AdamSmith

Not to omit the redoubtable Shirley Q. Liquor. A little goes a long way, but the landscape would not be the same without her.

>And if we're all lucky, AdamSmith starring in the soon to be >made "Geisha Girls gone wild." Lke I said in the A-List thread, you would have to brace yourself for something more like "Frances Faye Gone to Seed." (She played the antique madame in "Pretty Baby" with La Shields.) P.S. Gratuituous insult of the day -- This list is missing the films of Jamie Lee Curtis!

Don't let this latest one bother you... http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18019585/

>Dress as young geisha girl my friend. Make the horny men come >to you. Haw! Only 2 things wrong with that: (1) I would look less like your geisha girl and more like the ancient madame played by Frances Faye in 'Pretty Baby.' (2) I hope to hook something better than a pot-bellied sararyman looking for a schoolgirl to piss on him.

Anyone have advice about hiring (or otherwise hooking up) in Tokyo? There seem to be at least two agencies: http://www.arons-rod.com/top.php http://www.kocnet.jp/ I've experienced the ups, downs and sideways of how gaijin are treated in Japan, but never before had opportunity to go adventuring. So any guidance, experiences, observations appreciated.

Actually you have a fair amount of company.

Exactly. Danger has many guises... "N is for Neville who died of ennui." http://www.geocities.com/sunsetstrip/stage...sforNeville.gif http://www.geocities.com/sunsetstrip/stage/7535/gorey.html

>Second, as long as he stays where he is, he serves to deflect >the heat from Karl Rove who, of course, is always the ultimate >culprit, so he's useful to Bush in that regard. Yep. In the excitement I lost sight of that fundamental tenet. And of course you and Stu are right that the longer they leave Gonzales dangling and twisting, the better all around.

>I say, Thank God for Arlen Specter. I respect the man and >mostly always have. If more civil servants were like him and >capable of looking outside of their party affiliations and >lobbyists pockets Hear, hear. And for his honest speaking, his party nearly denied him chairmanship when they were in majority. >Do you have to be dying or at least battling death these days >to be effective in govt? Sharp insight. (Sort of like that line in a Flannery O'Connor short story, "She would of been a good woman if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.") >It'll happen on a late Friday afternoon for sure, after 3pm >EST and my wild guess would be April 6, 2007. Sounds likely. Bets are on! >Is there a prize for the winner? :+ The thing will be its own prize, no? Not that the replacement is likely to be much better, but that each setback takes a little bit more out of the administration's ability to keep up its more outrageous predations. And possibly emboldens the party's reasonable elements (yes, Virginia...!?) to try and assert more control.

The hapless Gonzales looks to be sinking ever deeper into the doodoo. Ex-aide Sampson just now testified the AG was indeed in the loop, directly contradicting G's own statements. And NYT reports federal prosecutors yesterday gave G a blistering earful about the firings putting the dept. into disarray and a funk -- a tune that Specter et al. have picked up today. Any bets on how long until his pompadour vanishes forever beneath the shit?

>I always had the best time with my drag friends in NYC. They >kept the fun in the evening all night long. Granted drag and TVTS are not synonymous. Nonetheless... Given the paucity of twinks in Boston that I'm forever bemoaning, the local trannie escorts can be a godsend for those of us who cotton that way. Economics pushes them to live in the roughest goddamned neighborhoods, though. One day I am going to get beaten up, coming or going. But until then... again -- What, me worry?

>The current £20 note, which features composer Edward Elgar, >will be phased out after the launch of the Adams note. This I like. Too much pomp and circumstance detracts from business efficiency. >The decision is an historic one because the philosopher and >economist will become the first Scotsman to appear on a Bank >of England note. He is already featured on a Scottish £50 >note. This I like even more! As for gaining 20 pounds, inspiring to know from today's other posts that good remedies exist.

Speaking of points (Starwood, that is) -- sorry, where are my wits? See you all at the Hotel Cala di Volpe, of course!

>My God, I’ve digressed horribly. Welcome AdamSmith, if >indeed >a welcome is merited. > >OK. Time to get a room. ;-) >Calling Four Seasons -Calling Motel 6. Who`s paying ?. Who`s >got points ?. ;-) What -- and cheat on Lucky?! Well, let me just ask him... :+

It's always seemed to me that the great Clinton compromise was actually the great Clinton legal landmine laid in order eventually to explode in our favor. To wit: If it is acknowledged that the only reason gays can't serve is that the knowledge of their orientation by straight servicepeople will mess things up, then de facto the fault lies with straight servicepeople. It becomes a clear case of prejudice and civil rights, just like racial integration of the military. Courts so far have not upheld that view. But neither have any of the challenges yet been decided on those grounds. So the way still stands clear.

I know several who keep very detailed records. One lost his PDA with a lot of my and other clients' personal data on it. But as I haven't yet heard from Mr. Gonzales (Alberto, not Tyler) -- what, me worry?

I don't particularly love being a Mean Girl but I have to twist the old saying to ask: Can a leper change his spots? Anne Rice had one of her vampire characters make a telling observation, namely that as we get older, we seldom change, we just become more and more who we already are. This latest admission of Benjamin's is, for me, sadly not out of line with previous actions that revealed character attributes. People who report he is a great escort have my respect. This discussion, for me at least, is not about what kind of escort he is, but what kind of person. If I, who am pathologically prone to mixing these two categories in my own escort encounters, can keep them distinct, I think anyone can.

...the (police) beat still goes on, and on... http://www.cnn.com/2007/LAW/03/12/madam.cl...t.ap/index.html

Whatever it says about his character, the harm from Benjamin's plagiarism is pretty much restricted to his own reputation. Andy Borowitz's royalties won't go down on account of it. But Benjamin's shenanigans haven't always been so harmless. I too post a link with some reluctance, but, to be truthful, not a whole lot: http://m4m.message-forum.net/dcboard.php?a...ing_type=search At least one escort reported unmerited business repercussions from this blog entry of Benjamin's.

>Richardson - Probably the most qualified candidate. Maybe >he will get more press once he officially declares, but the >media seems to have this down to a two horse race. Hopefully >he will get a chance to shine before all the big donors have >already committed to a candidate. This all seems exactly right. Wonder if Richardson's main chance lies in Hillary and Barack grinding each other down early in the cycle?

>I began working on my first political campaigns in the late >1970s in my native North Carolina. I was attracted to Jesse >Helms as a candidate for the same reason that you were >attracted to Kennedy. You never had to guess his position on >an issue because he never hesitated to let you know what he >thought. You might not always agree with him. But, he wore >his ideals on his sleeve for all to see. > >OK, let the bombs begin dropping over my Helms admission. Another thing one has to credit Helms with, for good or ill, is inventing and refining many of the campaign mechanics that were since brought to a fine art by that magnificent Machiavell Karl Rove -- namely the tactics of precision targeting of electoral sub-demographics for identification, fundraising and messaging that proved vastly more effective than what most candidates in either party had done up to that time. And also, like it or not, for the tactics of personal destruction that are now part of most politicians' and parties' toolkits. Just one example -- you'll remember how, in the 1972 campaign that first put him in the Senate, Helms's rival was a Greek, one Nick Galifianakis. One of Helms's most often used slogans in that campaign was "Jesse Helms -- He's One of Us." My box of accumulated campaign junk still contains a peel-and-stick lapel label bearing those words.

>My modern era prototypical president is John F Kennedy. >whatever his views, popular or not, he had >the grit, steel, and brinksmanship to lead us through a Cuban >Missle Crisis when lesser men might have committed us to a >very long winter. > >Harry Truman qualifies as does Lincoln, Regan and Bush I IMO. >These men were not all sweetness and light. Nor did I agree >with all of their policies. But I felt they had a steady hand >and a rudder deeply submerged in the water. Good points. Another crucial thing that Lincoln, Truman, Kennedy, Reagan and Clinton had (maybe not so much Bush I) was power and skill as Explainer-in-Chief. Nixon too, when he was telling the truth. Critical element of leadership that -- though I voted for them -- who knows whether Gore could have marshalled, and Kerry resoundingly lacks. Bush II is a conundrum in this respect. For the best part of six years, the force and forthrightness of his convictions looked clear and won over many, whatever the limits of his articulateness. (Saw a wizened old African American woman in D.C. interviewed on TV after Bush whacked Kerry. She said in effect, "I voted for Bush because I don't agree with him but I know what he stands for. I couldn't tell if Kerry stood for anything.") In fact those limits were part of his authenticity for many, something he knows -- he was a lot more articulate in his governor's-race debates with Ann Richards than once he started pursuing the presidency.

Oz, thank you. This is a treasure trove: http://www.workers.org/lavender-red/

Agree that Kucinich can be pretty compelling on the issues. Sadly electability is and from here on out probably always will be the litmus test. Tied to what Vilsack rightly decried yesterday when he dropped out -- that today it's all about $$$. Seems tied in to the same thing I posted about Anna Nicole -- we live in The Society of the Spectacle. You have to be able to buy enough image to make enough impression on enough voters. Political freedom of choice has been perniciously supplanted by consumer freedom of choice. I hate to be such a Marxist but, while its failings as a literal economic prescription have been made obvious, Marxist analyses of cultural production can be devastatingly accurate. And that's what U.S. politics, at least at the national level, is all about these days. Anyone for bringing back Lincoln/Douglas-style afternoon-long debates? Maybe the Superbowl marketers could figure out how to package up such a thing.

>Thank you, you sweet man. In spades! Furthermore - Author! Author! That is to say, Source! Source! Wherever did you lay hands on this? As it were. }(