Columbia Gas Screwing Their Way to China???

This is a deserted well in Canada, found simply by doing a search... There are probably many still out there across the world...

Now this does look like what  I had on my property a year or so ago... remember?

Then some VP attorney of Columbia Gas wr0te and said the gas well equipment was being removed...

OK, you may have wondered what happened and I've debated on writing anything more, but bright and early this morning, two young m,en from a brand new company--contracted by Columbia Gas, came on my property to check that well...

Well, I could say enough is enough...but, this time, I am ROFL...

Can you believe this company is supposedly a forefront runner for our energy future...and they are spending money trying to catch up with an inventory of equipment that they obviously still have no control of...

You may recall that the property had a gas well when I moved in and it provided, in accordance with the legal agreement, gas for the home on the property and then the rest on to the Gas Company... As you know, new regulations came out regarding the type of equipment...no, you probably didn't know that, just like I didn't, but somebody somewhere must have said, let's screw the customer, once again, and deny the rights of these originally approved agreements.

So we got a lawyer, while the daughter of the family who had the agreement and I got all information together, got a local lawyer who supposedly was the expert iin the county, provided him with more documentation than he could ever use and waited....

He did not notify me that Columbia was proceeding...

The equipment was taken out without my knowledge and when I tried to stop them, it was too late. I then tried to buy the equipment and put it back...The men here called and were told no...Later I confirmed that it was thrown away (no, I don't think it was deleted from a formal inventory). We got a letter from our attorney almost a year later, but definitely after I'd been without gas for heating, cooking, clothes, washing! And, contrary to all that he originally told us he would do, we could find no evidence that he had contacted anybody...My personal opinion was that he was paid off--or else he was just totally incompetent.

Have to admit I had a major setback with depression when I was left without even the ability to heat water for a cup of tea.... Then I've been snowed in all winter... so I'm having health issues that I'm now having to deal with...can't get my books read as fast due to medication knocking me out... Keep visiting though and I'll try to get back to my norm... Besides well over $5000!!!

Well, we got a new lawyer...I purchased the equipment specified...notify appropriate digging agencies, and had a final inspection all by Columbia Gas... yes, the same company that has now hired still another company to check...Guess they didn't trust their employees, inspectors, etc...????

Now I read the statement on the instructions for the guys this morning and filled them in...then directed them to see MY equipment...they left soon thereafter...

Now there's lots more I could explain but why bother. Large corporations have no idea what is going on in daily operations...and if they lose track? Well, just hire another contractor to verify whether I'm stealing gas from "them..." whoever them is at any given time...

What I know is that most of the people all over the world are sick and tired of getting screwed over and over by large companies and know that the future of America lies in corporate incompetency... You know, we, the people, of the United States--yes, just we ordinary people are smart enough to see how badly corporations are damaging our lives...

But, if I were a betting person, which I'm not, I'm figuring this isn't over...


  

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The Medici Boy by John L'Heureux - Brilliant Novel Spotlighting Donato di Niccolo di Betto Bardi (Donatello) Out in Hardback Tomorrow!

Inside view of Battistero di San Giovanni
 Church in Florence, Italy. Funeral
 monument of the pope, then antipope
, John XXIII (1410-1419), made by
 Donatello and Michelozzo; Baptistry,
Florence, Italy. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

~~~

Michelozzo

I had failed with Father Saint Francis and in different way with Cenntino and Ghiberti and I was sick with desire for Alessandra, who alone did not hold me a failure. But I would not see her until Sunday and today was Wednesday and rejected and shamed, I was now about to meet the great Donato di Betto Bardi, called Donatello, orafo e scharpellatore, goldsmith and stone carver.

He stood before a clay armature, looking from the comely wax head he was modeling tgo the model himself who sat in front of him on a little platform, anxious and uncomfortable. This was to be the head of Louis of Tolosa, the boy saint who gave up his kingdom to become a Franciscan mendicant.

Donatello

"We won't disturb him while he's working," Michelozzo said.

Michelozzo was of course Michele di Bartolomeo, Donato's chief assistant, who stood with me while I waited to be presented to my new master. I felt like a dwarf beside him. He was broad and tall, with huge rough hands, and so heavily muscled that his evident strength was the first thing you noticed about him. It was for reason of his size they called him Michelozzo: Big Michele, a gentle giant. The second thing you noticed was the warmth of his eyes. They were gray, going on blue, and they looked kindly on whatever they saw.

~~~

This book was sponsored by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial foundation with a generous grant that allowed the author to conduct research background. It includes extensive historical background on the artisans that were alive at the time The Medici Boy was created. By presenting the material as literary fiction, L'Heureux successfully takes readers back into the Renaissance world of art, he brings in the power of politics, but also the sexuality of the time and especially within the communities... The author shared in an ending note that it was clear to him, as it will be to most individuals who might compare the Davids by Michelangelo and Donatello, that there is a distinctly erotic flavor to that by Donatello. I chose to emphasize this as an expression of today's continued, constant discourse on the issue of homosexuality.  Most of would recognize that the "Sodom and Gomorrah" story first placed the issue of same-sex choices as a religious issue. The official word used at that time is thus part of this novel. For purposes of my review, I'm choosing to use "Gay" as that used by today's world.

The Medici Boy

By John L."Heureux

I found this a sad story from the point of gay love. It appeared that Donatello did indeed fall in love with the model for this statue. It is truly beautiful--more in appreciation of the model as opposed to the demeanor of the original David. The author tries a number of intriguing attempts to ensure that there was a feeling of what was actually happening--the murder of Goliath by David, as guided by God--but none of those efforts seemed to change the obvious provocative poses taken by the model, and the failure of Donatello to hide his own passion. The novel excitingly complements in narrative form what we ourselves see in the finished product. We cannot help but be impressed by the story created so accurately to illustratively define his work on this particular piece... because the erotic, almost exhibitionist poses, are not found from other works on this genius... which I'm including for some of the works also mentioned in the book.

In an interesting approach, the author does not really even get into homosexuality. Rather, it is seen as the needs and early play of boys, which will, at some time in life, be put away so that the man will marry and begin his family. I am sure there were men, however, such as Donatello, who never married, just as there were men who married who seemed to prefer the homosexual life. 

Cosimo de' Medici

The patron who had requested Donatello's David seemed to me to be written that way...since he had commissioned the statue with the boy model and then when finished, drew his hand across the backside of the model...

And so was, too, the narrator of the story...

We began with David's hat. It was
fired in the oven, the wax was drained
out,, and then...

But I would not lie down in his
little room. I would not stay and
listen to the loving words passed
back and forth...

It was the time of the Black Pest and Luca lost family so that he ultimately was living with a family who were dyers. Unfortunately, this arrangement ultimately led to the destruction of Luca's life, as it had been once he had left that home, since it was a son of that family, Agnolo, who became the artist model...

Ahhhh, but, it was the Kiss...a friendly kiss by Donatello of Luca, that really, in my opinion, started it all. For it was on that day that Luca admitted to himself what he felt he now was... I tend to feel that his love was more that of hero worship, but that's just my personal  opinion because thereafter nothing happened between the two, although Luca did once bring it up with Donatello only to be kindly rebuffed...with the explanation of who he would love for all his life...

Cosimo was not only rich but a very important leader in Florence although he had no formal title. Still, it was the head of another rich family who made it a political issue when he started speaking and then acting out against Cosimo. Cosimo is written to be extremely intelligent, shown through his accomplishments, but from the artisans life, he was the supporter that kept many, if not most of them working! Thus Donatello and his work group was prey for the potential chance of using them to disgrace Cosimo in some way...

But if he was forced to leave his home in Florence, which he once was, Cosimo, who chose Michelozzo as his architect whenever available, would merely have new building facilities created and would then have Donatello and his friend/assistant Michelozzo begin working in that new area of Italy.

In telling the story from the perspective of Luca, we learn intimately about his life, his early escapades with women, which is most of the time why he doesn't succeed in any of his work! Perhaps wisely, it was Donatello who not only gave his permission but increased his wages in order to marry, as well as fund the wedding.  Donatello was as generous with his money as was his patron, Cosimo. Luca was not to be an artist, but he came to more and more take on the assistant work which had to be accomplished by Michelozzo, and thus freeing him to become full partner in that business.

But in telling the story from Luca's perspective--that of a man who had come to love his Master, we see his internal jealousy when he could not be an artisan, but worse, when Agnolo became the flirtation of his life as he walked back into Luca's life and seemed to negatively touch not only Donatello, but everybody else who worked there. He discovered that several others there had been with Agnolo and, for Luca, this was disloyalty toward his master, as well as painful to himself as he struggled with his personal jealousy that he was not able to intimately work with this great man. Heartbreak grew worse when Agnolo got involved with his wife and family...

During all that is personally going on, readers are able to become totally involved with the making of some of the greatest works done by Donatello... but it was The Medici Boy that had started a new period... 

My favorites from the book I think were of Mary Magdalen, and of the beautiful horse and rider first bronzed... as well as, of course, many religions icons commissioned by the churches and other magnificent facilities in Italy. It's an easy search to pull up full information on his fantastic works so I've not named each of those provided here... 

...At just this time I discovered that Agnolo's thoughts
inclined toward Caterina, and his thoughts--as
always--had led to action...
"I have spoken to her, firmly," Michelozzo said,
"and you must speak to Agnolo...

I knew this, I had heard it before, but now, alone with him in this freezing Bottega, it was as if Donatello had plunged a knife in my stomach and turned it.

"I know," I said, "You love him," We were silent for a long time and then I said, shyly, exploring, "Was there not a time when you felt the same for me?"

He looked at me, uncomprehending. Then he took a sip of wine and sat back and looked at me sadly. "Luca" he said, "Not in that way. Never in that way."

"And yet you kissed me." I spoke coldly and I was bitter in my mouth and in my heart...

...Donatello di Betto Bardi would bring the city everlasting fame with his great equestrian  bronze of Gattamelata...

"

Agnolo posed for him with a rare patience. He tired quickly and he had trouble breathing but he never complained. Nor did he object to being portrayed as ugly. Donatello had dressed him, as he imagined the Baptist would look, in a long ragged tunic, shredded at the bottom to resemble a tattered animal skin. About his shoulders he wore a rough scarf to shield him against the night cold. His legs and feet were bare. In his raised right hand he clutched a small reed cross and in his left he held a parchment scroll, His matted hair hung in clumps. There was no trace left of that beautiful youth of the Medici boy.

John the Baptist gradually emerged from the walnut trunk... 

He was at this time sixty-four years of age, a small man of immense strength of mind and body, and though his eyesight had begun to fail a litt,e his hands remained strong and certain and he could carve better in this his old age than most sculptors at the peak of their powers. Also he had chosen his assistants with care and wisdom. And he was happy.

He was happy because his work had gone well and because he was surrounded by artisans he loved and respected and because at his little house...were the men he most trusted, Pagno di Lapo and myself. There too was the great burden of his life, the other half of his soul, the unremitting source of his job and his grief, Agnolo Mattei, once the young bronze Medici boy and now a man well advanced in the process of decay... 

It was the sculpture of Mary Magdelene which was done
before the time when Agnolo did his last model work for
Donatello... It also was done later in life as was for Mary. That sculpture was placed in Donatello's private room at work rather than being placed for another commission... That was the beginning of the end of the book...and much more... I knew something dramatic would happen at the end, but I still did not expect what did. For in the end, passion did drive all of their lives... History lovers - a must-read...

Highly recommended for a biographic historical novel based upon living characters of the Renaissance!

GABixlerReviews

John L'Heureux has served on both sides of the writing desk: as staff editor and contributing editor for The Atlantic and as the author of sixteen books of poetry and fiction. His stories have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Esquire, Harper's, The New Yorker, and have frequently been anthologized in Best American Stories and Prize Stories: The O'Henry Awards. His experiences as editor and writer inform and direct his teaching of writing. Since 1973 he has taught fiction writing, the short story, and dramatic literature at Stanford. In 1981, he received the Dean's Award for Excellence in Teaching, and again in 1998. His recent publications include a collection of stories, Comedians, and the novels, The Handmaid of Desire, Having Everything, and The Miracle.

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• Book Review - The Medici Boy by John L'Heureux

Debbie Doesn't Do It Anymore by Walter Mosley Way Fun But Mostly Serious Stuff!

Debbie Doesn't Do It Anymore
Suicide sat next to me on the ride back from the beach. He was the same olive-skinned 
gentleman who was in the periphery when I had my orgasm...
~~~ 

 

There were two high-def video
cameramen working us: one moving
from face to face while the other
focused on our genitals...

I was reclining on my backside, thighs spread wide open. The smell of flower-
scented lubricant filled the air, and hot lights burned down on my sweat-slick black skin, Blubbery and pink-skinned Myron "Big Dick" Palmer was slamming his thing into me, saying, "Oh Baby. Yeah Baby. Daddy's coming home. He's almost there, almost there,"




Debbie Does't Do It Anymore

        Debbie Does't Do It Anymore

"More Passion! Linda Love, the director yelled.
She was talking to me...Luckily for me Myron's thing against
a sore spot deep inside. So when Linda called for more
feeling I stopped thinking about the details of the shoot and
began  to concentrate on how much he was hurting me with
his attempt to penetrate all the way back to
adolescence...
~~~

By Walter Mosley

Debbie Doesn't Do It Anymore "it's so embarrassing...What's so funny?"  
I don't mean to make fun, Deb, but it is kinda silly for a woman who's had sex with five men at once to be shy about an orgasm..."




Yes, you got it right, Debbie had an orgasm...

The next day her husband died...

Everybody has at least once heard the phrase, Debbie Does Dallas...most have never seen the movie however,.. Now Debbie Dare is not the porn star who did that particular series... but she is a well-known star of porn movies...you may have seen her... Her trademark look is beautiful ebony skin with a long white-blond hair, a special blue shining eye color and a circle tattoo on her cheek... Remember her now? Apparently lots of people she meets come up to talk to her and ask for her autograph...or more... Personally, I haven't seen her, but after reading this book, I do know her...

She's a lot like many, many girls that had to leave home because of the intolerable conditions there... She did street work originally until one day she happened to meet Theon Pinkney. Like you, at first I thought he was a pimp like so many others who look for girls who look lost and scared... In one way, Theon was much better--he was a male film star himself... And he really did come to love Deb and marry her...

I have great feeling for young girls who had been abused in some way as children yet make their way any way they can. Debbie was a professional porn star, just as many are drawn inro various situations where their bodies are what drives their activities.  Now, this is, in my mind, quite different from those who have chosen to enter these professions. That's why I enjoyed how Debbie acted when freedom hit her life... You Go, Girl! 

The fun part for me was the characrer Debbie. She took nothing from nobody, yet could speak as calmly as if she had no feelings of anger. I was impressed with the scenes between her and her mother-in-law who had never really spent time with them until after her son had died... The thing that amazed me was her experience, her feelings when, after many years, she had an orgasm on set and was extremely embarrassed that she was ruining the scene! A true professional...

But later readers discovered why it had so bothered her and then affected the decisions she made now that she was essentially free for a very long time. Another scene that was memorable was her going into a women's boutique to look at clothes and what happened there...

Nothing though prepared me for the ending! Even then, however, Debbie made me once again proud of her, just as her family were beginning to come around too... Debbie is a character I would like to meet again, but will she have a reason to come back?

Only Walter Mosley knows. I have always enjoyed the Easy Rawlins mystery series, but this book spoke to me as a woman speaks to herself, especially, and to other women...How did Walter Mosley know that? LOL Kudos on this one, Sir! Highly recommended!


GABixlerReviews

About the Author

WALTER MOSLEY is the author of forty-two books, most notably eleven Easy Rawlins mysteries, the first of which, Devil in a Blue Dress, was made into an acclaimed film starring Denzel Washington. Always Outnumbered was an HBO film starring Laurence Fishburne, adapted from his first Socrates Fortlow novel. A native of Los Angeles and a graduate of Goddard College, he holds an MFA from CCNY and lives in Brooklyn, New York. He is the winner of numerous awards, including an O. Henry Award, a Grammy Award, and PEN America's Lifetime Achievement Award. 

:

Read Mephistopheles 9:00 AM--Rhys! Dan O'Brien Provides Fun Satire!

English: Mephistopheles flying over
 Wittenberg, in a lithograph
 by Eugène Delacroix. Source Wikipedia)

Mephistopheles, also called Mephisto, familiar spirit of the Devil in late settings of the legend of Faust. It is probable that the name Mephistopheles was invented for the historical Faust by the anonymous author of the first Faustbuch (1587). A latecomer in the infernal hierarchy, Mephistopheles never became an integral part of the tradition of magic and demonology that predated him by thousands of years. He is mentioned only in the magic manuals attributed to Faust. He belongs essentially to literature. In Doctor Faustus (1604), by the English dramatist Christopher Marlowe, Mephistopheles achieves tragic grandeur as a fallen angel, torn between satanic pride and dark despair. In the drama Faust (Part I, 1808; Part II, 1832), by J.W. von Goethe, he is cold-hearted, cynical, and witty—perhaps a more subtle but certainly a slighter creation. At the end of Goethe’s drama, Faust’s soul escapes from Mephistopheles while he is making improper advances to the angels that have come to rescue it.

~~~

Note: If you're like me, you may not immediately have identified the patient meeting at 9:00 Mondays, so I've provided a little background... You may realize that this story is a little on the weird side, so this is my usual warning that if you don't do weird. please don't buy it...LOL 

Ahhh, most other reviewers don't allude to who the individual is; however, with the title, I did not see that it is a giveaway, even if I had to look it up and verify it... If you disagree, let me know, and I might even change everything!

“It sounds like you think people treat you like you were uneducated. That perhaps you are prone to your baser instincts. How does that make you feel?” “How does that make me feel? How do you think it makes me feel? Miserable. Like a troglodyte who can’t keep it in my pants. This is the merman problem all over again.”
“The merman problem?” Rhys waved his hands as if he were a conjurer. “Women want all these myths and fairy tales. A merman is half-man, half-fish. So either they got the right equipment and a fish head, or they got a human torso and fish parts, if you know what I mean.” “I’m afraid I don’t follow…”

“Perhaps you are generalizing a bit.
Not all women assume that a vampire
 equates to fantastical romance.”
“Find me one woman who loves vampires
 and doesn’t think they are those brooding
 and beautiful blokes with the spray-on abs.
The reality is quite a bit different.”
Rhys motioned with his hand to himself.
~~~

Rhys interrupted, becoming irritated for the first time during the session. “I’m undead . Not one of those drooling groaners, but not exactly going to be warming folks by a fire. Need a beating heart to work the equipment women are interested in.”

“This is my job, Rhys. I have to help you confront and move past the hurdles in your life so you can be a happy and productive member of society.” A brief pause grew between them. It became a staring contest with the loser bearing the impetus of the narrative. Rhys rolled his eyes and tucked his feet under the cushions.

“Very well. It all started when I was watching one of those shows again. The dialogue is atrocious. It is as if they write the exchanges how your kind wishes you spoke. No sense of cadence and intonation, just snarky. We are all tortured souls looking for love according to your melodramas.”

~~~

Mondays with Mephistopheles: 

 9:00 AM - Rhys

By Dan O'Brien

Abraham Rogers had become a psychologist for a variety of reasons, chief among them that he was uncomfortable with the rigidity of psychiatry as a profession and its propensity to solve psychological issues with pharmaceuticals. He had his clients call him Abe, as he felt the Doctor moniker was too heavy handed for his type of treatment. He fancied himself a proponent in a long line of humanistic psychologists who offered unconditional support--even to the extraordinary, more specifically, strange clients that he took on...

Now Rhys has apparently taken on the vampire form in his undead life. And I must admit I greatly sympathize with him! Some of you may even have seen me write a small rant somewhere or other lamenting the fact that vampires, in my mind, were supposed to be scary, a part of a horror movie--not someone for whom women would immediately swoon and fall for! Nevertheless, I could see how Rhys would become despondent seeing the many movies and books that are being written these days! I was beginning to think that every single female writer was going to be writing one, just to be in line with the popular topics! Yikes!

Your authors and artists have made metaphors
of our animal instincts, likening bloodletting
to sexual desire and eternal life to fear of death.
Your little stories are built as vehicles for your
idiosyncrasies, not ours.”
~~~

On the other hand, one of these types of beings once got Rosemary in trouble and it became so scandalous that a made a movie from the story!

So the more I thought about it, I thought that keeping the undead/
demons without equipment was a good thing!

Of course, that's just my personal opinion! LOL

Rhys saw his condition as a matter of fate, as opposed to the thousands of human women who had begun to fantasize about them to alleviate their boredom. Which is true, of course, but having Abe agree with him wouldn't really have changed things, do you think?

You see, the thing was that Rhys was riding the metro, and was picked up...specifically, he was asked if he wanted to leave with a woman, who during their early conversation asked if he was "in the life?"

Seems they went to a party where humans were dressed, ahhh, like this... (Learned about her from Perez Hilton)

Well, that's about as far as I can go into Rhys' counseling session without crossing the confidentiality issue, you know... So, if this looks like something that might interest you... check it out... I think if you're into Goth and all that it can entails, this might even be a must-read... You might come to learn that there are some undeads out in the world that would prefer you not become involved in "their" lives...

Actually, I thought it was a fun read...weird, but fun... unique, but fun... A great satire! Enjoy!


GABixlerReviews

Biography

Dan O'Brien has written over 20 books, including the bestselling Bitten, which was featured on Conversations Book Club's Top 100 novels of 2012. Before starting Amalgam, he was the senior editor and marketing director for an international magazine. In addition, he has spent over a decade in the publishing industry as a freelance editor. You can learn more about his literary and publishing consulting business by visiting his website at: www.amalgamconsulting.com. Contact him today to order copies of the book or have them stocked at your local bookstore. He can he reached by email at amalgamconsulting@gmail.com.

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