Right now I'm listening to Blue. Joni Mitchell's Blue. Not Simply Red's Blue or anyone else's Blue. Joni Mitchell conveys the type of insanity I prefer. Schizophrenia (disambiguation) most splendid. The mental illness I'm most accustomed to. The mental illness I sidestepped. Did I avoid it by being authentic to myself, as I would like to believe? Or is it so I delude myself to believe? I ask myself these things but perhaps it's just my way of inspiring megalomania in my own case. So, I want to be a doctor. No big deal these days, is it? Do I want to have this pre-amble for my own pride or because I need to do it for my own sanity or is it my own insanity? I'm still listening to Joni Mitchell, so I can't be quite sure of anything right now.

I remember when I was much younger, twenty-one or so. 1984. I was working on a cruise ship in Hawaii. I have a million sea stories, but this on stands out to me to be the difference between being twenty-one and forty [gasp]-four. There were so many gay waiters on that ship! I was oblivious and naive. One asked me for his customer, to have "silver-dollar" pancakes. I was working in the baking department of the ship. A foolhardy career choice I would grow to regret.... But anyway... the waiter asked for some "silver-dollar" pancakes. I had never heard of "silver-dollar" pancakes before. So I didn't know what to do. What I probably should have done was ask, "What's that?" and after the explanation, followed up with, "If you want me, I'll be at the bar...." [Still listening to Joni Mitchell....] But I didn't say anything. I racked my brain for the answer. I had gone to cooking school. Silver-Dollar pancakes had never come up. Now I have to ask myself, why hadn't they? But back then, I searched the dark corners of my brain for the answers and there were none to be found because neither the definition nor the experience had ever been implanted there. I didn't have a very good relationship with the chief baker. I thought he was useless. I didn't get a positive vibe from him, and I didn't want to ask him anything because I was afraid of getting an answer that would make it seem like I was useless. I didn't want someone to tell me I was useless because I felt very much so on my own. Time was going by, and now answers were not being inspired divinely or otherwise. So I had to come up with something. My solution was to just make regular pancakes and give them to the waiter, and let the chips fall where they may.

Lately, I notice how many gray hairs I have. I look in the mirror in the bathroom and marvel at them, like they are a biological wonder. They don't make me feel old or anything because I haven't fully accepted them yet. I wonder and I have heard stories about changes to the diet, which will make them go away. I wonder sometimes if I should color my hair. But then I think, I have earned this many and many more gray hairs from my life and times. Taking risks for my own amusement and adventures beyond my imagination, these gray hairs should be doubled if they were earned that way. I know that they are simply epithelial cells, dead cells the body is rejecting, expelling. We choose to believe they are still a living reflection of our lifestyles. We color them and use heat and chemicals to get them to bend or flatten. So, I woke up and, "it was a Chelsea morning," [Joni Mitchell, remember....], I thought about making a few calls. One to my parents to tell them that my brother-in-law, came over last night and discovered that the reason my hot-water baseboard heat boiler was not working was because the circuit board containing the gas control circuit was corroded and needed to be repaired, which he did with an old soldering Iron which should be brought to "Antiques Roadshow," as he put it, and some plumber's solder. "I should have brought my tool kit," he said. My brother-in-law is a genius. He is literally a rocket scientist. I went over to my sister's house for Thanksgiving. So, Thanksgiving morning we sat 'round the kitchen table and proposed solutions to alternate fuel sources and my brother-in-law suggested that we should have a $2 dollar per gallon gas tax which would fund alternative fuel source technology and implementation. This would have the effect of increasing revenue for projects while causing people to be much more thoughtful about their petrol consumption. He said that SUV's would be off the road and people would be seeking more fuel-efficient transportation, forcing the auto industry to provide efficient options to this market. I thought that was a brilliant idea, but I wish it wouldn't have such a devastating effect on po folks [like me], who still would have to drive around the old clunkers because of the cost of buying new vehicles is so high. He said that would only be the case for about five to six years. After that there would be a renewal of the auto industry.

I have never paid more than $1,300.00 for an automobile. And I paid that to my dad for a 1981 Honda Civic, that had 60,000 miles on it. I put another 140,000 miles on the Civic and then sold it to my brother, who drove it around for a few more years, then sold it to someone else. I have never had a new car... ever. I never thought it was worthwhile to buy one. When they came out with "New Car Smell" auto air fresheners that were the "clincher." I could have that same smell while driving around in my 1976 AMC Pacer X, or, my Datsun 710. I also find it personally challenging to maintain and use older vehicles. I marvel at people who don't know how to, or even attempt changing their oil or brakes. People pay others to rotate their tires. To me that's like paying someone to eat my "Tin Roof Sundae" ice cream. My list of vehicles includes one that I never drove on the road. My first vehicle: 1968 Chevrolet Bel Air Wagon. White with a black interior, including a black shag rug in the back. It was very cozy. But at the time I got my driving license, 1980, the oil industry was being manipulated by the same folks that have been doing it until now, and the price of petrol was about $2.75 per gallon as it is today. Of course being an election year, the Republicans blamed it on those crazy Iranians and other Arabs and used things like that and more to sway the opinion of the American public, as they continue to do today. So with regard to politics, not all that much has changed. I always found it amusing that people would listen to Republicans. Their opinions are always so fundamentally flawed. So I sold my yet un-driven Chevy wagon to an older brother of my younger brother's friend. He had a scheme. He was working for someone in Freehold. An older man. A bit of a chicken hawk as I saw it. The older gentleman paid me by check, which he promptly stopped payment on. When I followed up on that, a tragedy happened. My brother's friend was killed in a hit-and-run accident. He was left to die in the woods here. After that had happened, I didn't have the heart to go after his brother for a few hundred dollars. "Laughter and crying, you know it's the same release...." Did I mention I'm still listening to Joni Mitchell....?

So now-a-days I ask questions. And if I don't understand what's going on, I stop everything and say, "What is this?" I guess that is the most fundamental change in my life over the past 23 years: Understanding that I need to know what's going on in my life and not be "Waiting for a car on the hill...."

Good Morning, Baltimore!

Being a fan of John Waters' films, and Hairspray being one of my favorites, when the opportunity arose to preview the new musical, I met that with a mixture of excitement and worry. I knew the broadway musical was a hit, so I had both my fingers crossed, but as we all know, Hollywood has a way of messing up a good thing.

Not so with Hairspray. I loved every minute of the film. The score and soundtrack translated brilliantly. The cinematography brought 1962 back to life with accuracy, making this film a pleasure to enjoy.

Nikki Blonski starred as Tracy Turnblad and held her own against a veteran star cast, including John Travolta, Queen Latifah, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Christopher Walken. Amanda Bynes, James Marsden, Brittany Snow, Zac Efron and Elijah Kelley provide excellent performances throughout the film

If you have never seen the Broadway show, or the 1988 John Waters film, you will thoroughly enjoy this film. If you have seen the 1988 Hairspray, you will get an insider's point of view on some of the scenes which were not gone into much detail in this musical version, but this in no way takes anything away from the enjoyment of this film. The main shift in this film is that more character development is allowed for in some of the roles which were assumed in the 1988 film. The part of Edna Turnblad was expanded here and John Travolta did an excellent job making this role his own, rather than simply stepping into the shoes of Devine, which would have never worked. Travolta was Edna Turnblad in body [sic.] and spirit. Travolta's "Baldimoor" accent was perfection of authenticity. I wanted to smack Michelle Pfeiffer, which his how well she played her role of racist bitch "Velma Von Tussle." Queen Latifah delivered vocal performances comparable to her role in "Chicago." There were several cameos during the film: See if you can catch them all.

So go and see this film! You're gonna love it!

Damn Yankee

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What American accent do you have?
Created by Xavier on Memegen.net

Northern. Whether you have the world famous Inland North accent of the Great Lakes area, or the radio-friendly sound of upstate NY and western New England, your accent is what used to set the standard for American English pronunciation (not much anymore now that the Inland North sounds like it does).

Take this quiz now - it's easy!

We're going to start with "cot" and "caught." When you say those words do they sound the same or different?

Different Same Same, no wait I mean different, maybe, a little bit different...

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Last week I attended my first HAB (Houston Area Bears) Meeting. I got a chance to meet some of the local guys during the meeting. I wish I could have spent more time with them, but there just wasn't enough time. I got a chance to at least meet 'Nard, whom I have been exchanging eMails with for nearly two years now. Mainly about podcasting. I need to get going with that, and I have the time right now, but I just don't have the where-with-all to get started. I suppose I just need to sit down with him and find out how to save the files and how to generate the feeds and all of that stuff. There just wasn't enough time to go through the many questions I had. At any rate, when I arrived there was an older gentleman whom I sat across from at the table. After I spoke to him for a few minutes and disclosed that I was originally from New Jersey, he said, "So, you're a Damn[ed] Yankee." I replied, "Yes, I'm probably the damnedest Yankee you'll ever meet!" We both laughed. The conversation went on about how things in Houston have changed since the 1940's. I find talking to older folks fascinating. If they are articulate enough, it's like looking through a time-door to the past. I love documentaries on how life was sixty and seventy or more years ago. It's fascinating. The interesting part is that the time has changed and life is so different now, but humanity has really not changed, no matter what the politicians want to repeatedly state to the contrary. Perhaps the biggest change is in an awareness of things that were not spoken about publicly. But people really aren't all that different from whom they used to be.

I came to the same conclusion after I did a bit of traveling back in my earlier years. When I was growing up I had this idea that people are so much different in other parts of the world. Then when I had a chance to travel I discovered something: Cultures are different. Religions are different. Politics are different. But, people are all the same. No matter where you go in this world, people are all the same. They have the same wants and the same desires. They want to basically live their lives in peace and not feel as though they are being stifled by someone else. People want to feel safe amongst their neighbors and have an overall sense of self-righteousness. I suppose over the past 25 years here in the USA, we have changed the most from that sense of following the "golden-rule" ["Do unto others as you would want done unto you," for those of you who do not know what the term, "Golden Rule," relates to.] Thanks to our shocking media and shocking politicians and shocking preachers, we have felt that we need to be "other-worldly" in that we have been told that we should not consider our neighbors, do whatever the hell we want and damn everyone else. We live in gated communities. We don't even know who our neighbors are, let alone even greet them. So we have fallen victim to the "Divide & Conquer," philosophy of military engagement. Only we have been the ones conquered. We have been divided up by those who would have us live in a state of terror. I am not referring to "Terrorists." I am referring to those who wish to control us like the cattle that we ultimately are perceived to be to them. Our Kings and our Clerics: Our Presidents and our Reverends. Those who tell us that we need to look to them for guidance. Those who tell us not to trust our neighbors. Quite the contrary, they expect us to call special phone numbers to report "Suspicious Activities." Those who repeat over and over, ideas that we should be wary of others because they will cause us to loose the notion of what our Political leaders and Clerics have told us is good for us.
But, oh, I am ranting, now. So rather than continue down this path toward schizophrenia, I shall end at this point. And any of you who don't know what that big word, "Schizophrenia," means, we have Wikipedia to help us out:

Schizophrenia (from the Greek word σχιζοφρένεια, or schizophreneia, meaning "split mind") is a psychiatric diagnosis that describes a mental disorder characterized by impairments in the perception or expression of reality and by significant social or occupational dysfunction. A person experiencing schizophrenia is typically characterized as demonstrating disorganized thinking, and as experiencing delusions or hallucinations, in particular auditory hallucinations

satu

Digging through some of my things
I found an autographed novel I gave as a present
To the one I will call my first lover:
He had no use for it

I was reading Essex Hemphill
And watching Marlon Riggs
He was reading Handjobs
And watching Judy Tenuta

I took him from Manhattan Valley
To the University of Pennsylvania
To hear Essex recite
And to confront bi-sexuals

He went to Harvard University
And took me to The Pleasure Chest
Just to look:
But for the ideas of fantasy

Now fifteen years have gone by
And finally I have someone
Who might cherish this gift
The autographed words of wisdom

Of a man not long for this world
Who took the time to speak
To impetuous youth
Back on April 29, 1992

I have someone who will
Understand why I present a compilation
Autographed to someone else
From a man dying of AIDS

I have someone who just might
Read Essex' words of wisdom:
"Take Care of Your Blessing's"
And know this comes from the edge of eternity