I Had a Steam with a Sex Blogger

....an Anchor Steam, and she is not just any sex blogger, she is a friend and a very good writer. You can see her work at www.sexegesis.blogspot.com.

We are both writers and hung out at the White Horse Tavern, corner of Bank Street and Hudson. Watering hole for the likes of Anais Nin and Norman Mailer, and where the poet Dylan Thomas drank 18 whiskeys and then died the next day.

After hanging out there, we walked around Christopher Street and checked out a few fetish shops. One had a good amount of leather wear and some PVC, among other things (not sure if this is a family website), and then we made our way to the East Village, to McSorley's and then the Burp Castle. Back in the day, the Burp Castle used to have a whole theme with waiters and barstaff dressed as monks, with chants played on the CD player, where one had to be soft spoken when one talked. The only aspect that remained was the low volume for talk. No chants, no monks. Good beer though. I had a Lucifer!

We also got caught in a bit of a downpour. Nothing worse than wet denims.

Overall, a very nice day and a good time. My friend is always a pleasure to hang with. And, as I said, a very good writer. Funny too. She's great at using the final line of her piece and bringing everything together.

Writing at the White Horse Tavern





With a whiskey: one down, seventeen to go!





A cigar at an actual in-house cigar shop.

March 7 Albany First Night

At the Upstate Artists Guild's Green Show, with my religious piece, "Urban Gethsemane." WWJD? What would Jesus drink, knowing he was about to be sold out, denied, and hung from a cross for three hours the next day? I say bourbon...lots of it! Wouldn't you?





Local artist Chip Fasciana and yours truly. I've known Chip since I first moved to Albany, when he tended bar at the old Lionheart...we are drinking a local favorite: Utica Club.




No one could ever accuse me of wanting to be like Hemingway...could they?

Or Would I Rather Live Like this Guy?

(Jeff Bridges in one of my favorite movies, "The Big Lebowski")

Day 1

No longer bound to the cubicle. My first day as a non-state employee has been somewhat productive. Now, I am waiting for paint to try. Earlier, I had the pleasure of walking my daughter to school. And I had my Irish coffee.

Also, I am thinking of what I can do to get some sort of consulting gig going which will supplement my eventual new career as a teamster. I developed a list of accomplisments/assets. I used a title for a company, "The McLain Clan." Strategic thinking, grant proposal development, speech writing, and issue management. If all went well, in a number of years I could be like the guy in the photo enclosed.

More and more and more books!

There will also be an old Harley Chopper, named Rosinante, placed in the background. And a bottle of bourbon.

Farewell Luncheon

A very nice affair at the Albany Pump Station. I had fish and chips, a pear cider and a Bookers.

They gave me a lovely gift card for Colonie Center...L.L. Bean and Barnes and Noble all the way!

The Big Lie

Not too long ago, Senator Clinton released a t.v. ad with children asleep in their beds and a voice-over alluding to her readiness and Senator's unreadiness to handle a foreign policy crisis in the middle of the night.

The Big Lie is not about whether Obama is ready to handle a crisis (based on how he ran this campaign, I think he is ready for just about anything). The Big Lie is that Hillary Clinton says she is ready...and capable...of handlng a crisis. If her campaign is evidence of anything, it is that this politician can't see beyond her own ambition. She did not anticipate that Obama, who was doing boring wonkish town halls in the towns of Iowa, could rise above substance and reach into the hearts of Americans of varied ideologies. She mocks hope...ironically the name of the town from which her former president husband hailed and which they promoted in the 1992 campaign. She had no plan beyond February 5. She had no plan to deal with caucus states. She finds a reason to blame her failure on everything but herself. She can't think in three-dimensional terms.

Do we need this in the Oval Office, at 3 a.m., which a crisis happens...a president who can't see beyond her own needs and her own ambitions.

I trust McCain with the red phone.

I trust Obama with the red phone.

I do not trust Clinton. Her campaign's incompetence is a sign...don't think that these people would not be running the White House if she won. I'd rather roll the dice with Obama.