Former Member

An amusing take on the old fairytale.

Happy Birthday!!!

Politicians, Prosecutors, and Judges all love to act tough on crime to get reelected. Grand gestures like Three Strikes sound good, but are painted too broadly with mandatory sentences that fill prisons, but do not solve the real problem: rehabilitation. Petty criminals are not steered towards better behavior. And white collar criminals get slaps on the wrist for much more damaging crimes. Corporations are made up of people and it’s meaningless to declare that the corporation committed a crime, but then never punish the people, including the CEO, who made the criminal decisions. Wells Fargo made a big deal of firing low-level and mid-management positions, but the CEO never admitted to personal guilt. If the CEO was unaware of the widespread criminal behavior of his staff, he is too incompetent to be CEO and should be fired – minus the Golden Parachute!

YES! We want to torture everyone!! I have the one recording of Devin du village you mention, and it's extremely important to compare and contrast to Mozart's infinitely better singspiel version, Bastien und Bastienne. The 2006 Salzburg production of the latter opera is really fascinating, and I love the urban-suburban setting with the yellow streetlight following the original libretto precisely changing the action slowly from twilight to night. I'm so happy you mentioned Rousseau's stage work here ​I could not locate the 2006 production, but here's a sample of the opera

Re: my chapter 4 Review. I forgot to mention in my last review that my conversation with my therapist about porn was pretty dry. No detailed descriptions of genitalia – the closest was my answer to her question about what I considered to be average: 5-5.5”. It wasn’t a very significant part of our session. She did ask why I brought it up though. (I don’t really have anyone else to discuss the psychological aspect of the topic and it was just something I’ve contemplated for a while.) I’m wondering how much of Ryan’s problem is the act of bottoming on camera and how much is due to the fact that he was in the scene with Erik? I somehow think Ryan wouldn’t have reacted the same way if it had been a different performer who topped him. How would he have reacted if he had topped Erik?

Great chapter! I liked the couple, who asked to not find their mates the best. It shows an other perspective. Looking forward for the next chapter.

Please describe the videos you post so those of us who block automatic video loading/playing know what you want us to see.

Personally, I don’t believe that handing cash to a homeless person is a good idea. The ones who are out begging for money are not the ones who have the best chance of ever remaining housed. The ones with the drive and determination to change their status don’t have the time to waste with their hands out. It’s the ones who have given up and are refusing other assistance who sit on the sidewalk with a cup or stand on the island in the middle of a busy street with a cardboard sign. The ones who will succeed are working to earn money. If they can’t get a regular, wage-paying job, they’re working as day laborers. Or they’re inside government offices working to get the benefits due them. Or they’re inside nonprofits applying for assistance. It’s hard work being homeless with endless lines and delays. But only the ones who have given up are usually visible. And smellable.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DEAR FRIEND all the best to you

One my favorite late-period Gershwin compositions, written very shortly before he died....

“Keeping yourselves ready to fight is an absolute necessity. Our troops are drilled and trained to do that and will to fight when needed.” The ‘to’ after will doesn’t belong. This room was again, not overly furnished. I think there should also be a comma before the word ‘again.’ I’m told he knew how to pass what is in a person’s blood that…maybe he know how a man who was attacked by some illness or these little creatures or some like these, but survived, making his body capable of defeating the little creatures again. ‘Maybe he know’? Like a yoke separated from the whites. An egg has a yolk, yokes are used so animals can pull carts and wagons. Now we’re making progress on the medical field. Dr Warren and Ryan need to talk! Is Ryan the only one who knows how to do all that?

Adding another kid with major issues seems like an odd thing to do when Ryder and his dad were having such big problems. This one conversation will lessen, but not eliminate, the tension between them. I think they need to be further along in fixing their existing problems before adding more. In the movie Closet Monster, the protagonist is Oscar and his coworker is Wilder. The writer claimed to have not realized the ‘coincidental’ name choice. A big plus is Isabella Rossellini as the voice of Oscar’s pet hamster! (See my review here.)

Sir Traffic Cone? Well, I’ve heard of porn performers who have ‘accommodated’ them… Has Rob been practicing? ;-) I’ll let you decide when you are ready for more Jazz inspiration! ;-) And thank you. I’ll put the pitchfork away – for now! ;-)

It seems like they’d been slowly drifting apart and they moved onward and upward fixing up old houses, distracted by working on the buildings. It’s no wonder Brandon was so attracted to the tile guy.

Hey William! We used to call them tank tops until all those cheap, sensationalistic cop shows started broadcasting low-level criminals getting arrested and handcuffed in their undershirts. ;-) Even when directly confronted with the question, Jen refuses to see that Brett has a very real mental health problem. Something she has the training and experience to recognize and diagnose, but she seems to go way out of her way to excuse his behavior – hopefully something she does not do with her patients! I didn’t realize the admonition to doctors about not treating themselves extended to their families too. Every single one of your characters is deeply flawed. And in ways that almost seem designed to cause the maximum possible conflict between them. ;-)

There were a few uneaten kernels of popcorn which I flung at Tony as he laughed. Nothing wrong except unpopped would make more sense. Which, well, it was my truck and I did miss Bubba, but I had gotten used to the other car Tony insist I drive to and from work. Insisted? Insists? Is the initial ‘which’ necessary? He had to have turned down, going down and up heading access lane. He was now going east in direction on the west heading lane and going very, very fast. These two sentences are confusing – I only have an idea what you were trying to say, but it’s kind of jumbled. “The doctor’s on his way, Mr. Delveccio, she’ll want to access the situation.” Wrong pronoun. “He can access all she wants, but I’m staying!” Again. She then did the whole thing, making me move my arm and touch my nose and ran a thing up my feet to gage a reaction which I felt. Gauge. All the little Holiday traditions we’ve all been participating in since we were children that can now be experienced with new eyes! I got to do a few of them with my oldest nephew, but my brothers didn’t bring the others around as often after that. They didn’t encourage me to do more. I gave them all gifts on birthdays and on Christmas until just before I became homeless.

I think from Erik’s point of view, the video was spectacular, way better than they ever hoped it could be. He saw it as an amazing interaction between two performers that must be replicated and continued with additional scenes. He doesn’t understand the complex psychological devastation it caused to Ryan’s self-image. None of that was visible to Erik at the time of the recording session and he doesn’t understand why Ryan has not responded to Gary’s and his attempts to contact him. I think Erik will be shocked to find out why Ryan has reacted the way he did.

My doctor told me to stop drinking orange juice because it’s just sugar. I’ve cut out juice and cut way back on soda. I drink my chemicals in a different form: the water flavor drops (Mio, Crush, Kool-Aid, etc) that are bad for me in an entirely different way. But at least they don’t contain sugar.

Before the fireplace was a table and there we chairs there. There were? “There’s you answer.” Your. King Mordor asked as they served us some roasted chicken that smelled devine. Divine. Yay! We find out that the Creids are not the primitive barbarians that everyone thought they were! And they aren’t as isolated as we were initially led to believe. I think it would be fun to find out that they’ve developed a more advanced method of heating their castle – some sort of radiant heating or a clever use of their metal technology? Something not developed yet in Blethos or A’Dore.

Thursday’s episode mentioned Randy Shilts. He was a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle. He later wrote And the Band Played On, a definitive chronicle of the early days of the AIDS epidemic. HBO produced an award winning movie based on the book. Especially the book will provide a whole lot more detail on the AIDS crisis and how the government, the Gay community, and various organizations responded (or not, in the case of the Feds). I did my little bit by walking in many walkathons to raise money for several different AIDS organizations. I volunteered for my local AIDS support group, but, as usual, I did my own thing. I started out doing clerical work for a phone bank scheduling people for AIDS prevention meetings. I got disgusted with how my coworkers spent most of their time playing around and started making calls myself. After that particular part of the program lost its funding, I started working with the Education Department and helped staff booths and distribute condoms – I even got to do an event in a Gay bathhouse (which still exists today). Eventually, I decided that I would make weekly announcements about the AIDS Project at the Men’s Groups at the local Gay Community Center. I hate being the center of attention, but I forced myself to get up in front of 40-60 guys every week. I got used to it and people began to expect me to get up and speak. I also decided, based on my retail experience, that nonprofits were woefully and painfully missing the point of posting flyers on the Gay Community Center’s bulletin boards. The boards were a sea of xeroxed pages with just a bit of color provided by the occasional pastel-colored sheets. Now, you have to realize that at the time, my computer was an old Apple IIe with a dot-matrix printer – not really suitable for graphics. So I started using and abusing the copy machine at the AIDS Project to copy and scale up and down images I’d drawn on graph paper or text that I’d typed on my parents’ typewriter or that I’d put together with rub-off lettering sheets. I’d play with the designs and tape them together in literal cut-and-paste. Then I’d go back to the Project and copy my designs. Then I’d go home and hand-color them using felt-tip pens. When I posted these flyers at the Community Center, they just popped against the bland flyers that everyone else produced. I had decided that I would create a new flyer every month, themed to the month, just like stores do with their sales. As I did a few, my skills increased and I found out that the staff at the Community Center was moving my old flyers to a different board because they liked them so much. The original program that I’d volunteered for was Stop AIDS, whose logo was based on a stop sign. I decided that the overall theme of the posters should be a stylized condom package set on end to look like a warning sign. The initial flyers had it colored yellow just like a traffic sign. With later flyers, I got more creative and used more interesting colors and layouts. I used my graph paper to create a version of a dot-matrix font – the dots echoed the disk shape of the condoms too. Eventually, the Executive Director of the Project decided I was too much of a loose cannon and wanted approval of anything I created, so I stopped making them. I’ve recreated some of the designs using professional graphics software on my Mac. I was able to incorporate a few tiny little jokes. One of the Dingbat fonts that I have has a spy image. I hid the image near a corner and have him saying things that I find amusing. Most people will never see it because it’s so small. But I’ve never posted the computerized flyers and have only shown them to a few of my therapists. I don’t really have a venue to post them anymore.

Glad you decided to publish this one. It is an excellent written story about an important issue. Hugs Lyssa

Thank you all for your considerate and helpful responses. Now I just have to overcome one of my longterm mental disabilities (procrastination, doubt, anxiety, and depression) and do more research on what they require. ;-)

That’s pretty much what I planned to do. The staff at the nonprofit I use are not the most educated people out there. They have all pretty much had the same background, moving from homeless client with minimal training to staff (GED, with Community College a slight possibility). This is typical of most of the staff at the organizations I dealt with as a homeless person. The two exceptions being government agencies (probably community college graduates) and religious groups where a small handful have a much more advanced education with one being a Doctor of Divinity. My self education is wider and deeper than the majority of them. I have moderate confidence in my ability to successfully apply. Aside from the doctoral candidates who provide psychological therapy and their supervisor, I am the best educated at that location by far, clients included. Having someone who has dealt with addiction and homelessness is a big help when dealing with most of the clients. They can read bs with their eyes closed.

These characters are complex and confusing in a way that completely different from anything else I’ve read. ;-)

I am only a client, not a staff member, so there isn’t much I can offer the company.