Fair Journey

off to the Folsom St Fair in San Francisco. I need some distraction right now. I’ll take pictures.

Paul

My very dear friend Paul Mulder passed away this morning.

Paul is dead.

I still can’t believe it, though I was not surprised when Dave called me today to give me the news. Funny, I was planning on stopping to see him on my way back from San Francisco next week. I wrote about Paul and his battle with full blown AIDS a few weeks back-the link is here:

http://richeyrich.wordpress.com/2008/08/06/a-trip-i-really-dont-want-to-take/

It’s a cold, grey sunday in LA. It’s March in the year 2001. I just landed a job, and it looks like I’ll be able to stay in LA and make a go of it after all. George W Bush is in his second month in office. I’m in line at the Faultline, waiting to get into the Sunday beer bust. He’s standing there behind me. I’m immediately drawn to him- his tall, lanky frame, his imposing presence. But most of all – and I can still see it in my mind’s eye to this moment- I ‘m drawn to his sparkle, in his face, upturned to the sky as he smiles, welcoming the first drops of a March rain. 

It’s September 14th, 2001. Fuck the news, fuck the terrorists, Paul still goes on with the annual “gay camp” at his house with the huge backyard out in Sylmar. “Camp itchy crochy” has been a LA bear tradition for years, and many, many guys, still shell shocked from the week’s events, show up to forget the fear for that night at least. Paul has gotten me to bring my 16mm projector and some old 1960′ TV shows that i had collected syndication prints of. Paul introduces me to many people that will soon become close friends.

It’s August, 2003. San Diego -or rather, the home sex party in El Cajon that we’ve all come down to …  attend. Paul, Dave,Ned, Patrick, and I are there. Someone produces several tablets of that relatively new drug, Viagra. We all pop one. Paul says “Great! Now we can all be Superman.”

It’s sometime in 2004. I’m waiting at the Cinerama Dome on Sunset Blvd for Paul to show up. We’re both meeting up there to see a showing of “How the West Was Won”, to be exhibited in it’s actual Cinerama format. As I’m waiting for Paul to show up, This guy who looks just like Steven Spielberg walks up to the box office with this young kid. My God. It IS Steven Spielberg. He’s here to see the film, too. Paul shows, we go into the theatre, take our seats, and Mr Spielberg is seated right behind us. Like RIGHT behind us. At the intermission, we are so amazed and stoked by the indescribable movie experience that is Cinerama. Believe me-IMAX has got Nothing on Cinerama. picture 3 imax screens blended together. Get it? That’s Cinerama. ruinously expensive. That’s why only 3 theatres on earth can still exhibit Cinerama films. Both Paul and I spend the entire 20 minute intermission in a huddle with Speilberg and we’re all exitedly gushing about the experience. Spielberg hasn’t sexperienced it since he was a kid and it’s an excitiing moment for him that he is eager to share with us. Nobody around us recognises Speilberg. we talk and talk.Paul and Speilberg get into shop talk. Paul was a special effects and prop builder.

It’s 2006. In the last two years, Paul has nose dived. We think that sometime around 2004, he found he was positive. He never told us, but circumstances lead us to believe that it sent him into a meth fuled nose dive. In two years, he lost his home, his job, his friends. He stole, he ranted and raved at everyone in public. I had never seen or dealt with such a rapid change in someone. We tried intervention. It didnt work. One night, Dave and I went out to Symar after Paul had threatened Suicide. He wasnt there.Just some meth phantoms who were by that time camped out in his home. I behaved and responded abominably. I walked away from him. I couldnt help him , he didnt want help. He was screaming for help. I saw him at the eagle one Saturday night. The place was packed. Paul showed up. I ignored him. He confronted me, and in front of 300 dumbstruck men, he screamed bloody murder at me and spat full into my face.

It’s 2007, late December. Paul is so much improved. He’s dealing with his meth addiction and getting his life back together. We bury the hatchet.Water under the bridge. I tell him I love him too much to hold a silly grudge.

It’s summer 2008 and Paul has full blown AIDS. In fact, Dave learns that He’s in an ICU near Bakersfield. We drive down there to see him. He tells us he’s not ready to go yet. I leave feeling that maybe he’ll rally this. I know in my heart that the end is near.

It’s this morning, September 23 in the year 2008. I’m in Downtown Los Angeles at the Civic Center. My cwell phone rings. It’s Dave. Paul is dead.

How odd it is to be crying uncontrollably in Civic Center plaza, and all the way home on the subway.

 

Charlie (left) Paul, And Greg

clockwise, from bottom: Jim (in sling) Andy, Me, Sam (at top) Dave and Paul (in the blue glasses) ~2003

Tom, Ned (in overalls), Me, Sam, Jim, and Paul ~ 2003

Cat of the Day

I‘m so proud! The Bug made “Cat of the Day”. I was so busy last week, I never checked the site. Then, Yesterday I was looking at the “past cats” thumbnail pictures, and I saw the 9/15 cat. I thought he looked kinda like the Bug, so I clicked on it and voila! It’s MY cat. I entered both him and William about a year and a half ago, and the Bug finally made it.

Below is a screen capture, and Here’s the link to the page if you want a closer look:

http://catoftheday.com/archive/2008/September/15.html

Yeah, I know. How gay can you get? I even “speak”for him. Hopelessly Homo.

Ghost Story

As some of you may know, Friday last, we had an awful rail collision about 20 miles from here in Chatsworth (incidentally-right near the location of Charles Manson’s hideout) in the Santa Susana Pass. A Metrolink commuter train blew through a red signal and slammed, full speed, into an oncoming Union Pacific freight train. There were 25 deaths and hundreds of maimings. It is believed that the Metrolink engineer was too fucking busy TEXT MESSAGING  (yes, you read that right), to be bothered by little things like..ummm…HIS FUCKING RESPOSIBILITY FOR HUNDREDS OF LIVES, 25 OF WHOM ARE NOW FUCKING DEAD BECAUSE OF HIM.

But I digress.

The tragedy occured at approximately 4:25pm Friday afternoon

Charles Peck, 49, of Salt Lake City, Utah, had flown in that morning to LA for a job interview. He was very excited, because this job would be his ticket to a move to sunny California, where his fiance, Andrea Katz,  lives. He took the Metrolink train for the hour and 30 minute ride from Bustling Union Station to quiet little Moorpark, where Andrea was to meet him for a romantic weekend.

That hour and 30 minute trip instead now stretches into eternity for Charles Peck.

at 5:03pm, Andrea was just pulling into the Moorpark station when she heard over her car radio of the collision. The details were sketchy at that point, but there were reported deaths. Andrea’s heart felt as if it had been wrenched from her and thrown down a well.

 She Knew Chuck was on that train.

 At 5:45pm,  her cell phone rang.

 The screen showed it was Chuck. Frantically she picked it up, hands shaking, relief filling her whole being. “Chuck! Thank God! are you ok?”

Nothing could she hear but faint rustlings on the other end. Static. Dead silence.

As she had earlier, when she first knew he was aboard the train, she called his cell phone. “Chuck, if you can hear this, please know we’re going to find you! You’re going to be ok”

“I love you” she said.

Then, over the next several hours, Chucks mother recieved her call from Chuck’s cell phone.

Static. Rustling sounds.

Chuck’s sister, his boss in Salt Lake City, his friends, his associates. All recieved calls from Chuck.

All were the same.

Static.  Queer Rustling sounds.

In all, 35 phone calls were recieved from Chuck’s cell phone.

Frantically, they left him voice messages:”Chuck! hang in there!” Chuck! they’re coming for you, hang on!”

Then, as mysteriously as they began, the calls ceased. Forever.

Charles Peck’s body was recovered the next morning from the wreckage of the train. It is uncertain where he was on the train, in eithr the first or second car. Both were destroyed in the wreck.

What is certain is that Charles Peck was most certainly killed instantly. His body was mangled completely, his head twisted nearly off and his lower head ripped apart at the jaw. He was identified by his wallet.

His Cellphone, to date, has not been found.

The phone calls remain unexplained.

“He was a gentleman — so insightful, always present. The love that we had for each other is enough to last a lifetime.”

— Andrea Katz, fiance

 

Charles Peck, 49

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hope

I’m reprinting in full an email I received today that gives me hope. I hope it does the same for you.
Enjoy the great pictures at the bottom.

 

[The] Alaska Women Reject Palin rally was to be held outside on the lawn in front of the Loussac Library in midtown Anchorage.  Home made signs were encouraged, and the idea was to make a statement that Sarah Palin does not speak for all Alaska women, or men.  I had no idea what to expect.

The rally was organized by a small group of women, talking over coffee.  It made me wonder what other things have started with small groups of women talking over coffee.  It’s probably an impressive list.  These women hatched the plan, printed up flyers, posted them around town, and sent notices to local media outlets.  One of those media outlets was KBYR radio, home of Eddie Burke, a long-time uber-conservative Anchorage talk show host.  Turns out that Eddie Burke not only announced the rally, but called the people who planned to attend the rally “a bunch of socialist baby-killing maggots,” and read the home phone numbers of the organizers aloud over the air, urging listeners to call and tell them what they thought.  The women, of course, received some nasty, harassing and threatening messages.

I felt a bit apprehensive.  I’d been disappointed before by the turnout at other rallies.  Basically, in Anchorage, if you can get 25 people to show up at an event, it’s a success. So, I thought to myself, if we can actually get 100 people there that aren’t sent by Eddie Burke, we’ll be doing good. A real statement will have been made.  I confess, I still had a mental image of 15 demonstrators surrounded by hundreds of menacing “socialist baby-killing maggot” haters.

It’s a good thing I wasn’t tailgating when I saw the crowd in front of the library or I would have ended up in somebody’s trunk.  When I got there, about 20 minutes early, the line of sign wavers stretched the full length of the library grounds, along the edge of the road, 6 or 7 people deep!  I could hardly find a place to park.  I nabbed one of the last spots in the library lot, and as I got out of the car and started walking, people seemed to join in from every direction, carrying signs.

Never, have I seen anything like it in my 17 and a half years living in Anchorage.  The organizers had someone walk the rally with a counter, and they clicked off well over 1400 people (not including the 90 counter-demonstrators).  This was the biggest political rally ever, in the history of the state.  I was absolutely stunned.  The second most amazing thing is how many people honked and gave the thumbs up as they drove by.  And even those that didn’t honk looked wide-eyed and awe-struck at the huge crowd that was growing by the minute. This just doesn’t happen here.

Then, the infamous Eddie Burke showed up.  He tried to talk to the media, and was instantly surrounded by a group of 20 people who started shouting O-BA-MA so loud he couldn’t be heard. Then passing cars started honking in a rhythmic pattern of 3, like the Obama chant, while the crowd cheered, hooted and waved their signs high.

So, if you’ve been doing the math…  Yes.  The Alaska Women Reject Palin rally was significantly bigger than Palin’s rally that got all the national media coverage!  So take heart, sit back, and enjoy the photo gallery.  Feel free to spread the pictures around to anyone who needs to know that Sarah Palin most definitely does not speak for all Alaskans. The citizens of Alaska, who know her best, have things to say.

 

 

N*GGERLOVER!

Niggerlover.

That’s what one angry Ohio Democrat called me on Saturday.

I was phone banking at the Democratic HQ on Saturday, and the results I got, when I actually got a live person on the phone, was discouraging. Most of the people I talked to (or AT, depending on how you look at it) responded to the question “Will you be Voting for Senator Obama on November 4th?” with very emphatic NO’s. Most I spoke to were women. The creature who spoke croaked the titular epithet to me was female. All were from the Cincinnati area.

All of them were also registered Democrats.

It’s interesting how it’s done. You’re given random pages from voter rolls with lists of names, phone #’s and frequency of voting info. they then ask for your driver’s licence. In exchange, you ‘re given a cell phone and are sent to a folding table with a printed script to talk from. You then have to mark off the following in the response area

Y = yes -voting Obama

N = No, no Obama (you may NOT, under any circumstances challenge or question a call-ee)

LM =left message

BN =bad number

NA = no answer

items of interest (or not)

FOUND ITEMS WHILE ON THE GOOGLE:

I was going to post about a most awful example of tattooery seen yesterday at the gym. The offending artwork is on the right and left shoulders, just on and above the huge, buging biceps of this hot young guy.  On his right boulder, he has a sort of fey Jesus, in an eastern orthodox sort of way. He has almond eyes, dark skin, and that eternally bored-with-it-all-just-get-on-with-it look that all Eastern orthodox dieties have. His face is surrounded by batwing-ish things, like dried leaves or something. Truly awful.

On his poor, unfortunate left boulder is this truly stunning horror. It’s ( I can only assume) the virgin mary.  She has an awful, pouting overbite, with two buck teeth. She is wearing a nun’s headgear, not at all unlike this:

And she’s surrounded by a heart shaped garland of garish, blood red roses.

I was going to blog about that.

But while I was googling images of ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN ICONS, I came upon some images that I wish instead to ruminate upon just a bit.

Image number one:

This is Leslie Christianicon. No kidding. That’s her name. Google it yourself if you don’t believe me. I dont’t know why, but her image really piques my imagination. Who is this enigmatically ….. interesting looking woman?

where is she from? Is she necessarily human?

how do you know?

Dont you think that she looks just a bit like this martian?

I’m just sayin’.

 

 

 

 

I bet Leslie Christianicon is a very pleasant lady, who enjoys a nice broiled chicken breast now and again, with some lovely greenbeans, and a nice fruit compote for dessert.

I love her neclace thingy, too. It’s amazing what you can do with a few loose nickels.

Next we have a very typical example of the “please just kill me now before I die of boredom” school of religious iconic painitngs:

 Man, even the kid looks desperately bored. Either that, or he’s intently staring at a zit on the side of her nose.

I mean, really, why so much boredom? True, they lived before the dawn of time, when there wasn’t even VHS to eek out some kind of entertainment, and no air conditioning or deodorant or flip flops or even swimming pools, so I guess we’d all look constipated too.

 

 

but still, I was thinking: Bright, wonderful, vibrant winners today know how to take a snappy, winning picture.

 

Maybe something more like THIS:

 Yes, indeed.

 

MUCH more appropriate, I think.

 

 

 

 

Don’t you?

Battle stations

I‘ve been in a state of inertia due to depression and despair owing to my family problems, and it was compounded last week by the torrential outpouring of loathesome, vile bullshit from the Republican convention. I’m not going to re-iterate what has been said about that Palin piece of shit. Enough virtual ink has been spilled about that miserable slat, and I’m not going to get into that right now….not yet.

I’m going to tell you about two of the positive, bright lights that have pierced the gloom, and made these 2 weeks bearable. Those two bright lights are the Civil Partnership  W E D D I N G in Liverpool, UK of my Friends Mark and Eian, and the M A R R I A G E (!!!) of My friends Rob and Fuad in San Francisco.

Because of these events, and to help in whatever way I can to see that millions of other “Robs and Fuads” and “Mark and Eains”in California are able to enjoy this right, I’m going to work on both the “NO on 8″ campaign and the OBAMA ‘08 campaign. I’ve signed up with the Local Democratic HQ here in Van Nuys, and from there I’ll learn how to help with the NO on 8 campaign as well.

Look , it’s one thing to wallow in self pity and bitch and moan and be depressed sitting around watching old Spencer Tracy films, and it’s another  thing to get off one’s lazy ass and DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. there is simply too much at stake this time around to just vote. I need to get involved and DO SOMETHING.

For those outside California, Proposition 8 is the ballot initiative to amend the state constitution to ban forever equal marriage in this state. If it passes, Gay men and women will be forever denied the basic right to marry that any other tax paying citizen has. Rob and Fuad were able to marry only because a group of “activist Judges”* overturned the earlier prop 22, which was a ban on gay marriage because it was found to be unconstitutional. Those bastard judges had the nerve to to their job and apply prop 22 to the constitutional test. It FAILED it. Now we have Prop 8, and I have no reason to believe that people will do the right thing and vote this down without A lot of persuasion.

So my free time is probably gonna be …ummm…limited frome here on till november 4th, but I gotta do it.

 

I CHALLENGE you to do the same.

Lastly but not leastly,

a heartfelt thanks to all of you folks who’ve put up with my BS in the last 2 weeks and shown me compassion which has really helped me immensly.