Category Archives: Interesting Things as of Late

isn’t it all?

You’re More Than Fair

Just got back from a visit to McSwells where I had dinner with Mr. and Mrs. Paterson, as well as Meghan Taylor Mastro and the daughters Lily (mine) and Ruby (Jim’s). Almost wasn’t able to pull it off.

You see I was at work and as the day crawled along I just started feeling bad. Not ill necessarily, but more like feeling blue. I left the office around 1:30, no one was in really and the feeling in the office was ‘so what?’

So I walked across town, enjoying a Padron, listening to Girl Talk and still enjoying it. I left two voice mails for Bill and a text message but he didn’t get those until I was home, putting the kibosh on meeting up with him for a few minutes outside his building. Plus it was too cold to socialize outside.

I was home for a little while when I heard from Meghan. She was coming to Hoboken with Lily and Ruby and the Paterson’s. The Paterson’s are actually Ann Boyles and her husband Pat Paterson.

I explained how I was feeling and said I would try to make it after I took a much-needed nap. The nap definitely did the trick, deep sleep for almost two hours. Cleared my head of whatever malaise was troubling me.

It was almost interrupted by phone calls but I wisely shut the ringer on the phone off. It was dark when I woke up and mere moments after awakening, Meghan called telling me that she and the girls were walking up to McSwells to get some food.

I had to stop by the library to pick up Philip Norman’s biography of John Lennon and Sarah Vowell’s new book, The Wordy Shipmates. Quite timely since I finished the New Yorker already, finished Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine a couple of weeks ago, and though I took Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals, about Abraham Lincoln’s cabinet out of the library I’m not as interested in it as I was when I first ordered it.

After trying not to break my neck on the unshoveled ice I made it to McSwells where Yo La Tengo where eating dinner before their third Hanukah show. Ann met me at the door since she saw me on the sidewalk walking by.

She still looks as adorable as ever and still the same Ann Boyles I knew way back when, still funny to be around. Pat Paterson, her husband is a really nice guy who I might have met before when he worked for Dreams So Real and Guadalcanal Diary among others back in the day.

Despite the last time I ate at McSwells I gambled again and ordered a burger, which was fine. Ann didn’t have problems with her burger but I think Meghan and Lily and Ruby had issues with their orders, as did Pat with the flavorless fish and chips.

After dinner we did a quick walk by the river, around where Maxwell House used to stand. They’re all condos now, no more big neon sign with a coffee cup, and no more ‘good till the last drop’.

Got some great pictures of everyone, the only who was missing was Jim who was minding the Guitar Bar. We walked back down Washington Street, Pat finding some thrown away stilts that he did a credible job of walking on for a couple of feet.

Alas, I had to head home and write this, they continued to collect Jim from the Guitar Bar and head back out to Glen Ridge. It looks like I will be going out to visit on Saturday and it seems quite possible that Bill will join me, so Ann will finally get to meet the man in my life, as I just met hers.

So here’s to Ann and Pat and Meghan, Lily & Ruby, and of course, Jim. Cheers!

And I said hello to Ann Boyles on behalf of bhikkhu and Harpy. She responded in kind.

There were some fairly large pics here, but not any more.
I’m still using Bill’s Mac and can’t figure out how to rotate certain pics. If you know how, please feel free to fix them and send them back to me so I will repost them. Can’t seem to use xnview on the Mac you see. Made everything easier….

well actually I went to my PC and loaded the pics onto a flash drive after ediiting on xnview on my PC….
122308-ann-boyles-meghan-mastro-et-al-001

Ruby and Meghan

Ruby and Meghan

Ann and Lily

Ann and Lily

122308-ann-boyles-meghan-mastro-et-al-004a Me and Ann

Meghan, Pat, Me, Ann, Lily (photo by Ruby)

Meghan, Pat, Me, Ann, Lily (photo by Ruby)

Meghan and Ann (so sweet)

Meghan and Ann (so sweet)

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No Bathing for Meghan and John Ozed

No Bathing for Meghan and John Ozed

Ann and Pat and Manhattan

Ann and Pat and Manhattan

Rebel Waltz

Well I am in a much better mood, still angry with the Obama team though, and with him, himself. Today he commented on the Rick Warren pick for the invocation and one particular ting that Obama said stuck I my craw.

He mentioned that we can disagree without being disagreeable. That’s all well and good.

For me to disagree is like this, “I support same sex marriage” someone else, “I do not support same sex marriage”. To me that is how people disagree as an example.

Disagreeable could be seen as “I support same sex marriage” someone else, “I think same sex marriage is just like bestiality, child rape and incest between a brother and a sister”.

This is the reasoning that Barack Obama uses to explain why he picked Rick Warren to say the invocation for his inauguration.

Where is this atmosphere that Obama speaks of that he would like to create? What type of atmosphere could exist between a group of people that love each other and want the SAME RIGHTS THAT HETEROSEXUAL COUPLES GET, and a group that says that we are going to molest their children, we can’t be trusted to teach in schools, we spread disease (thanks Dad) and we are all going to hell.

One group advocates love and equality and another condemns and shames. What type of atmosphere will exist in such a vacuum?

It really is a sickening feeling that someone who actively courted the gay vote and dollars thinks it’s all right for Rick Warren to grace his inauguration. An inauguration that I worked towards, millions of people worked towards and donated money to. And then to hear from some ‘allies’ saying we’re making too much of a big deal out of it.

Obama’s people are claiming to be all inclusive. If that’s so, can we expect to see representatives from the Ku Klux Klan and Aryan Nation, maybe even some Black Israelites, and the Army of God up on the stage with Obama and Warren?

No we know that’s not what’s going to happen, because when you boil it down, it’s perfectly all right to treat LGBT like shit.

C’mon, it’s true. Everyone hates LGBT people, it’s the one thing christians, jews and muslims can all agree on. And atheists are hated too. I am doubly cursed!

The right wank is gloating over this of course, claiming liberals (read gays) are so intolerant of different views. I know it’s not the case, we just resent having our relationships compared to child rapists.

I ran into Casey Chasm on the bus this evening and he suggested that the whole Rick Warren fiasco is a distraction from the fact that the economy is getting worse than was originally imagined.

That may be true and it also maybe much like a Monty Python sketch where a door to door salesman is trying to get a couple interested in a home made TV show.

When the couple’s attention span is on the wane, a mollusk is tossed out described as a filthy, disgusting pansy which gets the couple riled up enough to curse and stomp on said mollusk.

So the economy is in the toilet and people are tired of hearing about it…hey, look! A homosexual! How disgusting is that? Something everyone can rally around and hate with all of their hearts and the justification of their religion to feel like that.

Much like religion was used all those years ago when it was against the law for Barack Obama’s parents to marry.

Obama’s people are saying that it’s a balance since Rev. Dr. Joseph Lowery is going to deliver the benediction at the inauguration.

Dr Lowery has long been a supporter of civil rights for ALL people whereas Rick Warren, aka Falwell in a Hawaiian shirt actively works to take civil rights away from certain people.

That is the face that the Obama administration wants to present. A balanced face like Bell’s palsy. Yeah, I am still pissed off.

The day wasn’t all about being fired up though. I heard from Maurice Menares and that was a good laugh. He’s in Oregon married with a kid. He’s doing well and working for Adidas.

He suggested looking him up if I find myself on the west coast. I mentioned Arcata and a sketchy plan of perhaps going out there for my nephew’s graduation next year. A side trip to Oregon, is it possible? It all remains to be seen.

I had to run an errand to Chinatown this afternoon and I finagled that into a detour to Farfetched where I picked up a present or two for Bill and some cards for the nieces and nephews.

There was also a plan to hook up with Pedro but he backed out due to the incoming snowstorm which is expected to leave a foot of snow in Otisville making his return home that much more difficult.

I was also supposed to go visit the Mastro’s where Ann Boyles is supposed to make an appearance like Mary on a half shell but I haven’t heard anything about that. So it’s all up in the air, but at least I am home and happy.

I would be happier if Bill were here driving me up the wall, but we do have a plan to take part in a demonstration on Saturday night for Marriage Equality. That could very well turn into an anti Rick Warren/No Thanks Obama rally.

It doesn’t look like Obama is going to do a thing about it and Rick Warren has congratulated Obama for taking a stand AGAINST the people that voted him into office. A stand against the LGBT community, women, and science.

After eight fucking years of having the religious right shoved down our throats, Obama’s people decide to open the show with a nutjob with left over, reheated bull fucking shit not that different than James Dobson, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson and the shit sleaze they had to say.

Remember, according to Falwell and Robertson, 9/11 was a reckoning for LGBT people and women having the right to choose. Meet their devil spawn, Rick ‘Purpose Drivel Strife’ Warren.

Hell hath no fury like an LGBT community/women/scientific community scorned.