YankeeNexile

The return of Captain Douchebag and the Fetus

2008-09-12T00:38:00.002-04:00

Since I barely blog anymore it shouldn't be hard to remember my posts. For those who need reminding I wrote about the Douchebag and his Fetus not long ago.

So they are back. Douchebag (DB from now on) and his frau were at my bar the other night. DB ordered a half dozen drinks because clearly it's the only way he thinks anyone will endure his company. I suspect he's right but that's another story. The order is for several cocktails and four shots. I make the shots, set the drinks down and Frau Fetus points to one of the drinks and screams (I'm not being dramatic, he shrieked at me "OH MY GOD, WHAT IS THAT?" Now I was in the middle of a busy stretch and had about three drink orders in my head and so I said "It's a crown and coke, I'm sorry, is that not what you ordered" and I received an extremely haughty "No, I ordered a red bull and vodka!" I'm going to skip my obvious disdain for people who order their cocktails mixer first. My initial reaction was to grab Fetus by the sleek sleeveless shirt that covered his orphan waif thin chest and repeatedly slam his quickly balding head into the bar over and over and scream "EAT IT OR WEAR IT FUDGIE"! Instead I calmly said "Okay, let's all take a deep breath, starting with me. Now I will make you your drink and the heavens will have righted themselves". I think I'm growing as a person.

Really? Really?

2008-08-19T03:29:00.003-04:00

Okay so it's been forever and a day since I have blogged and this one ain't going to be long. It's simple. I don't know jack diddily crap about sports. I bowl, I used to golf. I have never seen a live football game. The one football game I attended in high school I spent my time smoking behind the bleachers and making fun of people who actually gave a shit about the game. After saying all this I will tell you that I have been really enjoying watching the Olympics. Yes I am enjoying the soft core porn aspect of the men's gymnastics and diving and swimming (wasn't it so much better when they wore the speedos instead of those NASA inspired androgynous suits?) I have also enjoyed watching many of the other events like track and field, that sort of thing. My roommate and I cried when we were watching the US women's rowing team sing the Star Spangled Banner. I know, how jingoistic of me, right?

My blog has been used many times to rant and today's short entry is no different. I'm dumbfounded. Really dumbfounded. Badminton is a SPORT? I don't really care how fast that shuttlecock moves, badminton is not a real fucking sport. Ping Pong is not a real fucking sport. It's fucking hand eye coordination. Rhythmic Gymnastics, not a sport. BMX, not a sport. Really, seriously, I mean I know that the international Olympic committee has to balance these lesser sports as they are well known in underdeveloped countries (okay maybe not BMX) but it's really fucking annoying to turn on what I think are going to be athletes and see two people playing ping pong. If this is the case then I want you to look out London 2012, I'm coming to play Wii tennis and I'm taking home GOLD bitches!

The Totally True Story of a Douchebag and a Fetus.

2008-05-17T19:10:00.000-04:00

Hey, just so you know; This is not the way to make your bartender happy.

Customer 1: Yeah give me four (insert name of inane shot here that is probably some regional crappy drink made up by the biggest douchebag bartender at the worst community college bar hangout where you spent your early drinking years).

Bartender: I have never heard of that shot...

Customer 1 Jerks head to Customer 2, some fetus on a stick he is trying to impress with his $200 dollar suit from Burlington Coat Factory.

Customer 1 to Fetus on stick: Hey, tell him what you want.

Fetus (Indignantly): SCREAMS ORDER (SEE ABOVE)

Bartender: Yeah, I still have never heard of that, what's in it?

Fetus (More indignant): Rattles off list of ingredients that are usually the same ingredients in a shot with seventeen other names except the name that it was just given by the fetus.

Bartender: Okay, sure, you wanted four of those?

Customer 1: Yeah, and (turns around to Fetus and his friends) What else did you guys want?

At this point the bartender, dis-interested in this pathology, has walked away and waited on another customer leaving Burlington Fetus Factory to stand there and wonder why his life is a miserable place...

I really need to get my hearing checked.

2008-05-05T17:34:00.003-04:00

So over the weekend this customer says to me, "You're very splendid". Now first of all I can't imagine who uses the word "splendid" in every day conversation. I hear that word and I think of Paul Lynde saying "Oh Sammy..." but I digress. So the man tells me I am splendid and what is my reply?

"I don't have splenda, would you like some sweet and low?"

I really really should have my hearing checked.

Well the horrid Jazzfest is finally over. The first weekend it rained and rained and all the gross hippies sat in the mud and waited for Billy Joel to sing. There are a lot of artists I like and wouldn't mind seeing but I'm not standing in a thunderstorm to see anyone. Sorry, I'll buy your next CD. This weekend was sunny and nice but the field was still a muddy mess from what I'm told. I made my way out to Kenner yesterday for a crawfish boil but once again managed to avoid Jazzfest.

It's only a few weeks till vacation, I'm very excited. I haven't seen my friends or family in Indy for quite a while and then I'm off to Cali to see my sister and Mattie. The Ian is going to join me for the LA portion of the trip and I'm finally going to get to see the Broderick house in San Diego, the one where Betty shot her husband and his new wife.

Ciao for now!

I'm Counting On You!

2008-04-27T19:01:00.003-04:00

Yes We Can! Yes We Can!

I smell that Jazz Fest is back in town...

2008-04-24T02:09:00.004-04:00

I went for a walk today down to the river. Those of you who don't live in New Orleans may be unaware of the situation with the high water down here. All the rain in the north has pushed the water level up to new records. Several weeks ago I meandered down there and took some pictures. Here is the first one:

You can see at the left of this picture the chains going across the bottom to prevent people from walking into the river. (Another time when the river was running high this was the exact spot where I managed to fall in and grabbed those chains to keep myself from being washed away.) I went back a week later and took another picture of the same place:

You can see that the chains are under the water. Today the water is so high that there are only the second set of posts visible above the water. The city has recently opened the floodgates (as it were) to the Bonnet Carre spillway, pushing river water into the lake and eventually into the Gulf. In a related story the river levee near Touluse street has sprung a minor leak. They have sandbags and cement bags all stacked up. Another flood would likely destroy the city forever but there would be one good thing to come from that situation. You see, it's Jazz Fest time and that means one thing and one thing only to me, the invasion of the dirty rotten stinking hippies. Now I know as well as the next person that the water in the Mississippi is disgustingly dirty but even it is cleaner than most of these hippies. Anyone who knows me knows of my distaste for flip flops; these people don't even wear shoes. The raw stench of patchouli is already enveloping us like a fog. Everywhere you turn there are guitar carrying dred-locked white people laying about on sidewalks and thinking that I'm going to have the burning man spirit and give them a dollar. Forget it stinko. I threw twenty pennies in the swollen river, take a dip and find them.

Blech!

Dreams Do Come True

2008-04-06T16:58:00.001-04:00

10...9...8...7...

2008-02-26T20:52:00.002-05:00

So in ten minutes (okay probably less by the time I finish typing this) the democratic debate will be starting. The news channels have been billing it all day as "the last democratic debate" as it's predicted now that Hillary will lose Texas and Ohio and thus her chance at becoming the democratic nominee.

I'm worried.

See the things is, I Love Hillary. Unabashedly I Love Hillary and I don't know if I can take it if she loses. Why is everyone going crazy over Barrack? He's an untried, no international knowledge or clout three year senator.

But this isn't why I'm worried.

Hillary has been ripped to shreds by the republican machine for the last 16 years. No stone has gone unturned, no tax return unexamined, no business deal unscrutinized. Travelgate, Vince Foster, her husbands affairs, her association with Wal-Mart, everything has been turned upside down and shaken until the tiniest detail spilled out and thus far they have been able to make NOTHING stick.

This hasn't happened to Barrack. I think if he wins the election it's going to take about 10 seconds for the current Karl Rove thinkers in the GOP to destroy him.

Barrack Husane Obama. Drug taker. See it took me less than 10 seconds.

Please dear god let the people of Texas and Ohio come to their senses (and believe me, having been to Texas I'm not holding out much hope) and not vote for Barrack. A vote for Barrack means a vote for John McCain who will keep us in Reagan politics for the next four to eight years (if he lives that long and then god helps who he might pick INCLUDING Haley Barbour).

Please, if you know people in these states, explain these simple truths to them.

Thank you,

Red State Citizen

I Couldn't Pass This Up...

2008-02-18T18:04:00.002-05:00

During Mardi Gras my friend Ron hooked up with a fetus. I don't mean he discretely met and took home a young guy, I mean he had this fetus in sneakers pinned to the wall making out with him while the rest of us snapped pictures and flashed them with flashlights. At one point I think all the lights made Diana's last trip down the tunnel look like a cake walk. Anyway he eventually took his little charge home. As I do when I'm bored I was perusing Craigslist for funny entries. If only there were an instant replay available to have captured my face when I came across this one:

the doc ,,from pub to the W - m4m - 19

you took me from the pub to your room at the W, you are a doctor, your name starts with "R", if you get this please respond i was with the big girl, she left the room so we could play, tell me my name so i know its you and not some jerk on here

I immediately sent this to Ron's roommate and admittedly a few other people. Friday night imagine my surprise when the fetus re-appeared and was followed shortly by the appearance of Ron. I had to charge my phone before the night was over because I kept pulling up the site to show people (and point!)

The official story is that someone ratted this kid out for hooking up with Ron and the the person who actually posted this was his boyfriend trying to catch the kid in a lie or something...whatever...it was still pretty fabulous to find that little gem hidden on Craigslist.

In other news, Mattie P. is coming to New Orleans this Thursday for a non-holiday visit! Hooray, I'll actually get to spend time with him. Congratulations are also in order for Mattie who was recently promoted to being the Graphics Editor of the newspaper for which he works; Congratulations Mattie!

Sigh...so much to say and so little time...

2008-02-14T18:17:00.002-05:00

Dear Gentle Readers,

Though I have not taken the time to post since late November and most of you have given me up for dead, FEAR NOT!

Several weeks ago my computer went down and I have been unable to access the internet for the several hours a day I normally peruse sites and look up useless information. Being without this ability (other than my phone, which if you've ever had to rely on a phone for an internet connection you know how much it sucks) has led me to a desire to re-connect to my blog.

Today is also an anniversary for me, two years ago today I had a heart attack. In fact it was almost this exact time when I made the decision to go to the hospital. My health is good, my heart is healthy and I have no real fear of a recurrence.

Today is also Valentines Day so I want to wish a Happy Valentines Day to everyone out there but especially to Ian, my most favorite Valentine.

There are tons of things to talk about but they will have to wait until I have more time and am not paying for computer usage (I am currently sitting in the lesbian box office on Bourbon Street).

Expect updates soon on Mardi Gras, the election (GO HILLARY!) and the general comings and goings of my little band of friends and relatives.

Cheers to you all...

Lawrence

All I want for Christmas and Hanukkah and Kwanza and my Birthday...

2007-11-28T15:09:00.000-05:00

All I want for Christmas and Hanukkah and Kwanza and my Birthday is for it to be true that Larry Flynt really does have information indicting Senator Trent Lott in a gay sex scandal. Please please please please please please let it be true. It is enough that Lott is resigning but to go out in the wake of a gay sex scandal would make me happier than winning the lottery.

Not since the death of Cardinal O'Connor from anal cancer (Okay so he died of a brain tumor but since his head was permanently stuck up his ass I consider it anal cancer) have I been so happy about the demise of a political figure. The loss of Rick Santorum was close. His daughters tears on national television were nearly enough to cause wet dreams.

Hard Candy Christmas - File Under Rant -

2007-11-26T18:26:00.001-05:00

Okay I've had it. Seriously. Enough is frickin' enough.

Thanksgiving has never been a really big holiday in my family. Aside from a dry turkey that has to be gagged down with a few glasses of milk and my grandmothers delicious chicken and noodles it doesn't mean that much to me.

Now, however I am assaulted every thanksgiving. Assaulted like Jodie Foster on a pinball machine. Thanksgiving now brings on the onslaught of christmas music. I will admit, I do like christmas music. I do, really. I have a lot of christmas music that I like to listen to at this time of year. There are christmas classics, old Perry Como songs, Brenda Lee's "Rockin around the Christmas tree". I know that it's just me being a fuddy duddy when I tell you that I despise what has become THE gay holiday song, Mariah Frickin' Carey singing "All I want for Christmas". I really hate this song. Really. I hate it. A lot. Like the Bush Presidency and fat suburbanites in hovercraft type wheelchairs it seems I am incapable of ending it's run. I'll just have to accept that fact. Fine, I will, eventually. Give me some time.

BUT...

I am putting my foot down (the good one) on another matter. Thanksgiving begins the drooling incessant need for people to request the song "Hard Candy Christmas". If by some miracle you are unfamiliar with this song let me fill in the background. It was written for the musical "Best Little Whorehouse in Texas" which was of course later made into a film with Dolly Parton. Now I love Dolly, anyone who knows me knows that she is my personal favorite ever. This song in the show is sung at the time when the sheriff and the Governor have declared that the whorehouse should be shut down. The girls are all packing up their things and leaving the house for the last time. They sing a song about their grief and what they'll do now that their lives have been up-ended. Let's take a look at the lyrics:

Hard Candy Christmas

Hey, maybe I'll dye my hair
Maybe I'll move somewhere
Maybe I'll get a car
Maybe I'll drive so far
They'll all lose track
Me, I'll bounce right back
Maybe I'll sleep real late
Maybe I'll lose some weight
Maybe I'll clear my junk
Maybe I'll just get drunk on apple wine
Me, I'll be just

Fine and Dandy
Lord it's like a hard candy christmas
I'm barely getting through tomorrow
But still I won't let
Sorrow bring me way down

I'll be fine and dandy
Lord it's like a hard candy christmas
I'm barely getting through tomorrow
But still I won't let
Sorrow get me way down

Hey, maybe I'll learn to sew
Maybe I'll just lie low
Maybe I'll hit the bars
Maybe I'll count the stars until dawn
Me, I will go on

Maybe I'll settle down
Maybe I'll just leave town
Maybe I'll have some fun
Maybe I'll meet someone
And make him mine
Me, I'll be just

Fine and dandy
Lord it's like a hard candy christmas
I'm barely getting through tomorrow
But still I won't let
Sorrow bring me way down

I'll be fine and dandy
Lord it's like a hard candy christmas
I'm barely getting through tomorrow
But still I won't let
Sorrow bring me way down

I'll be fine and dandy
Lord it's like a hard candy christmas
I'm barely getting through tomorrow
But still I won't let
Sorrow bring me way down

'Cause I'll be fine
(I'll be fine)
Oh, I'll be fine

Does everybody feel all warm and runny now? No. I thought not. Now I suppose an argument could be made here that the song is about the perseverence of the human spirit and overcoming adversity. I would like to believe that that is how people view the song but I will lay you ten to one (it's an odd time but I'll be there - Mae West) that is not why people like the song. People like this song for one very stupid reason. It has the word christmas in the title. That's the whole attraction (well other than it being Dolly).

What actually IS a hard candy christmas I hear you asking. Well it's a reference to a poor christmas, a christmas where the only present is hard candy. It's very Laura Ingalls Wilder. A penny and a peppermint stick, go with god. These whores are singing about how they are down and out, they've got nothing but they are gonna stick it out, suck on their piece of hard candy (and probably something else very soon in a tacky no-tell motel in Laughlin Nevada) and get on with life. It has NOTHING TO DO WITH CHRISTMAS. NOTHING. NOTHING. Stop singing it next to Rudolph the fucking red nosed reindeer. Rudolph didn't sell his fucking wares at the north pole. Brenda Lee wasn't wearing a see thru nightie as she rocked around the christmas tree. Bing Crosby wasn't talking about snorting coke off a hookers ass when he sang white christmas. I can't take it anymore, just STOP IT!

I know, I know

2007-11-12T17:12:00.000-05:00

It's been a while. I'm sorry. The haze of painkillers made blogging not so easy. My leg is healing and I am able to walk on it again without aid of crutch. My doctor wants me to use a cane/walking stick for the next couple of weeks just to help me keep my balance. Hopefully by Thanksgiving I will be back to bartending.

Anyway, that's not what I came on to post about. In my boredom of not being able to go anywhere without aid of friend or taxi I have spent a lot of extra time on my computer. I caught wind of several sites and wanted to pass them on to you folks. One of the sights, "Hunters and Gatherers" consists of taking peoples manhunt profiles and ridiculing them. Another gathers pictures of idiot guys posing with pretty girls and is appropriately titled "Hot Chicks with Douchebags".

My friend Dillon clued me into another nifty little site, "Passive Aggressive Notes" which seems custom built for most every one I know. In their blog roll I found what has to be best of all of them. "The best of Craigslist" which is merely a re-posting of real craigslist postings. HYSTERICAL. I actually cried laughing when I read this one:

email this posting to a friend best of craigslist > maine > Now with even lower standards!
Originally Posted: Mon, 8 Oct 00:04 EDT

Now with even lower standards!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2007-10-08, 12:04AM EDT

Due to shortages in men in the Greater Portland Area, the following categories of unforgivable lowlifes have been promoted to "potential relationship material" for me:

-Liars
-Cheaters
-Daily pot smokers
-My intellectual inferiors
-Dirty, smelly coffee shop poets
-Barflies
-Possessive types
-Women haters
-Men old enough to be my Dad
-My Dad
-Anyone else in my family, including the remains of my dead grandfather
-Lawyers
-People who can't spell and refuse to use spell check
-Alcoholics
-Negative, angry types
-Politicians/the criminally insane
-Smokers who pretend to be non-smokers
-Vain, self-centered artists
-Drama queens
-Guys who always get dumped and can't figure out why
-The dental-hygienically challenged
-Players
-Polygamists
-Republicans
-Anyone with that shit-eating fetish
-People who ever liked the band "Book of Love"
-Pig Fuckers
-Pink shirt wearing corporate capitalist dick heads who drive fancy cars
-Free loaders
-Your dumb friend, age 37, who still plays video games after work
-Anyone with a toupee
-The insecure
-Misers
-Humorless "business" types
-Mama's Boys
-Egomaniacs
-Sex addicts
-Poseurs
-Infantile fuckwits who blame everyone else for their problems
-Narcissists
-Bad kissers
-The fiscally irresponsible
-Underachieving slacker dudes
-Anyone in any kind of tribute band

Hope to hear from you soon!

Personally my favorite was "misers".

Which brings me to an e-mail I received last week from friend David Jack. It's a posting from the "missed connections" section of Houston Craigslist.

Harris County Jail- Friday night - m4m - 21

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reply to: pers-469344041@craigslist.org
Date: 2007-11-05, 7:16AM CST

Dude , you were in front of me in the changing line. I saw you checking out my package the second I took my pants off. I glanced down and yours and dude I have never seen another dude with a cockhead as big as yours. You were probably latin/mexican because of your dark features. Prob 6'1 , 180 , dark hair , thick thick hairy bush. Me , white dude, 6'0 , 170 , white dude/ athletic/ smooth body , hairy bush/ legs. Later when I was about to get released and were in the holding cell when I went to take a piss i noticed you moved to the far wall and were watching me piss. I pulled my pants down more and let my sac hang out for you to see. Hey bro i'm a straight dude but watching you chub through your pants was kinda hot. Bro If you get out and see this hit me up. I have a 3 week load I need to work on. Hit me up dude

Prison has been a recurring theme for me in the last week after I had a very odd experience at work. Over the last seven years of working on Bourbon street I have been asked some odd questions. I hear everything ranging from "Where is Bourbon Street?" to "Hey if we show you our tits can we get free drinks?" (Pointing out that our bar is a gay bar does no good. Drunk women are almost all under the impression that their breasts are a currency that work on any man.) Early last Monday night two thuggish young men stopped by my little sugar shack to quiz me about the music upstairs. They seemed familiar but I couldn't quite place them. One boy was tall, muscular, sideways hat. He was thug hot. The kind of hot that says "I think you might rob or kill me but it's almost worth the risk." The other was smaller and he seemed to be the brains behind the operation. Both were wearing the standard thug uniform of loose, baggy clothing and a respectable amount of varying tattoos. I couldn't really give them much information about the music but they seemed happy enough with my answers and headed upstairs. When the show started they came back down and began what was the oddest conversation in which I think I've ever been involved. Questions were piling up - Was I a top? Was I straight up G[ay] or did I like a little pussy? How big was I? Did I like tina? Could I get them a free drink? Did I want to see the taller boys penis? (I admit a certain curiosity here, especially when he laid claim to being 10 1/2 inches but errored on the side of not encouraging this scenario) Where did I live? - While tattoos were displayed, the relationship between them explained (they are brothers) I suddenly remembered where I had seen them before. Several months back they were involved in a huge fight outside with two other guys during which one of them ( I think the smaller one) got the shit kicked out of him. I thought they went to jail that night but they claimed they didn't. They told me they had done some time in Florida for assault. The only consistencies were the inconsistencies. Names were changed mid conversation (at one point one introduced the other as 'Hollywood') and the patter of questions finally led to what has to be the strangest thing I've ever been asked:

"Have you ever been prison fucked?"

As much as I wanted to know what this entailed I couldn't quite bring myself to ask. There were a few more questions, a half hearted invitation to have coffee with them and the taller of the two said "and you know what comes after the coffee, huh, yeah the whole kit and kaboodle" along with a few hip thrusting motions. All I could picture at this point was the scene from American History X when Edward Norton is attacked by his former buddies. They left shortly thereafter (taking my bottled water with them). They left a phone number...any of y'all interested?

I told one of our security people this story the next day and they told me that both of those boys were banned from the bar.

It's been a week of oddities at my work. Last Sunday I was watching a drunken scene play itself out by the side door. A very drunk girl and boy were considering whether or not they could ride their motorcyle home. I think if they had they would probably have made it about 10 feet before one of them fell off. While watching this I noticed all our balloons (which are tied to the balcony poles) coming loose and flying away. They were quickly followed by a pair of feet and then the rest of the body of my friend T. He slid down the balcony pole to go over and stop these two from getting on their bike and riding away. The two were dis-suaded from riding until they were a little more sober. It's not like I've never seen anyone slide down our pole before but it doesn't happen often so it's noteable when it occurs. Friday night was better. A man on the balcony was accused of pick-pocketing (and by accused I mean the person he pick-pocketed was attempting to restrain him until security/cops could be summoned) and in his attempt to get away he leapt from our balcony. Seriously, he leapt off the balcony and landed on his back on St. Ann Street. Seemingly unscathed he got up and hobbled off from an apparent leg injury. The cops caught up with him a few blocks later but the would be victim chose not to press charges, citing the broken ankle as punishment enough. This Sunday I was sitting in my little candy land and watched two guys attempt to climb UP the balcony poles. I'm not sure what the point was, we weren't charging a cover to get upstairs, they could have simply walked up there. I guess the line from 'Postcards from the Edge' really is true; Instant gratification takes too long.

On that note of instant gratification it's time for me to eat before returning to my little land of treacle tarts.

My Leg X - Ray

2007-10-16T00:15:00.000-04:00

For anyone un-aware, I broke my leg three weeks ago. I have a spiral fracture to my fibula. Here is my X-ray. You may have to click on it to see it better, I put a circle around the break. It's the diagonal line in the circle.

Proof that I am not alone in the Universe.

2007-10-15T12:40:00.000-04:00

If you ever think you are alone in the Universe you need only look around to find others like you. In the last few years it seems the world has wisened up to a fact that many of us knew years ago, George W. is a whack job.

People who protested the Presidents views were long viewed as anti-american, anti-soldier and anti-peace. Enter Capitalism! T-shirt and bumper sticker companies were right there to help all of us make sure our views were expressed and we bought them up like hotcakes. It all had to lead somewhere, a place none of us thought it would go.

Yes, that's right; Childrens Halloween Costumes! Now while any of these costumes would be great for an adult, they are even more hysterical on children! Those noisy little no-neck monsters have finally come to some use, as political pawns!

This one has to be my favorite, though with a hyper child he might just look like a black casper. The trick is to keep him on the box. If I may suggest, tell him that falling off will cause his favorite pet to perish.

This one is sort of universal but it's listed as "Little Nancy Reagan" so I thought I would include the photo here. For those of you who have read my blog since it's beginning you know that the death of Ronald Reagan was early fodder for my blog. Remember how Nancy had the whole thing planned down to the second and they had to red-do the entire schedule when it was determined that the military guard had to be changed halfway up the capitol steps because the casket weighed 700 pounds? Here she is, mourning Nancy.

There are some great ones, from a Bush Protester to Jenna Bush's liver. Check them out here.

Oh Get Out of Here You Crazy Fool...

2007-09-22T16:07:00.000-04:00

My usual flipness gone, I am very sad today. Miss Alice Ghostley passed away.

A veteran actor, Miss Ghostley was a cast member on many television shows over the years. She played Aunt Esmarelda on "Bewitched" as well as the role for which most of us will remember her, the wacky Bernice Clifton on "Designing Women".

Bernice, the sometimes crazy, sometimes lucid friend and client of the Sugarbaker Design Firm. In episode after episode (24 in all) she entertained with her wacky views of life and with the occasional song.

Aside from her recurring television roles, she has appeared on the small screen since the late 50's in such shows as "Car 54, Where Are You," "Love, American Style," "Maude," (and again years later as Stan's Mother on 'Golden Girls' with Bea Arthur)and "Evening Shade".

Miss Ghostley also appeared in films such as "The Graduate" and "To Kill a Mockingbird" as well as the teacher of Auto Mechanics in "Grease".

She passed away at her home in Studio City, California.

Read her NY Times Obituary. Her long history of television and movie appearances can be viewed at IMDB

Despite my sadness at her passing there is one small piece of joy. She was on my list at Rotten Dead Pool. That's 2 out of 10 in as many months.

Boo Hoo

2007-09-21T13:26:00.000-04:00

"I have children so I need the entire world to bow down and kiss my ass"

Okay it's not a direct quote but it's a sentiment I hear expressed often by people who have children. The latest whine is aimed at Southwest Airlines decision to move the pre-boarding time for families to a space between the A and B boarding times. OUTRAGE! How dare an airline not kiss the ass of a family traveling with (usually) un-ruly children. What is Southwest thinking treating their customers who aren't traveling with kids as important.

Blogger comments from parents are filling up sites with their fuming, "This is the last time you'll get my money Southwest." To which I reply, "Good". I want an airline to come right out and say it, "We don't want your screaming children on our planes." As much as these parents bitch about how the airlines aren't bowing down to their uncontrolled procreation I would like to bitch about how annoying people with children on planes can be. You're half-hearted apologies and "He's at that age" comments about your squalling toddler kicking my seat bring me no solace. Your seven year old turned around in his seat staring at me for two hours while you sleep only makes me wish you were sterile. Listening to your four year old sing along with a big blue dog only makes me wish I had a pit bull handy. Parents cry, "It's difficult to travel on a plane with children!" Here's a novel approach, drive. You can get in your own car and drive wherever you want to go without the added hassle of being so mis-treated by the airlines. "But," you say, "I have the right to fly just like you do." Sure you do, but demanding extra rights because you chose to bring another life onto the planet is not your right. If you insist on flying then here's a piece of advice. Get there on time. All airlines offer pre-check in up to 24 hours ahead of time. If you need to be the first one on the plane because you have to herald your child's 27 toys to keep them occupied for the 2 hours flight then it's up to you to plan ahead. I know it's a novel approach to parenting that you be prepared and responsible for your own children, but try.

Infants are especially an issue. I understand that at times it's necessary for a parent to fly with an especially young child. When I fly I have to chew gum to keep my ears from popping like crazy, a very painful experience. It's just cruel to subject a child to this who can't tell you that they are in pain. Then of course they cry and nobody can enjoy their free cookies and half a glass of water. Recently an airline employee was criticized for suggesting that a woman give her child a dose of childrens benadryl to encourage sleep. The little passenger was repeatedly saying "Bye Bye Plane, Bye Bye Plane" which made the flight attendant a bit upset. Granted it's a child but that behavior could make anyone boarding a flight a little jumpy. The reply from the outraged mother who, according to her own statement, "felt helpless"? "I'm not drugging my child so you can have a better flight!" I'm not suggesting that airlines make it mandatory that you give your children sleeping agents but in a perfect world... They make you drug your dogs and cats still don't they?

I would gladly pay extra to fly on a flight that was guaranteed not to have anyone under the age of 18 on it. No screaming infants, no crying toddlers, no gabby pre-teens. If the airlines do let them pre-board I say put them all in one area together. Let every flight they take be punctuated with the screams of the mess they've created for themselves.

Now I'm not down on children across the board, don't get me wrong. I just think that if you choose to have children you shouldn't expect the rest of the world to be your co-parent.

Minor Milestone

2007-09-20T19:12:00.000-04:00

Those of you who regularly read my blog are probably aware that I had a minor heart attack in 2006. Before that I had smoked very regularly for a number of years but the heart incident made me stop. For a while I stopped. It was just a few months later when I found myself having the occasional cigarette. Occasional lead to multiple to many and to being a full time smoker again. In March of this year I decided that I had to stop, prompted by a couple of things. A, my health, quite simple. B, I had concluded that I was not capable of being a casual smoker. I know people who can smoke only when they go out or once a month or whatever; I am not that person. I can't smoke casually. C, though by mutual agreement with my roommate I didn't smoke in the house, my boyfriend was going to move in with us for the summer. He's very anti-smoking so it was a good reason timing wise to quit. I had been slowing myself down in preparation to quit on my planned date. That day was six months ago today. It's been difficult at times and I know by no means do I have my addiction beaten. I've put on 10 pounds which is enough by itself to make me smoke again. I still get cravings at times, especially if I have been out having drinks. Those moments are short lived and usually overcome by taking a deep breath and reminding myself that I am not a smoker and cannot be a casual smoker. So anyway, that's all, just blowing my own horn, hooray for me.

Seriously, they are dropping like flies...

2007-09-17T15:16:00.001-04:00

Brett Somers Wikipedia Page.

This notice was on the official website of Miss Sommers.

Life without Charles Nelson Reilly must have proven to bleak.

Here are a couple YouTube videos of Brett, one from Match Game and a funny scene from Mary Tyler Moore.

Miss Jane Wyman R.I.P.

2007-09-11T02:59:00.001-04:00

I bet Nancy Reagan is really nervous right about now.

I won't be nuts for you!

2007-09-11T02:42:00.000-04:00

This is a scene from a movie Barbra Streisand made in 1987 called "Nuts". It was pretty much panned but it's a great story and a wonderful cast. It's Babs as a prostitute having her day in court to see if she's stable enough to stand trial. There is another scene where the prosecutor is trying to get her to admit she's a prostitute on the stand. They're going back and forth, all the lawyers talking over each other and she pops in with a rundown of her charge list: "I get four hundred for a straight lay, three hundred for a handjob and five hundred for head..."

At the point in the movie of this clip, all of her past has been re-hashed in front of everyone in the courtroom. The head doctor from the mental ward is testifying that in spite of all the testimony he still believes her to be unstable. Babs isn't pleased. Watch on...

Declaration of War

2007-09-10T23:27:00.000-04:00

Over the weekend some little queen gave me a napkin with a song request. It was his second request for Britney Spears songs and he wrote on the bottom "It's Britney, Bitch!"

Here and Now I am declaring war on this phrase. I stood by without much complaint through "talk to the hand" and even "I ain't mad at ya!" but "It's Britney, Bitch!" I just can't handle. Anyone who utters this phrase at me should just expect a face full of hostility cause I'm loadin' both barrels.

Anyway Screw Britney Spears, she's filthy white trash from Kentwood, LA. There I said it. If her behavior the last few months hasn't shown her true colors then her trainwreck performance at the MTV music awards last night should be enough. She's a minorly talented but formerly well handled bimbo who frankly has seen her best days go by already. She's had her time in the spotlight, it should be over now.

The end.

"Knock Three Times"

2007-09-08T15:14:00.000-04:00

I don't know the person who wrote or performed this but by god is it funny. Thanks to my friend Gwen for posting this on MySpace. It's brilliant.

Square States, Ho! Oh Yeah, and Larry Craig.

2007-09-06T03:37:00.000-04:00

So Southern Decadence is at long last over. The beer and cocktails and shots consumed, blow jobs and rim jobs and anonymous encounters (and probably more than a few subsequent trips to discrete doctors) along with old friends re-acquainted. The party's over for another year and people have returned to their square states. Decadence for me is filled mostly with work; like most bar employees I worked a seven day stretch, fortunately mine wasn't more than 9 hours any one day (of work anyway) and I had a little time each day to visit with friends.

(I had some comments to make here about the size of crowds, policies and the such but since I feel that my blog has been recently compromised I am going to avoid such things for a bit - bear with me, my usual criticisms and witticisms shall return when I am done licking my wounds)

My usual main annoyance during any holiday and especially Decadence is the dancers. I have to give a shout out to friend Christopher who has now officially hung up his go-go shorts and retired. Over the years he's always been a good dancer meaning that he actually dances. He's not sucking face or god knows what else or sitting down on the bar doing nothing but be in the way. Christopher is almost never in the way; He pays attention to what goes on below him (though how he sees us with that large bulge in his pants is beyond me) and moves as we need him to move. He was popular with our patrons and with all the staff and he'll be missed. Hopefully we'll see him for visits to the city from time to time. It was also good to see Adam Killian, who is as vigorous of a performer as I've ever known. He's great to watch and he always brings hot boys with him. One of the boys he brought this year (whose name I do not know, I never saw him speak to anyone who worked there) was a handsome guy and very muscular BUT he was wearing FLIP FLOPS. ON THE BAR. Flip Flops. That awful sound of the non-shoes slapping on the bar was annoying, not to mention that I had to look at his toes which were curled up to keep the damned things on. Fortunately there was another boy with them (Brad I think) who was a little shorter (Which I love), super hot looking with a beautiful smile and body who was uber friendly. The other dancer may not have even had teeth as I never saw him open his mouth to smile. Even though the sour puss and his bare feet (and seriously swollen ankles, I swear, cankles) were a minor nuisance he was nothing compared to the "star" performer. I refuse to publish full names anymore so a description will have to do. His last name is Hunt. He proudly sports his 13 inch penis which sits atop scrawny legs and just below a powder white torso covered with a smorgasbord of tattoos including one of a baby's face. I'm not sure about other peoples porn desires but I don't think I want to see some cherub like face while one guy is being impaled by a giant rod. It's disturbing. I couldn't see anything attractive about the guy, a sentiment that seemed to be shared by everyone around me all weekend long. Then there was Four Square. This is not his real name but it's my nickname for him. He has one dance move that looks like a cross between someone shoving a corncob up his ass and a naked game of four square. Arms up at his side, shoulders hunched and his little jazz squared ass stuck out like a chimp at a zoo. I hope he doesn't fuck like that. He kicks over drinks, then stands there in the mess while you try to clean it up. Whenever someone approaches the bar with money out to buy a drink he is there like a shark, looming over the person, many of whom give him a dollar to get him out of the way so they can order a drink. Definitely not one of my favorites. In a bit of good news we may have seen the last of another dancer, my absolute least favorite ever. You may have heard me mention the thigh slapping, calf tongue penis looking dancer before and my intense dislike for him. I heard through the grapevine he wasn't planning to dance for us anymore and I was so upset that I did a little jig. I think he just turned 50 or so anyway so it's probably time to hang up the penis pump anyway.

I went to the parade on Sunday afternoon with several other guests from a pre-parade party at my friend Dillons house. It was very hot and crowded but we managed to snare a spot near the Verti Mart. I even broke my long standing personal rule to not purchase things at the Verti-Mart because it's incredibly dirty. There is no use in pointing out to me that I am a regular customer of the Quarter Master which is just as dirty. The world comes down to two types of people, Verti-Mart people and Quarter Master people. Pub or Oz, Judy or Barbra, David Sedaris or communist. My water purchased I stepped outside just as the parade began. The first thing I noticed was that there were several people dressed as Guardian Angels. I totally thought it was a costume but for some reason they were serving as some sort of security. In all the years I have lived in New Orleans I've never seen a parade that didn't have a band. I'm not sure why they didn't have one, perhaps there wasn't one available. I was expecting loud whistles and a band and screaming but it's was off an running without a bang as they say. I only saw two of the Grand Marshall's, missing Mr. Martinez. I'm always amused by the creativity of people who work current events into these parades. There was a group of Wendys (for David Vitters wife and one of the sex workers involved) as well as the red pigtailed daughter of ultra conservative Dave Thomas. She was carrying a big red cross emblazoned with the words "Wendy Saves". My favorite though was a large red white and blue political sign that read "Larry Craig for President, he'll tap, tap, tap his way into your heart". Now that was funny. A co-worker told me later that they did have music later in the parade, not from a band but that there was music. I missed most of the official stuff, I caught a few minutes of the Lady Bunny show and one of the Shirley Q. shows. I had a couple drinks late one night with Chi-Chi and Lady Bunny and a very nice short conversation with them. I also had a funny incident with another porn star. His last name is long and he isn't kidding. One of my co-workers approached me and said ".... Long just slapped me in the face with his penis, kiss me right here" and my response was "hey, I want some of that action, where's he at?" So we took off upstairs to where the guy was on the balcony and he was more than happy to oblige me with a few friendly smacks from his massive endowment. I immediately had to text Matt in San Diego to tell him of my sordid encounter and got back the desired "fuck you fuck you fuck you I hate you" and a threat never to return my copy of a porn this guy appears in that Matt "borrowed" on a visit last year. Matt texted me last week to tell me that he was a few feet away from another porn star I love (Everett) at a mexican restaurant. I got more action but I would have loved to have seen that one. As Matt described it to me "I'm five feet away from Everett. I'm four feet away from Everett's cock." Priceless.

On to Other Items...

Larry Craig. Yes. He was mentioned a moment ago and I have to say that I missed the close connection we Orleanians have to this Senator. I didn't realize he was the same senator who made the comment after Katrina that

"Fraud is in the culture of Iraqis. I believe that is true in the state of Louisiana as well."

as well as some other comments about why New Orleans should be re-built since it's a low lying area. Idiot. I love every time one of these republican moralists gets nailed in a sex scandal. It just puts a smile on my face and a song in my heart. FindLaw.com has a great article that includes the official arrest documents. They also have a blurb about another similar scandal with Craig that happened back in 1982. There was a former congressional page who made allegations that there were members of congress who were giving drugs and propositioning sex with the minor pages. BEFORE he could even be named Craig put out a statement that he wasn't involved. What's the phrase, me think he doth protest too much. It did bring back a long forgotten but fun little joke. Why don't congressmen use book marks? Because they like to bend their pages over.

I have more to write but my fingers and eyes and brain are tired. More soon.

ahem...

2007-08-19T17:55:00.000-04:00

People who know me know that I have a tendency to open my mouth and say whatever comes to mind; that trait extends to my blog as well. I haven't written in my blog in months, the last time I did so was to write about the southern decadence Grand Marshall's chosen for this year. This was back in May. That post was removed and I would like to explain the situation.

I logged on to e-mail today to receive a new comment about that blog from a former Grand Marshall. She was unhappy with me and my mention of the choices made by she and her fellow co-Grand Marshall. While most everything I write is meant to be very tongue in cheek and twisted with my own special brand of sarcasm, it was not intended to roast, lambaste, insult, sully or mar anyone, least of all the former Grand Marshall's. I would like to take this time to personally apologize to Miss Lisa Beaumann and her co-Grand Marshall Regina Adams as well as the current named Grand Marshalls, Electra City, Marcus Martinez and Guadalupe. I would also like to add that my comments were mine personally and not the ones expressed by my employer or anyone associated with my employer. If there is anything that I can further do to repair any bad feelings then I will gladly discuss it in person.

I would like to take this moment to address one point. It was mentioned in the comments that while I may be insulting these choices that I "certainly do love making the money during this holiday." It's true that I make a fair amount of money during this holiday. I also work very very hard for about 10 hours a day for six or seven straight days with rarely the chance to do more than look up and ask the next person what they would like to drink. Everyone who works at any bar during the holiday works extremely hard to serve guests, keep the bars clean, keep the bars safe, set up and take down shows and in general make sure that the thousands of people who come to our wonderful city have a good time. While the commitment of the Grand Marshalls is substantially more involved than my own I believe that my hard work and commitment to provide superior customer service is not to be diminished either. I am certainly aware of the economic impact and importance of Decadence to the city, the bars and to my own pocket.

I made comments that were taken badly and for that I truly do apologize, and I will make every effort over the next few days to seek out Miss Beaumann and make these apologies in person.

Sliding Into Home

2007-05-15T20:49:00.000-04:00

On-lookers said Jerry Falwell seemed happy today as he was making his descent to his final resting place, sliding down a water slide to the fiery depths of Hades. Early reports indicate Falwell may have died of a bowel obstruction. One follower was quoted as saying "He spent his whole life keeping evil homosexuals from sticking things up their butts and then he dies of something blocking his own. I guess God really does work in mysterious ways."

I would like to wish him well in serving out his time at Satans sidekick. Together they can spend their time like Falwell did here on earth, spreading pure evil and hate.

Happy Go(y)od Friday!

2007-04-06T00:23:00.001-04:00

Okay, the funniest thing.

2007-04-04T05:50:00.000-04:00

Monday night I was at my gay bowling league when my friend Aaron turns and asks "So what do Jews do for Easter, I mean is there some sort of Jewish holiday ritual?"

I must have looked at him kind of stunned which gave our friend Michael the perfect entry into the conversation. He said "Aaron, Jews don't celebrate Easter," before looking at me and saying, "but I bet you celebrate Good Friday!"

The Easter "Bunny"

2007-03-30T19:47:00.000-04:00

Every year my mother sends me a an easter package. At 35 I'm not sure why but hey, it's free candy. I think my mother is working through some guilt that harkens back to my youth. My grandfather informed my sister and I every year that there would be no easter eggs since he had shot the easter bunny. This was the same story we heard about Santa Claus too, though with the added storyline of Old Saint Nick being mistaken for a burglar and shot with good cause. Maybe my mom just enjoys sending me things, I'm not going to argue.

ANYWAY, I received my easter box the other day and it was filled with goodies. Twizzlers, Pop-Tarts (I love them), Girl Scout cookies, Nutty Buddies and of course my favorite easter treat, PEEPS. I love peeps, especially after you tear the package open and let the air get to the marshmallowy (spelling?) goodness so they harden up a little bit before you eat them. Sometimes it's fun to eat them piece by piece, the arms, the legs, the ears, the head but sometimes you've just gotta pop the whole thing in your mouth (the peep I mean). This year I got red baby chick peeps and bunny peeps. There were also two kinds of rawhide chews for my pups. They're really not supposed to have rawhide so I just left them in the box. Dash, the more inquisitive of the dogs managed to sniff them out and pull the package of chews out which he and his brother Chase ate, plastic wrapping and all. Dumb dogs.

At the bottom of the box was a small box that from it's wrapping no doubt housed a chocolate bunny. On top of it was a small envelope with a note from my mother. It read : "Lawrence, sorry I couldn't resist "the bunny". Happy Easter, Love Mom." Inside the envelope was an I-tunes gift card. I took the envelope off the bunny box. I thought she was apologizing for not being able to resist sending me a chocolate bunny when she knows I don't really like chocolate. Imagine my surprise when I see the bunny, subtly titled "Fairy Bunny" sporting a big gold foil wrapped pair of easter colored butterfly wings. Yes, it's a Fairy Bunny, as in "It's nice, Fairy Nice". In the lower right hand corner of the box are the words "Discover the Fairy Bunny Tale on Back". When you turn it over you are treated to a very special poem.

Fairy Bunny Tale

Not far from Whispering Willows
just north of Rainbow Bay,
is a valley few grown-ups know of
where the magical Fairy Bunnies play.

Not many have actually seen them,
fairy wings make hardly a sound.
Which is why they help hide the easter eggs
when the Great Easter Bunny comes around.

The Groans, the Grumps, and the cynical Sneers
must leave their sadness behind,
for the rule of Daffodil Valley
is that Easter belongs to the kind.

So this spring look skyward for Fairy Bunnies
at sunrise, just past Tulip Hill,
and you might see them winging homeward
to the Valley of the White Daffodil.

Nice huh, Fairy Nice. Oh well, I thought it was funny and thank god my mom has the sense of humor enough to send her gay son something like this. That and to tell me to stop cruising the bus boys when we go out to eat. Being a non-catholic (and therefore no doubt living the afterlife in purgatory) I'm not sure about the Easter calander but I think that Holy Week starts this Sunday with Palm Sunday. Those familiar with my Ash Wednesday habit of annointing folks with ashes from the ashtray may want to grab some extra palm fronds for me to burn for next year. Happy Easter to all no matter if you believe in the Easter Bunny or that Jesus rose from the dead, both are good stories. Eat some fish today and a cadbury egg for dessert, just leave my peeps alone!

To Indiana!

2007-02-06T12:42:00.000-05:00

To Indiana!

I wasn't planning to go to Indiana for the holidays this year. I had been there the last two years (once by choice, once by evacuation) and I was going to spend this Christmas at home in New Orleans. Since my sister has moved to California it looked like neither one of us was going to be there for the holiday. Then my sister decided that she was going to go so I opted to make the trek.

I left on the 21st which was destined to be a busy day in the skies being so close to the holidays. I checked in to the airport at 10:30 for a flight that left at 11:30. When I got to the gate they were already making the announcement that our flight was going to be delayed by 45 minutes. No problem, I just settled in with a few magazines and waited patiently. Visibility was low at O'Hare, my connecting city and it was slowing traffic across the country. Denver airport was shut down from snow and the visibility problem was also affecting San Fransisco. Air traffic across the country was massively slowed down. A flight from St. Louis to New Orleans had been forced to make an unexpected landing in Little Rock to fix a mechanical problem and that wasn't helping the flow. We finally did board the plane about 12:30 without much grumbling from the masses. Then they hit us with the real issue. We didn't have clearance to take off from Chicago but we had to pull away from the gate to make way for another incoming flight. The flight attendant said "We're going to have to sit on the tarmac -for a little while-" Okay, a little while. In my mind a little while is 45 minutes, maybe even an hour. A little while is not three hours which is precisely how long we sat there with nothing to do. I tried to nap but every 20 minutes they came over the intercom to tell us that nothing had changed and we still weren't going to be able to take off until about 3 pm. At last we were in the air heading north and arrived in Chicago just before 6 pm, 3 1/2 hours late. Knowing that there were limited flights out that night I immediately went to the gate for the next plane leaving for Indy. There had been five more flights after 1:30 pm which was when my flight was supposed to leave. I had already missed two of them, the next one was cancelled and the last two were sold out. I managed to get on stand-by for the last flight. I called a friend in Indy and asked him to get online and check to see if there were any flights on other airlines that I could get a guaranteed seat. There was one on United so my friend bought it and I headed off to the gate. For those unfamiliar with O'hare International, it's a fairly large place. I arrived (see map)at concourse G. The flight on United was in concourse C. After hoofing it all the way over there I couldn't find the flight number on the departure board. Unfortunately there had been an error in communication and the flight I was booked on was for another day. Now I'm sweating, frustrated and worried that I am going to be one of those sad souls sleeping in an airport. In addition to all this fun, my cell phone was dying. I had been on it all day either by text or updating folks on my arrival (or non-arrival) times. I stopped at Brookstone for an emergency phone charger (at the airport price of 25 dollars) and took one last shot at getting out of Chicago that night. I called the car rental company with whom I had a reservation in Indy. At that point I was considering trying to rent a car in Chicago and drive to Indy which would have taken about four hours. Much to my surprise there were no cars available in Chicago. My fear then was that I would be unable to get a car in Indy when I arrived because it would be too late or they would be out of cars. Now I am not going to make any nasty comments about the person who I was talking too, I'm not. Okay I am. Seriously, if Hadji could have taken the piece of beef jerky or the slurpy straw out of his mouth long enough to have learned more than a handful of words in english I might not have lost my temper. If Hadji had been able to even understand more than a handful of words in english I might not have been so upset. The stress of the day hit maximum overload when Hadji told me that there were still cars available in Indianapolis but that my reservation had expired. I could still get a car if I was willing to pay 650 dollars. To say that my head nearly exploded would be an understatement. I'm sure it wasn't a pretty picture, my red face screaming into a phone with an AA battery pack charger hanging down, sweat pouring, shirt sticking to my back, eyes blurry from drifting in and out of sleep while wearing my contacts. Hot. Eventually I hung up on Hadji and began the trek back to my original concourse. My disheveled appearance must have frightened the ticket agent at the gate because she looked a bit concerned when I slung my bag and coat up on the counter. Perhaps it was my now blood shot eyes or that my hair most likely resembled the wild man of borneo. As my flight began to board she looked at me more and more nervously as those around me were moved from the stand-by flight to actually getting a seat. The two large hand holding lesbians snared two seats (when three might have been more appropriate) as did the tiny Asian woman in an even tinier skirt (going back to my belief that the majority of Asian women in this country shop at gap kids.) Finally I heard my name and I'm not sure who was more relieved, the ticket agent or me. It was 9:15, six and a half hours after I was supposed to have arrived in Indianapolis.

When I got to the airport in Indy my Uncle was there waiting for me. The original plan was for me to get into town early in the afternoon, pick up my car, drop off my stuff at my moms, meet some friends downtown for dinner and then be back at the airport to pick up my sister at 11:30. Since we didn't have any guarantee that I was going to be able to rent a car in Indy or even beat my sister there my Uncle came out to see if we needed to be picked up. He and I headed for the baggage claim but I had to stop first at the rental car counter. As I walked up to the desk a perky young lady said "Hi, can I help you?" She managed to maintain her smile even as I said "You better hope so!" As it turns out Hadji was not only a bumbling english speaker but he didn't know what the hell he was talking about. My new best friend at the rental desk told me that it's company policy to hold reservations for 24 hours, especially when it's a travel day like that one when flights around the country are running late. I managed to get a car and be back in the airport in time to pick up my sister. We headed downtown for a quick bit (okay drink) at the restaurant we both used to work at and then to G-wood to our mothers house.

The rest of the trip was rather uneventful. It was my sisters first trip back to Indy since she moved to LA so she was dealing with some different emotions. My mother duped me into having my photo taken once again (I detest doing this) and I was able to spend some time with friends downtown. Christmas Eve night my mothers family all went out to dinner to a chain restaurant called Smokey Bones. We were enjoying our dinner when a large family trundled in and sat next to our table. When I say large I mean that here were several of them and that they were all extremely large. Big. Fat. Obese. HUGE. It was hard to tell who was the largest one of them. The grandmother was a hearty contestant for the title, leaning her bulk on a cane and sporting a lot of stretchy polyester looking garb. The highlight of her outfit was a beanie type cap pulled down low with only a few strands of white hair peeking out from underneath. I really think that her son was the biggest. He was the kind of guy you see being weighed at a grain elevator. There were a couple of babies in carriers leaving me to question the sheer physical possibility of these people getting into a position that could lead to procreation. In addition to their bulk was the fact that they were extremely loud. Seeing as how they were so large the restaurant had broken them up across three booths. Some lubrication and a shoe horn and they were all squeezed into place. They screamed back and forth across the tables at each other, the large son repeatedly making threats to punch his family members right in the face. The best moment came when sonny boy called out to anyone who was listening "Hey what should I get?" and my sister and I answered back unprompted and in unison "A muzzle".

Christmas came and went, I got a lot of nice presents like DVDs and books. Every year my grandmother tells someone that they are fat. This year it was my sisters turn. She wasn't pleased. I flew back to New Orleans the day after Christmas and thankfully my return was without incident.

The return of Anne Frank

2007-02-05T18:26:00.000-05:00

Having been chastised for my lack of blogging, I feel compelled to return to the blogosphere.

But you'll have to wait just a little while longer.

Sorry.

I have to go to my Monday night bowling league but plan to blog when I get home or first thing tomorrow. I have a long list of things to cover so it might take a few actual entries before everything gets covered.

Let's see, what all do I have to write about.

1. My recent trip to L.A. (and my thwarted attempt to get on The Price is Right)
2. A new man in my life and a subsequent trip to Orlando.
3. My hometown winning the superbowl
4. Recent movies.
5. Recent books.
6. Rants and Raves about my work.
7. The SugarBowl (yeah I know it was a while back but I have a funny story)
8. The holiday season (I know it's a while back but hey I've been busy)

So it's coming, look for it, wait for it, live for it. What was it they said in Fast Times at Ridgemont High; No shirt, no shoes, no dice.

See You Soon!

These guys are genius.

2006-12-18T15:51:00.000-05:00

Okay so if you haven't seen the latest JibJab video "Nuckin' Futs" then check it out here. You can also catch their other videos and some various comedy bits.

A walk home

2006-12-16T07:29:00.000-05:00

Walking home from work is usually pretty uneventful. Sometimes I stop at the quarter master and get some breakfast, sometimes not. Once I get a block or two past the gay bars I rarely see anyone in these walks . This morning I had one of the nicest walks home ever. A block from my own bar I encountered a street fight between a very drunk white tourist and a black man, presumably (from his dress and the direction he was walking) someone who lived in the Treme. The drunk tourist had evidently tried striking up a conversation with the black gentleman, who responded like any good Orleanian; "Man don't talk to me, you don't even know me." I missed a moment or two of this as I had simply walked past. The next thing I hear are the obvious sounds of a street fight and turned around (to watch of course) to see the white boy throwing up his fists like he's in the road show of West Side Story. It was sad really and I think the black guy just eventually felt sorry for him, shook his head and said "Get out of here you stupid faggot." My feelings exactly.

Though it was entertaining, the fight wasn't the highlight of my walk. The last few days has seen a fog descend upon the city at night. Not like the usual fog that prevents people from using proper English, but a real fog, settling on us and shrouding the city. As I made my way down Bourbon Street the scene was one out of a book, the fog lifting and wafting down the street, lampposts giving off an eerie shadowed light. All at once a tugboats horn began to blow, reminding us of the lifeblood that flows just a few blocks from us, the reason why we are settled here, why this place exists. Even after I made it home, in fact while I am writing this I can still hear the horn of that tugboat in the distance. There's a satisfaction to these senses that can't be explained any more than one can explain why New Orleans is a city that beats inside your chest. The city is a narcotic, it is mysterious and overwhelming in it's ability to keep you wrapped up tightly in it's foggy colored world.

P.S. I woke up this afternoon at 1 or so, snuggled in my warm bed and the first thing I heard when I woke up was the horn of a tugboat. I drifted back to sleep, content with the sounds of my adopted home.

A day without the pub...or back and to the left, back and to the left.

2006-12-04T06:52:00.000-05:00

Would be heaven sent. I have seriously been working so much it seems I haven't had a day off in weeks. Friday night I was off but of course I wanted to do something fun with friends so we went up-town for happy hour at Philips. This, of course, led to drinks at the pub which led to being out way too late.

This weekend I have a friend coming into town so I am taking Friday and Saturday off to hang out with him. I should have expected this, but now I am working the next four days, which means I am working six in a row; when my friend gets here I will be so sick of the pub that I will not want to go anywhere near the place. Oh yeah and my bowling league starts again tomorrow so I am about to go to bed (it being 6 am) and then plan to be up and head towards Kenner by 4:15 to beat traffic and get there by 6. I made arrangements to come into work late so as soon as bowling is done I have to head to work. I already know I will be the late bartender so I'm there until 5. Home, sleep, back up and back to work, home sleep, back up and back to work, home sleep, back up and back to work. I feel like I'm in the movie JFK.

Before I got to bed I just have to say something about a current popular song. It's this song "Irreplaceable" by Beyonce. Since I really can't understand her shrill screech I haven't been able to get the words down. What I get from it is a general "don't think you're so great that you forget that I'm great too" but I could totally be wrong. Anyway, she continuously says "to the left, to the left" which is some reference to everything being "in the box to the left." I have no idea what this means. Is this a reference to her being female, which is usually the box to the left on a survey. Other than that, I'm clueless. Help me Obi-Wan, you're my only hope.

Post Election Wrap Up

2006-11-18T19:29:00.000-05:00

I am not really sure what wise words I could add to the coverage of the election. Arizona republican congressman Jeff Flake probably said it best when he appeared on Real Time with Bill Maher. "We got beat like a borrowed mule," the congressman said. I couldn't agree more.

So many republicans lost their long held seats, but none made me happier than the defeat of Rick Santorum. His concession speech was fabulous, especially with his children crying on national television. I wanted to catch their tears with a spoon and drink them. Check out these pictures of his whining little daughter. "My daddy's not a Senator anymore!"

ahhh memories

2006-11-18T19:07:00.000-05:00

So I recently came across this story about my High School. It brought back not so fond memories of the torturous years I spent there. The school is a white flight suburban school, full of kids with too much money and too little parental control. It was a horrible place when I went there and I was constantly bullied and harassed. It wasn't just the students that were so wretched, it was the teachers as well. On my first day of high school the gym teacher (whose name was Gene Wheat in case anybody is googling his homophobic name) came into the locker room and called my friend Eric and I out while we were getting dressed for class. He said "I've heard about you two and they'll be no boo-fooing in my locker room." For those unfamiliar with the phrase, boo-fooing is a very stupid term for a blow job. The very first day of school in front of a locker room full of boys. We were both pegged as gay and became the favorite punching bag of boys who needed to re-assure themselves of their masculinity. I can only imagine in a post columbine world that kids who are different are still treated horribly there and this story only goes to prove that point.

Seriously

2006-11-16T02:11:00.000-05:00

I really do believe that the woman who lives upstairs from me is either building furniture, teaching samba, moving a piano constantly around the room for exercise or she has a whole family of dutch people with wooden shoes in her apartment. Whatever it is, she makes a hell of a racket up there.

Some Lesbians and a Dream

2006-11-15T22:11:00.000-05:00

Sunday night a co-worker asked me to fill for him on Tuesday night. This is lesbian night at the bar, complete with drag king show. Now I've been to the show before and always found it entertaining but I've never worked that night. If I work on Tuesday it's usually downstairs and it's almost always slow and painful.

The good thing about working upstairs is that you open late and close early. We opened up about 10:30 but the regular bartenders assured me we wouldn't get busy until showtime which is midnit-ish. By 11:45 we still weren't that full but I was prepared for the onslaught. It never was very busy and the show was very short. Let me say a few things about the show. First of all the names that these girls choose are hysterical. They used to have a performer whose name, I swear to god, was Quick Lick McGraw. After that was my favorite one ever, Buster Hymen. I still laugh at that one. Neither of those two were performing last night but Mr. Harvey Wallbanger was there and a few others that weren't that funny. One thing I don't understand about drag king shows is when they perform gangsta' rap. The most misognyistic type of music around, it's full of references to women as 'bitches' and 'ho'. I just don't understand why a group of women (or womyn) would want to celebrate music that seems to hate them. Of course I am alternately confused as to why drag queens want to do long slow tragic songs especially when they are clearly sung by a black woman but performed by pasty white girls. I digress.

The night was uneventful but I kept a few little notes to myself. Enjoy:

The number of times I refused service to people who were clearly stamped as underage: 2

The number of draft beers I served to lesbians (this one amazed me): Zero

The number of times I was asked by people "Are you new here?": Five

The number of times I was stiffed (read: not tipped): Seventeen

The number of times that the person who stiffed me was a middle eastern man: Ten

The number of Sad Looking Mohawk Sporting Cargo Shorts with an Oxford Shirt Wearing X-Heads Dancing Alone on an Otherwise Empty Dance Floor When Only Penny Loafers Would Have Made the Situation Worse Than the Harsh Reality: One

All in all the night was fine. I worked with someone whom I like very much and enjoy working with but we are not often scheduled together. The night was over by about 3:15 when we closed the upstairs. By then all the women had gone and the aforementioned mohawk boy was one of the only people left. I counted my money and headed for the door only to find a blinding rainstorm and skies full of lightning. I called a cab but wasn't holding out much hope of actually getting one to take me home. Luckily a co-worker who drives to work offered me a ride and I was safely home and asleep by 5 am.

GQ has it's way with New Orleans

2006-11-15T17:17:00.000-05:00

Recently GQ magazine sent it's resident food writer, Alan Richman down to New Orleans to investigate our restaurant scene and the aftermath (of course) of Katrina. The article is very long, spread over 8 glossy pages in the magazine but you can read it here. Controversy was immediately created and the writer blasted in the local paper and local blogs for the smear type campaign his article really was. Though each of the articles here are long you should check them out.

A friend sent me the story and the responses. In writing a response to him I realized I was writing a blog, so here goes.

This controversy was one I had totally missed. I really don't read glossy mens magazines so I missed the article there. I might have seen the coverage of his criticism in the Times Picayune but I tend not to read the newspaper.

(NOTE: I am correcting earlier statements that I have made about the Times Picayune. I duly apologize for impugning the work of the Times Picayune staff who worked tirelessly after the storm to put the paper back together and report the grim situation here in New Orleans under what must have been horrific conditions. On that same note I have previously written about the TP articles written by Chris Rose that were a god-send to those of us who had been evacuated to various parts of the country. He put a voice to things that most of us felt and made the situation human, a skill most reporters lack in this day and age. The TP has worked hard to report without prejudice every angle of the storm and it's aftermath to great success. They have definitely been a huge factor in the city being able to heal and come back together to rebuild our lives and our great city)

Most of us living here are oblivious these days to the endless parade of reporters who tramp their way through a few blocks of the 9th ward and declare the entire place as hopeless. They report their "findings' which only serves to hurt the city because their sheep-like readers will take their word for it and abandon one of the greatest American cities ever to exist.

Dismissal of the French Quarter entirely is all I need to know about this story but I did read the entire thing. Those "characters" that are mentioned, the ones that make the quarter nothing more than a copy of Tijuana are part of what makes this city great and what's wrong with stumbling out of a bar in the morning? If most places in this country had the relaxed attitude about alcohol that New Orleans displays you would see a people who could actually handle drinking responsibly. Our decaying walls in the quarter withstood the worst natural disaster to ever hit the country. While I agree that Bourbon streets tacky t-shirts shops and strip clubs may be a bit much for some people, one doesn't have to travel very far in NY or LA or Miami to find the exact same strip of businesses. The only difference is that we aren't so prissy as to not throw theatres and wonderful restaurants right in the middle of the hoopla.

All of that said, I agree with a few of his points. Restaurants here are like many businesses, offering half hearted products and services. People here are tired. Tired of the storm, tired of looking at the damage, tired of talking about the storm. It makes me angry when I hear someone say "well, since the storm" as an excuse for a service they no longer offer or a dish they no longer serve. Occasionally someone will be at my bar and say "I was here a few years ago and it was more fun" and I will, fighting back an urge to punch them, say "well you know, since the storm.." And I catch myself. Of course I can make a pretty decent argument that the "fun" level of New Orleans still exists even if it's been reduced to shorter bar opening times and infiltrated by an exhaustion that we can only begin to explain.

There is one thing that I think is missing in this discussion of the death of New Orleans cuisine. The entire US suffers from a problem that hasn't escaped New Orleans, namely the people who eat out. Here I think the problem lies more with tourists than locals but I know many people who still eat red beans and rice on Mondays and fish on Fridays. In general people want the same thing most times and don't want to try something new. They want to know if they order trout meuniere that it's going to taste exactly as it did at the last restaurant and the one before that and the one before that. Many chefs pride themselves that the dishes that are served in "traditional" New Orleans restaurants haven't varied in their recipe but they do change. They change as the world changes. Does trout caught today taste the same as trout caught ten years ago. Do the herbs that grow in the ground taste the same from every seed? Pollution and ingredients mean that fresh food is an ever changing product. Processed food-stuff that many restaurants serve today is faithful to it's followers. It's hard to screw up frozen fish sticks.

While New Orleans has long been associated with a world class cuisine, it was a reputation that was somewhat deceiving. Chefs have long been an integral part of New Orleans and the influences by different cultures that exist here (including those wacky Canadians) combined to make our city's food scene a true melting pot. Restaurants are part of a bigger culture that exists here and few other places. They were and are a social place, where the social elite mingled with wide eyed tourists and fiercely loyal locals who spend time arguing over the French bread served at favorite restaurants. Yes these things and places still exist, it's part of the culture of New Orleans. Old families still have a waiter at Antoine's and Galatoire's. I've eaten at Galatoire's several times with members of old Louisiana families and I've never seen a menu. These folks just know what they serve and often the waiter takes a glance at you and knows what you'll want. We eat in seasons here and until the storm we were a people mostly dependent on our local waters and bayous to feed the city. Our streams and waterways gave us opportunity to eat foods not widely available other places, even NY with it's four star restaurants on every corner. While a family BBQ in the north might bring up arguments of the best way to stack coals, throw a crowd of Orleanians around a pot of boiling crawfish and listen to that discussion. It's almost as involved as the argument of who has the best fried chicken and when your roux is the exact right color.

If the roux at Herbsaint isn't what this food critic/journalist expected, then I suppose the restaurant owes him an apology. I personally don't enjoy my food being vertical but that seems to be the wave of the future in every white linen restaurant in the country. I usually don't enjoy having to decipher four languages to get a handle on Cuban/Asian/Russian fusion foods but that seems to be what you can expect at restaurants in big cities today. The writer puts it best when he says that people either get or don't get New Orleans. Here is a perfect example of someone who doesn't get it. The restaurants that he does claim to enjoy he equates to basically being one roomed shacks by the side of the road in an otherwise desolate neighborhood. That he didn't insist on eating his meal perched atop a FEMA trailer surprises me greatly. One gets the idea he threw on a backpack, loaded his shotgun and set off to shoot himself a Po-Boy for lunch.

An election day video

2006-11-07T18:54:00.000-05:00

I saw this on another website and nabbed it from YouTube. It's a great video.

Today being election day I hope everyone exercised their right to vote, no matter who you voted for or what your political beliefs.

I cast my ballot this afternoon and am not afraid to tell you that I cast my vote for Karen Carter and fully expect to see her in the run-off election.

There were several initiative ballots on our polls, the most important one being to reduce our board of seven assessors to one office, I voted yes to that ballot.

Happy Election Day, I am looking forward to the results this evening to see if the democrats can take back the house and/or the senate. Let's hope!

Nemesis...not mine but a good candidate..

2006-11-06T16:41:00.000-05:00

So there is a new singing "duo" of gay twins called Nemesis. Fitting huh. They play their song "#1 in Heaven" at my bar all the time. They are a novelty item I guess, gay twin singers...didn't this already happen with Hanson?

Anyway, my point is this, check out this picture and tell me what you think, is it a publicity stunt or are they really mongoloids? You decide.

I vote that they are very late term thalidomide babies.

Okay so just for giggles I googled "thalidomide" and came across this. To say I nearly shit myself laughing would be an understatement...

Just in time for the elections...

2006-11-06T16:38:00.000-05:00

Just in time for the elections

Finally...

2006-11-04T00:14:00.000-05:00

When I was a senior in high school (yes, in the 80's children) my sister lived in an apartment on the far northside of Indianapolis. One night during a party at their house they decided to create a "slam book" on their living room wall. If you don't remember slam books, let me explain. This was a notebook that was full of silly questions. The book would be passed around during class recess or lunch periods. There would be questions like "If you could kiss any one boy, who would it be," and things of that nature. The first page of the book would be numbered and you wrote your name next to the number of your choice. This way when you answered the questions in the book you were "anonymously" using only a number. People looking through the book would have to flip around to see who answered what question which way based on their assigned number. It was really stupid but it was something that kids did to pass the time. Everybody has the general idea now, right. Okay, so my sister and her roommate made a slam wall, same concept, you put your name next to a number and then went along the wall with marker and answered the questions. One of the questions was about what tv star you most wanted to kiss and my answer was "Doogie Howser." I was just in the early stages of my gay adventures and my sister and her friends found this very funny. I loved that show and thought he was so cute. Since then I've seen him in a few movies here and there and was thrilled to find him again in the CBS show "How I met your mother".

Today I am vindicated for my lifelong adoration of Neil Patrick Harris.

I am so happy that this day has finally come and extend to Mr. Harris all my best wishes to him and his career. If you happen to read this Mr. Harris and you're looking for a 30 something boyfriend, you can drop me a line anytime.

For Example # 2

2006-11-01T19:37:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I wrote about how New Orleans was not part of the "most dangerous cities" profiles because our police didn't turn in the required figures to the company doing the report. Then this happens. No wonder they don't report anything.

For Example

2006-10-30T23:52:00.000-05:00

I thought this was very funny...It's from the new "Most Dangerous City" report.

List of Cities, From Safest to Most Dangerous
AP
(Oct. 30) - A list of the safest and most dangerous cities overall, as compiled by Morgan Quitno Press, which bases the rankings on FBI figures. The list starts with the safest cities and ends with the most dangerous.

Only cities that reported crime rates were included in the list. For example, New Orleans was not included this year because its police department did not report figures.

Note: Emphasis mine.

I haven't heard gunshots in days, things must be getting better.

Okay, so I will totally have a Halloween post but suffice to say that after going back and forth between several costumes I went out Saturday night dressed as Cory Lidle.

Keith Olberman "Special Comment"

2006-10-24T16:58:00.000-04:00

It's unbelievable to me that someone in the news media is actually putting this kind of story out. It's precise, condemning and all true. I'm sure it's a slanted point of view but slanted towards truth at last.

Grisly murder in French Quarter

2006-10-18T18:09:00.000-04:00

I guess being single isn't such a bad thing after all.

This story happened last night. I can't believe I didn't know either of these people. I shop at the grocery store where this guy works. I've been to the bar where she works countless times. The place where he bartends once a week is a block from my house. Their home is four blocks from mine. You would have thought I would have smelled it, but then again it probably just mixed with the general smell of decay in the quarter. Anyway, here's the story from NOLA.com

Man dismembers girlfriend in Quarter; cooks body parts

By Walt Philbin
Staff Writer

A suicide note in the pocket of a man who jumped off the Omni Royal Orleans Hotel late Tuesday led police to the grisly scene of his girlfriend’s murder, where they found her charred head in a pot on the stove, her legs and feet baked in the oven and the rest of her dismembered body in trash bag in the refrigerator, according to police and the couple’s landlord.

The man, Zackery Bowen, a tall man in his mid 20s with long blond hair, claimed in the note to have killed his girlfriend, Adrian “Addie” Hall, on Oct. 5, according to police. Hall was also in her mid 20s.

In the five-page note, Bowen claimed he strangled Hall in the bathtub, then dismembered her body before taking it in pieces to the kitchen, police said. An autopsy conducted today shows that Hall was in fact manually strangled, police said. It also appears that Hall’s body was cut up after she died, police said.

“He appeared to clean up the bathroom a lot after he did it,” one officer said.

Police found the victim’s head burned beyond recognition in a pot on top of the stove, and her legs and feet in the same condition in pans inside the oven, police said.

Bowen was from Los Angeles, but apparently had lived in the New Orleans area for quite a while, police said. Friends said he served in the military in Iraq and Afghanistan and displayed both pride and bitterness over that experience.

Detectives said they were compiling a detailed profile of Bowen to submit as soon as possible to the FBI’s VICAP (Violent Criminal Apprehension Program) center. VICAP is a nationwide data information center designed to collect acts of violence that might be serial in nature and recognized by other jurisdictions with access to VICAP as similar to a crime that they investigated.

Shortly after Oct. 1, the couple had rented an apartment together at 826 N. Rampart Street above a voodoo shop, said their landlord, Leo Watermeier, who recently ran a campaign for mayor.

The couple seemed happy at first, he said, though that would soon break down.

“He may have in retrospect seemed a little troubled,” Watermeier said in an interview early Wednesday morning, shortly after he led investigators to the gruesome scene inside the apartment.

Last Sunday, several days after he claimed in his suicide note to have killed her, Bowen appeared “all jolly, talking about the trip he was going to take,” said Lisa Perilloux, a regular at Buffa’s bar, where Bowen worked a weekly bartending gig.

Bowen had told several co-workers and friends there he planned to take a “much-needed vacation” to Cozumel or some other island resort, said Donovan Kalabaza, a fellow bartender and friend.

“Just think, tomorrow night, you’ll be in paradise,” Kalabaza recalled telling him.

Sunday afternoon, Bowen came in briefly in the afternoon, drinking with two other guys.

“He was a great mood, best mood I’ve ever seen him in.”

Bowen jumped to his death two nights later.

Though they appeared happy when they rented the Rampart Street apartment — telling Watermeier they had fallen in love on the night Hurricane Katrina struck and Hall gave Bowen shelter — they soon had a bitter falling out, Watermeier said. After the storm, the couple lived a vagabond existence in the shattered city, becoming feature fodder for the swarm of national media eager to profile post-flood diehards.

But on Oct. 5, during a dispute over which of their names would appear on the lease, Hall told Watermeier she intended to kick Bowen out of the apartment, after finding out that he had cheated on her, Watermeier said.

Bowen did not take the news well, Watermeier said.

“He said, ‘Did you just let her sign a lease alone? Because I’m screwed. I’m totally messed up now. She’s trying to kick me out of our apartment,” Watermeier said.

Hall admitted she was trying to throw Bowen out, he said.

“I caught him cheating on me, and I am kicking him out of this apartment,” she told Watermeier.

Watermeier told the couple to work through their differences and get back to him. He never saw Hall again, and assumed they’d worked it out.

Police came to Watermeier’s door about 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, shortly after Bowen committed suicide, asking if he knew a tall man with long blonde hair, and if he had a connection with the apartment at 826 N. Rampart St.

He took them to the apartment, he said, where they warned him he might not want to enter. Investigators told Watermeier what they found, however: charred body parts strewn about the kitchen.

Hall was also not from New Orleans, Watermeier said, but both she and Bowen seemed “hard core” about the city and proud that they had stayed here through Katrina.

Bowen’s suicide was first discovered Tuesday when his body was spotted below by someone in an upper floor lounge. It was soon determined that Bowen had jumped from an outside terrace near a swimming pool on an upper floor to the roof of the Chartres Street garage on the second floor, police said.

A surveillance camera showed him walking several times to the edge of a ledge on the upper floor, then retreating, then returning again, until he finally plunged, police said.

Police found the five-page suicide note in his pocket, which not only led him to the scene of the murder, but included information on an out-of-state person who should be contacted after he was found, police said.

As the news began to filter through the French Quarter and Faubourg Marigny — where the couple worked, drank and at times argued — friends and co-workers relayed details of their personalities, their demons, and the tumultuous last weeks in their lives. Some offered portraits of a loving couple that sometimes fought; others painted a darker portrait of a dysfunctional couple at perpetual war.

Perilloux said she never heard Bowen speak anything but ill of Hall.

“He was getting rid of her,” she said, meaning he was trying to break up with her. “He used to complain about her to me. It was revolving door.”

She also relayed an recent incident where Hall screamed expletives at Bowen through the front door of Buffa’s, in front of a crowd of regulars. Associates of Bowen described him as a strapping, smooth-talking man who flirted with other women, often making Hall often jealous. Karen Lott, owner of Buffa’s bar on Esplanade, where Hall worked one bartending shift a week, said she had hired him as “eye candy for the ladies” after meeting him when he made deliveries to her from Matassa’s.

“The customers loved him. Everyone loved him,” she said, still reeling from the news of his suicide and her gruesome murder.

They knew Hall well at Buffa’s, too, where she often sat at the other end of the bar, often staring admiringly at Bowen as he either served drinks or ordered his own, almost always a Miller High Life and a shot of Jameson Irish Whiskey. When loud music drowned out their conversation, she would pass him notes, often to tell him she loved him, said Donovan Kalabaza, 34, a fellow bartender at Buffa’s and friend of both Hall and Bowen.

Ed Parrish, co-owner of the Spotted Cat bar on Frenchman Street, where Hall worked up until a month ago, said he could tell something had gone awry in her life. She started missing work, then coming back to apologize and seek to save her job.

“I had a feeling something was seriously wrong,” he said.

She had worked there for about a year, he said, before becoming unreliable. After not showing up for shifts three times, Parrish never saw her again.

Eura Jones, who cleans the bar in the mornings, had not heard about the gruesome killings until told by a reporter early Wednesday. She described Hall a “real friendly” and “a real pretty girl” who was smitten with Bowen.

“She loved that guy. She really loved him,” Jones said, though she added the couple squabbled often.

Reporters Steve Ritea, Laura Maggi and Trymaine Lee contributed to this story.

Is it Mid October already?

2006-10-11T01:30:00.000-04:00

Over the last few weeks I have been catching bits and pieces of the Spike Lee film "When the levees broke; a requiem in four acts." I'm not sure if I have seen the whole thing yet, but at more than four hours it's unlikely that I will sit and watch the whole thing at one time. Parts of the show are overwhelming and brought back so many bad memories of the storm. Shortly after I came back last January I walked to a friends house in the Marigny. There had been some scattered thunderstorms during the day but it had stopped. While I was visiting the power went out and eventually I had to walk home in the darkness. Just as I got closer to the quarter (where there were lights again) it started to rain. I panicked, my heart was beating fast and I didn't even know why. When I finally got to my house I was very nearly in tears and panicky. It took me a while to calm down and I realized that I was over-reacting. Anyone who's been in New Orleans during a hard rain can tell you that rain builds up quickly, especially if the drains are clogged. Water was standing in the street and it panicked me to think that it was happening again, that the water was coming back. I felt like that a lot watching the Spike Lee movie. Like any film it has it's manipulations and I can't imagine anyone who wouldn't be touched by the scenes showing dead bodies, their bloated forms floating in murky water. Other parts of the film touch on the conspiracy theory that the 9th ward levee was blown intentionally and the general blame game of who was responsible for all this misery. Another "act" deals with New Orleans as a musical city, the birthplace of Jazz and all that. They cover congo square, the mardi gras Indians and lastly they cover jazz funerals and second line parades. It reminded me of a bumper sticker I saw a few months ago and has been on my mind since. It was a black and white sticker with a parasol holding man next to the words "The Second Line is Coming." If you are unfamiliar with the phrase "second line," let me explain. A Jazz funeral is made up of two parts, the somber walk to the gravesite, the grieving for the loss and then comes what is called the second line. It's a celebration, crazy dancing, loud upbeat music as you send off your loved one by celebrating life instead of mourning death. The bumper sticker was proclaiming it, that our time of mouring is over, it's time to pick up the beat and dance. I've been thinking about it a lot, when I saw the cars finally being cleared from under the interstate. The piles of debris seem to be lessening everywhere. I see less blue tarped roofs and more open signs. The malaise of the residents comes and goes, my own included. The last few months have been depressing and I'm reaching one of those "somethings got to give" peering into the abyss moments. I'm not sure what to do with myself these days. I've been working in my backyard a lot and quite honestly it's been the only thing to get me out of bed some days. It's been fun but a lot of work. I bought an ax today and can hardly wait to put on a black tulle dress and cut down a tree at midnite. In a few weeks some friends will be here to visit for Halloween and I'm very excited to see them, hopefully that will put some zip back in my step and I'll be able to pick up my parasol and dance.

Crime has made a big return here in New Orleans, there was a gunman who opened fire on Frenchman street a few days ago. Tonight there were two separate killings in 90 minutes. One was in Algiers, a man shot several times in his car. Another was in the Marigny, an attempted mugging that ended badly for the mugger. He approched the couple, put a gun in the womans back and said "give it up" when her male companion whirled around and shot their assailant dead. Good Riddance.

I know I haven't written much lately but in general I've just been working a lot and having trouble sleeping so I nap a lot. I'll include some pictures of my yard as it progresses and then hopefully some halloween pics too. I think I am going to be Amish this year, but without my feet bound.

The Black Dahlia...Oh my god

2006-09-17T01:24:00.000-04:00

**Warning** If you plan to see the film "The Black Dahlia" then you probably don't want to read this post. It will contain spoilers of the film. However, if you follow my advice you won't bother to waste your two hours and fifteen minutes.

I think Joan Rivers said it best..."Don't go, better to die in the plane crash." Of course she was talking about Billings Montana but the lesson could well be applied to this wretched horrid film. I was so excited to see this movie and my disappointment could not have been any greater. Never in my life have I seen more people literally walk out of a film. Yeah, it's that bad.

James Elroy wrote the book upon which the film is based. Admittedly I have not read any of his books but love the film adaptation of L.A. confidential. This book was written in '87, before L.A. but only now turned into a film. According to Wikipedia, there are many differences in the book and film, though I warn you that reading them will spoil the movie for you. What am I kidding, this movie was spoiled before they had the wrap party. To paraphrase David Sedaris, by the time this movie comes to a close you no longer care if these characters live or die. Had I read the novel I would have realized that the film has little to nothing to do with the actual case of the Black Dahlia. Totally my fault I understand. In fact, outside of the fact that her murder happened, this film has nothing to do with the real case. The story has to do with two police officers, Bucky Bleichert (Josh Hartnett), Lee Blanchard (Aaron Eckhart), his longtime girlfriend Kay Lake (Scarlett Johannson) and the uber rich Madeleine Linscott (Hilary Swank). Their lives entertwine through the mens investigation of the murder and their own twisted agendas.

Brian De Palma directed this train-wreck and like other films of his, it's a foray into the ridiculous, like the car wreck in Carrie. His style is to attempt to tell a story visually and we were luckily spared his split screen shots in this film. If you look back at his other films you start to recognize a pattern. Films that were good because they became cult favorites (such as Carrie or Dressed to Kill) or because they were carried by big stars like Al Pacino (Scarface). Remember, this is the man who made "Bonfire of the Vanities". Shouldn't he have been stopped then and there.

Even though I was looking forward to the movie, I wasn't holding out much hope for it's cast. Josh Hartnett may be the worst actor working today, and that's saying something in a land of Will Ferrels and Jim Carrey's. He doesn't seem to be capable of delivering a line without that sad eyed puppy dog look that makes you want to put a gun to your head and end the misery. He doesn't fail you here, his parted down the middle aw-shucks hairdo providing even more of a freakish look to his downtrodden puss. I've never really seen Scarlett Johannson in much of anything and won't be rushing to plunk down my eight bucks on her name anytime soon. She actually started out decently here but by the middle of the film she has faded into simply being a very pale girl with very red lips. She does deliver what has to be the best line of the film (and by best I mean the most hysterical when it's not supposed to be because it was clearly done in one shot without the slightest thought of rehearsal.) At the point when she discovers Bucky's affair with Madeleine she screams out hysterically "She looks like that dead girl!" I swear, half the theatre burst out laughing.

I remember the first film I ever saw Aaron Eckhart in was "In the Company of Men," which I loved. It's twisted and cruel, my cup of tea. He never seems to come to terms with his character here or his agenda. Most of the problem with his character seems to come from the writing, but his overacting, crying, swaggering and general Billy-badass routine fell as flat as the voice overs describing the hot and sultry nights in L.A. He's portrayed as a rogue cop, a hero, a caring lover and friend and finally meets his end dumped into a furnace after a several story fall into a fountain. I think he was as confused as the audience was as to who he was supposed to be from moment to moment.

Hilary Swank is a very good actress. I mean she's got two Oscars already and it seems there's no stopping her. Okay, so this short stopover at loser movieville hopefully won't deter her star and will only serve as a painful embarrassment to unwise career choices. Remember Hilary, wait for a good script, don't just do any old thing that comes along. Her vampy looks in this film are overstated and though her delivery is up to her usual standard, she too becomes a victim of the writing and directing. Her most annoying habit is her propensity for reminding the audience how much Bucky wants to fuck her. Continuously. There is also this oddity that she is a lesbian in the film until she meets Josh Hartnett. Is this supposed to say that Josh Hartnett can turn a gay woman straight. My prediction is that it's the other way around.

Several times in the film you get glimpses of the Black Dahlia. Again, these are not historically accurate. Mia Kirshner plays Elizabeth Short well, her wide eyes telling her story as well as her character portrayal. The absolute best person in the film has to be Fiona Shaw. She plays Ramona Linscott, Madeleines mother and a rabid drunk. She is hysterical, chortling her way through dinner, stabbing her meal and shooting out accusations of infidelity and marital strife. Sadly her character meets the fate of all the rest, lost in a sea of bad writing.

It's worth noting that Josh Friedman, the screenwriter who is responsible for at least the dialogue (which, fairly, did have some snappy lines.) also wrote "War of the Worlds." Explanation enough?

The website for the film does have an interesting facet though. They have cut outs of the story as it was reported in the L.A. times. Interesting read.

If you want to read more about the actual case, here is a decent site.

Random Notes

2006-09-15T19:04:00.000-04:00

I am a pack rat. I rarely throw anything away. Occasionally I will find a note that I have written to myself, usually in referene to something I mean to blog about. Since my blogging has been sporadic at best these notes have sort of piled up. I threw several of them away, forgetting their meaning, but have a few to share. Now, not all of these were blog references, some were notes I wrote to someone else and ended up keeping. One night I was talking to a friend about someone he thought was hot. I ended up going into the bathroom while the guy was doing his business and I wrote this to a friend:

The way he flexed his calves as he was putting it away tells me he was lifting something heavy. Oh, and he's wearing flip flops.

Nice huh?

A blog note I found reads:

Ab muscle ridges like mashed potato and gravy tunnels.

I remember writing this about a guy who was at my bar. He didn't just have a six pack or an eight pack, he had a beautifully sculpted stomach. There were so many ridges and lines in his stomach it reminded me of making tunnels in mashed potatoes so the gravy would have someplace to run...

Another note to myself:

I wish the DJ would play three songs in a row without emptying the Iberville Projects.

A note about a customer:

Spitting Bear Doing Cher

There were a group of bear type guys at my bar. The Cher song "Bang Bang" was on and one guy went from bear to drag in .5 seconds. He was swiveling his hips, snapping his fingers, in general he was getting down. Then he turned his head and spat a huge lug of tobacco on the floor. A spitting bear doing Cher.

Just a few notes to pass the time.

September 12th, finally...

2006-09-12T16:01:00.001-04:00

I have avoided television for days now but think it's safe to return to the waters. Yesterday I swam through (and by that I mean I hit the delete key) on a number of e-mails sent out by various groups and certain friends. Basically anything that looked like a jingoistic war rally cry about how the wives of NY firemen needed more cash to buy a beach house was left unread. I logged on to MySpace to find what I think was the best thing written that day by my friend Dimitri:

As you know today is the anniversary of a terrible political event which changed the fate of a nation and the world. We must never forget it and we must always hold those behind it responsible and continue our attempts to bring them to justice.

I'm talking of course about the September 11 1973 US-sponsored coup against Salvador Allende of Chile; the world's first democratically elected Marxist leader. It brought along not only Allende's death, but also Augusto Pinochet's 27-year-long reign of terror, defended by the US and Britain.

Somewhere out there, Henry Kissinger lives as a free man.

Oh and as for the other thing that happened on this date....

Why do they hate us?

Confusion

2006-09-10T17:17:00.000-04:00

My last post about flip flips in bars and the photo of the sign barring them was a bit mis-leading. If I had done what a good journalist had done and given a photo credit, this wouldn't have happened. This photo was a picture that was sent to me by Mattie and was taken of a bar in San diego. I have not convinced the pub to ban flip flips on any level. In fact, just the opposite. This sickens me, but I am going to tell you good people. Two of our bartenders actually wear flip flops while bartending. I know. I know. Gross, huh. Well hey, as long as they don't touch me with their blackened feet I will be okay. I ran into another friend over decadence who told me that he had been out all day wearing flip flops but then was going to go out to dinner. Being of somewhat sound mind he knew he couldn't wear them to a restaurant. Not having time for a shower he simply put socks on over his DIRTY DIRTY feet. He told me "Yeah, I knew it was nasty but I didn't have a choice." I hope he just threw those socks away...

Follow up...

2006-09-09T06:28:00.000-04:00

Okay, so I've been fascinated with the wooden legged hooker since this story began. It's like one of those things, someone mentions peanut M&M's and all the sudden you see them everywhere. Since he was pointed out to me I notice this guy every day. Thursday night is the amateur strip contest at the bar and the host asks if anyone is celebrating anything. Pirate Joe (the wooden legged hooker) goes up and tells her it's his birthday. Afterwards I went downstairs and mentioned it to a friend. This is how the conversation went:

Me: So I was just upstairs and from what I gather, it's old peg leg's birthday...

My Friend: Oh yeah, well let's cut her in half and count the rings.

Only my friends...but the next big joke (mine) was wondering if he shouts "Thar' she blows!" when he has an orgasm...

Seriously, I need help.

2006-09-09T06:26:00.000-04:00

Finally! The world starts to catch on to my plight...

Okay, this was funny...

2006-09-02T19:30:00.000-04:00

So I was sitting at the bar on Thursday night, late, very late... Seated next to me was porn guru Chi-Chi LaRue. She was talking to one of our local thug/hooker/street trash types. They were macking on each other and it got to be time for me to leave. Another queen who I know was standing there looking at the scene and said "I hope she's not disappointed when she finds out he's got a 2 inch dick and a wooden leg..."

Hysterical, yes and I really thought this would be funniest thing I would hear the entire holiday.

I was relating the story to a co-worker last night and after I told him the punch line he said "Oh it's not 2 inches"

Perfect.

I will try to post a wrap up after the holiday is over. Thus far I would brand it as not that great. There are a lot of people here, and it's been great to see some old friends that I haven't seen in forever. Work wise it's been nothing more than a busy weekend, not the overwhelming speed demon type that Decadence used to entail.

Quickly...

2006-08-24T23:34:00.000-04:00

I am still on vacation, currently in L.A. visiting my sister. Mattie has come up from San Diego and we are going to go out to the bars soon. Before I did anything else I had to sit down for a moment and tell my faithful readers about my day. For years now I have known about a very special tour of L.A. called the Dearly Departed Tour. It used to be called the Graveline tour but ownership changes and the what not have turned it into this tour. I have dreamed of going on this tour and today I finally got to experience it for myself. We saw a lot of different sites, homes of movie stars living and dead, quirky little places (Like the first place Marilyn Monroe ever had her hair dyed blonde)and my reason for going in the first place, crime scenes. We got to see the LaBianca's home (slaughtered by the Manson Family) and the home where Lyle and Eric Menendez shotgunned their parents. We heard actual recordings from Charlie Manson, the desperate 911 call from Eric Menendez saying someone had murdered his parents. Oh, we also got to hear the 911 call from Joaquin Phoenix after his brother River overdosed in front of the Viper Room. It was such a wonderful time, I really enjoyed it and took a lot of pictures. When we got back the man who runs the tour (Scott) was kind enough to give us directions on how to get to the site of the Tate residence up high in Benedict Canyon. The home itself was torn down by the current owner and a new home is being constructed there. We managed to finally find Cielo drive and made our way up to the very top. I managed to get a picture through the gates of the place where the home had stood. Then we drove over to just the other side of the canyon and got some more pics. The telephone pole that Tex Watkins climbed to cut the phone lines to the Tate residence still stands, hopefully it will come out in the photos. It was a great time, macabre, yes but still very cool.

Okay, I will write the whole story later, I just wanted to get a little bit of that one out. I'll be home soon...

I'm hurt...

2006-08-18T15:32:00.000-04:00

I can't believe that some of my readers would really assume that I would skip over these last two exciting days in the Jon Benet Ramsey case. I was simply waiting until I had time to devote to my entire rant on the issue. When I first heard the news that an arrest had been made, I was as excited as a pedophile at an Amber alert. I had visions of Pattsy Ramsey's corpse being dug up and handcuffed. I'm really not sure that this guy Karr is the killer, I'm not convinced yet. Just this once I'm going to side with John Ramsey, and cautiously wait.

It really is exciting...

Does anyone have a carrot?

2006-08-17T19:41:00.000-04:00

So my vision in my left eye has worsened. I have to go back in a month to have a baseline test for glaucoma for gods sake. I am getting way too old.

Well did you evuh?

2006-08-17T15:52:00.000-04:00

Well did you evuh think I was coming back? I promised I would. Now, now, don't be like that, you are acting like my puppies when I come in from taking out garbage, I've only been gone a split second and here you are slobbering. Okay, so you're not slobbering. Okay, so I've been gone a month and a half. Fine. I'm sorry.

This will not be a catching up post, merely a note to let you know I am still alive and that I will still write in my blog.

In just a few days I am going on vacation, where I doubt I will have time to write. Saturday I fly off to Las Vegas to meet Jason from Indy and we'll spend a few days relaxing by the pool at the Wynn hotel and going to see the Barry Manilow concert. Next Tuesday I fly off to L.A. to see my sister who has recently re-located there. I haven't been to L.A. in years so we'll see what I think of the place. I'm only going to see her and of course Mattie, who will be driving up from San Diego to spend a couple days with me.

There has been a lot of things that have happened over the last month and a half, a lot of birthdays, a few funerals, an excrutiating minimum of sex, a stalker, visits from out of towners and new electronics to learn how to use. Hopefully I will get to all of them before my brain saps the memory.

The last hour of my life has been spent searching for a broken pair of sunglasses. Why search for a broken pair of sunglasses, well I'll tell you. I bought these polarized glasses at the optometrists office and they were very expensive. I had them for about a year and one of the lenses popped out. I put them aside swearing I would run down to the vision center and have them fixed. This was probably about a year and a half ago. Today I am going for an eye exam and thought "I should take those glasses to be repaired!" Now I can't find them. I could blame the hurricane for my procrastination but I just put things away to "deal with them later" and occasionally lose them. These glasses may have gone by the wayside, as I can't figure out anyplace they would be unless I took them to my storage unit uptown. I'm not going up there today to search for them, although, it is on my way to the eye doctor. Hmmm...gotta run!

Stay Tuned, I will return!

Brief Scare...

2006-07-04T18:01:00.000-04:00

Sunday afternoon I wasn't really feeling all that great. I had been off the night before and had gone out, consumed a few drinks so it wasn't that odd that I would feel bad the next morning. My friend Justin texted and we agreed to go grab some food at Louisiana Pizza Kitchen. I only ate about half of my personal pizza and had to get to work. By the time I got there I felt like crap and actually threw up. My bosses offered to let me go home and so I did, thankfully. I went to bed to try to sleep but wasn't able. The longer I laid there the worse I felt and then my chest began to hurt, badly. I have lived in a state of distrust since I had the heart attack in February and so I was really worried about this pain. Just for measure I took four baby aspirin. The pain did get really bad and I considered going to the emergency room several times but the pain would subside a bit. I was scared to go to sleep but eventually got a few hours. The next morning I called my doctors office early and told him what had happened. He sent me in for blood tests to check my cardiac enzymes. Those tests came back today normal so I didn't have another heart attack and thankfully don't have to have another angiogram. What happened is kind of a mystery and I will probably undergo some more tests this week, probably an ultrasound on my gall bladder. I feel fine now but for safeties sake they are keeping me home from work at least until tomorrow.

Not to worry gentle readers, I'll be here to spin my tales for a long time...

Absolutely Hysterical!

2006-07-02T00:17:00.000-04:00

For anyone who lives in New Orleans or loves New Orleans or just anybody who has a sick sense of humor (which should include most of my readers) then you must check out this website.

How to Fucking Evacuate

For David Jack

2006-07-01T20:42:00.000-04:00

This is how I listen to my IPod in the shower without getting it wet...

Happy Happy Birthday Puppies!

2006-07-01T12:42:00.000-04:00

Yes that's right, today is my puppies birthday!

My two puppies, Dash and Chase, turn five years old today. Technically this makes them 35, and since I myself will soon be 35, we are all celebrating!

Yesterday I went out and bought the puppies their birthday dinner, a big juicy steak for each of them. Later today I will grill them up and watch the 4.5 seconds it takes for them to wolf it down.

Happy Birthday Puppies!

The Spell (ing) Has Been Broken...

2006-06-30T16:24:00.000-04:00

A few months ago I bought an IPod. It's a big 30GB thing, capable of holding 7500 songs, or a mix of video and music. Slowly I have added music and now have about a third of the space taken up, still that's a lot of music. I listen to it every day when I take a shower and sometimes at night to go to sleep. While I have a playlist labeled "gym music" it hasn't taken too many trips to a fitness center. It's becoming my ritual to flip through the IPod every day (afternoon) deciding what I want to listen to during my shower. I take long showers, taking advantage of the steamy surroundings to shave (my face) and let the water relax my usually sore shoulders. I listen to various things, two days ago it was Prince (The Hits # 1) and yesterday it was Stephen Lynch. Today for variety I scrolled down to the end of the list and started playing TV theme songs. I love theme songs, growing up a latch key kid with cable, I adored television in general. Like most kids I ate a steady diet of TV, much of it produced by Aaron Spelling or Norman Lear.

Much has been said of Spelling since his death last Friday from complications of a stroke. Family feuds, his lavish home and his humble raising all have been dissected. He created some of my favorite television shows, from "Hart to Hart" to "Love Boat" to "Fantasy Island" (which usually scared the shit out of me)and the show that was supposed to spur my young boy fantasies, "Charlies Angels". I did love that show but don't remember ever being turned on by the jiggling breasts that were so prominently thrust into the main of that show. Fast forward to my adult life and my friends and I gathering on Monday nights to watch "90210" and "Melrose" (and the wonderful 'Ally McBeal')and the short lived "Models Inc." which featured a return to television of one of my 80's favorite stars, Linda Gray. While I type this, another Spelling show, Charmed, is on my television. While his shows were panned at times for being fluff TV, compare them to what airs today. Shows like King of Queens, everybody Loves Raymond, these do not compare to Spellings hits. In addition to his string of hit television shows he also produced such fun little movies as "The Boy in the Plastic Bubble" and a history of the beginning of the HIV/AIDS massacre "And the Band Played On". Somewhat unfortunately he also co-produced Tori Spelling, who has occasionally amused but usually annoyed audiences.

While Spelling was creating his shows, Norman Lear was creating sitcoms that pushed the envelope as well as entertained. Long before Roseanne broke molds with their depiction of low rent living, Lears "All in the Family" was making waves. Open discussions of race from a bigots point of view and other touchy subjects such as women's rights and even rape were all a part of the show. Lear was also the king of the spin off, directly spinning off "Archie Bunkers Place" and "Gloria". From that one show he created "The Jeffersons" (which had it's own short lived and forgettable spin-off called "Checking In" and the character Edith Bunkers cousin played by Bea Arthur had a hit with "Maude". This was another ground breaking show, culminated by Maudes decision at one point in the series to have an abortion. Maude had it's own spin off, "Good Times" featuring the ever annoying character, J.J. Evans. Another show of his that I liked and one of only two television shows to be set in my hometown of Indianapolis, "One Day at a Time" (the first season of 'Saved by the Bell' was the other set in Indy.) Moving into the late 70's and early 80's Lear gave us "The Facts of Life" and it's spin-off show "Different Strokes". Keeping with his teen theme he also created "Square Pegs" and "Silver Spoons." Lear continued his reign with the long running (and some say new low for television) "Married with Children." While it may have been a new low, it was old stomping ground to Lear, whose series have almost always created controversy. He attempted to re-create the success of All in the Family by creating "704 Hauser" in 1994. 704 Hauser was the address of the Bunker home and in this half hearted spin-off a black family moves into the home and re-addresses some of the issues put forth on the original show.

The one main difference between the two producers, other than Spellings penchant for drama and Lears predilection to comedy was one simple thing. The theme song. Most of Spellings shows had musical introductions, while Lears shows gave us some of the best TV theme songs ever made. This is the main thing I wanted to write about, how most shows created today are incomplete, they have no snappy theme song. There are exceptions like "Family Guy" and the long running "Cops" (Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha gonna do..)but most theme songs have gone the way of most television shows, whittled down to a sound bite and a formula. I guess I'll have to stick to my IPod and my showers can always be filled with the themes of lives long gone to re-run. Check out TV Land to hear some of the best theme songs ever made.

The War Continues...

2006-06-30T14:31:00.000-04:00

Vindication is always nice when you feel strongly about something. One of my life's passions is my intense dislike of flip flops. Let me be clear here. I am not against the "shoes" themselves, but of the inappropriate places that people wear them. I have no problem with flip flops at the beach, or in public showers such as gyms or even around your own house if you must. Summertime brings out the worst of the flip flop offenders people are finally starting to notice.

Robin Givhan, staff writer for the Washington Post, recently wrote this article which covers not only the issue of wrong-time, wrong place flip wearing, but the general issue of people wearing things that make them a blight on society. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for everyone having self esteem, I just don't think it should be forced on me. If you have no problem being 30 pounds overweight, then I say go for it, but don't wear low riding jeans with your whale tail sticking out over your thong.

I digress.

After reading her article I wrote to Miss Givhan;

Hooray to you for your stance against inappropriate flip-flopping. I work in a bar on Bourbon Street in New Orleans. Every night I see hordes of people wearing these disgusting slimy pieces of rubber, their blackened soles being slap-slap-slapped as they walk in the spilled beer and other debris. Once again it seems the world is dividing itself down into two categories; those who know that flip flops are only appropriate in a few places and the rest, dirty footed morons.

Keep up the good fight!

A day or two later I received a nice little note back from my new best friend;

Dear Lawrence,

Thanks for the nice note!

Robin

Regular reader John F. from Indianapolis sent me this yahoo news story today. Though I am not a big fan of corporate policies, I wouldn't mind seeing federal law banning flip flops from all inappropriate places.

Trannie Attack!

2006-06-28T19:29:00.000-04:00

Special thanks to Dillon for sending this story. I had heard about this but had not see it in print. Read on...

Transvestite crime gangs pester Magazine Street owners

Robyn Lewis, owner of Dark Charm fashion and accessories for women,
represents the first line of defense for the Magazine Street shop owners.
She is the first to see them come strutting in their pumps down St. Andrew
Street, the bewigged pack of thieves who have plagued the Lower Garden
District since May. Like an SOS flare, Lewis grabs her emergency phone list and starts calling.

“They’re coming,” she warns Eric Ogle a salesman at Vegas, a block down
Magazine Street. Ogle, who was terrorized by the brazen crew two months
earlier, alerts neighboring Winky’s where manager Kendra Bonga braces for
the onslaught.

Soon every shop owner in the 2000 block of Magazine Street has been alerted.

Sarah Celino at Trashy Diva eyes the door, ready to flip the lock at the
first sight of the ringleader’s pink jumpsuit and fluorescent red wig.

Down at Turncoats, where the fashion-happy gang once made off with more than
$2,000 in merchandise, store manager Wes Davis stands ready.

Davis said it wasn’t supposed to be like this. They survived Hurricane
Katrina’s Category 3 winds and the ensuing looters. They reopened despite
the long odds of doing business in a devastated city. The last thing the
Magazine Street shop owners expected to threaten their survival was a crime
ring of transvestites.

“They’re fearless,” said Ogle. “Once they see something they like they won’t
stop until they have it. They don’t care, they’ll go to jail. It’s really
gotten bad. You know it’s ridiculous when everyone on the block knows who
they are.”

Expensive tastes

The transvestites first appeared in March when they raided Magazine Street
like a marauding army of kleptomaniacal showgirls, said Davis, using
clockwork precision and brute force to satisfy high-end boutique needs.

They first hit Vegas March 31 while Ogle was working.

“They come in groups of three or four. One tries to distract you while the
others get the stuff and run out the door. It’s very simple,” Ogle said.

Next door at Winky’s, Bonga heard people screaming inside Vegas, then saw a
blur of cheap wigs and masculine legs in designer shoes streak past her
door.

“All of a sudden our UPS guy dove out of the store and tried to tackle them
and there’s little Eric from next door on the sidewalk with a bunch of
stuff he managed to grab from one of the guys,” Bonga said. “The other two
guys took off down the street and jumped into a car driven by a real girl.”

Ogle gave police a description of the perpetrators — African-American males
ranging in height from 6 feet to 6-5. They all wore the same midriff shirts
and wigs with twisted, dreadnaught hair.

“They’re all very skinny and very flamboyant,” Ogle said.

Two hours after the police left, the transvestites returned to Magazine
Street to storm Turncoats just a block away from Vegas, and made off with
more than $2,000 in merchandise.

“They move like clockwork,” Davis said. “Two thousand dollars is a lot for
our store to lose, especially being in the slow summer season. It makes it
so I can’t even mark my stuff down as much as I want to because I’m trying
to make up for what I lost.”

In the ensuing weeks, the gang of transvestites continued their reign of
terror. Sometimes they come dressed as men, though Bonga said it is obvious
who they are based on their delicately plucked eyebrows. Sometimes they
bring 2-year-old children to add to the level of distraction. They once
returned to Vegas holding an “infant” that really was a Cabbage Patch doll
wrapped in a blanket.

“They’ll make themselves scarce for a few weeks and then one day you’ll be
busy with a customer and all of a sudden there’s a whole slew of them in
your store and there’s nothing you can do because you’re there by
yourself,” Lewis said.

Scarce evidence

The New Orleans Police Department investigated the Turncoats robbery but
unless police catch a shoplifter in the act or in possession of stolen
property there is little they can do besides take a report, said NOPD
spokeswoman Bambi Hall.

“If store security states that someone took something, and then by the time
we apprehend them they don’t have the property, then there’s really nothing
we can do because it’s their word against the (suspect),” Hall said.

Lewis said she understands the understaffed NOPD has bigger priorities than
to “catch a drag queen running down the street with an armful of clothing.”
So the store owners created their own watchdog system unofficially known as
the “Drag Queen Alert List,” a comprehensive phone roster of every business
on the block with stars next to those who carry guns.

When one shop owner spots a gang member, they immediately warn everyone on
the block and raise their defenses in unison.

When they enter Turncoats, Davis said he locks them inside the store, which
“freaks them out,” and they leave.

Celino said she doesn’t even wait for them to enter the store.

“A couple weeks ago, a group of them was outside and one looked like the guy
who came in here and ripped us off so I locked the door on them,” Celino
said. “I know maybe that’s rude, if they really were innocent people, but
there’s nothing else we can do. You look like the queens who ripped us off
so I’m sorry but I have to lock the door.”

Ogle and Bonga say they regret being forced to resort to such profiling but
they feel they have no other choice. The transvestites, Ogle said, appear
to be drug-addicted and fearless in their lust for designer shoes, jackets
and jewelry.

“The city’s not functioning the way it was and I’m sure a lot of them were
getting some kind of government aid, which they probably aren’t getting any
more so they’re incredibly desperate,” Ogle said.

And sometimes violent.

When Lewis co-owned Trashy Diva, they attacked one of her partners in the
French Quarter location, throwing her to the ground and tossing a heavy
mannequin on top of her.

“They’re kind of confused because they think they’re women so they don’t
mind hitting women, but they’re dudes. If you get hit by one it’s like
getting hit by a dude. ... Because the police are so poorly staffed, we’re
kind of on our own but the system we have seems to be working. I haven’t
seen them in at least a week but they’ll be back. They’re never gone for
long.”•

Golden Gaffe

2006-06-28T17:57:00.000-04:00

It's been a while since I posted a Golden Gaffe. Here goes.

In one episode the girls are about to discuss some issue around the kitchen table when Rose says she is going to get the girls favorite treat, ice cream and chocolate syrup. What? Everyone knows their favorite treat is cheesecake.

Secondly, the episode where Stan shows up and wants Dorothy to sign some papers to sell a piece of swamp land that they purchased on their honeymoon. If you recall Dorothy and Stan were both in high school when they went on their first date and Dorothy got pregnant. Now it's not so much of a gaffe as it is an inconceivable idea. Two brooklyn kids from a poor neighborhood go on a date, have sex, she gets pregnant, they get married. How did they afford to go on a honeymoon to Miami and on top of it all, buy a piece of property, even if it is swampland?

Where are the editors?

Full Disclosure

2006-06-28T17:37:00.000-04:00

The challenge was issued and I accepted. My co-worker J.D. and I were to bowl three games (and one practice game) to a best two out of three.

We headed to Kenner's All Star bowl last night about 10:30 and set upon our task, namely the shredding of J.D.

The practice game went fine, JD was getting his bearings, I was bowling haphazardly, not wearing myself out. I easily won the practice game and the first game, though both were bowled far below my average game. Then we were bombarded by the wait staff of Corky's Pig Pit BBQ. There must have been 12 or 13 or them. They were 18-21 year old kids, so one would expect them to be a bit loud or obnoxious which they were. The problem was that they had not one clue about bowling etiquette. If you are not familiar with the rules of bowling, they are pretty simple. When the person in the next lane is bowling, you wait. When you're done bowling your frame, you stay off the lane. These rules were lost on two of the girls who spent the majority of their bowling time either hurling their bowling balls down the aisle or running around on the bowling deck. It was maddening. The moment I would step up to bowl one of the two girls would grab a ball and streak past me screaming and carrying on like it was the end of the world. I wasn't able to concentrate in any way and I bowled like crap. J.D. said that he was enduring the same thing but I pointed out that he was much more used to this kind of behavior. Long story short (I know, too late) I lost the last two games.

I admit my loss in the same vein that Al Gore admitted defeat. A re-challenge has been issued by me to bowl somewhere without the massive distractions and possibly on a night when I haven't bowled three games the night before. At first I thought I was just being a sore loser but then there was a moment of vindication. The more obnoxious of the two girls hurled her ball down her lane and it bounced all the way into the next lane. Moments later the same girl bowled when the gate was down, a very big no-no.

So there you have it, full disclosure...

Update

2006-06-27T15:43:00.000-04:00

I finished the bowling season and I think my team has secured 3rd place. I bowled a very sad 139 for my first game but came back for a 171 and a 169, both above my 156 average. My god, I am utter white trash. Seriously I drank two hi-life beers at the bowling alley.

A boy I work with at the pub, J.D. has issued a bowling challenge to me so we are going tonight. It's the only night we are both off this week. I think a couple of other friends are coming along as well. It's going to be a shame when I kick his ass and then am able to gloat about it all week long. I suppose he could win but I don't think he's got it in him...hee hee, got it in him...hee hee...whoops sorry.

Okay, for an update on smokin' hot boy that I mentioned on Saturday. On Sunday I asked where his boring friend was. He said he got rid of him and I said "well he doesn't even have sex" to which smokin' boy replied sheepishly, "He does as of this morning." Hot.

I wanted to thank everyone for all your fabulous comments about the Patsy Ramsey blog. It's good to know that all my friends are as sick and twisted as I am. Also I am glad that y'all check my blog even when I haven't been writing in a while. I'll try to keep up my blog whoring ways, but you know, I get busy.

Ciao!

Happy Anniversary to Me!

2006-06-26T18:03:00.000-04:00

Saturday was the two year anniversary of my blog. Although my writing lately has been hit or miss, I do have a lot of back blogs that will eventually be published.

The weekend at the bar was a busy one. Friday night I was off and spent the day being uber-productive. Lately I have been stressed by the lack of storage space in my house. There are only three closets in our entire house and they are all in my bedroom, my very small bedroom. I decided I could free up some space in my bedroom by getting rid of my bookcase. Keep in mind, I am not the handiest person with tools, but I was going to give it a whirl. Most of my family are "handy" type people. Somehow my mother, sister and I missed this gene. My mother and I have a continuous joke, whenever we are trying (and failing) to do anything mechanical we joke that my now deceased grandfather is looming over our shoulders laughing at us. I went to Lowes and bought shelves and brackets and all the screws and even a stud finder (which didn't work that well on walls that contain both sheetrock and plaster.) It took a few hours for me to get everything lined up (with the help of my laser line level.) Things would probably have gone faster had I bothered to check if my cordless drill was completely charged. It wasn't so I was using it while plugged in, not it's most efficient usage. Most of the screws had to be screwed by hand, but at last I finished. It's been two days and they are still standing, we'll see how long my job holds. I'm happy with the results and was able to make my room look a little less cluttered.

Back at the bar...Saturday night was fun, lots of good people. It got a little annoying but mostly fun. A smokin' hot boy that I have known for several years came in and told me he was moving to Houston on Thursday. He had a cute little boy by his side who I tried to get him to have some fun, but he was just sitting there like a bump on a log. When slo-mo was in the bathroom I was talking to my hot friend. He complained that the boy is boring and that he only likes to make out and won't even take his pants off in bed. Having once made out with the hot boy I spoke from experience when I said "Well you're fun to make out with," to which he replied very slyly, "yeah but I'm more fun to fuck." I couldn't have said it better myself.

Sunday night was a nightmare. The first problem was that I had only slept about two hours. I can't sleep lately, I don't know why. By about 4 this morning I turned to my co-worker and said "Can I please go home now?" and he took pity on my drooping lids and let me go. I took a Lunesta and slept six SOLID hours, more continuous sleep without nightmares I have had in some time. The second reason work was so hellish was the unending number of idiots that were in the house. Not to beat a theme to death but I really think those make-a-wish people were pissed at my earlier comments about them and sent in the salvation army rehabiliation center to get me back. I have never seen so many people who were borderline retarded in my life. Coupled with that was the inevitable appearance by my least favorite customer. I have no idea what his name is, I just call him "the spick." Now before anyone jumps all over me for using a derogatory racial term, let me explain. This guy comes up to the bar and immediately has his hands all over any guy around him, regardless of what they look like, straight or gay, with someone or single, he has no standards. He and I had several run-ins and every single time I asked him to stop or told him to get away from my bar he PRETENDS that he can't speak english. That's why I call him a spick, a dirty little lying prick-spick. I hate him. Really, I know people who say hate is a strong word, but it's true, I HATE HIM. As my mother would say, I wouldn't walk across the street to piss in his mouth if he teeth were on fire. So anyway, the spick is there, along with another annoying Hispanic man who thinks he should be the first person waited on, regardless of who else is waiting. Three separate times the spick came up to my bar and I just looked at him and said "no." It took me a few minutes more to get rid of his rude cousin but finally I got rid of him too. It was just a strange night overall, people were somewhat rude, though I did see a lot of regulars and friends. The music was fun but nothing really new.

I actually feel so much better today having slept some and having the next two days off work. Tonight is the final night of this season of the gay bowling league. It's been fun and the summer session starts in just a few week's. I should have a new team by then including one of my old teammates.

Ciao for now!

Miss West Virginia R.I.P

2006-06-25T18:42:00.000-04:00

Karmic justice is a slow business these days. Yesterday it was announced that Patsy Ramsey, mother of slain beauty queen Jon-Benet Ramsey, had succumbed to ovarian cancer. All joking aside, a battle with ovarian cancer is a very painful end and she had been dealing with this since 1993, she had a very tough battle. After her initial diagnosis she underwent a treatment program that was experimental and she is the longest survivor of that treatment.

True to her long time claim of innocence in her daughters death, Patsy took with her to the grave any new evidence that might have cleared or indicted her family. Between the bungled job done by the Colorado P.D. and the Ramseys own oft confusing and bewildering behavior the case has never been solved. There was a recent claim that DNA found on Jon-Benets body didn't match anyone in the household but it never went any further. The Ramseys wrote a book entitled "The death of innocence" about their experience and the accusations that had been made against both parents.

Although a federal judge ruled that the Ramseys were not responsible for their daughters death, and that an intruder was, many people continue to assume that the parents were somehow involved in the girls murder.

People like me.

I don't care what the Ramseys have said, an intrudor did not break into the house in the middle of the night, write a ransom note AT the house demanding 118,000 dollars (the exact amount of Johns bonus)and then take the girl to the basement, strangle and beat her and leave with nothing. As for what really happened, it's anybodies guess. I believe that no matter who killed the girl, mom, dad, little brother, whoever, John and Patsy knew what happened and tried to cover it up. Maybe Burke killed her accidentally, maybe John was beating the girl and she died, maybe Patsy flew into a rage over her daughters success. Maybe Jon-Benet was just an annoying little psycho bitch who was going to tell about daddies kisses and mommy treating her like a dress up whore.

By the way, Patsy was Miss West Virginia in 1977. I hear she's going to be named Miss St. James Cemetery 2006 as well.

Let me back up...

2006-06-17T18:10:00.000-04:00

Since I haven't blogged in a while I suppose I have some backstories to tell.

The last few weeks have been busy. My friend Jason came to visit from Indianapolis and when he went home I went to Indy with him. When I came back I had a few days before Matt came to visit from San Diego. Whew. Jasons visit was mostly uneventful, we went out to dinner, played some video poker, drank and partied. On our way back to Indy the fun began. We had upgraded to business class so we were well into our second complimentary cocktail when they came on the intercom to announce that we had a special guest flying with us today. Little what's his name, flying home from his very special trip to meet his favorite wrestler as part of the make-a-wish foundation. It seems these people are everywhere I travel. Go to an amusement park, wait in line for a ride and inevitably will come a group of people (tards, make-a-wishers) who have the "right" to board before you. Try to find a parking place and because you're non-handicapped you have to park a million miles away. The worst however are the people in the power chairs. Now I'm not saying that people should be immobile or that people with disabilities should be shunned. I'm simply saying that having a disability doesn't give you special rights. Just because you are in a power chair doesn't give you the right to run over my fricking foot with your chair. The make-a-wish kid on my flight and his older, apparently non-troubled brother were whispering and pointing at me before their flight. Obviously a lack of white blood cells doesn't cure homophobia. The flight attendants took their pictures, called him brave and sent him back to coach.

Air tran managed to lose Jasons luggage and though we waited for a bit, they weren't able to assure us it would be in on the next flight. Our friend Jeff picked us up at the airport and took us to Jasons house. I realized in the car that I have known Jeff since he and my sister became best friends in the second grade, almost 30 years ago. Jason and I have known each other since middle school, somewhere around 1984. It was interesting to realize how much history I had in just these two people. We went back to Jasons and watched some tv, had some drinks and then I went to bed. The next few days were non-eventful, (I am intentionally leaving out Thursday night, I will explain why in a few minutes) taking my grandmother to the doctor, dinner with my mother, drinks with friends. Friday night I went to OP's for line dancing and saw a lot of old friends. Saturday morning I headed south with my sister to "The Ranch". Before I left Indy in January I was invited to go on this outing with all the kids who worked at MacNivens. Basically they close down the restaurant and take all their employees on a weekend outing as a reward. It's a working horse ranch on the edge of Brown County State Park. There is a main house with a huge sundeck (the site of the mega water balloon invasion on Sunday afternoon) and then down the hill is a huge barn, the downstairs of which is just that, a bar, with horse stalls and the such. Horses are outside during the day but at night they are housed elsewhere. Upstairs, accessible by stairs on either end of the building, there is a large common room with a dining area at either end. The rest of the building is broken down into dorm type rooms with large bunkbeds and each with a private bathroom. I shared a room with Marjan, my sister, Loren and uber-cute Matt. Most of the weekend was spent drinking cheap beer (go Hi-Life!) and playing cornhole, which is a game sort of similar to the old game toss across. It's quite popular among the staff, so much so that they had a whole tournament. I only got through one round before I was trounced. Sunday night was the frenzied close of the tournament and no-one was really calling the action so I took it over. Using my best Triumph the insult comic dog I did an hour or so of color commentary, needling contestants and begging for someone to end the pain of the super slow games. It got late and since my sister and I had to leave early the next morning we decided to leave that night and drive back to Indy. We packed up and left, both having had a lot of fun. My roommates and I had gone to Brown County Inn for breakfast and then into the little artist community. Some of you may recall this sign which I saw on another trip to Brown County with Matt. The same store still had it so I purchased the sign and had it mailed back to New Orleans. It's now hanging over my back door.

Monday we went to the horse races with our mothers family. It was fun but it takes so much time. I didn't win much but I didn't lose much either. Tuesday was fun, I met Jason at Ivy's and then we went to Metro where we hung out with a bunch of kids we had just met and avoided a really creepy guy named J.D. After that we went to Metro and though I'm sure I started it, suddenly shirts were coming off and pants were coming down and then boyfriends started breaking up...we left before things got really out of hand. The next day I headed back to New Orleans.

I had to work for several days in a row after I came back. Wednesday before last Mattie P. came to visit from San Diego. I had to work the first few nights but had Friday night off to hang out. This of course led to a trip to the corner pocket and a sideline through Le Round-Up. Matt's trip was fun but mostly uneventful. He got to see a lot of old friends and we got to spend time together. Monday night I went to bowling and managed to eek out a 198 and a 152 to offset my 132.

This week I've been to the movies twice, both with Justin. The first was Prairie Home Companion. Now I'm not a regular listener but I know the style of the show and the dry humor level. I really enjoyed the movie, the performances by Kiellor and Lily Tomlin and Meryll Streep were wonderful and even the little coke head herself Lindsay Lohan was amusing. Virginia Madsens role was an odd one but I just adore her anyway.

Last night I went to see "An Inconvenient Truth," the Al Gore film. It was absolutely amazing, and frightening and sad and angering. There is no disputing many of the findings which aren't so much his findings but a collection of information presented as a slide show. If it's playing where you are, you must go and see this movie. The only part of the show I didn't care for were these little asides about his son being hit by a car and his sister dying of lung cancer and his own election problems. I mean they were an interesting glimpse into the life of the former VP but it had little to do with what he was trying to tell people about global warming.

I'm off to work in a few but should send out some early birthday shout outs to Jim in San Francisco (Sunday) and my brother Michael (Tuesday) and to DJ Rev, the pubs own Blair Quintana (Wednesday I think.)

I'll write more soon including the left out Thursday night in Indy which has to do with a very attractive Chicago boy named Matthew. More on him at a later date...

Ciao!

I wish I had my own newspaper...

2006-06-05T15:29:00.000-04:00

If I had my own newspaper I could spend time exploring some hard hitting issues. A hearty discussion would certainly come out of a recent dilemma of mine. There were two boys at the bar making out feverishly, one I know and the other a tourist. The tourist was "backin' that ass up" against the boy I know, I mean really grinding into him. Now I was told by someone else that the New Orleans boy was a jackrabbit pushy bottom, but he was certainly doing an impression of a top this night. The problem was this; should I tell the tourist, who was obviously looking to be topped, that he was going to be sadly disappointed when he took down this boys pants. Now I haven't seen the boy naked but I take it from a good source that he gives new meaning to the phrase "micro-cock." Now I am mostly kidding, I would never tell someone that they were about to go home with someone that was hung like a fifth grader, but the thought of it was amusing...

Now a serious issue. I think this one really does need to be investigated. Beyonce; pop diva or GPS tracking device for every tragic black tranny hooker in a twenty block radius? Seriously. Picture it, it's around 2AM and the VJ is trying to pick the crowd back up, he puts on a Beyonce song and suddenly the doorways fill with big hair and enough hormone created tits to fill up the superdome after a major hurricane. I know it must seem that I pick on tragic black tranny hookers a lot here on this page, but they really bug me. There are several girls who come in the bar who are beautiful, well mannered, good tippers, but they are by FAR the minority. The one thing I do wonder is how they don't have back problems. Most of the ones I see do this back arching bit. It's an old trick of strippers, "tits out, box in, sell! sell! sell!" Their tits (real or otherwise) are jutted out while they simultaneously push their ass out to make it look bigger. I would think your back would hurt from doing this but hell, shoving a size 12 foot into a size 6 sling-back probably doesn't feel good either.

I'm not going to write too much today, just getting back into the swing of things. Recently I have been seeing this commercial for Lysol. They say that other brands don't kill off virus that cause illness. One of those virus is the rotovirus which I kept mis-hearing and thinking they were saying rhodavirus. Rotovirus may cause diarrhea but the Rhodavirus is much worse. It's the sick feeling you get in your stomach when you realize that you will never be the Mary, you'll always be the Rhoda.

Dear Faithful Readers...

2006-05-26T21:23:00.000-04:00

Dear Faithful Readers...

I know it's been a while since my last post, and never fear, I shall return. At the moment I am in Indiana visiting family and friends. Tomorrow I take a side trip to southern Indiana to go on a ranch trip with my sister and the rest of the MacNivens crew. It should be fun, though a karaoke contest was mentioned and no good will come of that. It's inevitable that before the weekend is out my sister and I will have sung "Harper Valley P.T.A." and I will be forced to warble my way through the Green Acres theme song at least once. The trip should be fun though and then Monday I am going with my family to the horse races at Indiana Downs. I have a slight problem with this being the owner of two former racing greyhounds, but racing horses are treated very well all things considered, unless you count that whole putting them down if they break a leg.

Anyway, I will be back soon and will have many posts to write. We have topics to cover, including the very disappointing election, second line parades and the end of my baby Einstein moment not to mention the trip I am on right now which includes a near run in with a make-a-wish child.

In the meantime of my awaited posts, I encourage everyone to run out (or log on) and get yourself a copy of Augusten Burroughs new novel "Possible Side Effects".

The other new book on my bedside table is the new in paperback "Haunted" by Chuck Palahniuk. He is the author of Fight club and several other fantastic books that I have mentioned and/or raved about on this site. If you enjoyed the story line of fight club, then I suggest checking out his other books.

That's all for now, Ciao!

Update on a queen...

2006-05-05T22:02:00.000-04:00

I wanted to update the fur track suit story. The boy came in again on Wednesday night. I will be able to tell when he's coming next time as the overwhelming stench of a very cheap and flowery perfume nearly knocked me down. He asked me if a certain boy still worked at the pub. This boy hasn't worked there in years but queenie was not deterred, he launched into a new tirade. Now remember his claims of being abused by his boyfriend? Something must be up because he had a black eye (Okay, I'm going to skip the obvious jokes about spotting a black eye on a black boy) but it didn't look that bad and there were scratches on his arms. He told me the boyfriend had "done gone crazy" and beaten him when he was high on crack. Then he went into what I am quickly beginning to recognize is his trademark fever pitch squeal as he informed me that the boy has been addicted to crack since he was 12 AND that it was his momma that got him started. He said "how you think she feels lookin' at her baby now, all addicted and everything."

Why do I think that he will be making several appearances in these pages?

D-list celebrity sightings in New Orleans

2006-05-05T18:06:00.000-04:00

My friend Richard sent me this link to a story about a recent visit that comedian Andy Dick made to New Orleans. Read it here.

In other D-list celebrity sightings, Dan Renzi, who you might remember from the Real World Miami also visited New Orleans. He sent me a note on myspace asking questions about New Orleans for some promotional tour he was doing. I didn't realize he was "that" Dan until much later but we exchanged several notes back and forth and he asked me to arrange a guest bartending spot for him at the bar. I can't just tell him, sure, so I gave him the managers numbers and promised to pre-present the idea and who he was and all that, which I did. Someone else piped up a warning that Dan was "quite a drinker" and that we might want to re-consider. He wrote to me the next day asking if I had talked to my bosses and I assured him that I had and then never heard from him again. A few weeks later (in fact the same weekend as the Andy Dick story) I heard Dan was in town and guest bartending at Oz. He came into the pub and I saw him standing at the bar. I walked over, got as close to him as I could and called his name out. Eventually he reared his booze swollen, bleary eyed head my direction and I said "Hey Dan," and extended a hand to shake his. He gave me a no, no, no finger gesture and then a you-come-closer gesture and turned back to his friends. I said "I'm behind the bar, you can step over here." Begrudgingly, he did and I introduced myself as the Lawrence he had been speaking with. Dan made some comment about "oh yeah, you" but he was so intoxicated it was difficult to make out what he said. Keep in mind that the entire time he spoke to me, which was about 20 seconds, he never made eye contact. He put his limp hand in mine for a sad little handshake, all the while swinging his head side to side looking for anyone else who might recognize him or maybe suck him off in the bathroom. Now I wasn't expecting a hug and a kiss and I do have a history of being overly excitable around minor celebrities but this guy was just an ass. Suffice to say that my encounter with the booze soaked D-list former MTV "star" left much to be desired...

Now to make this all seem more bizarre, the article about Andy Dick appeared on the website Queerty which is edited by none other than, yes you guessed it, Dan Renzi. I guess he would be the one in the know about miniscule celebrities making an ass of themselves in public.

Golden Gaffes

2006-05-04T18:51:00.000-04:00

Okay, here are your Golden Gaffes for the day:

In the episode where Rose thinks she's died and gone to Heaven the girls are all sitting around in the kitchen and decide to have their "usual snack." Cheesecake, right? No no no...They have ice cream sundeas. At the end of the same episode they have the same snack, what happened to cheesecake? Oh, interesting trivia note, Bea Arthur hates cheesecake.

This isn't so much of a gaffe but a silly thing. Okay, so the layout of the house isn't correct and find a house in Miami with four bedrooms that large and only two bathrooms. Think how big those bedrooms are, everyone has a sofa or chairs in their room, walk in closets, they are huge. Let's not forget the biggest one, the doorway in the kitchen that goes to the garage and Lanai though they are on opposite sides of the house. Anyway, there are only two phones in the house, one in the kitchen, one in the living room. Two phones. One huge house with four huge bedrooms and only two phones. Right.

Pub Stories...

2006-05-04T17:45:00.000-04:00

The last two nights at the pub have been odd but with some great moments and stories. Tuesday night I was off but went out to meet a friend for a few drinks. I ended up watching the drag king show upstairs for lesbian night. First of all, it's a very confusing night to me. I'll see a beautiful boy and have to look twice to make sure there are no small bumps on his chest thus revealing his true identity as a boyish lesbian. The show is pretty silly. There were one or two good performers but the majority of them were just lesbians dressed in bulky clothing, doing some kind of a hip-hop song and doing their best gangster moves. It was late and I was still upstairs talking to one of the bartenders. Security was throwing out a little spikey haired lesbian for getting into a fight. She came over to the bar to plead her case with the bartender (which is never a good idea...If security throws you out there is not much of a chance that a bartender will override them) and from out of nowhere comes a boy who was, from what I gather, a friend of the the girl that was hit by the spikey haired girl. Whew. Anyway, he runs up and grabs the girl by the back of the head, jerking her head backwards and nearly pulling her off the stool. Security and other bartenders and I jumped in and got him off her, she was taken downstairs and then him and both were told to leave. (Personal note to Mattie - the boy was Erik with a K, back from the military, very bulked up but he assured me he can still do the splits)

Last night was fun. I worked with Paul which I haven't really done since he came back from Houston. Before work I had dinner at Yo Mamas Grill on St. Peter Street. Their burgers are delicious and if they weren't so messy they would rival Port of Call. My friend Justin, who recently moved back from New York, came to meet me and we had time to chat and have a drink before I had to work. At one point during the night I happened to glance outside to see a small Hispanic man trying to mount a bicycle that was much too big for him. I thought, "I wonder if he's stealing that" as I watched him trying to hurry down the street and jump on top of the bike at the same time. He finally got on the bike but wasn't able to reach the pedals very well nor was he able to operate the bike very well. The bike was wobbling down the street and the real owner of the bike took chase. He knocked the guy off his bike and the two of them started fighting in the middle of the street. The owner of the bike was a black man, about 6'5 (thus the difficulty of the little guy to ride away swiftly)and it sure made the fight look funny. The Hispanic man went down into a crouching tiger, hidden dragon pose and the black man was hitting him with his bag. Eventually someone intervened and the bicycle was recovered. Funny stuff.

The other item of interest...At one point there were four of my friends sitting at the bar side by side. I think I'll leave out names here, but I know each of these boys to be particularly "gifted" below the belt though I have not hooked up with any of them. When I realized they were all sitting together I couldn't help but think "There is nearly 40 inches of cock sitting at my bar right now."

A New Feature - Golden Gaffes

2006-05-03T20:10:00.000-04:00

I have decided to add a new feature to my blog that I will call Golden Gaffes. Some of you may be unaware of my addiction to watching "The Golden Girls" on a daily basis. I own season 1-4 on DVD (note: season five will be released May 9th) but I still watch it daily. After all these years of watching the thing that gets me is how many gaffes are in the show. I realize that as these shows go on it's hard to do things like introduce new characters without some explanation or counting on the viewer to allow some artistic license. Some artistic license, not a continuous stream of unchecked facts and hapless editing.

I haven't decided if I am going to list several at a time or just catch them as they air and put them on then, but here's a couple to get started.

In the first episode Dorothy says she is from Queens, but for the rest of the show she is from Brooklyn.

In the episode where Blanches old nanny comes to visit she calls Blanche by her full name, Blanche Marie Hollingsworth (Her maiden name) but in every other episode her middle name is Elizabth and her married name is Deveraux, thus making her initials spell out the word BED.

Perhaps to a 5K Run benefiting PETA?

2006-05-02T21:57:00.000-04:00

Last Friday I worked happy hour, a rarity indeed. It wasn't very busy but I was working with Matt and we had a lot of fun. The two bartenders in the front had customers and eventually Matt and I decided that all the customers hated one of the two of us and so they were just steering clear of the whole area. Three young black men came in early in the afternoon. One of them looked familiar and eventually he told me that he used to work at the bar and then I remembered him. He's young, tall, skinny and VERY VERY queeny. If memory serves he was fired, but I can't remember if he quit prior to being fired or what, regardless he did not part on good terms. On his way out he threw a royal fit and tried to "read" our general manager. Now whatever anyone may think of him, this is not a man who is going to take being yelled at by some snippy little queen who just lost what has to be one of the easiest jobs in the world. All the kid had to do was sit behind a counter and sell breath mints and chips and occasionally answer the phone. Like many of the people before and after him he used his time at work to put on his own personal drag show to every song that was played. I find it maddening to try to go through this area or god forbid buy some mints) and have to shuffle through what appears to be the ill-fated front line from the ill-fated movie version of "A Chorus Line." Anyway, he and his two friends (both of whom were very nice) are getting ready to leave and discussing clothes. The queeny boy must have gotten a burst of estrogen (picture The Lady Chablis in "Midnite in the Garden of Good and Evil") because he hit a full tilt boogie queen-out as he described the outfit which would he would be gracing us with that night. If you feel like reading this to yourself in a voice much like Oprah used in the film "The Color Purple," please be my guest..."All my life I had to fight, I had to fight my daddy, I had to.."

Queen: "I'm gonna look so good tonight, I'm wearing my fur..."

Me: "Isn't it too hot for fur?"

Queen: "Nuh Un, no ma'am, you see it's not all fur, it's a track suit with a
chinchilla collar."

Me: mouth agape, unable to say anything...

I perched on the edge of the bar in utter dismay as he wound through the details of this outfit, down to the shoes he planned to wear with it and the exact cost of how much everything cost. Evidently he didn't get the props he was searching for as he then went on to tell us the cost of everything he had on and was well into the cost of his entire wardrobe when he stopped to pull me aside and tell me that one of the boys with him was his boyfriend and that the boy beats him but he doesn't mind because he knows he loves him and he knows he loves him because the first night they ever went out that boy spent money on him. Now I know you'll pardon my extreme run on sentence but that was precisely how it was said to me, rapid fire machine gun admissions of domestic abuse. I must have seemed horrified so to make up for it he told me he didn't need this boys money as his father owned VooDoo, a local gay bar. He gave me a few snaps up for measure and was gone. Before he left I begged him to come back in and show me his outfit, all the while wondering if the camera on my phone would suffice or if I needed to go home and get the digital camera. He promised that he would come back but I didn't put too much stock into it and I was right, I didn't see him again. I wish I had, the idea of a chinchilla collared track suit on a nelly drunk beaten up silver spooned black boy would have kept this blog going for a good long while.

Incidentally, when I saw the person who really does own VooDoo last night I was happy to give him my congratulations on having sold his establishment. He's used to these kind of rumors (you have no idea how many people, including employees, claim to own the pub) and we shared a good laugh.

On a completely different note, I have been watching "Nashville Star" while I was writing this and I have to wonder who does the make-up for Wynonna? She had that big come back kind of thing last year with her crying fit Oprah appearance and singing "I wanna know what love is" and now she's on the USA network, bigger than ever and I swear I saw blue eye shadow.

It's down to the last two contestants, one a cowboy hat wearing traditional voiced singer and the other one is bug eyed and looks like he's a bit touched...

Oh, thank god, the boy with regular eyes won.

Late Night Thoughts...

2006-05-02T05:59:00.000-04:00

Dear Gentle Reader: This post if not one of my amusing bon-mot filled attacks on humankind, simply some late night thoughts...More soon.

Laying in bed, unable to sleep, I was thinking about my friend David in New York. He's stopped speaking to me, upset at my negligence with our friendship. The last time I saw him was in June of last year when I visited New York with friends. I stayed on a few extra days at Davids house and we had a blast hanging out together. The storm, the evacuation, the four months in Indiana and a heart attack have taken up quite a bit of my time. In reality though I have no excuse for myself. You see, David would call me and those that know me know I rarely answer my phone. I have a continuous debate with my friend Scott over this very issue. He berates me for my attitude, which is simply that the phone is for my convenience, not to be served as a tracking device so that people can reach me whenever they desire. Incidentally, does anyone else find that OnStar thing creepy? I'll risk the locking of my keys in the car in exchange for the government not being able to track me down at a moments notice. I digress...I am often not in the mood to talk on the phone, and thus I don't answer. My friend David would leave me messages and I, rudely, would often not return the call. It's not that I don't enjoy talking to him, I adore talking to him. He's one of the most invigorating people I know, full of more energy than I've ever possessed, incredibly smart and just a hell of a conversationalist. The only issue I ever had about talking to him on the phone is that we would talk forever, an hour or two at times. It's a strange thing but sometimes when I haven't talked to someone for a while I hesitate in calling them, simply because it's been so long. That's probably very stupid, but it makes sense in my head. I talked to David after the storm while I was in Baton Rouge and then only a few times while I was evacuated in Indianapolis. When I switched my phone back to a New Orleans number I sent out various text and e-mails to folks advising them of the change and I received a rather terse text from David, "Who is this?" We had a few quick exchanges and then finally "All this communication is too much for me, try me again next year." Though I sent a few replies, it was silent on his end. I haven't tried to call him, I think I am afraid that he won't want to talk to me. It seems I have lost a friendship due to my inability to return phone calls, but it's really much more involved. I shut myself away from people a lot. I am a loner by nature, a trait I share with my mother and sister. I sink into depressions that last a few days, a few months. Usually I don't even know it's happening until I realize it's been a week since I've left the house to do anything other than walk the dogs or work. E-mails go unanswered, voice mails pile up. Eventually I snap out of it and am happy go lucky for a while, I am social, I make plans, I answer the phone but sometimes the damage is done. In the time it's taken me to write this I could have called David (who is probably still awake, I'm convinced he doesn't sleep) and apologized. Maybe tomorrow, I'm tired now and one has to keep their wits about them to keep up with David. Enough emoting for me for one late night...ciao!

Karl Rove Taught Us Nothing

2006-04-26T00:36:00.000-04:00

Imagine my shock and surprise when the election results began being tallied and announced. Out of the 23 candidates for Mayor of New Orleans it was clearly down to a choice between Ron Forman and Mitch Landrieu. I wanted to vote for Forman but several things changed my mind. Mattie clued me into some things I didn't really know about him, things like his salary as the head of the non profit Audubon society. He was also deeply involved with the attempt to by pass laws preventing former Mayor Morial from running for a third term. Morial subsequently (allegedly) raided the city's treasury in the last days of his administration. I guess once your father (allegedly) passed himself off as white while serving in the navy and later dies (allegedly) in the arms of a white hooker while shooting heroin, raiding a treasury isn't that big of a deal. Anyway...

There have been elections where I have voted my consience. There have been elections where I have voted the lesser of two evils. In Indiana I registered as a republican so I could vote in primary elections against evil candidates. In this election my desire to vote for Ron Forman was mostly overweighed by the fact that I didn't feel he could get the necessary votes to avoid the always amusing run off election. If you are unfamiliar with Louisiana politics, unless a candidate receives more than 50% of the vote we have a second election with the top two candidates. I wasn't shocked to see that we would be having a run off, but I was certainly surprised by the numbers. Uncle Tom Nagin managed to snare 38% of the vote while Mitch Landrieu only garnered 29%. There are a lot of reasons I can think of that made that possible but it's still shocking.

Busloads of people were brought from Atlanta and Houston, most of them black, most of them voting for Nagin. Nagin was the only "real" black candidate, but he received less than 50% of the black vote during his first election while receiving 90% of the white vote. This election the white column for Nagin was 6%. Most of the people who were bussed in to vote are living in other cities with no intention of returning to New Orleans. National black advocacy groups and black business leaders are all pushing for Nagins re-election to maintain control of the city. These are the same people who screamed racism in the days after the hurricane. Time has passed and we see it was the poorest people who suffered the most, and the race division was not the issue. There were 20,000 votes cast before the election, absentee ballots, early voting, even faxes were sent. The candidate to receive the majority of these votes was Nagin. My negative side says that there was a lot of cemetery voting. Wasn't it Chicago Mayor Daly who said "vote early and vote often"? Jesse Jackson had to butt his nose into the election and claim that blacks were being disenfranchised by the refusal of the state to bear the cost of setting up polling places in Houston and Atlanta. This is very simple. The state sent out to EVERY registered voter an application for an absentee ballot. If these poor poor people are totally unreachable, I guess there isn't anyplace for them to receive their FEMA check. Since we know the 26 months of rental assistance is flowing like water, we can assume that people also received their application. Another thing, voting is a right, and if you want to exercise your rights, you have to EXERCISE YOUR RIGHTS. In this case that means finding a stamp and a pen. I didn't see the good Reverand Jackson bitching about the number of white folks from Lakeview or the extremely large east New Orleans Asian populations lack of proper voting booths.

Since I am already out here on the racist swine limb, I have to applaud U.S. Housing Secretary Alphonso Jackson for his recent comments about the return of public housing residents.

I understand people not wanting to vote for another Landrieu, supporting the continuance of another family political dynasty. All I wanted out of this election was to see an end to the lunacy of the Nagin administration. Hopefully the numbers were frighting enough to the rest of the city's voting block to get them out on the 20th to vote. Ron Forman has officially endorsed Landrieu now and the majority of New Orleans business community seems to be leaning towards Mitch.

The election does sadly bring to an end the campaigns of Virginia Boulet and Peggy Wilson. Both women were amusing but for different reasons. Peggy was at one time a normal woman from all accounts. Her campaign platform centered on the idea that she was going to convince the federal government to make our city a tax free zone. I'm no exactly sure how this was going to happen or how this was going to work. Virginia had some decent platform plans but lost me when she announced her intentions to literally tear down city hall and move University of New Orleans to the site. Then she was going to spread this educational district through a wide swath of the edge of downtown and a public housing unit or two. Throw in Sondra "lady" DeDais and gay candidate Leo Watermeir and we had a whole nuthouse.

I have more to write about but for now I need some rest...

Mid-Festival Posting

2006-04-22T19:09:00.000-04:00

I'm not even going to apologize for my lack of blogging. It would take away from what I want to absolutely bitch about right now and that is this;

This weekend is French Quarter Festival, my number one favorite festival in the city. It's great fun, great food, great music and if you can handle the parrot head types (sorry Julie) with their beer bellies and sagging breasts then you're doing alright. I went on Friday with Jeremy and his houseguest and Paulie. Today I went on a date with a boy named Josh. Now this is an outdoor festival. I like to take a blanket, stretch out, listen to music, eat food, have a good time. We left because I had to come home and feed my dogs but we stopped at the pub to get a drink. I was carrying a plate of food as well, intending to share it with Paul when I got to the bar. No fewer than seven people asked me "are you moving in, what's with the blanket?" Now how difficult is this? Everyone in the fricking quarter knows that this festival, this OUTDOOR festival is happening. Anyone who has ever been to the festival (which is every single person that asked me this stupid question) knows that people often sit on blankets outside and listen to the music. I was carrying a plate of food for gods sake, where did they think I had been? Do I seem like the kind of person who's home life is so transient that I might easily be seen wandering around the French Quarter at 5 on a Saturday afternoon clutching my lone possession, a leaf covered blanket and a plate of brisket with horseradish sauce? I ask you, seriously.

New Music

2006-03-31T19:50:00.000-05:00

I haven't written as much lately as I should have. There are a few drafts of posts that I have written and not finished. Hopefully soon I will finish them.

This morning I logged onto AOL to check my mail. There was a special feature today, they were having a "first viewing" of a new video by the Dixie Chicks. I'm sure everyone remembers that the Chicks were roasted some time back for being Anti-Bush. Natalie, the lead singer, told an audience in London that she and the other chicks were ashamed that Bush was from their home state of Texas. Immediately country radio stations (a jingoistic group at best) stopped playing their music. Protests were held where people could bring their CD's in and have them burned or run over with a steam roller, all sorts of silly crap. Conservative talk show hosts ran the sacred cow of patriotism up the flagpole while crying "FOUL!" The whole thing was ridiculous. Several times I called my local country station to convey my uhappiness with on air comments that were made about the girls. Even with all the controversy the girls finished off their tour and have been very quiet for a while now.

No More. Their new song "Not Ready to Make Nice" has been released. Anyone who has AOL can watch the video now, but the rest will have to wait until Monday when VH1 will air it I'm sure non stop for a few days. I have always been a fan of the Chicks and this song cements that feeling. The video, while a bit dark, is unbelievable and the lyrics are wonderful. I have included them:

Forgive, sounds good
Forget, I’m not sure I could
They say time heals everything
But I’m still waiting

I’m through with doubt
There’s nothing left for me to figure out
I’ve paid a price
And I’ll keep paying

I’m not ready to make nice
I’m not ready to back down
I’m still mad as hell and
I don’t have time to go round and round and round
It’s too late to make it right
I probably wouldn’t if I could
‘Cause I’m mad as hell
Can’t bring myself to do what it is you think I should

I know you said
Can’t you just get over it
It turned my whole world around
And I kind of like it

I made my bed and I sleep like a baby
With no regrets and I don’t mind sayin’
It’s a sad sad story when a mother will teach her
Daughter that she ought to hate a perfect stranger
And how in the world can the words that I said
Send somebody so over the edge
That they’d write me a letter
Sayin’ that I better shut up and sing
Or my life will be over

I’m not ready to make nice
I’m not ready to back down
I’m still mad as hell and
I don’t have time to go round and round and round
It’s too late to make it right
I probably wouldn’t if I could
‘Cause I’m mad as hell
Can’t bring myself to do what it is you think I should

I’m not ready to make nice
I’m not ready to back down
I’m still mad as hell and
I don’t have time to go round and round and round
It’s too late to make it right
I probably wouldn’t if I could
‘Cause I’m mad as hell
Can’t bring myself to do what it is you think I should

Forgive, sounds good
Forget, I’m not sure I could
They say time heals everything
But I’m still waiting

This song is from the album, "The Long Way Home" Release date, May23rd.

In other new music, Blaine Larsen has a new album coming out as well. I'm not sure what the name of the album will be but you can check out Blaines website for more info on him. The new song is pretty funny, it's called "I don't know what she said" and is the tale of a non spanish speaking tourist in Mexico. I can see where some people might take a little bit of offense to the song but it's all in fun and it's a fun song.

I will save the rest for another post, probably tomorrow or Sunday.

Reading List

2006-03-24T15:49:00.000-05:00

My bedside table usually plays host to a few different books at the same time. Most recently I have been working my way through Truman Capotes short stories. I suppose I should read "In Cold Blood" but haven't gotten around to that one. A hearty congratulations to Phillip Seymour Hoffman on his oscar win for portraying Capote onscreen. My family have always been readers and thankfully my mother passed the love of reading on to my sister and I both. When I was a child I remember my mother sighing as she remarked to someone else "We never should have taught him to read, he was a quiet child until then. He hasn't shut up since he learned to read." Many of my friends probably share this sentiment...

During the evacuation I read several books, among them "Wicked" and a couple Chuck Palahniuk novels (the author of Fight Club.) I recently picked up and re-read a favorite book, "I Have a Feeling We're Not in Kansas Anymore." Published in 1983 it was followed by the sequels "Buddies,"(1984) "Everybody Loves You,"(1988) "Some Men are Lookers," (1994) and finally "How's Your Romance" in 2005.

Ethan Mordden also wrote three other novels as well as a myriad of books about musical theatre, opera and jazz. I have never read any of the theatre books though I have spied them in Jeff's book collection.

I was introduced to these books back when I was in high school. I have a lesbian aunt who thankfully introduced me to a gay and lesbian bookstore (which no longer exists unfortunately) called "Dreams and Swords" and also to the very small gay section at the northside (read: the opposite side of the city from my little hick hometown) Borders bookstore. The first three books in the series had been published before I encountered them so I was able to read all three of them. The books are narrated by "Bud" who tells tales of he and his friends adventures in a post stonewall Manhattan. If you don't know what is meant by stonewall, please stop reading this, google it and come back later. No, seriously. The stories age with the times, the characters growing, falling in and out of relationships and are intermingled with places and styles of gay probably long since forgotten about. Some of the stories take place on Fire Island and the "magic of the pines," while others whip through parties, European travels and day to day mundane lives. Since my return to N.O. I have also re-read the second and third books.

Now these books are far from what one would term great literature. What brings me back to them year after year is representational. When I read these books at a younger age I was mesmerized by them, by the lifestyle to which they subscribed. I wanted to be these people, to have these friends, to live according to these new freedoms of the gay movement. I re-read them and find something new each time. Sometimes I escape into past desires, to places where my life has not gone and other years I have found my life in parallel, adventures in the advanced years of stonewall.

Just the other day I picked up another Chuck Palahniuk book, "Diary." This is one of the best books of his I have read. For those that enjoyed the movie Fight Club, check out these books.

Another book on my bedside table is called "One Dead in Attic." It's a collection of the stories written by Chris Rose, a columnist for the Times Picayune. Previously I have written about how much some of these columns meant to me, reading them on NOLA.com helped tie me back to the city. The book is available at various stores around the city, though not on Amazon.com. The title of the book, one dead in attic, refers to the spray painting on most of the buildings throughout the city. The familiar X with the date, time and agency who performed the search. In the bottom of the x is the number of bodies found. In addition to this there was often a mark from animal rescue groups and various other notations. There was a house that was marked "One Dead in Attic." On the back of the book is the following dedication:

This book is dedicated to the memory of Thomas Coleman.
He was a retired longshoreman, a storyteller, a guy who liked to
spend time with family and friends. A New Orlenian.
He was 80 years old when he died in his attic at 2214 St. Roch Avenue,
in the 8th Ward, on or about August 29th, 2005. He had a can of
juice and a bedspread at his side when the waters rose.
There were more than a thousand like him

Okay, so everybody was right...

2006-03-12T15:51:00.000-05:00

You Are 68% Evil

You are very evil. And you're too evil to care.
Those who love you probably also fear you. A lot.

How Evil Are You?

Let's back up....

2006-03-09T01:04:00.000-05:00

Between mine and my fathers health situations, Mardi Gras and my not smoking (which is probaby the real culprit here) I have been a little spacy. I have written about my bitches and complaints but I have something really great to write about now.

The Sunday before the last week of Mardi Gras gets rolling is the best parade of all, Barkus! Every year there is a theme and this years theme, fittingly, was the ultimate in queer natural disaster, The Wizard of Oz. Give it a little twist, make it the Wizard of Paws and you've got yourself a parade. Jeff and I had talked about walking our two boys but there was no way I could walk the whole route so soon after leaving the hospital. I took a chair, found my friends Michael and Dillon and settled in for a great show.

It's really a fantastic parade and because it's so early in the parade schedule the attendees are all locals. It's not limited to dogs though, I saw two miniature horses and a few birds this year. Going along with the theme, a friend of mine saw me and said "shouldn't you be dressed as the tin man..." Get it, without a heart, Ha Ha!

Anyway, it was a great day, there were great costumes but this fellow here is absolutely the cutest cowardly lion ever...

Okay, so here's a couple more special pups and such

And a special horsie!

And We're Off...

2006-03-09T00:00:00.000-05:00

There is a lot of ground to cover, so I should just plunge right ahead.

I am sitting here in my living room at the moment, Lifetime television in the background and two sleeping dogs probably having taken over my entire bed. 900 miles away in Indiana my fathers family is gathered in a waiting room of a hospital. They have been there since early this morning when my father went in for surgery. In early January, days after I returned to New Orleans, my father was diagnosed with lung cancer. A biopsy followed and the determination was made to remove a portion of his lung. It has taken time to get a surgery date as they have to get his medications under control. In November he had a heart attack, his second, and had two stents with his catheterization (compared to my measly one.) The doctors put him on blood thinners which he had to stop taking to have this surgery. There has been concern about the scar tissue left from his open heart surger back in '98 or the possibility of another heart attack or a stroke. He already had a stroke a little over a year ago. He's mostly recovered though if he tries to speak too quickly he fumbles over the words. This was the case this morning at 4:30 when I called him before he headed off to the hospital. Both of us seemed to be fumbling for words without either of us saying that this could be the last talk we would have. I was still at work and my maudlin mood shifted quickly when I went back inside. Security was removing a very belligerent tourist and so I had to jump to and get the doors ahead of them open so the pack of them could herald the man outside. A cop showed up pretty directly and handcuffed the man, digging through his pockets and finding several little plastic baggies containing a white powder in a leather pouch. Life in New Orleans...

My sister just phoned to tell me that my father has made it through is surgery. Right now he is in recovery and will hopefully soon transfered to ICU to begin his recuperation. I plan to travel to Indy next week to visit him and the rest of my family and friends. My nerves are not yet soothed, my father has a long recovery road ahead of him.

The best way I can think of to take my mind off things is to talk about inane subjects and I have a few to cover...

MARDI GRAS

Mardi Gras has come and passed. It was a very local holiday, the tourists unable to find hotel rooms. Our federal occupation continues and FEMA held their hotel rooms until March 1st, giving their employees a free holiday on the taxpayers. I walked the quarter from Esplanade to Canal (my yearly tradition) and not one time was I forced to stop because the crowd was too thick. Parking was a nightmare, cars on the neutral ground and the sidewalks. The quarter was busy at night but not as much as usual. People weren't really drinking that much.

One thing about New Orleans that's different than most places is that you have to be more responsible for yourself. Bars don't close and getting another drink is rarely difficult. Knowing all of that you have to imagine how drunk one would have to be for me to cut them off during a holiday. Only one person achieved that status during Mardi Gras. I cut him off and his response was to drop his pants. I thought for a moment that he was going to pinch a loaf standing there, he had that face, you know, tightly closed eyes, straining neck, veins in the forehead. I cannot imagine what my response would have been. I once dragged a person down a flight of stairs for pissing on the side of my bar, so taking a dump would probably get you killed. Like most drunks he didn't understand that he was not going to be served and repeatedly asked me for another beer. Finally I told his friends they could take him out of the bar or I was going to remove him with the help of a police officer. They wisely took him home, thus saving his life. On the note of people needing to be arrested, I had three separate friends tell me that they were either detained or arrested by the police during the holiday. They were all let go pretty quickly, allowed to bail themselves out or released on their own. Normally when you are arrested during a holiday you have to stay until the courts resume which is sometime on Thursday afternoon. I haven't seen the number but I will bet that arrests were down this year.

A NUMBER ONE, KING OF THE HILL

So I think everyone has a mental list of things about potential mates that are unacceptable. For example, non-smokers often won't date smokers, general things along those lines. My list is more specific. High on the list is flip flops, something I have railed against in these pages before. Recently I have been tested on this one. There is a boy, a beautiful boy named Ben who I think is so hot and he wears flip flops. Always. I've never seen him in shoes. Though I still think it's disgusting I try to put it out of my head that he is wearing them. Another of my biggies is lip gloss. Now chapstick, carmX, that sort of thing I have no problem with. Lips get dry, they need nourishment. What I can't take is lip gloss, especially when it's put on with a wand. I have a general dislike of seeing people put on make-up. A woman who puts on lipstick or powder while sitting at a restaurant makes me cringe. If you're going to go that far you might as well kick off a heel and give yourself a pedicure right there in between salads and entrees.

At the top of this list however are fans and flags. The fans are part of a larger dislike; the type of people who carry fans. These are also often the same people who would wear lip gloss that you put on with a wand. I can't stand the fan crap. I don't know if it's the noise they make when they snap or how absolutely ridiculous people look walking around with them. More than once I have taken fans away from stupid little boys and either thrown them away, broken them or simply kept them until the person left. Flags are another one and I don't think I really have to say much about them. Outside of circuit parties there are no normal people who carry around flags to spin them on dance floors. Thank god.

I have rambled on enough here, a few more quick notes. I was very sad to see Dolly lose her Oscar. She lost for "9 to 5" as well. Losing to a song from Hustle and Flow was a double whammy. I guess Dolly should call Randy Newman to see how he's coped all these years.

If you are a fifty something man I think prefacing every sentence with "dude" is a bit much. This is especially true when you also include the word "Yo". "Yo, Dude, Knock It Off."

Enough bitter rambling for one day...ciao for now!

briefly...

2006-03-07T20:59:00.000-05:00

I am working on two posts, both are in draft form and will likely be published tomorrow. Thanks for your patience!

Oh, but in the meantime, can I just say a couple things. First, I am sick and tired of hearing about the children, natural or otherwise, of celebrities. Even more so, I am seriously sick of hearing women's pregnancies referred to as their "bumps." Who started this? Is this a black eyed peas thing? Am I once again out of the loop of the hip crowd? Since when is a fetus a "bump"? I would imagine that many children were the result of a bump (of powder) or from doing the old bump and grind. Once a woman is pregnant though I think referring to the fetus as a "bump" is just gross.

Second, Brokeback Mountain didn't win the oscar. Get over it. Crash won for a very simple reason, half the actors in Hollywood were in the movie. It's not homophobia (remember Philip Seymour Hoffman winning for portraying a gay character?) It's not a plot by the christian right (remember, Jews run Hollywood.) Brokeback lost, it's over, quit your crying...

My BrokenHearted Valentines Day

2006-02-18T12:13:00.000-05:00

Monday, the day before Valentines, I had to work. A few hours before time to go I kept having a pain in my chest that felt like heartburn. Since I am "of a certain age" now I occasionally have heartburn so I searched the house for a rolaids or a tums. Finding none I left for work and stopped at a store along the way to buy some. As the night progressed the pain was getting worse not better so I left work and went to the Nelly Deli down the street to buy some zantag or something. I took that and the pain subsided a bit but not entirely. Before bed I took another one and slept fitfully for about five hours. When I woke up the pain was still there but now it was worse. I took another zantag but it didn't do anything and about four O'clock I started getting a little short of breath. I'm a gay boy so that instantly translates that I am a mommas boy so I called my momma and asked her what the symptoms might mean. Since I have had a cold and a racking cough she suggested that I may have bronchitis or it could be a gall bladder problem. I thought I should go to the emergency room and she agreed, having had a gall bladder attack herself a few years ago. I took a shower and shaved, thinking I would go to the emergency room, they would tell me what was wrong, give me medication and I would go to work.

I drove myself to the emergency room at Touro hospital about 6 and they weren't busy so I was taken back almost immediately (of course in a triage when you complain about chest pains that gets you a little more attention anyway.) By this time I was pretty anxious about the pain, which was now so bad I was having great difficulty drawing a full breath and was in the beginning stages of a panic attack. The nurse helped calm me down but my chest felt so compressed that I still couldn't breathe. They took me back to another room and gave me an EKG and then took me to a bed in the emergency room and had me strip to my underwear and put on one of those fun little backless gowns. A lab tech came immediately and took blood and wanted to start an IV on me. I sort of balked (I have a dislike of needles and especially IV's) so she agreed to hold off until they determined it was absolutely necessary. The doctor came back soon after and they started questioning me about the pain and told me that my EKG and my blood tests were both "a little off." The lab tech came back and put the IV in and now I was getting pretty nervous about what was happening. I have a strong family history of heart disease but for christs sake, I'm only 34 years old. My roommate Jeff showed up around then and the nurse came in and dropped a nitroglycerine pill under my tongue. I realized then that I was actually having a heart attack. The pain wasn't going away, it was getting worse and they gave me three nitro pills before deciding to put me on a nitro IV. They were already putting other meds in my IV so they ran a second one. A cardiologist and my regular doctors partner showed up along with two other nurses who began applying more EKG leads (they had taken the first ones, along with half my chest hair, off earlier.) I was getting really hot and uncomfortable and suddenly my blood pressure bottomed out. I was light headed, hot, trying to get away from all of them and they were trying to talk to me. The nitro was causing the blood pressure to drop so they took it away, laid me back and started another EKG to find out what was happening with my heart. It took about 10 minutes for my blood pressure to be totally stable and me to stop sweating and actually get some color back in my face.

The cardiologist came in and said they were going to do a heart catheterization as soon as the "team" could arrive. I had been through this process with both my grandfather and my father. My paternal grandfather died of a massive heart attack in 1998 and my maternal grandfather had a heart attack years ago. My father had a heart attack followed by quad bypass surgery in 1997 and then another one in November of last year. He has recovered from both. All of this is running through my mind as they are wheeling me down the hall with IV tubes and EKG wires going everywhere. They get me into the room and there is a big cart with six flat screen monitors and equipment everywhere. It took a while for them to get ready (one person was coming from Destrahan) and they were explaining the process to me as they went. Basically they take a thin tube through the artery in your groin (Read: to the left of your cock) and inject dye that allows them to see the arteries of your heart and what is happening there. Jeff was shown the video of the procedure after it was over and said that for a split second when they inject the dye you can see my entire heart beating. It's the first visual proof that I actually do have a heart. They gave me shots to numb the area but I was awake for the whole procedure and tried to watch as much as I could on the screens. None of it made much sense to me, especially after the morphine shot I had in the ER. They told me during the procedure that they were going to put a stent in one of my arteries. First they put a small balloon in there and blow it up to widen the artery and then put a metal mesh tube in there to hold it in place. The balloon is deflated and removed but the metal tube stays there. Then they withdraw the tube, plug her up and suture it shut.

The heart attack itself was very minor. The doctors explained to me that it was caused by a slight narrowing of an artery that had forced something (which wasn't explained entirely) into the bottom of my heart. It was a freak thing and was not caused by cholesterol or my family history or by drugs. Since I had the heart attack everyone has assumed I was full of drugs which I was not and had not been. I don't exactly resent the accusation but am tired of saying "No, I wasn't high." There was no permanent damage to my heart and I should recover completely.

All the hospitals in the area that are actually open are overwhelmed. I should have gone to an ICU but they were all full so I was taken to a post op recovery area where I could be closely monitored. It was about 1 am by this point and though I was groggy I was also incredibly hungry. They found me some jello and promised me some ice cream. My nurses were great. Karen, my main nurse that night told me she would give me some morphine and then find me ice cream. Her theory, she explained, was that the drugs would knock me out and she would be able to eat the ice cream. Smart girl. I slept immediately and didn't get the ice cream.

The next morning I had to call my mother and explain what had happened. Like all the phone calls I would have over the next couple of days it went like this:

"So Mom, you know I told you I was having chest pains...Well I had a heart attack."

"No you didn't, what really happened?"

"No, Mom, I had a heart attack."

"Quit lying, you are 34, you didn't have a heart attack."

"No, really, I had a heart attack and a heart catheterization"

"Oh my god, are you OK?"

"Yes, I am fine, now."

Needless to say my Mother began making immediate plans to travel to New Orleans but by the end of the day I had convinced her that I was going to be okay and she didn't need to come. It was one of those moments when a boy does need his mother but I was in very capable hands and she would have been there with nothing to do but worry. I talked to my sister and several friends on the phone during the day in between rounds of blood tests, EKG's, drugs and naps. It's all kind of a blur. My friend Michael came by that afternoon and brought me some magazine and the such. He was actually there during my transition to a regular room. Since I was attached to so much machinery I wasn't able to get up and go to the bathroom. Modest me, I asked him to step outside my curtained area so I could go the bathroom and then the nurses made him leave the ward. Poor thing was pushed around but eventually was able to come back in and stayed with me through my transistion and sat with me for quite a while till I was tired and ready to sleep again. Jeff was in and out between work and he was at home getting my room ready for me to come home. I think this consisted of picking up all the junk I had left lying around and washing my bedding so I had a nice comfy bed in which to recuperate.

The Post Op Recovery room was interesting. It was mostly older heart patients and a few odds and ends. There was a very large black woman who had been involved in a car crash and fractured several bones. When she got to the hospital they found out she was pregnant. I happened to be awake when they told her that and she started screaming (I swear I couldn't make this up) "Give me some WIC, Give me some WIC!" For those not familiar with the term, WIC stands for Women, Infants and Children. It's welfare. The physical therapy people came to start her therapy and she screamed at the top of her lungs and tried to hit them. The old woman next to me was nearly dead and eventually moved. She was replaced by a hacking old man. I was very glad to move to another room, I thought. My roommate was an old man named Mr. Jones. He was somewhere between 80 and death. Deaf as a post, full of pneumonia and about as cooperative as a rattlesnake. The nurses, respitory therapists, doctors and aids all came in about every 20 minutes to scream at him (MR JONES, ARE YOU READY TO TAKE YOUR MEDICINE? MR JONES, DO YOU NEED TO GO THE BATHROOM? MR JONES, I'M GOING TO GIVE YOU YOUR BREATHING TREATMENT NOW, OKAY? MR JONES, DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOU ARE, DO YOU KNOW WHAT CITY THIS IS?) BTW Mr. Jones never had to use the bathroom because he had always already gone.

My friends Joel and Penny came by the second night in there and sat with me for a bit. I slept a lot and asked Jeff to bring me some apples and bananas and vanilla wafers since the food I got was minimal and not good. The doctors told me I could go home Friday if all stayed normal. Everything did and I was released late Friday morning. Jeff came and picked me up and we went to the drugstore to get all my meds that I have to take now for a while. Just six pills so it's not that bad.

I have holes in both arms that still kind of hurt. Eventually I was stuck about 13 times. I slept in my own bed last night and slept over ten hours. It was good. I woke up to find both of my doggies lying on either side of me. I can go back to work late next week and will probably go insane by that time.

All's well that ends, well, well.

You Do Learn Something New Every Day...

2006-02-13T18:37:00.000-05:00

Residing in the "new" New Orleans is an adventure. I am learning all sorts of new things about different cultures. From what I have gathered if one wants to order a drink in a bar in Honduras you simply walk up to within a few feet of the bar and scream out whatever you want. Good to know.

Working as a bartender I have to know how to make a lot of different drinks. Every once in a while I will hear a new one. The other night a gentlemen ordered a Tanjury with a little orange. Although I asked him five times to repeat the order I still wasn't understanding what he wanted. He was about to leave in frustration when I suddenly realized what he wanted and said "Hey, wait, are you trying to say Tanqueray?" Which was, of course, what he wanted. I wanted to suggest that like the rest of his brethren he simply order a gin and juice. There's no need to go digging through your pockets for the extra quarters to make up the difference in price between well and call liquor if you can't even pronounce them.

You know you're southern when...

2006-02-06T18:35:00.000-05:00

I know I am not southern by birth but since I have adopted a southern city to live in I have succumbed to many southern things. It was highlighted for me this morning (which would be about 2 pm for the rest of you) when I ate leftover pork chops, mashed potatoes and green beans for breakfast. Long Live Elvis! Even worse, I had made three pork chops last night and had one left over after breakfast so I fed the last one to my two dogs. Pork chop eatin' dogs. They did come from Mobile Alabama so I figure they are used to that kind of food.

R.I.P.

2006-02-06T18:27:00.000-05:00

They say they come in threes. Coretta Scott King, Betty Friedan and now Grandpa Munster.

While Al Lewis was a character, both Coretta Scott King and Betty Friedan both made wonderful contributions to the betterment of our country and world. Enough of my being nice. When Correta died I received an e-mail from my mother. I should explain that my mother has slowly succumbed to the sense of humor that my sister and I share. She used to be repulsed or at least offended by our endless stream of barbs and attacks. This is proof positive that she has been affected by our disease.

Not sure if you have seen the news yet today but Coretta Scott King has celebrated her last Martin Luther King Day Holiday. She is now in the great beyond with good old Martin.

Free at last Free at last!!!

Screw Emeril...Bam that you piece of shit!

2006-02-06T17:25:00.000-05:00

I recently learned of an interview in the New York Post that appeared in the gossip column. Famous chef Emeril Lagasse sounded off and basically blasted the city. Read the whole article here. This is a great article by Chris Rose, whose articles were a god send to those of us who were evacuated. His writing is right on to the pulse of the city and the feelings so many of us have about the current situation. Emeril, however, has possibly even topped the Mayor in his ability to say incredibly stupid things. Here are his comments:

"Nothing. The mayor's a clunk. The governor is also a clunk. They don't know their ass from a hole in the ground. All my three restaurants got hit. I've reopened Emeril's, but only a few locals come. There's no tourists. No visitors. No spenders. No money. No future. No people. It's lost. It'll never come back."

Emeril, who has made his fortune off the city of New Orleans. Emeril who has opened "New Orleans style" restaurants in Orlando and Las Vegas. Emeril, who is not a native. Emeril who laid off all his employees during the evacuation instead of doing what many employers did, continue to pay their employees, at least partially until they were able to re-open which they did as quickly as possible. I am not sure of the damage his restaurants received, but none of them were in particularly affected areas.

Everyone is doing what they can to get through this situation. Emeril has since said that he was stressed when he made these comments. Nice backtrack. In the Chris Rose article he does print the statement released by the Emeril Empire.

I say this; Screw Emeril. If you are living in or visiting New Orleans, let Emeril know that his comments were prophetic; let his resaurants go, let him leave. Let him take his Bam! (which gossip says has more to do with his cocaine habit than his cooking style) and go back to Massachusetts. Boycott Emeril. I unfortunately have some shrimp in my freezer that I bought a few weeks ago and I am debating throwing it out but hell I already paid for it, he already got my money. It was the last of my money he will ever receive. I know people make mistakes but to put it simply, if you're not part of the solution then you are the problem. I don't fault him for sounding off about the Mayor or the Governor. There is enough blame to go around for what's happened to our beautiful city. Where he went wrong is to proclaim that it's over, that it's done and that it will never come back. Screw him.

Correction

2006-02-01T23:17:00.001-05:00

A comment was made after I mentioned buying a pair of Ginch Gonch underwear and linked it to undergear.com. Let me correct, I did not buy my underwear from the undergear catalog. They were purchased from Turncoats Clothing Exchange on Magazine Street. I should have linked it to my favorite underwear site InternationalJock.com. I Love this site and they have everything from jockstraps to fashion underwear to wrestling gear.

oh yeah...

2006-01-28T20:13:00.000-05:00

That trip to Hollister may very well be my last. Even though the problem was solved and I do like the shirts, I noticed on my way out that they were selling this shirt. In case you can't read it, it says "Yes I plan on wearing flip flops for the rest of my life."

Enough Said. Blech!

Resolution

2006-01-28T16:45:00.000-05:00

I didn't want to write about this until I was sure of it's resolution. Now that it's come I can tell you the story. I wrote the other day about going clothes shopping at Lakeside Mall. My last stop was to Hollister where I purchased two shirts. Last night was my night off and I intended to go out wearing one of the new shirts, look hot and have my way with anyone I chose. Okay so I was at least going to look good when I went out. Having fed the dogs I got dressed to go out, slipping into my new western style snap button shirt, a style of shirt I have worn long before BrokeBack Mountain came out I might add. On a side note, since brokeback came out I have seen more fags in cowboy hats and western shirts than I could shake a sheep at and it's starting to get on my nerves. Anyway, I started to snap the shirt and felt something odd at my side. It was the ink security tag that the employees had left on the shirt. Now I can't wear the shirt, I'm not going to look hot and I won't have my way with anyone I choose. Great. Oh yeah, and I don't have the receipt. Great.

I called the Hollister store and spoke to the manager who told me, "sometimes people take clothes and try to bring them back." I assured the manager that when he saw me in person that he would realize I hadn't stolen the shirt. Going back to Hollister meant braving the traffic to Metarie once again, a feat not easily accomplished and then trying to enter the mall on a Saturday, again, quite a feat. The interstate wasn't too awfully bad and I found a parking space within the quarter mile. I was prepared for a fight, sure the manager would accuse me of thievery. The manager, Kevin, was very nice and he was actually wearing the same shirt I had purchased. He didn't argue with me, the tag was removed and all was right, save my previous night off being ruined. Right before I wrote this I re-read my post from the other day and noticed I had written that the boy ringing me up was obviously using all his brain power. How prophetic.

After Metarie I wound my way uptown to hit some of the stores up there like Turncoats and Metro Three. I bought a shirt that says "RENEW ORLEANS" that I like as well as some new underwear from Ginch Gonch. I got this pair today but plan to buy more if I like the fit.

2006-01-24T14:27:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I was going through a box of paperwork that has collected over the last four months of "evacuation" time. Near the bottom of the box I found a note to myself to blog about something that happened while we were in Baton Rouge the first few days after the storm. The note simply says "KY - $8 Astroglide $6." At first I thought, what the hell is this about but then I realized where I had written the note. If I write something down to blog about it later it's usually because I am in a bar and think I won't be sober enough to remember later. There are only two gay bars in Baton Rouge, Georges and Splash. Splash is the young bar, the attitude bar, the pretty boy bar. I know saying pretty boy in Baton Rouge sounds a bit funny but there are a few attractive natives and LSU is there so it does have it's share of pretty boys. Splash Bar in Baton Rouge is not to be confused with SBNY, a wretched, wretched bar far worse than the worst of attitude filled small town bars, but it is filled with vapid pretty people. Splash used to be Icon and is where my former boyfriend Dallas worked and where he was shot by two armed assailants leaving the building one night. He survived and in fact has recently moved to New York City. Back to the note. The other bar in BR is Georges, a mixed crowd but probably a mid to late 30's average age if not a bit older. It's a small place, a rectangular bar with a small stage on one end and an adjoining room with a pool table wedged at an angle. Unlike Splash it's a pretty friendly place where people speak to you for no reason at all. Just inside the front door is a vending machine and this is where the story finally wraps up. Yes, KY -$8 and Astroglide $6 are items offered in the vending machine at Georges bar. I"m not sure why I thought it was so funny, the pub sells lube at the hit parade and at the mezz. Walgreens on Decauter sells various flavors of Wet right there by the counter, almost as if it would be an impulse buy. I guess the places to buy lubricants are fairly limited in Baton Rouge and hey, if there's a market there. Georges should probably be applauded for preventing many a night of spit-and-shove in the back seat of a car in their parking lot.

On to other news. This is really a "You Know You're Back in New Orleans" moment that happened to me on the way to work the other night. I was on the phone which is risky enough when you plan to do things like turn corners. Phone service here is pretty shoddy and you lose signals often. I was trying to stay towards the edge of the sidewalk to give myself a fairly good shot at keeping in range. Throwing caution to the wind I was also smoking a cigarette which makes you fair game to a myriad of people to ask you for one. Pointing to your phone as if to say "Hey I'm on the phone here, leave me alone" does not work. I was living on the edge here. There was a man coming towards me in a wheelchair, an older white haired man who had obviously had a stroke or some sort of palsy as one side of his face looked frozen. He was wheeling himself along haphazardly so I stepped into the street to give him plenty of room to pass. When he did he muttered out of one side of his frozen mouth "Fucking Faggot." It literally took me about five or ten paces to register what he had said. I turned, pausing the phone conversation, flicked my cigarette in his general direction and said "Fuck you, you crippled piece of shit," turned back around and continued my phone conversation. Now some may criticize my foul charges against a handicapped person, but in this case, what was good for the faggot was good for the cripple. I AM back in New Orleans.

Arriving at work I see our new dancer is working. The first night I saw him he was wearing socks with no shoes. These weren't just ordinary socks these were toesies, socks with the toes built in to them. Not just toesies, but multi colored striped toesies. Basically this was something that Pippi Longstocking would wear. He was wearing them again this night but with shoes this time. I assume someone had pointed out the endless stream of foul and fungus one might catch by not wearing foot protection. It's a shame that no-one points it out to the flip flop wearing community. New boy is dancing on my bar so I have a few moments to chat with him. He seems nice enough and he's cute but he's still new and probably hasn't loosened up enough for us to see the dark side. Almost all of them have a dark side. An indication of his darkness might be what I later find out to be his stage name, Fallen Angel. Seriously, Fallen Angel. This reminds me of a dancer who sob songed his way into a bartending position a few years ago; on his knees I've no doubt which was a bad position for him since it gave people a better view of his rapidly receding hairline. He was immediately nick-named "Flatliner" because his personality resembled the tell-tale flatline of a dead person. Never having bartended before he asked someone on his first day what was in a Tanqueray and Tonic. He also asked what was in a hot damn shot before he gave up risking our ridicule and started looking things up in a book. Then he made up his own shot book which he brought to work with him daily. It contained shots with names like "Angels Kiss" and "Devil's Punch." Most of these drinks contained ingredients we didn't even have. Mango juice, pomegranete syrup, things used to make foo foo drinks far away from the staple of bud light and vodka cranberries our customers demand. One of us, who shall remain nameless, but it wasn't me, stole the book. Many many bad rituals were perfomed on the book before it was returned, in a ziploc baggie, to it's owner. Keep in mind all of this happened in the space of two weeks. That is how long flatliner lasted before changing his mind about wanting to be a bartender. The phrase "We eat our young" comes to mind.

Later that night I happened to glance over at the door just in time to see what was probably the most ridiculous thing of all. A very large man came in wearing a light up belt buckle, the kind that you can program to say anything you want. What was his message? What was so important to this man that he had to spell it out, literally, for the world to see. It was his MySpace.com identity. BlahBlah@myspace.com. I felt sort of sickened but maybe he was meeting some fellow my-spacers or had a blind date with someone he met online and told them this was how they could identify him. Hopefully the other person ran when they saw what he was wearing. I have seen other people wear these and have cute little sayings on them. I think they are silly and it's not something I would buy but it was definitely cute when hot boy Mackie from Oz used to wear one backwards that said "Bottom." You could only see it when he was turned around and his beautiful ass was presenting itself towards you...ahh memories. I think he is in Dallas now gracing that, ahem, city with his hot...I should stop.

Last week I met two boys from Kentucky. They had the cutest little accents. We were talking and they told me the area they were from, a sort of remote part of the state. Later I was looking at one boys I.D. when I realized he's from Van Lear KY. Now that may not strike most of you out there but I immediately knew where he was talking about. It's a song lyric, "My daddy worked all night in the Van Lear coal mines." That's right, this young man lives a stones throw from Butcher Holler, birthplace of country music legend Loretta Lynn.

Over the weekend Justin my Justin was in town. He's been living in NY since the storm. His mommas birthday (29 again! Happy Birthday Ann!) is Wednesday so he came in to see her. Justin and his momma and two sister and I all went out to lunch on Sunday afternoon. We wanted to eat at Asian Cajun but it was closed as was almost every other restaurant we went too until we ended up at Landry's seafood. Surprisingly it wasn't bad. The company was great and we all laughed and had a great time together. Ann is much closer to my age than I am to Justin so we have this strange friendly generational connection. It was a great time and I was so glad to have time to just sit down and talk without having to get somebody a drink.

Jeff and I went shopping yesterday at Lakeside mall. I wanted to look for some new pants and maybe a couple shirts. I found a shirt at the republic that I wanted but wasn't going to pay full retail. We hit a few other stores and bought a couple things at Gap and American Eagle. On the way out I said "I'm still thinking about that shirt at Banana" so Jeff went and bought it for me. We missed having christmas together so he bought it for me for my late christmas present. Just before the door I said I wanted to go into Hollister. Normally I hate their stores and their clothes but I did find two shirts that I liked, both of which were reasonably priced. Is Hollister the cheaper A&F or did I just get lucky? The one thing I couldn't figure out was how anyone was able to ring me up (and trust me it looked as if this kid was using every bit of his brain power) since no-one working in the store struck me as over the age of 14 years old. The Metarie schools have almost all re-opened. Before the comments start flowing, yes I did think one of them was very hot but hey I'm not a sicko, 14 is way to young for me.

It's back to work today but I'm only on four days this week so I have a chance to rest and catch up on other stuff that needs to get done around here. My backyard needs a lot of work and I need to catch up on phone calls, especially to Mattie. That's it, ciao for now.

Home...Homo on the Range

2006-01-19T15:47:00.000-05:00

I do want to post an entry about the film Brokeback Mountain, but until I get to it, you can amuse yourself with this, we knew it was coming...

Uncle Tom and the Chocolate Factory

2006-01-18T18:07:00.000-05:00