January 8, 1998
It's raining here in Detroit again today. It seems like it has been raining all year. OK, the year is only 8 days old. Still, 8 days of rain is a little much. But it's supposed to get cold by the weekend, so it'll probably stop raining. I hope, at least. Otherwise, we'll all be trying out for the Ice Capades around here. And my truck isn't fitted for skates yet.
In case you missed them, I put new photos of me on the site last week, along with a new special feature page of photos of my new house. I've got some new Musings coming along soon, so be sure to stop by again.
January 14, 1998
It stopped raining here, finally. And then it got cold. I don't mind that so much. It could have turned cold THEN stopped raining, like it did in Québec and New England. The news reports amaze me. We've had ice storms here too, but I've never seen ice-laden power line towers collapse. And downtown Montréal was without electricity for three days? Downtown? Incredible. This morning I heard a report on the effect on the forests of northern New England, and the impact on the trees and the connected industries--tourism, maple sugar, and logging--is huge.
Ice storms are peculiar. They seem to come in a gentle way, not violently like earthquakes, tornados, and hurricanes. And the crystal world that ice creates is pretty too--at least until things start collapsing. But you cannot deny they're just as deadly and harsh as tornados and hurricanes. Best wishes to everyone who's dealing with the aftermath of the ice storm.
January 22, 1998
According to reports, Hawaii should be bracing for an influx of travelers come March or April. See, around that time the Hawaii Supreme Court is due to render a decision related to the issue of same-sex marriage. I know of at least one mainland location that's getting ready for a positive verdict. In Denver an effort is underway to organize kind of a "marriage tour" for gay and lesbian couples to go to Hawaii if and when the court sanctions same-sex marriage. They then plan to return to Colorado and force the state and local governments there to recognize the marriages with the same support as they do hetero marriages. I'm sure Coloradans are not the only ones preparing for such an event, although I haven't heard of any organizing in Michigan yet. Stay tuned to your local news sources.
For information on the same-sex marriage rights movement in Denver and Colorado, contact the Reverend Jeremy Edward McLeod, pastor of the Metropolitan Community Church of Boulder County, at MCCBoulder@aol.com. He's organizing the trip to Hawaii and the subsequent efforts back in Colorado.
I've been updating my bio pages in the last few days. My life hasn't changed much lately, so I've added just a few details and changed the design a bit.
February 11, 1998
A few days ago I received a bit of sad news from a correspondent in Vancouver, British Columbia. He's been having trouble with the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service because on one trip across the border, he answered truthfully, willingly, about his HIV status. INS denied him entry into the U.S. because of this. After months and months of appeals, the INS has flatly denied him access to the U.S., forever, because he is HIV-positive.
Now I happen to like Canada a lot, and I hear Vancouver is very pretty, so being "stuck" there probably isn't a living hell. But I know he has a lot of friends in the States. Not only that, he's active in several kinky communities, so not being able to come to the U.S. means he will miss a lot of fun events. I think most galling of this is, he chose not to lie and lost big time. And he's healthy AND responsible. He's no threat to the people of the U.S. just because he carries HIV. Certainly there are folks in the U.S. who are much more of a threat than he is.
This sort of thing just pisses me off. Worst of all, there is no place further he can go to appeal. INS has the final authority in the matter.
I've kept his identity confidential, but I imagine he'd be interested in hearing from supporters. Contact me or leave a message in my guest book.
Rerun from last week: For information on the same-sex marriage rights movement in Denver and Colorado, contact the Reverend Jeremy Edward McLeod, pastor of the Metropolitan Community Church of Boulder County, at MCCBoulder@aol.com. He's organizing a trip to Hawaii for would-be married couples should Hawaii's Supreme Court uphold same-sex marriage there, as well as the subsequent efforts to get Colorado to accept same-sex marriages.
February 25, 1998
Tornadoes in Florida. Torrential rains in California. Crazy weather everywhere across the country, thanks to that big blowhard of a kid El Niño. And way up here... well, in Detroit we've had rain. No snow in a month or six weeks. Temperatures have been in the 40s -- in fact, as I write this they're predicting a high of 50. And we haven't been in single digits, let alone below zero, all winter. Crazy, yes, but even though I like winter, I don't mind enduring a very mild version of it this year. In fact, one of my biggest fears is that winter will return in March or early April. I definitely don't want to see snow then.
Last week I added a new article to the Musings section called Furry, and no I don't mean animals. New features coming soon to the Web Lair include an archive of these little intro paragraphs from the index page and a revamped photo section, with a couple of new photos of me with short hair. These should appear by the first of March, barring unforeseen real life intruding into my web development time.
March 5, 1998
Last week I joined a band. That went so well, I joined another one. Yep, I'm now in two bands, along with my own solo musical endeavors. Not only that, for one band I'm playing bass, which I haven't played much of. But I'm really excited about playing music with other people. Both are fairly short-term projects. The one band, named Sunken Road, is an Americana-rock band, and I'll be with them through March, as it stands now. The other band is a folk/classic rock/acoustic band with lots of harmonies. Most of us are solo musicians and we're coming together for a special show that will be scheduled for April.
The second band might need help choosing a name. We were in the parking lot after open mike night at Xhedos Cafe in Ferndale last night brainstorming ideas. The best suggestion we had was "Ellen's Degenerates". I could just picture the cafe full of lesbians on the night of the show, all disappointed because there's only one woman in the band and she's straight. So we're going back to the drawing board.
Anyway, the sheer amount of music that's going on lately is stealing time away from my internet activities (not a completely negative thing, mind you... real life is good). So if you're missing me from IRC, that's why. But I'll try to poke my head in from time to time to see what's going on.
New Feature Alert! You know these witty and newsy little intro paragraphs I've been writing on this front page (that look suspiciously like the foregoing paragraphs)? Well, they're now available in an archive called the Intro Archive. Check it out if you dare....
March 16, 1998
I'm not Irish the other 364 days of the year, and I won't be Irish on March 17th either. Nothing against being Irish, you understand; if I was Irish I'd be happy with it. But I'm just tired of the hoopla surrounding St. Patrick's Day in this country, at least in this neck of the woods. Especially considering that there are an awful lot of people who suddenly become Irish on St. Patrick's Day.
For the last couple of years, there's been this trend to turn certain "holidays" -- and I use the term loosely -- into major drinking fests. Bars around here are advertising that they're opening at 9 a.m. or earlier on the 17th, bars that would ordinarily not be open that early. All the radio stations are having big parties in the morning, all day long, late into the night. And people will be queued up trying to get into the trendy "Irish Pubs", another term I use loosely because as anyone who might have actually seen an Irish pub in Ireland, the similarity is very scant indeed.
There are a few cool events around town. One of the bars hosts a James Joyce reading. And of course there's a St. Patrick's day parade in Corktown, the oldest neighborhood with houses in the city, which was predominantly Irish prior to the world wars. Not to forget a special mass at Most Holy Trinity Church (my mom's old church, by the way). But come nightfall, you'll find me in my own little house, trying to avoid the lunacy of a city full of one-day Irishers.
Now that's a heck of a thing for a guy with a green home page to say, isn't it?
March 26, 1998
I just had a birthday this week. Happy birthday to me! Got a couple of great gifts, some really funny cards, some meatloaf at my mom's house (ah, meatloaf!), and of course cake. More importantly, I survived another year. Sometimes, that is a major accomplishment.
My main gift to myself is a trip up to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan this weekend to go visit my best friends from college. Yes, most people don't go NORTH in the winter, if they're in the northern hemisphere. A couple of weeks ago, Dave sent me an e-mail telling me of a day he went down to the Lake Superior shoreline to stand in a 48 mile-per-hour gale looking at 10 foot waves. Froze his ass off, he says. That's when I realized I missed the land where winters are WINTER.
Of course, it's going to be in the low 50s and rainy most of the weekend up there, but that's beside the point.
So I'm going on a short road trip. I think everyone should get out of town once in a while. Now, all I have to do is remember to come back home. :-)
April 8, 1998
Spring has sprung, the grass is riz,
I wonder how my flowers is...
Springtime has arrived in southeast Michigan. The first robins were here a month ago, asking "Who booked us on this flight?" when we had our recent snowfall. But now it's warm and rainy and most everyone is in brighter spirits. My big fun these days is looking in the flower beds of this house, which I didn't own last spring, and seeing what comes up -- what colorful treasures await me. So far I have daffodils, some blooms that look like fancy tulips, crocuses, and little blue flowers of some kind. I'm not particularly horticultural, yet, so not only are these treasures but mysteries as well. Now, all I have to do is find time to maintain and enhance the flower beds. A couple are pretty sad, mostly due to bad soil I think. And I discovered that the spot in the yard where I piled leaves last fall actually is a flower bed, with daffodils poking through the leafy rubbish. Ah well, I'm sure that's just one of the things I'll be discovering as I spend my first spring and summer in my house.
P.S. That couplet at top reminds me of Ogden Nash, and maybe it is but I don't know for sure. They were using it in a radio commercial around here several years ago.
April 22, 1998
I just got a new scanner. Great deal at the computer store, and I couldn't pass it up. So now I can do all sorts of evil things with it... all within Geocities' terms of service, of course. :-)
Since I had this scanner, I thought I'd bring out a piece of my past ... the day I was a cover model for an actual gay magazine. Yes! Me! On the cover of a magazine. Well, a zine at least. I used to belong to Bros, a contact club for guys with long hair (oh, you knew that). Well, the editor talked me into posing for a cover shot. Now, lest you get all excited... I have my guitar in the shot. It's a pretty guitar though, nice curves and a long neck....
Anyway, if you're interested in Two of My 15 Minutes of Fame, just follow the link.
April 29, 1998
The latest hair style for me is nearly shaved head and a van dyke. I've been of mixed feelings about the van dyke, because it seems like half of the guys in the world (gay and straight) have van dykes or goatees, and gawd knows I don't want to look like everyone else. On the other hand, it looks pretty good on me, I think anyway. So I'm going to keep it for a while.
By the way, did you know that southeast Michigan has a Van Dyke Avenue? It's actually incredibly long, reaching from the Detroit riverfront to the tip of the Thumb. Check your map of the state of Michigan if that sounds funny -- the road is labeled M-53. No, I don't know if you have to have a van dyke to live on Van Dyke Avenue.
May 15, 1998
Well, it had to happen. I have nothing new to say on this page. I suppose I could write about writer's block. I've heard a lot of writers write about writer's block when they have it. But I suppose you really didn't surf into this page to read about writer's block.
I can tell you what I've updated lately. I verified the links on my hot list this week. I have a couple more updates in mind. I'd like to add a page of photos I've gotten over the net that are hot. I might get to that this weekend.
Anything else you (the reader) can think of? You can drop me some e-mail or sign my guestbook and tell me. One of the things I've discovered is that web pages can be lonely, because a lot of folks come to look but few write back. Feel free to tell me anything about my page -- what you like, what you didn't, something I should add, or maybe a marriage proposal. Hey, why not. Maybe I'll even use what you write on the next update of this page. :-0
Ah, a three day weekend... parades and sunshine and barbecues, At least we hope for sunshine. And a lot of folks are heading off to Chicago for either International Mr. Leather, Bear Pride, and other gay events. Me, I'm staying home. Someone has to be sick and twisted in Detroit this weekend, just to cover for everyone else.
Sick and twisted, yeah. I'm going to be doing sick and twisted things like yard work, having a barbecue at my mom's house, catching up on house work, and similar stuff. How radical. How subversive. How ... special.
I just read the April 14, 1998 issue of The Advocate, their report on "special rights". I sure wish I knew what "special rights" straight and narrow-minded folks think we're looking for. What's so special about not getting beaten up, not getting fired from a job, and getting married? Gee, sounds pretty mundane to me. Maybe it's just me though....
May 31, 1998
How many of you have played SimCity? If you're unfamiliar with it, it's a computer game where you build a city from scratch -- you get to build residential, commercial, and industrial sectors along with an occasional airport, stadium, or nuclear power plant. The goal is to keep your city running and the residents happy, and they let you know when you're unhappy. You know how citizens can be....
Anyway, there's a little-known feature to SimCity. I don't remember how I discovered it, but there's a way to "embezzle" funds for the treasury, so you can build more and bigger things. (You key a secret sequence of keystrokes, and the money magically appears.) If you do this too often, though, a disaster strikes your city -- an earthquake, tornado, or even a Godzilla-like monster. Just desserts, as it were.
News reports today told about a massive earthquake in Pakistan, something like 1300 dead and it's still early in the rescue and recovery process. This just after Pakistan tested those nuclear devices. Coincidence? Hmm.... made me think a bit about that SimCity trick of embezzling and the occasional retributions.
But life wouldn't imitate computer game art, would it? Nah. Maybe I'm just thinking in my usual strange ways. But if I were Pakistan, or India for that matter, I would be real careful about deciding whether to have the next nuclear test.
My truck turned over 100,000 miles yesterday. Didn't have a party, but I did pat it on the steering wheel for making such an accomplishment.
A hundred thousand miles... now, I bought it at 27,000 miles in 1993, so maybe I should put another 27,000 miles on it before it means anything. Still, that's a lot of distance. All those trips to work, 4 or 5 road trips, weekend shopping trips.... still amazing that it all adds up to such a big number. That's like, what, 40% of the distance to the moon? (What am I still doing in Detroit then? :-)
And after all those miles, it still runs about the same as it did when I bought it. So I'm not seriously thinking of replacing it in the near future. If something should happen and, say, the engine breaks down, I'll likely put in a new engine. I don't need to have a brand new vehicle if an old one works and I like it.
Although... All my friends are buying conversion vans, and they sure look comfortable. I have to admit I've been tempted. One thing that wouldn't work real well with my truck is sleeping in it, but a van would be a different story. Still... I like my truck. Here's hoping for another hundred thousand miles.
P.S. Send congratulations to my War Pony via my e-mail, songdogmi@yahoo.com.
June 19, 1998
Well, now I'm in trouble. A couple of weeks ago on this page, I made some comments about India and Pakistan's nuclear tests and how it might redound on them in the way of natural disasters (using the computer game SimCity as my metaphor). So last week Mr. Pat Robertson, well known as one of America's more temperate voices (smirk), said something to the effect that Florida might experience God's wrath in the form of hurricanes and such if they keep on being nice to gays and lesbians.
So, OK India, OK Pakistan. I take it all back. And thank you Pat Robertson for making me see the error of my ways. Gawd knows I never expected to learn anything like that from you. Maybe I should just stick to writing about sex and leather.
I'm sure no one in India or Pakistan is reading my web site. Probably very few televangelists in the States either. However, if you'd like to prove me wrong, leave me a message in my guestbook. Heck, even if you'd like to just say hi, the guestbook's open. :-)
This morning on the way to work, I was cut off not once but twice by sport utility vehicles. You hear a lot in the U.S. these days about SUVs and how their drivers operate them in rather risky ways, to put it mildly. I dunno, but if I spent between $20,000 and $30,000 on a vehicle, I would probably drive it real carefully, if I even took it out of the driveway at all.
In all fairness, I also saw someone in a $850 junker scudding across my rear-view mirror, crossing 3 lanes of traffic in one swoop very close to my rear bumper. I guess not all the dumb drivers are rich.
One of the things that's really bothering me these days is how fast everyone has to drive. Most of my commute is on an urban freeway, I-75 to be exact, which means the speed limit is 55 mph. No one on the road seems to notice. In fact, they must be thinking they're on a rural freeway because they're all going 70 mph or more. So they're passing me on the left and they're passing me on the right -- and I'm NOT going 55, because that would be suicide, but I refuse to go more than 10 over.
So I get to work all tense, still recovering from the freeway. This is not the way to start your day. What can one do? I'd like to pull people over and tell them "You're driving stupidly! STOP THAT!" But then I'd never get to work.....
The Detroit area got whomped by another storm system this week, just over a year since tornadoes came in and rearranged parts of the city in decidedly unfetching ways. Now, is it my imagination or are storms more violent these days? We had over 300,000 people without electricity, just like last year, and I never remember that from the 1970s and 1980s.
In a stroke of bad timing I was driving home when the storm came through, and I had to pull off the freeway and park on a side street in Hamtramck, one of the suburbs that was hardest hit in last year's storms. The wind buffeted the truck wildly, and I was afraid it would tear the cap off or something. It only lasted for about 15 or 20 minutes, and the truck rode it out like a champ. Then off I went, driving through flooded streets dodging tree branches and at least one downed power line.
Another thing I don't remember from years gone by is the media saturation that occurs whenever a storm comes by. I was listening to the news radio station and they had reporters in several different suburbs commenting on the downed trees and power lines. Now this time they had something to report on, because it was a wild storm and there was at least 1 person killed. But they tend to do this kind of coverage for every storm that comes along these days. It's amazing to hear the near-panic that radio newscasters go through every time the skies darken a little. Of course, if we keep getting bad storms like this week's, they're justified in a little excitement, huh....
August 6, 1998
Geoffrey Fieger won the Democratic nomination for governor in the primary on Tuesday. (ed. note: "Oh my god........") Some readers may remember Fieger as Dr. Jack Kevorkian's attorney. Fieger doesn't have much of a platform, near as I can tell. He's been running as a "fighter", meaning he'll fight for citizens. Against what, I dunno. Anyway, that's just the primary. In November he'll face the 2-term incumbent, Republican John Engler. Engler isn't very popular personally, but he has done everything he set out to do and the state's economy is booming -- unless you happen to be homeless, mentally ill, or similarly disadvantaged. But they don't vote, right? Among voters, he does well.
It ought to be an interesting election. Fieger is the one candidate Engler should have been concerned about all along, because Fieger seems to be one of those Populists that we Americans go for from time to time for no good reason. But Engler has a really strong machine behind him and it's a Republican state these days. P.S.: This amateur political pundit expects to see John Engler in Washington in the year 2001, if there's a Republican president. Not as president, mind you, but as a Cabinet member. Don't bet the farm on it, but don't be surprised either.
By the way, neither Fieger nor Engler is especially strong on gay and lesbian rights, though neither is a real homophobe either. Engler has largely stayed away from the issue in the last 8 years.
August 20, 1998
It's been about three months since I last shaved my head, or my face for that matter. So I figured I would put a new photo on this page so I wouldn't mislead anyone. You know... my problem is, I liked skin, and I like shaggy. So sometimes I'm frustrated because my hair isn't growing faster, and sometimes I want to shave it all off again. So far I'm letting it grow, although soon it'll be long enough to where it'll "need" a trim just so I don't look too weird.
I feel stuck in-between. I feel a little uneasy chatting with friends on IRC who I made when I started shaving my head. Yet some of my longhair friends still reminisce longingly about my two-foot ponytail. Maybe I should've replaced the mug shot with a photo of me wearing a hood. That way the hair thing would be moot. Hmm.... come to think of it, that might be a fun photo to take. ;-) I wonder what Geocities would say about that.
But rest assured I'm not losing too much sleep about the hair thing. I've proved it grows back when you cut it, so I'm doing OK. And at least I know I've got a good looking head in case I go bald when I'm 50.
September 4, 1998
I was in Denver last week visiting with my friends Jeremy and Mike.
It was beeyoutiful as always. When I visit Denver I tend to spend a lot of time
trying to convince myself to move there for good. Maybe I really will someday.
Hopefully before the housing costs get too much higher though -- there was
an article in the Denver Post last week about new houses averaging
$200,000. That's a heap of money to someone from a depressed housing market
like Detroit.
Aside from reading newspapers,
I played a concert at my hosts' house
and it went over really well -- I was very happy with it and it was a lot of fun.
I got to see old friends, went to the Colorado Historical Museum and saw the
Cheyenne Dog Soldier exhibit they have there (it's way cool), and drove up to
the mountains to see the town of Nederland and its laid-back life. Oh, and in the
oh-so-butch department, I helped Mike and Jeremy tear out their old kitchen floor(s) so
the real floor people could put in a new one.
Best of all, I had booked the
flight on an airline other than Northwest, so
I had no delays getting there or back. Although if I had been stranded in Denver,
I can't say I'd have been terribly unhappy.
October 8, 1998
I finally got my first tattoo! And then I finally got photos of it, so now I can unveil it to the web community at large. This must be the most important development since the release of the Starr Report on President Clinton, right? Well, at least it's nowhere near as pornographic.
Click on the photo and get another photo plus a brief story of how the tattoo came to be.
I've made quite a few other changes to the ol' Web Lair. F'rinstance, this page isn't completely black anymore. (Oh, you saw that... good....) I've also re-done the Photo section, updated the links page, and probably some other things I've forgotten. So maybe you should check the whole site out, huh? And then feel free to drop me an e-mail or sign the guestbook and let me know what you think.
October 27, 1998
Last week I decided I officially had a beard again. In September I trimmed what I had into a nice, long, scruffy goatee, which I liked. There's even a photo of that in my photo section. But I began to feel that I wanted to have the full beard again, just as long as the goatee was. So I shaved it all and started over. It took about three weeks before I could say "Yeah that's a beard" instead of feeling like I just hadn't shaved in a while. You know what I mean, right?
And it's been five months since the last time I shaved my head, so now I'm back to combing my hair and waiting for it to dry again. It just feels like time for me to get scruffy again, so I'm going to let the hair grow for a good while and see what happens. That was kind of a difficult decision, in a way, because... well, dang, it's fun shaving my head. But I like having long hair too. Can only do one or the other I guess. So like your typical mammal, I'm going for the more fur approach as winter descends on Michigan. Insulation is a good thing.
November 16, 1998
I've been taking a while between updates to this front-page journal on my web site. If you're not a regular visitor to the Web Lair, you probably didn't notice. I have no idea if there ARE regular visitors to the Web Lair, but that's neither here nor there. There's been things going on in my life, but I haven't found them all that noteworthy, I guess.
What, you don't believe me? Hmm, either (1) you think "He's been busy, he just doesn't want to tell us", or (2) you're thinking "Oh, no one could have as dull a life as me... g'wan, I dare you." Well, I'll show you both.
Let's see... I had a music party over the weekend, which was a lot of fun. But I way overbought on munchies. Want some pretzels? .... I bought a new pair of boots a few weeks ago. Sixteen-inch lineman boots. As you might know, I'm not in the telephone pole climbing business. Guess I'm into boots now. Photos coming soon, if I ever get them out of the camera. ... Speaking of cameras, I went up north about a month ago with a friend and photographed about 20 light houses along the shores of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Was a fun trip. Of course any trip up north is better than being at work...
Well, OK, maybe I've been filling my time pretty well. Anyway, come back soon and I'll try to have a couple of light house photos on the site. As well as some boot pictures.
December 6, 1998
The new Boots! page is now online. Be forewarned, there are five photos on the page, and though none of them is very big, if you have a slower connection it might take a few seconds to load. Hope it's worth the wait.
I got an assurance last week that there is at least one regular reader of these little intro blurbs. Thanks. :-) (P.S. longer letter coming.)
The high temperatures have been in the upper 50s and lower 60s (Fahrenheit, or between 12 and 17 degrees Celsius) here for the last week and a half. You may be inclined to believe that's unusual for Detroit at this time of the year, and you would be right. Despite what the thermometer said, I put my Christmas lights up today, and I even started my shopping. If you started your shopping long ago or are even finished already, I don't want to hear about it. If you don't mind, I'm going to back into denial for another week or so before I do any more shopping. It's scary out in those shopping centers.
December 22, 1998
Cold weather has finally arrived here for Christmas. Mind you, I can't really say that anyone had put cold weather on their Christmas list this year, so maybe we got a "gift" no one really wanted. But I happen to know that Santa wasn't in on this one.
Speaking of Christmas lists, I think right now at the top of my list would be the gift of seeing in the news headlines that the entire Republican caucus of Congress had been recalled in retalliation for the shenanigans last week. And let them take Clinton with them. I'm just so sick of the mess in Washington I could scream. You want to talk about a collection of people with no sense of what's important.... One only hopes that the Senate finds some semblance of sanity when they take on this impeachment thing.
Forgive me, I would have been a bit more eloquent in that rant but it's the holidaze and I'm frazzled. Anyway, let me wish you a happy and healthful holiday season with all of the joy and none of the insanity.
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