I’m past my alcoholism crisis and come through it with some insight.

For example, you don’t exactly have to be named Sigmond to figure out why the Mel Gibson debacle so affected me.

If drinking, I don’t think it very likely I would make anti-semetic remarks; however, I am almost sure to make an offensive remark to someone, if not a whole race of people.  At least that’s my pattern.

 Mel is a mirror for me.

He’s a handsome guy with everything going for him and he has a few drinks of tequila and blows years of sobriety.  Doesn’t take very long for the disease to manifest itself in bad consequences. 

What a great example for a guy like me who was on the verge.  I can look at him and see myself and know that I’ll do better on the wagon.

I’ll still never again go to one of his movies, but that’s something else.

Meanwhile, I must also give credit to family and friends that expressed concern.  Thank you.  Your messages of encouragement helped.  I believe my sobriety is through the grace of God and that it’s a miracle each day I’m sober.  I believe you, my family and friends, are also part of the grace of God.  Don’t care if you don’t believe, are unsure or have some faith other than mine, I can believe what I want and you can’t do anything about it. 

Back to the gossipy stuff …

Friday night, there was the Paseo Gallery Walk, JRB opening of the 5 friends, an IAO “happening” called “Vox Populi” and a sidetrip to see “D” and his one line talent at Randy A’s dental clinic.

With respect to the other artists, and admitting my bias, George Oswalt’s work is genius.  Don’t sling that word around much.  Sorta believe in keeping it in the Stephen Hawkins, Issac Newton, Dawin, Freud, Marx, Einstein area.  His paintings jumped off the wall at me.  I absolutely loved the images.  Remarkable that there would be a serendipidous religious theme with paintings named “Faith” and “Born Again”.  Oswalt’s palate is brighter and bolder than the other artists we saw that night, and simply as a matter of taste as well as part of my personal aesthetic, that palate pleases my eye.  I look for paintings that appeal to my intellect, emotion, sense of beauty, images that remain with me in their startling beauty.  I felt George achieved those goals.

I also was challenged and pleased by the IAO show.  One of the more interesting art/public events I’ve attended in a great while.  The artwork itself challenged conventional thinking and thus my intellect and also had great emotional impact, the other main requirement.  The addition of live debate, Joe Dawn’s flourescent lighted airplane, and the lively sale of burnt hot dogs out front made the ample crowd buzz and swelter in the heat.  Can’t say for sure, but it seemed like the IAO air conditioning just flummoxed and gave up — it got durn hot inside the building with all those folks and the burning coals for the hot dogs kept it plenty warm in the already 100 degree ambient heat.

I worked as an art director Saturday for a photo shoot here in town for three other models.  Shae C., the photographer, was such a trooper for showing up and taking grand pictures despite having a cold and fever.  I got to meet Magli, a Frenchwoman of great charm, who did makeup while subbing for another sick participant who couldn’t make it out of bed.  The hairstylist was AWOL, so the lovely Juliet pitched in.  In other words, the shoot was FUBAR.  However, we got some pretty darn good pictures of J.J., Chris S and a 17 year old from Hollis, Kaeli.  I tried to shower Chris S. with money, using a pool skimming net with long handle and a fan, but the experiment didn’t work all that well.  Just wanted to be clear that the FUBAR remark included yours truely so that no one would think I was pointing fingers.

I have a long, involved tale of woe about cell phones and crap, but to shorten it up, I ditched my Blackberry and went to a SLVR and it only cost me AN ARM AND A LEG!!!

Oh, well.

It’s only money.  I’ll make more.

Speaking of which, I’m pretty proud of my work ethic today.  Actually billed hours and wrote a brief.  Looked and acted like a lawyer today.  I can start the weeks pretty good and I have to because I tend to tail out at the end of the week, just to be boldly honest.

Talked to an old law school classmate tonight about doing some entertainment and employment law and we’ll speak again soon about it.

I met the classmate at Rococo, where we listened to a great jazz jam led by Shy Oren.  I got Carter Sampson to sing Stormy Weather.  I do love to hear live jazz. 

Went to the grocery today.  Passed all those gas stations right on the verge of $3.00/gal. gasoline.  Bought about $50 of stuff.  Staples.  Sugar and bread and milk and eggs.  I think I’ll try to cook beans and cornbread this weekend, so readers be ready for pleas to help me get rid of the stuff.

I don’t mean that last part to be boring.  It makes me think about the economy and how it affects most Americans.  $3 gas is killing me.  I don’t even have an SUV or other gas hogging machine, but mine isn’t exactly a Civic either.  To make things worse, I get even less mileage in this heat because it’s too hot for me to have the top down when it’s 104 degrees on the blacktop and I run the A.C.  So, now, when my mileage is at its all time low, the gas prices go up.  And, now, they shut down 8 percent of our oil up in Alaska and you can be sure that will cause another spike with traders already nervous about the Mideast. 

That got me thinking about those guys who DO own SUVs and big pickemuptrucks.  Those guys all commute, they all are maxed on the credit cards and are leaning on equity loans for the kids’ school and the only reason they have equity even though they’ve got an ARM interest only payment is because housing has been going sky high — to the point Warren Buffet says the fall cometh.  What are those guys going to do with $3 gas?  What happens if they get upside down on their houses because the market adjusts down?  We get a break from some of that here in Oklahoma where a lot of people have royalty interests on reserves that are going up in value.  That doesn’t mean that a great many working people aren’t getting behind in a very scary way.

This is coming at a time when we are starting to squeeze the so-called social safety net.  Welfare, for good or ill, has been reformed.  There is no question that Social Security is in danger, along with Medicare/Medicade.  Our 4.6 unemployment rate does not count 6 millions who have given up looking for a job.  Middle class and working class real wages have barely maintained their place or have fallen over the long term compared to the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s.  Another 2 million males are out of work as a result of drug convictions in the 70s and 80s and cannot find work due to their felony record.  We are creating another permanent underclass on top of the old one while suffering the establishment of an unassailable and impervious billionaire elite oligarchy that is now enabled to pass along their riches tax free to their progeny.

I will also observe the concrete fact that the number of citizens with jobs that provide retirement benefits or health benefits is dropping and the benefits being offered are dwindling for those who retain such benefits.

While you and I are working at incredibly more productive rates through the computer, we are being forced to work more hours than in several decades, especially those who have gone into entreprenureal ventures.  We also work more days than in recent decades.

So we’re working harder and longer for less wages and benefits than ever before and the safety net beneath us, should there be a disruption in the economy, is thinner than ever.

What might disrupt the economy?  Oh, how about soaring energy prices, inflationary spending on a war and a terrorist attack of major porportions?  How about just the speculative air goes out of the housing market?  Lots of ripples there for the ones with big credit balances. 

It occurs to me that we may soon be putting the name Bush next to the name Hoover in our history books.

What a horrible thought.

I’m a little overwhelmed lately.

Part of me looks and says gosh, I’ve done so much since I last posted.  I’ve gone to an amazing Friday night of art openings that I’d like to tell the world about.  I did another photo shoot, but this time behind the camera as art director, a new and interesting experience.  It was happy birthday for Pink Lady.  Same day, it was happy birthday for Memphis MB.  Privacy Shattered Sharon and her sculptor and her daughter moved to Lawrence, KS., on Wednesday (and I missed out on having a goodbye lunch to my great regret).  MCARP and my sister have been posting some really interesting things.  My friend, John X, has started up a new blog that is interesting, even if it is a bit focused on the midget thing.  Lucky D is on a 10 day trip out of town to the west coast.

Another part of me is tired.  I am physically, mentally and emotionally played out.  My depression is no longer sneaking around corners and stalking, it’s making a full-fledged frontal assault.  My defenses are down and just staying in the mood to put one foot in front of the other is getting to be a chore.

In AA, we have this little thing that is a Keep-It-Simple-Stupid type acronym, H.A.L.T., which stands for Hungry Angry Lonely Tired and it’s a check for the feelings that kick off our alcoholic behaviors.  I’m there. And, I hate it that my life can be pidgeon-holed by some bumper sticker philosophy of life.

On the other hand, I certainly have the “fuck it, might as well get drunk and forget my troubles for awhile” attitude that I’m fighting.  I told the lovely Juliet the rock hard truth this week when I revealed to her that I’m as close to drinking again as I’ve been in a very long time.  this, despite the fact that I know as certainly as the sun will rise in the east that to do so would not only NOT solve any of these problems I feel that I have, but it would make things immeasureably worse.  It’s one of the anomalies of my life that there are times when it seems like a good trade:  a “normal” person has many problems, an addict has only one.  If you love me and see me drinking, I’m in pain and making a very bad mistake, so please help me get help.  Or just bitch slap the shit out of me.

Sorry, sis, this is a “secret” that I had to get out in the open.  It’s one of the ways I fight the secret.  Posting it here makes me that much less likely to go do something in secret that would ruin a lot of days of sobriety.  I know you think it’s better to keep such things to oneself, but I don’t work that way.  I wish I did, but I don’t.  I have to be rigorously honest, as the black belt AA folks say, as part of the way I stay sober.  It’s my character flaw, it humbles me without humiliation, and I have to admit it to myself and others so I can go to God and ask for him to remove it.

Some of you may mostly see the arrogant and confident John, but this is the scared little boy.  I often make lists of things for which I have great gratitude.  Most often, it’s things like grandkids, friends and health.   Today, my list is topped by how grateful I am that the liquor stores are closed on Sunday.

I just posted over on 3:40 a.m. about contentment.  I wrote that when I am not content, I try to get centered and get perspective.  That’s true.  Today, I’m upset and can’t get centered and have zero perspective.  Maybe that’ll change after doing some laundry and other chores around the house.  Maybe I just need a decent meal. 

 I’ll try to post about the wonderful stuff that’s been going on in my life like art shows and photo shoots later.

Right now, I’m just trying not to listen to Leonard Cohen.

The thermometer in my car keeps telling me it’s over 100 degree F. and the part that bugs me is that so do other thermometers at banks and whatnot.

I know Oklahoma’s supposed to be hot in July and August, but dayum, it’s like still 90 late at night.

The thing about the heat that really has me boiling is that a brownout in California messed with Tom’s servers at MySpace and I can’t always get to MyCrack when I want to browse the chicks within 20 miles of my zipcode or find out where Carter Sampson is playing this weekend.

I’m guessing that come the last two weeks of February and the first week of March that we will all look back on the summer heat with nostalgia, but in the meantime, it seems to just wear me down to do ordinary things.  Am I alone in this?  MCARP says he’s no longer young and I wonder if he, too, finds just going to the grocery and the dry cleaner and sitting outside at the RC is a chore.

It’s kind of a mixed blessing when it comes to sex and romance.  As far as sex is concerned, everybody and especially the young and well shaped seem to be wearing next to nothing at all, which gets the old libido going.  On the other hand, I’m so tired and sweaty, I don’t feel much like mixing sweat with just anyone wearing a short skirt like I would if it were just a few — like 20 — degrees cooler.

It’s too damn hot to even go to the pool. 

It’s too damn hot to stay in my air conditioned office.

THAT’S A DAMN GOOD EXCUSE!

I’m calling it a day due to heat.

Yeah, that’s the ticket.

Goin’ home early to get out of the heat and avoid the traffic and blahblahblah when I just really don’t wanna do much of anything anyway.

Yea!

Mad Mel Gibson was described in Slate Magazine by Christopher Hitchens as being entirely too close to anti-Semetic when the recently intoxicated movie star refused to distance himself from his father’s assertion that the Holocaust never happened and then promptly made a film depicting the idea of Jews as the Christ-killer.

The newest dish is that there isn’t any question about Gibson’s antisemetic credentials any more.

The left coast press is abuzz with the incident investigation reports of Mad Mel’s arrest in which he flings around his weight (“I OWN Malibu”), insults a policewoman (“What are you looking at, sugar tits?”) and, most tellingly, slops around a few choice “Jew” comments, including the allegation that the Jews are the cause of all the wars since 1935.  He even wants to know if the arresting officer is a Jew (aren’t all cops Irish?).

Mel’s now issued an apology for being drunk and belligerent, and says he’s been battling alcoholism for his entire adult life and really reallly  realllllllly appreciates the police.  He didn’t apologize for any of the slurs, however.

You can get some of this stuff off Slate.com and anything else you want to know off the Hollywood dish sheet called TMZ.com.

I don’t know why it delights me to see Mel Gibson in hot water, but it does.   

Darling of the ultra right evangelicals for being the auteur of the SM version of the last hours of Christ, Mel Gibson was arrested last night in Malibu for drunk driving.

Do you think castration before being pulled apart by ponies, a la William Wallace, would be an appropriate punishment?

Deport that Aussie criminal!

It doesn’t matter anyway.

“Dirt nap” will come and then we’ll be forgotten.

Mother Earth may soon just shake us all off like a yard dog with fleas for our ecological crimes.

The AntiChrist is rising in the mid-East and Armageddon is nigh.

The terrorists will soon have nukes.

Sooner or later, the sun will expand and burn us to a crisp.

The good you do will go to the grave with you, but the evil will live on and your enemies will remember you longer than your friends.

So, throw in the towel.

Fuhgettaboutit.

Who cares?

What the hell?

So, tonight, I’m going down to Norman and play on a giant slip’n’slide, trying to best a mythical world record.

Hope they don’t test me for doping.

This heat is getting me down.  That, and the mimosa is blooming and killing my allergies.

My money is on top of me and I’ve just realized that the last faint hope that a woman who looks like Christy Brinkley and has the mind of Madame Curie is going to sweep into the Paseo and take me away in her Bentley…well, that hope is gone.

My big nightmare of the past few years is that I’ll end up dead in a Barcalounger in a walk up flat that stinks of old grease and used kitty litter in front of a black and white TV with aluminum foil on the rabbit ears.  I’ve got the used kitty litter smell thing going already.

As my hope fades, my fears solidify.

It’s not a recipe for happy blogging.

So, ignoring my wretched past and ignominious future, I had fun last night with Oz, Deb and Gary watching “Dead Man”, a Jim Jarmusch film starring Johnny Depp.  Depp is good in everything he does and this was a strange movie, dubbed “zen western” by Oz, that had a slew of “B” celebs like Iggy Pop.

This followed a perfectly lovely meal at Iron Starr with about a dozen of us digging into ribs and assorted “urban barbecue” dishes.

It seems the big news of the day is that Kat has breasts.  Who woulda guessed?  They are there in all their glory in this week’s Gazette and Kat’s mom is over the top about it.

 There’s a new “green” sports car with an electric motor that goes 0 to 60 in 4 seconds and does it silently.  It’s $80,000 to $120,000 and very cool.  Mike H. turned me on to it.  Very Xtreme Cool.

I took on a contingency fee case in June and we were ready to try the case down in Ardmore but then, in the course of a mere 3 days, the case and the client fell apart.  Those things happen, but in my case, it meant I had a hundred hours of work in a case that produced zero money and, in fact, I had a negative $265 because I spent my own money on travel down to Ardmore, etc.  When I was doing my billing yesterday, it showed.  Just as I was writing about U.S. foreign policy below, since I put time in on that case, I wasn’t putting in time on clients/cases with hourly fees.  I don’t know how I’ll make it through the next month without going into bankruptcy.

And I am bummed.

A couple of months ago, I wrote about a political candidate, Jantz, running for the GOP nomination for State Senate in the OKC “bubble” area and about how this theocrat had campaign literature with — it seemed to me — inappropriate religious appeals to voters.

Well, sure enough, the guy won the GOP nomination and will be on the November ballot.

I wonder if someday we’ll be denied blood transfusions because the Jehovah’s Witnesses flex their political muscle.  Even good religion makes bad politics and I can’t for the life of me understand why more people don’t see this.

BTW, Ericka West is blogging again over at Karmic Ironies.  The vicissitudes of her romantic life have taken a turn that put her in front of her keyboard again, I take it.  However, RJ at Diatribe 101 is now 3 weeks behind on posting.  Bad Kitty.

i’m going to go swelter now.  Talk to y’all later.

Me with Iman.  Check out the dark hair on Johnny boy!

I’m supposed to look evil.  Is it working for me?

I did a photo shoot Sunday in my mom’s back yard around the pool.

The male models were Justin, Dillon and me.

The female models were Iman, Amber and Madison.

The photographer was Shae and the stylist was Autumn.

The lovely Juliet of Elastic Cafe was there to oversee and just be cool.

Another photog, Glen, was there shooting pics of the process and the Oz showed up to get some video for his movie, “As good a place as any”.

We were lucky that the weather abated and that we were in the pool to knock down the heat.

When I get the new photos in a day or so, I’ll post at least one of them here.

I have only seen a few of the shots of me, but I know that among them is a “head shot” that’s good.

We did many shots of models doing model things, but standing in the pool, which gave everyone a shimmering light blue background that was very very interesting and attractive.

Madison, just turned 16 and not yet driving, was there with her mother, Diane.  After Autumn did her makeup and hair style, Madison did NOT look merely 16 and that was odd because she, of course, was sweet and naive and very teenager in person but looks amazing and grown up in a photo.

I did several shots with Iman, a 6 foot tall Tunisian woman with terrific looks and a fun and funny personality.  She drove down from Tulsa for the shoot.

My role was dominant male and there are lots of shots of me sneering.

Mom handled all the uproar that started at 6 a.m. with her usual aplomb.

A QUICK NOTE ABOUT SATURDAY

Spent a little time Saturday night at the Red Cup for its anniversary party and the after party at Tony’s.  I had a great time, but a 5:30 a.m. wakeup sent me home before the pyrotechnics really got started. 

WARNING:  This is about foreign policy and American politics, the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Levant.  If you are not deeply interested in policy questions, this will likely bore you beyond tears.

EDITOR’S NOTE: I GOT TIRED OF WONKING AND STOPPED MIDWAY.  GUESS MY OWN INTEREST IN POLICY QUESTIONS WANED.  SO HERE’S A PARTIAL POST FROM OVER THE WEEKEND AND THINK WHAT YOU MAY

In a way, this is about the path not taken.

We live in a finite world.

America has great power, perhaps more than all the rest of the countries of the world and certainly more than any one other country.

However, there are limits.

The latest video on Al Jazeera of Osama bin Laudin in the tribal areas of Pakistan is a perfect refutation of the notion of unlimited American power.

That’s a simplistic point, but it has its larger implications.

Because we have 150,000 American troops in Iraq, those troops are not capable of also being on the Korean peninsula.  They can’t be in two places at once.

Making the choice to have American armies in Baghdad is to also choose not to place them elsewhere.

Similarly, spending $200 Billion prosecuting the American presence in Iraq means that money is not being spent on health care.

To spend that $200 Billion at all has economic consequences since most of it is borrowed money that is globally inflating the U.S. dollar, increasing our national debt, etc., etc.

We can’t do everything.  We can’t do just anything.  And, we can’t do all of what we’d like to do at one time.

The point is fundamental, I agree, but since it is fundamental, it’s important and must be at the forefront of our thinking, in my view, especially at the current crossroads we face in that arc of discord that goes from India-Pakistan across the great mountains of Afghanistan and into the crescent of Trade Route cities from Kabul through Teheran through Baghdad and Damascus to the Mediterranean Beirut, then south to Jeruselem.

One of the points I want to make here is that although this is a very important part of the world and although what is happening there is extremely important, we focus on those problems to the exclusion of other problems.

There is also war in Somalia.

North Korea is testing long range missiles and building A-bombs.

It is arguable that narco terrorists are controlling the governments of Mexico, Bolivia and Myanmar in Asia.

The tribal warfare atrocities of West Africa are devastating the continent.

Natural disaster, tsunamis and earthquakes and drouth for example, are killing thousands and the earth is warming at an alarming rate.

It seems we have ad hoc responses across the globe, but the finite choices principle I’ve enunciated above seems also to argue that we have only one foreign policy and that it is an integrated and integral part of our overall governing philosophy.  We make choices that determine our priorities both at home and abroad.

As ethereal as these choices may seem, I’ll remind you that the consequence of America’s foreign policy choices is driving up the price of gasoline as you read this.  You may think that good or bad, but it certainly affects your everyday life.  The value of your work can be expressed in the price of a shirt at Target and that is a function of the value of the American dollar expressed in China’s Yuan.  It is one world.  A global market means that what you buy and what you sell and what you earn depends on what is going on in the world and how America is responding to and/or shaping those events.

What do you think would happen if, instead of being in Iraq in 2007, we spent $200 Billion having the military install wind power generators and photoelectric cell panels in the desert of Arizona and Nevada?

How would things be different if we thought about where we wanted to be and where we wanted the world to be in a hundred years instead of next year or next week?