Headed overseas recently for work, and wanted to do the sensible thing and sleep on the plane to avoid jetlag when I landed. At an SFO shop, I saw a “3-in-1” pack of inflatable neck pillow, earplugs and sleeping eye mask for $7.99. When I paid, the sales clerk was delighted to tell me it was only $5.99. What. A. Bargain!

Opened it up on the plane, and there were no ear plugs. No matter—I had my own Etymotic noise-blocking earbuds and they’re 1000x more effective and comfortable anyway. The neck pillow? I hate those things—feels like something squeezing my throat. (I use those bendable “flaps” in the headrest commonplace on planes nowadays)

Wore the sleeping mask, though.  A little flimsy, a bit tight across the bridge of my nose. But whatever. Blocked out most of the light. Enjoyed some fitful sleep even though my Italian neighbor was yelling all night long, and my other neighbor kept his light on the whole time.

Arrived, enjoyed the day in Cologne. Woke up the next morning, showered and ate breakfast downstairs.

On the way back up, I looked at this reddish band on my nose bridge in the elevator mirror. It was bumpy. Like 13-year-old kid riddled with acne bumpy.

Ran to my hotel room, and to my horror noticed about 10 (TEN!) huge zits right where the eye mask was sitting. I squeezed all of them. Could’ve filled a wine glass with all the pus. (Sorry—it really, REALLY was that disgusting) Disinfected my nose with every alcoholic beverage I could find in the minibar.

Threw the mf away. I’m guessing my packet had to have been opened and my eyemask used by a 56-year-old hooker as a maxipad. That’s after she unsuccessfully tried to use the earplugs as tampons (mercifully she threw those away).

On the flight back home, I found a Samsonite eyemask in the Berlin airport (no neck pillow, no earplugs, and 8 euros, or about $11). Tested the package to make sure it hadn’t been tampered with. (Have never loved clamshell packaging so much)

My nose still looks OK. Lesson learned.

Me and J. Flying back to the US from London. Translating some British rag’s personals.

“Curvy.” J. looks at me, rolls her eyes: “Fat.”

“Drinks socially.” I correct: “Alcoholic. Wake up in my own sick at least 3x per week.”

“Seeking long-term relationship.” J. snickers: “Meaningless fling. I don’t want to see you when I wake up in the morning.”

OHAC.

???? What? An acronym we’ve never seen before.

J. furrows her brow, taps her chin with her finger for a minute, stares up. She turns to me with a devious smile.

“One Huge ARRRRSE…and cunt.”

Man, that was the shortest trans-Atlantic flight I’d ever been on.

Me and D. Amsterdam. About 9pm. Headed to a party from Central Station.

We board a tram to Overtoom, punch our strippenkaarts, and take a seat. In the seat in front of us are two people.

To the left sits a Thai (maybe Malaysian or even Indonesian – I couldn’t say) tranny. Tall, thin, caked with makeup and flouncy, long hair. She has a colorful dress on, pretty sure it had sequins on it (maybe rhinestones). She smells more flowery than the fields of tulips we passed on our way up from Rotterdam. If she were any more an over-the-top Asian tranny, she’d be Lil’ Kim.

To her right, a short, stubby, exceedingly pale butch dyke, wearing full-body denim and a (naturally) denim cap covering her short blond hair. Little greasy glasses are perched at the end of her nose. She looks like a dyke friend of mine, who is allergic to the Y chromosome.

They start making out, messily and noisily, the tranny’s high-pitched titters barely drowning out the grunts by her dyke girlfriend. Not sure if I’ve ever seen such a passionate display of love in public before, least of all in staid Holland.

Yes, I’m serious.

D. turns to me. “What exactly are we looking at here?!”

I’ll join the chorus of what is likely hundreds of thousands of bloggers who are commenting on Obama’s inauguration. I didn’t go to the event itself, but at least when I’m old, I’ll be able to say I blogged on it.

I’m probably too cynical to be moved to tears by his speech, but I was impressed by how pointed some of his points were. He made it clear that anyone who would “stop clenching their fists” would be welcome as part of his program. He also said that those abroad in the practice of blaming everything on the West (read: the US) will have to answer to their own people for their actions, not ours.

Obama’s presidency, obviously, means the world to African Americans (and black people everywhere, probably) for its historic significance, and the fact that the highest glass ceiling has been broken. It doesn’t mean that racism is gone; it just means that racism alone can’t prevent someone from achieving their dreams. Powerful. I felt my lip tremble seeing older African Americans in the audience watching with a mixture of pride and unexpected joy.

For many more people, those of us who are just a shade (or two) darker than the typical person in high office, and those of us who have funny, unpronounceable names, we feel a bit of a barrier broken, too. Remember, Obama’s first name is routinely misspelled…and he still won with a healthy margin in the election. For those of us with “foreign-sounding” names, that gives us hope, too.

I’m also struck by how louder the celebrations are this time around, compared to 2000 and 2004. But, then again, I’m in the Bay Area, most of my friends are college-educated and Left-leaning, and Hollywood and newsmakers tend to be, too. I’m sure there are thousands of Pentecostal churches across America (80 million Americans are Pentecostal, mind you) with millions of weeping, mourning congregants.

The honeymoon will eventually end, and the backlash by conservatives will eventually mount, but Obama has made it clear that he doesn’t plan a Rove-like war for its own sake. Reasonable pushback from the opposition is always healthy, if “reasonable” is still in the GOP dictionary. Let’s hope the Republicans can take the next 4-8 years to grow up.

Rich Lowry (National Review) was talking about Bush’s sincerity and honesty, as he leaves the White House, and I thought of what George Constanza said, when Jerry asked him how to lie: “It’s not a lie if you believe it’s true.”

Let me say at the outset: I think Rick Warren is not a respectable human being. The fact that he has compared homosexuality to pedophilia and incest, and bars gays from entering his church, where he includes an “ex-gay” support group, suggests he is an immoral person. (He wouldn’t be the first evangelical to be immoral; in fact, are there any moral evangelical people?)

But I will say this: Obama is a moral person, he’s stuck pretty close to his word (with a few exceptions, >ahem!< FISA, federal matching campaign funds, >ahem!<), and he's extremely strategic in his thinking. I've said before that you shouldn't underestimate him, or judge him too early. I did so myself, and learned my lesson early on.

My guess? Obama’s going to make a big pro-gay announcement (either to repeal DADT, or, hopefully, give federal recognition to same-sex partnerships) soon afterwards, and he wants to make it very clear that he made a big, public concession to “the other side of the aisle” before he does that. The fact that the uproar among LGBTs and their supporters has warmed up evangelicals to their president-elect nemesis. That goodwill might be what he needs. He’s pissing off the Left now; hopefully he’s preparing to piss off the Right soon. Politics always involves pissing somebody off, right?

Let’s wait and see.

Oh, those Spanish names – so confusing, they sound so much alike…

1. John McCain says in an interview with a Spanish-language radio station that, when asked if he would sit down with Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero, he will continue to work with Latin American leaders [sic] and that he would stand up against those who would do harm to the United States [sic]. Everyone is confused as to what the hell he is talking about.

2. On Tuesday, McCain tells Katie Couric that his favorite movie is Viva Zapata! The movie is about Emiliano Zapata, a Mexican (Latin American) revolutionary who fought for peasant rights and land redistribution (what a Republican would surely consider as ideas that would do harm to the United States).

Hmmm….

His three economic advisors:

Rubin, Volcker, and Summers. These guys are brilliant. The guy who ended the stagflation problems of the 1970s? Volcker. The guy who engineered the budget surplus of the Clinton Era that spurred the stock market and economy? Rubin. (Followed by Summers)

Now McCain’s camp? Economics is a weak area for McCain (pretty much everything outside military matters is). His advisors? Phil Gramm, who pushed banking deregulation through the Senate, and who said Americans are a nation of whiners, and cosponsored legislation with the “Enron loophole“. Incompetent and irresponsible. Doug Holtz-Eakin, the guy behind the McCain tax cut plan, that gives EVERYONE a tax cut, the largest, naturally, to the richest 0.1%, people earning more than $2.8 million per year (remember, we’re in the middle of a war that McCain wants to continue to wage, and we’re running the BIGGEST tax deficit in history—where the hell is the money coming from?!).

Neither of them seems to be making much sense, but the reason both are on stage is because they look good.

Anyone who loves satire and is familiar with the ABC afterschool specials of the 1980s will probably like Strangers with Candy, Comedy Central’s first original series starring Amy Sedaris, Stephen Colbert, and Paul Dinello. It also helps if you have a truly twisted sense of humor. I score 3/3 on all counts so count me among the series’ biggest fans.

The series centers on the life of Jerri Blank, a 46 year old “teenage runaway” and ex-junkie whore, who heads back to high school (9th grade). She’s incredibly ugly, fat, street-smart in some ways, naive in others, and just about everyone hates her except her friend Orlando (the target of her racist jibes). That’s because she’s mean, selfish and very, very stupid.

Here are 3 clips legally available through CC’s clip syndication service (CC’s parent, Viacom, is incredibly vigilant over YouTube, so you won’t find clips there). Enjoy. (Ignore the “this clip is missing” warning – just hit the play button)

• Republican state representative Scott Muschaney (Missouri) is indicted for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl. In 2006, Muschany was a co-sponsor of legislation that toughened sex offender laws.
• Republican senator Larry “Wide Stance” Craig (Idaho) is caught trying to solicit sex from another man in an airline bathroom. Larry Craig is married. A year later, Craig co-sponsors anti-gay marriage legislation in the Senate.
• Republican senator David Vitter (Louisiana) is found to be in the black book of the DC Madam, Deborah Jeane Palfrey. Vitter is married. Vitter co-sponsors the same “marriage protection” legislation as his closet-case friend, Senator Craig.
• Republican Ted Stevens (Alaska) is indicted for multiple violations of the Ethics in Government Act, failing to disclose gifts given by a petroleum service and construction company. Senator Stevens previously served as chairman of the Senate Ethics Committee.

The GOP is the party of “do as we say, not as we do,” apparently. What a joke.

These are just those I’ve seen in the news (and thanks to Eric S.’s Facebook posts) over the past month. A much—MUCH—longer list is available here.