And last but definitely not least, today’s anniversary girl, Mariah Carey! (born March 27, 1970)
I also learned yesterday would’ve been the birthday of the late, great Teddy Pendergrass (born March 26, 1950). Though I don’t see him as a diva (maybe not in the traditional sense), his artistry cannot be denied! This here remains one of the best love songs of the 70s (maybe ever)…but for some odd reason it also reminds me of 1996’s The Nutty Professor. 😆
It may be officially Spring, but after last week, I feel like California had its summer. At least the heatwave is over. (But not the rising gas prices here, sadly.)
And speaking of summer and spring, that song is divine. (I know there’s a shorter version of that song, but I’m more partial to the extended mix.)
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I did some work in San Francisco recently and here are some pretty pics from my work trip:
At Glen Park in SF
At the hills of Diamond Heights, which overlook downtown SF and beyond
A sunset from paradise. Taken from Esplanade Beach in Pacifica, CA
That was the Good. The Bad was leaving SF at night. I’ve had to do some work travels there lately, and I usually leave at night to escape traffic. Lately, there’s been some construction on north 101 and north 280 that starts at night (shortly after 9PM). Those two routes are the main routes to get out of the city and onto the Bay Bridge leading to the East Bay (where I live). I’ve had to go on the surface streets in Mission Bay to escape the traffic, but from my recent visit, it was chaotic. I also didn’t know there was a preseason Giants game, which added to me being STUCK stuck in the city. Did I mention some asswipe that drove a large Escalade-style SUV in front of me tried to back into a parking spot, almost hitting my car? That was the Ugly and I hope the driver of that SUV that tried it with me gets (redacted)
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It’s another busy time at the day job, plus I’m still doing my taxes. (My situation is always sticky as I work both employee and 1099 jobs–same profession, by the way.) Yet I managed to complete another chapter of my latest work-in-progress. There will be plenty of drama, and it is a little “darker” than The Playgirl, but don’t worry–there will be a nice ending! All the antagonists (or as the kids would say, the “opps”) get what they deserve in the end (none of this reward-the-assholes shit), and since I’m writing a love story this time, I intend to have a Happily Ever After ending.
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If you want to witness a masterclass in ruining your career and reputation with quickness, just be a “progressive” endorsing a Nazi. I give you Exhibit A:
It’s vile beyond belief to see “Democrats” like Warren and Gallego endorse Nazi Oyster Boy, and when they’re choosing the Nazi over a politician who’s highly qualified to be Senator, it’s even worse. Ignorance and antisemitism are running rampant on this planet, and shit like that is not helping, to say the least. That these dubious AF choices from “Democrats” (real Dems don’t endorse Nazis and are not Nazis at all, so fuck Platner and his supporters, too) are being made in another important election year is mind-boggling. Just fucking wow.
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File this under “Just Fucking Wow” too:
And I thought I did some dumb shit on Bluesky by following some of those large “anti-Trump”/”resist!” accounts a year ago that turned out to be lying grifters that blindly bash Schumer and Jeffries for attention. (In fairness, I honestly thought they were the real deal until I noticed them bashing “feckless Dems” in every other post of theirs. I’ve since unfollowed and muted them, then found some revealing tea on them.) This shit here, though, takes the fucking cake. No need to have a “Don’t Say Something So Damn Dumb, Leftist White Male” Challenge; it would’ve flopped after twenty seconds. That post is a sure-fire, first-ballot inductee into Bluesky’s Hall of Shame. It’s so bad, it would get flagged for moderation on Elon’s Twitter.
Also, if I see any of my followers following that Norman clown or even Liked his post, they will be added to my Block list that I believe is larger than my list of Followers. (There’s always going to be an account or five every day now that I just cannot with.)
I got PBS playing in the background right now and caught a glimpse of what’s on. There’s an ad for one of their new shows that will be narrated by George Clooney. Anytime I see his name, I get rabid and in a bad way. Dude could’ve just stayed away from politics and preserved his legacy as a handsome leading man from the 90s. But nope. From him wanting Biden to step down and saying Harris was a bad candidate, Clooney is forever on my shit list! Privileged ratfucker.
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OK, time for some eye bleach, and I’m going back in time with this…
The fashion from Spring 1996 SERVED. I think this season birthed the Minimalist movement of the mid-late 90s, but it also wasn’t boring or drab. If anything, it was lively, yet modern. Lots of styles from then could still be worn today. The colors, the prints, the models!
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The Billboard Hot 100 30 years ago this week… Mariah’s “One Sweet Day” had just been dethroned by Celine and her latest ballad, and some of those other songs on that chart take me BACK. *sighs* What a time.
Speaking of 1996, I still on planning on doing a throwback post on how life was for me that year. (I may have been 11 for most of ’96, but I do remember some things from then.) I’ll get to it…after I’m done with my taxes.
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Lastly, since it’s Opening Day in MLB, the team that dethrones the Dodgers this year will get my merch money. (Unless if the Bums dethrone themselves, or if it’s the Yankees–I’ll never wear any of their trash!)
It’s the end of Read An eBook Week, and from now till the end of today, you can get a copy of my eBook The Playgirl for FREE! Sale exclusively at Smashwords.com!
Penelope Cruz photographed by the late, great Herb Ritts for US Vogue, March 2001
When this cover hit newsstands 25 years ago this month, I gasped in awe. Not because of topless Penelope–that part didn’t catch my eye, actually. But it was the sultry pulchritude of Penelope with the blurb “The Power Of Beauty” that did. For as long as I’ve been reading women’s/fashion magazines, plenty of them, but especially Anna Wintour’s Vogue, have often touted beige-skinned, blue-eyed blondes with the thin lips and thinner hips as the “beauty ideal”. As a gullible teen who was none of that, there were times when those discriminating messages got to me. (Looking back at that, I wouldn’t be surprised if the ass-backwards rich white males that owned Conde Nast and Hearst influenced that racist bullshit in my fashion/women’s titles.)
Then here comes Penelope, with her dark hair, brown eyes, sunkissed skin, and full lips, fronting Vogue’s March 2001 issue. Her look was the antithesis of the Paltrows and Kidmans of Hollywood, and I adored her upon first sight. Penelope instantly joined my list of beauty idols of the time: Lucy Liu (the lone female Asian star at the time), Jessica Alba, Tyra Banks, and Catherine Zeta-Jones (who would get her own Vogue cover later that year), to name a few. I think I bought two copies of that issue–one to read and one that I left sealed in its plastic wrapping for keepsakes. (These were days when Vogue’s March and September issues were, like, 700 pages and came with a supplemental issue, thus the plastic wrapping). I still have both issues to this day.
By the way, I remember reading the readers’ letters of that issue (remember those sections?), and one reader did complain about Penelope being topless on the cover. For me, I found it a lot more tasteful and classy than, oh, Melania Trump wearing a full wedding gown on her cover in 2005. And don’t get me started on those who later got Vogue covers that shouldn’t have gotten them in the first place *cough*Nicki*cough*
(Side note: this could be the last month I do these throwback magazine cover posts, but if I find something good for next month…👀)
I almost passed up on attending this event. It was two weeks ago when I found out MVP Kamala Harris scheduled an event in her hometown for her 107 Days Book Tour. My initial reason for not needing to attend was that I had already seen her, albeit for free and unexpectedly, and how could I beat that? In the two weeks since, well…plenty has happened here in the States. And I had a feeling Harris wanted to talk about all that, so I went!
It was a lot more packed at the event than this pic shows
A menu of the drinks served.
I didn’t get to see that drinks menu until after the event, and if I only knew they had mocktails, I would’ve gone for that!
Sign that tells attendees that our likeness can be used in any way for the event, that they may own it “for eternity”, and that we can’t sue the venue for this.
Our should-be First Gentleman, Doug Emhoff (Harris’ husband)
View of the stage from my balcony seats
She’s back! My President has returned!! If a smile was energy, hers could power all of the Bay Area for days.
Close-up of MVP Harris in discussion
Harris listening to Congressman Simon
Plenty was talked about. How Congressman Simon (who moderated the event) first knew Harris. MVP’s days as a prosecutor in SF and rising up all the way to Vice-President. The Orange guy (of course), his “totalitarian” regime, the new war he started, and his “feckless” ways. (I like how she said that feckless was the only “F” word she could say as there were kids present at the event. Now I wonder what would’ve been said had it been an 18+ over event 😆) She also spoke about voter suppression, ICE raids in Minneapolis and elsewhere, her experiences while touring the South in the past year, and how all this chaos we’re witnessing in real time has been decades in the making.
However, my favorite part of the event was when Harris answered questions from the audience. Two of them came from adolescents. The first teen recently lost her mother to cancer, and MVP told them while it’s always tough to lose a loved one, what can’t be taken away are the moments they’ve shared together. The second teen wants to organize his peers to vote when they can, and how to proceed with it. Everyone applauded him and Harris told that him to “remember” that applause, because there could be a time when his idea may be met with no support. 🥹
It’s that kind of encouragement to our youth alone that make me go…goddammit, she really should’ve been President. Like, she could’ve still done a book tour, but her book would’ve had a different ending and she would’ve held the tour four or eight years from now. Alas, the racism, misogyny, and willful ignorance that still plague this country…
One thing I’m glad I didn’t see were hecklers, as there were none (I’m pleased to report). I legit was ready to cuss them out! Didn’t even see any protestors outside, which was a relief because, mind you, Oakland is right next to both Berkeley and SF, both of which has its fair share of antisemitic idiots that still–in the year of our fascist 2026–think she and Biden are responsible for the mess in Gaza.
It’s the start of March and Read An eBook Week, and now through Saturday 3/7/2026, get a copy of my eBook The Playgirl for half-off! Sale exclusively at Smashwords.com!
I’d leave it at this, but I feel like I need to put in my two cents, too (even if I already said enough about it on my Bluesky 😆)
I had been a fan of the pro men’s hockey league since 2009, and I tossed my fan card into the trash last summer when the pro-Trump Florida Panthers won another Stanley Cup. In between those times, I had witnessed some ugly things come out of an otherwise fun sport to watch. Tim Thomas skipping his White House visit during the Obama years when his Bruins won the Cup in 2011. The rampant racism thatblack players faced, despite the league promoting the message that “Hockey Is For Everyone”. (My grown ass!) Coaches harassing players, getting fired from their job, only to work as head coach again a few years later. The sexual assault scandal that tainted the Blackhawks championship teams. Watching teams celebrate their Stanley Cup wins with Trump during the late 2010s, thinking it was no big deal. (Seeing the Penguins–my team–do that was a big blow, to say the least.) Seeing players, coaching staff, and even general managers out themselves as MAGA.
And yet I kept watching the sport. I was a sucker. But this sucker knew that the league wasn’t going to keep me as a fan for long if they kept staying ignorant to their white male privilege. Then the Panthers chose to celebrate their 2024 Cup win with the rapist pedo convicted felon in 2025, and then won another Cup months later. (They went back to visit the Fascist Grandpa again, by the way.) Not a single person in the league (not even broadcasters) spoke out against them. That summer of 2025, amidst ICE raids and blue cities like Los Angeles facing terrorism from Trump’s lackeys, I became a former fan of the men’s pro league.
Before everyone found out the US Men’s Hockey Team were a bunch of MAGA chuds, I had seen Bluesky posts from accounts that I thought were anti-MAGA being stoked over the men’s team winning Gold. (Because USA! USA!, y’know. 😒) I could tell who didn’t closely follow hockey, because if they knew about the Tkachuk goofies at least, they would not have given props to that team in the first place. But I knew. It’s why I chose not to root for them the entire time (a move that I think is aging well). I knew what would happen if the men’s team went all the way: they’d be insufferable, the closeted MAGAts would be out in the open, and they’d likely visit the Convicted Felon’s White House. What I didn’t know, however, was how quick they would all out themselves as MAGA to the rest of the world. Like, literally minutes after they got their Gold medals, when Psycho Eyes Patel started partying with them in the locker room. Even the “good guys” Hughes brothers laughed at that Trump phone call that mocked the women’s team. And just because a few of them chose not to go to the White House doesn’t absolve them from laughing at that phone call and getting drunk with Psycho Eyes. The Category 5 damage has been done. Every single person on that US men’s hockey team has shown who they are in 4K and what they support. And they support everything the Trump regime supports: fascism, bigotry, racism, sexism, homophobia/transphobia, rape culture, tariffs, ICE raids, misinformation masked as “news”, the quackery of RFK Jr., the rich getting richer, the economy going to hell, the death of fact-based journalism, and the deaths of Keith Porter Jr., Renee Good, Alex Pretti, and others killed by ICE. Among many other vile things. That’s your Gold medalists US Men’s Hockey team, everyone.
I’m done with those incels on ice. If you still like the sport of hockey, the PWHL is back. Show them your support!
Five years ago yesterday (according to my Google Photos), I got the first of the two original Covid vaccines. But me getting the vax is not why I gave this entry its title. What took place two days before that is why. And anytime loud noise is involved, I remember the moment more.
I had woken up all of a sudden around 4AM on Valentine’s Day, 2021, to loud banging on the walls. It came from the side of a neighbor who was an old, former homeless drug addict (he told me so) but had been sober for years. (Only vice he had was smoking cigarettes.) The noises weren’t consistent, but that he kept banging on the walls (it sounded like he was hitting the walls with something?) every other minute drove me to call & email my then-property manager about it. It’s always a horrid inconvenience to have your sleep interrupted, but worse when you also have to wake up early that day for both a Covid testing (to make sure I didn’t have “The Rona” before getting my Covid shot) and work (I worked a temp job during pandemic lockdown).
I turned up my sleep noise machine (which I must always have on when I hit the hay), put on some earplugs, and managed to get a little bit of sleep before needing to wake up at 7am. While I was at the drive-thru for Covid testing, my property manager emailed me back. Here was her reply:
The gasp that I gasped in my car when I read that. I had no clue my neighbor had an emergency. I had to report him over noise disturbances in the past, but what happened to him that early morning was unusual. (His previous noise issues were things he could’ve controlled, like turning down his TV or music player, or not talking to himself too loudly.) I later talked with my property manager about this, and she told me he had a heart attack that morning.
(By the way, I was surprised that I didn’t make a single spelling or grammatical error in my 4AM email to my property manager. I thought there’d be at least some incoherence in my email that was written when I was half-awake.)
While my neighbor survived that incident, he would sadly pass away a year later. I found out from another neighbor that he passed away (of a stroke, unfortunately) while I was out-of-town for a few days. It’s a shame, but I felt like his fate was inevitable. Even after that heart attack, the guy still kept smoking till the very end. Dude just didn’t care. Just as sad was finding out he didn’t get a proper leave–no funeral or wake whatsoever.
RIP to my neighbor. 🕊️
To this day, I’m still that chick who will say something if I see or hear something (unusual or suspect). Who knows–it could end up saving another life.
Lex Writes On 