Bobservations

Carlos was having trouble with his iPad last night. With his eyesight, he can still read some things on the screen, but he needs it to be in dark mode, and he had done something to change it back to light and asked me to fix it. And I did because I’m nice like that. Then he said the volume needed to be increased because when he was dictating to the iPad he said, and I’m quoting:

“I like to hear the clink clink clink of the dictation.”

I fixed the volume and said to him:

“You know what  like to hear? The sound of your feet moving you out of the office.”

I swear it’s pure comedy gold around here.

Whobert? Honey? It was thing 45 who closed the schools back in 2020, you dimbulb. But then what do you expect from a “Good” Christian woman who, earlier this week, prayed that that Joe Biden would die. Again.

I caught some of the Grammy’s and here’s what I thought … I loathe Beyoncé. I don’t find her the Second Coming in music and I find her a lying pandering hypocrite. As she won an award she thanked God, her dead Uncle, her parents, her husband, her three kids and, wait for it, the hypocrisy stings, the “queer” community. This after doing a concert in Dubai and being paid tens of millions of dollars to perform in a country that outlaws homosexuality. Fuck off, Bey.

Cheers to Kim Petras for being the first out--Thanks Jon--transgender person to win a Grammy in the best pop duo/group performance category, and for Sam Smith to win as the first non-binary artist; they won for their song ‘Unholy.’

Lastly, Madge’s face. Now people are playing off the outrage over Madonna’s appearance as ageism, but it’s not; it’s WhatTheFuckism. I missed the intro so I saw this person walk onstage, speak in a strange voice, not Madge’s usual British accent, and look just odd. As I began to realize it was Madge, my thoughts went from ‘Egads, her face’ to ‘Is this why her Madonna film was shelved? So she could star in the reboot of 'Hellraiser’?

With people calling it ageist to comment on Madge’s new face, I thought, let’s contrast and compare, using Cher, Madonna’s BFF as an example. This year Madonna is celebrating 40 years in music, and has a tour planned to commemorate that feat, so up top is a picture of 24-year-old Madonna from the early days alongside 64-year-old Madonna from last weekend.

Below that is Cher, also from 1983 when she was 36-years-old and contrasted with Cher, who’s been in show business for sixty-plus years,  from 2023 at age seventy-six.

Both women have had work done, but only one has crossed a line, and, again, that’s not ageism, but WhatTheFuckism.

PS And don't give me the line that Madonna looks like that because she shaved her eyebrows; t's the lips and eyes and cheeks and chin, too.

As Tyre Nichols sat propped against a police car, bloodied, dazed and handcuffed after being beaten by a group of Memphis police officers, Officer Demetrius Haley sent a photograph of Nichols to at least five people, including two fellow officers, a civilian employee of the department and a female acquaintance.

Demand police reforms.

Pete Santilli, conservative rightwingnut,  has blamed the earthquake in Turkey and Syria on Sam Smith’s demonic Grammy performance.

Yes, he says that God was so incensed at an Englishman wearing a horned hat and singing a song on TV in California that She sent an earthquake to the other side of the world and murdered over 10,000 people.

Let that sink in.

It’s almost Valentine’s Day and you know what that means: revenge gifts … like having your ex’s name engraved on a cat litter box.

The Animal Friends Humane Society , an Ohio animal shelter, offers this service to fundraise and, more importantly, help the heartbroken by letting them be petty! So, if you’ve been dumped or scorned, cheated on or mistreated, dedicate a litter box to the one you used to love. The gesture will cost $5 per box; the promotion will run until February 12, and the shelter will then reveal all the sponsored litter boxes, names included, in a Facebook post on Valentine’s Day.

Ain’t Revenge Grand?

I really need a pair of socks like this, just to see the looks on people faces as I cross and uncross my legs.

Y’all know what a fan I am of the professional sportsball stuff, right? And I especially like that this year the Quarterbacks for each team are both Black men for the first time in history with Kansas City Chiefs Patrick Mahomes, top left, going up against Eagles QB Jalen Hurts, top right. And then there are two brothers playing on opposite teams in the big game. Bottom right is younger brother from the Chiefs, Travis Kelce, while bottom left is the older brother from the Eagles Jason Kelce. All that means nothing when the real question is: Which One Would You Hit?

I hate to boast, but I really think my response to Large Marge was sheer perfection and, dare I say it, even more comedy gold?

A VD Meme ... Courtesy of Dr. Spo

I took this little quiz at Spo's spot yesterday and thought I'd share my answers here, too. Let's rip ...

Where you first met: In an AOL chatroom; so last century! In person was at the Ft Lauderdale airport.

How did you meet: He commented on something in the chat, and I replied to him, and we started talking.

First date: At a small Cafe on Las Olas in Ft Lauderdale July 11, 1999.

How many years together: We celebrated twenty years last fall.

Age difference: I am one year older than Carlos.

Who was interested first: I think it was mutual while online, but when we moved to speaking by phone, his accent sealed the deal for me.

Who is taller: I am.

Most obnoxious in-laws: I like his family, and he likes mine, so I don’t think we have obnoxious in-laws.

Who said “I Love you” first: I think it may have been Carlos.

Worst temper: I have the worst temper though I do keep it in check. Carlos is VERY easy-going.

Most sensitive: Definitely me.

Most annoying habit: He doesn’t listen and I talk to much, so maybe our annoying habits feed off each other?

Most forgiving: We are good at fighting, getting it out, and moving on. I think this is a tie.

Loudest: Utterly and always me … even when he plays the trumpet!

Who has the most useless facts: My father says my head is filled with superfluous data so I win this one!

Funniest: I am more often funny, but when Carlos gets funny, it’s hilarious because it’s unexpected.

Who wears the pants in the family: We each take control of the things in out little family; one rule we have kind of explains that: I take care of what goes INTO the cats, and he takes care of what comes OUT of them.

Most stubborn: Me.

Falls asleep first: Carlos falls asleep in seconds.

Most impatient: Me.

Better driver: Since Carlos no longer drives because of his vision, it’s clearly me!

Biggest neat freak: Neither and both?

Most social: Carlos. I don’t like people; I kid. But I am more of a loner, homebody person.

Least likely to remember to do what the other one asks him to do: Carlos. I have a fabulous memory!

Most competitive: Carlos.

Best cook: I am a better cook, while Carlos, as I like to say, is a MasterBaker. He’d be MasterBaking all day long if he could.

Who is the handy-person: Carlos is the fixer, while I am the painter in the family.

Here were are in New York in about 2005? 

Degas Sikorski Has A Few New Valentines

Degas Sikorski works, or used to wark, at a Party City store in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. He hasn’t been scheduled for a while, but decided to show up to work this past Valentine’s Day when the store employees were having a party. When he got there, a supervisor had made gifts for all the staff, and he gave a special one to Degas that read:

"Faggot! You are not getting shifts for a reason!”

Sikorski, who has been openly gay since he was fourteen was stunned at the “gift.” His mother, Shelley Bramhoff Sikorski, however was livid, and took her anger to Facebook and asked that the story of what happened to her son be spread; it went viral. 

And it caught the eye of openly gay Edmonton Centre MP Randy Boissonnault who tried to find a way to show his support:

“I said, ‘Well Degas has allies. I’m an ally. These colleagues are allies. The prime minister is an ally.’ I texted my team ‘Please find a very nice Valentine’s card and bring it to the House.’”

Boissonnault signed the card before getting others to do the same. Newfoundland MP Seamus O’Regan and Treasury Board President Scott Brison, who are also both gay, wrote messages; as did Minister of Democratic Institutions Maryam Monsef and Minister of Status of Women Patty Hajdu. And then Randy Boissonnault asked one more person to sign the card

“Dear Degas, Know that your friends outnumber the haters by the millions and I’m one of those friends. Justin Trudeau”

Degas was shocked that the Prime Minister had taken the time to sign his card:

“I want to give him a hug. I’m just shell-shocked about Justin Trudeau signing it. Living in Edmonton, so far away from Ontario, you never picture hearing anything personal from the prime minister. To know that he has my back is beautiful.”

Randy Boissonnault personally delivered the Valentine’s Day card to Degas during a brunch meeting, and brought along a photograph of Trudeau writing the note:

“I told him the story. [Trudeau] said, ‘That’s not right. Let’s write that young man a message.’ We went into his office. He sat down and signed this card. As soon as I explained the story, people were like, ‘Where’s that paper? Where’s the card? How do I sign?’ Ministers and parliamentary secretaries and MP colleagues were thoughtful. People have seen this happen in their own lives. Nobody should be experiencing that kind of behaviour at work.”

Degas Sikorski no longer works at Party City, and the company has no response to the story. Degas initially filed a police complaint, but said he dropped it because he does not want the person or persons responsible to get a criminal record. However, he said he will be filing a human rights complaint.

Boissonnault, right, who came out in his late 20s, said Sikorski’s experience with the Valentine’s card resonated with him.

“I remember being outed painfully by people. I could empathize with what he might be feeling by receiving an attack like that in the workplace. You’re just you and you’re awesome for being you. Why should anybody attack Degas for who he is in the workplace or anywhere else? It’s just not acceptable.”

As for Sikorski, he is now focusing on his schoolwork and looking ahead to volunteer opportunities within the LGBTQ community. He is also holding on tightly to the messages from the prime minister, cabinet ministers and other politicians in Ottawa.

“I’m speechless. I have so much love for everyone who has been supportive this whole way.”

Oh Canada … we have so much to learn from you. I knew we’ve come a long way with LGBT rights in this country, and I know there are some members of Congress who might reach out the way Boissonnault did, but I am pretty sure the majority of Congress couldn’t be bothered to sign a card like that.

I do know, however, that President Obama would have signed it, and I’m fairly certain a President Hillary Clinton or a President Bernie Sanders would have signed one. I am not sure about President [t]Rump or Cruz, or even Kasich.

All the more reason to vote Blue in November; keep equality moving forward.

Huffington Post

Global News

Monday Ruminations

So, homophobic Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died over the weekend, and lotsa folks on the left rejoiced. I didn’t. He was a human being, obviously flawed, badly flawed, but he was a human being.

So, I am sorry he died, but I am not sorry he’s gone from the Supreme Court. And I am hoping that now we’ll get a less conservative, less judgmental, less hateful voice as a replacement.

I did love, though, how the GOP immediately announced that since Obama is his last year in office and since this an election year, that he should not nominate a new justice.  Imagine the vitriol the GOP would spew had the democrats suggested such a thing. 

Oh, and this was another time that Ted Cruz lied. He said no president, in an election year, has ever nominated a replacement justice for the court except … lie.

It’s happened numerous times but Ted Cruz doesn’t care about hat; he just acres about the lie. Imagine a Ted Crux hissy fit — emphasis on hissy — if he were president and the Congress vowed to block him at every turn. His little head would implode and he’d turn tail, and head back to Canada, whimpering all the way.

And speaking of DetesTed, he’s visiting our little corner of South Carolina today, just a couple of miles from Casa Bob y Carlos. And last week, a woman appeared at my job with leaflets and invitations to hear Cruz speak. She asked me to give them to my boss and then said, Take one for yourself, too.

I replied, No, thanks.

Aren’t you a Ted Cruz supporter?

No.

May I ask who you’re voting for?

No, you may not.

But not Ted Cruz? Why?

Well, look, this is where I work, so I’d rather keep the conversation away from politics, thank you.

Oh, I was just asking …

Then I’ll tell you …

And off I went into a tear about Ted Cruz lies, about Ben Carson leaving the race so his people could scoop up those voters, about his mailer in Iowa suggesting people would be ticketed with voting violations if they didn’t show up to caucus. He lies, and we don’t need that as president.

I told her that I was a legally happily married gay man and that Ted Cruz has vowed to make same-sex marriage illegal and why would I vote for anyone who seeks to deny me equality and to turn back the clock on LGBT rights?

Thankyouverymuch.

Now, more pleasant thoughts …

Carlos and I are not big on the made-up holiday of Valentine’s Day … sorry Hallmark.

I don’t need a special day to tell Carlos that I love him, or buy him chocolates or flowers or whatever it is they’re selling. I can, and do, do that every chance I get.

But Carlos had a Valentine’s Day treat for us — mostly because it was one night only, on the fourteenth — so last night we went out to our local Fine Arts Center to see The Danish String Quartet, with Decoda with jazz vocalist and Sarah Elizabeth Charles.

The Danish String Quartet — four hotties …  violinist Frederik Øland, violinist Rune Tonsgaard, viola player Asbjørn Nørgaard, and cellist Fredrik Sjölin … with gorgeous instruments — appeared at the Louvre in Paris last Thursday and their next stop was, yes, Camden, South Carolina, before heading up to Lincoln Center for a performance.

How’s that for a cool tour schedule. Paris, Camden, New York.

And they were so good, first appearing onstage with Decoda — more on them — and then finishing out the show with a non-stop, one hour performance of Beethoven’s No. 16 in F Minor. As a musician himself, Carlos was amazed that they played non-stop for that long, even though it flew by.

We also saw Decoda, a large group of musicians who perform together, or in smaller groupings — we had six of them last night … cellist Claire Bryant, violinists Owen Dalby and Meena Bhasin, cellist Kris Saebo, bassoonist Brad Balliett and jazz vocalist Sarah Elizabeth Charles — who formed in the Ensemble ACJW fellowship program, created by Carnegie Hall, The Juilliard School and Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute.

They appear quite often in South Carolina and at our Fine Arts Center, and just last week held a week-long seminar and classes at the Lee Correctional Institution — yes, a prison — giving inmates help in writing and performing music as a way of expression.

They even performed one of the inmate’s pieces, Ecclesiasts, done as a spoken word price with the ensemble, though it was written as a rap by the author.

And the program ended with both groups onstage to perform a traditional Danish folk song … a very cool, very civilized, very lovely, way to spend the day …

Random Musings

Wow, Valentine's Day, AKA Made-up Holiday. 
I hate when the world makes you feel like you must be in love, and you must say 'I love you,' and you must buy the card, the candy, the flowers, the dinner.....
Carlos and i do that every day, so we get to take today off.

Now, let's start with some funny, and by funny I mean that Idiot Known As Donald Trump getting smacked down .......again:

What's the deal with the beautiful Billy Brown?

Last season he became the new cop on Dexter and then he was killed off this season.

Then, I find him on The Following a couple of weeks back and a week or so ago he gets stabbed in the neck and dies.

Can't someone hire him to play a character that lives?

Is that asking too much?

Jeanne Manford, the founder of PFLAG who died last month at the age of 92 [read my post HERE] will be awarded the 2012 Presidential Citizens Medal, the nation’s second-highest civilian honor, in a ceremony on February 15.

President Obama said, via press release: "It is my distinguished honor to award these individuals the 2012 Citizens Medal for their commitment to public service. Their selflessness and courage inspire us all to look for opportunities to better serve our communities and our country."

A quite deserving honor for an amazing woman.

Now, onto anoth'a moth'a ..... Cissy Houston.

She apparently was mighty pissed off that Clive Davis would throw his annual pre-Grammy party this year after her daughter Whitney died last year just before the party.
She called it the epitome of bad taste, and yet ....
She's all over TV the anniversary of Whitney's death hawking the book she 'wrote' about her daughter and her struggles with drugs and their really-not-so-good relationship.
What's good for the goose, Cissy....
Take your own advice and stop talking.

So, we all know I am an awards show whore, and one of the reasons happens to be married to The Good Wife star Julianna Margulies.

Her husband, Keith Lieberthal is one of the most beautiful men ever, and even a brief glimpse of him on the red carpet, or sitting by her side, warrants a DVR playback, stop and pause. He’s the kind of guy who's so gorgeous, that if you saw him in public, you'd stop, look back at him, while pretending to look at something else so your husband doesn't get jealous--and we all know who I mean by that--and the just stare.

Seriously. Even now I can't stop staring.

Plus, he's also a Harvard educated lawyer. Hot, smart and straight.

Two outta three ain't bad.

That FauxNews, they really know how to fact check over there.

In one of their stories about the importance of, um, opposite-sex marriage, they posted a lovely photo of a bride and groom atop the Empire State Building, but had they taken a nanosecond to check out the photo--who's to say it's even a real photo?--they might have learned that the lovely couple is Stephanie Figarelle and Lela McArthur, the first same-sex couple to get married at the Empire State Building.

So in the last  season of Desperate Housewives Max and Charles Carver played the Scavo twins, Preston and Porter. They were 'cute' but, yeah, that was about it.

Now, that's them, back in Teen Wolf and I'm thinking, had they looked like that on the DH those housewives would have had something else to be desperate about.
M'kay.

So, Marco Rubio, rising GOP star. 

You were given the plum assignment of giving to Republican response to President Obama's State of the Union message and yet all anyone remembers is how thirsty you were.

Way to represent.

No, seriously, you totally represented the GOP and their position.

On water.

Vladimir Uruimagov, coach of a London 2012 gold medal-winner, says gay rights activists with a vendetta against masculinity are behind plans to cut wrestling from the Olympic program:

“If they expel wrestling now, that means that gays will soon run the whole world.”

Um, Vlad? If The Gays are gonna run the whole world dontcha think we’d wanna watch sweaty men in tight-fitting onesies wrestle?

Just sayin’.

And now, the Tweet of the Week, in response to the Pope deciding it was 'just too hard':

Just For Giggles: The Ghost Of Valentine's Past

Funny Link

Happy Millions of Dollars for Hallmark and Florists Day

Happy St Valentine's Day............Massacre

Al Capone's most notorious killing was the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. 

Eighty-one years ago today, on February 14, 1929, four Capone men entered a garage at 2122 N. Clark Street. The building was the main liquor headquarters of bootlegger George "Bugs" Moran's North Side gang. Because two of Capone's men were dressed as police, the seven men in the garage thought it was a police raid. As a result, they dropped their guns and put their hands against the wall. Using two shotguns and two machine guns, the Capone men fired more than 150 bullets into the victims. Six of the seven killed were members of Moran's gang; the seventh was an unlucky friend. Moran, probably the real target, was across the street when Capone's men arrived and stayed away when he saw the police uniforms. As usual, Capone had an alibi; he was in Florida during the massacre. 

Okay, so I'm not really a cynic, and I do believe in love, but seriously, do we need an entire day being told we must celebrate it? Or can we choose to celebrate it every day?
Carlos and I aren't big on Valentine's Day, which i call a Made Up Holiday. I love Carlos every day, and tell him so every day, and don't need a box of chocolates or a bunch of red roses on February 14th to tell him so.
So, let's pretend this is any other day of the year.
I love you Carlos, Happy Monday.

Happy Valentine's Day

And may everyone have a heart on.