Tim Brough's Black Leather Bookshelf

One of my best friends, Dr Phil Reeves, passed away early Saturday in a sudden and unexpected complication from dental surgery. He passed peacefully in his sleep and was discovered by his partner in his bed.


I am going to miss his dry sense if humor, his love of classical music, the way he doted on his two cats and would put them into hilarious photo montages, and the obvious love for his partner, Graham. But more then anything, I am going to miss a man who was not only an amazing friend, but would go out of his way to help me whenever he could, and in times when I was in very dark places. he stood by me when many would not. I have lost one of my life's few anchors and the world is a sadder place today.



(The photo Of Dr Reeves was taken by me at a co-worker of Phil's baby-shower in January. Albert and Victoria were about 4 at the time of their picture.)

Some good news in this part of the world. I got news from PA Career Link that the College Grant I've been doing paperwork and tests for since April has finally been approved. This money will cover the costs of a course at Delaware County Community College for Network Administration from Microsoft. Then hopefully lead to a job with a career orientation. Class starts September 20th, two nights a week and runs into January of next year.

Our local Republican Congressmen in the House, Patrick Meehan, held a town meeting here in Springfield last night. Being a pissed-off unemployed constituent, I got there early enough to plop my butt down in the front row. When Representative Meehan arrived, I smiled, shook his hand along with the rest of the first line of attendees, and applauded at the appropriate talking points. Then, as soon as he went to the "Ask a Question" period, I shot my hand up. Since I was being so polite in the opening portion and nicely visible, I was probably the third or fourth person called on. His handler held the mic up to me, and I let him have it with both barrels.

"Representative Meehan, I am one of those 80% of the country frustrated with Congress. I've been laid of from my job and unemployed since January. When you and your fellow freshman Republicans ran for The House last year, it was all about 'jobs, jobs, jobs.' But since you came into office, not a single jobs bill has been introduced in The House. Bills about abortion, gay rights have, but not jobs. I want to know what, when you return to Washington, you, Speaker Boehner, Eric Cantor, who today is saying he won't approve help for hurricane victims without more cuts, are going to do about job creation!"

Cue wild applause.

Pro that he is, Mr Meehan went right to "we must work on bringing down the debt in order to make more jobs...." to which the room began to boo. Also, as soon as your question is done, the handlers race away with the mics so you can't reply. But that was pretty much the point where Mr Meehan began to sweat. I'd say that 70% of the room was not on his team, and the questions were pretty pointed, if at least civil. Only one real wacko, a right-wing nut-job who insisted President Obama was secretly opening sub-prime mortgages to high risk home buyers (IE: the blacks!), to which Mr Meehan was cognizant enough to tell her that he had heard nothing of the sort and did not think this was genuine. He also had his share of supporters in attendence, who lobbed softballs his way and he would smile, give the pat answer, and look for another sympathetic attendee.

However, this was not a coming out party for the guy. At 8 PM he stopped solid and I jumped from my chair, grabbed his hand in a firm handshake and thanked him for taking my question. I also repeated that I fully expected him to do more than what was going on and to see some work done. I got the feeling he was sincere if uncomfortable, and was taken aback by the forcefulness of the crowd (my guess about 100 people).

In storm news, my Mom finally got her power on yesterday afternoon after downed trees took out the electric in Northern Lebanon, and my Dad's electric came on yesterday morning. I want to find George Will, who whined that Hurricane Irene was overhyped, and lock him in a house with no electric and water for four days, then let him and his awful toupee come out and give an update. Same with Eric Cantor, whom I am beginning to suspect is a sociopath when it comes to helping the American Public vs GOP.

The New Normal
3 Out of 5 Stars

Bobby (Ben Affleck) is your typical white collar success story. He has a great job at a conglomerate company, a pretty neat boss, Gene (Tommy Lee Jones), a good wife and two kids in a fabulous New England home. Then the crash of 2008 occurs and Bobby's job, despite twelve years at GTX (a transportation company of some sort), wasn't so valuable after all. Soon he has to figure out what his measure of a man truly is, and it's not pretty. "The Comapny Men" focuses mostly on Bobby's struggle, but it is an ensemble film with strong support from Chris Cooper, who struggles with the realization that a man pushing 60 in this job market is paddling upstream against younger and cheaper help, Kevin Costner, a contractor who is (IMHO) written into a cliched part, Craig T Nelson, the CEO making 22 million as he downsized left and right, and Mario Bello as the HR director who begins to doubt her ethics.

This is not an easy movie to watch, as it probably cuts a bit too close to the bone in a country facing 9% unemployment. Bobby and Phil (Cooper) soon finding that there are sacrifices both intentional and unintentional that have to be made for the sake of survival. There's also underlying messages about being prepared for the future and just how much we've thrown away for "kids working for a dollar a day" (as Costner's character unsubtly jibes Bobby incessantly). People are losing their cars, homes, families and lives in reality; "The Company Men" holds up an unflinching camera to this world. It's a good movie, just don't expect a feel-good wrap at the end.

It's been 3 weeks since I started the new job and the training period is over. I have been getting the knack of where all the paths lead as far as the multiple computer systems and redundancies are in the commercial making process. It takes about 15 minutes to make a commercial, according to the expected production schedule (as in: you're expected to produce 3 or 4 an hour). Get the client info, find the client's data, write script with given info. Open pro-tools, record script. Lay in music track, mix to mp3 and put into client folder. Send to video production. Close client file, go to next client. Repeat.

As you can guess, the creativity level is pretty low. This is a factory style production studio and you're expected to get up to speed pretty fast. So far, so good. But I've already given up on working part time at TLA on weekends. After the second week (and almost three weeks with no time off), the sudden realization that my (almost) 50 year old body doesn't have the stamina that my 20-something one had. I gave notice and last Sunday was my final day of selling smut to the masses. After almost 8 years and never getting out of the mail room. Plughfhfh.

I don't know if it was the fatigue of working so many days in a row, the knowledge that I was not going to be going that phone jockey work for much longer or a combination of the two, but for only the second time in my 8 years at TLA, I lost it on a caller. The first time was several years ago when a woman who objected to getting a gay oriented catalog told me she thought all gay people should be shot. I called her a few choice names and hung up. I was told to be a good boy and - since that day - had been. But then came Max.

A quick explanation. Like most mail order companies, TLA buys mailing lists from companies that broker such things. I consider these brokers to be unscrupulous whores that sell their clients off to the lowest bidders, and pad those customer lists with dead people, the ignorant and those who would otherwise have no interest in your products no matter what. TLA once used a swimming suit company's list as a gay mailer address source, and the Customer Service Crew paid dearly for that in terms of abuse. But if you gave to HRC, subscribed to any number of magazines, or bought something through the web, chances are you're in one of TLA's brokers' lists.

Which somehow happened to Max. It was only about one hour into Saturday Morning's shift and I answered a call that started with "You Mother-f---ing Cock-s----ing child molester." I was stunned into momentary silence and then asked "what can I do for you please." He then let loose with a whole combination of profanity laden homophobic insults and finally led to the fact that he got a gay catalog. I responded calmly with "You're a moron but I'll help you anyway." I was then told that I was going the Hell and worked for a bunch of sick bastards and that I would soon have to look God in the eye for what I was doing.

At that point, I not only went militant homo on Max, I went militant atheist homo on him. I told him God was a fairy tale, he was an ignorant hick and if he wanted child molesters, he should go to his closest Catholic Church. Among other things. All while I was still trying to get him to give me his address, which he was parsing out to me between curses, insults and Fox News Bullet Points. I finally got to what state he lived in and he let me know it was Oklahoma. "Figures," I muttered. That really set Max into a whirl.

"It's the likes of you that made the Twin Towers fall" he blurted amongst more Southern insults against us northerners, redneckery, more "you g-d child molester," and general stupidity. I finally exploded, cursing him out for being a useless idiot in state that should just secede already and take Timothy McVey and his non-Yankee ghost along with him, and please stop using his itty bitty penis as an excuse for not admitting he was a big old cowboy queen in midst of dumphukistan.

At this point, Max hung up. My supervisor was all but screaming in agony over my outburst and figured it was a good idea for me to clock out and go on home. I was happy to, in fact I felt pretty good about giving Max a dose of pissed-off-queer. Although I did enter him into the "Do Not Mail" file. At least if he's going to have an aneurysm, it won't be because he got another TLA catalog. It will be more likely he gets it from exerting himself behind the porta-johns with some rent-boy at a Tea Party Rally.

Tomorrow I do something that every middle-aged man probably has nightmares about. I am going to go somewhere I haven't been for twenty-seven years. I'll be surrounded by folks I have no idea about, whose norms and customs will be utterly alien to me. Their idols and music will likely not even overlap my many years of public information gathering. In fact, when they see me, they will probably wonder what the frak I am doing in their territory, who the hell I am and will gaze on me with suspicion, and more than likely, some form of derision. I am terrified by the prospect.

I am going back to school.

After being employabley adrift since the turn of the century, I am entering the "New Choices" program at Delaware County Community College, two evenings a week, in an effort to come up to speed with current technology and employment options. Despite having written for and edited three Internationally distributed magazines, been a published author, an actor in two movies...being near 50 and having a BA in Communications and Theater Arts has left me with a modest selection of job opportunities. I have been working as a customer service phone operator at a mail order company for almost eight years, only to see cute 20 somethings with little or no other qualifications get promoted over me for not much reason other than they spark a certain employee's bedside fantasies, and they pose no risk to his position as lead tiara wearer. Obviously, this job is a dead end and a spirit killer.

So Monday night I will cart a three-ring binder with loose leaf lined paper and subject dividers, a packet of pens, a portable USB drive, and copies of my current resume to school. At this point, I have kept my 'extra-curricular' writing activities to myself, but have included editing the old Radio Trade Papers and travel/sales brochures on the resume, as well as the many years of broadcasting. The hope is that these classes (which are sponsored by the Pennsylvania Department of Labor) will be a gateway to better opportunities. The description of the course as given by the professor who interviewed me is that, once completed, they'll help you with placement, or if you'd like, applying for student grants/loans for further courses. It's something I've needed to do for a long while, and this is finally the time.