the rix mix

Why has Jodie Foster's rambling speech the other night generated so much controversy?  My immediate impression was that she had had a couple of cocktails & was having some fun with the audience. Do we really care if she's "out" out?

Has any star  ever led a truly secret life in "Hollywood"?  Is it ever a stretch for gay or lesbian actor to play a straight character?  Well, maybe Paul Lynde, who didn't try, even in Bye Bye Birdie. One of my favorite TV raconteurs,  the late, great Charles Nelson Reilly (also a genuine theater person, largely unnoticed by all except other actors & theater people), told hilarious stories on the Tonight Show about being gay in Hollywood without actually saying he was gay, & with less of Paul Lynde's bitch queen act.

Reilly astonished me one night long ago when he came on The Tonight Show to promote The Belle of Amherst, a wonderful one woman show he directed with Julie Harris as Emily Dickinson (& 14 other characters). Of course, he & Johnny didn't dwell on that subject for very long.

Labels: culture, sex, TV

I don't hold professional athletes to exceptional moral standards. I always suspected there was a good deal of facade in Tiger Woods' public image. Just wasn't sure what was behind it. On the outside he's a corporate brand, & his brand supports other brands, including the PGA. He carries heavy responsibilities. Even the golfers he beats earn more money because he's in the game. He turned out to be randier than I would've guessed, & took greater risks in his personal behavior. It's the risks I don't get. Professional athletes are relatively young when their peak playing & earning years end. They could suffer career-ending injuries at any time, or just lose their edge. Happens often. Woods is aware of this & trains accordingly. With so much at stake, the rewards so great, you'd figure they'd at least try to not cheat on their spouses, not get involved in dog fighting rackets, & not carry illegal loaded guns into nightclubs.

I don't think Tiger fully feels what he's saying, but he does recognize intellectually that his behavior went well beyond opportunity & human weakness. It was too systematic & calculated, if shortsighted. It became a disaster for his marriage, his family, his image, & his businesses. He knows it was self-destructive because he experienced it. Doesn't understand yet why he did it, why he lacked the self-discipline he brought to everything else ( He says it's from not following Buddhist precepts his parents taught him. We all know it's about what his father really taught him.). Nor, I think, does he fully understand that the damage cannot be repaired in a neatly systematic & calculated way, like he adjusts his tee swing. But he will. His marriage may be over. His income may not entirely recover (he'll do fine). He may lose some of his mental edge. But Tiger may become a more contented - & more liked - human being if he allows some of the capacity for messiness he demonstrated in those affairs into his other endeavors & professional image. That's a matter for therapy.

Professional golf itself is part of his problem. These athletes ain't even supposed to show sweat in their shirt armpits on hot days. They don't get mud & grass stains on their corporate logos, much less crash those logos into racetrack walls & send them flying in pieces. Without Tiger, pro golf highlights are squeezed in at the end of TV news sports reports, which almost always focused first on where Tiger was on the leader board. After the podium statement - itself prepared & unnecessary, PGA Tour commissioner, Tim Finchem, called Woods an "American hero," as if the privileged, talented superstar had just returned from a tour of duty in Afghanistan or landed a jet in the Hudson River.

Labels: in the news, sex, sports

Steve Martin, Martin Short, & a sex scandal probably nudge Letterman's ratings up a tad on Monday night. News equals promotion on Channel 2.

Says Craig Ferguson, "If we are now holding late-night talk show hosts to the same moral accountability as we hold politicians or clergymen, I'm out, I'm gone."

If some women are troubled by the sordid, too-familiar male power aspects of Letterman's affairs, & stop watching, I can understand that. I hope his marriage survives, they've been together a long time, built a home together, had a son, then got married. If a lover, cohabitant, spouse expects sexual fidelity, & trust is betrayed, what happens next is up to the aggrieved party. Letterman can make all the jokes he wants, but there's a real wife at home who protects her privacy more than even Dave.
***

Labels: sex, TV

Dave Letterman had no choice but to tell the story of the extortion attempt, & it was either on his show or in a press release. He did so awkwardly. The 11 o'clock news reported the story. The live audience didn't know.

We don't know the details of his sexual encounters with staff members, how many there were, when they happened. I hope they were not coercive. I hope the birth of Letterman's son ended the affairs. If so, then it's just a matter between him & the woman he married last March. It must have been an open secret around the Late Show. But those kinds of things are kept in-house in show business. No one has filed a sexual harassment suit.

The suspect is Robert Joel Halderman, 51, an Emmy Award-winning producer of “48 Hours Mystery” on CBS, according to two people who requested anonymity, including a CBS employee and a law enforcement official.

Mr. Halderman was, at least at one time, living with one of Mr. Letterman’s longtime assistants.

According to local records, Stephanie Burkitt shared a residence in Norwalk, Conn., with Mr. Halderman.

Ms. Burkitt is well known to fans of the show because for a long period several years ago Mr. Letterman brought her on the show often. He regularly joked with her about subjects like what she had done over the weekend. He gave her the nickname Monty, which she said she hated.

Stephanie ain't exactly a sex kitten. She was uncomfortable in heels, wobbling up & down the center aisle of the Ed Sullivan Theater. She was rather young for Dave. Quite a contrast to Dave's flirtatious interviews with Drew Barrymore & Julia Roberts, his self-deprecating hooker jokes, & when he acts like he wants to grope Martha Stewart & Barbara Walters.

Letterman is not hypocritical. Yeah, he mocks the sexual escapades of politicians, particularly those who preach family values & then go hiking on the Appalachian Trail. That's his job. He's not a politician or a preacher, he's an entertainer. He doesn't even have strong axes to grind on major issues. He seems less concerned that politicians be liberal or conservative than want elected officials not be stupid or bigoted, but needing the stupidity for his nightly monologues. He only seems liberal to the wingnuts because he thinks (like most America) Sarah Palin is a borderline lunatic, & he doesn't lose sleep over the stuff that gives Glenn Beck's fans insomnia.

Relax. This scandal has a ways to go.

Labels: culture, sex, TV

Labels: Cape May, jersey shore, love, Mahalo, postcard, sex, Wildwoods NJ

Dave Letterman's two jokes about Sara Palin's daughter during the governor's recent New York trip really were disturbing. I was aware that 14 year old Willow Palin was the only daughter along for the trip, apparently Letterman's writers were not. So I was taken aback by the jokes, which involved Elliot Spitzer & Alex Rodriguez. But I was pretty sure Dave thought the jokes were about Bristol.

Having to explain that misunderstanding in an apology isn't much of an apology. I don't think Dave handled it well, if there was any way to handle it at all. He may have handled it better if Palin hadn't called Letterman "sexually-perverted."

But Sara Palin is slutty-looking, & a moron, Todd the Bod is there for stud service & she rides the guy like a horse, on top of course, wearing spurs & a moosehide vest. Might even fire the shotgun.

Another oddity: Craig Ferguson thought one of his staffers was the sister of North Dakota Gov. John Hoeven, & figured the connection gave him license to joke that Hoeven is an "evil dictator." The staffer is Hoeven's cousin.

Craig loudly proclaims how much he dislikes jazz. Meanwhile, Letterman books & enjoys mainstream jazz artists such as Wynton Marsalis & Diana Krall (Mrs. Elvis Costello). Ferguson's little program & stage would be a great showcase for him to learn about this "American" music he has so much difficulty appreciating. He also doesn't seem to notice that the house bands on four other late night network talk shows can play jazz.

Labels: Grandma Palin, sex, TV

When I was 22 & she 19, my Roman Catholic girlfriend had an abortion. I believe she did it more for me than for herself. It did not save the relationship. Having the baby would not have saved the relationship. I have no feelings about the abortion itself, an early, legal termination. But it was a terrible thing for her, & I was too young to really understand that.

My mother aborted a pregnancy between my sister's birth & mine. I don't know if it was the only abortion she ever had. I know she carried a load of guilt over it all her life. She did not tell me about it until she was old, an unexpected answer to a question. The abortion was illegal (I suspect by her personal gynecologist or obstetrician) & traumatic. Yet, had she accepted that pregnancy, I probably would not be here. In her heart, mom counted the one she gave up, an emotional risk women take with an abortion.

The religious "Culture of Life" espoused by the Roman Catholic Church (including some Catholic left groups) & some protestant "peace" churches has its appeal. Nat Hentoff, an atheist, has opposed abortion for decades as part of what he considers rational & ethical human rights advocacy. There's even a pro-gay marriage group opposed to abortion. How I felt about abortion shifted day to day. I am prochoice & prolife, which doesn't male me unusual. I decided to defer to women on the matter. The majority of women - despite some misleading recent poll numbers - do not want abortion outlawed.

By contrast, Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue, is an Elder in the Presbyterian Church in America; women cannot be elders, or ordained anything, in that reactionary denomination. Women acquiesce quietly to the patriarchs at the PCA, quite obedient. Just as women members of Operation Rescue follow male "leaders" of the anti-abortion movement like Newman & like accused murderer Scott Roeder. Roeder is a "lone killer" only in the strictly legal sense. He's always felt empowered by others to do violence, by their language & undisguised admiration for him personally. He's always had women encouraging him to act on their behalf, to make the choices. & when he goes to prison he won't lack for female correspondents or marriage proposals or, for that matter, women willing to bear his children in or out of wedlock.

Labels: blogging against theocracy, growing up, sex

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) — A Massachusetts schoolteacher was behind bars on a kidnapping charge in West Virginia on Tuesday after police found her at a motel with a 15-year-old boy whose parents had complained about the relationship.

Lisa Lavoie, 24, appeared before a Monongalia County magistrate by videoconference from the North Central Regional Jail near Flatwoods, in central West Virginia. She was ordered held without bond because kidnapping in West Virginia carries a possible life sentence, said State Police Cpl. T.W. Goodnight.

In Massachusetts, she faces a charge of enticing a child under 16, and authorities in West Virginia plan to charge her as a fugitive from justice, Goodnight said. Michael Sullivan, mayor of Holyoke, Mass., said the enticement charge includes statutory rape. Lavoie will likely be released to Massachusetts authorities, but those details have not been worked out.

The boy's mother had contacted Maurice Donahue Elementary School on Feb. 13, saying she was concerned about the relationship between her son and an eighth-grade teacher. The teen was reported missing Feb. 16.

Authorities had been tracking the teacher and boy for several days through credit card and cell phone use, Sullivan said. On Monday night, state police were informed she was at the Super 8 Motel in a Morgantown shopping center just off Interstate 68.

What makes these cases so baffling is that the teachers, usually in their twenties & not long out of college, mimic conventional romantic relationships with adolescent students. There was that teacher in New England who married her student when she got out of jail, but they were the exception. What are they thinking? That they're just a couple of smitten lovers running away to some state where their "love" is legit, where they'll settle down in domestic bliss & live happily ever after? It requires such a fantastically deluded imagination one wonders why no one noticed anything peculiar about the teacher back when she was an education student. Guess she hadn't found "Mister Right."

Labels: love, sex

Cialis is the drug for erectile dysfunction that stays in the system for up to 36 hours so you're ready "when the time is right." The TV commercials show happy,relaxed, loving older couples who look married or like they know each other well. About the only reason I can think of that Cialis would be preferable to Viagra is if the guy doesn't want to reveal that he's taking a drug to chemically encourage his boner, & he's not sure when or if he's gonna get lucky. If you're in an honest relationship, one or the other can ask, "You wanna do it?" & if the time is almost right, the guy says, "O.K., I'll take a Viagra," & then they can fool around until it kicks in. It's bad to keep it secret, because if a guy takes an erectile drug & starts going deaf or blind as a side effect, it'd be good to say to one's lover, "Hey, I got a problem, I think you should drive me to the emergency room," without making a confession of it. Anyway, women appreciate the fooling around time, & they like it even more if they're ready first, particularly with older men who are likely to be ready once & then too sleepy to stay awake until the next "right time." Viagra has more energetic commercials, musicians singing "Viva Viagra" to the tune of "Viva Las Vegas." Indeed, it's easy to imagine Elvis eating 'em by the handful along with a variety of other mood enhancers. But it also suggests that one has scheduled an appointment in Nevada with a woman known only by a first name.

Labels: holidays, sex

The problem with Ted Haggard isn't that he wants to restrict himself to straight sex with his wife, save his marriage, hold his family together, & preach again. He can do all those. At least he's learned something: he admits now that sexuality is "complex." The problem is that he wants the same religion he had before he scandalized himself, although with a little more of the compassion, understanding, & mercy not shown to him by his righteous peers & followers. That is not complex.

It's also not enough, Ted.

Ted's headed for a pulpit where he'll be preaching, "If I can struggle & change, so can you." But he'll be promoting the wrong kind of change based on the wrong struggle.

What Ted has yet to do is listen to & learn from those orthodox Christians - protestant & Catholic - who found their way to an inclusive form of the religion. In this regard, Christianity is evolving, & there is no turning back. The struggle is for something else, for a change greater than Ted imagines.

Larry King: Do you think this whole story would have been different if Mike Jones were Michelle Jones?

Haggard: Oh, yes. [transcript]

Yes & no. One thought Bill Clinton had handed over the nuclear strike codes to Monica for all the hysteria that generated. Even same sex Christian marriages are expected to be monogamous & faithful. Ted would still have to repent & save his marriage, & he'd still be out of his job at New Life Church. But he wouldn't have to repent & repudiate the sexuality itself.

Ted is unable to accept a different, equally authentic, equally legitimate, equally Christian outcome to that struggle; one that goes far beyond a lukewarm, conditional endorsement of "equal civil rights" Rick Warren hands out. Increasingly, Christian men & women do not struggle with this at all. When they know they are homosexual, they do not try to become heterosexual. They do not become misshapen souls, but live to emit as truly as possible the light God shines through everyone - the unique light which is everyone's true name. They become Christians who happen to be gay or lesbian. Think of their struggle for acceptance, Ted. Certain that they are accepted by God, believing in the resurrected Christ, faithful in their marriages, active in their spiritual communities; how are they not Christian? Why can't they have on earth as it is in Heaven?

Labels: blogging against theocracy, religion, sex

Now we have December weather. A springlike day followed by a stinging cold rain, & today a "Winter Storm Watch" for tomorrow with a "shifting rain line" - the weather forecaster's way of not telling Central NJ how much snowfall we'll receive - 3 inches or 10 - until we actually get it, or what proportions of snow to sleet, ice, & rain - a matter of no small concern to those who must be outside driving or walking in it & removing it from sidewalks. In hilly North Jersey they figure on snow, hope for it, the snow blowers are dusted off & ready to roll. A lot of Central Jerseyans are weather gamblers, haven't tested their machines or don't even have one. In coastal South Jersey they assume any snow will melt away within 6 hours & are always surprised when it doesn't; the high ozone level makes them optimistic. Once in awhile we get weird weather systems where it's actually colder & snowier down that way.

Meanwhile, I await fast delivery of my new jammies, which are extra warm sweatpants & shirt I then get to call "loungers," & are only jammies one puts on a few hours before one goes to bed. These are necessities for single men of my physique. Too long ago to worry about, while I still shared a bed with a woman nearly every night, I realized there were four or five months of the year when my legs were always cold, & this caused a nightly battle for control of the blankets, which weren't always sufficient even when I won. Truth is, I was commanded to wear pajamas, & I realized that if I refused there would be two sets of blankets on the bed & a two by four down the middle of it. If I was lucky.

Labels: home furnishings, sex, weather

Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.
I think of this ballot proposition as the "Happy Family Law." So I image searched "happy family" combinations. They weren't all titled "happy family" but they all showed up on the search pages. Your happy family under Prop 8 should resemble one of these, except for no. 9, which will be forbidden.
1.2.
3.4.
5.6.
7.8.
9.10.
11.12.

1. Happy White Family. 2. Happy Black Family. 3. Happy Hispanic Family. 4. Happy Chinese Family (Restaurant entree). 5. Happy Christian Family. 6. Happy Jewish Family (ceramic figurines for sale). 7. Happy Atheist Family. 8. Happy Senior Citizen Family (Sen. John McCain & his mom). 9. Happy California Family. 10. Happy Aryan Family. 11. Happy Republican Family (Norman Rockwell, 1943, used on a current Repug website). 12. Happy Democratic Family (& we hope Happy First Family).

Labels: blogging against theocracy, culture, sex, THE election

Yesterday as I was walking by the Exxon station by downtown Elmora NJ, a tall, young white guy carrying a brown, plastic shopping bag approached me & asked, "Do you want to buy some Rogaine?"

That was a first. I've been offered deals on lots of different things on the street, from crack & sex to umbrellas on sunny days & kittens in shoeboxes, but never hair restorer.

It was dusk & the light wasn't so good, maybe he didn't notice that I'd need to dunk my head in a bucket of minoxidil, or have enough foamy Rogaine to coat my scalp like shaving cream.

I have hair. Sufficient hair that if I grew it long I could comb it over this way & that, in various swirls & patterns, & people could laugh at my thin follicles of vanity. I stopped trying a long time ago. I could grow a ponytail; I grew one in the 90's trying to look like a Vietnamese gangster I saw on a TV cop show. Rogaine wouldn't have helped since my mid-twenties. Although my hair's been receding & disappearing at a slow but unstoppable rate, it was during the first post-adolescent decade that I learned for sure which side of the family provided my hair genes: mom's. That's when I lost the cowlick at the front, & much more, quickly. Then the pace eased off.

Some women care much about men's hair. If you own enough of it you should have it professionally cut, it's not expensive & the cute young haircutter washes it for you, too. You must dye it, otherwise you'll never "score" like the commercials assure us men we will if we but rid ourselves of the dull gray in our hair, if not in our personalities. Older men with full, dark locks ride surfboards, play "Sunshine of Your Love" on guitar, & attract slim, blonde sixty-year old groupies wearing bikinis, oh I wish they all could be California Girls.

But most women I know anywhere around my age are too aware of the processes of time on their own bodies to make-or-break men based on the amount of hair on our heads. If a man feels better with more hair, get more hair. But there's a "ta dah" moment in every relationship when the truth has to come out about everything for both parties, the hair piece, the botox, the face stretch, the Cialis wearing off. You blow out the candles when morning arrives.

Keep the Rogaine or whatever stolen poison was in that bag. If I grew my hair back I'd have to learn to play guitar & stand up on a moving surfboard.

Labels: count the yoyos, Elizabeth NJ, love, sex

Walking back from the 7-11 I passed two cars that had pulled over after a minor fender bender. Nothing to see there. A young woman leaned out the passenger side window of the first car & asked me, in a New York accent, "Mistah, do you have a Newpawt?" No doubt about it, that kind of event would trigger a major craving in any smoker or ex-smoker, the ex's could be excused for indulging. But specifically a Newport? I'm not sure I ever knew a male who smoked Newports. I've known plenty of female college students, poets, artists, & dancers who smoked Newport Lights, often in combination with a Diet Pepsi, the latter preferably in a cup over ice to cut the carbonation.

I recall many lovely afternoons in the company of Claudia, my painter- young mother-older woman friend (by two years, it seemed like a lot at the time), chatting in her living room about the beautiful new Minimalist Music, & lack of interesting art in Soho galleries, & which poets were underrated or overrated, while her toddler son tranced out on Sesame Street in his bedroom. Claudia was the epitome of the Newport Lights / Diet Pepsi woman, sophisticated but not snobby, feminist but not in a condition of outrage, outside categories of hippie or punk, inclined to depression by brain chemistry & life's absurdities, the latter including a premature marriage to a pleasant man that was only alright & so she sensed wouldn't survive, & ultimately didn't, but she appreciated the equilibrium & security. I liked her. We were two young artists. "My neighbors think I'm a fortuneteller," she'd say. "No, " I'd say, " they think you're a Jew because you're married to one & not a blonde." They probably also thought she was having an affair with a college guy. Claudia may have been my first real female friend, when I learned to accept, reluctantly yes, sexual attraction as something I wasn't compelled to act upon like an adolescent just because it was there, but could enjoy as a natural spice.

Labels: growing up, love, sex

Horny born again teenage guys all over America (& a few wingnut Jersey bloggers) will be playing under the blanket with a flashlight & her photo.

Still warm off the press, but on first reaction she looks like an excellent gamble. Definitely a gamble. McCain recognized that some of the tactics he was using against Barack probably wouldn't fly after the DNC, specifically "inexperience" & "unpresidential." So he's getting rid of them. Palin will play very well in many places. She could make a serious gaff, but McCain's willing to risk that. Palin has to deliver a winner of a convention speech & hold her own in a VP debate, but other than those, she's out on the road working the demographics she's been chosen to work. She did her first job; countering Obama's speech in the Friday news cycle before the weekend hurricane coverage kicks in.

On another site, someone posed the question: "How many experienced Republican women were overlooked to choose her?" If the Dems don't have to pick Hillary, he doesn't have to pick Olympia Snowe (who might've been the VP candidate but for her prochoice views). Sarah Palin is a Christian Right wet dream. They'll gladly trade a few years of McCain for a future President Palin. Unlike George W., who joined them, Palin is from them. "Vote for John McCain because if if is God's will that he is unable to complete his term of office, then it is God's will that Sarah shall command us!"

Labels: religion, sex, THE election

NEW YORK — Late summer visitors to Manhattan's Ripley's Believe It or Not! Odditorium be advised: The museum's newest exhibit famously favors those yearning to be creative—procreative, that is.

According to Ripley's, some 2,000 women reported pregnancies after touching its pair of ebony West African fertility figures. Acquired in 1993, the 5-foot totems did three world tours before returning to Ripley's Orlando headquarters in 2001, where they drew pilgrims. The nude king and queen figures, carved by the Baule people of Ivory Coast, kick off a new three-year circuit on Aug. 26 in Times Square.

Apparently hands that long to rock a cradle have so worn down the statues that one of the queen's breasts shows signs of wear and the king's male organ is about "2 inches less in diameter than it used to be when we got it," according to Tim O'Brien, Ripley's vice president of communications.

Visitors can touch the statues, the most popular exhibit in Ripley's history, for free, he said.

I had a small fertility figure from an African woodcarver who used to set up at a local mall. After awhile I decided I didn't like it & gave it to a friend. She had a larger collection of exotic objects & it could gather dust on a shelf in her house. She was nearly 40, recently married, & not trying to become pregnant. Apparently she wasn't not trying enough. A few months after she received the statue, she was with child, like they say.

She's been a great mom. I think she's always considered me & the carving somehow involved. Her husband wouldn't agree.

Labels: sex

This is sad for number of reasons:

WASHINGTON - Former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards on Friday admitted to an extramarital affair while his wife was battling cancer. He denied fathering the woman's daughter. Edwards told ABC News that he lied repeatedly about the affair with 42-year-old Rielle Hunter but said that he didn't love her.

He said he has not taken a paternity test but knows he isn't the father because of the timing of the affair and the birth.

& we have to credit the National Inquirer with staying on the story.

So, John Edwards went ahead with a serious campaign knowing he had a time bomb scandal. We're lucky not only that he wasn't nominated, but that he quit early. (Write it. Leno's gonna say it anyway : "Withdrew early.") His "What were you thinking?" moment. Thinking of sex. It doesn't matter politically now except he won't get his poverty speech at the Convention. His supporters, like myself, viewed John & Elizabeth Edwards as a team candidacy. Sad. But since he's not in office or running for office, it's mainly a family matter. According to Elizabeth, it's already been dealt with in the family.

Take the paternity test, John. Inquiring minds want to know.

Labels: John Edwards, sex, THE election

Let's go for the easy Quote of the Day:

"Plaintiff will testify at trial that he needed to have a disrobed male present in the room with them" in order for him to become physically aroused, McGreevey lawyer Stephen Haller wrote in recently released court papers. "This tends to prove that plaintiff was at least bisexual, a fact which should have been obvious to defendant prior to the marriage."

The plaintiff is former Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey, involved in a "sordid" divorce trial with Dina Matos McGreevey. But all it tends to prove is what I suspected about McGreevey long before he resigned - that he was one of the most unimaginative politicians in a state filled with dull-minded legislators. Bored married folks resort to elaborate mental fantasies in order to become aroused with their own spouses. Jim couldn't even picture a studmuffin? He shouldn't have married such an attractive, ambitious woman. Street gangstas who know they'd be killed for expressing their true feelings go for "shorties," under-nourished, nonthreatening girls with the bodies of adolescent boys.

On the other side, Dina wants compensation for the First Lady lifestyle she would have enjoyed if her husband had not resigned. This is also peculiar, since Jim's adminstration would have slid into some political scandal ruinous to his career regardless of his sexual orientation. The McGreevey experience in general so freaked out Jersey Democrats that they actually talked about reform for about 15 minutes.
***

Can't locate a full quote in context for Hillary's Town Hall with George Stephanopoulos. What is this obssession Hillary Clinton has with "elite opinion"? Isn't she the elite of the elite? Politicians can never go wrong, at least over the short haul, appealing to the most base instincts of American voters. The first thing they do is pretend they're not elitist. Would Hillary ever seriously threaten the oil industry? Of course not. Up at her level there's no political parties, there's only those who give money to her campaign now & those who will contribute later. Probably the most difficult appointment to make in America is for a round of golf with Bill Clinton. Bill ain't playing the public links with the 19th hole at some bar down the road where any old duffer can bend his ear while he's bending his elbow.

Politician: Oil companies will pay the 18.4 cent per gallon federal tax this summer.
Oil company accountant: According to my calculations we'll have to add 20 cents to the price of a gallon at the pumps.

We need to be concerned with the quality of the elitists a president chooses to occupy those coveted offices in the White House & Federal buildings. I want reasonably high-minded men & women in them, people with strong ethics & the ability to think beyond next month. I don't want the collection of three-card monte hucksters, hack slogan writers, shills, grifters, compulsive liars, & moral deviants Bush assembled for his adminstration. Those types are never "elitist." They'll come right to your front door & offer you a great deal on repaving your driveway. They'll do it today, right now, in fact.
***
I'm leaning toward Rob Andrews in the Senate primary. Probably because I've never liked Frank Lautenberg & I know almost nothing about Andrews. Hardly anyone actually likes Lautenberg.

Labels: in the news, sex, THE election

Update: Jimbo now claims it's true. The McGreevey divorce proceedings were just nasty & tedious. But this is great stuff. Hope they made videos.

A former aide to James E. McGreevey said today that he had three-way sexual trysts with the former governor and his wife before he took office, challenging Dina Matos McGreevey's assertion that she was naive about her husband's sexual exploits.

The aide, Theodore Pedersen, said he and the couple even had a nickname for the weekly romps, from 1999 to 2001, that typically began with dinner at T.G.I. Friday's* and ended with a threesome at McGreevey's condo in Woodbridge.

They called them "Friday Night Specials," according to Pedersen.

One never knows, do one? I wouldn't credit Jim or Dina with that much nerve & imagination. My impression of them is that they were a pair of repressed Catholics who might still be living together had Jim shown more good sense in his political affairs & more discretion in his private ones, & not mixed up the two because he was too freaked out to find himself a steady hush-hush boyfriend.

(*Not even the mayor had the power to cut in front of the line at TGIF in Woodbridge on Friday night for a table for three.)

Labels: sex

1.

she sits at home making puppets
each one the better life of a friend

when she asked her man if he loved her
he paused before he said yes
which was the same as no

2.

she exhibited her photographs
cats & butterflies
posed like dolls
in a dollhouse

she has no home

I don't want to hurt you
she told me
as she turned into a mannikin

3.

she said I was intriguing
when she fed me stuffed mushrooms
at an art show reception in the bar

I'm just a babe in the woods
I said

maybe you ought to leave the woods

can I drop a trail of breadcrumbs?

she said she had a mirror over her bed
but the last I saw of her that night
she was climbing the stairs
to the room where poets hibernate
when they put white powder up their noses
instead of singing for their lovers

(1992)

All on the same night, in the same place, a bar in South Amboy NJ.

Labels: love, poem, sex