Boom and we're back. Las Vegas was great and needed. Stress relieved,
at least temporarily. One day we took a side trip to The Grand Canyon
and it may be one of the most beautiful, astounding natural placed I've
ever been rivaling Yosemite.
We saw elk and deer and birds close up, and just gazing and pondering
over the side is enough to take your breath away. On the way home we
passed Bedrock
City but it was too late to stay. We also took a side trip to Lake
Meade National Recreational Area as well as Hoover Dam which we had
actually been before. Got to ride a couple of roller coasters which I
love and fly 900 feet over the Las Vegas Strip. One night we took in Zumanity
which is the more risqué version of Cirque Du Soleil. It was awesome
and I've never seen so many breast flying around. I can't wait to see
another Cirque Du Soleil someday.
Friday we saw Spam-A-Lot
with John O'Hurley. It too was excellent. I'm kind of glad we didn't see
it now when it came through Schenectady. Duncan actually won a little
bit of money too.
Went to the aquarium and who could forget Crystal
at The Flamingo?
I went to a new dentist today. He is awesome...he's funny, he plays
music, he has weird pictures on the ceiling, he has crazy posters on the
walls, strange actions figures on the shelves, his x-rays feed right into
his computer so they pop right up in front of you, he talks to you...I
now have a great doctor and a great dentist.
Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay
is due out this spring and it looks pretty funny. I think I got a thing
for Kal Penn. Neil Patrick Harris is going to play Neil Patrick Harris
again but I assume he will only be high on extacy and not a womanizer
high on X. Maybe he'll be a mananizer on X. I made up a word...
I actually cooked dinner two nights in a row, healthy last night, not
so tonight. I do love me some fried squash and I cook it better than my
mom. But come on, it's not too hard to cook better than my mom. She's
better with other things.
About two years ago, they stopped making cameras. Polaroid
now plans to stop
making the film for said cameras. Between the film and flashes,
(remember a ten flash cartridge before they were built on the camera) it
was quite expensive but really fun.
Karl Rove has joined The Fox News Channel as a contributor. I
think I'm going to vomit...just another reason not to watch Fox News.
I'm immortalized in
Google Maps! Google Maps recently added Schenectady to it's
street view. I can't tell you where, but if you know where I work,
you can see me loading my car with some sort of crap after work one day.
I think I spent about an hour this afternoon just "driving" around town
looking at stuff via this program. It's the map geek in me that makes me
do this sort of stuff. Heck, I do the same thing even without the
pictures.
Did you see that seriously cute dog who won
Best In Show at The Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show? It's the first
Beagle to ever win and I just want to eat him up.
Our mayor has decided he wouldn't run for the soon to be open seat
in Congress next year so he'll be able continue as mayor. For me, that's
kick ass news because he loves this city and that, along with his
business sense, can continue to pull this city out of the gutter it's
been in for several decades.
Most importantly, today is our anniversary. For the first time, Duncan
is out of town in a place colder than this so we can't continue our
traditional night out, dinner at the same place we had our first date at
and a movie. I love you and miss you...you changed my life...and you got
out of blowing now at 4:30 in the morning.
What's going on with all the old women lately? First Diane
Keaton said fuck on Good Morning America and today, Jane Fonda said cunt
on The Today Show. And speaking of old women, I usually don't watch
award's shows but When I heard Tina Turner(68) performed with Beyonce on the Grammys, I had to look at it on YouTube. By myself, I sat here on
the couch and screamed like a girl. Why Tina Turner has this effect on
me I just don't understand...and still more old women news...
When Aretha Franklin is unhappy, she does not mince words. On Tuesday,
the longtime Queen of Soul slammed Beyonce Knowles' intro to Tina Turner
at Sunday's Grammy Awards, in which Knowles called Turner, not Franklin,
"the queen."
"I am not sure of whose toes I may have stepped on or whose ego I may
have bruised between the Grammy writers and Beyonce," Franklin said in a
statement issued by her publicist. "However, I dismissed it as a cheap
shot for controversy."
Aretha, if you wouldn't have brought it up, there'd be no controversy.
My friend Michelle got us tickets to the Jenny Jones Show which
had just moved it’s headquarters to Schenectady on the Mohawk River. We
went to see the show but it was trash so I went to look around. It was
much like the old PTL village in it’s day before it was abandoned. As I
was walking around, this guy gave me back stage passes which included a
ride on Jenny’s yacht which was in The Mohawk River. After the show, we
walked to the shore which looked more like Lake Ontario than The Mohawk
River and it was glistening blue with a huge beach. You could see her
yacht which was the size of a cruise ship out in the water. I did not
know how we would get there. There were people swimming and I could see
Jenny Jones swimming too. I was wearing my 1980’s jams. All of the
sudden, the waves started getting really big and the people in the water
were struggling.
The yacht (size of a cruise ship) started rocking from side to side. We
thought it was going to capsize but it didn’t. We ran for higher ground
because we thought it was some kind of tsunami or something. All of the
sudden, the ship turned over and over and over several times until it
finally went down. The water started to calm down and we started looking
to see if Jenny Jones and the other people would come out of the water.
Some didn’t, but Jenny Jones did come out of the water...
The thing about this dream is I was always under the impression that you
dream in black and white or shades of gray, but I remember how vivid and
blue the water was.
Mentioning PTL got me thinking about it so I googled it and found a
site that has great before and today pictures of PTL. It was simply
abandoned in the late 80's after the scandals. It's really ashamed
nothing became of it. When I was a kid, I had a friend who's dad worked
there so he brought me down there from time to time to swim.
Have you ever typed
Kate Pierson into YouTube and seen the magic that pops up. For so
many years, I've just been in love with that voice, that whole Kate
thing. She has one of the most wonderfully unique voices of all time.
In Charlotte,
Morningside Apartments is close to being, if it hasn't already been,
completely
demolished. I used to live across the street from there in more ways
than one. The way that area has grown fascinates me. Change comes so
slow in these parts. Some areas of the country take it growth for
granted. I'm not for tearing down everything but I'm not for keeping
every building either. Unique old buildings and houses, yes. But what's
really the point of keeping an old worn out apartment complex that
really keeps adjacent properties from rising in value? I love that city,
and they can tear down too much sometimes. It's a city based on money.
Cities have to have money to thrive. If they don't change, they become
upstate New York which for the last 50 years have been locked into some
sort of mind set that they are doing business a favor by letting them
expand. they are just beginning to understand the businesses expanding
are good for the city.
While most of the kids back in the early days of SNL were
worshipping Chevy Chase, John Belushi, and Dan Aykroyd, I loved
Gilda Radner. I know she had very little success between the time
she left SNL and her death but being a kid just entering puberty and
finally getting to stay up late on weekends, Saturday Night Live was a
staple every weekend because that's what you talked about Monday at
school. Rosanne Roseannadanna, Barbara Wawa, Emily, and Lisa Loopner
shying up to Bill Murray. did I say especially
Roseanne Rosannadanna?
The ink is black, the page is white
Together we learn to read and write
A child is black, a child is white
The whole world looks upon the sight, a beautiful sight
And now a child can understand
That this is the law of all the land, all the land
The world is black, the world is white
It turns by day and then by night
A child is black, a child is white
Together they grow to see the light, to see the light
And now at last we plainly see
We'll have a dance of Liberty, Liberty!
The world is black, the world is white
It turns by day and then by night
A child is black, a child is white
The whole world looks upon the sight, a beautiful sight
The world is black, the world is white
It turns by day and then by night
A child is black, a child is white
Together they grow to see the light, to see the light
The world is black, the world is white
It turns by day and then by night
A child is black, a child is white
The whole world looks upon the sight, a beautiful sight
The world is black, the world is white
It turns by day and then by night
A child is black, a child is white
Together they grow to see the light, to see the light
...My very first "real" record, you know, not Sesame Street stuff, was a
Three Dog Night single with "Joy To The World" on the A side and a song
called "Black and White" on the B side. I probably liked Joy To The
World in the first place because it was about Jeremiah and he was a
bullfrog...right? I listened to that record, both sides, a million
times. When I hear them today, when it hits a certain spot, I expect to
hear that same skip in that same place. My first year of school was the
second year of forced busing in Charlotte. I was a kid and I didn't have
any idea of the social ramifications of what was going on around me. My
best friend was a black kid named Alex. That song (Black and White) has
lived in my memory for my whole life and I like to think it has molded
the way I think and react to things to this day. I was sitting in a
classroom beside this kid named Alex doing pluses and minuses and
playing on the monkey bars and wishing I had his cool shoes. (I guess
that shoe thing started early)
