Reading Is Fundamental

I am a reader, a writer, an editor, and, occasionally, a teacher but I'm also a human being who makes mistakes. Today I made a mistake when I went to Whole Foods looking for dinner and ended up bringing home something called "Beyond Meat Buffalo." (See the picture below.) I thought I was purchasing a mere buffalo chicken wrap, but what I got instead was a fake buffalo chicken wrap made of soy. Had I merely paid attention to what I was buying, I would have seen that I had picked up a non-meat product, but I wasn't paying attention and I have no one to blame but myself for this mishap. Since I spent $7 on this thing, I did eat some of it and it wasn't bad.

Burning

This week is off to a great start, right? Baltimore is burning. People are out of control. Some guy at the Y this afternoon smelled so bad that everyone who came near him was forced to flee. (His bad scent lingered even after he was gone. Time to hit the showers, buddy! Workout time is over!) It's only Tuesday and I'm already feeling bummed out this week. However, there are some bright spots. I bought a new bicycle on Sunday. It cost more than I wanted to spend, but it was a lot cheaper than the $574 orange bike I was lusting after. (Sorry, but that's just too much to pay for a bicycle unless you race and wear Spandex outfits with corporate logos splashed across them.) I'll have to post a picture of my grandma bike once I pony up $45 to get my basket installed on the handlebars. Now I can tool around town like the other suburbanites! I have a helmet and a Kryptonite lock, so I'm ready to go. When I rode home from the bike shop on Sunday, I was scared to death that someone would run me over. Even taking the side streets freaked me out, but I need to get over that. I bought a bike and I intend to ride it this spring and summer (and fall, weather permitting) and get my money's worth out of it.

RIP William Price Fox

I was working my way through today's NY Times and came across an obituary for one of my former professors, William Price Fox. Fox taught a creative writing course I took during a disastrous two semester graduate school stint I slogged through at the University of South Carolina in the 1990s. (Nine months of my life that I'll never get back!) Anyway, Fox was quite a character at USC and he rarely failed to make us laugh with some off-color tale from his past. He even sent his young wife (who'd been one of his graduate students) to teach our class one day, something that truly annoyed not only me but other folks in the class because, hey, we hadn't paid good money (or gone into debt) to have this dude's wife play teacher for a day. I remember Fox talking about the band Lynryd Skynyrd and he kept pronouncing the band's name as Len-red Skin-red. And, even worse, was that no one (myself included) had the balls to correct him. We just let him go on about this great band Len-red Skin-red.

RIP, Professor Fox.

Why?

Why is service so lousy at the post office? I went to pick up two packages this week from my local post office and the place was crowded, as usual. Only two clerks were working the windows, as usual. But when I got close to the head of the line, one of the clerks disappeared for about 10 minutes. Then, when she returned, right when I was next in line for service, the other clerk pulled the grate on her window and closed up shop. I laughed along with other customers in line and, apparently, our laughter (or something) caused the clerk who'd checked out to check back in and reopen her window. We laughed to stop ourselves from crying or yelling about the consistently poor service. If the post office isn't racially profiling black folks to push black history stamps on them, they're closing up shop at the busiest times of the day and putting the people with the worst attitudes alive on the front lines. God, some postal employees are just terrible. I know dealing with the public isn't a cake walk, but if you hate your job that much, find another one. Don't take your job dissatisfaction out on me and other people who come to the post office and help pay your salary. Oy. I'd avoid the post office entirely if I could.

The Poor Door

I am fascinated with stories in the news about a high-rise apartment building in New York that has a separate entrance (the so-called "poor door") for residents who live in dedicated low-income units. This sounds like a terrible thing, right? Why should the low-income residents have to use an entrance different from the residents who have market rate apartments? This is segregation. It's also New York City where housing is ridiculously expensive. I think if I had the chance to snag a new construction apartment in a snazzy building in Manhattan and I had to go through a poor door to get to it, I'd walk through that poor door with my head held high. When you need a place to live and your income options are limited, sometimes you have to make some hard choices.

That being said, New York City real estate is ridiculous.

Slave Owners in the Family

I read over the weekend that Ben Affleck didn't want the world to know that he has slave owners in his family history and that info got suppressed from the Henry Louis Gates PBS genealogy special when he was featured. Dude, let it go already. So you had slave owners in the family. Big whoop. Get over it. When Anderson Cooper found out one of his ancestors (and not one on the Vanderbilt side) not only owned slaves but was killed by one, he didn't freak out. He rolled with it. Affleck should have done the same. Now it's a bigger deal because he tried to suppress it and I'm annoyed with Henry Louis Gates for basically allowing Affleck to control the content of his show. For shame, Skip. For shame.

As another weekend winds down, I'm trying to figure out exactly where it went. Wasn't it just Friday? Yeah...two days ago. Oy! My quest to find an affordable bicycle has turned up some promising leads, but I haven't bitten the bullet yet and purchased one. My sister suggested I try the Goodwill and maybe I'll do that. I don't mind having a used bike as long as it's in good condition. Plus, I won't feel that angry if it gets stolen.

Thursday Thoughts

Just a few random thoughts for the day.

1. Why does Gawker suck so much these days? The stories aren't interesting, there's too much celebrity gossip, and the site runs too many ads with its stories. There was a time when I stopped going to the site years ago because I felt it was too snarky, but then it redeemed itself and I was back on board. I'm ready to put them on hiatus again and take myself over to Salon.

2. Although I am not a Star Wars fan (I fell asleep in the theater during the last movie in the series that I did see), I was happy to see Chewbacca show up with Harrison Ford in the new movie trailer released today. Now we just need some Ewoks!

3. Is it Friday yet?

John Morgan Wilson

I always like to mention a good book I've read or an author whose work I enjoy and this time it's John Morgan Wilson. I actually stumbled on his work while looking for gay-themed books at a local library and now I've read all but one book in his Benjamin Justice mystery series. What's interesting about Wilson is that his main character, Justice, is a seriously flawed individual and he doesn't always make the right decisions, but that's why his voice is so compelling. Justice, who begins the series as a disgraced, alcoholic, former journalist whose fall from grace came after plagiarizing a series of articles he wrote (and won a Pulitzer for), is a broken man. Still, he manages to pull himself together and help solve crimes (with a lot of assistance from friends) and he's never ashamed of who he is. He's gay, he made mistakes in his life and career, and he doesn't always treat people well, but he tries to do better and he wants to do better. Every book was not a winner for me in terms of the mystery to be solved. Some felt convoluted and, at times, some of the secondary characters (Maurice, specifically) got on my nerves, but the voice of Benjamin Justice was worth the read.

Mad Men Sucked...Again

I'm almost ready to pull the plug now on the remaining episodes of Mad Men. The last two weeks have been awful. Don and his sad sack waitress friend should just put themselves out of their misery already. I'm giving it one more week to show some improvement before I start skipping the shows and resort to just reading the recaps on Monday.

Say It Ain't So!

This is one of those weeks I'll be glad to put in my rear view for a number of reasons, but a few things in particular stick out in my mind.

First, apparently Jon Hamm was a violet douchebag while he was in college who beat and tortured a fraternity pledge. That surprises me. Say it ain't so, Jon Hamm! Oh, it be so! I can't even see Hamm being a part of any Greek fraternity system, but clearly he was. I love the way people excuse his prior behavior as that of someone who was young (he was 20 at the time). Granted, someone who's 20 still has a lot of growing to do, but I would like to think that person still knows right from wrong. From what I've read, Hamm and his frat brothers really went to work on their victim and beat the hell out of this guy. We're not just talking about a few paddles on the ass. The victim filed charges against these guys and their fraternity was shut down. I'm sure Hamm has changed his ways. He's 44 now and, hopefully, knows better, but it's still a disappointment to hear that he participated in such a violent act against another person.

Second, the whole South Carolina shooting incident was yet another disappointing part of this week but I'm pretty certain this kind of thing happens more frequently than anyone wants to admit. When I heard the latest incident happened in South Carolina, I wasn't surprised. I lived there briefly years ago. The nine months I spent in South Carolina are nine months of my life that I'll never get back. The only good that came from my time there was that I was able to visit Charleston. It's a lovely city and I highly recommend a visit if you've never been there. As for the rest of the state? No comment.

Overplayed and Overrated

While listening to my Essential Neil Diamond collection CDs, I wondered why people love "Sweet Caroline" so much.  (Yes, I like Neil Diamond. Don't judge me!!) "Sweet Caroline" is one of the weaker Neil Diamond songs. Where's the love for "Cherry, Cherry" or "Song Sung Blue" or "Desiree" or (my personal favorite) "Cracklin' Rosie"? To me "Sweet Caroline" is like Billy Joel's "Piano Man": overplayed and overrated.

Speaking of overplayed and overrated, Rahm Emanuel lives to walk another day as Mayor of Chicago? Insert eye roll here.

Disappointed

Disappointment #1: Last night's episode of Mad Men. What a bust. and a disappointment. For this I waited how many months? The only good things about last night's episode were Roger's mustache and Peggy and Joan bitching at each other. (Peggy, Joan has big breasts. What is she supposed to do??? Wear a circus tent???) Don's back to screwing random women and pining for a woman he wrongly rejected. I should have watched The Man from U.N.C.L.E. instead last night.

My second disappointment came from a rerun of Queer as Folk episodes (the original British version) on Logo last night. I couldn't get with this either for a number of reasons. First, at times I couldn't understand what the guys were saying. The accents were a little too much for me. (Maybe I should have watched with the closed captions on.) Second, there was too much bleeping of the curse words. That distracted me. And, third, the guys just didn't do it for me. The Brits needed to step up their game with this crew. I know I'm biased by the American version of the show, but come on.

Speaking of British shows, I was thinking about the original British version of The Office with Ricky Gervais today. I remember seeing this show years ago when someone I worked with in Philadelphia loaned me her DVDs. I also remember being incredibly depressed by the show. I thought a lot of it was mean-spirited. Yes, it was funny, but after a while that humor just became depressing. Maybe it hit too close to home for me after working in various offices for so long. I feel like I should watch the show again and see if I have a different perspective.

Business

I'm still annoyed over the whole religious freedom nonsense going on but I'm trying to tamp that rage down. I want to have a nice Easter without working myself into a froth over some bigots out in Indiana (or wherever) who feel that providing pizza (?) for a gay wedding violates their religious faith. If you provide a product or a service for the public in this country, isn't it your job to do just that? Since when do business owners get to pick and choose who can buy their goods or take advantage of their services? It's discrimination no matter how you try to slice and dice it. First it's pizza, then it's shoes. "Hey, we can't sell that guy a pair of shoes because he's planning to wear them to his gay wedding! That's against my beliefs!"  Ridiculous, but that's the kind of ridiculousness the country is, unfortunately, dealing with now. I am happy to see so many people of all stripes outraged over this situation and I'm glad people can see this religious freedom act for what it is: a license to discriminate.

Recalibrating

There's a lot of recalibrating going on this week. The governors of Indiana and Arkansas are both recalibrating their religious freedom bills after blowback from the public and business communities. New Daily Show host Trevor Noah is recalibrating his sense of humor (or lack thereof) after his lazy, unfunny, awful tweets were exposed. Maybe the powers that be at Comedy Central will recalibrate and decide they need a new host for the show. (Personally, I'd prefer to see an American host the show and I would cry no tears if they kicked Noah to the curb.)