Boys We Love

An almost ideal summer weekend, with happy notes to spare!

No, seriously.

Spain wins the Euro Cup, por fin, crushing the Hapless Huns and bringing joy to many, many streets. And it was all about the new talent.

Gay Pride day weekend, with parades that would make our own occasionally transgendered boys proud. Our favorite blind [damned if I can remember the currently favoured PC term] governor of color, David Paterson, took literal pride of place, happily marching down Fifth Avenue. The celebratory embodiment of an order he issued last month directing state agencies to recognize same-sex marriages performed outside of New York State.

Such a good boy.

Breaking Something

A weekend roundup, wherein we concoct a little mashup of various, mostly irrelevant and horrifying, events, news items and reprobates of any or no stripe.

Mandatory Castrati:

That cute little Punjabi governor of the formerly great state of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal, took a short break from "auditioning" with Psychogeezer for the “position” of VP, and what a fun position that augers to be! This week, Bobby announced to an adoring public that he had signed into law a brand-new, never before seen “Chemical Castration Law.” Not just any castration law, but one which moves from the optional to the mandatory and from the chemical to the, mother of god, “physical.”

SB 144…provides that on a first conviction of aggravated rape, forcible
rape, second degree sexual battery, aggravated incest, molestation of a juvenile
when the victim is under the age of 13, or an aggravated crime against nature,
the court may sentence the offender to undergo chemical castration. On a second
conviction of the above listed crimes, the court is required to sentence the
offender to undergo chemical castration.

This bill also provides that a court may instead order a physical
castration instead of the chemical castration.

Karl Rove Also Hearts Barry:

Yes, the slimy little enforcer reveals his most intimate fantasies:

“Even if you never met him, you know this guy,” Rove said, per Christianne
Klein. “He’s the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a
martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments
about everyone who passes by.”

Perfectly etched, but when the hell did they start letting anyone into country clubs other than fat, rich, pasty-faced white guys? Ah, yes, that must be the point. The source of their endless raging, earth scorching, economy plundering and warmongering. They have been waiting for Barry, all these years, waiting for that lean, RatPack-cool presence. And the bastard never shows. Poor Karl. Maybe he’s just, you know, not that into you.

Bubba Cries, Pouts, Flees and is Majorly Disrespected

Poor Bill. In an attempt to balance that always ticklish dilemma of being a serious dick whilst still exuding gravitas, he took refuge in London this week. He couldn’t possibly appear with Hills and Barry or make any statement of support for that uppity little colored person. After all, he’s a former President himself, and much blacker than Barry. He has important places to be and important, world-stage type people with whom to be seen. So there he was, grandly strolling Nelson Mandela’s birthday events, managing to confess to a brit scribe [who are ever so much better than their American counterparts since they have no issue whatsoever with being pushy pricks], that Barry could “kiss his ass” before he lends him any support. Poor Bill. Even Oprah apparently made it clear that she didn’t want to be anywhere near the little scumbag.

The Street

Dita doing casual streetwear. A fitting vision for slipping into weekend.

Of course, that’s casual streetwear in Paris, but it does bring to mind certain nagging cross-cultural observations/peeves. Yes, the obvious: how the variations on that theme seem to reflect other, often less obvious, local currents.

Daywear on the Left Coast, for example, is all about heavy, 80s style makeup, coupled with something atrocious from the neck down. Ensembles that would be less than acceptable at a Lima, Ohio Wal-Mart. Think something in terrycloth dug out of the deepest reaches of your great-aunt’s laundry bin. Or very short cut-offs coupled with a markedly filthy t-shirt and, as fitting homage to the sweltering weather, a fetching pair of shaggy atrocious Uggs.

Dressing up, or “evening” wear, requires the same maquillage, but coyly matched, shoes and purse style, with a Dynasty-era ensemble. Streetlight red dresses [one could never call them frocks] are huge, as is anything in white, especially when combined with innumerable and irrationally positioned studs.

Uniforms reign in Dublin, mostly of the black leather jacket, black jeans and sturdy, yes, black, boots sort. Barcelona moves to very different tunes, especially in the winter. Frocks galore in the warmer months, but then an uncommon amount of tweed. Not the nubby, Irish sort, but subtle, smoother weaves, never competing with backdrop. Biarritz is exactly as one might hope of an ever so slightly time-worn French seaside resort. The ladies, and their presence, catch one’s eye as they should. Discreet, fully informed, perhaps a tad too formal for resort, but then it was winter, and the Millennium to boot, when I was living there.

Warsaw, much more complex, would require an entire brooding post.

So the Left Coast, two decades too late and awash in misplaced narcissism, lassitude and an apparent dearth of full-length mirrors.

Dubliners have much else on their minds, shudder at the thought of being noticed and, most importantly, have to deal on a daily basis with the filthiest of all possible streets.

Barcelona inhabits, as it has forever, that shadowy autonomous space between the Continent and the South. Riven equally by a need to embody artful classicism and to traverse the light transgressive, they have mastered the art of subtle reference.

Biarritz. What the hell. They’re French, Paris is a long Fast Train away and they choose to inhabit other times.

Midweek Madness

Bad, bad, bad girl, with a very good excuse, of course, but I’ll keep it to myself. Especially as there is something so very appealing about being a bad, bad girl.

And since I’ve been so lax, there is an absolute surfeit of riches we need to address. From that very smooth Italian operator, Rafaello, known for his “Vatican connections” [not] and real estate deals, who made the cardinal error of scamming Bubba, along with a thousand others, thus ensuring his recent arrest and hundreds of criminal charges.

Then there is that most devout meth head cum feelthy rich televangelist cum client of blabbermouth gay tricksters, Ted Haggard. The Most Right Reverend has just been graduated from his “restoration program.” This is apparently Christianity’s version of Hollywood “rehab” programs, but instead of pretending to treat addiction issues, they pretend to retrofit sexual preferences, all in service of the loftier goal of reintroducing said celebrities and their formerly tumescent cash flows.

Irrelevant assholes, of course, but, speaking of which, nothing any longer justifies the existence of Grand Wizard Mister Ralph, “Look At Me!” Nader. Irrelevant, check. Still inhabiting fantastic dexadrine-driven, constructs of previous times, places and events, check. Racist cretin, check. Narcissistic publicity whore, check. But today’s events and words have made even the generally unflappable squawk and screech like banty roosters being driven to the assembly line.

An Offering

A small token, a place card as it were, until I'm able to spend more time here.

Snapdragons. One of the first flowers I ever grew, and, like morning glories, cockscombs and bells of ireland, still and always in my gardens.

These, the salmon-coloured tinged with butter, are, unlike most, surprisingly fragrant, jammy and eloquent.

After All These Years

My second favorite Moustaki, but the videos for my favorite were crap.

Sorry for the paucity of posts, but I promise to overcompensate shortly.

PD: Here's his official site in Spanish, if you care. You can also have it in French and German.

A Saturday Night Lagniappe

Daddies Dearest

[NYET wins, thousands cheer, others moan and now, in the second chapter of Lisbon Treaty: WTF?!, all EU countries are saying they don’t have the slightest idea what this means, but they are absolutely certain it means something, and that something is most likely messy and dire.]


My tribute to Daddy’s Day Weekend, as I mentioned in a comment on the post below, was to offer support, solace and easy tips for those not feeling in the mood to celebrate this particular holiday. Perhaps you might have vague, almost catatonic, memories of your own father punching out a sibling in a drunken snit on Christmas morning, downing the tree which crushed all the unopened gifts and sending your mother screaming out the door.

Or perhaps he retired from your life when you were 12, claiming he had just discovered, and owned, the fact that he was a Proud Gay American, only to be outed 2 years later when he was picked up on a morals charges, shacked up with the 16 year old daughter of your mother’s best friend.

Granted, the above are best case scenarios, but even those with truly traumatic experiences can find ways to take comfort, soothe their thoroughly unresolved anger issues and have a pain-free Daddy’s day.

TIP #1: It could have been ever so much worse.

Deep in your heart, assuming you’re over the age of 24 [or, for boys, 30], you know this. But sometimes we all need a little reminder. It could [now bear with me because how the hell does anyone ever know the truth of a man, and he has admitted to at least one encounter of the female kind] have been Gore Vidal. Just imagine life as the despised offspring of one of the most vicious, preening, petulant über-narcissists ever visited on humankind.

TIP#2: Get over it.

If male, locate a straw man. Preferably someone who looks or acts like him, or, if not, who is dumb, weak and/or available. Then vanquish him. Knock him off whatever pedestal on which you/he perceive him to be ensconced. This could be done virtually [just leave a scary number of contemptuous comments on his blog] or physically [best accomplished whilst one or both of you are sporting extremely high blood alcohol levels].

TIP #3: Adopt

Find someone. It might be a gentleman already of your acquaintance, perhaps that charming eccentric down the street or the reckless uncle who let you cadge beers at his flat when you were 11. Or you could hang out in your park, chatting up the elderly chess or bocce players. Once you find your long lost dad, and you will, simply inform him of the blessed event and get on with it. Listen to his stories, all of them. Stand up straight, act like a man and make him proud.

Guess Who?!

And you only win if you guess them both.

[Oh, and you can ignore the young felon wading through the waves, weapon of choice in hand.]

The Lisbon Treaty: WTF?!

Hah!! Seriously. Not.

Although it is true that irishpersons are the only ones who have the god-given [literally, perhaps] right, if not duty [given that only 45% of them did today], to vote on eurotreaties. And if one person in hell can prove to me that he, or more likely she [those unsung thousands of PAs across the far corners of every dusty eurocubicle who actually researched and drafted it], understands a damn thing about it, then serious cheers.

No one understands it, although some have taken passionate position. The Government has tried to strike fear in the hearts of our compatriots by darkly, and vaguely, hinting that all those rivers of euro lucre which we have so taken to our hearts and pocketbooks might slow to a trickle if we misbehave and vote NYET.

But I will say that any NYET which can put Sinn Fein and those creepy Libertas persons in the same bunker does tend to catch one’s attention. And, since the voting is now over, and I freely admit to not having a single, solitary clue or position about the Treaty, let me direct you to this very entertaining corner. If you do read it through, you’ll find that even the author - clearly in deathly fear for his own standing in the NYET community - hastens to add that, despite his outing Libertas’ connections with the US intelligence community and military contractors …is himself voting NYET.

And, as penance for this post [and for a number of related sins], I promise to quickly post something else above.

Madmen

Boys, sex and politics.

The perfect combination of corruption and sleaze, at least in the States, reinforcing way too many easy conclusions. Too obvious, of course, but equally irresistible.

Gennifer Flowers and Paula Jones, two former paramours of that former president, have just launched a website where they shall be shilling videos wherein they discuss hopefully lurid details about their encounters with said former. But at just $1.99?! I like the fact that these ladies are finally trying to cash in on their adventures, but what the hell? Why is it that only perhaps 1% of the ladies, almost any of the ladies anywhere, ever figure out how to turn a respectable buck at whatever their profession, or hobbies, of choice?

On the other hand, I suppose it’s time to move on.

John McCain, that man’s man of a man, has an even more despicable history with women. He left his first wife [who was only ever described at the time as a “willowy swimsuit model”] after returning home from Vietnam. It would appear that the horrific car accident she had been in while he was a POW had left her semi-crippled, 5 inches shorter and hardly the stuff of his dreams. He was entitled to much, much more.

So, after numerous flagrant affairs, he discovered Cindy. The quintessential trophy wife: rodeo princess, 15 years his junior and seriously wealthy beer heiress. Out with the old, in with the new, so it goes. After all, it appeared that almost all the Republican hopefuls [as well as many of the Democrats] this year had similar newly minted mid-life Cindy clones.

But what pales in the face of this generally irrelevant gossip, is what lies beneath McCain’s predictable predilections. Most people have long been aware that he’s an angry, out of control, batshit kind of guy, but, for those who hadn’t noticed, we also have this:

“... In his 1992 Senate bid, McCain was joined on the campaign trail by his wife, Cindy, as well as campaign aide Doug Cole and consultant Wes Gullett. At one point, Cindy playfully twirled McCain's hair and said, "You're getting a little thin up there." McCain's face reddened, and he responded, "At least I don't plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt."”

Ladies. Seriously.

One of those chillingly perfect confluences.

The magnificent star of everyone’s all time favorite film, Showgirls, Gina Gershon. And the Appalachia loving former President and current hillbilly playboy, Bill Clinton.

Gershon rocks the iconic bad girl trailer park ethos like no one ever before has. Just the right amount of dimestore makeup overload, five different shades of highlights, perfectly botoxed lips. The obligatory same-sex scenes, and, frankly, I found Bound quite entertaining, and not just in an ironic, campy way.

Given Bill’s history in amatory matters, one can easily see how Gershon would be his ultimate Venus, the nasty cheerleader-stripper of his dreams. Despite her disclaimers, I very much prefer to believe Vanity Fair on the subject [and the entire article is a deliciously fun read]. Given his access to all the perks that money and his new “high-flying” crowd of frat boy enablers can buy, how could Gershon not have been on his current Must-Do list?

I wonder if, deep in his newly addled heart and impulse control centres, Bill is not more than a bit pleased that he and his “wife” will no longer be under the scrutiny of all press great and small. Despite the always seductive lure of power, I imagine that he would just as soon be devoting his days and nights to pursuing the powerful seduction of his ever expanding Must-Do list.

Match Dot Com

Most of us know that boys - while wonderful, indispensable and inordinately fun to raise hell with - can, just like girls, sometimes astonish with bouts of swinish simplicity.

And two of that sort managed to sneak through my usually firm defense systems this week, and I’m not sure which is more offensive to any number of sensibilities.

The first, languidly lounging/pouting on the left, is a Brit who calls himself Golden, already a clue to his resolute cluelessness. Golden has recently “written” a book about his lifestyle choices, titled – and again revealing the breadth of his intellect and sophistication –Gigolo.

Nothing in this Times’ article rings true. Rich, powerful, purportedly “alpha” females could do ever so much better than this pathetic wanker, and I’m sure they do, without ever having to pay for it. Then there is this:

"There is such a thing as a free lunch, however. Golden goes out with “a group of girls who call upon me for lunch when in dire need”. They are his female equivalent in many ways: models, younger trophy wives, and girls who have a rich patron. “We have a good time together and it doesn’t revolve round sex. Their husbands and boyfriends know I won’t steal them because I couldn’t support them.”

I rather fear that with this paragraph, Mr. Golden, or perhaps his ghostwriter, has let slip either the fiction or the closet. When in dire need of male diversion which “doesn’t revolve round sex,” all girls, everywhere, simply call upon one of their most empathetic and witty gay friends. And Golden has clearly never even been in a room where either of those two qualities has been present.

The other is rather the polar opposite of the above, proudly reveling in his most American excesses and appetites.

Henry T. Nicholas III, a retired dot.com billionaire and creepy geek extraordinaire, is under indictment for the usual sort of sordid financial felonies. Boring? But, of course.

Not boring is what he has been doing with his billions. The first thing that captures one’s attention is the $10 million dollars he spent on building an “underground sex cave” beneath his home which he kept stocked with a bevy of hookers, all on payroll. His penchant for schoolboy pranks such as slipping ecstasy or coke in his colleagues’ drinks. Smoking so much dope on one of his two private planes that the pilot had to don an oxygen mask.

I can only guess that the perv level of all this was remarkably low, at least on a euroscale, the real point being the flamboyant throwing around of multiple billions of dollars on his “vices.” So very American, and so very much in counterpoint to his British counterpart. The former trying to parlay his pedestrian fantasies into a tale of life as a fancy fashion accessory to rich, powerful unreachable women. The latter trying to impress his peeps with his ability to overspend on prostitutes, real estate and last year’s drugs.

Both swine, both faithfully reflecting their cultural values. Given all the above, I think they not only deserve each other, but could most happily ride off in the sunset together, a match made in someone's idea of heaven .

Boy Meets Girl

More femme, yes?

Must be that maternal certainty thing.

The Dublin Women's Mini-Marathon!!

Bank holiday Monday this week, and the boys were out in force, wishing to lend a little cross-gender support to the ladies, the charitable event and their own, ever sterling, reputations.

Oddly enough, the garda seems to be having more fun with the ladies than the ladies themselves. My best guess is that these were probably taken early on in the event, prior to any of their very many scheduled pub stops.

Purple wig, bottom pic, for those who wish to know.

Moves

Well, I had thought I should be writing something about Bobby, but it didn’t seem at all right to be commemorating such an obscenity, in any way at all. The cortege in that previous post spoke well enough, as did he, to other times and places.

Nor do I have the words yet for Obama’s win. That I would never have thought it possible, until I saw his words, watched while he did indeed build his campaign from the ground up. Casually wresting power from K Street flacks and corporate wingmen, under their radar and all across Web 2.0.

It feels generational, but not the way the micro-wonks would believe, it’s not about age or gender or level of education. Or at least not always or mostly. I suppose, at its simple best, it reflects a willingness to suspend one’s cynicism, anger, defeat. To be able to notice that there’s not a whit of opportunism or sham or fear anywhere there.

And, speaking as a girl and notching the level of discourse way, way down, you can also see it, and I always look for it, in how comfortable he is in his bones, his skin. That has always been the money shot for me, the sign and signal, that a gentleman is who he is, knows it and is just fine with it.

My Happy Place

Thoroughly ensconced therein.

Madness Takes its Toll

Never fear, that's just a line from the clip.

Slammed right now, so here's a small diversion.

Downwardly Mobile Europersons and Hills Hooligans

Our CenterGirl is a request from a very dear friend, but, as I was doing my always extensive “research” for this weekend’s issue of Upwardly Mobile Eurotrash, I found myself becoming increasingly concerned, befuddled and depressed.

Carla, sweetheart, you married down, for god’s sake. He’s horrid, ugly, tacky and low in stature. He shat all over his previous wives, uses you like tabloid eye candy and nothing good will come of it.

While it’s fun to have a new incarnation, now we’re wearing Galliano frocks and Chanel flats, the whole Pillbox Jackie meme, but seriously WTH?

I can empathize with the fact that you make abysmal choices in men. Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton…Donald Trump. And you just need a head of state to add to your resume. But, please, The Nicky is a peeg, and a jackbooted one to boot.

**************

Yes, some of us had thought I was to resume my profoundly black, agonized political rants this evening, but I was unable. The sight of those crazed, HRT challenged, unbearably rude, catcalling Code Pink wannabees, screeching at the top of their lungs, cheering on their own Queen Hillbot at the Democratic Party Rules Committee meeting whilst all chances of her coronation faded…all I could do was clutch my Irish passport to my heart and fear for her nation.

A Peace Offering of Sorts