September 3rd, 2010
You can say what you like about Charlie Sheen. Yes, he’s a “bad boy” from time to time … but a lot of us are “bad” periodically. I have enjoyed many of the characters he has portrayed on film and television.
I particularly enjoy his sitcom Two and a Half Men … and I am aware of his issues concerning conflicts in relationships and even his controversial 9/11 theory.
Being the type who can differentiate between a man’s attitude and politics and his work, just because I don’t agree with some of his notions doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy other aspects of his existence such as the performance arts on the large and small screens.
The bottom line is he is a good actor and it’s his birthday and I want to give him a shout because he’s there for me … both on a weekly basis and in syndication!
Carlos Irwin Estevez
aka Charlie Sheen
aka The Machine
aka Good Time Charlie
aka Chuckles
American Actor. Born September 3, 1965, in New York City.
His father is Martin Sheen and was just beginning his career on Broadway when Charlie was born. He was interested in acting from an early age and has played a broad range of characters over the years of his ensuing career.
His mother is Janet Sheen and was a New York art student who had met her husband right after he had moved to Manhattan. Martin and Janet had three other children — all of whom became actors.
Happy Birthday Charlie Sheen !
Tags: Birthdays, Television
Posted in Birthdays, Television
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September 3rd, 2010
There was a time when I saw my life taking a path far different than the one I eventually traversed. Like Robert Frost’s ‘Two roads diverged in a yellow wood’ I took the one less traveled and that has made all the difference. However, that difference is not the accolades educators love to bestow on themselves. It is not the pretentiousness of medicine or even the artsy end of the spectrum like illustration and musical performance. It is not getting the girl or becoming that magnificent physical specimen I had such hopes of becoming.
It’s that geeky world where people show up at your door with their computers in tow wanting to be fixed. The glamorous of Fergie was not to be. The pins and needles I used to experience writing poetry and scripts long past I have relegated myself to that arena called technology and now enjoy all the things that go with it …
and all the things that go without it.
It’s not really a problem that my social circle sometimes gets limited to those who become technically challenged at one level or another. It’s certainly not an issue to be apparently on call all the time — even though my ‘job’ isn’t the one placing me there.
Sometimes at night when I’m collecting my thoughts I think about that road I could have taken. The one with a bunch of kids and the little girls who wanted to ‘hook up’ and be all family oriented and relegated to that world of station wagons, public school rigamarole, church every Sunday, dinners together, and those other aspects of raising children, paying endless bills and that inevitable and eternal miscellaneous … being somebody’s daddy.
For whatever reason the Almighty — or merely fate — chose that other path for me. Perhaps it was me, myself who chose it. Perhaps it simply “chose me”.
However things resolved I know one thing: it’s been a wild ride and the end result was in and of it self both a blessing and a curse. The memories I’ve collected along the way and the years fall softly at my feet in this adventure. So I proceed toward that final outcome; which may or may not have turned out differently had I made other choices along the way.
Tender Years
When the moon hung soft and low,
Catchin’ stardust in the light
You held me closer and closer
There was magic in the night
A sweet love song, a melody
that I still can recall
Two young hearts filled with dreams
To walk away with it all
Whoa, whoa tender years
Won’t you wash away my tears
How I wish you were here
Please don’t go, tender years
A summer love, a beach romance
Sought her kisses in the sand
Two young hearts filled with fire
Lost in never-neverland.
Whoa, whoa tender years
Won’t you wash away my tears
How I wish you were here
Please don’t go, tender years
John Cafferty
Tags: Nostalgia
Posted in Nostalgia
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September 3rd, 2010
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I used to work with a guy who was my peer but not at my technical level. Early in the decade I had resigned my position at the place where we both worked … and was engaged in other pursuits which happened to float my boat.
As things happen I had thought he and I would get together and have a spot of lunch and converse as we had done so often while we were cohorts at work. I had never mentioned any notion of ever returning to the place in any way, shape, or form.
I pulled into the parking lot at the agreed upon time and place — several minutes early because I didn’t want him to have to wait on me. Half an hour later he shows up 25 minutes late and claiming to have been unable to get away … though he had never had any such pressing business ever in the years we worked together.
So we go to a local establishment and have a spot of lunch and chit chat about various things — then set out to return.
As I was pulling into the parking lot to let him out he appeared to go into a seizure with this flailing of arms and head rapidly shaking to the left and right — and it was a scary appearance until I realized he was quite angry.
It appears that he was under some misguided impression that I was supposed to come back to work so that everything would be as it was prior to my departure. It also appeared as though he thought he could chastise me at his whim and that it would matter.
I’m afraid that returning simply had never been possible and his foolish outburst was purely amusing … though I did well not to bust out laughing in his face at his antics.
His ‘psychotic episode’ (sic) was extremely disturbing at a level … and a little scary in that I thought I was going to have to throttle him. I didn’t understand the nature of the outburst nor did I even care to explore the wherefore or the why.
It never occurred to me that there was some ulterior motive to lunch that day and really and truly the job was never anything to me other than a job and I didn’t ever want to work there again for any reason. I just didn’t think it would be a problem between us. Boy was I incorrect in that notion.
These are some of the the risks one assumes when we fail to meet the expectations of others. I didn’t conform to his wishes and he wanted to exert … apparently what he thought would be “influence”.
However, it’s all for naught when you assume that your needs are congruent with those of another.
It’s a shame too. Though I thought we were such good friends in retrospect it appears that my only role was that of his “built in relief”.
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Tags: Bullies, Places
Posted in Bullies, Places
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September 2nd, 2010
President Ronald Regan instituted National Sewing Month in a 1982 proclamation in which September is the month to recognize the importance of home sewing to our nation.
Many of the ladies I have known were skilled seamstresses. Both my mother and sister sewed … as well as some of my aunts and cousins. However, I have only known one man I thought had exceptional sewing skills. His name was Isadore Clemmons and I went to school with him — and lived right down the road from him in the Hollow Creek community of rural Aiken County … a suburb of Salley, South Carolina.
He was a good natured but largely misunderstood individual and withstood a lot of the guff and ridicule which goes along with that type situation, particularly in a rural environment where much of the pastimes involved under aged alcohol consumption and the typical hayseed debauchery one might expect from those characteristic of farming or country life.
I once thought myself to be included in that lot but my father’s brother quickly showed me my place in the scheme of the farm and I never looked back.
Apparently Isadore had taken Mrs. Nona Faye Walker’s sewing class at the Crescent Cities Vocational Center, which we knew simply as “trade school”. At our “senior auction” he whipped out this three piece suit looking every bit the Bill Blas creation on the stage of that ‘Class A’ high school. I left there feeling the only one truly impressed by his work — which was obviously substantial … was me. So much for the rest of the big red farmers and their appreciation of fine stitching.
The observance of National Sewing Month is pretty much an endeavor of the Sewing and Craft Alliance and the American Sewing Guild.
So if you hav a passion for sewing or have been looking for an opportunity to pursue the craft … this is YOUR month!
Happy National Sewing Month.
Tags: Happenings
Posted in Happenings
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September 1st, 2010
So, in the South Carolina gubernatorial race we find another rather contentious item … as if we need more.
Green Party candidate Harold Reeves stopped in Columbia today and campaigned at the Strom Thurmond Federal Building on Assembly street replete with picketers packing signs to remove the late senator’s name from that building as well as others.
The candidate, Dr. Reeves said that Mr. Thurmond’s past as a vehement supporter of segregation in conjunction with his relationship with a black servant is disgraceful and warrants redress in the form of correcting of all this aggrandizement in the form of naming buildings after him.
“Strom Thurmond has created an act that we feel is disgraceful to the state of South Carolina.
I’m not perfect, and I realize I’m not perfect so I suggest that we take Strom Thurmond’s name off 80 percent of the buildings in our state.”
Harold Reeves
Green Party Candidate for Governor of South Carolina
Dr. Reeves also challenged candidates Haley and Sheheen to a debate because he feels discriminated against by their failure to invite him to discuss the issues previously.
He also intimated that he feels he could command enough of the black vote to win the election.
“I’ll put it like this in a comical way, the Democrats that owned the plantation will vote for Sheheen, the ones that tried to get off the plantation will vote for me.”
Harold Reeves
Green Party Candidate for Governor of South Carolina
I suppose it’s a given that I won’t be voting for Dr. Reeves … baring any unforeseen disqualifying revelation Mrs. Haley will probably get my vote.
However, while I view his observation as valid regarding the circumstances surrounding the historical relationship of Mr. Thurmond and his States Rights Democratic Party ‘dixiecrat’ segregationist ideology which held concurrency with his ongoing relationship with his daughter — I defer to Mrs. Washington-Williams.
If she can forgive his trangressions as a father with the poise and tact she has exhibited publicly — I can certainly forgive them as a senator and a man.
After all, it is solely business between Mrs. Washington-Williams and her siblings. The rest of us are not parties to that business and as such we should mind our own.
Tags: Politics
Posted in Politics
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September 1st, 2010
Over the years I’ve known my fair share of lesbians.
Call it a function of that wide circle on which I once made the rounds through frequently. Nowadays my card is comparatively empty and exceedingly more straight laced … if you will.
I used to go to a little dyke bar called ‘The Fortress’ on Two Notch Road and play pool with a cigar smoking tee shirt and blue jeans wearing blonde butch bruiser named ‘Cooter’. She won every game, too.
I think it was because she intimidated me, being quite a bit more physically formidable in appearance than I. She was friendly and funny and I enjoyed her company immensely … plus I was one of only two dudes in the joint. Eldon and I laughed and carried on into the wee hours of the morning on each visit.
Then there was my good friend Shirley who was simply one of the nicest people you’ll ever know in your life. She was artistically talented, manufacturing her own inspection sticker (back when autos here had to have one) that was a ‘dead ringer’ at a distance. She was personable and regular to a tee.
There was the other end of the spectrum as well. The game playing Margaret who had two daughters and lived on Bagnal in a fantasy world where nothing was entirely as it seemed.
The performers are my favorites however. Today, the charming, beautiful, and quite gay Lily Tomlin is having a birthday. She has dominated that sphere of my existence known as entertainment from time to time because not only is she hilarious … but a master thespian who portrays dramatic roles with presence and projection … as though they aren’t going to make any more.
Lily Tomlin
September 1, 1939
aka Mary Jean Tomlin
aka Ernestine
aka Edith Ann
aka Tasteful Lady
aka Susie the Sorority Girl
aka Tommy Velour and Rick
aka Pervis Hawkins
aka Dr. Selma Dritz
American actress, comedian, writer and producer. To each of these roles she brings exceptional talent and has won multiple awards from many genres, including Tonys, Emmy, a Grammy — not to mention nomination for an Oscar.
She is one of my favorite actresses, comediennes, and of course lesbians I have known.
Happy Birthday to You !
Tags: Birthdays, People, Television
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August 31st, 2010
I’d like to take this moment and note the rapidly passing recurrence of National Civility Month and play true confessions with the fact that my civility has taken a trouncing this year.
Don’t get me wrong, I certainly claim to be ever-scrappy and oh so willing and able to go into confrontational mode at the drop of a hat … but do so at the expense of that kinder, gentler Dave I also try to cultivate.
So although that profane aspect I don’t share with many raises it’s ugly head in the midst of my formal or perfunctory politeness the sad fact is that my tolerance took a beating at the hands of the likes of Adobe, various idiot drivers I encounter, the lying, cheating, thief, crook, tyrant Fred … and of course that ever-present dullard in my disdain, Susan.
Hopefully, I will do better over the coming months and attain that lofty nirvana known as a “courteous manner” that respects accepted social usage and cease being that slug who has to mindlessly swear merely as a valve from which that excess hot air contained within his carcass may escape.
So excuse me whilst I loose that impending flatulence called frustration and endeavor to be better — something oh so much more superior in quality, condition, and effect … tomorrow.
Tags: Bullies, Consumers, Good Grief, Happenings, Rants and Raves, Things
Posted in Bullies, Consumers, Good Grief, Happenings, Rants and Raves, Things
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