There's No Place Like Home, There's No Place Like Home, There's No Place Like Home

Well. There's nothing like a week-long family visit to make me joyously, euphorically, orgasmically cognizant of how fortunate I am that I live here in San Francisco!

Yep, nothing like a quick trip to the rural hinterlands of Kansas to really shut up all of my whining about not making enough money, about not owning my own home yet, about starting to rapidly gain all of the mid-life mid-section weight I managed to stave off until these past couple of years, about our weather... all of it. No more whining from me, I am one happy camper.

We truly do live in a bubble. I giant blessed bubble that seemingly protects us and keeps many of them out. I think of the U.S. as a large country dotted with these beautiful, urban bubbles of culture, diversity, open-mindedness, liberalism, acceptance, inclusion, and a higher than average general awareness amongst most of their denizens. But most of the rest of this country....

How does that expression go?: "It's not that all Republicans are stupid people, but most stupid people are Republican."

We could switch the word "Republican" with words like: Midwesterner, Redneck, Yokel, God-fearing Christian...

And then we can swap out the word "stupid" for words like: racist, obnoxious, unaware, homophobic, inbred, sheep-like, naive...

Hopefully that demonstrates the enormity of the concept, and also clarifies that there are exceptions. That outside of these bubbles of enlightenment there are many wonderful, brave, liberal, open-minded folk planted among the flotsam and jetsam of ignoramity.

Here are a few clinical observations I made while in Kansas last week:

There were a plethora of George W. Bush bumperstickers fucking everywhere. Even though it is now... what, 7 months after the election.

Ninety percent of all the automobiles had some type of "Support Our Troops" message on them. But I didn't see a single "Bring Our Troops Home" ribbon.

Lots of trucks with gunracks. With guns.

I saw commercial vehicles (delivering identifiable products or working for identifiable companies) proudly displaying the confederate stars and bars in their front license plate areas.

The dreck on the radio stations is completely mind-numbing. Most mid-Western radio stations must have a daily minimum Lynard Skynard requirement. I mean, I enjoyed Bo Bice on American Idol, but hey there's a limit....

Lots of roadside, home-made billboards in yards of people crying out against the sins of abortion, and the necessity of saving the lives of unborn children. Many of them displaying photographs of renderings of fetuses either in utero or after an abortion.

Finding a good bottle of wine is definitely a unique challenge.

The trickle-down of fashion trends is not only late in arriving, but changes quite a bit along the way to get there.

Overall, given the reproduction rates of most Red-State folk, I'd say we're all in pretty big trouble. I'm fearful of what national political trends these voters may bestow upon the rest of us. Maybe it can get worse than George W. Bush...

Fucking Kansas!

So, we all have to be from somewhere. I was born and raised in Kansas. Growing up an awkward, introverted queer child in Kansas in the 70's and 80's was not a lot of fun. But it was sure was a challenge... and I guess, is in a large way partly responsible for the person I am now.

Although, I am sure that there are many warm and fuzzy, nostalgically positive memories of my youth living in the geographic anus of the continental United States... it's very hard to conjure them most of the time because I am usually blinded by all of the horrific elements of it.

Here's a recent scaldingly embarrassing one: the Kansas Board of Education is holding hearings to challenge the evidence of evolution and to try to either remove it from the state's science curriculum, or teach it as "a problematic scientific theory", and/or teach it alongside creationism and the concept of intelligent design -- offering these as equally acceptable theories of life on planet Earth.

What the fuck??!!??!!

Yes, the back-assward evangelical Christians of Kansas are at it again.

Although in my mid-life quest for harmony and zen-ness, I am trying to see things from differing viewpoints and trying very seriously to not instantly dismiss so many of my fellow beings as serious ignoramuses.... er, ignorami...

So, in that vein, honestly, if one removes one's ability to think rationally and synchronizes one's mind to think like these crusading evangelists, perhaps we can see why they don't believe in the concept of evolution.

Evolution is, afterall, the improvement of a species. Evolution implies that we evolve as a species and become smarter, more rational, more compassionate, more creative... we "evolve" as beings. Right?

As these redneck evangelical crackers gather every Sunday and look around at their assembled congregations of brethern who are convulsing, mouth-foaming, gibberish-speaking, snaking-dancing, ranting and raving, nut case malcontents... why would they believe in evolution?

They all perfectly represent the anti-thesis of the concept.

Lexus Nexus: Celebrities Meat Self-Image

My brilliant friend at H&F started a blog on "Celebreties who remind us of Diseases" and suggested that the next extrapolation would be "Celebreties who remind us of Meat Products". But for the sake of upper brow genuflecting (oh my god, I typed "genu-felching" and had to retype the appropriate word) I thought I should add room for social observation as well.

Note: Celebreties have assistants, personal trainers, chefs, y0ga gurus, accountants, a veritable plethora of people who help them be, who they transmit to the rest of us - with a lot of help from the media. We won't even the mention plastic surgery.

[Darn, guess this means I'm probably going to loose Michael Jackson as a reader now.]

The rest of are constantly forced to look at interviews, at photo-shots: at photos of them on remote island beach vacations, multi-million dollar weddings, extravagant p.r productions and then we have to try to make peace with ourselves. All the while, they try to sell us tennis shoes, clothes, home decorations, breast implants... It's all about the marketing of marginally usefull or completely useless consumer products.

For instance, years ago (when I still had a 30-inch waist and more hair, when it was still mostly brownish-blonde) I used to think that if I met George Michael, in my high tops and baggy "Choose Life" t-shirt with my shorty-shorty short-shorts that we would be instantly drawn to one another and live happily ever after. He would stare, post-coitally, into my eyes and say "Andrew Ridgley! What was I thinking!?"

And at that time I was filled with angst over the message in the "Choose Life" T-shirt message. A friend of mine said that it was an anti-choice, anti-abortion message and that Wham was actually quite conservative. I was beside myself. The band was so cool, their music appealed to my complete new-wavey sensability. They were coiffed, tan, hot, springy, perky and rythmic. How could they possibly be trying to blind with us such awful anti-freedom rhetoric?

So out of political convection and guilt and shame I quit wearing my hard-to-acquire, new favorite t-shirt.

Which is of course fucked up. Choice is the most important aspect of being a sentient creature. So I stopped wearing the aforementioned shirt for weeks. Until I saw George Michael explain in an interview that the message wasnt' anti-choice at all, but was meant to be a message to kids entering the realm of heroin exploitation to enjoy life, but protect and save their lives.

This clarification made me love George Michael even more because of his message of life, his hippness, his tanned muscular legs, his bouncy behaving hair, his glow-in-the-dark lip gloss.

Everything was now perfect. Politics and sexual craving wer enlined.

This isn't always the case, but we all do this...


We all do this. We all have celebreties that we want to be, or to do, or jsut to look like from time to time...

Rock stars, movie stars, porn stars, literary stars, political stars...

And we also have celebreties who repel and repulse us.

What defines a person more? The Celebreties we are love, or those we despise? And what of those at verrying degrees in-between. If my partner Mike and I had to take the "Top 10 Celeberities We Hate" test we might not be together now. It's so different, yet so meaningful on so many levels.

But really, one way or the other, celebraties are all just meat.

So this blog is all about celebreties and the meat products which remind us of them ( To Kelly with smiles and winks):

Al Pacino --- Italian Sausage
(enogh said, he is sex personified)

Danny DeVito --- Vienna Sausage
(no interpretation required)

Martha Stewart --- Pig's Feet
(partly because she would be completely horrified by the pig's feet analogy, and partly, come on, it totally makes you think of the ankle bracelet.)

Donald Trump --- Breaded Veal Cutlet
(See previous postings about what I really think of the Trumpster as a sub-human: pounded slabs of veal taken from enslaved, constrained, helpless, under-developed calves seem a perfect fit for him).

Paula Abdula --- clearly a Chicken McNuggett
(no discussion) Except, it's a Chicken McNuggett dropped on the floor of your Ford Pinto as you're driving along listening to R.E.O. Speedwagon, and by the time the big-haired ballad has ran it's course, this McNugget has rolled and slided and bounced all over every nook and cranny of your Pinto. She may have flava still, her shape is pretty close to what it was, but mostly the edge is gone, she's dinged up and after all of the commotion she feels a bit like a hockey puck... to be smacked back and forth between Randy and Simon.

Carrie Underwood (of recent American Idol fame) --- Olive Loaf
(Boloney, with flecks of cheap olive and pimneto sptinkeled throughout to try to give her more flavor. Yechk, could she be more country, and christian, and limited, and preter-naturally pretty.)

Harrison Ford - --fillet mignon
He's kind of perfect. When he was young = hot. Middle aged and wise = hot. A Bit Older Now and Obviously Showing It = Still Muy Hot!!!

It's late, I'm out of ideas. Feel free to post more and pass around.

I'm trying to think of a good meat product fit for Orlando Bloom but can only come up with bacon (thin, greasy, clingly, has a lot of initial appeal, but induces guilt afterward.l....)

Hmmmm... help me out here.