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William A. Browning

Bill Browning

Last Updated: 11/21/2009

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Gender: Male
Status: Single
Age: 56
Sign: Gemini

City: LOUISVILLE
State: Kentucky
Country: US
Signup Date: 5/20/2007

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Friday, August 29, 2008

And The Brizzle Goes to...
Current mood:

working
Category: Blogging

These are "my" 10 favorite performances by an actor in a movie. I'm not saying they should be yours or there aren't as good or better ones. Nothing like that. In fact, I'd love to hear what some of your favorites are. I post this list because I love movies and I love good performing by an actor.

So, pretty much counting them down in order, here are the ten acting performances by someone male, that to date, stand out most to me.

10. Richard Burton (nomintated for seven Academy Awards with an unbelievable zero wins) in "Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolfe"

"You take the trouble to construct a civilization, to build a society based on the principles of... of principle. You make government and art and realize that they are, must be, both the same. You bring things to the saddest of all points, to the point where there is something to lose. Then, all at once, through all the music, through all the sensible sounds of men building, attempting, comes the Dies Irae. And what is it? What does the trumpet sound? Up yours."

9. George C. Scott in "Patton"

(I had few heroes as a boy, but Mr. Scott was one of them.)

"Almighty and most merciful Father, we humbly beseech Thee of Thy great goodness to restrain this immoderate weather with which we have had to contend. Grant us fair weather for battle. Graciously harken to us as solders who call upon Thee that, armed with Thy power, we may advance from victory to victory, and crush the oppression and wickedness of our enemies, and establish Thy justice among men and nations. AMEN."

8. Timothy Hutton in "Ordianry People"

(An amazing, just amazing job by an actor but director Robert Redford may be the true hero here for pulling such an extraordinary performance out of a virtually unknown kid.)

"I feel bad about this! I feel really, really bad about this! Just let me feel bad about this!" -Conrad "Con" Jarrett: [about Karen's suicide]

7. Robert Duvall in "The Great Santini"

(Duvall's acting… Pat Conroy's words, what more could you ask for?)

"I'd like to propose a toast, to my son. He is eighteen today. He has just ordered his first drink. Before he drinks it, I'd like to wish him a long life, a wife as fine as his mother, and a son as fine as he's been. To my son!"

6. Christopher Walken in "The Deer Hunter"

"I like the trees, you know? I like the way that the trees are on mountains, all the different... the way the trees are."

(This stellar, very disturbing performance kept me up at night for weeks)

5. William Hurt in "Kiss Of The Spider Woman"

"The nicest thing about feeling happy is that you think you'll never be unhappy again."

(No performance by an actor ever broke my heart like this one did)

4. Jack Nicholson in "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest"

"She was fifteen years old, going on thirty-five, Doc, and she told me she was eighteen, she was very willing, I practically had to take to sewing my pants shut. Between you and me, uh, she might have been fifteen, but when you get that little red beaver right up there in front of you, I don't think it's crazy at all and I don't think you do either. No man alive could resist that, and that's why I got into jail to begin with. And now they're telling me I'm crazy over here because I don't sit there like a goddamn vegetable. Don't make a bit of sense to me. If that's what being crazy is, then I'm senseless, out of it, gone-down-the-road, wacko. But no more, no less, that's it."

(Brilliant. Just absolutely Brilliant)

3. Dustin Hoffman in "Midnight Cowboy"

"You know, in my own place, my name ain't Ratso. I mean, it just so happens that in my own place my name is Enrico Salvatore Rizzo."

(Midnight Cowboy was released in 1969. It still may be the best movie ever made)

2. Heath Ledger in "Brokeback Mountain"

"Bottom line is... we're around each other an'... this thing, it grabs hold of us again... at the wrong place... at the wrong time... and we're dead."

(A beautifully restrained and nuanced performance by an actor)

And my all time favorite performance by an actor in a movie is…

1. Al Pacino in "Dog Day Afternoon"

10:24 PM

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Thursday, August 28, 2008

White Rocks
Current mood:

gloomy
Category: Blogging

I need three bags of white rocks.

Seriously, I'm not kidding. I bought these three emerald green planters. LOVE THEM and I want to line them up symetrically on my patio.

I will never ever, not in a million years, sit on my patio but, you know, people drive up. I want things to look nice.

Ten years ago I would have just drove to a home improvement store and bought some damn rocks. But ten years ago I wouldn't have been so fuckin' old and lazy and pressed for time, a decade ago my no COPD having ass wouldn't have had a problem climbing in the car and just making it happen.

Now, I just can't seem to find energy enough or time enough. The planters have sat in my living room for over a week now.

Then today I was reading… about this guy,

Thomas Beatie, a 34 year old, who says it feels "incredible" to be a pregnant man.

Beatie was fertilised using donor sperm because his wife can't have children. Thomas — a transsexual who was actually born female — vowed to carry on living as a man during and after the baby.

"I will be my daughter's father, and my wife will be her mother. We will be a family."

And recently I saw in a local newspaper how there won't be much "livin' la vida loca" for Ricky Martin – since he's now the father of twin boys.

Martin had the children via a surrogate mother, and the babies were born a few weeks ago.

And this all reminded me about reading, a while back,

That this American Idol second-season runner-up impregnated record producer and friend Jaymes Foster via artificial insemination and how the two have more frozen eggs and sperm stored somewhere so they can have a second child sometime next year.

Rub eyes… shake head… I don't know people. I don't know.

With artificial insemination,

test tube babies,

cloning

and other ingenious ways, that I won't go into here, to have a child, it's getting to a point where it'll take a man (or woman) three days to answer the question "Where do babies come from?"

I mean if your answer to that question starts with, "Well, Pumpkin, a mommy and a daddy…" you are liable to be interrupted.

"Devon Squires has two daddies and they are expecting a baby."

I mean, what do you say to that?

"Well, Savannah –the gay stork brings them gay people gay babies."

Hetero stork,

Homo people stork.

I guess I may be old fashioned…

(This is a picture of my friend Jamie and me making a couple of bourbon and cokes last Saturday night)

and though I don't have enough problem with the technologies and possible moral issues related to creative baby making to do anything but marvel at it all, I still can't help but feel "natural" is something we ought not be quick to give up.

And I guess it's all good but I swear, it seems to me if Clay and Ricky can have babies without ever going near a tw… pu… vag… woman, my easily winded self ought to be able to give birth to a few bags of damn white rocks without having to drive to a damn Home Depot.

1:41 PM

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Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Lucky Bastard
Current mood:

productive
Category: Life

I lock my car, hoist my book bag over my shoulder and quickly make my way across an emptier than usual parking lot. The sun above me is fiery and heartless as I step around a parked van and approach the side door at Waiting to Die Manor.

Exiting the building, Kelly, who works in supplies, freezes and looks at me like she's seeing a ghost. "I thought you were dead!" Kelly says.

This is not usually the way Kelly, a woman who looks scarily like Martha Stewart, greets me.

I shake my head. "No. I'm not turning heads in the mall anymore, my dance card doesn't get many punches these days, I can't get laid with a gun, but I'm not dead, Kelly."

Kelly nods. "I'm glad you're okay, Bill."

"I'm okay," I assure Kelly and step past her.

I enter a surprisingly cool nursing home. The AC's being cooperative, even enthusiastic, today and the hall I work on is all but abandoned. It's a city block of closed doors and polished floors and so quiet I can hear the scratch of Becky's pen as she furiously writes in a patient's chart.

Behind the nurse's desk she looks up. "Oh wow, I'm glad to see you!"

I move to the time clock and punch in. "I'm glad to see you, too. Where is everybody?"

"In the big dining room being entertained by a lame magician."

I drop my book bag. Becky looks at me like she truly is glad to see me. "What?" I say.

Becky holds out the medicine cart keys. "Brace yourself, dude. There was a Bill Browning who died Saturday — he drowned in the Ohio River — and there's dozens of people here and who've called here worried that it was you."

I shake my head. "Wasn't me."

A wee, brunette and bouncy Becky smiles. "I'm glad it wasn't," she says, sincerely.

I nod. "That makes one of us," I quip, as Amanda, an LPN who's normally a weekend supervisor, comes through the double doors walking like someone on a mission.

Amanda's shoes tap tap tap as she rounds the desk. She throws on brakes and gets in my face. "STOP SMOKING!" she yells at me.

I don't budge and yell "NO!" back at her.

"YOU ARE GOING TO DIE!" Amanda counters.

"I'M 55. THERE'S NOT A LOT OF REASON TO LIVE."

"BULLSHIT! YOU'RE IN YOUR PRME."

"I WAS IN MY PRIME AT 35. MY PROSTATE'S SWELLING AS WE SPEAK."

Amanda steps back. "I'm not kidding."

I smile. "I'm not sure I am either."

"What about your future, Bill Browning? Your writing? Your friends and family, the possibility of grandkids?"

"Don't make me start lighting up two at a time, Amanda."

Amanda shakes her head. She actually gets teary. "I worry about you, Bill. I mean, I knew that wasn't you that drowned — at least I was pretty sure it wasn't — but you need to take better care of yourself."

I sigh. Amanda is medium height and blonde, a blue-eyed stick with breasts. "I'm never going to run, darlin'. If this place catches fire, I won't run."

"You don't have to run, Bill. Walk. Stop smoking and walk."

A smiling Holly comes through the double doors. Holly is tall. I'm six foot and she's several inches taller than me. She's put on weight since she stopped smoking and stopped ironing her hair, but she's still pretty.

"I told everybody you wasn't dead," Holly says.

I move around to my cart. "Don't be so sure."

"Where's Carlos?" I ask Becky.

"He had to leave early today, something with his son. I wish you'd call him. He's crazy worried about you, too."

"Oh good grief! This is bordering on ridiculous."

Becky shrugs. "People love you. The guy was in his fifties. His name was William Browning, for God's sake. I can't believe you didn't hear about it."

Opening my cart, I get out a 4-milligram Coumadin tablet for Ada Carver, pour a cup of water… and remember my phone ringing more than usual over the weekend. People I haven't heard from in a long time calling. My message box getting full, because I rarely answer a phone.

"Is Ada in her room?"

Becky nods.

I lock up my cart. A moment later I step into Ada's room and wave. She gives me a stern, ex-schoolteacher look and points to her bed. I sit down on it. "What?" I mouth carefully, because Ada is totally deaf.

Ada holds out a folded section of newspaper. I trade her a pill and a cup of cold water for it.

I see the headline:

50-year-old Louisville man drowned in Ohio River

Frowning, I start reading.

"Emergency crews pulled the body of a 50-year-old Louisville man from the Ohio River early yesterday, several hours after he fell from a houseboat.

William W. Browning, of the 400 block of Breckenridge Lane in the St. Matthews area, was pronounced dead shortly after he was found in a cove on the Indiana side of the river said Edwin Coots, the Clark County coroner. The autopsy results were consistent with drowning, he said.

Coots said the cove is just upriver from Six-Mile Island near a sand and gravel pit along Utica Pike.

A rescue call came in about 12:20 a.m., and Browning's body was recovered around 3 a.m.

Some of the 11 people on the boat were jumping from the boat's third and highest deck said Mick Rutherford, a conservation officer with the Indiana Department of Natural Resources. He said Browning, who was not wearing a life jacket, slipped while trying to climb higher on the boat, then struck the side of the 75-foot-long vessel before landing in the water.

"We always advise people to wear life jackets, and any time at night it's probably not a good idea to be jumping in the water," he said.

Alcohol was found on the boat, Rutherford said, but he said it was not believed to have played a direct role in the drowning. No foul play is suspected, he said.

The boat, called Gailandi, docks at the Rose Island Yacht Club in Prospect. Rutherford said its owners were present when the fall happened, but declined to reveal their names.

The drowning took place at what is informally called "party cove," an area that is the focus of a legal dispute over public access, Rutherford said.

The Harrods Creek and Louisville fire departments and Louisville Metro Police worked with the Utica Fire Department to search for Browning.

A toxicology report for Browning is pending, Coots said."

Finished with the article, I look up. Carver, still looking stern and all teacher-ish points to my name tag. I shrug.

"Do you drink?"

I nod and yell "SOMETIMES."

Her lipless mouth asks. "Do you take any lessons from that?"

I pick up Ada's dry erase board and write. "I do. So much so, from this day forward I solemnly vow to give up houseboats."

I hand the board to Ada who reads what I've written aloud, looks at me a second, and then cracks up laughing. I take the board back, clean it and write, "I'm still going to booze it up, Ada. But only on land."

Ada reads these new words. Still laughing she nods. "Good."

I stand, wave, exit Carver's room and run into Vlad, the beautiful — but criminally young — Russian boy who takes care of the Manor's floors.

Vlad flashes his youthful and high-wattage smile. "Mr. BILL! You aren't dead!"

"No, Vlad. I'm alive. Just barely, but I'm alive."

"You know Sheriella in the kitchen? She was telling me about this guy who drowned over the weekend. She was big-time afraid it was you."

Sheriella, a woman who I call Salmonella behind her back, is a black, silent, mean cook who works in our kitchen and says things like "we ain't got no fuckin' milk" and I'm a little surprised she would be at all concerned.

"It wasn't me." I tell Vlad.

"I'm glad you didn't drown, Mr. Bill. I'm even more glad you wasn't wearing Speedos."

"You don't know how glad, kid. It wouldn't be pretty."

"Don't worry about emptying no trash cans tonight, Mr. Bill, I'll get them for you."

I nod. "Thanks, Vlad."

Stairsteps of feminine concern and love, Becky, Amanda and Holly, all still behind the desk on my unit, watch me as I walk back to my medicine cart. They look like they want to rush and gang-hug me but are holding back.

"I'M ALIVE!" I yell at them.

Holly comes around the desk and rubs my back. "Don't get frustrated, Bill. It's just reading that was scary for some of us. The guy was around your age; no one really knows what you do on the weekends or even where you live. You don't really talk about your life much."

"I blog about it constantly."

Still rubbing my back, Holly says, "Becky's raising a nine-year-old son and a three-year-old granddaughter. I've got two kids and two full-time jobs. Amanda runs marathons. We don't have time to read blogs, Bill. Not even yours. My point is, there were several things in that article that might lead people to believe that poor guy was you."

"The guy was 50. I'm 55. His middle initial was "W," mine is "A." He lived in Saint Matthews. I live in the South end of Louisville. But the most glaring difference in him and me — the thing that should have made you ALL breath easier was — HE was having fun. Anyone who knows anything about me should have been able to relax the second they realized that guy had a life just before he didn't have a life. I don't. I never have fun. I have laundry."

Holly chuckles. "You liar. You have fun. You make everything you do fun."

Amanda looks at her watch and says "SHIT!" She hurries around the desk. Holly and she hoof it back toward the Long Term Care hall. Becky picks up her purse. "Do you want to count with me so I can get out of here?"

I nod. "Yeah. Come on."

Driving home from work that night I think about drowned William Browning. I wonder about his family. About who will miss him.

I remember my own brush with death in 1999. Lying on a hospital bed with my chest wide open and my newly-repaired heart still beating. I remember Dan sitting on the side of the bed and me feeling bad that days had passed without me noticing the terror in his eyes.

When you have teams of people who spend good parts of their day rummaging around in your chest, you get a little caught up in yourself. At that moment, I can't believe I've been so preoccupied with it all I haven't noticed a kid's fear.

I remember taking my son's hand, motioning him closer because talking takes a lot out of me. I look into his eyes. I clear my throat. "Dan," I say, "one of the things that truly sucks about life for most of us is — at some point, we have to bury our parents. I had to bury both my mom and dad and you will one day have to bury me."

I pause and rest a minute. "But not now," I continue. "Not soon darlin'. And trust me, I won't die like this. I absolutely won't. I'll croak, but not for a long, long time and not in a hospital. I'll be lighting a cigarette and in the middle of a joke and I'll just drop. But for now, you stop worrying. I'm fine. You go on out in the visitor's lounge and sit with your grandma Peggy. She'll make you laugh…"

I pull into my drive, turn off the car, get out, hoist my book bag over my shoulder and enter my building. I notice a woman — the 64-year-old crack addict who lives across the hall from me — has also gotten out of a car and is making her way toward the building's entrance. I wait and hold the door for her.

"Well, chivalry isn't dead," she says sarcastically.

I smile. "Yes it is. I'm plotting to steal your purse."

In a red and gold, 70's looking foyer, my neighbor hands me a limp, brown leather clutch. "Take it," she says, moving to a bank of mailboxes.   "There's nothing in the damn thing but some pictures of grandkids who don't have time for an old woman."

Crack Lady puts her key in a box with the number 5 on it. I hand her purse back to her and open a door on a hall that will lead to… ahhhh… fucking home.

I drop my book bag, kick off my shoes and move to my desk. I pick up the phone and call Paula. She answers on the third ring. We talk a few minutes.

Paula is my dearest friend and she writes obits for a local newspaper. I ask her if she saw where a Bill Browning bit it.

"Yes! Oh my god. My heart leapt into my throat, Bill. I mean, I knew it wasn't you."

I tell Paula about my day, about the countless times someone told me about a stranger with my name dying and how glad they were it wasn't me.

There is a long silence on Paula's end. "I understand them, Bill. Reading that piece, reading the name… had a sobering effect on me. It bothered me a lot. I knew two sentences in it wasn't you. I spent a good part of the weekend with you.

"But I also knew it could have been you. One day it will be you I read about, we all read about. You have so many people who love you. Dan, me… so many friends. I don't think we… I know I can't bear it. I can't bear the thought of you leaving me. Leaving us."

"I know, Paula Mae. I can't bear the thought of going."

10:42 PM

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Saturday, August 23, 2008

Flex Writers Cafe
Current mood:

hopeful
Category: Blogging

It's Story Tellers Saturday over at Flex Writers Cafe and this SATURDAY they are featuring yours truly!!!

They wanted quite short in the way of a story and "Yellow Pansuit" fit the bill.

So, I hope, hope hope you will pop over there and show a BRIZZLE some love and after you do I hope you will pop over again, check back on the story... and then check back on it again... and again...

It's ambitious but with your help "YELLOW PANTSUIT" could be... I'm saying could be, Myspace's number one blog for Saturday. I'd sooo love to see that happen to Flex Writers Cafe and to me.

As always, my friends,

thank you, thank you, thank you.

Bill

4:57 AM

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Wednesday, August 20, 2008

A Medley Of My Soon To Be Hits...
Category: Blogging

"Do you like Michael Jizzle?" Brizzle shouts. He waits for the roar of the crowd to die down…

Wearing an orange jacket and size 38 waist X 26 length black pants he picks up a microphone... er… I mean a keyboard. He dances for about twenty minutes all show-offy, then sings…

They said you're too old, you won't do no good here
Forget it dinosaur, you irrelevant queer
With fire in my eyes and them hateful words in my ears
I Blog It, I Blog It

They said you should nap, or maybe garden old man
No one's going to read an aging dandy sham
Still I type away, and do what I can
I blog it, you can't stop meeeeeee…

Brizzle loses the faggy leather jacket… He opens his shirt and smiles. Somehow he has combed his hair all Bridgett Fonda-ish…

Feeling all Jon Bon Jizzle he moans… "I need some poetry, baby." and launches into…

Myspace is full of bad poetry
Bad poetry is what I need
Shake it up, just like bad poetry
There ain't no doctor that can
Cure this disease…

Brizzle brings it down now some… He face looks all serious and shit… his beautiful green... no, blue... his beautiful blue eyes glisten with tears… Sounding amazingly like Leona Lizzle (except breathier) he sings,

A moment with Brizz
Some people wait a lifetime,
For a moment with Brizz
Some people search forever,
For that special blog bliss
Oh, oh oh… You can't believe it's happening to you
Cause people wait a lifetime,
For a moment with Brizz…

He (Brizzle) smoothly transitions into Whitney Hizzle…

If I
Went away
It would only be for a day
So please know
I may go
But I'll jot notes every step of
the way

And EYE...
Will always
love you, oohh
and will always
Blog for you
My darling you
Mmm-mm...

Bittersweet
Memories
Is what I'll be sharing with you
So please click me
Cause we both know I'm just what
You need

And EYE-EYE-EYE...
Will always blog for you
EYE...
Will always blog for you
You, ooh
Oooh
Ooohhh

[Instrumental / Sax solo] …

Shifting into an all together different gear, Brizzle lays his keyboard down. Moving around his smartly decorated living room with a lot of hip action he chews on a the stem of a crack-pipe and husks an old Amy Winehizzle favorite,

They tried to make me go to Facebook but I said 'no, no, no'
Yes I was off track but now that I'm back my Myspace will grow grow grow
You know Dan's got a Facebook page -he thinks it's all the rage
He tries to make me go to Facebook but I won't go go go…

Yep -I got the time and a hundred error messages are fine…

I tried to make an angel in some snow snow snow…
Exiting my bathroom I stubbed my toe toe toe…
I can't help it I got the soul of a ho ho ho…

(Brizzle's cookin' now… the crowd is awed… but unbelievably, he brings things down again.)

You heard I write a good blog, you heard I have a style (he sings all Roberta Flizzle-like)
So won't you click on "view more", and read me for a while
And there I'll be, this blog god, a stranger to your eyes

Typing your pain with my fingers
Singing your life with my words
Killing you softly with my blog
Killing you softly... with my blog
Telling your whole life with my words
Killing you softly... with my blo-ah-ah-ah-og…

In typical Brizzle fashion our bloggin' friend Bill Brizzle ends BIG… No one expects… Quizzle!

Dear friends, it's time to close,
Arthritis hit my spine-
Body's aching all the time,
Goodbye everybody -I've got to go-
Gotta leave you all behind and go to work-
Mama ooo- (any way the wind blows)
I don't want to go,
Sometimes I wish there was no old people at all-

I see a little silhouetto of a man,
Scaramouche, scaramouche will you do the fandango-
Thunderbolt and lightning-very very frightening me-

(Dan, Paula Mae and Max come in. They all pick up guit... computer keyboards and join in the singing)

Galileo, galileo,
Galileo, galileo,
Galileo figaro-magnifico-
But I'm just a blogging boy everybody loves me-
He's just a blogging boy with a crazy place to be-
Spare him a trip to that monstrosity-
I need to go, will you let me go-
Bismillah! No-,we will not let you go-let me go-
Bismillah! We will not let you go-let me go

Mama mia, mama mia, mama mia let me go-
Beelzebub has a nursing home set aside for me, for me, for me-

I just gotta get out-just gotta get right outta here-

But Myspace really matters,
Anyone can see,
Myspace really matters, all you people really matter to meeeeeeeeeeeeee…

3:41 PM

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Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Turning This Ship Around...
Current mood:

awake
Category: Blogging

To turn the ship that is my pitiful-assed life around I'm going to do ten things to improve my health, my looks and my quality of life.

I'm not kidding.

I don't like any of the decisions I've made. I don't want to do any of these things and I'm not going at any of it willingly, mind you, but to insure success I have hired an army and a team of wild horses to make me do um… good shit.

Like, you maybe didn't know this, but I'm a little out of shape.

And I don't look all that good in blue. So, I'm (1.) going to stop drinking diet colas. I am mad-addicted to diet soda.

And I don't know if you knew this either, but diet sodas make you fat. They give you belly bloat.

This isn't my belly.

This is. And aw dammit! I don't look good in jeans either!

Oh, I try to convince myself the suspenders I use to hold up my pants have a kind of slimming effect on me… but really, I'm not fooling anyone.

So, I'm giving up my beloved diet sodas (after I drink the three six-packs of 24-ounce Diet Pepsis I just bought).

And because coughing isn't really all that attractive…

… I am going to (2.) quit smoking too.

And I'm going to (3.) start exercising…

Look, you exercise your way and I'll exercise my way.

Okay, moving on. I'm going to (4.) eat healthier.

A lot of fiber.

And I'm going to (5.) tighten up my point of view, you know, get a new attitude…

I don't know why my voice suddenly got so high and chipmunk-y. I'm thinking maybe it's the increased fiber.

I am going to (6.) stop obsessing about being old. I mean, I'm still full of life…

And I'm still sexy (sob, sniffle, daintily dabs at corner of eye with a Puffs tissue).

(Note to self: you gotta stop wearing blue).

I need to (7.) get out more…

Not wear blue, but more or less shake my groove thang.

It will be a bit hard. The thing I hate most about getting out is…

… I have to actually leave the apartment to do it.

I am going to (*.) start be iNg niCer to Paul-aw-la Mae… (I'm sorry. It's hard to type when you're being tortured) aNd… I will neVEr men tion Her ugly shoes… YES …OOOOOOUCH! agaiN. Yes. I PROMISE!

I vow to (9.) figure out how some people got rich doing this blogging/writing on line thing and get rich, too. I'm going to get a million Myspace friends somehow, some way, many of which will love me enough to also visit my brand new Web site (look, the thing will be up and running soon, you know I never ever say die).

And I'll get wealthy from ads or some shit (however it all works) or some publisher or agent will stumble upon me, maybe, see my amazing talent, feel sorry for my struggling ass, make me a book deal and I'll get me a huge pile of money.

Once I'm rich, I will buy Dan a new car.

And I will spoil this beautiful girl I know who was born on my birthday (I can't say anything more about her right now) with scandalously expensive gifts and trips and cruises and diamonds and groceries and stuff.

And I won't give Paula's torturing-somebody-for-no-good-reason ass a dime. I will instead buy myself some new friends.

Because, you know, I love good conversation. And anyway, I spel so gud I du knot even neade an edditer.

Last, but not least I'm going to take Mischief's advice and de-drab my wardrobe some. My life some, too. I'm going to add in some color.

Out with the taupe and in with the new.

Yep. Color is good.

Author's note: Photobucket censored (deleted) another one of my photos. This originally ended with a picture of a woman laying on her stomach wearing colorful socks and it sported the message, "Rainbows, not as gay as you think" but they, Photobucket, for whatever reason, found it offensive. I moved the original picture to my Myspace album and tried to insert it here from there but I couldn't get it to post large enough. It infuriates me to be censored like that but I'm trying to be calm about it. I apologize and hopefully the flowers convery the same sentiment.

2:41 PM

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Monday, August 18, 2008

About Coffee...
Current mood:

sleepy
Category: Blogging

Coffee… mmmmmmm…

I discovered coffee when I was in my twenties, working as a purchasing agent for a meat packing company. The place reeked of pig shit and cold, dead meat and a sort of nauseating desperation.

Queasy the entire time I worked there, I found the only thing I could make stay down was coffee.

After that, still in my twenties, I discovered my mom's coffee. Now that was some damn good coffee. It was "just Folger's, honey" and I don't know what she did to it, but it truly was fine, fine coffee.

I remember watching her make coffee, a thousand pots of it. Four heaping scoops of coffee and 10 cups of water each time. Just like it was yesterday. If there was something magical Mom added to her coffee, I never caught her doing it. But the results were always, always some damn tasty and satisfying hot beverage.

I still love coffee…

...and all weather coats… and abs and snowy white undies…

Wait, I'm getting off course here.

I love drinking coffee, but I don't love making it. I have a state of the art coffee maker but I never, ever make coffee in it. I stare at it. But like everything else electronic in my house, the damn thing intimidates me. I know I can't play a DVD in it.

So, I go out and buy coffee.

Did I mention I love coffee? Not all coffee.

I hate Starbucks type coffee... uppity, pretentious coffee. Ass-tasting, $23.00 a cup, coffee. Juan Valdez's-ass-tasting coffee… bitter, nasty coffee. Rich fucker coffee. Shit that tastes like two tablespoons of potting soil and a dollop of mule piss -- Colombian mule piss, Jaun Valdez's mule's piss -- has been stirred into every cup coffee.

This is Juan Valdez and his mule. For the record: I have nothing against either of them.

Where was I? Oh, Starbucks, high-falutin' coffee.

The hipsters can have that shit. Because what I love… what I adore... what I crave... is ghetto coffee.

Sixty-nine cents for any size coffee… Jerry's, Denny's and even McDonald's coffee. Yum. Yum. Folger's. Plain ol' Maxwell House… cheap, unfancy, good, hot coffee.

But even though I can't stand Starbucks coffee, I really like Starbucks-type places… coffee shops like Quills and Heine Bros…

and I like pretentious coffee drinkers…

Okay, I LOVE pretentious coffee drinkers. I want to be where they are, sit with them and talk about global warming and how they are undecided voters… and then later, if we get time, I want to kiss their poe-poes…

I hate Starbucks type coffee, but I love Starbucks coffee-types.

Now onto doughnuts…

I first discovered doughnuts when I was eight, after working at making a tire swing in my backyard I… Oh calm down! I'm kidding about some damn doughnuts.

12:56 PM

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Friday, August 15, 2008

Brief Brizzle Autobiography (In Words And Pictures)
Current mood:

tired
Category: Blogging

Though it wasn't my idea and I wasn't exactly thrilled, one day, June 4th, 195... 1973 to be exact, I (Bill Brizzle) was born.

Um… thankfully, I got better looking as time went on.

I often over-dressed… But was, more or less, dazzling.

I went to grade school…

and highschool.

But actually, from zero to 18 years old not much happened to me except I may have experienced some moments of confusion.

Both teens in this image are me… (I think I still had some of that over-dressing stuff left over too).

Okay, so I graduated from high school and married young, divorced young, married again, divorced again… and again and again…

my first wife.

My second,

third,

and so forth…

Oh yeah… I vaguely recall some wife and I having a son. A wonderful baby boy...

who looked exactly like me. But…

he got better looking too and since I can fucking tear up on Kazoo --music being in my blood --I wasn't surprised that he would join a boy band with a Spanish sounding name and (also being quite the dancer myself), later develop ball-bearings in his hips.

All of the women I married were evil while I was nearly a saint. I was well-endowed, handy and heavenly to be with and around. But I wasn't happy. I had to wear garlic necklaces all the time and hide my wallet and answer questions like, "Where have you been?"

I tell ya, married IS NOT a good place for me.

Then one day, while I was eating lunch it occurred to me that maybe the reason I was so unhappy wasn't the horrible, crone-like, money-grubbing and often icky women I'd married at all.

I got this idea that there was something different about me. Something special. I don't know exactly what triggered…

the notion, but I thought hell, I might be a homo…

and ninja.

I hurriedly called my lawyers.

(note to self: ask Dan if he has seen my black gloves).

Where was I? Oh! I petitioned the court and became legally gay. I was joyful and fun and not married and dismal anymore.

And was no longer over-dressing.

I then started a search for true love…

And thought I'd found it with a smelly, nothing, little home improvement store employee…

who had a huge…

sense of humor (when he was awake). But alas, it would not last as...

Home Depot Boy had other things on his mind.

Looking back I guess I was naïve to think we could work around him being as straight as an arrow…

and me not having ovaries.

or any of the other stuff painfully, brutally, unabashedly diagramed here.

(another note to self: call a plastic surgeon and see what one of them vulva's would set me back).

So it got to be "Tool Time" for my little Tim Fucking Allen and he hooked up with Pamela Anderson…

and I hooked up with Tomela Anderson.

wait!

I hooked up with Tomela Anderson…

And became a famous writer and blogger.

The world fell madly in love with me. I quickly amassed 1,000,000 Myspace friends… Okay, 1000 and it took forever, but I was pretty much adored and worshipped and respected and lusted after (especially by Canadian males) all over the world and I lived happily and Saintly ever after… until I died watching this year's Olympics…

unable to get to my inhaler in time.

THE END.

Authors note: I'm sorry, the image I used of female plumbing has been removed or deleted by the Photobucket cops. I suppose a drawing of the female anatomy was too risque for them.

3:54 PM

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Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Those Pesky Gay Rumors...
Current mood:

awake
Category: Blogging

Originally the idea behind this blog was to come up with ten quotes, or responses to the question "Are you gay?" that were funny or clever… like I remember reading Anthony Kiedes of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers responding to the question this way,

"Men, women, sheep –they get this look in their eyes that says, 'Fuck me Anthony, please fuck me'… and I'm gonna fuck 'em".

And someone said, "Unless I'm sitting in your lap, it's none of your business." But researching this blog, I couldn't find who, couldn't find either quote …

So, the idea behind this blog has morphed into something else. I'm not sure what. I learned, after getting into this a bit, the list of famous people rumored to be gay is staggeringly long. Here's a few…

Olympic swimming champion Ian Thorpe
British soccer player Sol Campbell
Rhode Island politician Joe Paolino
Former Congressman Bill Paxon (R-NY)
Baseball player George Brett
Singer Robbie Williams and Actor Jonathan Wilkes
American Idol contestant Clay Aiken
Pittsburgh Steeler quarterback Kordell Stewart
Congressman and U.S. Senate candidate Mark Foley of Florida
Dawson's Creek star James van der Beek
Actors, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Richard Gere, and singer Ricky Martin
Baseball Hall of Famer Sandy Koufax
Washington Redskins wide receiver Michael Westbrook and Washington
Wizards player Rod Strickland
Singer Justin Timberlake
Actor Vin Diesel
Prince Charles
Actor Elijah Wood
Actor Orlando Bloom
Actor Viggo Mortenson
Actor Tom Selleck
Singer Barry Manilow
Actors Ben Affleck and Matt Damon
Socialite David Gest
Actor Kenneth Branagh
Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein
Hip hop artists LL Cool J, Puffy & Mase, MC Lyte, Erick Sermon and
Will Smith (the Fresh Prince)
Shock rocker Marilyn Manson
Actor Chris Tucker
Former American football defensive end Michael Strahan
Former American football quarterback Troy Aikman
Actors Brandon Routh, Tom Cruise, Kevin Spacey, Jonathan Taylor Thomas
Singer Whitney Houston
Actress Kelly McGillis
Former American Major League Baseball player Mike Piazza
Singer Randy Travis
Talk radio host Rush Limbaugh
Singer Lance Bass
Ohio Congresseman John Kasich and South Dakota Senator Larry Pressler
Evangelist Jerry Falwell
Actor Tom Hanks
Comedian Carrot Top
Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle … whew!

And like I said, that's just a few! Honestly, after only an hour or so of digging, I wonder if anyone remotely famous isn't at least rumored to be gay.

Moving on... Most of the people on this list deny it (being gay) and I believe them.

And normally I'm not into gossip or calling people liars or outing folks who don't wish to be outed but I've decided with this blog to highlight ten celebrities rumored to be gay who are interesting to me or who've dismissed gay rumors in an interesting way…

1. Kenny Chesney

"It's not true. Period. Maybe I should have come out and said, 'No, I'm not (gay),' but I didn't want to draw any more attention to it, and I thought I didn't have to prove to anybody that I wasn't (gay). I didn't feel like I really did, but I do."

2. Wentworth Miller

(discussing rumors he is dating actor Luke Macfarland)

"We are on the set maybe 14 hours a day, five days a week. It doesn't leave a whole lot of time for socializing - I don't get a lot of chance to date. But it's definitely something, a wife and kids, that I'm looking forward to experiencing at some point in the very near future."

3. Simon Cowell

"If I was, why hide it? It's not as if the music business would be an odd place for a gay man to work. And, anyway, if I was trying to hide the fact that I was gay, I would be off playing rugby every Saturday, wouldn't I?"

4. Marcia Cross

When asked by Barbara Walters on The View about the rumor she is gay, Marcia replied, "Well, it's very odd. I just assume this is what results from being 42 and single. I don't know if they just needed to find a reason why I wasn't married."

Then Joy Behar asked her point blank, "So you're not a lesbian?"

To which Marcia said, "I'm not. I do think it was really weird though that there was all this curiosity about something like that, about sexuality. I thought, 'What a world we live in that that's so important.'"

5. Mathew, Lance and Jake (I'm counting them as one)

"I think people see pictures and think we're these overgrown frat guys, but we all have those kinds of relationships—and relationship isn't a bad word, I mean, we all have buds, we all take guy trips, but you take something very normal and you put it in a magazine, and people start talking." –Lance Armstrong.

"I'd do anything he asked me to, even though he'd probably never ask me to, and he feels the same way. It's fun going out and living life and doing things at the drop of a hat. LiveStrong just happens to be the most deliberate guy I've ever met." –Mathew McConaughey

"I can honestly say I've never been attracted to a man sexually, but I don't think I'd be afraid of it if it happened." - Jake Gyllenhaal

6. Pete Wentz

"My boy kissing days are over."

7. Oprah

"People think I'd be so ashamed of being gay that I wouldn't admit it? Oh, please."

8. Zac Efron

(about Perez Hilton)

"Gay romors are fine with me. I know it's very addictive to read that kind of stuff. It's entertainment. And he's (Hilton) doing something right. I think he does a great job. Honestly, if the worst he can say about me is that I'm gay, then I think I'll be fine. I can handle it."

9. George Clooney

When a web site called him "gay, gay, gay," he quipped: "No, I'm gay, gay. The third gay – that's pushing it."

10. Helen Hunt

"What is people's obsession with whether people are gay or not? Why doesn't someone sit me down and explain that one day?"

Authors note: I started out wanting this to be fun. I was thinking Spongebob's being outed? And cheeky answers by celebs. You know, light fare...

These or any people being gay are really neither here nor there to me. I, generally speaking, don't care. I don't know that any one should and I'm often perplexed that we/they sometimes do. Still we do (for a number of understandable or not reasons) but I want to say before wrapping this up, it's my belief that sex is far more fluid than anyone likes to admit. Not nearly so black and white, gay and straight and easily labeled as the world wants to entertain or cop to. I've been married to and in sexual relationships for long periods of time with women, but I've never led a woman, myself or the world to believe I am heterosexual. I'm not. At least it's not what's most attractive and natural to or for me to be.

So, when celebrities or even regular guys and girls, are asked the question, "Are you gay?" answering it with a yes or no isn't always easy or completely honest.

Ps –I don't believe Usher. I think he's queer as a plaid rabbit.

Usher

Plaid Rabbit

12:45 PM

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Tuesday, August 12, 2008

10 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Me (Bill Brizzle)...
Category: Blogging

Here's 10 things, facts, pieces of info that you probably didn't know about me…

1. I love really fine tipped pens. Micro fine. I would write with a needle if I could.

2. My favorite pizza is hamburger, mushrooms and black and green olive but I almost never get to eat one that way because I'm normally with someone who says, "yuk" and since I feel it's pretty hard to fuck up a pizza I usually give in to however they want one topped. Anyway, I love hamburger, mushroom and black and green olive pizzas. And unsuspecting delivery boys… (insert evil grin here).

3. My favorite singer is John Mayer.

Look, he's my favorite singer and I don't want no shit about it. I love him. I do. And it has nothing to do with all the rumors about his huge pe… tracts of land.

Okay, the big schlong rumors play a part in it… I mean, I know people who know people who went to school with people who actually used a urinal beside John Mayer. But it's his singing that I mostly like. Wait! Perhaps you didn't hear me. I said, I don't want to hear a lot of shit. You get to have your favorites and I get to have mine and anyway I have exquisite taste in most everything else and at my age there are few guilty pleasures left, so please, please, please… allow me just this one.

4. My favorite modern day poet is Gavin Geoffrey Dillard.

He writes poems like this…

Frank's father used to take him out in the
barn and fuck him between
the cows

the cows grew up with complexes and
Frank went on to become a
child pschologist

And me,
I never got so much as a hand
Shake from my dad.

I love Dillard's poems for how much they say that is not on the page.

What isn't on the page is always more exciting, and sexy and tragic and interesting than what is.

Of all the "dead" poets I think Whitman is da bomb.

5. Gas prices upset me, piss me off. But not nearly as much as yodelling does.

6. In 1999, like fellow funny men Dick Cheney and David Letterman, I had open heart surgery, a quadruple bypass…

… and I fell in love with a plastic surgeon who worked on the scar on my chest. His name was Danny Zieg and he looked like this.

He didn't fall back. But then, I wasn't at my best. I'm never my most clever and charming under the influence of Morphine and usually when Danny Z. came into my room to check on me my chest and the back of my hospital gown were open. Neither a pretty site.

Sigh… that was almost ten years ago now. The last words Dr. Zieg said to me… wait, till I light this cigarette and chase this shot of bourbon down with some stale coffee…. Ahhhh… yeah…

The last words Doc Danny said to me were, "Take care of your self Mr. Browning."

7. I know all of you think I am unforgivably shallow, but I'd rather be here,

than here,

or in a room full of these…

Honestly, I have this office-school supplies near-obsession thing. I love pencils and paints and notebooks and day planners and binders and folders and index cards and…

Anyway, it's a Brizzle curse. My dad had the office-school supply passion and Dan has it too, so does my nephew George. I don't know if this disease affects Brizzle girls, there aren't many Brizzle girls, I know of only four and I don't know any of them well, but it affects all Brizzle boys. There is no cure or cute doctors that can help with it either.

8. Sometimes I want to watch a movie, sometimes I even want to watch a dirty movie but I never do because I don't know how to work either of my DVD players and I don't want to ask anyone to put them in and start them for me.

9. I worry I will always miss Max's frisky ass.

And Sam's.

10. I want two tables like this,

and even though they are only $100 bucks each, I can't afford them right now.

3:23 PM

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