My Hero

As I attempt to lessen my social media presence, this includes not even looking at LinkedIn. 

That site is kind of a joke. Or has become one. While I have five fold the number of 'contacts' that I do on FB, it has become less about jobs and trends and more about politics and religion. 

I don't need or want bible quotes, or updates on former co-workers kids. There is a way to talk business in terms of political landscape, but when you start touting candidates of any kind, you kind of figure you're possibly alienating half of the people with whom your connected. 

Yet one update slipped through yesterday - and I clicked. 

It was a response from a former neighbor and a lawyer who was hoping 710 and I would be an Ohio couple to legalize same sex marriage years back. 

This neighbor / friend / lawyer has been seemingly been posting a bit on the current administration when it comes to the law. But I'm going another degree of separation and show the original post. 

I don't know this woman, but I love her. 

Good for her! Sorry she's out a job, but yay for integrity. 

And speaking of same-sex marriage and integrity, or lack thereof..........Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, the law firm that represent Edie Windsor pro bono to declare DOMA unconstitutional (and also help - for free - the families who were separated by BLOTUS' southern border fiasco in 2017), caved to the current BLOTUS administration and is doing the same - if not more - than the above law firm. 

Cowards all!

Song by: Foo Fighter

Facts

What should be a shock to none, but truth be told was still a little surprised. is that Mark Fucking Zuckerberg is going the way of X and it's fuckard owner - Elon Musk. 

While the image here is LGBTQ+ specific, as it is from GLAAD, the elimination of 'fact-checking' goes far and wide that aren't just queer issues. 

....BTW, Meta has updated it's "hateful conduct' policy to now allow users to say Gay and Trans people have "mental illness". 

This goes beyond the reluctance to check actual facts. It provides users to actually hate. Maybe they need to rename their policy, unless it's just a roadmap for how to hate. Then it's spot on. 

For the record, Meta gave $0 to Biden's inaugural committee. It did give $1,000,000 for BLOTUS'. 

That is not a coincidence. 

Let's be honest. Twitter / X and FB have never been really good, let alone consistent, at checking any fucking fact. But now it's fucking fair game.

For the record, Google, Apple and Amazon have each given $1M to BLOTUS as well. 

It's either they are so fucking afraid of this guy, or it's "fuck it - we can freely hate now and know one can or will hold us accountable". 

At this point, I'm going with the latter. 

Google's mantra: "Don't Be Evil" is fucking hilarious at this point. I have to believe they laugh at this on a daily basis. Just change it already. I'm sure they can use "Fuck You!". 

Maybe this will be the kick in the pants I need to just eliminate FB and IG. It's harder getting rid of Google, isn't it?  Social media is bad for my mental health, so Mark just may get me to help me help myself. 

In the meantime, say whatever the fuck you want about whomever the fuck you want and post it on those platforms. It doesn't sound like they can or will do a thing about it.  Unless your Musk. When he gets butt-hurt, he banishes you from his site. 

What a fucking bunch of snowflakes. 

Song by: H.E.R.

Good

All those suckers who bought stock in Truth Media - it went down 26% in a day. 

Song by: Better Than Ezra

I'm Gone

None of what you're about to read will shock you. 

I deleted my Twitter account.  

*Shock*    *Gasp*     *Smelling Salts*

I do not believe they were indeed sorry to see me go, and fuck if they didn't get in one last hashtag. 

From the beginning I was annoyed. I couldn't get the handle @Blobby.  I had to settle for @Blobby1. It was a disaster from the start. 

Becky and her husband got me to join so many years ago, but truthfully, I never did much with it. I never know what to do with it. Or what I was supposed to do with it. 

Yeah, I get 'trolling' and while I'm not proud of it, I did my share, especially if a person was the Senate Majority Leader,  a Beverly Leslie homo-not homo Senator from South Carolina, or anyone who shared BLOTUS' last name. 

Oh - and Mitt Romney.  I got banned to 'reading status only'' due to my "inflammatory" words for him after he said they should wait to vote on RBG's replacement, then turned around and voted not to. Yes, I wished him and his family harm - and I stand by that - but I didn't threaten him. I mean, I also wish for $100,000,000, but they didn't ban me for that. 

Twitter was just soul crushing anyways. The vitriol was making me seriously consider doubling my antidepressant, and the joke was, I never came to Twitter, it came to me. I'd get emails to check out someone's tweet - and like a moron / addict, I did. 

I should have deleted it years ago, or at least after the 2020 election. But I didn't. 

My friend Farook asked what I found "soul crushing" from Twitter, and I told him. He just goes, "oh, I'm only there for the porn".   And that is there, but there I have no desire to follow "only fans" or porn "stars". 

Musk made me do it.  He was my final straw. 

Honestly, he did.  I hate to thank him for anything (so I won't), but the idea of that megalomaniac heading that (or any) platform was enough to make me find my settings and delete. 

I am sorry I have a Space X t-shirt, though going to a launch was cool. His polluting the sky with hundreds of satellites is horrid.  Whenever I get an EV, it shan't be from his company.  

Should I not be mistaken, I think I scrolled past a headline today (yesterday) that said he had dissolved the board and he and only he was in charge. 

Lord. 

It's a matter of days before BLOTUS get reinstated, which will be fun to watch - except that I can't.  That means, BLOTUS' platform won't even be his go-to.  Yet another failed venture for the world's most failing "billionaire".   Shock. Gasp. Smelling Salts. 

Granted, Twitter never took a lot of my time, but now it will take none of it, and I think that will do wonders for my mental health. 

Song by: Alison Krauss + Union Station

You're My Favourite Waste of Time

You know, some days it's just all I can do to jot down thoughts here. 

I rarely get to comment on blogs as I used to. I mean, I"d like to, but who has the time?  And when I find it, the moment has passed, as their entry is now days old - and chances are someone probably wrote something smarter and wittier. 

....well.......smarter. 

And while I'd LOVE to just fuck with likes of BLOTUS and Kanye Ye, the idea of setting up accounts at Parler or Truth Social seems tiresome, and trolling could be a full time job. 

Let's face it, I wouldn't last long there even if I wanted to take the time. They're all about "free speech" until it's against either one of them. 

Hell, I got my hand slapped - pretty hard actually - on Twitter two years ago when I wished harm on Mitt Romney and his family when he refused to take a stand after RBG died and they pushed through that cunt of a Supreme Court justice. 

My wish wasn't even a violent one. Just how I wish them no peace and a life full of pain the rest of their days.  I got threatened with a life-time ban...............while in the meantime, BLOTUS is upper-casing every tweet that were hate-filled and lies.  So, don't tell me he didn't get special treatment. 

Getting semi-banned from Twitter was fine. Yes, I can go there and read shit, but I didn't. It's been a g-dsend.  While I've given up most news outlets anyway, this gave me the freedom to give up fake news outlets.

Mind you, if I could write some automatic algorithm that just sent baseless mean, but hilarious messages every so many minutes, I'd do it just to clog the system. But again, who has the time.  Or the knowledge.  I didn't even get a C++ in computer programming.   

And with Musk taking over Twitter, having the ability would be wonderful. I mean, he's going to ruin an already flawed platform, but wouldn't it be great to make it so much more annoying that he threw away $44 BILLION dollars?    ......you know, instead of feeding every poverty stricken person on earth for life? 

Kanye and BLOTUS should merge their flailing platforms. I mean, they totally deserve each other. 

Song by: Marshall Crenshaw

History

I got invited to a private Facebook group, which I immediately accepted, but then immediately thought I should have given it more thought.

The group is on Columbus LGBTQ History.

For those who need a slight Blobby history lesson of their own - I spent 14 years in Columbus and THE Ohio State University, where I met not only 710,  but my besties of whom you read about here......often.

I was "happy" enough just to be a voyeur to this group for the first few days. There seemed to be a lot of drag show pictures. Unlike many, I'm not a huge fan of the art. I don't disapprove of it or anything, but I have seen far far far too many bad shows. My thing is: if you're gonna go to all that effort and get all dolled up (let alone the prep to get make, wigs, shoes, etc), at least know how to lip synch.....or the words to the song you selected.  (though Mr. Larry. who used to cut my hair, was excellent at his drag craft!)

So the drag aspect of this history was not in my social circle. A lot of those posts were lost on me. Ditto with the gay softball stuff - as I never played.

I did kind of on-line stalk some people who posted and commented. I knew some of the folks - adjacently. And then there were the posts from 2012, and while yes, it's technically 'history', it's past my time in Columbus and that all felt foreign to me.

710 and I left town in 1995, and you know before that, homos weren't really taking their SLRs out to the gay clubs, so I have way fewer pictures than most that I could even contribute.

Morty texted me Friday night, asking if it was ok to tag me in a picture he was wanted to post. Of course it was, I said right away...............and then I double-backed making sure it wasn't from one certain night of our lives. He assured me it wasn't, so I said, 'yes'.

You see the picture above. I don't know what look for which I was going back in 1992 (?), but thankfully for all, it didn't stick. I'm there with Mitchell and Morty. I adored both, but it took a long long time to gain Mitchell's approval. In retrospect, I can't say I blame him. I miss him daily!

From that post, one comment came back to me - a very casual friend, who was doing his own pseudo-stalking. He said something we were both thinking - and I'm guessing a lot of people who are posting and finding each other after years are doing the same - {paraphrase} "yes, I'm still alive". 

From that era, if it wasn't potential od'ing or prison time, it was AIDS. There is a lot of statistical evidence present to assume we might not still be roaming this planet. Oh - and since many of us are now in AARP land, natural causes cannot be ruled out anymore.

My melancholy, I think, set in the same way I had it when living in that town, participating in that life.

I had great friends, but the friends of friends, never warmed up to me, nor I to them, so my circle never expanded. I think, some might have recognized me by site, but certainly not by name. Me, being me, I knew who they all were. The odd thing is: I felt left out of groups I didn't want to be in the first place. I'm sure there's a psychological term for that.

Still - those feelings arose while going through all these posted images.

There are some Bruce D posts with all his 'friends' who were all shirtless, tanned and handsome. I was never going to be in that group or get an invite. I couldn't even get an acknowledgement from him when in P-town in 1990. Sometimes you're just not worthy.

I did throw up a test balloon on this group. I posted one of my own pics, the few I had, from a party I had. Two - count em - people liked it. I laughed to myself. Others are racking up dozens and hundreds of likes. I confirmed my absence for the last 25 years didn't really make a mark on anyone.

Honestly, I'm not moping - I totally get these were and are my own insecurities. I just kind of thought I was beyond those - and I am mostly. It was just a weird flashback.

I did reply to one post - a still dear friend - who truly was about the history, and asked to remember those who are no longer with us. While Craig didn't mention AIDS, that's really what it was. It was somber, sobering and endearing.

This also sent me down a rabbit hole for a friend of mine, Stuart, who died in 1995.

I would take him to the hospital and stay with him. I would call his brother collect via a hospital pay phone (no cell phones yet!), to update on progress. Stuart's parents came in the middle of the night - literally - and took him home, where he died. I never saw him or talked to him after they showed up.

So the hole of rabbits of which I speak, has been trying to identify his death notice and place of internment. I know, should it exist at all, it is here in Cleveland. But I think their 'shame' won't have me finding a record anywhere. I haven't located his brother either, just to drop a note. For me getting to think about and process that, I do thank this group.

We will see how long I stick with this Facebook group. It will most likely run in the background. Perhaps my perspective will change, perhaps not.  If we're being honest about FB, some posts are for recognition. I'm not going to get that here - outside of my friend's of 30+ years. And that's ok.

Maybe I'll be a voyeur, or maybe not.



Song by: Bush

Social Cues

Social media is a "funny" thing.  I understand it, but I don't get it - if that makes sense.

I guess blogging is social media, though I don't put it in the same category as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. I use all those things differently - if at all.  You see my blogging here. My IG has artsy-fartsy pictures I try to take, Twitter is for viewing, not participating, and Facebook actually has more nonsense than this blog.

With the latter, I rarely post political things - as that just devolves into flame wars (remember those, when there were "message boards" circa 1992???).

I use FB to post some pics or share stupid stuff, mostly. Usually, it becomes a faux flame war between Mike and myself. All loving jabs, I'm sure.................on my side.

I can no longer find the tweet (I think it was) that was posted on Facebook, but it sums up the app perfectly - and of something I am guilty of here and there:  As Notre Dame burned, people (moi aussi) put up their pictures of the cathedral.  The tweet accurately read {paraphrasing}:  when did this tragedy become about you bragging about your trip to Europe. 

SLAM!   ....and accurate.   Internally I laughed.  710 did so externally, as I read it to him.

Over this last weekend, an acquaintance of mine died. Cut to the chase: he committed suicide.

We couldn't call each other friends, and while he'd be nice to me here and there, more often than not, any little thing I said would get him in a huff. I never really took it personally because, well, we weren't friends and I had to believe that I wasn't the only one this type of interaction took place.   I could totally be wrong about that too.

Oddly, while a little sad, I wasn't horribly surprised either.

It was the social media (read: Facebook) responses to his death - and I'm sorry in advance - that had me rolling my eyes.

Of course, there were the "so sorry you passed". Mind you, it's possible most people didn't know he took his own life. But I watched is start to creep the the "me", and it went beyond "I remember when...." stuff.

It got to the "I talked to him, I was dealing with other, stuff, WHY couldn't I have saved him......" to the point where it was no longer about the victim.........except now there was a new victim.  Everyone jumping in to absolve this guy.  Hence the rolling of my eyes.

Or the guy who started his post with a remembrance which quickly went south. He chided others (no names) for him having to find out via social media of this death......and then signed off with a FUCK YOU ALL !!!!

Klassy.

My first thought was these people were acting out in grief - which might be partially true. But deeper down, it became a the "look at me" culture. My opinion, of course.

I had nothing to contribute to any of the conversations, not even the insincere "condolence", as who would I even give it to.  I just read for a while and shut down the laptop.

I need to do that more.



Song by: Cage the Elephant

Possession Obsession

Clearly, I am no fan of BLOTUS.  And while I think I've said it here, I'm not a fan of Hillary either.

Yeah - she got my vote, but if a porcupine was running on that ticket, I'd have voted for that.  She's had far too many missteps - more as Candidate Clinton than Secretary of State Clinton or Senator Clinton and emails not being one of them, oddly enough.

Hill might have a sense of humour, but whomever runs her social media has a better one.

Oh c'mon - you don't think she's tweeting shit herself, do you?  She has a 3-4 twentysomethings doing that shit between their fares at Lyft.

That said, I kind of laughed at this one.   Not out loud, but internally...........where it counts.





Song by: Daryl Hall & John Oates 

Message

Brutal week at work.  Still have today to go.  And the next like 10 weeks.

I'm still riding the wave of the GOP cluster.  I just stole a few things to post.




My absolute favourite. 

Whomever these guys are, I want to be the Lola Heatherton to their Sammy Maudlin.  (honestly, you have to click on the link.

Time is kind of knocking it out of the park with their covers.  I'm guessing BLOTUS doesn't frame it and hang this one in any of his clubs.

 This sounds exactly right.

Oh the humanity.




Song by: Gene Loves Jezebel

South of the Border (Down Mexico Way)

My g-d..........what a pussy.

But now he's a pussy who will be embraced by the alt-right. He's a pussy who will get right-wingers' business. He'll be the face of immigration concerns.  It's no longer a wall - it's SuperJew, Aaron Schlossberg who'll be the talking point going forward.......for a while.

His rant in the restaurant wasn't his only video'd encounter with someone he thought was non and un American. Oh no. Videos are surfacing. This guy is just a dick.

I do love how people found him out in about 0.003 seconds: name. work. house.  I love how reporters stalked him out......followed him, badgered him, but with a lot less tenacity and vulgarness than he has displayed.

Oh - and the website for his office infers Español is spoken.......and he's happy to take the money of those clients who speak it the language. So why so hostile, Mr. Schlossberg?

(btw......his phone number is on the website. Feel free to call the number often.....and at inconvenient hours. Tell him I sent ya!)

I like that from whomever he was leasing his office space kicked his ass the the curb. That will come back to bite them, unfortunately. Not by Schlossberg himself, but the angry angry mobs that think like him.

What I cannot believe is that someone hasn't already rooted through ancestry.com or Ellis Island to figure out when his family emigrated here, which probably goes back two generations or less.  Because if you're truly going to shame him - find out his probable wretched past. His future is probably already set.




Song by: Chris Isaak

Reaction to Action

The GOP controlled Senate is going to try to bring up their version of DumpCare(®) before July 4th.

Be vigilant.  Call your fucking Senators.  Even the ones who think the House version sucks.

Song by: Foreigner

Under the Bridge

You'd think I would be smart enough, and savvy enough, to stay away from people who post political crap on Facebook.

Normally I do.

Usually, I post almost nothing political. I don't see what good can come of it. But 2016 - hell, 2015 !!! - is a contentious battle for the Oval Office.  More so than usual.

So every little thing is being put up on social media - bet it FB or blogs. I'm assuming Twitter too, though I do try to stay far away from that shit.

I do blog about politics now and again, but you really have to search this out to find it - and not open to FB "friends". Most of the people who follow me here are like-minded, or at least based in rational, logical thought.

Hey - I said "most of".

I'm amazed at how people so easily post the most inane stuff. And the most untruthful stuff too - things that can easily be discounted as false, or not even in existence, with a quick Goooooogle search. So I try to stay away from hitting 'reply'.

Sometimes, however, I can't help myself but to respond.

It started with a cousin of mine. Ex-military, dyed in the far right GOP - yet still one of the only family members to congratulate me on the SCOTUS ruling. But he FB'd something about Ann Coulter. I chided him about how vile the woman was and how could he even reference her for anything.  He at least copped to knowing she was a twat, but that she was right on this one issue (some 14th amendment thing she was saying on FOX).

Another was on John Kasich, who said he wanted to abolish all teacher's lounges at all schools. Don't even get me started on that statement. But I was wise enough to pose my comment because I knew the originator of the thread and felt on safe ground.

Then there was the one about how Trump is chipping away at Hillary's lead.

I couldn't help myself.  I said - you mean a lead in that election thingy that is 14 months away. The one where neither person has their own parties nomination? 

It got good responses, but some nasty ones too. I mean, just don't post stuff just to post stuff. Anyone with half a brain knows a poll that far out with that many unknowns is meaningless. And it is meaningless, but the media helps choose the winner of an election much more than the actual candidate does. To anyone with that half a brain it probably doesn't - it's the less brainiacs that you need to worry about.

Then I edged into a debate about this.......

Read it.  Think about it. And let me know what the inference is - if any.   Go on.  I'll wait.






I first started off saying that the VA problem has been around for decades. This is nothing new. But really started off saying that GOP is cutting funding for any veteran programs - including health care, so they really shouldn't be talking about it.

I got a reprimand that it doesn't matter if the VA issue was 5 years or 50 - it's unacceptable. I don't discount that, but once you are behind starting unnecessary wars and creating hundreds of thousands of veterans - many of them wounded, physically and mentally - you better have the resources to support that back and front.

I also said, that one of these issues of which Donny speaks are not related in any way, shape or form.

Now, when you read this - don't you think that is what he was inferring?

My friend thought they were two separate issues, but the way the sentence is constructed, there is nothing to make me think this. And that is what is wrong with politics - especially the GOP.

Maybe it was meant as two items, but the way it was said, would lead a lesser voter to think:  HEY! Veterans can't catch a break because of those Hispanics who come into our country illegally!!!!!

Yes, those immigrants who are 'taking our jobs'. You know the ones we are all clamoring for - picking tomatoes for 13 hours a day at $4 an hour with zero benefits. But that's another post.

Trumps comments have zero to do with each other. Immigrants aren't walking into VA hospitals. And if they have no insurance, they are self-pay and after a while a hospital writes off these charges as 'charity care'. All hospitals do this. And most not for profit hospitals are usually required to provide charity care.

But the crux is - the mixed rhetoric that politicians say. I'm a semi-smart man, I know those two things have nothing to do with one another. So did my friend. BUT, he thought it was clear they weren't conjoined. I think your average Joe would think the exact opposite.

Am I wrong here?



Song by: Red Hot Chili Peppers

Learn to Fly

I know it's made the rounds - as even I've posted it on Facebook. But I was just so wow'd by 1,000 musicians playing the Foo Fighters' "Learn to Fly".

I like the song anyways, but I thought it was an incredible way to try to woo a band to play your native land.

I get that I don't know how much of the playing was isolated with mics, because you certainly don't hear any screw-ups. But when they get long shots of the drummers, not one of them is out of synch. It is totally awesome to watch.

And everyone is in tune. But with so many singers, you're not hearing the Peter Bradys of Italy.

The song is only the first four minutes of the video. Watch the rest if you like. Or don't.

The Foo Fighters even put this video on the front page of their website. I don't see how Dave Grohl & Co. cannot go and perform there now.







Song by: Foo Fighters