Monthly Archives: June 2011

Bargument

Ever had a bargument?
Sure you have, you know it!
A few drinks at the local pub
and your logic starts to show it
taking stands you never would
if you were clean and sober
but suddenly it’s clear to see
the chip there on your shoulder
you think you’ve a point to make
so you’re damned well gonna make it
then you see there’s a pint to take
though you really shouldn’t take it
you dig your heels in and
as the night goes on just more so
the silver lining being
you’ll not remember it tomorrow.

VANCOUVER!

Vancouver! Hang your head in shame!
I’m Canuckian but I know,
It’s just a bloody game!
There are many other things,
Worth protesting in the street,
But not because your home team,
Went down to defeat,
You win some and you lose some,
Advice ya’ll might want to save,
Now you’ve set Lord Stanley,
Spinning in his grave,
Your team lost in honour,
Despite the season’s works,
And you go and repay them by
Being pathetic jerks.

Those people…

Have you ever bought a newspaper and then forget to read it?  This happens to me all the time, especially with my favorite Sunday Editions of The New York Times.   At $6 dollars each, they are as expensive as a paperback novel, and probably contain as much writing.  I enjoy the Sunday New York Times, even though a lot of my peers give me grief for its liberal bias.  So what?  I watch Fox News too, and you can’t say that they don’t have a conservative bias.  You see, there’s two sides to every story, and I enjoy reading, listening, and watching both the liberals and the conservatives.  This entire country was founded on discourse, debate, and heaven forbid, compromise.

At any rate, last night I was cleaning up the man cave and I stumbled across the March 13, 2011 edition of The New York Times.  Good grief, that was a while ago.  The paper is already fading as some papers tend to do under the elements and time.  I’m now catching up on the past if you will.

Turning the pages I come to the Weddings/Celebrations pages in the Sunday Styles section.  I don’t know why, but I read the fabulous wedding announcements and I can’t help wonder, who the hell are those people, or is it, these people?  They look great, and reading their short bios I’m intrigued by how the majority of them come from wealthy families and places, have super awesome jobs, and are genuinely, not like us.  I’m lucky if I find a good deal at an outlet store, and these people are sporting the finest linens.

Not that I’m jealous, I’m just wondering what it would take for my sons to make it to the back pages of The New York Times Style section.  This fills me with a certain amount of dread that perhaps I’m not providing enough for my family in order to have this kind of lavish lifestyle.  I am partially comforted by the fact that I am able to provide for my family, we have clothes on our back, food on the table, a roof over our heads, health insurance, and books, oh yes, lots of books.  And yet I wonder about those people…

Alaska’s Finest

Ever since you went down south,
Not once have you ever shut your mouth.
You say so much and yet say nothing.
Meaningless words that just keep coming.

Which papers do you read daily?
How difficult can that question be?
Evade it. Avoid it. Talk around.
No direct answers to be found.

I really try but can’t figure out,
Just what on earth you’re talking about.
So please stop talking, take a breather.
Cause I don’t think that you know either.

You do not represent nor speak for me,
Former governor of Alaska, Sarah P.

A funny thing happened on the way to my apartment…

Now that was weird. Earlier today as I was walking home from the tram stop, I recognized the woman who was getting her hair done at the same time I was getting mine done on Saturday. I think she and the salon owner might be friends because they both come from Iran and were speaking Persian to one another while I was there. I was headed home and listening to Lullaby by The Cure when she looked straight at me, obviously recognizing me. I smiled and nodded back, but as I mentioned, I was listening to my music and not in the position, nor the mood, to have a conversation with anyone.

A minute or so passed and I felt a tap on the back of my shoulder. I turned around and looked. It was her. I took my earphones out, thinking that she probably just wanted to say hello. Instead she took a small handbag out of her shopping bag and then reached in the small bag and removed two lipsticks. She said that the handbag and the lipsticks were new, that she had just bought them for 200 SEK, but that now she was out of money until Monday. Would I please buy them for 100 SEK? I looked at the handbag and it didn’t look new to me. There were no tags on it and it looked faded and worn. And only one of the lipsticks was unopened. The shrink wrap on the other one was broken.

I usually pay for things with my bank card and very rarely carry much cash. The grand total of cash I had on me was one 20 kronor bill (approx. $3.15) and a few coins. This is hardly anything. I honestly and sincerely didn’t have the money to help her and I told her this. She then continued to beg me to buy the items. I said that I understood and wished I could help her but I just didn’t have enough money on me. She looked like she was going to cry at that point, but she finally understood, and I finally was able to continue walking home.

I’ve seen many beggars and I’ve occasionally given them money to them, but I’ve never experienced anything like someone trying to sell me used makeup and handbags before. If I had a significantly larger amount of cash then I might have helped her out, but I wouldn’t have taken her used stuff.

Weird. It was just weird.

WOTD: gastronomy

Today’s word is inspired by the fabulous lunch I had this afternoon with colleagues at one of the finest restaurants in Sweden. Sjömagasinet (The Lake Warehouse) is a Michelin starred restaurant that was until recently owned by Chef Leif Mannerström, a world-class chef who is one of the celebrity chef host/judges of Master Chef Sweden. In 2010 he sold the restaurant to Chef Ulf Wagner, another world-class chef who won the Chef of the Year award in 2010. The restaurant just happens to be located a short walk away from where I work, although today was the first time I’d eaten there.

I love food, you see. Everything about it. I love cooking it, reading about it, watching TV shows about it, and especially eating it. The word given to the art and science of good eating is our word of the day: gastronomy.  It can also be defined as the study and appreciation of food and culture. A person who is well-versed in gastronomy is called a gastronome. I’m not sure if I’m one yet, but maybe one day…

Today’s lunch was a piece of halibut that was good enough for Jehova. It was perfectly cooked, sitting in a pool of the most beautifully complex lemon butter sauce, and topped with chopped fresh parsley, sun-dried tomatoes, and roasted pine nuts. Oh god…it was so good I had to hold myself back from gobbling it up in two mouthfuls. Instead I took small bites so I could savor every single well-developed flavor in every bite. It was easily the best food I’ve ever eaten in this country, and one of the best meals I’ve ever eaten in my life. Possibly the best.

Now I know where to take my family for lunch or dinner when they arrive in a few weeks. If you’re ever in Gothenburg you simply must try this restaurant. I was blown away by how good the food was.

Rip the lid off…..

I don’t know if I should even be writing this really. I just don’t know what else to do, and I don’t think I can sleep at the moment.
I don’t have the right to cry really, and yet I do. He’s a friend of a friend, from San Francisco. I’ve never met him. Don’t know him. Don’t have any connection. But my friend knows/knew him well.
24 years old. A young, beautiful gay man. Filled with joy de vivre, a true lust for life, perhaps to the point of naiveté about his own safety. Mexican born, he liked to dress up in drag and go out. Not the flamboyant over-the-top kind of drag queen, but just transsexually; to dress up so he looked like a young Mexican girl. He would go out and have fun, mostly at a local club, where he was known for being fun and flirtacious.
He has been missing now for 2 days. The FBI have come by to talk to the family. They have recovered a burned body found in a garbage bag. The body fits his description, but they have to do dna tests because of its state to identify it.
The family is religious, and hopeful, but it doesn’t look good.

Despite my distance from the situation, it rips my fucking soul out. Absolutely crushing. I want to cry, and scream, and wail things like what is wrong with this world, but that’s not enough. Maybe they will catch who did this. Maybe they will even go to prison. However that won’t change the fact that a large percentage of the people in power, in the very system that might actually put the perpetrators in prison, right down the line to your average Joe, from top to bottom in society, will still either not give a shit at all because of this persons gender, appearance, and sexual preference. Some will even laugh and joke privately with each other, saying things like one less queer, or he got what he deserved, etc, etc.
To say it infuriates me is a massive understatement. The people who do these things walk among us. Live among us. Ride the bus with us. Okay, put them in prison, but don’t let it stop there. Post their pictures, and their whole life stories publicly. Let people know who they are, where they come from, where they worked. Spread the information in everyway possible about what kind of people do this. Show that they are not just freaks and outsiders and good ole boy rednecks. They are connected to segments in society and that should be shown, and magnified, put under the goddamned microscope and examined. Go further than that. Where are the massive public education programs that emphasize the right to be different, and show the cowardice that the fear of that difference is based on? Where is the public outcry?

This is a hatecrime, a pure and simple bald-faced disgusting hate crime. Every such crime should be thrust into the light. No secrets. When people murder because they are just afraid of anyone who is different, society needs to react with its full force. But it does not. Not by a long shot.
We need to rip the lid off.