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I saw a couple of interviews with Lee Child on YouTube in which he was asked about Tom Cruise. Child was obviously being a team player in his response, scripted even, but he said something interesting. Namely, that most Hollywood actors are short, so that criticism of Cruise was not significant. I once saw Cruise in person, and even with shoelifts he was really, really short. Alan Ritchson is perfectly cast. The series hews closely to the book. I thought it, and Ritchson, were terrific.

I was at the Rigoletto live HD on Saturday, Jan. 29. One of three theaters showing it in the Coachella Valley, 20+ people at the showing I attended. Great cast. Setting it in Weimar in the 20’s worked. Mild synchronization issues between audio and video at the beginning which improved with time. Some audio issues toward the end - the voices seemed a bit muted. But a lovely experience overall.

Of course escorts have the right to select clientele, on many levels and in many areas. Beginning with only taking clients who can pay and moving on to those whom they can do a good job for, for whatever reason, and then into arenas of personal preference. But the truth is that escorts with wider acceptance parameters will have a larger client base to appeal to. The other truth is that among those willing to pay for companionship there are a lot more older, larger, plainer men than there are younger, fitter, handsome men. So what’s your market opportunity?

Good points, Tasso. Given the greater simplicity of electrics, why are they so much more expensive? Is it the rare earth metals in the batteries? Are the car companies jumping up the prices to reflect the subsidies? is it a new technology that hasn’t yet hit mass production pricing? It’s easy to go demagogic on these questions, either from the right (it’s the fault of government policy) or the left (greedy companies) but I wonder if these cars are really overpriced. Or are the cheap Chinese cars underpriced to grab market share?

I am interested in a Tesla or another EV as my next car. I drive a 2017 Prius, get terrific gas mileage - up to 60 mpg on freeway trips. Very happy with it, especially with the current inflation of gas prices, and plan to keep it awhile. Waiting to see if the concerns with Tesla are worked out, what its EV competition will be like when I’m ready, and what electric rates will be. Electricity in the Coachella Valley, where I live, is quite expensive. But so are gas prices. California gas is usually a dollar or so higher than the national average. @Charlie’s story about the Tesla stranded on the I-10 speaks to my fears about insufficient range on the open road away from urban areas, but it also speaks to Tesla’s reputation for taking care of its customers, a reputation I would like to hear more about, both positive and otherwise.

I’m confused. I thought this conversation was about the lovely Joey, with all his aka identities. I had an awful moment when I read Lazarus’s post, thinking that Joey had died. Please assure me that Jersey etc. is not Joey, roided up and tatted to the nth degree, but that this unfortunately deceased individual is someone entirely different.

I called up Dane Scott’s RM page today (DaneScottUSA) and it says “Not Available”. Does anyone have insight into this?

Apologies if needed for resurrecting this thread after so many years, but it is the only one that named the TH’s superlative pianist Rick Unterberg. I learned today that Rick died of the Covid-19 virus on April 23. The TH will be holding a tribute to him on Tues., Sept. 28. I am afraid I cannot be there in person, but will be holding him in my heart.

As far as I can tell, gay people live all over the Coachella Valley and the adjacent Morongo Basin to the north, alongside Joshua Tree NP. The various communities skew along socio-economic and lifestyle lines. Thus, working class Spanish speakers are everywhere but more concentrated in Indio than La Quinta perhaps. Gays likewise. Your upscale gay golfers more likely to be found in Palm Desert than Desert Hot Springs, but the reverse for your gay bikers. Something for everyone. Except for snow lovers. But even they have choices. Idyllwild, Big Bear, Arrowhead. That would be your Log Cabin types. 😜

I’ve reconciled myself to not finishing Proust. It’s not a book so much as it’s a world. So reading A la recherche du temps perdu is a bit like visiting a great city as a tourist. Every time I go there it’s a bit more familiar, but there’s always so much I haven’t seen yet.

Lismore Speyside is a pretty good single malt at a pretty good price. A Trader Joe’s staple.

I suppose it would be the YMMA.

At the moment I’m rereading Patricia Highsmith. I love noir fiction, especially fond of Raymond Chandler. But there is something about Highsmith. Ignore the movies (Ripley especially) - most of them take the characters, rewrite the book and shift it around to achieve a clearer or more morally coherent narrative. Because she isn’t about narrative/moral clarity, she is the master of suspenseful anxiety. Draws the reader into her strange world, where there is always a crime but you have no idea what’s going to happen. No one is the good or bad guy. There is no necessary linkage between act and consequence. I find that true to life. Her style is deceptively simple, plainer than Hemingway, but not as an affectation, as in H. The voice is authorial but the point of view shifts from character to character. Every time I reread her I am amazed at how subtle her texts are. Always something new.

The kind of beef you eat or the kind you admire?

The kind of beef you eat or the kind you admire?

I’ll be spending the whole month of November in NYC. This is good news indeed!

I had a college roommate from Holland, MI. I always thought he was gay, but in those days one didn’t ask. Maybe the roommate returned home, prospered, and has found what he likes. That would be nice.

Let me add my voice to the chorus of thanks. You’re a wonder!

Leviticus 19:28.

I agree, @WilliamM. That there is a gay character at all is a good thing. I think there was almost no such thing as a gay person accepted for what he/she was back then, living a life publicly in a gay relationship. At best a seemingly normal relationship for public purposes with other interests pursued on the side in private, rigorously protecting the public marriage-and-family: “Oh, Dickie is such a dear, so kind to Charlotte and he just adores the children. And he has so many friends down in town.” That sort of thing. Not hypocritical, because that sort of person was often personally and financially capable of both kinds of love. So much easier if you have money. For a working class person, much, much more difficult. In fact, more or less impossible. E.M. Forster’s Maurice puts that class difference so well. Of course, the person with the power in the above scenario is Charlotte. Upper crust British women generally always have understood that. Marriage then was not a simple matter. Decency and respect and circumspection were taught and learned and expected and practiced. Much to be said for that, in this present age of romantic narcissism. Diana and Charles are Exhibit A: The Victims. Uncontrolled self-centeredness. Lack of focus on the larger picture. Inability to read and play the cards in their hands, as it were. Her Majesty and Philip are Exhibit B: The Grownups. Getting through it and building something stronger. Not that being gay was in their mix, but the dynamics are the same when Something Else may be going on. I think that to write what we would consider a “normal” gay character into the script would be a serious violation of historical accuracy, a major anachronism, something Julian Fellowes seems very careful not to do. But I await the new episode. It is show business after all. And we’re all so woke now.

I agree with @TruthBTold about the gay character issue. BUT... I love the show, for the character and story, high class soap opera as it may be, but especially for its unmatched production values. The sets. The costumes. The attention to every smallest detail, from the table settings to the accents to the antimacassars to the cars to ... well, to be honest, Maggie Smith. I hope she survives this episode and continues on. Forever. Vivat!

The abdication may well have saved the nation endless (and avoidable) trouble. EVIII was weak, self-indulgent and lazy in his personal character and judging by his subsequent actions, somewhat inclined toward the Nazis. The Monarch had and has a vital role in times of conflict and stress and he was far too vacillating personally and politically to be the kind of leader Britain needed then. Mrs. Simpson came along at just the right time.

Mountbatten is the English translation from German of Battenberg.

So looks aren’t everything in the aging department. I feel better already.

His RM ad says he’s 40, but the pictures look younger than that to me.