Go ahead! Ask!

As a retired geek, I go on providing computer support the way certain sufferers of OCD go after the NYT crossword puzzle. I try not to twitch, shake, or drool, but having worked with Macs, Unix,/… Read full post »

Here

There's a club a few blocks from my home here on Seattle's Capitol Hill. This being Capitol Hill, it's a mostly queer club, but this being Seattle, everybody's welcome. My partner Michael, the tattooed skinhead chef, sometimes goes there on Thursdays (which are his Fridays) for “Roc/… Read full post »

[Cue Melancholy Guitar from “Brokeback Mountain”]  

My name is Bryan Harrison and as a renowned nothing celebrity, I feel a strong obligation to bring a matter of grave importance to your attention. Of all medical disorders, none are so tragic as those which affect the b… Read full post »

It's 1984 and my office chums and I are eating lunch in our conference room. Eric is reading The New York Times, no doubt looking for something to argue about. He's twice my age and a brilliant policy analyst whose expertise is fostering technological innovation. I am a mere typist, since… Read full post »

Since I live on the opposite side of the continent, I call my mother once a week. She's says I call once a month. There's no knowing which is true since neither of us is a reliable source of information about the other.

It's only fair to warn you it's possible… Read full post »

Sophie Wisniewski is a witch. We know this because she says so and because she's outlined her strange eyes in black. She's also wearing a shiny purple bedspread draped over the pink nylon night gown that covers her all the way to her lime green flip-flops.

It's February and 40° in… Read full post »

I was struck by Lisa Solod Warren's recent piece, Why Do Republicans Hate Artists and Writers So Much? Ms. Warren is certainly better informed on the NEA and related issues than I am, as well as a far more celebrated writer. Consequently I was surprised when my primary reaction to… Read full post »

  It's March 25, 1999 – the day after my birthday. Exactly a dozen years ago back East I was told I had two years to live. Now, a decade past my expiration date, I do so in San Francisco where I have no ghosts, only the irony of living to 40… Read full post »

Since growing older, I avoid fluorescent light while on hallucinogens. It’s unflattering. Also redundant.

But right now it's 1982 in San Francisco. The Castro. Church Street Station Diner. 4:00 am. Earlier, some guy in some bar has given me something small and white to swallow before cha… Read full post »

It's 10:00 pm on Seattle's Capitol Hill and I'm walking home alone after dinner with friends. It's Tuesday and quiet on a side street. I'm feeling pleasantly buzzed from good red wine. I'm enjoying the way the drizzle catches the street light in the shadows under the neighborhood's stately tr… Read full post »

Don't Shoot I'm Only the Piano Player

Germane Greer thinks women aren't as funny as men. Or maybe just that she shouldn't have said women aren't as funny as men. Or perhaps it's that men are keeping women from being as funny as they might be. I worry she might be saying that men have made being a… Read full post »

It seems my destined role on OS is outreach to the homosexually challenged. As I see dangerous misconceptions propagating here, there, and everywhere, I feel I must speak out.

Flouncing is not primarily something one does on one's way out, unless we're talking about the… Read full post »

Jeer Don:

I solely never taunted what every human daunts.  A domestic silo.  Parsimony. Littles to do nary as I came.  On the drink of heaving up dope I met you on my Innerwet.  I sent you LAN fetters, and when you tested me on my throne I thralled.… Read full post »

Last Sunday, Sharon Stone appeared at the 17th Annual Elton John AIDS Foundation's Oscar party, giving a tour de force performance in the role of her own nipples.

Whether we rave or revile, we must admit that the ultimate effect of so much surgery is strangely modest. Ms. Stone… Read full post »