Artist talks art

Artist talks art

Artist talks art

Leave drunk driving to the experts

I think the best advice my father ever gave me was, if you must drive drunk, make sure you have done it before. That said, my father was a stoic man who did not offer much in the way of smart advice.

Then again, over the years, I have learned the hard way, especially on New Years Eve, that the most dangerous drivers are not the drunks, it’s the inexperienced drunks out driving public roads without the skills that a chronic drunk brings to the highways and byways on a nightly basis. 

Police and morticians will tell you, drinking and driving make for a dangerous mix, which is generally true, except for my dear friend, Alcoholic Bob. Bob started drinking when he was a teenager and has never really slowed down, starting with his gateway drink of choice, cheap beer and moving on to harder drinking as he got older, finally working his way up to the hard stuff while in college. All that time, Alcoholic Bob would drink to extremes and then get into his beater car and drive back to his dump of an apartment. 

In all the years I have known Alcoholic Bob, he has never once been involved in any sort of traffic accent, nor has he been pulled over for any sort of driving infraction. Me, on the other hand, a person who can not drink because of some sort of genetic flaw, has received more than my fair share of tickets, accidents and near fatal car crashes. 

So, what I know for a fact is this, if you must drink on New Years Eve and you find yourself in need a ride somewhere, find the most severely alcoholic friend you know and make sure they are driving you wherever you need to go, because a true alcoholic knows how to drive drunk, it’s the inexperienced and inebriated that are the real danger. 

Stupid people reading the news, best of 2013

Sexy lady

Sister Hanky continues to teach

When I was in fourth grade the nun who taught our class was nicknamed Sister Hanky, because as she made her was between the rows of students, in one hand she carried an 18 inch rubber flexible ruler that she would bring down upon the gentle and flawless hands of the fourth graders who she deemed worthy of her scorn, and in the other hand, always present, was a small handkerchief.

On an almost daily basis Sister Hanky would saunter towards my unkept desk, see me drawing fabulous pictures of ostriches and dinosaurs and making jokes about dirty sea captains and dangerous bird poop and she would swoop in upon me, using that rubbery ruler with a guile usually reserved for the likes of James Bond, smashing my hand with a force hard enough to break a diamond, or at least that’s how it felt. I would scream out in pain, but only once, because Sister Hanky would be glaring at me, reminding me that a punishment from her was to be met with a strictly enforced code of complete silence. I would whimper and then bite my lip, sometimes a tear would form from my eye, but I would quickly wipe it and begin to do my homework.

This was our daily routine my entire fourth grade year in the class of Sister Hanky. One day in November, as my classmates were leaving for recess, Sister Hanky took me aside and asked if I enjoyed the daily beatings from her ruler. “Of course not,” I said, almost shocked that she would ask such a ridiculous question. 

“You know, you have the power to make them stop,” she said, in that authoritarian way she said everything. I stammered then and just said, meekly, “I can’t.”

“Then you must enjoy the pain, good day,” and she held the door open and I walked out into the sunny day and enjoyed another mirthless recess. 

While I didn’t actually enjoy the pain, I guess I did learn to anticipate it and accept it as the trade off I got for taking the time to be silly, entertain my friends and act out in a fashion that I found fun. Sister Hanky would never break my spirit. I did know that Sister Hanky did teach me one of those lessons that has been kind of handy, it’s never the pain that will bring you down, it’s the process of earning the pain that makes accepting the pain a little easier. 

I learned in fourth grade that if you do the things that bring you a little bit of joy, but in turn may bring you a little bit of discomfort, the trade off is probably worth it. 

Terrible techno music saved by naked motorcycle rider

The must read book for any new e-device

So you got some sort of e-book reader for xmas and all you can think of, what can I download and read right this second? Worry no more click right here lay back and enjoy.
Merry Christmas y'all.

The power of Zach

Call me, maybe

Unlike any other Xmas before

When I was a young boy growing up as part of the only Jewish family in rural Colorado I always wondered what the fuss was with all the decorating and lighting and present buying my friends would go through every December. My brothers and I would laugh at the greed of our fellow school students, because we had already cashed in, as it were, because our parents were mightily cheap, even by cheap people standards and when it came time for Hanukkah gifts we could expect one night dedicated to socks and another for underwear and the next for gloves, another for umbrellas and maybe another for a new coat and the next was always a hat on day five, day six was something edible and sweet and finally day seven was the big finish, the big surprise and always (always!) the big letdown, pants or a dress shirt. That was it.
So when my friends from school would show up in early January with holiday tales of new bikes or personal audio devices or some other super expensive and trendy gift, I would look on in shock and surprise. I was kind of jealous I guess, but also sort of happy that my parents made no attempt to even try to impress us children with any sort of trendy superficial gift.
My father was almost willfully unable to be hip. I still have no idea if he was belligerently unable to connect to the world around him, or if he was just locked into the tradition of gifting items that were useful and practical, if not fun and teenage intoxicating.
The funny thing was that I was totally jealous of my friends in school, who would wake up on a cold day in December and find a living room filled with colorful boxes filled with toys and games. I never experienced such surprises. That is, until this year. For this first time in my life, we have a tree in our living room and there are presents underneath, some with my name on them, and the excitement I have is unfathomable. I have been shaking those colorful boxes, eying them with suspicion and in one case, taking it to the emergency room and having a technician MRI the box to make sure the ticking sound I could hear did not mean my husband was finally finished with my foolishness. I did notice one strangely wrapped package in a far corner of our living room, with two round wheels like structures and some sort of bar that looked strangely like a handle bar. I could swear it looked like what I might imagine a bike would look like if it were covered in wrapping paper. One can only hope.
So, this year, my 28th on this planet, I will finally join all those others who wake on the 25th, with no knowledge of what to expect, except to crawl out of my bed, run downstairs and tear into each and every package whether my name is on it or not, because I am hungry for the mystery and the release and the need to know. Sure, it may just be socks and gloves, but this time, I will get it all in one big burst of expectation and glory, I won’t have to wait over the torture of an entire week to get warm weather gear and a new beanie. 

Please smoke

Awkward holiday bone

Holiday charm

Holiday charm

There is power in a union

The magic of young girls is they can wheel themselves to the front of a stage and charm a fathers rock idol and a long time ago my young daughters did just that, standing just inches from the stage in Seattle where a young and handsome Billy Bragg stood, playing his guitar and singing his political songs. At one point he looked out, saw these little beautiful wonders and asked if they had a favorite song they would like to hear.
Now, my daughters were subjected to hours and hours of sing-a-longs to Billy Bragg's music and one would think that a million song titles would fall right out of their mouths, but instead, they stood there, motionless, wordless and silent. He waited, I waited, they waited.
For us, as a family, I always thought Power in a Union was a song for us, although it really was not, but I liked it. On that day in Seattle Billy Bragg went about his concert, unable to cajole a song out of my daughters, but if they had bothered to come up with a single song that would have been a choice for them, for us, it should have been this one.
So, today seems like the perfect day to remember that there is power in a union.

Strange headline of the day

Tiny Bone Reveals Shocking Truth About Neanderthal Sex

The dance of love, or something like that

Crack and twinkies

Mitts makes a great loser

Hark, the angels sing

It was quite a few years ago that I had to make one of those life changing decisions. I had already started a family, of sorts, and I had to choose, did I want to be one of those hands on fathers who was always helicoptering over my young children’s every growth spurt, or did I want to continue my own career as a mid-level ballet dancer, breaking my ass in small and dirty midwestern towns, barely making enough to pay the rent, much less pay for diapers for 17 ever growing children, at the time the choice seemed obvious.

So, here I remain in Honey Bucket Louisiana, in some terrible motel with no HBO, waiting for the kids to gather around the computer at their new-dads wonderful house in some great place in a gated community I have grown quite jealous of, stretching to perform tonights ballet version of what is basically a 20 minute Doctor Pepper commercial, or it may as well be for these yokels who will be as mildly entertained as they are most nights by their own farting. Oh sure, I get paid about 35 cents per pirouette. Of course, the joy I do get when at parties I am the lone ballet dancer, I do have mild bragging rights, I am but a freak, a middle aged ballet dancer in a world filled with technology millionaires and texting nimrods who seem to control the universe. 

Sure I could have stayed and done the whole hands on father thing, but dancing has always been my passion and if there is one thing Rush Limbaugh has taught me it is follow your passion. I think that was what Rush Limbaugh taught me, because about the same time Rush was working through his Oxy addiction, I was rehabbing from my first full knee and hip replacement surgery. By the time I was able to focus and begin my dancing career with bionic parts, I believe Rush had moved on to complete hate for anything not obese and white, while I on the other hand had moved to the lowest tier of the dance circuit, shaking my elder money maker for the likes of the Duck Dynasty types, filling folding audience chairs and toothlessly smiling and applauding the scantily clad female dancers and screaming “faggot” at me for just stepping on the stage with a codpiece and a smile.

So, while I was Skyping my children this morning, my youngest son little Pontious (the most obnoxious one and in my family there is a devastating competition for that particular prize) asked me, “daddy, why do you always Skype wearing a pink lady dress?”

Oh, how the young never seem to have an edit button. Sure I wanted to tell the little twerp that this was my work clothes, just like his wealthy step-dad wore thousand dollar suits to his luxurious office every day, I wore this tutu as my official uniform and even though we were close to fifteen hundred miles apart, I could see his and every other one of my children roll their eyes in unison, as if a middle aged man in a pink tutu was unheard of in their gated community. Actually, a middle aged man is illegal in their gated community, which I found out the hard way last Christmas, when I made an unscheduled visit to the kids and was immediately arrested by the Mayberry police for “trespassing with intent to shake money maker in gay attire.” Which was not very Christmassy at all, when you think about it. 

The Portland breakfast

I was in Portland a few hours ago and my husband and I sat down for breakfast at one of those popular and trendy breakfast restaurants and almost immediately felt that dread that can ruin any meal, a single parent with three kids. 

I was once a single parent with three children, so I know the glare that adults give to single parents and now that I am an adult who travels without children, I have mastered the glare that adults give to other adults who happen into restaurants with their out of control children. 

See, adults don’t want to share meals with children, especially meals we are paying for. Sure, if you invite me over to your toy cluttered house and offer me some luke warm pizza and a beer and your out of control children are running around and screaming, I love it. On the other hand, if I am paying for a fine meal and a decent bottle of wine (yes I drink wine at breakfast, I’m an adult) I do not want your screaming children walking up to my table and pointing at my blueberry pancakes and pointing and saying “whats that?”

So, there we were, reading over the beautiful and trendy menu of the sophisticated and well designed boutique eatery and within seconds a father sat at the table across from us, with his three young sons and I rolled my eyes in such a dramatic way that my ankle was immediately kicked by my ever polite husband. “What?” I said in some sort of shocked way, as if three young boys and a sleep deprived father was an obvious ticket to torture of our cultured and quiet meal time. 

We ordered and for the first five minutes I waited for these young boys to explode or act out or so something that would ruin my meal. Because the restaurant was busy, it took a little longer for the plates to show at our table, but when they did, I had begun to notice that the table closest  to ours, the one with the three boys had remained under control, and noticeably quiet. 

As our plates were settled in front of us I glanced at the table and all three young boys were reading books, their father working his way through the editorial pages of the Sunday paper and sipping a coffee. It was quiet and peaceful. They as a table could care less about us. 

So, while I was all prepared to complain and cry because parents today are terrible and their children are out of control, irresponsible mongrels with no sense of decorum, there I sat, mere inches away from a table of well mannered and sophisticated young men and a father who cared and role modeled behavior that his sons appreciated. 

When we were leaving I thanked the father for having children who could be in public without being obnoxious. He looked at me like I might be insane. 

Drunk Santa brawl-holiday spirit lives

Thanks for the gross headline

Ex-Senate Chief Of Staff Seeks Release After Child Porn Charges

The cards you get dealt

Car riding fun times

Bike rider love

Seattle drag

Get More: 

RuPaul's Drag Race Full Episodes, RuPaul, Logo TV

Seattle drag

Get More: 

RuPaul's Drag Race Full Episodes, RuPaul, Logo TV

Up and up

Stop and kiss seems to be working

The words of wisdom