Happy Birthday

I woke up Thursday morning with this Concrete Blonde song in my head---I owned the album 10 years ago and used to think of this song all the time, but haven't since then... My birthday's not even for a couple of weeks, but this song still makes me feel happy.


Well, outside in the hall there's a catfight
It's well after midnight
I guess I'll be allright
I'm laid out on the floor
Drunk and poor
How much longer how much more

Rock me to sleep
Strong & deep.
The screaming cats they give me the creeps
But aside from all that I feel no pain
Staring up at the ceiling stains
...Neon in the window
...Sirens far away
...News on the radio happy birthday happy birthday happy
birthday

They're at it again next door
This whole floor I swear
They're out to drive me crazy
Not right now I'm high as a cloud I'm soft and gray and lazy
..Smoking Out the window,
...feeling far away
...News on the radio happy birthday happy birthday happy
birthday

Fly me
out the window.
Somewhere far away
News on the radio, Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday.
Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday.
-------------------------------------------------------

Speaking of birthdays... I get "Astrocenter" horoscopes e-mailed to me daily. A couple of days ago, the generic thing said something like, I've been in Saturn Hell since April 4th, and now it's time to move on... Amen.

As a general thing, I'm also interested in the "7-year-cycle" theory... I switched over from my "partying" to my "Internet" mode back in early 2001... I've given it my all with, honestly, not a lot to show for it... I'm on the cusp now of something else...

Starstruck/Moonstruck

A couple of weeks ago I took a 3-hour boat tour around the island of Manhattan, all 36 miles of it. The glamorous parts came at the beginning, passing by Ellis Island/Statue of Liberty/downtown, and then the east-side BMW bridges (Brooklyn/Manhattan/Williamsburg?). I snapped pictures of all these bigtime sites and then kind of got lazy the further north and west we got. But I'm kicking myself now for a shot I didn't catch just at the northern tip of the island... I forget what bridge it was near, but someone had built a sturdy lean-to shack for himself, nestled in the brush. It reminded me of reading "Huckleberry Finn" back in college, how Huck and his n'er-do-well dad lived in a shanty by the river... Obviously back then (the early/mid-1800s) it was a lot easier to just go off and build yourself a shack and scrabble by, without any interference from the government, etc., telling you you couldn't build a shack there... So how did this guy manage to pull it off in 2007 at the tip of Manhattan? I grew up way out in the country and so building "forts" and "hideouts" and "clubhouses" is ingrained in me. Just like the idea of the shack-by-the-river is...

Yet, when it comes down to the actuality of it... The soul core of me would do it, and has done it, perhaps, if you believe in reincarnation. But my current self---yeah, right! Of course not.

What's funny is that my close friends back in Austin, those who'd known me for over 15 years, also made fun of the idea of ME camping out or hiking or what-have-you. In truth, when I didn't camp out or hike with them, it was 'cause of the crowd. I've never been camping or hiking, but I would like to, very much. Just, not in a "whooo-hooo, we're going camping!" kind of way, with the clowns of the group being loud and stupid and everyone making a production of how "we're going camping." They don't seem to get the concept of actually being QUIET. Of walking around and LOOKING and just BEING without imposing yourself on your surroundings. Of just looking up and seeing the stars at night, where the magnitude of what you're seeing makes you forget yourself.(Everyone in cities forgets that there are stars, 'cause light pollution has drowned them out---actually seeing billions of stars makes you quiet and awestruck.)

Oh yeah---as the cruise around Manhattan continued on the west-side, our boat got mooned by a bunch of kids hanging out on the shore... Didn't get a picture of that (except mentally) either!

Gay Training Wheels

Note to a diminutive gay guy who says on his blog that learning to ride a bike without training wheels made a "man" of him:

Um... I was about to say, "We ALL learned to ride bikes without training wheels," but, oh, that's just mean. I'm gay too, so I suppose I should be sensitive. (But, REALLY--- Can't I just mock this guy just like he was a STRAIGHT guy?? What straight guy---nay, what PERSON---would ever, 25 years later, act all proud that he once learned how to ride a bike?!)

Reminds me of another gay blog where the author's boyfriend was soooo proud of once yelling at a middle-aged woman in a parking lot because she was too slow in getting out of his way: Wooooo! You GO, Tuff Gay Guy!

If there's anything I can't stand, it's weak, bitchy men who try to give great import to their extremely minor "triumphs." (I would say "weak, bitchy PEOPLE," but it's rare that girls wave their dicks around while dissing somebody about their makeup, etc. Girls, to their credit, usually admit it right up front when they're being trivial.)

Hot in the City

Back when I lived in Texas, which is "fuckin' hot" (90 to 105 degrees) for about 4 months straight out of the year, I used to mock weather reports from other parts of the country, like NYC, complaining of "heat waves."

Now that I'm actually in New York City, I realize what they (the news reports and residents) were talking about: While Texas is completely equipped for constant 90+ - degree weather, with every house/office building having air conditioning, NYC, on the other hand, is decidedly NOT so equipped! My room in my apartment, for one.

I had a job interview today, and sans air-conditioning in my room or bathroom, blow-drying my hair while getting ready was a huge sweaty chore, as was trying to put on my makeup afterwards. I took an expensive car rather than the subway ($25 versus $2) to the interview just to avoid the sweaty nastiness of the subway in this weather, and was able to make conversation about the bad weather once at the interview... (The editor in charge, it turns out, has both a wife and daughter who have been bitchin' about the very same hair/makeup problems!) ;)

I'm going absolutely nuts in this heat.

Talk about yer huddled masses...

As a recent tourist out to Ellis Island, I feel I partook of the "huddled masses" experience galore. First, a shot of the real thing:










And then the modern-day "yearning to breathe free" folk waiting in line and actually on the damn boat:


But before I even began my trek out to Ellis Island, I had a scary (albeit in an "I Love Lucy" kind of way) moment in the entry point to the ferry. Where I made the mistake of SNAPPING A PICTURE! A couple of over-zealous guards yelled at me, "NO PICTURES! NO PICTURES! NO PICTURES! C'MERE! NOW!!!!" Completely rattled, I first yelled at the top of my lungs, "I'm SORRY! I DIDN'T KNOW! JESUS!" Then I ran over to the closest guard who was yelling at me to show him my camera: "See---I'm erasing the picture!" Thank goodness for the digital age---I got the impression that in an earlier era, they would have grabbed my camera and ripped the film out of it!

The Lucy Moments continued: After showing the guard my camera and deleted picture, I scurried back in line, just in time to be at the front of it, where the next guard was asking, "How many? How many?!" Freaked out, I yelled at him: "ONE! I just took ONE picture! And I erased it!" Turned out he had no idea what I was talking about, and was just wondering how many were in my party to board the ferry... Oh. :\

After this guy, we in line all made our way to the X-ray machines, exactly like in airports. Where it turned out that both my bracelet and my belt buckle were setting off alarms. When I told the x-ray guy that if I took off my belt, my pants would fall off (seriously---I was a size 12 when I came to NYC, and I'm now a size 8), he got a bit too excited and asked where I was from, and then, when he found out I was new here, asked for my phone number so he could show me around, which caused another big hold-up in the line... I didn't give him my number, and, yes, my pants did fall down and did show my underwear, and then I put my belt back on backwards and...oh, good lord! At this point I did feel like just going, a la Lucy: "Waaaaaaa!"

Ellis Island, here I come, goddammit! ;p

Who's Your Momney

Last night, while falling asleep, I was watching Republican candidate Mitt Romney on C-Span, with his blonde wife, doing a generic meet-n-greet in Iowa, which went on for about a half-hour. (I did indeed fall asleep during it, as desired.)

In the dream I had later, though: the blonde woman with Romney wasn't his wife at all. Instead, there was another woman giving a press conference, cloaked in blue robes, with the rest of her face all in blue, except for the area of her nose, which was green. While watching this, I knew that the woman was Norwegian, in some sort of "tribal garb." This woman claimed to be Romney's wife, and he said it was so. I remember being extremely bewildered: "But I just SAW your wife and she looked nothing like that!"

Let me just say, in the few minutes that I watched Romney on C-Span, I thought he was a shallow, Republican jerk. And, yeah, I do have a "Norwegian" hanging around in my mental past. But what in the world would put these two together?!

Happy Birthday

A belated Happy 21st Birthday, July 2, to the simultaneously dark and gorgeous Lindsay Lohan.

Oh! My Statue of Liberty

I just took a cruise out to visit the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. (Before I got too "New York" for my own good and started snubbing such "tourist attractions"!)

















Of course, during my whole "Lady Liberty" experience, I was also thinking of this Joan picture:





















And of this XTC song from my youth:

"Statue Of Liberty"

The first time I saw you standing in the water
You must have been all of a thousand feet tall
Nearly naked - unashamed like Herod's daughter
Your love was so big
It made New York look small

You've been the subject of so many dreams
Since I climbed your torso
Oh!
My statue of Liberty
Boo Boo
Impaled on your hair
What do you do
Do Do to me
Boo Boo

I leaned right over to kiss your stoney book
A little jealous of the ships with whom you flirt
A billion lovers with their cameras
Snap to look and in my fantasy
I sail beneath your skirt...


And then there was this guy, who was entertaining the huddled masses waiting in line for over an hour to get on the damn boat! (How in the world did those immigrants do it?!)

America, Past and Present

With the 4th of July coming up, I suppose these photos are appropriate reminders of some of America's history. I didn't take them with that idea in mind, but, my goodness, New York City is so much at the center of our country's founding. My home state of Texas is a baby comparatively!

(Though, to put things in even more perspective, here's a quote from "The Epic of New York": "When these white men [Verrazano, an Italian explorer sent by France] discovered the site of New York City that year of 1524, Jerusalem was more than 3,000 years old, Athens was at least 2,500 years old, Rome's history went back more than 2,270 years, Paris had existed about 1,550 years, London could count more than 1,460 birthdays, and Berlin was a village 217 years old." Oh. OK, so NYC is a baby when judged in terms of the world!)

Anyway, today I walked around the World Trade Center and Wall Street areas. The first photo is what the WTC rebuilding looks like at this stage. The next photo is of St. Paul's Chapel, which, built in 1766, is the oldest public building in the city. (This shot, to me, is what New York is all about.) St. Paul's sits directly across the street from the WTC site and was, miraculously, spared from destruction during the 9/11 attacks. A giant sycamore tree, uprooted in the explosions, fell in a way that protected the church.

Close by, at the intersection of Broadway and Wall Street, is the Trinity Church, where I took these photos of the cemetery. I love how cozy the gravestones look, despite the hustle-and-bustle of the surrounding street traffic. And one of our Founding Fathers, Alexander Hamilton, is buried there.




























The last photo is a shot of the Trinity Church, as seen from further down Wall Street. That's the Trump Building to the right.