you with your dietary restrictions

I went to see Camera Obscura the other night.
I contend they are basically interchangeable with Belle and Sebastian (who I also love, shut up), but the friends I went with think I am mistaken. "No, Salty, you're wrong, because I hate Belle and Sebastian".
Well.

Here they are in a twee little video that reminds me of 'Umbrellas of Cherbourg' in IKEA.

I love how the couple is flying around like they're on ecstasy, and then the lead singer looks absolutely miserable.
During the concert, the lead singer looked only slightly less miserable, but then seemed to perk right up after stopping a song to tell a very rude audience member to "shut the fuck up because I can't hear myself". (Right ON, sister!) (end of story: said person did, indeed, shut the fuck up.)
The show was marvelous. Except for the wildly drunk and/or severely palsied* woman next to us who flailed around like she was doing a stationary marching band routine**. This while she was using her brightly lit fancy cell phone to take pictures and send text messages. Not to let my enjoyment be eclipsed, I was about to ask her to do her performance art somewhere else before she took someone out or I set her on fire...but instead we moved closer to the stage where we could see better anyways...so really, she did us a favor.

God, what a bitch am I-I go to see a perfectly wonderful band, and all I do is report on the annoying freaks in the audience.

However, Camera Obscura is great live, exceeded all expectations, and I'll go see 'em again.. See for yourself.



 *my apologies to the palsied
** You know that episode of 'Seinfeld' where Elaine dances? It was just like that, only not funny because it was in real life and distracting, and she wasn't Julia Louis Dreyfus.

At 91, Maude Makes Trouble

Someone from my hometown wrote an article about my grandmother, which, after reading, I felt my black heart grow three sizes larger, so here you go:

For 24 years, Salty Miss Maude, 91, has called Friendship Towers home.

So when her high-rise apartment building near East 11th and French streets became less homey, she spoke out. 

First, she wrote to the Erie Housing Authority, which manages the 200-unit building for seniors and the disabled.

Then she talked to me.

She's upset that the south-facing foyer doesn't have enough chairs to sit and socialize. "Did you ever live in a house with a front porch where you could go out and sit and see what is going on or speak to your neighbors going by and just be friendly?" she wrote to the building manager in May, after some chairs were removed.
She's also irked that as of Nov. 1, the parking lot is restricted to tenants with cars.
She used to serve on the tenant council, but five years ago a stroke sent her to a nursing home for 15 months. As other tenants aged or got too busy, the council disbanded.
"I'm a troublemaker," she admits with a smile about her decision to air her complaints.

Maude has a wealth of wisdom, too. She was a teenager when she fell in love with her husband, John, at a roller-skating rink in Duluth. An Erie native, he worked in the engine rooms of ore carriers. After Pearl Harbor, they moved to Erie and raised their 11 children at 909 E. Ninth St.

"Dad never drove to work. Every day, he walked from Ninth and Perry to GAF," recalls Pat Twohig, 58, one of seven Twohig children still in Erie who take turns helping their mom.

At age 45, Maude had lived long enough without a car. Pat bought her a '55 Buick, and she learned to drive.
After her husband died, she moved to Friendship Towers. She had to adjust to the smaller space and make room for her books, movies and CDs. She's a guitar and ukulele player. Her musical tastes range from Scott Joplin to Freddy Fender. A wall of plaques honor her three-mile walks for the North Coast Striders; she joined at age 70.
She gets Meals on Wheels, but Pat helps her shop for her kitchen specialties, from chow mein to crab legs. When the snow flies, she frets she will have to trudge to his car on the street.
Maude, by the way, turned in her license five years ago. Age may be gaining speed, but she's not about to stop driving her viewpoint home. 

How cool is she, right? 

The article did not mention that she also has a younger manfriend (in his 80's!).  

I love my grandma!

insane she lives in the doorway of an old hotel

For Ramazan this year, the following billboard was posted all over H's hometown:

If you are like me and do not understand Turkish (apart from such phrases as, 'More halal sausage, please' , 'Thank you, auntie, for the delicious lunch' and 'Yogurt on your midwife's pussy, you man who lives in shit'), the above message reads: "Respect is sharing, Sharing is beautiful". Isn't that nice? And here we have grandpa with his headbanger grandson

talking about how Iron Maiden has sucked since the 'Powerslave' LP before they prepare for evening prayers.

Anyhow, this has been cracking H up, and he insisted I share it with you. Because sharing is beautiful. Just like the poster says.

In other Turkey news, if you plan on being in Istanbul this spring, I'll come meet you for a drink. Because that is where we will be! All this infernal whining I do about Ogreville will come to a screeching halt, and be replaced with more infernal whining, erm, tales of life in Istanbul.

I am not sure what I will be doing there myself, quite yet. I can tell you that I will be able to hold my own quite well, thank you very much, should I happen to get into a round of trading insults (see above). Other than that, if I can manage to get by in Turkish with the proficiency of David Sedaris in his 'Me Talk Pretty One Day' essays, I will be very proud of myself.

Oh, speaking of David Sedaris...during my drive back from my Karaoke gig of last weekend, I was listening to a CD recording of 'The Santaland Diaries' (which is one of the funniest things in existence, particularly when he does Billie Holiday singing 'Away in a Manger'. Go listen, again if you must, now!) and noticed that the car ahead of me had the licence plate: 'SANTA 4U'.

Ramazan and Christmas mentioned together in the same blog post. How multicultural! How diverse! (snort)

And speaking of blending, recently some poor misguided soul asked if I would be interested in seeing a Grateful Dead cover band, wherein the band members dressed like Lord of the Rings characters. It was all I could take to ignore the screaming in my head to politely decline. And then my left eye twitched uncontrollably all day at the thought that such horror exists in the world. A hobbit jam band, Jesus Christ. Have them play at a renaissance fair and serve nothing but diet Mountain Dew and boiled cabbage, for my own personalized corner of hell.

full of jelly jars and heavy equipment

Just in case you were wondering...
Thursday is the new Friday (for me, because I have off Friday and Saturday). Only it's not really like Friday, because on Thursdays I do the overnight on-call gig for the rape crisis center. So coming home to a Xanax with a Booker's Manhattan chaser would not be at all conducive to a trip to the ER to be all supportive and project an air of professionalism. Although it might make the whole ordeal more bearable.
Let's just say I hope I don't get that call tonight. Not after the week I've had. And not that I've made that indulgence...

I will be visiting my hometown this weekend for cousin Julie's wedding. Nothing like a little Genny Cream Ale, pierogies and polka (even though this is for the Irish side of the family, but consider my hometown: a true melting pot of lumpenproletariat from all corners of Europe. I loves my people.) As with every family wedding, cousin Krissy (a former Atlantic City lounge singer in the late 70's, she used to date Wayne Newton. For these reasons, she is my idol.) will get up and sing 'The Rose', we'll get grandma (she's 93, kena hora) to do the chicken dance, and everyone will end up absolutely blotto.
Good times!

And for your listening enjoyment, my most recent easy listening favorite:

If you'd like to see me perform the live karaoke version, I'll be incorporating this into my repertoire at the Moose Lodge this Saturday night. Which is where we'll most likely end up after the wedding, as we do.

souped up, jacked up, stacked up, cracked up

Well, hello there!
My posting habits have been few and far between, I realize. Truth of the matter is that all I do is work. Work, work work. Well, really that's not at all true. I also read and eat and sleep and sometimes even look at other people's blogs or distract myself in other fashions (oooh...look...shiny!). Such as choreographing snappy routines to heavy metal songs with H and baking bundt cakes. I do so love a good bundt cake.
But really, I work all the damn time, work which is consuming and also confidential and bears no discussion here in this public forum, at to do so would be highly unethical, and I am never that. So there ya go. (excuses, excuses.)
Really, I am just dull and have nothing impressive nor even remotely amusing to say.
Yet I have somehow fooled you all and amassed a readership.
I can say this about my week: it's been like hanging out with Big and Little Edie and a highly paranoid, misogynist Wilford Brimley for eight hours nonstop. Mettle, tested. Truly tested.

In a recent moment of weakness, I let peer pressure get the better of me: I signed up for a certain cult-like website (whose name rhymes with Wastebook). Also, since the majority of my social life takes place on the Internet...I figured I'd cave. Why not? I jumped on the bandwagon and started poking around for people I know...and that only led me down a dark and frightening rabbit hole of anxiety. I saw the presence of people I knew from way back when....and I suddenly felt very alone and sad. People I knew from my hometown got old(er) and ugly(er), because that means I myself am also older and, well, I've never held any delusions about my appearance, so no love lost there...
And then I saw a few faces of people who'd crossed me, and that's when I noticed I was breaking out in hives. FUCKING HIVES. Actual hives, people. I had a physical allergic reaction to Facebook. I felt like I was faced with all the judgement and petty bullshit and meanness and jealousy ever targeted towards me, and this was just far too much to bear (not to get all dramatic or nuthin')...and since I's set this up while at work (it was slow, so shut up), I could not excuse myself for a soothing booze cocktail...hence this blog entry.
WHAT THE HELL IS MY PROBLEM? I never had these strange social anxiety/self-consciousness issues before I turned 35. I used to be the most social and confident person (during my early late 20's to early mid 30's, anyways), and now I lose my shit entirely when I'm in a group of more than four people. Now, apparently in virtual reality. Maybe it was seeing all these faces from my past, when I was not the most confident person. Or missing former friends of whom I have lost touch with for one reason or another.

Maybe I am spending entirely too much time dwelling on this. I really do need a new hobby.
Such as watching silly videos from the 80's like this one:

get on the choo-choo cha-cha

Have you seen the show Mad Men yet?
Mad Meh, more like it.
Because I am a gay man trapped in a straight woman's body, I felt compelled to watch the first season. (I know...I'm very behind the times.) Took me about two weeks to do so. Why so long? Because the whole series was BORING. More bland bourgeouis white people and thier bland bourgeouis problems. yawn. Call me uptight, but watching a bunch of shallow, arrogant men get drunk and treat women like shit is just not my idea of a good time*. If it were, I would have joined a sorority.
Needless to say, I was a little disappointed with the series. I had such high hopes. Oh well.
I know, now you proabably won't let me sit at your lunch table any more, but I am not alone in my opinion.
FABULOUS set design, though. And I would drown a kitten for Joan's wardrobe. She's fierce.

*Which reminds me of this joke:
Q:How many feminists does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: That's not funny.

Betty and Brenda! Susie and Anita!

My, where did the summer go? Here in Ogreville, an entire three weeks of summerlike sunshine somehow managed to sandwich itself between spring rain/mush and autumnal crispness. Much like a stingily dressed tuna melt. And I hate tuna melts.
But enough carping. My scooter is finally scooting, and that makes me very happy.
I also went to the state fair this past week, on what just so happened to be Beef Day. It was also Senior Citizen Day*. But yes, Beef Day at the fair! I love the state fair, especially when I can go for free. AND get paid for being there, as I was officially working and we took a bunch of clients. I promptly ditched them in favor of seeing the animals. If I were a better person, I would have taken pictures. So you will just have to imagine the following: There was an entire poultry barn, which also housed bunnies and guinea pigs in addition to fowl of all feather. I saw magnificent Percherons on display. And all kinds of goats. (I love their weird horizontal pupils) And piggies! Huge sows with clusters of piglets. So adorable, so delicious.
Then I came home with a sunburn and maybe swine flu from those filthy beasts. I am not kidding. I seldom get sick, and I'm not prone to the imagined sick of I-don't feel-like-going-to-work, (usually it's the self-induced brown bottle flu for ol' Salty) but for the past two days, I was out. Just trying to focus my one good eye hurt.
Today I feel somewhat human, as human as I am ever capable of feeling, anyhow.

What else did I do this summer? I went to visit Dr. O in the midwest, and she showed me one of the best bars ever. We spent three of the four nights I visited there. The night we went to a very different bar. And I let some old artsy letch have it:
OAL: How do you know Dr. O?
SMJ: From school, we were both in the philosophy department.
OAL: Oh, philosophy! What do you think of Kant's (SNOB ALERT: pronounced as 'can't')
take on dualism?
SMJ: What do you mean?
OAL: You know, Cant's paper on existentialism?
SMJ: I'm not familiar with that.
OAL: Well, I think yap yap yap yap.....you MUST have an opinion.
SMJ: Yes, I do. You don't know what the hell you're talking about. Please stop speaking.
OAL: What? Why don't you just tell me to fuck off if I'm bothering you?
SMJ: OK. Fuck off. You're bothering me.

And fuck off he did. (Then paid for two of my drinks!) If there is one thing I do not suffer gladly, it is a clueless know-it-all. Save your delusions for your shrink.

H also took me to one of the other best bars ever. With the best name ever. I felt like we were in another country. (Wait-this was in Canaidia, so we were in another country!) In the middle of a summer afternoon, in this crooked little dark bar, this gypsy band played a four-hour set. The kind fella behind the bar sang and played trumpet, and served drinks in between. By the end of the set, everyone was stomping and clapping and booze-soaked. Really, really wonderful. Like hanging out in someones living room. You simply must go, if you are ever in Toronto. A city, by the way, I would live in in a heartbeat. And if I lived anywhere near this bar, you would find me there every night.

What else did I do on my summer vacation?
We took about a dozen clients to an amusement park for three days, and that was an adventure. I got to see what an full-blown anxiety attack looked like up close and personal. Then we went to a water park and all I could think was people soup. And also of how people in third world countries are dying from lack of clean drinking water...and here are pasty Americans using this resource for mere entertainment. I wanted to have an anxiety attack myself.
Yeah, I'm no fun like that.
But the clients had fun, and that's what counted.

*Speaking of, my birthday was last month, and hell with all of y'all for forgetting. I just sat inside in the dark and looked out the window at the rain. I was fine, really.