This Ain’t No CNN.

Fires.

As I mentioned last week, there was a major fire at the local brewery Thursday night. I am home for my lunch hour and all I can hear are fire engine sirens. Earl just called me from work and says he sees nothing but smoke in the “general direction of our house”. I assured him that the house was fine and I didn’t see any smoke or smell anything odd but I could hear the sirens.

Looks like I need to do some scouting on the way back to work.

Dirty.

So another member of the Republican party has pleaded guilty to having gay sex in public places. This time it’s Senator Larry Craig of Idaho.

Color me shocked.

Before I delve into the whole hypocritical thing I have to stop for a moment and say that I don’t understand the attraction of having sex in a public bathroom. I have met and known many men whose crank is yanked by doing it in public but it’s something I just don’t get. First of all, there’s the whole sign/signal/woo-woo thing you have to do to let the person in the next stall know that you’re interested. Secondly, I treasure my parts very much and I’m not about the thrust him through a hole in a stall wall in hopes of finding Nirvana. God forbid Nirvana has teeth. Third, once you get the signs/signals/woo-woos worked out and everyone is on the same page and in the same place, there’s the whole logistics thing going on of straddling the toilet, not cutting your bare ass on the toilet paper ripper teeth and when all is said and done, doing a dismount that would make Cathy Rigby proud. I know some like the thrill of perhaps being caught and others do it in public so as not to ruin the rhythm of their bible beatings of others back with the church group but this whole public thing is not for me. Out in the wild in a private space with Mother Nature and a few friends: certainly. In an establishment that caters to that sort of thing: hey, if that makes you happy and everyone is on the same page, then go to town. In a public airport bathroom to the tune of muzak and flight delay announcements: absolutely not.

Now, how many of these politicians are going to be caught with their pants down before the American people wise up and say “Hey! These people are hypocrites.”? Perhaps one of the reasons these politicians fighting against gay marriage by proclaiming, among other things, that it’ll ruin their heterosexual marriage is because they think they’ll lose their stiffy if the gay becomes too accepted. The thrill is gone. On the other hand, and more likely the case, these guys are somewhat screwed up in the head after denying their true feelings for a number of decades.

I understand that things have changed dramatically over the last several years regarding coming out and all that is associated with it. The older generation had a different set of rules to play by and now, later in their lives, the rules are changing. Some choose to remain closeted so that they may maintain a well-established family, and you know what, that’s fine. I get that. But with all the different avenues out there for hook-ups (i.e. the internet, campgrounds, gay bars, etc.), I really don’t get the need to stop by the airport and look for some sex in a bathroom stall.

Not Today.

A story on CNN this morning reports that an ATM machine in Louisiana spit out $20s instead of $5s recently and that over $7000 in extra money was handed out to users of the machine over a two day period.

The authorities are thinking of bringing up charges against those that received the extra dough.

I think that’s wrong.

First of all, the article says that they think someone rigged the machine to spit out the wrong denomination bills. My gut tells me that in reality someone put $20 bills in the $5 slot when they were loading the machine but perhaps someone knew some codes and hacked into the ATM which, by the way, was probably made by the same company that those completely unneccessary but lord and savior electronic voting machines that keep messing up our elections.

Secondly, the problem was reported and the truck stop that owned the machine took action by unplugging it. It was subsequently plugged back in, apparently when no one was looking and so more people received extra money. That’s the fault of the folks at the truck stop, not the customers. The authorities have better things to do instead of tracking down folks from god knows where who got a few extra bucks. In a way, it was their lucky day (though in kind of a morally questionnable way), and if companies are going to be housing bank machines in every last remote location throughout the country then its their responsibility to make sure the machine is working correctly.

Remember the ads in the 1980s when people were all happy because the then brand new ATMs spit out too much money? The big voice said “It’s your lucky day!”

I guess that’s a thing of the past in today’s version of the United States.

Nail In The Coffin.

It has been announced that Isaiah Washington has been signed on to the cast of the remake of “Bionic Woman”. Did you just hear that slam noise preceded by some metal clanging? That’s the bionic fist of every gay man and lesbian that grew up with Jaime Sommers as their hero slamming the coffin shut on this weak reimagining of our beloved show.

It just keeps going further downhill.

First, David Eick grabs the name “Jaime Sommers” and the title “Bionic Woman” after dropping the “The” from the beginning of it and turns our beloved hero into a bartender drop-out who has some anger issues. Next, they include a deaf younger sister, played by a hearing capable actress that talks in embarassingly stereotypical “deaf speech” while she’s signing, which outrages the deaf community. They drop the deaf sister instead of recasting a deaf actress in the role and then decide to punch it up a notch by casting a man who is surrounded by controversy for anti-gay remarks and put him on a show with a historically MAJOR GAY FOLLOWING.

Are you fscking kidding me?

I was boycotting the show because of the desecration to Lindsay Wagner’s portrayal of Jaime Sommers and the lack of the ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch sounds. The reason for my initial boycott pales in comparison to the reason I’m boycotting now – Isaiah Washington’s presence makes it a definite no-go.

There’s only one Jaime Sommers. And she was a tennis pro turned school teacher in Ojai, California with a really cool side job, some wicked strong legs and arm and wicked cool hearing and she had a really fast dog named Max.

Anything else is just a travesty.

Thank You, Rosie.

Rosie O’Donnell

It has been officially announced that Rosie O’Donnell will not be returning to “The View”, opting out of her contract three weeks early. Actually she asked for a leave of absence or something.

“The View” website says “Tune in on Monday, May 28 for Rosie’s last day with The View.”

I know there are many people out there that do not agree with Rosie’s point of view. In fact, there are a lot of people out there that fire off nasty messages on her website while hiding under a presumbed shroud of anonymity.

Whether you agree with Rosie or not (and I do 99% of the time), you have to admit that Rosie contributed to the American experience by getting people talking. Rosie’s outspokenness made people sit up, listen and think. It prompted many to speak out. And in these turmulous times, it’s important that each of us takes a moment to think about what’s going on in our country and the world. It’s o.k. to ask questions, even if your answer or opinion is different from those around you.

I’d like to thank Rosie for helping others find their voice and prompting them to look at the issues and views and forming their opinion. Best of luck to you and your family.

You rock, Ro.

Grim.

“The Doomsday Clock” has just been brought closer to midnight per an article in USA Today. The new time of five minutes before midnight (armageddon) is reminiscent of the days after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I find this to be a little frightening.

From The Bulletin:

IT IS 5 MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT
2007
The world stands at the brink of a second nuclear age. The United States and Russia remain ready to stage a nuclear attack within minutes, North Korea conducts a nuclear test, and many in the international community worry that Iran plans to acquire the Bomb. Climate change also presents a dire challenge to humanity. Damage to ecosystems is already taking place; flooding, destructive storms, increased drought, and polar ice melt are causing loss of life and property.

Always looking for the irony, there’s an episode of Wonder Woman where Ted Shackelford and Joan Van Ark come back from the future, and one of them mentions that there were considerable changes in government after “the nuclear holocaust”, which took place in 2007. Now I’m not basing what lies ahead on an episode of Wonder Woman, but it does make you take pause for a moment.

Between North Korea, the mess in Iraq and now the heating up of activity in Iran, this may be turn out to be quite the year for the history books. I hope we can find a peaceful solution all around.

New Jersey!

I never thought that I would say this to myself, let alone in public, but perhaps New Jersey isn’t so bad after all.

Take a look at what changed my mind. New Jersey took a very big step in a positive direction today. Now if they’d only do something about 1. the traffic and 2. that nasty accent.

School Daze.

You know I’ve been thinking a lot about these school shootings lately. I know I’m not the only one in the country thinking about them but I can’t really shake the sadness I feel from them.

Is this is what our society has become?

Thirty years ago when I was in second grade, I had two major concerns going on in school. The first was how I would be able to dance with Joyce Roberts during square dancing in gym class. You see, I just loved Joyce and she was always fun to dance with, but she was tall. Very tall. How would I reach up to her to put my hands around her to dance? The other concern was that the elementary school had just purchased three new film projectors, and as Mrs. Hayden’s designated class film projector operator (she had to keep me busy, these days I’d probably be zoned out on ritalin), I had better know how to run these new fangled Singer film projectors. I heard they were much different than those made by Bell & Howell.

And that was the extent of my worries in elementary school. If I were that age today, would I have to worry that I was going to be shot by some madman that had broken into the school? My goodness, I don’t think the thought of someone breaking into the school crossed anyone’s mind back then.

The world has become so crazy. When I think of those young girls in that Amish school in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, my soul jumps through so many emotions. Obviously sadness, on several levels. Incredibly, however, I also feel a sense of awe and honor. Some accounts say that two of the older girls volunteered to be shot first in the hopes that the others could escape unscathed. The word admirable does not even begin to describe the courage of these two young women as they saw, accepted and sealed their fate at the hands of a madman.

Many advocate for the abolishment of guns completely. Of course you really can’t do that because you’d be trampling on the rights of citizens, but there certainly needs to be many, many more gun control mechanisms in place.

I have many questions, but like others, I don’t have many answers.

Shut Up.

In case you haven’t heard, Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes had a baby yesterday. I thought I’d let you know, just in case you haven’t heard about the blessed event.

But as I think about it, how could you not have heard? I mean, everytime I glanced at CNN this morning at work, there’s Tom Cruise with a big toothy grin at a press conference, yammering on about the arrival of his newborn child. I guess I’m happy about the arrival of their child, but is it really that big of a deal that it has to be plastered all over CNN? Remember when CNN told us about important things, like terrorist attacks, summits of world peace and the like? Now they tell us that Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes had their baby. Where the important stuff, like why gas has gone up 20 cents a gallon in the past two weeks.

Tom and Katie had a baby.

Now that I think about this more, I say “big deal”. So Tom got part X into slot Y and the result was baby Z. What about the thousands of other couples that had a baby yesterday. Where’s their limelight?