This has been a night of frightening food cravings.

That movie I watched last night — Sincerely Yours (1955) starring Liberace and Dorothy Malone — was FABULOUS. Maybe I’m just a sucker for Liberace, but I’ve always thought he was hilarious, genuine and entertaining as hell. I saw him in concert at the Las Vegas Hilton in 1980, back when he dressed in pink fox fur and arrived on stage in a glittered Rolls Royce. Here’s a clip of Liberace from Sincerely Yours for your possible interest. (He was still pretending to be “straight” in those days.)

This has been a night of frightening food cravings. My dinner, which lasted almost two hours, included (in this exact order): 1) hot & sour soup; 2) chia seed pudding; 3) jalapeño shrimp from China City; and 4) Beanit Butter and apricot jelly on low-carb toast smothered with Splenda. I’ll consider it a miracle if I’m not throwing up by midnight.

WTF? George Zimmerman was found NOT GUILTY. American justice is insane.

I don’t think I can write any more tonight. My head hurts, my feet hurt, I’m having a spasm in my left hand and I think I need to watch something funny on TV. Maybe White Cargo (1942), a hilarious drama about hateful men working at a sweaty African rubber plantation at the turn of the 20th century starring Walter Pidgeon, Richard Carlson and — last but not least — Hedy Lamarr as a spray-painted, sex-starved native tart named Tondelayo. Cinema at its finest.

We’re expecting a lot of weather over the next few days! Apparently there’s a dumbass storm front moving across the United States in the wrong direction — i.e., east to west — that’s expected to bring thunderstorms and heavy rain to the Dallas area. Glorioski, people ... rain in Texas! The stormy crap is expected to start Sunday (along with much cooler temperatures) and continue through the end of the week. A screen shot of our forecast from Weather.com appears below in case you think I’m making this up.

Thanks for stopping by. Don’t forget to turn out the lights when you’re done here, okay?

I took too many pain pills today. I should accidentally do that more often.

Good news. I’m having less pain today than yesterday! There are two possible explanations. Either: 1) my feet are improving; or 2) I accidentally took a double dose of pain reliever about two hours ago when I wasn’t paying attention. (I think it’s number two. I should accidentally do that more often.)

As I write this post I’ve got a gorgeous loaf of homemade low-carb bread cooling on the counter and another gorgeous homemade meatloaf cooling on top of the stove. Try and guess what’s for dinner tonight!

Incidentally, I think I’ve probably mentioned this before, but if you make meatloaf you have to buy yourself a Perfect Meatloaf Pan like mine. This thing is completely nonstick, has a lift-out tray so you never screw up the finished product wrestling it out of the pan, measures 13" x 7½" x 4" and makes a beautiful two-pound meatloaf. The lowest price I’ve seen on the Internet is from Amazon (click here) for about nine bucks. Go for it, okay?

I was expecting a nice big order today from Netrition.com, but when I checked UPS online tracking a few minutes ago to find out why it hasn’t been delivered I see a strange notation: “LATE TRAIN.” Late train? What train? The top of the tracking screen just says EXCEPTION in giant gold letters with no new delivery date. Where’s my stuff, people? I NEED MY STUFF!

And now for something completely different and 100% weird. Apparently there’s an annual convention called BronyCon … a big hoo-hah for adult Internet nerds of the male gender who are addicted to the “My Little Pony” TV series. They call themselves Bronies. I’m not joking. Their female counterparts, who are outnumbered by the men in this club by more than four to one, are referred to as Pegasisters. A semi-pathetic and thoroughly hilarious video mashup of convention highlights appears below for your possible interest. The Winter 2012 BronyCon in Manhattan drew a crowd of 700 (many wearing costumes) to a sweltering ballroom to network, swap stories about their favorite characters and buy My Little Pony toys. Organizers alerted attendees before the conference that “You’ll be in a room with many other people, so please be courteous by practicing good personal hygiene.” I have no idea what qualifies as good personal hygiene for a Brony. Regardless ... enjoy the show:

It’s time for food and a movie. This afternoon I started watching Sincerely Yours (1955) starring Liberace, Joanne Dru and Dorothy Malone, a bizarre story about a concert pianist who goes deaf and gets involved in a love triangle with TWO WOMEN. Talk about lousy casting, right? I’ll let you know how it ends. In the meantime, feast your eyes on THIS.

Thank you for reading this. It’s meatloaf  time at Howdygram headquarters.

Photogenic sausages in the spotlight.

Lots of crazy things are happening around here! First, I was reminded once again about the Howdygram’s broad outreach when I received an email from the marketing director at FoodyDirect.com. Apparently lots of my readers have been clicking FoodyDirect’s link in the right sidebar of the Howdygram — in the “Let’s Spend Some Dough” section — so the company is offering all of us a 15% DISCOUNT. This is terrific on a number of different levels, but mostly because the food they sell is incredible. I’ve ordered from FoodyDirect in the past and placed another order this afternoon for a gigantic box of spicy smoked sausages from Kreuz Market in Lockhart, Texas. For your possible interest Kreuz’s photogenic sausages appear below (left).

I think you should all check out FoodyDirect.com and order some fabulous crap to eat. On a personal note, aside from Kreuz Market for barbecue I’m especially excited by Kenny & Ziggy’s Deli in Houston (above, right) and think I’ll probably have to try their corned beef next time. Eileen’s Special Cheesecake from New York is mighty thrilling, too, except I’m diabetic and I’ve been trying really hard not to look at that damn picture. (It’s the one in the middle.) God help me.

Which brings me to my next issue: DIABETES, and the scary hypoglycemic “low” episode I experienced a couple of hours ago. No kidding, people, this was the worst one I’ve had so far. At 8 p.m. I’m sitting at my desk writing this post for the Howdygram, and about 15 minutes after my mealtime insulin injection I start to feel clammy, shaky, lightheaded, disoriented, intoxicated and altogether lousy and panicky. I keep little jars of glucose chewables in every room of the house and a big jar in the top drawer of my desk, so I eat two glucose chewables (fruit punch flavor ... my favorite!) and nothing happens so I eat four more. By now, maybe 8:15, I’m also feeling nauseated and faint, so I put my head down on my desk and wake up maybe half an hour later sweaty and soaked to the skin. I eat two more glucose thingies and sit here for another 45 minutes until I feel steady enough to shlep myself into the kitchen for some actual food. By the time I finally eat dinner — two nice pieces of low-carb toast, a wad of Mexican Velveeta and green olives — it’s 10 p.m. and Sam is already on his way home from work. Holy crap! In case you care, I had chocolate Soy Slender soy milk with a bunch of chia seeds for dessert. (I love chia seeds.)

Hope y’all are planning a wild and crazy Memorial Day holiday. We’ve got nothing whatsoever on the agenda here because Sam is on call this weekend and says he’s expecting a number of projects to come in, which means he’ll be working from home. As for me, I’ll be glued to HBO Sunday night to watch Behind the Candelabra starring Michael Douglas and Matt Damon. Check your local listings.

Behind the Candelabra also stars Rob Lowe at Liberace’s gay plastic surgeon. In an interview a few days ago Lowe said he expected the movie to be gay but didn’t realize it would be THE GAYEST MOVIE EVER MADE. I have no idea what (aside from the money, of course) ever enticed all these heterosexual A-listers to appear in risky horseshit like this, but I absolutely can’t wait to see it and think you should see it, too. Thank you.

I love my life of mind-numbing leisure.

My right knee is screaming at me today in 20-second intervals. This was the first time EVER that I couldn’t fall asleep on the chaise in the family room, which definitely sucks because I wanted an afternoon nap. So instead I baked a no-carb cheesecake — a highly regarded and medically-acceptable substitute for sleep — and plan to consume as much of it as possible tonight for dinner.

Yes, people, I eat cheesecake for dinner. Also Slim Jims, soy milk and cheap dill pickles as the spirit moves me, but in no particular order whatsoever.

It’s probably common knowledge that I almost never have anything to do. I’m not complaining, of course, because I love my life of mind-numbing leisure. I nap, watch old movies, eat weird crap, do laundry if I feel like it and blog once a day (or try to) about baloney, medical horseshit and screwy news. Which is why it’s so peculiar to announce that May and June are turning into a couple of wild and crazy months here at Howdygram headquarters due to TEN MAJOR PROJECTS AND ACTIVITIES. They are:

1. Our re-fi will close on June 4. We’re still waiting for the appraisal.
2. We ordered solar screens for all the windows at the back of the house. (We did the front a couple of years ago.)
3. We’ve decided to get estimates for rain gutters.
4. Sam has cataract surgery tomorrow morning at Eyeballs-R-Us in Greenville.
5. It’s time to pay for car insurance again.
6. Sam leaves for California on June 8.
7. We had our lawn fertilized this morning.
8. I’m running out of gefilte fish.
9. I’ve got a podiatrist appointment on May 30.
10. Behind the Candelabra premiers on HBO on May 26.

For your possible interest, Behind the Candelabra is HBO’s Liberace biopic starring Michael Douglas in the title role and Matt Damon as his boy-toy and occasional chauffeur, Scott Thorson. Michael and Matt get to make out a lot. Tune in and bring the Pepto Bismol, okay?

And now for a quick recap of last night’s weather in north Texas! In addition to five hours of monster thunderstorms and driving rain there was a twister outbreak in towns surrounding Fort Worth with 13 tornadoes that killed six and injured more than 150. Half the town of Granbury was flattened by an EF-4 with winds at 200 mph; seven people are still missing. Actual cell phone photos appear below.

Breaking news from our Money Can Buy You Happiness department! The oil painting titled “Bea Arthur Naked” by artist John Currin was purchased for $1.9 million — by an anonymous bidder — at auction Wednesday night at Christie’s in New York. Wouldn’t you love to meet the lucky slob who bought this?

And that, dear readers, brings me to another perfect segue ... IT’S TIME FOR CHEESECAKE! Thank you for reading this.

Bracing for a shock: Liberace Museum will close.

Attention, drag queens and music lovers ... there’s still time to plan your pilgrimage to Las Vegas before the Liberace Museum shuts its doors forever on October 17. Apparently there has been a steady decline in museum visitors from a high of 450,000 annually 15 years ago to about 50,000 annually today. This, along with the museum’s real estate problems, mortgage debt and lack of steady income factored into the decision to close. The Liberace Foundation owns the strip mall that houses the museum, but half of the rental units are currently vacant. It’s also a safe bet that almost nobody under 40 has the slightest idea who Liberace was. If you fall into this category please read my earlier post for details.

For 31 years the Liberace Museum has been home to the entertainer’s collection of 39 custom pianos (mostly grand pianos crusted in rhinestones or miniature mirror tiles), thousands of full-length furs and rhinestone stage costumes, a vast fortune in custom jewelry, recreations of his famous bedroom and sunken tub (seriously), custom automobiles covered with jewels and Austrian crystals, and a separate room filled with a lifetime of awards. Liberace died of AIDS in 1987 at the age of 68.

And if you’re a movie fan, you may be interested to know that director Steven Soderbergh’s Liberace biopic is due to hit theaters in 2012 with Michael Douglas in the title role and Matt Damon playing Scott Thorsen, Liberace’s long-time lover and chauffeur, who famously “outed” him in a $110 million palimony suit in 1982. Believe it or not, until that time Liberace was seriously convinced that nobody on earth thought he was gay even though he wore floor-length pink fox furs and collected dishes. This movie should be AMAZING.

Remembering Liberace.

Allow me to wish you a happy Liberace Day. To educate those of you who might be too young to remember this person, Liberace was the highest paid entertainer in the world for more than 30 years, earning $300,000 a week in Las Vegas throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Basically, he was an over-the-top, strangely effeminate pianist from Milwaukee who seriously wanted the world to believe he wasn’t gay. (He never fooled ANYBODY. Do you know any straight men who would wear an outfit like this?)

I was lucky enough to see Liberace perform at the Las Vegas Hilton back in 1981 in a breathtaking two-and-a-half hour spectacle of music with 40-foot high dancing fountains, a diamond-covered piano, ermine coats and jeweled costumes. Believe it or not, the video clip below is the same show I saw in Vegas 29 years ago. God bless YouTube for preserving weird crap like this! The intro was broadcast on giant screens in the theater before Liberace appeared on stage:



Other important facts of interest! Liberace had a top-rated TV variety show in the 1950s, performed to sellout crowds in every major concert venue in the world for more than 25 years, collected pianos, rare antiques, luxury automobiles and cute male “chauffeurs,” published a series of cookbooks, produced a line of men’s clothing and owned a motel chain (Liberace Chateau Inns), a shopping mall and a museum. The Liberace Museum is still a popular attraction in Las Vegas.

Decades before entertainers considered coming “out of the closet,” Liberace sued three major newspapers for libel — and WON — when they hinted at his homosexuality. Still, it was no surprise to anybody when he died of AIDS on this date in 1987. (I wonder if the newspapers asked for their money back.)

You can find out more about Liberace on his website and at Wikipedia.org. And for your viewing pleasure there are lots of additional Liberace videos on YouTube. Thank you for reading this.