Journals : 1998 : Part 6
3 December 1998 | Link this
I hate this week.
I think I started a message to a friend with those words earlier tonight as a slightly lame excuse for my glacial email response time of late. I guess I could use it as an excuse for the slow pace of my site updates too, particularly with respect to Road Trip 98.
I'll spare you all the details, lest this become one of those increasingly ubiquitous "why I'm not updating" or "why my life sucks" rants. Suffice to say that my life doesn't suck, that I'm not updating because I'm really busy right now, and that it will all get better in a few days. I may even get around to answering some mail. Then it will be time to go home for Christmas and it'll all start over again.
4 December 1998 | Link this
Gosh darn. That link from the Advocate I mentioned a few days ago went away pretty damned fast. Why am neither particularly surprised nor particularly upset? Now visitors to their page of links can find reassuringly happy and safe sites which don't say anything bad or question those "happy upscale gay" aesthetics and demographics.
A little more of Road Trip 98 is here for your perusal, including Minneapolis Finale and Minneapolis to Kansas City. More later tonight or tomorrow.
Alas, most of the email I hadn't answered yesterday still hasn't been answered today...
8 December 1998 | Link this
So I should've just stayed in bed.
I woke up about 8:45 and noticed the power was out. Dutifully, I got up, took a shower, dressed, and trudged off toward my part-time job, thinking this was just another neighborhood outage. Figuring that grabbing a bus on Folsom would really suck since all the traffic signals were out, I walked upto Mission. I was a little freaked out to notice the lights were still out and that none of the electric buses were running. I kept walking. I was starting to guess this might be a little more than a local occurence. Little did I know that power was out all over the city.
Jeez...what a mess. A million people without power. Minimal transit, no stoplights, nothing. By Fourth and Market, I decided to go back home and just read my book. And I never got my Sausage McMuffin. At least, though, the blackout gave me time to finish the Road Trip 98 saga (once the lights came back on).
14 December 1998 | Link this
Home today, sitting in one of those thousands of San Francisco apartments with no heat or insulation to speak of. But it never gets cold in SF, you say. Perhaps not, by most standards, but it sure FEELS cold when it gets into the 40's at night and you're sitting in a drafty Victorian huddled over a wimpy space heater.
For a change of pace, here are some things I'm loving this week:
- Reruns of "The Critic" on Comedy Central
- Minute Maid Lemonade on sale at Safeway
- Kelley's Coffee Shop in Oakland (review coming soon)
- The creepy new decor at My Place on Folsom Street (or is it just out of date Halloween decorations?)
- My blanket
16 December 1998 | Link this
Only nine shopping days 'til Christmas. I'm not trying to be blatantly commercial or anything, but this seems like a good time to re-visit David Sedaris' The Santaland Diaries. If I were less pure of spirit, I'd mention that you can buy the book from which these excerpts were taken right here on the site. But mentioning that would be wrong somehow.
Last note for the day: if you do nothing else today, visit this website. Just do it. Trust me.
17 December 1998 | Link this
So it would seem we're at war. And I didn't hear a damned thing about it until hours after the fact.
Used to be this type of thing would result in an immediate (if brief) interruption of all programming on all commercial TV stations. I was home all day. The TV was on. I didn't see a bulletin or hear a single word until I watched the 7:00 news.
Ironically, one of the top stories was about the "apathy" many Americans were showing toward the whole thing. Given a reliance on TV news, it's a fucking miracle most of us even KNEW about it.
I'm sure the "big three" affiliates probably had plenty of live coverage, but who the hell watches ABC, CBS, or NBC anymore? You'd think the beginning of a war might have at least merited a MENTION on the other stations too.
On a related note, check out this bitchin' TV site. While you're at it, check out yesterday's link du jour again too.
18 December 1998 | Link this
The roomie left for New Orleans this morning. Of course, since I could now have a week of really noisy sex without bothering him, there are two factors working against me. The first is that I have this lingering nasty chest cold, which makes me sound like I'm dying (I'm not...)
The second, of course, is that I won't be able to get anyone interested. Seems lately that I can only find willing partners when I'm not at all in the mood. Or else they're two or three time zones away. Doesn't really matter, I guess, as I have an awful lot of work to finish up this weekend in preparation for my annual holiday trek to North Carolina.
So far the most conclusive results of the survey are that you want more of me and more nastiness and negativity along the lines of The Idiot Factor. No promises on the former, but you're assured of the latter...
19 December 1998 | Link this
The country is going to hell. Wait. Scratch that. It's the government that's going to hell. The country is just suffering from the utter ridiculousness of it all.
And vast numbers of Americans just don't care anymore. If ever there was a textbook example of why voters, particularly younger voters, are apathetic and cynical about the political process, the Republican party provided it today. The Republicans can't be bothered with actually running the country, not when there are Democrats to be trashed.
Not to suggest that those very same Democrats wouldn't have done the very same thing had the situation been reversed. Therein lies the problem: a complete moral bankruptcy in both ruling parties. There are no more statesmen. There are merely paid corporate mouthpieces. There is no more concern for issues. There is simply loyalty to the party and complete devotion to re-election.
And there's not a damned bit of difference between the average Democrat and the average Republican -- excpet maybe a slightly different list of corporate sponsors.
Only moderately related: has anyone other than I noticed that, in addition to being the nickname of a Nazi general, "Desert Fox" was also the name of a really bad military-themed gay porn video of the late 80's? Coincidence?
20 December 1998 | Link this
Watching the post-impeachment nightmare this morning in my hungover state (never EVER drink beer on top of any kind of cough syrup), I prepared this journal entry about the complete moral bankruptcy of both political parties in the U.S.
Then I re-read it and it sounded incredibly pretentious. I decided I make a lousy political commentator. However, I went ahead and archived it, in case you're inordinantly interested and still want to read it.
What I'm now concerned with is the fact that I've had my crotch and/or ass grabbed in bars more times this weekend than any time in recent memory. By complete strangers. By people I had not so much as looked at. By really drunk nasty trolls.
Is it the Christmas intoxication factor? Or did I just look that available? It can't be that I looked so enticing, 'cuz I didn't. What's the deal here?
Anyhow, I made it home safely. Now I'm gonna watch "Cannon" and go to bed.
22 December 1998 | Link this
Memories of Watergate...
I was a youngster in that exciting summer of 1974, and my biggest memories of the whole affair were that my favorite TV shows got pre-empted an awful lot. That was a really traumatic year anyway, as I lost both The Brady Bunch and The Partridge Family.
Deeply in the throes of withdrawal...
But I did pick up enough of the Watergate action to realize that impeachment is nothing but a precursor to a Senate trial which might conceivably remove a president from office...an arraignment or an indictment, if you will. I figured this out at age 10. It's very disturbing to me that full-grown adults are so ignorant of the concept today.
What the hell are they teaching kids in schools these days? I guess "self-esteem" is more important than, say, reading or writing or learning how the country works. It's no wonder we keep electing such blithering idiots to public office and passing such blatantly unconstitutional ballot initiatives. Most voters haven't a clue what's going on!
It was 65 in Greensboro yesterday, while it snowed in parts of San Francisco. But never fear: they're predicting freezing rain for my Friday arrival in North Carolina, so I'll be spared some considerable irony...
24 December 1998 | Link this
Insert the name of your culturally appropriate holiday and then wish yourself a happy one. If this happens to be the inappropriate time of year for it, please feel free to save this page and look back at it at such time as you deem it acceptable.
And if you're a Jehovah's Witness, just forget I said anything at all, OK?
I'm off to North Carolina for a week or two, so don't look for this page to change much until I get back.
Last night was pretty much my only pre-departure nod to the season, as it turned out: a nice dinner and "A Very Brady Christmas" with Sarah and Brad, who are now in the wilds of Greater Los Angeles.
I really should start my Christmas shopping one of these days. Right now, though, I'm gonna haed up the street and have a beer...