The June Dirtbag Of The Month

His name is David Hawkinson and he's from my area. In fact, he lives a few blocks from me. He scammed a TON of money from people over the years. Most folks around here don't have a whole lot of money, and I know if I ever get any (hah-it'll never happen) I don't know the first thing about investing so I would have to trust somebody like him completely. He scammed little old lady widows out of hundreds of thousands of dollars for Christ's sake!

Here's the story: (AP) - A federal grand jury charged a man Wednesday with defrauding dozens of clients in Illinois and Florida of more than $1 million in an elaborate Ponzi scheme.

David C. Hawkinson, 56, allegedly promoted a bogus title loan business while working as a financial consultant at a Davenport, Iowa, brokerage firm, according to the 15-count indictment.

Without the firm's knowledge, Hawkinson allegedly used the money to operate a Ponzi scheme, which pays early investors with proceeds collected from later participants. He was fired from the firm in 2001 and the state of Illinois revoked his license to sell stocks and other securities.

Hawkinson was charged with three counts of mail fraud, two counts of wire fraud, eight counts of money laundering and two counts of prohibited monetary transactions.

See what I mean?

DIRTBAG!

WHA????????

You know how I've been bitching about my job lately? Well, it is actually getting better! I might just be getting the hang of it yet. It's only took me four months, but it's getting there. So much so that I was publicly acknowledged for doing a GREAT JOB during our daily morning meeting today. WHA??? I was shocked! I felt like I was going to have a sudden attack of syncope! I can't tell you how relieved I felt to hear it.

Speaking of WHA????, my best friend called last nite with a bit of shocking news. First let me preface this story by saying that her mother just died about two weeks ago. From lung cancer. So we're all sad about that, and that it sucks to be her right now, because even tho there are times when I'm mad at my Mom, she's great, I love her, and I'm not ready to let her go just yet. Then my friend finds out a week later that her and her brother are ADOPTED. When she told me this yesterday, the first thing I said was "I always thought that you were so different from your parents. The way you looked, and your personalities were so unalike." Her parents were so boisterus and blue collar, while she is quiet (but outgoing and friendly too) and intellectual. So it makes sense. But still! I just don't think you should keep the truth from your children. I understand why they did, but I think it was a mistake. When I think about my own biological father, whom I have never met, I still have so many questions, that I could ask my Mom, but she either evades the subject or claims not to remember, so I don't bring it up anymore. Me, I tell my kids everything about their Dad. Everything. If they ask me why he hasn't called in months, I tell them the truth, and that's that he is either binging on crack or back in jail again. I don't consider it bad-mouthing him. It's just being straightforward. There are no mysteries here.

Best Movie I Saw: Capote. Now I see why Phillip Seymour Hoffman won Best Actor. It was such a peculiar performance, his speech and mannerisms intricately weird, and truly queer. Queer as in strange AND gay. The movie was singularly focused on Capote's work In Cold Blood (which I read a few years ago, and it is fantastic!) and his relationship with one of the killers. Which is also my critique. Don't get me wrong, the film is great, but I guess I wanted to see a movie about his life and not just In Cold Blood. I know there is supposed to be another movie that came out around the same time about Capote, and maybe I need to try to find that one. I also saw Brokeback Mountain. I really liked this one too. It was just so heartbreaking to see these two desperate and desolate in-love men go thru their lives trying to hide their secrets. They sort of could, but those closest to them, their families, they could sort of tell anyway. Can you imagine if you didn't really know what this movie was about, and here they are, Jack and Ennis are on the mountain being cowboys, then they get in the tent and start fucking? Talk about a WHA????????!

Best book I read: I just finished the Da Vinci code. I loved it. I'm too broke right now to buy another book so I need to just read somthing I already have again.

Best Album: I downloaded A Rush Of Blood To The Head by Coldplay. I listened to it last nite while I was making a desert for a work potluck today. The highlight? God Put A Smile On Your Face. When things get realy shitty, just remember that.

Current Sewing Project: I'm working on a red jacket. I was ready to start the finishing topstitching and noticed that the sleeves are unevenly sewed, so I have to rip one out and do it over again. ARRRGGGH!

Top News Story: A 24 year old kid from a small town a few miles from here was involved in an IED attack in Iraq several days ago. He was sent to Walter Reed Hospital in Washington and died during surgery. Heartbreaking isn't it?

SOUL PATROL! SOUL PATROL! SOUL PATROL!

I kept saying to myself "If you win, Taylor Hicks, don't say it, don't say it..." But guess what? That's exactly what he did!

Dork.

Oh I know, I know... They came up with a silly catchphrase, and made him beat it into the ground. Is it just me, or does he not have any sort of sex appeal? Even the epitome of dorkiness, Elliot was kinda cute in a pointy ear and buck tooth bad haircut sort of way. But that's just my bitchy catty two cents!

I Hate When This Happens

Britney, I can totally relate.

I had this same problem on Saturday during my son's soccer game. I had no chair or even a blanket to sit on just the grass, and even tho I tried to sit in positions that minimized my thong-clad butt from hanging out, I know it totally was anyway.
I love the way low-rise pants flatter a person like me who has a slim waist and baby-birthin' hips, but your ass hanging out is just a price you gotta pay. And this is why I wear MEN'S Wrangler cargo pants to work every day because why would I want anybody to see that shit while I was building a Bounty Paper Towel endcap?

But what's up with the halter top and big black bra tho? She could afford those stick on bra cups by the case! Or just go au naturel because she's just Britney Spears. Christina would!

6 O'clock In The Morning You Ain't Home

George, George, George... Why must you keep "spinning the wheel" of self destruction?

Once again, this brilliant, accomplished and gifted artist has been found passed out in his car. When someone tapped on his window to wake him up he took off and hit another pole, just like a few weeks ago.

This picture is hideous. He really looks fucked up. I wish I wasn't writing about this for like the third time in two months.

Religions Inc.

Work was great today! Now isn't that a nice thing to say for a change? Things went so smoothly, I got out of there early even! Maybe there's hope for me after all. I had a nice Mother's day weekend too. My boyfriend's mother came up for a visit and we had a fun time going out for pizza, playing dominoes, eating cake, and going out to Applebee's.

I got my mother The Davinci Code book for Mother's day. She is currently taking a class at church that is designed to inform its participants the real "truth" about Jesus. So I told her that she could read it and have all the angles covered. It's really a good book. I was skeptical at first. I thought that because it was such a popular cultural phenomenom (something outageous like 40 million copies sold, and a new movie starring Tom Hanks and directed by Ron Howard no less is coming out next week)it might actually be crap, but it's really not. I almost NEVER read fiction so this is a real departure for me. This book is a real page-turner. But before everybody gets their panties in a bunch they need to realize that this is a work of FICTION. The events are based on ancient historical documents, but to me this information is just as intangible as the Bible. There is supposed evidence that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and they had a daughter, so there is a continuation of the bloodline in this world today. The Holy Grail is not the chalice used in the Last Supper, but it's the tomb of Mary Magdalene instead. But to me, this so called proof is just about as authentic as everything the Bible says about Jesus in the Old Testament. How do you know what's true? We don't know. That's why you just have to choose to believe what you want to believe. All I would really like to know is if Jesus really did exsist for real. I don't care about his realtionship with Mary Magdalene. I'm going to CHOOSE to believe that he was the son of God, because I like that concept, that someone would DIE FOR ME so that I would have eternal life. I just want to know if that's really true or not is all.

But with all that said, I hope my mom actually reads this book. If she's gonna get upset about a controversial cultural topic, she needs to know what she's talking about at least. There is another story out there that differs from the Bible and apparently it's been around for centuries. People need to know that. Here's one more thing: one of the main characters talks about the Bible as a string of metaphors. Now THAT, is FOR REAL TRUE. Next time you go to church, count the number of metaphors the pastor uses. The more charismatic the church the more similitudes you hear. I'll give you an example. Today the pastor was saying "You need to let the Spirit stir you." Now what is that really supposed to mean? A literal meaning I guess would be to be thinking about what God wants you to do with your time. But then, how do you really know what God wants? You read the bible to get a clue. It just sounds more spiritual to use that exemplification doesn't it?

Sigh. I could go on and on about religion couldn't I? But I won't. Let's get to the Humanities section, OK?

Book I'm currently reading: Oh take a wild guess (The Davinci Code)! Also, Anderson Cooper is on the cover of this month's Vanity Fair. I love this guy and I love CNN so it's a great issue. The background is a bright blue, and it just matches his eyes perfectly.

Best Album I Listened To: I really heard James Blunt's "Your'e Beautiful" this week. You know how when a popular song is played over and over again on the radio and VH1, you've heard it a million times but you don't really GET it. Well this week I was washing dishes and listening to my Ipod just doing the shuffle songs thing, and this came on. I listened to it in it's entirety and it's like I heard it for the first time. The most interesting thing was I discovered that there is a different version for the album, than the radio version, and just one single word changes the context completely. It's this:

Well she caught my eye
As she walked on by
She could see from my face that I was
Fucking high
I don't think that I'll see her again...

Now in the radio version, he sings "Flying high" instead. Yeah, it's not much different I know and maybe it wasn't meant to be, and I'm just reading too much into this, but to me, saying "fucking high" just gives the whole song much more clarity. I guess I just thought that the lyric "flying high" was an ebullience about how thrilling it was to see such a gorgeous creature, but now I can totally see somebody wasted out of their fucking gourd seeing a beautiful woman on a subway and then launching into this whole fantasy trip about her and then feeling so ashamed and worthless, druggie that he is, and singing

And I don't know what to do
'Cause I'll never be with you

See what I mean? The first time I heard this song I thought it was a little preposterous that a guy would see a pretty girl on a train and go to such great lengths to rhapsodize about a complete stranger, but when you know that everything that girl symbolizes and represents, is something you'll never have because you're a piece of shit and you know it, well that makes a lot more sense doesn't it?

Which is a perfect segue for Best Movie I Saw This Week: Dope Sick Love. This is a documentary on HBO about two couples who live on the streets of New York and they're junkies. The saddest part is that they each got some sort of help, but because they are such addicts they went right back to it within days of stopping. I'm so glad this was never my life and it only served to remind me of the lifestyle my ex-husband lived when we were together and still continues to live to this day.

Top News Story: The current CIA chief Porter Goss resigned this week. Why? Well the details are sketchy but it's starting to come out that he was involved with parties and hookers in a Washington hotel room on many occasions. Oh whatever. Jeez. We all want to be P. Diddy for a night sometimes. Just because this guy was the head of the CIA doesn't change that. His replacement is controversial because he's an Air Force General or something like that. People say there shouldn't be a connection between the military and the CIA. Excuse me? I thought there always was anyway.

Well, I gotta wrap up this post now. Time for bed. My gorgeous man is awaiting. I must go shag him rotten before he falls asleep. Good night!

I Need To Get A Life If I'm Getting Too Upset About American Idol

OKAY PEOPLE THIS IS FULL-ON OUTRAGE!!!!!!! The most talented, most compelling and the most gifted singer was kicked off American Idol last night! I was so sure that Chris Daughtry was going to win, because he deserved to win for being THE BEST. But oh no! I just can't see Taylor or Elliot being big humongous stars (I couldn't see that for Clay Aiken either, which by the way, why couldn't he just be up front about being gay and tell the truth instead of lie? Elton John and George Michael don't lie about it anymore and they survived). I can see Katherine being a gigantic celebrity, but that's because she's really really pretty, but what kind of music would she do? How do they plan to market that girl?

Oh why am I going on about this in the first place? It's just a stupid TV show, but I almost feel like I did during the last presidential election: Are the American People this RETARDED?