I have become rather obsessed with the political and economic turmoil that has gripped the United States in the last few weeks. I can not stop watching the news and reading the news and thinking about the news and talking about the news and dreaming about the news. In fact, I firmly plan to subscribe to either Time or NEWSWEEK by the end of the day. I need the news delivered right to my door in a format I can carry with me during my commute. All I have left to do is decide which to subscribe to. I’m leaning toward NEWSWEEK simply because it’s cheaper. In such dire economic times, cheaper is better.
My obsession is starting to take a toll, however. The lack of any positivity in the news is, to say the very least, a real bummer. Can’t just one thing go right for this country?
I wanted to blog about my fears that Sarah Palin’s “end-of-days” religious background may not bode so well for us should she suddenly find herself as Commander in Chief of our armed forces. I wanted to write about McCain’s close relationship with Georgia’s Mikheil Saakashvili and how this friendship could blind McCain to seeing the whole picture when it comes to Georgia’s problems with Russia. I wanted to blog about how our economic crisis is worsening by the moment because our politicians can’t put aside their petty difference long enough to come to a reasonable solution. I wanted to blog about all of that, but I just can’t. It all makes me sick to my stomach.
And so, instead of all of that, I leave you with a truly heartwarming tale of love, the tale of an abandoned baby monkey, close to death, who was revived by the love of a bird.
The 12-week-old monkey was rescued in Goangdong Province, China, after being abandoned by his mother. Taken to an animal hospital, he was weaned back to physical health but still showed little appetite for life. It was not until a fellow patient, a white pigeon, took him under her wing and showed him love and affection that he perked up.
Now, if we could just get McCain to hug Obama, maybe my ulcers would begin to heal.
I got a phone call last night sometime before 11:00. I was sitting on the couch staring vacantly at the television, relaxing after a whirlwind weekend of touring two friends from Portland around the great city of Chicago. I was rather exhausted and the images on the television screen blinked by without making much of an impression.
When my phone rang, I had to decide whether or not to get up off the couch to see who was calling. My first impulse was to stay seated. Because of the late hour, however, I exhumed myself from the confines of my comfy couch and hobbled over to the phone on my blistered feet. When the phone rings late at night, you look to see how is calling.
The number that was displayed on the front of my phone was not one I knew. It was local and looked somewhat familiar, but I couldn’t place it. And so I stood there holding the ringing phone without answering it. When the phone number is unknown, you let the caller leave a message.
The caller did leave a message and I checked it as I settled back down on to the couch. The caller was a man I had gone on a date or two with some time ago. He lives a couple of blocks from me. When he identified himself, I assumed he was looking for sex. When someone you once dated calls late at night, he is only looking for one thing.
As it turns out, that last rule proved to be wrong. The caller was not looking to get me naked. Instead, he was looking to have me walk his bog.
Turns out the neighbor I once went on a date with was not feeling well. From what I could gather, a fever and vomiting were involved. He wanted to stay in, but he also needed to walk his dog. He was calling to see if I would be willing to walk his dog for him.
I was flabbergasted.
I felt for the guy. I really did. Having a fever and throwing up is truly awful. And I suppose that if you have a dog, it is an important responsibility to walk said dog. What I couldn’t understand, however, was why he has called me.
If memory serves me correctly, we had gone on one actual date. The second time I had seen him, he had shown up at my front gate unannounced. I’d been polite, but had decided then and there that there was no future for us. Since then we have had little to no contact.
And now all of a sudden he wanted me to walk his dog.
Needless to say, I did not call him back. Nor did I walk his dog. I can be a nice guy when I want to be, but I can never be that nice. A boy has to learn when to draw a line in the sand.
Thank goodness for spiraling pop stars and poor ticket sales.
Janet Jackson was in town last night with her Rock Witchu Tour. Yes, Janet has forgotten how to spell. Sadly, she’s also forgotten how to churn out hits, and the ticket sales for her current tour have been suffering as a result. I had been contemplating going to see her, but was not too keen on paying the sixty dollars she was asking for a cheap seat. You see, I’ve seen Janet before. And while Janet puts on a good show, she’s not exactly the most creative pop star out there. Janet hasn’t done anything overly original since 1997. And so I knew that the show would hardly be groundbreaking. And yet I wanted to go. She’s still Janet Jackson after all. I was torn.
But then a small miracle occurred. I went to the Ticketmaster website to scope out tickets and saw that a new deal had been added. If one was willing to buy a total of four tickets to the Janet concert, each ticket would go for a mere twenty-five dollars. All of a sudden a trip to see Miss Janet did not seem so outrageous. I sounded the alarms, and by the end of the day had drummed up enough interest to purchase two sets of tickets.
And so eight of us ventured to the Allstate Arena to see Miss Janet Jackson run through thirty-seven songs in two and a half hours. She easily could have called this the Everything But the Kitchen Sink Tour. It was all there. The kitchen sink, however, was Because of Love. She neglected to sing that song. And I love that song. For that I may never forgive her.
I may also never forgive her for giving us a carbon copy of every live performance I have ever seen from her. There was nothing innovative or exciting that happened in those two and a half hours. Sure, she gave us the hits we love. But she gave them to us without personality. The dance moves were pulled straight from her videos. Any gimmicks that were present had been present when I saw her in 1994 and 1998. A decade has passed and she’s still pulling male audience members on stage and molesting them. Yes, Janet, we get it. You’re sexy. Now, can we move on?
All of which is not to say the night was a total bust. The show may have been uninspired, but it was certainly fun enough. I got to dance around to Pleasure Principle and If and Miss You Much and Control and Nasty and Rhythm Nation. And I got to do it all for thirty-three dollars (twenty-five dollars plus all those stupid fees). That’s less than one dollar per song. I just wish Janet had put more than a dollar’s worth of thought into each song.
As I left the arena, I knew I’d never see Janet again. I’ve been a loyal fan, but even I can only see the same performances so many times before I have to throw in the towel. I still love all those hits and I’m glad I got to hear them all one more time. But I’m afriad this truly was my last dance with Janet.
Unless, of course, I can get tickets for under twenty bucks for her next tour.
Is it just me or does John McCain seem to think the American public consists mainly of morons and idiots? Every time I look at the news he is doing something else that is just completely asinine. And yet he expects Americans to vote him into office. Are you kidding me?
Luckily for him, it was proven four years ago that the American public does consists mainly of morons and idiots. So maybe his strategy is a sound one. But the man really does seem to have more than a few screws loose. Let’s just look at some of the most glaring examples of his recent ridiculous behavior.
First, he appoints a woman who has almost no political experience as his vice presidential nominee. Sure, she’s cute. Yeah, she’s a pitbull with lipstick. But she is not, in any way, the kind of person who should have been brought forward by McCain. If the goal was to capture Clinton supporters, there are more qualified women in the political world that he could have called on. And yet he chose Sarah Palin.
Now that he has chosen her, he is doing everything he can to keep her out of the media spotlight. She has yet to give a press conference, which is the least the American public deserves from a woman who could soon be our Vice President. Instead, Palin gets more play in the tabloids than on the news. As a case in point, the McCain camp did everything possible to keep the media from witnessing Palin’s recent meeting with Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai. Palin barred all print reporters and a TV news producer from the photo shoot of the start of her meeting. It wasn’t until TV news shows threatened to report on the event that they were allowed in before quickly being ushered back outside.
Seems to me Palin and McCain have something to hide. Could it be Palin’s lack of experience speaking with foreign leaders? Hamid Karzai was her first, after all.
Then we have the issue of the debates. First, McCain and his camp fought to change up the rules for the debate between Palin and Democratic nominee Joe Biden. Here are some quotes from The New York Times.
At the insistence of the McCain campaign, the Oct. 2 debate between the Republican nominee for vice president, Gov. Sarah Palin, and her Democratic rival, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., will have shorter question-and-answer segments than those for the presidential nominees, the advisers said. There will also be much less opportunity for free-wheeling, direct exchanges between the running mates. McCain advisers said they had been concerned that a loose format could leave Ms. Palin, a relatively inexperienced debater, at a disadvantage and largely on the defensive.
McCain advisers said they were only somewhat concerned about Ms. Palin’s debating skills compared with those of Mr. Biden, who has served six terms in the Senate, or about his chances of tripping her up. Instead, they say, they wanted Ms. Palin to have opportunities to present Mr. McCain’s positions, rather than spending time talking about her own experience or playing defense
Once again, it looks like the McCain camp has something to hide. And once again, it looks like that something may be Palin’s obvious inexperience.
Now McCain is pushing to have his own debate with Barack Obama postponed. He claims he wants to step away from the campaign in order to focus on the economic crisis facing our country. While that is all well and good in theory, it stinks for the American people who deserve a) a candidate who is willing to step forward and tell the country his plans for bettering it and b) a President who can multi-task.
And speaking of McCain’s take on the current economic crisis, check this out.
I’m sensing a trend here. McCain seems to like ambitious and beautiful women, regardless of what they have done in the past or can offer this country in the future. That’s certainly not the kind of person we need in the White House.
We need someone in the White House who is more than a spin doctor. We don’t need a maverick. We need someone who can get his hands dirty and work hard to better this country. We need someone who respects the American public enough not to try and call off a debate just as the polls are starting to swing out of his favor. We need a President with goals, not a President with tricks. If we don’t get that, we are bound to face a very rough future.
And McCain, with all of his razzle dazzle, has yet to prove he is that man.
Today I would like to share with you the tale of two lovers – Jason and Rico.
Jason is the roommate of my friend, Carlson. They both work at a theater downtown where Jason is the ticket manager and Carlson is a ticketing agent. In that respect, Jason is Carlson’s manager. They get along well as both coworkers and roommates.
Last Tuesday, Jason went out to one of Chicago’s many suburbs to meet Rico, a man he knew through the infamous MySpace. Later than evening he called Carlson to say that he would not be home. He was having a grand time with Rico. Besides, he had missed the last train back into the city.
Two days later, having known Rico for less than a full forty-eight hours, Jason broke some rather disturbing news to Carlson. He, Jason, was in love with Rico. And not only that, but he wanted Rico to move in with them. It seems Rico was losing his place. The men he lived with were moving out and that left him in the precarious position of either finding new roommates or finding a place to live. Luckily, he was in love with Jason. Love had come to the rescue.
As you can imagine, Carlson was quite taken aback. He argued that the two had not known each other long enough to be in love. He argued that there was not enough room in the apartment for three people. He argued that the whole thing was insane and that Jason should seek professional help.
It then struck Carlson that another piece of the puzzle was missing. He knew that Rico worked at a store that only existed in the suburbs. And he also knew that Rico had no car. That meant that if Rico moved to the city to live with Jason, he would be without a job. Luckily, Jason was in love with Rico and thus he had a solution. He would hire Rico to work at the theater. So not only would Rico live with Jason and Carlson, but he would also work with them.
When Carlson started to protest louder than he had before, Jason cut him off. He was in love with Rico and there was no amount of argument that could change his mind. “We are in love,” he said. “It’s like The Notebook, only gay.”
And so, in a few weeks time, Rico will move in with Jason and Carlson. He will then work with Jason and Carlson. There is some debate as to whether or not he will actually pay rent. Jason is not concerned with such things. People in love do not concern themselves with such things.
I feel for poor Carlson. And I fear for poor Jason. It seems to me that Rico is just looking for a free ride since he is in a sticky living situation. I don’t think love has a whole lot to do with it from his standpoint. I think it’s all about the free rent and guaranteed job. And, I have to say, that I don’t really blame him all that much. I might be tempted to take all of that in exchange for pretending to love someone I’ve know for all of a week.
But then again, I’m a cynical bitch who has never seen The Notebook.
My name is Dr. Sparky Louise Veronica Horton Brady.
This is where I tell it almost like it really is. This is where I dispense the tales of a wacky, chivalrous, cunning, wily, witty, maudlin, perspicacious gay man.
