We Lost One of the Good Ones

I found out one of my good friends (and fellow Yorkie owner) from NYC Michael DeMarsico died a few days ago at the age of 44. I know everyone says only good things about those who have died, but he was truly pure to the core and must have had perfect karma, despite the tragic nature of the disease that took him at such a young age. He was a prolific writer and loyal friend and was survived by his husband and his dog Chloe. I cherish the long emails we had together over the past two decades and the countless coffees and social events I shared with him. I’m so glad I saw him on my last trip to NYC in 2014 (one of the pictures with Chloe is below) when he was already struggling with some of the symptoms of MSA, but he was STILL making jokes about it as he lost motor function. Every time I started to feel the tiniest bit sorry for myself when I had limited mobility this past four months I thought of people like him and so many others suffering, like the children of Syria and the refugees all over the world whose problems dwarfed my inability to walk without crutches. Now that I’m healing and I know I’ll make a full recovery, I hope to return to NYC for the celebration of his life in a month or so. I could only hope to be as genteel and brave as Mike was facing a painful and slow death head on. I’m sure he will be immortalized by his writing. It was at his behest that he not have a funeral but rather a party for his friends, which only demonstrates that he was a total class act. Rest in Peace sweet man.

Pic Line Out

I had a knee surgery called arthroscopy in January, so for about a month I had this thing planted in my arm to administer medicine intravenously.  It was implanted in my upper arm and was threaded right up to my heart area.  I’m glad to have it out finally to feel more human, but the technology is pretty amazing.

Valentines Day

To avoid crowds, and because it was in the middle of the week this year, we celebrated on the 16th.  We ate at one of our favorite veg restaurants, Souly Vegan, in Oakland.  I always get the battered kale with a chipotle aoli sauce.  Afterwards we drove around Alameda, which is where we saw this street light with all the tennis shoes in the area of the old Naval station.

 

NO GUTS to Say GUNS

Raccoon face proxy, Teleprompter Trump, speaking like he was on a hostage video (a la Hollywood Access tape with his pants down) refused to include the word “gun” in his speech after the Parkland school massacre. Today his deputy spokesperson, Raj Shah, said that the shooter got the “WEAPON” (emphasis mine) by going through a background check, and Shah repeatedly said “weapon,” carefully omitting that the WEAPON was an AR-15 GUN, placating the NRA with their dog whistles.

This after 45 made it easier for mentally ill people to get guns by rescinding the executive order of President Obama and even having the audacity to reduce funding for mental health services by 25% AND school safety by 36%.  Our first orange president’s recently adopted party members and racist, munchkin attorney general mustered the GUTS to mutter about how we need to “do more.” The 45th said that they are here for whatever the victims need,  We wouldn’t NEED funeral expenses if you had not allowed the assault weapons ban to lapse, making it legally sanctioned for a highly disturbed person hearing voices like our current Vice President claims to hear from buying powerful GUNS when he’s not legally allowed to buy a beer.  People spoke up and the FBi was so busy brown-nosing 45 for his basket of scandals that they didn’t follow up with specific threats that came in as recently as last month. The availability of assault GUNS are so prevalent in our society, and the murderer in Parkland was a self-hating punk affiliated with Trump’s beloved white supremacist base. 

We actually NEED the Republican whores of the NRA to say the word “gun” initially. We NEED supposedly independently wealthy amateur politician reality star Putin-backed leaders to reject donations and influence (over $21 million to Trump) if they are truly not beholden to lobbyists of the extremes.  We need politicians who would not accept money out of hand from organizations such as the NRA, which actively ignores even what their own inflated loosely-compiled memberships roles think as reasonable gun control legislation.  Of course, with a hypocrite-in-chief, children SHOULD come before gun lobby donations, but I’m not holding my breath. Even supposedly maverick Repugs like John McCain do NOTHING while he dies from cancer and garners as much sympathy as he can for being a former POW.  I hope he enjoys the donations of the NRA of almost $8 million. I hope his family will enjoy that money for generations to come as their fallacious and vacuous prayers are tweeted out to the victims’ families, together with other large receivers of NRA contributions who tweet, but still lack the guts to say a GUN was involved here in the murder of 17 more people in one setting.

Now our predator-in-chief is using the Broward County tragedy as an excuse to visit his winter palace in Florida (at taxpayer expense) and make it into a publicity visit. I applaud the victims of the shooting of an ASSAULT GUN for rejecting this stunt, as they attend funerals for fourteen year-old children who had promise.

Hello from Vallejo, California!