Hilly making friends with Ndugu

What? What do you mean she’s not 40? Are you sure she’s not 40?

My mistake.

Hilly's special message to me on my birthday.

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Riper with Age

You had some great scenes in Roadhouse and Next of Kin, which were admittedly dumb movies.

Ghost is an iconic movie that will probably be what you are most remembered for…

But my favorite performance by far was the sweet Vida Boheme in To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar.

Thank you for having the courage to not only be a straight guy who studied ballet, but for being confident enough to play a campy drag queen with respect and heart.

Your death was not unexpected, but still very sad.

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• Patrick Swayze, ‘Dirty Dancing’ Star, Dies at 57 (nytimes.com)

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To Patrick Swayze, Thanks for Everything

Thanks Squirrelizer!

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Beating You to the Punch

He got the outline and shading done tonight. The color will be added next week hopefully.

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New Tattoo

In the past two weeks, I have spent more time on the phone or speaking in person with your employees than I have spent doing many other things that I find to be more enjoyable…

Such as:

• Ingrown Toe Nail Surgery
• Masturbating with #4 Sandpaper
• Spit-Bathing my Dogs

First off, you advertise the UVERSE services all over the place, including pamphlets in the mail and delivery of door-hangers announcing the service’s availability at my home. Your website says my address is within the service area. Every tech (and there have been many now) that has been here has said there should be no real problems.

Why then a week later do I still have several hours a day when my television, phone, and internet all go down for several minutes to hours at a time?

Your tech’s are now saying that “squirrels have chewed the lines” between my house and the main box six blocks away.

As an interesting side note, I’ve lived in Fairfield off and on (mostly on) for the past 11 years and can not recall ever seeing a single squirrel. Not one. I didn’t know squirrels existed in Northern California until I saw them in Berkeley.

I’ve gotten myself out of bed six times before 8am to meet with your technicians who all tell me the same thing… “It should work just fine now. Give us a call if it doesn’t.”

I’m waiting for another tech to arrive in the morning.

Now why, you may ask yourself, would I put myself through this? Why not go back to Comcast Cable for your internet and television needs?

Because UVERSE is $98 per month cheaper than Comcast. I don’t know about you, but $1200 a year isn’t an insignificant amount of money. PLUS!? AT&T offered me $250 cash back for signing up and keeping the service for 30 days. So I’m now saving $1450 this first year.

So, the way I see it, you had better get this service that you advertise and promote to me working as expected or I’m going to cry “fraud” and “false advertising” and get my neighbors to jump on the same ship.

Oh! And while this isn’t related to the UVERSE service, let me also point out an idiotic bullshit move on the behalf of one of your other corporate identities….

I went to an AT&T Wireless store today with the intention of adding a new line to my business account and purchasing a new iPhone. My business has a shared minutes plan which would make the additional line only $40 per month.

I waited for the sales associate for over 45 minutes to get his act together and open the new line. He discovers that according to the computer in order to add this line I will need to place a $750 credit deposit down.

For a $40/month phone line.

I have had my business wireless account for over a year. In fact, the deposit that was required when I first set up the account was $250 (because it was a brand new company) was JUST sent back to me last week.

When the sales associate looked at the account, he noted that the reason was because the account had been paid late in the past… each time with a note stating that AT&T had failed to correctly set the account up for autopayment. I called every single month to make a payment and get the account on autopay. For the first 8 months of my contract, I’ve had to actually call someone on the phone to pay my bill because you couldn’t get your shit together.

And now you want to charge ME $750 for your reps inability to perform their job?

I don’t fucking think so.

Let me just tell you this, as much as I love my iPhone, I know for a fact that the Verizon store that is less than 30 feet from your AT&T Fairfield store will be happy to take my business. And they have some pretty cool Blackberry phones.

How about you get your shit together, fix my fucking UVERSE, let me open my third phone line to my business wireless account, and we’ll continue our fairly docile arrangement from here on out.

Otherwise, send me a check for $1450 and 2 of the top of the line Blackberry phones that I can set up with Verizon.

Don’t make me call you again.

PS – Send that hot UVERSE tech out next time. He at least gave me something else to think about.

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Dear AT&T

It’s impossible to know the private thoughts, demons, and dreams of another person. Often, it’s hard to know our own.

How can any person begin to imagine what the daily life of Michael Jackson must have been like?

He literally grew up before our eyes. His fans likely knew more about his background and his family life than he did.

While Madonna was attending elementary school, Michael was on Ed Sullivan. While Prince was playing four-square, Michael was in the recording studio. While Simon Le Bon was buying lollies, Michael was touring the country.

He went on to become the biggest-selling recording artist in the history of recording. His sales records will likely never be equaled.

He went on to become the most famous person in the world. His image was more recognizable to children worldwide than that of Ronald McDonald and Jesus. Tribes in remote jungles could identify Michael Jackson.

There was not a street corner, backwoods diner, desert palm tree, or iceberg that Michael could visit without attracting attention.

How lonely and thrilling and sad and amazing and frustrating that must have been to experience.

In every interview I’ve seen recently, the same few words keep coming up: innocent, child-like, playful, silly… For many years, I’ve believed that Michael likely never progressed emotionally past the level of a 12 year old. As an adult, he created his ideal habitat, basically a giant circus and amusement park. I don’t believe this was the act of a predator, I believe it was him surrounding himself with his most basic childhood dreams.

The musician in me can not begin to express the reach and influence Michael had on his contemporaries and younger generations of artists. Every single person on the pop music charts today, from Taylor Swift to The Jonas Brothers, Justin Timberlake, Rhianna, and Miley Cyrus owe an incredible amount of gratitude to Michael Jackson.

His work, dedication, and talent did much more than just sell a few hundred million albums… he busted racial barriers, revolutionized the music industry, introduced filmmakers to new technologies, and probably most importantly shed light on major social issues of the day.

No one in the US knew or cared about the famine that was claiming hundreds of lives daily in Ethiopia in the 80’s until Michael’s USA for Africa exposed it. Even now when I suggest Ethiopian food for dinner, someone invariably makes the joke, “I didn’t think they had any food!”

His humanitarian efforts are unequaled. He has given more money to charitable organizations than any other “person of note.” He founded nearly 40 different organizations aimed at providing funds for everything from HIV/AIDS to burn victims and wounded veterans.

I’ve found myself vigorously defending Michael the past several days on Twitter and Facebook from people who want to complain that his death is receiving too much attention… or demanding that people stop talking about the “child molester” who should be rotting in hell.

To those people I say, “May you never be judged by the worst thing you’ve been accused of.”

To those who dwell on his seemingly bizarre behavior and appearance, remember that “freak” is another term for “different” and our prejudices and bigotry are our problems, not the problems of those who are different.

This “freak” was a father, a son, a brother, an uncle, a friend, a human being who did extraordinary things under extraordinary circumstances.

Michael’s legacy will survive the scandals. Michael’s legacy will survive whatever the next several months or years will find him being accused of now that he’s not here to defend himself. Michael’s legacy will survive the legal battle over the custody of his children and the disbursement of his estate.

Michael Jackson’s page in the history books will be filled with his music and his charity. I don’t believe the scandals will even warrant a footnote.

As for myself, I will remember being jealous of my childhood best friend who came to school wearing that red zippered jacket and glove, and the joy when he let me wear it. I will remember my mom and dad dancing with me to the “I Want You Back” and “ABC” records. I will remember the countless hours I spent watching MTV just hoping they would play “Thriller” one more time. I will remember how much I loved “The Way You Make Me Feel” and how I cried like a baby the first time I heard “Gone Too Soon” after Ryan White died.

I will mourn the sudden silence of a voice that has always been heard in my house.

And I will mourn yet another piece of my childhood slipping away.

Pardon the hell out of me if that’s interrupting your regularly scheduled programming.

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On Michael

Watching Avitable’s latest video, The One Where Adam Tries Not To Vomit, reminded me of a story.

A few years ago while working at the National Laboratory in Berkeley, there was a Materials Science Ph.D. in my division who was heavy into playing politics. He was the nicest guy if you were just shooting the shit about the weather or any other non-work-related topic, but the minute things turned to work he was a two faced lying scum bag who would sell you down the river if he thought it might make him look good.

So he discovered that I live in Fairfield, which is home to the Jelly Belly Jelly Bean Factory. It’s basically across the street from the Budweiser factory. There’s a great tour that you can go on to see how they are made and you always get free samples just for walking in.

One of the benefits to stopping by the factory is that you can buy bags of “Belly Flops” which are the jelly beans that don’t quite make the cut. They might be disfigured, stuck together, or sometimes they are flops because the logo didn’t print right on the bean. They taste exactly the same of course. The “flops” are usually between $1.25 and $2.50 per pound. By comparison, buying a bag of mix-your-own beans is $9.00 per pound.

At any rate, Dr. Asshole, asked me pick up a few bags of flops for him, you know, if I didn’t mind. I really didn’t the first time, especially since he hadn’t really come out as a total dickwad yet.

Then the requests came more and more frequently. He would ask me nearly every week to bring him another 4 pounds. I discovered that he was setting them out in a bowl on his conference table where he would invite some of his scumbag asshole compatriots in to basically do everything possible to make my life (and the lives of everyone on my team) completely miserable.

Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans

Flavors included: booger, earwax, dirt, black pepper, earthworm, sardine, garlic, grass (my favorite), and vomit.

I picked up a box and took them home eager to try them for the novelty factor. Several friends sat around with me sampling the unique flavors that for the most part tasted just like you would expect them to. Sardine was pretty fucking vile even though I have been known to eat sardines from the can.

However, nothing prepared me for the experience of a vomit flavored jelly bean. It was as close to the flavor of the real thing as you could ever want to get. It immediately made my stomach rumble and the acidic taste was EXACTLY like that first watery-mouthed stomach bubble that precludes a technicolor yawn.

There are few things that I’ve put in my mouth that I immediately had to spit out. (TWSS) The vomit jelly bean elicited an immediate “GET THIS OUT OF YOUR MOUTH YOU FUCKING IDIOT” response.

I’m sure you know where this story is going.

As Dr. Asshole began waging his war on my team (trying to get rid of us) on the sly, I was still his bean-pusher.

I started mixing in the Every Flavor Beans with his now weekly delivery of sugary treats.

I always pulled the grass flavored ones out though.

At first, it went unnoticed. I could just picture the group sitting around the table popping jelly beans in their mouths a handful at a time, wondering why there was an unusual flavor every so often.

When I failed to get a good reaction, I started adding more and more boxes of the foul beans to the mix. I would giggle every time I saw one of the scumbags pop their heads in Dr. Asshole’s office to grab a handful on the go. I just know they would get back to their desk, gag on one of the beans and move on to one of their favorite flavors.

This went on for MONTHS.

Until one day the fire alarm went off and our building was evacuated. After weeks of expensive air quality tests, the addition of air purifiers and several meetings with the Health and Safety Division it was decided that there was some sort of “toxic substance” in our building that was making many of the division staff sick.

The symptoms?

Nausea, vomiting, and complaints of “unusual tastes in their mouths.”

I ended up with a new office far away from Dr. Asshole and never had to buy him another fucking bag of jelly beans.

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Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans

He was one of the most amazing performers that has ever graced us.

I love this song he wrote for Ryan White. “Gone Too Soon.”

[See post on my domain to listen to audio]

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Gone Too Soon

In Memoriam of Puppy Monster

Memorium: 2 years ago.

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Memorium

Get your twitter mosaic here.

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The Faces of Twitter