writing on a full tank

This is Phil.

He’s our gay Archbishop neighbor who happens to appear at our window once-in-a-while, as show in the pic..

I KNOW, huh? He scares the cat.

I’m not a judgmental person. This is because  I’m pretty messed up myself in more than a lot of ways, and I’ve had people poke fun at me, so I don’t poke fun at Phil.

Much.

I DID put him on BlogTV – the above shot is a still from the live video feed. He walked up while I was testing out my BlogTV account by doing a live broadcast with about 2-3 people in the chat room looking at me. I turned the web cam to the window and got up to about 50 people, most of whom delighted in making all kinds of disparaging remarks about poor Phil, who didn’t know he was on. I don’t know if that’s legal and it may be  ethically questionable, but it sure was fun.

You can see the videos here.

Phil has got me to thinking about social mores recently, and what’s acceptable as opposed to what’s not, and if not, WHY not, and all that kind of heavy stuff. Oh, he didn’t bring the subject up – he just mostly talks about gay issues, politics and gay issues in politics. I got to thinking about it because most people can’t stand him, so I started asking myself, “Okay, what is it about this guy that makes him so creepy?”

I mean, he doesn’t walk around naked – only mostly naked, as pictured – and he doesn’t give any inclination toward anything that would make you want to hide your children when he comes around, yet I’d bet most of you would.

But a lot of people in the chat room started making all kinds of obscene remarks about Phil because he looks and talks funny. I kicked a lot of them out, as did my pal Katharine, who I gave OP privileges for that purpose.

Why do people get that way? Is it the anonymity of the Internet? Do I even have to ask that? Because, you know, if someone were invited into my apartment and I gave them a beer and they carried on like that, all foul-mouthed, obscene and critical of my neighbors, I’d kick their ass out. Even if they were being critical of Archbishop Phil, which is really easy to do.

Granted, I’d much rather have someone like Taylor Swift came to my window a lot, and sing pretty songs to me on her guitar. That’d be alright. But even then it’s possible I’d get irritated with Taylor Swift if she came to the window frequently and was always like, “Hey Rhodester, I’m writing a new song and I want to play it for you!” when I’m in the middle of something, which is what Phil does only instead of playing songs he asks me if I think any of the Osmonds are secretly gay and he recites stats that support his belief that over 80% of sailors on our modern Navy ships are gay and stuff like that.

By the way, I wondered what it would look like if Taylor Swift came to my window all of the time, since I was talking about it, and I came up with this..

I bet I’d get a whole lot more than 50 people in the chat room.

But, no matter.. it’s Archbishop Phil who comes to the window and not the lovely Miss Swift, so I’m left to deal with that for what it is. I’ll start by answering some questions you may have about him, which I base on the questions some of the people in the chat room asked the day he was on the live video..

1. His he REALLY an Archbishop?
YES. Don’t call him “Bishop,” or he will correct you.. every time. He said that he has Bishops “under him” and I said “I’ll bet” which sounded kind of snarky, but I’m not sure he picked up on that.

2. What church is he with?
The Independent Apostolic Church of Something Or Other, which I’ve never been clear on. I said, “I’ll BET it’s independent.” He picked up on that.

3. You have a church like that in Palm Springs?
I don’t know.. probably. But he’s here on a two year “sabbatical” and can normally be found standing at his neighbor’s window in the UK.

4. So he’s openly gay? and an Archbishop?
YES, dagnabbit.. we covered that. Evidently that’s allowed in his church and he says he has women Bishops “under him,” which takes away from my snarky remark in #1 (since he’s not into women) and also shows that his church is just a tad more than liberal.

5. Why would an Archbishop, gay or not, walk around mostly naked?
We’re in Palm Springs and there’s a pool behind Phil that you can’t see because of my lousy web cam. It’s like a thousand degrees here during the summer, and he enjoys a refreshing  dip like anyone else. Also, he sometimes wears a black tunic and sometimes a red tunic, both with a clerical collar, but not in the pool, which would just be weird.

6. He lets you call him “Phil?”
No, he requested that I call him “Your Grace” but I think he reconsidered when I shot coffee out of my nose.

7. Does he like the music you play?
No, he calls it “The Devil’s Music” (I was playing an alt-rock playlist one day when he walked up, and that’s what he said.) I asked him how it is that he can have young men over to give them blow jobs but he finds my music to be morally reprehensible. Yes, I really did ask him that. I keep saying things like that to him, yet he keeps coming back. Honestly, I wouldn’t say that kind of thing to Taylor Swift.

If you have any more questions you may leave them in the comments below, but just keep in mind that I’m not a Phil expert because I don’t live with him or anything like that, and I don’t even know which apartment he’s in – although I think it’s the one on the left. THE FAR LEFT.

It probably goes without saying that Archbishop Phil is an unusual guy, but in a way I’m glad he comes up to my window because I agree wholeheartedly with Nietzsche, who said, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” Yesterday morning, Phil came up to our window while we were still in bed sleeping, and with the blinds closed to within about 4 inches of the window sill, he shouted into our nice, quiet apartment, “Hey did you guys catch last night’s Jon Stewart?” He then proceeded to tell us about it, even though we hadn’t answered him.

I just turned 50 last month, so I need all the strength I can get.

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In 1984 I shared a San Diego duplex with a guy named Andy.

We had this thing going on where we’d let someone come and sack out on our sofa for a while until they could get back on their feet and man, we ended up with some oddballs. This was in conjunction with a local church -- we were listed as a “hospitality house,” so if anyone came along who’d been evicted or otherwise found themselves suddenly homeless then the church would give us a call.

One day they called about Brian. “He’s okay,” they said. “No criminal stuff, he’s just a guy who got kicked out of the apartment he shared with a roommate and he’s broke.. he’ll be sleeping in the park tonight if we can’t get him a sofa somewhere for a few nights until he gets paid again.”

Fair enough. I went to the church and picked him up. Nice guy. We got to talking..

“I have to be totally honest with you,” Brian said.

“I appreciate that, Brian.” I wasn’t sure what I was in for. Maybe he’d lied to the church counselor and really had just gotten out of prison. Maybe he’d just escaped from prison. Perhaps he was an alien visiting from the planet Xl9ppht (we actually had one of those.)

Maybe all of the above.

“Well, okay..” Brian took a deep breath. “You’ve seen Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ video?”

It was 1984.. so of course I had.

“Yeah Brian, it’s nineteen eighty-four.. of course I have.”

“Okay..” He took another, even deeper breath and dug his fingers into the car seat, as if expecting that I’d ram the car into a telephone pole upon hearing whatever news it was he was about to tell me about Michael Jackson’s Thriller video. By the way, in 1984 “telephone poles” were these wooden poles that they strung telephone wires on -- I understand they still have some in rural areas.

Brian continued.. “There’s this red jacket that Michael Jackson wore in the Thriller video and, uh.. I bought it.”

“You bought it? Whoa.. when we get to the house can I see it? That’s a cool jacket, man!”

He seemed relieved that we were still on the road and I hadn’t yet thrown anything or yelled. But perhaps I just didn’t get it yet. Truth is, I wasn’t sure what he was saying, so he explained further.

“No, I don’t have it yet.. I put down two hundred dollars on it. They’re holding it for me and I get it when I pay off the rest, which is another two hundred because it was four hundred all together.”

“Wait, you mean it’s not ‘the’ jacket he wore in the video? Because I’d think that would be worth a whole lot more than four hundred bucks.. maybe four thousand.”

Brian looked at me like I still wasn’t quite getting it. Which I wasn’t.

“No, it’s a replica.. but it’s genuine red leather and really good quality and I bought it..” he hesitated again, knowing full well I was about to get it once he spelled it out slowly and used simple words.. “I bought it using my half of the rent.”

I slowed the car down to a simmer.

“You mean, this is why your roommate kicked you out? You spent two hundred dollars on this jacket instead of paying rent?”

“Yeah, and you see, I’m being honest with you that I spent the two hundred, which is why I’m broke and don’t have a place to live and on top of that I need to pay the balance off when I get my next paycheck so I won’t be able to rent a room anywhere for a while. But Dave, I have to have that jacket. I HAVE TO.

Andy wasn’t going to like this. I once saw a kid about 15-years-old steal something out of my car and go into a 7/11 store. I just walked up to him and took it back without saying a word. Andy and I were at a laundromat and when I told him about it he wanted to go beat the kid senseless. I told him it didn’t matter and wouldn’t be worth the trouble because I had my item back and all was fine. I talked him out of it, but barely.

I was hesitant with Brian. “Man, we might just have to figure out something else to tell Andy.. he might throw you out when he hears this.”

“But honesty is the best policy, Dave.. I was upfront with my roommate, I was honest with you and I’m not going to lie to your roommate Andy.. I’m going to tell it like it is, no matter what.”

The guy was pretty strange, getting kicked out over a Michael Jackson jacket and risking losing the digs the church had painstakingly set him up with, but I had to credit him for his bravery -- he sure didn’t care what anyone thought of him.

Andy came close to throwing him out, as I knew he would, but there was something about the naive innocence of this guy that had us feeling like we’d rescued a weird, helpless  little puppy. A couple of weeks later he showed up after work triumphantly wearing his brand-new, genuine red leather Michael Jackson “Thriller” jacket and grinning as if the king of pop himself had walked up and flung the real thing over his shoulders. Then, just as he’d promised, he found a room to rent when his next payday rolled around, but we stayed in touch and stayed friends for a few years after that.

No matter what you may think of Brian, this story is more about the influence Michael Jackson had in 1984 and continues to have posthumously. I was never a fan, with the exception of “Billie Jean” because of that damned catchy beat. I’ve not spent a lot of time thinking about Michael over the years, except when anyone got to talking about him (which was often) or I heard something in the news (which was a lot) or one of his songs played on the radio (which was all of the time.) Then I’d think back to my helplessly weird little puppy-friend Brian, and that stupid jacket.

We’ve had our Rudy Vallees, our Frank Sinatras and Elvis Presleys over the years, and they’ve all had their Brians out there somewhere, who’d forfeit rent and sleep on a park bench for the opportunity to score some concert tickets, a signed eight by ten glossy or a replica of a jacket.

I don’t get that kind of maniacal fanaticism, but I don’t think I’m supposed to. Somehow it wasn’t meant for me, it was meant for the minions like Brian, and this week they mourn the loss of a god. As for me, I WAS going to say that I’m a bit sad someone else has passed away at too young an age, but I’ll get over it -- then I watched some of the videos and listened to a bit of the music, and I have to admit that it’s going to take me a bit longer to get over it than I thought.

Say what you will about MJ.. the guy could DANCE

The original Billie Jean music video (embedding disabled)

Additional note -- Okay, after a somewhat melancholy review of videos that I haven’t watched in years, I’m reminded of the sheer talent that his man had. Of course there’s the great THRILLER (complete with red jacket) but I’d completely forgotten about the raw energy and brilliance of THE WAY YOU MAKE ME FEEL.

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..we’ve finished moving.

It was a simple move this time, just from one unit to another in this old complex. But even when you live in a little studio that was once a motel room, you still forget how much stuff you have.

We still seem to have a lot.

I didn’t *think* we had a lot, but evidently we do. We used to REALLY have a lot.. an entire three-bedroom house full of junk.. but we scaled down. Thank God, or I think I’d be dead by now.

I carried and rolled it all over by myself while coffeesister, aka Dorian, sorted and put things away. I initially started carrying over an armload at a time but discovered that someone had left a shopping cart out by the dumpster, so hey.. my brilliant intellect told me that I should put things IN the shopping cart and make fewer trips.

So that’s what I did, finishing up late Wednesday evening. We now have a small studio full of stuff laying around every which way that coffeesister wants to sort and put away by herself because we all know that if I helped we’d end up with socks in the refrigerator.

As I write, she’s decided to take a well-earned break and watch Ghosthunters. Here’s a picture of it..

If that’s not enough for you and you need to witness this action-packed Ghosthunters viewing in action, here’s a video of it..

Sorry it’s not a better cam, but with this one you’re either going to see her laying there and the TV screen is a meaningless blob of light, or you’re going to see what’s on the TV screen and she would be in almost total darkness.

Logitech webcam -- $30.00 at Target.

I, after having returned the shopping cart to the dumpster area, am now sitting here goofing around online. Primarily with cam adjustments.

I think we need to upgrade.

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..over there.

So, I’m going to be offline for a bit. A day, a few days.. a week..

Who knows?

Keep an eye on things while I’m gone, eh?

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