My State of the Disunion Address

I know, I know. I have been pathetically inept at blogging. I apologize. It's not that I don't love you and miss you and want to blog to you. It's just that I've been away.

Far away.

In the nineteenth century.
Wait a minute, that's not my Civil War uniform.



It's my Pie Liberation Army apron. Worn whenever I must defend the Union of Crust and Filling.

Suffice it to say, I am not one to dessert my post.

Not unless the infantry band is playing a rousing chorus of Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory of the Coming of the Lard.

But let's get back--way back--to the Civil War.

Which as it turns out is late-breaking news. As in, the New York Times is sesquicentennially blogging the Civil War in real time.

Inasmuch as they had blogs, or computers, or even electrons back in 1861.

Well, I guess they had electrons. They just didn't know it. Like some sort of subatomic halitosis that their friend were just too polite to mention.

Let me be clear: I am a normal, red-blooded American.

Which means the Civil War bored the hell out of me when we had to study it in school, just like it did you and every one else.

So how did I become so obsessed with the conflict that I now receive form letters addressed to Dear Civil War Enthusiast?*

*NOTE: I don't actually receive those letters. They are mailed to me. But if the Cheez gets to them first, he grabs them and runs around the house mocking me.

Let me tell you, when you are being mocked by a Canadian, you know you have fallen low.

Anyway, I became obsessed by the Civil War while accidentally writing a novel. About the Civil War. Which I've been working on, on and off, for, well let's just say I could have fought the Civil War in less time.

So Ulysses S. Grant me a few more minutes of your what-the-heck-you're-already-screwing-around-on-the-internet-time and surf on over to the New York Times to see just how groovy and interesting the Civil War can be, when served up with a healthy portion of MacaroniManiac.

Memorial Dazed

Memorial Day. A solemn occasion for remembering those who made the ultimate sacrifice for our nation.

Not to mention an excuse to party for three days straight, to kick off the season during which Americans party for three months straight.

Giving your life so that a bunch of yahoos can go powerboating while shitfaced, that truly is the ultimate sacrifice.

Though we did not go powerboating, my squeeze the Cheez and I did enjoy some full throttle fun.

Where? you ask.

Well, here's a hint: the slogan was It's a Family A'Fair.

No, not the Poor Spellers for Incest Association.

The 103rd Annual Multnomah County Fair. No kinky sex in that. Unless of course you count the Rose City Rabbit Fanciers' Double Open Show. 

I'm not sure what exactly "double open" refers to, but I'm sure whatever it was, they were doing it like bunnies.

An organful of mood music for all your rabbit fancying needs

The Fair exhibits were fascinating.

Though not necessarily impressive. Unless you are impressed by how much a giant vegetable can resemble a wiffle-ball bat.

Note how this lovely display of prize-winning roses nicely camouflages a Fair-goer in bright floral polyester top.

Think of it as the Magic Eye Can't Believe You Wore That Out in Public

The fair is held at Oaks Park.  

A name which might conjure up Frederick Law Olmstedfast bucolic delights.  But is actually a semi-seedy amusement park.

Not to say Olmsted didn't have a fluming good time on an E-ticket ride himself from time to time.  

Whilst the Multnomah County Fair is free, the rides at the amusement park, which although permanent exude that aura of rusting hazard usually associated with a weekend carny on the most rundown outskirts of town, are not.

Luckily, as we arrived, a departing park visitor offered me his only-slightly-torn ride bracelet.  In other words:  Free Memorial Day Not Quite Carny Rides!!!!!!   

Just one more indicator that Barack Obama has truly brought socialism to our nation.  

And since we were all in the Spirit of America, our first stop on the midway was the Lewis and Clark Big Adventure.  Which turned out to be animotronic proof that George Santayana was right:  those who cannot remember the past are condemned to be haunted by it.  

Warning:  this cannot accurately be called a "Thrill Ride" inasmuch as it is fairly boring, even after I edited out half the ride.  I think it is most enjoyed by those Oaks Parks attendees who have enjoyed a Portland-style puff on the old peace pipe to celebrate their encounter with the Shoshone.

We wound up our visit with me conning Cheez into going on an actual scary ride.  

Of course, when you are so prone to motion sickness you feel vomity if you try to read a map while you are riding shotgun in the Macaroni and Cheez Mobile (aka, our  '99 Saturn), just about any ride is a scary ride.

Confident that centripetal force would cause Cheez only to puke on his own lap, and not on mine, I dragged him over to one of the park's newest rides, the Spider.  Here is how it is billed on their website:

The Spider  Don't get caught in this Spiders web of fear.  Keep your bug spray with you at all time.  A very serious ride!!  

Clearly, the copywriter had had a little too much of the old peace pipe.  Or maybe not enough.

In any event, we waited a quarter of an hour, got on for the last ride of the night, spent ninety seconds screaming, and about twelve hours waiting for Chuck's nausea to pass.  

We might as well have been drunkenly powerboating, sick as he felt.  

And really, nothing goes with the Red-White-and-Blue Patriotism of a Great American Holiday like a little Green-Around-the-Gills.  

I(pecac) can hardly wait for the 4th of July. 

Inauguriffic

In case you hadn't heard, we have a black president.

I celebrated this fact by waking up on Inauguration Day and donning my BLACK IS THE NEW PRESIDENT t-shirt.

Then I put on about sixteen other layers on top of it. Because damn it was freezing out, and I was biking over to the Lesbians of a Certain Age Watch the Inauguration Party being hosted by my friends Barbara and Madeleine.

They were kind enough to invite me even though I am neither a lesbian nor 'of a certain age.'

Can You Play "One of these Feminists is Not Like the Others"?

The party started early. Which means we had to watch a lot of that nothing important is happening yet footage. Like when they showed the split screen of the dignitaries arriving at the Capitol and the moving trucks arriving at the White House.

They can't really be moving all that stuff in just a few hours one of the Lesbians of a Certain Age said, eying the large boxes being unloaded.

It's only their clothing I pointed out, explaining those were garment boxes.

But the L. of a C. A. seemed unconvinced. Perhaps, extrapolating from on her own wardrobe, she couldn't figure out why anyone would need such big boxes just to move two turtlenecks, a fleece jacket, and a spare set of Keens.

Listen, another L. of a C. A. said, the crowd on the Mall is chanting O-ba-ma.

Actually, I said, I think they're changing I'm-Real-Cold.


There we were, true patriots, beaming in the defining activities of our proud and inspiring democracy: channel surfing and eating.

Activities captured in this lovely still-life, which I assure you was not arranged intentionally but merely sprang forth from the masses like Lady Liberty herself springing from the jet fuel-soaked waters off the Jersey City shoreline.

Sure, it was a historic moment. And an auspicious setting. Who could watch the scene on the Capitol and not think of Dr. King, his aura seeming to echo across from the other side of the Mall?

Which makes it sound like he was the Cinnabon in the Food Court and the Swearing-In was at the Sears Appliance Center.

Still, as tributes to legends of the Civil Rights movement go, it was surprising to hear Dianne Feinstein signifyin (not a typo - look it up white people) on Malcolm X.

Compare and contrast:
Speaker 1: This is why I say it’s the ballot or the bullet. It’s liberty or it’s death. It’s freedom for everybody or freedom for nobody.

Speaker 2: Those who doubt the supremacy of the ballot over the bullet can never diminish the power engendered by nonviolent struggles for justice and equality, like the one that made this day possible.

Okay, so maybe she's a little wordier than he is.

But really, wouldn't Denzel be great for the lead in her biopic, too?

And speaking of oratory, as Biden was being sworn in, I found myself given to the audacity of hoping that he wouldn't break into any spontaneous declamations about Scranton. Or his mother. Or anything, really.

As Yo-Yo Ma, Gabriela Montero, Anthony McGill, and Itzhak Perlman played John Williams' Air and Simple Gifts, I was struck by how quiet and reflective the crowd of millions became.

They seemed to be reflecting on how much cooler it would have been if Springsteen had gotten this gig, too.

And then there was Elizabeth Alexander. What a thrill it must have been for her! The only poet in the world to have ever read before such a ginormous live audience.

Nearly all of whom were headed to a Port-A-Potty.

It was unfortunate that this historic day, viewed in true Portland fashion amidst a sea of graying Sapphists, had to be marred by that gruesome perpetrator of anti-homosexual stereotyping, a man who has done so much to undercut the political ascension of gays.

And by that, I do not mean Rick Warren. I mean the nation's first openly gay mayor, Portland's newly elected Sam Adams.

How did Sam put his foot in his mouth this time? Neighbor Grandpa Dawg asked that evening, as we gathered at our Neighborhood Neighbors Gather to Watch the Neighborhood Ball gathering.

Well, I explained as judiciously as I could, let's just say, it wasn't his FOOT. And it wasn't HIS mouth.

We spent most of the Neighborhood Neighbors Gather to Watch the Neighborhood Ball gathering not watching the neighborhood ball. Although there was a spiffy laptop hooked to a projector aimed at a screen, there was one insurmountable technical glitch: host Claes couldn't remember his wifi password.

Neighbor Charity tried to hack into one of the other available wifi networks (we do alright on the love-thy-neighbor stuff, but where we really excel is the guess-thy-neighbor's-password). Unfortunately, the signal kept shorting out.

Yes We Can Obama supporters would shout.

No We Can't I'd shout back, call-and-response style, as the picture froze.

This is so much fun Grandpa Dawg noted I haven't even gotten stoned yet.

Thereby proving it really was an exceptional day in American history.
Why can't we find anything streaming on the internet? Neighbor Somebody-or-Other muttered in frustration.

Probably because it's past midnight in DC by now I said. What were we hoping for, the Rocky Horror Ball?

That's it Charity announced in frustration. She charged across the street and came back waving a set of rabbit ears. Claes fished out a tiny TV from some forgotten corner of the house.

We tuned in and turned on.

And began complaining.

We already saw this at home two hours ago Grandpa Dawg said as we watched Barack and Michelle dance.

That was another ball Charity said. She's just wearing the same dress.

Michelle Obama wore the same dress to more than one ball? Holly said. She herself was wearing a stunning black gown.

Which I kind of took as a bad omen, since she'd worn it to her sister-in-law's wedding last year. A marriage that lasted about as long as Fred Thompson's presidential candidacy.

Meanwhile, everybody's favoritest president ever was being all inspirational, for a change. We got the idea for the Neighborhood Ball because we are neighborhood people he was proclaiming from the itsy bitsy TV screen I cut my teeth doing neighborhood work.

And then capped them while working at various corporate law firms.



Perhaps the highlight of the evening was the red carpet interview with Cher.

Who looked like a monster out of some scary-ass science fiction film entitled Attack of the Way Too Much Plastic Surgery.

As soon as she appeared on screen, Holly's three year-old daughter screamed a blood-curdling shriek and ran from the room.

Several of the adults soon did the same.




Okay, okay . . . I know governance is really about policy wonks and not about celebrities.

Still, it was amazing to see everyone getting down to Beyoncé, and Alicia Keys, and Mary J. Blige. Historians can argue the specifics for years to come, but for now, let's just say, I'm pretty sure it was way, way blacker than W's inauguration.

Painting the White House Pink

Over time, many gay couples begin to dress alike.This is not one of those couples.

Which do you think we'll have first, my friend Andrew asked over a rather nice dinner party he hosted last weekend, a homo president or an atheist president?

Andrew often talks about homos. One of his favorite games is Spot the Homo, which we sometimes play at business meetings.

Since Andrew is the type to host rather nice dinner parties, it should go without saying that he is not trying to spot the homos so that he can go after them with a baseball bat.

He is trying to spot the homos because he is a homo.

And a registered voter.

So I felt like I was raining on his gay pride parade when I broke the news to him.

We've already had a homo president.

Ladies and especially gentlemen, I give you James Buchanan.

Our fifteenth president, and the only "bachelor" to ever hold the nation's highest office.

Not that he was sleeping single in a double bed.

At least not during the fifteen years he lived with William Rufus King. (King was an Alabama Senator and later Vice President, though not under Buchanan. Well, maybe under Buchanan in the baby-if-I'm-the-bottom-you're-the-top sort of way, but not in the next-in-line-for-the-Oval-Office way).

I know what you're thinking. Rakish cravat and spiffy curls not withstanding, how can we be sure these two were lovers, and not just a couple of parsimonious pols trying to keep expenses down by sharing the cost of a single kegerator?

Perhaps because King was variously referred to as

• Buchanan's wife
• Buchanan's better half
• Miss Nancy
• Aunt Fancy

by such notables as Andrew Jackson (who, as the guy whose punim is on a bill that gets tucked into the most deserving of mid-range male stripper's g-strings, perhaps ought to know) and Aaron V. Brown (governor of Tennessee and Postmaster General in the Buchanan administration).

Buchanan and King's co-homobitation was interrupted for a stretch when King was appointed minister to France in 1844. I am selfish enough he wrote Buchanan to hope you will not be able to procure an associate who will cause you to feel no regret at our separation.

We all know good fairies can make wishes come true, and King's apparently did, because while he was gone, Buchanan wrote an acquaintance I am now "solitary and alone," having no companion in the house with me. I have gone a wooing to several gentlemen, but have not succeeded with any one of them. I feel that it is not good for man to be alone; and should not be astonished to find myself married to some old maid who can nurse me when I am sick, provide good dinners for me when I am well, and not expect from me any very ardent or romantic affection.

I believe that's the same personal ad Richard Gere used to land Cindy Crawford.

So why does a perfectly respectable dinner party host and homo spotter as Andrew not know about our great poofdah prez?

Probably because Buchanan was a terrible president. A pro-slavery Northerner, he advocated for acquiring Cuba as a way to expand US slavholding, tried to force Kansas's entry into the Union as a slave state, and completely mismanaged the financial panic of 1857.

His biggest failure by far was the failure to avert the Civil War: he spent the final months of his term twiddling his thumbs (along with who knows which bodily parts of Rufus King) while Southern states began seceding in the wake of Lincoln's election.

Not exactly the guy you want to claim as your role model and great American hero.

Even if he did go to war with Utah over disputes about what household arrangements should be legally sanctified as marriage. Which is pretty much what every homo in California is threatening to do this week. . . if only it didn't mean missing Sundance.