I didn’t notice it at first so I am betting that some of you may also not be aware (especially if you’re new) that no matter where you are on the site you can return to the Home Page by clicking on the jdc-witherton at the head of every page
What Friendship Is Really About!
These last few days I haven’t really had time to write… Actually I have had nothing but time but it was devoted to one of my dearest friends! His name is Jude and he is one amazing bloke. They say that the worst things happen to the best people sometimes, -in Jude’s case this is totally true. I have known him for about as long as I have known my husband (having met them at the same place but at a different time and setting).
When I met Jude he was just starting his middle thirties and he was vibrant and his was a charmed life as far as anyone could tell. Then he went to the doctor, (the same one he had seen for years) and he got some bad news. He was diabetic and his blood pressure and cholesterol were horribly bad. The diabetes would lead to other vascular problems in his legs and feet the blood pressure didn’t help any either. During the last twelve years he has been through every type of medical misery I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. He has had vascular problems at such an acuteness that he almost lost his right leg but emergency surgery saved it. This was only the beginning. During the last decade he has had twenty-four surgeries! He has had a stroke and three heart attacks.
All of this, in his case, is all hereditary in course. His mother dying while he was still just a boy and his father having health problems as well. Jude is and always has been a fighter. He quit smoking after the stroke but it didn’t help. Genetically he is cursed. He has had open heart surgery with a triple bi-pass and so many other operations that he refers to himself as a living Frankenstein due to all the surgical scars that cover his chest and body.
For a long time he has been somewhat stable. Not really the old Jude but still a wonderful man who only showed by example the power of the human will to survive and never lose his faith. It seemed that he had so many heart attacks (having had a total now of four) that he accepted this as part of “his normality” and still made the most of life. Now he’s been diagnosed with hyperthyroid cancer and his insurance has decided that because he is classified as only being at stage two that he must wait to get worse before they will pay for him to get the operation and get better? What kind of mother-fucking logic is that. You have to be at death’s door and then, if you can wait that long, they will approve the surgery once the cancer has probably spread to all your other organs as well and you are out of time and out of options.
This is where and why I haven’t posted the last few days. No sooner than crossing the pond to get home to Absinthe House than I discover his situation and am right back on a plane to try to help. I flew into Arizona last Saturday night (I think?, -that’s how spent I am) to try to help the only way that I really can. G-D has given me the ability and resources to come to Phoenix and set things up on my paying for the surgery. I just can’t sit by and know that my fiend, one of the nicest blokes I have ever known, suffer because some dick-head at his insurance company decided he wasn’t sick enough.
This is where I come in and I am truly thankful for the money! It’s not shopping or the travelling and the life that I usually live. It’s not about how big the house is or any of the other material things I so often find myself seeing as a priority… Right now I am in Phoenix because he need’s someone to sign for him so that he can have the operation and I will just pay for it, as well as any radiation or anything else that he needs (ie, money for rent, food etc..)
So I will be posting and staying here for a few days. He is to have the surgery on Monday the fourth and I will probably stay a week or two here with him just to make sure that he has everything that he needs.
Well Jamie, Fiaz, and Carolyn, and all the other reader’s of my blog -I am sorry for not being around so much this week and will try today to write as much as I can. Please understand my situation and the lack of time that I have to really
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Possession
Possession / pos·ses·sion / noun
1. The act or fact of possessing. 2. The state of being possessed. 3. Ownership. 4. Law . actual holding or occupancy, either with or without rights of ownership. 5. A thing possessed
Possession in my experience is a sword of all duality! We learn very young by our caregiver’s, our parents, and friends to value our possessions. Some times we value them so much that the possession becomes greater than the object in hand. We are then possessed by that which we first loved. This also is possession, only the master has changed!
Possession has consumed my life in many ways. I was a lonely child and so I did not want to share my toys, or what little attention I got with anyone. I became very, very angry if anyone stepped into what was then my possessed life. Possession did not stop when I grew older, it only intensified. I would covet, and then scheme to get the things I wanted and feel no regret for it. I thought I deserved these things to make up for the loss of my natural parents. G-D owed me! – or so I thought at the time. I didn’t realize that he had given me the tools, I just had to learn how to use them.
I didn’t always stay in the same home for long periods of time. Sometime I would live in two or perhaps three homes in a year and go to just as many different schools. I didn’t make many friends. I made a few and I would start to get attached - then the floor would break away and I would land in another home, with another family, that was not my own. I would have to do my best to acclimate and cause no trouble that could be used as an excuse to send me packing. This did not always work. Sometimes, without warning I would be driven to the airport or the train station and my bags (with nothing much in them) would be packed for my journey. Some times I wasn’t even sure where I was going but by thirteen I was making my own decisions and using those gifts, – raw and crudely they were used to manipulate those who stood in my way. It appeared I was much, much stronger than I ever thought I was. I was neither good or bad? I just intended to survive! These were lonesome years of my life, finally I got to where I didn’t even try to make friends! I just kept my head in a book. And with it came the opportunity to decide my path in life, ask the questions that have no easy answer, and to put it all away at the end of a long day and rest my head without shame or regret. I was just doing what I had to, to possess a better life.
I did have one thing going for me though. I was intelligent. Super smart in fact, I once tested with an IQ of 178 and the average person is scored at 100. That is average and is considered to be normal. I was never normal. Since I had nothing else to rely on, I made my levels at every school I went to, and often set the grading curve well beyond the advanced placement classes. This was not a way to be popular but it was something that I could possess that no one could take away from me. Because I moved so much, I had to rely on my academics and not electives or alternative school activities. I needed the grades not the social activity. – My Grandmother (granny carr) told me once that G-D had given me a hard road to travel but she could see in me that I “possessed” all that I would need to make a life for myself! If I studied and made good grades G-D would show me the way to my own happiness. She told me to use the gifts I had been given to better myself. I knew she was trying to be supportive and that is what I decided she was doing. A small seed of doubt stuck in my mind, to better myself? What was wrong with who I was? I didn’t want to disappoint the one person I knew truly loved me but it wasn’t really until I became a man did I realized the full scope of what she had so wisely known.
When I first made real money, the kind with seven zeros after it, it really didn’t make me all that happy, definitely not the man I am today! I had many, many possessions and many of them were also obsessions too. I was too smart, too clever, too driven to succeed to work for anyone but myself! So, I started out small, acquiring and saving. I saved money, jewelery, stocks, and I drank the finest wine or rum that money could buy. I bought Bauhaus chair’s to face the “Roman Stark” designer sofa that I never sat on! All possessions that were as empty as a beggar’s charity can on a cold November day in New York. There was no pity, just me and my possessions.
Even when I allowed myself to love another I needed to not only possess them but to feel that I was their “possession” as well. Most of my relationships lasted a few weeks, if they were really good, they might last a couple of months. After all, no one wants to sleep alone in a king size bed. I confess all those boys, the good and the bad, – all possessions, just another fixture to make the illusion of happiness seem real. I enjoyed dressing them to look the way I wanted them to look right down to the five hundred-dollar haircut. I knew instinctively that the only creature whom I could ever love, really love, would be one that wanted sincerely to be possessed. He would be loved, adored, showered with gifts! The man for my mate would have to accept me with all my flaws and anger at the world; – and still realize that if he really was my possession, his ways would bewitch me until I was the one possessed. Life, in all of its twisted ways, started to make sense to me. I found my love the most outlandishly possessive way a person can. I bought him. I paid for his time, I paid for a bad situation he had gotten into, and eventually he loved me. I was possessed again. I have never been happier than the night I discovered I had found the second half of the coin. The other self that was me. Without haste I fell in love with him and all that I had become his because his happiness was my obsession and I his possession.
We would go out with bitchy elitist on the gay scene in New York or London where we both had many people we knew. He would shadow me the entire night. Just to make it clear that I was his and nothing made me happier. By being a possession of my own obsession I found my freedom. I was not alone. I was safe, the morning would come and he would stay! That was fourteen years ago. It hasn’t always been bliss. We fight just like any other couple, but forgive and love again at just a glance at one another. We make love like the animals we are and we “possess” one of the healthiest relationships of anyone I have ever known in the forty-one years.
We have many possessions now! We have houses and cars, expensive watches and diamonds to show our wealth. The fact that I only wear bespoke shoes from Gucci and Prada is lost on most people. Most people don’t even know that means. Still there is a silent smile on my face when I stand side by side another man and I know the shoes on my feet cost twice what his total monthly income is. It can some times take on the veneer of hubris. I try not to let that happen too often. I try to keep close to me always the thought that I might lose my Joey. Only that terror can humble my hubris sometimes. I possess everything, – and much, much more than I need or even want. In my world of possessions I still have the symptoms but I also have the cure. It’s called love! Belonging to Joe allows me to rest and not worry about what I am getting next. Belonging to him was G-D’s real gift. A man who not only loves me, but challenges me to be a better me. I am his property and I have no price tag in the window, I am the master of my life and he the master of my heart.
We Are Possessed With Each Other, and for us that works just fine!
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Alexzandra – Darling Friend, Has The Love Bug!
Dear Friends,
Alexzandra is a socialite in Manhattan from the upper west side (old money) whom I have over the years watched her go from one extreme or another. We’ve been friends for about ten years going back to my days just out of college and into the world of international banking, loans and commercial debt weight to probable sales expert..
She comes from a world of which she was worth millions the day she was born. Her great Grandfather had a lot of real-estate in New York city, and Manhattan. Alex and I hit it off immediately and she kind of taught me the difference between the old money and the new money crowds. Just trust me you want and need to appear “old money” at least until you get through all the social events and show charity, honours parties, compassion for some cause, but at all time’s you wont drink a glass of Champaign if a black person is handing out the glasses. Old money has strict rules of who’s whom, and their standing and posturing but if you can play it just so carefully, you can get in and once you do, you have the support of all the other richer than rich!
In this elite company of mates if something is wrong or something happens in the state of New York your complaint will usually go to New York’s Governor or the Attorney General for the state. Who, will handle the problem or make it just go away. Alex has shown me things and places that I never thought of. She had several trust-funds set up from her parents and Grandparents as well as her sisters portion of said trust-fund since she overdosed about six years ago. That’s when Alexzandra started to get anxious because her parents wanted control of the trust back but they could only take back her sisters trust from Alex with a court order and they brought in hitters and at the same time froze Alex out so that she couldn’t afford to have a string of attorneys all working together trying to manipulate the jury, but they couldn’t touch Alex’s family trust from her Grandfather & Grandmother because it was their choice to give her the money.! Nice Life Huh! She had an accountant and “the family attorney” look at the paper work and the ‘family attorney” said oh no, its locked until you turn 30 and then a percentage of the money will be released to you each month.
Now here’s where I got involved Alexzandra knew I worked in finance and so she herself came to me to look over the specifics of the three trust funds. However, I was able to help her the same way that I did most of my former clients in the USA . For Alex the best thing to do was to get all three of the trust funds combined so that a proper audit of all the property, assets, jewels, family heirlooms, and of course stock, bonds, and cash could be accounted for. Switzerland was the best place to go for this because I have dealt with them before in preparation for the boys and Joey should anything happen to me. A Bank Swiss account and trust is the only place I know of that can write a steel wall document when it comes to money and valuable’s of all sorts.
First we had to get an order from the court to bind Them. This is usually pretty easy is Switzerland! You only need proof that there is a loophole in the entirety of the documents and they do not often assign anyone to give you money but rather get you sorted and staying with Bank Swiss. You then do your major banking with a swift card and or cedit cards that are automativcally paid from your accounts after you are provided your statements of purchase’s. The process takes about two weeks and we made sure to point out that her sister had died leaving her the sole heir. We proved that she was older than 25 and that she was of sound mind. Finally we provided the court the very document that laid out The “Family Trust” and thereby negating her parents from any influence. They too had for most of their lives enjoyed the income provided by the trust and now at the time of transfer in-facto the chose to take an aggressive and misguided effort to cheat their own daughter out of the money and properties that were intended to be hers three generations ago. Of course the Judge signed off in our favour ad Alexzandra was twenty-five and worth about seventy million dollars. You Can Read more about Alexzandra here she threw one hell of a party on New Years. For more you’ll need to use the link plus you will get a look into he nightclub.
Right now she is in love. She in fact, craves love, sex is one thing but I have always noticed that when she is dating exclusively that she is much happier and when Alex is happy everyone in the place can let their guard down. Any ways, I know that I have gone on forever about this but it was intended to be a short post about a dear friend who has met the most beautiful bloke and they are going to “Absinth Mannar” or as we call it our cottage in the woods. We leave this coming Saturday!
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My Greatest Blog Supporters
I try my best to stay humble and thankful for the gifts G-D has given me. I try but sometimes my hubris over takes me because I have been so successful all my life. Apart from a horrible childhood (with exception for loving grandparents). I try to be a good husband, and a good father. To be what I never had in my own childhood, the unconditional love of a parent, a father, a Dad. This I do well. I have always put “our” family first when it came to raising our two young angels. Well maybe not angels all the time, but their halo’s show little tarnish and with the love and education my success in life has afforded, their wings will be broad and they will soar in life without all the hell that stood in my way and that I had to over come . I give thanks that I am able to write this blog and that more than 180 people care enough to follow me and listen to my rants, and raves’ mostly madness but just the same - and the times like this when I am instinctively and deliberately thinking of my spirituality and my relation ship with G-D! The sun has not always shined on me but I have always had a light that heaven gave to me to make the best life possible.
I also want to give thanks for friends, old friends, new friends, followers, and cyber
friends. in particular I would like to take just a moment to thank four followers whom without fail have become the kindest and most regular readers and even sparked a friendship with me and who I am very happy to know!
First, I want to thank Jamie. My best cyber friend! She like myself loves movie’s and loves to share her experience, thoughts and reviews from Aloha Mr. Hand for all your support, well wishes, and the dialog that we have created. Jamie I think of you as a real friend. Even though we have never actually spoken or seen one another except in writing and pictures you always show kindness which is ultra rare.
The second is somewhat of an enigma. I don’t know how he found me but he is one of the most supportive readers I have. He 
constantly ”likes” my posts and show his appreciation for the efforts I make. I only know him as Fiazku and have his Gravatar to display but I highly recommend that you visit his blog. You may have to use a translation application provided by Google Chrome or Firefox and they will translate the site to English. A very interesting site. Fiasuko He reads every post and always responds with a like or a nod and the input and interaction from both of you is invaluable to me and I want to take a moment out of my day, – just to say thank you and tell you that -you make me keep writing! Hoping that one day I will discover why I chose to start this blog and perhaps really make something of it. One thing is certain, I never forget kindness, it is far to rare in today’s world!
I live at a very high paced and busy life and don’t always have time to do this. While on vacation and on the jet flying from one place to another, I try to take this time and put it to good use if I can. This gives me time to reflect on what is important! Two other cyber friends need mention too. Although we haven’t interacted as much they have proven to make themselves real allies and I think, No, I know that they deserve a recognition!
Lily White was sweet enough not only visit my blog but give me priceless information on how to get things going. That is saying something because most people just don’t respond, But Lily isn’t typical and her site is amazing. I highly recommend this site for its excellence and her noted “Versatile Blogger Award” ever so elusive, but no hater here congratulations on that accolade for Lily! Please take a moment to check out her blog too and then come back to witherton and tell us all about Lily White at Lily Wight The stunning images you find on her sight are worth the visit.
Finally I want to thank Carolina Courtland from Staked In The Heart She has made some of the nicest posts and even advice when I seem unclear 
about issues and needed to put things in perspective! She always listens with an open ear and with much support. Carolina always has a good thought to pass along and is very sweet to spend he time reading the ramblings of a madman. I adore her too and wanted to include he because she is also one of my most regular visitors and she always let’s me know she’s been to the site.
As for the rest of you who drop in from time to time, I thank you as well! It’s great motivation to see if you will return. I hope to add more thanks in the the weeks to come. Thank you to every reader regular of not. I greatly appreciate your visits and hope you will follow along and see if this Hatter is as as mad as the one Alice met .
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Morning Prayers
Most people pray at night before they go to sleep. but I always pray the very first thing in the morning to thank G-D for granting me one more day my family and the life we are able to lead. I also like to thank G-D, for the wonderful blessing it is to find my other family and friends from long ago and new as well. Finally I pray for guidance to be an honorable man and father and to bring peace in this world or at least give those in power to have conscience, and to recognize that enough blood has spilled, no one needs die, we need to accept all our differences and recognize that we are all serving the same master but he wears many robes and has many faces just as it says in the Torah. The very last thing I always pray for is to be a righteous man and to be allowed to live in G-D’s presence and to let me a vessel and to show my faith by example.
It’s seven nineteen in the morning here and the boys already tried to get up but I reminded them that they need more sleep If they are going to have a big day. They rubbed their eyes and went back to bed. I wish it was so easy all the time. At home it is after twelve already so it is no great surprise that they are up but I have quickly acclimated to the time zone as I had to for many years when we opened Witherton & Company in London and New York.
Yum , my morning tea has arrived with a platter of four eggs and twelve strips of bacon along with fresh strawberries and cantaloupe. I am so hungry and the boys and Joe will eat down stairs in one of the restaurants. I am the only one who likes to eat in the suite. I just hate eating with a ton of children, and I am not dressed, I prefer to lie about and ponder about my day. I don’t think I am going to leave the room today so there might be a lot of posts as I love to write, even if it is to only express the ideas that come to mind!
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Disney Makes Good On Promise Of Service
No one hates to eat crow more than your’s truly but I have to admit that Walt Disney’s “Glass Slipper Concierge” do keep their promises. It started this morning with our wakeup call from the operator welcoming us to the “Glass Slipper Experience”. We soon had tea and coffee followed by a beautiful spread of fresh fruits and nuts and danishes with eggs and sausages and with biscuits and gravy too, and it was all delicious!
After breakfast we had a short meeting with our concierge, who structured visits for the boys and Joe and a separate day plan during the day for me for my circumstance, and then a combined entertainment plan for all of us after dark where we can meet within the park and either go directly to dine or return to the room to freshen up.
I really am having a much better time today just from the specialized attention and the correct room assignment. It was interesting watching all the work that our help does and how fast. I actually got tired of them hanging about and sent them into the parks as well. With the rest of the day off they should have some fun as well.
I would imagine that you should think me more than spoiled but it really isn’t the case. I was told that for a particular price per day that certain things were to be! I insist that contract be honored and provided. With steadiness, and no option but rather complete command of the unfortunate nature of what happened, and the the correct level of communication, our first night at Disney World may have gotten off to a bad start, but now we have their undivided attention and service. Joey said I was just left of being a bitch, but I noticed he was a lot happier this morning than yesterday. As we are about to head back into the park for nightly parade, and fireworks I will close. Hopefully, I will have time to write later tonight about our adventures today.
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Dark Shadows – 2012
Dark Shadows – 2012 Review = B
Perhaps I am jaded (no pun intended) but when I hear that Tim Burton is working once again with his muse for twenty years Johnny Depp, one has certain expectations. After movies such as Edward Scissor Hands and Sleepy Hollow, you expect a certain amount of magical whimsy and respect for the story being told. Usually, that is the result with these two master’s of cinema but I somehow had trouble staying focused during my screening of the movie.
A friend (to remain unnamed) gave me an industry copy of the film that I screened today while the kids were with their father. At first one gets the mysterious, and even the macabre, with the Jonny Depp “twist” and it looks like a great show. It initially reminds you of the original show and you think you are going to be entertained with a dark (but whimsical) revision and improvement or at least a movie that doesn’t expect you to be fourteen and need a bit of slapstick every ten minutes in the movie.
Dark Shadows is and always will be about the Collins family and its Patriarchal Barnabas Collins. In this reincarnation Johnny Depp is bafooned with stack up, smack up, make-up acting. Anyone could have been the dark one under all the grease paint and smoke and mirrors. He was entertaining at moments but the overall performance was overshadowed by Tim Burton’s need to cash in it seems. Is the once rebel of the Hollywood standards given in, or just given up. Continue Review Here
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Upgrade’s & Other Things
While the guys were out and about today enjoying the park I was bitching about our rooms and got a proper set for us. We are now staying within the resort property in the Resort. It really is quite nicer. At first they tried telling me that I had the correct rooms for our booking and then I told them to take it up with my American Express (Black Card) because we were checking out.
Within minutes I had a VIP concierge on the phone asking if I would like to change to another suite and that she personally would show me the rooms. We ended up in the Presidential Suite at the Main Hotel. Not on the top floor but with incredible views of the castle and main street and a very chic room. Not at all the rooms they tried to pawn off on us. If there is one thing they do understand its money. They want to keep you in the park at all measures if they can. They also comped last nights stay and apologised for the mistake in bookings.
Mistake my ass! That’s the trouble with theme parks and family attractions as a whole. They take it for granted that the average consumer knows little if anything about what to spend their money on and when it’s time to say what the fuck are you trying to charge me for. In the end We moved as I said! Daddy is now happy, Joe and the boys had fabulous day in Epcot-Center and the “World of Tomorrow” and are heading in for showers now. We are going to go to dine together downstairs in the 5star restaurant they boast as Disney’s finest and have a proper dinner together. I have already had my shower and dressed and put on a thin layer of bronzer so that I look like I was tanning and got a burn instead of deciding to burn off the epidermis of my own face and into the dermis. Yeah I am burnt, but it had nothing to do with the sun. I feel like a vampire hiding in the shadows and away from the sun.
Tomorrow I have an appointment in our new room with a “Glass Slipper VIP Disney Concierge”. One hundred an hour and a six hour minimum but it will be worth it because she is going to divide the time we have and the circumstance of my only being able to enjoy the park at night, and divide the days and nights activities. Really an event planner I wish I had known about before we arrived but then everything was set together with an American Express Travel Concierge. Tomorrow I will stay in the hotel and she will give me a personal tour of things I can do inside while another aid will help Joe and the two boys navigate where and what they want to do.
Actually, after I had rooms sorted out and had a trip to the medicine cabinet I carry with me, quite happy to see the boys having so much fun. I am hoping that a week will be enough to keep them happy for a while. I have to get coordinated with the “Glass Slipper Concierge” at some point between now and tomorrow to plan a birthday for Oli, G-D - I can’t believe my baby is turning twelve.
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Disney Oh Wonderful Disney – Eat Me
We just arrived at the hotel after having to wait for our motor from the hotel to pick us up! Now we are all checked in and in our suite (supposedly their best rooms?) and I am not impressed! As someone who travels the world and stays at some of the best hotels my expectations were equally met with the tackiness of our rooms. If is isn’t moving it’s labeled “Disney” like you are going to forget that your paying nearly twenty thousand per night for your rooms and the best they can do is give us this crappy set of rooms. Granted we do have a great view and we’re on the top floor and have a quarter of the rooms on the floor. We have a private elevator and the ugliest wallpaper ever made. The boys are happy though and even though they thought the children’s room in the suite were “Gayer than both of YOU” dad, they are already planning which of the parks they want to hit first.
Meanwhile, I just set on – well lied down on a jet for the last eight days and seventeen hours as Tyler Perry’s Madea would put it. Everything just disagrees with me today. I couldn’t even get my husband to shut up about babies today to save my life, if I only had a gun. bababbabbababbabaayyyyyyyyy baby, baby, baby…….. If I see one not being looked after while we’re here I am taking it with us and shut him up. I am serious, all he wanted to do was talk about what a good “Parental Figure” I am to the boys, and that it would be the one gift no one but I could ever give him. Come on now, I just had a complete physical overhaul and can’t even be out in the sun and I am in Orlando, Florida and trapped in a room with a man and two boys and no one will stop talking about babies so I am listening to Britney and putting on my “Goth” garb and threatening to run into the night if they don’t leave me alone.
On the serious side of things, now that I have had my Bitch Fit, the flight was too long our accommodations are lacking expectation and I am both unhappy and uncomfortable at the same time. Good Night.
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Idol Information While Waiting To Take Off
Personally I loath Simon Cowell and think he’s a joke but there’s no joking when it comes to my number one guilty pleasure Britney Spears on the next season of X-Factor! I heard the rumors but this video puts it all solid. I guess I will have to watch via G-link Mirror UK.
