On this great day in human thought, where Iranian clerics are saying that Covid-19 is turning people gay and the Republican Party is arguing the Constitution is unconstitutional, I have no qualms about today’s post. Readers would think me remiss if I didn’t float at least one conspiracy theory about this hallowed tradition of billionaire greed.

The NFL is notorious for how it rapes local taxpayers then leaves them holding the bag. The Vuitton Bowl takes the cake.

One positive thing the NFL does do is boost local economies when a city hosts a super bowl. Revenues for hotels, restaurants, and anything else that is price gougeable all soar. It’s even known to be a boost to local massage parlors’ bottom lines. (How you doing Mr. Kraft? That doctor prescribed massage therapy still helping with the sciatica? What did that Orchids of Asia Happy Ending end up costing you, about $800,000 in legal fees to clear “your name?”)

So what do you do when a host city is left high and dry by a worldwide pandemic and all their investments in the event are for naught? You create a phony emotional rapture that is so all encompassing nobody mentions how much money the city lost.

How great that Tampa, who had never won a Super Bowl, is the first host city to appear in the big game. And then they win it!

UNBELIEVABLE!!!!!!!!!!!!

The frenzy to rename bases and tear down bronzes of Confederate Generals supposedly will rid us of our racist legacy. But it will never succeed unless the greatest monument of all, The United States Senate, is thrown on the trash heap too.

As we’ll see again in next week’s impeachment folly, there is no check or balance on the executive. This quaint 18th century notion that appealing to the integrity of a jury of Senators will somehow render a just decision has no basis in modern reality.  The jurors in the upcoming Senate trial are nothing more than partisan self-preservationists whose allegiances go to the highest bidder.

The Senate was devised to be the saucer that cooled the scorching tea in the House of Representative’s cup. Instead, it’s been the deep freeze storage that has cracked and shattered the entire porcelain tea service.

Lovers of the Constitution, i.e. beltway insiders, extoll its beauty. Like the drop dead gorgeous Electoral College. By granting electors based on Senate representation, it gives equal footing to all states and disenfranchises millions. A small state like Wyoming (population 500,000)  will receive two electors as will a large state like California (population 40,000,000). This gimmick was devised to empower Southern states so they’d join the fight against Mother Britain and stay in the union.

Then there’s the pulchritude of the 14th and 15th Amendments. With a wink, nod and all is forgiven to the Confederacy, as soon the amendments passed the Senate masterminded Jim Crow laws to neuter them. As further insurance they created the absurd filibuster rule that has enshrined the role of special interests over the will of the people ever since. All this to placate southerners. Why?

When we watch clips of the Civil Rights demonstrations in the 1950’s and 60’s there is always an expression of insane viciousness on the faces of the whites taunting blacks and protestors. This is not the contretemps of a neighbor’s tree shedding leaves in the yard. Or the tenants in 3B playing their music too loud. There’s a bloodthirstiness to these demonically possessed that is horrifying. And then the imagery just stops.

Was the Civil Rights Act so effective it wiped out racism in the South? Or did the media just stop covering the veiny neck visuals. What became of the children and grandchildren of these livid whites? Emotional traits running this deeply don’t just dissipate from a culture.

The descendants of those with the Mad Magazine contorted faces eschewed physical violence for the most part. It just wasn’t marketable. In its place they substituted the smiling faces that provided a more appealing cover for the economic and social oppression they levied on non-whites. And they joined the Republican Party. The fate of the Constitution now lies in their hands.

All the South has ever contributed to the national experience is racial hatred, gin blossoms and a rigged College Football Bowl system. There is Tennessee Williams, of course, but that is not nearly enough to offset the other three,

It’s time for states in New England, the Mid-Atlantic, the Great Lakes, and the Pacific Regions to secede from the Union and merge with Canada. Leave the inbred wingnuts of Dixie and the Fruitless Plains to perfect their barbecue sauces, gun worship and schizoid conspiracy theories.

To foster unity amongst the peoples of this new republic I’m proposing a national sport called Hockbasey. It will combine the rules and, presumably, playing surfaces of Hockey and Baseball. Still thinking it through. The design and production of reinforced sticks that can double as bats has begun. Saskatoon Sluggers are scheduled to roll off production lines starting in early 2022.

250 years of pandering to beady-eyed ignorance is quite enough. It’s time to give our neighbors to the north and their resentment of the French a chance.

In my late teens my Granddad came up with a new nickname for me. He started to call me Senator. I’d like to think it was a tribute to my sense of fairness and the practical approach I used to accomplish things.

In retrospect, it was probably because he recognized a conniving opportunist whose fragile ego needed the constant reinforcement of hollow mass approval. The one thing missing in my life has been the lack of bidders to sell out to, high or low.

Alas, the highest rank I’ve ever risen to is the Royal Order of the DQELC (Drag Queen with an Extremely Limited Celebrity). But life isn’t over yet.

Feinstein is 87 and can’t hang on too much longer..

The best time for cheapest hotel rates and airfares is after an international catastrophe. Unless it’s a worldwide pandemic banning travel.

After 9/11 I booked a couple of trips. One was to Vienna in January knowing it would be snowy and cold. So is Dr. Zhivago. It was idyllic: warm soups, soft cheeses, no tourists.

There were serendipitous.things like a Francis Bacon/Velazquez show at the Kunsthistorisches. But other than daily walks, I didn’t want to leave the coziness of the hotel room and its personal butler in morning coat. I was staying at one of the world’s leading hotels, The Imperial, for next to nothing.

As a Californian the trip allowed me to use parts of my wardrobe that rarely saw daylight (which totaled five hours in Vienna that time of year). Like the Prada boots and Miyake overcoat. Underneath the garments, however, the bruises on my butt and legs told a different story. I can still hear my Mother’s trans-Atlantic scolding: “It doesn’t matter how good they look, you can’t wear leather soles in the snow.”

After leaving Vienna I visited Babara in London. I gifted her with a plush robe from the Imperial. Several years later she repaid me with my own personalized tour of Tampa where she’d moved.

Florida was a step down from London in terms of intellectual stimulation. But she had a beautiful condo and was close to her family so she made it work. Like Babe Paley mixing the good stuff with the dime store stuff, Barbara’s curiosity and spirit in experiencing  both the Fragonards and the parimutuel greyhounds were admirable

My individualized itinerary included the Egyptian restaurant in Clearwater run by Polish immigrants and a trip to Plant City home of George Jones and Tammy Wynette. The deep fried Snickers bars there were eaten with some difficulty.

Back in Tampa a trip to the original Hooters sadly had to be nixed. But at a traffic stop on Gandy Blvd. an unscheduled highlight was looking out the window to see a biker idling on his Harley. Behind him his chick’s hands clung loosely to his waist. The back of her t-shirt said simply:

DRINK
SMOKE
FUCK
RIDE

It looked like concrete poetry but read like a new form of haiku.

The trip to the dog racing park stood out above the rest. It was one of the most disgusting but fascinating sights ever. The sparse crowd was as depleted and scrawny as the canines that raced. Pregnant women blew cigarette smoke in the faces of the toddlers they were holding. A 45 year old grandma who looked 80 walked jaggedly with her severely hunched back. Probably the result of a drunken jet ski or trampoline mishap.

We were in and out of that track in 15 minutes. Like training a pup, to learn life’s lessons you sometimes need your snout rubbed in the soiled carpet.

My friends Kathy and Linda who I’ve traveled with often share this appetite for the odd ball. Like the sculpture park of Soviet-era monuments on the outskirts of Budapest. Or the human conveyor belt that whisked us past the Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico City.

But during our week in the Dominican Republic it looked like we’d be shut out of anything touristly unique. Our daily routine consisted of reading, going to the beach, scrabble over cocktails, having a nice dinner, then sleeping. We were quite happy with it.

As the week drew to a close we felt guilty for not doing one touristy thing. So we decided to act on the posters we’d laughed about all week. A chance to see the largest bull cajones in the Republic.

Our tour guide loaded us into the dirty flatbed of his old pickup. He spoke the international language of the carnival huckster using repeated “but firsts.” As we prepared to depart he psyched us up with a glowing description of the bull we were about to see. But first he wanted to stop at this farm with exotic snakes. Back in the truck we heard more about the marvelous bovine but first he wanted us to see this natural waterfall.

The falls was probably the best part of the tour. When he challenged us to jump off the cliff into the pool I couldn’t resist the dare. Bouncing along in a cloud of dust we continued to ascend the mountain but not before stopping at a roadside market for refreshments (so he could get his commission on the sales.) Finally our rickety climb in the ancient truck reached the summit and we saw the beast.

The poor animal looked like it hadn’t eaten since it wandered in from Calcutta. The emaciated gray body did accentuate the set he was swinging which, indeed, looked large. But then my degree is not in Bull Cajones so I may not be the person to ask about that.

Fast forward to the present day where I will spare my readers the intimate details of an infection I’ve had. Suffice it to say it had me reminiscing about the wonder of Hispaniola. It was not painful just tender, swollen and annoying. The worst symptom was the flu-like malaise that kept me in bed most of the week with nothing to do but dream up blog entries like this one.

After a thorough (and stimulating!) ultrasound, my doctor found no trace of Lance Armstrong. He put me on an antibiotics regimen that seems to be doing the trick.

Speaking of stimulated packages, I do hope the Biden Pandemic Relief Bill passes. I’m anticipating a severe drop in revenues very soon and could use the cash.

The personal financial crash will coincide with my neighborhood’s collective sigh of relief. The unending stream of tourists jitneys and pickup trucks that has been circling and clogging traffic on Laguna Street will finally come to a halt.