It's so absolutely New Mexico and a late HGF!

Hi! I'm back, I vacated a little too much, and now I have to make up for lost time. So I'll be busy all weekend doing all those things I swore I'd do while I was on spring break. All I really got done was a lot of riding.

But today I ran across a story that could only happen in New Mexico. If one has a time capsule and wants it buried in New Mexico, make sure you do it right then and in full public view or:

"Santa Fe's 1960 time capsule was never buried
Project ditched 40 years ago; tube was used as shelf for 'useless objects'"
Msnbc

Apparently in 1960 they celebrated the 350 anniversary of Santa Fe and though they were off by more than a few years, as they found out later, they intended to bury a time capsule. However,the mayor at the time just put the shelf in the back of his shop and used it as a shelf, never buried it, never put anything in it, so New Mexico. Ya gotta love 'em.

Sorry I wasn't around yesterday for HGF but here is a little something to makeup for that. Continuing the theme from last week.

Happy St Patrick's Day

Ok,look. I'm on vacation but apparently stupidity doesn't have vacation so I needed to stop by and weigh in on the AIG bonuses.

"Contracts can't just be abrogated?" Larry Summers says.

Who're you kidding?

They've got some real powerful ammunition they're holding us hostage with or this would not be happening.

Contracts are canceled,altered, set aside, and ignored ALL THE FUCKING TIME!!!! Anyone ever heard of contract law? Do you think attorneys would invent a whole arm of their profession for something that WASN'T lucrative?

Don't give me that bullshit!

What I'd like to know is what they're NOT telling us. Cause they REALLY REALLY do not want us to know. It must be pretty scary.

Write your representatives and senators and even Barry himself and tell them all that you know this is bullshit and you've had enough. It'll do little good, but just maybe we can keep others from making political hay out of this ridiculousness.

I'm so tired of getting indiscriminately screwed...and not in a good way.

Well, that's all for now, I'm off to the stables.

Enjoy St.Paddy's day...don't drink too much, tomorrow is a work day. (for you)

Love

Hot Guy Friday!!

Today I thought I'd celebrate the average college guy. He gets a lot of attention and rightly so. A lot of them are F-I-N-E!

Some of their activities are suspect though-



Seriously.

Have a great weekend.

I'm vacating til the 23rd.

Love

BTW I need to mention a comment I received on my post "I Love Chi-town" I really really wanted to publish it. BUT! as you will see in a minute it wouldn't do most of us any good cause it looked like this.

中部人聊天室,聊天室交友

After I parsed it and translated it to english (sort of) I noticed a web address, which I went to. The author of the comment doesn't get the point of this blog AT ALL. Turns out the comment was a link to a heterosexual porn site in chinese. Wow, someone is clueless huh?

I love Chi-town!

The obviously not unattractive young men of Alpha Delta Phi were on hand this week to welcome Fred Phelps' kin to Chicago. Enjoy the video. I concur with Andy Towle, Red shorts and white bathrobe is a hit.



-video courtesy of Towleroad

Quite the week

After teaching ALL the librarians in a local school district new software, and discovering that librarians are quite the sexists, (men do technical stuff and lift and tote, creative stuff isn't for them) AND giving not one or two, but THREE mid term exams, along with working two evenings at the grocery, I've had quite the week.

But I'm back, and though I'd love for things to settle down to normal today, I now get to do ALL that work I neglected while training this week. Isn't this fun???

But next week I'm GONE DO YOU HEAR ME!!! G-O-N-E!!!!!!

It'll be me a horse, a laptop, and an Ipod. That's it. No communication with the outside world will take place. I'm taking a tent and a sleeping bag and some food and heading off to camp and sleep. It portends to be a bit colder than I'd hoped, but I'm doing it anyway.

As we know I do not love the Republican party. A few Republicans and a few reformed, absolutely, but the party...not so much. However, today I read something on Towleroad quoting Michael Steele as saying he doesn't believe that gay is a choice. "I think that there’s a whole lot that goes into the makeup of an individual that, uh, you just can’t simply say, oh, like, 'Tomorrow morning I’m gonna stop being gay.' It’s like saying, 'Tomorrow morning I’m gonna stop being black.'”

First time I EVER heard a black person make that equation. Perhaps there is hope that African Americans' will not forever look upon civil rights as their personal territory. That would be nice.

Tomorrow is Hot Guy Friday and I can't wait. I'm thinking college guys. For all the obvious reasons. So I'm off to shop.

Love

It's Monday!?!?!

How is this possible? I watched a mediocre musical at the school this weekend, viewed a very mediocre film called Harry and Max (puhleez,) and got thrown by a green-broke three year old. Oh and it rained a lot too.

Other than that the weekend was uneventful. Oh, wait, not true. I also spent Friday with friends that was fun.

Bryce Johnson is a cute straight boy who somehow keeps getting cast as a gay boy doing wrong. In Nip/Tuck he was a married solider who went to Mcnamara/Troy to get some war scars repaired, and wound up having sex with one of the dr's. And in Harry and Max, he was cast as a boyband brother who has incestuous sex with his brother. at first he doesn't want a repeat performance, but then he changes his mind...I think. The movie was such a damn mess I couldn't really tell.

I mean if a film is about incest it really has to be about that. It's something of an attention grabber. Yet this film persisted in being about as many things as the director/writer could think of. It was about boy bands and their pitfalls, it was about bad family relationships, it was about brotherly bonds and crossing lines. It was about sexual confusion. It was about familial relationships, and relationships with women...oh and men, I forgot about the older guy Max was sleeping with on the sly, whom Harry seduces. It was about...well you see what I mean. At over an hour into the proceedings we were introduced to a new character who made an appearance that was all of 2 minutes long and we never saw her again! How do you explain that?

It was reminiscent of the incident last week in which this straight guy at work informed me that some of his best friends are gay. I just stood there with my jaw on the floor. And the longer this mess of a movie went on the closer to the floor my jaw got. Munch (the director) might want to stick to directing, this foray into writing...not so great.

Big week. Midterms today and Thursday. Which I should write btw, I've already decided the questions, but they need to be on paper I guess. Big project at work every day. No day off from any of the jobs, and somewhere in there I have to pay bills and do the checkbook. hehe, we'll see about that.

Have a nice week I can't promise I'll be around but I'll try.



See, there was every reason to pay attention to this movie, but the script made it damn near impossible. How do you make a guy this cute unwatchable?

Hot Guy Friday

You knew this was coming, and you've probably already seen it. But I don't really care, this IS about me after all.


To quote Sylvester the cat...

Thaketh!

Bashing Bashing

Acquittals over gay bashing in Spain, Murder on the street in London, demonstrations in California and New York. And the rest of us sit here doing nothing.

Yes, I always think the motives of coastal gays are suspect. Yes, I always think we're sitting on our hands. Yes, I think that revolution I've talked about is being foreshadowed. And yet...we do little to nothing to change the course.

That's not to say that the course of revolution needs to be changed. I think it's a good and necessary thing. It clears the cobwebs, as it were. And we've certainly been blinded by some cobwebs these past few years.

Blabbeando: "27 year old Isaac Ali Dani Peréz Triviño was born in Spain. 32 year old Julio Anderson Luciano was born in Brazil. They lived together in the Spanish province of Vigo and were planning to get married. Both were stabbed to death by Jacobo Piñeiro Rial in their apartment in the early morning of January 13th, 2006.

Demonstrations are planned in Vigo, Spain this weekend, and now one has been set up by New Yorkers in solidarity.

Vigils were held across California on Wednesday night in anticipation of the Supreme Court arguments on the constitutionality of the voter-passed Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in the state and revoked the marriage rights of millions of people.

Yesterday I posted about the anti-gay attack at Robert's Lafitte, a gay-friendly bar in Galveston, Texas. Three men (photo, below) were arrested after one held open a door and the other two hurled rocks at the customers inside. The men are now being held on $120,000 bond and hate crime enhancements have been added to their charges.

A man and his partner were attacked in the Bromley area of southeast London last night. One of the men died of stab wounds on his doorstep. His partner managed to "stagger" to a neighbor's house to call for assistance. He is in critical condition.

Hundreds of people gathered outside the state capitol in Raleigh, North Carolina to attend a rally sponsored by Return America and NC4Marriage yesterday.

And perhaps the most sure sign of revolution or the apocalypse I'm still not sure which:

Vanilla Ice apologizes — for everything!

Levity aside, these developments need to be heeded. Something is very wrong in a country that cannot stop debating the phrase "Pursuit of Happiness"

I cannot imagine the founding fathers had only hate, heterosexuals and Christians in mind when they drafted the Declaration of Independence. I realize this country was founded by just such zealots, but maybe it's time for even THAT to change.

I do honestly consider all the time how possible it is that I could be targeted by someone who's crazed by my sexuality. I don't curtail my life nor activities for it, that would be giving in to their terrorism, but it's always there in the back of my mind. I have, many times thought, "How many times in my life have I gotten into strange cars with guys I did not know and gone off someplace secluded to smoke dope?"
That's likely what Matthew Shepard did, and look what it got him? Poor thing got crucified for his troubles. And because he was young he got martyred. Us old people seem to "get what we deserve."

Puzzling that we get worth less as we get older.

It's also puzzling to me that the mayor of San Diego looks at his daughter like she accomplished something he never thought she would. It seems to me that because of who we love we are handicapped. That we are automatically limited in most people's minds, no matter how talented, how creative, how intelligent we are, we are thought of as incapable of overcoming the odds and accomplishing anything. What does who we love have to do with our abilities?

Perhaps that's why we always wind up dead or crazy in films. Except in The Talented Mr. Ripley, in which we got both.

I have to wonder if anyone will take a stand today. If anyone who feels oppressed will empower themselves even for a moment and stand up and be counted as a member of the human race. Not a disabled homo who can't get there cause they love someone who's not acceptable to most of society. I have to wonder if the revolution will extend to us all.

I'd like to see that. Unfortunately, I have to talk about Death of A Salesman, all day. Love the play, but it's NOT what I want to talk about today.

(-all references in italics courtesy of towleroad.com)

Sometimes the Gods smile upon me

And smile they have.

HGF has been decided by the Hot Hunky Gods.

I can't wait. I'm almost speechless.

Almost.


Perhaps it's the effort required not to drown when I'm salivating so much.

Back to reality

Had a meeting yesterday with someone more in the know on the grapevine than I am. After that I'm pretty sure that July 1 is going to be a bloodbath around here. It amazes me the number of people who are interested in stirring up trouble at a time when one should be keeping their head down and their mouth shut. Alas, there are those who fly in the face of reality like I mentioned the other day.

The meeting, which I could not believe, was about the stupid Issue I think I've mentioned here before. The extremely simple job that has been turned into a THING THAT WILL NOT GO AWAY. I'm stupified over it all.

The person in the know assured me that I was not one of those on the chopping block. Yet! I don't believe her. Not that she isn't sincere and wouldn't tell me anything she knows, but that there is something more nefarious going on around here than we're aware of, and we won't really know until July 1.

I keep mentioning that date but in reality I'm thinking that ther is some law that requires they give 60 days notice to people getting laid off and info about those getting laid off with them. So that moves the date back to May 1, when I would know for sure.

One of the many things I find interesting is that we've always operated 18months ahead on our budget AND with a slush fund to cover contingencies. All that is gone now apparently. This tells me that someone has done something ever so slightly illegal in moving those funds from our budget to that of the larger agency that we operate under. But no matter, I'm not a crusader against graft in one of the most graft-laden municipalities in the country. Let someone else take up that mantle.

I'm hoping not to be working at a convenience store by the end of the summer. I bet they'd make little use of my Master's degree.

But here's something to cheer you. At least it did me.




why so serious...

Like THAT'S News!

Suddenly it's news that DADT was a put up job.

Like no one knew that we were, as usual, getting raped in public with the full cooperation and assistance of the United States Congress.

I'm a bit dumbfounded as to why, suddenly when all this is coming to light, that people are surprised.

We got screwed on Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and we've always known it.

I doubt Obama will get much more done. It's now public knowledge that it was religious fervor that made DADT happen in the first place.

I'm tellin you, there's gonna have to be a war about this shit.

It's not gonna be resolved any other way. Neither side will give an inch, and the middle won't side with us.

Let's hope it's not necessary and that someone comes to their senses.

question

Has anyone in the democratic party paid taxes in the last decade?

Anonymity

I think my recent theme of ignorance may have been a bit prescient. This weekend I came across several incidences in my own experience that demonstrated to me how ignorant our populace really is.

These are people I know and love so I won't name any names, and I won't tell the stories of what happened, but I learned that people really do believe that Barack Obama is a muslim and that this is their way of taking over the United States. I learned that people really do think that George W. Bush was well intentioned in his actions the past 8 years, and that his first concern was for the American people.

I have to ask, how is it that people can honestly be blind to reality? How can they think that an administration that plain lied to us, by telling us they weren't listening to ALL of our communications, when they were, by telling us we don't torture when we were, by telling us "the foundations of the economy are strong." when they weren't, AND THEY KNEW IT! By responding to the statement that "2/3 of Americans say the war in Iraq is not worth fighting." with the single word, "So."

My issue here is not so much with George and Dick, they're history and I'm not so into railing about them as I was when they were in office. I'm really going to try not to be one of those people who rails about the last guy a decade after he left office. Like some people still do about a blow job. But my issues here are with our government in toto.

How can our government say it acts responsibly, no matter WHO is in the White house, no matter WHO is in the majority in congress when people are allowed to be as stupid as the American Public apparently is.

We chose them to lead. We chose them to provide us with the basic tools necessary to succeed in being and remaining a superpower. We asked them to give us the tools to hold that position. And they not only fail us, they willfully deprive us of the very thing we should be given a surplus of. Education.


If he succeeds in giving us health care, more power to him, if he succeeds in halving the deficit, more power to him, BUT, he needs to expand and empower the educational system. He needs to rid us of all these egotistical bureaucrats who currently are running the system into the ground and re-create our educational system so that no child really is left behind. So that the system that is geared to the lowest common denominator will also serve those who CAN succeed. So that those who are willing and interested in excelling will be able to do so and not drowned in the mediocrity they're forced to endure every single day of their lives in classrooms all over this country.

It's not just his responsibility, it's everyones. We have to stand up and demand our right to a quality education. Not one that's handed out by people who happen to have a B.A. and passed the certification tests, but by people who earnestly believe in the value of learning and are passionate about sharing that belief.

I think the day is coming and HGF is here!

I try my best to find the guys for HGF on my own, but this morning The folks over at Squarehippies, no I do not understand the origin of their name, have brought me up short. They featured Christian Slater, who, though I think is plenty hot, had never occurred to me, and I'd never seen these pics, so I thought I just had to do a direct steal. Thanks to Squarehippies for the idea, and enjoy Chrisitan. He's another of those actors who got by on their looks through their youth and then fucked up so badly they actually had to come back and work their asses off and ACT so they could resume their careers. But didn't he come back even better than ever?








I may have said this before, but I truly believe that there is another civil war coming in this country. That the internal struggle to define our country is still not over, perhaps will never be over.

This time though it's going to be a crusade. It'll be a holy war carried out by those totally committed to their cause and with complete conviction that their beliefs are the right ones.

I think it's going to be the evangelicals against the gays.(yes, I've succumbed to the popular notion that gay is a damn noun) And God only knows who would win that one.

I keep seeing more and ore evidence that this country is full of ignorant bigots. I mean, I always knew that on some level, but I don't think I realized that it exists to the extent that it does.

Just this week we have several examples of this controversy, Colorado State Sentor Scott Renfroe waxed poetic about his views that gay sex=murder and neither should be legalized. Utah State Senator Chris Buttars refers to homosexuals in these terms "...They're probably the greatest threat to America going down I know of."

And just in case we hadn't had a weekly does of race prejudice we have the ignorant mayor of Los Alamitas who thinks watermelon hunt jokes are funny. He'll be resigning on Monday, but that doesn't solve the problem. The problem is that these people are ignorant bigots. If they'll make public jokes about Black President's. WHAT do they say about fags? Seriously. I can only imagine. I realize that Los Alamitos is a little shit stain of a community in the middle of Orange County and that the opinions of those airheads amounts to little, but don't forget that there's money in Orange County and money means influence.

But the few isolated incidents we hear about are only the tips of the iceberg. White people have kept themselves completely cut off from black people, and most prefer it that way.And PLEASE don't tell me that some of your best friends are black. I just got that speech from some ignorant kid the other day. he thought the best way to relate to me would be to tell me that he has a really good friend who used to be his neighbor and he calls the guy Princess. I was speechless. Through this disconnect people therefore make completely baseless and rash generalizations and perpetuate stupid and degrading stereotypes and a lot of these people have been elected to LEAD!!!!

This is why I think that there is a war a comin'. I think with the hatred and the bigotry and the lack of money and jobs and housing, that George W. Bush has set the stage for the people to rise up and remove white folks from power. That the craziness that has been simply accepted as normal for us white people is what will be our undoing. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

In fact Chris Rock said it in an HBO special I saw recently. "George Bush has made it tough for the white man to be President." He went on to describe how badly the guy fucked things up, and he was absolutely right. Funny, but right.

They've managed to mess with the one thing that makes everyone funny...their money.

The civil war of the 21st Century will be anything but funny.

Isn't it Ironic

I really do find it ironic that the very people who shoved the war on Terror down our throats like a bad second date,i.e. "let's go take over Iraq. They hate us, and they've fucked with my Daddy, and best of all they've got oil." are the very people who are, right now, fighting tooth and nail to prevent our current President for doing ANYTHING for us.

Now before those of you who are Republican get all itchy and start writing this off as another of his rants against Republicans let me make my point.

We've spent over 3 trillion dollars on the war in Iraq. SO FAR! We now know that there never were WMD's, and that Iraq didn't actually have an active role in promoting September 11, nor terrorist training until AFTER we invaded and took over their country.

Was Saddam Hussein a good guy? Well, no he wasn't, but just because he was a shit doesn't mean we,as the world's police force, get to be the world's biggest bully and just take over whoever we want. If there had been time, we'd be in Iran now I assure you.

But let us return to our homeland, to borrow a phrase. Here at home we've spent trillions of dollars on others. Be it to help them, or to make them be "democratic," or to move in on them and take over their country, we've spent untolled amounts of money. But with all the money we print daily, we're what, 37th in health care, we have a lower life expectancy than dozens of countries, and we pay out the ass for health care.

I will say, in defense of the many dr's who are my friends, that most physicians have no interest in screwing their patients. They want to pay their bills just like we do. They want to earn a decent living, and for a physician that's anywhere from 150k to 5-6k. I can't fault them for that, they work very hard, and they give ALL of their time to others. They're on call, they're awake at all hours, they truly give, and you rarely ever hear any complaints. Patients are another matter. They complain all the time. They're sick and crabby, I get it.

But we have allowed an insidious little group insert themselves into the health care process. INSURANCE COMPANIES. Now, we all know insurance is a ripoff. We know it. And they're so powerful they've gotten laws enacted MAKING us pay them. We HAVE TO HAVE car insurance. I don't advocate repealing the law that makes everyone have liability insurance, but that just demonstrates their power.

It's been testified before congress that physicians have actively participated in Insurance company profiteering by denying health care. And yes people have died as a result. Is THAT doing no harm? How does one live with the knowledge that with the stroke of a pen they not only denied someone desperately needed health care, but effectively signed their death warrant. They should be forced to pay for that persons funeral and attend as well.

Single-payer health care, will probably not be the answer. And the Pharmaceutical companies,(the other fly in the health care ointment) probably didn't realize it when they got us all to pay them outrageous sums for medicare prescription coverage, but they've set the stage for universal health care. If we pay for seniors,let's just pay for everybody. And let's get them to bid the damn jobs too. Let's see just exactly what is wrong with France's health care system, and what drawbacks there are to socialized medicine in England before we forge ahead with the obvious plan to force everyone into indentured servitude to health insurance companies.

Example: I'm a very healthy early 50's white male. I have a Master's degree as well as a PhD. I have a reasonably stable professional job which pays me an average wage. I also have a part time job teaching that pays me reasonably well also. My full time job will, until July 1, of this year, provide my health insurance coverage. After that I will begin to pay a small portion, effectively nullifying that $13.00 per pay period I'm getting from the tax break. And remember that's temporary, so I'll eventually get to pay both of them and I get no raise this year due to the economy.

Last year, I had a colonoscopy, a stress test, and a halter monitor. Mostly those were precautionary since I'm 50 and I live in the United states and I eat what everyone else eats,a lot of junk. All of these tests were fine. I am perfectly healthy.

But it cost me over 3k to have those tests even with health insurance.

One thing that I am concerned over is that I snore. I broached this subject with the dr, and he suggested I have a sleep study. I called the insurance company. Their response was that even tough I only have a 1k deductible they only authorize $750 for this study which costs $1250. So I'd still be on the hook for another $500, even though I've met and well exceeded the deductible on my policy. See how this works?

The study did not get done. And it was all about money. Which as you know is bullshit.

So let's see if we can actually spend some of the outrageous sums we spend whether we have it or not on ourselves. Let's see if we can actually become an educated, healthy confident populace. I'm betting their will be a whole lotta fighting in congress over this.

I wonder if it'll be us or the insurance companies who have the final say.

You've Got Mail! (Hate mail that is)

I got hate mail! Well, in truth it was a hate comment. But hate it was.

Apparently there are good God-fearing Christians who troll the internet looking for any homage to Matthew Shepard, and then they pounce.

I rejected this particular comment because they plugged their own website with a link at the end, and I'm not a BBS for Christian crazies, thanks anyway.

But they asked things like: "How many Christian churches have been burned by you homosexuals? Lots." Seriously? They think we have time to go about designating and then actually burning churches? How crazy can they be? I got four jobs folks! Thanks to George W Bush, I have to have four jobs. I have to pay someone to clean my apartment, where would I find time to burn your church?

They ended with a cute little prayer which I was supposed to say, and it said something about asking Jeebus for forgiveness cause I'm going to hell for my sinning ways, blah blah blah. I'd have said it if I believed in all that Jesus, Mary and Joseph Mumbo-Jumbo. But I don't, so thanks for my first hate mail on the blog. history in the making.

I really liked the Republican response to Obama's speech last night. Particularly the part where they put $787 BILLION on the screen and ran it right in your face.
I noticed they neglected to mention the






click here to learn more

to date. And that was a made up war cause our last President has Daddy issues. And his Vice wanted free oil for his joints. (oil me)

Who, I wonder is it that tells those who speak not to move their facial muscles? Sebelius did it last year when responding to the State of the Union. Someone is giving really crappy advice. These people look like zombies when they only move their mouths. Let them talk.

Basically it was a rah-rah speech to get us all motivated. But it neglected a few key points. Like taking responsibility. That would be a good one. he kissed a little Republican ass, always a good idea when you still need them.

I found GuyfromChicago's latest post on his trip to St. Louis during Mardi Gras absolutely hilarious. I think what I like most about this guy's blog is that he just pours himself out on the page. There he is, warts and all, like him or don't. You can't help but like him cause he's so genuine. His alluding to waking up rubbing someone's husband's pecs killed me. (thank god I've NEVER done anything like that before)

Apparently people have never heard of bluetooth since people think I'm talking to myself when I'm driving down the road on the phone. I had a woman last night say something very catty about me talking to myself so of course, I had to set her illiterate ass straight. "I was on the phone." "Where is it?" "It's in the rear view mirror." I'm still not sure she was convinced. Wow people really are stupid huh?

Which Way Is Up

The propaganda machine should be shifting into high gear any day now. The California Supreme Court hearing on Prop 8 is March 4, and I can't imagine the haters laying low until afterward.

The supporters, if they're smart will get out in big numbers, but do so peacefully. They'll make their presence known and they'll not make a big confrontational deal out of it...if they're smart. They're seldom smart.

The Dow is wending it's way very quickly down through 7k and appears headed for 1995 territory. We can't afford it anymore. Of course we can't afford anything anymore. I'd like to see what the popular opinion is when we can no longer afford 2001 prices and it's time for retailers and manufacturers alike to drop their prices. The end is NOT near, and we just get to stand here and watch.

Health Care is going to cost over 8k per person this year. And according to Michael Moore, Richard Nixon is to blame for supporting Kaiser Permanente. No surprise that business is screwing the people. What never ceases to amaze me is that as smart as business is, it's never smart enough to stop when the stopping is good. They've just gotta keep going and going until someone either steps in and stops them, or the marketplace collapses under its own weight.

We're headed for smaller everything. Smaller cars, houses, lives, and the one thing we need desperately, a smarter populace, well, it just isn't going to happen. As another of the interviewees in Sicko said , "An educated, healthy, confident population is difficult to govern." Well, we've seen prof that our government doesn't want that now haven't we.

The money that needs to be spent is on the future. We need to clean our water, our air, and renew our urban cores. We need to commit to civil rights for everyone, and renew our commitment to keeping church and state separate. We need to provide health care for all of our citizens, and we need to provide a quality education to anyone who is willing to do the work to get it. We need to stop creating diploma mills that hand out degrees for filling out forms online. We need to stop devaluing the bachelor's degree to the point that it's today's high school diploma, and if we're going to practice segregation, then let's segregate the smart and REALLY educate them. Let's put our best minds to work training more great minds and then actually listen to what they have to say. We need to get smart and right quick or we're going to stop being the world's leader.

Mexico has taken one of the most crowded, most polluted, most crime-ridden cities on the face of the earth and is successfully turning it into a model of what our 21st Century cities must become.

And we're fighting over who gets to marry.

France, I am given to understand, provides health care, house calls, college education, and mandated vacation, among many other things, and they're not awash in taxes.

And we're admonishing the President for getting new helicopters he didn't even order.

England supports its people in many similar ways, yet they all manage to have a higher and healthier standard of living than we ever have.

And we had to take Ground Zero rescuers to Cuba for adequate health care.

Why will we not see that the people we have helped make it back from the brink of destruction took advantage of that help and made their country better? Why, if we can facilitate that kind of massive cultural change in other countries will we not even discuss making it in our own?

We look at certain groups, like the gays, as self destructive sinners, yet we continue to stumble down the primrose path to collective ruin and we do nothing more than point the finger of blame as we falter along. Our zeal over religion is destroying us. Let's ask Germany how well zeal served them.

Nationalization, Socialization(read communism,)bailouts, takeovers. These are the new code words for fear. "Live in fear" that's the motto of the old guard of the Republican party, and that's exactly what their followers do. They march in lock step to the tarantella of fear. What war and terrorism couldn't make us afraid of, poverty will.

If the conspiracy theorists can't make a case for a unified effort to tear the country apart, then one certainly can make a case for a convergence of greed, stupidity, and laissez-faire that created an atmosphere which can bring something we once held dear to its knees.

Is our current "plan" going to fix the problem? I doubt it. It's as though those who have the wealth can't see what's about to happen. It's as though the strength of their ability to deny reality can overpower the truth. And that truth is that this country is changing in ways none of us fully understands yet. And I think it's changing in some ways that will humble a once very proud and confident people.

I think the entire system needs to be reinvented, and that needs to be done by people who are willing to do it responsibly. Do we have that guy? I don't think so, I think we've laid a whole shitload of stuff at the doorstep of one guy and expected him to make it all ok.

We've been kept so naive and stupid by our own government that we don't know any better. So here we sit, on our hands waiting for the downfall. And it's not going to be one of those World Trade Center moments.

It's going to be as simple as someone very powerful picking up a phone and calling in a marker.

Nero fiddled while Rome burned, and we lit the match. Our whimper will barely be perceptible.

Pensive

How do you explain to a new generation what it means to yours to fight for your rights?
How do you communicate to them that the freedoms that they rightfully take for granted were hard won and often at the cost of peoples lives?
How do you make them understand that the fight is not over, that their time to take up the mantle has come, and that it is urgent that they do so?

I am of a generation that was forced through necessity to stand up.Through the tears of loss, and the anger at indifference, we stood our ground and demanded what was right and what was ours. We didn’t win every battle, but we did win quite a few. And we taught many people what was right. Yet we are not through.

Those of us who are entering our later years still have a job to do which we have not much prepared for. We have to educate our youth.

The other day I read a blog posting by Jay Brannan, a young folk artist who is also gay. It is his wish that his work not be identified as gay music. That he be thought of as an artist and that his music stand on it’s own. I completely understand that. In many ways I agree. My own artistic work explores all of the human experience and the universality of those stories that we all know, straight or gay. It’s that ability to look at the total experience of this life and be able to recognize what is universal about it for us all that makes me want to work harder and be a better artist.

But, I guess, due to my age, or the generation I hail from, I also realize I have a responsibility. To stand up and proudly proclaim that I am a gay man, who knows he is measured differently because of who he loves, and that there is a perceived difference between me and heterosexual men, and that that perception makes me less than heterosexual men in many eyes. Certainly a liability to some. I know that the part of my work that examines and portrays gay men is representative of my own experience in this world, and that my unique viewpoint bears a weight.

One of our biggest mistakes was to allow our history to be denied us. To allow the machine that is our culture to have systematically edited our contributions to this world. And they were many.

From the historically safe distance of Alexander the Great, to the silence that surrounds the existence of Bayard Rustin. From James Buchanan to Bertrand Delanoë. from Da Vinci , to Neil Patrick Harris, history has demonstrated the heterosexual willingness to ignore their repugnance over who some men and women love when it’s expedient for them to do so.

Proclaiming your sexuality shouldn’t pigeon hole your work, but it does. It shouldn’t preclude you from being considered for work outside your personal experience, but it does. It shouldn’t make people turn away from you on a professional level…but it does.

This battle is not over, far from it. We must educate those who will come after us as to their responsibilities and what they will face in this world. We must teach them that it is incumbent on them to face these battles and win as many as they can. And yes we must allow them to insist that their work be considered on its own merits not that of a gay artist, but as an artist who created something of beauty for us to enjoy, for us to learn from, for us to pass on to future generations, for us to be proud of.

So thank all the artists who represent us in that larger world who are willing and able to teach by example those that would deny us our history. Who will demonstrate through their art that the human experience is a universal experience and the way our heart tells us is right is always the truth.

Better Late than Never HGF!!!

I've been sick, so my sense of time is more warped than usual. And I got all caught up in the story about the 90 y/o man who had to go back to work after Madoff stole all his money. Bernard Madoff, let's hope his next address is a third world prison.

It appears my new saddle will be spending the weekend in Oklahoma city. That's apparently all the farther it has gotten from Yoakum TX. Which is fine. I'd hate for it to be in town and at the UPS facility down the street from me and me not able to get to it since they'd be closed.

BUT the real purpose of a Friday is Hot Guy's.

So without further ado:

Nick Stahl is one of those guys who though a bit quirky looking makes you do a double take since the quirkiness leans to the handsome and not the scary.

I'd paid him no attention at all, especially since he's so young, but then I started watching Carnivale on HBO. Nick was what you might call a stand out in my mind, so Happy HGF!

Adventures..I love them

I truly love that we're in all this uncharted territory. We're in the midst of this huge cultural war in which the haves (heterosexuals) are systematically denying the have nots (homosexuals) their civil rights because they don't like what they perceive we do. Interestingly the Mormons are leading the charge.

The economy is shrinking in ways never seen before and our lives are going to change as a result. I have this feeling bankruptcy court is in the future for many of us. Not life ending, but certainly life altering. I think the way we live is going to undergo a fundamental change, and though I personally think it's good, it widens the gap in our society. The classes have been quite a bit more well defined. Which is what Bush and Co wanted in the first place.

Immigrants, illegal and otherwise are being persecuted for being brown, or yellow, or anything but pink or white. It seems there's a Sheriff in Maricopa County Arizona who parades his prisoners around in pink underwear for all to see, and has been accused of countless other atrocities as well.

One of the members of the group Bay City Rollers, who were big back in the day, now claims he was date-raped at 19 which made him gay and he's been cheating on his wife with both men and women ever since. BUT! He's 90% "fixed" now. This bastard should rot.

I'm always torn when someone claims they were abused in some way. Did they place themselves, at 19, in a situation in which they were fairly certain that the other person would move to sexualize their relationship? Did they in effect use this person to out themselves creating a convenient and permanent scapegoat with which to escape the responsibility of their own sexuality? Or were they actually taken advantage of? This makes it difficult to sort out the good from the bad in such cases I would think. If the person in question really was looking for a way to explore their sexuality and couldn't think of any other way to do it than be less than honest with not only their partner, but themselves as well, then who exactly is at fault here? Certainly at 19 a young man is responsible for his actions in a sexual relationship.

Point is, if he's using that poor guy he slept with 34 years ago to explain away his own heinous behavior for the last several decades I say he should be drawn and quartered in the town square. Let's hear from the other guy in this situation, if he agrees with Les' version then he's a bastard. If he does indeed say that he and Les had consensual sex, then Les is a coward.

In the end the culture wars will rage on until and unless some of us can be a bit more forthright about our behaviors and our intentions. i.e.Mormons,those that want out of the closet,the scheming rich and powerful,etc. If that day ever comes we can all sit around the campfire and have ourselves a warm can of beans and talk about it. Because we'll probably be back to living in tents and eating beans out of a can by then. And we thought it was a third world country BEFORE Bush left office. Let's wait for the aftermath and see what he hath wrought.

Ah, the rewards of complacency.

Now THIS would keep me anything but complacent: