Pride

I guess I look proud. And happy. Golden Gate Park, 6-20-10.

pride (n.) — 1. the quality or state of being proud as a: inordinate self-esteem: conceit; b: a reasonable or justifiable self-respect; c: delight or elation arising from some act, possession or relationship (parental pride) …

From Merriam-Webster Online

“Pride” is one of those words I wrestle with from time to time, especially as it pertains to something of which I’m now part. (“Courage” is the other, which will be another post sometime.)

Since I now huddle unequivocally under the back end of the LGBT umbrella (in more ways than one), and since this is the big Pride weekend in San Francisco — and since I’ll be heading up there in the morning to take part in the Trans Rally/March in the late afternoon, and maybe I’ll return for the big Pride Parade on Sunday morning as well — it’s inevitable that the word comes to the forefront.

I have a feeling I have a slightly different interpretation of the word “pride” than a lot of people taking part in this weekend’s festivities, which might or might not put me at odds with a few. But just as Thanksgiving makes many think of all the things for which they’re thankful, this last weekend of June makes me think of what I have to be proud of.

I’m still trying to figure it out.

Love those fortune cookies, Part 3

On to the latest installment in the neverending series of seemingly very relevant fortune cookie fortunes from one of the local Chinese buffets.

Last night’s was particularly relevant — though I’m not sure I like it much:

“Despair is criminal.”

If that’s the case, then I should be in prison for a very long stretch. And the longer I’m out of a job, the more criminal I feel. This will be another post.

No Cookie Puss for you, Mrs. Lohan!

Just a quick, lighthearted and utterly ludicrous read I just came across from another WordPress blog … And I didn’t know Carvel was hip enough to have its own blog …

Seems the ice cream giant, on whose fine ice cream-type product I was raised from toddler in Brooklyn (my grandma lived above one) through my adolescence in Connecticut, had issued special black cards to certain celebrities, giving them free ice cream for 75 years.

But the mother of a certain talented-actress-turned-trainwreck used her daughter’s black card and abused the privilege, and Carvel responded in kind by taking the card away. To which mom complained loudly and publicly.

God … besides the fact that there are millions of more deserving schleps out there who would love an occasional complimentary Cookie Puss or Fudgie the Whale or 8-pack of Flying Saucers, or even a large soft-serve vanilla cone with a cherry bonnet, you think there are more problems in the world than this.

Anyway, here’s the link to the Carvel post. Now I’m sure if old Tom Carvel were still alive, he’d have a contest to give one or two of the multitude of deserving fans a chance to enjoy the black card privilege … and not abuse it …

I shot myself (and felt no pain)

So … Round Two of my foray into the Fabulous World of Hormones took place a little over three weeks ago, followed last Friday night by Round Three – the first time I’ve ever stuck a needle in my own body.

And now that I’ve had some time to put at least a little distance behind it and get a little perspective on the deal, three things are clear: 1) Things are not clear; 3) I’m sensing some subtle changes to my body; and 3) I’m wondering if I chose the right doctor.

Well, it’s an interesting life, ain’t it?

At least my first self-injection was painless. Like buttah. I swear.

Self-made (wo)man

Two months back, my therapist lent me a book she wanted me to read. Knowing I was in sort of a limbo at that point – I was going through a blah spell, kind of a strange middle ground between OK and depressed, a place where I didn’t feel very womanly but sure as hell didn’t feel like a man — she gave me the book, I believe, to help me sort out some of the feelings swimming around in that skull of mine.

It’s “Self-Made Man” by Norah Vincent. Vincent, a journalist, feminist and lesbian, left her job as a Los Angeles Times opinion columnist to go undercover as a man for 18 months. Think of it as a modern-day “Black Like Me,” except that, unlike John Howard Griffin, Vincent wasn’t trying to observe prejudice, at least overtly; she simply wanted to see for herself, and try to understand, the social differences between males and females.

The end result was a gripping book that rooted out every corner of my emotional room at one point or another and gave me some food for thought about my own trip. Vincent really didn’t know what she was getting into; I’m not sure I am sometimes, either.

No Irish, no blacks, no dogs, no unemployed

So if I needed any reassurance on Saturday that my most excellent birthday was over and that life was gonna revert to its usual shittiness, I got it in the form of two stories I read on Huffington.

The first one was no surprise: The number of people out of work six months or longer now makes up 46 percent of the total of unemployed Americans, and should reach half by summer’s end. So much for economic stimulus.

The second one was equal parts shocking, saddening, anxiety-raising and just plain enraging:

Now we’re hearing that some companies are refusing to even consider hiring unemployed workers.

What the fuck?!?

ARCHIVES: WPKN playlist — 1/4/10: Ciao for now

This is the last of my pre-Franorama World posts, from my MySpace blog Jan. 4, 2010, 2:34 p.m. EST, at the tail end of my holiday visit to Connecticut, my last fill-in on WPKN (89.5 FM, wpkn.org). By the end of the month, I started this current WordPress blog:

My mind forgot how strenuous doing morning drive radio could be. My body didn’t.

Chris Teskey, a fellow longtime PKNer, was kind enough to offer me his 6-9 a.m. shift today, and I was too busy burning more mix CDs for the show to think about getting some sleep. Got to bed about 12:30 to be up at 3:20 to get down to the station in plenty of time to put together the news and rip some music, etc.

And I’m hurting for sleep right about now. Just like the old days.

Very early on this morning, I got a cosmic reminder of why I do these shows on my visits back — six years removed from full-time life in Connecticut and a regular show — and why WPKN and stations like it are so important. Even if it is just music.

ARCHIVES: WPKN playlist — 12/31/09: Good way to end a bad decade

This pre-Franorama World post was from my MySpace blog Jan. 3, 2010, 1:50 p.m. EST:

The final day of one of the worst decades in our country’s history — and easily the wildest, weirdest and most anxiety-ridden year of my life — started out with one last bit of badness and anxiety: a morning snowstorm that quickly hit us with wet and sticking flakes. Not good for driving. Left home at 9:30 a.m., as the storm started to hit its stride. A 35-minute drive took me over an hour and a half (including a stop at Dunky D’s for coffee), but there was radio to be done, a 1-4 p.m. shift. (And thanks again to Peter Bochan for giving up his shift.)

(And I’m seriously considering moving back to this place? Am I fucking nuts? I always did hate snow, and I want move back into the thick of it?)

ARCHIVES: WPKN playlist — 12/27/09: Post-holiday letting loose

This pre-Franorama World post is from my MySpace blog Dec. 28, 2009, 3:56 p.m. EST:

Well, I had to pull myself away from a great party last night to do radio — one of my old pub trivia pals in New Haven, Tommy, called me during my Christmas-night show to invite me, and I saw a bunch of people I hadn’t seen in years — but it turned out rather well.

It was the “Making Something out of Nothing” fill-in edition of Franorama — i filled in for my friend Rod Richardson, the host of “Radio Nothing” — and got to do one of the few remaining four-hour shifts on WPKN. And while it was fun to share my Christmas tunes the previous two shows, it was great to be able to let loose on the rest of my stack o’tunes. (Before I came home last month, I ripped over 50 mixdiscs, including seven of my Christmas discs, to my laptop and reconstituted them back here in Prospect. Ripped 10 more CDs of soul mixdiscs back in Fresno and brought them back to disc form here this time.)

Time flies when you’re having fun.

ARCHIVES: WPKN playlist — 12/25/09: Dashing through the (freezing) rain

This pre-Franorama World post was from my Myspace blog Dec. 26, 2009, 9:01 p.m. EST:

As fate would have it, I got to fill in at WPKN not only on Christmas Eve, but Christmas night as well, subbing for Kathy DeMino. It was a more subdued show that I usually do, probably because I was exhausted. (My fault. I got wrapped up in Spike’s “Star Wars” marathon and was watching the end of “The Empire Strikes Back” and all of “Return of the Jedi,” accompanied by the warm glow of the Christmas tree, til 4 a.m. — which was about the time my niecie dudes got my brother out of bed at his place …) But I got up in time to have Christmas dinner at Ken’s house, my first meal with the full family in years, and then headed to Bridgeport before the rain, which was to turn into freezing rain by late night.

The show itself wasn’t smooth (I had a lot of blonde moments, none of which I could blame on egg nog), and it turned out to be a good thing. I was supposed to have been on from 7-10. But the Mac on which we get our news programs was malfunctioning — actually, there was something wrong with the connection to the control board, and I’m no computer genius — so instead of Amy Goodman from 10-11 and Free Speech Radio News from 11-11:30, I got an extra hour to play, followed by my old New Haven pal Bill O’Grady at 11. (And you weren’t missing much — both the news shows were reruns …)

Stayed through Bill’s fab show (he’s another unrepentant rock’n’roller), ripped a couple of the station’s box sets (four-CD rockabilly and ska comps from England) to my computer, watched one short from the Three Stooges box set my nieces bought me (“The Three Stooges Collection Vol. 7: 1952-1954 — Shemp gives me the heebee beebees), then drove him back to New Haven and crawled slowly up into the hills, where the roads got a little treacherous. But I was safe and in bed by 4:30.

So here’s what you missed Christmas night. It was quite a mixed bag: