Josh

Cheney Hunt

The election is over. The smarmy commercials are out of my face. As predicted on October 19, the Democrats won. But don't worry. They're the very definition of screwing things up.
My friend Josh is now being mentioned as an '08 senatorial candidate. It's much like being a fat celebrity. The crosshairs are steadied on one thing - HE'S PRO DEATH PENALTY!
Well, I know Josh. He's a ridiculously nice person. He is smart. He is loyal. He works effectively within a pathetically small budget. None of that is news, although candidate-wise it should be. HE'S PRO DEATH PENALTY!
I'm not pro death penalty, and I discussed that very thing with him at a party. He was polite, asked pertinent questions, listened intently and thanked me for my opinion. It was strangely unreal, as though I were dreaming and would soon wake up to Bill O'Reilly calling me a liberal slut at the top of his lungs.
On the other hand, I like Josh. Love his wife, Cindy, too, although I'm a little pissed off at her for taking some other friend with her to Amsterdam. I'll get over it, though.
She's lived in DC. Josh hasn't.
I fear for what it will do to him, like good cops that see too much horror to cope. For example, he'd be subjected to guys like this - also big death penalty supporters...
Cheney Going Hunting on Election Day
From Associated PressNovember 05, 2006 3:52 PM EST
WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney will spend Election Day on his first hunting trip since he accidentally shot a companion last February while aiming at a covey of quail on a private Texas ranch.
The vice president, after working at the White House on Monday morning, will head to South Dakota to spend several days at a private hunting lodge near Pierre. Lea Anne McBride, his press secretary, said it was an annual hunting outing and said Cheney spent Election Day in 2002 at the same lodge.
He will be accompanied by his daughter, Mary, and his political director, Mel Raines, who will help him keep track of the election returns, McBride said.
On a Feb. 11 hunting trip in Texas, Cheney shot attorney Harry Whittington in the torso, neck and face when he pulled the trigger on his 28-gauge shotgun. The vice president later called it "one of the worst days of my life" and said, "The image of him falling is something I'll never ever be able to get out of my mind."
The shooting was ruled an accident. Whittington was hospitalized for six days.
How can one be subjected to guys like this and not lose his soul?
Wait...Josh is also an atheist.
And pro-choice.
No one will ever mention that he comforts the families of crime victims long after their case is news. No one will ever mention that he vigorously prosecutes cases for persons in cases referred to as "NHI" (No Humans Involved).
He's a great guy.
We probably don't deserve him.

Big Love

Little Love

Bless Me Father, For I Have Watched

Like repentant Lent observers following Fat Tuesday, I confess this, after gobbling turkey, apple-cranberry-sausage stuffing, sweet potatoes, corn something, sorbet and two glasses of bubbly.
There are two television shows that I cannot stop watching. The first is well written, well acted and well produced Big Love on HBO. It's about a Mormon man, his three wives and their countless children. The husband is attractive, sincere, hard-working and likeable; and his wives, interesting and alluring in very individual ways. There's the loyal, pretty, intelligent first wife; the modest, traditional, ideologuish second wife; and the young, emotional and exuberant third wife.
The characters are complex and believable, and the wives seem to me to be the kind men would pick if they could have whomever they wanted on a committed basis. It's intriguing to watch their honesty, their interaction, frustrations and family structure. I love all the women, too, and wouldn't let go of any of them either.
The other is my shameful voyeuristic vice. It's The Girls Next Door reality show on E. It's about Hugh Hefner, the 80-ish, sniggering, creative force behind the Playboy brand. Now with his magazine, tv show, soft porn videos and a club at the Palms in Vegas, Hef and his three girlfriends - pretty, blonde, silicon breasted Holly; sultry, smart, blonde, natural breasted Bridget; and athletic, young, blonde, silicon breasted Kendra - all live smiley and partily at the Playboy Mansion.
The characters are simple and unbelievable, and the girlfriends seem to me to be the kind dirty old men would pick if they could have whomever they wanted on a committed basis. They're always happy, flirty, ditzy and perky. They're little blonde drag queen Uncle Toms and Hef is Massa. I can't look away.
Hi, I'm Kitty.
I'm a deeply closeted multi-relationship voyeur.

Old Thanksgiving

Old Thanksgiving

Transition Thanksgiving

I was trying to remember the last time I was with my family for Thanksgiving, and can't.
New traditions are in the making, ones with dear friends merrily chatting, looking fabulous at whatever four or five star restaurant we chose; and at home, a turkey breast and Paul's delicious cranberry relish for turkey sandwiches on toasted sourdough bread on which to chomp while watching football games.
No arguments. No hysteria. No recriminations about old hurts. No bla bla bla about Jesus while my food's getting cold.
Wise brother Billy observed that the last meaningful family relationship I had in LA died with my Meema late in 1980. I needed twenty additional years of hanging on like the last leaf in late fall before I moved away and started being thankful that I have great friends and no one bothering me during the game.
Gratias, Billy, for wisely observing that change is good.

Gratias

Fabulous friends

Foxy Roxy, Lotta Moxy

Happy Happy Birthday Baby

Weavers, 1957 (when Big Mac was just 17)

Happy Happy Birthday Baby, although you're with somebody new
Thought I'd drop a line to say that I wish this happy day
would find me beside you.

Happy Happy Birthday Baby, no I can't call you my baby
Seems like years ago we met on a day I can't forget
cause that's when we fell in love.

Do you remember the names we had for each other
I was your pretty, you were my baby
how could we say goodbye.

Hope I didn't spoil your birthday, I'm not acting like a lady
So I'll close this note to you with good luck and wishes too
Happy Happy Birthday Baby.

Evil in the Fall

Missing Mass

Anyone who was raised Catholic will tell you that there is a statistically significant positive correlation between the amount of guilt one feels, particularly in that groggy state between sleep and consciousness, for not attending Mass on any given Sunday, and the amount of Catholic religious training one had. "It's a MORTAL sin," your brain whispers, "that can send your soul to eternal damnation, unless you make a good confession before you die."
My Vodou cannot kill that whispering demon, so my eternally damned soul instead watched the battle between good (Tony Dungy's Colts) and evil (Bill Parcell's Cowboys). Evil won. I believe that was the first sign of the Apocolypse.
Readying myself for the Second Coming, I really regret having failed to provide services from The Church of the Living Swing yesterday. Forgive me, O Lord.

Is This the Sticker?
Richard "Lord" Buckley, 1906-1960
(Cf. Macbeth, Act 2, Scene 1, lines 31-64)

Go, sound my chick to hip me when my juice is ready.
I'll be straight when she knocks the gong.
And you, make your sack and cool.

Is this the sticker which I dig deep in front,
The handle touting my flipped fingers?
Groove, let me dig your frame.
I'm hip you come on like a voodoo,
And yet, you rock me the most.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible to the pinch
As to the scene, or art thou but a sharp freak of wig
Flying from an off-beat wig tilt?
I dig thee yet in form as this which now I am double-bugged by.
Thou hast false hipped me into this way of blowing
And hipped me....
Oh, that the sticker was the only lick.
My peepers are made the emblems of my other charges,
Or else, capping all others, I dig,
This is Cinerama!
And on thy blade and swinger
Flipped founts of the jumpin' red
Which was not the issue before.
Just another blowing phantom.
It is this bloody flip
Which hits thus to my glimmers.
Now, over my sweet sack world
My natural kicks won't jump
And bad dreams stomp and tilt my nod pads uncool go.
Boon voodoo buddy stallions
Tops Hecate's most phantastic jazz,
And with it, the twisted monster cat,
Sounded by his look-out, the gnasher,
Who's gut thunder his swatch mates with groovy temple
And swings with Tarquin's tall non-stop strides
Straight to his mad kicks.
Moves like a crazy scare-crow in the stoneyard.
Now, thou solid and firm-set sod,
Dig not my strides, which way they blow,
For fear that I shall knock a stone
And make known my riff.
And cool my wigs from the free drags that blow so righteous.
While I flip, he grooves.
Sounds to the heat of framed fiends too cold breath hips.
I must cut and it is covered.
The chimes call me.
But dig it not too rosy, Duncan,
For it is the swinger that will take you
To The Garden or to Heat City.

Translation for the squares...

MACBETH: Go bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready,
She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed. Exit Servant.
Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling as to sight? Or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?
I see thee yet, in form as palpable
As this which now I draw.
Thou marshal'st me the way that I was going,
And such an instrument I was to use.
Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses,
Or else worth all the rest. I see thee still,
And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood,
Which was not so before. There's no such thing:
It is the bloody business which informs
Thus to mine eyes. Now o'er the one half-world
Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse
The curtain'd sleep; witchcraft celebrates
Pale Hecate's offerings; and wither'd Murther,
Alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf,
Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace,
With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design
Moves like a ghost. Thou sure and firm-set earth,
Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear
Thy very stones prate of my whereabout,
And take the present horror from the time,
Which now suits with it. Whiles I threat, he lives;
Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.
A bell rings.
I go, and it is done; the bell invites me.
Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell
That summons thee to heaven, or to hell. Exit.