Is he saying that only homos photoshop?

Geez, what does that say about these guys?

Ace can come stay with me!
I’m totally not teh ghey, and we can play with my Star Wars toys. We’ll pretend the
Tuskan raiders are Al Qaeda and Vader is Cheney.
…..
On second thought, he can bring his own action figures. I don’t want playdoh and bacon grease all over my Han Solo in carbonite figure.
Also, I might not be able to keep my hands to myself at night. I’m not ghey, but if I can’t have Rick Moran……

Oh. My. God.

This dude says Cambridge is a “15 minute walk” from Hynes? Yeah, those cheetohs-eaters might make it in 15 minutes, but they’ll be gasping as they reach the other side of the Charles (plus, they’ll have to dodge all different shades of people speaking languages that might include Arabic). At that point they’ll be right at MIT, where they can seek out some good intelligent design discussion.

I just imagine them clutching their purses and doing the John Doe scowl on the Green Line.

Umm, Ace?

Uh, oh shoot, this is hard. I really don’t wanna hurt your feelings.

And I know what a sensitive boy you are. Not like those other guys.

But listen. I’m just gonna come out and say it, ok?

I’ve got the Glenn Reynolds photoshop on my bedroom ceiling.

It’s not you. It’s – well, it’s him, ok?

I’m sure some homo somewhere will photoshop your pic and put it on his ceiling. Hell, probably a couple dozen of them will.

But for me, it’s Glenn.

Sorry…

mikey

Yeah, those cheetohs-eaters might make it in 15 minutes, but they’ll be gasping as they reach the other side of the Charles

Well, it would put them not far from the Paradise.

This is *so* an invitation for a Photoshop contest.

I am coming for you Ace.

Same drill tomorrow.

This Ace guy …. he’s a bathroom trawler, right? I’m mean, he’s gotta be. Who the hell worries about their picture ending up on a gay guy’s ceiling? Unless they really think about it all the time … thirsting for that sweet, forbidden man-on-Ace action.

That was a commenter, with the picture on the ceiling and all that. But Ace = same basic deal.

BTW, consultation yields the likely spots as Bukowski’s and an Irish bar on Boylston with a name like ‘Clarndarghddh’ or something. Bukowski’s apparently offers a thing called ‘white trash cheese dip,’ which would be, you know, if I were planning this event, and so forth…

Oh no wait. Calling all homos!

Merely speculation here, of course. But doesn’t it seem perfect?

Lir is a kind of a random place. It’s bunched among the Boylston set of bars but never seems to have a line. The groups that frequent the place either look like they were coerced by their younger colleagues to come straight from the office and then subesquently ditched, or they’re 19. The bathroom started smelling like puke before 12, tho i do enjoy the trivia on the back of the stall doors (did you know that clinophobia is the fear of beds and 2,500 lefties are killed every year using things made for right-handers?). The music starts out as late nineties techno and changes over to Journey and the like just as everyone starts to get plastered and sing along. You can watch rugby all night (yum), but it closes at 1, for some ungodly and wholly irrational reason.

Ace. Dood. You are NOT gonna like NYC. It’s, well, it’s kinda like all the stuff you hate about Boston, but packed into a much higher density of brown people and homos and liberals and really expensive restaurants.

I’m gonna offer you a suggestion here. I think if you do a little research, you’re going to find that a whole lot of your soulmates have already moved in. And started some fine local civic organizations.

And since you don’t seem to actually have a marketable skill, there’s lots of hotels and restaurants and gift shops you can work in.

So I’m thinking you oughta consider Coeur d’Alene.

Just saying. Think about it, kay?

mikey

Three words: Salt Lake City.

He can always come south to Providence. We’re not so full up on the brown people yet, tho we do have our fair share of teh gayz, ‘specially on the East Side.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that…

If the light on the top of the Pru is blue, it means that Ace is a gibbering moron.

Well, it would put them not far from the Paradise.

Bwahahahaha! The Paradise! I used to go there with my gayboy pals for happy hour back when I worked at MIT. And back when there were such things as happy hours, I suppose. It was a convenient location, because I could easily walk home from there to my apartment in Central Square. Past the Necco factory!

I seem to remember that Annie the Waitress used to be in The Paradise ads on the back cover of Hit Parader (I think that’s what it was called, the one that published the lyrics to pop songs) magazine, photographed with her hand apparently on the ass of some statue or other (it may have been David).

I would pay serious, cash money to see the Acepalookas at Teh Paradise!

Thenkyew for this glimpse of my misspent youth.

isn’t acepalooza gay just to begin with?

I’m not going to Photoshop Ace until I find a printer that can handle a roll of toilet paper.

So they are meeting in Vox Populi on Boylston St?

That is the only bar I can think of that has a second floor and is close to the Hynes and Copley.

I dunno, man. Lir has a second floor, and mint-chocolate-chip martinis.

Although if its 999 feet from the Hilton, it has to be the bars between Hereford and Gloucester.

Past the Necco factory!

I used to live just past the Necco factory! Small world social class.

Lir has a second floor, and mint-chocolate-chip martinis.

THEY’RE NOT MARTINIS!!!eleventyone!1!

(I know I’m fighting a losing battle here, but that seems to be a specialty of mine…)

Hahaha.

This was really funny on Ace’s blog:

“We really just need a decent picture of Ace. The one screen-capture we’ve been using is all low-res and smeary.”

The signature is the best: “Sadly, No! Investor Relations”

Does Ace have a job or anything?

HAHAHA “I am wiener”.

Guys, I must meet you one day, I live in Boston.

Ace, two words.

Iowa City.

The Necco Factory is no longer the Necco factory. No more raw sugar dust in the air.

I think it’s a genetics lab now, great place to discuss I.D.

Oh.. they are totally going around the corner to Chaps. I hear they have a lot of stalls over there, perfect for Ace and his band of merry wide stancers.

Actually, Iowa City is relatively hip, it being a college town at all. I haven’t been there, but when you assemble enough PhDs you get a lot of, er, artsy types, if ya know what I mean.

There are dozens of towns in much redder states that would have fewer differently-pigmented or -lifestyled folks that would be perfect for Ace. Just kindly stay away from my adoptive Sooner State, mkay? We’ve got enough of your kind already.

If they made it past the former Necco site, they’d almost be at Middlesex. Now how freaky (on so many levels) would THAT be?

Wait, Ace lives in Boston? This just ruined my day.

I think it’s a genetics lab now, great place to discuss I.D.

It’s Novartis now. Although there’s still Tootsie Rolls being made in the place on Main Street. Smells so good on a hot summer day.

I can’t see them at Middlesex. They’d get confused by all the seats being on casters and someone would inevitably get hurt. The Cambridgeport Saloon would have been perfect for that crowd, but alas, they closed down a while back (the sign has been altered to read “Cambridgeport Baboon”).

How many Sadlys are around Boston these days? Perhaps we should have our own BlogCon: SadlyStock, anyone?

We could even invite Ace. I’m sure he’d love to come. Although the presence of women might make him edgy.

mikey,
don’t send him to cda. it’s really not a terrible place — it would be kind of cool if wasn’t for mark furman. maybe send him to nampa or idaho falls, but leave us panhandle folks alone.

I think we should get the super-duper-secret location and send an army recruiter there. I am sure Ace and all of his readers will sign right up!

Y’know, I’d even consider hopping on a chinatown express to come up for a Sadlynoseian meetup. And I could crash with ace. (Or the couple of childhood friends of mine who live up there.)

Why Iowa City? We don’t want him.

“How many Sadlys are around Boston these days? Perhaps we should have our own BlogCon: SadlyStock, anyone?”

Count me in. It’s likely to be a little more lighthearted than, say, YearlyKos. Or AC/DC Palooza.

Hey, I’ve only ever heard extremely positive things about Iowa City, the Hawkeye State’s answer to Madison, WI.

Hey, I also live near Paradise, the Middlesex, the old Necco Factory, etc. I never knew this was a neigborhood blog.

Dammit, where’s Pinko?

This blog has a definite east-coast bias.

It’s like ESPN, but with substantially less stupid…

mikey

Bah, I’m in Columbus, Ohio.

Although I’m moving to Syracuse in a few weeks. Still a several-hour drive away.

I, too, used to live past the Necco factory. In fact, I lived above Toscanini’s.

By the way, I discovered that Wikipedia has a bizarre, fawning entry about Ace see here,. Apparently it was nominated for deletion before, and was deleted, but then someone posted it again, under a new name. I just nominated it for deletion again. Join in the fun.

Am I the only one who lives in the real America? Or at least Florida?

I spent the morning standing in front of a sporting goods place down here, and it’s like the entire place is just infested with dumbasses. If you ever wonder why Bush is president at all, just come down here. People actually still have “bush/cheney” bumper stickers on their cars! And they drive in public! It’s, like, all fucking retro and shit.

But in the northeast you have Ace.

Nadly, So.

How many Sadlys are around Boston these days? Perhaps we should have our own BlogCon: SadlyStock, anyone?

I’m still in Missouri, through the end of this month, when one of the above-mentioned gayboy pals is coming to move me (and Teh Feline Overlords, who as yet suspect nothing) BACK HOME TO CONNECTICUT! Wheeeeeeee!!1!!ELEVENTY ONE!!

Ahem. *settles down*

I would certainly take the train up to Boston and/or Cambridge for a SadlyStock.

Just as happy to go to NYC instead, as the train trip is pretty much the same length of time.

While I used to go to NYC on business or to the opera fairly frequently, I haven’t been in Cambridge in nearly 20 years, I think. I knew that the Necco factory had closed. No more sniffing the air to see what flavor they were making that day. I think Necco is out in the suburbs now.

Well I’m screwed on this one; I live near Denver.

If we were really going to do a Sadly meetup, we’d have to do it right.

Plan it for next summer, and plan it in Canada, where we will all get gay married AND get abortions for free from their socialized medicine!

Sucks about the Canadian beer and all, but sacrifices will have to be made.

Sorry, zsa, everyone knows Florida is batshit crazy (present company excluded, of course).

central Ohio is home to Ken Blackwell and Rod Parsley, so teh Real Amurika™ is alive and well in other parts of the country.

I do not know of any wingnuts in upstate New York as of yet, but I do know one of the many local pastimes in Syracuse is to make fun of DestiNY USA and how it is never going to happen, yet seems to get the developers ever more tax dollars. Every time you go to the Carousel Center it seems like there are more marketing signs, flat screen TVs, and even actual people paid to stand there and hawk it. The entire ground floor has been taken over by a giant DestiNY USA signs.

Am I the only one who lives in the real America? Or at least Florida?

No, I live here too.

And it is really fucking weird about the persistence of those Bush/Cheney stickers, but since I live in a hip neighborhood in St Pete and work at USF, I only actually ever see those people on the interstate. So I can pretend they’re all from Jacksonville and Pensacola.

I think Necco is out in the suburbs now.

I know there was a Necco factory around Brockton or Bridgewater, but that was at least a decade ago. Might not still be there.

Man, I miss Boston! Damn you guys, you better not have a Sadly, No-Fest while I’m stuck over here in eastern Washington state!

Then again, fuck the checking account, I’d find a way to get there.

Three words: Salt Lake City.

Hey! Stop that!

SLC is a red-state stronghold, yes, but it’s quite a bit more cosmopolitan than its reputation suggests. For Utah towns, I’d suggest Provo because it’s much more uniformly wingnutty, but the whole Mormon thing might be off-putting to dear Acey-poo.

Idaho is a better choice.

I don’t give a shit what offramp Denny’s he “holds it” at, I want somebody in there with a video camera to documenting every grim, pleasureless second of this thing.

Hey, I’m godless LA, or even worse, the haven of dirty fuckin’ hippies, Topanga.

Simba, you are picking the absolute worst time of year to move to ‘Cuse. You might see the sun again sometime in April, if it is an early spring.

And lest anyone forget one of teh Ace’s greatest “hits”:

having one’s duodenum battered with the manic hydraulic fury of a tricked-out V-12 jackhammer manned by an epileptic Con-Ed worker with an ancestral oath of vengeance against asphalt

Oh. Kay.

I retract Iowa City and submit Rapid City.

Necco is in Revere now.

Hold on now, I have a hazy, vaguely favorable memory of Rapid City. I’m picturing someplace more like the ass-end of Louisville. A bar in a business park.

Simba, you are picking the absolute worst time of year to move to ‘Cuse. You might see the sun again sometime in April, if it is an early spring.

Oh, I’m well aware of the winters up there. I was up there in December of last year, as well as in March over spring break. In fact, we picked this time specifically so that winter wouldn’t be in full force just yet.

Although, from what I hear it’s beastly hot up there right now. Central Ohio got some rain and cooled off, evidently the front hasn’t made it up there yet.

A bar in a business park.

Doop! I’m sorry I forgot, there’s not going to be any drinking at this screaming fungasm. The pleasure of witnessing Ace’s fabled wit will be intoxication enough, apparently.

having one’s duodenum battered with the manic hydraulic fury of a tricked-out V-12 jackhammer manned by an epileptic Con-Ed worker with an ancestral oath of vengeance against asphalt

This thing’s gonna suck.

“I think we should get the super-duper-secret location and send an army recruiter there.”

Wild applause for Mr. Giacometti.

“Necco is in Revere now.”

Ahh, Revere….gateway to Everett and Teddie peanut butter.

Necco wafers are the quintessential New England candy – very plain, almost boring, but endearing nonetheless.

Now I gotta go get me a Skybar. And a Moxie (or, if no Moxie, then some Squirt).

g, you asked a while ago where I live. I’m in WeHo, HQ of the International Homo Conspiracy, though I’m on the Eastside (or Russian Quarter) home to poorer folks & Russkie immigrant Joooos!! (May be moving to Garvanza soon if my ex will let me move in w/ her after I get evicted.)

I think you said once you used to live in Seattle. Where? I was in Madison Park in the latter half of the ’60s.

Native San Franciscan, though. California rules, Northern & Southern, as I know Mikey & D. Aristophanes will attest.

East Coast librul elitists, phooey!!

Y’know, as much as I dislike these people, let them have their day. Think of any meetups you’ve been to – wouldn’t the presence of Aceoids and such crashing your party have been teh suck? Kinda like people’s work addresses and stuff, what they do offline I leave alone.

That doesn’t mean that I don’t think Ace is a moronic wanker.

Jeez…..ISN’T a moronic wanker.

Enough personal info; Trex will come by & start making fun of S,N! for being as lame as FDL’s commentariat.

Sorry Roger. You tiger now….

mikey

California does, indeed, rule. I lived in Hollywood for over 15 years. How well I remember the immigrant population of eastern WeHo! I had a friend who lived real close to Fairfax and Santa Monica. For several blocks, the Fairfax bus became something totally different but they all got off within a few blocks of Melrose.

Now I live in Lancaster in north Los Angeles County. It’s a different, freakin’ world.

Does it count that I used to work right next to the Necco factory? I have to tell you, it wasn’t so romantic to see tanker truck after tanker truck full of sugar syrup or chalk extract or whatever pull up and pump their stuff into the pipes out front…

Or maybe it wasn’t the trucks so much as the drivers hanging out smoking cigs while the pumping took place…

But whatever, it did smell good!

So you’re more of an ex-Hoosier? Lancaster, home to Cap’t. Beefheart & F. Zappa. The desert causes much strangeness, though Lancaster isn’t like it was in their day
Fairfax/S&M is the closest major intersection to me. Used to see little old Jewish ladies w/ concentration camp tattoos on the Fairfax bus. I think most of them are gone now. Living history.
On Topic: Best line in the Ace wiki:

A quote in the AoS banner reads: “‘Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and start slitting throats.’ –H.L. TMencken”[11] This is funny for several reasons, primarily because Ace has shown no bravery whatsoever. It is likely that he could spit upon his own hands, but slitting throats? I doubt the dude could slit a ripe cantaloupe with a steak knife.

Or did someone just leave that?

Necco Waffers are kinda like New England Pocky. Really quite mediocre, but goddamn, once you start eating them, you can’t stop.

Once a Hoosier, always a Hoosier, though I haven’t even been back for a visit since 1998.

Giuliani is visiting the Antelope Valley later in Sept. One of the guys I work with has quite a boner for the guy.

“Visiting the Antelope Valley” has to be a euphemism for *some* kind of indecent activity.

The Antelope Valley is a real place in the Mojave Desert, and part of it is in northern Los Angeles County.

And if you had ever been here, you would know that, yes, it definitely is some kind of indecent activity.

There is no euphemism involved.

God, they actually populated Antelope Valley? I did some groundwater prospectin’ there for an engineering firm in the late 1980’s; that hole was dry as a bone, as was the rest of the landscape. So much for the developer’s plans for housing with an attached golf course.

I did get to learn fun bits of valley-speak from the newbie kid-engineer though, such as “infinitely grindable” as the description for acceptable foodstuffs, or “hatin’ life” to describe the guy getting drenched in the semi-annual rainstorm. At this point I realized that I was indeed old.

Hi, MBouffant and Hoosier – fellow Angelenos.

MBouffant, I lived in Seattle in the 80’s and 90’s; I lived mostly on Capitol Hill and in the CD. One place I lived was called by realtors “West Madrona” – but, baby, it was the CD.

We shopped in Madison Park a lot. Bert’s, Lola’s hardware store, and the pharmacy on the corner. Even in the 90’s they still let you set up store credit accounts, since a lot of their customers were maids and housekeeprs shopping for their employers. My son spent a lot of summer days at the beach in Madison Park when he was small.

Today we spent a quintessential LA day. We took a hike in Topanga Sate Park, and then went to MacArthur Park to eat pastrami sandwiches at Langer’s; then we dropped into the Botanica next door on 8th and bought an Orisha candle and a herradura lucky charm to hang over the door. I took some photos of some amazing murals down in that part of town, and then we drove to Beverly Hills to the cheese store and spent an ungodly amount of money on french cheese and wine. After that we got some fruit at a market in Brentwood and went home.

Honestly – I love this city.

Wow!

I can’t believe anyone cares that much about some gay dude having his picture on the ceiling!

Just suck someone’s dick or get reamed/ream and try to figure out how much you like it all, Ace.

You’ll feel way better.

If there is one thing I’ve learned over the past 6.5 years of constant cringing, it’s that the louder you are about teh gay, the more likely it is you have been poisoned by teh gay.

Kearney, Nebraska.

It’s even got the convention space!

And is easily nuked from space without threatening any big-time college football programs!

It’s a good thing that guy said he didn’t want anyone to photoshop his picture, thus preventing people from mocking him.

I sure do miss the days when I used to end up at Langers every once in a while.

I’m coming to LA in a few weeks. We’ll probably end up at Stefano’s in Hollywood.

Lancaster does have a nice Thai restaurant. And an alfalfa festival. And, um, I have Netflix.

For Ace and his crew, the whole world is a Cheech & Chong record and they’re the eskimoes identifying dog shit by eating it, then saying “good thing we don’t step in it”.

I think South Carolina is calling Ace’s name. Spartanburg comes to mind. Seems fitting, somehow.

Not Salt Lake City
Not Iowa City

Des Moines, it’s got to be Des Moines for teh Ace.

—

Speaking for Minneapolis you’d all be welcome here when the GOP comes to town for their convention next year. But at the rate they’re going there may not be many republicans left by then.

Ace would not like Lancaster. Most of the conservatives here are military and aerospace and they walk the walk. They would think he was a weiner.

I moved from New York to Boston last month. When I learned that Althouse had decamped from Madison to New York, I thought, “Whew, dodged a bullet, there.” When I learned that Yglesias and McArdle were blogging from Upper West Side coffee shops, I thought, “Uck,” and shuddered.

Now that Ace is leaving Boston for New York, I feel more than lucky, I feel secure in saying that New York is tipping towards full-blown suck.

Clem, not to worry, Yggie & Megatron are in Wash., D. C. I’m surprised that Ace lasted that long in Beantown, ‘though I hear Southie is chock full of his type.

Tonight the geriatric Rottweiler is all agitated. He gets up from his bed and stumbles arthritically out on the deck, and then paces back into the house, back and forth, dragging his feet and stumbling so his nails scrape on the floor. I can’t figure out what’s got into him. He comes over to me on the couch and butts me with his head. I’m thinking maybe there’s a racoon in the yard, or maybe another dog (although usually other dogs don’t bug him this much). Or is it possible there’s a bobcat?

Since Kotsie died, he’s been very clingy – following us around the house. The night Kotsie died, our housesitter shrouded him in a sheet, and pulled his body outside on the screened front porch – it was the only thing to do with an 80 lb dog. The next morning she took him to the crematorium. But the poor old Rottie spent the night alone with the corpse.

What do dogs feel about this stuff? Is he missing his friend? Is he afraid we’ll leave him again? Or is he just agitated by some racoons in the night?

I finally closed all the doors. If it’s another animal, it’s fine just staying out there.

Thank god we don’t have to leave the back door open at night for the ill dog to go poop. I was getting tired of having racoons come into my kitchen.

I have a first-hand tale from a woman I’ve worked with for 20 years, who seems completely sane, and she related to me the story that it was part of her two-dogs-together-for-a-long-time ritual that when it was time to go “in,” one of them would come first, call to the second, and both would then go in the house.

When dog 2 died dog 1 just stood on the porch and cried and howled for about a week.

What I remember most was my colleague saying, with a little bit of uncharacteristic bite for her, “Don’t tell me dogs don’t feel.”

Dogs routinely do Man Big favors.

Get a couple puppies. Rotti and you all will rejuvenate. Just sayin’.

In the meantime, I am very sorry for you all. Dogs are amazing creatures.

Oh, and think about it: Wouldn’t one of your own species make life a little more fun and relaxing?

I’ve only had one dog at a time. But, I think, no more. We all need one of our own.

The geriatric Rottweiler, in his youth, had a beagle companion who was unmanageable and finally had to be put away because he bit someone.

I think he still misses his beagle friend. Although he was a nasty, shrill little monster.

We’ve only had the Rottie since Christmas. His owners since ’94 had to move to Boston and couldn’t take him, so we volunteered to keep him.

His relationship with our Kotsie was fraught with subtle and delicate conflict – basically, our malamute was the Alpha Dog in this house, even though he was poor, sick, deaf, and had a failing liver. So the Rottie, I think, is feeling a little bit alone…..We’re trying to help him feel secure.

Of course dogs feel, most higher animals feel and think. Ravens can use and make tools. Chimps murder just like us. And quite a few animal calls have a subtlety that we are only beginning to be aware of. The question is how much and how deeply do they think and feel. Insects are I suppose all automatons and small mammals too. The Gaia hypothesis is a bit far fetched but who knows? Not me that’s for sure.

This dude says Cambridge is a “15 minute walk” from Hynes? Yeah, those cheetohs-eaters might make it in 15 minutes, but they’ll be gasping as they reach the other side of the Charles (plus, they’ll have to dodge all different shades of people speaking languages that might include Arabic). At that point they’ll be right at MIT, where they can seek out some good intelligent design discussion.

Well, they’ll speed up every time they see a Conspicuously Not-White Person, or hear somebody speaking one of those booga-booga lingos that is not English… so by the time they reach the bridge, they’ll be moving pretty darn fast for a bunch of white boys.

I don’t think they’re looking for MIT, though. And they don’t need to go to the “new, improved” Brattle Square, since all those chain stores have branches right in the Pru. My guess would be they’re planning a candle-light vigil at Harvard Business School, which is actually in Allston of course, but the MBA poseurs think Cambridge still has chic…

If the city highlighted in A CIVIL ACTION counts as “close to Boston”, I’m in! Foah shuu-ah I would find my way to a SadlyStock inside the 128 loop, even though my appearance might shatter a few dark fantasies preconceptions. Just don’t ask me for bar recommendations, or for that matter restaurant reservations, because my Midwestern-born partner is the kinda guy who loves Iggy’s Cantina because they’ll give him a rare burger. We take white-tablecloth visitors to the Helmand, but that’s not exactly a hipster hangout…

Who left all this sperm on the ceiling ?

I’m surprised that Ace lasted that long in Beantown, ‘though I hear Southie is chock full of his type.

Actually, M. Bouffant, for the last decade or so the South End has been heavily colonized by Teh Gheys. As for the hardcore Southies in “the projects”, yes, many of them are deeply racist arseholes who will, to quote the late great Jimmy Breslin “steal anything not nailed down, drink anything in a glass, and fight anyone they can reach”. But if you think Ace could hang around one of their bars for more than 15 minutes without shitting himself, guess again.

Tonight the geriatric Rottweiler is all agitated…I’m thinking maybe there’s a racoon in the yard, or maybe another dog (although usually other dogs don’t bug him this much). Or is it possible there’s a bobcat?

You ever have coyotes in your area? Well, now you may.

I’d second the recommendation, if you can stand it, that you adopt a younger, smaller dog to give the Rottie the warmth & security of that Pack Feeling that dogs love. A female (spayed, of course) would probably be less threatening than another (ex) boy. But if you don’t want to make further commitment to the time-sucking neediness that is everything canine, a couple of kittens would be a pretty good substitute, assuming your Rottie isn’t cat-dangerous (the ones I’ve known have all been cool with felines).

John O, the little “spare auxiliary dog” we just lost to kidney failure was the designated make-the-door-open noisemaker in our three-dog pack. Without her, the other two dogs are having real difficulty figuring out how to let us know that they need to go “out”, or — more importantly by their lights — how to let us know when they want to come in again. The Pig Princess, who vocalizes like an opera diva, can’t work her mouth to produce more than a strangled chimp-like yeeerk! noise when she’s finished in the yard. And Zevon, who roo roos conversationally without difficulty, just flings himself against the storm door & hopes I’ll hear the clicking noises his nails make on the glass. The two of them, sitting forlorn on the doormat waiting for the tin-godzilla-toy YARP…YARP…YARP…YARP Mousie-bark that we’ll never hear again, are the very picture of bereavement…

The South End is not South Boston (Southie). The former is quite gay and has some very nice restaurants. The latter is working class Irish and somewhat dangerous.

Oh
dear god
check ace’s wiki
I love whoever did that.

I hate to imagine what’s on Acie’s ceiling. Used latex gloves, most likely. From all those Palsy Fests with Rosie Pawlm, when he was working from the scaffold, trysting the night away.

[…] seems rightwing blogger and noted heterosexual Ace of Spades (”Who?” Exactly.), Sadly No’s very own office pinata, is having a meetup with his fans in […]

… to quote the late great Jimmy Breslin ….

Err, Mr. Breslin is retired, but he’s still around. He pops out a guest column every so often.

WOOOO–ben in the house!

Gah, you fookin coastal elitists! Doesn’t anyone live out here in BFE with me?

I’m on the front lines!!!

Doesn’t anyone live out here in BFE with me?

(raises hand)

Well, maybe not the same BFE.

Didn’t you get that BFE gift basket?

People live in BFE? I thought it was just a book by Roald Dahl, you know, the Big Friendly Elf.

I see some, uh, revisions have been done to his Wikipedia profile. Heh, in a purely Glenn Reynolds way not meant as an endorsement.

What do dogs feel about this stuff? Is he missing his friend? Is he afraid we’ll leave him again? Or is he just agitated by some racoons in the night?

When we had to put our Aussie Sheperd to sleep due to a heart tumor, her lil’ sister (a black Lab) would wander the house for the longest time wondering where Big Sister Caitlin went and when she’d be back…

no, they know very well something’s wrong, even if they don’t get the details.

In a lighter note, just so’s I keep from crying – that new post on The Debraining Machine about the Kahlil Gibrain school I promised. What IS it with these wingnuts and their fear of the Arab language?

Southie’s gentrified now, as well as the ‘town*. The traditional residents of both communities have been keeping an uneasy peace with the newcomers. It’s funny to watch, sometimes.

Eastie, Everett, Malden and Chelsea are still full of trogs, so Ace coulda gone to one of those fine communities… But if he wants to go to NYC, who are we to stop him?

*Charlestown

Lancaster is kind of a metropolitan BFE. Palmdale and Lancaster together are alleged to have a population of around 300,000.

I don’t know if that includes meth lab customers passing through.

It reminds me of Springfield. Instead of the nuclear plant, we have Edwards Air Force Base. Celebrities who have been here since I moved here include: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Zell Miller, El DeBarge, Chuck Yaeger, Heart, Peter Noone of Herman’s Hermits, Reba McIntyre. Parts of Pirates of the Caribbean were filmed here. When I first lived here, I would hum The Simpsons theme while riding my bike around town.

“Gah, you fookin coastal elitists! Doesn’t anyone live out here in BFE with me?”

Does rural Arizona count? All BFE’s are of a piece, right? BFEs are all alike; every coastal elite is elite in its own way.

ermmm…what does BFE mean?

It’s that part of egypt east and south of cairo known as “bumfuck”….

mikey

Taking a wildassed guess, I’d say BFE = Big Fucking Emptiness.

HTH HAND

Jonah Goldberg’s best LA Times column to date.

Bum Fuck Egypt.

I remember Allah ‘pundit’ back before he quit blogging, before the wingnut welfare rediscovered him him, before he cashed in as part of Hot Air, waay back in 2004, saying that he couldn’t stand to live in NYC anymore because of all the people flocking to see Fahrenheit 9/11. Then Manhattan voted something like 88% for Kerry.

So Ace thinks he’d like it in NYC, like where? In that bastion of conservatism whose venn diagram intersects with a place he could actually afford? I’m thinking the flea-infested couch in Allah’s storage space, but I could be giddy. I could be overestimating the amount Ace can actually pay. East Broadway teochew bus corridor share with seven f.o.b. Chinese is the ticket.

So Ace thinks he’d like it in NYC, like where?

Staten Island, which is to NYC as NYC is to New York State — the place which the natives deride as “so Not Like Us that it really deserves to be cut away and floated out to sea”.

But in reality Ace will probably end up in one of those fine New Jersey suburban communities that gave us the Sopranos and Fountains of Wayne. He and his six fellow Totally Not Ghey housemates will car-pool to Hoboken and take the PATH train into Manhattan, all the while trying not to get any of those urban cooties on their Burger King uniforms. Fortunately for them, Guiliani and Disney have labored mightily to turn Times Square into a heartland theme park where even the whitest midwesterner can enjoy themselves with very little fear of encountering unfamiliar experiences or potentially brain-challenging new impressions.

For your Sunday pleasure

Take a look at this thread on Deltoid. This is how a smack down is really done.
Robert Chung on David Kane

Also on Deltoid, Tim Lamber rips Schulte a new one.
Schulte replies to Oreskes

The Valve schools us SadlyNoesians on satirical parody.
More on Dawkins

Dr. Gene Scott, the cussin’ preacher. He takes contempt for his followers to new levels.

Chasers war on everything: Evangelicals

A comment of mine got caught in the spam filter. If someone could release it into the wild I’d much appreciate it. Thanks.

Bad news for all who love the English language…McAddled has written again. Now, she’s struggling with the negation caused by the arcane prefix “un-“. We’re also treated to more of her impressions about things that she should really research before she opens her mouth on, and…I’m sorry, I know I had a point with this, but five minutes in the vortex that is McAddled’s writing has sucked my ability to string coherent sentences together.

I’m gonna go away now.

I’m certainly a well-travelled person in the US, and currently live in a very diverse city, LA. But when we were in NYC this August, I was trying to think about what made it so much more interesting and immediate, and how it would be so scarey for a bigot, even scarier than LA, where we have such large Chinese, Latino, and Persian communities.

I think it’s because, unlike LA, where even if you drive through an immigrant neighborhood, you’re separate from people by being in your car, in NY, you are forced to be side by side with people. You sit next to them on the subway, you walk past them on the street. You can’t get away from other people. You hear their conversations.

The scale of life is tighter in NYC – doorways and passageways are more narrow, restaurant tables are closer together, and in a corresponding manner, one’s personal space is smaller and more compact.

The pedestrian lifestyle and scale of things makes it easier to suddenly encounter other people, and be surprised. In NY, you can walk down a crowded sidewalk on a hot summer day and duck into a store for a cold drink – and whatever you encounter, the patrons or the proprietor, or whatever, you experience close-hand, and walk away with your bottle of water and realize, hey, that was cool.

But in LA, you have to decide whether to pull your car into THAT parking lot or THAT one, and you are more careful about your choice, driving another block to a 7/11 instead of going into the little bodega.

I walked down the streets of the NYC neighborhood I lived in during the 70’s. It was pretty tough then, pretty gay, and now it’s very very touristy. I realized I looked like a tourist myself. On 6th Avenue a pair of very flamboyant trannies walked past me, having some kind of domestic spat, very colorful language. I was thinking – if I WERE a midwestern tourist seeing the sites in Greenwich village, I think it would have been a little shocking and scarey,and it would certainly be an experience unlike what could be had at the Bloomington, MN mall. Had I been a 50ish lady tourist from MN, it might have been my first closeup encounter with a transexual person.

For me, though it was kinda old home week, and I laughed.

What? McAddled’s first sentance is:

Quebec’s refusal to let Muslim women vote with their face uncovered:

Is she saying that Quebec is forcing Muslim women to cover their faces?

She is a fucking idiot.

Gah, you fookin coastal elitists! Doesn’t anyone live out here in BFE with me?

Does SW Missouri (for only two more weeks, praise jeebus) count?

Why, yes, I think it does.

I was thinking about the concept of “Ace-a-palooza” or whatever the hell it is. Y’know, it’s not at all surprising or odd that the group of people who have coalesced around Ace of Spades HQ would feel a sense of community, just as many of us do here. They would be kindred spirits, sharing not just a political viewpoint, but a more generalized worldview that, for many of them, there is no other way to share comfortably.

But that’s the thing. A community built on a foundation of hatred, fear and paranoia is going to be a somewhat dysfunctional community. I should think that views that deviate from lockstep agreement with basic principles would not be tolerated, and holders of even slightly divergent views would be driven out in shame. The result is a community rigidly enforcing it’s own orthodoxy, and encouraging ever more extreme fealty to the underlying premise.

I’m thinking it’s got to be a sad, dirty little community with littered streets and broken windows, where if anyone visits, it is quickly and furtively, with car doors locked and windows rolled up.

When what defines your community is who you collectively hate, what you collectively fear, and a desire to shed blood as a first option, well, let’s just say that fine art and literature are unlikely to come out of your neighborhood. Race baiters, self loathing gays, damaged souls, emotional cripples and sociopaths are unlikely to create anything bright, or funny, or beautiful. And for someone to choose that community ultimately is a lesson about that community’s denizens. They are not people who want to contribute to peace and prosperity, unless it is on their narrow, frightened tribal terms. And in this world, today, that is not going to happen.

Just kinda sad. But not enough for me to have any genuine sympathy….

By the side of the road, there’s a pile of beer cans
Been there twenty seven years
Imagine all the heartache and tears
In twentyseven years of beers
–Jimmy Buffet

mikey

Mikey: You left out the Herbalife salesmen, the Amway dealers, the storefront preachers, the boiler room guys cold-calling senile old people, and the basement wizards harvesting addresses for pr0n spamming. Because I get the impression both the Masters of the Cons and the Kings of All Marks are a large percentage of the Ace community.

if I WERE a midwestern tourist seeing the sites in Greenwich village, I think it would have been a little shocking and scarey,and it would certainly be an experience unlike what could be had at the Bloomington, MN mall. Had I been a 50ish lady tourist from MN, it might have been my first closeup encounter with a transexual person.

We are out here too though certainly not in Bloomington so much. More downtown Minneapolis and thereabouts because the first thing you learn when you transition is the pay ain’t so good. The area around me is pretty diverse what with Ethiopians and the Somalis at the Starbucks, and the Hmong and the Laotian restaurants and the expatriot Russian women at the food shelf… it’s… interesting.

The only time I go to “The Mall” would be to go to Ikea for some cheap crap. Other than that it’s… just… a… mall. The lady you’re talking about would most likely be from Edina (Every Day I Need Attention) or some other suburb. The suburbs are indeed insane and they bring their violence with them when they visit the city. Nothing screams privilege like the drag shows at the Gay 90’s where the suburbanites are in full tourist mode and get into drunken fights should they get hit on or that the woman they are talking to is clearly not “into” them or not quite who they thought she was. I don’t go there any more, it isn’t my “space” anymore, thanks assholes.

Hey, noen and righteous, I see you visited Megan. So did Gary Ruppert!

Nice point, noen!

She corrected her initial sentance, and as Righteous points out, it’s still incorrect!

That’s “sentence” I believe. Oh forget it, this blog doesn’t have quite the aspirations that the Atlantic does.
I have the US dictionary add on for Firefox and WordWeb sitting in my tray. Both are very handy.

Constantine: I too used to live right over Toscanini’s. For a summer, almost 25 yrs ago, in a shithole apartment that got broken into and from which my stereo and my roommate’s TV were stolen. Perhaps you occupied the same shithole?

But it was good enough for the summer. I could ride my bike everywhere from there. The rent was affordable to a college student. And, c’mon, Toscanini’s! Ah, good times.

At the risk of sounding like far more of a geek than really am (hah!), I might have to figure out a way to make it back to the Hub if it involved meeting Miguel de Icaza among the S,N! commentariat.

Miguel didn’t just found Mono (open source Microsoft .NET), he created GNOME, and had a hand in the Microsoft Outlook workalike called Evolution.

He even has his own wiki page.

I was rather tickled to know that he reads Sadly, No! At least I’m not the only Linux/open source geek here.

Ganesh Bengal Cat,
I heard that your house-apes are planning to take you to a new vet clinic called Connect-&-Cut. Watch out for teh cold thermometers.

[…] Double Update: Acepalooza has been formally announced. It is indeed at this perfect location. […]

MIKEY !!!!!!!!!!!!

You are the best. What an incredible essay. I really like it.

i love the photos of wingnutz partying … they know how to have a good time not like you commie hippie freaks, who wouldn’t know a rocking around the clock good time if it bit you in the keisters

Syd, I’m confused.

You call them wingnuts, yet you call us commie hippie freaks??

And seriously, I think there’s no question who has a better time.

Aww…I’m from upstate NY, but now I’m in central Pennsylvania, which is like living in Alabama, with fewer accents and no grits.

Where at upstate? Rochester, Syracuse, Buffalo? Albany?

Poughkeepsie, actually.

So not really *that* upstate, but it’s still upstate. And so is Westchester, damnit.

A BiMonSadlyCon in Boston? Make it Somerville, bitches!

And working right in the shiny place where Southie meets the Financial District is interesting. Where to take the expensive clients for lunch? The Irish bar for a mix of locals drinking on a weekday afternoon and the posh business jobbers. That’s my spot. Although there are plenty of Ace-esque people in an around the city.

I’m from outside Albany originally, Vivek, tho I went to Vassar, so I also know Poughkeepsie depressingly well.
Neither are upstate. Albany is midstate, Poughkeepsie is so downstate it’s becoming an nyc suburb.
I live in the city now, so it’s a pet peeve of mine. Westchester is not upstate. Not even remotely.

Simba B. said,

Syd, I’m confused.

I think I was trying to suggest something about the duality of man. The Jungian thing.

A different brad,

Speaking as a fellow Vasshole, I disagree with your contention that Poughkeepsie is not “upstate.” As I understood it, the term referred to anyplace north of NYC that could not be considered either a suburb or dedicated feeder community for Teh City. Yeah, I wouldn’t call Westchester upstate, but (pulls on Vasshole identity politics beanie) if a Poughkeepsie native says that Poughkeepsie is upstate, that’s good enough for me.

Clem: Actually, brad’s right…every time I go back home, I swear the number of strip malls doubles. And that makes me so very sad. There’s something soulless about it all.

That being said, I consider the “upstate” thing a population density issue rather than one of geography. Everything that’s not NYC or LI is upstate to me, just like anything south of I-80 is southern Illinois (where I did my undergrad).

I’m willing to grant Yonkers a reprieve, because as was once pointed out to me, there’s no way DMX is from upstate NY. But that’s it. Everything else is upstate.

And hell, there are dairy farms in Hyde Park. Or at least there used to be when I was growing up. So Dutchess is upstate.

I’m here I’m here!

Could somebody please tell me that somebody is going to unobtrusively crash, just for the ol’ fly on the wall view? Or would it be too sad? Just a complete downer for all involved parties?