It's Hot as Hell in Philadel-Phia

If it's 101 degrees Fahrenheit in Philadelphia now, what is that in Celsius and what must it have been like 2 centuries ago? No wonder there was a Revolution.

The Flim Flam Man

An email that I received recently said:



“You have won (£3,500.00 Million) on the Irish Lottery Promo held on the

22nd of April,2010 in Dublin, Ireland.

Send us Your Full Name:...,Address:...,Tel:...,Country for claims

Mr. Jimmy Peterson: +447035914740.

E-mail: clmsveri_dept@upimail.be

Note that you will be liable for the Cost of remitting your winnings to

you.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Anna Brown.

Co-coordinator Irish Lottery”

Wow! Who would have believed that it could happen to me? I don’t even remember entering or registering for a lottery and now I’m a multi-millionaire. What incredible luck I must have….. Although, I thought the Irish Lottery was in Ireland where they used the Euro(€) and not the Pound(£); and why is the email address a Belgian one and not Irish? You know now that I think about it, if someone is going to scam me they should at least try and give a good story without holes in it so that I wouldn't feel so bad about throwing away my money. What kind of clown do they take me for?

When I was younger, sometimes I would be approached by men who would say that they were just off the plane from whatever country was in the news at the time, South Africa, Guyana or someplace. They would tell me that they had given their cab driver from airport hundreds of dollars to take them to a hotel, but he had instead left them in middle of Times Square in New York, or in later years, Center City in Philadelphia with bad directions. Suddenly another man would walk up and ask if he could assist. The second man would say that he knew of a place where the visitor could stay for very little money. The first man would say that money was no object and then pull out a roll  as thick as his fist that seemed to be full of one hundred dollar bills. The second man would him and tell him that it was unsafe to show that amount of cash in public and that it should be kept in a bank. One of them would tell me how honest I looked and asked if I had an ATM card so that they could deposit the cash in my bank and maybe withdraw it at a later date with, of course, a cut taken out for myself.

Now my name isn’t Peter Parker but my Spidey senses would tingle into overdrive whenever I heard this, well at least the first 2 times that I heard it. I didn’t understand what was going on but I remembered that Mother always said you never get something for nothing, there is always a price. It was time to bolt, and I always did.

It wasn’t until I was old enough to understand what the movie The Sting was about and had seen it about 3 or 4 times on TV that I realized that I had been the mark in some sort of “Pigeon Drop” scam. Someone had tried to make me think that I could make a little more money with no risk to myself. They had tried to work on my sense of greed to see how far they could get because I looked like an easy mark.

It probably doesn’t explain why I have very little sympathy for those people who fall for swindles like the email from a lawyer somewhere in Africa or Malaysia with a dead client, or even the rich friends who were ripped off by financier Bernie Madoff who supposedly gave a 20% return on their investments without bothering to explain how it was done. I mean it’s just a con man working on the gullibility and greed of people to believe that there is something  for free where nothing exists.

So if you should ever get in touch for any reason with Mr. Jimmy Peterson or Mrs. Anna Brown or even that lawyer, tell them that I send my best but the check will not be in the mail.

No more ordinary than Me

He looked kind of ordinary although no more ordinary than me. He was introduced to me and he shook my hand and squeezed it hard.

I hate that. I hate the need for someone to show that they are manlier than you are because they have a little strength in their right hand. I mean what does that really mean that the only way that you can impress someone is by flexing your muscles. We might as well had both whipped our dicks to see who the real man was. I have some size that I’m not ashamed of, but I’ve also been with a few pageant queens who had penises the size of a policeman’s nightstick and knew just as well how to use it. What does it all prove? Nothing!

I looked him straight in the eye and squeezed his hand back giving as good as got if not better and hoped that he didn’t notice the split second delay in pressure. He probably didn’t because he had that air of disinterest about him. Or was it dislike feigned by disinterest? I would have told him not to worry; the Ex was standing next to him and not me. I was a threat to no one.

How similar we must be. But then again I like to think that there is a certain flavor about me and that if I’m going to be replaced by someone, it’s going to be someone with similar attributes to mine. He however was a weak imitation.

Introductions were over and the Ex said something about moving on, probably because he was thinking that I was developing my own story of which nothing good would be said. He and his new friend turned and walked. I turned and realized that even though there were no butterflies in my stomach there was no animosity either. In fact there was no feeling at all. Nothing.

I hate that too.

Folsom Street East 2010

So I was at the Folsom Street East street festival in New York this weekend where I took a whole bunch of pictures. I realized two things, one of which was that I think that I have grown out of my camera. Sure some of the pictures are okay but I think I could do better with a better camera that shoots and focuses faster and captures the images with more pixel information in them that I want to see and not just the ones that I'm left with.

The other thing that I realized was that I wondered when was or is the appropriate age to hang all of this fetish thing up. Apparently for some like my friend below, not too soon. I wonder if I'll ever be that way?

Maybe, I'll post more pictures later.

Why the Difference?

Did you hear that 16 year old Abigail Sunderland who was sailing solo around the world has been found safe and sound? If you are like me your first thought will be, "who?" followed quickly by, "who cares?" But apparently, most people don't think the way I do.

Actually it's not that I didn't care about poor Abbie, but just like that 13 year old boy who climbed Mount Everest where people have died in droves I wonder why no one is up in arms over parents allowing their children to do stunts like this. Not being rich or even white, if I had kids and left them alone in my house or apartment for a day or two, people would want my head on a platter for child neglect or endangerment. Why the difference? Or am I just making something out of nothing?

Rand Paul

Rand Paul is the Republican candidate for the US Senate from Kentucky. He is also a Libertarian and a Tea Party member and I guess I’m not.

When I was younger, I never really understood the whole meaning behind political things like Civil Rights and maybe other stuff. I could never understand what was so wrong about sitting at the back of the bus; I mean that was where all the cool people sat. I’ve forgotten what the actual bus number was from Newark ‘s Penn Station to South Orange, but I remember you could smoke at that back and since it was the late 70’s and early 80’s most people were smoking something different from Marlboros or Kool cigarettes. Sure the bus driver would shout out, “Stop smoking that shit or I’m stopping the bus,” but nobody ever took any notice of him. Even if you didn’t smoke you could get a slight but nice buzz if someone was smoking the good stuff or perhaps a pleasant odor that would linger in your clothes long after you had left the bus that would make it all worthwhile.

I remember also that I didn’t really understand what the big deal was about sitting at the lunch counter at Woolworths. In fact I thought that if anyone had seen me sitting at the lunch counter at Woolworths sitting next to Mr. and Mrs. Birnbaum arguing over the price of linen or chocolate covered pretzels, I would probably die of shame. I figured that if I was going to eat out, it had better be someplace decent. As Susan Green had taught me, I needed to go somewhere where a girl wouldn’t regret being seen with me.



When I grew older I began to understand why it was wrong for private businesses to discriminate against people because of their color, their religion, their gender or sexual orientation. I began to understand that even though people would call their businesses private, they would still accept deliveries for their businesses on roads that were built with public funds from all people. They would still accept the services from the police and firemen whose salaries was paid for by the same people that they would have had beaten up and or had the hoses turned on against. They would still accept protection from foreign invasion by troops that consisted of people, who they would refuse service to while allowing their businesses to grow and flourish and I knew why I had been wrong but I wonder why doesn't anyone else feel that way.

It’s a funny thing this era of a Post-Racial America. I never thought that there would be people who think that this was a good time to bring up the 1964 Civil Rights Act. What’s next, an attack against the Americans with Disabilities Act or the repeal of the 13th Amendment and a reintroduction of slavery?

Those Tea Party people scare me.

Nothing More To Be Said Here

Alright but I've said it before, Betty White is a living legend.

Lena

Some people you have to look at all the facts and the figures and the stats to see what they are about. Others, you just have to feel them to appreciate them.

There will be no dates or numbers here for you to look at, just a celebration.

Free Hugs

Apparently there’s a movement going on and I know nothing about it. Oh God I feel old. You can tell when you are getting old and the whole world seems to drift by you and you don’t even have the ability to be a spectator let alone be a part of it.

I was in Rittenhouse Sq. the other weekend at the Spring Festival in Philadelphia. Spring Festival is a euphemism for saying we celebrate May Day but we aren’t Socialists. Anyway I took a picture of this man, well actually there were a bunch more people in the photograph but I cropped them out, they weren’t the ones that I was interested in. He, like the others, was carrying a sign that said “Free Hugs” and I wanted to get my hug. There are some days when you are in need of little love and affection and you will get it anyway you can. But this day wasn’t going to be one of those days for me.

From a distance he seemed like he would be taller than me and I hate to be dominated physically by anyone so that would defeat the purpose of getting hugged. Plus even though my first instinct was that straight black men don’t hug other men. I had seen him hug other men but with that bearhug type mentality thing where he would wrap his arms around someone, lift them off the ground while squeezing their chest against his and whispering….I’m starting to digress. I think I need a moment here.

So, I think what I was trying to say was that whatever motives I had for getting a hug were probably not the motives that this young man and the group had for giving a hug.

I posted a black and white version of this picture on Facebook and a friend of mine had said that he had seen a group of people doing the exact same thing in Union Sq. in New York but he had thought that it was some sort of joke. That made me do a little research on the net and sure enough there is a website dedicated to free hugs that explains how the idea came about and was created by Juan Mann and that’s it’s really nothing other than being able to share empathy with another human being.

Could there be a movement traveling the entire world that I was blithely unaware of?

Yes.

Is Juan Mann a real name?

English Only

A couple of years ago, I was at a party that was being held to celebrate Barak Obama going over the top with enough delegates to win the Democrat candidate for President. I have forgotten which primary night it was, but he was supposed to finally beat Hillary Clinton and bring the Democrats together and beat whoever would be the Republican nominee. However it didn’t turn out that way.

Hillary did her third or fourth comeback and beat back Barak while Governor Huckabee dropped out on the Republican side. I remember how people laughed at Mrs. Huckabee and said that she was so ugly that she must have been a man. For some reason I was surprised at the misogyny going around from both men and women and listened to how they hated Mrs. Clinton primarily because she was female.

I don’t know how the conversation turned to truck drivers and border control, but someone suggested that Mexican truck drivers were a hazard and threat to the road and Americans in general and that they should be regulated and or restricted from entry. When asked why, the young man said because most of them couldn’t even read English. I wondered to myself if having the ability to read The Grapes of Wrath or I know Why the Caged Bird Sings was really a qualification for good driving, but I kept quiet.

Now listening to Tim James who is running for governor of Alabama, I’m starting to wonder if I’m the only one who thinks this language thing is just a bunch of bullshit and that maybe there should be more pressing issues to deal with.