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Sex In San Diego: Internet Dating and That First Date

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By Veteran of First Dates

After my San Diego divorce in the early part of this century, and then after a few false-starts in dating other women, I finally set out to date with a more self-conscious awareness.

Being in my mid-fifties, it was not easy to meet people – not being a bar kind of guy -, and after exhausting friends of friends, friends of family, former girlfriends, going on one blind date, participating in one of those “quick dating” rounds at a restaurant, I came to realize that there must be better and more modern ways to meet women – and men – in this society.

And there is. It’s called internet dating.   [Read more…]

First Cuppa Coffee – April 12th, 2012 : Mental Health Edition

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Tennessee senate warns hand-holding is a ‘gateway sexual activity’…

Tennessee senators approved an update to the state’s abstinence-based sex education law that includes warnings against “gateway sexual activity.”

In a new family life instructions bill, holding hands and kissing could be considered gateways to sex.

Fox News plays whack-a-mole and Wins!… A few days ago the gossip mongers over at Gawker announced with much glee that they’d acquired a mole deep inside the Fox News operation who was gonna dish the real dirt about the fair and balanced folks. In the short space of a few days we learned about the restrooms at Fox, the Hip Hop BBQ story at Fox that pushed an earnest young journalist intro becoming The Mole and Sean Hannity’s love of teleprompters…and then…they caught him. The Mole was no more. He didn’t even have a chance to buy a snazzy costume! It turns out he was Joe Muto, an associate producer for the O’Reilly Factor. He was busted for leaving a digital trail as he brazenly downloaded stuff via his Fox News Commodore 64 computer. Alas, we had so many questions that will never be answered.. I couldn’t believe that the FIRST commenter at Gawker beat me to the punch: Hi Joe, can I be the first liberal to call you a douchebag?

Klan robes on aisle three… A study, published in Social Science Quarterly, found that the number of Wal-Mart stores was a better predictor of hate group participation than the unemployment rate, high crime rates and low education. Can we get a copy of this sent to City Council President Tony Young, who actually thinks Wal Mart is gonna live up to the promises they made last year about building a bunch of stores here in San Diego?   [Read more…]

First Cuppa Coffee – April 11, 2012: San Diego Drag Queens and Fat Cats Edition

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The University of San Diego has a real-life controversy on its hands… It’s not like the fake manufactured crises that its well-heeled financial backers like to generate… In better times they call them debates, institutes or forums, and spend copious amounts of cash on them hoping that the great policy conclusions that emerge will reflect positively on the University. This time around USD’s marvelously wealthy groupies are throwing cash at stopping something from happening at the school.

It seems as though USD Pride, a student organization, has organized a Drag Show on campus, wherein boys will dress up as girls and vice versa. It started out as a bit of harmless fun designed to heighten awareness, yada, yada, yada. Now thanks to an article on the California Catholic Daily website (owned by the Reader’s Jim Holman), the angry alumni are circling the wagons, passing out petitions and yearning for the good old days when men were men except when they dressed up as women to sneak into the San Diego College for Women (true fact). The minions at the Daily website are screaming about “Perversion at its highest level” and saying mean things like “USD stands for Undeniable Satanic Destruction”. The drag show will take place at the University Center, Forums B/C. 7 – 9 p.m. There is no cover charge.
  [Read more…]

The Crowd at the Ball Game

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Having emerged from the season opening series against the hated Dodgers with no beer or blood stains on my jersey, I thought a few observations on the nature of watching baseball were in order as we amble toward the sweet days of summer, win or lose.

In William Carlos Williams’s fine poem “The Crowd at the Ball Game” he notes the beauty, love, and menace of the crowd:

The crowd at the ball game
is moved uniformly
by a spirit of uselessness
which delights them —
all the exciting detail
of the chase
and the escape, the error
the flash of genius —
all to no end save beauty
the eternal –

So in detail they, the crowd,
are beautiful
for this
to be warned against
saluted and defied —
It is alive, venomous
it smiles grimly
its words cut —
The flashy female with
her mother, gets it —
The Jew gets it straight –
it is deadly, terrifying —

It is the Inquisition, the
Revolution   [Read more…]

First Cuppa Coffee – Monday, April 9, 2012: Get Smart Edition

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It’s Tax Time… One of the mainstays of contemporary Republican legends has to do with the terror of tax day. To hear them tell it—aided by the mainstream media more interested in sensational headlines than facts—millions of Americans are traumatized annually during April by the prospect of having to file their income taxes. Never mind the 50% of taxpayers that either receive refunds or owe nothing. Never mind that over 70% of all taxpayers file on-line these days. It’s Tax Terror Time! And that means it’s the season for the annual Tea Party Tax Protests, which didn’t start until taxes went down a bit and we had a Democrat in the White House who happened to be Black.

I’m sure we won’t see any Tea Party types out in front of SeaWorld this month protesting the big corporate fat cats who spend April worrying that the public will find out how they’ve managed to acquire all those government services for free. Like SeaWorld, for instance, with $380 million in earnings and ZERO dollars in Federal taxes for 2011. Oh, and for those you who are feeling warm and fuzzy about the fact that our Daily Fishwrap ran a story about SeaWorld’s bad citizenship, consider the fact that other newspapers around the country ran with this story last week.   [Read more…]

First Cuppa Coffee – April 6, 2012: Disgusting Wisdom Edition

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Speaking out against slavery… Come Saturday, the Radical Feminists of San Diego are putting together a mobilization in support of Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM) to demand the abolishment of human trafficking, the modern-day form of slavery. The event will start at noon on the southeast corner of 30th and El Cajon Blvd. They’ll march east ending at the south-side bus stop at the intersection of El Cajon Blvd and the Rt 15 on ramp where human rights advocates will speak out human trafficking.

The sneaky feminist plot… Phyllis Schlafly, the happy right wing warrior chiefly known for defeating the Equal Rights Amendment and hating gays (except her gay son) gave an exceptional speech to young military cadets at the Citadel, South Carolina’s boot camp for middle class crackers this week. She passed on some serious wisdom to our future military leaders, like: “Feminists are having a hard time being elected because they essentially are unlikable,” and “Find out if your girlfriend is a feminist before you get too far into it,” she said. “Some of them are pretty. They don’t all look like Bella Abzug.”   [Read more…]

Silencing the Drums – Continued attacks by Balboa Parks and Recreation threaten World Beat Center

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San Diego’s best known cultural center with a history of celebrating the cultural diversity of the region and the people who work there have become the targets of discrimination.

The World Beat Center needs our support. This prized venue of music, art, and creativity is at the center of San Diego’s Black, Hispanic, and Native American cultures. Located on the fringe of Balboa Park, the World Beat Center (WBC) is under increasing attack that has been described as systematic, “institutionalized racism”.   [Read more…]

First Cuppa Coffee – April 5th, 2012: Spring Bling Edition

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Part Deux, Kony 2012 hits the interwebs… Invisible Children, the makers of Kony2012, the video about a Ugandan tyrant that took the internet by storm just a few weeks ago were all set to release “Part 2” of their campaign earlier this week. But then it was mysteriously delayed until today. It’s out there now in the interwebs, and early reviews are saying that it is mostly an attempt to answer criticisms of the first video. Complaints about the original video included the assertion that Kony 2012 was too American-centric, that the group spends too little money directly on the people it intends to help, and that it oversimplified the 26-year-old conflict involving Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army. Noticeably missing in part two is the voice of the organization’s cofounder, Jason Russell, who was diagnosed with brief psychosis last month after witnesses saw him pacing naked on a sidewalk in a San Diego neighborhood, screaming incoherently and banging his fists on the pavement.

But wait! There’s more! Reports out of Washington DC are now painting a picture of Invisible Children that ties them financially and politically to the mysterious politico-evangelist group called The Fellowship (aka, the Family) which, among other things, has been credited with inspiring and providing “technical support” for Uganda’s internationally-denounced Anti Homosexuality Bill, also dubbed the “kill the gays” bill.   [Read more…]

Sex in San Diego: To porn or not to porn

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I’m a man in my 30s who enjoys porn. In contrast, most women I know seem to have no interest in porn.

Accordingly, I’m intrigued by how porn tends to be compelling to men but unappealing to women. Maybe it’s because, for men, so much of sex is about the physical details. Whereas for women, so much of sex is not about the physical details.

But porn does excite women — and it doesn’t matter what kind of porn. Studies show that straight men are turned on by straight porn, gay people by gay porn, and straight women by both straight porn and gay porn…   [Read more…]

Film “Bag It” Asks How Plastic Are You? Free Showing In OB

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Free Screening of “Bag It” at Indie Yoga April 7th at 7pm

Billions of plastic bags and bottles are used in the U.S. each year. Take a look around your own household, or check out the trash littering our streets and beaches.

The average American uses about 500 plastic bags each year and, according to estimates, each bag is only used for about twelve minutes before being discarded.

There’s no denying it. Plastics are everywhere! Most of what we eat and drink, and the products we purchase, are packaged and wrapped in petroleum plastic – a material designed to last forever, yet used for products that most people use once and throw away.   [Read more…]

Naked Ocean Beach Nighttime Swimmer Can’t Find Clothes, Goes Home – Sets Off 2 Hour Rescue Search

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What a story! Apparently, an Ocean Beach woman with friends went swimming last night – Tuesday night – and they went swimming without clothes – naked – . When she got out of the (low-50s?) water she couldn’t find her friends, she couldn’t find her clothes, her cellphone or even her wallet. What to do? So, she walks home. Now, the U-T is reporting that she walked home “drunk and naked”. OMG!

Anyhow, she probably fell asleep at some point, not even imagining that her absence on the beach would set off such a scene.

Anyhow, someone walking on the beach near the end of Brighton Avenue near Dog Beach found her stuff. This was about 4:30 a.m. – this morning. Sounds like the good Samaritan waited around for an hour to see if anyone claimed the clothes, cellphone and wallet. No one did. So, they called the lifeguards.   [Read more…]

The Green Store of Ocean Beach Has to Move – and Is Looking for Sponsors

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The Green Store of OB – sitting in an old storefront at 4827 Voltaire Street Voltaire Street – has to move. After 17 years being in the same location, the environmentally-and-socially- minded shop was given a 60 day eviction notice by its landlord on April 1st – and it wasn’t a joke.

But Colleen Dietzel – owner and manager – is not bitter. She and her partners at the Green Store have had a wonderful relationship with their landlord, Gregg Sullivan over the years. “He’s been very good to us,” Colleen told me over the phone. “Gregg supported what we’ve been doing here,” she said.

In a bit of irony, Colleen is getting ready to celebrate the Green Store’s 23rd anniversary this April 22nd. The store originally opened in one location in OB and had to move after 6 years. That’s when she and her partner Kip Kruegar moved into the place on Voltaire. Sullivan didn’t buy the place until 7 years later, so he’s been their landlord for the past ten years.   [Read more…]

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