James' Blog:

Dream

2011-09-22T14:19:00.003-04:00

Last night I had a dream that Dhino and I were in Brooklyn with the police officers from the Animal Precinct TV show on Animal Planet network. We all went on a call for a lost elephant and sure enough when we showed up in front of an Indian family’s brownstone, the space on the sidewalk where the elephant usually stands was empty. His footprints were still there but nothing else, even his ankle chain was gone. Humane Law Enforcement officer AnnMarie Lucas started calling people on her two-way radio and the neighbors all came out of their buildings to help look for the elephant. Dhino and I looked around on the ground for clues relating to the disappearance and I started to feel some anxiety because there weren’t any but seeing the dozens of caring people who gathered around AnnMarie for guidance made me feel better. AnnMarie made her announcement to the crowd “Thank you all for being here today. Look, it’s a sunny day so how hard is it going to be to find an elephant in Brooklyn!” And then my alarm went off.

Provincetown

2011-08-24T15:44:00.007-04:00

My trip to Provincetown Massachusetts went very well. I’d actually never been there before last week even though I’ve spent a huge amount of time in Boston during the nineties. My High School friend Pat lives there now so I stayed with her in her art studio/apartment. Pat works for Provincetown Magazine as a graphic designer so I spent time with her and her co-workers during carnival while they filmed and photographed the entertainer Charo, who was the grand marshal. The charming atmosphere of New England won me over. I drive an SUV so I could put my bike right into the back and then I had instant transportation around town. A met a bear who walked with me during carnival and later I met a Hawaiian cutie at a tea dance; I tried to talk to him but he had a boyfriend so no go. Hehe But the trip was fun and relaxing. P-town is very artsy and kitschy and now I’m a convert.

The B52's

2011-08-12T15:04:00.004-04:00

The B52’s performed a free concert last weekend at the Harry Chapmin Lakeside Theatre in East Meadow, which was hosted by Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano. Who got booed as soon as his name was mentioned to the crowd. Bad week on Wall Street I guess. The Bees danced around on stage in loose clothing as they performed such hits as “Roam,” “Rock Lobster” and, the most notable, "Love Shack." As well as two songs from the their latest studio release. I've loved the the B52’s since High School and couldn’t believe I was seeing them live. The guy behind me kept yelling “Cindy! Cindy!” The show was a spectacle for the eyes with the light show and the dancing/action on stage. We didn’t let the rain stop us from singing along and having a good time, and the band appreciated it. The next day on Facebook, the band posted “Great audience last night East Meadow, LI. Crowd was dancing in the rain.”

The Shaggs

2011-08-11T17:17:00.003-04:00

I think you could best describe this play as a sort of alternative, underdog story that Jamie and I went to see in the city last month. And it was funny as hell. The Shaggs were an earnest trio of teenage sisters from New Hampshire whose father tried to push them towards musical success believing that his mother foresaw the band’s rise to stardom. It sounds like a recipe for disaster already, right? The girl’s music is, to say it nicely, sounds like a teenage garage band practicing on their first day together. Hacked-at drumbeats, clumsy chords, chaotic arrangements, and lyrics that sound so naïve that it borders on unsettling. And yet there is something kind of interesting going on here with the music. Reportedly, during the recording sessions the band would occasionally stop playing, claiming one of them had made a mistake and that they needed to start over, leaving the sound engineers to wonder how the girls could tell when a mistake had been made.
Fast forward to 1980 when the Rounder Records reissued the band’s album Philosophy of the World and Rolling Stone magazine awarded The Shaggs “Comeback of the Year”. The Shagg’s album has since been regarded as avant-garde cult classic with such notable fans as Frank Zappa and Kurt Cobain. Grade B+

Super 8 not so Great

2011-07-19T13:35:00.001-04:00

I saw this last month and I really wanted to like this movie because it started off interesting and the kids were kind of funny and entertaining and I love fun summer movies. But as the movie progressed I kept thinking to myself that ….“This part is like Cloverfield, Stand By Me, The Goonies, The Fog, War of the Worlds (also with a Fanning girl), Close Encounters and E.T. the Extra Terrestrial. The ending was exactly like E.T and I didn’t like that especially since ten minutes earlier it was revealed that the monster was catching, hanging and eating the townspeople like what the creature from The Empire Strikes Back did to Luke Skywalker. They glossed over that part as the lead boy, now in the alien’s clutches, was like “I understand your feelings.” I was like get the hell out of here. Sorry but I have to give this movie a fail for being a mishmash of other Steven Spielberg movies.

May 1st's Big News

2011-05-16T12:31:00.002-04:00

So you want to ask a native New Yorker about September 11th and Osama bin Laden’s recent death? Well, when they broke the announcement the news on I have to admit that my jaw practically hit the floor. It was like a news update that they had killed the Boogeyman or something. I really never thought that he would be captured or assassinated because since he was hiding in some remote province of Pakistan and because the press reported that he had all these health problems. Osama can’t go to the hospital or a doctor’s office like a regular person so I thought that he would just expire one day and we’d never hear about it anyway. Not with his network of people protecting him and his secrets. Did he die several years ago? Who knows? How will we ever know the truth?
I didn’t jump up and down and I didn’t let loose a stream of profanity against Osama like my brother did but I did feel that there is finally closure for the families of 9/11 victims. It did bring up some phantom feelings of sadness with all the clips they keep showing on TV and the internet of September 11th. Its justice and it does send a strong message to the other countries of the world. But on the other hand, the United States foreign policies are nothing to be exactly proud of either.
“It is in times like these that a line is drawn between critical thinkers and those who get swiped by media crap-storms; Between those who understand the complexity of a situation and those who’d rather not know; Between those who comprehend the underlying motives of the elite and those who go outside chanting “USA! USA!”. – From http://vigilantcitizen.com

Birthday

2011-04-14T17:03:00.003-04:00

I forgot to take off work for my birthday but it was just as well since Monday is my busiest work day. It was still a great day because I received text messages, calls and emails. I receive so many wonderful birthday notices on Facebook, I really felt the love from everybody on my special day.

Black Swan

2011-02-17T15:10:00.002-05:00

I bought sloppy copy of Black Swan from a guy at my Laundromat for meager $5.00. It’ll be a bargain if the picture and sound quality are good I thought. Later that night I popped it into my DVD player because I only intended to watch the first ten minutes just to see how the copy was and I stayed up to watch the entire movie because it totally sucked me in. It’s an interesting story; the prima ballerina (Natalie Portman) is simultaneously breaking down and rising up against her toxic relationships and her own manipulated mind. It’s a good psychological thriller because at some points in the movie you’re scared for her and at other points you’re scared of her. The lines of reality and paranoia are blurred. It’s also a revealing look into the shady back end of high stakes entertainment.

O Mickey!

2011-02-08T16:39:00.003-05:00

The Pee-Wee Herman Show on Broadway

2010-12-28T10:12:00.004-05:00

Jamie, Yvonne and me went to see The Pee-Wee Herman Show on Broadway at the Stephan Sondheim Theater and it was a pretty fun night. The girls I all agreed to pay extra for our tickets in advance if it meant getting seats close to the stage and the seats were great, fourth row center. We were so close to the stage that Pee-Wee could have shot a load on me - pun intended. It was like sitting in the studio audience while filming the Pee-Wee Playhouse television show, the jokes were witty and the special effects and lighting were clever. We had the genuine feeling of being catapulted back in time and reliving a happy part of my childhood. After the show we were all talking and interestingly enough we all agreed that we had all been concerned before the show that the nostalgia factor may have residue of sadness but it didn’t. Paul Reubens bounced back big time. There were contemporary jokes mixed in with the older jokes and there were still plenty of the usual double entendres. Phil Lamarr from MadTV played Cowboy Curtis, pretty cool right?

People's Improv Theater: Part 2

2010-12-21T14:10:00.003-05:00

I just completed the an eight week Level 1 improvisation comedy class and we even did a graduation show on Saturday night at the People’s Improv Theater in New York for about fifty people. Before the performance, we divided the class up into two groups to perform simultaneously and since we were short one person for team two, my teacher asked if I wouldn’t mind performing with the second group as well. Although I thought I was going to have a heart attack I took one for the team and just went through with it, and show was fantastic. We were all totally in sync, the audience had a great time and we had so much to be proud afterwards.
I was really struggling to free myself of inhibitions and shyness during the classes over the last several weeks. I had a so many panic attacks and more than one case of hyperventilation. I felt total non-judgment and acceptance from all the people in my class and that’s what gave me room to grow. This was definitely a spiritual journey and I let the universe inside of me shine through in my performances.

Saudi Prince Kills Servant

2010-10-25T15:04:00.001-04:00

It's all pretty obvious now about the Prince Abdulaziz Bin Nasser Al Saud. I absolutely think that closeted gay men and women who are repressed by religion, social duty and cultural norms end up acting out in a negative manner. Negative energy has to go somewhere and go somewhere it will. The Prince and his servant had a controlling, self loathing violent secret relationship that spiraled into the realm of the outrageous and in the end and revealed itself publicly. And tragically. The emotions caused by shame, oppression and control are powerful and destructive and yet strangely, I still feel bad for both the Prince and his servant. What a mess, nobody wins. Closet-case situations like this are going on all over the world, haven’t be all been witness to them? Sad.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/10/20/saudi.arabia.prince.sentencing/index.html

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

2010-09-15T17:35:00.005-04:00

Went to visit my friend Marlon in Pittsburgh, PA last weekend and we went to the Andy Warhol Museum for the first time. I really enjoyed the museum immensely and thought it was a real loving tribute to Andy, his life and career. He was a really unique talent. There was a joint retrospective with Marcel Duchamp in one of the galleries and it was really interesting to see both bodies of work juxtaposed against each other. I found the art that Andy created during his years at Carnegie Tech particularly interesting. It was complicated and mature; his use of oil paint was quite impressive. The room with the silver clouds installation caused me to let out an audible “Oooooo” as soon as I saw it; I loved being in there so much. The galleries of Andy’s avant-garde films were interesting but I probably would have had a hard time sitting there for hours to go through them all. Maybe some spiff would have been fun in this particular gallery?
Earlier in the day I stopped by the Carnegie Museum of Art and Natural History, the collections were excellent particularly the Dinosaurs in Their Time, African Wildlife and North American Wildlife. Interestingly enough… scenes from the films Flashdance and Silence of the Lambs were filmed inside the galleries. The Museum of Art is nationally and internationally recognized for its distinguished collections of American and European works from the 16th century to present. They had a Nympheas (Water Lilies) painting by Monet that had a canvas size of a city bus and I sat on a gallery couch and just absorbed the beauty of it. There were also works by notable artists such as Gustav Klimt, Georgia O’Keefe, Mark Rothko and Edward Hopper.
Pittsburgh was small and friendly American city and as Marlon pointed out to me upon my return, I’ve only scratched the surface of it all.

The People's Improv Theater

2010-09-15T16:29:00.001-04:00

To have some fun this summer, I enrolled in a four week class in NYC. I just completed Level 0: The Joy of Improv at the People’s Improvisational Theater on Sunday nights. It’s been really stimulating, scary and I’ve met some really cool people. I really had to rely on and use my quick thinking. My life has been a bit boring the last year or so and no I feel like a change and maybe find a new hobby. After the final class, the whole class went out for drinks and for a one on one review. I’m really glad I had this experience even though at times I was scared shitless and thought I was going to have a heart attack. And after each class I feel like a million bucks because of what I just accomplished. And since I'm a current student, I get free passes to Improv shows during the week at the People's Improv Theatre and I've been going into the city after work every Wednesday night to check them out.

The Blind Side

2010-08-09T15:49:00.003-04:00

A guy at my job lent me The Blind Side DVD before he returned it. There actually nothing terribly exciting about movie, it’s totally formulaic like most mainstream Hollywood movies. But Sandra Bullock’s memorable tough/funny performance stands out and kept me interested. She’s great and really inhibits the character. Sandra’s been in a couple of clunkers over the last couple of years but with The Blind Side, all is forgiven.

Dhino's Farewell Tour

2010-06-09T10:54:00.003-04:00

My buddy Dhino from LA was here in New York for three weeks for a family wedding and stayed with me for two of those weeks here in Seaford. Dhino made himself a terrific house guest by doing simple things like cleaning up after himself, folding and putting away his blanket and washing the dishes he used, not only is he fun but he’s really independent. He learned the Long Island Railroad and local bus schedules and figured out how to take the NYC subways to see the sites he wanted to see. He kept himself occupied during the day while I worked. It was a really cool experience and we had fun. I even got to see the NYC I’m so familiar with through a new person’s eyes as well. We went to Ground Zero, the east and West Village, Times Square, Queens, the High Line, Chelsea and different towns here on Long Island to shop and eat at. Dhino made a joke that he was having information overload but still maintained how much fun he was having. He even showed me how to view free On Demand television shows on my cable system. This man knows his technology! It was fun to come home and have someone to talk to and eat/watch TV with actually. It was a great trip for both of us.

Famous People I Met While In LA

2010-05-21T15:46:00.012-04:00

This is a list of all the famous people I ran into while I lived in LA. Most of them I just saw in person and a few pulled up next to me in cars at red lights. But some I spoke to and/or did business with. Actually, I don’t enjoy talking to famous people because it makes my heart race and I hate that feeling....

Gina Gershon (from Showgirls)
Drew Barrymore
Ronnie James Dio
Joel McHale (The Soup)
Antony Anderson (at Target)
Busta Rhymes
Tim Robbins
Julian Sands (from Warlock)
Wislon Cruz
Alec Mapa
Michael McDonald (Stewart from MadTV)
Wanda Sykes
Devon Aoki
Charlie Sheen (twice)
Donald Faizon (SCRUBS,Clueless)
Twink Caplan( Miss Giest from Clueless)
Omar Epps
Guillermo Diaz (Halfbaked, Stonewall)
Clea Duvall (so nice)
Rebecca Gayheart
Jai Rodriguez (Queer Eye For The Straight Guy)
Jeffery Jones (principal from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off)
Eddie Shin
Marla Maples Trump
Chris Kattan (SNL)
Margaret Cho
Jane Lynch (so nice)
Bruce Daniels
Ron Jeremy
Jaclyn Smith
Nick Verreos (Project Runway)
Marcia Strassman (Welcome Back Kotter’s Wife)
Wayne Knight (Newman from Seinfeld/Jurassic Park)
Tommy Davidson
Frances Conroy (the mother from Six Feet Under)
Paul Giamatti
Daniel Baldwin
Robert Culp
Greg Grunberg (Heroes)
Carrot Top
Bobby Trendy
Melanie Hutsell (original Jan Brady on SNL)
Luke Perry (still looks good)
Danny Devito
Taylor Dane
Suge Knight (he’s huge)
Leisha Hailey (The L Word)
Colin Farrell
Arthel Neville
Blair Underwood
Rex Lee
Apl.de.ap (Black Eyed Peas)
Weird Al Yankovic (twice)
Sally Struthers
Star Jones (traveling 1st class with her bodyguard)
Danny Bonaduce
Brigitte Nielsen
Malcolm Jamal-Warner (The Cosby Show)
Alfonso Ribeiro
Stephen Tobolowsky (Glee, Single White Female)

While selling art supplies and doing custom framing in LA, I did business with the assistants for Debbie Harry, Jamie Lee Curtis, Adam Sandler and Heidi Klum. I used to see professional models and actors from television commercials all the time but didn’t know their names. I have been asked if I met any famous porn stars while I was out in LA. One of the weirdest experiences I had in California was the time I pulled my car over in West Hollywood after seeing a man being physically assaulted on N. Kings Road. I called the police and then yelled to the guy that he could sit in my car until help arrived. After getting into my car he admitted that the man beating him up was actually his boyfriend and they were both high on crystal meth and fighting over a call on a cell phone. He asked if I was gay and if recognized him so I said yes and no. He said he was a porn star for Colt Studios and wanted to take me out for coffee sometime to thank me properly for helping him out. After the police pulled up and parked I told him that he needed to go sort out this situation with his boyfriend, who had just come out from behind some trees up the street and was now approaching the police car. He was really sweet actually and cried before he got out of my car. Although I felt bad for him, I never called him back and don’t even remember his name. The glamour of porn.

Mark Ryden Show, NYC

2010-05-03T14:25:00.012-04:00

Surrealist painter Mark Ryden had a show last week in NYC and it was brilliant. Jamie, Troi and I met on Thursday night for the opening at The Kasmin Gallery in Chelsea. Mark brought what appeared to be his family and close friends from California to the New York opening. A crowd appeared around Mark on the street outside of the gallery early, then they left and then came back again towards the end of the reception to still more intensely devoted fans. I heard Mark tell his manager "Tomorrow night will be better, it will be calm." I wanted to talk to him but didn't want to be on on the annoying people.
The show was really crowed and had an oddball circus-like atmosphere to it, they were drag queens, punk rockers, artists and people who dressed like the characters in the paintings. There was even a woman walking around on stilts! I ran into a guy I went to High School with outside the gallery. It was such a weird night but it was fun. Jamie, Troi and I walked around the show and talked about the symbolism themes in the paintings and other people overheard us and put their two cents in as well.

Los Angeles/Arizona Trip

2010-04-15T17:04:00.007-04:00

I haven’t had a vacation in almost two years and since then my mom got sick and passed away and I moved from Valley Stream to Seaford, so I took off on a joint LA/Arizona vacation for my birthday. It was weird to be in California and not be in a state of distress like I had been so many times, it felt good now. I had a wonderful time and got to see people like Ramon, Dhino, Noel, David, Rick and Hector. I didn’t get to see everybody but there’s always next time. My favorite part of the trip was staying up late with Grant and watching television and just eating and talking. Grant has a beautiful apartment with Rancho Palos Verdes with a pool and a Jacuzzi, he always makes me feel at home when I stay with him. I ate and slept so well while I was there and came back to NY feeling refreshed and relaxed. Although, I did kind of forget about how annoying the traffic is in LA. On my second day, I drove from Ranchos Palos Verdes to Northridge to see Dhino and then from there to Downtown LA to see Ramon and then from there to West Hollywood to see David and then back to Ranchos Palos Verdes to go to sleep. On my last night in Cali, we went with Rocky and Tina to Islands restaurant (http://www.islandsrestaurants.com) and had such a good time together, we laughed the whole night. And Grant’s friend Ty joined us there and we all went back to Grant’s apartment and watched the YouTube video of Bjork beating up a reporter in the Thailand airport. Good times.
The next day I drove my rental car to Arizona to see my dad and Mary and we went out to dinner to Ranchos de los Caballeros with their friend Mickey. I love the five hour drive though California to Arizona and found it cathartic to just be alone in the desert and to decompress. My first full day in LA, I went to the Point Vicente Interpretive Center and Museum after breakfast and just walked around quietly in the sun taking pictures and enjoying the sounds and smells of the Pacific Ocean. I actually felt myself coming down. I had a good time with my dad and Mary and they even took me to see their boarded horse Nevada. Afterwards we went to see an all woman art exhibit called CowgirlUp! in Wickenburg and then we went for lunch at the golf course. I drove to Phoenix on my last night and took the red-eye back to New York.

Dreamscape

2010-03-03T13:34:00.004-05:00

Last weekend I had my first positive dream about California that I can remember. Usually when I dream about California, I wake up feeling severely depressed and traumatized. The succession of images, thoughts, sounds, or emotions which pass through my mind during sleep are all tied to things not working out while I lived in California (and my desire to somehow make it work one day). Last Saturday I dreamed that I was driving through central California at sunset and I noticed how beautiful the mountains looked that time of day. I had just gotten off some freeway and was driving down a residential street, where I made a u-turn in front of an old, burnt up mailbox. Inside the mailbox were a bunch of old envelopes from Gibson Maintenance with a rubber band around them. I looked at it for a moment and then got back in my car and drive away towards the mountains. This may not sound like a particularly positive dream but I had no feelings of ambivalence because I didn’t mail the package in the lost mailbox. Did this dream signify past and unfinished business?
Some dream theorists believe to see mountains in your dream, may signify many major obstacles and challenges that you have to overcome. If you are on top of the mountain, then it indicates that you have achieved and realized your goals. You have recognized your full potential. Alternatively, mountains denote a higher realm of consciousness, knowledge, and spiritual truth. To see a mailbox in your dream may represent important information that you are about to receive. Pay particular attention to your dream and what message it is trying to convey to you from your unconscious. If the mailbox is full, then it indicates that you have not digested or accepted these messages. I felt good when I woke up that’s why the symbolism seems so significant to me.

Gabriel Orozco Retrospective at the MOMA

2010-02-24T15:22:00.013-05:00

Glen and I went to see the Gabriel Orozco Retrospective at the MOMA in NYC. I like Gabriel's graphic design work (which is prolific) as well as some of the installations like the car (see pictured) and the elevator (see pictured). The elevator installation is fun because the floor is too high and ceiling is too low which exacerbates the feeling of claustrophobia one feels inside of an elevator with strangers. One of the museum personnel yelled at me to stop taking pictures. Wah!Glen and I went through the retrospective pretty quickly and then went on to the collections on the other floors. The Tim Burton exhibit was sold out the day we were there so we'll try to go another weekend.

http://www.moma.org

RuPaul Reproduction

2010-02-16T13:17:00.005-05:00

I first met RuPaul in 1988 when he and the Atlanta posse ruled the club scene in NYC with The Celebrity Club. The first time I saw him I was sitting in a chair in the Tunnel basement while he strutted around the place. I was in awe of how tall RuPaul was and thought he really could pass for a woman. Me and my friends would chat and hang out with Rupaul at The Tunnel, The World, The Pyramid, Wigstock and The Love Machine, where he used to MC under the name "CupCake." Once Rupaul felt up my roommate Austin's leg at the It Club causing me and my college buddy Perry to go into fits of hysteria. Ru was always speeding back then but was usually pretty funny but always really loud. He only wore long black Diana Ross-like wigs back (no blonde ones) and he was thin as a rake. We once saw him at laundromat in the East Village during the day. He wasn't in drag but stood out because of his height and bright yellow nail polish on his feet. I didn't see him around for a while and then I saw him on TV with Supermodel in 1993 and the rest was history.
When RuPaul's autobiography came out in 1996, I went to his book signing at A Different Light bookstore in NYC and asked him to sign my copy. But when I asked him about the old club kid days, he was a bit dismissive which made me feel a little disappointed but I was happy for all his success anyway. Later in 1998, I saw him on the the street in Chelsea and said hello to him and he was a total snot and now he's on cable TV every night of the week. So there you go.

Fat Country

2010-02-04T14:57:00.005-05:00

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report a dramatic increase in obesity in the United States during the past 20 years. When I was growing up in Suffolk County Long lsland, there were four fast food chain restaurants: McDonald’s, Burger King, Jack in the Box and Kentucky Fried Chicken. These fast-food restaurants were spread out some distance from each and we maybe only ate there once a week and usually it was on a Friday night. I remember because Friday night was my mom’s night off from cooking and the first thing I would do Saturday morning when I got up was play with my Happy Meal toy. My mother used to say the word “fast food” with dismissive contempt in her voice. It was the norm for us to eat at home almost every night and then bring a prepared lunch to school every day. But occasionally my brother and I would get buy a hot meal at school for a buck if my mom ran out of time to go grocery shopping. And it was then at school we would get to have some pizza. Back then, pizza was not something that we ate consistently but rather occasionally and it was almost always a home delivery. Which was fun for me and my brother because we would have to stay on the lookout for the pizza delivery guy’s car and flick our porch light on and off so he’s know which house on the cul-de-sac was ours. And then dear old mom would finish the transaction with cash at the front door and then it was chow time.
There is a big chasm here with the type of food that we ate growing up and the number of times we ate it weekly if you fast-forward to today’s fast food nation. It is so hard to eat healthy in America today with the proliferation with fast food restaurants on every corner. There’s even fast food restaurants inside of fast food restaurants; Baskin Robbins inside of a Dunkin Donuts and Pizza Hut inside of a Taco Bell. You really do have to work hard at eating healthy and resisting the urge to get your hunger pains instantly dulled by an inexpensive value meal.

Snowbound

2010-01-11T17:21:00.002-05:00

We had two feet of snow here in NY one Sunday morning but I didn't fret. I just went inside and made myself a nice little breakfast. Of course afterwards I went outside and helped my landlord with the snow blower and shoveling. I don't recall having these issues when I lived in Southern California.

Sweet Sixteen

2010-01-11T16:42:00.004-05:00

On Friday December 11th, I attended my cousin's Sweet Sixteen at the Watermill in Smithtown. Katherine had a very sophisticated Sweet Sixteen and the catering hall was decorated beautifully for the holidays. I got to see so many people again from my stepfather's side of the family and my "date" for the night was my stepsister Christine. When I first arrived she said she's be my beard for the night and I said fine, I'll be yours (inside joke). We had a great time and gossiped like a couple of old ladies about everyone as usual. The food was delicious the music was loud and the staff was very attentive. Everything was done first rate and I felt brilliant when I left. But my mom was on my mind since so many people we talking to me about her at the party.
Since it was early, on the way home I stopped by two places that my mom used to live - Commack and North Babylon. The houses looked different as I drove by but they still looked nice. But I could see what they used to look like and what they looked like now like a transparency over my mind. I'm a masochist - joke. I actually didn't feel bad on the way home but rather that I had some closure and I'm glad I did it. I actaully felt a bit of the peaceful side.

Beginning

2010-01-11T16:26:00.003-05:00

Christmas was great this year.
Great food.
Great people.
Great fun.
Great presents.
But catching the swine flu on Christmas from a sick baby was not so great.

Ending

2010-01-11T15:39:00.003-05:00

In October, my lease was up for the crap apartment I was living in in Valley Stream. The apartment itself was OK but the neighbors and the noise from the street left a lot to be desired. I found a great studio apartment in a private house in Seaford, NY and was recommend to the owner by a mutual friend. Nobody had ever lived in the unit before. I feel so lucky that my landlord is so nice, the area is great and it's so cost effective to live here.
On the same week that I was was suppose to move, my mother passed away from lung cancer while in hospice care. A parent dying is hell to get through but having to move the next day was pretty crazy. I wonder if the move was a blessing in disguise since it kept my mind focused on something other than suffering. I feel like I woke up a few weeks later after being on quiet autopilot for some time.

Killsonic

2009-09-25T15:31:00.005-04:00

Los Angeles based band Killsonic played at La Poisson Rouge in New York City. They appear on stage (all 25 of them) and warm up sounding like a snippet from a Tim Burton film until they queue up and the percussion kicks in. The videos of Killsonic on YouTube don't do them justice so seeing them live is highly suggested. After an amazingly avant garde performance, the band spilled out on to Bleeker Street and blocked traffic while they jammed for all the onlooker's delight. Their conquest of New York City was now complete. A reviewer descried them as "an experimental music collective, mixing jazz, hardcore, folk and contemporary classical music." Well said.

Prada Man Bag

2009-09-17T16:21:00.002-04:00

My friend Ed recently visited New York from Florida and stayed in Brooklyn with our mutual friend Andy and another visiting friend Bret. We spent one day during the visit in Brooklyn and the other in the city and we even went to Chinatown so Bret could find a Prada knock-off. The Prada bag search in Chinatown, NYC last week was an interesting one. Here's how it went down: women stand on the street in Chinatown with laminated pages of the bags and shoes that they have available for men and women. After you pick the item you want from the list, the women speak in Cantonese and/or Mandarin to lurking men on the other side of the sidewalk. You then follow them to a basement or storefront in the area where they have their stock and you pick out what you want and then haggle a price. If it sounds scary it is but Brett got a knock-off Prada man bag for $60 that retails for $1300. And it really does look like a Prada bag to the untrained eye and even has Prada buttons. But we made fun of it anyway and referred to the bag as a "Frada bag" (fraud+Prada+Frada). hehe

Retail Reunion

2009-09-15T16:24:00.006-04:00

Pictured are some of the coolest co-workers you could ever have. Alison, me, Mary-Kate and Maureen (also pictured are new friend Sue and Marueen's husband Trung). We all worked together starting in 1992 at The Gap in Green Acres mall in Valley Stream, NY. It was so great to reconnect and have a few laughs together again. It would have been great to get everyone we worked together for our mini-reunion but they were all there in spirit anyway.

Wax and Wane

2009-08-05T13:11:00.002-04:00

There are such sad nights in LA and then the sun rises like a boxer from the mat. Once a co-worker remarked to me as we got off work at 5:30 in the morning and walked around West Hollywood looking for breakfast "It's really a shame that people don't usually get to see LA this early in the morning when it's beautiful and peaceful." At certain times of the year, there is a cloudy and gentle mist quietly hoovering as it starts to get light out. I was forever looking up at the mountains on both sides of the hill, in awe of the beauty of nature when I lived in Southern California.

Valley Stream Fire Dept.

2009-06-29T16:54:00.003-04:00

The building across the street from me had a small fire issue but it was probably out by the time the fire trucks arrived. I could see smoke in the hallway from the street but thankfully nobody had to be brought out on a stretcher.

Father's Day Brunch At My Place

2009-06-23T10:57:00.005-04:00

I went out on a limb this Father’s Day and invited my family over to my house for a brunch. I don’t think I’ve ever entertained for my family however I just wanted to jazz up boring old Father’s Day a bit. I placed my order for croissants & pastries before hand and I picked up fresh bagels at 6:30 AM in Rockville Centre. I had fruit salad, assorted yogurts, jellies, cream cheese and butter. My cousin gave me a recipe for a breakfast casserole called Bake Ahead Breakfast with eggs, sausage and cheese. It was delicious and everybody devoured it. Drinks were coffee, tea and mimosas. The entire brunch went perfectly and everybody had a good time. The best part was that my dad and brother got to come over, eat and enjoy themselves and they didn’t have to do anything.

Staying Up All Night

2009-04-22T14:44:00.006-04:00

“Bad Is Fun” read a t-shirt I once saw and sometimes staying up all night can fun if you dive right into it. Back in ’06, I picked up Dhino in my silver Honda CR-V and we drove around the back streets of Los Angeles, talking all night long. I think went down as far as Manhattan Beach and drove along the dark Pacific Ocean, occasionally seeing a beach fire glowing under the So-Cal stars. It was fun for me to see the famous Randy’s Donuts on W. Manchester in person after seeing it in print and on TV so many times. Although it did look a bit gritty and worn out so we agreed not to stop for a snack just yet. We drove around the back LAX on West Imperial Highway and Pershing Drive and up Sepulveda. Dhino is good company and he is a great tour guide since has interesting tidbits of information about almost everywhere in LA. We stopped in Beverly Hills to get gas and then went to a crappy 7-11 for snacks a block away. They didn’t even have a public restroom to use so I had to go round back and take a leak there. That’s right; I took a piss on the streets of Beverly Hills!
Driving around LA at night is a totally different experience than during the day with all the heat and intense traffic conditions. It takes forever to get anywhere or nowhere. But nighttime is a totally different experience. I used to love driving at night with the windows open and Sirius radio keeping me company when I was by myself. You can travel great distances very quickly and get to break the speed the limit with the rest of the traffic flow. I used the LA Traffic & Weather channel on Sirius religiously to get around all times of day. But the LA traffic experience is a whole different blog.

Easter Sunday

2009-04-13T16:18:00.005-04:00

My Easter started peacefully at dawn when I took the train into the city to attend church services at Metropolitan Community Church New York City. I'm not religious but I enjoy going to church - go figure. The guest preacher for Easter was Reverend Troy Perry, the founder of Metropolitan Community Church Los Angeles. He's an icon in the gay and lesbian community and it was a privilege to listen to him speak about how the 'speed bumps' in our lives actually help us grow. I shook his hand after the service, he was very friendly and asked if I would pray for him as he continues to fight for marriage equality in California. I said "Sure Reverend Troy, I'll do that for you." I lived in Los Angeles for two years and went to MCCLA but never saw Reverend Troy there. Oh well. I also spoke to Reverend Boon about his recent visit to the MCC in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and the work he did there, which I read about in the church bulletin that I get mailed to my house. Reverend Boon is a cool guy and it's always nice to talk with him.
I spent the rest of the day back on Long Island at my cousin's house with his family. My Aunt Pat was there and I made sure I thanked her for all the nice things she wrote in my Christmas cards when I lived in California. I felt like I was going to cry while I was talking to her but I held it back in. The rest of the day was great, the food was great, the company was great and conversation was great. Dan and Heather's three kids cracked me up. We even watched the 2009 Masters on TV together. Me, watching golf on TV? Yeah and it was fun too. I didn't go to my brother's house this Easter. Where people are drunk, stupid, smoking pot in the garage and playing mind games with me. I don't even feel welcome at my brother's house anymore because of my unstable sister-in-law and her father. So why should I torture myself by going where I'm not wanted?
After I left my cousin's I stopped my my stepbrother's house to see him and his wife. We had a few drinks and just chatted for a while before I went home. I talked to both my parents on the phone that night and I made sure I told them what a great day I had. I didn't tell them I was happy that I had a drama-free day because I wasn't at my brother's house but I knew the deal.

Fresh Reflections

2009-03-31T16:40:00.006-04:00

The weather was like a perfect California day here in New York. Low humidity, warm and sunny. I was online at lunch and looked up the management company that managed the Studio City, CA building I used to lived in. My building, The Excelsior, is pictured online and I got a little weepy thinking about how great things once were and how then ended it up being. I had to go out in the back of my building and get some fresh air and paced in the parking lot. I suddenly missed all my friends in California and felt soft and melancholy inside. I was so lucky to have found The Excelsior in the summer of 2006 and to have such a cool landlady in Sarah Hunley, the building "mother hen." Things were going so well for me until I got off track in my life and let my former boss from Aaron Brothers convince me to go into business with him. How could have left myself so vulnerable financially? How could I have trusted a friend! I have to get my life back on track, I have to stop not caring and acting like there is nothing wrong. I want better in my life than my job now, better than the apartment I'm in and better than everything now. I never had any second thoughts about moving to California while I was there until I had money problems. Money is something I never want to have to worry about.
Being sick for a week and lying on my couch gave me a lot of quiet time to think about things. For the most part, I have been without personal and professional goals for the last year I've been in New York. I've just been floating along while my money runs out. My parents used to tell me when I was in High School that I wasn't applying myself but I never understood what that meant until now. Part of me must have died off while I was sick because I see the last year more clearly now and from outside of myself as well.

Why is NAFTA bad for the United States?

2009-03-31T14:38:00.000-04:00

Why is this all bad for the US? Well, it is Mexican living conditions that are causing the influx of Illegal immigrants. The US has 12 million illegals living in our borders today and this hurts our economy for three reasons: illegals take jobs away from the American lower and middle class; illegals are hired because they have no social security number and can therefore be paid under the table- untaxed; most illegals send part of their pay back to their native country (US money not put back into the American economy); and lastly, liberal policies allow illegals to receive government assistance and medical care- which should and could be going to legal Americans. The more illegals we get within US borders, the more our own living conditions will deteriorate.
Another reason NAFTA has been bad for America is that it has almost single-handedly removed non-auto manufacturing from the US. To encourage American companies to participate in NAFTA, the US government provided various financial compensations to manufacturers who would move their businesses while Mexican officials promised lucrative land deals and building discounts. Lured by these compensations and the possibility of cheaper, non-unionized labor, many US companies responded by uprooting their manufacturing and/or assembly of goods and sending them to Mexico. Upon arriving, many companies were hit with minimum wage restrictions, corrupt municipal officials and poor utility companies.

The sharp and sudden reduction in manufacturing jobs hit the lower and middle class hard, especially in rural factory towns. This was particularly true for the American apparel industry.

NAFTA may have opened some political doors, but it closed many doors to factories across the US. In the boon of the late 80's and early 90's, America's prosperity had many convinced that America had wealth to spare. It seemed that way because all classes were thriving. NAFTA hurt America's lower and middle classes by greatly reducing its manufacturing capacity and getting rid of countless jobs.

Influenza

2009-03-29T13:23:00.003-04:00

Last week I was down with the flu. The last time I had the flu was three years ago when I lived in California and that was the worst I ever had it, until now. I never bothered with getting a flu shot before but next fall I am going to get one because I read that flu shots help cut down on the duration and intensity of the illness. I feel like poop. Hot sweaty poop.

20 Albums That Changed My LIfe

2009-03-13T07:38:00.001-04:00

20 Albums That Changed My Life

Think of 20 albums that had such a profound effect on you they changed your life or the way you looked at it. They sucked you in and took you over for days, weeks, months, years. These are the albums that you can use to identify time, places, people, emotions. These are the albums that no matter what they were thought of musically shaped your world.

The challenge: Do this in twenty minutes, as if nobody is judging your answers. When you finish, tag 20 others, including me. Make sure you copy and paste this part so they know the drill.

(1) The Sound of Music / Rogers and Hammerstein
(2) Something For Everybody / Baz Luhrman
(3) Nevermind / Nirvana
(4) Idlewild / Everything But The Girl
(5) The Singles / The Carpenters
(6) Hatful of Hollow / The Smiths
(7) Innervisions / Stevie Wonder
(8) Is This Desire? / PJ Harvey
(9) Doolittle / The Pixies
(10) 25th Anniversary Vol 1&2 / Dianah Ross & The Supremes
(11) Dusty In Memphis / Dusty Springfield
(12) Mexico / Putumayo World Music
(13) Secret Wish / Propaganda
(14) Various Artists / Rocky Horror Picture Show Soundtrack
(15) Boomerang / The Creatures
(16) Rumours / Fleetwood Mac
(17) Purple Rain / Prince
(18) Nothings Shocking / Janes Addiction
(19) Smash The Sysytem / Saint Etienne
(20) 3 Feet High and Rising / De La Soul

Although "changing my life" seems a bit much, these albums all hold a unique place in my heart because they made my think about things, feel or just remind me of a special time or person in my life. I also wore them the fuck out and had to buy them all over again!

High School Reunion

2009-02-25T22:26:00.003-05:00

Last weekend I attended my 20th High School Reunion here in New York. I was fine with going until two hours before and then I started feeling nervous and ambivalent. My mind stared racing with "I don't want to go now - I want to see people I know - Reunions are stupid - I need a drink just to show up - I want to punch so-and so's lights out for being mean to me senior year - I need to put the past in a box and throw away the key - blah blah blah...."

So the next morning I wrote my friend Greg a letter. Greg and I went to High School together but Greg lives in Korea now and could attend:

Hey Greg, how are you?

I woke up this this morning and was like "Whoo, that was intense." lol

I'm really glad I went because there was a few people that I really wanted to see and then there were quit a few pleasant surprises. I hung out with Joy all night and then we went to the VallBrook Diner to review the evening. James Gruenfelder was the hit of the party - he was such a riot. He loves you by the way and said he loves to bust your balls. lol I was surprised how many people asked me about my brother, you, Brian Currid and Dimitri. By the way, how many years have you been in Korea? I wasn't sure.
It was great to see Debbie Zukor(she's so cool & she bought the yearbook), Ingrid, Michael Bourquin and RoseMarie Guadilardo, Kim Accuzzo, Christine Sinnott (she's hilarious), Tina Anquilla, Wayne Guibbas, Lisa Carricato, Karen Destefano, Chris Gebbia, Carl Lundgren, John Rini (still crazy and nice), Henry Romani (friends with my brother), Tom Panepinto, Janine Cicero (who punched me in the arm), Lisa Bosco, Christine Iadevio and Jen Varhatus was there too.
The reunion was a bit like the red carpet in Hollywood where you talk to someone for a minute or two and move down the line to the next person. Joy and I cut out around 11:30 PM because people were getting really sloshed and we didn't want to be there when it started getting too weird. hehe People will be posting their pictures online over the next couple of days and if they're smart than they'll tag them as well. I got nervous about two hours before the reunion but it was OK, it was nice to see everyone again.

Jay

HIgh School Reunion Photos

2009-02-25T22:22:00.007-05:00

To Find A Roommate

2009-02-17T16:23:00.003-05:00

I've been trying to rent out the spare room in my apartment to a roommate since December and have yet to find a compatible man or woman. I have well written ads on Roommates.com, PrideRoommates and Craigslist. The glitch seems to be the three items that I require before I agree to show the room and do the first meet-and-greet:

1. Last two paycheck stubs
2. Two business references and two personal references
3. A photo ID

People just can't seem to come up with these. I need them for my protection because I need to know who I'm living with and don't want to get stuck with another deadbeat roommate. I need a roommate to help me defer my monthly costs so I can save money and create a bit of a financial cushion for myself. I have met some shady and desperate people online and even a few con artists along the way. The sites warm of scams that are being perpetrated on many rental websites, most commonly directed towards those with a room available for rent like mine. The scammers are typically foreign (many state they are from Nigeria or the UK). They will send an overpayment for a rent deposit in the form of a cashier's check. The scammer will then ask for a partial refund (their overpayment minus the deposit). After the money has been refunded, the victim finds that the cashier's check was counterfeit. I have been contacted by three of these scammers so far (the same girl twice), I guess she/he forgot they contaced me the first time. Sometimes the world is a scary place.

My New Apartment

2009-02-02T21:43:00.007-05:00

As you can see I like the color red. Typical Aries right?!

Super Bowl XLIII

2009-02-02T12:20:00.010-05:00

Last night was Super Bowl XLIII and the Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Arizona Cardinals 27-23. The game was exciting in the 1St and 4Th quarters but lulled a bit in the middle. I'm not really into sports but the Super Bowl is an American icon and there are a lot of fun parties so I join in. The preview commercials for upcoming movies such as Transformers 2 and The Fast and The Furious 4 looked awesome. I watched the game over my brothers Chris' house, who lives right around the corner from where I live.
That's my brother-in-law Rob, he's very serious about sports and ignored our foolishness during most of the game!

Some of the yummy food early in the evening.

Rob and Leia

Crazy Jackie and my bro Chris. Chris's wife Julia had work tonight.

The football cake for the Super Bowl - yes we did eat it and yes, it was good!

The Good, The Bad, The New York

2009-01-18T17:16:00.005-05:00

It's been a year this month that I moved back to New York from California and much to my chagrin, the quality of my life is not much better here. I'm not better off financially since I moved back, in fact, I'm worse off now than before I left. I'm not happier now and since the economy has tanked, there's a more intense feeling of hopelessness. I work more and earn less. If I had known my future was going to be like this then I never would have moved to California in 2006. I would have stayed put in my apartment in Kew Gardens. At least I would still have my money.
Living at my brother's empty house after I returned was a huge mistake to me financially and I would have saved money, been happier and had to do less work if I had just moved into a small rental unit. My brother is quite a ball-buster too, he called me in California and asked me if I wanted to live in his empty house that he was trying to sell and told me I could pay him "whatever I could afford." So I did. Only to nag me after I moved in that I wasn't paying him enough rent and the strangers he found could pay him $2500.00 per month. So I called his bluff and moved out. I knew Scott didn't have any renters and he was just being mean to show who had the upper hand in the situation. Scott didn't have any renters at all but my rent was helping to defer some his mortgage. After I began the moving process and found a new apartment for myself, my father seemed surprised to hear that Scott had found new renters to take over the house from me. Interestingly enough, my brother abruptly sold house to the next person who gave him an offer, and claims to have lost a huge amount of money "because the market was so bad." Did Scott sell the house because he didn't want the hassle of handling a rental unit? I guess we'll never know. Now I feel trapped here and I can't even afford to move away or be able to find a job even if I wanted to.

Winter Health

2009-01-16T21:58:00.004-05:00

It's been an unusually cold and snowy winter here in the North East, the temperature dropped below normal by the end of October. My asthma has been very bad this year with the cold air and I keep having to go to the doctor for steroids and antibiotics to pull through the week. It seems that everyone at my job is sick and viruses and colds keep going around and this is what's exacerbating the symptoms of my asthma. I had have a nebulizer treatment on Wednesday because I was becoming listless and fatigued with all the coughing I've been stressed out with. I really thought I was coming to my wits end. I asked my doctor if I would feel better if I lived in Arizona and he said "yes". My asthma hardly bothered me at all while I lived in Southern California but the air in Los Angeles is heavily polluted. There are different factors that trigger asthma attacks in people and mine in the cold weather. I copied this interesting article off the Internet:

What causes asthma?
The symptoms of asthma are caused by inflammation, which makes the airways red, swollen, narrower and extra-sensitive to irritants. However, the underlying causes of asthma are not fully understood. Asthma is probably usually caused by a mixture of hereditary factors (those you are born with) and environmental factors, but how these factors work together is still largely unknown.

Allergens from house dust mites and pets are the most common causes, but many other allergens, such as pollen and moulds, can cause asthma. Some children with asthma have no obvious allergies.

What causes asthma symptoms or an asthma attack?
Some causes of symptoms (triggers) are common to all children with asthma, and some are more individual, especially allergens. There are very big differences between children in how easily and how severely they react. The severity of the symptoms or an attack can differ in the same child at different times, and treatment can also be more or less effective.

Your child’s asthma does not stay the same, but changes over time, and every child with asthma has good days and bad days (or longer periods). However, if asthma is properly treated, your child can also have long periods without symptoms or attacks.

What are asthma triggers?
Asthma triggers are factors that start asthma symptoms or an asthma attack by irritating the airways or worsening the inflammation in the airways. These triggers can provoke attacks in individuals who already have a tendency to asthma, but they are not necessarily part of the cause of that tendency. The following triggers can cause asthma symptoms or start an asthma attack:

infections, usually those caused by a virus (e.g. colds or flu)
allergens, most commonly from house dust mites, pets or pollen
play and exercise, especially in cold weather
emotions, such as excitement, fear or anger
irritants, such as air pollution
smoking – the parents of asthmatic children should avoid smoking
changes in the weather (e.g. a cold spell)
food allergens, such as peanuts (sensitised or allergic children can have a very severe allergic reaction); more rarely, food additives such as tartrazine (an artificial food colouring) may also act as triggers.
certain medications – some children may be allergic to some drugs (e.g. aspirin).

What are the main asthma triggers?
Different triggers can start an asthma attack, and children differ greatly in how easily and how severely they react.

Some triggers (also called ‘inciters’) only cause tightening of the airways (bronchoconstriction) that lasts for just a short time. These triggers include:

play and exercise
cigarette smoke
changes in air temperature
laughing
strong smells
Other triggers (also called ‘inducers’) also increase the underlying inflammation of the airways, and may have longer-term effects. Such triggers include:

allergens (e.g. pets, house dust mites and pollen)
infections (e.g. colds, flu)
certain chemicals

The German Girls

2008-12-16T16:05:00.007-05:00

My parents been friends with another couple from Germany for about 15 years or so. Claudia and Jurgen and my dad and Mary travel the world together and even take turns visiting the US and Germany; they all met on a cruise in the early 90s. My dad and Jurgen bring out the worst in each other but they are so funny when they are together so nobody really get's offended. Unless you mind two grown men still giggling about Pamela Anderson's boobs.
Jurgen's daughter Svenja came back to the US last week for a visit with her girlfriend, Cati. The girls were going to spend a weekend on LI after being in the city for six days and my dad kind of asked if I would spend a little time with them before they continued their journey upstate. Svenja went to college at SUNY Cortland and was going upstate to see from old friends on the last leg of their trip. Of course I said I'd love to hang out with them but it's winter time and there is not much to do that's fun in Long Island. I took the girls to see Robert Moses State Park and Beach right on the Atlantic Ocean. There is a famous tower at the middle of a traffic circle and the bathhouses and pool have some lovely art deco designs and architecture. The famous Jones Beach Theatre is also right up the road. The beach during the winter is an unusually beautiful and serene place, it's looks strange without any people on it at all on a sunny day except for the lone seagulls. The girls thought it was great and they took a lot of pictures. We talked, shared and joked around as we walked along the beach in the bitter cold. As we entered the parking lot on the way back to the car, we saw a hawk swoop down on a group of feeding pigeons and a fight straight out of Wild Kingdom ensued. The three of us watched as the birds fought and feathers and wings flopped around and then suddenly the pigeon broke free and started to fly away with the hawk flying right on it's tail. The distressed pigeon drove itself head first into the side of my car with crashing boom and then scuttled underneath for safety as the hawk flew away defeated (and probably still a bit hungry). There's nothing quite like the sound of pigeon skull against metal. The girls were hysterical as I screamed "My car!". Later, Svenja and Cati waited outside my car while while I backed it up slowly so I wouldn't run over the pigeon and it could take off and go free. They told me through the open passenger side window the pigeon was walking backwards under my car as I moved backwards. Eventually the pigeon gained it's bearings and flew away victorious. Once we all go back in the car to warm up, we couldn't stop laughing about the craziness of what just happened. What did we need to do next? Hot Chocolate from Starbucks and we were off - zoom!

Paintball Outing For Work

2008-12-16T15:07:00.005-05:00

My cousin and boss (who is a retired veteran of the American Air Force) recently took all the guys who work at his company Webhouse for a day of paintball. Since I am a team player and one of the guys, I went along as well although I didn't know much about paintball. Paintball is a sport in which players eliminate opponents by hitting them with pellets containing paint (referred to as a "paintball") usually shot from a carbon dioxide or compressed-gas powered paintball gun (or marker). And they hurt when you get hit and leave welts that last up to 24 hours.

Games can be also played either indoors or outdoors and take various forms, of which some of the most popular are woodsball, scenario, X-Ball and speedball. Rules for playing paintball vary widely, with most designed to ensure that participants enjoy the sport in a safe environment. The sport requires a significant amount of equipment.

A game of paintball usually involves two opposing teams seeking to eliminate all of the other team's players or to complete some other objective, such as retrieving a flag, eliminating a specific player, or other paintball variations. Depending on the style of paintball played, a paintball game can last from seconds to days. We played several games, in different scenarios in this particular park for 8 hours in the rain.

Autumn

2008-10-27T16:11:00.003-04:00

"It was, as I have said, a fine autumnal day; the sky was clear and serene, and nature wore that rich and golden livery which we always associate with the idea of abundance. The forests had put on their sober brown and yellow, while some trees of the tendered kind had been nipped by the frosts into brilliant dyes of orange, purple, and scarlet."

Washington Irving

Another Path

2008-10-22T20:08:00.003-04:00

My brother owns the house that I have been renting since moving back to New York from California in January. Although we had agreed that the house was going to be off the market for two years, my brother has sold it after me only living here for 10 months. I was a annoyed at my brother at first but have since found an apartment back in Valley Stream and I move in November 1st. It's very expensive to own a home and to maintain the upkeep and it takes up a lot of your time especially the outside. I'm sure it's a blessing in disguise since now I can have some more time for me and I will live much closer to my jobs. I'll save money on gas and get to sleep a little later in the morning. And no more having to water the lawn manually with a sprinkler after work to keep it from turning brown. See? I'm feeling better already.

Friends Unite

2008-10-22T19:28:00.005-04:00

Last night I went over Marsi and Steve's house for our usual "chat and catch up". We are all former neighbors of the Gibson Gardens apartment complex in Valley Stream, LI and we all met the the late 90's. But now we just refer to the building as Gibson Blvd. Living in Gibson Gardens was a tremendous growing experience for us as young people because the complex was so poorly managed and we often went without a superintendent for long periods of time. Or any support from the building management company for that matter. We actually had to survive on our own in certain ways as we learned the trials and tribulations of living in a co-op. We lived on the second floor and our apartment units were all in a row. Marsi and Steve lived in 2B (and their last name is Blecher), I lived in 2C (because I'm too cute) and our lesbian friends Jeanne and Sue lived in 2D (two dykes!)
We used to take turns watching Survivor in each other's apartments and we even had Thanksgiving together one year. We used to go out to do dinner and a movie together and even all used to do laundry on Monday nights. None of us live on Gibson Blvd anymore and Sue's parents have since sold their co-op off. But my stepbrother and his wife just moved to a different building on the same street. Marsi and Steve own their own home and have two pretty little girls now. Sadly Jeanne and Sue have since broken up but we still see and talk to Jeanne.Sue is a bit harder to catch up with. It's great when we all get together because of the feelings of acceptance and respect we all have for each other and we can talk about almost anything - and we do. Sometimes it's like a big therapy session together because we have all met each other's families and we can just vent to each other. I always feel great after we spend time together because our bond is so unique.

Bling Bling Auf Wiedersehen

2008-10-14T17:56:00.010-04:00

Bling Bling Auf Wiedersehen
Category: Fashion, Style, Shopping

I had to stop at a red light in Franklin Square on my way home last week when a blue mini-van pulled up next to me. It was driven by a sweaty 350 pound woman who was screaming at somebody else in of the car. There was so much junk inside the car that I couldn't see who was the recipient of all this charm. I normally wouldn't have remembered the situation but she caught my attention because she was so messy, not just physically messy but her life was so messy and so open. She was wearing two tank tops that were different colors (maybe one was a bra and I sure hope so but hope springs eternal, right?) and had badly dyed blond hair, no make-up and her blubbery left arm was hanging of of the window. Then she turned toward me with the hugest pair of black, Chanel faux diamond, encrusted sunglasses that I have ever seen. The word CHANEL was in white on the side of them. Coco would croak I thought and I burst into laughter right in her face. I'm glad I was making a left turn because I was pretty rude but laughed quite a bit more after that. It's weird what people in the suburbs think is quality, taste and style. There was a report on the news that the trend this fall was that girls returning to school were dressing more modestly and less sexual. I've always been particularly fascinated by women who dress their little girls like skanks. The Paris Hilton 'slut' look is out of style with young people's fashion sense now. You see Coco, wherever you are now, there is still hope.

Same-Sex Marriage Brouhaha

2008-10-03T09:55:00.000-04:00

I try not to speak in anger, really. But I'm tired of blockheads saying that gay marriage undermines the American family.

GAY MARRIAGE DOESN'T UNDERMINE THE AMERICAN FAMILY; HETROSEXUAL DIVORCE DOES

My parents got divorced when I was in the third grade and my brother Scott was in the 1st grade. The gay community had absoluely nothing to do with my parent's divorce. As a matter of fact, both sets of my stepparents were divorcees as well and the failure of their marriages had nothing to do with the gay community either. All their marriages failed because of them.

How come if you're straight and married it means you get automatically catapulted into the morality statisphere with the rest of the elititist assholes with their amazing personal attributes? There is no correlation between morality and religion, baby. It's all a veneer. I know for a fact who's 'married but still getting laid' in my family right now and who's not. Sound familiar reader? I'm sick of getting judged and knocked all the way down into the dirt by straight people who lie and hide - lie and hide.

Final Words: That's always been my biggest problem with suburbia. Behind the pretty lace curtain on the quaint street is a man who beats his wife. People doing drugs and children getting molested. So much unhappiness in the suburban utopia with all it's tension and boredom. But gay people are ruining everything in the world so let's keep them from being treated equally.

2008-08-28T23:36:00.001-04:00

Your Brain's Pattern

Your mind is an incubator for good ideas, it just takes a while for them to develop.

But when you think of something, watch out!

Your thoughts tend to be huge, and they come on quickly - like an explosion.

You tend to be quiet around others, unless you're inspired by your next big idea.

What Pattern Is Your Brain?

The Future Belongs To Those Who Are Prepared For It

2008-08-06T17:14:00.000-04:00

The hardest part of looking for work was being rejected by people half my age on job interviews and at employment agencies. I know that it’s business and not personal but it still stings. These kids are sharp and tough. What frustrated me the most was realizing that while working with my father I neglected all the corporate American skills that people need to move ahead and land a good job. The only people who had typing classes in my High School were girls who took business courses to become secretaries. I took a computer class in 11th grade in DOS because that was considered the cutting edge of technology at that time. A chunky IBM computer with a black screen and orange letters. I didn’t get my first personal computer until twelve years after high school. Sometimes at my job the tech guys say things to me like “How could you not know that, it’s computers 101, Jayme “ It’s brutal sometimes to have to swallow so much shit at work from a bunch of 25 year olds. But looking back, I learned what I needed to know to be a good bookkeeper and office manager for our family business for 15 years. My dad was in business for more than 30 years before a customer bought him out and took over all of our employees. That’s when I moved to California. I never missed a payroll for our employees, I was never late –not once. But that doesn’t mean shit now anyway. The modern workforce passed me by and now here I am at 39 and taking computer classes at night and in the mornings. I’m in classrooms with other adults who are desperately trying to learn all the Microsoft programs so they can all get new jobs in today’s job market or hang onto the jobs they still have. My friend Joel went to night school for 10 years to get his degree in computer science and was on the Dean’s List as well. Just to have his job outsourced to India last year. In the 90’s Ross Perot warned about the dangers of outsourcing and NAFTA but nobody listened because they were all too busy making fun of his looks and shrill voice. He was right but thanks for all those great skits on Saturday Night Live. When I was a teenager I left college in the third year because I had gotten so neurotic that anxiety attacks were making things difficult with my classes. My dysfunctional family was a fucking mess because my father and his new crazy wife were driving me and my brother crazy with their combined weirdness. It was the first and only time in my life I experienced crippling migraine headaches. I knew that there was no way for me to catch up and graduate on time with my peers so to save face and hide my family and personal problems, I dropped out. Strangely my parents aren’t big on education and they had a laissez faire attitude about me dropping out. I floated around for years going nowhere while a mild river of misery ran on behind me in my life. I worked in retail, a hairdressing assistant (I went to beauty school too) and I worked for a day in a coffee shop for one shift in NYC and was fired because the other guy they hired on the same day had more experience than me. Art was something that I was naturally good at and dropping out of the School of Visual Arts set off a ripple effect of failure that still haunts me to this day. I wish I had been in a better headspace as a teenager so I could have dealt with all my problems but I had already been destroyed inside after my parents divorce. My mother’s alcoholism, child abuse and her abusive second marriage to another alcoholic only exacerbated my shame and anxiety. And then I threw away the future I was planning.

Retrospective

2008-07-20T23:59:00.006-04:00

The beginning of July 2003 was when my life changed forever. I met Robert Ortiz from Fort Lauderdale, Florida while he was visiting his family here in New York. He was that first special person that I saw myself through, a reflecting pool. Once while we walked though my kitchen, Robert was in front of me and stopped for a moment to read a key chain that I had on my bulletin board and then he walked into my living room. The key chain read "My foot and your ass need to meet." When I looked at it, I saw it for the first time differently. I thought that I bought it because I was angry. An angry person bought that key chain. I became embarrassed because I realized that I had a lot more issues to work all along with anger. I wondered if Robert would still like me even though I am angry and I felt a transformation inside me begin. It was like meeting Robert was turning to meet fate. I began to feel my softness inside. I felt like a crab on the beach that was been turned over and my insides where now exposed. My former therapist once said to me that she noticed in my life that I play it safe and she was right. Robert pointed out that I didn't have many friends and seem to be alone a lot. He was right actually. I lived a joyless, isolated existence. I assure you that I was no fun to hang around. I was immature and had trouble handling negative emotions and was so far inside myself for anyone to reach. I was fat, uptight, constipated and a nervous wreck all the time. I used to scream in my car and get into petty squabbles with strangers. After meeting Robert and saw that I need to get outside in spite of being feeling terribly awkward, and get more interested in life. I needed to participate and get my hands dirty. I knew that this time was going to come one day and I kept putting it off because I knew that it was going to suck and I was right but five years later I know that all the pain was worth it. Growing up is painful but pain is a powerful teacher if you use it for change.

Epilogue: The end of July 2003 was also the first time I ever visited sunny Los Angeles California.

Adoption Debate

2008-07-17T14:55:00.002-04:00

I was adopted as an infant. After registering with an adoption agency, my parents had to wait ten years for a newborn baby. I was adopted through a home for wayward Irish girls run by Catholic Charities in Brooklyn. I was born in Queens, NY and later raised on Long Island. I actually admired film actress Angelina Jolie when she adopted that little boy from an orphanage in Cambodia in 2002. Just the two of them for a while, to me Angelina Jolie is an angel. In the past, adoption agencies used to try to match up the children racially with the families before placement but things are more liberal these days and I like that. Recently, John McCain said in the press that he did not support gay adoption and that seemed strange to me because John and Cindy McCain have an adopted daughter. Bridget McCain was adopted through an orphanage in Bangladesh. “Advocates for gay and lesbian parents are denouncing Sen. John McCain, an adoptive father himself, for opposing adoptions by gays, which prompted his presidential campaign to clarify Tuesday that he does not seek a federal ban on the practice. Only one state, Florida, outlaws adoptions by gays, which have become commonplace in much of the nation.” That’s right. Loving gay and lesbian couples are adopting unwanted children into their homes and families with more frequency now then ever before. Giving a safe haven to the children who have been tossed off into the foster care system by their biological parents. What people like John McCain fail to realize is that gay people are adopting the kinds of children that are harder to place in foster care system. They are usually children of color and older children, the kinds of children that traditional American heterosexual parents do not want. Recent national polls suggest that support for the concept of gay adoption is growing. A 2006 poll by the Pew Research Center found a near-even split on the issue; a 2007 poll by CNN and Opinion Research Corp. said 57 per cent of respondents felt gays should have the right to adopt, while 40 per cent said they shouldn't. A gay adoptive father in Atlanta, Ken Manford, said he and his partner have felt strong support and acceptance from neighbors and acquaintances since they adopted a son from Guatemala nearly seven years ago. "If Senator McCain came and sat down with us, I'd tell him we've proven that both parents are important in our family," Manford said. "It doesn't matter that both those parents are men."

The Future of the Future

2008-07-13T22:14:00.002-04:00

Last year when I was in San Francisco I noticed some changes since the first time I was there in 1997. I could no longer clearly see the area as a visibly identifiable gay neighborhood. There was a Pottery Barn and Starbucks and some other higher end retail stores as well as a few real estate offices and some shops. I know that sounds weird, how can the ground zero of all that is queer and good look less gay but that's the way it looked to me. The term ghetto has been used to describe the areas inhabited by a variety of groups that mainstream society deemed outside the norm, including poor people, gay men and lesbians, racial minorities, hobos, prostitutes and bohemians. These neighborhoods, which often arise from zones of discard - that is, crowded high density and often deteriorated inner city districts. These are traditionally the areas where members of gender and sexual minorities congregate. Such is the case with the Castro District. Spaces like the gay neighborhoods or gay ghettos are also places of refuge where members of gender and sexual minorities can benefit from the concentration of safe, non-discriminatory resources and services. In some cities, gays are dispersed in neighborhoods which have less gay visibility because a liberal, affirming counterculture is present. I noticed that gays in Seattle congregate in the area (that reminds me of the South End of Boston) called Capital Hill. This area has a high concentration of gay residents and businesses that cater to them than do surrounding neighborhoods. And it still has a friendly "small town" American feel to it. Such areas represent a gay-friendly oasis for those who don't want to live in a harsh urban environment and who don't feel that they were made for worldly combat. Will there always be a centered place in big cities to have gay pride parades and celebrations like the staggering Australian Pride Marti Gras? There was a time in the past that if you were gay and lesbian you had to move to a city to find your clan. But not everybody wants to move to a dirty, loud, bustling city to live anymore. So my question is this…
"With gays and lesbians being more accepted in society and simultaneously creating our own neighborhoods in the suburbs, will the gay ghettos of the cities become extinct in the future?

1 Word Answer ~ Tag!

2008-07-13T17:35:00.005-04:00

1 word answer ~ Tag!
Found this on Urang Ranau site. Kinda fun.. so I did it!!

1. Where is your cell phone? Den
2. Your significant other? None
3. Your hair? Brown
4. Your mother? Patricia
5. Your father? Albert
6. Your favorite thing? What?
7. Your dream last night? None
8. Your favorite drink? Margarita
9. Your dream/goal? Lottery
10. The room you're in? Den
11. Your hobby? Photography
12. Your fear? Needles
13. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Waikiki
14. What you're not? Math
15. Muffins? Blueberry
16. One of your wish list items? Iphone
17. Where you grew up? New York
18. The last thing you did? Chores
19. What are you wearing? Gap
20. Favorite Gadget? Camera
21. Your pets? None
22. Your computer? Dell
23. Your mood? Level
24. Missing someone? Yes
25. Your car? Honda
26. Something you're not wearing? Watch
27. Favorite store? IKEA
28. Like someone? Yes
29. Your favorite color? Red
30. When is the last time you laughed? Today
31. Last time you cried? Yesterday

Everybody's Free (to wear sunscreen)

2008-07-05T20:54:00.010-04:00

July 4th was Greg's last night in New York before going back to South Korea early this morning so we all hung out at Pat's house in Massapequa. The three of us looked through some photo albums I brought as well as my High School yearbook and then we picked some Boston Market for dinner to boot. We sat on the floor and talked and laughed surrounded by Pat's erotic paintings and herbal refreshments. After dinner we had bakery cookies, dark pretzels and ice cream and then Suzanne and Chris came over to chill with us. We all watched Zoolander and skimmed through art books and looked up videos on YouTube. Hanging out with old friends is the best because they know your history, family, friends, lovers and teachers. Everywhere you worked, dazzling accomplishments and occasional screw ups.
Although I had friends in Los Angeles, when I got depressed after my shop closed, I started feeling alone and I didn't have those lengthy relationships to fall back on and I felt scared and small. When I talked to Pat this afternoon, she told me how much she enjoyed all of us being together again and that she enjoyed all the positive energy. Particularly Greg's. After Greg and I left last night, Pat found her High School yearbook (she graduated the year before). It turns out that Suzanne knew Greg's brother and she used to live on the same block as Greg's family when she was younger. So Greg, Suzanne and myself all lived on the same street at one time - East Euclid Street. Weird right?

"Understand that friends come and go, but for the precious few you should hold on. The older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you where young." - Baz Lurhman

Catching Up With The Weekend

2008-07-03T14:46:00.011-04:00

Last Friday, I went out with Pat and Greg (whom I haven't seen since 1996) to dinner in Rockville Centre. We all went to High School together and Greg was in town visiting Valley Stream from his home in Korea. Greg's parent's live down the street from my dad and have sold their house are moving to Florida at the end of the summer. Greg came back to pack up his old belongings and sort through what was garbage, what he still wanted and what was getting shipped back to Korea. It was an interesting experience for the three of us to all be together again and we talked about the past, present and future all at the same time. He had a lot of laughs as we went from one bar to another in RVC, finally ending up in a lesbian bar in Hempstead. Where we ran into another female friend from High School. So weird! What was even weirder was the jello wresting championships there were having there at the bar. Those wacky lesbians!
Also on Friday, Ramon missed his flight to New York from Los Angeles and had to wait till Saturday for another flight. I picked him up at JFK around midnight on Saturday and drove him to the Millennium Hilton Hotel right across the street from Ground Zero in Manhattan. It's exciting to have these kind of clandestine meetings, actually. It breaks up the mundane weekly routine of work, gym, home, dry cleaner, returning NetFlix movies etc. I picked Ramon up Tuesday afternoon in the city and acted as his NY Tour Guide. I drove him over the Brooklyn Bridge and over to the Queens Museum and to see the Unisphere in Flushing Meadow Park (where they filmed the end sequence from Men In Black). I thoroughly enjoyed showing New York off and contributing tidbits on information to Ramon, even if it mostly was just for entertainment value. We ended the day by meeting my family at the Taiko sushi bar in Long Island. My dad and Mary even stopped by the restaurant to say hello and have a drink with all of us. The next morning, Ramon caught a train to Washington D.C and then flew onto Buenos Aires, Antarctica, Paris and Tokyo. What a life this guy has, right?! I also have another friend, Rick, who was in New York from Los Angeles and auditioned for the reality television show The Biggest Loser. As you may imagine, Rick is a big guy and as of this afternoon still isn't sure if he made it onto the show or not. We didn't have time to get together this time but maybe on a future visit. My brother Scott, owns the house I'm renting and has put the house back on the market. So I had to spend Sunday cleaning from top to bottom before the real estate agent arrived to give his assessment. I also had to put away any potentially "embarrassing" personal items. Like the kind you find at Rizal's house. lol It's funny how things can be quiet for so long and then go in hyper speed for five days straight. But I handled everything with my usual finesse and irrestsitable charm. And be being well organized didn't hurt either :)

Lavender Light Gospel Choir

2008-06-15T14:21:00.003-04:00

Last night I attended a performance of Lavender Light Gospel Choir at Symphony Space Concert Hall in New York City. The choir is made up of black and people of all colors, lesbian and gay as well. My friend Roch is a tenor and invited to the performance called Pride & Joy which seemed appropriate since this month is Pride all over the country. The concert was uplifting and positive and their a cappella sections were amazing. But most importantly, Lavender Light Gospel Choir makes a statement. http://www.lavenderlight.com

Love Is Power

2008-06-15T13:47:00.003-04:00

Excerpt from Ten Things I Wish I'd Known Before I Went Out into the Real World by Maria Shriver:

I wish I'd known earlier in my life the importance of saying "I love you." You'd be surprised how many people don't really know how much they're loved. I've learned to say it-to my kids, my husband, my parents, my brothers-whenever I get that feeling in my heart. I also tell my friends that I love them, that they're important to me and I'm grateful for their friendship. You know, I've learned a terrible truth from going to too many funerals in my life: So much of the praise comes after people are gone in their eulogies. We ought to be telling them sooner. So I'm a big believer in toasting people at birthdays and anniversaries, family gatherings, special celebrations-toasting their great qualities, their friendship, their wisdom, their uniqueness. What could be better than being told out loud in a genuine way, with other people listening, that you are loved, respected, needed, appreciated and adored?

Success Deluxe

2008-06-10T09:34:00.003-04:00

Success Deluxe
Current mood: disappointed
Category: Jobs, Work, Careers

Unfortunately my start-up business didn't make it and I had to close my custom framing shop and art gallery in Los Angeles. I worked my ass off to be successful. But in the end I realize that I went into business with the wrong person and I didn't do enough of my own homework before moving forward with the project. My former business partner wasted everybody's time with his lying, bullshit and his arrogance. Then he ran away two days before we opened without contributing any of he capital he said he had in his original business proposal. Dumping the entire thing into my lap. Do you know the story of the naive and ambitious young person who moves to the big city and gets used for their money and then gets thrown away? That was me. I just never thought my friends would treat me that way after all I did for them. Betrayal is a word that you don't know the meaning of until it happens to you. Fuckers.

However, I have learned a tremendous amount in the last two years in regard to accounting, marketing, banking, the law, investing, relationships, trust, patience and expectations. Philosophically I don't think anything fails if you learn from the experience and I know I will never be the same. Mictlan (the master framer) and I got to do some beautiful and creative framing and meet some really cool people in the process. Our business spread love.

Thank You to everyone who showed support and stopped by to chill and see our beautiful shop. RIP The Measurement Custom Framing / El Rincon Gallery.

Extra special thanks to Grant, Mario, MacSorro, Hector, Brian, Ramon, Lorraine, Jackie, Glen, Jamie Burmester, the Gonzales Family and my Dad and Mary.

I Commend You To God, Los Angeles

2008-06-10T09:28:00.005-04:00

There are other contributing factors that led me to move back to New York such as depression, betrayal, failed expectations, bad decisions, stupidity and harsh reality checks. But I don't have to justify any of that stuff because it's my life, my issues and my problem.

My close friends have told me that my California experience would have been much different if I had first moved to another city such as San Francisco or San Diego. And I agree with that but Jayme likes adventure so Los Angeles it was. It wasn't all bad all the time and some of the last two years were pretty damn wonderful. I am starting to cry now.

The following excerpt is from a review of the 2000 film Requiem For A Dream:
"......it is a requiem for some specific dream ("A" dream) as opposed to the larger, overarching "American Dream" ("THE" dream). While an individual dream can wither and die, the American Dream is persistent and cannot be easily overcome, certainly not by those who are so entangled in it that they cannot see it. All of the characters in the movie hold on to memories of better times and long for meaningful connection with others. These, along with the fantastic dream worlds and delusions they gradually withdraw into, are violently and jarringly shattered in the film's dénouement by the bleak and brutal reality of their present circumstances. In the DVD commentary for the film, Aronofsky stresses the idea that by choosing to escape reality with denial and delusion, the characters are only destroying themselves further. The hopes they have for connection with each other and with their happier pasts give way as they are separated and subjected to indifferent and exploitative treatment at the hands of strangers."

I am working for my dad part-time right now helping him run the latest version of his business, Gibson Maintenance, which went on hiatus three years ago after my dad sold the business to one of our customers. My father worked seven days a week when we were growing up and nobody worked harder for success than this man. And he was a single parent to boot. I also work as an administrative for my cousin's data storage company in Long Island. I once read a quote about life being a long path and not actual destinations. I like that and that's what I'm thinking right now.

I love everybody I met in California. My heart is filled with love.

What I Did On My Christmas Vacation

2008-06-10T09:25:00.001-04:00

My dad called me mid-December and asked if I could move back to New York a few weeks earlier than we had previously discussed. He had just fired the current bookkeeper-office manager of his business because of theft, this person was also a family member. My dad was extememly upset on the phone when he explained what he and the accountant had uncovered. My dad offered to cover all of my expenses for my trip home to help him and I gave Target my two weeks notice. I was only working as a seasonal employee there anyway and was going to be let go in January as per my contract. I did feel sad leaving because I enjoyed how fast paced it was and met some cool ass people too.

I arrived in New York in the rain at 1:30 AM on December 23rd and at the breakfast table the next morning my dad gave me a pen, pad and then handed the phone to me with accountant on the other end. Oh, I guess that breakfast is over. heh Even though I was in New York for five days, I really did work non-stop and didn't get to have that much fun although I kept myself in good spirits. I had to run the payroll, make EFTPS payments and do the billing. I went to at least two banks (and Staples) every day and had to order pre-printed business forms and extra supplies via the phone. I also had to go to Best Buy Buy to pick up a wireless router with a four part switch and a wireless desktop card for the new 2008 computer that I didn't have a chance to finish with. My dad and I had "time management" meetings everyday to discuss what had been done, what needed correcting and what had to be done the next day. We worked between his main office and the temporary one in the room I was staying in across the hall. The filing cabinets had become really unorganized and my dad couldn't find or file anything. I spent my last night there labeling, P-touching and color colding 2006-2007 mislabled files. That cabinet looked awesome when it was done, I rock! I also had time to sort out several transfile boxes that where lingering on the floor and brought them to my brother's house down the street for storage. I didn't finish everything I had to do but I felt confident leaving and that things were are on their way to being back on track again. My Christmas vacation may have not been fun in the traditional manner but that was OK because how often do our parents ask us for help, right?

SIDE NOTE AND HIGHTLIGHT: I met one of The Irish Tenors, Ronan Tynan, at JFK right inside of the security checkpoint as I was leaving New York. I introduced myself and told him how awesome of a singer I thought he was and how much I enjoyed his music and he shook my hand and said "Thank you, James. Have a lovely trip." Irish Tenors rock!

Protect Me From The Obamorons

2008-06-10T09:23:00.001-04:00

Posted Mar 22nd 2008 4:47PM by Dinesh D’Souza
Filed under: Barack Obama, Controversy, Race Relations

Ever heard of the Obamorons? These are the morons who will cheer anything that Barack Obama says. Right now the Obamorons are wildly enthusiastic about their man’s race speech, and are trying to persuade the rest of us to stop talking about the Reverend Jeremiah Wright and move on to talking about how Obama is the next best thing since Jesus Christ.

Obama does have some very good qualities, but it’s clear he also has a dark side that is only now beginning to surface. Consider his bizarre analogies aimed at vindicating the Reverend Wright. Many of us, he argues, "disagree" with things that our pastors and family members have said. True, but how many of us have pastors who say stuff like the Reverend Wright? It’s one thing to sit quietly while my pastor says things I don’t agree with about evolution or the Rapture, quite another for Obama to sit quietly while his pastor says that America deserved to be attacked on 9/11 and that the U.S. government deliberately injected AIDS into the country. My guess is that even in the black church "God damn America!" is not exactly standard rhetoric. Certainly the Reverend Martin Luther King didn’t talk like that.

Especially bizarre was Obama’s analogy between the Reverend Wright and his white grandmother. According to Obama, grandma too was given to racial "stereotypes" and at one point confessed to her fear of black men. First of all Obama didn’t cite what stereotypes his grandmother held. A stereotype is merely a generalization: it may be true or false, harmful or benign. As the sociological literature on the subject shows, most stereotypes contain at least a grain of truth, because stereotypes develop out of popular experience.

As I document in my book The End of Racism, fears of black men are rationally explained as the consequence of the fact that black men have the highest violent crime conviction rate of any group in our society. One out of four young black men are at any given time in prison, on probation, or on parole. Some years ago Jesse Jackson admitted that if he heard footsteps in the dark and turned back to find out that the person was white, he would feel relieved. The point here is that Obama’s grandmother’s views, as relayed by Obama, seem rooted in empirical facts and bear no comparison with the Reverend Wright’s maniacal ravings.

Besides, she’s his grandmother! We choose our pastors and mentors but we don’t choose our grandparents. When Obama calls the Reverend Wright "family," this is because he selected him as a friend and teacher. At any point during the past two decades, Obama could have walked away from the pew. Wright is not "family" in the involuntary sense that Grandma is family. In addition, Obama’s grandmother made her remarks in private, within the sanctity of the household. The Reverend Wright has been shouting his doctrine from the pulpit for decades. Private prejudice is much less harmful than public hate speech.

Obama is smart enough to know all this. So what is the explanation for the bizarre moral equivalence that he seeks to create between his pastor and his grandmother? It cannot be that she treated him badly, since Obama himself says she loved him more than anything in the world. The only other explanation is that Obama is that Obama is more attached to the radicalism of the Reverend Wright than he is to his kind old grandmother. He is quite willing to protect Wright, and his own presidential prospects, by throwing grandma under the bus. Hell of a guy, right Obamorons?

Tough Talk From Australian Prime Minister John Howard

2008-06-10T09:22:00.003-04:00

Prime Minister John Howard - Australia

'Muslims who want to live under Islamic Sharia law were told on
Wednesday to get out of Australia , as the government targeted radicals in a bid to head off potential terror attacks.

Separately, Howard angered some Australian Muslims on Wednesday by saying he supported spy agencies monitoring the nation's mosques.
Quote: 'IMMIGRANTS, NOT AUSTRALIANS, MUST ADAPT. Take It Or Leave It. I am tired of this nation worrying about whe ther we are offending some individual or their culture. Since the terrorist attacks on Bali , we have experienced a surge in patriotism by the majority of Australians'.

'This culture has been developed over two centuries of
struggles, trials and victories by millions of men and women who have sought freedom'. 'We speak mainly ENGLISH, not Spanish, Lebanese, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, or any other language. Therefore, if you wish to become part of our society . Learn the language!'

'Most Australians believe in God. This is not some Christian,
right wing, political push, but a fact, because Christian men and women, on Christian principles, founded this nation, and this is clearly documented. It is certainly appropriate to display it on the walls of our schoo ls. If God offends you, then I suggest you consider another part of the world as your new home, because God is part of our culture.'

'We will accept your beliefs, and will not question why. All we ask is that you accept ours, and live in harmony and
peaceful enjoyment with us.'

'This is OUR COUNTRY, OUR LAND, and OUR LIFESTYLE, and we will allow you every opportunity to enjoy all this. But once you are done complaining, whining, and griping about Our Flag, Our Pledge, Our Christian beliefs, or Our Way of Life, I highly encourage you take advantage of one other great Australian freedom,

'THE RIGHT TO LEAVE'.'

'If you aren't happy here then LEAVE. We didn't
force you to come here. You asked to be here. So accept the country YOU accepted.'

Maybe if we circulate this amongst ourselves, American citizens will find the backbone to start speaking and voicing the
same truths.

Better Men

2008-06-10T09:20:00.001-04:00

Boot Camp is hell. A lot of guys who start off in Boot Camp are arrogant, cocky and they get the crap beat out of them. Boot Camp is about breaking you down and then building you up again. I was naive and inexperienced in life when I first moved to California two years ago and I got the crap beat the fuck out of me, too.

And we all turned out to be better men for it.

The road to manhood is paved with painful experiences and that is how we move ahead on our path. If we turn away from these experiences then we don't learn from them and a valuable life lesson is lost. From here on out, it is all about pain and rolling with the punches and then stepping back up to the plate again.

My ex once said something to try to hurt me. He said that "age ain't nothing but a number and immaturity is forever." But I turned it around in my head and I saw an area in my life I needed to work on and I did. And I was a better man for that, too.

Glittering Long Island

2008-06-09T14:50:00.007-04:00

This weekend was Long Island Pride out in Huntington, Suffolk County. The parade kicked off on Main Street and then moved down to a free festival at Herkscher Park. About 40 groups were represented in the parade and they ran the gamut from community organizations, performance artists and outreach groups to various floats and flatbeds trucks with dancing queens and fierce lezbeeonicas. The parade is never really big but everyone is friendly and enthusiastic so it's all good. I noticed that there were more gays and lesbians with children, dogs and gay marriage was the hot button topic of the day. We are having a heatwave right now but the festival was still pleasant. They had entertainment, food, vendors and community information booths and a lot of people thought ahead and brought blankets and had picnics in the shade on the hill. One of the vendors was selling silly t-shirts and one read "You're In Good Company, Moses Was a Basket Case, Too."

Belmont Raceway

2008-06-09T12:28:00.006-04:00

I live in Floral Park and this weekend was the Triple Crown at Belmont Raceway(www.nyra.com). The much over hyped Big Brown totally tanked on the track while Da Tara cruised over the finish line to take the crown. They even mentioned Big Brown on The Tonight Show before the race. Owned! There was a lot traffic congestion as 100,000 fans piled into Belmont which runs parallel to Floral Park. I'm not really into horse racing but I could here the announcer from my backyard when he got excited. The Good Year blimp circled my house all day on Saturday. We are also in the middle of a heatwave but that didn't stop people show showing up and doing BBQs and parties on my block. I imagine the horses had a lot less fun running in the extreme heat. GROSS TIDBIT OF THE WEEKEND: On the train going into the city, I saw a woman in a sundress giving oral to a guy behind the bushes of the Belmont Raceway parking lot. Told you it was gross.

Don't Destroy Everything You Touch

2008-06-05T15:02:00.001-04:00

I used to get 'into it' with my family in the past, too. We would openly criticize everything that we saw in each other that we thought needed to be corrected and we would attack and attack again. Then the next time we saw each other or spoke on the phone, since hard feelings had been created last time, the cycle of attack would begin again. Our minds were stuck in a steel trap of deception. We had no personal boundaries and no respect for each other. Sad. I gave up on criticizing my family members a few years ago and just learned to keep my mouth shut. Especially when it comes to other people's parenting skills. Being a parent is the hardest job in the world by the way. We people criticize me these days I usually just laugh it off or diffuse the intensity with a bit of humor or a smiling deflection. If I really have a problem with someone then I talk to them in private about the issue. And not in an attacking way, but from the heart.
I know now that criticising people under the guise of trying to help them really doesn't. It just paralyzes them with guilt and shame. Accepting people as they are is what fosters self-awareness and growth. And if people don't change then so what? It's their life and they have to deal with it, not you. Detach, just do it with love.

Bahamas Family Vacation

2008-06-04T17:06:00.004-04:00

My family and friends of my family recently went down to the Caribbean to attend my stepbrother's wedding. The bride and groom's party stayed at the Breezes Resort but the rest of us stayed at the Wyndham Resort just down the road. I wanted very hard to like our hotel because the staff was so nice and the food so delicious but the hotel just wasn't managed well. It wasn't hell but it wasn't that great either but we all made sure that we enjoyed ourselves anyway. I was the only single person in our party so there were times when I had to keep myself busy. It times like this that cause me to think that I need to get a partner. As a group, we hung out on the beach, lounge, casino and went out to dinner together. The guys and I went snorkeling one morning and I had the unique opportunity to be a fish in the aquarium instead of vice versa. The white beaches and clear water there seem unreal, the water in the ocean was warmer than in the pool. We went parasailing and jet ski riding as a group and snorkeled again at another colorful reef out at sea. I felt at peace in the Caribbean and I didn't think about any of my problems while I was there. I made a conscious effort to be in the moment while I was in a hammock between two palm trees, swaying gently in the breeze. My family and I also took a taxi over to The Atlantis Beach Resort one afternoon to see the aquarium and casino. It's a beautiful facility and we enjoyed our visit and the girls enjoyed shopping at the higher end boutiques there. The Bahamas have so much natural beauty there and I really felt the spirit of the Bahamian people.

Wedding In The Bahamas

2008-06-04T16:43:00.008-04:00

My stepbrother Chris and his fiancee Julia were married at The Breezes Resort, Nassau Bahamas on May 31st. The wedding and reception were on the beach and members from both sides of the family flew down for the special occasion. It was the most beautiful ceremony and very romantic as well. I've never been a fan of cookie cutter American receptions since they tend to be all the same but weddings to me, are the ultimate. It takes a lot of courage for a couple to stand up in front of everyone they know and God and proclaim their love for one another. The staff at the resort was friendly and professional and the food was awesome. The DJ played a lot of fun songs right there on the beach and we had a blast. The conga line to "Hot Hot Hot" got a little out of control but what the heck, it was a celebration of love and new beginnings. If a day could be perfect it was this one.

Storm King Art Center

2008-06-03T19:21:00.006-04:00

Recently my friend Glen and I drove upstate to The Storm King Art Center. The Storm King Art Center is a very unusual museum. It's collection is not constrained by the walls of a museum building. The main floor of it's exhibition area is the grass and fields of Mountainville, New York. The walls are forms by trees and hills and it's dramatic lighting is by the sun. The selection process is guided not only by aesthetic or artistic considerations, but also by questions of durability, scale and compatibility of the sculpture with the landscape.

Jackie Beat Just Wants You To Know

2008-05-21T22:38:00.000-04:00

...GOOGLE IT, BITCH! The internet should make you smarter.

WARNING:There is nothing "fierce" or "sexy" about this blog entry. It is, in fact, quite educational and thought-provoking. If this does not interest you, please stop reading now and continue to search for Mariah Carey clips on YouTube.

I hate to rain on your Gay Parade, but I'm concerned. You know how Heterosexual Christian Republicans are always worried that the decline of the American family is proof positive that our society is collapsing and, in turn, the end is near? Well, this Gay Agnostic Democrat is afraid that my "family" is collapsing, too. Let's pretend like the gay community is a family, okay? (When you take into consideration all the drinking and arguments, it's actually kinda' like my real family!) Now, let's say that all the young gay people out there are the kids in the family and us older queens are the parents and the aunts and uncles and the grandparents. Got it? Well, guess what "kids"? You are flunking out of school and wandering aimlessly through your lives! And Mom here is really getting pissed off about it! Why? Because we Moms have tried to keep this house clean for you (by marching in parades, performing at benefits, giving to charity, being a part of clinical trials, protesting and yes, EVEN DYING!) just so you can sit on your asses in $300 jeans and look up useless crap on the internet! You have the whole world at your fingertips, but God forbid you should try to learn about the past: The amazing activists and artists who worked so hard so you could inherit a better world. A world in which you can walk down the street without being mistaken for a baseball by a homophobic thug. A world in which you can no longer be kicked out of your home or fired from your job simply for being gay. A world in which you can express yourself in every way, including by making love, and -- thanks to just a few simple precautions -- not get sick and/or die. Yeah, Mom's mad as hell and she ain't gonna' take it anymore! And if you're rolling your eyes right now and thinking "She's just old!" then seriously, stop reading now, because you ain't never gonna' understand.

Every Monday night I do a show at Here Lounge and I thought it might be interesting to interview people during the intermission. I spoke to ten people, running specific names and phrases by them to see if they knew who or what they were. Here are the not-so-shocking-but-depressing results...

THE MATTACHINE SOCIETY: Zero out of 10 people knew what this was. Granted, it's not the most widely-known part of gay history, but it certainly is one of the most important. The first major gay male organization, founded in 1950–51. Its name comes from a medieval French society of masked players, Société Mattachine, to represent the public "masking" of homosexuality at the time.

OSCAR WILDE: 4 out of 10 recognized the name, but only 2 knew that he had written The Picture of Dorian Gray. He also wrote the comic masterpieces Lady Windermere's Fan and The Importance of Being Earnest. He was a spokesman for the late 19th-century Aesthetic movement in England, which advocated art for art's sake; and he was the object of celebrated civil and criminal suits involving homosexuality and ending in his imprisonment from 1895 to 1897.

ACT-UP: Zero out of 10 knew what this was. ACT UP, or the "AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power", was formed on March 10, 1987 at the Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center in New York by former Gay Men's Health Crisis member Larry Kramer and others.

TENNESSEE WILLIAMS: 3 out of 10 had heard of him but they could only say, "He was a writer." One person asked if "she" was related to "Ugly Betty" star Vanessa Williams. No, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, Camino Real, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Suddenly Last Summer, The Night of the Iguana, The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone, The Rose Tattoo and Baby Doll is not related to the actress/singer. Often describing a world of repressed sexuality and violence, he is regarded as one of the greatest American playwrights.

PATIENT ZERO: Ironically, zero out of 10 knew what this phrase referred to. In the early years of the AIDS epidemic, there was controversy about a so-called Patient Zero, who was the basis of a complex transmission scenario compiled by Dr. William Darrow and colleagues at the Centers for Disease Control in the US. This epidemiological study showed how 'Patient Zero' had given HIV to multiple partners, who then in turn transmitted it to others and rapidly spread the virus to locations all over the world. In all, at least 40 of the 248 people diagnosed with AIDS by April 1982 were thought to have had sex either with him or with someone who had.

HARVEY MILK: 2 out of 10 claimed they recognized the name, but could not say who he was. In 1977 Harvey Milk was elected to the city's Board of Supervisors, becoming one of the first openly gay elected officials in U.S. history. In 1978 Milk and the city's mayor, George Moscone were shot and killed in City Hall by Dan White, a conservative former city supervisor. At White's murder trial, his attorneys argued that his judgment had been impaired by eating junk food (a tactic later dubbed the "Twinkie defense"). His conviction on the less serious charge of voluntary manslaughter sparked riots by the gay community in the city.

STONEWALL: Half of the 10 respondents had heard of Stonewall. Of that, only 4 knew that it was related to the gay rights movement and just 1 person knew from where the name Stonewall had originated. Many guessed that it was the name of a city or a person. Actually, in response to the second raid in a week by police on the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in Greenwich Village, about 1,000 transvestites, gays and lesbians taunted police and threw debris. Police responded with violence and similar riots occurred on succeeding nights and were followed by protest rallies. The event marked the awakening of gay rights organizations throughout the U.S. and is commemorated annually in Gay and Lesbian Pride Week. In 1999 the U.S. National Park Service placed the Stonewall Inn on the National Register of Historic Places.

Class dismissed!

Oh, and don't think for one moment that protesting and fighting and demanding rights is all prior generations of gay people did. Nope, they woke up and did all this AFTER dancing to classic disco all night while doing drugs in assless chaps and having mind-blowing sex with numerous strangers, okay? So this year for Gay Pride just stop and ask yourself, "Do I know what the letters in AIDS mean? Do I have any idea why the Gay Pride flag is a rainbow? What's up with all these pink triangles?" Knowledge is power and although it's great that you can bench press whatever amount of weight that you can bench press, it's time to realize that your brain is a muscle, too.

So work it, bitch!

Kiddie Birthday Party

2008-05-18T21:07:00.008-04:00

This was the weekend of many parties - some kind of dirty and some kind of fun. ha ha Today was the fun one as my nephew Billy turned 7 years old. Scott and Tara had the party at Pump Up The Party in Melville. It's an interactive party zone featuring giant, soft, air filled inflatables. All the adults got to relax and talk while the kids bounced, slid, climbed and jumped until they were exhausted. And then the staff corralled all the kids into a brightly decorated room and gave them pizza and cake. Tara and her sisters took turns racing each other on the rides and me, my cousins and my brother played air hockey. My brother is really good and beat me 7-5, he and my cousin Trish are really cutthroat players. A lot of my cousins and their spouses were they and we all got to hang out and catch up. It was a nice way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Bachelor Party!

2008-05-17T18:00:00.007-04:00

The posted pictures here are the only ones that were allowed at my stepbrother Chris's bachelor party last night at Gossip in Long Island. The food at this gentleman's club was delicious and the service was excellent and very professional during the dinner portion of the evening. The rest of the night was a lot more debauched but was still fun none the less. My brother made a comment that whomever 'leaks' what went on at the party was going to get shot. Well said, bro! If you're wondering why a gay guy would go to a strip club it's because Chris is a great person and very accepting of me and the gay community. So I wanted to go down and show some love and support back to him (by going to a strip club which just shows how absurd life is). Besides, I hang out with his friends sometimes and we all get along and I also got to take a look into the sexual psyche of men and women for an evening. The women who work at Gossip are very aggressive and charming and some of the lap dances got pretty wild but still remained entertaining. Chris's single friends were loud and have a blue sense of humor but the girls were all good sports - we were a fun group. Several girls were grabbing at me and no matter how polite I was, they just wouldn't leave me alone. One gorgeous girl took off my tie in 2 seconds flat, this broad impressed the hell out of me! I told her I was gay and she didn't believe me and she didn't believe me when I told her I was 39 years old so I gave her a big tip. ha ha After we talked a bit she told me in a strong European accent "I like the gay" so and I let her give me a back massage which was awesome by the way. I had to tell another pushy stripper that I wasn't interested in a lap dance with her, not because I was shy but because I was gay so she high fived me. Strippers are very understanding people. My dad did point out that he noticed that right after any girl got paid she went right over to the manager to give him his share. My brother added that "this place is money making machine." We had an open bar and a private room but only the waitresses could serve us drinks so the club could keep things under control. (t)It was a fun night and some guys I used to work with were there so I got catch up with them about their families and all the people that we used to work with. We all had a lot of laughs and a huge limo drove most of the guys home so everyone got to their destinations safely.

Mother's Day

2008-05-11T22:37:00.003-04:00

My brother was having Mother's Day at his house this year and invited me over around 2:30PM. I stopped by my dad's house first to give my step-mom some flowers and a card. They live on the same street as my brother so it was nice and close. I had dinner with our mom and my sister-in-law and her family and it was really nice. I spent some time upstairs with my nephew Scotty, talking about video games and stuff. Then after dinner, I sat on the front stoop with Billy eating Sun Chips while he quizzed me about living in California. My brother, the boys and I went for a bike ride in a nearby park together and Billy's tire caught an explosive flat. My brother had to carry the bike back home on his shoulders while the boys doubled up on Scotty's bike and we laughed the whole way back to the house. I told my brother he's such a nice dad!

Making and Keeping Friends

2008-05-09T19:17:00.005-04:00

While living in California, I met the most fun- loving, kind, unique and interesting people in the world. I also met the most twisted, cruel, narcissistic and shallow people in the world. A juxtaposition? Yes! Los Angeles attracts people from all over the planet and we all want a piece of success, sunshine and the alluring Southern California lifestyle. The whole picture of Los Angeles is very complicated but at least it's real (and unreal) at the same time. That may sound funny but you have to live there to get it. Sorry to sound snobby.

One of the people I miss the most is my friend Grant Nakano. He is a true friend, wonderful fun to be around and a great companion. We have a lot of the same interests so our friendship is very accepting, insightful and easy. He's a crazy bitch too but I love him to death.

My Jobs Not Steve Jobs

2008-05-09T18:58:00.003-04:00

I actually have two jobs here in New York. I work for my father's maintenance company part-time as a bookkeeper and for my cousin's data storage company part-time as an administrative assistant. That is where you can usually say hello to me online at Yahoo Messenger since that is the way that we communicate at WebHouse. I went from living in California and being on the dole to having two jobs back here in New York. Go figure.

At my cousin's company, I do more regular corporate tasks than my dad's business and I've gotten better at Word and Excel. It's also helped have a more versatile resume since now have more skills to offer. The politics of working in a bigger office also are more challenging but it's been a positive experience getting to see how another business works day to day. I respect my cousin and his wife very much, they're a great team.

Age of Aquarium

2008-05-07T20:46:00.004-04:00

I first became acquainted with aquariums when I first moved to Los Angeles and my roommate got me to take over the maintenance of his 55 gallon fresh water tank. It was in a sad state at the time so I had the filtration system professionally repaired and we changed the coral gravel and added new fish and decorations. Then, viola! We had a restored centerpiece in the living room and I found a new hobby that I really enjoyed learning about. Pictured is my 45 gallon fresh water tank back here in New York. It's new and still in it's first cycle until June 17th so I only can have a few small fish until it develops the natural balance to handle more fish. I have a couple of tetras, danios and barbs. They don't see me as their daddy yet, I'm just the guy who sticks his big arm in the tank and futzes around with the plants and causes a ruckus. Almost all the plants are live because I like the colors better, it's looks lush and my fish have somewhere to hide.

Welcome!

2008-05-01T23:13:00.005-04:00

Welcome to my Blogspot. My name is James but people call me Jayme or Jay (Rizal calls me Jay Baby)and I live in New York.