President Bush Explains Prescription Drug Coverage

I didn't vote for this man, so I'm not taking any responsiblity the train wreck the country becomes under him:

Bush Explains Medicare Drug Bill -- Verbatim Quote Submitted on 2005-12-13 16:35:14

WOMAN IN AUDIENCE: 'I don't really understand. How is the new plan going to fix the problem?'

Verbatim response (PRESIDENT BUSH): 'Because the -- all which is on the table begins to address the big cost drivers. For example, how benefits are calculated, for example, is on the table. Whether or not benefits rise based upon wage increases or price increases. There's a series of parts of the formula that are being considered. And when you couple that, those different cost drivers, affecting those -- changing those with personal accounts, the idea is to get what has been promised more likely to be -- or closer delivered to that has been promised. Does that make any sense to you? It's kind of muddled. Look, there's a series of things that cause the -- like, for example, benefits are calculated based upon the increase of wages, as opposed to the increase of prices. Some have suggested that we calculate -- the benefits will rise based upon inflation, supposed to wage increases. There is a reform that would help solve the red if that were put into effect. In other words, how fast benefits grow, how fast the promised benefits grow, if those -- if that growth is affected, it will help on the red.'

Photo Expedition... Across the Street

Almost as soon as I moved into my new place, I noticed that there was a small part of the park across the street that was a sort of elevated lookout on the George Washington Bridge, and I thought, "Hey, I need to go over there and get some photos."

As you all know, I am the living embodiment of Procrastination.

I got home late-ish last night, and decided I would put it off no more. And boy, and I glad I did.

The first photo is my favorite. I let the shutter stay open for about five seconds and set the aperture value low, so as to capture as much light as I possible could. I was frankly suprised this shot didn't turn out blurry, since the wind was really steady, and really strong. Literally, the neck strap on the camera (the camera, by the way, being mounted on my tripod) was being blown perpendicular to the ground. But of the fifty or so photos I took, only a couple were blurry, and none of them were unusable. Testament, no doubt, the way I was clutching the tripod to hold it down:

This next one is of the pathway to the overlook in J. Hood Wright park. There's an awful lot of red in this photo... don't quite know why:

Same thing with this pic (taken from the park) of my building:

Oh, and while we're on the subject of photos I've taken recently, check out a couple of favorites:

Have I mentioned that I love my camera?

Undead or Not-Undead. That is the question.

Ken pointed out to me that Stephen King's latest, Cell, had gotten a pretty good review in the Times, and noted, with a little Luddite glee, that he would survive the premise of the novel, since he doesn't own a cell phone. He was wondering if I was a fan.

Which, actually, was something I had to think about.

In his early days, I was a slavish Stephen King fan. But, as I told Ken, Tommyknockers convinced me that he'd become a writer that no editor could tame. I hated that book so much -- found it so bloated, over-written (as if his editor had been tied, gagged, and stuck in a closet) -- that I stopped reading him.

I hear I missed some good stuff.

Maybe I should pick up the new one.

The discussion of the new book led Ken to make an observation: "I'm gratified, well sort of, to know that in this new book, I would be one of the survivors. Although in a world of flesh rending zombies, I'm not sure that such a good thing.

Would you prefer to be a flesh eating zombie or a non-undead? Discuss."

When I wrote that I thought, despite the inherent difficulties, that I'd prefer to be non-Undead, Ken wrote back with his choice:

I think there'd be a lot of pressure being a non-undead. Being Undead seems, on the surface at least, relatively simple. One's responsibilities seem to rest mainly on sleeping all day, and then shuffling about at night looking to rend, tear, and feed. Pretty basic. OK, there are the perils of roving bands of the law with their shotguns and weaponry; but one's already dead- what's a blast to the head matter, really? Whereas if one is a Non-Undead, there are just SO many things to worry about: secure housing, maintaining a good cardiovascular system in case one's mode of transportation conks out and one has to then hot foot it away from a herd of flesh eaters, not to mention the day-to-day duties attendant on avoiding contact with the aforementioned shufflers. It sounds terribly stressful.

He makes a good point.

Auto-Resolution

In the year 2006 I resolve to: Become anti-social. Get your resolution here

Reconnecting

Every once in a while you get lucky and you get a second chance to reconnect with someone you shouldn't have let slip away, for whatever reason. Maybe you're a freak. Maybe life just gets tangled and some people slip through the cracks. Who knows. All I know is that it's occasionally good -- and good for the soul, I suspect -- to rediscover the delight to be had in good people.

I was lucky enough to have such an opportunity Thursday night. And, on top of it, got to have a really good meal at a place the Lagemæ had always enjoyed, Zuni.

Speaking of enjoying someplace, I was sifting through some notes I'd made for myself not long ago and came across an amazing example of why it is I absolutely love New York City.

Kenjiman and I had an evening out a while back in which we had dinner at an incredible Senegalese restaurant, scored tickets to an amazing Israeli dance company, and then afterward stuffed our gullets with the most amazing New York cheesecake ever.

I know there are many places in the world where you could, likely, have an evening like that, but not too many of them are in the contiguous United States.

I'm just saying.

Things Are Looking Up

At least vicariously. This is the second time someone I know and like (and admire as an actor) has ended up making into The New York Times.

Good on you, Candy.

Giuseppe in Hell

One of the problems with being me (that's right, I said one) is that there are so many things in the world that interest me, that I find fascinating and want to explore, that I shall never be able to do them all.

Hence, I am destined to be a perpetual dilettante.

Still, I soldier on.

Of the things that I love and missed the boat on (not having had a serious liberal arts education), chief among them is art.

Not so much modern art, which somehow -- and this is a bit of a generalization since there are always exceptions -- fails to move me, but classical art, or maybe "classic" art; anything from Greek pottery right up to the Impressionists.

But just 'cuz I love this stuff doesn't mean I actually know anything about it. But like a good play (something about which I fancy I know), I suspect a good piece of art allows you to experience it through your own filter.

Case in point: One of my favorite paintings (and no, this has nothing to do with my being gay; were that the case, my all-time favorite artist would be Joe Phillips) is Adophe-William Bouguerau's Dante and Virgil in Hell. For a number of reasons. But mostly because my reaction to it is so viceral. I think Bouguerau captures, in his rendition of Hell, a lot of the same anger that I have inside me -- and it's a great object lesson on the consequences of my anger.

But lest you think I'm here to get all analytical, I actually enjoy this painting on a much more purient level.

To wit:

Virgil's all, "See Dante? See? You wouldn't believe me. You freakin' had to see for yourself."

Dante's, like, "Well, yeah, but when you said..."

And Virgil's all, "Yeah! Yeah! That's right. You didn't believe me when I told you Hell was full of wrestling vampires."

Dante: "Dude, I'm..."

Virgil: "Oh, save it. Just save it. Now that you're here, just look around so we can get the eff outta here."

But like a guy passing a traffic accident -- Dante can't look away from the wrestling match. That, or Dante's just a big poofter.

Dante: "Oh. Oh my. That's -- oh. He's really digging in... Oh. Wow."

You know that face Kermit the Frog used to make when Miss Piggy would piss him off? You know, when his whole face sorta just compressed itself flat, and he gave her the dead-eye? That's kinda the face that Dante's making.

And Virgil's clearly got the "Whatever. You're the one who had to take a tour of Hell" look on his face.

What I don't get is the flying demon over Virgil's left shoulder. He looks like something out of a bad 30's movie version of a blackface routine. And you know he's there to egg them on: "You like it, don't you? You know you do. Look at that guy's ass, you dirty sodomites. Oh, yeah. You like it you like it you like it you like it you like it."

And let's not talk about the voyeur laying on the ground trying to sneak a look at a dark-haired guy's package.

And lest Bouguerau be accused of not pandering to all demographics, there appears to be some lesbian vampire action in the background.

One thing, though. One wonders about the circumstances under which this painting was done. I mean, it was painted circa 1850. Not an era known, I'm guessing, for its homoerotic art. A commission, most likely? I don't know. But I can't imagine any other reason for making the supposed eternal, throat-tearing, arm-breaking, flesh-flaying torment of Hell look so freakin' erotic.

Maybe all art really is about sex. Regardless, I love it.

Settling In

I've spent most nights since taking up residence at my current pad parked on the sofa and berating myself for not getting out and exploring my new neighborhood.

I'm at a bit of a loss to explain why I haven't been getting out that much.

I have every reason to want to get out and find out what's out there. I can say pretty authoritatively that there's some kinda gay presence in the nabe. I can tell that just by looking at the menfolk wandering the streets. They run the entire gamut of The Hierarchy of Homos. If I didn't know any better, I'd say this must be the next area my people have targeted for assimilation, er, gentrification. Which is fine by me.

I will admit, though, that I do miss Brooklyn. Or, more precisely, I miss being able to go to Total Wine Bar and see my friends and have a glass of vin.

My friend Michele is having her birthday party there tomorrow night, but I've managed to schedule a conflict, since Ken and I are going to see his friend Vince in a play tomorrow night. I need to make a note to buy Michele a birthday drink the next time I see her.

Oh, wait... why, I'm wondering, have I mostly puttered around the apartment the past week? Maybe it's because I spent the last three weeks of December exhausting myself and fretting myself into near-collapse over the sudden decision to move.

That might be it.

So maybe I deserve some down time.

$ = Quality?

Does throwing a lot of money at a problem fix it? Until the last couple of weeks, I'd have insisted that it wasn't necessarily so. Now I'm not so sure.

Or maybe it's just that wading in a sea of poop makes getting onto a gilded-though-not- aesthetically-pleasing raft seem like a deliverance.

There's a reason big blockbuster movies make a lot of money. They may be big piles of steaming poop, artistically, but at least they've got some production values.

Cases in point: I've been loading my Netflix queue with a lot of low-budget indie and gay/indie flicks lately, and they've been -- pretty much across the board -- astoundingly bad. One of them was literally shot on someone's VHS camcorder. I couldn't help but think to myself, "How in the name of all that's good and holy does stuff like this make it onto DVD, let alone into the library of Netflix?!?"

So when I watched War of the Worlds on DVD tonight, it ended up looking like a masterpiece. And to be frank, although I don't think it's a great movie, or even Steven Spielberg's best movie, by comparison, it looks like priceless porcelain set next Corelle ware.

So, as a public service, just so you don't make the same viewing mistakes as I have, please do us all a favor: Dodge the assuredly bad consequences and avoid the following movie rentals at all costs:

1. The Duo
   
   
2. Into the Blue
   
   
3. Two Brothers
   
   
4. 2 by 4
   
   
5. Issues 101

I've got a few more indie and foreign films to get through on this phase of my queue. Hopefully I'll have better news to report later.

That aside, I think I was in the minority who actually liked War of the Worlds, in spite of Tom Cruise. Sadly, I can't look at him on screen anymore and not see the couch-jumping Scientologist. He may not be the world's best actor, but at least there was a time when I could look at him onscreen and see a character. Not so much, anymore.

'Cuz you know he cares about my opinion.

PS: You're right. Into the Blue was a big Hollywood movie that Hoovered like a cheap hooker. It's the example that puts an iceberg-sized hole into my titanic theory of money assuring at least entertainment. It was pretty to look at though.

More later.

Nocturnal Nasties = Good Memories

I was awakened in the middle of the night last night by some guy who'd apparently been locked out of his apartment by (presumably) his "bitch." In another building.

I'm not kidding. I was hearing this guy screaming at some woman to open the door and pounding on the door so hard it rattled my room... from across the alleyway.

Since I wasn't sleeping, and between fretting about whether I should call the police or not (I ultimately decided against; one of their neighbors in the other building started shouting at them to "calm the fuck down before I call the fucking cops"), I started sifting through pictures I'd taken while I was in Pittsburgh, and I came across some photos of one of my most favorite people in the whole world, Sheila McKenna.

You might remember Sheila from The Underpants at the City. The photo of her to the left was one of my favorites from that show... that was the dying gasp of me working with my 35mm SLR camera; I just couldn't afford the film developing fees!

Anyway, the photo on the right is the delightful Sheila this past summer at a party thrown by our mutual friend Liz. With her in the picture is the delightful Joel Ripka, with whom I had the pleasure of working on Henry, also this past summer.

And the reason that these photos of Sheila grabbed my attention was because she was recently given the long overdue recognition she so richly deserves.

So in a belated way, here's a great big smooch for Sheila. Charlene put it best: "This is what I'm talking about!"

Here, Here!

"The follies which a man regrets most, in his life, are those which he didn't commit when he had the opportunity."

- Helen Rowland

What's the other old saying? Nobody ever said on his deathbed: "I wish I'd spent more time at the office?"

Bewilderment

I'm at a complete loss to explain how the SciFi Channel, which produces Stargate SG1, Stargate Atlantis, and -- arguably the best-written show on television -- Battlestar Galactica can possibly also be responsible for this, and this, and (god help us) this?

You know my mantra about taking the good with the bad? Apparently it applies across the board.

What Global Warming?

Today in New York City, the high temperature reached 56° Farenheit. Yesterday it reached 60°.

Odd to think that only a month ago, it looked like this:

I Learned a New Word

You know that I think of myself as a lover of language. I pride myself on my vocabulary, and even though I'm sure there are hundreds of words I don't know the meaning of, I generally assume they're of a technical nature (medical terms, that kinda thing), not apropos of day-to-day conversation, and consequently not important to me.

Well, today I decided that (a) I was going to be legal and let the New York state DMV know about my move and (b) I was going to get to work on my one and only New Years resolution: I'm gonna get myself a passport and get my ass outta the country at some point.

The problem, of course, is that to get a passport, I need proof of citizenship, and to have proof of citizenship, I need my birth certificate (or, as they're called today, "birth records"). So I downloaded the form for a certified copy of my birth record, and I downloaded the change of address form for the DMV.

Part of the address change form asks you what county you live in, and I was presented with a dilemma. I know that Brooklyn is in Kings County. I know that Queens is in Queens County, and I know that the Bronx is in Bronx county, but I didn't know if Manhattan was in Manhattan County, or New York County.

I did a web search, and of course discovered that I now live in New York County, but the web page where I found this information mentioned that Manhattan was conterminous with New York County.

Needless to say, I did my first double-take at a word in quite some time.

It's like digging in the dirt and finding a jewel, this little word "conterminous." What, I wondered, could it possibly mean? I immediately had to know.

Now you can too.

At Last

Someone actually picked up on my Manhattan Death March™ remark about being crazy.

"Why, Gentle Joe," this dear reader asked, "are you crazy just because you had to walk 14.3 miles in one day... in dress shoes? Do tell."

Yes, my friends. It's long overdue, but you get the real story of what happened during my transit strike trek home in the latest update to The New York Files.

Pizza Dreams

I can be accused (j'accuse! j'accuse!) of being a creature of impulse, and not the clearest thinker when it comes to dietary thoughtfulness.

And being the madman I am, the other night I ordered (and ate, I shame-facedly admit) an entire pizza before going to bed. Yes, my friends, a whole pizza. Medium. Many slices.

Needless to say, I had some whack-ass dreams.

Of course I don't remember exactly what I was dreaming about, but I do know that I was working at some remote theater, and that all the actors lived together on a compound near the theater. There were ominous overtones of some vague religious association, as the male and female actors were housed in separate dorms, and the men all ate together in the "men's refectory."

I think, by the way, I should get bonus points for (a) knowing what a refectory is, and (b) actually constructing a dream-world in which one exists. It was all tres medieval.

Anyway, there was a creeping sense of doom about the whole dream, but it wasn't the "we go on in twenty minutes and I don't know my lines" variety.

I think I had the sneaking suspicion that the whole theater was being taken over by religious zealots; there were a lot of groups sitting around whispering to each other and eyeing me askance. And on top of it all, I had to sleep on an ironing board.

No, really.

I was unpacking near my "cot," and I thought to myself, "That looks really narrow and uncomfortable." So I dragged all the bedclothes off and underneath a heap of blankets and sheets was -- I shyte you not -- a collapsed ironing board.

At about the time I started loudly complaining about this, I woke up. Not terribly well rested, I can tell you.

I'm at a loss to explain this dream. Or, precisely, I'm at a loss to narrow it down to any one of the many creeping dreads that are clearly lurking in my subconscious.

All I know is that I'm not eating pizza before bed. Ever again.

Hail Pittsburgh!

Via James Wolcott (and, apparently, the Monthly Review). Something to think about. The article in the Monthly Review both celebrates Pittsburgh and decries the shameful way the city's been run by the powers-that-be.

Since the Review is a left-leaning publication (actually, "leaning" is a bit of an understatement), its arguments might be summarily dismissed by those on the other side of the political spectrum, but it makes some interesting points.

Narcissis

I've been at it again:

MomWatch '06

Big, big thanks to those of you who've been asking after my Mom. She got to go home from the hospital finally, as they (at last!) figured out that all the debilitating pain wasn't in her head, and her hip actually had a fracture in it. It took a second round of x-rays, bone scans, and CT scans to figure it out.

So she's at home, consigned to bed rest for the next six weeks, trying to manage the pain while she heals up enough to start physical therapy.

Despite it all, she seems to be in pretty good spirits. The woman is a machine, yo.

Keep her in your thoughts!

In Our Own Way.

Last night, the redoubtable Mr. B. and myself went to a dance concert that had been organized as a fundraiser for the New Orleans Musicians hurricane Relief Fund. The evening was a series of short (well, some short, some not so short) pieces of choreography done by a local choreographer and his friends. In general, I have to say I enjoyed the evening very much.

Funny to think that Katrina happened only at the end of August, and for so many of us, the disaster in New Orleans has been forgotten as our lives move on. I'm sure the people in New Orleans don't feel that way.

That fact was brought home a couple of days ago in an e-missive from a friend who's currently working at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, and is sending his own sort of private diaries of the experience to a select group of friends. He had a couple of days off over the New Year, and decided to spend it with friends in the Big Easy:

All of these parties shared the same uneasy sense of deep sorrow and tentative hopefulness. At one of them, in the French Quarter, I met a young man who was about fourteen years old. We were sitting together on the balcony overlooking the foggy street, and when he learned I was a first-time visitor, he said "Please tell the outside world that we still need lots of help here. Nobody seems to know."

I've been hearing a lot of calls lately from people who insist that we shouldn't rebuild in New Orleans. That the people who decide to live there knew this was a possibility and should assume all the responsibility.

That strikes me as rather impossibly stupid, actually.

Are you going to not rebuild Los Angeles after an earthquake? Are you not going to rebuild along the flood plains of the Mississippi after a flood? You gonna say, "Well, they knew this could happen to all the people in the heartland when their towns are flattened by tornados? How about when Southern Californa is burned and people lose their homes to brushfires?

Often, it seems to me, Americans like to trumpet how quickly we band together in a tragedy, but we're -- forgive the gross generalization or not -- a people that surely likes to point fingers at others and remind them of just how much smarter we are.

Color me naive, but we could use some more compassion. Me more than most.

I think my fifteen bucks was well spent.

Worth Getting Excited About

Outside of the bedroom, it takes a lot to get me really excited. This may just do it.

Not in that way, you freak.

Amen

Of Course

Courtesy of Shakespere's Sister and The Associated Press:

OKLAHOMA CITY, Oklahoma (AP) -- A pastor who has spoken out against homosexuality was arrested after propositioning a male undercover police officer outside a hotel, authorities said.

As the Rev. Lonnie Latham, 59, left jail Wednesday, he said "I was set up. I was in the area pastoring to police."

Latham, a member of the Southern Baptist Convention's executive committee, was arrested Tuesday and charged with offering to engage in an act of lewdness, Capt. Jeffrey Becker said.

Calls to Latham and his South Tulsa Baptist Church were not returned.

Latham has supported a convention directive urging members to befriend gays and lesbians and try to convince them that they can become heterosexual "if they accept Jesus Christ as their savior and reject their 'sinful, destructive lifestyle."'

The Southern Baptist Convention is the nation's largest Protestant denomination.

Catching Up

Did I tell you that Amy and Denise were in town before the holidays? Amy was in town to see her sister through some surgery and to get some writing done, and Denise was visiting to do a writing workshop.

So, it was great to see them. Amy, of course, wouldn't let me photograph her, but Denise is a little more obliging. Geezoman, I think she's aging incredibly gracefully. She's eve prettier than when we were roommates back in (God help us!) the early 90s.

By the way, do I look as tired as I feel?

Oh, and here's another one for the list of straight men who really should be (1) gay, and (2) my husband. Carlos Ponce. Damn him for being the happily married father of twin girls.

Some girls have all the luck.

I guess I'll have to pin my hopes on Ricky Martin.

And, on a final note: Please God, don't let this suck:

I Surely Hope This Ain't True

It's not true that life is one damn thing after another; it is one damn thing over and over.
- Edna St. Vincent Millay

Welcome Home

Anyone who knows me will tell you that my usual modus operandi during times of stress is to shut down. I don't call people. I don't go out. I'm way too busy fretting. Where will I get rent money? How will I pay my bills? Why is my life such crap?

That kinda thing.

Things always work out, and I eventually start connecting again. But you know what? I've never noticed the moment when I switched over.

I got off the train after work tonight and noticed how nice J. Hood Wright Park was. I've been walking past it, off and on, for a couple of weeks. Never noticed.

And there are some amazing old buildings in my new neighborhood. I need to photograph them.

Welcome home?

It's Done

Well, I finally finished with the old apartment today. I dragged my sorry ass out of bed (which I should have done yesterday) and went over to the old place to paint the living and dining rooms back to their original color. White.

It took all day, but thankfully, I'd been prepared. All the cleaning was done, the place was empty -- well, for the most part -- and I was raring to get this shit done!

Alas, it's not so easy to cover up "sage" and "firecracker" with "decorator's white." Takes a couple of coats. Hence the taking all day.

Salon

One of the great things about the holiday season is the rounds of parties that one is inevitably invited to... if, that is, one has friends like Topher.

I was slow to get myself going this afternoon, but he invited me to stop by his apartment for a drink and then join him at an open house some friends of his were having.

I was delighted to find that dear ol Bill Demerritt was at Topher's apartment when I go there, with his girlfriend Brook and his mom Sue in tow. I hadn't seen Bill since he'd done The Dancer Wore Sneakers. And I don't really think I've talked to him much since we did Tartuffe together back in 2003.

So, after we hung out with Bill and clan for a while, we made or way uptown to Topher's friend's open house.

It turns out that his friends were none other than Patricia Bosworth (noted biographer of Montgomery Clift and Diane Arbus, and a contributing editor at Vanity Fair) and her husband Tom Palumbo (noted photographer, actor, and director).

The joint was chock full of fascinating, amazing people. I mean, I chatted briefly with Elia Kazan's widow, for chrissakes. Delightful lady.

If ever you need an explanation why so many of us put of the with the crazy-making maelstrom that is New York, it's evenings like these.

Too bad they don't happen every day!

Welcome '06

I don't generally like New Years resolutions, but mine this year is to stop feeling like this.

Drunk Dialing*

*Not really. Okay, maybe a little.