Tag: The Drain

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The Drain, by Gillian

Searching Google, as I so often do, for inspiration on this topic, I was surprised to see one of the first things to come up was a pop music group of some unknown (to me, at least) variety called The Drain. This has happened amazingly often with our topics. There are apparently, for example, groups called Magic, Guilty Pleasures, Culture Shock and I Did It My Way, all topics on which we have written. There is also one called Horseshoes and Hand Grenades. We have only written on the first part of that, so maybe we should tackle Hand Grenades one of these days.

Tricky things, drains. In the northern hemisphere liquid rotates clockwise as it disappears down a drain; in the southern hemisphere it circles in a counterclockwise motion. We all know that this is simply a function of the rotation of the earth, and yet everyone seems to be fascinated by this one fact of life. Anyone, going for the first time to the other hemisphere, just can’t wait to gaze raptly into the bathroom sink to see the water draining in that unaccustomed direction. Yes, it suckered me too, though at the moment of truth, all I could come up with was ‘huh!’

So; tricky things, drains. Like many things, we only recognize the true value of them when they cease to do their job. They are designed to consume material, but on occasion they refuse , or even regurgitate, instead. We’ve all seen times in Denver when the storm drains, blocked by fallen autumn leaves or overwhelmed by the occasional gully-washer downpour, simply refuse to digest the requisite amount of water and leave it to flood intersections and underpasses, and many people say much more than, ‘huh!’

There is little more nauseating then the indescribably disgusting gray goo which has to be extricated from the bend in the pipe when the sink drain refuses to absorb anything further.

Did that stuff really come from me? Huh! The horrors from which our drains habitually save us!

At the time that I left the U.K. in the early ’60’s, the whole country was suffering from what was termed a ‘brain drain’ – so many with higher education left for other countries as Britain offered so few opportunities. One arm of that drain, however, has always run the other way. In the Britain of my youth it seemed as if almost every doctor was from India, and on once again checking with Google, I find that the situation has not much changed. Those from India still provide the largest number of non-British-born doctors and health professionals in Britain, and, in fact, the National Health Service is currently actively recruiting doctors from India. The current fear, however, is that since the Brexit vote with it’s associated real or imagined rise in xenophobia, doctors from India and indeed any other country will be unwilling to commit themselves to a move to the U.K. With a mere 37% of all doctors in Britain currently being British-born white, this does not bode well. Tricky things, drains.

Since the recent U.S. election, many of the same concerns are being voiced here, where more than 25% of all doctors are foreign-born, again, incidentally, with an incredible 10% of all our doctors being from India. There are roughly a million foreign students in our universities, many of whom will remain to contribute greatly to the country. But with the new atmosphere of just about every kind of ism and phobia imaginable, will students from other countries still want to come? Will they feel safe? I can only suppose probably not. This would almost certainly be true of many other potential immigrants except for those sad souls driven by an even greater fear of life in their place of origin. Trump talks of limiting immigration and deporting many of those already here, but if he reverses the flow of that drain, blocking the incoming and increasing the outgoing, our country will be sadly poorer for it. Tricky things, drains.

Now our future leader talks of ‘draining’ the swamp of the Washington establishment – something many of us would not find discouraging. Cleaning up the quagmire of dark money and general corruption and lies, to replace it with clean fresh honest air, who would argue? Sadly, any vision we might have had of an outward-flowing drain was swiftly dispelled. No, the drain flows in.

And with it it brings a new level of homophobia, racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism the likes of which most of us never saw coming in our worst nightmares. But we can stop the flow. We can reverse it. With constant vigilance, not to mention a lot of hard work, we can do it. Just don’t forget, Donald – tricky things, drains.

© November 2016

About the Author

I was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I have been with my wonderful partner Betsy for thirty years. We have been married since 2013.

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The Drain, by Ray S

Finally the rain softly and lightly announced its arrival. Little by little the drops became bigger and more insistent. Finally it fell with full force pelting the window panes. A couple of claps of thunder and just as suddenly as the cloud burst had come, the clouds opened up and there was the sun again.

With umbrella in hand I left the house headed for my office. The sidewalks were all shiny and washed and gutters were still flooded with the tidal wave headed for the drain.

The walk to the office gave me the time to reflect on the long ago rainy time when we were six or seven. Four of us were playing “Kick the Can” in a vacant lot near the edge of town. A rainstorm like the one today came up and being caught all drenched, all of us simply stripped naked and proceeded to dance in the rain like little elves escaping the wolf in the forest.

The merriment was in full blast until a local constable arrived on the scene at the behest of the self-appointed morals squad, Mrs. Templeton. Hers was the only house near our play field.

We were rounded up with wet clothes in hand and sternly lectured to on the lack of morality and the nasty, dirty actions we were participating in.

Actually the thought of sex hadn’t even caught up with us at this age, except casually taking note of each others’ endowments, if even noticeable.

Another thought while walking, another time maybe five or seven years later evidencing the discovery magic of puberty and all of its causes and results. You could liken it to Pandora’s Box or letting the Genie or Johnny out of the bottle. With no thanks to Mrs. Templeton and later Sister Charles/Ophelia, some of we heathens began our long residence in the closet. I always envied my friend with the power and conviction to never get into a closet. He never needed to for he had always known who he was and the gay road was his high road. Some of us strayed down a path of conformity and even various degrees of happiness, then only to find the “honestly real me” before it was too late to live a liberated life.

At the intersection waiting for the “WALK” light I looked down at the curb and gutter to see the rain water and my memories wash down the drain, to wait for another rainy day and maybe the very right man to steal my heart away.

© 28 November 2016

About the Author

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The Drain, by Louis Brown

The Drain and Psycho film of Alfred Hitchcock

(1) Brain Drain

(2) Donald Trump said he is going to drain the swamp in Washington D. C., meaning he intends to curtail the all-pervasive power of the lobbyists. Unfortunately I think that means he is going to give them even more power, and the voice of the advocates for working people and the American public will grow even weaker.

(3) People in the government or commentators who still can be believed:
     (a) Van Jones
     (b) Elizabeth Warren
     (c) Bernie Sanders
     (d) Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii
     (e) Nina Turner

(4) 11-22-2012 Psycho (1960 film), 

     produced by Alfred Hitchcock (who died in 1980)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia This article is about the 1960 film. For the sequels, see Psycho (franchise). For the 1998 remake, see Psycho (1998 film). Psycho is a 1960 American psychological horror film directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock, and written by Joseph Stefano, starring Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, John Gavin, Vera Miles and Martin Balsam, and was based on the 1959 novel of the same name by Robert Bloch. The film centers on the encounter between a secretary, Marion Crane (Leigh), who ends up at a secluded motel after stealing money from her employer, and the motel’s disturbed owner-manager, Norman Bates (Perkins), and its aftermath.[4]

… slasher film genre.

Plot During a lunchtime tryst in Phoenix, Arizona, a real estate secretary named Marion Crane discusses with her boyfriend, Sam Loomis, how they cannot afford to get married because of Sam’s debts. After lunch, Marion returns to work, where a client drops off a $40,000 cash payment on a property. Her boss asks her to deposit the money in the bank, and she asks if she can take the rest of the afternoon off. Returning home, she begins to pack for an unplanned trip, deciding to steal the money and give it to Sam in Fairvale, California. Driving on, Marion encounters a sudden rainstorm and decides to stop for the night at the Bates Motel; the proprietor, Norman Bates, invites her to a light dinner after she checks in. She accepts, but then hears an argument between Norman and his mother about bringing a woman into her house. They eat in the motel parlor, where he tells her about his hobby of taxidermy and his life with his mother, who is mentally ill and forbids him to have a life outside of her. Returning to her room, Marion decides to go back to Phoenix to return the stolen money. She prepares to take a shower, unaware that Norman is spying on her. * [The Prompt] As she [Janet Leigh as Marion Crane] is showering, a shadowy female figure suddenly comes in and stabs her to death with a chef’s knife. [the viewer looks at her blood flow down the shower drain.] Norman discovers the murder and meticulously cleans up the crime scene, putting Marion’s corpse and her possessions—including the embezzled money—into the trunk of her car and sinking it in the swamps near the motel. A week later, Marion’s sister Lila arrives in Fairvale and confronts Sam about the whereabouts of her sister. A private investigator named Arbogast approaches them and confirms that Marion is wanted for stealing the $40,000 from her employer. He eventually comes across the Bates Motel, where Norman’s behavior arouses his suspicions. After hearing that Marion had met with Norman’s mother, he asks to speak with her, but Norman refuses. Arbogast calls Lila and Sam, informing them of what he has discovered and saying he intends to speak with Norman’s mother. He goes to the Bates’ home in search of her; as he reaches the top of the stairs, Mrs. Bates suddenly appears from the bedroom and murders him. When Lila and Sam do not hear from Arbogast, they go to the local sheriff, who informs them that Mrs. Bates has been dead for ten years; she had killed herself and her lover. Concerned, Lila and Sam make their way to the motel. Norman takes his unwilling mother from her room, telling her he needs to hide her for a while in the fruit cellar.

At the motel, Lila and Sam meet Norman. Sam distracts him by striking up a conversation while Lila sneaks up to the house. When Norman eventually realizes what they want, he knocks Sam out and rushes to the house. Lila sees Norman approaching and attempts to hide by going down steps that lead to a cellar. There she finds Mrs. Bates sitting in a chair. Lila turns her around and discovers that she is in fact a mummified corpse. Lila screams as a figure comes running into the cellar: Norman, holding a chef’s knife and wearing his mother’s clothes and a wig. Before Norman can attack Lila, Sam, having regained consciousness, subdues him.

At the local courthouse, a psychiatrist explains that Norman had murdered Mrs. Bates and her lover 10 years prior out of jealousy. Before, they had been living a solitary life together after his father’s death, until she met this new man. Unable to bear the guilt, he exhumed her corpse and began to treat it as if she were still alive. In order to preserve that illusion, he recreated his mother in his own mind as an alternate personality, often dressing in her clothes and talking to himself in her voice. The “Mother” personality is as jealous and possessive as the real Mrs. Bates had been: Whenever Norman feels attracted to another woman, “Mother” flies into a rage and kills her. As “Mother”, Norman had killed two missing girls prior to Marion, as well as Arbogast. The psychiatrist then says the “Mother” personality has taken permanent hold of Norman’s mind. While Norman sits in a holding cell, Mrs. Bates’ voice is heard protesting that the murders were Norman’s doing and that she “wouldn’t even harm a fly.” Meanwhile, Marion’s car is pulled out of the swamp.

Cast * Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates * Janet Leigh as Marion Crane * Vera Miles as Lila Crane * John Gavin as Sam Loomis * Martin Balsam as Detective Milton Arbogast * John McIntire as Al Chambers * Simon Oakland as Dr. Fred Richmond * Frank Albertson as Tom Cassidy * Pat Hitchcock as Caroline * Vaughn Taylor as George Lowery * Lurene Tuttle as Mrs. Chambers * John Anderson as California Charlie (used car salesman) * Mort Mills as Highway Patrol Officer * Virginia Gregg, Jeanette Nolan, and Paul Jasmin as voice of Norma Bates

Janet Leigh
Leigh in The Naked Spur (1953)
Born Jeanette Helen Morrison July 6, 1927 Merced, California, U.S.
Died October 3, 2004 (aged 77) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Cause of death Heart attack
Resting place Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery
Occupation Actress
Years active 1947–2004

Spouse(s) John Carlisle (1942; annulled) Stanley Reames (1945–1949; divorced) Tony Curtis (1951–1962; divorced) Robert Brandt (1962-2004; her death)
Children Kelly Curtis Jamie Lee
Janet Leigh (born Jeanette Helen Morrison; July 6, 1927 – October 3, 2004) was an American actress and author. She is best remembered for her performance in Psycho, for which she was awarded the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress and received an Academy Award nomination. She was the first wife of actor Tony Curtis and the mother of Kelly Curtis and Jamie Lee .

Anthony Perkins
Anthony Perkins in 1975, by Allan Warren
Born April 4, 1932
New York, New York, U.S.
Died September 12, 1992 (aged 60) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Cause of death AIDS-related pneumonia
Nationality American
Occupation Actor, musician
Years active 1953–1992
Spouse(s) Berry Berenson (1973–1992, his death)
Children Oz Perkins Elvis Perkins
Parent(s) Osgood Perkins Janet Esselstyn Rane
Anthony Perkins (April 4, 1932 – September 12, 1992) was an American actor and singer. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his second film, Friendly Persuasion but is best known for playing Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho and its three sequels. His other films include The Trial, Phaedra, Fear Strikes Out, Tall Story, The Matchmaker, Pretty Poison, North Sea Hijack, Five Miles to Midnight, The Black Hole, Murder on the Orient Express, Mahogany, and Crimes of Passion.
Early Life Perkins was born in New York City, son of stage and film actor Osgood Perkins and his wife, Janet Esselstyn (née Rane). His paternal great-grandfather was wood engraver Andrew Varick Stout Anthony.[1] He was five when his father died.[2] Perkins was a descendant of a Mayflower passenger, John Howland. He attended Brooks School, Browne & Nichols School, Columbia University and Rollins College, having moved to Boston in 1942.[3]

Jamie Lee Curtis (born November 22, 1958) is an American actress and author. She made her film debut in 1978 by starring as Laurie Strode in John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978). A big hit, the film established her as a notable actress in horror, and she subsequently starred in Halloween II (1981), The Fog (1980), Prom Night (1980), Terror Train (1980), and Roadgames (1981), gaining the status of “scream queen” to mainstream audiences. Curtis has since compiled a body of work that spans many genres, including the cult comedy films Trading Places (1983), for which she won a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role, A Fish Called Wanda (1988), and True Lies (1994), for which she won a Golden Globe for Best Actress in Musical or Comedy.

I occasionally saw Anthony Perkins walking around Greenwich Village

© 22 November 2016

I was born in 1944, I lived most of my life in New York City, Queens County. I still commute there. I worked for many years as a Caseworker for New York City Human Resources Administration, dealing with mentally impaired clients, then as a social work Supervisor dealing with homeless PWA’s. I have an apartment in Wheat Ridge, CO. I retired in 2002. I have a few interesting stories to tell. My boyfriend Kevin lives in New York City. I graduated Queens College, CUNY, in 1967.

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The Drain, by Gillian

Searching Google, as I so often do, for inspiration on this topic, I was surprised to see one of the first things to come up was a pop music group of some unknown (to me, at least) variety called The Drain. This has happened amazingly often with our topics. There are apparently, for example, groups called Magic, Guilty Pleasures, Culture Shock and Did It My Way, all topics on which we have written. There is also one called Horseshoes and Hand Grenades. We have only written on the first part of that, so maybe we should tackle Hand Grenades one of these days.

Tricky things, drains. In the northern hemisphere liquid rotates clockwise as it disappears down a drain; in the southern hemisphere it circles in a counterclockwise motion. We all know that this is simply a function of the rotation of the earth, and yet everyone seems to be fascinated by this one fact of life. Anyone, going for the first time to the other hemisphere, just can’t wait to gaze raptly into the bathroom sink to see the water draining in that unaccustomed direction. Yes, it suckered me too, though at the moment of truth, all I could come up with was ‘huh!’

So; tricky things, drains. Like many things, we only recognize the true value of them when they cease to do their job. They are designed to consume material, but on occasion they refuse , or even regurgitate, instead. We’ve all seen times in Denver when the storm drains, blocked by fallen autumn leaves or overwhelmed by the occasional gully-washer downpour, simply refuse to digest the requisite amount of water and leave it to flood intersections and underpasses, and many people say much more than, ‘huh!’

There is little more nauseating then the indescribably disgusting gray goo which has to be extricated from the bend in the pipe when the sink drain refuses to absorb anything further.

Did that stuff really come from me? Huh! The horrors from which our drains habitually save us!

At the time that I left the U.K. in the early ’60’s, the whole country was suffering from what was termed a ‘brain drain’ – so many with higher education left for other countries as Britain offered so few opportunities. One arm of that drain, however, has always run the other way. In the Britain of my youth it seemed as if almost every doctor was from India, and on once again checking with Google, I find that the situation has not much changed. Those from India still provide the largest number of non-British-born doctors and health professionals in Britain, and, in fact, the National Health Service is currently actively recruiting doctors from India. The current fear, however, is that since the Brexit vote with it’s associated real or imagined rise in xenophobia, doctors from India and indeed any other country will be unwilling to commit themselves to a move to the U.K. With a mere 37% of all doctors in Britain currently being British-born white, this does not bode well. Tricky things, drains.

Since the recent U.S. election, many of the same concerns are being voiced here, where more than 25% of all doctors are foreign-born, again, incidentally, with an incredible 10% of all our doctors being from India. There are roughly a million foreign students in our universities, many of whom will remain to contribute greatly to the country. But with the new atmosphere of just about every kind of ism and phobia imaginable, will students from other countries still want to come? Will they feel safe? I can only suppose probably not. This would almost certainly be true of many other potential immigrants except for those sad souls driven by an even greater fear of life in their place of origin. Trump talks of limiting immigration and deporting many of those already here, but if he reverses the flow of that drain, blocking the incoming and increasing the outgoing, our country will be sadly poorer for it. Tricky things, drains.

Now our future leader talks of ‘draining’ the swamp of the Washington establishment – something many of us would not find discouraging. Cleaning up the quagmire of dark money and general corruption and lies, to replace it with clean fresh honest air, who would argue? Sadly, any vision we might have had of an outward-flowing drain was swiftly dispelled. No, the drain flows in.

And with it it brings a new level of homophobia, racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism the likes of which most of us never saw coming in our worst nightmares. But we can stop the flow. We can reverse it. With constant vigilance, not to mention a lot of hard work, we can do it. Just don’t forget, Donald – tricky things, drains.

© November 2016

About the Author

I was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I have been with my wonderful partner Betsy for thirty years. We have been married since 2013.

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The Energy Drain, by Phillip Hoyle

I had been worrying over what I called an energy drain and presented my concern to my doctor along with my generally feeling off, itchy, and lethargic. I said, “I wonder if one of the two prescriptions I’m taking could be to blame.” Dr. Elango picked up his smart phone and started punching at it. I assumed he was connecting with the HMO’s website. The room was silent as he concentrated, his face expressionless like a student in a library. He frowned, then smiled at me and said, “Neither of your meds have those side effects.”

“Good,” I said, “because they seem to be helping me.”

The doctor asked, “Phillip, don’t you take some supplements?”

“I’ve quit most of them but still take a multi-vitamin and a single Saint John’s Wort capsule daily,” I said.

Doctor started poking at his phone again. “The symptoms you described are all possible side effects of St. John’s Wort. You know,” he looked up, “even supplements have side effects.”

I agreed to quit taking that pill even though I had an extra bottle not yet opened. I so wanted to feel better that practicality lost. Still, the next morning as I prepared to get rid of the pills, I hesitated since I had begun taking the herbal anti-depressant years before when my partner Michael died. Back then I didn’t want to slide into some emotional morass due to the grief I was experiencing. With the pill I seemed to do just fine. About two years later when Rafael died, I upped the dosage to two capsules a day mindful of a character in the TV show “Will and Grace” who finally admitted he’d been taking eight capsules daily. I didn’t want to be like him. Even though I had doubled my dosage, I found my grief more intense that time as if I were experiencing grief on top of grief. Eventually I returned to one pill daily and seemed just fine. But the fine effect apparently failed after fifteen years and gave me the group of symptoms I described to my doctor. I quit and have nothing more to say about the episode except that when I followed my doctor’s advice those symptoms disappeared.

But now some months later I am worrying over a slight feeling of anxiety I cannot seem to overcome. I’m tired of how I feel, but at least I’ll have something to say to my doctor at my next physical still seven months off. I feel worked up and have less energy than I want, but I don’t have those age-related unrealistic desires like returning to what I was at age thirty-five. I just want more pep so I can accomplish more things with the time I have available. I am open to advice from friends but most of them think I’m already too busy. I don’t want more social responsibilities or more leadership in any programs. I have plenty of that to keep me at least half awake, and some nights way too awake or awakening from some responsibility dream or worse yet some date I had made but hadn’t put on the family calendar. But to call any of this actual worry or actual anxiety—you know of the clinical type—doesn’t seem warranted.

Doctor did give me some great practical advice about one of my symptoms, dry skin. He said, “Get some lotion and put it on every day.” I had been using sunscreen for many years but hadn’t considered adding just plain old lotion. I didn’t want to begin smelling like a rose or a lily so I bought lotion for men. Even so, a friend embracing me one day said, “You smell good.”

Like a good queer I said, “Well thank you,” but just at the last second stopped myself from saying, “I try.” You see I’m a self-respecting queer. So surely I will get over the energy drain quickly enough. And I’ll begin wearing enough lotion the rest of my life for the wind not to cause unnecessary friction and enough for anxieties to slide right off my shoulders. At least those are my goals. “Energy drain, be gone.”

© 28 November 2016

About the Author

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE program “Telling Your Story.”

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com