Felled By The IRS

Apologies for the recent hiatus. A battle royale with the IRS has diverted our attention from daily musing to matters less desirable by far.

No, not that IRS. This one is Immune Reconstitution Syndrome, sometimes known as IRIS (Immune Reconstitution Inflammatory Syndrome). As opposed to the Devil's Own Accountants, this IRS is actually a good thing. It occurs when one's immune system wakes up, as it were, and recognizes the variety of viruses running through the body. Persistent fever, sweats, nausea and the attendant laundry it requires is evidence that my guinea pig pills are working as we'd hoped.

The fatigue is constant, drenching sweats occur half a dozen times a day and writing gets lost in the process. One fears dripping into the laptop and electrocuting all living beings within a reasonable perimeter. We have not missed the Rosie/Elizabeth flap. We just prefer not to dignify Elizabeth Hasselbeck or her wrong-headed rants. Had she not gone weeks without bathing on Survivor or married a not-quite-good-enough football player, she'd be Elizabeth Filarski, a single woman living in New Jersey and dreaming of showers with Bill O'Reilly. I speak for many of us when I say that when you fuck with Rosie, you fuck with all of us. She's big. We're bigger. And you almost have to come to us to have your hair done.

When this beneficial malady passes, we will be back to our snarky ways - putting our own spin on the news and gossip of the day, revelling in our own social ineptitude, and calling spades what they are. Your kind words and thoughts while we test just how much sweat 600 thread-count sheets can hold are appreciated. (We have a shirt hanging from yesterday afternoon that is still completely drenched....so this is no average leak we've sprung.)

For today, we will be glued to the Scripps-Howard National Spelling Bee where two children from our hometown of Olathe, Kansas entered the semi-finals today. So as not to over-glorify the children of Kansas, these kids are, like 90% of the participants, ringers from the third-world brought here to make us look smart. Yours truly bombed out of the school spelling bee in consecutive years with the words "coffee" and "colon". The irony was not lost on us the year we had a coffee colonic. In retrospect, we're grateful we never had to spell "sulphuric" and "rectum".

We shall return in short order with near-daily posts. Thank you for your patience while we take a few days to simply set a spell.

And Still They Come

We never cease to wonder at the world-wide audience stopping by After Therapy to get their fill of our not-quite-daily fare. We welcome a handful more of the world's countries to our Big Blue Ball Network. Who says you have to be fair and balanced to get an audience? Pshaw!

Among the last 100 visitors to the site, we welcome domestic readers from California, New York, Kansas, Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland, Missouri, Michigan, Indiana, North Carolina, Massachusetts, and Virginia (Lynchburg! - home of the Freshly-Minted Falwell Crypt).

From abroad, we were honored to set for a spell with readers from the United Kingdom, India, Austria, Finland, Malaysia, Spain, Canada, Germany, Japan, Belgium, Singapore, Indonesia, Germany, Taiwan, Portugal, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Turkey, Colombia, and Estonia.

All told, 13 states and 21 countries were polluted with our product. That puts us a close runner-up to Exxon and Dow Chemical! We take full responsibility for the influence we have in the world. And we vow to continue our march toward world domination and the end of Ugly Betty. This is not a thing we take lightly. (Yes, it really is.)

We vow to be irregular and irritable from henceforth until we get tired of it. How's that for commitment? Until then, we thank you for stopping by. We would also like to ask any of our faithful patrons who have first-hand photos of the Falwell burial spot to please send them our way. We don't want to be forever debating this momentous event the way we do the Kennedy assassination or the moon landing.

Sometimes, dead should just be dead. Bonus coverage goes to anyone who has a photo of themselves doing a jig in a red dress next to the headstone. Mean? You bet. Karma is a bitch.

Who Would Jesus Bomb?

Mark Uhl, a student at Liberty University is being held in prison for building "slow burn" bombs intended to deter protesters at Jerry Falwell's funeral today.

In a hardly ironic twist, the bombs contained gasoline and detergent - apparently a "clean bomb" designed to wash your clothes while they incinerate. In Jesus' name, of course.

Assisted, allegedly, by a Fort Benning soldier and an unknown third party (thus achieving the ever-desirable Bombing Trinity), Mark officially gave up prayer as the Christian weapon of choice. He embraced, instead, the Falwell-inspired Bomb Thrower approach to dealing with dissent. None of the thousands of mourners understood why such an offense would be punishable by imprisonment.

The coffin was draped with a What Would Jerry Do? embroidered quilt and attendees received a funeral fan with Falwell's massive mug on one side and How To Build A Bomb With "New Gain Mango Tango" Detergent on the other.

Most tellingly, no one from Falwell's Liberty University, Falwell's Thomas Road Baptist Church, Falwell's family or any Baptist denomination denounced the action as terroristic and counter to Christian principles.

No one expected they would. Instead, Falwell's sons issued a statement in their father's memory blaming People For The American Way, Lesbians, the ACLU, and the ABC Fall Lineup for the bombing that didn't quite happen. No bombs were found among the protesters. When asked, Ariel Moonlight Dawn, a vegan pansexual female impersonator of Middle Eastern descent, said, "None of the Republican presidential candidates are here. Why would anybody bring a bomb? Sheesh."

And they say one's legacy takes decades to identify.

Viagra - Not Just For Hamsters Anymore

Argentinian researchers, under the impression that cancer, AIDS, and gingivitis no longer plague the human race, have discovered that Viagra will help your hamster conquer jet lag.

Well, we can cross that burning concern off our list. And we would also like a $30 billion dollar reward for having known that ahead of time.

It's true. If we had a nickel for every time we had popped a Viagra upon landing and spent the next 12 hours completely oblivious to the time zone, we would be very rich and very sore. To hell with American Express, we never leave home without the little blue diamond. Not because we have Limp Noodle Syndrome. We just hate jet lag.

Unreported in the Argentinian report are the horrendous first-stage results of the trial that resulted when unsuspecting women were slipped Blue Wonders in their $10 United Airlines Beef Stroganoff mid-flight. Researchers and federal authorities worked in concert to suppress media reports on women mysteriously sprouting temporary, though impressive, erections in their post-flight hours.

"I couldn't stop touching it! It was absolutely mesmerizing," reported Liz Breitbach of Staten Island, NY. "I spent most of the day with my hand in my pockets touching it, just because I could!" Breitbach said she was on a marathon phone mission to apologize to all the men she had brow-beaten for playing pocket pool over the years. "I simply had no idea," she said - still beaming. "I've booked 6 more round-trip flights on United and called ahead to get the Stroganoff," she sheepishly admitted.

United had recently introduced "Lap Tents", a small table fitting over the legs over which a blanket could be draped for privacy. Ostensibly, the new gadget was to allow ample airflow to the extremities and avoid impacting sterility in males resulting from warming of the testicles. Now, an anonymous male flight attendant at United who asked to be called "Sheena", has confirmed this was to facilitate passenger exploration of Viagra's best-known benefit.

Researchers contacted travelers and hamsters the day after their journey to ask if they had suffered jet lag from their excursions. Two-thirds of those surveyed had no recollection of the flight. Twenty-two percent reported pain in the wrist. And 12% were "spending quality time with my hamster".

In a sign that competition is good for business, Southwest will roll out their Meth Shuttle, Continental will introduce the Ganja Ride between San Francisco and Santa Fe, and Northwest will dole out shrooms on its Seattle-LA connection. Airline executives anticipate that passenger rage over increased airfares - spurred by increasing fuel prices - will decrease as distractions increase.

And they say there is no good news in the world.

Worry About This

Comes news today that a new ABC/Ipsos poll finds 75% of us think the country is headed in the wrong direction. They fault the president, his war, his gas prices and his breath, in order of importance. We contend this is not newsworthy information.

The troubling part of this poll is that 1 in 4 of us think things are GREAT! We want names. And addresses. And someone to put these people out of our misery. At the very least, 75% of us should be able to acknowledge that damn near everything sucks nowadays. Accordingly, at least 75% of us should be able to identify the source of our discontent. And be able to spell his name.

As a white male, we are particularly troubled that 1 out of 3 white men think this is an incredible way to live. "Heading in the right direction" is how they answered the question about the nation's trajectory. We understand now why women and minorities hold the white male in such contempt. We are almost compelled to confront the next two fellow white guys we meet and demand to know which of them is the idiot. Statistically, one of them is probably among the deluded third of our demographic.

There is no reasonable course of action that pertains to the slob in the White House. Time, 18 months, give or take a few days, will take care of him. Then the historians can pick his bones clean, grind them into dust and eliminate the last vestiges of his plague on our house. The market will not correct record profiteering by the oil and gas industry. Only regulation and corruption investigations will purge us of this perversion of capitalism. This war will pass.

What will not pass is the presence among us of those who cannot see with their eyes wide open in broad daylight. If this scandalous, lying, barbaric incompetence is a sign that we are heading in the right direction, no amount of education or cajoling will help them. They are lost.

Hopelessly, dreadfully, dangerously, incurably lost.

We will always endure some level of misfeasance among our leaders. We will always see prices go upward and not downward. We will always be tempted to resolve, perpetuate, renew, or commence conflict in the world with the sword and not the word. Seventy-five percent of us will know when enough is enough. One in four will never get it. For them, up is down. Right is wrong. Fair is foul. Balance is tipped to one side. They corrupt our society, our name, our will, our future, our hope and our place among the peoples of the earth. And they vote. All of them. No one is more militantly wrong than they are. No one is more actively, willfully ignorant. No one is more perverse.

It is too unfortunate that wisdom has fallen into cliche when we say that for evil to triumph, good people simply need do nothing. When we, the 75%, tire of being dragged behind the vehicle by the 25% who have the keys, we will experience change. Until then, the face of this great nation will be that of the twisted, the ignorant and the perverse.

I'm ready to drive, for a change.

No Trump

What happened to Donald Trump? We thought maybe Ro O'Do had just hit a nerve when she rightly assailed his moral authority and mocked his Is It Or Isn't It scalp covering. But in the last week, he's taken on Dallas Mavericks owner and all-'round rich guy Mark Cuban.

The Queen of Nice is fat. She'll be the first to tell you so. Call her fat and you're overstating the obvious, not eviscerating her with a zinger. And it makes you sound childish, Donnie. Call her a loser while she's sitting atop her 2nd ratings bonanza concurrent with yours going into the toilet and you look like an idiot. Mock her looks and you're just... distastefully classless. Slam the politics, accuse her of over-reaching with the gay angle to everything. That's fair. And probably true. But the other? Please, man, was Ivana the only thing that held you together?

Now there is little debate that Mark Cuban is a young man of considerable physical appeal. He's annoying as bat shit on your toothbrush, but he is a handsome guy whose hair does not appear to have been the result of a food processing mishap. And he owns an NBA team. And he has a ton of money. And he hits back. Hard. Calling him a "loser" because "he looks like that" is just creepily 4th Grade stuff. You're an old man, for Christ's sake. You're supposed to have money and dignity and class. Instead, you're proving that money can't buy class every time you open your mouth. You are a verbal Paris Hilton-style train wreck with all the redeeming qualities of a Lindsay Lohan chaser.

Grow the fuck up. You have children old enough to be embarrassed - one of which you dragged onto The Tonight Show to stand up for you. GASP! Even Leona Helmsley fought her own battles. Your intellect is fairly questioned when the best insult you can hurl someone's way is based on their looks and size. You are deep in disingenuous territory when you can crawl over your own bankruptcy history to call someone else a "loser".

And since you brought it up, you only fuck beautiful people. You've never been one. So enough with the beauty disses, already. You are, aside from Aerosmith, The Rolling Stones, and Ugly Betty, the least attractive mug on the American landscape. Your public speaking skills are beneath the most average 10th grader we've ever judged in speech competition. You are a multiple marriage failure, a media disaster, and a walking testimony that clothes do not, by any stretch, make the man.

You need to be very, very quiet for the next 20 years and gamble that we won't remember your psychotic outbursts of 2007. Please - no more apprentices. The Sorcerer only got one - and we liked that show. No more twenty-something wives plucked from the beauty pageant ash heap. Leave something for the twenty-something men. And shave your fucking head, already.

Jesus. Do we have to tell you everything?

Just Plain Ugly

Since a weeks-ago post expressing our distaste for the inexplicably hot "Ugly Betty" on ABC, we have received no end of shit. To clarify, we don't want episodic updates, running commentary, or shrieks of glee over the comings and goings of this historically unwatchable program.

Please, Jesus. Tell me they're going to bury the original videotapes under Jerry Falwell. What schlock! This show is worse than "Joey" tried to be. One wonders if Vanessa Williams wasn't forced to forfeit her crown based on ability, rather than nudity.

Note To Full-Figured Actresses: We are willing to look at you from the chin up, as Gay Americans, and take you at face value, as it were, regardless of that large bump between your waistband and your vagina. But if you consciously try to fuck yourself up from the neck north, we just can't help you anymore. The only requirement for being a Fag Hag is a deft touch with the cosmetics - regardless of your girth. Once that's sabotaged, though.... You're just an ugly fat chick we're never going to marry.

Note To Straight Actors: If you're realllly good at playing gay roles, we will keep your secret and not whisper about your "heterosexuality". If you're realllllly bad at playing gay (you can't say "BOO!" without lisping and singing), we're going to dye your mother's hair violet at her next appointment.

Note To Vanessa Williams: Shut up and sing. We liked you when you sang. We thought the song was prophetic when you sang of saving the best for last. We assume this show isn't last. Please come back to the disco and leave our sitcoms alone. You haven't made a good television decision since the Miss America Pageant....and even it got canceled. Just.....sing. Please?

Note To America Ferrera: We thought we were seeing the complete renovation of beauty's definition when we saw you in "Real Women Have Curves". We cheered your cellulite! We celebrated your back fat! We yelled, 'YOU GO GIRL!" at the screen as you flounced down the sidewalk at movie's end. We got the message when you squeezed your ampleness into the jeans in "The Mystery Of The Traveling Pants". You moved us. Fat was in. Mo'Nique owes her career to you. Well, you and Shirley Booth, Shelly Winters, Roseanne Barr, Moms Mabley, Aretha Franklin, and about 10,000 other obese folks who came before her. But you have to stop this nonsense of Ugly Betty. Only you can pull the plug. Fat has been popular in cycles. In Reuben's day, fat was glorified. Even in the 70's, Thin may have been in, but Fat was where it was at. We're dropping our gym memberships like acid to embrace our stretch marks once again in the new millennium. But ugly is never going to be pretty. Stop it! Just.....stop it.

Note To Gay Friends and Family: Stop sending me updates on a show I hate. I'd rather get 30 copies of the American Idol Worst Auditions video wrapped in rancid bacon. The more you push this on me, the more I vow to hate it. Worse, I will take this campaign national if you provoke me. I am about 30 seconds away from Bumper Sticker Militancy on this topic. This is a bad show. It's not funny. Lucille Ball is spinning in her grave. We are better than this. We're supposed to be the ones with taste, wit and camp. This show lacks all three. It's Married With Children without the redeeming social merit. Just....stop it!

Ugly is not beautiful. It's just... ugly.

Effects On The Side

Side effects. Oh, what joy that fills my bowl.

Nausea. Oh thou persistent companion and friend who doth oppose each meal and moment's rest. Great woe upon your house! What have I swallowed to so enrage thee against mine bowels?

Diarrhea. Oy veys mir. I have it so frequently and so powerfully that I spontaneously told people that Jews are good at raising money and gays have no business in the workforce. I thought Gov. Thompson was blowing smoke with the Runs Defense. Then it happened to me. My apologies to the Guv.

Malaise. Well documented previously. No change. Death surely follows. We hope this is an ounce of what Rev. Falwell suffered prior to his demise.

Did we mention Nausea? There is more noise coming from my abdomen than from a 1973 Buick in the Puerto Rican Day Parade. That's not racist. I have diarrhea.

Nausea, Nausea, Nausea

Signing off from The Loo, where we are embedded with the air freshener and Charmin. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. Power to the people. We're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore. Don't listen to a word we're saying. We have diarrhea.

Did we mention the nausea?

Making The World A Better Place

JERRY FALWELL DEAD 5/15/2007. ACLU, GAYS, FEMINISTS, ABORTIONISTS GET CREDIT--Red dresses on sale world-wide Two For A Dollar
(ed.) To paraphrase the late Charles Pierce's impersonation of Bette Davis: "I was taught that one should only speak good of the dead and Jerry Falwell is dead...good."


"If you're not a born-again Christian, you're a failure as a human being."


"This is probably as bad a day as the court has had on social issues since Roe v Wade."-- reacting to the Supreme Court striking down the Texas sodomy law.


"I had a student ask me, 'Could the savior you believe in save Osama bin Laden?' Of course, we know the blood of Jesus Christ can save him, and then he must be executed."


(RE: The 9/11 Attack) "God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve."


(Again, RE: 9/11)"The ACLU's got to take a lot of blame for this."


(Annnd again) "And, I know that I'll hear from them for this. But, throwing God out successfully with the help of the federal court system, throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools. The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way -- all of them who have tried to secularize America -- I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen.'"

Gloom, Despair and Agony On Me

"...Deep, dark depression; excessive misery. If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all. Gloom, despair, and agony on me."

AIDS is not over. People are still dying. And those of us not in death's throes woke up with the certainty that someone had taken a shit in our mouth. Or the new meds have turned our tongue to a wasteland of City Dump flavors. "General Malaise", the bottle says. Bullshit. Specific Malaise. Definitely, specifically MY malaise. We are so deep in Malaise, we should be Malaysian.

Last night brought a rare sober and sobering call from What's-Her-Name-In-NYC. Pneumonia. Not the killer kind, but the kind that causes your average bi-polar queen to cleave to the wrong pole. Not pretty. Having woken up with nearly every man on the island of Manhattan in her time, now she wakes up with pneumonia on a Saturday morning. If that were the direct result of being easy, we would write something catty about it. Oh, we did! Good for us. Malaise and all.

She called to report that People Are Still Dying and a certain blogger should tell people as much. We assumed she only referred to herself, which we thought to be a tad over-the-top for bacterial pneumonia - given the alternatives. Then we woke up with this atrocious taste attached to our tongue that no amount of brushing, rinsing, Mountain Dew or nutrition drink can quell. NOW we understand. Death's sure calling card is either pneumonia or a bad taste in the mouth. And more likely the latter, since it is the one affecting us. Malaise, malaise, malaise.

Mustard or Malaise? I'll have the malaise, please. Hellman's malaise,to be specific. Save the Miracle Whip for S&M Jesus. He'll be here soon.

She was right, though. People are still dying hand over fist. With medicine in their fist, usually. There are a couple dozen HIV-specific medications on the market and another half-dozen in the pipeline nearing approval (including the one we're swallowing). That Old Gang Of Mine quit dying, lived long enough to regret running up the credit cards and selling the life insurance policy for pennies on the dollar, and now are sliding back down Pharmacy Hill to the Valley Of The Shadow Of Death. Some with pneumonia. Others with a bad taste in their mouths.

In my own little circle, in my own little world, I can be whatever I want... Wait. That's a line from something. In my own little circle, 8 have died in the last few years. I don't live in San Francisco anymore, or Chicago, or any of the other places with large concentrations of HIV+ people. These are guys I met in Kansas City after moving to the area. Eight. And I wasn't collecting friends in the Intensive Care Unit.

The meds fail, whether you take them or not, for most people over time. The med combos are a finite group. That means you run out of options and end up in clinical trials praying for more life and less of a bad taste in your mouth. It means you live long enough to have a reasonably normal heart attack, but it also means that you keel over from pneumonia because your immune system is shot. Or you don't wake up because your liver went to be with the Lord in your sleep. Or your brain invites The Virus in for tea and winds up demented because the guest won't leave. Then it fucks around and tells your heart to stop beating or something demented like that.

The fat in your face wastes away, as does the fat in your arms and legs. It collects in your gut, like you have a beer fetish, or between your shoulder blades, like you just came from a costume fitting for your role as Quasi Modo in the local community theatre. Big belly, no arms, no legs, no face. A very pregnant Nicole Richie, in other words. Your ability to stand or sit or walk or lift or simply stay awake falls prey to It. You can't work. Your six-figure lifestyle suddenly morphs into life in The System. Not because you were sick of 6-figure living, but because you got too sick to live in the 6-figure world.

You wind up proving not how smart you are, but how sick you are every 6 months for the insurance company or the gals at Social Security or the State or Medicare or somebody else who would love to help lower your self-esteem if you can only prove how little you can do. They don't ask whether you shit yourself in broad daylight because of what your medicine does. They also don't ask whether you have to move from the bed to the couch to the floor every night to avoid the wet spots that once were evidence of A Good Time Had By All and now are simply the result of drenching night sweats.

You drag yourself to memorial services at an increasing pace and suddenly catch a vision of all the Aidsy folks lined up single file at a cliff. When the one at the front of the line jumps off, everybody takes one step forward. You don't know where in the line you are. You only know that the line is moving a lot faster than it used to. The new medicines aren't slowing it down, they're just letting us march in Depends, or with an oxygen mask, or with a very, very bad taste in our mouths.

President Clinton has gotten the cost to treat AIDS in Africa down to $1 a month by brow-beating the pharmaceutical industry. We don't begrudge Africans a goddamn thing, but when, pray-tell, do we make our own a priority? What's-Her-Name and I could spend our allowance on something better than co-pays if anyone thought to lower the cost to treat AIDS in the U.S. to $1 a day.

Helping the folks in Africa live is a grand gesture of kindness.

Helping the folks at home, though, would be socialism. Bastards.

A Trial Neurotic

In a grand salute to my fellow neurotics, I proved today that neurosis can trump label warnings every time.

I've had the clinical trial drug in my possession since Friday. It has instructions in 47 languages (a slight -- and I do mean slight - exaggeration). I had to wait until today to swallow the first one so that I would have the new trio of drugs that accompany it. I opened up a spreadsheet to make sure I didn't undermine the entire pharmaceutical industry by screwing up the frequency, dosage, or food instructions.

I made note of all the side-effects that should send me running to the doctor from all four medications. I also glanced over the list of 60-plus side-effects that should send me running to the nearest bathroom but don't require an office visit. Since the majority needed to be taken twice a day - with food - I made a small lunch and laid out the very colorful pills (lots of orange this time). I decided to eat half the food, pop the pills, and then finish the food - just to be overly literal. Not before food, not after food, with food. I didn't crush or chew, like the label admonished. I drank water or milk, as instructed.

I took one bite of lunch and barfed. And I hadn't yet swallowed a pill. I was having side-effects without taking the pills. I wondered if I would get the positive benefits the same way. Just read a lot, vomit, and watch my health improve. In full-blown neurotic dither, I swallowed the pills at the half-way point of the meal and watched the little clock on the computer to see how long it would take for me to have discernable side-effects - as a result of the medicine.

To pass the time, I read an online article about the clinical trial drug. Apparently, if the drug works as it's designed to, I should stay away from mosquitoes because its miracle method makes me susceptible to West Nile Virus - the one virus I haven't yet had. I live in Kansas. This is where God created mosquitoes. They're not the size of birds, like in Florida. But they bite. I buy a summer wardrobe anually that goes well with large red welts. I have always been a mosquito magnet. Now I get to invest in a full-body mosquito net that won't go with anything from last year.

I'm coming up on the one-hour mark and my head is filling with snot. That's a side-effect of at least one of the drugs. Rash, dementia, stroke, diarrhea, and loss of limbs can't be far behind. We'll keep you posted.

In the event we don't, would someone please call Pfizer and tell them another one bit the dust?

In Praise of Baseball

On my life, I cannot fathom why anyone would prefer a sport other than baseball. We were born without any natural athletic ability. Remarkable speed was developed over time as we fled wasps, snakes and parents wielding all manner of weaponry. But hand-eye coordination was not part of the birthright. Like an ugly girl's first kiss, though, the world changed the day I held my first baseball card.

It was green on the back, with printing in navy blue or black. On the front stood a man with a bat, a glove, or a ball, or in mid-stride. He was a Yankee, a Royal, a Cardinal, a Brewer, a Ranger.... not that it mattered. It was numbered in the upper right-hand corner on the back, a testimony to its place among hundreds of others identical in design yet unique as snowflakes in their statistics. Shoe boxes, albums and every unclaimed drawer held the ever-growing collection. The thought of giving away any of the cards - though held in duplicate, triplicate, no matter - was as repulsive as the thought of giving away a good looking child.

I was hopelessly in love. I threw a tennis ball for hours against the front stoop - side armed, nearly underhand from an imaginary pitching mound in the front yard. I did Dan Quisenberry better than the Quiz himself. Catching the ball as it careened off the steps unpredictably was the necessary evil that separated one pitch from the next. I kept track in my mind of every hit and out as I played nine-inning games with the steps. If people got between me and the steps, I'd take the game to the backyard where it was tossing the ball as far as possible skyward and waiting for it to bounce off the slanted roof in who-knows-what direction. I was the best outfielder my mind's crowd had ever seen.

RC Cola, a nearly undrinkable beverage, partnered with the Royals in my childhood and the faces of George Brett, Hal McRae, Amos Otis, Fred Patek, Cookie Rojas and others called to me in the grocery store aisles. My family shifted its allegiance from Pepsi to RC in those days... a minor detour on our Journey To Coca-Cola. I would wash out the cans and line them up on the window sill in my bedroom, build pyramids on the floor, use them as decorative touches throughout the room - always with the pictures showing. Viewed from outside, the house must have appeared to be the abode of a low-paid RC employee.

My escape fantasies included hitting the baseball road with George Brett and Jamie Quirk - hanging out on the field before and after games. My greatest wish was to wake up a ball boy. There was no point to a seat anywhere in the stadium other than behind third base. John Mayberry was something at first base. But George Brett... he had the goods. I knew. The baseball card's statistics told me so. Baseball cards never lie. And if they do, they're an instant goldmine. Either way, you win.

I slept through one of the Royals' play-off games when I was 12 - on account of general anesthesia and a surgery. It was like missing a wedding when you're supposed to be the groom. In those days before Tivo, or even VCR's.... maybe even before BetaMax... lost viewing was gone forever. Irretrievable. It left you identified as The One Who Didn't See... I don't recall today whether The Good Guys won or lost in that missed game. But I remember that I missed it. That's how important baseball was... is.

I can't throw away a photo album chock-full of newspaper articles clipped from the daily newspaper chronicling the Royals from Spring Training through the World Series. I will never part with my baseball cards, which found their way back into my possession when I purchased a house with storage. Over the years, my parents had bought books and CD's that would place a dollar value on my collection, bought almost exclusively with their money - 10 to a pack... 2 pieces of rock-hard, rectangular, flattened bubble gum inside a pack that sometimes let you see at least one card through its back flap. Claude's Drug Store was my favorite place in the whole world because Claude and the ladies who worked there didn't mind much if you felt your way through the whole box of baseball cards, seeking the gods' will in which one would be yours for a quarter.

Summer is almost here. But the official date is irrelevant. Summer begins when The Boys Of Summer break training camp and the first pitch is made. They may as well open the pools that day in early April. Close the schools. Cancel rain. Command the wind to always blow out to left field.

And let middle-aged men forever revel in batted balls, one-hop grounders, and cans of corn.

Hallmark Loves You, Too!

Happy Friggin' Mother's Day.

I made my $5 donation to the Hall family (of Hallmark wealth and renown) and simply await the landing of my own mother's plane from Florida to complete my Hallmark-imposed duty. She's been to Florida for a week and I'm on the hook to buy her something. I hate this crap. I'm not curmudgeonly by nature, but I have an intense dislike of these trumped-up occasions to spend $50 or be considered the derelict offspring.

I've seen the enablers. They stand at the greeting card kiosk and dab their eyes with a tissue as they read the consciously manipulative-for-profit verbiage on the Mother's Day Cards. They'll do the same thing at Father's Day. My over-weaning sense of integrity gets between me and the selection of cards. I can't stand the thought of sending one that conveys an inaccurate sentiment. But they don't make a card that says, "You Are One Of The Nastiest Human Beings I Know. Congratulations On Your Reproductive Skills."

My mama is not evil. She's just not the stuff of Hallmark fare. I was not locked in the basement and fed dog food. I was not denied education, clothing or shelter. She's just a foul-mouthed, egocentric, Everything's About Me kind of person. In other words, we're just alike and it drives me nuts. But that whole "Loving, Sensitive Mother Who Tucked Gushy Notes In With My Ham Sandwich Every Day For School" is not my mama's Mother's Day card. They need one that says, "Look. You know and I know that this is perfunctory at best. You're a mother. This is the day. (open card) But the other 364 days are not about you! Love, Your Son."

I don't begrudge my mother flowers and a card. God knows if I pushed something of significant size through my genitalia, it's the least I would expect annually until my death. It just takes me forever to find the friggin' card that doesn't convey something that would make us both overly aware of the Bullshit Factor. This year's sentiment boils down to: "You taught. I listened. So grateful."

We both know I didn't listen, she didn't teach much, etc. But it was easier to pretend that might have happened than it would have been to paint her as June Cleaver and me as fawning acolyte. I like my mother. I do. Really. We're just not Hallmark people. We're "share a pack of cigarettes and talk down your drunk uncle" people. We're guilt, recrimination, grudge people. We're Jewish, in essence, only without the dietary complications. If Jews believed in Jesus. In other words, we're Catholic. If Catholics were Pentecostal. In other words... You see how hard it is to buy cards for these people? Drives me nuts.

Oh...call your mother or somebody mother-like. She'll make your life miserable if you don't.

The Last 100 OR Look Who Came To Dinner

If you want a quick lesson in just how amazing the Internet can be, post something to a site anywhere. Then go back and look at who read it.

Typos and all, lucid or not, bad grammar, no grammar, nonsense, full rant, dissertation, bad comedy....it just doesn't matter. Somebody will read what you wrote. Being able to look and see the geographical diversity of those who either accidentally stumbled across you or actively sought you out is a wonderful exercise in narcissism. It's also cause to marvel that ours is, indeed, a small, small world.

The common ramblings of a middle-aged nobody in Kansas (our Editor-in-Chief) (please don't tell him we said that) (this isn't a job, but it is somewhere to go once a day besides our dealer's house the library).....these ramblings....are being read by an amazing diversity of people who are probably universally sorry they stopped by for a cup o' Therapy.

This week, we welcomed gentleman-callers and likely a few ladies from: Canada, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Turkey, France and Mexico. We would like to invite any one of them to invite us to visit their fair land for an author's tour and blog-signing...preferably on a beach and at their expense. (Nous voudrions aller en France, s'il vous plait. Queremos ir a Ixtapa, por favor. And you folks in Portugal, don't even try to pretend you don't speak both French and Spanish.)

Domestic readership saw 19 states infected by our blog this week: Colorado, Florida, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Illinois, Kansas, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Wyoming, New York, Washington D.C., Arizona, Texas, California, Missouri, South Carolina, Arkansas, and Louisiana. Again...if any of you have an unoccupied spot on the beach to which you would like to invite us for work or respite, we're game.

It should be noted that we are not good company until the Vicodin kicks in. We like burgers and burritos almost exclusively, and thread counts below 300 are for refugees. It's Coke, not Pepsi, iced tea should not be flavored, and one should never put anything in green beans that isn't a green bean. But we're not picky.

We'll have another look-see at who's having a look-see around this time next week! Thanks very much for stopping by. You can leave the money on the dresser.

Guinea Pigs And Plain Ol' Pigs

Whoops! Look like we missed a day or so of posting random thoughts. That's the life of a guinea pig for you. We were decidedly perplexed upon learning of our acceptance into the clinical trial for the experimental drug, Maraviroc, yesterday. It had been unlikely from the beginning that our particular virus would be susceptible to it. And, frankly, we're not sure just how excited one should get about swallowing pills with yet-to-be-determined effects.

Then again, we swallowed lots of pills in dark bars in the 80's that could have been anything from Certs to Cyanide. So who are we kidding?

The specialist mentioned during our consultation over The Headache of 2007 that it would take a few days for test results to come back. It's been 8 days. We still have the headache (going into month #3), and no test results. If the man stood next to Tom Cruise, we wouldn't realize Tom Cruise was in the room. He's that good looking. So rather than bitch, we've been taking our Vicodin and having inappropriate thoughts about the man who put a foot-long Q-tip in our ear.

Three years ago, we let him straighten the septum, drill out the sinuses and take out some bones that we didn't realize were Just For Show. We realized what the big deal was over nasal breathing afterward. See...we hadn't done that before. Ever. The man is a god. And a good doctor, to boot. If we had fewer scruples, we'd shove things up our nose on a weekly basis just to see him regularly. You do that sort of thing for people you like. That's called establishing rapport".

Dick Cheney was dispatched to the Middle East this week to establish rapport in that area. That's what our newspaper said, "Cheney Seeks Rapport In Iraq". We called the Editor to make sure there hadn't been a typo: "Clooney" or "Sacks" or "Report" or "Colorado Springs", maybe. Nope. Sure enough, Our Only Vice-President, charmer that he is, was sent by Our Only President on a surprise good-will mission to Iraq. The surprise is not that he went. It's that anyone thought he was capable of good will. This is the guy who bit Matt Lauer's leg off in an interview for wishing him well in his pending grandpa-hood. Good will is not in his arsenal.

We were going to write something mildly humorous and scathing about sending people who have even less good will capacity than Cheney. But Leona Helmsley and Satan were all we came up with. It's hard to stretch that into a full paragraph. Looks like Cheney is treading into guinea pig waters himself. Maybe he's trying on a new leaf in his old age: niceness. Or humanity, perhaps. This kind of thing is catching in a syrupy Pay It Forward sort of way.

Now, Lindsay Lohan has been dispatched to high schools to seek sobriety among alcoholic teens. Paris Hilton has been dispatched to Driver's Ed to help 14 year-olds learn how to beat a bum DUI rap. O.J. will be offering marriage tips. Oprah will show us how to do the Virgin Islands on $10,000 a day. And John Edwards is the new spokesperson for SuperCuts.

Sometimes irony is funny. Sometimes it just reveals stupidity. Playing around with a new gig in hopes of stumbling on solutions is admirable. Throwing gasoline on the fire in your living room is not. Throwing it on the fire in someone else's living room is less so.

See the clock at the right of this screen and pray we don't all die of "rapport".

Yes, They're BABY Carrots, But...

A couple, aged 27 and 31, starved their infant by adhering to their strict Vegan neurosis. The child died at 6 weeks weighing 3 1/2 pounds. They received mandatory life sentences for their parenting skills. I'd list their names here, but for the remainder of their lives they'll be known by numbers not yet discovered by our crack research staff. Here's hoping what they say about child abusers in prison is fact and not just wishful thinking.

Note to people with food issues: If you want to turn your own gut to a boiling cauldron of methane, knock yourselves out. But if you kill your kid with the same techniques, you're going to eat burgers and chicken with everybody else up in The Big House. Happy now?

We contend this makes a solid case for licensing parents prior to reproduction. A simple questionnaire should suffice.

"True or false: A human being can survive on soy milk and apple juice." (Hint: That's all they gave the dead baby.)

While right-wing nuts yank children out of loving, stable homes with same-gendered parents, heterosexuals are filling up prisons faster than you can say, "I didn't hit her THAT hard." We know the evidence shows no negative impact on children who grow up in gay and lesbian households. We believe the evidence would show that a disproportionate number of heterosexuals are unfit parents. Who do you think produced all of the children in The System? It's not the two women who interviewed 50 men to find just the right sperm and then tried for three years to conceive. Think. Just.....think.

We confess that we harbor a bias that borders on ridicule against vegetarians of all stripes. But nobody gets a free pass on starving babies. The couple had the gall to beg for leniency prior to hearing their sentence. We believe they should be fed a strict diet of soy milk and apple juice until they resemble Somali refugees and have flies feeding in the corners of their eyes....until they die of their convictions. These folks are no less nuts than the religious zealots who refuse medical help for their children.

This makes a very good case for the redistribution of offspring. If you can't pass the exam, you can't keep your kids. So sorry. If you fail it twice, we're taking your ovaries/testicles - just to be sure.

We may be transforming into full-on socialists. The thought occurs to us that Paris Hilton makes a wonderful case for the redistribution of wealth from the terminally boorish to the have-nots. That ought to level the playing field a little bit and knock her off my computer screen permanently.

Since it was our idea....we're taking the first spot in the have-not line.

Dear O.J.

Poor O.J.

At some point, if you can get past the beheading and the glove and the blood and the Akita and the Wrongful Death verdict..... You just have to wonder whether he'll ever get it. So we've decided to lend a decidedly Midwestern perspective to a very raw, open letter to the man. We hope it will spare him further embarrassment in the media. Unless he insists.

Dear Mr. Simpson,

Folks in Kentucky, for the most part, still aren't over the whole slavery thing. Add to that the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Brown vs. Board of Education, sharing water fountains, interracial dating and, well, that little murder thing we all watched on CNN. You will start to understand why Louisville is not the best place for you to spend the money you still owe the Goldman family for murdering their son.

We would like to take this opportunity to say that we always liked Kato. He reminded us of Gilligan with a libido and a very open view of sexuality and recreational drugs. He's our kinda guy. If you hadn't murdered anybody, we'd probably come to your house to watch him lay out in a Speedo. We also want to say that we don't like your late ex-wife's sisters much. We understand that grief makes people do and say horrible things, but come on.... That Denise chick had a head start on Bitter before you ever came along.

We think you should be in jail, but you're not and that's the way our system works. Good on you for having the money to buy the best defense team available. We're sure Johnny Cochran thinks of you often as he meanders the various levels of Hell looking for a scotch and water. We think the rest of them will probably get eye cancer or have their genitals rot for taking your money, but we can't really make that happen. Congratulations on your win.

You seem to have hit the wall when it comes to picking your way around a potential media nightmare. First there was the book that isn't a book. Then there was the TV Interview that didn't happen over the book that isn't a book (which was about the thing you didn't do, but if you had...). Now, you've been summarily dismissed from one of Louisville's finest eating establishments. So we're going to help you out a little. Mostly, this is so we don't see you on TV or the AOL homepage as much. But in a rare stab at good karma, it's also so we can help a teensy bit.

Take out a map of the U.S. Any size will do, although we know first-hand that past the age of 40, the larger the better. Amen? Now, find California. Draw a heavy black line around California and then put a large X through everything north of San Francisco. The part of California left is safe for you to golf in without suffering what you went through in Louisville.

Now, go all the way over to Florida...no, all the way... Find Miami. Draw a tiny circle around Miami. You can golf and eat in that circle. Everything else is off-limits. Don't go to Tennessee, Arkansas, Texas, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana (except New Orleans, if they ever rebuild it), any Carolina, Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Indiana...oh hell. Just stay in those two areas and you'll be good.

It is partly a race thing. So you can call Al Sharpton, if he's not busy pulling his foot out of his mouth over Mormons not being Christians (an assertion we think is theologically sound, but still a horrible thing to say into a microphone when you are the High Priest Of You Can't Say That). But mostly, it's a You Got Away With Murder Thing. We know you did it. You know you did it.

And y'all just cain't eat here no more. K? Thanks, hun.

We wish you a low handicap on the course and firsthand knowledge of how it feels to be almost beheaded.

Much Love,

The After Therapy Editorial Staff

Nature Is A Mother....

Now comes word that an arctic seal lost its way and ended up in Florida. Where it died. We get that. We've been to Ft. Lauderdale, which is up to its nipples in lost creatures awaiting death - however far away it may be. It happens. It's one thing to make the choice to head to fairer climes - witness the multiplied hundreds of Florida synagogues full of Bronx-accented worshippers. It's quite another to have Mother Nature escort you down a path you didn't choose.

We've been glued to the news where our fair state has become ground zero in the debate over draining domestic resources to fuel the occupation of a country that refuses to be a country. It's not just Greensburg, Kansas. The Missouri River divides the livable side (Kansas) from the unfortunate side (Missouri). Folks who live on one side wouldn't live on the other if you paid them. We'll cross the line to buy liquor on Sunday or gamble in their casinos. They'll return the favor to watch Nascar or visit the embarrassingly large Furniture Store That Should Have Been Ikea.

The Mighty Mo (the river, potty brain) is treating us to its annual ritual of failing to color within its lines. As the snows from Iowa, Nebraska and the other tundra states to our north make their way downriver, joined by Spring rains, last year's drought becomes irrelevant. The river and its tributaries take their toll on farms, homes, bridges and roads in numbers that far exceed tornado damage annually. Floods simply don't make for great TV unless you have a hurricane to open the show.

Five levees have broken along the Missouri River in the last 48 hours. I don't know how many broke around the Gulf Coast during Hurricane Katrina. I do know that if your house is affected by a levee's breach, it doesn't much matter how many other levees did their job. Thousands of people are fleeing their homes today. That bears repeating.

Today, thousands of Kansans and Missourians are fleeing their homes...most of them 5 hours or more from where Greensburg used to stand.

Water, that essence of life, leaves the most amazingly grotesque destruction when it runs amok. Today, Our Only President will be in the neighborhood to look at a town that became rubble. He has no plans to visit the thousands of displaced people who are running from a river.

He won't be helping. He'll just be looking. He'll have the opportunity to apologize to our Governor, who is helping. A cursory glance at the right-wing pundits and bloggers finds them vilifying Governor Sebelius for being an incompetent bitch, essentially, and mangling the clean-up effort in Greensburg while staring down the barrel of floods that just fall short of the 1993 disaster. Let's put this in terms a Conservative might understand.

Assume you have 3 million sinners you'd like to execute. You own 300,000 guns and plenty of ammo, but you loaned 299,999 of them to Washington to help in the Iraqi Occupation. Correction: You didn't loan them. They were taken from you in the name of patriotism, God, and all that is right. It will now take you a very long time to kill 3 million sinners...certainly much longer than it might have taken if you had all 300,000 assault rifles that you cherish like your velvet Jesus painting in the NRA commemorative frame. It's not that you can't get them killed...eventually...it's that it would be a lot quicker with all the guns in hand. Then you could get back to taking your social cues from Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh. Got it?

Now....think of sinners as houses that have crumbled like toothpicks and imagine the guns are backloaders, dumptrucks, and flatbeds. And instead of murder, it's clean-up. Got it? We aren't politicizing a tornado. We just want our trucks back...temporarily....so the 2-square-mile town can be cleaned up in a week, and not endure our own Katrina-paced cleanup. Oh...and so do all the other governors in all the other states.

We weren't caught off guard by a tornado. Nature's a bitch and twisters come with living in the land of Oz. Floods happen. We would prefer to not impose on your international disaster of a war by asking you to move the remains of the bank from the town's only intersection...but if you're finished with the queen, can we have our trucks back now?

Asshole.

Too Many Hours Of Darkness

While not as dire as the situation in our home state's town of Greensburg, our own modem-imposed blackout came at a classically inopportune time. The Queen met The Boob, Governor Sebelius (KS) clashed with The Boob... Boob, Boob, Boob. Leave it to fate to interfere when Boob material is overflowing like the Mighty Missouri River.

Without drawing inappropriate comparisons to Hurricane Katrina (mainly because our affected citizens were largely literate and white), it is worth noting that The Boob's War in Iraq has robbed our own National Guard of the resources they would normally use to help clean up the mess tornadoes tend to leave. The Boob was quick to point out that we have everything we need by way of personnel ("Heckuva job, Brownie!"), but personnel isn't the issue. We have lots of people - National Guard and otherwise. The issue is equipment.

Today, the White House suggested we simply call another state for dump trucks and stop inferring that The Boob's War has negatively impacted response time. Oh...and Kansans will someday be living in Fema Trailers that never made it out of Arkansas to Louisiana. These are the same trailers Katrina survivors long ago gave up on seeing in their own backyards. Irony runs thick in this administration. We ain't much for social protocol here in the flatlands....but we notice if you smile when you lie your ass off. And these folks are smilin' a bit much for our liking.

Greensburg is a few hours from here. We got the rain, they got the twisters. But we also got the message that George W. Bush didn't learn a goddamn thing about disaster response - either from the one Mother Nature visited upon the Gulf Coast, nor from the one he created in the Middle East. Suffice it to say that the next time a natural disaster takes a Kansas town from the map, we'll not be knocking on any federal doors. Insult the Governor's integrity all you like, but would you mind moving what used to be a few hundred houses out of the street first? Oh...and erect the telephone poles, turn on the electricity, and get the water going second.

Nobody pretends that Greensburg, KS matters to anyone who didn't live in Greensburg, KS. Most Kansans didn't know there was a Greensburg or, if there was one, just where it was. This Kansan had to MapQuest it, to be perfectly frank. If our government can't get the lights back on in its own backyard, though, how the hell do we expect that they can fix anything a couple of oceans away? And why would we bother to fix the latter before we fix the former?

I can't name a country that would clutch its pearls in horror if Gee Dub were to pull out a couple hundred flatbed trucks and the attendant personnel for a couple months to sweep Greensburg, KS clean and prepare for the rebuilding. That the same didn't happen when Katrina hit is a shonda. A national disgrace.

Our couple of off-line days brought a handful of things into fine focus. It doesn't mean we enjoyed it in the least. Nobody likes having the lights turned out on their connection to the world. I didn't. The folks on the Gulf Coast didn't. Greensburg, Kansas doesn't. A few hours of darkness happens from time-to-time.

But The Boob has brought far too many hours of darkness to these situations.

Too many hours of darkness, indeed.

The Color Bars

(Our internet service has been sabotaged by a dead modem, so we are typing from an undisclosed location that is less than optimum mainly because Mr. Cheney isn't very good company.)

When we were kids in the post-infancy of television, cousin Jimmy used to wake up at 4 a.m. and watch the channel where the cartoons would be in a couple of hours. Just the bars. Nothing happened, no sound played. They were just bars of color holding the space of where broadcasting would later appear. They had been there since approximately midnight the previous day when the Star Spangled Banner had given way to their code of silence.

Without Internet service for 48 hours or so, we find ourselves less-than-entertained with even the television. We keep staring out the windows, a few hours from where a tornado claimed the entire town of Greensburg, KS a few days ago. The clouds are thick and the rain is unrelenting. Creeks that had all but become trails are now overflowing their banks into farms and homes in an impressive display of Mother Nature's Prerogative. In a grand display of Never Happy, local forecasters are warning of a summer drought while we're putting flotation devices on small animals just so's they don't pee in the garage anymore.

Please forgive the intermittent posting during this time of technological throw-back. We appreciate your understanding and hope to be back to our sniping, snarky and well-connected (modem-wise) ways within a day or so. If you would like to urge this along, please contact Embarq, the former Sprint, whose modem passed away unexpectedly between church and lunch. We're avoiding the assumption that either of those activities inspired divine retribution on our hardware. Although, we are prone to such things.

Thanks again... Take this opportunity to read some of the old stuff. What's-her-name in NYC thinks it's the best of the collection. And she should know. She's slept with at least one editor from each of the major magazines.

Either do that...or just watch the color bars. We'll be on in a little while.

"I Didn't Mean To" Hall Of Fame

There are lots of things people don't "mean" to do. We have a list of our own unintentional acts a mile long. This week, however, we were treated to not one but two high-profile "I didn't mean to..." incidents.

First, as we know, former Wisconsin Governor and Republican Presidential Wannabe, Tommy Thompson, didn't mean to suggest that employers should have the right to fire gay employees simply for being gay. We assume the Governor is claiming the ever-popular Tourette's Defense, in which his brain simply failed to communicate effectively with his mouth. It happens. We firmly believe Ann Coulter's connection is permanently impaired. But it's the size of the stage, not the faux pas, that we notice.

Second, Paris Hilton pined that she "didn't mean to" drive drunk. We assume she didn't mean to get caught, as money tends to give people the notion that everything is fair game. We also assume she didn't mean to get convicted and sentenced to several days in jail....jail!!...for her actions. As heiresses go, we assume this moves her to the bottom tier, if that wasn't her previous rank.

Paris downed several top-shelf cocktails, put her key in the ignition, and her foot on the gas. But by no means did she mean to drive under the influence....let alone do so recklessly. And anyone who could think differently simply doesn't understand wealth, privilege and the insatiable desire for press of any kind. MAAD has since changed its name to reflect "Mothers Against Affluent Driving", just to cover all its bases.

From now on, we would like to see people of privilege own their actions. At the very least, we think we deserve a more creative and satisfying excuse than the one found on the lips of every 3-year-old. Paris runs with enough degenerates that one would think she has an entire 24-carat gold file cabinet full of ancient papyrus filled with calligraphied excuses that range from the improbable to the downright impressive.

Thompson ran with the Bushies. If that's not fertile ground for finding fine fudging, we admit we're at a loss to help the man.

So the 2007 inductees (we just know it won't get better than this for the next 7 months) into the "I Didn't Mean To" Hall of Fame are Paris (hiccup) Hilton and Tommy ("fire the faggots") Thompson. Congratulations to both.

Could You Repeat The Question?

Tommy Thompson can't remember from one moment to the next whether he hates queers or not. We understand. Sometimes we forget where we put our keys, our lighter, and the good porn we hide too well when Grandma comes to stay. These things happen.

When, during the Republican candidates debate at the Reagan Library (how many redundancies can you spot in that clause?), Thompson was asked whether gay people should be allowed to work in the United States, Thompson effectively said, "Not if you don't want them to." Less than 24 hours later, he said he was mistaken and meant to say, "Of course!" We see how easily it is to confuse those answers when you've only been in politics for 30 years.

For you nitpickers, the question was, "If a private employer finds homosexuality immoral, should he be allowed to fire a gay worker?” Let's dissect for a moment.... The question deals with every employer that isn't The Government. The underlying principle is whether or not it should be OK to deny gay and lesbian people (I'm sorry, I came of age before the Alphabet Soup Movement of LGBTQRAMXLYBN) employment because of who they are.

You still live in an age where it's worth asking the question whether employment should be offered to people whose bedrooms house an activity that is entirely outside the purview of their careers. We live in a time when, on national television, the question is posed whether people who love differently should be able to have a job. There will never be a time in this land when it is again OK to ask the same question of African-Americans, Jews, Catholics or women - though they've all had their turn in the spotlight. Today, it is only permissible to ask the question about gay folks and a healthy number of Latin-Americans.

You still live in an age where politicians can get tongue-tied and not have the correct, moral answer engraved on their brain. It's an age where a note card with the proper answer is still helpful. And it's a topic (gay employment) that no one bothers to take to its logical conclusion after their knee-jerk response.

Despite Thompson's retraction (which caused his house to be destroyed by three B-1 bombers and a small platoon of Operation Rescue personnel with rifles), it is worth knowing the consequences of the widespread denial of employment to gay folks. Without jobs, we have no income. Without income, we have no food. Without income, we have no housing. Without housing, we are homeless. Homeless people with no food don't live long. They die, in fact. Quickly. Denial of employment based on sexual orientation is not a benign action as a logical extension of someone's misguided morality.

When gays and lesbians are denied employment, it is absolutely a statement that the employer would rather have us dead. Because their morality would not support the guy next door hiring the people that they've just turned away, they are compelled to activism against the hiring of gay and lesbian people (see, for example, activism against the Employment Non-Discrimination Act - ENDA). This is step one to killing off the gay folks. For those who think this is hyperbole, you explain to me what the logical conclusion of this behavior would be.

Tommy Thompson's momentary confusion is a symptom, not the problem. Gov. Thompson may embrace gay people like no one since Anna Nicole Smith, for all we know. But that he could form his mouth around the wrong answer says that the wrong answer is still in the realm of consciousness... Just like "nigger", "kike", "gook", "spic" and "fag" don't accidentally roll off the tongue of someone who's never said them.

And it's probably the answer he and others would give if no cameras had been present.

Tastes Like....

This morning, a foul taste coated the tongue like we'd been intimate with a horse and failed to brush afterward. We ate nothing after breakfast, afraid to face 10 Republicans in the Reagan Library on a full stomach, so bewilderment took root.

Then we remembered: The 10 Republicans in the Reagan Library. The experience left an after-taste like Tequila with a Listerine chaser. Looking back over our notes from last night's freak show, it was readily apparent why we're still belching something foul after consuming so much of their bile.

Some highlights that we hadn't included previously:

1. Was it the height of irony that the candidate who had two fingers the furthest up Jerry Falwell's considerable ass was placed on the far left of the stage? We noticed. We wonder if Mr. Romney himself got a chuckle about it while cleaning under his nails after the debate.

2. Rudy Giuliani, arguably one of the least-Republican Republicans, mentioned Ronald Reagan twice in his first answer. Being un-Republican is what most of us liked about him. Talk about throwing away your ace-in-the-hole. We wonder if Signore Giuliani woke up with a smile after screwing himself so efficiently.

3. Sen. McCain managed to affirm his bloodthirst for the war in Iraq five (5!) times in his first answer. And he finished it with "...follow us home." To repeat an earlier assertion by the After Therapy Research Institute for Sen McCain's benefit: They already know where we live. And they can MapQuest it. We get it. You like killing people. Just start a little closer to home so we can review your choice of target first, OK?

4. Sam Brownback is probably defending himself against involuntary commitment proceedings today after suggesting that we partner with reliable "moderate" Muslim nations like Pakistan and Indonesia (that bastion of stability and moderation). Reminded by the moderator, Chris Matthews, that only 12% of the people in those nations like us or support our presence in Iraq, Brownback started picking at his hair and muttering, to no one in particular, "They're coming after us!!" We hope he was referring to Sens. Obama, Clinton and Edwards. Otherwise, we're concerned for 50% of our own Senate delegation.

5. In the Well, Why Didn't You Say So? Sweepstakes, Tommy Thompson takes the prize for saying he would have fired Donald Rumsfeld before the last election. We give him the No Guts, No Glory Award for cheap opportunism after the fact and would now like him to go sit in the corner and ponder what "a little late, asshole" means.

6. We were hoping former Gov. Jim Gilmore of Virginia would complete the sentence differently when he noted that Palestinians, Sunnis and Shiites don't support their own governmental regimes... (like US! See how much we have in common?). But alas, he failed to pick the low-hanging fruit and gets a rap on the knuckles from Sister Omniata of The Order Of Overly Obvious Opportunity.

7. While we found Congressman Ron Paul of Texas highly entertaining, very non-Republican, and very un-Texan, we would like him to follow his own articulated "policy of non-intervention" and apply it to the next debate. Nice to have met you. Now go home. Reminds us of the time we met a guy on the Internet and he showed up at the door a full-on dwarf. We had to fake being our non-existent roommate and explain that the booty-caller was called to the hospital to perform an emergency procedure. Nobody wants to commit to 4 years worth of lying like that. So nobody is voting for Ron Paul. Buh-bye. Although, if more Republicans were like you, we wouldn't need to keep a hammer by the bed at night in fear of them coming in to catch us in the un-biblical act of....sleeping, to be quite frank about it.

8. John McCain opened up and let us see his heart for the first time. It was black, as we suspected. Take this at face value: "My greatest fear is Iran creating a nuclear weapon and giving it to a terrorist organization." Our greatest fear is John McCain not taking medication as prescribed. This tidbit gave rise to the next copycat:

9. Rudy Giuliani said the "worst nightmare of the Cold War is Iran having a nuclear weapon." Note to Signore Giuliani: Maddon', da Cold War is ovah. Ovah! (smack!) Maybe youse should have a sit-down wit da shrink what McCain uses. Have a rigott' pie, relax a little, do some shots at Bada Bing and break out that history book you used to wedge the door shut while you were interviewing new wives under the old ones' noses.

10. Best Over-The-Top and Most Full-Of-Shit Line Of The Night: Sen. John McCain: "I'll follow Osama bin Laden to the Gates of Hell." We would like to contribute to that journey. Please tell us where to send the check. Oh.... Sen. McCain said later that he meant "if we had any idea where he was or if he was even alive." Bold move. Threaten to follow a possibly-dead guy of unknown whereabouts like a hound -- to Hell, if necessary. Major cajones.

We were so inspired, we have voted to follow Richard Nixon around and dog him to the very Gates of.... What? ...... He is? Oh. Nevermind.

Horror Show We Had To Watch: The GOP Debate

OR "90 Minutes We'd Like To Have Back"

Prequel

Ten unhappy white men will admit they are Republicans but would like to be President anyway during the first candidates debate, to be held tonight at the Ronald Reagan Library facing Reagan's airplane, which will be pointed at the candidates in a fittingly threatening manner.

Personally invited by Nancy Reagan, who was presumed dead, the ten will represent the full spectrum of the Elephant Party from frightening to disgusting to "Holy Shit He Said It Out Loud!"

Rudy Giuliani, who has a lucrative mob source of income that we won't discuss in detail because we like our knobby kneecaps, will moonlight as President if elected. Mitt Romney held a private lottery to select which of his wives would attend at his side. John McCain held a similar lottery to see which of his many personas would attend. Results of that contest will not be known until the end of the debate. Nobody at MSNBC could remember the other seven candidates "until they sign in tonight and put on their name tags".

After Therapy will provide gavel-to-gavel coverage of the lying assholes debate soon after its conclusion. Return here, not Fox News or CNN, if you like your coverage fair, balanced and willing to include the word "Bullshit!"

Aside from documenting their racist, classist, fascist, homophobic, war-mongering mantra that would make Rev. Fred Phelps blush, we will be tracking the speed at which they run from their President, George W. Bush, the number of times they tongue-kiss the Religious Right, and whether Cindy McCain appears to be on uppers, downers or a kicky party-mix.

Pat Buchanan, in a pre-debate interview, expressed his dismay at the field of candidates. He told Keith Olberman of MSNBC, "Fuck 'em all! If they don't say 'fag' at least twice, they don't deserve to call themselves a Republican." Buchanan was thought to be hosting a Book Burning Party on K Street in D.C. following the debates, where he will be joined by Phyllis Schlafly, Dr. James Dobson, and Freddie Krueger.

Post-Debate Analysis(in order of loathsome appearance)

Sen. Sam Brownback (Kansas - and we are not proud of that) - Somewhere to the right of Pat Buchanan. Came in a close second by frenching the Religious Right 19 times in 90 minutes. As a result, gets an invitation to join the winner and Jesus in a hot 3-way immediately following the debate. Mentioned "pro-life" five times, never ran from a Bush policy or opposed the war in any way.

Rep. Tom Tancredo (Colorado) - Answered every question with "goddamn illegal immigrants". Reminds us of the guy at Shady Acres Rest Home who rants about Adlai Stephenson to no one in particular as if he'd just had his jello stolen by him. Should go away by July.

Rep. Duncan Hunter (California) - Ran close to the middle of the Republican party, which puts him on the outer fringes of Xenophobia. Managed to suck up to pro-lifers, support the war (he came in 3rd with 4 explicit mentions), invoke Reagan, and also run away from G.W. Bush twice. Should go away by July.

Mike Huckabee (formerly obese Gov., Arkansas) - Was the last man eliminated from the 3-way with the Religious Right, just missing with a mere 6 french kisses their way. Without being a member of Congress or the Administration, managed to run away from the Bush presidency and its policies 5 times (also a 3rd place finish). Should go away by August and put on weight when Republicans lose next November.

Jim Gilmore (former Gov., Virginia) - Hewed close to the party line on practically everything - not that it matters. He has a snowball's chance in hell of being part of the conversation beyond this September.

Rep. Ron Paul (Republican claiming to be Libertarian, TX) - The only question we have about Paul, who has less chance of being nominated by Republicans than Rosie O'Donnell does, is "What On Earth Possessed You To Identify As A Republican?" This man is entirely too sensible to get elected in that party. He really is a Libertarian. We apologize for assuming he was lying, like the rest of the assholes in that party. He may still be an asshole, but he's a reasonable one with some very good ideas. He'll be a non-factor by last week.

Mitt Romney (former Gov. of Massachusetts) - This was fun. He won the Religious Right Lotto and will get his choice of Top or Bottom in the You, Me and Jesus 3-way. He stuck his tongue down the throat of the Religious Right a total of 22 times in 90 minutes. It might have been more. We blinked several times and probably missed another half dozen. We've never seen a Mormon begging Evangelicals for anything that fervently since the days when the latter were burning the former at the stake. He also came in 2nd in the Mention Reagan Contest with 3 explicit references comparing himself to The Very Dead Gipper.

Tommy Thompson (former Gov., Wisconsin & Sec. of HHS under G.W. Bush) - Gave us a full-on erection when he suggested splitting 1/3 of all oil revenues with every man, woman and child. Then he said "...in Iraq". We liked the idea of Tommy Thompson before tonight. We generally don't mind Wisconsin. We thought he was a fish out of water and perhaps a light in the darkness when appointed to the Bush cabinet. We were wrong. He didn't know how many were dead and wounded in Iraq. Wouldn't answer a direct question as to whether he believed in Global Warming. Looked like Huckleberry Hound at a funeral.

Sen. John McCain (Arizona) - Won the War Lotto by explicitly supporting it 9 times (once every 10 minutes). We are probably alone in thinking it sad that the lone P.O.W. in the race is so excited about war. We understand why Cindy takes pills. He managed to smile while uttering the phrase "...prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law." That's just creepy. We think he might be stealing Cindy's pills.

Rudy Giuliani (former mayor, New York City) - Scares us less than the rest of this gang - and mainly because we have seen him in drag and know that he stayed with a gay male couple during at least one of his divorces. Regrettably, when asked to distinguish between Sunnis and Shiites, he gave an answer in ancient Aramaic while crossing his eyes and spinning plates on a garden rake. To his credit, he kept a straight face. And despite the garbled syntax, got it right. (Look it up...you'll care as little as we do.)


Most encouraging is the fact that none of these characters seems to pose a serious threat to any of the Democratic candidates. We can see the light at the end of the Republican tunnel - which is, in fact, a giant rectum. None of them could resist the urge to name Hillary Clinton as Anti-Christ, Whore of Babylon, Wicked Witch Of The West, East, North, And South, and Bill's Wife (The One I Voted To Impeach).

Most interesting...they never said "Barack" or "Obama". We think they're scared. And well they should be. They all avoided uttering "homosexual" or "gay", as well. We assume they're scared of being associated with Ann Coulter or Jim McGreevey. Most tellingly, the name George W. Bush never came up. Like he'd never been born. Jeb Bush, George H.W. Bush, Kate Bush, Bushmen of the Kalahari, and Courtney Love's bush got more mentions than Our Only President. Something tells us they'd be petrified to appear with him in public between now and election day.

And well they should be.

Thou Shalt Not Eat

Last evening, we allowed the After Therapy mascot outdoors to pee while we had a cigarette. The Yorkie scampered off to his normal peeing area and we glanced in the opposite direction - part out of an over-wrought sense of modesty, but mostly to watch The Cop drive by.

In that blink of an eye, we turned back to see the dog scampering up the walk. Speaking in baby-talk to our 56 year-old Yorkie ("Good boooooy! You're such a good booooy! You wanna treeeeeat? Awwwwww!), we realized we had inadvertently bonded with a possum. Murphy jumped onto the steps 10 feet before the possum did and we both hid in the house and wondered if this was a reason to call 911. He was for it. I was ambivalent.

I spent the next hour on Vicodin (for a headache, not the possum...that's my story) staring out the front door for signs of possum infestation. I slept with dreams of being attacked by razor-toothed creatures hanging upside down from my ceiling fan. When I would awake to visit the john, I would turn on the all the lights and confirm there was no possum perched on my potty before entering the room. I made a mental note to research this in the morning and determine whether to move the Official Threat Level from green to orange.

I have been in rural America for three years now and remain varmint-averse. I own a riding lawn-mower so as not to put myself at easy-strike level of the slithering varieties on my modest expanse of property. It's also fun to chase them down and watch them fly out the mower's blow hole in pieces. I feel I've satisfied some biblical mandate to kill or be killed where snakes are concerned. Garter, rattler, copperhead or cobra....they're all the same to me. If it slithers, it dies. This year's score: John Deere 2, Varmints 0. If you're a PETA board member, save your paper. We are not changing the After Therapy policy where snakes are concerned.

As a teen in Suburbia, I was fulfilling my assigned chore of mowing the lawn when a snake slithered out from under the push-mower and crawled between my feet. I left the mower in place and returned to the kitchen table and had a sandwich, since Vicodin was not yet in the household formulary. Some minutes later, mother asked if the yard was finished. I replied that it was not.

She looked out the back door and asked if the mower was still running, wasting 70-cent per gallon gasoline. I answered that it was.

She asked if I was inclined to go out and finish the job. I was not. Would I be interested, at a minimum, in turning off the mower until such time as I was ready to finish the job? I was not.

Bewildered, she resorted to a tried-and-true Redneck Mom Parenting Method: Threaten to finish it yourself and shame your son by having mother finish his chores. This method has absolutely no effect on Stone Cold Cowards. I happily watched her finish mowing, knowing that I had escaped imminent death and could quite possibly be watching the start of my Trust Fund Years. She reported on the experience afterward: Sears Lawn Mower 1, Varmints 0. This was the beginning of my fixation on killing lethal critters with a lawn mower. I prefer to do it seated at a height from which I can safely view the execution, though.

This morning, we Googled and Googled hoping to find out whether the possum would have eaten our 14-pound Yorkie (he's big-boned, the vet confirmed it just yesterday). While we discovered that possums are omnivores (creatures who will eat anything; see "Star Jones"), we were riveted and repulsed at the scores of recipes for things you hit with the car.

Moose is greasy, cat tastes like chicken, possum smells bad unless you cage it and feed it corn for a week before you eat it, rabbits are effective processors of protein and thus a great munch, and road-kill in general is pretty good if, when you touch it (!) it's still warm on the side of the road. That last instruction caused us confusion, since we live in a climate where it stays at least 80-degrees from May until September. Never mind the notion of pulling the car over to place our hands on a possibly-dead animal.

For the benefit of all Americans, who live in a country where there is more than enough food, we thought it important to suggest Thou Shalt Not Eat Food With regnaR droF Imprinted On Its Side. If German Shepherd tastes like chicken...just eat chicken, for Chrissakes. If you would buy it in a pet store or run from it in the wild, don't bring it to the table in a berry sauce.

The After Therapy kitchen has explicit limits: Cow, Pig, and Chicken. Period. If we ever open the freezer and see feet or eyeballs, someone is moving out. (And closing the freezer door for us.) We appreciate that starving peoples in the jungles of various continents rely on such non-standard fare to survive and we are nothing if not pro-survival. However, for as long as there is a grocery store within a day's drive, we will not rob the starving peoples of the world of their end of the food chain.

Have your animal spayed or neutered. Unless it has no legs. Then run over it with the mower.

Friggin' Surreal

The former governor of New Jersey, Jim McGreevey, not satisfied to make our shared sexuality the centerpiece of a media circus, will now enter the country's oldest Episcopal seminary, located in New York.

After a week in which his estranged wife told Oprah that she a) didn't believe McGreevey was gay because she never saw him checking out guys AND b)kinda sorta figured he was screwing around AND c) her friends thought he was gay AND d) her sex with him was WAY hot... Well, we thought he'd take a breather from the public eye. Just to let his reputation cool off, if nothing else.

Publicity must get in your blood.

Divorce proceedings include wrangling over where their child will be allowed to eat a communion cracker: she is now the paragon of Catholicism, he a new-born Episcopal on his way to a possible priest gig. Episcopalians are to Catholics what Off-Broadway is to The Great White Way. A Catholic wouldn't take communion from a Baptist preacher on the precipice of Hell if Jesus himself offered a written promise of eternal bliss. An Episcopalian, on the other hand, would consider a bagel during Drag Brunch in the Castro to be good enough to do the trick. There's something to be said for relaxing a little.

As a gay man, I object to McGreevey giving a daily dose of ammunition to the people who think we're just genetically odd. Someone should also clue in his soon-to-be-ex-wife #2 that when you whore yourself out to be First Lady, you have scant room to bitch when the gig goes south. It's not like she had white picket fences in her eyes going in. Now she's a nobody with a tape of herself on Oprah. Good on her. But everyone will remember her as the chick who got dumped for another man and lost her Trophy Wife job in the bargain. Tell me she didn't make a deal with the Devil to trade her common sense for prominence.

If Jim McGreevey would like to continue his status as Big Gay Headline, we would suggest that he spend some time figuring out what it means to be a gay man. Perhaps if he had some big gay substance to underpin his interview schedule, his constant assault on the public consciousness wouldn't be quite so embarrassing for all involved. Take a week in the Castro, have a few breakups, buy a Playgirl at 7-11 from a man with tattoos, get too drunk at a leather bar and wake up hogtied with an amazing collection of clothespins. Or just shut up for a year and live your big gay life.

Contrary to urban myth, we don't have a manual or an agenda. But if we did, page one would include the admonition: No Seminaries or Interviews in the First Year.

For every Ellen and Melissa, Ian McKellen and Doogie, we get a McGreevey, Anne Heche, Bobby Trendy and Boy George. Because the negative has twice the impact as the positive, that makes it One Step Forward, Two Steps Back. It's becoming harder to get excited over the famous folks dancing out of the closet.

Maybe next time we should be more specific in how we pray.