After Therapy

So I Get A Little Bored....

2011-03-17T13:23:00.003-06:00

Thanks to my Hell's Kitchen agent, I'm perpetually reminded that I haven't written a thing in two years. To review what we've missed together:

Go, Hillary, Go!
Sarah who?
She can't be that stupid. It's an act.
Congratulations, Mr. President!

There. Now we're caught up. It's a different world today than the bygone era of 2009 when last I wrote. Republicans are no longer people of good will with bad ideas. Now they're plain evil with bad ideas. Democrats are developing a spine at the same rate as the slower evolving species. This could get tedious.

We are still amazed at the willingness of the masses to advocate against their own best interests in the name of loyalty to a cause. That's noble when the sacrifice is for a greater good. It's just plain stupid when the sacrifice is for the greater profit of some folks who will never invite you to dinner. Are you listening, Wisconsin?

Japan is melting down. It was inevitable, I suppose. They're the only island in the world not considered a hot vacation spot. If you had to nuke one - even accidentally - this is probably the one you'd choose. We feel for the Japanese people, but perhaps next time they'll invest more heavily in beaches of the nude variety and rely less on dicey technology that has no solution if something should go terribly awry. (See: earthquake, BP, or John Kasich.)

House Republicans are reveling in their opportunity to re-christen the U.S. a theocracy. It's sad watching people in the dying throes of a losing effort. We do admit, though, that gay sex was this much hotter when sodomy was illegal. So we watch with a smidgen of ambivalence as they tilt at windmills.

Either a rhinovirus or Ebola has invaded our home in the last 24 hours, so we leave you with best wishes for your basketball bracket (we took Kansas to win it all) and an encouragement to send $10 to the effort to recall the Republican assholes who dismantled collective bargaining for most public employees in Wisconsin. You can donate here: https://wisdems.zissousecure.com/contribute/RecallRepublican8” .

More later...

Apparently She DID Cut It Off

2009-01-15T12:37:00.003-06:00

Go back in time with us to a darker time in American History - the time when the name "Wendy Vitter" entered the national lexicon.

It was post-Lewinsky when Madame Vitter pronounced that if HER husband were ever found to have dallied outside her wide open legs and mouth, she would "cut his dick off". (Actually, she said, "I'm a lot more like Lorena Bobbitt than Hillary Clinton." Same thing.) It's only Christian, after all.

It was only a few years later when Mrs. Vitter got the karmic "Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is" moment that we all knew would come: Her husband, Sen. David Vitter (R-of course) of Louisiana, admitted to a series of prostitutional encounters - including S&M and diapers. (We don't judge. We simply repeat.)

Mrs. First Lady Senator Secretary Of State Designee, Hillary Clinton, never dignified the wide-mouthed Mrs. Vitter's condescension with a response. She simply stayed with her husband, endured what life threw at her, and proceeded to become more rich, more powerful and more loved than Wendy Vitter. Plus, she never had to explain a photo like this:

God does look out for the put-upon, we think.

Come to today, when Mrs. First Lady Senator Secretary Of State-Designee Hillary Clinton's confirmation was voted on by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on which the presumably dick-less Sen. Vitter sits (gingerly, we're sure). How many votes against confirming Mrs. First Lady Senator Secretary Of State-Designee Hillary Clinton?

One. Guess who.

Looks like that whole sad Louisiana family has a problem. But like Martha Washington said at the first presidential inaugural ball, "Not getting caught at a press conference in a leopard print dress from Hookers 'R Us while your husband is explaining his hooker problem... is the best revenge."

Far be it from us to gloat.

Bitch.

For Those Who Would

2008-11-12T14:34:00.005-06:00

Today brings the news that Connecticut will wed our kind. We don't know that they're given to outbursts of any kind in Connecticut. Our general impression has been that Connecticut is where New Yorkers go to avoid outbursts. But there will be many private, subdued expressions of mitigated, muted joy among Connecticutians who can finally and fatally bind themselves to someone else through better, through health, through richer, to have and to hold until wandering eye they do part. Good on them.

It's a minor salve to a major wound inflicted in California, Arizona and Florida. But if we're honest, from the confines of the good chair, it doesn't directly affect us anymore than Charmin's appearance on Russian market shelves did. We are not, as they say, "husband material". We are to marriage what those infuriating lookie-loos are to Bergdorf Goodman. We look like we might take something home, but we generally don't.

Not for lack of trying. In fact, it's the trying that has proved so trying that we no longer Bergdorf for a Good Man. We J.C. Penney for the low-hanging, quickly-passing fruit. We eat the part we want and throw the peel away - once a year or so. Our relationship disasters are Item #1 on Things That Make Us Laugh in that old gang of mine. The tragi-comic serial failures of our attempts at lasting union are the stuff of bad novels.

There's the one who wasn't really that gay.
The one who already had a keeper, though this was kept a secret.
The one who punched when he got drunk.
The one who kissed us goodbye - for good - in a hospital.
The one who admitted that he'd only been on a virgin hunt. Mission accomplished. And goodbye.

So we have no dog in the Gay marriage hunt - regardless of the state. It's a little like being banned from NASCAR races. We hope to never attend one. But it would piss us off to be told we couldn't. So we sympathize with those who really, really want to tie the(mselves in a) knot. And on some level we're a little jealous of those who have a partner at the precipice of wedded bliss(ful ignorance). We don't. We most likely would. But we don't.

So we cheer and cry for those who can and those who can't. Mostly, though, we cast our lot with the other bunch...

The ones who would.

Death Becomes Her: 2012 in Preview

2008-11-11T12:36:00.007-06:00

This is After Therapy's first-ever political endorsement and letter to Santa Claus all in one: We would like to see Sarah Palin run for President as a Republican in 2012. There, we said it.

Since we have dedicated ourselves to the death of conservatism as practiced by Ronald Reagan and his ideological heirs, we can think of no one more capable of driving a wooden stake through the heart of the party than Governor Of A State With Less People Than Memphis, Sarah Palin.

We want the Republicans to run someone who has to defend whether or not she knows a country from a continent. We're jazzed about running against someone who spends weeks talking about who did or didn't want the fancy clothes. Bottom line: We didn't think they could do any worse than George W. Bush. And we were wrong. That well is deeper than we'd imagined.

Yes, we think Todd Palin is hotter than asphalt in a Tulsa summer, but that's in the second tier of reasons we support Gov. Palin for the Last Candidate Ever Nominated By The Republican Party. Mostly, we think that lengthy political campaigns should give us something to laugh at. And she fits the bill to a "T". What's better... A wide swath of conservatives thinks she's capable of being Leader of the Free World. We love it when movements implode under the weight of their own stupidity. This is like Christmas and losing your virginity all in one.

We also want to go on record as saying that while we think he won't - because he's greedy and unprincipled under that shiny, principled, I-Don't-Campaign-On-The-Sabbath veneer - Joe Lieberman should leave the Democratic caucus of his own accord and wallow in the oblivion he's earned. His last months in the Senate should be among his friends, not among the powerful Democratic majority on which he turned his back twice: When he said he wouldn't run if he lost in the primary and when he inexplicably campaigned against Barack Obama. The message to Lieberman: Keep facing that direction and remember all the good times on the Homeland Security Committee.

We are given to gloat around here. And we are given to grudges. Sarah, meet Joe. Joe... Sarah.

God, this is going to be fun.

This is Going To Get Ugly

2008-11-07T11:16:00.004-06:00

Because we're Liberals and the only way we know to celebrate success is to eat our young, we will doubtless seize this opportunity to start a long, public battle royale among the Identity Factions. Black and Latino voters who voted by wide margins to nullify the marriages of 18,000 Californians have thrown down the gauntlet at Gay voters who voted by wider margins to elect the first African-American president.

Not that anyone's counting.

Don't think for a moment that this will be a flash-in-the-pan dust-up. This is the stuff of movements. While a majority of white voters supported Gay marriage - and Barack Obama - the Black community, especially, used the same rationale as its old white oppressors (Religion) to kick the Gay community in the balls.

If we know Gay folks like we think we know Gay folks, this ain't over.

There will be lots of calls to make nice and enjoy the Obama delirium. For a minute. But then we're going to need a long conversation about who's supporting whom...

And why not?

Joy Comes In The Morning

2008-11-07T09:10:00.007-06:00

We got a little exorcised this morning over our Co' Cola and Pringles while reading the morning (Kansas City Star) paper. It was at the end of our morning routine - Sports, Front Page, Editorials - that we saw this bottom-of-the-page and bottom-of-the-barrel cartoon inside our own home.

Bein' as we're not morning people and our sinuses go haywire this time of year, we sat down and had us a one-sided chat via e-mail with the Vice-President, Editorial Page of The Kansas City Star, one Ms. Miriam Pepper (mpepper@kcstar.com). We then copied our mild thoughts to every single member of the editorial staff. No need for you to be left in the dark...

Miriam,

This is not for publication, it is simply a personal note.

I want to commend you and your staff for the enjoyable read pertaining to so many of today's issues. I was riveted by the feelings for/against/ and ambivalent toward President-Elect Obama. I was, as usual, amused by the incisive wit of Lee Judge's Funkhouser/Squitiro send-up. Then I saw the Steve Breen cartoon that you made the decision to include: "Fuzzy Math".

You made a bigoted, mean-spirited, factually incorrect statement in your Opinion section. As a native here, I understand when street people do it. I don't understand why you made it. Has some gay or lesbian person harmed you in your life to such an extent that you would posit all gay relationships to be factually incorrect? The graphic points out incorrect sums of two numbers. We are to believe that YOU believe that two people of the same gender in a marriage is an incorrect outcome.

I am above taking the bait to comment on your marriage, of which I know nothing. It would speak well of your education and position if you did the same. The logical conclusion from the graphic YOU chose to run is that marriage consists solely of chromosomal variety. You know better than that. Whether you threw a bone to your ignorant subscribers or just needed to throw a haymaker at the last acceptable target for ridicule and diminution, you hit your mark.

You're likely not talented enough to create your own graphic, but as Editor of this section, you may as well have created this one. We get that you don't embrace us. We get that you think our relationships are fodder for mockery and contempt. We get that you experience some internal, reflexive revulsion at the notion of us. You're entitled to all that. And we don't need your embrace, approval or support.

But if I'm going to get your thumb in my eye every time you bubble over in your hatred and use someone else to yell, "YOU'RE AN INCORRECT, ABSURD BEING!", then I will consign you and your paper to the collection of influences not permitted in my home. If you're going to suggest to my family and I that we are absurd enough to be on a par with 1 + 1 = 7, then I'm going to be bold enough to say,

Fuck you and your newspaper. Who needs either of you?

Rough language? That's what we thought when we read, "Fuzzy Math". Welcome to the club.

--The After Therapy Gang

Things We Need To Discuss

2008-11-05T16:16:00.003-06:00

Exit polls for The Associated Press found that Proposition 8 (California's constitutional revision banning gay marriage) received critical support from black voters who flocked to the polls to support Barack Obama for president.

Nice.

We Couldn't Help It...

2008-11-05T15:00:00.002-06:00

In one last jab at Democrats, Sarah Palin empties the underbelly of her campaign plane.... all over Michelle Obama, apparently. We get the whole Dress Matches Kids motif. Now don't do that anymore.

The very fabulous Mrs. Obama may be the only person on the planet who could halt dress designer Narciso Rodriguez's career with ten minutes of stage time. We prefer the Michelle who admits to ordering dresses online.

One For The Others

2008-11-05T09:18:00.006-06:00

Dear Y'all,

You've run everything but the NAACP, GLAAD, and several reservations in the Midwest since your great-greats stepped off the right kind of boat in the 15th Century. You'd do well to show a little humility in the weeks and months to come while we indulge our urge to gloat a little and to thank your Jesus that one of us made it.

No, we at After Therapy are not African-American, but we are equally Other. We stand on the outside of society and look in at folks who have things we aren't allowed to touch and that we should refrain from wanting. We sit outside hospital rooms while our partner's family makes decisions as though we hadn't shared twenty-some years with the man in the bed. We tend to weddings - hair, makeup, flowers, gowns, music, cakes, catering, decorating and planning - like the house niggers of old who worked in houses they could never own. We know that every day on the job could be our last because of who we love - or who we'd like to love. And in a majority of our nation, there is no legal recourse for it.

We can be laughingly denied an apartment, a job, public accommodations and simple dignity because our nature defies the norm. And our only recourse is to pack a briefcase full of cover stories. As the First Lady-To-Be said during primary season, "People who love you tell you... wait..."And we got it. Because we've been lovingly urged to wait on things that most folks are born into.

Barack Obama's election is one for the Others and those tired of waiting. History will report whether our brand of Other was bettered by his service. But we understand this moment intuitively. Like we understood Judy Garland, Harvey Milk and Cher. It's a DNA thing.

It will be a moment for the memory book when, in January, we can look through the White House windows and see an Other looking back with that million-watt smile. "Wait" gives way to "Next!".

Get This Woman Some Choos

2008-10-23T12:29:00.005-05:00

Joe Six-Pack, meet Sarah Six-Figures. Comes of late the word that the RNC (Really Nice Clothes) has spent north of $150,000 on nice duds for their VP (Very Pretty) Candidate, Sarah Palin. We say, "Well done!" But why stop there?

We noticed Cindy McCain trying to fight her way through a Botoxed facial coma to raise an eyebrow at the expenditures. "$150,000? Didn't they get her any shoes?" she seemed to ask. We applaud the bald revealing of conservative family values: Mother of 5? Spend $150,000 on your power suits while sneering at middle-class tax cuts as "socialism". Somewhere, Imelda Marcos is smiling. And buying shoes.

We are pleased that the RNC is investing in lipstick for their pig of a campaign as opposed to spending money running ads for embattled candidates like Michele Bachmann (MN), notoriously anti-gay Marilyn Musgrave (CO) and Norm Coleman, who, it appears, will lose to Al Franken/Stuart Smalley (also of MN) - a political death of biblical proportions. The quandary at NBC is who will play Franken while Franken plays Senator.

We encourage the RNC to continue the expenditures by upping the fashion ante. We highly recommend Hugo Boss, Chanel, Gucci, Prada and Vera Wang all be beneficiaries of this Republican stimulus package.

After all, in 2006, the joint income of the parents-of-four only reached $128,000 - not beating the RNC VP wardrobe budget until 2007 thanks to her governor's salary ($166,000). We believe that if you ask any family of 7 what would benefit them most, all but the Anti-Americans would say "Buy mama $150,000 in new clothes!"

It would have been cheaper to put her in a t-shirt that reads "Let Them Eat Cake".

Divide And Conk Her

2008-10-21T13:46:00.003-05:00

(First, the obligatory mea culpa: I haven't blogged this year because, well, I was bored with it. And I rediscovered my (volunteer) theatre career. Two shows behind me and one ahead of me leaves me in a window of opportunity to finally comment via blog on current events. Thank you to both readers for prompting me to pay more attention to this medium. Now the good stuff...)

We are blogging this afternoon from an undisclosed location to protect ourselves from Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), a Real Pro-America American who has called out the dogs on the rest of us. And yes, Mr. Limbaugh, this is all about race. As a white man, we are particularly embarrassed and incensed by the actions of white folks on the deteriorating right wing of society. So grab an Oxycontin and prepare to be - as we say in gay lingo - re-butted.

Bachmann, the temporary freshman Congresswoman from Minnesota's 6th District, told MSNBC's Chris Matthews that an investigation of Congress would be welcomed by the American people to separate the Pro-Americans and Anti-Americans. We couldn't agree more. We're even willing to dust off our law degree to assist.

We'd like to separate out the Anti-Americans in Congress who believe it's good practice and policy to divide people based on race, religion, gender, political leanings and sexual orientation. We'd like to weed out the Anti-Americans in the media who think it's acceptable to spew racist nonsense at people whose worst mistakes have been to shill for the Bush Administration (no small mistakes, those). And we'd like to cull out the Anti-Americans who can smile pretty and call fellow Americans "Anti-American".

As we paraphrase in Chickopee, "There ain't but two kinds of people in the world: Them what thinks there's only two kinds of people and them what don't." Until the McCarthy/Palin ticket recognizes this simple wisdom and adjusts its actions accordingly, we in Chickopee will be bunkered under where the Amoco station used to be. Unless you're from here, you won't know where to find us. We have a radio, though. We'll be doing Anti-American things like praying that America will elect its first African-American President and, in a single, profound moment, do much to heal history's racial wound. We'll be donating to El Tinklenberg, running against Michele Bachmann. And we'll be pondering just how much Joe Lieberman got in exchange for his soul.

And we'll be reconciling our own visceral inclinations with what we know of Bill Ayers. We know it's probably wrong, but we're beginning to understand the atmosphere in which the Weather Underground operated. Four decades later, in a time dominated by Anti-American divisions among racial, class and gender boundaries, we are beginning to understand the urge to blow shit to pieces. In a hopefully temporary time when help for the hurting is "socialism", endorsing someone who shares your race is "racism", and disagreeing with the lunatic right is Anti-American, we choose to identify as Anti-American and do not wish to be mistaken for one of those who capitulate to the politics of divide and conquer.

We may again be Real Americans on November 5.

Dearest Elfie...

2007-12-17T13:32:00.000-06:00

Less than a few hours into my new gig at After Therapy, I get this bullshit in my inbox:

In my worldwide search for the perfect husband, I have come up empty. Please help!
Signed,
Hopeless romantic

Dear Hopeless in Hell's Kitchen,

Let Elfie break it down for you - old school. First of all, if you got enough scratch to be going around the world looking for dick, Elfie has some news for you: You are already better off than the rest of us. We've been going around town looking for a 4" grinder attachment to some Craftsman tool that our father-in-law "needs" for Christmas. At $2.69 a gallon, this is already not worth the effort. But "WORLDWIDE"? Child, you are committed if nothing else.

And apparently richer than a whore with two vaginae. Kwitcherbitchin'.

Second, you're looking for the "perfect husband"? Girl, please. The perfect husband is what we call a "late" husband who had a healthy estate and left it all to us. You do not need to search the world over for that kind of husband. You just have to be nice to old men. And by "nice" we mean "putting out". If you don't have scarring mental images of the things you've done for a spot in the Last Will and Testament, you're not really working very hard at it. Put elsewise, as our editor would say, if you're looking for a LIVING perfect husband, you are looking amiss.

Come up empty? EMPTY? You went around the world and consider that you came up empty? Honey, if Elfie can get a man to lick her around the world, she feels fulfilled. You need to lower your standards. A man of your means needs to stay a little closer to home, shop at a different store, and learn to be happy with what life sends your way. If all that money is bringin' you down, you can send it to Elfie c/o After Therapy, Inc. I have sent you the full address in a private e-mail.

Best of luck on your worldwide travels, but while you're in Rome next time, try spending less time man-hunting and more time shopping. You may have found some imperfect men, but there is no such thing as the imperfect cashmere sweater.

We simply need to recognize perfection where we find it.

Air Kisses,

Elfie

Taking A Partner

2007-12-17T10:03:00.001-06:00

We've toiled alone for lo these many years at After Therapy and finally admit that we are too damned lazy to do it alone anymore. So we're branching out. Hell, even Arianna Huffington can't man her own post full time.

We introduce you to our newest (and only) contributor, Elphabah Hermberg. She initially thought it would be cute to go by "'Bah Hermberg", but we nixed that on account of our respect for Christmas and our office's location in the Bible Belt. You piss these people off and they shoot you in your kitchen or blow up your ~~clinic~~ office.

We'll keep it simple: "Dearest Elfie..." Think of her as Dear Abby without the class. Ann Landers with a more pronounced lisp. Heloise - only not nearly as helpful. She's a social expert, of sorts. She'll take your societal dilemmas and spin them into bytes of advice that you could never repeat to your mother.

We'll add a picture of her as soon as we can convince her that eyeliner is not of the devil and that a little foundation covers a multitude of sins.

Until then... Watch this space for her occasional contributions.

Elfie can be contacted at DearestElfie@aol.com

Soviet Bitch

2007-12-17T09:01:00.001-06:00

Received a rambling email - complete with photography - from the Hell's Kitchen Agent just the other night. It was a picture of him with a low-level employee of some magazine or another - complete with empty implied promises of shilling my promising work to another publication. Good thing I have his ass on commission or I'd be broke from paying for all the empty promises.

I now truly believe he goes to these things solely for the booze and toast points.

The email concluded with the threat of a drunk dial before 10 p.m. I hastened to the answering machine to turn it off and instead recorded this:

"This machine has been installed with an alcohol detection device. You are over the legal limit. Please call back after a cup of coffee."

True to his threat, the phone rang minutes later and the message sounded like Portuguese, which sounds like Spanish with marbles in your mouth - only mixed with copious amounts of very dry martinis. The only part I thought I picked up was the name-calling. I could swear he'd called me a "Soviet Bitch". I replayed it twice because I have one very bad ear and thought it must surely have been "Sonofabitch". But I clearly heard an extra "t".

It was "Soviet Bitch". I couldn't fathom such a thing. Did this make me the kind of bitch who would stand in line for toilet paper? I admit that in a crisis I could do such a thing. Or did it make me the kind of bitch who would crush small Balkan states in the interest of world domination? That, too, sounded in character for me. I concluded that some truth does, in fact, come through the haze of alcohol and horrendous taste in men. I am a Soviet Bitch.

I rushed down to the t-shirt shop to have one made in my new size. I bought a custom bumper sticker and had 2 dozen generic Christmas balls stamped "Soviet Bitch" for the tree. Who needs a New Year's resolution when you have a new name? And one NOBODY else can claim at that!!

So from our bitchy Soviet house to yours.... Happy Holidays and power to the proletariat.

These Things Never Happen To Us

2007-12-13T12:56:00.000-06:00

"Nude New Zealander Arrested After Responding to Fake Sexy Text Message" - This is a real headline. Seems two broads duped an anxious chap into disrobing and showing up for a romp - at the wrong address. All were charged, none were prosecuted. We resist the urge to cite "lack of evidence" against the gentleman.

We also note that in 43 years of opening doors - never once has there been a naked man there.

"I'm making up this song, it was a dream I had, What do you think:

'I hope you're happy. I hope you're happy now.

I hope you're happy how you hurt your cause forever.

I hope you think you're clever. I hope YOU'RE happy.

I hope you're happy too.

I hope you're proud how you would grovel in submission, to feed your own ambition.

Somehow I can't imagine how.

I hope you're happy right now. ... '"

We think somebody's not happy! We also think this is how you know that your Hell's Kitchen Agent/Architect/Elder Chaser/Songwriter has run out of vodka and Aqua Velva. Calling Kitty Dukakis!

"In Germany, the last ornament that is put on the tree is a glass pickle, which is hidden in the branches. On Christmas morning, the first child who finds the pickle ornament receives an extra present."

Funny. We never got to play Hide The Pickle at our house on any of the good holidays. Leave it to the Nazis to think of the fun stuff.

Eenie Meenie Miney Mo

2007-12-13T08:22:00.001-06:00

Yes, I realize that rhyme will get you kicked off a Southwest flight. But you know full well I'm not talkin' about black folks. Well, not exclusively....

I was a -ponderin' today about who I'd vote for if I were to go a-caucasin' with the folks in Iowa, where once I lived. The last time, I happily moved to the corner of the high school classroom in Council Bluffs that indicated my preference for Clinton - the male version. Since I'm a hair talkative, I also got elected by my little room to go to the State Democratic Convention and cast my vote for the man. They confirmed me in the auditorium later that day after I'd excoriated a Democratic State Representative over lunch for voting against gay rights to save her ample ass in the upcoming election.

Back to the future.... I admit to being in a quandary still. I pledged my undying love to John Edwards 4 years ago. He touched my hand. With his sweaty hand. I almost fainted. He has amazingly attractive secret service people - right out of the International Male Catalogue. He just isn't turning my head this time, though. Maybe it's his insistence on heterosexuality or my short attention span.

Hillary has always seemed like the Good Democratic Thing To Do. I also believe she could singlehandedly castrate any Republican she wanted. And by singlehandedly, I mean with one hand. By castrate, I mean cut their balls off. Then again, Barack Obama has never said anything to make me doubt that he'd be a perfectly delightful man to turn the White House a little more beige. I have a feeling Mama Obama could have some throw-down state dinners, too. I know she's a refined, educated woman, but wouldn't it be wonderful to have a first-lady capable of pulling "Oh no you di-in't" out of her repertoire when Ahmadinejad utters one of his unspeakables?

The only candidate who has promised to "let" me get married is Dennis Kucinich, who is, ironically, the only candidate I wouldn't invite to my wedding. (Vegetarians: Don't get me started. They fart like a cow with colitis.)

So to all my Iowa friends - both of you. I say, "Vote your conscience. And remember - nobody will remember what you did after South Carolina, so don't take it too seriously."

(Next time: Why the "H" in Jesus H. Christ just may stand for Huckabee.)

Love your hair, hope you win....

First Snow!

2007-12-06T10:03:00.000-06:00

Ahhhh.... The little house on the prairie has its first snow of the season today. Those of us who practice denial like a religion appreciate the symbolism most. Covering over the things you don't like until the heat comes in and reveals your crap is a beautiful respite from reality.

And speaking of reality....

Our Hell's Kitchen Agent reports that in a haze of vodka and house music, he fell in love with a much younger version of himself. Our agent is in his late-mid-40's. That's gay-speak for damn-near 50. Upon further investigation, the much younger man was revealed to be in his mid-50's. Yours truly has teeth marks in his tongue from not noting the obvious: When the nearly-60 crowd starts to look like chicken....

The little dancing boy who is knocking on Social Security's door is also a Buddhist. Nee Rosenberg. That's right. Our Buddhist is a Jewddhist. Not that there's anything wrong with that. In fact, we're a little giddy at the prospect that our chicken-chasing agent has fallen head over gefiltefish for an aged Hebrew with a penchant for chanting to fat guys. During Channukah. Tell me that won't get you through a cold winter's worth of writing.

We went on a pseudo-date with an old friend (though, to be clear, not as old as our agent's date - by a decade-plus). We saw the Kansas City Plaza Lights display and ate at what we believed to be George Brett's restaurant. It said "George Brett" on the outside. The walls were display cases with his baseball memorabilia from the 70's and 80's. The staff wore shirts that said "George Brett". The menu said "Brett's". The featured beer stuck in the salt and pepper caddy said "George's Ale". Our waitress took our drink order and I asked - in my star-struck way - "Is Mr. Brett in the building?" She curled her 19 year-old lip into a sneer and snarled "He's no longer involved with the restaurant. It's called '210' now."

"Somebody should tell your shirt," my pseudo-date said. This is a man I could love. We've been wondering around the office if it's telling that he's called twice since Saturday night. Once was today to inform me that it's snowing in my yard - 70 miles from his yard. Never having fallen for a nice guy, we wonder if this is how such things go.

Time will tell if it's a happy accident.

Or a simple snow-job.

You're So Far Away...

2007-11-20T10:34:00.000-06:00

Doesn't anybody stay in one place anymore? OY! After 3 months of bacterial assault (most of which is not fit for printing - but we're gonna...), we have returned to the little black keys to resume our on-again, off-again documentary exhibitionism to the delight of literally dozens.

Au moment, we seem to have pneumonia. C'est vrai, PNEUMONIA! Trouble breathing? Nope. Odd-colored sputum? Nope. Raspy chest sounds? Nope.

In fact, today is day 101 of Not Smoking! (Not even a cheater puff here or there.)

Some weeks ago, we were carted off to the Nephrologist (read: Kidney Doctor) for a battery of procedures. This included storing our urine in the refrigerator next to the milk for 24 hours. One morning, we awoke to see a note taped to the outside of the fridge:

"Dear Editor,

The new neighbors are pure filth.

I think they peed on something.

Evict them or I'm outta here.

Respectfully,

Milk"

It is a fact of the universe that if you must collect urine to be stored near your food, your urine will instantly become 12 times more pungent than usual. We had a Doppler Scan and discovered we have no approaching thunder storms in our midsection. We had a Sonogram and discovered that we are not with-child. And we provided a urine "chaser" at the doc's office for a culture.

In the end, all came back normal except for the culture which showed we had been invaded by an insidious organism called "Blahdiblahdiblah PNEUMONIAE". Google ran right out and got us a definition with which we could work and - sure enough - we had the big P. Curiously enough, we did not have the lung version of pneumonia. We had a urinary tract pneumonia.

Which explains why we haven't been breathing very well through the penis.

The months away from you, my lovelings, have been due to all manner of upheaval and an artistic recharging of the batteries. The Editor-in-Chief accidentally deleted the entire blog in a fit of Klonopin, Vicodin and ~~marijuana~~ Dr. Pepper. Now, it has miraculously reappeared in all its maudlin, lower-level glory.

As our penis recovers from its breathing problems, we commit to posting as often as the spirit moves us. You should know that the down-time allowed for a complete remodel of the loo at our headquarters and the installation of some nouvelle lighting in the kitchen, as well.

We also took a little time off to nurture a teen-age crush on a man young enough to be our.... neighbor. (See above photo) The music may be a little hard on our nerves, but the young man is perfectly edible: Pierre Bouvier of the kiddy band "Simple Plan". It's a fixation of inappropriate intensity. But there you go.

Until next time, porkie pies!

And Now For Something Completely Different...

2007-07-23T22:51:00.000-05:00

Drew Carey will be the new host of the Price Is Right. We're fairly certain that this was precisely the career move Carey had in mind when he filmed the documentary "Fuck" recently. Coupled with his astonishingly crude turn in the documentary "The Aristocrats", which celebrates a joke laden with sodomy, incest, and every illegal sex act imaginable, Carey must have been atop the list of Bob Barker replacements.

We are currently interviewing flies on the wall of the ladies' dressing rooms at The Price Is Right to see if Barker's Beauties are contemplating becoming Carey's Coozes. Our guess is that they're drawing up lawsuits and restraining orders for sexual harassment to save time later on. Carey is well known for his cavorting in public with hookers, exotic dancers and women of extraordinary disrepute. Our friend in Chicago who ran the restaurant across from Oprah's studio recounts several descents into debauchery by Mr. Carey and his cabal of well-paid groupies. Chalk one up for fat guys with glasses.

We wonder how long Mr. Carey's ironic jabs at the common man will play on the beloved game show before the core audience realizes that they're the butt of a running joke. Replacing Barker's daily appeal for spaying and neutering house pets will likely be an appeal by the Beauties to have Carey undergo similar alteration. CBS turned up its nose at a number of has-beens, will-be's, and might-have-beens to select Carey as the face of the venerable home of Plinko and other pricing games. Drew Carey and the price of Rice-a-Roni just don't seem like a match made in Studio City heaven. Time will tell.

Can Carey continue delivering dick jokes and hooker riffs at comedy clubs while filming The Price Is Right? Can he stay out of the bar with his entourage of women who disrobe for a living? We think probably not. Neither do we believe that Carey can re-create the rapport Barker has with the critical 60-plus demographic for the show. His teen-age boy sense of humor coupled with his Gentlemen's Club values seem antithetical to the show Barker raised to the heights of TV history.

Where Barker fended off sexual impropriety claims by virtue of his charm, age, and public perception, Carey seems unlikely to survive similar circumstances - or avoid them. Take away his adult vocabulary and Drew is just a nerdy guy with glasses and a few good lines which should wear thin over five shows a week. An over-the-hill star would have been a far better fit for the over-the-hill show that appeals to over-the-hill viewers who really, really know how much a Lane recliner costs and whether toothpaste costs more than shampoo. It would have been a fitting farewell for George Hamilton, a permanent pre-retirement gig for Donny Osmond, and a decent rehab-gig for Rosie O'Donnell.

Instead, we'll watch the snarky, condescending and not-just-a-little lecherous Carey try to fill Barker's shoes with something other than Gin. We predict this experiment has two seasons before everyone tries to save face - and the venerable show.

Vegas Blue is a fitting hair color for the Price Is Right constituency. It's not a fitting comedy style. Chalk this up to another CBS disaster.

Once More...With A Twist

2007-07-23T11:30:00.000-05:00

Tammy Faye made it back to church one last time at the end. She may have been only as much ash as 65 pounds of woman can make, but true to form, she handled the accessories as only she could.

At Tammy Faye's request, the service was conducted by the pastor of a gay church in Arkansas (one we are now committed to finding). Pastor Randy McCain, of Open Door Church in Sherwood, Arkansas did the honors. It seems that the original religious programmer didn't miss one last chance to produce a show with a message. "My friend, Randy McCain", she said in her final instructions concerning her burial. We wonder if the public memorial will be produced with an eye to the masses who would shrink from such an overt embrace of gay Christians. If so, we expect Tammy will be spinning in her urn somewhere.

It's said the smallest acts of kindness are the ones that change the world - if not on a grand scale, then for someone. As a gay person, it is humbling that Tammy Faye thought about me in some abstract way as she choreographed her final moments on life's stage. It's a gesture like this that can end up being a defining moment in a culture shift. It's not up there with the Freedom Riders or the Stonewall Riots or the Garbage Worker Strikes, but it's of note. And we thank Tammy's children for staying true to their mama's wishes. They didn't have to do that.

We've long maintained that if circumstances alter your theology, you probably need a new theology. Tammy Faye confirmed for us that there is a right and wrong way to embrace religious faith. The wrong use of it was as a bludgeon, she demonstrated. The right way was as a self-directing force that didn't waiver as the road became rocky - or perilous - or clearly ending in cruel demise. "God on the mountain...God in the valley", an old song says. All in or all out. Go big or go home.

They could have scrubbed Mama's legacy clean by picking any one of dozens of big-name, mainstream preachers to honor the original Queen of Christian TV. Tammy, herself, could have phoned in a final interview that was only hours before her death, given her appearance and physical pain. It seems she passed on some values of integrity, compassion, and steadfastness to her kids who have reason to hold their heads high when the mourning is over.

We note for contrast that the Very Dead Rev. Falwell was associated even at his funeral with the demonizing of Gay and Lesbian people - and anyone who disagreed with his theopolitical posture. Grace is something you just can't teach, we conclude. You've either received it and have it to give. Or you don't.

We're a little less without the laughing that she inspired. We're a little heavier without the optimism that she took with her. And we wonder if we'll have another prominent Christian who will hug HIV-positive people at Gay Bingo Night any time soon. Regardless, we look forward to shaking her tiny hand at the big Y'all Come in the sky someday.

Just to say, "Thanks!", if nothing else.

Getting Ahead Of The Story

2007-07-20T10:43:00.000-05:00

Confession: Once a Pentecostal, always a Pentecostal. You can become a boozehound, a hooker, an axe murderer or John Ashcroft, but when le jeu s'en fait, you'll be a Pentecostal first. Because of this, we have an enduring soft spot for that spectacle di tutti spectacles: Tammy Faye.

As a child, we were transfixed by her heart-rending daily appeals on TV. We knew ladies who cried in church at the drop of a hat, so watching Tammy's makeup run down her face was not unusual. That's what ladies did. Sure, she was a lot more tarted up than Grandma would have recommended, but her theology was spot-on where we were concerned. Her singing was an acquired taste - but her enthusiasm and sincerity were unmistakable. Tammy Faye was O.K.

When everything went south, it was her weaselly husband we blamed. Tammy Faye was as much a victim as everybody else when PTL became SOL. We winced when she divorced the bum, because we just don't do things like that. Then again, we like to think we don't embezzle and commit wire fraud or whatever the hell else he did. We also like to think our husbands wouldn't do Jessica Hahn. Apocalyptic leanings notwithstanding, we tend to be an optimistic lot.

We watched as Tammy Faye started over with Roe Messner, a builder from our own backyard (almost literally). We whispered about whether there was something afoot before it became official, but nobody could bring himself to say aloud that they thought Tammy Faye might have had her eye on another option pre-divorce. We bought a t-shirt splotched with colors in an abstract smiley face design: "I Ran Into Tammy Faye At The Mall." We wore it only a few times, guiltily, and retired it. Taking a swing at Tammy Faye was like running over kittens with a lawnmower. You could do it. It just wasn't very satisfying and she really hadn't earned it.

Years later, we thrilled to the documentary "The Eyes Of Tammy Faye", when she defied convention and embraced gay folks for who they are - theology be damned. Without giving away who she was and what she believed, Tammy threw the door wide open for us to join her in faith. She put a heavily pancaked face on "Judge Not Lest Ye Be Judged". She made it OK to be nice to gay and lesbian people if you identified as a Christian. And she made it OK to identify as a Christian if you were gay. For this, we will always be grateful to Tammy Faye. And we won't speak ill of her in life or her death - God forbid.

We watched her on Larry King and thought that she must have given a lot of thought to going on camera. Here was a woman who had made her name on her appearance - whether you liked it or not. When she had tipped her hat to ridicule, she still refused to soften the eyeliner, take off the lashes, or lighten the rouge. Now, at 65 pounds and only barely alive, she painted what was left and held herself remarkably upright to reveal the most intimate details of her demise. We thought her to be a woman of incredible integrity: Having made her bones and her money in front of the camera, she wouldn't retreat from it at the end. Live by the pixel, die by the pixel.

It would be a wonderful affirmation of everything we, as Pentecostals, believe if Tammy Faye were to be "raised up" from her bed of affliction and kick cancer. If she isn't raised up, we'll be among the legions who remember her fondly. We hope to be as gracious at our own end as she is in hers. Here is this excerpt from her Web site's front page:

"Dear Friends,

It has been such a long time since I've written and I am so sorry for the long delay. I have been in bed for almost a year now. I have times when I feel good and times when I feel really bad. But, I have learned one thing about feelings. They have NOTHING TO DO WITH FAITH IN GOD!! He is the same yesterday, today and forever. He NEVER changes. That is what the Bible says and God's word does not lie EVER!

...I ask in great humbleness that you pray that I will be able to eat without it coming back up. I crave hamburgers and french fries with LOTS of ketchup! When I can eat that again, it will be a day of victory!

In closing, I want you to know that I am praying for you and your loved ones and I am believing God for complete healing. God is a healer of EVERYTHING!

I will let you know when I get to eat my hamburger! HA!

Love,
Tammy Faye"

God Bless. 'Nuff said.

The Case For Gay Parenting

2007-07-19T09:49:00.000-05:00

"Social science on this matter is conclusive: Children need both a
mom and a dad. Study after study has shown that children do best in a home with
a married, biological mother and father." -- Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS),
Presidential Candidate, "Defining Marriage Down", 7/9/04, National Review Online

"A judge on Wednesday ordered seven young children removed from their home after authorities discovered it was infested with rats and filled with garbage, including stacks of dirty diapers nearly 4 feet high in closets.

"Authorities went to the dilapidated house after Gloria Ramirez called a funeral home seeking a casket for the stillborn, 4-month-old fetus she had delivered in the bathtub with help from her oldest child, a 9-year-old girl. The fetus was found in a baby wipe box in the refrigerator, according to court documents.

"...Anthony Moya, the 40-year-old father of the six younger children, has been charged with seven counts of child endangerment, and the same charges were expected to be filed against Ramirez next week...- 7/19/07(AP) Betsy Blaine, Lubbock, TX"

"And I believe children can receive love from gay couples, but the ideal is -- and studies have shown that the ideal is where a child is raised in a married family with a man and a woman. - George W. Bush"

"Plattsmouth (Nebraska) Police Chief Brian Paulsen said that James Cook, 6, died Monday night while playing a game of hide-and-seek with his 9-year-old sister. The boy crawled into an old microwave and suffocated to death when he couldn't get out, the chief said.

"Cook's family members told Omaha, Neb., TV station KETV that they had piled a pickup truck full of items they planned to take to the dump on Saturday..."

"I supported the federal effort for traditional marriage, defining marriage as a relationship between a man and woman,'' because "one of the major purposes of marriage is the nurturing and development of children. -- Mitt Romney, Republican Presidential Candidate (S.F. Chronicle, Carla Marinucci, 3/17/07''

"(AP) Rochester, Minn. A Mankato, Minn. couple was accused Wednesday of abusing their 4-month-old son, one of two conjoined twins who underwent separation surgery last fall at the Mayo Clinic." -- 3/8/07

Write these down. They'll come in handy when the fur starts to fly in January.

Still Waiting...

2007-07-17T21:51:00.001-05:00

We figured that Wendy Vitter (wife to disgraced Republican Senator David Vitter - he of the whorehouses) would do the right thing. We were wrong. Come to think of it, whenever we've expected Republicans to do the right thing, we've found ourselves whomper-jawed at the result.

When we heard from the Right Righteous (And Not Just A Little Scary) Mrs. Vitter a week ago, she was remarkably silent on her husband's brothel fixation. Since then, two more whores with houses have revealed that they serviced the Senator. Mrs. and Mr. Vitter went into "seclusion", which means they weren't talking.

Fair enough.

The Mister had nothing to say beyond, "I did 'em. " And we know how likely that was to happen. After all, the Mister was one of the primary sponsors of the "Federal Marriage Amendment" to the U.S. Constitution. He was a regular screecher about the Sanctity of Marriage and the need to keep Gay and Lesbian folks from mucking it up. We understand his desire to hide. And the less he says, the better, most likely. We will refrain from repeating the scandalous assertions that he enjoyed some of his whoring whilst wearing diapers. That would just be beneath us. Almost.

But Mrs. Vitter... We believe she has a few IOU's to make good. Back in the 90's, when then-First Lady Hillary Clinton was forgiving her husband for extra-marital dalliances and smiling tautly while little old ladies in Idaho discussed the state of her marriage, Mrs. Vitter was compelled to speak. As we wrote in a previous post, Mrs. Vitter looked down her powdered nose at Senator Clinton and remarked that she would never just stand by her man if he done her wrong. She'd cut his dick off. That's what she said. The obvious implication was that Hillary Clinton didn't have the balls to leave - and was a lesser woman for staying and forgiving.

Yesterday, Mrs. Vitter announced her own forgiveness campaign. Seems she's giving up her Lorena Bobbitt identity for one that mirrors exactly how Senator Clinton comported herself a decade ago. One expects that after badmouthing Sen. Clinton, Mrs. Vitter would have something even mildly apologetic to speak to the Senator she dissed so publicly. Elsewise, we're compelled to call Wendy Vitter a hypocritical, vicious cunt who seems to be a better expert on others' marriages than her own.

We're happy with that characterization.

For the record, we don't give a rat's ass who or what Sen. David Vitter lies down with. We don't care if Wendy Vitter's tongue rots in her mouth. If she leaves and takes half of everything he owns and his cock, we'd consider that her prerogative - mostly. But woman-to-woman, she owes some kind words to the lady she attacked - when that lady was just trying to survive her marital crisis on four networks, cable, the Internet, radio, and every newspaper (fit to read and otherwise).

One woman is walking around with her head high today with no apologies owed to anyone for how she's conducted herself in the public eye. Another one looks like a crass blow-hard who got screwed-over and took it lying down (as it were). One emerged with grace from a stunning embarrassment.

The other is a larger embarrassment than the situation itself. Wendy Vitter, you owe Hillary Clinton a very public apology without any references to cutting off dicks. We don't believe you have the moral underpinnings to come through on such an obligation. People of your ilk are usually only concerned with other people behaving well. You and your spouse clearly grant yourselves an exemption from behavioral norms: fidelity, truth-telling, and common courtesy, for starters.

His redemption can't be evaluated because it depends on his veracity - a quality he demonstrably lacks. Yours, Mrs. Vitter, can be accomplished with a few kind sentences - in public - toward Mrs. Clinton, your sister in the Woman Done Wrong Club.

We're waiting.

Taking TV Up A Notch

2007-07-16T09:11:00.000-05:00

Michael Moore goes apeshit on Wolf Blitzer. Perez Hilton, the poster child for gay concentration camps, calls Elizabeth Hasselbeck a bitch (and she is). And now, Hot Ghetto Mess.

That's right. Hot Ghetto Mess It's coming to B.E.T. on your T.V. Mm hmm. We white folks aren't supposed to comment on these sorts of things (read: Imus). Then again, we at After Therapy haven't ever put much stock in rules.

This photo is the June Mess of the Month. We imagine they're waiting for July to wrap up before they crown a new... Oh, sweet Jesus. Crosses! And nipples! And "DOG" on your arm! Oh my! Self-respect runs shallow in the hood, we see. (Apologies to the model if we assume incorrectly, but we've got $100 that says you're not an anesthesiologist from suburban Denver.)

The proprietor (and now producer) of Hot Ghetto Mess (http://www.hotghettomess.com/) has the right idea. She speaks of holding up a mirror to her own community in hopes that some light of self-awareness will dawn in the gawker's spirit. We have news for Ms. High Hopes 2007... These people have already spent hours in a mirror and this is the result. Mirrors are not achieving the desired effect. You can send this "Mess" to Extreme Makeover, What Not To Wear, and Oprah, but she's still going to go home with a flawed sense of fashion born out of flawed values. On her block, hot rims and grillz trump covering your tits, avoiding your 7th pregnancy by the age of 25, and paying your rent.

She was happy enough to pose for the photo - with a big smile. What makes you think you can shake the ghetto out of the girl? Every race and culture has lost causes. White people put theirs in trailer parks and ramshackle cabins in Arkansas. Hispanics have their barrios. African-Americans (and Black Americans who have no ties to Africa whatsoever), have the hood. Every race and culture has individuals who distinguish themselves daily - by achievement, pride, and acceptance of behavioral norms that don't quash individuality. Sometimes, we just need to leave the lesser behind in a Darwinian stab at a better world. You can plunk her in suburbia if you like. But she's gonna show her tits and her new gold teeth at your PTA meeting. Bleeding hearts will cry "Poverty!", "Racism!", "Poor Education!", etc.

We're only gonna say this once:

We were poor as church mice and our mother would have ended our miserable existence if we had even suggested leaving the house representing ourselves or our family in such a way. This is not about money or racism. This is about what you did with full benefit of a mirror. And what it says about how you view yourself. Period.

Dog.

Gay folks will have to apologize for and disclaim Perez Hilton when he hits VH-1's airwaves later this year. It can't last beyond a season or two, so we should weather the storm - assuming Michael Jackson doesn't officially come out of the closet.

We don't want to hear any complaints about how any of the above demean their respective communities. We birthed 'em, we gotta own 'em. Now... what to do with 'em?

Step One: Cover Your Tits

Back From Vacation

2007-07-13T08:35:00.000-05:00

You leave for a week and the world goes to Hell. Hookers, and smoking and drinking! Oh my!

In a sign that the world has turned inside out, Republicans have now become the party of the loose zipper. Sen. David Vitter (R-Louisiana) seems to be a chick magnet - if the chick is a hooker. No less than three houses of ill repute now report that the very pious senator has been sampling their wares, if not gorging himself on the menu. (Hey, absent his political affiliation, we'd do him, too.)

Vitter was shocked and appalled when a member of the Louisiana House that President Clinton would engage in extra-marital dabblings. When the man he replaced, Rep. Bob Livingston (D - Louisiana), admitted to an extra-marital affair, Vitter said this (in the Spirit of Christmas and All That Is Holy And Right):

"I think Livingston’s stepping down makes a very powerful argument that Clinton should resign as well and move beyond this mess,” [Atlanta Journal and Constitution, 12/20/98]

That same year, Vitter wrote an Op-Ed piece for the New Orleans Times-Picayune in which he called President Clinton "morally unfit to govern" for having pulled the Big Lewinsky.

Fast-forward through a number of nekkid aerobic sessions with hookers and Vitter's own resignation speech sounds like this:

"Several years ago, I asked for and received forgiveness from God and my wife in confession and marriage counseling," Vitter continued. "Out of respect for my family, I will keep my discussion of the matter there -- with God and them. But I certainly offer my deep and sincere apologies to all I have disappointed and let down in any way."

My... what a difference a decade and a much larger paycheck makes. The Right Pious (And Not Just A Little Scary) Mrs. Vitter condescended to then-First Lady Hillary Clinton by ranting:

"I’m a lot more like Lorena Bobbitt than Hillary," Wendy Vitter told Newhouse News. "If he does something like that, I’m walking away with one thing, and it’s not alimony, trust me. I think fear is a very good motivating factor in a marriage. Don’t put fear down."

We've been glued to CNN for reports on the Horny Senator's penectomy. As of press time, the dick still has his cock. Looks like hypocrites and hyperbole attract. Hmmm?

Comes also the news that smoking will help prevent Parkinson's Disease. A Stanford University study reveals:

"Parkinson’s disease (PD) is one of a few conditions in which cigarette smoking appears to decrease the risk of developing the disease, with a reduced risk of 50% among ever smokers compared to never smokers."

We consider this excellent news! Nothing had us more concerned than the prospect of shaking like a leaf while holding a lit cigarette in bed. We will now worry only half as much with this revelation.

Finally, we were disturbed to learn that Chantix, the new wonder-drug to help people quit smoking, will also block the receptors in your brain that derive pleasure from drinking - thus possibly promising you a life devoid of smoking, drinking, and any reason to leave the house on a Friday night. We can't understand why the pills haven't been pulled from the shelves already. While we were willing to consider giving up the smokes, we draw the line at giving up the hooch.

It is our sincere hope that with vacation behind us, we can stand vigil against these sorts of upsets. Thank you for the break (it was unpaid - natch!). We look forward to another daily grind.

Pardon Me?

2007-07-04T21:51:00.001-05:00

This is a 56 year-old man who would prefer you call him "Scooter" (as in Libby) and not Irv (his first name) or Lewis (his middle name). That should tell you everything you need to know about his judgement and self-image. If it doesn't, remember that he was, up until the time of his indictment on five felony counts of obstruction of justice, lying, and perjury, Dick Cheney's right hand man.

"Scooter" is the only man alive who stands convicted of obstruction of justice, perjury, and making false statements (lying) who will not see the inside of a prison. He will pay a fine of $250,000... maybe. He will also lose his license to practice law... maybe. They say his career is over and he'll be a professional pariah. You'd believe them when they say that if he wasn't the beneficiary of Right Wing Cheerleading that resulted in his 30-month prison sentence being commuted by The Only President We Got.

We're hard-pressed to believe that this man's career is over since he has such low friends in good places. It bears repeating that the charge against President Clinton during his impeachment fiasco was obstruction of justice. The same crowd who was incensed at his having lied about sex to people who had no right to ask about it are now elated that a man who facilitated the outing of a CIA agent is free as a bird. He may not be done unwrapping gifts from the Bush Administration. He could still be pardoned - alleviating the need for him to write that check or lose his license to practice law. Anyone who doubts this is in the plan hasn't been paying attention for the last 6 1/2 years.

While Bush and Cheney stonewall Congress and its absolute right to subpoena documents relating to the U.S. Attorney firings, among other travesties, we should be bracing ourselves for a long and exciting road. You can set "Scooter" free, but you can't hide from the Constitution. Eventually, hubris gives way to reason and the rule of law. Those who run afoul of the Constitution and other laws eventually get their due - whether they serve their time or not. It's not too late in the term to think about impeachment of one or both of these scofflaws. The subpoenas are nothing more than the foundation laid for such a process.

No one in Congress believes they will ever see a single page of redacted emails in compliance with any of the subpoenas issued. Democrats simply needed Bush et al. to act in contempt of Congress by ignoring them. That, in itself, is a crime. Impeachment is specifically reserved for High Crimes and Misdemeanors. Now we have a crime. Bring on the articles of impeachment.

It may seem a cryin' shame, if not a crime, to commute the sentence of a weasel like Libby. It's no crime. What he did most certainly is a crime. But one of the perks of the presidency is the unfettered right to commute sentences and pardon completely. If this works out the way it should, the Libby matter should be an afterthought to a bloodbath. We'll be there with bells on.

Bring on the popcorn.

War And Pieces

2007-06-30T12:55:00.000-05:00

It will tax a liberal's patience and commitment to peace when bombs show up in the London Theatre District or detonate at Glasgow's airport. We're generally inclined to be understanding of the circumstances and history that underpin such acts - without condoning them, mind you - but this liberal draws the line at targeting the theatre.

We eschew pre-emptive anything. Pre-emptive attacks are the same as regular attacks. Pre-emptive war is the same as regular war. It's a silly modifier along the lines of "wet" water. But there comes a time when we are willing to take the gloves off and show our teeth. Without invading irrelevant countries and setting up occupying forces for years at a time, here is our inclination when events such as this weekend's occur:

If, in the name of Islam, you blow up a bus, we're going to level a number of mosques - equivalent in number to the passenger capacity of the bus. We're not going to make sure they're empty, we're just going to level them. Not put a hole in them and throw a little rock around... Level them. If, in the name of Islam, you blow up a ship, we're going to level a number of mosques - equivalent in number to the passenger capacity of the ship. Again, we don't care if they're occupied. We're just going to remove them. If, in the name of Islam, you kidnap folks, we're going to level a number of mosques - equivalent in number to the family members of those you kidnap. Get the idea?

We freely admit that we have borrowed liberally from the Israeli Theory Of Dealing With Motherfuckers: You Kill One, We Kill Ten. Your Turn. We aren't anti-Muslim. We suggest that when and if Buddhists lose their zen bent and start blowing shit up in the name of Buddhism, we level temples according to the above formula. We highly recommend that we apply the same principle to dealing with radical Christianity. (We considered whether this particular religion shouldn't be an exception to our No Pre-Emptive Strike rule. Reluctantly, we decided to stick to our principles. For now.) When and if Christians start killing people and blowing things up in the name of Jesus, we're gonna level churches. On Sunday. At 10 a.m.

If, within 7 days, the offending religious extremists don't cease and desist (including apologizing profusely), we're going to dust your crops with Malathion and the most virulent strain of e-coli our scientists can muster. We're going to pour generic dish washing detergent in your drinking water. And we're going to start the longest line of bulldozers you've ever seen on the southern border of the country of our choice that is reasonably considered to be supportive of the terrorist acts. If, on day 8, the crop dusting, water tainting, and roar of bulldozer engines don't inspire a cessation of violence and a profuse apology, we're going to drive the bulldozers north 100 miles. Every day, they will drive 100 miles - knocking down anything in their way: hospitals, schools, mosques, homes, banks, restaurants, daycare centers, people.... By the time we reach the northern border, we will have effectively cleared one country of all infrastructure and, most likely, any inclination to fuck with us.

We won't be sticking around to rebuild anything. Whether you ever write a constitution or get running water is not our concern. Your government is your business. If you live in anarchy, good on you. If you can't get electricity, that's a shame. Too much oil with no way to sell it? Damn. Give us a call when you get back on your feet. We'll do dinner.

Should that method not be effective, we'll throw a dart at a map of terrorist-sympathizing nations and simply start the sequence anew. This should not be construed in any way as support for the current Bush folly in Iraq or the saber rattling toward Iran. We're just saying... if you're going to respond, respond in kind. Much like you can't reason with Ann Coulter, you can't play fair with these religious bombers.

This is why we need openly gay leaders in the military. We will take a certain amount of shit with a smile and a fair amount of dignity. Once you cross the line, however, we are not only going to respond in kind, we're going to disembowel you as a warning to the others you represent. What we give up through patience, we more than make up with vengeance and unrestrained fury. We learned that from our drag queen mothers at the Stonewall Riots.

Enough, already. Don't make us go all Tallulah Bankhead on your asses.

It Took A While, But...

2007-06-29T07:57:00.000-05:00

They warned us this would happen. Not on the first day, maybe not the first year or even the first term, but they told us so. We were put on notice that the Supreme Court would tilt just enough to the right to let women, minorities, and the poor slide out of justice's scales and into the gutter.

Maybe next time we'll listen.

Ruling in favor of a group of students who were denied nothing (nothing!), the Supremes eviscerated the legal legacy of diversity in our public schools. Louisville had a policy that classified students as white or non-white for the purposes of allocating available slots in particular high schools. Their goal was to have no school with less than 15% minority enrollment, providing a realistic racial balance within each school regardless of the neighborhood where it was built. Not in this country!!

"Joshua", the boy at the center of the Seattle schools case, didn't so much as ask for a spot in a school and get denied. "Joshua" got everything he wanted. He went to the school of his choice, took the courses of his choice, and got dissed by the cheerleaders of his choice, we imagine. The Supremes seized on this miscarriage of justice to announce (through Bush appointee and Chief Justice John Roberts):

"In design and operation, the plans are directed only to racial balance, an objective this Court has repeatedly condemned as illegitimate."

Remember... we did this. No Bush? No Roberts, no Alito (who simply grinned and nodded throughout the decision). Heaven forbid racial balance should ever be achieved. In a predictable, yet sadly ironic, footnote, the lone minority on the court, Clarence "Uncle" Thomas, shuffled and smiled broadly throughout the reading of the opinion. In the most perverse note of all, the opinion compares itself favorably to the landmark school desegregation ruling: Brown v. Topeka Board of Education, noting that it is following in the footsteps of Brown by condemning race-based student classification.

Only the most willfully ignorant and perverse onlooker could compare the exclusion of black students from most schools in Topeka to the Louisville goal of ensuring access to all schools for children of all races. This decision shows the court's eagerness to gut the social advances of the last 50 years and has nothing to do with upholding the goal of a "race-blind" society. Women, Gays, workers of all stripes, the criminally accused, the mentally ill, and any other vulnerable, historically put-upon person has reason to sit up and take frightful notice of the opinion.

Little will change in Seattle or Louisville, in truth. Only a handful of students ever fell into the equation that required identification of their race to resolve a placement question. Rather, this is a shot across the bow, courtesy of the two men who swore before Congress to uphold the Supreme Court's precedents, to anyone who has taken two steps forward since 1964. If the announcement of the Court's decision didn't change your day, you weren't paying attention.

Pay attention, already. You're next.

Six Cards, Two Shirts, Lunch and This....From CNN

2007-06-27T15:28:00.000-05:00

What a birthday! Just when we thought we had nothing to say about anything, CNN sent us the most beautifully gift-wrapped package, courtesy of our friends at the Opinion Research Organization. A poll released today shows that for the first time ever, a majority of Americans believe that gay and lesbian people couldn't switch teams, even if they wanted to.

You'll forgive us if we remain seated while we applaud your collective revelation.

(Photo: The Not-Quite-Dead Fritz Capone and Ms. Charity Case)

We believe they asked the wrong question. We want to know if our fellow citizens believe that heterosexuals could change their orientation if they were so inclined. But alas, nobody asks those kinds of questions. Nobody asks because the underlying message of this and similar polls is that there is something wrong that could stand changing.... if one were so inclined. We resent the inference. And we hope your daughter brings home the butchest dyke on campus.

Fully 56% of those surveyed believe we are what we are. Jennifer Holliday might be changin', but we are not. We lift a well-manicured middle finger to the other 44% who, in 2007, do not have ignorance as an excuse (unless they live in Alabama, then we cut them slack). We assume 30% are the same people who think the country is heading in the right direction, so we discount them as Terminally Hopeless.

It's the remaining 14% that concerns us. We issue a challenge to that 14%: Just try it. We hereby volunteer to be the test case for the 14% of America that thinks we can be changed. We're not getting laid anyway. What the hell? If it puts an end to this nonsense, we'll take one (as it were) for the team. We're warning you, though: we get a little panicky in the straight porn section of the video store.

Every single person in the poll had an opinion on the origins of homosexuality. Presumably, none of them were asked about the root of their heterosexuality. We contend that's a far more interesting question - especially given the number of practitioners. Most likely, people who've never even met a Certified Deviant have a definite opinion as to why we like boys. In contrast, we don't have a conclusive thesis on why we like boys. We just like boys. We also like strawberry shortcake. It didn't occur to us to ask why. Mainly, since liking boys and strawberry shortcake has never been a problem for us, we don't see the need to investigate why we like either.

Again, we resent the inference underlying this question: What do you think caused this odd thing to happen? We would like the good people at Opinion Research to call us next time. We have a few thoughts we'd like to share.

On the bright side, fully 51% of those polled favored either marriage or something like it for gay and lesbian people and 57% favored our right to adopt children. We want to meet the 6 percent who said "Yes!" to adopting children and "NO!" to getting married. We don't think they should have telephones, let alone be included in any more polls. I think they're trying to find takers for the kids they don't want, frankly. And we're not biting.

79% believed openly gay people should be allowed to serve openly in the military (sure... in time of war... nice of you... assholes). We're looking forward to the next peace-time poll to compare numbers. We have a theory on this one. (See parentheses.)

In sum, we don't think people should go around asking whether or not we a) could be "cured" b) should be "cured" c) deserve children d) deserve spouses e) deserve to join the military or f) were "born that way" or "made that way". We only question the origin and staying power of things we assume someone would want to change. So here's a pin for your pollster's balloon.

On this, the 38th Anniversary of Stonewall (look it up), we raise a glass to Judy, Liza and Barbra and announce in full voice:

I am what I am! I am my own special creation.
So come take a look.
Give me the hook or the ovation.
It's my world that I want to have a little pride in.
My world and it's not a place I have to hide in!
Life's not worth a damn till you can say,
"Hey world - I am what I am!"

I am what I am! I don't want praise. I don't want pity.
I bang my own drum.
Some think it's noise, I think it's pretty!
And so what if I love each feather and each spangle?
Why not try and see things from a different angle?
Your life is a sham till you can say,
"Hey world - I am what I am!"

I am what I am! And what I am needs no excuses!
I deal my own deck!
Sometimes the ace, sometimes the deuces.
It's my life and there's no return and no deposit.
One life, so it's time to open up your closet!
Life's not worth a damn till you can say,
"Hey world - I am what I am!"

-Jerry Herman, "La Cage Aux Folles"

Dear Mrs. Edwards...

2007-06-27T06:51:00.000-05:00

Dear Elizabeth Edwards,

We just adore you. We stood in the rain for over an hour a few years back to see you and your family. We have credentials when it comes to loving the Edwards family. Because we are so fond of you, we'd like to impose on our one-sided friendship to make a suggestion. Or two.

Before we suggest, we want you to know that we voted for John. Both times. And not just because he's good looking.

OK...mostly because he's good looking. But also because we got that Kennedy vibe. And "Two Americas" resonated with us. And also because as he was leaving the venue in Lawrence, KS, he reached past his phalanx of Chippendales/Secret Service Agents and touched our hand. Right after he had put the same hand to his sweaty brow. And put his sweat on our hand. We didn't speak right for a week after that. So we get John Love. We really do. We really, really do. And how. Nobody that good looking should get brains, too. It's practically unfair.

We read this morning that you picked up the phone to attempt a reasonable dialogue with a woman whose name we have vowed never to type again. Her initials, though, are Ann Coulter. You asked her to stop calling your husband a fag (a dream we gave up on years ago), to stop saying she wished your husband would die in a terrorist attack, and to generally use the brain God allegedly gave her to raise the political conversation in our country, not debase it. Honey... You simply can't talk to these people that way.

You can talk to Greenpeace or PETA or the ACLU like that. But you can't talk to those other people like you would normal human beings. You have to talk to them like you would a black bear ready to drag your kids off into the dark. You have to scream and curse and wave your arms. They won't understand you, but sometimes they do wander away. And that's the goal. Just make them go away. With bears, as a last resort, you should shoot them with some sort of legal firearm purchased only for the purpoes of hunting. We don't dispute that this method also works on the people in question. We don't condone it, mind you. We're just saying. Your understandable expectation that you could reason with this woman as a human being misfired on its premise: she's not a human being.

Given every opportunity to claim satire, "just kidding", "gotta make a buck, I'm not gonna marry well" or anything approaching rationality, she declined. They're all like that. They really are. I know it's hard for our kind to imagine that there are entire packs of people like that, but there are. This is why we have suburbs. It keeps them where we can find them. We put lots of Wal-Marts and Applebee's around them because they're easily distracted. It keeps them out of our own neighborhoods, largely.

They've never liked anybody who wasn't vile. They've never said anything helpful. They have no goals that would improve life for anyone but themselves. Go see "Evan Almighty". (God knows we can't and they have to make their money back somehow.) Imagine that this is the kind of person that prompted God to flood the joint in the first place. Now realize they're all over the place. Thirty percent of America thinks we're heading in the right direction - and they all listen to Ann Coulter. Can you imagine? I know. It fairly boggles the mind.

We sincerely hope your health is excellent and that John inspires us to greatness once again. Thank you for lending him to the process. But please, in the name of all that is holy, stop talking to Ann Coulter. Every time we give her a reason to keep speaking, the Talibanis points to the T.V. and say,

"And they wonder why we have Burqas."

Love,

The After Therapy Gang

Welcome To The Party, Please Remove Your Feet

2007-06-26T21:10:00.000-05:00

Sen. Richard Lugar (R - Indiana) has decided that our ongoing military disaster in Iraq is no longer a good idea. He was joined by Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio). Word is that more from the Party of Lincoln will voice a similar sentiment after their July 4 vacation.

Nothing screams "Independence" Day like waiting for 90 other people to stand up before you can locate your balls. Way to go, boys. Remind us not to call you for anything requiring leadership, sound judgement, or an independent voice. Spineless jugheads, the lot of them. We hope they get gangrene of the nostrils.

In related developments, Lugar and Voinovich called on the South to abandon slavery, Henry the VIII to stop being mean to wives, and the Aztecs to halt human sacrifices.

We now return you to your regular programming: Dick Cheney And The Hijacking Of Two Branches Of Government. Cheney set a record this past week by declaring himself the recipient of Executive Privilege (Executive Branch of Government), which exempts him from disclosing who's been greasing the wheels of government, and by declaring himself a member of the Legislative Branch of Government, exempting him from disclosing anything at all under the rules that apply to the Executive Branch. Handy.

In related developments, Michael Jackson declared himself both Black and White, Mary Cheney proclaimed herself married and single, and Mitt Romney declared himself Mormon and Not-THAT-Mormon.

Now two young girls have been maimed or kiilled in amusement park incidents. This is not our idea of amusement. But this is... Perhaps this is a message from God that amusement parks should be left to adults and not screaming adolescents. Sort of a refuge from teenagers and people who think strollers belong outside their yard. We're tired of being run down in malls, on sidewalks, and - yes - in amusement parks by people who think their stroller-bound child will charm us all by its mere presence. It doesn't. It's annoying as hell. It is a tribute to my kind that we don't push you both into traffic. And that's not just idle chatter. We have discussed it. We are a people on the edge.

Nancy Grace has announced that she was secretly married and impregnated sometime in the last 90 days. While we have never had anything nice to say about the former Ms. Grace, we would like to extend our best wishes to her husband and say that we understand completely the urge to keep this sort of thing quiet. Grace will continue to draw from her deep well of bitterness for her television persona despite her triple blessing: not just a husband and a pregnancy, but twins. Grace promised to defy joy and continue making a pretty penny from her unhappiness.

Inspired by this freedom to be who one wants to be, we are declaring ourselves rich, good looking and famous despite all evidence to the contrary. We expect Senators Lugar and Voinovich will acknowledge our new status somewhere around the year 2073.

Better late than never? Only if you think spraying water on an extinguished fire counts as helpful. Sometimes you don't get credit for just showing up.

One More Time For Old Time's Sake

2007-06-22T09:09:00.000-05:00

We hoist a cake and a beverage to the number 42 this weekend. We really thought for a moment that you might be the slot where the roulette ball stopped. Barring any unfortunate encounters with black bears or city buses in the next few days, looks like we were wrong. All the chips go to the house. And we couldn't be more tickled.

We'll flip half the digits in the next few days and put a "3" where the "2" has served us so well. The party will go into the night...and into the fall...and into the New Year, if things go as planned. The travel bug has bitten - hard. We can just barely pass a mass market paperback book without smelling the ocean. This phenomenon has occurred before. This year, it happens to coincide with a birthday, which takes it up to an all-new level. Your dear blogger parts with money about as easily as a quadriplegic does the Macarena. If anyone is sitting near Katie, you might advise her to bar the door. The checkbook is out and we're hitting the road.

We caught a vision of blogging from Puerto Vallarta yesterday. Wi-fi being what it is, we figured it would be a nice change of pace.

BAH! We want to put our toes in water that didn't come from a tap! We want to be winked at by people from other countries! We want to drink Pina Coladas from sun-up to well past sun-down and back again and eat off of Esther's Taco Cart at 4 a.m. just because it's there. We are resort people. Resorts we shall have. Puerto Vallarta is just one. We also have Greece firmly in our sights.

An apartment overlooking the sea, a coolish breeze requiring an authentically next-door knitted wool cardigan over the linen ensemble, a sketch pad and hunk of charcoal just for show, a James Patterson mystery half-opened on the lap, and one of those completely un-self-conscious, open-mouthed, head thrown back naps in front of God 'n everybody. Oh heaven! Take me now. Go haul yourselves all over the Acropolis and back if you must. Just leave me right here by the view and bring back something I recognize for dinner. That's the after-Holidays plan.

For the rest of you Americans who do not know the name Eureka Springs by heart, this will be a revelation that could destroy the entire culture of the place. But there is a little gay mountain mecca in Arkansas that will make you thank your founding fathers you didn't have to hire a sherpa to get there. We went a couple years ago to enjoy the under-priced luxury of an in-room jacuzzi, porch-settin' as a viable recreational option, and shopping on real cobblestone streets that would make Brussels herself jealous. That we made the trip in September, come leaf-changing time, was pure kismet. God herself never envisioned a scene so beautiful.

The B&B was run by two straight women who were completely lesbian in appearance, demeanor, style, and living quarters. This is the kind of eclecticism that keeps Eureka Springs, AR on its toes. We approve. The porch and upper balconies go all the way - no alllll the way around the house to where they meet the cliff against which the house is built to keep it just barely off the street. Access to the room is behind a door that was disguised with a mounted water fountain to throw off the casual lurker - a nice Batman Touch.

Breakfast is served daily every evening in the room. A basket appears from nowhere with scones and croissants, jellies and butter so cold that it's just spreadable come morning. Impeccable timing. There's a fridge inside that dresser where the TV hides. They don't keep track of what you eat or drink. If you need any more, just holler. The house is at the top of the winding street that is home to the hysterically diverse mom and pop shops that crowd against one another in good neighbor charm. Across the street is The Post Office, which means you see everybody at least once. It seems folks don't much like having the mail brought to them in Eureka Springs. It's nicer to get out and meet somebody when you need to collect your own, I suppose.

A few doors down from The Post Office is the Tobacco Shop. Anywhere else, it would be a Head Shop. In Eureka Springs, it's a Tobacco Shop. No winks. No nods. It just is. But you can get a hookah, a bong, rolling papers and the most amazing vanilla-flavored cigarettes you ever died smoking. They have them in cinnamon and chocolate and a variety of other death-defying flavors, too. We plan to try them all this time. Tempis Fugit and all that.

Don't tell any questionable characters you know, but the joint we laud is The Elmwood House. You can see a bit of it online at http://www.eurekaelmwoodhouse.com/. Don't forget to mention "After Therapy". You won't get a discount. We just appreciate the publicity.

We're in high Carpe Diem as we finish this lap. We invite you to hang on, tag along and follow closely. We sit down a lot nowadays - just to look around and make sure we haven't missed anything. But we're still going places. This year...literally. Thanks for a fine year.

And a note to Whoever Makes These Things Happen: We'll take another one about this time next year, too.

The Mid-Year Pot/Kettle Review

2007-06-20T13:58:00.000-05:00

We're always amused and occasionally enraged when we find people who inhabit glass homes lobbing rocks at people who may or may not deserve a head wound. So many instances occurred today that we decided to compile a half-way point review of 2007 for some of the finer examples.

In no particular order:

Elizabeth Hasselbeck on Being A Good Friend - "Truthfully, I think a friend is someone who you have positive communications with, so I don't know if I would define us as friends right now." We offer as an example of positive, friendly communication Hasselbeck's tacit agreement with the assertion that Rosie O'Donnell is a traitorous whore for Al Qaeda. If that ain't friendship, we need a Dionne Warwick intervention. Can someone get ahold of Gladys Knight, Stevie Wonder and Elton John, too?

Fatah on Hamas Being Bad For Palestinians - "There is no dialogue with those murderous terrorists." - Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian President. Far be it from us to remember that Abbas leads the party of the late Yassir Arafat, that towering figure of peaceful resistance and anti-terrorism. We almost forgot that Abbas, known by his Palestinian Mob nickname "Abu Mazen", took the reigns of the terrorist P.L.O. upon Arafat's death. We submit that the only true gripe Abbas has is that he didn't throw the first punch and that there weren't several hundred Israeli tour buses collaterally damaged in the process. Abbas is also nominated for the Takes One To Know One Lifetime Achievement Award.

George W. Bush on Stem Cell Research - "America is also a nation founded on the principle that all human life is sacred." We can't help but point out that not all human life is sacred to this administration. At the same time, we don't want to be impolite by pointing out the sacred Iraqi elephant in the living room. Or the suffering sacred lives that won't be helped by stem cells. Or the sacred human lives we've left in trailers across the Gulf Coast. Or.... We'll let others put the puzzle pieces together. Bush's mother appeared bug-eyed at her son's decision to veto legislation allowing expanded stem cell research. Upon learning that Graves Disease, which afflicts the 82 year-old, is among those diseases with cure potential from stem cells, Barbara Bush called her boy with a brief message: "Thanks, asshole."

Donald Trump on Rosie O'Donnell - "The ratings for her show were terrible. They basically threw her off the air. ... " We enjoyed seeing Donald's ex, Marla Maples, on a practically unwatchable program earlier in the week. Mostly, we enjoyed it knowing that The Apprentice - Trump's only remaining foray into TV (his Martha Stewart version of the show tanked in less than a season) was already in the ~~dumpster~~ pantheon of shows that didn't last as long as anything Rosie ever touched. We clearly recall running gags on the Ro Show what lasted more seasons than The Apprentice. You'd think Trump would realize that his greatest TV hit was being a punching bag for America's Favorite Lesbian on The View.

Ann Coulter on Civil Discourse - "I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards, but it turns out that you have to go into rehab if you use the word 'faggot'..." Using the ugly, dyke-y, cunty, emaciated, stringy-haired name calling approach would probably give Ann multiple orgasms. So we won't do that. But you get our drift. We have a firm policy against aiding and abetting Republican orgasms. If we ever learn that Bill Maher is schtupping her - even with marijuana as an excuse - we're cancelling our HBO.

So there you have it... The first five finalists for the 2007 Pot/Kettle Award are in - and we didn't have to blow Simon Cowell (not that there's anything wrong with that), Ryan Seacrest (not that there's anything wrong with that), or David Hasselhoff (there are TOO many things wrong with that) to get here. Here's a toast and crossed fingers for an equally enjoyable second-half of the year.

Getting Googled In Your Jammies

2007-06-19T08:24:00.001-05:00

Back up several months, if you will, and recall the humble - no, humiliating - roots of one dear rural blogger. Old friend becomes new flame becomes manipulating, lying, son-of-a-bitch. Shell of a human being washes into a therapist's office against his best judgement. Indignant exit to follow.

Caught up? OK. There was never any plan for a blog. There wasn't even a plan for a journal. We didn't own a note pad, for that matter. Had we wanted to document any aspect of the experience, we would have been stealing our own toilet paper for the title page. Or, we could have broken the No Wal-Mart pledge we'd just signed, driven 25 miles each way, and bought paper. Then it occurred... This is (was) 2006. There's a computer in the house.

At the computer, the goal was to snap ourselves out of the unprecedented funk by making fun of the entire therapy experience. We had laid down a number of rules for the journey: 1) We are not going to lie down on that couch. Too cliche. Besides, we get reflux. 2) We are not going to blame our mother for how we interacted with a 6'5" hairy oaf. 3) We are not going to pay a therapist for the privilege of an erotic relationship. (See? We can clean it up when required. You'll see why briefly.)

So we started repeating and revising, in 90% truth style, the experience and found a helpful way to participate in the Clinic while clinging to our Cynic. It worked. Funk dumped. Sense of humor restored. New-found lease on life, if not love, established. Thank you for your time and, for the record, "No, we are not interested in expanding this paid relationship into the erotic arena. Flattery duly noted."

What helped it work was a healthy dose of exhibitionism. By pure accident, we stumbled across the free blogging site, perused a number of the posts, and generally decided that our ego would allow us to document this experience - anonymously - in the public eye. The self-imposed commitment to keep it running was helpful in the extreme. If nothing else, it kept us from sinking inward toward that black hole of self-absorption - the bad kind, not the kind we peddle here on an almost daily basis. Never, never, never did we have any ambitions toward becoming the next Erica Jong, David Sedaris, William Burroughs or Schmoe Jablonsky, the weekly newspaper letter writer.

Then came the strokes, feedback, snarky responses, and the occasional cat-call. Instant addiction. And not just a couple minor delusions of grandeur. We were our very own Huffington Post - if to no one else but the dog and the guy in New Jersey who never fails to read a post. We've tottered along that way for months now. Following the therapy, we changed our name a tad, changed the focus a lot, and started talking more about the world and less about ourselves. Some called that evolution. Others just wanted to know where all the dirt about our personal life went. (Note: It went back where it came from with a cross-eyed man. We never said it didn't still rankle us.)

We got a little giddy about the world-wide stumbles that just having a blog will get you. Spain, Venezuela, Sweden, England, France, Vietnam- even places they don't speak English!! Like Arkansas! Somebody searches for "Judy" and whether it was Garland or Blume, if you mentioned either, you're going on the list of clicks they can make. One time we typed "Sirhan Sirhan" into a post and it has generated more visits than anything else in over a year of typing. Go figure. Someone googled "women's prolapsed (rectums)" and found us. We cannot begin to explain that phenomenon. Such is the Internet. You don't get too giddy about who's reading because half the time they didn't mean to find you anyway. That was until last night.

The House of Representatives found me. The real one. Ours. Three times in twenty-four hours. I'm sure they're not conducting a job search. I happened to mention my congresswoman in passing. Someone on The Hill googled said lady, and by whatever happenstance ended up between the covers of (if not with) YOURS FRIGGIN' TRULY! Now, this may be the standard protocol for Congress, but when you live in Mayberry and anybody in the hallowed halls of Congress has reason to know you're alive... Words fail.

Our drunk friend** in New York City has pimped some of the writing here to New York Magazine, made us flirt with CNN staffers, and generally shoved us off on a number of his dates via telephone - most of whom had some editorial title for some major magazine you've either read or from which you've cut pictures. But nothing.... nothing... prepares you for the day when you're sitting in your underwear eating Frosted Flakes and you see "Unites States House Of Representatives" among the footprints to and from your potty-mouthed rambling about everything and nothing. (**Ed. Note: By "Our Drunk Friend" we mean "Our Only Friend" in New York City. Due to heightened sensitivities on the Island of Manhattan, we take this rare step to clarify that we have never seen this unnamed person drunk. In fact, we have never seen this person. To our knowledge, he may not exist. We also cannot confirm that he has ever had a drink of anything, including water. Neither can we confirm that he is a he. We cannot confirm that he is in New York City for that matter. We take complete license to characterize him as we see fit and leave his friends to have a sense of humor about the matter or to spend more time at the gym. If they took as many well-lubricated phone calls in the middle of the night as we had, they would enjoy taking the occasional jab at one of their favorite people, as well. No aspersions are cast on the quality of this individual - which we assert to be well above average. Aspersions are heaped on those who would take such an off-hand, mostly loving characterization and turn it into a Whodunnit. Now...back to our story.)

We want to just take this chance to give a big shout out to the folks in D.C. for the hard work they do, for making a nobody's day, and.... since we have your attention, at least fleetingly... You're doing the Lord's work. Thank you for helping us get rid of the last guy. And thank you for being smart enough not to do the job like we would - with flaming torches, nooses and midnight raids. You seem to be hitting all the right notes with a broad swath of the constituency - even though we'd prefer a Jihadi Democrat Congress that pulls wigs off little old Republican ladies. And men.

We're smart enough to know that getting everything you want usually isn't good for you.

And please.... Google more often. Next time, call ahead and we'll fix punch.

Finally, Something That's Really Mom's Fault

2007-06-18T15:01:00.001-05:00

Monica Emmerson's Travel Day To-Do List

Sippy cup, sippy cup... Hold toddler, look harried, contact media, get in front of the story before somebody with a Blackberry emails CNN with a tale that you threw a hissy in the airport that required half the U.S. domestic armed forces to address.

Make sure you're not the bad gal from the get-go. Everybody's going to initially buy the Security People Gone Mad angle. Forty-eight hours of publicity, let it slip that you were a Secret Service employee to bolster your credibility, wrangle an ill-deserved apology and free flights for life for you and the kid.

Contact one of those sippy cup manufacturers and hint that when this all blows over you'd be willing to do one of those ironic wink-and-a-nod commercials to push their product. Jot down a few notes for how I explain to the tot that I used him as a prop in what became an international sham job. We all hate our parents by the age of 16 anyway. What the hell? He'll have a better excuse than most.

"After Therapy" Goes.....Print

2007-06-17T20:24:00.000-05:00

The newspaper picked up a few paragraphs of After Therapy thought and printed them in the OpEd pages today. Needless to say, "tickled" doesn't begin to describe our reaction.

They printed a slightly cleaned-up version of our thoughts on a local issue that got some national play. Kelsey Smith, a murdered Midwest teen, has been the focus of many letters to the editor since her story reached its apex. Most of them were decrying the obvious. A few were seizing the chance to score points for their caucus of choice.

On the same day, one letter was from a pro-death penalty minister seeking to spread the love of Jesus at the end of a noose for the murderer. Another was from a man who cut-and-pasted the When Someone Gets Shot paragraph from the N.R.A. newsletter that excuses the sin while lamenting the sinner.

And I thought we just had a case of crazy kid kills pretty girl.

We fired off this email to the editor:

Some days you’re reminded that common courtesy is neither, to paraphrase someone.

I pray for Kelsey Smith’s family in the face of unimaginable pain. That’s not what Patrick McWilliams (6/12, “Using a gun for defense”) or the Rev. David McKinley (6/12, “Kelsey Smith”) did. No, these letter writers approached the loss of a mother and daddy’s little girl with agendas rolled up in one hand and placards in the other: one to push his pro-death penalty view, the other to shill for the National Rifle Association. This kind of parasitic opportunism is stomach-turning.
If their parents are around, they have reason to disclaim responsibility for having raised someone to use a child’s death to praise their political pets. A pox on both their houses.

If no one else has told you, the rule is, “Shut up and mourn.” This is not your side-show.

The appearance above is slightly edited by the Powers That Be. I called them "boobs", not letter writers. I would never call someone a letter writer if I had the chance to call them a boob. But I guess that's the daily print business for you. The paper's Web site gives ample opportunity for the more weak-livered among us to fire back anonymously. This is the part we liked best.

We got one only slightly veiled invitation to join a racist rant that seems rooted in the belief that missing white girls make better TV than black ones do. And that their families' tireless efforts earn their plight the coverage it gets. Someone actually gave us an "Amen." Same person. One racist "Amen" for the After Therapy train of thought. We might need to retrace our steps.

So... hyped by the sheer exhilaration of having at least one thought on thousands of front lawns and at least one crazy person closely scrutinizing (and agreeing, frightfully enough) we decided to return the favor and post a comment of our own - as a karmic Thank You for adding ink to our inclinations. I picked out a letter from a Vietnam Vet still crying in his oatmeal over the ass-kicking handed to my former congressman, the Olympic runner Jim Ryun (R- KS), by Democrat Nancy Boyda in the 2006 cycle. Of late, the recriminations have focused on Ryun's absence from Vietnam for a "disability" (a 50% hearing loss at age 4 from high fever) - fine fodder for poking fun, given his rise to fame was based on his physical fitness.

So we jotted:

"Our thanks go to (the vet) for finally offering the one sensible explanation for Ryun's congressional service: He simply didn't hear what was going on.

To be so consistently wrong on such a wide variety of issues that you actually glide to the right of your rural Kansas constituents is a colossal achievement. To realize that it was accidental and a result of hearing loss is just... well... sad.

Interestingly, we know a number of hearing-impaired individuals who seem to be right on the issues most of the time. Perhaps attributing Ryun's poor judgement to his poor hearing is unfair to his ears. More often than not, the problem is between the ears, not in them.

Our modest education taught us that when an issue arises about which you have no reason to speak with clarity, reason or sound judgement, one ought to keep one's hand in the pocket when the vote is taken. Mr. Ryun, despite his lamentable hearing loss, was all too giddy to rush to the floor to cast his misguided votes to our collective detriment. His loss in '06 was among the most jaw-droppingly improbable of them all.

His hearing may be the lone, true explanation for how he slithered out of one war-time sacrifice. It does nothing but further our condemnation of him for pushing others down the same road he's never even sniffed. His defeat was too long in coming.

You can't say he didn't earn it. You can't say it wasn't a good idea. And you can't say we haven't already done better for ourselves."

Well... you'd think I'd called someone's grandmother a whore. I was poking sticks at a long-gone Representative from the part of Kansas most people don't know exists. Here's a sampling of the reaction:

"The party of tolerance marches on!!!"
"...irrational moonbats like yourself."
"...miserable partisan diatribe..."

Us! Moi! Your local funny/cranky/quirky/dirty talker! If there was a word to describe the thrill of being called nasty names by people you don't know, I would like it put on a t-shirt, a bumper sticker, and a line of condoms. This must be what love feels like!!

We may never again see ourselves in "real" print, but this time was a hell of a lot of fun! Our boobs may have become letter writers, we may have inadvertently given off a receptive racist vibe, but all in all, we discovered that getting called names in public is a HUGE turn-on.

On a disturbing note, we caught an unwelcome glimpse of understanding for the Ann Coulters of the planet. We don't like that part of the realization, but it apparently comes with Media Whore territory. As the French say,

"Tant pis."

If You Come, They Will Build It... Sort Of

2007-06-16T12:29:00.000-05:00

The line was instant movie history when the seminal moment of Field of Dreams flickered across the screen. "If you build it, they will come." The removal of air from the room was palpable as hopes and dreams were distilled into seven syllables. Today, Kansas City teeters between slack-jawed horror and that giddiness that comes with waiting for an explosive to do its thing. The National Right To Life Committee has sanctified the local Hyatt for a few days. Liquor sales are reported to be up 30% over a year ago.

This group of Stop Right There thinkers has converged upon our middle-of-nowhere serenity with their unique brand of half-baked assumptions and half-assed conclusions. And less than half of the Republican candidates for president bothered to book a flight for the event. We call this progress.

The basis of the Know Nothing wing of the party - they are to American Politics what snake parts are to a can of green beans - is the conviction that caring at all the wrong times exempts you from giving a damn at all the right times. In a delightful display of insanity, they contend just the opposite. That's why we haven't gone out of our way to make a big deal over their presence. If the circus wants to set up down the street, who can argue with the convenience of a decent show on the block - elephant shit notwithstanding? We spent long minutes wondering whether the Committee believes itself to be furthering the Nation, Rights or Life. The conclusion? Like most committees, it now simply exists to announce its existence. Committees all go that direction eventually.

To understand these well-dressed lunatics requires a basic knowledge of tactics more than platforms. First, they speak a language that sounds like English but isn't. They take words from the language but use them in a way so that they mean the opposite of what the casual listener might assume. We dated a guy like that. It's where we got familiar with the term "Congenital Liar". They are so convinced in their misuse of the language that they forget just when and where they made the decision to lie in he first place.

The right to life is a sure thing. It's right there in the Declaration of Indepedence next to liberty and the ever-popular pursuit of happiness. But these wing nuts don't mean life like you mean life. They don't mean breathing. They mean the obligation to breed. You think a right to life means a right to be alive. They think the same right means you may get to the starting line, but you're on your own from there. From conception through the frying of the placenta at your family gathering, they insist you finish what you started. Once it cries, their job is done. They have no plans or desire to feed, clothe, care, or otherwise give a good goddamn about that hideous creature until they congratulate it in heaven some years hence.

This Right To Life bunch is anti-abortion and pro-death penalty, pro-war, pro-gun, anti-welfare, and generally anti-bothering them with any of the details of a life they insisted be commenced. They are notoriously opposed to the idea that everyone should have simple health care. Keep your eye on the dashboard Jesus: This is about getting life started, which has nothing to do with keeping it going. Look at their complete abstinence in the last 25 years on AIDS: If you got it domestically, shame on you; if you got it internationally, they'll pray for you. One of our favorite Ann Richards quotes refers to the elder Bush's identical position on all of the above: "Spoken like a true fisherman: Throw 'em back and kill 'em when they're grown." If that doesn't sum it up, we may need to have the Good Lord send Ann back for an encore.

The Right To Life bunch is thrilled to see your fryable ass in an electric chair, your veins popping with poison at your final moment of a death sentence, or your neck snapping from a good hanging. The Right To Life bunch doesn't acknowledge anything between vaginal birth and funeral rites as worthy of their attention. They have one goal and one goal only.

Make sure the sperm takes.

That's it. Nothing else. Once the orgasm hits, you are on the hook, in their book. Better you should aim for a tree than a fertile womb, although when Dr. Joycelyn Elders (nominated by President Clinton as Surgeon General) suggested that masturbation was a pretty good contraceptive measure, these same nut bags went berserk. They subscribe to the Loaded Gun Theory of the penis. You're not supposed to use it except in emergencies. If it's not an emergency, you don't have any business even touching it. Funny people, this bunch. They should get a sitcom. They already have a news network.

Mitt Romney showed up to kiss their ass as did the local yahoo, Sen. Sam Brownback - the only Kansan we could find who makes Bob Dole look chipper. Our favorite crazy person du jour: Rep. Ron Paul of Texas - the Libertarian who can't seem to find the exit door of the Republican Party - also showed up. The delegates had to be told as much after he spoke. They barely noticed. You can imagine the popularity of a Libertarian message ("Hey...what are you doing legislating in my womb?") among this crowd. It is lost on the Know Nothings that Rep. Paul is the only one of the bunch to ever deliver a baby (he's a 70 year-old retired obstetrician). The man who has really delivered (forgive the pun) on their only issue is the one they can't seem to find in the crowd. This, too, gives us hope.

We have a "Fuck 'Em Award" for Rep. Duncan Hunter, with whom our grandmother is running even in early presidential polls. He said he would come and then didn't. We appreciate that sort of a thumb in they eye. We have nothing else nice to say about Duncan Hunter, but would be remiss to let this good deed go unnoticed. The others? Please. This is 2007. The Christian Right has been revealed as neither. Nobody with a serious chance of being President will go near these people. T.B. boy has more high-profile visitors than this bunch can muster.

Giuliani, McCain, Gilmore, The Reverend Governor Huckabee(!), Tommy Thompson and the other nameless, hopeless few Republican candidates had the entire Midwest declared a No Fly Zone just so no one thought they were headed in the direction of this conference. The top two candidates have spent the last few days walking with their backs to Kansas City just to be sure no photo op would show them facing in Missouri's general direction. We hate that they're wising up. But we love seeing loathsome philosophies marginalized in publicly humiliating ways. It makes us all tingly.

In case you were wondering, Brownback was the hit of the show. If that doesn't give you hope for our future, you may just need to go take pills and lie down.

My Space Goes All Dateline NBC On Their Ass

2007-06-15T10:29:00.000-05:00

In a republic such as this, it is often difficult to decide which group of miscreants one will side with when the gauntlets get thrown. Usually, your choices are between the cock fighters and the woman who keeps her children locked in the chicken coops during matches. Sometimes, it's even stickier.

We learn today that Texas (that bastion of fair play and good governance - the late Ann Richards notwithstanding) put a number of registered sex offenders in the pokey for having My Space profiles when the terms of their release forbade internet activity. We certainly understand the urge. The policy among After Therapy executives is "No One Under 35 - Preferably Over 40". We have no compassion, sympathy or arguments available to those who do harm to children.

We think NAMBLA is an unnecessary evil, those who pimp their kids for a meal are the lowest of the low, and if you touch a child inappropriately before their 21st birthday, you should get whatever the cosmos - let alone the justice system - has coming for you. We are unequivocal about our distaste for child molesters, pornographers and those who enable the same through their action or ignorance.

However.... And in a constitutionally-established Republic, there is allllways a "however"....

Absent more details, which ought to be forthcoming if Paris stays put, Lindsay stays dry and Britney pulls her dress down, we are hard-pressed to figure out under what theory of law these mishaps of humanity are being detained. One of the group was singled out for failing to register as a sex offender. Fair enough. Lock him up. Hide the key. But today's reports indicate that merely being wired is sufficient to re-incarcerate these heinous creatures. We argue, unpopularly no doubt, that it isn't. It's identical to saying, "Thou shalt not go to Texas. We will now remove your legs to minimize your mobility." It's banning a person from a bar for over-indulging, then arresting them months later for being able to swallow liquids. Sometimes, in the name of common sense, we get frighteningly close to nonsense.

And that's not just our liberal law degree talkin'.

We have a system in this part of the world that says, in essence, we reserve the right to restrict what you do as a result of what you've done. We accept that as part of the social contract. No guns for felons. No voting for cons. No food stamps if you've misused the system. What we don't have is a Pariah Provision in our constitution that makes it illegal for a person to exist in the same space (virtual or otherwise) where they have previously abused the privilege. Granted, we reserve the right, under the law, to tell predators not to live within a prescribed perimeter of a school. We don't tell them they can never go to the grocery store on the off-chance they will run into a kid.

My Space certainly got its corporate legs running with the younger set. Kids dominate the scene - but aren't the only legitimate users of the service. We recently tracked down a music artist from our youth via his My Space page. The man is in his 60's and still recording gospel music. On his friends page were photos and links to the pages of many of today's better-known musicians. We attempted to shoot him an email through the site and got the message, "You Can't Do That" because we haven't created a My Space page of our own. Nice touch. The point is, this is not a sandbox filled with free candy where one expects to be able to walk away with the blonde 6 year-old of his choice. It's a public forum where people of all sorts now gather to exhibit themselves.

God knows we aren't against that.

My Space is simply a designated attraction spot on what we once called the Information Superhighway. All of us here gathered know that you can be everywhere and nowhere simultaneously in cyberspace. It is the realization of everything Star Trek promised us with its particle-beaming from one reality to another. If the computer is on, the Wi-Fi isn't glitching, and we have one eye on the screen, the entire world can welcome itself into the living room and insinuate itself in the 6th inning of a tight ballgame. If My Space is forbidden territory for those who have done others harm, how is the Internet itself any less verboten by virtue of its vast possibilities for impromptu visitation and mere chance meetings?

What is the rule Texas is seeking to articulate? No My Space for convicted sex predators because kids go there? What about just logging on to Google the ethmoid bone? Would receiving a blanket spam email from some enterprising 10 year old in Vegas put you on the hook for another 10-20 of Non-Paris Time? We know that My Space is an attractive nuisance, if you will, where young people are likely to gather. So is the mall. To my knowledge, we don't have any rules of incarceration as it pertains to patronizing Crabtree and Evelyn, though. This pendulum is swinging a bit too far into the civil liberties arena and it's going to take someone unassailable in character - or so vile they fail to register as human - to stop it.

Lock up these bastards and throw away the key - permanently - if our public policy is going to be that they are incapable of rehabilitation and proper societal functioning. If, however, we pursue a policy that allows for and encourages the restoration of these - and others - to their place in society (restricted though it may be), then the My Space Case must be settled once and for all. It is no crime to be in the same universe as those whom once you harmed.

It is a great crime to sit back and watch the majority go mad with malice and unhinge us from our constitutional moorings in the process.

(Staff note: We would like to congratulate our Editor-in-Chief for not overriding our veto when he suggested that parents "Watch those fucking troglodyte kids you're always blathering about everybody else protecting." His trust in our judgement is why we love him.)

Not Dead. Good

2007-06-15T01:20:00.000-05:00

Guinea Pig and all... It seems the experimental route turned out to be beneficial for yours truly. We will not be posting from the great golden (or fiery) beyond in the near future - barring any bus mishaps.

After a month of grueling acclimation to the new regimen and a myriad of maladies that had us fairly well convinced we would only just outlast Jerry Falwell in the Dead Pool, the reports are in, the effects are waning, and we are about ready to climb back on the proverbial horse. AIDS will not get us this week.

Fevers pushing 105 degrees, digestive difficulty at both ends of the tract, insides that felt charred, a mind that betrayed us on occasion, malaise well-documented, fatigue indescribable, and even a hint of depression all made our acquaintance here in the "office" over the last few weeks. But thanks to the good judgement of the medical community and a God we have not sufficiently offended (yet), we have emerged on the other side with nothing but good news.

The Virus is once again undetectable in the blood stream. The fevers and aforementioned issues were simple evidence of a body doing unholy battle against invaders new and familiar. Steroids became part of our lexicon as we actually had to apply the brakes to our newly revved immune system. When the latter started to play with our mind, we called a halt to that portion of the handful of pills and began a step-down program that will play out over the next month. The fevers have all but abated, the appetite has returned with a vengeance, energy is rushing back in at the most inopportune times (3 a.m, 4 a.m., etc.) and everyone on the clinical side of the team is thrilled with the results. We considered getting fitted for appropriate burial garments on at least one occasion. The best laid plans, as they say....

The goal of aggressive treatment in people with HIV and AIDS is to see a reduction in the amount of virus to an undetectable (though not non-existent) level within 3-6 months. We crossed that hurdle just shy of the first month. Over-achieving has always been something of a knack for us. Unless, of course, we're talking about anything mechanical or interpersonal - then we defer to those with a much more convincing resume of achievement.

Thanks goes to our beloved physician, for whom we will not shill. He makes his money. But he also knows it's a price well-paid in our opinion. The other medical staff, legion of family, those who brought spaghetti and watermelon and all manner of potato products (the only food that we would eat for days), our "Aidsy Group" in The City who manages to make the most abnormal physical experience seem not that remarkable or frightening, and What's Her Name in NYC for providing much needed distraction and being a lightning rod for nastiness when it was needed all get our public, though anonymous, gratitude.

And not least of all, we thank that faithful handful of blog-readers who nudge occasionally and let us know that whatever the hell we're saying, someone is listening. And that's what life on the Big Blue Ball is really about, isn't it? Just knowing somebody heard you.

The bounce back is in full swing. Who knows? By the time we turn the page on another age in a couple of weeks, we may be stronger than ever and more sharp-tongued than one would wish. But we'll be here. Plans are in the works for an international edition of After Therapy. We're researching with our crack staff the logistics of lodging in Greece for part of the winter. We would look forward to posting from the Aegean paradise for a number of weeks. It's been something we've long thought to do and never got around to realizing.

So on we go. The future is unknowable, but at least we can plan to be flapping our gums in the midst of the most immediate part of it. And that's enough for today.

Tom

She Could Have Chuckled

2007-06-14T15:24:00.001-05:00

We took our own advice and phoned our Senator from the Senate HELP Commitee (Pat Roberts, R-Kansas) to voice our toned-down opinion about the nomination of one Surgeon General nominee previously excoriated herein.

This is the rough draft of our conversation:

(Pleasant, slightly conservative hold music...)

Her: Senator Roberts' office! This is Wilma (name changed because we forgot to write it down).

Me: Hi! I'm a reluctant constituent of Senator Roberts and I'm calling to oppose the nomination of James "Scissors" Holsinger as Surgeon General.

Her: OK. (We think the rustling we heard sounded like a Bible, but it could have been a phone book.)

Me: Despite every indication the Senator has given of his intentions - since birth, really - we want to go on record as being vociferously opposed to this nomination. We also want to say that we don't know anybody who didn't laugh out loud when we read portions of Mr. Holsinger's White Paper from the Methodist Church as it pertained to gay people. This is not the kind of leadership we need at the top of the Health Care System in our country at this critical juncture. Amen.

Her: So you're opposed to the nomination?

Me: Yes. Should I repeat the rest?

Her: No. I got the rest.

Me: If you got the rest, how did you end up undecided as to whether I supported the nomination? (I'm on Prednisone. I'm testy by nature nowadays.)

Her: I was distracted. I'm sorry. You were saying? (More rustling.)

Me: I was done saying, actually, but since you opened the door: Holsinger suggests that we run around with scissors up our butts and I want to be the Kansas Gay Person who goes on record as saying that is NOT true. I don't know anybody who can manage anything faster than a saunter when doing the Scissor Squinch.

Her: Are you serious?

Me: No. But you stopped listening when I said I opposed the nomination. I figured I had carte blanche from there.

Her: So the scissor thing happens?

Me: NO, the scissor thing does not happen. Do you remember the whole Richard Gere/gerbil thing from the 80's?

Her: I'm not that old.

Me: Of course you're not. How did you get this jaded so early? Normally, working for a Republican is the urge that hits you right after the Violet Rinse Syndrome.

Her: Huh?

Me: Never mind. We don't put scissors or gerbils up our butts, but Holsinger wrote down that he thinks we do! Furthermore, he thinks AIDS comes from bad plumbing.

Her: Like the sewer?

Me: No, like how it's a parts problem, not a disease problem. He thinks people get sick because they put their parts in the wrong places. And the scissors. That's just over-the-top. This nomination is the height of lunacy and I want to be documented as having nothing to do with it when people find out my Senator voted for it.

Her: What's your name, again?

Me: Oy. Do you know any gay people?

Her: We're not allowed to say.

Me: You work in Topeka, I can see by the phone number. There are a couple of gay bars there. Before you go to another staff meeting, I would like you to send someone over and physically check for scissors in buttholes. If you find one, I'll fly to Washington and cast the Senator's vote for him - however he likes.

Her: I don't think we have anybody assigned to do that sort of thing.

Me: Neither do we, honey. Neither do we.

(donation of my name, phone and address to the Republican Hit List ensued and call was ended with...)

Her: I'll tell him.

Me: What?

Her: Huh?

Me: What part are you going to tell him?

Her: That you don't care for the nomination.

Me: But that's not the good part! I blog, I wrote it all down a week ago. Can I send it to you?

Her: We're not allowed to do that.

Me: Because I think you're good at remembering things like this, I want you to remember this about gay people and scissors:

We're not allowed to do that, either.

Andrew Sullivan: Pan Fried

2007-06-14T11:50:00.000-05:00

You may know the name or the mug of this prolific columnist, editor, author, blogger and all-'round opinion flinger. We hold such outspoken types in high esteem around here. Truth told, if we had our druthers, we'd have his audience and he'd have our Kansas bungalow.

Andrew Sullivan (photo: http://www.roycecarlton.com/) is a self-described "libertarian conservative". He's gay and Catholic. He's pro-gay marriage but Vatican-committed. He's British-born and obsessed with the American cultural and political landscape. He's authored "Virtually Normal", an apologetics manual for homosexuality in an adverse climate. He's also pined about the loss of the Conservative Soul (The Conservative Soul: How We Lost It, How To Get It Back). He's Pan - everything to everyone, thus not enough to anyone. You might say Andrew Sullivan stands as a beacon in the darkness for Gay/Lesbian people everywhere. Or you might say he's the ultimate half-assed excuse for a Gay public figure we've seen since Abraham Lincoln.

Well... we might.

Today, the paper brings word that Sullivan suggests Democrats dump Hillary due to her negative perception ratings (about double those of Barack Obama in a recent poll). He leaps at the opportunity to quote a "critic" (there's a deep well for you) who calls her a liar, rigid, and possessive of a divine sense of electability. Fair enough. We love name calling. We got good at it in grade school and honed the skill in Law School. What we want to know is where Sullivan bought the glass for that rock-launching pad of a mansion he inhabits.

If lying, rigidity, and divine sensibilities aren't hallmarks of the Right Wing that Sullivan has so tirelessly enabled to his own detriment (not least of all from his perch atop The New Republic), then we haven't been watching the same wing flap lo these many years. We don't have to go back to Nixon (Watergate), Reagan (take your pick - let's go with Iran/Contra to mix things up), Bush I ("read my lips"), or even call up Bush II (again...the well is deep) to talk about lying.

We don't have to call up the 6 year history of this administration in refusing to change course until the road was blown out from under them - and even then insisting on using the same dirt, the same asphalt, the same personnel and the same tire tracks to re-lay the same road to the same failure only for new reasons. Rigid, indeed.

We don't have to point out the rise of Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell (may peace escape his rest), William (Let It Ride) Bennett, Ralph Reed, Don Wildmon, Phyllis Schlafly, James Dobson, Lindsay Graham or the myriad other religious zealots who took the reigns of his beloved Republican Party in the 80's and only now are being forced to loose their grip - by way of amputation.

So our question to Mr. Sullivan is: Was it a compliment or a curse that you were hurling at Senator Clinton, who has done more to serve her country in the public eye than most of the Sullivans in history combined? Is lying now anathema to your cabal on the Right? We'd like the memo for proof. We're assuming it isn't in Scooter Libby's or Karl Rove's briefcase any longer. Is rigidity now a bad thing after 6 years of Stay The Course - regardless of the consequences to people we'll never meet? Is God a registered Republican when it comes to lending divine touch to vain political ambition or genuine service? Do tell. We're protestant over here. We don't have a pointy-hatted man with great shoes to tell us what God thinks.

Perhaps Mr. Sullivan would like to pack in his Prada Pope, his Tiger-By-The-Tail pro-gay, pro-marriage, pro-Right compote and his keyboard and go somewhere to rest a while. What used to look like hopelessly sucking up to assholes in power now just looks inane. We liked having a smart, gay man out there stirring the pot - whether we agreed with him or not.

Now, we'd just as soon he go home and focus on England post-Blair. We're sure his mix is a hoot over there. We'll make up our own mind about Hillary and company without wading through the imported self-loathing, thank you.

Battlefield Promotion: The Gay Bomb

2007-06-13T07:40:00.000-05:00

He was right.

I assumed this was a recycled, years-old, urban myth with high entertainment value. It's not. It made the news. They really had a plan. That we were in the front of their minds when they sought how to protect this land brings a tear to the eye, really.

In case you're the person who isn't connected by six-degrees of e-mail to everyone else in the world, here's the snippet:

"I don't know whether to laugh at the stupidity, or cry because a bunch of morons got it in their pea-brains that such a scheme might work. 'A Berkeley watchdog organization that tracks military spending said it uncovered a strange U.S. military proposal to create a hormone bomb that could purportedly turn enemy soldiers into homosexuals and make them more interested in sex than fighting.'"
http://cbs5.com/topstories/local_story_159222541.html (Link worked at time of posting. If not, just figure it out like the rest of us do.)

We went to the Web site of the Berkeley CBS affiliate and confirmed that they ran the report this week. A brief scan of the 'Net shows this is not even necessarily "new" news. The CBS site quotes Edward Hammond, of Berkeley's Sunshine Project, who used the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to get a copy of the proposal from the Laboratory at Wright Air Force Base in Dayton Ohio. We will now pause for a moment of reflection while you try to formulate that line trapped at the back of your throat.

As we've said before, it is usually hard to be so outrageous that you surpass the story and become the story. The original story is that Berkeley is weird. It is. We are as liberal as they come and Berkeley made us feel like we were walking around sucking face with our own hidden Nazi while we harbored slave laborers in our modest 2-bedroom suburban apartment where we raised non-free-range chickens to feed third world dictators in exchange for assault weapons we would use to further the crack trade in minority-dominated inner cities. There is nothing more stress-inducing than ordering food in Berkeley. Or considering a cigarette afterward. Or deciding to have sex with someone.

Everything - but everything - is fraught with political drama in Berkeley. Where did the beans for the coffee come from? Were the bean pickers provided coffee breaks, deodorant, and a 401(k) in a currency secure from government tampering? Is the cup biodegradable to a degree that would actually stimulate new growth forestation in an area at least 75 miles from where it is disposed? Are the frocks on the coffee-slingers made in such a manner as to guarantee that no slaves were harmed in the delivery of your cappuccino? Oy. This is how so many of us left The Movement in the 60's and became Bob Dole in the 80's. It wasn't a change of heart. It was sheer exhaustion.

Now, maintain your focus, because you're going to remember that Berkeley is not the story - when they should have been. It was Berkeley - mad, crazy, whacked-out, certifiably abnormal Berkeley - that uncovered a real Pentagon plan to develop a bomb that would Homosexualize an opposing army to a degree that would ensure their defeat. See how the Pentagon trumps Berkeley a thousand times over? No more alpaca, coffee-bean, sweat-shop aspect to the story. Now, it's all just sucking dick 'til death do we part. Taxpayer-funded, government-approved, Rumsfeld-signed, Bush-briefed, Rove-spun, Libby-hidden Induced Gayness.

Don't Ask Don't Tell on this side of the Mosque. But baby, have we got a thrill for you tonight on your side. All American troops are required to be in their bunks - alone and with gas masks mounted - before the You-Know-What goes off on the other side of the Green Zone. Any fondling, groping, or other possible "leakage" effects from the artillery will be investigated by a military tribunal conducted during your stay at Guantanamo. No requests will be processed from 2300 on this evening as top military brass will be watching what we hope to be a swarthy, Middle-Eastern orgy a few blocks from here. Our thanks to those of you who participated in pre-war studies on this weaponry. Your country thanks you for the sacrifice of your rectum, dignity, and three pay grades.

The very notion. A bomb. That makes people gay. Brought to you by the manufacturers of No Fags In My Foxhole - one of the Falwell Companies. Remember what they told us around 1990? Gay folks = unit cohesion problem? I'm guessing when their own study disproved that assertion, they took it one step further. If lack of cohesion doesn't result, then maybe super cohesion could be used to our advantage - assuming we just foist it on the other side, of course.

Somebody call Rummy back. I want to see him triple-speak his way around this one. Just once. For old time's sake.

Look - here's the truth. We who carry The Agenda in our pockets have known this for years and it's time we blew the whistle and put a stop to all the madness. There is no gay bomb. If there were a gay bomb, we would have already purchased an island with our considerable disposable income and moved there en masse - leaving you all to a world of heterosexual hairstylists and actors who really DO have to "play" gay in movies. (Shudder.) We would drop the bomb every day at brunch, tea, dinner and 1 a.m., just to keep the vibe even.

You would know we had it, because we would be a tan, oblivious, sex-obsessed people with lots of money, no interest in war, an interest in politics only when it protruded into our bedrooms....
.........

Well, no matter the similarities, we have no bomb. There is no bomb. There will never be a bomb. You cannot make someone gay with a bomb anymore than you can make them gay with an overbearing mother. You need show tunes.

Write congress and demand they uncover the philosophy and the plan behind this travesty.

And meet us at Tea Dance. You know where.

You Need To Go Home Now

2007-06-11T15:43:00.000-05:00

Because we don't have enough people who have an appropriate response to shame, today brings word that Colin Powell would like us to hear his opinion on the next President Of The United States.

We still haven't found all the pieces of our jaw from when we dropped it over his activities with the current one. It's going to be a long, long time before we consider Gen. Powell to be a reliable advisor in the voting booth. In an attempt to be tantalizing and seem relevant, years after his cellular-level integrity meltdown on the floor of the United Nations, The Guy Who Knew Saddam Back When says he isn't entirely sure he'd support a Republican for president.

That puts him in the shocking company of about 65% of the country. This man has not only lost his moral compass, he's lost all sense of irony, any remnant of history, and the inborn instinct we all have that tells us to just shut up and go home.

Gen. Powell lied to the world, either by his own will or by his own failure to verify the words coming out of his mouth. He didn't do it in the bathroom under his breath with the water running. He did it into a microphone on the floor of the United Nations. He did it in furtherance of a perverted plan to bring open-ended war to a country about which George Bush was willing to say anything to get the key to the Bomb Box. Many of us have misspoken in our day. Many of us have realized down life's winding road that something we decided previously was erroneous. Hardly any of us have blood on our hands to this degree as a direct result of our dereliction of duty. From those to whom much is given, much is required. Somebody important said that once. Want a big job? Take the big consequences.

The consequences of being colossally wrong - if not a degenerate liar - when your star is on the rise and you are in all likelihood the heir-apparent to the throne of all 50 states - is that we no longer take your word on anything. Colin Powell could tell us that oil and water don't mix and we would doubt his intentions, let alone his facts. The truly grating part of this media assault today, however, is Powell's overtures to my party - the one that sat on its hands while Bush, Inc. wreaked havoc on the planet.

We have paid dearly on the Left for not speaking up in the months prior to war. We were afraid of being right again - like during the Vietnam years. Being right, however, did not work to our political gain during Vietnam. Being wrong this time hasn't gone so hot, either. We don't learn lessons quickly on the Left. We get bogged down in seeing all sides of issues and would require a 12-point diversified caucus to decide to leave a sinking lifeboat - with appropriate membership weighting in favor of those least able to represent themselves and who, by virtue of history's cruelty, may no longer be around to be in the lifeboat. It's our Big Flaw. It comes with Grand Intentions, like most big flaws do. What we need is a spine, not a General.

So thanks, Gen. Powell. We hear you loud and clear. The dance is coming and you have no date. May we suggest that you vacation in Albania this year? We understand they're huge Bush fans over there - and we don't even care enough to ask why. They can have him. You're sure to be a huge hit there yourself. Take Alma. She's probably ready to get away.

Remember... she told you not to get involved in this stuff in the first place. Sometimes Mama knows best.

Sopranos Finale: Whaddayagonnado?

2007-06-11T09:18:00.000-05:00

So-PRA'-nos: (n)(pl)(It) A period of 86 hours spread over 10 years (8 seasons) at the end of which is revealed that there are no fat women who sing.

Eighty-six episodes I committed myself to this hour. Eighty-six. I knew better than to expect ribbons and conclusions and what we used to call Closure. I had heard that HBO wouldn't cut off any future earnings by whacking the absolute core of a possible movie or spin-off. Dis Ting of Ours is nuttin' if not bizness savvy.

But I did have higher expectations for a series that soared above its own story lines for most of its life. Disproved was the notion that after 3 hours of Brando, DeNiro, Pacino, Caan and the other usual suspects mugging and cheap-shottting people, the vehicle would wear out and you'd be left with broken, bloodied, shells of people. It just ain't like that. Tony told us so.

Tony did therapy, for chrissakes! Carmela wallowed in Catholic angst just long enough to get her eyes on the grift from a spec house and off the rosary. Bless her heart. No sense in the one with the ziti getting left out in the cold. Meadow had every synapse firing to lend piercing intelligence, thwarted by her mother's "why bother" ascent to wealth, to the female underground role. Meadow's was THE original Sopranos character - underutilized as it was. And A.J. - the fuck-up from birth. Take away actor Robert Iler's brush with the law over the last couple of years and one wonders why Chase would even try introducing this character to post-adolescence in the final season. If there was an expendable family character - fatherly reflection or not - this was the one.

"Uncle" Paulie "Walnuts" Gualtieri, one of Da Family's senior members, could never quite let his two parts Al Pacino veto his three parts Eva Gabor. Handed the world on a platter in the season finale, his prostate colors his mood on the offer. Perhaps the most annoying character on television - ever - but one of the great David Chase creations left fleshless in the story's unwinding. Tony's sister, Janice, while designed as a caricature and constant memory of their toxic mother, lost her bite when she found her ovaries. Or so we thought. What a deliciously conniving, entitled, self-important piece of work, that one. Alas, she's rendered the other of the great original female characters pushed to the margins in a march toward, evidently, nowhere.

We understand that the new rule is "No Rules" for finales. If you have rules, you lessen expectations, your viewership may suffer (after 86 episodes over 8 years), and the advertising dollar you command for that final hour is knee-capped by predictability. But this ain't TV, as they remind us on the hour. It's HB friggin' O. What advertisers? Tell the freakin' story, already!

We don't have to know that Carmela finds a lump in 2019 or that Meadow marries more times than Liz Taylor. We don't necessarily care whether A.J. had a mob-enabling revelation as he watched his SUV burn, but a peek is nice. Whither Silvio Dante? Dr. Melfi? Once off the schedule, you're literally... off... the schedule? Look, we know Ms. Bracco isn't really a therapist. She's an actress. Melfi is a character. Don't go all literal on us now and call us names for being naive. We're the ones who sat here and watched her fall for him, cross all the boundaries, then pretend like nothing happened. Is Janice's star still on the ascendant? What does Uncle Junior know about the money he may or may not have that Janice may or may not be trying to scrounge? And is he realllly crazy? Does Ginny Sacrimoni get so large in her grief that she literally explodes like a Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade float or does she re-appear in a couple of seasons in a size 6 looking like Eydie Gorme? Are Chris and Adrianna dead-dead? Or are they TV dead? And if they're TV dead, are they Six Feet Under TV Dead or are they Dallas TV Dead?

I am not so disappointed that I don't know what happened when Meadow hit the diner's front door in the series' finale. I am in deep mourning, however, for both the sublime and the infernal mark The Sopranos will leave on television series-making. This program was among the first to test audience loyalty with the Will They or Won't They proposition of shooting sixteen episodes and seeing who cares next year. Feed them some re-runs. Tease them with a new season beginning at month eight. Let the Internet jabber do its part to keep interest and speculation alive. Then use all of the above to throw damn near anything at the wall the following season. For sixteen weeks. Then let the next 36 weeks be about how worth the wait might have been. Rinse. And repeat.

We see it now on network TV. ABC (Another Bad Comedy) tried its best to bury Lost that way. Episodic drama relies on the pull from one moment to the next to spur our continued investment in the story. The ensemble network TV drama does not have the luxury of jerking around its ever-dwindling audience the way pay-television (HBO) does. Whether another HBO customer watches John From Cincinnati or not, they will make their money. If The Italian Job had been heavier on story - even as a brief movie - you wouldn't remember the Mini Coopers first when you think of it and it would be a better product. Because The Story Is The Thing.

HBO has stories in spades. This network cuts short series that had another good five years in them because no American audience could ever endure the twin tasks of thinking and escaping simultaneously (Carnivale, Rome). It knows how to let audiences down easy with fanfare, good-bye kisses, balloon bouquets and taffeta... lots and lots of taffeta when the story has been told (Sex In The City, Six Feet Under). It knows how to whack a series with as much courtesy as a butcher with a pork chop (Deadwood, anyone?) when it has buggies-full of story left. And it apparently knows how to blow an ending that even non-fans watched out of morbid curiosity.

The complaint is not closure. The cry is not "MORE!" although there is much left on the table. We're not ignorant of artistic device, dangling participles, unopened doors, cliff-hangers or creator's prerogative. We just expected more from the people who turned mob life inside out and proved there are insides. We stand and whistle for these artists who took on caricatures and made them three-dimensional, but not more sympathetic. Our insight into their hearts did nothing to excuse their choices - a novel story-telling device if ever there was one. "If you knew me, you would love me," became, "Hey, babe... even when you know me... I gotta tell ya.... ". Pure character genius.

People with this much creative talent had more within them than thumbing their nose at convention. They had much for which to apologize (what with the 9 month annual hiatus concept and all). They had 8 seasons and God-Only-Knows how many hours of time to think about where this might go. What might the statement be? What's the perfect ending - not for Tony or The Family - but for this artistic gem that will absolutely be among the Top Fifty TV Series of All Time?

Top 50? No Top 10? They told you this when you were nine, bay-bee.... The story's got to have a beginning, a middle, and an end. You can leave out any part you want, as the author, but it will absolutely affect your grade. Any guy will tell you: Buying flowers is cool, buying dinner is fun, the movie is delightful, the dancing is a ball, and the drinks are the best. But at the end of the date if you don't offer up something resembling a kiss, we're going home to think less of you.

And youse can take that to Satriale's.

Hey! No Fair!

2007-06-09T19:47:00.000-05:00

TMZ.com informs us via CNN that the Heiress They Call Paris has neither slept (GASP!) nor eaten (SWOON!) since her admission to the crazy folks end of a Los Angeles jail. This does not bother us. We would suggest that normal weekend behavior for the Pantiless Princess includes shaving her noni, spraying on a tan, and avoiding anything resembling a solid calorie.

Again - just speculating here - but isn't it entirely probable that she who put the "Tit" in Entitlement has spent most weekends wide awake? The only difference between those weekends and this one is the thread count of the sheets she's not sleeping on. Poor baby is evidently beyond distraught. This, too, does not bother us.

But we cried an audible "FOUL!" when we learned that she is getting "psychoactive" pills to help her pass the time in the joint. For you newbies - that's the good stuff. That's the stuff that will turn your world on with a smile. It can take a nothing day and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile. You feel like love is all around, why not just take it? No need to fake it! Psychoactive drugs convince you that... well... darn it... You're gonna make it, after all. This development bothers us greatly.

We believe that psychoactive, feel-good remedies should be reserved for those moments where one is expected to be enjoying themselves. We made our list and checked it twice and are convinced that JAIL is not one of those places. This is like getting an open bar in your cell - only better. No need to bang your cup on the bars to get some surly lesbian to bring you ice or olives. Down the hatch - chew or swallow. Ten minutes, tops.... you're on the Riviera banging Fidel Castro and not in the psych ward of a Los Angeles jail.

Mostly, we don't like depleting the supply of psychoactive drugs that should be available for mediocre social encounters. And we detest the notion that this foul-mouthed, classless, poster child for retroactive abortion gets so much as a Tylenol to take the edge off her experience.

What we have here is a conspiracy to keep this child from learning anything ever. In a precious few years, she will be middle-aged, ocularly unbalanced and completely lacking inherent self-control. That, I suppose, would put her in line to be her mother.

Funny how quickly the Bush twins have moved up the Most Likely To Succeed ladder, isn't it?

No Experience Required

2007-06-09T12:17:00.000-05:00

Normally, you need a degree in Political Science, Military Mayhem, or something similar to figure these things out. That's why we have politicians. And FOX. They tell us what to think when we couldn't possibly figure things out for ourselves.

Today's headline in the morning paper repeated yesterday's news that Gen. Peter Pace, current chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and highest ranking military officer, would not get another shot at making shit up as he goes in front of Congress. Now, that was just mean.

We should say that he won't get a second chance to repeat the administration's lies with a straight face in front of Congress. We give Pace the benefit of the doubt on this one. Hell, they got Colin Powell to gut his entire future for Gee Dub's Folly. Whose arm wouldn't they twist?

The genius part of the commentary associated with this - and the part that normally requires high-level analysis, lengthy public service, and an alphabet soup of initials after one's name - is what Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, had to say about the development. You see...until just the other night, Pace was still Gates' guy. If this had happened in our social circle, we would be speculating that somebody walked in on somebody with somebody - but this isn't like that. Well...we don't think it's like that. They won't let us in the military, how would we know? (Official After Therapy Statement Of Clarification: We Don't Want In. Send Your Own Damn Kids If You Like War.)

No, Sec. Gates (aka The Man Who Isn't Rumsfeld Anymore) says that he was notified by Congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle that Pace's confirmation hearing would be overwhelmed by the Iraq War's past and not its future. Chew on that one for a minute.

Apparently, Secretary Gates had high hopes for a Miss Cleo, Sylvia Browne, crystal ball process where Iraq is concerned. Since we have nothing much to talk about in the future tense regarding Iraq, by necessity, we will have to focus on what has gone down (and out..and wrong...and awry...and...and) up to now. That's the past. Those are the things we can analyze. For our Republican friends and loyal readers, we call that "history". It's the things that have really happened that aren't written in the Bible. It's fairly new. But we like it.

There's a theory that's been bandied about over the last couple of centuries that those who do not remember or who fail to understand "history" are doomed to repeat it. It's just a theory. But you gotta admit...it seems to hold some water. Regrettably, Secretary of Defense Gates wants no part of "history" in the discussion about who should lead the military going forward. We get that. They don't have anything good to talk about unless you count dragging Saddam out of a curiously-placed hole, ripping his head off, and the botched photo-op of Our Very Finest rubbing an Amurrican flag in a statue's face before we helped them pull it from its moorings.

So on we move. The next victim/liar/pawn/obfuscator/perpetrator to carry this failed president's water on Iraq should be Navy Admiral Mike Mullen. We're developing a theory at After Therapy that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs is chosen from among those men whose first and last names begin with the same letter. We have a standing offer of $0.50 to anyone who can send us documentation of senior military officials changing their names to avoid the Repeating Initials phenomenon. Our theory makes at least as much sense as any other. Who, in their ever-lovin' right mind, would volunteer to drive this train for the last 1,000 feet of its 50,000 feet plunge off the cliff?

We're convinced beyond all discussion that this is one of those jobs from which you are automatically disqualified by virtue of your willingness to do it. (Like being Paris Hilton's attorney, for example.) But on we will go, with a keen eye to whether Admiral Mullen can navigate the Senate confirmation process and avoid talking about anything that has happened in Iraq up to now. We rather thought this was at the root of the entire Gee Dub Problem: failure to know and understand what the past can teach us. Now we get a primo opportunity to confirm the idea, if not the Admiral.

Meanwhile, back on Capitol Hill, People Who Matter are buzzing about whether Hillary gave her folks a sugar-coated veneer when she autobiographized herself. It's good to know somebody has their eye on the really important things this time around.

Meanwhile, Back At The Hilton...

2007-06-08T12:18:00.000-05:00

The Hilton, it appears, is booked.

No, she can't phone it in. No, she can't do a few lines of blow to take the edge off. No, she can't ride in the limo. No, she can't ride in the front seat and play with the siren. And, if there is any logic in the world, her mother cannot come to yell at the Little People this time around.

Having viewed the documents wherein the sentencing judge specifically forbade house arrest, early release, electronic monitoring, city-as-opposed-to-county jail, one wonders which of the Sheriff's Deputies Kathy Hilton, (W-POOP: Worst Parent On Our Planet), spread her canola-oiled thighs for to get her out of jail in the dead of night recently.

CNN holds out the prospect of said Sheriff being held in contempt-of-court for having released Hilton due to her general distaste for prison orange and a dermatological reaction to jail soap. We contend that any Sheriff - even in L.A. - who would take it upon himself to usurp the legal system in this way should not ONLY be held in contempt, but should find himself schlepping Louis Vuitton luggage at one of the lower-scale Hiltons in suburban L.A., forever banned from the Law Enforcement Profession.

This judge, on the other hand, has gone a long, long way toward restoring the integrity of the judicial system after what Judge Ito (O.J.: Not Guilty) perpetrated on the venerable profession. This is not at all about snubbing one's nose at a suspended driver's license citation. This is about privilege. If little Paris ends up anywhere but solitary confinement rotting in her own soiled panties (this presumes a previous lesson learned), minority communities across the West have every reason to re-Rodney King the joint.

Kudos to The Only President We Got for taking advantage of the media frenzy to announce the departure of the latest replacement architect of the Iraqi War. Without doubt, the man is stupid, but no one can accuse him of missing an opportunity when it's presented. Peter Pace will go by September with a healthy amount of blood on his hands and lies on his conscience. His book should hit the shelves by Christmas. He'll lay all blame for all his obfuscation before congress at the feet of Gee Dub, but at the end of the day, as Americans, we must stop using, "He told me to" as an excuse - even in military circles.

It's an invalid excuse for Paris Hilton. It's an invalid excuse for Peter Pace. And while these worlds could not seem further apart, the harmonic convergence of their fates couldn't prove a more valid point. If you did it, you own it.

In the spirit of Jerry Falwell, Don Wildmon and James Dobson, we would be remiss in not noting that all of the above flagrant violators of human decency and wisdom are heterosexual. What's good for the goose, they say....

Merriam Webster Alert: This Is Not House Arrest

2007-06-07T15:26:00.000-05:00

Newsflash (as oppposed to pantiless flash): Paris Hilton spends barely over 48 hours in jail, gets credit for 5 days, will spend 40 days on "House Arrest". This is like characterizing the pampered ringers from The Apprentice as "under house arrest" inside Trump Tower's penthouse while filming his cancelled (did we say cancelled?) - we meant CANCELLED ratings toilet. She has a medical issue. She's allergic to jail. She also has flawed genes. The kind you get from your mother.

You should know that before Kathy Hilton spread her cocoa-buttered thighs for the Hilton hotel billions, she came in second place to Eve Plumb for the role of Jan Brady. If that doesn't explain everything, then I just can't help you here.

From Wikipedia: On May 4, 2007, she (Worst Parent On The Planet: W-POOP, Kathy Hilton) accompanied her daughter Paris Hilton to court for sentencing on a probation violation. When the city prosecutor commented that Paris deserved jail time, Kathy laughed. When the judge ruled, she then blurted out: "May I have your autograph?"

From People Magazine: "As the family was about to exit the courtroom, said Edwards, Kathy Hilton declared for all to hear, "[The judge] made up his mind before he even came in today. If it were anyone else, this would've never had happened." She (Mother Kathy) then exclaimed, "And after all the money we spent!"

From a statement read by Barbara Walters on The View: "Kathy Hilton wants young people to learn from her jail-bound daughter Paris..." Apparently, the W-POOP wants young people to learn that 2 days equals 5, that 40 days of House Arrest in a mansion where your 3,000-foot monitoring range barely takes you out of the kitchen, and that having your mother throw a hissy on your behalf - between swigs of Jug O' Wine - can all tilt justice in your favor.

Here is what Hilton House Arrest looks like - New York-style. The poor little girl with the brand new medical condition now has to stay within 3,000 feet of a phone jack in the WALDORF-ASTORIA HOTEL, which her daddy owns and her mommy put out to get. Paris was, in all likelihood, conceived within feet of where she will plug in her ankle bracelet to confirm that she is in one of the poshest hotels on the planet, not jail.

Its Web site calls it an "opulent suite of peerless elegance occupying the 28th-42nd floors of The Waldorf-Astoria" (which means the part regular rich folk can rent). Imagine the part the owners live in:

(HILTON HOUSE ARREST ---->)

This is where Mable, our town drunk, stays when she's on house arrest. See if you can spot the differences:

They say money can't buy you love. But it can buy you a husband, a hotel fortune, one hell of an enabling mommy, and a motherfucker of a house arrest.

Somebody just send these people to Iraq and bring back the people we wouldn't mind meeting on the street.

Surgeon General Nominee Thinks Butt Sex Icky

2007-06-07T07:24:00.000-05:00

Thought Rummy was good for War & Peace? Thought Ashcroft covering up Lady Justice's tits was simple decorum? Rove, Libby & Cheney lie, cheat and kill to settle scores around the world - no problem?

Are you one who thinks if it's Amurrican, it's better by nature than if it's "Oriental"? Anyone from another country (you don't have to count any generation in your family, save your own) is a de facto security threat itchin' to blow up a federal building (never mind that whole Tim McVeigh thing)? Do you think your wife will leave you for a tool belt-wearing, Birkenstocked, flat-bottomed lesbian if Gay Marriage is legalized tomorrow? Or that your 9 year-old will be a whore if you vaccinate her against Cervical Cancer between Sunday School and Monday Morning Math class?

"Then, have we got a guy for you!" , reports the White House. James Holsinger, a real-live doctor, (not like the real-live doctor who speculated that masturbation is an alternative to knocking up your 14 year-old girlfriend...sheesh!) has been put forth by "The Worst Administration in History" for Surgeon General. Nota Bene: When Jimmy Carter, who pretty much had a lock on the bottom spot among American Presidents, can call you names and not even get a giggle, you know he's onto something.

A quick primer for the heterosexual reader: The NY Times first reported a gay-related disease we now know as AIDS in 1981. Ronald Reagan wouldn't say the word because Peggy Noonan wouldn't put it in a speech and Nancy Reagan knew her son was a ballerina, until 1987. This is why you will find gay people pissing on the unlikely-to-be-eternal flame on Reagan's grave in the dark of night and the broad of day. We don't hate people on principle - not famous ones, anyway. There's always a reason. Now you know.

By 1973, the American Psychological Association(APA) had removed homosexuality and its related sexual gymnastics from its list of "disordered" behaviors. Jesus ran around with 12 men, lived with his mother until he was 30, and the last thing He asked for before He died was a drink....and nary a word on the topic. (We aren't inferring...we're just reporting.) Judaism stopped the Levitical practice of stoning queers around the same time they realized that shrimp cocktail is a fast and easy hors d'oeuvres, bacon goes with everything, and that it's a bad idea to suggest stoning a man who laid in a bed where a woman had a little monthly leakage problem. In sum, Republicans haven't only been the last ones through the door to the Big Gay Post-Medieval Seminar, many of them still don't realize there is one.

Witness James Holsinger, alleged M.D, and newly-nominated Surgeon General of these here United States. In a "white paper" published in 1991, titled "Pathophysiology of Male Homosexuality", Holsinger wrote for the "Committee to Study Homosexuality in the United Methodist Church" that the paper was solely scientific and not even the teensiest bit related to his ~~dementia~~ theological views. Well, who could think otherwise? Today, Holsinger is president of the United Methodist Judicial Council - the same that voted to de-frock multiple gay or lesbian ministers, usually against their congregants' wishes. If you find a queer who can stand to be in a room of Christians and who will actually fight for the "privilege", we are compelled to call you ungrateful when you've expelled them.

Holsinger personally voted to deny simple church membership to a gay man - not a pastor's job, not a pianist's, not the Sunday School coffee-brewer, he just wanted to be a member (What? The Big Gay Club was closed?). Holsinger had to be over-ruled by his own Methodist Bishops on that one. So even for right-wing loonies, this guy sometimes needs a short leash. Now, Your Only President thinks this is the kind of thinking we need at the top in this era of RU-482, Cervical Cancer Vaccines, and the ham-stringing of AIDS dollars to Africa by abstinence-only education restrictions. He and his wife (you were wondering? puh-lease), lead the cheerily-titled Hope Springs Community Church's gay re-programming effort. This is to psychology what Austrian concentration camps were to medical research. Sure, they're dead on the other end, but nobody can say that at least some of them didn't walk in upright of their own accord. This is how Mr. and Mrs. Holsinger essentially support a methodology rejected by real physicians 25 years ago.

No serious person could read Holsinger's conclusion (we won't call him "Dr." until he calls us "Sister Ganja Of The Eternal Waft") and think he was taking a stab at theology in the middle of his theology assignment. The very insinuation leaves one breathless. Science, people. This is science! Get your mind out of the gutter, already. And clear the room of any children. This is about to get good.

Among Holsinger's scientific, non-theological snippets on the "pathophysiology" of gayness are some 20th century - and not a few 14th century - gems. We admit to only an Education degree, a Law degree and the 2/3 of the MBA program that didn't induce a permanent vegetative state, so we started by confirming our suspicions of the word "Pathophysiology":

"the study of the biological and physical manifestations of disease as they correlate with the underlying abnormalities and physiological disturbances."

Figures. Holsinger jumped back a few millenia for his premise. He did for psychological reasoning what Phil Spector did for hair products. Now for the excerpts that have raised a few eyebrows and given us a new perspective on dating rough-looking men:

- "Gay sex is biologically unnatural and scientifically unhealthy." Interesting premise. I took one deep breath, as a gay man with AIDS before deciding that I could answer this one without calling in a friend with a cleaner resume. If, as is inferred, "scientifically unhealthy" means "will introduce you to AIDS", the only possible conclusion is that the healthiest possible sex on the planet is Lesbian Sex, which has the lowest incidence of STDs, AIDS specifically, of any demographic on the planet - Methodist ~~theologians~~ scientists included.

- "Like male and female pipe fittings, certain male and female body parts are designed for each other..." For example, because you CAN walk around with your thumb up your ass, it must be OK. If, however, you walk around with someone ELSE's thumb up your ass, whether or not it fits, we're going to call that a plumbing issue. P.S. Ladies' thumbs are smaller, go in easier and are 50% less satisfying up the ass. But we don't have any science to back that up. It also begs the question of whether heterosexual, married people have any business thumbing each other's asses, let alone committing the highly enjoyable practice of anal intercourse. Pipe fittings! Science! Not theology. Stay focused.

- "When the complementarity of the sexes is breached, injuries and diseases may occur..." Well, yes, and if you drop a good-sized Bible on a Yorkie, you can break its neck. That doesn't make the Bible bad or the Yorkie a defective dog. I broke my foot playing volleyball in 10th grade. There was no moratorium on volleyball throughout the state based on the injury that may have - and did occur. If we closed public facilities every time diseases occurred in the daily course of events, we'd all sit home and be grateful for no flu, but craving good take-out.

We're speaking scientifically, of course. We're sure not even Holsinger means to infer that there is a God/Retribution factor for breaching the Heavenly Pipe Fitting Factor across the genders. That would make him....what? Stupid? Just wipe that right out of your mind. You'd have to be crazy to think this guy is crazy. Or stupid. Right? Right?

Holsinger went on, in his '91 paper, to spend a small fortune exploring the risks of running with scissors - in your rectum. Really. He examined whether if one man put scissors in another man's asshole - out of love or spite - injury would result. He calls this "pathophysiology". We say it's a very bad way to get off, but if scissors are your deal, who the hell is this Kentucky hick to tell you No Clippers In Your Cooters?

For the record...we have never tried this... but putting scissors up someone's ass is on page 73 of The Handbook. It is clearly intended only as an extreme act of revenge and never as foreplay. A footnote mentions that if you want the scissors back, tying twine to one end is a good preparatory step. And use bleach to clean them thoroughly. It's so rare that you anally assault a freshly-douched person in the rectum with your good scissors.

And call your Congress person. This is the kind of lunacy that, gone unchecked, suddenly has Wolf Blitzer forced to talk about Anal Sex when you know he'd rather be talking about IED's. Kill this nomination in committee with a phone call and you can spare us all having to re-live the whole Gay People Do Not Put Gerbils Up Our Asses thing from 20 years ago.

Your congressperson, if on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, is listed below. Make no assumptions. Call the good ones, too.

Democrats/Independents

Kennedy, Edward (MA) , Chairman
(202) 224-4543 kennedy.senate.gov/senator/contact.cfm

Dodd, Christopher (CT)
(202) 224-2823 dodd.senate.gov/index.php?q=node/3130

Harkin, Tom (IA)
(202) 224-3254 harkin.senate.gov/contact/contact.cfm

Mikulski, Barbara (MD)
(202) 224-4654 mikulski.senate.gov/mailform.html

Bingaman, Jeff (NM)
(202) 224-5521 senator_bingaman@bingaman.senate.gov

Murray, Patty (WA)
(202) 224-2621 murray.senate.gov/email/index.cfm

Reed, Jack (RI)
(202) 224-4642 reed.senate.gov/contact/contact-share.cfm

Clinton, Hillary (NY)
(202) 224-4451 clinton.senate.gov/contact

Obama, Barack (IL)
(202) 224-2854 obama.senate.gov/contact/

Sanders, Bernard (Independent - VT)
(202) 224-5141 sanders.senate.gov/comments/

Brown, Sherrod (OH)
(202) 224-2315 brown.senate.gov/contact.cfm

Republicans

Enzi, Michael (WY), Ranking Member
(202) 224-3424 enzi.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=ContactInform...

Gregg, Judd (NH)
(202) 224-3324 gregg.senate.gov/sitepages/contact.cfm

Alexander, Lamar (TN)
(202) 224-4944 alexander.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.Home

Burr, Richard (NC)
(202) 224-3154 burr.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.Home

Isakson, Johnny (GA)
(202) 224-3643 isakson.senate.gov/contact.cfm

Murkowski, Lisa (AK)
(202) 224-6665 murkowski.senate.gov/contact.cfm

Hatch, Orrin (UT)
(202) 224-5251 hatch.senate.gov/index.cfm?Fuseaction=Offices.Contact

Roberts, Pat (KS)
(202) 224-4774 roberts.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=ContactInf...

Allard, Wayne. (CO)
(202) 224-5941 allard.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.Home

Coburn, Tom (OK)
(202) 224-5754 coburn.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.Home

Oh, Oprah!

2007-06-06T17:25:00.000-05:00

Sweet Jesus on a Triscuit...not you, too. Now Oprah has joined that tired old band on that more fatigued bandwagon dedicated to the proposition that black folks simply get a bum rap on the Percepto-meter.

While lobbing softballs at Malcolm Gladwell regarding his book, "Blink", Oprah bit at the low-hanging fruit of "TV Portrays Black Men As Crack Dealers And White Men as Judges." Now, we have herein documented our own abhorrence of White Privilege and those who use it to their nefarious advantage. But at some point in the last 40 years, this argument has simply lost not only its luster, but the very core of its relevance. It has, in fact, become the latest Big Lie to justify bad behavior by African Americans.

You don't ever - and I mean EVER - see gay, white rapists pointing the evil finger of accusation and undue influence at the movie "Deliverance" as their reason why they won't brush, floss, or keep themselves pure from unwelcomed anal assaults on innocent tourists. But give an inch and they'll take an hour to suggest that I cross the street in midtown Kansas City to avoid a baggy-panted man who has gone to great pains to mimic the gang-bang look - just because I'm sub-consciously racist. Two words, Ms. Winfrey: Bull Shit.

Big, huge, steaming piles of bull shit for you and your uber-privileged social circle. Big piles of bull shit for your well-earned platform being used to peddle this tripe as social psychology or, worse, as valid explanation for rampant crime among the community that gave you to us all.

It would take reams of megabytes to list the ways in which you abdicated your obligation to the truth when it comes to portrayal of Blacks and Whites in The Media.

Whoopi Goldberg played a do-gooder nun. Oprah played a Stand-Up-For-Yourself-and-Change-The-World character every time she's hit the screen. Vondie Curtis Hall, Jesse Martin, Angela Bassett, Alfre Woodard, Tyler Perry, Sidney Poitier, Halle Berry, and others disprove the point easily enough. But perhaps the point needs sharpening for those who, like Oprah did today, stoop to cheap opportunism to lay the deeds of bad people at the feet of casting directors.

Grey's Anatomy alone features James Pickens as Chief of Surgery at Seattle Grace, Isaiah Washington as a pre-eminent Cardiothoracic Surgeon, and Chandra Wilson as lead educator of the star interns. Criminal Minds features Shemar Moore as an intelligent AND street-smart FBI profiler. Will Smith and Thandie Newton starred in The Pursuit of Happyness, a You-Can-Do-It movie if ever one was made. Mr. Perry's one-man tour-de-force as writer, actor, producer and director in Diary of a Mad Black Woman and its sequel should, himself, demand an apology from Winfrey and the hack author for whom she shilled today.

American Idol cranks out talented, together artists - both Black and White - annually. Dancing With The Stars' exposure of Emmitt Smith and Laila Ali should have inspired no one to shoot anyone (we shall here remain silent on our private urges while watching Heather Mills and Paulina Porizkova).

We have had consecutive Black Secretaries of State in the country, to say nothing of the plethora of Black legislators that populate the national and state levels. Oprah has, herself, raised the profile of the Black Author beyond what any publishing imprint could hope to do singlehandedly. We cry "FOUL!", therefore, when this woman who has only a fleeting memory of racism, from whom no one runs on the streets, and who knows no one from whom one would flee...fans the flames of non-existent excuses for the real problems that plague the Black community.

Bill Cosby is right. Oprah Winfrey is wrong. Dead wrong. You are who you are because of who you have chosen to be. Given the same past, the same experiences, the same opportunities - maximized or lost -the same parents, the same schools, the same finances... two or twenty people all have the absolute prerogative to choose a path that defies their provenance. To suggest that a 1970's pattern of Black Man-Bad, White Man-Good in the media explains today's disproportionately criminal behavior by a subset of the Black Community requires that we also assume the opposite portrayals to be equally effective at social engineering.

We must assume, using Oprah's and Blink's faulty rationale, that there are fewer Blacks committing crime, more Blacks entering college, less single-parent Black families, less drugs in the Black community, and a stronger emphasis on education and success in the Black community - SOLELY because of the easily proved increase in positive portrayals of successful Black people in the media.

Hogwash? Maybe. But certainly no more so than what Oprah peddled to the world today. And I didn't make several hundred thousand dollars or sell an equal number of books to be equally wrong. If I am.

And I'm not.

Pictures, Dammit!

2007-06-06T14:13:00.001-05:00

This is, by our drug-addled calculation, day 3 of no hair products for one Ms. Paris (Don't Blame France) Hilton. We feel entitled to see what a gimpy-eyed ~~troglodyte~~ socialite looks like without ~~spooge~~ product in her hair.

And we know we're not alone. Someone on the inside of that festering cesspool of society's castoffs has a cellphone camera that they smuggled in with their poonaynay and we want to see this biotch at her livin' worst. We want the kneeling down, eating pussy, nappy headed, scrubbing toilets with her diamond-crusted toothbrush photo. And we will pay for it, too. Not a lot. But you're in friggin' prison! You think you have negotiating room? Please, Mary.

Nobody's even going to remember you ever lived once you're out of that joint. Just fork over the pic, we'll go away giddy and you can get back to giving head in the back of a conversion van in a major city's alleys. Or whatever white-collar crime you committed that landed you in the Hilton wing.

We also want this to be Radisson's new promotional flier. "Hilton? (pic of grotesque, cross-eyed Paris mumbling "Dass Hot" into some Negress's labia majora while scrubbing johns with her Tiffany toothbrush)." We Think Not. Radisson....where the heirs we put on don't end up in the joint."

We also want a pic of Kathy Hilton going on a hunger strike, just for good measure. We realize she's probably been on pure liquids since giving birth to this dual pox on humanity (if the reports of her Jug O' Wine fetish pan out), but still. Serves her right. Marry for money, expect nothing but trouble if you choose to procreate. (This rule does not apply to homosexuals who are welcome to marry -well, you know what we mean - but who will not accidentally procreate.)

We would also like to invite People Magazine, Us Weekly, The National Enquirer, Glamour, Cosmo, The Advocate, and Martha Stewart Living to have us over for a week each so we can guest-edit their Most Despicable Heterosexuals Of The Year Issue. I think this year is shaping up to be one son-of-a-bitch of a contest! Only if Lindsay Lohan actually does blow off that knife and then disembowels herself with same will this be a shoe-in year.

Stay tuned, my merry mo's. Mama's feelin' better, the fan is on, and the shit is about to fly! Happy Pride Month!

Dead. Good.

2007-06-05T16:01:00.000-05:00

Sen. Craig Thomas, a conservative Republican in the Senate from Wyoming, has been dead for a week now. People are just starting to notice. That's a good sign. Mainly, it's a symbol that the stench of a live Republican is only barely distinguishable from that of a dead one. Harsh? Read on.

Thomas on a variety of issues:

1. Voted "YES!" (while wearing balloons and a thong) to deny Gay Marriage to consenting adults.

2. Voted "NO!" (while carrying a baseball bat and a cat-o'-nine-tails) to including non-heterosexuals in Hate Crimes Legislation.

3. Voted "YES!" (while pantsless and holding lube) to the government's right to wiretap your cell phone.

4. Voted "NO!" (while waving $100 bills at unemployed lesbians) when asked to vote for Anti-Discrimination Employment measure aimed at gays and lesbians.

5. Voted "YES!" (while holding a match under a drag queen) to an anti-flag burning amendment. Logical conclusion: OK to desecrate a fag, not OK to desecrate a flag. You tell me how else that works out.

6. Voted "NO!" to spend $100 million to reduce teen pregnancy by education and contraception. Apparently thought dumb, pregnant teenagers were hot.

7. Voted "YES!" on criminal penalty for harming an unborn fetus during another crime. Translation: Hurt a dyke, ride a bike. Break an egg, you're going to The Big House.

8. Replaced Dick Cheney as Wyoming's only representative in the House of Representatives. Read into that what you will. If you can't read, we'll help you.

9. Voted "YES!" to forbid lawsuits against gun manufacturers in firearm crimes. Compare: You can sue your baby's car-seat manufacturer if it contributes to your baby's death. But guns are a different matter altogether. Translation: The gun company gets off easier if you kill your kids with a gun than Graco does if their baby seat fails.

10. Voted "NO!" on purchaser background checks at gun shows. This is known as the Gun Show Exemption. If you're crazy, have a record, or are otherwise forbidden from buying guns, just get yourself down to the exhibition hall in your town and skirt the entire system. The late Sen. Smith will grin a big one for you while he burns in hell.

And you thought WE were nasty.

Snippets

2007-06-05T14:16:00.000-05:00

Libby changes signature color from green to orange.

After a lifetime of making money off the backs of the American taxpayer, lying to protect some of the most abominable bi-peds for his entire life, and making a concerted effort to have a Bush critic's CIA agent wife outed - and offed - for not toeing the party lie, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, will be scootin' his booty to the Federal Pokey (home not to the hokey pokey, but the rectal pokey, if we hear correctly).

A fine of $250,000 was levied against Libby, which if our 1971 calculator still works, is roughly the equivalent of a minimum wage worker giving up a box of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese once a month. He will also spend 30 months in federal prison capitalizing on Martha Stewart's cooking skills gleaned from similarly heinous acts(or just under 19 months, if a Bush pardon, as expected, is forthcoming).

If you purge your Christmas list, like we do, in June, here are names that appeared in support of Libby at his sentencing today: Mary Matalin (inexplicable spouse to James Carville), and Victoria Toensing, Deputy Assistant Attorney General under Reagan (presumably defending the Quite Dead President's honor and preparing his own posthumous defense). Those who wrote glowing recommendations for leniency in sentencing included International War Crimes Target, Donald Rumsfeld and Marine Gen. Peter Pace who lambasted the willing service of gays & lesbians in the ever-shrinking volunteer army and stands 4-square against immorality of all kinds - unless, of course, your buddy is trying to get a CIA operative outed and killed in order to keep your Commander In Chief from looking like the lying asshole he is. We get that. Go kill your own enemies, you prick. We have long memories. It's been almost 40 years and we still know when Judy Garland was buried.

Also on the Be Nice To Scooter list were Henry Kissinger, lackey to the ever-honorable Richard Nixon and former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton - a man so unpopular in his own country that he had to be snuck into the U.N. complex in the dead of night while Congress was out of session. This worked out well, since Bolton's unpopularity both at home and abroad were effectively addressed by the diplomatic immunity offered on the grounds of the United Nations.

The judge left open to public speculation whether any one of the 30 months to which Libby was sentenced is owed to the use of the name "Scooter" by a 56 year-old man. We're just guessing...

Mom, Can You Drop Me Off?

Kathy Hilton, the well-married, wine-swilling candidate for Worst Parent On Our Planet (W-POOP),dropped her well-coiffed pride and joy at jail for her brief contact with reality - sans Nicole Richie (who shouldn't be far behind). In a poke at public perception and a clear sign that some people are just too genetically inferior to feel shame, a waxen Hilton mugged in pin-stripes in a not-quite-Warhol scene that was 9 parts smarmy and 1 part classless as the queens at Madame Tussauds rushed to minimize her contribution to the downfall of western civilization. This irresponsible wart on the human condition really will have to kill someone before they remove her from the public eye.

We suggest putting the paparazzi to good use in this situation. Offer a $10,000 reward to anyone who sees the convict so much as eye-balling a car key. This could have a dual effect: Keep her away from the cameras and off the streets. You can't tell me New Yorkers wouldn't be grateful for a little more Mia Farrow and a little less....what's her name again?

Note to the Hotel Magnate Set: The next time you plan to name a kid after one of your properties, set the bar lower. Go for "Parking Garage", "Ball Room" or "Shallow End".

Kennedy Plot - 40 Years Later

2007-06-04T14:08:00.000-05:00

This will surprise no one who follows such things. Forty years later and we're still trying to figure out who's targeting Kennedys.

First it was President John, he of the unfortunate combination of a bad back, a raging libido and a zaftig goomah. His alleged gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald was served justice at the end of a gun barrel before he could talk. Then came (or went, as it were) Bobby. Again, Sirhan Sirhan said Nothing Nothing about who or what motivated him to bust a cap where Bobby's cap would be. Then there was Teddy, who not even Oldsmobile could design a vehicle to contain at the bottom of the Chappaquiddick.

Never happy, conspiracy theorists have pondered how many bullets, which angles, which participants and how many, from which building(s), grassy or weedy knolls, the complicity of the FBI, the Mafia, Cuba, Russia and various Bouvier cousins and Marilyn Monroe paramours as likely culprits - and that's just ONE of the Kennedy whacks.

Today being the happy news that these lonely souls finally get something new to chew: A thwarted bomb plot to put a hole in a fuel line at JFK airport. (When the guy is too dead, kill his airport: Terrorism 102). What the alleged terrorists fail to grasp, however, is that we have yet to satisfy ourselves as to how the first two Kennedy killings occurred. And then we have the whole John John airplane boo-boo to address. Then there will be Jackie's Cancer: Plot or Unhappy Cellular Defect? The list will be never ending. These are our soap opera family. They can never be simply and quietly dead. Just as Princess Di will never have died in a car accident, no Kennedy will ever have died of a simple assassination, plane crash or disease. It comes with the territory.

To think that our nation will grind its collective self to a halt to mourn an airport (really...an airport?) named for a man whose own death is not yet off the ramble radar.

If encouragement is to be found in this tidbit, it is that Muslim extremists apparently understand us as little as we understand them. We don't get the Burka. They don't get the Kennedy Pecking Order: John, Bobby, Teddy, John John, Jackie, Marilyn and THEN the airport. It would be the year 2236 before we ever got around to holding a commission to investigate. After all, LaGuardia and Newark are right there. This is going to ground our economy, as it were? No.

Not to give aid and comfort to our hapless "enemy", but if you want to bring the American Economy to a sobering standstill, hit one Wal-Mart and one McDonald's in one suburban community - and fuck up the traffic light in front of the Target. It's just that easy. We are not a complicated people. We want panty hose at 3 a.m., a burger at midnight, and the opportunity to squeeze cabbage at 11:30 p.m should the spirit move us. Take that away and you have destroyed the American Dream. Knock out JFK Airport and we'll just fly around it.

Look how giddy we were to avoid Reagan National all those years - and not just for the namesake. Dimwits.

On the bright side, a Polish man awoke from a coma after 19 years and immediately launched into a traditional happy dance upon learning that not only was communism dead, but Ronald Reagan was, too! Informed that a man with a C- average from Yale was now president of the venerable U.S., he exclaimed in hobbled English, "Now I know all things possible - even for brain dead man like me!"

Truer words were never spoken.

It's Your Ovaries, Stupid

2007-06-02T12:53:00.000-05:00

Barrel collusion, refining costs, hurricanes most inopportune, demand in China, SUV-mania, higher speed limits, Venezuela's thumb on the scale, our general lack of charisma throughout the Middle East...how many reasons do you need for today's gasoline prices? Just two, if you think about it. But most people won't. Think about it, that is.

What we have here is a heterosexual entitlement problem. Not just any heterosexual, either, but a middle-to-upper class heterosexual privilege problem that promises to turn Ohio into the Atlantic's newest ocean side hot-spot in the next lifetime or so. Po' Straight Folk (PSF's) aren't in on this gig, so we get to throw this gauntlet down in what we fully intend to be the first major salvo in unabashed class warfare.

It takes my family of one approximately 1,000 gallons or less of water per month to perform all the household duties.. My sibling's family of four in the same town uses roughly 4,000 gallons. This is easy math. I love my niece and nephew as though they were my own....niece and nephew...which they are. But they are expensive little buggers. When their parents drive an hour each way in the over sized vehicle to watch them flail at over sized balls with over sized bats to over sized applause for their undersized results, their cost goes up. Children should be born with a Times Square-style ticker between their shoulder blades so we can keep track just how much each human costs to keep alive annually. When they croak - as we tend to do - we can rapidly gather all the data and decide whether we are headed in the right - or wrong - direction when it comes to managing the viability of the Only Planet That Will Sustain Us.

Al Gore calls this sort of awareness "Knowing One's Carbon Footprint". I think he'd get more press if he called it "The Real Cost of Pussy". I have clear memories of gasping in horror at the draconian Chinese limit of one kid per household. Should you lose count, we have an unfortunate, but highly reliable back-up Abacus. Even these third-world, isolated, communist, freedom squelching tyrants had a plan to deal with the cost and effect of living on this Big Blue Ball. They weren't thinking of holes in the Ozone Layer or melting glacial ice caps or erasing Australia from the World Map. They just saw widespread hunger and an unacceptable lack of toilet paper peeking around the corner.

Meanwhile, Fox News, Every Republican (don't lie -you know that is no generalization), Talk Radio, and paid shills from Reagan to Bush to Bush mocked the concerns as Junk Science and turned our attention to the horror of abortion and forced child abandonment and away from the reality that our resources are finite. They fiddled. The arctic burned - melted, really, The antarctic cracked. Oceans rose, temps inflated - everything junk scientists said they would. But, in the spirit of Republican Logic, we were introduced to the very first of the Bush Doctrines: Just Because Something Turns Out To Be True Doesn't Make It True.

We repeated that thought because Shawn Hannity told us to. We opened up to more improbable Bush doctrines - at the risk of permanently suspending disbelief. "Gay Marriage is a threat to The Family." Whose family? None we can name. We walked around the cul-de-sac - prime heterosexual nesting ground just casually wondering: If you could marry someone of the same gender tomorrow, which one of you would dump the other first? We got appropriate belly laughs from people who had already voted GW once and weren't even considering an alternative when given a second shot. We started developing some heterosexual theories of our own.

We spent a day at the largest university in the state a couple years back. We stopped average-looking people and the highly intelligent alike (Asians or white people with long hair and a doob stuck over their ear): If I hypothesized that lighting my clothes on fire would cause my clothes to burn, and then they did, in fact burn, would that make me right? Or wrong? I was amazed at the consistency of the responses I got. Even these sweet, fresh-faced, chain-smoking children were qualifying their answers with, "Depends...are you a Republican or a Democrat?" When I pointed to the Democrat tattoo on my forehead, they said, "OH. That would make you wrong."

So when I'm right, I'm wrong because I'm a Democrat? "You got it! " They lit up like they had broken the code on the final strand of the human genome. But wait. I had to know. Can I assume that if I were a Republican, I would be right under identical circumstances? "YES! YES! YES!," they shouted as they danced with Baptist modesty. And why would that be, I wondered? "Because you would be on the Lord's side!"

Let me get this straight, I said. 2+2=4.
"Not necessarily," the tall one said.
When is it not four?
"If you're a Democrat. Or if you have a purple heart."
What's a purple heart got to do with it?
"Absolutely nothing. But did you see what we got away with in '04?"
But those were bald faced lies. Isn't one of the Big Ten No No's
"Thou Shalt Not Lie"?
"That only applies to Democrats," I was informed. "Lying to keep
the Lord in power is never a sin."

I had to admit, this shit was starting to make a little too much sense. I had to pull out the ace from my hole. "If each child born marches us that much faster toward the inevitable destruction of our entire existence, which has the greater sway: The several billion lives already here or the sanctity of the one that is still breathing amniotic fluid?"

I heard jack-booted footsteps coming up the stairs of the tenement we had squatted in for our session. Somehow I knew I had crossed that line that revealed me as immediately expendable. Not even John Walsh would take note of my sudden disappearance. I high-tailed it for the Gay Pride Parade where I bathed myself in the filth of reason turned upside down in the most logical of ways. A paradox that made sense on a genetic level. Bring me a garter, some spritz, and a dab of body butter. I had to wash off the heterosexuality before it started to fester like some bacterially-resistant strain of e-coli.

And bartender... don't be coy about that martini.

He, Thee and T.B.

2007-06-01T09:56:00.001-05:00

This man. Andrew Speaker, would appreciate your forgiveness. He's a lawyer. This is not a common emotion or practice among these people. So let's diagnose the case, if you will.

Let's call him Shole. As in As Shole. Shole knew he had the plague. He knew he was good looking, a lawyer, a person of privilege to whom the rules of human engagement apply only at his whim.

He sent his wife and someone else's child ahead to Europe - where most of us marry - to await his arrival for the big day. Far be it from the Federal Government, Homeland Security, The Border Patrol or the Centers For Disease Control to stand between this tool and the desires of his....well....heart.

We gave him the benefit of the doubt upon first hearing his tale. God knows, we have gotten on board all manner of man and aircraft without knowing what fate might reveal. That was until we realized he had hauled his daddy, also a lawyer, into the airport to discuss the technical aspects of our country's wish that he not be around other human beings - particularly within enclosed spaces like airplanes, or crossing international borders. Failing to be swayed from his dick's date with destiny, Shole boarded the plane, evaded the border patrol when ordered to report back to the U.S. and immediately check in at the CDC, and decided to have his own nicely appointed room done up for him in Denver, where the view is evidently preferable to the CDC Compound.

But he is profoundly regretful.

Of course he is. Lindsay is sorry she's a coke head. Paris is sorry she's a drunk driver. Isaiah is sorry he hates fags. Bill Richardson profoundly regrets both Jew and Fag comments. Elizabeth is sorry she was born. Rosie is sorry she didn't rip the little bitch's head off instead of commissioning a moustache on her photo. Donald is sorry he got cancelled (you heard it here first...scroll back). And Dahmer was sorry he hadn't seasoned the thighs a little more before serving them. "Sorry" no longer seems to be the hardest word. It just seems the most hollow.

"Sorry" is the reaction you have when they tied you up against your wishes and heaved you into coach where you coughed on all old ladies all the way across the Atlantic. "Sorry" is what you say when the neighbor's poodle attacks your lawn mower and loses. "Sorry" is the appropriate response when your neighbor's well-intended casserole re-appeared on their front lawn by no fault of your own. You're sorry it happened. It was outside your control, yet the outcome was tragic and worthy of commiseration.

"Sorry" is not when you make a conscious decision to put people in harm's way. "I'm a World Class Asshole" is the phrase that comes to mind when you buy yourself the trans-Atlantic ticket to hack Tuberculosis into a recycled air environment on a group of people whose health may already be precarious. "I'm a Motherfucker" is what you say when you chase the neighbor's poodle with the lawnmower until you turn it into Kibbles and Fur. "Just shoot me" is what you say when you take an Arsenic-laced casserole to your evil neighbor's dinner party and their kid dies.

Being pretty buys you a lot of privilege in this society. But sweetie...you're just not T.B. Pretty.

Felled By The IRS

2007-05-31T10:35:00.000-05:00

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

2007-05-23T10:39:00.000-05:00

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?

2007-05-22T21:28:00.001-05:00

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

2007-05-22T11:22:00.000-05:00

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

2007-05-20T19:21:00.000-05:00

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

2007-05-18T14:44:00.000-05:00

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

2007-05-18T13:15:00.000-05:00

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

2007-05-16T09:14:00.000-05:00

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

2007-05-15T12:41:00.000-05:00

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

2007-05-15T08:12:00.000-05:00

"...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

2007-05-14T12:00:00.000-05:00

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

2007-05-13T22:48:00.000-05:00

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!

2007-05-13T13:19:00.000-05:00

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

2007-05-11T08:18:00.000-05:00

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

2007-05-11T07:37:00.000-05:00

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...

2007-05-09T16:57:00.000-05:00

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.

2007-05-09T14:16:00.000-05:00

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....

2007-05-09T08:19:00.000-05:00

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

2007-05-08T16:03:00.000-05:00

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

2007-05-07T12:51:00.000-05:00

(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

2007-05-05T16:00:00.000-05:00

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?

2007-05-05T13:16:00.000-05:00

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....

2007-05-04T08:55:00.000-05:00

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.