Project Runway

Dragging the remaining contestants to Paris in their self-designed jetset wear was pretty creepy.
Vincent made saggy, plain pajammies in festive black and charcoal heather. The V-neck top was baggy and too deeply cut for a male. Awful.
Uli made a typical flouncy print dress- her trademark...again. Yawwwn.
Laura made an elegant party dress in an ecru/peach silk jersey that traveled well.
She should have won.
Michael made a P. Ditty-style, white Hamptons seersucker thing, very hiphop. He's got an eye for what's hot, that's for sure.
Tattoo neck Jeff sans-a-chin made a rocker outfit that looked like early Pat Benatar meets recent Gene Simmons. The boy is beyond white trash, he's meth lab trash with a bottle of generic tequila thrown in.
And Kayne made a Liberace/Elvis casual costume in black, with hideous appliques in a girly Versace-inspired butterfly print of purples and fuchsia, along with a belt buckle that spelled KAYNE in rhinestones. Tres Okie faggola.
But poor, poor Angela took the cake with her shit-brown, silk linen, cuffed pedal pushers with a wrinkly, gathered ass and two big granny circles stuck to the ass cheeks she calls, "fleurchons." Her top was a maroonish balloony thing that just didn't look good. The judges HATE linen and the color brown, so she just doesn't notice what they say, apparently. Gag me with a fleurchon, dude.
Tim and the gang went to Parson's Design Paris, where a particularly bitchy Parisian designer named Catherine Malandrino told Kayne "he luke reedeekulous" and Angela, "Ju luke out of zis world, YOU ARE OUT."
Of course, that scum-sucking burn-out Jeff won and was delighted that Angela was unceremoniously ousted and taken back to the airport, to return for good to her farm in Ohio.
The clear leaders to date are Michael and Laura, with Uli thrown in as an also-ran.
The rest of them need to be tarred, feathered and prohibited from designing again, in this order:
Jeff
Vincent
Kayne
What do you think?

When Will Bush Get It?

I heard on NPR earlier today that Bush said he "took full responsibility" for FEMA's miserable reaction to Katrina, and presumably the lack of progress made by the feds toward rebuilding the Gulf areas stricken by the hurricane last year.
When will that sniveling son of a bitch learn that taking responsibility means something besides a hackneyed platitude uttered by the terminally insincere?
If karma exists, that clown is way overdue for some serious comeuppance.
A penniless lifetime in what's left of New Orleans' Ninth Ward would be too good for him.
Five years later and Bush is more loathsome than ever.

John Mark Karr: Your 15 Minutes Are Up and My Damned Foot Hurts

Yep. Turns out the nutter who Boulder Colorado officials extradited from Thailand was not a DNA match to whomever killed Jon Benet Ramsey.
Karr, the pencil-necked pervert, will probably be charged with something but it won't be murder.
I say they should charge him with any flimsy thing they want, as long as the charge results in him being placed in the joint with the general prison population. I hope the guards lace all the convicts' Pruno with Viagra so they can welcome the creep with the great thrust of gusto he deserves.

Meanwhile, in the hottest summer on record here in San Antonio, I've been having progressively worse pain in my right instep. Nothing I can recall happened to cause it; it just popped up the other day and never went away.
After elevation, ice and aspirin all day yesterday, I awakened this morning with pain similar to jabbing a red hot knitting needle into my instep.
I drove to the emergency room and waited with a roomful of sickly people for an hour or so. Then I was x-rayed and examined, with a diagnosis of acute tendonitis and some other thing that started with "necro" that I can't remember.
Fuckin' diabetes.
Seems the doctor theorized that on Friday, I must have laced my shoes too tight and the slight pinching on top of my foot drove the nerves on my instep crazy and made them revolt.
So now I am taking Prednisone and some delicious little morsels known as Percoset.
I have a space age heat-wrap stuck to my elevated hoof and the drugs are working.
But I hate the idea of the nerves in my extremities going haywire any damn time they want.
I hope this isn't a harbinger of freakish ailments popping up in the years to come.
However, on the bright side, Percoset is a most comforting medication.

Where's Egypt in all This?

If you look at a map of the Middle East and Northern Africa, you'll find Egypt in Northern Africa, just across the Gaza Strip from Israel. Israel abuts Jordan, which is just south of Iraq, which abuts Iran to the east.
Egypt may be on another continent, but it's definitely in the neighborhood of the wacky Middle East.
So, why aren't they involved in all this controversy?
Because I think they are too damned smart, that's why.
In years passed, we heard all about Egypt being involved in the peacemaking process, but lately Egypt seems to have disappeared from the landscape.
Wouldn't it be nice if everyone, including the United States, asked Egypt to referee all the fucking messes in Iraq, Iran, Israel, Saudi and Afghanistan?
They seem like a rational group of folks.
We should get the hell out of there and let them handle it.

Great News From the HRC

Please read the following e-mail that a friend of mine received from the Human Rights Campaign.
And especially check out the names and party affiliations of the legislators who helped us in our struggle. Kudos to them.


Dear Friend,

It is a great and historic day for our community. Today, federal legislation called the Pension Protection Act was signed into law and it includes two provisions that extend important financial protections to more Americans - including same-sex couples. This is an incredibly exciting victory that will be helpful to millions of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender families.

This Act is important because it has two hard-fought HRC-backed provisions that we lobbied for intensely and secured its inclusion. These provisions will help same-sex couples nationwide. Basically what this means is that these two provisions ensure that the U.S. tax code, in times of emergencies, is fairer to more Americans, including our community, and puts us on a more equal footing with other couples. Here's how these provisions can impact the lives of GLBT Americans:

The first provision, called "Non-Spousal Rollover"

Allows the transfer of an individual's retirement plan benefits, like a 401(k), to an Individual Retirement Account (IRA) for a non-spouse beneficiary like a domestic partner, sibling, parent, cousin or anyone else when the individual dies.


In the past, unless you were the legally recognized spouse of the deceased, you were forced to withdraw the amount as a lump sum and you faced immediate tax penalties which would eat away at the savings amount intended for retirement.

The second provision, known as "Hardship Distribution":


Allows individuals who list their same-sex partner or other non-spouse beneficiary under a 401(k) plan the ability to tap into their retirement funds in the case of certain medical or financial emergencies of the beneficiary.


In the past, the federal law only permitted such withdrawals for employees' legally recognized spouses or dependents.

For more details on how the two provisions can help you and your family, please visit our website at: www.hrc.org/estateplanning. Also, be sure to keep a close eye on your inbox later this month because we will be sending you information about an online chat with a financial expert that we will be hosting. The Q&A with this expert will be all about the Pension Protection Act and how it pertains to GLBT families.

I hope that you are as proud as I am of the HRC team and all their work to make this happen. As a member of the Human Rights Campaign, your support provided the resources and the critical momentum necessary to achieve this historic victory for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans. I can't thank you enough for your lasting commitment to this work.

We should also thank our allies in Congress - Democrats, Republicans and Independents like former Representative Rob Portman (R-OH), Representative Ben Cardin (D-MD), Ways & Means Committee Chairman Representative Bill Thomas (R-CA), Senator Gordon Smith (R-OR), Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA), Senator Max Baucus (R-MT) and Senator Jim Jeffords (I-VT) - who partnered with us and did so with a cooperative spirit that is truly special in the current divisive political climate.
I hope you'll take a few moments to reflect on this enormous victory, join us in celebrating our big win, and know that you are making a difference.

Warmly,
Joe Solmonese
President, Human Rights Campaign

Runway Robbery!

On Project Runway last night, the challenge was for the eight remaining designers to whip up couture confections for the mothers and sisters of the other designers.
In the order of viewer's favorites:
1. Michael, the bootywear designer from Atlanta with back to back wins, selected Barbie doll designer Robert's pretty sister Teresa, who flew in from London to be in the show. He created a very sweet reversible shirtwaist dress in black, with a black and white floral print inside.
2. Uli drew Oklahomo Kayne's Big Mama Judy and dressed her very flatteringly in a muted paisley top with khaki pants. I thought her design should have won.
3. Vincent, the twitching nebbish dressed Uli's mother Heidi in a simple black dress with a wide tan collar. I wasn't crazy about it, but the judges loved it.
4. Laura, the redheaded architect who we discovered is pregnant with kid number six, drew tattooed, weak-chinned Jeffrey's very conventional mother Pam. She dressed her in an exaggerated nautical theme, which was tailored well, but otherwise not up to Laura's usual design standards.
5. Kayne drew Michael's plus sized mama Pamela and put her in a coral top and matching scarf and cute khaki capris. I thought she looked good, but Nina Garcia apparently hates the color coral...not to mention big women.
6. Hopespun Angela, who looks like my big sister's first girlfriend, drew Laura's redheaded mama Lorraine and stuck her into a black dress with fringe and leggings. The judges and viewers savaged her design, but it wasn't all that bad.
7. Boring Barbie's Robert drew Vincent's enormous sister Patricia. He designed for her a bland red poncho over a shapeless black sack dress. Her scowl on the runway didn't help the ensemble one bit.
8. And then there was Jeffrey no-chin, who admitted in the voice-over that he was formerly a homeless junkie. Gee, what a shock.
Naturally, he was last to pick and got stuck with his arch enemy Angela's mother Darlene.
He whined about her being a plus size and refused to listen to her when she described her fashion preferences, instead opting for a melange of black, dark purple and a touch of periwinkle fabric to produce the ugliest, most unflattering piece of crap in PR history.
No, really! Check it out: http://www.bravotv.com/Project_Runway/rate/season/3/episode/7/8
It looked like something my 7th grade Home Ec teacher Mrs. Malolepsy would have forced me to sew, after I got the D for the red denim gym bag she made me sew.
The collar on No-Neck's dress was lopsided, the buttons were jumbo and there was an odd, asymetrical purple triangle sewn to one side of the collar.
What's worse, Jeffrey was so rude to the poor lady she actually started crying, which made Angela cry as well. Jeffrey's incongruently Leave it to Beaver-style mother tried to intervene on his behalf, but she was just as cold to Angela's mom as her junkie/alkie kid was.
I can tolerate a lot of crap, but being rude to someone's mother is to me the height of evil.
If anyone spoke to my mother and made her cry, I'd be doing time about now.
Jeffrey proved he was a one-trick pony like Santino from last season. He can't design anything but off-kilter slutwear in size 4 or smaller. Good luck, you fucking chump.
Even Vincent, whom I find creepy and distasteful, was sweet and gentle with Uli's German mama. In fact, he designed for her so carefully the judges selected his design as the winner.
He cried and hugged the mom when he won, which made me almost like him for a few moments. Humility is a virtue, even with neurotic creeps.
The big loser was Robert, who took the easy way out with the baggy, fat lady tarp he threw together for Vincent's gigantic sister. The judges knew Jeffrey deserved the ax, but he makes for ratings controversy so they kept his sorry ass on the show.
Robert has been surprisingly bland for the last three challenges though, so it probably was time for him to leave.
Now that Laura has Kayne isolated without his best buddy Robert, look to her to level him with a few more caustic barbs. Two redheads...go figure.

My Conversations With Republicans

Stella: I don't like to talk politics.
Me: Why, because your party has fucked up so much?
Stella: No, because you don't get it.
Me: Name one good thing Bush has done.
Stella: I don't like to talk politics.
Me: Just name one good thing and I'll change the subject.
Stella: No.

Kay: Talking politics is a bad idea.
Me: Why, because it's embarrassing for you Republicans?
Kay: No, it's because I try to avoid controversy.
Me: You voted for Bush, can you just tell me why?
Kay: Because I thought he was a good man.
Me: Do you still think that?
Kay: I don't want to discuss it.

Bubba: I think Bush has been good on national security.
Me: How so?
Bubba: He took the war to them.
Me: Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.
Bubba: We ain't been attacked, have we?
Me: Nearly as many soldiers have died in Iraq as the people who died on 9/11.
Bubba: Yeah, cuz we took the war to them.

Me: Why do you drive a Hummer?
Bow-headed woman: Because I can afford to.
Me: What about all the gas you're wasting?
Bow-headed woman: I can afford it.
Me: But why do you need such a huge vehicle?
Bow-headed woman: I have to take the kids to soccer practice.
Me: How many kids?
Bow-headed woman: Two. Tyler is 8 and Madison is 9.
Me: You can't fit two little kids in a standard sedan?
Bow-headed woman: They have equipment too, you know.
Me: What equipment?
Bow-headed woman: Balls n' stuff.

Me: How can you be a Republican in a family of Democrats?
Stupid nephew: Because they represent my views.
Me: What views? Are you for the war? Tax breaks for the rich? Cutting educational spending? Enron and Halliburton? Gay baiting? Anti abortion? Fear mongering? Borrowing money from the Red Chinese to wage an illegal war?
Stupid nephew: Oh, blah blah blah blah blah blah.

John Karr: Just Another Media Whore?

I rushed to judgment during the first Jon Benet Ramsey news, thinking the mother had done it because her little Barbie had wet the bed one too many times.
With this new perve, pencil necked John Karr making the rounds, I'm not sure.
Seems his ex-wife, 12-year-old* Laura Knutson, says Karr was with her in Alabama during the Christmas holidays in 1996.
She's currently scouring her records to find something to tie Karr to Alabama at Christmas: Dairy Queen receipts, NASCAR tickets, anything.
According to news accounts, Karr was in Thailand hoping to have sexual reassignment surgery. From my understanding, transgendered people are not generally known to be pedophiles or violent.
But then, Karr seems to have gotten himself into trouble in Thailand by possessing kiddie porn. From what I've heard about Thailand, it must be near impossible to offend them with any kind of sexual deviancy, so if his stash of kiddie porn was THAT bad, well...
He may not have killed Jon Benet Ramsey, but my hunch is it's best to lock him up for some reason anyway. He's too creepy to be roaming the streets.
What's your take on this creep?

*just kidding

Judge Orders Halt to Warrantless Surveillance
Bush Administration Says It Will Appeal the Ruling
By SARAH KARUSH, AP

"DETROIT (Aug. 18) - Noting "there are no hereditary Kings in America and no powers not created by the Constitution," a federal judge ruled Thursday that President Bush had exceeded his authority when he allowed the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans without a warrant.

U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit said the surveillance by the NSA violates the rights to free speech and privacy, as well as the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution..."

Thank God there are still judges left who actually use the Constitution as their guide to interpreting the law, rather than these neo-cons who prefer to make it up and/or change the law as they go along.

That Bush/Gonzalez type of monkey business might play in Texas, but it took a woman judge from Motown to show these sleazy weasels how the cow ate the cabbage.

Let's just hope the Supremes don't get their hands on this ruling.

Project Runway!

Designing functional clothing out of recycled crap should not be a challenge on P.R.
Mylar, newspaper and plastic are not suitable materials for movable clothing.
Yet, Laura the architect designed a perfectly lovely sundress out of a muslim peanut bag and some black plastic strapping tape.
Poor Kayne the Oklahomo designed an atrocious dress festooned with an acid green flower as big as Rhode Island painted on it, and he dotted that mess with plastic bottle tops, also smeared with green acrylic.
Mentor Tim Gunn told him absolutely not, so he had to punt and throw together a rather unsightly green paper sundress with a flouncy tin foil hem. It was a monstrosity.
Angela the Earth Mother did a reasonably nice thing in shades of blue and silver glossy magazine ads.
Barbie designer Robert did a reasonably nice aluminum foil dress.
Jeff with the weak chin and tattooed neck did a semi pretty dress out of newspaper and painted with muted tones of blue and yellow, with a nice trompe l'oeil belt, but his ugly is beautiful esthetic is way too Santino. Also, I hate dresses that are short in front and longer in back.
German Uli, as always, created a lovely dress out of braided mylar that actually looked like clothing one would wear.
Vincent the twitching nebbish designed a horrid dress out of typing paper, which he covered in assorted scraps of black and white garbage. His model could barely rustle down the runway. Vincent kept saying his creation "really got me off," which I found a rather vulgar term when uttered by an elderly kook like him.
He and Alison were the last losers standing.
Poor Alison. Her pale yellow paper ensemble on her jumbo (size 6) model looked like it was made of tamale shucks. Simply hideous. The model's Minnie Mouse hairdo didn't help.
Laura or Uli should have won, but Michael the bootywear designer from Atlanta is on a roll. He won with a funky bustier made of twisted gold mylar, a white plastic skirt and a translucent plastic tarp wrap. He certainly has some skill with draping materials in a woman-flattering way, but that plastic tarp ruined the look for me because it looked exactly like what it was.
But...what do I know?
I think of haute couture as buying Eddie Bauer at full retail prices.

Lieberman, Schieberman

I simply cannot believe how screwy the GOP has been over the defeat of their undercover agent, Democrat in Name Only Joe Lieberman in the Connecticut Senate primary.
Big Dick Cheney actually said that Lieberman's defeat helps the terrorists.
Huh?
How does the media allow Big Dick to utter such nonsense without slamming him against the nearest wall and demanding he explain himself?
Seems that Swift Boat strategy the Wile E. Coyote GOP used on the Democratic Roadrunner worked so well, it's become a permanent part of the GOP's dirty playbook.
BushCo has convinced the NASCAR set that anyone who criticizes them is therefore offering succor to the enemy.
Huh? Who's stupid enough to fall for that?
That's like a child molester convincing the kid he's diddling not to tell mommy because it would upset her too much.
It defies common sense.
If any thinking person had doubts about Lieberman's true loyalties, the GOP's overreaction to his loss should permanently remove those doubts.
Lieberman's ouster should be construed as blood in the water for all politicians.
The Democrats should feel energized by this electoral show of force, and the GOP should be getting nervous about their little reign of terror finally coming to an end.

An Inconvenient Incuriosity

I'm almost ashamed to admit it's taken me this long to see Al Gore's wonderful movie slide show, "An Inconvenient Truth."
I saw it this afternoon and found it stimulating, eye-opening and even funny in some parts.
How different our world would have been had Bush, his brother Jeb and Katherine Harris not monkeyed with the polls in Florida and thrown the election results to the Supremes to decide.
The movie sparkled with clever graphics, easily comprehended facts and logical progressions based on established scientific fact.
Bush said he'd probably not watch the movie.
Neo-cons call it the work of an insane, paranoid tree hugger.
Scientists around the globe have hailed it as an honest and precise representation of Global Warming.
Al Gore is a brilliant, caring man who should have been our president.
I'd vote for him again, over any candidate, on either side.
Thanks for a great movie, Al. I miss you.

Airport Security: What's in Your Lipstick?

I read in the New York Times that the GOP plans to make hay out of the recently thwarted attempts by terrorists to smuggle liquid explosives on board U.S.-bound airplanes in Great Britain. Please note that the British police caught the plot, not American cops.
Bush immediately overreacted, clamping down on all carry-on liquids including lipstick, toothpaste, bottled water and even books (on transatlantic flights).
While the right-wing may feel safer by Bush's silly Band-Aid reaction, let's not be fooled into thinking BushCo has our backs in terms of airport security.
Back in 2001, when Bush should have allocated billions to retrofit all American airports to security levels rivaling that of Tel Aviv, he said we couldn't afford the $10 billion it would have cost.
Now he seems to think confiscating your lip glass and bottle of Fiji water will keep us safe.
Had I been Bush back on September 12, 2001, I would have dispatched emissaries to Israel and tracked down their Director of National Airport Security. Then my emissaries would have offered him a deal he couldn't refuse and dragged him back to America to head up a newly created Department of Airline Safety.
And instead of wasting trillions bringing down Saddam Hussein, I would have spent billions on state-of the art screening equipment, bomb sniffing dogs and college-educated (or intensively trained) baggage screeners at all check-points.
Bush thinks nothing of a woman arriving to see her loved ones sans lipstick.
He thinks nothing of travelers stranded for hours in line to be cleared before boarding.
Why should he? He has Air Force One.

This latest thwarted terrorist attack in England shouldn't give Bush even a scintilla of security street cred.
As usual, his solution is too little, too late.

So Long, MoFo Joe

Three-term Senator Joe Lieberman was defeated yesterday in his bid for a fourth run as a Senator representing Connecticut.
Political newcomer Ned Lamont, an anti-war candidate, won by a slim majority (52 percent).
Lieberman plans to run as an Independent.
I don't know why he doesn't just jump ship and run as a Republican. After all, he's consistently been an apologist for Bush's unwinnable war, plus he's cozied up to him in way too many photo ops.
This primary election bodes well for the November elections.
There's blood in the water and people finally are getting to voice their contempt for the status quo, and those who've helped enable this abysmal regime to run rampant over the Constitution and the wishes of the taxpayers.
In another race, Congress Rep. Cynthia Crazy Eyes McKinney lost her primary in Georgia.
She may be remembered as the wild eyed cop slapper who went ballistic when a Capitol police officer failed to recognize her as a member of Congress and tried to deny her access to a House office building.
Oh, well. That suits me fine.
We don't need any zany, loose cannons like McKinney in the Democratic party right now. She only reinforces the wilder side of the inclusionary party, and right now we need some credible reps who can convince mainstream voters they have the competence and composure to dig us out of the hole the GOP has buried us in.
Giving the boot to Joe Lieberman was the first bomb to indirectly hit the GOP, and is a harbinger of good news for the coming general elections.
They've been put on notice: the GOP and their sniveling Democratic sympathizers have to go.

How Convenient

NY Times snippet: "Biggest Oil Field in U.S. Is Forced to Stop Pumping
The emergency at BP's Prudhoe Bay operation in Alaska drove
world crude oil prices to just under $77 a barrel."

I heard about this on NPR yesterday.
Seems British Petroleum's (psst: Tony Blair's reason for cuddling up to Bush) big drilling operation in Alaska has for two years neglected to check on pipeline soundness, resulting in corrosion that suddenly has them shutting down one of their main pipelines for repairs and replacement.
It could take weeks or (more likely) months to get back to normal.
This will cause the West Coast to lose a double digit percentage of its needed petroleum, causing those Blue Staters to have to pony up even more for gas. That'll teach 'em. Naturally, the shortage will soon trickle down to the rest of us in terms of cost per gallon.
Meanwhile, the enormous reserve the U.S. has in oil is located in the Gulf, so it would take a while to get it to the West Coast.
What this means to you and me is a $77 dollar barrel of oil, which will drive up gas prices even more absurdly than Bush and Condi's sweetheart deals with Exxon Mobil and all their buddies.
Two things come to mind.
-If BP legitimately forgot to get their pipelines checked for the last two years, according to petroleum industry regulations, they should be fined whatever the difference is, to be used toward the soaring cost of oil to consumers.
-The idea of Bush holding any petroleum company liable for any mistakes they make is about as likely as my becoming the next White House Press Secretary.

Is there a fix in?
Ha.

The Fish Was as Big as a Chevy Suburban

So...about my fishing trip to the lake.
My friend I'll call Stella and her 26-year-old son Johnny, his girlfriend Kate and the son's huge mutt named Bug and I met up at a little town on Lake Buchanan called Tow.
Tow is pronounced like the 'tow' in towel, not like 'tow' as in towtruck.
On the 90-mile drive up, Stella asked me if I'd seen the appalling new trend on monster pick-up trucks: giant, soft plastic testicles hanging under the back bumpers.
"WHAAAT?" I asked.
"Yeah, these bubbas are hanging big sets of nuts on the back of their trucks now," she said.
"No fucking way," I replied.
"Yeah," she said, "I've seen them on I-10, all through town, and all over the place," she said.
Her news put me on immediate hyper vigilance. With every other vehicle on our route being a monster pick-up, I was determined to spot a set of balls on one of them.
I was all set to be offended, but my search was futile, at least for now.
Stella warned me in advance the cabin was "rustic," but since she's a gazillionaire I figured on Martha Stewart rustic, not meth lab rustic.
I figured wrong.
Stella and I arrived at the camp first.
As we pulled into the compound at Tow, I spied a dirt road dotted with several depression era shacks with tin rooves and asbestos siding. Each cabin featured exterior wainscoting made of scrap rock and odd slabs of polished granite from the nearby quarries at Granite Shoals. Very strange.
Strewn around the dusty grounds were abandoned outboard motors, machinery, oil barrels, old tires and other manly crap.
We parked outside the "lobby," which was an outboard repair shop/marine junk yard.
Our host Mr. Alexander let us know the key was on a hook inside our cabin, lucky number 22. Turns out the key was unneeded. The front door would barely close, much less lock.
We approached our cabin and noticed about a square foot of duct tape covering a corner of the glass in the front window. Apparently Mr. Alexander hadn't gotten around to repairing the huge hole.
Inside the musty cabin were three small, simulated wood paneled rooms with a double bed in each, a kitchen and bathroom.
On the wall in the main room was a mirrored Claritin specialty ad with key hooks at the bottom. On the hooks were a key with a crude wooden tag with "22" written on it in marker and a well-used, pink fly swatter.
Over the bed in the main room was a large air conditioner that served the entire cabin. I quickly chose that bed as mine, regardless of the fact that the grungy A/C cord swung menacingly over the pillows.
Our host had just barely turned on the electricity to the cabin as we had arrived, so the AC wasn't on and the refrigerator was hot and bore olfactory rememberances of many fish caught before us.
In that main room was a small TV. I turned it on, only to find station after station of fuzzy tweed patterns. I spied an antenna cord detached behind it, old and spider webbed from years of inactivity. The TV had a cable connection that clearly was still a virgin.
Stella, being the gracious woman she is and knowing of my TV fetish, promptly trotted to the "lobby" to inquire about the TV.
Mr. Alexander drawled, "Oh, that TV don't work right now."
By then, she and I were relearning the words to the TV theme, "Green Acres."
I sang the Eva Gabor part.
Soon the kids arrived, hungry and impatient.
I made some haphazard quesadillas on the little stove, then when they wanted more I suggested they make their own. Soon the hot little cabin got smoky and smelled of burnt tortillas.
Stella had been on an organic, sugar-free diet all week, but by then she was spotted swilling an icy Mountain Dew from the cooler she'd brought.
After a few hours of settling in at the cabin, their fishing charter was set to begin.
I accompanied them to the ramshackle fishing charter office, where we were met by an enormous bubba named Ken Milam.
Ken was white haired, had a permanent sunburn, jowls like Santa and fingers the size of Kielbasa sausages. His legs were like cedar trunks that just dropped into dirty old tennies, as wide as they were long.
As we entered the office, Ken told Stella & company that his assistant Goober would be their fishing master that day, "taking them out in a pontoon boat a ways up the road, since the lake was purty dried up here at my dock."
He raved about the fishing luck on that morning's charter. The crew had brought back six large stripers.
He said, "With the moon like it is, y'all ourghtta be bringin' back a mess o' good eatin'."
I turned to Goober, who was perched on a stool, dazed and swilling a long neck Budweiser.
"You think y'all will get lucky out there, Goober?" I asked.
"Mwell, ah thank it'll be a mrnwig blwtig wingbling," he replied.
Turns out Goober was sort of on the functional retarded side, so much so I dared not press him with any follow-up questions. I was just glad I had opted not to go.
While my cabin mates were off with Goober for their four-hour adventure, I relaxed a while and read. Bug the giant dog stayed with me, wet and stinky from being in the lake, and pesky from being only 7 months old.
Just to be on the safe side, I whipped up a salad and made a pot of fusilli with sausage, fresh herbs and vodka marinara, in case they failed to catch anything.
At about 7:30 p.m., I went out and lit the grill and read up on how to light a Coleman lantern.
As they returned, the coals were red hot and the lantern was brightening the dusk invitingly.
I was at the stove when they came in, and Stella, who is a femme on the streets and butch in the sheets, apparently appreciated the sight of my wifely duties so much, she murmured to me that I looked so cute cooking their dinner, she (insert semi-lewd comment here).
Stella is usually all made-up, neat and tidy, but the fishing trip had rendered her windblown, wrinkle shirted and tanned. I got a little buzz after her naughty remark, but quickly chalked it up to a brief moment in time and forgot about it.
Though Stella said she had a marvelous time on the boat, the son was cranky because Goober was a control freak who wouldn't allow any of them to cast or even hold any poles. His girlfriend was also slightly cranky, because she follows Johnny's lead in all things.
Turns out they caught only one striper, a 4-pounder that Goober had filleted for them.
Dinner began with the salad, then some delicious grilled corn, then the pasta. The fillet was still stewing on the grill in an aluminum foil boat containing a mix of butter, garlic and lemon.
Never having cooked or eaten striper before, I failed to realize that it was a rather tough fish with no discernible culinary qualities. The butter mixture added nothing to the flavor. Striper bass should be heavily rubbed with Cajun spices, then grilled at kiln temperatures until it surrenders.
We got through dinner and started talking about politics. Johnny, Kate and I are avid Democrats. Stella is, for some odd reason, a Republican. She remained fairly silent through the conversation and I can see why. Johnny allows himself to get way too revved up, and by the end of the political conversation he was standing up, flailing, wild eyed and angry.
He's a real piece of work, that boy.
While the kid walked along the darkened lake with Bug, I leaned over and asked Stella to kiss me. She did and I liked it.
The kids went to bed around midnight and Stella and I stayed outside talking until around 2. The Mountain Dew and coffee has made her wired and chatty. I loved it.
As I got into my bed, Stella went in for a shower.
As she emerged, the bathroom sent out a rush of the most glorious smelling soapy, perfumed mist. She looked clean, sexy and bright eyed as she went to her doorless bedroom about 4 feet from mine.
The cabin was pitch black, and I couldn't resist tiptoeing into her room and into bed with her.
For several minutes we writhed around, until I considered the consequences of Johnny catching me in his mother's bed and beating me to death, so I scampered back to my own bed, suffering a bit of coitus interruptis frustratilingus.
The next morning as the four of us sat around at the picnic table talking and playing dominoes, Bug saw Mr. Alexander near his giant red pick-up about 100 feet away and went after him.
We all called out to him but he wouldn't come, so Kate sprinted over to grab him. Mr. Alexander was obviously unhappy and we were all embarrassed.
Stella muttered that Bug was, "a typical male, ignoring us when we called."
Johnny, sitting next to me, called her an idiot under his breath.
I said, between clenched teeth, "Did I just hear you call your mother an idiot?"
It was then Johnny said she was a man-hater who liked girls, and that he figured I was a lesbian, but I was cool with him because I seemed to like men just fine.
All I could think of was that I might have gotten by with sleeping in his mother's bed the night before without getting killed over it. Damn the luck!
Before long, we broke up camp and left for the drive home.
On the way back, Stella and I stopped at a barbecue joint for a rack of the finest, smokiest babyback ribs ever. Seems Casey's, the barbecue joint, was once blessed with a surprise visit from then-President Bill Clinton. A photo display and a copy of his thank you note on White House letterhead was prominently displayed on the bulletin board. I loved it! Stella, not so much.
We finished the route home and I still didn't spot any pick-ups with truck nuts*. I was sadly disappointed, but not for long.
The moment we pulled into Stella's driveway, the skies opened up and drenched us with a huge, lengthy downpour. After a very long drought, it was a welcome blessing.
We sat on her patio and watched the rain as we cuddled under the awning.
I thought about staying, but it didn't feel like it was the right time. I felt tired and grungy from all that dust and dinge back at the camp.
But, as abysmal as it was, I'll always think of Tow and that cabin as a rundown, dusty, fishy, yet romantic little lakeside spot.
As for Stella, only the shadow knows.

* http://www.prankplace.com/trucknutz.htm?KBID=1103&sub=nutz

When All Else Fails...

I'm going to the lake this weekend.
A friend of mine has rented a cabin and planned a charter fishing trip, where she and her adult son and his girlfriend will angle for striper bass, while I stay at the cabin reading by the water's edge.
I wish fishing interested me but it doesn't.
It's hot, buggy, stinky and if successful, entails too many entrails.
What does interest me is getting far away from the city, enjoying the breeze over the water and cooking whatever they catch...as long as it's filleted and not too creepy.
Here, come with me for a moment:
http://www.highlandlakes.com/lakebuchanan/

Y'all have a good weekend.

Hillary Asks for Rumsfeld's Resignation

It's about time she stopped pandering to the middle, found her Democratic balls and took a stand.
Rumsfeld, like the entire Bush administration, has totally failed in his job as Secretary of Defense. He's a loathesome, arrogant, sniveling bureaucrat whose agenda serves someone, but certainly not the voters or taxpayers.
Hillary said:
"I just don't understand why we can't get new leadership that would give us a fighting chance to turn the situation around before it's too late," the New York Democrat and potential 2008 presidential contender said in an interview with The Associated Press. "I think the president should choose to accept Secretary Rumsfeld's resignation."
"The secretary has lost credibility with the Congress and with the people," she said. "It's time for him to step down and be replaced by someone who can develop an effective strategy and communicate it effectively to the American people and to the world."

Amen, sister, amen.

Project Runway: The INC Fashion Challenge
Tell Us You're Watching

Keith, the smarmy love child of Jacob Dylan and Greg Kinnear, was thrown bluntly off the show for cheating like the sniveling dog he is.
Seems he had some pattern books hidden in his room, discovered by a certain Oklahomo who designs pageant gowns in Norman.
He also went awol from the show for several hours and used the Internet- both verboten.
Though I usually find snoopy little tattletales obnoxious, I think Kayne was right to bust Keith for trying to get an edge on the competition. That just ain't right.
So the Keithless challenge began, and Angela with her reputation for being a talentless hack with an inability to sketch, managed to convince the INC fashion director that her scratchy pencil sketches were viable.
The fashion exec bought her idea, to everyone's astonishment.
She selected as her team Laura, the uptight but elegant architect and Michael from Atlanta who does hiphop bootywear. They both cringed as she selected them...
Then they collaborated very nicely.
Michael and Laura ganged up on Angela and forced her to minimize her trademark rosettes, causing their outfit to be quite refined and beautiful.
So, Team Angela kicked everyone's ass and won the challenge, and the prize: INC will manufacture and retail their winning ensemble at every major Macy's in America.
Angela gets street cred, but she should have publicly praised Laura and Michael for their valuable contributions... and the critics' cocky darling Keith got thrown off the show and into the street. Hotcha!
The guy with the tattooed neck doesn't seem to like women. He's very haughty, for the abandoned son of a biker and a Goodwill jacket designer. Rule of thumb: if someone has a tattoo that would prohibit him from a career in burger sales at McDonald's, he's a nutter.
Meanwhile, Vincent the kvetcher was green around the gills when Angela was selected team leader and won the competition. Who's the team player now, nebbish?
Barbie designer Robert and Kayne teamed with Vincent to produce a total snore of an outfit.
Vincent looked like he was sucking a lemon throughout the collaboration.
But the losers were Team Bonnie, whose brown twill mom jeans and pink floppy cowl neck top bored the judges into comas. Bonnie was the woman who outed Serena Williams as a liar for saying she had designed the tennis outfits Bonnie had designed. Byebyebonnie.

Mel Gibson

I stopped respecting Mel Gibson when he did "The Last Temptation of Christ."
I think he was feasting on the fears and biases of radical fundamental Christians, and he knew it would fetch him several million bucks, which it did.
Now we learn he is not only a drunk, but an anti-Semitic drunk to boot.
Like so many professed religious people, booze figures in all too often.
Take Bush for example. Without a program, alcoholism might lie dormant but the warped thinking stays.
Gibson is just another drunk, like Bush.
Gibson has checked into Betty Ford, but Bush would never think of getting help. He's The Decider, after all.
Mel Gibson's drinking problems won't keep me from seeing his movies.
I stopped seeing his movies years ago.

Don't forget to watch Project Runway tonight!