📷 Under Those Blue Ridge Mountain Skies

I'm lying on the beach at Magen's Bay in this fantasy photo, snapped a few minutes ago from my back yard.

I've lived in this redneck hellhole for 15 years. If I didn't know there were other, better places, I wouldn't be bothered at all, but I do, so I am. Ignorance in bliss-ish.

Sometimes survival here requires that I disassociate from this place. Having a fantasy photo seems a healthy way to do that. Another coping tool.

#TES2023

@RickiTarr

SUNDAY ART SHOW

A thunderstorm dumped an half-inch of rain in 30 minutes. I sat it out in the Circle K parking lot, across the street from Waffle House.

✂️ 0:13 | Waffle House melts to #ModernEnglish.

#TES2023

🎬 🪕 "American Hollow” (1999) is a year in the life of my people, Hillbillies. This clan are in Kentucky, but the subculture differed little in the isolated valleys all along the Appalachians from Pennsylvania to Alabama. I’m two generations removed from “the holler” but don’t need subtitles to understand every word these folks say.

Under-/un-educated, superstitious, religious and suspicious—hallmarks of my cultural heritage. Have I evolved? Not entirely.

#TES2023

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDAFy3ASNOo

📷 Under the shade tree, under those Blue Ridge Mountain Skies at 3:45.

It's 96º/104º with a SEVERE UVI of 10, and there is no breeze.

On days like today, I think of my Nephew, a roofing contractor who works in this heat every summer. They can't when it rains, but have never stopped because of the heat. On the worst days, he told me last year, the heat reminds him of Iraq, minus shooting.

#TES2023

📷 Jack walking the yard, rappin'...

Don't push me cause I'm close to the edge
I'm trying not to lose my head
It's like a jungle sometimes
It makes me wonder how I keep from goin' under

#TES2023

🍅 🍉 Breakfast.

The other half of yesterday's heirloom tomato over a couple slices of new beefsteak on the sandwich. I piled it up. The season only lasts another month, and I want to be dead sick of tomatoes before then.

I uncovered a piece of tomato under the Sugar Baby watermelon pieces and eating one, then the other, I noted they're equally sweet with different flavors.

Thankful for every bite.

#TES2023

🍅 The half-life of an heirloom tomato half, August 22, 2023.

8:27 AM | 8:31 AM
8:40 AM | 8:55 AM

#FediversalPictures #TES2023 #Tomatoes #Summer

I dreamt of Jungleland, the night in New York with David for Balm in Gilead at the Minetta Lane.

Before lights-down, panhandlers walked the aisles. A woman made a bee-line for me (it seemed) and shouted, "Gimme a dollar! I know you've got a dollar!"

I froze, embarrassed and looked to David, a New Yorker; he was red-faced and quiet.

Seconds later, the lights dimmed, the intro from "Jungleland" began, the "panhandlers" climbed onstage and the play continued.

#TES2023

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6IwxpL-ZDk

From the "I can't be the only one" file: word associations.

This is the Crepe Myrtle in the back yard. Every time I see it—every time—I say the words "Crepe Myrtle" in my head, then remember:

Jean-Claude, my French sous chef BF who made me a banana/strawberry for breakfast the night we met. While he was cooking I said the word—long-"a"—"CRAPE." He smiled. "Non non non—'KREP!'"

Myrtle is Myrtle Beach. 1970-74. I was 13-16, an important time in my young gay life.

Am I the only one?

#TES2023

#SF, 1990. Looking for a flat-share. They were plentiful and most were < $400 month.

The flatmates gathered for my interview at a choice flat in the Mission. Questions were many, but friendly and seemed promising after a couple weeks of not-the-right-fit misses.

"We have one last question. What's your sign, your zodiac sign?" I answered and, as a group, they winced.

The "leader" spoke up. "We all agreed before we started: we just can't handle any more Sagittarius energy right now."

#TES2023

📷 Out back with Jack one last time. It's humid and quiet except for HVAC units grinding here and there.

I sat under the shade tree while Jack walked the perimeter and remembered the 18-hour day (minus a 2-hour nap) and the sense of "family" I felt, and the kindnesses I witnessed and received.

Thank you, and thanks for reading.

#TES2023

#HashtagGames
#RejectedFastFoodMenuItems

Todd & Elliot's "Surrogate Baby Big Mac!"

1/16 oz of delicious 100% Pure Pre-Chewed Beef with Organic strained carrots wrapped in a toasty bread diaper!

For a limited time only while supplies last. Available at participating McDonald's locations.

#TES2023

▶️ I'm rurnt after trekking around on errands for Sister. It was good to get out, and there was nothing routine about it. New places, new roads + a thunderstorm—all in 2 hours.

My last stop was a vegetable stand near home. The tomatoes were gorgeous and less expensive than the ones I've been buying. Local. So, it's my new regular veg source, and not just because it's cheaper.

Meet "Dahlia." I may have interrupted her nap under the tomato table.

#TES2023 #DogsOfMastodon

X Blue

#Memes #TES2023

4:30 AM. Awake, still shaking from a dream so vivid and horrible, I woke screaming, heart pounding and short of breath.

What went down was completely believable. No monsters or mazes I couldn't escape. No, what was visited on me in the dream is happening to others. To someone, somewhere, today.

I pray it wasn't a premonition.

#TES2023

Talked today to the friend in NY I ghosted when he told me his boyfriend had AIDS. It was early on, 1982. I'd only met BF once; they were a new couple. Mid-20s.

In the beginning, someone might fall ill very quickly on Wednesday and die on Sunday. What HIV test?

His boyfriend lived a couple months more. I learned when I called him about a year later to apologize and ask forgiveness.

He understood. I wasn't the only one. We stay in touch.

It was good to talk to an old friend.

#TES2023

📰 Trump Indicted In Push To Overturn Election

>Reasons To Be Cheerful!<

"The charges signify an extraordinary moment in United States history: a former president, in the midst of a campaign to return to the White House, being charged over attempts to use the levers of government power to subvert democracy and remain in office against the will of voters."

▶️ Gift LINK to the LIVE topic pages @nytimes.

#TES2023 #Trump #Crime #J6 #DOJ #JackSmith #GOP

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/08/01/us/trump-indictment-jan-6?unlocked_article_code=MaYgJTFJApdv2--_xRJ66JnGn9CTqVbFJdFuJi9ewnV7dCKU13Ippg1esm73Ef8xW5EBRWaXF5w4OGEuaW2-mryq2R3yX5eIyoeeggFagPCQv76C2CYDEUkW9tubuxEicbLPNrKlTb_9J4GH5hMxLrot3s94sitNHkspIG8XQo0XF4XwFtefw2WRlFQtXEShN2nvhOtN2cp8SxYF2H5J-qsoGVXUG1DkpXTFhHPIDnfhG5CeRWVl7XImJgFJKR0URy6ZvJ7wcQ74yzuBql_ZKjiORClhC8jawT5i0rFr_dRLNV2Z3wrfZLBzSp8ttLTxZNNcVP4kVAl-glxmcBXiqpZaNNg&smid=url-share

🎧 On July 20th, I began pulling together a post about that day in 1969. It was a Sunday and I went to Atlanta to see the Braves play the Phillies. That night at home, I watched moon landing coverage *and #TheSupremes sing farewell as a group on The Ed Sullivan Show" with "Someday We'll Be Together."

Fact-checking, I discovered the Braves game was July 31st, the Supremes song wasn't released until October, and the Sullivan show was December 21st.

Memories.

#TES2023

https://youtu.be/kAMyw73c8Ek

📷 Good afternoon, y'all!

Never has a cuppa coffee played its role as well as the one I'm sipping now. Like water on a hard, dry sponge. Reviving.

Jack woke me after a solid 4 hours. Out back, under the shade tree while coffee brewed, the back door slid open, and Gus came hurdling towards me!

It's a good life.

#TES2023 #Dogs #DogsOfMastodon

📷 Cadillac Fleetwood c 1970-ish from the #WolfgangPress video for "Going South" (1995).

📣 #JohnHillcoat directed the #video.

#TES2023