And in other news: I was conceived forty years ago today. (Yes, my mother remembered the date.)

Also: I have just spoken to my father for the first time. Thank you Facebook.

More later.

TWO THINGS

1. Despite having to play catch-up at work and to mount another iteration of our holiday show, Grenadine McGunkle’s Double-Wide Christmas, I’ve managed to vet and post all my images of Rome, with Venice on the way. I hope both of you enjoy it.

2. In completely unrelated news, it’s always amusing to watch mainstream media tackle gay sex. A couple of months ago it was Senator Larry Craig, and now it’s recently deceased hedge fund hottie Seth Tobias. If only the police or the New York Times had a gay man on their payrolls (Frank Rich doesn’t count because he’s only gay for me), they could’ve found a potential murder witness’s phone number right here on the interweb….

Here’s a clip from one of the more bizarre game shows Jonno and I witnessed on late-night Italian TV. The next morning, we weren’t entirely sure we’d actually seen it, but the YouTube don’t lie:

Basically, it’s a beauty competition between black girls and white girls. An audience packed with horny and possibly drunken Italian men choses the winning team. Check the look on the black girls’ faces when the winner is announced. Just check it.

The next night, the same show (it’s called CIAO DARWIN) continued the black vs. white competition with a Jeopardy-style trivia showdown. Except the contestants were sealed in watertight tubes, and every time they got an answer wrong, a little more water was added. We couldn’t bear to watch the end.

(I can’t find a clip from that segment, but apparently, the Q&A thing a standard part of every CIAO DARWIN competition. You can see the set up about two and a half minutes into this clip, in which the “veline”–which translates loosely as “bimbos”–go up against the “intellettuale”.)

Of course, all Jonno and I could wonder is how the hell you’d go about adapting this for American TV? But perhaps it would’ve been better to ask: how long until Fox adapts this for American TV?

I’ve begun posting a few of my travel pics on Flickr, though I gotta say, they pale in comparison to those posted by the boyfriend. Stay tuned: we’ve both got several hundred more to sift through.

Up next: slides from our day trip to a ball bearing plant in Duluth. Fun!

So, we’re back.

Did I forget to mention that Jonno and I were going on vacation? Well, we did. Rome and Venice. Old hat for him, thoroughly new for me.

Lots to report, but too lagged to write. However: having been away from home for a week and a half, I can say with complete certainty that our house doesn’t smell of dog quite as much as Jonno thinks.

While I go in search of cliffs to leap from (no small task in a city perched atop a flood plain), I suggest you edify yourself by reading up on Miss Kara Walker. I know that’s kind of a non sequitur, but still: what’ve you got to lose?

So yeah: on Saturday eve, I was feeling down and out. But now I realize that there are people who are further down and way more out than lil’ ol’ me:

Schadenfreude is the new black.

THINGS THAT ARE WRONG
or, CAN WE TALK ABOUT ME FOR A WHILE?

• I am exhausted.

• I slept funny last night and my leg still tingles.

• My allergies are flaring up and there’s an uncomfortable lump in the back of my throat.

• Tonight I hugged a lady, and I realized too late that she was wearing perfume, and I inhaled a huge whiff of the stuff, and little particles of it lodged in my tonsils (yes, I still have tonsils), which is only adding to the whole allergy/lump in my throat feeling (see above).

• I have missed two great performances this weekend because I’ve been too tired/lazy/stressed out to get my act together, and now I feel like a heel.

• My vocabulary is so uninspired that I am using 1930s-era expressions like “feel like a heel”.

• I failed to get my mother a birthday present (though I did call her, which slightly diminishes my heel-ness).

• I am trying to take some vacation time, but I am overwhelmed by the amount of work I have to do in the next few days.

• If I don’t finish said work, I will disappoint myself and others.

• Among the work I have to complete is the script for our annual Christmas show.

• Although I have ridiculed the promos for NBC’s Bionic Woman series, it’s not as awful as I’d hoped; in fact it is vaguely lesbotronic, which is interesting.

First Jackie Clarkson, now the Bohn-heads. Perhaps there’s a reason I’ve never bought anything from that dealership. Will someone please send them a grammar handbook–or a proofreader who graduated from fourth grade?

P.S. Sorry for the crappy iPhone shot. I was too stunned to grab a real camera. But still: you get the picture.

Dear Residents of Southern California:

It should go without saying that all of us in southeastern Louisiana are concerned for your welfare. We remember the generosity that you showed us in our hours, days, and weeks of need. We are happy and eager to return the favor.

That said, as someone painfully familiar with Mother Nature’s increasingly bipolar ways, I can’t help but feel jealous of your situation. Or perhaps jealous isn’t the word–let’s say thankful.

I’m thankful that your state has the financial clout to pull through this disaster relatively quickly. I’m thankful that you’ve got political clout, too: although you’re a tried-and-true Blue State with some important Dems in congress, you’ve also got a GOP governator. Not a bad combination. (Side note: your elephantine governor and our asinine one often share an iffy command of the English language. Coincidence?)

As such, I’m thankful that you’ll be able to get through this without relying too heavily on the federal government–or on the hollow words of a hollow-headed president, who even today seemed to be hedging his bets:

“We want the people to know that there’s a better day ahead,” he said. “That today your life may look dismal but tomorrow life’s going to be better, and to the extent that the federal government can help you, we want to do so.”(NYT)

(Sadly, Mr. Bush is the personification of the very FEMA website he subsequently urged all of you to visit: frustrating, unfriendly, and anything but functional. Don’t be surprised if he uses you for a handful of photo opps, then speeds off to find the nearest Cracker Barrel.)

Most of all, I’m thankful that the horrors of Katrina may have prepared your elected officials and emergency personnel to provide you with an appropriate level of care. I’m not trying to be a martyr here, nor am I trying to make your disaster all about Me, Me, Me; I’m just saying that the storm was a wake-up call–for the government, for NGOs, for civic activists, and for nice, normal people who live down the block. I like to think that all of them took away a few important lessons from the post-K clusterfuck.

But just in case, we’ve already started sending help.

Sincerely,

Richard