It is quite strange to be back "home" after spending the weekend in
New England. I’m completely flummoxed, confused, confounded and
cognitively dissonant over where home now is.

I guess I’ll go by the old rule of thumb — Home is where the bulk of
my undies is stored.

It doesn’t help that I’ve switched back and forth between time zones
and have almost successfully fucked three different meetings for the
bosserooni today trying to work out East and West Coast differences.=20
Damn, how do jetsetters, who spend weekend after weekend intoxicated
and jumping coasts, handle it? (I’m assuming the glittering allure of
coke becomes more glittery and attractive.)

Part of the weird dimentia about what would be home now, I think, is
due to Pat’s leaving the mortal coil. Every other time I’ve moved
away, her house anchored down that little corner of the universe.=20
Always at least a couch to sleep on and the larger abstract concept of
home stayed put.

Now, if I fly into town, I’m flying away from my own bed and could be
wandering the streets without phone calls and arrangements.

It doesn’t help that when I went "home" to the East Coast, I wasn’t
there long enough to meet up with any friends. The completely shiny
wonderfully bright side of that is I absolutely missed this year’s
Boston Comedy Festival.

Thank fucking Christ for that near miss, but successful miss just the
same. Reading a couple of weblogs and bulletin boards and what not
reminded me of all the impotent bitter anger that event engenders. On
paper, it’s a great idea, get some of the area’s best together and
maybe invite some others from around the country to make with the
merry of comedy hijinks.

But, in truth, the guy primarily responsible for setting the shindig
up is so vested deep into his own selfish self interests, comedy
suffers and travesties abound. It becomes hard to focus on the good
stuff — like night after night of foolish drinking and carousing and
blowing comedy philosophy smoke up each other’s orifices with a
critical mass of friends and fellow travelers. That really is the
only plus side left, I think.

Speaking of comedy (sort of) and public speaking (kind of), this
weekend was also a bit of a personal first for me — at the rehearsal
dinner I decided to get up and say a couple of words about the groom.=20
Despite a past of not at all being the one to stand up in a family
crowd, I decided to reveal what was in my heart to honor the guy who
has essentially been a little brother to me.

Sadly, what was in my heart was a hammy, hacky, crowd-pleasing turn
that included two different dick references and an ethnic slur.

Yeah, been drinking for a couple days. Which is unusual, since at my new home I mostly don’t drink at all. But, upon hitting the East Coast, the elbow just kept bending.

Weird thing about ‘blogging and writing and trying to build a rep on writing and like loving the truth over the fiction but exaggerating the truth into the personal memoir bullshit nonfiction that is so hip and happening and de riguer and all that. Anyways, interesting thing about all that is when that reality bleeds into the real one, the real reality.

I’ve been in Little Rhody (or as a minister referred to it earlier today, Rhode Island and its plantations) for my cousin’s wedding. So, my cuz is one of the people central to my growing up. His folks were my family, his brother’s death changed me like I hope I never experience again, and his childhood was my inroad into babysitting and understanding procreation and a whole lot of complex social constructs. If you were to write down central characters (as I guess I’m doing here), the cousin would be a major re-occuring role.

Fitting too that I would head back for his wedding above all other weddings, because I grew up in a single family household and anything I ever learned or felt or thought about the idea of “partnership” and life partner was from his mom and dad. They probably always will be my ultimate role models in that whole coupledom realm. (I secretly think my mom, another main character known as Pat, kind of hoped their idea of partnership would rub off on me.)

I’m not the only one who thinks the groom is the bomb. He is the cousin for whom every other cousin showed. Must be cool to be in the center of that kind of attraction. Just his mother’s family accounted for about 25 guests; none of whom I think would have thought of skipping.

Shit, people thanked me and thanked M. for making such a long trip. Honest to god, I couldn’t have, wouldn’t have wanted to miss it. By the way, the bride is cool enough to wed a central character. I really think they will both be happy in the union, or whatever the bourgeois classes call it.

So, it was a family reunion in a lot of ways. Pat’s family was all out in force; she would have dugged the pageantry and probably given her sister shit about the cost. (While also busting with pride and all sorts of emotion for the kid who essentially was her first grandkid, even if his official title was nephew.)

And in the family reunion the scary, funny, fuckedupness of the world wide web and the always poorly named “blogosphere” came in focus. They all knew M. before I introduced him.

Sitting in the airport. Flight’s delayed. For the first time in knowing each other for years, M. and I are gonna be getting on a plane together. Unless, of course, mother nature fucks us anally, and the weather on the East Coast means are delayed flight is a non-flight.

First time back in six months. First day off from work that wasn’t a holiday.

Hey all in Boston, I’ll be down in Providence, RI at a wedding. Call me on my cell, drive down and have a beer.

(By the way, just about now, a crew of my all time favorite Boston comic folk have just auditioned for the Aspen Comedy fest. While the odds are not in their favor, it would be nice if someone got a little taste of notice.)

The title of this post relates to the situation in which I am occasionally scolded by the lord and master of this household for my hygienic practice. Some day, if he ain’t careful, he’ll find himself shuffling around in Kleenex boxes worrying about every germ floating in space and potentially landing on his flesh.

The boy is clean. And, undoubtedly, I should be showering right now instead of writing.

The funniest part about it to me today is I felt a million miles away from my base-line life, the comfort zone of childhood, the known, the assumptions, my roots, all because of a conversation about showering.

Actually, the conversation was kind of a real-life coda to an abstract discussion at a meeting I was in today. At the meeting, someone was looking for correction or clarification in a document that referenced “minorities.” Here, where I now live, so-called minorities are the majority, and it is not a matter of political correctness but accuracy to mind tone and language.

Back where I come from, and most certainly in my plain vanilla suburb, where Jon Feldman spoke to the entire school about Jewish tradition and of the three Asian children I knew, two had the last name Goldman and one that of Twomey, minority was a statistical truth. It’s a little weird some times to wrap your head around the sort of artifice of that lily white living, drop what you learned and live in the real world.

So, in the real world of the Left Coast, where so many people are from somewhere else, I joked about the “American” obsession with showers with a woman who came from India as a kid and the ultimate test of my xenophobia, a Yankees fan, while mentioning my ethnically Chinese man. How many fucking miles of psyche is that set up from south suburban Boston?

Oh, and once again, I attended a staff-wide meeting that wasn’t laden with empty bullshit and posture. It was long and painful to be sure, as is the nature of meetings, and I did drift off into a place where white lint contrasting against my black T-shirt took on mystical properties holding my interest in its wonder. But it wasn’t prolonged with gas.

These people really are quite fucked up and living in a bizarro, opposite world to the one in which I dwelled.

That bizaroo effect also explains the compliment I received today. Apparently, in my three-month tenure of employ, some of the folks have noticed little ol’ me. The compliment specifically alluded to a little bit of tact, good naure and such like lubricants that would give the appearance of social deftness.

Seriously, me, diplomat, tact, cool-like and taking it easy and getting along. Little chipper, happy monkey of helping out. Really makes me want to tell some people I used to know to go fuck themselves on the steel pole of my good will.

Some recent emails and phone calls have me feeling the first pangs of homesickness. Not really, though, since I’m completely comfortable here. I miss people not places.

Part of the pang is the sense of being something other than what I was. It’s more of an identity crisis, but it’s likely more rooted in my drama queen essence than substantial existenstial angst.

After several, many, hundreds, billions, thousands of years. OK, quite a few anyway. A few years of truly working at establishing myself as an independent entity, someone out there at comedy clubs, writing alone at night into the dimmest of the wee hours, self-destructing the “career job,” because it had to be done, I’m a million fucking miles away from all that.

Now, I’m half of a couple. A mostly happy couple, mind you, but WAY THE FUCK different from the slighter loner self wandering into the back of clubs and insinuating myself into a scene. Of course, that characterization is somewhat fucking ridiculous, since all of my friends who matter (I guess meaning that I like) from comedy have met M. He didn’t exactly materialize over night.

And, I’m back in another potential career gig. Mind you, it fits better, although there is at least one person pretensious enough to bring back some of my old bile and leave me choking back some office-flavored bitterness.

Speaking about the work place the synergy with what’s going on in the news and the poorly named blogosphere continues to confound, amaze and intrigue me. Today’s episode had me trying to figure out if the ex-prez scene, officially known as the Clinton Global Initiative or CGI to the hip and trendy, is gonna have a dress code.

You search that initiative and dress code on the web, though, and you hit a certain critical mass of FReeper bullshit. Interesting, much of the broad brush, snarky commentary against the CGI events dismisses it as maximum dog and pony pageantry. Smoke, mirrors and nothing much.

Sadly, the FReepers seem to be saying that that emptiness is indicative of any and all participants, most especially the left leaning, and that the event cannot be the bipartisan love fest it claims. I say sadly, because I now know some passionate participants, who some may be personally left leaning, a couple others perhaps not, but all professionally and deliberately willing to work with whoever makes sense. In short, pretty OK people looking to make the ball of shit we live on a little less dung-like.

They are also afraid of pageantry, smoke, mirrors, razzle dazzle. But, at least they are willing to have a teeny weeny bit of hope that at least it’s something. It’s pretty easy to piss on a parade. It’s a bit tougher to get in line and try to move the parade along.

The other sad thing about the FReeper commentary involves a certain infamous, cum-stained dress. Jesus fucking Christ, people, even the shittiest open miker at the saddest comedy night in the world isn’t still envisioning Clinton splooge dampening the cheek of a chubby intern. Let it fucking go already.

OK, now that I have reflected on the shooting of powerful and charismatic bodily fluids, I’m feeling slightly less homesick.

And, Mike Brown resigning from FEMA marks me as teetering on giddy. A Bush appointee on unemployment, hard to imagine.

Now, my biggest dilemma in life, apart from hectoring the boy-o a la Janet in Rocky Horror — Touch me Touch me Touch me, I want to get dir-ir-irty– is how to get away with writing about the shit I now encounter.

A while back, I worked for a place in which the brain trust in charge envisioned themselves masters and mistresses of the universe. In their mighty presence, I wrote about the mundanity of their sphere and tried to elevate it into something worthy of a joke, at least.

Now, I am working with people who go out of their fucking way to minimize any play or sway in the bigger world. All the same, I am one single degree of separation from world leaders, ex world leaders, money brokers, power brokers, statesmen, scholars, journalists and all manner of colorful names you’ve read about or just read. No lie, I have the hotmail (fucking hotmail, not even gmail) addy of a dude from the original, Afghani provisional government.

One degree of separation.

All in all, I stick with this life, because so far I haven’t been able to predict the ending.

It seems particularly weird to have partied on 9/11, right after New Orleans sunk below the sea.

I can’t let the day go by without paraphrasing our great leader, GW, as he spoke to Michael Brownie, saying back to Bush, “You’re doing a heck of a job, Georgie.”

Seriously, imagine how much more fucked up it would have been today if Al Gore had one. I mean, think about that. We would likely not be in a quagmire of a war in Iraq, since bookish, nerdy Al likely would have known that Saddam wasn’t responsible for 9/11.

He might have even tried economic policies and diplomacy, since he, of course, was a pansy-weak intellectual.

And, that Al and his wonkish book learning, not to mention cry-baby bellyaching about the environment, he might actually have made sure that the watershed surrounding New Orleans was maintained to help in flood control by limiting river re-routing and development. Such a party pooper, Al Gore. Maybe he would have signed off on some cash to fix the levees too, since he’s an obvious tool.

Yup, it would really suck. I bet he even would have been Washington insider enough to follow the example of that other asshole Democrat Bill Clinton and appoint a head of FEMA with relevant fucking experience. Gore and Clinton fucked up so many things by using the experience of experts. Only the unimaginative and over-educated rely on qualified advice over gut instinct.

Yeah, you’re doing a heck of a job, Georgie.

One of the central difficulties of being me (apart from the vast amount of fabulousness that makes me the envy of the world) is that my neurotic core is masked by a slightly cool exterior.

Today I ventured into a world I generally avoid — a work party. The president was having an end of summer fete at his lovely home, and I figured what the fuck, I should go. My reasoning was many-fold (or should that be manifold, or is a manifold an engine part?). Anyway a bunch of things ran through my mind.

One was, shit, here you are in a strange new world, why not act like them and be friendly. (Even though some Bay Area friendly is suspect. I’m pretty sure “Have a nice day,” was coined in this ‘hood above all others.)

Another was, fucking shit, one of the things that made my last day job fucking awesome (in the sense where awesome means gave me so much to whine about and scream about in sheer agony) was the total lack of genuine camraderie. The big company summer picnic one year involved their clearing a small parking lot, putting up a tent, lining up no more than five bales of hay for decoration and having lunch outdoors for roughly 1.5 hours. Woo doggies, what a party.

Their Christmas party (excuse me, non-demoninational holiday party) required tickets to be purchased in advance to the tune of $10-25, which did not include a cash bar.

The leader of my group for the first few years I was there said she was having an open house at her place to bring the group together and thank them for their work the minute she moved to a new place. For a few more years after moving, there were some “maybe next years.”

Finally, I headed to the party, because I so desperately want to be just like all of the other kids, a feeling I haven’t shaken since about 2nd grade when I realized I wasn’t that much like the other kids.

It’s actually a rather fucked up neuroses in that I have a wicked non-conformist streak, which I’m gathering at the age of 41 ain’t likely slipping itself under a bushel any time soon. On top of that, that little quirk makes me appear far more hip and cool and radical than I may in fact be. (As an example of that, throughout most of my adult life I’ve dropped into conversations where it was assumed (a) I’ve tried drugs, (b) the drugs have probably been diverse and varied and ( c) I may indeed be a sexual freak.)

In truth, I’ve been in the presence of many more drugs than I myself would have consumed, because at the end of the day I’m kind of a pussy and feared the consequences. Ditto on the freaky-deaky, kinky sports scene. (Yeah, yeah, I acknowledge that this upstanding young man once walked me through the internal dialogue that answers to your inner freak. But, I still contend I’m more dullard than swinger.)

So, here I am at a party, talking like I have some ability to converse. Looking like I have some comfort with myself. Appearing for all intents and purposes as though I were cool enough to drink wine and relax on a sunny, Sunday afternoon.

I might have looked so cool in my pink sunglasses, jeans low on my hips and basic black that others were probably worried what I thought of them.

No one generally suspects that my internal voices are looking only for me to fit in.

Sad, huh?

By the way, for the first time I think ever I did the work social thing in the company of a man, the best boy-o in the world, good old M.

I have completely mixed feelings about the legitimacy a relationship seems to bestow on my current life. I’m happy for the relationship, of course, but why is my man’s existence a reflection on my normalcy.

We ain’t really come that long a way, baby.

The subtitles should be easier to see and read…

Damn, had I had my head on straight a few months back, I would have said “See ya later, boy” to M. and moved to D.C. instead of Cali. My new career aspiration is to become a piece of deadwood floating among the stream of political hacks unleashed by the current Whitehouse.

Jesus fucking Christ are there any more bullet-proof jobs in the world right now than getting a Bush appointment? “Brownie” wasn’t fired, he was just dragged back to Washington, DC because of all the pressing emergencies to manage there. For a minute, I almost gave GW a little credit, thinking he might have been being sarcastic with the “You’re doing a heck of a job, Brownie.”

Alas, no, apparently GWB is the one man in the country finding management skill in the person of Michael Brown.

Shit, I ain’t never been responsible for a whole city and fucked it up enough to let snipers, looters and dead bodies pile up. Nonetheless, I’ve had my ass hauled into Human Resources. But, if I had a sweet, sweet ride like a Bush appointment, I could probably fire at will and get away with it.

Michael Brown and Karl Rove, remember him, the guy who teetered on treason by revealing the name of a CIA operative, anyway, those two are probably hoisting a Glenfiddich, or whatever the power elite drink, patting each other on the back and smiling over their Teflon coats.

By the way, between Jeff Gannon and Michael Brown it begs the question, does anyone vet resumes that pass through the executive branch? My resume was thoroughly checked, and I’m filing papers for people who might get to take a meeting with politicians a degree of separation from the Whitehouse. But, they get to walk right through the secure doors of power with a paper of lies, a wink and some fawning.

Shee-it, Mugabe’s government seems less corrupt and the Egyptian elections more authentic.

Here’s the video link again. I changed some of the titles, so that they would be easier to read (I hope). It’s a bitch once everything is compressed down to web streaming.

I really would like feedback, if anyone gives a shit.