Manhattan Offender

Bimbos up; himbos down

Donna Rice:  Caught in an affair with Presidential Candidate Gary Hart.  Advertises No Excuses Jeans.  Goes on to become an organizational President and Congressional panelist focused on keeping children from on-line pornography.

Jessica Hahn:  Caught receiving hush money after being drugged and raped by James Bakker and is the linchpin in bringing an end to Bakker's leadership in the evangelical community.  Poses and is cover model for Playboy magazine.  Goes on to become a bit actress and regular on the Howard Stern Show.

Mike Jones:  Admits to serving as a male prostitute and providing crystal meth to leader in the National Association of Evangelicals, Ted Haggard.  Jones does this not out to extort money, but to reveal the hypocrisy of a religious leader active in the movement in Colorado to ban gay marriages.  Currently Jones has faced harassment by Colorado police and may be evicted from his apartment.  The Colorado native may be forced to leave his home state.

Although there are several existing cases of a woman being initial reviled and then accepted by general society following a sex scandal, there are few men in similar roles.  In the cases above, the party was the less powerful in the relationship and then had to rise above social scorn to continue.  Whether the same can happen for Mike Jones is not sure.

As you may have read elsewhere, there is now a PayPal account set up where you can donate a little something to help Jones out during his transition period.  Simply sign on to PayPal and then send money to "massageandmuscle@aol.com". 

For Hahn and Rice, the scandals were rough, but there was a societal safety net out there for wronged women.  For now, Mike Jones is sort of a test case.  Given that his revelation gave further evidence to the greater public of the hypocrisies of the religious right cronies of the Republican party and ex parte may have affected the outcome of the midterm elections, surely you can throw the guy a little sumtin sumtin.  Getting Jones through this period could mean someday he could rise to the acting heights of Jessica Hahn  become a Congressionally sought expert on a social issue.

Hunts Point is the new Williamsburg

The paying job has me wandering through several choice neighborhoods of late in the search for metal platers and fabricators.  Yesterday's visit was to a neighborhood new to me, Hunts Point in the Bronx.  After a brief meeting, it was back into the car with my friendly driver, Stan.  We discussed the neighborhood and Stan explained to me that the neighborhood had improved much in the last few years.

While Stan spoke, my mind filled with thoughts of gentrification.  Hunts Point, like Williamsburg, is situated along the East River.  Similar to Williamburg's division by the BQE, Hunts Point has the Bruckner Expressway.  Both areas feature large industrial spaces, perfect for artist lofts. 

Looking out the car window it occurred to me that the area must already be gentrified.  The people on the street looked just like the people in Williamsburg.  A mix of ethnicities is common in neighborhood, but what really struck me was the fashionable girls.

Asymmetrical haircuts and shoulder-slung blouses.  Tight mini/micro-skirts with patterned tights.  Minimal makeup with bright red lips.  If anything this neighborhood had per capita more fashion than Williamsburg.  The women here looked to have stepped directly out of the latest issue of W. 

Daydreams of my new uber-glam Hunts Point artist loft with all my new fashionable lady friends were then interrupted by Stan's voice. 

"Yeah, this neighborhood has lots of potential, but it'll never go anywhere until they get rid of all these damned crack whores."

Great American Smokeout, II

The only line that has ever worked for me was by a Random.  Having had a cigarette before getting on the subway, a young attractive woman standing near me whispered in my ear.

"You're too sexy to smoke."   

My reply was a simple, "Huh?" 

So again she repeated, "You're too sexy to smoke.  A good looking man like you doesn't need a cigarette to look sexy." 

At this point, unsure if she was hitting on me, I asked if she used this line to hit on every guy.  She replied, "You're obviously gay so I'm not going that way.  But my father died three months ago of cancer so now I'm doing what I can to get people to stop smoking." 

Handing her my pack of cigarettes, I asked her to throw them away for me.  As we rode downtown I thanked her, and we chatted until my stop.  Getting out of the train, a deep inhalation filled my lungs with fresh air as I headed to the deli to buy a fresh pack.  Because even though I wasn't ready to quit smoking, I did want this girl to feel better in the light of her loss.

Great American Smokeout, I

Today is the Great American Smokeout.  Just a few notes:

If you are a smoker and you are going to quit smoking today:

• Shut up about it.  No one likes a drama queen and by announcing your cessation you are really just saying, "Look at me!  Look at me!  I'm not sticking a stick of aged and chemically treated tobacco in my mouth today!"
• No, really, close your yap.  The key to creating change in your life is not announcing it, but actually doing it.  By encouraging conversation about an activity that you are planning to stop, what you are actually doing is keeping that activity at the top of your mind.
• For the last time, quit your bitching.  Do not complain about the BlowPops, Tootsie Rolls, or Baby Carrots that you are now shovelling down your throat in a vain attempt to quell your oral fixation.
• If someone does ask you if you've quit, just shrug your shoulders.  The person asking you is probably just wanting to catch you in failing at a later date.  Cross this person off your "Festive Winter Equinox" card list and make a note to point out their next zit.
• While some will offer the advice of having a drink of water, or breathing deeply, or doing pushups when you crave a cigarette, try something different and better.  Masturbate when you want a butt.  And if you can have sex with someone when you're having a craving, by all means do so.  Focus that frustration.
• Accept the fact that you are just a cranky bastard.  Don't blame it on nicotine.  Blame it on you.  Cranky is a choice.

If you don't smoke:

• Keep your mouth shut about it to those who do.  Not one smoker is going to hear, "Hey, did you know it's the Great American Smokeout today?"  Instead they will hear, "Hey, did you know it's Be All Judgey and Butty-insky Day today."
• Do not ask your smoker friends if they have quit as you're just reminding them of what they are missing.  It's like asking a pedophile if they've seen the new playground that opened at Metropolitan and Marcy.  You're just frustrating them and encouraging their likelihood of lighting up.
• Do not make presents of NicoDerm, NicoGum, or NicoSnatch.  Or an eight-ball.  Especially not an eight-ball.
• Offer the new non-smoker some sex.  They are likely to be frustrated and in need of a release.  You're probably in for a treat.
• Accept the fact that your smoking friend is just a cranky bastard.  Don't blame it on nicotine.  Blame it on you.  You choose flawed humans as friends.

Beware the ides of November

Insomnia is the latest way my mania/anxiety expresses itself.  Too many thoughts and not enough people to call at one in the a of m.  Luckily, there is always this website thing.  Stream of conscious powers!  Activate!

• When I show you my new ipod shuffle it is because I think you might like it.  It is not because I want you to hang it from your ear or nipple.
• Apparently some guys are still shaving their chests.
• Stranger Than Fiction brought out a descriptive adjective unused perhaps ever by me.  "Delightful".  This is not a word ever used, but there it was.  "Delightful".  The only thing unliked about the movie was it's ability to make this word emit from me.
• My concern for Britney Spears and Kevin Federline is nil.  Perhaps though Madonna could adopt their children.
• Rich Little is alive and was on Letterman.  It was not an impersonator imitating Rich Little's imitations.  It was Rich Little.  Paul Lynde is still dead though.  The longing for an Uncle Arthur, beyond realization, ever.
• Linda Hunt.  She always picks great roles.
• My winter weight has not set in on schedule this year.  Usually the waist goes from 31 to 32 by now.  Something is amiss.
• My oven has not worked for a year now.  My ex put a glue trap in it one day and told me.  One drunken night my mind forgot that fact, and the oven was turned on, filling the apartment with poison-mouse-killing-glue smoke.  Correction:  my oven works but is not usable.
• Animals and babies like me.  Anything with a limited vocabulary likes me.  This includes drunks.
• If the waitress at Himalaya Tea House ever rats me out regarding the three different dates accompanying me there in the past month, my mortification will be hard to hide.  So far she has just given me a knowing smile.  It pays to be a good tipper.
• The overhead lights in my kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom went out within a week of each other.  In searching for deeper meaning in this, nothing has revealed itself.
• There was a cheer in high school that involved buying a rooster, putting it in a hut, then buying a panther, and the panther kicking said rooster's butt.  It pops into my head constantly of late but the specific words elude.
• Those "naked house cleaners".  Do they iron?  Shouldn't the picture in their ad be devoid of clutter?
• If "Sugar Walls" is on the jukebox, my dollar made it happen.  Even if it is an Irish pub.  The fact that the blonde trollop that my Bulgarian coworker had the hots for had the hots for me is a bonus.

YouTube Tuesday: Mystery Date

Phone-cam quickie: Missing "got"

Opening lines: Six degrees of penetration

Number four in a series of beginnings of short stories/novels that may never actually be written:

Scene:  A warm fall day in the city, leaves nicely colored on a tree-lined street.  Two men are walking, active in conversation

1:  "So, essentially, you've slept with everyone you know."
2:  "That's not true."
1:  "Then what percentage of your friends have you slept with?"
2:  "That's not a fair question.  In theory, I never ever sleep with my friends."
1:  "But you've introduced me to  a lot of them and you've admitted to sleeping with more than half of them."
2:  "We weren't friends when the sex happened though."
1:  "So you meet someone, sleep with them and then become friends, at which point you don't sleep with them again."
2:  "Pretty much."
1:  "Because you don't sleep with your friends."
2:  "Right.  Or friends of friends."
1:  "Wait.  Friends of friends?  That's a new one."
2:  "Well, sometimes someone is friends with someone, but, you know, they want to be more than just friends.  And since they don't always tell you that, it's best to avoid sleeping with the friends of friends just to prevent drama, right?"
1:  "Uh.  Maybe.  Keep explaining."

First aid for erection day

My friends have been hearing it for a while now:  "My penis is broken."  The  responses have varied from sympathy to ridicule  to the overly often "Show me".  More common is the question:  "How the hell did you do that?"

That question will remain unanswered here, but what will be told is that my penis (my schlong, my johnson, my rod, if you must) sustained a cut just over a quarter of an inch in length and an abrasion about the size of a quarter in the surrounding area.

The resulting rip has gone through a healing process that on a daily basis would see great progress which would be thwarted on a nightly basis as the, um, nightly visit of the woodsman would result in the scabbed area expanding and stretching thus removing the scab and reopening the wound.  The heal, sleep, re-injure cycle has increased the amount of time needed and the cut which would have healed in a few days had it been anywhere else has remained an open wound for about two weeks.

It could have been worse.    In researching ways to improve the repair of my rupture, there have been introduction to far more malicious maladies.  A fractured penis would require surgery.  Many other penile traumas require a retrograde urethrogram, where liquid barium is inserted into the penis through the hole and then x-rayed.  Good times, for sure.

For a cut to the penis the treatment is rather simple, but, should it happen to you just follow these tips:

• Bacitracin is your friend.  Apply it generously to the injured area in the morning, at lunch, at the end of the day and at bedtime.  Yes, it's going to leave stains on your underwear, so don't wear your brightly covered skivvies for a while.  And do your own laundry during this time as you don't need to give the laundry ladies yet another reason to talk about you.
• Wear briefs, not boxers during your recuperation time.  The wang should not dangle.  It's best to lock it into one place.  Movement at the wrong place and time can result in your making a panic-face while sitting at your desk or walking down the street.
• Under no circumstances should you use the product New Skin.  Before getting ready to go to Snaxx and Big Lug on Friday night, my visit to the local family-owned pharmacy (never shop at chain stores) saw me with this product in my bag.  While heading out the door, my penis came to mind  (as it does from time to time regardless of injury) and New Skin was applied.  The amazing level of burning pain is the stuff that evangelicals tell you when describing hell.  Thoughts of toughing it out were washed away by tears of torture.  The only relief came by stripping off all my clothes, flinging them across the room in a maddened haste, and running to the shower.  The mental fatigue that followed saw me blowing off both bars and settling in with a pint of German Chocolate Cake Häagen-Dazs®.
• Don't be diddled or diddle yourself.  Let the "most recently added" videos on x-tube pile up for a few days.
• If you tend to be a sleep-humper, sleep alone for a while or at least put a pillow between you and the person (or people) with whom you are sleeping.  Nobody likes being bloodied.
• Relax and enjoy it and tell everyone you know about it.  Wear it like a merit badge.  Offer to show it to anyone you may meet.  Everyone loves to see a damaged dick, as long as it's not their own.

On behalf of my penis, please accept its thanks for the cards, presents and flowers.  It especially loved the slippers and the case of beer.  It wants another week of solitude to be sure that it is fully recovered, but then would like to take everyone out to dinner and give everyone big hugs and kisses.

(Photo at the top from The Brick Testament.)

YouTube Tuesday: Election Day

Unfortunately the Dee-Lite ditty isn't posted to YouTube.  Surely you remember "Vote, baby, vote.  Are you registered, baby"?  But Madonna also did her Rock the Vote piece and the resulting publicity surrounding her actual non-voting was telling.  Both clips are fun ("Cher wears stuff like that to vote"), but apparently the second clip is the more well-known.  Fun-fact:  the clip below is flagged on YouTube as "objectionable".

More important is the message.  Vote today, as it may be the last election ever.  Not that there is going to be a military junta by the Bush administration in the next two years.  But just in case, when we're all in the Gaytanamo Jesus Camps with our good friend Ted Haggard, it will be nice to reminisce about the old days when we could vote.