I've Been Tagged by Thivai Abhor... Please Bear With Me.

I usually don't play, (well with others) but since it's Thivai Abhor... well...
Dialogic: A Quick Game of Blog Tag

Let's see, 5 things about me... hmmmm...

1). I am the oldest of 3 boys. When we were young, I had to 'watch' my brothers because both of my parents worked. Needless to say, our house was the neighborhood 'hangout' for all the kids on my block. Looking back now, I can see that we were the "crazy family down the street", and the other kids' parents restricted their kids from playing with us.
That never stopped any of them, though...
...And how the hell did I get into cooking?
Well, if I didn't cook, we didn't eat. Simple...

2). When I was in second grade, our Nun told us a Bible Story about how Jacob burned a lamb on the altar, to atone for his sins. Later that day, I remarked in the playground that I had never seen our altar in the Church on fire with or without a sacrificial lamb burning... A few of the older kids heard this, and egged me on to start the altar on fire, which I did (I was totally obsessed with fire when I was young). Well, I got beat so badly by the Nuns, the Priest, My Parents and my Grandfather that I couldn't sit down for a week. You would think that that would have cured my obsession with fire... Today, I'm a saute cook and I have absolutely no use for any 'organized' religion, whichever one it might be, go figure.

3). In college I studied Comparative Religion, Philosophy, Yoga and Art, I was a wild little Hippie. If there was any cause that meant anything... I'd be at the demonstration. You could bet on that. When Kent State & Jackson happened, I was out in the street demonstrating. When Jane Fonda and the anti-war movement came to town, I was there. When Angela Davis was thrown in jail, I was that white brother on the street corner asking for your signature on the petition to free her. I was all about getting the Communist Party on the ballot in CT for election year 1972 (even though I ended up voting for Geroge McGovern...) And when I was the only white person there representin'... That never bothered me. I was out there in the community doing service with all the Black Panthers and the Welfare Mothers... Always colorblind and still am after all these years.

4). Finally settling down (only an opinion) in the mid-seventies, I became that Pagan bartender at the local biker bar, you know... the one with the dancing girls, and after being kidnapped quite a few times by our local chapter of the EZ riders club (very rough trade), while beating the clientele back from the 'stage' with a stick, I met a girl I thought I could settle down with, but she took me on a journey half way around the country and back again; and it seemed that there was more to life for both of us than just that. Our son is now 31 (and lives next door to us in the apartment), and my ex and I are both 'remarried' (or re-partnered, whatever the hell you'd like to call it - it's the same damn thing); she to an 'ex-gay' man in Arizona, and I, being the 'Heathen-Pagan Deadhead' that I am... to a certain ex-Ukrainian Orthodox Priest from Texas. (but that's another story...)
In the mid-eighties (1985), I attended my first ever Gay Pride Parade in NYC as a member of BWMT (Black & White Men Together) New Haven Chapter, and got involved in the AIDS awareness campaign (SILENCE = DEATH), since my best friend & roomate from college was infected; and it seemed that the whole universe was ignoring the fact that this fucking disease was stealing more & more lives away every day. Back then herpes got the biggest promotion as disease of the century, not that it's not a serious condition also, but that's the way it was in those God-forsaken "Regan Years"...
(RIP Alfons... I still MISS & LOVE you with all my HEART, Bro). Not a day goes by that I am not thinking about our lost brothers & sisters. I think most all of us have lost someone we've cared about over the years to this dreaded killer with no boundaries...

5). And now... I've been in the restaurant business nearly 35 years, and I'm still trying to find a way out; but I think that I'm cursed to live out the remainder of my time in the Old Cooks & Waitresses Home. The 'culinary field' was a good outlet for me to use my artistic and creative talents earlier on - and it has always been the one thing that I've always happened to fall back on - but now I just want to do paintings and sculpture, which I have denied myself from doing for various and sundry reasons all these years. My interest in music has also been supressed, and has also been rearing it's ugly head here of late...
It's no use, though... I'll probably be buried with a silver spatula up my ass...

[:::]

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IN THE AIRWAVES:

THE MOODY BLUES - "A QUESTION OF BALANCE" (1970)

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For Ran... My Bumperstickers..

Click Pic to Enlarge

Bumper Sticker Heaven

Ran has an article on his site: "No religion Now" which is pretty thought provoking about "bumper stickers" and the intelligence of the people who drive the vehicles on which they appear...

I wonder what he would think of my "Bessie - The Green Finned Demon". My "wandering Billboard"..."The Green Dragon" which is my 'chariot'.

She's getting pretty expensive to keep now, since the price of her food has skyrocketed, but I just can't seem to give her up just yet...
Even though last week, while transporting a Player Piano, the wheel-gate wasn't hitched and swung open, hitting a lawyer's SUV and smashing the side view mirror off his vehicle... It would have to have been a lawyer, but he was way cool with it, and thanked me for coming into the office to tell him what happened.

[Thanks to the "Forces" that be that was all that occurred.]

Unseen stickers that are hidden in the photo:
Behind the wheel on the back:

"PRO-LOVE"

"God Bless The Grateful Dead"

"TAKE A HIKE - Long Trail Ale"

"HRC =Equality="

"Peace Through Music"

...and of course my personal favorite:

The Last Time We Mixed Politics With Religion... People Got Burned At The Stake.

And then, there is the front of "Bessie":

If you look closely, above the rearview mirror on the windshield you will see:
"NAMASTE"

... and on the front bumper:

"LOVE YOUR MOTHER [EARTH]"

and "BAN LANDMINES"

I'm just wondering what Ran [and what everyone who sees her] would think if he saw this beast driving towards him on the highway...

All I know is that it keeps people behind me occupied at red lights. LOL

Peace

p.s. "Inteligence Quotient" was not invoked at the time of the 'slapping-on' of Bumper stickers.

RELATED NY Times article

and Raw Story article

WHAT COLOR IS TODAY?

Environmentally Streaking - Naked;
Never! Speaking... THE TRUTH in tongues ...about Poli-tricks
...and regurgitated Religion in Bars, where the
"bars and starz" 'Security' Tsars drink BLACKWATER and be-Head 'em off at the Past -
For GAWD & GOLDEN CALF with a Wholly Relic repertoire of:
10 Commandments on 2 Sacred Sands of Time-Release Tablets in an ARC.
O Moses... Get Thy Shit Together!

As Immigrant Drivers license Bladder & Border Control with
911 for Saddam's WMD, and sell
Black Persian Ivory in the Pink Sunni Triangle,
RED w/ BLOOD 4 OIL...
For Burial 'RIGHTS' in the festering Swamp of a Freshkill, NY Landfill
From Twin Towers in the good old U-S of A.
Half-Nation UNDER GOD with Liberty to...
Fears of Queers Dominating the Rite Christian Parasites' Faith-Based
and pinioned on what?
Republican AIDS and Lollypops?
Virgin Mary's Great Cheesy Toast Face would sandwich
the Golden Rule of 28,000... (Corporative Values)
Which could solve a bit of malnutrition @ the 10% level...
Passion of the Fruit Baskets-Bawl & Brawling, scrawling
Evangelical Gobbledygook: 'In God We Trust'
As Jesus Saves, Mohammed Daraghmeh Invests... the FUTURE...
On MONEY's Millions: the square root of ALL Evil Axis: Bold as Love.
Crusading Onward X-tian Soldiers PHishing the
Defense of 'Traditional' Marriage -@ any cost- from the
Shades of Grey Waters, that mean absolutely nothing
To the Black & White Reality TV show-ing and leading me onto Fantasy Island.

*Take a Tax Deduction for those 'Little Blue Thrill Pills',
That, if discovered to be from O'Canada!,
Incriminate you to be the cellmate of Wife and Unborn Baby-killers.
Of the 'PATRI-di-OT-ic' ACT-ing |[I or II]| Right-eously in the
Holy-Land of the Free; HOMO the Brave, Alexander-O'Great;
On that Eve of Destruction in the midst of:
The Great Moral Value Crisis Hanging in 'The Balance':
And cover naked JUST-US with a cloth of finest silk.

...Of the 51(+) into (-)49%... (or vice-versa if so inclined)
on 0-2 of 11 Tuesday ...in the year of Our Lord 2004.
As Opposed To 11 of 0-9 Tuesday ...in the year of Our Lord 2001.
Which really equals =|ZERO|=...(as far as Democratic Vision goes)

When ALL, who think THEIR WILL BE Dunne, Irene, Goodnight-
With little chance of Sexual Side Effects: bin Laden's in a
Secret Inner Sanctum, with separate sets of Doctrines,
Drunk on Anthrax and Serin, chased with U-235;
Simply Because He Blew a Piston/Pacer with aluminum tubes
On his way through Detroit to The Promised Land.
In search of the Wholly Plastic Beer Cup...
Grailing -"INFIDEL!", As Abu Musab with a 'dirty bomb' Proclaims...
"al-Qaida's Divine Manifesto";
And the ROYAL Family insur/gently weep with Jihad @ these
'Satanic Verses' and... Burning Bush's Mandate... release
Such blaspheming-heretics in their 'HolyLand' of 'Spider'-Hole-y lands.

...And whilst residing here in "Both Americas"...
...Choose one.
...The other will be forfeit...
-a 'poem' by Rainbow Demon-
(reprinted with permission)

***Note: This hypertext poem was originally written about two weeks after the 2004 US election, so a few links may be dead)

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