Required Posting

In the last couple of days I was really hoping to write a little bit about Xe, the mercenary army formerly known as Blackwater. That's pronounced "zee." They retooled their website, and amazingly enough, the "history" section says nothing about the founder or the former name. Yea, rebranding!

But Xe's already getting its own bad name (just like the bad name you gave love, according to Bon Jovi). Four Xe contractors opened fire on a civilian vehicle, wounding two Afghans. That might be a problem in and of itself, but the contractors were also off-duty, drunk, and not allowed to be carrying weapons at the time.

[Web redesign story via TPM, and Xe mercenary shootings via HuffPo.]

Anyway, this is that posting I put up on B&E at least once (and sometimes twice) a year, in which I give you advance warning of an absence. I didn't take the time to line up any prearranged postings or anything, and unless my day today goes a lot differently than I imagine it will, I won't.

Yes, that's right: I'm going to be out of town, and although I'll probably have some semi-regular internet connection, come on people, it's a freakin' vacation. I'm vacating, for crying out loud.

Oh, and burglars? We have a really large person house-sitting for us, so don't get any ideas. We've given the large person permission to check our mail and kick your fucking ass. He's from Xe, the mercenary outfit formerly known as Blackwater.

What Part of "Queens" Don't You Understand, Senator?

Gay Marriage Week continues here on B&E!

I was one of many who contacted his state senator to drum up support for the same sex marriage bill the New York Senate will be voting on soon. My state senator is Senator George Onorato, and this was his reply:

Thank you for your recent email expressing your support for same sex marriage. As you may be aware, although I have met with a number of marriage equality advocates in Albany as well as the district, I am not in support of the same sex marriage bill that has been proposed. Throughout my career in the Senate, I have supported many initiatives of importance to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, including the Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act (SONDA) and New York's hate crimes law. I am also in favor of the Dignity for All Students Act and the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA). In addition, I have secured fudning for groups in my district serving the LGBT community and providing assistance for people with HIV and AIDS. I sincerely respect your views, and I appreciate the time you took to express your opinion on this issue. Thank you agian for contacting me.

Not good enough, Senator Onorato.

You understand this is Queens, right? You're going to deny equality to the queens of Queens? Shame on you, Senator.

Those other things are fine, but they're off topic. I contacted you about same sex marriage, Senator, not SONDA or GENDA or any of your other activities that are friendly to the LGBT, etc. community.

And you never even say why it is you don't support the bill. Explain your position, for crying out loud, if it's your goddamned position. Don't change the subject as if to say, "But don't hate me; some of my best friends are gay!"

Let's say for a minute that will "agree to disagree" on this issue, Senator Onorato. What's with the typos in your reply? They're completely unacceptable. Since the missus got the same exact email from you, it's obviously an auto-reply. Proofread your correspondence, for crying out loud. Really? "Fudning"? "Agian"? Get it together, Senator!

Look, maybe some intern is taking care of this piddly shit for you. I really hope this isn't indicative of our borough's public education efforts.

You're on the wrong side of history, Senator. You're on the wrong side of equality. You're on the wrong side of spelling.

I expect better from a Democrat who represents a district, which leans so far to the left, we sometimes don't even have a Republican candidate on the ballot.

Maybe Queens needs a queen in the State Senate.

As Bon Jovi Once Said, "Oh, We're Halfway There"

Apparently, it's Gay Marriage Week here on B&E. Not only did Curt (Bald Bro) and I have a little call and response on Saturday's post, but also, yesterday the New York State Assembly has passed the Gay Marriage Bill.

Naturally, there were still a few Assemblyfolks who called it a moral outrage and a slippery slope toward polygamy.

And I do like the sentiment behind the quote from one Democrat: "We do nothing revolutionary or extraordinary today."

After all, it really shouldn't be so difficult to give all Americans equality under the law.

Next stop: Senate. It's by no means certain that the bill will pass there. In fact, it's not looking very good for those of us who support gay marriage.

Still, there's a clear shift happening. Gay marriage was almost unthinkable a couple of years ago. It took courts (that's "activist judges" in code) to give equal protection under the law.

I think it was a short little posting I read over at TPM a few days ago, in which Josh Marshall posited that it's becoming easier for politicians to support gay marriage because gay marriage has been legal in a few places for a couple of years now, and the straight majority is realizing, "Wow, this really affects me not at all."

They Haven't Classed Up the Joint Too Much

I took a solo trip to Bailout Ballpark on Saturday and had another lovely visit. There were some autism awareness activities going on, which were pretty sweet.

About a half hour before game time, Sebastian Bach of Skid Row fame (not sure if you can really say he's of Jekyll & Hyde fame) took the field and sang a couple of Queens covers (We Will Rock You and We Are the Champions, of course), 18 & Life (the Skid Row hit), and another song I didn't recognize. It's probably from a new album.

But let me just say for the record: Sebastian Bach fucking rules. I mean, the songs weren't particularly good or anything, but he had the toughest job in the house there for a solid ten or fifteen minutes. The stadium was still mostly empty, and there were exactly zero people sitting in the seats he played to directly.

From my seat I had a pretty good view of the Taste of New York food court at the stadium, and that's where the throngs were. Shake Shack trumps Sebastian Bach, apparently.

God bless him, though. Sebastian was doing everything he could to get the tiny crowd excited. In that high-pitched hair-band voice of his, he screamed, "YOU READY TO ROCK THIS GAME, NEW YORK??" to which the crowd offered back a very tame, "Yay..." No matter how quiet the response, that Sebastian Bach kept on calling out for that response, bless his heart.

A couple of guys from the Howard Stern Show were involved in the awareness day, too, so naturally Sebastian Bach changed the words to include a little "Bababooey" also. Bababooey drank it up.

When it was finally time for the ceremonial first pitch, Bababooey (that's Howard Stern producer Gary Dell'abate, if you're not familiar with the show) took the ball. The stadium had filled up by this point, so Bababooey was pitching to a full house.

Now, it's pretty common for the ceremonial first pitch to fail to make it to the catcher on the fly. People who haven't ever thrown off a mound (or haven't since Little League) usually fail to compensate for the angle. So there tend to be a lot of bounced ceremonial first pitches. Most fans accept this and cheer anyway, even Mets fans.

Bababooey threw what had to be the single worst ceremonial first pitch I've ever seen in my life. Not only was his form horribly awkward, but the ball went off in a direction I didn't even think possible. It ended up so far from the catcher that it was an umpire who caught it.

And boy, did the boo birds rain down on Bababooey's head.

I actually felt a little bad for the guy. Back when it was on terrestrial radio, I would occasionally listen to the Howard Stern Show, and Bababooey is a massive Mets fan. I don't know if he's ever thrown out the first pitch before, but I'm sure it's been a dream for a long time. And he blew it. Man, he blew it bad.

After Mets ceremonial first pitches, the pitcher takes a photo with the catcher and ball as a souvenir. Bababooey's face was on the jumbotron at that moment, and he was bright red and looked absolutely miserable, forced smile notwithstanding. Poor bastard.

This is one morning I wish I had Howard to listen to. They are almost certainly busting his balls. After all, Artie Lange was there to witness the thing up close, and that guy was apparently an all-star third baseman in high school.

I'm just glad, though, that the pre-game included Sebastian Bach and Bababooey. With that fancy new stadium, it would be too easy to invite, say, Vampire Weekend and Ira Glass. For the Mets, it's really gotta be Sebastian Bach and Bababooey.

Late update: Because you know you want to see it, here's the disastrous pitch from Bababooey. Unfortunately, you can't hear the Baba-boos. Still, that's some pitch.

Pat and The Scotsman

Pat Robertson has once again done something offensive. I know! I KNOW! Shocking!

In reference to gay marriage, he said that from here it's just a hop, skip, and a jump to pedophilia, bestiality, necrophilia, and indoor-plumbiphilia.

Equating the LGBTQCI (and any other letters that may or may not encompass what has generally been known as the "gay community") with pedophiles is something I've known was wrong since... oh, I don't know... I was nine? I grew up near the park in Topeka known for gay cruising.

When we moved into our house within walking distance of Gage Park (or Gay Park, as it was sometimes called), members of our church congregation (of which my dad was a leader) warned, "Just make sure you don't let your kids walk around there by themselves."

My dad was quite the progressive among our particular Lutheran community (we were Missouri Synod, if any of you readers out there happen to be "in the know" about Lutheranism), and he had a knack for playing innocent and, dare I say, stupid as a way of being challenging and non-threatening at the same time.

"But if they're gay, won't they be more interested in me than my children?" My dad was also a fairly handsome man, and this was invariably true.

But for some of the Lutherans he knew, this was perhaps the first time they'd been faced with a church leader who said, well, anything about gay people. And his innocent question actually got some closed-minded people thinking about gay people differently.

So now, these fathers were more fearful for themselves than their children when in Gage Park.

Alas, the awareness of my own father (who may not have even known any gay people at that time in his life) has not found its way to Dickhead Robertson.

Now bear with me here, as this might seem like a tangent, and it sort of is...

Pat Robertson has links to Scotland. He once said that Scotland is a dark land where homosexuals are unbelievably strong. So it was surprising about ten years ago when he formed a partnership with the Bank of Scotland. He was expected to get that 700 Club flock of his to support the bank. The Scots, knowing what a Dickhead Pat is, were not pleased, and the deal eventually fell through. But you know, apparently if you're Pat Robertson, money is more important than your morality.

Money, it turns out, isn't Pat's only link to Scotland. And the distaste for Pat doesn't necessarily extend to other conclusions. There seems to be an intrinsic link between homosexuality and pedophilia in Scotland. Or at least that's true in Scotland's leading newspaper, The Scotsman.

My brother-in-law was recently sitting on the jury of one of the most horrific criminal cases I've ever heard about. It was the prosecution of a big child pornography and child sexual abuse/assault ring. The details of the case were so shocking that, for the first time ever, the Scottish court kept psychologists on call for the jurors, should they need immediate counseling.

Due to a previous commitment, my brother-in-law had to be released early from his duty as juror, but the case has now come to a close with guilty verdicts across the board on all counts. The Scotsman had the story. (If you are at all squeamish about child abuse, I wouldn't recommend following that link.)

Within the story was this sentence:

Two of the men – convicted sex offender Neil Strachan and gay rights campaigner James Rennie – were convicted of sex attacks on children.

Come on, The Scotsman. You should know better than that. His gay rights activism is completely separate from his role in sex attacks on children. And to link homosexuality and pedophilia is irresponsible and homophobic. It's also totally irrelevant to the story.

You're making an implication that furthers discriminatory stereotypes about gay people that I've known were stupid since 1982. Shame on you, The Scotsman.

Oh, and fuck you, Pat Robertson, you colossal Dickhead.

Hey, As Long As You Don't Hurt Anyone

This Middle-Name-Joe The Not-Even-a-Licensed Plumber doesn't seem to go away, and I gotta say, the media on the left is even more fascinated by this tool than the right. Christ! Look at me! I'm wasting valuable space on the Dickhead, too.

I guess we can file him under the "bald" part of B&E. But let's not start thinking that all bald people are alike now. Easy there, baldists.

Anyway, I'm not gonna bother to link to any stories about "Joe the Plumber," but he apparently told Time Magazine that he's leaving the Republican Party.

Marketing people will often create a user profile for their archetypal consumer. So, for example, Victoria's Secret has created "Nicky." Nicky isn't a real person, but she personifies everything that the Victoria's Secret brand sells to. The idea is that the more specific you get with a user profile, the better you can sell to your target customer.

Joe the Plumber is that archetypal consumer for the Republican Party. And he just happened to come to life during the last election. So what are you left with, then, when your archetypal consumer rejects you? Well, you're sort of fucked.

And as the Republican Party is deserted in droves by all the Joe-the-Plumbers, Tito-the-Builders, and Chad-the-Douches, they're left with no one to sell to. Companies with no one to sell to end up bankrupt. The Republican Party has been morally bankrupt for a long time, and now they're actually losing the people smack-dab in the middle of their target audience. They are morally and physically bankrupt.

Joe-the-Archetype isn't going to turn to the Democratic Party. And why would he? Hell, I'm not being given any major reasons from the Democratic leadership to support them either, and I agree with the official stance of the Party on a fair number of issues facing our nation today.

So what happens to these Joe-the-Whackjobs? Who cares? As long as they don't hurt anybody.

Which, frankly, seems pretty unlikely. After all, look at Joe-the-Homophobe's views on gay people. Apparently, yesterday he said that he wouldn't let any queers near his children. And like most bigots, he was quick to point out that he was friends with actual homosexuals. I'm sure most of you have heard (or perhaps even said) something along the lines of "I'm not prejudice! Some of my best friends are black/gay/Jewish/women/Ewoks/children!"

Anyway, it's a downright dangerous point-of-view. It's not any sort of giant leap to go from "stay away from my kids" to "I fucking told you I'd fucking kill you if you didn't stay away from my kids!" if the gay person in question suddenly finds himself within Joe's unacceptable circle of proximity to his children.

But Joe-the-Dickhead claims that these actual homosexual friends know where he stands about having them nowhere near his children.

I'm going to go out on a real limb here: if Joe-the-Plumber actually knows any gay people well (which I doubt) and these actual gay people actually know that he won't let them near his kids, these gay people don't consider Joe-the-Plumber a friend. Unless these are some seriously self-loathing gay people.

That Hump is a Burger

It's Wednesday, or Hump Day as the kids like to call it, which can only mean one thing, B&E readers! It's Burger Day!

(That's right, it's the only thing Wednesday can mean.)

My Wednesday is thus far meatless, but my media is carnivorous as ever. I'm not talking about the "red meat" of attacking one's political opponents, although that's surely happening somewhere, too. No, indeed, I'm talking about actual red meat in the media.

First of all, this fine feature in the New York Times, which some of you may have heard of. Click on a burger to see a bit of info about it and hear a little audio review. Donovan's Pub (home of the #2 ranked burger on this list) is just up the road from my apartment in Queens, and I can vouch for that particular burger's tastiness. The missus calls it greasy; I call it juicy. Tomato, tomato. Hm... That comparison doesn't work at all in writing.

Looks like our President also appreciates a burger, and when he and Vice President Biden had a hankering, they headed over to the strip mall home of Ray's Hell Burger in DC.

If you watch the video, you may catch that President Obama orders his burger medium-well. What the hell is that all about? I grew up in the red meat belt, and you just don't order a burger medium-well. Medium is OK; medium-rare is better. If the beef's really good, take it rare. It's gotta be at least a little pink. This is one time when pink doesn't equal gay.

(Speaking of gay, shout-out to Maine!)

Anyway, medium-well... That's not beef I can believe in, Mr. President.

With my share of complaints (of course), I'm much more in sync with the views and positions of this President over the last one, certainly. But this really takes the cake. Medium-well? Oh, Mr. President, how could you?

You might as well order a hockey puck on a roll and call yourself Canadian.

Things Are Different in Europe, But...

People are complex and multidimensional. Relationships between complex, multidimensional individuals can be messy. And there are certain cultural mores in Europe that seem surprising to our Puritanical American sensibility (some of you may remember Francois Mitterand's wife and mistress mourning together over his grave in France).

Still, even with all of these things in mind, I suspect that Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi is a gaping asshole.

So That Didn't Happen

Long-time readers may remember that a friend's mom predicted the end of the world in April 2009.

All that work on the underground bunker, all the prayers getting ready for the Rapture, all that time I spent skipping my 2008 taxes... wasted. Totally wasted.

My friend's mom better have a good goddamn reason for being so freakin' off-base... She was wrong. Completely wrong.

I'm completely unprepared for May's expenses: rent, bills, student loans, food... I'm hosed. Utterly hosed.

I Got My Eyes Checked Today

Spring is in the air, B&E readers. It is May, after all.

A few weeks ago I got that note on the Brooklyn Bridge (you better believe that I revisit that experience any time my ego needs a boost and tell every single person I've ever met), and I think my eye doctor was flirting with me this morning.

Doctor of Optometry Young Lady laughed a little too hard at the things I said (easy there, doc, this isn't even my A-Game) and complimented my consistent test-taking, which she called "remarkable" for a test that's supposed to be subjective.

She also seems very impressed by the hole in my retina, particularly the scar tissue that formed all around the hole, thereby keeping it from growing, detaching completely, and causing me to go blind. That shit is hot.

But it all went a little too far when everyone at the office was putting a lot of pressure on me to get my eyes dilated.

Well, I'm sorry, ladies, I can't let you do that unless my wife is around.