Gender: Male
Status: Married
Age: 50
Sign: Capricorn
City: ALTADENA
State: CALIFORNIA
Country: US
Signup Date:
11/12/05
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Blog Archive
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Monday, August 11, 2008
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Sunday, July 13, 2008
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Stop Gay Marriage, Before It’s Too Late!
Gay marriage became legal in California on May 15, 2008 and marriage licenses to gay couples were made available as of June 16, 2008. Advocates of gay marriage claimed it would have no effect on anyone but gay people, but the fallout from this decision is about to become huge.
It's only been a month and we've already received a half-dozen gay wedding invitations. I'm having flashbacks to my early twenties, when all my straight friends were getting married (their first time around) and my limited savings were sucked dry by having to buy wedding gifts, rent tuxedos, chip in for bachelor parties, and the like. It was a financial tsunami.
One lesbian couple we know is planning to do the works: bridal gowns, full church ceremony, multiple gift registries, sit-down dinner, formal reception. I haven't bought a wedding gift in over 25 years. What do I get them? Do you know how hard it is to find "Hers & Hers" bath towel sets? I don't even know if my suit still fits.
Another male couple we know got married in matching Hawaiian shirts, and a third couple, who have been together for 26 years, plan to forgo gifts at their reception and are asking all the guests bring their favorite kind of cake instead: A cake smorgasbord extravaganza???
The gays are having way to much fun, and it has to stop. Don't they realize weddings are not suppose to be fun? Weddings are all about Bridezilla madness, credit card debt, stagey photos, uncomfortable shoes, sweating through multi-layered tuxedos, or trying to mutter "I do," while breathing through a girdle. It's about overpriced bridal gowns, bridesmaid dresses they'll resent you for, and long-winded ministers, and overpriced, demanding photographers (who really run the wedding.) They are about the groom having to invite family and friends he hates, so they can meet family and friends the bride invited that she hates, so you can both smile and insist that for one short, insanely stressful day, everything is perfect and thus your marriage will be too.
Okay, some of you forward-thinking straights are probably still saying, "Yeah, I hear ya, but so what? This has nothing to do with me." Oh, yeah? Remember these guys?
Think about it. Who do single women turn to for advice if not their gay friends? Face it, straight weddings as you know them, will be a thing of the past, all thanks to the gays. Hey, straight people, wake up! Gay wedding cakes look like this:
(It probably even tastes good!) No more of those frozen and thawed tiered jobs that taste like cardboard and Crisco, no, it's receptions with cake smorgasbord, baby! It's hard to be a Bridezilla when you're dressed in a Hawaiian shirt.
No more ugly bridesmaid dresses (unless they are being purposefully ironic and worn by drag queens.) No more awkwardly staged photos. No more awkward first dances. (Got disco...???) No more awkward toasts either, I'm betting. (Think Oscar Wilde.) Weddings are the new ultimate gay excuse to party, and from what I'm seeing here, that's pronounced "par-tay."
No, gay weddings are fun events, where you can wear a fun stuff, eat fun stuff, and do fun stuff, and the only awkward part might be witnessing two grown men kissing...
(It's okay, they held hands first)
Soon straight weddings will start to be fun too, and there will be a LOT MORE weddings, a lot more wedding gifts to buy, a lot more reasons to actually attend them.
Is this really what we want?
1:45 PM
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19 Comments - 16 Kudos
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Sunday, June 22, 2008
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Sunday, June 15, 2008
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Our Macho Mr. Sun
Arguments abound during this election season regarding what to do about our long-term energy problems. Gas is over $4 a gallon here in the States already, far worse in Europe, Spanish truckers are on a rampage, and I just read it takes as much fossil fuel to manufacture the batteries for your Toyota Pious, ahem, Prius, as you'll burn driving 46,000 miles in a small non-hybrid, which means you'll start cutting your carbon footprint only after about 100,000 miles.
The article is in Wired if you don't believe me.
Toyota announced they are switching to lithium batteries soon but it is obvious that having everyone buy a Prius is not the ultimate solution to our long-term energy needs. Whatever the solution, however, it must be a macho one. Let's face it, we tree huggers and clean air advocates have an image crisis when it comes to making our case for alternatives. We come off as wimps when we're stacked up against all the far more macho solutions.
 
Real tough guys simply want more drilling. Drilling oil is pure, manly, dig-in-the-dirty, smelly, and it takes big machines, and doesn't involve a lot of egg-heads. Of course, we'll still eventually run out, and global warming must be ignored like a single guy's laundry pile on the closet floor.
Then there's turning all our Fritos into corn ethanol.
There's even one egg-head who has genetically altered an algae to make it produce a form of sweet light crude. This answer tries to pass as oil macho, but is kind of like wearing fake chest hair or using Grecian Formula, isn't it? And, well... do we really want to give up all our Fritos?
Nuclear is the next best, big, truly macho energy source.
Real men love nuclear. Yeah, sure, it's a little brainy, but still takes big, manly machines, and it means playing with deadly isotopes too. Hey, risk of death is pure macho. Of course, it means ignoring the vast amounts of nuclear waste it will produce.
If you're macho though, you don't care about that. After all, it's like cleaning the damned garage: you'll get around to taking care of it, someday...
Geothermal and hydroelectric are real men, to be sure, but they are like those poor saps who do a good, steady job for years and years and are always overlooked for promotion. Not wimps, exactly, but they're not like the charm fellows. They're stodgy and set in their ways. Boring.
 
Wind is even lower on the macho scale, I'm afraid. Okay, yes, their props are big machines, some of them, but they bear an unfortunate resemblance to circus rides, pinwheels, egg-beaters, and beanie caps.
   
Maybe if they build them really, really big, or meaner looking?
Lowest on the macho scale by far though has to be passive solar. Do we really have to call it "passive" solar? I mean, why not just tape a "kick me" sign on its back?
The worse part of it is that solar has to be the most truly macho energy solution of all. You're skeptical? Let's look at it.
The sun controls our climate, our weather, and supports all life on Earth. Our ancestors worshiped it as a god, and with good reason. According to WikipediA, our Macho Mr. Sun dumps down approximately 3850 ZJ (zettajoules) per year, free for the taking.
To put this in perspective, worldwide energy consumption for the year 2005 was 0.487 ZJ. In other words, our Macho Mr. Sun is one potent son-of-a-gun.
But our Macho Mr. Sun really needs a major macho media makeover, let's face it. Something like this:
We need to start asking, and publicly, what could be more macho than solar power? Seriously, think about it. Any kid with a magnifying glass and can attest to Macho Mr. Sun's awesome potential.
And, as we create solar cells that are more and more adept at capturing Macho Mr. Sun's unfathomable energy, we can all become freer agents, go where we want to go whenever we want to, and not be limited, not be tied to any oil company's apron strings. Free, decentralized solar power capabilities mean more macho stuff, not less: more power tools, more recreational vehicles, more freedom, more independence. Like farmers, prospectors, homesteaders, and explorers of the past, we can glean our own power ourselves. We don't need no stinkin' limits on consumption once we've tapped into it.
Pure, unfiltered energy macho. Booyah!
4:05 PM
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11 Comments - 8 Kudos
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Saturday, May 31, 2008
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Black Hole
Our cat, Tanya, died yesterday. We scheduled her death, had her put to sleep. I had never done that with a pet before, but it was actually a gentle passing. I had her head cradled in my hand when they injected her with a sedative. She began to purr, so it obviously relaxed her and made her feel good. The second injection, the tranquilizer, worked very quickly, and she was gone in about ten seconds. Humane and gentle, as we had hoped, but we wept just the same.
She was diagnosed with lymphoma, which seemed to have spread to her intestines. At any rate, she had lost her appetite, and any food I could get into her she would toss back up. She had gone from over 9 pounds to 6 in a couple of weeks, had very little energy left, and we didn't want her to suffer.
We didn't choose to have Tanya, we all just happened to live in the same place. Tanya was a second generation feral cat we rescued from the canyon behind our house. We get coyotes and bobcats in our back yard regularly, and even mountain lions and bears roam the area. Tanya was taught by her mother to be wary, so she knew how to evade, where to hide, and always carried that twitchy paranoia of being potential prey.
She, Chuck, and I were family though, and for nearly 14 years she stuck to us like velcro. She decided early on that she could talk, and that I could understand "cat" if only she meowed at me loudly enough. She reminded me of one of those American tourist you see traveling Europe for the first time, who thinks that if they simply speak louder the locals will suddenly understand what they are saying.
She had a perfected her daily routine: in and out of the house several times in the morning to sniff everything, then at Chuck's side while he read his morning paper, a long nap on the couch, back outside for the afternoon which included another nap or a hunt or a roll in the dirt or to supervise me and comment while I gardened, then back indoors to sun herself on the dining room rug, and evenings, asleep on my lap while we watched TV. We kept her food out all day, which she would nibble at, but she always ate some when we had dinner, which was funny to me, and made it clear she felt we were in some sense the same. Totally different species, yet one family.
It's this routine that is making losing her so tough, as her absence left a huge black hole, a silence, a missing streak of black fur underfoot, and an empty lap where once a warm, purring presence sat.
We brought her home and buried her in the yard where she was born and spent her days. We planted an Angel's Trumpet over her.
She was a very sweet cat, may she rest in peace.
8:57 AM
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20 Comments - 12 Kudos
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Saturday, April 12, 2008
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The Delicate Art of Speculative Satire
My essay got published in Impact Times (under literature - "The Delicate Art of Speculative Satire"):
Impact Times - Articles
2:53 PM
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15 Comments - 8 Kudos
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Thursday, March 27, 2008
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Playing Politics
I needed a holiday from writing today, so I fiddled around with some familiar faces.
Enjoy!
11:11 AM
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8 Comments - 8 Kudos
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Monday, January 28, 2008
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For Patry Francis - Surviving Cancer
"Cancer, the Crab, plays a minor role in the Twelve Labors of Hercules. While Hercules was busy fighting the multi-headed monster, Hydra, the goddess Hera, who did not like Hercules, sent the Crab to distract him. Cancer grabbed onto the hero's toe with its claws, but barely breaking the rhythm of his great battle with Hydra, Hercules crushed the crab with his foot. Hera, grateful for the little crustacean's heroic but pitiful effort, gave it a place in the sky." - Wikipedia
My fellow writer, Patry Francis, is in the thick of her own battle with cancer right now, and today, as her novel becomes available in paperback, after fighting the good fight to get there and when she should be basking in the moment, free to promote and chat up this hard earned accomplishment, she has to focus on something else - surviving cancer.
 
If you read Patry's blog, you'll see what a fine and courageous battle she's waging, and what inspires me to post this today.
We writers who know Patry are making a group effort to use our blogs today to step up for her, to fill the gap, to put the word out about her novel, "The Liar's Diary."
Please take a moment to consider buying a copy today, not just because it's a well written and entertaining mystery, or because Patry is a kind, decent, and generous person who has done a lot to help her fellow writers, or even because I'm asking you to, but as a simple act of encouragement, a way to demonstrate we all do care about the people around us. Patry has a husband and children. She's worked very hard for this literary achievement, for years as a waitress, writing in her spare time to get where she is, to get this book published.
Our collective hope is to give her one less thing to have to worry about today.
This is also an opportunity for all of us to promote some general cancer awareness, and for me to do my part to encourage all who are dealing with surviving cancer. Cancer is something that eventually touches everyone. It entered my life early:
My mother died of cancer when I was seven.
My relationship with cancer didn't stop there. My sister, Mary, was diagnosed with a brain tumor when she was barely in her 20's.
It was malignant. Cancer again. I remember thinking, "I lost Mom, now am I going to lose Mary too...?" She had surgery and radiation (no chemo back then.) She survived and this year, Mary, turns 60.
My brother-in-law, Matt, is currently battling throat cancer. He's made it through the grueling treatment, and after his first full year is still cancer free.
Those of us with loved ones who suffer cancer feel helpless to do much. Truthfully, there isn't a whole lot we can do, except encourage and support and love them. Here's my small contribution of encouragement today: I created some downloadable artwork for anyone battling and surviving cancer to remind those around them that, although the battle is significant, life goes on - survival is possible. Our hope can be active and participatory.
And so, for my friend Patry, and everyone surviving today:
I've created this bumper sticker (for 10 in. X 3 in.) and button artwork (for a 1 1/2 in. button), which are for anyone and everyone to use free of charge (Simply click on the pix below for the high-rez versions):
 
I did a search for some sites that will print these for you, and have included a few links below. I am not endorsing these sites: I have not used them, only searched them out, so please check them thoroughly before you order. Here are a couple of sites that do bumper sticker printing with no minimums:
forbumperstickers.com
makestickers.com
Most of the button sites I found required minimum orders of 100 or more, but the one below will do as few as 10 buttons per order:
affordablebuttons.com
4:55 PM
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11 Comments - 20 Kudos
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Wednesday, November 21, 2007
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Monday, November 05, 2007
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Getting Olde
This is the historic Cole house in Pasadena (Greene & Greene were the architects), which celebrated its centennial this past weekend. We were asked to be set dressing for the event:
4:52 PM
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11 Comments - 11 Kudos
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