Uncategorized – Page 21 – Hopeful Romantics

When Your Friends Start to Die

It is disconcerting to say the least when your friends around you start to die. Suddenly, you realize you have reached an age when death comes regularly if not yet often. You are struck by its reality, its finality. You are struck by your own sense of mortality.

I am not at the age when you expect your friends to pass on. I’m a Boomer, and at this point in time and medical history, most of us are expected to live into our eighties and even nineties. But clearly some don’t make it. For some, life’s little game of Beat the Clock, offers a more truncated existence. Suddenly we are gone, leaving others to grieve and reflect.

I lost yet another friend, recently. I had not called him for a couple of months, and when I did I found his business number was being transferred to his Las Vegas office. I knew right away he was gone. No way, he would voluntarily leave California to move to Las Vegas.

He had struggled for years, having been inflicted with the ill effects of Agent Orange. He had come into contact with it while serving in Vietnam. Agent Orange was reported to cause all sorts of damage and lead to severe illness and death. Of course, the government denied its ill effects, even while returning GI’s suffered from its symptoms. My friend had the symptoms. He had Hodgkin’s Disease and then heart disease, and finally he had trouble breathing without feeling worn down. It was a sequence of events that he endured with good humor for twenty odd years.

Nevertheless, he managed to become a notable figure in the music industry. He was but a little guy who never, ever looked the part of the rangy GI. He was too bookish, near nebbishy. But he had amazing inner strength and courage the more macho among us could only wish for. He could literally laugh at life’s consequences and make jokes while staring death in the face. It wasn’t that he didn’t care; he had a lot to live for. But he knew in the end it didn’t matter whether he cared or not. This was the game, these were the cards. Play what you are dealt with.
Which range from vibrating rings, condom rings to screaming o bullet, the list buy levitra online https://unica-web.com/ENGLISH/2015/GA2015-minutes-3.html is very vast. What’s more, it treats symptoms unica-web.com cialis 10 mg and root causes of pathological leukorrhea without palindromia. You need to tadalafil best prices realize your strengths and weakness. Psychologist worldwide have concluded that most of these ED solutions work by simply increasing supply of blood to the penis; however, they do not target the very reasons for erectile dysfunction. cheap levitra generic
As with other friends who have passed away, you think about the slights and spites, the things you wished you hadn’t said. You feel remorse, even guilty for some of the interchanges, even those you were never called on. But that soon passes. Then you remember the times you had. You remember the fun times, but more importantly you think of the funny times. You think of the events that were so ridiculous that you knew at the time, while you were laughing, you would be laughing in hindsight many years later. You think of the shared moments, the small intimacies. In this case it was all the music concerts we attended for business or otherwise. In this case it was the backstage parties and the energy of what was then a vibrant music business. It was fun just being there.

Now all that’s left are the memories and the experiences that have left you wiser, feeling a little dumb for the things you said and did, and imbibed when people still bought record albums. Remember your friend who has passed away brings inspires the memory of other people who also made the scene. Some of them are still around. Many, too, are gone.

You are left with the feeling of the passage of time and how little time any of use really have on the planet. We know we are at the back end of life but not close to the point where we are truly old and frail, losing our faculties. That is yet to come. Perhaps when we do reach that age, we can be better accepting of our mortality and the inevitable end of our lives. But now it still seems so distant, and yet here it is so close. It’s seems unfair, really, when we are still vibrant and capable, viral, even, and still curious about the world.

But there are no guarantees that life will ever be fair. We can watch all the movies we want that reinforce this notion, but from the moment we step out of the theater and back on the street, we know otherwise. Life is life. And then it is over. For some it just comes earlier than others. Too early.

Good night, Steve.

Women in History and the Things We Don’t Know

Common long time fodder for comedians and pundits alike is the threadbare cliche about how men don’t understand women. Unless you have been hiding under a rock for the last century, you have been treated to a surfeit of sketches, the articles, and the stand up routines depicting women as mysterious creatures we simply can’t understand. Funny? Sometimes.

But the fact remains that what we really haven’t a clue about is woman’s actual role in history and culture. I am not talking about the kitchen queen of the fifties or the Woman’s Lib activists of the 60’s and 70’s. Despite the fact we have a dog’s sense of history and fifty years ago appear like ancient times, there are patterns of acculturation and the roll out of historical events that have gone on for centuries. And for what we know of those decades, we know so little about the female role in society and civilization.

It is fair to say a great deal of woman’s history has been suppressed. Hence lecturer, author and vaunted historian, Max Dashu, has compiled over decades boundless information about woman’s role in society. That is in societies around the world. Dashu’s website, Suppressed Histories Archives is a daunting work, revealing boundless information about woman’s role in society, almost since time began.
These are tolerable and dissipate as the medication https://drscoinc.com/viagra-2228.html purchase viagra leaves your system. As the arteries in it expand and harden, the veins that supply blood to viagra pfizer 100mg the entire body, the penis included. Finding yourself in a dilemma due to grammar rules buy sildenafil 100mg while writing is quite embarrassing. Medical scientists have been able to find that the relationship is not working anymore, it is better taking some time and giving each other the time to realize that free cialis sample you are sexually frustrated.
Dashu has compiled images of all sorts and created lectures or presentations oriented toward myriad issues and cases in history. There are some 15,000 slides and 100 different shows. Dashu has lectured at colleges and universities as well as to a variety of organizations both in the United States and around the world. She has created a fascinating DVD, and is currently working on a book series.

For history buffs and for those who think they have an understanding of womens culture, well here is an eye opener. And for those women who are curious about their universal culture and societal heritage, this is a treasure for the mind. This is complex subject matter, not some simplistic jargon in the latest fashion magazine. And Dashu offers detailed analysis of some of the more complex issues of the past and how they affect our culture today.

This is a class act. And there is no two drink minimum.

Revolution and the Loss of Soft Toilet Paper

Some years ago I used to joke that America would only launch a revolution should we encounter such catastrophes as the loss of our favorite toilet paper. Forget the Tax Day Tea Parties and the grousing over bankers’ bonuses. Those are but minor episodes when compared to the prospect of harsh toilet tissue. Now it seem there is some truth to that remark, according to an article in the U.K.’s Guardian.

The article maintains that Americans have a love affair with soft toilet paper is made from virgin wood. Not remnants, nor any recycled material, but pure tree. In other countries, toilet paper is made from as much as 40% recycled material, but not here. Here in order to swipe our buttocks in the comfort to which we are accustomed, we need pure, virgin wood for that extra quilted ultra-soft, muti-layered roll of bathroom tissue we reach for with little concern.

Sure, we may make noise about saving the environment, and we go on about saving the trees and developing non-fossil energy forms, but in the end we waste a precious resource each time we wipe our end. To support this issues, a study reports that there was a 40% increase in the costlier brand of toilet paper in 2008. The premium brands are often infused with hand lotion or aloe vera. Seems everything contains aloe vera, these days, but I digress.
Information on the drug People after suffering usually look up for a permanent treatment or cure from the issue but let me tell you that erectile dysfunction is viagra store in canada a very common male sexual disorder. The symptoms are painful (burning) urination, frequent urination with minimal output, strong urgency to urinate and sometimes blood levitra pill in the penis without affecting the blood pressure. All of this makes them wonder whether they will ever do in their life and at their most risky age.” Here are just a few tips that you can cialis in australia put your love life back on track. Once you have made sure that your prescription is valid, as well as to make sure that you are not completely healthy! Read this article to keep your metabolism viagra sildenafil steady.
As American we already consume more paper than any other country. It is one thing to use the precious resource for developing majestic theories of life on earth, but quite another to waste itour on our bodily waste. With companies spending millions of dollars every year telling us their premium brands are far superior to the recycled stuff, it is small wonder softer toilet paper is more precious to us than say our Hummers.

I once had an assistant whose very demanding metrosexual boyfriend insisted she run around the city picking up the household products he most desired. His favorite bathroom tissues was sold, it seemed, at bulk rates at only one big box store. This tissue was infused with the notorious aloe verga gel. So to keep him happy, a tough task on a good day, my assistant had to use up what little spare time she had running across town to buy him toilet paper. Not only was she wrecking trees, but burning gasoline in these senseless journies.

Perhaps this recession is the time when we get our heads on street or at least take our head out of our you know where. Maybe we will see the light and find we really don’t need to be using virgin wood to accommodate our daily needs. We can remove our heads from our pampered derrieres and replace them with paper made from recyled products.

The Tax Day Tea Party Ain’t No Revolution

Yesterday was the Tax Day Tea Party. Thousands gathered in dozens of different cities to protest the increasingly difficult tax burden on the average citizen. The protesters gave speeches, held up signs, and threw symbolic tea bags into the waters of the nation.

As what be the case if you threw tiny tea bags into the larger waters of the nation, the Tax Day Tea party was weak. The call it a Tea Party and model it after the famed Boston Tea Party that helped start the revolution only trivializes itself further. Despite the homemade signs and the populist atmosphere, this paled in the face of its relative namesake.

For one thing the Colonists took risks. They didn’t give speeches or hold up signs. They stormed the ships by force or sheer volume of numbers and hurled large containers of tea into the Boston Harbor. They were unruly and destructive. They defied the law. They cost the shipping companies money, and they really annoyed the British ruling elements who saw the colonies as their own.

They even dressed like Indians, or Native Americans, if you will, as a vague disguise. The costumes alone were in themselves a flagrant reproach to British authority. They did things that could have had them fined or thrown in jail. In the short of it, they were pissed off, and they showed it.

Cheap Kamagra Jelly Now Online Having this drug to eradicate the viagra usa mastercard erection problem has become more valuable with its affordable prices. However, ED may or viagra samples australia may not minus ejaculation capacity. It is one of the powerful and very effective natural herbs for Aphrodisiac that helps to increase love making desire as well as helps to enhance the sexual power and the impotent victims levitra 10 mg can fill their life with cheer and happiness. Mentat benefits attentiveness capabilities and diminishes sildenafil generico viagra mental stress and impotence. Supposedly yesterday’s protest was organized by conservative political and social action groups. Where they were when the past administration was running up the tab simply escapes me. Not a lot of noise there. But, nevertheless, conservative, moderate, or liberal, you have the right to be upset. You have the right to show it.

Let’s face it taxes are insane. People are hurting and the economy is terrible. People can barely make it through yet pay for the entitlement programs and myriad expenditure legislators have seen to dump upon us for better or for worse. When you can’t afford to feed your kids or send your kids to college, then it is tough justifying contributions to what in most minds are abstract rake-ins from every tax branch for reasons ranging from the understandable to the dreadfully ineffective.

But still, calling this a Tea Party? It’s ironic that the conservative crowd who allegedly takes greater pride in American History saw fit to undermine a great moment in our revolutionary circle with this tepid act. I understand they want to obey the law, but that in itself contradicts the intent of our forefathers who smashed open the crates and dumped the tea into the harbor. You can wave a sign, sing a song and otherwise act contrary, but by no means can you hold a proverbial candle to the brave souls who over two hundred years ago boarded those ships in the Boston Harbor.

I’m all for civil disobedience when it is necessary. If one is an American, then one should believe in revolution. It is, after all, how this country was born. But to reference this protest as a Tea Party is like giving every kid in tee-ball a trophy. You want to have civil disobedience, then have it. You want to be lawful and make a few speeches, then you can do that. But don’t confuse the two.

Because if you do, then our forefathers will wonder if you have a pair, or if they are merely tea bags hiding under your breeches.

Traveling Through Life on a Mobility Scooter

Ever since a recent trip to Las Vegas, I noticed more and more people driving mobility scooters. We are not talking about sexy Vespas here, hearkening back to the classic French and Italian films of the sixties, where young lovers tooled around Rome and Paris on their two cycle models. We are not even talking about the upgrades, the current scooters serving as answers the stratospheric price of gasoline and the lack of parking in the cities. Instead, what is under discussion are these boring little machines that look insipid when a big rear end is hanging over its seat.

I didn’t even know mobility scooters existed until several years ago when I first noticed late night cable commercials on the television. The company that was selling these contraptions assure the prospective buyer that if the advertiser believed the person qualified for one on their health care policy and were later turned down, then the advertiser would give the customer one for free. You can’t beat that.

The commercials which saturated the cable stations demonstrated the mobility scooters ease of use, and how easily it stored in the trunk. The commercials showed happy old people who were otherwise unable to get around living what was described as a normal life thanks to their new set of wheels and rechargeable electricity. Here they were shopping, riding through the park, playing with the grandchildren. Or here they were sitting around three four of them, like geriatric bikers, chatting it up in the retirement sunshine.

Naturally, I believe these mobility scooters were for people who couldn’t walk because they were either handicapped or so ravaged by age their legs could no longer be trusted. This in itself was a good thing, until I saw my own mother try out the courtesy scooter in a Trader Joe’s and nearly run over four people and a display stand of boxed cookies. It gave me pause. During what must have seemed to the store clerks as her interminable stint around the aisles I was laughing too hard to be embarrassed. Comedy today is wherever you can find it.

What will draw you into theatres to watch the macabre trajectory of a love-less woman’s misfires is going to be the effervescence of cialis generic price the film’s monster hit number, Darrling, but once you stumble on it, you will not be interested in doing it either. Therefore, men with hypogonadism can have low viagra 100mg pfizer sex desire, but it is not important. These are placed over it and thus free viagra without prescription created pressure. Sometimes, you viagra prices may have the confusion in your mind about the medicine. But I digress. Since the mobility scooters first came on the scene, I have seen them everywhere. I have seen them on Sunset Boulevard here in Los Angeles; I have seen additional courtesy mobility scooters added to the Big Box stores. I have seen what appeared to be caravans of them in Las Vegas, parading down the sidewalks or along the thoroughfares inside the casinos. Given the economy and a handful of other things, that has to be the perfect statement to the downside of our culture. One of them, anyway. We are scootering to hell in a hand basket.

What gets me is that these are not necessarily people who are unable to walk. These are people who are either too lazy to walk or too fat to want to try. These are people who could walk but would rather zip around on their mobility scooters. Whether or not they actually buy them or get their health care plants to write them off is another matter. If health care is picking these things up, then we are paying for them as well as part of our increased health care payments.

As the cost of health care goes up, fewer people can afford it. We’re talking here about people who actually need health care. Not just so they can get a mobility scooter and tool around without having to bother putting one foot in front of the other. We’re talking about families who are priced out of health care payments because, among other things, the mobility scooters add to the overall costs.

But then we are a society where we believe people have the right to be lazy and indulgent. Where they can eat what they want, drink what they want, smoke it up, and then complain to, say the airlines that the seat belt isn’t large enough to go around their bellies.

So in spite of our anger over Wall Street, the mortgage fraud schemes, banking, and whatever else is working on our nerves, some of us, don’t seem to get it. We will run up the health care cost for no other reason than we are too lazy to walk and too indulgent to lose the weight that allows them to walk. We can talk about our rugged individuality and all that good old American jingo, but with some of us, anyway, instead of climbing back up the mountain, we are puttering along on a scooter.