Tarragon Tuna with Farfalle

Ingredients:
Farfalle
White tuna
Dark tuna
Anchovy (optional)
Green, red, orange bell peppers
Sweet onion, yellow onion
Scallion
Capers
Tarragon
Celery
Hard-boiled eggs

Sauté red, green, and orange pepper in olive oil
Sauté sweet onion and yellow onion in safflower oil and anchovy oil).
Sauté tarragon in oil, perhaps some chrism you can steal from a priest at a hospice.

Boil Farfalle. Meditate on the Virgins of St. Ursula who were boiled alive for refusing to take barbarian husbands.

Mix cooked farfalle with tuna.
Add peppers, onions, and tarragon
Garnish with celery, scallions, hard-boiled eggs, capers, and anchovy.

Add salt and pepper. Say three Hail Mary's and Three Our Fathers.

Add additional olive oil as necessary. Add more salt. Add some paprika in honor of all the HUNS who died experimenting for this recipe.

Place in large serving bowl memorializing the Battle of Kosovo preferably the 1389 battle. Much more authentic and the eggs were so good back then. (If this is unavailable any Barack Obama Inauguration Memorial Plate will do.)

Shrimp Risotto with Herbs

This recipe is a combination of two recipes I found online:

 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/02/health/nutrition/02recipehealth.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

 and

 http://www.reluctantgourmet.com/shmpsoto.htm

Here’s how I did it.

Ingredients:

¨     7 cups chicken or vegetable stock – I don’t know the difference between stock and broth so I used broth.

¨     2 to 4 garlic cloves (to taste), minced – It’s hard to have too much garlic; I did 4 cloves.

¨     2 tablespoons olive oil – I used canola oil, ran out of olive, figured it wouldn’t matter to taste once that butter started going in.

¨     3 tablespoons minced flat-leaf parsley – How do you measure a table spoon of parsley? I just grabbed a handful and cut it up.

¨     A handful of fresh cilantro – This wasn’t in either recipe, but I really like fresh cilantro.

¨     1 really big sweet onion cut up.

¨     2 to 3 anchovy fillets, soaked for 15 minutes in water to cover, rinsed and finely chopped – Optional – I used it, probably not worth the bother.

¨     1 14-oz. can tomatoes drained and finely chopped – Del Monte works well. Besides they extended credit to my grandpa’s grocery store during the depression.

¨     2 cups Arborio rice – Goya brand is real good.

¨     Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste – why is it that the older I get the more I like salt?

¨     1/2 cup dry white wine, such as pinot grigio or sauvignon blanc  - I used about 2 cups of cooking wine. One of the articles says never use cooking wine, but I don’t drink. What am I gonna do with the rest of the bottle? Invite the neighbors? They’ve been foreclosed! Times are tough.

¨     Generous pinch of saffron – I didn’t use this; I’m too cheap.

¨     1 cup frozen peas, thawed – I didn’t use this; some people don’t like peas. Anyway, I forgot to buy them.

¨     2 tablespoons unsalted butter – (I actually used a whole stick of butter, oops!)

¨     1/4 cup Parmesan cheese, grated – I actually used 1.5 cups of Parmesan – Sargento had a nice one in the dairy case. Nice texture, nice smell. Reminded me of grandma’s house.

¨     2 tablespoons heavy cream – Don’t know how I missed the heavy cream.

¨     24 oz. frozen shrimp. I used Publix brand – deveined, but not cooked. I took the shells off. They chew better that way.

Instructions – feel free to improvise (or deviate if you prefer)

1.    Peel the shrimp, put in a bowl, and add to it one or two of the garlic cloves, one tablespoon of olive oil, the parsley and cilantro. Set aside.

2.    Bring the stock to a simmer in a saucepan, and turn the heat to low.

3.    Heat the remaining tablespoon of oil over medium heat in a large nonstick frying pan or wide saucepan, and add the onion. (Throw some butter in as well.) Cook, stirring, until tender, about five minutes, and then add the remaining garlic. Cook, stirring, for about a minute, until the garlic is fragrant, and then stir in the anchovies and tomatoes. Cook, stirring, until the tomatoes have cooked down and the mixture is fragrant, five to 10 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

4.    Add the rice and cook, stirring, until the grains are separate and well coated with the tomato mixture, two to three minutes.

5.    Stir in the wine and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly. The wine should bubble, but not too quickly. You want some of the flavor to cook into the rice before it evaporates. When the wine has just about evaporated, rub the saffron between your fingertips and stir in, along with a ladleful or two of the simmering stock, enough to just cover the rice. The stock should bubble slowly. Cook, stirring often and vigorously, until it is just about absorbed. Add another ladleful of the stock, and continue to cook in this fashion, not too fast and not too slowly. Keep adding more stock when the rice is almost dry, for 20 to 25 minutes. Taste a bit of the rice. It should be chewy but not hard in the middle, not soft like steamed rice. If it is still hard in the middle, keep adding stock and cook for another five minutes or so. Taste and adjust salt.

6.    With 2 - 3 minutes left (I actually cooked the shrimp about 4 or 5 minutes – too many childhood tales of undercooked food) and please, this will depend on you and your stove, so don't worry too much about timing - add the shrimp and cook until done. Add the butter, Parmesan and heavy cream. Stir to combine ingredients and serve immediately. Enjoy!

Cooky Shows Me How to Sweep a Floor

I was a 26-year-old college dropout, smoking pot every day, drinking every night and working as a busboy at Cooky’s Restaurant in the Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream. Not even at Cooky’s Steak Pub, which might have had a touch of class, but at the mall restaurant - no class at all. (Redeeming virtues: it was in the days before food courts and I wasn’t a dishwasher.)

Cooky was the guy who owned the restaurant and a chain of steak houses. He was a middle-aged guy with a classy blond wife and a chauffeur in uniform. The trio came to the restaurant often enough for me to notice.

I smoked at least one joint on my walk to work and the high usually lasted nicely into the setting up before lunch and wore off quickly just as the restaurant was getting busy. One day the manager told me to sweep the middle dining room just before opening; I was still pretty high.

I’m kind of listlessly pushing the dirt around with a broom when in walks Cooky:

“That’s no way to sweep a floor. Here! Let me show you.”

Cooky grabs the broom and starts sweeping the floor taking extra care to show me how to get the dirt out of the corners and away from the walls. He had the room done in no time and handed me back the broom. Oh well, off to do side work.

He was no stranger to work, that Cooky. That’s probably why he was riding to work in the back of a limo and I was walking.

Note to DEA Agents, prospective employers, and recovery friends: I do not advocate the use or abuse of any controlled substances. The statute of limitations has passed. Please don't give me a hard time.

Hagee et al

JMJ

I'd like to thank the likes of John Hagee, Ted Haggard, and Fred Phelps for reminding me that, in certain contexts, Roman Catholicism is an essentially liberal religion.

.

Online Ad

Spotted in an online ad:

IF NO FACE PIC PLEASE DON'T WAIST BOTH ARE TIME

You're very cute, but please, please, please go to http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Style-4th-William-Strunk/dp/0205313426/ref=si3_rdr_bb_product
and add to your shopping cart.
.

Energy Independence

If you think Americans really care about saving energy here’s an experiment: Drive at exactly the speed limit on any road and see how many people pass you by.

On a Sunday, while driving about 3 miles on I-95 in Palm Beach County I was passed by 26 cars. Every car on the road passed me with the exception of one.

Hazmat

Does my coworker have "pink eye?" Or was it just an eyelash? Tomorrow will tell.

UPDATE: I ruined a perfectly good Publix bag for nothing. It was an eyelash, not pinkeye.

Officer Israel

Today I went to lunch with friends. Some guy came in wearing a suit, yakking on the cell phone. He had a mini-entourage and walked through the restaurant like he was a Hollywood celebrity. I noticed he was wearing a name tag, a cop badge and that he was running for sheriff. Even though I’m a lifelong Democrat I decided to vote Republican.

However something seemed vaguely familiar… (this is where the flashback music comes in.)

In 1982 or 1983 I was renting a room from my friend Allan. I paid $25 a week; those were the days!

The house was not in such a good neighborhood and one day I came home and noticed that the furniture was moved. Allan wasn't home and the cats didn't seem to have been moving furniture so I figured out that we had been burglarized.

I went across the street, called the police from a neighbor's phone and a cop came by fairly quickly. He entered the house with his gun drawn. I was right behind him. He seemed scared; I definitely was.

Somewhere along the line he saw some of my magazines or maybe it was when he saw the original watercolor of a male nude by Ethel T. Unready. It was at that moment when he kind of muttered the word “homos” to himself. It wasn’t a put-down; he was just figuring it out. I noticed his name tag, “Officer Israel.”

Now I'm an undecided voter again. See the attached link for an update on Officer Israel:

http://scottisraelforsheriff.com/

Vir Venatio Finis

Why did I close my Manhunt account? One reason is that I can’t imagine the following conversation happening in any other gay venue:

“How big is your dick?”

Oh, about 7 inches. Maybe more if I get real excited.

“Do you have a pic?”

I pull a picture of my penis out of my back pocket and show it to him.

“Nice. Are you uncut?”

No, it’s cut. The doctor just left a little extra skin.

“Do you have any other pics?”

I pull out another picture of my penis. This one shows it from a different angle.

“Do you have a face pic?”

Umm dude, I’m standing right in front of you.

You know I’m pissed if I use the word ‘dude.’ He vanishes into thin air. The non-cyber equivalent of being blocked.

Not So Desperate

My life is not so desperate that I am watching the Scrubs marathon on TNT, but it is definitely not where I want it to be. One of the problems seems to be the more general acceptance of all things gay in Ft. Lauderdale and vicinity.

Of course it’s great that I’m not in danger of being mugged up, as I might have been in 1980, for holding hands or sitting too close to my boyfriend on a park bench. (Although I’m pretty sure that this would not hold true if I were on a bus bench at the Lauderhill Mall.)

There was a time when being ‘gay’ had a bit of the outlaw in it; we had ‘lovers,’ not ‘partners.’ And being congenitally middle class with working class pretensions it is important to be a bit of the outlaw.

So in the 80’s and 90’s I was ‘gay;’ now I lean toward ‘queer.’ At least I like the look of young queers who are into being bohemian, or punk, or anything but respectable and who think of the 70’s as a sort of glamorous golden age. (It was anything but glamorous for me.)

I think my personal decline happened sometime in my 30’s when I found that I had to stay in on a Thursday night so that I could go out on a Friday night. The decline in gay civilization began with online ads that don’t have spell check like this beaut from Craig’s List: not into bar sean singel dad limited time for fun - m4m - 41 (laud).

Thank God For ‘F’

The letter 'F' was not working on my keyboard for a couple of days. Today, as I was replying to a Manhunt ad it miraculously came back. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) I did not get the trick.

Not having an 'F' presented certain orthographical challenges. I will share a few. These are some of my comments in a series of emails to a friend in Miami:

Regarding a website dedicated to St. Sebastian in art:
You should see some uv the 20th century stuphph.

Signing off:
Time phor my sitcom commitment, "Big Bang Theory."

Regarding someone who took photos of me for my unsuccessful attempts to snag a husband online:
I had some guy on craig's list do pics uv me.
He ran a whorehouse in Pht. Lauderdale.
I had a lengthy conversation with the young lady on duty… She was quite delighphtul, iph mercenary.

Here’s a fictional entry:
Is that a staph inphection or are you just glad to see me?

About the only alternate spelling that makes sense is ‘uv’ for ‘of.’ Since 1st grade, I’ve never understood that spelling, but Sister Louise would have smacked my palm with a ruler if I didn’t spell it right. Thank God 'F' is back.

Shows You Will Not See On TV

Univision – Lou Dobbs en español

EWTN (the Catholic channel) – Margaret Sanger Presents

Al-Jazeera – Sister Wendy's Story of Painting

The Food Channel – Lesbians in Aspic

Yasin's Shell

I stopped at a Shell station yesterday and was in a crabby mood. Gas at $3.89 should have cheered me up, but didn’t. I went inside to pay. Behind the thick glass, locked behind the register is a boy about 10 years old, shaved head, big glasses, red tee shirt.

Mom in her red tee shirt is stocking some shelves. The kid can’t wait to take my money. He wants to work the register and push the buttons that make the gas go on. I gave him a Benjamin.

Mom: “Yasin! Open the door! Yasin! Give me the money! Yasin! Don’t touch that.”

Forty dollars on number four, please.

Mom gives me back $60. Yasin grabs the Benjamin and puts it under the cash drawer. He pushes the button before mom can. He’s so happy!

I think about Yasin and the way America is changing. He doesn’t look like those guys on the $1 and $5 bills either. Mom and baklava instead of mom and apple pie perhaps.

That got me thinking about those guys on the money. So:

$1 - George Washington – Father of our country and slave owner.
$5 - Thomas Jefferson – Writer of the Declaration of Independence and slave owner. He used to take the lash to his slaves personally on occasion.
$10 - Alexander Hamilton – Island guy originally. Not a slave owner.
$20 - Andrew Jackson – War hero, slave owner and ethnic cleanser. Ask the Cherokee how they feel about Jacksonian democracy.
$50 - Ulysses S. Grant – Another war hero. Also apparently a slave owner at one point.
$100 - Benjamin Franklin – Patriot, diplomat, scientist. Oh yeah, slave owner before he became an abolitionist.

Hey Yasin – see you next week!

Saints Preserve Us!

So J-cat and I went to Humpy's for lunch today because I knocked my glasses off my night-stand and Humpy's is in the same plaza (strip mall or shopping center - take your pick) as the opticians. Besides, she had a $5.00 off coupon from our last visit.

Pleased to report that the glasses were fixed, the optician was attentive, the pizza was great, and the iced tea was just right. Plus I was with J-cat. Leaving Humpy's I spied San Domenico on a tee shirt through the fancy clothing store shop window. St. Dominic, my father's namesake.

Had to go in and take a closer look. It actually said,I (heart) San Domenico. Then I noticed that it was stained. They all were. Intentionally distressed. Man, I lived through "stone-washed" jeans. Did I need this?

I asked if they had any other saints. The very handsome, but Protestant-looking salesman showed me San Stefano. Ok, a martyr and the first one at that, but no St. Sebastian.

J-cat showed me the price tag: $195.00. I took the name of the Lord in vain.

For more on the Sicilian and the Lombard who know how to make-a-da-scudi see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolce_&_Gabbana

The Hierarchy

No, not the Roman Curia (bi-curious as they may be), but the hierarchy of men being with men in South Florida and possibly other parts of the gay universe. As in the conversation with my friend Malcolm:

"He's not my boyfriend. He's a flirtation."

The hierarchy is:

Flirtation

Coffee Date

Dating

Boyfriend

Steady Boyfriend

Lover

Partner, but still have sex occasionally

Living with my Ex

Ex

The Election of Benedict XVI

JP2 was dead and they were electing a new pope. I was watching some of the coverage on TV with Melvin. We were both working in a methadone clinic and the TV was on in the dispensing area.

Since it was daytime TV (or maybe because it was CNN) the TV guys were going on and on and on over the littlest detail. As the camera panned the crowd in St. Peter’s Square the commentators were yakking about what name the new pope might choose. 

Melvin grew up in an African-American Southern Baptist tradition. “Bob, just what is the significance of the name?” he asked.

Let me put it this way, Melvin. If he calls himself John XXIV, I’m definitely going back to mass. If he calls himself John-Paul III, I’m definitely not.

I was much too optimistic to foresee the result. Joseph Ratzinger, the Grand Inquisitor himself, was elected. 

I became a Buddhist.

Manhunt Dictionary

Discreet – I’m cheating on my boyfriend.

Partnered, but playful – We’ve tired of each other; you're flavor of the month.

Hot – An adjective one should not use about oneself. Even if you are; especially if you aren't

Top/vers – I like to get f*cked.

Bottom/vers – I really like to get f*cked.

100% bottom – I can’t get it up because of drug use so I can only get f*cked.

Nice guy – Over 45.

Looking for friends – Over 55.

Nice guy, looking for friends – I qualify for Medicare next month.

Looking for new friends – Just moved to town; looking for a dealer.

St. Sebastian

I’m not sure when I first became aware of St. Sebastian, but I wanted to take his name for my confirmation.

My father being the tight-ass that he was (with other people’s lives anyway) forbade that and I wound up with Thomas instead (and to make matters worse it was after Thomas Aquinas and not the doubter).

He’s always been one of my favorite saints iconographically: Stripped naked, tied to a tree, and shot full of arrows. What’s not to like?

Here’s my favorite picture of St. Sebastian. It’s painted by Giovanni Antonio Bazzi a.k.a. Il Sodoma.

That means ‘the sodomite’; those crazy Italians were always passing out the nicknames. (My grandmother’s nickname was Cecina. That means ‘the little one.’ She wasn’t.)

Here’s another site that has all the pictures you’ll ever need of St. Sebastian.

http://bode.diee.unica.it/~giua/SEBASTIAN/

Sometimes the image of Sebastian shot full of arrows is referred to as his “martyrdom,” but he survived the arrows and was succored by St. Irene and other holy women. He was later beaten to death by rods.

Ok, first pierced by arrows, then beaten by rods. Am I the only one getting this? I wonder if my father knew?

July 4th 1976

I watched the “tall ships” parade on TV at my grandpa’s house. I’m not sure why I was there instead of at home, but there I was. That night my friend Manuel and I went to see Holly Woodlawn at Tangerine, one of my favorite bars in Ft. Lauderdale.

We had seen Holly Woodlawn in the movie Trash at the student center at FAU. We arrived a little bit late; I knew it would be a great experience because people were already walking out in disgust. So when they announced that she would be at Tangerine, I had to go.

Tangerine was originally a bar named The Mouse Trap. There was a mural of a mouse in a top hat on the outside of the building. So sophisticated. As a kid, I was always fascinated by it when we drove by. I asked mom and dad to take me there, but I had to wait until it turned into a gay bar until I actually got to go.

I don’t remember exactly, but I think Tangerine had three levels. There were a couple of bars on the first floor, a dance floor on the second, and a piano bar on the top floor. Quite convenient really: first floor to get started, second to dance once I had a few drinks, then the piano bar to be maudlin at the end. Another drunken evening tipping the piano player to play La Vie en Rose – damn those college French classes!

But when we went to see Holly Woodlawn I hadn’t had a drink in a month or two, maybe three. I ordered a coke and Manuel ordered a crème de menthe. He sipped that little fucker through the whole show too. Drove me crazy; that’s no way to drink.

She came on stage wearing a sequined pantsuit, with a scarf around her neck, (pale green I think). Maybe to hide her Adam’s apple? Maybe to match Manuel's drink. I don’t know and don’t really remember much of the show, but it was my little bit of gay glam for the bicentennial.

For just the beginningnest bit of information about Holly Woodlawn go to:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holly_Woodlawn

Juan Querendón and Wolfgang Amadeus

Tonight on Yo Amo a Juan Querendón, a telenovela I surf through and have no idea what's going on, I see the male lead with his back to a baroque altar turn around and walk up the nave. He does not genuflect as he passes in front of the tabernacle and walks off screen.

A moment later I see one of the female leads praying in front of the same altar, the entire apse covered with gold presumably looted from the Aztecs. The music is the 2nd movement of Mozart's clarinet concerto. Immediately a Pavlovian response: stress reduction and inspiration.

I remember that I do not need to be lectured.

La Cucuzza!

Oh, It's so big! No wonder you've got such goodlooking grandkids with a cucuzza like that. Now I understand those rumors about the North African invasions. That combined with the ethnic cleansers from Lombardy; there must have been quite an interesting time in bedrooms, brothels, and sunny glens all over Sicily right around 1068. Not quite the cachet of 1066, but the winters were better (as was the food). 

Oh well, see you in about 900 years, Chido!

Biiiiiyaaaatttcccccchhhhhh!

Rainy Days and Mondays Always Get Me Down

Yeah that was the day. I remember that big stiff collar. If you didn't know I was an eye-tie R.C., the collar gotta give it away. It was a rainy overcast day. I found an eel in the street.

Did first confession the day before. What did I have to confess? They should have confessed that they filled my mind with endless stories of torture: The passion of the christ, long before Mel Gibson started masturbating, the stories of how the Chinese communists drove nails into the heads of Catholic missionaries so as to remind them of the crown of thorns. St. Lawrence got grilled and I only got beenie weenies. They never mentioned the torture they inflicted on protestants and jews. Oh yeah, and the communists....electricity comes in handy for that.

No wonder I was scared of the dark.

P.S. We did NOT have plastic slip covers.

MANHUNT Today

His Profile (edited for time and to fit your screen):
Don't think that just because I am on here I am looking for now. I treat others the way I expect to be treated. I never have asked anybody the size of his penis. I think it is really rude. Don't expect a response from me if you ask me that.

No ass fucks, no warped used assholes. My ass is tight and unused here and I seek the same so no ass pics with white stuff coming out of your ass hole please. What the hell is that anyways? KY, Lube, Cum, or some kinda white moss, fungus or mold? Whatever it is, it's fucking gross!

My Reply (with fictional comeback):
It's typically a combination of Crisco and tree fungus. If it were the red bark variety it could be used to treat malaria, but unfortunately, the white bark variety cannot even be used as fertilizer. (I understand that the Department of Energy is doing a feasibility study on the use of White Gunk coming out of butt holes as an Ethanol supplement.)

By the way, how large is your penis?

Care Bear Meets Papa Smurf

I baby play you safely
No risk to your platoon
I make you lakka wanna
And then come back full moon.

Sing to me of safety
Sing me a little song
A song of playing safely
A saran wrap nice sarong.

Your dick is wrapped quite snugly.
My tits are all a-wired
Oh give me pretty che-che
And put it on the fire

I care for you to satisfy
Your ego baby dear.
I want you feeling good 'bout me
When you find out I'm queer.

Mom and Donald - His Wedding Day

Don't sue me bro!

I didn't think I'd get a picture of Mom on my blog for mother's day. Thought I'd probably missed it by a minute. Anyway there's a lot I could say about mom. Like how she announced her pregnancy with either Kathy or Nancy. At the dinner table, on a Sunday I think. She said, "I've got good news for everybody!" She meant it too.

Like how she used to sew dresses for the girls for school and dashikis for me. I was the only white boy at Pompano Beach Senior High who wore dashikis. I think she found the pattern easy. Good thing I liked to be different. How she put dinner on the table every night is beyond my comprehension. I remember the mother/daughter dresses she and Gerri wore to the Statue of Liberty. And how she cried, "Poor little man" at grandpa's funeral. She loved him, I sometimes think, more than his son did.

Miss you mom. Oh, by the way, don't get any smart ideas, Donald. I just used this picture cause it was easy to find. I AM THE ONE WHO PUT THE GRAY IN MOM'S HAIR.

A Feast Day of No Particulars

Saturday afternoon errands were joy today because the grunt work was done in the morning. First to the optical shop to get my contacts upgraded and pick up my glasses. Ah, but I also got freebies: a pair of amethyst and a pair of blue lenses.

With this good fortune I went to Poverello, the thrift store. I found a nice coverlet for my bed for only $5.00. But I couldn’t make out the name on the tag, Blechstein? Black Stein? I unfolded it over by the mattress and found out that the secret words were bleach stain. And even for $5.00 it wasn’t gonna work.

But grace was with me now and I saw a folding fan with three scenes from the life of the Virgin. How much is this fan? “It’s only a dollar.” Can life get any better than this? They didn’t even collect the 6 cents tax.

I was just fabulous as I walked past the Alibi, glad to know that men in their 70’s still find me attractive. In I went to Ball to see the Queen of Scotland, but she wasn’t working yet. She grew up Protestant anyway and this fan was way too R.C. for her tastes.

On to that really expensive store in the corner. The first clerk told me about the obligatory sales and discounts – no kidding at these prices. The cute sales boy in the back said, "if you're going to carry a fan you have to open it up."

Needless to say he was bowled over by the images: An adoration of the Christ child in the manger, a standing Madonna and Child, and our favorite - the Blessed Virgin Mother suckling Baby J.

“My mother collects fans,” he said. “She lives in South Carolina.” Immediately, Here give this to her. If she lives in South Carolina she needs it. Tell her it came from St. Sebastian.

As I left the store I reminded him about St. Sebastian – a hunky military type, stripped naked and shot through with arrows. What’s not to like?

For more than I could ever tell you about St. Sebastian see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Sebastian

Cut Ear Teacart Review

There are memories I have that are so old, stories I’ve heard stories so many times, home movies I’ve seen in 8 mm, video, and DVD that I don’t always know what is the true memory.

My cousin Dennis was two years younger than me and was there for some of the more freak show aspects of my life. He could tell me a story of something that happened and see it in a different way than me (like maybe he wasn’t in a blackout or something).

And I have memories of Dennis that go way back, stuff he would never remember except if he heard the story.

Like the time when we were in the hospital together. The picture in my mind is of Dennis standing in a crib and me in the same room. It is a picture in my mind, like an old black & white photo, but that photo never existed in reality.

I asked his mother, my Aunt Eleanor what the true story is. Here’s what she said:

Dennis and I were in the hospital at the same time, but not in the same room. I was in because they thought I had appendicitis. Dennis fell and cut his ear on a teacart. I was crying when my mom left and Dennis was crying when Aunt Eleanor left.

When Aunt El came back later that day to pick him up the nurse said I had been going back and forth from my room to his, visiting him throughout the day.

He was 20 months old; I was 3 and a half. Ummm, do teacarts still exist?

The Cockettes – A Mini Movie Review

I don’t want to define who The Cockettes were, but The Cockettes is the name of a documentary by David Weissman and Bill Weber. The film covers the years 1969 to 1972, when I was 16 to 19 years old.

I watch the movie and think, “Yeah, I knew that was going on. Why didn’t I move to San Francisco and do that scene?” Then I remember the trouble I was getting into in Pompano: Hitchhiking to Greynolds park to score, skipping school to go to parties, watching friends inject.

I was never really made to be a successful drinker. It was always one more, one more. If I was lucky I puked in the toilet, but more likely I only made it to the sink or somewhere in a car (real tough to clean). I had a certain ideology about using drug to expand my consciousness, but wound up just getting high, some of it fun, some of it scary as hell, most of it just boring in retrospect.

Being a teenage kid on the streets in San Francisco would not have been a pretty scene. So I’m grateful for the people who were able to be the Cockettes and grateful to those who put it on film and help me remember the idealism of the late 60’s and early 70’s without having to have been exploited, hooked up, or cracked up. (That came a little later in my life anyway. So did the dresses, heels, blue eye liner, and just a bit of glitter.)

For more on the Cockettes than I could ever tell you see the link:

http://www.grandelusion.com/index.html

Spanky

The Everglades Bar, 1984. He was a cute slip of a boy, very slim, with light brown hair, a very light mustache, and a shit-eating grin. We went back to my place. (I was renting a 2-bedroom house, with Florida room, very cheap from my friend Ted. This was great because as one room got too cluttered I just moved into another room).

Anyway, we went back to my place and he was being coy and somewhat shy. He said, “I have a very smooth ass.” I was planning to find that out for myself. He repeated himself and added, “Do you wanna know why it’s so smooth?” I decided to play along.

Part of the game was that I was to coax the story out of him. He said that he was raised in an orphanage and that the other boys used to pick on him. He kept teasing me along, sweet-talking me, cajoling me into asking him why his ass was so smooth. I had finally asked him in just the right way: C’mon baby, why is your ass so smooth?

He looked at me shyly, looked away quickly, and blurted out, “Spanky!”

I started spanking him, thinking that this was a prelude to some smooth fucking in that smooth ass. Over the knee spanky. Standing up spanky. In the kitchen spanky. In the bedroom spanky. He wanted more spanky. He wanted harder spanky. And the more I gave him and the harder I did it the bigger his grin got. Ear to ear.

Hours later, he had finally had enough spanky and I got what I wanted. My poor hand was sore for three days after.

Moral of the story: Keep a hair brush handy!

Mini Movie Review – Mysterious Skin

I saw a movie called Mysterious Skin with Joseph Gordon-Levitt who played the kid in 3rd Rock from the Sun. It's about how childhood sexual abuse (from the same perpetrator) affected two very different boys in two very different ways. I am so impressed with the film and with Joseph as an actor. It was a very difficult film to watch at times - not necessarily because of the abuse, but more because of Neil’s (Joseph’s character) experiences as a hustler in NYC and watching the catharsis of Neil and especially Brian, the other boy (played by Brady Corbet). 

Thank You George McGovern!

Seeing George McGovern make the book tour rounds on C-SPAN brings back the memory of election night 1972. I had been working on the McGovern campaign for four days. (I knew nothing about politics, but my friend Chris was working on the campaign and I started tagging along.)

On Election Day I had been driving people to the polls, most of who apparently voted for Nixon. I went back to the local McGovern headquarters after the polls closed and was hanging out. This woman walked in, pulled some beers out of her purse and said, “Who wants one?” I do! I do!

Her name was Diane. She was 29; I was 19. We wound up hanging out together and went to the Victory Party together – it was already paid for. She taught me how to drink tequila shots with the salt and lime. Since we were Democrats we continued drinking at a house party.

Somewhere along the line we wound up in the back seat of my ’62 Plymouth and I lost my virginity – with women anyway. Around 5 in the morning I wanted to go another round, but she told me she had to go home and make lunch for her husband to bring to work.

For some reason, I remember the menu: Sliced egg sandwiches.

On Arial

My problem with Arial is not one of fins or flippers – that’s Ariel the little mermaid.

I have no problem with Ariel Bender. I think I had the hots for him when I was a kid. It’s hard to remember the early 70’s. I have no problem with the Ariel the Archangel, either.

I have no problem with Ariel, a moon of Uranus. Maybe a bit of a problem with Ariel Sharon, also a moon of Uranus, but he’s incapacitated so I’ll leave him alone.

No, my problem is with Arial the font. And I really wouldn’t mind it too much except I’m told that I must use it, am required to use, at work. For more than you will ever want to know about Arial the font see the link.

http://www.ms-studio.com/articles.html

Easter Sunday

I was having a time of it trying to write something for Easter, but nothing was right. But three paragraphs from A Confederacy of Dunces seem to fit. I didn’t get to ask for permission yet, please don’t report me to the copyright police.

     “I read Father Keller and Billy Graham in the paper every single day.”

     “Oh, my God!" Ignatius spluttered. “No wonder you are so lost.”

     “Here,” the old man said... “Put this on.”

A note on the font. First paragraph is Lucinda Grande, a sporty little font full of piss and vinegar. The conversational font is trebuchet, mostly because it sound like it could be from New Orleans - you  know over by that place that they cook the sugar baked ham. Tomorrow, it's back to dusty Arial for me.

Holy Saturday

During one of my periodic unsuccessful attempts to re-enter Catholicism I decided to go to confession on Holy Saturday and then Easter Mass.

 Small problem: I was defiant and resentful when I went into the confessional. I recognized the priest as Father Bill – retired from St. Louis, MO (pun intended) and an acquaintance of mine. He did not recognize me.

 He opened the little door. I said something like, “I want you to know I don’t really think this going to do much good.” Very gently he asked if I had any sins to confess? I laid my sins out and expected to get the usual three Our Fathers and three Hail Marys.

 Instead he granted absolution and said, “for your penance, be extra good to your mom this Easter.” 

I had been to confession at least a thousand times before in my life so I wasn’t expecting much. Instead, I found solace and a sense of gratitude.

Bill died last year. I’m glad that I told him several times over the years that he was the best confessor I ever had. And he always reacted with surprised delight.   

Good Friday

Ok, so I bought the sausage biscuits for Betty without moral qualms: I didn’t eat meat today. As an added bonus God arranged for the counter person at McDonald’s to put in an extra hash browns for free. That I ate.

I had been baptized and had my First Holy Communion (always referred to as such by a Catholic, lapsed or otherwise, of my age) pre-Vatican II so my formative years included no meat on Friday and certainly not on Good Friday. This year I tried to be mindful not to eat meat on Fridays during Lent and was mostly successful.

As a kid, Friday night supper was Mrs. Paul’s fish sticks, Kraft macaroni and cheese, or Campbell’s cream of tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. I didn’t eat Kraft for 10 years after leaving my mother’s house and still don’t do Mrs. Paul’s.

Some of my happiest childhood memories are of being in church with my mother on First Fridays. I can still she her face while looking at The Virgin, a look of true devotion and tranquility. And I’ve got to say that even though I don’t believe what the church teaches (the rules and regs of it anyway) I truly resent how the hierarchy betrayed the trust of the people.

I don’t think Jesus died so that the ecclesiastical power structure could maintain itself. 

Maundy Thursday

News Flash! Blue-eyed Jesus spotted on WTBN, Channel 21, quoting from the Gospel according to John. The eyes were a deep ocean blue set off by pale skin and rosy cheeks. His faces was framed by only-slightly-wavy shoulder-length brown hair. Barely a chance of Mediterranean blood, let alone Semitic or African. 

These Blue-eyed Jesuses all seem to come from The Lake Distict, Copenhagen, or Sweden. (Although on WTBN everyone is two or three shades lighter than on any other station, religious or otherwise.) Still...those nagging rumors about the Somali connection.

I'm told Anthony Quinn will be making an appearance soon as Barabbas. No chance of recessive eye genes there (though I've been fooled before).

The great Good Friday quandry is: Do I break my fast if I pick up a sausage bisquit at McDonald's for Betty the receptionist? 

Here, Put This On!

Lefty’s Bar, 1980. I see a cute dark-haired guy, a bit shorter then me with a nice build. Our eyes meet and the next thing I know we’re in his apartment. Just as we were getting to it I hear him say to me, “here, put this on.”

It was a bathing suit, a red Speedo if I remember correctly. I was nothing if not accommodating in the 80’s so I put it on. In quick succession he had me doing costume changes into a variety of bathing suits, board shorts, and briefs. I started to figure out that he had a fetish.

In those days I didn’t know that I could just walk out so I did more costume changes until he had seen enough to cum. "That was weird," I thought to myself as I left.

About a year later I was in Lefty’s and met this hot man. A little shorter than me, olive skin, short beard, and a black cowboy hat. I was in a Bat Masterson kind of mood and soon after we were back at his apartment.

It was kind of a weird set-up. Two bunk beds built out of 2 x 4’s and plywood. Lot’s of clothes on racks all over the place. He had the bottom bunk and someone (his roommate?) was in the top bunk already asleep.

We climbed into the bottom bunk and started making out. Suddenly, he thrust a bathing suit at me, “here, put this on.” Oh my god! I didn’t recognize him at the bar, but I figured: I’m here. I know the drill.

Only he had gotten weirder with the passage of time. And unfortunately I still hadn’t learned I could just walk away. He finally got off after wrapping my crotch in about three yards of shrink wrap (kind of ironic for pre-AIDS Ft. Lauderdale).

Moral of the story: If you can’t recognize a trick after one year’s absence, it’s time to get a steady boyfriend.

Pontius Pilate

I wonder if all the other Procurators gave Pontius Pilate a “roast” when he retired as governor of Judea. I can just imagine his response to some of the jokes: A look of bewilderment followed by, “Jesus who?”

Did he know that he would be played by Telly Savalas opposite Max Von Sydow? Did he remember J.C. out of the many Judeans who were crucified during his tenure? (Some say he was recalled by Rome for being too cruel!) Did he know the Judeans would take the rap for the famous judicial murder that he must have ordered?

The gospels and Mel Gibson play him sympathetically, but he was a Roman official and necessarily cruel. They were raised to cruelty, my ancestors. You don't conquer and hold the Mediterranean basin without being cruel. They were desensitized to violence by the shows in the amphitheaters. We use TV.

Suckopalypse Now

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Dogs

What is it dogs are

looking for when looking
for the perfect place
to take a shit?

I have been informed by M-C that if I'm going to have a blog I better write something every week. I have been duly chastened and I thank you for reading this perfectly gratuitous post.