This is my favorite clock in my school clock collection. It’s from my elementary school and currently resides in the music studio. I love the art deco look of it.
Eat Healthy.
Unfortunately, it’s very blurry but this is a nutrition label from a box of something like “Bubba’s Burgers”, which contains six 1/3 lbs burgers.
If you look carefully, you’ll notice that the percentage of the recommended daily allowance of saturated fat is three digits.
That would be 105%. As in five percent over 100%.
For those that are curious, no, Earl and I did not purchase these burgers. We found something much healthier in our grocer’s freezer.
Time Warp.
I feel like I stepped into a time warp today. With my grandfather’s passing yesterday, I took the afternoon off from work and went up to my hometown to see what I could do to support the family. I figured they could use some help while services were planned, etc.
So I worked at the family store today.
It’s been 10 years or so since I last actively worked at the store. Items have been moved around a little bit. Some displays have been freshened up. But many of the same people come in, the procedures are the same and the schedule is the same. Earl has fantasies of me slinging lumber all over the lumber yard (he should have seen me when I was 17!), but I ended up working inside. (I’ll do some pushups tonight to make him happy).
Needless to say, I enjoyed working at the store very much.
I sometimes complain about life in Upstate N.Y., how I’d rather escape to somewhere else… Denver, Nogales, Ariz., Oklahoma City, Emmetsburg, Ia., it doesn’t matter as long as I’m away from here. It’s days like today that makes me realize that yes, I am crazy. It’s not so bad, in fact, it’s all good. Sure, there’s snow six months out of the year. The economy is in the crapper. People do stupid things.
But the grass isn’t necessarily greener on the other side. To paraphrase one of my favorite authors, the grass is always greener right here, over the septic tank.
Family Matters.
My grandfather passed away today. He has been bed ridden for the last month or two with various types and flavors of cancer. Having accepted his fate, his last couple of meals a week or so ago consisted of beer and popcorn, of his choosing. The doctors gave him two weeks to live. He showed them, he lived two weeks and a day since their proclamation. He would have turned 90 at the end of August.
My grandfather was an interesting man. As I told my co-workers today, he knew what he wanted and nothing was going to stop him once he set his mind to something. He lived his life balls to the wall and wasn’t afraid to try anything. He rode his motorcycles through last year. He drove home from Florida this past spring in his ’85 Mercedes. He’d probably still have flown his homebuilt airplanes if my father hadn’t taken the engine off one and the wings off another after a few landing mishaps, one involving powerlines.
He grew flowers and a lavish garden, looked at the moon through a giant telescope, took up photography, traveled the country two months out of the year, enjoyed exotic breeds of dogs, built one of the largest egg farms in the county from the ground up, maintained a beef farm later on and built a successful contracting business, lumber yard and hardware store for quite a few decades.
Riding with my grandfather in a car was an interesting experience as he set his own speed limits and followed his own rules of the road. On his commute to the family store (mostly on rural country roads), he often hit three digits while driving.
He was brash and cantankerous. He was loud. He had his opinions and made them known. Ironically, his demeanor taught me not to be afraid of other people and not to be ashamed of my own opinions.
After my grandmother passed away in February ’96 (they were married for 58 years), he dated a couple of women before remarrying in July of that same year. I believe he may have proposed to each one of their first date, he found his second wife in Beulah. He didn’t want to be alone. He wanted to enjoy sex. I hope I inherited his stamina.
I’m going to miss him. Rest in peace, Gramps. Please send my love to Grandma. My love to you both.
It’s All In The Logo.
With Wal*Mart changing the landscape of America’s retailing forever, I can’t help but long for the good ol’ days. Back when shoppers had a choice of where they shopped. Stores where you could walk from one side to the other without the need for a Service Area. Shopping experiences where you weren’t assaulted by surly greeters trying to supplement their social security or televisions hanging from the ceiling to compliment the noise of the snot nosed brat kicking his mother in the shin.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I go to a department store to pick up things I need, well, from a department store. I don’t go to get my hair styled, I don’t go to get fitted for contacts, I don’t go to do my banking and I don’t go to the department store to get my nails done.
I go to buy clothes or laundry detergent or cat litter or shaving cream.
I blame K-mart. When they went from the big red “K” and little blue “mart” to that stupid “Big K” big block K logo thing, the former S.S. Kresge Company opened the floodgates with their inevitable failure and gave Wally World room to expand. Those Big K’s weren’t any bigger than the old K-marts. Heck, they didn’t even carry appliances like the original K-marts did! And where was the popcorn by the jewelry counter or the K-mart cafeteria in the back? Gone!
If they had done what they’re Australian counterparts did with their K-marts by just updating the logo a little bit, staying true to their original course and keeping up with the times, I bet the retailing landscape would be a little bit different today.
And I bet I could still grab some popcorn near the jewelry counter. Sears Essentials my ass. Popcorn is essential!
Business In The Front, Party In The Back.
Earl and I decided to frequent the local casino for supper tonight. I guess we were in the mood for a little people watching and whole lot of food from the buffet. I could spend hours, maybe even days, watching people as I just find the whole world so amusing. So interesting. Even the most mundane person has something to contribute this world, even if it’s just a heap of boredom.
But I have to ask, who’s idea was it to bring back the mullet? For the hair history challenged, let me briefly explain what a mullet it is. You take a perfectly good head of hair, a little on the longish side, and head down to the mall. At the mall, you seek out one of those futuristic hair emporiums, usually named something like “Fashion 2005” or “Big Fashion, Little Cents” in big Atari type lettering. You are then consulted by the hair washer girl (who has failed beauty school a handful of times), the hair drying boy and then Gregor, the big sissy with parachute pants and snappy gum. He takes your perfectly good head of hair and sort of shag/Farrah’s it in the front but shorter. Think “feathered” with not a lot of “wing” but extra poof. Then he waves the scissors over the back and doesn’t take one millimeter off the length. Voila! A mullet.
It’s all business in the front but turn around! It’s all party in the back. Bring on the Milwaukee’s Best baby.
The extra adventurous pay extra to get that party in the back permed.
Sexy.
Back to the casino.
Whilst people watching, I noticed quite a few people (mostly men and a couple of mean looking dikes) wearing mullets! Holy ’87 Camaro! What to do? At first I suspected that it’s because the casino is only five miles from a dirt race track (hot action every Sunday night), but that would be stereotyping. No, no, no.
It’s just that bad fashion sense is prevalent in these parts.
Into The Storm.
Last night Earl and I went to a local restaurant for a reuben on rye and a basket full of fries with gravy on them (my arteries have been a little too clean lately) and then hit Barnes and Noble for some browsing (and the books weren’t bad either). We had both wanted to pick up a new book to read during our vacation plus we were wasting some time before seeing “Bewitched” for the second time.
Our browsing was cut short by a flicker of the store lights and a rumble of thunder. Seems there was a BEAUTIFUL thunderstorm coming in from the west. I instantly jumped into “storm chaser” mode and Earl came along for the ride.
Usually we do the storm chasing in the Jeep, but because we were out and about, we just went ahead and did the chasing in the Acura.
Now that was an experience.
We headed west about five miles where the wind picked up considerably, the sky darkened to near midnight proportions and it rained and rained and rained and rained. It was raining so hard the wipers couldn’t keep up. Big rain drops made themselves known by pounding on the sunroof with a loud “plonk”. There were several awesome displays of lightning and the wind was blowing branches all over the place.
When Earl began to get a little nervous with the whole thing, I decided to turn around and head home. In an effort to get home quickly, I turned directly into the storm. We had to do a U-turn and backtrack due to fallen trees across the road. We were in the middle of the storm, with the wild wind and rain and dancing lightning to a thunderous beat. All that was missing was a flying cow. I was absolutely loving it!
Then I remembered all the windows were open at the house.
When we arrived home we found that while there was considerable wind and rain, nothing in the house was disturbed. The storm had cooled the house down quite a bit, but other than that, it was business as usual.
By then, the storm began to subside so we headed to the movies. Today the flowers are a little brighter and the grass is a little greener courtesy of their potent drink last night. The National Weather Service is predicting more fun tonight.
I better ready the Jeep and the camera ready!
Bewitched. In Reruns.
Earl and I celebrated my going off call for work by going to see Bewitched again tonight. I must say that I appreciate the movie much more now that I’ve seen it a second time. It’s a little confusing, but once you scratch past the surface, you see that it’s really Bewitched. Nicole and Will do a fabulous job, especially at the end of the movie.
If you haven’t gone and see it, please take an opportunity and go have some light-hearted fun.
Voice Of America.
Every Independence Day I think back to when I was the “Voice of America” for my high school. At least that’s what the Assistant Principal called me every morning. You see, I was the office geek that did announced the Pledge of Allegiance every morning and then read the morning announcements over the p.a. system. I did this at exactly 8:00:05 every school morning, exactly two seconds after homeroom officially began with the sound of the 8:00 bell. (Actually, our school bells rang three seconds after their appointed time throughout the day, but only a school clock geek like me would ever notice).
I took great pride in leading the entire school through the Pledge of Allegiance.
“Good morning, would everyone please stand for the pledge of allegiance.” (wait five seconds).
“I Pledge Allegiance, to the flag, of the United States of America
And to the Republic, for which it stands,
One nation, under God, indivisible,
With liberty and justice for all.”
“Have a fabulous Friday.”
Yes, I always added the my little zinger at the end of the pledge and the announcements. A little gay touch, I suppose.
A copy of the Pledge of Allegiance was taped to the p.a. system control board, but I never needed it. Nerves never gripped me enough to make me forget the pledge. I fully believed in the Pledge of Allegiance as a kid and I still do today. If everyone would just remember that “with liberty and justice for all” part this country would be an even happier place.
Is Anita Bryant Dead Yet?
Being faithful subscribers to DirecTV, Earl and I are delighted to see the addition of channel 263 – “LOGO” from MTV Networks. “LOGO” is the first non-subscription all-gay network.
The very first thought that came to my mind is that while I’m very excited about the existence of this channel, it’s a shame that we have to have a separate gay network. But if some of these shows were to show on mainstream television, the conversative right and all that would have an absolute hissy fit. Though they wouldn’t have the panache to call it a “hissy fit”. They’d just scream “moral values” and beat some people over the head with Bible.
One of the shows we’ve watched on LOGO this weekend is “The Evolution Will Be Televised”, which outlines gay history from the Stonewall riots in 1969 to current day. There’s commentary from gay celebrities, gay community activists, etc. I find it all very interesting, especially since I lived in Boston in the late 1980s and took part of a couple of the pride celebrations. I also had friends that were in ACT=UP. I once spat on a man that was trying to “cure” participants in a pride parade.
Anyways, one of the topics addressed in this hour long documentary is Anita Bryant’s anti-gay crusade in 1977. Being nine years old at the time, I wasn’t really all that politically or socially aware, but I do remember seeing Anita being “pied” on the evening news. I also seem to remember my mother saying that she wasn’t a very nice woman. I guess my mom was always cool that way. Anita looked harmless enough to my nine-year old eyes, but as an adult I realize what a horrid, hateful, venomous woman she was. And I will state again (as many others have before me): if anyone, gay or straight truly believes that a gay man or lesbian can be “cured” or “converted” to heterosexuality really has no idea of what they’re talking about and must have nothing less than a weak personality, low sense of self worth and a great deal to hide about themselves.
While we were watching this show, I wondered whatever happened to Anita Bryant. For some reason, I just assumed she’s passed on. But I was wrong. She’s still alive, but apparently silent on her social beliefs, thank god. Having lost her orange juice endorsement deal (due to a boycott of Florida oranges and other social pressures), she divorced her first husband and declared bankrupcy in 1997 and again in 2001. Sounds like all that hate has led her to the good life. Maybe she should shack up with Dr. Laura.
I think one of the most important things a gay man or lesbian can do in society today is just be themselves. If you’re not ashamed of yourself, you have nothing to hide. What’s the risk? People may shun you? Big deal. You didn’t want to know them anyways. If everyone would just let others live and let live and be themselves without judgment, the world would be a better place. I can even accept the views of others, however hate inspired. If they would just shut up about it.
