This is a long entry, but bear with me, cuz it’s worth the read in its enlightening information. I was enlightened!! You will be too!

So, as someone who exploits many aspects of the Internet (Twitter, newsfeeds, etc.) to generate news content for all of you, my dearest ones, the issue of SOPA (“Stop Online Piracy Act”) is concerning.
But as with most things, the uproar is aimed at sloppy and broad statements made in the legislature in constructing the bill. Honestly. Who writes this stuff, and why is it all so sneaky all the time?

Bottom line, SOPA targets sites for content that a posting entity may not own. Ok.

Problem is, as the bill is proposed, if someone posts “pirated” material to a site like, say YouTube, the bill would allow the government to shut the WHOLE site down and arrest it’s management. So your access to your material goes away, legal or not.

See further explanations below…
From Wikipedia…
“The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is a U.S. House bill to fight online trafficking in copyrighted intellectual property and counterfeit goods. Proposals include barring advertising networks and payment facilities from conducting business with allegedly infringing websites, barring search engines from linking to the sites, and requiring Internet service providers (ISP) to block access to the sites. The bill would criminalize the streaming of such content, with a maximum penalty of five years in prison.

User-content websites such as YouTube would be greatly affected, and concern has been expressed that they may be shut down if the bill becomes law. Opponents state the legislation would enable law enforcement to remove an entire internet domain due to something posted on a single blog, arguing that an entire online community could be punished for the actions of a tiny minority. In a 1998 law, copyright owners are required to request the site to remove the infringing material within a certain amount of time. SOPA would bypass this “safe harbor” provision by placing the responsibility for detecting and policing infringement onto the site itself.

Lobbyists for companies that rely heavily on revenue from intellectual property copyright state it protects the market and corresponding industry, jobs, and revenue. The US president and legislators suggest it may kill innovation. Representatives of the American Library Association state the changes could encourage criminal prosecution of libraries. Other opponents state that requiring search engines to delete a domain name begins a worldwide arms race of unprecedented censorship of the Web and violates the First Amendment. The bill could make some proxy servers and the Tor project illegal.

On January 18, the English Wikipedia, Reddit, and several other websites coordinated a service blackout to protest SOPA and its sister bill, the Protect Intellectual Property Act, or PIPA. Other companies, including Google, posted links and images in an effort to raise awareness. An estimated 7,000 smaller websites either blacked out their sites or posted a protest message. A number of other protest actions were organized, including petition drives, boycotts of companies that support the legislation, and a rally held in New York City.

In response to the protest actions, RIAA stated “It’s a dangerous and troubling development when the platforms that serve as gateways to information intentionally skew the facts to incite their users and arm them with misinformation,” and “it’s very difficult to counter the misinformation when the disseminators also own the platform.”"

But…
An analysis from someone who’s studied the economics of the thing:

“Piracy is a very interesting situation currently. As someone with a strong background in economics and who’s researched the subject, things basically work out like this:
With video game piracy piracy reduces sales by about 20%
With movie piracy it reduces sales by about 30%
With music piracy it reduces sales by about 50%
Here’s the thing though, you can’t just look at the raw numbers. In economics everything is interconnected and it’s a system that is interconnected. The sales figures don’t tell you much at all.
The point is that piracy has far reaching effects. Not only does it reduce sales but it also increases consumer interest. What that means is more people are more interested in media because of piracy. If piracy ended today the music industry would see increased sales, but then guess what? People would be less interested in music because it would cost money. In fact most projections show that all things being equal fewer people would buy music in the long run, not more if piracy ended. Instead people would take other interests, instead of media such as going outside. People who want to spend their free time doing things which do not cost money generally do not want to migrate to doing something that costs money, they will migrate to doing other free things, and that would kill the media industry and make it less profitable than before, while shifting the money to things like outdoor recreation which will become more popular and draw the people who are willing to spend money along with the people who are not.
The other effect of piracy is that it loosens the grip of the media industry on which content sells and which doesn’t. Freedom of information tends to make media better because the media execs don’t control what gets pirated, only what is promoted through their networks. So the top song on a piracy website isn’t the same as the top song that is promoted by a recording label.
In other words piracy increases music sales and increases the quality of music, because people listen to what they want to instead of what the execs want them to listen to.
The other side of the issues is the unintended consequences of anti-piracy.

Megaupload is the perfect example. Simply put the majority of their traffic was legitimate. This is a fact. Massive volumes of innocent information have just been wiped out. I’ve heard several reports of people losing their computer back ups as a result of the megaupload shut down. A close friend of mine had one of their children almost die from their computer not being backed up and losing critical medial information, and as a photographer my back ups are worth tens of thousands of dollars, these are both unrelated to the megaupload shut down but the point is deleting the innocent information of regular joes is extremely serious, and potentially costs millions of dollars and leads to all sorts of losses from trivial to life threatening.
For the record Megaupload was responsible for over 2% of the internet’s legitimate traffic. That’s a something truely insane to mess with as a government entity.
Generally censorship and anti-piracy is bad for everyone and it needs to stop.
I’m personally in favor of doing a model similar to the Apple App store where for one or two days a year an app is free
(free app a day program), and the rest of the time it’s cheap. The idea behind a free app a day is an extremely good example of the effects of piracy. When paying for digital content is CONVENIENT but not MANDATORY, everyone benefits. The content creators make more money, the content medium becomes more popular, quality goes up and people get more content at a lower price per content.
The effects of anti-piracy are ALL negative
- increased corruption due to dinosaur corporations trying to buy the government
- restricting the progress of technology to maintain a dying industry
- censorship
- lower quality content
- lower profit for content providers
- less content for the masses
- lower quality of life for the masses
- unintended consequences
- restriction of freedom #think TSA)
- staggering the growth of the internet and content
- putting non-violent non-criminal offenders in jail
- putting poor single mom’s in court asking for hundreds of thousands of dollars for two songs shared
Literally the only entity that will benefit from anti-piracy is the corrupt government officials that put campaign contributions before bettering the country.
Edited by Radiating at 01/20/12 5:45 AM”

So, after the blackout yesterday… See this Twitter entry:

SO… Want to see what the SOPA/PIPA blackout did yesterday. http://s3.amazonaws.com/propublica/assets/images/sopa-opera-count.png

Amazing what it takes to get someone’s attention. But thank goodness we have the technology in our pockets to do something about it!

Rock on…!

That’s what I’d do…

http://t.co/Y6f7OnQC

http://t.co/Y6f7OnQC

I maintain that, if given the option, we, as a species, try to act in a decent and thoughtful way both toward one another and toward ourselves.

Now I know there are exceptions to that. There are a lot of people all over the world who don’t have choice, don’t have a voice, don’t have outlooks that include hope. Those people desperately need their voices heard, and that’s an entry for another time. For now, I’d like to focus on those of us who can think for ourselves, and make differences in our daily lives.

Given that most of us have this ability of seeing our circumstances and reacting accordingly by, hopefully, making choices that will benefit others as well as ourselves. But in order to do so, we kinda have to pay attention, don’t we? Don’t we owe it to ourselves and others around us to be present – cognizant of our circumstances and surroundings? Wouldn’t our best selves be something less than oblivious to happenings around us?

How many times have you, for example, had to stop in the middle of your own path because someone walked in front of you and paused, or did something that made it so that you had to wait for them to go on their way so that you could continue with your path or work? I know I’ve waited for someone who walked right in front of me, stopped and gawked around while I waited for them to clear out of the way.

But in that moment, I become indignant that someone could be so self absorbed that they don’t realize that I, or I and my friends, are waiting for them to figure out what their doing next and get the hell out of the way…. you know what I mean. It mystifies me.

Now that’s not to say that I’m without sin. Ask myriad bicyclists in Stockholm, Copenhagen and Amsterdam about how I have the innate timing of stepping off a tour bus directly into the path of oncoming and heavy bicycle traffic. I come out of it quickly, but that doesn’t seem to stop the poor cyclists from having to slam on their brakes, or to try to ring their bicycle bell in an angry way. And honestly, experiencing someone trying to ring a tinkly little bicycle bell to show anger or frustration is very funny at the time, even when you’re trying to be a good pedestrian and scramble out of the way of the oncoming bikers.

I tell you that to tell you this. It seems it’s not going to get better as we get older. And we seem to be more guilty of it when we’re on holiday or not in our own private surroundings.

A friend of mine told me a story the other day that involved both him and me. He’s a delightfully doughy sort with an ample personality and humor to match his jolly girth. He’s balding more than me – significantly, I feel – and he’s just more patronly in his countenance and demeanor. He’s Scottish, so his thick brogue has me forever asking him to repeat what it is he’s saying to me, but he never seems exasperated or irritated at my inability to understand his dialect. I’m very fond of him, and he’s a great guy.

So my mood shifted to that of support in the course of one sentence when he started his story to me…

“I’ve got a funny story.” (me, happy with anticipation) ”You’re not gonna like it.” (shift to dread)

He tells me how he’s spent the morning at the guest exit and lost count of the people that told him that he had a great voice and how talented he was. Though I’m sure he’s both of those things, his talents have not been highlighted on board the vessel, and he came to the realization that they were mistaking him for me. After correcting them for some time, he finally gave up and accepted the compliments with all the aplomb of a seasoned and benevolent star. I taught him well.

So what do you say to a friend who tells you this story?!?!? Am I a tad disappointed in my dietary regimen that my 36 inch waist is walking a precarious edge to be mistaken for someone who’s probably into a 46 inch measurement? Perhaps. Am I now acutely aware of how very few hairs he has on the top of his head, and how that can be perceived to be the whole number of my own? Is my own reality so skewed as to how I’m perceived that I am clueless to the reality that should lay plainly before my eyes?

A world in which I look to others for my idea of myself, is a world in which I choose not to live. Things in my world are shiny and happy, never outside of my comfort zone or belief system. What the world perceives of us can be heartening or disheartening, and that’s the cruel truth.

When others give us praise, we readily and hungrily accept it. When we receive criticism or have our flaws illuminated, we often dismiss it as opinion from the uneducated or vilify it as the rantings of idiots.

But the most insidious and dangerous response is to let the things we hear “run us.” To believe what someone else says or observes about us without self examination often proves detrimental. For example, what happens in an emotionally abusive relationship when one person is continually criticized and knocked down? What happens to kids who hear how stupid they are from their parents or teachers or mentors?

What’s true is a dual edged sword. We can believe what we want, and we can discard what we want. And we often embrace the opinion of others when it serves us, and we banish thoughts that are not in our understanding or ideas of ourselves.

My response to my friend was to say how complimented I was by my being confused with him. At the time, it was a survival mechanism to not hurt his feelings by saying that, he was right, I don’t like this story. I was stunned at how these people perceived me.

But I can choose how this news affects me. I can step back and see my faults, or I can see my friend’s attributes, which, at the time of the initial story, I did not honor, and am ashamed at my not giving him credit for what is true.

I’ve already told you the best and most noble part. My friend is nice, friendly, jolly, approachable and caring. To be mistaken with a character such as this is not the rantings of unknowing and oblivious masses. Could it be that I’m the one who’s oblivious to the bigger lesson here?

This is a wake up call for me to remember what is important in this life.

What is important is strength of character and a willingness to share your weakest attributes, thereby showing, indeed, your greatest strengths. just like my friend did.

Yeah, so you know how I’m into glam rock, right?

Not really, but what I am into is calling down the good for oneself from the Universe or God or whomever or whatever you subscribe to, right?

So I’ve had a sinus infection on board this ship now twice in the last 3 months. First time, I panicked and went to the ship’s doctor and asked for whatever he had. He gave me something that he called antibiotics. Took them. Crap lasted for almost three weeks anyway.

Now, I got it again. Not quite sure how, as I was sitting at a bar in Ibiza when I felt my throat close up. AND NO, NO ONE ELSE WAS INVOLVED PHYSICALLY, though there were plenty there with whom I would have happily shared an std or two…

I’m now into week two, and there are signs of improvement. The thing is, I’ve not taken any meds. Just relaxed and tried to sleep, which is no small feat when one wakes oneself up every 10 minutes for a throat slicing coughing fit.

So while I’m eating a bit of fish at dinner tonight, minding my own business, as I know you know I do, a fellow entertainment department person walks up to me and inquires about my current health status. I tell him that I’m feeling better, and thank you. He then proceeds to lay it on me that, when he starts to feel run down or sick, he tells himself (I don’t know what vehicle he uses for this communication – I didn’t ask) that he is NOT going to get sick. He uses his own power of reality to instruct his body to keep from letting his immune system fail.

Now, you all know that, as I’m so very inspiring, I’m hoping soon to work as an inspirational speaker or dancer or yodeler… something in the motivational realm. Yet, as one who is currently working on material to use to spew into the faces of countless thousands business and lay people in the near future with nothing to arm themselves against my onslaught other than a convention authority pad and pen and a cup of hotel coffee.

As I sat contemplating how my friend was making me feel (he was still talking but I’d completely checked out for self appraisal, plus I was weary of him) an unhealthy green cloud of something started to swirl around me. Not hate, not dislike, but something that instantly said, “No, not that.”

Then I got mad. I’ve been doing all that myself, and it wasn’t working on the time frame that I wanted, but as of today, there was progress. But his story was so matter of fact that it made it sound like his proposition had never occurred to me – even though I’m sure he’s not the intellectual to consider that possibility. He was just being helpful.

And it pissed me off. As I sat there with his hopeful, if not self-centric, words washed over me, all I could think about was how I want to help people through sharing stories and hopes and dreams with them. But this new fly in the ointment was going to make that much more difficult. Why? Because now I was going to have to live the credo that I believe that I learned from the Coaches Training Institute in San Rafael, that being the belief that everyone is inherently Creative, Resourceful and Whole. I had to operate from the perception that I can’t talk to people in order to fix them. I have to treat everyone with respect, not as if they’re broken.

And as I type this, I’m comforted and thankful for my friend, who innocently offered his advice/help, and, in doing so, he opened my eyes to a huge world view that I’d not considered much.

So instead of getting pissed off at something that some idiot says to you today, what if you sat with the feelings that it gave you, and search for a different perspective that the incident might give you? What would that look like?

Hey, you may discover that they’re really an idiot after all. But you can certainly enjoy your hot toddy later knowing that you tried. Some people just can’t be fixed!

That’s what I’d do…

That’s in Spain, for those of you who are keeping track….

So I’ve got a ton of downloads that I need to get to update my computer software, right? Well, the signal on the ship moves at the speed of smell, so that’s really not ever an option.

So we hop off the ship when we can to find free WiFi (which in Europe is pronounced “wee fee” which is hard to say to another adult with a straight face, frankly) and upload stuff, or download music or whatever suits our fancy.

Here’s the game. They have wifi, but you’re expected to buy something to sit there. So often times, depending on the length of time you need or how thirsty you are, the free wifi can turn into a $14 afternoon or more. So much for free.

Tried two times today. Ordered a beer and sat down and tried to get on line, to no avail. So I finished my beer and left. Only after that was I told there was a square nearby with the city’s free wifi signal.

Nice.

Problem is, signal was nearly as slow as on the ship, so afternoon spent walking around an ancient city where I should have been appreciating the history and medieval beauty was spent at a cafe limping along a computer trying to get an update that came out the month after I left the states, 4 months ago. Oh well….

So I’m sitting there feeling sorry for myself about the connection speed, and I look up. I’m at a cafe table under an umbrella in a piaza that’s covered by trees. There is a 15 meter statue at the center of the little urban park. Birds, sunshine and kids running around blowing on plastic horns. (Just the kids were blowing on the plastic horns. Birds don’t have lips, come to find out.) Dogs are play chasing each other, and a young couple are cooing over their 5 month old girl at a couple tables down from me while they try to get her to eat. But the day is far too interesting for her – she’s all about the other kids and running and pigeons walking around under their table looking for scraps, while her parents are doing the new parent thing of saying, “Ola” with their eyes wide and big toothy grins to get her to smile or respond. Really cute and beautiful.

Oh, and I have a sangria. All in all, a pretty cool day after all.

Try to see the beauty around you. That’s what I’d do.

We leave today for France and other ports so that we can end up taking our guests to the Grand Prix in Monte Carlo.

In an unrelated note, I love Nice. It’s nice. They’re SO French!

Spent the day in the old city shopping and eating. Had a chevre panini and I LOVED it. Also had gelato. 2 types. Chocolate chili, and carmel made with salted butter. You didn’t hear me. Carmel with salted butter. Outstanding.

Guests on board, we sail, I work in the office with Kim for our voyage reports. Later go to the Captain’s Welcome Aboard Cocktail party. The champagne tasted like a flute of bad breath. My new friend Paul Tanner had his show which is great, but the audience is really jet lagged, so they were less than thrilled. He worked like a son of a gun. They turned around in the end, but he earned every bit of it.

So here’s a funny thing… When you’re away from home for 6 months, you try to combine your clothes in new and different ways so that you feel like your looks are different. So today, I wore white pants with a blue and white striped shirt, white tie and white jacket. Looking very Crocket and Tubbs, but not too bad. I walk into the showroom where I’m met with the star of tonight’s show, Paul, in a beautiful three piece white suit. We meet each other in the hall looking like the topper on a huge gay wedding cake. Embarassing. He was cool. He rocked the look. It’s a beautiful suit, and he had a matching shirt and tie in a very light pink. Really good look on stage.

More later.

Another example of the kindness of strangers….

So, we’ve been getting together, a few of us, as they have a little get together on the ship every now and again, called the “Friends of Dorothy.” Now, the FOD is a subversive, secret moniker for people who are sailing who are gay. I KNOW! They sail too! If the Reverend Phelps had a dingy (which I’m infinitely sure he doesn’t!), he’d be sailing along side us protesting the fact.

It’s a cocktail party that’s timed so that FOD can get together, meet, and talk before they toddling off to dinner. All networking and fun, I’ve met quite a few people who continue to stay in touch, so it’s very nice.

So during our meetings we catch up and strike up friendships, and my role in this is to make sure that everyone is chatting and having a good time.

So, the last night of the cruise, some of these guys walk up to me and tell me that they’ve bought too much on their trip, so they’d like to give me some “galabayas” that they bought in Egypt. A galabaya is the everyday dress for men in the region. They’re made of white cotton, and they’re floor length, and they will often have some decorative embroidery around the neck or down the chest or at the sleeves and hem.

Anyhow, yeah! He says, “You’ve been so nice, and we don’t have room to take the stuff home, so we’d like to give them to you.” Now, he’s just a tiny little thing, so there was a couple in there that no amount of starvation or meth would see me getting down to the size to be able to wear it, but there was one that was suitably tent-like, so I was thrilled – so much so, that I put it on right over my suit in the disco. Well, I can assure you that it was a head turner when the Senior VP of Hotel Ops and all the security officers walked into the disco and saw a man standing there in Middle Eastern garb. Then, when they saw it was me, suddenly all was well.

Some people are so nice! Thanks boys!

L

What are the moments that you aren’t proud of?

No, that’s not what I want to ask. It’s too harsh. Too real.

I did something today that was unimportant, unremarkable and boring.

I’m singing on a ship in Europe for 4 months, and I’ve got a little tickle in the back of my throat. For a singer, if I sing through it, it can turn into an infection in the back of the throat, so one has to be careful.

Since this ship seems to be an ever recycling cesspool of disease and regret, I’m lying low for a day or two to keep from 1. getting worse, and 2. (unlike most every other person on this ship) wanting to keep others from getting sick if I indeed do have something. Had the day off, sat on my ass, and watched much of the first season of “Californication,” which, I have to say, I love. Perhaps this is why I’m feeling like writing. Leave it to me to be inspired by a carousing, chain smoking alcoholic David Duchovny. Not the muse that I was expecting.

I tell you that to tell you this. I stayed in my suite all day, and didn’t even look outside while I was sitting in the harbor of one of the most magical places on the face of the planet, Kotor, Montinegro.

This incredible region is the home to the history of European royalty and a landscape that is both other worldly and medieval at the same time. This, in addition to Kotor, is the sight where, last year I saw a woman who was not paying attention while being a less than nice person, fall on her face in a washout without thinking to put her hands out to stop her $900 spectacle frames from leading her nose an inch deep into loose gravel by the side of a Montinegran road. The comedy value of this dive far outshined any episode of JackAss that I’ve ever seen, and the challenge of not being able to laugh as a group of other nosey hens clucked around her resembling the cartoon cuckoos circling around her head like Wile E. Coyote was formidable.

Knowing that I had such a rich experience last time, my reaction today was that I’d never be able to top that experience.

But what if I could? And now I’m regretting it. What if I’d found another, even better experience in the mother of all amazing places on earth? What if?

I know my readers. You’re all smart AND good looking, so I don’t have to tell you what I’m driving at with the clumsy fumblings of a junior prom date. Regrets. Should I have regrets? Did I screw up?

Lame.

Truth is, I can’t do anything about it now. I made the decision, and we’re sailing away right now. I can’t jump and swim back. I’d die from the fall, and if I did make it, I’m a sinker. I can only float if I’m about 8 inches below the surface.

What I do know is that I had great memories from the last time. And I’m wondering about what I missed this time. It’s the same lame feelings that I imagine that people who step out on someone in a perfectly good relationship, because they wonder what’s on the other side. Of course, when it’s over, it’s over, but I digress….

It was great the last time. But this time I relaxed in a dark room and healed, thought and now, write about the feelings and experience.

Is that lame? Or could the lamest thing in question be the lameness of me having to ponder said lameness?

Listen. Be lame. Bask in the melancholy of the lameness of what you do. Don’t regret. Wear your lameness like a banner. A badge of honor. Because honestly, if you’re doing it, there must be a reason. And that reason could very well be your honoring your inner lame ass – that lazy, self-loathing, M&M eating, recreational drinking, considering asking a third person into your relationship, considering a career change to shepherding, in your PJs – kind of lame.

Worrying about regrets is what’s lame. Regretting is lame. Let yourself off the hook. There are so many other people out there who think you’re a loser. Don’t add fuel to the fire. THAT you can control. And that is really the antithesis of lame, is it not?

What is lame? I smell a new Tower of Power tune coming on.

me

I always fancied being a writer. The gritty, n’er do well type that smokes countless substances, drinks with the resolve and the frequency of a Wall Street hooker, and bangs more people than, well, someone who bangs a lot of people.

I relish the thought of using big words and quoting famous works and just having a literary mind. I thought I wanted to write so that I could entertain and inform – a pithy and gloriously punctuated tome that would bring people of all walks of life to their knees with laughter and deep thought. I wanted to write words that would give rare and important insight into what bothers and works against the every day person, the common man amongst us who is just trying to get a break. Somehow, I wanted to help them and our ilk to make the world a better place through writing. Writing. Not scientific disease research, but writing. As I say it, I throw up a little.

Writing…. Barfing my opinion for others to lap up hungrily while they feast on my witty and brilliant perceptions on life. Ramming my perspective down the throats of the unsuspecting, in a Freudian need to be heard and recognized. The word processing version of a desperate cry for help from a hurting, insignificant speck taking up space on the earths surface for an unimportant split second in the timeline. In a ridiculous heightened sense of self, I write thinking that I can somehow change, inform, acknowledge, cajole, tease, strengthen, ridicule or educate a reader into being someone or something that here to for they were not previously.

I don’t have the experience that so many respected and verbose writers out there who I love to read. I would love to be able to write the flowery prose of a literary critic, or the hard hitting facts of Rachel Maddow’s staff, or the sustaining words of a Joel Osteen with the Bible as my source for references. Come on. The Bible.

But I don’t.

But writing is also the noblest of professions when one is called to do it. What of the Thomas Jeffersons, the Gahndis, the Shakespeares, the Tolstoys, the Ayn Rands, the Chuck Lorres. I’m sure there are a limited few that I’ve missed, but you can fill those in yourself.

So noble. And yet, so self centered. So important, and so tedious. So treasured, and so pitiful.

Who among us isn’t faced every day with this said same dichotomy? Who hasn’t looked at something or someone in their life and come to a cross roads of the ridiculous. Every moment in our life shares the sublime and the hated. And in those moments, every moment, we have choice – the choice to examine our perspective and look at what it makes us. Even when we don’t feel that we have a choice, we often do. Granted, there are somethings that happen that are out of our control, and they are the Universe’s way. No good or bad. They just are. And there is nothing that we can do about them. We can just choose to take the next step. A small step.

What is it that you want to do? Is there a profession that you’re not exploring? Is there a way of augmenting your life for the better that you’re not participating in because of time or other commitments? Is there an emotion that you haven’t felt in a long time?

Sublime or ridiculous. It’s never going to be “right.” But it will be “right for you.” There will never be enough money. There will never be the perfect time, or perfect relationship, or perfect job, or perfect circumstance for your greatest self to shine through. It’s in our little, single steps that we get to create the “right.”

If there was ever a time in history where I would ask you to be a Guerilla Optimist, that is, to be someone who is an optimistic dreamer in the face of adversity and unrest, now is the time. We can worry that we’re “not,” or we can know that we “will be, someday.” Perhaps sooner than we think.

A writer? Maybe I’m not. The purveyor of bright insight and hopeful prose? Not likely. The voice of reason and comfort in a world of upheaval and pain. I’m crap.

But do I want someone to feel better or challenged? Do I want to provoke thought? Do I want to believe in someone that might not have a belief in themselves right now and write it so that they may hear it? Yeah. I do.

I’m not going to write the next great literary masterpiece that will decorate the shelves of the literati. But I’m compelled to write – not something to stir, or insite – but maybe something to encourage. Something to comfort. Something to make you laugh.

Do something out there to spread your goodness around. Do the good that you hope to experience in the world from other people and peoples. No matter what you do, just do. (thanks Ebony Joann, for that last bit.)

That’s what I’d do.

L

Now understand. I am not a hater of my fellow man. And I am all too versed in the shortcomings and challenges in life. My own, especially.

It is with this proviso that I approach my last night’s encounter with a dear guest on board. She is a woman who will never live up to her idea of herself, and that’s unfortunate – as I’d like to meet that woman, and perhaps serve in her royal court as a jester or some other sycophant. She complains readily and just a little too much about how I lavish her too much with compliments, but she most certainly does NOT want me to stop. She knows everything about everything, including what I’m sure is a gigantic trade secret – that being our cruise company’s bottom line figures and occupancy.

You may or may not have read in these pages by now, how I’ve had an escalating relationship with my sinuses and how they plague me with fits of gagging at the most inopportune times. I’m starting to notice that it usually occurs when I’m getting ready for a show or a function (this should read ‘psychosomatic’ to you, but whatever), but the back of my throat starts to feel like it’s ratcheting down, and I start to gag. If it happens close enough to a meal time, I can produce what must seem like a fat ballerina’s dream, but usually I’m relegated to just dry heaves, feeling like my head is going to come off, and a giant red face of tears.

So I’m standing with our lady friend, and she’s telling me that her husband (ex or dead, I’m not sure which – I didn’t care enough to ask. Too much information about someone that I will do my level best to never see again) complained of her not being able to dance, so she doesn’t and is convinced that she can’t. Now, she’s from New York, and she’s my most favorite kind of New Yorker – the kind with the accent, pronounced nasal monotone, who happens to be an authority on everything, and if you agree with them, you’re wrong – somehow.

While she’s telling me about how she loves to dance, but she can’t, (“You dance beautifully.” “No I don’t.”) and she’s got bad knees because she’s fat (“You look great, and that dress looks great on you.“ ”This dress is huge!“), we’re talking about my general distaste for the monkeys (they’re called ”apes“ in all the tourist things, but they’re too small for apes, I think) of Gibraltar and how I won’t be visiting the top of the rock as I don’t relish the thought of being pawed by some rabid, louse infested kleptomaniac who will try to steal my camera.

”You’re descended from those monkeys…“ she snorts at me. While I’m ”sympathy swaying“ with her while she jiggles to the music of Latin night that is playing, I deem it ill advised to challenge her to a Biblical, more importantly Christian discussion of my own beliefs of just how deeply my familial relationship goes with our simian brethren, but still I try to make my point. I simply don’t want to go up there, and catch lice, or worse.

”Well,“ I offer, ”I just don’t care to be around the stinky, filthy little things,“ which, as I said it, seemed suddenly unfair. I’ve never seen these apes. I don’t know if they’re dirty OR stinky. They may be regular bathers. They may be little people in monkey suits for all I know. I just could not get past spending good money and time climbing to the top of the Rock of Gibraltar to be molested by hairy backed, pink faced larcenists.

Pushing what I’m sure was a barely thought out evolution belief on her part, she again offered something to the effect that all of us on that ship are of the same ilk as those magical little apes. In my exasperation, I went for the dark joke, and said something to the effect that she’s right, there are plenty of stinky little monkeys on board with us for this cruise too! An imagined laugh was implied, and I was expecting her to smile and for us to both knowingly drop our verbal swords.

Unlike many of the stereotypes that she was representing for me, she surprisingly made it about herself. ”I hope I don’t smell.“ (She did.) ”I’ve been on a protein diet and I’m in Ketosis!“ The ”out of the blue – ness“ of the statement made my brain stumble a bit. I was suddenly more grossed out, and was beginning to rack my brain for an exit strategy, a clumsy one would be fine.

But again – I’d like to reiterate. I don’t hold bad breath against everybody. Someone like me – middle aged, living in a modicum of middle income comfort, not being raised by wolves – I think I’m a perfect candidate for being required to pay attention to the smells that one’s oral cavity is pumping into other people’s airspace. I do, however, have a gentleness for a limited few – the aged, the infirm, and the incapacitated. I even enjoy, from a distance, halitosis when someone beautiful is guilty of it, as I’m relieved that there is something about them that is indeed not perfect. A toned, dark featured man in a nice suit with a full head of hair, nice teeth and a winning smile is secretly made somehow less hate-able when I encounter his breath that may have the sickeningly sweet smell of his just having been eating a dead raccoon in the road. Or hammer toes. Just something to remind me that God is just and fair.

Now, prior to this exchange, I’d had to excuse myself twice to go to the service kitchen to wretch uncontrollably for a few minutes, only to return with red eyes and a slightly snotty nose. She was knee deep in ketosis indeed, and I could smell the pounds melting away. Good for her!

I assured her that she was indeed NOT emitting a smell that resembled a gut pile behind a butcher shop at high noon during a scorching Tempe summer day. I reported that there was nothing at all in the air, and good for her drinking so much water to keep things at bay.

As I excused myself, I thought of the monkeys and how they probably had fresh breath, stealing all those mints from pilfered purses on top of the Rock. ”See you tomorrow!“ I sang.

I went back to stave off my gagging in the service kitchen until she left for bed, and dry heaved through the tears trying to smile at what a nice person I am.