"Where can I go to see a big good healthy dose of bad attitude?"

Gloryhallastoopid, my prayers have been answered! Maybe six years late, but still...better than nothing, right?

Daria: The Complete Animated Series is being released in May. EVERYTHING. Eight discs worth. Soup to nuts. Pilot episode to two full-length season-ending films. A Mystik Spiral video. A top 10 MTV video countdown with Daria and Jane.

Of course, all clouds must have smoky gray linings, right? The music that made Daria such a perfect time capsule of the 1990s is not intact. It'll be replaced by covers and (as they put it rather euphemistically) "appropriate" generic music. Boo-hiss. But a rather weak boo-hiss. I mean, this has been WAY long in coming, and for Daria to finally be released is major cause for celebration. I may have to have a weekend long Dariathon in a few months. Can't wait.

The final word in apostrophes. Or at least the fiercest.

Subtlety was never my strong suit, but neither was in-your-face confrontation. Which makes this compendium of rules and examples of apostrophe usage like Turkish delight to my soul. Careful, kiddos...not for the faint of heart, nor for you old-fashioned 1800s schoolmarms, either. Just tells it like it t-i-is...with f-bombs galore!

(With props to the brilliant, twisted Shatner worshipper (no joke) over at Damn Kids, who found this originally.)

"I swear with God as my witness, I will never pick up another man!...in a library...on a Saturday...unless he's cute...and drives a nice car. Amen."

Okay. So I was never one of these guys who got into the Golden Girls back in the day. Just didn't appeal to me. It was only years later, after coming out, that I realized second-hand just how big a touchstone GG was to so many gay men. And it kinda makes sense. The foursome exhibit, collectively and individually, traits that we boys enjoy. There's the self-confessed, uh, sexually generous one (Rue McClanahan/Blanche), the outspoken one who doesn't put up with bullshit of any sort (Bea Arthur/Maude...er, I mean Dorothy), the nice one who is just a bit ditzy for her own good (Betty White/Rose), and the ornery one who just lets her trap fly, and damn the consequences (Estelle Getty/Sophia). Still, it doesn't really appeal to me that much. Sit me down and force me to watch an episode? Sure. But I won't go out of my way to watch it.

Then again, I may have to reconsider. I may have missed something wonderful. Apparently, not only are Blanche, Dorothy, Rose and Sophia all lots of fun to watch, they are responsible for having recruited and seduced many young influenceable boys to the dark side back in the 1980s. At least, so sez Stephenson Billings, a right-wing Christian and probable closet case who writes for ChristWire.org.

Ho boy, do you have to read this article. Seriously, I'm amused and confused by it. I can't tell whether he's serious, or whether he's parodying the right wing Christian wackos who are suffering some sort of mental condition. If he's serious, then oblivious self-mockery was never so luscious to behold. Here's some fun tidbits from the article, for those of you who just don't have the time and/or attention span:

• "The Golden Girls television program was never much to look at. A foursome of Florida geriatrics getting agitated about pharmacy bills and shoulder pads - who could ever find such a thing interesting?" How about the author? He wrote over 1500 words about this show and believe me...he has a pretty good grasp on some of its arcana.


• "Our lonely boys...slender, unathletic children...were left out of the fun militarism of the Reagan years." I'm sorry, but I just don't reach this guy. How is militarism fun?


• "The show lit a match which enflamed their intense physical urges. With the utmost cruelty and immorality, the Golden Girls seized upon this opportunity to cross the hormonal wires of America's lost generation." Um, I think this guy is confusing this show with porn. But let's follow his convoluted logic, shall we?


• "When the rush of cheesecake and gabfests wore thin, these hairless boys needed a harder thrill...same-sex experimentation. What woman would have them now, anyway?" Um, maybe dumb women who don't know enough to avoid getting into self-defeating relationships with gay men? Or those who misguidedly think they can change them around. In the words of Henry Rollins, if you were gay and someone straight came up to you and said, "I can turn you around," don't you think you'd be REALLY certain of your sexual orientation at that point?


• "This led to the worse [sic] excesses of early homosexual visibility - the most enormous of drag queens, the dirtiest of leather daddies, the most enticing of twinkie boys, androgyny, overeating, public sex, and the birth of "camp." Dear God, where to start? That's quite a compliment, honoring the Golden Girls with being the fount from which all these aspects of gay culture sprang. But let's step back, shall we? Let's touch on just a few of these. Drag queens? Been around forever and ever - both enormous and tiny. They kicked off Stonewall, and quite honestly, every queer individual of every stripe owes a debt of gratitude to them. Leather daddies? Oh yeah, I can see where homespun, wholesome Rose Nylund inspired guys to don biker's caps, tight, tight leather pants, and put on a hypermasculine persona. Nothing to do with Marlon Brando in The Wild One or Tom of Finland's illustrations. Nothing whatsoever. Overeating? Oh yeah, that cornerstone of gay culture. Must have been all that cheesecake. If it weren't for us gay boys, the Cheesecake Factory would be kaput. And the birth of camp? Seriously? Um, go back to (at LEAST) 1930s Berlin, where cabaret shows were all the rage. There is where camp enjoyed a rampant heyday, if not its actual birth.

See, I feel stupid having to explain these things. I feel like I'm teaching a fifth grader for the millionth time that 2+2=4.

One more thing: How about his accusations of leather daddies and flaming queens who "attack with the swiftness of a ninja," then head off "groping someone's son in a Sears lavatory"? Ya know, this equating homosexuality with pedophilia has to STOP. We gay men aren't interested in boys. We're interested in men.

I have to stop. I can't stoop to this guy's inanity anymore. It's kinda useless for me to mock him at this point...he does such a good job of it himself. Instinct should seriously consider hiring him on as a regular contributor.

"And now, the sports news. I'm your host, Chuck Sirloin."

Stupid, stupid, stupid (and insanely obvious) sports news that gets people all riled up. Because, y'know, nothing - not even a war in Afghanistan, the muck and mire of health care reform, or the economy - can compare to the import of these luscious jewels. To wit:

- Tiger and his affair(s). OMG. Stop the presses. ANOTHER sports hero sticking his pee-pee in another warm, tight vagina that is not his by virtue of marriage. Can't imagine.

- Mark McGwire and his steroids. Heavens to Murgatroyd and pass me the smelling salts! A baseball player on steroids! People, it's not like those Popeye-sized forearms of his way back when didn't scream it out in the first place.

- Brent Favre (sic). Need I go into it? The sports poster child of growing old gracelessly. Either retire or don't. And the fact that he went to Minnesota after years with Green Bay, antagonizing one of the biggest rivalries in the country, made him even more of a twat.

- Overanalysis of anything football-related, for that matter. Seriously, people? The fact that we make a multi-billion dollar enterprise out of football is a joke to me. Yeah, I can get behind the whole "pride in your own city" thing. There's better ways to do it. The way that millions of people either a) spend hours examining and analyzing players and their abilities and their potential, or b) pretend that they do is hoarksome. Straight-guy dick-fencing of the worst kind. (As a gay man, I have to admit I don't mind examining and analyzing players and their, um, assets. Most specifically: linebackers in tight contour-accentuating uniforms that barely restrain their big guts and bubble butts. Yum. Oh, and Howie Long, too. At least looks-wise.)

The gayest video in the whole history of...the whole history!

This video is so many iridescent shades of FABULOUS I don't know where to start. I'm now looking at the world through rainbow-colored, triangle-shaped glasses.

1980s in full force, bitches! An aerobics competition! Sponsored by Crystal Light! Bright! Colors! Everywhere! Geometric shapes! Big hair and bangs! Cardigans with shoulder pads! Alan Thicke!

I would stop with the exclamation points, but there's such high energy I can't stop! Someone help me!

And these preening gym bunnies from the San Francisco Bay Club! Hot! Working an aerobics routine choreographed to Devo on speed and performed within a millimeter of its airbrushed life! Ass slaps and high kicks all 'round!

Now. I defy you to be depressed for the rest of the day.

How to whup flu in the ass...

So I try to keep any sort of health info away from this blog. I do work in the health field, so I write lots of stuff about health anyways. But y'all gotta listen.

Yesterday morning came WAY too early. Driving to work felt like the proverbial Mack truck had slammed me. Took some of the morning off to hit the gym's sauna and steam room. For nearly two hours, people! Came back to see a few patients and discover my temperature was a nice 102. Called the rest of the day off, natch. Drove home, and spent the rest of the day either melting in hot baths or buried beneath blankets.

Yep, probably is the flu. No, I did not get the flu shot. I'll let my body fight it off itself, thank you very much. Despite the fact that I don't have the strongest immune system in the world, I've got weapons in my arsenal to help stave illnesses off, and now I know I've got great weapons to powerfully mitigate them when they hit.

Last night, I was in AGONY, and was in no shape to drive. But I drove a good hour round-trip to a health food store to get an extract of the black elderberry called Sambucol. (Or at least, that's the most official version of it; I've also seen it simply called Sambucus; that's from the taxonomic name Sambucus nigra). People, this shit WORKS. I've never seen any medicine eliminate flu symptoms faster. And I'm thrilled that it happens to be basically natural. But here's the cherry on top of the natural/effective ice cream sundae: it actually tastes delicious! Seriously. I went to a convention years ago where I sampled Sambucol for the first time. They didn't serve it on spoons. They didn't serve it in little plastic measuring cups. They served it on pancakes. Tasted like some of the yummiest raspberry pancake syrup I'd ever had. Granted, it isn't the cheapest stuff on the market, but it's not exorbitant.

Now, here's something new I hadn't heard of until late last week. Joe Mercola, he of the ubiquitous and reliably annoying health website Mercola.com, wrote an interesting article about baking soda. It goes back to the 1920s, before health claims on anything were effectively muzzled unless you were a drug company in bed with the FDA and with billions in pocket change. Apparently, baking soda back then was being touted - not as a cure, but as a treatment for colds and flu. No claim to 100% eradicate it. Just a claim that it would decrease symptoms and duration. (The theory behind baking soda is that it tends to alkalize the body, and viral/bacterial infections have a hard time thriving in an alkaline environment.) Here's the simple protocol:

Day 1: 6 doses of 1/2 teaspoon baking soda in water, all 2 hours apart.
Day 2: 4 doses, all 2 hours apart.
Day 3: 2 doses, morning and night.
Day 4 until end of illness: 1 dose in the morning.

I'm a huge fan of the saying "it can't hurt, and it might help." Small doses of baking soda certainly qualify. I'm also a huge fan of giving legitimacy to effective natural remedies that will never have the so-called legitimacy of quack drugs like statins and acid blockers, thanks to the FDA. So I gave the baking soda a try.

It's been about 24 hours since I started the Sambucol, and I began the baking soda protocol this morning. I can say with no question that I still have the flu. I can also say with no question that I have never rebounded so quickly after getting the flu. Headache? Yes. Sore throat? Yes. Muscle aches? Yes. But I also have energy, am in great spirits, and was hungry enough this evening to make some soup for myself, after having no appetite and fasting rather effortlessly for about 30 hours. Even went to a party tonight and ate a fair bit there, too. I've heard horror stories of people who have been dealing with the flu this season for weeks, bedridden for most of the time. If last night's feverish tossing and turning ends up being the extent of my problems, then I'm a convert...and I'll let patients know too, from here on through.

"Isn't there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?"

1) A Charlie Brown Christmas. As if I would EVER leave this one off. NO ONE should go through Christmas without seeing this. Every year, it seems the spirit of the season gets more and more lost in the shuffle, and this is always a wonderful reminder of why we celebrate Christmas in the first place. Linus's reading of the Nativity is simple, understated, poignant, and perfect. Originally, everyone working on this special back in 1965 was terribly pessimistic about it, thinking it was too depressing, poorly made, amateurish, and was doomed to failure. It gives me hope for the human race that this actually ended up succeeding far beyond anyone's expectations - and is still shown faithfully on prime time over 40 years later.

2) John Denver and the Muppets: A Christmas Together. Best. Christmas. Album. EVER. Equal parts wackiness and sappiness - and I mean that in the most complimentary way possible. John Denver singing "A Baby Just Like You" will bring you to tears, and his duet with Rowlf on "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" is gorge. Meanwhile, the Muppets definitively skewer "The Twelve Days of Christmas" and rock out to the Beach Boys' "Little St. Nick"...well, as much as the Electric Mayhem can. Animal helps.

2.1) The Carpenters: Christmas Portrait. This one is just a hairsbreadth beneath A Christmas Together. Karen's silky, effortless contralto is one of pop music's greatest treasures, and it was practically made to grace Christmas carols. "Merry Christmas Darling" is, of course, the classic, but the guilty pleasures abide throughout. It also includes some light renditions of dances from The Nutcracker. Combine these two albums, and you're set.

3) Chocolate mousse pie. Hands down, the BEST dessert I have ever eaten. I was lucky enough to get the recipe from my mom a few years ago, and my partner now demands I make it every year. Decadent, rich slices of heaven, served on a cinnamon graham cracker crust and topped with heaps of whipped cream.

4) Creme brulee. Learned how to make this hummer about six years ago. Actually quite simple. Mix four ingredients (egg yolks, cream, sugar, vanilla). Put in ramekins. Put ramekins in a water bath. Bake for x amount of time. Pull out. Let cool, then refrigerate. Top with sugar and torch it. Eat slowly and savor something damn near a mouthgasm.

5) St. Olaf Christmas Festival. I have to see this every year on PBS, having sung in the Christmas festival a total of 12 times myself (4 times for 3 years running). Choral nirvana. Absolutely REQUIRED watching if you are a good Lu-the-ran.

6) Handel's Messiah, the singalong version. Because I lo-ove to sing, and really, the story of the Messiah is fascinating. Extra points for the one I go to in Boulder, since the conductor ends the whole shebang with the Hallelujah chorus sung a second time.

7) Egg nog. Duh.

8) The tree. Yes, the decorations are beautiful, but what really gets me is the smell of a (freshly-cut) pine tree. I dunno. Fresh, cool, natural, and masculine somehow...a killer combination.

9) Mandarin oranges. Nana and Papa from Bakersfield used to send us a whole crate of these every December, and their mandarin oranges were so tangy and juicy, and the peels practically fell off the fruit, they were so easy to peel. The cuties you see in the stores nowadays are a pale, sad imitation of what we used to enjoy years ago.

Yeah. About those apostrophes...

If you have difficulty trying to figure out how not to use apostrophes, here's a crash course. Especially recommended for car salesmen or people in charge of marquees, or for douchenozzles who actually write like this:

Srsly people your terrible if you dont know how to use an apostrophe!!! you make me loose my mind!!! LOLZ

Gaaaahhh...

I extend my middle finger to the middle name...

An entreaty to expectant or new parents:

I am one of those hapless people who has gone by his middle name since my parents dictated it so, far before I was ever able to raise my tiny voice or fists in objection. You'd think this would be just an interesting quirk, something to raise the eyebrows slightly and provide about 6.6 seconds of idle conversation. But no. To wit:

• Waiting in a doctor's or dentist's waiting room just sucks. When the clueless PA or nurse or DA or what-have-you calls your name, it's inevitably by your given first name, and not by the one you go by. (Not a rip on said PAs, nurses, or DAs...they're often just saying what's in front of them on the chart, and they don't know otherwise.) And if you don't expect it, you could end up sitting in the waiting room while the PA wonders why no one's responding.
• Filling out official paperwork, you have to - HAVE TO - write your first name. People who simply go by their first names don't even have to worry about this. But it makes those like me pause and have to think for a second.
• The above especially applies if you're trying to vote or sign a petition. Sign it with the name you go by and not by your first name, and your vote is as good as useless.

Minor issues, no? Perhaps for most people who go by their middle name. It's possible that most don't mind their first name. But I ABHOR mine. It's always sounded like a name given to a snooty British multimillionaire descended from royalty, esquire. So whenever I hear it, I cringe. Or if I'm forced to say it to some official person who can't find me in a database? Yecch.

So I say to you parents who are contemplating names for your children: Do NOT call your child using their middle name. If you like it so much, then switch it with what you originally planned as the first name. Oh yeah, the "but it doesn't sound good that way!" whining. Tough. If it really sounds that bad, then choose another name. Seriously.

Europe - The Final Countdown / Asia - Only Time Will Tell

Shut up. You love them too. I just have the balls to admit it openly.

It's been postulated that bands with place names make really crappy music, and the larger the place referenced, the worse. Boston. Kansas. America. Europe. Asia. (Hedwig said so...travel exhausts her.) For the most part, I agree, although most of these bands have come up with at least one ace up their sleeve. Most Boston fans adore "More Than A Feeling," but "Amanda" is much more my speed. Kansas...meh. America can turn over it its grave for all I care. But these last two? Yowzah.

Back in 1986, yours truly was just officially leaving childhood behind, finishing off 5th grade and becoming an official member of the Boy Scouts, Troop 457. And HO boy...impressionable? Just for starters. At that time, I just craved some sort of Meaningful Anthem to rock out to, and with which I could bond with my new comrades in khaki and olive drab. Enter Europe. And damn, did they deliver. "The Final Countdown" just hit me in the heart and the gut.

The opening synthesizer riff - all 20 notes of it - really could have been all of the song, and I would have loved it forevermore. The minor chords just screamed out valor, bravery, bonding, striving, strength, power. In a rather high and mighty Viking sort of manner. (Makes sense, since these guys hailed from Sweden, right?) And without saying a word.

But then the singer had to open his trap and begin yowling some of the most laughable lyrics imaginable - about leaving an apocalyptic, dying Earth behind and looking for a new planet to live on. In other words, absolutely perfect sci-fi source material for such a ponderous tune. "We're headed for Venus/And still we stand tall..." Let me stop right there. That striving? That bonding? That bravery? Right there, in full effect. "Cause maybe they've seen us/And welcome us all." Oh geez. Botched grammar, even. But you know? The song would be wrong without it, almost as if Elvis back in the day had sung "You aren't anything but a hound dog." It's the absurdity and pompousness that elevates this song to utter classic status.

"The Final Countdown" is among the guiltiest of pleasures ever created, but it owes quite the debt to Asia's "Only Time Will Tell," an insanely addictive slice of prog pop heaven. I mean, that song. That anthemic synth riff. The slamming cowbell. Those soaring, pealing guitars. Those powerful harmonies. And those overly serious lyrics about infidelity that verge on parody. As a kid, I had absolutely no idea what they meant. I just knew that the song resonated in me and turned me to mush - but not before I demanded that the radio be turned up louder. The video wasn't half-bad, either...for pre-Thriller 1982, at least.

Some consider Asia, the album that birthed "Only Time Will Tell," alongside "Heat of the Moment" and "Sole Survivor," the last dying gasp of the AOR movement. Not even close. Europe grabbed the torch from Asia's hands and carried it, if only for one more album. Whitesnake held down the trashy, slutty, but defiantly adult corner of the market; "Is This Love" and "Here I Go Again" were the two must-hears. Queensryche also soldiered on beyond that; Empire and Operation: Mindcrime were damned good albums, and if nothing else, the epic "Silent Lucidity" deserves to be heard by a new generation. I'd argue that any semblance of AOR was killed off - along with the rest of '80s hair metal and happy peppy pop - singlehandedly by Nirvana in late 1991. (Well, maybe not entirely - Rush is still kickin' around somewhere, right?) But man, it'd be great to hear a resurgence of AOR, hair metal, prog rock...whatever you want to call it. Guilty pleasures, all.