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Friday, October 31, 2008

Remember, on Halloween, you must watch Vote for Zombie!!! (Click on PCMP films on the right side, to view the movie).



























I am Cowboy Zombie in this short movie.

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Halloween Eve.



















Homer's Jack-O-Lantern, Toothy.


























Sandy's Jack-O-Lantern. the Grim Reaper.

On Tuesday voters in Arizona will probably pass Proposition 102. This will place an amendment in the state's constitution stating "Only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state."

The measure was put on the ballot by 16 state senators, the deciding vote cast by a creep named Tim Bee who represents southern Arizona. He is running for Gabrielle Giffords' congressional seat and was hoping to stir up the Born-Agains to support him. He is not going to win, but his legacy will be this nasty amendment.

The "Yes on 102" campaign is being largely funded by Mormons, Focus on the Family, and the Catholic group Knights of Columbus. Most of the money is from out-of-state. After it passes we will almost certainly see lawsuits to prevent state and local governments from offering domestic partnership benefits, similar to what happened in Michigan.

Arizona has a history of marriage discrimination. Up until 1958 it was illegal for a white/Mexican person to marry a black/Asian/Native American person. The state Supreme Court finally overturned that law.

I guess the people who pushed for this measure can see the future- they knew that younger people increasingly don't care about homosexual marriage. It is much easier to put an amendment into the constitution than it is to remove one.

So there you have it. If a tornado dropped a house on the people who pushed for this measure, I would feel the same way the Munchkins felt, "Ding, dong, and all that." The Christian fundamentalists will be thrilled and then will start planning their next move (my guess, banning adoptions by gays). Sometimes I wonder why they are so consumed with hate for their fellow human beings.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Some artifacts from my recent dig.

In an Early Ceramic period (A.D. 50-600) pithouse we found seven animal bone and two ceramic gaming pieces. These were used to play gambling games by the Native Americans living there. We found scraps of deer bone and some grinding stones in the house, and they may have actually made these inside the house. What is most interesting is that nothing like this has ever been found in the Tucson area (similar ones are found in northern Arizona).



















Gaming pieces (click to enlarge).

In one area we found a depression that had been filled in with trash during the Tanque Verde phase (A.D. 1150-1300). These decorated ceramics were among four shopping bags worth of pottery sherds we found in a 2m by 2 m square area.





















Tanque Verde phase pottery.

The designs on pottery changed every 50 to 100 years, which is how you can tell how old they are (based upon radiocarbon dates from other features containing decorated pottery). During the Tanque Verde phase bowls were decorated on both the inside and outside. The designs included a lot of cross-hatching, geometric spirals, and the use of free floating "X" designs (see the right hand side of the bottom middle sherd).

And in other news, I made pizza and went over to John H's house and helped him research his mysterious great-grandmother. We were able to locate an index to a newspaper that reported her obituary, I felt very smart afterwards.

Monday, October 27, 2008

When I was in graduate school, sometime in the late 1980s or early 1990s, Tony Hillerman came to speak at the Anthropology Department. He was receiving an award from the department (one of his two main characters had a degree from the Arizona State University anthro department) and he gave a short talk. Afterwards there was a book signing and many of the students brought copies of his new book. I was a poor, struggling anthro grad student, living on about $550 a month (rent was $270) so I couldn't afford a new book. Luckily, I had a paperback copy of his most obscure mystery and I took that up for him to sign for my mother. Hillerman looked at me and said, "You are a cheap bastard, aren't you?" and we both laughed. I gave the book to my mother for Christmas (she is a huge Hillerman fan) and she was so excited to have his signature, she didn't care that it was on a worn paperback.

He led a good life and his books opened the world of the Navajo and Hopi to millions of people around the world. I'm glad to have met him for a fleeting moment.

Sunday, October 26, 2008

White cake with white frosting. For Patrick's birthday, he asketh and he receiveth.


























Patrick and his cake.

The cake and frosting were not for those on a diet- 4 1/2 sticks of butter and three things of cream cheese were included.

One thin slice and I have a mild sugar buzz. Patrick liked his cake, I'm happy to do something special for a special friend.

Saturday, October 25, 2008

So I was driving by the First Assembly of God Church, the one with the recently vandalized sign, and two guys were putting up a banner "Yes on 102" on the side of the church and I turned around, parked, and walked over to them.

"You should be ashamed of yourself!" I told them. "What?" they said. And then I proceeded to ask them why they thought it was alright to discriminate against their fellow tax-paying citizens. The very hot redhead (I've never seen a straight man so perfectly groomed) brought up the Bible as a reason. I asked him he ate seafood and when he said yes, I reminded him that that was banned in Leviticus. I told them that if they were following biblical rules, slavery should be legalized and polygamy.

The redhead then said it was a majority rule issue. I asked him again if it was alright to discriminate against fellow citizens. He seemed to think so. The old geezer started protesting me saying these things and I looked at him and said, "First Amendment rights" and shut him up. I guess speaking to a gen-u-wine faggot probably made him feel a little queasy. No opinions were changed, but it was important to me to confront bigots and let them know my opinion.

If you are religious, don't read beyond this point. I've warned you. Please click on some other link, go look at this cute racecar driver redhead's site, for instance. Again, don't read on because I may hurt your heart a little bit.

Religion is the biggest pile of bullshit. I have no respect for people who fervently believe in make-believe god(s). Yes, it is scary to die and, yes, it is nice to have someone tell you what to think (much easier than thinking for yourself). But grow up. Religion is a bunch of bullshit. Nothing in my life has convinced me that some higher being exists. It is all fear and fear and fear, mostly of death, that drives people to mindlessly believe the garbage that we call religion.

Over the last thousands of years how many gods and goddesses have people worshipped? It must be thousands. And the followers of God X or Goddess Y are/were completely convinced that the faithful believers of God Z are/were utterly, completely fucking wrong. If you don't believe in A or B, or do believe in C.2.b, you are going to fucking hell, to writhe around and burn and fuck who knows what. You have to believe in F and in G.7.b.II to get into Heaven. How could all of those people believe so utterly, thoroughly in Zeus and Athena, and yet they were apparently completely wrong and really, it is some other god that is real.

People have believed so much in particular gods that men have been willing to cut their balls off, drink the pretend blood and eat the pretend flesh of pretend Jesus, and willingly fly airplanes full of screaming people into buildings filled with thousands of people to gain entrance into heaven where they thought they would get to fuck 72 hot virgins. Tell me that isn't fucked. How many millions of people have been killed because of religion? One of the reasons it was so easy for the US to bomb the shit out of Iraq was because Iraq was full of Arab Muslims instead of pious Protestants. And while all of those people were getting blown up and maimed, Christians in the US were protesting abortion clinics because Christians are "pro-life," whatever the fuck that means.

Yes, Jesus was probably a person who lived in Palestine and got himself crucified. As an aside, I can't help wondering if he was so perfect, did he have a perfectly shaped cock? And why am I not being struck by lightning for typing that? I don't believe for a minute in any of the magical powers ascribed in him or in the miracles and images of Didn't-get-her-hyman-cracked Mary that keep appearing on tortillas and lead paint covered bedroom walls. But everytime an image of Mary shows up on a children's crap-covered diaper, thousands of people wander over to see it, take digital pictures of it, and generally think they are better people for doing so.

I feel nothing but disgust over the whole business. And it is a business, The people controlling the secrets (priests, preachers, imams) benefit financially and get a lot of power ordering people to do this and that. The Mormon church, the Catholic church, and the First Assembly of God Church in Tucson are full of people who believe that they are so much better than other people because they believe in their golden tablets and unbroken hymens and that putting "Yes on 102" banners on their walls does not make them bigots.

Fuck, religion is pathetic. Atheists, of course, are superior in every fucking way.

Friday, October 24, 2008

Halloween is a week away and I'm completely not ready. Unlike my neighbors, I haven't hung cobwebs everywhere, placed tombstones and skeletons in my yard, and draped caution tape across my doors and windows. It appears that Ray isn't holding his big party this year, so Sandy and I are apparently going to a smaller party down the street. What to wear? I may go as a redneck zombie, easy to do but guaranteed to not attract any cute redheads, since no one wants to hit on a blood-encrusted mess.

What are you doing for Halloween?

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Is it wrong for me to admit that I laughed out loud when I saw the "Yes on 102" (the anti-gay marriage amendment) sign at the church on Broadway Avenue had been defaced with a giant red swastika? I laughed. I was just telling Sandy about the sign, and secretly wished someone would destroy it (it is huge) and someone did. I suppose that particular church's particular version of "God" didn't like that sign and did something about it. And to whoever did it, thanks!

Morning Person or Night Owl? I'm a morning person (Jimbo can verify this). I get up and I'm all sweet and perky (and noisy, Jimbo can verify this). If I stay in bed too long I get terrible back aches, so I get up and do my chores and play on the intertubes and so on.

Back in college I was a night person. Nobody went to bed before 2 AM. The idea of that just seems bizarre a couple of decades later.

So what are you, not-so-gentle readers, AM or PM?

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Disclosure: in the last two months I have spent $0 on clothing and $13 on a haircut (the last time I paid someone to cut my hair was in January 2005).

The excavation is completed as of yesterday. I ran around and with the help of Allen and my other crew members, we finished. I was so tired I fell asleep on the couch at 6:30.
























A slab-lined pit, used as an outdoor oven about 700 to 1000 years ago (difficult to see, but it is a little over a foot deep).

Brian was my personal saviour last night. My computer got infected with something called "xp antispyware 2009" and that fucking nasty virus took over my browser and everytime I tried to bring up webpages, it would divert me to something else (especially if I googled anti-virus websites). It also disabled my virus protection programs. No idea how it got onto my computer, or why someone would invent such a shitty thing. With Brian's help, I used Malwarebyte's program and it removed the virus and the annoying pop-ups.



















An Early Agricultural period pithouse (400 BC-AD 50) that was below an Early Ceramic period pithouse (which I posted a picture of a few days back) The black and white stick is one meter long and is used as a scale in our pictures of houses.

I'm taking part of today off to do my own stuff. That includes sending an email to four people who work for the Arizona Daily Star, which today published a full page advertisement paid for by the "Yes on 102" anti-gay marriage amendment people (including the Knights of Columbus).



















Forrest poses in a pithouse.

I actually pay money to get a paper copy of the newspaper- it is one of those pathetic liberal attributes- support the local media. Plus my mother reads it when she is here.

In the email to the executive and managing editors, publisher, and reader advocate, I stated:

I am wondering if your paper would have published a a similar full page ad "Yes on banning interracial marriages!" back in the day when that was the law? I am a gay man who pays taxes, has never been arrested, vote, volunteer, etc- and yet this vile amendment guarantees that I will remain a second class citizen in this state.

I am very angry and questioning why I should continue to subscribe. Can you explain your rational for publishing the ad, which even states that funding came from an out-of-state source.

Let me be clear- if I do not get a personal response to this email explaining why ADS published that ad I will be cancelling my subscription.
This last sentence was in bold, just to make sure that it would catch their eye.

Don't get me started on Mormons and the Catholic Church right now. They are the main proponents of these anti-gay amendments. What a joke- right now in northern Arizona a Mormon polygamous sect is busy marrying grandpas to teenage girls as their 14th or 15th wives and then there is the whole "Let's pretend those priests aren't really raping little boys" cover up by the church in this state. "Let's keep marriage simple!" the churches proclaim, while looking the other way.


Tuesday, October 21, 2008

So Sarah Palin thinks small-town Americans are "Pro-American" and another McCain surrogate says that people who live in rural Virginia are "real Americans."

This idealization of small town America is perplexing to me since I grew up in rural northern Michigan and have lived in small towns in North Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming. In all of these places the jobs suck, the schools suck, there is nothing to do but do drugs and fuck, parents hate higher education because that means their children move away to those awful big cities to look for jobs that actually provide insurance and vacation days. If small town America is so real and fabulous, why are half the towns in North Dakota and Nebraska emptying out and turning into ghost towns?

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Gay Pride 08!!! Oh yes, I was full of pride (and two cups of beer) at Tucson's Gay Pride yesterday. It was nice, I said hello to a lot of my peoples, listened to some musics, gave out my number to a cute redhead, hey, it was pride after all!

















Steve and Homer.

I've known Steve since 1986!!! Back in my Ann Arbor days he used to date one of my housemates. Now Steve lives in Tucson and whenever we see each other, we say goofy things and don't act our ages.


















Sandy.

I wonder if straight men ever wear harnesses? They are missing out if they don't, since Sandy got a lot of attention. And who could blame the menz who were admiring his handsomeness?

Sandy's birthday cookies. Although Snickerdoodles won in the popular vote, the electoral college (Sandy) went for Jam Thumbprints.




















Blackberry and Apricot Jam Thumbprints.


They were harder to make than I had imagined, sticking to the wax paper that I had lined the baking sheets with. I ate some of the broken ones- yummy!


Friday, October 17, 2008

I thought the archaeology dig was going to be done today, but we have to go back on Monday to finish a few things.
























Allen taking pictures.

We finished a couple of Early Ceramic (A.D. 50-600) or Hohokam (A.D. 800-1300) period pithouses. They are shallow pits cut into the ground, some with postholes where posts once held up the roof.



















Pithouse.

Most of them have a little plastered fire hearth right in front of the entranceway.























Fire hearth.

We had a couple of tours today and during one an archaeologist pointed out that one of them had an earlier pithouse showing up in its floor. It was another round one that dates back to about 2,000 years ago. We are digging half of it and will have that done Monday.




















Another pithouse.

So during the second tour I was showing off a slab-lined cooking pit to 24 7th graders and suddenly I felt something crawling in my pants. A huge black ant had taken a journey into my crotch and as I was explaining life in the past it started biting my penis. Over and over again. Nothing I could do, since I was being asked a lot of questions and could not suddenly run off to scream in agony. So I gamely stood there as Mr. Ant stung me some more. Afterwards my penis burned for about an hour. It was very painful, but I survived.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Since it has decided to get cool here in Tucson, and I can now return to regular baking, and since Sandy is arriving from Australia today and it was his birthday a couple of days back, please vote on what sort of cookies I should make him as a present:

1). Jam thumbprints
2). Chocolate chip cinnamon cookies
3). Oatmeal raisen
4). Snickerdoodles

Remember, your vote counts! Please express yourself in the comment section.

Monday, October 13, 2008

I'm making a practice white cake for Patrick G's birthday. It is baking right now.


























Homer and Puff.

The actual birthday cake has to have white cake with white frosting. The one I am making tonight is going to have lemon curd in the middle, but I need to drive over to Mexican Safeway to get some lemons before it gets made.

Chatted with Mummy on the phone tonight. She is much better since they figured out the celiac disease and she stopped eating wheat products. Someone sent me a gluten free and sugar free cookbook- I need to start practicing recipes from that. Mummy was in good spirits and I could tell she is about back to normal. She'll be here from January to March or possibly early April. That will be very interesting for me.


Later




















White cake with lemon curd.

Sunday, October 12, 2008

So today fall arrived in Tucson, I actually felt cold this afternoon sitting out on the patio at the Venture Inn.
























David G.

We talked about disgusting topics like STDs, seamy San Francisco places, and presidential politics.




















Pat and Rick.

I came home and remembered to take another allergy pill. The wind has been blowing hard and it has turned me into a blubbery mess of tears and snot. I will be glad when that stops.

Thursday, October 09, 2008

I voted early.


























That One.

Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Some pictures of me as a child.
























Being naughty, circa 1965.























I am helping Susan brush Daisy at Grandma F's house, 1965.
























Playing in the sand, circa 1966.

Monday, October 06, 2008

So less than a month to go... who is going to win? Obama/Biden or McCain/Palin? I'm waiting for my absentee ballot to arrive.

Vote in the comment section...

Sunday, October 05, 2008

I vigorously weeded my front garden, dug up and separated the chive plant that has been there since 1999, and planted a new rosemary, thyme, sage, and chives to go along with the existing rosemary and oregano.



















Before.

It is now ready for winter, when it will supply me with herbs for omelets, quiches, and roasted vegetables.




















After.


The back garden isn't finished yet. I pulled the weeds and the various squash plants that sprouted but never made squashes. I've been dumping my kitchen waste back there and the failed batch of oatmeal cookie dough (as I was pouring the oatmeal into the dough I discovered weevils [yuck!]) is a congealed mess that I decided I would deal with tomorrow.

Saturday, October 04, 2008

As I return to my normal spunky self, I found myself doing many things today. I went to the nursery and purchased herbs and flowers, which will be planted tomorrow. I stopped off at Patrick's and gave him lettuce seeds. He'll have to make me a salad sometime. We sat and chatted and then I went to the supermarket and bought cleaning supplies. My two bathrooms are just gross.


So after lunch I had a nap and then I cleaned the cat bathroom. Yuck. Apparently my aim while vomiting on Thursday night wasn't so hot. Oh well, it is now all sparkly and shiny. In a little while I'll wander into my own bathroom and make that something similar.


As I was driving around I noticed lots of businesses closed or closing. And a huge number of homes for sale. So far I don't know anyone who has lost their home, I hope that doesn't change.




October self portrait.

I'm growing my hair out and have a bushy goatee now. I'm trying for the caveman look.


Thursday, October 02, 2008

Instead of watching the debates I am having stomach flu and vomiting, body aches, and diarrhea. Or maybe that's just the reaction I get when I see Sarah Palin and hear her voice, which is immensely more nasal and whiney than mine.

I am such a big baby when I am sick and if I didn't think I was contagious I'd demand that my friends come over and swab my forehead with damp towels and rub my calves, which ache so bad. But now that dinner has come up, I am already feeling a bit better and in a little while I take a pill and some ginger ale and see what happens.

Wednesday, October 01, 2008

"Hey dudes, stop the faggot talk!" I am at my favorite pizza place on 4th Avenue and I've just ordered two slices- black olives and onions on one and artichoke hearts and minced garlic on the other. I give the cute girl behind the counter a $1.50 tip and my bill comes to $6.40. I walk a couple of steps to the counter to grab a napkin and red pepper flakes and parm cheese.

At the window a pair of late teenagers are talking very loudly. Very loudly. Every other sentence is, "He's a faggot," or "That's such a faggot thing to do." One was in line in front of me. Since we are humans, we both ordered food and beverages. Both guys look alike, that scruffy hair that seems to be in style, white tee shirts with something printed on them, bit black lumps piercing their ear lobes.

I walked a couple of steps toward them and in a very loud voice tell them those six words. They look instantly mortified and both blurt out, "Sorry!" I nod and return to the counter for the red pepper flakes that I like to sprinkle on my pizza. The three or four tables of other people, people who didn't care that the kids were so loudly and obnoxiously using the f.a.g.g.o.t. word, looked at me curiously.

I waited for my pizza and when it came it was good. I'm glad that I spoke up, but wished I had added a second sentence, "I'm a faggot and you are offending me." I'm not willing to be silent anymore.

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