Bite Me, Tony

Bless me Father for I have sinned. It has been 21 days since my last confession. Okay, not really. It has been 21 days since my last blog post . But you get the drift. A blog post can often feel like a confession and maybe, in fact, it is, at least in some respects. A lot has happened since my last confession. We got our second (Pfizer) COVID vaccine and endured zero side effects. Simultaneously, my doctors went all DEFCON 1 when some routine blood work indicated my kidneys were in imminent danger of failing; somehow that drama seems to have cleared up without much ado, other than my having to drink a white powdery concoction (Lokelma) four times a week while keeping an eye on my potassium intake.  Then, looking like a cross between a furious Shrek and a mustache-less Mr. Potato Head, there is the lumbering behemoth from the Coral Gate condominiums who has, for reasons unknown, decided that I am Public Enemy Number One ( possibly because I put on a face mask as he approached ...

It's Groundhog Day and, per the forecast of Punxsutawney Phil, we are in for six more weeks of winter. Not exactly terrible news for us here in South Florida but surely a hellish prognosis for much of the rest of the country. Yesterday, the Northeast was hit by a massive winter snowstorm that is ongoing even as I type these words. They're expecting 9-15 inches of snow and it isn't expected to let up until tomorrow. Furthermore, there are already electric power outages, and tidal surges flooding the streets in some areas of Queens, among other places. It's bad enough being in the swampy chowder of South Florida when a hurricane knocks out the power in mid-August but I can't imagine losing the heat when the temps outside are in the 20's and 30's (or below)! Can I?   Actually I can. Once, many years ago, I was living in a house in Oklahoma City with a good friend who was a shy,  mild-mannered banker by day, Brobdingnagian drag queen by night (towering 6'4...

It's been 28 days since my last post, and by now there's not much point in rehashing the 2020 presidential election. Let's just say that Donald J. Trump got his ass whupped--not bigly but definitively--and he's crying foul as we all knew he would. Without a shred of evidence, he and the Trump Chump, Rudy Giuliani, have embarked on a campaign of lies to discredit the election and to try and divide Americans even further, if that's possible. All this last ditch posturing is not going to keep Fat Bastard in the White House but, even so, it's not doing our democracy any good, either.  In the meantime, Thanksgiving snuck up on us and I got cornbread stuffing mix instead of the stuff I usually use, and to make a long story short, it was completely fucking awful. I'm famous for my stuffing so that was a very painful experience. Luckily, there was no one here to eat it but C and me, and fortunately, we had turkey, mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie on hand to make up f...

Election Day, 2020. Well, here we are. With seasonably cool(er) weather abetted by strong easterly winds, the suffocating South Florida heat and humidity have been temporarily vanquished, and we're able to sleep with the doors and windows open. This is a rare event, occurring on only a few occasions each year, and we make the most of it!  Oddly, I woke up this morning feeling calm, serene, even. That didn't last long as the grating sound of men shouting and car engines racing drifted in through the open windows. The elementary school just around the corner is the voting place for our neck of the woods, and the ruckus came from that direction. After two cups of coffee, I thought maybe I'd take a little stroll to see what was going on at the school (as if I didn't know) but, by 8:30, things had settled down. There was nary a sound save for the wind whipping through the trees outside the sliding glass doors. I guess even Trumpsters have to go to work. Later in the morning,...

Today is Halloween, my favorite holiday and the last day of my favorite month of the year. However, we will not be celebrating Halloween this year, obviously, due to the ongoing pandemic, not to mention the fact that every single day of 2020 has been jam-packed with all the malevolence of a holiday gone wrong: Halloween as directed by Lars von Trier . And with the election looming in three days time, who the fuck can think about celebrating right now? I'm already concerned that things may quickly turn into a real-life version of The Purge .  At any rate, we have Halloween candy, but not for potential trick-or-treaters--they're as elusive as an evangelist's integrity in this complex. No, we bought the Heath bars, Peanut Butter Cups and Almond Joys for our homebound, stressed-out, completely knackered selves.  We also have tons of scary movies, which I've already spent most of the month watching. I've made it through the first two films of Dario Argento's Three M...

Five days. It's finally come down to five days. I never thought we'd get here. The past (almost) four years have seemed like four interminable decades. In five days, we have the opportunity to vote out the mouth-breathing filth and his knuckle-dragging excrement of an administration. Will we do it? That shouldn't even be a question given Trump's negligence in handling the COVID-19 pandemic, his gleeful participation in sowing the seeds of hate and division in the country, the pathological lying and endless tweets, his cruelty and vindictiveness, the admiration for murderous dictators, the diminishment of the United States in the eyes of the rest of the world, the blatant disregard for any sense of civility that isn't self-serving. And that's not all. The list goes on and on. The evil and corruption are endless. He needs to go, should never have been near the White House in the first place.  Now, after four hideous years, we have the opportunity to vote him out a...

"Innocents With Dirty Hands" is a difficult film to critique. Without a proper restoration, the true beauty of southern France doesn't really enhance this mundane 1975 thriller from French film director, Claude Chabrol. The washed-out, drab-looking 2003 DVD from Pathfinder Home Entertainment shows its age: it plays fine but is unlovely to look at. However, the beautiful Austrian actress, Romy Schneider, appears in nearly every scene displaying copious amounts of skin, and even the so-so quality of the DVD doesn't detract from her obvious appeal.  The plot features Schneider as Julie, the younger trophy-wife of Louis (Rod Steiger), a middle-age rich guy with a whole slew of problems, none the least of which is his fondness for intoxicants. Ensconced in a palatial, modern horror near St. Tropez, Schneider's Julie is bored and horny, spending naked afternoons sunbathing in her back yard while Louis swills booze and staggers around wondering what the heck he's doi...