Bobservations

Not so much a Carlos story, but he’s in it … a lot.

Last week I drove him up to the Lancaster Country Courthouse for an interpretation. I waited in the hall while he did his thang, and when it was over he walked outside with one of the attorneys who asked him for a business card. Then the lawyer said:

“Gimme your number and I’ll shoot you a text.”

I died a little; we are not phone people, and while we have cell phones we have … wait for it … it’s epic … it’s so last century … we have flip phones. Now, that’s fine for me being that I enjoy, er, enjoyed, being a luddite.

Anyway, I suggested to Carlos that we look into getting him a smartphone so that he can use it for business—Tax Deduction!—and he contacted AT&T who we bundle our “stuff” with. Turns out we have been such good customers, we were able to get two phones with a nice little package and our monthly bundle will would only … go down by about $25 a month.

And that’s how, in the Year of our Good Lord He Finally Upgraded, Carlos and I have iPhones.

Now the hardest part was trying to make Carlos, whose one bad habit is that he thinks he knows everything and doesn’t need to read instructions or take his time, slow down and not fuck this up.

It’s a process.

Ain’t it funny how government—made up of mostly old white men who think they control the bodies of more than half the electorate—works?

Two GOP Senators Dan Sullivan and Marco Rubio posted about the passing of Congressman John Lewis last week. It was nice, except they each posted pictures of themselves with Not-John-Lewis, but with Elijah Cummings.

It looks like Sullivan and Rubio fit the description as morons and asshats.

When it rains …and boy, did it rain on Monday. I had to run into work in the early afternoon for a few minutes and as I was getting ready to go, we had a massive thunderstorm in town. Carlos asked me not to go out in bad weather and I reminded him that I’ve been driving for well over 100 years and could handle a little rain.

BOOOOOOM! A massive lightning strike hit close to our house and Carlos claimed it was God agreeing with him while I said it was the Goddess agreeing with me; so out I went.

Well, the strike was, in fact, awfully close to the house and fried our DVR. No big; a quick call to AT&T and a new one was sent out … and arrived less than 24 hours later, how’s that for service?

But … I came back from work and did a few things on the computer before dinner. Then we ate and after that I went back to the computer and … no internet.

Luckily, again, it was a minor fix—some kerfuffle about a battery and a loose cable or maybe hamsters getting off their wheel—and we were back online, until ….

The next morning the AC went out; the fan was blowing but the AC was not in attendance … on a day when the weather would hit in the high 90s and higher humidity.

Luckily, again, a repairman came out and fixed that in a jiffy; we still need a servicing done, and a new computer board, but we’re back to living cool and easy.

Until that next storm???

Let this sink in … Jenna Ellis, a top _____ campaign adviser appeared on the Russian-government funded TV network RT, which U.S. intelligence agencies have said played a role in the Kremlin’s plans to undermine American democracy.

During her interview, Ellis defended _____’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, bashed the American media as “propagandist activist media” and claimed Fox News—the news network most friendly to the president—of having an anti-Trump bias.

Why in the world is a _____ advisor campaigning for _____ in Russia?

Missouri Governor Mike Parson has announced that he will likely pardon Mark and Patricia McCloskey, AKA Ken and Karen, that white St. Louis couple who came out of their houses armed with guns and aimed them at peaceful BLM protestors in the street.

White couple pardoned for threatening Black protestors.

Racist governor.

Jim Justice, what a misnomer that is, is listed in Forbes magazine as a billionaire. He is also the richest man in West Virginia and governor of that state. In addition, he owns a vast array of businesses—coal mines, resort hotels and agricultural interests—many of them regulated by the state agencies he now runs.

Please explain then, why companies owned by Jim Justice and his family received up to $24 million from one of the federal government’s key coronavirus economic relief programs.

Oh yeah … Republican … Swamp … Liar … Thief. And a billionaire with his hand out for that guv’mint check.

Eyal Berkover is an Israeli model and actor and TV personality and an all-around hot slab of meat who seems to enjoy wearing as little as possible.

And I’m fine with that.

Bobservations

There are times when I fell the universe conspire against me and last Sunday night was no exception.

Somebody up there doesn’t like me.

It all began when we had a bad storm come through without warning. The winds whipped, the rains fell, a tree came down across the driveway; and the power went out at about 8PM.

Carlos and I sat in romantic battery-powered candlelight for a couple of hours before deciding to just go to bed. I had not been feeling well …a Summer cold exacerbated by the fact that our AC broke one day last week and the house was 91 degrees inside when we got home; that was an easy fix, and all was cool the next day.

But now, on Sunday, I have a fever, the power is out, there is no AC and no ceiling fans, and I can’t sleep. I’m thinking about the food in the refrigerator and how it’s going bad with each hour without power; I’m hearing to dog whimper because he needs to go out; I hear Carlos snoring, fast asleep and wonder how long it will take him to stop if I hold a pillow over his face; I think about how late it’s getting and how I’ll be so tired the next day.

In other words, I can’t sleep. At all.

Around 2AM I get up and get a washcloth; I dampen it with cold water and get back into bed, laying it across my forehead to beat the heat in my head. It’s starting to work … I’m getting tired, my mind is not racing, I don’t hear the dog, I don’t care about the fridge. I …am … just … about …to … fall … asleep ….

The power comes back on and all the lights that went off are now back on and for some reason the stereo received connected to the TV has come on and is blaring that static noise at a volume you might hear on an airplane runway. I bolt upright and jump out of bed. I run through the house turning off lights and turning off receivers and quieting the dog.

In the distance, down the hallway, I see a shadow of the man I love, rubbing his eyes, and asking:

“Is the power back on?”

I reach for that pillow.

Sometimes I just have to shake my head … twenty-three-year-old Kansas man, Ryan Malek, was arrested and charged with lewd and lascivious behavior for his repeated attempts to have sex with …

… the tailpipe of a parked car.

Local police answered a 911 call about a man underneath a vehicle and arrived on scene to find Malek trying to put his penis into the tailpipe of a car.

Malek, whose blood alcohol content topped out at more than four times the legal limit, continued trying to have sex with the tailpipe in the presence of officers until they used a taser to stop the vehicular sexual assault.

Like I said, I’m shaking my head.

In a Tuesday Thought I mentioned #PermitPatty, AKA Alison Ettel, the woman who called police on 8-year-old Jordan Rogers, a San Francisco girl, hoping to sell water to baseball fans in front of her apartment building.

Erin Austin, Jordan’s mother, captured it on her cell phone and posted it to Instagram. Ettel, who can be seen on her phone calling police, tries to hide when she realizes she’s being recorded.

Now known virally as #PermitPatty, Ettel has been described as not unlike so-called #BBQBecky, the woman who called police on a black family having a cookout in an Oakland park.

Ettel claims she politely asked Jordan to sell the water more quietly:

“Please, I’m trying to work. You’re screaming, you’re yelling.”

But then why not call the police for disturbing the peace? Why call the police because Jordan was selling water?

Oh yeah, racism.

Poor Sarah Huckleberry Sanders. The White House Press Secretary Liar, says she was asked to leave the Red Hen restaurant in Virginia, because …

“Last night I was told by the owner of Red Hen in Lexington, VA to leave because I work for @POTUS and I politely left. Her actions say far more about her than about me. I always do my best to treat people, including those I disagree with, respectfully and will continue to do so”

Awful; but now she knows how gay couples feel when someone won’t bake them a cake for their wedding … something her boss endorses.

Now she knows how it feels to be a transgender American and told you are not allowed to serve in the military …something her boss endorses.

Now she knows how it feels to be Muslim in America, Mexican in America, and Black in America and work for a man who thinks those folks are less than.

Take a seat, Sarah, there’s always Chick-fil-A.

Stephanie Wilkinson, owner of the Red Hen, explains why she booted Huckleberry: anti-gay and anti-trans bias in this White House.

Several Red Hen employees are gay and knew Sanders has defended Trump’s desire to bar transgender people from the military. Wilkinson asked them to tell her what to do and they all agreed she should be asked to leave.

And Wilkinson says she’d do it again.

Now, to be fair, I am no fan of any discrimination, but when you work for such a racist, transphobic, homophobic, anti-Muslim boss, you kinda get what you deserve.

Remember when Ivanka _____ Tweeted about how much of an ally she was to the LGBTQ community?

Yeah, that was a lie. I mean, go figure.

Last week Complicit gave a $50,000 personal donation to Pastor Jack Graham of the Prestonwood Baptist Church; Graham is a member of _____’s Religious Advisory Council and has a long history of anti-LGBT activism:

In 2014, Graham worked to repeal a non-discrimination ordinance in Plano, Texas.

In 2015, Graham lashed at out the Supreme Court for marriage equality.

In 2016, just before the election, Graham stood by after the “pussy groping” remarks.

In 2017, following the deadly “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Graham stood by _____ even after Hair Furor claimed that there were “fine people” among the white nationalists.

And now he’s got Ivanka’s support.

Ivanka? Kindly fuck off.

Womp. Womp.

Former _____ campaign manager Corey Lewandowski has been dropped by his speaker’s bureau after dismissing the story of a 10-year-old girl with Down syndrome who was reportedly separated from her mother after crossing the border illegally.

After his idiotic remarks, Leading Authorities, Inc., one of DC’s top speaker’s bureaus, severed ties with Lewandowski and his name no longer appears on the bureau’s website.

Womp.Womp.

Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane is rich and outspoken, and works for Fox. But that didn’t stop him from taking a swing at Fox News after Tucker Carlson had advised viewers not to believe anything they hear or see on a rival networks’ news program about the separation of immigrant families and to believe that Fox News is always telling the truth.

MacFralane Tweeted:

“This is fringe shit, and it’s business like this that makes me embarrassed to work for this company.”

And then he put his money where his mouth is and donated $2 million to support NPR’s Collaborative Journalism Network and another $500,000 to NPR’s membership station in Los Angeles, KPCC.

Nice. Now if he’d just take his show off Fox and hit them in the wallet.

The Cher Show, the musical based on Cher’s life starring three Chers … three Chers … (at different points in her life, is currently trying out in Chicago before heading to Broadway and this week the real Cher.

After the show, a reporter asked what she thought and, well, Cher being Cher, gave her thoughts:

“Some parts of it are really fabulous. We’re going to work on the other parts. In many parts, it was much, much better than I thought it would be. And there were no parts where I wanted to gouge my eyes out. It needs work. I’m not supposed to say that but I don’t care.”

Listen, it’s Cher, bitches, and she ain’t playing. Fix the parts that bored her or face the wrath of Cher and Cher fans.

Consider yourselves warned.

This past weekend we watched Man in An Orange Shirt on PBS’ Masterpiece. It’s the tale of two love stories, sixty years apart, that charts the changes and challenges in gay lives in England—from the era of jail terms to the onset of dating apps. It was beautifully shot, and sweet and sad and heartbreaking and hopeful and, naturally, had some hotties.

Oliver Jackson-Cohen [above]—whom I have featured here before, and who reminds me of a Brit Armie Hammer—played half the love interest in a story set in the days after WWII when being gay was a criminal offense.

The second story starred Julian Morris, below, as the Jackson-Cohen character’s gay grandson and his path through dating apps to finding love with Steven, played by David Gyasi, bottom. 

Like I said, sweet, sad, heartbreaking, hopeful. And hot.

Just sayin’.

Photo[s] of the Week: The Tale of MaxGoldberg and the Bad Storm That Never Came

MaxGoldberg, of the Boca Raton Goldbergs, is our nervous nelly of a cat. A strange voice in the house, a knock at the door, an unwanted sound, send him scurrying under a bed somewhere.

So it came as no surprise that, this week, as we listened to the news of the horrific storms and tornadoes that rumbled across the South and watched our local news warning us that we were in for the same bad weather: possible tornadoes, hail as big as a golf ball, straight-line winds in gusts up to 70mph, and possibilities of over a foot of rain, that MaxGoldberg would become even more uneasy..

Tuesday morning, Max took his post at the window checking the weather, watching the sky darken .... 

Then he made his report known to me before making his own decision ...

He spent the day hiding under the bedspread, waiting for a storm that never came.

Not a wind.

Not a hail storm.

Nary a drop of rain.

MaxGoldberg's motto is Better safe than sorry.

Or I ain't takin' no chances!

We Will Resume Our Regularly Scheduled Programming

AT&T just left.
They replaced the router, and the DVR that had the living hell shocked out of them, so it looks like ISBL will be back in business tomorrow morning with a new "I Didn't Say It...."
Until then......I cannot get enough of this song!

Blogging Suspended

Bad lightning storm yesterday!
Clap of thunder, flash of light, no internet, no cable!
Whatever shall I do?


Back tomorrow.