人怕出名猪怕肥

...If that helps explain anything to some of you still solving a years-long mystery vis-a-vis yours truly (no shame in that, rest assured.)  And by the way:  "I can handle reality in small doses, but as a lifestyle, it's much too confining." - Lily Tomlin

Happy Pride, Everybody!

Just remember to take your Truvada or wear a condom, or both.  And no, bitch, that's not Wayland and Madame you hear coming down from the roof of Beck's Motor Lodge to your room for six hours straight -- it's all in your head, so chill!

So, Like, Yah, Fer Sure, Right?

"Oh, definitely, Frau Wiegler!  At times it seemed like an absolutely boffo idea to work over a 37 year-old white and Native American gay man who attends services at a Jodo Shin Buddhist temple -- who, moreover, has lived since birth in Northern California and exhibits such a reaction to programming -- and radicalize him to the point that he goes on a killing spree at a soft target like an emergency room, or who at the very least could be spun as a palatable patsy for the press as the perpetrator in a sting operation transparently engineered by the FBI; (the latter of course would be cast as heroes who prevented an attack on a hard target.)

"Not that I would have known which outcome would have been most satisfactory, of course.  You know your business better than I do.  Still, I'm nothing if not a patriot, and therefore could have been bought off.  And you were partially correct:  even with my IQ, I wholeheartedly agree that I suffer at times from the most abject stupidity.  Yet to this day I wonder why such a shoddy effort was made to gull me, and why circumventing my right to consent was apparently perpetrated by puling amateurs.  I mean, really...  Who was meant to be the target of insults in all of this?  The target, or those who for years had a bead on him a mile wide?"

Hospitality Is Sin; Lust Is Virtue; Falsehood Is Pious

Come as you are, as you were

As I want you to be

As a friend, as a friend

As an old enemy

Take your time, hurry up

Choice is yours, don't be late

Take a rest as a friend

As an old

Memoria, memoria

Memoria, memoria

Come doused in mud, soaked in bleach

As I want you to be

As a trend, as a friend

As an old

Memoria, memoria

Memoria, memoria

When I swear that I don't have a gun

No I don't have a gun

No I don't have a gun

Memoria, memoria

Memoria, memoria

(And I don't have a gun)

When I swear that I don't have a gun

No I don't have a gun

No I don't have a gun

No I don't have a gun

No I don't have a gun

- Kurt Cobain

Now I May Not Be Some Uppity, Assassinated Venezuelan Beauty Queen...

...But I dare let slip this audacious gobbet of Morgan Freeman-magnitude speechifyin':

Give a man a fish, and he'll have fish for a day.  Teach him how to fish, and chances are he'll be more polite to you than you deserve -- he probably already knew how to fish, and fish better.  Nevertheless, he was raised with different, more human, more realistic, more pragmatic values.  But don't be too put off if he seems to ignore you altogether; you might be presuming to try to do him a favor right at the moment he's thinking it a higher priority to jump food lines with other looters because, hey, let's face it, the world is a little more complex than you first thought.

#Venezuela #yotambiénsoyhumano #tengosed #tengohambre #tengomiedo

Reminisce On The Love We Shared...

Dreadful, deeply unfunny joke within a joke ad infinitum:  Condoleeza Rice was Secretary of State; her main claims to fame were that she was a Sovietologist in a post-Soviet world, as well as a conservative black woman possessed of a damn regrettable 'do.  America went to war in Afghanistan anyway, precipitously and forgetful of the Russian example there.

Great moments in history, which should always terrify considering history's inescapable grip on our lives and the world we aim to live in.

Fall In!

"How do we change the world? One random act of kindness at a time." - Morgan Freeman

To all those demented, delusional, out-to-lunch fruitcakes who advocate for the deportation and exclusion of Muslims, here's a glimpse at the real world we all have no choice but to inhabit as best we can:  Last month, I was in San Francisco, walking along McAllister towards Jones.  Before me, against the South wall of the California Check Cashing branch, across from the neoclassical Hibernia Bank, bearing in English a written request for assistance was a beautiful young woman in chador, tasteful dress, and flawless, minimal make-up.  Beside her was her quiet young daughter.  Obviously, she was a recent arrival -- judging from her features, mos def a Syrian refugee who had received approval from the nearby, mostly Yemeni mosque, local upright citizens brigade, and other Tenderloin powers-that-really-be to work that corner for a shift.  As soon as a passing OG who was walking his bicycle had passed her a buck with a word of blessing and moved on, I in turn grabbed the loose bills that were change from my lunch (probably $12 or $14) out of my pocket, and handed them to the young lovely with a demotic "Salaam alaykum."  She took them, and responded demurely and heartbreakingly, "Shukraan."  And with that I carried on to rush through my errands on that day trip to the city.

All of this took but a minute or so:  That's reality, asshats.  That is why when it comes to what matters, what we cannot avoid indefinitely -- that is why our side will always win.  The rest of you Trump-ettes and shit stain bigots can just eat it.  You're lucky if you're even privileged enough to this (or are someone I agree with - hi fans, freaks, friends, and fellow fools)...

No Justice, Just Us

Doing my itty-bitty part to help raise awareness, and to try and point out some possibilities for helping fight the good fight:

http://www.orangecountyfl.net/FamiliesHealthSocialSvcs/VeteransServices.aspx#.V18notQrJxA (the services to which they refer clients could probably always use mention or donations...)
http://www.shelterlistings.org/city/orlando-fl.html
http://www.foodpantries.org/ci/fl-orlando
www.thecenterorlando.org

While we continue to abide and continue to be appalled at our government's and law enforcement's response to gun violence and hate crimes, and while we continue to blog, protest, hold vigils, write letters to the editor, and so on, we have above (for starters) real, immediately achievable opportunities to put an answer to atrocities like what happened in Orlando, Florida.  The links in this post are listings or connections to services that can always use volunteers, money, in-kind donations, or simple promotion; doing such sends a clear message that love is always more powerful than hate.  Even $10 to a food pantry or a gift of children's clothing to a shelter for homeless families can make all the difference in the world to promoting the causes of love for one another and social justice.

Help Orlando, and help us all.

Pulse

Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and souls deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better than thy stroake; why swell'st thou then;
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more, Death, thou shalt die.

- John Donne

"Describe Yourself For The Cameras..."

Victim with a twist.  Precious trash.  Sugar and spice and puppy dog tails.  Nature Boy in Dexter's Laboratory.  Giving him something he can feel.  Open-ended Omega Point.  Offensively innocuous.  Beside the point and the center of attention.

Wisdom

"Ten thousand flowers in spring, the moon in autumn,
a cool breeze in summer, snow in winter.
If your mind isn’t clouded by unnecessary things,
this is the best season of your life."

―Wu Men, translated by Stephen Mitchell

Lest Anyone Get The Wrong Idea About My Positive Attitude...

"You are never strong enough that you don't need help." - Cesar Chavez