The point is: Earth Day 2012

...I was perusing the Los Angeles Times' info on the annual two-day Festival of Books which is exactly what it sounds like. Today's authors included: Julie Andrews, Betty White, Florence Henderson, Mayim Bialik (Ol' Blossom from that 'very special TV series'), Anne Rice, and Bethenny Frankel. I can't decide if that line up skews it to being a 'women's event', or a 'gay man's musical star/TV mom/oversexed octogenarian/child star/author extraordinaire extravaganza'.

Although I sound crabby for not being asked to moderate a panel, it's a great event. One that could only be improved in my mind by returning it to Westwood and UCLA versus that other private university south of downtown with a mascot that's also a prophylactic brand.

But I only write books, I don't do logistics for festivals. Looking at the two page spread, I started to formulate a joke about the headline which had to do with 'getting the point': then I realized the Times was being clever and instead of the pages being all Festival of Books, the top half had to do with the proper disposal of sharps in Los Angeles County as today is Earth Day.

SHARPS ARE RIGS, POINTS, SYRINGES, ya dullards. The tool by which one 'slams'?

Well, sharps should be disposed of properly. That means, in a Sharps container which is bright red, and has that trendy bio-hazard symbol on the outside. After you've spun around for awhile, and are cleaning up the detritus of the play, you want to put your used rigs in one of these smart receptacles.

Sharps containers come in a variety of sizes, from an 'overnight' kit that holds 1, to an 8 or 10 GALLON size should you be hosting a convention. You can order them online, so discretion is assured.

Please don't let me get wind that you casually toss your rigs in the garbage, a dumpster or anyplace else that could seriously injure an innocent person. That isn't cool, and it sure as hell isn't kinky, twisted, depraved, or a directive from Facebook. By cleaning up and disposing of those sharps properly you not only help the environment, you are also taking responsibility for your actions. If that's too much to handle, I suggest you consider a change of habit.

The Warlocks of Westwood

Arriving two weeks earlier than he'd told me, a former professor of mine: that is, had I not declined Georgetown..or was it Notre Dame-- called from a quasi-fleabag motel about a mile from me. That's right, I declined both universities, but that's not today's story. Dr. Trees,  or 'Dr. T' as he likes to be called, was in town doing research with colleagues at UCLA-where I began coursework towards a Master's Degree sometime in the last century.

Dr. T is the man to go to regarding world cultures, mythology and paranormal stuff. He's such a wealth of knowledge that I think sometimes he gets his rituals mixed, and the result is....well....do you remember the character Alice Ghostley played on TV's  Bewitched? That's right, Esmeralda the daffy housekeeper. Well, Dr. Trees isn't quite that off-kilter, then again, it's said that chems amplify a person's natural state.

I was delighted to hear from him, but when he told me the casino employee who'd recommended the motel had arrived, then quickly fled, I should have known things would be haywire quickly. Since when does a black-jack dealer pay for someone's room, arrive right on time, but then (in Dr. T's words) suddenly flip out and leave...neither ripping off nor making a sale? That just doesn't happen here.

That's not to say my friend wasn't alarmed. His brand new-fresh off the assembly line Android phone had been tampered with he believed, so much so he couldn't access any applications. For about 4 hours each night over the next 2 days, I did my best to politely show my friend that the tampering was all his doing. He'd fucked up the phone so much only a reset would help him. I still don't know why he didn't get a new iPhone-and eventually he did-until that got fucked up too. I think. I lost track.

At dinner, Dr. Trees filled me in on his recent travels to Martinique after Haiti, studying and writing on the effect the 2010 earthquake has had on that culture. When relating a story though, you get the impression he's not quite giving you all the information...and that he's playing with your mind...not in an evil way....but in a mischievous, yet quite irritating way. Having paid close attention to him when he spoke on a panel at a literary conference I'd attended way back when, I did the only thing I could do when we got back to my place. I lit a white candle...and I do so again just now. Insurance.

The next day, my stomach was bothering me enough that I had to pass on the Doc's offer to join him in Palm Springs, and although I gave him easy directions, the 2 hour drive became a 9 hour sojourn. He explained it to me several times, but I still didn't understand the extra 7 hours. Not really so amazingly, once in PS, he ran into an old friend and they had fun. I didn't get to see him upon his return to Los Angeles, but I'll not forget his visit anytime soon.

And that white candle burns behind me as I write this. Hell yes, I'm superstitious.

In my Merry (but oh-so-slow) Oink-mobile

I spent a frustrating hour trying out and draining my iPhone battery via the mobile version of the site formerly known as Nasty Kink Pigs. Or maybe it's still NKP, although everything seems to point to 'Oinkmobile' as it's new name.

It's taken me a couple of weeks to figure out that it's not likely pronounced Oinkmobile a la Batmobile but as in T-Mobile.

Oinkmobile looks good on my iPhone 3GS, but I can't say I was able to get too deep into it. More on that below.

Way back when, NKP touted a forthcoming Pig Network with various depraved and decadent .com names, sort of like the old Ning platforms for social networking. Ning decided to get out of the depraved and decadent hosting business and that's about when NKP came on the scene. Yet, months later, not much has changed at NKP in the manner I and others expected given the hype.

I have nothing but the greatest admiration for the creator of NKP. He's entrepreneurial, bright and when I blogged there regularly (prior to this edition on Blogger) he'd drop me a note every so often to tell me how much he enjoyed reading my work. Considering how much other stuff he has to keep track of, including a real time 'Pig Board' with posting rules that most seem to ignore, the fact that he'd email me was very flattering indeed. And, given I couldn't design a website, my only major problem in the past 4 years was when the site was redesigned overnight, resulting in links that didn't work and a general crash of the whole system. It was fixed, and paid memberships were granted an extension. Oh, and during some recent upgrade, my profile description was erased, and all my saved emails in folders I'd created were deleted as well. Oh well.

I downloaded the app to my phone--- and after choosing 'ok' about 150 times to allow access to my location,  the server timed out.  

Finally, I'm greeted with a Grindr or Scruff type view of Swine in My Pig Pen (or something like that, and there's my profile pic---which is one of my dick. That's not the pic I have as my default on NKP, and scanning the other nearby pigs...my dick stands out and I don't mean in a good way.  But I can't seem to change my pic on the mobile application.

Speaking of Grindr, I tried that out for all of 2 days before tossing it into the cyber-compost heap. Too many lead ins that began and ended with 'sup?' for me. As for Scruff, which a few friends recommended, it had so many bad reviews on iTunes App Store, I chose to pass.

Now I was curious and found there are 40 something gay social networking applications available. Some sounded too cutesy (Boy-Ahoy anyone?) others: variations on a theme (GROWLr, gfndr, Skout, Mr., Local Sin) a clever his and hers (Bender, Brenda) and Asian (9monsters). That doesn't include Skype or oovoo. Whew.

Back on my desktop, I yanked my dick--pic off my profile which should solve that problem, although I had noticed my inbox was full---with every email ever received-or so git seemed. 

There could be a lot worse things about mobile cruising: like the actual hook ups. Swine indeed. 

The Plus Life

That's right: it's time again for THE TEN COMMANDMENTS to play on American television. Passover begins at sundown on Good Friday, (April 6 for you no-goods out there) which means that Easter follows on Sunday.

I've had a series of men who for whatever reason or another have partners or family who they need to keep certain facts hush hush. I respect that...but you can only compartmentalize sooo much before it bites you in the ass.

On the assumption that many of will get some type of holiday time off from work this week, I have a little homework for you. That is, if you have a gmail account from the goo-goo-goo people at Google. The rest of you are on your own, but you might want to follow along, because somehow you'll be affected by this.

As you may have heard, Google streamlined all their various services to make your lives easier to check up on. Gmail, You Tube, Picasa, why even my host here Blogger, are all Google enterprises. I'm not going to go back and rehash what you shoulda shoulda done (clear out old history, double check what screen names you used) before everything was kinda rolled together. Nope.

Google is trying to keep pace with Facebook, and thus introduced 'Google +' , which features 'circles' = family, friends, acquaintances, you name it. In fact, you CAN name it by creating your own circle.

I decided what the hey, I'd give Google + a try.  Well, like Facebook, or Linked In or any other Social Network worth its salt, Google + combs through your online address books, who knows how else they snoop, I'm here writing about it for crying out loud.

Suddenly, I had a list of gmail addresses of people I didn't really remember talking to, but I guess I did. Even better, I could click on their name and get their real name, what other Google sites they used (assuming they checked the appropriate (or inappropriate) box).

So, after a couple of hours of deleting, reviewing and revising, I'm feeling pretty good about my privacy on Google.

Perhaps you should do the same. Otherwise it won't take a palm reader to predict your less than private future. And this ain't no April Fools Day joke.