Thoughts on a Summer Night

Random thoughts on a Saturday night:

1) I think I have a new favorite Edward Hopper painting. I still love "Nighthawks," the stark, lonely diner in Greenwich Village. But I think I like "Gas" even better. It reminds me of my visits as a kid to my grandmother's house in the mountains of West Virginia.

2) Nothing -- nothing -- smells worse that rotten tomatoes. Unless it's rotten bananas.

3) After five decades, it's official: my two favorite fruits (shut up) are cherries (especially Rainier) and watermelon. I eat them non-stop from June to August.

4) I continue to think Obama would make a fab prez. But he isn't catching fire, I think, because of his low-key rhetoric and because of his extreme caution. His cat-and-mouse game with Hillary on the Iraq vote a few weeks ago was disgusting. It was a great opportunity for him to demonstrate leadership, regardless of the fallout. Instead, he played crass politics.

5) A friend showed me a study by a University of Virginia prof on how most straight guys have a visceral repulsion toward gays. The reason: Gay sex disgusts them. No duh.

6) If you had any doubt that Dick Cheney is an evil puppet-master, read the Washington Post series on how he helped steer America into the Iraq war, how he made sure the U.S. was allowed to torture prisoners and hold them indefinitely without charges, and how he helped circumvent environmental safeguards. That is one son of a bitch.

7) Do your brain a favor and read "Looming Tower" by Stephen Wright. It's a fascinating account of the rise of Islamic extremism. Regardless of your political beliefs, you'll come away with a far better understanding of Osama and his crowd.

8) I played Gay Gumshoe the other day. (It seems, by the way, that nobody under 40 knows what a "gumshoe" is; it's a private eye.) A straight friend asked me to check out his 18-year-old cousin's myspace page to see if I could detect his sexuality. The reason: the kid had asked somebody else about ways people commit suicide, and my friend was worried about him. After 20 minutes or so, I concluded, with near certainty, that he was gay -- newly minted, though, and worried about the consequences of his orientation. I asked a college-age friend in Houston to check it out, too. It took him maybe 25 seconds. Verdict: gay. Anyway, I passed on the info to my pal. I hope he talks to him. Soon.