A Special Song of the Day Post, with Commentary - Dear Mr. President - P!nk, with Indigo Girls

Dear Mr. President,
Come take a walk with me
Let's pretend, we're just two people and
You're not better than me
I'd like to ask you some questions if we could speak honestly

Well, after months and months we are finally here.  The day of reckoning!  This is undoubtedly one of the most momentous days in our 240 years of history, the world is watching, and the stakes couldn't be any higher.

What do you feel when you see all the homeless on the street?
Who do you pray to at night before you go to sleep?
What do you feel when you look in the mirror?
Are you proud?

Today's song was written about another president who took office after another very contentious election season 16 years ago.  Back then, so many of us were angry.  We'd felt cheated and we feared for our future.  Unfortunately, those fears came to pass as 8 years of that poor choice brought us two wars, one plausibly acceptable, and the other completely unnecessary and based on lies.  Thousands of people lost their lives as those in the inner circles enriched themselves off of the misery of others. We tortured our enemies in questionable violation of international law.  Our economy was in shambles.  The housing market crashed.  Unemployment rates and the deficit soared as the stock market fell.  We all suffered...but we survived.

How do you sleep while the rest of us cry?
How do you dream when a mother hs no chance to say goodbye?
How do you walk with your head held high?
Can you even look me, in the eye, and tell me why?

It was 8 years ago now that we made history.  We'd finally said enough as a nation and brought the other party back into power.  A black man had been elected president.  Hope was at hand. Unfortunately, whatever popularity this new President brought to the office was despised by many, either because he was a black man or simply from the 'other side.'

His integrity was questioned and every attempt he made at progress was met with unprecedented obstruction, which remains to this very day as the Supreme Court's power has been unconstitutionally and unprecentendtedly checked by the branch of government still controlled by the former president's party. The supposed outrage that's been spun over the past 8 years truly boggles my mind, as the previous 8 years of absolute misery seem to be an aberration to those on the other side.  Perhaps there is a case of mass amnesia.

Dear Mr. President,
Were you a lonely boy?
How can you say, 
No child is left behind?
We're not dumb and we're not blind
They're all sitting in your cells
As you pave the road to hell  

So now we have this...an anti-establishment billionaire vowing to "Make America Great Again." Does anyone out there really believe that we are no longer a great country?  Please look me in the eye, and tell me why.

Of course, our choice is minimal.  One out of two, well in reality four, people.  But that in itself is a problem we must overcome.  Yes, the establishment is crooked all over.  Both sides of the aisle work first towards their own personal gain before helping us, the little people.  It's been that way for a long, long time.  The United States of America has become the United Corporations of America, where special interests gain favor to our detriment.  Yes, we need an anti-establishment president.  This isn't the one, though.

What kind of father would take his own daughter's rights away?
And what kind of father mght hate his own daughter if she were gay?
I can only imagine what the first lady has to say
You've come a long way, from whiskey and cocaine

The climate of our politics has been dividing us for too many years now.  Politicians tell outrageous lies simply for their own gain.  And we believe them, yet our lives never seem to change that much for the better, no matter what they say.  Right?

Today we all have a huge choice to make.  For seemingly all of us, the choice is clear.  Unfortunately, that choice isn't the same.  While I see it as the choice between a seasoned, yet admittedly flawed candidate and a misogynistic, inexperienced and impulsive bully, others actually believe that the bully would do us better.  Well in my eyes, that bully has cheated our country of thousands and thousands of dollars in taxes, gone bankrupt on quite a few occasions, and looks to divide us rather than unite us.  He doesn't deserve to be president.

Let me tell you about hard work
Minimum wage with a baby on the way
Let me tell you about hard work
Rebuilding your house after the bombs took them away
Let me tell you about hard work
Building a bed out of a cardboard box
Let me tell you about hard work, hard work, hard work
You don't know nothing about hard work

Yeah, those 8 years were terrible!  But they seem like nothing now compared to what could happen in the next 8.  It truly makes me sad...and a little scared, too.  Why do we spend so much time hating and being sheep rather than keeping informed, loving one another and really making the world and our country a better place?  We should all be on the same side.

I only hope that today we get it right and we make it better.  Maybe someday in the future we will find a true anti-establishment hero willing to lead us all into a brighter future.  Until then, we need to make the right choice, or the next time could be even worse.

The First of Several Angles to the Orlando Tragedy: Terrorism

What can I say that hasn't already been said about the horrific tragedy that happened in Orlando early this morning?  For one thing, this was something that was always in the back of my mind whenever I went into a gay club, even from my early days of clubbing.  We all know there are a lot of sick people out there, and any one of us, in virtually any situation, in virtually any place, could face the very same horror those poor people experienced in the wee hours of this day, June 12th, 2016.  That is just a sad truth.  

Even though the terrible mass shooting that happened today made headlines as the deadliest such attack in our history, the incident was unique in that it is the first such tragedy that touched upon several issues, and depending on which spin-meister you listen to, the way you might see it is the way they spin it.  Whatever the case, this tragedy surely drew new and valid ire towards terrorism, but three other important societal problems surface here, and over the next few days I will be devoting some space here to discuss these issues as I see them.  

Life never has and never will be black and white.  We need to look at our society holistically and through all that gray matter in between in order to make any real progress so something like this never happens again.  Until then, I am afraid that these sorts of incidents will continue to happen.  

The Terrorist Angle

50 killed in shooting at Florida nightclub in possible act of Islamic terror - Fox

Orlando Shooting: 50 killed, shooter pledged ISIS allegiance - CNN

Islamic State linked to worst mass shooting in American history - USA Today

These were among the first headlines that I found while doing a search for 'Orlando shooting' in preparation for this post.  Notice any special groups of similar words that come up in these?  Islamic terror.  ISIS allegiance.  Islamic State.  Now, look up at the meme at the top of this post.  Curiously, the word 'gay' appears in none of these headlines, yet I'm pretty damned sure that, regardless if the attack was ordered by the ISIS supreme being himself or if it was perpetrated by Mr. Omar Mateen on his own, these 100-plus people who were killed or critically wounded in the shooting were targeted because they were gay.  

The headlines above each appeared on popular American news outlets, and links are provided for you to read them.  Another headline I found was on Al Jazeera, a, ahem, 'Muslim' news outlet scorned by most Americans from way back in the days of Al Qaeda.  It reads, Scores dead in gay nightclub shooting.  Now before any Muslim-phobes read into my angle here, the article does make mention of the terror connection, and I am not disagreeing that it shouldn't in any of these stories.  

The problem here is the placement and the angles of those headlines that seem to be purposefully trying to point our minds towards that aspect of this deadly massacre.  The topic of my Master's Thesis was 32 pages about how five huge media conglomerates purposefully drive the discussion, and though that paper was written about 15 years ago, I am sure it still holds true today, as evidenced by these headlines.  Ah, the masking of other, more troubling issues that come from within.  I speak of headlines because they, the media outlets, know that a great majority of we busy Americans get our news via the headlines, not the stories themselves, and thus are important in swaying the debate the way they want to.

Surely this incident could and should be classified as a terrorist attack.  The very definition of terrorism is the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims (Google), and the attack in Orlando surely fits that description.  But this morning's events at Pulse Nightclub were much more than that.  When we hear the words terrorist attack, we automatically think Muslim radicals and our anger gets directed at them.  I wonder if the attacker was a white American that those words would have appeared in those headlines. Probably not!  We've been trained to equate the word Muslim with terror and that's just not right.  It only works to create Muslim-phobia and more problems.  Really!

This massacre earlier today was an attack on gays, fueled by religious radicalism.  Homophobia is rooted in the scriptures of many of the world's largest religions, most written thousands of years ago. Though this was one extreme result of homophobia, are the thousands upon thousands of bullying and gay-bashing incidents that happen every day any better?  

The murders were perpetrated with an assault rifle and a pistol.  One man given the opportunity to murder so many innocent and helpless people just like that.  And some see no problem with that because of an Amendment to our Constitution that was written under very different circumstances a very long time ago.  These people will fight and fight hard to defend that principle in the coming days and weeks despite the fact that this was the 16th mass shooting in the last eight years.  

Yeah, what happened at Pulse was a terrorist incident, but it is so much more than that.  All we can do right now is send some positive energy to those people who are still critically wounded and to the families of those who were slain so horrifically.  They were our brethren, gay brethren, fellow Americans, people just like you or me.  Rest in peace!

Stay tuned for more...   

A Pitiful Night on the Sea Tea

It's been way too long in between posts for me on here, but this summer's been a really busy one. Between work and taking classes and making plans with people I only get to see over the summer, I've hardly had any time to get to John's World. But here I am now, and I've got something that I feel needs to be shared...

It had all the promise of a fun night.  Three buddies heading into the city to enjoy four hours aboard the Sea Tea's fabulous new yacht.  Rich, Bobby and I have been going on the Sea Tea a couple of times each summer for just about ten years now, Sometimes it was a lot of fun, others not so much. I've said before that going on the Sea Tea, which dubs itself as New York's Gay Party Cruise, has the potential to be really great or really lousy.  Factors such as the deejay, the crowd, the theme, and the boat itself can make or break an evening on the four-hour excursion into New York Harbor, but we always head on in on a Sunday afternoon excitedly hoping for a great time.  Not so much on this go around.  In fact, our evening this past Sunday on the Sea Tea may have quashed our desire to ever venture into NYC on a Sunday night again.

Like I said, for the second year in a row, the Sea Tea has a new boat, bigger and better than ever. This year's model is called the Hornblower Infinity and it is a big, beautiful yacht, with multiple levels from which to enjoy the four-hour sail.  Upon boarding at 6 p.m., we began to explore the cruise ship-like boat.  It was elegant, with two large tastefully decorated rooms, the top lounge area, full of comfortable little seating nooks,  overlooking the dining room with a large dance floor and dining tables from its center. Multiple tiered decks dotted the boat, affording the most spectacular view of the skyline, Lady Liberty and all else there is to take in here.  Oh, it's going to be a great night!, I thought to myself.

But not Miss Dita, no.  As we parlayed our way around the massive yacht, he was noticing things neither Blanche nor I were noticing.  Finally, he shared his most important observation.

There's no place to dance outside.  That's what always makes this fun!

He was right.  There was no place to dance outside.  The dance floor was located in the dining room, the lower half of the two-tiered center of the boat.  At that time we were on the upper level, towards the center of the yacht and in a not-too-big, but biggish kind of open air area.  Though I really knew better, I suggested that maybe there'd be music out there later on and people would dance there, even though the space was not really dance floor material, though.

Hmmm, maybe, he answered not too confidently.

And so we hung out, waiting for the boat to set sail at 7:30, as other passengers gathered aboard the ever-crowding boat.  It was plain to see that this ginormous floater would handle a lot more people than any of the company's previous ships.  Mo money, mo money, mo money!  That first hour and a half was pleasant enough.  The three of us chatting on the various decks of the boat and taking it all in.  By the time 7:30 came around, we were all hungry and wanted to eat (passengers on the Sea Tea get a free buffet with their ticket!), but we still wanted to be outside when the ship embarked into the Hudson.  So we waited.  That was okay, though, because the sunset on Sunday night was spectacular!

  

Finally, we were out on our sail and it was time to eat.  We've all been on this thing enough times to know the routine.  We eat quick, and then we usually take our spots in, around and on the dance floor.  What we were in for on this Sunday, though, was that this was going to be no ordinary routine. We took our spots at the end of one of two lines for food.  The lines were pretty long, but not that different than normal.  At first, we took turns making trips to the bathroom while the others held our spots and we chit-chatted some more before noticing that the line was not moving.  In fact, well over an hour after we'd entered the line, we were still waiting.  Not good!

At first, we were all complaining about the people in line, how they could be so slow in getting their food, but as we crept closer, the reason for the line not moving became clearer...the food dishes were running out quickly and weren't being replaced.  As those last excruciating minutes passed, we were at our wits end, angry and disgusted.  By this time we were starving, and even as we got to the front of the line, the mismanagement of the food became plainly evident.  

I actually felt bad for the food servers who had to face the frustrated crowds of people.  All they could do, like us, was wait for more the replacement dishes to come out.  While Bobby was lucky enough to get his food rather quickly and run to a table, Rich and I were not.  Both the salad and the bread were gone and we literally stood there for about ten minutes, our hot food quickly getting cold, waiting for more salad and bread to come out.  It was pitiful, and no one around seemed in charge to oversee this debacle.  Most of the tickets for the cruise are purchased in advance (it's five bucks cheaper that way!), and so one might think they'd have an idea of how much food o prepare and have the kitchen staff well-trained to handle it.  

By the time we all sat down to eat, it was about ten past nine.  We'd first entered the line at around 7:40.  An hour and a half completely wasted and all we had once we were done was about 40 minutes to enjoy the remainder of the cruise before it ended at 10.  I said 'enjoy,' but that really wasn't the case.  The three of us spent the remainder of the ride on the top deck where we began, steaming mad, as a drag show came on to the stage below.  Ugh!

So that was our Sea Tea cruise in a bad bad nutshell.  Yeah, the new boat was spectacularly beautiful, but that was about all the good things I can say about it.  We'd spent an hour and a half standing around at the beginning, waiting to get things started and then another waiting and wasting our precious time for food.  There was little to no dancing, as the food lines lined both sides of the dance floor and most of the people were waiting to eat like us.  It was too bad, too, because the deejay was pretty good.  

Now I don;t know anything about the laws that govern boating excursions from New York Harbor, but I have a few suggestions, a wish list, of how the Sea Tea could possibly get better like it should:

- Serve the food while the boat is still in dock.  That's when passengers are gathering anyway and there is no real dancing or mingling.  

- Or better yet, especially if there is some kind of ordinance against serving food while the ship is at the pier, make the food an extra part of the package.  If that were the case, the three of us would have opted out and grabbed a slice of pizza beforehand, but would have had the choice to eat or not.  Of course the price of the ticket should be cheaper in this instance, but still they're making more money already by serving that many more people.  

- Drinks on the Sea Tea have gone up extravagantly in the past couple of years.  Whereas three or four years ago, you used to get a decent sized drink for eight or nine bucks, now you get  teeny tiny cup of whatever for a whopping $14...and they don't even pack a punch!  Make the prices match the product.  If you're going to charge $14 for a drink, at least make it a little larger and a little stronger.

The food and the drinks are never the main reason for us going on the Sea Tea to begin with.  When we go, we go to dance and have a good time in a great setting, but really, we haven't had fun on it for at least a couple of years now.  It's apparently sad, but true, that those who run 'New York's Only Gay Party Cruise' run it as if they're serving stray clientele who don't expect much from the cruise except for maybe cool views in a party atmosphere.  Between the exorbitant prices for a ticket (a not unreasonable $30, but considering what we've been getting, that's a ripoff!) and the drinks, and the poor food service, it would seem as if they don't give a crap about customers getting their money's worth and maybe wanting to do it again.  As for me, I don't think I do anymore and that's really sad! 

  

  

When You've Seen One Gold Ceiling, You've Seen Them All

sevilla

One of the downsides of the trip to Europe, admittedly, was the educational tours we had to endure. Being a school trip, our itinerary was peppered with guided tours of several places we had visited, including the Doge's Palace in Venice, the inner towns of Lucerne and Florence, and a bus tour of Paris. Now I've never been the kind of traveler who likes guided tours.  No, I've always been an explore-it-on-your own kind of guy.  With the exception of one very unique and interesting guided tour of the Vatican Museums in 2000, I've never been on one I really enjoyed, and the ones I experienced on this trip were no exception.

As a person with an aptitude for writing, I have my own unique point of view, and so my observations of an experience are usually different from most.  During these guided tours in Europe I paid more attention to the guides themselves rather than the things they were pointing out, and I can say with certainty that there is a common thread to what brought these individual people to their jobs.

Ever since I've been a teacher, I've learned that different personality types draw teachers into their content areas.  There's no doubt that people's natural attributes make them well-suited for one job or another, not only in the teaching world, but in every vocational area.  I often brag that I can tell what type of teacher a person is after just  a few minutes of talking to them.  ESL teachers, like me, are nurturers first and foremost, and they love culture.  Social studies teachers tend to like to speak...a lot, and are pretty opinionated in their views.  English teachers, of course, love literature and their manner of speech is impeccable, and so on and so forth.

Like teachers, tour guides are all strung together by the same personality type as well.  First of all, they all have an affinity for history or art, or a combination of the two.  Most of them probably wanted to be teachers of some sort, and for whatever reason they were swayed into this particular vocation instead.  They are all extremely passionate about their subjects, delving into the most minute details that not many other people would find interesting, and they don't seem to have any empathy for the tourist experience when they're giving their tours.  They continue on in their passion without much regard for how their 'student' are enjoying the experience.  Thus, sadly, they can be very boring.

I can't really say which of our European tour guides was the most boring.  They all had their own individual quirks, but they all exhibited the same personality traits I describe above.  Perhaps I'd give the prize for the worst guide to the lady in Paris, who, sadly, put each of the chaperones, including me, to sleep.

Ah, I see I've put all the chaperones to sleep!  Perhaps we should wake them up so we can get up and walk around, heh? She said to the kids.

Startled awake by her comment, we were all jolted from our slumber to return to the monotony of the tour.  It was here, though, that it got a little better as we left the bus to check out a park and get some fresh air.  That didn't last long, however, as the boredom set in soon after as we boarded the bus once again to continue the tour.  I'm not sure if it was the monotone sound of her voice or the fact that we were sitting and not walking that put us to sleep.  I only know that I was quickly in la la land almost as soon as the tour began, and fidgeting the rest of the time that I was awake.

Ugh, these tours were absolute torture!  I can never understand how anybody can find such thrills in the tiniest minutae about the Medici family or a gold paneled ceiling in the Doge's Palace, or even the map gallery in the Vatican Museums.  God, when you've seen one gold paneled ceiling, you've seen them all!  Though there were moments of interest during some of the tours, like the Lion's Carving in Lucerne or the Bridge of Sigh in Venice, but overall...ugh!

So if you should ever find yourself on vacation in Europe, or Asia, or any other place for that matter, I highly recommend you stay away from guided tours, that is, unless you actually enjoy minutiae and monotone voices.  Trust me, you'll be happy you did!

When you've seen one gold ceiling you've seen them all!

This way to the Doge's Palace

Check out previous posts on my Europe trip below and stay tuned for more...

Amster...dam, Part I

Gouda Cheese and Clogs

Amster...dam: The End

Joanne's Broken Wheel

Hello Paris: An Afternoon at the Sacré Coeur

Making A Memory at the Eiffel Tower