out of practice

Lordy. Nashville has been busy this week and I finally edited over 850 photos from the Steeplechase weekend, cranked out three articles, and still haven't gotten to the videos yet.

And it didn't even occur to me to snap a photo for the blog at "brunch" today. Cousin Barry invited me along to her yoga class this morning (my arms are still shaking while I write this, see my idea of a yogi at right) and we were joined by Cousin Franny and her daughter Kathleen. Now Kathleen is a senior at Ole Miss, and I did not even register that's who she was. The last time I saw her she was an adolescent and I forgot that little kids tend to grow up.

We all went next door for a sushi lunch afterward and I got to know the grown up Kathleen II (not to be confused with Cousin Kathleen) a little better. She's awesome, and will be joining the cadre of Alert Readers here at I'm Just Sayin'.

Which means I need to get on the ball and get back to blogging.

This past week has been incredible. But now I have to clean out the water-logged basement, dry out my comics, and see if there is a market for any of them. Any comic-dealing advice is welcome.

And welcome Kathleen!

bitch and wine, part II

I've ranted before on the whole corrupt "can't buy wine in a grocery store in Tennessee" thing.

And it continues. And Cousin Barry seems to be out in front.

From the local (Nashville) ABC affiliate:



The legislator says, "This is a complicated issue."

NO, actually. It's NOT.

There are only two arguments for keeping wine out of grocery stores:

(1) Financial-the lobby of those with a monopoly on wine sales and distribution would lose money if re-opened to retail competition.

(2) Religious: Small-town and small-minded Christianists think that alcohol is evil and will destroy families, therefore should be able for sale but not conveniently or where people sell food. Wait, sorry, beer is just fine. But wine? Eeeeeviiiiiil. (Only book-learnin' liberal commies drink wine anyway.)

Neither point should hold any legal merit. And on top of it all, the prohibition is anti-American.

It's against freedom of choice, freedom of (and from) religion, free markets, free market-capitalism, and just the freedom to pick up a bottle of freakin' wine when I buy the steaks instead of driving across town and making another stop. (It's even anti-environment!) And the freedom of all retailers to offer the same products should they choose to.

Selling wine in a grocery store is not a complex issue at all, and it's embarrassing that the Tennessee legislature thinks it is. Of course, the money from these lobbies and special interest groups is legendary, as is the corruption of the typical Tennessee legislator.

UPDATE: This e-mail just in from Cousin Barry—

I would like to bend your ear for a quick second to tell you about an important issue that you may have seen in the news recently. The sale of wine in food stores has tremendous consumer support. I have been a supporter of Red White and Food since the first days of the campaign last year. Yesterday - I went to Capital Hill and spoke to a Wine Study Committee about this hot topic. There are thousands and thousands more Tennesseans like me who believe this change is possible in our state. This won't be my last time I go to the Capital to speak. The Wine Study Committee will likely meet again in November and at the first of the year. I will need you to attend with me. It is important to just be there in the audience and let them know we are watching. I will let you know a date and time - let's be ready to make ourselves known personally.

I am president of the newly formed Red White and Food Voters Political Action Committee. Here is where I need your help today.

PACs normally accept money from a small group of people, e.g. executives in a particular type of business. The Red White and Food Voter PAC is different. All the money we raise will come from everyday consumers who want more choice.

If you would like to be able to buy a bottle of wine in food stores - please go to www.redwhiteandfood.com and donate and join TODAY! We can accept contributions from anyone who wants wine sales in retail food stores. You decide - even if it's just $5. Legislators will be paying as much attention to how many people give as how much they give.

Tell your friends.
Thank you.

Oh it's Eighties night, oh what a night

I totally, like totally, forgot to mention how cousin Ashley's 40th birthday/80s party went. It may have been a swank BMCC affair, but the kids brought it to the game. The invitation itself was music an played Electric Avenue when opened.

You may recall Cousin Barry (Ashley's much younger sister) consulted me back in December about her Dynasty/Krystle costume. She came out looking like totally awesome. Photos were all over Facebook the next day. (Photos reposted here are from Carolyn Palmer Thoms and Jennifer Rose Frist. )


Ginger (also a blog regular) pulled the Preppy Handbook off the shelf and her best pink and pastels from the closet and was picture perfect. She even read from the book at dinner.

I was impressed with Jennifer's valley/madonna girl look, and quite so with Bill's interpretation of Magnum P.I...

But the best costume by far had to be Brother Mac Hardcastle, who went as Richard Simmons.

OMFG.

Carolyn Palmer Thombs and Mac Hardcastle

Gag me with a spoon.

And all night, he was in character. He later told me that in that ridiculous getup, he had to be. All night he was kicking and swishing and telling people to work it out ("Oh Honey never wear grey, you'll look like a battleship!").

Jennifer Frist, Mac Hardcastle, Elizabeth James

So freaking funny.

What's more funny is that Carolyn is an exceptional amateaur photographer and took loads of photos. Which she shared with the editor of the social magazine.

By now y'all should be familiar with Nfocus. The January issue was the bridal issue, and I was a contributing writer to a "new bride to be advice column" sort of feature (I'll post that coumn later). On the way to the airport to fly home from the Christmas holiday, we stopped at Mere Bulles for lunch, and I picked up a copy for the plane.

My brother, always tring to maintin his reputation, was slightly agast that his Richard Simmon's appearance made the first sentence of the first copy page in the magazine.

Heh heh heh. Awesome.

I've said it before. I'm the shy one in my family.

having your Cake and listening to it too

My cousin Barry and her family have an iMac, which they love. And they love iTunes for playing their music. But when they travel, they would just as soon have all of their music on the MacBook too, but for RIAA/DRM reasons, Apple prevents machines from syncing or transfering music easily from one to another.

I think her wanting to have copies of her music both on her desktop and her laptop is entirely reasonable. Both computers are even authorized to the same iTunes accounts so they can play the same materials purchased from the iTunes Music Store. She just wants to copy all of her ripped CDs from one computer to another, and she certainly doesn't want to have to rerip every CD, or reenter any metadata she's already put into the desktop.

One solution is SuperSync, a software program that was designed specifically for people who want to sync their iTunes libraries among more than one machine. Very useful and highly recommended.

But Barry e-mailed me today for a quick-and-dirty solution to get her library from the iMac to the MacBook before they pull out of the driveway later. I have gotten this same question many times over the years, so I thought I would share it here. There are several ways to skin this particular cat, but this is what I recommend as it is relatively quick and as simple as I can make it. (I also have hints on how to share music files among different profiles on a single machine for those low on drive space.)

How to transfer music from one of your iTunes libraries to another.

• Open iTunes.
• Create a playlist of the music you would like to transfer elsewhere.
• Click "Burn Disc" (lower right).
• A "Burn Settings" dialog box should appear. Select Data CD or DVD.
• Burn the playlist (you'll be prompted to insert a blank disc.).

While viewing the playlist, the bottom of the window should indicate the number of items, the play time they represent, and the memory they take up (if not, click on the information there and it will toggle).

Keep in mind that blank CDs can hold about 700 MB, DVD-Rs hold about 4.7 GB, and DVD+R DLs (Dual Layer) hold about 8.5 GB. Choose accordingly, or break up the list over several discs. TiTunes may offer to split the list over several discs for you (I don't recall.).

Now take those disks to the machine where you would like to copy your music.

• Check your Preferences (Command-comma), and look under the Advanced tab.
• Make sure you have "Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to Library" turned ON You can turn this off later if you like. I keep mine off so when I am sampling new sounds or playing a downloaded podcast they are not automatically added to the library.)


• Insert the disc you have just made, and it should appear as a source in the left pane of iTunes. • Select the playlist or click within the playlist and select all (Command-A or Edit > Select All)
• Drag the selection to "Music" under the Library.

This should start the process of adding the files to your library. iTunes may or may not alert you to duplicates and ask if you would like to skip them. If you do add duplicates, that's okay. When viewing the Music library, you can select File > Show Duplicates to see what you may have more than one of after you have finished transfering everything.

You can repeat this process for additional discs as needed.

big shoulders!

Cousin Barry called me this morning (conveniently forgetting the time difference)--her sisters 40th birthday party is at The Club this week and she needed a consult on the 80's costume. She was thinking add-a-beads or big shoulder pads. As Barry put it, when it comes to costume: Go big or go home.

This is my new motto.

I suggested either doing the leg warmer/Pat Benetar look, or the first season of Designing Women with big BIG shoulder pads. Like giant foam sheets from a craft store.

Better yet, try on her sons football shoulder pads. That would be hilarious.

She just called and managed to find a big 80s prom dress at the costume rental place with big shoulders. She's having the biggest shoulder pads made possible and is going all Alexis from Dynasty, with hair and makeup professionally matched.

She's at Target now accessorizing. Do they still make bright shiny hideous pumps?

I told her to look for the Krystle equivalent and start a cat fight.



Awesome.

(By the way, I had to look up how Dynasty spelled "Krystle." That's some effed up spelling.)

not context, but pro-text

Brevity is the soul of wit.

Here are some recent text messages I've received that I haven't brought myself to delete.

-With my mom at a waffle café. I've now seen it all as far as American bad food: "a bacon cheddar waffled topped with cinnamon apples." Can you say "reefer"?

-What would your 5 minute San Francisco story be?

I had to clarify that one. A story about five specific minutes, or a story that takes only five minutes to tell. He was inquiring regarding the latter.

-I am seducing my date with a tennis match and champagne. That's why I asked him to wear gym shorts. I love this town.

From a gay friend, lamenting he can't be watching the Davidson game, and responding to my Wildcats-related texts:

-I am at a Church of Christ fish fry right now. :(

How the heck does that happen?

-Sweet mother of God! I blended scotch this afternoon! I'm drunk!

That was sent at 7:18 pm. A little early to be so scotched.

And this JUST in:

-Currently at the women's roller derby at the fairgrounds. Photos and story to follow.

How much do we love Cousin Barry?

Update!
Not ten seconds after I post this, does Barry send me this pic from her iPhone.

Love technology!

do not recommend Shady Pines

The girls are headed to Miami for a little vice.

So Ging' and I are headed to Miami (David gave me 2 tickets to the women's finals tennis tournament, sony ericsson for Christmas) in April. Know any good restaurants? hot spots? nothing too crazy... :) we are staying at the four seasons....

I know zip about Miami. Any suggestions?

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(Hmm, which one would be Barry and which one would be Ginger?)

Random Holiday Saturday

Barry called me to be her Apple Man for Saturday. She very much wants an iPhone, and judging by the comments from her husband, Santa is bringing her one for Christmas. Regardless, she wanted to check them out and get some lessons at the Apple store, and in lieu of buying an iPhone, she could, like a good southern girl, check out the accessories. And Lordy, I thought I was an enabler. Even though I know why I am holding out for the next gen, she pushed the hard sell for me to get one this week too. This girl could sell a drowning man a glass of water.

We spent at least an hour on the iPhones and such at the store, and even though she is a big fan of the blog, when I mentioned that this much time demanded a photo for the blog, she got shy all of a sudden.

Ginger was going to join us for a late breakfast/brunch/lunch, but apparently had too much cheer at a party last night and was functioning on less than all cylinders and couldn't make it.

After our morning at the mall, Barry and I headed to the new Hill Center development (we're both Hills, and I hadn't seen the redevelopment yet) and lunch at the California Pizza Kitchen. A new culinary delight for Nashville, irony for me.

Imagine our surprise when Barry recognized Ginger's car when we entered the parking garage— and in a non-space no less!


One of Barry's pet peeves is people who park wherever they damn well please, and here she noticed Ginger car in front of the parking entrance to the CPK, and in a clearly marked "no parking" area. She stopped so I could take a pic.

And even without a voice, my boisterous laugh carried to Barry in her car. I had gotten out of the car to chronicle Ginger's infraction to mock her in person and here in the blog, and I had to guffaw when I round about the driver's side:

Let's take a closer look:


I was also amused at the implied threat that carries no actual weight in law or practicality.

Barry and I sat at the bar and had a tasty lunch of cobb salads and hot toddies. Ginger was having lunch with another friends and we celebrated her rare and amusing completely hung-over status.

Later that afternoon, Ginger and I got our quality catch-up time in at her favorite spot: Cosmo Nails. Coming from SF, Nashville manicures sort of suck. But I was there for the company and the cosmos (byo), not necessarily the service. We had lot of dishy fun in the mani-pedi chairs.

Even though Ginge' was often interrupted and managing her crackberry with freshly painted nails. Perils of the professional entrepreneuse.

I did feel the need to take a parting shot:

I call this one: Shrine of the Severed Hands.

Kinda creepy don't ya think?

happy campers

Summer camp has changed a lot since my day. (Wow, that sentence makes me feel old.)

We went to summer camp in the mountains of North Carolina--boys to Falling Creek and girls to Greystone. I have many memories of Falling Creek, but I do not dwell there much as it also raises a lot of old anxieties. I didn't fully realize how isolated I was from so many things because I knew I was a gay child, although clearly that was not something I could articulate at the time.

But that is another story, perhaps a novel. I just want to take a moment to talk about summer camp.

We lived in cabins and drank bug juice and canoed and hiked and had riflery and archery and days on the lake and nights with bedtime stories.

Terrence sent me this photo of one of his sons at summer camp.



Clearly, summer camp is very different in California.

Just the other day I got an e-mail photo of the Adorable Ellen, which is much more in line with my idea of a summer camp (she's actually back from camp but was visiting a friend at a ranch in SoCal).




The horse's name is TicTac.

Yesterday I received a copy of an old photo from the lovely and talented Ginger—a photo of Ginger, her best friend/my cousin/friend of the blog Barry, Charlie (I think), Roe, Patrick (Ginger's brother), and me taken on the front porch of Falling Creek Camp in the summer of 1982.




This was my camp.

Looking at this photo last night, and finding the campgrounds on Google's satellite maps, prompted so many memories-- some memories long buried, and some so purposely buried deep. While sorting through the nostalgia and happy memories and wrestling with anxieties that had been such a constant companion throughout my youth, I realized that I had done myself a disservice to lock away so much of my past. I had shut that door and locked it. And in doing so locked the monster inside too. Opening the door again last night I was startled to find the monster again, but this time I was so much bigger and no longer overpowered. Fear was a conditioned response, but easily dismissed as I was able to recognize the beast for what it was and shoo it away like a raccoon at the door, leaving me alone with the scraps of memories left behind.

I rummaged through what the creature had not devoured, and found that for the first time I missed those summers, and felt a pang of regret for not knowing then what I know now. Self-knowledge, confidence, and experience would have served me better than a bowie knife.

But like I said, these musings are another story, perhaps a novel.

For now, let's just take a moment for those socks.

say hi

Inspired by Ellen's skill with the iMac, cousin Barry has learned how to use the iMac PhotoBooth mail feature to say hi.


Y'all say "Hey" to Barry.

Shout out to Cousin Barry's shouting out

I freaking LOVE my cousin Barry.

Excerpt from recent e-mail:

and by the way - I guess the ball to the face paid off, our team "Tennis and 'Tinis" won our championship for our division. We went out in a Hummer limo to The Palm to celebrate. Half way through our dinner, the manager came over and asked if he could move our table to a private room since we were so loud. I told him that we were half way through our 2nd martini and there was NO WAY we were picking up and moving to a private room (we had asked for one when we made the reservation but were told no).

Later that evening at Cabana, our waiter asked us to please use our inside voices. It was 11:30 at night and people were having to get up and move to another table....isn't Cabana a bar??

Oh well - we like to have a good time!!

Let's take a moment to appreciate two things:

(1) a bunch of proper Belle Meade southern belles, a tennis team no less, is asked to shush themselves at a bar; and

(2) their team is named "Tennis and 'Tini's".

Right ON.

I am so designing their logo.

Blackbarry

Shout out to Cousin Barry, whom unfortunately I did not get to see while I was home last week. She just switched from PC to an iMac and is loving it.

We exchanged e-mails earlier today, and she is eagerly anticipating Nashville photos and posts as are the rest of you.

Tonight I had planned to take Barney and RMJ to Santa Cruz tonight for a little vollyball action, rollercoasters, and a sunset, but I woke up with a sore throat and feel that I need to go back to bed as soon as work is done (if work were ever done).

Barry's doing well—other than a tennis ball to the face today. I am afraid she'll look like a battered wife tomorrow.

This is not a video of her, but you get the idea.



Love to Barry.

Tampax tarpons

Hey kids. Big shout out to Cousin Barry this morning. She sent an e-mail responding to the tarpon/hammerhead shark video.

Over the Fourth of July weekend, they were in Boca Grande and she caught a 140 pound tarpon. She writes: "The captain of the boat would not let us pull the Tarpon into the boat because the Bull Sharks would do exactly what that Hammer Head shark did - pretty scary."

I would also like to give Barry props for doing this at night, not like those wussies in the video with all that direct sunlight. That, and none of five guys fishing with her hooked a thing. That Barry is one hell of a hooker. Wait, that came out wrong...

Barry rocks.

[photo: me and Barry before the Swan Ball, June 2006]

Leavin' on a jet plane

and I'll be back again in July.

It's a travel day so no blogging. I leave for BNA to OAK in about an hour and a half and have to pack up. Travel surprise: my neice Ellen will be flying back with me. She is off to Saratoga to visit Morgan (aka Morris by the Uncles) her former next door neighbor and best friend who moved away last year. She is flying with Morgan's grandmother who had already planned a trip, and being on the same flight just happened to be a happy accident.

Swan Ball stories simmering. But I won't have time to get to them until Wednesday. Photo sets will be uploaded tomorrow.

Wilson, Barry, Ginger and Chuck at the pre-party

In the meantime, perhaps this will hold you over:



There is such a thing as enough rope.

take BART past Daly City to Melanoma

Went to Cosmo Nails, but brought greyhounds, for manicures with Ginger, Chuck and cousin Barry (should have brought cosmos, but greyhounds are Ginger's fave, and that grapefruit juice is mighty refreshing on this hot, sunny, southern day). Barry and David are generously hosting a Swan Ball pre-party. I'm SO looking forward to it.

At the salon, Barry looked at my redness, heard my tale, and said, "Honey? Sunscreen. Melanoma is not a cocktail."

Actually, to me, "Melanoma" sounds more like a rural California town...(they can be just as painful).

Disco nap time. I have 90 minutes before I have to be at Barry's.

Shout Outs

I just got a call from Ginger, who apparently didn't know I had a blog. But she just heard some stories about her told back to herself, which originated here. First, I thought she knew I had a blog (how could she not?). Now she does. And secondly, she heard about the blog from Barry (Caldwell) Maddux. Now, I LOVE cousin Barry, but how the hell did she know about the blog?! Ginger's answer is that Barry is a mother, and mothers know everything.

Like I said, LOVE Barry. Glad you're here. Shouts to Ginger and Barry.

Word.