As to muslims....

why in the World would anyone want to denounce an entire faith?

Yesterday I got my hair cut, and a shave. Enver is a Turk next door to me, and yelled, 'Yea!' when I entered. He is very friendly, and a Moslem.

He hails from a mountain somewhere in the north of Turkey.

He is fast, efficient, and I walk out looking like a human being. And if I want him to shave me, he gets out this straight razor, a really ugly-looking Sweeney Todd sort of one. He is the only one to cut my hair in the past three years.

His German is still weak. And he said, 'Sleep' meaning, put my head back on the head rest, and he took out his straight razor... and shaved me.

In six times, it was the first time he nicked me under the lip. And he was upset, and rummaging around for things to stop the bleeding, and was very embarrassed, it was just a nick, and I do it all the time with a Bic.

Cripes, how supercilious can you be, hey? He is an artist at his work...

So look.... this isn't what I GET... People are PEOPLE. Some believe weird things to MY mind, but they are still ok in my mind...

And I GO off the charts for indignant, when a whole people get dissed because of their beliefs.

They have to deal with the negative aspects....

Let's face it... he could have cut my throat.

But instead?

He was concerned, and on leaving, he said, 'Take care of yourself.'

I hate racism in any form.... little things in your day can be a new lesson in teaching you where you have been going wrong in presuppostions.

Judging people on their religious beliefs is wrong.

The stoopid, it burns....

I couldn't stand watching this today. But I liked what Joe called Glenn Beck's Lollapalooza: 'Whitestock'. Good call.

That someone thought Al Sharpton was bringing Black Panthers to the other rally?


Or the lady about health screening à la Ellis Island? What century is SHE living in?

I spent THIRTY FIVE YEARS greeting people from all over the world every single working day. And depending on custom, they would shake your hand, which is one great germ carrier, any doctor will tell you that. However, even when the MSM went ballistic, and gave us the great avian flu scare, in a night I had only arrivals from SE Asia, good, there was a niggling worry in the back of my head, but what was to panic about?

These people... are clueless. The whipped up mob, but if you LISTEN... their reasoning is diffuse, they are mouthing bullet points, which came from the people who bussed them there, financed by the Koch brothers and Dick Armey. HUGE corporation people. Immensely rich. And they channel the people, especially white people, who are angry that things aren't improving faster, and give them that focus to really mouf off. And do not realize that they are being played in the worst possible way.

I've seen too many of these clips to think that anyone went out to find the clueless. They ARE clueless, and it is sad. This one sorta brings it home.

And is actually depressing.


The YouTube embed is not functional, but you can see the extravaganza HERE.

Sundays are lame.... but

Yesterday the difference was watching Brian Williams host Meet the Press. Great job. Interesting. After there it was sort of down-hill. I hooked onto a ten-part video of the Daytime Emmy Awards on YouTube. It was half-way interesting.

After having looked at da Soaps for a while, whereby I sort of look at them as a sociological mirror of the nation's psyche, I at least recognised about half the people nominated. So it kept me from sitting around, brooding... I really was impressed with how so many of those people work with the 'Feed The Children' foundation, that was moving..... And I couldn't BELIEVE that the Soap Peter watches won.... that one is so lame, it is the perfect cure for insomnia.

Today was the blahs. Got a haircut, finally. Talked with Peter for a few minutes. And was looking through 'da news' on Huffington Post.... And the prime-time Emmys were yesterday, seemingly, don't really follow all that closely... But I found the opening really good. Seemingly, Jimmy Fallon was host. And did a number based on Glee, with some of the cast, Tina Fey, Jorge Garcia of Lost, who actually has a voice, Kate Gosselin... and the incredible Jane Lynch, who won again, bless her.... AND Betty White, who had me in stitches.... especially when she says, 'What the hell are YOU looking at?' It's only a short take, but she can steal any scene, I swear.

Now to clarify... I am a Gleek, a Glee fan. There was buzz on the nets, I got the first season from the UK via Amazon, sceptical, but ended up just loving it. So I was pleasantly surprised about the opening of the show Sunday. It was brilliantly done. And I know... there are people who absolutely HATE the series, but I found it fresh, thought-provoking, entertaining, and there is a hell of a lot of talent there. Am hoping to get season two sometime this year.

So here is the opening. You can judge for yourself.

I thought it was very well done.

Leave it to the Mormons....

Glenn Beck is certifiable. He belongs in a very quiet place where he can't harm anyone. And I despise Chris Wallace, aka 'chipmunk man' to my mind. I usually want to slap the smirk right off his face. Today he surprised me... with the question, 'Who made YOU the God sqad?' I nearly shit myself. Is Chris finding a spine??? You have to hear the drivel that followed.

Listen, I don't know how much Beck believes, or how much is show, he's despicable. And seems to be on a self-aggrandizing trip. And I am agnostic. I don't believe in anything. But this clip is mind-bending. I should have stuck with looking at the Daytime Emmys I caught on YouTube today. There was an amazing tribute to Dick Clark, and it was stellar with live acts. He broke down and cried. American Bandstand was a wonderful invention. I don't think Dick is doing all too well, health-wise, but he was part of my childhood. So yeah, that would have been better, getting all nostalgic.

This just ticked me off.

Well even Jon Stewart wasn't surprised....

Ken Mehlman, he with the ugly mouf, is gay. I know. Whoopee.

It wouldn't matter... except as head of the RNC, he helped launch the most vicious campaign ever to harm the GLBT I have ever seen.

For money. And now.... after a year or so out of the national spotlight, he's all 'oh, sorry'?

The man is a MESS. And I'm supposed to 'boo-hoo?' It's a joke, right? Right?

And that is supposed to make it all right, and we're gonna kiss his boo-boo. WRONG. The man is scum. EVERYBODY in the community KNEW at the time what sort of spineless creep he was. No one dared pick the story up in the mainstream.

Cripes, the Righties are so twisted, you can't even imagine whatever distortions are coming next, and then you find out they betray every 'Value', they profess to hold.

Sad.

Am linking as an exception to an article here. I like Joe Jervis, he's sorta cool.

While I was waiting today...

to be taken to Wagna....

Of COURSE I deflected my worries, and watched news.

And since it is the fifth 'anniversary' of Katrina tomorrow.... I would like to recommend people to watch the Rachel Maddow show on the intertubes for the past week. Not all this creepy stuff about what it was like then, but because she focused on what is NOW. And what needs to be done still, after all this time.

'Anniversaries' can be a time to look back.... grant you that. But am not a backward-looking person. I like looking at where we are, and how we go forward, and be and make things better.

She did that. It is very interesting to see and think about.

Tomorrow will mark an 'anniversary' for me.

I had recently met 'Annti' and told her to get the hell out of where she was.

She told me I was a 'drama queen', although I only mailed her the weather report from there, but it was in Caps. Sue me. That is how the weather bureau printed it.

It's my Achilles Heel. Not being precise about where I got the stuff.

The info was completely correct.... but I didn't say where it was from.

But I had met this remarkable woman, and was off the charts for 'concerned'.

So tomorrow is another sort of date... which reminds me how much I received from a very loving person, and how much I have cared.

Now don't get all out of whack. I'm still gay. But I can love women very easily, in my heart. And they are stronger, and wonderful, and you would have to be STOOPID to believe otherwisel.

Saturday, and just back from Wagna....

Whewww... I wasn't sure D would come through, but she did drive me down there. And back...

Actually, it was very nice of her. We left just before 3 pm. It is now 7 pm, the bells went off at all the churches nearby, and 'the Preacher' across the way will probably start singing Baptist hymns. Am hoping for 'Precious Hands'.... even HE can't completely ruin it.....

On the way down... I was a nervous wreck, not knowing what I would find there. So as usual, when I am nervous, I got into motor-mouth phase, and being 'entertaining', just idjit stories from my long-ago youth. Because I didn't know what I was going to see or how I would react....

Getting in was problematic. Cut-backs wherever you look, and no one in the reception area. And D said, I'll go look for a portier, and then I saw it.

They have a telly-phone, and if no one is on duty, you pick it up and get connected to 'someone'.... Like talking to 'God', and by gawwd, she's a woman. It went something like this:

'Yes?'

'My name is B, and I am in the reception area.'

'Are you hurt?'

'Nooooo... I am here to visit someone, and wish to know what room he is in.'

'Are you a relation?'

'I am his (big gulp and grimace,) Lebensgefährte.'

'Is he 71?'

'His date of birth is March 23rd, 1939. But I don't know his blood type or RH factor....'

(through clenched teeth...)

'He's in the men's ward on the second floor, room 311.'

'Thank you... ' (God... whoever you are....)

And D. was looking on ASTOUNDED, only hearing my end of the exchange, and I was grimacing, and shaking my head, and mouthing 'WHAA?' Because there were lots of long pauses there....

How do they RUN that place, hey? It's the province and all, but as Colbert says, 'Come ON!...'

Ok, that was the exciting stuff, all right?

Room 311 wasn't a single. But the people in there... Well, it's enough to depress anyone into the middle of the next election cycle. Yeah it is bad. And the patient next to him looks like he won't make it till the middle of next week, it is not pretty. He's on the tubes and shit. And Peter was being delusional, and scaring me to death.... except.... he isn't doing well AT-all...

No, Preciousses... he isn't. But a bit better than last time I saw him in Gamlitz, except----that isn't saying much. A bit. And cogent isn't really a word I can use here. He has loopholes in his cognition.

He looked scared, and a bit lost. That hurt me to see, but my eyes didn't sweat, at least. I held his hand for a while, and got some 'looks' from other visitors, but thought, 'Well damn you to Hell, and sorry I'm scaring the horses. I waited long enough to get there for cripes sake....'

A relief? No, not really. D was very nice. We did a tag-team approach without having said a word. It only took a look. After a bit as a double, I said, 'You know what, Peter? I couldn't smoke in the car, so I am going to step out and have a snigarette.' And when I came back, she said, 'Oh, I forgot something, just have to step out', so we both had some private time, and not wear him out. That was nice, that we were in sync.

We got kicked out of the room for a while, because the nurses were gonna 'do stuff' to the patients in there... that's standard. It was in front of the nurses station, and D. pointed to an 'in-box' behind the window, and said, 'Look'. Two packages of Tamiflu 20 mg. Donald Rumsfeld makes it to the boonies. In Austria, no less. He's a major shareholder.

So I asked, 'Do you think they are giving him that?'

She said, 'I don't know. Now show me where you go out to smoke on the balcony.'

Soooo... we did, and I did, and we had some earnest discussion, and I expressed how grateful I was. And we admired the scenery for a bit, it really is beautiful down there... Meanwhile the guy next to him was having a seizure of some sort, so it took much longer than I had expected.

So we went in as double, and said good-bye, he had gotten his evening meal, he said 'it was awful', and we said we were glad we hadn't raided the serving trolleys, and he was very needy. 'Will you call?' 'Of course I will.' 'Will you come visit me?' 'Of course I will, how could you doubt that?'

That seemed to calm him for the time being....

Herrgottnochmal...

On the way home, I had a very good discussion with D. About families, and all the quirks and tragedies that have hit us over the past few decades... It was a very calm thing, clearing up differences, and, I think positive.

So.... as Nestroy once said... 'First it comes differently... and secondly... than you think.'

That tickles me to this day. And goes back to the 1700's, I believe...

All I can think of right now is: you never know anything about anything. And the results can be satisfactory in spite of it.

Happy? Oh no, can't be. But not the horror I expected.... for now. Except it won't be long.

It didn't work. And how you sometimes have to grovel...

Called the Spital... to tell him it was tomorrow.

Punch to the gut, hey. What sounded ok yesterday, didn't sound ok today.

Listen: I had no reason to be alarmist till now. Yesterday the voice was half-way back, he laughed... and I thought, 'ok, that is good...' Today was 'different'. And suspiciously, there was no noise. In that hospital, the wards usually hold six patients. So there is some background noise. So I asked, 'Errm, how many patients are in your room?' And he said, 'It's a single.' And all I could HEAR in the background was this whispering sound. I recognised it from watching 'da soaps'. It was a respirator.

And he said it was 'pretty bad'.

Oh, I could curse, and be SO FUCKING ANGRY right now, I could choke.

Listen: You do NOT get a single room in a county hospital if it isn't dire. You do not. And that whispering noise.... oh. my. gawwd. And I'm not THERE.

And there he was, trying to calm ME down... the idjit. He didn't TELL me, but I KNOW.

He was so tired out, he didn't wanna talk long.

Owwwww... Weh...

That is when I started crying. Not histrionic. My eyes started to 'sweat', my nose got congested, and it hasn't really stopped.

This is SO frustrating, I can't even begin to describe anything.

It is 'Can I Get There in Time? Can I BE there, and hold his hand if this is the final act?'

I don't wanna it to be like San Diego, where I couldn't get there, and just lose a big part of my life without saying goodbye.

I am so upset with D. For a former nurse, her empathy level is nil, but most of them have that wall built up so as not to get hurt.

I don't care HOW I get there. That is grovelling....

Yeah, I went off the charts... who wouldn't? And visited a neighbor whom I can hardly stomach, because he has a printer, and I do not, and asked him if I could have one copy of 'The Venerable' so that I can brag about him out on the square... The V is legendary here, and I never had a good one to show.

It kept me from going really ballistic, and maybe going to jail.

For getting violent.

My neighbor offered to lend me the money to get to Wagna. Which would have been ok, coming from someone else.... I'd rather eat dog doo than accept anything him, the printing of the foto was humiliation enough.

And just to distract myself... you really should have seen Rachel Maddow last night. From New Orleans. Five years after, but it was so incisive, and made my eyes sweat. Because it wasn't about 'then', but about now.

I had just met one of the dearest friends I have ever had, a bit before. Someone whom I have come to love. So when I watch GOOD reporting, my eyes sweat. Someone should DO something about carbon emissions. We Oldies get 'algerisch', which means 'Algerian' to it. It was a long in-joke between Peter and me.

I hope we get to share that one more time.....

Ok... I think I can scrape some money together---

and train and bus off tomorrow without 'help'.

I had enough of that tonite. If the ATM spits out enough, I'm going to Wagna tomorrow, whoppee! It's a long story.....

I had a set-back, but something nice in the mail....

Meet 'the Venerable'. I love this photo. I am just gonna let it stand as is. It's who he is and can be.

and YEAH, I'm 'supposed' to go ON about the fact he is 95 years old... and how he looks so handsome, and 'who woulda thunk it'... But I won't. Heh.

Just a small update....

I got Peter on the horn, using the L word.... I LOVE it when they go 'uh-oh', and ask you to please hold, they will connect you.

He sounded ok.

Breathing better... half-way cogent....

And I asked what they were doing and he said in his complaining voice, 'They were poking and prodding me and touching me all over....' And I said, 'That sounds like a normal Saturday nite in the gay section of the City Park...' And he bust out laughing. 'That is why I love you, you make me laugh.' I haven't heard him laugh like that in weeks.

It just shot out of my mouf, as the drunk guy said when he threw up, but I wasn't in 'hilarious mode', just reflex and instant reaction after being scared out of my wits.

So I don't know... it is still very serious.

I won't be really calm till I get there, and speak to his doctor.

BUT OBVIOUSLY.... there haven't been any 'death panels'.

Am about to rid myself of a disturbing image....

Because I KNOW someone who is going to need it. Peter fell in love with it in Venice, and said, that is JUST how he feels. It is small, brilliantly done, and the artist is famous for cd covers, the art on them. We also had a large poster of it in the stairway at our house. I used to collect all sorts whenever we were in Venice, just to irk the neighbors with art, and was greatly disappointed when they were upset that I took them all down when we moved out.

Next to the poppy painting Peter so loved, this was 'how he felt', living with his illness. Jumping across a chasm, and so trying to gain ground on the other side.

He gave it to me when he couldn't look at it any more and sort of gave up. But I know someone who fell in love with the poster and has the same reaction to it... that's how he feels every day. So I wish to give it to him in order to give him the encouragement he needs, he is a very valuable person.

I never HAD that sort of relationship to it. Too fatalistic. 'You're gonna FALL, you idjit...'

Yes, it's about striving and acheiving the impossible. And I think it is a wonderful image....

But y'know what I saw? I imagined a river at the bottom of the chasm, and myself there, fighting crocodiles, water moccasins and piranas.

That is what is so 'cool' about 'art'. People's perceptions can be so divergent. (shaking fist now, WHERE the HELL ARE you Bernhard so that I can talk about this with you 'out on the Square??? Miss you...)

This 'thing' has been staring at me for years out of a glass bookcase, accusingly.

So now that I know a worthy successor who has the same feeling about it.... will pass it forward. As long as it helps, no damage, no foul, as they say.

And now that I've bored everyone to death... we all have our way of dealing with perceptions.

Am sort of maxed out on emotion today, just feel deadened...

Spent the morning going through 'the motions', waiting to be able to call the hospital...

Mornings aren't good, they shunt patients around, doing tests, so that isn't a good time.

I just got through this p.m. Having to use the L word again... he is so weak, and seemed lucid... but in the end, he didn't know where he WAS. I explained he was in Wagna, he didn't believe me. I said, 'look, the home in Gamlitz called me last night and said you were taken to Wagna, so I called there and spoke with your doctor. And I just called the hospital in Wagna right now, and got connected to you, so, my dear, you ARE in Wagna, ok?'

That made him a bit testy... 'I'm not a CHILD!' 'No, but you were very close to leaving without saying goodbye, hey...... you get rest. I will be coming down there on Friday.'

Because the phone rang this morning... My phone NEVER rings unless it is bad news or people wanting to sell me lottery tickets. Or hospitals, or doctors, which we can put in the bad news category.... So I was sort of queasy, picking it up, thinking, 'Oh, what NOW, for cripes sake?'

It was Dorle. She offered me a free ride to Wagna and back on Friday, and will accept. We had a VERY long talk. There are many things we have in common, and I would never get into them openly.

So I will accept.

Some things get you revved up, then drained emotionally, because you didn't have time to re-charge any batteries, you know?

At least he is half-way cogent, and that is good... they did have him on oxygen all morning, must have worked something good, don't know....

ohhh MANOMANOMAN!

After I got a 'grip' on myself... sort of. I called the horsepital in Wagna.

And I was wicious, as Dickens would have said.

And angry. It began politely... 'you have a new patient, Peter P?' 'We don't give out that sort of information.' 'I understand that... but I am his Lebensgefährte. What the hell is going ON?' 'Lebensgefährte' means 'life partner'. She said, 'Excuse me?'

And I said, 'Shall I spell it OUT for you? I am his Lebensgefährte, and I want to know what is going on RIGHT NOW. Gamlitz called and told me he was there, so WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?'

That must have put a shocking crimp in HER evening.... she said, shocked, 'Oh....' and handed it over to the doctor on duty, 'It's his Lebensgefährte'.

And I got the doctor on the horn, who didn't seem shocked. And I explained that the past weeks, he hadn't been able to breathe well at all, had had weak lungs since his childhood, was on oxygen at the home, which fact interested the doctor, and he said, 'What?' And I said, 'I can't visit regularly, but he was on a machine the last two times I was there.'

'So spill, what the hell is wrong with him?'

'Well, we 'think' it is a lung infection and are waiting for blood test results, so I do not know yet, and cannot tell you.'

OH DUH....

Anyone with two eyes and ears in their head would have seen and heard THAT...

But he was polite. And I was as well. He said it will take most of the night to discern whether he needs stationary treatment (YES!) or get some therapeutic thing and go back to the nursing home. (Not so crazy about that... for the time being...)

Y'know... that is the very first time I went assertive about the Lebensgefährte thing. Oh, I've gotten it before, 'charming' 'What IS he, your Lo... cough... your BROTHER?' Or people who have asked me in hospitals, and it was always somehow embarrassing to me. The quote above was from a lovely Italian lady in the infirmary on a cruise ship. Nurse Simona. I could have fallen in love right there.

But tonight, it was the first time, I just went out and said the L word and didn't give a fuck. I wanted answers, and I was going to get them. Damn the politeness, and damn the sham, and damn whoever stands in the way....

They didn't care... it gave me access.

And you know what? It sort of feels good at the moment.

Oh weh! Oh.my. gawwd....

I KNEW it was coming....

'The call'.

No one ever calls me. Especially not after eight in the evening.

It's sort of a 'rule'.

It was the Slovenian doctor whom Peter HATES with a passion.

I'm still trying to digest this... so give me a break for not being cogent at the moment....

Peter's condition the last two weeks has been enough to send alarm bells off in anyone's head whomsoever.

She was 'at the end of her art', as they say, and informed me he is back in hospital in Wagna, which is near Leibnitz. And that 'maybe' he will be back in the nursing home tomorrow, and I should call.....

So that maybe someone else will tell me he left the planet, not her. She can't be a fan, he was horrible to her.

Ohhhhhhhh...

I do NOT want to 'paint the devil on the wall' here. But this is in no way good.

Preciousses... nursing homes do not call you shortly before nine p.m. to tell you about a sudden transfer to a hospital. They DID that once a few months ago, and he called ME to let me know where he was. This isn't normal.

I KNOW what I have been hearing over the phone the past days. It was way too reminiscent of being on the phone with my beloved friend Mark in California, just before he died. And I was pissed off, and lacked the means to GET there. Same thing now... history repeating itself, whether I like it or not....

I have no way of knowing what is going on, but fear the worst and am an absolute MESS inside.

Gawwd... Wagna. Horrible place, but better than the dying rooms at the home, I suppose...

Jeebus.

Oh my, I have to laugh....

I just checked my tracking page, and someone in former East Germany landed on my site using the search words 'Ginger Rogers'. I hope whoever it was didn't have a heart attack.

But THAT was funny. Just sayin'

There are days....

You shouldn't call your significant other if he or she is in a nursing home.

If you wish for heart-stopping excitement if you are getting older yourself, you can try it, but I wouldn't reccomend it as getting an adrenalin rush, and going 'WHEE!' running nekked through the corridors.... in your head...

He cut me off in the middle of a talk, and I couldn't get a signal other than 'busy'.

As he hadn't picked up the first time, I landed in the office, and she sent two nurses there to wake him up, as he is getting deaf.... He sounded more awful than the last time I saw him, could hardly breathe.

Then he fumbled it, connection broken, and just a busy signal for half an hour.

I didn't really have a REASON to call at that time, we have fixed hours about when and how to call, but The Venerable sent me something I thought would be interesting to impart, and was afraid I would maybe, possibly forget it.

No big deal, in other words. On Aug 27th, Mars will be at the closest distance from Earth, so it will look like we have two moons, which happens every 2200 years or so, and will be at a time he is usually up and about.

He found it interesting, he does like Geek things, like me, so it was spur of the moment, 'Oh, wait till he hears this, and we can speculate on whether THAT is when the Hollywood UFOS come out and attack.'

But I didn't get that far, we got disconnected, and when I got through again, supper was being served. Krainer sausage with a roll and mustard, and horseradish, a local specialty. I bought one recently at the farmer's market. It took me two days to devour it. (They aren't large...)

I have no appetite for anything any more.

Whatever, false alarm, he's failing, I don't feel so hot most days either, so... it's just life....

And... Someone is gonna ask me about the sculpture

of the street-washing Jew. Can we back UP here just a bit? Teeney tiny?

Okay... As I understand it... The Nazis FORCED the surviving Jewish populace to clean up the mess they supposedly made after Kristallnacht, when they trashed their businesses, wrecked their homes, and they had to scrub the streets. On their hands and knees. In Vienna.

This monument was put up on what used to be a flat-iron building which was bombed by the US, but was about the Jewish population in Vienna, and the hell they went through. The figure is before a 'Gate to Hell', and there are some other elements on that site. They never got the bodies out. So it is hallowed ground.

At the time... people were fully angry for having their faces wiped in their pasts. I found it appropriate....

Oh, I'd nearly forgotton... they had a subsequent 'problem' with that sculpture. Tourists had no idea what it was about, thought it was a bench, and sat on it, eating hamburgers from MacD's. To say THAT was disrespectful is the understatement of the decade.... So they had to string barbed wire over it so that no one would sit on it. Good solution.

However... you are gonna have to bear with me on this...

I had not seen the reports at the time... but of the link below to the late Christoph Schlingensief, I really LOVED what he did in Switzerland. He got all these complacent subscribers into a beautiful theater, thinking they were gonna see Hamlet.

But he radically changed it. And seemingly, at the end, came out in an SS German uniform, and 'in his role' really went AT them for taking the ones lucky or rich enough to get over the border, more or less steal their money, and then throw them under the bus and send them elsewhere, because, as they said at the time, 'the boat is full'. Right.

Those were historically known and documented facts, but he pushed it in their collective faces. Being in a role of outraged Nazi, that they would DO that and betray their neighbors.

You have to place this in the historical context of the time.

Christoph Schlingensief took no prisoners, and it is a joy to see some stolid Swiss in the audience demonstratively walking out, and him sitting on the stage, and calling them cowards. And getting into his camera team outside, and saying they would NEVER renew their subscriptions. Art has been political here.

I just let Peter know that he is gone, he was devastated, spent much time in theater circles in Germany before he came back to Graz. He knew him personally. And cried.

We had heated discussions about the film mentioned below, because the then not-formed GLBT people were angry with him for decades. But he was right. He wanted to light a fire under their behinds and get them active. So he was radical. It was the times.

I never saw much of his work. But did see what he did in Vienna one year. He was FULLY pissed off about us having homeless people. So for three weeks, he set them up in see-through containers, where everyone could watch them go about their daily stuff, and believe me, nothing gets an Austrian's more attention than watching other people and what they do... And set it up right beside the Opera near the Ringstraße, and the Viennese went on the 'Ram-PAGE', they were so indignant.

You couldn't PICK a more exposed and central place than that. Scandal, I tells you. I was just surprised anyone would agree to do that. He must have had powers of persuasion, I guess...

So he was an activist, an artist, a theater director, an actor, an all-around talent of immense capabilities, but he never gave an inch, and provoked.

Just to let you know... we've had some stellar artists in that caliber since I came here... Peter Handke, who won't be recognised till he is dead. Thomas Bernhard, who was smart enough to mess around with the upper class then published a roman à clef, and his book nearly got banned, but smarter than Truman Capote... And sculpt0r Alfred Hrdlicka, who drove Vienna nuts with a very controversial ensemble. I was there the night it was unveiled, and nearly got into a fist-fight. Don't ask. It had to do with 'the street-washing-Jew', and I nearly got into a fist-fight. Whereby the guy was of that faith. I had no wish to interfere, but he was belligerent, and I was of the opinion that you can't change historical FACTS, as ugly as they can be. It serves no purpose...

Those are only a handful off the top of my head, mind you.... and recent....

Art IS Politics here. And I don't know, but it fascinates me. It isn't about going to museums, or pretending to understand sculpture, it is POLITICAL. It's about making people think, herrgottnochmal. Gawwd, I am missing my friend Bernhard tonight... just to get him 'out on the Sqare', and having a very good talk. But alas, he's been dead some years now. He would have understood.

And actually, I was looking for the US version, and THIS

Mika Brzezinski, daughter of Zbigniev, acted as if she needed smelling salts and didn't want to look at the cover, she was 'so offended' by it.

Good Lord, hey.... It was about a tee-vee series about vampires, and they pushed the envelope, but talk about being superficial....

She didn't look for the fainting couch when TIME recently published a cover of a woman... I really don't remember if it was Afghanistan or Iraq, who had had her NOSE cut off, and was otherwise disfigured by the Taliban... What IS that sanctimonious, 'holier than thou' crap that she pulls? It's just a photo.

And I do NOT 'get' the hypocrisy, and such really disgusts me. I turn that off, more often than not. What century are they living in? I would LOVE to know.

Oh dear.... that is the thing about getting old....

People just start dying off. Christof Schlingensief passed away.

The name won't say anything to anyone abroad, but he was one provocative wild artist.

He provoked German society from the Sixties up to his death a few days ago, and drove the right into frenzies of anger. And the Church, AND the GLBT which didn't really exist there then, And the media, and just about every politician...

From Guerilla theater in the late Sixties up to a few weeks ago, he always managed to irritate everyone, but make them think. We rented a tee-vee in Salzburg for the winter months in '72, and the tee-vee guide said his first film would be shown, and there was this terrible uproar in the media. The title was, 'It is not homosexuals who are perverse, but the situation in which they live', and I thought, 'Oh, what now?' He might has well have set off car bombs in some cities with that.

Well, our channel was broadcast from Bavaria, which is arch-catholic, so there was a change of programme in our region. They showed some dippy Fifties 'happy' number with cute teens at the time you have also never heard of.

I did catch up with it decades later, and it was 'yawn', but for the time, he went after all sides, and took no prisoners. Some things you have to see in historical perspective.

He was very entertaining in a sort of Kasperl sort of way, but had depth.

He'd been battling cancer, so he did a media blitz tour, and trashed Rome. 'They never recognised 'the other' in me.' And was very serious.

Too bad to know he's gone. He was always thought-provoking.

There is a link here where you can see some highlights of his career. If you understand German, that is. Good ones from early to not very long ago. Maybe you don't have to understand... He was a force to be reckoned with in our part of the world.

Yup, am derfinitely crazy....

Weekends are the worst in viewing anything new. Lots of boring, ageing, older white men bloviating about nothing and selling talking p0ints. I sort of hate them.

Soooo... to entertain myself, I went to some other Soaps I hadn't seen. I sorta like All MY Children, but hooked on to General Hospital.

You are going to HAVE to fasten your seat-belts about this. It has nothing to do with a hospital, and it's like watching a never-ending Godfather film. I was way surprised.

I only checked in there because Peter's Aunt Hildegard somehow used to watch it on cable, and was NOT reachable when it aired. God help you if you interrupted her while watching. Hildegard was the Nazi one. The crazy one, who went alone at night to Harlem to recruit people, Afrrican American people of her persuasion to revolt. She was beyond radical, and died some years ago, God rest her soul.

But alive, she was a force to be reckoned with. I only met her once.... unforturnately. Unfortunately because THAT waas one time too many.

She bloody terrorised the entire family, who were Socialists. It even made her mother, Peter's grandmother lash out at her. 'YOUR Hitler made me miss the golden era of MGM musicals!'

(I'm choking for laughing here. One of the funniest lines I have ever heard.... Don't get me wrong, things were bad, and his grandma was sort of Hollywood star-struck, and had withdrawal symptoms. She must have been amazing.)

I gave that gem to one of his cousins when they were here. After all, it was hilarious... at least for me.

I think I have posted this before, but WWII wasn't exactly a cake-walk. Bombs fell, and air raids, and they were in the middle of town. Peter was five, and what did Grandma do? She brought a grammaphone into the cellar, he had p-neumonia, and what was the record? Fred Astaire, 'Cheek to Cheek'. _Do y'know the first line of that? 'Heaven, I'm in Heaven...'

And the bombs falling....

The Block-wart could have SO busted her. if he had been a real Nazi....

She nearly got into a fist-figtht with a market person on Jakominiplatz, some of you might remember that place, and they lived a block up at the time.... It was about Ginger Rogers being waaaay suprerior to Marika Rökk. Who is still alive, and does a bad Eva Gabor imitation....

That wasn't even thinkable then. And way dangerous.

So Hildegard was the egg the cuckoo laid in some foreign nest. She has always sort of fascinated me. She drank champagne, sending her husband to Stalingrad, and he was 'lucky' enough to be a POW and return, which realllly pissed her off. She was just crazy. She wanted to be a war widow. Her daughter was a paleontologist... and drank herself to
death, way too young...

Families are sort of odd, Y'know????

So what Hiledgard 'see' in General Hospital'. I guess it will be a mystery, but somehow I think there is a subliminal message in there, but am not so twisted to 'get' it.

So don't mind me, move along... nothing to see here....

But finding out the series is about the Mafia, and not a horsepital.... that cäarified a few things....

Odd.

Am not so good at being a cheerleader....

I went to the news today. I've been enchanted for a long time by Richard Engel. I like him because he is absolutely crazy. He just goes in, and does his reporting, is charming... Rachel Maddow had most of her show yesterday interviewing him, and just let him talk.

The man is nuts. I can't IMAGINE putting yourself in such danger just to get news out.

I can't imagine her being in Baghdad... They obviously like one another... as buddies.....

There was a moment when he related something very personal, and upsetting. Men don't do that As a rule....

And she did what guys do when it gets 'akward' gave him a sort of 'buck-up' hit on the shoulder.

It was lovely.

Rachel is one of the 'good guys'.

It was very interesting.

Oh, just send me off the charts for 'Indignant', hey...

I just had to re-start Peter's pc, and the first thing that comes up in Yahoo news is in German.

And to my AMAZEMENT, I saw that the president of France is deporting Roma to Bulgaria and Rumania. The Roma and the Sintis are what one calls 'gypsies', which is derogatory. This 'guy' is being 'popular', and painting them as criminal for who they are.

It's a political ploy. Both are in the EU, so they can move back whenever they like. I find it disgusting to use a minority for political gain, but doesn't everyone DO that.

In my professional life, I have dealt with both Roma and Sinti. One family in particular. They have a matriarchy. And if Mamma F laid down the law, it was iron, and not to be even thought of, breaking her rule, hey.

They were decent, nice, and interesting, and they have some big predjudices to conquer which still abound. They were honest, hard-working, and very emotional at times, which is understandable.

WHERE does Sarkösi, that half-hungarian wanna-be Frenchman get OFF, pulling a stunt like that? We are talking about PEOPLE here. YES, there are diffences in how they lead their lives, and how we lead ours. But they adapt to where they are, and can 'play the game' better than anyone. They have to, to survive.

To use a minority as pawns for political gain... just disgusts me.

I was so upset I called Peter, and it set him off. He cried. He remembers Mamma F as well, and it really wasn't the time to do that, but I was 'off the charts' for anger. I asked him if had been on the news yet, he said no.

Diabolical.... it's gotten me so upset, I wanna puke.

Oh my goodness....

Getting back on the intertubes was sort of interesting, but was irritated. Rachel had a replacement since Monday. As much as I like Chris Hays, aka 'lambchop' (her terminology, not mine...) I thought, 'Wow, they are getting European and getting four-week paid vacations, or something.'

The 'troof' was, she wasn't even in 'Murka. Under greatest sneakracy, she's been in Baghdad since the weekend to exclusively cover the last fighting troops leaving Iraq. That HAS to be one of the best scoops in reporting that I have seen in a long time.

As per usual, yesterday's show went over the top for incisive, interesting reporting. She looked a bit 'peak-ed', as we say in NH. The heat, and broadcasting live at three a.m. local time, but was a sight to behold, and she had much to say about 'the problem', it freaked me. She is nothing if not thorough.

She even apologised to Olberman, they work on the same floor at 30 Rock, because no one, NO one, knew where she was. If that isn't a career-booster, I can't imagine what would top it. Good for her. And it wouldn't be Rachel if she didn't have some critical things to say, if one listens carefully...

She should get an Emmy, as well as her team. Fantastic job, hey. And a brass ovary award for guts. As well as her team, who make it possible, of course. And I thought her going to Afghanistan some weeks ago was top reporting..... and wondered how she was going to top that...

Whelp, now I know.

If you aren't on cable, you can still see it per internet. I would never miss one of her broadcasts.

That is what the oppositon to 'net neutrality' does, and Google and Verizon need to just back off.

On the Soap front, am still sort of undecided. The Venerable's preferred poison is 'na ja...' 'SO-so la-la' as we say. No one 'hawt' to look at, and a bit tame. Mine is about to reach a climax, so that isn't fair... I have been waiting for MONTHS to see their psycopath get his arse kicked into jail. And STILL can't figure out what the motive is.

Oh. My. Gawd. 'The Preacher' across the way is trying to sing again. Trying. He can not carry a tune to save his life. He is an hour early. He sings at 7 a.m. for fifteen minutes, and at 7 in the evening. Maybe he went onto normal time before daylight savings time ends. I could get more pleasure out of grating cheese. It would probably sound the same... I would forgive him if he would sing 'Precious Hands'.... I sort of like that one, and even HE can't fully ruin it. I 'think' it is a Baptist hymn. I 'think'.... can't really know....

Whelp, just another day in the life, as they say.

Nothing exciting, and aren't I lucky, hey....

Called Peter this morning, and he was being bathed, they said, so I called later. I asked him how THAT was, and he said, 'They came at me from all sides....' Uh-huh... That sort of tickled my imagination....

'Were they dressed like Geishas?' I asked. 'Did they have kimonos on, and funny wigs, and powder themselves with flour to look white?' That brought on a near choking fit.

But he was laughing as well, and it was a small spark of what 'used to be'.

'Da V' got the connex. He had a similar experience, but he enjoyed it. What was that from the Sixties? Differnet strokes for different folks. I should open my mouf, hey.....

The fire dept across the way and ambulances seem to be very active today. I just keep hearing sirens. I'm gonna make sure all my snigarettes are out and then go to sleep. What else can you expect? And oh yes.... Peter keeps going ON about how hot it is, and hard to breathe. This is the coolest August we have EVER had that I can remember. July was a hard row to hoe. So I said, 'It's NOT hot, it is cool for this time of year. You have a case of burning up inside.'

It's just daily stuff....

Well, am back on-line... for what it is worth...

Peter was sounding really bad the past few days. And when he learned that my pc went on the fritz, he said he would lend me his, because he didn't really know how to use it, except to look at porno films, and was usually too tired to look at the interesting links I had set up for him.

So I shrugged, and went to Gamlitz to borrow it, because mine is gonna cost me what I don't have. At the moment.

I got him some ice cream from downstairs, and went up, and oh.....

He is really badly off.

I spent four hours just trying to get him to come out of his daze, and nothing worked.

He just clung to the 'crib' side of his bed, in a fetal position, and was .... I don't know... way out there in his head.

Mumbled that someone had been in his room whom I know, but couldn't tell me who. He couldn't remember.... That was fun... And then he dozed. So I went out, and nurse Ksenia told me he'd been cranky, wouldn't take his meds, and was often insulting, but they were trying their best....

And I said, 'I know that... and he would never have said those things before he got sick.'

Was upstairs, he was dozing, and I was reading the paper to him, things that might have woken him up and that he would laugh at... in former days, or have a fun comment about...
Nothing.

All of a sudden, I was reading one aloud and he suddenly asked, 'Is he gone???'

I thought, 'WHAA?'

'Is he gone?'

Well, I am dense enough, I guess, so I asked, 'What HE? No one has been here.'

'Ren' he said weakly.

Yup, another express elevator going down in the Empire State Building.... that sinking feeling....

But I took a deep breath and said, 'I'm Ren... and am still here, Peter.'

Cripes, I hope that was only a preview of coming attractions... I was unprepared, he's always been so lucid, other than an occasional slip....

I have to see if I can get there Friday. It's the Sommerfest, with roasted piglets, drinks and music for all the homies. Just to get him out of the room for an hour. Herrgottnochmal.

He still isn't back to his normal, cranky, know-it-all self. Called today.

It's way bad.

Complained about it being hot and humid, and we've got a very cool day, nearly sweater-weather.

And meandered by my flower lady, and cried on her shoulder a bit. She was upset, she knows us both very well. So I deflected, and asked her about her trip to Russia for vac. She said, 'Well, I'm not going back THERE again very soon. Forget Glasnost and Perestroika.' Moscow was full of smoke from the fires and ghastly.

So I cheered HER up, and regaled her with tales of 'The Venerable', like getting a scooter, and test-driving it in the kitchen, (it's small, ok, a three-wheeler) and him going to a fitness room in the project and overdoing it to impress some widow. (He watches too many Soaps with the buffed-out dudes, who always, always go to gyms, so he went and complained because it hurt after.) And getting me upset with a subject line 'nookie', and by that he meant he had driven off and gotten a kitchen nook for his place, and MY mind was way someplace else when it showed up in the mail...

She LURVS 'Tales of the Venerable', and crosses her legs when she laughs, which is bladder control. HER father is way out in la-la land, so 'da V' is a source of amazement for her. And my tobbaconist... I've been telling her for years about him, and today she said, 'Gawwd, he must be soooo coool.'

So ok, shoot me. I brag about my progenitor. It beats gossiping about local people I KNOW...

So it is my way of deflecting things.

So it made me feel good for an hour or so. And forget for a few minutes.

But.... like being on a bender, it does wear off, and you get stuck with a vile picture in your head, and the problem is still there... bigger than ever. Whaddaya want me to say, hey...

No, it isn't good in any sense, seeing someone in a fetal position hiding against the rail of his bed.

What can I say??? It just is.

Am off-line for a day or so....

My notebook decided to strike. Need to get it repaired, so we shall see. Am using it at a neighbors' house. (Their pc, not mine... ) Always on a weekend, hey... Frustration city.

Just so's you know...

Well that was fun..... not...

I got the call. Jeebus, back to Gamlitz. His breathing is terrible. Someone shoot me please???

Tap tap tap.......waiting...

I am SO impatient, hey. One of my worst attributes. Waiting for the phone to ring. Like a teenager who thinks he blew his first date. Eewwww.

My first date was wonderful. (I am trying to distract myself, here....) With a wonderful woman. I don't know why, but I love people with auburn hair. She was gorgeous. Still is, as a matter of fact... I saved my money, and we bussed down to Bawston on our first date. And wound up in a wonderful fish restaurant, where all the booths had aquariums on the side. It was called 'Dini's', but the neon was so fucked up we thought it said 'Dinks'. Which made us laugh. The food was delicious, and I was drowning in her green eyes. They were sooo green...

We went to a show after, which was headed for Broadway. It was very good.

The whole thing never worked out, because I knew 'something' was missing. She broke it off, but we remained friends for a long while. I spent a whole day with her when I visited, long ago, and confused everyone, but it was just friendship. Even her mother called me, and said she would have preferred she had married me rather than her husband, who is a decent man... That freaked me. I would have made her so unhappy.... oh no, wouldn't go there.

At the time, I was eighteen, and wouldn't admit to myself what I really wanted. It took another six years to get even near that point.

There are SO many turning points in life... that was one. Last I heard, I had sent her a green glass egg from Venice. It was the color of her eyes. She blushed in reply. But it was honest.

Moral? you can fall in love with someone, but it won't necessarily be a good choice for either party....

How did I GET on this topic? Oh yeah, waiting for news.... Lots of decades gone down the tubes since my first date. At least I wanted it to be spectacular.... We had some others, but that first one was off the charts for it.

It's teh gay, I guess. Or just me... wishing for things to be perfect when you know that they aren't.

Still no call. Am retiring and try to sleep without nightmares.

Being in the dark....

Huge thunderstorm going on outside. Thor, the God of Thunder is raising hell.... so it's fairly dark, and raining like hell unleashed.

But that isn't the only way to be 'in the dark'. Unfortunately.

I got woken to learn that Peter is being shunted back to Graz today for more tests, and clearing up his co-pay problem for his meds. After a sleep involving a mess of nightmares. (man, I really have to get my prescription re-filled.... at least those pills make me dream absolutely crazy things....)

Add to that, getting a mail from the Venerable with the subject line, 'Nookie'... well, I nearly lost it for hilarity. Turned out he went someplace and got a 'kitchen nook'. Uh-huh... o-kaaaay... It was funny, got past it....

They have an exercise room in his project, so he went over there and tried to impress some widows and overdid it. This is what comes of watching Soaps and seeing buffed-out actors on the tee-vee, I guess. (Who was he trying to BE? EJ on Days of Our Lives??? He is a villain, by the way. Everyone loves bad guys and want to emulate them.... Mad, bad, and dangerous to know. I should know... I wanted to be a 'hood' in the Fifties, with a gelled duck-tail haircut, attitoode, and a cigarette hanging out of disdaining lips. Unfortunately, only the cigarettes remained, and we all know how much good THAT did....)

That man... I say... that man... is gonna give me a heart attack one of these days. He's just on a linear line with one thing on his mind. Like the road between Fort Worth and Dallas... no curves, eye on the ball, hey....

Cripes. Men... (shaking head in despair...)

Hokay... now that I got my tongue out of my cheek, the above was mostly in fun. It's my last-defense mechanism when everything else is dark, and I am not sure where to turn. Take it with a grain of salt, hey.

I am on tenterhooks, which makes me nervous, and when I get nervous, I get absurd, but it is better than running around screaming through the streets and feeling impotent, not being ABLE to do anything constructive to help. Which is when 'the silly' kicks in. There are worse things. Like getting violent, for instance.

I HATE not knowing. And am certain that I won't get the full story when he DOES call.

My inner Gollum is asleep right now, but I may have to wake him up.

'Aren't we better than this?'

Oh man..... I got to the news from yesterday, and of course I have to see 'The Ed Show'. His first block just blew me away. People crowding around to get applications so they get roofing over their heads. In Atlanta.

It is shameful.

I got Peter to get on his co-pay issue today.

And he lied to me again, what a wonder, n'est-ce pas? Except I do not NEED an attempted shake-down when I go down there.

What ELSE can you expect from a Thursday, or any day for that matter....

I was so hoping they would slap him into a hospital bed here and would be able to visit, but no....

As per usual, I was lied to.... again, and why doesn't that surprise me???

I am way too tired for all this 'excitement'. I do not LIKE being lied to. Am an honest person, and if someone does a number on me, it's 'damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead'. Verbally.

I got some other bad news yesterday, and part of it involved being lied to. I'm more than fed up at the moment.... REALLY fed up.

Ohhhh. I am WAITING to hear some personal news...

and am not 'happy'.

I made the mistake of checking in on a site, and this clip blew my mind. If you wanna get all disassociative, and be DA Bomb and de-track onto a subway third rail... well this is a poster girl for doing that.

What IS this person's ISSUE?

People marry for a variety of issues and concerns, ok? And a lot of times, it isn't about 'lurv', but about what is convenient, or a solution to a problem that they couldn't see another way out of at the time.... And a lot of the time, children are involved. The children get their knocks, but see much clearer who is good for them, and who isn't.

A man and a woman, what joy... I don't get this line of thinking. At all. This woman does NOT know what she is talking about. I get so off the charts for angry.... My bio Mom did such a number on me, I will never recover from that. My Mom smothered me with love, and I was a hard-sell, but she won me over.

If it had been Dads, that would have been ok as well. They are so missing the point here.

Fishing??????

After yesterday's horror trip... was up half the night, worrying.... So I napped from the late morning into the afternoon, and dreamed about fishing. It was a very nice dream, actually, but I can't figure it out. We're land-locked here.

I never really fished much. As a kid, I found fishing on a stream or the edge of a lake boring. NH has that in abundance. I couldn't find the inner Zen. It got better when I got a bit older. I liked being out on a row-boat on a lake with the Venerable, me rowing. My brother was way more into his mode, I needed something active. The Venerable taught me a lot about it.....

But he never ate any. However he DID teach me how to cut and clean the ones that got caught, and I would be very happy when he came home with a catch. I would clean and freeze them.

And when my Mom would announce she was doing 'creamed chipped beef on toast', or anything with a white sauce, I went to the freezer, and got out a fish. Long story. Both revolt me and I throw up. So we had a truce after the first time when she forced me to eat it, and I immediately tossed my cookies.

So I would get out a pan, and filet and fry one of his fish.

One of the most wonderful days I have ever spent was going on a group charter boat for high-sea fishing. If I remember correctly, the cost was five dollars for half a day, and you could keep what you caught. You got a bucket and fishing line, and some bait, and were out on the sea, miles from shore, and they had sonar, and halted if they found a school and you fished. I think it was just the camaderie, and the fun, more than anything.

I caught half a bucket, fancy that. And on the way back, cleaned them, and couldn't wait to freeze them later.

So I was dreaming that I was on an incredibly blue sea, on a fishing boat, and everything was beautiful.

That defies everything that you might define as 'odd'.

And I can't figure out where it came from... other than looking out the train window a few days ago and seeing people fishing at a confluence where a brook meets the river, looking complacent...

Who knows?

But it was a nice dream, not the usual horror things I usually experience.....

Go figure.

What the hell????

The mouf piece for Obama really stuck it to the so-called professional left yesterday. I know it is diabollically hot in D.C.-- but now really.... trashing the progressive base and lying outright, and denying what Obama promised in his campaign regarding health care? Really??? There are videos which prove otherwise.... Alienating a part of his base which worked VERY hard to get him elected because they believed what he said? The lying part was that progressives want to get rid of the Pentagon. In all my meanderings through the 'professional left' web-sites, I have never encountered anything of the sort, ever. Where did he pull that one out of, the space between his nether cheeks? It speaks volumes, whether he was running a fever or not.

I liked the open letter over at Fire Dog Lake today. Link here.

Sigh... just another buncha whores, I guess.

Gamlitz

Hadn't been in two weeks as I wasn't feeling all too chipper myself.

Got there to find Peter on an oxygen respirator. Y'know, where you get a clear tube stuck in your nose, and the bottle bubbles and blows air into you. He was lucid enough... and not so much in his 'zone' where he goes into rages.... Except for one or two short slips which were tolerable enough...

I had a few moments which were uncomfortable with one of the administration people, but I guess that can be fixed.... (Leave him alone for two weeks, and I get there, and it's always 'Do you have a moment?' which makes my heart sink....)

My favorite nurse, Ksenia found me out on the terrace during a smoke break. She is lovely. I always say, you see it in the eyes, and hers are warm, and caring, friendly, and you know there is a good soul in there.

She considers me 'next of kin', so she gave me a detailed update, and let me know they are doing the best they can, and have to have 'intensive' talks with him, because he doesn't want his meds, so his sugar is way down, where it used to be up, which led to him getting water in his lungs, which makes his heart work harder, and he is being the stubborn arse which he can be when he thinks he knows everything better than they do. I used to give him a hard punch to the shoulder when he got that way, but of course they can not and would not do that, although I am sure they are often tempted to.

I admire their restraint.

I have the feeling he is giving up.

Around 2 p.m. an orderly came in with his daily corfee with milk, and asked me if I would like one as well for the very first time. I said, 'Yes, thank you.' And she asked, 'Milk, sugar?' And I said 'Black please...' And she was not fully out the door and heard me add, 'Like my soul'. And she said, 'I HEARD that...' I think it cracked her up. A bit later, she brought me a mug, and said, 'Here you go, black, like your soul, and those are YOUR words, not mine.' Which cracked ME up.

Why is it that women named Elke can be so nice, huh?

Rachel Maddow and Ed Schultz from Monday had me roaring angry watching this morning. They were stellar. The Rethugs are going to beggar states, just so they can bring Obama down, and some of the examples were astounding. Turning off street lights, no longer asphalting roads, and turning them into gravel ones, firing teachers, crippling fire departments.... wtf do they think that is going to help, hey? Turn 'Murka into a third-world country? Riiiiggghhht. Way to go.

John (Orange man) Bonehead really showed it all on Press the Meat Sunday. Only saw excerpts, but they were enough. I hope that clown loses his seat.

So, If I have been 'light' below, and going on about Soaps, and so on.... sometimes you need a little break, you know? Just something entertaining and basically absurd. Because reality is sometimes hard to take, and somtimes you need a breather. And I think the 'Venerable' gets a kick on my take on some of the wild things he watches, so it is nice.

It's just a breather, so as not to go fully depri and nuts....

Oh my goodness.......

I just got a note on Facebook, which I never pay any attention to. Now, in NH, that part of the fambly spends quality time at a beach. It is a bond and something wonderful. In my mind, anyway...

These are my half-cousins. I never knew Mo too well. M. is closer to my age, and we had a disastrous appearance at the Boy's Club, supposed to be doing a cha-cha at a talent show, and some little vixen scratched the record, so it got stuck, we panicked and Waterloo was the result, it was like a Disney film, und E. is astounding. It was nice to see three remarkable women after nearly forty years, and I wanted to share.

So shoot me.

And so it begins.....

The Great Soap comparison bet between the Venerable and myself.

'All My Children' vs. 'One Life to Live'. I finally found the connection to the former on the intertubes this morning, so I sucked up a weeks' worth of episodes to find out what is going on there. This took the better part of my afternoon, just watching.

Now, when you get in cold to a Soap, it is like entering a very strange world. Or emigrating, for that matter... you don't know who is connected to whom, and everyone seems a bit odd, but you have to put on your thinking cap, especially if you are emigrating, and figure everything out as quickly as you can.

Soaps are easier than emigrating. You can make mistakes, and first impressions aren't always the correct ones and carry no consequences.

So... over the past week, the Venerable gets one plus point. His series is far more integrated, and that is very nice. I discovered an actress who seemingly specialises in playing psycho-mom nut jobs, which gave me some hilarity.... Otherwise, have only gotten a toe-hold on this.

So it is not gonna be over for a while.

Now, some people are gonna be wondering 'what's he bloviating about???'

I think Soaps are a mirror of society, and don't tell the American Family Association, but they change attitudes.... 'Shhhhhhh!' Don't breathe a word'.

I tend to look at them sociologically.

I was sick at home for two weeks once as a teen, and my Mom was hooked on 'her stories'.

You know how teens can be, kinda uppity and rebellious. But the stories intrigued me, so I would come home, and ask her, 'What is so-and so up to, what happened to him or her?' and we had a basis for normal discussion.

Never underestimate the value of a Soap.

So... the Venerable got a scooter. I couldn't imagine what that meant, I just couldn't. It's a three wheeler battery-driven contraption to take him out to the mail-box, and he proudly told me he drove it around the house when it arrived today.

That sort of reminded me of when my Mom decided to put on my roller skates and careen around our kitchen yelling 'Whee!' (I am so not kidding....)

So, Venerable... is the bet still on?

Oh what now....

The lymph glands in my neck swelled up like lemon-sized. Well, THAT hurt.... They are going down, but so sore to the touch, it looks like another sleepless night.

Y'know... sometimes it really isn't worth the trouble getting older. I don't know wtf hell is going on that my white cells are causing them to run rampant, but I don't like it.

I thought it was just aenemia..

I couldn't find much more....

But I did find this gem, Bernadette Peters in a concert in London. The song is from Sunday in the Park With George. It is one of the most underestimated of the Sondheim musicals. And she was so fantastic... So I guess now it is time for me too to 'Move on'. It was about a painter, but the text is wonderful.

While I'm in the mood....

Here is another clip from the gala. She is ok, but she is no Elaine Stritch.



And I was speechless that Dean Jones did the original of this one. This guy is too dramatic, but has a nice voice and the orchestration is great.



The end was spectacular, and the maestro himself came in, and it was 'loverly', being in the Royal Albert Hall in London. I hope YouTube doesn't pull it too soon.

Oh man I'm getting old....

Joe.My.God posted about how the BBC sent a special 'night of the Proms' honouring Steven Sondheim's 80th birthday. YouTube has a number up from the beginning of his career. It's from one of his first shows, although it was more a collaboration.

It is sort of camp, but fun... And every time I look around my apt. .... well it sort of fits....

Everybody ought to have a maid.... indeed. And after the overturn of Prop 8 in Ca. Well I guess it sort of fits my mood...

Enjoy.

I was just messing about today,

and thinking about my friends who are going off on vacation, and realised... they didn't KNOW that one of the most gifted people ever was on the season five of Desperate Housewives. Lily Tomlin. It was just a small role, but I got nostalgic....

I saw her in my home town, and she blew me away. She is one of the most talented women I have ever seen. And was no holds barred, she was amazing.

And since 'da girls' keep telling me they are addicted to the series, I thought it would be good to let them know who they were looking at in her newest incarnation as the booze-guzzling, cynical, leather-wearing sister of Mrs. McClusky on season Five.

So I went to YouTube, and pulled up a classic clip of her doing Ernestine the Operator. (Da girls are fifteen and eighteen, so some others wouldn't have been appropriate.) In Germany, there was a spin-off, called 'Klimm-bimm', and it was sucessful, but hardly what 'Laugh-in' did....

Well, there is a classic out there, her being Ernestine, and driving Cher absolutely crazy.

I explained what it was about, and let it speak for itself...

It is fun to take a look back, once in a while....

Although other times not. Mitch Miller died recently at 99 years old. I thought he was already dead hey, 'Sing Along With Mitch'. I learned that he was an accomplished oboeist, was in the orchestra on the first tour of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, loved jazz and especially Mozart, and his crazy show was not really hoke. I'd had no idea.... He must have been cool. Odd, he had Johnny Carson singing in his gang, and 'follow the bouncing ball'.... This was in the infancy of tee-vee.... Most of you will not remember it, but I do....

So just for the fun of it, let's take a look back at more 'innocent' times, and visit 'Ernestine'. When there was only Ma Bell and SHE had 'da powa'....

Some days I REALLY just do not know......

Media is toxic.

I try, really try to look at things from both sides of the picture that they present. I had to discard Chris Matthews this week. He's always been creepy.

And if you wish to see the cheerleading section of high-school dynamics you needn't look further than Morning Joe.... Selfish much? I could smack them into oblivion, self-serving idjits who just serve their in-clique, make snide remarks about their guests who 'aren't in the clique' we've all been there.

But OH boy! let some tar balls come up on Pensacola beach and they go frantic, hey. Because, you see they are entitled. This is not a one-day thing. Have been studying this rare species for weeks now. And Mika Brzesinski, daughter of Zbigniew, she is the cheerleader in chief, and Ditz who rules.

(As far as I know Pensacola Beach is very affluent... and she grew up entitled, 'may' have half a brain but you wouldn't know it....)


And holy cripes, HOW in the world does Marc Thiessen get on their programmes, and spout the venom he does? He looks like Mr. Potato Head, and has even less inside. But what can you expect anyone to do who has the despicable Pat Buchanan as regular commentator on the show? You have to have an iron stomach to tolerate that, am not joking.

And oh YES, Mika is sooo concerned about dispersants, because she might eat something toxic.

Well, welcome to our post-Tschernobyl world, darlin'....

The Today show is even WORSE. If I have to see Hoda and Kathie Lee Griffen spout their idiocy and brain cavity causing nut-house way of thinking one more time, I WILL barf.

And you know what is 'fun'???? This is the so-called 'main-stream media' the right screams about, and the people on these shows wouldn't know 'left' if they were driving down a road and had to turn that way so as not to run over a broken bridge!

Excruciating, I tells ya....

Nope.... From the MSM, and what I am 'privileged' to see... there are three things I watch daily, because I KNOW I am gonna get 'straight' news. As in, 'in depth'. 'Countdown', 'Rachel Maddow', and the inimitable Ed Schultz on his 'Ed Show'. The latter is my fire-brand, and I love his anger. He is polemic, but his heart is in the right place.

I haven't seen ONE thing on ABC that would really interest me.

And CBS really pissed me off today, downplaying the effect of dispersants in a sycophantic way.

Oooo, I would lurv to confront some of the arseholes on the tee-vee for being dumb and superficial, I really would.....

And yes, this is polemic, but... with time you know who is telling you the truth, and most of the idjits who are lying to you....

Well, I KNOW about being lied to, don't I....

Have had a terrible week and do not know what is wrong.... general malaise, I guess... (shrugs)

Have to get to Gamlitz this week, hope it works tomorrow...

After I see my Soap..... oh, it should be 'fun'. I want to see this mass-murderer guy get incarcerated. It is fun running through the fan comments, but am disconcerted. None of them seem to know how to spell.... am I regressing?

Oh, and by the way... Nightly News with Brian Williams has a wonderful regular thing they do, 'Making a Difference'. It is about ordinary people doing something 'small' that has big resonance. Both he and Keith Olberman have done much over this year rallying people to help people in Haiti, orphans there, disabled vets, the people in the Gulf, get people to give enough money to hold free health clinics in troubled areas, as does Ed Schultz.... They have done some amazing things.

For me they are 'the good guys'. They care.

I wouldn't be able to say the same about the narcissistic 'others'.

And I don't see anything that would point to their being self-serving.

ohhhhhhhh.....sigh.....

I am not so 'crazy' as one would think.... really not.

To get called, and Peter on the horn saying 'good Morning!' when it is 8:30 in the evening wasn't my idea of the end of a good day. He thought it was tomorrow, and wanted me there.

Just don't ask. He said, 'Well it is just getting light...' And I said, 'no, it is twilight and will get dark.' Cheerful as I am... 'It's NOT tomorrow, and I will visit,ok?'

Oh man, people can rip your heart out of your rib-cage with just a few words.

So tomorrow.... well I'll have to go there, won't I?

What ELSE am I supposed to do after thirty-six years, huh?

Well, at least I know I'm not alone in my opinion....

Read THIS.

It is important.

Day of noise.....

'someone' started up some sort of hot air machine across the way from me, and hammering..... At 5:55 in the morning! Woke me up, hey... I 'guess' they were doing roofing, no, not roofies, roofing...

Seemingly.....

There are LAWS here. You do NOT do that before 7 a.m. You do NOT. I 'considered' going over to the po-lice on the square to complain, but hey, I think I had enough of 'those guyses'. So I shut the winder. It is hawt. And swore a lot.

It got worse, throwing stuff off the roof to crash down in the yard across the way....

LOUDLY.

Am sleep-deprived of late, so was only up a little bit, and went back to sleep.

Until the thunderstorms began. Thor, the Gawd of Thunder seemed to agree to what was happening, and has been rolling around my location for hours now.

I just woke up, and went over to get my snigarettes, and a bit of something to eat, and it was, 'BAM!' half the time. So much noise....

And I picked up a bio-lemon for the bit of fish I want to cook, as the sign said 'sixty-nine' cents, but however, there were two workers in the supermarket with a big board, which they proceeded to cut with a power saw, I couldn't make out a word. It 'seems' I should have weighed it, and she runs off, and then runs it up as 'zucchini'. And we are yelling over the hellacious noise, and agreed to finally clear it up tomorrow morning.

I'm not joking, here. It was absolutely an impossible situation, and she was as nerved as I was. I would never dun her for anything. She is very nice. Her name is Ybolia. Don't know where it comes from, and frankly do not care.

In the meanwhile, I saw a trailer that had me in stitches before the 'Colbert Report'. This guy doing a 'Hoff alert', speaking German, with subtitles, and going BONKERS about how Comedy Central is gonna 'roast' him on August 15th, and he breaks his pencil and breaks down cying saying, 'Ze Hoff... he was so NICE to me!' It was about David Hasselhoff, of course....

I lost it. I haven't laughed so hard in ages.

I've mentioned this before, but he is SOOO big in Germany. And told you about how my friend N. got to meet him in Prague. And the bus driver who grew up with Knight Rider when he was a kid, and wanted to see him when he was tingle-tangling in our neck of the woods.

Sooooooo I had to alert my friend N. Who had seen and met him in Prague. She loved that... whelp, she was surprised I remembered, and just found that hilarious. She's been doing census work, and some a-hole from Alaska told her that up where HE comes from, she could've been shot. (Leave it to the 'half-governor' to make life interesting, hey.....)

Are we clear on this now??? 'Ze HOFF' rules here.....

And I have a headache. And Peter is doing an Oscar-worthy performance of not breathing well on the telly-phone, as in, he's REALLY driving me up a wall, because I don't believe him. If it were that bad, they would have put him in a hospital. Am off down there tomorrow, oh THAT will be a Volksfest if I don't get sleep....

Too much noise, in many forms. And I wanna sleep....

hmmm am often left speechless....

But Colbert last night went waaaaaaay beyond what I have seen so far.

And it was very very good. That HAD to be one of the best I've seen in months.

He assaulted GOP thinking from so many sides, it was half a miracle. And topped it off with having Jimmy Cliff perform on his show, and it was the reggae 'pleaser', 'The Harder They Come, The Harder They Fall'... But one can see the newest number he has on the Website. I liked it very much....

What Stephen Colbert does in less than 23 minutes is just amazing. Like defending GLAAD, exposing the fact that the Brits are building the olympic village for 2012 on a toxic waste dump site, exposing an idiot who put US troops at risk.... THAT has to be a record.... Sometimes it pays off to pay attention.

The link is here.

I know that many people do not 'get' satire. His attacks were actually vicious today, but in the best possible way.

You can watch, or not... not many people appreciate it or understand it.

If you are weak, you develop a weapon, and it is words, and you attack with the only weapon you have, and he is a master at it.

But not all people recognise what is going on.

This clip was stellar.

And think about it.

There is thunder on the left of me, so better close.

oh.... have been busy....

Bills, bills, and wondering how to pay them. And yeah, I know, we all get them.

Unexpected ones, I mean.... we all know what our running costs are.... Butcha hardly think you have a toe-hold, and WHAM, and there ya go....

So I did my ostrich number yesterday.... caught up on some old CBS '48 Hours/Mystery' episodes I hadn't seen, mostly. Man, I wouldn't want to live Stateside, oooo... Lurv and greed and murder... I can't even remember when we had anything like that here. The last big one was in the 70's before I arrived, some couple who ran a dance school, but it was such an anomaly, no one bothered, or wanted, to talk about it. It was all oblique.

Whatever, I thought my thoughts, and then got to working on a document, and tried to sleep a lot.

Mondays are always a yawn on the Internets. I caught '60 Minutes', which can often be interesting, but only partly. And then, forced myself to see 'Press the Meat', where the bloviators spout their memes, and it was boring.... saw an amazing report from the esteemed reporter Richard Engel which was on Dateline some weeks ago about an event in Afghanistan and left me spitless, worked on my document a bit more, and napped.

So... needed cigarettes before the stores close, and Mensch, Meier! It's like a Scirocco blowing out there, very hot, very dry. Blows the sweat right off you as soon as it comes up, hey!

It's been extremely windy this year, which has been unsusual.

Oh yeah, there was a report on NBC about how maybe dispersants aren't such a good thing.... what have I been yelling about? But I'm just stoopid, of course.... sheesh.

No, will not get started.

It's too hawt, and no one will listen anyway...

Peter has me off the charts for worry, (but, yeah, I know, when didn't he?). Only this time there is just cause... His breathing is so off, he sounds like Charlie the Choo-choo. A steam engine with too little coal to fire him up. I will have to go down there Wednesday, and put some people's feet to the fire, the whole thing is worrying, and this time I am not thinking it is something he can fake.

Tomorrow is going to get my quarterly hair-cut next door, as I look like der Wetter-Hexer, 'storm witch', and get my bank things done. I don't even like going out the door, looking as I do.

And Wednesday, I have to get fired up, and go to Gamlitz.

That isn't my favourite thing to do right now, but it will have to be. My friends have all gone on vacation to Amsterdam, Vienna, and St. Petersburg and Moscow... I just get the square, and it is usually combined with things I never wanted to know.

Just hope the wind stops.....