Really, what’s a drag queen to do!

Did I miss something?

Is the US Constitution null and void?

The city fathers put animal rights over personal rights by voting 3-1 in favor of the ban.  One spineless coward abstained.

Abstentions just piss me off!

They are very proud of the move too!  ”We made history.  We’re the first place in the world, I believe, certainly the country, to take that step and ban fur,” said Ed Buck, and organizer of the local group Fur Free WeHo.

This could cost retailers over $2 million a year.  Over half of the 200 clothing shops in WeHo sell furs or fur trimmed items.

The ordinance specifically mentions furs made from a fox, mink, rabbit, bear, seal or chinchilla. Clothing made from wool sheared from sheep is not affected by the ban, nor is furniture or leather goods.

But, I’m guessing they’re next!

Vintage items are not impacted.  So, if you have some raggedy-assed old mink, you can sell it, buy it, or wear it.  But God forbid that a new stole hit the racks!

West Hollywood, known for its quirkiness, has in the past, banned the de-clawing of kittens.  This was of course, fought by the vets of the area, and prompted the State of California to pass a law prohibiting cities from enacting similar laws.  They also banned the sale of “Saturday night specials’, but then, if you’re not wearing a fur, who needs a gun to defend yourself?

In spite of the fact that the PETA folks and other animal rights activists have been protesting furs for years, Americans are wrapping themselves UP in them.  Last year’s sales were UP 3.1 percent and reached over $1.3 BILLION!

According to Michelle Rex, an aide to City Councilman John D’Amico, who spearheaded the ban, details on how the measure will be enforced have yet to be defined.  Right now it looks like warnings and fines.

Regardless of how one feels about wearing fur themselves, banning the right of others to purchase and wrap UP in a mink is beyond the pale!

You can bet your Blackglama this will be contested. And frankly, my own feelings on fur aside and if someone at Blackglama reads this and I wear a large, I hope the fur people win this one.  I’m tired of our freedoms being taken away one by one!

And for the love of LIZ, if you’re gonna’ fight for the rights of something, think of all those little Pollys and Esthers who gave their lives for our wardrobes in the 1970s!

Spring forward, fall back, my butt.

Pick a time and stick with it!

However, THIS weekend is the change date, and Daylight Savings Time ends.

We have to Fall Back.

So, imagine my chagrin when I set my clocks back LAST weekend thinking we were still on the Last Sunday in October method.

I hit the gym Sunday AM at 8 o’clock according to my car clock, which I’d changed the night before.  I couldn’t figure why people were leaving at 8:05.

Ron, one of the completely ripped fat free gym rats who gives me tips on what to do said, “You’re late this morning.”

And then it hit me!

It was the next week.

It’s pretty bad when you have to name yourself  ”Ass of the Week!”

Quit playing with the dates!

So, this weekend, make sure you set your clocks back an hour at 2 AM Sunday morning.

Now, don’t go setting them back any earlier, that wouldn’t be fair, wait until exactly 2 AM Sunday morning.  I’ll be sleeping, I’ve already got it done!

That’s the opening line from an article this past week on “The Week”, an online publication.

No kidding, cruel and unusual. 

How about GROSS!

And people get mad at me because I won’t eat in a Chinese restaurant where I can’t see the kitchen.

The leading nabobs of Jinhau City, China have decided to put down the ginsu knives and end the six  hundred year old tradition of cooking and eating dogs.  The tradition started the Ming dynasty…you know, the one with all the pretty vases…gross and grace all in one ruling dynasty.

Supposedly, a Ming leader was trying to invade Jinhua and killed all the dogs so that their barking wouldn’t alert the city fathers.  To celebrate the invasion, the Mings whipped UP some Mu Shu Mutt and served it around town.  Thus, a tradition was born.

You know, during the War of Northern Aggression, when Vicksburg was under siege, the Vicksburgians ate rats to stay alive, and I for darn sure don’t remember any ads hyping UP the Vicksburg Rat Festival, do you?

But, alas, the tradition stuck in China.  As many as 10,ooo dogs would be slaughtered each year at the festival and served UP in many ways. 

Apparently, as the world becomes more and more PC, and the Chinese realize they aren’t they only people on earth, some of the locals have said “Just say no to Fido” and called for a halt to the festival.

Doggie dining is – thank goodness – not as big in China as it used to be, but the Chinese Astronauts did eat dog while in space!  But dog ownership has increased in China, where it was once banned as a “borgeois habit” during the cultural revolution.  And I’m guessin’ that when little Yang Min and Mong Toy came home from school and Spot was missing from the dog house and that chicken leg looked awfully familiar, the shit hit the fan!

Not every one is happy that the festival is ending.  Some of the locals felt that since it was passed from generation to generation, it should remain as part of the culture.  Quaint it ain’t, if you ask me, and while we’re on that passing things along topic;  senility, imbicility, lunacy, and other ‘ilities’ are passed along too.

Frankly, this festival going away will make people happier than the end of panty-hose!

So, the dogs are resting easy in Jinhua City, but the cat on the corner is watching it’s back!

But, recently, an onslaught of dream memories has appeared.

It is a tad disturbing.

A mishmash of people;  those who do and do not know one another find themselves connected in my mind for seemingly hours each night.

I’ve never had dinner with the President, but the other night, it seemed so real.

And why I found myself in Paris, in the same taxi cab with Peter O’Toole and Jerry Buie is beyond me.  I work with Jerry.  I’ve never met Peter.  It’s just ODD!

While in therapy a few years back, my Doctor wanted me to write down my dreams.  That was a little difficult since I was asleep, but each morning, or in the middle of the night when I awoke, I’d scribble notes on a  pad and take them with tme to each session.

I couldn’t read most of them, and they usually made no sense at all. 

Dreams are funny.  I rarely have scary ones, (I’m sure that’ll change tonight!), and the ones I do have are very confusing. 

It’s just strange:  disconnected people, places I’ve never been, things I’ve never seen.

Sometimes I’ll dream a passage from a book I’ve been reading, or sometimes I’ll dream of things from the past.  Sometimes I dream about my dad.

There is always at least one famous person in each dream I remember.

There is always blue, usually Royal Blue.

There are always cars.

There are always people with dark hair.

Some are happy, some are sad, and a rare one might be frightening.

Sometimes I don’t remember the dream until later in the day.  They seem less real then.  Dreams have a realness quality when I wake UP from one, remembering it vividly.  As the day wears on, and the dreams come back, they are less vivid, less bright, less real.

But I remember so many now.

And I wonder, if I remember this many now, how many more do I have that never come to mind?

I probably isn’t a bad thing, but I’m sure it can be dangerous.

But, sometimes, I wonder…

For instance, I wonder who does Flo’s hair on those GEICO  Progressive commercials, and if they get paid.  Because they shouldn’t, you know.

I wonder why I like many of Meryl Streep’s movies, but I can’t stand Meryl?

Why Stanley Tucci doesn’t get more awards?  He’s in everything, can play anything, and works all the time, and he really, really good!

Why anyone would use Hamburger Helper.  And why there are over 60 kinds of it, I mean, what’s wrong with hamburger?

Why one of the side effects of every heart medicine I take is “possible heart attack!”

Why minute rice takes 90 seconds in the microwave.

How Brooke Burke got a TV show.

Who taught the dog to talk on the Advantix commercial.

If Justin Case is really that guy’s name or if he changed it for the commercial.  I mean really, did they look all over for a guy named Justin Case?

If a Twinkie really would survive a nuclear holocaust.

Why Project Runway is still on.

Who is Marcus Bachman kidding?

When the US press decided to turn on the President?

Why the pioneer wives didn’t look at the men and say,”It’s too damn cold here in the NorthWest Territory, take a left at Indianapolis!”

Why some people don’t think the rules apply to them.

I mean, I just wonder.

I was shocked.  Having spent my life in non-manufacturing jobs, education, and the car business, I really paid little attention to where things are made.  With of course, the exception of the “made in China” label, which I do my best not to buy.

Now, don’t go thinking I’m anti-Chinese.  Because I’m not.  I’m anti-slavery, and most people who make things in China don’t have a choice of jobs, they go where they are told.  That’s my big beef about China. 

But, that’s not what this is about.

The items listed were:  bowling balls, sparklers, compact discs, pianos, socks, ironing boards, pencils, electric relays, chopsticks, and sneakers.

Yes, chopsticks.  IRONY!

My fist thought was, “That’s it?”

And apparently, it is.

There is only one bowling ball company, Ebonite, left.  It’s in Kentucky, the rest of them have fled the shores to cheaper work forces, and since bowling has declined, (down from 7,000 bowling centers to 5,800 in the past decade) ball sales are down.  But the Kentucky gang keeps rolling along.  And, I’m so proud, after a quick ball check, both of mine are Ebonites!

As to sparklers, who doesn’t love them?  Birthday cakes and the 4th of July just wouldn’t be the same.  But really very few sparklers are made in the US.  Youngstown, Ohio has a company which is barely holding on, and then only because of tariffs.

1312 people in Terre Haute, Indiana have jobs because we buy CDs.  So, keep downloading stuff, keep America, or at least Terre Haute working.

There’s one piano company left in the US.  Steinway, and frankly, there’s no comparison when it comes to sound, quality, and production.  It’s the gold standard of pianos, and other products love to refer themselves as the “Steinway of this or that”.  Of course it takes a year and 450 people to make one,  and, raise your hand if you have a Steinway.  Mine’s not UP!  They’re a tad pricey.

Socks are still made in Ft. Payne, Alabama, but probably not for much longer.  And if it wasn’t for the 157% tariff on ironing boards, yours would most definitley be made in China.  The 53% tariff on pencils keeps the Chinese from flooding the US market, and the relay company in South Carolina makes specialized relays. 

Georgia Chopsticks in Americus, GA, owned by Korean born Jae Lee took advantage of the Chinese building boom that is deforesting that nation, and the ample supply of good but messy Georgia pines (and BTW Jae, I have several you can come and get) and started a company that is actually exporting chopsticks to China that say “Made in the USA”!

As to sneakers, as we called them, New Balance is it for American athletic shoes, they are made in Maine.  Yep, your Air Jordans, Nike, Adidas, et. al. come from elsewhere.  And New Balance is hanging on by a shoestring.  The ENTIRE US shoe industry employs 12,000 people.  That’s it, and that’s a 50% drop in 10 years. 

The second shoe could drop if the Free Trade agreement with Viet Nam is approved.  The tariff on imported shoes is about 20%, and Reebok and Nike, who make their shoes overseas, don’t think it’s right that the American public should have to pay a “shoe tax” to buy their product. 

At this point, I’d like to say many things, but I’ll just add that it distresses me not a little that we are looking into free trade with a nation that killed 58,000 of our soldiers.  And, please do not say, “What about Japan.”  I’m not over that yet either. 

But I will say, I have an embarrassing number of pairs of “sneakers”, and all of them are New Balance!  There’s a reason for that.

* New Balance has not compensated me for this post, has not provided product, and I seriously doubt they know about Redneck Latte Ravings, which is a cryin’ shame, and I’m quite sure they never will, since they don’t know about me, and no-one sends me swag!  But, just in case, 8 medium here!

Oh, I”m sure there are thousands of legitimate reasons, and I know the Congress gave away its right to establish a stable economy to a private bank years ago,  but I just wonder what would happen if we told all those people to just simply, to quote Della Reese in Harlem Nights: “Kiss my entire ass!”

Afterall, Standard and Poor’s is a division of McGraw-Hill, you know the people who’ve been screwing over charging you for text books for the last umpty-ump years.  And they only get to ’say so’ because the US Securities and Exchange Commission and because the Federal Reserve, which is about as Federal as Federal Express, wants them to, says they can, and it’s nothing more than a federal watch dog made UP of six people appointed by the President and approved by the Senate.  All of whom are…what’s the word…fallible!

So, should we care?

I hate to be all Ross Perot and ask the question and not have an answer, but I’m there.  Seriously, I’m there.

I don’t know.

But, I’m all ears!

AND,  it poses more questions.

Like who says what’s good literature.

I happen to like Harold Robbins.  Granted, he’s not going to be taught in school, even though all this books are filled with all the literary terms that English teachers love to push on us.

And granted, in my opinion, To Kill A Mockingbird, has all of them without the smut, and is easier to teach, but who decided that TKAM is literature and Harold isn’t.

His books have sold 750,000,000 copies.

And, why is Moby Dick considered “the greatest American novel ever written”, when it sucks?

Eight chapters on whales!  Big, ugly, scary, scaly, smelly.  Who cares?

Yes, the story of the crazy sea captain chasing the great white whale is a great plot, story line, and has theme, etc, but it was a better movie;  and the book is almost always better than the movie, with the exception of  The Pelican Brief and Sleeping With The Enemy, and that just may be because Julia Roberts was in both of them.

And what about Tom Sawyer?  Did Mark Twain ever say the Mississippi River is the symbol of life?  No, he did not. He’s dead, and not around for us to ask now.  And guess what;  sometimes, a river is just a damn river.

And all the color symbolism in The Lord of The Flies?  Really, who came UP with that?  Just a bunch of crazy rich bullies trapped on an island if you ask me!

Look at any fashion magazine and tell me that some of that crap is good taste!  It isn’t, but someone, somewhere said it is, and therefore it is.  What about those fugly hats by Philip Treacy?

Bull!

Bette Midler, that sage of song and film, said it best when she said, “Modern art is supposed to be the panacea for the ills of all mankind, but we still by the painting that matches the couch.”

Because WE like it.

Not because someone else likes it.

If want to mix my Chinese water colors with my knock off K-Mart quality French Impressionists prints, and it makes me happy to sit in that room, well, guess what, Della Reese says I can.

And don’t get me started on movies.  Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Director…who says so?  The members of the Academy, people, just like me and you. 

So, read, enjoy, reflect, and even invest, but do it your way.

After all, who says so?

Seriously, I try to be nice to everyone I meet.  And I speak to people I pass everyday.

It’s a part of me, and it’s a part of our culture at “the place where I work”.  We kinda have a five foot rule.  If you come within five feet of someone, then you speak, say hello, and ask if they need help.

I’ve had that as a part of my persona all my life.

I was brought UP in a friendly household, and my dad never met a stranger.

Neither have I.

So, when I’m walking, because, as you know, I’m a Mall Walker, I nod and speak to most every one that passes me. 

Don’t get all twitchy, I walk early in the AM before the mall stores are open, so it’s not like I’m running from shopper to shopper and saying hello.  And quite frankly, I’m not looking to start UP a conversation, I’m just acknowledging their presence.

Because it’s polite.

It’s the civil thing to do.

But, alas, many of them I find are DNA people.

DNA – do not acknowledge.

Seriously, they’ll look right at you and Walk On By.

Not say a word.

Not a smile.

Not a grut.

Nothin’!!

Of course, when the don’t respond, I cuss a little under my breath!

And, it’s not just the mall.

It’s every where.  I’ve noticed that older people are more likely to speak.  Women who are walking alone are hit or miss, about 50/50.  Some do, some don’t.  And maybe I can’t fault them…it’s a crazy world. 

But, I’m not.

Kids, unless they know me from school, rarely say a word.

It makes me wonder, “Do I look that creepy?” 

Back when I was at Brookwood, one of my “fellow educators” and I would discuss this issue.  We found it mostly among the younger teachers.  One in particular…ok B-Wood folks, don’t try to figure it out, ’cause he isn’t there any longer.  Every day, I’d arrive about the same time – you may remember I’m a creature of habit – he must have been as well, because we passed each other everyday, really, everyday. 

I’d speak, he’d Walk On By.

One day after having had enough, I stopped and said, “You could at least grunt!”.

And he did.

Maybe in some cases, it’s better to Walk On By!

But, I hope not.  I’d rather live in a civil society where people acknowledge one another’s presence, speak, act friendly, you know, be polite.

So, don’t put me on your DNA list, at least smile.  Don’t just Walk On By!

Ok, so I love stealing song titles.  Burt Bacharach, Hal David, Dionne Warwick…great song.

This was the exchange on Facebook Monday night.

 Jan Hebel – Trying to watch Gone With the Wind, I don’t get how people think this is the greatest movie ever made. What over-acting!

•  Jan Hebel –  Can’t take it any more, what a P.O.S.
• UP – Philistine!
•  Hank – Nice try. I sort of agree with u. In it’s defense, they did those battlefield scenes without computers. Ya know, casts of thousands. Music isn’t bad either. And there are some great lines. My favorite “I don’t know nothin bout the birth of no baby, miss Scarlet”. Hattie McDaniels ( I think). They could never make that movie today for less than a billion $$. But it sure isn’t Casablanca or Citizen Kane. And they were done on the cheap!
•  Rick - Frankly Jan I dont give a damn
• Jan Hebel –  ‎@ Paul (UP), I expected that
  @Hank, good observations
  @Rick, now, that’s funny! – Rick, I know you despise me but you’re the only one in Casablanca I can trust!
•  Don – Jan, do I have to see it?
• Jan  Hebel – No, Don. Definitely not!
• Don – Well, then I will.
•  Tim –  Nice, Don!
• UP - Butterfly McQueen said, “Ah doan kno nuthin bout birthin no babies”, she played Prissy. The best line in the whole movie is “Why Melly Wilkes, what a cool liar you are!”

 ”Scarlett O’Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm…” is the opening line of Gone With The Wind.  People world wide are still caught in the charm of Scarlett O’Hara over 70 years after the movie was released.

Here’s why.

Scarlett is a great heroine.  Spoiled, vain, pretty, charming, conniving, duplicitous, and fearless, she rocked the world on the page, and came to life on the screen.

A woman who told us that she would “lie, cheat, steal, and kill” to keep her family safe and fed, she paved her way with the hearts of men, and let absolutely no one stand in her way.

She was, and remains, a literary goddess.

Sure, she killed a man, but he was a Yankee deserter.  Sure, she stole her sister’s boyfriend, married him for his money, bullied him, ran him, and eventually her actions got him killed.  But, any real man would have stood UP to her.  Sure, she was so self-possessed and self-absorbed that she didn’t realize love when it was in front of her and sure, she loved a man who wasn’t her husband even though he was a spineless wimp who couldn’t be “unfaithful with his body, nor faithful with his mind” to his own wife, but she was a winner, a survivor, a creature unlike any other in literature.

And we still love her.

It’s also one of the greatest love stories EVER!

As to the book, one must remember that Margaret Mitchell was a woman ahead of her times as well as a woman of her times.  She smoked, wore pants, partied, reported for a newspaper, and interviewed female prison inmates in a time when ladies did none of the above. 

But, she cut her teeth on the myth of the Ante Bellum South, and was fed lies, half-truths, misconceptions, and TRUTH by her mother and grand-mother.  She believed in the ‘lost cause’ at her core, even if she hated it and barely realized it.  She was truly a Southern Daughter!

And, she knew the book would sell.

As to the movie, Jan…and I still love ya’…in 1939 there were no computer generated scenes, it was truly a cast of thousands.  There was matte painting for sets, real fires for the burning of Atlanta, and animals were injured in the production.  Frankly, PETA, no one gave a damn!

It wasn’t Star Wars…thank God!

And about that “over acting” comment!  Ten, count ‘em 10 Academy Award Wins…a record that stood for 20 years until “Ben Hur” hit the screen!!!!

And, another thing, the irony of the first African American actress  (Hattie McDaniel)  winning an Oscar in a movie that many say glorifies the “Old South”, should be lost on no one!  Sure, she played a slave…it was set in 1860, in Georgia…(writer beats head against wall)…and there were very few other roles for Black women to play.

It’s a story that grips us, makes us think, and wonder, would we be willing to sacrifice so much to hang on to the things we love?

No, it’s not the greatest movie ever made…but it’s just about the greatest story ever written.

When in a quandry or dilema, I always wonder, “WWSD?”

What would Scarlett do?

 I’ll have to admit, I don’t really know how many times I’ve seen the movie, but I’ve read the book over 30 times.  And, ”my dear, I DO give a damn!”