Monday, December 31, 2018

Mazie Hirono: A Member of Congress With Principles

Okay, so while _____ has shut down the government and, after saying he’d take the blame, instantly switched gears and blamed the  Democrats, and while he lied to US troops about the raise they were getting, and then put a freeze on salaries of government employees, suggesting they do chores for their landlords to make some extra cash, one member of Congress … one member … is putting her money where her mouth is; well, she’s not taking her money, I should say.

Democratic Senator from Hawaii, Mazie Hirono, an avid, rabid _____ foe, has pledged to donate the salary she earned during the government shutdown to her state's food banks. And while some on Capitol Hill have suggested their salaries be withheld—keep in mind, it was just a suggestion—Hirono is going a step further:
"More than 2,500 federal workers in Hawaii [80,000 government workers in total] are either furloughed or working without pay during the holidays because Donald _____ shut down the government. As long as Donald _____refuses to reopen the government, I will be donating my salary to Hawaii’s food banks—who serve nearly one in eight Hawaii residents in need.”
Hirono is not new to this kind of gesture, having previously donated her earnings during the government shutdowns in 2013 and January 2018. Gosh, a politician who says something and then actually does it, time and time again; who’da thunk it?

The good news, or the better news, is that when the new session of Congress gets underway, and Democrats assume control of the House, they have vowed not to give into _____’s temper tantrums and bullying.

And it appears that most people in America agree with the Democrats, laying the blame for the shutdown at the feet of the fat man who said he’d take then blame, and then lied … again.

The shutdown has dropped his approval rating to an all-time low, but, thankfully, we have Hirono and the Democrats to fight for us, and federal workers, now.

A Kiss Is Just A Kiss


I saw that photo and instantly thought it was just a copy of that more famous kiss on V-J Day— Victory over Japan Day—when a Navy sailor grabbed and kissed a woman in Times Square. But this was two men kissing and so I found it all the more fun and interesting and kinda kitschy and hot.

On December 21st, after the USS The Sullivans pulled into port, Kenneth Woodington—the winner of the first kiss lottery—locked lips with his husband, sailor Bryan Woodington, just home from seven months in the Gulf.

As they kissed, many in the crowd applauded and cheered, most notably other service family members waiting for their loved ones, but not everyone was cheering.

WJXT, a Jacksonville, Florida television station, aired the kiss and suddenly all the haters came out …
“How sad your station has dropped to such a low as to show a gay couple kissing on your newscast.”
First off, gay or not, it was a couple kept apart for seven months, greeting one another, but, yeah, I guess because it was two men …
“I thought this was a “family-friendly” news channel.”
This one slayed me; just WTF is a ‘family-friendly news channel’? No stories about crime or murder or destruction? Just puppies and kittens and babies?

We are on the precipice of 2019 and people are still shocked, and disgusted, by the sight of gay couples acting like couples? We have been allowed the rights to marry for nearly four years now, so all of you who find the sight of two men, or two women, kissing, for any reason, need to turn off your TVs, discontinue the newspaper, unplug from the internet, and go live in a cave.

We’re here, we’re queer, and we kiss our spouses and partners whenever we f**king want to kiss them.

Saturday, December 29, 2018

I Ain't One To Gossip But ...


We haven’t heard much about Kevin Spacey lately; at least not since he was outed as a sexual predator who preyed on men and young boys and then blamed it on being a homosexual.

So, here’s some new dish on Perv Spacey … he is set to be arraigned on a charge of indecent assault and battery at a Nantucket District Court just after the first of the year.

The ALLEGED victim in the case is the son of former Boston WCVB-TV news anchor Heather Unruh, who claims Spacey tried to rape her then-18-year-old son while he was working at The Club Car Restaurant on Nantucket in July 2016.

She says Spacey came in after the kid’s shift, hung out with the kid, bought the underage kid cocktails and asked the kid about his penis size and tried to get the kid into his room. Spacey also ALLEGEDLY reached into the kid’s pants and grabbed his genitals.

When Kevin went to the bathroom, a woman who saw it all, told the kid to run. The kid now says Spacey was trying to rape him and he has a video of Spacey grabbing his junk.

Oh Kevin, this has nothing to do with being gay but everything to do with being a sexual predator and a child molester. And I hope the book they throw at you hurts like hell … for 7-to-10 years .... or more.
Lotsa Hot Topics about Wendy Williams having some sort of substance abuse issue, or self-medicating, or whatever, because lately, on her show, she has appeared out of it, slurring her words, and generally acting a little hooked on something other than herself.

Williams apologized  for slurring on TV, saying it was the fault of her painkillers which she’s taking for a fracture but maybe that wasn’t it; maybe it’s her husband’s mistress being pregnant with his child.

The source who spilled the tea believes Wendy might be self-medicating:
“[People] suspect she might be self-medicating [and the staff] is routinely having to adjust to her health issues—i.e. not walking out for the beginning of the show, zoning out during segments, etc. They’re really embarrassed about the whole situation.”
And so maybe all that drama lies at the feet of her husband, Kevin Hunter, who sidepiece is knocked up, and has knocked Wendy off balance.
It’s like a Time Warp in gossip lately because there’s a lot of talk about Paris Hilton since she dumped her boyfriend and kept the $2 million dollar ring he gave her that she paid for.

Paris posted a photo to Instagram of her days running with the wild kids like Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan and cramming their drunk asses into a tiny sports car. And she captioned the photos like this:
11 years anniversary today since the first coming of The Holy Trinity!”
Oh Paris, you added too many letters ... it’s the “Ho” Trinity. But, not stopping there, Paris is now claiming, more than a decade later, that Lohan spotted her and Britney out that night and inserted herself into their little duo:
“We were all at the Beverly Hills Hotel at the bungalows during an after-party and then Britney and I wanted to leave to go home. Then [Lindsay] started, like, chasing us and then squeezed in the car. And it was literally a two-seater SLR — you know, the sports car. She just, like, squeezed in and I didn’t want to humiliate her in front of all the paparazzi and be like ‘Get out of my car,’ so I was like, ‘Whatever.’”
Yeah, it really looks like that Paris. Why don’t you hit yourself on the head and wake up and realize it’s 2018 now and the idea of you and BritBrit and Lohan is actually nothing.

You’re over, Paris, no matter how hard you try.
Oops. Is singer Dionne Warwick headed to jail?

It looks like it since Warwick ALLEGEDLY owes the IRS millions in coins after filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2013. She claims she cannot pay her tax bill because she’s got just $25,500 in assets to her name, but she owes a hair under $11,000,000, including some six-million to Uncle Sam.

How does one have 25K to their name and yet let their debts get to Eleven-effing-million-dollars?

Anyway, the case has dragged on for years because Dionne is suing the government to have her tax bill from 1990 through 2008 discharged; yes, she wants all of her tax debt for nearly two decades erased!

Good luck with that Dionne. Oh, and visiting days at San Quentin are Wednesdays and Fridays, you know, in case you need the info.

Friday, December 28, 2018

I Didn't Say It ...


Cardinal Raymond Burke, on the story of an Australian couple who asked how to respond to their gay son bringing his partner to Christmas dinner:

“This is a very delicate question, and it’s made even more delicate by the aggressiveness of the homosexual agenda. But one has to approach this in a very calm, serene, reasonable and faith-filled manner. If homosexual relations are intrinsically disordered, which indeed they are — reason teaches us that and also our faith — then, what would it mean to grandchildren to have present at a family gathering a family member who is living [in] a disordered relationship with another person? We wouldn’t, if it were another kind of relationship — something that was profoundly disordered and harmful — we wouldn’t expose our children to that relationship, to the direct experience of it. And neither should we do it in the context of a family member who not only suffers from same-sex attraction, but who has chosen to live out that attraction, to act upon it, committing acts which are always and everywhere wrong, evil. And so, families have to find a way to stay close to a child in this situation — to a son or grandson, or whatever it may be — in order to try to draw the person away from a relationship which is disordered.”

First off, Cardinal, f**k off.
I would much prefer a happy couple straight or gay, to be around children than a hate-filled member of some group that aids, abets, condones, covers up, and pays restitution for decades of child rapists.
So again, f**k off.
Wesley Clark, ex-NATO Supreme Allied Commander, on _____’s decision to withdraw troops from Syria:

“Well I’m very concerned because there doesn’t seem to be any strategic rationale for the decision. And if there’s no strategic rationale for the decision then you have to ask, why was the decision made? People around the world are asking this and some of our friends and our allies in the Middle East are asking, did Erdogan blackmail the president? Was there a payoff is or something? Why would a guy make a decision like this? Because all the recommendations were against it.”

Perhaps there was blackmail.
Perhaps there was a payoff.
Perhaps there was Putin.
Perhaps _____ is just an ill-equipped, unhinged buffoon.
Or, perhaps it’s all of the above.
_____, on Christmas Day:

“It’s a disgrace what’s happening in our country. But other than that, I wish everybody a very Merry Christmas. Thank you very much.”

He’s right; it is a disgrace what’s happening in our country with an idiot like _____in the Oval.
Look at me! Agreeing with _____! It’s a Christmas Miracle!
Kevin  Spacey, using the voice of his House of Cards character Frank Underwood in a strange video released shortly after he was charged with felony sexual assault against a minor:

“Of course, some believed everything and have been just waiting with bated breath to hear me confess it all. They’re just dying to have me declare that everything said is true and that I got what I deserved. Wouldn’t that be easy? If it was all so simple? Only you and I both know it’s never that simple, not in politics and not in life.  But you wouldn’t believe the worst without evidence would you? You wouldn’t rush to judgments without facts, would you? Would you? Did you?”

Apparently there are a few eyewitnesses and, because this is the age of the cellphone, a video proving Spacey is a perv.
Sorry, Kev, not sorry.
Martina Navratilova, tennis legend, saying transgender women should not be allowed in women’s sports: 

“Clearly that can’t be right. You can’t just proclaim yourself a female and be able to compete against women. There must be some standards, and having a penis and competing as a woman would not fit that standard, For me it’s all about fairness, which means taking every case individually… there is no cookie cutter way of doing things.”

Way to go, Martina. Feed the idiots who think a penis makes you a man, or a vagina makes you female.
I thought you were smarter than that.
Navratilova walked back her statement and has apologized, but, still, educate yourself, or at least think, before speaking.
Billy Porter, fabulous, and fabulously gay, actor and singer, on Kevin Hart’s homophobic “jokes”:

“I’m going to get into this Kevin Hart thing for just a second. Because it’s not about you having a joke. That’s not what it’s about. I’ve seen people and I’ve heard people who are not homophobic who do gay jokes. And you can tell that they’re not homophobic. I think Monique, a long time ago, she did a joke about butt sex. It was a whole thing about butt sex and ‘the gays,’ you know. And the punchline was something like, ‘Yeah, but don’t knock it till you try it!’ And then we must stop the person who we know is using a joke, but she’s not a homophobic person. She’s not saying, ‘If I come home and my four-year-old son is playing with a baby doll house, I’m gonna break it over his head and tell him it’s gay.’ That crosses a line. Because that allows your fans to think that [you can] hit somebody because you don’t like them. You don’t like their sexuality, ‘so I can bash you in the head.’ We’re not doing that anymore … Y’all don’t get to have that language no more without somebody on the other side challenging that. You had long enough to spew that darkness into the world without somebody on the other side shedding some light on it. We’re done with that. It’s march-into-the-streets time! We have an administration that thinks that it can, with a sentence, erase a whole group of people. And we’re not going to do anything about it? Transgender people don’t exist? Fuck that. I say to Kevin Hart, and I say to D.L. Hughley, I say to those people who think that they don’t need to apologize for shit and dig their heels in their toxic masculinity: But you want your rights! You want people to stop shooting your children in the back? But yet still, you turn around and oppress other people the same way you’re being oppressed. Fuck that. Fuck you. We’re done.”

Bravo, sir, bravo.

Thursday, December 27, 2018

Adam Lambert Pays Tribute To Cher ... And Slays it!

Bobservations

We have a client who comes in regularly, and one day, while chatting with me, she told me she wanted to friend me on Facebook. Being a little chickensh*t, I stammered something about not really being on there much and, yeah, that would be nice, and oh okay, and then I changed the subject. A few weeks later, I saw her in town and she told me she’d sent me a Friend Request; I wondered how she had gotten my last name, unless she beat it out of a co-worker, and she told me that one of my friends is her ex-daughter-in-law; needless to say, I wanted to club that ex-DIL.

Still, I ignored the request—again, chickensh*t—and played coy whenever she asked about it, until the day Carlos and I bumped into her with her husband-partner-co-worker-friend, and she told Carlos I hadn’t accepted her friend request. Carlos, who always has my back, said … to me:
“Friend her already.”

I was doomed; I Friended her, after shrieking like a banshee at Carlos, who kept saying:

"What does it hurt?”

What does it hurt? The women comments on every single thing I post or share, and then gets annoyed if I don’t respond. One day I put some political comment on Facebook and she asked what I meant by it; I did not respond. Then a second friend asked what I meant, and so I explained myself, causing Facebook Stalker, that’s what I call her, to private message me to ask why I responded to Heather and not to her.
“I responded to the same question from the both of you.”
“Yes, but you didn’t respond to me.”
And she was blocked on Facebook.

Cut to this weekend, Carlos and I were doing the groceries and I met up with him in the deli.
“Your stalker is here.”
I panicked.
“Where?”
“Her husband, friend, co-worker, whatever just came up and said Hello.”
Now, since Carlos has a terrible memory, I asked him to describe the person…
“My height, beard, maybe kinda bald.”
“Nope. Not him.”
“Well, I thought it was him.”
A few aisles over, I run into a friend, Mike, ironically he's Heather's husband, and he says …
“I just saw Carlos, stopped to say Hello.”
“Ooooooh. He thought you were my stalker.”
Mike looks nothing like my stalker’s husband, friend, partner, co-worker, but, hey, at least Carlos tried, and gave me the heads up and didn’t try to sell me down the river ………. Again!
His name was Felipe Alonzo-Gomez.

He was just 8 years-old when he died Christmas Eve in the custody of the US Border Patrol on Christmas Day.

Remember his name. Our government won't even say it.
Remember when Parkland School Massacre survivor, and gun control advocate, David Hogg talked about the rejection letters he had received from four California colleges: Cal State at Long Beach, UCLA, the University of California at Santa Barbara and the University of California at San Diego?

And remember how that prompted Fox news hag, and general miserable human being and liar, Laura Ingraham who called Hogg a “crisis actor” to Tweet … “David Hogg Rejected By Four Colleges To Which He Applied and whines about it (Dinged by UCLA with a 4.1 GPA…totally predictable given acceptance rates.)” … a little over a month after surviving the shooting at his school?

Hogg has been accepted into Harvard.

Take that, Laura Ingraham, you bitter ragged Klan wife.
On Christmas Eve, we took Ozzo to Rectory Square, so he could run around like the little mad dog he is; and then, we went down to our local book store and coffee shop for a warm beverage.

Inside the store we chatted with the woman behind the counter, placed our order, then Carlos excused himself to wander through the bookstore and the woman said to me:
“He’s so sweet. He was in the other day and he’s just a sweetheart.”
I begrudgingly agreed; and the she asked:
“How are you two related?”
“By marriage.”
“Oh, are you married to his sister or is he—”
“No, by marriage because he’s my husband.”
“Oh! You never hear people say that in Camden.”
“Still, there are quite a few same-sex couples in town.”
“Yes, but they don’t usually say ‘married’.”
“Well, I say it because we are and that’s who he is … my husband.”
“As it should be.”
And that was a sweet little Christmas gift.
Apparently _____ never read the resignation letter Defense Secretary James Mattis sent him. And so that explains why, after hearing about Mattis leaving, _____ at first praised him …
“General Jim Mattis will be retiring, with distinction, at the end of February, after having served my Administration as Secretary of Defense ... During Jim’s tenure, tremendous progress has been made, especially with respect to the purchase of new fighting equipment. General Mattis was a great help to me in getting allies and other countries to pay their share of military obligations. ... I greatly thank Jim for his service!”
…  but then when the letter went public and he actually heard what Mattis said, well, _____ flipped his shiz …
“When President Obama ingloriously fired Jim Mattis, I gave him a second chance. Some thought I shouldn’t, I thought I should. Interesting relationship-but I also gave all of the resources that he never really had. Allies are very important-but not when they take advantage of U.S.”
Perhaps he should have read the letter first and then he wouldn’t have looked like a whiny little bitch; of course, that’s assuming _____ could understand what he was reading.
Tyler Stallings, just seven-years-old, is a superhero who has spent the last three years helping thousands of Maryland veterans after his mother taught him about veteran homelessness in 2015, when he was four. And when he learned that many veterans don’t have homes, Tyler began making “Hero Bags” filled with clothes, shoes, snacks, toiletries, soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste, lotion, shaving gel, and hand sanitizer, and started handing them out to veterans at the Maryland Center for Veteran Education and Training.

Since then, Tyler has given away over 2,000 Hero Bags and gift cards to homeless vets. Then, with the help of his mother, he partnered with local mattress manufacturers to provide 250 mattresses for the vets living at MCVET. He has also raised over $17,200 in GoFundMe donations for his mission.

Big hero in a little package!
Rumor has it that Russia’s parliament is thinking about changing their constitution to allow Putin to remain in power beyond the end of his current term, when current law requires him to step down.

Right. The “parliament” is thinking about it. By “parliament” they mean Vlad is changing the constitution to keep the power. I mean, the man interfered in our elections, so do you really think he’d do things by the book in his own country?

If so, I have a bridge you might like to buy …
I’m not saying there’s anything to this story but … in 1968, _____ was diagnosed as having bone spurs in his heels that led to his medical exemption from the military during Vietnam.

The doctor who diagnosed ____ was Dr. Larry Braunstein, a Queens podiatrist, who rented his office from _____’s father, Fred _____.

Kind of a coinky-dink, no?
Now, for the best Christmas gift ever!

A University of California-Irvine study has revealed that drinking alcohol and coffee, in moderate amounts, is linked to living a longer life. Sure, the key word is “moderate” but one man’s “moderate” is another man’s, okay, this man’s, “sure, I’ll have another.”

And live longer, to boot.
Over the long holiday weekend, I watched a documentary on New York’s Carlyle Hotel. A fascinating history of the building, the staff, and the guests; everyone from Princess Diana to Jackie O, Bobby Short to Elaine Stritch …and Loston Harris.

Harris often performs at the hotel’s Bemelmans Bar, where he is quite the treat, not just because of his musicality but also, for me, at least, because he’s dapper, sophisticated and, yes, darn cute.

And man can he play and, sometimes, sing.



Wednesday, December 26, 2018

Architecture Wednesday: Alpine Cabin


Ah, the Alpine Cabin, in the French Alps; a perfect Christmas getaway.

But this is not your grandfather’s cabin, although it could have been. Originally built in the 1870s, Alpine Cabin underwent a two-year renovation on its 140th birthday and the results are stunning.

The cabin, with views of Mont Blanc, is a blend of rustic wood and stone, eclectic furnishings, and artistic design. And so, it feels less like an ordinary cabin and more like a New York loft plucked from Manhattan and set down in Megève, France.

And while the inside is a mixture of art and stone and timber and glass, the outside is that perfect Christmas card cabin. But more than that, the Alpine Cabin is also an important rehabilitation project created by a design team that put sustainability and ecology alongside art and design. Architects and craftsmen were specifically requested by the homeowner to update the cabin in a way that preserved it and respected its history.

Teams of workers winterize the once dilapidated older structure and reinvented it in more environmentally, and stylistically, efficient ways. This required a new roof, new floors, and new walls; it required a reorganization of space with a special request from the homeowner’s: all of the wood used in the rebuild was local or harvested from the original structure.

But while all that is outside, the inside is where you live; the villa has two levels, with the ground floor featuring the guest bedrooms and the master bedroom in an upper loft. The main floor is the massive open-plan living area, library, conversation areas, kitchen and dining, with high ceilings working in conjunction with large  windows that rise to meet the ceiling.

And let’s not forget the artistry of the kitchen island, or the stone work; or the furnishings. The decorative details reflect the adventures of the homeowner, telling a story through art, furnishings and figures from all over the world.

It’s a fabulous mix of the old and the new; the modern and the rustic; the classic and the eclectic; art, as a home.

In the snow. In France. At Christmas.

HomeDSGN