Monday, February 21, 2011

fill 'er up, please.....

is it me, or has anyone else noticed that lately there has been a rash of untimely celebrity deaths?

first there was anna nicole smith. back in february of 2007, she died of a drug overdose. i said celebrity, and with that, i guess i have to include minor celebrities, because she was no marilyn monroe, by any means. she was playboy's playmate of the year, back in 1993, (and i'm guessing her enormous breasts had a hand in that). gaze upon her, if you dare:

http://www.askmen.com/celebs/women/models/59_anna_nicole_smith.html

she went on to become a spokesperson, model and tv personality. she modeled for guess jeans and lane bryant, (which meant she was a fat girl. i'm not being unkind. everybody knows that lane bryant is a fat lady store. i know it because my mother, who was a huge woman shopped there.) still, the larger than life, larger than most of us, reality star was at least famous enough to warrant our noticing her untimely demise. The circumstances were shady, at best. she was preceded in death by her son, (of a drug overdose), and then had a custody battle for a daughter she supposedly bore with her octogenarian husband, (i doubt that). the battle raged until her death of a drug overdose. (i see a pattern here). anyway, the whole thing was tragic, assuming you gave a shit at all about her, or her big knockers, or her career.
next up is the king of pop michael jackson. i should start by saying i really liked his body of work; beat it, thriller, bad, all of it. and it was a long impressive career. but he is fifty years old and dead of a drug overdose. most of us had guessed long ago that he was essentially a mess of gargantuan proportions. where does one begin? the monkey? the triangular pyramid under which he slept? (no offense to that particular cult of people. i love triangles. i especially love isosceles triangles. hell, i love geometry in general). the bleaching of the skin? the twenty-seven nose operations that left him with the nose of a muppet? the glove? the sequins? the underpants on the outside of his costume? two male children both named prince???, oh my, i've gone too long, but you get the idea. mess with a capital M.  for those of you who doubt me, gird your loins and see for yourself:

http://www.myentertainmenttoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/scary-michael-jackson.jpg
he was making a comeback after years of fighting child molestation charges, for which he was never convicted and never did hard time, (sleeping in the bed with all those kids, hmmmm.....do you ever wonder?  i don't.) and just like that, his doctor administers the drug propofol, to help him sleep.  that, on top of valium and other drugs, caused him to die from cardiac arrest.  (well, my dear doctor, he's sleeping now, isn't he?)  the personal physician pleaded not guilty to involuntary manslaughter, and is out on bail, but he clearly killed him with an overdose, at least in my opinion. 

and now this, just in.....

on january 11th, porn star sexy cora dies on an operating table in germany while having plastic surgery.  she wasn't a world famous porn star like linda lovelace, or marilyn chambers, but she had her following.  ordinarily this would not be such a big deal, until you read the details of this particular plastic surgery.  she was a buxom blonde with a nice rack to begin with.  she went on to pierce her tongue in several places with silver studs.  (one can only imagine how that plays in the porn films.  actually, i wonder how that feels.  i'm kidding.  i know exactly how it feels). but she wanted a bigger set of boobs ostensibly to make her a bigger star. so she had surgery after surgery for a total of 5, to enhance them, growing finally to a 34F cup.  (now i don't know about you, but before i was gay, i dated a girl with a 34D cup and almost suffocated.  her melons were huge.  i was way out of my league.  i had no idea what to do with them.  it didn't make me gay, but it certainly didn't help any, scaring the life out of a poor young college student). i'm thinking a 34F cup is a huge pair of ta-tas. this is her, btw, sexy cora.  knockout, no?  certainly well-suited for porn.  guys, don't let your wives catch you looking at this:  oy.........

http://www.spike.com/photos/sexy-cora/32096/st/67518 

but she had to have that 6th surgery, to get to that 34G arena, where few have gone before. the doctors in poland refused to do it, but she found some silicone happy docs in hamburg, germany who apparently thought growth hormones for her would be a good idea.  (didn't they see the pixar movie last year called up?  sometimes, with enough inflation,  you just float away). i can just hear her now, laying on the operating table:

fill 'er up boys.  i want 28 ounces of silicone in each puppy.  that ought to get me some fancy film contracts, not to mention, laid.

poor thing never got up from the table.  she just lay there, pinned under her giant melons, crushed to death, lifeless.

the doctors have been charged with negligent manslaughter, and are awaiting trial.  (shouldn't there be rules about this stuff?  well, it was germany.  probably a more lax society than ours, with less rules.  they're way ahead of us on some things, but i think they need a little more regulation on this one.  kind of like fertility doctors in this country doing what they do, and kate gosselin popping out a tribe of eight.  i mean, come on.  there's something just not right about that, i'm thinking.  so why are boob doctors trying to enlarge the emergency flotation devices planted on this porn star's chest?)

what can we take away from all this?
1)  don't do drugs. 
i, for one, don't, (anymore).  let's all start with that.  kids, adults, don't do drugs for fun. not even the prescription kind. (if you're looking to get high).  they're readily available and the pill mill industry is thriving (perhaps a subject for next week), but that doesn't mean it's ok. (well, it was ok in the '60s because most of us were young and stupid.  besides the choices were way better back then. we had quaaludes). but not anymore.  ok?

2)  don't have enormous tits.
wait, that didn't come out right.  i meant, ladies, if you have smaller than desired breasts, and you'd like some enhancement, i say go for it, within reason.  (and of course, my within reason could be way different from yours).  plastic surgery is indeed our friend.  we can have our noses fixed, our butts lifted, our boobs enhanced (well, not me, but.....), or our tummies tucked.  (see a chorus line, tits and ass.)  hmmm.  if i could, though, i'd most likely have penis augmentation. (ooh, i love the very sound of that.  i've never been huge in that department, to tell the truth.  it would certainly make me enormously popular, especially in the gay world.  i'd be a manly stud but i'd probably stop at nine inches.  i could go for twelve, but i wouldn't want to die on the table before i got to try it out.  i mean, what good is it to be a hung adonis, if you're dead?)  but gals, if you already have these goodyear dirigibles attached to your front end, just be happy with their size, and don't try to squeeze them into the guiness book.  first of all, they probably won't fit, and secondly, you  might not live to enjoy it.  seems to me that a 34F cup is more than enough for most men.  and if it isn't, i think maybe those guys are playing for the wrong team. 

Saturday, February 12, 2011

he loves me, he loves me not.....

i wrote the other day about two of the greatest hoaxes ever perpetrated upon america, the starbucks thing, and the boar's head thing. tonight's epistle is not about hoax or fraud, (although i must admit there is a hint of it in the air). it's about a very odd tradition called st. valentine's day.

you all know the story of the origins, so i won't bore you with them. (a man named valentinius lived back in ancient rome, when young men, possibly soldier material, were forbidden to marry, because single guys were more willing to fight and die for mother rome, than were men with loved ones. he performed the marriages anyway, against the will of the emperor, and was found out and murdered and became a christian martyr. you did know all that, right? should i have said spoiler alert?) anyway, it was such a romantic gesture that it is suspected of being the origin.

but all of that aside, today, in modern times, valentine's day is a big deal on several levels.

1) single people
of the world, who think it's a load of crap. i can just hear them seething.

let's just pick a day to make us single guys and gals feel miserable. i'm a happy person all year long, and single by choice, because i want to be, but somehow on valentine's day i can't venture out into a restaurant because i'm alone, single, and loving life, but there's no significant other on my arm and couples will gaze upon my independence and pity me. ME??? spare me your pity. think about it, people, it's one day, out of the whole year. i mean what's the point? you either love and have someone all year or you don't. why the fuss over one day?
(see, there's a groundhog thing going on here. one insane day perpetuated by.....if we only knew....).

then there are the couples. they fall into categories as well.

a) new couples.

oh geez, everything is romantic to them. the moon, the stars, cupcakes for two, crying together watching lady and the tramp, (ok, the guy's a dork, but she loves him with his tears.) for them, valentine's day is an excuse to do cutesy things, that actually make the rest of us a little nauseous, but if you say that out loud, you're a curmudgeon, so we smile and kvell a little for young love and all its glory. (i actually do. deep down, part of me is a sentimental old fluff. and hey, i was young once. a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far,away.)

b) old couples

they've been together awhile. i'll get back to the gay couples in a minute. let's talk about straight couples. (wow, could i do a chapter or two about what straight men don't get, about valentine's day. the women will be cheering in a minute.). women are more romantic than straight men. period. straight men love manly things. sports, beer, golf, fraternizing with other men, (but not for sex), but including bragging, boasting, talking trash, exaggerating, and general camaraderie. kind of like grown up college boys. women are more sensitive, loving, caring, better human beings all round. (i know, i betray my own sex, but of course i'm talking here about straight men), and it's all too true.

so this one day rolls around, and the female half of the equation generally buys into it, that her man ought to show a little emotion or affection by way of a gift. a card. a box of chocolates. a surprise dinner out. some acknowledgement that he has access to her vagina. something. and a lot of guys get it, and they do it. some out of love, some out of fear, some out of i just don’t want to hear i fucked up, but they do, god love ‘em.

some don’t. no punani for them on the 14th.

c) the gays. my people. we get it. we know romantic love better than ennis del mar and jack twist (brokeback mountain, for you beginners). and it’s the same with us. some guys go all out. my friends, the ones where one half of the couple is, shall we say, a fussy eater? (see earlier blog). the two of them are so romantic. they do the nice restaurant thing, and sometimes jewelry. ah romance. it’s nice. and i love them for that. they told me today, that rather than go out to a crazy overpriced restaurant with poor service because the staff is overworked on a day like today, they bring in chinese food, set it up on the coffee table and sit on the floor in the living room, by the fireplace and have a romantic dinner. (well, they don't have a fireplace, it's florida, ok?) but they put the dvd of the fireplace on the tv and cozy up and feed each other with chopsticks. kindof chinese lady and the tramp. (i might have made that last part up.) but they're true role models for romance in the gay world.

d) the non-romantic gays. to them, it’s a night where, as a couple, there are specials at happy hour on drinks, or they cash in on valentine’s day special dinners around town, because they are a couple. but it’s a little like a free meal at denny’s on your birthday. not packed with a lot of emotion or love.

as for me, husband and i are good. we have love every day. don’t need a dinner out or jewelry. (thank god, because quite frankly, i can’t afford diamonds). we know we’re in for the long run, and that’s enough. i love him, he loves me, and that’s the way it’s supposed to be. (catchy song lyric, no?)

so who’s perpetuating the st. valentine’s event these days?
hallmark? godiva? ftd? madison avenue? best buy? (i actually saw a commercial that said, buy your honey a kindle. talk about romance!) i’m not sure who's behind it, but i do know, as sure as punxatawnie phil is going to poke his little head out next year, and the huddled masses will pay heed, that there will be some cards, roses and candy circling the globe on the 14th.

so the truth is, this one’s as big a hoax as any of them. the difference is, that by the end of the day, there will be a lot of couples smooching, happy, getting laid, and renewed in their love and relationships, all for the price of a box of chocolates. not a bad deal, when you think about it.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

a trip to the drugstore.....

hi, i'm back.

i've told you the story of husband's cold, the week before christmas, and how he handles it so differently than i do, and how i most likely wouldn't catch it from him.

well, you have to promise not to laugh at me, (and i have very good hearing from my old bartending days, so i'll know if you're sniggling). ready?

i caught my very own cold. Didn’t need to steal his at all.

oh, i know, i said i wouldn't get sick. It couldn't happen to mois. best laid plans.....yada yada.

oh, it started out innocently enough. i felt a kind of tickle in the back of my throat for a night or two. then, one morning, it was full-fledged sore. battle stations. let the airborne begin. every four hours the fizzy was in the glass. i doubled up on vitamin c, i took aspirin several times a day, anemia be damned, but by day three, my nose was running and i had a drip, in the back of my throat to rival the tapped maple trees of vermont. this annoying dripping stuff, causing me to cough, which meant, bring on the cough drops, lozenges, and alka-seltzer plus. that all afforded some relief, but i needed more. so off to walgreen's i went.

now, i might have mentioned in husband's illness blog that i never get sick. well, now i have to amend that to i almost never get sick, so it's literally been years and years since i've had a cold, flu, or any general malaise, if you don't count congestive heart failure, catheter procedures, being defibrillated with people placing paddles on your chest and yelling clear, and ablations. i guess i never get runny nose sick, is really what i mean, so i have no idea what products are available these days and which are contra-indicated with other meds that i already take. so as i said, i was off to walgreen's for an adventure.

right off the bat, there's some funny stuff going on in walgreen's and i'm surprised they get away with it. first of all i head for decongestants, and it's as if i've stepped into a puzzle. there's claritin sitting on a shelf right next to wal-tin. i read the ingredients and they're identical, but walgreen's version is generic and half the price, which leads me to two questions:

1) why would anyone in his/her right mind, buy the brand name when the identical drug next to it half the price? and
2) why does claritin put up with those kinds of shenanigans, being undercut right in your face, as if to say, hey claritin, your crap's expensive?

as i look around i see robitussin next to wal-tussin, benadryl next to wal-dryl, and my beloved alka-seltzer cold plus, next to walgreen's effervescent cold-plus, the identical plop-plop, fizz-fizz. suddenly, my eyes espy my sacred airborne, and, what's this?... wal-borne on the shelf right next to it? all these years i've been paying retail, like the gentiles, when there was a generic? clutch the pearls! i am cut to my quick. i quickly scoop up a couple of boxes and try to act nonchalant as i put them in my cart. i'd be mortified if anyone knew the truth. oh, and there's one more i must add, at this point, my favorite which is yrtec, sitting next to wal-zyr. what genius dreamed up that alternative name?

hey ma, i'm sick. dyin' in here.
shut up and take some wal-zyr and go back to bed.

in addition, there are some drugs that aren't even on the shelf anymore. just their pictures, particularly sudafed, or wal-fed. if you want to purchase those, you take the picture to the druggist, he pulls the actual drug from behind the counter, you sign forms indicating that you can prove who you are and are not drug shopping, so as to take this stuff home, go down in your basement, and turn it into crack cocaine and smoke it, which is precisely my very first thought every time i catch cold in the first place. now if i could only get my hands on some crack cocaine, and smoke it, and fill my lungs with deadly acid smoke and accelerate my heartbeat to 180 and rot my teeth, i'd feel better. duh!!! i need to get sick more often, just to stay in touch with what's out there.

so, i'm not sure what i really need, standing in front of the wall of commercialism that makes this great nation what it is, a giant morass of consumerism, so i look at the worker-bee next to me in the aisle. the $10/hr worker, who's stacking shelves with boxes of depends, with one hand and texting her bff with the other, and opt not to ask her advice. i mosey over to the pharmacist, who's supposed to know a thing or two about a thing or two, and ask him,

me: which of these products might be good for a cold?
him: claritin, he answers. or sudafed.
me: for coughing?
him: oh, you didn't mention coughing, that would the robitussin.
me: will the wal-tussin do?
him: yeah, same thing.
me: how about the post nasal drip thing?
him: oh, ya got that too?
me: yeah, that's what's causing the cough.
him: oh. ok. try the mucinex.
me: will the wal-mucus do?
him: yeah, same thing.
me: will i be overdoing it taking all of these at once?
him: do you have high blood pressure? (now he asks me? after suggesting all that crap?)
me: no, fortunately for me (and you, asshole), i don't.
him: then you should be ok.
me: thanks. i'll need you to give me the sudafed, or wal-fed.
him: no problem, i'll just need you to sign a few things and show me some id.

so, about twenty bucks later i exit the store, satchel in tow, knowing i'll be better in a day or two.

later that week.....

so, i'm better. the wal-mucus stopped the drip, the walgreen's effervescent cold relief stopped the runny nose, the wal-tussin stopped the cough, and the wal-fed gave me a wicked buzz. (no wonder that stuff's regulated. if i'd felt better, that might have been fun. mixed maybe with a quaalude and a vodka chaser?.....but i digress). i'm better now, and this whole episode reminds me of what my grandmother (the kosher one) once said to me.....

bubele, a cold is 10 days. it's 3 days coming on, 3 bad days with you, and 3 days leaving you, and one last achy day finally beginning to feel good again. not much you can do.
just roll with it.
(funny, she learned that in a shtetl in russia and there wasn't even a walgreen's. just some chicken soup. or perhaps, wal-soup.

feel better.

Sunday, February 6, 2011

can you see me now?.....

i can't let this one go by.

i've been bothered by this for years, and now that i have this venue, i feel the need to vent a little bit. bear with me.

yesterday, we are all to believe, is the annual event known as groundhog day. you all know the drill. it's all about punxatawnee phil, the little rodent from the town of the same name in pennsylvania. it seems that tradition has it, that every february 2nd, he pokes his furry little head out of the ground, and if he sees his shadow, (i'm guessing it frightens him), he goes back inside, and the united states of america is stuck with six more weeks of winter. hmmmm. if he doesn't see it, he stays out and what? basks in the overcast? heads to the beach on a cloudy day? am i the only one to realize that this entire process has nothing to do with the groundhog and is simply a matter of is the sun out today? why, i repeat, why, do we need the groundhog? why can't we just be adults and say, if it's cloudy on february 2nd, winter is over, (even though that's a thoroughly moronic thing to say), and if it's sunny, winter is not? are you following me on this? it's been going on since the mid 1850's, and i'm sure by now, the little furball is old and tired of being blamed.

the winter of 2011 is already going down in the history books as among the most brutal in a very long time. storm after storm has pummelled the nation, people are snow weary, snowbound, snow blind, snowed in, and snowed under. seems the only word with snow in it, that's nice, is snowbirds, the smart ones who escape. (did i mention i was outside in the pool yesterday for an hour, swimming my new year's resolution laps? the water was toasty, and it was 82 degrees outside. ah winter in south florida, but i digress.)

i was watching diane sawyer and her world news last night, and the snow is a bigger story than the demise of that egyptian guy, whatshisname? it was the number one item on the news. so the fact that the little rodent was celebrated as the harbinger of spring seems foolhardy at best. i saw in that broadcast that there is another storm on its way to dump more snow across the nations middle section. calendar-wise, there are six more weeks until the actual first day of spring, and this little roadkill creature is supposed to cheer up the frozen millions? people slipping and falling on sheets of ice in atlanta should be soothed? twenty-seven thousand tons of snow were moved by snowplows in chicago. think they feel any better about old punxatawnee phil's marvelous prediction? i'm very mistrustful about this whole business, and have been for years.

maybe we should devise a new method of determining when winter is over.

how about this: we send old farmer brown out with a pick. he raises it over his head and strikes the ground with it as hard as he can. if he hits dirt, winter is over. if he hits an impenetrable sheet of ice, it is not. no? too simple?

how about this: we put the cat out on the night of february 1. in the morning, if the cat is ok, winter is over. if the cat is frozen solid, it's still winter. that might work.

wait, wait, i have it.

we take a bucket of water and put it outside on february 1st. when we wake up on february 2nd, if the bucket of water is sitting in the shade, winter is over, (and it's probably a bucket of ice), and if the bucket is in the sun, winter is not. much easier. that way we can retire old phil, and let him live out his golden years in miami. and like all the other snowbirds down here, he won't look at all odd, even though he's still wearing his fur coat.