My Christmas Wish: Peace

I didn’t know what you wanted for Christmas, so I decided to regift y’all what I gave you last year … a repostage of my annual holiday wish. It still holds true, for me:

Christmas means a lot of different things to a lot of different people.

It's a religious holiday.
It's a shopping holiday.
It's a day for those who shop religiously.
I'm not a big fan of either.

For me, Christmas is a day to spend with those you hold most dear in your heart. And that’s Carlos and my family. Of course, the family is mostly on the Left Coast and I'm over here on the right, so Christmas is me and Carlos, and Ozzo, Tuxedo, Max Goldberg, and Consuelo Roca Jones—all our furry kids. It's a day of relaxation and togetherness; reflection and laughter; of a good dinner cooked and shared by the two of us. It's not a day for What did you get? or for thinking How could I have spent so much? It's a day for How lucky am I?

How lucky indeed.

Christmas is more than a celebration; it's a connection we all can share regardless of faith, if we look at it as a day of Peace. A day to relax; to forgive, if not forget. To be at Peace. Every year I get the same question from friends and strangers alike: What are you getting for Christmas? Or  What do you want for Christmas? And I always say, What I get is a lovely day. What I want—and I ask for it every year—is Peace on Earth.

So here's to Peace on Earth, and the little parts that each of us plays in creating our own peace. To make amends to those we may have slighted in the past year; to those who may have slighted us. To talk with the people we love just because we love them. To be nice.

Just to be nice. There's a concept.

Maybe if we all took a moment to think about how we'd like to be treated, we would find ourselves treating others the same way. It's a small step, but an important one. A Please here, and a Thank You there. You're Welcome is good, too, though My pleasure, is better. Hold a door open for someone; let someone with fewer packages get in line ahead of you. Lay off the horn. Don't speed. Smile. Be nice.

Be at Peace.
Merry Christmas world.
Happy Hanukkah.
Happy Kwanzaa.
Merry Festivus.
Happy Holidays.
Peace.

And so that's my wish for you and yours. Health. Happiness. Love. Peace. And, while I've said it over and over again, that I have my personal spiritual beliefs and they do not follow the teachings of any organized religion, every Christmas, no song makes me feel more peaceful, more happy, more at ease, more hopeful than this one.

And so, I'll end with O Holy Night, not because I am a religious man, but because I am a hopeful man, …

A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices

For yonder breaks a new glorious morn

…a peaceful man, a contented man. And no one, for me, sings it better than my girl, JHud … Jennifer Hudson.

I Didn't Say It

Madison Cawthorn, racist Christian nationalist GOP Congressman, speaking to college students at the Turning Point USA conference:

“I think you should home school. I was home schooled all the way through. I am proudly a college dropout. Unless you are becoming a doctor or lawyer or engineer, I highly encourage you to drop out.”

Don’t forget that he isn’t quite that proud because he bragged about his acceptance to the Naval Academy, though he was never accepted to the Naval Academy. That was just one of his lies, and no doubt something he learned being home schooled.

PS At this same conference Cawthorn told the students to “marry young,” and the next day Cawthorn announced that he and his wife of less than a year are divorcing.

He’s a stupid Christmas gift that keeps on giving!

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Aaron Sorkin, on the idea of casting only gay actors as gay characters in films:

“It’s heartbreaking, and a little chilling to see members of the artistic community resegregating ourselves. This should be the last place there are walls. Spanish and Cuban are not actable. If I was directing you in a scene and said: ‘It’s cold, you can’t feel your face.’ That’s actable. But if I said: ‘Be Cuban.’ That is not actable. Nouns aren’t actable. Gay and straight aren’t actable. You can act being attracted to someone, but can’t act gay or straight. So this notion that only gay actors should play gay characters? That only a Cuban actor should play Desi? Honestly, I think it’s the mother of all empty gestures and a bad idea.”

I do see his point, but this all began with the idea that casting gay actors in any role would hurt a film’s chances at the box office. Times have changed, and yet we still have that mentality in Hollywood.

Cast the best actor for the role, gay as gay, or straight, and vice versa.

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Sarah Palin, proving she is the OG Lauren Boebert, speaking on COVID and vaccines:

“Do you remember [Fauci] said that if you had Covid, you would be naturally immune? So at the time we were led to believe we wouldn’t need to have the shot. Well, then they changed their tune. Those of us who have had Covid, they’re telling us that even though we’ve had it—we have natural immunity—now that we still have to get a shot. And it’ll be over my dead body that I get a shot. I will not. I won’t do it and they better not touch my kids either.”

Or my goodness, you cannot fix stupid. Does Palin not know that science is an ever-evolving thing and as COVID grew and mutated and spread, perhaps the way we treated ourselves also changed.

Over her dead body? Careful what you wish for, dumbass.

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Anthony Fauci, White House medical advisor, on the idea that mask wearing on flights may be here indefinitely:

“I think when you’re dealing with a closed space, even though the filtration is good, that you want to go that extra step when you have people—you know, you get a flight from Washington to San Francisco, it’s well over a five-hour flight.”

You’re crammed in like sardines and social distancing does not happen. I wore a mask the entire flight to and from Oregon, and I will probably continue.

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Penn Jillette, magician, actor, musician, inventor, television presenter, and author, on so-called ‘Christians:

“The question I get asked by religious people all the time is, without God, what’s to stop me from raping all I want? And my answer is: I do rape all I want. And the amount I want is zero. And I do murder all I want, and the amount is zero. The fact that these people think that if they didn’t have this person watching over them that they would go on killing, raping rampages is the most self-damning thing I can imagine.”

I don’t need God to tell me not to lie cheat steal rape and murder, but if you do, perhaps you might need a rethink.

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Dolly Parton, on after breaking three Guinness World Records—for the most hits on the U.S. Hot Country Songs chart by a female artist … she’s had 109 …for the female with the most decades on the U.S. Hot Country Songs chart … she’s charted in each of the last seven decades … and the record for most number one hits on the U.S. Hot Country Songs chart by a female artist …25 of her songs hit the top spot:

“This is the kind of stuff that really makes you very humble and very grateful for everything that’s happened. I had no idea that I would be in Guinness World Records this many times! I am flattered and honored. I’ve had a lot of people help me get here. Thanks to all of you and all of them for helping me have all of this. I’ve loved being able to make a living in the business that I love so much. I’ve been so fortunate to see my dreams come true, and I just hope to continue for as long as I can. You’re going to have to knock me down to stop me!”

I don’t think anyone could stop Dolly!

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Bobservations

Y’all know Carlos set his Siri to speak like an English man; and y’all know Carlos has a Spanish accent. What you don’t know is the hilarity that ensues when Carlos asks Siri a question, as he did the other day, making a list of things he needed from the grocers:

“Hey Siri, make a note: two eight-ounce packages of Cream Cheese.”

And Siri responded:

“Twenty-eight ounces of Cream Cheese.”

That would’a been some cheesecake.

Later, Carlos asked Siri to set a time for 5PM, and Siri replied:

“Setting a timer for five minutes.”

But my favorite is the time Carlos asked Siri to read a text sent to Carlos in Spanish. The last word of the text was ‘Gracias,’ and Siri read it as ‘Gracious.’

It’s like Abbott and Costello with those two.

An unvaccinated Houston man is perhaps the first recorded fatality of the Omicron variant in this country. 

It’s like Christmas came early … Texas GOP Attorney General Ken Paxton has been one of Thing 45’s most rabid allies in spreading The Big Lie. Paxton created a team of lawyers to prove voter fraud in Texas, working over 20,000 hours between October 2020 and September 2021 and spending $2.2 million,  and closing three cases.

All cases in which a Republican voted twice.

Carlos and I don’t really buy each other a lot of Christmas gifts because, when we want something we get it. So, we usually do something like a weekend away, or buying something for the house. But there’s always a couple of little goodies I find for him, even though he says he doesn’t want or need anything.

This morning, Thursday morning, two days before Christmas, he says:

“I know something you can get me for Christmas.”

“What? A husband who asks for Christmas gifts before the 23^rd of December?”

Bless his heart.

If you didn’t think the GOP was owned by Thing 45 think about this: the Republican Party has agreed to pay up to $1.6 million in legal bills for Thing 45 to help him fight investigations into his business practices in New York.

They aren't spending that money to help members of their party get elected, just to help a liar and thief and conman and traitor who lost the White House, the Senate and the House, pay his bills.

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer has said the Senate will hold a vote early next year on the Build Back Better Act that would overhaul healthcare, education, climate, immigration and tax laws.

It probably won’t pass, thanks to Democrat Republican Joe Manchin, but it will get him on the record voting ‘No’ on a bill that his own state desperately needs,

Let him explain that to his constituents.

Due to his kidney issues, Tuxedo needs to go to the vet for blood and urine tests, Tuxedo was not in the mood to pee, so they gave us a litter box with sand and a urine retrieval syringe to take home to gather his pee.

Sunday night we put Tuxedo in one of the bathrooms with the litter box, a bowl of water, and his bed, and he settled down for the night. An hour later his meows started, though Tuxedo’s sounded like:

“OUT!!! OUT!!!”

Every few hours …

UPDATE: the results from Tuxedo’s bloodwork and urine analysis came back and his numbers are all normal, and he’s doing very well. He still has wobbly hind legs, but other than that he’s as delicious as ever.

Justice Joslin, a 34-year-old Nashville native, former football player turned model and actor, who looks good in and out of his briefs.

Would you hit it?

Architecture Wednesday: Shipping Container Penthouse

It’s not everyday that a shipping container home appears on the market and it’s almost never that the shipping container home is in New York City, so that makes this two-story penthouse particularly noteworthy.

Sitting high above West 31st Street in Midtown Manhattan this home was , it was designed by local firm LOT-EK, who repurposed a 20-foot shipping container into the home’s main bedroom.

And even though it’s a penthouse, it’s not a grand space, measuring just 860 square feet. But the home is made up of two distinct parts; the lower level is the open floor plan public spaces, with details like concrete walls, exposed pipes, and steel doors that pay tribute to the home's past as the building's mechanical room. There are also expansive windows, including a large bay window on the southern wall.

LOT-EK expanded the property by setting a shipping container atop the lower level which contains the primary bedroom and a multifunctional loft area.

But one of the best parts is the outdoor spaces, the gardens, and the up-close view of the Empire State Building.

It was listed for $995,000m but sold for more than $1.2 million.

Still a steal.

Dwell

My What a Big Butterfly You Have

Of Course He’s A Thing 45 Supporter …

… He’s using the man’s playbook.

Republican, and former football player, Herschel Walker’s campaign deleted a false claim posted on a website promoting his Georgia U.S. Senate bid.

The part deleted said Walker graduated from the University of Georgia [UGA] “with a Bachelor’s degree in Criminal Justice” except that’s a lie.

It’s a lie that has been heard everywhere, including in an online biography advertising Walker’s book, at a campaign rally for his bid to unseat Democratic U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, and even during his introduction this year at a congressional hearing.

So, he knew about it, he heard it announced at a couple of events, and he never once said, Oh wait, that’s not true? Did he forget that, while he did attend UGA and he did study criminal justice he left school in his junior year to play in the USFL my junior year.”

Oops. Liar, liar, run as a Republican.

Monday Giggle

This Bitch: Tom Cotton

Republican Senator Tom Cotton, who is overly concerned about the alleged loss of masculinity in the world, which is leading to the downfall of America, has refused to confirm the Biden administration's US attorney nominees in Blue states until Democratic Senator Dick Durbin apologizes for interrupting him during a committee hearing last March.

Durbin said Cotton's hissy fit broke with custom, and added that Democrats never held up US attorney nominations during the last administration despite having the power to do so, and said:

"Given the critical role that these US attorneys play in bringing justice to those who violate federal criminal laws, it is hard to imagine that any member of this body would obstruct efforts to confirm these law-enforcement officials. Doing so could threaten public safety and puts at risk millions of Americans' security. It's also a stark departure from what has happened before."

But manly man Tom Cotton maintains that "courtesy and collegiality and respect" need to be a "two-way street" in the Senate:

"If there are not consequences when rules and traditions are breached in this institution, we will soon not have rules and traditions. I have also said that if the senator from Illinois would simply express regret for what happened that day and pledge that it wouldn't happen again, I would be happy to let all these nominees move forward."

Cotton was talking about a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing nine months ago for Vanita Gupta, who was nominated by the Biden administration and later confirmed as an associate attorney general at the Department of Justice.

Durbin, who chairs the committee, interrupted Cotton’s, and other Republicans attacks on Gupta to force a vote, after which she was narrowly confirmed by a bipartisan vote, with Alaska GOP Senator Lisa Murkowski casting the lone Republican vote of support.

And Durbin did apologize for interrupting Cotton but said Republicans forced his hand in their attempt to block a vote on Gupta's nomination by invoking an obscure Senate rule to prevent the committee from meeting after midnight.

And now Tom Cotton’s panties are still so twisted, nine months later, that he is holding up even more votes, so here goes …

I’m sorry Senator Cotton. I’m sorry that a butthurt asshat such as yourself was ever elected to Congress to do the work of the people but stops working because someone made him mad.

Tom Cotton, This Bitch.

The Funny Papers

Marc Murphy, Darrin Bell, RJ Matson, Nick Anderson, Deb Milbrath, Clay Bennett, Kevin Siers, David Horsey, Bill Bramhall, John Cole, Mike Luckovich, Michael de Adder, Matt Wuerker, Chris Britt, Jack Ohman,

I Ain't One To Gossip But ...

One day last week Kanye West begged Kim Kardastrophe West to “run back” to him.

The next day Kim Kardastrophe West filed documents to become legally single.

Ouch. Kardastrophe also wants to restore her maiden name and officially drop the ‘West’ surname she shares with Kanye and their four children. Ouch.

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Oh for the love of the goddess, I do wish Caitlyn Jenner would sit down and shut up. I mean, I had hoped that after she landed in the bottom, well, below the bottom, in the race to be governor of California, that she’d go away, rethink her life, and come back maybe a little smarter. I.Was.Wrong

Backstory: in 2019 LGBTQ+ ally George Clooney announced he was boycotting the Beverly Hills Hotel because its parent company, the Dorchester Collection, was owned by the Sultan of Brunei, a country that stones The Gays to death, but Caitlyn, not so LGBTQ+ ally-ish,  never said a word about it.

But now Caitlyn is boycotting the Beverly Hills Hotel because … and this is rich … and this is from a71-year-old woman … the hotel refused her entry into the Polo Lounge for breaking their dress code; and Caitlyn will explain, as she did in an Instagram Story:

“@bevhillshotel %$@& your horrible service for not letting me have lunch with this tiny rip in my jeans. Shame on you, Disgusting, I have been a patron for decades. No longer.”

Yes, stoning The Gays to death doesn’t irk Jenner, but not allowing Nana into lunch because she’s dressed like a teenager with ripped jeans set Miss Thing off.

I’ve said it a thousand times and will say it once more: Dear Caitlyn, kindly fuck all the way off.

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There’s nothing more disgusting at Christmas than a tiny self-entitled cult member destroying the environment for a little publicity.

Yes, Little Tommy Cruise ALLEGEDLY flew his private jet across the Atlantic to Los Angeles and then back to England where he’s been filming Mission Impossible: Get Tom To Visit His Daughter Suri to deliver 300 holiday cakes to the crew.

Did he do that because he’s a tiny man with a giant ego, or because there are no bakeries in the UK.

Fuck the environment, it’s Christmas and Tiny Tim, er, Tom, wants to let his crew eat cake.

PS In the photo it looks like Tom ate all the cakes before delivery.

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I have never seen The Goldbergs though for a while I thought it might be a show about my cat, MaxGoldberg. And I had never heard of Jeff Garlin, who plays Murray Goldberg in the show and now that I have, I wish I hadn’t.

Garlin has been fired from the show for “inappropriate behavior,” but he is trying to brush off the kerfuffle by saying his actions were “silly,” and that he was a “hugger” and had never been told that the women he, um, hugged, did not care for it. He also says he never knew he offended anyone, and then says it’s true that the show’s human resources department had spoken with him three times in the last three years about his conduct. Jeff, to his discredit, put it like this:

“If I said something silly and offensive, and I’m working at an insurance company, I think it’s a different situation. If I, as the star of the show, demanded a gun range and on set, and I was firing guns every day and I was a little bit loose—to me, that’s an unsafe work atmosphere. If I threatened people, that’s an unsafe work atmosphere. None of that goes on ever with me. That’s not who I am. I am sorry to tell you that there really is no big story. “

And that’s when the really big story broke and it goes like this: a camera assistant made a complaint about Garlin’s use of the word vagina and after Garlin learned of this he ALLEGEDLY put his hands around her and kept saying “vagina” in her face over and over again. He was also reported for failing to use female crew members’ names, and instead gave them offensive nicknames. The last straw came the day when Jeff ALLEGEDLY went full-asshole on a female stand-in—who is married to a male stand-in—and screamed at her as she walked off the set after blocking a scene:

“Why are you always in my way? Get the fuck out of my way.”

And then he shrieked at the woman’s husband:

“Tell your wife to get the fuck out of my way.”

And to paraphrase another show that has gotten rid of cast members … And Just Like That Jeff Garlin was gone, though not entirely. Since he had one more day of shooting in Season 9 the show will film with his stand-in and … this is the best … will superimpose Garlin’s face into the show in post-production.

MaxGoldberg is said to be disgusted by this smear on his good family name.

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When last we left Madonna she was giving us Wicked Witch of the West in fishnets, Louboutins and a pudgy ass realness, to which her ‘friend’ 50 Cent scoffed at and laughed at and called her out for it. Now, Fiddy apologized after Madge exploded on social media, but our Madonna is so desperate for any kind of publicity—why didn’t she just fly a cake to Fiddy’s house—that she has continued to blast the rapper for being mean to her; she went on Instagram, because that’s what she does, and said:

“Delayed Clap back for 50 cent And his fake apology  ….…..,.. Ive been busy, better late then [sic] never!!! Had. some things I needed to say.”

For the love of the goddess, one would think with all her money Madge could either afford an education, or at least enroll in an English class, or pay someone to post for her. And then she goes on:

“You were trying to shame me. Your apology is fake, it’s bulls–t and it’s not valid. It’s not hard to find footage of me and you hanging out. “Number two [Bob’s note: no clue where ‘Number one’ went], an apology is not valid if you don’t know what you’re apologizing for. What you should be apologizing for is your misogynistic, sexist, ageist behavior and remarks.

“Number three, you didn’t hurt my feelings, because I didn’t take it personally. I could never take it personally because you’re not coming from an enlightened place.

“Number four, you say you’re not benefiting from it. Of course you’re benefiting from it, that is what social media is all about.”

Wow, for someone who didn’t take the apology seriously, she certainly went to town over her displeasure.

Get a life, Madge, seriously.

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