No one can find Giselle. No one.
Giselle is a family friend. She is the one who only had one child, a son, who recently, like a few months ago, fell over dead at breakfast one day. I wrote about that...
Giselle is unbelievably nice, and has so many quirks, she could be hilarious. For many years, she came to all our dinners at the high holidays, and there were only two rules. She would only eat fowl. And the corfee had better be heart-stopping strong, or else.
I once mentioned the fowl thing to a cousin of mine, saying, 'she will eat anything that flies', and got back the question, 'even a Boeing 747?' Cracked me up.
People in my family can be so flip.
And she was always a fixture at Christmas. She loved her some pretty trees, believe me.
She always played one-upmanship with Peter's aunt. 'Well YOU weren't here when...' and so on and so on. It was like schoolgirl rivalry. 'And he made you FISH for the first course, but he made ME a chicken salad!' (So there... so to speak...) I usually had to run to the kitchen and just fall apart laughing. Deadly duels, they were... and hilarious.
Whatever, when I left Peter's house... she had become ill, and has more or less been bed ridden for the last 8 years, her son took care of her, and he died, and he was somewhat younger than me.
Peter and his aunt have always been in contact with her, and she always, ALWAYS sends me her greetings and admonitions to take care of myself, and cares.
I was astounded that when her son died, she did not call Peter or Charlotte. She called me. I had to be brave on that call, and not burst into tears for her. I did that afterward.
And all of a sudden, hey... she can't get to the phone. Which is just outside the room she occupies. She has people from social services who see to her every day. So first I thought, 'ok, she's back in the eye clinic, because her retinas get detached, and they keep trying to fix it.' Her son used to inform us, and we would know all was as ok as it could be... but he is no longer among us.
So Charlotte mailed me today, and told me how worried she was that she couldn't reach 'Gisi', as she calls her. (Her real first name is Gisela, and Peter's mother used to call her Giselle, thus the confusion here. For me, she was Giselle.)
So I assumed she was in the eye clinic again. And got the info at the state hospital, and asked if she were a patient there, explaining that a nearly ninety year old lady couldn't be reached, and we were wondering if she had been put into the hospital. And no. There is no patient of that name anywhere on their records.
That sort of fucks my mind.
So... tomorrow morning, I am going to bus out to her hilly area, and try to find out what has happened.
As optimistic pessimist... oh, I don't want to go there.
But hoping that at best, she couldn't cope any more, and is in a home... at worst? I do not want to go there.
I DO know that I will go there with fear in my heart.
People who are kind should live forever, you know?
I hope it is a false alarm.
Fuck, fuck fuck fuck fuck....
Ok, here we go again....health care, single payer style...
There was a good video up on Daily Kos today, highlighting an octegenarian doctor who made a keynote speech at a meeting of something called, 'Mad as Hell Doctors'.
While everyone is fighting about a public option, this man is for single payer, which is the only form which makes any financial sense and would help people to the max. You can read the intro here.
I got privately criticised...
for commenting on the breaking Polanski story. It wasn't my intention to take anyone into excuses for whatever happened, and that we cannot know. It wasn't really about that.
I think it is way about something else.
And it always comes down to money.
And I do not wish to say anything more, but am convinced that something else is going on there, and it isn't savoury.
Am just tired..
But...
am emancipating myself, if slowly...
We will see. Am off for two days... I have to do something with my appartment.
Oh, it is gonna ge fun... not....
Holy Fucking Christ Almighty and the fucking donkey he rode in on !
I just learned that Roman Polanski got arrested in Switzerland, and is being flown to be persecuted in the fucking US of A.
Here.
Ok...
No, not 'prosecuted'. Persecuted. What the fuck hell is this supposed to be, I ask you?
This case goes back to 1978. The so-called 'victim' has long since called for them to cease and desist, and it wasn't the way it was portrayed in the press at the time.
Cui bono? Who profits?
Hell A was the sleaze capital of the world at the time. He was still not over the murder of his wife, and the senseless killing of his child who was in utero. People took advantage, I would guess. And blackened his name forever.
A man who survived the ghetto in Warsaw, whose parents and family were killed, he has seen horrors no one can imagine. I do not want to know what goes on in his mind...
So he has worked abroad since.
Two of my favorite people were with me in Vienna to see 'The Fearless Vampire Killers' as musical, and it was stunning. The man is an artist. That it failed on Broadway had a lot to do with the witch-hunt animosity against him, and several fatal artistic decisions. It was a terrific show.
They didn't tell me, 'Oh, no, we can't see that... he is a criminal.'
But there you go...
What gets my boxer shorts in a twist is that Switzerland is the culprit, sending him for trial in the US, although the supposed 'victim' has formally asked them not to try him.
And if that is the case... I want... any country to detain and arrest Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush, the DOJ assholes who made torture 'legal', and all their minions put on lists, get arrested, and put on trial in the World Court at the Hague. Since what they did exceeds anything any of us can even thnk of in our wildest nightmares.
That is not to say I take anything thrown at Polanski lightly, I do not.
But there is something political going on here, and it gives me a bad taste in my mouf.
Switzerland gets immediately crossed of my 'to visit' list. Was that a quid pro quo for not opening their sneakret accounts?
Anything is possible...
Shit.
Yesterday was the 70th (!!) anniversary...
Of the release of Warner's 'The Wizard of Oz'
That film is so iconic. The story is so unbeatable for being the 'best of all time'.....
(And yes, somehow it is very very gay.... but more on that in a minute...)
Yesterday, the Empire State Building was supposed to be lit green at the spire. (Emerald City, don'tcha know...) But got lit red, because of Iranians who were protesting Ach-my-gawwd-jamima whoever the fuck he is... I guess they were thinking of ruby slippers. At least that is Rachel Maddow's guess, she was all hopped up for it....
Rachel is half my age.
But I will bet you that if all Americans and people world-wide have one thing in common, it was seeing 'The Wizard of Oz' as a child.
Am not being snarky about this, really not. I can't remember how many years we had special showings at the cinema I worked in. Two weekend matinees, and we sold out 1400 seats on those weekends. And I and my friends would work overtime to put up over one thousand boxes of fresh popcorn for each one beforehand, it was a nightmare. But it was also a lovely experience to see a new generation see the film, if we had duty inside the cinema. Watching all the children's faces react to great story-telling, and being enrapt with pure magic on a big, big screen. I loved it when they went into wonderment, when the film went from black-and-white to technicolor and a whole new world opened up to them. And the terror, when the flying monkeys got led loose, and the joy when the wicked witch melted toward the end. Story-telling at its' very best, hey.
The gay references only surfaced much later. In the Fifties, one would ask, 'are you a friend of Dorothy's?', for instance. I never understood that, nor heard that one personally, by the way. For me it was the perfect fairy tale...
And to this day, I can't put my finger on what it was that made that film a gay icon. I guess they just seemed to embrace it, and what it was they identified with eludes me... wanting to be 'somewhere else'? 'I have a feeling we're not in Kansas any more.' Being bored and whisked off to a world of adventures you never imagined?' It has never made sense to me. Just Judy Garland? Pfft. I loved Bert Lahr.... just sayin'.
But whatever it was, it was the perfect children's film. I have a copy in my dvd collection, and believe it was the 60th anniversary of the film's release, with some amazing extras on it.
So I guess I will have to pull it out soon, and take another look at that masterpiece soon. Haven't been up for looking at anything lately. But it always cheers me up.
If you have a copy, take another look. Movie magic.
I wanted to find a good video of Garland telling about the wayward 'Munchkins', but came up with nothing. But this as good as it gets... And now I think I know why it hit something with the GLBT people. Not feeling you fit in, and wanting to be somewhere else....
Soap Operas... can make me laugh...
YouTube made me interested....
The parents were the worst acting in a soap opera I have ever seen, the idiocy of discussion didn't surprise me... but otherwise... One Life To Live just makes me cackle with hilarity.
Ok, my triggers for hilarity aren't very loose these days... Talk about drama queens... shee-it. But there is something in the dialogue that makes me think...
Well, as former being in the closet and having fears, some kid it going to just be who he or she is without the fear.
And some people are going to scream, 'Indocrination'. Except it won't be.
Hmmm... sonic weapons used on civilians.... the new taser???
While watching the usual uproar surrounding a G20 summit, and seeing young people run from tear gas and pepper spray, one thing caught my attention. A big truck or ambulance-looking vehicle, with a sound I had never heard before.
Seemingly, it was a so-called sonic weapon. I've read some scattered reports on this over the past few years. Mostly coupled with sonic devices used by the navy which drives whales to become disoriented, and beach themselves, and a 'super-sonic' device which maybe caused the undersea earthquake which caused the deadly tsunamis in Thailand.... Which theory I shrugged off at the time, as it seemed sort of 'Star Wars' in its' craziness. But I never ruled out that some sort of super-sonar signals would disorient whales and dolphins, or parasites, the waste being poured into the oceans considered. Was open minded about it, but was a cause of concern.... (In the Seventies I was delighted to see a school of dolphins following the ship I was on in the Mediterranean. The last time... I didn't see a single one....)
Whatever that vehicle was... some are saying that it was a sonic device. And at even that level can cause disorientation, or deafness, even.
I don't know WHAT the hell that sound was on CNN before the pepper spray or tear gas flew, but even hearing it on the PC was very disagreeable, without knowing what it might have been.
Now, it is a GIVEN, that when the G20 summits take place, it attracts a mess of people who are very angry with globalisation, and they take to the streets, and a minority act inappropriately, and there are usually riots.
And passionate, young people get out of hand, damage gets done, but the powers that be don't seem to care and shove their agenda in your faces. And the police come in, and there is tear gas, and rubber bullets, and violence. We've had enough of that shit in Europe over the past years.
But something was different this time. Tja, Pittsburgh... There weren't so many people as elsewhere the past years. But they started running off, most of them....
And then CNN comes up with a report that sonic weapons were used for the first time... on Americans. And then there was this report. Click HERE.
Now if we take tasers as an example, which are seemingly given into the hands of incompetent scared police who would rather use them than do their jobs, and the reports on that are myriad...
What is going to happen if there really is such a new weapon for 'crowd control'?
In a crowd peacefully demonstrating?
Would they amp it up till they have a street full of dead people dying of brain hemmorhage, and problem solved? Or is it another scare tactic?
This is all hypothetical, and nothing is proven.
And we all get to be the sheeple...
There have been so many lies, and so much scariness in what has been going on the past months... I don't believe very much of what I see on what passes for 'news' or the 'tee-vee' or anything else for that matter.
After reading many things over many decades, I do not know what to believe any more.
But I DO know... I never heard a sound like that before.
And find it unsettling.
Values Voters...
are sorta crazy. To underscore what I asserted below... pornography will make you gay, and that has to be one of the weirdest things I have EVER heard. We're talking about Playboy or Hustler type pornography here, btw. So... you tell your eleven year old sons, grandsons, great-grandsons that if they ever ever look at any of those... it will turn them gay. I don't know where that guy went to school, but am spitless when it comes to his illogical conclusions. And the other stuff wasn't much more logical Were these people all home schooled?
Because I do not get it. And how did they get where they are? A close friend of mine used to say, 'Who did he/she have to FUCK to get THAT job???' Always a valid question....
And for those who don't believe Jimmy Carter... that 'joke' at the beginning... is so racist, I would like to get out some eye bleach, but the audience loved it. I know, I know... Obama has so much on his plate, he doesn't need to add that to his plate. But am not so sure that is a sure-fire recipe for quelling what is becoming the flames.
I like Michaelangelo Signorile... I do...
Anyone who gets up on a pedestal in a New York Church in the 80's and calls the then cardinal and now Pope the Anntichrist, has my respect. (It was the AIDS crisis, and he was an activist... and the then Cardinal's remarks were unspeakable.)
But to understand the 'crazy' going on in the US, this interview is amazing. WHY are people so misinformed? Sure, this lady truck driver is going nuts because her mother is dying, and you would THINK that it would make HER think... somehow. Raging fear, or something... And seemingly busting her ass to pay the bills.
And that is where the discussion gets de-railed. If there is that much rage... you cannot have a civil discourse. And that is the problem.
Civility is something a lot of Americans lost a long time ago. But it escalated into screaming.
If this is something people hear every day on the radio, boy howdy, it is a bleak picture of what US 'culture' has become. Listen closely...
Fractured Fairy Tales....
Give your child a copy of Playboy at age eleven, and then tell him it will make him )))gay(((. As happened at the so-called 'Values Voters' convention in Washington D.C. this past weekend. Now how fucked up is THAT?
Link here.
This is going around on the net, and is enlightening...
Except I can remember my grandfather listening to the McCarthy hearings on the radio, and even though I was very young, I hated those people on the HUAC. It was just instinctive. Well, what goes around comes around.... Take a listen and watch. It is even better than radio.... And the original is still up at Crooks and Liars... oh well, it was... It's been pulled from all over the place.
It was a very very powerful juxtaposition of what was then and what is now. I hope a lot of people saw it. But take some aspirin first, it will give you a head-ache....
I want to see THIS movie... scary....
It almost looks 'real', after seeing all the values voter blatherers over the last weekend. In fact, it's like the Fifties.... but I didn't like the ending. /snark
Ok, everyone is talking about Obama...
Even moslim people across my court.
They scare me at the moment....
I do not understnd the language, so I do not know what they are talking about. It could be innocent. It could be incendiary. I do not know. The tone was very agitated.
If you do not know a language, you're sunk. You just hear the tone.
Obama is going to the Middle East this week.
And I really don't know what those people were talking about, but his name fell.
And that made me afraid,
I do not GET it.
There are days when I think he wants to be a martyr.
And that is so sick, ..... I just can't go there.
What the fuck does he think he is DOING???
/snark
And in more silliness... The Russians are Coming!
This film was so funny, I nearly shit my pants.
I grew up to be so afraid of Russians, I was petrified as a child. I got lectures in fifth class about how they were gonna come and take my parents away to re-education camps, thanks to Reader's Digest, and we would be indoctrinated, and be little robots who would do whatever 'dear leader' wanted. And we would get our parents as zombies back, once they were finished with them.
Hard times, my friends.... Scary times....
Indoctrination.
We kinda liked this ranting Repub idjit teaching us, because if a subject was boring, someone would get her on this rant, and it was amazing. Because, kids love a good scary tale.
I do not know how I got through grade school and be half-way intelligent, I swear.
Unlike the movie... I never saw anyone from Russia till I began working in Europe. And we got a group of 'tourists' (right) come in on a tour of visiting our agricultural set-ups, and to 'learn'.
It freaked me the fuck out beforehand.
I was gonna SEE the people who had been so demonised, and put my folks in prison and re-educate them, it was very upsetting.
And then they arrived. For a 'distinguished' group, they were really dressed down. And I thought, 'Fuck! They look like Americans!'
Something in my world changed that day. And that is why I love this film.
And since the US defused what Boosh wanted to do, appropriate.
Enjoy.
This is the thrd time I have seen this silliness....
it is 'Talk Like a Pirate Day'. ARRRRH... Yes it is... And I finally found out where that bit of insanity came from. So pay attention, learn your lesson, rehearse it all year so that next September 19th you can convince everyone around you that you have gone overboard and are nutters. Arrrrh! and then some. But ye'd better be good at it by then, because owerwise, it's down to Davy Jones' locker wif ya, and that right quick.... /idiocy....
Yes, ring the fucking BELL! Sound an alarm, hey...
Aretha.
When White-bread Nancy Pelosi gets up and gets 'emotional', because the national discourse has become so coarse, it is nearly unbearable to watch any more..... You KNOW you are in big trouble. Asking people to turn down the tone of daily discussion.
I think there was so much more behind that.
The opposition hates that woman so much... someone must have scared her totally.
Rachel Maddow was sorta off the charts for, WhAAA? yesterday... That she referred to assassinations in San Francisco in '78, and got emotional, Pelosi was THERE. There were murders.
And the opposition doesn't fucking care, because they want to tear down everything that exists.
I would like to bitch-slap some ot them, but no way I would ever go there.
Nor want to.
Some people are playing with fire, and probably still in diapers like fucking David Vitter.
With all the shit that is going on.... I have the feeling the US is gonna explode, big time.
And who set the long fuses? O'Reilly, Beck especially, Dan Savage, aka Wiener, and whoever is out there just setting people off to protect corporations.
So... If I had a hammer....
When people are ALLOWED to carry guns to a place where the president is going to speak...
I freak.
What are the authorities thinking, what the fuck are those crazies thinking????
I do not get it.
There are still SOME of us still alive who are old enough to remember very horrible things.
We put people on pedestals, true.
But they helped normal people.
NOW????
I would like to take all the selfish, horrible people who control the media, and send them to oblivion.... wherever that is...
This comes two days late, but wish to place my
feeling of sadness on-line. Mary Travers died. Yes, She of Peter, Paul, and Mary. For anyone who thinks that Obama was gonna indoctrinise people... She and her friends did more than even he would have dreamed of. They were elegant... for that time. Their lyrics were eloquent, and thought-provoking, and outright provocative.
I believe that they were the first music group who really hit me in the gut with their music. They made Dylan 'salon-fähig', acceptable, and gave credibility to things that were against the Viet Nam war, which came later.
They played live in a theater in the little town I grew up in, and I SO wanted to go. I did extra errands, so as to earn the money to go and see them. So I was a little groupie, before that term got coined. My plan got nixed by my 'rents. Because the concert was at night, you see....
They wouldn't let me go out nights. Which isn't any wonder to me nowadays, but at the time was crushing. I WANTED to see Peter, Paul and Mary perform. But there was a problem. I was somewhere between eight and ten years old. And in my family at that age... bed time was eight p.m. Period.
So I had to miss it. And never caught up with them ever again.
But they influenced me greatly. Obama? Pfft. Indocrination? Pshaw, get outta here! That group did more to raise my political conciousness than anything I can think of.
Now Mary Travers has passed on. I still so wish I could have seen her and her trio perform in my little burgh.
All that gets left is on YouTube. Their message wasn't strident. They sounded absolutely wonderful. And we get the loss. RIP.
I was trying to explain everything to someone...
and turned it into a fairy tale, a fracutred one.
Once upon a time... there was this guy who was handsome and athletic, and lovely. And he had a fairy godmother who was incredibly scurile , and adopted him, and left him all her kingdom, including a long neglected house. The 'prince' was ecstatic, and turned it into a mansion, selling off valuable land to make it 'perfect'. And it was. But the 'prince' wasn't all that bright. And his vassal would try to counsel him, but he would say, 'NO, this is MY realm, and I will do as I please!'
It didn't take long, and the 'prince' took in an innocuous looking woman, who was in reality the worst witch in the Shire in which he resided. The vassal was distraught, and wrung his hands and warned him, but he wouldn't listen. Her ally was a warlock, who was capable of dark magic. And they bewitched the 'prince', and managed to take all his lands and house away from him. The 'prince' was so gullible, he never really noticed what the dark forces were doing. And the vassal had no powers.
It wasn't long before the witch and the warlock managed to send the vassal into outer realms, where he could have no power over the 'prince'.
But the 'prince' was happy. He thought that they would look after him forever and a day.
Except they didn't and weakened him. And took everything he had.
Now, the laws of the land said, they couldn't just throw him out. But they made sure he was miserable, and stole whatever they could from whatever he had inherited from his Fairy Godmother.
And when he became ill, and was sorry for everything, he had to leave, and they found a way to finally obtain the realm he had so lovingly built up, and he ended up in poverty and misery.
The vassal returned, and tried to have the protective forces of the realm rescue the 'prince'.... except he had been away too long, and the laws were changed.
And no one lived happily ever after.
End of story.
I did a test today.... and it wasn't a nice one
Was over at Peter's, and our friend Doro came over to help me out, because, I am NOT very good with anything any more.
It sort of turned into 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf ' because I am still so angry.
And I was fucking bloody Martha.
And you know what?
He didn't care.
At all.
He gave inane answers.
He just didn't care. Period.
(My heart just literally gave me pain, saying that.... literally.)
Oh, I didn't scream or yell. I didn't.
I just told her a story about what happened recently. Truthfully, but still so fucking angry it was bitter.
Ok, it wasn't a story. It was what happened. She obviously hadn't heard about him signing over the apt. although she and her husband bought the top left one years ago.
She kept giving me the thumbs up sign behind his back.
And then it got uncomfortable, and she left.
I called and apologised for having her subjected to that.
But I wanted to see how far along on the road to dementia he is.
And got an answer from her that I didn't want to hear.
'He never cared. Drop it. He never cared. It was bad enough when you left, but nearly getting you arrested? Walk away, and take care of yourself. We're here for you.'
Werner, who has seen me cry myself to sleep more times than I wish, trying for him not to notice, is far more adamant. 'Throw him away. You deserve so much better.'
My father's immediate reaction was very much like his. Heteros, hmpf...
I think it better not to throw people under the bus. They'll slip under there on their own, you know?
Gawwwd, am I tired at the moment.
There is a lot I am not putting in here, regarding the 'person' who managed to take away everything I had....
So, I guess, after 34 years, I'm going to give notice, final at the end of the month. And what Peter does after that doesn't touch me any more.
Goodness knows... I have done so much over so many decades, much of which wasn't easy... but one day you have to wake up and say 'enough is enough'.
And don't anyone get on my case about stretching it out, hey. I want it to be civil, and he can find someone else to leech onto. But not onto the few friends I have left.
After all that... well, it won't be easy, but it will be right. And it feels 'right' at the moment, so am sure.
Now THAT is something I do NOT need...
Towle Road reports that a new film is in the works.... Michael Douglas is going to play in a bio-pic. Liberace, with Matt Damon as his lover. And I am going to have an asthma attack RIGHT NOW.
And throw up.
What the fuck hell are they thinking?
One of my first memories of the tee-vee was that they were constructed to look like little theaters. And Bio-Mom loved nothing more than watching Liberace, and I fucking HATED that person. I hated his smarminess, I hated him crying when he talked about his mother, I hated his candelabra, I even hated his piano. I must have had an instant allergic reaction. I was only four or five years old.
And I never GOT it. That people didn't see him as he was. And make excuses, he was so 'talented'. It was just show, and he was laughing all the way... to the bank.
Ahh, those were innocuous times....
So what the fuck are two very talented people doing making a film about the ultimate out-there closet case who only had a modicum of talent?
I guess I am still allergic.
Who would have thought...
That Susan Boyle could turn a Rolling Stones number into a torch song?
This is nice. Listen. If you listen to the lyrics closely, you might understand why I am still with Peter....
Just when you think you had a bad weekend, health wise...
And get up on a hated UGLY Monday morning... everything still goes wrong.
I spent more time wrapped around my toilet bowl yesterday retching, because I couldn't get any air, it was pitiful. And made me angry, and really ornery. And I stayed home, in bed between attacks.
Today the weather was a bit better, so I went to Peter's.
Got through that ok in the a.m., and was heading back home... And stopped to exchange a few words with Millie, who had just closed up her stand at the market. For only one sniggarette... And told her about my new letter from Social Sneakurity that I got in the mail this morning.
And as usual, we laughed. I told her they want to know what I do from the time I get up till I go to bed every day. She was stunned, I tell you, STUNNED. And I joked, Well I could start by saying I get up, go to the WC, and nearly explode the toilet with 'hot air'. And we had some fun with that. And she said, 'go for it', and was full of hilarity.
So I went to the tobacconists, and this woman behind me says, 'I think you are on fire...' And then I smelt it. Looked down, and my jacket pocket was smouldering away.
And I thought, 'OH!'. So I stepped outside, and began to empty it. I had some tissues in there, and seemingly a hot ash got in and set them on fire. There were two Bics, and my emergency inhaler in it, all ok, and my camera, also ok. And the letter from the Embassy was beginning to burn very nicely, but I put it out.
I thanked the lady, of course, and wanted to disappear into the ground, and my jacket is ruined, but have had it twelve years, so am not so upset about it. It got fairly beat up in the interim seasons over the years.
So I got some noodles, and went home chagrined, I tell you, chagrined!
And my cell phone rang. Some German asshole who wanted me to re-up for a lottery, and I said no. The conversation got weird. He wanted me to restate my birth-date, and I thought, 'Whoa!' He thought it was 1979. And then he wanted to know what my bank Leitzahl is. That is a number that every bank has. And thought I was with the Postal bank, not the one I have, and my alarms went off. And then he wanted my account number, and I said, 'if you are who you say you are, you already HAVE it.' 'Yes, but it is all coded with asterisks.'
Uh-huh, BINGO!!!
And he wanted me to go out and get my card, and give him the account number. (!!!)
Now all the time of the conversation, I was having my daily bowel movement, and talking on the WC. Which was good... because I had to think, and couldn't just get up and go zombie-like and do what he asked.
And I said, 'I am sorry, but I will NOT do that, and I do not think you are who you say you are, so good-BYE!'
And cut the connection.
It's thundering in the distance, and will have to contact the US Embassy in Vienna.
With my half-burned letter, but the e-mail address is still there....
I HATE Mondays... nothing ever good comes out of them, I swear.
A Single Man won the Queer Lion award in Venice
I didn't know they had one....
But Colin Firth won best actor for the main festival.
Yes, this will be one of the ones I do not want to miss... The color schemes in the trailer are sorta odd, but trailers are teasers...
oh... I didn't know
That Austria is number nine on the list of good health care systems! That is nice...
I KNEW Glenn Beck is bat-shit crazy, but
This tops it all. Putting a cap on the nation's IQ... and he gets applauded by those who probably range in the low 60's to 70's. Story here. The stoopid, it hurts, Preciousses.
oops... it was satire, but just goes to show that Beck is so stupid, I would believe anything like the above as being the way he thinks.... Sorry...
I finally have a movie I can put in the 'must see' category
Tom Ford, the ad, fashion designer guy, decided to direct a film.
But not just any film. He took an incredibly difficult small novel from 1964. 'A Single Man', by Christopher Isherwood. It is very condensed, and about one day in the life of a gay man who is a professor at a university in California, who has recently lost his partner and is in mourning.
It is in the running to get the Golden Lion at the Venice film festival.
The NY Times had a very good review. Click here.
Isherwood isn't well known, but was an artist. Two of his Berlin books later became 'Caberet', and he was considered one of the foremost authors of the last century for his style, and content. He led an astounding life, and his autobiographies can leave you open-mouthed. The very best of them was 'Christopher And His Kind'. In an age when there weren't any people to look up to and want to emulate, there he was in all his glory. And better still, he talked about writing as art, and explained what he was doing, trying to acheive in his novels.
He was an exceptional man, someone I looked up to, felt as if I were a friend, could make me feel exasperated, but he was there. And was an important influence on me, as a person, how he lived, and how we look at the world.
I don't believe I have read that novel since the AIDS crisis began, but I should now, in light of that. It is about loss, and regaining the strength to join humanity again after isolating yourself. Very terse but beautiful prose, in other words.
So I am very much looking forward to seeing what that project became on film.
I hope it wins in Venice.
Oh, fan-fucking-tastic....
The British government decided to say they were sorry about Alan Turing, and what they did to him.
That is not going to ring a bell with anyone I don't think.
He was a mathematician, and broke the so-called Enigma Code the Germans had in WWII, enabling the West to win the war.
But they had a problem with him. He was gay. So what did they do? They stripped him of all security clearances, and damned him to be 'chemically castrated'. He committed suicide two years later when he was forty-one.
Now he is considered one of the most important people of the 20th century, and the government there officially apologised.
Swell.
Just imagine if they had done that to Harvey Milk.....
Please watch here.
You know...... everyone thinks we are living in the 21st century, and the hate still goes on as if it were the 12th, in some cases. And act as if we are spoiled brats, demanding 'rights', when 'Oh, there is so much important stuff to do first.' So we do not matter.
I'm not going to get into the heinous behaviour we all get subjected to over the years, and ok, nice that they finally saw what that what they did was wrong. But 20-2o hindsight never brought back anyone from the dead, and I think we should stand up and honour the people who went out there and did their part, knowing that if their real nature came out, they would be punished to the max.
Some of them paid the ultimate price.
And that is sad.
But it isn't as if 'oh, that was a long time ago, and NOW we know better...'
No. There are enough people out there who would do worse, and you only have to look at the right places on the internets. And everyone else would say 'pshaw, whaddaya getting your boxer shorts in a twist for?'
Because they won't understand the hate. Or what GLBT people have to TAKE every day...
You either toughen up.... or get out of the game altogether, and tried the latter variant three times.
Doesn't always work.
Ok, dukes up! I have Never interfered in ANYONE'S marriage... as far as I know....
The Maine debate heated up, and the pedophiles aka Catholic Church are deeply into the act of being obnoxious, and hateful.
I figured as much... every child left behind... and Faux News sucks.
Some days I get paranoid, and think that Rupert Murdoch wants to overthrow the US government and take over the world. He is succeeding. These people broke their brains.
And it is raining so hard at the moment.... (shakes head).
Night Fevers.... Obama's speech for the joint houses.
Was up late.... had one of my ashtma days... and then slept a few hours. And had a nightmare. It was totally odd, and I still have no idea where some of THAT came from...
So I woke up in a cold sweat, and turned on the interwebs, as it was 3 a.m., and thought, 'Ok, how did the speech go?'
It was already out there. So I watched. And wasn't so impressed. His speech two days before had more fire and conviction, and seemingly was a test run for last night's fun-fest.
Which gave me hot sweats... because... I have never seen members of Congress and an opposition act so childishly, rudely, and insultingly than the Republicans did last night to a president of the US, can't remember anything like it.
I would like to give an Oscar to Johann Boehner for being really sucky. (His family name is German, and the oe in it is prononced Ö which sounds almost like the word boner in English, so I call him the sun-tanned dick.) Runner-up for hypocrisy was Mitch McConnel, 'turtle man'. Fawning all over him when he entered the chamber, and then sitting on his hands. Orrin Hatch wins runner-up for playing 'conscience-stricken',but at least he looked like his conscience was bothering him. And special kudos to Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina for thinking he was in a town hall meeting and called Obama a liar, yelling.
(After Mark Sanford going Argentinian, and his lt. gov. Andre Bauer being outed... what the hell is going on in that state, I ask you? If the Rethugs there keep it up, they will be outta there... of their own doings... Meanwhile, That is one place I never want to visit....)
Wilson apologised for his outburst three hours later. (I can imagine he got some heat for that.) But it was a non-apology. He knew what he was doing, everyone got copies of the speech before they attended, as Keith Olberman on Coundown pointed out.
As to the content... have been going on long enough comparing what single-payer is, and so on and so forth for quite a while now. The way things look to me at the moment, that speech just wasn't enough, and gross misuse will be continued to be the burden on the back of the American taxpayer in order for health insurance companies and pharmaceutical combines to accrue tremendous profits at their expense, and break them.
I was angered at this pathetic attempt on Obama's part to want to reach out to hands that are biting him while holding big knives behind their backs, figuratively speaking. How MUCH is it going to take for him to realise that he can't go on like that? When is he going to face the fact that 20 per cent of the population will never accept anything he does because of who he is, and will stoop to any lie to defame him?
The disrespect shown was appalling. And at base, racist. At base...
And the media? To barf over.
All that I could think of was a 1972 song... Back Stabbers. The refrain fits. Sorry I couldn't find a better quality one.... Some people would stoop to anything to retain power....
This is TASTELESS. I bet it was a Tory, or someone Rethug.
Who thinks this stuff up?
Disgusting. This leaves me spitless. Is EVERYONE just gonna be horrible and make terrible assertions that are so far out there, no one has a chance? I am too upset. This shouldn't be, and is a denigration of the many friends I have lost in this world to this disease.
Using Hitler in that way is .... everything about it is so wrong, I can't begin to even criticise, because it was the most offensive ad I have seen in years.
That is so wrong. I 'understand' what they are trying to say, but everything else is so fucked up, I can't go there, and it is offensive in the extreme.
This organisation is gonna get a call. And I am going to be extremely angry. Yeah, I DO stuff like that.
Semantics....
For a few weeks now, have been really irritated by some buzz phrases....
'At the end of the day...' for instance. And I swear I can't tell you why it bothers me so much, I really can not. But it grates on my nerves.
The first time I heard it was Governor Mark Sanford's mea culpa speech after disappearing to Argentina. 'At the end of the day'... blah blah blah...
And it set off a viral rash of every idjit politician parroting, 'at the end of the day...'
WHA???? A week later, I hear on local television, 'Am Ende des Tages...' And I thought, what the hell IS this?
It was German for 'at the end of the day....'
I have been giving points to politicians who say, 'the bottom line is...' or 'the end result is..' Don't ask me why.
It sounds idiotic... at the end of the day, meaning you do something fully fucked up, correct it, and then it's all right.
I know some people will get their boxer shorts in a twist, ask, 'what is his problem?' But words have meaning.
And I am being picky, I know. It just bothers me.
There are a few other things that I will get to maybe, later. Women for example. For me they are ladies, but am approaching old age. A lady can smoke, cuss, do what she wants, but she will always be a lady. But that is a generational thing, and was always meant as a respectful term on my part.
Yup, words are sorta weird, sometimes....
This sounds like the beginning of heading into Logan's Run
Real Death Panels, and everyone gets to make a profit.
Except the ones who die, of course. Read here.
The most perverse idea I have ever heard.
Happy Labour Day.... which is like our May first, except you forgot what it was about...
One of my grandmothers would have known what it is about. She was a factory worker. She went on strike in the Twenties to get better working conditions and salary. She marched out on the street with my father and his sister to protest. In Massachusetts. And the 'fine' horse-ridden police tried to ride the women and children down, but she fought them. And her eyes would blaze with hate when it came to their tactics. And she told me that story several times, and it would never waver.
THAT is what labour day is really about. Except now, it is barbecues, going to the sea or a lake, family things, and relaxing. The real meaning got lost.
And thanks to all the corporate stuff, and horrible media who do not do their work, people got surpressed, distracted, looking away, and the less there is to share, the more selfish they get. I read today that one in fifty children in the US are homeless. Is that something to celebrate? I find it shameful.
This was on Crooks and Liars, and from last year. Happy Labour Day....
It being the weekend, and being annoyed by talking heads...
I found this on Crooks and Liars, and it took me back. Remember those old Dean Martin 'roasts' in Las Vegas that got televised. This is a classic. Lean back and enjoy.
I finally found the cartoon I was looking for...
This cracked us up way back when.... although it is so sexist, it isn't so funny any more.
Angry much? I do not know where to begin...
I received a mail from a former neighbor. She was on vac for four days, noticed that the shutters to our old place were turned down, the windows were tilted open, and asked if I had been in there.
So I called her, and said, no, hadn't been there in months.
So I rang up Peter, and told him someone had broken in, obviously. And that I was going to call the police.
He gave me the go-ahead....
For a change.
And the police broke in, and I.... got fucking egg on my face.
Becaaaaussse... Peter had given over his rights to the apartment in August, and never told me! So I was the breaker-in, because I still had the keys.
The owner came down with all the appropriate papers, Peter had signed it, and I was the idjit.
And everything that is left inside that apt. belongs to her, not me. Although he maintained otherwise.
Well, of course, Werner had to hold me back, with my little fists. I had brought him along, you see, for moral support.
He hates that woman more than I do, even, and wanted to keep me out of serious trouble.
The police weren't sure who was right in this case, and I didn't help matters any calling 'that woman' everything in the book. When my Irish is up, I am invincible, believe me. I think the worst thing I said was, 'you fucking tramp!'
Yup. I was actually fresh to a woman. I wanted to slap her into the middle of next week, but Werner held me back. He is very strong.
We had to give up the keys to the Mühlgasse 40 to the police.
I called Peter, of course on my underused cell phone, and he had to admit he had done that and hadn't told me.
So we were in the wrong... and hadn't known it. Fun. Not.
What the holy fuck is WRONG with people?
I am so tired of being lied to.
I just heard I am going to be sued in court.
I don't know what FOR....
I didn't attack anyone, except verbally....
I was upset and didn't know the facts.
And now you know why I don't like the idea of gay marriage. If you get a dud, you get into debt, and have to put up with their shenanigans, and NO.
Not for me, thank you... I have enough to do with all the lies, the subterfuge, and oh yes... he is so ill.
Well so am I at the moment, and it makes me want to puke.
errm... ok....
WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH EVERYONE, HUH?
Biting people's finger off at a town meeting... Denigrating poor women with cripppling diseases who is in a wheelchair, and making fun of her because she isn't on the right side...
What the fuck is it going to take to get people to discuss their issues RATIONALLY? WHAT?
Looking across from across the big pond that separates Europe and the US...
I begin to wonder... because nothing good ever came to us from the US to Europe....
We are happy with our health care. It isn't perfect, but it is good.
But more and more we see ads for private health insurance on our tee-vees.
Well, good luck with that.
Peter had a private insurance coverage... Oh, it was 'fun'. Not. Just so he would have a private room, mind you.
And I always said, 'fuck that! Either you are so sick you don't CARE where they put you, and the day it bothers you, you know you are getting better, and going home, for Chrissakes!'
The CARE wasn't any different on any level, so I did not understand why he would do that.
So what kind of country has the US become, when people bite off fingers, or denigrate women in wheelchairs? It makes me ashamed to have had anything to do with growing up there.
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/cspanjunkie/interview-man-who-had-finger-bitten-to
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/02/wheelchair-bound-woman-sh_n_275472.html
And try to tell me why this is so controversial... because I no longer recognise anyone in my former country, and the issue should be a no-brainer.
I was talking to someone... and got a flash to cartoons in the late 60's
Foghorn Leghorn... the vid is a mash-up and one of the craziest figures Warner's ever dreamed up.
Since it is September 1st, when WWII began...
I found this in The Nation. It is by poet laureate W. H. Auden whom I have always admired. The last third of it strikes me as being awfully descriptive of attitudes still abroad today.
September 1, 1939
I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.
Accurate scholarship can
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz,
What huge imago made
A psychopathic god:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.
Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.
Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism's face
And the international wrong.
Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.
The windiest militant trash
Important Persons shout
Is not so crude as our wish:
What mad Nijinsky wrote
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart;
For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.
From the conservative dark
Into the ethical life
The dense commuters come,
Repeating their morning vow;
'I will be true to the wife,
I'll concentrate more on my work,'
And helpless governors wake
To resume their compulsory game:
Who can release them now,
Who can reach the dead,
Who can speak for the dumb?
All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.
Defenseless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.
