Bravo Metropolitan Museum!

A few weeks back the Metropolitan Museum removed the scaffolding that had obscured the front during its refurbishing. I was struck by how handsome the building was. Not only was it nice and clean, it was free of the huge banners they always used to advertise the current exhibitions. There were normally five banners, including three huge ones that sometimes flapped noisily in the breeze. I thought I wouldn't have very long to enjoy the sight of the unencumbered ediface before they hoisted some new ones.

But to my delight the big, distracting banners were replaced by three small ones, directly attached to the facade, covering only some plain wallspace. I guess I wasn't the only one who disliked the old mess.

Bravo, Metropolitan! Your building not only contains art, it is art, and it should be seen in its glory to the utmost.

Yay, Delta!

Union: Delta, Pilots Reach Tentative Deal
It looks like my trip to Spain is on. I was worried about the possibility of a strike--Delta operates the only flight from New York to Barcelona.

So we're off to buy new luggage--ones with real wheels.

It's spring!

We took a nice walk in Central Park today, in the beautiful 75º weather, looking at the pinkish-white flowers on some of the trees, and the nice yellow daffodils with some sort of blue flowers sprinkled among them. We sat in the late afternoon sun for a bit. It was lovely.

If you needed any more proof that Hollywood is the land of the unreal

Winnie the Pooh Gets Hollywood Star
You don't have to be a real person, or even a real animal, to get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. (You do have get someone to pay for it, though--the honorees have to pay a fee to be honored.)

I'm VERY unhappy

I lost my new toy last night. I was leaving a club, walking down a flight of stairs overlooking the dancefloor. My phone was in its liitle pouch, which was securely hooked to my purse strap. But the Razr is so thin that it wasn't a tight fit like my old phone. The bouncing going down the stairs sent it out of the pouch. I felt it hit my knee, then it descended into the crowd below.

I looked around for it the best I could. Nobody turned it in to the bar. They said to call the club office when it reopens this afternoon. I'm not hopeful.

I've tried calling it several times. At first it rang, and then went to voicemail. I think someone did answer it once, but said nothing. Now it's off, and my call goes directly to voicemail. Of course it might just be that the battery is empty (though it wasn't that low).

It is covered by insurance, with a $50 deductible. But it's still a big hassle, going down to the police precinct to file a lost property report, filing a claim, etc.

Grump, grump grump.

Wow! I agree with Bush on something!

Bush Glad Cheney Not Running for President
I think our reasons are just a tad different, though.

Liz Smith screws up again

Last September Liz Smith used the wrong Yiddish word in her gossip column. Today she has this:

OUR PAL Charlie Rose, of the talk-show biz, is one lucky man. When he experienced shortness of breath while working in Syria, he was helped quickly on a plane to Paris and out of the Middle East by Syria's king himself!

The king of Syria? Syria hasn't had a king since 1920, when the French army threw him out!

My week in brief(?)

As I said in Project (non)progress report, I was out every night this week. Here's a semi-quick summary of what I was doing:

MONDAY: I went to hear Namoli Brennet sing at the Bitter End--a Greenwich Village institution that I had somehow missed ever going to in 30+ years of the living in New York. I had last heard Namoli at a little "house concert" in January at Ed Mannix's place in Brooklyn, and I was glad to see she was performing in a commercial venue--especially one in Manhattan, where I wouldn't have to suffer the vagaries of the subway system.

It was a rainy night, and I hopped in a cab to be there early, as Namoli's publicity advised--she was the opener. I arrived to find several people taking shelter under the Bitter End's sidewalk canopy--they weren't admitting anyone during the various performers' sound checks. I found Ed, and he introduced me to a couple of his friends. We huddled in the cold for about 20 minutes, until they finally let us in. So much for arriving early.

We marched past the bar and its huge mural of the caricatures of the now-famous entertainers who had performed at the Bitter End (immodestly flaunting its institution-ness). We greeted Namoli, and she introduced us to Wendy Layton, her manager. We claimed a table and ordered drinks from a charmingly-accented waitperson.

Soon Namoli took to the stage and proceeded to draw the audience (most of whom were probably there for the performers to follow) deep into the poetry of her songs. Later Ed said this was very unusual for the Bitter End of late, where normally people talk during the performances and treat the songs as background music. By the end of her second number the audience was quiet, except for one boor who had to be shushed to silence.

Namoli was in fine form. I was particularly impressed by one song she did accompanying herself on the piano, instead of her usual guitar. It showed a side of her that's mostly hidden behind her serious singer/songwriter persona: she is an entertainer, out there to give her audience an enjoyable show--which she was doing very well.

Her 50 minutes went by all too fast, and after paying our check we went to meet her over by the bar. She was greeting fans (more new than old, perhaps), while Wendy sold a few CDs from a little suitcase. As the next set of performers started up, she, Wendy, Ed and I adjourned to the Japanese restaurant next door for dinner.

Namoli was as charming as she had been at the house concert at Ed's. She told us of a recent visit to her Tuscon home by Venus DeMars of All the Pretty Horses. [I have removed the links to the Venus and the All the Pretty Horses sites because they seem to have a virus or something. Beware.] Wendy was just as charming. She related how she had to pull over to the side of the road when she got a call from my friend Kristine James (the founder of Crossdressers International), who wanted to book Namoli for Transgender 2006, the annual convention of the International Foundation for Gender Education. Ed tried to convince Namoli to return to New York for the Outmusic awards in June.

At the conclusion of dinner Wendy gave Ed and me a little preview CD of three songs from Namoli's next album. Then the two returned to the Bitter End to join some people from Albany who had come down to hear Namoli. (They had already eaten, so they decided to stay for the following performers.) I cabbed it up to the O.W. Bar for Kenny Dash's Bingorama. I really had a good time there: Kenny was a lot of fun, yakking it up with the audience while calling out the bingo numbers. Perhaps because there were only five of us actually playing, it was really sort of a group conversation. We discussed income taxes and the NYPD's raids on several nightclubs the previous week. And I won a T-shirt and a CD.

TUESDAY: A private meeting of people on the MyHusbandBetty Message Boards. Some of us went out for drinks afterwards.

WEDNESDAY: I started with a meeting of board of directors of the LGBT Law Association Foundation of Greater New York. I was hoping that it would be short, as there wasn't too much on the agenda--I wanted to catch at least some of my cyber-friend Johanna Weller-Fahy's show at the Duplex. Alas, things did not go according to plan. We started with an item not on the Foundation Board's agenda, a long discussion of the Association's amicus curiae brief in the New York State same-sex marriage case. (The Foundation and the Association are legally separate, but the boards are overlapping, and meet the same evening. I'm on the Foundation's Board, but not the Association's.)

By the time I got down to the Duplex the show was over. But Johanna was still there, finishing up her business with the club. So I did get to go out to dinner with her, and her marvelous friends (oh, to be as young as they all are again). This was the first time I had met Johanna in real life.

After dinner I caught up with some of the people who had been at the Crossdressers International (CDI) open house. I had a drink while I watched them play pool, and while some guy kept trying to pick us up. After a half-hour or so we left, and I called it a night--it had been a long one.

THURSDAY: I had a meeting of the New York County Lawyers Assn. Committee on LGBT Issues down at the "House of the Law" on Vesey St. Before that though I did a little shopping at Century 21 (the department store, not the realty). Mostly I was looking for some pajama bottoms. (See Pajama woes.)

The meeting was extremely short--25 minutes or so, and I jumped on the subway up to the Village and got to the Duplex just before Johanna started! (This was the last performance, and I had not expected to be able to see it.) It was a very nice show, "Johanna Weller-Fahy at the Whiskey Bar," an hour of songs by Jacques Brel and Kurt Weill, connected by a quite funny monologue. Johanna has an excellent voice--in fact a couple times I thought it was too pretty for the gritty lyrics she was singing.

After the show I went and said hello. She actually recognized me rather quickly, despite my presentation as a man that evening. She autographed a program for me, which I told her I would be selling for a fortune on eBay when she got famous.

FRIDAY: was the opening night of Wolfpit, the new production of the Phoenix Theatre Ensemble. My friend Betty was in it, at least her male persona was. The play is the story of a medieval English village that discovers a pair of totally green children speaking an unknown tongue. Unbelievable? It's based on reports written by two 12th century monks!

The play was very good. The acting was excellent. The writing, though in language of some vintage that is not modern, was quite understandable. The story was quite believable, if one can accept that a pair of green children can suddenly appear somewhere. Most of the characters seemed quite true. A couple of times the lighting failed, but it returned in a few seconds--the actors handled it.

There was a Q&A with the playwright, director and cast afterwards--though most of the actors said nothing. A reception followed. I didn't get a chance to ask either of the women playing the green children how many jokes they had heard about auditioning for Wicked--it was quite clear at the reception that the make-up did not come off quickly.

SATURDAY: it was over to the west side for a Metropolitan Opera performance of Ludwig van Beethoven's only opera, Fidelio. As we walked across the Lincoln Center Plaza there was a big crowd by the fountain. There I immediately recognized what they were looking at: eight or ten people from The Imperial Court having their picture taken--then I remembered that there was a performance by the New York City Gay Men's Chorus in Avery Fisher Hall that evening. (What I didn't remember was that I had a camera phone in my pocket--and there was enough light so I could take a decent photo, unlike the ones of Namoli and Johanna I had tried earlier in the week.) One man there asked me if all the Court people were men. I assured him they were. But I sure hope they weren't planning on sitting in the audience at the concert--some of those wigs would have blocked the views of a dozen people behind.

This was a new production of Fidelio, at least to me. It was set some time during Franco's dictatorship. I'm not sure why--I don't think there were any agitators for freedom like Floristan during that period. If there were, I don't think they would have to be hidden in a jail from the provincial governor. It didn't make sense. Nor did some of the stage direction--at the the end, when Leonore has saved her husband and they sing a duet about being together again, they do it from the opposite sides of the stage--they should be in each other's arms. And why did she take off her jacket in the freezing cellar?

All that didn't really matter. The music is wonderful. Beethoven is my favorite composer, and he wrote little that was better than Fidelio. He used parts of the final chorus in the last movement of his great Ninth Symphony. The performance was quite good. All of the singers were fine, even Karita Mattila, who had to cancel her Leonore last week. The tympanist did have trouble at one point in the last act, I think. He seemed to be off the beat for several measures--weird, in an orchestra of that calibre. But all-in-all it was an excellent evening.

Then I came home and watched my recording of the NCAA men's hockey national championship game--which made it an even better evening.

Wisconsin rules college hockey!

The University of Wisconsin-Madison's men's hockey team won the NCAA national championship last night. Their women's team won the national championship a couple weeks ago. I think it's safe to say that Wisconsin (my alma mater) rules college hockey.

This was the sixth NCAA championship for the Badger men, but the first since 1990. I was at the first one, in 1973 in the old Boston Garden. But there was no college hockey for women back then.

One of the interesting factoids coming out of this that one family has a member on each of the squads. I wonder if there has ever been a brother-sister pair on national championship teams in the same sport before.

Project (non)progress report

You may have noticed I haven't posted any progress reports on My Great Office Clean-Up Project lately. That's because there hasn't been any progress lately. I have been out ten out of the last eleven days, and I've got an opera tonight. Most of the rest of the time I've just been trying to keep my desk clear, handling the incoming mail. I haven't even had time to blog about what I've been doing this week. Maybe I'll do a short one tonight when I get home.

Obviously this is going to take a lot longer than the month I originally estimated.

Tomorrow I've got nothing, and Monday just a conference call, so I should be able to get some real cleaning done. Right now, though, I'm going to turn off the computer and see if I can completely clear the desk before it's time to get dressed for the opera.

Pajama woes

I'm very picky about what I sleep in. I hate having any buttons, snaps, strings or any other accoutrements interfering with my close connection to the sheets. Also, since I de-haired my arms and legs, I need warmth: long sleeves and long pants, made of a thick material. (It's amazing how cold you can get when you have neither a layer of male fur nor one of female subcutaneous fat to protect your limbs.)

What I've been using for pajamas the last few years is a long-sleeved flannel t-shirt and a pair of flannel men's Nautica "lounge pants." I'm not sure who would ever want to lounge in these things, but they work just fine in bed. They have a simple elastic waist, no fly, and they even have elastic bands at the ankles to help prevent them from riding up in bed, or from my stepping on them when walking (I have relatively short legs).

I've gone through two pairs of these pants. The first one needed to be replaced when the elastic in the waistband failed. The second pair, while the waist is beginning to get too stetched out, has a more serious problem--I've simply worn through the flannel fabric. There are little holes popping up all over the place, and I caught my toe in one of them down by the ankle and made a big hole in the thinning material.

So it's definitely time to replace them. Except Nautica doesn't seem to make that model any more. All they (and the rest of the manufacturers) have now is ones with an elastic waist and a tie string. Sort of like a belt and suspenders. I'll try it with the tie string there, but I suspect I'll end up cutting off the ends at least. (I can't just pull the string out, beacuse it's anchored at the back.)

And there's one more problem: there's no elastic at the ankle--I'm going to have to have the legs shortened, or I'll be walking all over them.

Grump, grump, grump.

Go fug yourself

I have added a link to the blog Go fug yourself. This wildly popular blog is by two young(?) women who delight in pointing out the fashion mistakes of celebrities.

As they put it, "Fug" comes from "fugly," which is a contraction of "fantastically ugly." Their blog is fantastically funny. I can't help wasting time reading it.

Maybe I should start a new category of links: Guilty Pleasures.

Very curious web search of the day

Someone found this site doing a Google blog search for "feingold." They found the snippet I posted earlier today, Leading the race for my vote:. What was very curious was that the searcher's ISP is the U.S. Senate Sergeant at Arms. What is the someone in the Sergeant at Arms office doing searching blogs for one of the senators, especially when they keep going at least to the fourth page of the search results? (At the time of this post I've been pushed down to the fifth page.) Very curious.

Republicans on fast track to oblivion

In Analysis: DeLay Leaves Troubling Legacy a long-time Associated Press Washington reporter quotes political strategist Frank Luntz as saying, "It's hard to believe that in just 12 years, Republicans could end up in the same situation that it took Democrats 40 years to get in." That's a Republican political strategist, one of the people behind the 1994 GOP "Contract On America" oops I mean "Contract With America," admitting the sorry state of the Republican party.

He did get one thing wrong. It's not hard to believe. Far more Republicans than Democrats forget who they're supposed to be working for when then achieve office. Far more Republicans than Democrats are beholden to the big corporate interests for their campaign money. It is very easy to believe how fast so many Republicans found their way into ethics scandals, campaign finance law violation indictments, if not outright bribery convictions. Big Business looks at laws as things to get around, so they can maximize their profits, and their philosophy flows right along with their money going to Republican causes.

Republican politicians, like a lot of corporate leaders, are now finding out the hard way that the laws can't be gotten around, not when the violations are so big. Small, local corruption may escape unnoticed, but when they hit the national stage their misdeeds are much more likely to be uncovered.

Good times for the Democrats.

Leading the race for my vote:

Feingold Says He Supports Gay Marriage

Another Republican bites the dust

DeLay Announces Resignation From House
Maybe DeLay put on his glasses and read the writing on the wall a little closer. He's got enough trouble just trying to keep himself out of jail, much less retaining his seat in Congress.

DeLay thinks his exit will cause the donations to his Democratic opponent Nick Lampson flowing in from all over the country to dry up. Ha! I'm sure my inbox will be filling up with solicitations from all the various groups I support. DeLay thinks this is all about him. It's not. It's about removing all the Republicans from the positions of power that enabled them to misuse the public trust. If anything his resignation will make this easier, not harder.

I wonder who the Republicans will choose to replace him on the Appropriations Committee, which they rewarded him with when he had to step down as House Majority Leader. Maybe this time they can find someone who's not under indictment.

New template

So I got home after a nice night out and checked to see what was going on in cyberland before heading to bed. There had been problems all day with the internet connection before I left in the afternoon. I got to my blog, and found it was blank.

After the paramedics finished restarting my heart, I got on to Blogger and found everything was really still there. Something was screwed up with the template, apparently. So I trashed the old one (saving a copy first), and started over with a new one. I carefully inserted my additions one by one, making sure everything works.

So now I have this. In some respects it works better than the old one ever did.

My apologies to anyone who came here and found nothing.

Tomorrow (or I should say, later today, after I get up--I've still got to get to bed) I'm going to back up everything. Then I won't need to call the paramedics the next time my blog disappears.

My new toy

This is a self-portrait of my new toy, a Motorola RAZR V3c camera phone. So now I'll have a camera with me all the time. Which means I can take pictures to put on my blog all the time.

It's thin and sexy (unlike its owner). It was basically free. In fact I also got one for my wife for free. Verizon charges $150 for one with a two year contract. But you get $100 credit when you fulfill your previous two year contract, which I did. So they charged me $50 (plus tax) for the phone. But Motorola has a $50 rebate, so all I'm really paying is the $4 and change tax. Then Verizon is having a two-for-one sale on these phones (I think it ends today). So I got a second one for free for my wife.

Aside from having a camera, the thing I like about it most is that the ringer is much louder than my old phone's. If I had that thing in my pocket (forget about when it was in my purse) I couldn't hear it, even when it was turned up all the way. The only thing I don't like about it so far is that there doesn't seem to be a way of assigning a ring tone for all "restricted" (non-caller ID) calls. You win some, you lose some.

So get ready for more pictures on this blog.

Oooops!

I just noticed the time on the clock above was wrong. I didn't realize it had to be changed for daylight savings time manually. Sorry.

Requiem redux

Saturday night was a regular New York Philharmonic subscription concert: Music Director Lorin Maazel conducting Giuessepi Verdi's Requiem Mass. I just heard this last fall with the London Symphony, the opening concert of Lincoln Center's Great Performers series. Same music. Same hall. Different musicians.

Well, not totally different musicians: the bass soloist, Orlin Anastassov, was the same. This time he was joined by soprano Fiorenza Cedolins, mezzo-soprano Luciana D'Intino, and tenor Franco Farina, a replacement for the ailing Ramón Vargas. All four soloists were making their New York Philharmonic debuts. The New York Choral Artists provided the chorus. They were under the direction of Joseph Flummerfelt, who seems to run every large chorus in the New York area, at least the ones that perform with the Philharmonic.

Comparisons with last fall seem in order: Maazel (who seemed to have missed an appointment with his haircutter), was as much in control as Sir Colin Davis was--but seemed more relaxed. He took advantage of a new podium (I think maybe a couple inches higher than the old one). It has a handsome curved wood railing, which Maazel sometimes put his left hand on when he turned towards the violins. The orchestra was as good as ever--even the trumpets stuck up in a rear balcony to play a few bars.

The chorus was good, maybe not quite up to the level of the London Symphony Chorus, but more than adequate.

That leaves the soloists. Anastassov (the only one who did not use a score), was even better than last time. His voice literally echoed in the large hall. If anything Varga was even better than Anastassov. He was great in his small role, with a powerful presentation. Unfortunately the women soloists were not as good. There was nothing particularly wrong with either, but they both lacked that extra something that is the difference between a thrilling performance and a merely competent one. (Both also covered their gowns with shawls for the slightly chilly auditorium. Cedolin's was this thick fuzzy thing, which really detracted from her black, sparkly dress that bared her shoulders and arms. D'Intiro wore a midnight blue gown with a slit that bared her leg well above the knee when she sat--though she did wear dark hose. But her shawl covered the dress so much that it was hard to tell what was underneath.)

The Verdi Requiem is a great piece of music, and I certainly didn't mind hearing it twice in one season. I might give the nod to the London Symphony last fall, mostly on the basis of the chorus. But there wasn't that much of a difference overall, and I really enjoyed both.

Rabbit Hole

Thursday night, after an excellent roast duck dinner at Marseille (I've never been disapponted there) I went up a few blocks to the beautifully renovated Biltmore Theatre to see Rabbit Hole. This is playwright David Lindsay-Abaire's fourth work for the Manhattan Theatre Club, though I haven't seen any of the previous ones.

The main attraction of this play was the pairing of two great actresses, Cynthia Nixon and Tyne Daly. The subject matter was off-putting though: the effect on the parents of the accidental death of their four-year-old son. Despite that, it was a great night of theatre.

The reactions of the parents to their loss were quite different. The mother (Nixon), tried to eliminate the reminders of her child from view, while the father (John Slattery) clung to them. He faithfully attended a support group for parents of children who died. She dropped out of it.

The situation is complicated by the mother's sister (Mary Catherine Garrison), who reveals she's pregnant, and their mother (Daly), who also lost a son--a suicide at age 30. And then there is the teenaged driver (John Gallagher, Jr.), trying to handle the fact he killed someone, even though it was at most only slightly his fault.

Lindsay-Abaire's characters ring true. All of the actors were excellent. The sets were highly imaginative: they were stationed on a large turntable plus a smaller one at one side, that allowed to the audience to see the living room from the kitchen and vice versa. My only quibble was some of the vocabulary used by the grandmother and aunt. They seemed to be from a lower middle class background at most--which the mother had risen out of. Not a lot of education (the aunt said she liked school, but she was never very good at it). Yet occasionally their words seemed above them--"prologue," for instance.

As I said, the acting was great. The mother was the biggest role, onstage almost the entire play, and Nixon was fine. Gallagher managed to portray the awkward high school senior quite convincingly--I was surprised to learn he is approaching his 22nd birthday.

But the real star is the story. Not surprisingly, I've never heard of a play on the subject. The only similar movie to my recollection was Ordinary People. But watching the parents work through their grief, and manage to reach a common point, made for a memorable evening of theatre.

I can hear the comedians now

Government to Settle Denver Mint Bias Case

DENVER (AP) - The U.S. Mint agreed Friday to pay $9 million to female workers at its Denver plant who alleged their bosses demanded sex in exchange for promotions, harassed them and retaliated when they complained...

The $9 million will be paid in nickels, dimes and quarters.

I'm afraid the city may have been too much for him

Hal, the Central Park Coyote, Dies
I first noted Hal in A coyote in Central Park??!!. This is sad.

More worries for Ney?

Republican Rep. Tom DeLay's (himself under indictment) former deputy chief of staff pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge involving convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff today. He promised to help in other investigations. His testimony could be quite damaging to Rep. Bob Ney, whose situation I noted back in January in ANOTHER REPUBLICAN IN TROUBLE. (Gee, I keep using that headline again and again).

More fun times for the Democrats.

Curiouser web search of the day

Yesterday I noted in Curious web search of the day that someone at the House of Representatives found my post Another Republican in trouble? doing a search for Jim Ryun. Today they did it again, and found Curious web search of the day. I wonder if tomorrow they'll find this post.

Assuming they work weekends.

Curious web search of the day

Somebody was searching for references to "Jim Ryun" in blogs and found my post Another Republican in trouble?. The searcher was on the U.S. House of Representatives ISP. Someone in Ryun's office, maybe?

Weird web search of the day

novelty:"pickle key chain" lists my blog as fourth. What makes this even weirder was that the searcher was on the Disney ISP. Hmmm.

ND/NF: Eleven Men Out

My only film at this year's New Directors/New Films Festival was Eleven Men Out (Strákarnir okkar), the story about what happens when an Icelandic soccer star, Óttar, announces he's gay. (Don't confuse this with Guys and Balls (Männer wie wir), the story about what happens when a German soccer star announces he's gay.)

The strange thing is, we never learn much about him at all. We learn much more about Óttar's family: his son (typical 13-year old), his ex-wife (alcoholic former Miss Iceland), his father (homophobic jerk), his brother (misogynistic jerk), and his sister-in-law (dull-witted victim of the misogynistic jerk). His coming out is a spur-of-the-moment attempt to move an article being written about him to a more prominent position in the magazine. Then things just seem to happen all around him, frequently for no good reason other than people are stupid.

He's thrown off his team (which is coached by his jerk father), joins an amateur team that has a couple gay guys quietly on it (thereby sending all of the straight players fleeing), attracts a bunch of other gay players to the team, and starts a relationship with one of them. No one wants to play the gay team, so they keep winning by default, and end up in the play-offs. Except their opponents are from a little fishing village, and half the team is on a trawler at sea, so they don't play that game either.

Then somehow it's decided the gay team will play Óttar's old team. The game just happens to be scheduled for the same day as Iceland's gay pride parade--thereby ensuring a huge crowd.

I won't tell you the game's results--just in case there is actually someone out there with enough interest in Icelandic films (or gay soccer movies, which seems to be a growing sub-genre) to want to see this thing. I will tell you that as a comedy, it's not very funny, as a character study, they're all one-dimensional, and as a drama, the plot is ridiculous.

Oh, one other thing. There is hardly any soccer shown in the movie at all. But there is a fair amount of nudity, and some gay sex. And a lot of rain.

Another Republican in trouble?

While lobbyist Jack Abramoff was given nearly six years in jail to consider the error of his ways, another Republican Congressman has been added to the list of those alleged to have benefited from a deal with an Abramoff-linked group. Rep. Jim Ryun bought a home from a non-profit group funded by corporations linked to Abramoff for much less than it was worth, it has been claimed. Ryun claims he paid the "fair market value."

There are more and more of these deals coming to the surface. Abramoff could get his sentence reduced for his co-operation with prosecutors, and the start of his jail term has been delayed so he can do this. We'll have to see how many of his former friends end up in jail with him.

Fun times for the Democrats.

5,000 visits!

Today this blog logged its 5,000th visit. Wow! Considering that I don't write deep political analysis, or get into a lot of interpersonal relationship issues, or talk about sex, just slices of my life, that's a lot. Thank you to all who keep coming back.

As long as we're on the subject, here's a thin slice: last night I had an excellent mahi-mahi at East of Eighth with a friend in town on business. (A word to the wise: they get their fish delivered on Tuesday and Friday.) Then we went to Snapshot, "A Party for Queers...and their friends" at Bar 13. It was mostly young lesbians (very young...I was probably twice as old as almost all of them). Some "boi"s. (My friend said one nerdy one looked like her in high school, except without the pocket protector.) The music was pretty good (cute DJ), and not too loud for conversation. A few people danced occasionally, but it was mostly people sitting along the walls, just talking. Someone said it really got busy around midnight, but my friend had an early meeting today, so we had to leave before that.

Surprise of the day (NOT)

'Brokeback' Takes Top Film at Gay Awards

A new transgender resource

I've added a link in my Blogs and Blogoids list to Transgender Workplace Diversity. This looks like a good place for the latest developments in anti-discrimination laws, among other things.

Save some trees: OptOut

My mail today consisted of one magazine, the Carnegie Hall monthly guide, a "personalized pocket directory" of restaurants at which I can get discounts, and four solicitations for donations or membership renewals--but not a single offer of a "pre-approved" credit card. I realized I haven't had any in a while. This was not an accident (nor a reflection on my credit rating, thank you).

A few weeks ago I "opted out" from receiving such offers. I went to OptOutPreScreen.com and requested a stop to these things for five years. (To get a permanent stop you have to send a letter.)

The OptOut operation is not something the credit reporting companies are doing voluntarily, of course. They are required to offer consumers this by the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA).

It's a great idea. I used to get at least a dozen of these things every week. Frequently I'd get one in my male name, and an identical one for Caprice (I think I asked for an optout for each of "us.") The thing takes a few weeks to go into effect, but it really seems to work.

So do yourself, the forests, and your postal service deliverer a favor: OptOut!

Some people never know when to give up

Someone found this blog by doing a search for "dominant crossdressing." I'm 579th on the list!

Searching for Clayelle

Last fall I wrote a little post concerning Clayelle Dalferes, one of the weekend announcers at WQXR, New York's classical radio station. I e-mailed it to her, and she sent a very nice reply, which I posted as a comment. Almost every week since then one or two people find this blog doing a web search for her. On Saturday one of them added the comment, "Clayelle Dalferes could hold my attention just reading the phone book." Just now someone did a search for "Clayelle Dalferes beautiful voice."

Yes. Her voice is beautiful. It is sultry. It is, I'm going to say it, sexy. Not what one would expect on a classical music station. I'm not at all surprised at the number of web searches for her.

Over the months a number of the searches have been for "Clayelle Dalferes photo." Well there aren't any on the web, other than the baby picture she put on her profile on the WQXR site. She remains the mystery woman, at least visually.

Judges on the dance floor?

Thursday was the LGBT Lawyers Assn of Greater New York Foundation (LeGaL Foundation) Annual Dinner, Dance, Art Show & Sale at the Ritz-Carlton downtown. This was the second one of these I've been to, my first as a member of the board of directors.

Things started out much better for me this year--my cab driver knew where he was going. Last year we had to wander around Battery Park City for a while, until he found it.

On my way in I saw my friend Ivan Dominguez, the chair of the New York County Lawyers Assn (NYCLA) LGBT Issues Committee. He was walking in, as he works (and lives) nearby. No cabs necessary for him. We went in together, and a hotel staffer directed us to the second floor, where we were given our name tags. I got two: my regular one, which indicated I was seated at table 21 (in the teeniest type), plus a second one identifying me as Foundation board member. I stuck the first one in my purse, and clipped the second one to my blouse.

Ah yes, my blouse. It was this nice multi-colored print overblouse that I've had forever, which I wore with my good old black-on-black embossed paisley pants. And even with maybe 150+ gay guys there, you have no idea how much my blouse stood out. They may have been gay, but they were still lawyers, coming from work--it was a sea of grey and black suits. A few had colorful shirts. (Of course there were a good number of women there also. But lesbian lawyers dress even more conservatively than the gay male ones. There were two that wore red sweaters.)

We were pretty early, and there wasn't much of a line for drinks. I got one and strolled around, looking at the artwork being auctioned (the only thing I really liked were these very small oil paintings of various views through windows in Europe. But at $400 minimum each I thought they were way overpriced.) The hors d'oeuvres were served frequently, but I stuck to the bite-sized ones--trying to eat chicken on a skewer is quite hazardous to my make-up.

I said hello to a number of people I knew, mainly from the board, but a few others--unlike last year, when I knew only about two. I caught a brief sight of Congressman Rangel, who I think was the only high official to actually show up, if only for a few minutes. (At the dinner we were read a long list of officials who had accepted invitations, but outside of the judges I don't think anyone but Rangel and a City commissioner representing Mayor Bloomberg actually attended.)

Eventually they opened the doors to the dining room, and I went in and found table 21--at the outer edge near the far wall. I was the first, chose the seat most directly facing the dance floor, and started glancing at the program. Just as some other people arrived at the table, Ivan came and invited me to sit at the Cadwaladar table, where they had an empty seat. His firm, Cadwalader, Wickersham and Taft, was one of the "Platinum" sponsors of the event, so their table was one of the best, closest to the center. I accepted this "upgrade"--though I had to assure one my now former tablemates that it wasn't something they said. (I found out later that one of the former tablemates was Tom Shanahan, who has represented a number transgender people in high-profile cases. It may have been he whom I had assured.)

But I went off to the Cadwalader table, where everyone except Ivan was a very young associate at the firm--one had just started a couple weeks ago. We ate the dinner (a nice salad, decent chicken, a good chocolate tart), while a short presentation was made. We heard a letter from Mayor Bloomberg read by one of his commissioners (with jokes about it not being a proclamation), and awards were presented to all of the past presidents of the organization. Ivan excused himself right after the meal--he had to get up for a breakfast meeting with Mayor Bloomberg at Gracie Mansion the next day.

Eventually people were encouraged to get up and dance to the disco music that had been playing in the background all evening. There were male couples dancing, female couples dancing, even a one or two couple of opposite sex! I recognized two or three of the dancers were judges. Now I know that there are human beings under judges' robes, but somehow seeing one doing the frug just destroyed my image of the profession (can anyone imagine Ruth Bader Ginsburg doing the frug?)--very much like how my image of teachers was destroyed when I joined my wife and her former colleagues at a bar where they had been TGIFing for a couple of hours (not to mention an end-of-term party we went to).

No one enticed me to the dance floor, so after a little while watching I left. There was a nice line of cabs waiting, and a hotel doorman to call one and handle the door, and I went off to Lips for a nitecap. I sat down at the bar next to Stephanie of MyFemSpirit, and we had chatted. Frankie Cocktail, the bartender, asked if we knew each other. Did we know each other? For years and years--I got measured for my first custom corset in her apartment. I was too late for Jesse Volt's show (though I did get to say hello to her), but Ginger did a couple of special numbers for some friends there: Good Morning, Baltimore from Hairspray (one of the people was visiting from Baltimore), and Talk Dirty to the Animals. She was great.

Another person who needs to learn how to do web searches

"what happens if i cut the skirt off my 91 caprice?"
People: you're not supposed to type in a question, like this one.
Anyhow, to answer the question, I have no idea. But if you cut my skirt off I will be very angry.

Variations on a (spam) theme IX

Babes to get you gratified?
Babes to get you satiated
Babes to get you satiated?
Explicit Babes to get you satisfied!
Explicit Girls for you satisfaction
Explicit Ladies to get your-person sated!
Far beyond the norm Babes to get yourself sated?
Far beyond the norm Girls for you repletion
Gals to get you happy?
Girls to get you gratified
Girls to get you satiated
Girls to get you satisfied
Hard Girls to get you satiated!
Hardcore Gals for yourself atonement!
Hardcore Girls to get yourself satisfied!
Intense Babes to get you gratified
Intense Babes to get you satiated
Intense Babes to get you satiated!
Intense Girls to get you happy?
Intense Girls to get you satiated!
Intense Ladies for you satiation?
Ladies to get you satisfied?
Ladies to get your-person happy?
Women to get you happy!
Women to get you satiated?
Women to get your-person satiated?

If you like this sort of, er, inventiveness see my previous installments, starting with this one. I update them (and this one) continually, as more examples arrive.

These actually have gotten kind of quiet lately--and the spam volume I have been receiving is down a fair amount, also.

Update on The Project

It's been over a week since I posted an update on my Great Office Clean-Up Project. Despite my colonoscopy, and my cold, things are progressing. My desk is long since done. I took the time to reorganize it. I moved my multifunction printer from over my left shoulder to the right of my monitor, on the desk itself. This allowed me to move the shelf on which my photo-printer sits a couple inches, which allowed me to squeeze in a DVD player and a VCR, which sits under the cable box, which sits under the 9" TV I have off to the left. (Yes I have two printers--not that I print very many photos. But occasionally I do. Mostly I just keep the photo printer loaded with #10 envelopes.) There's still room for more stuff--specifically a component that I think will convert the video signal to VGA, so I can feed it to the monitor. This will be nice when I'm on the exercise machine back in the corner--having a 21.3" picture is a lot better than a 9" one. But I'm not going to be setting that up right now.

I interrupted my office clean-up to work on the top of the dresser in my little dressing area. It was literally overflowing with papers that I had taken out of my pants pockets and just plopped there--mostly credit card and ATM receipts. I stuffed them in a big envelope which went into one of the big plastic storage containers marked "Misc. Financial" which sit in the wall unit. The envelope is marked "Misc. Receipts Late 2004-Early 2006"--that stuff was accumulating on my dresser for about 18 months.

I've pretty much emptied out/organized the wall unit where I hope to fit a lot of the stuff that's sitting in boxes right now. There are plastic storage containers for "telephone stuff," "maps," "electrical stuff," "computer hardware" (two of them, actually), "hardware," "souvenirs," etc., etc. My favorite is a shoebox-sized one marked "misc. little things." I've even cleaned out my tool box, and put all of the screws and nails and other non-tool stuff into a separate container.

But all the stuff in all the boxes I still have is not all going to fit into the wall unit, not by a long shot. I'm going to have to get rid a lot more stuff. I am trying. Today I took 4 bags of shredded stuff down to the basement, but I'm actually pacing myself--the shredder only overheated once today.

Tomorrow (Thursday) is a day off--it's the LGBT Lawyers Assn of Greater New York (LeGaL) Annual Dinner-Dance. I'm going to go gather my outfit for it right now.

A coyote in Central Park??!!

Wily Coyote Captured in Central Park
Oh my goodness! I live a half-a-block from Central Park. The park basically functions as my backyard, and now I have to watch out for coyotes there?

Mission accomplished

This afternoon I went down to the hospital, and the nice, young, cute lady doctor had someone put me to sleep and then she stuck a telescope or something up my tushy and found nothing wrong. Or so she said. I was totally asleep. There is no physical evidence she did anything. For all I know she and her crew just watched a soap opera on the myriad of LCD monitors that were hanging on arms all over the little room.

So now I'm home, eating pasta. The worst part of today's events was the 1+ hour wait in the chilly prep room in two thin hospital gowns after they put the IV in my arm, because the doctor was running way behind schedule. At least they gave me a blanket.

Since nothing was found, I don't need to do this again for another seven years. Hopefully in seven years they'll have found an easier but still safe way of cleaning you out, instead of having to drink all that horrible Golytely stuff.

I'm taking it easy this evening. My meeting of the NY County Lawyers Assn (NYCLA) LGBT Issues Committee was postponed. My cold is quite a bit better, actually--even without having taken anything for it (so the medication wouldn't interfere with the colonoscopy). But I'm still tired. Tomorrow it's back to work on The Great Office Clean-Up Project. I wish I could go the NYCLA reception for Christine Quinn, but The Project is more important.

(I wonder when this post will actually get in--Blogger's having problems.)

Wish me luck

I'm just about to go off to my colonoscopy. The records of my other one just came in on my fax today from my previous doctor (I had asked for them a couple weeks ago!). It turns out I'm more overdue for this one than I thought. I figured I was due for one a year, maybe 18 months ago. It turns out I should have had it nearly 2½ years ago.

Why I'm up so early

One of the great perks of being retired is the ability to sleep as late as I want most of the time. And since I'm usually up until 2:00 or 3:00am, or even later, I frequently don't roll out of bed until about 10:00. But today was different.

I got up early so I could eat my breakfast early. Tomorrow afternoon I'm having a colonoscopy, and this was my last opportunity to have solid food before the procedure. For the rest of the day it's just liquids, jello and such. Rule: they can't be red or purple (try finding non-red diet jello--the only kind my supermarket had was lemon). Then this evening I have to drink a gallon of this yucky stuff, Golytely, which will clean out my gastro-intestinal track. What fun. I have lots of reading material ready by the toilet.

(They used to have a different, less-yucky way of cleaning things out, using a laxative, which is what I used for my previous colonoscopy. But apparently some patients had bad side effects, so they went back to this way.)

At least I think I'm having a colonoscopy tomorrow. The problem is, I've come down with a cold. I don't know how that affects things. I'm going to call the doctor's office in a few minutes to see what they have to say. Stay tuned for further developments.

UPDATE: I just got off the phone with the physician's assistant. She said as long as I'm not running a fever they can do the procedure. And she said it may actually help me in one regard--with a cold I might not be able to taste the Golytely.

(Misleading) headline of the day

Eagle Lays 1st Egg in 50 Yrs on Santa Cruz
I thought that was pretty old for an eagle to be laying eggs.

Grey Souls/Les âmes grises

Last night I made my only visit to this year's Rendez-Vous with French Cinema of the Film Society of Lincoln Center. The film was Les âmes grises, which translates to "Grey Souls." Superficially a murder mystery set in a French village near the front during 1917, it really delves into the effect of war on people.

It is a quintessential French movie: it ends quite ambiguously--we never do learn who the murderer was. It is also sad, extremely sad. There isn't a really happy person to be found, except perhaps one, and she meets an untimely death. There are a lot of deaths in the film, beyond the direct casualties of the war.

The acting was excellent, the pacing a bit slow (but that's to be expected from a French film), the cinematography deliberately subdued. The director, Yves Angelo, kept everything taut. Even his Q&A after the screening was subdued and taut.

It's certainly not a fun movie. But if you do like French film, this is a good one.

Straw men for a straw brain?

Bush Using Straw-Man Arguments in Speeches says the headline from the AP. This tactic has occured so often it has to be by design. It's bad enough if Bush is trying to fool the American public into believing that his policies are the only reasonable alternatives. But what if he actually believes this stuff? That's really scary.

I kinda doubt he found what he was looking for here

Someone just Googled "overgrown breasts." This blog was listed first.

And avoid South Dakota while you're at it

Abortion Law May Affect S.D. Tourism
Let the people of South Dakota know that electing neanderthals has a cost. Spend your tourist dollars elsewhere. Massachusetts comes to mind.

Stay away from Denny's

Man Shot Dead at Calif. Denny's Restaurant
Three Denny's shootings in three days! Add Denny's to my list of dangerous places to avoid. Previous entries: Wal-Mart (twice) and Starbucks.

Weird web search of the day

"chevy caprice police love it" came here.

Blogger problems?

I've been trying to change my template for a while, with no luck. I wonder if this post will publish.

Beware the Ides of March!

I'm talking to you, Julius!

(P.S. I love your salad.)

Variations on a (spam) theme VIII

Don't be isolated again?
Don't be isolated again!
Don't be isolated once again
Don't be lonely again?
Don't be not fullfilled again?
Don't be not fullfilled once again!
Don't be not gratified once again!
Don't be not happy once again
Don't be single once more?
Don't be unfullfilled again
Don't be ungratified again
Don't be ungratified once again!
Don't be unsated once more!
Don't be unsatisfied once again!
Never be alone once again
Never be alone once again!
Never be isolated again
Never be lonely again?
Never be lonely once again?
Never be lonely once again!
Never be not fullfilled again?
Never be not fullfilled once again!
Never be not gratified again?
Never be not happy again?
Never be not happy once more?
Never be ungratified again!
Never be unsatiated again!
Never be unsatisfied once more!

If you like this sort of, er, inventiveness see my previous installments, starting with this one. I update them (and this one) continually, as more examples arrive.

The Great Office Cleaning Project Update

Now there's lots of wood on my desk visible! And I found the receipt for my TV, which I've been looking for for ages. I have an extended warranty on it that runs for another 18 months. The receipt was in a big envelope marked "2003-2004 Receipts," which had been hiding behind my computer monitor. I didn't even remember I had put it there.

I'm actually about 80% done with the desk, and I should finish it tomorrow--though I am going to have to spend some time with the people coming to fix my windows. No, not the one running on my computer (though that one could use some work, too), the ones that are supposed to keep the outside air outside. One of them isn't. The only way I can keep it closed is to jam a couple of plastic wedges between the window and the frame. There's another one that is extremely hard to open--maybe they can adjust that.

Also, the contractor is coming to fix up the grout. Hopefully they'll all be done by noon, and I can get back to The Project.

Template fix

I've diddled with my template a little. I fixed a bug on my left side margins, so things should be a little more readable. I've also made the post headline font larger, and the dates blue. I think from now on I will not be using all-caps for my headlines.

OFFICE CLEAN-UP PROJECT STATUS

I did get a couple of good days of work in on it Wednesday and Thursday. (Friday I had a doctors appointment, watched Wisconsin lose its first game in the Big Ten men's basketball tournament, and I also went out with my wife in the evening. But I did have time to go and buy some big plastic storage boxes. They're not pretty, but they fit pretty well on the shelves in the wall units in my office. They're great for holding large numbers of small items.) Yesterday I ended up getting nothing done, after doing some research for our trip to Spain and getting cleaned up for our dinner out and opera in the evening.

But I can actually see some bare wood on my desk now!

I have nothing special planned for today (Sunday), so I should be able to really get back to work.

WEIRD WEB SEARCH OF THE DAY

Somebody was looking for "washers for the meat packing industry" and found my blog. They had to go to page 23 of the search--which means they looked at listings for 100s of higher ranked sites! Talk about persistence.

ART BUCHWALD IS DYING

It is sad to read that political satirist Art Buchwald is living his last few days, having decided he did not want to be tethered to a dialysis machine so many hours a week.

When I was younger, much younger, I eagerly awaited his three-times-a-week newspaper column, where his exagerated fictional characters pointed out the failings of the people in power. I think I started reading him when I was in high school. Somewhere along the line I stopped reading him--perhaps it was when I moved to New York, and his column wasn't available in the Times.

But also somewhere along the line I acquired a comedy album he did. It's around here somewhere--I'll have to dig it out. It explained how he became a Paris-based columnist for the New York Herald Tribune--without ever having graduated high school or college. (When USC discovered he lacked a high school diploma, they made him a "special student." He said he later got his revenge, when he was named alumnus of the year.)

I also remember seeing him at the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Fund Pro-Am Tennis Tournament out in Forest Hills. He wasn't exactly the greatest player. All he hit was lobs. Totally. When he played Billie Jean King he called the match "The Lobber vs. the Libber."

So now he's spending his last few days in a hospice, attended by family members, various Kennedys, and award-bearing writers. Except it's gone beyond a few days. They're calling him "The Man Who Wouldn't Die," as he explained in a Washington Post column a few days ago. He checked into the hospice at the beginning of February. He's been there so long Medicare has stopped paying for it. Meanwhile, he's having the best time of his life, he says.

NO SURPRISE HERE

Bush's Approval Rating Falls to New Low says an AP-Ipsos poll. Even his Republican supporters are beginning to desert him. He is alienating his social conservative base (which he no longer needs to get himself into office) with some of his pro-business proposals, such as the Dubai port debacle and his immigration "reforms." The business bloc already was in his corner, so it's a net loss for his support.

The poll also indicated more people want the Democrats running Congress than the Republicans. Unfortunately, this doesn't mean the Democrats will actually win in November. It's amazing how many people think Congress is failing in its job, but that their representatives are OK. They haven't figured out that Congress isn't going to change unless they change who they vote for.

TODAY'S WEIRD WEB SEARCH

"thisby and pyramus is stupid"
Is this a real search, or just someone expressing an opinion?

WEIRD WEB SEARCH OF THE DAY

"world record holder for longest headstand" actually lists this blog first!

300 AND COUNTING (SLOWLY)

This is my 300th post on this blog. Granted, I haven't had much time for it the last few days, with my Office Clean-up Project.
Briefly: Saturday I went to the New York Philharmonic, where Frank Peter Zimmermann did a fantastic job with the Brahms Violin Concerto. Monday I did my volunteer lawyer thing for the Name Change Project at the West Village TransLegal Clinic, followed by some dinner at Lips, and then Jason Cosmo's show at Therapy. Yesterday, after a lawyer's appointment (even lawyers need lawyers sometimes), I went to the Sarah Bernhardt exhibition at the Jewish Museum. I didn't finish it. The most interesting part so far is listening to a recording she made--her "golden voice" was well-named. I also loved some of the art nouveau posters for her plays. Finally, I went to a private meeting of people active on the MyHusbandBetty Message Boards.

SOMEBODY REALLY HAS TO LEARN HOW TO DO WEB SEARCHES

"do you have any pictures of the uniforms for men's snowboard cross" hit this blog.

And, no, I don't.

OSCARS, MY QUICK THOUGHTS

No big surprises--I've read a few things that said Crash could upset Brokeback Mountain for Best Picture. It wasn't totally out of left field, such in 1981, when Chariots of Fire beat out On Golden Pond and Reds. Of course, Crash was the only one of the five nominees I haven't seen.

I was a little disappointed Transamerica didn't win in either of the categories it was nominated in. I knew Felicity Huffman had an uphill battle against Reese Witherspoon in Walk the Line for Best Actress, but I was hoping Dolly Parton's "Travelin' Thru" might pull out a win for Best Song. Instead a hip-hop mess, "It's Hard Out Here For A Pimp" from Hustle & Flow, won. Actually, I thought the third nominee, "In the Deep" from Crash, was the best. I guess the Academy voters wanted to seem hip and with it.

I thought Jon Stewart did an OK job as host, not great, but not a disaster either--though I could have done without his opening "Good evening, ladies, gentlemen, and Felicity" line.

I thought the music they played during the acceptance speeches was distracting, annoying, and just plain disrespectful of the winners. They need to find another way of keeping them short.

Finally, the dresses. The best dress I saw was Salma Hayek's. I loved the color. I can't think of any that were really bad--Charlize Theron's was a little bit much, with the big bow or whatever on the shoulder, but she's stunning enough to carry it off.

AN OMINOUS WEB SEARCH

Someone in Dallas, Texas just reached my blog doing a search for "jewish names in forbes 400." I don't get good vibes about this one.

THE PROJECT, FOURTH DAY (WITH BROKEBACK)

Things are going along nicely. I can actually sit on the floor and have room to sort things into piles.

I did take off early today, though. We went and saw Brokeback Mountain. It was a lot sadder than I anticipated. Heath Ledger was superb--actually everyone was excellent. I thought it moved a little too slowly in the beginning, but otherwise my only problem was understanding a bit of the dialogue here and there--a little too much mumbling.

This brings me up to four of the five films nominated for the best picture Oscar--my usual number. I think there has only been one year I had seen all five.

IT MUST BE QUITE A VIDEO

People keep doing web searches for "video of gazelle running into tree" and reaching my blog.

I'm also getting quite a few for Jamie Salé. Now those I understand.

THE PROJECT, THIRD DAY

(I'm not counting days like yesterday, when I don't do much of anything.) I'm continuing to make good progress with The Great Office Clean-up Project. My wife came in earlier, and said, "Wow, you can actually walk in here now." Well, you can, a little. But there is still a lot of floor space covered with stuff that has to go.

It's surprisingly satisfying to do this basically menial work. I can see the results of my labors, that I'm really accomplishing something. It struck me how different this is to my last job, where for the last two years I was working on a project where I rarely felt this way.

WEB SEARCH OF THE DAY

where in nj can i practice discus throwing found my blog. Sorry, I can't help with this one.

A DAY OFF (AND A NIGHT OUT)

Wednesday was my day off from my office cleaning project this week. I had a 6:00pm meeting of the LeGaL Foundation board, and with all the hair removal I need to do to present as a woman, I had to get started before noon to prepare. So I just slept late, got up, got on the computer for a bit, and had breakfast. Then I got cleaned up, put my clothes in my suitcase (the same old black-on-black paisley slacks, this time with a black and white print silk blouse) and went off to CDI to do my make-up and change clothes.

The LeGaL board meeting was also an envelope stuffing session. While we took care of business we also assembled the invitations to our annual dinner. (You know the quality of the stationery is pretty good when you can stuff over a hundred envelopes and not get a single paper cut.) That went on until after 9:00, and by the time I found a mailbox (everyone took a big bag of invitations to mail) and a cab, it was 9:35 by the time I got back to CDI. I was very surprised to find the open house over--just one keyholder was there, watching television. She told me where everyone went, so after a pit stop and make-up refreshment I walked up a couple blocks to the bar where some of the people had gone. I had time for one drink (and some peanuts), before some of the people went home, and I joined two others in a trip downtown to the Monster Bar.

There, we found several others from the open house. I had a drink upstairs (courtesy of Mel, the Monster manager who appeared to have just gotten off duty). Then some of us went downstairs for some dancing. Then we waited for Jesse Volt's show. This week it was surprisingly good--no surgically enhanced pageant contestants, rather ShaBoomBoom doing her lipsync drag comedy and some good dancing, and Bianca Leigh. Bianca, singing in her own voice, was excellent. It was the first time she had appeared in Jesse's show in quite a while. Jesse, of course, introduced her as the movie star from Transamerica. And Jesse's numbers were at her usual high level. The only down point of the show, as far as I'm concerned, was the "Ass Is Tight" contest, where audience members, frequently drunk, can win prizes (CD's, DVD's, theater tickets) by holding them between their ass cheeks for 10 seconds--with or without their underwear on. It's not what I call scintillating entertainment.

After the show I said hello to Bianca, just to confirm she'd be working at Lips Monday, when I expect to be there after I do my volunteer lawyer work at the West Village TransLegal Clinic Name Change Project. Then it was back to CDI to change back to male mode.

MY NEW PROJECT, SECOND DAY

Progress report: 2.8 boxes processed Tuesday. Four bags of paper shredded (up from two yesterday). I have yet to find anything I've been looking for for ages, but there's still lots to go through.

Tomorrow will be a light day. I have a six o'clock meeting of the board of the LeGaL Foundation, and will take most if not all of the afternoon to prepare and get to it.

THE FAMILY SHOULD KEEP IT A SECRET

Saturday I went to a revival of a 1993 one-person play called Family Secrets. My wife and I were going out with another couple, and this show caught her eye. Back then Ben Brantley raved about it in a New York Times review. So we went.

It's still in previews, but I very much doubt my opinion would change if I saw it after it opens. It is simply the worst "comedy" I have ever seen. When 10 minutes went by before the first time I laughed, I decided to keep count. The result: I laughed all of seven times in the 90 minutes or so.

The play is about a Jewish family transplanted from the Bronx to California, back in the 80s. This was mentioned by at least a couple of the five characters portrayed. I don't know why--the locales seemed to make no difference to the characters. The characters, a couple of whom may have been cutting edge in the 80s, were already dated in 90s. Now, they just complete the set of stereotypes portrayed by actor/co-writer Sherry Glaser. Her rendition of Mort, the father, was the worst. The padding she wore to simulate his paunch looked like overgrown breasts. The voice she used wasn't masculine--at best it was non-feminine. Basically, it was just weird.

People started trickling out of the theater before the half-hour mark. I wish I had joined them.

JUSTICE PREVAILS

Subway Seat Groceries Ticket Tossed by Judge
My first question is, what did the cop testify to on the question of the emptiness of the train. Or, if I am correctly reading between the lines of this sparse report, did he even bother to show up for the hearing?

My second question is, what was the hearing officer deliberating about for 37 minutes?

WHY AM I NOT SURPRISED?

Olympic Viewership Falls 37 Pct. From 2002
NBC did not help its ratings with its Sunday night coverage of the closing ceremonies. They started out with a segment by Tom Brokaw on the much-belated awarding of the Congressional Medal of Honor to an African-American for his World War II heroism not far from Torino. It was a great segment, but it ran the better part of an hour. I wonder how many people tuned in to see the ceremonies, found a long history lesson, and switched channels. NBC seemed to have forgotten that people who tune into the Olympics want to see the Olympics.

HEADLINE OF THE DAY (yesterday, really)

Chocolate Linked to Lower Blood Pressure
My only problem with this is that I don't have high blood pressure.

MY NEW PROJECT, FIRST DAY

My first day of my office clean-up project went pretty good. I had some errands to do, so I didn't get started until about 2:30. But I was able to work all the way until 9:00, because my wife was out at a class. I emptied three boxes, and cleaned up a little stuff from the floor.

As you may have guessed, I'm a pack rat. I have trouble throwing things out--I can think of a reason to keep everything. But I'm trying. Most of the stuff I came across today was financial records from 1993, 1998, and 2003-4. Most of the 2003-4 stuff I kept, but it's now neatly stored in file folders in a file cabinet. I didn't have much trouble shredding the 1993 things, but I really had to will myself to get rid of the 1998 stuff.

In addition to the financial records, I also found a bag of stuff that I had already set aside for shredding--it must have been from the time when my old shredder died, and I didn't buy a new one for a while. So my shredder got a real workout--so much so that it overheated and shut down twice.

I think it was a good start to my project. But I'm tired. It's work. I'll try to post a real article after I pay a couple bills. But no guaranties.

A NEW PROJECT

In the morning I will be starting my new project--cleaning up my office. Despite being retired for two years now, I haven't found time to go though all the boxes of stuff from our last move, properly store what I want to keep, and get rid of what I don't. Some of this stuff has been around since 1988, and this is long overdue. Then there's the piles of un-boxed stuff. It's really a mess--every horizontal surface is covered with something, except for a narrow path from the door to my desk.

So I'm not going to have as much time to blog for a while--I'm guessing maybe a month. In order to concentrate on this, I'm going to curtail my entertainment life as much as possible until I finish. So there will be less to blog about to begin with. But the most important tactic I will use will be to TURN OFF THIS COMPUTER. From 9:00am until 9:00pm, at least on the days I will be dedicating to the clean-up project, this distraction will cease.

I still plan to blog some. But the slices of my life I recount here will have to be a bit thinner for a while.

RE-MEASURE FOR MORE PLEASURE

My wife wanted to go with a friend to something that I was uninterested in last Friday evening, so I was looking around for something to do. Then an e-mail popped into my inbox from broadwayoffers.com offering discount tickets to Measure for Pleasure, in previews at the Public Theater. The synopsis was:

"Will Blunt is in love with Molly, a young transvestite prostitute. But when Blunt rescues him from a life on the streets, he doesn't count on Molly falling in love with Dashwood, the handsome womanizing rake.

Restoration comedy meets modern sex farce in this romantic adventure, exploring the elusive nature of happiness; featuring mistaken identities, duels and double-dealings, gay marriage, and the obligatory sex cave."

"Young transvestite prostitute?" Sounded perfect for the members of Crossdressers International (CDI) . Having a parental advisory didn't hurt, either. I used our Yahoo group messaging feature to see if anyone was interested in this, and I got a couple nibbles.

Then I got an e-mail from another member, Rita (this was Little Rita, as opposed to Big Rita, who is, let's just say, bigger). Rita's an actor, and she had just been offered tickets to the play for free! Free certainly beats $42 (plus service charges I'm sure). After some more e-mailing there were three of us going to see it.

So Friday afternoon arrived and I went off to the CDI apartment to change. I didn't want to get too dressed up, so I just wore a red Bill Blass sweater with a fringed shawl collar, and a pair of black-on-black paisley slacks. Eventually Rita showed up, and changed into a nice black dress, but Madeline was delayed--she had to go to the theater as a man.

We cabbed down to the theater, where Rita got the tickets from the window, but we had to wait in the lobby until they got the theater open. Then it was upstairs to the Anspacher Stage. Carved out of the original Astor Library main reading room, pillars still intact, it's a surprisingly intimate thrust stage auditorium seating 275, with no one more than eight rows back. But it extends vertically three very tall levels, up to a skylight.

The big name in the cast was Wayne Knight, "Newman" from Seinfeld. There was also Euan Morton, who played Boy George in Taboo, both in London and on Broadway--playing the transvestite here. (Is he getting typecast?)

Things started out with Michael Stuhlbarg, in character as Will Blunt the valet, giving the cellphone/candy wrapper spiel, with an additional warning that there was no intermission, and that he didn't want anyone going out in the middle, then coming back and asking "What did I miss?" He also made some remarks about the late arrivals, reminiscent of the Manager of the Stage at the P.D.Q. Bach concerts.

The actual play started, and it was quite clear the parental advisory for "explicit verse" was quite real--this is a bawdy farce set in 1751, with Restoration-appropriate verse. The characters, with names like Peter Lustforth, Dick Dashwood, Molly Tawdry and Hermione Goode, went about lusting and plotting and masquerading. The big problem was that they kept doing it and doing it and doing it. The novelty of the explicit verse eventually wore off for a lot of the audience. The first act went on for an hour and a half, and after a quick intermission they returned for another 45 minutes. Finally, a Gilbert and Sullivan-worthy ending set everything all right, and everyone lived happily ever after.

Except the audience.

The acting was excellent, the set inventive (scenery kept swinging up from the floor), the costumes beautiful (even the stagehands were appropriately costumed--a couple of the female ones were corseted, pushing up their cleavage far beyond that of any stagehand I've ever encountered). But the play was just too long. As Rita put it in the cab to a nice dinner at East of Eighth, "It needs a re-write--with a pair of scissors."

VARIATIONS ON A (SPAM) THEME VII

Babes for your atonement?
Babes for your gratification?
Babes for your happyness!
Explicit Girls for your-person satisfaction!
Explicit Ladies for you satiety?
Extreme Babes for you satiety?
Extreme Girls for you gratification?
Extreme Girls for your-person satiety
Extreme Ladies for you satisfaction!
Extreme Ladies for your-person happyness?
Far beyond the norm Babes for you fullfillness?
Far beyond the norm Gals for you fullfillness
Gals for your gratification
Gals for your gratification!
Gals for your happyness?
Gals for your satisfaction
Gals for your satisfaction?
Girls for your atonement?
Girls for your gratification
Girls for your satisfaction!
Hard Babes for you satisfaction?
Hard Gals for you repletion
Hard Gals for you satiation!
Hard Ladies for you fullfillness
Hard Ladies for yourself fullfillness
Hard Women for you gratification
Hardcore Ladies for you satisfaction?
Hardcore Women for your satiation
Intense Girls for you satiation?
Intense Ladies for you repletion!
Ladies for your atonement
Ladies for your fullfillness
Ladies for your gratification!
Ladies for your satiation!
Women for your happyness?

I was a bit surprised, but "atonement" is a synonym for "satisfaction," at least according to Roget.

I think this is actually two separate sets of spam, but they are sufficiently similar that I am combining them.

If you like this sort of, er, inventiveness see my previous installments, starting with this one. I update them (and this one) continually, as more examples arrive.

CABLE A LA CARTE? NON, MERCI

Poll: TV Viewers Want Choice in Cable
The head of the FCC and some members of Congress have been pushing for the requirement that cable TV companies offer their subscribers "a la carte" pricing. People would be able to choose exactly which channels they'd get, and would pay only for those. 40 percent of the people polled thought it would reduce their cable bills. 25 percent thought it would increase them. Both groups could be right, actually.

There is one overriding fact that everyone should remember: the cable companies are not going to lose money on this deal. Unless they can somehow reduce their costs, they will make sure that they get at least as much revenue with a la carte pricing as with the current tiered system, one way or another. Which basically means that if they get less money from the people who want few channels, they'll have to get more from the people who want a lot.

People like me.

I'm hoping that if a la carte pricing does go through, it will be structured so only those getting a very small number of channels will see their bills go down. If people realize that say, 30 channels a la carte costs about the same as 250 with the tiers, they won't bother. This actually would not be that difficult to justify, if they charge high amounts for very popular channels like ESPN, because ESPN charges the cable companies a lot.

But I'd be happiest if they just leave things alone.

23 SECONDS OF FAME

I was on the LGBT Center's public access cable TV show "Out at the Center" last night. They shot me commenting at the reception for NYC Council Speaker Christine Quinn last month.

I, uh, really, uh, have to, uh, learn not to, uh, say "uh" so much when I, uh, do these, uh, things.

POOR LITTLE PRINCE

The UK's Prince Charles is suing a British newspaper because they printed excerpts of his diary. One of the things in the diary was a rant about being uncomfortable in a Club Class seat, flying to Hong Kong. Club Class is British Airways' name for business class, and on a 747 it comprises the upper deck.

Poor Prince Charlie, royally relegated to business class. He should try sitting in a coach seat for 14 hours. He'd never complain about sitting in business class again, I'm sure.

CHRISTIAN TETZLAFF PLAYS BRAHMS

I just got back from a performance of Johannes Brahms' three sonatas for violin and piano played by Christian Tetzlaff and Lars Vogt. It was part of the Lincoln Center Great Performers' Virtuoso Recitals series, at Alice Tully Hall.

First, I should say that Brahms is not very high on my list of favorite composers. I find most of his work pleasant and pretty, but seldom exciting, even in the hands of the best musicians. Furthermore, I seldom go to solo recitals, accompanied by piano or not--I don't remember going to a violin recital since I was in college nearly 40 years ago (I subscribed to a four concert series of touring performers one year. One was a young violinist who had to struggle out on to the stage on crutches. I think his name was Perlman. I wonder whatever became of him.)

So this recital a) was quite unusual for me, and b) did not raise much in the way of expectations going in. I'm still trying to remember exactly why I bought tickets--most likely because my wife was particularly interested in it.

Anyhow, I went. My wife was coming from a class, so we arranged just to meet at the seats. Since I was by myself I decided to save a few bucks and take the bus, instead of a cab. Actually it was two buses, but the transfer worked well. I got there in plenty of time to check my coat--and found the same guy who usually checks coats across the street at Avery Fisher Hall. He said there was no performance there this evening.

I found my seat, in the third row way on the right. It would give me a good view of Tetzlaff--and the underside of the piano. My wife arrived with a few minutes to spare. The musicians eventually came on stage--without a warning to turn off cellphones. They both wore black business suits and black shirts. Tetzlaff added a burnt orange tie.

The first two sonatas were just what I expected--pleasant and pretty. Tetzlaff is a fine violinist to be sure, but sometimes he seemed a just tiny bit tentative, e.g. he sometimes delaying the tiniest bit in starting the vibrato for a note. With an orchestra playing behind him I'm sure I wouldn't have noticed, but with only the piano accompaniment (despite the names of the sonatas the piano was clearly subordinate in all three) it did stick out.

Intermission (a seemingly brief one) followed--I was glad the yummy new brownies offered in Avery Fisher Hall were available here, too. I saw one woman in a very nice black lace party dress with cute black and white pumps. Presumably she had attended whatever dinner they had had in the lobby preceding the recital. Then it was back to the seats for Sonata No. 3.

The third was much more to my liking--much more passionate than the first two, rather un-Brahms, in my opinion. It was rather short, and after three ovations they returned to the stage carrying more music for an encore. Tetzlaff announced it would be Antonín Dvorák's Sonatina, Opus 100. Unlike the Brahms works, this piece was a bit familiar to me. I think it might even have been more familiar to Tetzlaff also, because I heard no tentativeness here. It was my favorite part of the evening.

SPAM OF THE DAY

"With Virility Patch your penis will be able to reach from New York to Los Angeles"
But my wife is here with me in New York.

WEIRD WEB SEARCH OF THE DAY

frist rent apartment as install and own apartment in new york city found my blog. They probably meant "first," not "frist," but it's still pretty weird.

CALLING MR. BLACKWELL

The Associated Press says Olympics Figure Skating Outfits Lacking Style. That's putting it mildly. Not even the tackiest drag queen in the world would be caught dead in some of those outfits.

THEY CALL THAT A LOT OF SPAM?

In China Said Cracking Down on Junk E-Mail, it was reported that the official Xinhua News Agency said that 16.8 pieces of junk mail were received by the average Chinese e-mail subscriber. Per week.

16.8 per week? What are they complaining about? I'd be very happy if I had that few per day. My main e-mail address has been getting close to 60 a day lately. And I'm only counting real spam, not advertisements from companies I deal with.

MY TAKE ON THE OLYMPICS (GENERAL)

I haven't written very much about the Olympics. I've been watching them a lot, and enjoying them a lot (I've got USA v Russia in men's hockey on right now), but I think they are far less important than a lot of people seem to.

I used to feel otherwise. I remember watching them on TV all the way back to 1960. I fantasized being an Olympian. I contributed to the U.S. Olympic Committee ("America doesn't send a team to the Olympics, Americans do.") I was enthralled by Bud Greenspan's Olympiad Series on television. I actually went to the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, the entire 16 days.

But I have since come to realize that the original ideas behind the Olympics have been overwhelmed--not that they were perfect in the first place. As I have gotten older, I have come to put the stories of the Olympic athletes and their successes and failures in perspective. Each games there are new stories of athletes achieving their life-long dreams. There are new people going beyond their expectations--and many more falling short, frequently dismally short. The Olympic stage does not bring out the best performances in some. There are always controversies, allegations of cheating, doping, judging incompetence if not outright corruption.

The Olympics have become basically one big commercial operation. Sure, there are no sponsors' signs at the venues. But we all know that the the bulk of the money for the games comes from the television networks, especially the American one. They get the money by selling commercial time, promising the buyers large audiences for their ads. To get the large audiences they hype up the American athletes, frequently way beyond reason.

Most of the athletes, at least most of the ones contending for the medals, are full-time professionals. The idea that they are representing their countries is secondary at best, especially for those in the individual events. They are frequently the products of very expensive athlete production operations. For instance, the big alpine ski teams are equipped with hundreds of thousands of dollars of skis. The ski manufacturers will provide them because having their skis used by Olympic racers, especially by Olympic race winners, is great advertising, and will help them sell more skis. And unfortunately, the athlete production operations (with or without the consent of the athletes) are not above cutting corners, such as with doping, to get their people up on the winners' podium.

And this is where I really lost a lot of my enthusiasm for the Olympics. The commercialism I can take. It's the motivation of the athletes I have problems with. Someone once did a poll of Olympic athletes. They were asked if they would take an undetectable drug that would guarantee them a gold medal, but would also cut twenty years off their lives. As I remember, a good majority said yes. I think they also asked if they would take a similar drug that would that would cut their life in half, and nearly 30 percent would use that also. I lost a lot of my admiration for Olympic athletes. I think sports should enhance one's life, not decrease it. I think these people's priorities are out of whack.

I do still enjoy watching them, but it's more like I'm just watching a performance being given for my entertainment. I look at the quest for Olympic glory with a great deal of skepticism. If that's what the competitors want to do with their lives, that's OK, as long as they don't cheat, but I no longer dream of being one--and it's not a life-style I'd advocate for any young person.