it's my party

being born the week after halloween has its advantages and disadvantages.

on the downside, first-tuesday-in-november elections can really complicate things. last year, tony and i had to vote absentee so i could spend the big day in disneyland. and i find people often aren't in a real festive mood. let me tell you something, there's nothing like a roomful of bitter dukakis supporters to suck the life out of your birthday party.

on the plus side, i always had the most memorable birthdays when i was a kid, owing to the fact that all my friends were still riding the first wave of the high from all that candy they'd collected on halloween.

in the photo above you see me, the birthday boy, in 1967 staring blankly into my father's polaroid. on my left is my friend john, who, moments before, had ripped off most of his clothing and started doing the batusi on the front lawn.

that's my brother on my right, absorbed in a photo that had previously come out of the camera. in those days you had to peel some kind of plastic cover off the picture after waiting for some length of time that i recall as being nearly unbearable.

"peel it!" i kept saying. "for the love of God, will you peel the damn picture!"

to this day, i get really edgy when i've had more than 3 sugar daddies.

Kurt "big daddy" True
4 november 2001