Lucky

Well, you said you would miss me if I took a week off. So I am trying to post enough to make you wish I'd take another week off!

Dancing shirtless tonight on Dancing with the Stars, professional dancer Derek Hough did not need a shirt. He sizzled so much that it would only have burned. He danced a special number with another professional dancer- a female, I think- and was able to let loose, unencumbered by his less talented Dancing partner, Rikki Lake. My guess is that Hough, with his multiple appearances on the popular show, has been seen my more people than any dancer in history, even Nureyev or Baryshnikov. Now, if he would just lose the cheesy moustache...he'd look real sexy again:

You have a good point, KYTOP. I, too, would like to see a more unified and coherent protest. But the US Congress was given an opportunity to forge a solution in the form of the Dodd-Frank bill which allowed for multiple banking reforms. What we are getting instead is a watered down list of nothing. The committee assigned to delineate the reforms cannot do it. The banks are exercising their right to protest, and they are telling Congress no dice- don't you dare reform us. So how can the guys in the street be expected to come up with solutions when our own Congress cannot? From politico.com: President Barack Obama signed the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill into law 15 months ago, saying he was anxious to put new rules of the road in place for Wall Street. But federal agencies have blown about 77 percent of the rule-making deadlines for the massive overhaul, according to a recent progress report by the law firm Davis Polk — meaning key parts of the bill are far from implementation...GOP lawmakers also have introduced bills to repeal all or part of the 848-page Dodd-Frank law. Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1011/67192.html#ixzz1cWJvkPNF

Last week I encountered two New York police officers, and had a friendly, if brief, chat with both. I ended up getting a smile from each of them. But on the same day, in a Bronx courtroom, smiles from police officers were not to be found. There was found "a stunning display of vitriol by hundreds of off-duty officers...incensed colleagues organized by their union cursed and taunted prosecutors and investigators...The assembled police officers blocked cameras from filming their colleagues, in one instance grabbing lenses and shoving television camera operators backward." Eugene J. O’Donnell, a professor of police studies at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said: “The Police Department is a very angry work force, and that is something that should concern people, because it translates into hostile interactions with people.” NYT The Times reports further: The charged officers, accused of extending favors, seemed to have received a favor of their own from the authorities. They were spared a “perp walk,” the ritual in which suspects are walked to their booking or arraignment while photographers and videographers document their shame. Instead, the officers were loaded into black vans at the Central Booking garage, then driven into a garage in the courthouse." The department had been rocked by news that Federal agents earlier in the week arrested eight current and former officers on accusations that they had brought illegal firearms, slot machines and black-market cigarettes into New York City. None of this bodes well. How a resolution can be found is a mystery, as the officers have been charged for fixing tickets and these charges cannot just be dismissed. Even if a satisfactory resolution of these cases is found, the other cases speak to a serious problem with corrupt officers. Fixing tickets looks minimal in the face of planting evidence or running guns. The days of cops working a side job as Mafia hit men may be over, but how does a large department police itself? It's all very troubling, and I feel for the pleasant officers I encountered on the streets of lower Manhattan.

Did I just hear someone say that they want to know what happens when they die? On a site about gay male escorts? Well, I happen to know the answer. It's a myth that that the Quran specifies 72 virgins, but here are some quotes that may have you converting tomorrow: QURAN 52:24): "And there will go round boy-servants of theirs, to serve them as if they were preserved pearls." (QURAN 56:17): "They will be served by immortal boys." (QURAN 76:19): "And round about them will (serve) boys of everlasting youth. If you see them, you would think them scattered pearls." (albatrus.org- and no, I didn't verify the quotes.)

Interesting story, nice paragraphing...what's not to like?

ihpguy, methinks there is a suck alley in many towns, but I like your terminology!

My eyes drool over the pics, and glaze over the lack of white space in the stories. I realize I am a party of one on this, but paragraphing has its purpose! Yes, it does! Even for young guys. Not to mention old guys. Like me... :)

What made me hire for the first time? Desire, what else? In my case it was a smiling young guy on the beach in Acapulco. Never having been through it before, I developed a crush. Reality set in when he came to me asking for emergency money to keep from losing his apartment. I went to the bank with him and made my first cash withdrawal on a credit card. $50. I didn't see him for days, then he finally reappeared, unchagrined at having blown my dough in Mexico City. I was expected to go along with the laugh, and I did, but he didn't get any more money. In the long run, it cost him more than me. After all, there were plenty of smiling beach boys.

Well, I can't argue with that. The UN seems to be a bureaucrats dream. Yet the concept of 7 billion people is a hard one to get around, so forming it as one person actually born today makes it a little easier to grasp. I think all 7 billion were in New York last week.

Well, excuse me. The banks ripped off the country and ruined the lives of multitudes, but far be it from us to protest it. The park that I saw was quite clean, and yes, I have hard that some homeless have moved in. Good for them. Now they can stay in clean and safe places, get medical care, and have something to eat. The way that the economy is going, these tent cities will multiply soon. For those unscathed by the economic collapse, think of all of those folks who thought they were secure in their homes too. The worst of it may be yet to come. Yet Wall Streeters continue to rip people off, the latest example being Jon Corzine, former governor of New Jersey. He ruined his company, yet was set up to get a $12 million severance when it was sold. You complain of these protesters, but let's hear about the corporate predators in their nice suits who go home at night to nice homes that they "earned" off the backs of Joe Citizen.

Well, yes, I guess I was!

My guess is that Greece may be the first country to leave the Euro union. Would we then see a domino effect, with Ireland and Italy, Spain maybe also, leaving the union and the Euro thrown into chaos? This is something I never thought would happen, and here we are discussing it as a real possibility. The suffering of individuals as a result would be enormous. It would take years to recover, and I probably would not live to see a thriving economy ever again. Who would have thought...wasn't this kind of economic failure supposed to all be in the past?

Reading the responses, I realize that I did not do a very good job of framing the issue. The ensuing discussion did not go where I had thought it might, and trying to rephrase my question at this point seems futile. I can't win them all.

i did read another gay novel recently. Alan Hollinghurst published his first novel in seven years: The Stranger's Child. I can see that he put a lot of work into it, creating a story that spanned decades, and populating it with unique characters. But, as many novels involving the upper classes of Britain go, it can be tedious and many of these unique characters utterly unlikable. The novel centers on the possibility that a heralded poet who died young may have been gay. It gives us a look at how gay writers lived before the days of gay liberation, and that facet of it is quite interesting. His previous novel, The Line of Beauty, appealed to me more than this one did, but I don't regret reading it. An interview with the author and a review of the book: Book Lucky Read

Yes, the 7th person ever born was born yesterday. Well, the 7 billionth person. Only 12 years ago number 6 was born, so at this rate we should be getting more posters in about 18 years. What would you advise number 7? The Guardian of London delves into that: Hey, Number 7... Here's what Salmon Rushdie had to say to number 6: The ancient wisdoms are modern nonsenses. Live in your own time, use what we know, and as you grow up, perhaps the human race will finally grow up with you, and put aside childish things. Sheer nonsense, right?

Not much math as the numbers are all available at the bottom of the page. I do wonder how zipperzone is doing. He did post after his illness, and he was still recuperating. I must say I have to agree with lurkerspeaks that quantity is no match for quality...and there lies the question of where Lookin fits into all of this!

The poll is limited, isn't it? What about Poker Players as a category? One other question- why do polls have to be pinned? At what point is that no longer meaningful?

The 9/11 Memorial officially is printed with the 11 in blue ink. Kind of festive, eh? It's 9/11. (Did that color show up? I rarely get these things such as color and italics, or bold, right.) But the colored 11, I think, refers to the blue lights which were put on the site to lite up the sky in memory of the twin towers. Or should that now be The Twin Towers? About the time of the tenth anniversary of 9/11, I read a book called 102 Minutes, which gave just about a floor by floor description of what the occupants of the buildings faced on that fateful morning. It was quite moving. Little did I know that soon after I would be in a hotel room overlooking the World Trade Center site. I could see that the building now known as One World Trade Center has finally started to look like a skyscraper. It's going to be very nice looking. There are two other buildings going up, neither to be as tall. A transit center with a fancy entrance is also underway at the PATH and MTA station entrances. But I kept in my mind what I had read. Horrible, horrible moments, right across from where I stood. Also from my room I could see the new 9/11 Memorial. It consists so far of two tidal basins on the footprints of the original towers, with water flowing from the top into the basins. There is a wooded park, with granite blocks spaced throughout. A visitor center is under construction. As we walked in the neighborhood, we passed a temporary 9/11 museum. It's really a gift shop in the guise of a museum, as it offers little in the artifact department- a steel girder,some art framed from a girder, posters, scraps of paper. But we got tickets to see the actual 9/11 park, so we went. Big mistake. For one thing, we did not see anything that we had not seen from our room. But worse, the lines were long, the security heavy and imposing. We had to show our tickets about nine times. We went through airport type security. My guess is that some 200 police officers worked there in some capacity. That's plus all of the security personnel, the ticket takers, and, oh yes, the temporary visitor center, which is more of a gift shop. So we have a temporary visitor center and a temporary museum. In expectation of even larger crowds, the entrance queue is exceptionally long. We walked and walked. So we then saw what we could see from our room. It is nice, and when finished will be even nicer. It is going to be a park where one can reflect on the tragedy of the date. But just in case you missed the opportunity to get your 9/11 magnet, coffee mug, t-shirt or calendar or any other item associated with gift shops, there is, in addition to the temporary museum and the temporary visitor center, a Tribute Center, which, coincidentally, no doubt, looks suspiciously like a gift shop.

With the flurry of milestones reached last week, it is interesting to note that many of our top posters are not often here! At the very top, as might be expected, are the admins, Tampa Yankee with 4438 posts, and Totally Oz with 3811. Yours truly is at 3006. But next is BiBottom Boy, who is currently not posting. He has 2472. Another missing poster is next, AdamSmith with 1829. On sick leave is zipperzone with 1419. Then we have an active poster, MsGuy with 1414. We drop a few hundred to get to the next on the list, Marc Anthony with 1144. Right behind him is FourAces, who just returned after a long absence, yet ranks ninth at 1138. EXPAT makes the top ten at an even 1000. Right behind him, though, is the long absent Stu Cotts at 931. So, just an interesting thing to note, our top posters made the list despite taking lots of time off. Should be easy enough for someone to beat that, eh? The top active posters are TY, Oz, Lucky, MsGuy, FourAces and EXPAT. Honorable mention to lurkerspeaks, who no doubt will soon be in the top ten. Did I miss anyone?

With the government of Greece calling for a referendum on the European plan to help Greece with its debts, the government itself is now at risk of failing, with only a two vote majority in parliament. But world markets are even more nervous. This plan was supposed to be agreed to already. If Greece reneges, then confidence collapses. The Washington Post, in a photo gallery from Deutsch Bank, offers a worst-case scenario of what will happen if Greece abrogates the agreement it made last week: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/european-debt-crisis-worst-case-scenarios/2011/10/20/gIQA2hTa0L_gallery.html#photo=1

Protesters world-wide can, at least to this point, be proud of those who are occupying the Zuccotti Park near Wall Street. A Lucky investigation revealed the park to be quite tidy, organized, and even providing a medical tent for those who meed assistance. There was no harassment of police officers or obstruction of traffic. On the other hand, it was pretty cold. The park does look like a tent city. Given New York hotel prices, this thing could catch on with folks just needing a place to stay.

Gee, i wonder what I missed while I was gone. What were the "hot" topics that enthralled the board... Actually, the waitress at Southern hospitality, a restaurant in New York where Justin Timberlake has an ownership interest, had half her tits popping out of her outfit. Even I found myself looking. They were nice and tan, and I could see where a straight guy might get quite distracted by them.

hitoallusa, I was so pleased to return home and find your very nice gift. It is of such fine material that I am sure it must have cost a fortune. Now I have no idea why you sent this, maybe I should check the boards to see if you gave a reason there...but thanks so much.

It's nice of you to post in this thread, I do appreciate it. Now I will reward you with a week without Lucky! But I will think of you as I struggle to make it from theater to theater in New York...