Christmas Lethargy

Full disclosure—at this time of year, I completely don’t want to do anything.

It could be a leftover all of those years in school—why don’t adults get the breaks that kids do? Aren’t we supposed to be in charge? What kind of saps are we to be out working when our kids are vegging at home with their video games? Shouldn’t we reinvent child labor?

Right—so now you know my state of mind. What you may not know is that I’ve spent four hopeless hours looking for anything to write about. And what have I found?

Problems, dear Readers, with the Olympic torch, which according to The New York Times has gone out four dozen times and once had to relighted with a plastic disposable lighter, instead of the “official backup flame.” The story went on to say…

But perhaps the low point in what has seemed less like an Olympic torch relay than an exercise in ineptitude and misfortune came earlier this week when one of the runners carrying the torch to the Sochi Games had a fatal heart attack while attempting to walk his allotted distance, about 218 yards.

Right—that would be unfortunate, but given that fourteen thousand people are participating as torch bearers, little problems are bound to crop up.  Oh, and the torches…well, here more of The Times:

Russia’s torches were manufactured in Siberia at a reported cost of $6.4 million by KrasMash, which usually makes submarine-launched ballistic missiles. It is not everyone’s favorite just now, but it cannot be sent to Siberia, because it is already in Siberia.

“Any normal person will have at least a few questions,” Mikhail Starshinov, a member of Russia’s parliament, was quoted saying in October by The Moscow Times, in an article titled “Veteran Bobsledder Set Alight by Faulty Olympic Torch.” “Why were 16,000 produced? How much does each torch cost, and is this price appropriate? And finally, why don’t they work?”

Reasonable questions that anyone might have—but can I make a post of it? Combine it with some other story about the Olympics? I drift over to the New Day, which has an interesting story coming—as they so often do—right out of a Walmart Supercenter. Because it turns out that somewhere in Broward County, Florida, a Walmart employee shot up a coworker’s car. Why? Because she got awarded Associate of the Month, and not he. Here’s the info:

"Definitivamente parece inusual que alguien pueda estar furioso hasta el punto que puede dispararle al vehículo de alguien solo porque esa persona recibió un premio", dijo Keyla Concepción vocera del alguacil. "Obviamente sintió que era injusto que ella recibiera este premio", agregó.

(“Definitely it appears unusual that somebody could be furious to the point that he could fire at the vehicle of that person just because she had received an award,” said Keyla Concepción, spokesperson of the marshal. “Obviously he felt that it was unjust that she received the award,” she added.)

Well, something to know. News flash—the guy, Willie Mitchell, is available to any of you employers out there!

(One wants to know—does he still have his gun? And was he packing in the store?)

Right—and from there I read that Ricky Martin has no plans to marry, but if he did, he’d do it in Spain. Well, that seemed like something I should know about and who, by the way, gets to be Ricky’s boyfriend? Is there an interview, a competency exam, a competition? If so, I’m screwed because beyond being married myself (and famously faithful to Mr. Fernández), here’s Rick and Carlos together:

Wow! And what this proves, Dear Reader, is that seriously rich and beautiful people very easily hang out with…

Not worth finishing that sentence!

Right, so what about Yahoo? Anything there?

Well, I can tell you that the archbishop of Minneapolis, John Nienstedt, announced that he won’t be ministering publically until he’s cleared of charges of putting his hand on a boy’s bottom during a photo shoot after a confirmation four years ago. But Nienstedt  says he always puts his hands in specific places. So who knows?

Right, then it was time to take the religion quiz, since I had to prove that I, an atheist, was more knowledgeable about religion. And guess what? I got a 92—which I’m calling an A—and the average is 85.

OK—it’s clear. It’s now 2 PM, I’ve wasted four hours and produced nothing, which is not good because what am I gonna tell my shrink tomorrow, when he asks—as he always does—how much time I’ve spent vegetating? It’s one of the signs of depression.

Right—fallback. Check out the stuff I’ve sent myself during my middle of the night munchies run. And there I came upon Noah, who I remembered dimly from 3:52 AM (when I sent it to myself).

OK—829 words! I’m outta here!

Big Deal

I know the official line, which goes as follows: you don’t out anybody unless they’re advocating against gay rights.

So that means that even though you know Senator Smith (you do know that’s made up, don’t you?) is as queer as a three-dollar bill, and you have the photos to prove it, you keep it quiet. But the moment he bangs the drum for family values and the sanctity of marriage? National Enquirer!

I also think that the progress on LGBT issues made in my lifetime has been remarkable. I’ve gone from being sick / disgusting / going-to-hell to being legally married (at least in Massachusetts) and ho-hum-what-did-you-say-oh-you’re-gay?

And the reason for that change?

I wrote a letter to my brothers. I told them I was gay. They took it as they did—one brother easily, another with more difficulty. But the point is that I did it.

So did a lot of people. So much so that gay characters appeared on sit-coms. It became trendy to have a gay friend. And now we’ve got a president who appears at gay events and speaks out for marriage equality.

I did that. Along, of course, with a hell of a lot of other people….

It wasn’t particularly easy. I remember the real fear that I would crush my parents. Jack had a bad heart, the family legend said; he went to the army to enlist in World War II and flunked his physical. Then went to the Mayo Clinic to get evaluated. So would he get up and have a heart attack if I told him? And how can I tell Mom without telling Dad? How is she supposed to go on, with this big secret between them?

So it took courage, for me and all of the rest of us to do what we did. And face it, there were some people who got told, “don’t come home again—not until you’ve changed.” Just as there are parents even today sending their kids off to therapists and programs “designed” to change sexual orientation.

All of this is leading up to Ricky Martin, who tweeted congratulations yesterday to Jodie Foster for being open about her twenty-year relationship with another woman. “This is your moment,” he said. And went on to say that we all do it at our own rate.

And here is where I get stuck.

“How’s Raf,” said Pete, a neighbor of my mother’s.

Pete is an absolutely completely normal Wisconsin guy. He’s got a business installing gutters. He owns guns, goes hunting, drinks beer, drives a truck. You could call him a redneck, but find me the redneck who completely gets that I’m gay, and congratulates me matter-of-factly when I get married.

OK—would he be that way if Franny hadn’t completely accepted, and spoke openly about my homosexuality? Would my cousin’s wife—the one who speaks to the Lord every day—be chatting with Raf at Franny’s memorial service? Everybody who comes out invites other people to come out, too, and news flash—straight people can be in the closet too. Because if you’re straight and think gay people are going to hell or sick or whatever, you’re in the closet.

The irony of it is that once you’ve done it, the rumors, the suspicions, the dark speculations go away. How many trees died because the tabloids spent twenty years luridly hinting—change that to screaming—that Ricky was gay? Or reporting that a man had been seen entering his home late at night? Or that he was seen on a Caribbean beach with a bunch of guys?

So I don’t know. Ricky doesn’t have to tell everybody the details of what he does in bed. But I wonder—does a public figure have an obligation to speak out, or at least acknowledge he’s gay when asked? Right—he’s a singer / performer, not a sexologist. Why should it matter?

I think Jeanne Manford, the founder of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) would have the answer. Everybody has to come out: the rich and famous; the poor and unknown; prominent or insignificant. Scratch that—nobody is insignificant.

And that’s the point.

She was just a schoolteacher at PS 32 in Queens when she walked down the street in Greenwich Village that summer day in 1972. She was carrying a handmade sign. It was just another day in her life.

No big deal.

Wrong—it was.

Death of a Puppet

We won’t know if it’s a game changer until, well, we see the game change. But it’s looking very much like one.

Readers of this blog in the continental US will know that there is—sorry, that’s was—a character on local TV called La Comay. And La Comay—who in real life was a guy but who donned female clothing and a big foam head, atop of which was an awful wig—dished up just the kind of stew we all love: racy, gossipy, no-holds-barred and take-no-prisoners.

OK—not all of us. Neither Mr. Fernández nor I ever watched the program. My old boss Ofelia actively unwatched the program once in a doctor’s office. The show was on, the dish was flowing, the patients / viewers were sniggering. So Ofelia strode to the head of the room, stood in front of the television, announced that she was sure of the good taste and genteel sensibilities of everyone present, and knew that they must be offended by the program. Therefore she would take the liberty of turning it off. She did, and the room became one of the quietest places ever heard in Puerto Rico.

There was pretty much nowhere she didn’t go, La Comay. A student who had been a news anchor on another television channel once told me that in the middle of a painful divorce, she didn’t need La Comay commenting on her marital problems for all of Puerto Rico—and Orlando, New York, Chicago—to hear. She was having trouble enough.

Readers will also know that La Comay strolled into what was a particularly grisly murder and made insinuations. What was the victim doing on a certain street at night? Did he know his assailants? Wasn’t the street rife with male and female prostitution?

In short, she got right up to if not quite over the cliff of he-had-it-coming.

Standard stuff.

What was unusual was the reaction. Seemingly with the speed of toadstools cropping up after a rain, Ricky Martin and a host of other celebrities were holding signs saying “Todos somos Jose Enrique.” Then a boycott of the show was announced. Facebook and Twitter went onto overdrive.

Corporate sponsors left the show in droves. Here’s a little list:

Triple-S, Coca-Cola, Ford, Chevrolet, WalMart, AT&T, Sprint, Goodyear, Harris Paint, SC Johnson, Dish Puerto Rico, Claro, Kress, Lanco, Borden, Red ATH, Vanilla Gift Card, Enfamil, Ashley Furniture Store, Aqua Fresh, Carolina Herrera, Mon Cheri, Radio Isla 1320, Lenel Restaurant, Designer Shoe Warehouse, ICPR Junior College, PMC Medicare Choice, MMM, Kia, Burlington Coat Factory, MAPFRE, Goya, Corona Extra, Welch’s, Cold Stone Creamery, Plaza del Caribe, Gillette, Hellmann’s, Mayagüez Resort & Casino, Palo Viejo, Asociación de Productos de Puerto Rico y St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital.

Well, money talks, but also on occasion screams. The manager of the TV station demanded that the program stop being recorded live, but pre-recorded and—presumably—vetted. La Comay said forget it, and walked.

All of this is surprising. More surprising is that the nemesis of La Comay, who is looking very much like the victor here, is a gay activist born on the island and living currently in New York. Nor did he start the battle recently—he had declared it in 2006, when he said “su más grande castigo, como homofóbico que es, que sea un hombre abierta y orgullosamente gay el que ayude a sacarlo de la televisión”. (Roughly, “his biggest punishment, given the homophobe he is, would be for an openly and proudly gay person to help take him off television.”)

The activist is Pedro Julio Serrano, born in Ponce, raised in Isla Verde, and now the director of communications for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. We are not in Puerto Rico by any means the most macho of Latin countries. But we are a Latin country. And for a gay guy to spearhead the movement to topple an icon—however disagreeable—like La Comay?

Major.

Pedro Julio Serrano (left), with his fiancé, Steven

Moral Proximity

I came upon it by accident, as I do most things, by trawling through the ever-more-depressing news in search of something to write about. So here it is: 60,000 young Christians from around the world held candles in the Atlanta night and pledged to fight against slavery.

They did more—they put up a bunch of cash by using tablet computers; last year they raised three-and-a-half million dollars.

I’ve written about this before. There is a building in my neighborhood with a Chinese restaurant on the first floor. The upper floors are rooms for rent.

Or are they?

“It’s a whorehouse for Asian guys who work the cruise ships.”

Words a co-worker spoke fifteen years ago.

Was it true?

It was strange, those mornings at five when I was heading for the bus to take to work, that there was frequently loud music coming from the upper floors of the building. Oh, and that the door to those floors which was always closed during the day was flung open. And certainly most houses in Puerto Rico have rejas (security bars or burglar proofing). But almost always they're on the outside, this one appears to have the bars on the inside. Odd, too, that the restaurant on the first floor is so often empty.

Five or six odd things. Which may mean nothing. Or it may mean that there’s a whorehouse in my neighborhood.

In the days when I was walking past the open door to the staircase to the upper floors with the blasting music, I wasn’t alive. I was middle management working at Wal-Mart, a circumstance so extraordinary I still can’t believe I did it. Somebody else had to deal with the world, I was dealing with Wal-Mart.

Now I have time. So I took an hour to read the report from 2010 that the Ricky Martin Foundation sponsored on human trafficking in Puerto Rico.

There is human trafficking here, as opposed to human smuggling. The difference? You’re a Dominican guy who has saved up the thousands of dollars that you will pay a guy with a yola (a small and probably leaking boat) to take you across the deepest and sharkiest (exists now, computer!) waters of the Atlantic to Puerto Rico. Once there, or rather if there, you’re done. Transaction’s finished.

That’s human smuggling.

Now then, you’re a Dominican woman and a Puerto Rican guy meets you at the resort where you’re changing the sheets and cleaning the toilets and he’s got money and you fall in love. And he takes you to Puerto Rico and you wake up in a room and you’re naked and bruised and he’s nowhere in sight. Oh, and he has your passport. And also the key to the lock on the door.

See the difference?

What isn’t known is how much and what kind. But some facts leapt off the screen. Puerto Rico. Starting, for example, on page 1:

 Although specific statistics on cases of human trafficking in Puerto Rico do not exist, the high number of minors living in “upbringing” (crianza) or foster homes (close to 9,000), the nearly half of all families (48 percent) living in poverty and the high levels of immigration to the Island, taken together with gender discrimination, suggest the high potential for trafficking and exploitation in Puerto Rico. These factors, among others, contribute to Puerto Rico’s status as the third highest country in Latin America in which social inequality is most evident, preceded only by Paraguay and Brazil (El Nuevo Día, Nov. 12, 2009).

       1 The terms “human trafficking” and “trafficking in persons” will be used interchangeably throughout the document.2

Wow! But then there’s the statement of a police chief, “fathers having sex with their daughters is a cultural pattern in the rural, mountainous areas.”

Or how about the report on the Dupont Plaza Hotel? Remember that fire, and all those people on the roof, and the helicopter rescues? Well, somebody had to go in there and find all the belongings and give them back to the owners, if possible.

What they found was shocking.

“They found everything, from substantial amounts of money—up to $40,000—to pornographic photos, especially of men having sex with minors. This was in approximately 20 rooms” (Interview with a police officer in Puerto Rico, 2008).  

Right. I’ve read the report. I can give money. I can raise my voice and light a candle and feel good.

What can’t I do?

Get a bunch of people together and march up the stairs of a building in Old San Juan and figure out just what the hell is going on.

No todos

Well, it’s another dog-bites-man moment—I’m left standing alone, watching the crowd race by.

I wrote yesterday about a man who—assuming the reports are correct—had a secret or two. That led him to some people who dispatched him to his death, in a particularly gory and violent way. All for 400 bucks, which he had withdrawn and given them.

Into this picture steps a well-known—if not particularly well-loved—figure in Puerto Rico, and in this blog. La Comay! Yes, the guy who dresses as a woman and says absolutely-to-the-point-of-slanderous things about anybody.

Well, Jack got after me and forced me to sit through the whole thing. Yes—10 minutes of La Comay, which will last me well into my next life.

Really, it was only seven minutes of content. The other three minutes? The phrase aparente y alegadamente—apparently and allegedly. A useful phrase indeed, for La Comay got taken to court years ago, and lost in a highly publicized case.

Besides giving a possible bit of legal protection, the phrase gives the impression of impartiality. Quite needed, because La Comay then dishes up whatever rumor has come to his ears. And since we’ve heard aparente y alegadamente 333 times already—and tuned it out—the phrase does nothing more than announce the coming of a new, more scandalous tidbit.

Right—so what’s La Comay’s version?

José Enrique Gómez—finally to give the gentleman his name—phoned his wife to say that he was leaving a work event at a San Juan hotel, was going to go eat something, and would then come home.

La Comay says no. He was twenty miles away, in the city of Caguas, on a perfectly nice street in the center of town.

Nice during the day.

But, alleges and apparents (nooooo, computer, it’s just a new word! You should be happy!) La Comay, the street is a cesspool of vice—drugs, prostitution, homosexuality! (A fact La Comay never misses an opportunity to insert….) La Comay alleges that José Enrique knew a couple, had had some connection with them, and that because of that, owed them money.  He invites them into his car. Another couple join them. There are four assailants and José Enrique. They force him to go to an automatic teller, and he withdraws 400$. They go to a gas station and buy a container of gas. They then beat him, douse him with gasoline, and set him on fire.

La Comay, taking a high-minded stance, says that all of Puerto Rico is consternated—consternado, or in turmoil! Can we use the ATHs—our version of ATM? Is anybody safe?

Yeah, says La Comay. At least if you’re not on Calle Padial in Caguas after dark inviting a shady couple into your car.

Well, others think differently. Here’s one:

The social networks exploded. A campaign to boycott the sponsors of the television program sprang up. Several companies have already pulled their ads.

In addition, a campaign Todos Somos José Enrique was created. We’re all José Enrique—even Ricky Martin!

Yeah?

I thought the most recent remaking of Ricky was the scenario of a guy raising kids with another guy.

Nor does it help that The New Day, our local rag, corroborates some of the details. The suspects—three of them are in custody—paint essentially the same picture as La Comay.

And it all leads to a moral conundrum—for me, at least.

Let me put it this way.

I don’t walk through La Perla—our famous or infamous San Juan slum. I don’t rack up huge cocaine bills.

And—assuming it’s true—I wouldn’t be on Calle Padial after dark.

Actually, I wouldn’t even know that I shouldn’t be.

I can go 95% of the way with the crowd who decry the tawdriness, the tackiness of La Comay.

Whom I don’t watch.

I’m holding back on saying that we’re all José Enrique. 

Chastity of the Ears

Morning radio—it’s a thing in Puerto Rico. Yes, everywhere else has it, but we do it with a special zest, a Latin flare; we’re liberal in the use of absurdity and silliness, scandal and gossip.

And virtually no one can resist it.

Not even Mr. Fernández, who normally is even less prone to swimming with the current than I. At 6:30 in the morning, the clock radio will startle me into life, and neither willy nor nilly will keep me from listening.

Today, according to CNN, the world’s eyes are on Cairo, and the president, Mr. Morsi. Well, news to me, but son of a newspaper guy am I. I did my best, and read two thirds of the article.

Right—and what is Puerto Rico occupying itself with today?

The morning radio gave me the first clues. Prostitución. La Prieta—the dark (female) one. Rubencito.

OK—what’s The New Day, our number one newspaper, serving up today? Escalofriantes Detalles reads the front page of the print edition. Chilling details.

A man disappeared last Thursday. His family was distraught. The press gave the matter a lot of attention, perhaps because he was a publicist, and thus presumably known to journalists. His body was discovered two days ago—and now the story is out.

Well, the family is now facing two deaths. The first being the publicist himself.

The second?

Their image of him.

If the accounts are true, he had a little secret. And no, you won’t find it here.

I believe in the public’s right to know. I think it’s very important, in fact, to know who won the bid to build the highway, at what cost, under what circumstances. I want the press monitoring how the elections are held, what the votes are, and what the shenanigans are.

What I don’t get is why I have to participate in the shredding, posthumously, of a man’s reputation. Or why I have a right to know sordid details that must be agonizing to a family already decimated.

Confession—I read the article. Not the two thirds that I gave to Cairo and Mr. Morsi, but the entire article. The details of which I am—high-mindedly—denying you!

Nor can I be very proud of the fact that I never once was tempted to look at Kate Middleton’s you-know-whats. Pretty easy temptation to avoid. But the day Mr. Fernández announced, “Hey, here’s a picture of Ricky Martin nude?”

Well, I violated then what I violated today—chastity of the eyes. Which I remembered from my days of reading about religious orders. Nuns, in the old days, were told to walk with their eyes cast downwards. Temptation was everywhere.

Also, of course, it was self-discipline. The will was exerting itself, taking control of the body.

It may also have been respect. There are some things I shouldn’t, and therefore don’t, see. It’s enough that your life has been maimed. I won’t pry into the shameful reasons for it.

Of course, the issue for me is chastity of the ears. A man with better control than I would rouse himself at the first mention of prostitution, stride to the cold shower, mortify the flesh. Not lie under the warm and prurient covers….

And is it only I, or does anyone else think that it’s far more easy to practice chastity of the eyes than chastity of the ears? Somehow, you have less control over what you hear than what you see.

Or maybe not. Try googling chastity of the ears and you’ll get surprising little. The first citation is from a Father Hardon (and speaking of which—is there chastity of humor?), who tosses the term off with no discussion. Three or four citations down, you come to this, from Morning Talks, October 30, 1967:

Out of the five outgoing faculties of eyes, ears, nose, touch and taste, three are most powerful. Lust attacks us eighty percent through the eyes, fourteen percent through the ears and the remaining six percent mainly through touch.  

Well, now, that’s an interesting fact to know.

If true.

Which I doubt. I’d argue that there are visual guys, tactile guys, aural guys.  I could and did go to bed with wildly divergent guys, visually speaking. Didn’t matter to me, in those long-gone days.

I could never go to bed with a guy who had an unpleasant voice. 

Well, if I’ve sinned, I must do penance. Here taking the form of an utterly silly cat video.

Enjoy!

Junk Mail

It must have been the weakness brought on by two days of non-stop diarrhea. Otherwise, who can explain it?

Why would I buy a book about RickyMartin? 

It was something about Jack, I recall—he used to do this weird stuff. I can still remember the letters from Westinghouse and the funny little corporate trademark they had. And whatever happened to Westinghouse? Where’d they go off to?

Well, things are appearing and disappearing in a strange way, lately. Starting with Sonia—sorry, she’s not a thing, I know that. But there she was, big as life on my morning walk, looking at me as if she’d seen a ghost. 

Maybe she had….

So we agreed that we had to talk.

That we did yesterday, after I had been rescued from Rock River (Río Piedras) by an angel (Ángel) who took me home. In his BMW. 

No, not for what the iguanas do so well. This is a respectable household, sex toys on the carpet notwithstanding….

And he didn’t rescue me from the river, although in a sense he did. It was pretty much a river—just flowing down, not sideways. It was a water zero (aguacero).

Now where was I?     

Oh—Sonia, whom I met with Nicky, yesterday. And the curious news that Whitney Houston is dead. Wow, I said—that terrible voice has been stilled! News to me!

“Whitney Houston is dead,” I remarked to Sonia.

“Yeah, two months ago….”

Oh.

Well, no stranger than learning from Cousin Ruthie from Minnesota but in Chicago (and at the Drake Hotel, no less!) that Romney had won the Puerto Rico primary. We don’t actually vote for president, but we do go to the convention. Well, why not? It’s a party—in several senses of the word—and we do parties well down here. 

OK, I was struggling to hold up my end of the conversation with Cousin Ruthie, but I was able to keep up by mentioning that Rick Santorum was, apparently, a family man, a Christian, a believer in tradi….

“A lizard!” said Ruthie.

Oh. They hadn’t mentioned—or boomed—that.

Or maybe they had.

OK—so Whitney Houston has gone the way of Westinghouse, apparently—or maybe they’re both still going strong. I don’t know.

I do know that I started out talking about Ricky Martin….

And that there’s a book entitled I (yo) in Spanish and the same book entitled Me (me) in English. Written in English—I did check this—by a Puerto Rican (Martin, or Martín) living in Gringolandia to be read by me, a gringo living in Puerto Rico.  

Oh yes, and I had bought the book because I really thought that I should get going. Stir about. Get moving on this failure project, because really, it seems the right thing to do.

Jack would do it.

So Jack wrote to Westinghouse—shouldn’t I write to Ricky? But what would I say?

That’s why I bought the book.

Gotta find out something about the man….

Well, I learned that at Wal-Mart—direct marketing.

And it started out well enough, for Ricky, it seems, is completely in tune with and connected to his fans through…

Twitter.

WHAT!

No. 

I mean, NO!

I am not gonna join Twitter and tweet to Ricky. And hope that he tweets, or twitters, back. It’s gonna be a letter.

But what to say?

Well, here goes….

Dear Ricky,

First an apology. For years, you were the butt of a joke between Raf and me at 12:01 AM on the first day of the January.

We’d gulp the twelve grapes, down the champagne, and then say, soulfully…

“and may this be the year that Ricky finally meets the girl of his dreams!”

That was snide.

I’m sorry.

We do it all at our own rate.

And curiously, our lives seem to be running parallel, but on different tracks.

And in opposite directions.

I’m a classical musician, you’re a pop star.

You’re famous, I’m not.

You’ve written a book about me (yo) and I’ve written a blook—apparently—about my mother.

You’re interested in giving better lives to third-world kids.

I’m interested in giving better deaths to ancients (ancianos).

So that’s why I wrote the blook, and that’s why I need your help.

Your voice is louder than mine….or at least carries farther.

We have, Ricky, you and I (not me) only one year—actually now nine months—to get the word out.

You can cheat the nursing home.

You can slip away from the party, go home, and die in your own bed—all quite legally, morally and comfortably (more or less).

Ricky—read my blook, as I have not read yours.

Who knows anything about me?

Sincerely,

Marc Newhouse

Jack woulda done it better….