Most male sex-symbols are skinny, vaguely effeminate pretty-boys: young Leonardo DiCaprio, David Cassidy, Brad Pitt, Leif Garrett.
Ed Ames wasn't. He was burly and muscular, with large features and a booming voice. He was, to me, the epitome of masculinity.
It's a pity about his politics, but he was an amazing performer, and I'm sorry he's no longer here with us.
Autographs I Have:
Autographs Mona has:
So now Target is being boycotted by the right for having Pride merchandise and from the left for removing Pride merchandise.
Maybe their moral compass should be based on something other than the profit motive. Maybe that's asking too much.
But the bottom line is: violence wins again. In the future stores will simply ignore any topic that might lead to a backlash. Nobody is boycotting Penny's, because Penny's didn't take a stand.
It was Pride month this time, next time it will be Black History Month. Or pharmacies that fill prescriptions they don't like. Or people who wear their hair long. Or go to a temple instead of a church. Or don't agree that capitalism is the best ism.
They're going to attack again and again again.
And every victory emboldens them.
There are three podcasts I never miss:
This is a short science podcast, and Alda's natural curiosity makes the show interesting even when the topic is one I'd normally take a pass on. (Every now and then he interviews an actor, and you can skip those.)
kind of hit and miss, but usually funny and interesting. She's better at interviews than you'd imagine, and is good at picking current topics. (Sometimes the crew starts cackling among themselves, and you can skip those.)
This is a new one, and the medium really fits her. The podcast gives her the freedom to take her time; she's not searching for a punchline or fighting for screen time. It's relaxed and entertaining.
In Texas, over 100 people are involved in an execution.
Nobody walks the condemned man more than a few feet down the corridor. Nobody cinches more than a single strap to secure him to the table.
One person chooses a needle and places it on the tray, another person unwraps it, another person inserts it.
This is all by design, so that nobody goes home thinking that they were the one who killed a man.
But the man is dead.
Now think about how many other things in our society are arranged systematically so that nobody feels responsible.
I went to a Catholic school. We started every morning with a prayer, we had an hour of theology class every day, and Mass every Friday. We had religious retreats and periodic confessions.
This was literal indoctrination, but it didn't work.
I'm not Catholic.
We also said the Pledge of Allegiance every day.
That didn't work, either. I'm not exactly the cookie-cutter patriot they envisioned.
That's why I'm calling "Shenanigans!" on the folks that are banning drag shows under the guise of Saving the Children™.
It's not as easy to indoctrinate children as they imagine.
Some days are good days, and I can have conversations with my father like we had thirty years ago.
And some days he can't figure out how to use the thermostat.
Full lyrics HERE.
I apologize for not knowing the source for this. It's from a xerox I found tucked inside a book of poetry, and the original source has been lost.
But it's very useful, and helped me understand Cummings' poetry.
My little brother died last November.
I always assumed someone would tell me, that there would be some effort to contact the next of kin. But there wasn't.
Mona searched the web for his address, and instead found his obituary.
In truth, I had lost him years earlier to mental illness and drug addiction.
When he was younger he was an extremely talented artist, with showings in many local galleries in San Francisco. When he grew older he became delusional and prone to violent outbursts.
He knew our soft spots and would use them to manipulate us for money. He would call my parents and say that a loan shark was after him and would hurt him if he didn't come up with $300. Then he would call me and say he had an abscessed tooth and was in horrible pain, and he needed $300 to see the dentist.
Eventually we noticed the scripts never varied.
He could be peaceful and loving, but when his demons hit him he could also be dangerously violent. He was kicked out of several apartments and half-way houses for assaulting the staff.
One time he showed up at my parent's house and didn't want to leave. I bought him a plane ticket and drove him to the airport, but until the plane actually took off I had no idea if he was going to get on or insist on staying. I don't know what we would have done.
The last time I spoke with him he told me everything I wanted to hear: he was about to start a new job, he was trying to reconnect with his family, he might sign up for a class at the community college.
Then he told me in detail about the talking snake that lived under his sink, how it had bitten him and now he glowed and could see things other people couldn't.
It wasn't a huge shock when I learned of his death. Somehow I knew that he would not live to be an old man.
But it hurt more than I thought it would.
I think what I'm really mourning is the hope that things would someday get better.
When an indigent person dies in San Francisco they are cremated, and their ashes are scattered in the Pacific Ocean. This is supposed to be a process that lasts several months, to give the family time to claim the remains. In practice, it happens almost immediately. By the time we knew, it was too late.
I'm okay with that.
A human body is mostly water, and when cremated the water is released into the clouds. John rained down over the land and seas, and now he's part of the grass, the trees, the flowers; the butterflies and birds and fishes. He's everywhere, in everything.
But I wish he were here.
My bookshelf.
The top shelf is all my identification books. I use to throw them into a rucksack and head off into the woods with some empty jars, a magnifying glass, and a pair of binoculars, just to see what I could find.
I should start doing that again.
The second shelf is my favorite authors, Kurt Vonnegut and Richard Brautigan, and some cherished religious books. Wavy Gravy's autobiography is in there, too; it's autographed.
If you've never read The Bhagavad Gita, start with Ranchor Prime's translation. He breaks the book down story by story rather than line by line, and it's much more understandable that way.
There are little things on the shelves. A fortune-cookie fortune that says, "Look around: happiness is trying to catch you." Some love notes from Mona. A little picture of Solanus Casey. A wooden cat my aunt gave me.
The photograph was taken in New York in front of a toy store at Christmas. Mona was ill and very anemic at the time, but insisted she wanted to go, so I got her there. I stepped in front of the store so she could take a picture, unaware of the costumed people, and they jumped in at the last minute. It caught me completely by surprise and took me out of fears and into the moment. It was the happiest moment of the trip for me.
Mona is fine now, by the way, but I didn't expect that at the time.
Anyway, I like looking at other people's bookshelves, and wanted to share a part of mine.
