Old Mike, new Christine

By Mike Penner
Times Staff Writer

April 26, 2007

During my 23 years with The Times’ sports department, I have held a wide variety of roles and titles. Tennis writer. Angels beat reporter. Olympics writer. Essayist. Sports media critic. NFL columnist. Recent keeper of the Morning Briefing flame.

Today I leave for a few weeks’ vacation, and when I return, I will come back in yet another incarnation.

As Christine.

I am a transsexual sportswriter. It has taken more than 40 years, a million tears and hundreds of hours of soul-wrenching therapy for me to work up the courage to type those words. I realize many readers and colleagues and friends will be shocked to read them.

Best of luck to you, Christine! Finally, a biography of someone sports-centric that I might actually pick up and read. And I love the whole Trainspotting/Transamerica mix up. . .water cooler office gossip at its best.

Full article here. . .

I Feel Like Peter North

I love this guy’s blog (tho I initially thought it was something to do with hating olives). He can’t go a paragraph without reminding us he is NOT, fucko fudgepacker, a homo. Please make a note of it.

He writes:
A great way to relaxation is some prostate stimulation. And that is the holy truth. Now, I am not a fag. But of course there will be 20 for every one closet fags who will point finger and call me a fag in hopes that I admit it and they can have sex with me. Sorry, no fudge packing for you fucko. I went out to a sex shop, got a nice dildo and stuck it up my butt. My ass is hairy and it takes a great deal of effort to sort the ass hair out, while keeping the hole lubricated. Enfact it takes a couple of minutes to insert the dildo up my ass. But once its in – its magic. The dildo excited my prostate gland and my dick just gets rock hard. After 5 minutes of stimulation to my prostate gland, my dick starts to ooze clear liquid and I really want to pee. This is when I jerk off and then orgasm like never before. The amount of semer just about doubles and I feel like Peter North, just without a hot bitch to receive the payload. Sometimes I think thats Peter North’s secret; he stimulates his prostate gland and then fucks a bitch and then glazes her up like a donut. America runs on my semen! Don’t worry I do not work in DD. Prostate stimulation gets old even faster than masturbation for one simple reason. After having anything up your ass; you get reminded of it for the rest of your day everytime you sit down. Unlike jerking off, where you spray it and forget it.

Hole is OK?

apparently so. . .

HOLE IN THE WALL
CRISIS OVER

 

Owners of the Hole in the Wall finally accepted a solution proposed by the neighbors several weeks ago, thus removing nearly all of the obstacles to the relocation of the bar to 1369 Folsom Street. A second protest, filed by Jackie Bryson, is not affected by the agreement.

The neighbors who support Damian Ochoa’s request for Discretionary Review proposed the compromise on Monday, April 9. Jeremy Paul, representing the Hole in the Wall, accepted the conditions on April 11 and Damian, Jeremy and Jim Meko shook hands on the deal. Jeremy Paul also offered to obtain an apology from the owners, something he was subsequently unable to produce but an apology was never part of the deal.

There has been some confusion since then (including statements from the owners of the bar denying the existence of a compromise) but plans submitted by the bar last Friday explicitly accept the first five conditions. The sixth, a request for the imposition of a good neighbor policy, is at the discretion of the Planning Commission.

A comparison between the neighbors’ proposed compromise
and the revised plans submitted by the Hole in the Wall:

1. Applicants shall construct a smoking room inside the bar that is properly ventilated so that no smoke enters the neighboring homes and the rear of the bar shall be adequately sound-proofed so that no noise from inside the bar is audible in any of the surrounding residences.

The new plans add a smoking room in the bar and move the office and restrooms into a horizontal extension at the rear as an additional sound buffer. The smoking room is to be ventilated four feet above the roof line.

2. The backyard shall be off-limits to patrons.

The plans read, “REAR YARD ACCESS CONTROLLED: RESIDENTS AND EMPLOYEES ONLY. NO PATRON ACCESS TO REAR YARD.” Also, there is no rear exit from the bar proper to the yard.

3. in accordance with Planning Code Section 816.37, nighttime entertainment (as defined in section 102.17), which includes the prohibition of DJs and live bands, is not allowed on the premises.

This statement reflects the existing code. The plans state, “AS PER PLANNING CODE SECTION 816.37 NIGHT TIME ENTERTAINMENT NOT PERMITTED ON PREMESIS.”

4. Applicants shall employ Charles Salter & Associates to advise them on sound attenuation throughout the bar.

Title page states, “SOUND ATTENUATION/MITIGATION RECOMMENDATIONS AS PER C.M. SALTER TO BE IMPLEMENTED BY CONTRACTOR.”

5. Applicants shall surrender their curb cut and establish a motorcycle parking zone in front of the bar.

The plan states “CURB CUT TO BE REMOVED IN ANTICIPATION OF (N) MOTORCYCLE PARKING TO BE IMPLEMENTED BY OWNER & DPW/DPT.”

6. The Good Neighbor Policies of the Entertainment Commission shall be added as conditions of approval for this change of use.

This is not addressed on the engineering drawings but a Good Neighbor Policy will certainly be imposed by the Planning Commission.

If these six stipulations are adopted as conditions of approval, the objections contained in Damian Ochoa’s DR request will be considered resolved.

Fireproof Plastic Jeebus

I’ve been getting updates on the fire in the South from my buddy Kd, and this last bit assures me that nothing in good old Dixie has changed. Those folk, bless their little pea-picking hearts, can find Jesus anywhere.

A touched friend of his writes:

Between Ruskin and Manor there is a spot on the side of the road that has two crosses where two people died in an auto accident two or three months ago. Everything is charred completely around and under the crosses, but the crosses look untouched. These are those crosses on a stand made of plastic flowers. This is on the left going toward Manor. There is another white one on the right a little closer to Manor and the same thing. It was a sobering sight.

I Love You Weng Weng

Anyone Know?

I have on my little Google calendar that what I affectionately call the ‘Hippy House’ at 455 14th Street is having another fete this Saturday night.  They don’t do a great job, at least on the web, of promoting the event.  Anyone know if the gig is still on?

If so, see you there.

Gimme Five

Stand by with the insulin, this entry is syrupy sweet.

A short shout out to my boy today as I note, in no small state o’ shock, our fifth month anniversay. One on hand, it seems like we’ve dated in dog years and have been together for ages. On the other hand, it seems like only yesterday I was living in an old refridgerator box, booty bumping Drano and gaming 24/7.

Meh. Things change, clearly. I am just always shell shocked when they do so for the better. Clock the sweet, and oh-so-appropriate card above, from the boy who, as you know, runs his own little corner of the web over this way.

Cheers, boo! To five more months/years/lifetimes of over the knee action, bdsm, buggery and Battlestar Galactica.

Haiku for You

Like a newborn puppy, or a cripple making the train before the doors close, is how cute my boy’s newfound fascination with all things blogging is to me. Yoda, I am. Anyway, he’s sitting on my lap telling me, in no uncertain terms, that the search terms and phrases people use that led to his site are some combination of surreal, stupid, and filthy.

I pet him and adore his enthusiasm, which is much easier to bear since the traffic to my site finally surpassed his. Booyah, boybitch!

A big hit on my old blog was a listing, in no particular order, of search terms people used that eventually led them to my site. Somehow.

I thought I’d repeat the process with a tad more structure, and form the complete search phrases into a haiku or two for you. Enjoy!

boy bent over and spanked
Easter play Jesus 2007
anti-homosexual

and

spanked over shoulder
jim meko hole in the wall
liz lemon 30 rock

Of Which I Am One

I’ve fallen hard off my mental health high horse from yesterday. Part of that may have been from watching 30 Rock (fuckin’ love that show) reruns last night in which Liz Lemon is accused of being racist, which understandably drives her, and any other left wing guilt-ridden liberal, nuts.

Of which I am one.

I see that the press release from the South Korean government regarding the alleged Virgina Tech gunman Cho Seung-Hui implores American citizens not to respond with racist bigotry, which is a very smart thought, considering the audience.

All that is well and good, but the big drag, for me, is that I spent most of my morning trying to craft a message of solidarity/support/campus safety for my organization in relation to the Virgina Tech victims. All that takes more work than one might think, or want. Calling various offices, explaining the reasoning and process, asking for quotes and the like.

Aside from the tragic loss of life, the sad thing about how rudely inconsiderate mass murderers are is that they never give any thought or care for the amount of work they create for people like me. Clearly, I’m the real victim here.

And on that note, my boss walks by my cube around lunchtime as I’m nose down in the day’s work and asks “Do you smell Mexican?” and I ask, clearly without thinking, “Food or people?”

I’ll Tell You How

I have tons of work at work to do, but all I can find myself doing is flipping back every half hour for updates on the Virgina Tech school shooting.

It must be like Christmas morning for reporters and newscasters when big shit like this goes down. All the scrambling, interviewing, updating directly after an event and then the teeth-pulling post analysis with the parade of experts, witnesses, and everyone basically muttering the same version of ‘he seemed like such a nice, quiet guy’ and/or ‘i don’t understand how this could happen in our little town.’

I’ll tell you how. It happens because we are all trained to know what to do if we are on fire (stop, drop, and roll!) and if there is a tornado or earthquake, but we remain stupidly silent in teaching people survival strategies for shit that happens far, far more often: i.e. “i feel overwhelmed” or “i’m really angry and don’t know why” or “i’m totally isolated, even and especially when surrounded by lots of people” or “i don’t know how to stop or deal with something that someone is doing to me over and over”.

Add to that an overworked populace with no time or energy left after the 40+ hour work-week- with-two-weeks-off- a-year, to relax, check in with each other, etc. Also through a culture that discourages half the population (men) from asking for help in dealing with anything intangible (if a man can’t stop the car to ask for directions, why could we expect him to be able to seek help with something far more serious?).