why? maybe just because i never post shit like this

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[the fonts are all messed up in this post--god, i hate blogger sometimes]

so i met my colleagues for dinner tonight in the break room as usual, and john showed up on this casual friday in a trendy striped T which looked so great on him that i was moved to say, "oh my god, you're so 'tommy kirk circa 1962'!" (a compliment he not only got, but was inordinately pleased by).

which established the topic for tonight's dinner conversation: who were your formative childhood crushes?

it was a subject i hadn't thought about for years, but once the question was asked, they came back to me almost instantly, each and every one.

and so, without further ado, allow me to present for your delectation, commentary and ridicule, the boys that made me squirmy way back before my balls had even dropped:

1. rick nelson


my first crush--i first became aware of him when i was maybe four or five, and would thereafter sit each week glued to the television, completely oblivious of ozzie, harriet and brother david, coming alive only when ricky graced the screen.

tell me--has a more beautiful, more talented boy ever fuckin' lived? (and don't even start with the zac efron, because i'll have to hurt you.)

2. billy gray


while he couldn't hold a candle to ricky, bud from father knows best still managed to give me that fluttery, squishy feeling in my four-year-old kishkas that i didn't understand but so looked forward to each and every week.

and, for that matter, so did

3. bobby diamond


premise of the show: lonely single rancher adopts troubled teenage boy--i mean, what's not to love?

4. tony dow

leave it to beaver was another of the favored shows of my youth (although mostly in reruns), and i didn't care if it was the young wally who turned up when the show came on each week


or the grown-up one

either way, i was mush.

5. don grady


what can i say--i loved me some robby.


ok, enough tv--let's move on to the big screen.

6. james macarthur


one of my beloved grandmother's all-time favorite movies was spencer's mountain, and as much as i loved henry fonda and maureen o'hara, and no matter how many times i sat through this movie with her, i could never tear my seven-year-old eyes away from the luscious clayboy long enough to appreciate them.

7. tommy kirk


i can't remember which disney movie i saw tommy in first, but it doesn't really matter--from that first frame of film, i knew we were destined to be together.


and last in our parade of objects of my youthful lust, but far from least,



yeah, so i was once in love with a cartoon character. eat me--i was seven.

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so there you have it: the full panoply of my prepubescent obsessions. enjoy (or not).

whatever--to close this post we're gonna go full-circle, back to where it all began:



so, tell me--who were yours?

because i am nothing if not a giver

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i've rearranged the furniture a little--added a sidebar on the left in order to make it easier for my legions of readers to find everything i have to say on any given topic with one click.

please--don't all eleven of you thank me at once.

the whole torture thing

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People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.

george orwell

as i sit here and watch the torture debate rage back and forth among people who have not the slightest clue as to what they're talking about, three questions seem to keep coming up:

1. what, exactly, constitutes torture;

2. under what circumstances, if any, is torture ever morally justified; and

3. is it ever even effective?

and if you think i'm even gonna try to answer these questions in this post, you're dead wrong, because when it comes to this subject, i have no idea what i'm talking about either--but unlike everybody else, i'm at least willing to admit it.

and that's my point: fuck the politicians, the public and the half-ass opinions they rode in on--effective, efficient intelligence-gathering is best left to the experts, and that's where this matter should've stayed.

see, every nation has two sides: (1) the high-minded face it puts forth to the world; and (2) the dark underside that actually gets shit done. and it's generally understood--by every nation but us, apparently--that that's the way it must be, and the less talked-about, the better.

am i saying i "condone" torture? no. what i'm saying is, as a soft, sheltered american civilian, i haven't clue one as to what it really takes to keep us safe in our beds each night--and neither do you. as such, i give about as much credibility to someone who says they'd never under any circumstances condone torture as i do to someone who makes the same claim about abortion. because, seriously, folks--it's a rough, tough world out there, and if you really think omelettes get made without breaking a few eggs, then you need to wake up and smell the coffee.

then, you might ask, am i saying our intelligence services should be allowed carte blanche in terms of how they operate? again, no--there should be oversight, but it should be managed discreetly and at the highest levels of government, and not be made a political football to be kicked about in the public arena as is being currently done.

having said all that--and putting aside for the moment the above three questions--i'll now give you my thoughts on this mess:

1. the bush administration was wrong. i believe the CIA was probably pushed into waterboarding those guys by a bush administration so desperate to tie al qaeda to iraq that they'd take any link they could get by any means, no matter how faulty it might turn out to be later. and i'll further bet the CIA knew at the time "garbage in, garbage out," but couldn't get anybody in power at the time to listen.

2. the obama administration is wrong. i further believe that a dangerously naive new president came into office believing his own campaign bullshit, and, ignoring the fundamental truths i outlined above, piously and mindlessly turned on his (and our) intelligence watchdogs--who, i'm gratified to see, then apparently bit him in the ass and clued him in as to what's really up (what makes me think this? simple: read this--oh, and while you're at it, this).

3. nancy pelosi is an idiot. i'd have respected her more (fine--detested her less) had she had the cojones to forego the craven ass-covering and just say, "yeah, i signed off on the waterboarding because i thought the safety of the country was at stake. judgment call--sue me."

bottom line: as we fall on our collective knees, wailing and rending our garments over laughably minor crap like abu ghraib, guantanamo and a little waterboarding in a futile plea to win the world's forgiveness--not understanding that such appeasement is always perceived, by enemies and friends alike, as weakness--i watch the middle east solidify in its hatred and contempt for the west, north korea starve its people in order to feed its million-man army, russia rattle its newly-sharpened sabers, israel prepare to decimate iran, and the taliban overrun nuclear-armed pakistan.

and me? i dunno whether to laugh, cry or move to australia.

happy day, ma

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love,

your baby

sober update: see? i'm not always a mean drunk.