Our Family and Animals

no this isn't a writing on bestiality u sicko...

it runs in our family that we have a way with animals. my grandfather Pa would go to a zoo, go to Tilly the elephant's cage, yell "up Tilly! up!" and the goddamn pachyderm would honest to god stand on her hind legs.

my mother has ways and many have been passed on. for instance our family doesn't just walk dogs, we walk our cats. my mother used to walk at least 3 of ours. they would love it. she would whistle for them, they would come, and they would walk around the block, sniffing, checking out properties, pissing at times. loved it.

i do it too: when i walk my sister's dog, the cat loves to come, run around etc even with the big dog. he loves it more than the dog i think. both are black by the way, i call them my Army of Darkness.

and my niece and nephew do it too. everyone who sees us says pretty much the same: "i've never seen such a thing!" "my cat doesn't do a anything!" "they just walk with you?" it's something you don't see marching around in the suburbs in 2010 too much.

Mom, Unique

you know how every time you hear an Irishman, from the old country, irish americans etc, speak about the British, they hate them with unchecked passion? the prime minister, parliament etc?

now as i've written, my mother is very irish, pretty much pure irish descent. her views on the British: she loves them! "yeah yeah yeah!" loves the culture, people, history. Lady Di, the Queen Mum whoever the hell that is, Brit coms like Keeping up appearances and Fawlty towers, loves it all! i just recently found a British shop down in Greenwich VIllage on Hudson and im going on a shopping spree there for mother's day.

now at other times i don't know how consciously she has wanted to be unique but the feeling comes out at times. even for the tragic. after she came down with multiple sclerosis years ago, she, being a librarian and inquisitive like me, read up on it a lot.

much later we were talking about diseases that you never heard of years ago but you seem to hear about every 2 seconds now like that "corporate tunnel vision syndrome" or "carpet tunnel syndrome" or whatever it is. and she said that's kind of how she felt: she thought she was alone in her disease, "then i realized, everyone has it! everyone has the disease!" she was saying it like she was disappointed in not being unique in having a debilitating disease

Your Real Values

why is it that someone, who is devout and practicing, has relatively high morals, environmentally conscious, thoughtfull, sensitive, spiritual, respectful, healthy, , creative, smart, funny, loyal, loving

can be seen as a loser, unworthy, second (or lower) class, pathetic, not worthy of respect, not worthy of love

by society, relationships, employers, the governmentt, even many of his loved ones?

and do you see that it is a society that does not really respect the attributes of the above first paragraph, when those listed don't go along with success as in fame, security, fortune, power

and it directly or indirectly keeps him down and out in the second paragraph in perpetuity

Mother, Irish Catholic

my mother seems like such a stereotypical repressed nun- educated Irish Catholic (at least the last 4 words are true), that even her laughter seems to elicit guilt: she either looks and sounds like she's in pain (which at least wasn't true years ago) or she combines the soft noises with an "o god!". the only people i really saw her comfortable around with laughter were her sister and close cousin.

on the other hand, you know how you always hear awful stories about nuns? their cruelty, beatings etc? My mother is he only person besides maybe George Carlin (another irish american who loved language) who LOVED the nuns. always had good stories about them. loves to see them, and hear them sing etc. loves how they're all 100 years old. thankful for their education.

my mother is one of those irish/catholics (i've heard italians do this too, maybe part of the beauty of that language also), that even their curses sound like lovely prayers that would only be improved by latin interpretation: '"Jesus mary and joseph!" "merciful heavens!" "by the bells of st mary's!"

My Briefs, Definitions: Gay edition

Fruit fly: a male fag hag. you think only women are friends with gays? we deserve a name too dammit!

Fag hag blind spot: the instance, usually occurring once or more in many women's lifetimes and usually at a young and callow age, when a straight woman falls for a gay guy (usually everyone thinks he's gay except her) and she's blinded by how '"perfect he is"' and her idealism. also she's usually really fine, and he's one of the few men not to fall all over her yet they "have so much in common" etc.

you can tell that probably almost male designer in fashion is gay since every purse that came out a few years ago and many still have cock rings all over them.

some of the main differences between a locker room and a male dressing room, especially one for a musical:

• more gays at the musical (naturally)
• some gays give you a hard time about leaving dirty socks around (they have them too, yet i was told that i was supposed to hang them up. i didn't)
• there's a lot more covering up and stigma about farting and crapping in the dressing room--some of us were told to go to the bathroom to let one loose. we didn't. (keep in mind some of the guys are probably attracted to each other, hence the embarrassment.)
• the stereotype would be a lot of naked men running around in the dressing room (ecce homos) and cover ups in the locker room. the exact opposite is true. usually most just do their business in dressing room (not a euphemism), and as i wrote before, the older, flabbier, grosser you are in a men's locker room, the more naked you are.

My Briefs, Quotes 2

L.A. has this cemetery called Hollywood Forever where you can actually have your picture engraved on your tombstone. yes, in Hollywood even the dead have head shots.

there are some chicks in L..A especially that have so much plastic surgery that when you see them you see that they're so obviously fake that you really wonder if they're transsexuals.

as i've said before, in L.A. in a neighborhood like my former one with a big gang presence, you would see a lot of graffiti tags. and in L.A. with the Dodgers and all a lot of folks were into baseballl. yet you never saw a school or any outdoor wall with a spray painted box for stickball.

why is it that so many people bring pens to bathrooms, yet when you're at the library, DMV, post office etc, no one has a pen? Should we combine them and have note paper, forms, envelopes in bathrooms everywhere? i bet voter registration and Census form fill outs would increase.

My Briefs, Quotes

much of politics and history is in the eye of the beholder. for example to many americans, our military in Afghanistan is about making the world safe, aiding democracy etc. to many Afghans though, especially loved ones of the dead, they're probably seen as terrorists.

I came from Eastchester NY , or Greasechester, where there were so many guidos with so many Irocs, Camaros, Monte Carlos. you know the saying that men buy fancy cars for what they lack between their legs? if that's the case then Eastchester should have been called the land of many small dicks.

he's so persistent to women that he grows on them, he thinks, like a benign penicillin. not coincidentally, it's what they need a dose of after he's been with them

it's interesting that you have New York city and L.A., 2 of the most oversexed, over advertised, notorious cities of vice in our nation's history, and they're also located on the 2 biggest cold showers in the world in the Pacific and Atlantic.

Double Standards: Sex Talk, Men and Women

generally speaking it seems that chicks can get away with a lot more public talk about sex than men. when they do it, they're often "liberated", "artistic" (will the Vagina Monologues ever die?) "post modern", "expressive". when we do it we're often seen as "pigs", "shallow", "boorish" "inappropriate" etc.

case in point: i used to do shows with this dumb blonde chick (redundant haha). the shows were pretty much every week and she would come in with a new story about some guy who fucked her. either he had a really big dick, or a really crooked wanker or something. and she made it quite clear that she would just be boned by guys with big hoses for the remainder of her life. it seemed that she would spread her legs for every Tom Dick and Dick with dark skin (her preference, though she was from friggin Iowa; also she didn't like "black guys", her words). and again with big/unusual cock.

now what would the reaction be if: i came in every week, and told a different story about the pussies of the chicks i doinked (there were so many, nudge): they were like a sideways smile, they were superlative in length, width, height,; they were like a hair pie/taco? and let's say i said that i only did "da white womens", that had small tight you know whats? what would the reaction be then? by the women and/or the men?

Ghetto Speak

certain ghettos and slums (yes there's a difference) have pretty names yet they've been some of the most notorious neighborhoods in our cities: Cabrini green. Highland park in L.A. where i used to live. Inglewood. Echo park. guess they're trying to raise those property values somehow. the most notorious in L.A. tried to shake their reputation by changing their name: from South central L.A, to South L.A (!).

THEN There are those areas that sound inner city but add a "ville" or a "manor" to their name and somehow become these upscale suburbs: "BronxVILLE". "Pelham MANOR." and even "Bronxville MANOR".

like i said i lived in a pretty strong ghetto area with big gang presence. lived in a pretty basic apartment complex but it actually was named: the "Shadow Oaks'" because of a big oak in front where the squirrels ran amok. they tried to be like NYC, where you don't just live in a snobby sounding neighborhood like the "Upper West Side," but you live in a snobby sounding building like the "Dakota", the "Beresford", the "Century".

anyway in a neighborhood like mine with so many gangs and gang graffiti tags, you would often see buildings with names like mine, then underneath the name would be a gang tag. so it was almost this weird subtitle system we had going, because my neighborhood was in America of course, but it had a strong majority of Spanish speakers so much of the neighborhood had bi lingual signage and language, then there was the gang subtitle which probably read something like "Avenues' turf" (one of the big gangs), or "Crip's country'" or whatever.

kind of gives new meaning: when we were in high school we would paint on the walls of the field "Eagle Country" for our teams. now i think that i was tougher than i knew in school as i was really gang tagging haha.

You Can Take the Popeye's out of the Ghetto, but...

sometimes you wonder if certain entities are inextricably tied to one another. for instance i used to live in L.A near technically a separate suburban city, Glendale. it was right outside the city but separate. actually pretty high living: fairly upper income, nice area, urban but suburban.

however near its border with L.A. (and not a really run down area of L.A.; you'd have to go one area over to where i lived), was a Popeye's fried chicken. now we all know of the stereotype: yard bird, urban decay, black, gang whatever. and again its area wasn't run down.

but you would go in the bathroom and suddenly it was summa cum slum: graffiti, gang tags (i think), filthy like a bad gas station shitter. it was like the inner city somehow pin pointed and found the joint and only the city's sole fried chicken joint inside this whole city but wasn't strong enough to fan out.

also: if these graffiti authors are literate enough to bring writing utensils to the shitter, how come the education rates in the slums are so low?

New Boy/girlfriend=Touring Beauty Contest

that's pretty much the way it is. you get a new girlfriend/ beau (i love calling them that, sounds like im some antebellum belle), and s/he is taken on tour to meet those close to you: the parents, family, friends, relatives, work friends etc.

they compete, knowingly or not, in a bit of a contest, but like a show on the road that's being seen by local reviewers. and like a beauty contest there are categories: beauty, poise, talent (for conversation etc), congeniality, how they answer questions about world peace whatever.

and from there the judges score it, either with individual judgements or usually conferring: what did you think of him? do we like him? do we hear wedding bells (i.e do we have a winner?)

and the differences of judges are like in the Olympics: their level of criticism ranges from the easy judge (the male friend who never gets laid so therefore welcomes ANY woman to be remotely close to him) to the stringent (the mother who thinks that no one is good enough for her child).

Weddings: Past versus Recent

PAST: i used to look forward to marriage proposals as the most romantic times

RECENT: i show up even later parties than before to avoid the proposal

PAST: I Would give them as much money as i could afford. not much, but i tried

RECENT: i'll get them those jerky utensils they're registered with. can i re gift? maybe a vcr, pack it in a big dvd box and drop it on the gift table anonymously?

PAST: the bridesmaids were young, and weighed a hell of a lot, each

RECENT: : the groom's sister who had a husband and 2 kids, and the bride's sister who's a nun

PAST: made sure i ate a ton because of my poverty, love of food, rarity of consumption of quality of food, ocd

RECENT: make sure i eat a ton of food because of my poverty, love of food, rarity of consumptions of quality of food, ocd, and in revenge of all the frigging money, gifts and other financial advantages couples have

PAST: looked forward to bridesmaids and single chicks

RECENT: look forward to food and open bar

Sex Stuff You Wish was True

that no matter when it would happen in your life, if you have sex with a virgin, it would inoculate you against all possibilities of stds, instead of virgins becoming like a literal and figurative life time std after having sex with them.

that if your girlfriend is a dominatrix, she could be as demanding as all hell outside of the bdsm: do the dishes, put down the toilet seat etc, but whenever someone says "you're so whipped!" it's always a compliment. guess depends how you think of it

that sex should be like fishing: the higher the weight of the catch, the higher the prize

if you've been intimate (listen to me, "'been intimate'" like im some magistrate) with someone really fine, , it's like attaining some higher rank, like the military does with their brass, and you have that rank forever, and you don't need to continue to pursue anything higher. same is true for other "awards:" cheerleader, red head whatever. once you earned the medal, you don't need to pursue further.

we have x rays, security scans etc. can't we have another PBS: Phony Baloney Scan? we would have it right in our pockets (hell we have the Internet in there now! gives a new meaning to pocket porn haha, where is my mind? ). but the scanner detects for the fake: breast implants, chicks with dicks etc

Free=Me

i still love to eat, but in the past free food was such a great opportunity and i grabbed on to it so zealously because: i love to eat, i was poor, my ocd almost forces me to take advantage of such an opportunity, if it was quality, i didn't eat like that often. so me and often my friends would pursue it with such fervour:

• sometimes when we were invited somewhere with food, we would practically threaten the one inviting us: "you better have a lot of food there!"
• when it was a standing affair where servers finger foods etc, we would scope the place out like we were the president's secret service: where were the entrance ways, , where were the crowds, how fast were the servers etc.
• i almost felt it my duty that when i would find free stuff, i would actually pressure myself and the people i was with to take full advantage. for instance if someone could get free soda refills and they were going slow, i would almost yell at them to get going (conversely, i would never give pressure to any of my friends to drink booze even when we were teens). also
• i would have to take advantage so fully that i would practically make myself sick. for instance if you're at Taco bell and you can have free refills of any drink, i would have to drink all of them, at least half a cup (buy a small drink, get free refills--it was irresistible). so think of all the sugar and empty calories i threw down. and keep in mind there's at least half a dozen sodas. and with 2 cups of those you're pissing a lot. but i had to have all of them and bring a full one with me. i used to do this at a job where i was on the road a lot so i had to pull over constantly for a while. all this not for health, and long term not for pleasure, but because it was free.

L.A. versus NYC

• in L.A you have your own little automobile where you can play your own little music, ride with whoever you want, go wherever you want, fun in the Sun, whatever temperature you want, you can smoke if you want. go wherever you want, and drive on a FREE way! no tolls! it's free!
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• IN NYC YOU RIDE IN 2 BLOCK LONG METAL SNAKES THRU RAT INFESTED HOLES BLASTED THRU BED ROCK WHERE YOU RARELY SEE THE LIGHT OF DAY, AND IT'S DRIVEN BY AND RIDDEN BY TOTAL STRANGERS on a REGIMENTED SCHEDULE, ROUTE, AND TEMPERATURE WHERE THE TRAIN EVENTUALLY STOPS AT A TERMINAL AND YOUR ENTERTAINMENT AND OLFACTORY SAMPLING IS OFTEN THE HOMELESS SINGING. and YOU PAY TO DO THIS.

• in NY you walk wherever you goddamn want, no matter how legendary the street: 5th ave, 42 st, Riverside dr whatever
• in L.A. you wait at the cross walk like a child. and if there's no cars coming, you still can't walk! you need to wait for the little cartoon sign at the other side telling you that you can go. i tried to be an adult and walk when there were no cars around and i got a ticket in frigging Pasadena (as in the 'little old lady')

• IN NY if you say you're a '"performer,'" you're usually SAD ("Singer/actor/dancer") and people ask you ''what restaurant do you work at?"
• in L.A IF You say you're a '"performer'", often you're a MAW (model actress whatever) and people ask you "'o so you're a stripper?"

the Death Knock: the Bathroom

I think that the closest sound that we have to death itself knocking on our door, is the sound of someone knocking on our bathroom door, whether it be a bathroom stall, a real bathroom, etc. and it could even be one of those polite gentle little raps, it still strikes panic.

the disadvantages of both places:

• in the stall, everything gives you away: your feet, the smell, sound whatever, but somebody really has to go, or they're being an idiot/dick, and they still knock. this could be Mike frigging Tyson on the other side
• the bathroom, especially at something like a party, or a public place like a plane flight, where you really don't know who's on the other side. could be the cutest chick in the world, your boss etc. really slams the breaks on you letting lose in the 'rest' room.

Words Change Meanings: Pussy

one of the interesting deals about language is that it's ever changing. also one of the tricky parts. of course it's one of the most obvious ways to see the generation gap.

for instance we used to have a cat named Muff. now this was back when the usual meaning for that word was the fur like crap you warm ur hands with, and i don't think it was so common for it to mean a woman's privates.

speaking of women's privates, i think years ago it wasn't as common to call them 'pussy.'

but one thing i know, when i was reaching puberty, my mother would yell outside, in broad day light, in the middle of the neighborhood for the cat: "Muff!! Pussy!! Muff! Come pussy!!" and if it was raining and the cat came running she would yell, "o look at this wet pussy!" needless to say i was a bit embarrassed by the yelling of my mother who's career was as a librarian.

Who SHould Be Recruited for the Military

for Winter warfare: without a doubt, the toughest, hardiest, most dedicated folks that can withstand and cold weather: smokers, especially urban smokers.

this Winter was a very tough one in New York with very low temperatures at times. i was out at a bar or 2 during some of these times. it didn't matter how cold it was out there: freezing, well below freezing wind chill etc: smokers would go out to get their nic fix. and they wouldn't bundle up in "arctics' as my grandfather Pa would say. they needed it so bad that they would go out in thin dresses, skirts, dress shirts etc, again in well below freezing weather. and they would stay out there! and they would talk!

the military needs to take notice: you don't even have to pay these folks. give them some cartons of the good stuff (the government has all the best tobacco anyway right?), give them a gun or whatever to protect our nation/increase the american empire, and that's it! they'll stay out there forever, enjoy themselves, serve, protect whateva!

Who Should Get Busted for Indecent Exposure

not chicks who go topless on the beach etc (nice of me eh?), not nursing preggos. but the following 2 groups

• couples that feed each other in public (usually woman to man)
• couples that massage each other in public

why do couples feed each other? after all the shit we hear about pedophilia, child molestors, etc, don't you see that's it's creepy as hell for a grown woman to feed a grown man in some wieird oedipal /mommy coddling nightmare? i once had a girlfriend (believe it or not) get pissed at me because she always wnated to feed me, i always hated it, she said we could never get married because she could n't feed me the cake. and again, another reason not to marry.

and you amater (and i do mean amateur) massueses: massaging in public is like chewing gum in class: do you have enough for everyone? and do you know that massage parlours get raided for prostitution? keep it behind closer doors. if ur doing your little foreplay then you may as well go all the way inf ront of us or else it's just another tease!

Gyms~Torture Chambers

let's say that someone can travel time from way back in the past. he goes to the middle ages and witnesses torture chambers. he goes to today and witnesses gyms. how many differences will he see besides the fact that they wore more clothes in the past but had less fat?

• they both use diabolical metal contraptions to inflict pain. it was forced on the person back then. it's VOLUNTARY now AND YOU HAVE TO PAY FOR IT!! AND yet SOCIETY LOOKS DOWN ON BDSM FOLKS!!
• they both have someone doing the torturing. back then it was a torturer, sadist etc. now it's a personal trainer.
• sounds of pain in the air. back then it was real: now it's steroid heads having self inflicted mini rages, or it's the "'music'" that's piped in, or worse: tv talk shows/soap operas/local/ cable news.
• the smell back then was fear. now it's worse: fatty sweat
• back then, starvation. now, health food. fasting seems like the less painful alternative
• it must have been tough to watch people being tormented, but we have a sight probably far worse now when you enter the men's locker room. and it's a truism across the continent, at seemingly every gym, club, etc.: the older, flabbier, fatter that you are, the less clothes you wear!!! i've been in gyms in California, NY, the Midwest and it's true everywhere! old saggy white pasty flabby fat men naked in every locker room! talking to each other, walking around, even blow drying (with a machine) their privates in the bathroom!

i think i've more than proved my point that medieval torture was awful but that today's gyms are worse as people actually PAY to go in, be in pain, and subject nearly every sense of theirs to agony!

Suburban TRamp part 1

no, im one of the few NOT going on about Tiger woods haha.

but it used to be that i would live in the city (NYC AND L.A.) and travel to do shows in the suburbs. AND GEt paid.

it's pretty similar still except that i travel to friends in the suburbs and i feel i still do a show. but more like a side show or human zoo.

what happens is that i need to go to their houses etc for birthdays etc. i don't have a car in NYC (appropriately) so i often need to ride the rails or take the bus.

i get there and because im such the "starving artist', and because i don't have a "good wife to feed me", because i usually eat healthy and don't have catered food much, and because i have a massive appetite and my ocd doesn't like me to let food go to waste, i eat a great deal of food there.

also because it's probably the final sense that i can count on: hearing: the conversation is worse and worse (subjects more often now: babies, teachers complaining about their jobs, real estate. fun stuff). sight: kid pics, vacation pics, SOFTBALL TEAM HOME FLICKS (yes this really happened once). and there are less and less available attractive women all the time which brings us to: touch (lack of).

You May Not Be Getting Laid Enough If...

you can hear someone walking in high heels 3 blocks away

you read see population statistics of anywhere and can't stop thinking of all the chicks you aren't with

you become a sort of amateur gynaecologist because you have a health book and can't help looking up 'feminine hygiene' problems just for the mention of words like vagina

you steal latex gloves from the doctor's office just for the fond memory of the smell

you see 12 year olds holding hands in public and are dying to say "take it in the alley you cats in heat!"

the preceding of course was a compilation of other people's experiences and not the author's (wink)

They Think Their Crap is Pumpkin Pie

now i'm sure most of us have had friends, relatives etc who'v had goddamn babies and that's all they talk about, that's every picture they take, their Facebook photo isn't them it's their friggin kids. and believe it or not im not being cynical here: after a while most of these kids started to look very much the same to me in pics, no bs. but of course we have to say "she looks like you". "he looks like your jerk off husband'" etc.

now the title above, it';s pretty much true for parents. and im including parents of pets, especially ones that don't have human kids yet. they'll talk about their kids' shit at meals, casual conversation, stories, explanatories. they'll sniff the kids' crotch to see if they crapped, right next to where the meal is served. the most disgusting material in the everyday world is shit and that's what we fucking talk about!!???

and further: maybe worse than parents of humans is actually the married who can't or haven't had a kid yet but have a goddamn pet. i've heard these champs talk about getting their friggin dog into modeling, or they can't go out with their friends because they can't leave the dog alone, the pooch (I knew one dog for whom i couldn't call it that word(!)) is on every holiday pic with some idiotic antlers on or something.

by the way i got news for ya: every goddamn baby ever doesn't do shit. actually that's almost all the thing does: shit, eat, sleep, burp, cry, get to 2nd base. sounds like me in college haha. .

"But I'm Not a Racist"

some statements that have been said to me just recently, which were followed by "but im not a racist":

• "yeah i don't like this town. a bit run down. lot of Mexicans here"
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• "yeah, we don't like certain people there. drives the property values down"
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• "those early morning sales near Thanksgiving are for black people"
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• "she's so black"--refering to someone's trashy behavior. that was from an Obama voter
• 
  
• "yeah a bunch of black guys (fill in with robbed him, sat around doing nothing etc)"

Mobile Phones: Are you an Answerer or a Screener

i know people who will answer their phone even if they're in the eye of a fucking tornado. they probably very well know that there's no way they'll hear you or that you'll hear them. but THEY HAVE TO ANSWER THE PHONE.

THESE are the same people that, when you're with them, even if you're a loved one/close friend etc, will again answer the phone NO MATTER WHAT, NO MATTER WHO is one the other line. it could be their ex wife, mother in law, or as we've received many times, 'Unknown'. so in other words, the person on the other line could be a prank call, wrong number, telemarketer etc, AND THEY TAKE PRIORITY OVER YOU, A LOVED ONE!!! YOUR 'FRIEND' WILL AUTOMATICALLY INTERRUPT YOU TO ANSWER A TELEMARKETER!!

and on top of all this, EVERY FUCK IN THE WORLD NOW HAS AT LEAST CALLER I.D AND/OR VOICE MAIL PROBABLY BOTH!!! YOU'RE PAYING FOR IT GENIUS!!! LET IT DO IT'S JOB! !

i think the same CHAMPS are the ones that complain to me that i never pick up my phone. im a big screener. so a few words: short answer: what's the big fucking deal leave a message. long answer: because i don't want to be one of those rude assholes that interrupt people to answer their fucking phone. also, you ever think i may be busy with someone/something else? in the shower? not in the mood?

and usually it's the same people that say that i call "at the worst times".' is that what your fucking phone tells you??!! i mean you pay more attention to it than me so it must know best!! (i know i sound like a neurotic wife, redundant just kidding). when it's a bad time for me i put it on vibrate, let the fucking voice mail pick up. is that so hard? we have gps on our phones but you can't use voice mail!!!????

I Shouldn't have to say or ask but: you're not the most important person in the world. leave a fucking message i always get back. and i'm not the most important person in the world either, but it's fucking rude of you to interrupt our conversation.

also: why is it that the people who have the loudest mobile phone rings are the ones that are least likely to know how to silence the fucking thing?

How to Find Mini Freak Shows in the Big City

very easy: look for the cheap renters, especially where roommates are wanted. along with the cheap rent you may find good neighborhoods, places, but the main price you pay: you almost ALWAYS have to live with FREAKS. And not just unusual folk like me, but extremes in stupidity, stinginess, the REALLY weird, or a combo of all. just a small sampling of ones i've found in NY and L.A:

• L.A I lived with a guy who was a Vietnam vet AND a Postal worker. he didn't sleep in his bedroom because he used it as his ARSENAL: shot guns, pistols etc. no exaggeration about any of this



• in Queens NY I lived with a chick who literally wouldn't leave her room from fall to spring except to go to the toilet and get food. not exaggerating again. she would hibernate.



• in Bronx NY i lived with this loon who never left her bed, kept the tv on 24 hours, shaved her dog in the SHOWER (you think it clogged?), stored her broken glass in my room (from a table?), was hairier on face and legs than me, would feed her dog egg salad, kept the washer and dryer etc in the middle of the kitchen floor. that's what i can remember, i was out of there in a week.



• my present housemates (Harlem) used a shower curtain coated in black mold, washed their underwear in the bathroom sink, never buy dish soap, keep around 7 tubes of toothpaste around (there's 4 of us), don't know how to use a plunger

so if your voyeurism or whatever get the better of you and you want to see the real live freak shows in present day america, go with the cheap seats and pay the cheap rents.

the World according to the Entertainment Industry

• most hookers, even in the inner city, are white,
• mothers in sitcoms, no matter how many kids they've had, are milfs
• little boys are cute and funny in sitcoms. in films they and little girls are cute and/or weepy
• teenage daughters are sexy and at odds about dating, undergarments etc with her father (xcuse me, "dad"),
• fathers try to be cool, , hip etc and just look like dorks
• token blacks in sitcoms and films are wise/street smart (reparations)
• more reparations: how many judges do you see in entertainment that are white men? ,
• since the Cosby show everyone lives in the suburbs, no one in the city or heaven forbid, ghettos
• Katherine Hiegl is the queen of chick flicks, a redundancy if there ever was one. Jen Lopez is the "ethnic" chick flick queen. that dude from 300 is becoming the male queen although Paul rudd is up there
• flicks like the Twilight crap is full of cougar chow because seemingly every woman under 50 loves them and the books
• how many chicks who are famous as a girl/teen will at least dress slutty for the media when she "grows up"
• america loves stereotypical italians

Desolation Row

i've lived in almost every area of the contiguous U.S

2 major cities of NY and L.A.

LIVEd in almost every level of socio economics

had countless friends. (320 plus on Facebook!)

friends representing different socio economic groups, mental states, ages, ethnicities.

gone to 2 reputable universities.

all sorts of training, education, job experience.

all sorts of jobs.

all sorts of events, places, people, religions.

kids love me. animals love me. you know, those who don't know any better

and after all that, why the emptiness? destitution? solitude? misunderstanding?

how did it come to this?

Jesus Christ! Bunnies?

for those who don't know, a lot of Christian symbolism, practices etc were adopted from pre christian, usually pagan ones. so if you ever wondered where the rabbit and egg came from in the holiest day of the christian year:

passover, the crucifixion etc took place in spring. spring has of course been associated with fertility and new life since probably earliest human time. eggs and rabbits (hump like a rabbit e.g) have for very long been understandably considered symbols of fertility. so in Spring the pagans celebrated with their symbols, then when Christianity rolled in, they were adopted for the birth and re birth (resurrection) similarities. or maybe the cute little bunnies and fun filled eggs were just kept for the kids.

of course this practice is very evident in a lot of christian holidays, especially Christmas: the evergreens, lights, being with loved ones etc all were celebrated pre christian almost world wide.

other christian and secular holidays "borrowing' from paganism: groundhog day (the ending of the darkest days), Midsummer (Summer solstice), timing of holidays like Jewish high holy days, halloween (all pagan, desperate attempts to steal by church with 'all souls day' etc).

so keep in mind that Paganism at least in general form is the oldest and probably the most widespread (in area at least) of all spirituality.

The Man of a Certain Age part 1

i do make some new year resolutions, some of which come true. but i always think that your age is the stronger "iron law" of time for us. since on jan 1 you don't really turn a certain age, but on your birthday, you do.

and that's when i say to myself, more than any time in the year usually, im this age now? what have i done? what have i not done? what the hell have i been doing? why didn't i do more? etc.

so i usually make some kind of list. like what you see in some histories about the 'GOlden age' of a people, like how the height of the Roman empire was known for arches, sanitation, togas etc.

and that list is what should be strived for in that 'age'.

i also try to look into the future. and say to myself, im at this age now and it's time to do the following...because, next year, at that next advanced age, will i really want to still be doing....? now unfortunately as soon as it's written, i figure i have a whole year, so i think i have plenty of time.