Recently a “protest” was staged here in Atlanta. Gay men, maybe women too, gathered and made out at the restaurant chain. This was dumb and sophomoric at best.

In my opinion anyone slobbering all over each other anywhere public is trashy and little more than a trailer park prom.

Will they get results?
Yes. we will see them Sunday. The result however is proof that the gay community is what they always thought. Over sexed boys with no decency.

Will minds be changed?
Yes. Moderate people will start to see the point of view of the bigots.

I think the dumbest bullies in high school are in charge of things here

Facebook:

You haven’t said or posted anything in several weeks

I’ve become an audience member to your life and we no longer interact

Your posts and philosophies are disturbing or toxic

Twitter

The majority of your tweets are retweets

Your tweets are only about promotion

You tweet your horoscope

Inanity

10 rapid fire tweets the nothing for weeks

You ask to be retweeted

Your tweets are toxic or disturbing

Inanity

Standing outside with signs makes the haters bold and proud to defy us.

Instead I suggest we go inside frab the tables use a coupon, have some water, get some fries… And stay the entire lunch or dinner hour!

Walking inside with a sea of red gay and gay supportive people is much more unnerving for the haters and costs the chain money.

Hitting a company with fairness and common decency simply does not work. Screw with income… Now that works!

The more days in a row this can happen amplifies the impact.

Remember it’s not the fault of the employees. Keep the place clean and don’t be loud and boisterous. Just be an overwhelming presence

It’s that time of year in GA when we get some good tomatoes! We had good ones in Missouri and year round in SoCal. Here if I find one I carry it home over my head and dance around a fire telling of my kill. Here’s one of my favorite tomato dishes.

You need;

A good (good means NOT the grocery store Jethro) medium to large ripe tomato

Big onion. Any kind.. Red or Vidalia are best

Dry bread crumbs

Roasted red peppers

Mushrooms (canned are ok)

Olive oil

Garlic

Chives

Soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, lime or rice vinegar

Parmesan cheese

Mayonnaise

First cut your large onion in half and peel away the outside layer. Just the outside layer

Lightly coat the onion with olive oil or oil of your choice.

Mix together bread crumbs, red pepper, minced chives, garlic and mushrooms. This will be rather dry. That’s good

Cut the lid off you tomato and pull out seeds and pulp.

Stuff…. Easy now dont break your tomato… The dry mixture inside up to just below top of tomato

Give it a shot of Worcestershire sauce, lime or vinegar

Put in a 300 degree oven for… I dunno half hour? Until the onion shows a little brown around the edges.

While thats baking mix cheese and mayo into a gross looking paste

Once the onion is browned take out your out you tomatoes and crank that oven to 375

Put gross looking mayo paste on the top and back in the oven it goes. Watch it close! This only takes 3-5 minutes. You want the mayo to melt and the cheese to brown a bit. It’s very easy to burn at this point.

Take it out let it chill out for 5-10 minutes… Mmmmm good eatin.

Serves one… Unless its me… Then it has a friend

Variations:

No measurements? Too bad. Live a little.

If served as a side for guests I drop the mayo cheese crust and serve cut in half. You look like a genius when you do this

You can alternate sauces between tomato chambers

Roast your own peppers on an open flame. Whole pepper on a grill turning until all the skin is black. Cool down in a fridge and rub the skin off.

I don’t know how it started but there seem to be an alarming number of people who think “why” and “how” are interchangeable words. For example…

I was in the hospital last week and the meds were making me drowsy. I’m fairly tall and started sliding down the bed. Far enough my feet were dangling and my knees were bent.

I waved down a nurse to help me move back up. The rails were up and it made it awkward. She comes in and I say “if you put down one rail and stand there I can do it”. “oh no,” she said ” you will get us sued! I will help you”.

She then reached under my back and dug her nails into my skin. “stop! Stop!” I yelled. “what’s the matter?” “you’re pinching me… Nevermind I’ll be fine”. “no I’m going to move you up” and she did it again! “stop!” I yelled, putting my foot down (so to speak).

“what’s wrong? I will help you.” “no” I said “you keep hurting me!”

She then asked. “Why I’m hurting you?” “I don’t know” I answered

“Try one more time”. “no, you keep pinching me! Please leave”I said

“Why I’m pinching you?” she asked again.

“I don’t know why you keep doing it! LEAVE!”

She left. My regular nurse came and dressed my new wounds and got me me comfortable again. I suspect that other nurse thought I was crazy.

For my friends and family… I don’t mind updating you on what’s going on with my health but it has become the most boring topic. I think about it enough.

What I do want to chat about is….
Your life
Food and cuisine
Books and movies
Your kids
Your job
What’s on TV
Some politics
Your relationship!
Our history
Pets
Etc..

I appreciate the support. I just want some normalcy sometimes.

And by all means… Don’t treat me like I’m dying. Even if that’s the outcome… It’s tedious and a waste of time.

From time to time people will ask me about my non- belief. Frankly the tolerance and acceptance I’ve received is much higher over the years and growing. Here are some of the questions I get.

Why do you hate God? I don’t. There us a neutral between love and hate

Have you read the Buble? Yes, will still read my favorite parts from time to time. Particularly Genesis

Will you join me for church, mass, a satyr, Ramadan. Most likely yes.

Can I/we pray for you? Yes, I would be honored.

What if you’re wrong? Maybe I am

What do you think about when you bow your head at the table with believers? Nothing, I’m listening

Why do you wear a Christian cross sometimes? In honor of my Christian family. And I like them

Why do you quote Jesus, Buddha, Rabbi Burkowitz? Nothing is all bad

Do you think I’m dumb because Of my faith? No, if I think you’re dumb there are probably a lot of other reasons

Don’t you think atheism is a religion? Just like bald is a hair color

Do you celebrate Christmas? Yes. And Easter

Will you cover my shift on Sunday? Probably

What do you say to children about religion? Same thing I tell them about sex. Ask your mom(s) or dad(s)

Are you open about your beliefs? Dont ask, don’t tell. I’m usually asked when I don’t take communion, say Amen or agree to pray for someone

Do you have religious symbols? Yes, totems, crosses, Hindu Gods.

Ever feel like a a hypocrite? Yes, but not about religions.

I was released from a harrowing hospital experience yesterday and decided to treat myself to seeing The Avengers this afternoon. My plans was to get out, see the movie, jump up and scream “that’s my nephew!” to random people and buy some groceries. Instead I slept… and slept…. and slept.

The harrowing part of the hospital stay was not Drs, Nurses or medical procedures but was instead a crazy roommate. He had what I call “drug brain”. You see it in long term drug users and bi-polars who self medicate. First he argued with the new nurses at shift change telling them he didn’t know them and he wanted the other people back. Then it was ignoring all medical professionals that came in. Phlebotomists, nurses, Doctors, techs. Not just pretending to sleep but changing his tv channel (turned up full blast) and pretending they weren’t there.They would walk past my bed and motion to me and mouth “what’s wrong with him?” I responded by mouthing “He’s an asshole”.

The bonus round came later that night when the nurse in charge of us both tried to get him to take some meds or something. He spit at the nurse. That’s assault on the street and who knows why he was in the hospital in the first place! This was disturbing but what came next was worse… for me anyway. He got in his wheelchair and on his way past my bed he threw ice water on me and my computer. My brand new computer. After drying off my laptop I got out of bed and walked down to the nurses station. Not needing my own chair for a short trip and trying to look more imposing. He was there arguing “…. and that guy was on my side of the room going through stuff I don’t know what he was doing…”. My closet is on that side. I was getting a pillow.

I made my case. “That man is assaulting nurses, assaulting me and damaging my property. If he’s back in that room before I’m out I’m calling the police. If it’s easier for you if I just call the police now tell me and I’ll do it. I’m not dealing with this.” I was followed back to my bed. Water was cleaned up, I packed and was moved to a room where I was alone the rest of the night. Worked for me but sleep was out of the question too.

I caught up today though. 13 hours overnight. Quick trip to the pharmacy followed by three more hours in  a nap…

So… No Avenging for me today

I think I’m becoming  food snob. Not so much that I will only eat hummingbird tongues plucked from nestlings my Japanese grandmothers but there are more and more things I turn my nose up at.

For example… Pizza. Pizza is high in fat, high in calories etc etc. So If I’m going to have some it better be damned good. These usually come from local pizza places since the workers at the chains seemed surprised there is a “real” mozzerella. Here’s a tip. Listen for a cook with a Chicago, Bronx or Italian accent. For some reason the more they yell the better the pizza.

I prefer US fruits and vegetables. When produce is imported it’s not always held to the same pesticide standards as the ones in the US. Poisons we outlawed years ago are still used.

I watch labels closely for things like honey and syrups. The key badword is “flavored”. For example you see a plastic bear with a yellow cap. Inside is a thick liquid the color of… well.. Honey. But on closer inspection you see it’s Honey flavored corn syrup. So it’s never even seen a bee.

Other things I watch for… wild caught salmon over farm raised, farm raised catfish over wild caught, no seafood from the gulf of Mexico and filtered or bottled water over tap. Why worry about tap  water? Because method used by politicians to clean up drinking water is to just stop testing for the chemical. Look for the keywords “No______(enter cancer causing agent here) reported this year”.

Wine..local when I can get it. You’d be surprised how good wine from Texas and Florida can be. However…. It’s hard to pass up a good, French, Spanish or Italian Wine.

Don’t worry. If you invite me to dinner I’ll eat whatever is served. Always eat the food your mother makes too. It feeds more than your body…my rant is over

I will openly admit that sometimes I find racists funny. That’ different than finding racism funny…. for example:

In 1994 I belonged to Sarasota Bath and Racquet club. It was a true club. It had racquetball, several tennis courts, cafe, Gym, coffee bar etc. Which meant it was mainly older retired white guys spending the afternoon there. I was warned about these guys. They would wander around looking for someone younger and kick their asses on the tennis courts. Nobody has ever kicked my ass in tennis… I don’t play tennis.

After going to a gym the same time of day you start to see familiar faces and you can do the nod etc. One day while five guys were getting in the locker an unfamiliar face came in with a familiar one. An older guy that looked a lot like the penguin and a black guy who played racquetball. This was the conversation…

Racquet ball guy: Look why don’t you just leave me alone

Penguin: I was just wanting to be your friend. Maybe learn racquetball

Racquet ball guy (fed up now): Look, you just have some need to be seen with a black guy to show all your friends. I’m not interested

Penguin: No, that’s not true. I just find you interesting

Racquet ball guy: Let me put it this way. Would you let me date your daughter?

Penguin (without a hint of irony): well I let her marry a Cuban and that’s just as good as being black.

Me and the other guys froze. Racquet ball guy open and closed his mouth like a dying fish and shook his head like there was no way he heard that. Penguin, thinking he proved his point, just smiled.

One of the guys was dressed and grabbed penguin under the arm and said, “you’re done” and escorted him out.

“What?”, Penguin said, “for talking in the locker room? I can talk in the locker room”

It turns out the “escort” worked for the club. I saw him a few weeks later and asked what happened. “I took him to the front desk, told them what was going on. They took his memb