Culinary Proclivities

Yesterday’s episode of Anderson Cooper’s talk show featured people with strange eating habits, including Cooper himself. For example, he eats very few food items and when he finds a meal he likes, he’ll eat that same meal, day after day, month after month. Right now, it’s roast turkey and two sides of corn from Boston Market.


The program also featured two women who’ve only eaten potatoes for over fifty years. Can you imagine that? Nothing but French fries and hash browns for 50 years.

I thought, “My gosh, these people are messed up!” That is, until I took a look at my own eating habits and even had some pointed out to me.

I don't eat breakfast or dessert. The idea of piling in food the first thing in the morning or after a meal just doesn't appeal to me.
Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always eaten one thing at a time; never taking a bite of this and a bite of that. I just don’t like mixing things up. Big deal.

But, at home, I realized that I only eat one food item for every meal. Pasta and marinara sauce is one food item. Pizza. A sandwich. Lentil curry and rice. I would never make, say, roast chicken with potatoes, a vegetable and a salad for a meal. I don’t think I’d even enjoy it. However, I could put veggies in the tomato sauce that is served over pasta.

Another proclivity of mine that Miss Healthypants pointed out to me is that I never eat the last bite of anything. “Well, yeah. That last bite is just . . . nasty,” I replied. I never really thought about it, but the last bite of anything just seems, well, nasty or contaminated. I don’t know why.

The strangest food aversion I have is that I won’t use my fingers to eat anything oily. French fries, pizza, chicken all get the knife-and-fork treatment. Popcorn is eaten with a spoon or, better yet, with latex gloves. Seeing people eat honey barbecue wings on a commercial? It sends shivers down my spine. I have to look away.

As I’m typing this, I have a little bowl of roasted peanuts with a plastic spoon beside me.

So, I can’t rail at anyone on TV about their food habits. I have them. I suppose we all do to some extent.

And if I’m ever in New York and take Anderson Cooper out for lunch, I’ll know to head for Boston Market. 

He'll appreciate that.

Giggly Anderboo

A close friend of mine refers to Anderson Cooper as "Anderboo". She's even met him a couple of times. 

The clip of Anderboo totally losing it and getting the giggles has gone viral today, but she sent it to me early this morning.

Ya gotta admit, it really is cute and funny. 

New Satire Article

It's been a while since I wrote a satire piece, but after Pat Robertson's idiotic remark about Haiti, I couldn't let him get away with that. You can see the published version here.

Pat Robertson Mortified by Haitian ‘Miracle’

by Buckner Wheat

PORT AU PRINCE - Much to the horror of TV evangelist, Pat Robertson, an overwhelming majority of monetary donations to Haiti’s earthquake victims are being sent by gay men from across the U.S. and Canada – a trend that has had Red Cross officials completely baffled.

The TV evangelist came under recent fire for claiming that the devastating earthquake was God’s retribution for Haiti’s “pact with the devil” over two hundred years ago; a statement that immediately brought ire from both the right and left of the political spectrum.

“At first, I thought this might be a knee-jerk reaction by the gay community to Mr. Robertson’s idiotic statement,” said Red Cross President & CEO, Gail McGovern. She cited a Pat Robertson voodoo doll that recently fetched over one thousand dollars for Haitian relief on eBay.

“But there had to be something more to it than that,” she thought.

While waiting for a departing flight at Chicago’s O’Hare International, McGovern notice that members of Chicago’s gay hockey team, the Puck-Buddies, were glued to CNN’s coverage of the events in Haiti while waiting to depart.

“At first, I couldn’t figure out why these men were so engrossed in CNN’s coverage – that is, until Anderson Cooper appeared in his skin-tight, Gap t-shirt. It was very obvious that Cooper’s been working out quite a bit lately and that his muscle-bound physique was quite spellbounding to members of this group.”

The moment Cooper asked the viewing audience for donations to the Haitian relief fund by texting 90999, every member of the Puck-Buddies suddenly whipped out their iPhones and began contributing feverishly.

At one point, airport paramedics had to be called to the scene when Miss Kitty Litter, a local female impersonator and Puck-Buddy mascot, suddenly fainted upon seeing Mr. Cooper rescue a young man from a riot by effortlessly carrying him to safety, thanks to his newly-pumped biceps.

“Millions of dollars have been pouring in every day; coincidently all donations have been received whenever Anderson Cooper has been reporting from Haiti. And frankly, Pat Robertson couldn’t have ended up with more egg on his face.”

Robertson and his staff at The 700 Club refused to comment on the recent turn of events.

“I can’t thank the gay community enough,” reported McGovern. “Due to their generosity, along with Mr. Cooper’s appeal, the situation in Haiti is finally turning around. It’s truly a miracle.”

Not wanting to be outdone, FOX News has deployed their commentator, Sean Hannity, to the scene with little more than several tank-tops and a half-dozen Speedos.

Work It

I hate working out. I really do.

I know I should get more exercise, especially now that I’m firmly implanted in middle age. I feel a lot better when I exercise. I really do want to look good and feel good and live a long, healthy life. I really do.

But working out hurts. And I don't like pain.

We’ve heard the saying, “No pain, No gain.” My mom who has been an athletic coach all my life is particularly fond of that saying. I love my mom like nobody else but you know how those coaches are.

But my philosophy has always been,

“No pain . . .

Hey . . . . no pain!”

I have this great membership at a very nice health club that couldn’t be more convenient for me to go to. It’s next door to my workplace and even connected by an underground walkway so you don’t even have to go outside to get there.

My workplace gets a discount there and then even pays for half of our memberships. My employer obviously wants us to be healthy. It’s practically a crime for me not to go there on a regular basis.

It even has a sushi bar inside.

But still, I haven’t been going.

No pain . .

. . . well, you know.

However, I am going to go today for one reason and one reason only.

I need my shoes shined.

You see, this health club is so nice that it has a shoe shining service. You just plop your shoes in the window by the dressing room and when you’re done with your workout, your shoes are waiting for you all nice and shiny.

I hate to shine shoes and I’m not very good at it either.

So, I’m going to work out today just so I can get my shoes shined.

Isn’t that just about the most pitiful thing ever?

I was on the phone with my friend, Jack, today and telling him about this. (Jack, by the way, works out all the time. He’s even running in the Chicago Marathon on Sunday.)

Here’s our conversation:

"So, how many times have you had your shoes shined?" he asked.

"Twice."

I really should work out.

Look at Anderson Cooper from CNN.

He’s always been this pasty, skinny news anchor but he’s been buffing up lately now that he’s middle aged. Someone snapped this photo of the Coopster working out yesterday. Could I be doing the same thing?
Just look at those guns. . .


My guess is he’s just dating someone way younger.

But see? He’s obviously in terrible pain and pain is what I try to avoid if at all possible.

I’ll bet his shoes are really shiny, though.

Mine could use a lot of shining right now.

New Vatican Guidelines

Well, it’s not surprising, but a Catholic church in Melbourne Australia has embraced a Vatican recommendation to test potential priests for sexual orientation.

Under the guidelines, potential priests who "appear" to be gay must be banned.

I have just two words for Pope Benedict:

Glass Houses . . .

Can you believe that? Now I wonder what this “test” would involve. I envision that it might look something like this:

VATICAN SEXUALITY TEST

1. Salmon and champagne are:

a. food items
b. brunch items
c. The new color scheme of your guest bedroom.

2. You keep abreast of current events from which of the following:

a. Fox News
b. CNN
c. Lifetime Television and the Style Network

3. Here is a video of Michael Phelps and Anderson Cooper together in a pool. Do you:

a. ignore it
b. click on the link out of curiosity
c. email it to twenty friends and place it on your Facebook page.

4. A cardinal is:

a. a baseball player in St. Louis
b. a red bird
c. a senior church official who wears Prada and gold lamè

5. When dining out, what beverage do you usually request?

a. Beer
b. Merlot
c. A dirty martini at the waiter’s apartment

6. What is your position on same-sex marriage?

a. it should be banned in every country
b. it should be left to the states to decide
c. mine would need to be annulled before entering the seminary

7. With whom did you have your first sexual encounter?

a. a prostitute my dad paid for
b. myself
c. a senior church official wearing Prada and gold lamè

8. With whom did you prefer to have had your first sexual encounter?

a. the head cheerleader in high school
b. anyone but myself
c. a baseball player in St. Louis

EVALUATING THE RESULTS:

If you answered “A” to more than six questions, you would clearly not fit in to the Roman Catholic priesthood but your contact information will be kept on file by each priest in your diocese.

If you answered “B” to more than six questions, your suitability would be questionable and your contact information will be kept on file by each priest in your diocese.

If you answered “C” to more than six questions, congratulations! Welcome to the priesthood! Please limit yourself to no more than one dozen hat boxes when moving into the seminary.

Twenty-Five Things

Lorraine, bless her heart, tagged me to write 25 things about myself. I’ll try to think of things I’ve not posted on here yet.

1. I’m not fond of chocolate.
2. I love downhill skiing and want to take Lorraine because she's never been skiing before.
3. Bourbon and rum make me gag.
4. I cannot do two things at once
5. A well-known celebrity made a pass at me when I was 22.
6. I have an inordinate interest in area codes
7. My personal value is directly related to the number of people that read my blog
8. I still don’t have gray hair
9. I don’t color my hair
10. My parents were married 50 years + 8 months ago
11. I’ll be turning 50 next month. You do the math.
12. I will never get a tattoo
13. I hate boating
14. I was once walking across a moor in England and saw a white horse running through the mist.
15. I've always had a fear of leaving a pen or pencil pointing to the left
16. I have to see a map – I absolutely cannot follow verbal directions
17. I love music by The Killers
18. I’ve read five biographies about Janis Joplin
19. A close friend of mine recently proposed to Anderson Cooper
20. I have incredibly nice-looking legs
21. I don’t own any shorts
22. I was once employed as a telephone operator
23. I have a thing for prime numbers, so I’m stopping at number 23.

If you've read this, consider yourself "tagged".

Hurricane Ike

I just got up at 6:00 am on Saturday morning to check on Hurricane Ike and its impact on my folks in Texas.

It looks like they have been spared any nasty bits of this storm. Here is the Houston radar right now. It looks like Ike is smashing into Houston awfully hard. I would SO not want to be in downtown Houston right now.
See Victoria down there to the southwest? That's where my folks are.
They really were spared the brunt of the storm even though it looked pretty bad for them a couple of days ago.

I remained in constant phone contact with Mom and Dad. They are probably relieved that Ike bypassed them just so I would stop bugging them:


Bottom line: I'm really glad the hurricane bypassed my loved ones and that none of them had to deal with the ordeal of evacuating. Two days ago, it looked like they were facing a direct hit.

Evacuating for a hurricane is traumatic in itself.
All the highways are inundated and you never know when you're going to be faced with a five-hour roadblock, or worse.

You never know when or if you'll be able to fill up your car with gas.

I cannot imagine the trauma of doing this with little ones and/or pets.

Here's what really makes me angry. . .

These news reporters who plant themselves on beaches just before the hurricane arrives. They stand there in hurricane-force winds with torrential seas billowing against them and scream into the microphone to Anderson Cooper:

"Anderson, there are still residents who refuse to leave Galveston even though authorities have issued mandatory evacuation warnings!! These residents are taking their lives into their own hands!!! Anderson? Can you hear me??

And I want to scream: "Why the hell don't you set an example, you stupid idiot?"
Wouldn't they be a better reporter and set an example by reporting this from a safe distance?

Wouldn't it be more beneficial if they were in, say, Abilene Texas?

But no. They all want to get that "money shot" of reporting in the midst of a category 5 hurricane. . . All for money. . .

I'd much rather hear a reporter say,

"Anderson, the Texas coast is about to be totally annihilated so we heeded local warnings and remained an incredibly safe distance from certain disaster. . .All is well here. . . Back to you from Des Moines South Dakota! "

That's the kind of hurricane weather reporting we ought to be hearing!

In the meantime, send lots of emails to Anderson Cooper telling him to put a stop to all this nonsense.

Tell him I said so.

He can call me to verify that.

News Bombshell

Remember how I like to sleep with CNN on all night? And remember how I enjoy the dreams it produces all night long?

You don’t remember that? Well, I just told you about it a couple of days ago.

Anyway! Last night was a real doozy.

Wait, let me backtrack thirty years. . . .

Remember my previous story about meeting Eileen in college and writing the Horrible Folk Song about coming out?

“Sit back, relax, take you shoes off for a while
Make yourself as comfy as you can . . . "

Okay, you remember the rest. Please see above for details.

Anyway, Eileen and I became really close friends for a couple of years and then she transferred to the University of Alaska in Fairbanks because that’s where her brother lived.

We stayed in touch, wrote lots of letters, made lots of very expensive phone calls at 40 cents per minute that my dad paid for, and we’re still in touch to this day.

We email now. And complain about how messed we were in the 70s.
It's cheaper.

I was recalling all this in my dreams last night as Anderson Cooper was lulling me in and out of sleep. There was, no doubt, some coverage about Sarah Palin caused me to dream about Eileen in Alaska.

Then, in my semi-conscious state, I remembered a particular detail that Eileen had told me about way back then when she was in Alaska. You know how when you’re half asleep, you can remember details long forgotten? Like how nutmeg smells like your grandmother's violin case when you were nine?

I remembered that when Eileen was a senior, she fell head-over-heels over this freshman on the women’s basketball team whose name was Sarah. I got SO tired about hearing about Sarah. Sarah this, and Sarah that. Sarah, Sarah, Sarah. Eileen could never stop talking about this “baby-dyke” who was so cute and who was just coming out, etc.

Then I remembered that they both joined the gay & lesbian organization which had just formed on campus. I also remembered that I had kept most of Eileen’s letters from her sojourn in Alaska.

Well, I got up to pee and couldn’t go back to sleep.

I kept thinking about those years that Eileen was in Alaska so I retrieved the box where I kept those letters and began going through them. (It smelled like a mixture of 1982 cardboard and Ralph Lauren Polo cologne for some reason - - God, who couldn't but love that smell!)

I got quite a few laughs as I read through those letters from so many years ago. There was the record-breaking winter of '79 when it got down to minus 56 in Fairbanks.
She had a Dodge Dart that exploded one winter when she forgot to plug in the space heater.
I wired her $200 bucks for a plane fare to come to Texas. And then I showed up at the Austin airport so high on . . .something.

God, we were young!

I came across one of particular interest. Eileen and Sarah had just joined the gay & lesbian organization on campus and Eileen had sent the program to me. It was dated September of 1982.

There at the bottom of the program was the list of four names of those who were new members. There was Eileen and at the bottom of the list was Sarah.

Here's a closer look at the list of new members:

Sarah Heath.

Sarah Heath.

Heath?

Heath?

I hopped on to Wikipedia.

Holy cow!! That’s Sarah Palin’s maiden name!!

Let me see, Sarah Palin is 44 years old, so that would have made her eighteen years old in 1982. A freshman. In Alaska. On the women’s basketball team. And a baby-dyke.

A cold chill ran down my spine. Have I got a ticking time bomb here in my hands? Could I be holding the evidence in my hands that would cause McCain’s sure defeat?

Most of all, would I become famous??

I was SO excited. I was going to be famous. Who should I notify about this? How does one go about notifying the press?

Most of all, would I get to meet Anderson Cooper?

Then, as always, that’s right when you wake up from a really good dream.

Damn!

See? Sleeping to CNN not only causes entertaining dreams, but it causes you to dream about dreaming and waking up from entertaining dreams as well.

And I was SO looking forward to meeting Anderson.

________________________________________

"I Have a Dream. . . "

I have a peculiar sleep habit in that I always sleep on the sofa, fully clothed, with the lights on and CNN going all night. It’s strange, but it works. (I don’t even own a bed). Having CNN on all night also causes some pretty interesting and entertaining dreams.

Last night, I dreamed that I was a judge at a beauty contest and the contestants were male news anchors. There were the usual competition categories: Talent, swim-suit, and Q&A. Here are some highlights:

Sean Hannity (Fox) The audience kept averting their eyes at the sight of Hannity in a swim suit. Pale, mottled flesh with pimply thighs seldom earns high marks from any judging panel. Sean attempted to sing an Irish ballad during the talent portion, but was struck with stage fright, burst out into tears and ran off the stage crying like a little girl.

Anderson Cooper (CNN) He looked kind of scrawny in his swim suit, but when he flashed a smile and gave a wink with his baby-blues, there was a collective “Awwww” from the judging panel. He wowed the audience with a flaming baton routine set to Donna Summer’s MacArthur Park during the talent segment.

Rick Sanchez (CNN) Who knew that Rick was also an avid bodybuilder? His swim suit appearance doubled as his talent performance.

Bill O’Reilly (Fox) He earned extra points during the swim suit competition for, thankfully, wearing an 1890’s style full-body cotton bathing suit. During the talent portion, O’Reilly appeared in a football uniform and opined on the virtues of high school football while slamming against a blocking sled.

Geraldo Rivera (Fox) Was arrested and disqualified for wearing a lime-green thong during the swim suit competition. Several children were traumetized.

Tucker Carlson (MSNBC) The audience cheered with unabated glee when Carlson got his hair styled on stage. However, Tucker suffered a nasty sprained ankle during the swim suit competition. Apparently, no one informed him that stiletto heels were not required.

Rob Marciano (CNN) Needless to say, Marciano won the swim suit competition, especially after appearing on the heels of Larry King and Lou Dobbs in Speedos. Dr. Sanjay Gupta came in with a close second.