Things continue to move at a rather accelerated pace for me...
...and that's a good thing.

After the upstate NY/Toronto trip, I was in New Orleans for only six days. I worked in the New Orleans store on Tuesday morning and flew to Denver that afternoon. The weather sucked and ground stops in both Dallas and Denver delayed my arrival. I finally got the rental car, (after dealing with some very rude people at Avis... I mean this was set up on a corporate account and they acted like I was trying to steal the car because I wouldn't give them a personal credit card number). Drove north to Ft. Collins in a driving rain storm and checked in at the residence inn at around midnight. After that, everything went smoothly. I had a late breakfast and got into the new store about noon and went to work. They did a good job with this one and I had a fantastic time there. I didn't have much time to do anything other than work, but I did get a chance on Friday to drive into the mountains for a couple of hours.



The drive to Rocky Mountain National Park took about an hour each way, but the scenery on the way was lovely, especially along the Thompson River on the way to Estes Park and back. I only spent about 45 minutes in the park, but it was an orgasmic 45 minutes! There aren't any mountains here in the big mother swamp, and I like mountains! I found myself kind of moaning every so often as I drove along and some fabulous geological feature came into view... it was a lil' strange... I couldn't help making that noise...



Wow. I really need to go back and see some more of that.

Ft. Collins.

It's a college town, (University of Colorado), and IBM, HP and a few other companies are located there. The parts of the city that I saw were all very well manicured in that suburban sort of way. It was very pleasant, the summer weather very easy to take, enervating in fact, with highs in the low 80's and low humidity. I enjoyed my time there. I worked at the store Saturday morning until about eleven and the headed down I-25 to Denver, an absolutely gorgeous drive. The foot hills of the Rockies were most amazing to me! They are hills, but they are huge! The views during the drive were stunning, and of course, always to the right, the Rockies, some of them capped with snow. I enjoyed every minute of the drive.



Denver International Airport is a truly bizarre place. Architecturally, it's brilliant; depending on which way you approach it, it either looks like a group of science fiction like tents on the plains or a part of the Rocky Mountains. It's an impressive place, clean and new, but it's odd also; it has an odd feeling to it which I noticed the first time I was there for a connecting flight. There were astronomical cost overruns (from one point something billion to way over four billion, and that's a lot!) during it's building and a lot of controversy. This site has some wierd theories about the airport. Could any of it be true? I certainly don't know. But I can tell you this; during the underground train ride to the "C" Terminal, I noticed that the walls of the tunnel were lined with hundreds of little propellers mounted on the tunnel walls that would spin as the train wooshed by. A bit of whimsy perhaps? Or is there a more sinister purpose, hehe.

A stark contrast...

I arrived at MSY in New Orleans and was immediately overwhelmed by a sinking feeling. The airport is nice enough for a smaller non-hub, but after I picked up my bag, I stepped out into the humidity and the filth of the taxi loading area and found a taxi right away. It was, as often happens, one of the lazy drivers who prefer picking up unsuspecting visitors at the airport and trying to fleece them instead of making an honest living. The driver was obviously dismayed when he realized that I as a citizen of the town, and he was a total annoying asshole the entire way. He reluctantly asked me if I would like the A/C on, (by law, it was supposed to be on already for passengers), and when I said yes, he acted annoyed. The cab was dirty and in poor condition. I used to always report these morons to the cab authority, but ah, this time I just couldn't summon up the energy. Something has happened to my sense of civic pride...

After getting home at midnight Saturday, I worked Sunday and Monday here in New Orleans. On Sunday, I had to deal with an outside contractor who just furthur eroded my feelings about this crazy city.

What fresh hell is this?

So, after seven days of mostly enjoyable work, I had two days off, today being the first of the two. Did I get to "sleep in late" or just relax?

No. I got up early in order to go to the Criminal Courts Building for Jury Duty! Just what I needed. The building is on the National Historic Register, (it's been used in many films) and it would be a joy to visit it if it wasn't so grimy and populated with our particular brand of public employees, (not to mention the various criminals and their keepers...). It wasn't as horrible as I thought it might be, but it was bad enough. I had to stomp on a big cockroach that was trying to get to my Barg's. There were twelve courts in session today and they called fifty people out of the two-hundred and fifty prosepctive jurors crammed into the basement room for a trial about ten ayem. (For a twelve person jury, they need fifty people to cover the rejections by both sides, and any other recusals.)

As time went on, the person in charge would announce how many courts were still in session. Very few jurors are ever chosen, in most cases the defendant pleads guilty and there is no need for jurors. About eleven ayem, they announced that there were only two courts left in session and that they would be six person juries if they needed them, and they read off the names of fifty people that would have to stay. I was one of the ones who remained in their chairs after the others went off joyfully. A few minutes later they read off another twenty-five names since another court had settled. Once again, I was left behind.

At noon, the judge sent down word that we were to go to lunch and be back at one PM. I walked out and looked at my choices. Should I go visit one of the many bail bondsmen I had gotten to know when I worked for the Cajun Chef, bailing out his cooks when they went astray? Or should I go to one of the dumpy food establishments in the area? (Which includes one of the oldest looking Mickey D's in the country, it still has those "golden arches" that go right over the building...) I decided to just go back into the holding room and get a bag of cheesy snacks from the vending machine. At ten minutes to one, they announced that the defendant in the last court in session had pleaded guilty and we were free to go! I jumped on my scooter and roared off to freedom, free, free, free at last!

Of course, it immediately went from was once a sunny day to pouring rain.

Do you wonder why I ponder leaving this place?

Two recent films.

Lord of the Rings.



I finally watched the third film in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I can't say enough about these three films; it's just an incredibly amazing accomplishment! I've read the books several times over the years, always enjoying them, always becoming totally immersed in the rich texture of the stories. I read a lot and I always have a fairly vivid picture in my mind of the landscape of the books that I read. I was concerned that the Lord of the Rings films would not live up to my vision of the scenes in the books. But everything was nearly perfect, just like I had imagined everything might look. The actors in the film looked so right; the guy who did Gollum was brilliant! The elves were all perfect. The humans and the dwarf were perfect. Only the hobbits were a bit different than what I had imagined, and after a little while, they seemed just right as well. The adaptation of these revered fantasy novels for film was a monumental acheivement!



Party Monster.



O.K. I know. This is not a "critically acclaimed" big box office hit film. Lots of poeple hated it, almost all of the reviews were scathing. I think it was all just a bit much for all of them.

I liked it. But then I loved James St. James book, Disco Bloodbath! It's a peek into the "club kid" scene in NYC in the eighties, (a scene that the infamous Mark Allen knew something about), and a juicy peek at that. James St. James is a witty and clever man I think, I find his drug use and fabulous use of costume intiguing and amusing, and his writing clever enough. As for Micheal Alig and the club kids; how could you not want to find out more about them? What were they thinking! bwahahahaha!

The reviewers hated McCauley Culkin. But he did a very good job of acting the part of Alig. And he looked rather good doing it. There's a scene where Alig has just recovered from a drug overdose, (well, nearly recovered) and grabs the drip rack and saunters out of the hospital and into his next party where he wears a couple of strips of cloth tape, some glittery eye makeup, a lil' pouch for his doodads and nothing else. There's a lengthy scene of him from behind and well, for a lil' chicken, it's choice.

Marilyn Manson plays Christine, a large and delerious drag, (or perhaps gender changing) person, but honestly, I could have played that part... probably you could have too after a costume and make up session and a few Jeagermiesters.

But the real reason that puts all this over the top for me is that fact that Seth Green plays James St. James. I'm a Seth fan. He's one of those people that when I see him in a film, I can't not look at him. If you've paid any attention during the last three years of my site, you might have noticed that a man of his stature and coloring tends to push a lot of buttons for me. To see him play a flambouyant gay man was a real plus, and I think he did a pretty good job of it. (And you can bet I watched all of the extra DVD stuff...)

Party Monster is a very gay film, (although there are not a lot of homo-erotic scenes, there should have been a few...) very not "main stream", not a great film, but entertaining enough for us. The murder was horrible, but the characters involved were a wonder, worth looking at.

What next?

Well, the American Cheese Society Conference is coming up soon, the end of July, in Wisconsin. It's the Oscars of American artinisal cheese making! I'll so be there.

And I just talked to luca today. It looks like there may be a road trip in August...

Fair warning to all within a five hundred mile radius of Las Vegas!

durlx