I mentioned yesterday that, with everything else going on, I would not be going to see the Mets in Toronto this weekend.  True dat.  It turned out, though, that I did everything short of pass through the actual turnstile.

One of the friends I met at the conference last month was going. She flew into Buffalo last night, and, on my sage advice, booked a Megabus direct from the airport to get her into doontoon TO by 8-ish this morning, leaving plenty of time to sightsee before the 1:00 first pitch.  Sure enough, on two-ish hours sleep after a late flight in last night, she was at the bus stop at the appointed hour, and.... no bus. Nobody waiting for a bus. Worst of all, nobody in the Megabus office until 6 a.m. to revive her from her panic.

Or, as it turned out, not until 7:30. By then, I'd read her post about the impending disaster, told her I'd do what I could to help, picked her up from the still-deserted arrivals stop (Eleanor had already gone to her early Saturday gig at Wegmans, so I wasn't bothering anybody with this), and taken her for much-needed caffeine while we figured it out.

No, they had no idea what happened. Yes, there was another departure, this one from downtown here, at 8:15, but it was sold out. Maybe she could get on it standby if somebody didn't show. Yet, when we arrived at the station a good 20 minutes before 8:15, there was a TO-bound Megabus pulling out.  Must have been all full up and no reason to wait. They'd have reimbursed her for a Greyhound ticket, but their next departure wasn't until 3.

I just gestured to the car and said, "Let's go."  But not before shooting this:


Taryn is famed, along with her husband, another of the Met-blogging community, for co-authoring many of their pieces with Joey Beartran, the dude sticking out of the bag. To keep him company, I brought along my own member of the ursine Met mafia- one my sister got for me years ago which I'd never really taken out and about before, nor even formally named. Now, though, after today, his name is forever set in Met blogger lore:

Meet Megabuster Bison.

----

Getting there was a breeze. It took a little 'splainin' at the Peace Bridge entry to Canada about why one of us was coming back this afternoon and the other, much later tonight, but when she asked us how we knew each other, I just confidently stated, "We're both bloggers for the New York Mets." I am so glad she did not ask for formal credentials, although that's about the only thing the many wonderful members of this quasi-press corps doesn't have.  We were waved through without another bother, and were around the corner from the Skydome before 11.

(I know they changed the name. Once a stubborn New Yorker, always a stubborn New Yorker.)

Some Starbucks and wi-fi were had, and I shot some proof of being there (I think Taryn has one with me actually in it):

( Read more... )

I got bearings, while Taryn had some uncomfortable chatting with a random fan about Met broadcaster Ron Darling, and we then headed down the street to the Hockey Hall of Fame, where some other friends were waiting for her:

( Read more... )

The drive home took a bit longer, but not without a little relief to start. As I got onto the outbound Gardiner Expressway, I saw an inbound Megabus coming in from Buffalo- quite possibly the same one she'd been unable to get on four hours before. (Border checks doubtless take longer on a full double-decker.)  There was a bit of a backup just past Missasaugua, and all three bridges allegedly had 1-2 hour backups for cars, but I picked the cars-only one in Niagara Falls and got through in under 10 minutes.  Once again, border dude looked a little confused about why I'd been away for only a few hours. When I explained it was for a friend who I'd taken because of a meshuga  Megabus, he said, "Wow, that's quite a trip."

I replied, as I had in an earlier message to Taryn's husband, with no truer words than could be spoken:

We're Mets fans. We stick together and expect disaster:-)

He waved me right through.

----

I beat Eleanor home by about half an hour, got the kitchen cleaned up, the lawn largely mowed and the story, now, told.  Oh, and the game? I probably could've stayed for it. Despite both teams kicking the shit out of the ball last night- an ugly 14-5 Mets defeat where their backup catcher pitched the bottom of the eighth inning to conserve their few remaining arms- today's game was over in barely two hours, a pitchers' duel that ended with Toronto again winning, but this time 2-0 and those two runs largely resulted from an outfield error on one of the few hard-hit pitches surrendered all day by a Met pitcher. The losing pitcher in question was an early-game injury replacement for the Mets' 41-year old starter Miguel Batista, a journeyman whose professional baseball history is almost as old as our marriage (he was signed as an undrafted player by the defunct Montreal Expos in 1988) and who himself is an emergency callup from Buffalo to replace a Met starter with a season-long injury.  The Jays had their Canadian bacon saved in the top of the sixth when Met centerfielder Andres Torres (who made the earlier error) hit an almost homer to right field that the other Bautista on the field, Toronto outfielder Jose, snared with a spectacular catch.

I saw not an iota of this, in the park or even on the television at home, but through the perfectly lovely play-by-play of Sportradio 590 AM from Toronto which followed me all the way home.

It's been put in the books, for better or worse. I'm home, and I have every confidence that Coop will make it back tonight:)

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Got back into the swing of things with a relatively productive day today. Picked up a new bankruptcy referral- my second of the week after things being frighteningly quiet all year so far. The first appointment in the second one will be either Monday afternoon- after It Which Must Not Be Named- or late on Tuesday. I can do either now because a court hearing scheduled for next Tuesday will not require an appearance for argument. That generally means the judge has already made up his mind; I'm not going to jinx the outcome by mentioning which set of papers so far was a bunch of shameless whining.

I got in my first hourlong cardio of the week, and felt good. I'm almost done with Wherever I Wind Up, a memoir by current Mets pitcher R.A. Dickey. I'd heard an interview with him on the radio a few weeks ago, and the revelations about how much misfortune he's faced and overcome in his life were just remarkable. The book tackles them with grace, but they still hit you like a ton of bricks as he relives some immensely painful moments from his childhood and some almost-as-bad experiences in his baseball career.

Ordinarily, I would be planning to head to Toronto this weekend, the first time in almost a decade the Mets have played an interleague series up there. But between lost time around work and home this week and Emily's animation screening this weekend (finally scheduled, for 10:30 Sunday morning at RIT), I just can't do it.

My day ended by firing a client. He was- is- a sympathy-inducing soul, but this time it just got too much for me to take. I'd cleared my last two hours of the week to make an appearance for him in an outlying court, only to be told on the way in that his brother, who knows somebody who knows somebody, had "taken care of it."  Since he had no need, therefore, to bring money for the anticipated fine, there was none for me, either. I said, sorry, I can't work like this anymore, and that was that. 

But I'm home, there's a total pigout meal on the grill, and our daughter's having her film debuted day after tomorrow. Things could be a lot, lot worse.  Just ask R.A. Dickey.

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Eleanor's making pizzas for us after The Ordeal. The conversation just now:

Her: Would you go out and prep the table in the greenhouse?
Me: Could you rephrase that?

She confessed that she made a similar faux pas earlier, talking to Emily. We still don't know when we're going to Rochester to see her animation this weekend, and she asked Em, "So, when's the viewing?"

Hopefully there will be no stiffs present at that screening. Not even me;)

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I am back. And I am disPLEASED.

The prep all done, the fast endured, I appeared before the appointed hour, registered, PAID as one now does in these places in advance of service, and waited. As with the session with Dr. Butts last March, the waits for fasting/prepped patients are interminable, and there's not a single restroom in the waiting room.  Finally, though, I got the call, switched into the Gown of Shame, had pre-procedure X-rays taken, had the nurse come in to ask the Routine Medical Questions, waited some more, and....

Let's call the whole thing off.

Apparently there's an actual MD-type radiologist in the radiology place- who objected to injecting the dye due to the fact that I only have the one kidney.  Now maybe you didn't know that- although I've mentioned it in passing from time to time- but my primary care physician certainly did.  I've been in this state since 1973, without any problems until now, and I always, ALWAYS mention it in histories, even to my flippin' dentist. I've been seeing this primary for over 15 years, and specifically mentioned it when I went in with the symptoms almost two weeks ago. Yet he prescribed this anyway.

No, the radiologist said, a CT-scan would be a much safer diagnostic tool- and it, unlike this buttblaster special, doesn't involve any more prep than lying on a table.  Fine, I said: Could we do it this afternoon, since it requires no prep and I'm sitting there in my underwear with the whole afternoon off anyway?

Almost two hours later, the answer finally came back- no, since the insurance company requires pre-authorization from the primary and my doctor's entire office is shut down today and tomorrow because he's out of town attending to his sick mother.

Can't blame him for that, I know. But blame him for not noticing a near-lifelong condition might contraindicate a very invasive procedure? I'm working on that as we speak.

So now the Meow-Meow procedure is scheduled for Monday afternoon, after hopefully he's back in town. They're going to carry over the co-pay to that procedure, but apparently the cost of the rest of this business is on me:

64 ounces of Gatorade.....................$3.79
Large container Top Care laxative......$7.99
Lifetime supply of Fleet stimulants..... $2.99
Assorted juices and popsicles........... $6.48

Best health care system in the world?

Worthless:P

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But I will share a few Facebook statuses and other notes from the morning which has mostly been a big mess of Bo-RING.



Wow, Zuckerberg. That's a butt-ton of HTML for a single line of text. No wonder you need so much IPO money.

He's got an IPO, I've got an IVP. The worst is over except the ennui. Naturally, I had to feed the animals at their usual time today, and even their kibble seemed appetizing. I then fell back to sleep past the 8 a.m. cutoff for eating or drinking anything, hence the blasphemy a couple of hours ago.

Spent the time, mostly, organizing my Series I QI's (and discovering there's almost half a season that we never saw! Yay! And the damn BBC is already up to Series C on DVD so I can't just order one even though the season's now over! Boo!), answering a couple of emails, and getting ready for our checking account to implode tomorrow when HSBC kicks all of upstate New York out of its world's local bankery.

Got a call from my sister, to warn me that I may be allergic to the dye. And telling me that our niece, who's 10 years younger than me, went through this a couple of years ago. Our mother always bragged about our "good genes," but apparently she was referring to the Wranglers in the closet that we were never allowed to wear lest they get dirty.

And, just now, my swan song until it's over:

( The backstory.... )

Meanwhile, at 8 this morning I said sayonara to solid food and, in a bit over three hours, I begin the dreaded "prep." for the procedure known as an IVP.  I just did similar "prep" a year ago for the colonoscopy, and it wasn't as bad as some predicted it would be, but this regimen, if anything, is even more thorough than that was. Then it's fasting completely after 8 tomorrow morning, with showtime taking about an hour in the middle of the day.  I've never done the dye before, so I have no idea whether I'll have any appetite after that.

On the bright side, as of this time yesterday, the pain, which had ranged from a little better to (as recently as Monday night) a lot worse, had receded to the point where I briefly considered calling the whole thing off. Given how hard it was to get the damn appointment, and given that I sat yesterday for two-plus hours on a hard wooden bench plus close to four more either side of it behind the wheel, it's back- still, though, better than it's been in days.

I've heard different remedies talked about once I know if that's what it is. These have ranged from ultrasound to meds, and the dietary advice has been all over the map. Suck on lemons, some say. Stay away from citrus, say others. You pays your money and you takes your choice of poison.

Suppose I should listen to what a doctor has to say, huh.

So if I'm unusually quiet for the rest of the week, now you know why.




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Get ready to fall off of your chair. This post is going to be about.... basketball- in particular, the NBA. 

I haven't followed the sport in decades, ever since the league broke my heart in high school by admitting my hometown New York Nets to the NBA and promptly forcing it to trade its best player (Julius "Dr. J" Erving) to raise the exorbitant rights fees. When the team moved to New Jersey soon thereafter, I lost all remaining interest, and never restored it even through the eras of Bird and Magic, or of Michael, or of the current crop of immature millionaires.

I did feel a twinge of hoop nostalgia, though, seeing this piece in the USA Today on the lunchroom table today:


LOS ANGELES – When the Los Angeles Clippers take the floor at Staples Center, no one forgets the tenant of record for lo these many years. The Los Angeles Lakers' championship banners offer impressive reminders.

But a growing number of Clippers fans are finding it cool to follow this young, athletic and improving team.

One reason is the Clippers are in the playoffs — that's something different.

It certainly is. The piece goes on to throw in this fun fact of lovable loserdom:

The franchise went 30 years between winning playoff series — from 1975-76 to 2005-06. Since moving from San Diego to Los Angeles in 1984, the Clippers have won two playoff series, one in 2006 and one Sunday.

What it doesn't tell you, there or anywhere, is that they won that earlier 1975-76 series, not in San Diego, but in a city that had an NBA franchise ripped from its municipal heart right around the same time the Nets broke mine.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the resurrected ghost of the Buffalo Braves.

----

The NBA was long gone from here by the time I arrived in the 80s, but I'd listened to radio out of Buffalo back in their days of sharing the Aud with the Sabres.  "Twoooooooo for McAdooooooo!" and "Ernie No-D!" are still phrases fondly remembered among that greater generation of sport fan here.  The team had a bit of success a mere few years after its founding, but bad luck and bad management took their toll. In time, the original owner (local hotel magnate and Darien Lake developer Paul Snyder) sold the team to Kentucky Fried Chicken executive John Y. Brown (and a Rochester furniture store owner named Harry Mangurian). He, in turn, cut a deal to swap franchises with the Boston Celtics, at one of the rare downtimes in that storied team's history. For their final year in the Aud, the Braves suffered with all the old Celtics' bad players, but didn't get the draft pick that turned into Larry Bird, who singlehandedly would have saved the franchise. Instead, they said "California is the place you wanna be" and moved, first to San Diego and then up the freeway to become the Lakers' little brothers.

The Clippers have a little bit of this history on their official website- here- perhaps because they have so little history of their own to brag about. They did make a bit of a deal of this being their 25th anniversary season in Lalaland, but neither their legacy nor ours is much to pontificate about. Neither Clippers nor Braves have championship banners to hang from the rafters, and none of their handful of Aud-era greats have had their numbers retired- not even the franchise's lone Hall of Famer McAdoo.

Today's Clippers are about to start their second playoff round, as are their fellow Staples tenants. They knocked off their first round opponent more handily than the Lakers did theirs (the elder team taking a full seven-game series to escape Denver). Much of the newfound hope comes from the Clippers' homegrown superstar Blake Griffin, but also from the bizarre set of moves that landed longtime league force Chris Paul (aka "CP3") in Los Angeles over the last off-season. New Orleans needed to trade Chris Paul before he hit free agency, and the team had worked out a deal with the Lakers, but league commissioner David Stern- the same one who brokered the bolting of the Braves 35 years ago- put the kibosh on the trade, ultimately approving a different one landing CP3 in the Clippers' locker room down the hall.

It's unlikely, but possible, that the two LA teams will meet in the conference finals. If that happens, for the first time this century, I will actually watch an NBA game, just to show my support for the last remnants of Buffalo in the world of professional hoops.

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To Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith, and titular head of the BBC:

Hi. Howya doin?  How's the fam? Keeping the boys and the heiresses out of trouble, I hope. No unexpected visits from Batman, either, I expect, though with all these blockbuster films being set in major cities you really never can tell.

Sorry I missed your birthday; you know, the real one. I figured I'd work this in before the official one, and ahead of all the Diamond Jubilee crap wot's going to be coming in next month.  Since I'm sure you're busy, I'll cut to the chase:

I'd like my citizenship back, please.

Actually, just a small piece of it. I refer back to that last bit I added to your title up above, about the Beeb. I cannot tell you how much influence that organisation has had throughout my life, from those first teenage days when Monty Python first made it across the pond, but even more so now, when so much of my entertainment emanates from Broadcasting House. From my late discovery of the Doctor (I take it you've met; if not, your PM certainly has from time to time); to Mr. Sherlock Holmes (who I know to have been in the building); across the alphabetic queries of QI;  through the reworkings of Douglas Adams most recently in Dirk Gently; to even the audio-only adventures of Golf Tango India. Through all of these, Your Majesty, I've become almost a full-time Anglophile.

And, I must confess, nearly all of it has been without Your Royal Blessing. Most of it, in fact, is either delayed or made completely inaccessible to us here in the severed colonies unless we resort to, shall we say, questionable means.  Your Government's official explanation for such limitations is that it is for the protection of your subjects who duly pay the licence fee for watching the telly within your sacred borders.

Right. I understand that it is currently set at £145.50 for a colour set.  Where shall I send the cheque?  (The next few days would be ideal, since on Friday, the USA division of one of Your Majesty's banks, HSBC, will be nuking Western New York State off of its international map and I will no longer be able to make online transfers in sterling.)

In exchange, I merely ask for access to the iPlayer for all current BBC programming, legal downloads of radio programmes, and a match to be lit under the arse of your subject John Fennimore to get Cabin Pressure Series 4 on the air.

If the current licence arrangement doesn't enable this sort of payment, fear not. I have enclosed a copy of the current RSCPA dog licence form, with the word "dog" crossed out and the word "telly" written on it in crayon.

In all seriousness, there are a lot of us over here who would welcome the opportunity to do such a thing. I know, however, that things that are so win-win, and make so much sense, would never overcome rights issues. 'Tis good to dream about it, though.

Awaiting the curtsey of your reply, I remain,
Your most humble obedient servant,

Raymond of West New York

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Yes, I'm spamming you. I have to go track down a weedwhacker part; give me my procrastinating.

Early yesterday, a friend posted a link to a Salon piece titled "Secrets of the New Yorker cover." It includes some fairly controversial ones that were both used and not used, describes a bit of the process that goes into the creations and selections, and also notes that the magazine remains, primarily, a piece of print that is beholden to brick and mortar for its production and delivery around its cover date. Quoth the longtime art director Françoise Mouly:

Logistics. There have been some terrific images, and then we were out with a double issue that week and we couldn’t publish them. Or because the idea came in on a Friday and we had already published our cover. We are a weekly magazine, so the printing process finalizes something that is a constant flux.

And yet,....

Recently we did an image around the Republican primaries that involved a dog on top of a car, and that certainly was timely. When we have something like that, then we are poised to upset the apple cart, and that can be turned around in as little as 24 hours.

A fact that was checked, as accurate, later in the day. For already, there was a preview of the cover for May 21 (which really "hits" publication early next week)- inspired, assigned, created and sent to the printer barely 72 hours after Obama "came out" on the issue as we all knew he would:



Happy Birthday to my sister that day. I know she shares the sentiment:)

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Now that our Congressional districts have been diced and sliced to reflect our state's (relatively) smaller population, voters in the new NY27, formerly and famously NY26, have a clear, if bizarre, choice.

The incumbent, Kathy Hochul, who defeated a local Republican-machine pick last spring after our previous Republican incumbent texted a shirtless picture of himself to someone other than his wife and went on Craigslist showing unauthorized Republican-platform support for the LGBT community. In beating the stumbling-bumbling GOP heiress, Kathy became the first Democrat to win the district in over a century.

Kathy's Stepford opponent had been handpicked by our then-county executive, Chris Collins, known to most locally as The King on account of his top-down-with-a-scepter management style. Picture Mitt Romney, only with a worse attitude and even worse telegenic presence than Mittens, and you've got the King. He managed to lose his re-election bid last fall, to a confessed policy wonk Democrat, and he retreated to his castle, put up the drawbridge over the moat, and told us gloating Democrats to get off his opulent lawn.

Or at least he did until the new district lines came out, which, despite the process still being unfairly and cynically controlled in two out of three places by Democrats in Albany, managed to screw over both Kathy here and Louise Slaughter east of here. Both incumbents are now facing tougher-than-you'd-think re-election bids- Kathy's against, it would seem, The King. He is fighting like mad to keep a more ideological Teabagger away from the nomination, refuses to debate the guy or do anything to allow the vassals to have access to him. But every once in awhile, he gets out from behind the arras and the grabbing arms of his handlers. Such as in today's entry in the offbeat news section of the paper:

Traveling pants

Chris Collins, the former Erie County executive now running for Congress, decided he needed a couple of pairs of jeans to wear on the campaign trail in the district’s rural parts.

The wealthy businessman can afford to buy designer jeans at any high-end clothing store.

So where did he get them? BJ’s Wholesale Club.

“For me, BJ’s is the place to go,” Collins told us.

Considering what happened to the last Republican to hold that seat, I think His Majesty would be better off slumming at Sam's Club.

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I mentioned a while back that we had been gifted a multi-region DVD player, courtesy of a longtime LJ friend named targaff. I'd wanted to repay the kindness at least in a small part, so I sent along the two original Region 2 disks of Sherlock Series 2, that I'd purchased from the Beeb after the end of its BBC run.

We connected earlier this week to get the shipping information for him, and he asked that I ship it to his wife, who goes by sioneva in these parts, just for the extra squee of her getting to see Ben and Martin fall out of the packaging. He and I exchanged some Facebook comments this morning as he confirmed receiving the disks, and in time his wife chimed in.

I friended her there, and quickly discovered that she's been longtime LJ friends with Susan Jane Bigelow. Whose second book, Fly into Fire, was my last principal editing job.

There's also something even weirder about backward names, but at this point this entry's getting too wordy as it.... YELLOW CAR!

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I had a meeting today with our minister and two of our other lay luminaries, to go over an "initiative" seeking a lot of "input" to obtain "feedback" that will define our "mission" and which seems, mostly, "bullshit." The lunchtime conversation did turn to other subjects, though. One of the other laity present mentioned seeing a photo of another unfortunate incitement, by a North Carolina United Methodist congregation. It was gloating over, maybe, our own denomination's defeat of a gay marriage initiative, or, just as maybe, over the whole state going all-in on an unconstitutional Constitutional amendment:



(Interesting that the signs in front of the signs went the other way on the political issue.)

Anyway. Dave didn't think that our own church's sign should ever be used for something as divisive or insensitive as that, on an issue where we are clearly divided and unsettled in our response.

I could only think to reply with what I'd seen from George Takei earlier in the day, who posted this photo with the caption "Let's not rush to judgment":



Once I got to the punch line, Pastor Rich rolled his eyes and said,"Oh, Rush, Rush, Rush."

Then remembered. Not only is Rich from Missouri- a fact he mentions about once every couple of sermons- but he is from Limbaugh's home town of Cape Girardeau. "I know where you're from," I said. "Is there more about him to tell us?"

Turns out, Rich went to high school with the Drugster, a few years ahead of him. Moreover, he worked in the elder Limbaugh's law firm when he was in college, and knew the dude back when he was known locally as "Rusty," he being the third generation of that name. The original Rush Limbaugh, the current talker's grandfather, was a judge and a gentleman, but Rush Junior, "Rusty's" father, was as big and as blowhardy as the one who airs his hate for 15 hours a week on a radio station near you.

Rich's only other comment was that there's some debate back in Cape Girardeau over whether Rush III/Rusty/Jeff Christie is a positive or negative for the local tourist trade. The biggest attraction for it, he said, was a mural of the loudmouth on a floodwall along the Mississippi within the city limits.

"Was that really such a good idea," I asked, "given that it gives God such a big and easy target for smiting?"

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Seen on a car on the way to Rochester today; there was some sort of butterfly-loving sticker on the other end of the bumper:


Plus a quick addendum to the last entry: I was a good boy and took no photos during the performance, but here's an after-concert shot of my view of the stage and stained glass:



I was three rows from the "on the air" sign in front of the podium. Not a bad way to spend an hour on a spring afternoon:)

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Good but cautious signs today. I had business in Rochester last week that I moved to today, and it worked out perfectly for me to attend WXXI-FM's live lunchtime broadcast of Deanna Witkowski's mostly Chopin concert at the Hochstein Music Hall downtown.  Its performance hall isn't as famed as the Kodak stage or the smaller Kilbourn at the Eastman, but it's beautiful, and intimate, with both acoustics and stained glass to die for. 

Deanna performed her own arrangements of three Chopin nocturnes, finished with a kickass adaptation of his Prelude in E-flat minor (which, and I may be the only one to think this, may have contained a riff most famously heard in Johnny Carson's Tonight Show theme), and also included an Antonio Jobim piece, originally named "Amparo" when he composed it for a 1969 movie soundtrack, but eventually retitled to "Olha Maria" when Chico Buarque and Vinicius de Moraes gave it lyrics some years later. We didn't hear those words today, but did hear some awesomeness of piano and a truly inspired performer behind the keyboard.

If I had any concern about the performance, it was about the audience- or rather, the audience that wasn't there. I'd guess the average age was close to 70, most of them jitneyed in from all the upscale Senior Living Communities that surround the area. There were a few younger folks sprinkled around, but how many were connected with the broadcast, I couldn't say. They shooed us out pretty quickly, mainly to make room for all the walkers and canes needing to descend before the 1:00 servings of fruit cup back at Elderberry Woods, but I ducked back in after they'd been cleared and found Deanna by the table of CDs, and picked up the older of her two prior mainly-jazz albums; we'd been gifted the other for supporting her next CD project, and that collection of Chopin improvisations (which had been scheduled to be released in connection with this appearance but is now delayed until fall) will also be sent to us as a thank you.

And, since she's probably reading this, the only final thing to say is, No. Thank YOU.

----

Meanwhile, closer to home, this morning brought some nice news for the theatrical community: Buffalo's Studio Arena Theater facility, the oldest and only full-time professional and producing venue of theatre here, has been cleansed of several million in debt and is scheduled to begin productions again in the fall. It will be managed with Shea's, the local home of the bus-and-truck Broadway events that will hopefully help subsidize the more adventurous and thoughtful works of the likes of A.R. Gurney, who had several premieres of his works there.

Here, too, I suspect we will find a mostly older crowd coming by. And that's a shame, for both of these cities have downtowns in search of "critical mass" to make them be more than 8-hour-a-day cubicle pits, and young professionals are a big part of that target. Today's event in Rochester was wonderful, workday-appropriate brief, and free. Live theater should be made just as accessible to the next generation of arts lovers- and both should be constantly thinking of ways to immerse themselves in the media that this generation uses.

Yaknow, like blogs;)

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North Carolina voters appear to have bought into the anti-gay rhetoric, memorializing a homophobic amendment to their state constitution right up there with the attempted nullification of Brown v. Board of Education, the last sea-change that swept right past them.

Meanwhile, in the further northern and sensible state of Indiana, voters retired Dick Lugar on Tuesday after 36 years in the Senate, punishing him for the qualities he considered assets: seniority, expertise in foreign policy and a penchant for bipartisan cooperation.

Can't have any of THAT in this country with a socialist Marxist Nazi Kenyan Muslim running for re-election, can we?

I'm going to bed before it gets any worse.

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The two of us tend to stay away from most of the Big Summer Blockbusters, at least in theaters; I'll see some with Emily, or a guilty pleasure or two alone, so it's a treat to have the beloved along for one. This weekend, after a glowing review of The Avengers from Em, it was the one Eleanor wanted to see, and see now, and see even after a long workday for her. So I scored tickets for 7:30, half an hour after her quitting time; we had a quick in-store dinner of a pre-ordered large Wegmans sub; and got to a surprisingly sparse auditorium in time for all of the lame previews (Battleship being the latest toy-transformer offering from Hasbro, which I MSTized into "My Little Pony is coming, and she's pissed!").

The feature presentation lived up to every expectation and good review. Eleanor often has trouble with dark action pieces, but this one was just so well written- as you would expect when you have Joss behind the screenplay as well as the lens. Despite the top-level plot being, really, just an update of the Rolling Thunder Revue leaving most of Manhattan in its wake, the lines of all the superheroes, and even some of the not-so-super ones, were perfectly written, and just as perfectly delivered,  by this troupe of professionals who were clearly having fun out of their minds with it all.

This particular bunch resonated especially with me, because the four main Marvels here made up the first four nights of their badly-animated and worse-written syndicated block from the 60s: Captain America threw his mighty shield on Mondays, Hulk smashed on Tuesdays, Iron Man stuck to the refrigerator Wednesday nights, and Thor, duh, made Thursday night Hammer time. (The only one missing was Sub-Mariner, who held down the tank on Friday nights, and who wouldn't have transitioned well into an above-ground format.)

For undergraduate reasons, my favorite line in the piece got tossed at Loki about halfway through, and without the context I don't think this will spoil anything: "Shakespeare in the Park?"  Not long after that, Eleanor got off her best MST3k of the night while Loki was standing on a rooftop, rams horns recently bared, and she just pooh-poohed him: "Oh honey, the Pride parade isn't until NEXT weekend!"

Samuel L. was his usual badass self, Colson was a scream, and the occasional cameos were fun.  I haven't seen any of the recent crop of Marvels with any of these actors in it, and mostly remember the backstories from those weeknight syndicated shows of long past, but we didn't need any of that for this to make sense, play out well, and amount to a good two-plus hours of fast-paced, city-wrecking fun.

Yes, we stayed for the scene after the credits, and the other scene after that. Both were worth reading all the names (I lost track of how many different visual effects companies were credited, much less the thousands of people credited among them).

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm still a little Thor.

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I was down to what is commonly referred to as "emergency underwear," so I laid in a load of wash a few hours ago.

When I went to switch it to the dryer, the contents were covered with a sticky whitish goo.

A cat must've gone prospecting sometime in recent days on the shelf above the basket in my closet- and either the top lid of, or the entirety of, a three-quarters-full box of my business cards fell into the laundry basket below it, and just got washed beyond recognition.

The evidence suggests only the former, as I could only find traces of one rectangular surface, no more than four side-sized ones, and only the text of the sample card taped to the outside of the box. But I cannot, for love or money, find the bottom of the box or the hundreds of cards that had occupied it, anywhere in that closet or elsewhere in my office.  So until proven otherwise, I must assume they are currently dead and that, left only with a dozen or so in a holder, I will need to order more.

I also assume the cats won't mind when I feed them large traces of school paste in the morning from the lint trap.

----

In happier news, though: my rainbow protest post from earlier today? That was my 4,000th entry, which is a few weeks overdue, but, given the sentiment, I'd say was well worth the wait:)

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Well, not yet. Certainly not likely on the action of anyone from my own congregation. I came, they saw, they accepted. Not even the pastor (who usually "sabbaths" on Fridays to prepare the Sunday service) had seen the email we both received late that day containing the gloating from a local minister who opposed the change in doctrine.  But as soon as he saw what I was wearing, he knew what I was saying and why I was saying it.

"What I was wearing" turned out to be this:





I changed to the rainbow motif, rather than a straight pink triangle, after sorting out the comments to my last entry, a few of which suggested it as more appropriate for an ally of the cause. I also went with the rectangle because it fit nicely into one of the nametag holders left over from That Thing Wot I Did last weekend.  If opposition surfaces from outside our four walls, I can always peel a corner back into something at least scalene-triangly.

All in all, it was preaching to the choir today. I got many signs of support, and more signs of people not really understanding the issue or why I feel so strongly about it.  I did not say anything about it from the lectern, because, as it turned out, I didn't need to. Rich had assigned me this Epistle reading- not from that ol' homophobe Paul, but from the first letter of John.

Hear these words, General Conference:

^16bGod is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. ¹⁷ Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgement, because as he is, so are we in this world. ¹⁸There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. ¹⁹We love because he first loved us. ²⁰Those who say, ‘I love God’, and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. ²¹The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.

As I say in court, "emphasis added." As I said at the end of this passage, "This is the Word of the Lord."

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So. Continuing on my rant from last night, it happens that I am scheduled to read Scripture and assist in communion tomorrow morning at our traditional, high-for-us church service.  Nothing new there; it's the first Sunday, which has been my gig for most of the past two years, even though I usually don't get my readings until late the previous afternoon to remind me, as was the case today.

I have an idea. As always, this is a dangerous thing. It involves a pre-service trip to Office Max for a few needed provisions for my office- manila files, staples- and one needed provision for a point: construction paper.

I want to process, read and serve tomorrow wearing a pink triangle.

My hesitation doesn't come from pissing off the pastor- I don't think it will, and if it does, I'd just as soon know now- or from scaring the biddies. Rather, I don't want to offend the orientational descendants of those for whom a pink triangle literally meant a death sentence. That's not me; I don't claim it to be me; but I want to show my support and outrage over this past week's news in a way that a mere purple tie won't do.

Your thoughts on this are especially welcome.

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I expected this result. The crackers and the homophobic foreign delegates outnumber us Northeastern progressives. I did not, however, expect gloating from the pastor of a church within my own county, one which I have been IN during my certification as a lay speaker:

Delegates at the 2012 General Conference of The United Methodist Church voted on Thursday morning, May 3, to keep the Church’s policy on homosexuality.

The 572-368 vote rejected a proposal to change paragraph 161F, which currently states that “The United Methodist Church does not condone the practice of homosexuality and considers this practice incompatible with Christian teaching.”

Through emails, personal interviews and Facebook posts, scores of clergy and laity voiced support for the Church and were elated by the delegates’ decision.

Upper New York clergy delegate the Rev. Larry Baird, who is also the president of Board of Directors of the Confessing Movement, said the vote made him proud of The United Methodist Church.

“We upheld our polity and we did the right thing,” Rev. Baird said, adding that part of the Church’s problem is being in the world without being of it. It’s even more difficult “because of the permissive nature of the world.”

A former district superintendent and now Trinity Grand Island UMC pastor, Rev. Baird said he understood the pain and the emotions of those who were hurt by the decision, but added that “sometimes we have to say no, even to those we love.”

And sometimes we have to call out "injustice and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves."

I am not proud of the United Methodist Church, Lar.  I am sickened that this decision is closer in kind, if not in degree, to the pronouncements of non-Methodist ministers like this guy, or this guy, who had previously sickened me earlier in the day today.

Give me a reason to stay, to "be the Church" if this is the church you want me to be.

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