the long way

i'm sure i'm not the first to praise my soul-group the Dixie Chicks' new album, but what a great first verse to an album:

"My friends from high school

Married their high school boyfriends

Moved into houses in the same ZIP codes

Where their parents live.

But I, I could never follow

No I, I could never follow. . ."

i urge everyone who likes the Dixie Chicks at all to purchase a copy of the album: you won't be disappointed.

49!

what the. . . ? forty-nine, (count 'em), forty-nine U.S. senators voted in favor of adding discrimination to our Constitution this morning.

of course, this is well below the two-thirds threshhold for actually amending the Constitution, but really. . . 49?! do nearly half the states actually think that gays marrying will somehow harm straight people's marriages??

more importantly, do nearly half the states actually think that putting the tom-boys and nancy-boys in their place will somehow manage to lower the divorce rate, the single parent rate, the poverty rate, the low test scores. . . ?

do nearly half the states actually think that the big gay problem is actually bigger than our montruous debt, our negative personal savings, our unwinnable and unaffordable war in Iraq, our administration that cloaks itself continually in the tragedy of 911 to get whatever it wants no questions asked Constitution-be-damned, our diminished and diminishing national status as a moral bulwark in the world, our millions upon millions of uninsured individuals, our crumbling infastructures, our rising water levels, our corrupt politicians and business leaders?

i do think the answer is NO. i truly believe that the American people are smarter than that.

i think that those pandering, smarmy senators and back-room pollsters will have a shock come November when we the people will remember them as playing that big gay fiddle while Rome was burning.

so slide over here

maybe it's because i was completely dead at spin class this morning, but when that old INXS song came on in the middle of a tortuous "hill," i was transported back nearly 20 (!) years to seventh grade.

"your moves are so raw"

in 1986-87, i spent approximately three straight months locked in my room, (ahem), "studying," and listening to two cassette tapes (remember those?): "kick" and "faith." to this day, no other albums seem so fundamentally and inherently "sexy."

". . . what do you think? can't take it all. . ."

perhaps i'm just confusing going through the onslaught of puberty with being really affected by some decent pop music. but really, what's the difference anyway? i suppose we all have those types of mental associations that can transform a multi-million dollar album into a type of ultra-personal anthem. we all, at one time or another, have a strong belief that Michael Hutchence (or his equivalent if one exists) knows every corner of our inner soul, unlike our stupid, uncool parents.

"everybody does, yeah that's okay"

remind me never to be twelve years old again.

to repeat and repeat. . .

is sometimes necessary.

if you spend any time on the Internet(s) at all, you've probably seen Stephen Colbert's closing remarks at the White House Press Corps annual dinner on April 29th. however, since the media at large is not reporting on this work of genius, i feel it necessary to increase its viewership, by however little. with Swiftian genius, (and only a few feet away from W), Mr. Colbert skewers the Man Who Would Be King with unequalled skill. this speech should live forever as the ultimate example of political satire. do yourself a favor and watch:

COLBERT SKEWERS BUSH AND THE PRESS

please also visit this site, which has great comments from people around the country and the world:

THANK YOU STEPHEN COLBERT

and, after you've watched the clip, pass it along to as many people as you can. . .

more scars

i was probably five or six when i found myself dangling from that rusty chain-link fence. in retrospect, i don't remember much about my fascination with climbing all the fences in the neighborhood, and with all the dogs and yards they enclosed. but for a summer or two, it became somewhat of an obsession. as soon as i realized that i could climb those fences, my horizons expanded almost infinitely in my mind.

but freedom comes with its costs, and these fences would not yield to me without attempting to take their pound of flesh. it is safe to say that karma was not on my mind as i hung there for those few surprising seconds, all my weight dangling from the part of my mid fore-arm that had caught on a barb at the top of a neighbor's fence.

what i remember most was the blood after i released myself. it spurted along with the rhythm of my quick heart. i was immediately sure that i had killed myself. but, the fountains of blood actually fascinated me, didn't cause me to panic or be sick. and, in a very immature and naive little boy way, i was proud of myself, as if to say: "bring 'em on" or "is that all?".

even though i was ordered never to climb that rusty fence again, i knew that i would. . .

know yourself first. . .

. . . change the world second.

sounds easy enough. i discovered this almost cliche saying while gazing through the dusk from the "L" train a few evenings ago. it was printed big as life on a billboard in maroon lettering, advertising the local Jesuit stronghold of subversive and dangerous free thought and intellectuality, Loyola University. (where would we be without those Jesuits?)

"know yourself first, change the world second."

these words struck me as very close to my heart. one of my strongest characteristics in the whole myers-briggs schema is the "I" in INTP. i have always been obsessed with concentrating on why i do things and how i do them and how i fit into different complex social and historical contexts, and why, (if at all), any of it matters.

some would call this egotism: i call it enlightenment (or at least aiming for it). i have always viewed with skepticism those people who seem to be so self-sure, who seem never to have needed to question their own existence, who have never had to justify themselves to anyone. i feel (as apparently do the marketing people at Loyola) that the world would indeed be a much better place if everyone would at least attempt that first step, self-knowledge.

all this introspection in my life, and i still have been having an incredibly difficult go of writing my 2000-word autobiography. this autobiography is a prerequisite for adopting a child through the agency we have been using. we each have to write one. how do you describe your entire life in 2000 words? how do you communicate who you are in essay form?

the more i have worked on this infernal project, the longer it gets, and the less it seems to convey who i am, or what i have done with my life.

maybe i should concentrate on changing the world first, you know, for a break. . .

d minus

i was recently graded on my upkeep of this blog, and no one could disagree with the results. . . my life has had a way of interfering with my updates. with nothing but success in mind, therefore, i promise my loyal reader that i'll try to better myself, even if it means resorting to blogging about naked venezuelans or banned cheers or even posting free randy blue pics.

scars part one

having quite a bit of semitic blood coursing through my veins, i tend to scar easily. i have scars dating back almost as far as my feeble memory. and i have scars that actually fuel my memory and my conscience, like unintentional tatoos. i have all range of scars, from red to pink to white to shiny to dull to raised to flat.

while my scars always tend to impress the ages 6-10 male audience, i think that most people are put-off by them. i get those looks. you know, the looks that will wander from your eyes during a conversation and then dart to a scar, languishing there just a bit too long, then jolting back up to meet your eyes again, innocently, as if to say: "no, it's okay, i think you're a perfectly normal human being. . . now i gotta go do something else."

one of my most noticeable scars (for the general public) is just over eleven years old. it is also the most man-made looking scar i have, as it is the result of surgery. i earned it when i was nineteen, just before my second year of college.

it began on one of those warm august nights in the st. louis suburbs, charged with the energy and sadness of momentarily-reunited high-school friends, now more strangers than anything else, fending-off boredom and the recognition that many of us didn't know who we were anymore, let alone who anyone else was. (ah, to be nineteen again!)

due to college expense situations, my old tank of a car had just been sold, and i was borrowing my younger sister's convertible for the remaining few weeks of the summer. many of the old gang had met at MMcMs house. not knowing what to do with ourselves, we decided to caravan to the regional favorite personal-fast-fat-storage-retailers to indulge in some frozen custard.

in my sister's car were myself, one of my best friends J, and another good friend D. (the convertible had a back seat, although not much of one.) one thing led to another, and several minutes later we were all three trapped under a smoking, upside-down convertible. correction: by the time i knew what was happening, only i was trapped, my left hand pinned between the earth and the car.

i did the only reasonable thing that i could do -- i pulled that sucker out fast, consequences be damned, and ran.

i remember long hours in excrutiating pain sitting in the ER, staring at the jumbled equipment bolted to the solid walls, and fearing the lack of privacy left by the retractable curtain walls. but what i most remember is the fear of my father mixed together with the excrutiating pain in my left hand.

more than the thoughts of having a crippled hand the rest of my life, i feared that my father would be mad, that he would be apoplectic, that his head would inflate to twice its normal size and burst, that he would be disappointed.

my fears were founded. upon returning to the house at approximately 3:00 the next morning, my father loudly proclaimed that i had ruined the family, left the house, and didn't come back for several days. he told no one where he was going or when he would be back. he never asked how i was or how my friends were. he didn't thank my mom for sitting patiently with me for all that time while he remained at home. nothing at all but proclaiming the ruination of the family and the disappearing act. (all that, and he didn't even know i was gay yet!)

yep. every time i look at that scar on the left hand, i see that nexus of age, innocence, ego and self-loathing that embody those few days of my nineteenth year. how just a few moments can change you forever. . . how powerful a small shift in perception can be. . .

the next constitutional amendment?

the gospel of Matthew, chapter 19 verse 24, quotes Jesus as saying, in an incredibly direct manner:

"And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." (King James Version)

very few of Jesus' edicts are as plainly spoken as that. why, then, isn't being rich illegal in our country? are we careening down a path toward pure evil? Jesus never issued any such straightforward edicts against practicing gay sex, for example. i propose that in order to fully accept the true spirit of the gospels, and to return our morals to god's and nature's true way, we must concentrate on getting this amendment into every state constitution, as well as the federal one.

once we try to embrace Jesus’ true spirit in our constitutions by making it illegal to have material possessions, only then should we turn our attentions to the issues of the obvious evils of shared human love and compassion.

wishlist

(not to be confused with that great song from Yield)

as i watch my dreams of an x-mas in sunny (or at least summery) BsAs slowly fade into a dark, gray blustery Chicago reality, i can't help but think of all the places i'd like to go. (and i somehow remember a greenish purplish orangish monster thingy promising me a future filled with diverse locales in poetry with fake words that rhyme with other fake words.)

so, in the spirit of that "poetry," here is a current expression of places i wish i were, (or will soon be, real or imagined):

be it Paris or London or ancient Rome,
the Sahara or Gobi or the Kara Kum,
i'd like to go there, i don't really care where;

by the Yangtze or Nile or piranha-filled Amazon,
i can't think of the soil that my feet fear to tread-upon,
i'd like to go there, i don't really care where:

India, Pakistan, Armenia, Georgia,
Uzbekistan, Khazhakstan, Turkmenistan, Torja,
Peru and Nepal, Liechtenstein,and Latvia,
Scotland and Whales and Ireland and Hot-n-totvia.

no continent, kingdom or city or hill,
can escape my desires or my travelling will,
i'd like to go there, i don't really care where.

up a snow white mountain into cavern deep as night,
if i only think hard enough i can muster my might;

through rivers and oceans and brooks in a fen,
i'll go there and love it, just tell me where and when.

yes, i'd like to go there, i don't really care where.

poor gay James Buchanan

. . .just read an article by Richard Reeves that summarized a poll taken of American Historians about where Bush II would rank among our presidents. Previously, the rumored-to-be-gay and only bachelor president ever, James Buchanan, had been ranked as our worst, because of things like his unintentional contributions to the start of the Civil War, for instance.

but, it seems, the historians feel that Bush II may surpass Mr. Buchanan in this dubious distinction, and be remembered as our worst president yet. (at least Buchanan had only one term.)

the highlights:

"This is what those historians said -- and it should be noted that some of the criticism about deficit spending and misuse of the military came from self-identified conservatives -- about the Bush record:

He has taken the country into an unwinnable war and alienated friend and foe alike in the process;

He is bankrupting the country with a combination of aggressive military spending and reduced taxation of the rich;

He has deliberately and dangerously attacked separation of church and state;

He has repeatedly "misled," to use a kind word, the American people on affairs domestic and foreign;

He has proved to be incompetent in affairs domestic (New Orleans) and foreign (Iraq and the battle against al-Qaida);

He has sacrificed American employment (including the toleration of pension and benefit elimination) to increase overall productivity;

He is ignorantly hostile to science and technological progress;

He has tolerated or ignored one of the republic's oldest problems, corporate cheating in supplying the military in wartime."



At least now there's hope that it won't be the poor gay president that gets the worst rap. . .

faded and grainy but still smiling

the older i get, the more this is true.

i do have so much to smile about: a good family (both chosen and given), a good job, a good bill of health, a warm place to stay.

sometimes, though, i'm blinded by the light of life, barely able to see the importance of anything. it's tough to filter it out, but i'll keep working at it.

now, back to work.

sigh

frozen yellow bud
doomed by the cruel fall winds
never had a chance

then and now

maybe it has to do with the recent releases of Sid & Marty Krofft's H.R. Pufnstuf DVD's, but i've had that infamous Barbara Mandrell song stuck in my head for days now. you know, "sleepin' single in a double bed, oooh - oooh."

'tho' the connection be thin, the Krofft brothers also produced another one of my favorite shows as a child: the Mandrell sisters variety show. these three sisters danced, they played many musical instruments, they wore sparkly clothes, they sang, they did skits, they wore sparkly clothes, and a whole bunch of other sparkly things. enough to make any red-blooded American kid sit up and pay attention for hours upon sparkly hours. (well it seemed red-blooded and American enough to a somewhat "shy" boy of 6 at the time, anyway. . .)

then it hit me: my current unhealthy and uncharacteristic obsession with the Dixie Chicks has a strong country-glam root, pounded into me chord after sparkly chord by those early 80s sisters.
i never had a chance.

but, at least there's been some improvement in 25 years or so, right?

the devil you know. . .

it seems that a strange coalition of democrats with spines and right-wing nutjobs have forced Ms. Meirs out of a Supreme Court position. the inevitable question: what awaits us in her wake?

the sound of silence

i agree with Tim Grieve on the impending silence from Ms. Miers in her Senate Hearings. why does this woman scare me so very much?

"Senators won't be able to ask Miers questions based on her prior judicial decisions or her scholarly writings on the constitution because no such things exist. They won't be able to ask her questions based on the written advice she has given the president because he won't turn over such documents. They can ask Miers about discussions she's had with the president, but she'll almost certainly invoke either executive privilege or the attorney-client privilege. They can ask about her views on issues that matter to a lot of Americans -- abortion, gay rights, the war on terrorism -- but she'll almost certainly refuse to answer on the ground that such issues might come before the court. And they can ask about the role her religious faith may play in the judicial decision she might make, but some of their colleagues may shout them down -- as they have before -- with charges of religious bias."

(from October 5, 2005 "War Room" post at Salon.com, Tim Grieve.)

now the world can see why i'm so fabulous. it's always strange to see your parents when they were so young and in love. 

the hand

My usual route from the gym to the office in the morning includes passing by union station, navigating around and through the suburban throngs pouring into my dear city. This route has its share of entertainment, though. From white-sneakered ladies with 2-hour coifs and navy skirt-suits and i-can't-see-or-hear-you headphones to the homeless beggars to the Peruvian pan-flute bands hocking their CDs on the sidewalk, my walk gives me the zen, urban, so-noisy-it's-quiet, constitutional my mind craves every day before yet again remembering my career and all that goes with it.

almost without exception, this daily route will also include some form of handout, flyer, or "freebie" foisted on me and my fellow walkers by the hired-hands of corporate america. from yogurt in a tube (remember that?) to m&m "amazing" candies to the big gorilla man handing out gym fliers to ads for the new "i-dog" to 5x8 glossies of an enhanced photo of an 8-week old fetus, looking at me with all the wisdom of Yoda and all the sadness of Eeyore, saying to me: "why do you want to kill me. . . ?" everyone's trying to sell me something, and that process makes me feel like, yes, this IS america, and yes, even I can make a difference, however small, by buying into someone else's dream of the world. (as long as i have space left on my card or in my conscience.)

BUT, the other day i was confronted my a man in an orange jumper who shoved the following words in my face: "ARE YOU ALERT?" double-take, look at the flyer again. WHAT? what's he trying to sell? what does he want from me? then 5 questions meant as an "alertness" quiz: do you often feel fatigued? are you sometimes too tired to enjoy going out with friends? do you have trouble paying attention or staying focused? etc. etc.

of course i answered YES to all the questions, but does that mean i'm not "alert"? and if so, then what? so a quick trip to their website: "http://www.alertnessmatters.com/" after taking the online quiz, i realized that i was being tricked into submitting personal contact info for some sort of cruise-package giveaway. they just wanted my e-mail and phone number for FSM-knows what reason. NO THANKS -- i'll deal with my tired, lazy old self without your help.

however, my faith in the american system of high-pressure, devious sales and marketing had been restored. i have been shaken out of my unalert state by the bitch-slapping invisible hand of Adam Smith. *whew*

the truth is out there?

it's amazing how a TRUTH so obvious could've gone hidden from me for so long. . . it seems that there is a reason that my bio-chem carreer in undergrad was doomed from the start: the SCIENCE was all based on LIES.

a man named Bobby Henderson has enlightened me to HIS EVERSAUCY HOLINESS: The Flying Spaghetti Monster.

i now know that FSM has created all things in his ever-loving kindness, and that all so-called study of biology, physics, chemistry, and math is a sham. i know now that in order not to incur His vengeful wrath, we must not rest until His TRUE SCIENCE of the universe is taught in all our schools. Bobby the Prophet has said it best:

"Let us remember that there are multiple theories of Intelligent Design. I and many others around the world are of the strong belief that the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster. It was He who created all that we see and all that we feel. We feel strongly that the overwhelming scientific evidence pointing towards evolutionary processes is nothing but a coincidence, put in place by Him."

now that i have seen the TRUTH, my life will never be the same, and i cannot stop riding the scent of his garlicky goodness to eternal SALVATION.

you can also become enlightened at: Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

and remember: don't rest until we reach the time "when these three theories are given equal time in our science classrooms across the country, and eventually the world; One third time for Intelligent Design, one third time for Flying Spaghetti Monsterism, and one third time for logical conjecture based on overwhelming observable evidence."

let's hear it for the second amendment

item 1: walmart in new orleans area looted: all guns and ammo reported stolen. . .

item 2: from A.P. this morning

Superdome Evacuation Halted Amid Gunfire

The evacuation of the Superdome was suspended Thursday after shots were reported fired at a military helicopter and arson fires broke out outside the arena. No immediate injuries were reported.

The scene at the Superdome became increasingly chaotic, with thousands of people rushing from nearby hotels and other buildings, hoping to climb onto the buses taking evacuees from the arena, officials said. Paramedics became increasingly alarmed by the sight of people with guns.
Richard Zeuschlag, chief of the ambulance service that was handling the evacuation of sick and injured people from the Superdome, said it was suspending operations "until they gain control of the Superdome."

He said shots were fired at a military helicopter over the Superdome before daybreak.

He said the National Guard told him that it was sending 100 military police officers to restore order.

"That's not enough," Zeuschlag said. "We need a thousand."

Lt. Col. Pete Schneider of the Louisiana National Guard said the military — which was handling the evacuation of the able-bodied from the Superdome — had suspended operations, too, because fires set outside the arena were preventing buses from getting close enough to pick up people.

He said tens thousands of people started rushing out of other buildings when they saw buses pulling up and hoped to get on. But the immediate focus was on evacuating people from the Superdome, and the other refugees were left to mill around.

Zeuschlag said paramedics were calling him and crying for help because they were so scared of people with guns at the Superdome. He also said that during the night, when a medical evacuation helicopter tried to land at a hospital in the outlying town of Kenner, the pilot reported 100 people were on the landing pad, some with guns.

"He was frightened and would not land," Zeuschlag.