/tribute/documentary thingie! Mind you, all but the episode itself was completely un-heralded on the video jacket. You can only imagine my glee, and Jet’s revulsion, at the hours of enforced misery that lay before him!

Sadly, Luci passed away in October 2003. Sniff. I guess I’ll go back to being blue now.

Goodnight, Johnny

2005-01-24T15:31:00.000-05:00

January 24: Welcome to the most depressing day of the year!

I don’t know why I should be so worked up over the death of Johnny Carson, but I start to tear up every time I think about it. I was not a particular fan of him OR the Tonight Show, though I did watch it every now and again, especially when I was a post-college young adult and it made me feel urbane to do so. I haven’t watched it since Johnny left, however, as the sound of Jay Leno’s voice makes me want to smash his face in.

I DID have a fantasy-life, starting at about age 9 or 10, which involved me being a precocious child star and making requisite appearances on The Tonight Show. My spot always followed either Shelley Winters, Hermoine Gingold, or a cast member from It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. (Only once did I fantasize following Robin Williams, and the subsequent predicament of how to make him keep his mouth shut during my interview).

I suppose I mourn more for what Johnny represented – the last true vestige of the Borscht-Belt entertainment of my parents’ generation, which I always thought I would be quite good at had I been born forty years earlier. I can do a slow burn with the best of them, but there’s not much call for it nowadays.

I also nursed imaginary lives as a singer on Lawrence Welk, a cast member on Hee Haw, and a star of a Beach movie, so you can see my love of cornpone pop culture of the past is longstanding.

In other news….

- My sanity is saved. Liberal talk radio that I can hear at work!

- The emperor with no clothes? YOU be the judge (WARNING: may not be appropriate for the workplace!)

- Jet and I DID make it to see Kate Mulgrew play Katharine Hepburn. Amazing. Not just amazing acting and script, but a remarkable physical and vocal impersonation of Ms. Hepburn at age 31 (Act I) and 76 (Act II) - though Ms. Mulgrew is, in our opinion, far prettier than Hepburn ever was.

I’m sure you’ve heard that Fundamentalist kook James Dobson, who as you recall is of the devil, has come out swinging against beloved star of stage and screen, SpongeBob Squarepants, for being a subversive homosexual.

PLEASE give us some credit. Oh, sure, we radical homosexuals, along with the Jews, have been busy taking over Hollywood for the past fifty years PRECISELY so that we could subversively homosexual characters in children’s programming and recruit children to our deviant lifestyle. But we’re not so foolish as to use such OBVIOUS agents like SpongeBob, Tinky-Winky, Vanity Smurf, the Pink Panther, and Bugs Bunny in a dress. No, our secret weapons are much more insidious.Now that the cat’s out of the bag, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to give you a sampling of some of our success stories;

Archie
Black Vulcan
Mr. Magoo
Jem
Goofy
Yosemite Sam
Schleprock
Captain Planet
The entire cast of Scooby Doo, including Scrappy

I could literally go on forever, but I don’t want to give away ALL our secrets. If this sort of thing upsets you, I encourage you to drop a line to Dr. Dobson right away and ask him why he’s been so slow on the uptake. Children’s programming is teeming with secret queers!

Before I go, a couple MORE things about Dubya’s prayer meetin’: I’ve had several reports that, indeed, Dubya was NOT prepared to contribute to the collection plate, but that Daddy slipped him a twenty. I can’t vouch for it, as I only saw Dick ante up, but I suppose if it was on TV, then it’s so.

Also, I forgot the excitement witnessed as I was driving home after the service. Lining Massachusetts Avenue were abortion protestors, with giant placards displaying photographs of bloody, dismembered fetuses. So they took their obviously expensive protest materials and set up shop:

a) outside the VATICAN EMBASSY;
b) on a strip of Massachusetts Avenue traveled primarily by BUSLOADS OF REPUBLICANS coming back from the inaugural prayer service

Ummm….isn’t that kind of preaching to the choir?

Snow Day!

2005-01-22T18:22:00.000-05:00

Not that there was THAT much on the schedule, it being Saturday and all, except that we were planning to go see Kate Mulgrew in Tea at Five tonight...but Ticketmaster informs us we can have our tickets honored at one of two shows tomorrow, so we're staying in, mixing drinks for Floozy Flingland and watching Dino cavort in her first snow.

Unfortunately, having worked in a box office or two, being able to exchange our tickets for our choice of performances tomorrow tells me the show must not be selling well. A shame, as we adore Kate Mulgrew (gay men are perhaps the only people who like Captain Janeway and her ilk), and we love Katharine Hepburn, the subject of Tea at Five.

Thanks to all my peeps at Democratic Underground for all the kind words of encouragement, and I promise to try and be witty and insightful always, now that people I don't actually know are apparently reading. If you're linking from there, scroll down for yesterday's report. And here are a couple fo things I forgot to mention:

- Despite being caught without his wallet last inauguration, Dubya was again unable to conribute anything to the collection plate...though Dick did ante up. The proceeds, apparently, go to USA Corps.

- Rumor has it that Laura's hairdo cost $700. I achieved the same sort of look on Little Sister with a round brush and a blow dryer, when I was thirteen years old. She could have saved a bundle by coming to me (and one's mind reels at the hubbub that would have been created had a Hilary Clinton or, say, Therza Heinz Kerry been caught spending that much on themselves).

That's all for now. I've got to go learn an opera and figure out how to make a Bloody Mary that doesn't turn my stomach. Ta ta!

I, witless to History

2005-01-21T15:21:00.000-05:00

As promised, here is my on-the-spot report of The Fifty-Fifth Presidential Inaugural Prayer Service, held this morning at The Washington National Cathedral.

First, my assessment of security. The choir had to arrive at 7:45, so that we could be safely escorted through in plenty of time to eat our muffins, warm up, and get to our places. Once we were all gathered at the College of Preachers, a separate building from the main Cathedral, we marched up the hill to a side entrance, where we were to stow any bags or packages that we had brought. Then we had to march back outside, aaaalllllll the way around the building to the main West entrance, where we could be magnetometized and wanded before entering the building. Then we were allowed to proceed to the choir room, where our muffins were waiting.

The choir room, which is just inside the entrance where we had first stowed our bags.

Our bags, which we still had free access to, with NO ONE WAITING TO WAND OR MAGNETOMETIZE US.

Should any one of us taken it upon ourselves to hide, say, an atomic weapon in our Hello Kitty lunch pail, it would have been a pretty simple thing, I should think.

Otherwise, the SS (Secret Service) took every opportunity they could to make us stand erect with our arms outstretched so they could rub their wands all over our bodies. Yes, it’s JUST as homoerotic as it sounds. Several of the choir men commented that they had had many fantasies that began just that way.

Fun Fact for the day: The leading health complaint of Secret Service officers is bladder infections, because once they’re on duty they’re not even allowed to take pee breaks!

We took our places in the Great Choir shortly before 10 o’clock. For those unfamiliar with the National Cathedral, the Great Choir is a little cordoned-off section nearest the altar, separate from the main church, which is where most of today’s action took place. Fortunately, I was positioned in just such a way that I had a perfect view of the ront rows of the nave, which is where the President’s family was seated.

George H.W. and Bar were already in place when the choir arrived. Of course, I’ve already sung for THEM, in 1998 at the University of Miami. I’m certain they would have remembered, had I been able to chat them up a bit. Bar was wearing a black dress with a black-and-white houndstooth jacket, and of course her signature pearls. HW wore the Republican uniform of the day, a dark suit, though he spiced it up with a pale blue shirt and red tie. My 1998 assessment still holds true: she looks great in person, he looks like the Cryptkeeper.

Five minutes AFTER the service was to supposed to begin, the JennaBarbaras traipsed in. JennaBarbara One (the brunette) looked lovely and poised, and a sweet little teal Audrey Hepburn-esque number. JennaBarbara Two (the other one), in winter white, looked, as she always does, a bit...well, dirty. She certainly showed too much cleavage for church, and that’s a fact. At least her hair was brushed, not like at yesterday’s swearing in ceremony when it was secured by a RUBBER BAND and looked all kookity. The JennaBarbaras weren’t hungover THAT I COULD TELL, but I imagine by now they’re pretty good at spritzing a bit of perfume in their mouths, pinching their cheeks and sallying forth to meet the world.

The JennaBarbaras were followed in by the Cheneys. Say, did you know they have a lesbian daughter? Dick wore a dark suit with dark mauve tie. Lynn wore a Norwegian Blue suit accompanied, unfortunately, by MATCHING EYE SHADOW. Dick, as always, lurched along like the Hunchback of Notre Dame and looked as if he begrudged every breath he took.

G.W. and Laura were the last to enter, he in a dark suit with puce tie, and she in a lovely pale pink suit. She really CAN look elegant when she wants to, and I have to tell you that the camera doesn’t do her justice. I always think she has a plump face when I see her on tv or in photographs, but she really has quite strong cheek bones and a nicely defined jawline.

The service began with the singing of “Joyful Joyful We Adore Thee” – all sang except Dick – followed by Reverend Billy Graham’s opening Prayer. He is on a walker, and had to helped to the podium, but he still has a fierce, Charlton-Heston-in-the-second-half-of-The-Ten-Commandments look about him. His hair is so white it glows, his voice is strong, and I do believe he could whup some ass if he really had to. (I do wish he’d whup some sense into that son of his, but that’s a topic for another time). The National Anthem was then sung, and then we all sat down for the parade of multiculturalism:

The first lesson, read in Hebrew by Rabbi Mort Yolkut (A Jew!)
A prayer by Bishop G.E. Patterson of the Church of God (An African-American!)
A Psalm led by Reverend Luis Cortes, President of Nueva Esperanza, Inc. (A Latino!)
A reading by the Meropolitan Herman, Orthodox Archbishop of Washington (A Greek!)
A reading by Cardinal Keeler of Baltimore (A Catholic!)
Prayers by all of the above, plus Cardinal McCarrick of Washington, (another Catholic!)Archbishop Demetrios of New York (another Greek!) , and Imam Yahya Hendi of Georgetown University (gasp! A Muslim!).

The sermon, by Rev. Mark Craig of Highland Park United Methodist Church in Dallas, was some claptrap about living every day to the fullest, and then degenerated into a coy re-wording of Bush’s speech yesterday – you know, spreading freedom throughout the world, yadda yadda yadda.

The choir then sang “The King of Love My Shepherd Is”, the fifth verse of which was my solo verse, written just for me – and JennaBarbara talked ALL THE WAY THROUGH. I can tell you one thing, if we chilluns ever acted up in church, Mother Rubble would have had us outside getting spanked so fast, it would’ve made your head spin! Seems to me a good whack every now and again might do those girls a world of good.

Shortly thereafter, one of the boy choristers lost his muffins in a most ungainly way (apparently, he had eaten lots of cherry Danish). Bless his heart, he had no sooner wretched than he was right back up, ready to sing. But THAT SOUND, and the SMELL, it’s a wonder the lot of us didn’t have one of those chain-reaction vomit-offs you’re always hearing about.

So then we sang “My Country ‘Tis of Thee”. Overlooking a pile of fresh vomit.

The only other dignitaries I was able to pick out were Ruth Bader Ginsberg, who I see EVERYWHERE, and John Ashcroft, who practically fell over himself trying to shake Billy Graham's hand.

Most hopeful portent of the day: Reverend Craig, amidst the claptrap and political shilling, managed to let us know that God actually DOES love Hindus and Moslems and Buddhists and Jews, right in line with the Gospel reading, Matthew 5:43-48;

You have heard it said, "You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy." But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in Heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect , therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Most troubling portent: The singing of the obscure second verse of the National Anthem, which reads, in part (emphasis mine): “Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just…”

Spreading freedom, indeed.

Coronation Day....

2005-01-20T15:42:00.000-05:00

…and the town is abuzz with Inaugural activities for Emperor Shrub. I myself will take part tomorrow, when I sing at Dubya’s Prayer Service at the National Cathedral. A solo. Written just for me. But I’m not bragging. Upstaging me on the marquee will be peg-leg Irish tenor Ronan Tynan, who butchered Ave Maria so badly at Reagan’s funeral, I guess they decided to give him a chance to redeem himself. And, lest I appear on television, rest assured I have grown a bit of a beard so as not to receive any long distance complaints (you KNOW who you are).

I WAS sorry to miss Jenna and Barbara’s “Youth Concert” the other night, if only to hear the gasps of horror when a musician inadvertently uttered the “f” word for the audience. That would have been the ONLY event of interest, apparently, as the following account relates (emphases mine - the image of Stephen Baldwin makes me especially giddy):

While the message was positive, the concert's cool quotient was in question. "I guess it would be a cool concert if you're a 17-year-old girl," said Roy Trakin, senior editor of Hits magazine. Not really, said Millicent Bolin, 17-year-old from New Orleans. Many in the audience were on school trips, and some weren't thrilled that the concert was on their itinerary. "We had to come," Millicent said. "I don't like these people ... they're too fake and mainstream." If the concert fell short on the hip scale, it wasn't for lack of trying. Stephen Baldwin took the stage on a skateboard. "Are you guys rockin' or what?" he enthused. While the star power was only so-so, according to Trakin, he gave the Republicans credit for persuading a half-dozen acts to perform. "It's not all country and polka," he noted. Still, the GOP line-up didn't compare to the Democrats' star-studded concerts last fall that featured Bruce Springsteen, the Dave Matthews Band, R.E.M. and other heavy hitters, Trakin said. "All the action is still on the Democrats' side," he said. "Bill Clinton had Fleetwood Mac ... George Bush has Hilary Duff."

Of course, I'm astonished that any activities could proceed as planned, being that we've had AN INCH of snow, throwing the city into chaos. Tuesday, BEFORE the snow came, several school systems closed anyway...because it was COLD. I'm not kidding. Rather than wake up a few maintenance men to go down to the bus yard and warm up the fleet, they cancelled school for 200,000 children in a week where they had already had a holiday.

When I was a lad, during the blizzrd of 78, there was two feet of snow and the school building was without heat for two weeks, and we STILL had to go in to school for half-days, bundled up in our woollens and caps. And the other half of the day we had to go to the public library and do our homework. Kids today, sheesh.

A moment of silence, please, for Ruth Warrick, claimed this week by pneumonia. She is, of course, the creator and 35-year portrayer of the second-greatest female soap opera role ever, Pheobe English Tyler Wallingford Matthews Wallingford (number 1 is Erica Kane, number 3 is Dorian Lord). She also appears in a host of old-timety movies, such as Citizen Kane and the never-to-be-seen-again Song of the South (though my sources tell me Disney is itching to get it out on DVD, if they can just find a black actor with enough cache in the black community to support it. Wayne Brady volunteered, but he’s not black enough, apparently. I, of course, have a bootleg copy of my own.)

And finally today, the mystery of why I like caveman movies has finally been solved.

Back tomorrow or the next days with my full prayer meetin’ report!

Is it hot in here, or is it just me?

2005-01-14T09:44:00.000-05:00

The Today Show, which for some reason I can’t stop watching even though I hate it, has given me two frights this week; The first, yesterday, when it showed a clip of a man being fished out of a Los Angeles river. Apparently, he had been wearing sweatpants when his car became trapped by rising water, and at some point in the course of being rescued and hauled to shore, he lost said sweatpants…and apparently wasn’t wearing underwear. The point being, the Today Show producers just ran the tape without digitizing the poor man’s wiener. Not that I object to the sight of a penis, obviously, but not at 7 o’clock in the morning, and not on the Today Show! Subsequent airings of the tape did utilize digital obfuscation, and Lester Holt was even kind enough to mention to the poor fool during a live interview that they were, in fact, protecting his modesty – except for that one time, I guess.

The second scare was on today’s installment, with Katie Couric unashamedly flirting with Newt Gingrich, who looks like a grown-up Cabbage Patch Kid and reeks of pure evil. How he can still be going on about moral values, after serving divorce papers to his second of three wives while she lay in the cancer recovery ward, is beyond me. Who still listens to this fool?

Thankfully, more and more real Christians are reclaiming their faith from the kooks.

And speaking of religious kooks, Mel Gibson has driven the Fundamentalists crazy by recently coming out as staunchly anti-Iraq War, as well as pronouncing a kinship with fellow kook filmmaker Michael Moore. Makes me more inclined to watch my copy of The Passion which Mother Rubble gave us for Christmas, which I’ve been avoiding because of the gore, seeing as how I didn’t sleep for three weeks after watching the trailer for Dawn of the Dead. But that’s another story.

So it’s almost 70 degrees, and my allergies are causing me to have burning pain in my lungs, and I, like the rest of the world, am wondering what happened to winter. And just when I think THAT’S bad enough, I go and find that it may not be just the Earth that’s in trouble.

Now, who can help me figure out how to blame this on the Bush administration?

In addition to finding scary interstellar climate theories while surfing the internet, not doing my work, I ran across this interesting theory which caused me a good hour-and-a-half of sleeplessness: seems a mathematician has come up with a theory that the Dark Ages may never have happened – like, those years, roughly 614-911 AD, simply didn’t exist, they were just kind of, inserted into history as if they did exist, but there’s really no independent archaeological or literary proof of it. Which means it’s really only about 1700 or so. Wonder what this does to millenialists who think the end of the world is overdue?

Consuela, my workplace cubicle-mate, not only makes and receives cell phone calls, in Spanish, all day long, but also plays some kooky radio station that she streams from the internet. Here’s a sampling of today’s playlist:

Never On a Sunday (on vibraphone)
Once I Had a Secret Love
Mona Lisa
Born Free
Somewhere My Love
Witchita Lineman
Mack the Knife

Not that I have a particular aversion to these songs individually, but en masse they’re a bit much to take, especially without a cocktail in one’s hand. The last straw was Over the Rainbow – not the Wizard of Oz soundtrack version, but the old, boozed-up Judy Garland. That’s enough to make me want to end it all on the best of days.

More internet fun, about

Now that THAT'S over...

2005-01-05T10:30:00.000-05:00

…we can all say goodbye to our fun and visits and eating and get back to our boring, humdrum lives, and be thankful we don’t live somewhere that God can smite us with a tidal wave for being Hindu (and I’m NOT EVEN KIDDING that I heard someone say that THAT was the reason for the tsunami that surely killed lots of Christians and Jews and Muslims and Buddhists, too)….

So Jet and I had a lovely nine-day visit with Mother Rubble – actually, it was mostly Jet, since he was off work and I wasn’t, and plus had to work extra down to the Cathedral and all. But Jet was kind enough to run her out to the grocery store, and up to Pennsylvania to visit the Reverend Uncle, and such, while I labored away. All for the sake of appearing on television on Christmas morn, along with Jet and Mother Rubble, only to hear that the lights washed me out and I looked pale and sickly! And from Code Dependent, no less, who now has the medical authority to back up her opinions!

I HAVE finally gone to the doctor for my persistent cough, only to hear that I’m a bad patient for not paying close enough attention to the color of my mucous. Oh, for the days when they would pass out antibiotics like candy! Now I imagine I’ll be back in a week with the same complaint, my coffers being bled dry one 10-dollar co-pay at a time.

After church on Christmas Day, we had a happy present opening, where I got everything I wanted and Jet got everything that he wanted-even-though-he-didn’t-know-he-wanted-it. Best present for Jet: the collected works of David Sedaris on CD, read by the author.

Best present for me: The Complete “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century” on DVD, or, as Jet likes to call it, “soft porn”. Added bonus – the discovery of the hitherto unknown theme song WITH lyrics, which opens the premier episode.

PS – Gil Gerard is perfection itself.

Best present for Dino: the “Bow-Lingual” bark translator. So far she says innocuous things like “Yippee”, and “Keep Up!”, though we did get one “Resistance is Futile”, and I’m keeping a guarded eye open for things like “Eat Drano” and “Bomb the Harbor”. You never know.

Mother Rubble left and at almost simultaneously we welcomed our old pal JubJub from Chicago. Though it pains me to disclose that I’ve known JubJub for twenty years, and we met as adults, we never fail to have a good time when she’s around, even though we never seem to do much except lay around and talk about what we might like to do if we could ever get off our asses and do it.

For all you serial daters out there, JubJub has a strong warning against eHarmony.com. After filling out her exhaustive questionnaire and being sent many unexciting romantic possibilities, she was finally sent an imminently qualified language arts professor (she herself is a teacher of English as a second language). So she excitedly clicked on the link to see the young gent’s pictures.

There she came upon some pictures of what she presumed to be the young gentleman’s mother, or perhaps him dressed as Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie for Halloween.

Nope, nothing so delightful as that…he was indeed a cross-dresser, and proud of it.

Oh, and blind.

So now I’m re-charged and ready to get back to work, eager in the next year to focus on my strengths – 1) exposing hypocrisy, 2) making fun of celebrities, and 3) complaining about slights to gay people.

To wit:

1) God did NOT send the tsunami to punish people for being Hindu, I’m quite sure. They’ve been Hindu a lot longer than there have even BEEN Christians, one would think God would have done something about them long before this.

NOR is he punishing Muslims for fighting amongst themselves.

NOR was it caused by a joint American/Israeli nuclear weapons test.

It’s just a natural phenomenon, all right? With terrible, terrible consequences, unfortunately, but natural nonetheless. Move on.

2) NOR, Star Jones-Reynolds, is there cause to thank the Lord on National television that you got home from your southeast Asian honeymoon “just in time” to avoid getting swept away. To paraphrase Jon Stewart, that’s like saying you narrowly avoided the Kennedy assasination because you were riding in a convertible the week before.

It seems Matt Lauer has finally decided to start growing his hair back. I’ll never forget the gasp of horror when he first appeared with that shorn look he’s been wearing the past few years. Unfortunately, he’s now at that awkward stage where all he can do is brush all his hair forward in a faux-Caesar look. He looks more like character actor Jay Robinson (that’s TV’s Dr. Shrinker to you, post-Baby Boomers!)

And can someone tell me HOW Stephen Bing, who looks like a toad, keeps getting hot women like Liz Hurley and Nicole Kidman?

3) Virginia is for lovers – just not gay ones. New legislation will promote the creation of vanity license plates embossed with intertwined gold bands and the words “Traditional Marriage”. Perfect for drivers eager to have their cars keyed whenever they drive into DC! I’m hoping to get my own vanity plate soon, but can’t decide between “Women belong in the kitchen” and “Jesus on my lips, hatred in my heart”.

That’s all for now, but never fear, I’ll try and be back soon. And stay tuned for next Friday’s breathless, eyewitness account of the Inaugural Prayer Service at the National Cathedral (and be sure to bid on my collection of bulletins and other ephemera on eBay shortly thereafter).

Know what I hate?

2004-12-23T14:07:00.000-05:00

I hate when insipid news “reporters” interview Hollywood “actors” (for the sake of argument, let’s say it’s Katie Couric interviewing Leonardo DiCaprio on this morning’s Today Show), and they’re sitting on a fake movie set (as if movie sets aren’t already fake enough) and they’re sitting on those fold-out director’s chair, and they’re making it sound like acting is a hard thing to do. Trust me, my acting never fails to get good notices in the press, and it’s NOT hard. It’s practically the easiest thing in the whole world, and I can’t for the life of me figure out why anyone should get paid millions and millions of dollars for doing it, since anyone who pursues it for a living is either hyper-narcissistic or has a low enough self-esteem that they would probably do it for free.

So the only thing easier than acting, I imagine, is my day job, which requires my attention for about 45 minutes out of every day, and the rest of the time I surf the internet or write things, and yet today I received my second raise in five months and a “performance bonus” of 500 dollars. Ho-hum. This coupled with my forthcoming national television appearance (Christmas morning, 9am EST, ABC networks, check your local listings) MIGHT be enough to give me a swelled head, but something is sure to happen soon to keep me humble, so never fear.

So I’m counting down the minutes until I can leave work early, and trying desperately to keep myself entertained until then. My favorite web diversion of late is Webshots, where you can browse thousands and thousands of pictures posted by people who, apparently, don’t know that posting pictures on the internet means that anyone in the world will be able to see them. Pictures like this, this, this, this, this, and this. I will freely admit that it gives me a certain voyeuristic tingle, similar to the days when I was working in a one-hour photo lab for a major Midwestern photographic specialty store. The workday there, while boring, was occasionally punctuated by a roll or two of film from a customer who was apparently unaware that their photos would be viewed by human attendants and, when particularly juicy, copied and posted on the staff room bulletin board. Customers like Mrs. K____, wife of Dr. N___ K____, the medical reporter for the ABC affiliate in Columbus, Ohio, back in the late 80’s and early 90’s. About once a month, Mrs. K___ would drop of a roll of pictures of her husband, sometimes fully naked and sometimes dressed in a Navy dress uniform, but always displaying his erect manhood. I don’t make this stuff up. Before you start forming a mental picture, let me add that, while Dr. K___ had nothing to be ashamed of in the manhood department, he looked like Alfred E. Newman if Alfred E. Newman had been smashed in the face, and was covered top to bottom in coarse red hair. There, go form your mental picture now. I’ll wait.

Dr. K___ lost his job, apparently, after he was caught illegally prescribing prescription laxatives or something to J___G___, the weatherman at the NBC affiliate. I was never too sure of all the details, but if you’re REALLY interested let me know and I’ll track them down.

That’s all. I’m off to whittle away my remaining hours and plan how to spend my performance bonus.

As Nana used to say: "Kids are Kids"

2004-12-17T10:52:00.000-05:00

Charles Krauthammer says what I wanted to say the other day about Christmas and such, only he’s more coherent. That’s why he’s a professional columnist and I’m a weirdo who writes about buying comic books.

So last night I was at the National Cathedral’s annual National Cathedral School/St. Alban’s School Lessons and Carols service, in which every musical act at said schools gets to perform, so it should more accurately be called “One Part Lessons to Three Parts Carols”.

Tuition for the schools runs about $25,000 per year, which might lead one to think that the students come from DC’s better families. But apparently, money still doesn’t buy taste or class, or the ability to ensure that your children look like proper young ladies and gentlemen. Yet, WITHOUT exception;

EVERY young man had mussed-up hair, and looked as if he’d just come from snorting something in the boys’ restroom, and;

EVERY young woman under the age of 21 looked like a…well, Mother Rubble would say Street Walker, but I’ll just be straight with you and say they look like whores. They all had teased-up hair and caked-on make-up, and the tightest clothes imaginable, with the obligatory roll of fat poking out between their tops and skirts. And they all have permanent Paris Hilton-face, you know, the pouty look that girls make when they’re posing for the cover of a porno movie.

WHO is continuing to tell girls that this is a good look? I demand to know! I would have thought the fad would have burned itself out by now, or that girls of good sense would have asserted themselves, girls like Miss K at my office, who is young and drop-dead gorgeous (she’s a former model! ) and comes from California, and yet she wears her pants up around her waist as they should be worn, and wears little to no make-up, and if she has a love handle she keeps it to herself, and she has to practically BEAT the men off! Is this what the sexual revolution brought us, the freedom for rich children to look like trash?

Well, I’m done. I’m going shopping on my lunch hour, and then I’m all finished and ready to greet Mother Rubble’s arrival on Moday!

And the killer is....

2004-12-16T16:26:00.000-05:00

THAT’S thirty bucks I’ll never get back.

I’m speaking, of course, of the seven-issue comic series Identity Crisis, which I wrote about a couple of months ago.

The series, by hot novelist Brad Meltzer (I mean hot in the pop culture sense, not in the Hugh Jackman sense) started off, as you may recall, with the murder of Sue Dibny, wife of the happy-go-lucky super-hero The Elongated Man. It was a classic locked-room mystery, no apparent clues and no apparent way for the murderer to get in and out. Sue was at home, preparing a surprise birthday party for her husband while he was out on patrol. The biggest surprise? After twenty years of marriage, she was pregnant. The only glimpse the readers got of the murderer was a hand holding a flamethrower and saying “Goodbye, Sue” before torching her.

As the series went on, we found out several heretofore unknown facts about the superhero community, including:

- that Sue Dibny had been raped by super-villain Dr. Light
- that the Justice League, in addition to regularly mind-wiping super-villains to make them forget sensitive information, mind-wiped Dr. Light to such an extent that his entire personality was altered
- that the Justice League, when confronted by an irate Batman (who objected to the personality modification of Dr. Light), mind-wiped Batman to make him forget the mind-wiping of Dr. Light

The reader was led to believe that a serial killer was on the loose…Jean Loring, ex-wife of shrinking super-hero The Atom, was attacked in her home, and plucky gal reporter Lois Lane received a threatening note indicating that the killer knew Superman’s identity. Jack Drake, father of Robin, was killed while defending himself against super-villain Captain Boomerang.

In the penultimate issue 6, we learned the results of Sue Dibny’s autopsy, which showed that she was NOT killed by the flamethrower after all, but by a brain aneurysm, an aneurysm caused by someone STANDING ON HER BRAIN (evidenced by a pair of tiny footprints which showed up in a CAT Scan). All evidence seemed to point to The Atom, who in fact had no alibi for the time of the original murder, and ended issue 6 about to get into bed with his ex-wife, with a leery grin on his face.

And so yesterday I was all jumpy and couldn’t concentrate, knowing that I would be leaving at 5:30 and going straightaway to the comic shop, and getting my grubby hands on the final issue, and finding out who the killer REALLY was, because I knew it WASN’T the Atom, and so the time finally came and I went and bought it and raced right home and, after walking Dino as I had promised to do, went right home and read it cover to cover, and then I cursed Brad Meltzer’s name and am forced to tell you that he is a hack, because the murderer is (stop reading if you don’t want me to spoil anything for you…)

Jean Loring. Yes, ex-wife of the Atom, who was attacked, as you recall, in her own home. She killed Sue by shrinking down to microscopic size using one of the Atom’s “spare costumes”, even though the existence of spare costumes was never established in the series. While microscopic, she used the Atom’s old trick of riding through the telephone lines, called Sue, and rode right into her inner ear, where she proceeded to accidentally grow too big and cause the aneurysm. She had intended, you see just to simulate a villainous attack. Luckily, she had enough foresight to bring a shrunken flamethrower with her, (and I quote), “Just in case.” JUST IN CASE!

So, having accidentally killed and then torched Sue, she staged an attack on herself, and then sent the note to Lois, and then hired Captain Boomerang to attack Jack Drake and left Jack Drake a gun with which to defend himself.

Her motive?

To get the Atom back.

Even though it WAS established, IN THE STORY, that the divorce was HER idea. Even though it was established, IN THE STORY, that the Atom still loved her and all she would have had to do to get him back was glance at him sideways.

So the entire series, essentially, with the introduction of legions of personality-altered super-villains, and a mind-wiped Batman, and oh, yes, the bastard son of Captain Boomerang who inherited super-speed from his as-yet unnamed mother, was all just a place to introduce these new concepts that will now, presumably, be explained in future comics! That’s like getting to the end of Citizen Kane, and you’re about to find out what Rosebud is, and then you find out you’re not going to find out until you go see, like, three or four other movies!

On the bright side, I have discovered “Astonishing X-Men”, written by Buffy creator Josh Whedon, which is really good, and actually has internal consistency, and if you like Buffy you should go and read it at once. And that’s that.

X marks the spot

2004-12-15T17:12:00.000-05:00

So, I woke up all panicky this morning, because I haven’t done my Christmas shopping yet, and I usually have it all wrapped up by, oh, September 1 or so. But it’s been a lean year, so I’ve been waiting for this very day, December 15, when all the old bills were paid off and the new money started rolling in. So I go onto Amazon, which is where I do all my shopping, because you can find anything for anyone, and I complete my order, and then realize that Amazon cannot guarantee that my items will arrive by Christmas, only estimate. So then I get all panicky again, and start searching the Borders and Best Buy and Barnes and Noble websites, to see how much of this loot I can actually trot on down and pick up in person. And, as it turns out, I can get everything except one wished-for item, and the total bill, plus tax, will still be less than items plus shipping at Amazon. I’m a wonder, I am.

And all this talk of Christmas makes me think of the Cold Room, which I mentioned to LSBB the other day, and she got a creepy feeling because she kind of knew what I was talking about, until I described it in detail, whereupon she realized that she had blocked it from her memory.

The Cold Room, you see, was an odd little room, about 4 by 6, attached to the basement of our childhood home. It was a little room that was, well, cold. It had a wooden door with a latch, and you had to step up to get into it, and it was where Mother Rubble kept her onions and potatoes and empty mason jars. And in the far corner of the cold room was an old timety trunk, with old-timety Christmas decorations that were never used, and they smelled like Christmas (in retrospect, I suppose they smelled like mothballs and mustiness, but to me it was the smell of Christmas). Though LSBB is apparently blocking some secret fear of the cold room, Big Sister and I agree that it was a magical place full of treasures if one knew where to look.

And speaking of Christmas, why in the hell is everyone so up in arms about calling things “Christmas This” and “Christmas That” ? If your town puts up a tree in the public square, and calls it a “Holiday Tree” or a “Community Tree”, it’s STILL a CHRISTMAS TREE, and it’s up because it’s CHRISTMAS TIME, and EVERYONE has the day off whether they celebrate Christmas or not (except Safeway checkers and Church musicians), and putting up a tree (which originated as a pagan winter solstice celebratory tool) to commemorate what is, for all intents and purposes, a secular celebration of capitalism, hardly constitutes an endorsement of religion by the state. Especially when the “community tree” is flanked by a Menorah and a Muhindi, which are NOT re-named “Community Candelabra” and “Holiday Ear of Corn”. And if someone says “Merry Christmas” to you, and you don’t celebrate Christmas, just smile and walk on by, chances are very good that they genuinely wish you well and mean no disrespect. So everybody just settle down. If you really feel that a Christmas display on public property is exclusive, then pressure your town to build a display that includes all religions of the community. Putting a fake name on a Christian display still doesn’t embrace everyone, and pisses off the Christians.

And don’t think you’re off the hook, Christians. You can settle down, too. Boycotting stores because they haven’t put up ENOUGH Christmas decorations, why the very idea! And writing “Xmas” is NOT blasphemous, if you think it is you’re an idiot and you need to do some historical research on the early Christians and their symbols.

So there.

Speechless (literally!)

2004-12-08T13:42:00.000-05:00

So, I’m back. The terribleness of the weekend, I could practically write a book, but beyond that, I’ve decided to stop bitching about the state of the nation, about which I can do nothing at the moment except bitch, and just write about any old thing that comes to mind.

Jet was gone all weekend at a work-related conference, staying at the rah-jah-jah J.W. Marriott in downtown DC, where our friend Uncle Mame works and made sure Jet was treated to the best of everything. So, I was at home alone with Dino, but without much time to sit and stew because I was performing in a sold-out cabaret of Noel Coward and Cole Porter songs, cleverly titled – wait for it – “Noel and Cole”.

Thursday night, I started feeling that terrible heavy feeling in my lungs, which means that a chest cold is imminent. Friday it was still there, but holding steady. Friday night I downed about a half-bottle of Robitussin, which not only kept me awake most of the night, but is apparently hallucinogenic. As I lay in bed watching a History Channel comparative biography of Hitler and Stalin (which I’m allowed to do when Jet is gone – watch TV in bed, that is), I was gripped with empathy for how horrible their respective childhoods had been, and convinced that if only I could invent a time machine, I could go back in time, kidnap them both as infants, and raise them up right. Then I was locked in a night-long debate with myself as to whether it would really do any good, or whether their evil was genetic.

Saturday matinee, worse. Saturday evening, I had to make several spur-of-the-moment exits off stage to get water, clear my throat loudly and disgustingly, and sneak back on without causing too much of a commotion.

Sunday I woke up with no voice, and had to muscle my way through two more cabaret performances as well as a Cathedral service in the morning.

It was murder, honestly, maybe the worst feeling in the whole world. The closest I’ve come to crying in public in a good long while. But to blow my own horn a bit, a fellow cast-member (who is also an internationally experienced stage performer and respected teacher) said the dramatic choices I made to get through said shows were smart and the sign of a true pro. So that’s that. I’m a true pro, but I still have no effing voice, and I’ve got gigs lined up every day from now through December 26, and what’s a girl to do?

I’ve been mainlining Mucinex and drinking, on average, a gallon-and-a-half of water every day for the past four days, with no discernible benefit. Last night, I tried Mother Rubble’s cure-all, a Hot Toddy (liquor, water, lemon juice and honey – though I suspect Mother Rubble used quite a bit less water than I did). I seem to remember having one once, going to bed, and waking up the next morning completely cured of all that ailed me. So I guess I made it wrong, because the result was that I was wide awake all night, swimming in a pool of my own sweat, and still have no voice today. Thankfully, I DID get to see an episode of my beloved Bewitched, and an Aunt Clara episode to boot! Unfortunately, I also saw an episode of Gunsmoke, from the 70’s when Marshall Dillon looked like a wax figure and Miss Kitty was, like, ninety years old, and I got engrossed, only to find that it was a Part 1, which means I have to wake up at 6 tomorrow so I can see Part 2.

I also saw plenty of "Girls Gone Wild" commercials, and I ask any straight men that might be reading to please write and explain to me what is appealing about young women pulling up their halter tops while staring blankly into space, or worse yet, gyrating their hips while making a face like they've just gotten a mouthful of iodine and are trying to scrape the taste off their tongues with their teeth.

So, I'm back at work, my first full day since last Thursday, and glad to be greeted with emails from oddly-named scientists from around the world! Here are my favorites so far:

Dr. Eberhard Fuchs
Dr. Electron Kebebew
Dr. Alison K. Death

Last night, Jet and I finished Gone With the Wind, which we’ve been watching in installments, and Jet now avows he’s never seen before in its entirety. It’s been quite awhile since I’d seen it, and it made me realize how political correctness has permeated the popular culture, as I was startled every time a character said “darky” - which was, like, a THOUSAND times. But I still love it, and many of you will remember that it’s Code Dependent’s favorite movie of all times and she could watch it a hundred times a day every day for the rest of her life. It also made me think, why the hell won’t they release Song of the South (also starring Hattie McDaniel)? It’s not nearly so offensive (I have a bootleg copy, of course, but would still pay good money for a restored version on DVD). The movie was released on VHS in Britain, and Laserdisc in Japan, which accounts for the ease of acquiring a bootleg copy. But, according to my sources, nervous Disney execs, planning the eventual video release in the US, had a notion to ask a prominent African-American celebrity to film a framing sequence that would place the film in its historical context. This being the mid-1980’s, the first person approached was Maya Angelou, who promptly refused and threatened boycott should it ever be released. This, apparently, is why Disney has pretended the movie doesn’t exists ever since.

But come on – if Maya Angelou isn’t out protesting Gone With the Wind, she CERTAINLY wouldn’t have a leg to stand on in protesting Song of the South, which as I said, is not nearly so offensive. I’m just sayin’.

Speechless, part II

2004-12-02T14:42:00.000-05:00

Here ya go.

http://www.365gay.com/newscon04/12/120104alabama.htm

"Where they start burning books, they end burning people."

Speechless

2004-12-01T13:50:00.000-05:00

Liberal bias in the media? I wish.

An ad from the United Church of Christ has been rejected by CBS and NBC because it’s “too controversial”.

The reason it’s controversial? Because it advocates inclusiveness for all, including gays.

Really, some days I just want to hang my head and cry. When they come for us, will someone hide Jet and me in their attic? I promise a share of the royalties from the subsequent publication of any diaries.

Here is a statement from CBS on the matter (emphasis mine, to illustrate how far the media has its nose up Dubya’s ass): "Because this commercial touches on the exclusion of gay couples and otherminority groups by other individuals and organizations, and the fact the Executive Branch has recently proposed a Constitutional Amendment to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman, this spot is unacceptable for broadcast on the [CBS andUPN] networks."

Suggested punitive-but-probably-pointless action: CBS and UPN (who also refuses to air the ad) are owned by Viacom, which also owns Blockbuster Video, currently under capitalistic attack by NetFlix. Write a nice letter to Blockbuster, including the cut-up bits of your Blockbuster card, explaining why you are no longer using Blockbuster and will be switching to NetFlix (or do as I do, buy any DVD you might even suspect you want, whether you ever watch it or not).

Gay, gay, gay

2004-11-29T15:27:00.000-05:00

I don’t MEAN to always talk about gay things, but you know what they say, write what you know.

The Supreme Court has just declined, without comment, to review a challenge to gay marriages currently taking place in Massachusetts.

So, I don’t want to be overly optimistic. On the bright side, it could mean that Karl Rove gave a quick call to the court this morning, telling them it was hands off, which means that the Republican party is abandoning the religious right now that they won Bush the election. (Which the Republicans will do, I’m just not sure if it will be this soon or not.)

It could also mean that the court realizes that, absent religious feelings, there is no compelling reason, constitutional or otherwise, to prevent gay people from marrying. And by sidestepping the issue this time, they’re just delaying the awful truth from the rest of us, until such time as a couple wed in Massachusetts inevitably sues for recognition from another state.

On the dark side, it could mean that, by keeping the issue out of the courts (where it could only be good for gay people), the Republicans are gearing up to actually push for that Constitutional Amendment nonsense they’ve been yapping about. Which I don’t think would pass muster, but….well, I didn’t think Bush would win again, either. I guess we’ll just see.

Did everyone have a swell Thanksgiving? Jet and I hosted the ever-entertaining 23Skidoo and her husband for Thursday dinner, then watched our new Harry Potter DVD. Friday, we laid around on the floor and watched rented movies all day, then tidied up the house and hosted Jet’s new boss, Reverend ___ , who is gay but isn’t allowed to tell. See, he’s filling an interim position at Jet’s church, and when he came to town he told the diocese he wanted a job where he could be out, and they, essentially, laughed in his face.

Jet has heard from the grapevine that Reverend ____ was NOT the first choice for the job, but that at least one other was not chosen…for being GAY. Ha ha, isn’t the irony delicious! We were afraid this would all come as news to Reverend ____, but he seemed painfully aware of the political tenuousness of his appointment. (Incidentally, the only reason he isn’t out at the Church, apparently, is because “no one’s asked”.)

From the sublime to the ridiculous…LSBB has sent me this story, about how gay activists are trying to overturn conventional models of king- and queen-dom at homecoming celebrations.

I submit for you inspection a member of Vanderbilt’s homecoming court. (LSBB's comment: "It puts the lotion in the basket...or it gets the Homecoming Crown again."

Ummmm.....memo to all fledgling gay activists on college campuses nationwide: STOP IT. If you’re a male, you’re a king. If you’re a female, you’re a queen. The end.

Jesus, it’s no wonder the Fundamentalists hate us.