Today I made an appointment with my genius brethren and confirmed my suspicions that my beloved 27-inch iMac is quite literally dead. I left him with the geniuses that Mac built to have new guts installed. Interestingly enough, it won’t be ready until after my sojourn begins. Fitting, and telling. It’s time to disconnect and let it go. My phone will suffice until I return, whenever that may be, but at the moment… I have a year’s worth of nomadic adventures that I need to somehow squeeze into the next three months. I need this… And want it more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life. And so, tomorrow, it begins. Hello “life,” I’m here to reclaim you and take you by the balls.
Michael Fishbach, co-founder of The Great Whale Conservancy (GWC), narrates his encounter with a young humpback whale entangled in local fishing nets.
At first, the animal appeared to be dead, yet Fishbach investigated and quickly discovered that the poor creature was tangled in a fishing net. The humans had to act fast; what began as a tragedy soon became a thrilling rescue as Fishbach and his crew labored to free the young whale. The entire encounter was caught on videotape and later narrated by Fishbach himself.
At the end, the young Humpback is clearly thrilled to be free.
"Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming “Wow! What a Ride!"
I found this over the weekend as I was going through my old archive files. Best surprise ever… and damn, do they grow up fast. The innocence of a 3 year old.
This past Sunday, myself and two friends (who are of the gay persuasion—stay with me, it’s relevant to the story) decided to do brunch at Bananas, a local diner here in Orlando. Before I start blathering on about drag queens, adam’s apples and gospel brunch escapades, it’s only fair to confess up front that the drag scene isn’t one that I, nor either of my gays, have ever been huge fans of. And while the drag scene may not be high on our list of favorites, I have to hand it to Daniel Hunter and Addison Taylor for putting on one of the most obnoxiously funny drag shows I’ve ever seen.
And don’t be put off thinking that it’s a “for gays only” crowd. It was an eclectic but diverse group, with at least 80% of the diners being straight — including an 86 year old grandmother named Claire (who Daniel Hunter couldn’t shock to save her life —and she truly tried, trust me).
What to expect from Gospel Brunch? Laughs, and plenty of them. Plus, good food, drag queens, a lot of lip syncing, a fair share of testosterone, adam’s apples and tightly tucked packages of the male variety, and more sinners than you can count —all under one roof. Be prepared to go straight to hell for laughing out loud at the obscenely vulgar and often blasphemous banter between Daniel Hunter and Addison Taylor — especially if it’s while “church is in session” (their words, not mine), which takes place every Sunday during Gospel Brunch at Bananas.
This week, Addison Taylor was in rare form, giving an enthusiastic performance with the song “my vagina is 8 miles wide.” Then she went on to enlighten us all with an intoxicated revelation about the underlying meaning of the song and why the core message is clearly a Christian one. And when you take into account the fact that Addison was quite literally shit faced and had yet to retire from the previous evenings activities—which in no way hindered her continuous consumption of heavenly spirits (otherwise known as alcohol)—throughout the entire gospel hour, it makes her performance all that much more impressive.
If you haven’t been to Bananas for brunch, it’s definitely worth the trip. The food isn’t your typical diner fare and even though it may give you visions of a coronary waiting to happen, it’s worth the experience —at least once. The menu is loaded with traditional southern style comfort food and everything we ordered was surprisingly good, including the fried pickles, onion rings, a burger, a waffle breakfast and the most enormous buffalo chicken sandwich you’ve ever seen.
The video clip doesn’t do the show justice. Unfortunately, I missed capturing many of the funnier moments in the show - maybe next time.
I watched you sleeping quietly in my bed You don’t know this now but there’s some things that need to be said And it’s all that I can hear, It’s more than I can bare
What if I fall and hurt myself? Would you know how to fix me What if I went and lost myself? Would you know where to find me? If I forgot who I am, would you please remind me? Oh, ‘cause without you things go hazy
This is almost identical to what I imagined when I first read Darkfever. This is Jericho Barrons’ book store to a “t.” — Funny, after waiting more than an f’ing year for the fifth book to come out, (after numerous release date delays), I had given up on checking for updates. When I saw this image, I had to go and look and just found out that the last book in the series was finally released on January 18th - I had given up and stopped checking for updates. Guess what I just downloaded from Kindle? Yep, book #5 — Shadowfever….Finally!
